Lonely Hearts

"Oh yes, Nick. Everyone dies before they come here.”

Nicholas Volstead quit drinking like an idiot once he left college, but two decades later he awoke with the most sensational hangover of his life.

Nick groaned. The ceiling spun, a kaleidoscope of disjointed images that flowed from his skull like water out of a broken vase. He fought for every inch as he swam up from the ocean floor to breach the surface of murky consciousness.

It hurt like hell.

Nick's eyes blurred as he squinted to adjust to the dim light of the bedside lamp. Whose lamp? Not his – and whose bed? The questions banged a drumbeat in tune with the throbbing agony behind his eyes. Answers lay silent.

His disorientation only grew as he took in the scene: a cheap motel room, beige walls, neutral everything, not the slightest trace of human touches. If nature could have grown a generic domicile, Nick reckoned it would look more or less like this.

Why the hell was he in a motel room? A married homeowner who never travelled for work and took no vacations had more business in a shooting gallery than a grimy place like this. The security chain on the door had been engaged and the blinds were drawn.

Nick sat up, a heroic effort in its own right. As the blanket slithered down his chest his frown deepened; he couldn't recall the last time he'd fallen asleep wearing all his clothes. And his shoes. He reached into the ragged wasteland the booze had left in its wake–

Only, what booze? Nick hadn't tipped more than a couple beers at a weekend barbecue with his buddies in years, and today was Tuesday. His stomach flip-flopped as he tried to stand and the thunder in his temples boomed. Something trickled down the back of his neck and he swiped it away–

"Oh, shit," he mumbled through thick lips. He stared at the red swatch on his fingers, his mind reeling in a whole new direction. "Not drunk."

He probed the back of head, then flinched. Something squished where there ought to be only short brown hair and solid, reliable bone. He thought it might be prudent to get to a hospital before he got to the bottom of any other mysteries.

He reached for his phone. Empty pocket. Shit. Keys. No dice. His wallet too had gone away without his permission. Had he been robbed? Drugged? Knocked over the noggin, then dumped here afterward?

Even the teensy bit of his senses still left to him said that made no sense. Maybe he'd just dumped his stuff on the dresser. He stood–

–a writhing bundle of snakes roiled in Nick's belly, then he was running for the bathroom. He made it with not a millisecond to spare. Whatever wretchedness had been brewing inside him burned like napalm as it surged to freedom. The sheer volume boggled his mind. Once the torrent abated Nick lay panting on the tile floor, again torn from the grip of any higher thought processes.

Slowly, glacially, logic made a sortie from the back alleyways of his mind. He must have been attacked. He could almost grasp a face, some smug face, some chuckle. He reached for the memory but then all he could summon was Laura's smile. She had been smiling, hadn't she? She'd even let him kiss her cheek when he left for work.

Now he'd have a whole other mess to crawl out of. She must be worried sick. He had to get to a phone. No, he had to get to the damned emergency room!

First, he needed a drink – a lost-in-the-desert dryness followed in the wake of his purging. Nick pulled himself up to the sink by way of the towel rack and reached for the glass. Then he froze.

To say the mirror revealed he looked like hell would be an affront to the devil's housekeeping. Nick's bloodshot eyes shone like fevered cherries in the sallow moonscape of his bruised face. Puke smeared his chin, and blood stained his collar. His wound reasserted itself, pulsing anew. He reached up to explore it, thankful he couldn't see it from this angle.

A cold fist of panic squeezed his heart as Nick traced a strange vista of misshapen flesh and hair that surrounded a gory Grand Canyon. He pricked his finger on a shard of broken bone. He hardly felt it, but when his finger brushed something soft and warm beyond it his vision greyed. He became aware only then that he was keening.

"I'm in shock," he muttered to the alien in the mirror. His feet shuffled of their own accord. He unchained the door, opened it, and stepped outside.

Nick didn't recognize the motel – no surprise, since he never frequented such places, especially in his own city. He scanned the parking lot for his emerald BMW from the second floor balcony where he stood to no avail. As he cast his gaze further, he realized it was not only the motel he found unfamiliar.

"Where am I," he asked nobody as his eyes tried to make sense of the skyline. As an architect he knew a great many buildings by sight, but he couldn't put a name to a single one he saw now.

The weather, too, seemed off. A thick grey blanket blocked out the sun and made midday look like twilight. A brisk wind made him shiver. But it was July.

Wood creaked behind him, jarring Nick from his troubled musing. He grabbed the balcony rail for balance as the world skewed. From the door to his right a middle aged woman peered out at him.

"Are you alright?"

"No," Nick gasped, all his emotions suddenly in a rush to choke him. "Please – you've got to help me!"

"What's the trouble?"

"I'm hurt. Bad," Nick said, as if it wasn't obvious. "Call 911.”

The woman's iron-colored eyes widened, but then she smiled. She wore several layers of sweaters over a burgundy dress that hung to her ankles, but still as she stepped out she clutched a shawl around her frail shoulders. Nick wondered if she'd missed the part of the weather report where they promised it would kiss triple digits today – this one didn't strike him as the keenest observer.

"The pain and confusion will pass," she told him.

Nick blinked. "Excuse me? You don't understand. He held out his bloody hand to underscore his point.

