Dead Ends: How to Survive the Afterlife Book 3 Read online

  The football pitch was always a good unit of measurement. Everyone loved using it to measure anything that was bigger than…a football pitch. Nothing was ever described as a third of a football pitch, but many objects were calibrated in sizes of multiple football pitches. Uncertain as to the basic measurement of any type of pitch that involved any ball-based competition didn’t stop the ball reflecting in its mind that the quarry was at least ten football pitches big. Which also didn’t really matter as only it was conscious of the comparison, given that no other living thing appeared to occupy the world it found itself in.

  Its awareness switched directions. In an anatomical sense this meant his sight was now where his butt had been previously. Only landmarks with angles absorbed his perception. In the foreground a field of white grass waved casually at him as it was battered by the geothermic conditions swirling around the planet. In the background a set of perpendicular mountains queued patiently for some unseen geological audit. Trees, of which there were few, were similar in design to those drawn by an Etch a Sketch or a very peculiar child. Not a curve was present in any of them.

  The ball rolled forward towards the grass, an impulse unthought and unprovoked. Although it demonstrated many of the characteristics that might suggest it had fallen off the production line of an automotive factory, there was something unmistakably ‘alive’ about it. Its senses were as uncomfortable and unfamiliar as they would have been if they were scattered unabated as a cloud of blue electricity. The only difference now was the physical and tangible feel to its existence and a complete lack of the emotional perception notorious with the experience of being a soul. The life swimming within was palpable yet devoid of any sense of who or what it was.

  Life was unaccustomed to this harsh new kingdom. No birds flew in the orange-tinged sky. No animals grazed amongst the chalky-ridged plains. No water ran across the countryside carrying wriggling fish or writhing sea critters. Those trees that had had the temerity or bloody-mindedness to set down roots might just as well have been produced by a machine whose only job was to make unimaginably boring fake plastic trees. Life and death normally meandered the passage of time with the same predictability that night follows day. Here neither had made an appearance for some considerable time.

  Until now.

  The sheaths of white grass, where the ball had arrived a short time ago, seemingly aiding both his size and movement, were getting noticeably bigger. Their accelerated growth was evident in both height and width, towering over the small ball of metal in minutes. When they’d achieved a suitable girth and grandeur, the two dozen or so thin, square sheets of white translucent pulp resembled a procession of printing paper lining up to feed a giant, overproportioned photocopier. A few of these sheets flapped in the wind, desperately trying to stay in shape. Uncertain as to the final end point of the growth that appeared to take them by surprise, each one spontaneously started a process of rearranging their simple square forms.

  As they squirmed and wriggled, a series of ripping noises echoed off the walls of the square mountain range, as they removed themselves from the roots that had bound them to the ground. Ten feet tall and wide and as thin as cigarette paper, each sheet began to fold itself into elaborate patterns. No two objects followed the same instruction manual, yet every move was assured in its accuracy of turn and crease. Acrobatically they jumped, flipped, rolled, crimped and squashed their bodies to form an array of interesting origami characters.

  As the troop of newly formed paper creatures nodded in appreciation of the colleagues on either side of them, one took its place at the head of the crowd. The ball watched with fascination. It was the most interesting thing to happen since it had arrived. Which wasn’t difficult given the competition was a hurriedly dug hole and a tree with square fir cones.

  The two dozen arrivals were mostly humanoid, although here and there a few had clearly made some hideous folding error or simply mistook their brief. Standing at the front, a character with a chiselled torso and way more neck than necessary addressed the crowd.

  “Ok, does everyone know what’s going on?”

  The ball made an imperceptible shake in the form of a metallic swirl. None of the paper army noticed it was there, but their shaking heads seemed to agree nonetheless.

  “I’m guessing we’ve been summoned,” replied a short, stubby figure with half a paper finger in the air. Where the other half was was anyone’s guess.

  “Exactly,” said the leader. “It’s been a long wait, but finally it’s happening.”

  “What is?” said another who’d had trouble perfecting the folds around its facial features and had ended up with one eye, three ears and a droopy bottom lip.

  “When our world welcomes inhabitants, only then are we created to manage them,” said the leader.

  “What inhabitants?” said another voice.

  “I’m sure they’re around here somewhere, it’s a big planet after all. Before we go look, let’s see if everyone is present and correct. Roll-call time.”

  The leader strolled uneasily down the ranks of his platoon with the watchful eye of a sergeant major. Not wanting to fall below his own standards of scrutiny, it stopped occasionally to converse with one or two of its soldiers.

  “What’s happened here, then?” it said halfway down the row.

  “Something went a bit wrong halfway through, sir. Around step nine in my instructions I think one of my squash folds went a bit wrong.”

  “A bit wrong,” repeated the leader.

  “Yes.”

  “You were aiming for humanoid, weren’t you?” probed the leader.

  “Aiming for, yes, sir.”

  “Yet what you’ve ended up with is more of a swan effect, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I thought it was more like a goose,” it replied before a sharp-edged stare cut it off. “At least I didn’t end up like that one.”

