AfterLife by S. P. Cloward Page A

small
table.”
    The man rolled the box into her front foyer next to the
small hallway table where she’d put her purse. Leaving the box on the dolly, he
turned back toward the front door and closed it. Before she had a chance to
process what was going on, he quickly grabbed her, pulled her toward him and
then to the ground. Kim, now lying on the floor, struggled to pull herself away
from him. The man forced Kim’s arms down to her sides and, straddling her, he
kneeled on them. She screamed. With his hands now free, the man placed them on
either side of Kim’s face and positioned his eyes over hers. Kim continued to
struggle under the weight he was exerting on her. She tried to scream but the
pressure of the man’s body on her chest prevented her from releasing more than
a yelp.
    Kim squirmed under the man, trying to break her head free
from his grip. He increased his pressure on either side of her face. Kim’s eyes
linked with the man’s. She looked into them and lost consciousness.
    Kim felt herself slowly awakening. She was still in a state
of sleep paralysis; her mind was awake but not her body. She attempted to move
her hands or open her eyes but was unable to do so. Despite her inability to
move, she could hear the voices of others in the room.
    “We’ll wait until she’s conscious and then we can proceed,”
a man’s voice said.
    “I wanna try it,” another man said, “I’m beginning to think
that it’s not the killing serum at all, but Rahul. Let me try and we can make
sure.”
    “You’ll get yourself severed for talking like that.” The
first man walked around the table where Kim could hear him working with some
glass bottles. “Seth said Rahul was to be the first. We collected her because
she’s a closer match for him. If we want this to work, we have to make sure
we’re syncing with the most compatible matches.”
    “Fine, I guess I’ll just hang around forever until the Body
thinks I deserve to be rewarded.” A short-lived silence filled the room. “Wait
a minute, I think she’s waking up.”
    Kim could feel her paralysis wearing off and she gasped for
breath. As she opened her eyes she belatedly realized it may have been a better
idea to pretend she was still asleep. She was lying on a metal table in a room
similar to a hospital operating room. She could see an IV connected to her arm,
and hoped the liquid in the bag was only saline.
    As she processed her surroundings, fear began to well up
inside her. These men could have any number of uses for her, none of which
boded well. They must be selling organs on the black market, she thought, and
they were going to take what they needed from her.
    “Go get Rahul; I think she’s ready,” the first man said. “I
really hope it works this time.”
    Kim strained to move but her body felt weak. Then she
realized she wouldn’t have been able to move much even if she could. Her arms,
legs, and head were tightly strapped to the table. She was going to die and she
had no way of stopping it.
    A few minutes passed and the second man came back into the
room with two others. “Are we ready,” the taller of the two new men asked the
others as he approached Kim. He was a slender man of Indian descent.
    “She’s all yours, Rahul.” The man who had remained in the
room pulled a small bottle from the table and inserted a syringe into it to
extract some of its contents. His aged eyes watched as the liquid filled the
small tube. He then put the contents of the syringe into the IV.
    Kim watched helplessly as the liquid slowly dripped into the
fluid that ran from the hanging bag into her body. She felt her body growing
heavier and heavier. So this was to be her end. It had come suddenly, without
warning. When she woke up this morning, she’d never considered it might be her
last. She felt her eyes shut slowly as the light from the room faded.
    “Okay Rahul, that’s your cue. Blake, hold her eyes open for
Rahul.”
    Kim could see two men standing over