The Last Minute

PART ONE

Kara never felt the bullet hit her. What she did feel was more like a hammer blow to the side of her head that sent her reeling to her knees. So this is what they mean by seeing stars, she thought, blinking. There was a ringing in her ears, but that was fading, as were the stars and other shapes obscuring her vision. She closed her eyes for a long moment, then took a breath and opened them. The room still looked dim, but at least it was clear. She stood slowly, making sure she hadn’t hurt herself, and looked around to see what had fallen on her. She froze. Standing where she had been just moments before was herself. Or rather, a statue of herself. Kara frowned. Something wasn’t normal, she thought. That wasn’t there before.

She approached the statue and reached a tentative hand out to touch its face. As her hand passed through the surface, she uttered a little yelp and snatched it back. Kara stared. She hadn’t felt a thing. She reached out again and touched the thing’s arm. She felt the cloth of the blouse she had picked out that morning, but it was stiff as iron.

Is this a dream? she thought. A thought nagged at her. It was like the movie Ghost. She was dead. "No," she shook her head. "Things kept moving for him. They didn’t freeze like that." She realized how stupid that was and flushed. It was just a movie, after all. They might have guessed part of what happens when you die, just by coincidence. And what a boring movie it would have been, she thought with a half smile, if no one in it could move except for Patrick Swayze.

"Figured it out yet?" came a voice from behind her. She spun around and backed up sharply, almost falling again. "Shit," she gasped, "you almost gave me a heart attack." The woman leaning against the door shook her head, her eyes smiling. "Guess you didn’t. A heart attack would be a little redundant."

Kara studied the newcomer. She was tall, maybe an inch taller than Kara’s 5’7". Slender, with light brown hair that fell in soft curls to her shoulders. She was wearing blue jeans and a sweater and, Kara noted, she was very pretty.

The woman took a long stride towards Kara and held out her hand, "Elise," she said. Kara returned the handshake, murmuring, "Fair Elise." She was immediately annoyed with herself. Aside from the lame pun on Für Elise, this was quite possibly the dumbest situation in which to be flirting. Especially when she didn’t even know... But from the pleased smile on Elise’s face, she saw that there at least she hadn’t been mistaken. She had always been good at sensing that. The first person I meet in the next world, she thought wryly, and she’s gay too. Maybe straight people go somewhere else? Her eyes widened. Was this hell? Were all the fundamentalists right after all?

Elise shook her head and laughed, as if she could read Kara’s mind. "There are straight people here too," she said. Kara stared for a moment, and released Elise’s hand. The woman had a firm grip. "Okay," Kara said slowly. "Since you seem to be up on what’s going on here, mind telling me where exactly here is?"

"Here," Elise gestured, "is the same place you were before you were shot."

"Shot?!"

Elise pointed to the side of the Kara-statue’s head. About a foot and a half away from the side of the statue’s head, a bullet hung in the air, defying gravity. She spun back to Elise with fear in her eyes. "Bullshit!" she blustered. "Who would want to shoot me?"

Elise shrugged. "I imagine you’d know better than I, don’t you think?" She walked over to the bullet and took hold of it. She tried to wiggle it, but it wouldn’t move. "Dead, you see? Anything living, plant, animal, whatever, is totally immaterial to us. And anything not living is tangible, but immobile."

Kara’s thoughts raced. "Then how can we be breathing?" she demanded. Elise shrugged. "Maybe gases don’t count," she suggested. "It doesn’t matter much, because you can’t make anything to take advantage of it. The only physical things we can affect are our clothes," she fingered her sweater, "which I’m not sure aren’t an illusion anyway. And other deaders."

Kara sat on the sofa. It was like a rock, totally unyielding. "Why don’t you start from the beginning. For starters, why do you know so much?"

Elise thought about that for a moment. "Probably because I’ve been here all day. Such as days are here. As near as I can figure, we’re in a sort of cut-rate afterlife. Maybe they had to trim the budget or something, but it’s only a day long."

Kara made a face. "A day long," she repeated blankly.

"It means that the only people around are people who died today, the ninth of November. It means that we can go anywhere we want physically, but time-wise, we exist between one midnight and another. Come here." She took Kara’s hand. Kara ignored the almost electric feel of Elise’s hand on hers. Elise turned towards the window and focused. Kara felt a dragging motion, as if she were moving through a viscous fluid, though as far as she could tell, they weren’t moving at all. After a moment, light began to glow through the window, and became brighter, until it was daytime outside. Elise continued this until the light began to dim and the room grew darker again.

"Come with me," she told Kara, leading her outside. The two walked out of Kara’s apartment and down the three flights of stairs to the street. In the middle of the street, Elise stopped and held Kara’s hand with her arm stretched out.

"What are you doing?" Kara asked, totally lost.

"Oh, this doesn’t matter, just so long as we stay in contact. I just like the dramatic effect," she grinned disarmingly. She focused her eyes again, and this time, the scenery flashed, and they were standing in a subway station. Elise released Kara’s hand and walked toward the track. She went up to one of the still figures waiting and put her hand on its back. "This," she looked at Kara, "is me. Was me," she corrected. Kara walked around and saw that it was indeed Elise. She looked at the living Elise blankly. No, she shook her head, the one that’s not moving is the living one. The one I’m talking with is the dead one. Jesus.

"Give me your hand again," Elise said. As before, she focused her eyes, only this time looking at her doppelganger. After a moment, Kara noticed that people and things were moving. Slowly and with a dead silence that gave her the shivers, but they were moving. "Watch," Elise whispered.

