Prayer for the Dead (Revenants in Purgatory) Read online

  My knuckles were white from the death grip I had on the wheel. My foot hovered mere millimeters above the brake pedal, tapping it any time the car picked up too much speed. Another SUV had pulled out directly after us. Its high beams reached the areas mine weren’t, but even so, it seemed as if the night swallowed the light.

  I cracked my window to keep the fresh air flowing. The wine I’d had was making me drowsier than I already was. Tore was chattering away about the blonde boob job whose name turned out to be Bambie. Seriously, he could not have found a more clichéd woman, if he tried. His rambling did nothing but ramp up my anxiety. He started going into disgusting detail about her butt, when I finally cut him off.

  “Tore, that’s great and I really do want to hear about Bambie’s sweet little ass, but can it wait until we’re home please?”

  My eyes left the road for a brief second, but that’s all it took for a deer to jump in front of the car. Startled, I slammed both feet on the brake pedal with all the force of my weight behind them. The deer bounced away unscathed, but the car began to fishtail on the loose gravel. I tried to get it back under control, but the car developed a mind of its own. No matter what I tried, I received the opposite reaction. My main concern was pitching off the ledge. I aimed for the embankment on the other side of the road but, in an over correction, I yanked the wheel too hard.

  The front driver’s side tire hit the mounded dirt on the opposite side, popping the front end up and sending the car into a roll. Side over side, we rolled, landing on the passenger side wheels, like a Hollywood stunt car. The car hung in the balance, as if trying to decide if it wanted to roll again, and I knew we were precariously close to the edge. I prayed to God the car would come down safely on the road, but my prayers must have fallen on deaf ears because we tipped over the edge of the mountain.

  The windshield and windows exploded in a forceful display of fragility, propelling the shards into the interior of the car, where they pierced my skin. The frame of the car absorbed nothing from the impact of each boulder and I felt every single one of them striking its body, as they reverberated through my own. The sounds of crunching and bending steel were like a freight train in my ears. My feet were still firmly planted on the brake, as if somehow that would slow the momentum and stop gravity from pulling us to our doom.

  With one final flip, the car landed hard on its roof at the bottom of the ravine. Dangling upside down, suspended only by the seat belt, I fought consciousness as all the blood not pouring out of various wounds on my body rushed to my head. My eyes strained to see through the black. I couldn’t see my brother and calling his name garnered no response. I reached a bloody arm in his general direction, groping around until I felt his shoulder. A light shake and another call was still only met with silence. I was on the fringe of hysteria. My voice became shrill the longer he went without responding.. The edges of my vision began to blur, the tunnel was collapsing in and my perception escaped, allowing the night to swallow me whole.

  “TORE!”

  The memories were overwhelming and the pounding of heavy, rushed footsteps echoed into my room as my screams died off. As the hall light snapped on, a soft glow crept its way in the room, and I struggled to disentangle the sheets from my lower extremities. Tore’s shadow manifested first, slinking along the floor and sliding up the wall, before he appeared in my doorway. He advanced quickly and sat down on the bed, before I crashed into him.

  I held him tight, fearing if I eased up, I’d lose him again. He rubbed my back while I completely broke down. There are times when I want to be strong, not fall apart and not receive comfort, especially from him, but I couldn’t swing it this time. The blame that normally rested squarely on my shoulders was threatening to crush me again.

  Tore rocked us gently, as I attempted to get a hold of myself. I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart and slow my pulse. He pulled back, wiping away my tears with his thumb.

  “Are you all right?” I nodded, but the tears still leaked from my eyes. He made to get up and I grabbed his hand. “It’s okay, I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go get you a glass of water.”

  I released my kung-fu grip. He left the room and I looked down at my trembling hands. I tried to shake the jitters off but, when that didn’t work, I balled my hands into fists, resting them in my lap. When Tore returned, he placed the glass on my nightstand and tossed a box of tissues at me before sitting back down. I wadded up a used tissue, made a shot for the trashcan, but missed. There went my chance to play for the Denver Nuggets.

