by Thomas Grave
All of the lights in the house were off. It seemed exactly like the day they’d bought it, dark and empty. Imogen stepped outside, her thick auburn hair pulled into a ponytail, the way she’d worn it when they first met. Mr. Thompson admired her figure, the way her tight blue jeans followed the contours of her hips. He felt as though his heart was breaking.
Imogen locked the front door of the house and went to the passenger side door.
“Ready?” she asked.
“We need to talk,” he told her, his voice breaking. He stepped towards her.
She paused, took in a deep breath and stared at him without saying a word. Her expression told him she already knew what he was going to say. Still, he had to say the words.
“I’m not going,” he said softly. He gazed with longing at her face as she glared at him. “I know you’re mad. I know. But I have to tell him. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. I owe it to him. For God’s sake he saved your life!”
She exhaled, recalling that day so long ago. She swallowed hard and stepped toward him. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. With her eyes closed, she held his face in both hands and their foreheads pressed together.
“We’ll wait for you in Sydney,” she whispered. “I love you.”
He wrapped his arms around her and his words came out shaky. “I love you too.”
He wiped away a tear and walked around to the backseat. He leaned in and gave his daughter the biggest kiss he could. Paige complained about it, but he knew she loved it and wanted more. He did it again to make sure she got the point.
No more words. What else was there to say?
Imogen climbed into the driver’s seat.
Eyes solid on each other.
A small wave from Paige.
He watched the SUV disappear from sight. He knew he was going to see his family again. Nothing could stop him from doing that.
Nothing.
Wednesday, 1:11 am (Purgatorium)
Leaning her head against the door, Sara felt its smoothness against her skin. Wait a minute . . . She stepped back, examining the door closely. It was in perfect condition, clean and white, not even a fingerprint.
Warily, she turned to the rest of the apartment. She moved a few steps down a neat and narrow hallway that opened into a living room. She stared, stunned.
Sheer curtains hung above the windows. Shining oak hardwood covered the length of the floor. A modern-style bean-shaped sofa sat as the main focus of the room. Beside it rested a small end table with a few books, a small lamp, and a vase with fresh flowers. The smell of freshly-baked cookies filled the air.
“Keep her safe. If any harm comes to her, I will reap you,” Sebastian’s voice echoed through the room, thick with foreboding.
“You have some friends in high places I see,” came a woman’s voice from behind her. “Would you like some cookies, dear?”
Sara whirled toward the voice. Her eyes went to the elderly zombie standing behind her. She wore a red and pink nightgown, partly covered by an apron. A pair of hot pink oven mitts offered a baking sheet filled with fresh, homemade cookies.
“They’re chocolate chip!” she said, smiling from ear to ear.
Thankfully, this zombie didn’t seem as rotten as those she’d come across before. Her skin still had shades of pink, with a few minor cracks that lined her arms and face. She didn’t seem intent on chasing her and attacking her either, for which Sara was extremely grateful.
Maybe “zombie” wasn’t the correct term for them. In most movies, zombies were always portrayed as mindless, and only interested in eating brains, but these zombies—or whatever they were—had some degree of intelligence. They were like real people . . . except dead.
Sara wasn’t exactly sure what to do. The cookies smelled amazing. Her stomach grumbled.
Well, she decided, it would be rude of me to decline. She took a cookie.
“Thanks,” she said with a nod.
She took a bite. The cookie crumbled softly in her mouth, chocolate chips melting on her tongue and filling her mouth with a sweet, dark heat. “Mmmm. This is amazing.”
“Why, thank you! My name is Charlotte. Welcome to my haunt,” the zombie said, airily waving around the room. “My, you were hungry, weren’t you?”
Sara realized she’d finished off the cookie in three large bites. She smiled sheepishly.
“Would you like some more?” Charlotte asked.
“No, I’m good. Thank you, though.” A few errant crumbs stuck to her chin. She knocked them from her face with a swipe of her hand before swallowing the last of the delicious treat. “What’s a haunt?”
