And the view, whenever I looked down in any direction, was filled with nothing but my own movie star face.
*****
The party, when the crowd-surfing stopped, turned into a series of conversations with myself...my face, anyway. The voices and people themselves were all different--all typically notable Heaven dwellers who'd been famous one way or another back home. I knew plenty of them, in fact; my movie star ways had led me to lots of different social circles back in the day. Old friends and new acquaintances alike crammed in to get a piece of me.
The one thing they all had in common, other than their Stag Lincoln faces, was that they were boring the crap out of me. After a while, they'd worn me down to the point that I started thinking about slipping away.
At first, I wasn't sure I could do it. After all, I was the center of attention, surrounded by fans.
On the other hand, I realized, what better place to slip away than in a room full of people who all looked like me?
That's what I was thinking when I talked an old screenwriter buddy of mine into switching places in the bathroom. All we had to do was trade clothes and voila! He became the "real" Stag Lincoln in my navy blue business suit from the movie shoot, and I became just another Stag-faced V.I.P. in a tux.
When the two of us walked out, he was instantly engulfed by partygoers, while I just kept walking. Checking to see that Byzantine was still holding court on the balcony, I worked my way across the room, trying not to be too obvious as I made my escape.
Finally, I reached a door behind one of the staircases, opened it casually, and ducked through. Closing the door behind me, I saw that I was in a hallway with no one nearby...and I breathed a giant sigh of relief.
But the relief didn't last long. I don't think I stood there more than thirty seconds before I saw them streaming down from the ceiling.
Two tendrils of mist just like the ones that had wrapped around M.B. before he'd crashed the car.
For a moment, I stood stock still, wondering which way to run. If the tendrils took control of me like they had M.B., who knew what they might make me do?
But when they'd finished flowing out of the ceiling, they didn't move toward me. They swirled together in a smoky coil and just hovered in midair ten feet away, gazing at me with their dark, oblong eyes.
So I stayed where I was instead of making a run for it. "Hello there."
The coiled tendrils floated silently, eyes aimed in my direction. Whatever their intentions might be, they were keeping them to themselves.
"Who are you, anyway?" As dangerous as I thought the tendrils were, I kept trying to talk to them. They were a complete mystery, and I wanted to know more. "What are you doing here?"
They didn't answer...at first. Then, they uncoiled and sifted off down the hallway. They reached a bend, beyond which I would lose sight of them...
And they waited. They hung there for me to see instead of moving along.
"You want me to follow you?" The answer was obvious, but I said it anyway.
Sure enough, when I took a few steps toward them, they started moving forward...then stopped and waited when I stopped.
Should I keep going? What if they were leading me to disaster like they had M.B.? What if they had something even worse in mind for me?
Then again, what if they were leading me somewhere I needed to be? I sure wouldn't get anywhere standing around the ballroom making small talk with Stag Lincoln-faced party guests.
Maybe I'd be better off taking a risk this time. One that Future Me hadn't warned me specifically not to take.
"Okay, fellas." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I felt shaky and excited all at once. "Let's see where you want to take me."
*****
We wound our way through a maze of well-lit white corridors, heading deeper and deeper into Byzantine's vast estate. I followed the tendrils through doors, over walkways, into elevators--sometimes hearing voices not far away but never crossing paths with anyone who might raise an alarm.
Soon, I was totally lost. Keeping up with those twin misty streamers was my only hope of getting somewhere without finding another guide--wherever that somewhere might be.
Eventually, the streamers led me to a black door at the end of a white corridor. When they slipped inside, the door slid open, revealing an elevator car, also black.
"Where to, guys?" I walked in, and the door shot closed behind me. "What, no controls?" I saw no buttons anywhere in the car's interior, nothing but smooth ebony walls.
Not that the lack of controls held the elevator back any. Seconds after I stepped inside, it dropped so fast I had to stumble into a corner and hold on.
I couldn't tell how many floors we passed, but it seemed like the car fell a long time. I stayed in my corner, white-knuckling the waist-high railing, while the misty tendrils hovered in a coil in the middle of the car, seemingly undisturbed.
After a while, the car slammed to a stop with a final lurch of my gut. The door swept open, and the tendrils leaped away, diving out into darkness.
"Well, this is promising." I hung back for a moment, then slowly stepped out of the elevator. The second both feet were past the threshold, the door whisked shut, cutting off all traces of light.
At first, I couldn't see the tendrils at all. "Guys?" But as I inched forward, I glimpsed their wispy forms, barely visible in the sea of shadow ahead.
I hurried to catch up with them...then paused when I heard what sounded like shuffling footsteps not far away.
The sound stopped, then started again. I squinted in its direction, peering into the pitch blackness, but saw nothing.
Luckily, I could still see the tendrils, which were waiting for me. When the shuffling got closer, I rushed toward them as fast as I could.
At that exact instant, they disappeared into the blackness, and I ran into what felt like a wall.
