Dead Enough.

By Shana Saban

Zoe doesn’t have much of an afterlife. The only thing that’s changed since the day she was shot and killed in a convenience store robbery is the number of holes in her chest, up from zero to one. She still attends her regular haunts, sends emails to her devastated and confused friends, and spends the rest of the time at her “grandparents” house avoiding being sat in by the cat. All that changes when Saul, her afterlife tech support guy, recruits her on a dangerous mission to search out and defeat a lost spirit seemingly bent on ending the world. On the way she encounters Death (literally), meets Saint Peter (Pete to his friends), forms strange alliances, and comes face to face with other ghosts that range from downright evil to inconveniently confused. A self-admitted slacker holds the key to preventing the apocalypse and saving her own soul in the process. And she thought the cat thing was a problem....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shana Saban
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463583364

Shana Saban

Shana Saban loves writing. Shana Saban is working on another book as you read this. Shana Saban is hoping it will not take another ten years to finish the next book, but Shana Saban makes no promises.Shana Saban lives in Texas with her young husband and two loving children. Shana Saban may have reversed the adjectives on that last sentence. Shana Saban subscribes to the rapper philosophy that if Shana Saban says her name enough times in her work, you will remember Shana Saban.Shana Saban needs to feed her family and Shana Saban wants to be able to afford to adopt a dog. Buy Shana Saban's work.Shana Saban thanks you.

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Dead Enough

By: Shana Saban

Copyright 2018 Shana Saban

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

About Shana Saban

Other Titles by Shana Saban

Connect with Shana Saban

Premise

Zoe doesn’t have much of an afterlife. The only thing that’s changed since the day she was shot and killed in a convenience store robbery is the number of holes in her chest, up from zero to one. She still attends her regular haunts, sends emails to her devastated and confused friends, and spends the rest of the time at her grandparents house avoiding being sat in by the cat. All that changes when Saul, her afterlife tech support guy, recruits her on a dangerous mission to search out and defeat a lost spirit bent on ending the world. On the way she encounters Death (literally), meets Saint Peter (Pete to his friends), forms strange alliances, and comes face to face with other ghosts that range from downright evil to inconveniently confused. A self-admitted slacker holds the key to preventing the apocalypse and saving her own soul in the process. And she thought the cat thing was a problem….

Dedicated to my sister, Angela

Because she told me I had to.

And also, she’s awesome.

Acknowledgements

I have the most amazing family in the world. Think about how awesome your family is. Unless they’re not. Then think about how awesome the Full House family is. Then turn the volume up to 11. That’s how awesome my family is. They gave me the confidence to think that I might actually be able to write a little something one day. Then my sister gave me an idea and told me I had to write it for her. No choice. No say. Oh, and then she told me I had to dedicate it to her as well. So I did. And I did.

My sister, husband, parents, parents-in-law, uncles, aunts, first cousins, third cousins twice removed, they all told me, You should write. So I did. Eventually. Because I always do what I’m told. Eventually.

Then there is the person who isn’t family, but might as well be. My best friend, my soul’s best friend, Shanna. She dragged me to writer’s groups. She called me to make sure I was toiling away on my novel. If she found out I wasn’t, she said things like, Woman! (Her pet name for me) "If you don’t write, how are you ever going to write?" She’s got a way with words. She’s a writer, too. She offered advice when I needed it, inspiration when I needed it, editing help when I needed it and an occasional kick in the pants. (Come to think of it, that part was just rude, because of course I never needed that!)

Speaking of writer’s groups (I did. Up there. Are you paying attention?), a big shout out to The Writer’s Critique in Fort Worth. They are still working with me to perfect this piece, and their advice has been invaluable, and the friendships I’ve forged there priceless. Big thank you to the rocks of the group Katie, Liza, Jerri, John, and Tiombe. Some people have a squad, I have critters. (They know what I mean. It’s not creepy. Well, maybe a little.)

Last but not least, I must include the SMU Writer’s Path program in this list. I had a wisp of an idea when I attended the program, a little, emaciated, starving chimp of an idea. When I left there, I was leading a 300 pound gorilla on a leash, an idea that had to be tamed and trimmed because it had become so big and hairy! They gave me the tools to create something out of literally (or should I say "literarily?) almost nothing. You would not be reading these acknowledgements if it weren’t for them. Okay, you might be, because I tend to put the horse before the cart, but there wouldn’t be a big, fat, (hopefully) beautiful book behind this page.

Speaking of the book behind this page, thank YOU for buying it! And, as it is not complete (but I am in the 9th month of gestation), please feel free to offer your ideas and comments on how to perfect my offspring before I release it onto the world at large! Who knows, I might add you to this extremely entertaining (that everyone always reads in every book) acknowledgements page.

