Rod leapt to his feet snarling as I fell clumsily to the floor in shock. Framed in the doorway was the most unlikely source of my now splintered bedroom door. She was extremely petite, no more than five feet tall. Her hair was short, spiky, and a vivid pink. Her combat boots clumped noisily as she stomped across my living room in a black tank-top and short skirt. Her green fishnets were frayed. She looked like she couldn’t be more than fifteen and looked, from my position, extremely pissed.

“Give me my focus you asshole!” She screamed wildly as she slung what looked like a locket at Rod.

The wall behind him exploded in a cloud of plaster and dry-wall as he dove behind the couch. I could see into my neighbor’s living room through a diagonal slash through the wall. Her attention came to me as I tried to stand.

“Stay out of the way, rookie,” she commanded roughly.

Swinging the locket she turned back to the couch, but before she could react it flew towards her with a loud creak. She yanked the locket down in front of her and the sofa split in the middle, one side flying back through the window behind her and the other slamming into the wall above me. I rolled out of the way and looked up just in time to see Rod catch her on the side of the head with his planner. Her body flew past me and hit the wall where it crumpled in a heap. Her head was at an odd angle and her left leg looked broken.

I scrambled up out of the debris gasping. I looked wildly around my living room, my eyes taking in the wreckage that took mere seconds to create before resting on Rods trembling form. His eyes were bulging and his chest was heaving almost as quickly as mine. He ran a hand roughly through his hair before addressing me.

“Give it to me. Hurry, before she gets up,” Rod hissed.

I gaped at him. “Gets up? It looks like you freaking broke her neck. What is going on? Who is she?”

“GIVE IT TO ME!” Rods eyes looked as if they’d fall out of his head if he opened them any wider.

I looked down at the now crumpled cigarette pack I had clenched in my fist. “No. Tell me what the hell is going on first.”

Rod looked for a moment as if he was going to choke then started picking his way through the mounds of splintered door and couch towards me. I backed up until my back hit the kitchen table now standing on three of its four legs. It wobbled ominously as something heavy slid down it and hit the small of my back. My hand jerked behind me reflexively and my fingers wrapped around something cool.

I glanced down to find that I was holding the rusty bottle opener. My eyes met Rods an instant before he let out a guttural cry and lunged for me. I closed my eyes and tensed, ready for the impact, but as my breath was knocked out of me I realized I was flying in the wrong direction.

Rod’s angry scream sounded farther away than I’d expected as I tore my eyes open. I looked down at the weight around my middle to find the girls arm wrapped around me as we flew through my shattered, fourth story window. I screamed as the pavement rushed closer and we spun head over heels towards the ground.

The girl let go of me abruptly and latched a hold of my flailing arm, jerking me behind her and shaking the locket loose from where it was twined around her wrist. The ground was yards away as she swung the locket down towards it. I closed my eyes again braced for impact, but it never came.

The wind that was moments ago whistling past my ears, was gone. My feet met resistance in the form of ground underneath them as I tried to kick my legs. I opened my eyes and the world swam as I adjusted to being right-side-up again. Gazing around I took in a crowded street, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t recognize a hing. Cars lined the street around us and pedestrians moved past on either side of the street seemingly oblivious to the fact that two people were standing stupidly in the middle of the road.

“Come on. We’ve got to keep moving or he’ll find us.” Scanning the crowd around us, she jerked my arm hard enough to leave a bruise and pulled me across the street towards the sidewalk. I fumbled behind her, trying to stick the cigarette pack and bottle opener out of sight in my pocket.

The crowd of commuting pedestrians parted like water for us to pass. Not one person raised any objection to being roughly shoved aside by the girl dragging me in her wake. They didn’t even blink as they stumbled and righted themselves before continuing on their way. It made me nervous, seeing their blank expressions. I desperately wished she’d stop long enough for me to catch my breath.

“Can they see us?” I looked at the back of the girls head as she determinedly elbowed through the docile crowd. She glanced over her shoulder with a huff.

“No, not really. Just shut up for now and follow me, okay. We have to get out of the open.”

I stopped walking, my arm jerking in her vice-like grip as she continued down the sidewalk. I felt panicky, as if I’d lost something and desperately needed to find it. “Look. I want to know what the hell is going on before I go anywhere with you. I’ve spent the afternoon staring at my dead body and playing the guessing game with Mr. Mood-Swing back there, listening to him talk about light and focuses and crap. Then, you show up and trash my apartment. I could care less if Rod finds you and I’m not moving from this spot until I get some straight answers,” I yelled.

