Seraphim

by Jon Michael Kelley

  From inside, two harpies crashed though Patricia’s front bay window. They righted themselves almost immediately and began to advance upon Duncan and Patricia in macabre, synchronized steps.

  Mrs. Kensington screamed at the sight, alerting the creatures to her and her husband’s presence.

  One harpy broke from the other and took to the air. It swooped once at Patricia’s neighbors, circled, and dived again. It gouged out both Mr. Kensington’s eyes with its talons and its barbed tail lacerated his wife’s forehead. She stammered a few feet, then fell to the ground, a blubbering wreck.

  “Three more coming from the lawn!” Kathy warned from her window.

  “Fuck it, let’s go!” Duncan shouted. He pulled at Patricia’s arm, lugging her to the vehicle.

  “But they need our help!” she screamed, pointing to her neighbors.

  “We need our help!” Duncan said, glancing back at the two harpies now squatting like vultures upon the butchered couple. “Nothing we can do!”

  Duncan pushed Patricia onto the steps of the shuttle, then pushed himself against her. “No going back!”

  Both in, Dead Man closed the doors. Just as he released the clutch, two more harpies slammed like linebackers into the rear of the shuttle.

  Looking around, Duncan saw that half the block was now stirring, people standing on their front lawns and doorways, still in their pajamas; some with their morning cups of coffee listing in their hands, morning papers fluttering to the ground, jaws sagging in disbelief.

  Down the street, three shots in rapid procession dotted the morning.

  Then a shotgun blast from the next block over. Someone screamed. A man.

  Dead Man had the shuttle up and rolling to maybe five miles an hour when he had to stop to avoid hitting a black man who’d run out into the street, wearing only his silk jockeys and gold watch. A black woman chased after him, maybe his wife, screaming for him to come back.

  The man waved his hands for Dead Man to stop, then began beating on the hood. Anxiously looking back at the approaching woman, he began to yell, “Take me! Take me! Goddamn you, take me!”

  Pressing down the clutch, Dead Man revved the engine, trying to scare the man away, but the bluff was wasted.

  The woman gained on him now and began crazily slapping him about the face and chest. “Cheatin’ motherfucker!” she screamed. “Filthy, rotten, cheatin’ motherfucker! I’ll kill you!”

  Ignoring the woman’s cudgeling, the man made his way to the side of the shuttle and attempted to open the doors, his nose bleeding from both nostrils.

  “Sorry,” Dead Man said sincerely. He hit the gas, leaving the man to his own harpy’s discretion.

  To Duncan’s left, one middle-age woman, arms flailing, went shrieking back inside her house, leaving her ogling mate alone on their crescent driveway, where two creatures ambushed him from behind, eviscerating him in front of his own screaming neighbors.

  Up ahead, a little boy, eight or nine, silently crawled along the sidewalk, blood gushing from a severe head wound.

  “Oh my God!” Rachel cried. “Stop! We have to get him!”

  “No can do,” reminded Dead Man.

  Bolting from a hedge of azalea bushes, two harpies finished the child in seconds.

  Two males, an older man and a boy in his late teens, immediately burst from a brick rancher, in front of which lay the dead boy’s remains. Firing fully automatic rifles, they advanced upon the creatures, whooping and hollering like a couple of drunken cowboys. They were nearly upon the harpies when they discovered their bullets were having no affect. They never made it back inside the house.

  Juanita, blubbering now, fists clutched against the sides of her head, appeared ready to start yanking out hair. Duncan realized, however, that she was only shielding her ears from the high-pitched screams.

  Duncan stared down at his Colt.

  It’s special, so don’t lose it.

  The rubber grips offered an insignia of some kind. Duncan thought the symbol looked familiar. He’d definitely seen it before, but couldn’t place it. He extracted the clip and found that it had its full complement of bullets.

  How can that be?

  The streets were congesting quickly with fleeing people and motorists trying to escape.

  Dead Man cursed.

  It was stop and go, stop and go. The highway, Dead Man said, was less than a quarter-mile away, but there was doubt in his voice that they’d reach it.

