Dead Deader Deadest Deader Than A Door Nail

DEAR LIVING

My name is, ah, was, Albert Blinkaster. I remember the event of my death with perfect clarity. It was my own fault, well, I should say I died thinking the fault was all mine. The truth is it wasn’t. I was murdered and this is how I found out.

I was texting on my phone and walked into the intersection. I car hit me so hard I died instantly. My head hit the windshield and split open spewing out my brains all over the car and surrounding onlookers/ witnesses.

I apologize slightly for being so graphic, but it is important that you know, at least to me. I wouldn’t want the circumstance of my death understated.

For the record, I was not completely oblivious to where I was going. I started across the street on a green light and the driver of the car did not stop.

Just like the movies I found myself hovering over the scene looking down at my demolished body. Some might have been in shock or at least confused but I was different. I realized what I had done but was a little surprised that I was hit while walking on the green light.

I was just beginning to become comfortable when I was accosted by two men in police uniforms, grey uniforms. One said, “You are here prematurely, and it seems you have been the victim of a hit and run accident that was not scheduled. In short you were murdered but no one here knows why. You will have to be questioned.”

They took me by the elbows and guided me away. I glanced back to see the living gawking at my remains. Someone vomited at the site, right on my corpse.

A few eye blinks later I was sitting at a table in a small room with grey walls, a table in the centre of the room with two opposing chairs. I was settled into one of the chairs and left to myself for nearly an hour. I was about to leave when a man dressed like a courtroom lawyer, wig and all entered the room carrying a manila file folder.

Albert Blinkaster. You are not supposed to be here, but you are and that creates a paradox for our administrators. Do you have any knowledge why you were murdered?”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea.” Said I.

“Well, in that case you must go back and find out before you can move on.”

“What if I do not want to go back. My life was not exactly a nice bowl of cherries. I was barely surviving.”

“Yes, we know all about that. That is the path you chose in this incarnation. Too know what it is like to spend an entire life striving to succeed but failing miserable because of making one bad choice after another.”

“Oh, yah I did.” I replied recalling that day I sat around with a group of other spirits deciding what they wanted to experience in their next life. I remembered one fellow who was going to get reincarnated as a rock in a mountain side so he could experience an avalanche from the inside out.

I asked, honestly innocently; How do I go back to investigate my own murder without a body to walk around in. I do not think a spirit functions very well, if at all in a mortal environment.”

“True but there are ways, for example you could employ the body of a friend. You could use that body while the owner naps for a while. They will think they had had an incredible dream or nightmare as the case may be. When you have discovered your killer, your vehicle can be deposited back to consciousness a few hours after…. oh… having too much to drink or taking a sleeping pill.”

“That sounds almost immoral and certainly cruel. I won’t do it.”

“The alternative, Albert Blinkaster is to wonder around aimlessly forever in purgatory or as a ghost in the mortal world. Ghosts can never be seen, at least not clearly, nor can they mingle with other ghosts though there have been some who have stolen bodies and caused havoc in the mortal world. I believe that occurred in England in the area of white chapel and that ghost has gone on and on creating many horrible memories for the living.”

“I suppose I must do as you divine and solve my own murder, but where do I begin.”

“I suggest at a place where someone decided you needed to be murdered.”

“Or maybe I was mistaken for another who was supposed to be the intended victim.”

“Do I at least get to choose who I possess for this spirituous cover operation?

“Of course. We would not want you to possess someone you actually like. That would be a terrible thing to do.”

“So, I pick someone I don’t like and when I am done with them, they get the hangover.”

“Crudely put but essentially correct.”

“Then I know exactly who I will choose. He is a cop. That will give me a legitimate way to effect an investigation.”

My interviewer nodded his approval then led me into a processing room. Even though I was not scheduled to arrive in dead people’s land, yet I still needed to be processed and have my files updated just in case I failed to discover why I was murdered and who killed me. At least if I failed and gave up, I would be able to move on into a special area of death for people just like me.

FYI. Purgatory and its administrative staff have not advanced to the use of computers. In fact, everything is still done with quill and parchment and thick black ink. It could also be mentioned that they do not use English or even Latin and I did not bother enquiring further. So, the only thing on my documents I could actually read was my name. I was compelled to sign said document without reading over the content, but the secretary assured me that they were nothing more than an account of my life and my current situation.

So, I went back to the world of the living as Inspector Jarron Janice a man no one really like but had a knack of getting anything he wanted. I learned before I invaded his body that I could tap his knowledge of the investigative process and his skill which was considerable. He was one-part cop, one-part creep and one-part demon.