Or a door. As I shook off the impact, my hands found an actual knob--something rare in this world of doors that opened at a gesture, a thought, or a prayer. Taking hold with both hands, I turned it slowly and heard a latch disengage.
Pushing the door open, I stepped into a room that was only slightly less dark than the one I was in. A single overhead spot shone down on a big black desk thirty feet away, which was exactly where the misty tendrils were hovering.
As I marched over, my eyes went right to the one object occupying the desk, positioned dead center on its glossy surface in front of a high-backed black leather chair. "What the hell?" The object on the desk was thin, silver, rectangular...a foot long by six inches wide...and very familiar. Also improbable. "Is that what I think it is?"
Sure enough, when I got behind the desk and flipped open the thing's lid, I saw it was just that. There was a screen in the lid, with a keyboard in the base.
"Since when do they have laptops in Heaven?" I said, though the question was more rhetorical than anything else. I was losing track of all the things in this Heaven that didn't belong here.
Though, apparently, this one had special significance. Otherwise, why would the tendrils have led me to it?
I hit the power button, and it woke. Video appeared on the screen...no need for a password?
There should have been, judging from the video. Lots of naked flesh, men and women doing things to each other.
"Porn?" I touched the Enter key, and a new scene appeared--just as dirty as the first. Then another, and another, each progressively dirtier. "What's this doing here in Byzantine's private paradise?"
I looked up at the tendrils, which were circling overhead. As usual, they offered no explanation.
Returning my attention to the laptop, I leaned down for a closer look. It was only then I realized the most surprising part of all this.
The porn was playing in a browser window. An Internet browser window. It wasn't saved in the laptop's hard drive, playing back from there...
It was online. The laptop--and Heaven--had an Internet connection.
"Heaven's in the cloud, hu
h?" I sat down on the chair behind the desk, planning to do a little surfing to test the theory.
It was then I realized why the laptop hadn't prompted me for a password. It didn't need one.
The real security was outside the box.
As soon as my butt hit the chair, the overhead light switched to blinding intensity. A female voice--electronic, computer-generated--filled the room. "Black level breach. Black level breach. Initiating sanction omega."
Suddenly, the walls slid down into the floor, opening the room to the pitch black space beyond. I heard the same shuffling sound as before, but it was coming from all directions, not just one.
And it was coming closer. Getting faster, too.
Shielding my eyes from the blinding light, I blinked away spots and gaped into the surrounding darkness. It was then I saw what the falling walls had let in--what was coming toward me.
Mangled human figures shambled toward me, slack-jawed and drooling, dressed in rags. There were men and women alike, skin pale, eyes glassy and rimmed with deep black circles. Some had necks or arms bent at unnatural angles; some had open wounds with bones protruding.
All of them were reaching out, grasping with gnarled clawlike hands--reaching for me.
Were there a dozen of them? Squinting into the shadows, I thought the number was more like twice that.
And as they came closer, I heard the other sound they were making besides the shuffling. Every one of them was groaning, moaning, growling deep in its throat.
"Black level breach," said the electronic voice. "Initiating sanction omega."
My heart raced. Chills flew up my spine.
Heaven's own zombies closed in around me, growling and gnashing their blood-stained teeth...
*****
Chapter 9
Leaping out of the desk chair, I turned in a quick circle, trying to pick a direction to run...but there was no good option. The zombie men and women were closing in from all sides. No matter which way I ran, I would have to fight my way through them.
Which maybe wouldn't have seemed so scary if I'd had a weapon of some kind--something other than a laptop or desk chair--and more time to make the most of it.
But these particular zombies were no slow pokes. They moved with a shuffling gait, but it was the fastest shuffling gait I'd ever seen. They'd be on top of me in moments.
The electronic female voice blaring over the P.A. seemed to be egging them on. "Black level breach." It kept repeating the same thing over and over, getting louder and louder. "Sanction omega engaged."
Meanwhile, the tendrils of mist that had led me into harm's way were still hovering above the desk, turning in slow circles. Had this been their plan all along? To get me killed like they'd tried to kill Byzantine?
Whatever their motives, they weren't talking.
"Thanks a lot, you guys!" Whipping around, I grabbed the desk chair, which was mounted on a wheeled base. I turned it so the back faced the scrawniest female zombie I could see, and then I braced myself on the arms of the chair.
If the only weapon I had was a chair, then that was what I was going to use. I'd try ramming the zombie and hopefully plow my way through her--though the elevator was in the opposite direction, so I had no idea what to do after that.
"Black level breach," said the electronic voice. "Sanction omega engaged. Black level breach. Sanction omega..."
"Shut the hell up!" I said, steeling myself for the charge. I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on the arms of the chair, and started counting down. "Five...four...three..."
All around me, I could hear the growls and shuffling footsteps of the zombies. One way or another, I had to make my move or die where I stood.
"...two...one..."
Then, just as I was about to bolt, the shuffling stopped. So did the electronic voice.
Looking up from the chair, I saw that a pale mist had filled the room. It had spread out to enshroud all two dozen or so zombies--and somehow, it had frozen them in their tracks.
