Aftermath, p.19
Aftermath, page 19
“You’ve got hands, Frankie. Fingers too, just not solid ones. Look, it’s been three months. Didn’t you learn anything from Simon?”
Frankie let the shears fall to the ground. They landed points-down in the dirt, sticking up through his foot. “He may be good at this but he’s not a good teacher. Not what I’d call a kind spirit.”
“Dead joke?”
“Leave me alone. At least I’m trying. Simon was an ass when he was alive, but he’s even worse now. Lords his higher polt-skills all over us. I don’t think he actually wants me to get any better.”
I nodded, bent down and picked up a plastic drink bottle. Took a sip of water, closed the lid, tossed it back onto the grass. Frankie wasn’t affected by the summer heat so I didn’t feel guilty about drinking in front of him. “Actually, you’re doing pretty good.”
“You’re just saying that.” Frankie frowned.
Maybe it was a frown. It was getting harder and harder to tell what his face was doing. Frankie had faded quite a bit. In bright sunlight it was getting harder and harder to see him at all. A bit better than most possibly, but they were all fading. Their poltergeist skills were increasing, even as they faded. One day it might become a problem but they’d worry about that later. For now, you could still see them coming. Sure, most of them were friends and family but some of the worst practical jokes were done to you by friends. And you couldn’t touch a ghost.
At least the number of people getting sick had slowed down. The half-life of whatever had been in the air must have been short and a lot of the radiation must have rained out into the oceans. One benefit of living on a small set of islands in the middle of a lot of water. In the last few weeks, mostly old people had died, and a few from the occasional accident but there was still a lot of work to be done to keep society going. Rebuild, if you like.
Civilisation, Part 2
As things settled down and people stopped dying so much, some were turning their eye back to the future, and not just on survival. Politics re-entered the scene, of course. Although a society based on a dual-class system has always had its challenges. Voting rights, for starters.
When the dead walked amongst us, who were we to keep them from expressing their opinions? They claimed they had the same right to vote as the rest of us, at least the ones who were over eighteen when they died. That really pissed off all the dead teenagers, but it couldn’t be helped. You had to draw the line somewhere, and early indications were that they might never grow up now that they were dead. So, no vote for them. That resulted in a rash of poltergeist vandalism before the adults brought them back into line. Ghosts could still touch other ghosts and a few translucent teens showed up with a black eye or two. They faded, of course.
So, society was re-forming on our island nation, in a fashion. And that meant jobs needed to be done and being dead wasn’t an excuse. With most of the dead able to lift and manipulate things they all had a role to play. Gardening jobs were popular, as were post, sanitation and babysitting jobs. The job of milkman was restricted to the living after the first few crates were smashed. The dead just couldn’t hold onto plastic, and glass was too slippery for them.
We were learning how to get along in this new world, and to get along together, the living and the dead. We had no choice, really. One day, we’d be on the other side of the fence, tending someone’s garden, minding their kids or dropping off their mail. The first few years were the hardest but things settled into a steady rhythm over time.
“Happy death day” cards, once a sign of poor taste, became wildly popular for a while, and then just something you did for a loved one when they crossed over and were bounced back from the gate.
Oddly, none of the pets came back after they died. It took a long time for somebody to actually notice that, but by then nobody cared enough to ask why.
The Beginning of the End
“Simon’s gone!” yelled Frankie as he ran straight through the rose bushes.
I looked up from my Sudoku puzzle as Frankie bypassed the front steps and sailed right through the railings onto the porch. That was considered poor form, not using the steps. One of the unwritten rules was that ghosts should behave properly — use steps, doors, that kind of thing. Frankie knew this, of course, but he seemed upset so I was prepared to let the lapse in manners go.
“I’m sure he’s around somewhere.” I wrote a ‘9’ in a square on the grid with my pencil, and then looked back up at Frankie.
Frankie shook his head. “No, that’s not it! I was talking to him over by the edge of the park discussing the best way to trim a hedge, from the side or from the bottom up, when suddenly he just — poof! He was gone, just like that, into thin air!”
“You’re pretty much thin air too, Frankie. Maybe he just hid inside a tree or a bush or something.”
Frankie flicked the Sudoku book off the table onto the floor. “No, I mean he’s gone! Really gone!”
“What do you mean, gone?” I bent down to pick up the Sudoku and brushed it off. My age-weathered skin now looked like the deck, while Frankie still looked the same as the day he died, thirty-odd years ago. He’d helped me repaint the deck eight years ago but it badly needed another coat. Wooden brush handles, obviously. Frankie made a mess with the plastic ones. I put the Sudoku back on the table, picked up the pencil. Dropped it, eyes wide. “Holy crap!”
Frankie was grinning from ear to ear. “It’s finally happening!”
I began to smile, then let it fade. “Huh.”
“Aren’t you excited, John?” Frankie was bouncing up and down. Well, floating up and down quickly, which was about as close as a ghost could get to jumping for joy.
I scratched my head. “Happy for you, I guess. You’ve been waiting a long time.”
Frankie settled down onto the planks. “Hey, John. It’s okay.”
