CHAPTER 4
Kira wasn’t sure if she was flying or floating or neither. She was wrapped in that darkness and that was all there was. She took what she thought were steadying breaths and realized she wasn’t panicking, she wasn’t afraid at all. She just was. The silent dark was a welcoming weight that she didn’t know she needed.
She stayed in that quiet solitude for a while. She honestly had no idea how much time had passed, and wondered if time even existed here.
Drifting, she finally thought, drifting down a lazy river of endless dark, endless calm. It was blissful, but like all things, it ended and Kira was surprised to find herself sitting on a couch in a warmly lit room.
There were two large, plush, navy blue sofas with enormous pillows, several lamps with softly flickering lights, and one plain wooden door. She thought it looked a lot like the waiting room at a therapist’s office. Only there were no magazines, no paintings or photographs, no advertisements for antidepressants. The warm pink walls were blank.
The wooden door opened and a sweet female voice floated into the room. “Kira McKinley?”
She rose to her feet, noticing her heels were now intact. She was amazed to see that all her clothes were exactly the way they had been when she left her apartment. She took slow, cautious steps toward the open door.
“Kira McKinley? Come on in, honey.” That saccharine voice said. The woman sounded like a southern belle when she added, “Don’t be scared, hon.”
Kira walked into a room covered in pink floral wallpaper. It was brightly lit, almost too bright compared to the waiting room, and a woman from another time sat behind a small cherry wood desk. She was pretty, early forties maybe, with healthy, glowing skin and her black hair pinned up in curls. Her baby pink sweater was buttoned up and tight across her perky breasts, with a pearl brooch on one side. The woman stood up from her chair and Kira gaped at the woman’s full skirt of pink gingham. Her soft, red lips parted in a bright smile.
“Hello, Kira, and welcome to Hell, my name’s Mavis. Please have a seat.” She motioned her pink manicured hand to a small powder blue armchair across the desk and sat back down in her own seat.
“I’m sorry, what?” Kira asked as she sat down and sank into the chair’s cushion.
“Welcome to Hell, honey.” the woman repeated. She pulled a tablet off the desk and began scrolling with a finger on the screen.
Kira asked herself under her breath, “They have iPads in hell?”
“Ah yes, McKinley. There you are,” the woman started speaking as Kira just stared at her. “Now it says here you’re thirty-one and you died in Brooklyn, New York, the year two thousand and thirteen. Cause of death is catastrophic impact with a moving vehicle. Does all that sound correct?” She looked up at Kira and smiled. Kira just nodded.
“Great,” the woman continued to scroll on the screen. “Says here you’ll be in block seven hundred and thirty-eight, apartment number is 112689. Your acquisition demon will be waiting to greet you. Let’s see who was assigned to you.” The woman stared at the tablet.
Kira was feeling completely overwhelmed all of a sudden. Hell? Block 738? Apartment number? Acquisition demon, emphasis on the demon part??? Was all the bureaucracy meant to torture a person? Her head was spinning with questions.
She didn’t think she had led a particularly good life, but she didn’t really think it was all that bad either. And she didn’t believe in hell. Didn’t believe in god or the devil or any of it.
Her mother had dragged her to church as a kid, but she never really bought into any of it. But she was unmistakably here with this woman who told her she was in hell and she could find no reason to believe the woman was lying to her. There was a strange sense of understanding in the back of her mind that seemed to calm her nerves.
“Oh! You’ve got Azrin. Lucky girl,” she smiled brightly. “You’re gonna like him,” her full red lips turned up in a wide grin.
Kira couldn’t tell if the woman was genuine or completely sinister with that comment.
Mavis pulled a card out of a drawer and scribbled something in red ink on the back. The woman in pink pushed the card along the desk’s smooth surface and left it in front of Kira. “That’s your dwelling information. You can take the train to block 738. Azrin will be there to meet you.”
Her face brightened and her dark eyes sparkled as she said, “Enjoy eternity, honey!”
One minute Kira was sitting in the baby blue armchair and the next she found herself standing on a train platform. It was like being in a movie, complete with cutscenes apparently.
The train was the kind of black steam engine she remembered seeing in romantic movies from her childhood. She had no luggage, no purse, just the card in her hand.
A stout man with a thick beard and thick mustache approached her. He was wearing a crisp white t-shirt underneath denim overalls that made his round belly look larger. He didn’t smile as he said in a gruff voice and thick accent, “Card please”.
Kira stretched out her hand and he took the card and inspected it carefully. He eyed her up and down and said, “Block seven hundred and thirty-eight. This way, miss.”
