After Life: Love Patrick Lee Published by Patrick Lee at Smashwords Copyright 2010 by Patrick Lee

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three Chapter 1

“Did you want us to wrap it up for you sir?” The salesman held the small box out, waiting to see if Jackson would take it. When his customer did nothing, he repeated the question. “I’m sorry, what did you ask?” He knew that he heard something from the well- dressed older man who helped him pick out his purchase, but the situation was finally starting to sink in, and he drifted off as he was putting his wallet back into his pants. He had planned this for almost 6 months, and he knew that there was no going back at this point. No one else knew about the plan, so technically he didn’t have to go through if he wasn’t ready, but if he dragged it out any longer, he would just find another reason to talk himself out of it. God knew he had found enough of those over the years, and he wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. In that moment, when the rest of his future solidified for the first real time, he swam back to the others, the ones who hadn’t made the cut. There was Daphne, his first love. She had been the one, at least he thought that she was back then, and she claimed that she felt the same way about him too. She had also been his first, in any number of ways, and it was probably no coincidence that Daphne was the only other one who had inspired a trip to the jeweler. She was convincing enough to make Jackson put a down payment on her dream ring, but God had a good sense of humor, and on that same night she called him at his dorm room to tell him that she thought that they should see other people. He later found out that she only reached that realization after she started seeing these other people, even allowing a few of them into the club that Jackson assumed he had sole rights to. His roommate told him that night after several rounds of Jaeger shots that some monkeys only let go of one branch when they have a firm grasp on another one. The analogy stuck with him for the rest of his life, and the crushing heartbreak that prompted the lesson in the first place would interfere with every other relationship he would ever try to have, until Amanda. He pushed past Daphne, and through the 8 year hiatus that he took from committed relationships, not pausing to remember the sea of faces who filled the void during that time. They all applied for the position of his girlfriend, but none of them could be trusted, or so he believed. They had all come to his bed, hoping to land the man named “One of Charleston’s Most Eligible Bachelor’s” for three years running after his business was bought by Apple, allowing him to retire at the ripe old age of 26. He was handsome enough, he supposed, with thick brown hair that hung low over a forehead that his stylist had called “Neanderthal,” but nowhere nearly attractive enough to justify the amount of attention that was thrown his way. He spent a good deal of his hours working out, mostly as a way to pass time after he realized he didn’t have to work anymore, and the results were noticeable, but again, he wasn’t receiving calls to model for fitness magazines either. Some of the women who pursued him put up a good fight, complimenting his “stunning” brown eyes, or his “strong” chin, to the point where he wondered if they were just paying him compliments from the latest issue of Cosmo. There were more than he cared to count, all of them determined to convince him that they could love him, but The Curse of Daphne was too strong, and he eventually treated them all badly enough to make them leave. Some of them threw things, and some cussed him and his mother, but they all left, just as he hoped that they would. Now, sitting in front of the best jeweler in the state, he couldn’t help but smile as he thought about how he became a self-fulfilling prophecy during those years. By keeping everyone he met at arm’s length, he never met anyone who had time to love him, or to let him love her. It was the loneliness that followed his mother’s death that finally pushed him to try relationships again. His father didn’t live long enough to see his only son graduate high school, and his mother never dated again. In those last days, as she died right in front of him, he wished that she had found someone else to share her life with, even if just for the companionship. Sitting alone in the funeral home as he made her arrangements, he pined for someone to share his pain so that it didn’t crush all the life out of him too. At her funeral, every long-distance friend told him that he needed to find someone, practically begging him to not end up alone like her. They offered their sympathy, most of them people he had never met before, and he listened, numb, considering that he was the last person left in his family. The more they talked, the further he drifted, until he didn’t even hear their condolences anymore. He nodded and smiled, but his tears dried up long before she finally lost her fight, and nobody could really blame him for defaulting to zombie mode in that type of situation. Jackson went on his first real date in almost a decade the night after he buried his mother, with a girl named Tammy. It was a blind date, the type of thing that everyone swears they will never do. In the beginning, he kept himself at a distance, but she disarmed him like a pro, and he found himself thoroughly enjoying her company by the end of the night. He asked her out again, and to his surprise she shot him down. The reality check seemed to snap something in him, and for the first time in his life, he pursued someone. It changed everything for him, and it took him nearly a month to get a second date. The chase awakened a desire for companionship that he swallowed years before, and when they went out again, he pulled out all the stops. A limo pulled up to her front door, filled with roses all around him. He skipped the restaurant, and had a private meal catered for just the two of them. They sat on top of one of the houses on Rainbow Row, the old, colorful southern residences that lined the coast of downtown Charleston. When he went to kiss her at her front door, she laughed. “Something funny?” Jackson made no effort to hide the annoyance in his voice. “No, I’m sorry.” He could see that she was still fighting it back, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “You’re just trying way too hard. You’re a nice guy Jackson, you really are. There’s no need to show off. This isn’t what girls are looking for. Well, some girls are. But not the ones you want to catch, I can promise you that.” “Didn’t you have a good time?” Being alone for the rest of his life suddenly looked much more attractive than dealing with understanding women for another day. “I had a great time. Everything was perfect, but if this is just the beginning, where can it go from here?” She paused to let the idea sink in for him. “Women are looking for something that lasts, and if it’s this intense now, it can’t keep that up long term.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Confused, he looked up at her. “So can we try again sometime?” She smiled down at him as she opened the door. “Call me. But think about what I said first.” She left him looking at her, and he stood still for at least a minute after the door shut behind her. They dated for several months, but it never progressed the way that he expected it to. After a while, he understood what Tammy represented. She was the transition for him, sent to show him what he needed to know to continue searching for his perfect partner. Their interest in each other, more specifically his interest in her, was fueled entirely by not being able to have her, and she knew that from night one. As soon as he got her, they both knew that that infatuation would fade, so she kept him at arm’s length at all times. Their final date started with pizza at a bar, and led to a walk on the beach. As they crossed under the pier, he stopped and pulled her to him. They kissed, but he felt the difference instantly. When she pulled back, he knew what she was going to say before she did. “I think we’re done here, Jackson.” She didn’t bother with specifics, but he understood that she didn’t mean walking. “Tonight was my perfect date, and I told myself that as soon as you understood what that would be, my work would be done.” A few weeks before, he would have felt embarrassed to be treated like a project, but he had already realized that he held that role. He also knew that he couldn’t argue with the fact that he needed her help. He smiled as she continued to try and soften a blow that didn’t really ever land. “You’re still amazing, and it has nothing to do with-“ “I know.” He cut her off to save them both the time and effort of an official breakup. “Thank you. You were exactly what I needed.” He kissed her cheek this time. “I got us a room for tonight, before…” He paused, searching for the right phrase, but she took his hand and squeezed, letting him know that none was necessary. “You should take it, I’ll get a cab.” “No, it’s yours. I knew this was coming. That’s why I suggested we drive my car.” He smiled at her preparation. There was still so much he underestimated about women. “Have a good night Jackson, good luck.” She turned, still holding his hand, and walked away. He watched as her fingers slipped out of his, and she walked up the beach and out of sight without turning around. He stood under the pier until rain started to fall around him, looking around at couples running for cover as the storm slipped in. As he walked up to his room, he wondered when he would get the chance to find out how much Tammy had taught him. The next morning, when he got caught in a torrential downpour without an umbrella, he got that chance, and he found the love of his life standing at the front door of a downtown shopping center looking out with him. “No umbrella either, huh?” For a while after his bachelor award, women hit on him everywhere he went, and after the first few weeks of loving the attention, he quickly grew tired of having to trudge through small talk with women who were simply wallet- fishing. Amanda Massey was a different breed though, and something in her reflection told him immediately. It took him a second to register that she was talking to him, but when he looked at her mirrored eyes, they were staring straight into his. The way that they seemed to burn straight into him caught him by surprise, and he struggled to keep his cool. “Um, yeah, I never really carry one. Had I known that the apocalypse was in the forecast, I might have. I guess weathermen never get anything right.” She laughed at the joke, one that he would always consider a bad one, and he turned and smiled at her. Blonde hair was pulled back above her head in a bun, giving her an appearance that was much older than her age, but it allowed the structure of her face the attention that it deserved. A small scar on her cheek only served to make the rest of her look more flawless. Her eyes were a deep shade of green, and before he could stop himself, he wondered if their children would be lucky enough to get their mother’s eyes. The thought rendered him even more speechless, and when she finally introduced herself, he looked down at her outstretched hand as if she had offered him a dead animal. She held it there, looking up into his face, until he finally came back to Earth and shook it, a little more vigorously than he originally intended. He caught himself again, and continued shaking at a more normal pace until she laughed at him and pulled her arm back out of his death grip. They ended up sitting down in the lobby to wait out the rain, and a conversation that changed both their lives ensued. They grew up in similar homes, they both experienced the grief that comes with burying their parents. The fact that she was well on the other side of that grief made her the perfect person to finally pull him through his own. A few times he fought back tears, and she understood perfectly, even offering him a tissue from her purse as she patted his back. She told him about starting Med School, getting a year under her belt before dropping out when her mother developed a terminal illness. She never went back, even though her mother begged her to every day that she lived, and Amanda was thankful that she hadn’t been forced to promise her return on her mother’s deathbed. “Maybe someday,” she said at the time, but someday turned into another life, and she finally decided that her mother would have wanted her to be happy more than anything else, and the people who were doctors on TV never really seemed to be that happy. After two hours that seemed predestined, they left to go get dinner together even though the storm continued its assault. When they got to his car, he opened her door and she reached across to open his as he rushed around the back of it, holding his coat over his head. She was still leaning when he got in, and he mistook her courtesy, kissing her as he squeaked across the leather in the bucket seat. Her eyes shot wide at first, but she closed them and returned the affection before pulling away and filling her face with a Cheshire grin. “Sorry, I-“ He spoke like his teenage self, asking his first girl out, and the feeling in his stomach hadn’t shown itself in so long that he thought he was getting the flu. “I really never do things this way. I’m usually very-“ “Don’t be.” She interrupted him with another kiss. “Neither do I. In fact, it’s been more than a year since I kissed anybody. It’s cheesy as shit, but there’s something about you that I can’t really understand, but I feel like I was supposed to meet you tonight. I wasn’t even going shopping, I just cut through the mall because I didn’t feel like walking around the entire block.” She smiled at him and when he put his hand on the knob to shift out of park, she put hers on top of it. They sat like that the whole way back to his house, where they ordered Chinese food and watched a terrible movie that they talked through anyway. He gave her a robe to wear while her clothes dried, and he kept sneaking peeks at her long legs crossed underneath it. Their conversation from the lobby continued, digging further into each other than any first date either one of them experienced before. He told her about his business, even going so far as to share how much he received from the buyout, a fact no other date or girlfriend had ever known. When he got to his award, she slapped his knee hard enough to make him wince. “I knew that you were familiar. My friend Allie found that magazine at my house and told me that I needed to find somebody like that to marry so I wouldn’t have to work anymore.” She noticed a look on his face and laughed. “I told her to bite me. I don’t mind working long hours and coming home to an empty apartment. I have a cat anyway.” “Are you still happy?” He asked, struggling to hold his rice with chopsticks before dropping it and using his fork instead. She never answered him, but turned to look into his eyes instead, and they shared their second kiss of the night. This one led much farther, and when he slid his hand up the legs that he had been looking at all night, he was pleasantly surprised to find that she hadn’t bothered to put anything on under the robe. They spent that night together, and every one after it for three months. As Jackson lay in bed, listening to the light snores that she denied every morning, he turned to face her. The hair across her face framed it perfectly, and the light from the window lit up her pillow as if God shone the light on her. He thought about the time they spent together, feeling waves of happiness rush through him with each memory. Everyone told him all his life that when he met the love of his life, he would know. He never met anyone he thought he loved instantly, but he had fought back those words every night he spent with her all the way back to the night they met. He said them under his breath sometimes, and when she asked what he said, he just shook his head. He wanted nothing more than to say them to her, and he realized that the fear that kept him from doing it was how he knew he should. The only thing worse than losing her because he loved her would be to lose her before he got the chance to tell her how he felt at all. The next morning, Amanda woke up and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. She turned to find him smiling at her. “How long have you been awake?” He smiled at her and kissed her nose. “I love you.” She blinked a few times to assure herself that she wasn’t dreaming, and for that few seconds his breath stopped. It rushed back into his lungs as the smile spread across her face. “I love you too.” They spent the rest of that day in and out of bed, and the next day he asked her to move in with him. She refused, saying it was too soon, but her answer changed a week later and she showed up wearing that same robe, holding a box of her most important possessions. “Does your offer still stand?” As she asked, she let the robe fall open, and he pulled her inside and kissed her as his answer. To celebrate, they ordered Chinese again, and had a quickie while they waited for it to arrive. She answered the door totally naked, and the young Asian boy delivering the food nearly dropped it where he stood. When she gave him the money, he bowed no less than 20 times, stealing glances at her as often as possible. After she shut the door, they laughed at the story that the boy would tell when he got back to the restaurant, and probably for the rest of his life. They ate their food in their birthday suits, and he tried to pinch her nipples with his chopsticks. She slapped his hand away and laughed, and he told her that he had never been so happy in his life. Their fortune cookies that night both informed them that “new friends change your outlook on life.” He kept the small piece of paper in a drawer of his nightstand, and those same words were his obvious choice for the inscription on the ring that the jeweler now held for him.

-2-

“Sir?” Jackson’s eyes refocused, and he blinked as he tried to get his bearings on where he was. He looked around and finally saw the small red box that contained his entire future in it, and he smiled at the salesman. “Sorry, I – I don’t know where I went.” “Don’t worry sir, it happens more than you know. Be glad that you didn’t faint. Is this your first proposal?” “First and last my friend.” He took the box and slipped it into the pocket inside his jacket, patting it to make sure that it was secure. “Good luck sir. Although I don’t suspect you will need any luck with a gorgeous piece of jewelry like that.” The old man winked at him, and the corner of his lip lifted in a half smile that would have creeped Jackson out on any other occasion. Here he took it as encouragement and shook the man’s hand before leaving the store. As he got into his car, it started to rain, and he smiled at the series of events falling into place perfectly. He drove through the rain, the sound of the wipers hypnotizing him as he ran through his carefully laid plans for the night. Everything needed to go on without a hiccup, and he made sure that he had thought of every detail. He would pick Amanda up from her office, surprising her with a new dress. It was a Vera Wang that she saw in a window a few months earlier as they were walking down King Street, not far from the window where they met for the first time. She had no idea that he even noticed her eyeing it, and he made sure to seem totally uninterested in doing any shopping that day. She went back a few days later with one of her friends and tried it on, a shopping trip that Jackson scheduled with the friend as a fact-finding mission. The dress fit like it was made for her, but when she saw the price tag, she nearly fainted and her friend suggested that she wait for a good sale. He gave a quick look in his back seat to where the dress was wrapped up, smiling at how much easier retirement made getting things done in secret while everyone else worked. When he picked her up at work, he was going to give her the dress and have her put it on before they went to dinner. It was their 8-month anniversary of moving in together, so he hoped that she would never suspect his true motives, despite his obvious efforts to create a special occasion. When they reached their destination, they would sit down for a romantic dinner and when the dessert came, the box would be hidden inside the chocolate dessert that the chef had created especially for this night. Jackson smiled to himself and thought about calling Steve Jobs to thank him for making all of this possible. He changed into his suit, not a new one, but his favorite. He had worn the suit to nearly every important event since selling his company, including his mother’s funeral, and he felt like she was with him whenever he wore it. It had been her favorite too, and she told him that he looked like the President whenever he wore it. He hadn’t realized that it was his favorite as well until he was picking something out to wear to say goodbye to her, and the thought that she would never see him in it again broke him down on his bedroom floor. He lay there for thirty minutes before deciding to never get rid of it, just in case she ever wanted to see him in it again. Now, years later, as he slipped the familiar fabric back over his shoulders, he felt as if she were helping him fit into it again. His eyes felt heavy and he blinked several times before looking at his reflection in the closet door. He smiled, and warmth spread through him as he flicked the light off and stepped out. Jackson pulled up in front of the building, waiting for his future fiancé to escape her work for the night, and when Alicia Keys started to sing to him from his phone, his heart stopped for a split-second as he realized that the moment of truth was upon him. “I’m here love. See you in a second.” She told him she would meet him in the lobby and hung up, suspecting nothing. He stepped out of the car, opening up the umbrella Amanda bought for him as a joke after she moved in, thinking that it was the first time he had ever opened it. He corrected himself as he waited for her, remembering that he opened it when she gave it to him, and she cursed him for doing so inside. He laughed at her superstition, but it was a quality that he loved about her. It helped to counteract his need to rationalize everything, and he appreciated the balance that she brought to him. His heart sped up again as he saw her moving down the staircase towards the glass front doors of the building, and he felt time slow to a crawl as he watched every detail of her beauty as if he were seeing it for the first time. Her feet stepped perfectly in rhythm with his heart, and they overlapped each other, causing her hips to sway back and forth like a subtle belly dance. Her legs rose up from her perfect ankles until they disappeared under the hem of her dress. The dress hugged those swaying hips seamlessly, and showed the hourglass that he watched every morning from his bed as she got ready for work. Her arms were tucked underneath her breasts, causing them to strain against the cut of the dress, creating a nest of cleavage that he could have gotten lost in for the rest of his life. Finally, he followed those lines up to her neck and her soft face, a face that he could easily imagine seeing across the table as they entered the sunset of life. A single piece of blonde hair bobbed as she walked down the steps, and she tried to tuck it behind her ear, but it escaped and continued its dance across her cheek. She hated that unruly curl, but it was his favorite part of her. It was the one thing that he always remembered when she left him in the morning, just a few golden strands sitting next to her gorgeous green eyes and resting beside her ear. Whenever he smelled her perfume on a stranger passing by, it was the curl that crept into his mind first, pulling the rest of her behind it. It took her until she reached the bottom of the steps to notice him, and when she did, she blushed, her cheeks turning a shade that Mary Kay would kill to perfect. He smiled back, trying to not overplay the moment for fear of giving himself away. He opened the door for her, and she kissed him. “Thank you kind gentleman. My name is Amanda, and to what do I owe this honor.” He smiled at her game, a familiar one that she often used to diffuse her embarrassment, and played along as he handed her the box with the dress in it. “Happy 8 month anniversary, love.” He tried to sound as convincing as possible, knowing that he would have openly mocked any man out of high school celebrating the same menial event. She opened the box and shrieked, covering her mouth to capture the sound before it made it any further. “How the hell did you-“ “A kind gentleman always has methods. Please my lady, try it on so I can take you to the dinner that you deserve.” She smiled at him and kissed him again, knowing full well that the dress would fit perfectly. She took the box and disappeared into a private bathroom, leaving Jackson to shake his umbrella on the large rug in the lobby. Several people had stopped to observe the couple, and now that the show was over, they continued on their separate ways. Those that were left stopped in their tracks again when Amanda came out wearing the dress. Time followed their lead, and it seemed that her trip across the lobby took days to complete. She became instantly more beautiful, a feat that Jackson would have deemed impossible only a few minutes earlier. As she walked towards him, she owned the world, and anyone that saw her had trouble denying that a more stunning woman ever lived. She reached him and tucked her hair behind her ear again, kissing him and handing over the box that now held her work attire. “Thank you. You shouldn’t have.” Her courtesy was another of his favorite traits, and he saw the faces of their children in her eyes when she looked up at him. “Too late. I already did. And now, I’m about to do more, so let’s get on with it.” She took his arm and they walked out into the rain for a night that would change her life forever.

