The Sneeze

I woke up surrounded by dead people.

Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. Actual, literal dead people. Transparent ones. Hovering ones. Ones who were looking at me with expressions ranging from curious to delighted to vaguely confused about why they weren't, you know, still dead.

"Oh good," said a grandmotherly ghost in a cardigan. "You're awake."

I sat up slowly. My apartment, my perfectly normal, definitely-not-haunted apartment, was packed. Wall to wall. Ghosts in the kitchen. Ghosts in the living room. A ghost in what appeared to be 1950s leather jacket leaning against my bookshelf like he owned the place.

"What," I said.

"She speaks!" The greaser ghost grinned. "Thought you were gonna sleep forever, Daddy-O."

"What," I said again, because my brain had apparently broken.

A woman in Victorian dress clutched her pearl choker. "Oh dear. I believe she's in shock. Someone fetch the smelling salts."

"Margaret, we're ghosts," the greaser pointed out. "We can't fetch anything."

"Then someone should fan her!"

"With what hands?"

I pressed my palms against my eyes. This was a dream. This was absolutely a dream. I'd fallen asleep watching that documentary about spiritualism again and now I was having the world's most elaborate nightmare.

"You're not dreaming," the grandmotherly ghost said gently. "I'm Ethel, dear. And I'm afraid you've had a bit of an incident."

The incident, as it turned out, was a sneeze.

I'd been walking through Greenwood Cemetery yesterday, a shortcut home, nothing weird, I did it all the time, when my allergies kicked in. Spring pollen. Cypress trees. The usual suspects.

I'd sneezed.

And apparently, my sneeze had been loud enough to wake the dead. Literally. Every single grave within a half-mile radius had decided that now was a great time to stop being occupied.

"Three hundred and forty-seven," Ethel reported. "We counted."

"Three hundred and forty-seven ghosts."

"Give or take. Some are still getting their bearings."

I looked around my apartment. It was definitely not big enough for 347 ghosts. It wasn't big enough for me and my plants, honestly. Now there were transparent figures crammed into every available space, including what appeared to be a medieval knight standing at attention by my bathroom door.

"Why are you all here?" My voice came out strangled. "In my apartment. Specifically."

"You called us, dear." Ethel patted my hand. Her fingers passed right through, leaving a chill behind. "Where else would we go?"

I was still processing this when my front door opened.

Not knocked. Opened. Without a key. The lock clicking itself undone like it had decided to cooperate with whatever was on the other side.

A man stepped through.

He was tall. Dark coat, dark hair, gray eyes, flat and patient, the look of someone who'd processed millennia of inconvenience. Pale in a way that suggested he hadn't seen sunlight in his entire life. Or possibly ever.

He looked around my apartment at the 347 ghosts cramming every corner.

Then he looked at me.

"You," he said, "have created a situation."

His voice was precise. British-ish. Ancient wrapped in a young man's cadence.

"I sneezed," I said.

"You sneezed."

"It was a really big sneeze."

He stared at me. The ghosts stared at him. I became suddenly aware that I was still in my pajamas, the ones with the cartoon cats on them, and my hair looked like something had nested in it.

"I'm Malcolm Mortimer," he said. "I'm a reaper. I'm here to return these souls to their proper resting places."

"A reaper." I blinked. "Like... death?"

"Not Death. A reaper. There's a distinction." He surveyed the crowded apartment with an expression of profound resignation. "This is a categorical violation of natural law."

"That seems like an understatement."

"It is." He pulled out what looked like an ancient ledger from inside his coat. "Three hundred and forty-seven unscheduled resurrections. One necromancer of..." He checked something. "apparently minimal documented ability. And a mass haunting centered on a third-floor apartment in a rent-controlled building."

"Hey. This apartment has good natural light."

"The natural light is irrelevant to the supernatural crisis currently occurring within it." He closed the ledger with a snap. "I'll begin the return process immediately. This should take approximately four hours."

It did not take four hours.

It did not take four hours because the ghosts refused to go.

