Chapter 1
Joy
The first thing I realized, after I died, was that my
body could walk and talk and no longer needed my help for any of it. I was in
there, able to look through my eyes and hear through my ears, but even the
simple task of aiming my gaze had slipped outside my control. I was a passenger
inside my own mind, an observer along for the ride.
Kristen had been right, I thought numbly as I
struggled to make sense of my new reality. Had it only been lunchtime today
when she’d told me I’d never get ahead if I didn’t learn to assert myself?
“Take control of your life,” she’d said, “or others will take it for you.”
She couldn’t have been thinking of anything quite so
literal. Whatever was happening to me, it wasn’t because I’d failed to advocate
for a promotion at work or refused to ask out a coworker.
Right?
My body reached my car and slid behind the wheel. A
rattled thought—not my own—cursed as it tried to understand how the contraption
worked. How much can cars have changed in only a century? Visions accompanied
the thoughts, memories—again not my own—of a classic car, gleaming black and
elegant, its top down, my bobbed hair whipping around my face as I laughed with
glee, a white-faced young man at my side gripping the door, begging me to slow
down. I did not.
Which brings me to the second thing I realized, after
I died: I was no longer alone inside my own mind.
Whoever was in there didn’t seem to have noticed me
yet. Fine. I slid into the smallest corner of my brain I could find, ignoring
the intruder as they struggled to figure out how to work an automatic
transmission. Maybe they’d get frustrated and give up and go find someone
else’s body to possess.
Holy shit! I’ve been possessed by the ghost of someone
who died in like 1930.
But why?
I tried to remember what had happened, but the images
danced just out of reach. I recalled that the night had been unseasonably cold
for October, the chill biting through my inadequate jacket as I hurried to my
car, parked in a garage two blocks away from the shelter where I’d been
volunteering. Hugging my arms around my torso for warmth, I took a shortcut
through an alley and …
There was a noise. I’d startled, my heart pounding in
my throat, already on edge because of the argument.
Wait. Back up. There’d been an argument. That seemed
significant, but my scattered thoughts couldn’t piece it together as yet, not
when a bodily intruder fumbled at the gearshift of my two-month-old Hyundai
Accent with only fifty-eight “low monthly payments” left to go.
Low is such a relative word.
My beautiful new, inexpensive (also relative) car
jerked suddenly backwards out of its parking spot as the voice in my head grew
angrier and more frustrated and … afraid. I saw flashes, images I didn’t
understand of multi-colored ghosts who seemed to be singing. The more they
sang, the more desperate I felt as fear, my own and somehow not my own, made it
hard to breathe.
We streaked across the nearly empty parking lot in
reverse, almost colliding with the only other vehicle in the place—a red SUV
with scratched paint and a dented front bumper suggesting it regularly
attracted unwanted attention from other cars. I tried to scream, but didn’t
have control of my voice. I tried to hit the brakes, but instead the possessing
spirit shifted from reverse to drive without stopping. The grinding of gears
made me want to weep, but we came to a stop, breathing heavily, muscles tensed
as if in expectation of attack.
They destroyed her. They tore her apart.
I had no time to wonder what any of that meant before
the thing possessing my body channeled its anger and grief into a force I’d
never experienced or even known existed. One second, the battered red SUV was
parked inches from my back bumper, the next, it flew through the air, smashing
against a far wall, its frame crumpling like an accordion.
I tried to make myself even smaller, a nearly
impossible feat, but I couldn’t let it know I was in here. If it could do that
to an SUV, I didn’t want to think about what it might be able to do to me.
Now what?
For one, panic-filled moment, I thought I’d asked the
question. Then I realized I wasn’t the only one trying to figure things out.
My car rolled forward again, its speed uneven, first
too fast and then—I slammed on the brakes. Well, maybe I didn’t do it, maybe
the thing inside me had the same idea as me, but the car skidded to a halt so
it just kissed a large concrete pillar. At least it’s just the paint, I tried
to tell myself, but rage welled up within me and my fist slammed into the
center of the steering wheel, eliciting an angry honk.