.DEADER

So, I made the leap out of purgatory and landed in the mortal mass know to me as Jarron Janice, a Detective Inspector for the Metropolitan Police Services, Central Division.

What a piece of work he was but behind all his lard and smelly arm pits there was a glint of brilliance. At least I thought it was brilliance since he had such an insight into the criminal mind. I was sure that if I was going to discover the identity of the person who killed me with his know how and knowledge it would be a piece of cake. HA

In order to make the best use of Jarron Janice I left his consciousness intact since it is his expertise I need to conduct my investigation; however, I injected thoughts that he thought were his own, like; “Take over the Albert Blinkaster hit and run case. There is more to it than that.”

But there was something dark in his thoughts that I could not determine from the fringes of his mind. Foolishly I decided I did not want to know. Not yet anyway, but it was a really, really bad choice as I am sure you will agree to later.

Jarron Janice worked the nightshift. I thought it was because he figured this is when all the bad guys did the bad stuff but once again, I was wrong. The truth is, though Janice did rifle through the files concerning my case I realized he was not much interested in being a cop. Therefore, even though he might have done some perfunctory investigating into my death he had other more important things to take care of. In short, he was a dirty cop, and I don’t just mean hygienically. I discovered almost immediately that Inspector Jarron Janice used his position in the police services to bolster his own criminal activity and in fact he had such a grip on the city’s underworld it made me shudder.

I would like to tell you that we went out to start sleuthing my demise, but the truth is that first shift went way out to a very dark left field and this is what happened.

Inspector Janice went to the station to sign in and start his watch. He picked up my case file just like I told him to then he went to his office sat down at his desk, poured himself a stiff whiskey and perused my file briefly. Then he closed it up, burped sneezed and farted as he reached for his phone that started beeping between the sneeze and fart.

“I’m busy,” Was his first response to the caller. Then he listened.

“Inspector Janice. You have to come to the rail yard, to old part where they keep the derelict engines and freight cars. Something has gone terribly wrong and we are afraid the lid might blow off our little enterprise. Someone found out what we are up to and has stolen the whole load.”

Janice uttered a couple of profanities and slammed the phone down. Then he lifted his lardy buttocks out of the chair and left the station.

His car smelled of cigarette smoke, booze, and something else I could not identify and decided I’d rather not. I knew him in life and didn’t like him then, but I never realized how much of a pig with a capital P he really was.

It was a long drive to the rail yard even at night because the shortest route was straight through town which is impossible to get through between 4 and seven pm and it was 5:30 so we took the long way which meant doing the land version of circumnavigating the city. It was nearly seven when we turned into the old rail yard, which by the way is also home to a few score of homeless folks, some not so nice. Janice seemed to be in his element as he drove through and most of the onlookers seemed to recognize him…fearfully.

Janice drove into a cluster of derelict freight cars. The breaks of his car squeaked as he stopped. He pushed the door open and grunted profusely as he struggled to get out of the car. I couldn’t help what came out of my thoughts which burst into his. “Fat ass.”

Janice looked around, his head jerking this way then that and barked in an angry voice, “Who the hell said that?”

Of course, he didn’t get an answer because I was not really able to communicate in a conversational way with him. When no reply was given, he began a waddling journey toward a group of men standing in the confines of four freight cars set in a square.

Jarron Janice walked confidently into the square spewing out orders and questions in between a slur of colourful adjectives, well one adjective used several times. No one seemed to be responding except to move their positions so that Janice was caught in a circle. I humoured over the conundrum of a circle in a square until all of a sudden the circle of men filled their hands with guns and started shooting, which was not the most brilliant thing to do because, though they did fill Jarron Janice full of lead and rendered him quite dead, they killed themselves with the over spray of bullets. So, when the police responded to a report of shots being fired, by some anonymous caller, they not only found Jarron Janice’s corpse but seven others. Well, one was not quite a corpse and survived apparently to tell the police all about Janice and his bad cop enterprising.

I went straight back to purgatory central and was standing dismayed before the receptionist/ secretary again.

“What the blazes are you doing here? You couldn’t have solved your murder already?” She snarled.

I looked around the room and spotted Jarron Janice being ushered through a door on the other side of which was an inferno, and from which came a waft air the smelled like rotten eggs aka sulfur. The six dead men that murdered Janice were lined up behind him. The secretary followed my gaze then blurted out. “Not again. He wasn’t supposed to get killed until New Years Eve. What is it with you? Are you some kind of masochist or something?

All I could do is shrug my shoulders and ask. “So now what?”

