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  Title Page

  Book Details

  Welcome to Your Afterlife

  About the Author

  WELCOME TO YOUR

  AFTERLIFE

  STEPHANIE RABIG

  Dead of a heart attack at only twenty-two years old, Abigail Campos is far from thrilled to find herself in the afterlife. Her guide, a prim, sweet banshee named Renata, definitely makes the transition easier, but Abbie doesn't know if the two of them can make it work: she's asexual and Renata is bi. Harsh past experience has taught her it's not worth the risk, and she seriously doubts it's going to be any different now that she's dead.

  Welcome to Your Afterlife

  By Stephanie Rabig

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by V.E. Duncan

  Cover designed by Kirby Crow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition August 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Stephanie Rabig

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620048276

  Renata

  It was hard to foretell death when everyone around whom you spent time was already dead.

  Renata smiled and gave her latest client's hand a reassuring pat, then watched as the elderly man left her waiting room, his form growing more and more transparent with every step he took. At least he'd been one of the easier cases: a ghost rather than a vampire or a sidhe—which required much more work on her part—and he'd been expecting his death and rather prepared for it. He'd been calm and friendly, and even told a couple of jokes. A rarity, really. All day she kept her voice soothing, calm, trying her best to ease people's transition from life to death.

  But she was a banshee. Sometimes her throat ached with the need to scream.

  She hadn't been a true harbinger of death for centuries. She had agreed to let her employers reprogram her, in a way, making it so her cry was triggered not by someone's impending demise, but by the escape of the Lost souls they had imprisoned. Once, she had given warnings to the living, telling them they didn't have much time left. It seemed wrong not to continue using her voice to warn. None of the Lost had escaped in a long time, but when they did, they needed far more energy than they possessed to make a run for the surface itself. And they were drawn irresistibly to high-energy souls, to loud noises that signified a good source of what they needed most. The cry of a banshee was a perfect lure.

  Her waiting room had only been empty for about ten seconds before another form began to shimmer into view. Up and down the endless hallways were thousands upon thousands of rooms just like this one with workers like her, some former banshees but most former humans, cycling through the next batch of newly dead.

  The bright white aura around the young woman faded as her form solidified, becoming crystal clear, and Renata blinked.

  She'd seen attractive men and women pass through here before, of course—some had even stayed long enough to return her interest—but most hadn't been spitting mad when they arrived. A few had been frightened, though the most common reaction to this room was bafflement until she was able to explain what was going on.

  The woman in front of her now looked like she might well vault across the table at her. Her black hair was cut short and frosted bright green at the tips—and wasn't that always an odd thing, to watch how the acceptable fashions and hairstyles changed by seeing what the latest people died in—and her arms were covered with tattoos. Renata could remember a time when seeing a woman with tattoos was a remarkable thing.

  She found it remarkable again now but for an entirely different reason.

  "What the hell is going on?" the girl snapped. "Who are you?"

  "My name is Renata," she said. "I'm your guide." She glanced down at the folder, which had morphed from information about her last client to information about the young woman. Abigail Campos. Twenty-two years old. Stopped living with her parents five years ago and moved in with an aunt instead. Died of a heart attack.

  "Guide to what? Where the hell am I?"

  "You're in the afterlife," Renata said gently. "Fourteen—" She checked her watch. "Fifteen minutes ago you had a heart attack, and crossed over to a better place."

  Abbie

  A heart attack. Who the hell died of a heart attack when they were twenty-two years old?

  Abbie stared at the woman across from her, who bore a cheerful, welcoming smile, as if she hadn't just told her that she'd 'crossed over to a better place'.

  "First," Abbie said, "if I'm dead, just say I'm dead. Don't go all Hallmark commercial on me. Second, you're wrong anyway. I am not dead."

  "It's all right," the woman said. "It takes everyone some time to adjust."

  "I don't have anything to adjust to. This is just a nightmare," she said, getting to her feet. Yeah, she'd had a really bad pain in her back and then she couldn't remember much after that, certainly not deciding to lie down and take a nap, but that was what she must've done.

  The woman simply remained in her chair, still smiling, as she took out a notepad and began to jot down notes.

  "What are you writing?" Abbie asked suspiciously. Maybe this wasn't a dream. Maybe her parents had finally made good on their threat to have her institutionalized and this was some creepy Shutter Island style therapy.

  "Just redoing my day's schedule a little bit," she chirped. "It looks like it might take you a bit longer than most to come to terms with everything."

  "Look… what did you say your name was?"

  "Renata."

  "Well, Renata, it's been nice, but I gotta get home." She walked to the door and tried to open it, whirling on Renata when she found it was locked. "Open it."

  "I'm afraid I can't. It opens on its own, once a newcomer's heart fills with an honest acknowledgment of what happened. Panicking arrivals running around all over the place would quite disrupt everything."

  "Oh, quite," she mimicked, crossing her arms and leaning against the white-painted wall. The entire room was as bland as it could possibly be, all white walls and no windows and a simple table and two chairs. "Heaven forbid people react to someone telling them they're dead."

