Spooky Little Girl (7 page)

Lucy tried to smile but was a bit puzzled, until she realized that the flipper girl was not as well as she might have imagined and was clearly still suffering from some concussion side effects or perhaps a psychotic break. It was a weird hospital, all right, and woefully understaffed, but what else would she expect from a county hospital in Flagstaff, Arizona?

Lucy suddenly stopped. Scuba diving in Flagstaff, Arizona?

“You were scuba diving around here?” she asked her newfound friend. “Where did you go?”

Lucy immediately regretted her actions, because the last thing she had patience for was engaging in conversation of any sort with a person disoriented with reality.

The girl got a wide smile on her face. “Well, when my boyfriend told me we were going on vacation to the Bahamas, I couldn’t believe it, I was so excited!” she gleefully related. “So we made a deal; he said he would go and take the Anna Nicole Smith Farewell Tour with me in the Bahamas if I would go shark feeding with him. He said it would be fun, and it was something he had always wanted to do since he saw an article about it in
Maxim
. I said okay, and Anna Nicole was an idol of mine, so I couldn’t say no. Have you done it?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Oh, you have to do it while you’re here!” flipper girl exclaimed. “At first it is terrifying. I mean, they take you out way into the ocean, far, far from land and put you in the water, hand you a chunk of bloody fish, and then the sharks are suddenly coming at you! I know it sounds crazy, but it was thrilling. The sharks just rip that fish right out of your hands and then the shark-feeding people give you another one. So I was holding that, and the biggest shark came at me with its mouth wide open, and it was swimming so fast! It got closer and closer, and suddenly it was right there. I mean right there,
inches from me! It was like a video game, but real. And I guess that’s when my oxygen cut out. The hose probably bent in all of the excitement. I passed out. And then I woke up here. I hope I didn’t ruin it for anybody else on the trip. Don’t you ever wonder what happened to Sugar Pie? I’m Bethanny, by the way.”

“I’m Lucy,” she said, extending her hand, which Bethanny took.

“What happened to you? Why are you here?”

“You know, it was the dumbest thing,” Lucy started with a small laugh. “I stepped in front of a bus. I know. Sounds crazy, but my hair blew into my face, and all of a sudden there I was. The last thing I remember was the look of absolute horror on the bus driver’s face. She must have had great reflexes, though, because me versus a bus … Well … I, um, yeah. I guess I—I don’t know. I guess I hit my head? But I feel fine. I feel great. I’d just like to call my sister. Do you happen to have a phone I could use?”

Bethanny shook her head. “All of my stuff was on the boat. I hope my boyfriend has it,” she replied.

“Does anyone have a phone I can use?” Lucy asked, turning around to face the other people in the room.

The bike guy shook his helmet head; the fellow in the Hawaiian Tommy Bahama shirt shrugged listlessly. The housewife in the pink ski suit pursed her two raft-like lips together and mouthed “No” while looking dramatically despondent. The shaggy-haired kid didn’t even bother to respond at all.

“I have a phone,” the guy in camouflage offered as he reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled it out. “But it’s dead. I guess I need a charge.”

The door to SD1118 opened one more time, and in stepped a little wrinkled old lady with fiery red hair. She was wearing a long black robe and dirty blue house slippers. In her arms was a stack of binders and folders that she held close to her chest.

“Hello,” she announced loudly and cheerily in a scratchy voice as she sauntered over to the lectern and slapped the pile of folders down on top of it. “My name is Ruby Spicer, and I am here to guide you through your Transition.”

No one in the group said a word. They simply sat and stared at Ruby Spicer, not really knowing what to do.

“We have a lot of work to do to get you where you need to be. Anyone know where they are? Do we have any detectives in the house?” the old woman asked with a crooked smile, her voice crackling almost like static on occasion, her red lipsticked mouth stretching over a full set of nicotine-stained teeth.

The bike helmet—along with Bethanny and the velvet housewife—shook his head. The others, like Lucy, were busy trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle they hadn’t seen and couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“You don’t need to
guide
me,” Bethanny protested. “I just want to sign my release forms and go back to the hotel.”

“What’s the last thing you remember before you woke up, dear?” Ruby asked, pointing to Bethanny. “What is the last thing you remember seeing?”

“A shark?” Bethanny snipped, throwing up her hands.

