~ ~ ~
Jace stared up at the moonless sky. He heard loud country music coming from Merrick’s kitchen and grinned despite himself. He would have never taken the man for a redneck. Merrick’s preference for music aside; he was full of information about this new world. Oblivion it was called. No sun, no moon, and no stars greeted him each day. Time passed with agonizing slowness.
His face grew tense. This place wasn’t Hell but close enough in his opinion. The monstrous Deadheads aside; there were other dangers. Demons were an issue. They wanted the soul he still retained. Merrick said the demons came in many forms and to trust no one. It was his motto. He’d been tied to this place for over forty years after he was murdered by a fellow gang member.
Merrick’s advice was priceless and few. The three rules he drilled into him were followed to a tee that first week. He didn’t have a problem staying away from the Deadheads. He didn’t fail to cooperate in Merrick teaching him to survive. What he couldn’t promise is not to try and reach back into his former life to let Lindsay know he was alright.
It was possible, Merrick told him. All he had to do is learn how to project his consciousness. Ripples existed that separated this place from the world. Projection involved using his mind to breech the dimensional fold between life and Oblivion. The rippling membrane was visible and appeared out of nowhere. One only had to walk through it.
He was to find it was not as easy as he thought. He was a fledgling Newbie, as Merrick would say. Besides learning to survive down here; he was expected to defend those like Merrick who guided those like him, saving them from both Deadheads and demons alike. That involved guns; he was to learn.
“Hey! Crackerboy! Where are you at, kid?” Merrick called out. “I hope you like your burger medium well.”
Jace shrugged. The desire to eat was gone since he arrived. It was optional, much like drinking. Using the restroom was no longer necessary either. Sleep was something he missed. He had the hardest time getting used to that. He recalled staying up all night with Lindsay studying for his SAT exam. He didn’t get tired anymore.
The nights blended with the day in this dark place. If not for Merrick marking each hour by his watch, he wouldn’t know what day it was or what time. The slow passing of every day was agonizing, but Merrick insisted he train.
Training involved weapons. Merrick had an arsenal in the warehouse downstairs. Jace met only one person since he arrived. A Latino woman named Drea came by the third day he was here. She was as tiny as Lindsay but she was tough, dressed in fatigues and her pretty features tightened in disapproval every time she looked at him. Her hair was cut short and she carried a huge pistol on her hip. She knew how to use it too, as he was to learn, when the three of them shot at targets behind the warehouse.
“Cracker-Jace! Where you at, boy?”
He came in from the fire escape and joined Merrick in the kitchen. The man seemed to enjoy cooking, even if they no longer had to eat to survive. It was more of a ritual for Merrick than anything else. The kitchen was filled with the smells of fried cheese and questionable meat. Jace doubted many cows were around Oblivion and didn’t want to ask what Merrick ate in a patty form.
The black man had his fatigue shirt off and wore only a black tank underneath. He had a myriad of tattoos from his time as a gangbanger back in the late seventies.
Merrick handed him a plate and Jace took it. Merrick knew he wouldn’t eat it, but he would sit and watch him, feeling obligated to play out this daily ritual Merrick insisted on. Dinner was one of those things Merrick clung to from his mortal life.
Jace looked around the gourmet kitchen, thinking Merrick lived well here. The warehouse was impenetrable. Deadheads feared Merrick and those like him, but the demons preyed on them all.
They promised a ticket out of Oblivion at a price. The price was the soul. Merrick claimed the demons could restore life, but the demon lied too. He insisted the demon’s sole purpose was to undermine those trapped here in ever evolving to the next level; redemption.
Jace sat at the kitchen table and watched Merrick eat the burger and set his plate down. He knew the man did him the biggest favor by training him to survive down here, but his duty to Lindsay and the kids played with his mind now.
“You got somethin’ on your mind, kid?” Merrick asked with a knowing look. “You got all quiet on me.”
“You’ve been here forty years, Merrick,” Jace said as he pushed the plate away from him. “Do you ever wonder why?”
