Academy of Deadly Arts

by Helen Scott

  "Sorry, I forgot to mention it," Bowie said interrupting the staring contest that had started between the rocker and myself. "It's not safe to be out on campus after sundown. I'll walk you back to your dorm now, and that way you won't have to worry."

  "Why have a movie night at all, if the people you invite over only get to see half of it?" I grumbled before I stood, drained the last of my beer, and walked out. "Don't worry about walking me back. I remember the way." It was a snarky response, but I didn't care. I was freshly deceased and had no idea what was going on, and I was already feeling jerked around by not only these guys but the Arbiter as well.

  4

  Avery

  That night I slept like, well, the dead. While I was getting up and getting ready the next morning, I felt like my limbs were made of cement. Every movement made my limbs feel hard and heavy, and I just wanted to lie down and sleep some more. The note that had been waiting for me when I got home the night before informed me that my schedule began today though, so there was no rest for the wicked.

  The first hour I was supposed to be in Ghostly Studies 101. I sort of felt like I should bring a white sheet with me and cut some eyeholes into it. What was there to learn about being a ghost? Hour two was History of Haunting, and the title alone made me want to gouge my eyes out. Hour three was dedicated to Discovering Your Passions in the Afterlife. Lunch was designated to hour four, and then hour five was Vengeful Ghosts 101. Beginning Communications With the Living would be hour six, and finally, hour seven was Demons 101.

  The fact that demons existed was news to me and caused a shiver to run down my spine. At this point, I wasn't sure whether to be excited about my classes or nervous about them, but either way I was running out of time to feel anything other than panic that I was running late. My skirt felt too short and my shirt felt too tight, but this was the uniform. If this was what they wanted me to wear then that's what I would wear, even if I did feel like a complete idiot being in my mid-twenties wearing a schoolgirl outfit.

  When I came out of my bedroom Rose was already gone, something I was grateful for since she clearly disapproved of me being out on my first night in the afterlife. The knock on my door startled me and I almost didn't want to open it, but when I did I found Bowie looking back at me.

  "Sorry about last night. I didn't mean for things to be so awkward. Would you let me walk you to class?" He had a cheeky smile that was infectious, and his eyes sparkled with hope and mischief. For some reason I got the feeling that Bowie was often overlooked, but he shouldn't be. He had already demonstrated that he was kind, considerate, and funny. Those thoughts were halted immediately. What the hell was I doing, writing a dating profile for the guy?

  I smiled back at him, unable to resist returning the grin that lit up his face. "Sure, I don't know where I'm going anyway so having somebody to walk with and help me find my class would be nice."

  "What do you have first hour?"

  "Ghostly studies 101."

  Bowie propped open the door for me while I exited my room and we headed out toward the rest of the campus. We walked in companionable silence for a little while before I spoke up. "What's your first class?"

  "Practical Poltergeistery," he said, sounding as though he was dreading the next hour.

  "And what exactly is that?" I knew what a poltergeist was, hell I'd seen all of the movies, but I'd always thought it was fake.

  "Basically it's teaching us how to interact with objects in the living world. In case you haven't figured it out yet, a lot of the spirits here don't exactly plan to... be at rest, shall we say. Being a poltergeist is something I'm curious about, so I decided to take a class on it. I don't think I have anybody I would actually want to terrorize like that, but it's an interesting subject matter nonetheless."

  "You mean more interesting than Ghostly Studies 101?" I put my hand on my hip and gave him my sassiest stare.

  He chuckled at my antics before he leveled a serious look at me. "You learn a lot in ghostly studies, and if you want to pursue it you can take it all the way up to graduate level classes. There are spirits who make it their afterlife's goal to learn everything there is to know about being a ghost."

  "Graduate level Ghostly Studies? That sounds like a fresh new kind of hell," I said shaking my head.

  "No, hell is Fitness in the Afterlife 101: How to Keep Your Ghostly Physique."

  I laughed, and it was a full-on belly laugh, something which hadn't happened in much too long. "That can't actually be a thing, can it?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. You would think that with being a ghost calories wouldn't matter anymore, but for some, especially those who were obsessed with it before they died, it matters as much now as it did then."

  The longer we walked the more I realize that the campus was massive. It was beyond anything I'd ever experienced in my life or afterlife for that matter. The brick buildings were a terracotta color with bright white window frames and doors. The colors made them all look like something out of a college brochure, which I guess was kind of the point. There were more buildings there than I had initially thought when Bowie first took me on a tour of the campus. Sure, he had shown me the dorms, but the actual classrooms and buildings? I hadn't really seen any of those until now.

  "What were you guys freaking out about last night? Something to do with me walking home by myself. What, does it have anything to do with the shades things that you mentioned before?"

  Bowie released a heavy sigh, and he seemed to mull over his thoughts before he replied. "You’ll find out more about this in class, but Shades are spirits that are ready to move on or have tried to move on, but for some reason can't let go of purgatory. They can be dangerous. There have been instances where they've sucked the afterlife out of a spirit and drained them to nothing. Not something you want to mess around with. There are rumors that they are spirits who've made deals with demons. What you'd make a deal with a demon for as a spirit, I don't know, but that's what the rumors suggest. As far as why we didn't want you to walk home alone? Well, Shades are supposed to be more active at night." Bowie paused then, and when he spoke again his voice had grown deeper, more solemn. "They draw their power from the dark side."

