Terminal

by Brian Keene

  “You wanted to be in charge, Tommy.”

  Gripping the pistol in my sweaty hand, I crept out into the hall. It was silent and empty. I tilted my head and listened. Nothing. Outside, there was the distant squawk of police radios and the buzz of voices, but inside, there was nothing. I tiptoed toward the lobby and peeked around the corner. It was empty, except for Mac Davis and Kelvin. The dead cop's eyes stared back at me. A fly crawled across his face.

  I ducked back into the vault.

  “Anything?” Sherm asked.

  “Nothing”—I shook my head—“except for Kelvin and that cop. Their bodies are still lying on the floor.”

  Sherm frowned.

  “I could have sworn I fucking heard something.”

  We grew quiet again, and I replaced Sherm at John's side.

  “So you don't believe in an afterlife of any kind, I take it?” Roy asked me.

  “No, I don't. There's no heaven or hell. When we die, we turn into worm food. That's all. Even worms got to eat.”

  “I heard that,” Sherm agreed.

  “But what about the soul, Tommy?” Roy continued. “That has to go somewhere, doesn't it?”

  “There's no such thing as a soul, Mr. Kirby.”

  I was surprised to see Dugan nodding in agreement with me.

  “I've seen men die,” he said slowly, “but I never saw what happened to their souls after. I never saw any leave their bodies, that much I know.”

  “Where have you seen men die?” Sherm sneered.

  “You must be born again,” Martha broke in before Dugan could answer. “You must be washed in the blood of the lamb! Only blood can do it—blood and sacrifice! The blood of the innocent! The blood of the lamb!”

  She stared at Benjy, and Sheila stared back in alarm. None of us responded and she fell silent again.

  Blood of the innocent lamb. I didn't like the sound of that, or the way she'd looked at Benjy when she said it.

  “What about ghosts?” Sharon asked.

  Sherm snickered. “What about them?”

  “Aren't they proof of some kind of an afterlife?”

  “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  “No, but just because I haven't seen one doesn't mean that I don't believe in them. I've never seen a polar bear either, but I know that they exist. Why can't the same thing be true for ghosts? There are enough eyewitness accounts, photographs, even video footage.”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “John thought he saw a ghost once, back when we were kids. Or at least he thought he did. Down at the old quarry between Spring Grove and Hanover. We used to go swimming there. Supposedly there's a town at the bottom of it. The dam burst back in the twenties and the town was just left standing when the waters flooded the mine. A few kids have drowned there over the years too. It's supposed to be haunted. People say they see white, human-looking shapes down under the water. But I never saw anything.”

  “So you don't believe in them?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I guess I don't. Ghosts or God. It's all the same thing, isn't it? Don't they call him the holy ghost?”

  Nobody responded, and I figured they'd finally shut up and quit asking questions. I found myself wondering again if they'd be this nice to me if I wasn't one of the guys with a gun.

  After a few minutes, Oscar stirred. His bare chest had goose bumps.

  “Personally, I've always believed in reincarnation.”

  “What's that?” Sheila asked.

  “Reincarnation? It's the belief that we've all had previous lives before this current one we're living. It's commonly accepted in many religions—not Christianity of course, or Judaism, but many others.”

  “Yeah, I've heard of that,” Sherm said. “It means like I could have been Billy the Kid or D. B. Cooper in a past life. Wouldn't that be the bomb?”

  “No doubt,” Oscar said with a straight face. If Sherm noticed the underlying sarcasm in his voice, he didn't let on.

  “Edgar Cayce believed in it,” Oscar continued. “He was a great healer, died in 1945. Back then, they called him a ‘psychic healer,' but today I guess he'd just be considered a homeopathic practitioner. Whatever you want to call him, he definitely left his mark on the world. He used to do readings and stuff and tell people who they were in their past lives. The transcripts of the readings are all on file at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia. There must be thousands of them.”

  “Sounds like New Age crap to me,” Dugan grunted. “I never bought in to all that worshipping crystals and singing to the whales crap.”

