Eternity's Echo

by H. C. Southwark

  John glanced at her hand holding Niles’s, and shook his head as if Ellie was a baby. In embarrassment she pulled free. Niles jerked in surprise, glanced down at her.

  “Niles,” John said, words as always a bit slurry, “rumor mill says that time—”

  “I said quiet!” boomed the voice again, and there was immediate silence. John’s mouth kept working, but no sound came. After a few words he stopped, flushed red. Ellie felt vindicated, satisfied by his shame in a way she did not fully understand.

  “That’s better,” said the elephant voice, and then there was a brief murmur as if whatever had brought the silence was lifted. Yet the crowd of reapers was now paying attention, and without the commotion Ellie could see a little man, who came about to her waist, standing on the surface of Susan’s desk, while Susan stood flustered nearby.

  “Thank you all for coming,” said the elephant-voiced man. He lifted a hand and smoothed his brow, making sweat glint on his bowling-ball head. “By returning to Colorado Springs Headquarters, you have followed regulations concerning hearing the Chime. I ask that any who are missing be informed by yourselves afterwards, as I am very busy at the... the...” he faltered, then recovered: “...moment.”

  The assembled reapers stared at him, uncomprehending.

  Ellie found herself torn in two:

  First, she was amused at a high-level reaper speaking so formally. ‘Headquarters,’ indeed—everyone always called them ‘upstairs’ instead. And regulations—when Ellie had started, Niles had shown her a book kept in Susan’s desk, said, “If you’re ever curious, these are the rules,” and left it at that.

  And Niles was conscientious about these things. Cookie, and doubtless Shawn, probably did not even know about the book.

  But second, came a feeling harder to name. It was a sinking feeling, like the vertigo when one slips but has not yet been caught in gravity. Suspension. A disbelief—the idea that one knew one was going to fall, one had to, but in that moment one could almost believe otherwise. As though one could float unharmed forever.

  Of course, one was still going to fall.

  Whatever this is, Ellie thought, it can’t be good news. Not if the bosses’ boss is here.

  “I have just come from the Denver Headquarters, who has received news from the Washington D.C. Headquarters, and them from the Jerusalem Headquarters. It seems the Chime has been heard by reapers all over the world.”

  None of the assembled reapers seemed surprised. Josephina had been right, Ellie guessed—they had all heard the chime, and had already figured as much.

  “And,” said the little man, “the halt in time is also global.”

  The room went tense. Ellie felt the muscles in her jaw slacken, but before her lips parted her muscles reversed to grind her teeth. That time could stop like this—she had never imagined. This was more than a local disaster—

  How on earth had it happened? Had reapers caused it? How could they fix it?

  “Accordingly, to regulation,” continued the little man, “an investigation was made by high-level reapers concerning the Spindle of Necessity. It has broken.”

  A sudden outpouring of murmuring, but nobody was loud enough to be picked out in the crowd. Ellie racked her memory on what the Spindle of Necessity was. She could not recall anything—but there came to her the image of a long, perpendicular column like a giant knitting needle, stabbed though the center of the Earth.

  The little man spoke louder, to be heard over the noise. “As a result, all of the planetary bodies are at a standstill, and will probably begin to fall sometime soon...” and he faltered again, recovered. “Well, we’re not exactly sure when. Actually—we are sure. They will fall now. It’s just a matter of how long ‘now’ will be before they fall.”

  Despite how confusing and ridiculous his statements were, nobody laughed.

  “With the Spindle broken... there is no other way to say this...” said the little man.

  The murmuring among the crowd increased. And the feeling of suspension, in in the back of Ellie’s mind, trembled. She realized what the announcer was trying to say.

  “This is difficult to put into simple words,” continued the little man. “But...”

  No, thought Ellie, don’t say it at all, then. The bruises around her neck flared up, but she did not stop her hand from continuing to pull. She did not need to breathe, after all.

  “Time has permanently stopped.”

  The murmuring went quiet.

  You are the one who should stop, Ellie wanted to say. Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.

  Thinking it makes it real.

  “My fellow reapers,” said the little man, “the world has ended.”

  Throughout the room there was a collective inhalation, a reverse-gasp. Silence, as nobody breathed out. Ellie’s nostrils flared, but no air came, as if her lungs were greedily hoarding what life they could.

  But they were dead lungs. Dead like the rest of her.

  Dead like the whole universe, Ellie thought, dimly. And felt a growing, clawing something welling up within, something wild only contained by the draw-string of the scarf she had pulled tight around her throat. A cork in a bottle...

  Dead, she thought, like my family. Because it must include my family. It’s the whole world, after all... they are going to sit there frozen arguing about pizza forever.

  And they just became happy.

  Had she not thought, flippantly, only hours earlier—that there were lots of things one stopped caring about when one was dead? In this moment, the space between a breath that left and a second that never came, Ellie saw that thought for what it was: a lie.

  The moment stretched too long. A vague sort of horror began lingering in the background of Ellie’s mind, sort of like a nightmarish face in the corner of one’s eye late at night—what about reapers? They lived outside of time, had control of it sometimes, but they also moved through it. What if they, too, were about to freeze?

