Heather Graham (3 page)

“Don, come here!”

He looked up. Cathy was standing at the cock-eyed entryway to one of the train cars that had gone askew. He hurried toward her. He looked down as he leaped over the wreckage and realized vaguely that the blood was gone from his trenchcoat. He didn’t seem able to dwell on that for the moment; Cathy was calling him.

“Careful. Careful. There are a bunch of little ones trapped inside here, Don. Can you see?”

The train’s lights had gone out. Only here and there were flashes blinking illumination. Don could still see that this railcar was the one loaded with children. The orphans. They had apparently come from a Brooklyn facility called St. Mary’s: the name was stamped upon most of the clean, though shabby and worn, baggage the munchkins had carried; some had suitcases, some backpacks. The bags seemed to have come in a multitude of sizes, perhaps six or seven in all.

“Cathy, maybe we shouldn’t touch them. Listen to the sirens. People who know what they’re doing are coming now. We could hurt them—”

“Don, smell,” she told him.

Hmmm. He didn’t seem to be able to do that. But he thought he saw some smoke billowing in from the rear of the car.

“All right, let’s get them out,” he said to her. “There, I’ll pull up that broken seat, you grab the youngster.”

He heaved against a seat that had been twisted severely in the violence of the wreck. It appeared to have been bent as easily as a coat hanger. He pressed, strained. It wasn’t going to move.

Then, to his astonishment, he lifted it with no effort whatsoever. Cathy reached down for the child trapped beneath it. A boy of perhaps ten. Not a skinny little tyke, either, Don thought. The orphans at St. Mary’s were not eating so badly. Except, of course, he reminded himself, boys didn’t necessarily gain a little weight from too much nutritious food.

“He must be heavy, Cath,” he warned.

“Not at all,” she told him. “Grab that sweet little toddler there. Two more trips and we’ll have them all.”

There were six of them, all boys, if Don could guess correctly, between the ages of three and ten. They were smudged and dirty. Only three of them had stirred, groaned, or moved. He knew one had a broken wrist; another, well, he wasn’t sure if the boy, a handsome, lanky, blond-haired lad of about nine, would make it. Yet he suddenly stopped thinking about the boy because he could see his own Beamer, the broken headlights of it jammed against the derailed car of the train.

There were mounds in the new-fallen snow beside it. Snow-covered mounds, with more snow falling upon them. In fact, as the sirens screamed in the night and rescue workers began to come running across the darkness, their flashlight beams wavering over the terrain, Don realized with a sinking sensation just what he was seeing becoming buried in the snow.

Himself.

And Cathy.

She was just in the act of laying down one of the children, the littlest one, a round-faced cherub of about three.

“Cathy.”

“Isn’t this little guy adorable, Don? He’s breathing evenly, too, I’m certain of it. Wave to those ambulance attendants there, they can’t possibly see the children, and I’m afraid the kids will freeze to death before they get help. I wish I knew more about medicine—”

“Cathy—”

“Hello, over here! Hey, someone come help!” Cathy called. “Are those fellows deaf?” she demanded.

“Cathy, look!”

“Yes, yes, I know—it’s snowing. Those poor people. Do you think that they’re de—”

“Cathy, I think they’re us!” Don exploded.

“What?”

“I’ve got to see!”

He went running, tripping, scrambling over wreckage, baggage—even the nun, fallen from a sprained ankle.

Cathy came quickly after him. Until she reached the nun.

“Sister, can I help you?” she asked solicitously.

The nun sobbed quietly, trying to struggle to her feet. Cathy pulled her up. The sister screamed, unable, it seemed, to realize how she was being helped. She hopped about in the snow, looking around her, in front of her, behind.

She seemed to stare straight at Cathy, without seeing her.

She looked heavenward.

Then passed out cold.

“How strange!” Cathy said, just barely catching the nun and easing her back down. “We need help here so badly! This poor lady will freeze if—”

“She’s a nun, God’s going to help her first!” Don snapped. “Leave her for now, please, Cathy. Just get over here!”

She stared at the sister. “You’ll be all right, help is coming, real help is coming!” she promised, then went running after Don. She moved so quickly that she slammed into his back when he tensed and stiffened.

“Get around here!” he said, pulling her forward.

“Easy!” she protested.

“Look!” he commanded.

“Where?” she asked.

“Down.”

“Down … where?”

“There. In the damned snow!”

“Oh, God!” she gasped, seeing the bodies. “Those poor people. They’re so hurt!”

“They’re so dead!”

