Deader Still

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Deader Still

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2016 Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  Edited by Sophie Playle of Liminal Pages (www.liminalpages.com)

  Edited by Lourdes Venard of Comma Sense Editing, LLC. (www.commasense.net)

  Cover design by Design for Writers (www.designforwriters.com)

  For my sister,

  who has proved herself

  useful after all!

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dear Reader,

  Chapter One

  “Is that really what my face looks like?” I leaned over the metal tray my corpse was laid out on and bobbed from left to right, examining my dead self from every angle. The morgue’s fluorescent light wasn’t helping. “It looks so …”

  “Lifeless?” Sabrina spun around on the swivel chair she’d liberated from the office area in the far corner of the room. She was a blur of lime green in her work jumpsuit, swinging her legs in the air, her stubby blonde ponytail jerking with the movement. “Blank? Dead? Gormless?”

  I frowned at her spinning form then turned back to my corpse. Sabrina had a point. My dead self did look sort of gormless. My corpse’s fire engine red hair seemed oddly lank and dull. It shouldn’t. I’d had my fringe trimmed and my roots done the day before I’d died so it should’ve been practically luminescent. Yet it wasn’t. Her English rose complexion appeared sallow when I knew that, despite being dead and somewhat ironically, ghost-me glowed with health. My corpse’s beautiful blue eyes had been sewn shut, leaving our dark eyelashes to amplify the bags under her eyes that I knew ghost-me didn’t have. And my lips would never have been called pouty but someone had obviously gotten a little too enthusiastic when sewing my corpse’s mouth closed because she barely had any lips at all. Ultimately, I was not impressed with the mortuary makeover.

  “I don’t look like this. Right?” I asked Sabrina as I twisted a strand of hair around my finger and lifted it to the light to check it wasn’t the same colour as my corpse’s. “Like, in real life? I don’t. Right?”

  Sabrina stopped spinning and dug her heels into the navy linoleum flooring to drag herself towards me. She peered at my corpse’s face and shrugged. “In real life you’re dead. So, yeah, in real life, you kinda do look like that.”

  I pointed to my dead body’s face. “You’re talking about my corpse’s face now, right? Not my actual face. My afterlife face. My ghost face. The one I’m speaking out of now …? So, really, there’s no need for me to kill you and stuff your mean, doubly dead body into one of these drawers,” I said, gesturing to the wall of shiny body-sized fridge doors.

  “Exactly. Your ghost face looks a lot more alive than your corpse’s face.” Sabrina angled her head as she looked at my dead body. “You don’t look happy.”

  “I’m dead and they’ve sewn my eyes and my mouth shut. How happy do you expect me to look?”

  “Happier than that,” she said as she lifted a strand of my corpse’s hair and dropped it. “Your hair looks dull too, but at least that’s a nice dress.”

  It was an empire line, yellow sundress with a navy and violet floral print. On paper it should have been horrific but it was actually quite pretty. I assumed my mum had bought it for me so I could look all summery in my coffin. She had great taste and it would have looked great on her. On me, however, it amplified the sallow complexion of my skin and made it glow a lovely yellow as if I were radioactive. The style also made me look gaunt. I wasn’t. I was on the fit side of slim but whatever the butchers at the funeral home had done to me had taken maybe twenty pounds off. But only off my corpse, not off my afterlife body. I couldn’t decide if I was happy with that or not. My corpse’s cheekbones did look awesome though.

  “I know I talked you into attending your funeral but I thought we’d just attend it, y’know? Listen to all the nice things people said about you. I didn’t think we’d be doing all the backstage stuff. At two in the morning.” Sabrina smoothed the dress over my corpse’s knobbly knees and frowned. “Do your knees really look like that?”

  I rolled up the leg of my mauve jumpsuit. She leaned down to look and then back up to examine my corpse again. “I see what you mean. You do look weird.”

  “You can tell from my knees but not my face?”

  Sabrina shrugged, flopped back into her chair and spun around again. Even sitting down her jumpsuit uniform fitted her a lot better than my mauve one fitted me. Hers was lime green because she was a trainee coordinator, which basically meant she filed stuff all day, and mine was mauve because I was a trainee facilitator, which meant I haunted people all day. It sounded a lot cooler than it was. The haunting, not the filing. I was pretty sure filing was the same in the afterlife as it was in life.

  Sabrina was maybe an inch or so taller than my five feet five inches and what I’d call buxomly athletic. And buxom looked good in these jumpsuits. As did her holiday tan.

  “Who do you think will say the nicest thing about you?” Sabrina asked, halting her spin. She dug her heels into the floor again and dragged herself to the next fridge door and peeked inside.

  “Michael-the-cheating-scumbag.” I reached into my pockets and pulled out an array of cosmetics I’d “borrowed” from the nearest department store since Oz, my parole officer/guardian angel/pain-in-the-neck, was still dragging his feet on fulfilling my requests. I’d been dead two weeks and I still didn’t have any makeup except my Chanel bronzer.

