Chapter 6

When Caroline woke, it was with a jerk. She remembered the dream vividly. Her last image of Mr. Simmons was of him huddled on his bed, a gibbering wreck of a man in a fetal position, lying in his own shit and piss.

She sat up, gasping.

“I’m afraid this is becoming a problem,” came Chad’s voice.

Caroline turned to find him sitting in a comfortable chair Bob hadn’t had when she went to sleep.

“It was just a dream,” she panted.

“Really?”

Chad pointed upwards and a bubble popped into existence. It was just like they did on TV sometimes, or in the cartoons.

In the bubble, Mr. Simmons was still lying on his bed, blubbering, lying on soiled sheets. His body was a mass of puncture wounds that made him look almost like he had the measles.

“You mean it actually happened?“ gasped Caroline. “But it was just a dream!“

“That’s the problem,” said Chad. “When I realized what was happening to the man I just showed you, I came here. You were obviously asleep. And yet, you were in two places at the same time. This doesn’t happen with our regular residents, so I can only assume it’s because you’re a mortal. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous. What if you’d killed him?”

The thought of Mr. Simmons as a vampire made Caroline shudder.

“I just wanted to...” Caroline wasn’t sure what her intent had been.

“Punish him?” suggested Chad.

“Yes!” yipped Caroline. “He’s an awful man, who wants to hurt innocent girls.”

Chad sighed.

“I shouldn’t have put you with Bob. He has revenge issues, too. Payback is one thing, but deific retribution crosses the line. Don’t draw the attention of The Powers That Be. That’s what whoever hacked you has done. The last thing I want is for you to end up in the same place as him ... or her.”

“You keep mentioning these Powers That Be,” groaned Caroline. “But you won’t say anything about them.”

“It is best not to draw their attention,” said Chad.

“Why?“ shouted Caroline.

Chad frowned. He glanced at Bob. Then he sighed. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper.

“Because they can put you in a place nobody wants to be,” he said.

Caroline blinked.

“You mean Hell?”

“Not in the fire and brimstone way that seems to be popular, of late.”

“Of late?” Caroline frowned.

“I don’t actually know how old I am,” said Chad, easily. “But I have quite vivid memories of those who built the pyramids. Of course I wasn’t in the Halloween afterlife then. We supervisors get transferred around every so often so we don’t get bored.”

“Go on,” said Caroline, who wasn’t nearly as astonished by the fact that Chad was thousands of years old as she knew she would have been when she first got there.

“I told you people go to whatever afterlife matches their fondest interest. That’s usually true. There are some, though, who have caught the attention of The Powers That Be. The Powers That Be are very ... um ... justice oriented, shall we say. When they take charge, a person suffers.”

“Like Hell,” said Caroline.

“If you hadn’t gotten hacked and were still in the mortal world, what’s the worst thing you can imagine happening to you?”

Caroline frowned. She could think of lots of things she didn’t like. But prioritizing them was difficult. Still, this was the first time Chad had given up anything about the mysterious Powers That Be, so she took his question seriously.

“I don’t know about worst, but my parents dying is way up there on the list,” she said.

“You have a list,” said Chad. “Good.”

“Why is that good?”

“Because The Powers That Be would use your list, perhaps rotating along its length, and that’s all you would experience ... over and over ... for all eternity. You would get no rest, no peace, no respite of any kind.”

Caroline blinked as thoughts rushed through her head. Suddenly it was easy to think of all the things that which, before this she might have been afraid of, but now which almost terrified her.

“Okay,” she said. “No more doing anything that might attract ... their ... attention.”

“Good,” said Chad.

Caroline decided to take a break from being a vampire, at least actively. She didn’t change “occupations” because first, she was tired and just wanted to rest, and second, because learning how to be something else might end up causing more problems.

Instead, she sat, sipping wine, and just thought about everything that had happened to her.

And she made love with Bob.

Melding with him felt completely different ... completely safe. She never worried that she’d go too deep, or stay in too long. Her energy was boundless when they made love, joined both physically and spiritually. On one occasion she woke in the morning, lying on her side, to find him licking her thigh. She rolled and spread her legs. It turned out that cunnilingus was a concept Bob knew all about. She giggled as she imagined her mons bare and then normal, watching his reaction. When he entered her she concentrated on what his penis felt like, slowly probing her heat. They bit each other and, when they finally separated, it was night. They’d made love all day long.

Between those sessions, she also gave a lot of thought to how she’d gotten there. Hacking was something Chad and the others there didn’t understand. But in her world it was a well-known phenomenon. She didn’t understand how hackers did what they did, except that they created programs that made things happen.

So how had whoever hacked her dream made her transfer to Halloween Land?

It had happened in her dream.

That was the key. The dream. Something about the dream was important.