Kara didn’t know which way to look, but as she turned, she saw a teenaged boy with a walkman shaking his head to the rhythm of whatever it was he was listening to and bopping towards them, eyes screwed shut and mouth moving with the music. Over the boy’s shoulder, Kara saw a light as the D train started into the station. The silent Elise- statue, no longer a statue, had stepped towards the track and was leaning over to see if the train was coming. Kara saw what was coming and yelped. She moved toward the boy, but Elise pulled her back. A moment later, the boy had collided with the other Elise, who was falling in slow motion onto the tracks. Kara’s throat tightened. She clutched at Elise and looked away. Elise stood rigid, watching as her previous self was mangled silently by the train.

They stood that way for a long moment. Then Elise said gently, "You’re hurting me." Kara realized that she was gripping Elise’s arms too tightly and released her. She started to look towards the track, but stopped herself. Everything was motionless again.

"Kara," she said vaguely.

"Excuse me?"

"My name is Kara."

"Kara mia?" Elise asked playfully.

Kara jerked away from her, her eyes wide, "How--" she choked. "How can you joke after...watching..."

"After watching myself die?" Elise asked softly. She shrugged. "I’ve seen it before. There’s only so many times you can watch something like that before it has all the emotional impact of a television rerun." Kara knew she was lying. She had felt Elise’s tension during the accident.

"How do you travel like that?" Kara asked irrelevantly.

"You just focus on something and think about seeing it after, and you move forward. Or you think about seeing it before and you move backwards. As far as places are concerned, you can walk. The only place you can jump to like I did before is to where your real self is. If you don’t concentrate on staying in one place, then whenever you move forwards or backwards, you get drawn after your real self like a magnet." Kara flinched both times Elise said "real self." She was real!

Grimly, she asked, "So I could jump back to my apartment? Where we were before?"

"Sure. So long as you were there now. Otherwise you’ll jump to wherever you were. You can also move forwards or backwards in one place if you focus on staying in that place," she added.

"So... why..." Kara fumbled for words, her mind trying to take all of this in, "why didn’t we see you pop out when you fell just now?"

Elise shrugged. "Why don’t we keep running into ourselves when we go to see the same event? I’ve watched myself fall there about a dozen times now, and I never see myself here watching." She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. "I don’t think we’re moving in time, really. It’s as if the other world is like a video that we can run forwards and backwards. A recording."

In a daze, Kara walked over to a bench and sat down heavily. This is ridiculous, she thought as Elise sat down in the seat next to hers. I don’t know anyone who would want to kill me. And burglars don’t just come in and shoot. Do they? "Elise," she grabbed Elise’s arm and said urgently, "I need to see who killed me. Will you help me?"

Elise’s eyes twinkled. "Well..." Kara looked at her beseechingly. "Oh, all right," Elise laughed. "I was going to catch a movie, but I’ve never been all that hot on reading lips." Kara shook her head. She couldn’t see how Elise could find any humor in this situation.

"Listen," Elise turned serious, "you need to lighten up. If this is all the ‘life’ we have any more, we might as well make the most of it. Being dead is bad enough without having to be depressed all the time."

"God--!" Kara exploded. "You haven’t been dead for a day, and it’s like you don’t care!"

"It’s been a lot more than a day, Kara. It’s been more like months. Time doesn’t work the same here, remember? How do you think I know so much about moving around here? I mean, I’m bright," she grinned, "but I’m not that bright." She took Kara’s hand. "I’ve been roaming around here for all this time, but you’re the first person I’ve seen pop out like that. I must have missed all the others."

"Where are all the others?"

"Around," Elise gestured vaguely. "Think about the number of people who died here within walking distance in one day. They can be anywhere or anywhen. You run into people now and then, but otherwise it’s pretty lonely. She looked meaningfully at Kara, who was suddenly very conscious of the feel of Elise’s hand on her own.

She pulled her hand free from Elise’s and gestured with it. "So I can jump back to my apartment?" she asked.

"Here, think about finding yourself," Elise explained. "That’ll pull you to wherever you are now. Then you can follow yourself through the day until you’re back getting shot." She grinned and Kara glared at her. "But keep contact with me, or I’ll get left behind. It’ll be difficult to connect again if that happens."

Kara hesitated, but Elise had been very helpful. And, she thought wryly, in any other situation, I wouldn’t need another reason to stick close to someone as attractive as she is. She took Elise’s hand and thought of finding herself, and--

flash

--she was in Julie’s room. Along with her earlier self and Julie. Still in bed, but not asleep. "Shit," she breathed, yanking Elise into the hallway.

"Wha-at?" Elise laughed as Kara almost pulled her off balance.

Kara blushed deep red. "How the hell early were you at the subway?" she demanded.

"Early enough," Elise returned, amused. "Can’t I go look?" she pleaded jokingly. "Pretty please? She’s cute."

"Dammit, Elise! This is not a joke. Things have been rocky between me and Julie and they were finally starting to work out and now I... I..." she faltered, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"Hey," Elise said gently, moving to hold Kara. Kara’s tears turned to moans as she held onto Elise. She cried for long minutes, deep sobs of grief wracking her.

They stayed that way until Kara cried herself out and her breathing had become calmer. Slowly, Kara disentangled herself from Elise and walked into the kitchen. She sat at the table and rested her chin in her hands. After several moments, she looked up at Elise. "Okay, I know what I’m going to do. If you want to come with, hang on."

She stood up and Elise put her hand on her arm. Kara looked at the clock hanging over the kitchen table. "When’d I leave?" she muttered. The clock began to advance slowly. "Let’s see how fast this can go," she gritted, and the clock sped up until it was whirling. Blurred figures, presumably of Julie and living-Kara, flew in and around the kitchen and were gone. "Whoa, too fast," she said, and the hands stopped and began turning backwards.

"You don’t have to do that."

Kara stopped her concentration. "Do what?"

"You don’t have to move back. Just think yourself to wherever you are now and you can follow along until... she shrugged, "until you know."