She followed him down the platform until he stopped at one of the several identical passenger cars. There were a few people milling about, all of them in different varieties of clothing. Some she had seen in history books or paintings in museums, others were dressed in modern fashion, like her own.
“I guess everyone just wears what they died in. What if they died naked?” she asked, mostly to herself.
“Hmm? What was that?” the man said, turning to her.
Kira shook her head, “Nothing, nevermind. Is this my train?”
“This is the one. Listen to the announcements and get off at the stop for your block. You can’t miss it.” He opened the door to the car and Kira ascended the little steps inside. He placed the card back into her hand and she promptly stuffed it into her jeans pocket.
She found the car to be mostly empty. Except for the one man sitting in the very back. He was dressed in a brown three piece suit with some kind of Abraham Lincoln hat on his head.
She chose a seat toward the front, where she could watch the door. The seats were pale lacquered wood with little trays that pulled down from the seat in front of you. Everything was exactly how she pictured a steam train to be and she wondered if the man in the back saw the same thing.
The train lurched out of the station and Kira settled herself in the seat so she could look out the window. She expected to see rocks, mountains, volcanoes, and fires out that window, but instead saw something akin to Soviet apartment blocks, row after row of identical buildings made of gray stone with identical rectangular windows in straight, neat lines.
There was a startling lack of lava and fire, or weeping and gnashing of teeth. A pleasant voice called out the block numbers on a speaker system.
“Good day, madam,” A man’s voice with a posh British accent said directly behind her.
Kira turned around to see the man with the stovepipe hat sitting in the seat behind her now. He was handsome, his face thin, with a neat beard, and crystal blue eyes, but for some reason she still expected him to be sepia toned. “My name is Edward, 1854, London, Cholera. Mind if I sit with you?”
Kira looked at the man with a puzzled expression and tried to sound pleasant as she said, “um sure.”
She scooted closer to the window and he came to sit next to her, removing his hat. His hair was thin, but still mostly brown, with only a few gray streaks. He stared at her as if waiting for something.
He was waiting for her to introduce herself, she realized. She pulled out the memory of what he had said and filled in her own details.
“Kira, 2013, Brooklyn, um.. car,” she said at last.
“Do you mean carriage?.” His brows bunched together and little lines formed at the corners of his eyes.
“Oh, well I guess it’s kind of like a carriage, but it doesn’t require horses. It also goes a lot faster.”
“I see. I see. Terrible business being struck by that, I assume.” he replied.
Kira chuckled a bit, “Yeah I guess so. Probably better than Cholera, though. At least I didn’t feel anything when the car hit me. You probably shit your brains out for days.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes.” He too released a quiet laugh. “It was not a pleasant experience. I was quite relieved when the whole thing was done.”
His proper response showed surprisingly little amount of embarassment, only matter-of-factness. “What block are you going to?” he asked.
“Seven thirty-eight,” She said. “Yourself?”
“I’m in block eight hundred and twenty-two. You should come by sometime. We have a lovely garden.” He fingered the felt brim of his hat.
The pleasant voice over the intercom said “Now approaching block number six hundred sixty-six”.
Kira’s eyes went wide, “Block six six six? Is that where you know who lives?”
Edward answered, “Oh no, madam. Block six hundred and sixty-six is a communal space. There are restaurants and cafes, shops, and other recreational amenities there. Anyone may stop there at any time.”
In fact, as he was speaking, the train slowed to a stop. Kira assumed people were exiting the train, but Edward remained by her side.
“I believe Satan lives in a castle somewhere, though I’ve never seen it, or him.” Edward said as the train lurched again to movement.
The train continued on for some time and Kira took to quietly staring out the window again, until at last the speaker box announced her block number.
Edward rose from the seat and let her out. He bowed slightly at the waist and put his hat back on his head. “Until we meet again, Miss Kira. Enjoy eternity.”
She smiled at him, “Same to you, Edward.” And then she descended the little stairs and out onto a similar platform as when she’d boarded. A sign above pointed to blocks 737 – 739 and she started walking in that direction.
CHAPTER 5
Kira walked for what seemed like a ridiculously long time, but her feet never hurt. The heels didn’t rub her ankles, didn’t give her blisters. When she finally made it to block 738, she was feeling rather refreshed, like she had actually enjoyed the walk for once.
She turned to approach the entrance of the building and found it had one of those revolving doors, like at the Ritz or Ikea. She pushed on the metal bar and the glass doors began to rotate.
She stepped over the threshold and into the first floor lobby, trying to take in every detail of the place. It was plainly decorated, but the carpet was a burnt orange and the walls were covered in yellowed damask wallpaper with brass sconces.
She thought the outside looked soviet, the inside wasn’t any better. Aged and worn, but somehow welcoming in its complacency.
