I'd Rather Not Be Dead

by Andrea Brokaw

  Excitement and pride in my cleverness brings a smile to my face as I sprint down the street to the gas station that serves as a Greyhound stop. The posted schedule says the last bus of the day is due in two hours. Two hours...

  There's not much I can do since I can't touch anything. No reading, no crossword puzzles, no ripping apart blades of grass. I'm the ultimate spy, but there's no one I want to look at.

  The time creeps by as I try in vain to move leaves, but at long last, as twilight rushes forward, the bus pulls up. I'm relieved it stops. With no one waiting here, I was afraid it would pass right by me.

  The driver gets off and walks into the shop. Guess he needs a bathroom break. Or a cup of coffee. The prospect of the driver needing something to keep him awake might make me nervous if I were still alive.

  He comes back out after a few minutes, a Styrofoam cup in his hand. He opens the doors and I leap onto the bottom step after him. And crash to the street.

  Ah, crap. I can't get on the bus. Why on earth did I spend the last two hours assuming I could? Cursing my stupidity, I scramble backwards, needing to get away from the strange feeling of sharing space with something that isn't really there.

  I walk to the nearest car and stick my hand through the door of it. Furniture and floors are real here. Vehicles and other things that move aren't. Well, crap. No help for it, I'll have to walk to Pennsylvania.

  Dark falls, but I keep walking anyway. It's not as though tripping over something I didn't see would hurt me. I'll pass through it or I'll fall but either way I'll be fine. But my feet get sore. My legs ache. I don't know why I get tired walking. I'm not hungry. I'm not thirsty. If my body doesn't need food and water, why does it need sleep?

  I don't understand why I have to, but I lay down anyway. Despite the ground being hard and my jacket not making an ideal pillow, I'm quickly unconscious.

  I dream of fog. Not the normal wispy fog the Smokies were named for, but something dark and disturbing. It drains my energy, tries to drown me.

  A man appears, banishing it. I'm certain he's someone I know, but there's something blocking my ability to recognize him. It's like hearing just enough of a song to know you've heard it before but not enough to name it. He's tall and dark haired. His nose is Cherokee, but he's not Native American. Not full-blooded anyway.

  The man lances me with brown eyes that reflect the mountains. Looking at them is like looking at the hills through an amber lens. He wants something from me.

  I shiver myself awake, surprised to find I've been sweating even though the air's still bland and lukewarm.

  Someone kneels beside me, holding my hand and stroking my hair. He speaks softly, in an accent tinted by both Ireland and here. “It's alright. It was just The Shadow Lord. And The Spirit.”

  I snatch my hand away from the stranger. “Who?”

  The boy at my side smiles. Soft brown hair falls along his cheeks, but doesn't flutter with the wind moving the light fog around us. The normal Smoky Mountain fog, not the terror from my dream. “The Lord of Shadow is the king of our realm.”

  “And The Spirit?”

  He takes a deep breath while straightening his back. “The Spirit's harder to explain. It's... It's the blended result of all of the energy that's here but not strong enough to retain its individual identity.”

  “Huh?” seems like an apt response.

  After a second, he tries again. “It's all the ghosts who forgot who they are. All rolled into one big mass.”

  My shivering comes back.

  “Yeah, scary. But you're strong. It wouldn't eat you 'cause you're so tough.”

  I laugh. “The Purple People Eater?”

  “You know it?” He grins back at me.

  “Yeah, I know it.” I prop myself up on my elbows. “So, I'm clear on the Shadow Lord and The Spirit. But who are you?”

  “You can call me Fray.” The 'r' rolls and the 'ay' lingers in the air.

