I'm Back

Death is weird. I died and went someplace I had never imagined.

It was dark. No walls, no floor. Just a bright light shining down on a few chairs forming a circle.. I was with a group of other people. We all looked at each other with confusion on our faces. Then a man came out of the darkness and stood in the center of the light. He looked like one of those laid back hippies you'd find in Amsterdam smoking pot and listening to Bob Marley. Dirty blond dreadlocks and all.. He asked us all to sit down and we did.

He welcomed us to what he called "The Support Group for the Newly Dead" and it made me think about the Handbook for the Recently Deceased from Beatlejuice. He knew all our names but asked us to introduce ourselves to the rest of the group.

The first person to do so was a young man about in his 20's. He was shaved bald and had tattoos all over himself, including a swastika on the side of his head and the words "white power" on his forearm. His name was Adolf Joseph Hart. Said it was obvious by looking at his tattoos why he was named that. Said he was raised to believe he was superior to all the "blackies" and jews. But he said the reason he died was because toward the end of his life he was starting to realize what an idiotic thing that was to think. His brother had killed him when he found out Adolf was going to remove his tattoos and back out of the neo-nazi lifestyle.

The next was a little black girl. Her head was also shaved but not as close as Adolf's. She didn't speak much English so the man with the dreadlocks acted as her interpreter. I can't remember her name. It was a bit hard to pronounce and I'm no good with odd names. Anyway, she was only 8 years old and she was sold into slavery in her home country some place in Africa. Her master killed her when she tried to fight him off as he raped her.

Then there was Lucy. She was a 20 year old suicide victim. Lived a life so horrible I don't even want to repeat her story. Sorry.

After her was Edgar. He was an old man who from the moment I saw him I knew something wasn't right about him. He refused to talk so the man with the dreadlocks did it for him. Edgar was once am elementary school turned serial killer. He was never caught but when the police find his body in the lazy chair where he died, they'll find that his house was a crime scene containing around 5 bodies, his yard hiding around a dozen more and the surrounding woods hiding only God knows how many more on top of that.

After him was me. Even dead no one believed the story.

Final the man with dreadlocks introduced himself as Michael and that was it. No reason for being there. He was Michael and he was there and that's all we needed to know.

He talked for what felt like hours, mostly about the afterlife and what it hold for each of us. He described Heaven and it sounds much more amazing than the Bible ever made it sound. And Hell, so much worse than anyone could imagine.

After the meeting was over, we all stood up and he addressed us one by one and assigned us a destination.

The little tribal girl and Lucy were were sent to Heaven, the nazi was given a second chance at life to show he really can change, Edgar went to hell and Michael said I needed to stay so we could talk a little bit more.

"It's not your time," he said once everyone was gone.
"I don't know what you mean," I replied.
"You shouldn't even be here. As a matter of fact, you never should have been put in this situation."
"What situation? Death or whatever the heck's been happening to me since September?"
"Both."

I sat back in my chair and looked down at my hands. I must have started crying because he sat next to me and hugged me. "I don't care if it's my time. Can't I just cross over or whatever the hell it is I'm supposed to do? I don't want to do this anymore."

He chuckled and looked up at the light shining down. "Nope. It's not your time. Can't cross over unless it's your time."
"So what are you going to do, send me back?"
"Yep."
"When?"
He looked over at me, smiled and said, "Right about..... Now."

Then I woke up in a bed in a dark room. I could hear something moving around. I was a big dog. At one point it came over to me, go up in my face and licked my nose. Thanks, doggie. I love you too.

I fell back asleep and woke up to a very tall man, with a face, staring down at me. He had to be at least 7 feet tall, if not taller. He had long brown hair and a face sort of like a vulture, big nose and beady eyes. Also, the dog, a mastiff, had crawled up into bed with me and was staring at me like this: O____O

"Good mornin' Sleepin' Beauty," the man said. "Feel like eatin' breakfast?"

At this point I didn't feel like doing anything other than going back to bed but I accepted his offer of breakfast without question and followed him into a kitchen.

Sausage gravy and biscuits. This could only mean one thing.... "What state are we in?" I asked.
"West Virginia," he replied.
Yep. Knew it.

"How did you find me?" I asked.
"My wife found ya up in the woods behind the house. You were knocked out cold and wrapped up in a bloody sheet."

I just looked down at my biscuit and silently nodded.

"You know how ya got here?"

I shook my head.

The mastiff put his head in my lap, nearly crushing my legs, and grunted as he looked up at me. I like mastiffs. They're big and sweet. "Whats his name?"
"Budders," the man replied.
"And yours?"
"Jason. You?"
I thought for a minuet. Should I really give him my name? Ah screw it. "Alexa."
"Well Alexa, where are you from?"
"Delaware." I lied.
"I wanna know how you ended up here. And so will the sheriff when he comes here."
"I don't know, I just... Sheriff?"
"Yep. He's coming to check you out, see if you're ok and then take a statement. People don't just show up in other people's yard wrapped in bloody sheets."

I thought quick. I wasn't going to tell Jason about what's all been happening.

"It was my pimp," I said.
Jason sort of choked on his coffee and looked at me like I had arms coming out my ears. "Pimp?"
"I didn't choose to become a prostitute, it just sort of happened. Ran away from an abusive home and fell in with the wrong crowd."
"Ok, but why did your pimp dump you here?"
"Because I ran. I didn't want to be a whore anymore and I ran away. He caught up and tried to kill me and I guess he just dumped me here."

The rest of breakfast was silent and that lie made me feel like I needed a cold shower.

Around noon the sheriff came along. Questioned me. Offered to take me to a hospital but I declined. Then he asked if I needed a place to stay. I said yes, but I didn't want to stay at a homeless shelter or woman's shelter. Too dangerous for a "girl like me."

So Jason's wife Lilly said I could stay here for as long as I want. I accepted. I also won't say where "here" is. I don't want that freak who killed me to come after me again.