-3-

The dinner was perfect, sitting at the same table where they shared their first “official” date while the chef prepared lamb chops, her favorite meal. The entire restaurant was empty, courtesy of a favor from the owner and a hefty check from Jackson. He couldn’t help but think that he was glad he was proposing, because he would never be able to top the bar that he was setting with this night. They ate and shared a bottle of wine, which helped to take the edge off. He never realized how stressful it would be trying to act normal with a large velvet box pressed against your chest. Luckily, the wine also dulled her perception, because had she noticed his repeated efforts to stem the tide of sweat that was escaping his forehead, she surely would have suspected his true motives. Finally, as they finished their main course, he excused himself to go and give the box to the maitre d’ so that it could make its way into their dessert. He returned to the table glad to be free from it, but realizing that the moment he had planned so delicately was now a few minutes from arriving. Continuing normal conversation was nearly impossible, so he asked her questions about work, knowing that she would carry the exchange for a while. When the dessert came, she stopped abruptly and picked up a strawberry from the plate to feed to him. He smiled and took the bite, then forced himself to swallow both the fruit and the lump that was forming in his throat. She pressed the side of her fork through the soft chocolate and took a bite. “Oh God, this is so good.” Her eyes rolled up and she made a sound that reminded him of their sex, and he felt a familiar rush of blood below the table. Strangely, it helped to focus him on his task, and he breathed more calmly as he waited for her fork to hit its target. Her eyebrows pulled closer together, and she looked down at the plate, then back up at him. She used the knife to move some of the chocolate shavings off the top of the dish, and when her eyes found the red of the box, they opened wide. He slid his napkin onto the table, and knelt down beside her. “Amanda, I have thought for a long time that no one existed in this world who could make me want to be a better man, but I was wrong.” Her silverware clanged to the floor as she threw her hands to her lips. “I saw your face that day, reflected in the glass, and I felt like I had known you for all my life. The first time you kissed me, I wanted to feel those lips on mine for every day of the rest of my life. The first time I woke up next to you, I wanted to wake up with you every morning. I knew then, and I’m sure now. You are the only person in the world who could ever make me this happy, and I have loved you for every second that we have known each other. I’ve always been told that I would know when I met ‘The One,’ but nobody ever tells you how you’re supposed to know.” He paused, trying to remember to breathe. “You see it, when you find the right person. You see the rest of your life together, and you can’t wait to get started living it.” He reached up and took her left hand, and she moved the right one up to catch a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. “I’ve been looking for you since I first kissed a girl in the second grade, and now that I’ve found you, there is not another woman in the world who means anything to me. I love you, I will always love you. Will you be my wife?” At first, she was too emotional to answer, and then she screamed “Yes” so loud that it made him stumble back a little. She jumped up from her seat, grabbing him and pulling him up and to her, and he waited until the squeezing stopped to pick up the box and kneel again to slide the ring on her finger. It fit as perfectly as the dress had, and she held it up in the light, now letting the tears stream down from each eye. Her makeup was degenerating rapidly, but as he stood up and brushed the dust from his knees, he smiled at how beautiful this moment had made her in his eyes. He knew he would see this moment every time that he looked at her for the rest of his life. The waiter brought a bottle of champagne, and they toasted their new life together. “How did you do all this? How did you know? How?” She was still shocked, and he laughed to himself. He took her hand, explaining the entire plan, starting from the moment he knew that he wanted to ask her. When he finished, the champagne bottle was upside down in the ice bucket, the last drops of it slipping between her lips. She was tipsy, but not drunk, and he helped her to her feet as they stood from the table. When they got to the front door, they noticed that it had stopped raining, and she stepped out into the warm March night. “Let’s take a walk.” Her hands swung dramatically while she talked, one of the first signs of a good buzz for her. She stopped swinging them and held the ring up to her eye level again, then turned back to him and kissed him, this time letting her tongue slide against his long enough for several people to pass them by. He could taste the champagne on her lips, and he returned her kiss, turning her and pressing her back against the glass front of the restaurant. His hands slid down her sides and around to cup her cheeks. She pulled against him tighter, feeling him stiffen, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you sure you don’t just want to get home?” He asked as she pulled back and leaned against the glass. She shook her head. “Not yet, I want to walk down the street holding your hand. You’ve got the rest of our lives to get me into bed Mr. Hamilton. Let’s make another memory.” He couldn’t have denied her anything, so he took her and steadied her, then bent down to slip her heels off so that she could balance more easily. She playfully pressed her crotch against the top of his head, then laughed loud enough that people across the street stopped and turned towards them. He smiled as he held her knees and stood back up. “I love that laugh. I can’t wait to hear it every day for the next 60 years.” “Then you better be pretty damn funny sir.” She pressed her finger against his chest as she said it, and he pulled her in again for a kiss. After they broke apart, he walked to the car and threw her shoes and the umbrella in the back. When he returned to her, she took his hand and started down the street. The wine and champagne started to do their trick, and she began the rambling that was the second sign of her intoxication. “I want to get married at Christmastime. I love the tree in the church and I love the red and the gold and the green and the flowers and the poinsettias. Do you?” She didn’t wait for his answer, and he knew well enough by now that her question didn’t expect one. “I think that I will call my sister when we get home and tell her everything, but not until I have sex with you, my fiancée.” She drew this last word out to give it a few extra syllables, then slapped his chest with her hand. The alcohol was in full effect. He took the opportunity to turn down a back street that would get them to his car more quickly. “Then I can call her and tell her everything. She will be so happy for me, but she will probably be jealous too because she isn’t getting married but she’s already married and she has some babies so she shouldn’t be jealous cause-“ “Then we better get home before it’s too late,” he interrupted. “Why, what time is it?” “Time for you to give me your watch.” They both stopped as soon as they heard the voice, hoping that it was someone they knew playing a joke, but Jackson already knew it was not. He heard the footsteps following them a while back, but hadn’t really paid any attention to them. He turned and looked at a little man, his hood drawn up over his face. All they could really see was a pointed nose that looked like it belonged to a former boxer and a set of tiny lips, pulled together like a coin purse. His chin showed several scars, but years had softened them into a part of this man’s face. Moving down, Jackson saw that the man held something in his pocket, but he didn’t reveal it yet, instead pushing it out to give a vague suggestion of what it could be. He figured it was probably a homeless man looking for easy money to get a drink, so he took out his wallet to give him some cash so the bum could move along without further ruining what had so far been a perfect night. He opened it and thumbed through it, but the man reached out and snatched the whole thing out of his hand. Jackson started to reach back for it, but stopped, realizing that this situation could turn dangerous all too quickly. “Back off rich man, or the chick pays the penalty.” “Whoa, it’s ok. Calm down, you can have anything you want.” He raised his hands to show that he had no intention of stopping this scene from playing out in the bum’s favor. Things could be replaced, people could not. “Then how ‘bout that shiny new ring?” Jackson had hoped that the man hadn’t noticed Amanda looking at it as they walked, but his heart sank as he realized that he would have no such luck. Amanda pulled away, holding her left hand by her side. Jackson pulled her close to him, moving himself in between the man and his future bride. “Now come on friend, you’ve got well over $500 in that wallet.” “And that ring looks to be worth 20 times that, friend. Hand it over.” He lunged forward, and Jackson moved to get Amanda away, but his elbow caught the man in the face, knocking him to the ground and sliding the hood from his face. He pulled his hand from his pocket to cover it and Jackson saw that the gun that he had threatened them with was all too real. He stood again and pulled his hood back up, but not before Jackson caught a glimpse of a gigantic cross tattoo under the man’s right eye. He tried to pretend that he hadn’t noticed, but his surprise was obvious. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” “No, it’s ok. Look we can just go. You’ve got my wallet, and my credit cards, I won’t report them stolen, I pro-“ “sorry.” This last word was followed by a sound that neither Jackson nor Amanda had ever heard before, at least not in real life. As the man pulled the trigger, Amanda thought to herself that gunshots in reality sounded nothing like they did in the movies. A second shot fired, and the bum took off as a police siren in the distance signaled its approach. At first, Amanda thought that he missed, but then she felt her fiancé leaning against her. He slumped against her shoulder, and she struggled to hold his full weight up. Finally he collapsed, and she fell to the ground with him. His white shirt began to blossom pink in two places, and the pink turned to red as she tried to get him to look into her eyes. “No! No! This does not happen! Jackson. Jackson dammit, you look at me. Look at me! The police are coming! They are going to be here any minute, and you need to be strong because you are going to make it.” Even as she said the words, she felt that she was lying, but she couldn’t show him that. “Please, please hold on. We’re going to get married. We’re going to get married! We’re going to get married!” He tried to squeeze her hand, but he couldn’t summon the strength. In the end, all he could manage was “I love” before she watched the light fade out of his eyes, and when the police arrived, they found a gorgeous woman in a gorgeous dress screaming “We’re going to get married” over and over as she held on to her fiancé. By the time the ambulance pulled in, its siren long silent, Jackson’s shirt and her hands were the same deep red as her dress, and she only let him go when one of the paramedics pulled them apart, and a young policeman held her tightly against him. The rain started to fall again, and she was thankful as it washed her lover’s blood from her hands and hid her tears. Chapter 2

Jackson’s eyes opened to darkness. He lay still for a minute, trying to remember what happened to bring him here. He remembered his dinner with Amanda, and walking outside with her. He remembered a strange man walking up to them, and he thought he remembered a gun. He remembered her holding him, and then it went dark right up until now. And damn if it wasn’t as dark as he had ever seen it. He thought maybe his eyes were playing tricks, so he waited for them to regain focus, but after what could have been minutes but seemed like hours, it was still as dark as a new moon. He groped around, still looking for any kind of purchase that he could use to pull himself up, and he realized as that thought came through that he was lying down. He hadn’t processed that as he woke up, but now that he was reaching he couldn’t help but feel as if he were lying flat on his back. A terrifying story that he had read came flooding back, and he wondered if he had simply passed out after being shot, and was now in the morgue, sitting in one of those coolers waiting to be embalmed, only now he wasn’t as dead as they thought he was. In the story, the man hadn’t woken up until he was about to be dissected, and he was watching the whole events unfold as he lay helpless on a slab. The character had been bitten by a snake, and the venom had paralyzed him and made him seem as if he were dead. Jackson wondered if maybe a snake had been loose downtown, and hoped that it was possible, even as his mind told him that he was being foolish. If he really was lying in a morgue, why couldn’t he kick the door, or hit something around him. He couldn’t even really feel the floor underneath him, but he felt positive that he was on his back. “Hello?” The sound was deafening as it ripped through the silence that had become normal to his ears. “Can anyone hear me?” Jackson felt like a fool shouting through darkness, and for a second he imagined something terrible hiding in front of him, watching and waiting for him to stumble to his real doom. “I think I’m stuck somewhere, and I can’t seem to find anything to get out with.” He continued talking to try and keep his mind from creating any more monsters lurking just out of arm’s reach. “I think I’ve been shot. Something is wrong with me, and I don’t know where I am.” His arms flailed around him, and the thought of getting up crossed his mind, but he was afraid of what might meet him if he did. His mind continued to create its own theories, despite his best efforts to stop it, and he started to believe that this could be what waking up in hell was like. His heart sank as he weighed the possibility of eternal damnation, quickly evaluating how well he thought he had lived his life. “Help!” He screamed again, louder than he had ever screamed. His arms started moving in all directions, now not even caring if they found some God forsaken beast waiting to rip his limbs off over and over again for eternity. For now, not knowing was more torture than anything. When they finally struck something, he pulled them back to his chest and felt them to see if the sudden shock had caused any damage. “Put your hand back up.” The voice was calm, and sounded slightly irritated, but it was undoubtedly human. He reached his left hand slowly back into the darkness, and this time when something touched it, he recognized it as another hand. The two extremities clasped around each other, and with a quick tug, Jackson was pulled up into a blinding light. His eyes struggled to refocus, and the shape in front of him stood still, waiting for him to come around. “Are you…are you God?” Jackson meant the question with 100% sincerity, but as it left his lips the man who pulled him up from the darkness let out a hearty laugh. Jackson immediately felt embarrassed, and he returned to square one in trying to imagine what was happening to him. The man clapped his hand on Jackson shoulder, causing him to jump slightly, but the hand stayed where it was. “After all I’ve seen, nothing makes me laugh harder than a white man asking a black man if he’s God.” “I’m sorry, I just thought since you pulled me up, and then the light is just so bright.” As he said it, Jackson’s eyes finally took in the light they had been deprived of for so long, and the outline of a small man came into focus. “You’re just a man though aren’t you?” “Yes sir, all my life and then some.” The man had calmed his laughing now, and was extending his right hand. The light adjusted again, and Jackson reached out to grasp it, but missed. The man chuckled, then used his left hand to guide the two men’s hands into a good firm handshake. As he did, Jackson felt a strange prickling in the spot where the man held his arm. “What’s your name, newbie?” “Jackson Hamilton. Junior.” He never knew why he added the junior whenever he told someone his name, but it had become a habit after his father died, perhaps as a way of honoring the man. Here, it made him feel like he was in Elementary school again, talking to a teacher who had found him somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. “Well, Jackson Hamilton Junior, you can call me Marcus Woods. It’s not my real name, but I like it a hell of a lot better than the one I was given. How’re you coming?” Marcus tilted his head and looked at Jackson, who could now make out all of the man who had pulled him up. He looked to be about 25, so it struck him as odd that he had referred to himself as an old black man. He looked around, seeing the palmetto trees that told him he was still in Charleston, but other questions started piling up in his mind, and he added these observations to them. He opened his mouth to begin asking them, but nothing came out. After a minute, he started with answering the question that was asked of him. “Pretty good, I guess. Thanks for helping me. How did you know I was here?” “Heard you screaming like hell was coming for you. I just was on my way around, actually going to go to a bar down the way. You up for it? They’ve got a girl who sings there on the weekends and she is one of the finest voices I’ve ever heard. Believe me Jack, I’ve heard ‘em all. This girl is going to be somebody. You in?” Jackson thought about the offer, then suddenly realized he should probably call Amanda so she wouldn’t be worried. “Thanks, but I need to call my girlfr-, I mean my fiancé. She is probably looking for me.” “I doubt that friend. There’s plenty of time to call, let’s just go catch this first song here. Come on, how you gonna say no to the man who saved you. I mean, you did think I was God coming down to pull you up, right?” Marcus laughed again, a loud infectious laugh that Jackson found himself joining. Their eyes met, and Jackson felt a calm wash over him that made him forget about calling Amanda. All of a sudden, nothing seemed more important than whatever Marcus wanted him to do. “Eh, what the hell. She’s probably working anyway, what time is it?” “Jack, my friend, I haven’t ever worn a watch, but if I were to take a guess, I’d say it’s about 3:07.” As he said it, Marcus looked up at the sun, and Jackson followed his gaze, trying to decide what he was using for that estimate. “Ok, I haven’t eaten anything in forever anyway. A burger and a beer would do me some good.” “I bet it would, Junior. I bet so.” Marcus laughed again as he turned and started walking. Jackson followed, and they started talking along the way about what they did for a living. Marcus did most of the talking, and Jackson asked an occasional question as they continued. The more the young man talked, the more Jackson’s mind drifted away from all of his earlier questions. It was as if he was being hypnotized, but no trickery seemed to be going on. In fact, he was having more fun that he could remember having in years. He felt like a college man again, full of energy and ideals that gave him the strength to write a thirty page paper, go to a keg party, sleep for two hours, and wake up just in time to cram for a history final, only to do it again the next night. Nostalgia washed over him, but he hadn’t gone to school anywhere near here, and he had only lived in the city for about 6 years, so it struck him as odd that his senses were reminiscing, but he enjoyed the feeling and the company of his new friend, so he didn’t press the issue. When they reached the bar, Marcus led him down a staircase that ended in a flat concrete area with plastic tables all around. Jackson went to sit down, but his escort moved on to a table that was a little further away from the others. Jackson followed, and settled into the cheap patio furniture. He raised his hand as a waitress moved past, but she was on a mission and paid him no attention. “Nice spot Marcus, I don’t think I even knew this place was here.” “It’s amazing how much of the world is right in front of us and we just stumble through without noticing it.” Marcus answered without looking at Jackson, and his eyes moved through the crowd of people that were beginning to gather for the show. The rest of the tables were filling up quickly, and a couple was moving towards the table that Marcus had chosen. Just as they got close enough for Jackson to pick up their conversation, Marcus stood up and walked towards them. He passed between them and the couple stopped, staring right where Jackson stood. He froze, but they looked through him, then turned and walked over to the railing and leaned against it. “What the hell, they didn’t even act like they saw me?” He asked aloud to himself. “Maybe they didn’t.” Marcus’s answer startled him, and when he turned around to find him sitting back at the table, his eyebrows pulled down as he tried to remember when he had come back to sit down. “But they were right there. And how did you get back over here without me seeing you?” “I took the other walkway. Shh, here she comes.” Jackson’s questions were beginning to mount again, but Marcus nodded towards a small stage at the other end of the pavement, and sure enough, a band was getting ready. The crowd started to clap and scream, and the people standing at the bar hurried to get drinks and get back to a good spot before the music started. A waitress passed by again, and Jackson tried to flag her down, but again she moved past without paying him a drop of attention. “What the hell is with these waitresses? How am I supposed to get a beer?” Marcus stared intently at the stage, pretending not to hear his companion. “Marcus, hey man why is-“ Before the sentence reached its punctuation, a voice came over the speakers that were scattered around them, and it froze Jackson solid. He turned slowly, like his neck was made of steel cables, to see the source of the beautiful sound, and found a girl, not much more than 17, standing on the stage and singing as if she had owned every stage she had set foot on all her life. His eyes fixed on her, and he felt as if her singing would reduce him to tears. He understood immediately why Marcus had wanted him to hear her, and he wanted to bring everyone he had ever known here so that they could experience her magic themselves. His questions melted away for the second time in an hour and all of his attention, as well as everyone else’s, belonged to the girl with the golden voice. Marcus had been right, she was going to be somebody. No one spoke while she sang, and even the waitresses stood still until the song was over, or at least until a guitar solo interrupted the singing for a few minutes. Jackson felt as if he was watching an alien impersonating a human, sharing a gift that no one else could ever even imitate. Surely this girl had to be someone special, someone more than just a bar band singer on a perfect afternoon. “Who is she?” he asked himself. After a second, Marcus answered the first of Jackson’s many questions. “She’s an angel isn’t she? I told you she was special.” About that time, the sax player let loose on an ear-blasting solo, setting Jackson free from the girl’s trance. He turned to face Marcus and found the man smiling and looking right into his eyes. “Junior, that girl up there is my granddaughter.”