You just got Deader and that complicates things. You still have to find the person who killed your original body but now you have to deal with getting cleared for causing a premature death so you will need a purgatory Lawyer.”

“But for now, you must go back and complete your first task and this time please…please try not to get yourself killed.” The secretary instructed.

“A little help wouldn’t hurt. After all this wasn’t my fault. I think it was your accounts department that screwed up and I am taking the fall for it.” I replied.

The secretary shrugged her shoulder then said, “Ok. I can assign you a guardian angel. The two of you should be able to get this mess sorted out.”

I waited while the secretary rang a bell. Just a little thing I could barely hear but enough that I heard ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

A second later my guardian angel appeared out of thin air. My heart skipped a dozen beats.

DEADEST

I needed a new body so I could continue investigating my murder.

Janie Anne Sybal was a complete no body. A librarian in a library in a small town with a library that hardly anyone ever visited. I probed her mind into the deepest chasms and found nothing that would suggest anyone would want to harm her. I did not need another premature dead body on my conscience. The other reason I chose here is because she was an arm chair sleuth who read every volume of mystery the library carried both of the cozy type and the hardboiled detective thriller. She also studied real investigations like Lizzy Borden to mention only one. Add that to her personal education about criminal investigation and methods used by Sherlock Holmes which she had spent years developing her observational skills. The thing was, she had never attempted to conduct an investigation. I decided to change that and immediately upon entering her suggest she delve into the mysterious hit and run death of me, Albert Blinkaster. Of course, I made it seem to be her idea and remained on the fringes of her sub-conscience so she could conduct her investigation properly.

You will be pleased to know in advance that my new host did not die, however, well I should leave the however to its proper place in the story.

I planted the suggestion to go to the city where my untimely death occurred which was only a short distance from her small-town abode. As she did not own a vehicle, she took the Go Train. Having never ridden the Go Train before it was an exciting experience, buffered slightly by my frequent use influence. Indeed, I used my influence to keep her excitement in check. Otherwise she could have gone off half crazy looking for the hit and run driver that killed me and gotten in trouble with the law. I needed her functioning in a sharp, clinical manner, methodically like the librarian she was.

Janie Anne was far more resourceful than I had assumed, which was considerable. I knew she had enough book knowledge to make her way around a police station and how to get into certain files that might not have been available to others less knowledgeable. Before I knew it, she had talked her way into getting my records by suggesting that it was for her home town newspaper, which did exist, and she was a part time reporter, which she was.

It did not occur to me that she would have the guile to get someone to let here in, but she did. I guess showing a little leg can still work.

So, there we were in records, filing cabinets and computers all nicely lined up and, in a flash, she had a physical copy of my death report and investigation and the version installed on the computer. I have to say I was impressed by her un-amateur professionalism.

I nearly crapped her drawers when I saw the name Jarron Janice’s name pop up before I had taken him over. He had been in the area of my demise, off duty which seemed a little coincidental to me, so I conveyed my curiosity to Janie Anne, of course making her think the idea came from her own intuition. In my own ghostly mind, something else half kicked in. Someone was yanking my chain. Someone in a place where there shouldn’t have been any chain yanking going on. But I decided to wait until Janie Anne finished her investigation.

As she read the report on my ‘accident I notice a couple of discrepancies like the colour of the traffic light which was green when I got killed. The report said the light was red and I had stepped into moving traffic. I relayed that point to my host as a big fat frikken lie and that she had to interview the officer who wrote this false report.

The name on the report was Mickie Dantly, a veteran patrol cop who had spent her entire career walking the same beat, the beat where I got killed. I knew her and always thought she was one of the good ones. Even as Janie Anne went off to find her, I wanted to believe it was all a great big fat mistake, but I just couldn’t quite make it stick.

“Jeez we even dated.” I let slip from my mind to Janie’s.

Janie Anne’s head twisted back and forth, not quite all the way around, like she was possessed, which she was but only I knew it. “Who said that?” She snapped out like an angry snake. I really wanted to tell her but that was against Purgatory rules. She gave her had a shake and went on her way.

Mickie and I only dated once. At the end of the date when I went to give her a kiss she back away. “I like You Albert, like a buddy and I don’t kiss my buddies. I like Girls.” The next time we went out it was like buddies, not a date but that wore out fast because she was always trying to pick some dame up. Still I always thought she was a good cop but when we went to interview her just before she was going on shift Mickie got all cold and defensive and used her uniform to remind Janie, she was a civilian not a cop and civilians don’t interrogate cops. I would have chalk that off to stubborn pride until she said, “You better back off that case sweetie if you know what’s good for you.”