The woman looked at him like one might a dog that had been mashed by a semi. He didn't need her pity, he just needed her damn telephone. As he opened his mouth to again demand she help him she took his hand. Gently, she placed it over his chest.

"Do you feel that?"

Nick didn't. "I need to go to the hospital."

"There are no hospitals here."

"Call 911."

"No phones either, I'm afraid." She tapped his hand. "Are you still in pain?”

Nick realized his headache was gone – not a good sign. "I don't understand."

"You will. In time."

"Please." Desperation colored his assertive tone. Now he just sounded pathetic. "Tell me what's going on."

"You know."

"I don't." He didn't, or he didn't want to. Nick tried to move past her but that steely gaze held him motionless. "Please."

"What is your name?"

"Nick–"

"Nick, I'm Elizabeth Stanion. My friends call me Liz."

"Liz," he whispered. "Why can't I feel my heartbeat?"

"Why can't I feel how slim my waist was in my twenties?" She held up her hand, then spread her fingers. "Gone, and there's no going back I'm afraid."

He shook his head. "You can't be serious."

"That I'm not in my twenties any longer? Or that you've passed beyond the veil of life and death?"

Nick laughed. Now he understood – this lady was totally nuts. He felt a million times better. Even his headache seemed to have fled.

"Oh, thanks," he told her. "I was worried. Say, do a lot of dead folks chat you up, Liz?"

"More than you'd think," she chuckled.

"Well, I'm glad you've got a hobby to keep you busy. Me, I'm partial to being alive, so if you'll excuse me–" as he stepped past her his vision swam again and his headache exploded. The agony pierced him to the core, driving him to his knees. In the red wave that crashed over him he heard a voice. A woman's voice. Laura –

"The pain passes once we let go, Nick," Liz advised. Her hand on his shoulder stole away the worst of his debilitation and abruptly he could see again.

"I'm not dead," he said. "That's just ridiculous. I mean, I'm right here talking to you!"

"Things are different here in the Grey Beyond."

"The what?"

She gestured to the foreign skyline. The more Nick studied it he more he saw it couldn't possibly be right. The shapes were so... ugly. Unbecoming. No city planner in his right mind would ever cobble together such a collection of architecture, and no zoning commission would allow so many eyesores.

"Where are we?"

"I told you."

"This isn't the city."

"Which city? It's certainly not Manhattan, which is where I passed."

"You mean you're dead too?"

"Oh yes, Nick. Everyone dies before they come here.”

"Is that right?" He got to his feet, but Liz had to help steady him. He'd lost a lot of blood, and the breeze blowing on his brain wasn't helping either.

"I woke up confused. Sick. In terrible pain and perfectly convinced I'd been kidnapped. But in time these things pass, and I remembered. You will too. If you stop fighting it."

Nick's knees stopped wobbling as she spoke. Then he reminded himself that this old bat was certifiable. She'd popped her topknot, gone loco, kookoo, eaten too many crackers from the hat. But...

But someone had bashed his head in, and his heart wasn't beating, and whenever he stopped thinking about that for a moment he felt just fine. He didn't think he was in shock, not really. But nothing else made sense.

He opened his mouth to ask one of the ten thousand questions fighting the knots in his tangled tongue, and all of a sudden he realized he hadn't taken a breath since the last time he spoke. He had to force himself to suck down air, and when he did it felt... unnatural.

"Uh oh," he whispered.

Liz squeezed his arm. "How about you come inside and I'll make you a nice cup of tea?"

~

By the time Nick's cup ran empty his mind felt overfull, but he no longer skirted the ragged edge of panic. His confusion had been usurped by numb horror, and he wanted to laugh but dared not lest he start bawling again – the waterworks had functioned quite regularly as Liz explained things over tea.

He wished he couldn't believe it. To think – no heaven. No hell. No final judgement after death. Nothing. Except... storage. It struck him as uniquely cruel to conclude a life spent coaxing the beauty out of the structures his hands helped form by being warehoused in perhaps the most bland, tasteless setting imaginable. Yet here they were.

Liz's motel room had a few personal touches to enliven its base neutrality: paintings on the walls, lace curtains, potted plants and a comfy sofa. She told him she'd bought these with credit earned through the job the lottery system of employment saddled her with.

"Can you imagine? My husband was a millionaire, just like my father. Tycoons, they used to call them. The first time I ever have to work in my life is after it's over!”

She chuckled, waving a hand towards the frilly waitress uniform straight out of Happy Days hanging from her closet door. "I don't mind staying busy. It helps to pass the time, I suppose."

"What's the point of a diner if everyone is dead here? We don't need to eat, do we?"

"Nobody needs to eat, but sometimes it's nice to. Like the tea, see? A comfort."

Nick nodded. Just like all her other explanations it made perfect sense despite how unreal this new reality was. Liz assured him the complete amnesia and the 'morning sickness' were both universal, but they diminished once one acclimated to these new environs.

"Eventually most folks can recall every detail, up until their very last moment. It can be a blessing as often as a curse," she told him as she refilled their cups.

Nick saw the morbid logic of it. No more worry, no fear about the future. Disease, sickness, accidents, even death itself need not be factored into a person's decision-making any longer. Death meant the freedom to do pretty much anything a body – ha, ha – pleased without consequences.

