Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(88)
She doesn't answer me. I didn't really expect her to.
My steps are cautious as I make my way across the unfamiliar floor, watching all the while for signs of a trap. I've always known about the Last Chance. Hell, Emma sells postcards with pictures of the place, and the tacky legend "I made the right call at the Last Chance!" That doesn't mean I've ever been here...or that I ever wanted to visit.
The Last Chance is the place you go when everything goes wrong.
Once again, I'm almost to the door, this time the swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen, when something changes. The air suddenly tastes like ashes and empty rooms, like lilies and the sour tears of a hundred weeping parents who can't understand how something like this could happen to their precious little high school star. I stagger, catching myself on the edge of the counter before my knees can quite finish buckling under me, and fight the almost irresistible urge to puke.
That's another thing I never thought would happen in the afterlife. If there was any real justice in the world, being dead would mean freedom from tossing your goddamn cookies.
It's while I'm hanging there, keeping myself on my feet solely by clinging to the counter, that I realize what's so terribly wrong. Because Emma's apron is lying on the floor, where I never would have seen it if I hadn't been overwhelmed by the taste of someone close to me preparing to die...and there's blood on the white lace edging. I'm pretty sure she didn't decide to play with raw hamburger for fun. I'm not normally called to the death of cows.
The taste of ashes keeps getting stronger as I force myself to straighten up, using the counter's edge to all but pull myself along. The kitchen door swings open under my hand.
What feels like only seconds later, I'm running across the parking lot with Emma's bloody apron in one hand and a half-torn note in the other, shouting, "Gary! Start your engine! We gotta go!"
The driver's door is open by the time I reach it, and I fling myself into Gary's seat, grabbing his wheel in both hands. He slams the door behind me, and I hit the gas, sending us roaring off in a spray of gravel.
Oh Lord, who art probably not in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Oh Lady, deliver me from darkness, deliver me from evil, and please, please, let us not be too late.
Please.
***
"Emma's the redhead you met in Minnesota," I say, tightly, as Gary roars down the ghostroad, letting me guide us toward the distant taste of ashes. It's getting stronger; we're going the right way. "She's a bean sidhe. Not quite living, not quite dead. I mean, to be entirely honest, I've never been sure what she was. Not really."
My laughter sounds almost hysterical in the confines of the car. Gary's radio flicks on, playing the Doors—"People Are Strange."
I manage to stop laughing, and reply to the implicit question, saying, "We're all strange here, and it never really mattered, you know? She was my friend. Is. She is my friend. I just...this is bad, Gary. Emma's supposed to be off-limits."
The radio dial spins, and Jim Morrison is replaced by an old folk song asking me if I know the way to where I'm going.
"Yeah, I do. A really bad man's got Emma, and that means that we're in trouble." I take a breath. I don't want to do this; I don't want to explain, because if Gary's the only man I've ever loved, then Bobby Cross is the only man who's ever made me feel like this, cold as clay and burning up all at the same time. I always feel like a dead girl. Bobby Cross makes me feel like I'm damned. "I need to tell you how I really died, Gary. Just listen, okay?"
The radio dial spins again, and the music clicks off. Gary's silence is all the answer I need. I force the words out one by one as I begin, "Robert Cross loved to drive. He loved the speed, and the thrill of the chase, even when all he chased was the wind. He chased that wind all the way to Hollywood..."
Gary holds his silence until I stop speaking. Then the radio clicks on, spinning once through the stations in question. I nod.
"We're going to get her, and bring her back." I brace my hands against the wheel, trying to ignore the burning, letting go of the thin threads that hold me to the daylight levels high above. "He left directions. Come on, honey. Let's hit the midnight."
***
I don't know anything about Heaven or Hell; I usually figure that they wait beyond those final exits that the drivers I guide sometimes take, but I've never seen them, or talked to anyone who's been there and back again. I do know the ghostroads. There are a thousand highways cutting through the afterlife, ranging from the daylight all the way down to the midnight. My natural habitat is the twilight, where the living are close enough to be remembered and distant enough to be safely ignored. Most road ghosts seem to live there, remembering life, celebrating death. When I can't stay in the twilight, I usually ascend to the daylight, where I can catch a ride, bum a meal, and earn enough credit in the eyes of the gods of the dead to pay the fare for descending.