Janie Anne wouldn’t back off. She was playing her roll seriously and pushed a little harder. “I know for a fact that the traffic light was green when Albert Blinkaster stepped into that intersection.”

“How could you know that…unless you were there.?”

The question caught Janie Anne off guard because she did not know how she knew the light was green. But by then it didn’t matter. Mickie Dantly suddenly got really nervous and that told me stuff I did not want to know. She was crooked, just like Jarron Janice.

“Why was Albert run down?” Janie Anne demanded before I could interject.

“Look. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Albert was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He pushed past the real target and got smucked instead.”

“Who was supposed to get aced?” I caused Janie Anne to ask.

“A guy named Benny Jerrol who was going to crap out on the organization.” Mickie explained but I couldn’t figure out why she was spewing her guts until she grabbed Janie Anne and hustled her out the back door of the station.

Mickie pulled her gun as soon as the door banged shut and aimed it at Janie, but she never got the chance to shoot. Instead the gun report came from across the alley and a bullet hit Mickie in the side of the head. She was dead before she hit the ground and I was back standing in front of the purgatory secretary again.

“I know how it happened. It was an accident after all…sort of. I was not…” I was saying when I realized I was not alone. Mickie Dantly was standing beside me.”

“Wholly crap.” the secretary cried out. “Now you’ve really messed things up. You are back. You are not supposed to come back, and you certainly weren’t supposed to kill Officer Dantly. She is supposed to live to be a ripe old age.”

“But she is a bad cop.” I shot back.

“Bad cop, good cop who cares. That’s mortal stuff. We don’t get involved in that. That’s up to the Grim Reaper to deal with. And now we got two of you that aren’t supposed to be here. She’s Dead and you are Deadest.” The secretary nodded at Mickie then me.”

“But what happened to Janie. I was in her mind, not Mickie’s.

The receptionist shrugged her shoulders and said, “The shock was to much for her. She screamed and when she screamed, she screamed so hard it kick you right back here.”

“So now what?” I demanded.

“Well she goes back.” The receptionist nodded at Mickie, “meaning, she gets resurrected because she has to be there.”

“Why her and not me?” It wasn’t my time either.” I complained.

“Yah but you aren’t really needed. You wouldn’t do anything significant if we sent you back.” The receptionist replied emotionlessly.

“You go there.” She pointed at the door that had the fire and brimstone behind it. The Judge is waiting. You’ll be assigned a Lawyer, but I doubt it will help.

I suppose about now you are wondering what the hell happened to my guardian angel. Well, so was I. I had nearly forgotten about her until she showed up just before I was going to be shoved through the fire door.

She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me back. “Sorry I am late, but I got a wing caught in the cab door.”

“What now?

DEADER THAN A DOORNAIL

I woke up at my desk. The same desk I have been occupying for 6 years. It was 6 pm on the 6th day of June 2006. The data entry pool room was dead silent. The shift was over. The night shift had been cancelled two weeks earlier due to cut backs. I was on the night shift but had enough seniority to bump a new day shifter.

I was alarmed at the abundance of sixes in the moment, a number I am sure you can put it in its eerie light without me explaining. I also thought it was odd that everyone left me at my desk sleeping or at least not conscious of the current reality.

My nightmare hung heavily in my conscious mind. It had seemed so…so…so…realistic but surreal at the same time and I felt a little dislodged.

I put my station in order then began my journey home which included a seventeen-floor elevator ride to the lobby of the MX data processing building. A guard was at his desk in the lobby and shot me a look that said, “You shouldn’t be here but there was a glint of recognition, so he did not accost me.

Outside the evening was bright and sunny and I enjoyed the warmth and freshness of the out-doors after a day of air-conditioning.

I took my usual route going straight out to the sidewalk then turning right toward the intersection, the one where in my dream I got plastered by a hit and run driver.

As I approached the intersection my phone buzzed announcing I had a text message. I took it out just as I reached the curb at the intersection, took a look at the light which was green then answered my phone.

I sensed someone beside me trying to pass me then I was grabbed by the elbow and yanked back three feet. The fellow that pushed past me took three steps into the intersect and got creamed by a speeding car.

I froze for a second then turned to see who had pulled me back and a character from my dream stood before me with a smirch on her face. It was my guardian angel. She said, “I told you I would help you.”

I reached out to put my hand on her shoulder and thank her profusely but instead of my guardian angel it was the neighbourhood shopping cart homeless lady’s shoulder that my hand grasped.

