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Eli shifted on the futon and scratched the brown patch on his chin that feebly passed for facial hair. “Remember that guy I used to buy weed from in high school?”

“The guy with the skunk hair and all the chains?”

Eli wiped his nose with the heel of his right hand, the left still doing its best to bleed through the toilet paper wad. “He always talked about weird shit. Like, he could do stuff. I don’t know. Like he knew how to see the dead and stuff. Which was bullshit, obviously. I knew it was bullshit. How could it not be?”

“Right,” said Jack. His mom had taken him to church until he was about eight or nine, when they both gave up; her because there just wasn’t enough time in her schedule as a working single mother for the commitment of faith, and him because, well, he just didn’t really believe in what he was hearing. When he first heard some of the other kids at school talking about how dying just meant you became worm food, it made sense to him. As far as Jack was concerned, the idea of an afterlife was utterly absurd.

“Except that it wasn’t.”

Jack blinked at Eli. Had the blood loss made him a little loopy, maybe? Or was he just high? Both seemed equally plausible at this point.

“What are you talking about?”

“I tracked him down. I needed to…I wanted…I just needed some answers, I guess. After Jules. I didn’t really think anything would happen, you know? But I wanted to try, just in case. I wanted to see, because…Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I was wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

Eli pulled his wounded hand onto his lap, flexing the fingers, staring at the bloodied toilet paper.

“He was telling the truth, Jack. He showed me. We had to do some fucked-up shit to make it happen—I mean, I don’t think anyone’s supposed to be able to see that shit, you know? But it worked. I saw…I saw death, I guess.”

Eli was right, Jack did struggle to believe him in the end. Eli had spent the past few years getting high off anything with the slightest possibility of doing the job, which made his grasp on reality more than a little bit sketchy at times. And yet, there was something in his voice that weakened Jack’s skepticism ever so slightly. A note of unwavering conviction mingled with terror. And Jack found himself asking in spite of himself, “Did you see…?”

“No,” said Eli. “She wasn’t there.”

Jack quickly pushed down the parade of emotions marching up his throat. This was all too much to believe. This was all too much.

“But Jack,” Eli continued, “it wasn’t…I don’t know how to explain it. Like, obviously no one living is supposed to see the other side. I get that. But there was something about it, something off, something wrong. He said it didn’t used to be this way. It’s getting worse. Death, I mean. It used to be different, but now it’s all…screwed up.”

“Dude,” Jack said. “I’m sorry. You’re freaked. Whatever happened, it sounds fucked. You need to stay away from that guy, all right? Promise me, man. Whatever he’s been giving you, it might be laced with something, or I don’t know, it’s not good.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“We should get you to the emergency room. You’ll probably need stitches.”

“McCoy.”

“It’s just hard to wrap my head around, okay? Like, if it was real, she would’ve been there.”

Eli rose on unsteady legs, swaying slightly as he reached his full height. “Whatever. I’m going home.”

“Eli, no. Look, I’m sorry. I’m trying to believe you, I promise. But dude, you’ve gotta get that hand checked out.”

“Later, man.”

Eli wobbled cautiously to the living room doorway and slipped out of view. Jack couldn’t bring himself to follow; he was too confused, too shocked, too overwhelmed by the prospect of all Eli had said. But of course it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Jack was certain of it.

• • •

Jack guided Eli to the living room sofa by the wrist, easing him onto a cushion and dropping down beside him.

“Yo, what the hell’s wrong with him?” Dale asked from the other end of the couch, face screwed up in alarm.

“You went to see Cyrus,” Jack said to Eli. There was no need to ask. As Jack spoke, he ran his eyes over Eli’s hands, searching for blood, but all that decorated his palm was the raised scar from years ago.

Eli slowly turned his head to face Jack. Good, he was alert enough to hear Jack’s words. Whatever had pulled his features into this twisted mask wasn’t enough to steal his senses from him at least, and Jack took some small bit of solace from that.

“Yeah,” Eli confirmed. His voice was raw and gravelly, as if his throat had never known water.