Wild Alabama

by Everly Hansen

  "So, what's the job?" I was now fully confused, but very curious.

  "The forest is near the state park in Huntsville. It's the third most popular suicide forest in the world. There are a few people that stay on the grounds - you would be one of them. We find ghosts of those that have passed in the forest and help them move on. You'll usually find that they have unfinished business or regrets or just last words for family. Everything is passed along to the appropriate person. So, yes, you would be dealing with ghosts. But not in a horror movie kind of way. In a helpful way."

  "I would be using my powers for good and not evil," I joked.

  "Exactly."

  "I don't know," I said with a frown. "That's a big move."

  "Right. Of course." He shook his head at himself. "You have college plans?"

  I thought back to the pile of rejection letters that my parents didn't know about. "Not exactly. I'm taking a gap year."

  He swallowed his last fry. "Well, what if this was your gap year?"

  "Then the job's over?"

  "Well, no. I mean more like a trial. Or six months? Whatever you want."

  My brow furrowed. "I'm sensing some desperation here, Shazo," I said.

  He took another bite of his burger and nodded slowly as he chewed. "Kinda. The workload is too much for two people. It's better with at least three."

  "Um, okay. Tell me more about this place. I've never really been outside of Colorado."

  "If you don't factor in the death stuff, it's actually really nice. We live in an old house. It used to be a plantation back in the day. It's in the middle of the woods, secluded and shady. We're not far from downtown so food and bars and stuff are easy to get to."

  "The house itself isn't haunted?"

  "I've never really had issues inside the house."

  I took a bite of my cheeseburger and shut my eyes at the taste. I couldn't recall the last time I had eaten a full meal that wasn't interrupted with something otherworldly. "How would I get around? I don't have a car."

  "Well, you could always borrow mine. I don't leave the grounds very much except to travel, like now. I don't particularly get along with most of the living." He finished his burger, wiped his mouth and leaned back in the chair, staring at me with serious eyes. "What else do you want to know?"

  "Well if it's a suicide forest, won't I find, you know, bodies?"

  Shazo twirled a fried pickle through some ketchup. "Well, I can't rule that out. There are some in the forest that we haven't found yet, but we haven't had any fresh bodies in a while. The forest has been around forever, so there are ghosts from many decades. The number is overwhelming sometimes. But the forest is officially closed to tourists."

  "Well that's good. Ghosts are hard enough to deal with, I don't know that I could handle bodies, too." I ate a couple of onions rings while I thought. Suddenly, it dawned on me. "Two."

  "Sorry?" Shazo asked.

  "You said two people were there. Who's the second?"

  "Ah." Shazo stretched a little and then began to tackle his coleslaw and hush puppies. The rate at which he was eating was slightly alarming. "That would be Felix."

  "Felix? I would be living with two guys?" My parents wouldn't approve of this.

  Shazo frowned a little. "Well, yeah. We're not perverts or anything, I swear. I'm gay."

  "The pervert thing is to be determined," I said. "So, Felix?"

  "Felix is...unique."

  "Is that guy talk for, 'She has a great personality'?"

  "No." Shazo laughed. "No, no, Felix is great."

  "Great? Unique?" I questioned.

  "One might say he's a little obsessed with death. He has little side jobs like picking up bodies of pets that have died. He visits the dying in the hospital and tries to be there when they cross over. But personality-wise, he's great, honestly. He's organized, clean, funny. He's the perfect roommate."

  I picked at my food some more and took a sip of water. Moving, living with two guys, talking to ghosts? My cheeseburger was not settling well.

  "I sense hesitation," Shazo said.

  "Definitely."

  He nodded and took a large bite of his sundae. I had no idea how he was still going after already eating so much.

  "What about you? Are you a perfect roommate?" I asked.

  "I'm less obsessed with death than Felix, but I prefer the dead over the living after being horrendously bullied most of my life. I like tattoos. What else? I can eat a pizza in under ten minutes."

