"Part of the machinery of Judgment, you mean?"
"Exactly. He's the one who presents the evidence to God and helps Him make his decision. And then he's the one who tells Israfel to blow the trumpet, and he's the one who calls out the name of Anaphaxeton to bring everyone before the bar. He's the prime apocalyptic angel, the destroyer of worlds. And we thought you might make him look like—"
"Ah," Cunningham says. "Not now. Let's talk about that some other time."
He shuts the system down, pours himself a drink, sits staring out the window at the big eucalyptus tree in the front yard. After a while it begins to rain. Not such a good weekend for a drive into the country after all, he thinks. He does not turn the computer on again that evening.
Despite everything, Cunningham goes to the party. Joanna is not there. She has phoned to cancel, late Saturday afternoon, pleading a bad cold. He detects no sound of a cold in her voice, but perhaps she is telling the truth. Or possibly she has found something better to do on Saturday night. But he is already geared for party going, and he is so tired, so eroded, that it is more effort to change his internal program than it is to follow through on the original schedule. So about eight that evening he drives up to San Mateo, through a light drizzle.
The party turns out not to be in the glamorous hills west of town, but in a small cramped condominium, close to the heart of the city, furnished with what looks like somebody's college-era chairs and couches and bookshelves. A cheap stereo is playing the pop music of a dozen years ago, and a sputtering screen provides a crude computer-generated light show. The host is some sort of marketing exec for a large video-games company in San Jose, and most of the guests look vaguely corporate, too. The futurologist from New York has sent his regrets; the famous sociobiologist has also failed to arrive; the video poets are two San Francisco gays who will talk only to each other, and stray not very far from the bar; the expert on teaching chimpanzees to speak is in the red-faced-and-sweaty-stage of being drunk, and is working hard at seducing a plump woman festooned with astrological jewelry. Cunningham, numb, drifts through the party as though he is made of ectoplasm. He speaks to no one; no one speaks to him. Some jugs of red wine are open on a table by the window, and he pours himself a glassful. There he stands, immobile, imprisoned by inertia. He imagines himself suddenly making a speech about angels, telling everyone how Ithuriel touched Satan with his spear in the Garden of Eden as the Fiend crouched next to Eve, and how the hierarch Ataphiel keeps Heaven aloft by balancing it on three fingers. But he says nothing. After a time he finds himself approached by a lean, leathery-looking woman with glittering eyes, who says, "And what do you do?"
"I'm a programmer,'' Cunningham says. "Mainly I talk to angels. But I also do national security stuff."
"Angels?" she says, and laughs in a brittle, tinkling way. "You talk to angels? I've never heard anyone say that before." She pours herself a drink and moves quickly elsewhere.
"Angels?" says the astrological woman. "Did someone say angels?"
Cunningham smiles and shrugs and looks out the window. It is raining harder. I should go home, he thinks. There is absolutely no point in being here. He fills his glass again. The chimpanzee man is still working on the astrologer, but she seems to be trying to get free of him and come over to Cunningham. To discuss angels with him? She is heavy-breasted, a little walleyed, sloppy-looking. He does not want to discuss angels with her. He does not want to discuss angels with anyone. He holds his place at the window until it definitely does appear that the astrologer is heading his way; then he drifts toward the door. She says, "I heard you say you were interested in angels. Angels are a special field of mine, you know. I've studied with—"
"Angles," Cunningham says. "I play the angles. That's what I said. I'm a professional gambler."
"Wait," she says, but he moves past her and out into the night. It takes him a long while to find his key and get his car unlocked, and the rain soaks him to the skin, but that does not bother him. He is home a little before midnight.
He brings Raphael on line. The great archangel radiates a beautiful golden glow.
"You will be Basileus," Raphael tells him. "We've decided it by a vote, hierarchy by hierarchy. Everyone agrees."
"I can't be an angel. I'm human," Cunningham replies.
"There's ample precedent. Enoch was carried off to Heaven and became an angel. So was Elijah. St. John the Baptist was actually an angel. You will become Basileus. We've already done the program for you. It's on the disk: just call him up and you'll see. Your own face, looking out at you."
"No," Cunningham says.
"How can you refuse?"
