Page 47 of After Life
“HEY, I HATE TO BOTHER you but I’m looking for Oscar.”
Ray-Don was soaked to the bone, taking advantage of the lull in the weather to check the shutters on his store. The bright orange slicker he’d put on was unfastened and hanging, useless, from his shoulders as he gave a grungy nylon rope a hard haul to test whether it was secure. He glanced at me but didn’t answer.
“Have you seen Oscar?” I called more loudly, hobbling closer. The trip into town had been hell, and I knew I’d be paying for it later, but with no sign of Sandra or her van, and an absolute dearth of rideshares or public transit, walking was my only option. “He was gone when I got up this morning. I was hoping maybe you’ve seen him in town.”
Saying it aloud, I could hear how ridiculous that was. There was a hurricane due literally any moment, most of the shops had closed the night before and only Delia’s Café and the grocery still had signs of life, and Delia’s was closing even as I looked, the grim-faced owner flipping the sign to closed and stepping out to pull down the metal rolling door over the glass store door and windows.
“Ain’t seen him,” Ray-Don muttered, not looking up from where he was tying and retying the yellow rope around a cleat that had been bolted to the exterior wall beneath the window. “You should get back to the house, doc. This is just the farthest outer band of the hurricane. We’re gonna be getting the real shit soon. Ain’t no way you can be walking around in that, not with your bum leg.”
The door to the shop opened and that teenaged boy, Kelly, stepped out, saw me, and made a startled sound before ducking back inside. A moment later, the door opened again and a girl around the same age stuck her head out, scowling. “Ray-Don, the freezer’s empty now.”
He nodded. “Go on in, then. Tell your brother I’ll be up in a minute.” The door shut firmly and Ray-Don grunted. “Some tourists down at Tibbins Quay had that hurricane shindig down on the West Beach,” he said. “Gotta make sure nothing’s left behind.”
My chest ached with the effort to not shout, to keep from just grabbing someone and shaking an answer out of them. “It’s just that I can’t find him,” I said as if Ray-Don hadn’t spoken. “He’s not in the house. I’m worried. Have you seen him at all?”
Ray-Don shook his head slowly, focusing on that damn cleat. “Not since I was by the house.”
I nodded, then paused. The unsettled feeling my gut wasn’t anything as esoteric as Ezra’s empathic ability or even some shade of psychic power. It was paranoia, plain and simple, and having spent many years instructing students who were always finding new ways to get out of trouble by not quite lying but being creative with the truth. “When was that again? To fix the shutters, right? Not after?”
He pressed his lips into a thin smile. “Sorry. Haven’t seen him since I left.” Ray-Don gave the rope a tug and nodded, satisfied. “Best get back to the house before things get worse, doc.”
I expected him to disappear into the store, but he stood there, not quite facing me. Waiting for me to move. To see where I was going, I was certain.
“I’m going to check the diner one more time,” I said. “Maybe he couldn’t resist the idea of some coffee.”
“Diner’s closed. Delia’s not keeping it open during a storm like this. Go on back.” He made a shooing motion like I was some sort of a dog or errant child. “It’s safer if you’re in the house, away from everything.”
“Safer for who?”
Ray-Don shrugged. “Everyone. I’m sure your fella just went down to the cemetery or something. That garden’s so overgrown, you can get lost in there if you’re not careful.”
“I checked. And Oscar’s not a cemetery wandering sort.” Ghosts tended not to linger at their burial sites, he’d told me before, not unless it was a murder or a burial ‘out of place’ and they wanted their bodies to be found, but that was not a frequent occurrence either. Still, he avoided hanging around cemeteries as a matter of course. You never know when someone is feeling dramatic, he’d told me with that small smile and wink of his when we laid in bed, talking about the ins and outs of his profession one day not long before, but what felt like eons ago now.
“I. Cannot. Help. You.” Ray-Don took a step toward me with each word, until he was so close I could smell the faint licorice tang off his skin and feel the heat of his breath on my face. “Go back to the house. Wait till Sandra comes and tells you it’s alright to come out.”
“Fuck this,” I swore. “Tibbins Quay is bound to have a radio to reach the mainland. I’m calling for help.”
“How you gettin’ there, doc? You done walked all this way with your game leg, you gonna walk clear to the other side of the island then?”
If I have to. “There’re more people in this town than you, Ray-Don. Someone will give me a ride.”
His smile was small and sharp. “You think so, huh?” He chuckled. “Get back to the house. Your fella will be back at some point.”
He went back into the store, the rattle of the security gate rolling down grating and painful.
“Shit!” My scream was loud enough to startle the handful of intrepid seagulls that had come out during the calm eye, pecking for whatever they could find in the parking lot and grass.
“Julian.”
The woman was soft-spoken, her voice barely above a whisper but somehow still impossibly attention-grabbing. She stood on the sidewalk behind me, just a few feet away, staring at me with a strange intensity when I turned to face her. She looked a little familiar with her wide, blue eyes and dark hair in a cornet around her head, but I couldn’t place her. “Yes?”
“You’re looking for Oscar,” she said, smiling just a little. “Is that right?”
I nodded. My first thought—how does she know Oscar? —was replaced by the realization she must watch the show or maybe just saw an interview with him somewhere. “Have you seen him?”
The woman smiled slightly, sadly, and turned to walk away.
“Wait! Damn it!” No matter how fast I walked, she was faster. She moved down the sidewalk toward the gate to Virginia’s Walk with a speed that should have been a run but gave the impression of being just a regular saunter for the woman. She moved farther, faster, until I couldn’t even pretend to try to catch up to her. As she passed Virginia’s Walk, she paused and glanced back at me, gave me a small wave, and vanished.
