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Bunny had worn her trusty Skechers for this exact reason. The soft rubber soles felt like clouds and were just as quiet as she made a beeline for the gate, stopping in front of the metal keypad she’d noticed the first time Death had brought her into the lobby to meet Roberta and explain her celestial fate. She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and brought up the photo of the code, typing it in as slowly and carefully as she dared while on a time crunch.
The gate gave an audible click and edged open a couple of centimeters. Bunny took that to be as good as an invitation.
As quick as a wink, she slipped through, gripping the wrought-iron.
The sound of heels skittering back across polished stone sounded like a police siren.
“Bernadette!” Roberta yelled. “No!”
Bunny shoved the gate closed behind her and dashed into Purgatory without looking back.
* * *
Bunny wasn’tsure what she had expected Purgatory to look like, but it definitely wasn’t this. A few yards into her wild sprint, the light surrounding her had faded away, revealing a long, narrow cobblestoned alley. Buildings leaned over the top of her at haphazard angles, giving the impression that all of them could come crashing down like a house of cards at any moment.
As soon as she could see a clear way forward, Bunny started running again. Her many hectic hours in the ER had given her the ability to hustle when she needed to, and she drew on that superpower now like she never had before, trying to ignore her pounding heart. She didn’t see anyone else as she came to the end of the alley she was in and made a sharp left into another, ducking beneath a low-hanging clothesline in her desperation to get as far away from the gate as possible.
A dirty sheet of some description clung to her face for a moment and she batted it away without slowing her pace, only to run straight into something that was much more tangible. The old man grunted as he fell, knocked backward by Bunny’s momentum. She yelped, at first because she was scared, but then because she felt terrible for knocking over someone who looked as though he could have easily fractured a hip on impact.
“I’m so sorry!” she breathed, hurrying to help him up. “Are you alright?”
He didn’t respond. His breath came in wheezy puffs, in and out a little more rapidly than the norm, perhaps, but other than that, he seemed unperturbed that some strange woman in nurse’s scrubs had just knocked him clear on his ass. In contrast, Bunny was panting hard, and it took her a couple seconds to get enough breath to be able to speak to him again.
“Sir,” she managed, ducking her head a little to try to make eye contact with him. But his eyes had a desolate, blank stare about them that made her back up a few steps.
He started to shuffle toward her as though he wanted to maintain proximity, now that they had crossed paths. He moved like something out of a zombie movie, his heavy limp tugging at her innate need to want to fix what ailed people. Bunny stood still as let him approach, gently placing a hand onto his bony shoulder to stop him when he got close enough.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what on earth else to say. “Sir, do you know Connie? Connie Major?”
The man stared at her for a second or two before shaking his head, his matted hair swinging from side to side. Bunny blinked and studied him for a moment before side-stepping around him. He watched her pass, his eyes glassy, but as she left him behind, Bunny could have sworn she heard his footsteps echoing her own. She darted a glance backward, but when all she could see were lingering shadows, she tried to steady her breath and press on at a brisk walk.
“Have you seen Connie Major?” she asked a woman who was sitting on a concrete doorstep, fiddling with a broken basket. The woman didn’t even acknowledge Bunny had spoken, but as she resumed walking, Bunny could have sworn she heard new footsteps join the others in the shadows, too.
Oh, shit. She was definitely being followed, and by more than two people. She was being followed by a fucking gang. The thought was enough to make her break into a dead run, panic rising up in her throat like bitter bile that threatened to erupt. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she jumped over some kind of gray cat or dog that streaked across the alley in her desperation to escape. But the footsteps kept on coming. Relentless, unstoppable. Bunny tried to keep an eye on her pursuers, coming to a junction in the alleyway.
She was still looking over her shoulder at them when she rounded the next corner. Her sneaker caught on an uneven cobblestone and she stumbled, hands in front of her until they connected with a hard, stone wall. They had pursued her into a dead end.
A spike of fear ran through her as she pushed off the wall, hoping to slip past them and back out of the alley before they could catch up with her.
But they were already waiting for her at the junction. At least twenty lost souls, dirty and downtrodden.
And they were staring at her with hunger in their eyes.
“You can take us with you when you go back,” rasped the woman she had spoken to, her broken basket dangling from one hand. All of them started toward her, reaching out in desperation.
A young woman with huge blue eyes came through the pack. “Take us with you…”
“Please,” the old man she had knocked down begged, shoving the young woman aside to try to get to Bunny first. He grabbed her arm, hard, and she wrenched it from his grip with shock as she backed away from the crowd… and her back hit the dead-end wall of the alley behind her.
This time when the old man reached her, Bunny pushed him back with all her strength.
“Get away from me!”
He toppled into the throng, taking a couple of other down with him.
“Please…” the old woman whispered, stepping over the fallen.
This was it. This was how she actually died—mauled to death by lost souls in some shady back alley of Purgatory. Bunny took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself to fight until the end. Strangely enough, she wasn’t scared to die. She knew too much now to be afraid of such a transition. Instead, her only regret was that Death wasn’t there to escort her.
