Just a Touch Dead Read online

  “It’s my birthday.” The teenager next to me said. “Will you sing me happy birthday?”

  I glanced at her. Her eyes seemed more alert than when I’d sat down. Maybe she’d noticed the commotion after all.

  I gave her my standard line. “I was just in the supermarket. I had fish fingers in the trolley. They’ll have defrosted by now.” I wasn’t getting involved in anything. I was going to sit here in a vacant silence until my name flashed up on that board and I could be reunited with my body. I desperately didn’t want to stay here. These people were crazy.

  When my name finally flashed up on the screen, I got up and walked through the doors. Not too fast, not too slow, just adequately zombie-esque. The teenager had tried to engage me in conversation a couple more times, but I’d persisted in my fish finger drama until she, rather loudly and rather rudely, told me where I could shove my fish fingers. And then Mr GB man came for her too.

  The room beyond was totally white and totally empty except for a tiny woman with long, auburn hair and big brown eyes like chocolate buttons. She had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, but instead of looking cute and impish, she seemed cartoonishly out of proportion. She looked up from the brown paper file she held.

  “Bridget Sway?”

  “Yes.” I glanced around the room. It was about the size of my kitchen. “And you are?”

  “My name’s Bertha. There’s been some sort of hiccup with your processing, so you get to go straight to work.” She held out her hand for my forms.

  “Work?” I shook my head. “No, no, no, no, no. There’s definitely been some sort of hiccup with my processing because I need someone to take me back to my body.”

  “That’s nice.” She gave me a practiced smile and waved her extended hand for my forms again.

  “Yes, yes, it would be. Are you taking me? I can direct you to the hospital.”

  “Stop speaking, please.” She waggled her still outstretched hand, her smile dropping as she arched an eyebrow. The effect was very petulant fairy-like.

  “Absolutely. As soon as you take me to the hospital. It will be St Jude’s.”

  “Just give me your forms.”

  I clutched them to my chest. “You can have them once I’m back with my body.”

  She sighed and dropped her hand. “You’re not getting back into your body. You’re dead. Give me your damn forms.”

  I shook my head and backed up a step. “No. No, I’ve just been processed incorrectly. I can go back through.” I would if I had to. I didn’t want to, but I would.

  Bertha stepped forward and dropped her voice. “Listen to me, you bimbo, you’re dead. You’re not getting back into your body. You can’t get back into your body. You no longer have a body. Someone morgue person is probably elbow deep in your corpse right now, squelching your organs out of the way to find your cause of death. You’re done. Finito. No more. Dead. So give me your forms before I call the GBs and let them take you away.”

  As I rule, I’m not an aggressive person, but I just did not like her tone. Or her words. Or her general attitude. She did have nice hair though.

  “Listen to me, you munchkin. I’m not dead. Charon said so. He said as long as my heart was beating, I could get back into my body. So go and collect the rest of your Oompa Loompa friends and take me to my gorgeous body before the idiot doctors pull the life support plug on me because I’m not waking up and I get stuck here with you.”

  Bertha laughed. It was like nails down a chalkboard. “The idiot doctors have pulled the plug, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  I shook my head again. “No, no, no. I’m definitely alive. Definitely. Charon took Odysseus into the underworld and he was alive.”

  Bertha’s huge eyes stretched impossibly wide as they darted all over the room. “There’s an alive person here?”

  Okay.

  “Yes. Me.”

  “You’re not alive!” She clapped her hands to emphasis her screech. “If you were, you wouldn’t have made it all the way through Afterlife Arrivals without someone noticing. You wouldn’t even be able to see us. Out-of-body experiences happen on the plane in between the alive and the dead world so neither can see you. Now give me your goddamn forms!” She clapped again as she stamped her foot and thrust her hand in my direction.

  I stared into her face. That’s why there was no express queue. That’s why no one knew what I was talking about. My stomach dropped. It all made sense, really. I just hadn’t wanted to see it. I thought back to my body. I guess there really had been a lot of blood. “You’re not lying to me? I’m really dead?”

