February 4, 2026

What Comes Next
by David Corisis

​A quiet supernatural story about aging, death, and the unsettling certainty that something always comes after. When a man is interrupted by an unexpected knock, he’s forced to face what he’s spent his life avoiding.

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.



​A knock at the front door roused me from a nap. I listened, not daring to open my eyes or give any hint that it had woken me. Any moment now the dog would bark and Miranda would answer it. I waited for her footsteps to come down the stairs and pass through the living room.

Silence. Not so much as a growl from Bosco.

Sleep started pulling me back in. Maybe it was just a package. It could wait until my nap
was over. If it was important, I’m sure they would–

The knock came again. The same as before: a polite but rigid tapping of someone who
wasn’t in a hurry but had places to be.

I decided to tempt fate. If it wasn’t a package, it was probably a solar panel salesman or
something of the like. Nothing I needed and nothing they couldn’t leave a flyer for. This was my one chance to catch up on sleep. I wasn’t about to give it up just to hear a gum-chewing twenty-something’s sales pitch.

Again with the knocking. My eyes opened on this third round of raps and stared at our
living room ceiling hanging over my recliner. I sighed as my nap came to an end. At least my headache was gone.

“Mr. Gliner,” a voice called from the front porch.

Now they had my attention. I grunted with a battery only half-charged from my nap and
stood from my chair. Outside I could see Miranda playing with our one-year-old, Mikey. The bugs in the grass had his full attention. Bosco lay next to him with a dopey face only a golden retriever could deliver.

Explains why no one else could hear the door.

“Mr. Gliner,” the voice called again with another round of knocks, “I know you can hear
me.”

It sounded like a woman. Not as pushy as a salesman, but not as dire as a cop. My joints
realigned themselves as I approached the front door. A deadbolt’s release later and I was
squinting into the late afternoon light.

“Hello?”

It was a woman. I stared at a tightly wound brown bun before she lifted her attention
from a clipboard. She wore glasses, a blouse, a jacket, a pencil skirt, and heels. If she was a saleswoman, she was the best-dressed saleswoman ever to grace our porch. Red lips were pulled tight in a mirthless neutral draw. The kind of woman a wife worried about her husband having as a secretary.

“Ah, wonderful, you’re up.” Brown eyes flitted to her clipboard and she marked
something off. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” I waved my hand and prepared to close the door. “Listen, whatever this is,
we’re not interested. Have a nice–”

I stopped, finally taking a moment to look past her. There was a bus parked in front of my house. Not a school bus, but a behemoth of a Greyhound chugging in idle. It dwarfed my little sedan sitting in front of it. Most of the seats looked filled based on what I could see through the windows.

I gawked and turned back to the woman waiting and her tiny impatient lips. “Are you
lost?”

“I’m right where I need to be. And you need to get on that bus.” She looked at a small
watch around her wrist. “Sooner the better, please.”

I almost laughed but didn’t want to be rude. She still registered my amusement with a
flash of annoyance. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake. We don’t have any trips planned.

If you’re after a Mr. Gliner, it must be some other–”

Paper flipped on her clipboard and she breathed in annoyance. “Matt Gliner. Born
October 9th, 1974 to Wilma and Tom Gliner in Denver, Colorado. Married to Miranda Gliner for just over three years.” Her eyes looked up over her glasses from the clipboard. “Stop me if I’m wrong.”

“N…No… No, that’s all correct…” I turned and motioned to the back window and the
yard beyond. “Let me grab my wife. Maybe–”

It’s an odd thing to see yourself sleeping. I froze and stared at the man lying in my
recliner. It looked like me: same flannel shirt, same stubbly chin, same socks with a hole in them.

But it couldn’t be me. How could it be me when I was standing there in the doorway?
She saw my confusion. Her glasses clicked when she removed them. The earpiece
hooked over the clipboard. “I see… You hadn’t realized…”

I ignored her and approached my recliner. The man was as me as a man could get. Even if it somehow wasn’t me, I didn’t like the stillness of his chest.

“Mr. Gliner…” There was a twinge of sympathy in her voice.

“Hey… Hey hey hey hey… What gives, huh?” I turned on the woman standing in my
doorway. “This some kind of a prank? Miranda put you up to this??” I laughed with more
nervousness than I intended. I pointed at the me in my chair. “I gotta tell ya, this thing doesn’t look half as real up clo–”

My hand passed through the body. And the recliner. They might as well have been mist.
“I’m afraid you’ve passed, Mr. Gliner.”

I turned. Any amusement had left the scene. I was angry now. Annoyed that my nap was
interrupted for something so unfunny.