-2-

“What did you just say?” “I said she was my granddaughter.” Marcus answered him as simply as if he were telling him that it was a cloudy day. “But you can’t be more than 25. That’s impossible. You’d have to be at least sixty years old. It’s just not possible.” “I knew I liked you Junior. What do you say you and me take a walk on the beach over here. I think you probably have more than a few questions you’d like to ask me, don’t you?” “But what about the show?” He caught himself as he said it, shocked at how much he wanted to hear the girl continue singing given that 20 minutes ago, he had no idea who she was. “You can hear it from the beach.” And then, under his breath “hell you could hear it from just about anywhere if you tried hard enough.” Jackson missed Marcus’s aside, his head still turned towards the stage. He turned back to the young (old) man, got up from his seat, and nodded. “You’re right. I think I do have some questions for you, Marcus.” Marcus nodded back, now standing next to Jackson. Jackson jumped as he looked at him, trying to remember when he looked away to give Marcus time to get up and get beside him. Marcus started towards the beach without waiting for the question, and Jackson followed. When they reached the ocean, Marcus stood and stared out, and Jackson slid up beside him. “Where would you like to start, young man?” Marcus had taken on a decidedly older air to him as they stood in the sand, and hearing him call Jackson a “young man” made him seem even older. He still looked young enough, but Jackson thought that his voice had aged in the last few minutes. The questions swam over each other in his head, and he couldn’t even think of what he wanted to know first. “At the beginning I guess.” “You mean like in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?” Marcus laughed without looking at Jackson. “No, I mean like-“ He tried to sort through the overlapping ideas in his mind, but there were too many. He started with the first words that popped into his mind clearly. “How can that girl be your granddaughter when you look younger than I am.” “Well, I don’t know if I would call that the beginning. How about we start with something a little closer to your home?” “Like what?” Jackson wasn’t sure he wanted to know where this conversation was headed, but now that he was removed from the siren’s song his questions were returning to him full force, and Amanda had made another cameo appearance. He wondered how he could have forgotten her in the first place. “You know, I really do need to call-“ “Your fiancé. Yes I know. Amanda right?” Marcus’s eyes remained fixed on the ocean, and if his face gave away anything, Jackson did not see it. “How do you know Amanda? Where is she? Where the hell am I?” Jackson’s calm had disintegrated when he heard Marcus say her name, and now the questions came in waves, breaking and pulling back from his lips just as the real waves did at his feet. Marcus gave no answer, and Jackson started to grab him, but thought better of it. “Answer me.” “I haven’t responded to direct orders in longer than I think you realize, Junior.” If Jackson’s calm was gone, Marcus had absorbed it. He answered in a tone that a Kindergarten teacher might have used on a boy throwing a tantrum, and it made Jackson realize that he was acting just like one. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I’m really confused right now, and I think it would be best if I just went and called her. Amanda, I mean.” His eyes dropped in embarrassment, and he kicked at the sand. He felt rooted to the spot, waiting to be sent to the office. “No need to be sorry. You should be confused, Junior. Unfortunately, trying to call her would only make that problem infinitely worse.” His tone remained the same, and his eyes never moved, but Jackson felt like he was looking straight into him. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the man standing on the beach, his arms folded behind him. In this light, he looked majestic, and Jackson felt as if he were in the presence of royalty. He thought about asking if his new friend was God again, then remembered how Marcus had laughed and reconsidered. “Is this heaven, Marcus? Am I alive?” With this question, Marcus turned and looked at him instead of through him. The majesty faded, and he returned to being just a man. He smiled at Jackson, then turned to look back at the water rippling in the distance. “No. and no.” The answers were simple, but they created a whole new set of questions that exploded in his mind, wiping out all other thoughts in one enormous blast. He stood dumbfounded, stumbling over words and sounds like a child learning to read until Marcus mercifully continued his answer. “I’m sorry, Jackson. I’m sorry to drop it on you so simply, because I know it’s not a simple question.” “Then is this hell?” He asked a little quietly, half-hoping that Marcus wouldn’t answer. “No.” Again, Marcus’s answer only raised more questions, but this time Jackson was thankful. His jaw hung open, and when Marcus turned to look at him again, he laughed out loud. The sound of his laughter snapped Jackson back up, and he closed his mouth. “No, Junior, you ain’t in hell either. And before you ask me where you are then, I want you to take a good look around and answer that question for yourself.” He watched as Jackson looked around him. He thought that he had probably stood in this spot more times than he could count, with the pier running out to his left and kids splashing all around him. It occurred to him that he had not noticed how many people were at the beach, and he looked back at the bar trying to figure out how they had come down here so easily without stepping on someone’s things. The answer hung just above him, but he wasn’t ready to pluck it yet. Fortunately, Marcus was. “You walked right past them all. Some of them you probably walked through.” Jackson tried to remember if he actually asked anything, but he knew that he hadn’t. Marcus had pulled it right out of him somehow, and the idea of talking to God rose for a third time. As he wondered how the man had done it, Marcus responded again, only this time Jackson noticed that his lips never moved. “I can hear just about anything that you think, Junior. You and everybody else on this beach. If I try hard enough, I can hear anybody anywhere.” “How?” Jackson’s question was simple, but his mind couldn’t wrap itself around anything as complex as what Marcus was suggesting. He thought this time about whether he actually spoke, or if he just willed the words to Marcus, and couldn’t remember. “You spoke. It will take a while for you to realize that you don’t have to. Just like it will take a while for you to realize that you don’t need to breathe anymore.” Jackson held his hand up to his mouth to feel the air that he exhaled. He thought he would faint when he felt nothing. “The energy that’s left over from your living body still holds the higher functions, but it will keep going through with some of the old involuntary ones for a while. It takes you a while to learn that you’re dead.” “Then why can’t anyone else see me, if I can see them?” “Ah, now you’re getting to the good ones.” Marcus grinned, and he looked genuinely excited that their conversation was heading this way. “Human eyes are limited, and our minds compensate for that.” Jackson started to ask what he meant, but Marcus continued before he could get it out. “We believe in what we see, even if it isn’t always the way we see it. You ever watch one of those movies where they run around with the damn camera?” Again he didn’t wait for a response. “If your eyes didn’t compensate, walking around would be just like that, and it would make you sick as hell. So your eyes go blind for a split second when you turn really fast, but your mind tells you that they don’t. So, when people see something they can’t explain, their mind makes up a logical explanation for themselves before they ever knew they saw anything. People believe in the believable, and this side of the looking glass is completely unbelievable.” “But they can’t see us at all.” “Right. Ever blow a dog whistle?” “Sure, I used to have a lab who went nuts on it.” “Just like there are sounds people can’t hear, there are things they can’t see. I couldn’t tell you all the science on it, but just think of it as walking on a separate plane from the living?” “A different plane? What the hell does that mean Marcus?” “You know, like a fourth dimension. You’re in the same place you were when you died, but you’re just on a different wavelength.” He paused, still staring out at the ocean, and Jackson’s eyes followed. He ran through the day’s events in his mind, remembering how Marcus had helped him up, the girl singing, the waitress who ignored him, it all made sense. But it was impossible. “How you doing Junior?” “I just can’t believe it. I can’t imagine it.” “Course you can’t. I doubt there’s a man or woman alive who could wrap themselves around the possibilities of this. I know I couldn’t. Every story about dying and heaven and hell that’s ever been told can’t hold a candle to the truth. There’s more of that in the universe that you would even believe Junior.” Marcus chuckled to himself. “How do you get around, I mean-“ “Do we have to walk everywhere? No, Junior, that would probably make this a lot closer to hell if that were true. There are plenty of ways to move, but it’ll be up to you to find some of those. I can’t show you everything.” “Why not?” Despite Jackson’s best efforts, the question came out sounding whiny. “Everybody’s different. We’ve all got to find our own ways here. There is no handbook for the dead, my friend. I could show you everything I’ve learned, but it wouldn’t help you learn a drop of it. I know it’s frustrating, but don’t be in a hurry, Jack. You’ve got eternity to learn what you need. In the meantime, see the sights. This world has things you’ve never even dreamed about, and you can see them all. One piece of advice I will give you, though. Be careful what you let the living see.” “What I let them see? But they can’t see me, right?” “True, they can’t see you. I suppose you’ll get my drift soon enough, and when you do, it’s best if you keep yourself a secret.” “Wouldn’t the world be better if everybody knew what happened after they died? All that fear could be gone forever.” Jackson said it before he thought, and again he felt like a child arguing with a parent. “You’d think so. Look, Junior, you’ve got to figure a lot of things out for yourself, but I’ve seen terrible things happen when something happens that people can’t understand. Think how hard this would be to comprehend if you hadn’t seen all the things to prove it to you. They’re just not ready for the truth, and their lives would never be the same once they found it.” Marcus hesitated, and his voice sounded as if it were filling with sorrow or regret. “All I’m saying is that you’re better off making sure that nobody notices you.” The tone became more forceful, and Jackson understood that any discussion on the topic was over. “You keep saying you instead of we. Does that mean that you’re leaving?” “I do have other places to be, that is true. But I’m not on any kind of schedule. Anywhere you would like to see before I go? I can try and give you a head start.” Jackson considered his options, then thought of a place he had considered taking Amanda for their honeymoon.

-3-

Jackson blinked, and the beach below his feet was gone. He was sitting at the top of the Eiffel Tower, looking down on thousands of people crowding the square. The sudden change in surroundings caught him by surprise, and he leaned too far backward, almost falling off the rail they sat on. Marcus caught his arm and pulled him back. “Easy killer. Sorry, I should have given some warning there.” Marcus left his hand on Jackson’s arm to help him get steady, then returned it to his own lap. “How the hell did you-“ “I told you, there are a lot of things available to you. I’ve been around for quite a while Junior.” “What else have you seen?” “More than you could ever guess. Try me, ask a question.” “Is there a God?” The question lingered on his mind since he accepted his death and the subsequent lack of heaven or hell, but he had decided against asking it until now. “As far as the existence of God in the way that Sunday School would have you believe, I’ve never seen it. Now that’s not to say anything, because you’re about to understand just how great the universe is, so I mean it 100% when I tell you that anything is possible. But is there a heaven or a hell? Yes. Which one you live in is completely your choice. Free will’s about the only thing the human’s did get right in all the stories. Alright Junior, I think it’s time for me to get on to another spot, and time for you to do some investigating of your own.” Jackson turned to ask him to stay longer, or at least to explain how he was supposed to get back to Charleston, but Marcus was gone before he could say a word. Chapter 3

Jackson spent the rest of the night wandering the streets of Paris. He heard the people around him speaking a language he never understood, but somehow he knew exactly what they were talking about without comprehending a single word. Several times he felt the urge to find somewhere to go to bed, only to figure out that his mind was still playing tricks on him. With no body to replenish, there was no need to eat, sleep, or do any of the other things that made up a normal day during his life. Even as he walked, he found that his feet weren’t really carrying him along, just moving out of sheer habit. Even when he focused on holding them still, his mind still carried him in whatever direction he thought of, and eventually he managed to drift along without even thinking about pretending to move his legs. As he watched for a sunrise that he somehow knew was coming any minute, he thought of the days, weeks, and months ahead of him. He could move around without attracting any attention to himself, visit places he always wanted to go, see anything he wanted, and all he had to do was figure out how to get there besides walking. In the distance, Jackson heard bells ringing and listened to hear the time. When they struck 6 in the morning, he realized that knowing the time only served to make him curious about the date. He searched around him for a newspaper stand and rushed over to it, moving faster than his legs could ever carry him. The old man running the stand twitched his moustache as if something tickled his nose and then looked straight at Jackson. He froze, waiting for the vendor to say something to him, but the man just shivered and looked back down at whatever he was reading. His dog, on the other hand, was not quite so forgiving. As Jackson searched for something with the date on it, a large boxer came around the corner of the stand and lowered its head, lifting its lips into a snarl and staring Jackson down. He wondered if the dog could actually see him, and turned to see if it were growling at something behind him, but his mind told him that there was a distinct difference between the way the salesman had looked at him and the light in the dog’s eyes now. The man jerked on the dog’s leash, but its muscles flexed and the dog held his ground. Jackson didn’t dare move. “Goddamn mutt, what the fuck are you barking at? Can’t you see that no customers want to come around some stand with a crazy fuck mutt barking at ‘em?” Jackson smiled at how much more refined curses sounded in foreign languages. The old man was favoring his left leg and not getting anywhere near enough strength to move the stubborn animal. Jackson reached out towards the dog, trying to talk the way that he had talked to Marcus. “Hey boy, it’s ok. I’m not here to hurt you. You’re a good boy” The words sounded stupid to him, but the dog stopped barking. Its tail wagged, and it sat down, still staring at Jackson. The man dropped the leash swinging his hand and cursing the dog under his breath. Jackson remembered what he had come for, and he turned to see a newspaper dated May 11th. He had been dead nearly 2 months.

