3. Aster
Chapter 3
Aster
D id he just say…?
“Come again?”
“You’re dead, Aster,” Farnsworth repeats. “For what it’s worth, you didn’t feel a thing. Didn’t even see it coming. Unfortunately for the witnesses, it wasn’t very pretty. They’re probably still scraping you off the sidewalk.”
I laugh, nodding. “I’m in a dream. A really weird dream. I need to wake up and everything will be fine.” I pinch my arm, but instead of a sharp sting, I feel literally nothing. I do it again, harder this time, then resort to slapping my own face. Nothing.
Panic spreads through me like a brewing storm. “Farnsworth, why can’t I wake up?”
“You’re not asleep.” He turns around and the two rows of figures behind him move together, creating a solid wall of black.
Farnsworth snaps his fingers and images of my life flash by on the bodies, like a projector screen. I see my parents, my sister, my dog.
Oh my god, my dog. Who’s going to take care of Otto now?
Scenes of my life continue, from high school through college to my adult life, ending just seconds before the car took me out. My eyes well with tears. This can’t be. It just can’t be.
“I’m sorry,” Farnsworth says, snapping his fingers again. The images fade away, leaving me feeling empty. “It’s very sad.”
“What now? Do I get a black suit and just hang out with those guys behind you?”
There’s another brief chorus of laughter.
“Luckily, you have options, Aster. That’s why you’re here.”
“Is this heaven? Or…” I cringe. “Is it hell?”
“It’s neither of those man-made constructs. It’s the Afterlife, specifically my section. The place where select souls go after their journey in the Above ends.”
“Select souls?”
“Yes.” He smiles, walking past me but waving for me to follow him. “This is the Revival House. Your soul met the placement criteria to be here, but there are other houses.”
“Uh-huh.”
Farnsworth chuckles. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’ll explain.”
He leads me down a hallway to a grand room. Everything is black, but it’s ornately decorated, with massive furniture. Steam rises from the floor and lingers in the rafters. It’s freezing cold in here, and there are more people milling about with carts and files and books. It looks like some kind of Gothic library, except the people are faceless and floating.
“Our research center,” Farnsworth says. “Here we identify worthy souls to join our mission.” He raises his hand and one of the floating people appears, handing him a bright gold folder with my name scrawled on the front. “See? You popped up this morning.”
“Why am I worthy?”
Farnsworth glances at me, but doesn’t answer as he gestures for me to follow him into a second room. In the center of the room is a large round wooden table. Only one person is sitting at it—a woman, by the looks of it—and she’s staring down at a file.
“Penelope.”
She snaps her head up as if startled. “Farnsworth. I’m almost done.”
“No rush, dear. This is Aster. He arrived this morning. Penelope came to us in the middle of the night.”
“Um, hi,” I say.
Penelope waves. “What happened to you?”
“Car accident.”
“Me too. Drunk driver.”
Farnsworth puts his hand on my shoulder. “One more room. You’ll have a chance to talk to Penelope later.”
I wave, but Penelope is already reading again. We stop in front of a closed silver door.
“This is where the souls go who take option three.”
I’m about to ask what options one and two are, but when Farnsworth opens the door, I’m hit with a blast of heat and stumble back.
Farnsworth grabs my wrist and guides me inside. The walls are made of stone and they burn with internal heat, radiating it like a sauna. People roam around, bumping into each other then twisting around with no reaction. As my eyes adjust, I notice the state of these bodies.
One man walks by with a chainsaw jutting from his chest, still running. Another limps past with a clearly broken neck and leg, a ladder twisted around their ankles. A woman hobbles by, pausing to look at us. She has a gaping red hole in the middle of her forehead. Then I see Abigail, skipping in circles and humming a song. She looks out of place in her pink ruffled dress and bouncing curls, but when she pauses, I gasp at the sight of her burned flesh. More than half her body is covered in raw skin that still sizzles.
“What is this place?”
“Our chainsaw friend died in a work accident. A careless coworker bumped into him, plunging the tool into his chest.”
“Oh god.”
“Then we have the homeowner whose ladder was knocked over by a dog while he was on it. The woman there, the convenience store she worked at was robbed at gunpoint.”
