And finally, when I'm at the end of my strength, it breaks free, stretching like taffy, or gum. I pull at it and it stretches to three or four times its original length before it suddenly gives up and releases its grip on the Earth plane.
“ . . . da book is wit you now, child . . .” Ms. Josephine's calming voice tells me.
And as I turn around I notice them.
Everywhere. There must be thousands of souls, all around me, watching every move I make. They are giving me a wide area to maneuver, as if I'm off-limits. As if I'm giving off some energy that would burn them, or infect them.
They might just be giving me space so they can watch this moment. I assume that it is as important to them, as to me. It's not every day you see St. John in the flesh.
Or . . . am I typhoid Jack to these people?
None of them speak. There are whispers, but nothing that I can make sense of. Every word is hushed and hidden behind grey hands and suspicious eyes.
These souls here, watching me carry the book that must be the source of so much legend and lore, I notice that their eyes are not quite as bright and glowing as Kristen's, Rupert's, nor the rest of the Deadsiders I met before. Could be some regional difference, I suppose.
And almost as if she read my mind I feel a touch on my shoulder. Startled, I jerk away only to see Kristen and Rupert, and several others behind me. They are inside my sphere of emptiness. This is so surreal and beautiful and haunting all at the same time. I wish I had a video camera.
I lift the Book of Sighs. “I have it.”
Rupert nods, almost bowing to the book.
Kristen, she smiles, looking on me with proud eyes. “You are the one, John. You shall set us free. And then you will have the answers that we both seek.”
Kristen and Rupert line-up on either side of me and they begin to walk toward the stoned wall. I can only assume they know where the door is.
As we walk, the quiet souls give us plenty of space, shuffling so as not to get too close to us. I ask Rupert, why are their eyes so dim compared to yours?
“Many,” Rupert explains, “ . . . most, in fact, don't believe in the prophecy of St. John. They don't want to hope only to have their hopes shattered. They don't—”
A scream ripped through the tranquility!
Rupert stopped mid-sentence. We heard them again. The screams were echoing throughout this old city as if it was a giant amplifier. All the souls, thousands of them, lowered their bodies, all eyes searching the dangerous blue sky.
“We must hurry, John!” Kristen warned. “The screamers are coming. They will stop at nothing to kill us all!”
And now we're running at a full-on sprint.
“Where is the gate?” I yell. Where?
I feel Kristen's hand pulling me towards the wall, and I start to see a small green rectangle illuminated by the thin streaks of light that are left as the sun races to the west.
“The book must go into the recess in the wall, and you must be the one to press it into place,” Rupert instructs as we run.
Between the screams from the quickly fading sky, I noticed several other familiar souls running along with us. Stewart is hobbling his nervous tail along. Thomas—the first man I ever met in Deadside—he is with us. My familiar dead friends. Stupid as it sounds, I actually felt slightly relieved to see them around me. I don't know them that well, but anything familiar is a blessing in a place like this. Under circumstances such as these.
The screams grew louder as I approach the small recess in the wall. It looks to be the exact same size as the book.
“Quickly!” Rupert yells as they circle around me for protection.
The sky is black now, but not from the setting sun. It has grown dark from the wings of monsters with sharp teeth, and talons, and black eyes . . . designed for killing.
As I lift the book, Kristen releases her tight grip on my hand. I glance back at her and she nods anxiously, “Now, John! Fulfill your destiny. Save us all.”
And as I raise the Book of Sighs, it grows heavier and heavier with each inch. It's as if it's trying to resist being placed in its keyhole. I strain and struggle, again, grunting as I lift. The book, it starts to vibrate again. It's really an ornery son-of-a-gun.
I feel this energy surging through my body, then through my arms, and out from my fingertips into the book as I press it home. This is the opposite of the normal saline sensation. This is me giving my energy to the book. Encouraging it to succeed. The book and I, a supernatural team.
And as it finally slides into place, at that exact moment, there is a loud, thunderous eruption. It sounds like mountains being moved. Like thousands of sticks of dynamite going off at the same time. The noise is so deafening that I have to cover my ears with my hands. We all do.
The ground begins to shake, and I think I may have done something wrong. I pray that there aren't several slots. I hope I didn't accidentally push the book into the slot marked 'Earthquake'.
Everything around us is rumbling and rattling, and suddenly I see the golden bits of light start to sparkle around the wall. They are those same wonderful flashes of light that I see when I'm submerged in my drowning journey across from the Earth plane.
Tiny specs of hope.
Glimmers of a chance.
The light, it grows stronger in the outline of a large door—much wider than the tank-sized doors of the church I attended last weekend. Those growing beacons of light, they are the same golden color of the dream that Kristen gave me.
And suddenly . . .
Chapter 65
Old City, Damascus, Deadside.
Doorway of Sighs . . .
. . . And suddenly everything was silent. The ground stopped shaking. The rumbling ceased. The screamers were even quiet, now. A dusty haze, that had come from what I thought was an earthquake, it made everything look hazy and distorted . . . like a Ridley Scott film. There was a rose tint to the air. What I'm seeing is what it looks like right after a tornado.
