After Life

by Jacquie Underdown

  “Cheers,” Theron said.

  “Then come back here, I want to show you both something.”

  Zoe grabbed two painkillers for Theron. He gulped them down along with a big glass of water.

  “Another ice pack?” she suggested.

  He shook his head. “Won’t make a difference now. But thanks.”

  “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Like a log.”

  She laughed. “Me too.”

  “No light on either,” Asher added from her place at the study nook, not turning her head from the laptop.

  “Very observant, Asher.” But she was right—the light was off all night. Sleeping in the dark was something she hadn’t done since she was fifteen.

  “I’ve been called worse,” Asher said with a laugh.

  “So what did you want to show us?”

  A sheepish expression came over Asher’s face.

  Zoe narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why don’t I like the look of this?”

  Asher frowned. “I went back to the hospital last night.”

  “You what?” Zoe screeched, anger tightening her chest.

  Theron shifted closer, placing his hand on her lower back. A sign of support or a calming tool, she wasn’t sure which.

  “I’m sorry, but I have a lot invested in this. Do you know how many subscribers I have relying on me for fresh content? If I don’t give it to them, they’ll go elsewhere. So if I know for certain that a hospital’s haunted, I’m not going to miss out on an opportunity to gather footage.”

  Zoe pressed her hands to her hips. “I understand how involved you are, but does my emotional state or safety not mean anything?”

  “I knew this wasn’t going to hurt you—”

  “How the hell would you know that?” Theron yelled.

  “I just know.”

  “Oh yeah? Pretty certain your guess is not good enough.”

  Asher snarled and stabbed the screen with her finger. “Look. This footage is the first recorded confirmation of ghosts I’ve personally been able to capture. To have this is priceless. This will help me get more subscribers on my channel—”

  “Just bloody show me,” Zoe snapped. She sighed and resignedly looked at the screen. She shuddered when she saw the pale, boxy building set against the backdrop of black. The trees’ gnarled limbs swayed in time to the whoosh of wind coming through the audio.

  “Wait for it,” Asher said, moving closer to the monitor.

  Zoe gasped when an image walked across the scene—a middle-aged man with oily hair and pale skin illuminated by the moonlight. His movements were jerky, unnatural like he was a marionette.

  “You see something?” Theron asked. “All I see is a hazy red blob.”

  “This camera records changes in heat,” Asher said. “Look closely. The red haze forms the outline of a man.”

  Zoe’s stomach tightened as the man turned toward the camera and glared directly at her. He wore a white hospital gown, streaked in blood, and had a knife in his hand. The blade glinted, except for the end that appeared as though it had been dipped in thick red paint.

  She took a step back to see his face—deep purple and red rings under his eyes. Eyes—endlessly black. A smiling snarl spread across his lips, exposing rotten, yellow teeth.

  “What do you see?” Theron asked.

  She shook her head, wanting to look away but unable to.

  A wheezy, mocking laugh sounded from the man, contorting his face into something so utterly unnatural, so completely malevolent. The man moved forward, slow paced, but his head and limbs jerked quickly.

  “I swear he’s looking right at me,” she whispered.

  Theron stepped closer to the monitor. “I can still only see a red shadow.”

  Zoe could feel Asher and Theron’s attention on her, but the man had her fixated. Could he see her?

  No. It was an impossibility.

  She waved her hand in front of her to see if the image reacted.

  Another laugh burst from the man’s mouth; still, he came nearer to the camera until his face was in close-up. She could see every detail, from his coarse whiskers and wrinkles, to his corpselike flesh.

  Her heart rate ratcheted. Adrenaline sparked, making her muscles twitch. Her lips were trembling.

  Then a ragged, deep voice burst from the speakers, unsettling the silence. “Don’t think I can’t see you.”

  She shook her head, took another step backward. “No, he can’t be….”

  Everything in her peripheral faded from fear. Only the spirit’s face stayed vividly in focus. “I’m going to fuck your mind, you crazy bitch. I’m going to screw it so hard…” his head rolled back as though he was in ecstasy.

  She shook her head. “No!”

  “Yes. You just watch me—”

  “No!” she screamed as she leapt forward and slammed shut the laptop. But the spirit’s mocking laughter still rushed from the speakers filling the room with his intentions.

  She spun to face Theron, fear vibrating her body. She pushed her hands over her ears to quiet the sound. “I need to get out of here.”

  He reached for her, took her hand. “Come-on. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 19

  Zoe was biting back anger, jaw tight with tension when Theron pushed open his dormitory door, and she followed him inside. She’d not been in the boys’ dormitory before, let alone Theron’s room, and wasn’t sure what to expect.

  The small space was exactly like the one she shared with Asher, except the furnishings were a little different, though still modest, and the carpet was threadbare in places.

  A shirtless guy, dressed only in shorts—Zoe had seen him around the school, Phillip, she thought his name was—came out of his bedroom and stopped, eyes widening when he saw Zoe.

  “Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn’t realise you had someone here,” he said to Theron, though continued to look at Zoe.

  “Phillip, this is Zoe. Zoe, this is my roommate, Phillip.”