  "Darth…” I sputtered with a laugh. “Darth Vader? Really?" I couldn’t contain the giggles the burst from my chest. Bowie just grinned back at me. After my laughter had died down and we walked for a few moments in silence, I cleared my throat and asked, "So, demons are really a thing?"

  "As far as I know, but I've never seen one in the flesh so to speak." He stuffed his hand in his pants pockets and shrugged.

  "Is there anything else I should know about? Vampires? Witches? Werewolves?"

  "Don't want to overwhelm you on your first day," he said with a sly smile. "Besides that’s your classroom just there and there isn't time to get into everything else right now."

  I looked at the building in front of me and felt a chill slither down my spine. It wasn’t made out of the warm terra-cotta brick as the other buildings, this building seemed to be a relic from ancient times, an old wooden schoolhouse that had no business being on a college campus. The wood was a dark smoky color, like it couldn't hold onto the life it once had any more.

  "Seriously? This is where my first class is?"

  "It's Ghostly Studies 101, of course it's going to be in spooky building," he said with a grin.

  "I guess you have a point. That doesn't mean I have to like it though." I hugged the notebook, which had also been waiting for me in my room last night, tighter to my chest.

  "Maybe I'll see you later? I could take you to go get your books?" Bowie suggested, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

  "That sounds good. You know where to find me," I agreed, giving him a tight smile before I turned and headed toward the spooky building.

  I still wasn't quite sure how classes worked in the afterlife. How could somebody die and start classes at the same time as everyone else? Surely all the others should be on their own schedul
e and not all lumped together? The thought made my head hurt.

  There building consisted of only one room. There were rows and rows of desks, all of which were the kind that I'd had in high school—a singular chair with a small tabletop attached, curving from the back of one side. Since the room was still filling I grabbed the chair in the middle row by the window.

  The girl in front of me had icy blonde hair that was more white than blonde. It flared out as she spun around to look at me.

  "Hi! I'm Sasha. Are you dead too?" Blue eyes sparkled at me as she looked like she wanted me to be her new best friend.

  "Yeah, I think so. Is this new to you too?" A spark of hope lit up inside me that I wasn’t the only one feeling completely bewildered by what was happening.

  "Yup," Sasha said, popping the ‘p’ of the word. "I arrived a couple days ago. Some creepy guy called the Arbiter just dropped me off here, barely saying two words to me, and left me to figure out what the hell was going on by myself. Honestly, I'm still not really sure what happened."

  "I met the Arbiter when I arrived, he was totally creepy. Apparently, I died in some kind of car accident. Well, not the accident itself, but I never regained consciousness."

  "Oh my gosh, you poor thing!" Sasha raised her hands to cover her mouth, as though she couldn't imagine going through that.

  "It's okay, I don't really remember any of it."

  "I wonder if we have any other classes together?" Sasha mused before she turned and began rifling through her backpack as she looked for what I could only assume was her class schedule. She quickly pulled a piece of paper out and set it on my desk. I folded my notebook open so it displayed my own, and she squealed with excitement when she saw we had four classes together. Part of me was curious how she ended up with a backpack but then I figured it must've been something to do with her wardrobe. I mean, if mine could provide me with flannel shirts and ripped jeans then it could probably provide me with a backpack if I really wanted one.

  "So we have this class, History of Haunting, Discovering Your Passions in the Afterlife, lunch, and Demons. Demons is metaphorical right?"

  "Uhh, I'm not sure." For some reason it seemed like I was the first person Sasha had had any interaction with since she came to the afterlife, other than the Arbiter. It seemed weird that the Arbiter had assigned me Bowie to show me to my dorm room and give me a tour, when Sasha just got left out in the cold.

  "Well at least we're in this together," Sasha said with a big smile.

  I smiled back at her, genuinely happy to have somebody to share the experience with. Before I could reply though the teacher came in.

  She was an older woman with a serious librarian look going on. Her steel gray hair was swept up into a high chignon that sat on the crown of her head while her cat-eye glasses framed deep blue eyes. There were a lot of blue eyes and the afterlife. It was weird.

  The tweed pencil skirt and suit jacket that she wore seemed to be slightly too small for her as it pulled taut whenever she moved. She walked to the whiteboard, which was the most modern piece of technology in the room, and wrote her name. Moira was scrawled across in marker, and underneath she wrote Ghostly Studies 101.

  "Good morning, I'm Professor Kenner, but you can call me Moira. Although it may not look like it, I detest formalities, so please call me by my given name." She looked around the room, her eyes studying each of us in turn. Ever the hopeful teacher expecting to find some hidden gem within her students. "This is Ghostly Studies 101. All of you are recently deceased. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons for your current status, but the one thing that you all share in common is that you are between the ages of eighteen and thirty. If you are older than thirty, please go to the admissions office and speak with the secretary there and she will direct you to the classes for your age group. If you are younger than eighteen please head to the building next door, as that is where your age group will be meeting."