-Shana

Chapter 1

Zoe’s death happened nothing like she’d expected. The few times in her life that she’d thought about dying and the afterlife, she pictured all of the usual clichés. She would die in bed at about 90 years old in her lavish mansion, surrounded by her loved ones and her thirty-something year old fifth husband, Ciero, her adoring fans holding a candlelight vigil in the courtyard below. Her twenty-three year old lover would be in the guest house, prostrate with grief.

In her vision of the future, Zoe died quietly, and more importantly, painlessly, her perfectly white hair splayed on the pillow in ringlets, her age-defying face softening as the light left her eyes. As she grasped Ciero's hand in hers, her last words were going to be Tell God I'm ready for my close-up.

In reality, God decided that the Circle S convenience store would have to do. He also chose her twenty-third year as her last. She hadn't even been given time to get a first husband to divorce, and the adoring fans outside were replaced with one homeless wino begging for change.

The gun shot tearing through her stomach released an explosion of pain Zoe could only compare to being hit by a tiny freight train traveling at 1800 miles per hour. Her last words just prior to being shot were give me the.... Later, newspapers would sing the praises of her heroism at trying to get the guy robbing the store to give up his gun. No one knew that with so much alcohol churning in her system she thought the guy worked there and was trying to buy a pack of cigarettes from him.

Back in the mansion, 90 year-old Zoe's life played like a movie in front of her eyes in the moments before her death. Money, success, love, and happiness scrolled on like Frank Capra himself had directed it. All in all, not too shabby, imaginary, satisfied, 90-year old Zoe thought.

In reality, at the Circle S convenience store one summer night at about three am, her life didn't flash before her eyes when her killer fired the gun. There really wasn't much of interest to see, as she thought it had only just begun. In reality, what shot through her mind as the bullet shot through her body was dammit, my mother was right.

That thought might possibly have upset her more than the whole being killed thing.

#

I don't want you going out tonight.

Zoe rolled her eyes at her mother. If her last roommate hadn't decided to have an affair with their landlord and gotten them kicked out by a very angry wife (annoying that they both got evicted, since she had nothing to do with it), Zoe wouldn't have to be back here living with her mother and dealing with her insanity.

Susan, I'm twenty-three years old. I can do what I want. She turned back to the mirror and applied her second coat of lipstick.

Stop calling me Susan! I'm your mother! And that's my point. You're twenty-three. Do you know what I was doing at twenty-three? Raising you!

Zoe eyeballed her mom, not an easy trick with an eyelash curler attached to her face. "Raising me, Sus – mom?"

What are you talking about?

I remember where I spent every Friday and Saturday night growing up. Staying with grandma so that you could go tear up the town!

Her mother's eyes widened. That just isn't true!

Mom, save it. Like mother, like daughter, right? The boob doesn't pop too far out of the bra, I guess. She slipped past her mother into the hallway.

Susan turned to follow her to her room. Okay, if you want to go down that road, then that's another reason you shouldn't go out tonight!

Zoe stopped digging through the piles of clothes on her bedroom floor and looked up at her mother. What?

Well, if I was such a terrible person and you don't want to be anything like me, then you should stay home tonight. According to you, I never did that, so... Susan shrugged.

Nice try, mom. Zoe went back to digging. "You want to know how I am not being like you? Finding the jeans she had been searching for, she stood up. I'm on birth control."

Susan's eyes widened, You... how dare you... I wasn't... you can't...

Zoe felt triumphant; there's the nerve she wanted to hit! She knew she had been a mistake; her mother had told her so on many a drunken night. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her jeans. Grabbing the keys off her night stand, she brushed past her still stuttering mother, said, Don't wait up, and headed down the hallway towards the front door.

Susan grabbed Zoe's arm, finding her words, "Not a mistake, a surprise. Like Ed McMahon telling you you've won the lottery."

Yeah, or the president telling Hiroshima to duck. Zoe yanked her arm back and kept walking.

Her mother followed her outside. Look, I didn't want to say it, because I know you think I'm crazy, but I have a bad feeling about tonight. I just feel like something could... happen to you.

"Is this grandma talking to you from the grave again? I don't think you're crazy. I think she's crazy for still wanting to hang out with you when she could go to heaven and play bocce ball at the activity center! Zoe looked up at the sky. Go into the light, grandma, go!" She opened her car door.

She does impart her wisdom to me. Just because someone dies, doesn't mean they stop caring about the people they love.

Zoe rolled her eyes. Mom, that's a great saying. Why don't you embroider it on a pillow so I can sit on it when I get home? She got in the car and started the engine.

Her mom ran down the porch steps, hollering. Be careful, baby! Please!

Waving a dismissive hand out the window, Zoe responded with, Whatever, mom.