I looked down at the floor. When I looked back up at Frankie my eyes were damp. “Dammit, I’m going to miss you, Frankie.”
Frankie nodded slowly. “I know. I’m going to miss you too. But we’ll see each other someday soon, right?”
I wiped my eyes. “Reckon so. Up or down, guess we did a lot of the same. So, yeah, maybe. You figure out what’s going on then?”
Frankie shrugged. “Dixon reckons it had something to do with volume. Put too much water into a pipe at once it’s bound to overflow. Gets backed up, whatever, like a clogged toilet. Reckons that’s what happened when they killed all those billions off. System couldn’t handle it. A few million dying every year, sure. But maybe it’s like airport security, you know? Or like a big queue in a government office. Queues get too full inside they shut the doors, make you wait outside. Come back later. Overflow protocols.”
I snorted. “Bureaucracy in the afterlife? Go figure.”
Frankie nodded. “Maybe it’s something like that. Look at my arm. It’s not a smudge anymore.”
I stared at his translucent right arm trying to see what he was pointing at. I couldn’t see it, he was too faint in the bright sunlight. “Can’t see anything.”
Frankie stuck his arm into the shadows. Now I could see it, faint glowing red lettering. No, more like numbers. I looked up into Frank’s face. “Big guy gave you a number, then told you to piss off?”
Frankie nodded. “Seems like it. Must mean my time’s coming up soon. Still lots of dead folk in town that just show a smudge.”
I stared at the glowing symbols. “We’re going to need beer and some lawn chairs.”
Frankie and I watched three more sunsets under the Pōhutukawa before his number was called. We talked about life, death — well, this limbo part of it, anyway. How things would start changing now that they were letting folks through. The coming labour shortage, how it would affect everything. When the death-boomers were gone, the living would have to take care of delivering their own mail, minding their own kids, trimming their own gardens. Frankie had gotten quite good at it and was in high demand all over town. My gardens would suffer for sure. Never had much of a green thumb, myself.
We talked like that for a long time, about everything and nothing, until it was his time to go. Spending as much time together as we could, best mates in life and death.
On the third day it finally happened. We were staring at the fading orange as the sun slipped below the horizon, Frankie telling me for the third time how I needed to trim the roses just so. Then things went eerie-quiet for a moment. When I turned my head, Frankie was gone.
I sighed and emptied the beer onto the grass, folded up the lawn chairs and walked back up to the house. I set the lawn chairs down beside the sofa, tossed the can into the recycling bin, opened the screen door, now oiled and silent, and turned on the porch light. I sat down and rubbed my arms against the cool ocean breeze that had shifted on-shore with the fading light.
Midges, moths and mosquitoes bounced around the light above my head. I ignored them. After a while, I got up and opened the screen door again, reached in and flicked off the light. I sat down on the sofa in the darkness, watching the stars come out. Rubbed at the dark mark on my right forearm. Met the big guy last month. Still an ass. Thirty years to wait, maybe less. It was going to be lonely without my best mate.
A faint glow caught my eye. I looked down, and there it was, just under my skin. I smiled in the darkness as the numbers brightened along my arm.
He was always good at making a spot in a queue for a friend.
“See you real soon, Frankie.”
The Pōhutukawa shed more flowers onto my grave as the tide slowly rolled back out under a sea of shimmering stars.
Aftermath
Well, dear reader, I’m glad you made it through to the end in one piece. I was a bit worried I might have lost you at a few points there.
But before you stamp the dust off of your boots and continue on your own singular journey, I’d like to share my last biscuit with you, sit down for a cuppa and natter for a bit. It gets lonely in these times.
Yes, just over there by the fire, not too close.
How was your journey? Yes, I thought so, too.
My body is weary, but my spirits are high. Things were pretty bad out there, all right. What about those giant robot tuatara, eh? I sure wouldn’t want one of those mucking up my back yard. Or one of those damned Epherante trampling the roses. Ōtepoti’s pretty much all sink-hole by now, but you get a better view from the hills anyway. I enjoyed our times along the coast and the rivers, there’s a peace about moving water, even if you don’t know where it’s going or where it’s come from. Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions.
What did I learn? Well, I was going to ask you, but you got to it first.
Well, what stuck out for me, most of all, was the resilience of the folk we met. No matter the challenge or disaster we’ve faced as a nation, we’ve made it through. Of course, not all of us, but that’s what makes us survivors, right? Point is, we’ll remember those who went before us, and they’ll live on in the eyes and faces of our children for generations to come. Unless the whole set of islands sink into the sea, but then, we can make waka and find another, like they did long ago when our Māori forefathers found Aotearoa. See? There’s always an upside to look forward to, even in the bad times. Especially then, actually, because hope is what pulls us through, one day at a time.
Oh, you’ve got to go now, to make the most of the daylight?
Well, I’m glad you came along, and I’ve enjoyed your company. I’ll see you to the edge of the forest, then you’re on your own.
Which way is Taupō, did you say? Turn left at the crater, then head due south, keep the sun at your back when it’s high in the sky. You can ask a taniwha for directions if you get too lost. Don’t listen to the pīwakawaka, they’ll lead you astray.