The girl had let go of my arm and was now glaring up at me with her hip cocked. “I really don’t have the time to listen to your whining, Rookie. Rod is not after me at the moment. He’s after you. And, this is so not the time or place to be giving anyone Purgatory 101. Now, you can shut up and follow me like a good boy or I can just drag you to the safe house. Either works for me.”

Outraged, I opened my mouth to argue but the world spun as she swept my legs out from under me with a practiced kick to the back of my knees. I squinted up at the pink-haired girl and got a glimpse of the bright locket chain wrapped around her knuckles before her fist smashed into my face.

***

I woke up feeling like someone had used my skull as a kick-drum. I reached out blindly to slap the snooze button on my alarm clock where it sat on my bedside table but I missed and my arm slapped the ground next to my head. The floor was cold and slightly damp. Floor?

I sat up abruptly and regretted it. My vision swam as I leaned over and vomited. It made a sick splatting noise on the concrete floor. I could hear someone moving close to me and tensed when a warm hand touched my shoulder. I looked up into the face of an elderly black man. He grasped me under the arms and pulled me to a sitting position, leaning me up against the brick wall I’d been curled up against.

He squatted next to me and looked into my face. “You alright, boy?” Taking a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket, he began wiping up the pool of sick I’d made.

Feeling embarrassed I mumbled, “S-Sorry.”

“Not a thing to sorry over.” He smiled warmly at me as he folded his handkerchief into a neat square and put it back in his pocket, just was clean as it was when he took it out.

I blinked a few times, staring at his suit jacket where the cloth had disappeared. Sighing, I pulled my eyes back up to his face. Any hope that I’d woken from a dream or a nasty head injury had evaporated. I glanced around the room behind him to see three more people peering at me from various corners.

The room itself was slightly larger than my bedroom. Its crumbling brick walls were covered in maps and blueprints of buildings. Each of the four walls had a small door in the center of it, but none of them had handles. The only light in the room was coming from a buzzing light bulb dangling from a crude fixture in the center of the ceiling. The day’s events taking their toll, I started feeling aggravated.

“Name’s Vernon Hightower,” the man said, extending his hand. “Now, where’d Miss Mickey run off to?”

“Mickey? The pink-haired girl?” I asked, ignoring his outstretched hand. It was difficult for me to keep my voice from rising in frustration. “I don’t know. She was in a hurry to get to some safe house. I kept asking questions so she knocked me out. How long have I been here?”

Vernon’s wrinkled brow bunched together in a worried look. He let his hand drop lamely to his knee. “Well, you come flying through the door on your own not thirty-five seconds ago. I figured Miss Mickey told you where to go. See, this is the safe house. This is home for all of us between pickups and deliveries. She didn’t tell you?”

I wiped cold sweat off of my forehead with the back of my hand before answering. I was beyond confused. “I don’t know a thing about what’s going on. All I know for certain is that I shot myself, some guy named Rod wants my last cigarette, and Mickey or whoever has a mean right hook.”

Vernon gave a startled jump at the mention of Rod’s name, losing his balance. He rocked back on his heels for a second before catching his balance. My face hardened in a cold anger as he firmly gripped my shoulders. “Rod found you? Did he get Miss Mickey? Is she alright?” he said, intense.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She just showed up yelling and tore my couch in half. Then she pulled me through the window. We landed… somewhere, I don’t know where, and she knocked me out. I woke up here. That’s all I know, man.” I insisted.

At this, one of the figures stepped out of the corner. It was a middle aged woman in a lacey nightgown. She had dark brown hair with liberal streaks of grey in it falling in waves to her waist. I was momentarily dazed by her face. She seemed to be glowing faintly as she walked towards me, stopping with her bare feet inches from my still sprawled legs. Even being obviously older, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“He knows nothing, Vernon. Mind your anger,” she said in a voice that reminded me of thick honey, laying a gentle hand on Vernon’s shoulder.

He closed his eyes for a moment and shoulders slumping he let go of me and scooted down to sit casually further along the wall. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

The woman knelt slowly as if she were afraid to startle me. She smiled warmly at me with her hands in her lap. “My name is Sarah. You’ve met Vernon already. Those two,” she pointed at two, skinny, timid looking teens now rising from the far corner, “are Connor and Alex.”

“H-Hi,” my voice rasped as I pulled myself up into a more dignified position. “I’m Dane.”

Sarah turned her face back to mine and I was dumbfounded again by the full force of her gaze. In the back of my mind I knew I should find this odd, but I felt strangely content with her this close; almost happy.

“It is lovely to meet you Dane,” she said with a small smile. I noticed a faint accent but couldn’t place it. “I know that you must be very confused and scared right now and I promise to do my very best to help you understand what is happening to you, but right now it is very important for you to answer our questions as best as you possibly can. Do you understand?

