Nearly There

By Alex Mahon

Andrew must resist his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth in the Afterlife or risk losing his soul. Problem is, he's still deeply in love with her. Not only that, she fancies him and tries everything she can do to tempt him. 

 

While this is going on, Andrew has to raise money to restore a dilapidated church. It's not easy when there are very few parishioners who use the church as a place to sleep. Life stumbles along nicely when Elizabeth drops a bombshell that knocks Andrew for six.

 

Now he has a choice - Heaven or Hell? 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Mahon
• Release date: Sep 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386270850

Alex Mahon

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1964, but moved to Renfrew when I was seven. After wandering around various countries, working in numerous jobs, I met a woman In Lleida, Spain, who was crazy enough to put with my nonsense and married her. I now work as an English teacher as punishment for my past sins.

Book preview

Chapter 1

When I died and passed over to the other side, the only possession I had was a memory of Elizabeth. It was a hot afternoon in July about ten years ago when we had summer jobs at the tourist information office in Fort Augustus. That Sunday we had the day off and hired a rowing boat, intending to venture across Loch Ness. Neither of us had ever rowed before. We ended up veering off in all directions and going round in circles.

Finally, we settled for a spot close to shore, but far from prying eyes. From our backpacks, we took out our copies of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. We'd searched high and low for them in second-hand bookshops in Glasgow where we both studied English at university. The aim was to write a verse of our favourite poem on the inside cover and to recite it at the same time. The ceremony was as close to a wedding as we ever got, and to be honest, what with the scenery, the feeling, and all the rest of it, it was all we really needed. When the moment came, we both stopped after one line and laughed. Not only had we chosen the same poem, but also the same verse.

That was another life.

Now I was standing outside The Jock McTavish Inn that was once owned by Mrs. Pearson. It went bust when she took up collecting stuffed animals in her dotage, frightening away the customers. I used to see the mangy beasts close up when I had to fetch payment for the papers I delivered.

Tall weeds still grew between the cracks in the broken and half-embedded flagstones that led to the house. The number of beer cans and cigarette butts in the tousled garden had increased since my last visit, which must have been some twenty years ago. But the graffiti on the dour-grey facade had remained the same. All except my name, which I’d spray-painted in bright luminous orange above the door. It looked like I owned the house, something that did not go amiss by the police who demanded I scrub it off.

I was about to knock when the lamp tacked under the sill of the doorway flickered on, casting light on Generous Jane–a naked, wooden figure carved into the door. In medieval times her presence denoted a brothel...in England. What she was doing here was anybody's guess.

Vandals had abused her with a black marker pen, and now her blue eyes peered through lopsided spectacles. Her nipples had grown large and flat, and her other redeeming features left little to the imagination. Considering the previous tenant, it came as a great shock to me when I looked up the figure’s significance one night. I often wondered if Pearson had plied her trade from behind that door, and the guests were her customers. Or she was an old witch luring travellers to their deaths and hiding their stuffed bodies behind the walls or in the cellar.

The door creaked open, allowing a musty odour to escape. It made me want to spit; I would have done so if Pearson hadn’t suddenly appeared. I gasped at the sight of this lanky woman in her funeral frock, as I used to call it. The attire comprised a black dress that trailed the ground at one end and had a high collar at the other, stretching up to her ears. A black cardigan complemented it.

Her slate-grey eyes narrowed. Andrew Milligan. The stern voice chilled me to the marrow, as it did all the kids who lived in the village. Every time we passed by her door, she’d come outside and invite us in to take measurements of our body size for a future pedestal. One end of her lips curled up in a crooked smile. In you come.

I swallowed hard. Didn’t expect to see you here.

Where else would I go?

She was right on that score as she was synonymous with the inn. Even death could not prise open her bony fingers from the place. She was an unworldly creature-a demonic spider with a sticky web she had woven for innocents such as me. No way was I stepping inside there with her in it.

"Think I’ll go haunt