  He stands and holds a hand down to me, but I get up on my own as I eye my new acquaintance. Fray looks a year or two older than me and the word 'gorgeous' could be accurately applied. Wavy chestnut hair falls around lean but muscled shoulders. His eyes, a vivid green, sparkle. He's wearing a jacket made with nearly as much metal as leather over a weathered Sex Pistols t-shirt and very tight, very flattering, black jeans. He gives me a wide smile. It's charismatic, almost too much so. Reminds me of Cooper Finnegan. “I thought maybe you could use some help. I know I could have when I first died.”

  “Which was when?” He doesn't look even slightly dead.

  His head tilts in a playful way. “This state was a colony.”

  Long time ago, if he can be believed. I want to ask him history trivia, to see if he actually knows the era he's claiming to be from. But I never paid much attention to history, so I wouldn't know if any of it was right or not. “Were the Sex Pistols popular before the Revolution?”

  “Punk might not have been around yet, but the spirit was alive long before anyone first bellowed lyrics about the queen's fascist regime.” His grin is downright devilish.

  “Maybe the words didn't occur to you back then because you had a king and no one knew what a fascist was.” Which is about as far as my knowledge of Colonial culture reaches.

  “Likely.”

  We look at each other, the stranger bouncing energetically on the balls of his feet and me wondering if his body's going to fade and leave just that taunting grin floating in the air. Clearly, if I'm Alice and this is Wonderland, I've stumbled across the Cheshire Cat. I always thought of myself as a cat person, but now I'm not so sure.

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  Laughter makes his eyes dance all the more. “Suspicious one, aren't you?”

  “I'd be stupid not to be.”

  “True.” He gives me a crooked smile. He's too attractive for his own good. People that pretty just aren't trustworthy.

  “Anyway, I'm leaving town.” My actions match my words as I shove my jacket over my arms and start walking again.

  “Ah,” says Fray. “Good luck with that.”

  He vanishes like guy in the hardware store and I curse myself. I should have asked him if I could get to Philadelphia that way. Too late now.

  There's a lot of traffic on the Parkway today. It is, after all, peak tourist season. People come from all over to gawk at our changing leaves. Apparently other places don't have them.

  My steps keep to the edge of the road. The trees are solid, so I can't just walk through them. I don't understand why trees are solid and people aren't, but that's the way it is. If I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with trees standing still for centuries. Maybe saplings aren't real here, but I don't see any to test my theory on.

  A few cars hit me. The feeling isn't great, although it's more emotionally painful than physically so.

  My steps get progressively slower. Each one takes more energy. The world sways and little dots of darkness dance on the edge of my vision. When Fray materializes beside me, I spend a second thinking he's a hallucination. “If I were you, I'd stop.”

  “Why?” I don't stop, even though I'm now dragging my feet along in weariness.

  “Because if you continue with this, you'll fade out of existence.”

  The explanation's calm, matter-of-a-fact. It makes me stop. And stare. “I'll die if I keep walking?”

  Fray nods. “We can only get so far from the place of our death. You're already further away than most people can go.”

  I stare at him some more. “Why didn't you say that when I told you I was leaving?”

  “Didn't think you'd believe me.”

  And I wouldn't have. But I do now. I've been feeling myself fade for the last half mile, I just didn't know what it meant. Fabulous. I crash onto the ground and bury my face in my hands. “I'm stuck in Mayberry forever.”

  “It's not that bad a town.”

  I let out an ugly snort. “Bet you're just saying that because you founded it.”

  He l
aughs, a long and somehow accented laugh. “No. But I robbed the man who did.”

  “Robbed?” Looking up, I see him looking down at me, his eyes dancing with mischief. “You were a thief?”

  “That's one of things they called me when they hanged me.”

  “Hanged?” That's kind of cool. “You were hanged?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “What was it like?”

  The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I wouldn't recommend it.”

  “But it's quick, isn't it?”

  A darkness passes across his face. “Only if your neck breaks.”

  Something tells me his neck didn't break.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.” He shakes his head. “The thing that sucked was I did a lot of bad shit, but not the crime they killed me for.”

  “Was it a woman?” I ask, too eagerly.

