Exit Point Read Free Page A

try, but it takes skill to communicate with the living,” he finally says. “And the living have to be willing to see the signs.” He shrugs; his snake tattoos ripple up and down his arms. “You can’t do much on earth when you’re dead. And hanging around doing nothing gets boring fast.”
    Hanging around doing nothing has always been my number one pick. Now I could do it for the rest of my eternal life.
    So why wasn’t I smiling?
    “You need to move on, Logan. It’s harder—you’ll have to take the rap for choosing exit point two—but for once you won’t be taking the easy way out.”
    Easy is good. Rap-taking is bad. “Where would I move on to?” I ask warily.
    “That depends on how much good you did when you were alive and where you deserve to go.”
    I feel the fires of hell burning already. I wasn’t a bad person. I just wasn’t particularly good, if you know what I mean. “I need to let my parents know I’m okay,” I say. “I’m going back.”
    “I don’t recommend it,” Wade advises. “I’d move on if I were you.”
    That’s when I notice tiny lights—pinprick blobs—off in the distance. They bounce in the air over the lake, and they swirl in groups by the crystal buildings. Instinctively, I know the blobs are people.
    Or they were.
    The thought is not comforting.
    One of the blobs breaks free and floats toward me. The wind picks up. There is a flicker of golden light. The blob grows bigger,more defined. Then Gran stands in front of us, wearing a cherry red dress and a hat the size of a small car.
    “Just a minute, Wade. Fill Logan in on the rest of it.” She tosses her head, and the purple hat practically topples her over.
    “Fill me in on the rest of what?”
    But Gran and Wade don’t pay attention to me. The two of them stare at each other—a six foot four tattooed Snakeman and a five foot nothing scowling Gran. They are talking without words—I know it—but I can’t figure out what they are saying.
    Then Gran turns to me. I am struck again by how young she looks. How much thinner she is.
    “Just another perk to being dead. You can eat all the Krispy Kremes you want.” Gran winks, then turns serious. “Here’s how it is, Logan. When you move on, you go across that lake to face the Council. Once you do that, there’s no going back. You cut your ties to earth. You cannot be around the living again without permission.”
    “Then why are you back?” I ask.
    “You and I have a history together,” Gran says. “And the Council thought it would be easier if you had a familiar face around to help you make your decision.”
    “Moving on isn’t such a bad thing,” Wade interrupts. “Seeing the Council is a great honor.”
    Gran looks at him, rolls her eyes. “A great honor?” She snorts. “You haven’t gone before the Council in fifteen hundred years. How would you remember? Those guys are tougher than a general with a prickle in his butt.” She turns back to me. “They do your life review. And it’s a killer. Every single thought you had, every single thing you did, you go through it all over again. They watch. You watch. If you did good, you feel good. If you did bad, you feel waaaayyy bad. At the end of it all, they want the good to outweigh the bad. They want to know you did the best you could with what you had.” Gran quirks her eyebrow at me. “You up for that, Logan?”
    It sounds like something Dad put me through on a fairly regular basis. The “youcould do more with your life if you tried” lecture. Come to think of it, it sounds like something Gran used to tell me when she was alive too.
    I frown. “I don’t get it,” I say. “Wade says moving on is the better choice. Staying behind is the easy way out. You hate it when I take the easy route.”
    “Who said anything about taking the easy route?” Gran’s hat slides; she reaches up, straightens it. “You want to ace the Council, you go back to earth and do something to make those guys sit up and