Escaping Heaven

by Cliff Hicks

  His hands slipped from his pockets and moved to his hips as he crouched down to look at the grey block of stone that marked the location of his corpse. “Nothing flowery, nothing decorative, hell… nothing more than a name and a date. Was I really that boring?”

  “Jake?” came a voice from behind him. “That you?”

  Jake stood up and turned to look at the short form moving over towards him, coming down the hill towards him. The sunlight backlit the outline of the figure and for just a half second, Jake felt a flash of panic. Who would possibly recognize him now, who wouldn’t be shocked by his being flesh and blood, standing over his own grave? The only possibility that occurred to him was that it was the angels coming to drag him back up to Heaven, and he felt his heart skip just a few beats. Then the form came into focus as Jake could see clearly again, and he let out a sigh of relief.

  Bob moved over to Jake and stuck his hand at him. “It’s good to see you, kid. Looks like you got out and away from those angel clowns,” he said with a laugh.

  Jake took his hand and shook it with his own. “What the hell are you doing around here, Bob?” Jake said, chuckling in response. “I’ve been dead a while now, and you don’t get’em a second time, just on their first go around.”

  The Cherub shrugged with a slight grin. “I ain’t here for you, Jake. But I’ve got a little bit of time to kill before my pick up shows. How you been?” He patted Jake’s shoulder slightly. “Heard you broke out, but didn’t expect to find you in your home town.” He glanced down and then rolled his eyes. “Your tombstone? Heaven help yeah, kid, I didn’t have you pegged as some kind of sappy romantic.”

  Jake shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Eh, I wanted to see it for myself. I mean, I know I’m dead, but it’s something like this that puts you back in your place a bit.”

  The shorter man shook his head at him. “Last thing you need is to be back in your place, kid. I mean, you got out. That’s a hell of an accomplishment. I mean, I heard you got out from the tail end. That true?”

  “The tail end?”

  Bob led Jake over towards a bench beneath a tree, and sat down on it. He motioned for Jake to join him, which he did. “Yeah, the tail end. Look, most of the people…” he inhaled a moment before continuing. “Okay, look, all of the people I know about… they’ve all gotten out from somewhere along the line. They run from Cherubim, or they run from form processors, or they even try and run from the repossession room. But I have never… ever… not once have I heard of someone getting out of the quarters.” He leaned back against the bench, slouching a little bit. “I mean, maybe it happens, I don’t know, but they don’t get far. They don’t get far enough for anyone to worry about. Some Cherubim picks them up, or someone carting forms around sees them and realizes they’re trying to find a way out, and they tell the Taggers who come and snag’em before anyone’s the wiser. But I haven’t heard of anyone who’s gotten out of the quarters ever making it back on planet. The people who get back to Earth either run early on in the lines or they sprint away from the Cherub who’s supposed to pick them up. Nobody gets from their final resting place all the way back to Earth. How’d you do it?”

  Jake stood up from the bench, and took a few steps back, reaching inside of his jacket, pulling out the sword hilt, letting his thumb move onto the jewel, the blade of fire springing forth. “Confidence,” he said with a grin.

  Bob rushed to his feet, moving over to Jake, pushing his arm aside so the sword didn’t get him. “Jesus! Put that thing, away, will you? You’ll scare the civilians. How the hell did you get one, anyway?” He glanced around nervously, but thankfully they were alone as far as the eye could see.

  “It’s how I got out, Bob. I wandered around for a while and then I wandered into an orientation session for Taggers,” he said as he took his thumb off the gem on the hilt, letting the blade vanish. “So they gave me a blade and a halo and sent me off to… well, hunt people like me down.” Jake laughed a bit more as he tucked the hilt back into his belt. “Got the halo tucked in my jacket. Figured it would definitely stand out.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, amigo,” Bob groaned. “I keep mine invisible when I turn solid. Always a smart thing to do, I figure.”

  “You mean…” Jake started, “you can just turn parts of yourself visible or solid?”