  “Better now, feel like your calming down?” He patted my knee.

  “Yeah,” I sniffed, feeling like a helpless child.

  “It’s been a while since you’ve had a departure dream.”

  It was true and nothing I hadn’t been extremely grateful for. These types of dreams plague some of the Revenants and I’m one of the lucky ones. The dream is more of a replay of death, for those who died in some emotionally traumatic way. They’re extremely vivid, as if I’m experiencing the scene all over again. I feel everything and always wake the same way, screaming for Tore. The stupid dreams wreck me for hours. My emotions get amped up and I can’t fall back to sleep. I’m always achy afterwards, with unexplained bruises covering my body. Tore, being the awesome brother that he is, will usually sit up with me. We’ll watch a movie or play video games but, more times than not, I make him go back to bed.

  “So, you wanna talk about what I walked in on tonight when I came home?” Tore broke the silence.

  “Not really, no.” I knew he was just trying to create a diversion to keep my mind off the dream, but he was going about it the wrong way.

  I leaned back and grabbed the glass of water off the nightstand. I chugged half of it down, before passing it to him to finish it off. He didn’t push the Devon issue, but instead raised the glass to let me know he was going to get more water.

  The purple haze of the impending dawn came through my window. Any further sleep was going to evade me, so I followed Tore out into the living room. I dropped my sore body down onto the sofa, pulled my feet up beneath me, and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Tore returned with the refilled glass and I motioned for him to go back to bed. He mussed my hair, and trudged back down the hall to his bedroom. I heard his door softly click before I sighed to myself.

  After watching half a dozen X-files reruns, thanks to a marathon on TBS, I took a shower. The result was nothing more than wasting hot water, in a failed attempt to soothe my aching muscles. With the sun high in the sky, I crawled back into bed and snuggled deeply under the covers. I had just fallen back into a very light sleep, when the mattress dipped next to me. I woke, but held my eyes tight to dam the inevitable tears that were coming. I rolled over to find Portia smiling at me. It was a sad smile, but also the comforting, knowing smile of a good friend.

  I laid my head on her leg as she stroked my wet hair and, for a long time, neither of us spoke. She held my hand and I clung to her leg, as if it were the only thing preventing me from sliding into the abyss. The silence became too much and the weight of my guilt was smothering me.

  “I killed my brother,” I whispered.

  Therein lies the kick in the pants about these dreams. While most Revenants relive the trauma of their own deaths, I relive my brother’s. I survived that horrendous accident, while Tore perished. He was killed when the car took its first tumble, and was gone long before we landed at the bottom of that ravine. The SUV that had been behind us called for help and, within a few hours, I was airlifted off the mountain. I spent the next two weeks in the hospital, utterly destroyed in every way.

  When I was released from the hospital, I didn’t go back to my own apartment. I moved into Tore’s house. It was the house we grew up in, which he inherited a year before, when our parents died vacationing in New York. They had called it the “vacation of a lifetime” and, as it turned out, they were right. Mom and Dad were on the observation deck of the South Tower on that fateful da
y in September.

  With them gone, the house passed to both Tore and me, but he wanted to live there. Once he was gone, it was mine. I hadn’t even begun to heal from the loss of our parents when I lost him, my only remaining family. There were no aunts, uncles, grandparents—no one to seek solace with or share funny memories, as death always calls occasion to do. It was just a big empty house full of memories and me. Those memories and photos that lined the walls should have been comforting, but they were painful reminders of how alone I was. Moving into that house was the beginning of my downward spiral.

  I became a complete recluse. I quit my job and made excuses not to see my friends, or anyone who felt the need to cheer me up or pull me out of the depression I’d sunk into. As time drifted on, the phone stopped ringing, friends stopped dropping by to check on me, and I’d cut loose the few who tried to hang on.