Kara nodded. And then they were outside. Her earlier self was headed west, toward the subway. Kara furrowed her brow and the world went into a blur. She and Elise were yanked back and forth faster than they could see, buildings and walls and subway trains and tunnels whipping by dizzyingly. Elise gasped, and Kara told her, "Remember, we’re staying still. Think of it as a three hundred and sixty degree movie. Or just close your eyes." Elise moaned and closed her eyes. Kara felt a small satisfaction. At least Elise wasn’t laughing now.

The daylight faded, and Kara slowed down for a moment, long enough to get her bearings. They were just down the street from Kara’s apartment. She remembered that she had gotten home from work late that night. She sped the world up again, and they drifted after Kara’s double as she entered her apartment.

Kara watched herself heat up leftovers from the other night and eat. A chill passed through her as her earlier self sat down with the food to watch TV. She was alone that night because Julie was visiting her sister in Jersey. Would Julie have been shot as well if she’d been with Kara that night?

"I always fast forward through the commercials when I’m watching tapes of shows," she commented to Elise without turning her head. This is the first time I’ve actually been able to do it live. So to speak," she corrected. She remembered getting up in the middle of Letterman to fix some hot cocoa. That was the last thing she remembered before being hit on the head. Shot, she reminded herself. And there was Letterman now, grinning gap-toothedly out of the screen.

The world slowed down to normal speed. Kara turned to Elise, "I’m going to watch what happens, if you don’t mind. I want to see if it was at least quick." Elise looked as if she was going to say something, but thought better of it. As the two of them watched, doppel-Kara stood and turned to pick up her dishes to take them into the kitchen. And everything froze.

Kara stared at her double for a moment. Then at Elise. "What’s going on?" she asked finally. "It won’t go."

Elise walked to the frozen Kara-figure and bent over, craning her neck up to see the watch on the figure’s wrist. "Your watch is wrong," she said, straightening up.

"It’s not wrong," Kara corrected automatically. "I keep it two minutes f--" She looked puzzled. "How do you know that?"

"Because it says 12:02. And as far as we’re concerned, the world ends at midnight. You can’t go past that."

"But... Kara stared, "that means I’m not dead yet!"

Elise looked uncertain for a moment, then smiled. "Sure you are. You’re here."

"No," Kara insisted, "don’t you see? It hasn’t happened yet. I can still prevent it." Her voice rose. "I can save myself, don’t you see?" She started towards her motionless self and Elise grabbed her. Furiously, she yanked her arm free. "No!" Kara grabbed at the bullet, hanging in the air. It refused to budge. "No! No! No!" she cried, hitting the bullet as hard as she could. She grabbed the bullet again, pulling with all her strength. Trying to pull it down, all she succeeded in doing was lifting herself up off the floor.

Elise looked at Kara hanging in the air. "Brava," she clapped approvingly. Kara dropped to the floor, sobbing. "I am not dead yet. I’m not." Elise knelt and put her arm around Kara’s shoulders. "Kara--" she began.

Kara jumped up. "Who did this?" she demanded angrily. She strode to the doorway and saw a man standing just to the side of the door, gun still aimed at his victim.

"Who are you, you bastard?!" Kara slapped at the man and crashed into him as her hand passed through his face and she lost her balance. "Ow, shit!"

"You’re lucky you didn’t try to kick him in the balls," Elise observed. "You might have broken a toe. I tried pushing Mr. Bebop off the platform," she added helpfully. "No luck."

Kara stared at the man. "I don’t know this guy," she said. "I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before." She thought for a long moment. "I’m following him back. If you want to come with, hold on."

Elise had barely touched Kara’s arm when they were off. This time, Kara went more slowly, but going backwards made it at least as disorienting. They passed through a bar, where the man had three drinks, and an afternoon showing of Independence Day. "Definitely better in reverse," Elise quipped.

"Huh, watch this," Kara pointed to where the killer was headed. Or where he had come from, but was backing back into. The idea gave Kara a headache.

"A gun shop?"

Kara stopped the motion. "Think about it. He buys a gun, goes to a movie, has some drinks and shows up in my apartment and shoots me. That sounds like it was pretty premeditated, don’t you think?"

"But you say you don’t know him."

"Never saw him before." Kara shook her head. "Why would a perfect stranger want to kill me? Unless maybe he thought I was someone else..."

"Let’s go see," Elise suggested. "If it was a spur of the moment thing like you’re suggesting, whatever set him off probably didn’t happen all that long before he bought the gun."

Kara nodded and they followed him into the store. Sure enough, the gun he’d shot Kara with was back behind the counter before the killer backed out of the store. Kara and Elise floated after the man as he walked backwards down the street. Kara began to get a strange look on her face as she saw where he was headed.

"No," she said slowly, shaking her head.

"What no?"

Kara said nothing as the killer entered the building on Eleventh Street. She stopped and stood very still. Elise looked at her, puzzled.

"This is Julie’s building." Kara stared bleakly.

"Um, Kara? There are dozens of apartments in this building."

Kara closed her eyes and thought. She looked again at her killer. "Okay, Mister Man. Take us to your leader." He walked backwards towards the elevator, which opened at his approach. As he backed into it, Kara pulled Elise ahead and they got in before the door closed. "I didn’t feel like being pulled through ceilings and floors," she explained.

As they came to a stop, Kara looked at Elise.

"Her floor?"

Kara nodded. The doors opened, and the killer slapped at the button marked "lobby" and backed out of the elevator. Kara followed him into the corridor, Elise trailing behind. Reaching behind her, Kara suddenly grabbed Elise’s hand and zoomed backwards in time far faster than either of them could see. When she stopped, there was her other self, walking down the hall towards the elevator on the way to work, oblivious to what the day had in store for her.

"I want to see this normally," Kara said coldly.

