A HALF HOUR BEFORE MIDNIGHT in Central Park, two tough-looking characters were waiting to do their dirty business. John was over six feet tall with a scruffy beard and walked with a slight limp. Henry, the other fellow, was just a little on the heavy side, with enough tattoos to keep a tattoo parlor in business by himself. He smelled as if he hadn’t taken a bath in months.

    “It was raining fish?”

    “That’s what I said.”

    Henry scratched his neck. “You can’t make me believe that. Are you serious?”

    John’s smile was imperceptible. “I’m serious. Technically, it wasn’t raining fish; the fish wasn’t coming out of a cloud. But it was raining fish.”

    Henry blinked several times. “What the hell are you trying to say? It was raining fish, but it wasn’t raining fish. What the shit does that mean?”

    John's knowledge, superior to Henry's, satisfied him and annoyed Henry. “See, when a tornado goes over water, I guess they call it a waterspout. Anyway, sometimes it sucks fish out of the water, and when the air goes overland, gravity takes over, and the fish falls out of the sky.”

    Henry envisioned it. “Imagine getting hit in the head with a fish.”

    “Quiet, here she comes. Give me the knife.”

 

 

CHAPTER ONE        

 

 

   ANITA WAS HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME understanding what she was seeing. Her body appeared face up, blood staining her dress where a knife had pierced it. Her hands trembled as she looked at what appeared to be her own dead body. If this was a nightmare, she couldn’t wake up. Much too vivid for her liking. Had someone murdered her? A preposterous thing to consider. It was the most vivid dream she ever had. Am I dreaming? Right?

    It remained dark, but the sun was approaching the horizon. Anita saw the branches moving on a nearby tree and heard faint sirens in the far distance. Her capacity to think was a bit on the foggy side. Did some son-of-a-bitch slip me a mickey? Wow, I so feel weird. I bet some asshole gave me something.

    She had an extensive look around. However, she was having a difficult time concentrating on anything. The wind seemed to blow through her. And Anita had never, ever felt like this. I can’t feel my legs. I hope someone didn’t slip me fentanyl because that stuff will kill ya.

    Anita was dead, yet here she was, examining the scene where she had taken her last breath. Her spirit had remained here but was there a reason for it? A challenge to try to grasp the situation. She again gazed down at herself. It doesn’t get more surreal than this. How can I be shaking if I’m dead? Not truly dead, am I? Boy, that sure looks like me.

    Several chickadees flew over Central Park as the night’s darkness gave way to morning light. The trees’ foliage moved with the moderate wind. Flowers were reaching for the sun’s rays. The floral display beautified the atmosphere while chemicals from the plants evaporated into the air, producing their distinctive scents and telling the insects that pollen was available. However, the birds avoided one section this morning, where Anita lay on the ground with her eyes still open.

    A translucent Anita sat on a nearby bench. She frowned at her corpse, not knowing what to think. She hadn’t believed in ghosts, but now she was one. Life’s end was not the end. If a spirit couldn’t die, then that showed what? Eternity? She gave her head a shake at the thought. Anita tried to push her hair to one side, but it didn’t appear to be working.

     It was a lot different being dead than she thought it might be, even though Anita hadn’t given it much consideration. After all, she had been young and full of life; a twenty-one-year-old had no reason to consider death. Death was for feeble seniors covered with wrinkles. Or people who weren’t careful crossing the street. Or meth addicts with their needles sticking out of their arms in some dark alley or abandoned house. Death should have been sixty years in the future, not now. But life was full of surprises, and not all were pleasant.

    Her plan in life was to teach and make shrewd investments. But that died along with her mortal frame. Her mind couldn’t comprehend it. Jumbled and random thoughts filled her mind. Was there a Wi-Fi signal here? Every time she almost grasped something important, it became elusive. Like someone moving the finish line.

    Sound appeared diminished.   

