Afterlife
Page 1
Afterlife
The Resurrection Chronicles
Merrie Destefano
For my husband, Tom
Contents
Part I
Chapter One
Jazz swirled through the room, competed with my heartbeat and…
Chapter Two
I stumbled out the door, my feet numb, my vision…
Chapter Three
It was late, but an unrelenting crowd of bohemians, gutter…
Chapter Four
Angelique leaned against my shoulder, babbling softly, staring into space.
Chapter Five
Night brings peace for some, for those who can sleep.
Chapter Six
The Mississippi churned with froth and mud, and here, on…
Chapter Seven
Angelique slept on her right side, curled in a tangled…
Chapter Eight
I was eleven years old the first time I saw…
Chapter Nine
Pete Laskin leaned over his laptop, thick bangs tousled on…
Chapter Ten
Chaz said that I should start writing things down, that…
Chapter Eleven
Sun splattered the near empty streets. Only a few drowsy…
Chapter Twelve
Sometimes my arguments with Russ were universal, no different from…
Chapter Thirteen
The tests looked easy at first. And they were. Then…
Chapter Fourteen
The marker lay on the table between us, a small…
Chapter Fifteen
I hadn’t seen Mom for about a week. I guess…
Chapter Sixteen
We drove through the mid-evening gloom, daylight clinging possessively to…
Chapter Seventeen
I’ve been here before. A whisper memory rushed over me,…
Chapter Eighteen
She stood in front of a full-length VR mirror, adjusted…
Chapter Nineteen
The spicy fragrance of crawfish gumbo and dirty rice steamed…
Chapter Twenty
I used to think I was special. Not walk-on-water special,…
Chapter Twenty-One
Some moments freeze forever in your mind, turn into icicle…
Part II
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nothing was the same after I walked through Russell’s front…
Chapter Twenty-Three
We went downstairs again, the three of us, Chaz, Isabelle…
Part III
Chapter Twenty-Four
The bayou shivered at my back and the house fell…
Chapter Twenty-Five
I was standing right beside my father the night he…
Chapter Twenty-Six
That lizard monster, that human-esque creature that stalks my nightmares,…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sunlight poured through the lab windows, casting stark black-and-white patterns…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I thought I saw black shadows running toward the bayou,…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The dog ran through the rain, paws striking pavement, then…
Part IV
Chapter Thirty
Flames sizzled and flickered, the bathroom door buckled and groaned.
Chapter Thirty-One
Everything went black for a long, awful moment. Like the…
Chapter Thirty-Two
In typical mug fashion, I got slammed together with all…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Shadows melted; clouds shattered; stars fell from the sky. The…
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sometimes the big, tough-guy image shatters. Like a fragile, handblown…
Chapter Thirty-Five
In my mind I’m walking through a foreign city, following…
Chapter Thirty-Six
I have a theory that we all carry a secret…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Somebody was pounding on my head with a jackhammer. Another…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I hate watching the news. Hate watching the world shrivel…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
There are moments that echo with beauty, like notes in…
Chapter Forty
Day faded into night and then back into day. I…
Chapter Forty-One
Some days have no right to be beautiful. The sky…
Part V
Chapter Forty-Two
The funeral service began in all its horrible glory, black-cloaked…
Chapter Forty-Three
There weren’t many times when Russ asked for my opinion,…
Chapter Forty-Four
The crowd began to move—somnambulistic—zombies walking through a desolate wilderness.
Chapter Forty-Five
I think I always liked breaking the law. Even back…
Chapter Forty-Six
Rain soaked the pavement. City sounds echoed through the forest…
Chapter Forty-Seven
Twilight bled into morning. Sunlight whispered through the city canyons.
Chapter Forty-Eight
New Orleans used to be known for its jazz funerals,…
Chapter Forty-Nine
A blanket covered me. A blanket of dark sky and…
Chapter Fifty
Silent as an empty midnight mass, the silver-and-black chopper thumped…
Chapter Fifty-One
The world flowed past my window, like a river of…
Chapter Fifty-Two
My legs trembled as I ran down the stairs, as…
Chapter Fifty-Three
All around me the world thundered with laughter and energy.
Chapter Fifty-Four
I slammed on my brakes and my car screamed in…
Chapter Fifty-Five
I watched that blasted dog video, over and over. Until…
Chapter Fifty-Six
One of Neville’s gutter boys was after me, I could…
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The hotel lobby was a scramble of bodies; arms and…
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Marguerite flew over the edge of the balcony, a blackbird…
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The world faded and changed; all the color bled into…
Part VI
Chapter Sixty
I have to confess there are things about this world,…
Chapter Sixty-One
I waited forever, waited for the elevator doors to open.