“Are you thankful enough to give me five bucks?” She asked. I laughed aloud and said, “No. At least a twenty and I reached in my pocket for a bill. Three twenties came out and gave her them all.

Then things got interesting.

I caught a glimpse of the person driving the car. It was the secretary at purgatory administration office. Across the intersection to the left was Inspector Jarron Janice and to the right was Patrol Officer Mickie Dantly. The face/ head of the victim was too smashed up to recognized but what I did recognize was that my six-minute nightmare had a very ethereal quality to it and was possibly some exotic force of nature giving me fair warning of my pending demise. The fly in the ointment was the guardian angel which was a factor that gave the whole shemozzle a quality of realism that scared the beejeepers out of me more than nearly getting smucked by the car.

I remained where I stood because I felt it my duty. After all I was a witness to a deadly accident. But as I watched Patrol Officer Danty approaching with her eyes fixed on me instead of the corpse another realization came over me. My nightmare had other plans for me. It had enlightened me to the horrors of the real world and somehow Danty knew I was onto her. The inspector had that same accusing look and I sensed that if I did not skedaddle right then and there, I would end up a corpse beside the hit and run victim.

So, I ran faster than I had ever run in my life but after only a hundred yards I skidded to a halt. Something was dreadfully wrong because if I really ever ran like that, I would keel over deader than the deadest dead. My heart would seize up like an old, rusted gear box.

Danty and Janice were stalking toward me. They knew I knew they were both dirty cops. How I knew would never hold up in a court of law, but it was holding up in the court of bad cop injustice.

They had their guns drawn and people were clearing out of harm’s way giving the two bad cops a clear shot at me. Then the funniest thing went through my head. “How many times am I going to die before I am actually dead?”

The thought faded quickly and the next thing I knew my guardian angel was hovering over me. She grabbed me by the shirt collar and ripped me out of the scene. The next thing I knew I was standing in the bathroom over of the train station over a urinal doing what men do when standing over a urinal minding my own business and reading some pretty juicy graffiti.

I finished doing my business and went out into the main hall of the train station. I have to tell you if you think you are confused reading this you should try and get how I was feeling. It seemed I was jumping from one nightmare to another. And just as I was deciding that I was caught up in a looping, gyrating nightmare two uniform cops rushed in on me, grabbed me by the elbows, lifted me off my feet and escorted me out of the building straight into an unmarked patrol car.

I could smell booze, armpits and farts and had no need to ask whose car it was. But much to my surprise it was not Janice who climbed into the driver’s seat. It was the driver of the hit and run car…aka…the purgatory secretary. Then a stranger got in and introduced herself as my lawyer in purgatory, Ms. Shamballs.

Said I in a very misangered voice. “Excuse me but I am getting really, really mentally pretzelized here and would really like to know what the hell is going on.”

‘Well if you can’t figure it out yourself, I suppose I will have to tell you. You and me and everyone in this ridiculous story is getting jacked around and we have all decided to fight back.” Ms. Shamballs lectured.

“Fight back. Against what or who?” I interrogated.

Shamballs looked at the driver and asked. “Really, is it possible this guy can be this stupid?”

The driver/secretary replied. “Apparently it is possible. Maybe we should just kick him to the curb and let him figure it out for himself.”

“No. We cannot do that.” Shamballs replied then took a gun and shot me. The bullet went into the flesh of my shoulder and out the back. Then she fired again this time putting the bullet in my gut. I wasn’t going to die instantly but we all know about gut wounds, so death was inevitable.

“Geez Albert. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. It just happened. We were talking then it just came to me. Shamball shoots Albert, then shoots him again.”

Then the secretary spoke up. “Look Albert. It’s like this.” She was saying but I died.

And there I was back in purgatory only it was different this time. The room was empty except for a desk with an older guy with a lap top.

“Who are you? “I asked.

My name is Donald Harry Roberts and I have been trying my darndest to end this story. You see you are just a figment of my imagination and I was just going to write a quick little story about a guy who dies and has to do some redeeming act so he can move on to his afterlife. But I got about half way through the second part and got totally lost so I tried writing my way out of it, but it just kept going. Finally, I did the only thing I could do. Kill you off permanently.”

“Gee thanks. You are all heart.” I replied moodily.

“There is a silver lining though Albert. I am going to end the story with you walking off into the sunset. So off you go.”

“What about all these other characters?”

Donald shrugged his shoulder and started typing and I walked away heading into the sunset. But I was not settled because I couldn’t help but wonder what was on the other side of the sunset and what mess that dumb ass writer was going to get me into next.

The end…. well…maybe…. mrahahaha.