“Miss McKinley. Welcome” A rough voice with a seductive accent crooned at her. She was trying to place the accent when she turned to see a well dressed man push himself off the opposite wall of the lobby.
His tall frame, well over six feet, was clad in a highly tailored black suit. Kira surveyed him as he strode toward her. His thick black hair was slicked back. His golden cheeks and chiseled jaw were covered in a dusting of black beard shadow. The suit he wore was cut so close to his body that she could imagine a muscled chest underneath the shiny fabric of the black vest.
Everything about the man was extraordinary, but it was the horns that snagged her attention. They too were black and they curled back to thick points along the slope of his dark hair. They seemed to catch the light like carved onyx.
She was in the process of dragging her gaze back to his broad chest when she caught a glimpse of a long, hairless tail idly swaying back and forth behind him.
Kira smoothed her hands down her sweater quickly and prayed she looked somewhat presentable. She assumed this man was the acquisition demon Mavis had mentioned, but she had no idea demons were so incredibly attractive.
“Hi, I’m Kira. You must be Azriel.” she said and stuck out her hand.
The demon closed his eyes and sucked in a long breath through his perfect nose. “It’s Azrin, not Azriel.” he said, pinching the bridge of that straight nose.
His nails were longer than most men Kira had met and they were painted black. No, she realized, they were not painted at all. The golden skin of his hands faded out into black fingertips and ended in those sharp nails, claws.
“Do you have your card, Miss McKinley?” he sighed as he pulled his hand away from his face and fixed his void-like, pupil-less eyes on her.
“Oh yeah, of course”. She stopped gawking, fished around in her jeans pocket and pulled out the small card that the woman in pink had given her. She attempted to smooth the crumpled edges before handing it to him. He only looked increasingly irritated.
“Good.” he said, taking it from her hand. You’re on the hundred and twelfth floor, suite six hundred and eighty-nine. This way to the elevator please.” He motioned for Kira to follow him and she did so, admiring his tight back side and that swishing, unmistakably demonic tail. It even had a sharp little triangle at the end.
They entered the elevator together and he tapped 112 on the keypad with a singular claw. The metal door closed slowly and soundlessly and Kira took a steadying breath as the elevator started to ascend.
The elevator had a smell, like clove, and wood smoke. It was warm and pleasant, until she realized the smell was coming from the demon next to her.
“A hundred and twelve floors, huh? I thought my tenth floor apartment was high.” She attempted to make small talk.
“There are two hundred floors in each building, Miss McKinley.” the demon corrected.
There were no windows in the elevator, which Kira thought was probably for the best. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of heights, so much as she preferred not to deal with them. Though now she thought, “What would it matter? I’m already dead.”
Her knees threatened to buckle at the thought, but that calming sensation flooded her senses again and she managed to shrug off the feeling as the elevator stopped with a ding.
The elevator door slid open to reveal a dimly lit hallway lined on either side with identical maroon doors. Each door had brass numbers neatly nailed just above a peephole, and she counted them in her head as they passed each one, eventually reaching 689.
Azrin stood to the side of the door as Kira stared blankly at it. She was waiting for a key of some kind, but Azrin blandly said, “Turn the knob, Miss McKinley. It is keyed to you.”
She turned the brass doorknob slowly, somewhat nervous of what she would find on the other side. But when she swung the door open, it was her apartment.
Everything was the same, the loveseat, the small, white kitchen, the pictures on the walls, the books on the bookshelves.
Kira looked up at Azrin, “It’s… it’s the same?” she said, feeling rather astonished.
“We find that people have an easier time making the adjustment if they are greeted by familiarity.” Azrin stated in that practical tone, his gravely accent moving from one region to another.
“You may, of course, make adjustments as you wish, but this is the base from which to work.” He pushed his claw tipped hand into the open doorway, “Please, after you.”
Kira stepped tentatively over the threshold and into the living room she knew so well. He was right, it was familiar and comforting. Without warning she bolted through the bedroom door and squealed.
“Everything alright, Miss McKinley?” Azrin called from the doorway.
Kira emerged from the bedroom clutching a ragged stuffed animal to her chest. “Mr. Fluffypants!” she exclaimed as she held the stuffed bear in outstretched arms for him to see.
Azrin inclined his head to one side and stared at the toy. “He’s not wearing any pants,” he said, a puzzled expression on his face.
“That’s just his name.” she answered, turning the bear to face her and staring into its beady eyes. “I’ve had him since I was a baby. I’m just happy he’s here. That’s all.”
She could’ve sworn a corner of the demon’s mouth turned slightly upwards.