  “Finally!” She clapped again and then snatched the forms from my hands.

  I frowned at her. “But … I’ve got things to do. I’ve got a party on Saturday. I’ve got to make my cheating fiancé pay. I’ve got to visit my mum at Christmas. I’ve got a facial booked in for tomorrow afternoon. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.” I shook my head. “I’m just dreaming. This is definitely not happening. This is a coma dream from that bad morphine. I just need to get through this last stage and I’ll wake up. That’s all. Just this one last stage.”

  Bertha’s arm shot out and her open palm struck me across the face. “Do you believe you’re awake now?”

  “Did you just—” I felt my burning cheek. “Did you really just— You just slapped me.”

  She nodded, a fake apologetic expression on her face. “I was going to pinch you, but you seem extremely dumb and I doubted that would’ve worked. I thought a knock to the head might jar some sense loose.”

  “I cannot believe you just slapped me.” I pressed the cooler back of my hand to my burning cheek. “Are we in school? Are we in some dodgy reality TV show? Did I steal your boyfriend?”

  “As if you could steal my boyfriend,” she scoffed as she looked me over. “And now we’re all convinced you’re dead, let’s get you to work.”

  “What? No. I’m not going to work.” I stared at her. Dazed. Though that was more due to the fact she’d had the gall to flat out say I couldn’t steal her boyfriend more than the slap or the “dead” revelation. I could totally have stolen her boyfriend if I’d wanted to.

  “You had an induction so they must have told you about your job? That you have to work?”

  “I’m really dead?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Bertha gritted out with exaggerated patience, “you’re really dead. Can we move past this now?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can.”

  She thrust her hands onto her hips, my forms still in her hand, and angled her head. “Do you need another slap?” When I didn’t respond, she shook her head to herself and began flipping through my forms.

  So, I was dead. Charon had lied to get me on the bus. But then he’d also gotten me ice cream so, really, how mad could I be at him? I wasn’t going to be mad at myself for not seeing the bus because that would be futile. I could, however, be plenty mad at Bertha for her lack of empathy for my current situation. And for calling me dumb. And for saying I couldn’t steal her boyfriend. And for convincing me I was dead. I know the saying goes that you shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but slapping was okay, right? You could just slap them a little?

  “Oh, Bertha?”

  Bertha looked up. I channelled the most lairy reality TV stars I could think of, pulled my arm back and let it fly. My palm struck Bertha’s face with such force it knocked her to the ground. I shook my hand out and sighed, satisfied with the result. Bertha stared up at me, clutching her cheek.

  “Let that be a lesson to you. Be nice to newly dead folks. It’s tough for us.” I reached my hand out to help her up. Now I’d knocked her on her ass, I felt we could be civil. “About this job? I have experience in event planning. The dead still have parties, right? Get married? Have anniversaries? Birthdays?”

  Bertha dropped her hand from her cheek and her face stretched into a huge smile as she looked up at me. “You didn’t get a very thorough induction at all, did you?” She laughed
as she picked herself up, ignoring my hand. “Well, won’t this be fun for you?”

  I did not like the sound of that. I did not like the sound of that at all.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek of Beyond Dead

  Dear reader,

  Dear Reader,

  I very much hope you’ve enjoyed Just a Touch Dead. If you did then keep reading because there’s a short extract of Beyond Dead, the first full novel in the series, for you to have a peek at after this letter.

  I know this novella ended on a bit of a cliff hanger but I wrote it after Beyond Dead as a little something extra for newsletter subscribers. If you’re already like, “You’ve got me! What happens when Bridget gets to work?” then the links to Beyond Dead are below.

  Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Dead-Bridget-Paranormal-Mystery-ebook/dp/B01CMJIBJ8/

  Everywhere else: books2read.com/JordainaSydneyRobinson-BeyondDead

  If you’re not a absolutely sure about Bridget yet then keep reading for a sneak peak and the start of Bridget’s first real adventure.

