Limbo turned out to be a cosy room decorated with deep red wallpaper and soft furnishings, plush sofas, a coffee table laden with snacks and a help-yourself bar against one wall. A passage led off to a shower and changing area, the wall opposite the coffee table was mounted with video screens showing closed circuit footage of the various rooms below. Debs sat unmasked but still wearing Ermintrude's dress, with Uncle Morbid on one side and a lady on the other in a white bathrobe over a raspberry pink yoga suit. This woman's hair was wrapped in a towel - it was clear she had just emerged from the shower, but flakes of grey grit still hung around her face.

"I'm Maise, pleased to meet you," she said. "What do you think of our club?"

"It's very impressive," I said. "So, to be clear, I actually saw you getting buried in cement just now?"

"Steve got buried and now he's dead," said Maise. "But I sat in the concrete block until they broke me out. It was pretty cool, actually. I've been buried before, but not like that."

"Tell me honestly," I said, "did you lose on purpose?"

Maise chuckled. "Maybe. The prize for winning is the chance to request your own swansong deathplay for the creative team to put together, I happen to know Didi has something special in mind and I don't want her to stop being Didi just yet."

"Debs and Maise are two of our more creative spirits," said Uncle Morbid. "They have a knack for making our deathplays more than just grim rituals and I must say it is a direction I like. Now, Debs told me you worked in the theatre?"

I confirmed this fact and told him about my work with the Blemished Theatre Company and the kinds of productions we'd put on.

"I would very much like us to benefit from all that experience," said Uncle Morbid. "We are beginning to develop more intricate roleplays, but the vision I have is for a fully immersive theatre with stories spanning multiple games, avatars as developing characters whose ultimate deaths will then mean so much more. I would like to bring you in on a consultancy basis - you can observe the workings of the Mortal Masquerade, we will have meetings to discuss your ideas and gradually see what we can develop. I'm sure Debs will want to help any way she can, she already does stellar work bringing new talent and ideas into our fold - that cement we buried Maise in was made possible by two substance technicians she introduced to us. To give you something to do the rest of the time I'll introduce you to our office manager Susan, who I'm sure will be able to direct you to more conventional work to fit your skills."

I agreed without hesitation.

--

On Monday I went to see Uncle Morbid in his office at Morior.

"I know you're post recall," he said, "but please, tell me your understanding of where we are."

"Well, obviously this is the afterlife," I said. "It's pretty close to my idea of heaven, actually - everything I knew this town could be but never was. It's even introduced me to a woman exactly like the wife I left behind, but I have very mixed feelings about that."

"How so?"

"It's like I'm being tempted to forget Ellen, my widow. But I know she'll be coming to join me here eventually, and I want to be able to say I stayed faithful."

"Debs is a singular woman, with a rather less harmonious former marriage," smiled Uncle Morbid. "I hope you will at least remain friends. As for whether this is heaven, I'm glad you brought that up.
When I first came here, I took it to be an in-between place, somewhere for wayward spirits to work things out and find their way onwards. The early version of the Mortal Masquerade was all about letting spirits play out their dark, self-destructive fantasies so they would come to terms with actually being dead, find peace and move on to whatever final destination is in store for them. It worked that way for some time, but then they started getting creative, stopped getting bored and wanted to stay. The turning point was when we let spirits develop avatars; once they were living a new life over and over with an actual definite end, it became a way to choose life."

"They caught the acting bug," I said.

"Quite," replied Uncle Morbid.

On my way out I went to meet Susan, who turned out to be a conservatively dressed lady in her late thirties with auburn hair. She had a faintly sinister air about her, I sensed her looking through me the same way the bank receptionist had. I told her Uncle Morbid had suggested I see her.

"I know," she said, a little curtly. "You're the guy that's going to help us turn the Mortal Masquerade into even more of a dreamland, I hear."

It didn't sound like she approved, but she'd been asked to help me and was doing her job.

"I don't think you'd be happy working in our office, it's mostly dull routine work and you'd be better off freelancing. We have lists of extras we provide to casting directors, but I think that would be beneath an actor of your experience. I could help you find an agent, but they're all outside of the Ketherton area and so is most of the work."

