The Mysterious Death and Life of Winnie Coleman
Page 10
“Whoa.” I stop scratching. “No need to get all crazy. You know, for someone who is dead you’re pretty serious all the time. I mean, you did face plant off the side of a mountain. What’s the worst that could happen to you now?”
Instead of answering, Sam looks over my shoulder yet again. Rolling my eyes I turn around, prepared to point out for the umpteenth time that there is nothing behind us… except this time there is.
It reels drunkenly between the trees, dragging its left leg behind it at an angle that makes my stomach turn. Blood, dark and wet, runs down its face, or at least what remains of its face. I can make out two squinty eyes and what I think is a mouth. The rest has been bashed in beyond recognition. A shirt hangs off its broad chest in tatters and jeans cling to its crippled legs, the only evidence that this thing – man? monster? something in between? – was once human. It swings its tree trunk sized arms from side to side as it walks, slapping its own chest with a sickening thud thud thud.
I start to back away slowly. My heel catches on a twig. Snaps it. The sound echoes like a gunshot. Sam curses under his breath. The thing – what did Sam call it? an Unknown? – lifts its battered head and snarls like a rapid dog.
“Still want to stick around?” Sam asks.
I might be dead, but there is no way I am going to tangle with this creature. “I think we should run now.”
“You think?”
Who knew Sam could be sarcastic? He yells something else, something that sounds suspiciously like ‘I told you so’ but I can’t hear him clearly. I’ve already spun around and am sprinting away at warp speed from the thing with the bleeding face and ham sized fists.
I think we have a pretty good chance of outrunning it – the creature is big, but it doesn’t look too agile – until I throw a reckless glance over my shoulder and see it is actually gaining on us.
“Sam,” I gasp out his name. He is running slightly ahead of me, blazing a trail through the woods with alarming speed. Adrenaline and a healthy fear of being torn apart have given his legs a new lease on life.
“Come on Win, faster!” he urges without breaking stride.
I grit my teeth and bear down. My feet fly across the forest floor, churning up leaves and sticks. I come abreast of Sam and in unison we leap over a fallen log. A few heartbeats later there is a terrible crunching sound as the thing chasing us runs right through the fallen tree, obliterating it into matchsticks. It is still gaining on us, faster than I ever believed possible.
“A door,” Sam pants. “Think of a door. To someplace it can’t follow.”
“What… the… hell…” I spit out the words between gulps of air, “are… you talking… about?”
Sam doesn’t answer immediately. We burst out of the woods and into a field with waist high grass. I fall behind Sam, letting him mow a path through the crisp yellow wheat. Running through the field is like running through water: torturously slow and physically draining. Seeds erupt in the air, coating my hair and face. A few shoot up my nose and down my throat, making me gag.
“Just think of someplace it can’t follow!” Sam yells.
A place the monster can’t follow? Like what, the moon? “You do it,” I demand before dissolving into a fit of hacking coughs as seeds shoot out my nose. My foot catches on an exposed root. I stumble, flail my arms, somehow manage to catch my balance. Begin to teeter again. I can feel the monster behind me. It’s awful smelling breath, a mixture of trash and rotten eggs, seers a path across my neck. Instinctively I arch my back inwards and hear the whoosh of a clawed hand as it misses its target.
“Sam, help me!”
Sam spins around. Launching himself forward, he shoves me sideways and the wheat swallows me up. I land hard on my hands and roll to my side before I fight my way to my feet. The wheat is all around me. Disoriented, I spin in a circle, yelling Sam’s name.
Growling and hissing fills the air, intermingled with Sam’s screams. There is a thud of flesh meeting flesh. Another terrible growl. A drawn out yell. If I don’t do something now, Sam will be ripped to pieces. What did he want me to do? Something about a door and a safe place.
Door. Door. Think of a door.
“WIN, A LITTLE HELP HERE!”
Door. Door. Think of a door.
