My heart beat echoed its crescendo then slowed. Every thump sent more of my blood spilling on the damp, filthy pavement behind the Nasty Nancy. It mingled with empty wrappers and other garbage, which masked the smell of my last moments on this earth.

Twenty dollars, twenty fucking dollars. That’s how little my life was worth.

A tear rolled down my cheek. My heart tired and my head swam in and out of consciousness. From the corner of my eye, I saw a mirage of a dim light, but the world snuffed out of existence before I could even give a damn.

The darkness was heavy. I was suffocating, yet the urge to breathe was absent. I was still there—somewhere.

There was no bright light to go to, nor was there a pit of fire to fall into. It was just an all-enveloping black mass. Like when you sit at the bottom of a pool and the water is just there—hugging you. I relaxed into it, letting it hold me. It was painless, calm, silent.

Then I floated.

Up I went like a helium balloon as the strings that tethered me to reality snapped. It was then when I truly understood the meaning of the word liberating.

I could get used to this, I thought, and gave myself over to the rising tide.

A strong, dare I say obnoxious, light cut through my peaceful ascension through death and I blinked. I had stopped rising and was just hovering in place. My sight was a blurry mess of black, and grey smudges temporarily lit up by flickering green flashes. I kept blinking until my vision cleared.

The corner tops of buildings framed the early dawn. The storm clouds from the night before still clung to the sky, now a steel grey as the sun slowly awoke.

I was meant to be dead… wasn’t I?

I turned my head and sure enough: the puke green sign of the Nasty Nancy winked back at me. I rolled over, but it felt wrong. It was like spinning in water, rather than rolling over on the ground. Sadly, gravity wasn’t the only thing wrong about me.

Under me was, well, me. A very dead me, in fact. A pale, bluish me with my mouth open like the habitual snorer on the bus and my eyes crossed, looking at nothing and everything at the same time.

So, I was dead after all.

My long hair was matted with blood and my makeup was all over the place. Death… wasn’t pretty.

Not wanting to look at my deformed face anymore, I tried to backflip myself into a vertical position, but I over-corrected and ended up spinning in place.

The clothes in the washing machine sure had it rough.

I came to a stop with my head towards the ground. Good thing I was a ghost, otherwise my dress would have been around my armpits.

It seemed moving was going to be much harder than I anticipated. I tried again, slower and more calculated this time. It took a minute, but I painstakingly inched myself in the proper orientation. I let out a breath I didn’t remember ever taking and looked around some more.

Around my body was a halo of glowing fluorescent fungus and it was spreading onto my exposed skin.

I remember hearing about it on the news briefly, something about it being extremely infectious and to stay as far away as possible from it. However, they never said why, or maybe I just never paid attention.

I never thought that it would happen to me.

I shrugged my shoulders and waved it off. I was dead, so it wasn’t my problem anymore.

A gust of wind rushed through the alley and picked up the loose litter. I squealed like a toddler, afraid that I might get blown away, but I felt nothing. Thankfully, the stiff breeze didn’t behave like waves in water.

I let out a sigh of short-lived relief as I faced a dirty puddle of dumpster water. In my rush to scrunch up in reflex, I flipped myself on my stomach.

I had to hurry and figure out the moving thing if I wanted to move on with my ghostly afterlife.

I wiggled my way upright again and spun towards the back door of the Nast Nancy. If I was going to get the hang of it, I had to practice. I tried to take a step forward, but nothing happened. I felt nothing from the waist down.

My eyebrows furrowed, and I looked at my legs. Starting from my hips, my body faded away. It looked like someone erased my lower half in a gradient. I could barely see my knees poking out from under my dress and my feet were nonexistent.

At least people got one thing right about ghosts. But that also meant I couldn’t walk.

I ran a hand through my hair. Existing as a ghost kind of felt like being eternally submerged in water. Maybe I could swim? The idea didn’t seem that farfetched, so I stretched my arms in front of me and tried the breast stroke.

Nothing.

If I had any blood in me, I would have blushed, but I was just left with the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment. Thank God I was alone and no one could actually see me.

I threw my head back in exasperation and yelped as I flew backwards. I squealed again as I stared wide eyed at a mold stain on a yellowing ceiling. Blinking a few times, I straightened up again.

Ok, so leaning was the way to go, and walls were not a problem.

Creaking and moaning echoed from behind me. I dove forward, clenching my eyes shut when the wall got unbearably close. By the time I flinched, I was out again.

Moving was like riding those hoverboards, not that I could ever afford one.

I wondered if leaning worked in every direction and after some testing—it seemed so. Even up and down worked similarly to stretching up and crouching.

Feeling proud of myself for figuring it out, I spun around to explore my surroundings some more. The back of the alley was filthier, and the front was empty.

My body… it vanished.

I stared at the fluorescent outline of where it had been as panic rippled through me. I was alone. No one had come in or out. How could my body just disappear?

I darted towards the entrance of the alley and saw my corpse stumbling into the empty street. Dawn was melting into morning and people were about to wake up.

Shit, what was I supposed to do?

My jaw dropped as I watched myself drunkenly step onto the road and in the way of an approaching car.