  Zoe managed a tight smile. “Hi.”

  He nodded. “Hey.” Pointed back to his room, to the door, then looked down at his naked chest. “Um … I was just about to throw a shirt on and head over to see … Cameron and Mitch.”

  “Sounds good, man.”

  Phillip grabbed a shirt that hung over the back of the couch, put it on, and with a quick wave was out the door.

  “I didn’t realise you lived with Phillip,” she said. “I thought you shared with Daniel for some reason.”

  Theron shook his head. “Nah, they put me with the other scholarship student. Don’t want to mix us lowly students with the full fee-paying …” he stopped, grimaced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean …”

  She shook her head, waved his inadvertent criticism and subsequent apology away. Yes, her parents were paying good money for her to be here, and she was more than thankful, but if her circumstances were not what they were, coming to a school like this would not have been an ordinary privilege for her.

  “Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  So far, they hadn’t spoken about what happened at her dorm. She was grateful for that—gave her silent time to process what that incident with the ghost meant if it meant anything at all. Theron had simply held her hand as they snuck through the halls of the boys’ dorm until she stopped shaking.

  “Asher can be such a thoughtless … bitch sometimes. I know she means well, but she doesn’t think,” she said, linking her fingers on her lap.

  “I agree. There’s something off about her.”

  “She’s just so fascinated with all this paranormal stuff, her excitement clouds her judgement. She doesn’t know how it affects me.”

  “What happened back there exactly, Zoe?”

  Zoe sighed but recounted what she saw on that monitor.

  Theron’s jaw was clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he asked, “So the spirit said that he was going to screw your mind?”

  Zoe shuddered, nodded.


  “Who do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I just hope Asher hasn’t stupidly made my life very hard. If that spirit comes after me …” She stopped when her voice cracked. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “When I was at the hospital, he strangled me … I couldn’t breathe … What if he does that again?”

  Theron shifted closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She lay her head on his chest. “Then we’ll deal with it. But don’t get worked up over something that may not happen.”

  But not worrying didn’t feel like an option.

  “I just want it all to go away. My week has been shit enough as it is with Nan dying, then to have what happened last night …”

  “I know. I know,” he said soothingly, but anger burned at the back of his words. It soothed Zoe to hear that emotion there and know that she had at least one person on her side in all this.

  Zoe lifted her head and looked at him with a frown. “What the hell do I do about Asher? She’s hell bent on doing anything to get any kind of footage she can. I just don’t think she understands the dangers.”

  “Then explain it to her,” he said. “Sit her down and tell her, and keep telling her until she understands.”

  “I think the problem is that I don’t even understand the dangers myself.” She groaned, scrubbed her hands over her face. “I don’t know, maybe Asher does know more than me about spirits. She lives and breathes this stuff. Me, sure, it’s a part of my life, but all I’ve ever done is run away from it.”

  Theron nodded. “Maybe that’s where you need to decide if it’s more dangerous to keep running away than it is to face what’s happening and find some answers.”

  Zoe slumped against the lounge and sighed. He was right.

  Whether she wanted to accept it or not, she had reached that impasse.

  After encountering that evil ghost in the hospital, then hearing his acidic threats today, how much longer did she have where she could keep turning her back on these spirits? For how much longer could she run away?

  The moment she chose to help Barkley to move on, whether she knew it or not at the time, she changed the game. A game that was already playing out around her, with or without her permission or acceptance. And the game didn’t give a damn if she knew the rules or not.

  A raw mass of anticipation unfurled in the pit of her belly and spread throughout every part of her body. “I’m scared,” she whispered, hating to admit it, but knew it was the truth. She was scared out of her mind and completely unprepared.

  He gently pulled her against his chest again. “I get it. And I wish I could change things for you—”

  “Yeah, I know. You can’t. And I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  He arched a brow, his lips slanting into a cheeky grin. “But I can help distract you.”

  Despite the fear nestled in her gut, her breath hitched to hear those words. She met his gaze.

  “I’ve got a million and one movies we could watch, take your mind off everything. What do you feel like watching?”

  Her most grateful, warmest smile spread across her face. “I’ll let you choose.”

  He laughed. “You may just live to regret this.”

  ◆◆◆

  Asher was asleep on the lounge when Zoe arrived back at the dorm that afternoon.

  Asher woke when she heard the door open and tugged a hand through her hair.

  “Hey,” Zoe said. The weight of her anger for Asher and what she did still sat heavily in her heart, but it had dissipated somewhat over the day.

  “Hey. How are you?” Asher asked, her words still thick with sleep as she sat up.

  Zoe shrugged. “Considering the circumstances, I’m as well as I can be.”

  Asher sighed. “I’m so sorry.” She shook her head. “I get so fixated, and I forget the repercussions. I didn’t know … I would never have predicted …”

  Zoe held her hand up to stop her. “Look, what’s done is done. An apology isn’t going to take it back—”

  “I know, but I don’t know how else to let you know that it will never happen again.”

  Zoe narrowed her eyes at Asher. “You mean that?”

