Purgatorium (60 page)

10 Minutes

A second later, the ice slams into my car and explodes into thousands of tiny pieces. My frozen left arm shatters as I am thrown from my car, through the front windshield, and over the side of the bridge. The car flips and smashes into the truck holding the second
hourglass
, shattering it into pieces.

While shooting through the air, I see myself flying past the coffee shop. I fall and land on the park bench. I spot a melting block of ice falling down towards me. I push myself back up and quickly move out of the way. As it collides with the bench, it spills water over the ground below. I look down and see my left arm is gone. I will it back, and it reforms within seconds.

I hear shrieking. Reapers are coming down off the interstate and flying straight towards me, having seen where I landed. I look behind to see the third hourglass reflecting in the coffee shop window. I sigh, knowing that in order to keep moving forward, I must go back and smash it. I take out one of my knives that is strapped to my hip. I sprint, feeling the cold winds brush up against my face, then get close enough to the coffee shop and stop.

I look inside and am shocked to see a body frozen over in a booth. Having no time to think, I bring my arm back, step forward, and throw the knife with lightning velocity at the window. The third hourglass breaks on impact into a million shards.

I look across the park and although it’s at least two hundred yards away, I see the fourth hourglass. The reapers suddenly block my vision as they make their way to me. I run toward the oncoming reapers, smashing one in the skull with my
hatchet
. With the other, I make a powerful strike through its skull. The blade becomes stuck. I look over to see more reapers gliding towards me.

I panic, taking my knife out and using it to cut through the tape around my right hand. With every layer I cut, the reapers gain a yard. I tear through the last layer. Kicking up my feet, I start to run away just as the reapers arrive. I move my legs at a faster rate, sprinting past the Ferris wheel. As I approach the statue’s glass box, I see the fourth
hourglass
. I throw my hatchet at it, shattering it. The hatchet sticks into the frosted lawn just a few feet beyond the statue.

I sprint to it, pick it up, and slam it into another reaper’s skull. I turn and run toward my office, swinging my hatchet into reapers that get in my way. Snow flurries get into my eye as I break through the office building windows. I look over at the time at the front desk.

It reads 11:45.

Now in the lobby, I press buttons for both the first and second elevators. The first elevator opens and Stephanie comes out wearing a virtuous dress. I see her face and hair have been all made it up.

“I need you to stop looking at me and get your butt in the elevator’s ceiling vent now!” she yells. I walk in, hearing sounds coming from the elevator floor. It sounds like the carpet is saturated, I think. “Other reapers are coming in through the back doors! Get up there now!”

I make my way to the top of the elevator, look through the vent, and see her walking out. Seconds later, there is talking coming from the outside. I hear Uriel’s muffled voice and panic, thinking she has set a trap for me. I turn my head and find a flintlock pistol attached to a Queen of hearts mask mounted beside me.
How did this get here?
I think. I grab the pistol, looking at the lamb on the side of it.

The elevator’s clock reads 12:00.

I see Stephanie and Uriel, still barefooted, enter. She presses the button for the 30
th
floor, turns to Uriel, and starts kissing him all over his face and neck. I watch, not understanding what I am witnessing. As the doors close, Uriel pushes her away. Feeling water on his bare feet, he looks down and sees the rug is drenched with water.

“Kinky,” Uriel says, slightly worried. He looks up and knows that I am hiding on top of the elevator. “Gucci, I am very disappointed in you.” He takes hold of Stephanie by the neck. “So you do have some balls underneath that skirt of yours,” he says to her.

Stephanie kicks Uriel in his groin and a hand chop to his throat sends him up against the wall, pinning him there in agony.

“More balls than you will ever have,” she says, grinning at him. I drop down, smiling at Uriel’s pain. I make my way back down into the elevator.

I raise the pistol to his face as Stephanie gets behind me. I measure him from his head to his barefoot toes, and notice the King of diamonds card is still nestled nice and straight in his jacket pocket.

“Trying to start the race off a little earlier than expected, I see,” asks Uriel, looking at my mask. “But I have to ask, was my acting on point or what? You see that third grade theatre teacher was right about us, Gucci.”

I look down at his feet.

How is being barefoot angelic?

“You know why I go bare?” continues Uriel. “Let’s say there are two boys. The first boy gets into trouble, so daddy whips him and he feels it. Weeks go by and he’s up to no good again. He gets whipped again. He still feels it. Now, take the other boy. He’s bad all the time and has a drunk for a father. He gets whipped every night for years. He comes home after another misdeed. His dad whips him. Do you think he feels it?” He pauses, awaiting my response. “If you get used to something long enough you get attached to it—like a ring.”

He holds up his left hand, distracting me with his ring. Uriel quickly flips out his knife and cuts off my middle finger. The gun drops to the ground. He tries to go for it but I force him back to the right side of the elevator.

“Now you are free from it! No more lies to tell!” Uriel says, smiling. The elevator stops, arriving at its destination on the 30
th
floor. Uriel takes his knife and aims the blade to my groin. “Let’s just stop with all the lies and let everything out!”

He laughs as I try to force his hand, holding the knife away from me. The blade gets closer as Uriel looks over my shoulder and says in a calmer voice, “What do you say about that, toots?” His smile turns into something sinister.

Bang! A bullet suddenly flies past me, straight through Uriel’s teeth, shooting out from behind the back of his head and going through the right wall. I quickly look over and see Stephanie, now wearing the mask, holding the smoking pistol in her hand. She pulls the mask over her head. “You’re welcome,” she says with a smirk.

