Kevin and Ezra Meet

1 ½ years ago

Ezra POV

All I wanted was to get home before midnight, not get in a crash and have my body transported to the hospital. In a coma. It was only me, and some other guy named Kevin. He told me it wasn’t his fault, but he was the one who drove straight into the bus. Driving under the influence.

“My mom was diagnosed with cancer. I was just trying to get some stress off before I went to go take care of her.”

Yeah, well, you can’t do that if you’re dead. He looked frustrated, just standing there in the corner while his family hovered over his body. If I could take a guess, I would say the guy did actually regret drinking. Just a few moments ago he was crying. “How old are you?”

The guy huffed, as if there were better topics to talk about. Well sorry, buddy. “I’m 24.”

“Oh. You’re only a year younger than me” The other guy looked at me for the first time today. He looked about as bad as his body did, all bloodied and bruised up, plus his shoulder looked dislocated. I probably looked no different though.

“How nice.” Kevin gave me one of those “fuck off” looks before sinking to the floor and pouting again like a fucking child. Yeah, I probably should be a little bit more somber, but hey—different people deal with grief differently. I’m one of those people who like to joke around and make small talk in disastrous situations.

A doctor came in, with a nurse and clipboard following shortly. “Christa, is it?” The woman nodded. “This is as much as we can do for your brother, Kevin. All that’s left is for him to gain consciousness.”

“He is going to wake up, right? Right?” The doctor scrunched up his face, and tilted his head to the side. It didn’t look good.

“Mmm….Hard to say. He did have major head damage.” The woman named Christa nodded, and the doctor walked off, his nurse trailing behind him.

When the doctor was out of sight, the woman whispered to the man next to her, “It’s because we’re black, I bet.” He shushed her, and sat on the chair.

For the next few minutes, the only sounds were hospital machines beeping and family whispers. Then a miniature human popped up. He was transparent, like us. “The Angel Council wish to see you now.” Before we could even question what was happening, we were both in a plain white room, whiter than the hospital, and a group of five men were sitting in front of us at a desk. There was a sudden sickness growing in my stomach, and the need to vomit rose. But I didn’t.

“Welcome to the almost dead” The one on the right said, not glancing up from his stack of papers.

“Thanks, I always wondered what it was like.” They all looked at me, like they had heard it a thousand times before. Really gives a guy some confidence.

“You two are here because we have some work for you two to do. And since you’re both in a coma together, we figured it would make things easier.” The middle one spoke. He put the papers he had in a folder, and handed it to the mini human who popped us here. “In the folder is the list of jobs you have for the month. Check them off and when you’re done, summon him again.”

I glanced at Kevin. His injuries were gone, and he had a blank look on him. I was just as confused. Work? Folders? A month? What the hell is going on? Before I could ask any questions, I was, again, popped back down into the hospital room. The mini human was looking up at us.

“If anything asks, just say you’re an angel. You’re not really, of course. It’s just a placeholder title in case you two get in trouble.” I nodded, still in a daze, and the mini human disappeared. The sick feeling came over me again and this time, I actually did throw up.

Kevin was still sitting there looking stupid when I was done. “Hey!” His head snapped to look at me. “Why don’t you come over here and help me figure this shit out.” He sighed that sigh that says how much you don’t want to do anything, and got up anyways to snatch the folder out of my hands.

“It’s a profile.” He said. I inched closer to him to get a better look (I could of sworn Kevin inched away from me though), and sure enough, it was a profile.

“Lemme see that a second.” I grabbed the paper out of his hands and flipped through it. It was an entire profile of the woman. Name, picture, family, cause of death, medical history, location, regular history, everything! When I looked back at the folder, there was another profile, of an old man this time. Kevin was looking over that one.

“What do we do with this?” Kevin looked at me. How the hell did I know? I’m as dead as he is. Okay, that sounds bad. Confused is the word I’m looking for.

“Let’s go and find out.” I winked at him before leaving the room.

“Where?” I could feel him trailing behind me.

“To where it says on the papers, dumbo.” He shut up after that. The man on the top of the pile was just a block down from the hospital. Outside, the overcast sky and dead trees made everything bleak, the cars rushed by, and the people kept their heads down, noses and hands buried in their clothes from the cold. Nobody paid us any mind. I guess nobody even saw us. I think a child did though, she looked right at me and pointed. Of course, mom just kept walking.