  "Reacting is all well and good," Renata said. "We just can't have people who don't fully believe what we've told them at this stage going on to the next level. It's traumatizing for them and, honestly, quite a hassle for us."

  "So you're a ghost."

  "No, I'm a banshee."

  Abbie raised her eyebrows, taking in Renata's black skin and natural hair. "Well, why didn't I guess that right away? You look so Irish."

  Renata laughed, a musical trill of a sound. "In all my years of service, I've never heard that joke!"

  "Sorry," Abbie said, looking away. "That was pretty rude."

  "It was, but believe me, I've heard far worse."

  Abbie sighed and walked back over to the empty chair, sitting down and resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "You're seriously telling me I had a heart attack?"

  "Sadly, yes. Undiagnosed heart condition. Not surprising it was undiagnosed," she muttered, flipping through her paperwork. "Why would anyone even look for such a thing in someone so young?"

  "Even if that actually—" Then she froze as a horrible thought struck her. "Who found me?"

  "Pardon?"

  "My body. If I'm dead, then who found my body?"

  "Ohh." She flipped t
hrough the folder sitting in front of her on the table again. "It says here one Kimberly Reid." She reached across the table and tried to take her hand, but Abbie jerked away. "I'm sorry," Renata said quietly.

  Abbie didn't answer for a long moment, trying to gather her somersaulting thoughts into some semblance of order. Finally, she looked up and met Renata's eyes. "How do I let her know I'm okay?"

  "I'm afraid there isn't any—"

  "Don't give me that!" Abbie snapped, shoving herself to her feet again. "If I'm here, if I'm dead but I'm still me, then that means all those stupid ghost hunter shows were right. And I've got to be able to signal her."

  "I'm quite sorry," Renata said, "but you've been assigned to a different department than ghost. Even if you were a ghost, it would take months, if not years, of practice for you to be able to even form a half-visible shape to a living human, let alone communicate." Her voice was matter-of-fact, but the expression on her face was sympathetic.

  "Then you send a message for me."

  "I know you're frustrated, but that isn't—"

  "I have to let her know I'm okay!"

  Renata got to her feet as well, holding out a hand, palm up. For a few seconds Abbie was nearly overwhelmed by a desire to lash out, but instead she turned away.

  The door had not just opened but disappeared entirely, leaving the path to the hallway open.

  Abbie let out a ragged breath and moved out into the hall. Renata was on her heels, which meant she was either determined to get Abbie through this 'orientation' or afraid she was going to throttle the next person who didn't give her satisfactory answers. Maybe both.

  "Your folder says no strong religious beliefs. Is that correct?" she asked, in a conciliatory tone.

  "I'm agnostic, if that's what you mean."

  "Wonderful. Right this way."

  "What if I did have a strong religious belief?" Abbie asked. "Like, if I was a Christian. Could I maybe become an angel or something?" Imagining herself as an angel was laughable in and of itself, but they were supposed to be able to contact living people.

  "I don't think that's how it works. Granted, the afterlives of Christianity and the other religions aren't my specialty, but I could ask my coworkers if you like."

  "Yeah, I'd like," Abbie snapped, and then told herself to calm down before she flew into a rage-fit worthy of one of her mother's episodes.

  The worst one, the one that had ended with her eviction, had been after she'd tried to explain what asexuality meant. Her mother had just stared at her for a long moment, but Abbie hadn't been fooled by the silence. She always got really quiet just before she exploded.

  "And?" she'd finally said. "That's it? Just 'I'm not interested in dating and that's final'? No apology?"

  "What the hell should I apologize to you for?"

  "You just told me you're never going to give me grandchildren, for one thing!" she shouted. "You're my only child!"

  "So I'm obligated?"

  "After everything I put up with for you—"

  "You know what, you want me to breed so bad, why don't you just cut the middleman and pimp me out?"

  It had gotten even worse from there, with both of them screaming curses at each other until her mother had finally told her to get out and never come back.

  It hadn't needed to end that way. She might've been able to salvage things with her mom someday if she'd just turned around and walked away instead of taking the bait. Her mom's temper flared up sometimes and she always regretted it a day or two later. The worst times between them were when she started yelling right back.

  She recognized the anger, the desire to say cutting words until the other party responded in kind and gave her an 'excuse' to start shouting. She got it from her mom. And she would not end up like her.

  Renata started to open one of the multitude of doors lining the long hallway, and Abbie pressed a hand to it, stopping her. As Renata had started to pull the door open, she'd been able to hear a cacophony of voices, and she didn't want to be around other people. Though her refusal to give her the answers she needed was frustrating, Renata at least seemed willing to listen. "Assigned to a different department" made it sound like she would have a boss and coworkers, and she was not up to that yet. "So what is my assignment, then?"

  "Succubus."

  Abbie blinked slowly at her, certain that she must have misheard. "Excuse me?"