Chapter Sixty-Two
The orange light faded. In its place, dark water rolled…
Chapter Sixty-Three
The hospital lights were turned down low and everyone spoke…
Chapter Sixty-Four
Midnight poured down into my gut, cold and stark. The…
Chapter Sixty-Five
My boss stood bathed in his own circle of light…
Chapter Sixty-Six
The dart shot poison through my system. My flesh burned.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The hospital came alive with a clatter and a rumble,…
Chapter Sixty-Eight
He wasn’t going to make it. I had to go…
Chapter Sixty-Nine
They dressed her in harlequin diamonds of black and white,…
Chapter Seventy
A VR video was waiting for us when we got…
Chapter Seventy-One
Sometimes you die all at once. It’s over before you…
Chapter Seventy-Two
A sea of broken-down cars glistened in the noonday sun;…
Chapter Seventy-Three
Light fell like sparks from
heaven; it grazed sun-bleached tombs,…
Chapter Seventy-Four
I’m supposed to be a big-picture guy, supposed to see…
Chapter Seventy-Five
The sun disappeared and a chill wind blew, and an…
Chapter Seventy-Six
The woman turned away. Overhead the sky howled, mournful and…
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Clouds covered the sky, turned all the bright, hard edges…
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Orange tombs swayed and tossed, an angry sea, a melancholy…
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Sometimes life can be measured in small miracles. A string…
Chapter Eighty
Once, centuries ago, we thought the world ended at the…
Chapter Eighty-One
There was a point, at the beginning of all this,…
Epilogue
“Promise me, Uncle Chaz. Promise me that when I’m gone…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PART I
“Remember, death is a choice.
And I know you’ve all heard the latest rumor,
that One-Timers don’t really exist.
They say that everybody’s a First-Timer
and that when death comes, we all choose life.
I’m here to say that’s just not true!”
—Reverend Josiah Byrd,
leader of the first pro-death rally
CHAPTER ONE
October 11
Chaz:
Jazz swirled through the room, competed with my heartbeat and pressed against my skin, sensuous as a lover’s kiss, steamy as the bayou in mid-August. It stole my soul. It always did. For a few sweet moments I forgot about the world; I leaned forward and imagined another ending, one where I sat next to the bass player, nodding half asleep in a midnight mass of smoke and whiskey, saxophone reed thrust between my lips like the ultimate pacifier.
Bodies swayed and sagged, forever twined together with the music; it was a romantic symphony, it was worship for the weary.
And, in my mind, I was the worship leader.
I soared with the music to a land that didn’t exist. Beyond time and space. Beyond the never-ending cycle of life and death, and hit-me-again, more life please.
Outside I could hear the ancient city of New Orleans whispering like a ghost down back alleys and twisted cobblestone streets, a rough, sultry memory of what she had once been, before the soul of the city had been stolen by urban regeneration; before the Cities of the Dead had been transformed into high-priced condos.
Is it too late for us, too late for redemption? That was my thought. But that wasn’t what I said. Sometimes I get so caught up in the rhythms around me that I don’t notice my own contribution to the white noise.
“Sterilization is the new death.” That was what I really said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I nodded at a passing dark-skinned waitress, the one with the heart-shaped birthmark on her right cheek. Talking out loud was just one of the many unpredictable side effects of black-market whiskey. A moment later I had another crystal tumbler, two fingers full. I knew I should quit. At least for the night.
“What now, Chaz? You game?”
I blinked as I downed my second glass, felt the liquor sizzle down my throat all the way to my gut. Shadows moved through the club like disembodied spirits with lives of their own.
“Hey, yeah. We could, you know, go somewhere else. Dancing.” A woman leaned into my line of vision, blue eyes, silver-blonde hair. Angelique. This was her first time. It had to be.
I chuckled. “I mean the first time at the second time.”
“Huh?”
“Did I say that out loud? Well, it doesn’t matter.” I set down my glass, focused on her face. Smiled. “Yeah, dancing. Sure. That’s what Babysitters are for, right?”
Angelique grinned, ear to diamond-studded ear. “Hey, yeah.” She sucked down the last of her margarita.
I mentally focused on her speech patterns, a harmonic convergence created in the Northeast, let’s see, early twenty-first century—Norspeak, that’s it. What I really couldn’t figure out was, why do twenty-one-year-olds always drink margaritas? And why do they all want to be twenty-one? It didn’t matter. A week out of the joint and this Newbie would be on her own; she’d be done downloading all her past lives and I’d be done playing chaperone.