Safe travels, my friend, and may your End of the World be filled with hope, and maybe some joy, too. The rest of the story is up to you.
Kia kaha.
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.
About the Contributors
In order of appearance
Jennifer Rackham (Cover artwork)
Jennifer Rackham is a cover designer and writer based in Auckland. She writes, draws comics and designs book covers.
She began designing book covers to make sure her own book cover conveyed the perfect feeling and expectations, and found many authors who shared her passion.
She loves hitting drums, meowing at cats and playing games with her husband and daughter.
Website: jennrackham.com
Gary Venn (Auckland Burning artwork)
Gary Venn is a freelance illustrator based in NZ who has worked for clients around the world. He has produced work for picture books, magazines, websites, advertising and animations. Some clients include: Jamie Oliver Magazine, Metro, Walker Books, the Spinoff, Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast, Learning Media NZ, Cambridge University Press and NZ Geographic.
Gary also writes fiction.
Website: garyvennillustration.com
Instagram: @garyvennillustrations
Paul Chapman (This is Not a Drill)
Paul has begun multiple pieces of speculative fiction and other styles that tickle his fancy. Like Tolkien, Huxley and Orwell before him, Paul is a man and uses words arranged into sentences placed one after another to make stuff up.
Following a long, painful divorce from reality, Paul remains chipper and believes the future shows promise. He currently lives away with the faeries, deep under cover in the former independent territorial authority of Banks Peninsula, where he hones his craft by stubbornly refusing to rarely if ever get anything finished.
Scott Fack (Lizards and Villains and Wars (Oh My!)
Scott Andrew Fack (he / him) is a Chicago-born resident of Christchurch and graduate of Massey University and Hagley Writers' Institute. ‘Lizards and Villains and Wars (Oh My!)’ merges his real-life experiences of the Christchurch earthquakes with events occurring in the fictional superhero universe in a novel he's been writing. When he's not working in tertiary education, or writing creative fiction, or posting rants on his blog, Scott can be found enjoying life with his husband Noel and their cats. He possibly shares way too many photos of his cats on Instagram than is healthy for a person his age.
Robinne Weiss (100% Pure Earth, Editor)
Robinne Weiss is an author, educator and entomologist writing fantasy, science fiction, poetry and non-fiction for children and adults. Her short stories have most recently appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine and the anthologies Alternative Deathiness and Te Kōrero Ahi Kā, and have won multiple awards. She’s published eleven books, including a series of middle grade fantasy novels infested with dragons, a lighthearted urban fantasy, an epic YA fantasy, a book of poetry, and some rather more serious non-fiction about insects.
Robinne lives just far enough from Christchurch to avoid the notice of aliens.
Website: robinneweiss.com.
Feby Idrus (Godzone)
Feby Idrus is a writer, musician and arts administrator based in Dunedin. She has had work published in takahē, the anthology A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Canadian horror magazine Unnerving. Competition successes include placing in the 2019 Queenstown Festival Short Story Competition and most recently being shortlisted in the UK-based 2021 Cambridge Short Story Prize. Like everybody else, she's working on a novel.
Twitter: @febyidrus
Gregory Dally (Healers, Lilt, Leaving Ōrua)
Gregory Dally has had poetry, fiction and other material published in various journals, including Amsterdam Quarterly, Meanjin, Queen Mob's Tea House and Scrittura.
C. D. Jacobs (Thirty-Four Days)
C.D. Jacobs is an author of fantasy, poetry and science-fiction, including his upcoming debut near-future science-fiction novel, Fierce Focus. He was born in the United States but has made a home in Dunedin, NZ, with his three children and his wife. When not writing, he can be found on stage, behind a camera, directing, or in front of a camera, playing video games on YouTube.
Website: cdjacobs.co.nz
Daniel Stride (The Night of Parmenides)
Daniel Stride has a lifelong love of literature in general and speculative fiction in particular. He writes both short stories and poetry; his work has been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Bards and Sages Quarterly, and the 2018 SpecFicNZ anthology Te Kōrero Ahi Kā. His first novel, steampunk-flavoured dark fantasy Wise Phuul, was published in November 2016, by small UK press Inspired Quill. Daniel lives in Dunedin, New Zealand, and can be found blogging about Tolkien and other things.
Website: phuulishfellow.wordpress.com.
Octavia Cade (Portobello Blind)
Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication. She has sold over 60 short stories to markets including Clarkesworld, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Asimov's. Her latest book, The Impossible Resurrection of Grief, is a climate fiction novella available from Stelliform Press. Octavia attended Clarion West 2016, and was the 2020 writer in residence at Massey University. She has also held writing residencies at the Michael King Centre and the Christchurch Arts Centre, and is a four time Sir Julius Vogel award winner.
Website: ojcade.com
Hazel Bergen (Earth's Children Lost)
Hazel Bergen is a multiple award-winning author based in the Deep South of New Zealand. She writes speculative fiction, short stories, long novels and anything in between. She describes strong women and creates dystopian futures that provide challenging social commentary on the status quo. Her stories will give you a chill that will stay with you long after you have put them down.
