Page 44 of Meet Me After Life

‘It’s a two-hundred dollar application fee and a month’s worth of your toenail clippings,’ she says, sharpening her nails with a stray scrap of sandpaper she’s torn from the wall.

That sounds more like it. Well, at least I still have the last of my intended bond to use as the application fee.

‘Okay, too easy. Well, once I have my bond and clippings saved up, I’ll apply.’

Lambcaster claps. I give him a forced smile. I’m not sure his excitement is entirely a good thing.

The green goblin is unbothered. I sit down on the bed and it groans before a couple springs ping and the whole thing collapses beneath me.

Green stretches her claws out before me.

‘That’ll be two-hundred dollars.’

Ah, yes. Here we are again. Back to my nightly torture and terrors.

On cue, Tilly appears with that big toothy grin of hers, and I’m pulled along behind her. I don’t fight the dreams anymore. They come, they pain, they go. And through it all, I get to hear…

…

Huh.

That’s weird. Usually, Walker’s unsolicited commentary comes in right about now. I shrug and follow along with the dream anyhow. I’ll enjoy the sparse few minutes I get with Tilly when all is good and well before my night turns to pure and utter shit.

Tilly continues to drag me after her. Her hand in mine makes the world feel like it’s less against me, and more rooting for us. It’s a lie, of course. But a nice one that I don’t want to hear the end of. Even a nightmare can feel like a dream with the right friend holding your hand. But, per the course of my nightly routine, the idyllic memory begins to warp and tremble, becoming something dark and dismal. Tilly’s grip on my hand grows sharp, and her hold on me becomes less of a mark of friendship and more like a shackle. I manage to break her hold on me and I begin to run, but getting anywhere fast feels impossible. The dream is like moving through oil. Smoke and shadows rush me, and I hear her screaming my name. Fear makes her voice high and screeching, before it turns downright Jurassic with a deafening roar that shakes the atmosphere.

Something swoops me from above, before it lands behind me and I feel its vibration shaking the earth beneath the weight of its mass. When I turn, an insidious, hawkish black creature with blood-red eyes and a serrated beak, opens its maw and screams piercingly, right into my face. Its neck is featherless, and its skin sags like the chins of a goblin king. Spittle flies from its wretched mouth, and I wipe a large gelatinous glob from where it lands on my cheek with distaste.

‘Wait, I’ve seen this gelatinous goo before.’ I pinch it, and the gunk makes a bridge between my fingers when I pull them apart. ‘Ew.’

The creature shrieks again.

‘Ah! I’ll be leaving now,’ I call as I start to try to run again. But the thing has taken chase, nipping at my heels. I think I may have offended it with the ew comment. ‘I didn’t mean ew as in gross, I meant ew as in I’m ew for not being able to secrete slimy saliva to spit at people!’ I call back behind me.

A slightly higher pitched shriek this time. I think Big Bird’s calling bullshit.

‘Walker!’ I cry out instead. My effort to win over the monster behind me is not going to plan. But of course, there’s no response from him. Fucking Walker. Of course he’d be MIA for this. The one time I actually need him here in a dream and he’s nowhere to be fucking⁠—

Stars, fucking shit fuck damnit.

I was so busy running I didn’t know where I was running to. Up ahead, a hurricane rips through the pathway of my nightmare. Not that there’s anything here to destroy, all it does is rage and wind – but it’s tearing through the only direction there is to run.

I look behind me, the creature is gaining. Its beak snaps at my back and I lunge forward, narrowly escaping its mouth.

What’s better? Subconscious death via meal of an ugly dinosaur bird, or being consumed by a natural disaster? The cretaceous turkey reaches out and swipes at my leg and I cry out. Shit! That actually hurt! Okay, decision made. Whirlwind it is. Hopefully its fast and painless and fuck! Again with the talons!

The bird shrieks.

‘If I ever grow claws of my own, you’re enemy number one, dickhead!’ I shriek back.

It’s a mad dash for the wind. I feel the dream rippling around me, like a stone falling into a still lake. I swear it’s as if those violent winds are urging me onwards and pulling me closer. With a final leap, I throw myself into the wind and feel myself fall into its turbulent embrace.

The air is violent and hard. It does not feel like it should be able to call itself air. I thought air couldn’t hurt you. But this is certainly not soft or gentle or really better by any sort of measure than Big Bird back there.

It feels like I’m falling and spinning for an eternity. And then it feels like eternity comes and goes and I pass a thousand galaxies and dive through a black hole, wink at a stingray with feet wearing go-go platforms, flying through the sky, all to fall back down into an empty black room that’s really more like a dungeon, where the winds cease and there’s such a chill⁠—

‘What are you doing here?’

Ah. Well, well, well, if it isn’t Walker the Deserter.