On the other hand, Liz suggested some people had great difficulty adjusting to unlife. Nick expected he would be one of them. He had had a great life. A good career, a loving wife, a comfortable home and friends he enjoyed. All these had been stripped from him in an instant. He'd ventured beyond the grave without so much as a photograph of his sweetheart – all material possessions apart from clothing were lost in transit, and in the Grey Beyond there were no phones, no computers, no technology of any discernible importance.

A simpler time, Nick thought. But one that could become an unrelenting nightmare that even suicide could not relieve.

He shuddered. "Didn't you say before that some people move on?"

Liz smiled, and for a moment the bleak prospect of this place for all eternity did not feel so pressing. "Oh yes, I've seen it many times. Some people are here today and gone in a blink. Others... linger."

"How long have you been here?"

She shrugged. "A while. Time is different here. And even if I wanted to leave, I haven't the foggiest idea where I would end up next.”

"Where do the others go?"

"Nobody knows, Nick. That's why so many choose to settle here for good."

"And be content with... purgatory? Some dry life with all the sharp edges worn away?"

Liz grimaced. "There are worse fates to befall a person, I suppose."

In the awkward silence that followed, Nick took a leap.

"So – how did you die?"

She blushed. "That is a deeply personal question, Nick. Intimate. Many people here consider it rude to ask such a thing."

"I'm sorry. I'm just curious."

"I know," she said. "And to be frank it has been quite some time since anyone cared to know the first thing about Elizabeth Stanion. So."

Liz unbuttoned her outermost sweater, folded it, and laid it neatly on the table. The second one she also removed; as she did so Nick saw its white fabric was spotted with blood. The third sweater was soaked through, and squelched when she peeled it off.

She faced him wearing only her long burgundy dress. Across her chest crimson bandages encircled her torso. She unwound them to reveal ragged tears and slices all over her pale flesh. Nick stared, appalled, as blood ran in dark rivers.

"I was taking a bath," Liz said. She dabbed the blood away with a handkerchief. "I'd just finished a lovely glass of Merlot and the classical music was up loud enough to quiet my thoughts – the perfect prescription for stress relief."

She sighed. "Then in barges dear old George the tycoon, three sheets to the wind – I hadn't seen him sober past noon in an age, but even for a sot he was in fine form. From what I gathered as he berated me, this particular huff came because he'd run out of underlings to harangue into his bed. So, he ordered me to suffer in some poor secretary's stead."

"You mean your husband – ?"

"Oh, George was livid when I told him to take a long hike through hell. He stormed out, but when he came back he was brandishing the butcher knife he swore I'd never once cooked a meal fit to feed a pig with. I never expected him to do anything so crass as actually kill me. Silly me – I laughed at him."

"That's terrible, Liz." Nick could think of nothing more profound to add but his hostess seemed to expect that.

"It's funny," she mused. "George always accused me of being a beast of a housekeeper, but every time I come back from a greyout the first thing I'm doing is cleaning up his mess."

Nick watched her plug the holes, then had to avert his eyes. "What is a greyout?"

"The cruelest part of this whole little charade of ours, I think." She finished, then retrieved her sweaters. "We 'deceased individuals' – or whatever the powers that be have taken to calling us these days – don't sleep, but there is still a restorative process to our undeath. You'll know you're going grey when you start to feel lethargic, and the thoughts in your mind just won't make a lick of sense. Then, you'll fall unconscious."

She shook her head. "Brace yourself, Nick, because going grey is no pleasant reprieve. Your body will revert to the state it was in prior to your death. Then, you'll die."

"We're already dead."

"Oh yes, but still you'll enjoy fresh cuts, new broken bones, and your heart will pump itself empty all over again. I understand it's to remind us how we got here but honestly, a photograph would serve just as well. I recommend you get home if you feel yourself going grey – there are a great many looky-loos here who enjoy a good spectacle."

"That's... obscene." Nick shuddered to imagine an audience gathering to watch someone dying as if it were a feature film. "How long does all that last?"

"You're a lucky one. Blunt force to the head – it ought to go pretty quick in your case."

"But, doesn't that drive people crazy? Dying again and again?"

"It gets easier over time, Nick. Your body and your mind are still attuned to the living world you so recently departed. Feelings are intense. Pain seems real. But all those sensations are our ghosts, phantoms from a life that you have now left behind. Everything you experience here is psychosomatic."

"So all the puking and bleeding is just in my head?" He looked pointedly at his shirt.

Liz chuckled. "You can bleed for months here and never feel faint. You can vomit without ever needing to eat. It defies the logic of the living but that doesn't make it any less real. A man I knew here once said it had to do with the nature of ectoplasm and our own timelessness. I'm not a scientist, Nick, let alone an expert on the paranormal. All I can tell you is that once you stop fighting to hold on to what's already gone the symptoms of that loss become more bearable. Eventually you'll hardly feel a thing when someone crushes your skull, I promise."

"At least I have that to look forward to," Nick said. "Not that I have much say in the matter."

"Free will doesn't end at death's door. We can't change the past, but this unlife is still yours to enjoy or squander. How you pass your time in the Grey Beyond is up to you alone. Now," Liz said, rising. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you but I'm feeling a bit dogged myself. If you'll excuse me?"

"Oh, of course," he said, hopping up. "You're going to go grey?"

Liz patted his arm. "Bluntly, yes – and Edward Stanion's daughter is no exhibitionist."