  Or, if you’re a little intrigued about me (I’ve no idea why you would be—I’m very dull!), you can snoop on me at www.JordainaSydneyRobinson.com or www.facebook.com/JordainaSydneyRobinson Or if you have a questions that you can’t find the answer to on my social stuff then you can email me at [email protected]

  So, thank you so much for reading Just a Touch Dead. It’s been a pleasure having your company. I hope to hear from you soon and to see you on Bridget’s next adventure.

  Until we meet again …

  Jordaina :)

  Chapter One

  I’d always had a problem being punctual. My mum used to say I’d be late for my own funeral. Thankfully that wasn’t being held for another week or so yet, not that I was exactly sure what the etiquette would be for me attending. I’d probably still be late, though. And I mean ghost-me would be late, not dead-body-me. Dead-body-me’s punctuality was in someone else’s hands, so I was fairly certain that me would be on time.

  I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to get the time off work. Yes, you heard me right. I had a job. One that I was running late for. Though technically, being dead, I suppose I was “late” for everything now. And, in all fairness, I didn’t feel my lack of punctuality in this instance was entirely my fault. It was the fault of whoever had crammed a dead-ghost-guy into my locker.

  Of course I wasn’t completely sure he was dead. Or doubly dead. I didn’t even know if ghosts could die. You see it in movies all the time, ghosts reverting back to their “death form” or whatever to scare people. It was highly possible he was waiting for me to try to get something out of my locker before springing to life and scaring me to death, if you’ll excuse the pun. An initiation of sorts. Though if that’s what it was, he had the patience of a saint because I’d been staring at him for nearly twenty minutes and he’d yet to so much as twitch.

  Initiation or not, I hoped he’d not bled onto my uniform because I was pretty sure the Bureau of Ghostly Affairs would deduct it from my measly pay cheque. That was if they paid me at all. They’d been conveniently sketchy on the pay details during my very brief “Welcome to Your Afterlife” induction. In fact, they’d been sketchy on all the details. The only two things I knew for sure was that I was dead and I still had to work.

  “Hey! Bridget!” Bertha strode into the ladies’ locker room, all skinny five feet of her clearly meaning business. “Move your fake-tanned ass! Get your uniform on and let’s go!” She had an annoying habit of punctuating every exclamation with a sharp clap. And my ass was not fake-tanned.

  “I’d love to, Bertha. Really I would. It’s always been my dream to toil for eternity with limited rewards in the belted mauve sack you call a uniform, but, unfortunately, someone’s crammed a dead-ghost-guy into my locker, which is sadly preventing me from getting to it.” I flashed my recently bleached teeth at her. “Any suggestions?”

  Bertha harrumphed, covering the space between us in a flurry of fairy strides. She glanced at the contents of my locker and paused mid-step. Frozen in place, with her knee in the air, she toppled backwards and hit the floor with a thud in a dead faint.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then, shall I?”

  No one would ever have described me as squeamish, but in life a dead body probably would’ve elicited more from me than a staring match with the victim. However, it seemed my shock receptors had frazzled out after the whole dying and becoming a ghost thing. I was certain I’d feel differently in the morning, though I was hoping they’d have moved him by then.

  Alex, Bertha’s partner, pushed the heavy locker room door ajar and called Bertha’s name through the crack.

  “She’s fainted,” I said as I stared at her prone form, feeling oddly detached. I should probably care about this. “You’d better come in.”

  “Fainted?” Alex poked his head into the room. His eyes widened in worry when he saw her. As if unaccustomed to moving faster than a strut, Alex scurried awkwardly over and knelt by Bertha’s side. “Get me some water to splash on her face,” he instructed me without taking his eyes from her.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.” He pointed through the archway to the shower area at the far end of the room. “Go.”

  I folded my arms and pursed my lips. I’d always had a bit of a problem with authority.

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked when he glanced up to see me still sitting there.