-2- It took a while for Jackson to come to terms with the fact that he had spent the past two months lying in a box underground. He was furious, he wanted answers, and Marcus became the first target of his annoyance. He cursed him for leaving without answering all of his questions, and he felt stupid for getting himself stuck in Paris. The dog crept around him and licked at his fingers, but its tongue passed through them like they were smoke. The dog sat, tilting its head to one side and looking up at him to ask why. He looked down and the dog started wagging its tail and panting. He bent down, looking into the dog’s eyes, and it licked at his face. Again, the tongue flipped up into the dog’s nose, and it pulled back. He saw a brief flash in the dog’s eyes, and he reached out to pet it, expecting his hand to pass straight through its head. When his palm actually touched the fur and the dog pushed back against his touch, he drew his hand away as if the animal were a hot stove. The dog stood up, startled by his reaction, and looked at him again. Jackson put his hand back out, offering his palm to the dog to sniff, and the dog sat again in front of him, licking his fingers again, but making contact this time. He petted the dog for a long time, watching people pass back and forth around him as the sun moved through the sky. When it was time for the man to close up the stand for lunch, the dog sat by Jackson, not wanting to move. The owner pulled harder and harder on the leather leash tethered to his pet, but it sat as still as if the man were a fly buzzing around it. Jackson stood up and petted the dog again, then smiled down at his first living friend in his post-life world. “You better get going buddy, or he’s going to jerk you down this street.” The dog cocked his head from side to side before finally standing up, and Jackson thought that he saw it nod at him before heading off behind its master. He watched the two of them move up the sidewalk, waiting to see if the dog would turn back to look at him. When they rounded the corner, he shrugged and looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. He knew that the dog had been able to see him, or maybe even smell him. He knew that the dog could hear him, and maybe that was what had allowed him to touch it. He tried to pick an apple out of a tree, but again his hand came up empty. Frustrated, he swung at the branch that held the fruit, but drew no contact there either. Inside the tree, a robin hopped out from a nest and stood just above his head. The bird spun its head on a swivel and looked dead at him. He stayed still, afraid of scaring it off, but the longer their eyes held each other’s gaze, the more he knew that the bird was not afraid of him at all. The dog had barked, and he mistook the barking for fear, but he recognized now that a bark is a dog’s only voice. This bird sat staring straight at him, making no effort to move. Jackson raised his arm to the branch, and the bird casually skipped over to his elbow. It stood motionless as he brought his other hand to its head, and for the first time ever, Jackson petted a wild bird. The bird seemed to enjoy his touch, and feeling the feathers move under his fingers sent a rush through his body. He had found the first fringe benefit to his new plane, and he wondered how anyone could consider this to be hell. As his mind wandered, he noticed his hand starting to pass through the bird’s back, and he pulled it back. He focused again, and continued petting the bird as if he were still flesh and blood. Jackson smiled and decided to find out how much he could communicate with the animal. He closed his eyes and acted as if he were about to speak, but held the thought in his mind, spinning it over and over like a coin across his knuckles. He repeated “Fly to that tree” over and over, visualizing a tree several yards away and seeing the bird fly over to it. After a few repetitions, he heard a fluttering of wings and opened his eyes to find the bird sitting on the exact branch he had imagined, settling in and pulling its wings back down. It closed them in and did its little circular dance to face him again. He could feel its happiness, and for a moment he felt like he was the bird. He closed his eyes again, imagining that he was soaring through the park side by side with the robin, and he felt himself lift from the ground. The two of them rose above the tree that he had sent the bird to. He saw the people down below him, oblivious to the spirit that soared alongside a normal robin in the park on a gorgeous summer day. When Jackson opened his eyes, he saw that his imagination had become reality. He lost his concentration and started to fall, but the bird swooped down and circled his body, helping him to refocus. Jackson evened out and the two co-pilots returned to the heavens. They flew together for the rest of the day, and he found that he could do anything he willed his body to do. The longer he moved through clouds and above them, the firmer he grasped the fact that his body didn’t exist at all. Marcus had told him that there were any number of things that he was capable of now that he was in this plane, but he hadn’t even thought of all the possibilities that his new life held. He laughed out loud as he thought of it as a new “life,” and the robin tweeted next to him, and he smiled at it, feeling slightly ridiculous. “Thank you. You know, for showing me this. I needed to see it. I have to go on my own now though.” He wondered if the bird understood, but it did a few loops and chirped happily before flying away. They parted ways and Jackson found himself wondering if they would ever cross paths again. If they did, would he know if it was the same bird? He thought that he would, but he wasn’t sure why. The sun was setting far away from him, and he saw the landscape below him in a way that few living people ever get to see it. As the last light dropped behind the trees, pitching everything into darkness, he knew that things were much better than he originally considered, and he was glad that Marcus had left him to discover some parts of this adventure on his own.

-3-

With sleep becoming a totally useless activity, Jackson was amazed at what he could accomplish in a 24 hour period. He had flown across the entire Atlantic Ocean, reaching Charleston again and flying around the town, seeing parts of it that he never knew existed. He spent a good while sitting atop the Ravenel Bridge, hundreds of feet in the air, watching people swarm back and forth below him. He couldn’t help but feel amused by them, thinking that their lives were so important and that every task held the weight of a king’s decision. “What if we all knew then what I know now?” He thought, and he saw the world for the first time as it was meant to be seen. In his world now, there was no money to cause stress, no jobs to run back and forth to. There would be no war, no poverty, no hunger. Everyone in this new world could exist with everyone else, and there was no need for jealousy. Without possessions, what did you have to be jealous of? Marcus had responded to the questions that he asked, but he didn’t feel like he got any actual answers. Now, sitting above the city, he thought of his new world definitively as heaven, and all his ideas about heaven from a Catholic upbringing seemed pale in comparison to its reality. From the top of the bridge, Jackson looked past the cars to the water below them, and he decided to test the next category of his abilities. He leapt off the perch, not bothering to try and slow his descent, and plummeted towards the water. When he reached it, he passed through the surface without a splash, and a school of fish swam through him. He fell further, now testing to see how deep he could go, until he sensed the ocean floor settling underneath him. He stopped inches above it, his feet still not quite touching the sand. He was not wet, he knew that, and he could move through the water effortlessly. The feeling reminded him of the time that he and one of his many conquests had gone scuba diving off Australia’s coast. The dryness he felt was like a wetsuit, but when he looked down at himself, he found his lucky suit instead. The memory of his engagement dinner pained him, and he closed his eyes to fight tears that did not exist. Amanda’s face swam through the water towards him, but he pushed it away, remembering Marcus’s warning. A dolphin swam by him, and it was the first of the underwater creatures to take notice of their out of place visitor. The sleek mammal turned and came towards him, stopping just a few feet from his face and bending its tail underneath itself to stand upright, as if it wanted to have a conversation. Its eyes flashed, and it spoke to him just like he had heard dolphins before. This time, though, he could understand what it said as if it were speaking perfect English. “You are out of place stranger. What brings you down to my home?” The tone of the dolphin’s question was not angry, but Jackson was still cautious. He had found a great deal of power and plenty of new talents, but he was not sure what limitations his current state held. “I’m sorry friend, I am exploring your world down here and admiring all the beauty I never could when I walked.” He wondered if his voice would sound like a dolphin to someone living, or if they would be able to hear anything at all. “Don’t be afraid. I can’t harm you. You have crossed over onto a new path, and nothing in this world can ever cause you physical pain. You are new to this path, aren’t you? How very strange.” The dolphin swam around him as it talked now, examining him the way people would if it were in an aquarium. “Yes. I only just woke up, but I am still learning what my limitations are.” He reached out and felt the soft, slippery skin of the dolphin slide across his hand. It made a noise that sounded like a giggle and whipped its tail up and down. “Don’t fear limitations, they belong to the corporeal beings of this planet. You cannot die again, you have already crossed that threshold. You can feel emotional pain, but it will not cripple you. You have more power now than you can even imagine, and with time you will begin to grasp what you are capable of. In the meantime, visit us whenever you would like. Goodbye, ethera.” The dolphin swam once more around Jackson and then it whipped away through the water. He had never seen a dolphin swim in its own habitat before, and he was amazed at how quick and graceful it was. It had called him something, but it left before he had a chance to ask what the word meant, and now as he tried to recall it, it was just out of his grasp. His attempts to remember what the dolphin had named him were interrupted by a loud crash above his head, and he looked up to see the water rippling around a shape. The darkness above the water made it difficult to see what was happening, so he moved closer to the surface. As he approached, he saw something thrashing in the water, and he strained to see it. The night sky still made seeing beneath the surface virtually impossible, so Jackson continued still further up. He reached the falling object just as it stopped fighting, and he saw that it was a young girl. Her shape had originally been difficult to make out because of the formal dress still flowing around her. Jackson reached her just as the last of her dress sunk from the surface, and he was aware of the people who were gathering on the bridge to witness the tragic scene without actually being able to see them. He looked at the girl, falling through the water in slow motion, and he knew that she had somehow survived her fall. The impact had given her a violent shock, but now she had given up her battle, and she was well on her way to drowning. Her eyes were half open, and they looked at him blankly, as if she were already a corpse. He looked into them, and he saw that she was 17. Her name was Angela, and she had recently been cheated on by her boyfriend. She had found him with her best friend at their Prom, having sex in the back seat of his car while she waited for them to come back from the bathroom. All of these things flooded Jackson’s mind in an instant, and he knew that the events he was witnessing happened that same night. She had been crushed and decided that life was no longer worth living. He saw her walking the path along the side of the bridge, and he saw drivers passing by and laughing at the strange girl walking in her dress. She had come to the highest point of it and stood looking out at the sliver of moon that lit up the ocean. The light shimmered on the surface, and she saw a dolphin swim up to the top. She had thought for a second that it had looked at her, even imagined that it told her to become one of them. At the last second, as she balanced on a railing and a truck screeched to a halt to try and stop what they were just realizing was a suicide attempt, she had changed her mind. By then though, it was too late, and a gust of wind had thrown her balance off enough to send her plummeting to the sea. For a moment, Jackson wondered if saving her would even be kind, given the pain that her old life held for her. He had experienced more in his first couple days of death than in any year of his life, and he thought that she would appreciate the chance to see what he had seen. Her mouth hung open, and bubbles of air escaped, becoming less and less frequent. She had not drowned yet, but he knew that she would soon. He searched deeper and found her family, waiting for her to come home, and he saw them taking pictures with her before she left for the dance. They were so proud, and her parents watched their oldest daughter leave with a boyfriend that they trusted. He felt the worry that would creep into them as the night dragged on without her coming home, and the loss that they would feel when they finally heard their worst nightmares realized. He thought of Amanda, holding him as he died in her arms, and he knew immediately that he could not let anyone’s life be cut short, no matter how amazing the next chapter could be. He grabbed for her behind her neck and her knees, but his hands went straight through her. Her time was running short, and Jackson began to panic. He looked into her eyes again, searching for her, and she seemed to recognize that he was there. He begged her to start fighting and swim back up, but her strength was spent. He pleaded with her, staring deep into the blue eyes that would soon lose all their life, and suddenly, he felt stronger. Her eyes closed, and he thought that she was gone, but then they shot wider than before, and the light in them grew brighter. He stared at it, and it intensified more and more. Finally, the light shot out of them, and Jackson was unable to turn away before the beam poured into his own eyes. He could feel her strength in it, and he thought that her soul was passing into him. The beam burned for a few seconds, and then it went dark. Her eyes fell shut again, and he thought again that she had died until he noticed that she had stopped falling. He looked down and saw that she was resting in his arms. He shot to the surface as fast as he could. The crowd above them gasped and screamed as the girl resurfaced, but none of them could see the true reason for her salvation. He had to consciously stop himself from lifting her higher than the water, and he held her head high enough to keep any more water from entering her mouth. She lay still in his arms, and he waited to see if he had been too late, even as he understood that he had acted just in time to save the girl’s life. He closed his eyes, seeing the water that already seeped into her lungs, and he pushed at it as if it were a block standing in front of him. He willed it up, and as he saw it coming into the back of her throat, she coughed and spat up the liquid that had tried to end her life. Her eyes crept open, and her wet hair clung to her face, making it impossible for her to see anything. She could feel the arms holding her, but when she wiped her hair out of her eyes, nothing was there. She panicked, and started to struggle, and Jackson spoke to her without using his voice. “I have you. You’re going to be fine.” She settled down almost instantly, and laid back into the arms of what she would later describe as “her angel.” She didn’t fight anymore, and he held her against him, relieved that she had been able to hear him, until a rescue boat came by and picked her up. Jackson rode in the ambulance with her, holding her hand, invisible to everyone, and when he finally let her go as she was wheeled into the hospital to her joyful family, he knew that her life had been worth saving.

-4-

Leaving the hospital, Jackson thought about everything that happened over his first days on this side. He had learned so much already, and he knew that Marcus was right about things he would have to learn himself. He didn’t know how much more there was to learn, but his mother had always told him that he would learn something new everyday, and if this day was any indication, even she hadn’t known the depths of truth in that old axiom. He reflected on holding the girl, and how he couldn’t grab her at first. In fact, up until the point where she suddenly rested in his arms, he hadn’t been able to touch anything on that side of the looking glass other than a couple of animals. What had happened that allowed him to hold her? He had looked into her eyes and seen a bright light pull into him, but how? Was it something that she did? He thought that maybe it was a part of her soul and feared that he lowered her chances of surviving, but when they arrived at the hospital, the paramedics told the doctors that the girl was stable. He felt that she would be fine, even before they said that, and he didn’t have any indication that he took a part of her soul, but that still felt close to what happened. He had caught a drowning girl and carried her up to the surface. How was that possible? Did he just want it enough to will it to happen? That didn’t seem right, because he wanted to save her before that and failed. In fact, he had all but given her up for dead when the light came on and he found himself actually holding her. The light had to be the key, but what was it? Jackson thought he knew how to find out. Chapter 4

Walking through the park, Jackson saw a large group of people watching a mime. They were all watching intently, so he thought it was as good a group as any to test his theory on. They were standing, strangely mesmerized by the white-faced man, and Jackson could easily slip in front of them to look into their eyes for that same light that he felt he needed to touch other things. He decided to try a young girl, someone close in age to his rescued victim, thinking that it might be something age-specific. He walked in front of a brunette who was about his height, making it easy for him to look into her eyes. He stood between her and the mime, but she didn’t even blink as she watched the silent performance continue. Jackson stared at her, and he knew all about her instantly. She was skipping school that day, and she was a senior in high school, so she was slightly older than he had first guessed. She was supposed to be meeting her college age boyfriend here so that they could sneak off together. Her parents did not approve of her dating older guys, and they feared that they only wanted one thing from her. They had shared their fears with the girl, who he knew was named Stefanie. He even knew that she spelled it with an f, and that she cursed her parents for the unique spelling, because it meant that she would have to spell it for anyone who asked it for the rest of her life. She had listened to their fears about the boys, then dismissed them as any teenager would have done, but in the end she agreed not to see anyone older than she was. What they didn’t know was that Stefanie was dating a college boy for exactly the same reasons. She was curious about sex, mostly because her parents always told her that it was forbidden, and because she was a hormone filled teenager. Her parents’ prohibition, and their lack of any real explanation for why past the obvious Biblical justification, pushed her to find someone to experiment with. She wisely didn’t trust any of the boys at her school to keep their mouths shut. Also, she didn’t want an awkward boy for her first time, she wanted a man who knew what he was doing, so she snuck out to a college party a few weeks ago, and now she was skipping school to meet the boy she met that night. Jackson could feel her heart beating fast, knowing that she might no longer be a virgin by the end of the day, and her feelings made him think about being that age. There was so much he still hadn’t known then, and he realized that he wasn’t in a much different position now. He looked into her eyes, taking in all this in the time it takes a butterfly to flap its wings, and he searched for the light that was his goal. When he didn’t find it, he tried to imagine it pulling up from deep inside her, and he thought that he could feel it. He wanted to save the drowning girl’s life more than anything, and he assumed that it was his overwhelming desire to help her that brought the force out of her. He knew that he couldn’t recreate that necessity again here standing in the park, so he focused all of his attention deep in her eyes, feeling as if he were climbing inside of them, and he saw a glint ahead of him. He searched deeper, wondering how far he could go without her noticing, and the glint became brighter. It grew and came closer, and he backed away a little. The light continued, and it seemed to be bigger than in the other girl. He feared that he was taking too much and tried to push it back so that he wouldn’t hurt her, but it was too late. The light rushed at him, and again her eyes flew open like a storm door assaulted by a tornado. The light poured out of them and into his own, and he feared that everyone around would be awed by the spectacle in front of them. When the light stopped though, no one seemed to have noticed at all. Jackson looked around, expecting someone to be looking at the girl, even thinking she must have made a noise, but everyone’s attention stayed on the man with the makeup in the center of the crowd. He turned back to Stefanie, but she didn’t even seem to have noticed anything at all. It was as if he had been a mosquito sneaking up to drink her blood without her ever knowing, and all she would have to show for the intrusion would be an itchy bump later that day. But that was almost what he was doing, wasn’t it? He was draining something from her to be able to touch things on the other side. He knew that he hadn’t hurt her, and he thought that the feeling was stronger than the first time. Maybe he took more energy from her, he thought, and he worried that he took too much. As he stood in front of her, though, he could feel that whatever he took from her replenished before he even turned to check the other people. He wanted to test his theory further, so he walked towards the mime who had started juggling bowling pins. As they flew through the air, Jackson reached out and tapped one of them, sending it just off course enough to fall past the mime’s outstretched hand. When he bent down to pick it up, Jackson pantsed him. The crowd went wild, thinking it was all part of the act. The mime however, knew that something had interfered with him, something that he couldn’t see, and the thought terrified him. He packed up his things, trying to remain calm, and bowed for the crowd before hurrying away. Jackson felt a little like a bully, but that feeling was quickly replaced by enormous joy. His theory was confirmed, and now he knew how he could touch things that were real, although his definition of what was real was being rewritten again and again since his untimely demise. Jackson was in the middle of patting himself on the back when he noticed Stefanie talking with her boy friend. He snuck over to them, peering into her suitor’s eyes for a glimpse of his intentions, and he saw into the boy’s life. He lived in a fraternity house, and before he left he told his brothers about the girl he was getting ready to have sex with. They applauded him, of course, and he promised to bring a souvenir. The brothers requested that he bring the girl back to the house for their “special initiation into the brotherhood,” and he agreed. Jackson could see that the special initiation consisted of sharing his conquest with his friends, whether she agreed or not. He was shocked, and knew that he could not let anything happen to the girl, so he followed them. As he did, he wondered what made him feel so strongly about her. He knew that this was the right thing to do, but despite what happened in the river, he was no Clark Kent. He chalked it up to the connection he established by borrowing from the girl, but whatever it was, he felt an imperative to follow them and prevent anything that could permanently damage this beautiful girl. A part of him felt like she was his little sister now. He thought about the drowning girl, and realized that he felt the same way about her too, and he wondered how long that bond could last.