I watched, still in my cat pajamas, still on my couch, as Malcolm Mortimer, reaper, apparently legitimate supernatural entity, owner of the most formal speaking patterns I'd ever heard, attempted to send my accidental ghost army back to the afterlife.

He did the thing with his hands. Some kind of gesture that made the air shimmer. Words in a language I didn't recognize. A pull that I could feel in my chest, like something trying to yank me sideways.

The ghosts didn't move.

"Curious," he said, and tried again.

The shimmer. The words. The pull.

Ethel adjusted her cardigan and stayed exactly where she was.

"Perhaps a different approach..."

"It won't work, Daddy-O," Tommy the greaser said. He'd lit an unlit cigarette that existed purely through ghostly force of will. "We ain't going nowhere."

"I beg your pardon?"

"We like it here." He gestured at me with the phantom cigarette. "She's the first necromancer in who knows how long who actually talked to us. Asked our names. Wanted to know how we died."

"That's... not relevant to..."

"Ethel told her about her grandkids." Tommy's voice softened. "Her great-grandkids now, I guess. Been dead thirty years and nobody visited her grave once. But this one?" He pointed at me. "Sat there for an hour listening to stories about birthday parties she wasn't even invited to."

I remembered that. Sort of. Fuzzy, like a dream. Walking through the cemetery, stopping at a grave with fresh flowers, feeling... something. A presence. Sitting down and just... talking.

"I don't remember that," I said.

"Magic thing," Ethel explained. "You were half in our world. Happens with necromancers sometimes. You probably thought you were daydreaming."

"I thought I was having a stress hallucination."

"Same difference, dear."

Malcolm Mortimer stood in the middle of my haunted apartment, surrounded by ghosts who were actively ignoring his attempts to reap them, looking like someone had just told him that death was cancelled.

"This," he said slowly, "is highly irregular."

"You said that already."

"It bears repeating." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "The souls are supposed to want to move on. That's the natural order. Rest. Peace. The eternal quiet."

"The eternal quiet sounds boring," Tommy said. "I've been dead since '58. You know how long I've had nothing but quiet?"

"That's rather the point..."

"Too long, is how long." He blew a ring of phantom smoke. "I'm staying."

The other ghosts murmured agreement. A chorus of transparent voices, all saying variations of the same thing: We're not going. We like it here. She cares about us.

Malcolm looked at me like this was somehow my fault.

Which, technically, I suppose it was.

"I just sneezed," I said weakly.

"You just sneezed," he repeated, "and now 347 souls have decided to reject the natural order of death because you were nice to them."

"When you put it like that, it sounds..."

"Catastrophic? Unprecedented? A violation of fundamental cosmic principles?"

"I was going to say 'not great.'"

He closed his eyes. Took a breath he probably didn't need.

"I'll need to report this," he said. "In the meantime, do not..." He fixed me with those gray eyes. "sneeze again."

"I have allergies!"

"Then purchase antihistamines." He turned toward the door, coat fanning behind him like a stage exit. Practiced or instinct, I couldn't tell. "I'll return tomorrow. Perhaps after some rest, the souls will be more amenable to their proper transition."

"And if they're not?"

He paused at the door. "Then we have a very significant problem."

The door closed behind him. The lock clicked itself shut.

I sat on my couch, surrounded by 347 ghosts who had apparently decided I was worth haunting, wearing pajamas with cats on them, and wondered what exactly had happened to my life.

"Don't worry, dear," Ethel said, patting my shoulder with her cold, transparent hand. "I'm sure it will all work out."

"You know reapers can't actually make us leave if we don't want to go," Tommy added. "That's the loophole. They guide. They don't force."

"Is that true?"

"Absolutely." He grinned. "Welcome to ghost ownership, Daddy-O. You're stuck with us."

I looked at the 347 dead people crammed into my apartment.

They looked back.

"Cool," I said faintly. "This is fine. Everything is totally fine."

Spoiler: it was not fine.