"Kara...?" Elise said carefully.

"Shut up. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want." She watched, unblinking, as living-Kara--foolish- Kara! she thought wildly, sucker-Kara!--entered the elevator and the doors closed. She set her jaw and sped the world up until the elevator door opened again and a man stepped out. It was the killer, all right. Of course it is, she thought grimly. We know he was here.

The man knocked on Julie’s door and stood waiting. Julie opened the door and smiled at him. The two of them entered and the door shut. "Shit," muttered Kara, looking at the impenetrable door. She reversed the action until the door was open, and ducked past Julie. She would have tried walking through her, but Julie’s clothes blocked her way. Once inside, she let events move forward again.

Julie tilted her head up and kissed the man, and Kara’s hand tightened until Elise gasped in pain. Kara stopped the action and released Elise’s hand. "Bitch," she whispered. "Fucking, lying, unfaithful bitch!" she shouted. Then something broke in her. "Oh damn... she breathed. "I thought... She looked at Elise, begging with her eyes for this to be a mistake. "I thought everything was okay. I really did." She sagged and Elise took hold of her.

After a while, Elise asked, "Did you know she was bi?’

Kara nodded. "But she hasn’t... she trailed off. "Hasn’t for years," she completed bleakly.

Elise looked at her sympathetically. "What do you want to do?" she asked.

Kara laughed bitterly. "Do? What’s to do? The woman I love had me killed. I don’t even exist any more. Do?" Elise said nothing. After a moment, Kara looked into Elise’s eyes. She nodded her head. "I have one idea, though," she said.

Elise turned to see where Kara was looking, and saw Julie and the man finish their kiss and walk down the hall to Julie’s bedroom. The same room Kara and Julie had been in that morning.

Kara watched as they undressed each other and moved to the bed. Elise winced. "You don’t have to do this, you know."

"Yes. I have to do this." Kara said desolately, her voice sounding as dead as she knew she was. She watched until the couple in the bed had finished, saying nothing, doing nothing. When they had closed their eyes and fallen asleep, she stopped the motion and pulled Elise out of the bedroom, down the hallway and into the living room.

She turned to Elise and placed her hands on the other woman’s shoulders deliberately. "What do you want to do?" she asked. Elise looked at her questioningly. Kara pulled her close and kissed her. Elise pulled back and said carefully, "Are you sure...?" Kara answered her with another kiss, and this time Elise responded.

They made love in Julie’s living room, using their clothes, the only soft objects they had, as bedding.

PART TWO

Why? The question nagged at Kara as she lay spooning with Elise. Why kill her? Jesus, people break up all the time. What on earth would Julie have to gain from her death? If she’d decided to leave her for a man, why not just leave her? It made no sense.

"Penny for your thoughts," Elise murmured.

"I’m thinking about why I’m not falling asleep."

Elise turned over to face her. Brushing a lock of hair out of Kara’s eyes, she said teasingly, "Because I’m so good you don’t want to miss a minute?"

Kara tickled her and she jumped, yelping. Kara smiled "You’re... not bad," she said appraisingly. Elise glared at her with a mock dangerous look. "But that’s not the point. I’d been up all day when Tarzan in there killed me. It’s been at least that long again since I got here. And I’m not even tired."

Elise sighed. "You’re dead, sweetheart. The last time I slept was the night before I played chicken with a subway train. And it’s been months for me subjectively, remember?" She shrugged. "I don’t think we can sleep." There was silence for a moment.

"Elise?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do you think..."

Elise looked at Kara questioningly.

"Why would she have him kill me, do you think? She can’t possibly have hated me that much without having shown it at least a little."

Elise sat up, her legs crossed Indian style. Resting her hand on Kara’s side, she asked, "Does it really matter why? Kara," she said earnestly, "I’m not going to say anything against her, because that’s not my place. But ‘why’ doesn’t seem like much of a question. Maybe she was scared you’d make a fuss. Maybe she said something as a joke and Rambo in there took it seriously. Maybe... she trailed off.

"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Kara said impatiently. "Come on." She stood up and started to get dressed. Elise followed suit. They went back into the bedroom. Julie and her lover were as Kara had left them. Kara stood with her hand on the small of Elise’s back. Elise could see that time was moving forward by the motion outside the window. Shortly, Julie woke and slipped out of bed.

"You’re sure there’s no way to lift objects here?" Kara asked Elise, looking longingly at the heavy base of the lamp next to the bed and the unprotected head of her killer.

"Nohow," Elise answered.

"In Ghost... Kara began.

"That was a movie, Kara. This is reality."

"Some reality," Kara said absently. "Let’s see the end of this movie." She sped the action up and Julie came back in the room, moving very much like a character in an old silent movie. She jittered over to the side of the bed Kara’s killer was lying on and shook him awake. He grabbed her and tried to pull her into bed. Julie batted his hand away and moved to her dresser. It was eerie watching them like this, Kara realized. She almost felt like an intruder, but she steeled herself. She wouldn’t be here if that... man hadn’t killed her. She had a right to know why.

The man got out of bed and put his arms around Julie from behind. She turned and tried to break free. He kissed her and she shoved him away violently. Or did she?

"Too bad we can’t hear what they’re saying," Elise commented.

Kara stopped them. Shit, of course she could. She’d been fairly good at reading lips ever since she was little. She moved the action back to right before Jocko got out of the bed and started it again, this time at normal speed. She moved closer so that she could see what they were saying.

I told you you weren’t no dyke, she could make out his words.

Julie laughed. Don’t bet on it, Brian.

Brian came up behind Julie and put his arms around her. Kara had to move around them to see his lips move, because his face was so close to Julie. Why don’t you come with me this weekend? he asked her.

She turned. Because I’m spending the weekend with Kara. I told you that.

