Free Suicide Girls In The AfterLife by Gina Ranalli Page B

almost there.”
   Reluctantly, I face forward and see the tunnel. “We’re not that close.”
   “We’ll be there in five minutes if you can manage to keep your feet moving.”
   The impatience in his voice tells me that I’ll be better off just doing as I’m told for the time being and the thought distresses me. Dead and still taking orders? What a drag…
   
     

Chapter 4
       Salvadore speaks the truth. As we walk forward, the tunnel’s opening grows nearer much faster than it should have. It seems as if it too is moving, closing the distance between us, meeting us halfway.
   But, of course, the tunnel can’t be moving. That’s impossible.
   Nonetheless, we arrive at the mouth within five minutes, though it had previously appeared to be at least a half-hour walk. I stop in my tracks and peer uneasily into the darkness of that black, gaping cavern.
   Beside me, Salvadore stops as well. Apparently sensing my trepidation, he says, “There’s nothing to fear, I can assure you.”
   I glance at him skeptically before assessing everything around me once more. Before me, a tunnel of darkness. To either side, what appears to be dense forest and behind me, nothing. I look down and wonder if the road beneath my feet is anything more than a mere illusion.
   “How do I know this isn’t a tunnel to hell?” I ask.
   “There’s only one way to find out,” he says. “Besides, what choice do you have? You can either enter and see where it leads or you can stand here on the brink for all eternity.”
   I consider the options, and decide that maybe staying right where I am forever wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’d have the trees, the distant sound of birds and insects. Quite relaxing, actually.
   Once again reading my thoughts, Salvadore says, “You’d stand here for about an hour before boredom and anxiety set in and then you’d steel yourself and enter the tunnel anyway. But, you’d be doing it alone, since I have other appointments to make and don’t have time to hang around and baby you.”
   I’m tempted to argue—certainly it would take more than an hour for me to get bored—but I know he’s right. Eventually, I’d start to get freaked out, sandwiched between vast white and black, and would probably end up lunging into one or the other without any sense of what I was doing.
   Clenching my fists, I inhale deeply and take the first steps into the black tunnel, Salvadore at my side.
     
     

Chapter 5
       I have no idea how long we’re in the tunnel but it seems to be only an instant. In that instant however, I lose all sense of self: there is no up or down, I can’t hear, see or smell anything. I can’t feel my body or the ground beneath my feet. I have no sense of any movement whatsoever, much less feel myself walking. If Salvadore is still beside me, his presence is undetectable.
   And in a blink of an eye, we emerge on the other side, whole and still side by side, standing atop a high green hill and looking down upon a brilliant and sparkling glass city.
   Instinct tells me that if I turn to glance back at the tunnel it will no longer exist, but I look anyway and see that I’m right. Only lush forest lies behind us now, cool and dark, inviting in its impossibility.
I face front again, gaze down at the bright buildings, sunlight glinting off windows and chrome, and release the breath I have pent up in my lungs, the very same breath I had taken just before entering the tunnel.
   “Welcome to the Virgin City, Pogue,” Salvadore says. “Spectacular, isn’t it?”
   Nodding, it takes a moment for the name of the place to register with me. When it does, I look at him. “Did you say Virgin City?”
   “I did. You’ve heard of it?” He seems surprised.
   “No…but why virgin? Is that one of the prerequisites for getting into heaven? Because if it is, you definitely brought me to the wrong place. I haven’t been