Stuffing Mr. Fluffypants under one arm, she walked into the kitchen. She pulled open the door to the small refrigerator, found it empty, and called over a shoulder. “What? No food?”
“You may acquire food and beverage in the market on the first floor. Though they are not necessary for your survival, we understand that humans find pleasure in such things.” He had made his way into the living room and was standing on the other side of the kitchen island, hands stuffed into his trouser pockets.
“In the nightstand, you’ll find a guide book, a directory and your currency card. A welcome bonus of five thousand credits has been added to your account. The guide book will tell you everything you need to know about your personal eternity and the basic operations. The directory has a map and a list of helpful individuals, should you have any questions.”
He removed one hand from the pocket and placed his palm flat on his chest, “As your personal acquisition demon, I am always available to assist you. You need only call my name and I will arrive at your location within a timely manner.”
Kira tried to listen carefully; knew his instructions were important, but an overwhelming feeling, like freefalling, came over here. She sunk down onto the kitchen floor. The chill of the tile seeping through her jeans.
He stared down at her for only a moment, a wave of puzzlement crossing his face. He schooled his expression and continued, regardless of the sad look on her face, “The first floor of each building has a market and a cafe. Block six hundred and sixty-six is a common space for recreation and has everything you need, from theaters and shopping, to green space and restaurants. Please feel free to take the train wherever you need to go and get to know your neighbors.”
He turned to exit the apartment and was almost out the door entirely when he stopped and said over his shoulder, “I have other intakes to attend to. Enjoy eternity, Miss McKinley.” And with that he vanished out the open door, leaving a little cloud of swirling black smoke in his wake.
Kira again clutched the teddy bear tightly to her chest and began to stand slowly. The apartment was familiar and that was comforting, but she suddenly felt loneliness starting to sink in.
A trill, feminine voice broke the silence and startled her. A pale faced blonde woman poked her head in, “Yoohoo!”
CHAPTER 6
The woman had a side ponytail and was wearing familiar exercise clothing, bright leggings and a neon pink sweatshirt that hung off of one shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed with hot pink blush and her bright lips looked like they were probably in a permanent smile. Kira was wondering where her rollerblades were when she introduced herself.
“Hi there!” she said in a bubbly voice. “I’m Pam, 1986, aneurysm. I’m your next door neighbor! Welcome to block 738!”
Kira slowly came out of the kitchen, realized she was still holding Mr. Fluffypants to her chest and threw him back under her arm. She met Pam in the living room.
“Nice place you got here,” Pam said as she looked around Kira’s apartment. “I like the art!” She pointed to a poster hanging on the wall, an Alphonse Mucha advertisement for champagne.
“Anywho, I just came by to say hello and welcome you to the neighborhood. If you need anything, I’m right next door. Wanna get a coffee downstairs?”
“I think I’d just like to get settled a bit. I’m Kira by the way, um 2013, hit by a car.”
“Ouch! 2013? Is that what year it is up there? Rad!” Pam started counting quietly on her fingers.
“I’d be fifty-seven! You’ll have to tell me what it’s like. I’m dying to know!” She broke into hysterical laughter at her own joke and Kira couldn’t help but crack a smile. “I’ll let you rest up, just holler if you need anything!”
With Pam gone, Kira shut the door to the apartment and locked the deadbolt lock. Perhaps all she needed was some peace, some quiet alone time to let everything just sink in. Maybe, she thought, she never would adjust, but hell seemed mundane, from what she’d seen so far, and so she hoped, in time, everything would make sense and become “normal”.
Kira kicked off her heels by the door and padded into the bedroom. Setting Mr. Fluffypants back on the bed, she opened the nightstand and found two small black books in the drawer. She pulled them out and was shocked to see her purple vibrator gently tucked into the side of the drawer, where she always kept it. She slipped that information away for later and shut the drawer.
She sat down on the edge of the mattress and turned the small, leather bound, notebooks over in her hand. One was labeled in gold, “Directory” and the other simply said “Your Guide to The Afterlife”.
She leafed through the directory, there were all sorts of names and codes, building numbers, and lists of amenities. Helpful, but not fun reading material. She put it on top of the nightstand and braced herself for whatever she would find inside the guidebook.
She opened it carefully and turned to the first page. She read it outloud to herself, Welcome to Hell. Turning to the next page, she read, Enjoy eternity.
“Thrilling!” she thought and turned that page to the next. It was blank, and the one after that, and the one after that. The rest of the damned book was blank.
“Oh fuck this!” she exclaimed as she threw the book against the wall and got up to go into the living room. Maybe some television would distract her and help her relax. She found the remote on the coffee table and sat on her loveseat.
“Well at least they have cable,” she said rifling through the channels.