Chapter One

Of course you don't die.
Nobody dies.
Death doesn't exist.
You only reach a new level of vision,
a new realm of consciousness,
a new unknown world.

- Henry Miller

Someone once said that everything needed to know about a person can be learned from the way that they drive. If a person breezed through stop signs and red lights at every opportunity, then they were either reckless or in a great hurry. If someone hunched over the dashboard and kept their hands at ten-and-two, then they were careless, cautious people – someone that might not be open to new experiences.

As she careened into the tree, tires screeching and horn blaring, Andy Kapesky thought about what this said about her. Did wrecking the car mean she was someone who often made mistakes in life or were sometimes accidents just that? She didn't know what to make of the whole ordeal; this shouldn't even be happening. She didn't get into traffic accidents. That happened to other people.

Screaming, loud and shrill, filled the air. She thought the sound barrier would break and shatter it was so loud. After that thought passed, she realized she was the one screaming. Scared? Was she scared? She wasn't sure. She must be, given that even fully aware the sounds she was making, she couldn't stop them.

Like her, the tree was young, tall, and strong. Before the front of her car struck the wood, she knew that the impact would probably end her life. Her car was old; it got its first dent from her shoe accidentally glancing the door... it would be crushed just like an aluminum can, folded up into layers of metal. And then the two collided – the tree, an immovable object and her car, a piece of play-dough.

From there, everything sped up. Crack. For all she knew, it could have been bones breaking, but it was the windshield. Shards of glass moved like tiny missiles, covering everywhere, piercing everything. Tiny cuts, blood, and pain. Pain? It was mostly shock. Andy flew forward, a bird taking flight, and hit the tree.

There was black, inky darkness – no, brown and green. Dirt, lots of it, covered her; it was under her fingernails and in her mouth. Her arms made to push herself upward before her mind could process what had happened. Bent from pressure, the grass beneath her slowly began to right itself. What? She remembered flying through the air. She even remembered seeing the tree, seeing the tiny, intimate ridges on the bark. She did not remember anything after that – certainly not skidding partway into the forest.

"Yuck!" She spat out chunks of dirt and grass. Had someone moved her away from the car? The tree... she hadn't hit it? Brushing herself off, she turned around.

Even though she'd rather not, she could see the sides of her car peeking around the wide oakwood. All logistics stated that she could not have been thrown through the tree, nor around it. A logical thinker by nature, Andy knew immediately that the facts did not line up. In fact, she was sure that any idiot could have figured out that something here was very, very wrong. She moved around to the side of the accident, right on the ledge where road met grass, and stared.

She had been right about the aluminum-can-effect that the tree would have on her car. The front seats butted against the dashboard. The drivers door was laying on the ground, completely unhinged. The car was now half the length it should be. Her primary concern, however, was the crumpled body that rested against the tree, right atop the equally-crumpled hood of her car. The body looked in danger of slipping off onto the ground.

"No," Andy bleated. It was the only logical conclusion to draw; there had been no passengers in her car, no one had been around to watch the crash, and, obviously, no one had yet gone past. But it couldn't be. That would be illogical. That would be insane – not even possible.

Nonetheless, the body wore tights and a clingy dress. Andy glanced down at her own dirt-covered, but perfectly-intact clothing; she wore gray tights and a white, clingy dress. The shape of the clothing on the body was distinct, all tears and discoloration aside. "No," she said. Unfortunately, there was really no denying it: that was her body.

Even at a distance it was obvious that there was no hope for survival; her upper body looked to be half-crushed, her head was split open, and her long and matted locks looked as if she'd dyed them red. The scene was equal parts disgusting and pitiful. Andy was fairly certain she could see one of her shoes wedged between the steering wheel and the drivers seat. No, she decided, it was more than disgusting... it was down-right repulsive; even so, she found that she couldn't look away.

She felt like herself... her body felt the same as it always had, but here was proof that stated she had not survived the crash. If her new-stomach would quit being peaceful, then she would throw up. After a quick pinch assured her that she could feel no pain, Andy decided that her soul had been thrown from the wreckage.