“Passed? As in died?” I laughed like a king being told to step down. “Like hell I’ve ‘passed’. I was taking a nap!” My hands motioned to the body. “I still am taking a nap! Nooo no no no no, this… This is a dream! I’m–”

“Dead, Mr. Gliner.” She stepped into my home as if she owned everything down to the
nails.

I wanted to chuckle but it left as more of a panicked clucking. “I’m not dead. I’m
thirty-seven. I workout. I might enjoy a burger every now and then, but I’m not out there
taunting death day in and day out!” I was starting to yell now.

“You’re just someone with a bus! What gives you the right to come into my house? How can I possibly be dead??”

Her eyes browsed the clipboard with calm serenity. “An aneurysm, according to this.
Probably that same headache that made you take a nap in the first place.”

I’d never shut up so fast. I’d barely mentioned the headache to Miranda before falling
into my recliner. Panic had a hold on me now. I could feel my lower lip trembling. Not sure I had ever felt my emotions switch gears so fast.

“I… I can’t be… You can’t honestly expect me to–”

“Shh…”

A hand came to rest over my heart. Normally I would have pulled away. The idea of
Miranda looking in to see a random woman putting her hands on me in our living room? Shit, I would wish I was dead then.

But her hand was warm. Soothing. It spread through me with a peace I couldn’t reject.
Panic ebbed away. I realized I couldn’t remember taking a breath since waking up.

“It can be hard to accept for some…” she said softly. Her hand pulled away. “Takes a
moment to adjust. Like falling into a river when you don’t even remember jumping.”

I wanted to sniffle. Or fight with logic. Or search for an excuse. But there was only calm.
There was something about her that made everything feel ok. Like this is just the way it was. “So

I really am…”

“I’m afraid so.”

“An aneurysm? Really??” I wasn’t even over the hill. Hell, I was still climbing up the
hill!

“It’s more common than you think.

“And you’re…what? Charon’s secretary here to schedule me for a ferry ride to the
underworld?”

This earned me an amused smirk. “In a sense.”

“Not quite what I imagined as an angel of death…”

“I never am, Mr. Gliner.” She hugged her clipboard. “This is how your soul chooses to
see me.”

“A secretary with a bus.”

“I’ve been worse. And better. I’ve been things that would make you blush or lose your
mind. Come,” she led me toward the front door. I paused, not trusting her enough to step outside my house. “See that older couple there in the front seat?” she said, pointing to a window toward the front. “They just died in a car wreck. They think I’m their deceased son picking them up in an RV to take them camping. And him?” She pointed to a man near the back, dressed in black and a white collar. “I’m an angelic form of his mother.”

“So was he right?”

“Who?”

I pointed to the priest. “Him.”

“Oh. People ask that a lot… And honestly?” She shrugged. “No one had the full picture.
Everyone was trying to paint without a canvas.”

My headache would have come back if it could.

“Don’t worry, you’ll understand.”

Even if it didn’t make sense, I knew one thing: every last person on that bus wore a smile
like I’d never seen.

God, they looked happy.

Like a bunch of kids on their way to a field trip.

“You’re in seat eighteen, if you don’t mind.”

“I…” I shook my head and backed into my house. “Thank you but I would rather stay.”

Her chest pushed into her clipboard when she sighed. “Mr. Gliner, you have to.”

“Or what? I’m already dead.”

“You’re in a state of transition. You’re not meant for this world anymore. If you linger, I
promise you won’t like what comes next.”

I stared out our back window. Mikey was giggling as Miranda sprinkled blades of grass
over his face. “I’m not ready to leave them.”

“You already have.”

“I’m still here. I can see them. I can…I can hear them, for God’s sake! You can’t honestly
expect me to just…go!”

“It’s my job and the way of the universe.”

I watched them. Mikey’s chubby grinning cheeks made my heart ache even with the
warmth flowing through me. “There’s gotta be something? Right? Ghosts? Is that something I can do?? Stay behind??”

She checked the clipboard and flipped through several pages before shaking her head.
“No… No, I don’t see you marked down for that.”

“What about unfinished business?! I’m only thirty-seven, dammit!”

“It was your time.”

“How can it be my time?? I’m still needed here! I’m–” My voice cracked. “You– You’re
asking me…to abandon my wife and kid… How can you make that boy grow up without a
father?”

“It’s not up to me, Mr. Gliner.”

“Then who is it up to?!” My outburst gained no reaction. She stared, watching emotion
take control of my face. “This… This is cruel.”

“This is life.”

I hadn’t felt so close to blubbering since I was a kid. “Can I at least visit them? See them?
W-Watch over them?”

A solemn head shake told me no. “This has to be goodbye.”

