Page 58 of Grim

ClimbingtheALPs

Sometime After That …

W here am I?

It’s not a poetic question. It’s not rhetorical. I genuinely have no idea where I am.

I’ve looked around at least fifty times now, each scan as fruitless as the last, though that hasn’t stopped me from repeating the motions like a nervous tic.

The room is vast with rows of chairs that stretch in both directions like a pair of infinity mirrors.

Every chair is filled, but no one’s talking.

Not in a frightened way, more in that deadened, post-waiting-room-eternity way. There’s a vacancy in all the eyes here.

Across the room is a long row of desks, like a Department of Motor Vehicles designed by someone with a real flair for the mundane. Behind each steel station, workers in stiff charcoal uniforms shuffle papers, stamp forms, and speak just loud enough to be irritating without being intelligible.

How long have I been here?

I check the window for the fifth? Seventh?

Twentieth time? Hard to say. The outside looks identical to the inside—same dull shades of grey and purple.

There’s a sliver of a moon suspended in the sky, hanging there like an old fridge magnet.

Every time I glance at it, it seems a fraction larger than it was before, but if I stare at it to witness its waxing or waning, it doesn’t move at all.

I cannot quite figure out if I have been sitting here for a matter of moments or many hours.

I am somehow no longer connected to time in a way I am familiar with.

I cannot feel it. Its passage does not resonate anywhere in or around me.

I do not seem to be accumulating the memory of each minute, and so they do not seem to exist. Like each second is the only second, and they all paradoxically hold the magnitude of everything and the weightlessness of nothing in each of them.

It is difficult to describe. It is disorienting.

What is this place?

The line at each station never diminishes. One by one, souls are processed, papers are stamped, badges assigned, and then herded off through one of the glass doors behind the desks. I haven’t seen anyone come back. No one looks confused, nor do they protest. They just accept it.

I cross my arms over my chest and stare at the nearest clerk, who doesn’t look up. I consider grabbing a pen or something and throwing it to get their attention. But I have no pen, no paper, nothing at all.

I try not to fidget, but it’s hard when you don’t have a sense of whether you’re supposed to be fidgeting.

Maybe this is all part of the test. Or maybe they’re waiting for me to crack.

I’m not sure what they want from me, but I’m starting to think I’m the only one here who didn’t attend orientation.

Before I have an opportunity to begin to unpack any of these mysteries, I hear my name called from one of the desks.

I stand and look around, unable to discern exactly where the sound is coming from.

On the third intonation of my name, I spot the source of the sound and move toward the tiny, bespectacled woman sitting behind mountains of paperwork.

“Rue Chamberlain?” Her round eyes peek over the rim of her glasses as she looks up from her paper at my approach.

“Yes,” I say, not remembering the last time I spoke.

“Sit down.” Her clipped tone offers no room for discussion, so I slide into the seat opposite her desk .

“Where am I?”

She sighs the sigh of a person who’s been asked the same question too many times to count. A dull exhale, followed by the same answer she’s clearly given over and over again. “Welcome to the OtherWorld. This is AfterLife Processing. My name is Zandra, and I will be your ALPer.”

“Helper?”

“ALPer, as in AfterLife Processing.”

“ALPer?” I repeat. “What do I need ALP with?”

She doesn’t blink at my attempt at levity. “Despair. Mostly.”

Zandra clicks her pen and begins scribbling on a form.

“Here you will be given your status ranking, placement, and temporary assignment. Once assigned to your designated sector, you will begin your tenure for Death’s Door, LLC.

At the end of your term, you may be relocated and cleared from additional service, or your contract may be extended. ”

The fog begins to clear from my mind as visions from my recent past return. A beautiful man with a dark soul that matched his dark suit. Spirits and stories and adventures. My house, my heart, my home.

“Kane,” I whisper, then lock eyes with the clerk. “Where is Kane?”

Zandra’s pen pauses. She peers over her glasses with a tilt of her head. “Who is Kane, lady?”

“He was my reaper.” He was my love . The sensation sparks in the center of my chest, but I do not voice that truth now. “He is supposed to be with me,” I offer instead.

“No one belongs to anyone else in the OtherWorld. It’s just you and eternity now.” Zandra eyes the sheet in front of her. “Also, says here your reaper was an Asher Bennett. Cause of death: heart failure from a genetic condition. Poetic passing, smooth soul extraction.”

