Billy Bones: Beyond the Grave

Chapter 1

Hi.

I’m Billy Bones.

And I’m dead.

Not figuratively, like Biff Knucklehead is going to beat me up at school, but literally dead — dead as a doornail.

I was ten years old when I died. From what I can remember, I shoved my finger too far up my nose and stabbed my brain. Dumb way to die, I know, but hey, I was a notorious nose picker.

Actually, I still am.

I don’t remember all of my life, just bits and pieces. My parents had been decent people from what I recall, and my sister, although odd, wasn’t that much of a pain.

I think it had been a good life.

So that leaves me where I’m at now.

I’m in the Afterlife. Not the kind where there’re angels and puffy clouds, and not that other place with fire and brimstone. Those don’t exist. There’s just the Afterlife.

From what I can tell it’s like a recycling depot here. We sit in this place waiting for our number to be called. Then we start all over again in the Livingworld as someone new. My number is 1,312,356,421.

I think I have a long wait ahead of me.

I look the same as I did when I was living. I still have black hair, and I’m kind of pale. Like my aunt used to say, my eyes are “like the sky”. And with the exception that one nostril can sometimes look a little larger than the other, my nose is just right for my face.

Everyone here looks like they did when they died.

I guess I’m lucky I didn’t die by losing half my head in a chainsaw accident. Not pretty, let me tell you. That was the guy right in front of me when I first came to this place.

I stood in a line, waiting to be registered. It was dark, and everything was made of old, black stone. It was almost like standing in a large train station. There was a glass window with someone behind it at the counter, sort of like a clerk. The monocled woman was old and trying to get the attention of the three people at the front of the line. They all carried fishing rods, and were bickering.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “You’re dead, you should have worn your lifejackets. Dumb, dumb, dumb, but you can’t change it. Now, take these papers and get in the Multiple Deaths line.” She pointed toward another window.

The chainsaw guy was next. He had to go to the Accidental Dismemberment line.

“Next!” the woman behind the counter yelled.

I did what any kid my age, who’s a little short of stature, would do. I jumped up when I got to the counter. I got a closer look at the woman. She had no markings on her. It didn’t look like she’d died horribly, she was just really old. She had a name tag that read Stella, and the one exceptional thing about her was that she had extraordinarily tall hair.

“Quit yer bouncin’ around,” Stella said.

I could hear her flipping through some pages.

“Jumpin’ Jehosephat!” she exclaimed. “Another nose picker! That’s ten this week!” She leaned over the counter and pointed toward another window. “You go there,” she said.

The sign above it read Unbelievably Stupid Deaths.

I hung my head and scuffed my feet as I made my way to the next window. There was no one in that line.

When I got to the counter, it was Stella again. I thought it rather peculiar that someone of her age could have run to this counter so fast. Then I wondered if maybe there was more than one of her.