Devin sat quietly in the second row of the family minivan, desperately trying not enjoy the movie on the small built in dvd player. The screens were built into the headrests of the two front seats he and his sister were watching the newest Disney/Pixar movie. He had bemoaned the choice, saying he and his twin sister Carly were, at seventeen, way too old for cartoons. Of course Carly had not backed his argument and was more than happy to spend and hour and a half basking in animated delights. And here he was enjoying the damned thing.

How the hell did they do that? Make a cartoon into something both three year olds and thirty year olds can be entranced by. He Shook his head and turned back to the screen, wishing for the thousandth time his parents would allow him to have a smartphone. He felt like an outcast. Literally, the only person in school who didn’t have a phone. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to like the movie, it was just the principle. A in Devin’s opinion a seventeen year old dude shouldn’t be chilling in the back of the family van watching cartoons on the way to a beach vacation.

His mom turned in her seat, “How you guys doing?”

Carly smiled at her, “Oh my gosh it’s so good! I think I like it better than Frozen 2. The little monkey guy as crazy.”

Devin nodded, “Yeah it’s okay.”

His mom gave a look of mock shock and grabbed their dad’s arm, “Sweety! Did you hear that? The dark lord speaks! And he approves!”

Everyone laughed, even Devin who couldn’t help but chuckle. It was the laughter he remembered, it seemed like it never stopped. Even when the headlights of the semi-truck slammed into their side.

It was as though all the air in the car shifted violently to the side. Devin felt his head snap to the right toward the impact. Everything became a blur as the car began to roll down the embankment on the side of the highway. He saw things flying past him, but couldn’t make anything out. Time slowed and dragged, it already felt like it had been hours since the impact. He managed to glance up at his mom and dad. Dad was slumped limp in his chair, his neck at a very strange angle. His mom was limp also, but all he could see was bright red fans of blood streaming from her head and face as the car rolled.

He was scared, a strange feeling like knots and butterflies in his stomach. He tried to look over and see Carly but couldn’t manage to turn his neck. Finally the car rolled over a second time and Devin saw a tree appear almost like magic on his side of the car.

Two things happened very quickly, he heard the the thumping crunch of the tree stopping the car’s roll abruptly, and his head slammed violently over. Devin felt a blinding pain shot through his skull. The last thing he heard was a strange cracking sound just above his ear. Then things got really weird.

The light was bright above his face. Devin made out a silhouette, first blurry then clear. It was a woman. She was wearing a green smock, and a surgical mask covered the bottom of her face. Hw couldn’t hear anything though. Which in his hazy mind still seemed strange. Like watching a movie on mute. She looked worried. And he noticed, with little care, that the doctor was covered in blood. There seemed to be something wrong with Devin’s head. She kept putting her hands there, coming away more red than when they left. Devin was just starting to notice more people moving around the room when he felt something like a click, or pop almost. After the sound, he started floating, at least it felt like he was floating. He rose nearly to the ceiling before trying to turn and look around. He wished he hadn’t.

Below him he saw his own body on a table, naked, and bloody. His clothes had been cut off and no one had deemed it necessary to cover him up. His chest and stomach were streaked with blood and scratches. His face was nearly unrecognizable, smeared with blood and gore. The side of his head looked like it had been bashed in with a baseball bat.

I’m dying, he thought. Then added to himself, I’m dead.

The people below seemed to become more frantic, they pulled out the electric paddles and started shocking him. Devin watched for a few minutes, somehow both intrigued and apathetic to the scene below. He wasn’t sure how long they tried but finally the doctor tore her gloves off and threw them across the room in disgust and failure. The nurses and technicians slowed and began to clean up the area. Devin watched, and looked into his own lifeless eyes until someone finally pulled a sheet over him. A pool of dark crimson red grew beneath the table.

Well, I guess that’s it then, He thought.

What felt like a moment later he opened his eyes again and found himself in the middle of a road, staring up at a black sky with crystal clear stars twinkling down on him. It was disorienting, had it been a dream? Devin sat up and looked around he saw yellow tape dangling from a crushed guard rail. Upon closer inspection he saw dark black skid marks covering the ground and small pieces of plastic and metal littering the ground.

Was this where it happened? He asked himself.

Standing he made his way toward the edge of the road. The closer he came to the edge the more scared he became,a sense of dread pressing down on him. As he looked over the edge an almost unbearable sense of sadness seeped into him, like a hand squeezing his heart. At the bottom of the hill he could see the churned earth, torn plants and saplings. Finally a massive oak with gouges and stripped bark, several patches of darkness that could only have been spattered blood.

Devin sank to his knees seeing the destruction, He remembered the blood on his mother’s face, the angle of his father’s neck. They were gone, forever. Why was he still here? He knew that he was dead or some form of dead. He felt strange, almost like his whole body had fallen asleep a strange faint tingle all over. He looked down at his hands, they looked as whole and real as anything else.