  After the accident, I couldn’t bring myself to plan Tore’s funeral. I was twenty-seven years old. How was I supposed to plan a funeral? Not to mention, the idea of being the lone attendee in the family section, was more than I could bear. His body was badly damaged, so he was cremated and I left it at that. No funeral, no memorial, and no absolution. But even if I hadn’t been completely self-involved, I couldn’t have known that without a service and the prayers that followed, he wouldn’t be allowed to move on.

  Within a few months, I was lost in the void of the world. I barely ate, couldn’t sleep, and found absolutely no happiness in anything. I existed and nothing more.

  One afternoon, I watched the leaves fall off the oak tree in the front yard. The wind kicked up and the swing, still hanging from the tree’s thick limb, swayed in the breeze. The swing was the very same that Dad hung, when Tore and I were kids. There it remained, even though we had both grown and moved away. Fall was in the air and the gray October sky matched my soul. It was then that I knew I had to stop what I was doing. This suffering and self-inflicted torture needed to end.

  That evening I made a decision and it began with a cold walk to the liquor store, where I picked up a bottle of 190-proof Everclear. According to the knowledgeable sales clerk, it was the strongest liquor on the market.

  After another cold walk home, I tidied the house before getting the party started. The alcohol tasted rank, but I wasn’t in the market for flavor—I wanted bang for my buck. I felt at ease after only a few shots and with each consecutive one after, the weight on my shoulders began to lift. Once I felt loosened up, I moved onto stage two.

  Forgoing the shot glass, I carried my new best friend in a bottle to the bathroom, and ran hot water in the tub. As I waited for it to fill, I rummaged through the medicine cabinet where I found a plethora of brown bottles. The prescriptions were mostly Tore’s, but I found a few belonging to my parents. His bottles moved in around them and I wondered why he hadn’t tossed the old ones away. Some of the bottles were past the expiration, which mattered very little. I found what I was after and set it down on the sink.

  With the tub full, I turned the faucet off and pulled the phone from my pocket, setting it on the edge of the tub. Twisting the cap off the prescription bottle and the Everclear, I stole a glance at myself in the mirror. I didn’t linger long, because those eyes were judging me. I poured the prescription pills out of the bottle, until a nice, large mound of Ambien lay in the palm of my hand. I threw half of the mound into my mouth, washing it down with the hard-grain alcohol before repeating the process. Soon, every last pill was gone.

  As I lowered myself into the tub, the warm water floated up through the pant legs of my jeans. The bath was my contingency plan, in case the pills didn’t completely do their job. If nothing else, once I was asleep, my body would slide beneath the surface of the water and drown. I leaned back, waiting for the pills to take effect. In those moments, I was left to reflect. I thought of my mom—the smell of her perfume, her grace and humor. My dad was always a ham, telling god-awful jokes or singing horribly off key if it meant getting someone to smile. The thoughts that broke my heart the most were of Tore. From the day I was born, he’d been the ultimate big brother, my guardian, my protector. I knew he would be disappointed in my actions and dejected by my weakness. Even knowing he’d be heartbroken that I just gave up without the slightest attempt to solider on, I knew I couldn’t be alone. Not like this, not haunted by our family’s cataclysmic misfortunes.

  My lids began to droop and I picked up the phone, dialing the non-emergency line for the police. I know it was incredibly vain, but I didn’t want my body rotting away in the house, before some neighbor called the police to do a “wellness check” due to a foul odor coming from the house next door. I told the operator what I had done, that the front door was unlocked, and where my body could be found. She begged me to stay on the line and to keep talking, but it was already too late.

  The last thing I remember was my hand dropping back into the water, plunging the phone down with it. I don’t know how long I was in that tub before my body gave out and died. I have no idea if the medics arrived and tried to perform heroic measures. All I knew was that my life was over. That was it, and the curtains had been drawn. A family that once numbered four had been completely snuffed out due to tragedy.

  ...