  Was this their tableau? Would she stand motionless in this brothel lobby, suffocating on her own scarf, forever?

  Then, from the pillars in the back of the room, came the first noise:

  A whoop.

  The whole room staggered, flinched, as though struck. Ellie watched everyone glance around, looking for the source. Then a holler from a different corner, and hands clapping, starting in sparse pockets, until at once it swept over like a wave, everyone putting hands up and tapping, politely at first, then with increasing fervor.

  Smiles broke out, shy, tentative, then full-faced.

  From across the room, someone whistled, the loud trill that typically happened at sports games. A reaper a few steps away from Ellie turned and spoke to a rotund woman—“We did it, Michelle!”—and the woman cheered.

  There were similar calls, We made it, Congrats all, Go us, Finally, It’s been centuries, and All good things must come to an end y’know!

  Ellie realized her mouth was open, shut it. Her teeth clicked inside her skull.

  Clicked, like her pocket-watch never would, ever again.

  What are they doing? Ellie thought. She stared out at the crowd of reapers and saw that, among them, only a few were not clapping, hollering, or smiling. Instead, they looked overwhelmed and horrified—the same look she was sure she carried.

  Beside Ellie, John let out a whistle, his pointer fingers in his mouth like the teeth of a walrus. The sound sent her reeling, and she saw the others around her: Josephina was smiling, clapping, Carson was giving thumb’s up to one of his former students, except his thumbs were short and stubby due to his manner of death.

  Shawn seemed utterly baffled. He stared out at the other reapers, lost and dazed. His and Ellie’s eyes met, and their vision skittered away from each other. She thought he looked like a child accidentally left behind at the grocery store by its mother.

  And Niles. She did not look at him directly—nor was he looking at anyone else. But he was looking down,
and for a moment, she thought that he, too, was horrified.

  But then she saw, through the corners of her vision, his face:

  He looked relieved. He looked... grateful. A small smile lingered in the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were like those of a man who has found something he thought lost. All soft around the edges. There was a slump in his shoulders, muscles relaxed.

  Questions and explanations poured through her mind, but she caught none of them, all thoughts streaming through without stopping like water in a sieve. She felt dizzy.

  Ellie closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing. Did not succeed.

  Someone grabbed her arm, and Ellie would have started, but her body seemed remote, somehow. Niles had her, she realized, and was peering into her eyes.

  “Ellie,” he said, and he barely could be heard over the rising noise, “you’re white. Sit down.” And when she did not respond, he caught John’s attention, said something else, and then the two of them were lowering her to the floor by her elbows.

  The noise was not as bad down here, she thought.

  Shawn was lowered next to her. A few more reapers did the same. The celebrating faded to background murmur. Breathing became easier. After what seemed like no time and yet forever, the noise began to simmer down, and then came Susan’s voice:

  “All right then. Mr Judicael had to move on to the next location. Please remember to follow instructions on informing anyone who was not here.”

  Cookie, Ellie thought, and a flash of panic: what if she was in solitary? If someone was in solitary for a week and then time ended, did that mean she never left? After all, the allotted week of confinement would never end, because time was ended.

  Don’t be stupid, she told herself, trying to pull the rein on her wild emotions. Shawn was here with the ball-and-chain. He would not be punished less than Cookie, because he had two infractions, the fighting and the tormenting of his assignment, plus all his previous screwups. Cookie was probably fine. Niles might have let her off entirely.

  But even as she tried to assert control over herself, another part of her was shrieking: the world has ended! Cookie—Shawn—Niles—me—and then:

  My family. Robbie. Mom. Dad.

  What will become of us?

  Yet Susan was not finished. Through the forest of legs and butts, Ellie could see that Susan was straightening up behind the desk and heaving the big book of rules Niles had shown her onto the surface. Reapers were still talking, but lower now, and so mostly quieted as Susan flipped to the end of the book and continued,

  “Now, then. New orders.”

  That seemed to catch everyone’s attention. The room quieted entirely.

  “It says here,” Susan continued, “that, upon the advent of the Apocalypse, the duty of reapers is to remove every soul still on the planet before the falling of the stars.”

  She paused, mouth twisting. “We have our work cut out, then.”

  A collective snicker. Colorado Springs total population was over seven hundred thousand, and the rest of El Paso County at least that.

  This is going to be a disaster, Ellie thought. And then: Wait. This is already a disaster.

  The last of all the disasters in the world.

  Susan continued to scan the page, and said, “Because of the volume of souls, there will be a special holding area from which they will be processed. It is permissible and considered proper to inform the souls that the world has ended if they ask.”

  Yeah, thought Ellie. Like that will make things better. They’ll tear each other apart in this holding room, while us reapers go crazy processing and reaping.

  Other reapers seemed to have come to the same conclusion. John said, “Imagine working at Denver right now,” and Josephina let out a bark of laughter. Behind her, Carson added, “Or New York. Beijing. Dubai. Would really be a headache.”

  Stop laughing, assholes, Ellie thought. It’s not that funny.