  “Some of that is a little far-fetched,” Oscar admitted, “but a lot more of it has been proven outside the mainstream scientific community.”

  “So what were you in a previous life?” Sherm scoffed. “A frog or a slug or some shit like that?”

  Oscar's ears and neck turned red.

  “Wait,” Sherm continued, “I know! You were a fucking tapeworm, right? A tapeworm hanging out of a dog's ass?”

  “You can laugh all you want, but I believe in it. I really do. You guys ever hear of Joan Grant?”

  We shook our heads in unison.

  “Her first book, Winged Pharaoh, came out back in 1937. It took place in ancient Egypt and at the time, the critics hailed it as a brilliant historical novel, because she so realistically captured what it must have been like to live back then. People couldn't believe how accurate the descriptions were. It was like you were walking through Egypt; the sights, the sounds, the smells. But the thing is, it wasn't her imagination. Joan Grant had lived it before, as Sekeeta, the daughter of the pharaoh and later on, a priestess-pharaoh herself. She also lived in Egypt decades later as a man named Ra-ab Hotep, and as Ramses II. Besides all of that, she also remembered previous lives in Greece from the second century B.C., in medieval England and in sixteenth-century Italy. She went on to write seven more historical novels, though she called them posthumous autobiographies.”

  “And do you really believe in that nonsense?” Dugan arched his eyebrow.

  “It's not nonsense. It's no more far-fetched than believing in ghosts or in God and the Holy Trinity, is it?”

  “Blasphemer!” Martha pointed a crooked finger at him. “See how their evil influence has corrupted you? Now you commit the ultimate sin as well. You blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Oh, the pits yawn wide for you, young man—for all of you. There must be blood, now. Great quantities of blood. Torrents and rivers and oceans of it. Only blood can wash . . .”

  Sherm pointed his gun at her and pulled the hammer back.

  “Martha. I'll say this nice and slowly and I'm only going to say it one more time, so make sure you pay attention. Shut! The! Fuck! Up!”

  Her mouth clamped shut and she did as she was told.

  “I know what happens when we die,” Benjy piped up.

  “Quiet down, baby,” Sheila shushed him.

  “No,” Sherm shrugged, “might as well let him go. Shit, everybody else has made a contribution. Let's hear his.”

  Sheila eyed him carefully.

  “Seriously,” Sherm said, “I want to hear this. It's gotta be good, better than fat boy's or Martha's ideas at least.”

  “Go ahead, Benjy,” I encouraged him.

  He nodded.

  “When people die, they go into a bright place that leads to another, bigger bright place. The first bright place is supposed to make you feel safe, but it isn't, because it's full of the monster people. The monster people are made out of darkness, but they can hide in the light and when they do, you can't see them. They turn invisible in the light. All you can hear is their voices.”

  Sherm jumped, and I wondered what was bothering him.

  “If you've been bad,” Benjy continued, “the monster people won't let you go on to the bigger bright place. Instead, they take you with them, to a dark place, and then you can see them. They're scary-looking and they're mean. They smell icky and they . . .”

  Benjy
shuddered and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and went on.

  “That's what happens if you've been bad. You don't get to go to the bright place. You stay in the darkness with the monster people. But if you've been good, then Jesus comes, and he rescues you from the monster people, and he takes you to live with him in the bright place. It's very nice there, and you get to see everybody else who's died.”

  When he'd finished, our reactions were mixed. Sheila and I smiled at each other. Roy, Kim, Sharon, and even Dugan grinned. Sherm clapped his hands in a slow, sarcastic way. Martha stared at Benjy.

  “Blood of the lamb,” she muttered over and over again. “Blood of the lamb . . .”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Sheila snapped. “Why can't you just shut up?”

  “I keep saying it because it is true. Only blood will wash this clean now. Innocent blood. As the Lord instructed Abraham, saying to him to make an offering of his son, Isaac, so shall He command us now. The lamb for the offering.”

  “I don't understand what you're going on about. What are you saying? What do you mean?”

  The word started in Martha's throat as a moan and increased to a sirenlike wail.

