The Dead Tenants

The shot monster had gotten up and kept wandering around, but it seemed like it wasn’t able to detect them now that they were inside the better-looking building. It passed by it entirely, even though Ramiel was standing at the entrance, and it had yet to come back.

“They don’t see it.” The woman next to him said. “They don’t seem to detect it. We don’t know why, but we don’t question. We assume they’re souls who ended up in the wrong place, that’s all. It’ll take some time to get used to it, but you’ll settle in rather quickly.”

“So I’m dead, for real?” He’s believed it. It just sounds a little bit different when he hears somebody else say it out loud. “This is the afterlife?”

The woman smiles, honest, and nods.

“This is it, seven—“ She makes a small shrug and beckons him to follow. He can see the elevator, but there’s a carton table with OUT OF ORDER! written in big, round and neat handwriting pasted to one of the doors. He takes the stairs after the woman and they bypass the first floor. He notices what the doors look like – most of them were void of any decorations and there were total five of them on this floor, but he had only seen them briefly. Three of the doors were barren, but two had numbers – 3 and 5 if he wasn’t mistaken – and some sort of writing beneath them he wasn’t able to read with them moving so quickly.

The woman says something but Ramiel’s too lost in thought to hear. When he looks at her, wide eyed and confused, she laughs slightly and repeats.

“I said, do you have a name? It would be awkward if we all had to call you seven all the time.” He laughs with her then, too, even if it is a little bit strained and awkward – he doesn’t know her and she did pull the gun on him. She threatened to leave him there if he wasn’t fitting some unknown criteria: if he was a soul who ended up in a wrong place.

“Ramiel. Ramiel Bauman.” He offers and the woman raises her eyebrow.

“Ramiel? Like the angel?” But she doesn’t seem to want to belittle him or tease him or even talk about it. He knows that it was supposed to be a witty comment, so he just shrugs and lets her have her way. She keeps climbing the stairs – on the right, there’s a hallway with what seem to be the various supply closets. Immediately to their left is continuation to the staircase and then, even more to the left, more apartments, right above the ones on the first floor.

They pass one door with no markings on it and then another appears, with large, golden number 7 hanging on it. Beneath it, in one-inch caps, it says zeta.

“What’s a Zeta?” He asks, unsure of where to start and he touches the letters lightly. Dark haired woman watches him only for a moment.

“The order of arrival. Numbers are for the apartments, you know, but we know the order by the Greek alphabet.” She clarifies, approaching the door and trying the doorknob, but it won’t budge. “I’m Beta.”

“So you came here second.” His knowledge of Greek alphabet is limited to alpha, beta and gamma, so he’s not sure where exactly he stands and how many of them there are. “You speak like there’s more of you.”

“I came third. It’s another thing we don’t understand, you know. The positions are assigned in order, but they’re started from zero. So, in that way, I’m undoubtedly third.” She nods, seems to have forgotten about his later statement and turns to him, a little bit perplexed. Zero, alpha, beta, gamma. He still doesn’t know where he is in that order. “How did you die?”

“I—What?” He stops for a moment, looks at her, hoping that his gaze is questioning. “I was shot in the chest.”

She looks at him, his black coat and white, bloodied shirt. There’s no wound there. He would’ve felt it. Woman looks like she wants to do something with it, but she doesn’t touch him.

“Oh that’s easy, then.” She sounds relieved, too. “You’re gonna have to pull the key from out there. Bleed it out, so to speak.”

Ramiel blanches.

“What.” It’s not even a question. Then he steps away from her and away from the room. “What? No. That’s gross.”

“Come on.” Well, now she sounds teasing, stepping towards him but not touching him. “Don’t be a baby. I’ve had Alpha pull it out of my spine. Lots of whining, you know.” Just the thought makes Ramiel feel sickly, but he doesn’t want to whine before the woman. “On his side.”

“Oh.” He stops for a moment, thinks. “Do we not feel pain?” But then he remembers how he fell from being suspended in thin air and how his leg ached.

“Not with the keys since it’s the residue of human life seeping out. Otherwise we do feel pain, but we can’t die. Endless torture if you get caught outside.” She seems to find the entire thing amusing more than anything else. “I’ll explain everything once we’re inside, I promise. Now, do you want me to turn around?”

“Yes, please.” He doesn’t even know how this works or how to deal with it entirely, but he knows, to avoid embarrassment, he has to do this on his own. The woman not only turns around, but goes to the nearby window, perches her arms atop of it. In few moments, she even waves to somebody outside and mouths something. It must be one of the others that live here.

Ramiel turns his back to her and doesn’t pay attention to woman’s antics; instead, he unbuttons his already ruined shirt. He didn’t notice the bullet hole it had, given that it’s pasted itself to his coat and chest entirely. He undoes the buttons anyway, the tries removing the long chain hanging around his neck. It’s not something he remembers dying with, but he doesn’t question anything – he’s dead. He’s a zeta and the woman came here third and she’s not questioned things, either.