  Asher nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” Her lips twitched and Zoe knew what was coming. Asher smiled. “I honestly didn’t mean that as a pun. Totally accidental.”

  Zoe sighed. Fighting with Asher wasn’t going to fix anything; it would only make her life here at school even more difficult. And, besides, Asher wasn’t the one who bodily stole her and took her to the hospital in the first place.

  Daniel and Rhianna were responsible for all this.

  Asher had simply been so curious, she couldn’t resist wanting footage.

  Zoe had to be the bigger person here, accept Asher’s apology and trust her word that she wouldn’t go summoning spirits again. “I know you wouldn’t purposefully do anything to put me in danger.”

  “I really wouldn’t,” Asher said.

  Zoe slumped onto the lounge beside Asher. “This is your passion. You work so hard building your audience on your website and YouTube, long before I ever came into your life. I don’t want to get in the way of that. But I also need you to see things from my perspective too.”

  Asher nodded quickly. “I do. Now.”

  “So you promise to talk to me first before you do anything that might put me in danger and respect my word when I tell you that getting footage or content or whatever is just too risky?”

  Again a nod, though a little slower than the last—a slight show of hesitation.

  “Asher? Do you?”

  Asher threw her hands up and let them fall to her lap. “Fine. Yes. I’ll respect your word.”

  “Thank you.”

  Zoe’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, saw ‘Mum’ flashing across the screen. “I better get this,” she said

  “Of course. Go ahead,” Asher said, gesturing at the phone in Zoe’s hand.

  Zoe answered as she stood and headed to her room. “Hi, Mum.”

  “Hi, darling. I was just ringing to make sure you’re okay.” Her voice was consumed with concern, slightly hesitant. “I haven’t heard from you since you left.”

  In her room, Zoe flopped onto her bed and lay back against her pillows. “I’m fine.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I was angry with you guys.”

  “Completely understandable. Of course you’d be shocked about what you learned.”

  Shocked was an understatement. But Theron was right. The only parents she had ever known loved her. They didn’t deserve her anger.

  But ridding her anger didn’t quell her desire to know the real truth—like who her actual parents were and why she was left in a park—but it also didn’t stop her loving them.

  “Yes, shocked is right. But you and Dad have given me a good life, even with all the trouble I’ve caused.”

  “Oh, darling, that’s not your fault. And I wouldn’t call it trouble, just a little hill we’ve had to climb. But everything’s going okay now, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Everything’s good.”

  “I’m so relieved. I love you so much, Zoe. Dad does too. We miss you. But we are so proud of you for studying and doing well on your own.”

  “Thanks, Mum.”

  Mum spoke about what they had done over the weekend, filling Zoe in on the family’s day-to-day life. The stories were bland and ordinary, exactly what she needed.

  She closed her eyes, her body blossoming with want for the only family she had ever known, and listened to her mother.

  After the phone call, Zoe went down to the dining hall with Asher for dinner. They had their showers, dressed in their pyjamas, then watched episodes of The Walking Dead until Zoe could no longer keep her eyes open.

  Zoe climbed into bed, Theron consuming her every thought.

  Despite her best efforts to resist him, it was impossible. She reached for her mobile and sent him a quick text.

  ZOE: Thanks for today.
>
  A message came back quickly.

  THERON: I’m always here for you. Remember that.

  Zoe closed her eyes and pressed the phone to her chest. Theron was everything she never knew she wanted.

  ZOE: I’m grateful. See you in class tomorrow. Goodnight.

  THERON: Goodnight. Sweet dreams xx

  ◆◆◆

  Zoe woke with a start, heart racing.

  Had she been dreaming?

  Whispers of a memory filled her mind—of a voice. But she couldn’t remember. Her sheets and blanket were down around her feet. The temperature in her room had plunged.

  Her sleepy gaze darted around the lamp-lit room—nothing. She sat up and tugged her blankets up around her shoulders. Her mouth tasted horrible—metallic. She held tight to her blankets and closed her eyes.

  Sleep soon swallowed her again.

  Chapter 20

  After Zoe’s humiliation over the weekend, the last thing she wanted to do was show her face in class today. But Theron would be there for her. She was certain of that now.

  Asher walked with Zoe to her form class. Striding across the courtyard, she said, “Don’t show them how much it scared you. Don’t let them win. Hold your head up high.”

  Zoe nodded and managed a smile though her insides were crawling with anxiety. “I’ll try my hardest.”

  “You’re a strong, brave girl, and, after the weekend, if you show up today with a smile on your face, everyone will know that too.”

  She stopped walking and peered up at Asher—purple eyes, piercings, and black lipstick. Yes, she was weird, didn’t think of consequences much of the time, but deep down she was a good person. “Thanks, Asher,” she said and hugged her tightly.

  “No, thank you, Super Freak. You’re my little supply of paranormal awesomeness.”

  Zoe laughed.

  She left Asher outside and headed to her form room. No one was paying her much attention, except for the odd sly glance or two.

  Theron was waiting at the end of the hall. He smiled when he saw her, and she grinned back. He took her breath away—yes even with his black eye that she noticed was softening to a lighter shade of purple and green.