  An old woman passed them on the sidewalk, wearing an aluminum colander over her head. She was speaking poignantly into a spoon, gesturing with her free hand as she stumbled along. She might have been giving her listeners a harrowing play-by-play of the war, much like Orson Wells had done with his infamous broadcast of 1936.

  A stray bullet struck the windshield, but left only a feathery blemish of smoke.

  Shouts and orders, wails and screams, caterwauls of all kinds, distant and up-close, were filling the morning.

  Patricia, her face simply blank, said, “Well, Chris, I guess I owe you an apology.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing,” he said. “And I’m really truly sorry about your mom.”

  She didn’t respond; just continued staring out the window with the same vapid look on her face.

  Just ahead, to the right, an obese woman in curlers lurched into the middle of the street to snatch her tabby. The cat didn’t know where to run any more than did the screaming neighbors. From the electrical lines above, four harpies dropped upon her. The cat got away only long enough to be crushed beneath the wheels of Dead Man’s bus.

  “One down,” Dead Man declared. “Ten billion more to go.”

  Kathy leaned forward and placed both her hands on Duncan’s head. “Now your leg won’t hurt anymore,” she said.

  Chris slid open his window. “What’s the matter with you people?” he hollered, scared half out of his own wits. “Haven’t you ever seen the end of the world before?”

  4.

  Fashioned to comfortably accommodate fifteen passengers, the shuttle was a banged up, rusted old thing reminiscent of the kind often seen at airports; originally white on the outside, grungy green upholstery inside, with a rather sweet musty smell that was causing Duncan to wonder if it was from years of dank storage or just the mummified driver’s BO.

  Duncan speculated to himself that the chassis was probably a Ford E350 RV. Then again, he thought, it was most likely nothing of the sort, but rather an older model that had once rolled crystal clean off the assembly line of a factory located nowhere near Dearborn, let alone this planet, despite its apparent earthly manufacture.

  Just like Dead Man’s gun.

  When they’d reached the interstate, traffic had been chaotic, but negotiable; surprising, given the circumstances. Their chauffeur had skillfully woven them through infrequent snarls and smoldering pile-ups, the occasional roll-over, around corpses...

  Too many corpses.

  They weren’t long on the highway, though, as Dead Man had chosen an exit taking them eastward, quickly out of Rock Bay proper and onto its bucolic back roads.

  Thousands of harpies soared high overhead, grouped not like geese, but ranked like marching ants. For now, they seemed content to leave the shuttle and its passengers alone.

  Duncan inspected his leg wound, which was nearly healed now. He turned to Kathy, amazed. For the third time, he thanked her.

  “No problem,” she said. Think nothing of it.

  Patricia leaned forward. “We’re going straight to Seattle, right?”

  Dead Man said, “Not before we make a few pit stops.”

  “Pit stops where?” Patricia demanded.

  Dead Man chuckled. “Places that Rand McNally’s never heard of.”

  Patricia sighed, turned toward the window. “I can’t cope with this.”

  “Did it ever occur to any of you,” Chris said, “that we were selected because we can cope with it better than most?”

  “We’re old souls,” Kathy adde
d. “We can handle a lot more than we think we can.”

  “All of us were groomed for just this very occasion,” Chris continued. “Not just in this lifetime, but in a long string of previous ones.”

  “Right-O,” Kathy vouched. “Groomed.”

  “What do you say about all this, Dead Man?” Duncan said. “Is all of this preordained?”

  Before Dead Man could answer, Patricia walked to the front and pointing past the windshield. “Why are there seven toll booths on a two-lane frontage road?”

  Dead Man nodded. “We’ll be running into a few like those.”

  Duncan, on his feet now, asked, “Who in the hell built them?”

  “Angels,” Dead Man said. “Funded by the seraph.”

  One hundred feet from the toll booths, Dead Man stopped the shuttle.

  “I don’t think I like this,” Rachel confessed.

  “Ditto,” murmured Patricia.

  Dead Man pointed through the windshield. “Chris, which one do we go through?”