  I took the last bite of my burger as I mulled those two descriptions over. Honestly, it was telling my parents I didn't get into college, or moving to Alabama to see what life held there. Ellen would be gone soon, Mel was one hundred percent out of my life, and I had no real gap year plan to tell my parents.

  "Well?" he asked hopefully.

  "Can I think about it? Give me a day or two?"

  He quickly nodded. "Yes, of course. You have my number. Let me give you my email address, too. We can Skype. I can talk to your parents that way, too, if you want."

  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if all of this was part of a bigger plan for me. Maybe this job was the reason all of this had happened to me. Maybe I was supposed to do this.

  EIGHT

  My parents took things considerably well. I waited until Friday, take-out night, when my dad's hands were struggling with chopsticks and my mom was stretching cheese from her pizza to her mouth. That's when I told them. Slowly, carefully, making sure nothing seemed like their fault because it wasn't, but I knew they'd try to make it their responsibility. It wasn't the ghosts that really surprised them. My parents were pretty open-minded about those kinds of things. My dad had an aunt who was into the occult, and my mom had her fair share of Ouija board encounters. Seeing ghosts, they could get on board with. It was moving to Alabama for a year that got to them.

  "What about Europe?" my dad offered.

  "I don't have anyone to go with," I said. "You want me to backpack through Europe alone?"

  "No," he said with a sigh.

  "You had a job lined up though, didn't you?" my mom asked.

  "Yeah," I lied. "But this one seems more important. I'd be helping. I'd be adjusting, healing, learning to cope. You don't think this would be the best thing for me?"

  "I think we do. You'd just be so far away. What if you need us? What if something happens?" my dad asked.

  "I could always fly back," I said.

  "She has her cell, Hal. And I think we've raised her right. She knows right from wrong."

  "Of course she does, Lynn," my dad replied, giving my mom a look. "I'm just worried."

  "Well, so am I," my mom replied.

  "Don't make this a big thing," I pleaded.

  "How is this not a big thing?" they asked in unison.

  "It's a year. Maybe just six months. I can decide when I'm there. If things get weird or uncomfortable, I'll leave. I could've lied, you know. I could've told you some elaborate story about where I was spending my gap year. I wanted you guys to know." I left out the part about lying about going to college next year. That, I would figure out on my own. They didn't need that kind of disappointment right now.

  "I don't know. Being with two strange guys is a little much," my dad said. "Maybe you should come to Krav Maga with me for a few weeks first."

  "Dad," I said with a sigh.

  "Let's make it six months," my mom said. "And let's Skype this Shazo. Hal, this could be an amazing opportunity for her. She needs to be safe, yes, but she also is old enough to spread her wings and make her own decisions."

  "She's not a county over, Lynn, she'd be very far away."

  "Dad, I can do this," I said. "It's a scary thought, being so far away, but don't you think there has to be some reason all this happened to me?"

  "Yeah, to stop getting in water during a storm," he said.

  "Hal," my mom said with a look.

  He sighed and picked at his food. "I just worry. I have the right to worry. With your br
other and - I just worry about you being so far away," he said quietly.

  My mom looked at her pizza and didn't move for a minute.

  "I know what happened was horrible and you're afraid of it happening again. I am, too. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about losing one of you. But that's not living, Dad. It's just not dying. And if I was given this gift for a reason, I need to find out what that is. I think I need to go, at least to see what it's all about."

  He pushed his food around his plate and then finally nodded.

  "Does that mean you're onboard?" I asked carefully.

  "Would you go anyway?" my dad asked.

  "I think so," I admitted. "I have a good feeling about this. And it's time I start growing up and getting used to leaving here, like Mom said."

  "Sweetie, you know you can stay here as long as you want," my mom said.

  "I do like that this has a deadline. You'd finish this job and then go right into college, right?"

  I nodded at my dad. I was going to have to find a way to undig this hole I was getting myself into.

  "It does sound like a pretty cool gap year," he said.