Andy was not a god-fearing woman. She hadn't even been sure she believed in any God. Now, she hoped and prayed that there existed a Heaven and a Hell. What was she supposed to do? She acknowledged that the body was hers, that she was no longer living, but that seemed to be the end of all revelations. Surely the afterlife couldn't be an eternity of wandering around; if everyone that died stayed on Earth like she was now, then there would be so many dead people that they'd be packed like canned sardines.

Maybe she wouldn't go anywhere until her body was disposed of in some fashion. Perhaps she wouldn't go to Heaven or Hell until someone pronounced her dead... yes, that had to be it. Anything that lent hope to the idea that there was more to come, even Hell, seemed like a reasonable explanation.

These explanations meant she would have to wait. Someone would have to drive by, spot the accident, and call it in. Depending on the person, they might waste time staring and gaping at her body. Next would come the ambulances and police cars; they would spend an extraordinary amount of time doing nothing before they did anything at all, as was the way with law enforcement.

Stress caught up to her in that moment. She tried to picture what she would look like – her, not her body – if viewed by an observer. A girl scowling at the sight of her own mangled body, how silly. In near hysteria and dreadfully close to crying, Andy began to laugh.

Andys mother, Madeline Kapesky, once said that laughter could cure a broken heart, but she had not meant it in the literal sense. The thought of her mother, innocently going about her day, still unaware that her middle child had died, sent a wave of guilt over her. She would be the cause of her pain, however accidental it would be. Knowing the thought of her sister and brother would make the guilt worse, she chose to pretend that they had already heard the news and knew her strange plight.

"Stay positive!" Katlin, her younger sister, would coach her. "Where's the girl who used to play make-believe with me?"

Her brother would be harsh in his grieving state and, instead of comforting, would advise, "Take care of getting answers. You know nothing about the afterlife, get your head out of the clouds and do something productive." She felt slightly cheered by imagining that she needed the comfort, not her family.

Imaginary advice in mind, Andy turned to watch the road.

The road was completely empty – no cars in sight. Dusk had fallen. Crickets chirped a tuneless song, fireflies floated like tiny lanterns, and neither cared that someone had died in their midst. To Andy, this sort of peaceful beauty was a sign that this road was rarely used. It had to have been at least an hour by now... someone had to come down this way at some point. What if it took hours? What was she supposed to do out here for hours? What if there were bears or wolves? She smacked herself, slightly amused by the worry of wild animals. Dead people didn't have to worry about dying.

Like a ray of hope, she saw a figure coming around the bend. Whoever it was was walking, hands jammed into their pockets, and seemed to be in no rush. The mountain she had wrecked on was known for its winding roads, beautiful and uninhabited; not many people lived out this way. Andy figured it must be someone who had gotten stranded – perhaps they'd been walking for a few hours by now. The trek to the city from this point was a long one, and any sane person would have called for a ride... even if they had to call for someone that lived an hour or two away.

As the stranger sauntered closer, Andy was able to get a good look at him. He was tall, had tattoos covering his arms, and appeared to have the deviant aura of a criminal. If he were walking, then he probably didn't own a cell phone. He wouldn't be able to call 911 for her. Hell, this man looked as if he might steal the purse right from her car, provided it was intact. She was sure he couldn't see her, he was alive and she was dead, but the thought crossed her mind that she didn't have proof of that just yet.

"Hey!" Andy yelled, standing up and facing him. Her arms crossed and one foot tapping the ground, she took the stance of someone that had been waiting days for his arrival. The stranger continued walking in a straight line, never veering.

Even when his course took him away from the edge of the road, he continued walking on an imaginary line. He strode through the grass and, eventually, Andy realized that his path was designed to take him directly to where she stood. Not her body – her. Her faith in his inability to see her wavered, but remained intact. Living people did not see dead people and he'd shown no response to her yelling: he couldn't see her.

When he came to a halt directly in front of her, she was still admiring the strong planes of his face. Black eyes, no emotion tangible within them, rested on her face. Andy felt a tremor of fear; he could see her, he could see her... he could see her and he did not look like the kind of man you wanted to be seen by, under any circumstances.

"Adeline Kapesky?" His voice sounded strange to her ears, soft and calm, but entirely monotone.

"I'm dead," she said, as if he might not have realized it otherwise.

"Andy?"

