by J. L. Powers
“Okay,” Rachel says, “Dad has a gun beside the bed. And the kitchen knives are sharp. Really sharp. So Mom can easily cut up all those steaks she grills.”
“Thank you,” Amaros breathes, and crushes her in a hug so hard, her eyes momentarily bug out. I blink and catch an image of the creature sinking two fangs deep into Rachel’s chest. “Everything will be all right now, I promise.”
Rachel looks down and notices her blood-soaked shirt. She screams, but now that Amaros has what he wants, he’s lost patience with her. He jerks away and snaps, “What’s your problem?”
“I’m bleeding,” Rachel sobs.
I crash through the door, grabbing the desk chair and smashing it against Amaros. He leaps up, snarling, and hits me with his fist, knocking me over before running out the door.
I stagger to my feet.
Rachel starts to scream, then falls back on the bed. “Adam?” she says. “Are you Adam?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond before she begins panicking. “You have to get out of here, Adam. My sister thinks you guys are monsters. She’s going to try to kill you.”
There’s no time to explain to her that she doesn’t have a sister or remind her that she, Rachel, is also one of “you guys.”
“Let’s go.” I grab her hand and pull her behind me to the stairs. How in the world am I going to get us out of this place? There has to be a way. Soul guides enter Limbo all the time and somehow get back to life. It’s just that I’ve never done it consciously before.
We’re halfway up the stairs when a gun roars behind us, a bullet shattering the railing. Huge chunks of wood rain down on us.
We bolt into the kitchen. I slide behind the counter and jerk Rachel down on the linoleum floor, hiding behind the wooden island.
Amaros calls from the stairs in the hall: “I see you figured out how to get to Limbo, Adam.” He’s dropped the pretense of speaking in a girl’s voice. His real voice is raspy, elderly, the voice of a man 150 years old or more.
“So what?” I call back.
“Our deal still stands.” His voice reaches me after what feels like forever, like he’s speaking through a loudspeaker but it has to travel down a long, long hallway. “I’m not after you. If you help me now, I can show you the path to eternal life.”
Maybe if Amaros keeps talking, he won’t shoot. “What do I have to do?”
“Help me lure your father to Limbo. Death is his game and, as such, he’s completely wrong about life. He’s become so powerful and wealthy because he profits from the souls he’s supposedly helping.”
“What do you mean?” Keep talking, Amaros. “My dad isn’t wealthy.”
“Hahahahaha! Your dad’s a multibillionaire, you idiot. And he became wealthy by one simple equation: more death equals more wealth. He’s doing his job very well, don’t you think? All I want is to stop the madness. We should all have the opportunity to live forever.”
“You mean we get paid to usher souls to the other side?”
“Hahahahaha,” he laughs again. “You don’t know the first thing about the evil business you’re profiting from.”
What the heck does it mean to profit from death? I still can’t wrap my head around this. I mean, how does it work? Who pays us? And in what kind of currency?
“We’re doing this to help people,” I say.
“Now now, Adam, don’t fool yourself. If you were so altruistic, wouldn’t you be doing it for free? Or not doing it at all? Maybe helping people live forever, be with their loved ones, instead of dying? Leaving everything they’ve ever known or loved?”
Maybe Amaros—or whoever this is—is right. But he isn’t speaking the whole truth. “Maybe that’s true,” I call, “but you’re also sick. What do you have to do to live forever? Take other people’s bodies so your soul can just keep on going, indefinitely? That’s selfish, man. You’re in this for you.”
He’s silent for a second. Maybe he’s never thought about it this way before. In the silence, Rachel moans and that seems to stir Amaros again.
“We don’t have much time, Adam,” he warns. “You have to choose. Life or death. Me or your father.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“Unlike your father, I’ve never lied to you.”
“But she’s been lying to me.” Rachel slugs me on the shoulder. “That isn’t my sister, is it?”
“No. You don’t have a sister.”
She scowls.
“I’m sorry.”
