Watcher

by Andrew Weis

  My walk to the sidewalk paused when a dog’s deep throaty growl caught my attention. I didn’t need any more grief. I picked up a small pipe, then backed away. Out of the shadows came a massive snarling English Mastiff. The dog’s jingling collar grew louder as it trotted faster toward me.

  The giant dog spread its huge jaws and latched onto my leg as if it were a cow bone before I even raised the pipe. A hard smack cut a deep gash on his muzzle. It took several more smacks with the pipe before he yelped and ran off.

  After watching the dog run away, or rather gallop away, I caught my breath. Although blood didn’t flow from the puncture marks on my leg, it throbbed something fierce.

  My jaw relaxed as I thought. If he caused serious damage, I might not get another chance for a long jump rematch against that girl from Prospect High School who beat me at last year’s state finals. For the moment, I had bigger problems.

  The quiet of the industrial street faded when I heard the faint pounding of bass speakers in the distance. A car’s headlights lit up behind me and its engine rumbled louder. A familiar red 1970 Chevelle cruised alongside me. With my arms crossed, I kept walking, then made the mistake of making eye contact with Coz.

  Coz looked at me with contempt, with his muscular arms hung over the side of the door. His Asian friend Akio, a perfect poster child for cheesy martial arts movies, steered the car closer to the curb.

  I saw Daniel in the back seat, watching me with sadness in his eyes. I didn’t want to provoke anything, so I kept clear of Coz’s reach and didn’t slow my stride.

  “What are you doing around here, girl?” Coz asked, tapping the car door in time to the music.

  Coz checked me out then eyed my limp.

  “Trouble with your sexy leg?” Coz asked with a grin.

  “Yeah, a dog just bit me.”

  “A dog? Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

  “Shut up, boy!” Coz said. “Dogs are bad around here, Jess. You can’t be too careful. Come on and get in the car. We’ll take you home.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather walk,” I said.

  “You should remember your place while you at it, huh?” Coz asked, tapping the door harder to the music’s rhythm. “You’re my girl now, remember? We’re in love.”

  As if an imaginary starting gun blast went off in my head, I dashed toward the Metra rail yard about a half block ahead. Akio couldn’t take the car up the rocky embankment, so if Coz wanted me, he’d have to chase me himself. I ignored the pain in my leg; I figured I’d deal with it later.

  Coz’s Chevelle roared as it raced after me. The car skidded to a stop along the embankment where I was already halfway up to the train tracks.

  Coz scrambled after me, his profanity-riddled threats resonating clear as glass. He caught up, grabbed my foot and dragged me to him. He shoved me hard against the embankment’s bulky fist-sized granite rocks and rolled me onto my back.

  My vision wavered, and I felt disoriented. My navy skirt got yanked up and my panties torn off. I opened my eyes and cringed as Coz’s hot breath huffed on my neck like an overheated dog. My mind took me somewhere safe, fighting the otherwise natural response of fear.

  The ordeal seemed to last longer than it did. I lay there stunned, in disbelief that Coz forced himself on me like that. Shock sprouted inside me, but then a surge of anger and vengefulness killed that weakness and filled my heart. I was still alive and that meant Coz left the door open for me to get back at him for this.

  Daniel only stared at me. He didn’t look happy about what happened, but he still could’ve tried to stop Coz if he had an ounce of humanity in him.

  “What’re you waiting for?” Coz said. “This one’s on me, a onetime offer for you to even the score.”

  Daniel jerked his head toward Coz. He stepped back while looking at me with the coldest eyes I ever saw. My heart sunk.

  “No, Coz, I don’t do that to people, no matter how bad they turn on you,” Daniel said, crossing his arms.

  The rocks of the embankment jabbed my back. Each one was big enough to fit in my hand, so I grabbed one and threw it at Daniel. When he ducked, I rolled onto my front and clawed my way up the embankment.