"You fucking moron! Don’t just run into the street like that," I yelled at myself in horror. But as expected, the white, old, and rusty Toyota Corolla Sedan soon rammed my corpse.

The man got out of the car and yelled a string of profanities at my body. I flew over and looked at my zombie self, groaning and stumbling back to its feet. The bone in my elbow stuck out, but no blood dripped. I left it all in the alleyway.

I flinched at the injury and the man fell into silence. He probably realized what was happening when he saw the glowing fungus clinging like a tattoo to my face and neck.

"Oh, God…" he mumbled to himself, and dove back into his car. As soon as he could reach it, he pulled out a gas mask from the glove compartment and slipped it over his head. I had didn't know how much good that would do after being so close to my infected corpse, but I prayed for the best for him. He backed up and with a U-turn tore down the read from whence he came.

I sighed and ran a hand over my face. With it still over my mouth, I side-eyed myself stumbling in the middle of the road.

"You’re gonna be a pain in the ass aren’t you." I pinched the bridge of my nose and followed me.

Other than the one car, everyone else was still indoors so, I—or what was left of me—safely crossed the street, somehow. But the sidewalk proved to be its own challenge as zombie me got her leg stuck in a broken sewer grate as soon as she stepped up the curb.

I barely resisted the urge to face-palm myself back into the inky void.

She dropped to her knees and tried to crawl. When that failed, she twisted at the ankle and kicked in any direction she could.

"You absolute dumbass! Do you have shit for brains? The lump of flesh is still in that head. Why aren’t you using it? You’re gonna break it off!"

My anger turned into an icy shiver when I heard the series of sickening cracks. My eyes bulged out of my ghost head at the sight of zombie me pulling her leg out and continuing to limp forward on a jagged pale bone.

"Jesus Christ, if you are real, send help," I muttered in a small voice. My resolve to see what was going to happen to my body wavered, but it wasn’t enough to make me leave. Not yet.

I moved closer and peered down at the grate. The fungus covering my foot spread rapidly in the warm, damp sewage.

It—it wanted to leave it behind.

Shit!

I flew between the buildings after my corpse. It was getting faster as it picked up on how to walk in a human body. It took a few familiar turns that made my heart wilt with fear. The school, my students. It was looking for more hosts!

At the next intersection, I looked at the digital clock that always lit up the window of the small tobacco store. There was still an hour left before the kids gathered on the campus and another half hour before class was in session.

I looked back at my diseased self to find her stuck on the railing that bordered the street. I hoped it would take it a long time to figure out how to get around its new obstacle, at least long enough for the proper authorities to take action.

It bumped into it a few times, trying to force its way through, but the sturdy iron held steady. She grabbed it and tried to pull back and forth even with the broken arm, but it still stood firm. She grunted and screamed and amid her fit, she bent over it far enough for the remaining foot to lift off of the ground.

Silence fell as the gears in what was once my own brain turned. I watched in horror as she continued to lean forward and dropped to the other side.

"Fuck! No! Why did you have to start thinking now of all times! God damn you," I screamed and tore at my hair, but I felt no physical pain.

She pulled herself up again and went to cross the road once more. The city was waking up. Cars were on the streets and I hoped that at least one more would mow her—it—down.

One came barreling down, but slowed to a stop when they noticed me. It was a couple in their mid 30ties.

Their eyes widened when they saw the fungus that was now dripping from my maw and elbow. The woman reached for the masks they kept with them and the man slammed on the reverse. In his panic, he didn’t see the car behind and they crashed.

The other man came out to argue but immediately jumped back in when he, too, saw what was going on. More cars came, they all stopped. No one was risking running that thing over.

I turned my attention back to it to see how far it had went, but it was still standing in place. The confusion only lasted until it took a step towards the couple in the first car.

The now properly masked woman pulled out a phone from her pocket, pressed a few numbers with shaky hands, then brought it to her ear. She kept facing my approaching body. The mask obscured her face completely and I was too far away from her to hear what was being said.

She put her phone away when my body reached their front bumper and punched the man in the arm. He jumped, waking up from his stupor, and threw himself towards the back seats. He brought back with him a blowtorch.

I didn’t know why they would need to carry one within reach, but I was grateful.

He rolled down his window just enough to slip the nozzle through and waited for my body to move closer. It staggered to his side at the sight of an open window, but as soon as it turned the corner of the car, he let loose the flames.

I watched in pained horror as my body screamed and stumbled back. It lost balance on the stub and fell to the ground, arms raised over its face. It writhed and convulsed for a solid two minutes, then fell still. I flew down to crouching height next to it. Everyone stayed unmoving, waiting to see what was going to happen next.

After another two uneventful minutes, the couple relaxed. The man even dared to open the door to take a closer look.

I did not share in the relief. If it could rip off its own foot and keep going, then I doubted a few seconds of fire would do it any serious damage.

The man ventured even closer. He walked up to my corpse and nudged it with his foot. It stood still, yet I still wasn’t at peace. I kept my eyes on it as he turned his back to it with his chest puffed out.

If he hadn’t, he would have seen it twitch.