I had six more days and nights with Little Miss Margarita.
As far as I was concerned, that was seven days too long.
She stood up slowly, adjusted her dress. It was made out of one of those new synthetic fabrics that molded to her skin, whispering and rustling every time she moved. Very sensuous. Every goon in the bar was watching her, me included.
She was beautiful. More beautiful than I wanted to admit.
Maybe I was staring at her when I should have been watching the gutter punks who had sauntered in a few minutes earlier, all stitched up with black laces across their cheekbones. Just as we were about to leave, two of those underfed urchins broke into a fight. I saw the flash of knives and should have noticed that everything was too neat and clean, no blood, no torn flesh. Just the soft thud of knuckles against flesh and a few gruff moans.
But I didn’t want to get involved in somebody else’s mess, so I just hooked my right hand in Angelique’s elbow and led the way toward the door.
“Time to leave,” I said.
Right about then the shouts got louder and the bartender leaped over the bar, a baseball bat in one hand. While everyone else was focused on the brawling street thugs, a 220-pound genetic monster pushed his way through the crowd until he slid between the Newbie and me. He’d been staring at us from across the room, ever since we first walked through the door.
“Hey, sugah,” he breathed, his words slamming together in Gutterspeak, that blue-collar dialect born in NOLA’s Ninth Ward. “I’ll takes ya dancin’, baby. All night long.”
He was high on stims. I could smell it, like the inside of a rusty tin can. But all I could see was the back of his metal-studded head and the muscles that rippled from his neck all the way down his oversized arms. Even his beefy fingers curved as if ready to strike.
“Back off, scumbag,” I warned.
I mentally noted two gen dealers at five o’clock and a tattooed Nine-Timer cult gathering at two o’clock. Meanwhile, back in the corner, the gutter punks still rolled and tumbled, curses ringing out. Memories of the Newbie that went missing last week sparked through my mind, images of her mangled body on the freak show that posed as the ten-o’clock news.
At this point, I always wonder why I became a Babysitter. I mean, I had options.
The Neanderthal ran a meaty finger along Angelique’s arm and pushed his bulldog face closer to hers. She stared up at him, mesmerized. Blasted Newbies. No mind of their own. Then he glanced over his shoulder as if noticing me for the first time. Sneered. White spittle caked his lips. “Get lost, puppy. This party’s for two.” A low growl rumbled in his throat and I stared into icy, soulless eyes.
“That’s enough,” I said as I grabbed his sweat-stained shirt and pulled.
Behind me I heard the inevitable scuffing of chairs as people backed up. A few of the regulars recognized me, so they knew what was going to happen.
My left hand slid into my pocket. I wrapped my fingers around my current weapon of choice, a soft chunk of liquid light. Molded it into a wad about the size of my thumb.
He was facing me now, muscles pumped, cord-like veins standing at attention.
I swallowed. It felt like I was in the Old West, challenging a gunslinger.
“This is your last chance,” I warned him. I knew the stims had him going, had taken him to a land beyond logic. There was only one conclusion here. If that primate had half a brain, he would have known—
“The young lady, she stays
with me, punk.” His words slurred and his eyes narrowed. Angelique peered at me from behind his barrel-sized chest, like a teenager who’d been caught staying out after curfew.
“Move away from him, Angelique,” I told her. She hesitantly obeyed, shoulders hunched. I gave her a nod and a soft smile. Good girl. Stay.
“You gots puppy written all over ya,” he taunted. “Ya First-Timer!”
I’ve been called worse things. Doesn’t mean that I like it. Or that it’s true.
Then he lunged at me. There was a split second when I realized I may have misjudged him. I don’t think he weighed 220; it was probably more like 250. I pulled my hand from my pocket and with a flick the liquid light ignited. A flash blasted from the palm of my left hand, shot toward him; electric current pulsed like jagged lightning, wrapping his arms and legs and chest in a sizzling blue-white anaconda. The force of it knocked him across the room, hissed while his limbs quivered. His eyes blinked in rapid succession, like he was trying to send us a message through Morse code.
Probably 250, not 220, I reminded myself as I waited for him to wake up. He got a lower charge than I expected. He convulsed on the floor.
All around me the room jolted to life.
“Somebody call the mugs! He gots liquid light—”
“He’s gonna kill us—alls of us—”
I held up my hand, showed them the tattoo on the inside of my left palm.
A deadly quiet breezed through the club. Even the jazz stopped. I hate this part, the part where I kill the music. On the ground, the brute shuddered awake, lip twitching. He shook his head, struggled to fix one eye on me.