"Well, take care," he told her on his way out the door. "And I'll see you around since we're neighbors now.”

The tea and the talk seemed to have restored him. With little else to do, he decided to take a stroll around town. He walked downstairs and through the motel's parking lot nodding to everyone he encountered. He received a few polite hellos and a few grumpy stares, but he let those roll off his shoulders. If he was stuck here until he found a way to move on, so be it – he had no intention of being a Gloomy Gus about it.

A young woman with a face like a porcelain doll and a black silk scarf knotted around her neck sat at a bus stop. He smiled as he approached and she lifted a hand in greeting.

"Hi there," he said. "I'm Nick. Mind if I ask where this bus goes?"

She only smiled, then shrugged.

"You new here too? That's OK – probably get fresh faces every day around these parts, huh?"

She nodded. A quiet one – shy? He supposed he may be coming on too strong, given that he was probably twice her age. "So, you been here long?"

She held up three fingers, then twirled them around in some sort of sign language.

"What's the matter – cat got your tongue?”

She narrowed her eyes, then pulled down her scarf. A raw red gash across her throat burbled gore as she took a breath.

"Something... like... that." Her wheezy voice reminded Nick of the smokers from the old consequences commercials.

"I'm so, so sorry – I didn't realize–"

"You'll learn, bub," a new voice piped in from behind him, also quite raspy. When Nick turned he recoiled.

The speaker chuckled, standing there with his hands on his hips not wearing a stitch – not that it made much difference. The fellow looked like a burger that fell into the coals then took its time getting back up on the grill. Most of his flesh had been charred black and the rest was a quilt of weeping blisters. His face and head were lobster red but seemed to have been spared the worst of his burns.

He laughed at Nick's horror and ran a mitten-like hand over his pocked scalp. "Yowzer – you really are new here, aren't you? I'm Phil, otherwise known as 'Burning Man,' 'the Human Torch,' and yada and so on."

Phil put out a hand. Nick shook it as gingerly as he could, but the flesh crackled like the crust on a toasted marshmallow. Phil shrieked.

"Oh my God – I'm sorry!"

Phil dissolved into bubbling laughter, then slapped Nick on the shoulder. "The look on your face! Don't sweat it, pal – I'm just joshin' ya. I haven't felt a thing in years."

Nick blinked. Then, "you've been here for years?"

"Sure. Relatively speaking, of course. But I'm still a newbie compared to Ol' Millicent there. She's gotta be pushing, what would you say doll – three decades grey?"

The young woman shrugged, returning her scarf to its proper place.

"Looks good for her age though, doesn't she? Don't go getting any ideas though," Phil said. "I brought her flowers once for Valentine's. Happy anniversary, right? But I couldn't get so much as a kiss on the cheek."

Nick shook his head. "I'm sorry to hear that–"

"What, like I'm not special just cause I got my doodle burnt off?" Phil snorted. "Nah, Millie's just hung up on her old man. God knows why, since he's the one who gave her the extra mouth to feed.”

"Well, that's just awful."

"I'm a car wreck guy, myself," Phil told him. “Drinking and driving – who knew? What about you, buddy?"

"I don't know what happened yet," Nick admitted. "It's my first day being dead."

"They got you up in Lonely Hearts?" Phil jutted his chin towards the motel where Nick had awoken.

"Yeah, if that's what it's called."

"That's a shame. Sometimes a fella never knows what hit him, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

Rather than answer Phil looked up the street. "Hey, finally the damn bus comes by. What a place – no clocks, but they expect you to be at work on time."

Nick boarded the bus with the others. The driver waved him by when he tried to explain he had no money, no doubt not the first time the man had heard that. As Nick walked down the aisle looking for a seat he noticed most everyone kept their mortal wounds bandaged – he saw lots of eye patches, long sleeves, scarves, oversized hats. He found a seat beside a young guy with a markedly sunken chest – one of the seatbelt objectors, he reckoned.

"Jeez – doesn't anyone around here die of natural causes?"

The guy who took a steering wheel to the sternum rolled his eyes, ignoring him.

"Of course they do, dear," an elderly woman dressed like Nick's grandmother used to answered from across the aisle. She sat in an old fashioned wheelchair with a homemade quilt covering her legs. "Why do you ask?"

"Everyone I've met so far seems to have either had an accident or been murdered."

The woman chuckled merrily. "Well dear, you're on the wrong side of town if you were hoping to see the Unblemished. You ought to have died prettier."

"What do you mean?"

"We keep with our own kind here," Phil chimed in. "The Unblemished are your regular top notch snots – your filet mignon heart attackers, your designer drug overdosers, your penny pinchers too cheap to buy a carbon monoxide detector. A whole cabal of snooty twits – if you look good naked and nobody can guess how you ate it, you're Unblemished."

"They're a tight knit group," the old woman added. "Even elderly folks like me are shunned. No grey hair or wrinkles allowed in their compounds – only eye candy."

"Oh, is that why you're here with us regular folks," Nick wondered.

"Heavens no," she said, lifting her blanket to reveal a set of legs like pretzels. "It was osteoporosis and a flight of stairs for me."

Nick watched block after block roll by his window, endless identical motels under a seamless grey sky. In time the residential area gave way to commercial storefronts which reminded him of Anytown, USA – maybe with the clock wound back a few decades, but just the same save for everyone he saw walking was either bandaged or mutilated in some obvious way. His own head throbbed in sympathy.