  "I want you to get cleared by some specialists first though. I need to make sure your insides aren't turning into soup," my mom said, mouth full of pizza. The smell of cheese and sauce was strong in my nose. I noticed all smells were much stronger lately.

  I exhaled a little and picked up a piece of Sweet and Sour chicken with wobbly chopsticks. Chopstick skills did not run in the Wilder family. We usually gave up halfway through and finished eating with forks. My mom refused to use them completely and usually opted for pizza on take-out night. I once caught her practicing her chopstick skills before a big family dinner, and when the chopsticks went flying across the kitchen she changed the entire menu at the last moment.

  "Soup sounds good," my dad commented.

  "Eat your shrimp," my mom said with a shake of her head.

  I smiled and felt the beginnings of the weight on my shoulders lift. They were onboard with my decision, and I would soon be starting the first real adventure of my life.

  NINE

  Two Skype sessions with Shazo and both my parents were onboard. My dad was still hesitant, but I think he knew this was in my best interest. I had seen four specialists at my mom's insistence. They all agreed that my heart wasn't going to stop, the shower wouldn't electrocute me, and my insides weren't soup. They cleared me to travel.

  The night before I flew out, my mom made a purple "Bon Voyage, Pippa" cake with a hand drawn ghost that dotted the 'I' in my name, and Ellen came over. We had pizza and cake, and my mom gave me more than enough hugs. I didn't mind though. We had never been apart for more than a couple of days and the thought of me leaving terrified us both. I had agreed to the job for six months, with room to expand my stay if I wanted.

  "So, is Shazo hot?" It was almost one in the morning, and Ellen was sprawled out on the couch with a plate of cake balancing on her stomach. My parents had gone to bed, preparing to take me to the airport at six o'clock. I was too nervous to sleep.

  "He's cute, yeah, but he said he's gay."

  "Damn. They always are," she said. "What about the other guy?"

  "Felix? I have no idea. I can't find either of them on Facebook or anything."

  "Who doesn't have a Facebook in this day and age?" she asked.

  "My dad doesn't. He likes calling people and meeting face to face."

  "Ew."

  I laughed and swiped some frosting off her cake. It was strawberry cake with butter cream frosting, my favorite. I cut myself another thin slice and leaned back into the couch.

  "Maybe I should've gotten you condoms as your going away present," she said with a wink.

  I made a face and shook my head. "Sex is the last thing on my mind right now."

  "But what if Felix is hot, or you meet some hot cowboy? Alabama has those, right? Wouldn't you rather be prepared?"

  I took a bite of cake and thought. It wouldn't be my first time. I had lost my V card at Gideon Tanner's seventeenth birthday party. I stayed to help cleanup because I had a massive crush on him. There, on his old green sofa in the basement with the light of the TV on in the background, we did it. It had been underwhelming to say the least, and he asked me to leave as soon as it was over. It definitely could've been more romantic. I guess that's what I got for not waiting.

  "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," I told her.

  "Fine, fine."

  "I like your present better, anyway." She had gotten me a bottle of cheap tequila and The Sixth Sense on DVD. Her mom wouldn't miss the tequila, she claimed.

  "Yeah, I'm a good friend," she said proudly. She really was. We had gotten a lot closer since my accident and it was nice to have someone to talk to that didn't look at me like I was boring them to death. "Are you nervous?"

  "Very."

  "It's going to be a big change. You in Alabama. Me at college. This is, like, it, you know? We're really growing up now. College, jobs. Jesus, I'll probably be married in ten years." She shuddered a little. "What happened to high school? It was so long when we were in it, but now it seems like it flew by." She swiped some frosting on her fingertip, stuck her finger in her mouth, and pulled it out with a pop.

  "Definitely. It's like how are we at this point in our lives already? We have to make all these decisions now. The days of Moms and Dads doing everything for us are gone."

  "I think it'll be harder for you. I'm just going to classes and learning to live on my own. You're dealing with people's lives," she said.

  I groaned and pulled my feet under me on the couch. "I'm trying not to think about it like that."

  "It's literally life and death," Ellen said.