The man frowned and took a bite out of his mystery meat patty. He chewed thoughtfully. He wiped his lips and sat back, his brown eyes filled with sudden anger.
“You think I don’t know?”
“If this isn’t Hell; than what is it? You’re stuck here. Drea is stuck here, all the others. I’m trying to understand.”
Merrick looked annoyed. “All I’m gonna say is that your time here doesn’t depend on the mistakes you made in life, kid. I wasn’t a good man back then. I killed men. I sold drugs to kids. I even stole from old people. I’m just as surprised I’m not in the basement right now with the other sinners.”
“That’s the point I’m trying to make. None of this makes sense of what I was led to believe of Heaven and Hell.”
“You know your bible, kid?”
Jace looked uncomfortable. “My ma used to take us to church until she got sick. I know some.”
Merrick tossed the napkin on the plate and sat back and eyed Jace thoughtfully. “You’re trying to find out what you did to be here, am I right?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what’s buggin’ me the most. I can’t recall doing anything so bad I’d be trapped here.”
“Being in Oblivion ain’t about punishment, Jace. That’s what you don’t get. You aren’t being punished by being here.”
“Why am I here than?” Jace demanded angrily, his dark eyes flashing. “I did everything my ma ever asked of me. I took care of my family. I did everything right! I don’t deserve this!”
Merrick eyed him in amusement. “Drea was a nun before she got here.”
Jace’s eyes widened. Merrick laughed bitterly.
“Yeah, now tell me she deserves to be here? Does that answer your question?”
“No, it doesn’t! I’m not satisfied with that.”
“Jace, you were murdered too, just like us. Someone else’s will cut your life short. Do you want to know what I think?”
“Please, tell me something to make sense of this,” Jace demanded in frustration.
“I think we’re here because we weren’t meant to die. Our plan got changed by some asshole and that’s it.”
“That’s not what I was looking for.”
“Drea was walking home from her church and three guys jumped her and raped her,” Merrick said in a hard tone. “The third guy was worried she’d ID them to the cops so he shot her in the head. You think she deserved this after going through that?”
Jace stiffened to hear about what happened to Drea in life, shuddering from the thought of it. His expression and silence seemed to please Merrick. The black man lit a cigarette and took a long drag, exhaling and smiling sadly.
“That’s when you know life ain’t fair and death is worse, Jace. Nobody knows it better than Drea.”
“Why so long? I guess that’s what I question. You’ve been here over forty years. She’s been here for twenty. Seems to me; this is punishment.”
“It seems to me it’s an extension of life, Jace. Maybe not back where we want to be, but it’s not the end.”
Jace reflected his words in miserable silence. If what Merrick said was true, he could be here a long time. It tortured him. He wasn’t in denial anymore. He was dead. Knowing what happened to him seemed pointless now, but Merrick insisted he still keep trying to remember.
Everything went blank after Cameron got out of the truck to piss on the side of the road. One minute he was adjusting the radio, the next he woke in the alley. Merrick insisted it would all come b
ack to him. He also claimed it would help with his feeling of being lost and his anger. The anger was the worst. The rage he felt was such he was shocked by it.
“You want answers. I get it. I’ve been where you are. Trust me I didn’t have no black fairy godfather waitin’ for me when I got here. I had to fend for myself. That’s why me and the others started this group. We thought if we helped people sent here it would get us out of here faster.”
“It doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.”
Merrick laughed at his disgusted words. “No, but it’s better than the alternative. How far do you think you would have gotten if I hadn’t been there for you, kid?”
“Not far.”
“Do yourself a favor and pay it forward. Ain’t got nothin’ to gain or lose in it. The more of us; the less vulnerable we are to the demons out there.”
“Yeah about them. What do they look like?”
“They could be anybody. Could look like me for all you know. You can tell by the eyes. That gives them away. The eyes are solid black and no soul in them. You ever get face to face with one of them you do what I tell you. They use whatever form they can to get into your mind and steal that last piece of life you have left.”
“Why do they want these souls?”
