Under the Whispering Door Read online

  “Terrible,” Moore said.

  “Exactly,” Hernandez agreed.

  “Put the clippings in the trash,” Worthington said. “It’s not that hard.”

  “Wait,” Wallace said loudly. “That’s not what you’re supposed to be doing. You need to be sad, and as you wipe away tears, you talk about everything you’ll miss about me. What kind of funeral is this?”

  But Naomi wouldn’t listen, which, really. When had she ever? “I’ve spent the last few days since I got the news trying to find a single memory of our time together that didn’t fill me with regret or apathy or a burning fury that felt like I was standing on the sun. It took time, but I did find one. Once, Wallace brought me a cup of soup while I was sick. I thanked him. Then he went to work, and I didn’t see him for six days.”

  “That’s it?” Wallace exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?”

  Naomi’s expression hardened. “I know we’re supposed to act and feel a certain way when someone dies, but I’m here to tell you that’s bullshit. Sorry, Father.”

  The priest nodded. “It’s okay, my child. Get it all out. The Lord doesn’t—”

  “And don’t even get me started on the fact that he cared more about his work than making a family. I marked my ovulation cycle on his work calendar. Do you know what he did? He sent me a card that said CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATE.”

  “Still holding onto that, are we?” Wallace asked loudly. “How’s that therapy going for you, Naomi? Sounds like you should get a refund.”

  “Yikes,” the woman in the pew said.

  Wallace glared at her. “Something you’d like to add? I know I’m a catch, but just because I won’t love you didn’t give you the right to murder me!”

  The sound he made when the woman looked directly at him is better left to the imagination, especially when she said quite loudly, “Nah. You’re not exactly my type, and murder is bad, you know?”

  Wallace practically fell out of the pew as Naomi continued to slander him in a house of God as if the strange woman hadn’t spoken at all. He managed to grab the back of the pew, fingernails digging into the wood. He peered over the top, eyes bulging as he stared at the woman.

  She smiled and arched an eyebrow.

  Wallace struggled to find his voice. “You … you can see me?”

  She nodded as she turned in her own pew, resting her elbow on the back. “I can.”

  He began to tremble, his hands gripping the pew so hard, he thought his fingers would snap. “How. What. I don’t—what.”

  “I know you’re confused, Wallace, and things can be—”

  “I never told you my name!” he said shrilly, unable to stop his voice from cracking.

  She snorted. “There’s literally a sign with your picture on it below your name in the front of the church.”

  “That’s not…” What? What wasn’t it exactly? He pulled himself upright. His legs weren’t quite working as he wanted them to. “Forget the damn sign. How is this happening? What the hell is going on?”

  The woman smiled. “You’re dead.”

  He burst out laughing. Yes, he could see his body in a casket, but that didn’t mean anything. There had to be some mistake. He stopped laughing when he realized the woman wasn’t joining in. “What,” he said flatly.

  “Dead, Wallace.” Her face scrunched up. “Hold on. Trying to remember what the cause was. This is my first time, and I’m a little nervous.” She brightened. “Oh, that’s right! Heart attack.”

  And that was how he knew this wasn’t real. A heart attack? Bullshit. He never smoked, he ate as best he could, and he exercised when he remembered. His last physical had ended with the doctor telling him that while his blood pressure was a little high, everything else seemed to be in working order. He couldn’t be dead from a heart attack. It wasn’t possible. He told her as much, sure that’d be the end of it.

  “Riiiight,” she repeated slowly, as if he were the idiot. “Hate to be a bummer, man, but that’s what happened.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I would know if I … I would have felt…” Felt what? Pain in his arm? The stuttering in his chest? The way he couldn’t quite catch his breath no matter how hard he tried?

  She shrugged. “I suppose it’s one of those things.” He flinched when she stood from the pew, making her way over to him. She was shorter than he expected, the top of her head probably coming up to his chin. He backed away from her as best he could, but he didn’t get far.

  Naomi was ranting about a trip to the Poconos they’d apparently taken (“He stayed in the hotel room the entire time on conference calls! It was our honeymoon!”) as the woman sat on his pew, keeping a bit of distance between them. She appeared even younger than he first thought—perhaps early to mid-twenties—which somehow made things worse. Her complexion was slightly darker than his own, lips pulled back over small teeth in the hint of a smile. She tapped her fingers on the back of the pew before looking at him. “Wallace Price,” she said. “My name is Meiying, but you can call me Mei, like the month, only spelled a little different. I’m here to bring you home.”

  He stared at her, unable to speak.

  “Huh. Didn’t know that’d shut you up. Should’ve tried that to begin with.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know you.”

  “I should hope not,” she said. “If you did, it’d be very weird.” She paused, considering. “Weirder, at least.” She nodded toward the front of the church. “Nice casket, by the way. Doesn’t look cheap.”

  He bristled. “It isn’t. Only the very best for—”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Mei said. “Still. Pretty gnarly, right? Looking at your own body like that. Not a bad body, though. Little skinny for my tastes, but to each their own.”