That was fair enough. I didn't feel like traipsing off to Afterlife London to become a jobbing actor all over again, just as this town was getting interesting. It clearly wasn't on the cards for me anyway, the universe wanted me here.

"Have you thought about teaching?" asked Susan. "You could offer workshops and private tuition to pass on your acting experience, since everyone seems to be a performer these days. It would be adult education because we don't have any children or schools on this plane. They go somewhere else."

She paused as something crossed her mind. "All except for one," she added, mysteriously.

It was a good idea, one I hadn't thought of. I'd need somewhere to work from - I could maybe ask to set up somewhere in Morior Studios, but felt that it would be better to find somewhere in the town centre, there ought to be something down by the canal. In the meantime I jotted down some drafts for flyers and business cards as I waited to meet Debs for lunch.

"Well, look at you settling in," she said. "How did it go this morning?"

"Pretty well, I thought. I don't think Susan likes me, though."

Debs laughed. "I've heard she can be a bit funny when it comes to the Mortal Masquerade, I think it conflicts with her religious beliefs. I've never really spoken to her, but I've heard rumours."

"What kind of rumours?"

"I don't know if I can say, but did you get a strange feeling when you met her, like she was looking straight through you?"

"Now you mention it, yes," I said. "I got that feeling from someone at the bank, too."

"Who?"

"I think her name is Analise. She was on the reception desk when I met her."

Debs stopped to think about this. "You know, I never noticed that until you mentioned it," she said.

I told Debs I was thinking of setting up drama classes somewhere in town.

"Good idea," she said. "I'd sign up, but I can't promise to control myself if you teach love scenes."

"Cheeky."

"Just flirting. Seriously, though, you are gorgeous."

----

In the afternoon I went back into town to look for suitable workshop space. Many of the buildings along the canal were already being used by artists, so I was optimistic about finding somewhere. I managed to locate the exact building we'd used for BTC rehearsals, but barely recognised it now it wasn't covered in graffiti and falling down. There was a small reception desk by the entrance staffed by a bubbly young man named Davis, who gave me the number for the building's owner.

On the way there I'd had another surprise when I passed a shop window to see the face of my wife looking back at me. It was a poster from one of our old BTC productions, with Ellen staring in horror at some unseen threat off camera. I had copies of our old posters at home, but seeing one out in the wild always felt good. I hadn't expected to see one here, framed like a piece of art in a gallery.

The shop was called Culture Collects and sold books, DVDs, merchandise and memorabilia from cult media. The door was guarded by a lifesize cut out of Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, with other curios scattered around the walls leading visitors around the store. The girl at the counter was flamboyantly dressed in a red blazer, grey pleated skirt and bolo tie with a straight black wig, which I recognised as a cosplay from one of the anime posters nearby. I asked her about the poster in the window.

"It's from a horror theatre group that used to have a bit of a cult following," she said. "It's a cool picture, I've sometimes wondered who the actress is on there."

"Well, I can tell you that," I said. "She's my wife."

I told her all about what we'd done in the Blemished Theatre Company and the wonderful actress Ellen had been. I told her how we'd been influenced by the Grand Guignol and the legendary figure of Paula Maxa, the productions we'd run, the ideas she'd made happen, the glamour she'd brought to every part she portrayed. I was getting quite emotional talking about her, even though I had died and she was still living somewhere it was as if I was the one in mourning.

The shop assistant held my hand. "She sounds amazing," she said, sparing me from discussing why I was talking about Ellen in the past tense.

I mentioned that I was looking into starting drama workshops and asked if I could leave some flyers in the shop.

"Please do," said the girl. "I might be interested myself, my partner and I do some acting up at Morior Studios. Just as extras, they hire us to play children because of our appearance. But we never trained and I'd quite like to learn some proper skills, I never had the chance growing up. I'm Kim, by the way. It's wonderful meeting you."

"Likewise," I said, as a thought crossed my mind. "You don't have parents that work at the bank, do you?"

Kim smiled.

"No," she said. "But my partner does."