Then, unbelievably, there is a door. It hovers a half foot above the ground as if it has always been here, just nestled amidst the wheat in the middle of the field. I holler Sam’s name at the top of my lungs and nearly leap out of my skin when I feel fingers wrap around my shoulder.
“I’m here,” he pants, visibly exhausted. His shirt has been ripped away from his body and hangs off one arm. Red scratch marks cover his bare chest. Blood drips from a nasty cut above his right eye. It looks like he just came through a cheese grater.
“Look, a door,” I point out helpfully.
“What are you waiting for? Open it!”
I jump to do as he asks. Wrapping both hands around the gold doorknob, I wrench the door towards me. It opens with surprising ease and without warning I am teetering on the brink of absolute nothingness. Arms spinning, I gasp and reel back. “Sam! Where does this–”
An inhuman snarl and the skin crawling sound of teeth snapping and grinding together cuts me off. The scent of rot and disease floods my nostrils. Something tangles in my hair and yanks. Heart pounding, eyes watering, I twist my head around and come face to face with the monster.
It has a fistful of my hair wrapped around its bloated, puss filled fingers. For a split second we are face to face and I see the trace of humanity lurking in the monster’s bloodshot eyes as they roll and bulge.
I try to move, but I can’t. I am frozen, as frozen as I was at the restaurant when Brian reached across the candle flames. The monster growls, flashing uneven teeth that have been filed down to jagged fangs. It’s putrid breath fans across my face and I gag, swallowing back vomit. Tears rain unchecked down my cheeks. The monster raises one massive arm. What remains of its fingers curls into a fist. I cower helplessly, waiting for the blow to fall.
And then strong hands shove me sideways, my hair rips free, and I am flying down, down, down into the dark abyss. The monster’s roar of disappointment follows me as I tumble head over heels, then heels overhead, unable to find my balance, unable to tell up from down, down from up, for there is no up or down. No left or right. Only the vague sensation of falling towards something.
When I land, it is with a hard jolt. Groaning, I heave myself into a sitting position. It is still dark, but as the seconds pass light begins to flicker in like a camera focusing. Bit by bit my surroundings reveal themselves. Dazedly I look around and see an old wooden rocking chair. Two desks pushed back to back. A corner filled with board games. And in the middle of the small, cluttered space, the coup de grace: a very familiar trunk plastered with magazine cut outs and hot pink glitter. My fingers brace against the plywood floor. I rise to a crouching position and look up, to the roughly cut window obscured by branches and bushy green leaves. My heart skips a beat. I know those leaves. I recognize that trunk. I know where I am.
I have landed in my old tree house.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sam appears a few seconds later. One second the rocking chair is empty, the next it is filled with one hundred and sixty pounds of kicking, cursing boy. I stay out of the way while he fights his invisible enemy, swinging his arms sideways and back with a ferocity I can admire. For a nerd, Sam fights like a champ.
He comes out of it the same way I did. A bit at a time, slowly and surely. His gray eyes blur, refocus, blink. “Win?” he says hoarsely.
“Here. I’m right here.” I straighten from my slouching position against the opposite wall and step out of the shadows. The top of my head nearly touches the ceiling, which isn’t a surprise. The tree house was, after all, built for children. I decide to sit and wriggle around until I find a comfortable position. I have a feeling we are going to be here for a while. At the very least, I am not leaving until I get some answers.
“First of all, it was not a thing.”
“Then what is it? Some kind of monster? A demon?” I guess.
“No. It is an Unknown.”
Something in his tone has me sitting up a little straighter. “Have you seen it before?” I ask suspiciously.
His expression darkens. “I have seen an Unknown before, but not that one. I’ve heard of him though. They call him Craven.”
“Craven?” I repeat skeptically. People around here really need to work on their names. Voldemort, now that’s terrifying. Craven? Eh, not so much.
“Yes, Craven.” Sam must sense I’m not taking this very seriously, because he shifts forward on the rocking chair and says, “Unknowns are not something to take lightly. They are the one thing the dead fear.”