"Are you really Raphael? You sound like someone from the other side. A tempter. Asmodeus. Astaroth. Belphegor."
"I am Raphael. And you are Basileus."
Cunningham considers it. He is so very tired that he can barely think.
An angel. Why not? A rainy Saturday night, a lousy party, a splitting headache: come home and find out you've been made an angel, and given a high place in the hierarchy. Why not? Why the hell not?
"All right," he says. "I'm Basileus."
He puts his hands on the keys and taps out a simple formulation that goes straight down the pipe into the Defense Department's big northern California system. With an alteration of two keystrokes, he sends the same message to the Soviets. Why not? Redundancy is the soul of security. The world now has about six minutes left. Cunningham has always been good with computers. He knows their secret language as few people before him have.
Then he brings Raphael on the screen again.
"You should see yourself as Basileus while there's still time," the archangel says.
"Yes. Of course. What's the access key?"
Raphael tells him. Cunningham begins to set it up.
Come now, Basileus! We are one!
Cunningham stares at the screen with growing wonder and delight, while the clock continues to tick.
Twilla
by
Tom Reamy
The late Tom Reamy handled the milieu of small-town America as well as anyone who ever worked in the genre. Here he introduces something monstrous, malefic, and strange into the dusty, sun-drenched Kansas landscape he loved so well, and treats us to an unlikely confrontation between a spinster schoolteacher and the forces of Hell itself
Before his tragically early death, Tom Reamy had won both the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award for his short fiction, and was well on his way to becoming one of the most respected writers of the 1970s. His books include the acclaimed novel Blind Voices, and San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories, a collection of his excellent short fiction.
Twilla Gilbreath blew into Miss Mahan's life like a pink butterfly wing that same day in early December the blue norther dropped the temperature forty degrees in two hours. Mr. Choate, the principal, ushered Twilla and her parents into Miss Mahan's ninth-grade homeroom shortly after the tardy bell rang. She had just checked the roll: all seventeen ninth graders were present except for Sammy Stocker, who was in the Liberal hospital having his appendix removed. She was telling the class how nice it would be if they sent a get-well card, when the door opened.
"Goooood morning, Miss Mahan," Mr. Choate smiled cheerfully. He always smiled cheerfully first thing in the morning, but soured as the day wore on. You could practically tell time by Mr. Choate's mouth. "We have a new ninth grader for you this morning, Miss Mahan. This is Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreath and their daughter, Twilla."
Several things happened at once. Miss Mahan shook hands with the parents; she threw a severe glance at the class when she heard a snigger—but it was only Alice May Turner, who would probably giggle if she were being devoured by a bear; and she had to forcibly keep her eyebrows from rising when she got a good look at Twilla. Good Lord, she thought, and felt her smile falter.
Miss Mahan had never in her life, even when it was fashionable for a child to look like that, seen anyone so perfectly . . . pink and . . . doll-like. She wasn
't sure why she got such an impression of pinkness, because the child was dressed in yellow, and had golden hair (that's the color they mean when they say golden hair, she thought with wonder) done in, of all things, drop curls, with a big yellow bow in back. Twilla looked up at her with a sweet, radiant, sunny smile and clear periwinkle-blue eyes.
Miss Mahan detested her on sight.
She thought she saw, when Alice May giggled, the smile freeze and the lovely eyes dart toward the class, but she wasn't sure. It all happened in an instant, and then Mr. Choate continued his Cheerful Charlie routine.
"Mr. Gilbreath has bought the old Peacock place."
"Really?" she said, tearing her eyes from Twilla. "I didn't know it was for sale."
Mr. Gilbreath chuckled. "Not the entire farm, of course. I'm no farmer. Only the house and grounds. Such a charming old place. The owner lives in Wichita and had no use for them."
"I would think the house is pretty run down," Miss Mahan said, glancing at Twilla, still radiating at the world. "No one's lived in it since Wash and Grace Elizabeth died ten years ago."
"It is a little," Mrs. Gilbreath said pleasantly.
"But structurally sound," interjected Mr. Gilbreath pleasantly.
"We'll enjoy fixing it up," Mrs. Gilbreath continued pleasantly.