-2-

They reached the fraternity house, and Jackson could sense the girl’s nervousness as if it were his own. She was excited, but the prospect of entering this place was not what she had expected. Her companion assured her that everything was alright, and that he just wanted her to meet his friends, but the lie had a stench to it that Jackson could almost see around the boy. He wondered if the connection to Stefanie went both ways, and if she could sense his nervousness at all. If she could, he tried to make her feel safer, to let her know that he was here to protect her. If it worked, she didn’t show any sign of it. Inside, the brothers were all in the basement, getting ready for some kind of hazing activity for the new pledges. Jackson’s connection to the brother showed him that they had an altar set up, and they were planning on trying to fool the freshmen into believing that someone was going to be sacrificed. They even convinced one of the sorority sisters to pretend to be a virgin and act terrified to really sell the bit. Before that, however, they made plans to sacrifice a virgin in an entirely different way, and as soon as Stefanie entered the house, they sensed her like a pack of wild animals. They came up from the basement all at once, and she was surprised by how many of them there were. Her new friend introduced her to all of them, and she said that she would never remember all of their names. One of them laughed and told her that was for the best. They stared at her like it was feeding time at the zoo, and she didn’t even know it. Jackson tried to remember a time that he was so naïve, but it was too far gone to recall. The boy led Stefanie upstairs, not even giving her time to say goodbye to anyone, and the other brothers craned their necks to try and see up the short yellow skirt that she wore to see if she had anything on underneath. Jackson stayed with the brothers, knowing that the boy alone was harmless for the time being. It was the animals that he was worried about, and they quickly gave him good reason to be. “God, I can’t wait to see that.” “Hell, I can’t wait to be in that.” Adolescent boys were so primitive, Jackson thought. How they ever managed to become good men was a mystery, but he knew that most of them never did, and these boys were certainly in that group. “Do we have to wait for him to go first?” “Of course you ass. He landed her, he gets first shot. Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn. Or two.” This was the oldest looking of the boys, and Jackson sensed that he was the fraternity president. He would be the one later that night plunging the retractable knife into the barely clothed “virgin,” and he would be the first in line when the trouble started here with Stefanie. Jackson thought about borrowing from him to make sure that he was able to stop this if it got out of hand, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted what that boy had inside him. He felt strong, but he thought that he should probably charge up just in case. He walked through the room, checking out his potential batteries, and decided on a fairly simple looking guy sitting on a couch watching TV. He had no interest in the debauchery of his brothers, and Jackson sensed none of the nastiness that surrounded him when he was in the room with the others. As he looked into the large boy’s eyes, he understood that this brother didn’t want to be a part of anything in this frat, but he was a legacy, and his father insisted. He lived in the house, again at his father’s request, but he would engage in almost nothing with the brothers of the house. The president did not like this brother, and he would give anything to be rid of him, but a legacy is a legacy, and in the end, their hands were tied and they were forced to allow him in. Jackson searched for the light, and found that it came easier this time. He didn’t shield himself from it anymore, knowing that it couldn’t hurt him. The light came, and Jackson noticed that when it flared out of the young man’s eyes, his jaw fell slack, and he wondered if the time that passed during the transfer just melted out of people’s memories when it finished. He allowed more of the light to enter him, not cutting it off like before, and he got the sense that he could drain most, but not all of the man’s life force, and it would still recharge itself. He did not think that he could ever take enough to end someone’s life, but it wasn’t a theory he wanted to test. When he felt fully charged, he stopped and turned to see the brothers starting to make their way upstairs. He floated up through the floors of the house to get ahead of them. Jackson came up through the floor just as Stefanie and the other boy were finishing, and he was glad to see the smile on her face. It hurt her, he had no doubt about that, but overall the experience had been a pleasant one. The boy smiled sweetly at her, but when he turned away, Jackson saw the grin of a man who is about to do something he shouldn’t. He left her in the bed, claiming to get her a drink, but when he went into the bathroom, he slipped something into the water. As he waited for it to dissolve, he stepped back into the room to talk to her, and Jackson took the opportunity to switch the glasses. The boy came back, took the glasses in, and watched as she drank all of the water. He then drank his own and climbed back into the bed, expecting to occupy her until she passed out. Jackson slipped out through the door to find the brothers waiting, almost drooling on themselves. “Okay, when we hear the knock, we can go in, and she’ll be asleep, just like last time.” It was the president explaining the protocol, and Jackson felt sick to his stomach to know that this was not a unique occurrence. He felt that after he was finished, this would be the last time they attempted it though. “The lights will be off, so we can go in, but only one person gets to have her at a time. Remember, go for the backdoor, cause a baby counts as evidence, and when she wakes up, she’ll be so embarrassed at herself that she’ll never tell a soul. Best of all, she’ll never see any of us, so we all get off, literally, free and clear.” Their plan was so stupid it was shocking, but it had obviously worked before, and Jackson came up with an idea of how to turn it against them. He slipped back through the door to find a worried Stefanie shaking her new boyfriend, trying to wake him up. He could tell from her panic that she thought he was dead. “Caden, Oh God, please wake up. Did you have a heart attack? What the hell happened? How am I going to get home? Please wake up?” She tried to remain calm and quiet so that no one else could hear her. She didn’t want the brothers to get mad and do something to her for revenge. Jackson crept up behind her and spoke her name. She jumped and turned around, looking for someone in the room with them. A speakerphone was on the table, and she assumed that the voice had come from it. Jackson didn’t try to change her mind. “Stefanie, you have to listen to me.” She was struck by how real the voice sounded, but the most logical explanation is the easiest to believe, so she stayed with it. “Something bad is going to happen if you stay here. You need to leave. There is a porch with a ladder down to the ground outside that window. Get dressed, and use it to get out. Don’t make a sound, and never come back to this place again.” “But, I need to-“ “Go now.” His voice raised, and it startled her. He didn’t want to scare her, to risk scarring her from this experience, but if he didn’t get her out, the scars would be much worse. She looked at the door, afraid again that someone could hear, but the voice warning her was only audible to one person. “Who are you?” “Someone who doesn’t want to see a nice girl get hurt. Get out of here. Go back to school, and remember how close you came to real trouble here. Stefanie, it’s time. Go.” He didn’t speak again, and he was glad to see that he didn’t have to. She got up, dressed in a hurry, and carried her shoes to not make any more noise. When she safely reached the ground, Jackson proceeded with his plan. First, he cut off all the lights and drew the heavy curtains to make it perfectly dark in the room. A quick search of the room produced a drawer full of girls’ underwear. Trophies, he supposed. He found a pair that had been intentionally split in the back to provide easier access and carried them to the bed, slipping them on the passed out boy in the bed with a pillow under his waist to lift him into a ready position. He rolled him over on his stomach, gagging him with his own boxers, and used a strip of cloth that held the curtains open to bind his hands to the headboard. He put a pillowcase over his head and stepped back to admire his handiwork. He wasn’t sure if it would convince anyone, but he thought that the animals outside were too worked up to discriminate. He walked to the door, knocked twice, and stood back. When the president entered he saw the pink satin panties on the raised ass, and Jackson could almost see the wolf’s mouth start to water. He closed the door behind him, the brothers outside cheered, and he began his unspeakable deed for the last time.

-3-

Overall, Jackson was proud of himself, although his methods made him feel a little guilty. He reminded himself that justice was served, and that most importantly, he protected a young girl whose life would never have been the same after an experience like that. He wondered how many other girls fell victim to those same assholes, and the question extended to the young girls all over the world and the predators who threatened them. He stood in front of a series of televisions turned to news channels, watching the world crumbling all around him. Rape, murder, war, hurricanes, floods, an unending onslaught of death and destruction everywhere he looked. It was in that moment that Jackson Hamilton decided how best to use his newfound abilities. Chapter 5

In New York, a woman ran down a dark alley, trying to escape two attackers in ski masks. He floated above them, watching the men gain ground on the well-dressed lady, listening to her begging for mercy. He wondered why all thieves wear ski masks, and then looked down to see the woman faint as they reached her. They were rifling through her purse when he dropped down between them, and neither of them noticed the lady’s eyes flipping open. Even if they had, they still wouldn’t see the bright light coming from them, and they definitely wouldn’t see the man borrowing from her, charging himself and getting ready to teach them a lesson they would remember for the next 15 years of prison. As they finished collecting their booty, their masks were pulled off of their faces and thrown down the alley. They looked at each other, shock pulling the color out of both of them. Before they could say a word, the force of a heavyweight boxer struck the taller man in the gut, and the wind left him faster than his color. The shorter thief stared at his partner, listening to him coughing and trying to pull the wind back, until a punch sent him flying back into the wall behind across the alley. The man wheezing on the ground spun around to see his partner lying unconscious and tried to scramble to his feet, but an unseen leg swept them out from under him, and his head cracked on the pavement, making a sound like a pumpkin being dropped on Halloween. When the police found the scene, the woman stood over her assailants, and even though the officers didn’t believe it themselves, their report read that she incapacitated them herself. In Brooklyn, a man who beat his wife for more than two years came home drunk and decided to put the finishing touches on their marriage. Unfortunately for him, he passed through Jackson on the way, revealing not just his past but his intentions for the evening. The man stumbled into his apartment, calling for his “bitch wife and their idiot son” so he could repay them for ruining his life, but he never made it to the bedroom where they were sleeping. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and threw his keys down on the table. Before he could take a swig, they bounced back up at him. Actually, they were caught and thrown back at him, and he knew that he saw just that, but he would never admit it to anyone. The keys hit him in the forehead, staggering him back against the door. Instead of falling to the floor, the jagged metal pressed against him, marking his forehead with a shape that he would have to look at in the mirror every day for the rest of his life. The fact that he planned to inflict the exact same punishment on his wife once he finished his beer was not lost on him, and as the blood trickled down into his eye, he heard a voice tell him “No more.” When he sat in a confessional the next day for the first time in two decades, he told the priest that God spoke to him that night and saved his life, as well as his family’s. The priest didn’t doubt him for a second. Jackson moved throughout the city, becoming faster every time he tried. He was able to borrow from people with minimal effort now, and they never suspected anything. Sometimes he even borrowed from the people he was stopping, and it helped him understand why they were committing their crimes. He took just enough to establish the connection, and no parts of their personalities entered into his own, but understanding them helped him to show the criminals the error of their misdeeds in unmistakable ways. Miracles were everywhere that year, and thousands of people were saved as a result of it. Everyone he came in contact with attributed it to fate, or God, or angels, because none of them could even begin to imagine the truth, and Jackson found that he preferred the anonymity. If anyone ever did figure out what was happening, he feared that they would be scared instead of inspired, and he understood why Marcus had warned him against being discovered. Even the people that he saved were often terrified by the unseen force that came to their rescue, and he was glad that they explained these miracles away. For a while he felt guilty for giving them false hope, but he soon realized that any hope was better than none, so he pressed on with the thought that people would have something to believe again. For the churches in areas where he saved people, attendance (and tithing) was the highest in 20 years. Every time he saved a baby, helped a woman escape a car wreck uninjured, or kept a man from jumping off his balcony, people believed that God was at work, and the true culprit was more than happy to let Him take the credit. After all, someone had put him on this path in the first place.