  Bob looked upward and raised his hands. “Lord, help me help this one shed off his ignorance.” He turned his gaze back down to Jake. “The sword and the halo are both separate parts. You can shift them just like you can yourself, but they don’t have to be in the same state you are. Things you pick up after you’ve been around a while. It won’t be entirely invisible to you, but you’ll probably have to try to see it.”

  Jake nodded quietly, as he concentrated and the nearly invisible halo came into focus over Bob’s head, although Bob was correct in that it was still tricky to see. “Guess I’ve still got a lot left to learn.” He paused then stepped back a little bit from the Cherub. “Say, why are you helping me anyway?”

  The short man smiled toothily, then reached into his pocket, and pulled out the tiny MP3 player. “’Cause of this, kid. You know, I’d never have thought of it on my own, but I can’t tell you how much this baby has saved my ass. I didn’t think I’d missed music that much until we were talking about it when I brought you up, and suddenly, it was all I could think about. Music, music, music. So, I did like you suggested. I did my research and sure enough, there isn’t any rule against taking items off of people before they get to check in. There isn’t any rule against angels carrying around things they picked up off of newly dead people, if it’s not on the contraband list. And there certainly isn’t any rule against angels listening to music. Walkmans, sure, record players, you bet, but there’s nothing about this new fangled tech in the books. Anywhere. So, I got myself an MP3 player and, after a while, some earphones, and I have been jamming and rocking out nonstop for… well, for quite a while now.” He shrugged a little bit as he paced around slightly. “I do pick up jobs here and there just so I’m still considered an active person. Just because it’s not against the rules doesn’t mean they couldn’t make a new rule to make it against the rules, if you know what I’m sayin’. So I keep busy and try to avoid getting noticed, even when angels come sniffing around.”

  Jake nodded a little bit, moving over to lean against a tree. “So they’re coming after me then.”

  Bob waggled his hands a little bit. “Well, sort of but sort of not. Y’see kid, if they were coming after you full bore, you’d already have Taggers breathing down your neck. Big ol’ squads of angels chasing after you every second. Hard as hell to get away when they know where you are. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done; it’s just significantly harder to do. But so far, the angels who were in charge of keeping you confined to quarters haven’t told anyone yet. I think they’re trying to cover their own asses, which is why they’re trying to figure out where you are on their own. I sorta sent them on a wild goose chase, but it’ll probably help them figure out you’re on Earth sooner or later.”

  Jake frowned. “What with Celestial time and Earth time running on different speeds, doesn’t that mean I should expect them any second now?”

  Bob laughed heartily. “What did they tell you about Celestial time, kid?” (Bob was frankly a little surprised anyone had even mentioned it.)

  “One of the angels who was processing me said it was about one day in Heaven for one hour in Earth. That not true?”

  “Well, that all depends on which section of Heaven you’re in, kid. The processing lines run on increased speed, as do the construction areas, but everything else in Heaven’s on normal time. I think the angels in processing either don’t know, or they’ve forgotten, that they’re moving faster than everyone else to help keep things moving in pace. Occasionally a couple of the detention blocks get stuck on increased speed for a little while if there’s still construction going on, but it doesn’t happen too often.”

  Jake nodded.
“Must’ve happened to my block. I know I was in ‘therapy’ longer than 45 days. Damn near drove me insane.”

  Bob craned his head over suddenly. “You were in one of the therapy chambers?” The look on Bob’s face told Jake everything he needed to know – he wasn’t supposed to have been there. Something had, in fact, gone wrong somewhere along the assignment process. “How the heck did you get there?”

  “That’s where they put me. That’s probably one of the main reasons I broke out,” Jake said. “I didn’t see the point of trying to ‘better myself’ if Heaven was the final resting place, and all I was going to be doing for the rest of eternity was arts and crafts.”

  The Cherubim shook his head, closing his eyes out of shame. “Oh, kid. I am so sorry you had to endure that. Yeah, Heaven can be a pretty screwed up place, I can tell you that, now that you’re down here.”