“Drea says they have to get so many to please their master.”
“The Devil, you think?”
“Maybe, but after forty years I’m thinkin’ there ain’t much difference between either of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“What kind of God asks for suffering and penance to join him in his house? What kind of God allows what happens back in the world? You start to ask what the difference between God and the Devil is. After a while it ain’t nothin’ but geography, kid. Up or down, and that’s the truth of it. I ain’t seen nothin’ here to convince me otherwise.”
Jace thought about his mom. Dawn Turner had been as selfless as she was kind, beautiful and devoted to her family. The one wrong decision his mother ever made was marrying Everett Turner.
She worked her fingers to the bone cleaning offices to make the bills while her husband stayed drunk. Then she got sick, passing the torch on to her son. Then, he was cut down for his trouble. It wasn’t fair, none of it.
“You’ve been here for forty years and don’t even know if there’s a God?” Jace asked in astonishment.
Merrick chuckled. “He has his hands full upstairs, I’m guessin’. Don’t look so pissed off about it. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you get to meet the boss right off.”
Jace glared at Merrick. “Great, guess nothing really changed then. I still don’t know anything.”
“Oh plenty changed. You getting cut down before your time effects everybody in your past life. Things that should have happened won’t now. That causes lots of problems. That’s why we don’t go back. You can’t fix none of it. They have to find their way back on their own.”
Jace thought of Lindsay and his family and tensed. “What do you mean? What happens to them?”
Merrick blew a perfect smoke ring before he put the cigarette out on his plate. His dark eyes looked murky and bleak. “Kid, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.”
“I want to know.”
“Everything goes to shit right on down the line. That girl of yours you told me about? You ain’t there now. That effects decisions she would have made, had you lived. She ain’t gonna make them now. That changes the course of her life, good or bad. Same with your family.”
Jace felt a sense of helplessness again to know Lindsay would be affected by his death. He thought of her dream to be a doctor one day. He thought of Dougie and Sara. His heart hurt to know there was nothing he could do for them.
“What if I gave them some sign I’m ok so they stay on course?”
Merrick looked angry. “You can’t go back, Jace. You open doors between this world and that one you’re askin’ for trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“That’s what the demons want us to do, Jace. They want out of here too. You manage to get through the doorway you open the door for them. They could follow you there. You don’t want that, trust me.”
“But it’s possible? I could help them get through this so their life doesn’t get screwed up.”
“Yeah, it’s possible. Anything is possible. You’re in Oblivion, Jace. You’re gonna find out real fast what you can and can’t do. What you have to ask is whether it’s worth the risk. Those demons would go after everything you love back there.”
“Sounds like you did it before,” Jace remarked quietly, seeing the turmoil in Merrick’s expression.
Merrick looked away. “Yeah, I had a woman when I died. She was havin’ my kid. I wanted to make sure she was alright. I went back and did that ghost thing for a time. Scared the hell out of her but she knew it was me. A demon followed me and pretended to be me. See they can take to flesh form, unlike us. She thought it was me. The demon took both of them. That’s what I got for trying to fix things, kid. Got a two for one special that demon did, and I gotta live with it.”
Jace looked miserable. “What if you could close this door behind you or whatever it is, so they couldn’t follow?”
Merrick looked disapproving. “I guess you get a friend to close it behind ya it might work. Ain’t worth the grief. Somethin’ goes wrong and you’re stuck there.”
“Wouldn’t that be better than this?”
“I think you need to realize something right off,” Merrick snapped. “Staying in that place as a ghost ain’t any fun, trust me.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Why don’t you learn the ropes down here, Jace? Get a handle on who whacked ya and why, and worry about the other stuff some other time.”
Jace could see Merrick didn’t approve of his considering going back. That was when he made the decision he was going. He would learn all he needed to know from Drea and Merrick. He was opening the doorway and going back.
Everything he went through in his life wasn’t going to be for nothing. So what if he wandered for eternity as a ghost? If he could help Lindsay and his family, it was worth it.