  The rail yard seemed quiet of any active trains. I looked to the west at the Great Overpass Rise, the name of the dozen railroad tracks that rose up on a mile-long incline to a huge steel bridge. They built the bridge a century ago as a livestock path from the Union Pacific yard to the Chicago Stockyards. When the stockyards closed, Metra bought the land, then reinforced the bridge with a crisscross of steel beams and girders for the growing commuter service. Three trains climbed the hill, and no others were in sight.

  The opposite side of the rail yard was a half mile away, so I made my panicked run across the obstacle course of rails, switches and crossovers. I didn’t give much thought to the evening returns that would be here soon.

  I zigzagged across the yard as if doing a small hurdle workout. My injured leg dragged along like a lead pipe, but I got close to the other side when I heard the gunshots. Bullets chipped at the stones and ricocheted off rails near my feet. I turned and saw Coz, Akio and Daniel as they ran toward me.

  I stumbled over the tracks while my panicked mind tried to get me away from Coz. Safety came in the form of a tall chain-link fence, but I was on the wrong side of it. It was better to be on the sides of the yard than the middle, so I held my ground, not that I had a choice.

  With my leg trashed and skirt torn, there wasn’t any hope for me to get away from them. I caught my breath while looking at the three of them as they stepped closer.

  Akio and I never spoke to each other, but I hated him nonetheless. Because he was Coz’s bitch, I branded him a thug by association. He kept a straight face, unlike Coz, who wore the look of a hunter about to claim his prize.

  “I’m laying it clear, Daniel. Finish her or you’re scratched from the lineup,” Coz said, handing a gun to Daniel.

  “What? We’re still family, Coz,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah. When you took Jessa from me, family rules no longer mattered. I told you she was mine. She even said so to your face hours ago. It seems she’ll play anyone to get what she wants. She played you against me, didn’t she? Then the bitch dumped you on a dime.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Daniel gave the gun back to Coz.

  “Daniel, please listen. I didn’t mean what I said before,” I said.

  “Shut up, bitch!” Coz yelled, slapping me.

  “Nothing like a woman to shoot a man down,” Daniel said. My eyes squeezed shut, then I lowered my head. “Let her live with her lies,” he said, using his words like a verbal knife through my heart.

  Coz squeezed off a shot. I fell to the tracks the moment the bullet struck my left thigh. I looked over at Coz’s cocky-ass smile. Daniel seemed conflicted.

  “Coz, cut it out!” Daniel shouted. “We can’t do this, no matter what she did. It ain’t our place.”

  “Like hell it ain’t,” Coz said.

  “Coz, I ain’t a killer and I ain’t going to jail for you. Can you trust Akio with murder on your hands?” Daniel asked while Akio stood as quiet as a statue. “He’ll rat you out for the reward money alone. Let’s call an ambulance. They’ll find her here.”

  Coz fired another shot at my arm. The lights from a commuter train peaked over the Rise and made its way down the incline toward us. Its bell clanged rhythmically, the ground thundered as it neared, while its heavy steel wheels clanked over track seams.

  “I’m making our lives easy, Daniel,” Coz said. “Do me a favor, huh Jessa? Die.”

  Coz shoved his gun into his belt and yanked his T-shirt over it. The ground vibrated as the train neared. A panic-induced chill raced through me and my throat felt swollen and paralyzed. The horn blared while its bright spotlights drowned me in white light and its brakes screeching with ear-bleeding effect. With all the tracks that train could’ve been on, it had to be on mine.

  In a last feeble effort to
save my life, I lunged to get off the track. I smacked my knee on a switch and tumbled between the rails, unable to stand. I looked back at Daniel, at his tearing eyes and quivering chin, then closed my eyes as the train rolled over me.

  Chapter 4

  AT THE MOMENT of my death, I didn’t know what happened. Strange. There was a deafening noise like a tornado blasting over me when the locomotive struck me, then stone silence. My life didn’t flash before my eyes as so many people claimed happened to them. Instead, I whooshed through a whirlwind of what could have been deep space.