  Chris looked puzzled. “What are you asking me for? I don’t know—”

  “Yes you do, just concentrate.”

  The shuttle idled doubtfully as Chris focused. A slow tick began to pulse beneath his left cheek. Finally, he shouted, “Three! Three! Three!”

  Dead Man revved the engine. “Three it is.”

  Dead Man eased the shuttle into the third booth and, before he could stop, the hooded figure within raised the gate and waved him through.

  Chris returned to his seat, grinning proudly. “Three!”

  As they passed through the gate, a different world emerged. An urban world.

  A world that Duncan recognized immediately.

  5.

  The morning sun shone through the grille of the window well, casting a latticework of shadows across Eli’s body and wings.

  With her cane, Josephine nudged Eli’s foot.

  He bolted up wide-eyed, as if chased awake by a nightmare pack of wolves rather than the blunt end of a stick.

  There was now a blanket over him, one of red and black Indian weave, obviously thrown down by his mother. And it wasted no time in making him itch.

  Josephine thumped her cane twice. “Where’s Robin?” she said.

  Eli stared up at her. “Who?”

  “Your sidekick, cape crusader!” she cackled. “I just figured since you got the role of Batman that they woulda given you a good-looking partner.” She cackled some more, then pointed to his wings. “Does a cave and souped-up Cadillac come with those?”

  Ignoring his crazy mother, Eli stood, cinched the blanket around his waist, then unsteadily walked to the center of the room. He flexed his wings. They were almost completely dry now, and exceeded his original estimate in length. Each one had to be at least fifteen feet long. Their color had also changed; a rich opulent brown with black mottling having replaced the neonate, rodent pink.

  None of which had any redeeming value whatsoever.

  With all seriousness, Josephine said, “Shall I get the bat-phone when it rings, or will Alfred be taking over those duties?”

  Undaunted by his mother’s jeers, Eli practiced operating his wings. Fully extended, they reminded him of a caudal fin of some monstrous fish. They neatly folded behind his back. It was as if he’d never been without them.

  “How does my back look?” he said.

  “Like the Joker’s best prank yet.”

  “The wings, Mother. Do they look real?”

  “I don’t see any glue dribbling down your back, if that’s what you mean.”

  He sighed. “Do they look natural?”

  She stepped closer. “You mean homegrown? Part of the original package?” She inspected the wings, pulled and shook them. She snorted. “I imagine they’ll do. But it sure is gonna be hot in that leather outfit.”

  For a demented old woman, Eli had to admit, she could still maintain a train of thought.

  “I’m getting the wings I deserve,” he told her. “Not these ugly things. We had a deal.”

  “Who? You and that Gamble fellow?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ha! That asshole’s been pulling you around by the tallywhacker for so long that you’ve got stretch marks on your balls.”

  “Very attractive, Mother. And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Means you’re a sucker, Eli! Wake up and smell the bullshit!”

  Eli flexed his wings bombastically. “I think I’ll just fan the fumes,” he said.

  “Not even angels were meant to have wings,” she declared. “You can thank those renaissance hippies for creating that screwy notion.”

  “Michelangelo was hardly a hippie, Mother.”

  “Ha!” Josephine started up the stairs. “I know one thing—I have a bowl of rice pudding and some toast waiting for me in the kitchen.” She turned, grinning mischievously. “Would you like me to make you some, batboy, or will you be switching your diet over to moths and mosquitoes?”

  6.

  They’d gone from day to night in a wink.

  From country to city.

  Boston.

  Dead Man had left the interstate just moments earlier and was now cruising through the suburbs. Traffic was light, to say the least, as theirs was the only vehicle moving.

  This was yesterday, Dead Man stated, the wee hours of the morning. A reprieve from the apocalypse. From here their journey would begin.

  “Yesterday?” Rachel exclaimed. “We’re back to yesterday? And just how did we manage that?”

  “With a little help from my friends,” Dead Man explained.

  Finally, he eased the shuttle to the curb, killed the engine. Without turning around, he spoke to Duncan through the mirror above the driver’s seat. “Remember this neighborhood?”