  “Expiation! Expiation is what I'm talking about. Great sin has happened here today, and only expiation will set things right again in the eyes of God. We must offer up your lamb.”

  Sherm lashed out with his foot, and his boot crashed across her mouth. Her dentures flew across the vault, landing next to Mr. Kirby, and blood spurted from between her crushed lips. Martha cried out more in anger than from pain.

  “I told you to shut the fuck up,” Sherm screamed. He slammed the end of the pistol barrel against her forehead and thumbed the hammer back. The soft click sounded deafening.

  “Sherm”—I held out my hands in protest—“hold up. Wait a second! Think about this, man.”

  “Fuck that. Ain't nothing to think about, Tommy. I've had it with this old cunt.”

  “I hear you, dog. I hear you. We're all sick of her shit. But think, man. If you shoot her now, the cops will rush this place. You know that. We talked about it already. They'll be on us like white on rice, just like they would have been if you'd shot Lucas or Keith.”

  At the mention of the delivery driver and the manager, he jumped. His muscles were coiled, like a snake ready to spring forward and strike its victim.

  “Don't do it, son,” Roy chimed in. “Things are bad enough already.”

  “I am not afraid,” Martha spat, blood running down her chin.

  Before Sherm could reply, we were all suddenly distracted by a new sound. A low, sonorous thrumming that seemed to come from overhead. As we turned our eyes to the ceiling, the noise grew louder, rapidly approaching.

  THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA

  “What the fuck is that?” Oscar shouted. His eyes were wild and scared.

  It was right over our heads and it sounded like the ceiling was going to collapse, like a construction crew had decided to drive a bulldozer on top of the roof or something. The bank felt like it was shaking. The steel walls vibrated against our back as the sound rocked the building to its foundation.

  “Finally!” Dugan's shout was one of joy and relief, but his face was apprehensive.

  “They're coming in,” I hollered, leaping to my feet and pointing the pistol at everything and nothing.

  “Is that a tank?” Oscar shouted. “Do they have a tank?”

  “Oh God,” Kim whimpered, shutting her eyes. “This is it. We're going to die . . .”

  The noise increased, exploding around us, making speech next to impossible.

  “This is it . . . This is it . . . This is it . . . We're really going to die . . .”

  Benjy tried to put his shoulders up over his ears, to shelter them from the thunder. Even in my panic, I found myself wishing that his hands were free. He was just a little boy. I was terrified and I could only imagine how he felt.

  “Sherm,” I yelled over the deafening roar, “what the fuck are we gonna do?”

  “What?”

  “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? THEY'RE COMING IN.”

  “Relax, yo. It's just a helicopter.”

  “What?” I cupped my hand to my ear and gripped the gun tighter. My palms were sweaty.

  “A HELICOPTER. IT'S A FUCKING HELICOPTER.”

  I gaped at him, my heart racing in my chest, then the noise started to subside. The speed and rhythm decreased, and then stopped altogether. Finally, all we could hear was the distant, muffled whine of an engine, then even that stopped.

  “They've landed.” Sherm grinned. The look on his face was very close to joy.

  “Who landed? What the fuck are you talking about, Sherm? That was a goddamned helicopter. Who was in it?”

  “The York County Quick Response Unit,” he said with obvious pride. “They finally arrived. Sounds like they landed in the parking lot.”

  “Oh great,” I sighed sarcastically.

  “Damn straight,” he replied. “Now things should get really interesting around here.”

  His laughter seemed almost as loud as the chopper's blades had been, and just as sharp.

  Eventually, we all relaxed again, as best we could given the circumstances. I convinced Sherm to bring in one of the big bottles of water for the cooler, and we gave everybody a sip. I dribbled some down John's throat too.

  Sherm was bored.

  “So tell us, Dugan. How long have you been banging Sharon?”

  Corded, ropy muscles rippled underneath Dugan's chambray work shirt as he bristled, straining against his bonds.

  “Why, you little piece of shit. You'd better hope I don't get loose, boy. I'll strangle you with my bare hands.”