-2-

He missed the one year anniversary of his death without even knowing it. Without sleep, work, or any of the other routines that defined his earthly existence, time seemed to slip out of mind too. He only figured out that the day had passed when he stopped a man from robbing a movie theater and noticed the release date of a new movie. When he did, he felt a fresh stab of pain as he thought about Amanda for the first time in months. He had debated trying to find her for a while, before he became totally consumed with his mission to help the world, and he guessed that helping all of these people was his way of keeping her off his mind. Thinking about her was torture for him, but now he helped people and changed lives, and that felt better than anything that he accomplished during his breathing years. He knew that she was still out there, he could feel that much, but he couldn’t imagine where she might be. He never looked for her, deciding that including her in his existence on this plane wouldn’t be fair to her. She deserved her own life, and he could never give her the things that she needed in his current state. He told himself that if their paths were meant to cross again, fate would make it so. As it turned out, fate played a much larger role in his new life than he even realized, since the majority of the people he saved were people that he happened to find in a precarious position. He rarely went looking for someone to help, finding that if he just hung around somewhere long enough, especially in a big city, he could find someone who needed some assistance. He checked the paper to find stories of the rescues, and he was glad to see that nothing made major headlines, but the paper also provided him with evidence of how much work there was still to be done. If not for Jackson’s fear of being discovered, he could have set up shop in New York for years, there was certainly enough crime in the area to make it possible. The city never slept, as the saying went, and he thoroughly enjoyed all of the areas that he could take up residence while he waited for his next rescue. In the end it was a close call that finally sent him west. He was on his way back to the Empire State Building, one of his favorite haunts, when a scream floated up from below him. He rushed down to find its source, settling on the roof of a school where the sound seemed to come from. Another shout told him that he was in the right spot and he slid through the roof and into a hallway where a teenage boy was walking away from him. At the other end of the hall, people were screaming and trying to duck into classrooms or pushing each other towards the staircases. Jackson took a second to survey the situation and noticed an adult crumpled on the floor by one of the bathrooms. He moved over to the man, kneeling next to him, only to find that he had been shot in the chest. The blood filling the man’s shirt gave Jackson an eerie flashback, and he left the scene for a moment, his mind swimming back to relive his own death. A gunshot back in the hallway snapped him back, and he sped in front of the boy who was walking ahead of him. He looked into the boy’s eyes, borrowing as he researched the story behind this horror, and he saw other students picking on the boy (named Todd) for being poor, smelling bad, falling asleep in class, and on and on. Todd reached his boiling point, and with no end in sight, he decided to end the torment on his own terms. Just as Jackson borrowed enough from him, the boy pulled another gun out of the waistband of his pants and aimed it at a girl cowering in front of him. Todd pulled the trigger, and Jackson had just enough time to swat at the bullet, knocking it off its original path to the girl’s head. It ricocheted off the floor, grazing her leg before burying into a locker. Todd’s head pulled back, and he looked at the gun for a second before aiming again. This time, Jackson hit the gun, knocking it up towards the ceiling, and the bullet lodged itself harmlessly into the concrete above the lockers. He dropped the gun, lifting the shotgun that he carried originally, and he spun around brandishing it. “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing?” He pumped the weapon and aimed it in all directions, looking for a reason to fire. Jackson stood calmly in front of him, waiting for a few more people to escape before he took the gunman out. The boy fired a shot into the lockers on the other side, knocking a couple of them open and causing their contents to spill out. “I said who the fuck are you?” He fired again, and Jackson took the opportunity to grab the barrel of the gun, forcing it upwards into the boy’s chin. It hit hard, and he let go of the weapon, leaving it hovering in the air for a split-second before Jackson dropped it safely to the ground. Blood dribbled down from the spot where the gun made contact, and the blow seemed to daze him. Jackson followed with a kick to the chest, and the force of it lifted the boy, sending him crashing into the water fountain nearly ten feet away. The crouching girl never lifted her eyes from her hands, but as Jackson looked past the unconscious attacker, he saw another student with a cell phone, apparently videotaping the entire exchange. As he watched, the boy with the phone turned and shouted to his classmates. “He’s out, come here, you have got to see this. He flew across the hall without anything touching him.” Jackson shot to the boy’s side, looking over his shoulder at the scene replaying on the tiny screen. He saw the gun flip up, hitting Todd in the face before hanging in mid-air, then saw the boy flying across the hallway and collapsing on the fountain. As more students crowded around and the teachers tried to restore order, Jackson knocked the cell phone down into a herd of students heading the other way, making sure that it was crushed in the stampede. The boy who filmed it looked around, trying to figure out who sent his favorite toy to its death, but a teacher shoved his shoulder and told him to get back to his homeroom. All in all, there was only one person killed in the shooting, but the legend of how it ended spread through the school, and then the area surrounding it, with alarming speed. By the time the reporters got there, the story had taken on several different levels, including some Matrix-like time stopping and a masked vigilante who disappeared as soon as he defeated the young criminal. Of course, very little credence was given to these tales, but the idea was planted, and so Jackson decided to move on to a new location until the story ran out of gas. Small towns seemed like a good location, but it didn’t take long for Jackson to realize that they presented an entirely new set of problems. He chose to leave his next home after an incident where a teenage mother tried to leave a baby in a dumpster behind the restaurant where she worked. He rescued it, but the owner of the restaurant saw the baby being lifted out, and the story took off there too. Fox News was even in town to take the story national, but in the end, the owner’s alcoholism was discovered, and the town decided that he saved the baby himself and made up the story. They attributed his story to being the baby’s illegitimate (and illegal, since the girl was 15) father, and had him arrested. When paternity tests proved otherwise, he was freed, but the damage was done by then and the man was forced to move from his home of 30 years. Small towns’ minds don’t change easily, no matter what any paternity tests might say. This second mistake troubled Jackson even more than the first, and for a while he considered giving up crime-fighting altogether. What bothered him the most was the man being chastised for telling the truth, and the fact that he was unable to come out and defend him. He witnessed every moment of the ordeal, unable to leave until he saw it resolved or helped the man escape himself. Watching an innocent man sit in jail and wonder if he would ever see freedom again, Jackson wrestled with his own future. He knew that there were millions of people that needed help, and he felt that the good he accomplished outweighed a few mistakes, but Marcus’s warning still held firm at the front of his mind, and he feared that another mistake could bring tragedy for him, as well as the rest of the spirits like him. As he thought about his next move, he considered the fact that Marcus was the only one like him that he had met in the time since his death, and he wondered why. Jackson resigned to take a break from the saving business to look for someone who could help him deal with the loneliness that he felt. Having someone else in his same situation would allow him to help even more people, and the two of them would be able to be more cautious about who witnessed their good deeds. He thought about his next destination, and decided on Vegas, a place he had not visited since his transition. He and Amanda loved to go there together, and he was afraid that being there would bring back too many memories, making the process of letting her go even harder. A few months prior, he heard a report on the news that something terrible happened to her, and he felt a sick excitement as he thought about them being together again, but it turned out to be someone else that shared her name, and the shame he felt at being happy for her death crushed him. It was that pain that finally convinced him to not seek her out anymore. His mission now was to find a friend on this side, someone he could share his death with the way he wanted to share his life with her. He wasn’t sure why Vegas seemed like the place to go, but something seemed to pull him there, so he followed his instinct.

-3-

As he sailed over Middle America heading for the desert, Jackson looked down on all the towns he was passing. He knew that they needed help too, and he hoped that eventually he would be able to help everybody. He was getting stronger, he knew that, and it was certainly a possibility that one day he could move around with no fear of discovery. Maybe one day he would even be able to reveal to the world who he was and what he was really capable of doing. In the back of his mind, given recent events, he doubted that such a day would ever come, but he was hopeful nonetheless. After all, wasn’t he doing this to inspire hope in regular people? If they could have it, couldn’t he be allowed some as well? His thoughts were interrupted by a scream below him that he felt more than heard, and the pain in that scream made him shudder. Looking down, he saw another small town, and he paused, debating the wisdom of helping here. Finally, he decided that something wanted him to hear that scream, so he dropped down to get a better idea of what was happening. The sound as he came closer to the ground reminded him of a train, and his first thought went to someone stuck on tracks with a train coming. He rose again, searched for tracks, and found them, but there was no train in either direction. The noise grew louder, and he noticed that the residents of the town were nowhere to be found. He moved through the downtown area and heard a siren blasting. The noise of it was deafening, and at first it reminded him of a movie he watched about the beginning of a nuclear war. He rose higher, and looked around for something falling from the sky, suddenly afraid that World War 3 was starting and he was the last barrier before it. When the skies held nothing, he looked back down relieved, and understood all at once why everything was so strange. Outside of town, a cloud was spinning in the sky, and the sky itself was a deep shade of green. He could feel the air changing around him, and an odd electricity ran through it. The cloud spun and started to dip down towards the ground. He moved closer and saw dust starting to spin on the ground below it, and the cloud seemed headed for that exact spot. When the funnel appeared, he felt the air around him pulling and made a conscious effort not to move with it. Jackson had never seen a tornado during his life, and now, hovering a hundred feet above the ground, he was glad. The force of it was magnificent, and it moved like a drunk Godzilla through the houses on the outskirts of town. It tore through one house, ripping a gash in it that spilled furniture and possessions like blood pouring from a fresh wound. From there, it moved randomly, going around one house without even touching it before slamming into another with full force. It carved through the neighborhood, leaving both sides of a house untouched while making a path straight through the middle of it which revealed just how unexpected this terror was. In one house, Jackson could see dinner still set on the table, but the kitchen where the dinner was prepared only minutes before was gone, the stove sticking out of a neighbor’s second story window as the fridge took up residence in a nearby pool. From above, he watched it move around, and its path made the choices of houses seem like a predetermined mission. He felt the fear of the citizens, hiding under their houses, praying that it missed their house this time. He heard them bargaining with God to be better people, go to church more, call their mothers, anything, just please God, please don’t let it hit our house. Jackson was awed at the force of the tornado, and he remembered seeing newscasts of these storms’ aftermaths. Faced with its horrors, he thought that the pictures they showed did the damage no justice. He didn’t even know how to begin helping, and all he could do was watch and hope that everyone made it somewhere safe. His hope was dashed as he heard the same voice that initially brought him down here, but this time it was words instead of just a cry of fear. “Where is the baby?” A teenage girl ran through a large opening between several trailers. Jackson moved instantly, and he was beside her. He borrowed from her, and he knew that she was searching for a baby that was not her own. He thought at first that she looked too young to have a child, and now he understood that he was helping her find her baby sister. The initial cry that he heard from above happened when another funnel cloud appeared in front of a truck carrying the girl, along with her sister and their parents. It touched down for the first time right in front of them, and they were unable to stop in time. Her father slammed on the brakes, stalling the truck. When it wouldn’t start again, he turned and told them to run, but the girl, who Jackson saw was named Lucy, was frozen. She watched the funnel racing towards them, and her mother finally slapped her to get her out of the car. She fell out of the truck, cutting her knee on a rock, and the pain brought her back to reality. She limped off, blood draining down her leg, and her mother was ahead of her, carrying the baby. The older woman stopped as Lucy reached her and passed her sister on before racing back towards the truck to help her husband, and Jackson saw that his seatbelt had become stuck, pinning him in. Lucy carried her sister to a nearby trailer, crawling underneath it and turning to look back out just in time to see the cloud reach the truck. The tornado lifted it, with her father still inside, and threw it across the field into a trailer. Lucy screamed as the collision sent a propane tank outside the trailer up in flames, and an explosion rocked the ground. Her mother collapsed on the ground as the truck flew over her head, and Jackson could feel her grief at the knowledge that she had kissed her husband for the last time. She threw her hands up, her screams completely silent under the roar of the tornado, and when it fell upon her, she lifted off with a sense of relief. As all of this rushed into Jackson’s consciousness, he watched the girl searching for the baby. When the tornado lifted the truck, Lucy had climbed out after her mother. When she watched her take off, the girl crumbled, waiting in the path of the tornado. It danced around her, moving straight for the trailer that hid her infant sister. When the baby cried out, Lucy snapped back around just in time to see the trailer flipped over. She never saw what happened to the baby, and Jackson felt at first that there was no chance that the tiny child had survived. He thought that the searching was out of guilt for leaving the baby alone, and that she would continue it long after it was obvious that the search was futile. He was about to help the girl to safety when he heard a faint cry and knew that somehow, the baby was still alive. When he turned towards the sound, he saw that a dog had climbed under the trailer and dragged the baby to safety. The dog whined along with the child, and as he looked at them, its eyes met his. It barked at him, and he sped towards it. Lucy heard the bark and turned to see her sister at almost the same time, and she ran right behind Jackson, looking through him at her sister and her four-legged hero. Jackson reached the trailer but waited for Lucy to get there, watching the tornado to make sure that it was a safe distance away. She caught up to him and dove underneath, skinning her elbows on the gravel and taking no notice. She crawled out the other side, clutching the baby to her face, trying to soothe her sister’s crying while fighting back tears of joy. Jackson came through the trailer, stepping out just in time to hear the dog start barking again. He looked up and saw the funnel cloud bearing down on them, and he tried to pull Lucy and the child to safety, but he was too late. Lucy saw the cloud just as it reached them, and she noticed the dog stepping out in front of them to try and protect them. The brave animal lowered its head and let out its fiercest growl as the tornado picked it up and threw it out of sight, and then the storm was upon them. Jackson grabbed Lucy’s arm, and she turned to see who was holding her. When she saw no one, she panicked, and let go of the baby. Before the child could hit the ground, the wind picked her up, and Jackson grabbed her tiny arm. He held on as hard as he could, but his strength was fading. He tried to borrow from Lucy, but he couldn’t get her eyes to meet his in all the commotion. He could feel the baby being pulled away from him, and he knew that he was going to have to make a choice. Lucy was clutching the trailer, her eyes shut against the dust that was flying fast enough to slice them and leave her blind. Jackson let go of her and held the baby tight against his chest, and the two of them were pulled up into the storm. Lucy’s sobs faded as they were carried up into the center of the funnel. As they flew through, debris passing them by inches on all sides, the tiny baby looked up, and Jackson realized that she could see him. Her cries stopped, and she smiled at him, and he saw a light in her eyes that blinded him the way that the drowning girl’s had. He looked deeper, and he heard a voice that the young girl would never get a chance to use. “Take what you need, friend. You can still save us.” He smiled at her, and returned it. The light that shot from her eyes into his was bright enough that it could have been mistaken for lightning. The dark green sky lit up, and the power of the baby entered into Jackson until he felt that it might split him in half. The child laid her head against his chest, and he held her close as he shot out of the tornado’s center so fast that all below him was a blur. Its force no longer had any pull on him, and he swept down to grab Lucy before taking them both well out of harm’s way. The older sister screamed as they first lifted off the ground, thinking the tornado had come back to finish the last member of the family, and then she passed out. When she woke up, she was sitting on the other side of the town, and her sister was playing in the dirt next to her, unharmed save for a few scratches on her cheeks. Lucy cried for her parents, but mostly out of joy for the miracle that had saved the two of them. Jackson paused only for a second after dropping the two girls off, and the baby smiled at him again. He touched her soft cheek, then bent to kiss the top of her head before rocketing back towards the storm that was still wreaking havoc on this small town. As he approached it again, he saw that it had grown, and it was holding trailers inside of it the way a child would clutch a toy. It spun them for a few seconds and then spit them out, sending them crashing back to earth and shattering them into hundreds of pieces. Sometimes they crashed into other trailers, and the two would become one mash of people’s lives, never to be separated again. He felt the strength from the little girl still surging through him, and he closed his eyes to search out other people. He heard someone crying, and he was instantly beside a woman sitting inside of her house. The tornado was quieter in here, but he knew without seeing it that it was moving this way. The woman was trying to shove things into a duffle bag, and he looked at the table in front of her. She had her birth certificate, her wedding license, and several pictures of people that Jackson knew at once. He saw each of their lives from beginning to end in a flash and knew that they were her family, but they were all gone. She was all alone, and she lived here for a grand total of 3 weeks before this storm came. She was crying and putting things away, but there was no urgency to it. He looked at her and understood that she believed the storm came for her. She meant to pack up these things and go stand outside, waiting for the funnel cloud to run her down. He pulled back and noticed that the sound was getting louder, and he rose above her house to see the tornado barreling towards them, throwing a late model Chevy towards him in the process. He caught it out of reflex, even though it would have easily passed through him, and tossed it aside. It smashed to the ground just outside the window beside the packing woman, and she screamed. She opened her shade to see the tornado coming, and now her speed increased. She shoved the last few things in the bag and went outside, raising her arms and looking straight at the funnel towering over her. She closed her eyes and lowered her head, still keeping her hands up, waiting to be with her family. A mailbox that had been circling the cloud flew out at her, and Jackson stepped in front of it. It crumpled against his chest, and he heard a sound behind him. He turned to see that the woman had collapsed, and knew that she saw the mailbox coming towards her, as well as its sudden impact into something invisible in front of her. The shock, along with her total inability to understand what happened, caused her to simply shut down. He picked her up and carried her a few miles away. She awoke hours later and knew that an angel had saved her for a purpose. Six years later, she won her first attempt at election as a Senator of Missouri. As Jackson crossed back into the tornado’s path, he heard a sound like metal ripping apart, and he turned to see a trailer lifting off of the concrete slab it had been attached to. He expected it to fly towards the tornado when it came free, but it held still, a few feet off the slab. He flew closer to find out what still held it, and suddenly it came straight at him. He saw it flying at him in slow motion, and made the conscious choice to let it pass through him, then turned to watch it crash in the distance. When he looked back at the slab, a man was standing on top of it. He looked at Jackson, and their eyes met each other. “Who are you?” He heard in a voice too clear to have been spoken over the noise of the tornado. He looked at the man, with his blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, and realized that the funnel stood not 20 feet from him, yet he was not affected by its pull in the least. He flew towards the man, their eyes never leaving each other. When he stopped a few feet above him the man rose up to the same level. The man was young, but Jackson had thought that about Marcus as well. His arms were large, and he looked like he had been an athlete before his death. Jackson stared into the man’s stony face, watching as lines of confusion registered all over it. They stared at each other silently, and then a child’s scream broke the tension. Their heads spun around to see the tornado rising over a house, shredding it like a giant blender and throwing the pieces in all directions. When it reached the ground, and the house was just a shell around it, it moved through the wall, crumbling the chimney to dust. It headed towards the storm cellar, and Jackson thought again that it moved as if it had specific targets. The thought chilled him, and as he turned back to say something to the ponytail man, he saw that he already shot off in the direction of the storm. He followed, landing just seconds after the other man, and they both planted feet firmly on top of the cellar doors. The family inside screamed again, and Jackson saw in his mind that a mother and her three sons were crouched inside, huddled in the corner. Their father went after the family dog and ordered them to stay inside. “You’re fast.” The ponytail man looked at him, but the words did not come from his lips. “Nice suit. Who are you?” It had never occurred to Jackson how other people might see him, and he certainly hadn’t noticed the suit he died in being his constant wardrobe. “My name’s Jackson. Who are you?” “Davis. Where did you come from?” “I was flying over and I heard the storm. I’m trying to help as many people as I can.” The children inside screamed again. “The father’s still out there.” “You can tell that?” Davis seemed impressed. “I can feel it. The mother’s inside with the kids. The father went after the dog.” He remembered the dog that helped him save Lucy’s little sister, and knew that it belonged to this family. “The dog’s gone, but the dad’s still alive.” “How can you know that?” Davis was looking at him with awe, but there was something else that Jackson sensed. He thought it was jealousy, but he wrote that off as arrogance on his own part. “I can feel him. He’s still on that side.” He didn’t explain what he meant, but he had a feeling that Davis understood perfectly. “I can go look for him, if you can stay here and hold these doors.” The young man offered. Jackson felt silly that he had not trusted his new ally at first. “Ok. I’ll follow when the storm moves on.” He thought it was strange that it hadn’t already, and he looked up at it, still circling this house as if it held something that it wanted. Davis lifted off the doors, and they bowed out slightly. Jackson forced them shut, causing another outburst from behind them. He watched as Davis lifted up above the funnel, nearly touching the clouds, and then rocketed straight into a house a few hundred yards away. The tornado spun through its current house one last time, scattering what was left of it around in a giant circle, and then moved towards the same house Davis had just entered. Just as it arrived, Davis came crashing through a window, then dashed back in and returned holding a man who Jackson knew to be the father. The tornado tore through the same spot seconds later, and the roof folded in like a house of cards collapsing on itself. Davis dropped the man at Jackson’s feet, and he stepped off the doors. “When will it stop?” Davis was looking after the tornado. “I’m not sure. It’s the first one I’ve ever seen.” The two men watched it ravage the house, then start to move out away from the rest of the houses. It reached a point where there was nothing but dust, and the funnel finally lifted off the ground. The clouds in the sky lowered to meet it like a mother bending to pick up her child, and when the two connected, the tornado melted back into the clouds as quickly as it had come down.