  The leader followed the direction of the swan’s beak to a long, flat object closer to the ground. Bending its knees for the first time, the leader crumpled its body down to where it assumed it might achieve an element of eye contact.

  “Don’t ask,” came a muffled response.

  “I’m going to,” replied the leader.

  “Ok, you’re the boss.”

  “What good are you going to be at managing the potential influx of souls if you’re folded up as a paper aeroplane.”

  “I panicked,” came a voice from beneath the cockpit area. “Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. All I could think of was this.”

  “How long have you waited for this moment?” asked the leader, quite aware of the answer to come.

  “Oh not long, really, it’s hard to…”

  “A few billion years, isn’t it?” prompted the leader accurately.

  “As long as that! It’s so easy to lose track of time,” said the plane.

  “And you’ve been so very busy,” replied the leader sarcastically. “What with all the competing priorities you’ve had existing as a blade of grass since the dawn of time.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “You had one job.”

  The leader returned to its position at the front of the group. Half of the two dozen had produced decent enough humanoid figures, although each with a variety of personal creativity thrown in for good measure. The remainder ranged from elaborate napkins to paper fortune tellers used by young girls in school playgrounds to allocate different colours and numbers to unsuspecting friends.

  “Clearly some of you are going to have to start all over again.”

  A muffled response came from one of the misfits.

  “Forgot the mouth, did you?”

  The Sydney Opera House nodded.

  “It’s very hard to refold a second time,” offered the swan, who was actually rather pleased with what it had managed. To go from eternal blade of grass to goose, or swan, at the first attempt was a miracle.

  “Enough,” shouted the leader as the din of argument grew. “The refolding will
have to come later. We have been summoned because, after an extreme period of waiting, we have received a guest. As servants of the afterlife we must account for those that arrive here. Spread out and look for it.”

  “What will they look like?” said a skinny character whose head was about the same length as his body.

  “Who knows? There haven’t been any before, have there? If you’re asking me to guess I’d suggest you look out for something unnatural. If it’s got curves, that’s a start,” said the leader.

  The ball did its best to show off how perfectly round it was.

  “What about the small ball of metal that rubbed past me this morning? The one who’s currently standing over there by the big hole,” said the paper aeroplane, who had the advantage of seeing through most of the legs.

  “Excellent work,” said the leader.

  On its signal the troop formed what they hoped was the right formation and marched, waddled, tumbled or hovered across the meadow towards their target. The ball stood its ground through no other instinct than this was likely to be more entertaining than staring into a shoddy crater. The leader stooped down and placed the ball of metal into its palm and raised it in the air for the creased necks to crane themselves a decent view.

  “Is that it!?” said someone under its breath.

  “I believe so,” said the leader.

  “It’s not what I was expecting,” replied another.

  “No, nor I.”

  Everyone with heads nodded. The plane retracted its flaps.

  “Welcome to Neutopia,” said the leader, clearing its throat assertively. “The resting place for souls of a neutral disposition. We are the Accountants. It is our job to manage you.”

  There was a pregnant pause as everyone waited in anticipation for the sign of a response.

  “Not very chatty, is it?” said the swan.

  - CHAPTER TWO -

  ENDGAMES

  Glaciers don’t tend to be in a hurry. They are by nature slow responders. Tens of thousands of years may pass when the only obvious progression in their appearance is the acquisition of a few new wrinkles desperately in need of some geological face cream. None are sprinters, but some move more quickly than others. In the battle for world speed records, the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland is the ice age equivalent of Usain Bolt. It’s not unheard of for it to move as fast as forty-five metres a year. That’s almost the same speed as a sloth.

  The Aletsch Glacier, stretching out in a southerly direction from the Jungfrau mountain in Switzerland, is positively pedestrian in comparison. When its notable life events are measured in generations and a time-lapse photographer would struggle to produce results in a lifetime, it can’t be accused of being in a hurry. As it had done for tens of thousands of years, its mouth sucked the three peaks of Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger with the ferocity of an octopus strangling a fish. It’s a view that has been largely unchanged since the end of the last ice age.

  Until now.

  Much had been spent to commercialise Jungfrau, the highest peak in a wall of mountains that separated the glacier from the Swiss Plateau. Tourism had been cultivated with the same loving care afforded to the herds of cows grazing on the lowland pastures. Tunnels had been dug. Miles of rail laid. Gaudy attractions constructed. You could ride a large, yellow blow-up ring through the snow or go on a massive zip wire ride as long as you paid extortionate amounts for the privilege. All of it designed to distract you from noticing the massive glacier you’d originally come to see.

  Millions had been spent, confident in the knowledge that the gravy train would flow for as long as the people were conned into believing the experience was genuine. They were as high as they could be in the Bernese Mountains: whether they actually looked at them was irrelevant. The majority of the general public only cared about buying T-shirts with pictures of goats on clifftops, or the ability to take a selfie to prove to their friends they were there. Job done. Kerr-ching.