  “Vaguely,” Duncan said thickly. His face felt numb, as if suddenly impaired by a bilateral blitz of Bell’s Palsy. “But you’re too late. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go back.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” said Dead Man. “Besides, who said this has anything to do with what you want?”

  Duncan stared at the driver’s sunken eyes. “This is some kind of punishment?”

  “Nonsense,” Dead Man assured. “Just has to be done is all.”

  “Where are we, Duncan?” Rachel said, alarm etching her voice.

  “Hell.” He kissed her cheek, then left his seat and approached Dead Man. “What are they going to do if I refuse?”

  “That night hooked into you twelve years ago,” said Dead Man, “and has been reeling you in ever since, playing you to exhaustion. You might think you can still snap the line, but the hard truth is you’re already in the boat, weighed and measured.”

  Duncan didn’t like where that analogy was heading. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is, I’m about to be gutted, mounted, and hung over someone’s fireplace.”

  “Jesus, you’re such a malcontent,” charged Dead Man. “If this wasn’t necessary, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Damn it, Duncan McNeil, talk to me!” Rachel insisted, standing now. “What’s going on?”

  “Remember those ghosts I told you about?”

  She nodded.

  “Well,” he said, “this is their cemetery.”

  “And being the gravedigger that you are,” Rachel said, “you’re naturally going to have to rattle some old bones, right?”

  “Not if I don’t have to,” he said. Then he turned and stared into the darkness. Something out there was strangely compelling, though. Taunting him.

  Rachel aimed a finger at Dead Man. “Start this bus,” she ordered, “and just slowly drive away, or I swear I’ll tie you to the luggage rack like a piece of Samsonite.”

  “Please, Mrs. McNeil,” Dead Man appealed, “understand that Duncan has to see this through.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “My husband has to make a pit stop and revisit something that—no matter how heinous it might have been to pre-Armageddon society—couldn
’t possibly compare to the carnage happening around us, or...above us, behind us—oh, hell, wherever the fuck it is, or we are, or—oh, Jesus Christ!” She was so agitated, so flustered, it appeared she might literally unhinge from herself, both halves going in different directions.

  “Trust me on this,” said Dead Man. “It’s so very important.”

  “Oh, piss off,” Rachel said, then motioned to their seat. “Duncan, you just sit right back down. There’s no way you’re going to leave us here alone with, with the Grim Reaper.”

  Duncan was still staring out the windshield, entranced.

  So, this is what it felt like, he mused, when sea nymphs sang the ancient sailors to the rocks. Outside might be the early hours of yesterday morning, he thought, but that night of twelve years ago was waiting behind the subterfuge, secreted like a thief.

  He met Rachel’s frightened eyes and sighed. “Dead Man’s right. I have to go.”

  Rachel turned to Patricia. “You were a part of this, weren’t you?”

  Patricia’s eyes diverted to the floor. “In a way.”

  “Then get your ass up and help him, sweetheart!” Rachel demanded.

  Patricia stared regretfully into Rachel’s eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I would take Duncan’s place if I could. Jesus, I can only imagine what he’s gone through for me.”

  Rachel’s face twisted jeeringly. “Don’t flatter yourself!”

  Patricia countered with her own wry expression. “Listen, I know you’re upset, but that’s no—”

  “No what?” Rachel snapped. “Maybe if you would have been crossing your legs instead of your T’s while signing the motel register with John Cassavetes, Rosemary, we wouldn’t be in this pickle! And I don’t mean just us! I’m talking the whole fucking planet!”

  Patricia bolted to her feet, fists clenched. “Why, you conceited, arrogant bitch!” she hissed. “I oughta kick your—”

  “Alright!” Duncan demanded.” “Enough!” He pulled the Colt .45 from his pants and handed it to Dead Man.

  Dead Man said, “Stay relaxed, stay calm. Don’t try to change anything. That’s not what this is about.” As if expecting the night to be cold, the corpse pulled his robe tight. “I wish I could tell you more.”