-4-

The calm that followed the storm was totally silent, and it felt eerie after the noise and destruction that had occupied the last few minutes. Jackson and Davis looked around, surveying the damage, and when the cellar doors opened and the family spilled out to find their father lying right outside the doors, unconscious but unharmed, the two invisible men felt as if they were intruding on a special moment, so they lifted above it all. From up here, the carnage was incredible. It looked as though some terrible child had built an entire village of Legos and then kicked and stomped through it, crushing and flinging things in all directions. Jackson tried to find anyone who had lost their lives, and with the exception of Lucy’s parents, he thought that he had saved all of them. Him, he thought, and his new helper. He looked at Davis. “How did you get here?” Davis answered without looking back, still taking in the destruction that lay out before them. “I was about 50 miles south of here, and I heard a news report saying a tornado was coming. I really just wanted to see it for myself, now that I know it can’t hurt me, but when I got here and saw it, I-“ he stopped, and Jackson thought that he was overcome with emotion. “I had to help.” “You did well. How long have you been-“ now it was Jackson’s turn to stop, and he considered how best to phrase his question. Davis finished it for him. “Dead?” “Yes. Yeah I guess that’s as good a way to put it as any.” He wasn’t sure if Davis had come to grips with the word as easily as he had. “9 months.” He paused, considering his answer. “Well, I came back nine months ago.” “Who pulled you up?” The question sounded strange, and Jackson reminded himself that it was the first time he had talked to anybody about this since Marcus, and that had been more than a year ago. “Pulled me up what?” Now Davis turned to look at him, and the look on his face was pure puzzlement. “Pulled you up from, you know.” Again the words were hard to come by. He tried to remember the last conversation he held with anyone and couldn’t. He suddenly realized how much he missed the interaction and knew why he stayed so busy. “From your grave.” “Oh.” Davis seemed caught off guard by the question. “I never got buried, actually. I wrecked my car driving home after a few too many one night. Car landed in a ditch, and of course I wasn’t wearing no seat belt. I cracked my head on the window, never woke up. Couple months later, I sat straight up, thinking it just happened. I looked around, then climbed up out of the car before I turned back and saw my rotting ass sitting there with blood caked all up and down my head. It’s a miracle nothing came along and ate me. I figured out I was some kind of ghost at that point, and then I just started walking around checking things out. Until you, I hadn’t seen anybody else, so I just figured I was the only one.” “How did you learn-“ he stopped the question short, deciding that maybe he shouldn’t run off the one friend he had now by asking tons of stupid questions. “To fly? I don’t really know. I think I just thought it would be cool to do, and then all of a sudden I was doing it. It’s awesome, man, isn’t it?” Jackson nodded his agreement, but the question he had wanted to ask was how Davis had already learned to drink from people. All in due time, he thought. “I’ve been to Egypt, France, hell I even went down to Antarctica to see those damn penguins. I always end up back around here though, I grew up in Bella Vista. It ain’t shit compared to the other places I’ve been, but it feels like home, so I keep going back there.” Jackson felt a swell of emotion at the idea that he had nowhere that felt like home, and it made him miss Amanda again as if he just lost her. Davis noticed the look. “Damn, man I’m sorry if I upset you. I’m just so glad to have somebody to finally talk to about all this. I was starting to believe that I had to spend eternity by my damn self.” His smile faded and he looked at Jackson. “No, no problem.” Jackson forced a smile of his own as he recognized that he had started to feel the same way, although saving people distracted him enough to not have to deal with it. Until now. “Hey, have you ever been to Vegas?” He smiled at Davis. “Naw, man, but I’ve always wanted to see it. Especially at night.” The smile crept back as he grasped that Jackson meant to stick with him. “I bet we can be there by then.” “Can you tell me how you ended up here on the way?” Davis looked at him like a kid looking up to his older brother. Jackson smiled back, completing the look. “I think we can manage that. It’s kind of a long story though, but I’ll do my best.” “We can just fly slower then, right?” Jackson laughed, and Davis thought for a second that he was laughing at him, but then he laughed too. It turned out that they made it just as the lights of Vegas were starting to fire up, and Jackson’s story ended just as they saw them in the distance. Chapter 6

Lucy slept in her aunt’s trailer, her baby sister sleeping soundly in a makeshift crib in the other room. They arrived a few hours ago, and Maggie Turner was more than glad to have them. She was devastated when she saw the news report about the tornado, and feared for her brother and his family. She felt something that she would have called intuition at about the time that the truck was thrown by the tornado, killing her only sibling, and she cried like a newborn baby when she saw the footage and recognized what was left of the truck. She cried like a mother seeing her own baby for the first time when her niece called her to tell her that they survived. She drove to get them immediately, and now they were both sleeping. She checked in on them, smiling, but feeling incredibly sad for their loss. She knew that their lives were forever changed that day, but what she didn’t know was that their suffering would be short lived. Aunt Maggie closed the door to the baby’s room and crept back into the kitchen. She was getting something ready for the kids to eat in the morning when she heard her cat make a terrible noise outside. It sounded like it was fighting something, but when she looked out, it was hunched up into an upside-down U, and if the noise it was making hadn’t been so damned horrible, she would have laughed at the site of it. All of its fur was sticking straight up, and it was hissing and growling at the same time. It faced down the sidewalk, and she stuck her head out the window to see what it was fired up about. When she saw nothing there, she cursed and smacked the windowsill, telling it to shut up before she came out there and shut it up, but it kept right on. She opened her door to go out and get it before it woke the baby, but the noise stopped suddenly, followed by a crack and a sound like a watermelon hitting concrete. She felt a chill run up her spine, and the same intuition that had told her that she was an only child told her to get back in the house and lock the door. She did just that, going around and closing the windows after she did. When she went back into her living room, she felt like she was in a beer cooler, and thought for a second that she could see her breath. Maggie walked over to the air conditioner sticking in from her window, thinking that she hadn’t even cut it on yet this year on account of the nice breeze that was around. When she found that she was right, she spun around, and this time she definitely could see her breath. She shivered, and it took an extra long time to run all the way up her spine. When it finished, she said aloud “Hello?” feeling extraordinarily stupid. She told herself that she just caught a draft when she was closing the windows, and that she needed to relax. The stress of the day was getting to her. She cut the TV on, just to have some noise, and it clicked back off. She fumbled for the remote and cut if on again, dropping down into her old leather recliner. As soon as she hit the button and the hum penetrated the room, it clicked off again. She looked down at the remote, then at the dark screen, and she saw him. Someone was standing right behind her. She jumped up and turned around, but no one was there. She laughed a nervous laugh and sat back down, telling herself that she was being foolish. She wasn’t very convincing, she thought, and when she cut the TV on one last time, she saw a face in it that filled her with a terror she could never imagine. His eyes were solid black, but darker than that, they were hollow. They looked through her, and she could feel him inside of her. It wasn’t a sexual feeling, but it felt like he had his hands inside of her, playing with her organs and rearranging them however he felt they should go. His nose was misshapen, and pointed out like a dagger at her. His nostrils flared, and it was the only sign that he was even moving, because the eyes held their steely glare. His lips curled up on the left side in a sarcastic grin that could have been attractive to her on another man, but here it made her feel as if she were an animal in some hunter’s trap. She tried to cry out, but her voice did not belong to her anymore, and no sound came out. She tried again, and the dark eyes got somehow darker, showing her a blackness that was more than just the absence of light. Light could not survive in those eyes, it would swallow it whole. She tried to look away, but he pulled her in, and she climbed out of her chair and moved closer to him. He was horrible, the most terrifying thing she had ever seen, but somehow she wanted to be close to him. She wanted to smell him, to feel his soft skin, even though as she looked at it on her TV she thought that it reminded her of a snake’s scales. She wanted to kiss him, God help her, and she didn’t have any idea why she could possibly want that. She wanted to kiss him and have him hold her and have him be inside of her, in that way, and to feel him all through her body. When she reached the TV, his lips curled again, and they opened just enough for her to see his teeth, which were a terrible yellow, all of them pointed like an alligator’s. He seemed to have rows of them, and as he opened his mouth wider, she saw they were infinite, like looking in an open mirrored cabinet reflecting on itself. There was no end to those teeth, and still she wanted to kiss him. His mouth snapped shut and he spoke to her, through yellow teeth that were not open. “Maggie.” The voice sounded far off, but all around her at the same time. “Yes.” She answered, trying to tell if she actually spoke aloud. Her lips were pursed, and she held them so tight they were turning white, but she answered him anyway, and she knew that he heard her. He told her what to do, and she went across the room, into the kitchen. She went happily, wanting to make him pleased with her. She went into the kitchen and took a knife from the block beside the stove. As she held it up, she saw a quick reflection of him in the blade, standing behind her. She spun around, and had a quick vision of thrusting the knife into him, but she knew before the thought finished that she could never hurt him. She loved him more than anyone she had ever loved, but she couldn’t say why. She looked back at the TV, and he was gone now. She heard him in her, around her, and she nodded again. She held the knife to her throat and drew it across in a wide arc. The pain was unbearable, but she continued, because he asked her to. What shocked her most was not that she was alive while she did it, but that there was not a single drop of blood escaping from the huge wound she was inflicting on herself. When she finished, she dropped the knife, and she felt him inside of her again. A hand shot out of the hole she made, and it forced her head to fall back all the way against her spine. She had a brief memory of a toothbrush commercial about a flip-top head, and that was the last thought that Maggie Turner ever had.

-2-

He reached out through the hole in the woman’s throat, grasping for anything that would allow him to take hold and pull the rest of the way out. He hated being inside the living, but it gave him power unlike anything else he found in the centuries he walked among them. They had a smell to them, a rotting smell, and he thought of them as diseased cocoons for an incredible spirit. He knew what people were capable of after they crossed over, and he had accomplished more than most, but it was never enough. As long as he shared his existence with these wretched husks, he would inflict as much pain as possible on them. As he pulled his boots out of her throat, Maggie’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor. He smiled at the knowledge that she would never get to experience life on this side of the looking-glass, thanks to his healthy appetite for souls, and his yellowed teeth caught a bit of the full moon’s light. He could smell the other two in the house, and he wanted so badly to have them. They would join him soon enough, and then he could have his way with the girl over and over. The baby was his target all along, and he would have been perfectly content to let them die a natural death in the tornado that he conjured up earlier, but his will had been denied by one of his own kind. It was the first time anyone opposed him successfully, and he watched it all unfold with anger growing like a weed inside him. He planned everything for so long, and he needed the baby out of the way if his ultimate goal was ever to be reached. The tornado seemed easy enough, and who would ever suspect anything in the wake of all that death and destruction. He laughed as the people prayed to God to help them, and he even called out to some of them, telling them that God abandoned them and that he was their only hope now. It was all so damn much fun, right up until that man had arrived, swooping in like some half-ass superhero and trying to save these two, despite the fact that they were ordained to end their miserable existence that day. He walked around the house, listening to the sounds of them sleeping, and he came upon Lucy first. He borrowed deeply from her, although not the way that Jackson did. Jackson had thought of himself as a vampire as he borrowed before, but that description proved much more accurate for the man who held the poor girls head in his hands now. She struggled to wake up, but he continued, more than full now but wanting all of her for himself. To the doctors, it would look like the girl died in her sleep, and they would not even bother with an autopsy. It wouldn’t matter if they did, there would be nothing that would show them the horror that she faced in her last moments of life, and definitely nothing that showed the horror she would experience in death. She dreamt of falling, and then of being torn to pieces, and finally of her family being killed over and over again right in front of her, only this time the tornado was not the killer. It was a large man with dark eyes in a large black coat, spinning around and tossing them against the walls that surrounded her. They would bounce back towards him every time as their bones shattered and their bodies flew through the air like dolls, and he would continue to spin and throw them back against the concrete, leaving large red splotches every time they hit. In the end, she begged him to end her life, to let her be with her family, and he happily obliged. When Lucy’s last breath left her chest, the dark man turned and went into the last room to find the sleeping baby. The tiny girl looked up at him, and he was surprised to see that she was not afraid. She expected him, even knew as the tornado was going on that he was coming for her. She was not like the others, and he hadn’t fully understood why until that moment. The revelation sparked a new wave of excitement in him, and he was suddenly thankful that his original plan had failed. He bared his teeth and allowed his eyes to darken above her, but the infant continued smiling. Her lack of fear frustrated him, and he drew back and looked down on her again. She could feel fear start to seep into him now, as he realized that she was not going to be afraid of him. Finally, his anger got the best of him, and he ended her life as quickly as it had begun 19 months earlier in the bed of the pickup truck that would become her father’s tomb. “Call me Sid.” He said to no one, and he laughed a terrible laugh that made mothers for miles around him wake up in the middle of the night and go check on their children. He strolled out into the night, leaving Maggie’s lifeless, soulless corpse rotting in the kitchen while her nieces lay sleeping forever in their own beds. As soon as he stepped outside, he lifted off the ground with a blinding speed. The man named Jackson was responsible for making him conduct this business, and he preferred to not handle these matters personally. In the end, he gained even more than he could have imagined because of the change in plans, but Jackson would pay for interfering nonetheless, and the payment would be steeper than anything the dark man had previously collected. The dark man killed thousands of people, saw countless wars, and committed acts that would make Charles Manson wet his pants, but nothing could compare to the hell that he would unleash on Jackson Hamilton. Chapter 7

Jackson and Davis arrived in Las Vegas about the time that a strange visitor was appearing on Maggie Turner’s TV. A cold feeling slipped across Jackson as the man crept into the room where the baby had been sleeping, but he was interrupted by Davis and the thought never put itself back together. “Holy shit man, will you look at that?” The lights up ahead of them were unmistakably Vegas, and Jackson wished Amanda could see them the way he now was. He sighed and resolved to enjoy his time in Sin City, no matter what memories came with it. “I know. It’s amazing. There’s nothing else on the planet like this.” He smiled in spite of himself as he looked down on the neon, remembering good times and enjoying the feeling that came with them this time. He thought to himself how Vegas always looks the same as he passed over the golden lion outside the MGM Grand with its multicolored light show behind it. Across from that, the Statue of Liberty stood in the tiny representation of the world’s biggest city that is New York New York. The roller coaster sped around it and the screams of the people riding it swam out to them and faded as they zipped around the Empire State Building. Further down the gigantic palm tree lined street, the water show at the Bellagio was under way, and Jackson realized the Eiffel Tower across from it was a better representation than he ever knew. Lights of a thousand different colors lit the desert sky as people streamed into the streets. Slot machines, loud music, and even the men handing out stripper cards on the street joined all the noises that define Vegas. They landed on the Stratosphere, right next to the amusement rides, and Jackson’s breath would have been taken away if he still drew it. Next to him, Davis’s jaw fell slack as he looked at the city with the wonderment of a kid on his first day at Disney. From here they could see all the way down the strip to the golden mirrored walls of Mandalay Bay and the tower of light pouring out of Luxor on the other end. Amanda wanted to check out the Stratosphere during their visits, but they always stayed on the other end, and walking that far hadn’t seemed worth it at the time. Jackson thought that they could have taken a cab, and wondered for a second why they never did. The question set a memory playing in his mind, as clearly as if he were watching it in a movie theater. “C’mon hon, I really want to go on those rides.” Amanda’s affection for all things heart-stopping got Jackson into plenty of situations in the past few months, but he had no intention of riding things that sat atop an 1100 foot tower. He didn’t want her to call him out on his total lack of balls, so he decided to distract her. “I thought we were going to go up in the Eiffel Tower?” He knew she wanted to see the Bellagio fountains from up there on their last trip, but time slips away quickly in Vegas, and before they got the chance they were back on the plane headed home. She made no mention of the idea during this trip, but he would rather be up there inside a cage than sitting on a ride that dangled him out above the strip a thousand feet above ground. “We are?” His plan worked perfectly, at least for now. She would probably bring the rides up a few more times while they were here, but that was the beauty of Vegas. There was always something else that you could do, and he knew there were enough things they still wanted to do and see to distract her again and again. Money was never an obstacle, and they spent it freely for the first few days of their vacation. He gambled enough to get their room comped, and she shopped almost as much. He laughed at the thought that his gambling was actually saving them money, and it reminded him of all the times she came home with at least six shopping bags from at least six different stores. She always found some great sale, and instead of talking about how much she spent, all she wanted to do was tell him how much she saved. He joked that he couldn’t wait for that money to show up in his account, and the comment usually annoyed her, but here he was, lying in a king size bed overlooking the strip, rationalizing a couple thousand dollars lost at various tables with the idea that it saved them money on the room. Everything looks different from the other side, he thought. “Hey Jackson, you there buddy?” Davis’s voice interrupted the dream, and he felt a fresh pang of guilt as he understood why they never came up to see this spectacular view before. “Sorry, I drifted off for a second. What do you want to check out?” “All of it.” Jackson couldn’t help but revisit the kid at Disney analogy as he watched Davis try to take everything in at once. “Good choice.”