  "Succubus," Renata repeated, her voice becoming clinical again as she continued. "A being that draws energy from sexual activity or impulses. Every being here gathers energy in one way or another—well, except for ghosts, they tend to siphon it more than anything, but…" She paused, resting a hand on her shoulder, her expression growing concerned when Abbie shrugged away. "Are you all right?"

  "I cannot be a succubus. Would you look at what I died in?"

  Renata read her shirt, which had a giant pirate ship on it with the caption Asexual Pirate Doesn't Want Your Booty. She raised her eyes to Abbie's face again, looking vaguely confused. "So you're…"

  "I'm ace, yeah."

  "Oh," Renata said, flipping through her paperwork. "I'm so sorry. I'll see what can be done about this. Come with me," she said, still going through her file as she headed off down the hall. Abbie followed, nearly running to catch up. Renata was petite, but she had a hell of a stride when she got going.

  Renata rapped on a different door—this one wider than the one to her own office, boasting an ornate silver knob—and opened it when a voice inside called to her to come in.

  "Abbie, this is Edwin, my supervisor," she said. "Edwin, this is Abigail Campos, one of the new arrivals. There's been a problem with her assignment."

  "What happened, the shoes reject you?" he said, smiling in a way that Abbie was sure was supposed to be benevolent but instead just came off as smarmy. "Don't worry about that. Happens sometimes. Just try to rest and relax for a day or so and then try again."

  Abbie was just about to ask him what the hell he was talking about when Renata spoke. "No, it's not that. She hasn't even put hers on yet."

  "Why not? Renata, what have I told you about coddling—"

  "She was assigned to the succubi, but she's asexual."

  Edwin blinked. "What does that mean?"

  "Means I'm not all that interested in sex," Abbie said.

  The smarmy smile came back. "Well, that'll change now."

  You will not leap across his desk and tackle him, Abbie told herself. You will not.

  "Sir, I think a reassignment would—"

  "Would be completely unnecessary," Edwin interrupted. "Now get her taken care of and go on to your next assignment."

  Renata nodded, her grip tightening on her paperwork. "Yes, sir," she said, and ushered Abbie out of the room.

  "So that's it?" Abbie asked, as Renata quietly shut the door behind them. "What he says goes?"

  "Technically, yes. He's the supervisor for my division. But let me think," Renata said. "I might be able to come up with something. In the meantime, let's finish the tour." Renata headed back to the door that she had originally closed. This time, Abbie allowed her to open it.

  The sound rushed out into the hall, thousands upon thousands of voices chattering. Abbie hesitantly followed Renata inside.

  "You can see why we have to separate into divisions," Renata said. "This is just the area for people like yourself with no full belief system."

  She nodded absently, barely taking in a word Renata said. The wide-open area was teeming with people… well, at least they had once been people. She could see right through some of them, while others shed starlight as they walked.

  "This is the common area," Renata said. "It's where you'll spend most of your spare time."

  "Do I not have an actual room?" she asked.

  "Once you gather enough energy to maintain it, you will," Renata said.

  And how long would that take? Abbie wondered. She almost started to argue about how the need for privacy hadn't gone away just because her heartbeat had, but dec
ided against it. For now. "What's happening with them?" she asked, nodding to a pair of young men who were walking together holding hands. The dark glow of the night sky followed them, as did a multitude of transparent people, each one of them trying to get the closest to the strange aura.

  "The ones you can see through are ghosts," Renata said. "They're gathering energy from those two vampires."

  "So it doesn't hurt them?"

  "Oh, no. That's just their excess. You'll probably hear some of the others refer to ghosts as 'leeches'," she said, wrinkling her nose. "They can't help their status."

  And neither can I, apparently, Abbie thought. She wondered if she could find Edwin's office again and argue her point further with a flamethrower if necessary. Remembering the supervisor's comment about shoes, she lowered her gaze. She saw that the people who weren't transparent were wearing plain brown slippers. She frowned. "What's up with the shoes?"

  "That's my favorite part," Renata said, beaming. She took Abbie's hand and led her up a flight of stairs that by all rights should've left her gasping for breath. Instead, she wasn't even winded, and her calves didn't burn at all.

  Okay, so maybe there was an advantage or two to being dead.

  As soon as she allowed the sarcastic thought in, she felt ashamed of herself. Aunt Kim was surely heartbroken, and here she was thinking up bad jokes.

  The door at the top of the staircase opened into a long, narrow room that was filled with shoes, all of them brown and drab and scuffed. A seemingly endless row of chairs stretched out across the room. Most of the chairs were occupied, and people wearing the same type of uniform as Renata's—deep red jumpsuits—helped those occupants try on pair after pair.

  Abbie glanced back at Renata, skeptical. "Why would this be your favorite part?"

  "Because," she said with a grin. "I can see what all the shoes really look like. Most souls end up reincarnating after a while, but if you stay here and work hard enough to get promoted to this job someday, you'll see them, too."

  Work hard enough at what? Abbie wondered, feeling sick to her stomach.