“I knew this was too good to be true.” She frowns as if she’s just come out of a dream, noticing the blood pooling on the white linoleum. She panics, suddenly and completely. “Fuck! Adam! Am I going to die?”
“No!” I shout. “No, you’re not. Now think. Is there a weapon in here?”
“In the kitchen closet,” she whispers. She’s breathing hard, trying to hold onto herself. “Mom always kept it loaded. You know, for shooting rabbits in the garden.” The effort to say all that costs her; as soon as she finishes speaking, she passes out.
The kitchen closet is across the counter. A universe away.
“You have ten seconds and then it’s over, Adam,” Amaros calls. “I’m coming up there to prepare for your father and if you’re not with me, you’re against me.”
I slide over the counter to the kitchen closet and open the door, expecting some sort of BB gun. At best, a .22. And there it is. A freaking twelve-gauge shotgun. Only Rachel would be so demented, she’d imagine a suburban mother who shoots garden rabbits with a twelve-gauge.
I grab the gun as Amaros charges up the stairs. He jumps into the room, revolver in his hand. I point the shotgun at his head and he halts for just a second before turning and leaping, crashing through a window, then runs down the street, disappearing from view.
I bend down to feel Rachel’s pulse. It’s thready but she’s still breathing.
Rachel’s desire for a family and a home was so huge, her imagination ran away with the details. I open a drawer and find dish towels, which I press against her wounds. After a few minutes, the bleeding slows to an ooze.
Just as I’m wondering what I should do next, I feel it. A presence I know so well, I almost pass out in relief. The front door opens and I yell, “Dad! We’re upstairs in the kitchen! Get here quick!”
He takes the stairs two at a time. “What are you doing here, Adam?” He stops and stares at Rachel. He becomes very still for a second, face ashy-gray. “Who is this?”
“Rachel. My friend.” I add, “Apparently, she’s a Reaper.”
“She is a Reaper,” Dad says. He smoothes the hair back from her face. Like he can’t help himself. “She looks exactly like your mother. If I didn’t know better, I’d—” He stops. “Well, she’s not your mother. But she’s related to her, I have no doubt. Where’d she come from? I’ll have to speak to your grandfather about this when we get back.”
“Are we going to get back?” I can’t help but ask.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Dad’s tone is mild and then I realize he doesn’t know.
“Somebody named Amaros lured us here so you’d come. I don’t know his real name. He’s with La Luz.”
For just a moment, Dad looks old, really old, like three hundred years old or something. “Fine,” he says. “Let him come find me. He’ll soon realize he’s made a mistake. In the meantime, I have to save this young woman.”
Sutures and needles appear in the air. Dad sews Rachel’s wounds up with a dexterity and simplicity that suggest he’s had some practice doing this kind of thing.
“I thought we just escorted souls to the other side,” I say. “But you’re like a doctor.”
He grimaces in what I now recognize as his grim Grim Reaper smile. “Some souls get kicked into Limbo accidentally. It’s not yet their time. You have to figure out the difference so that you can help some souls return to life.”
“Amaros was sucking blood from that wound on her chest.”
“He did that to control her body and her wo
rld,” Dad says.
I think back to how pale Zachary was when Amaros was inhabiting his body.
“She didn’t know he was doing it, though. He tricked her somehow—she thought he was her sister. But she doesn’t have a sister. She doesn’t have any family at all.”
Dad looks up then and smiles at me. “I wouldn’t be so sure, son. I think her family quota—and yours—has become exponentially larger.”
“You really think we’re related?”
“I’d stake my life on it. I just wish I knew where she came from. She’s . . . a complete surprise.”
So this is what my mother looked like. Straight, thick, reddish-sandy hair. Freckles all over her nose and cheeks. A long hooked nose and thin lips and a wide smile. She does look just like the woman in the train that goes around and around and around in my dream.
Dad gathers Rachel in his arms and whispers in her ear, a soft crooning, almost singing: “Rachel.” Voice low and intimate, something that creeps inside your heart and warms you with its intensity of knowing who you are and caring about you. “Rachel.”
