Backstory snip!

Here's a little backstory to the sequel . . . Working title is 'Narthecium' (the book, not this snip). I wanted to give people a look at how Greg and Jack met, but it doesn't really fit into the book, so I figured it's kind of like writing fanfiction, right? Except it's fanfiction to my own stuff, which is kind of cool. And it helps me get a better feel for my characters, so whoo hoo!

If it's got to have a title, call it 'Weighty Ghost', because it was written mostly to the song of the same name by Wintersleep. It's a lovely song, and I like to listen to it to remind me that life is just generally more enjoyable when you allow yourself to be totally happy every day, for no reason at all. I don't know if that's the message of the song, but that's what it's always meant for me, so nyah.

-

Getting a papercut hurt worse, Greg thought distantly, which was kind of funny, really. One would think that of all the things in the world, a papercut wouldn’t rank very high on the most painful list.

Certainly not above decapitation.

The world went fuzzy, the sounds muffled and tinny, like they were coming from a long way away, possibly on the other end of a metal sewer pipe. Part of him hit the ground, and he wasn’t really sure which part, because they were all blending together now. Someone was shouting. And then fuzzy went to black, and he felt very, very cold.

Very briefly, black flashed to a dark blue, the color of the night sky. There might have been someone – a Polynesian man, in a sharp suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place in New York or Chicago – and that someone might have said something, touched him, even. Greg died.

And then Greg woke back up, seconds – not even seconds – later, jerking bolt upright, out of his body. He looked down at himself and himself, bleeding into the cracked concrete and gritty dirt, and scrambled to his knees, clear of . . . him. His body.

He stood up then, as people rushed around, and the guards shouted and hustled the other prisoners away. Jonas was pinned under a pile of guards, the knife flung free of his hand and lying bloody in a tuft of brown grass. Someone ran through him as he stood and watched, listened to the cheers and screams of the other prisoners, the guards yelling. He blinked, and then wondered why he’d done it.

He’d been twenty-eight.

The thought occurred to him, out of the mist of his own thoughts, that his at least his mother wouldn’t have to be ashamed anymore when people asked her what her son was doing.

A brace of guards dragged Jonas through him and the other man laughed like a lunatic, head thrown back, hands twitching and clenching in the shackles. A single guard knelt next to his former body, rag pressed to the seeping red slash in his neck.

Absently, he reached to his neck – the one he remembered having, not the shredded one on the ground – and felt the smooth, cool skin. Whole.

He opened his mouth, made to speak, and then closed it again.

Of all the deaths in his life, his own was the least expected.

“It’s rough when you see it, huh?” The voice, clear and strong, rather than wispy and trembling, like the half-hearted calls for help from the guard, almost made him jump out of his skin. Or would have, if he’d had any. “It’s alright, you’re through the worst part.”

“You . . .” he stopped, because his own voice sounded strange here; the words had a heaviness, felt as though they were hanging around his head. “Are you the Reaper?”

“Me? God, no. Here, come on, you don’t need to watch that.” A hand – solid, his brain elated, a little frantically – landed on his shoulder, and the prison yard faded even while the walls of a cell, tinted blue and grey, appeared. “Better?”

When he remembered he had legs, he managed to turn, wide-eyed to the other. “Name’s Jack.”

“You have a bullet hole in your head.”

Jack shrugged. “So? We’re both dead, either way.”

Greg looked around. “I’ve gone to Hell. I thought I might.”

“Hell?” Jack laughed, and it was a good laugh. Greg smiled a little. “Mautinode’s bad, but it ain’t quite Hell. No, my friend, you haven’t gone anywhere.”

Panic, unbidden and illogical, seized him. “I have to get back to my body. I’m going to be stuck here.”

“A little late for that.” Jack prodded him in the shoulder. “You’re a ghost, same as me. The dice, as they say, has been cast.”

“It’s die,” Greg said weakly. “The singular of dice. Die. Ahaha.”

Jack’s hand was still on his shoulder, and he rubbed it, a little comfortingly. “You’ll be alright when the shock wears off. What’s your name?” Greg was quiet, his translucent, blank eyes unfocused and staring. “Hey, man. Come on.” He shook the other prisoner and, not eliciting a response, sighed. “You drove me to this.”

The slap hurt more than the knife, too. Funny how those things work.

“You hit me!” Greg pulled his hand away from his cheek, staring at and through it. “And it hurt!”

“That was the idea.”

