Afterlife

[Chickstick]

This is just a little story that came into my head last night that I thought was slightly interesting. I'm not too pleased with the way it turned out, but hopefully somebody will read it and leave feedback. So without further ado, I present to you...

 

A F T E R L I F E

 

Johnny Owens first knew he was dead when he saw the tunnel of bright light. It seemed to rotate in front of him, gaining speed with each second that passed. Johnny felt like he was going to puke, so to keep himself occupied he tried to remember what he had been doing before everything went black. He saw himself in Boston (what year was it? 1978? ’79?), holding a gun, robbing an old man’s pawn shop in the poor part of town. He remembered the old guy shouting, “No! No! I need money for my wife’s medicine!” before Jimmy shut him up by firing two rounds of hot leaden death into his brain. Johnny saw in his mind’s eye the dead man collapse on the floor, and his attacker running through the door to escape and freedom, only to be…

 

Only to be what? Johnny thought a little. Now he remembered! A speeding car had mowed him down. At least he knew the cause of his untimely death. All he had to worry about now was what was going to happen to him in the near future.

 

The tunnel was still rotating, and continued to do so until Johnny emerged from the end, dizzied by the journey. After he had recovered his senses he looked around him and saw literally nothing, just a white blankness, with a desk in the centre, about fifty metres away from him. A figure sat there. Johnny walked over, wary, and was surprised to see an attractive young blonde in a short skirt sat behind the large oak table. She smiled at him.

 

“Good morning, Mr Owens, and welcome to your afterlife,” beamed the woman, and handed Johnny a piece of paper from underneath the desk.

“Sign here, here, here and here.”

Johnny did as he was instructed, which was odd for him, and handed her back the piece of paper.

“Now, Mr Owens” she said, “I want you to be truthful here. Have you ever committed a sin for which you have not repented?”

Johnny thought, Well, if they’re not good enough to know I just killed a man, I’m certainly not telling them.

“No. No, I have not.”

The woman looked thoughtful for a moment, before saying, “Welcome to your afterlife, Mr Owens.”

She disappeared, only to be replaced by a beach a mile long and wide, with the sun warming the air. Jimmy looked behind him and saw huge, white skyscrapers, thirty floors tall, with hundreds of scantily clad women walking in front of them. Johnny looked around and saw no men. No men whatsoever.

“Jackpot!” he whispered to himself, and then realised he had no idea what to do.

 

Luckily a woman about his age walked up to him and flashed her pearly whites.

“Hello, Johnny,” she greeted him, “let me show you to your new home, hmm?”

Johnny was awestruck by this beautiful young woman and followed without a sound. She led him to a building on the seafront that resembled a hotel, and motioned for him to go into a room with a door marked Manager’s Office in gold writing.

“I’ll wait for you out here” she told him and leaned back against the wall, looking at her fingernails.

Johnny opened the door.

 

Inside the room was another oak desk, with a man of about thirty-five sat behind it. He was well tanned, with a goatee and small moustache. The slicked back hairstyle and designer sunglasses made him look like a drug dealer. He took a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his pastel-coloured suit and coughed quietly into it.

 

Seeing Johnny, the man who was presumably the manager grinned and stood up, grasping Johnny’s hand and shaking it vigorously. He motioned for Johnny to take a seat. Johnny accepted the offer.

The man said, “Mr Owens, I take it you are enjoying your stay so far?”

Johnny nodded and said, “Oh, yes. Most definitely.”

The manager pushed his sunglasses further up his nose.

“I’ve sorted you an apartment out, Mr Owens. Right on the beach, swimming pool, games room, a big, big bed. The works. Now all we need to do is to sort out how many women you want.”

“Women?”

“Oh, yes, we all have women here. Half a dozen all right for you?”

Johnny caught on to what the manager was talking about.

“Of course. Of course.”

“Blondes?”

“Whatever you have available, my good man!” grinned Johnny.

“Okay, then…” a pause as the manager rustled some papers under his desk. “That’s it sorted, Mr Owens. Nancy will take you to your new home.”

Johnny stood up and ran his hand through his stubble.

“What’s the matter, Mr Owens?” the manager enquired.

Johnny replied, “I was just thinking how glad I am that I’m dead!”

The manager laughed at this and escorted Jimmy to the door. As he and Nancy left the building, he could still hear the manager laughing inside.

 

The walk to the apartment was a pleasant one in the midday sun. Nancy led Johnny to a small whitewashed building that looked out onto a small private bay. A racing boat and Mustang were parked outside.

“Welcome to your new home, Mr Owens,” Nancy said, handing him a key, “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you, and please, call me Johnny, okay?”

“As you wish, Johnny” she said.

Johnny unlocked the door and walked in. It was even better than he imagined. A huge swimming pool was in the centre of the room. A television covered one entire wall. The bed was much bigger than he thought it would be. The manager hadn’t been exaggerating. He turned to Nancy and said, “This is great!”

She smiled and said, “Of course it is, Johnny. It’s your afterlife after all. Your blondes will be here in the morning, but I’ll be back tonight. Just to check up on you, you know?” She winked and left, closing the door behind her.

