AFTER

Michelle opened her eyes, startled that she could. After the startle wore off, she started to realize the oxygen hose that had irritated her nose so was gone, as was the intravenous and all the horrid tape on her arm. She then began to take in her surroundings. The faux pine paneling of the hospital room was missing; instead, there was sturdy, steady plaster walls over mirror-sheen marble floors. The lemon-tinged cleanser smell was missing, replaced with a slightly fresh but dusty taste. She began to stand, but then noticed someone beside her, helping vowel-laden gasp of “Oh!” to escape.

“Hullo,” the man said in a tone borrowing from ground tred flat by years of cattle passing over. He looked familiar, like someone seen week after week in a grocery store. “It’s good to see you’re finally all the way here.”

“What do you mean?” Michelle asked, trying to take in the total of the environs in a single glance. “What—all the way? I don’t understand.”

The man nodded with the weary resignation shared by sages upon mounts and the parents of five-year-olds near stoves. “I know. You will. You started appearing here, hm, about three months ago now? Welcome, finally, to the After.”

Still not understanding, Michelle looked around in a slightly slower fashion. “AFTER” was plastered across the wall at the corridor’s end. In contrast to the florid script, several closed humdrum panel doors bedecked the walls. Her new companion waved a careless hand toward the word.

“This is the After. You died in the Now about, I don’t know, with me it took a month or two, it felt longer watching you materialize. This is the After.” He let his gaze travel around the hall. “Not exactly what Sunday School said it’d be, is it?”

Michelle started. “How did you know? About Sunday School?”

His gaze suddenly bore the appearance of someone looking at a person with nine heads, forty seven eyes, and broccoli in the teeth. “Know what?”

Suddenly self conscious, she said, “That I taught Sunday School?” Before she even finished the sentence, he was shaking his head.

“I didn’t. But does any theory of after death sound so industrial? Or organized?”

“So I’m dead? That’s why I can breathe? That’s why my arm is better, and my leg isn’t broken?” Her hand rubbed the formerly offended limb in an absent manner as she spoke.

He nodded. “Yes. Now we’re just waiting for—well, what’s next.” At first appearing dissatisfied with the end of the statement, he nodded, implying it would have to do. Holding out his hand and half-smiling, he said, “I’m Drew.”

Something about that look clicked something in Michelle’s whirling mind. “This—I’m---this can’t—I’m DEAD?” She stared at her palms, then, catching sight of her unmarked, unneedled arm, unfractured leg, it all made sense. Far from anticipated screaming desire to return to life Michelle would have expected, a peaceful sense washed over her. She looked to her source of information. “I’m really dead. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d be truthful saying. So, now that I’m a ghost, is this Heaven? Purgatory?”

Something about ghost connected his somewhat-familiarity with a memory from bookstores and interviews and a squeaky, iron book rack badly in need of paint at the train station. Pointing too him after this epiphany, she said, half-accusing, “You’re K. I. LeGrange! You wrote all those horrid scary books!”

The half smile, almost a smirk, came back. “Yeah, I am. Well, was. The K. I. thing was a trick of my publisher’s, sort of spelling ‘KILL’ with my initials. I’m Kevin.” He rolled his eyes. “Not exactly terrifying, am I?”

Michelle sank back. How often had she tried to steer her classes away from such tripe? Was there no brightness in this person? No joy? When she asked this, Kevin’ smile widened.

“I know you’d think that, but truth is, after my first book was a success, people wanted more of the same thing. I became trapped by my own success.”

Michelle shrank back. “But to come up with such awful things! Werewolves and zombies and aliens that attack young girls! Sex scenes all throughout!” She shuddered. “Awful!”

Kevin shook his head. “I only ever wrote two love scenes. Granted, one WAS with a couple werewolves, but—“

“AHEM.” The new voice caused them both to jump. A primly dressed thin man with a thinner moustache stood in front of them. “Mr. LeGrange, it is your time. Are you QUITE prepared?”

Kevin sighed, looking back to Michelle, then at the floor. “Prepared….for eternity? Where I will spend from now….on?” A tiny shrug moved his shoulders, then, looking up at the new man, “Bring it on.”

The reed-like man nodded. This was accompanied by the sound of tall grass blowing in a spring breeze. “This way.”

The second door opened. Growling, snarling, the sounds of razor like claws on stone filled the hallway. A mist issued forth, first thin and wispy, smelling of moth balls, then thickening, becoming more damp. Kevin stood, looked to Michelle. “See you around, I suppose.” He walked toward the door. A mammoth hand, fingers extending in dripping ichor, came close and grabbed Kevin by the side.

“We’re TIRED, DADDY,” a chorus sounded from the door. “YOU KEPT US WAITING!” The arm pulled Kevin in, taking him off his feet and a low laugh echoed throughout. “YOU ARE FINALLY HERE! NOW WE CAN DO ALL THE BAD YOU CREATED US FOR!”

Michelle shrank back, but still watched, both anxious to see and repelled by the thought of seeing. Kevin got to one knee as all manner of horrors he’d created surrounded him. He looked back at her, sadness and regret in his eyes. A howl wavered through somewhere behind him until the door snapped shut, leaving her alone in the hallway.

She nodded to herself, assured that Kevin was where he deserved to be after creating all those monstrosities. Her life had been spent steering people away from all that, toward the righteous path. She had never let her mind go toward the darkness, she believed what she’d been taught.

Time passed. She thought about her life, how the seat beneath her became cushioned when she thought it was too hard, she’d miss the occasional milkshakes she’d allowed herself, she hoped no one else was too hurt by her accident, would her family be nearby when her time came?

Mr. Reed appeared again. “Miss Hylund, it is your time. Are you QUITE prepared?”

She looked up at him. “I am quite ready, thank you.”

Another door opened. Mr. Reed helped her up, then they strolled toward the opening. What delights awaited, she wondered. There was no sound. Not smell. She stood before the door, saw only a grey room.

“Is this…it?” She turned to the thin man. “What---why is this like this?”

He pushed her toward the grey. “Here in the AFTER we reside in what we create. You saw Mr. LeGrange, he stays in the worlds he created.”

“But—he made such awful things! I never did that!”

“No. He created from himself and offered it to others He made worlds. You didn’t. You created nothing. Nothing for others, nothing for yourself. That is your reality. That is your eternity. That is your existence.” A small push, and the Nothing of the After enveloped her. The door click/slammed behind her, and she became one with the nothing beyond.