    It was Sunday morning, and she was sitting on one of the oval benches in Central Park, which was supposed to have been a lot safer than it used to be, but, regrettably, it hadn’t worked out that way for her. If she had a guardian angel, he or she must have been on their break, although Anita had an uneasy feeling about an hour before it happened. Or did she?

    Anita thought those feelings needed to be much more vigorous. Otherwise, why even bother? It hadn’t been enough to make her sense danger. They should have given her a vigorous shake. A swift kick in the butt! Don’t go out tonight! You’ll be moidered, I tells ya! Moidered! Too many classic movies, perhaps?

    How did guardian angels fit in with free will? Could they make you feel as if something untoward might happen, but they couldn’t say what? That wasn’t much help. Anita guessed people just didn’t listen to those feelings because she didn’t. A much too busy world to pay attention to that stuff. Or was it nearly impossible to make one understand something from the other side was genuine? Life and death were much more complicated than she ever realized.

    Anita tried to push her glasses up on her nose, but there was no longer any need for that. Her vision was now perfect. The habit would correct itself soon enough. Ghosts don’t wear glasses, she thought. Dead men don’t talk? Well, yes, they do. But whether anyone alive is listening is another matter. What do I do now?

    The benches encircling the grassy area had crude, tiny red flowers painted on them, and inside the space were two trees at opposite ends of one another and three lampposts. Anita remembered the lights from last night when she was alive. She thought it was a lovely atmosphere, but not so great with her corpse lying there. Anita supposed that illumination could make an area appear safer than it was.

    Well, it was strange, but Anita couldn’t remember coming to the park as if someone had wiped the memory like chalk on a chalkboard. There were remnants of memories that Anita couldn’t yet access. Perhaps she was in shock? Understanding this newly altered state would be a challenge for anyone.

    Anita noticed a plane flying high overhead, leaving a trail behind. Thirty thousand feet or maybe even higher. Where were they headed? They would never consider that a ghost watched them. In life, how many times had spirits observed her? If the jet crashed nearby, would they be all popping up here? Her father used to tell her to think outside the box. Anita was now thinking outside the box because there was no box or body. He must be taking this hard. Or maybe he didn’t even know yet.

    Welcome to the afterlife, she imagined someone saying. I’ll be your guide. But no one had yet volunteered, perhaps never would. Anita wondered if she could leave the area? What laws governed this new reality?

    It would be a terrible day for her fiancé, Curt, and the rest of her family, especially her identical twin sister Alana and her two younger sisters, Eva, and Courtney. Time seemed weird. Would it be possible to console them? Even if she could appear to them, she would scare them to death. She needed to think of other thoughts, at least for now.

    The universe was a stranger place than Anita could have ever imagined. How many spirits were just wandering around? She thought there were more people dead than living, which meant many ghosts. Where did the bad ones go? Did hell exist? Or did they just wander the streets like lost souls?

    Was that an ant crawling on her forehead? Her chest appeared to have taken a blade, but the knife was gone. Why would someone murder her? Why were there so many people willing to kill, for that matter? Life was short enough without killing each other.

    And again, she thought, “So this is what it’s like to be dead?”

    Anita smelled the strong black coffee one officer was holding, and it didn’t grab her as much as it usually did. Strong Java was a scent she appreciated in the morning. A big cup of coffee, three sugars, and cream. But when did the police get here? Detectives cordoned off the area after they saw the body, examined the crime scene, and searched for evidence before placing her in a body bag and removing her.

    They searched for the knife under the bench and anywhere within throwing distance. But there was no sign of it and not much else, no evidence, at least not yet. Too early to tell if it was a crime of passion. A Gold Flake cigarette discovered and placed in a plastic bag. The inability to link it to the case stemmed from the high volume of foot traffic in the area, but a complete investigation was warranted.

    The police voices sounded flat to Anita, as if the volume on television only had one or two bars. She would need to pay close attention if she wanted to hear what they were saying. The idea of an autopsy was unpleasant, but her soul was already gone, rendering the act insignificant. As long as she didn’t have to watch.