Nick had already bled all over his only shirt and jacket, so he decided he should pick up some new duds. The bus stopped near a clothing store when he pulled the cable. As he stood Nick saw he'd left gore all over his seat's headrest.

"Might wanna get yourself a hat, buddy," Phil advised. "Some folks take offense to people leaving their mess behind, like not wiping your sweat up at the gym."

Nick promised to take the tip to heart and bid his new dead companions a good day. An older gentleman in a tuxedo greeted him when he entered Finnegan's Fine Men's Wear.

"Haven't seen you around these parts before, have I? Top of the morning to you, boy-o, and what can I do ya for? The name's Fin."

"I need some clean clothes. And a hat." Nick showed him his injury. Fin whistled.

"That's a doozy, alright. Automobile smash-up, was it?"

"The jury's still out," Nick said. For a place Liz claimed folks took it personal to ask after someone's way of passing, it seemed like they talked about little else. Well – there didn't appear to be any weather.

The older man stepped from behind his counter, revealing a thick swath of bandages across his belly secured by a handsome cummerbund. "Don't fret, laddie. I know a thing or two about keeping a mess in check. It was an IRA bomb for me, but that's ancient history. As we say – wherever you're from, we're all here now."

"Fair enough. Also, I don't have any money."

"Lucky for you our little slice of paradise runs on credit, of a sort. You'll receive a work assignment as soon as you settle in, but even a non-working stiff like you gets a stipend for essentials. Here, give her a whirl.”

Fin produced a black cube from his pocket and set it on the counter. Digits Nick couldn't make sense of flashed in red LED's all over its flat surfaces. Nick put his palm on it, then the numbers turned green. It was no measure of currency he could fathom, but a wave of his hand afforded him a new wardrobe and the dapper tailor's expertise in picking out some casual wear and comfy pajamas.

"Where are you staying, boy-o?" Fin inquired once they'd boxed it all up. "I'll have it bussed right over."

Nick adjusted his new broad-brimmed hat, the removable padding inside ensuring his leaking brains wouldn't wreck it. "One guy called it Lonely Hearts."

"Tough break," Fin said, squeezing his shoulder. "Love's a temperamental beast, isn't she?"

Nick frowned. "Is there some reason everyone thinks it's tragic that I'm staying there? Because I am – I was – a happily married man. Maybe there's some kind of mix-up."

Fin sighed. "I've been here for upwards of half a century, world-time. Seen a lot of things, to be sure. One thing I've never seen is the folks upstairs making a mistake."

Less than comforted, Nick headed back out onto the street. He had no plans and walked for several blocks, aimless. He stopped by a diner to get something to eat, more to keep his hands and thoughts busy than anything else – he certainly wasn't hungry.

By Edward Hopper - http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/111628, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25899486

But the burger was delicious. Easily the best thing he'd ever tasted in a greasy spoon, he savored it to the last crumb then licked his fingers. The waitress swung by after he finished, wearing a uniform much like Liz's.

"Get you a little dessert, hon? Milkshake, maybe? We make a killer strawberry."

"Thanks, but I need to get moving or I might stay here forever."

She laughed as she brought out a cube just like Fin's for his palm scan. Nick saw her wrists and forearms were bandaged to the elbows. "You wouldn't be the first, believe you me!"

Nick set out once more to explore the city to which fate had consigned him. After the wholesomeness of the last blocks the real downtown struck him like a blow to the head, ha ha. He couldn't believe the multitude of vices available to the lingering dead: gambling parlors, pool halls, bars, race tracks, opium dens, brothels, and more crowded around just waiting to suck a lost soul in.

Nick shook his head at the adult Disneyland. How could so many people want to focus on burying their pain instead of facing their problems? Apparently even in death some things never changed.

He walked on, leaving behind the depressing faux Vegas. He smiled when he came to a tremendous park, the first non-urban area he'd encountered. Nick had always loved hiking and camping, little as he'd been able to do it in the last decade or so – work always took priority, and Laura loved nothing less than the great outdoors. To discover there was more to unlife than one endless cityscape alleviated some of the worries he was backpacking around with.

He strolled among the trees, feeling the familiar bark and leaves, smelling the fresh air, enjoying the birdsong. He stepped through a thick stand of bushes–

"You mind, perv?"

Nick jumped when he saw a nude woman with most of her face smashed in straddling a young man with a hole in his forehead. Nick hurriedly excused himself, then took to whistling as he continued on his way.

It saddened him to see the only animals in the Grey Beyond looked to be the ones his fellow humans had sent here: arrow-studded deer, buckshot birds, mangled dogs and roadkill cats abounded. Nick tried to coax a flattened squirrel from the bushes with a handful of berries but the critter gave him a reproachful look and scampered off. He supposed the rodent subscribed to the notion of 'fool me twice, shame on me.'

Onward trekked the wayfarer. Nick found a sandy strand ringing a lake where people swam and sunned even though the sky had yet to relent in its greyness. The sight of several bodies floating face down in the water alarmed him at first, then it dawned on him that people who drowned might just be keeping in character, a morbid form of Zen meditation.