  “A ‘please’ would be nice.”

  “What?” Alex stared blankly at me. “Fine. Whatever. Please can you please get me some water please? Was that okay?”

  “It was passable.” I adjusted my white suit jacket as I stood and then headed across the murky grey linoleum. “It would’ve worked better without the attitude, though. She’s only fainted.”

  I walked under the arch and into the open area beyond. It was like a school shower room flashback. A central wall divided the room. Shower cubicles lined the far left wall and toilet cubicles faced them on the central divide. A row of sinks ran along both walls to the right with individual mirrors above them. In what world did twice as many sinks as there were toilets make sense? Several sporadically arranged empty blue tumblers stood on the thin shelves above the sinks. I rinsed one before filling it and caught my reflection in the soap smeared mirror.

  Thankfully I’d had my fire engine red hair coloured and trimmed a few days earlier. It usually made my sky blue eyes look electric and my skin appear sun-kissed; today I just looked haggard, tired and sallow. Death did not look good on me. Leaning closer to inspect the dark circles under my eyes, I realised my white trouser suit probably wasn’t helping my deathly complexion. I’d have to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe on my next day off. That’s if I got a day off. And where did the dead shop? I readjusted my perfectly trimmed fringe and sighed. Alive or dead, the important stuff was never in the inductions.

  “What are you doing in there?” Alex snapped, interrupting my mental shopping list. I’d started to list individual things and then realised I should just change it to one word: everything.

  I walked back across the floor, handed Alex the tumbler and then flopped heavily down on the wooden bench next to him. I was too tired to do anything but watch while he tended Bertha. Dying had really taken it out of me.

  Alex was tall, dark and almost handsome. He ticked all the boxes on paper – muscled, square jaw, boyish dimples, perfect smile – but somehow didn’t pull it off in reality. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. A bit like Bertha. She was dainty with long auburn hair and big brown eyes like pots of melted chocolate. She had a dusting of freckles across her nose, but instead of looking petite and delicate her features seemed oddly out of proportion.

  Alex moved Bertha’s head so it rested on his knees and then flicked a few drops of water onto her face. No reaction. He sprinkled a little more then dragged a rough hand through his neatly styled short hair. “What happened? What did you do?”

/>   “Me?” My voice hitched up an indignant octave. “Nothing!”

  “And why aren’t you dressed for your shift?” He sprinkled a few more drops onto Bertha’s face, to no avail. “First impressions count.”

  Yeah. And my first impressions of this afterlife business so far? Not impressed. “Give me that.” I took the tumbler from his hands as he gently tapped Bertha’s cheeks. We were going to be here all day at this rate.

  “Well?”

  I stared at him blankly. “Well what?”

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” he gritted out. Clearly neither he nor Bertha dealt with stress very well.

  “Oh. Right.” I nodded to my locker. “Dead-ghost-guy.”

  Alex’s head spun around so fast I heard his neck crack. And while he was distracted I threw the contents of the tumbler in Bertha’s face.

  ∞

  Something heavy slammed onto the table, waking me with a start. I sat bolt upright to find Detective Johnson was back for another round of “ask a stupid question”. The short, plump man that could’ve passed for Colombo, except for his lack of hair and downturned mouth, removed his flattened palm from the table and then settled himself in the chair opposite.

  I squinted as I watched him. The fluorescent light played off the white walls and one-way mirror, stinging my tired eyes. I studiously avoided checking my reflection; florescent lighting did nothing for me.

  “So, you just found him there?” Detective Johnson casually flipped through the loose sheets in his official-looking brown paper folder.

  Found who? What was he talking about? Ah, that’s right, it all came rushing back in a slideshow of misery. I glanced at the clock. He’d locked me in the interview room for six hours. Six hours. I rubbed my eyes, only remembering mid rub that I wasn’t wearing waterproof mascara. I inspected the damage in the one-way mirror, I couldn’t help it. And now I could add two black eyes to my list of problems.