  He bristled. “I’ll have you know that I did just fine with my skinny—no. I won’t be distracted! I demand you tell me what’s going on right this second.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “I can do that. I know this may be hard to understand, but your heart gave out, and you died. There was an autopsy, and it turned out you had blockages in your coronary arteries. I can show you the Y incision, if you want, though I’d advise against it. It’s pretty gross. Did you know that once they perform the autopsy, they sometimes put the organs back inside in a bag along with sawdust before they close you up?” She brightened. “Oh, and I’m your Reaper, here to take you where you belong.” And then, as if the moment wasn’t strange enough, she made jazz hands. “Ta-da.”

  “Reaper,” he said in a daze. “What is … that?”

  “Me,” she said, scooting closer. “I’m a Reaper. Once someone dies, there’s confusion. You don’t really know what’s going on, and you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared!” This was a lie. He’d never been more frightened in his life.

  “Okay,” she said. “So you’re not scared. That’s good. Regardless, it’s a trying time for anyone. You need help to make the transition. That’s where I come in. I’m here to make sure said transition goes as smoothly as possible.” She paused. Then, “That’s it. I think I remembered to say everything. I had to memorize a lot to get this job, and I might have forgotten a detail here and there, but that’s the gist of it.”

  He gaped at her. He barely heard Naomi yelling in the background, calling him a selfish bastard with absolutely no self-awareness. “Transition.”

  Mei nodded.

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “To what?”

  She grinned. “Oh, man. Just you wait.” She raised her hand toward him, turning her palm up. She pressed her thumb and middle fingers together and snapped.

  The cool, spring sun was shining down on his face.

  He took a stumbling step back, looking around wildly.

  Cemetery. They were in a cemetery.

  “Sorry about that,” Mei said, appearing beside him. “Still getting the hang of it.” She frowned. “I’m sort of new at this.”

  “What’s happening!” he shrieked at her.

  “You’re getting buried,” she said cheerily. “Come on. You’ll want to see this. It’ll help dispel any doubts you might have left.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled. He tripped over his own feet but managed to stay upright. His flip-flops slapped against his heels as he struggled to keep up. They weaved in and out of headstones, the sounds of busy traffic surrounding them as impatient cabbies honked their horns and shouted expletives out open windows. He tried to pull away from Mei, but her grip was tight. She was stronger than she looked.

  “Here we are,” she said, coming to a stop. “Right on time.”

  He peered over her shoulder. Naomi was there, as were the partners, all standing around a freshly dug rectangular hole. The expensive coffin was being lowered into the earth. No one was crying. Worthington kept looking at his watch and sighing dramatically. Naomi was tapping away on her phone.

  Of all the things for Wallace to focus on, he was dumbstruck by the fact that there was no headstone. “Where’s the marker? My name. Date of birth. An inspirational message saying I lived life to the fullest.”

  “Is that what you did?” Mei asked. She didn’t sound like she was mocking him, merely curious.

  He jerked his hand away and crossed his arms defensively. “Yes.”

  “Awesome. And the headstones usually come after the service. They still have to carve it and everything. It’s this whole process. Don’t worry about it. Look. There you go. Wave goodbye!”

  He didn’t wave.

  Mei did, though, fingers wiggling.

  “How did we get here?” he asked. “We were just in the church.”

  “So observant. That’s really good, Wallace. We were just in the church. I’m proud of you. Let’s say
I skipped a couple of things. Gotta get a move on.” She winced. “And that’s my bad, man. Like, seriously, don’t take this the wrong way because I totally didn’t mean it, but I was a little late in getting to you. This is sort of my first time reaping on my own, and I screwed up. Went to the wrong place on accident.” She smiled beatifically. “We cool?”

  “No,” he snarled at her. “We’re not cool.”

  “Oh. That sucks. Sorry. I promise it won’t happen again. Learning experience and all that. I hope you’ll still rate my service a ten when you get the survey. It’d mean a lot to me.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. He could almost convince himself that she was the crazy one, and nothing but a figment of his imagination. “It’s been three days!”

  She beamed at him. “Exactly! This makes my job so much easier. Hugo’s gonna be so pleased with me. I can’t wait to tell him.”

  “Who the hell is—”

  “Hold on. This is one of my favorite parts.”

  He looked to where she was pointing. The partners stood in a line, with Naomi behind them. He watched as they all leaned down, one by one, scooping up a handful of dirt and dropping it into the grave. The sound of the dirt hitting the lid of the casket caused Wallace’s hands to shake. Naomi stood with her handful of dirt over the open grave, and before she dropped it, a strange expression flickered across her face, there and gone. She shook her head, dropped the dirt, and then whirled around. The last he saw of his ex-wife was the sunlight on her hair as she hurried toward a waiting cab.

  “Kinda brings it all home,” Mei said. “Full circle. From the earth we came, and to the earth we return. Pretty, if you think about it.”

  “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  Mei touched the back of his hand. Her skin was cool, but not unpleasantly so. “Do you need a hug? I can give you a hug if you want.”

  He jerked his arm back. “I don’t want a hug.”

  She nodded. “Boundaries. Cool. I respect that. I promise I won’t hug you without your permission.”

