Prologue

Money Changes Everything

Most people want to believe that winning the lottery will solve all their problems, even though a wealth of existing evidence says otherwise. Anyone who has watched an investigative news story or an indie film documentary about lottery winners knows better. In truth, a lottery win creates more problems than it solves.

I know that now.

Another fallacy I’ve struggled with over the years is life after death. Most people want to believe that we go on in some way after we die; but realistically, they suspect that when a person dies, their body decomposes, along with their brain, and everything they were before they died is lost forever.

Religious people insist that the soul of a deceased person rises up to heaven to bask in the glory of God. Hardline, buzz-killing zealots add the frightening possibility that at death we drop through a mystical trapdoor into the fires of Hell and burn forever. The more philosophical thinkers expound an elegantly practical view that the astral body of a dead person simply moves on to another plane of existence.

As for myself, I have learned two undeniable facts. The first is that winning the lottery doesn’t make you richer in any way at all.

And believe me, if I could go back and do it again, I would use my windfall to purchase a thousand acres of primeval forest in the middle of nowhere, build a cabin at the geographical center of my property, then sit on my front porch with an AR-15 and shoot the headlights out of any vehicle that breached my fortress.

Or more specifically, the vehicles of moochers who were following a plan to invade my inner sanctum and hit me up for a loan.

As for the second fact, I’ve discovered that the true essence of a human being is thought, which stems from the existentialist philosophy that states, “I think, therefore I am.” I can testify with absolute confidence that when a dead person’s body has decayed to dust, their thoughts go on without a body to contain them. I know this because I am dead, but I am still thinking.

PART I

Limbo

Chapter One

Into the Void

I wasn’t ready to die, so I kept my attention focused on my lifeless body as I floated close to the ceiling and tried to come up with a plan. I had seen plenty of movies where detached souls revived their dying bodies by shouting at them to wake up. Because of that, I was sure I could resurrect myself through an act of will.

I shouted, “Wake the fuck up!” but the shout retreated into a bottomless black hole that served as a giant cosmic trash can for the wasted cries of the dead.

Darkness closed in around me. The room in which my body lay had passed beyond the range of my new set of developing senses, and I lost sight of it. Through an ethereal tunnel, I could only see my lifeless body, which was now illuminated by a shimmering light.

I wanted to shout again, but then the light faded and I was left floating in absolute darkness. “Ah, shit,” I said, and listened to the words echoing inside my capsule of thought. I repeated my newfound mantra: I think, therefore I am.

I wondered if anything evil or nasty was hidden in the darkness. I wondered what powers I might’ve gained to deal with it. Nothing about the void I was in felt like heaven; but luckily, none of it felt like Hell either, except for the complete lack of light and no way of entertaining myself. Thinking back, maybe it was Hell after all.

I continued to float, but had no way of controlling where I went. In hindsight, I decided that I probably should’ve grabbed hold of the chandelier to keep myself anchored while I was floating near the ceiling. Then I reconsidered and accepted the fact that I couldn’t have done that. I had lost my connection to the physical world.

I wondered if my voice could be heard by someone who was stuck in the same crappy situation as me.

“Is anybody out there?” I called.

Nothing came back. The empty and silent darkness was starting to bring out my paranoia. I felt that I was in danger from an obscure and terrifying being that I had yet to confront. I needed my Xanax.

If I could’ve sold my mangy soul for a way out of there, I would’ve done it. But when you’re only a wad of thought, capitalism goes out the window, and your best option becomes thinking your way out. Unfortunately, I’ve never been any good at that.

“Well, fiddle-dee-diddle-dee-fuck,” I said and listened to the echo.

Forced to deal with the reality of my situation, I took the least logical way out and turned delusional. After all, crazy people aren’t responsible for their actions. I began to believe that I still had a chance to revive my body.

Fortunately, I hadn’t become so crazy that I ignored the fact that the clock was ticking. Every second was precious, and I could feel them slipping away one by one.

My plan had been to be alive and sitting in the kitchen, maybe eating a sandwich and drinking a can of Diet Pepsi, when my wife got back from shopping. I knew she would’ve thought up some great ways for us to spend our windfall while she was out. The lottery win seemed to have erased her years of chronic depression and given her a newfound will to go on living.

I wanted her to stay like that, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the woman she had become. After years of living in the shadow of her depression, I wanted a chance to indulge myself for once. But just when I saw a shining future stretched out before me, I lost my chance at happiness.

The lottery did that. But to be fair, it also got a lot of help from the prick who killed me.

I sensed the oppressive void around me shifting. I sensed light, then sound, but like no sound I had heard before. I tried to make out words, but couldn’t find any in the strange rushing noises that were like gusts of wind, only more metallic and hollower, like someone sharpening a knife on a grinding wheel.

The light I had vaguely sensed earlier grew brighter and more intense, then faded out, then grew brighter again, even more so this time. A series of muffled booming sounds erupted around me. They sounded like distant cannon fire.

A strange voice said, “Learn from your past.”

At least that’s what I thought it said. I hoped it didn’t say, “Burn, you bastard.”

But at that point, everything had become so foreign and frightening, that if I still had my body, I would’ve shit myself right there.

Still delusional, I convinced myself that my imagination was playing tricks on me, even though I wasn’t sure if I possessed an imagination any more.

Then despair and hopelessness set in. I longed for a few hours to set things right with my wife. For my own peace of mind, I needed to be sure that she was going to be okay on her own. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was that I didn’t leave her any life insurance, but then remembered she had the lottery winnings to keep her going.

All I wanted then was to make sure she didn’t piss it all away on trips around the world, or let some guy with a good pickup line and a bigger dick than mine to take it from her.

The light suddenly brightened again, then expanded, and a fuzzy image appeared. With another scrape of ethereal wind, the image cleared, and there she was. My sweetheart and love of my life. My eternal soulmate.

She was stepping through the doorway into my death room. Her entrance was slow and cautious, almost as if she was hoping to see something, but was afraid it wouldn’t be there, like hoping for two tens after you’ve split your aces and doubled down at blackjack.

Then she saw my body, and I heard her wonderful, musical voice, but she only said, “Hm.”

I called out, “Rosalie, I’m still here! I’m right here!”

She couldn’t hear me.

I kept waiting for her to show some emotion at discovering my murdered body, but she didn’t react the way I hoped she would.

No gasp.

No tears.

Just mild disinterest.

I had to assume she was in total shock. I shouted, “Call the paramedics! There’s still time!”

Again, no reaction.

My protective shield of delusion dissipated, and I forced myself to accept what was going on down there. My dead body was what she had expected to see when she walked into the room, and she was afraid it might not be there.

Apparently, while I was looking forward to enjoying a future without her shroud of depression hanging over me, a future that included regular sex with my updated wife, and a future consumed with finding ways to spend our newfound fortune, the scabby bitch had been plotting my murder.

If I would’ve been able to find a buyer for my soul right then, I would’ve let it go for a chance to be sitting in the kitchen with my sandwich and Pepsi when she got home. And if she didn’t die of a heart attack as soon as she saw me, I would kill her myself, then hunt down the prick who killed me, who was obviously her boyfriend.

How stupid was I, right?

I didn’t see it coming.

I didn’t pick up on the signs.

And to think I thought we were a happy couple. That bitch. That fucking lottery. And now I had to live with the fact that she was getting hosed by a guy with a bigger dick than mine. If I hadn’t been dead already, I would’ve shot myself.