  Laughter meets that. “I wish. No. My brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yep.” Fray sits beside me. “So, my brother was worse than your sister. She's a brat, but she'd never frame you for a capital offense.”

  I swallow. “Yeah. You win.”

  “And, no,” he says. “That wasn't about a woman either.”

  “Bummer.”

  He nods. “Bummer.”

  Hold on a second... “How do you know my sister?”

  “Never met her. Either of them.”

  My scowl doesn't have any effect on his smile for several heartbeats, then he looks away with a shake of his head. “I've been haunting this town for a while, Drew. There aren't many people I don't know about.”

  “You've been watching us?”

  He tilts his head at me. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  A Cadillac passes through us, followed by a whole line of people being slowed down by its lack of speed.

  “I hate it when they do that,” Fray says.

  “Me too.” I'm not sure if he meant people driving through us or to people holding up traffic, but either way I agree.

  He stands. “Ready to go back to town, luv?”

  No. And I'm not sure I want to go with him, even if I were. Exactly what has he been watching me and my sisters do? I get up anyway, but the world sways and my knees feel like marshmallows.

  “I'm too tired.” I start to sit again, but Fray reaches out and draws me against his chest. He's warm and solid and I fight not to collapse against him.

  “Let's not walk then.” His breath caresses my ear and he holds me tight.

  Thunder claps. A crowd cheers.

  “Great!” Fray grins. “A football game.”

  Chapter Four

  There's exactly one place in Pine Ridge to buy alcohol. There's only the one because we're in the middle of a dry county, one of the last remaining in North Carolina, and the hunting club only gets away with stocking a bar because it's a private club. A private club anyone can join and which doesn't charge dues, but a private club nonetheless.

  Needless to say, the club's one of the most popular places in town, especially on college football game days. A huge chunk of the local population has crowded into the place to watch the University of North Carolina today, but when Fray walks toward the bar, the masses part for him. It's like they can feel he's there even though they can't see him.

  He plops down on a stool and looks up at the nearest screen. “The Tar Heels look decent this year.”

  “How did you do that?”

  He looks at me like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, so I elaborate. “We were on the Parkway. Now we're miles away. How?”

  “I'll tell you after you've had a bit of a rest. Go lie down in the back booth. No one ever sits there. It's haunted.” His smile turns to a wicked grin as he turns back to the game.

  I want to argue, but I'm too wiped to even try. I'm tired enough to do what he says despite my instinctive rebellion against orders and the nagging doubts about trusting a guy who claims he's a Colonial but who's going around spreading the word of the British punk movement.

  It should be hard to fall asleep in a crowded bar, next to the hall to the bathrooms and in the middle of a sports event, but I sink under before I even get my head all the way down and I don't wake up again until after the place has emptied.

  The clock on the wall reads eleven thirty and the lack of customers indicates the tavern's closed, which would make it Sunday morning. Even if this is a private club, they aren't going to be open in the morning on the Sabbath. They take way too much flack from the conservatives as it is.

  Fray isn't anywhere to be seen and he doesn't come when I call for him, so I go to the door and try to open it. My hand falls through the doorknob, but that's alright because when I try walking through the wood I glide through, just like walking though a spiderweb. The door doesn't really resist, but it clings to me as I move through it and it hangs on for several steps later. Which is seriously weird, but at least I'm not trapped.

  Or I'm not trapped by the door anyway. It's raining out and the drops tickle like anything, driving me back inside. Boring though it may be in here, I couldn't get far in the rain. Not without going crazy.

  Crazier than I already am? I do, after all, think I'm a time-traveling ghost. That's not exactly sane.

  I pace the room for a few minutes before realizing it's not going to make the rain go away any faster. There's a TV remote on the bar and since I can't think of anything else to do, I start poking my finger against its power button. After about half an hour of being bored out of my mind, my finger doesn't sink into the button, but presses it.

  The television springs to life.