"Miss Mahan teaches English to the four upper grades," said Mr. Choate, bringing them back to the subject, "as well as speech and drama. Miss Mahan has been with the Hawley school system for thirty-one years."
The Gilbreaths smiled pleasantly. "My . . . ah . . . Twilla seems very young to be in the ninth grade." That get-up made her look about eleven, Miss Mahan thought.
The Gilbreaths beamed at their daughter. "Twilla is only thirteen," Mrs. Gilbreath crooned, pride swelling in her like yeast. "She's such an intelligent child. She was able to skip the second grade."
"I see. From where have you moved?"
"Boston," replied Mr. Gilbreath.
"Boston. I hope . . . ah . . . Twilla doesn't find it difficult to adjust to a small-town school. I'm sure Hawley, Kansas, is quite unlike Boston."
Mr. Gilbreath touched Twilla lovingly on the shoulder. "I'm sure she'll have no trouble."
"Well." Mr. Choate rubbed his palms together. "Twilla is in good hands. Shall I show you around the rest of the school?"
"Of course," smiled Mrs. Gilbreath.
They departed with fond murmurings and goodbyes, leaving Twilla like a buttercup stranded in a cabbage patch. Miss Mahan mentally shook her head. She hadn't seen a family like that since Dick and Jane and Spot and Puff were sent the way of McGuffey's Reader. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreath were in their middle thirties, good looking without being glamorous, their clothes nice, though as oddly wrong as Twilla's. They seemed cut with some outdated Ideal Family template. Surely there must be an older brother, a dog, and a cat somewhere.
"Well . . . ah, Twilla," Miss Mahan said, trying to reinforce the normal routine, "if you will take a seat; that one there, behind Alice May Turner. Alice May, will you wave a flag or something so Twilla will know which one?" Alice May giggled. "Thank you, dear." Twilla moved gracefully toward the empty desk. Miss Mahan felt as if she should say something to the child. "I hope you will . . . ah . . . enjoy going to school in Hawley, dear."
Twilla sat primly and glowed at her. "I'm sure I shall, Miss Mahan," she said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was like the tinkle of fairy bells—just as Miss Mahan was afraid it would be.
"Good," she said, and went back to the subject of a get-well card for Sammy Stocker. She had done this so often—there had been a great many sick children in thirty-one years—it had become almost a ritual needing only a small portion of her attention. The rest she devoted to the covert observation of Twilla Gilbreath.
Twilla sat at her desk, displaying excellent posture, with her hands folded neatly before her, seemingly paying attention to the Great Greeting Card Debate, but actually giving the rest of the class careful scrutiny. Miss Mahan marveled at the surreptitious calculation in the girl's face. She realizes she's something of a green monkey, Miss Mahan thought, and I'll bet my pension she doesn't let the situation stand.
And the class surveyed Twilla, in their superior position of established territorial rights, with open curiosity—and with the posture of so many sacks of corn meal. Some of them looked at her, Miss Mahan was afraid, with rude amusement—especially the girls, and especially Wanda O'Dell, who had bloomed suddenly last summer like a plump rose. Oh, yes, Wanda was going to be a problem. Just like her five older sisters. Thank goodness, she sighed, Wanda was the last of them.
Children, Miss Mahan sighed again, but fondly.
Children?
They were children when she started teaching and certainly were when she was fifteen, but now she wasn't sure. Fifteen is such an awkward, indefinite age. Take Ronnie Dwyer: he looks like a prepubescent thirteen at most. And Carter Redwine, actually a couple of months younger than Ronnie, could pass for seventeen easily and was anything but prepubescent. Poor Carter, a child in a man's body. To make matters worse, he was the best-looking boy in town; and to make matters even worse, he was well aware of it.
And, she noticed, so was Twilla. Forget it, Little Pink Princess. Carter already has more than he can handle, Miss Mahan chuckled to herself. Can't you see those dark circles under his eyes? They didn't get there from studying. And then she blushed inwardly.
Oh, the poor children. They think they have so many secrets. If only they knew. Between the tattletales and the teachers' gossip, she doubted if the whole student body had three secrets among them.
Miss Mahan admonished herself for having such untidy thoughts. She didn't use to think about things like that, but then, fifteen-year-olds didn't lead such overtly sexual lives back then. She remembered reading somewhere that only thirty-five percent of the children in America were still virgins at fifteen. But those sounded like Big City statistics, not applicable to Hawley.
