Fun Fact: I actually saw a woman get struck by lightning on a Seattle pier as a kid. (It was a little bolt, and it hit her umbrella, so the worst it did was make her jump.) We all decided it was time to get inside. This is related to Death After Life, though it stands on its own. The first in Sharley’s stories is Sanitarium, but all of them are designed to be read independently.
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One o’clock on a wild, windy Seattle morning, and Sharley couldn’t sleep. She never would again.
Sitting still was not always possible at night, so she wandered. There was nothing in the darkness more dangerous than she was; she had nothing at all to fear, though anyone who accosted her sure as hell did.
Out she went, into the rain and wind. Heat and cold were matters of indifference to her now, so she wore only a T-shirt and jeans so old they were soft as cotton. The rain on her skin was wonderful, because she felt it — the chill made her feel, for the moment at least, something close to alive. The heavy drops were hard as stones, soaking shirt and hair in minutes, wicking up from the hems of her jeans. Wind carded through her sodden hair, fresh and ever-so-slightly salty, for she was not far from the shores of Puget Sound.
Here, for now, she was free. Alone, there were none to stare; her pallor and the scars of the wounds that killed her could attract no notice if there was no one to see them. She really doubted any of them saw her for what she really was (because everyone knew that dead was dead, and it wasn’t as though she decayed in any way), but so many of them seemed, subconsciously at least, to register what she wasn’t. The older she got, the harder it was to act like them, or to understand why she should.
Lightning split the sky, and Sharley laughed aloud in unfettered delight. Thunderstorms were a rarity in Seattle, but she felt just as much power in them now as she had when she still lived. The resultant thunder was so deep and so loud that it shuddered all through her, a brief, fleeting facsimile of the heartbeat she no longer had. Breathing was a conscious effort that wasn’t worth it unless she spoke, but now breathe she did. It was bracing, brisk, and probably other words starting with ‘b’, though she couldn’t remember any. The rain on her face stood in for the tears she was unable to shed, cold and clean and pure.
Another flash, and another rumble of thunder, and Sharley turned her face skyward as the ghost of static danced over her bloodless skin. She thought of Frankenstein, of galvanism, and her bare feet carried her out to the shoreline, to the piers. In places she had to all but wade, for the drains, clogged with brilliant autumn leaves, had no hope in such a downpour. The streetlights glowed with golden halos, so bright against the blackened sky.
Flash. Flash. Veins of jagged silver darted from cloud to cloud, nearly overhead, and the thunder sent a remembrance of adrenaline surging through her useless veins. The wind wound around her like a caress, so powerful and so, so alive. Beneath her feet, the water buffeted the supports of Pier 56, the Sound stirred to surging whitecaps as far as she could see. Oh, she needed to get out of the city — she needed to get back to the mountains, away from the prying eyes of the living.
A bolt of lightning as delicate as filigree shot down, and struck her right on the brow, and for a moment — one beautiful, ephemeral, wonderful moment — her heart beat. Her nerves sparked as they had when she lived, and for that one instant she felt the true chill of the rain and wind. For that single, transient, fully involuntary breath, she was alive. The rain-tears on her face were beautiful, not sorrowful.
Yes, she needed to go. This was not her world anymore; should anyone see her out here, she would have much explaining to do, and she had no wish to. There would be more storms — more stolen seconds of life. This was a world of so much beauty, but she could no longer share it with the living.
A change was coming — of that she was entirely certain — but unless she was much mistaken, it was yet years away. Until then, she would be a phantom in the mountains, save for the tiny snatches of impermanent life. Perhaps, someday, she might live again — or perhaps she might pass on, and go wherever it was people went in death.
Until then, she would watch for storms.
Stevie Barry 