“And Abigail?”
Farnsworth looks sad even as he smiles at the child. “Her stepfather set their house on fire for the insurance money and left her inside.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes.” He turns to me. “In this room, the souls carry their cause of death with them. They have no purpose.”
“Why would they choose that?”
“They haven’t accepted their reality yet. No matter how often they’re told that they’ve died, they don’t believe us. So we park them here. Surplus souls stuck in between.”
“In between what?”
“Realms. The Above and the Below. We’re part of the first stage for worthy souls, as I mentioned. There’s an express route for unworthy or disqualified souls. They head straight to the Below to be sorted accordingly.”
“Could you please explain to me what you’re talking about?”
Farnsworth blinks his weird eyes at me, then nods. “When a person dies, the assessment begins immediately. As stated previously, based on the selection criteria, you either come here or go to the Below. If you come here, you’re given three options. One: You’re accepted to join the society. More on that in a moment. Two: You join our support team. Or three: You come here. The Lost Souls room.”
“Are there lots of kids here?”
“No. Abigail was a sorting error, but she likes it here so she’s allowed to stay. Most children are unqualified, so they go to the Below to spend eternity in the Garden. It’s a lovely, peaceful place.”
I don’t even know what to say.
“Back to the society,” he says, brushing past me and closing the door. “The Revival House is home to the Soul Chasers Society. What is that, you ask? Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Above has some souls who are very naughty. Upon death, they bypass us and go straight to the Below, where they spend eternity in a most unpleasant place. As you can imagine, they aren’t happy with their predicament and at times are capable of escape.”
“Escape? They can get out?”
Farnsworth nods, clicking his tongue. “The living always provide openings. Séances, spirit boards, mediums—the list of portals is endless, and a crafty soul uses that to their advantage. We call them Horrors. In the Above they’re called ghosts, spirits, poltergeists.”
The meaning sinks in. “They get out and haunt people?”
“People, places, whatever. It’s the society’s job to get them back. That’s where you come in, Aster.” He gestures down a hall that fades into nothing but blackness. “Down there is a portal to the Below. It’s where we, the society members, return the Horrors upon capture.”
I nod, even though none of that makes sense to me.
“To be offered a place in the society, a soul must meet the following criteria: Your death was premature and no fault of your own, you were a relatively decent person, and you were a pet lover and/or owned a pet.”
I blink several times. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. You met the criteria. Now the offer.”
He walks past me again and I follow him, waiting for more information. We only take a few steps, but somehow we end up back in the main room with all the workers.
“Aster Charboneau, you are being offered a position in the Soul Chasers Society.”
The choir of voices gasp, sounding awestruck, as they stop what they were doing and gather around me and Farnsworth, including the figures in black.
“If you accept, you agree to dedicate your eternal existence to hunting and retrieving the Horrors to return them to the Below. In exchange, you’ll return to life in the Above.”
I open my mouth and close it several times. “What? I would be alive again?”
Farnsworth nods. “Yes. It’s a fair trade.”
“Let me get this straight. I join your soul chasing group and then I’m not dead anymore?”
“Correct.”
“Who would say no to that?”
“Not every soul wishes to rejoin the living,” he explains. “For a myriad of reasons.” He reaches down and pats Abigail’s little head. “And the job is not for the weak. The Horrors don’t want to return and will do everything in their power not to.”
The warning in his voice pokes at my chest, echoing through my mind, but I wasn’t done living yet. Far from it. And I could see my dog. It’s a no-brainer.
“I’ll do it.”
Farnsworth smiles. “Wonderful. We’ll start orientation right away.” With his hand on my shoulder, he gently guides me toward a table, and when I blink, I’m alone in a dimly lit room with a stack of paperwork and books on it labeled with numbers.
Oh-kay. Guess it’s self-study.
“There will be a test.” Farnsworth’s disembodied voice fills the room. “Take it seriously.”
“I will,” I say, assuming he can hear me.
I flop down in the chair, my head spinning.
I’m dead. But not for long, I guess.
Picking up the first stack of papers labeled “Number One—Start Here” I flip to the first page to start reading. I have a chance to get back to my life. I’ll figure out everything else after that.