But how should he bleed it out? The chain won’t come off and it causes him pain when he tries to move it away, too, stuck to the wounded skin, so he leaves it like that. Instead, he presses the flesh on the sides of the wound. It’s true – the blood gushes out, staining the shirt and coat even more and falling to the floor, dark red and thick, but it doesn’t hurt. So he’s bleeding alright.

He notices the key only after the blood flow’s waned down and long after he’s been ready for the blood to stop altogether. He’s feeling dizzy, but the blonde is pretty sure it’s because he’s aware that the blood is coming from him. He doesn’t feel any pain.

They key comes moments later, when the blood stops and the last of the dark red, thick substance is moving away and falling to his shoes and surrounding floor – it’s hanging on the chain around his neck and now Ramiel can remove it without the agonising pain. He feels relieved. He feels light.

“Hey!” He calls out again, for the first time since meeting her aware that he doesn’t know the woman’s name. She responds to his shout anyway, saying something like All done? and motioning to the door when she approaches him. The key is heavy and mostly clean, shining chrome in the bright rays of sunshine.

He tries it – the key slides into the lock and door swings open effortlessly.

“I would take the shoes off first, if I was you. Nothing to be done about your clothes I suppose, but you’ll shred them in the bathroom.” He looks down, noticing that he is, indeed, leaving dark red footprints behind himself and nods distractedly, taking the shoes off before entering. The woman follows, undisturbed.

“It’s pretty nice.” He says after a first look. “Neat.” The shelves are empty. The woman must notice him looking at them.

“They’ll fill up with it. The apartment provides what you need and what it can’t provide, we can take from the stores.” The ones with the peeled off signs and gaping doors. They could take it, he supposes, if they don’t get accosted by those monsters first. “We exchange things with one another as well. Gotta find a way to kill time and all. We’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Forever is a long time.” Ramiel says in the end, shrugging, because he’s never thought he would die young – he honestly thought he would live forever, as people who are alive do, and he’s all sorts of puzzled now that the eternity is here.

“It is.” He doesn’t say anything in return and keeps looking through the apartment. The entranceway leaves room for a small closet on the right which the woman opens and he notices that clothes are lined inside, but he doesn’t pay closer attention to them – not until he’s seen where everything is. Little kitchen comes immediately after the entrance, separated from the living room only by a tall bar, high chairs propped on the outer side of it, towards the living room. On the inner side, empty shelves are looking at him – for the liquor, he supposes, even though he doesn’t drink so he’ll probably find some other use for it.

“I didn’t catch your name.” He asks, trying to sound a little bit lost (he doesn’t need much effort) when he gets into a narrow hallway, two doors there – one on the left side and one in front of him. On the left is a bathroom, on right a large mirror and the door in the front leads into a rather large bedroom. There’s window there – it seems to be looking on the inner yard. A woman with dark skin is sitting in one of the benches and writing something.

“I never threw my name at you.” The woman smiles again. “It’s Mari Moe. Moe is okay.”

Her eyes are strange in colour and he’s only noticed now, when he’s not panicking as much, when he’s somewhat calmer than what he’s been before. They’re nearly purple. He also failed to notice that she’s got what appears to be the hearing aid attached to both of her ears, but he hasn’t noticed anything different about the way she spoke or handled herself.

“It’s nice to meet you, Moe. When can I bother you about explaining—?“ He uses his finger to point towards the ceiling, like it explains everything. “I would like to have a shower first, if that’s okay.” He notices the clock behind her, too. He was killed at two past midnight, but it seemed it was well past noon now. Well. He’s not really sure that time mattered here anyway.

“Sure. I’m gonna grab some lunch and then you can meet me in downstairs in an hour? I’ll show you how to get to the inner yard. It’s the only open safe space.” He understands that, somewhat, as it’s technically a part of the building. From what he could see from the window, the place is rather large – much larger than five apartments per floor like he’s initially assumed. He wonders how many people live in here.

“That’s fine... Thank you.” He waits for moment, sees her walk towards the door and follows. “Sorry for bothering you.”

“It’s fine. I’ve been explaining stuff to everybody ever since I’ve gotten here anyway.” And she’s third. It’s a feat, or so Ramiel thinks. “Oh—and lock the door when you’re own. Just, you know, in case. You can never be too careful here.”

“I will. Thank you again.” She waves and leaves then. He sees her round the corner and go downstairs, so that means she either lives on the first floor or in another part of the building. He’ll ask the next time he sees her, so that he knows where to search for her. Just in case.

Right before he goes back to his own apartment, he hears door click shut at the end of his hallway, but when he turns around, everything’s just the way it was before he’s entered. He shrugs and doesn’t think about it.