She opens her eyes and I sag in relief.
“You came,” she says to Dad.
“I came,” he agrees.
“I should be scared but I’m not,” she says.
“You have nothing to be scared of, darling,” he says. “It’s not your time.”
“This whole place is a lie,” she says. “It’s everything I ever wanted and it’s all a lie.”
“Limbo is never a lie, dear. It simply manifests our greatest desires or worst fears.”
“I thought I had a sister.” She begins to cry. “I thought I had a sister and a mom and a dad. I thought I had a family. And it’s all a big fat lie.”
“You do have a family,” Dad tells her. “Adam’s your family. I’m your family. My wife—Adam’s mother—she was your family. For the moment, it doesn’t matter how—it’s just enough to know we’re claiming you. You’re not alone anymore. You’re ours.”
Rachel looks from Dad to me and back to Dad. Then she returns her attention to me. “What are you staring at?” she asks crossly.
I laugh in sheer, utter relief. Rachel’s back. She’s back, man!
“She’s going to be all right, son,” Dad says unnecessarily. “Now go! Go back to your body. Go back to life. Limbo’s dangerous if La Luz has infiltrated it.”
“I don’t know how.”
He’s still working on Rachel, but he pauses long enough to push his glasses farther up his nose. “What do you really care about? Back in life?”
It feels cheesy to say it. I squirm. “You.”
He smiles. “But I’m here, in Limbo. You need something else. Something that’s there now at this exact moment.”
“I’m not sure.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is, it just has to be something that draws you back to your body. Once you have somebody or something in mind, latch onto it and don’t let your mind wander.”
I hand him the shotgun. Then I stand there. What do I care about so much that it will bring me back to life? I remember that time when the thought of Sarah pulled me back from Limbo at Coney Island. Would that work again?
Dad gestures impatiently. Get on with it, Adam.
Rachel’s head slumps against Dad’s chest and he begins to sing. I’ve never heard him sing. He has a strong baritone. A nice voice. I wish I’d heard him sing before.
I leave the kitchen to concentrate. What do I care about? Something I care about enough that it will take me back to my body?
I think about the school, the music, the books, Aileen’s simple instructions, Jacob’s belly-laughing lectures. Tomás and Sean being smart-asses at dinnertime after a long day studying. Rachel with her crummy foster-kid shoes. Liliana, sneaking into my room and holding my hand as we fall asleep. Principal Armand. Principal Armand? His cold blue eyes suddenly seem to twinkle at me.
The walls of the living room start to fade.
What the heck. Am I in love with school?
That thought jerks me back to Limbo. I’m staring at a painting of a snowy woodland hanging over the fireplace mantle. Dad’s singing to Rachel in the kitchen.
No. No, I’m not in love with school. Or Principal Armand. I’m in love with all my friends. With the life they brought me. School is just the backdrop.
I concentrate again and this time the walls disappear completely. Slowly, the white room materializes in front of me. I float above my body in Amaros’s house. Sean sits next to Rachel on the couch, biting his nails. Rachel’s skin is almost as white as the couch except for two tiny circles of pink dotting her cheeks. Liliana kneels near Zachary’s body, Tomás between us, one hand on each.
My body twitches on the floor. It lacks a shadow, but if anybody were to look up, really look, they’d see it floating toward my body.
“I think he’s coming to.” Liliana sounds relieved.
I’m almost linked to myself when my eyes fall on Zachary’s lifeless body. He’s still stuck in Limbo. The scene in front of me disappears and I crash back into darkness, the endless fall into the abyss.
Chapter 27.5
And so the time came. It was, as they say, inevitable. But the lover-husband had held out a thin glimmer of hope to his bride and she did not wish to go. Also, there was their son, a young boy now four years old. She did not wish to let go of life with all its joys and sorrows.
So she held on. She refused to cross over.
What do you mean, she refused? Elder #5 spoke. The Grim Reaper? Refused to die?