Wednesday, 1:12 am (Purgatorium)
Gabriel removed his foot from the Reaper’s chest and stalked to the condo door. Looking in for a brief moment, he turned back and gave Sebastian a hardened glare.
“Open. The. Haunt,” said Gabriel, through gritted teeth. His neck was tense, a vein throbbing uglily.
The Reaper smirked at this guy’s audacity. “You’ve lost your mind you big, beefy douchebag.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “You’re insulting me when you should be taking notes.”
“You made a joke?” He snickered. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
A lopsided smile flashed across Sebastian face. “Oh, you were serious? I should really be taking notes?”
“Raphael,” said Gabriel, rolling his eyes. “Go ahead and tell him. Let’s get this over with.”
Raphael shrugged and turned to the Reaper. “You are instructed to give us the Revenant,” Raphael stated, his voice formal and clipped. “If you do not turn the Revenant over to us at this time, you will be charged with break.
The droning of Raphael’s words faded back in and out. Something about breaking a cardinal law and other technical gibberish. The Reaper could only scratch the back of his hood during this process. It was only the last part that the Reaper completely understood.
“And if the Revenant is returned to us, then under my authority, all crimes previously listed will be exonerated. We mean you no harm.”
“No harm? Yeah, right,” Sebastian replied. With a raised finger, he pointed to Gabriel. “Then why did he attack me when he first saw me?”
Gabriel shrugged nonchalantly. “To let you know we were serious.”
“That’s not helping,” Raphael muttered.
Reaper, Angels like to talk. Use that to your advantage and take this opportunity to catch your breath.
Sebastian had been so worried about Sara he hadn’t noticed his labored breathing. “Uh, what do you want with her anyway?”
There was a short silence. The two Angels glanced at each other, apparently surprised by the question.
Raphael stepped forward, as an understanding teacher would with a student. “We want her for two reasons. The first is that this Soul has earned her place in the Light. Though she may not recall it, she was in Heaven, in perfect paradise. She was loved as she’d never been loved before.”
He paused to take a deep breath and spoke softly. “You ripped her away from that and we have been tasked with returning her home.”
Gabriel took a step forward, nostrils flared and eyes ablaze. “We take care of our own. Not that a selfish, petulant child like you would understand the concept of duty.”
Paying no attention to the elder Angel’s advance, Sebastian muttered impatiently at Raphael, “And the second reason?”
Before Raphael could open his mouth to respond, his brother shoved him aside and rushed ahead screaming, “Enough of this!”
“So much for Angels being talkative,” Sebastian said to himself.
With Gabriel charging him, Sebastian had little time to ready himself. He needed a way to attack before the raging celestial being sent him flying. The best he could do on the spot was to test a theory he’d been mulling over since he first learned to blink. If a blink could stop momentum, perhaps it could also create it.
Yes, the Elder interven
ed, breaking into his thought process. Do it.
A hint of a smile crept across Sebastian’s face beneath his hood. The Reaper arched his back and launched himself into a blink. He came out of it an inch away from Gabriel and slammed his shoulder squarely into the Angel’s gut. Arms wrapping around Gabriel’s waist in a vice grip, Sebastian’s momentum carried them both into the wall of the hallway. Eight-inch thick concrete crumbled to dust as their bodies broke through.
They landed with a thud on the hardwood floor of an abandoned condo. Sebastian squeezed Gabriel’s waist even harder and focused his attention on the most solid object he could find: a brick fireplace in the corner of the room. He gritted his teeth and blinked again, driving Gabriel’s spine directly into the mantel and through the walls of the building. The roof of the condo collapsed behind them as they skidded into the sky.
From somewhere above, piercing through the clouds, the mystical spotlights still scanned the streets for their target. The moon shone on Gabriel’s face as a pained grunt escaped his lips.
“So, you guys can be hurt?” the Reaper whispered. “Good.”