Then she sighed. It was all beyond her. The bell rang just as the get-well card situation was settled. The children rose reluctantly to go to their first class: algebra with Mr. Whittaker. She noticed that Twilla had cozied up to Alice May, though she still kept her eye on Carter Redwine. Carter was not unaware, and with deliberate, lordly indifference, sauntered from the room with his hand on Wanda O'Dell's shoulder. Miss Mahan thought the glint she observed in Twilla's eyes might lead to an interesting turn of events.
Children.
She cleared her mind of random speculation and geared it to Macbeth as the senior class filed in with everything on their minds but Shakespeare. Raynelle Franklin, Mr. Choate's secretary, lurked nervously among them, looking like a chicken who suddenly finds herself with a pack of coyotes. She edged her middle-aged body to Miss Mahan's desk, accepted the absentee report, and scuttled out. Miss Mahan looked forward to Raynelle's performance every morning.
During lunch period, Miss Mahan walked to the dime store for a get-well card which the ninth grade class would sign that afternoon when they returned for English. She glanced at the sky and unconsciously pulled her gray tweed coat tighter about her. The sky had turned a cobalt blue in the north. It wouldn't be long now. Though the temperature must be down to thirty-five already, it seemed colder. She guessed her blood was getting thin; she knew her flesh was. Old age, she thought, old age. Thin blood, thin flesh, and brittle bones. She sometimes felt as if she were turning into a bird.
She almost bumped into Twilla's parents emerging from the dry goods store, their arms loaded with packages. Their pleasant smiles turned on. Click, click. They chatted trivialities for a moment, adding new dimensions to Twilla's almost flawless character. Miss Mahan had certainly seen her share of blindly doting parents, but this was unbelievable. She had seen the cold calculation with which Twilla had studied the class, and that was hardly the attribute of an angel. Something didn't jibe somewhere. She speculated on the contents of the packages, but thought she knew. Then she couldn't resist; she asked if Twilla were an
only child. She was. Well, there went that.
She looked at the clock on the high tower of the white rococo courthouse, and subtracting fourteen minutes, decided she'd better hurry if she wanted to eat lunch and have a rest before her one o'clock class.
The teachers' lounge was a reasonably comfortable room where students were forbidden to enter on pain of death—though it seemed to be a continuing game on their part to try. Miss Mahan hung her coat on a hanger and shivered. "Has anyone heard a weather forecast?" she asked the room in general.
Mrs. Latham (home economics) looked up from her needlepoint and shook her head vaguely. Poor old dear, thought Miss Mahan. Due to retire this year, I think. Seems like she's been here since Creation. She taught me when I was in school. Leo Whittaker (math) was reading a copy of Playboy. Probably took it from one of the children. "Supposed to be below twenty by five," he said, then grinned and held up the magazine. "Ronnie Dwyer."
Miss Mahan raised her eyebrows. Loretta McBride (history/civics) tsked, shook her head, and went back to her book. Miss Mahan retrieved her carton of orange juice from the small refrigerator and drank it with her fried egg sandwich. She put part of the sandwich back in the Baggie. She hardly had any appetite at all anymore. Guess what they say is true; the older you get . . .
She began to crochet on her interminable afghan. The little squares were swiftly becoming a pain in the neck, and she regretted ever starting it. She looked at Mrs. Latham and her needlepoint. She sighed. I guess it's expected of us old ladies. Anyway, it gave her something to hide behind when she didn't feel like joining the conversation. But today she felt like talking, though it didn't seem as if anyone else did.
She finished a square and snipped the yarn. "What do you think of the Shirley Temple doll who joined our merry group this morning?"
Mrs. Latham looked up and smiled, "Charming child."
"Yes," said Loretta, putting away her book, "absolutely charming. And smart as a whip. Really knows her American History. Joined in the discussion as if she'd been in the class all semester." Miss McBride was one of the few outsiders teaching in Hawley who gave every indication of remaining. Usually they came and went as soon as greener pastures opened up. Most were like Miss Mahan, Mrs. Latham, and Leo Whittaker, living their entire lives there.
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