As this dust started to settle, I noticed Kristen and Rupert. I saw their friends and comrades picking each other up off of the ground. And beyond them, I could see the tens of thousands of desperate souls.
Seconds were beating by like hours.
Time wasn't linear.
All of them, their curious wanting eyes, staring past me. For the first time in this cold dead world, I felt heat on my back. That golden heat that was only small fragments of choked light, now I was being bathed in it. I looked at my shadow, cast hundreds of feet across the darkness.
And as the souls looked past me, squinting at the blindingly bright light, I turned to see what I had accomplished. The giant door was open, the wall having slid to the side. It was magnificent, and it took a minute for my brain to process what I was seeing.
This door wasn't just an opening in an old wall. This was a passageway cut out of their world. All around the passageway, the color of the time between dogs and wolves and sharks and prophets still prevailed.
But in that section of wall where the door was, it was different. Where the door was pushed aside it revealed a sky of red and purple and gold streaks. Beyond our cold Land of Sorrows were fields of brilliant orange and violet flowers. Green grasses so vibrant it looked like oil paint.
The colors were too perfect.
Overwhelming in their intensity.
And as I sat there in awe of this, they began to walk by me, into the light. Into this new freedom. This land of light and life. And I realized that I had given this to them. One by one they passed me, quietly nodding as they approached the line between our frozen oblivion and this new perfection.
I wondered to myself if that was Heaven. If that was the dream that we are all chasing throughout our lives. The magical land of hopes and joy and eternal bliss. There was a sweet smell coming from that place—way better than my aromatherapy soaps, even.
And, as I am lost in the emotion of this wonderful moment, I see Kristen and Rupert walk by, heading into the light. And now, I
want to know my forgotten past. I want to remember my life with Kristen. It is time for my enlightenment. All of it.
Once past the threshold of our grey and blue, her skin became full of life and color again. She is the girl in my dreams, now. The girl I'm in love with. The beautiful soul that I risked everything for.
Kristen, she turns and looks at me, Rupert and 21 others behind her. But something is strange. I feel like I'm the only one who's not in on it. Whatever it is?
I look back at the other souls. For some reason, they're not following us into the light of the passageway. Instead, they are retreating, looking for cover as fast as they possibly can.
“Are they . . . scared?” I say under my breath. “Why don't they want their freedom?”
“What were you expecting, Jack?” she asks.
Jack? She called me Jack. Why would she do that? And her tone, it's no longer one of passion and understanding. She is cold and distant . . . indifferent.
Where she was the only bit of warmth in this cold dead place, now she is in a land of golden heat . . . and her words are like ice, frozen and empty. I don't understand this metamorphosis.
“What's going on?” I say. What is this? Why are they afraid to be set free? Why do the slaves not want to leave their dungeon?
These 23 souls, they just stare back at me. Their eyes, there's something peculiar about them. A kind of sinister quality. I look to Kristen and to Rupert. To Thomas and Stewart, and all the others.
Kristen, her face is full of life and energy, but she is not the girl that I remember in my dream. Something about her face is suffering and there is contempt in her eyes.
I ask her, “Weren't we in love?”
She reaches to Rupert and they lock hands. “We were, Jack . . . but you destroyed it.”
What do you mean by that? I destroyed it? That doesn't make any sense. I opened the door. I freed all of the trapped souls. What do you mean, I destroyed it?
And all at once I get this overwhelming feeling that I have done something monumentally wrong. I'm no genius, but I know when I've been duped.
“The other souls are not leaving,” Rupert says lightly, “ . . . because they are scared of an uncertain future. They would rather live there, in the place of constant fear and decay because they are worried about what He might think. His judgment is what they are all waiting for.”
He snorted, “Those of lukewarm faith.” His words, he was almost spitting them out, as if they disgusted him. “We write our own destiny. Not god, nor anyone else. We chose our path.”
Rupert is no longer the nice English librarian I remember. He's gotten a real mean streak about him. Borderline evil.
And then it all hits me like a load of bowling balls. “ . . . I'm not a savior, am I?”
Kristen laughed like I'm just the most pathetic thing on the planet, “You? Saint Jack? Divine? No. Not even close.”
I look at all these faces, seeing something in them that I probably should have noticed from the start.
Motive.
My heart is being stomped on by a giant golf cleat as we speak. “Kristen, I thought we were in love. The dream? The kiss? That was love . . . wasn't it?”
Her voice, it seemed to soften, her words much calmer and compassionate. “I did love you . . .” and then I see tears gathering in her eyes, welling up with each word she speaks, “ . . . but you killed me.”
You killed me, she whispers again.
What is she talking about? I saw the dream. The way we touched each other. That was real. “I would never hurt you. I risked my life for you.”
And now, as she's speaking, I'm numb to her words. As if they're not even in a language that I can understand.
“ . . . you killed me when I was so young. I had my whole life in front of me. You robbed me of that. You stole my life away from me, Jack. And then I was sent to the Land of Sorrows. Why? Because my faith was not strong enough?! I was twenty-three years old!”
