My body feels heavier than it used to. Am I gaining more mass? Is my body trying to compensate for this hollow feeling in my chest? This body that isn’t even a real body. This blob of jell-O, holding the essence of a pathetic man who died at a gas station, revived to a destiny he does not understand, and lived long enough to be huddling in the back of this shitty little car.

It keeps shaking. The bumps are starting to feel more violent. I’m starting to feel dizzy. I’m thinking we’re gaining altitude. Whatever roads Death is taking, they’re becoming more and more untraveled. It feels like we’re reaching out to something.

I hit my head against the door with the newest shake. Death glances into the rear-view mirror, but says nothing.

Peeking into the cage in arms, Ferdinand seems unfazed. He keeps spinning in his little wheel. I should feed him. I should take care of him. I should be good to him.

I don’t know where we’re going. I still can’t bring myself to ask. I just keep thinking about tomorrow, when the locals will find a burnt camper and a dead body at the steering wheel. Maybe the Spider-Man mask survived? Maybe some small-town cop will pull out his little map, with all the points and lines, and follow us along on our string of robberies. The man and the woman who robbed gas stations. The woman with the bandages. The man with a bullet in his head. Will he wonder beyond that? If he does, he’ll never get to know. I’ll know, sure. But it won’t matter. I won’t be there to tell the tale. I won’t be anywhere. Just like I’m not here now.

What is it? What is this thing in my chest? I’m wrong. It’s not emptiness. There’s something in there.

Is there a heart, buried somewhere deep within this thing? If I shove my hand inside, will I get to touch it? What happens if I pull it out? Will it hurt? It shouldn’t. I’m dead. Nothing can hurt me anymore.

I’m invincible.

The next bump isn’t from the road. I simply shiver at the sound of thunder.

How is it still raining?

The further we go, the less the droplets sound like taps. Up and up we go, and more and more it turns into white noise. A neglected television desperately searching for a channel to connect to. The view from the window slowly turns into static. There are no trees. There are no distant city lights. There are no stars. There isn’t even a road.

I keep thinking about what I’d done wrong. But it’s obvious enough. I should’ve never put that body together. I should’ve never given it to her. I should’ve stayed with Cassie. I wasn’t happy, sure. But she was. That counted for something. Counted for more than whatever all this is adding up to, I’m sure: one plus zero is still better than zero plus zero, right?

Through the static, I finally begin to see the shapes. Hands, reaching out from the other side. The car is just barely out of their reach. Death turns the radio off. It simply turns back on. They don’t try shutting it back off, resigning to the new melody of pained cries and petty secrets. The cries turn into screams and curses. Then back to cries. The ‘performers’ keep interchanging. None repeating. Each out of tune in their own special way.

How many?

How many people are possessing this storm?

How many want the chance to touch Death?

How many of them would it hurt to know I am the one they should appeal to?

How many of them know what the appeal is supposed to be?

The car rumbles less and less. The pressure in my chest moves to the abdomen. This time I know it’s the elevation I’m feeling. Gravity commands me, even in this state. It does not, however, command the car – as I begin to realize the wheels are no longer touching the road.

We’re flying. Carried on the static river, on the backs of the ghouls that live within it.

This storm did not haunt us, I realize. It did not chase us. And these hands, they neither appeal nor taunt. They’ve all gathered around to do what they were brought to do.

Because they don’t need to appeal. The deal has already been made. This storm is at Death’s command.

They know who I am. And they believe in a promise Death had made in my name.

It is not they that touched Death. Death is the one who carried them, merging them into the storm.

Countless as they may seem, they’re nothing to the number of the ones populating the world. Death had gotten just enough. Just enough for a shitty Fiat Punto. Just enough to go above all the checkpoints. Just enough for the world to forget us. Just enough to become a dot in the sky.

Just enough.

Toaster Ghost was just enough, wasn’t he? He was there. He would’ve been there forever. I remember the quiet nights. I showed him how to waltz. In return, he kissed me. The lips of an ectoplasm taste like cherries. I could’ve tasted those cherries forever. But I didn’t. And he knew I wouldn’t, anyway. That’s what made leaving him behind easier. The fact that he had expected it.

He told me he was scared that I might never find someone I won’t run away from, sooner or later. One plus one never staying one plus one. I think I believed him: I would always, I thought, become the zero that threw off the sum, no matter how much I tried. I felt justified in my belief.

But he was wrong. This was different.

Dee. Dee would've been the one. I’m sure of it.

I feel myself floating away from my seat. It seems even gravity’s command has its limits, as we cross the unknown threshold; the great TV’s static begins to come into focus, and I begin to make out cities of skyscrapers with twisted necks, valleys resting under a volcano’s tongue, spoons bent over desert suns, and I know – I know that this is not the world I was ever meant to see.

I bury my head in my hands.

And the channel changes.

The car plops down onto the ground. I clutch tightly to Ferdinand’s cage. The static turns back to rain, as I realize we’re in a motel parking lot. I look into the night. I see no hands trying to reach out. I see no morphed hellscapes. I see nothing but the blackest sky, and the Moon. The Moon tells me that I am as close to home as I’m going to get.

I look at Ferdinand. And he looks at me.

I’ve already dead. I’m in a body that can’t feel pain. I’m invincible.

And everything hurts.

And I want to see Mom, and I want her to offer me tea, and I want to go back and fail that History quiz as many times as I have to. I just need that moment again, in the darkness of my room. I need her to say:

“I never liked Dee all that much, anyway.”

Lie to me like you did back then.

If not that, silence would do. I won’t mind.

Just take me back.

“We’re here.” Death murmurs.

Who am I even begging at this point?

It’s just me now.

“I’m not doing this.” I say. “I’m not going to your successor. I don’t care about the pipe, or you, or whoever made you. Just leave me alone.”

“I—”

“There’s nothing to it. If you’d kept your mouth shut, maybe it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. It’s your fault. So why would I help, now or ever?”

Death sighs. “Don’t be petty. She’s the one who made the choice. It was always going to happen, sooner or later.”

“You don’t know.”

“I’m the one most likely to know.”

I shake my head. “I’m not trusting the judgement or wisdom of someone dumping their responsibilities on someone else.”

“You’d do the same thing in my shoes.”

“I’ll never be in your shoes.”

The massive diving helmet peeks into the back. “And I’ll never leave you alone until you are. I will follow you to the ends of the Earth.”

“You won’t have to go that far.” I chuckle. “I’ve got nowhere to go, after all.”