“Oh, dear, Don, you’re right—”

“Cathy, aren’t you listening?
They are us! You and me. Us, Cathy!
”

“They can’t be.”

“Look at them! They are!”

They stared at the ground together.

At the couple there.

He had fallen to her side. Their heads were together, his reddish hair and her ebony waves plastered in the whiteness of the snow. Their blood-stained fingers were laced together. They were as close as could be.

In death.

“It… it really is us!” Cathy breathed. “It can’t be.”

“It is.”

“But it—it can’t be. We’re here.”

“We’re there, too.”

“But…”

“Oh, God!” Don groaned.

“What’s the matter with you! Don’t you say that!” Cathy gasped.

“What, what? What did I say?”

“God. Just don’t, er, speak his name like that. Not under the circumstances … don’t you think?”

He stared back at her. Into her wide blue eyes.

“Under the circumstances?” he blazed back. He stared up, heavenward.

Bitter.

He stared back at his wife.

“Who the hell do you think put us into these circumstances.”

“Don, dammit, don’t say hell!”

“Hell, Cathy, then cut the dammit!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, my God” she protested, “you’ve done it now.”

“I’ve done it! Done what?”

Then he realized. Something was happening again.

The accident scene was receding from around them. And they seemed to be rising. But they couldn’t be. Because the white was becoming so dense. They were … in snow. That was it. The snow was getting harder. Falling with incredible speed. Blanketing all around them.

No, he realized.

Not snow.

Mist encircled them. Spinning, swirling, thickening.

They were rising.

Rising within it.

Into the clouds.

“W
E’RE DEAD. WE MUST
be going to … heaven?” Cathy said, a tinge of hope in her voice.

“We can’t be.”

“Don, we saw our bodies. We are dead. We just need to understand what’s happening now. I was always so afraid to die. I mean, I believed in God, in an afterlife, but I—I was always afraid, I didn’t want to go alone. You know how I hate going places alone.”

“You’re not alone. I’m with you.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Yes.”

“Think we may be going to heaven?”

“I hope. Surely, we can’t be going to … hell?” Don murmured. “I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t that bad.”

“Do you think all our sins play out before us now like a motion picture?”

“I hope not.”

“I think hell is down. And very hot,” Cathy assured him. “You’re not hot, are you?”

“No, no, but in all honesty, I wasn’t that bad, but I’m not so sure I deserve heaven. Maybe I’m just rising by hanging on to your shirttails.”

Cathy smiled. Her fingers curled around his. “What makes you think I was that good? But we’re together, right?”

He nodded. “Maybe we’ll just float for eternity,” he said worriedly.

“I don’t think so,” Cathy said.

Because they had reached some kind of a strange landing.

It was worse than the Christmas Eve rush on Fifth Avenue.

The flooring was nothing but mist; none of the hundreds of
… creatures? …
rushing about on it seemed to notice, or to have any doubt of the solidity of what lay under their feet. And wings.

They looked like people. Maybe they were people. Except for the ones with wings.

“Wings mean angels, right?” Don whispered to Cathy.

“I think.”

“Or birds,” Don said.

Cathy elbowed him. “I think it’s time to be very careful about what we say.” Her fingers still laced with his, she looked around, turning them both in a full circle.

The cloud-landing seemed to stretch on forever in all directions. There were corridors within it, all formed from the same misty white stuff, and thousands of people—or angels or, as Don was thinking of them,
humanoid-
type creatures—were hurrying about. They all seemed to be moving with purpose. Their appearances varied greatly; many were dressed like Cathy and Don, in winter coats and boots. Others’ outfits made the gathering look almost like a costume party. To Cathy’s left was a group in bikinis and cutoffs, to her right, a couple in exquisite medieval dress, probably from around the period of Henry II. There were people in caftans, evening gowns, tuxes, dungarees, flapper outfits from the roaring twenties, T-shirts in tie-dye colors advertising the Grateful Dead, anything, anything at all that might be imagined. Those wearing the varied costumes walked about with lists; they walked with purpose, they stopped by the desks, they moved onward. They all seemed incredibly busy.

I will wake up, Don told himself.

He stared toward a group of young men and women who began to change position. They were rising on a cloud-elevator, so it seemed, heading upward toward a small mountain or hill in the midst of the mist. The shape was rather rugged and craggy, as the face of a cliff might have been on earth, but there the resemblance ended. Magnificent colors seemed to shoot down from a dazzling light atop the cliff. Silver, gold, exquisite, vital violet.

