Escaping Heaven

by Cliff Hicks

  One of the two souls he had been escorting tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you alright Bob?” the man asked the Cherub.

  “Fine fine,” Bob said, not looking at them as he waved a hand dismissively in their direction. “Apparently someone just got someplace they weren’t supposed to be.” He balled up the bit of cloth and tucked it into his pocket, as an idea occurred to him. He started to mull it over in his mind as he saw the Tagger storm back out from the door corridor and head in another direction.

  Max was heading back to what they called the “landing area,” or, more formally, “Reformation.” When any soul was forcibly sent back to Heaven, it always reappeared in one particular spot, and the Taggers had set up a detention center around the area. It took about six hours for a body that had been dispersed to reappear in Heaven, so it was time to go and wait for his team members to reappear there. He figured the rest of his team would regroup there as well after they figured out they were chasing empty doorways. Once their team was back together, they were going to go to the Captain, give their report and get a bigger team. This man was dangerous as hell, and they were going to give him both barrels.

  The other of the two souls shook Bob’s shoulder, as the Cherubim had been standing in mid thought for a long minute. “Where are we supposed to go now, Bob?”

  Bob turned and looked back at them, then waved a hand over towards one of the lines. “Just go that way and get at the nearest end of the line you find.” Bob turned and started walking in another direction, his plan gelling in his head. He looked back over his shoulder at them and waved at them with a big smile. “Oh yeah, welcome to Heaven!”

  The two men looked at each other for a moment before one of them finally spoke.

  “What the Hell just happened?”

  * * * * *

  The three angels had done their homework and found that Jake hadn’t had any living relatives, but he did leave behind a fiancée and a few friends. They had done their research, then gone to a local hotel and found an empty hotel room that they could use as a base of operations.

  “Look,” Randall said, “I agree she’s probably our best bet to find Altford, but I honestly don’t know if that’s any bet at all. If he was crazy enough to go and see her, he would’ve done so already, y’know?” He moved over to sit down on the king-sized bed and slid backwards to rest his back against the headboard. The three had turned tangible in the hotel room, figuring they needed to adapt to what Jake might be doing, to best understand him, or at least, that was why they claimed they had done it.

  Shelly smiled at him softly. “That doesn’t mean he won’t be back. Or that he won’t have left some kind of clue that’ll lead us to him. They were engaged, which means she knows more about him than anyone else alive. She knows where he liked to go, what he liked to do… searching her apartment might yield all sorts of information.” She moved to sit down in one of the chairs at the table in the corner of the room. “We need to watch her place and when she’s gone, we can search it.”

  James paced a bit and then stopped near the window. “I’m going to go talk to her,” he said quietly.

  “What?” Shelly asked. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea, James.”

  The large angel waved his hand in her direction. “Don’t worry, I’ll get some human clothes, and I’ll be tangible the whole time. I can claim I’m an investigator or something, and I’m looking into some loose ends with his death,” he said. “It’s going to be our best option, and who knows, maybe she’s even a sensitive or something. Or he’s haunting her place. I don’t know. But it’s the smart play at this point.”

  Randall nodded. “Alright, but we can’t all go. I guess Shelly and I will just wait here for you while you go play Sam Spade.”

  “Who?” Shelly asked.

  James chuckled. “I’m sure it’s not important. Try not to get into too much trouble while I’m gone.” He turned intangible and invisible again and flew through the wall, disappearing.

  Randall had no doubt that James was capable, and he wondered what kind of results the old angel would come back with. He glanced over and saw that Shelly was looking out of the window into the city. “Don’t worry, Shelly. We’ll get him.”

  “That’s just it, Randall,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. “I don’t know that I want to anymore.” Randall cocked his head to the side, and she continued. “Being back here on Earth, surrounded by all this life, all of this color, even with all of the things I don’t recognize or understand… I remember why life was so wonderful, so precious that Jake wouldn’t want to give it up, why no one should want to give it up.” She looked back out the window. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at half of the time, but it’s certainly more interesting than anything we have in Heaven.”

  Randall slipped off the bed and rose to his feet, walking over towards her. “Is it really so different from when you were alive? People are still people. The buildings look different, I’m sure, but the people inside of them aren’t really all that different than how they used to be.”

  “They’re certainly taller, that’s for sure,” she said with a smile. “And they’re wearing much different clothes.”

  He looked out the window and could see cars driving by on the street below. “Who were you, before you died?”

  Shelly smiled warmly. “I was a priestess for a fertility goddess in Rome. Is Rome still standing?” she asked, curiously.

  “The city’s still there, but if you’re asking about the Roman Empire, it fell long, long ago,” Randall replied. “Like most things in life, it just eventually ran out of energy and died.”

  “We don’t have to,” she said, in a hushed voice.

  “Don’t talk like that, Shelly,” he chided.

  “It’s true. We don’t have to go back. We can just stay here on Earth. We can wander around and see things and do things and never once worry about dying, or where our next meal is going to come from.” She fell quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to go back any more, Randall. Let’s just forget about this guy and run away on Earth.”