  I zipped through galaxies, nebulas and stopped in a place of cold darkness. There I was in a black void. I wasn’t sure if I were in a black hole, a small box or deep space trillions of light years wide in every direction. There wasn’t any sound or sensation of passing time. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or closed or if my mind would let me dream.

  Then, a foggy light consumed me, yet everything in my sight was blurry. I tried to rub my eyes, but my arms passed through each other. Holy crap, I was a spirit. A ghost.

  It seemed I had everything about me except my physical shell of a body. My senses, desires and fears were still with me. Like the jolt of a starting roller coaster, I started to move again. An intense yellow light grew brighter and warmer but not hot. My ghost hands touched something firm. In an instant, I fell into what I believed was sleep.

  I rubbed my eyes as if I’d awakened from a lifelong nap and rolled to my knees. Like a scared dog, I found myself trembling on what appeared to be a circular floating patio high in the air. The floating patios, strung like gigantic concentric pearl necklaces, floated miles above the ground. I crawled to the edge, then looked down.

  Below me was a city with broad, massive buildings nestled in the base of a wide valley. The valley itself appeared smothered with towering trees.

  I brushed back my long blonde hair, sat back and marveled at a world of pure beauty. Was this Heaven? It sure didn’t look like Hell. Did someone pull me off that Metra track at the last second? Did aliens bring me here?

  Everything about the place was perfect; pure air to breathe, warm temperature with no stifling humidity, and a sense of peace I never experienced.

  My mouth hung open as I craned my neck to comprehend why there were four suns of varied intensities occupying the four corners of the most brilliant blue sky imaginable. Light streaks like silent rockets shot in and out of the suns from a large domed building resembling a state capitol in the center of the city. This wasn’t Earth.

  Each sun cast a different shade of yellow. My eyes didn’t burn but felt rather good as if the suns recharged me. As my vision became sharper, I mustered the courage to stand.

  My hands wiped across the gritty patio. I stood, wobbled and took several forced steps. My foot felt as though it briefly floated above the patio before landing with a jarring thud as if I missed the last step of a staircase.

  The more I walked in little circles, the more natural my steps became. I looked at the other patios. Other spirits like me, at least that’s what I thought we were, went through the same blundering self-orientation I did.

  The warm breeze, like a cozy blanket on a chilly day, comforted my acceptance of this new and fascinating environment. Thank God there weren’t any mosquitos up here. At that moment, I realized I was naked.

  Someone owed me an explanation, but like everyone else on these floating patios, we were alone, and there weren’t any shirts or robes to cover ourselves. What if nobody here wore clothes? I thought I had a darn good body thanks to all the track workouts. At the same time, the idea that everyone could see the real me without the outfits I spent so much time putting together liberated me.

  Since I wasn’t on Earth anymore, I figured that people didn’t see the body here, but the spirit instead, in all of its beauty. That would be cool, plus it’d save me a fortune in clothes shopping.

  From the huge domed building bathed in golden sunlight in the center of the metropolis below, one light darted out then angled toward me like a rocket leaving its launch pad.

  As the light came closer, I realized it wasn’t a rocket. It was an angel. At least I thought it looked like one. The angel coasted toward me and landed on my patio. As its face came into focus, my heart soared.

  “Dad?” I asked, unable to believe my eyes.

  “Hello, Jessa. It’s me. It’s so good to see you again,” Dad said as he moved in to hug me.

  “Am I dead?”

  “Do you feel dead?”

  “No, just weird.”

  Dad smiled.

  “My experience was like yours after I died. It’s part of the process,” he said.

  I knew my dad was dead and that a train ran over me. We were dead, no doubt about that.

  “What process?” I asked. “This is like a strange dream only I’m not forgetting anything and I can’t wake up from it.”

  “That’s how it works. People will never remember when they were born and never know when they died.”

  “I’m pretty sure I got sliced by a train,” I said.

  “Oh, you got ground up pretty good. Do you remember it?”