A skyscraper of twisted steel girders and haggard cement columns loomed in the distance. In the real world, it could have been a corporate headquarters, but in Purgatorium, it was a crooked finger, pointing into the sea of endless night. All Sebastian cared about was that it looked like an excellent target.
Tightening his grip on the Angel, the Reaper focused his energies and blinked forward again.
This time he kept his eyes open. His surroundings blurred around him as he zipped by at the speed of light and let out a fearsome scream, channeling all his power into acceleration. At the last possible moment, he pulled them out of the blink and drove Gabriel head first through the first column, then another, and another. A speeding comet, obliterating every single thing in its path.
After several crushing impacts, they emerged on the opposite side of the tower. The collisions had taken their toll on Sebastian’s wrist and he lost his grip on Gabriel’s waist. The Angel fell like a boulder to a decrepit lobby, sending shards of marble flooring flying into the air in a mushroom cloud and digging a ditch twenty yards away. Sebastian tumbled as well, landing with a thud on the already shattered floor. Through searing pain, he forced himself up and glanced over the broken floor, like pieces of ice floating in an endless sea of black water, to where Gabriel sat calmly, glaring at him.
“Are you finished?” Gabriel asked. The Angel’s tone was authoritative, like a teacher correcting a student. He cracked his neck and slowly pulled himself to his feet, seeming to be almost fully recovered.
Sebastian could barely breathe. Every inhalation was met with sharp pangs in his chest. The weaker he felt, the more confident Gabriel appeared. Dropping to one knee, Sebastian wagged his finger at Gabriel and sputtered, “This guy right here.”
He placed a hand on his knee and tried to right himself, only to be met by lightning bolts of pain spreading from head to toe.
The robes were supposed to keep him safe, make him invincible. Earlier, he’d gone through a concrete pylon without a scratch. Now, he felt almost on the verge of total collapse.
His thoughts flew to the Elder. Alarmed, Sebastian whispered, “Are you okay?”
A pained groan came from deep in the back of his hood. It was barely there, but he heard it.
“Elder?”
The Elder did not reply.
“Elder!”
The Elder did not reply.
“Crap.”
Gabriel stood still, a smug smile on his face. All of the power Sebastian had felt earlier faded. His legs were unsteady. He barely held himself up.
You’re . . . losing, the Elder whispered, his voice strained.
Relief instantly streamed over him at hearing the Elder’s voice.
“Relax,” the Reaper said, though his voice was strained. “I got this.”
The next instant, the Reaper collapsed face first into the ruined marble floor. His head bounced and his vision flashed white, rendering him unconscious.
Wednesday, 1:20 am (Purgatorium)
Sara sat at the small, round kitchen table with a small yellow plate of a half-eaten turkey sandwich and chips. The lightly toasted panini bread had this orange mayo, which added an interesting flavor. “You really didn’t have to make me this,” said Sara, taking another bite. “Really.”
Charlotte walked around the table and took a seat directly across from her. “It’s fine dear. There isn’t much to do here, anyway. Besides, I don’t get a lot of guests.”
After wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin, Sara asked, “So, this is your own private place within Purgatorium?”
“Yes. I can leave if I wish, but I choose not to,” Charlotte admitted. “It’s my own private living space.”
Sara considered her words, then said, “You know, it’s so weird. I feel like I should be freaking out, but I can’t explain it. I’m not. Maybe because I was already dead, then brought back, my mind processes things differently. Even with all the scary things outside, it feels natural to me.”
“I was the same way when I first arrived, as if another part of my brain had opened up, like there was an acceptance. My assumption is that Purgatorium wants you to understand you’re dead.”
As the realization struck her, Sara grinned. “Oh! I get it. If you don’t believe you’re dead, then you can’t move on. But, if you know you’re dead, you can process either the good or the bad. That way, you can proceed to the next step.”
Charlotte nodded. “Exactly.”
Next to the table, a large window provided a perfect view of the outside world. One of the spotlights swept by, piercing the white, sheer curtains. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Light drops of rain pattered on the glass. Sara smiled, staring at the beauty, listening to the tinkling raindrops.