Elise moved closer to Kara. "What are they saying?" she whispered.

"Shh... Kara waved her to silence. Brian kissed Julie and she shoved him away. I told you that’s enough, she said angrily.

You’re going to spend a weekend with a girlfriend, Brian made a face, rather than with me? It was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

Julie replied hotly, I love her, you moron.

Brian looked as if he’d been slapped. You can’t love her, he said. You love me, you mean.

Julie laughed derisively. Love you? she widened her eyes incredulously. You were an itch, Brian. I scratched it. You don’t mean anything. Now get out. She pointed towards the door.

Julie’s words hit Kara like a blow and she stopped the scene. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Elise asked hesitantly, "What’s wrong?"

Kara shook her head. She was thinking back to their discussion, months before...

"She... Kara opened her eyes and looked at the still figure of Julie through tears. "She didn’t do anything at all."

Elise looked confused. Kara pulled away and started Julie and Brian again. Brian had turned red and was advancing on Julie menacingly. That bitch has you hypnotized, he growled.

Julie backed away a step. You better leave now, Brian, she said angrily. And in case you’re curious, it’s behavior like this that makes me prefer to be with a woman.

Brian glared at her and strode angrily out of the room. Kara and Elise followed and saw him leave the apartment. The door slammed silently behind him.

"She didn’t?" Elise asked.

Kara shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "No, she didn’t."

Elise looked sadly at Kara. "So what now? You know why he killed you. But it’s over. There’s nothing you can do about it."

Kara shut her eyes tightly. Opening them, she said, "You don’t know that."

"But Kara," Elise said, shaking her head.

"You don’t," Kara insisted. She thought. "Where’s the nearest hospital?"

Elise looked at her blankly.

"I need to find someone who died today without getting shot up or mangled." She winced at her own words.

Elise looked uncertain. "There’s St. Vincent’s," she said. "That’s not far from here."

"Let’s go then." She held out her hand, but Elise hesitated. "What’s the matter? Are you coming or what?" You’ve been here for months, dammit, she thought. Why won’t you let me try what I can?

Elise sighed resignedly and took Kara’s hand.

After a few false starts, they managed to work their way over to the hospital. Signs pointed to the emergency room entrance. The two women stood there and moved the world backwards until they saw an ambulance arrive. Or rather, leave in reverse.

"Let’s see what we have here," Kara moved to the back of the ambulance. The doors to the emergency room opened, and a pregnant and very live woman was carried back into the ambulance.

The next three ambulances also delivered live patients. But the one after that did not. Kara watched as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher in with the still form covered head to toe by a white sheet.

"Deader," Elise said callously. Kara made a face. They climbed into the ambulance before the doors closed, or rather, Kara thought, after the doors opened. She hated this backwards view, so she sped it up until it was a blur, focusing on staying with the form under the sheet. Soon they were out of the ambulance and in a tall office building in the center of town. Kara gritted her teeth as they rose up through the floor. She slowed things down marginally, but it still looked as if she were using the scan rewind on her VCR.

They reached the floor that the dead person had apparently come from and zoomed down a hallway, turning dizzyingly at the corners. Finally, they came to stop in a large office with plush carpeting and a gorgeous view of the city. Kara kept the action moving until they saw the sheet pulled back to reveal an overweight man who appeared to be in his fifties. The paramedics jittered about him, dumped him on the floor and ran backwards out of the office. Kara couldn’t help giggling at the sight. Not long after, the man began to twitch on the floor and soon was convulsing madly. He jerked back and forth, flew up into his chair and clutched his chest. Then he reached out and a pen flew off the desk into his hand and he began calmly to write.

Kara stopped the action and looked at Elise with raised eyebrows and a look of amusement. Then she grew serious. As funny as it had looked, she didn’t imagine it had been much fun for the man.

Elise looked back at her. "Okay," she said. "Now what do we do?"

"Now, we wait."

"Wait for what?" Elise looked puzzled.

"How many times did you say you watched yourself get pushed off the platform?"

Elise frowned. "A dozen or so. Why?"

"I imagine most people here come to see their deaths periodically. So now we sit and wait for Mr. Businessman... excuse me: the late Mr. Businessman, to show up."

Elise nodded and they looked around for somewhere to sit. The office sofa looked well padded, but they knew that it would be hard as a rock, and it was too rounded to be comfortable like that. They settled for the carpet, which was worn enough that it wasn’t a bed of nails. Kara didn’t want to think about how it would have felt new.

Elise sat down, her knees touching Kara’s. "Do you want to explain what you have in mind?"

Kara sighed. "The only thing I can think of," she said. "In Ghost--" Elise rolled her eyes, but Kara ignored her. "Remember how the dead people could jump into the bodies of live people?" Elise nodded. "I figure that if a person were to jump back into her own body exactly at the moment of death..."

"Oh, boy," Elise said sarcastically. "And wouldn’t that be wonderful. I can just imagine it. I’d get to actually feel the train run over me." She snorted. "And then die again."

"Fine," Kara persisted, "but that’s because the way you died didn’t leave you any chance. This guy had a heart attack. Suppose he had a mild one, but it freaked him out so badly that his pulse went crazy and made it worse?" Elise shook her head uncomprehendingly. Kara leaned towards Elise and said intensely, "Think, Elise. This guy has had plenty of time to calm down. If he jumps back in, he’ll still be having a heart attack, but if he can stay calm this time, it doesn’t have to be fatal."

"And that will help you how?"

Kara sighed. "Elise, I’m not dead yet. I’m just not. If I can get back in time to move out of the way of that bullet..."

Elise made a sound of disgust, "Oh, right, Kara. Right. You’re going to dodge a bullet. Gee," she went on caustically, "I didn’t realize. Why do you suppose the bullet didn’t just bounce off of you? Say, maybe it was a Kryptonite bullet, huh? D’ya think?"