  I gape stupidly while that fact sinks in. I look around, making sure there isn't anyone else who could have turned it on. There isn't.

  Holy crap. I turned the TV on!

  I cheer. I whoop. I dance. I spin around on the barstool screaming out my glee. I turned the TV on!

  I stop spinning. I spun the barstool. Grinning, I turn the seat slowly to face the bar.

  There's a man on the screen wearing a flashy suit and a sleazy smile. “And Jesus? What would Jesus say?”

  “That if you took half the money you spent on that outfit, you could feed all the homeless in New York for a week?” I hazard.

  “Jesus would say we must help these people!”

  The crowd choruses in with an, “Amen.”

  “We must help them to resist the devil. Because it's the devil who's behind their actions.”

  Using my newfound ability to touch stuff, I press the channel button. The weather in Charlotte will be rainy. Highs in the low fifties. Click. Big Carolina Panthers football game later today and our Fox affiliate is very excited about it. I click the button a few more times, as much to do it as to change the channels.

  An inner door swings open. “Barney!” a woman with large breasts and even bigger hair yells. “It's on again! And it just changed channel!”

  A weary middle aged man follows the woman in. “It's a short in the remote,” he says, coming up to the bar and grabbing the remote from in front of me so he can shut the TV off.

  “It's not a short.” The woman shakes her head forcefully. “That's a brand new remote.”

  “See?” The man shrugs. “New stuff's always quirky. Them Asian factories don't test anything. You know that.”

  I sigh and go to the front door. The rain's gone down to a lazy drizzle and it doesn't bother me too much to step out into it. If they're not going to let me watch their TV, there has to be something better to do than hanging around with the downtrodden tavern keeper and his big-haired sidekick.

  Downtown's deserted. A veritable ghost town. Ha ha.

  I follow Main Street past the school, then turn on the route I always take home from there. It leads me through the oldest part of town, the section dominated by large Victorians. Cooper Finnegan's truck stands outside of his house, but I keep to the other side of the street and refuse to do more than glance at the place or the harvest-themed decorat
ions in its yard.

  The large homes give way to smaller ones, two bedroom places slapped up when World War II came to an end and the town was flooded with soldiers coming home in search of brides and VA loans.

  And then I come up on Fort Jesus and it's packed-to-overflowing parking lot. With three stories of solid stone, the church is more like a military stronghold than a place of holiness. The only indicators it's a place of Christianity and not something owned by the National Guard are the billboard in front and the lone glass window depicting Jesus on a cross. Ten times larger than life, the messiah looks down on us with condemnation and repulsion. Whoever designed the window clearly didn't get the “Jesus is love” memo.

  After that, I finally get to my neighborhood. The oldest house on my street was built three years ago. My own home's a couple months younger. They aren't any more or less patterned than the post-war homes, but somehow they manage to have less character.

  I stand outside my cookie-cutter nightmare house. Do I really want to go in? It's not like anyone can see me. That's why it's taken me so long to come out here. Mom ignoring me in the shop was one thing, my entire family looking straight through me at home would be another. And for them to be doing it while that other girl, that previous version of me, walks around living my life... Frankly, I don't know if I can take it.

  Bike wheels whoosh on the pavement behind me and I turn to see my youngest sister peddling up the driveway. Rain. Such a hippy name. I never figured out what Mom was thinking with it. The name fits her though. She's our mediator, the one who just wants everyone else to get along. And, unlike me, she's never thought the best, if not only, way to achieve that is simply to kill everyone else.

  She props the bike up on the side of the porch and trots up to the front door. Drawn to her, I cross the lawn and hop up the stairs.

  And come crashing to the ground. Just like when I tried to get on the bus yesterday. What the hell? I've been interacting with buildings the whole time I've been dead. Yet, here I am flat on my face in a pile of dirt underneath my front porch. Above me, the door opens and closes as I roll over to stare up at the wooden planks I should be standing on.