I nodded mutely, still marveling at the beautiful sound of her voice. I could listen to her talk all night.

“Good. Now from what you’ve already told Vernon, am I correct in assuming you were found by Rod and not Mickey?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat loudly and licked my lips. “He said he was there to help me move on, to find my focus or whatever. He said I couldn’t die unless I found it and gave it to him.”

Sarah’s smile faltered and she shared a glance with Vernon. “That was not true I’m afraid, but we will explain more in a moment. Did he help you find your focus?”

“Um, I don’t know. I think so.” I fumbled in my pocket for the pack of cigarettes. “I’m not sure, but I think this is it. He seemed to think so anyway.”

I handed the pack to Sarah and she pulled the last cigarette out with slender fingers. She smiled widely at me and placed it back in my hand where it seemed to pulse lightly. “Yes,” she breathed, her smile turning sad, “but I am afraid that finding it does not mean you will be able to rest. Quite the contrary, the possession of a focus means that you are one of us, a courier, and cannot move on so easily.”

Panicking, I glanced around the room at the other three inhabitants. “Why not? I don’t understand.”

Sarah’s face seemed to glow more brightly for a moment as she smiled at me again. I felt the panic bubbling in my chest recede to a dull throb and looked up at her, lost. “Your questions will be answered soon enough Dane. Now, did Mickey say anything to you before she dropped you here?”

“She-She said I needed to shut up and follow her, that he’d find us if we didn’t keep moving. I don’t think he could have though. We jumped out of my window, but the street we were on didn’t look like anywhere near my building. That’s all I remember. She punched me shortly after that.”

Vernon laughed beside me. “She’s some kind of impatient, Miss Mickey. She’ll be alright then. She just had to get you here so she could shake him off. I’m going to tan her hide when she gets back, leaving us like that without saying a thing.”

Confused, I looked back to Sarah. She too seemed more relieved, her brow smoothing to make her look years younger. “I am sorry Dane. You must be very confused. You’ve picked a very tumultuous time to kill yourself haven’t you?”

“Um-Yeah, I guess so.” I stammered.

She laughed in her sweet voice and patted me on the shoulder. “Allow me to try easing some of your confusion. You are, indeed, dead. And, this world you’ve found yourself in is called Middledeath. Others call it many different things depending on their beliefs, but they do not spend much time here. We, however, are doomed to stay until the almighty decides we can leave.”

“Purgatory.” It was much easier to take this all in after seeing all that I’d seen today. I’d never been religious, but I read a lot. I knew what Purgatory was. After all the talk about focuses and grams, I was almost relieved to be discussing something I could wrap my head around. “So I just have to figure out what I did wrong and I can go on to heaven or wherever?”

Sarah looked over at Vernon who shrugged before answering. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” she said shaking her head. “Lost souls come here when they die and yes, most learn what cardinal sin they committed and are able to atone and move on. Others would rather go see the boatman and be taken to judgment rather than face their wrongs. We, souls that were so ungrateful for our precious gifts of life that we took them from God’s hands, must stay here as guides to the lost. Our punishment is to know our sins and live through them with every soul we usher into rest.”

She stopped speaking with a crumpled expression on her face. I reached out to touch her hand in a gesture that was very unlike my usual misanthropic behavior, but she pulled away with another sad smile. “I’m sorry,” I stammered, still not fully understanding anything but needing to see her smile again.

“It is not your fault Dane,” said one of the guys in the corner. “That’s why we try not to get to close. I’m Alex.”

“Why don’t you get too close?” I looked from Alex to Vernon who nodded his head towards the teen as if he didn’t know any more than I did.

Alex ran a hand through his blonde hair and sighed, shoving his fists deep into the black trench coat he was wearing. “Our greatest sins in life, apparently, are what we’re punished for here. If you’re a good person in life, you go see some pearly gates or whatever. You get to skip this part; the whole purgatory thing. But, if you were anything less than perfect, you come to Middledeath and get schooled before you can go on to Heaven or Hell. And, if you kill yourself like we all did, you not only have to work out your own sin, you have to spend forever helping the rookies live through theirs too.”

At this I interrupted him. “That’s what Mickey kept calling me! Rookie! So maybe I can go on!”

The other guy snickered harshly at my excited outburst. “You wish, idiot.”

Alex elbowed him in the ribs, scowling. “Shut up, Connor.” He shut up, glaring at me.

“Don’t listen to him,” Alex said with a glance at his friend. “He’s just upset. Anyway, he’s right. You can’t move on. You’re one of us. You’re the new Sloth.”

