Page 96 of You'll Be the Death of Me
“We better not be late,” she said, and let the fantasy disappear.
Chapter 17
Dell and Cole continued walking hand in hand down the long street. They weren’t alone. Other people came and went, all of them looking just as alive as Dell felt.
“Where does this street lead?” she asked, squinting to see in the distance. There were no cross streets, and as far as she could tell, the sidewalks and road disappeared up ahead.
“Nowhere,” Cole said. “Well, here, I guess. Over and over.”
“What does that mean?” she asked with an uneasy frown.
“It means if you keep walking that way”—he pointed in front of them—“or that way”—he pointed behind them—“you’ll end up right here. It loops you back to the start.”
A tingle danced up Dell’s spine. They really were stuck. Even if her surroundings looked and smelled pleasing, the thought there was no escape pinched her gut with worry.
“So, then, what is this place? Just one long street?” she asked as they passed shops selling bicycles, flowers, linens. A small park with a fountain appeared across the street.
“More or less. It’s a holding zone for after you are transitionedand before you move on. You have to go through processing.” He pointed at a building up ahead. It was so tall, the top of it disappeared into the clouds. Dell could only imagine what was on all those floors.
“Processing?” she asked.
“It’s when your transition specialist confirms your case file is accurate and complete, and you are sent to the top floor for moving on.”
Dell craned her neck again, trying to see the top of the skyscraper. “Does this building house the whole administration?”
“Yes.”
They were close enough now Dell could seeAfterlife Administrationin shiny gold letters above a set of revolving glass doors.
She was puzzling it all out in her mind, trying to understand how this place existed at all, and how it functioned. “So, assuming someone was transitioned on purpose and not stuck on earth in a coma, they would just... wake up here?”
He shot her a guilty glance, knowing she was referring to her own situation, and nodded. “Yes. You come to on the thirteenth floor, where I work:Transitions.”
“Lucky number thirteen. And then what happens?”
“Your specialist confirms your case is complete, and you are sent to the top floor.”
“So, if I’d died for real, I would have woken up in some corporate conference room?”
“It’s more of an office, but initially, yes. Just for the paperwork part. Then you are moved on.”
“Huh. I’ve heard death on earth is just paperwork. Good to know it extends to the afterlife too.”
They’d arrived at the revolving doors. Cole held out his arm to let Dell go in first.
“And all of these people—” Dell asked, gesturing at the busy doors and lobby they stepped into, “they all work here too?”
“I’d use the termpeopleloosely, but yes, they work here in some capacity.”
Dell looked around in wonder. It could have been a corporate building in any big city. Skirts, suits, clacking high heels, shiny dress shoes. Everyone looked like they had somewhere important to go and something important to do. She wondered where they’d all come from, and what exactly Cole meant by loosely calling them people, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t know if she asked.
They headed toward a bank of elevators as Dell thought of another question. “So, in your case, when your death is untimely and accidental, you just... hang out here?”
“Correct. You arrive like everyone else, but you are sent to the DAD, and based on your wait time, you can opt to just wait it out or take a job with the administration while they investigate your case.” He pointed across the lobby to a large screen lit up with the wordsNow serving case number: 113,041,842,543,083,047.
Dell balked at the number. She didn’t even know what it was, a quadrillion something? “What’s your case number?” she asked Cole.
“A lot higher than that one,” he said with a frown. He pressed the elevator call button, and Dell couldn’t help noticing the tick in his jaw, the tapping of his foot. Clearly, he was uneasy about facing his supervisor.
