THEY WERE ALMOST THERE.
The fog lay on the streets in west Asheville. It wrapped the trees and bumped against the houses. Porch lights and the streetlights all wore halos. The stars had gone away. It was a perfect night for ghosts.
“Man, I love flipping people’s houses,” Wyatt said as they searched for the right house numbers.
“Flipping? What’s that?” Jana asked. “Do you do cartwheels?”
“You know, flip. Show up, walk through, leave. When you flip something, you’re getting it done, like flipping a page in a book.”
“You don’t turn over the furniture or things like that?”
“I just like people’s houses,” Wyatt said. “They’re different inside than what you expect. They’re not like your own, you know what I mean? I like thinking I live there when I walk through, or that I might have grown up there. My house, we just had junk all over the place. These other houses, it’s like everything has been arranged. I like seeing how different people do that.”
Jana smiled. Listening to Wyatt, she felt less dead than usual. Being around him was almost like being alive again.
When they found it, the Simmons house was like the others: shrouded in fog. Wyatt, Mars, and Jana walked inside without opening the door. A golden retriever was on the couch. It raised its head and stared in their direction. Mars had forgotten to tell her that although most animals couldn’t see them, dogs always knew when dead people showed up. This one didn’t seem to care. It put its face back down on the cushion and stayed where it was.
The room was dark. Jana walked through one corner of the coffee table before she noticed it was there.
Sherry’s bedroom was at the front, they discovered. They stepped inside. Mars, focusing only slightly, pushed her bedroom door closed and leaned against it with his arms crossed. Jana stood near him, just in front, staring at the bed where Sherry slept. A night-light glowed in a nearby outlet.
“Look at this,” Wyatt said.
He pointed at the dresser top. In the middle of all the things on Sherry’s dresser sat the aerosol can of silicone spray lubricant. Someone had tied a two-inch black ribbon around it. The bow wasn’t done right, Jana noticed.
Wyatt approached the bed. He leaned over Sherry, concentrating. He placed his hand on her mouth. Sherry felt the weight of his flesh. Her eyes shot open. At the same time her feet kicked wildly, like they were on fire and she was just noticing it. Wyatt pressed down.
“Stop it,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you unless you scream. This is a friendly visit. I just want to talk.”
The red and yellow streaks in her hair quit moving. He took some pressure off his hand, studying her reaction with his one eye.
“Okay?” he asked.
She seemed to agree. A little less pressure, then.
“I mean it!” Wyatt said, lifting his hand entirely from her face.
Sherry gasped for air. She whimpered. Tears came to her eyes.
Jana didn’t care. She hated Sherry for having tied that black ribbon around the can of silicone spray.
Wyatt’s conversation was brief. Sherry had to tell someone about Jana’s accident, he said. She had to tell or he would come back.
“Who?” Sherry managed to ask. “Who do I tell?”
“You know who,” he growled at her.
“My parents?”
“Shit no,” he said. “Parents don’t matter. They’ll just say it was all right. You know who you have to tell.”
Wyatt turned around to look at Mars. Wyatt flung his hand in the air. He’d forgotten her name.
“Sherry,” Mars told him.
“Sherry,” Wyatt said solemnly. “You have to tell the cops. I’m a monster from beyond the grave. I will be here every night until you tell.”
He backed up. He walked to the dresser, leaning down hard on his bad leg and back up straight again. “Say okay, Sherry.”
“Okay,” the sophomore said quickly.
Wyatt picked up the can of silicone spray. “One more thing. I want you to give me this. You have to give it to me or I can’t take it.”
She didn’t want to. Her face was wet with fear, but she didn’t want to.
“Sherry,” Wyatt said, “if you don’t give it to me, I’ll have to come back and ask again.”
“Okay,” she said.
Wyatt slacked off. She could see only his outline now.
Jana reached behind her to take Mars’s hand. She touched his jeans instead. Mars put his hand on her shoulder. His warmth tumbled through her. She was filled with the heat of the earth. She materialized. Sherry screamed when she saw Jana standing in her room. Mars took his hand away and Jana disappeared.
The scream woke up the house. Sherry’s father rushed from the master bedroom into the hall.
The three of them left. The dog watched the can of silicone spray float through the living room and out the door. Mars backed the car up the street with the headlights off.
• • •
It was Mars’s turn to go to work.
The television was on at Nathan’s house. They saw him through the window. Nathan sat in a chair bathed in the light of the TV. He was still dressed, but his shoes were off.
Mars stuck his head through the door and said, “Nathan, come here a sec.”
Nathan looked at the door. He climbed out of the chair and opened it. Wyatt stood off to the side to watch. Jana kept near him for warmth. Nathan stepped outside in his socks.
“Over here,” Mars said from the edge of a rhododendron bush. He moved quickly away.
Nathan stepped into the grass. “Michael? Where are you? Come on, my feet are wet.”
He took one more step. Mars tackled him from behind.
Nathan hit the ground and went limp. Mars, fully naturalized to the Planet now, rolled him over for their little talk. Nathan recognized Mars as the guy from the bowling alley. Nathan’s hair was coated with droplets of fog that looked to Jana like spiderwebs. Nathan licked the corners of his mouth while Mars talked to him. There were webs there too.
• • •
Michael was next.
“His dad works the graveyard shift,” Jana told Mars. “His mom’s married to someone else. He’ll be home alone.”
Wyatt traipsed through the house with his peculiar gait. With each step, it looked like he was leaning in to peer at something on the wall, then leaning out again. Jana took Mars to the bedroom. Michael was asleep. Mars turned on the lights. Michael didn’t wake up. He was sprawled on his back in bed.
Jana had been in his house often enough. She knew the books on his desk, the posters on the wall. The brand of cereal he kept on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. His toothpaste and his shampoo.