Next to the crest, slightly lower, was a group of hills, ever so slightly mist-shrouded, yet beneath the silver-white mist, the colors were all in shades of green and brown. Cathy tugged upon Don’s coat sleeve suddenly, pointing out a man in a brown caftan, carrying a staff. He was surrounded by animals—lambs and lions, birds, snakes, puppies, ponies, and so forth. A large giraffe walked past the man.

“St. Francis?” Cathy whispered.

“I don’t know. I’m sleeping, surely. Dreaming,” Don insisted.

“It’s magnificent!” Cathy whispered. She kept her grip on his shoulder, turning them both in a circle again to keep looking around. And even as they looked around, they saw again the very busy place where they stood, the plain, the level. It was like a United Nations building on the eve of a world summit, like an airlines office on the busiest night of the year. People, creatures—angels?—appeared and disappeared into the mist once again, some rising, some lowering, all with purpose. In fact, most of the humanoid creatures seemed to be constantly coming and going.

All but the ones with wings.

The winged beings were no more uniform in appearance than those creatures of these clouds who didn’t have wings. They wore all manner of dress, some the soft, flowing stuff of biblical-angel pictures, others much more businesslike apparel, and they seemed to be the ones giving out directions.

Don was still turning about with Cathy, gaping, when he felt the tap on his shoulder.

They spun about together. Faced one of the creatures with wings. He was very tall, a good six-foot-three, and was dressed in striking contemporary evening wear. He was incredibly good looking. His hair was a sandy color, wavy; his eyes were a dark, piercing brown. He might have been a Hollywood heartthrob—except that he was sporting large, white, really beautiful, feathery wings. Almost as long as his body, they seemed to be threaded through with silver.

“Cathy and Don?” the man said.

Don held Cathy’s hand more tightly. “We’re the Angels,” he answered.

The man sniffed audibly. “We’ll see about that.”

“Angel is our last name,” Cathy said.

“Here, you are Cathy and Don,” the man stated. He stared at Don, his eyes narrowing assessingly. “‘Angel’ is debatable as of yet!”

“Oh, is that so? Just who the hell are you?” Don demanded.

“Shhh!” Cathy whispered to him.

The winged thing looked at her. “My name is Gabriel. And you,” he said, addressing Don, “may very soon be known as nothing more than mud. Remember, sir, the laws of gravity. It’s far easier to drop than it is to rise.”

“Now, wait a minute—” Don began.

Cathy tugged at his hand.

“Mr. Gabriel—”

“Not ‘mister,’ just Gabriel.”

Cathy glanced at Don. Gabriel?
The
angel Gabriel? Her look warned him that he had better start being very careful, right now.

“Gabriel,” she said, addressing the winged heartthrob, “we’re really very confused. We’re … umm … dead, right?”

“Dead as door nails!” Gabriel assured her cheerfully.

“Are we in heaven?” Cathy asked carefully.

Gabriel shook his head, his smile somewhat malicious as he stared at Don.

“But we’re not in hell,” Cathy said.

Gabriel downright smirked at Don. “Not yet,” he said insinuatingly.

“Well, then…”

“This”—Gabriel made a grand sweep with his hand—“is something of a halfway stop.”

“Purgatory?” Don asked.

“You betcha,” Gabriel said.

Don looked at Cathy. “This can’t be the angel Gabriel, Cathy. They didn’t say ‘you betcha’ back in biblical times.”

“I didn’t have the Versace suit back then either,” Gabriel said, straightening his sleeves. “Christmas present,” he told Cathy with a smile.

“It’s very nice,” she assured him.

“Wait a minute!” Don snapped. “A materialistic angel?” He and Gabriel just weren’t on the same wavelength.

“Sometimes, material goods are necessary for visits to a material world,” Gabriel told him. “What can we do? Times change. Angels came to Abraham on foot, I have flown in a cloud of brilliant gold light for many important messages. This is the twentieth century. I may be taking a Harley or a Beamer somewhere next.” He shrugged. “Maybe a nice white stretch limo. We can appear as light, as a whisper, as the guy next to you at a subway stop. We have been interpreted by different men of different cultures in many different ways. Seraphim and Cherubim have been mighty warriors, ready to fight the unworthy from the gates of hell; they have been beautiful, radiant silver-light creatures as delicate and elegant and gentle as one can imagine.” He suddenly seemed to lose patience. “Enough of this! What do you want, a road map? You’re dead.” He leveled a finger at Don. “And I’m in charge of your case here.”