It was quiet enough that he should have been able to hear her breathing. But as much as he strained his ears to catch the familiar sound, he couldn't hear it.
Maybe she wasn't breathing. That would certainly fit in with everything else about this place. But there were also crickets chirping in the woods outside, as loud a chorus as God ever made, and it seemed illogical, even paradoxical, that the afterlife wouldn't include human breath among its night music.
He inhaled and exhaled deliberately loud, just as a reminder that he was breathing, had been breathing ever since he woke up in his bed the previous night. Had it really been twenty-four hours already? It didn't feel like it. Twenty-four hours passing meant hunger, body odor, five o'clock shadow. He hadn't gone to the bathroom even once since he got there, and that definitely wasn't normal.
Not that he had been considered "normal" to begin with. Long before people were joking about real fingers in the Butterfingers, there was "doing a Dahmer", and long before there was a 250-page confession, there were dark thoughts lingering at the back of his mind, waiting to overtake him. And they always did...
He crawled over to Evelyn and felt the inside of her wrist, searching for a pulse. Unable to find it, he leaned forward and pressed his ear against her chest, careful to keep his touch light.
Crunching grass eclipsed the crickets. He raised his head and listened.
The footsteps stopped near the wall of one of the empty, unkempt stalls. He heard muffled voices, three of them. They sounded young, and they were obviously male.
Something must have happened to Martin, he thought bleakly. He cast a glance back at Evelyn. The flashlight she'd brought with her lay next to her head. He snatched it up and hurried to the door.
The flashlight beam winked on underneath his chin. It's only a dying man's dream, he reminded himself. Once his fingers settled around the bolt, he flung it open.
He didn't believe it when he first saw them, standing there startled and squinting in the white light. But there was Derf's skinny, pale body, Mike's bushy brows, and Neil's curly hair, just as he remembered.
"Dahmer?" Derf lowered his arms. "What the hell are you doing way out here?"
Jeff stared at his three old friends, his face an unreadable mask, his eyes blank behind his glasses.
"I thought you were somebody else," he finally said. His voice sounded distant and flat.
"What do you mean? Who did you think we were?"
"People who want to hurt me."
"Haven't you noticed that we're dead?"
Again Jeff fell silent.
"You didn't know, then. Well, everyone has that moment when they realize..." Derf shrugged. "Ours was when a trigger-happy idiot at a gas station went nuts and opened fire. Neil here got shot right between the eyes."
"Yeah, but I couldn't feel it." Neil reached up to rub his forehead, where no sign of a wound remained. "I didn't even know what had happened until genius here started screaming 'Neil, there's a fucking hole in your head!'"
Though it was morbid, Neil's exaggerated reenactment of Mike shrieking made them laugh. Even Jeff couldn't help but smile. For a few moments, it was just like old times.
Derf's mirth died down first. He wrapped his arms around himself. "Hey, is it any warmer in there than out here?" he asked.
Martin was right—it got cold at night.
"Maybe a little bit," Jeff mumbled.
"A little bit is better than nothing."
Mike took a step forward. Before he could come any closer, Jeff blocked the way.
"What gives?" Derf asked. "You got a dead body in there or something?"
His tone was meant to be light, but Jeff felt a darkness. The warmth he had derived from the reunion turned chill.
"No, I... uh... There's a girl in there."
"A girl?" Mike echoed, his eyes wide.
Jeff's face flushed.
Derf snorted. "It's not like Dahmer's getting any action."
Neil elbowed him. "Don't be such a prick. You don't know for sure."
"Is she cute? What's her name?" Mike pressed.
"Uh, Susan." He wasn't sure why he lied.
"Well, can we see her?"
"No."
"Aw, c'mon! This is what friends are for!"
Jeff's eyes darted, looking anywhere but at them. "Don't... don't you guys know where we are?"
"Bumfuck, Michigan. Why?"
"How did you get here?"
"Well, we started out driving, but then the whole thing happened at the gas station and we had to run. We've been on foot ever since."
"And what are you doing here, Jeff?" Neil asked.
"I'm just resting here a while."
Mike sighed. "Is there really a girl, or are you just pulling our leg?"
"And even if there is a girl, unless she's naked or something, why can't we go in?" Derf persisted.
Jeff hesitated. "If I let you in, will you promise not to bother her? She's sleeping."
"Yeah, sure," Derf replied. "I just want to get out of this cold."
"Don't worry, we'll be quiet and respectful," Neil added. Mike nodded in humble agreement.
Jeff looked at each of their faces. On the grounds of their being his old friends, he felt obligated to help them. But there was no way they didn't know what he had done. They would've heard all about it in the news. They would remember, and nothing would ever be the same.
He opened the door slowly, wincing as the rusty hinges creaked. With his back to it still, he saw their expressions change, warping with surprise, before he saw what they were reacting to.
The darkness within the barn was all-encompassing, preventing them from seeing Evelyn. Instead, Lloyd Figg was standing at the center of the void, big and dumb and grinning. At his feet was a whimpering Frisky, her neck held in his enormous hands.