When we arrived, it was an apartment. The paper said room 413. We climbed the stairs, since we couldn’t figure out how to work the elevator, and went looking for him. We didn’t bother to knock, since nobody could see us anyways. Inside was a rather modern, clean looking apartment room, but with toys thrown around everywhere. A child was singing a nursery rhyme in one of the rooms.

“Let’s split up.” Kevin nodded. He took the living room, and kitchen, I took the bedrooms and shower. The guilt ate at me just by waltzing in, and invading their privacy. I found the child though. A little girl, probably five or six, in a pink dress playing with a doll house. I could see nothing odd about this room, so I went to the other one. It was the master bedroom, and it was a mess. Clothes tossed everywhere, bed unmade, curtains still closed.

Then the shower turned on. When I turned around, the dollhouse wasn’t being played with, and the child wasn’t singing anymore. Kevin came up to me, and shook his head. “Nothing about this is odd, or ghostly in any way.”

A chime went off, and the door opened. “Honey! I’m home!” A man called out. The child ran out of her room, and into her dad’s arms.

“Daddy, the shower turned on again!” That’s when it clicked. Kevin and I rushed into the bathroom to see a naked woman showering, and humming the same tune the child was. When I looked over at Kevin, he was pulling out the profile from before. It was the same lady.

“So, what do we do with her? Do we get her to stop haunting the place, or…?” Kevin shrugged, staring at the picture. Actually, he was staring at it for an awfully long time. “Hey.” I gave him a little nudge, before he jumped and looked at me. His eyes were wet, his face was contorted in a scrunched up, hurt look. “Do you know her or something?”

Slowly, Kevin nodded. He took a shaky breath, looking up at the ceiling. “She’s my aunt.” Ouch. “I didn’t recognize her before, but…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. Poor guy shrunk to the floor clutching himself, crying. The shower stopped, and I watched as the woman got out of the shower, now clothed.

She was watching Kevin for a moment, smiling, before kneeling down to his level and lifting up his head. The woman held his face, smiling, while tears trailed down his face. Only their eyes did the talking. Then when she kissed his forehead, she vanished, and Kevin broke down all over again.

I had no idea what to do to the guy. He knows he could die any minute, and he just lost his aunt. Rough week the guy’s having. My attempt at consoling him was to pat his pack, but there was a shock when I touched him. Not like a static shock, no, more like a shock that warmed me, in a good way. It made my heart race. I’m sure Kevin felt it too, because he looked up at me, tear stained face and all. That’s when the door opened, and what I would assume the father and child walked in. The man looked around, seeming determined to get rid of anything that dare scare his little girl.

“Sweetie, there’s nothing here,” He said, looking back at her. She pouted her adorable face, and look around again.

“But it really did turn on! See! The tub is wet!” She pointed her fingers, and the father nodded.

“Tell you what! Why don’t you help cook dinner. Then, we can pack up, and head over to your aunt’s house for a sleepover, okay?” The girl cheered, and wiggled herself out of her father’s grip, and ran to the kitchen. Before he left, he gave the bathroom the dirtiest look I have ever seen. Wouldn’t want to be her future boyfriend.

By the time we had made it outside, Kevin had pulled himself together enough to look through the next person’s file. That just wouldn’t do. He was full on crying in the bathroom, and not talking about it. So I snatched the paper away from him.

“Hey!”

“You’re not getting this until you talk to me.” I made sure to hold the paper as far away from him as possible.

“About what, Ezra? There’s nothing to talk about.” He gave up trying to get the paper, turning around, and crossing his arms. I swear his pout face was adorable.

“Yes, there is. Your aunt. You wouldn’t have been crying about her if you two weren’t close.” Kevin huffed, and he puffed, still refusing to look at me.  I would stand here all day if I had to.

But five minutes later he gave up and spoke. “My mom and dad would almost always come home late from work. So, since my aunt was so close, I went over to her house. She would welcome me in, get me a snack, and when I was done, she would help me with my homework.” Kevin wouldn’t look at me, choosing the ground instead, and smiling at it. “Then, on the holidays, when either of my parents couldn’t get off work early, we would head over here and celebrate.”

Damn. They were real close. But what could I say? I’m sorry for your loss? This was a bad idea from the start, I knew it. When I tried to hand him the paper, he refused to take it. I sighed, and flipped through the papers. This old man wasn’t really, “haunting” per say, more like helping around the house. Didn’t seem too hard, and he was fifteen minutes away.