  “James will come looking for us,” he said with a soft laugh, although the idea was starting to spin in his head. “Unless you’re meaning to take him with us.”

  “Of course!” she answered brightly. “You, James and I can explore the world together, and do all the things we never had a chance to do while we were alive.”

  “Do you think he’d go for it?” he asked her, as she stepped a bit closer to him.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t suggest it first, actually. The minute we were outside of quarters, I thought he might make a run for it himself.”

  “Maybe… I don’t know, Shelly. I just don’t know.”

  “Think about it, okay? That’s all I ask. We have time.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll think about it. I did miss this in particular. The view of city lights at night time, like a field of stars out and among the ground.”

  “That’s not what I missed most of all,” she said.

  “Oh no?” he said. “No, I guess it wouldn’t be. They didn’t have much in the way of lights at night back when you were around. What did you…” He turned and noticed she was practically pressed up against his body.

  “This,” she said before she pressed her lips against his, kissing him fiercely, as she pushed him back towards the bed. “And all the things that come with it.” He didn’t resist as she shoved him and he fell backwards onto the bed. She crawled over him, her legs straddling him, while her hands drew her tunic up and over her head. “I used to be pretty good at this. Want to see if I still am?” She leaned down and pressed a kiss against his neck, while his hands slowly moved up her sides, cupping her breasts.

  “It’s just like riding a bicycle,” he said with a lustful smile as his fingertips toyed with her nipples while she worked to pull his tunic off.

  “Riding a what?”

  * * * * *

  James had left from the hotel and headed acr
oss town towards Kelly’s apartment. He was no longer sure why they were pursuing Jake, although he felt like it was something they still needed to be doing, he just couldn’t put his finger on why.

  Maybe he did need to apologize to Jake, for all the things they’d done to him. Heaven had been rather cruel to him, and although they’d just been doing their jobs, James didn’t feel like it was an adequate excuse.

  How had it all come to this?

  Why hadn’t they seen it sooner?

  Who let Heaven come to this?

  The angel walked around the apartment complex and found a unit that wasn’t currently occupied, and found some clothes inside that fit him. He pulled on a white button up shirt with blue pin stripes on it, and a pair of khaki slacks, as well as a pair of shoes that were a bit looser than he liked. Still, walking around with golden sandals wouldn’t help him blend in, and he wanted to look like a normal man when he talked to Altford’s ex-fiancée. He tucked his most of his angelic clothes into a backpack (keeping the shorts and tunic on for modesty’s sake), and slung it over his shoulder, leaving the apartment, locking the door before closing it behind him. He hoped he hadn’t taken anything with sentimental value.

  He walked down the hallway towards Kelly’s apartment then stopped at her door and rapped his knuckles on it. It was early enough in the evening that James figured she would not have been asleep yet, although she might have been eating dinner.

  He waited patiently and after half a minute or so, the door opened and Kelly peeked her head out. She looked considerably better than she had when Jake had visited her, having had a good night’s sleep for the first time since his death.

  “Yes?” she asked, as she looked over the man standing before her.

  “Hello,” James said, offering her his best smile. “My name’s James Wallace, and I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into Jacob Altford’s death and I was wondering if I could come in and talk to you for a few minutes? I just have a few questions.”

  She sized him up then nodded as she pulled the door the rest of the way open. “Sure, come on in.” She waited until he was through the door then closed it behind him before walking out into the main room, moving to sit down at her dining table. “What can I do for you? I don’t imagine there’s a lot I can tell you that you haven’t already heard.”

  As James moved into the apartment, he was taking stock of the things around him. The place had obviously been cleaned, today even, and there were several trashbags full of garbage in the kitchen, as if she was waiting until she had finished before carting them out to the dumpster. There were still a lot of pictures of her and Altford on the walls, but he could see that there were several tiny holes in the wall where other pictures had been hanging until very recently. The air was thick with air freshener, and he could see the laundry basket was full with folded clothes. He could distantly hear the sound of the washer and the dryer running from another part of the apartment. “Doing some tidying up?” he asked. He moved to sit down at the dining room table with her.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, “it’s been pretty hard on me since Jake died, and I haven’t really felt the need to do basic things to take care of myself. I decided it was time to start putting the pieces back together this morning, though, so I called into work and took the day off, and I’ve been cleaning ever since. Laundry, dishes, trash… my place had really gone to hell. I’d really gone to hell, actually.”

  “The loss of a loved one can do that.”

  She smiled at him, almost a touch pityingly. “You haven’t lost anyone important to you, have you?”

  James shook his head quietly. “No, not for a long time, ma’am.”

  She nodded. “It’s… you take people for granted when they’re around all the time. You don’t think much about what they do for you, what light they bring into your life. And then, one day, they’re gone. And you look around and realize how much darker your life is for it. So you hate yourself. You hate yourself for not appreciating it more. You hate yourself for not saying thank you more. You hate it for not treasuring how good it could be at its best. But eventually you realize that in trying to hold onto the light, you’ve forgotten all the dark that came with it. So when you finally get your head back into the right place, and you understand the good and the bad the person brought into your life, you’re ready to start moving on with your life.” She paused, looking down at her folded hands for a moment. “And I think I reached that point yesterday.”