The house felt small. Cold. It didn’t want me here. The bus’s engine droned in my ears as
if it were calling my name. “Is there anything I can do? This– For things to end like this–”
She tapped her pen against the clipboard and scanned a page. “Looks like I can allow a
note.”

“A note? Like a–”

“A written note.”

I didn’t wait for more info and raced into the kitchen. A pad of sticky notes and a pen met me at a small alcove. I hardly spared a thought at the fact that my hands were able to grasp them.

Behind me, as I poured over the pad, I could feel her serene presence lingering.
Sorrow choked my mind. Years of regrets, anger, resentment, petty fights… I wanted to
apologize. Why had we even wasted time on such silly things. Miranda and I could have been that much happier. And now…

How are you supposed to say goodbye when there is so much to say?

I let my emotions talk. I told her I was sorry. I told her to take care of Mikey. I told her I
was alright and not to worry. The Post-It filled with my heart and farewell.

“Ah–” she said, reading over my shoulder. “Apologies…” A hand waved over the note
and my words vanished.

“H-Hey– HEY!!” A blank note stared back, void of my heart. I turned on her more
frustrated than ever.

“Why the hell did you–”

“That’s against the rules.”

“Saying goodbye is against the rules?!”

“If you think about it enough I’m confident you’ll see why.”

My eyes narrowed. “Fine,” I growled and turned back to the note. I was halfway through
writing ‘I love you, Miranda’ when she clicked again. I looked up with a huff. “What now?”

“Would you normally write that on a note for her to find?”

“I–” Part of me wanted to lie, but I knew she would know better. “No…”

Another wave of her hand and all traces of my second attempt were gone. “Once more.
This isn’t meant to be a farewell note, Mr. Gliner. The time for farewell is over.”

“Well a warning would have been nice…”

A smile came at my grumble but she said nothing more.

If ghosts had weight, my heart hung like lead. Maybe I could have written ‘I love you’ if
I’d said it more often. Found the time to hide a sappy love letter every now and again. Time has a habit of slipping away, though. It’s hard to find the moments when you’re chasing the years.

There weren’t many things I could have left that fit the requirements at this point. I’m not
sure that what I came up with was better than nothing. I felt sleazy putting it on paper as my last act in the world: Nice ass ;)

The pen dropped through my hand and I stepped away, sullen. A miserable summary of
my marriage stared back from that tiny yellow square.

“Poetic,” she said.

“Come off it. You weren’t letting me write anything else that I wanted. I tried–”

The back door slid open. Bosco bounded in first before I heard the self-entertaining coos
of my son. Miranda held him in one arm while gently closing the back door with the other.

“Bosco…! Bosco…!” Mikey screamed at the dog.

“Shhh, we don’t want to wake Daddy up yet! He’s sleeping.” Miranda held a finger to her
mouth. “We gotta be quiet so he can nap…”

Mikey nodded and clutched her shirt.

I broke. My hand reached out as she neared.

“Miranda–”

She passed through me. I felt no hint of her warmth. No reaction to my voice.

“We gotta go change that smelly diaper!” she whispered and put him over a shoulder.

I watched. Only watched. It was all I could do. The world felt like it was pushing me out.

“Bye, Daddy…” Mikey mumbled from halfway up the stairs. A tiny hand waved at my
recliner.

“Daddy’s not going anywhere. We’ll get you changed and wake him up for dinner!”

How much was one man supposed to take? They left my view. Bosco had laid down by
my chair with his nose between his paws. His brown eyes knew where to look. They stared at mewith the same judgmental scowl as my note.

I hid my face in my hand. I didn’t think ghosts could choke on their words. “Tell me
they’ll be alright… Please…”

She led me toward the front door. A hand on my back was warm like the sun. “They’ll be
fine.” The door approached. The bus’s engine vibrated outside. “I can tell you what happens, if you would like.”

I stared out of my house. I wasn’t ready to leave yet, but I could feel that I had to. This
world wasn’t for me anymore. It was pushing me out like security at a company layoff: mildly persuasive for now, but would get rough if I lingered. The air was vibrating. Thrumming.

“I–”

Bosco got to his feet and padded toward us. He stared at me, panting from his time
playing in the yard. Whether or not he could see me, I didn’t know, but he knew I wasn’t in my chair.

My hand fell on his head and I gave a touchless pet. “Take care of them,” I commanded.

Whatever kind of breath I had hitched in my chest and sorrow stung my eyes. “You’re… You’re a good boy, Bosco…”

“We have to go, Mr. Gliner.”

Her gentle hand guided me from the house. The last time I would ever exit my walls. I
felt myself cross a threshold. Pass through a veil. This might have looked like my front yard but I wasn’t there. My unfinished chores were, though. The weeds Miranda had been asking me to pull for weeks. Our house in need of a paint job. A burnt-out porch light.