“Sloth?” I looked around to Sarah who had backed into her corner for confirmation. She nodded, smiling reassuringly.

“Yeah,” said Alex. “When you kill yourself and become a courier, you fall in with a group of all the other sins. There are little families of us all over and each one is made up of seven members; each member being a different sin. It’s part of our punishment. That’s what Sarah thinks anyway, and I take her word for it ‘cause she’s the oldest.”

“She can’t be the oldest,” I said, confused. I turned to run my eyes over Vernon. He had to be over sixty.

Connor groaned impatiently and pushed himself to his feet. “Jeeze, shit-for-brains. Would you just shut up and listen? You’re dead and employed by Purgatory. Only an idiot would take all that in and still expect everything to be… normal.”

Alex gave Connor an annoyed look, but continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “She’s the oldest of us because she died the longest ago. She killed herself in the seventeen-hundreds.”

I turned to her, eyes wide. A lump forming in my stomach, I wondered if I was going to be stuck here for three-hundred years.

Jerking my attention back to him, Alex continued. “Connor and I died in nineteen ninety-nine. Vernon kicked it in the late nineteen-fifties, and Mickey croaked in ninety-six. But we’re getting off subject. Look, you’re Sloth now. It’s your job to be the ghost from Christmas past for all the souls around here who’s sin was Sloth. When we’ve helped enough, however long that takes, we get to go on. Like Sarah said, it’s our punishment for killing ourselves.”

Trying to ignore the urge to run screaming from the room, I wiped the sweat from my face with the hem of my t-shirt. “So,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I help some dead people figure out what they did wrong in life and after a few hundred years, I get beamed up to heaven?”

“Not exactly,” Vernon spoke softly with his head bowed. “Wish it was easy as you think Mr. Dane. It hurts to be a courier. Feeling all that pain takes its toll. We feel our sin, the people we’re helping’s sin, and even each other’s sin. Knowing we did wrong makes it even worse. We feel the sin of everyone we’re close to. I’m sure you felt it with Miss Sarah a while ago. Feeling all that Lust she puts out helps from time to time; keeps the worse stuff at bay for a while. It always comes back though, but that ain’t the worst of it. See, it’s hard on all of us helping cause we don’t know what we even working for. At the end of it, all we get is the boat ride. We’re working our sins off to get judgment; to get a ride with the boatman. We ain’t sure that means Heaven. Could be that we have to go to Hell anyway. Nobody knows for sure.”

“Well, then why not stay here? If you aren’t sure where you’re going, just hang out here. Don’t even go see the boatman or whoever. This has got to be better than Hell.” I looked around at them as they exchanged worried glances with one another.

Sarah stepped forward from her corner, stopping a few yards from me. I clenched my fists as the need to touch her made my fingers tingle. “You said Rod spoke to you about light?”

“Uh, he mentioned it. I don’t know what he meant though.”

She smiled again. “The weight of a soul, of every soul, can be measured in so much light. When a person dies and comes to this place, their soul starts to dim. Our duty to help them, guide them to atonement or judgment, must be done before their soul’s light goes out. If we allow that to happen they will be trapped here for a century as shadows being punished for their sin. When a courier’s punishment is lifted we must get to the boatman and face our judgment for at that time our light, our soul, will begin to dim again.”

I leaned my head back against cold brick wall and looked up at the ceiling. I had been utterly bored and depressed with my life, but this was beyond insane. Everything I dreaded in life from the hell of high-school, to my utter inability to strike up a conversation with even my own mother was becoming more and more appealing.

I looked down at my hands lying slack in my lap. The pack of cigarettes, my focus, sat innocently on my knee. The cellophane crinkled as I picked it up and brought it closer to my face. A wrinkled camel stared back at me from between pyramids as I pulled out my last cigarette and turned it over in my hand. The filter was bent and some loose tobacco was falling out of one end. I turned it over and packed it mechanically on the inside of my palm. Tucking it back in the pack and putting it gingerly back in the pocket of my jeans, I spoke in barely a whisper. “I don’t even smoke. Not really. Just figured I’d try it.”

Connor spoke softly, the heat in his voice almost gone. “Not exactly what you expected is it? Dying?”

I smiled halfheartedly. “Yeah, it sucks.”

Vernon laughed gruffly from where he still sat against the wall, taking his cap off and scratching the top of his head. “You said it, boy. But don’t you worry, we’ll show you the ropes. Welcome to the family.” He offered his hand again and this time I took it. He gasped his eyes glazed and distant and anger boiled up inside me so intensely that I thought I’d choke on it. I’d never been so angry in my life.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three