THREE DAYS AFTER HE WAS MURDERED, RICHARD PRATT BEGAN TO FEEL MUCH BETTER...
A seemingly random act of violence propels Professor Richard Pratt into The Hereafter. It is a strange, muted, netherworld of the dead-a world in which he is forced to bear...
Suddenly, Richard heard a wail, and his attention darted back to the playground. The little girl was gone and the two boys who had been wrestling each other for the toy truck were both screaming. Sand was flying into the air where they were wrestling.
No, not wrestling. This was not boys playing... There was a violence to this fight that he had never seen with children.
And Richard realized that only one boy was screaming. The other was strangely silent, but he was brutally pummeling his friend with his fists, while the boy below cowered and tried to fend off the blows. Suddenly, the silent boy had the toy truck in his hands, and he was smashing it into the other boy's face. Even from the hillside, Richard could see the blood pour out of the cowering boy's nose in a spray across the sand. He could see the metal truck slice open the boy's skull, and the thick red blossoming into his brown hair.
Richard stood, rooted to his place, unable to move.
Shocked parents rushed in and one grabbed the aggressive boy by the arm, and with a sudden jerk, pulled him away.
What Richard saw made him fall to his knees.
It was as if the boy was a suit of clothes being pulled out of the space he was in... And standing there in the exact same pose, fist raised in the act of hitting the boy on the ground, stood the little girl in the white dress.
The toy truck clattered to the ground, as the screaming in the playground ramped up to a fever pitch.
The sight of the little girl appearing in the space where the boy had been standing seconds before froze Richard's blood. He couldn't shake the impression the little girl had been wearing the boy like a suit, inhabiting him, and making his body do her will. And then her temporary suit of flesh had been ripped away, leaving her standing alone in her brilliant white dress.
Both boys were crying now, and the injured boy was being cradled in the sand by his mother, who was screaming accusations at the other boy, and calling for help on her phone. The attacker's mother, who had pulled her son away from the confrontation, was shaking her son, and with true terror in her voice, she was yelling, "Donnie, why did you do that? Why did you DO that?"
The little girl dropped her upraised arm and stared at the boy on the ground with a frightening intensity. His face was bloody and getting more so by the second, as he wailed wordlessly against his mother. Other parents were coming out of the woodwork now, rushing to the playground.
The little girl smiled, looking for all the world like any sweet, happy, young girl who had just been given an ice cream cone.
Richard finally broke his paralysis and began running toward the playground. He was shouting something, but he couldn't understand the words that he was saying. The little girl turned toward him, and he swore for a moment that her eyes were blazing red, like coals of fire were embedded in her skull. She saw Richard running toward her. Richard only stopped when her eyes met his and he saw such hatred, such malice there, that it took his breath away.
He was standing just inches in front of her now, with the screaming parents all around them. He reached out one hand... and it passed through the little girl as if she was no more substantial than smoke.
Time stood still. Richard and the little girl's eyes locked together. Then she actually hissed at him, as if she was a snake. He took a step back, and then she was running. He stood, frozen, on the edge of the playground.
He watched her run, and it stunned him to see that she was running faster than any little girl... hell, she was moving faster than anybody at all, should be able to run. She was already halfway up the grassy hillside before he could shake himself free of his shock.
Now he could finally hear what he had been screaming, over and over...
"You're DEAD! You're DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD!!!"
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