by Bruce Blake
And I had to consider Trevor.
I turned back to the door, took another breath, and did what a push bar is designed for.
Nothing happened.
I jiggled the bar, the metallic squeak echoing off the sides of the miniature canyon. Still nothing, so I examined the door frame for a lock or something jamming it shut. Everything looked fine. I tried again, this time throwing my shoulder into it as I pushed the bar. The door flew open. I stumbled through, light streaming through with me, briefly illuminating the room before my feet caught and I tumbled into a stack of green plastic patio chairs. The door closed, leaving me in darkness.
At least I knew where I was.
I untangled myself and clawed my way up the stack of chairs to my feet. A minute passed as I leaned against them, waiting for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark. Soon, I discerned the large flat boxes containing tables broken down into parts, the stacks of cushions and bunches of umbrellas. I looked back at where I’d come through and saw a set of shelves stacked with boxes reaching to the ceiling. No door. Was this the warehouse I knew or was I still trapped in some fiendish Hell?
A fiendish Hell where they enjoy patio furniture.
I made my way through the maze of boxes and shelves and, after a few turns, realized I could see the color of the cushion fabric, read the letters on the sides of boxes even though the lights weren’t on and I’d seen no evidence of windows. The light source lay somewhere ahead; I decided it should be my goal, for better or worse.
A few more corners, including one leading to a dead end, and I emerged into an open area cleared of boxes and shelves. It took a second for me to realize something other than Detective Williams standing in the center of the room cast the glow.
Michael, resplendent in white leisure suit and crimson shirt, leaned against a stack of lawn chair skeletons. The suit itself looked crisp enough to cause the glow. I glanced at the archangel but chose to ignore him for the moment, directing my attention to Williams instead.
“Are you okay?”
He lifted his tired eyes and his mouth twitched into an approximation of a smile. Not much of an expression, but he squeezed volumes into it: relief, appreciation, desperation, embarrassment. I wondered which of the above he’d choose to express in words.
“Yeah,” he said after a couple of seconds. “Thanks.”
I considered prompting more out of him about the way he’d acted, or to chastise him for leaving me behind like in those rapture books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the Left Behind series, but more important matters demanded my attention. I regarded the archangel and his misguided attempt at fashion.
“Where’s my son?”
He smiled, the shine of his teeth matching his jacket, and raised an eyebrow. A shiver of worry ran down my spine. Maybe it wasn’t Mikey I’d seen in Hell, maybe it had been an illusion. Maybe Trevor wasn’t safe.
“Trevor. Where is he?” I demanded.
“The boy is safe,” God’s right hand answered finally. I suspected he enjoyed the moment of worry his pause inflicted on me. “He awaits you outside. Where is your guardian?”
His eyes flickered to the detective and I looked, too. Williams had slouched down onto a small pile of cushions and sat with his elbows propped on his knees, head hung like a man too tired to hold it up anymore. When I looked back at the archangel, his smile was gone. He glared at me, forcing me to answer.
“I left her.”
Hearing the words come out of my mouth drove home what I’d done—I’d left my guardian angel to an eternity of torture and despair. Mikey’s forehead creased, he pursed his lips.
“And you brought back this one instead?” He gestured toward the detective.
I nodded and steeled myself for the archangel’s wrath. He looked at me a moment longer, then nodded once.
“I will take this man where he needs to go. Collect your son and get him home. It is cold outside tonight.”
The archangel walked to the detective, put his hand on his shoulder. Detective Williams jumped at the shock of Mikey’s touch, then looked up, the exhaustion in his expression replaced by wonder.
“But what about Poe?”
“What about her?”
“I left her,” I said, struggling to look him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have.”
“No?”
“No. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“But you chose to leave her. No one else but you.”
I looked at my shoes but they did nothing to make me feel any better. Never do.
“It might have been the wrong decision,” I said, keeping my voice quiet enough Williams didn’t hear.
“What is done is done. We will all have to live with the consequences.”
He tugged on the detective’s shoulder, directed him down an aisle between a stack of table boxes and shelves full of umbrella stands.
“Consequences?” I called after them. “What do you mean, consequences?”
“There are consequences to every action, every decision, Icarus Fell. This is no different. There will be consequences for the guardian and for you.”
I opened my mouth to request more clarification, what kind of consequences I might watch out for, but a shiver beginning at my knees and working its way up to my shoulders shook the intent right out of me. By the time the shaking ceased, the detective, the archangel, his angelic glow and poor fashion sense were all gone.
I remained standing in the middle of the open space, staring down the aisle at the emptiness where the man and angel were seconds before. My gut roiled like I’d recently consumed a meal of rotten meat and maggots.
Perhaps I’d made the wrong decision.
“There will be consequences for the guardian and for you.”
Murdered by muggers, back and forth to Hell, watching friends butchered and nearly losing my son. Twice. Hadn’t I endured enough consequences over the past six months?
“Trevor.”
I shook myself free of regret and remorse and took the sickened feeling in my gut in search of an exit to find my son and take him home.
