I Can't Hang

He looked as if he was seriously gonna bite my head off.

And me being the idiot who still didn’t believe my time was up, just looked at him funny.

The guy put his hands on his hips, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. Under his pouted lip was a soul patch, and above it were flared nostrils and eyes that shot out this look of ‘I hate my life.’

And above that? A halo.

“Wh…who…” I stuttered, gulping to maintain stability.

“Who do I look like, kid?” he spat, his palms up in defiance. “I’m Mr. Stay Puft.”

I cocked my head. He wasn’t making sense to my confused-to-the-core brain.

“Are you gonna come with me or what?” he bugged.

“I…I c-can’t…” I fumbled, fixing my hair and fidgeting and basically having ants in my pants. “J-just…wh-who…”

“I’m Brady. Now shut up and let’s go to Heaven.”

Heaven. The word struck my heart like dynamite. This couldn’t have been real. I knew there was no such thing as Heaven. It was all just a myth – bedtime stories parents tell their kids so they have something to look forward to after death.

I didn’t budge.

The guy grabbed my shoulder and pulled me. I still didn’t move.

“Kid, you’re not makin’ this easy. The traffic I had to deal with on the way here was bad enough – don’t make it harder.”

I slapped his hand away and shook my head. “N…no. No.”

When he made a reach for my arm, I came close to screaming for help, but then I remembered that no one would hear me and it’d basically be rendered useless. Instead I whipped it out of his grasp and turned on my heel, darting away from him.

The best part was, I couldn’t get hit by anything and nobody could see me. Perfect.

The worst part was, Brady kinda…had wings.

Running so fast jarred my legs and made me pant harder than I ever had in my entire life – even before I was dead and everything! – but before I knew it there were hands under my armpits and a knee in my back.

“God help me, I got me a runner,” he muttered under his breath, probably thinking I couldn’t hear him. Lifting me into the air and pulling me high, he kept a firm grasp even though I was pretty much kicking and screaming in his ear.

We flew over to a quiet alley, where he harshly dropped me onto my butt. I winced for a second in pain, but got up and made another break for it.

No use. Brady grabbed me before I could even think about going into the street again.

“Shut up and listen to me!” he yelled into my ear.

The volume of his voice shocked me into relaxation. I slipped out of his grip and stared up at him in fear. His wings were out and fully expanded, white, and glittery. They shined bright enough to light up the entire alley.

I was absolutely terrified.

“Are you gonna be good now?” he asked, a mean scowl written across his face.

I couldn’t speak.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Brady stepped closer to me and tried to hold my hand – I don’t know why – but I ripped my arm away before he could touch me. I didn’t run away this time, but he acted like I was going to and once again, pulled me into a tight grasp.

I whimpered. I seriously thought that he was going to kill me. Or shank me, at least.

“Now. You’re gonna shut up, you’re gonna accept the fact that you’re dead, and we’re gonna go up into Heaven and register you as an angel, and then I’m gonna talk some sense into you, and then you’re gonna fly around and enjoy the afterlife and I’m gonna regret ever doing this after knowing how mean you can be,” he whispered creepily into my face.

“Who are you?” I finally spoke, able to speak in a complete sentence rather than dumb stutters.

He let go and shoved me away. I turned around, staring at him, freaked out by the giant wings that hadn’t retracted yet. Feathers fell from them and gathered at his feet, but the wings didn’t go bare at all.

“Brady Della Porta,” he stated simply. “Dead at twenty-seven, July 31st 1986.” He paused to crack a smirk that had a hint of mischief in it. “Plane crash on my way back from Atlanta.”

I cocked my head, trying to process the information that he just gave me. “O…okay…but…why…why am I…”

“You’re dead, Kyle.”

How the hell did he know my name?

“B-but…I can’t be…I’m…I’m only fourteen!”

“Lotsa people die at fourteen!” he groaned, rubbing his eyes. “You were bein’ stupid and walked out into traffic, and you got hit by a car.”

I looked at him funny, noticing the way his accent twisted the simple word to sound like he was calling it a “cah.” Combined with my less-than-stellar state of mind at that moment, I couldn’t help but gape at the guy. “A car?”

He rolled his eyes. “Car. Vroom-vroom. Gas. A car.”

“So…a car?”

“Yeah. A car!”

Yeah, I was pretty sure this dude lived and died somewhere in New York at the very least.

Brady quietly walked closer to me, his palms facing upward. His formerly mean face had gone blank, but I still didn’t want him getting close. Not when he already had a habit of invading my no-no square.

“Kid, you’re not makin’ this easy.”

I stood up straight, shoulders back and sneer loaded. “So what? What if I don’t wanna die?”

That was when Brady laughed at me. It was the freakiest, weirdest, creepiest cackle I think I’d ever heard.

“Answer me, asshole,” I spat, pulling out the insults.

He instantly put on a straight face and pointed at me. “Hey. Enough’a that. Angels don’t cuss.”

“What…? Angels?”

He smiled smugly, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s right. I’m an angel, and you’re gonna be one in about five minutes.”

I snorted. “Sure. Right. I’m gonna believe some random freak I met thirty seconds ago. I’m probably just dreaming in the hospital, and I’m gonna wake up…now.”

“Nope.”

“Okay…now!”

“Kyle -”

“NOW!”

“Kid, shut up!” Brady yelled again. “Dang! You’re the biggest brat I think I ever had to deal with. Now I know why nobody else volunteered for this one…”

I laughed. “Good.”

He moved toward me again, but I backed away quickly. “Kyle…c’mon. Seriously, bro. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Heaven. That’s where people go when they die. Good kids, anyway.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling. “Sh’yeah. I’m definitely dreaming.”

“What? You don’t believe in Heaven?”

“Um, it’s not exactly easy to believe in, not if you can take care of yourself.”

Brady raised an eyebrow. He genuinely looked like he wanted to kill me, or himself. Except…you know. “I hope you’re kidding.”

“Nope,” I grunted, arms crossed. “I’m pretty serious, actually.”

“Well, I’ll just have to prove you wrong, then,” Brady smiled. The contempt etched into his olive-skinned mug faded away. “Now let’s go.”

This time, when he grabbed me by the wrist, I didn’t dare yank it away.