Too Broke For Afterlife

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"I won't say anything until I've gotten something to eat," the man proclaims and crosses his muscle arms like a sulking child.

Oh man, I should have stayed with Kira a bit longer before coming back to the hotel room. All of this feels way too familiar.

"You!"

He points at me. "I want food!"

I snort. "Last time I fed a hostage, he landed in the hospital and almost died. Is that what you want?"

I can still see Jasper's swollen up face in front of me as if that happened just yesterday.

The man seems weirded out and turns to Walter.

"Come on, just order room service. A steak should be good enough."

"Listen up, dip shit."

Walter pulls a gun from the inside of his jacket and points it at him. 

"You see this? This is a P88 Compact. Now I'll have to warn you, I'm not very skilled in handling pistols. So if I shoot you in the head I might miss the sweet spot and have to shoot again. Does that sound fun to you?"

The man's face has gone white as he stares at the pistol.

"Didn't think so. But tell you what, if you finally start talking and give us all the information we want, I might not use it."

While he says that, Walter looks completely chill, not nervous at all. I'm impressed.

"Okay, man. But put that thing away. What do you want to know?"

Walter ignores the command and keeps our hostage at gunpoint as he sits down on one of the chairs.

His voice is calm and slow. "Who do you work for?" 

"I can't tell you that."

A metallic click resounds as Walter unlocks the pistol. The man quickly lifts his arms.

"Try again."

"God! I work for God!"

Walter raises an eyebrow.

"God."

"Yes! She spoke to me! She chose me and a few others!"

Him and I exchange a short glance. I lean forward to the man.

"Are you a Christian?"

"Yes."

"And you don't think it's funny how your supposed God chose you to kill someone? Isn't that quite the opposite of peace?"

"She told us that you were sinners!"

He sticks a hand under his shirt and pulls out a necklace with a small silver cross dangling on it.

"You guys are demons and we have to send you to Hell where you can burn in eternal purgatory."

I shake my head. I'm glad I was raised an atheist. Imagine the mind fuck a real believer like him has to go through right now. 

"How did God contact you and the others?" Walter asks.

"She appeared in a dream. And she spoke to me. I saw her face and I saw Heaven."

The man's eyes light up as he remembers that holy moment. 

"It was glorious. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. One day I'll be there as well."

I doubt that. 

"And what exactly did she tell you to do?" Walter asks.

"She told us about gold coins we'd have to find and that I should use them to lure you into a trap."

"Which would have almost worked."

Walter sighs and gets up from his chair.

"Take this for a second." He presses the pistol into my hand. I stare at it.

Oh my god. I've never pointed a weapon at a human before.

The man seems to notice my insecurity and starts grinning so I quickly put on a cold face and lift the pistol so that he can stare into the barrel. 

"You think this is funny?" I hiss.

The man chuckles. "A little bit. You guys think killing me will save you. But you will go to Hell either way. Non-believers have no place in this world."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Walter motions the man to shut up as he sits down again with his phone now in his hands.

"You are first going to tell me your name and then the names of all the other people involved. I will check your social media accounts to make sure you're not lying. Got it?"

The man stares at Walter, probably trying to figure out how to escape. But there is no escape. If he movs, I'll shoot.

"Quentin Huggler."

"You got Phasebook?"

"Yes."

Walter nods as he opens the app to type in the name. Then he turns the phone towards Quentin. 

"Is this you?"

He looks at his own profile picture. "Yes."

"Good. Next person?"

Together with Quentin's help, Walter creates a list of 7 names, none of them I have ever heard before.

So I guess these are our enemies. I wonder how many more are on their way to catch us.

After a few minutes Walter is done and nods.

"Good. Thank you for your cooperation."

He puts his phone away and grabs his backpack to pull out a little pouch. 

"Judy?"

"Yes?"

"Do as we had planned."

My eyes widen. "W-what? I thought you were joking?"

"No. This is nothing to joke about."

I look at Quentin who is busy watching Walter fiddling with the plastic.

Oh my god.

I get up with shaking legs and walk over to the bed.

Quentin turns around to me and right that second I lift the gun and smash it on his head with all my power.

"AH!" The man screams as he falls over to the side.

"What the fuck you crazy bi-"

Faster than lightning, Walter leans above him and pushes a needle into Quentin's neck. 

"WHAT THE F*CK?"

I try to pull him back but it's already too late.

Within only five seconds, Quentin stops moving.

His motionless eyes stare against the ceiling.

"What did you do?" I screech. 

Walter grabs me and puts a hand over my mouth.

"Ssh."

I try to fight him off but without success.

"An overdose of cyanide."

My eyes widen as my head starts turning. 

"We couldn't have kept him a hostage forever and freeing him would have endangered our mission."

He slowly removes his hand from my mouth. I stumble back and lean against the wall. My voice is merely a whisper.

"You mean...we just killed him?"

"No, I killed him. You didn't."

Walter puts the needle back into the pouch like it's the most normal thing.

"We can leave him here. As Afterlife robots we don't leave behind fingerprints or any DNA. And I turned off all security cameras yesterday, added a nice virus to make sure they wouldn't be able to fix it so quickly."

With a pumping heart I try to grab something I can hold onto. I think I'm about to pass out.

Walter smiles at the dead man. "The perfect crime."

<<<

At dinner I'm still completely disturbed by the earlier events.

No matter what the others say, I did help Walter kill someone. Even though I was unaware.

So awfully unaware.

Isa seems to be pretty mad at Walter for pulling me into this. The anger is drilled into her face. Parker, if possible, is even more gloomy tonight. He has barely touched his food and I wonder if all of this is morally just as troubling to him as it is to me.

I still barely know him but with his constant no-shits-attitude it's hard to believe that there are things he does care about. Like having dinner with a murderer for example.

"When you were still alive, have you ever gone to see a therapist?" Isabella asks nonchalantly while pulling her fork through the pasta.

Walter tenses up. "No. Why?"

"You seem to be quite bipolar. One second you are scared and paranoid, unable to form a straight sentence but then, once you're facing the most troubling situations, you turn cold like a freezer. How can someone who straight up kills a person be the same one who gets a heart attack when he has to simply send away a customer, like that guy in Peru?"

Walter doesn't look at her and concentrates on dissecting his sandwich instead. Tomato and lettuce on one side of the plate. Bread and cheese on the right.

"I don't think you have the right to ask such questions or put out any theories."

"I have the right to ask any question I want. Whether you choose to answer is your decision."

Uncomfortably, I shift in my chair, hoping I can get out of this situation ASAP.

Walter stares at Isabella.

For the first time ever, he looks mad.

"I keep saving your lives but instead of being thankful, you waste your time questioning my methods. That is very disappointing," he presses out.

Isabella doesn't seem to have anything to counter that and falls back into silence. 

I try my best to force down some of the food but every bite is a new challenge. My stomach has turned into a knot. 

What happened was too much for me. And yet, I am still here. I am alive. Stressed but breathing.

Finally, it is Parker who breaks the silence.

"Thank you," he mumbles. 

"I still think you're a psychopath but at least you're on our side."