  What the Swiss tourism department couldn’t predict, given the safe bet of a mountain being the highest in a region on any given morning, was that one morning it wasn’t. Not only were the general public now ignoring the creature comforts of the Jungfrau theme park, with its shops and restaurants, but they were also finding it difficult to locate. Which wasn’t surprising since a bloody big, metal dome was casting a shadow over peaks unsheltered since geological forces pushed them there several eons ago.

  Baltazaar, still squatting resolutely in the physical body of preacher Dr. Donovan King, tilted his Panama hat to shade his eyes from the sun’s glare reflecting off the metal. The curved wall of Limbo was no more than fifty metres from his vantage point, perched less than comfortably on the summit of the mighty Eiger. A wide grin was trying desperately to relocate his ears.

  Limbo was not normally this obvious. The cavernous, metallic sphere, built to process the neutral souls of the world, once occupied a point a thousand metres under the Alp mountains where no inquisitive human might accidentally stumble upon it. It had served the same purpose since the dawn of religion itself. When the system only catered for processing negatively or positively balanced emotions, something had to be done with the ‘abnormalities’.

  Baltazaar had been the co-architect of the solution. Rather than wait for the afterlife to evolve a third option for man, a place where logic, not love or hate, ruled, they would bring it here. They would build Neutopia on Earth and manage it on their terms. Satan was all too happy to act as his accomplice. In his desire to control the energy of souls, the essential fuel that stoked the furnaces of Hell, not only would he co-operate, but he’d also fall right into Baltazaar’s trap. Building this structure would require Satan to use a human body, a trap that would be almost as hard to escape from than Limbo itself.

  Limbo was not always this grand. Only one small ball bearing-sized sample of Celestium was needed to stimulate the engorged object currently above surface and blocking out a vista untarnished for thousands of years. If Baltazaar was responsible for placing Limbo here, he was not solely responsible for its current expansion, although he welcomed the turn of events with glee.

  Celestium was a unique substance for many reasons. Firstly, it was a heavy element alien to Earth’s universe. Secondly, it was the only known source of the fifth force, an interaction yet to be discovered by humans and responsible for, amongst other abilities, drawing souls around the cosmos. Without the fifth force souls do not travel to their predetermined destination. And the closer the source of this power, the more likely a soul will be drawn to it. Limbo was on Earth, so all souls were initially pulled here. Thirdly, if unmanaged, Celestium not only pulled souls towards it, it also absorbed them. And sometimes them it.

  As Limbo’s token sample of Celestium drew every ejected soul to it with the increasing rate of human deaths, so it expanded. In normal circumstances these souls would eventually be processed and sent on to their final resting place, easing the metal’s expansion outwards. Souls were redirected to Heaven or Hell by firing them away from Limbo at a pace so rapid they connected with a different source of Celestium before Limbo could pull them back again.

  But those other sources no longer existed. This was the last and only place they could go. As the stream of souls from millions of humans entered on a weekly basis, the bulbous entity swelled like a teenager’s acne. It would not stop. Baltazaar had failed to neutralise human will power with Emorfed, and the next best thing was to destroy the whole species entirely. Who would stop him? David had taken the bait and triggered the Limpet Syndrome for a third and fatal time. The third coming was no longer a threat and the Devil was licking his wounds, always one step behind.

  It was only a matter of time before Limbo’s Celestium expanded exponentially to consume all living things before the weight of it triggered a ‘big crunch’ followed by a second big bang and the renewal of the universe.

  *****

  Only two countries in the world have no capital city. One is Nauru, a rock island on the Equator wi
th less than ten thousand inhabitants. It has the honour of being officially the least visited country in the world. It has no capital because in truth it can’t be bothered to name one, and if it did, tourists might come and make it not ‘the least visited country in the world’. Paradises are generally places without tourists. They just make it look untidy and have a habit of attracting fast-food restaurants.

  The second country in the world without a capital city is Switzerland. The reason for this is quite different to Nauru’s. They don’t have one because for hundreds of years they haven’t been able to agree which city it should be. This in itself shows a useful insight into the historical nature of Swiss values. A nation divided by region, language, culture and a spectrum of deeply held beliefs about which is the best cheese in the world. This argument alone could keep factions busy debating for the whole of a parliament’s life. The answer of course is Gruyère.

  All of this is not to say that people who live outside of Switzerland don’t know where the capital city is. We all think and believe it’s Bern. It certainly demonstrates most of the essential features of a capital city. It’s big, contains many functions of government, and features on maps with a square rather than a circle. Everyone believes it apart from the people who truly matter, the Swiss. For thousands of years they’ve done things very differently from the rest of us. It would be easy to criticise them as being odd. But unlike most other countries, they don’t tend to have a propensity for drama, cause wars for no particular reason, or get involved in other people’s business. They would do, if they could only agree on it.

  Unlike Nauru, whose main attractions included a few discarded rusty Japanese guns and a limestone rock formation in the shape of rolling pin, Bern did have locations of note. Some of the more notable tourist attractions included a statue of a man eating a baby and a small hole filled with big, brown bears. Other countries might have campaigned against these archaic and offensive absurdities and had them removed. Not in Switzerland. Consensus was the name of the game here, at least it would be if they could agree on it.