  Sabrina turned back to me in surprise. “Michael-the-cheating-scumbag? The cheating scumbag ex-fiancé? That Michael-the-cheating-scumbag?”

  “Yep.” I laid the products out on my corpse’s stomach and motioned for Sabrina to move my dead body’s fringe out of the way so I could apply her makeup properly. “Hey, did I mention that he was a cheating scumbag?”

  Sabrina pressed her lips together shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her expression broke into a smile and she gave me a small shoulder nudge. “So how come you think Michael-the-cheating-scumbag will be the one to say the nicest things about you?”

  “He’ll want everyone to think he’s such a grrrrrrreat guy.”

  “Who’ll want everyone to think he’s a great guy? Tony the Tiger?” Edith asked as she peered over my shoulder and made me jump so badly I squirted moisturiser all over my dead body’s face. “And why are you applying moisturiser to your corpse, dear?”

  “Old habits,” I said, frowning at the deluge of cream on my corpse’s face.

  Edith was wearing her usual charcoal skirt suit. She’d been dead a long time so it always surprised me that she wore the same thing. Especially since she was an outlaw of sorts and as such wasn’t constrained by the same stupid afterlife personal request rules as Sabrina and I were. The rules, according to Oz, were that you could have whatever you n
eeded as long as you requested it through your parole officer. I’d given him a long list of what I needed weeks ago and was yet to receive anything. Apparently, he felt underwear and mascara weren’t urgent necessities.

  “You look terrible. Death does not suit you at all, dear,” Edith said with a grimace at my corpse’s face. She smoothed out the hem of my dress like Sabrina had and frowned. “Do your knees really look like that?”

  “I’m trying to concentrate,” I said, wiping off the last of the moisturiser since it hadn’t sunk in properly.

  “At least they didn’t touch your hair, dear,” Edith said. She lifted a strand of my corpse’s hair and let it drop the same way Sabrina had, then tugged at her own hacked-at fringe. Even though it was far too short, Edith still looked like a glamorous, dead version of Anjelica Huston.

  “How come your fringe was affected when they prepped your body but Bridget’s weight wasn’t?” Sabrina said as she gestured to Edith’s hair then my corpse’s hollowed cheeks.

  “That’s the afterlife for you, dear. No rhyme or reason to anything.” Edith frowned down at my corpse. “Just as well, really. Looking at her makes me hungry.”

  “I don’t suppose either of you has a knife?” I asked. My Crème de la Mer foundation had gone on without a hitch and I was gently tugging on my dead body’s eyelashes to expose the stitches.

  I looked up to find them both offering me a knife. Sabrina’s was a flick knife with a thin, three-inch blade and a unicorn handle. I refused to ask about the handle. Edith’s was more like a dagger. It had a dark brown leather-bound handle and a six-inch blade, slightly slimmer than Sabrina’s. I took Edith’s.

  “You really should carry some form of self-defence weapon, dear,” Edith chastised.

  In response I lifted the whistle Oz had given me to blow in emergencies so he would come a-running and save me. It had initially gone against my feminist instincts to call a man for help but then I’d found a couple of dead bodies, and a couple of other people had tried to kill me, so that had altered my view a little.

  “No, a self-defence weapon, Bridge. Not a booty call device,” Sabrina said and Edith sniggered.

  I gave them both a flat stare. Oz was, shall we say, adequately attractive. “Nooooo, those jokes aren’t getting old at all. And I get accused of enough murders as it is. Imagine Johnson’s delight if I happen to be carrying an offensive weapon the next time a dead body falls out of my locker. He wouldn’t arrest me – he’d throw away the key.”

  Just because dead bodies kept turning up in my locker, the inept police force, Detective Johnson in particular, assumed I was a murderer. Sabrina had thought it a great idea for us to find the real killer ourselves. Much law breaking had ensued and, despite us catching the murderer, we each had a decade of community service in reparation for our “crimes”. People say life isn’t fair. They should try being dead.

  I angled the knife under my corpse’s eyelashes. The last thing I wanted to do was slice her eyelid open or accidentally trim her eyelashes off.

  Sabrina stilled my hand before I could do anything. “Er, Bridge? What are you doing?”

  I held up my Chanel Le Volume mascara. “I’m opening my eyes so I can apply some mascara.” I looked down at my corpse’s face and then back up at Sabrina. “Obviously.”

  Sabrina didn’t let go of my knife hand. “Yeah, I don’t think you really want to be slitting those open.”

  “I can’t apply it properly with my eyes closed, can I?”

  “They’re sewn shut for a reason, dear.” Edith stood on the opposite side of the table and looked down at my dead body’s face. Edith’s grimace became deeper the longer she stared.

  I pointed the knife at my corpse’s face. “Look at me. This is going to be everyone’s last impression of me. This.”

  Both of them winced and, feeling vindicated, I shook off Sabrina’s hold before pressing the knife back to my corpse’s eye.

  Sabrina grabbed my hand again. “Your coffin will be closed. No one will even see you.”

  “I can’t be buried looking like that,” I whined and twisted my hand so the knife pointed to my corpse’s face again.

