Rebounding Dead: Deadish, #6
By Naomi Kramer
()
About this ebook
Prudence is dead. She was expecting to join a choir of adoring angels, but instead she's stuck bouncing between Heaven and Earth.
Sephenia's given Linda a new challenge, with just two words: "Fix her!" What the hell has traumatised this kid so badly, and how the hell is she getting exorcised every time she turns up on Earth?
Warning: Contains swearing, alternative afterlives, and Australian spelling. Not suitable for children.
Prudence says: Heaven is an awfully odd place. It's not at all like the reverend said it would be! There are hardly any harps, and it actually seems a little sinful. Although it feels blasphemous to even think that. Linda has a hot tub! And alcohol! I'm very confused.
Linda says: Oh God, Sephenia's saddled me with a total innocent. I mean, she's still all fluffy and cute. What the hell are they thinking?
Reverend Jones says: There are evil spirits all around me. They taunt me. When will my Lord rescue me?
Naomi Kramer
Naomi is a coffee-obsessed full-time writer living in Brisbane, Australia. She loves big furry animals and spends an inordinate amount of time in hospitals. Favourite things: Coffee, red wine, chocolate. Least favourite things: People who complain about her Australian spelling.
Read more from Naomi Kramer
Deadish Allsorts
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Titles in the series (7)
Dead(ish): Deadish, #1 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Technically Dead: Deadish, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead as a Doorpost: Deadish, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImminently Dead: Deadish, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead and Hellbent: Deadish, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRebounding Dead: Deadish, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead in Paradise: Deadish, #7 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Rebounding Dead - Naomi Kramer
(Prudence)
I’m floating in a bright white light. For a while, that’s all I know. But soon my mind starts to work again, and I wonder what I’m doing here. Am I dead? That idea feels right somehow. I can’t remember why, though. I should know if I’m dead, shouldn’t I? And am I in Heaven? That doesn’t sound correct. But again, I can’t remember why. This is very confusing. This is what Heaven is supposed to be like, isn’t it – lots of bright white light? I suppose I expected a bit more. You know… fluffy clouds, people sitting around in white robes playing harps, gold-paved streets… I’m sure that’s what Sunday school taught us that Heaven would look like.
After a while, I wonder some more. Shouldn’t something be happening by now? I don’t know, angels or demons or… Jesus or someone coming to tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can move. With that thought, I’m drifting sideways through the light… and then I’m out of the light and up close to something white with a weird raised white pattern on it. Oh no. Going out of the light is probably not a good thing, is it? I stare at it the weird pattern, confused. It looks familiar, but I can’t place it. But as I stare, slowly it dawns on me… I know that pattern, alright. That’s a pattern from a ceiling – a ceiling in a room that I really, really don’t like. That means that the bright light all around me before was… a light fitting. I panic, and I can’t help myself, I start to thrash around, looking for some way out of this weird and scary situation; looking for a way back to me.
I fall down onto the floor. It hurts, especially when I hit my head on the wall. I sit up and shake my head. So, I’m not dead? Then I look at my hand, fingers half-immersed in the floor as though it’s made from water. Oh. That isn’t good. Not at all! Hands aren’t supposed to do that. I suppose I must be dead after all. But why am I here? And where is here? All I can see is blurry white, and grey concrete underneath me.
Footsteps sound nearby, and I gasp. Suddenly my vision is crystal clear, and into my range of vision comes the last person I ever wanted to see.
You!
he says, scowling.
I stare. What could possibly be going on? I don’t understand any of this.
Begone, foul shade!
he intones in a deep voice, waving a hand in my direction. Get thee back to the netherworld from whence ye came!
The room swirls into a whirl of grey and white, then fades away. I blink and look around – I’m surrounded by white and light. Am I in the light fitting again? I rub my eyes and look around again. No, as my vision clears I can see that I’m standing on white cloud, and there’s a sky mostly filled with white clouds above me. Light shines from the clouds above as though they’re big fluffy lamps. Somewhere in the distance, harp music is playing. This looks a lot more like Heaven than the last place. I shudder, because I really didn’t like being there. Was that… Hell? Or was it maybe just… maybe it was really him. And that room.
I must be dead, right? That thought starts to circle around my brain until I can’t think anything else. I’m DEAD. Dead dead dead dead DEAD.
I don’t want to be here, that’s for sure. Which is weird, because when the preachers used to talk about Heaven, I thought it sounded like a wonderful place to be. But it’s not that great when you suddenly find yourself there and all you want is to go home. It doesn’t feel nice at all. It just feels confusing. There’s nothing I recognise, nothing familiar. Just cloud and sky and I really don’t feel comfortable standing on something that I know is supposed to be completely insubstantial. I don’t like being whatever I am – a ghost or a spirit or an angel or whatever you change into after you die. My mind flashes back to my hands sinking into the floor as though it wasn’t even there. As though I wasn’t even there.