  I thought for a moment. In the final seconds before the locomotive hit me, my body seemed to flood in numbness.

  “No. I don’t think I do,” I said. “At that point I was too terrified. So, am I a ghost?”

  “That’s a human term. Your spirit is an energy that makes you who you are. It abandons the physical shell it occupied then returns to the Creator.”

  “You mean God?”

  “In your case, yes. You came to the good side.”

  I sighed in relief.

  Dad’s eyes glowed. Instantly, I found myself covered in slick, angelic attire, like those breezy technical shirts we wore at track practice.

  “Whoa, how’d that happen?” I asked.

  “I did that. You couldn’t go around the way you were. So, what do you think of this place?”

  I looked down at the magnificent city’s geometric elegance.

  “Is this Heaven?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We’re in a special area of Heaven no living human knows exists. This is Hali.”

  I glanced at the suns and smiled.

  “Why are there four suns?” I asked. “Why don’t they cook this place?”

  “They’re not suns. They’re portals. The South Sun leads to a prison, the East Sun leads to other areas related to Heaven, and the North Sun points back to Earth.”

  “What about the West Sun?”

  “That leads to indigenous lives unrelated to the human realm.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Humans refer to them as aliens.”

  I never thought much of aliens, let alone whether they believed in God, so this was surprising.

  “Aliens are real?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Dad said. “You didn’t think in all the vastness of space our planet was the only one with living creatures, did you?”

  “I guess not. What do they look like?”

  “Some of them are downright strange. Others are too difficult for our brains to comprehend. For the most part, most of the others are similar in appearance to humans.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re from other galaxies. That’s why space is so big. The distances are too great to allow travel between galaxies.”

  Science wasn’t my game, and I couldn’t get my brain around the distances between galaxies. It didn’t matter. I thought they were neat things to look at through a telescope.

  “What if someone invents a super fast ship and tries to visit them?” I asked.

  “Other angels will deal with them should the time come,” Dad said. “For now, we prevent interplanetary species from meeting.”

  “Okay, so, what is Hali?”

  “Hali is the home of the Training Center where they make Protectors. Over time, protectors climb the ranks of the angel choir to guard mankind’s existence.”

  “Protectors?”<
br />
  “Yes. Before we get into that, do you want to see Heaven?”

  “Oh yeah. I can hardly wait.”

  Dad’s streamlined wings stretched out as he reached for my hand. I took his hand and a strange itch-like sensation washed over my back. I craned to look over my shoulder where something fanned out behind me—wings.

  Every time I reached for one of them, they jerked out of reach, much like when a dog chased its tail. When I got hold of the darn thing, it felt silky smooth, not feathery. They seemed like they might break easily, but I reserved judgment for later.

  We headed into the eastern sun. Within seconds, we emerged on the other side. I didn’t even have time to scream when I glimpsed the ground below me.

  From high above the sky we flew down to Chicago, without any of the familiar high-rises in sight. The exhilaration of flying was beyond description. To say the least, I loved it! We descended to the steps of the Museum of Science and Industry in front of the Columbia Basin, mine and Daniel’s secret meeting place.

  All around the basin stood massive white classical structures where thousands of people mingled. The towering Ferris wheel, the first ever, rotated in lazy slowness in the west on the Midway Plaisance.

  “Dad?” I asked, beholding the spectacle.

  “This is the World’s Columbian Exposition. Don’t worry, nobody can sense us in any way.”

  “It’s more beautiful than I imagined. It’s so awesome seeing it in color too. Look at everyone. They’re dressed up as if they’re going to a wedding. That’s so wonderful,” I said while breathing the pure air. “This is so kick, Dad.”

  “This is the number one thing spirits do after they’ve chosen between Heaven or Hali. They can visit any time period on Earth and see what people did, visit famous events, you name it.”

  “Is that like time traveling?”

  “Sort of. Since the fair was over before you were born, Heaven affords everyone the chance to experience whatever place, event or time they want. Another popular thing people do is visit other planets, galaxies and life forms.”