  Once, when Wallace was seven, his parents had taken him to the beach. He’d stood in the surf, watching the sand rush between his toes. There was a strange sensation that rose through his legs to the pit of his stomach. He was sinking, though the combination of the whirling sand and white-capped water made it feel like so much more. It’d terrified him, and he’d refused to go back in the ocean, no matter how much his parents had pleaded with him.

  It was this sensation Wallace Price felt now. Maybe it was the sound of the dirt on the casket. Maybe it was the fact that his picture was propped up next to the open grave, a floral wreath attached below it. In this picture, he was smiling tightly. His hair was styled perfectly, parted to the right. His eyes were bright. Naomi once said that he reminded her of the scarecrow from Oz. “If you only had a brain,” she said. This had been during one of their divorce proceedings, so he’d discounted it as nothing but her trying to hurt him.

  He sat down hard on the ground, his toes flexing into the grass over the tip of his flip-flops. Mei settled next to him, folding her legs underneath her, picking at a little dandelion. She plucked it from the ground, holding it close to his mouth. “Make a wish,” she said.

  He did not make a wish.

  She sighed and blew on the dandelion seeds herself. They exploded into a white cloud, the bits catching on a breeze and swirling around the open grave. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

  “Do you?” he muttered, face in his hands.

  “Not literally,” she admitted. “But I have a good idea.”

  He looked over at her, eyes narrowed. “You said this was your first time.”

  “It is. Solo, that is. But I went through the training, and did pretty good. Do you need empathy? I can give you that. Do you want to punch something because you’re angry? I can help you with that too. Not me, though. Maybe a wall.” She shrugged. “Or we can sit here and watch as they eventually come with a small bulldozer and shovel all the dirt on top of your former body thus cementing the fact that it’s all over. Dealer’s choice.”

  He stared at her.

  She nodded. “Right. I could have phrased that better. Sorry. Still getting the hang of things.”

  “What is…?” He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “What’s happening?”

  She said, “What’s happening is that you lived your life. You did what you did, and now it’s over. At least that part of it is. And when you’re ready to leave here, I’ll take you to Hugo. He’ll explain the rest.”

  “Leave,” he muttered. “With Hugo.”

  She shook her head before stopping herself. “Well, in a way. He’s a ferryman.”

  “A what?”

  “Ferryman,” she repeated. “The one who will help you cross.”

  His mind was racing. He couldn’t focus on any one single thing. It all felt too grand to comprehend. “But I thought you were supposed to—”

  “Aw. You do like me. That’s sweet.” She laughed. “But I’m just a Reaper, Wallace. My job is to make sure you get to the ferryman. He’ll handle the rest. You’ll see. Once we get to him, it’ll be right as rain. Hugo tends to have that effect on people. He’ll explain everything before you cross, any of those pesky, lingering questions.”

  “Cross,” Wallace said dully. “To … where?”

  Mei cocked her head. “Why, to what’s next of course.”

  “Heaven?” He blanched, a terrible thought piercing through the storm. “Hell?”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything at all.”

  She laughed. “I know, right? This is fun. I’m having fun. Aren’t you?”

  No, he really wasn’t.

  * * *

  She didn’t hurry him. They stayed even as the sky began to streak in pinks and oranges, the March sun setting low toward the horizon. They stayed even as the promised bulldozer came, the woman operating it deftly with a cigarette jammed between her teeth, smoke pouring from her nose. The grave filled quicker than Wallace expected. The first stars were starting to appear by the time she finished, though they were faint given the light pollution from the city.

  And that was it.

  All that was left of Wallace Price was a mound of dirt and a body that was going to be nothing but worm food. It was a profoundly devastating experience. He hadn’t realized it would be. Strange, he thought to himself. How very strange.

  He looked at Mei.

  She smiled at him.

  He said, “I…” He didn’t know how to finish.

  She touched the back of his hand. “Yes, Wallace. It’s real.”

  And wonder of all wonders, he believed her.

  She said, “Would you like to meet Hugo?”

  No. He wouldn’t. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to raise his fists toward the stars and rant and rave about the unfairness of it all. He had plans. He had goals. So much left to do, and now he’d never … he couldn’t …

  He startled when a tear slipped down his cheek. “Do I have a choice?”

  “In life? Always.”

  “And in death?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a little more … regimented. But it’s for your own good. I swear,” she added quickly. “There are reasons these things happen the way they do. Hugo will explain it all. He’s a great guy. You’ll see.”

  That did not make him feel better.

  But still, when she stood above him, holding her hand out, he only stared at it for a moment or two before taking it, allowing her to pull him up.

  He turned his face toward the sky. He breathed in and out.

  Mei said, “This is probably going to feel a little odd. But it’s a longer distance, so it’s to be expected. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  But before he could react, she snapped again and everything exploded.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Wallace was screaming when they landed on a paved road in the middle of a forest. The air was cold, but even as he continued to yell, no breath cloud formed in front of him. It didn’t make sense. How could he be cold when he was dead? Was he actually breathing, or … No. No. Focus. Focus on the here. Focus on the now. One thing at a time.