Almost Dead

I was born in a little town off the outskirts of Manhattan. I had a normal life as one does. I was married to a lovely woman and we had just moved into a brand new neighborhood. Everyone was so polite, they even convinced us to have a house-warming party and they all came. It’s about 2 years after we moved in I just applied for a new job at a nearby paper company. I had come home that day, exhausted from preparing for my job interview. Brenda whipped up some casserole for us to eat and we watched a couple of reality TV-shows. After that we went to bed and it was like any other day. 

The next morning, after Brenda went to work, I got up and started to make my coffee. While I was waiting, I thought I saw something glowing in the corner of my eye. When I turned around, there was nothing so I shrugged and forgot about it. A little later, I went into the garage to get in my car to go run errands. But my car was nowhere in sight. I thought it was odd since Brenda owns her own car and her car was gone as well. I immediately started to panic and was getting ready to call the police to report my stolen car but that glowing thing happened again. I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye but it was never in my view when I looked for it. I gave up and started to clean because I had nothing better to do. After being completely annoyed with the lingering glowing I marched into the garage. I made myself scour the entire garage for this glowing object. 

2 hours later and absolutely no luck. I was ready to go to my therapist and have her diagnose me with some sort of mental illness because this was driving me insane. I finally set down on the step leading into my garage from my house. I held my head in my hands and groaned loudly. Suddenly I heard a robotic voice boom in the garage, “Activation code required for entry,” it boomed. It startled me at first but when I looked there it was, the glowing thing that i kept seeing. It was some sort of portal. It was glowing bright red and kept repeating the same message. I didn’t know any activation code so I started shouting out random numbers and it would keep repeating the word, error, after every failed attempt. I came to the conclusion that I must see what would happen if I stuck my hand through the portal. I hesitated at first but then I went full force and stuck my hand through. It went through and it didn’t come out the other side like I expected it to. My hand went to whatever 6th dimension this portal holds. I pulled back immediately but I was still curious. After that it wouldn’t let me put in more than my hand without that silly activation code. What would Brenda do? I was pacing back and forth, Brenda was the smartest girl I knew. Then all of a sudden the portal boomed again, “Activation code, accepted.” Did the portal just read my mind? Was Brenda the code? Was silence the code? There was no time, I didn’t know if it was gonna close if I didn’t go through so I took a running start and jumped through the portal. 

When I came out of the other side, I appeared in what looked like an exact replica of my garage and I was almost convinced the portal didn’t work. But the only catch was every single thing had a red tint to it. I walked into my house and everything was red. I called out for Brenda but no one answered. I walked into my front yard and the sky, trees and even grass were all a shade of red. I walked across the street to go talk to my neighbor but no one answered when I knocked. I walked on until a woman jumped in front of me out of nowhere. She looked normal though, not red. 

“You must be new here. I’m Sally! I’ve been so lonely since I died.” My eyes widened when she said she had died. Was I dreaming? Or was I in some sort of hell? 

“Wait, wait, what is this place?” I sputter, almost falling backwards in shock. 

“We’re in the netherworld, silly. How’d you die? Accidental drug overdose.”

I rubbed my forehead in confusion. How could there be a portal to the netherworld in my house? Did I somehow die in my sleep and just wander through the portal? 

“Wait, when you died was there a portal you walked through?” She looked at me in confusion. 

“No. Once I died I just appeared here and everyone told me I had died. That’s of course before I met Freddie. After I met him I wasn’t scared of him. Well that’s a lie, it took awhile.” 

“W-Who’s Freddie?” My head feels like it’s spinning off its hinges. She gasped loudly and held her hands on her face with her mouth hanging open. 

“You mean to tell me you don’t know who ol’ Freddie is? He is a terrifying man. I lied earlier, I never overcame my fear of him. He’s the leader of this place.” 

“So like King of the netherworld?” 

“Some call him that, yes.” 

“Take me to him.” Her eyes widened but her expression returned to normal instantly. She linked my arms and she started skipping down the road. I was so worried that I was actually dead that I wasn’t skipping with her and ended up almost tripping. She stopped and gave me a look. I started to skip with her and we were having a great time. I actually laughed with her. We seemed to be talking for hours, I told her all about how the portal showed up in my garage and my beautiful wife, Brenda. She told me about her dad that she missed so much. She died about 20 years ago and she was only 24. She explained that everyone stays in the form they died in. So if you die as a teenager, you stay a teenager and so on. She explained how she heard that her dad had died 3 months ago and she had been searching the entire netherworld for him. Still no luck. 

Finally we had reached Freddie’s lair as Sally calls it. This building looked like it used to be a bank of some sorts. There were guards standing outside of the bank and Sally held her hand up at them. 