     There were no words for staring down at one’s lifeless body. It just didn’t seem real, not as much blood as she would have expected, most likely because the knife had stopped her heart. Was she just pure energy now? Anita’s mind was a jumble of confusion, thinking the same things over and over. Her engagement ring was still on her left hand. Her diamond teardrop necklace remained around her neck, all her money and credit cards not touched in her black purse.

    And so, it wasn’t a robbery, not that it mattered. Whatever the hell happened, those consequences were not reversible. A suitcase full of money would be useless, a new spin on the reality of things. How long would it take her to get a handle on things? Years? Decades? Did the concept of time still apply?

    Anita couldn’t recall the events that led to her death, and it made her wonder. Was she not supposed to remember? Some kind of temporary thing to help the recently deceased get accustomed to the actually of no longer having a body? Which might increase her chances of being happy? Were her deliberations as weird as she thought? How am I thinking without a physical brain? This is so fucked up.

    What happened to heaven and all the angels?

    Anita had been a hair under five feet eight inches, blonde hair, blue eyes, and lovely as they come. The corpse was already beginning to smell. Bugs will eat me, and soon I’ll be in the ground. We never know how much time we have left amongst the living. This is crazy! I just want to go home. Who’s this?

     “I was murdered last night,” Anita William said to the other spirit sitting on the other end of the bench. She never thought she’d be saying those words, but they were true. Her life had ended about an hour before midnight, or was it an hour after? Never in a million years would she have imagined that a spirit could be in shock. Too much to process in such a short period.

    It was now seven in the morning and mild, but time no longer had any meaning to Anita. The scent of a nearby rose garden was pleasing, even to the recently departed, and a bumblebee flying through her on the way to the roses was as weird as it got. Then one chickadee pursuing another went through her as well. Most people enjoyed the heat, as July had just taken over from June. It would be a pleasant morning if one weren’t dead.

    What am I supposed to do now? Just wander around forever, watching people live their lives? I wonder if there’s a way to tell my family that I’m okay? I’m dead, but I’m okay. Wow, it’s gonna take forever to get used to this. Was time jumping back and forth? At least a little? Was the bee now flying backward?

    Anita thought one of the young officers looked at her but realized that he saw a cigarette butt on the bench; he was looking through her. A Marlboro this time. A handsome cop that looked so young could be his first day on the job. Sexy, though, especially in that uniform. Memories were coming in bits and pieces, but they faded. Not being able to grab and hold on to any was troubling. Anita still didn’t know why she had been in Central Park at that hour. Anita couldn’t even remember that. Had she been waiting for someone? She hoped she wouldn’t be in the dark forever, wondering what had happened. Now forever could be, well, forever.

    Why would someone do such a thing? Of course, the world has plenty of psychopaths running around these days. The wrong place at the wrong time, as they say. Anita was thinking the same thing again. Why didn’t he rob her? Had there been a fight, and she got in the middle? Had she been trying to save someone else? She could guess anything but had no facts to back it up.

    Was reincarnation real?

    “Make sure you bag that cigarette.”

    “Yes, Ma’am, I mean, Detective.”

    When her spirit left her body, she remembered looking down at her corpse, indeed one memory that she would never forget. The knife had stained her dress with blood where it entered her heart, though she didn't remember the stabbing. Anita put her hand on her chest, and so peculiar not having a heartbeat. She felt as light as a feather.

    Being dead was so different.

    She had always thought that heaven was one of those made-up things. Maybe she needed to find the portal? Weren’t people supposed to go into the light? Or was that just made up? Anita watched as the wind blew a bubble gum wrapper through her foot. “Did you hear me saying I was killed last night?”