  “Y’know Bob, you don’t have to go back yourself. You could stay down here on Earth. Enjoy music as much as you wanted, and not have to cart souls around all day. It’d be nice to have a friend around,” Jake said with a smile.

  “I appreciate that, Jake,” Bob sighed, “but me and Heaven have unfinished business, and I don’t think they’d just let go of me because I asked them to nicely. Better to just stay low and stay safe.”

  “Fair point,” Jake agreed as he glanced up at the sky. Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, and it looked like a hard rain was going to fall soon. “Say, if you’re going back up anyway, think you could do me a favor?”

  Bob grinned back at Jake. “Anything for a friend. Whatcha need?”

  “So the two Taggers who came down with me, Franco and Edward. I gave them a sob story about how I wanted to close off some unfinished business just to get them off my backs. Think you could swing by them and tell them I got reassigned or something? Just so they don’t think it’s suspicious that I haven’t come back yet?”

  “Sure, but sooner or later, the Taggers are gonna come after you, Jake, you gotta know that,” Bob said.

  “I know, I know, and I’m still trying to figure out how to handle that. How do those compasses work?”

  “Well, they take about twelve hours to prime. They use some bit of your clothing from lockup as a sort of homing lock on. Once they build the compass, it takes about half a day and then gives your general vicinity, which the Taggers use to send a squad down to get you. You saw how they work in the smaller scale. The Taggers use them to track them down, send the person back up to Heaven and like the expression goes, Bob’s your uncle.”

  Jake didn’t even smile at Bob’s joke, nodding sagely, as if he was thinking, considering his options. “That sounds like it’s going to be a pain in the ass to beat. Hell, I’m not even sure it can be beat. What’s the range on those things?”

  The Cherubim’s expression scrunched up, then he shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure, Jake. It takes them a little while to whittle down the general vicinity from a big picture, so that might help. Remember, that’s never been my job. Hell, you probably know more about it than I do, truth be told. You were trained as one.”

  “Yeah, the training for those things is about as in-depth as rent-a-cop training. ‘Do this, don’t do that, point the flaming-sword-of-death away from your face before igniting,’” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “It won’t help much when I’m trying to deal with them.”

  Bob punched Jake on the shoulder lightly. “I have faith in you, kid. I mean, you got out from the quarters and all the way to Earth. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. You’re definitely a surprise to me, and I saw you when you died, remember, so not much surprises me.”

  Jake pushed a bit of hair from his eyes and shifted his posture a little bit, as he heard a handful of cars driving up towards where they were standing. “Yeah, well, I think you can blame that on the therapy, plus that shitty last day I had on Earth. After everything goes wrong, and Heaven’s only worse, you start thinking there’s not really much in the way of things they can do to punish you. That’s sort of why I did it, y’know? Felt like there wasn’t anything they could do even if they caught me. It didn’t seem like they were going to send me to Hell, seeing as Tagger training mentioned that every soul who runs is just brought back, not sent off to the pits of fire and damnation. Just more of wherever it was that the runner got loose from. I mean, I don’t even know how Hell could be worse than that, really.”

  The diminutive man nodded in reply. “I hear that. Either Hell has the best imagination, or it’s reserved for the truly horrible people and they invent their own torture. Either way, it’s gotta be brutal like no one can even dream of to be worse than those damn therapy quarters. I dunno how you ended up in one of those things, Jake, I honestly don’t.”

  “I won’t be going back, I can assure you. They’ll have to cut me into tiny bits and send me back there as sand, and even then I’m only going to try and break out again. I’m already starting to think of other ways I could get out if they get me back again. I’ll be the king of break outs.”

  “They haven’t got you back yet, kid,” Bob said. “Although I imagine it’s going to get out fairly soon that you’re on Earth. Three of the five angels left the therapy quarters to try and chase you down.”

  “Which three?”

  “There was a woman…”

  “That’s Shelly,” Jake said. “She was the only female in the angels who were watching over us.”

  “There was a sort of uptight guy who seemed like he was in charge. Hot tempered.”