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Forty-One
It took a while, but I finally found a door not marked with the words:
Fire Exit
Alarm Will Sound When Opened
I stumbled through the door into a night filled with swirling snow. As the door clicked shut, I stopped, face up-turned, and allowed flakes to land on my cheeks, my nose, cooling my burning flesh. In Hell, I’d gotten used to the increased temperature, so the feel of snowflakes landing and melting, the cool water running across my skin, confirmed I’d made it home. Such as it was.
I reveled in the feel of it for a minute before the scrape of a footstep made intentionally to draw my attention did exactly that. I lowered my face to see Trevor looking at me, a bewildered look on his face.
“Trevor.”
I closed the space between us in five strides and threw my arms around him, held him tight. He patted my back.
“Hey, Dad,” he said. “W--Where are we? How’d we get here?”
I loosened my bear hug and leaned back to look at him. His shaggy hair hung in his eyes and, wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, he was obviously resisting his body’s desire to shiver.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said and turned to leave, arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”
We walked for a while listening to our footsteps crunching in the fresh snow. My mind replayed the events of the last few hours, and I cringed at what I’d put my son through. Again. Eventually, my thoughts came to the moment Mikey took Trevor, and I remembered he was going to tell me something.
“Hey, what were you going to say when Michael rescued you?”
His shoulders rise and fell in a shrug and I thought of Piper. One more thing to feel bad about.
“Who?”
“The big blond guy. You wanted to tell me something.”
“I don’t remember. When was that?”
/>
“A few hours ago.”
He snorted through his nose and shook his head. “I haven’t seen you since the toy store. Thought you forgot me again.”
My stomach clenched and I stopped walking. He continued two paces, my arm falling from around his shoulders.
“We were just together. In Hell.”
Trevor’s eyes widened, but he quickly got himself under control. He knew enough about my situation not to think me crazy when I said such things.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad.”
“You and Poe came after me. You got lost. Don’t you remember?”
He shook his head. “Poe? I read Telltale Heart in school. He’s dead.”
“No. Well, yes, he’s dead, but that’s not who I’m talking about. I mean Poe, my guardian angel.”
Trevor laughed. “Maybe being dead has made you a little batshit.” He gestured over his shoulder. “We’re here. Better not walk me to the door; Mom wouldn’t be happy to see you.”
I looked up and saw Rae’s house, the porch light reflecting off the falling flakes of snow.
“How--?”
Her house should have been another hour’s walk, yet here we were. I surveyed the area, saw the leafless stick-trees, the row of houses identifiable from one another only by the color of their doors. Trevor watched me expectantly, as though it wasn’t unusual we’d arrived so quickly.
“Thanks for bringing me back, Dad.”
He threw his arms around my shoulders and gave me one of those teenage boy hugs which said he loved me but would rather not display it in public. I returned it, half-hearted with disbelief, then he started down the snow-dusted path to his mother’s house.
He doesn’t remember what happened.
Maybe it was for the better. Did a fifteen-year-old really need to know so much about Hell? Was that the kind of knowledge he needed to carry around for the rest of his life?
No.
“But Trev, what about--?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad. Haven’t been drinking, have you?”
He shot me a look that told me he was kidding, then sauntered to the door and gave me a wave over his shoulder.
“No,” I answered after he disappeared inside. “Not yet.”
†‡†
The sidewalk was clear of people; the yellow police tape had been removed. I observed the wreckage for a bit, seeking refuge from the snow under the oak tree only a few steps from a spot of ground that tasted my blood a few months back. The place gave me the shivers, and not because it was chilly out.
Snow has a way of beautifying things. The cemetery bordering one side of the churchyard with its rusted iron fence and canted headstones wearing wintery white stoles looked worthy of a painting. The white stuff even loaned a certain charm to the blackened chunks of stone fallen from the church’s walls. No footprints marred the snow blanketing the churchyard except mine. Pristine, calm, beautiful.
I stepped out from under the oak tree’s shelter toward the church. I hadn’t come to admire the winter elegance of the ruined church, I had other things in mind.
I crossed the yard toward the fallen building, intentionally dragging my feet as I went, leaving ugly lines in the snow. As I came close, I saw much of the mess was cleaned up. The splintered pews were gone, the fallen crucifix and broken altar removed. The pipe organ, split in two last time I’d seen it, was also gone, and all the remnants and scattered pages of bibles and hymnals. Salvaged by the church, gathered as evidence or taken by souvenir seekers and religious fanatics, I couldn’t say, but they were all gone. Only the larger chunks of stone not so easily moved remained.
My snowy-silent footsteps carried me past the sections of fallen wall toward the one still standing. The pew we’d left leaning against the wall as a makeshift staircase was gone along with the others, so I scanned the area looking for another way up, but the clean-up crew had done their job well. I walked the building’s perimeter, got cold hands searching under fallen pieces of wall, stubbed the big toe of my left foot on the one bible they’d missed, and eventually found myself searching the area below the window.