"How do you know my name?"

The mans eyes darkened further, twinkling now with some emotion that Andy wasn't familiar with. She had a bad feeling about this. A person shows up in the middle of nowhere, can see her even though she's dead, and already has her name. The only thing that kept her rooted to the spot was the idea that this man must know other things in addition to her whereabouts and name. Finally, he flashed her a grin. It made her skin crawl and the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

He leaned forward, eyes on hers, and took her hand in his. The grip he had was like steel, and his skin felt nothing like skin at all – in fact, he felt scaly. Head cocking to the side like a confused puppy, he asked, "Wouldn't you rather know what comes next?"

"I guess, but-"

"Follow me."

Frustration bubbled up within her as the man dropped her hand, turned, and began walking back in the same direction he'd come from. She wanted to scream at him, wanted to complain about having to die so young, wanted to ask him questions and actually get answers. Finally, she snapped.

Andy stormed after him and grabbed at his shirt. He spun around and made to speak, but she cut him off. "TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!" Andy found herself unable to speak at a normal volume. "TELL ME WHY YOU'RE HERE AND WHERE WE'RE GOING." Panting, she glared expectantly.

"Follow me, or fade away," he snapped, not sounding as if he cared one way or the other. Andy wasn't sure she understood what that meant. The tone of his voice had not given infliction to any word, and she couldn't tell if 'fade' should be taken literally or figuratively. He continued walking.

Andy shot a quick glance behind her at the wreckage. Leaving her body behind would be a big step; it'd be almost like forfeiting any right to answers. Then again, her best bet for answers was leaving her behind without a second thought. Decision made, she jogged to catch up with man.

They walked together, side-by-side, at the pace of schoolchildren stalling on their way to class, but this seemed only to bother Andy. When the road curved and stretched out before her to show miles of endless, rolling pasture, she decided there was need to break the silence.

"Can you tell me your name?" She purposefully did not look at him, already deciding that he would be expressionless anyway. Obviously, this was a person that did not like to be pushed. A new tactic would have to be used here – she couldn't demand, she had to act as if these questions were meant to fill the silence... instead of questions meant to soothe rabid curiosity.

"Garret," he said, just when the lengthy pause threatened to make Andy burst apart with anticipation.

"I'm Andy."

"I know."

She couldn't help peeking to make sure he remained as expressionless as he sounded. It isn't in human nature to be expressionless. Even the most calm, collected individuals give off some sort of signal to their feelings.

When she looked, she saw him tense and swivel his head back towards the road. Having been caught, she looked away too. He had been peering at her, watching her.

After deliberation, Andy concluded that there were three reasons to watch someone: you needed or wanted to see their reaction to something, you wanted to analyze their reasoning or motivation for something they said or did, or you were needed to be sure that they would or wouldn't do something.

This Garret person must want to see her reaction; she felt reassured knowing that he was able to harbor curiosity. She was familiar with curiosity; every living, breathing person on the planet got curious at some point in their lives.

Living, breathing people got curious; she was struck so suddenly by the thought that she stopped moving. Andy was dead and she still felt, but maybe that wasn't the case for all dead people. It hadn't occurred to her that Garret might be dead, too. He stopped a few feet ahead of her, twisting around to frown at her.

"Are you dead?" Andy asked, overcome by the revelation. Garrets eyes narrowed and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Of course," he said, sounding perplexed. "The living can't see the dead." Andy blinked and smiled. If he could be forthcoming with answers, then perhaps her first impression had been wrong. She started walking again. He fell into step beside her.

"Shouldn't you be sad?" Garrets unprompted question made Andy jump in surprise. She placed a hand over her rapidly beating heart and promptly wondered why it was beating at all.

"I didn't want to die, if that's what you're asking."

"But you did."

"Exactly."

She wondered if he were trying to depress her. Andy had always believed that having a positive outlook on life – and death, it would seem – was the only way to live happily. Whenever you're feeling sad, find something to be happy about. Whenever something bad happens, find an adventure in it. Her twenty years life experience had taught her those two things, if nothing else.