Jeff's heart leaped into his throat. Lloyd Figg had made a hobby out of running over small dogs with his car when they were kids.
"Get away from my dog!" he shouted, and even to him it sounded absurd. The Dahmer Fan Club showing up without warning, he could accept that, but not this. This could not be real. It was too nightmarish.
Figg let go of her, and with a wild shriek, he rushed at the Dahmer Fan Club.
The three boys scattered, running in different directions, their intended destination forgotten as Figg chased them across the field. No doubt they believed Dahmer had played a dirty trick on them.
But Jeff hardly noticed what was happening. Dropping to one knee, he wrapped his arms around Frisky's neck, his fingers digging into soft black fur.
He'd gotten her when he was six. By the time he was eighteen, she was rickety, sickly, old. But in his memory she would always be an energetic puppy, hopping up to lick his face, her tail wagging happily.
His face pinched against slobber. He'd taken a picture of Frisky with him to college, perhaps sensing that she wouldn't be with him much longer, but he hadn't cried when his father called to tell him she was gone—he'd already shed all his tears for himself.
Sniffling, he staggered back into the darkness of the barn. Frisky followed at his side, sticking close to him.
He wanted to wake up. It didn't matter if he opened his eyes in the black confines of a coffin, or if the only consciousness he could muster was from scattered ashes and a dissected brain. Anything was better than this.
Figg's freakish howling was growing distant. He collapsed on his makeshift bedding, clutching Frisky, and squeezed his eyes shut.
The sunlight that filtered through the gaps in the roof was dark and murky. It was early morning when he rose. Frisky had disappeared, or perhaps she had never been there to begin with.
The air had thickened. His skin felt odd—cool and damp, but stinging a little too, the way a papercut would when you covered your hands in sanitizer. After a few minutes of searching the boxes and bags Martin had left them, he found a change of clothes.
Outside, a fog had settled over the field. Martin's white truck was parked a few feet away. It was covered in dirt and something glistening and yellowish. Jeff squinted and realized it was egg yolk.
He walked around the barn twice, sweeping the road and surrounding woods, but he didn't see anyone. Trying to be quick, he went around to the side facing away from the road and stripped off the clothes he had thrown on when he woke up in Bath.
The new jeans and long-sleeved blue shirt fit better than expected. He yanked on the jeans with no problems, but buttoned the shirt halfway before realizing he had started with the wrong button, making the whole thing cockeyed.
"Nice outfit!"
His head snapped up. Martin was walking out of the woods, a bucket dangling from either hand.
"Um. Thanks," Jeff murmured, hurriedly fixing the buttons.
Martin walked to his car and set the buckets on the ground. They were full of soapy water, each with a large yellow sponge floating on the surface.
"Care to help?"
Jeff put his shoes on and silently walked over. Martin handed him a sponge.
"I noticed the door to the barn was open when I came back last night. You know anything about that?"
"No."
"I went out last night looking for trouble. Couldn't find any, so I came back here. It only took me a minute to close that door, but when I turned around my car had gotten egged."
Martin cast him a sideways glance, expecting some response. Jeff sighed.
"Some old friends of mine came to visit."
"And did you open the door for them?"
"It doesn't matter," he snapped. "I'm dead and this is all just a dream!"
"That kind of attitude won't do you any good, Jeff." Martin wiped off his side mirror. "Sure, you can't die a second time, but you certainly can suffer. So can the people around you. That's why you've got to care."
Jeff squeezed the sponge, making foam ooze out between his fingers. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. What is this place? Why are we here?"
"I have a theory that we're in Sheol."
"What?"
Martin leaned forward. "In the King James Bible, it's translated into 'hell', along with Gehenna and Hades, two other completely different places. Sheol is the grave, a place of darkness and stillness, where everyone goes to wait for judgement. Gehenna, on the other hand, is where the wicked go to suffer. And Hades, well, it's Greek, not Hebrew."
"Then I am in hell."
"Why is Evelyn in hell with you?"
"I don't know," Jeff mumbled. He broke eye contact with Martin and went back to washing the truck.
"If this is hell, it's not so bad. Actually, it's sort of funny—you don't have to eat and drink, but you still want to. And even though you're dead, you get tired and want to sleep." Martin began washing his windshield. "It doesn't make any logical sense for the dead to have sex. So why do you think there are folks like Jim running around?"
Jeff's brow furrowed. "Why are you asking me?"
"He came after you, didn't he?" Martin picked up the bucket. "What you were in life is reflected in death, but distorted and broken. The mirror is shattered."
He dumped the water on the hood, rinsing away the soap. Jeff took a step back, hesitant.
"I don't feel the same."
Martin grabbed the other bucket and walked to the rear of the truck. "Nobody does. I guess that's what happens when you boil away the physical aspect of life. Without all that, what's left of you?"
The door to the barn opened, and Evelyn stepped out. She too had changed into something else.
"A dress and sneakers—you're a funny girl, little miss."
Evelyn smiled. The dress was pale gray, with long sleeves that draped from her arms. Jeff was reminded of the wings of a moth.
"Help me load the stuff back up, and we'll head out. The faster it gets done, the faster you get to where you're going."