“Let’s go!”

We found the old man following a safe distance around an old woman. Kevin said it could be his wife. He was smiling at her, watching her walk around.

“Now, where did I put that blue bowl?” She murmured to herself. The old man opened a cupboard, and smiled at her. The wife turned around, smiling, and got the blue bowl, and closed the cupboard. I heard Kevin sigh. When I glanced at him, he was wearing his pity face.

“What do we do?” Kevin’s voice was quiet enough that I almost didn’t hear it.

“Get him to go away, I guess.”

Kevin turned to me, still whispering in that pathetic voice of his. “But he’s not doing anything wrong…”

“We can’t, Kev. Orders are orders.” I went to take step forward, but he stopped me, gripping my shoulder. There was that spark again. If he felt it, his face didn’t give it away. He had this determined look on his face instead.

“What orders? We don’t even know if they’re really angels. And what does doing this—” he shook the folder. “—Do for us?”

He had a point, as much as I hated it. “I don’t know! Maybe we can get back to the living sooner?” He scoffed at the idea, and let the folder fall, letting the papers scatter everywhere. Damn it. He got upset, and now I have to pick up the mess.

“Come on, Kev. Let’s at least try to do this.” I tried stuff the papers back in the folder as best as I could but I was never good at this cleaning thing. “Hey, we might even learn something.”

That’s when he glanced at me, and I knew I had his curiosity. He sighed, and snatched the folder out of my hands, able to properly put the papers back. “Fine. But we’re coming back for him later.” Kevin grabbed a random paper from the stack, and handed it to me.

Half an hour later, we were standing in front of an office building being constructed. It was clearly abandoned, due to the sun setting already.

“You sure this is the place?” I heard Kevin ask me. As if on cue, a loud clang rang out from somewhere above. Pretty sure.

“Yep. Let’s go!” Kevin and I ran through the building, trying to find the source of the eerie noise. Half of the floors weren’t even done, and the walls had the paper with the company name plastered on every square inch of it. I guess the construction workers had finished the stairs first, somewhat. It still looked unfinished, but they seemed safe enough.

It wasn’t until we got to the fifth floor that another noise rang. “That was definitely this floor.” Kevin mumbled. Before I could figure out which way to go, Kevin was dashing ahead of me to find the ghost messing around with the workers. Then out of nowhere, we hear this battle cry. Kevin and I are looking around but we don’t see a thing in sight. Until the ghost appeared down the hall, running straight at us. And by running, I mean sprinting. First I pushed Kevin out of the way before dodging the guy headed towards us. He screeched to a half, and turns around, eyes in full fury. I guess from having missed us. This guy clearly wasn’t going to go away just by some talking.

So when the guy ran towards me, I didn’t jump out of the way. I dodged him, and tripped him. Then, stepped on his hands, and sat on him. It was all over within a couple of seconds, the guy wasn’t even strong enough. “Listen you.” I grabbed a handful of shirt and lifted him closer to me. “You need to stop spooking these construction guys. Who knows how behind on schedule they are because of a dumbass like you. This isn’t your place. You need to go back to the dead.” That’s when he stopped struggling. It seemed to dawn on him that he wasn’t alive anymore, and for the first time, looked around at where he was. The man nodded, before disappearing, causing me to fall on my ass.

Kevin gave me a pat on the back, before helping me up. “Wow! I didn’t know you did that!” When I looked over at him, he was grinning ear to ear. I could be an ass and brag about my fighting skills, but now would not be appropriate.

So I just nodded and mumbled a thanks. It was then I noticed the buzz between our touches. “What is that?” We both just stared at Kevin’s hand on my skin before he shrugged.

“I dunno. Maybe it’s just a ghost thing?”

“Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure we’re not ghosts.” I looked at him.

“Well, we’re not angels’ either.” It was silent for a moment.

“Why don’t we call ourselves spirit messengers?” Kevin looked at me, confused.

“What?”

“Yeah, spirit messengers. We’re not ghosts, nor angels. But we are a spirit of some form. And our job is to get the ghosts back to the dead, or whatever.” Kevin nodded, and I could see the cogs workings. “Spirit messengers”

Kevin nodded slightly, still thinking. “I guess that works.” His hand slid off of me.