  Sharon tried to shush him, but Dugan ignored her.

  “I won't have him talking that way about you. Enough is enough!”

  Sherm laughed. “Hey, man, all I did was ask you a question. But since you don't want to answer nicely . . .”

  He picked up the gun and walked toward Dugan.

  “I've fucking had it with you people. I don't care if the commando squad is here or not. It's time for somebody to die.”

  My heart started racing in my chest.

  “Come on, Sherm.”

  “Stay out of this, Tommy.”

  “Hey,” Roy stammered. “Now wait just a minute, Sherm. Wait a darn minute!”

  “Nope. I don't think so, Roy. I asked him a simple question and he decided to call me names and threaten me instead. I don't play that shit.”

  Dugan stared at the pistol in Sherm's hand. His eyes were defiant and filled with hate. He did not speak.

  Sherm leveled the gun at him.

  “We met in high school,” Sharon interrupted. “We were sweethearts when I was a junior and he was a senior.”

  Sherm glanced down at her, smiled, and looked back at Dugan.

  “See, your girlfriend answered politely.”

  He sat down again. Dugan fumed, and Sharon looked embarrassed.

  “So you were high school sweethearts. Sounds like the perfect romance. Go on.”

  Dugan began to speak.

  “I got drafted in '69, and two weeks after I graduated, I was on my way to basic training at Fort Bragg. I couldn't afford college, and there was no way I was dodging the draft, running off to Canada like some of the freaks from this town. I was with the First Cavalry in Vietnam. Sharon wrote to me at first, but—”

  He trailed off, and Sharon continued for him.

  “But I was still in school and still young, and Vietnam seemed so very far away.”

  Her voice was quiet, thoughtful and apologetic all at once. I got the feeling that she was talking to him more than the rest of us.

  “While he was over there, I watched my friends date and go to the prom and the Sadie Hawkins dances and to the drive-in on Friday nights, and all I did was sit at home, waiting to hear if he was alive or not. Waiting for a letter every day and crying myself to sleep on nights when one didn't show
up.”

  “Until Lee.” His voice was hoarse, and even after all these years, the memory still bothered him—whoever Lee was.

  “That's right. Until Lee.”

  “Another boyfriend?” Kim asked, and I wondered if this was the first time she'd heard about her coworker's life outside the bank.

  “Sort of. He was nothing like Dugan, and I didn't love him—but he was there and Dugan wasn't, and one night we ended up together in the back of his Mustang.”

  “You got pregnant?”

  “No, nothing like that. We used protection, even back then. But two of Dugan's friends saw us, and they wrote to him and told him about it. After that, he stopped writing to me. He—he never came back home.”

  “I did two tours of duty, just to get her out of my head.” Dugan sighed. “But it didn't work. When I got out, I came home to a country that I no longer recognized. I flew from 'Nam to Hawaii, then from there to San Francisco. I was supposed to change planes in California and fly to Baltimore, and then make it back here to Hanover. I was dreading coming back—I hurt inside from all the things I'd seen and done, and I couldn't bear to face Sharon. You see, I was young and stupid, and while the war made me older in some ways, it didn't help me to understand women any better. I didn't understand that she was young and that what she did with Lee was because of that. She loved me, but she needed somebody. It wasn't fair that she should spend her senior year like that, not knowing if her boyfriend was alive or dead. I just wish I'd known then what I know now.”

  “When I got off the plane in San Francisco, there was a big protest going on inside the airport. Some of the protesters started calling me a baby-killer and all kinds of other garbage. They spat on me! I was so shocked that I just walked away. I walked. I think that messed with me in ways the war never did. And after what had happened with Sharon, it was the final straw.”

  “I can't believe they spat on you,” Oscar said. “They didn't talk about that in school. They barely even covered Vietnam. It's like it didn't happen, so they don't want us to know about it.”

  “Yeah,” Dugan nodded, “that sounds about right.”

  The smile on his face was grim, and I noticed tears streaming down Sharon's cheeks.

  “So what happened next?” Roy prompted.