Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

It’s my fault they’re here. I slacked off on my grief watch, and now we’re all in danger. How hard is it to make people cry about death?

The dog’s growl becomes a shrill wine. He jumps behind the couch to hide. I want to tell him the Shadow isn’t here for him, but he won’t understand. He probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

I let go of Naomi and Edgar and move backward. Naomi reaches for me, but I move too fast for her.

“Over here!” I shout. “Come get me, asshole.”

The Shadow moves away from them and circles around me. The cold becomes nothing. An absence of air. I don’t breathe any more, yet I find myself gasping for air. It squeezes me and a face forms in front of mine. The squeezing causes pain, but not the physical kind. More like the deepest despair I’ve ever felt, like every person I’ve ever known has died.

The face forms completely. It’s sort of like Darth Vader’s when he took off the mask, but more horrifying. It’s like a burnt wraith with fangs. It’s black smoke from a biblical funeral pyre. Despair, ugly and terrifying and so incredibly sad.

It meets me nose-to-nose and inhales. I feel a hard tug, but then I’m released. The force of the release knocks me backward. The Shadow shakes its head and retreats.

It doesn’t want me yet, but I somehow know it won’t be long.

Edgar and Naomi are holding each other. The Shadow works its way between them and pulls at Edgar. Naomi tries to keep his hands in hers, but her effort is futile.

“No!” she shouts.

A wounded animal scream erupts from Edgar. The Shadow squeezes him. His form twists and contorts and grows smaller. A human Shrinky Dink.

He screams again as the twisting puts parts of him where they shouldn’t be. His feet are parallel with his ankles. His head is upside down.

Edgar disappears with one last scream. So does the Shadow. It’s as if neither of them had been there at all.

Naomi is stuck in the middle of the floor. She blinks rapidly but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Naomi,” I say as I move to face her. “Naomi.”

She looks at me but her eyes don’t focus right away. “You’re still here.”

“I’m still here,” I say and pull her into my arms. I’ve never wanted flesh against mine as much as I do right now.

“We need bodies,” I say.

“Yeah. We need bodies.”

“I promise I’ll try harder,” I whisper onto the top of her head. I hope she can feel my breath, or whatever it is.

Keys rattle in the front door and a woman walks in. She has short red hair and she’s wearing scrubs. It takes me a second to recognize her.

“Who’s that?” Naomi asks.

“That’s Alex. She must be the last one.”

Trevor’s sister. My cousin. But why is she here?

Bojangles runs out from behind the couch and greets Alex with jumping and kisses. Alex bends down to pull the dog into her arms. She releases the dog, but he stays by her side.

“Who is this woman to you?”

“She’s my cousin. I don’t know why she’s here.”

Daisy emerges from the back bedroom. I had forgotten she was here. Seeing Edgar get eaten by the Shadow made everything else in the trailer feel far away.

“Hey, baby.” She meets Alex in the living room and wraps her arms around her. Alex kisses Daisy on the mouth. Not like a friend.

“Oh,” Naomi says. She’s almost smiling from this revelation. The near-smile is an amazing sight after what we just witnessed.

Daisy was always adventurous, yet this relationship surprises me. Even though she smoked pot and let me do lots of things to her sexually, she considered herself a conservative Christian.

Maybe she just evolved. Nothing wrong with that. No telling what I would be if I had lived. Probably not gay, but maybe an accountant.

As for Alex, she was always pretty butch.

“How are you doing with this?” Naomi asks.

“Fine. Considering what just happened, this doesn’t seem like a big deal.”

“Perspective is a good thing.” Naomi puts her hand on my back. I close my eyes and relish the warmth for a second or maybe more.

“I need to get this taken care of. Surely Alex is the end of it.”

“Okay.” Naomi nods. “But how will we move on without Edgar?”

“Hopefully, we’ll get another mentor. They won’t just leave us to fend for ourselves, will they?”

“It would help if we knew who ‘they’ are,” she says.

There’s nothing we can do about that right now, but there’s no use mentioning it.

Holy fucking shit! That was like a Giger-inspired nightmare. But it wasn’t a nightmare. It played out right in front of us.

Luke was wrong. Oblivion isn’t the absence of pain; it is the worst pain that was unimaginable until now. But at least Luke recognizes his folly. He’s on task.

“How can you make her cry?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. We were close when we were little kids, but not since then.” He’s staring at her like he’ll find an answer in her face.

I follow his gaze and realize that’s not why he’s staring. He’s watching Alex undress Daisy. And Daisy’s body is amazing.

How does she have a flat stomach after two kids? I didn’t have a flat stomach when I died even though I had zero pregnancies. Her breasts are firm and bouncy. There’s no way she breastfed those babies.

The last guy I had sex with was a smelly hipster with patchy facial hair, very little muscle tone, and a below average dick. Luke went out on a much higher note.

“I think we should leave the room before my cousin gets naked,” Luke says.

“It’s up to you. I don’t mind watching. This is the most action I’ve seen in a long time.”

I saw Eliza dry-hump a bartender, but that’s been it for the duration of my grief watch. Most people really are boring.

Luke grins. “It’s too creepy for me.”

I follow him to Eben’s room. We watch him sleep and listen to his breathing. Before the Shadow made its dramatic appearance this would have been boring. But now I find it soothing and peaceful. Funny how some good things can come out of watching your mentor get twisted and sucked away by a terrifying force.

Life went on after I died. That’s no surprise. But my girlfriend and my cousin becoming lesbian lovers in my absence. Yeah, that’s a surprise.

I wonder if they bonded over suicide. Alex lost Trevor, then Daisy lost me. I suppose Alex lost me, too.

Where is the baby from? Did they go to a sperm bank, or was Daisy with a man before she was with Alex?

But these mysteries can wait. I need to get the fuck out of here before the Shadow comes back.

While we’re waiting for Daisy and Alex to finish being naked in the living room, I search my memory for anything special Alex and I shared.

Most of our time together was spent outside at our granny’s house. We played hide-and-seek in the woods, we played chase. We caught fireflies in jars, and we cried every time that we forgot to release them and they died by morning.

Naomi erupts with laughter so quickly that the noise startles me.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Your baby-mama is a lesbian now. Do you think you turned her?” She laughs again to punctuate her question.

“I don’t think it’s that simple. Do you?” A smile forms on my face, a direct result of Naomi’s laughter.

We’re standing against the wall in Eben’s room. I can hear the occasional moan or gasp or “Oh my God” but they’re being quiet for the kids. I’m thankful for that.

“Probably not.” The laughter has subsided in favor of a sudden frown. “Edgar’s really gone. Right?”