She sat on the edge of Michael’s bed and watched him sleep. He was beautiful. His breathing was so soft, so quiet. Did she really want him dead?
Yes.
And he wanted to be dead too. Once they were together, Michael would never be alone again. The sooner the better, for both of them.
“I want him to hear me,” Jana said. “I want him to see me.”
“To see you he’ll have to see me too,” Mars said.
“If I talk to him, will he think he’s dreaming?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, I want him to see me first. Stand behind me, Mars. Put your hands on my shoulders.”
Mars pressed both his hands on Jana. She kept her eyes on Michael as wave upon wave of smoldering warmth entered her, held her.
“Wake him,” Mars whispered in her ear, his breath as warm as his hands.
Jana opened her mouth slightly to take in more air. She pulled the covers away from Michael. He slept bare-chested. She placed her hand there, her breathing trying to catch up to the heat lowering itself into her body, over and over like the tide. She massaged his chest with short gentle strokes.
“Michael, wake up,” Jana said softly. “Wake up, Michael. It’s me.”
His eyes came slowly open.
Michael jerked away from her, bolting himself against the headboard. He screamed like a little girl. The crazed look in his eyes could have knocked down bowling pins.
Mars took his hands away.
Jana flung herself on top of Michael.
“Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s me. I’m here.”
Jana faded before Mars did. She faded quickly. Michael could barely hear her, could barely feel her weight on top of him.
Wild-eyed and panting, Michael stared at Mars. He’d left the automatic locked in the glove compartment of his car. He wouldn’t do that again. Mars slowly disappeared.
Wyatt came into the room. He walked to Michael’s computer and touched the mouse. The screen saver popped off. There was a Google search on the browser: How to fire a pistol.
Half of Wyatt’s face found humor in Michael’s current research project.
Jana rode in silence for the longest time.
Michael had screamed when he saw her. He was supposed to have smiled warmly, to have reached for her. Jana had tried to hold on to him, to hug Michael’s body with all of hers. It was no use. Once Mars let go of her, Michael didn’t know she was still there. Jana had felt Michael’s heartbeat, but he couldn’t feel hers.
Jana could touch, but she couldn’t hold. She might as well have been the fog.
The Sliders decided not to jump. It would be light in an hour and the guy whose car they drove might be up soon. Besides, everyone was exhausted. Jana’s thoughts were drowsy. She couldn’t concentrate.
“I just have to be a Slider,” Jana finally said.
Wyatt was tired of hearing it. “She doesn’t even know what she’s asking,” he said to Mars.
“I’m right here, Wyatt,” Jana said curtly. “And I can hear you.”
“But can you listen, that’s the question,” he barked at her. “Look, let’s get this over with. You do not want to be a Slider. It’s going backwards. It’s going the wrong way.”
“Yes, I do,” Jana said. “I want to be a Slider just like you.”
“No, you don’t. You just think you do. Look, it’s Chutes and Ladders once you’re dead. And Sliders aren’t sliding up. What do you think happens to us when we graduate or get kicked out, whichever comes first?”
Jana was silent. There was nothing he could say that would change her mind. She didn’t just want to be a Slider, she needed to be one.
“It’s not all angel cake and ice cream, I can tell you that much,” Wyatt continued. “They don’t have Twinkies where we’re going. They just bake them there.”
Wyatt was angry for some reason. Mars wasn’t saying anything to help. It was the end of the argument. And it was the end of their night on the town.
The Sliders dropped her off out front.
“Just walk through the gate and don’t stop,” Mars told her. “You can walk through it while it’s closed from this side. You’ll be good as new once you’re on campus.”
As good as dead, Jana thought. “Okay,” she said.
“Drink some water before you go to bed.”
The dorm looked different from outside the fence. There were weeds everywhere; there wasn’t concrete. Windows were broken, some with boards nailed across them. No lights were on. To the real world, the Dead School dorm was a vacant building. A yellow school bus, spotted with rust, sat on flat tires inside the fence. A metal No Trespassing sign at the front gate had been tagged with black spray paint. A heavy chain and a heavier lock held the gate closed.
Fog shadowed her feet as Jana left the Planet. She walked through the gate as if it wasn’t there. When she did, lights came on in the building and over the lobby doors. The windows were repaired. The bus looked new. She felt her body’s physical presence return.
The Gray named Barry wasn’t waiting for her on the bench. Instead, a trio of Virgins greeted her at the entry to the dorm. They sang a song to twenty, then floated away. It was probably a Riser record for demerits earned in one night, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy Jana. She’d have to jump, or something worse. She’d have to do a lot of things.
As she climbed the stairs, Jana considered how she would kill Michael once she was a Slider. She couldn’t cut his throat or he’d look like that in Dead School. She could shoot him while he slept. It would leave just a little hole in the back of his head if she did it right. But if she didn’t do it right, it would blast a ragged hole in his face when the bullet came out the other side.
She thought of Beatrice. Jana might be strong enough to push an ice pick through his skull. Or, with practice, she could use a hammer and give the handle of an ice pick one solid hit. Would he jump around until he died? Would he struggle if she strangled him? Probably, she decided.
If she plunged the ice pick into his chest until it pierced his heart while he slept, he might wake up and pull it out. She’d have to hide his cell phone so he couldn’t call 911 for help. What if he struck out at her before he died? She didn’t want Michael hitting her to be the last thing he remembered from real life.
Jana would drug him. She’d tie his hands and feet to the bed. Then smother him in his sleep. Michael would be a little blue in Dead School. That didn’t matter anyway. Everyone was. Poison, of course. Drugs and poison were the same thing. Everything about Romeo and Juliet was just right.