She hadn’t thought about that dream before. Now she did, closing her eyes, trying to remember.

A dark figure. Wearing a cloak. Turning to mist. The mist had streamed toward her.

Like she had flowed towards Simmons when she attacked him.

She blinked.

“Chad!” she barked.

Chad was there. He was holding a donut, of all things.

“Who’s missing?” she asked.

“Missing?”

“When I got here I was in a line. I was supposed to check in,” said Caroline. “To choose what I wanted to do.”

“Yes,” said Chad.

“Do you write that down?” she asked. “Do you keep records?”

“Of course,” said Chad.

“In my dream I think I saw a witch or vampire or something like that. Whoever hacked me might have been from here,” she said. “So who’s missing?”

Chad blinked. The donut fell into two pieces, as his fingers squeezed it in half. In the blink of an eye the same hand swooped and caught both falling pieces.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he asked.

“Well go check!” yipped Caroline.

Chad frowned.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “This is a really big place and it’s a really long list.”

“Eternity?” prodded Caroline.

“Okay. Yes. I’ll get right on it,” said Chad.

He disappeared without a sound.

Time flowed differently there, but it seemed like Chad was back ten minutes later.

“We got her,” he said, looking smug.

“Really?“ Caroline jumped up and down, clapping her hands. When she realized she looked like a cheerleader she stopped. “Who was it? You said she? How did she do it? How did you find her? Where was she?”

Chad put a finger against her lips.

“Her name is Meredith Masters. She committed suicide and then changed her mind after she realizeed it had worked. Apparently she found some others like her. A whole network of them has come to light. The Powers That Be are dealing with them and you should be able to go back to the mortal world soon. They’re questioning her and as soon as they feel ready to reverse the process, they’ll send you.”

“But wait!” yipped Caroline. “Don’t I get to say goodbye to my friends?”

Gertrude popped into existence.

“Goodbye, Dear. It was lovely to make your acquaintance. I only wish you had a sister so I could haunt you when you get old.”

She gave Caroline a peck on the cheek and then poofed out of view.

“I believe your only other friend is Bob,” said Chad. “I’m being summoned. It was nice knowing you, Caroline. Perhaps I’ll see you again someday.”

With that, Chad also vacated the area with a soft popping sound.

“Well,” said Bob. “How about that?”

“I need more time!” wailed Caroline. “I’m not ready to leave!”

“Why not?” asked Bob. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“It is!” Caroline blinked. “I mean it was. But then I met you!“

“Well, thank you very much,” said Bob, bowing at the waist. “You’ve been the highlight of my life, too.”

“So much has happened,” moaned Caroline. “What if I don’t remember it? What if I don’t remember you?“

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” said Bob.

“Why no-”

With a pop of her own, Caroline popped out of existence in the dimension that had so recently been her unwelcome home.

Caroline didn’t so much pop into existence in the mortal world she belonged in, as explode. She arrived in the middle of a lightning bolt that struck an old windmill tower along the edge of Interstate 70, midway between Colby, Kansas and the Colorado border. Her body was unaffected by the voltage. The bolt was merely a carrier. It’s also likely that The Powers That Be wanted to make a statement.

This is not to say they were gentle with Caroline, even though she was nowhere at fault in the whole mess that had transpired. Then again, she had come to the attention of those powers.

It was raining, a rain of the monsoon variety in strength, and a driving wind didn’t help. It also didn’t help that Caroline was naked. She was completely conscious, and her mouth, teeth and tongue supplied a firmly articulated “t”, spoken into the howling wind. She had been transported back “home” in the space it takes to say “not?” between the o and the t.

She looked around. There was almost constant lightning all around her, which, in strobe-light fashion illuminated the fact that she was in the middle of nowhere.

“Oh really?” she shouted into the wind. “Don’t do me any favors!”

She shivered and saw a moving light in the distance. It turned out to be headlights on a highway. By the time she got there her legs were muddy up to her calves and she was shivering violently, her teeth chattering so hard all she could do to stop it was clamp her jaws together. She imagined succumbing to hypothermia and ending up in another line in the afterlife.

“I didn’t think you’d want me back there so soon,” she growled through clenched teeth.

She stood on the shoulder of the now deserted highway. She could tell it was an interstate, based on the number of lanes, and the median, but she had no idea where she was.

Lights appeared weakly in the rain. She was trying to figure out how to attract attention without getting run over, and had her arms up and over her head, waving, when an eighteen-wheeler roared by her in a wash of mist and curling wind currents. It almost hit her, and the wind of its passage made her stagger.

“I really am going to die out here,” she thought, and then there was a hiss, followed immediately by the sound of tires sliding on pavement. It wasn’t the squealing of tires, more of a sandpapery sound, with clunks and groans involved, as metal was stressed by the laws of nature.