  Susan was not finished. “In addition, new processors will be appointed to assist with the transfer of souls. Weighing of hearts on earth are suspended. Processors will now weigh hearts once the souls are in the holding area away from the disaster zone.”

  She paused briefly, scanning. “Any missing or unlocatable soul—including those currently in the possession of demons—will be found and brought to processing.”

  My first runner. The words came to Ellie and her vision blurred. Her runner was demon chow, had to be. He had been missing for two whole years. She blinked rapidly. Put her hands into her hair, scrunched them into fists. Moments from tearing at her own scalp, another hand came down and rested on hers.

  Niles, she thought.

  This was an impossible task. If missing persons could be found, then they would have been found already. Demons were easy to squish—but only when you caught them in the act. They were every bit the rats they often looked like.

  A few voices began to speak up: Impossible, Susan, what are you saying?

  “Now,” said Susan, anticipating this objection. “The reasoning behind this is that there will be no place for demons or missing souls to hide. You see, we’re not just in charge of the human souls anymore.”

  Raising her head, Ellie frowned through her fingers at Susan.

  “Our new assignment,” said Susan, “once humanity is removed, is to reap the universe.”

  There was a snort of laughter. Susan rapped her knuckles on the desk.

  “That’s what it says,” she proclaimed. “We are now in a demolition phase. Everything must be removed. Buildings, plant and animal life, soil, water, air, even the laws of physics. We are to collect the stars when they fall. And, it says here, ‘to roll up the sky like a scroll’—” and, after interrupting laughter— “I would not make this up, gentlemen.”

  Josephina raised her hand, like this was a classroom. Susan nodded.

  “So we need to reap everyone, and get started on the world after,” the tall woman said. “But there are many souls to be harvested, and not enough of us. What happens to human souls who are left on earth when the stars fall?”

  Susan frowned, flipped through the book pages. There was a long pause as everyone waited for the answer—but Ellie already had a feeling the reply would be ‘nothing good.’

  “I am afraid the rulebook does not say,” said Susan, at last. “It only reads, ‘Make every effort that all souls must be reaped before the stars fall.’”

  “Well,” said Carson. “Then I vote we get started. The workers get reaping, and us mentors figure out how to make things faster, because we’re gonna need a miracle.”

  “Yes,” said Niles, and there was something strangely sad in his voice.

  “I don’t know about you,” said a reaper on the other end of the room, “but I’m a little more worried about runners. I figure there will be more than usual.”

  “We could just let them run,” a second said. “Sounds like they have nowhere to go.”

  “But if we reap souls first, then they could escape and be demon chow,” said a third. “There’s no reason why they should suffer because they get scared.”

  “Look,” a fourth voice piped up. “I don’t see what’s so hard about this. There’s no reason why we have to let them be able to move. Just freeze the soul in time after you release it from its body—simple. They become statues, we process them.”

  “We cannot do that,” said Niles. He sounded as forceful as Ellie had ever heard—and Ellie remembered the soft smile on his face a few moments ago. “Their bodies would freeze but their minds remain aware. It would terrify them.”

  “The world is over,” the fourth voice responded. “So what’s the point?”

  “The point is,” Niles said, “you have been given a commission. Without pardon, and without parole. And your fourth task is: to comfort the Dead.”

  Ellie jolted, hearing those words not in her mind but instead aloud; they sounded more real that way. There was silence throughout the room as N
iles spoke, and the solemn faces around her told Ellie that everyone else, too, remembered these words well.

  “The sentence is without pardon and without parole. What part of that suggests that time ending will put an end to your commission?” Niles asked. “You’re a reaper, aren’t you? Your commission has been given new orders. Sounds like that’s the point, yes?”

  There was a mutter from the other person, but nobody else objected. Susan said, “Very well. Workers meet to my left, toward Heaven’s gate, and mentors here with me. I appoint Anna Woodsworth with the workers.” People began moving as directed.

  We’re doing this, then, Ellie thought. The world is over.

  And we’re the demolition crew.

  Chapter Nine: The Question Nobody Asked.

  What happens to reapers when there’s nobody left to reap?

  The words had come to Ellie only a few hours ago, as she had watched a pimply Keith Smithson argue with the red-haired girl about the end of the world.

  How timely, Ellie thought. God really does have a dark sense of humor.

  Or maybe, came an alternate explanation, it’s just coincidence. Maybe people just think about the end of the world often, talk about it all the time, and I happened to be near one of those discussions. All a bizarre little quirk in this world of ours.

  Why do people obsess over the end of the world, anyway?

  As Niles talked to Josephina, Ellie considered: It’s like there’s something inside of us, inside all of us, that is focused on the end of the world. Why?

  What is the point, the red-haired girl had asked. We’re all going to die sooner or later.

  Even having a soul did not preclude the end of everything. Everything would still end.

  And now the end was here.

  Niles and Josephina parted ways, her heels clacking on marble tile. Shawn stayed behind, still on the floor with Ellie. She did not look up, but then a hand on her shoulder, Niles saying, “You have to try to stand, Ellie. Everything will be all right.”

  Ellie let him raise her up by her elbow, all her efforts on not screaming: Liar!