“Sure is a lot of activity outside,” Charlotte said quietly.
Sara frowned at her plate, not saying a word.
Charlotte studied her. “Oh. Don’t worry. You’re safe here.” She paused, and asked gently, “I’m assuming they’re after you, yes?”
Sara nodded. “I think so.”
“Do you know what they want with you?”
Sara shook her head. “I saw a large one with a sort of staff or something.”
“Obsidian. So you ran into one of the Shades. Tell me more. Maybe I can help.”
“Well, then I saw another one.” She could still see the dark one, his sinister voice echoing in the back of her mind. Step into my parlor, he’d said, his expression like a hungry wolf ready to devour its prey. He stood there, eyes penetrating, waiting to …
Charlotte placed her hand on top of Sara’s arm, snapping her from her frightful reverie. Immediately, in Sara’s mind, an image flashed of a kind-looking, older man with snow-colored hair.
“That would have been Morose, the Master,” Charlotte said, taking her hand away, and the image of the kind-looking man with it.
What was that all about?
Charlotte continued, “The Master can affect all of us. His gift is some sort of Soul mind control. The only way we are safe is in our haunts. Here, we are beyond his control.”
With the thought of Morose returning to Sara’s mind, the image of the old man was forgotten. Instead, shivers ran down her spine. Her skin crawled. Unsure of what else to do, she stood abruptly and gathered her plate to clean up.
“You don’t have to do that,” Charlotte said.
“I insist. So far you’ve been a gracious host. The least I can do is help you clean up.”
Charlotte beamed. “Thank you.”
Sara walked around Charlotte into the kitchen area and placed her dish in the sink. She turned on the faucet and ran warm water. It came out crystal clear. Where was the water coming from? Any infrastructure outside appeared dead and abandoned. Then again, why should this make sense if nothing else did?
“How long have you been here?” Sara asked over the noise of the water f
aucet.
“I’m not sure, honestly. A couple of years, maybe.”
A couple of years? Hmm. Sebastian asked her to help get this lady into the Light. So far, Charlotte had been sweet, honest and up front. Why wasn’t she already in the Light? There had to be more to this story. “Anything you’d like to talk about?”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Sara responded.
Charlotte sighed. “Noah.”
Sara turned off the water. “Who’s Noah?”
Charlotte beamed. “Noah is . . . Noah. He is quite possibly the sweetest man in the world. A vision of lovely I can’t even describe.” She paused. “It only took me forever to notice it. I’d known him my whole life and always knew he had a crush on me. It seemed every day he would ask me out and I would politely decline. One day, I got frustrated and asked him when he was going to stop. He smiled and walked away.”
“The next day, he came to me with a bouquet of roses. He told me, ‘I’m going to stop trying when the last rose dies.’ Then he walked away.”
“Really?” Sara asked, her eyes wide. She dried her hands on a towel and sat at the table. “Were you . . .” Sara started, leaning towards Charlotte, “a little disappointed?”
Charlotte smiled and rested her elbows on the table. “I was,” she admitted. “It took me a while to notice, but buried in the dozen roses was an artificial one.”
Sara’s face broke out into a smile. “Aw, that’s sweet.”
“I thought so,” said Charlotte. “And a little stalkerish too, right?”
“Yes!” replied Sara as they both began giggling. “But in a good way.”
Once their laughter subsided, Charlotte sighed. “Ah, Noah. That was so long ago. After we got married, I went to college and he joined the Marines. God, he made me so happy.”
Wednesday, 1:58 am (Purgatorium)
Sara smiled as Charlotte spoke, allowing the story to fill her mind with wonderful images. Charlotte offered more details of her life with Noah. From their wedding to the endless letters they wrote when he was in the Vietnam War. It sounded so wonderful. So perfect. After he returned from the war, they moved to the mountains and bought a couple of acres of farmland.