  I shushed her and shoved a chunk of cake in my mouth.

  "Mel left yesterday," she said quietly.

  My stomach tightened. No goodbye, no nothing. I was still flabbergasted at what had happened with us.

  "Did you see her?" I asked.

  "I passed her house on my way to work. She had everything loaded up and Tad was there with his family for the send-off of both of them."

  "Not even a goodbye."

  "She's always been flaky," Ellen said.

  "What?"

  "Look, Melissa thinks she's more grown up than others because of the things she's gone through. But that's not true. It's not fair for her to imply that your problems are any less important than her own and it's definitely unfair for her to have a fine print in your friendship when it comes to dealing with issues. She's been distant for a while, since dating Tad. And she's always ditching people who don't fit in with her standards, which is bullshit. You don't need people in your life that are going to treat you like she did. She was a shitty friend. You're better off," she said.

  "Thanks. I just wanted closure, I guess. I like talking things out and she just flipped out on me and blocked me from all social media."

  "That's so stupid. Are we fourteen? She thinks she's so mature and better than all of us and she can't even have a serious conversation?" Ellen stabbed her cake and got purple icing on her fingers.

  "That's true," I said.

  "Plus, you died and she didn't even come to the hospital, so she's kind of an asshole."

  I snorted into my cake.

  "Ugh, anyway. Let's not waste our breath on her anymore, okay? This is your last night and it should be a good memory."

  "You're right. Thanks, Ellen."

  "You're welcome. See? I'm the good friend." She nodded her head proudly and handed me the remote. "Now let's find the trashiest thing on TV and open this bottle of wine I snuck over in my purse."

  TEN

  My two red suitcases were this close to going over the max weight limit. I checked them, tightened my grip on my freshly printed boarding passes and walked back to my parents who were waiting at the car out front. "Your first trip as an adult should be completely solo," my dad had said. My mom was already sprouting tears.

  "Six mont
hs to start," I reassured her.

  "We'll come down for Thanksgiving and you'll come back for Christmas," she promised.

  My dad walked around the car and gathered my mom and me up in front of the airport.

  "I love you guys," I said, my voice muffled against my mom's shirt.

  "Text me when you land," my mom said.

  "I will," I promised.

  "Don't text me, I don't text," my dad said. "I'll get your texts through your mother."

  I took a couple of steps away from them and grabbed my carry-on and purse. My mom held her phone up and took several candid shots of me rolling my eyes and walking to the door.

  "They'll be on Facebook later!" she called after me.

  I stopped at the door and managed to hold back my tears. I waved and smiled. My dad returned the smile and the wave while my mom burst into tears and waved before putting herself in the car. My dad rolled his eyes, gave me a wink, and then walked back to the car. They sat there, waiting for me to walk inside or to change my mind and get back in the car. Part of me wanted to change my mind.

  "Don't do it," I told myself with a shaky breath. "You're basically an adult. You've been struck by lightning for crying out loud. You can do this. It's six months." I waved one last time and then walked into the airport.

  Of course, the brave front didn't last long and I found myself crying through most of the first flight and scaring my seat neighbor. I had two long layovers in Kansas City and Atlanta before I finally arrived in Huntsville. Plenty of time to gather myself. By the time I landed at Huntsville International Airport, I was feeling more confident in myself.

  I texted my mom that I landed safely and her reply was a picture of her crying, blotchy face asking me to come home and not leave her alone with my dad. "He doesn't laugh at the TV shows like we do!" she complained.

  "You can do this," I kept telling myself. I grabbed my carry-on and purse, and made a quick pit stop to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Then I walked down to baggage claim and picked up my suitcases. Shazo was supposed to pick me up, so I walked outside to try and spot him.

  "Oh my God," I sputtered when the wall of moist air hit me. I had heard the humidity was bad, but Jesus Christ. My brown locks usually hung straight to brush my collarbones, but I had a feeling I would be keeping it up a lot. I held onto my purse a little tighter and looked around for the only familiar face in the state.