“And you?” Ruby asked, pointing to the guy in camouflage.

“My son. He was coming up in front of me, through the brush. He was aiming at something behind me. I bet it was a five-pointer. I bet he bagged it!”

“And Sir Ten Speed?” Ruby prodded. “What do you remember?”

“Well, I remember I was heading for a sizeable hill with a steep grade on my recumbent bike, so I opened my Hammer Gel concentrated carb meal and was squeezing it into my mouth when I saw a Hummer come around the bend.”

“And you in the tropical print?” Ruby asked.

Tommy Bahama sighed impatiently. “I was on a plane, eating the snack mix,” he fired off sharply. “And I remember coughing. That’s it. That’s the last thing I remember. I don’t know what that has to do with this little game.”

“Anyone see a common thread? Young man?” the old woman said to the shaggy-haired guy, whose face was obscured by his precisely cut mane as he stared relentlessly at the floor.

He shrugged, his head still hanging down.

“Young man, I’m talking to you,” the old woman repeated.

“I dunno. I was wasted, old lady,” he said, relenting, still without looking up.

Ruby sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Miss, what do you recall?” she asked the velvet housewife.

“I was on a ski lift, and it was so cold! Suddenly it felt like I had two ice blocks in my bra!” she admitted.

“And you?” she continued, moving on and meeting Lucy’s eyes.

Lucy looked back. And as she looked at the old woman, she slowly began to shake her head.

“No,” she said quietly.

“What do you remember?” the old woman asked again.

“No way,” Lucy said forcefully. “I don’t—
No
. On Sunday, my fiancé dumped me by throwing all my stuff out on the street, on Monday I was fired for having a dirty drug test because a skanky guy my stupid friend was trying to hook up with roofied me on my vacation, the office manager where I used to work thinks I was trying to steal twenty thousand dollars, and
now
you’re trying to tell me that
that bus—”

Lucy stopped and shook her head and crossed her arms in defiance. “No,” she said again pointedly. “No way. Absolutely not.”

“Trying to tell you what?” Bethanny said in a panic. “Trying to tell you
what?”

Lucy continued to shake her head.

“I’m just going to break it to you as gently as the situation allows, dears,” Ruby said with a kind smile. “You’re dead. You’re all dead. Welcome to Sudden Death—or as I like to call it, Surprise Demise—room 1118.”

“Now, I realize what I just said may seem like a terribly turbulent way to start our acquaintance,” Ruby informed the speechless and stunned group before her. “But after guiding countless sections of the freshly expired through their Transitions, I’ve found that being up-front, first and foremost, is not only the most effective method, but the most helpful. You’re dead. You’ve all died very unexpectedly, and my job is to assist you with your initial Transition. This is Intro to Sudden Death, a primer for this particular stage in the death process.”

“Do you mean denial, bargaining, and acceptance?” the bicyclist wondered.

“If I died, where are my already dead family members?” Tommy Bahama asked. “I thought they were all supposed to show up to welcome me!”

“I want to speak to your manager!” the housewife cried in a panic. “I demand to see Jesus!
And his mother.”

“I don’t understand where we are,” Bethanny said, still confused
by the fact that her vacation had ended so abruptly. “Am I not going on the Auna Nicole Farewell Tour?”

“Listen,” Ruby interjected, trying to calm things. “We have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s clear up some confusion. You are in the Transition Center. That’s where you woke up this morning, in the dormitory. That’s where you’ll be staying until our section is complete. I’ll be handing out room assignments before you leave.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” the snow bunny housewife objected. “So you’re saying I’m dead
and
I’m staying in a dorm, like in college? I gained fifteen pounds in that dorm. And I’ll tell you right now, if there’s some nosy-body RA sniffing around, I’m not discussing my eating habits with
anyone
. I demand an upgrade. I’ll pay for it. I have plenty of frequent flier miles.”

“There are no upgrades, I’m afraid,” Ruby informed her. “This is all we’ve got. Everyone gets the same thing. There’s no sliding scale.”