  “What happened yesterday?” he asked.

  Kelly looked up and then suddenly looked away, as she moved to stand up. “Oh. Nothing in particular. I guess it was just time for me to accept everything. Can I get you a coffee or something?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I think I’ll get myself some water, then,” she said, moving around the corner into her kitchen.

  “So nothing specific happened? You just decided to move on?”

  Kelly opened her fridge and took out a bottle of water from it, closing the door behind her. “Something like that.” She moved back into the main room, twisting the top off the bottle.

  “Why don’t I believe you? It’s okay, Miss. You can tell me, whatever it is.”

  She laughed bitterly. “You’d just think I was crazy.”

  “I promise you, I won’t think you’re crazy.”

  A long silence hung in the air between them before she spoke again. “I think I saw Jake’s ghost. Except he wasn’t a ghost. I could touch him. He… well, I’d always thought Jake committed suicide the day he died. But he’d come back from Heaven to tell me that he hadn’t, and that he’d gone to Heaven.” She stopped for a moment, and James just waited until she spoke again. “That wasn’t the craziest part, though.”

  “What was the craziest part, Kelly?”

  She bit her bottom lip nervously, looking out her window before looking back at him. “The craziest part was that he said he’d left Heaven. That he hadn’t been happy there, and so he’d escaped, and he didn’t want to go back. So he was going to try and stay on Earth. And he said they were…” she trailed off then looked at him suddenly. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re one of the people who wants to drag him back to Heaven!”

  James sighed softly. “I… I used to be, Kelly, but I don’t anymore.” He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “It’s… it’s complicated, but the thing is… Jake was right. Heaven wasn’t a good place for him. And it’s not a good place for me either. And while I left Heaven to try and find Jake and bring him back, now I just want to stay on Earth myself. And so do the other angels who are with me.”

  She turned her head and backed a few steps away from him. “You’re… you’re an angel?”

  James chuckled and slowly stood up from the chair, and shifted from tangibility to intangibility, the Earthly clothes falling away from him to reveal his white tunic and shorts beneath, and he let his halo fade into visibility above him. “Yes, I am.”

  “Have… have you always been an angel?”

  He shook his head as he turned back to tangible once more, sitting back down in the chair. “No, almost all the angels were human at one point or another. I mean, technically, Jake’s an angel too, even if he doesn’t have a halo.”

  “Oh, he has a halo,” she said with a smile. “I saw it. It was kind of hard to miss.”

  James peered at her, a surprised expression on his face. “Really?”

  Kelly giggled a little bit. “I think I know a halo when I see one.”

  He nodded. “Fair point. But yes, anyone who’s dead and gone to Heaven is an angel. There are a small number of them that were there before man was created, but the rest are just people like you and me, human souls doing a job because it’s what they want to do with their eternity.”

  “So if it’s what you want to do, why don’t you want to go back?”

  “It’s… it’s not what I want to do anymore,” he sighed. “The thing about Heaven is that when you’re there, it se
ems great, but that’s only because you don’t have anything else to compare it to. If all you ever ate was the same thing, from the moment you were born, you wouldn’t crave anything else because you wouldn’t know it. You get to Heaven and you assume… this is it, this is the best there possibly can be, because it’s Heaven, and it has to be. And everyone buys into it, because it’s what everyone around you is saying. They tell you Earth was bad, and how glad you should be to be rid of it, and after a while, you start to buy into it, you start to believe it, you start to think Earth was a terrible place, and how right everyone was for telling you to learn to enjoy Heaven.”

  “So what happened?” Kelly asked.

  He chuckled throatily. “Then someone like Jake Altford comes along and fucks it all up.” He looked up at her with a wry grin. “I don’t know why Jake was so different, but he didn’t accept that Heaven was the best that it could be. I mean, normally we drug people a bit to make them more receptive to the idea of Heaven’s greatness.” Kelly gasped at that. “Oh, we tell ourselves it’s for their own good. And they inhale the air that’s designed to sooth them, and we give them sweets designed to lull them into complacency. But the air didn’t affect Jake, and I don’t think he ate the sweets. And when he saw his opportunity, he left. And once we got outside to start chasing him, I think we started to see that the cage wasn’t designed to just hold people like him in… it was holding us in too.”

  “Why keep chasing Jake then?” she questioned. “Why not just run away here on Earth and never look back?”

  James scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile. “Because I feel like we owe Jake our thanks. I know he didn’t do it intentionally, but if we hadn’t started chasing him, we wouldn’t have seen Heaven with an outside perspective. We wouldn’t have come back to Earth and seen all the color and life again. So I feel like we owe him. We’re not going to be the only ones chasing him, and I want to talk to him, see if maybe if his mind put together with ours can think of some way to keep him on Earth too. He’s the one who led us out of the darkness of Heaven. It doesn’t seem right that he should have to go back while we stay free.”