Kara jumped up angrily and turned away from Elise, bumping into a figure that hadn’t been there a moment before.

"Excuse me," the man said.

"Oh, shit." Kara stood still and let the anger at Elise drain out of her. "I’m sorry," she apologized. "I didn’t see you there." Then she recognized him. "You’re--" she pointed to the still figure behind the desk, "him."

The man inclined his head. "That I am. Or was," he added lightly. "Russell Thomas." He held out his hand and Kara took it. "I’m Kara," she said, "and this is Elise," motioning to Elise, still cross legged on the floor.

Russell walked over and shook Elise’s hand. "So," he said, looking at each of the women in turn, "what brings you here? Surely you don’t need to have a loan approved?" He smiled with infectious good humor. He sure seems at ease about being dead, Kara thought. He may not be willing to go along with the idea.

"We want to try something," Kara said, ignoring Elise, who was shaking her head to indicate that it was no idea of hers. "If you’re willing."

Russell raised an eyebrow. "Something new?" he asked. "Here? How marvelous." He seemed delighted.

"It may be a way to get back to there," Kara gestured at the office.

Russell didn’t say anything. Damn, Kara thought. I knew it.

"Are you privy to some sort of secret information?" Russell asked finally.

"No," Kara explained. "It’s just a theory." She explained to Russell the idea she had outlined to Elise only minutes earlier. He nodded once or twice while she was explaining the concept. When she had finished, he was silent again for a moment.

"Have you read The Langoliers?" he asked.

"God!" Elise exploded.

Kara looked confused. "What are langoliers?" she asked.

"This is not Ghost!" Elise expostulated. "And it’s not a Stephen King story either." She explained to Kara, "There’s this story by Stephen King, where a plane full of people... she trailed off and looked at Russell. "God, how would you explain it?"

"If you imagine that time is a wave, these people went through some kind of rift that left them behind that wave." Elise nodded. "So they’re in this world," Russell continued, "much like ours, where there are objects, but no people. The langoliers are a kind of... celestial clean-up squad. They eat the remains of the world once time has passed it by. Conservationists," he smiled. "They’re like big Pac-Man creatures, gobbling until nothing’s left."

"None of which has anything to do with us," Elise shot at him. Russell just shrugged. "I don’t know that, and I don’t imagine you do either, young lady." Elise glared. "But my point was only that it seems unlikely that we will be left here forever. If there is a way out, I would be willing to risk it."

"And if something happens?" Elise challenged.

Russell looked at her calmly. "I am a dead man, my dear. What on earth could happen to me that would be worse than that?"

Elise fell silent. Kara walked over to the Russell sitting at the desk. She waved her hand through the figure’s head, which offered no resistance. "Alive," she pronounced. "All we have to do is find the exact moment it goes from immaterial to material. Right?" she looked at the other two, who nodded. "So," she continued, "Elise, Russell, hang on to me." They joined hands, and Kara began moving the scene forward. The Russell-figure jerked and dropped his pen. He clutched at his chest, and Kara stopped the motion. She touched the hand of the other Russell. It was solid.

"I don’t recall any pain at all," Russell commented. "I imagine I died fairly quickly. All the flopping around must have been reflex action."

Something about that idea disturbed Kara, but the reason why eluded her. She moved them back very gradually, tapping at other-Russell’s hand rhythmically. After a moment, her finger went through his hand and she stopped. "Come on, come on," she muttered. She pushed forward for the barest moment and tried again. Still nothing. Another moment--solid!

Kara turned to Russell. "Do you have any idea how to do this?"

Russell was thoughtful. "I’m afraid I’m not built for taking a running jump, like the gentleman in that film did." He eyed the motionless form of his seated self. "Perhaps if you kind ladies were to help me up onto the desk, I could drop down into my... er, cadaver." He looked at Kara and Elise expectantly. Kara turned questioning eyes to Elise, who shrugged. They stood beside Russell, and helped him climb up on his desk. He stepped forward to stand before his double and looked back over his shoulder at Kara. "It may surprise you to hear that I rarely indulge in this type of physical activity."

Kara smiled back nervously. Would this work? There had to be some way out. She wasn’t dead. She was sure of that. Not unless she gave up. "Hey, Russell," she said softly, "you might want to consider changing that once you’re back."

Russell’s mouth twitched in humor and he turned to face himself.

"Russell." He looked back again. "Remember to stay calm," Kara reminded him. Russell nodded and took a deep breath. He moved as if to take a step forward, hopped up and--

Russell hit himself like a diver slicing through the water. Kara and Elise watched as his large form dropped through his other large form. There was something like a ripple in the air around him, and Russell was gone.

Kara waited a moment, and turned to Elise excitedly. Her eyes were glowing.

"I don’t believe it," Elise said, amazed. Then she swallowed. "Are you still going to..."

"Try?" Kara finished for her. She took a deep breath. "I have to, Elise. Don’t you see that?" She took Elise’s hands.

Elise looked down, quietly. "Yeah," she said finally, looking up at Kara, eyes wet. "I guess I do." She laughed weakly and wiped at her eyes. "I guess I’d try too, if I wasn’t spread all over the track like that."

Kara pulled Elise into a hug. "Thank you for understanding," she whispered.

Elise sniffled and broke away. "Damn," she said. "I wish I’d had a tissue in my pocket that morning." She laughed. "I’m going to have to spend eternity wiping my nose on my sleeve."

"Gross," Kara complained, as Elise did just that. "Listen, I want to see what happened to Russell. Just to be sure."

Elise nodded and they joined hands. Kara nudged them forward very slowly, and they saw Russell’s body jerk backwards in the chair. Funny, Kara thought. I don’t remember him doing that when we saw this before. But as before, Russell dropped his pen and clutched his chest. He looked up at them, Kara could swear, with panic in his eyes as he began to convulse.