“No.” I lean forward, my hands gripping the edge of the desk. “No, that’s wrong. I need to see him. Kane Deveraux. Please, you have to help me.”

“No one can help you now, Rue. No one can help any of us. Not anymore.”

There is an eerie darkness to Zandra’s declaration. They are the first words she’s spoken with anything resembling emotion or feeling. And the haunting sentiment sends a chill rushing down my spine.

She continues, scanning the sheet in front of her, “According to your paperwork, you will be assigned to …” She trails off, picking the paper up and bringing it closer to her face. “Huh. That can’t be right. I’ve never seen that before,” she mumbles to herself.

“What? What’s not right? What is it?”

“Your account has been flagged.” Zandra squints as she looks over the papers, and my stomach twists. “Your file’s been marked ‘Classified’. No assignment issued. Directive: escort subject to Main Office for evaluation .”

I stare at her, dread creeping over me. “To see Big D?” I ask, the rest of my memories from my final mortal days flooding back.

Zandra looks up again. Her mouth opens. Closes. “How do you know we call him that?”

An odd sense of confidence replaces the cold in my back, and I arch my shoulders as I stare straight at my curly-haired ALPer. “I’ve been here before, Z. Now show me to the boss’s office.”

She studies me, her expression finally cracking into something resembling emotion. Bewilderment maybe. Or caution.

“I need the big stamp,” she mutters, rifling through a tray of ink pads and oversize labels. Her hand lands on a red one the size of a dinner plate.

A loud chunk sound echoes off the steel table as the red ink slams onto the page. The word ‘Assigned’ splattered atop the black ink.

Zandra shoves the paper aside and nods toward the far corner of the room. “Door’s over there. You’ll know it when you see it.”

And I do.

Now that it’s been pointed out, I can’t unsee it—a tall, oval archway that shimmers like the surface of water trapped in a mirror. It hums, just low enough to feel in my molars. The air around it smells floral and toxic.

I take one last look at Zandra. She doesn’t smile, nor does she wave.

“Good luck,” she says flatly. “You’ll need it. ”

Then she’s gone again—absorbed back into her fortress of red tape and resignation.

I walk toward the door.

I don’t look back.

I step through the inky center of the arched door and am instantly transported to the end of a long red carpet.

I take in the high ceilings, ostentatious art adorning the walls, odd pieces of furniture in mismatched period styles.

I don’t know Big D well, but even without context clues, I’d know who this space belonged to.

I scan the length of the red carpet before me and see a tiny desk at the end.

The desk probably isn’t small, but its distance from me makes it seem so.

There is nothing tiny about the booming voice that echoes from behind it though. D intones with all the bravado of a cartoon villain, “Rue Chamberlain. We meet again.”

“To my great disappointment,” I mumble to myself.

“I heard that,” he snipes, though there is a hint of delight in his undertone. “Come here.”

This time, he snaps his fingers, and I find myself immediately opposite his desk, gold name placard pointlessly announcing the owner of the room to a world that doesn’t need the reminder.

“Neat trick,” I deadpan with a hint of venom in my tone.

“I think you’ll find I’m full of surprises today, girl,” he replies with a too-wide smile while leaning back in his chair. The way he says that last word gives the sensation of spiders crawling on my neck.

I shiver, and he continues, “Also, rude. Nana heard you talking ill of me.”

He gestures to a human skull sitting atop a carved lava rock coaster. Red candy ropes jut from the top, along with a blue umbrella, like the ones found in those tropical vacation cocktails.

“Care for one?” he asks, pulling the candy out and offering it to me. “Twizzlers straight from Nana. The purest ambrosia.”

“I would sooner eat a stranger’s toenails. Thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He pops it into his mouth and leans back, giving the skull a pat. He looks so amused with himself.

“What do you want with me?” I ask, not bothering to hide the bite in my tone.

“Straight to the point. I like it! So, we’re skipping over the hard feelings thing then?”

“Oh, by ‘thing,’ are you referring to the whole separating me from the mate to my soul during the single moment in human existence that mated souls should be together?” I stare at him, my gaze stone-cold. “Fuck. You. Daryl,” I spit.

He holds up both hands. “Still a bit raw. Okay, I get it. Listen, my hands were tied. I think you’ll see that in time.”

“I don’t care about time,” I finally snap. “I care about what you did!”