We watch as Uriel’s body goes limp and transfigures into a resemblance of me, slipping at first, then freezing over. Its demonic pink face comes to fruition as it falls stiffly to the elevator floor and shatters on impact. Only Uriel’s ring and the King of diamonds card are left on the floor. My third finger reforms as the elevator doors open. I look at the hole in the right wall that the bullet made. It went clean through, I notice in amazement.

“I’ll distract the reapers as long as I can,” Stephanie says to me, running to the stairway door. Looking around the elevator space, I realize she took the pistol with her. My only defense.

I walk out of the elevators onto the 30
th
floor just as a man comes out the other. I look at the man wearing my Jack of hearts mask that I recently lost. I point at it, confused as to why
this random man is
wearing it. I glance at his suited attire and remember Barachiel wearing the same outfit. I then see the man holding a flintlock pistol in his hands. I look closer to see the lion engraving on its side. I point at his gun, wanting him to know that the pistol was mine. He then tosses it to me. I grasp my hands around the gun, looking back at the man confused.

Is that you Barachiel?
I think.

The man continues to say nothing. I look at the other elevator and see another frozen dead body lying on the elevator’s soaking rug. I turn my head back to the mysterious mask wearer to find him holding a dark green marble bag over his head. I am captivated by its shimmer, which reminds me of the color of my eyes.

Suddenly, without me knowing, the man tosses it up towards me to catch. Once caught, he rushes past me and steps inside the elevator I was just in. Before I can do anything, the doors close.

Looking into the muzzle of the gun, I can see a lead ball already loaded in. I tuck the pistol back behind my pants, wanting to know what that was all about. I look back at the green marble bag and feel a small round object inside. I let it roll out onto my palm.

It’s another lead ball? That had to have been Barachiel then.

Without getting a chance to think, I breathe out cold air. Placing the lead ball back in the green marble bag, I stow it in my pocket. I see the sign for the stairs on a door to the right, push it open, and start ascending.

I quietly run out of the stairwell into the hallway, out of breath. There’s ice all over the open doorway to my office. I tiptoe to just outside the doorway. Looking down and seeing the reaper’s shadow, I quickly calculate how high up its skull is.

I take two steps back, then sprint obliquely through the doorway, pushing up off the wall, spinning 180 degrees, and stabbing the reaper’s skull. It falls to the ground, melting.

I look up and see
Raphael,
frozen in my chair, dead. The
hourglass
reflection is just behind me in the window. I pick up the reaper’s skull and throw it through the window, shattering it outwards. Looking out, I see reapers swarming at the bottom of the building. They look around, sensing heat from inside my office.

One reaper, larger than the others, touches the building. The whole structure starts to freeze over from the bottom, level by level. As each level freezes, it shatters and collapses, the rest of the structure slamming down to the ground.

I push Raphael’s dead body out the window to distract the reapers. I feel the office tremble as I watch the reapers swarming towards the dead body. Ice freezes the floor entirely.

Seconds later, reapers attack
Raphael
’s body, ripping him to shreds. The building is quickly being destroyed, floor by floor. The 53
rd
floor collapses below. My office is just two floors up. I am now in the hallway. I run to the other end of the building, looking behind me. Reaching the far window, I throw myself through it as the floor drops out beneath me.

15 Minutes

I land in the bushes, get up, and sprint around the back of the building toward the restaurant. Once at the rear door, I push it open and run up the stairs. I enter the kitchen, trying not to make a sound, and look out the window to find reapers outside flooding toward the restaurant. I run to the meat locker, on the way, grabbing the silver cloche cover with the hourglass reflection on it.

I open the meat locker door. Looking down, I see ice on the floor to my right. Suddenly, a reaper grabs my hand, freezing it. My frozen hand and the silver cloche fall to the ground. My hand shatters instantly, distracting the reaper. I jump inside the meat locker and slam the door shut behind me. I look at my nub and try to reform my hand, but it is too cold to concentrate.

At that moment, I feel someone grab my pistol from the back of my pants. “Are ye lion or lamb?” It’s
Michael, I think. Michael
now searches my pockets, finds the green marble bag, and takes it as well. “In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. I will be the one that takes them to that vintage. The world will never see me coming.”

He takes out the extra lead ball from the green marble bag and holds it up to the light. With one eye shut, he stares at it. Seconds go by as he puts the lead ball back in the bag, smirking as if he had discovered a secret.

Michael gets into my eyesight. He appears to be holding a mask. He turns to look at me and holds it up for me to gaze upon.

“Just like she never saw me coming.”

My hazy eyes can see enough of it to know it is the Queen of hearts mask that he’s holding. I turn around and see Stephanie sitting on the ground, beaten and bruised. She whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you got caught, maybe,” he says to her. He looks back to the mask in his hand. “If this has all been one big game, then why not shuffle me in? Another player on the board brings more of a challenge, which brings more strategy, don’t you think? Or I could just take your worthless spot, as it seems that you have come across too many bad hands and all. Unfortunately, this mask won’t do.”

He tosses the mask at her face. “The first thing you learn as a card player is: Don’t play the hand in which you were dealt if you don’t even know what you have. That is called common sense, which is something you do not have,” he declares with a loogie to her face.

He looks at me. “As for you, heard the starter pistol shoot a little bit too soon, didn’t we now?” He smacks me across the face and laughs. I look at him with condemning eyes.

“So you sure are acting like a lion now, aren’t ya, my boy? I would feed you to the reapers for your insubordination but what can I say, I need ya.”

He goes over to Stephanie and runs his hand over her hair. “Do you understand what this day was even for? Barachiel was supposed to help you find your token. Now since you made this courageous effort to start the race off one day before, we are all now in a pickle. The good news is Miss Lost Soul over here knows where it’s at.” He looks to her and smiles. “Don’t you, my dear?”