Nick sat under a big oak and set his thoughts free to wander. Dying all of a sudden, he reflected, put one hell of a kink in his plans. How would Laura cope with the loss? He thanked God he'd gotten the life insurance plan a couple years back, but he still felt awful about leaving her grieving and in the lurch.

He hated that he'd departed in the middle of a rough patch, too. In the fifteen years they'd been married they had their ups and downs, but lately it had felt like more down than up. He hadn't even had the chance to tell her that their squabbles – whatever they were about, he couldn't even remember anymore – meant nothing, that he'd never stopped loving her, and that she was the one person with whom he'd always felt connected. He closed his eyes, seeking some kind of sense of her, hoping to offer her a word, a touch, a fleeting feeling that things were OK.

Nick entertained a daydream where he would simply await his wife beyond the veil, then have a reunion once she passed away some day in the far future. This place was a tad glum, but together they could still have a pleasant forever after. Realistically though, he expected it could never come to pass. Laura was an attractive, ambitious, outgoing woman still six months shy of turning forty. He didn't think she would pine away for thirty or forty years without moving on once she came to terms with her loss.

Nick loved her, but for both of their sake he had to let her go.

Nick's melancholy thoughts meandered towards his other regrets; he'd never become a father, he hadn't built much of an earthly legacy to remain behind him, he hadn't even been on good terms with his family. He'd always put work first, trusting that once he had a successful career the rest would fall in line. The years had passed by in a blink.

Nick sighed. He'd assumed he'd have more time, is all.

He said goodbye to other people in his mind's eye: his gruff and guarded father, his dramatic but well-meaning mother, his spinster sister who'd moved down to Florida to get a head start on retirement, his old German Shepherd Roscoe. The poor pooch had been on his last legs after a gallbladder surgery last month, but fate intervened – Nick's furry companion of the last dozen years ended up outliving his master.

Nick rubbed his eyes. He missed that dog, but he wasn't going to sit here and blubber over him. He yawned, all of a sudden exhausted. Well, he'd walked more today than he had in the last month. Normally he drove everywhere but now that he was dead maybe he ought to see about getting in shape.

Right now, though, nothing in this world or any other sounded better than a nap.

Nick dozed. The sounds of the swimmers splashing, the beach volleyball players cheering, and the boomboxes blaring all faded into the background –

–Nick jolted awake from the weirdest dream of his goddamn life. What the hell? His heart thundered – how in God's name had he fallen asleep driving home? He was lucky to be alive.

Tired as he was, he still took the scenic route. He didn't feel up to facing Laura's withering stare across a silent dinner table just yet. And what was with her, being so doting and sweet this morning? A new way to be passive aggressive, he suspected. His wife had never once come to an armistice without thoroughly pounding his ego into pulp first.

And what was with that dream? How stupid – he was dead, but he was in some motel. And everyone had to work? Ridiculous. More like a nightmare–

–Nick's vision blurred, then he was floating above his body as he pulled into the driveway. He could hear his own thoughts like a static-choked radio.

Oh shit. It wasn't a dream. Was this?

Nick the Physical trudged up the walkway with his phantom consciousness in tow. He scowled as he looked for the front door's keyhole. Why were the porch lights out? And the damn door wasn't even locked, but she knew how much that drove him crazy.

Oh, she knew exactly how much, Nick heard his alter ego scoff.

Inside the house was also dark, though Laura's Volvo had been in the driveway – taking up just over her allotted half of the space, enough to tweak his nose without being blatant about it. Nick the Ghost grimaced at the petty tone to his thoughts. Just yesterday, he had been a real ass. Dying really gave you perspective.

"Laura?" Alive Nick called into the dark living room. No answer.

From the den the TV blared, up loud enough his wife could hear it no matter where in the house she was. Like her hatred of nature, the woman went to war with silence wherever she encountered it. Nick sighed, already wishing he'd stayed late at the office.

"Laura!" He muted the yammering idiot box in the den, then walked back through the living room. As he stepped into the dining room he heard something behind him rustle. Roscoe?

"Hi there, honey!" Laura's head popped out of the kitchen, the only lit room in the house. Her smile flashed like a million watt bulb and Ghost Nick's heart ached. Damn, she looks amazing. How could he not have spent every minute of every day telling her that?

"Hey–" Alive Nick said, then pain exploded in the back of his head. Ghost Nick returned to his oneness with his corporal self, dropping like a sack of potatoes. His vision went wonky, his skull pounding a heavy metal drumbeat.

He tried to focus but all he saw was a flash of brass, then he felt his head crunch. Blind now. Pain fading. Voices muggy and indistinct. He crawled over the carpet, desperate to protect his wife. He smelled her summertime perfume, the one she only wore when she was in the mood. She must have decided their fight wasn't worth it.

Goddammit, I was such an idiot, Nick thought. He caught a last glimpse up those smooth, toned legs to where she stood over him. She wore only a pair of lacy panties and one of his old T-shirts.

"It's OK, baby – I've got this," she said.

Nick died.

–He gasped himself awake, then agony crashed over him like a tsunami. Nick opened his mouth to scream but instead he puked as if he were an extra on the Exorcist.

"Holy mole!" someone jeered. "Nice barf fountain, bro."

As Nick gaped at his audience others laughed or made sounds of disgust. He burned, feeling violated by the lookey-loos. He still sat under the tree near the beach but over a dozen voyeurs had intruded into his private moment.