Garret was staring, unabashed, and she took it upon herself to notice that his eyes sparkled with something like fondness. Realizing he could feel somehow enabled Andy to see the quick flickers of emotion in otherwise blank eyes. She gave him her wide, unassuming grin; she knew for a fact that it disarmed men. He blinked and looked away, squaring his shoulders as if determined to have the posture of a statue.

Andy began walking on the white road line, putting one foot perfectly in front of the other and using out-stretched arms to keep balance. "Hey," she started softly, keeping her gaze on her next step, "where are we going?"

The question made her feel oddly vulnerable. If he refused to answer, then she would be blindly following a stranger. If he did answer, then she might not like where they were headed. Plus he could lie. She didn't exactly have someplace else to go, so, matter what he said, she would still follow him.

She felt dependent on Garret, which was frightening on more than one level; he might be unable to hurt her body, but she remembered him saying 'fade away' with what now felt like a great deal of finality.

One foot in front of the other, drop the right arm, don't leave the line... Andy walked along, waiting for his answer in perfect silence. She had never had this much patience with anyone else. Something about Garret made her decide that her wild temper would not help get answers any faster.

He sighed, and she pivoted to walk backwards. She watched him with an eagle eye. Garret ran a hand through his short, cropped hair and told her, "We're going to the waiting room." His eyes avoided hers after that.

The waiting room sounded straight-forward; it was most likely a place to wait. It was the immediate 'wait for what' that messed with Andy's mind. Wait to go to Heaven or Hell? Wait to fade away? Wait to move to the next room? The possibilities seemed endless.

Her thoughts were derailed when Garret sped up and walked right past her. Turning back around, she hurried beside him. After a quick, almost unnoticeable glance, Garret moved to put a good three foot between them. Andy pretended not to notice.

Tentatively, she moved towards him and nudged his arm with the cautiousness of a gazelle stepping over a lion. "Is something bothering you?"

"No."

"You just seem a little on edge, is all..." Andy hedged, watching his lips tighten into a thin line and his eyes darken with what she knew – for sure this time – was anger. What a strange person, she thought to herself. This virtual stranger, in his own way, was here for the beginning to her entire afterlife; she couldn't help feeling attached to him in the same way she was attached to her first Barbie doll. Trying to convey this, she offered, "I just don't want you to be upset. You can tell me what's wrong... or not, if you'd rather."

Garret twisted and bore down on her like a cobra set in front of a mouse. The five inches he had on her suddenly seemed like five feet as he loomed over her, closer than ever before. "We're not friends, Andy. It's my duty to take you to the waiting room, but it's not my job to befriend you."

Andy jerked backwards at his harsh tone; while she had expected resistance to her friendliness, she had not quite expected such a violent reaction. She felt distinctly cowed; attached, to him? He probably took hundreds of people every day to this 'waiting room;' he'd obviously been there tons of times. While this was a new adventure for her, it was most likely not even a blip on his radar. Even so, Andy could admit it still hurt her.

"Fine, be like that then! I was just being nice, god!" She snapped, craning her neck back so that she could meet his eyes full-on. She tried summoning the full extent of her usually explosive temper, but failed. Too many changes, too little time – Andy knew she was out of her element.

Angry and hurt – a lethal combination – Andy began to storm off down the road. She knew where they were headed. The waiting room; she couldn't be the only dead person on the way to this room, and she would just have to find a new person to show her the way. Garret, she thought angrily, can just go back to wherever he'd come from. Let him be angry and bipolar somewhere else.

After almost an hour, when her had thoughts simmered to a low boil, Andy realized, with no real surprise, that a second pair of footsteps were following in her wake. "Garret?" She questioned. If she looked back, then she might see his expression. In the interest of avoiding emotional damage, she purposefully looked out to the forest on her right.

There was a small shuffling of clothing. Footsteps quickened. "That was uncalled for, I know." Andy could feel the low heat of his eyes on her face, searching, watching, as he walked alongside her.

"You apologizin'?" She strove to sound as if she could care less.

Garret nudged her hip and she looked over, surprised. "Yes. Should I say the actual words?" The soft, teasing lilt to his voice was nice, but foreign; Andy hadn't thought he possessed the ability to be anything other than uptight.

"I guess not," she shrugged, still feeling too strung to return the teasing.

Trying harder than she expected, he ventured asking, "Are you excited for the waiting room?"