I don’t know what I expected to find, but the more I searched and the less I found, the more desperate I became. Things weren’t right—Trevor not remembering, Poe looking so guilty then saving my life. The suspicion I’d made decisions without all the pertinent information had nagged me almost from the moment I first met Michael. The thought that I didn’t know everything going on or I’d misinterpreted things I’d seen kept me awake at night.
And I could only think of one way to set things right.
My foot crunched on something beneath the window. It wasn’t the satisfying crunch of compacting snow, but a breaking sound. I crouched and dug my near-frostbitten fingertips into the packed snow of my footprint. Whatever I’d stepped on was too small to help me climb up, but I’m too curious by nature to break something and not see what.
My fingers cleared snow away from a smooth, blue piece of glass. I stared at it for a minute, uncomprehending. When it dawned on me what it meant, I looked up. I couldn’t see the window beyond its ledge, so I stood and stepped back.
Snow blew through the empty window, swirling through the place where the virgin Mary should have been.
“No.”
I stared at the hole, wondered why I didn’t notice it was gone before this.
How did this happen?
People had gathered here seeking solace from the miraculous virgin, begging for money and miracle cures, good fortune and guidance. How could they let it break?
How will I get back to Hell?
I resisted the mental urge to blame some surly teen for throwing a rock through it as a ‘fuck you’ to religion and society because I might have done exactly that in my youth. Letting Azrael take Father Dominic to Hell was just that kind of rebellion.
“Damn it.”
I had to try.
I backtracked to the largest chunk of wall I thought movable and jammed my fingers under its edge. The snow nipped at my cold fingertips. I clenched my teeth and grunted aloud trying to budge the hunk of stone. It didn’t move.
Lift with your legs, not your back, dope.
I squatted, jammed my hands further under and used my legs, not my back. This time, the piece of wall moved. I struggled and grunted. It slipped back, threatened to crush my near-frozen fingers, but I caught it and propped it on its edge. I rested a minute with it leaned against my leg and tucked my fingers into my arm pits to warm them. Too bad being dead didn’t afford me protection from cold, pain or discomfort. What’s the point of being dead if it feels exactly like being alive? According to centuries of literature, zombies and vampires didn’t have to deal with this.
When some sensation returned to my fingertips, I went back to the task at hand. Luckily, I’d chosen a vaguely round hunk of broken wall. On its edge, I rolled it to the wall. It wobbled and threatened to fall over, but I kept it upright until it leaned against the wall below the empty window.
I rested against it, catching my breath, snow caked to the stone’s edge like it would become the base for a huge snowman. I hunched forward, elbows propped on my knees—not the best breath-catching position, really—and wondered if all this work would prove worthwhile.
You deserted her. She saved you. You suck.
'Nuff said.
I knocked snow from the top of the stone and climbed unsteadily onto it. On top, I could stretch high enough my fingers extended beyond the edge of the window ledge. I reached until my fingertips found the channel in which the stained glass had been set. Not much to grip, but a grip nonetheless.
With some effort, I inserted my fingertips firmly, and somewhat painfully, into the groove. I huffed a preparatory breath of mist and hoisted myself up, feet scrabbling against the wall. It felt like the tips of my fingers might come off, but I made it up. It wasn’t pretty, but I made it.
I perched on the edge, resting, legs dangling above t
he chunk of wall which aided my climb. This was so much easier with pews to climb and Piper at my side.
Piper.
She’d used me, I saw that, but I missed her anyway. How often does a man have a woman who looks like that act like she’s interested? In my case, not very fucking often. Oh well. I shrugged in tribute to her memory and stood.
I faced the spot where the stained glass rendition of Mary had been and looked out across the churchyard at the snow-swept street beyond. No traffic at this time—somewhere south of three in the morning, I figured—and no one on the sidewalk since the miraculous window was gone. I closed my eyes and took a breath, held it a second, released. My eyes fluttered open and I stepped across the groove marking the spot where the window had been and hoped to Hell I’d end up in Hell.
My foot slipped in the snow. My foot went from under me and I landed on my ass, grabbing the edge of the window frame to keep from going over and—knowing my luck—breaking a leg or my back.
Nothing else happened. The churchyard didn’t become some Hellish landscape; no ferryman-beast took a bite out of me in exchange for passage; no deposed archangel, demon or damned soul greeted me.
It didn’t work.
I righted myself and looked out over the churchyard, flakes collecting in my hair. The snow gave the night a preternatural glow, a lightness not seen at any other time. I raised my eyes toward the sky and the gray clouds dumping their cargo on the quiet city.
“I’m sorry, Poe.”
The snow deadened my words. I wiped melted flakes from my face and looked back at the churchyard, the cemetery. The beauty of the wintery scene did nothing to quell the tightness in my chest, the band squeezing my heart.
“I’m so sorry.”
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Forty-Two
The bell over the door of the Chinese laundry tinkled. Chang Wu stopped counting the day’s receipts and looked up, ready to serve another customer or, if need be, snatch the bat from under the counter if whoever came through the door had other things in mind. In all the years Chang Wu ran the laundry—more than anyone in the neighborhood would have been able to recall—a dozen times someone had come through the front door with theft on their minds. They never left with the old man’s money, but usually got something very different than what they expected.