“I’m dead! It oughtn’t have hurt!” He tried to flinch before Jack’s first collided with his chest, but he couldn’t totally avoid the blow. “Stop it!”

“There you go, snap out of it.” The other . . . spirit, yes, that had to be what it was, looked inordinately pleased with himself. “Start again. I’m Jack, and you are?”

“Greg.” He rubbed his chest, just below the shoulder, where Greg had hit him. “What manner of demon are you?”

“Demon? You and your divine punishment. I’m a ghost.” He spread his arms. “Plain as bread and butter. So are you, now, Greg; allow me to be the welcome wagon.”

“I saw . . . that really was my body, wasn’t it?” He looked to his hands again, and also to the floor, since his view remained fairly unimpeded by the spectral manifestations of his memory.

Jack nodded. “Unless you have some reason to be popping out of someone else’s body. Demon, vengeful poltergeist, anything? No? Good enough.” He held out a hand. “Welcome to the division of the haunted prison that’s responsible for the ‘haunted’ part. Anywhere in these walls –” he flung his arms wide “– is fair game. Except the fourth floor, I’d avoid that.”

Greg glanced upwards. “What’s up there?”

“A demon. We try not to think about it.”

“Jonas lives on the fourth floor.”

Jack cocked his head. “Who?”

“He killed me.”

“Ah.” A shrug. “Well, might help explain his charming disposition, anyway.”

The recently deceased scrambled back a few sentences, grasping at straws, trying to forget the image of himself pale, twisted and bloody on the ground. “We?”

Jack slung a skinny arm around his shoulders and guided him toward the solid wood door. “Well it’s just been me and Lucas since ’33 – before that it was just Lucas. But hey, three’s company now, right?” He shook the shorter ghost. “Hey, man, come on – it’s rough but it’s all a part of life. Everything worth doing ends eventually.”

“But,” Greg pointed out, “there was nothing very eventual about it.”

“Maybe not to you but think about the rats in the kitchen. You’re ancient!”

“That’s not the most . . . consoling thing I’ve heard.”

“Well it’s something, and that’s what you’re gonna get. Follow me, I’ll introduce you.” He stepped through the door, Greg’s eyes widening as he watched. “Come on!”

Greg stepped boldly forward, and then his head made a hollow clunking sound when it hit the wood.

“You have to stop remembering being solid first. You’ll never get anywhere with haunting if you stay solid.” Another thud on the other side of the door. Jack sighed.

“Can’t I just use the handle? This’ll take ages.”

Jack snorted. “Greg-o, if there’s one thing you’re worried about here, let me assure you: it should not be time.” Thud. “Come on, it’s not that hard – you’re past the hardest part already!”

“Which was?”

“The part where you died.”

Greg stared at the door, hands braced on either side of the jamb, scowling at the boards. “Sorry if I’m not immediately receptive. I’ve died and entered the afterlife all in one day, and the afterlife is somewhat short of what I was expecting. I’m preoccupied.” Tentative, he prodded the door with a finger. And then he closed his eyes and tried to forget the fact that he was solid, and doors were solid, and that it was ridiculous to think otherwise.

Sticking your arm through a door hurts significantly less than anything else in the world.

“I knew you’d get it in the end.” Jack clapped him on the back when he was finally through. “Not that hard, was it?”

Greg turned to look back at the door, which besides being a misty color of blue appeared otherwise normal. “And that’s what . . . that’s my afterlife now? I’m going to float through things for all eternity?”

“Don’t see why it would have to be, and it’s more exciting than you’re giving it credit for. Wait until you get someone wound up about ghosts, that’s the ticket – almost makes you feel alive again.” Greg allowed Jack to guide him down the hallway, toward the stairs. A guard strode right through them. “Reporters especially love it – they’ve caught wind of the stories and it makes for good reading on a slow news day.”

“And that’s haunting, then? Getting the living to pay attention to you?” He looked around the hall. “What’s the point of ghosts?”

Jack’s permanent smile didn’t exactly fade, but it took on a much thinner line, and it almost looked out of place paired with his sad, tired expression. He laid his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “When you figure that out, Greg, before you go . . . you tell me.”

-

So there you have it, the death of Greg and the meeting with Jack. Who's a good guy, really, when you get past the fact that his definition of 'lawful' is very flexible. I have sort of written this once before, under the title 'Everything But Murder', but I fancy I like this version a little better.

Please, if you want to share your thoughts, comment! I'd love some feedback, I really would.