"Sick greyout, dude," a surfer with rings of ragged red punctures around the missing chunks of his thigh and torso said. He offered Nick a burning reefer, which he waved away. The crowd dispersed as they saw the morbid spectacle was over. He tried to stand but his legs wobbled.

"Need a hand, bubbo?"

Nick nodded to the heavyset bearded fellow in overalls and a John Deere cap. He reached up, then blanched.

"Sorry – old joke," the man chuckled. He reached down with the arm that didn't end in a mangled stump halfway down his bicep and hefted Nick to his feet. "The name's Walt. I'm not much of a shaker, ever since I dropped my Copenhagen into the ol' combine. Thought I was quick enough to snatch it back out.”

"Live and learn, I suppose," Nick offered.

"Or don't," the farmer opined. "But in my defense, it was a fresh can."

"Say, is there somewhere around here I can get cleaned up?"

"A dip in the lake'll set ya straight, I reckon."

Nick took the fellow's advice, and afterwards he lay on a borrowed towel luxuriating beside the bonfire while his clothes dried. This strange tribe of beach bums and bad swimmers welcomed him into their ranks – apparently being caught out while going grey was a rite of passage amongst newbies. Once Nick had a moment to process what he'd experienced, however, the implications disturbed him deeply.

He hadn't died – he'd been murdered! By some thug, no less. Some grubby burglar who had broken into his home and bashed Nick's head in. So much for civil society, the security system–

Hot on the heels of his indignation came a much graver concern: Laura! What had the home invader done to his poor wife? If he'd had no qualms about offing Nick, surely the man wouldn't care to leave a living witness behind. He closed his eyes, unable to envision Laura's last moments at the hands of such a brute.

Nick jolted upright. What if Laura was here? Much as he hated to think she couldn't have outrun the fiend, if she had died at the same time he did it stood to reason she would wind up in the same place. Hell, she might even be in a nearby motel room as he lay here wallowing in his misery.

Nick dressed and hustled off into the woods all the way back to the city. He saw no bus so he hailed a cab. The driver didn't look like he'd died in a car wreck, a good sign.

"Where to, guy?"

"Lonely Hearts, and step on it – I've got to find my wife!"

"Takes all kinds, I guess," the driver snorted. He peeled out.

Back at the motel Nick headed for the main office. Inside, an older woman with a prune face sat smoking through her tracheotomy hole.

"Evening, Mr. Volstead," she rasped.

"You – know who I am?"

"Of course, dear. I know every tenet in my building. That's my job."

"Perfect," Nick said, awash with relief. "What room is my wife Laura in?"

The matron frowned. "Laura Volstead, you're meaning?"

"Yes. Her maiden name's Becker, if that helps."

The old woman tapped ash, studying him. "Not to be nosey, Mr. Volstead, but what makes you think your wife would be staying with us?”

"Well – she has to be. We died together, I'm all but certain."

"Saw this when you greyed out, did you?"

"Not exactly. But nothing else makes sense. Unless she survived. Do you have a directory, or..."

The woman smacked her lips. "Can't say that I do, other than what's in the old noodle. It sounds to me like you might be hoping a little too hard and thinking a tad too little, if you don't mind me saying so."

"I don't think it's unreasonable to hope the woman I love didn't get brutalized," Nick said stiffly. "Do you know something I don't?"

"Can't say that I do," she said. "But the dreams never lead us astray, Mr. Volstead. Why don't you sleep on it? For what it's worth–"

"Thanks, maybe I will," he said, heading out before she could lay into him with her own take on death and life and what things were all about. Nick was starting to miss life back on Earth, where people kept those thoughts to themselves. The Grey Beyond reminded him of nothing so much as a waking self-help book.

As he trudged up the stairs with his mind stewing his neighbor's door opened. Liz smiled, stepping out onto her balcony.

"Hey there, stranger. I was worried when I didn't see you come home last night."

Nick smiled. "I went for a longer walk than I'd meant to. And you were right – people sure do tend to stare here."

"Would you like to have a bite, maybe a cup of tea?"

"Thanks, but just now I need to recharge my batteries. I'll come see you once I get my head on straight."

"Well – be careful you don't spend too much time in there, Nick. It's just as easy to get lost inside as out."

Nick supposed she had the right of it. He headed inside, wondering if folks like Phil and Walt might be better suited to this place than someone like him. You had to laugh or you'd just start screaming – the Grey Beyond was no friend to the humorless.

Inside he found somebody had installed an old rotary phone on his desk and left a manilla envelope beside it. He rushed to the phone, dialing with trembling hands. The operator's recorded voice informed him, however, that the number he'd called – his home phone – was out of service. Ditto his cell, Laura's cell, his office, and every other one he could think of. He hung up the phone, barely resisting the urge to chuck it at the wall.

Nick tore open the envelope. He discovered that he had been assigned to a work detail at Day's End Dry Cleaning from the hours of 'the afternoon until pre greyout.' He grimaced – great, half his day spent mucking brains and guts out of people's clothes followed by a mad dash home to relive his end in private. He saw no listed days off, which he took to mean there would be none.

Well, he'd be damned – ha ha – if he was going anywhere today.

Nick opted instead for a long steamy shower. Once he emerged he found the clothes Fin shipped over all tucked away in his dresser and a receipt on his desk thanking him for his patronage. He hoped there wasn't much crime in the Grey Beyond, since it seemed just about anyone could get into his apartment.