Johnny stood and looked around him and realised how great being dead actually was.

 

Johnny was reading through his fifth Playboy (he had discovered a full room of dirty magazines round back- the afterlife really was good) when he heard a knock at the door. Panicking, he hid the stack of magazines around him under the bed and ran to open the door. Nancy’s pretty face greeted him.

“Hi, handsome!” she said, and strode past him into the apartment. “I brought pizzas so we can make a night of it!”

Johnny walked over to her and offered her a beer (the fridge, too, had been fully stocked on his arrival) but she refused.

“It’s your first night in the afterlife, Johnny. You deserve all the beers you can drink.”

Johnny smiled at her and took a can from the fridge, before thinking for a moment and then putting it back.

“On second thoughts,” he said, putting on his charming face, “I want to be sober for later in the evening.”

Nancy giggled and sat down on the sofa in front of the mammoth television. She turned it on and exclaimed, “Oh, good, baseball’s on.”

“You like baseball?”

“Of course I do. Who doesn’t?”

“It’s just that I’ve never met a girl that likes baseball before.” Johnny replied.

So they sat and watched baseball and ate pizza.

 

After the game had finished (the Red Sox lost- again) Jimmy stood up and said, “Just give me a minute to freshen up.”

He walked into the bathroom and splashed a load of aftershave all over his face.

“Look out ladies,” he mumbled to himself, “Johnny Owens is in town.”

He undressed and returned to the main room to see that Nancy had done the same. She was lying on the bed facing him with an expectant look on her face. He sat down beside her and stroked her thigh with his hand.

“You’re beautiful, Nancy, you really are” he said.

“Funny, the last guy to say that to me was from Boston as well. He died quite recently too.”

This surprised Johnny. He asked, “Who was that?”

“I don’t know, but his last words were something like No! No! I need money for my wife’s medicine!”

Her voice changed into the dry rattling voice of the man Johnny had murdered. She smiled at him with hatred in her eyes and said in the old man’s voice, “Not so happy now, are you, you little bastard?”

Her face started to change. The long black hair turned grey and fell out in clumps. She shrunk slightly and doubled over. Her face turned into the angry face of the old man as she… he… it screeched, “Welcome to the afterlife! Welcome to the afterlife!”

 

Johnny screamed in sheer terror and lashed out at what was just a minute ago a beautiful young woman. The moment his fist connected with the old man’s face, he punched empty air. The thing had just vanished. Johnny tried to gather his nerves but failed. He ran over to the bin in the corner and puked. Gasping for breath, he saw the remains of the pizzas he and Nancy had eaten earlier and puked again. There were insects cooked into the dough. Spiders, scorpions, ants… Johnny had eaten all of them.

 

He stood up and shakily walked over to the fridge. He thought to himself It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real over and over again, but he didn’t believe himself. This was real. He just needed a beer to calm himself. A nice ice-cold beer would do the trick. He pulled open the fridge and screamed. The severed heads of Nancy and the old man grinned back at him from the shelf. He couldn’t take it any more and ran. He was naked as the day he was born but he didn’t care. He just ran, ran towards the manager’s office where he would find help.

 

The streets were deserted. He reached the building where the manager was situated after running for maybe five minutes, and crashed breathlessly through the door. He spotted the manager’s office and ran in. The manager was sat behind the desk.

He smiled mirthlessly and said in monotone, “Sit down, Mr Owens. I’ve been expecting you.”

 

Johnny sat down, not caring that he was completely naked in front of a total stranger.

“Nancy tells me you’ve been having a few problems.”

“A few problems?” Johnny was almost hysterical now. “She turned into the old guy I killed! The pizza had spiders in it! There are two heads next to the beer!”

“Calm down, Mr Owens… Johnny. All can be explained.”

“How?” Johnny demanded.

“This is the afterlife.”

 

Johnny was shocked.

He stared at the manager wildly and said, “That doesn’t explain anything. This… this is Heaven!”

The manager laughed and removed his sunglasses, revealing to Johnny his burning red eyes.

“Mr Owens,” the manager said, still chuckling, “you’re very much mistaken. This is Hell!”

Edited January 8, 2008 by Chickstick

[Vercetti21]

Awesome writing, man! You've definitely improved.

 

Only one minor mistake I could really find, and that was the repetition of the word 'desk' at the end of the third paragraph. Not a big deal though, as this could have easily been fixed by rearranging sentence structure a bit. However, this does not take away from the quality of the story at all.

 

I had an idea similar to this a few months ago, but never fully carried it out, and even if I had it certainly would not have been as good as this.

 

Anyways, you've got a masterpiece here: the story brings you in right from the start and doesn't let go.

[Chickstick]

Anyways, you've got a masterpiece here: the story brings you in right from the start and doesn't let go.

Thanks a lot.

 

I'll sort out the repetition of "desk" tomorrow, I'm knackered at the moment and will probably cock something up if I attempt to edit now.

 

Also (cue drum roll to announce totally self-serving advertising), I will update AOD tomorrow as well.