"Relax," Kara urged him in a low voice. "Oh, Russell, you have to stay calm."

But Russell couldn’t hear her, and he was past paying attention in any case. He thrashed around wildly, managing to hit his intercom button before falling to the floor. His secretary opened the door and leaped back out in a panic, presumably to call 911. Kara and Elise stood helplessly watching, until with a great strain, Russell arched his back and--

pop

With an audible sound, Russell flew out of his body onto the floor. He was gasping and moaning, and it took him several moments to stop convulsing.

"Russell, omigod," Kara ran to him and knelt at his side. "What happened?"

"I-- I-- oh, dear... Russell closed his eyes, trying to bring himself under control. Kara looked up at Elise desperately, then back at Russell. "Don’t talk," she told him. Russell took a deep breath and then another. As his respiration slowed he relaxed visibly. Finally he opened his eyes again.

"I think," he said hoarsely, "that I was better off dying without feeling it."

Kara asked again, insistently, "But what happened? We saw you go back..."

"And I tried to calm myself. I’m afraid years of sedentary life simply caught up with me. Kara," he explained, "Sometimes it’s just time." He coughed and sat up gingerly. "I’m truly sorry," he repeated.

Kara said nothing, but turned away. She didn’t want him to see her tears. She was dead, she realized. Truly and finally dead. And all because of one asshole man who couldn’t accept--

"No!" she jumped up, eyes blazing. "God damn no!" Elise looked at her, shocked. "I will not accept this! I will not allow that stinking scum to just... she looked for a word, "extinguish me, like I’m nothing!" Spinning around, she moved back in time, sounds of protest from Russell and Elise cutting off suddenly as she left them behind.

She was so upset that she overshot at first, but she came back the second time to exactly where she wanted to be. Russell was sitting at his desk, pen in hand. She stood at the desk with the palms of her hands flat on it and stared at him. Okay, she thought. Move, damn you. She shifted very slightly forward, watching intently. Russell jerked backwards in his chair and she stopped. Backing up, she watched it again.

"Yes!" she crowed. "You felt that!" She ran the scene backwards and forward again. She was sure of what she was seeing. Russell’s jump back into his body had moved him. Very slightly, but Kara knew he hadn’t fallen back like that before they tried her experiment. Now, if only--

She closed her eyes and zoomed forwards. If she had opened them, she would have seen nothing but a white blur as paramedics and other office people came in and out of Russell’s office in the wake of his death. Finally, she opened her eyes. Nothing was moving, even though she was still exerting the same forward pressure. Checking the clock on Russell’s desk in the now deserted office, she saw it read 12:00.

"Right," she nodded. Concentrating on her own presence, she blinked, and was back in her apartment, a bullet inches away from her image. She moved to the bullet and stood behind it, sighting past the deadly piece of metal, trying to gauge where exactly it would hit her. The bullet had lost its shape, and it was hard to tell what angle it was moving at, but as near as she could figure, it was going to hit her just above her left ear, angling backwards.

"Damn," she muttered. The thing would probably take the back of her head off. But... she breathed impatiently. There was no way to tell. If she were to shift forward and to the right by the barest fraction of an inch, the bullet might miss her. It might. If she had to move herself, she knew she’d never be able to get out of the way fast enough. Elise was right about that. But if her jumping in pushed her automatically, and if she were to jump from the right angle...

"Don’t."

Kara jumped in surprise, spinning around to see Elise. "How--?"

"It was your idea," Elise told her. "I figured you’d come back to the last minute here eventually." She stepped towards Kara. "I thought I might have a longer wait, though."

"Don’t try and stop me," Kara warned fiercely.

"Why are you doing this?"

Kara looked at Elise blankly.

"Think, Kara," Elise said calmly. "Please." She put her hands on Kara’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. "What if it doesn’t work? What do you have then? You’ll have the chance very few people get to actually feel what it’s like to have your head blown off." Kara winced. "And then you’ll be in tomorrow. At the beginning of the day. Do you know how long I wandered around here without seeing another soul? Do you?" She was speaking calmly, but Kara could feel the sense of desperation welling up inside of her.

"But it might--"

"And even," Elise went on as if Kara hadn’t spoken, "even if you manage not to die, you could still be hit. You could wind up brain damaged. Or stuck in a wheel chair for the rest of your life, controlling it with a straw."

Kara flinched at that. She hadn’t considered that possibility. Life or death, she had thought. Win or lose. She hadn’t thought about how much she could lose even if she won. She looked at Elise, as serious as she had ever seen her, and it occurred to her that maybe there was something to be won even if she lost. She could do far worse than Elise. Even if she’d slept with her almost as an act of revenge against Julie, it had been good. There was no guarantee that she’d find anyone like that the next day, if this didn’t work, and even if everything went as she planned it...

She turned away from Elise. Could she and Julie make things work? Oh, brilliant, she thought. As if that’s all there is to life. But think, she insisted. Death, life, they were only words now. There was Brian, standing like a statue, incapable of laughing or enjoying himself. While she was alive, at least in some way. If she and Elise could enjoy each other as they had, surely there were other possibilities in this new world. And Elise would never leave her, certainly not for a man.

It occurred to her that Brian would probably get caught. He didn’t seem smart enough to get away with murdering her like that. And it was quite possible that the police would think Julie had been involved. If Kara had thought so...

But that wasn’t her fault. It was Julie’s bad judgment, getting involved with Brian. She was innocent, and she’d just have to convince the police of that.

And as she thought that, a wave of sadness passed through her. Is this you? she asked herself. Are you really going to just quit? Accept your death? Accept the end?