“He’s with me.” Sally had told me how she had weekly meetings with Freddie even though she’s terrified of him just so she could keep her street cred up and no one would think she is weak. Apparently everyone in the netherworld fears Freddie. We went in the bank and were guided to a room with a plaque on the outside that read, Grand Vault. It would make sense since the king of the netherworld would have his lair in the grand vault. We entered and there was a throne in the middle of the room. I’m guessing the man sitting in it was Freddie. He looked like your average Joe but all of his ‘henchman’ looked like literal demons. 

“What brings you here, Sally? And who have you brought?” Freddie’s voice is projected throughout the entire vault. The vault door closes and Sally starts fiddling with her hair. I can tell she’s nervous. 

“H-He’s my friend. I just wanted to see how you’ve been. I haven’t seen you in forever!” She laughs nervously. 

“You just saw me yesterday. I thought we agreed that this was going to be a weekly thing, not a daily thing.” He tries to smile but fails and keeps his mouth shut. While Sally and Freddie continue talking, I look around the room. There are tapestries hung up on each wall of different creatures. I glance at his henchman, they are all either cleaning something, standing still, or writing in a notebook. I notice one of them that is holding a rag and wiping down a shelf in the corner of the room. He had purple hair and was wearing a black and white striped suit. He had a matching purple tie to go with his hair and he looked fairly sad. I felt bad for him but I had to resist the urge to go over and talk to him. Then the henchman accidentally bumped into the shelf, knocking over a glass ball, shattering it on the ground. Freddie stopped talking to Sally and looked at the henchman. 

“Lawrence! What did I tell you? You are off of dusting duty, go switch out with someone else.” Lawrence wiped away the tears under his eyes and quickly switched out with someone who was writing in a journal. “Let’s cut to the chase. Why are you really here Sally? I could sit here and jabber all day long but I know it’s because of that guy. Who is he?” Sally looked like she was trying to contain something but I couldn’t tell what. Laughter or tears. 

“H-He is alive!” She shouted. Freddie’s expression changed into frustration quickly. 

“H-How is that possible? The netherworld is for dead people. Guards! Kill him, before I will. Then he will belong.” All of the henchmen start lunging at me, except Lawrence. He stayed cooped up in the corner, writing in the journal. One of the henchmen took out what looked like a stun gun. I ducked while he tried to hit me with it. 

“Stop! He doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe we should just get him back home, through the portal.” Sally exclaimed. 

“H-He got through the portal? T-The portal that I put you in charge of!” Sally’s face went white. 

“You work for him? I thought you hated him!” I point my finger at Sally. She starts sweating and pacing back and forth. Freddie’s hair then turned into fire. He was angry. He jumped up and started chasing me. I ran out of the vault and started running back in the direction of the portal in my netherworld garage. Sally eventually caught up with me. “What do you want? Traitor!” I run even faster in front of her. But it’s not use, she catches up with me. “Look, I wanted to tell you! Freddie is a manipulator and he uses me for his dirty work! I put that portal out in the open hoping it would attract someone and it did! I really like you, why don’t you just stay!” I look at her wild eyes and I speed up my running. I’m wondering why I haven’t gotten tired. I hear Freddie shouting at me behind us and when I look back he is joined by his henchmen and the guards that were at the front doors. 

“Yeah right! Stay and die here? No thanks! I have a wife at home. When I die, I want to die in the real world. When I do die, I’ll be sure to visit!” I say sarcastically. I finally see my red house coming up. I speed up and practically fly through the front door. Sally is right on my tail. I get ready to jump back through but she grabs my arm. She hugs me. I hug her back. “It was nice meeting you.” Then my expression changes. “Wait. What will he do to you?” Sally deflects me with a long sigh. 

“The worst he could do is dip me in lava, and trust me it’s not as bad as some of those other demons make it seem.” My mouth drops open but there’s not time to talk anymore. 

“Goodbye. See you when I die.” I wink at her and she rolls her eyes. I hear the door open and the sound of Freddie’s crackling hair come stomping through the house. I don’t want her to stay here and get tortured but she gestures for me to go. Tears well up and I jump through just as Freddie appears in the garage doorway. I cross over as I see Sally sock Freddie in the face. I land back in my garage. No red tint, no flames. I look back and the portal is gone. My car is back too. Looks like Brenda is home too. I open the door leading into my house and see Brenda holding her phone up to her ear. I slam the door shut and she instantly sees me. She runs up to me and hugs me. 

“Where have you been? I have been worried sick.” I console her and kiss her forehead. I chuckle slightly and look at her in her beautiful eyes.     

“Hell.”