Only a week ago, life was so much simpler. And better. I wasn’t continually getting myself stuck in weird places with no idea what to do, at least. I think longingly of the everyday things, like chatting to my friend Chastity… sitting on her bed doing a bible study and getting distracted with talk about the guys at church… her mum cooking us brownies… and I’m thinking about it so intently that I can actually see it. I can almost smell the brownies. I’m imagining it so strongly that it feels like I’m really there – I can see her sitting cross-legged on her bed, a flash of leggings showing under her long skirt, a brownie on a plate beside her, bible open in her lap. At least, I assume that I’m just imagining the scene before me until Chastity takes one look at me and starts to scream.
No, don’t be scared, Chas, I’m sorry,
I say, reaching out to her.
She shrinks away from me as her mum runs in.
What on earth is all this –
she’s saying as she comes in, but then she sees me and shrieks.
It’s not Prue, honey, don’t worry – it’s just a demon that looks like her, sent to scare you,
she says shakily.
"Well it’s working! Chastity says, her voice shaky and weird.
Make it go away! Mum, please?"
Mrs Smith – Chastity’s mum – waves her hands in a strange pattern in the air, chants something that sounds like Latin, and the whole room starts to fade away. Chastity and Mrs Smith and everything else fades to white, and then I’m back in the white cloudy place again. Oh, bother.
(Linda)
I’m making flowers and thinking relaxing thoughts about how Heaven is so much nicer than Hell when a little *tink-a-ling!* sound goes off beside me, like one of those little ceramic bells you buy for people when you’re all out of good ideas for presents and you’re down to the ‘fill up their house with crap’ option. A teensy little angel appears. He’s all white and sparkly, like a Twilight vampire. But cuter. Fatter. Kinda cherubic. He pulls a tiny little gold trumpet out of thin air and puts it to his lips.
OK, I get it,
I say before cute turns into cutesy and I finish up drowning him in vomit. Whatcha want, fancy-pants?
It’s funny because he’s not wearing any – just a tactical swathe of white glittery cloth that I suspect of being a Heavenly form of velvet.
He pouts at me. I’m guessing this little fella doesn’t get out much. Can’t say I’ve ever met one of his ilk before, and I’ve been here… actually, I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time gets a bit meaningless when you’re here for eternity. Well, eternity minus a few jaunts to Earth now and then, not to mention Hell… I shudder. Don’t mention Hell, OK?
Sephenia would like to see you,
he says, all squeaky. As soon as possible, or sooner, she requested.
I frown. This doesn’t sound right.
Why didn’t she just wave her hand and zap me there against my will?
I ask.
The pipsqueak shrugs.
I’m just the messenger,
he says.
The tinkling sound happens again, and he’s gone. Hmm. Sephenia, polite? This can’t be good. I finish off the current flower, wave to my co-workers, and pop over to Sephenia’s office. Much to my surprise, she’s not at her desk. She’s standing in a corner with an armful of sobbing, dripping dead girl.
You called?
I say.
She looks up. She’s looking mildly confused and uncomfortable. Like your typical Aussie male when a chick suddenly blubbers all over him. Huh. Sephenia’s really a man? No no no. I push the mere thought firmly out of my mind as she smiles a little less calmly than usual and transfers the blubbering wreck into my arms.
This,
she says firmly, Is your new assignment. Fix her!
Then she waves her hand and makes me pop back to my house before I even get a handle on what on earth is going on. Right. That’s the Sephenia I know.
(Reverend Jones)
The unholy one attempts to distract me from the Lord’s work. Her kind always do, with their soft looks and their lying, cruel tongues that spit untruths and venom in equal measures. It worked once, when I was younger and less wise to the ways of the world. But the blood of the sacrifice has washed away my sins. I am pure, and she cannot tempt me or my sheep away from the path of righteousness.
She wails and begs me for mercy. I heed her not. She rails against me for my cruelty, and I humph in derision. My cruelty? When she only ever sought to weaken the spiritual foundations of my church and bring it crashing down around us all? It is too, too satirical.
Bah! Satan’s creatures are full of lies and blandishments. I weary of her whisperings and her angry words. I banish her back to her pit of fire with just a few words and the sacred signs taught to men by the angels themselves. She cannot stand against me. None of them can. They cannot stand against my Lord and his representative here in this pit of Gomorrah that we call the world.
Why does she continue to plague me so? Must I bear yet another thorn in my flesh, Lord? She is weak. She tried to take me away from my holy mission before, and she did not succeed. Does she think that it will be easier now that she has reverted to her spirit form? Not so. Now I may dismiss her with ease. She is evil. I am holy. Never must the twain meet. Never!
(Barb)
I never would have believed it, but even tormenting the low-life scum males in this place palls after a while. And there are a lot of men to torment, too. Rapists too numerous to count. Murderers beyond number. Cheaters and liars and abusers and thieves. There’s a whole lotta scum just ripe for the picking, because when you get right down to it, most bastards don’t have the imagination to get how someone else might be feeling about their crappy actions. And if you don’t have much imagination, then you don’t have much ability to change your surroundings down here in Hell. Me? I have a shitload of imagination. I have imagination coming outta my ears. So I can play with these arseholes all I want, and if I don’t go too far, they’re pretty much powerless to stop me. Hey, they can always call for a mediation session, but they’re too macho for that. More fool them. Men who murdered their wives and girlfriends are my favourite patsies, because after all, getting murdered by a scumbag male is how I died. I think of it as therapy