Slowly, she turned back to Elise, pain in her eyes. Elise gazed at her for a long moment, and then nodded. "Yeah," she whispered. "I guess I knew that."

Kara took a deep breath. "Elise--" she started to apologize.

"No," Elise stepped backwards. "Don’t. I was wrong to ask." She crossed her arms and hugged herself as if she were cold. "You don’t know how lonely it’s been." She closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Kara. "I hope you make it." She laughed sadly. "I’ll never know if you did." Kara couldn’t think of a response.

Elise walked to Kara and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Good luck."

Kara looked at her through tear-filled eyes. "I’ll always remember you," she promised. "And if this is like some kind of way station that you go to before moving on, I’ll see you again some day. I promise."

Elise smiled. "I know you will," she said. "It doesn’t look like anything ever stops you when you’re determined."

Kara walked over to her motionless body. She faced herself at the angle that was necessary, and took a few steps backward. Well, she thought, what am I waiting for? She ran at herself, trying not to flinch as she neared what seemed to be a solid object, and--

blam!

Kara went flying to the ground, off balance, as the loudest sound she had ever heard exploded next to her ear. Focus! she screamed at herself. She rolled with the fall and landed behind the stereo cabinet to the left of the door. She shoved the cabinet at Brian as he tried to position himself for a second shot.

"Brian!" she screamed at him as he dodged out of the way of the wheeled cabinet.

"What the hell--" he hesitated momentarily, puzzled at her knowing his name, which was what she had hoped for, and his gun wavered. She ran across the room, diving behind the sofa just as another shot rang out.

"Bitch!" he bellowed. "Pervert bitch! I’ll kill you!" He ran at her and she pulled books from the bookshelf behind her and began throwing them at him. He ducked, blocking the books with his right arm, which kept him from taking aim at her again. But he was moving too fast, and he was furious, with a madman’s strength. He leaped at her and held her with his left hand, trying to bring the gun down to strike her. She grabbed his wrist, trying to keep his hand from coming down, but she could feel how much stronger he was. God! she thought wildly. Did I come back from the bloody dead just to have this gorilla beat me back to death?

Frantically, she tried to knee him. Brian clamped his legs together and bent over to protect that tender area, losing his grip on Kara for a bare moment. She backed away and grabbed the bookshelf from the side, pulling it down with all her strength.

It was almost as if she were back in that strange after-world again, she thought, watching the shelf tip in slow motion, Brian reaching up to keep it from falling, fear in his eyes. Kara jumped up over the back of the sofa as the shelf crashed down in the space between the sofa and the wall.

Kara crouched there, panting, waiting to see if Brian would crawl out and continue his attack. When a long moment had passed with no movement, she climbed down and circled the sofa to see what had happened. Somehow, Brian had managed to jump backwards, trying to escape. If he had been a little slower, Kara thought, seeing Brian’s head poking out from the top of the shelf, neck at an impossible angle, he might have made it. Good! she thought viciously. Let him think about that.

Kara went to the telephone to call the police, and paused. Setting the handset back in the cradle, she crossed the room and opened her desk drawer, taking out a piece of paper and a pen.

You lose, asshole, she wrote. Everyone there comes back to where they died eventually, and you can come here and see this for the rest of eternity. Then it will be tomorrow, and I’ll go on. You never will. She looked at the note and thought about whether it was crueler than even Brian deserved. She shrugged. It was already written, she realized. There for him to see for as long as that other-world lasted. Sighing, she put down the paper and called the police.

EPILOGUE

"Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am," the detective said, stepping around the desk in the crowded stationhouse. It was after four in the morning, and Kara was dead tired. She grimaced. Bad choice of words, that.

She looked again at the newspaper on the policeman’s desk, which was open to page three. She read again, The woman has been identified by papers in her purse as Elise L. Parker, 26, of Manhattan. Subway officials say she appears to have slipped off the platform just as the downtown D train was entering the station. Subway service was suspended in both directions for over an hour yesterday morning after the accident which took her life.

Well, Elise, she thought. You got more than just an obituary. Too bad you’ll never see it. She looked sadly at the picture accompanying the article. Elise was smiling, but still. Kara realized that this was the last she’d ever see of her.

The police detective had assured her after seeing the marks on her front door where Brian had forced his way in and the bullets he’d fired at her that it was a clear case of attempted murder. He showed her to the door and told her, "If we have any additional questions, we’ll be in touch." Kara nodded. The detective went back to his work, and Kara walked down the hall towards the street exit.

The door opened and two uniformed policemen walked in, followed by a familiar face.

"Julie," Kara breathed.

Julie walked quickly to Kara and pulled her into a hug. "Oh, God, Kara, are you okay?" Kara had called Julie as she was finishing up with her statement. She hugged her lover tightly and then took her hand as they left the stationhouse. It was cold in the early November morning, and Kara shivered. Julie put an arm around her to keep her warm.

"I missed you, hon," Kara told Julie, who looked puzzled. She had seen Kara just yesterday. Kara shook her head.

"Listen, Kara... Julie started. "That guy... the one who attacked you..."

"Yeah, Julie," Kara said quietly. "I know."

"How--?"

"It doesn’t matter."

"Kara," Julie turned to her. "I want to discuss things with you. I want so much for us to be together, but somehow we never talk. When I heard what happened, I absolutely freaked. You could have been killed." She looked earnestly at Kara. "We really need to work things out," she said. "Not keep putting them off until the last minute."

Kara laughed. "The last minute... She shook her head. "I’ve spent enough time there lately, thank you very much." She touched Julie’s face. "We’ll make it work," she promised. "You’re the best thing in my life. Believe me, even if he had killed me, I would have found a way to come back."

Julie smiled at that. "That’s sweet of you to say," she told Kara, as they started home together. Kara just smiled.

THE END