What the hell is a Sudden Death Transition Center
, Lucy thought as she sat back and watched the reactions of the others around her, almost as if it was a television show and she was just tuning in. Could she really be dead? she wondered, then immediately wanted to smack herself for being so foolish. It was a dream. The whole thing was bizarre enough to be a dream, and once she realized that she was trapped in the reality-show portion of her subconscious, she decided that she really should simply sit back, enjoy the show, and wait until she woke up. It was like free entertainment. After all, there were worse dreams to be stuck in. She could have been making out with Carrot Top or being chased through a mall by a bear with a goat head, all while trying to figure out a way to stop in at the food court to get a Beef’n Cheddar at Arby’s without getting mauled. Truly, this was a great dream. The detail was amazing; the premise was fascinating. She was already looking forward to recounting the whole bizarre episode to Alice in the morning over their first cups of coffee.

“If I’m dead,” queried the hunter, as if he could catch the old woman in a trap, “why am I wearing underwear?”

“This is bullshit, lady,” Tommy Bahama bellowed suddenly, his face about to rupture with anger. “What kind of joke are you playing on us?”

“This is no joke, Mr. Russell,” Ruby replied, her smile quickly dropping into a stern no-nonsense look. “You choked on a peanut from your in-flight snack because you never really did learn to chew properly due to the fact that you lack the virtue of patience and you can be a real pain in the ass. You were in a hurry to board the plane, you were pushy when you ordered your drink, and you made a face when the flight attendant handed you merely one snack bag. You tore it open, poured the contents into your mouth, and barely masticated one time before a peanut rolled into the back of your throat and lodged itself there. After coughing several times and making several useless simian-like motions to capture someone’s attention, you choked to death and then collapsed onto your fold-down tray, breaking it. You are a Sudden Death, Mr. Russell, and simply put, you were not expected. You all met a surprise tragic ending. This wasn’t in the cards for any of you, but
here you are.”

“What are you all pissed about?” the shaggy-haired youngster finally said in a tense voice. “I’m the youngest one here! Look at everything I missed out on. I just turned twenty-one! I haven’t even begun to live yet! The rest of you already lived; you’re old. I was young. You were all going to die soon anyway. But you all have nothing to complain about. I didn’t even get a chance!”

“Well, Mr. Morse, I would say your chances were never really all that good, being that you drank yourself into a stupor, lost consciousness, and
then
lost control of your bladder while snuggled under your grandma’s old electric blanket, and fried yourself like a chimichanga.”

The youngster’s jaw went slack, and after a moment he stared straight back down at the floor again.

The bicyclist raised his hand. “I was hit by a Hummer, is that correct?” he asked. “Is that what you’re saying? A gas-sucking, environmentally disastrous vanity car ran me over?”

“Well, not exactly,” Ruby offered. “He was a little too close to you, and as he passed, the side mirror whacked your head from behind and rendered it into a projectile, you could say. It then bounced several times, due to the foam core of the helmet, and then finally rolled behind a bush, resting next to a Big Mac wrapper and a Styrofoam cup.”

“I was decapitated and then wound up as litter,” the bicyclist concluded. “That is a ridiculous way to die. I somehow thought my ending would be more … significant. Earnest, if you will.”

“Don’t we all hope that, Mr. Marks?” Ruby said, trying to be comforting. “We all carry the hope that our death will not be in vain, or that it will assume some higher translation, maybe even taking on metaphoric stature. In life, we all want our deaths to be magnificent and relevant. And in your case … I’m sorry, no.”

“I still don’t understand why I’m here,” the ski bunny said. “I think a mistake has been made. I don’t see how I’m supposedly dead. If I’m dead, how did I die? Avalanche? I fell off the ski lift? Did I hit a tree on my last run?”

Ruby nodded, then ran her finger down the top sheet of a stack of papers before her. “Mrs. Wootig, Mrs. Wootig … Ahhhh, I see. It seems your assets froze, then exploded. Apparently if you had gone for a respectable C cup or even merely a single letter with your augmentation, you wouldn’t be here right now. It would have just been a case of frostbite. They went like grenades, it says here. Oh, that’s terrible.
Terrible
. And as long as we’re on the subject, Mr. Granger, in the camouflage, if there was any doubt in your mind, your son did
bag a 250-pound buck, but it was you. Did you see that coming when you bought him his first BB gun for his eleventh birthday? Really? Not even a bit, not a hint? Curious. All right, then. So … We have fish food, bed wetter, flying head, buck shot, peanut sucker, boobsicles and that brings us to Lucy, who we all know got flattened like a shoe insert by a city bus. According to my list, I think we’re all here.”