Almost. As I watched, I could see they were still moving, continuing their approach in ultra-slow motion. As long as they kept moving at the same rate, they would still reach me--but not for a very long time.
For now, at least, my imminent death-by-zombie was on hold. Even the blaring electronic voice had stopped. But whom did I have to thank?
I guessed it was the mist tendril entities who'd brought me there. They were nowhere to be seen in their original tendril forms, so it made sense that they'd spread themselves out and gassed the zombies.
Maybe they didn't want to kill me after all. But now that they'd bought me some time, what was I supposed to do with it?
I glanced at the silver laptop on the desk. Hidden in the depths of Byzantine's estate, protected by zombie security, it had to be important. The mist entities must have led me to it for a reason. Maybe, I thought, I should use the time I'd been given to search the computer.
On the other hand, getting out while the zombies were still slowed down seemed like the smarter play. The way they were at that moment, I could duck past them with ease and reach the elevator without a scratch on me.
But then I wouldn't know why Byzantine owned a laptop in Heaven with an Internet connection, would I? And what if there were other secrets on that machine just waiting to be found?
"Ah, what the hell." With a deep sigh, I pulled the chair back to the desk and sat down in front of the laptop. "It's not like I'm surrounded by bloodthirsty zombies, is it?"
The screen was dark until I flicked a fingertip over the laptop's touchpad. Then, it lit up with a display of high intensity porn, just like when I'd first turned it on.
I clicked the cursor into the browser's search box and typed a few urls I knew--a weather site, a newspaper, a social networking site--just to check that the Internet connection was working, which it was.
Then, I minimized the browser window and took a look at the computer's desktop. As soon as I spotted an e-mail icon, I double-clicked it.
That was when I saw the first reference to "Rapture." It was in the subject lines of the ten most recent e-mails at the top of the inbox.
Opening the latest e-mail, I scanned the text. There was a whole chain of messages in the body, an entire exchange from finish to start between Byzantine and several others. By the time I finished reading it, I knew what "Rapture" meant...and I knew how it had ruined my life.
I shook my head and glanced up at the zombies, who were still approaching with painstaking slowness. "Guess what, guys? My helicopter accident wasn't an accident. It was just a setup to fake my death and get me here." It wasn't funny, but I let out a laugh. "Talk about conspiracies, huh?"
As I opened and read more e-mails, the picture became more complete. Apparently, Byzantine and company worked with people in the outside world to fake the deaths of choice celebrities. Then, they brought them to "Heaven" to serve as private entertainment at their beck and call.
E.P. had been right. "We perform for them on demand," he'd told me. "They treat us like pets, like their private troupe of singers, musicians, actors, writers, artists."
"Like their slaves," M.J. had said. "They treat us like we're their slaves."
It made sense as I read more e-mails and thought it through. If you kidnap a star, how can you get him to perform for you? Threats and torture might work, or drugs...but wouldn't trickery be a lot more reliable? If you can convince someone he's in Heaven, wouldn't he be more likely to do what you ask?
From what I could see, that was what the Rapture program was all about. The Rapture team picked a target from outside--me, for example--then set up a phony accident, faked the target's death, and whisked him here, where they convinced him he was in Heaven.
The scope of the project blew my mind. It would take so many payoffs down the line, it was staggering. Police, medical examiners, undertakers, media, and family members would have to be bought, and bought big. Or else killed to keep up the charade. From the looks of the e-mails in front of me, either
one was a viable option.
Then there was the sheer amount of money it took to keep the Heaven compound itself running smoothly. I couldn't even imagine how much it took to pave the streets with gold, keep the angels flying, and pay for the high tech wizardry that made the place seem so heavenly.
No question, big money was running this operation--the biggest. Not that I could figure out who the actual deep-pockets players were. Everyone used code names in their e-mails; Byzantine was the only familiar name I saw, though who knew if it had anything to do with the real name he used away from this place.
One thing I did know was that the Rapture was about to strike again in a big way. In addition to talking about bringing me over, the e-mails mentioned a big follow-up--all four members of the biggest rock band in the world, U4. They were due to go down soon in a private plane crash, after which they would all be tucked away in Heaven to play on demand for their biggest fan, Byzantine, and his pals.
As I sat there, a new e-mail popped into the inbox, and I read it. Apparently, U4's crash was only two days away.
"Well, that sucks." The lead singer and guitarist were friends of mine from way back. Unfortunately, I didn't know their e-mail addresses off the top of my head; I had an open Internet connection in front of me, and I couldn't warn them.
Not that they would've believed me anyway, since I was supposed to be dead.
I doubted anyone else would believe me, either. Even if I forwarded the incriminating e-mails from Byzantine's account to a reporter, I couldn't imagine getting any traction. What reputable journalist would buy such an over-the-top story?
Maybe what I needed was a disreputable reporter...someone who wasn't really a reporter at all.
Checking the zombies, I saw they'd gained some ground. Even in slow motion, they'd still moved to within ten feet of me all around. I was running out of time.
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