Bosco sat in the entryway and whined. I feared he might chase after me. I don’t think the
door was open for him, though.

The woman scribbled something on her clipboard–it looked like a signature–then put her pen behind her ear. “Would you like to know what happens to them?” she asked again as we approached the bus.
What kind of husband or father would say no? I nodded and stayed silent. The emotional
strength wasn’t there to say anything.

“Miranda will feel lost for several years. At times she’ll hate you for leaving her alone
but she knows it wasn’t a decision you made. She’ll remarry when she’s thirty-nine to a
coworker she meets at a company Christmas party. They’ll grow old together until cancer takes him in his late eighties. She’ll follow not long after. She’ll still love you until the day she dies.”

I nodded my head and stared at the sidewalk outside the bus. Droplets dotted the grayness where my tears fell. The rumbling of the engine was all I wanted to listen to but I couldn’t bear to ignore her words. It was the best outcome I could hope for Miranda. I knew I should have felt some hint of jealousy but I was relieved to hear she would find love again.

“And Mikey…?” I choked.

Pages flipped. She pursed her lips and looked through the data. “Small health scare in
middle school… But then captain of his high school soccer team. He gets his girlfriend pregnant but there’s a miscarriage before anything progresses too far. Graduates top of his class with a full-ride to the University of Maryland. After college he finds work as a welder, marries a lovely young woman, Kayla, and they spend their free time bird-watching and camping. They have twins two years into their marriage, Kyle and Mathew. There’s a brush with infidelity and couple’s therapy through the years until retirement. They’ll travel the country in an RV until he has a heart attack at seventy-two.”

The bus was the only thing holding me up. I couldn’t see my feet through my bleary
vision, much less process my son’s entire life given to me in less than a minute.

“Mathew… He names a son after me…” I sobbed, nodding my head again and again.

“That’s good… That’s really good…” What more could a father ask for his son’s life? Sure there were hiccups along the way, but what lifetime doesn’t have them? I looked at the woman and smiled through the tears. “It sounds like he’s happy. Really happy.”

“It certainly does. You’ll be missed, but they will be fine.” Her hand motioned for the
bus’s door. “Now if you wouldn’t mind. We are on a schedule.”

I stepped onto the bus. I wish I could say I felt sadness or sorrow, but I didn’t.
Nostalgia… Relief… Bliss… Comfort… That’s what I felt. It was a combination of all things
you might feel while laughing with those closest to you around a warm dinner. At some point my sobbing had turned to tears of joy. They ran off my face as I stared down the aisle of other souls, all grinning and laughing. Kids on a permanent field trip to the zoo.
The elderly woman she’d pointed out to me earlier sat forward. “Lars, are you sure you
don’t need help paying for gas? We were thinking we could visit the Grand Canyon next,” she asked. A weathered hand gripped her husband’s in his lap. “Your father and I have always dreamed of seeing it.”

The woman smiled. “Sure, Mom. We’ll be there before you know it.”

The grandmother sat down and held her husband’s wrinkled hand with a big smile
stretching her cheeks.

I wiped my face dry. “Seat eighteen, you said?”

She took her place behind the wheel and closed the door. The clipboard clattered over the dash. “That’s right.”

“And…where are we going, exactly?”

“To what comes next.”

It wasn’t an answer, yet I understood. Seat eighteen waited for me halfway down the bus.
My seatmate was shirtless and greeted me in a pair of pink swim trunks and a tan line from sunglasses. A gesture told me to hang loose.

“My man! We’re goin’ to the beach! Are you ready??”

Looking outside, I stared into the window of Mikey’s nursery. Miranda was there,
tickling him on the changing table while he laughed his tiny baby ass off. I could have stayed there watching them for the rest of eternity.

“No… I don’t think I would ever be ready…”

I could see Miranda smiling from here. Beaming with joy at what we’d made. She didn’t
know there was a corpse in the recliner downstairs... I wondered how long until she tried to wake me up. I was on my way to happiness but a nightmare loomed over her head.

The bus hissed and rumbled. It was time to say a true goodbye, whether I was ready or
not. We were already moving.
​
Onto whatever comes next.

                                                                       💀💀💀

David Corisis is a born-and-raised Idahoan and graduate of Gonzaga University. He lives the exciting life of a programmer by day and aspiring writer by night. When not sharing a keyboard with his cat, David enjoys running, brewing mead, playing Magic the Gathering, camping, and worrying about the ever-marching hand of time stealing everything he holds dear. His favorite books include At the Mountains of Madness, and Flatland. He couldn’t be happier taking on the world and its challenges with his eternally inspirational wife at his side. To find out more, you can visit www.dcorisis.com.
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