    “Yes, I did.” Michael said it affably and was genuinely sorry it had happened, but he could do nothing about it. Nothing anyone could do. He considered she might eventually end up reincarnating as another person, but her current body was lost and unusable. It would rot and turn to dust unless cremated, but it made no difference. Her vehicle, so to speak, had been destroyed, and no going back now. That engine would never turn over again. Her heart beyond mending. Her killer thrust the knife into the pulmonary trunk and aorta, almost as if it had been personal. Dead before she hit the ground.  

    Despite its beauty, Anita's white dress had become translucent. A dark area showed where some maniac in a ski mask had shoved a knife. She thought there might have been two of them as she had fallen. Perhaps Anita glimpsed the assailants before her eyes had closed for that last time. Not that it mattered now, but she would like to know the why of what happened to her. She remembered the mask, a black mask? Perhaps all the details would eventually return? Anita felt emotional pain when she attempted to recall.

    It must have been painful when the knife plunged into her. At least, she thought so. Maybe I was killed by a homeless man, but no, he would have taken my money. Or were there two of them?

    Many spirits had shaken their heads at the beauty, who now lay still, giving her condolences as they walked by. The actions mirrored what friends typically do for family at a funeral home viewing. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your death. How one woman had shaken her head as she passed was almost as if she blamed Anita for her death, but she never said a word. People continued to judge even here. But, of course, this was not heaven.

    She still couldn’t quite grasp some feelings. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this. Her mind continued to be muddled, thinking the same things. Anita couldn’t describe her current situation to someone alive if she wanted to. She felt if writers wrote books in heaven, they would be fascinating, especially those based in heaven. What was Mark Twain writing these days? Or had he been reborn? Heaven’s library must be quite something.

    A civil war soldier nodded to her. He wore a blue Union Uniform and whispered that he was sorry. Anita wondered why he was in this area. Much too soon for her to know much about being dead. Those poor bastards who didn’t believe in anything were in for a shock, going through life thinking it was the whole kit and caboodle. Her father liked to say kit and caboodle a lot. Poor Dad is liable to drop dead from shock. Why would someone want to kill me? I’ve hurt no one, not intentionally, anyway. She saw someone who looked like her father, at least from behind, but the spirit was someone else.

    Anita wondered what happened to murderers when they passed? Terrorists? The thought of it made her shake her head. Maybe this was just a weigh station, and someone would come and get her? It would make sense if someone showed her where to go, but no one was volunteering. Was she not quite in the club yet?

    She attempted to pick up the cigarette butt. However, it was not possible. A simple act which frustrated her. Talk about feeling inconsequential. She sighed, and even that felt different. She knew she wasn’t breathing, a statement of her new reality. Anita considered a spirit a silent entity with no heartbeat, no breaths to take, and no aching bones. She had a bone in her shoulder that clicked when she shrugged, but not anymore.

    Anita noticed her lightness, no corporeal body to lug around, not that she had been overweight. There was no heft to a spirit. Anita remained herself, sure didn’t know all the answers to all the questions, as some people claimed after facing a near-death experience.

    The thought that the soul was eternal was indeed mind-blowing. What would she do in a place with no time? The police were now talking and pointing at her. Of course, it was something beyond her. I’m gonna miss eating—no more pizza. Damn. 

    A male ghost who appeared to be sixteen or seventeen stood beside Detective Olivia Brown, sticking his tongue out and making faces. He looked appreciatively at Anita’s body, thinking it was a shame. He thought she looked like she should have been on the cover of some glamor magazine. Perhaps the best-looking woman he had ever seen. Gorgeous, he thought.

    “Yes, I heard,” interrupted Michael, a middle-aged gentleman reading a Dean Koontz novel. “Murdered last night.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth, but life had always been unappreciated by some, taking a life as easy as swatting a mosquito. He thought that perhaps a thousand years from now, people would learn not to kill one another. However, he doubted it, like expecting a lion not to kill a zebra, he supposed. Deep inside, there remained an instinct to kill, fortunate that most didn’t act upon it. Otherwise, every argument might end up with a body on the ground—too many corrupt people in the world, liars, and pretenders.

