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    Short but Dead: Deadish Allsorts
    Short but Dead: Deadish Allsorts
    Short but Dead: Deadish Allsorts
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    Short but Dead: Deadish Allsorts

    By Naomi Kramer

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This box set includes the first four Deadish Allsorts books: Follow the Light, Lee Ming, Running Mike, and Renovation: Hell.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPurple Furphy
    Release dateDec 24, 2017
    ISBN9781386954699
    Short but Dead: Deadish Allsorts
    Author

    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

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      Book preview

      Short but Dead - Naomi Kramer

      Contents

      Short but Dead bundles together four Deadish Allsorts stories; they take place in the Deadish universe but don’t involve a murder, or a mystery. The stories are:

      Follow the Light

      Lee Ming

      Running Mike

      Renovation: Hell

      If you’d like to make use of part of this book, please email me and ask. I’m usually pretty reasonable.

      My email address is naomi@deadish.online.

      If you'd like exclusive early access to new DEAD(ish) and DEAD(ish) Allsorts stories – and assorted other fiction that my fevered brain comes up with – become a patron at patreon.com/naomikramer from just $1/month. You can make automatic payments via PayPal or credit card for as long or short a period as you want.

      Or, if you just want to check out what I'm doing at the moment:

      Visit my website at www.deadish.online.

      ‘Like’ my Facebook page: facebook.com/NaomiKramerAuthor.

      Friend me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/nomesque.

      Follow me on Twitter: @Nomesque.

      Follow the Light

      I’m sitting with Trent, Lazarus and Geordie in the boys’ lounge room on the day after Mike’s court appearance. Geordie’s fluttering about serving drinks to everyone but me, and Lazarus is talking about something… I don’t know what, and suddenly I don’t care in the slightest. Everything in the room brightens and starts to glow.

      Linda? I faintly hear someone say.

      A door appears right in front of me. I should be jumping back and swearing in shock, but I’m as relaxed as a stoner. The door opens, and a white light shines through it. So I do the logical thing for a dead person, don’t I? I blow kisses to the guys, and I walk through the door.

      I follow the light, and I walk for what feels like hours through featureless white – but I don’t get tired or bored. I’m weirdly content to just walk and walk through the light. Eventually, I come to an enormous gate. It stands open between high white walls, and it glistens like real gold. Underfoot is something that feels like shag on my bare feet, but looks like fluffy white marshmallow. Beside it stands – I kid you not – an angel. She’s wearing a diaphanous white robe over a slim, boyish body, and huge white feathery wings spread out behind her, feathers ruffling slightly in the gentle breeze.

      Welcome to Heaven, Linda, she says. My name is Sephenia.

      My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I clear my throat and try again.

      "I… made it to Heaven?" I ask.

      I’m honestly shocked. I mean, that stuff down on Earth after I died – you know, the torment, the tantrums, the making people miserable – was a bit out of character, but I still haven’t been the best person around, by any means. Not to mention a distinct failure to follow a few of the rules of the church. Errr… make that most of the rules of the church. Or even going to church that much, lately. I wonder if they have church in Heaven?

      She smiles, and I have a horrible feeling that she can see inside my head and knows exactly what I’m thinking. And if she can, I’m about to get booted out to where I belong.

      None of that matters now, she says. You have been judged worthy. Heaven doesn’t make mistakes. Come in.

      She leads me through the gateway to a hut in a glade of trees, soft grass underfoot.

      Everyone gets a home like this, she says. You can decorate and add to it as you wish, or even move it, later – you won’t impinge on anyone else’s home. We have all the space you need. I imagine you’ll get started sooner than most, what with your untraditional start down on Earth.

      I blush, feeling a little ashamed of myself for having used my ghostly skills for what now seemed rather childish pranks. But it was important at the time, it was! Sephenia leaves, and I shake my head and look around, poking my nose into cupboards and nooks. The hut is… basic, to put it mildly. A living area with a kitchen bench along one wall. Hotplate and electric kettle on the bench, not plugged into anything. Tinned food in a tall skinny cupboard next to the bench. Crockery in the cupboard under the sink. A few pieces of cutlery in a drawer. There’s a television and a lounge over the other side of the room. What is heavenly TV like, I wonder? Probably terrible. No rude stuff. No appalling people doing appalling things for no good reason. I shudder at the thought and walk over to the two inner doors.

      The first is the bathroom. Again, basic. Toilet, basin, shower. Hang on, we don’t poop, do we? I think. Isn’t this whole room hopelessly redundant? I shake my head. OK, we don’t need to eat either – I know that from my time on Earth, remember? But food is a pleasure, so I like the idea that it’s cool to eat in Heaven. I’m a little perturbed at the thought of pooping, though. I haven’t felt any inclination to do any such thing since I died. Oh well, next door…

      Bedroom. A queen-sized bed and two bedside tables, made from pine, left natural. White sheets, white quilt, white pillowcases… you get the idea. A shitload of white. A vase of lillies stands by the bed – white ones, of course.

      Oh, how nice, I mutter sarcastically. A funeral bouquet!

      They have to go. I pick them up, then remember what the angel chick said about decorating. Maybe, just maybe… I concentrate on the flowers, and they slowly blush to a pale purple, then darken until they’re a rich bluish purple shade. I put the vase down and admire them.

      Umm… stay! I say firmly, and walk out of the room.

      I peek back in, and they’re still purple. I cheer. Of course, that’s when my new mentor decides to pop in. The first I know about it is hearing a ridiculously chirpy voice say:

      Hi! Linda? Welcome to Heaven! I’m your mentor, Tina! Are you ready to get started?

      I shudder slightly and turn around, a picture forming in my head before I even see her. Sure enough, a young woman in a short pleated skirt, sports singlet, and blonde hair in a perfect high ponytail stands behind me. She smiles and bounces. Oh God, all she needs is pom-poms and she’d be my worst nightmare.

      Are we celebrating something? she asks brightly.

      I… turned the lillies purple, I mutter, feeling like

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