  “That’ll be Randall. He’s pretty easy to rile up, but he’s not a complete idiot, despite how he can come across from time to time.”

  “And there was a big quiet guy, who they let do most of the talking. Didn’t seem like a half bad guy, honestly.”

  Jake nodded. “And that’s James. That means they left Byron and Terence behind, which makes sense. Byron wouldn’t be any good in a chase situation and Terence… well, Terence is Terence.” (Byron, Jake thought to himself, was probably also terrified, and rightly so, that given the chance, Jake would beat the living shit out of him. Arts and crafts indeed. He’d have made hurting that mad angel an artform.) “Randall wouldn’t let James go on his own and Shelly would…” he trailed off, a look of confusion crossing his face. “Well, I’m not sure why Shelly would come along. She always seemed to be happier talking to the other angels than any of us wards. But James always struck me as the most capable of the five, and certainly the oldest. There was something about that guy that had gravitas. I’m almost surprised he didn’t come after me on his own.”

  Bob shook his head slightly. “It’d look too suspicious, kid, an angel walking around Heaven all on his lonesome.”

  Jake smirked wryly. “Not if they did it right, but okay, I take your point. I got a lot less flak when I was hanging around with Franco and Edward than I did when I was on my own.”

  “Only the Cherubim move around Heaven on their own with any regularity, and you don’t much look like a Cherub, Jake.”

  “Right,” he agreed. (Not enough donuts in his diet.)

  The procession of cars pulled up to a spot not far from them, where there was a newly opened grave. The hearse pulled closest to the spot and people emerged from the cars to move over towards the back of it. They were all men, mostly in their fifties and sixties, looking even more solemn than people normally do at funerals. A handful of men and women moved out of even more cars and started to head over towards the grave site as the driver of the hearse moved to open the back of his car.

  “Isn’t this… well, a little late for you to be picking’em up, Bob?” Jake laughed. “Unless you’re telling me the guy in the box isn’t quite dead yet, but’ll die during his own funeral.”

  Bob chuckled quietly. “Even weirder than that, kid. Just watch.” He pointed over at the mob of people at the back of the hearse and their coffin.

  All six pallbearers moved into their places as the coffin, a big and elegant monster of a thing, slid slowly out of
the back of the black car, shifting their weight to hold onto their respective handle. They started moving slowly, carrying it over towards the platform designed to lower it into the grave, but about halfway through the short walk from the car to the grave, one of the men started to stagger. He steeled his face, as if there was a bit of pain he was trying to conquer, but eventually he couldn’t resist it any more, and his grip on the coffin slipped as he collapsed to the grass, clutching his chest, as the others lowered the casket onto the ground as quickly as they could. This, clearly, was not the kind of thing they were prepared for when carrying a casket.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jake said.

  “Heart attack at his brother’s funeral,” Bob said, with a biting laugh. “Can you believe that? Absolutely not the kind of thing you expect to see. I guess he didn’t want to wait. Hang on a second, lemme go get him. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  Despite the fact that he was solid, Jake could see a slightly luminescent form emerge from the collapsed body of the man, and stand up. It was almost like seeing double, except the dead body on the ground (as opposed to the dead body in the coffin) was surrounded by a handful of people, who were frantically trying to revive him while one of the bystanders dialed 911. Jake knew it was too late and almost wanted to tell the people not to bother, but he was sure that wouldn’t go over too well. (“Excuse me, sir,” he could imagine saying, “you don’t need to try and save his life. He’s very dead, I can assure you. Who am I? I’m a dead man who’s come back to Earth because I didn’t like Heaven.” He didn’t imagine the conversation would go anywhere positive from there.)

  The Cherubim phased slightly, turning intangible entirely as he moved over to the ghostly form of the newly dead man. They were far enough from Jake that he couldn’t hear their conversation, but Bob seemed to be taking great delight in it, while the ghost seemed to be overwhelmed with confusion. (And gesturing a lot. Who knew dead people could be so lifelike?)