  Sabrina shook her head. “I don’t really think the worms will care.”

  Edith held out her hand for the knife. “I’ll do it, dear. Barry’s father used to go fishing. He would think he was the man of the house because he brought home the catch. I was the one who had to gut and debone them. The sight of blood made him squeamish.” With three quick slashes Edith sliced through the stitches in my corpse’s eyes and mouth.

  “Thank you.” I sighed happily and watched the dagger disappear from Edith’s hands like a magic trick. Made me wonder where she kept it. “Now will one of you hold my eye open so I can curl my eyelashes, please?”

  Edith nodded to Sabrina. “Your turn, dear.”

  Sabrina’s lip curled as she gingerly pulled up my eyelid and looked at the ceiling. “Bridge, I want you to understand – this is what true friendship looks like.”

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed, focusing on curling all the eyelashes carefully and equally. “Other eye.”

  “That’s your side,” Sabrina said to Edith with a shudder, wiping her fingers on her trousers. I really didn’t see what the big deal was.

  Once I’d curled the other side I stepped back and admired my handiwork.

  “Excellent.” I moved to the head of my corpse and pulled a packet of fake eyelashes from my pocket. “Now, this is going to be a three person job.”

  Sabrina glanced from me to the packet then back to me. “You need help.”

  I patted her on the shoulder and smiled. “That’s why I’ve got you.”

  “Not quite what I meant,” Sabrina mumbled as I directed her and Edith to their positions.

  ∞

  I blew in Oz’s handsome face for the third time. It was a shame to wake him. Really, it was. I much preferred him this way. Silent. Not accusing me of anything. Not insisting I spend time with my housemates. Not refusing my makeup requests.

  That was one of the less pleasant aspects of being dead. For the first decade you had to live in a shared house with your parole officer and his other wards. I was not a fan of communal living on my best day. That said, I was warming to my female housemates. A little. Or maybe thawing would be a better way to describe it. Didn’t really matter what you called it though, I still wouldn’t admit it out loud.

  Oz’s jaw was clenched in his sleep and his ever-present fair stubble appeared darker without any light to play off it. His eyelids fluttered.

  “Morning, sunshine,” I whispered in his ear.

  Oz startled awake, his head pressing deeper into the pillow. He was instantly alert. I stepped back quickly as he sat up. He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp. It lit the room in a soft glow but there was more than enough light to see Oz was shirtless. Not that I was paying any attention to that. Or to the smattering of fair hair that reached across his exposed, and very toned, chest. Or to the fact that said toned chest descended into a very sturdy set of abdominal muscles. Nope. No, I wasn’t looking at all.

  “Bridget?” Oz snapped his fingers in front of my face. His Australian accent sounded thicker when he was grumpy. I used to love that accent. Always made me think of sunshine. Of course whenever he spoke to me it was usually to tell me off for something so it was fast losing its appeal.

  I blinked and met his ocean-green eyes. “Yes? Sorry. Did you say something?”

  His expression warred between amused and annoyed as he bunched the duvet up around his waist. “I said, are you alright? What are you doing in here?”

  “I was bringing you breakfast.” I held the tray up, motioning for him to sit properly so I could put it down. He didn’t.

  Oz adjusted the duvet again, making sure it was gathered up around his waist. It made me wonder if he was a naked summer sleeper. I cursed myself for not taking the chance to peek under the duvet while he slept. Not that I was interested. Not that I was allowed to b
e interested. The Bureau of Ghostly Affairs, the governing body of the afterlife, had rules about dating your guardian. Or just dating in general. You weren’t allowed to date while in your probationary period which was usually ten years. Nor were you allowed to date anyone in your department. Office romances and all.

  That would’ve been fine except interaction with people from other departments was generally pretty limited because all you did was work and sleep. If you somehow defied all the odds and did manage to find that special someone you had to apply for a license before embarking on that relationship. Like everything else in the afterlife, the information around this licensing was a little murky but it sounded a lot like citizenship interviews. Except weirder since you didn’t really know the personal habits of the person you were being interviewed about.

  And if you didn’t abide by these rules? The repercussions, like the repercussions for everything else, were never actually described in any other way than “severe”.

  Oz snapped his fingers in front of my face again. “Bridget?”

  “What?” I blinked and met his eyes again. It simply wasn’t fair that he was so distractingly attractive.

  “I said, you shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Why? Because it’s your bedroom?”

  “Yeah.” He gestured to his naked torso but didn’t move to get a t-shirt. He was so definitely naked under that duvet.

  I gave a small shrug so I wouldn’t dislodge anything on my tray. “You’re in mine all the time.”

  “I don’t whisper in your ear to wake you up.”

  “You weren’t awake and your breakfast was getting cold. I was trying to wake you gently. What was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like I licked your face while you slept or anything creepy.” I motioned for him to sit back again. Again, he didn’t. “Look, do you want this or not? I went to a lot of trouble to make this for you.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, sighed, and then sat back and accepted the tray. Bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, beans, toast, coffee, orange juice – everything you could possibly want for breakfast. “You made all this?” he asked.