  Portia’s soothing voice floated down to me, reassuring that everything would be all right. My body was wracked with sobs; I could hear her words but didn’t believe them. I’ve always replayed every tiny second of that night in my head. It was a night of questions that could never be answered. The “what if’s” of it all. What if we’d left sooner, accepted a ride from one of our other friends, or just stayed the night and Tore could have called in sick to work the next day? But all those are inconsequential to the question I struggled with the most. What if I hadn’t been drinking that night? I’d only had a few drinks and the last had been hours before we left, but what if I didn’t wait long enough or I was more intoxicated than I thought?

  In the end, even if I could get answers, the outcome would remain the same. Tore would still be dead. There was no do over. I had taken everything away from him, his dreams, and his future. I had even taken away the possibility of being reunited with our parents and eternal destiny. I had been too weak to hold on and too scared to be left all alone. I just stopped fighting and let myself slip away.

  When I arrived in purgatory to find Tore waiting for me, no words could accurately describe my joy. The guilt, this crushing burdening guilt, would come in the days and weeks that followed, as I learned that we were to ride out eternity here—no family left to pray would keep us trapped. My cowardice condemned us to this place and no amount of apology would ever change that.

  Chapter 8

  Since I cried myself to sleep at some point the previous afternoon, the alarm clock going off the next morning came as an unwelcome intruder. I dumped off the edge of the bed and tried to stretch out my hunched back and limbs. Although the bruises had already faded, my muscles still felt as if I’d been beaten by an entire troop of silverback gorillas.

  The sun was just cresting on the horizon, and the predawn shadows danced around the apartment. The trip down the hallway to the bathroom was a painful one, further exacerbated when the light clicked on, causing my already sore eyes to water. Even though my ocular cavities felt as if they’d been soaking in acid, it wasn’t enough to blur out my reflection in the mirror. One flash confirmed I looked as bad as I felt, and that was one step below warmed-over shit.

  As if the gross appearance staring back wasn’t enough, my head was pounding, causing my stomach to have some tilt-a-whirl action going on. Having uncharacteristically spent the entire weekend drinking, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think I’d vomit if the mood struck me just right. All in all, it was a big fat reminder alcohol was never my friend, especially during times of depression. I dragged my un-manicured fingertips down my pale cheeks, distorting my face until it looked like a reject from Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Work was going to suck hard.

  Stripping out of my cloth
es, I hopped in the shower. I leaned into the steamy water for a long time, allowing it to sooth my achy body. The damn departure dream waited on the fringes, trying to creep in and ruin yet another day. In the interest of not allowing that to happen, I recited each step of my shower. Scrub, scrub, scrub the hair with shampoo until it’s all clean. Next, it’s time to condition, making it so silky and sheen. Then the soap for all my 1000 parts and I kissed Devon. Holy Shit, I kissed Devon... and now I have conditioner in my eyes!

  Adding the sting of hair care products to my eyes wasn’t going to help the puffy ugliness, but that was really the least of my concerns. I completely forgot what happened before the stupid dream; otherwise, I would have been analyzing the situation to death. So much time that could have been devoted to worrying, had been wasted. I needed to ramp up the analysis, get it out of my system in the next hour or so, if I was to face him at the office.

  Okay, so what did I know? I kissed Devon, check. How was that kiss? Really good—he’s a great kisser. Did I really want to kiss him? Hmm... Did I really want to kiss him, or was I secretly wishing he was someone else? Ouch, damn, I knew the answer to that one immediately. Am I attracted to Devon and now see him as more than a friend?

  Wrapped in a big, fluffy towel, I dropped the lid to the toilet and sat down. I really wanted to give that last question some thought, before making any rash decisions. However, it was becoming obvious; I was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. The thought of Devon as my boyfriend just didn’t fit.

  Regrettably, the more I thought about it, the more nervous I became. I really mucked this up. One grievous error, in a drunken stupor, had the potential to ruin our friendship. How was I going to let him down gently, if he wanted more? I really didn’t believe there was a genuine or gentle way to do it. In the end, there are always hurt feelings and squashed egos.