A valid point. Stupid name or not, I had plenty of fear for Craven when he was blowing his stinky breath in my face. “So what is he?”
Sitting back, Sam absently scratches at the wounds on his chest. They don’t look deep, and they’ve stopped bleeding. One even looks like it’s scabbing over. His shirt is still ripped to shreds, revealing a rather startling set of abdominal muscles. I never would have figured sweater vest Sam to have a six pack. Noting the direction of my gaze, he scowls and stretches what fabric remains of his shirt across his stomach.
“Stop ogling me,” he says crossly.
“I wasn’t ogling you.”
“Yes you were. If I stared at some girl like you were just staring at me I would get slapped.”
“You wouldn’t… I wasn’t… Oh, just shut up and tell me what an Unknown is.” Crossing my arms, I glare down at the floor and fight back the blush that threatens to spread like wildfire over my neck and face. I wasn’t ogling Sam. I wasn’t.
“Unknowns used to be people just like you and I,” Sam begins after giving me a narrow eyed glance. “Except they were people who did something so horrible and unforgivable that when they died and crossed over into the After they were not given a level.”
I am still getting used to the idea of death being divided into levels. The best I can figure is that it’s sort of like high school. Everyone starts off as a freshman and works their way up from there. It’s ironic, really. My guidance counselor always used to have these big assemblies where she went on and on about how life would get better after you left high school. That all you had to do was graduate and you would never have to go back. Guess the joke’s on her.
“Is that why he was so gross looking?” I ask.
“Basically… yes. Remember before when I told you all your injuries and scars had been healed?”
I nod.
“And that’s because you’re a Level One. Nearly everyone who dies becomes one automatically, unless they’ve done something really awesome like save orphans from a burning building. Then they jump right to Level Two, but that doesn’t happen very often.”
I guess risking my life to save Brian doesn’t count as “really awesome.”
Because you didn’t save him. You died for nothing.
Zip it.
What? You did. You’re dead and you have no idea where your brother is. You didn’t save him. You didn’t even come close to saving him because guess what, genius? He wasn’t on the lake!
Shut. Up.
“Win, are you okay?”
I blink and look up at Sam. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Why?”
“You… Never mind. Just pay attention, okay? This stuff is really important.”
“Sure. Whatever. I’m paying attention.”
Sam frowns. “Like I was saying, because of the horrible things they did before they died, Unknowns aren’t given a level when they pass into the After. Which means the body they died in, wounds and scars and all, is the one they’re stuck with.”
“But how can that be?” I want to know. “You said in the After our souls control our bodies.”
“Exactly.” Sam nods. “Except since the Unknowns aren’t given a level to move up to, their souls remain trapped inside the bodies they died in. Or to be more specific, the soul’s projection of the body they died in since as you so eloquently put it earlier, your physical body is rotting away in some hole in the ground.”
It’s a lot to wrap my mind around. “So basically what you’re saying is that when evil people die they still come to the After, but their souls stay trapped in their bodies which don’t heal, thus explaining why Craven was all bloody and rotting and what not.”
Sam tilts his head to the side. “Did you just say ‘thus’?”
I ignore him. “So bad people get stuck in their own rotting bodies with no way to move up to the next level. Sounds fair to me. What’s the big deal?”
Sam is already shaking his head before I finish my question. “Because they’re not always stuck. If they can switch bodies with someone a level above them, then they can free themselves.”
“Switch bodies?” I scoff. “What is this, the Sci-Fi channel?”
“I told you Unknowns were nothing to laugh at. All they have to do is kill you. In that moment of death your soul will be disoriented and weak, weak enough for the Unknown to push it out and take its place. With nowhere else to go, your soul would be forced into the body of the Unknown.”
Muscles cramp and tighten low in my belly. “So that’s why Craven was chasing us? To – to kill one of us and steal our body? You know that sounds insane, right?”