#

The bullet entered her body, jerking her backwards. Her eyes bulged from the pain, and her hands flew instinctively to the wound. Looking down, she saw tracers of shimmering yellow light swirling up from the bullet hole. Now, that's odd. She tried to grasp at them, then realized her fingers were shimmering and yellow, too. She brought her hand to her face, examining it like she'd never seen it before, perhaps because she hadn't. Not like this, anyway. She looked down and observed that her entire body sparkled, like a vampire in a bad book she read once. Everything seemed to be happening slow motion. She heard a thud behind her.

Turning around, she stared at her body on the floor, and it looked up at her with dead eyes.

Hmmm. This is definitely getting weird.

She turned at the sound of another gun shot, about to shout, dude, you got me, chill out! But this shot came from a police officer's gun, pointed at her killer. The bullet hit him in the chest and he staggered back, the gun he had trained on the police officer moments before flying out of his flailing arm and skittering to the floor. Zoe watched his body fall away as his shimmering... aura? Soul?... something... pulled apart from it. The way it contorted and stretched as it came loose from his body reminded her of the crazy mirrors in a Fun House.

The next moment, they were standing there, facing each other. The sounds of the officers yelling, the other customers screaming, and the ambulance sirens echoed far away and contorted, as if Zoe heard them from underwater. The world around her turned fuzzy, but she could see him, her attacker, with a perfect clarity. They made eye contact and he cocked his head, looking like a confused puppy.

That's when she saw it. From behind him came a blurry flash, like static-filled lightning. A skeletal hand creeped around the neck of her killer, and a bone face forever frozen into a smile came to rest on his shoulder. Was that... Death? There is no way dying was really this cheesy! Those terrible B horror films couldn't have been spot on. As if in answer, the tip of a scythe appeared from her attacker's chest, splitting his ethereal shape in half from behind. The static blur flashed again, providing pyrotechnics for Death's exit, along with half of her killer's form. The other half sagged to the floor, the incandescent light it exuded moments before sputtering like a flashlight with dying batteries.

Zoe spun around, sure she would find Death flashing up behind her. She backed up slowly, scanning the room for any sign of static light. Her foot connected with something, and she lost her balance. She fell in a heap on top of her killer’s dimming half-form.

Zoe yelped and scrambled back on her butt, but it made no move towards her. In fact, it seemed to be crying quietly, like a small child. Eyes still peeled for Death, she reached a tentative hand toward it. She wasn't sure what her intentions were, other than to see if it lay dying. She had no clue how to check the pulse on a half form of an already dead guy, but she reached for what she thought was its wrist anyway. When her hand connected with it, a blinding flash dazzled her eyes. She yanked her arm back and tried to blink away the spots clouding her vision. The form on the floor grasped at her arm desperately; her skin burned where it touched her. She tried to pull away from it, in a desperate tug-of-war with something resembling a glittering yellow gummy bear. Seemingly unaware of her attempts to disentangle herself from it, the half-being curled around and crawled up her arm, a wispy, smoke-like snake of light wrapping around and through her fingers. She watched, frozen with WTF-edness, as the yellow tendrils traveled across her chest, and sank into her body. Her skin tingled in the places that they slowly absorbed and disappeared.

Wide eyed and still trying to scrabble away from the danger, Zoe fell on her butt. At the same time the world came rushing back to her at full speed, like a film instantly converted from black and white mono to Technicolor with digital surround sound. There were official looking people snapping pictures, cops interviewing the shaken store clerk, and paramedics peering down at her body. One of them turned and shook his head slowly at a police officer standing nearby.

The loudest sound Zoe ever heard was the zipper closing on her body bag.

#

Zoe followed her body to the ambulance and climbed inside. She wanted to stay with her corporeal self, even though an uneasy feeling nagged at her that it wouldn't make a difference.

The ambulance driver didn't turn on the sirens. They drove at the speed limit and obeyed all traffic rules. No one even rode in the back with her. Zoe screamed at the driver, "Go! Go! Go! There's got to still be hope! If I'm dead than why am I here?" She received no response from him, almost as though he had no idea she was there. She looked back at the body bag strapped to the gurney. Why would they need to hurry? In case I'm a zombie and about to rise up and kill them? Zoe glanced at the body bag. Did it just move? An hour ago she would have laughed her ass off if someone tried to sell any supernatural idea on her, but in light of recent circumstances... When the body bag betrayed not a rustle, she shook her head. The only reason for them to rush now would be to get the freezer drawer by the window. She assumed that there's probably no wait at the morgue. She settled back on the bench and chewed on her nails, staring at the cuticles. She had never been a nail biter before, but what could it hurt now? She figured out rather quickly why she had never picked up this habit. Nails tasted weird. She stopped chewing and decided to pick at the embroidery on her jeans instead. The thought