I'm not hearing this. This can't be real. It's a tumor and schizophrenia and degenerative brain decay all at once. All rolled into a big mental meltdown. I'm going to wake-up and Dr. Monica is going to be fanning my face with my psychological profile folder.
She continues, tears rolling down her cheeks, “What kind of jealous god . . . what kind of monsters would allow my life to be snatched away so soon and then condemn me to the place of forever night? That is no god I can ever love. That is your god.”
I think I have done something more than wrong. This is colossal. This is the blunder to end all galactic blunders. I am the king of the tards.
The group of souls—escapees, as it now seems—they backed away from the door and I had this feeling that there was something closing in on me. The girl I love, she's walking away and I begin to shiver. Never mind the warm golden heat. Forget the awe of the moment. I'm cold like a lonely dead planet in the farthest reaches of the universe.
And Kristen is leaving.
The girl I loved.
The girl I killed.
I yell to her, “I am not that man! The one that hurt you, that's not me! I can't be the kind of . . .” And as the words escape my lips I remember our driver, Nasser, and his story about Saul of Tarsus. And I'm not sure which one I am.
Saul, or Paul.
I am the me of now, not the me that died.
As the 23 souls turn and walk off into their colorful new world of opportunity and life, I look around and see them everywhere. The screamers—the flying monsters—they are much bigger up close. They might be dinosaurs or creatures designed and bred on the Deadside. Their eyes are liquidy black. Their teeth translucent and sharp as razors. Their claws as jagged as shards of broken glass.
They're as big as cars, and they are perched on the Old City Wall like gargoyles. But they're no longer screaming or attacking. They just sit there, shuffling and fidgeting about, studying me. Only me.
And then I realize, they're not even the ones that I should be afraid of.
Kristen and the others are gone.
These giant monsters, they're waiting quietly.
All the other souls are watching this unfold from the safety of the hiding spots in the darkness.
And then this deep voice calls to me, “Jack.”
And all of these tall black figures, they surround me. And I know that what must follow can't be good for me.
Chapter 66
Doorway of Sighs.
Moments later . . .
These shadowy forms, they walk closer and closer to me, and for a moment I consider running through the passageway. I don't know where that will lead me, but it might be better than what I have coming. I feel like I'm about to get mugged. Mugged by shadowy dead beasts . . . great.
A large figure approaches me. These things are taller than me. With red eyes to accent their black forms. I can't see through them, like with the gatherers. These shadow creatures, they're dense.
This is going to hurt, I just know it. I'll try to head butt as many of them as I can, but I don't like my chances. Kicking them in the nuts is out of the question because I don't have the faintest idea where to aim. The smart bet is on me getting my ass kicked.
One of them, the one directly in front of me, he looks down on me with his fiery red eyes, and then his arm lifts to his head as he pulls his face off. And right about the moment I'm ready to scream like a girl, they all begin to remove their hoods.
Their faces are like, perfect. Smooth, symmetrical. Angelic, even. They look like monks, with their shaved heads. Their eyes are brilliant blue, with golden specs—like glitter, almost. And . . . they have color in their skin. They look human. More human than I do in this place.
The one in front of me, he shakes his head slowly. “Jack Pagan.”
Yes, sir, I said. I couldn't think of anything better.
“Do you have any idea what you have done?” he said flatly, but with a kind of force behind his words. He looked back at the door, and at the Book of Sighs sitting in the center of it.
When a big human-like cloaked guy asks you to do something, you pretty much do it. I carefully walked by, letting them see my hands were empty. I don't know why, but I'm doing what Ricky says I should do when being interrogated by the police. No furtive gestures—that's what gets you shot. Let 'um see your hands.
I went to the section of the wall where the book was, and I reached into the corners to free the book. And like two oppositely polarized magnets, the book about jumped out of that keyhole. Quickly the large section of wall slid closed with a large explosion of sound.
The Book of Sighs in my hands, I walked back to them—these angry men—and extended my arms to offer them the book.
The one who was talking to me, he nods to another large guy who takes the book from me. And then they all stared at me for the longest time. I hope they don't like the flavor of me. I do not want to be dinner.
“I think I made a huge mistake, sir,” I try explaining.
Nobody answers. They just keep staring at me. And me, I'm old enough to know when I'm in big trouble. And this is it. This is like being at the principle's office times a million.
And then the leader, he says, “You have been lied to. Played like an instrument from the very beginning.”
Who are you? I ask. My hands are nonchalantly stroking my necklace . . . just in case.
There's no sense cowering down, now. If they're going to rip me to ribbons, there's probably not anything I can say to sway it one way or the other. Todd Steele says to play your cards like they're a winning hand, even if they're not. At the least, Steele says, you'll go down with some dignity.
“My name is Uriel,” he says. “We are all angels . . . and it is our job to keep things like this from happening in the Land of Sorrows. All of these souls here, they are waiting for judgment from God. They will have their time, when the End of Days arrives. And they will have their chance. But not until then. Their choices on Earth led them to this place. They have only to blame themselves.”
See Jack Die (Part 1 in the Paranormal Series) (See Jack Die Series) Page 31