Sam watches me steadily. “More insane than jumping through a door and landing in your old tree house?”
When he puts it that way… “Everything is different here, isn’t it?” I whisper.
“More different than you could ever imagine.”
“But if we’re already dead how can we die again?”
“A wooden stake through the heart,” Sam says solemnly.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “I think you have us confused with vampires.”
“No, a wooden stake would do it. Or an axe. A knife. A hammer. Strangulation. Drowning. Fire. Bullet to the head.”
The laughter dries up in my throat and turns to dust. “Oh.”
“Winnie, just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t die again in a thousand different ways.”
His words send a shudder rippling down between my shoulder blades. I remember how close Craven got to me, the way his breath felt against my skin, the cruel grip of his fingers in my hair, and I shudder again. “What happens now?” I ask.
“Now,” Sam says, glancing down at his exposed chest, “I need to change my shirt before you faint from the sight of my amazing muscles.”
And just like that, I feel like laughing again. “There.” I point to a box in the corner that is overflowing with an array of mismatched clothing. “There should be something in there.”
Sam stands. He has to duck his head to keep from hitting the ceiling and I try not to watch as he pulls his shredded shirt over his head, but it’s surprisingly difficult. My eyes linger a hair too long on his exposed abdomen before they jerk to his face. He catches me looking and grins ear to ear.
“What did I say? You’re a total ogler.”
I roll my eyes. “First, that isn’t even a real word. Second, my kid brother has more muscles than you.” Brian. Just the thought of him sends a pang of anxiety ricocheting through my body. I can’t help but wonder where he is. Did they find him? Is he safe? Does he know I’m dead? Is he afraid? Does he even understand? And my dad. He fell to pieces after Mom died. Is he even capable of taking care of Brian on his own?
Sam must read the sudden strain on my face because he kneels in front of me, resting his hands lightly on either side of my legs. “Brian hasn’t crossed over, Win. That means he is okay.”
“That does not mean
he’s okay!” I don’t mean to shout. It takes us both by surprise. Sam jerks back like I’ve struck him. A line appears above his eyebrows.
“I know this is a difficult transition for you, but it’s best if you try not to think about the people you left behind.”
“You don’t know anything,” I snap. I don’t know why I am so angry, or even who I am angry at. The anger just fills me up and overflows, spewing out of my mouth like venom. “This isn’t what death is supposed to be like, Sam! I’m not supposed to be here talking to you. I should be decomposing in some hole in the ground, not… not running away from monsters and sitting in my old tree house like everything is normal. I’m not supposed to… I’m not supposed to…” The word catches in my throat like a hook. I swallow hard, trying to choke it back down.
“Take a deep breath, Winnie.” Sam’s hand shifts to rest gently on my knee. The pressure is as faint as it is reassuring. Comforting as it is unfamiliar. “You can say it. It’s okay.”
“It is NOT okay. None of this is okay.” To my utter horror I begin to cry, great fat salty tears born of anger and frustration and some other emotion I can’t even name. I draw in a deep, trembling breath. Try again. “I’m not supposed to… I’m not…”
“You’re not supposed to what?” Sam urges softly.
“I’m not supposed to still feel. I’m not supposed to hurt like this. I’m not supposed to be angry, or sad, or happy. Those feelings go away when you die. This isn’t right. I don’t want to feel anymore. Don’t you get it? We’re dead, Sam. We’re dead.” My voice drops to a whisper. Embarrassed, I use the hem of my sweatshirt to wipe away my tears. They black cotton is soft against my flushed skin and I bury my face in it, allowing myself to hide, even if it’s just for a moment.
Sam’s fingers squeeze my leg before he draws away. The rocking chair squeaks as he sits in it. The silence returns. It is so quiet I can hear Sam breathing. In and out, in and out, steady as a drop of rain on a windowsill.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but I think it might really be this. Sitting in front of a boy who died in a skiing accident seven years ago. Talking about souls and switching bodies. What is more insane than that?