An ominous crack formed in the concrete pillar, more
evidence, in case I needed it, that the thing invading my body had powers
beyond belief. Then came more rattled thoughts that were definitely not my own:
Who thought it was a good idea to build obstacle
courses in the sky? Is there not enough room on the ground? Too damn many
humans …
Once again, I drew away from the voice in my head. If
I hadn’t lost all connection to my body, I’d be trembling, but even so, I felt
the sort of cold that seeps through to the soul.
The third thing I realized, after I died, was that the
thing possessing me wasn’t a ghost. Or at least, not the ghost of a human.
My car backed away from the concrete column and
maneuvered around it to continue the winding path down … down … down to the
exit.
Where was my body going and why? More importantly,
what would happen if I made myself known and asked?
I reeled at the thought, mentally slinking all the way
back to the homeless shelter where I’d been volunteering in the hours before my
death. I’d had a crappy day and needed to channel that into a sharp reminder
that plenty of people had it much, much worse. Their circumstances, their
personalities, their trials and tribulations didn’t fit neatly in the lock box
some tried to label and forget, but all of them struggled in some way. They
needed help, and sometimes I needed to be needed; it helped me feel less alone.
Tonight, though … tonight there’d been a problem. I
remembered having a nice chat with one of the regulars, Roger, big-hearted and
with a certain excited energy about him. He’d found a job and was working hard
to get back on his feet, but he still couldn’t find a place to rent after being
evicted from his old apartment. Now, he lived in his car except when the nights
grew too cold, and he was always there to lend a helping hand or just to
listen. He had a way of getting people to open up, even me.
He’s the one who jumped in when Thomas started getting
belligerent, ranting and raving about false witnesses and evil spirits. The
whole thing was so sudden and confusing, I’m not even sure how it happened. One
second I’m chatting with Roger about the crappy end to a crappy
day—accidentally seeing porn on a coworker’s computer—the next Thomas is in my
face, grabbing a fistful of my shirt as he accused me of being a liar, of being
in league with the demon spirits, demanding I admit that I could see them too.
I was off balance;, I don’t know what I said, I only know what I felt. There
was a moment when I looked into his eyes and saw fear and desperation reflected
back at me. Then he was being dragged away, thrown out of the shelter …
But he hadn’t been the one to sneak up behind me and
kill me. I thought he was, at first. When I heard the noise in the alley, I
jumped and looked around, sure it would be Thomas. But it was someone else.
No, not someone else, something else. The thing
possessing me wasn’t the first nonhuman I’d encountered tonight. That honor
belonged to a blur, a shadow, a … the only way I could think to describe it was
as if a small child had found a gray crayon and colored over an otherwise human
shape.
I knew I’d died. The bright light I’d only heard
about—never believed in—had beckoned and I’d known it was over. Dead in a cold
alley; would anyone notice before morning? Who would even mourn me? I had few
friends and fewer attachments. No husband or kids, not even a boyfriend. My cat
would probably find someone else to feed her. Some might say that was a
blessing, not to leave anyone behind, but all I saw was lost potential. If only
… the words that would follow me into my lonely grave.
Where had the light gone? I’d seen it, I’d hesitated,
I’d wondered if there really was a god after all, and then …
… my body was walking and talking and thinking and
acting and I was along for the ride.
My beautiful blue car, none the worse for wear, exited
the garage without running into anything else and turned onto the empty city
street. Fewer cars might mean lower odds of getting into another accident,
although it was clear the thing in my body had little experience driving. It
swerved left and right, unable to center itself in the lane, and braked
suddenly at a flashing yellow stoplight, which bent backwards in reaction.
That’s when I reached the final—and
belated—realization of the most bizarre night of my life. (Afterlife?) If I
didn’t take over the driving of this vehicle, I’d die. Again.