"I'm dying to wait in a room designed for waiting." Andy rolled her eyes, but, as an afterthought, smiled to show him that she appreciated his efforts.

"Death IS the price of admission," he agreed, snickering. Andy managed an expression of genuine amusement as she turned to meet his shark-like grin, the same one that had made her skin crawl only a few hours ago. She forgave him in that instant, but resolved not to bring the topic up. "You don't really wait there, per say. It's where you go to be sorted." The information was like precious rainfall in the Sahara desert, and Andy treated it as such.

Greedily, she nodded and encouraged him with a curious, wide-eyed stare. He seemed to go into matter-of-fact mode, as if this information had left his lips many times, as he continued. "Those that die are sorted into various jobs – my job, for example. People who don't go to the waiting room, or those that don't qualify for a job, fade away. We consider fading to be something like dying all over again."

"So no one comes back from fading?"

"Fading is moving on to the next afterlife," Garret clarified. "No one here knows what comes next, but most think that it's the real end." His eye-roll signified what he thought of 'the real end.'

"Fading is bad then. Got it," she said, mostly to herself. "Do I qualify for a job?" Fading away didn't sound like anything she wanted to do. Worry filled her and made her stare him down in mild desperation.

Garret took her scrutiny in stride, refusing to look away from her stare. His eyes hardened until they were once again emotionless. "It's not my job to sort people." Her face fell. Frowning, he amended himself by saying, "but I think you'll qualify for one."

His hand shot up and ran through his hair. Andy recognized it now as a sign of impatience. Reluctantly, she curbed her questions. If what Garret said was true, then she would have plenty of time to get answers; their tenuous friendship wouldn't be able to withstand too much arguing this soon, and having a friend at this point was the only way to get answers anyway.

Against her natural instinct, Andy kept as silent as possible. Light faded into darkness, and the darkness gave way to light. The ground flattened out, and the pair tread on a road that actually saw the beginnings of real traffic; with childlike amusement, Andy made faces and made fruitless efforts to get the attention of each passing vehicle.

It wasn't until mid-morning, nearing lunchtime, that they reached their destination.

"Look, Gar, a city!" Andy had been ordered to stop calling him 'Gar' the second she began. The nickname had, at first, caused Garret to flinch every time he heard it. Andy, unwilling to lose every battle, had persisted until he had caved.

Andy pointed straight ahead, grinning widely until Garret understood that she wanted a reaction. Sighing, he nodded. When her face tilted up to his, still looking like an excitable puppy, he added, "La Follette... yep, that's where we're headed."

"You mean the waiting room is there?" Andy asked, flipping from excited to revolted in record time. The small city was charming, color-coded and compact, but didn't look like anything special to Andy. If anything, then Andy thought that La Follette was too plain and boring to be the place that dead people communed to.

"Yes..." Garret said, obviously finding nothing wrong with the sleepy town being the hubcap for the dead.

"But I was coming here before I died." Andy said, disgust becoming blatantly noticeable.

"It's too bad you didn't wreck closer."

"You don't get it, do you?" Exasperation colored her tone and gave her cheeks a tint of red.

"Get what?" Garret asked, sounding so carefree that Andy could tell he was trying to get a rise out of her. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't allow herself to be provoked that easily; however, these circumstances warranted it.

"This can't be where we're going. My mother lives here. I grew up not far from here. I've never been outside of this state... the waiting room can't be here," Andy explained, gesturing to the town with a grand sweep of her arm as if the town itself were proof enough for its unworthiness.

Garret laughed and patted her head, smiling condescendingly as he told her, "Almost every town has a waiting room, Andy." She knocked his hand away, glaring.

"You could have just said that," she griped.

"And miss the only amusement I have?" He wiggled his eyebrows. "Not on your life!" Andy drew back in shock, understanding the irony in those words; she wasn't at all sure that she was ready for other people to joke about her death just yet.

Garret, smirking happily to himself, didn't notice her lack of entertainment – in fact, he seemed so genuinely amused by the play-on-words that Andy found herself chuckling alongside him.

Reviews are very much appreicated. Please not that this story does not and will not convey any of my own religious beliefs, nor is it centered on such matters.