Nick yawned. Here we go again, he thought. He laid down and closed his eyes. He reached for the details of his dream, then all of a sudden he was back in his car driving home. Knowing what his hapless physical counterpart was heading for did nothing to alleviate his horror at again bearing witness to his murder, but this time he managed to catch a few details he'd missed before.

A flash of brass before the killer finished him off. The tang of blood as he bit the tip of his tongue off. And Laura's voice.

Nick managed to hurl into the toilet this time, and as the headache and dizziness floored him his mind spun for a different reason. As he laid there waiting for the greyout to subside, he wiggled that last like a loose tooth. Why did the sound of his wife's voice speaking the last words he'd ever hear bother him so much?

"It's OK, baby. I've got this," Laura said, then faded to black.

It took Nick another week's worth of greyouts to realize why it felt so dissonant.

By then he'd settled into his new routine, which kept him busy most of the day: he woke up, showered, dressed, and walked a mile to his job. There he steamed, pressed, ironed, and bleached until he needed a break. He stepped over to the diner where Liz worked and they took a long walk in the park, talking about where they'd lived, places they'd vacationed, foods they'd enjoyed, anything except death and this miserable unlife they were trapped in. Liz made a heroic effort to recreate some of Nick's favorite dishes, and even though she was an atrocious cook he savored both the food and the effort she made.

After Nick finished his shift he would head home and await his greyout. Once it passed he went for a jog, took care of errands, and pondered his dreams. Today he snapped out of his meditative session with exhilaration daring his heart to remember what it felt like to race. He'd been racking his bashed-in brains to figure out why Laura's words stuck in his craw, and now he knew.

Laura wasn't scared. A stranger broke into her house and murdered her husband right in front of her, but her last words to Nick carried not the slightest hint of horror, of panic, of desperation. She sounded... smug. At first the smugness seemed out of place, but as he compared it to the other details he felt were odd, a picture came into focus.

Laura was wearing her sexy perfume, but when Nick left that morning she'd been downright frigid. She'd hurried to see him off and even given him her cheek, but her eyes had been full of smouldering fury. And she never walked around the house in just her underwear. And the big baggy T-shirt she wore. Nick had assumed it was one of his, but it bore the name of a gym – one Nick had never heard of, and certainly never been to.

Nick's attacker also gave his ethereal spying eye pause. The man was young, muscular, and clean cut. He looked a lot more like a tennis instructor than some junkie thug. And he'd bashed Nick's skull in with a brass poker from their fireplace set – but wouldn't a home invasion killer bring his own weapon? Especially with the TV blaring; he would have known somebody was home.

And where the hell was Roscoe? Nick's old dog always greeted him at the door, even after he'd gotten sick. But no faithful hound awaited him when he entered his home for the last time. And no barking at the intruder, no baring his teeth, nothing at all even as his master was bludgeoned to death – in the room Roscoe slept in.

And Laura just sounded so goddamn smug.

Nick shook off the growing sense of doom clinging to him like a bad smell on a hot day. He headed next door and knocked. Liz answered, naked but for a bloody sheet wrapped around her.

"Sorry, Nick – you caught me right in the middle of something."

"I'll come back–"

"Nonsense. I'll only be a second.”

Liz hummed in her bathroom as she cleaned up the aftermath of her own greyout. When she emerged she again wore her layers of sweaters. She smiled.

"So – what brings you by?"

"Why is this motel called Lonely Hearts?"

"Oh dear," Liz sighed.

The truth had been there all along, but Nick had willed himself blind to it. Liz. Millicent. The other women he'd met in passing, so many of whom were black and blue or bore the signs of savage beatings, the men with their gunshot wounds or their faces contorted from the poisons they'd ingested.

"I fear you've touched a most prickly truth, Nick."

He nodded. "I think it's possible... that my wife murdered me. She made it look like a robbery, but I think the guy who killed me was her – her lover. And that's why I'm stuck in a motel full of kindred spirits."

Liz squeezed his arm. "There are countless ways to live a lie, but only one way to live with the truth."

"My whole life was a lie, though. If she could do that to me, what could I possibly ever believe in?"

"Nick – you're not alone."

He looked up and saw in her eyes the mirror of the hot agony shattering his heart. "I still don't know what to do.”

"How about we go for a walk?"

They did, though his thoughts crowded out his enjoyment and he found it hard to focus on what Liz was saying. After a long time spent in a conversational lull, Liz cleared her throat.

"Say, what's that, I wonder?"

Nick frowned. Upon a grassy knoll where they'd often picnicked he saw a squat cement structure where there had never been anything before. The building had no windows and only one door.

Liz beamed. "You see it, don't you?"

"Of course I do – but what is it?"

"Ever After," she whispered. "I've always wanted to go there. But not by myself."

Nick stared at the door. "Maybe we could go together."

She took his hand. He squeezed hers. They took a step towards the building. All of a sudden the nearby bushes rustled. Nick laughed as he heard barking, then a German Shepherd with the top of his head caved in came bounding out, tongue lolling.

"He seems to know you," Liz said.

"You're a good boy, Roscoe," Nick told his old friend.

The door swung open. Brilliant white light spilled out. Together the three of them walked into whatever may come next.