Yes, he said simply.
They looked at each other blankly. Finally, one of them queried, So your daughter became stuck?
He nodded. Worse, even. She became a nightmare. A demon. One who tried to take the boy.
She tried to take the boy to Limbo? Her Excellency asked. She looked around at the other Synod Elders. Their faces were bleak. She tried to take him out of life? To the other side?
Yes.
My god.
It was a dark and stormy night. The Grim Reaper’s soul was going, going, but she was clinging with everything she had to life. The Grim Reaper had always been macabre and so her Limbo was, ironically, a cemetery. As she held on with all her might, she sensed her son’s soul nearby. She reached out and snatched—and she took her son’s soul straight into Limbo with her. She took him and she wouldn’t let go.
The lover-husband was forced to choose between saving his son and making sure the love of his life crossed to the other side. He chose his son and abandoned his love in Limbo.
The Synod went silent for a moment. He stood in front of them, head bowed.
She is there still. She’s in Limbo yet. She has never crossed the River Styx.
Her Excellency finally spoke, her voice gentle: We understand at last, John. We understand what you have been trying to tell us.
CHAPTER 28
I stop myself falling almost immediately. I don’t know why, I just know I don’t have to do it anymore. Also, She—the one who apparently was my mother, and I’m going to have to ask Dad about that as soon as I get a chance because he has some explaining to do—is gone, maybe for good. When I stand up, I’m back in the foggy darkness between souls. Rachel’s is to my left, like before. To my right is the other soul locked into the sounds and smells of the ocean, barricaded behind an enormous, invisible wall.
Using my fingers, I seek a crack or hole—something, anything, that will let me through. But I can’t reach the top and no matter how far I walk in either direction, I can’t seem to reach the end of it. By leaning against it with my full body weight, I can push the barrier forward about a foot and feel sand crunching underfoot. Then it springs back and I stumble.
Why could I go right into Rachel’s world but not this one? Something about it doesn’t feel right. There has to be a way around or through this barrier. Walls have to conform to the rules of logic, even in Limbo.
As I think, I keep pushing. Suddenly it gives way and I lurc
h through what feels like a thick wall of sand.
My breath catches, a quick choking sensation, and then I’m dusting off my clothes and standing up to look around me at Zachary’s Limbo.
White foam swirls over my feet. Waves crash onto a beach. Millions of stars twinkle in the night sky and artificial lights wink in the distance. They resolve into a riot of moving colors as I approach.
The heart of Zachary’s Limbo turns out to be a carnival situated on a giant pier. A huge Ferris wheel revolves slowly out over the water, gondolas shining green and white, while carousel music tinkles in the wind and horses, lions, and tigers pump up and down. Tilt-A-Whirl cars spin and whoosh over the gyrating floor. Swings orbit a giant purple octopus.
The carnival is empty.
I roam the streets, swept clean of the usual food and garbage and bird poop, and head toward the center of the park, a black eye in a sea of moving light. It turns out to be a massive wooden roller coaster. My thigh muscles ache as I zigzag my way to the entrance, following the sounds of banging and clanging.
“Hellooooo!” I yell.
To my surprise, Zachary emerges from the operator’s box. He’s dressed in grease-stained overalls, a large wrench in his hand. A wound gapes in the back of his neck where, I’m guessing, Amaros was sucking his blood not too long ago. He’s so pale, I wonder if a single drop of blood remains in his body or whatever you call your body in Limbo.
“Hi,” I say.
He drops the wrench and winces as it falls through a crack and tumbles to the ground twenty feet below. “Sorry, Dad,” he mumbles.
I realize almost immediately that he’s talking to me. “I’m not your Dad, Zachary.”
“I’m sorry I flunked out of school. But I’m still an Angel. I can still be useful.”
“Look, you haven’t flunked out of school. Somebody kidnapped you, stole your body, and left you here in Limbo.”
It’s almost as if he can’t hear what I’m saying. Tears stream down his face.
“What is this place?” I ask.