  At least two chairs thumped against the hardwood floor as a few different people stood up, each looking more around the age of fourteen or fifteen compared to the rest of us, who appeared college age.

  Once they had departed for their group, Moira turned to us and continued, "Right. On with today's lesson!"

  5

  Avery

  When Sasha and I finally made our way into the cafeteria we were both shocked by the amount of food there was to choose from. Not only were there traditional cafeteria offerings such as burgers and fries, hot dogs, and spaghetti and meatballs, but there were also things like steak and ribs and fancy salads. There were even stations with different countries’ cuisine. The French station was full of amazing looking food, and the smell of freshly baked baguettes made my stomach rumble as we passed by. At the Japanese station there was a variety of types of sushi, noodles, soups, mochi, and onigiri.

  I was almost overwhelmed by choice. Actually, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of options. The only consolation was that Sasha appeared to be equally overwhelmed. The tables and stations seemed to go on as far as the eye could see, and while I was interested in exploring this theoretically never-ending cafeteria, there was only so much time allotted for lunch.

  We each grabbed a red plastic tray that for some reason, even in the afterlife, was wet. Not only was this the fanciest cafeteria I had ever been to but it was also the most typical somehow. The familiar routine was comforting even as I felt like I didn't know where to start in terms of what to eat. I ended up deciding on soup and salad. They both seemed like safe bets and weren't too difficult to get.

  As we entered the dining room proper it was strange to see so many faces of people that I knew were dead. I looked around for a table that wasn't taken, finding a few but not many, and those were all by trash cans. An arm being raised drew my attention and I saw Gaius and Bowie sitting there enjoying their lunch, with Bowie grinning around a mouthful of burger as he waved at us. I smiled and waved back. It was nice to know someone, even if I hadn't expected to see them in the cafeteria since they had a kitchen at their place.

  "I met those guys yesterday. Do you want to go and sit with them? Maybe make some more friends?" I didn’t want to push her to do something she didn’t want to do, but the guys had been nice and there weren’t many other appetizing options in which to sit and eat,.

  "Those guys over there?" Sasha asked as she gestured toward Gaius and Bowie.

  "Yep, the one on the left helped me find my dorm room when I arrived."

  "Hot guys showed you where your dorm room was? Man, I wish I had had that welcoming party. I'm fine sitting with them. It would be nice to make more friends."

  I began to weave my way through the tables, winding my way around until I could reach them. As I approached the table nervous energy began fluttering in my belly. I hadn't exactly left on the best terms last night. I knew Bowie wasn't upset with me but was Gaius? I really hoped he wasn't that sensitive, but I barely knew the guy.

  "Hey guys, this is Sasha. Sasha this is Gaius and Bowie." We sat next to the guys while the three of them exchanged pleasantries. There was some awkwardness at first but it quickly dispersed once we started eating.

  "So how is your first day going?" Bowie managed to get out between taking bites of his burger.

  "It’s interesting so far," I said trying not to offend anybody by telling the truth about how overwhelmed I was. It wasn't just the cafeteria either it was everything.

  "Interesting?" Gaius asked with a quirked eyebrow that told me that he didn't believe me.

  "There's just so much to remember. Who knew being a ghost was so complicated," Sasha said.

  Gaius' eyes flicked between Sasha and me. He looked at the other woman like he didn't know what to make of her. It was almost like he resented her for being part of the conversation.

  "Ghostly studies 101 was full of interesting information but the history of haunting almost put me to sleep. I'm still confused as to who wants to haunt the mortal world. Isn't everybody just happy being in the afterlife? I m
ean, in the mortal world they don't even know if it exists. Now that we are here, we know that life after death is possible so what's to say there isn't more beyond the afterlife?" I didn't mean to get so philosophical over lunch, but the simple fact that we were part of the afterlife was enough for me. I knew it wasn't enough for everybody, but I still didn't understand why that made people want to torture or scare the living.

  Bowie twirled his fork in the air while he was thinking, almost like a conductor in front of an orchestra. I couldn't help but bask in his warmth. He had such a genuine and happy soul. He seemed to be the most well-adjusted out of everybody I had met since I died.

  "I think the reason some people want to practice being a poltergeist is because they have unfinished business in the mortal world. I don't know whether it's people or things, but these souls that want revenge, they want to scare people; those are the ones that feel the most restless. Everyone in purgatory has something that they need to resolve, that's the reason why we're all here. Some people just want their revenge on anybody who did wrong to them during their mortal life more than they want to figure out what they need to fix before they can move on."

  A lock of Bowie's wavy hair had fallen loose while he was speaking and I had to fight the urge to tuck it behind his ear. We were sitting close enough that I could've if I’d wanted to. I just wasn't sure we were friendly enough for that yet even though he’d done it to me the day before.

  Gaius's stormy blue eyes seemed to be watching me watch Bowie. I couldn't tell whether he was just being a protective friend or if there was something more to it than that. After all, he was the quietest of the bunch that I had met the night before, and he also appeared to be the most closed off.