Slowly standing he walked back across the road in a rambling shuffle, his eyes locked on the toes of his sneakers. A bright light suddenly caught his attention. He glanced up quickly and saw a pair of headlights bearing down on him. Fear spiked inside him, but he didn’t have time to move. It was coming too fast. The roaring of the tires, a monotonous hum on the pavement sounded like a swarm of bees ready to overwhelm him. He had just enough time to cover his face with his arms when the SUV rammed into him.

Except that it didn’t, Devin gasped and spun quickly to see the red taillights disappearing down the highway. Devin could feel the air rushing into his lungs, felt his chest expand. Wait, did he really though. Calming himself he took a deep breath. HIs chest lifted,but he couldn’t feel the cool rush of air through his nostrils, the filling sensation at the back of his throat as the air moved down.

Ghost? He thought.

He walked across the highway again until he was in the center of the road, legs straddling the double yellow line and looked down the blacktop. He wanted to wait for another car, to really see what happened. Maybe he could even see the people in the car as they passed. Only as he gazed out into the night it wasn’t another car that caught his eye. It was a person walking down the road toward him. Devin squinted and leaned forward trying to see into the dark.

The figure continued on leisurely strutting and whistling. Devin didn’t know the tune but it seemed jaunty, which seemed out of place given the horror of the last few hours of Devin’s existence. It was a man, actually a young man from the look of him. He was a few years older than Devin, Dark red hair bushing out in unruly curls that fell about his forehead. He wore a black denim jacket and black t-shirt. The blue jeans he wore seemed well worn and frayed at the hem where strings of unwound denim trailed across the toes of the brown leather boots the man was wearing. He seemed totally oblivious to Devin, content to stare up at the sky whistling like a man walking his dog on a sunday morning rather than a man walking down the center of a highway in the middle of the night.

Devin wanted to call out, ask for help. He stopped himself. If the driver of the that car hadn’t seen him standing in the road why would this man hear him. Devin hung his head, ready to let the man walk by.

The red haired stranger was still fifty yards away when Devin saw another set of headlights appear around the corner. The stranger didn’t seem to see or hear it coming.

“Hey! Hey man, watch out!”, Devin screamed.

The man stopped short, the song he’d been whistling dying on his lips, “Eh? What you say ghostie?”

Had Devin had real breath it would have caught in his throat. Had the man called him ghostie? Before he could think about it the headlights of the car, a large F-150 from the look of it, hurtled through the back of the red head as though he wear made of nothing more than mist. The truck passed through Devin less than a second later, Devin had a flash of grey metal and then a woman in a skirt at the wheel, then it was gone.

The redhead was now jogging toward Devin, the boots made now sound as they slapped on the asphalt. He came to a halt a few feet from Devin.

“You need somethin’ boy”, his voice was strangely deep given how skinny he appeared. He had a thick scottish accent, that Devin would have thought was cool except for the contempt lacing his words.

“Uh, well yeah. Are you...are you like me?”

The redhead rolled his eyes in annoyance, “Ya mean fookin dead mate? Well yeah. You a noob are ye?”

Devin nodded uncomfortably.

The stranger sighed and turned around and began shouting at the night sky, “Couldn’t just let me be ya damn git! Bloody hell! Now I’m a baby sitter, s’pose!?”

He turned back to Devin composed once again.

He stuck out his hand, “Name’s Tuck, guess it’s nice to meetcha.”

Devin looked at the hand remembering the way the cars passed through them.

Tuck grinned at the look on Devin’s face, “S’alright, we can touch other spirits, jus’ not Livers as I calls um.”

Devin slowly put his hand forward and took Tucks outstretched hand. The skin was firm and real, though very cold like touching glove that had been left in a refrigerator for an hour. They shook and Tuck took a step back.

“Well this is weird if I do say. This where you bit the big’un?”

Devin turned and nodded at the crumpled guardrail, “Yeah I guess so, but a few minutes ago I was, like, floating around a hospital.”

Tuck nodded, “Yeah, yeah last minutes of life. We all see it, unless you go instantly. But we are bound to the spot where death becomes inevitable. Say you catch cancer? You die and turn ghostie, you go right back to the spot where the first cells went shite.” He laughed heartily, “Some lady dies and instead of pearly gates she wakes up in the checkout line of the local mini mart.”

He continued to chuckle, but Devin didn’t see anything funny with what he said.

“Can we get out of the road? I know it won’t hurt us but it’s freaking me out.” Devin said.

Tuck’s grin disappeared, “Oh yeah, fuck it, sure.”

