Three

1. Clint

1. Clint

I wake up surrounded by white, and I think I must be dying, but then I realize I’m already dead. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. It’s a gut feeling so strong that I don’t doubt it for a second, no more than I doubt that my name is Clint or that my hair is black.

I blink, and suddenly a woman in pointy heels is standing in front of me, her red hair tied back in a severe bun. She looks down on me, lying on the white ground, and raises her eyebrows.

I stare back and push myself into a sitting position. For a moment there’s something vaguely familiar about her, but in the next second the feeling is gone, and she looks like a complete stranger.

She makes a clucking sound in the back of her throat. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, Clint—I’m sure this is all very overwhelming—but I’ll need you to follow me.”

Her voice is sharp and unpleasant, like her words are weapons she uses to bend people to her will. It probably works if compliance means she’ll stop talking.

 I don’t move. “What’s going on?”

Her smile fades as she taps her foot against the ground. “You’re dead. Isn’t it obvious? Now come along. Come on, up.”

I climb to my feet and stumble after her as she takes off at a speed that should be impossible in those death-traps on her feet. “Where are we going?” I ask. “Who are you?”

She waves her hand as if my questions are ridiculous. “I’m taking you to your new job. Who I am is none of your concern.”

“Job?” I finally catch up with her and fall into step at her side, trying to gauge something from her expression. Besides being entirely unpleasant to look at, it tells me nothing. “But I thought I was dead.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And what do you think the dead do? Just lay around all day? If you were planning on an eternity of relaxation I’m sorry to destroy your fantasies, but we have a world to run.”

My pace starts to slow and she hooks her red-painted claws—nails—around the inside of my elbow and yanks me along with her. Considering I’m at least four inches taller than she is and twice her size, I should probably be able to pull away. I’m in too much shock to even try. “Have you not deduced that I am in a hurry? You’ll need to be much more observant than that if you wish to succeed here.”

My head is spinning, and I think her nails are beginning to draw blood. The endless sea of white around us begins to shift until I can make out walls and doors. She stops abruptly and pushes me through an open doorway on our left, but doesn’t step inside with me. “I’ll be back to collect you in exactly seven minutes,” she tells me and walks away, the sound of her clicking shoes fading almost instantly.

“Have a seat,” a voice says behind me.

I turn. A woman with bright red cheeks and graying pigtail braids sits behind a desk in the center of the room, pointing at the chair facing her. I honestly can’t tell if she’s fourteen or forty. I sink into the seat slowly, my gaze darting around the room, but again, all I can see is white.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I ask.

She giggles and shuffles through a pile of papers on her desk, but doesn’t answer my question. I squint at her nametag. Dolorous. How unfortunate.

Dolorous wrestles a sheet out of the papers with a satisfied aha! and looks up at me. Her entire face breaks into a grin that looks too wide for her face. “Clint Edwards,” she says, making intense eye-contact. “Age nineteen years and two months. Cause of death two gunshots to the chest in your home at exactly 3:24 a.m.”