    Many people wanted something they didn’t need or deserve. Some of the rich were the worst, destroying the air and the water for money, even though they had plenty of it. After their lives end, the destruction remains. Incredible how one person could cause so much harm.

    Michael died more than a dozen years ago, murdered nearby, although not in the park. He opened his suit coat and showed her two holes where someone had shot him in the chest, making them manifest whenever he wanted. “The bastard demanded my wallet, and before I could get it out, he shot me and then ran off with it. Son-of-a-bitch is here now. Imagine that. I’d like to give him a swift kick, but I can’t.” He shook his head. “I lasted a day and a half on life support before my body gave out, floating around the hospital room, observing the pain on the faces of my family. It was touch and go, and then I went. Your wallet or your life, fucker took them both. I was more than happy to give him my damn wallet. I only had twenty-two dollars in my wallet and a Visa card up to the limit. After talking to him here, I must admit his life was awful, but that was no reason to take mine.”

Maybe it was silly, but the ghost's swearing surprised her. Anita thought he was a handsome fellow, had a rugged look that she liked, and sensed that he was a decent person. Not perfect, but respectable. There were no perfect people, dead or alive. “Michael, why are we all still here?”

    The spirit shrugged. “I can’t speak for all of us, but I’m scared to go into the light. In life, I believed in nothing, and I was no saint. Imagine the shock when it all didn’t just end. Disappointed, is what.” He laughed. “Many people become disillusioned after death. Instead of forever nothingness, we end up like this. Not that I was a thug, either. Killed no one. I guess I’m scared I’ll end up in hell, burning for all eternity, because if heaven is real, why not hell? No one will answer questions about hell, so don’t ask. I picture myself on fire. Although how can you physically hurt a spirit? Perhaps it’s mental torture?” 

    I never thought about that. How can one burn in hell when a spirit is no longer physical?

        “When I first got here, I was disappointed that there are no answers, only opinions. I thought Jesus would show up one day and explain it all to me, but I’m still waiting. Instead of waiting for Godot, I guess I’m waiting for Jesus. Sometimes I feel a pull towards him, Jesus, not Godot.” Michael smiled and nodded.

    Anita now saw the area of white light about two hundred feet from her. Why hadn’t she seen it before now? Had Anita been that inattentive? She wasn’t about to stay here for the rest of her—whatever this was.

    The comedian, Robin Williams, walked out of the light and smiled at them. He looked around as if he was waiting for someone, and then after a little wave, he went back inside.

    “Is that who I think it was?”

   Michael nodded. “I believe so.”

    Wow, Robin Williams, I wonder if I can get his autograph? Oh yeah, right, I’m dead. Anita went to look at some nearby roses, and Michael followed her. She bent and enjoyed the scent but could not touch a flower. It felt as if she had walked over, but perhaps she had floated. Anita would head for the white light directly. “Michael, what’s time like now that we’re dead?”

    “It’s different. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it exists. I’ve been dead for a dozen years, and it seems like ten minutes. Guess it’s a good thing. Otherwise, we’d all be bored out of our minds. One fellow who was dead for two centuries thought he died last week.” He thought for a minute. “I think people pop up here because of the light, which only appears in some locations. I don’t know, just guessing. And guessing is just making stuff up.”

    This guy is a lot of help.

    A tall African American and his German Shepherd approached the light. After hesitating for a second or two, he followed the beautiful dog into the glowing doorway, both killed as they had attempted to run across a busy street. The animal had tried to resist.

    An old man materialized on the ground, covered in blood, and got up, dusted himself off, or at least went through the motions. When a hand stretched out from the bright door, he went into the light after a moment of hesitation. Anita found it strange because he had not died here.

    Anita thought about her family and friends, remembering how she felt when her grandparents died. Only time could dull that pain, and it had only begun for her family. She was looking forward to seeing Mammy and Pappy.

  

 

 And check out the book Knights of the Dragon