The strode over and stopped at the shoulder. Tuck sat on the guardrail and sighed. Devin sat next to him though instead of sitting his butt slid through the rail and he thumped onto the ground, the guard rail seeming to run into one shoulder and out the other. Tuck began another round of snorting laughter.

“Sorry mate, haven’t meet a noob in more ‘an a decade, for sure. Takes a lot of practice.”

Devin stood and brushed his pants by reflex, even though by definition nothing was on them.

“How the the hell can a car pass through you but you can sit on that freaking thing!?” Devin asked.

Tuck shrugged, and held his hands up for Devin to calm down, “ Mate, don’t ask me why them rules is the way they is. The big guy upstairs has his reasons, most don’t make a speck’ah sense. Climb a tree? Sure mate. Sit in parked car? Yup. Moving car? Eff you spirit wank. Feel up a sexy little thing at the gas station? Sorry, keep it in your pants. God what I wouldn’t give to find a hot little lady ghost right about now!”

Devin frowned, “So some things we can touch others we can’t? Is that it?”

Tuck looked at him sidelong, “What the hell did I just say? Look, simple right. Moving objects, living people or animals? No touchy-touchy. Kay? Stationary objects, plants? Yes, with a little practice. Of course I say that knowing there are exceptions, but don’t worry about that shit for now.”

Devin nodded and stepped back over to the guardrail, “How do I do it?”

“Just concentrate on wanting to touch it. Sounds easy, but your whole first life all you had to do was go about flailing an appendage at something and you touched it. Just think about the way your ass is going to feel sitting on it. Go from there.”

Tuck turned away. Devin couldn’t tell if it was because he was bored or he was trying to give him some privacy incase he plopped onto his ass again. He turned and bent his knees slowly. AIming his butt at the spot he wanted to sit.

It took three more times and three more snorting laughs form Tuck before Devin managed to make contact. It didn’t feel solid, more like sitting on marshmallows. He enjoyed it, even though he didn’t feel physically tired. They sat like that for a few moments until the full weight of what had happened settled in. Devin buried his face in his hands and sobbed quietly.

Tuck looked over at him and awkwardly patted his back, looking both sorry and uncomfortable.

“Yeah, um, there-there, it’s okay and stuff. It’s always tough the first few days. Haven’t really gotten to know a lot of ghosts in my time, but seems the same for most.”

Devin turned and looked at him, “I think my whole family died in the crash, could they be ghosts too?”

At this Tuck looked very pained, “Mate, becoming a walking spirit like us is almost like winning the lottery. From what I can tell it’s all luck, and a whole fam going Jacob Marley at once, just don’t happen. Besides nobody over thirty ever goes ghost, they kick to the other side.”

Devin opened his mouth to ask why, but Tuck lifted a finger for him to wait, “One second ya wee babe, don’t ask shite I can’t answer. Don’t know why. Just is. Met a chick that ODed and died at Woodstock once. Had some real good times with her. she said it probably had to do with the amount of life you have. You know like what you’ve experienced and what you haven’t. Unfinished dreams and whatnot. Most little kids kick over because they haven’t had time to make dreams or aspirations. Older folks have already done a bunch of stuff to be proud or ashamed of so they kick too. Most of the ghosts you’re going to meet are between twelve and twenty-five say. You’ll meet a few little kids, creepy little shites those. And a few getting toward thirty or so but those are few and far between.”

Devin sat up and put his hands on his knees, taking in his new world, this new life.

“How many ghosts are there.”

Tuck shrugged, “Don’t know. Not a lot, and not too few either. Been bouncing around the same three or four states for the past ten years and I’ve only seen a few hundred. ‘Course, if you haven’t noticed I’m kind of a loner don’t go looking for them ‘cept when I get good and horny or want to hang out.”

Devin looked at Tuck confused, “You can still, you know? Do stuff? With a girl ghost I mean.”

Tuck nodded, the red hair bouncing across his eye brows, It’s not like the old human tibbly-nibbly mind you. Can’t really get naked, we’re stuck in what we were wearing at the moment death is guaranteed. Look at me, brain aneurysm on stage one night. I died in a hospital six hours later in one of those fluffy assless gowns they put you in. Thank god for small favors, I got to come back in my performance duds. But I meet many a ghost who gets to go around the afterlife wearing their birthday suit, or some even worse. One guy was a party clown, dropped dead of a heart attack mid performance. Ghost clown, let that one sink in your head and haunt your dreams.

“Any way, we can’t bump uglies, but we can kind of sink up in a sort of dream state. Really, hard to explain. Hey you feeling hungry? I’m starved you want to get something?”

Devin shook his head like he was trying to focus, “What the hell are you talking about? We can eat?”

Tuck’s grin widened, a knowing look spread across his eyes, “Not precisely, mate. Come on.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: Carly