-2-

Coming to Vegas turned out to be a good decision, and the loss that Jackson felt as they arrived only lasted a few days. There were plenty of people to help here, and even more things to see. The fact that the majority of people in Vegas were wasted beyond function made it much easier for them to move around and help people. Nearly everyone they came across would explain the unbelievable events that they experienced with some sort of alcohol or drug induced confusion. It was good that what happened in Vegas stayed there, because it meant that no one was running home to tell everybody about how they were saved from being raped or robbed by an invisible force. Jackson and Davis were even more successful at stopping crime than the casinos, and they did it all without the high-tech surveillance equipment. For one thing, they could go anywhere they wanted completely unseen. For another, if they focused, they found that they could combine their efforts to hear or see things miles away from them. Eventually, the newspaper noticed that crime was starting to go down, but they attributed it all to the new chief of police in town. Being able to move around without anyone suspecting was even better than being a famous super hero. After a while, they ventured into the casinos to try and influence a little luck in there. Davis had done it first, slipping away one night while Jackson was reminiscing from the top of the Bellagio. He slid down to the casino level, and as he borrowed from one of the men at the table, he saw him trying desperately to earn money for his daughter’s college fund. Her tuition was coming due, and he tried every possible way to get the money, but this was his last resort. He was playing blackjack before, and was close to getting the money he needed, but a change in dealers brought the change in luck that the casinos counted on. For the next hour he watched his stacks of chips dwindle down to the single $10 chip that was now spinning back and forth across his knuckles as he looked around trying to decide where to spend his last hopes. It didn’t go unnoticed by Davis that behind the thoughts about what he should do next were thoughts about how to kill himself if he should lose this last chip. Davis could see that he had emptied about $1000 in savings to come here, and his wife still didn’t know about it. She thought he was on a business trip, and he just couldn’t bear to have to tell her the truth. As he finished borrowing from the man, Davis felt the fear and pain inside him, and he whispered a single word. The man looked around, saw that no one was close enough to have whispered to him, and decided fate had intervened. He walked over to the roulette table, watching the ball spin around and around before catching one of the tiny raised areas that sent it bouncing in every direction. It flopped back and forth around the wheel, finally resting on number 12. Davis watched from the other side of the table, and he could feel the man’s heart pounding in his chest, afraid to put all of his faith on a game of pure chance. Davis smiled, thinking to himself that at least this time, chance had nothing to do with it. The man closed his eyes, spun the chip one last time across his knuckles, and placed the chip on 24. The croupier picked the ball up, stopping the wheel with his finger. He spun the ball, and it shot around the wheel, seeming to pick up speed with each revolution. Davis watched intently, focusing on the number that would be this man’s salvation. As the wheel and the ball started to slow, the croupier waved his hands above the table, signifying the end of betting. Just before he did, the man almost took his bet back, and his hand was reaching when the wave came. He punched his leg and prepared to walk away broke, not even bothering to look at the wheel. Davis could feel his gloom growing, and grinned at the pessimistic nature of some people. The ball’s trajectory slipped, and it hit the raised area again. It started to skip, and Davis could feel the man’s heart speeding up again. His breath stopped, not wanting to even look until his fate had been decided. Davis looked back at the ball flipping all over the wheel and reached his hand above the table. To the men watching on the tiny cameras in the ceiling, everything looked perfectly in order. To the croupier, adding up bets in his head to keep someone from trying to be sneaky, it all appeared to be on the level. To the men sitting around the table, this game was unbeatable. Chance played a part in this game more than any other, and one of them wondered aloud how anyone could feign strategy at a game like this. To Davis, time slowed to a crawl, and now he could actually see the imperfections of the ball spinning as it bounced up and down from one slot to another. He looked at the wheel and saw the magic number coming around. It was time. He lowered his finger, touching the ball only slightly, but it was enough to stop its bounce in mid-air. One of the men watching closely would swear that he saw something strange happen, but in a place where alcohol is free and constant, the things that a gambling man believes he sees aren’t given much credence, especially when what he sees is impossible. The ball fell into the tracks, and it hung for just a moment in number 5, one short of its destination. Davis gave it another slight nudge, and the ball rested finally in Black 24. The man still couldn’t bring himself to look even after he heard the ball stop moving, and the other men at the table groaning drowned out the call of the number. When he finally looked at the table, he steeled himself to see an empty spot. What he saw instead was a pile of chips, totaling some $350 dollars. His jaw dropped, and he thought for a second about what he should do next, but the whisper came back to him. He looked around again, saw that no one he could see was talking to him, and chalked it up to fate one last time. He took the stack of chips, let them slide through his fingers to the table as he counted them, and placed the whole stack on Green 00. He shook his head as he did it, and the other men at the table paused for a second to look at the man with great brass balls. Most of them were scattering their chips across the table, hedging their bets, but this man was playing with house money, and he intended to let it ride. Their faces mixed with admiration and pity, a look that Vegas had practically patented. Davis smiled again, and the ball was sent in motion. By the time Jackson made it down to the casino floor, the man had won that spin and bet the table limit of $10,000 on his next. Davis, at the risk of being obvious, allowed him to lose that, and the crowd that around him was quickly dissipating. He still had more than $3,000 left, and that all went onto Red 12. Once again, the man almost reached out and took back his winnings, realizing that he had much more than he started with. Davis whispered into his ear one last time, and he nodded. As the ball started its dance for the final time, Jackson walked up behind Davis, causing him to jump. He shouted, and Jackson laughed at the fact that no one around them even batted an eye. “What are you doing?” He realized that he sounded like his father and smiled at Davis to alter the tone. “Gambling.” Davis smiled back, and it struck Jackson as the kind of smile he might have given his father if he had been caught doing something he suspected he shouldn’t be doing. “Well, he is. I’m just helping.” Jackson looked at the players, and knew immediately who he was talking about. The man was looking away, closing his hands together tightly enough to cause his nails on his right hand to dig into the flesh on the back of his left. His mouth was moving quickly, and Jackson could see that he was praying. Funny how people turn to faith in the oddest times, he thought. “How are you helping?” The click-clack of the ball bouncing around brought his attention back to the game at hand. “Like this.” One final time, Davis gave the ball just enough help to get it into the number that it needed. Just like that, this man had gone from $10 to over $100,000. The table transformed into the Coliseum as the roar filled the room, and the man turned to see that his prayers were answered. Jackson wondered if he would care that they were answered by a couple of dead guys, and decided that people didn’t really care how their miracles happened. “Hey, it’s almost 4. You want to see if anything’s happening out on the streets?” Jackson nodded. “You know, you did a nice thing for that guy.” The thought had never crossed his mind to help people in that way, and Jackson was impressed with his young friend. “Just got a vibe from him. He was a man in need, and that’s where we come in right? Just like Batman and Robin.” The look that he gave Jackson reminded him just how young Davis was, and how much of life on that side he had missed. He felt bad for him for a second, but before he could say anything, Davis was already on his way outside. “C’mon Robin.” Jackson laughed out loud. “Oh the hell with that. I am so Batman in this game.” “Well then carry your Bat-ass outside. We have work to do.” The two men slipped through the front door and lifted up into the dark desert sky, cracking jokes silently between them.

-3- For the next several months, they helped hundreds of people. At first they had limited themselves to helping people in danger, but Davis’s adventure at the roulette table showed them that there were plenty of people in Vegas whose danger was not always physical. Their actions even prompted a meeting between some of the Vegas big-shots to discuss the sudden upturn of luck in their casinos. Hours of video footage was poured over, and winners’ backgrounds detailed, but no connection was found. In the end, they all just decided that fate was in a good mood for the last few months, and while that wasn’t necessarily good for bottom lines, it did mean that more and more people would be returning to visit. This held true too, and Jackson noticed a front page newspaper story about the economy’s successful return since Lady Luck came back to Las Vegas. Tourism was at its highest level in 3 years, and the business was so good (except for the gambling) that two new casinos were being developed, the first to be built in those same 3 years. Davis was lying back on the pyramid of the Luxor, his hands resting behind his head. “So you mentioned this girl. Amanda?” He didn’t even open his eyes when he asked the question, but Jackson could feel that he had been waiting to ask it for a while. On the way to Vegas, he told Davis the main parts of his story, but he left out most of his true feelings for Amanda, especially omitting how hard he worked to keep her from crashing through his thoughts. Every time her name entered his mind, he felt the loss that she felt on the night he died in her arms. He felt responsible for that pain, and even though he had no interest in seeing her anymore, (at least he told himself he didn’t) he still wanted her to know that he was sorry. He wanted to know that she was happy, and he wanted her to know that she had been (and still was) everything to him. It was the loss that he felt that inspired him to help people in the first place, to keep them from having to feel that same despair. He told Davis that she was with him when he died, but he hadn’t told him that they were engaged for less than an hour at the time. Jackson couldn’t say why he left all of those details out, but he supposed he was trying to be a role-model by showing Davis how to let go of the past. He had been older when he died, so the part of him that always wished for a younger brother liked the way that Davis looked up to him when they met, and he wanted to preserve that for as long as possible. Now, lying on the sloped edge of the black pyramid, he started to feel the familiar need to see her again. Saving people usually satisfied it, but only temporarily. A plane roared by in front of them, and Jackson looked up into it at all the people watching Vegas disappear beneath them. He turned to look at Davis and caught a glimpse of the people inside the room behind them. It was a man and woman, and she was sitting at the dressing table looking at a ring on her finger. He was stepping out of the bathroom, running a towel through his hair and flinging water droplets all around him. The man walked to the window, admiring the view through the two transparent men lounging on the outside of it. To him, the lights would shimmer slightly every once in a while, but he chalked the effect up to the windows not being clean. He walked back to the woman, her hand still outstretched to allow the diamond to catch all the light around it, and wrapped his hands around her shoulders. He started to massage lightly, and she placed her right hand on his left, then leaned her head over on to his right. He squeezed a little more forcibly, then bent over top of her to kiss the top of her head. He pecked it once, and she tilted her head back to meet his lips upside down. The kiss turned passionate, and she stood up from the chair, grabbing the towel around his waist and pulling it free. They fell on to the bed, wrapping around each other, and Jackson sighed. “Yeah, Amanda.” He paused. “There’s more to that story.” Davis opened his eyes and looked over, wondering how curious he should be. After a few silent moments, Jackson spoke again. “I think I’m still in love with her. I know I am.”

Chapter 8

Amanda Massey stepped inside her condo, shaking the last of the rain off her umbrella and setting it next to the sliding glass door. She pushed the button on her keychain and her car chirped at her like an excited Chihuahua. Walking through the kitchen, she paused long enough to check and see the tiny red 0 on her answering machine before continuing on to her bedroom. She walked in and started to peel off the clothes that had gotten damp despite her umbrella’s best efforts. She stopped as she unzipped her skirt, looking at the dresser where a lone picture stared back at her. She broke the last frame that held it in a state of despair that she thought would never end. It was no accident that broke the glass, she punched it until her knuckles started to drip blood onto the shards before she realized what she was doing. Now, looking at the picture, she could see where the shattering glass cut small slices into the picture, as well as a spot of blood just above his waist. That single drop seemed determined to remind her of the worst night of her life. Several times since then she tried to put the picture away, even going so far as throwing it out on the anniversary of her engagement the year before. But as always, the picture returned, and that night she woke up at 4 a.m. to fish it out of the trash can before the truck came along and took it forever. It was the only picture of the two of them that she still kept, and her family and friends urged her to get rid of it so that she could move on. All of their arguments were the same: Jackson would want you to be happy, he wouldn’t want you dwelling on the past, you need to find someone who can make you feel good again. She suspected, actually knew, that they all were bothered by her inability to let go. She kept the suit he died in for more than a year, almost forgetting it was even in her closet. Then one day as her sister helped her move they found it, and she fell asleep crying and clutching it for the rest of that week. When she did finally move out of his old place, she left the suit there, still unable to throw it out on her own. They didn’t understand how much it hurt, and none of them could. She hadn’t even gotten to really be engaged. Didn’t even get a chance to call her sister and tell her before he was gone, and she had been planning that call for years. Instead of calling and saying “I’m engaged!” and setting off a huge celebration throughout her entire family, she was forced to make a call to say “I’m alone.” It was the only thing that she could think to say, and it wasn’t until the phone fell to the floor amidst her deafening sobs that her sister finally understood. But she never understood, Amanda thought, and she never would. As long as Jackson was the measuring stick, then everyone else would pale in comparison. She knew that he wasn’t perfect, because no one was. She just hadn’t spent enough time with him to find all those imperfections. One of her friends told her to focus on the things she didn’t like about him to try and get over it, but all she could do was make a list of petty things like leaving his toothbrush on the counter or liking his eggs over-medium instead of just over-easy. She knew that if they were married for a year, or even just a month, she would have found things that burned her up like no other, but they never got to that point. When the way someone likes eggs is the best complaint she could come up with, getting over them is an order too tall for that day. She slid the rest of her zipper down and let the skirt fall to the floor. She stepped out of it and ran her hands along the new silk bedspread she bought. Correction, she thought, the new silk bedspread that she was forced to buy. When her sister came to visit the last time and found out that she was still sleeping in the same bed they shared, under the same comforter, and frequently on the same sheets, she insisted they go and get her a new one. The new comforter was beautiful, and she thought with a great deal of pain that it would have been the kind of thing she would have registered for as a wedding gift. She pulled the rest of her clothes off and walked into her closet, pulling out a large, unmarked box. She opened it and pulled out the old comforter, wrapping it around herself. She knew it was ridiculous, but she could swear that she still smelled him in it. As the first (and only) tear of the night fell down her cheek towards the soft down enveloping her, she sat down in the corner of the closet. Sometimes it was the only safe place in the entire world for her.

-2-

To say that dating was the last thing on Amanda’s mind would have been the understatement of a lifetime. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which side of the coin you see), Cupid holds no interest in people’s desires when it comes to match- making. When she stepped out of the limo that her office arranged for her meeting in Seattle, her outrageously expensive shoes found the only puddle for three blocks. The rain miraculously avoided Seattle for more than a week prior to her trip, and the fact that this puddle managed to survive was no small miracle in itself. Sometimes though, accidents can be more intentional than anyone realizes. “Dammit.” She pulled the shoe, water still running down the sole, back into the limo to see if any permanent damage was done. She was so engrossed in her examination that she didn’t notice the hand that reached in to help her. When she looked up and finally saw it, she apologized, mistaking it for the driver. “I’m sorry, I managed to find the only damn puddle around here.” “No problem. Happens to me all the time.” The voice startled her, and she recognized that it was not the man who made small talk with her on the way from the airport. She allowed herself to be pulled up and out of the door, avoiding the puddle this time, and came face to face with a large man. His hair was perfectly groomed, and his face carried just enough of a five o clock shadow to be intentional. As her eyes traveled down the length of him, she noticed that he was dressed even better than she was, which was no small feat. Her outfit cost her almost $8,000, and she used it to get the attention of every new client that she met. When she put it on that morning, she had no idea it would be bringing her an entirely different kind of attention that day. She moved her eyes back up, and found that he was watching her evaluation. His right cheek was lifted up as he smiled at her, showcasing dimples that seemed too good to be true. “Everything check out?” He asked, and the smile bloomed to the other side as well. She blushed. “Um, yes. I mean- I’m Amanda-“ “Massey. Yes I’ve heard quite a bit about you.” He was still holding her hand, and she found herself shaking it repeatedly, as if they were meeting over and over again inside her head. She noticed and saw that he was looking down at it too. She pulled it back, wiping it against her hip. Was she really sweating, or could that have been him? She felt sure that it was her, as he showed no sign of the nervousness that she was now feeling for the first time in years. The first time since- “I’m sorry. You are?” She tried to focus her mind back to the task at hand, and felt a slight bit of guilt at pushing Jackson’s memory away. “Terry. Terry Kerr. I’m one of the people who you’re meeting with today. I’m from Kent & Roberts.” She flipped through her mental rolodex, trying to see if she would flash on anything she heard about him, but drew a blank. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of you.” She found that she was still smiling, and fought an urge to take his hand and start shaking again. His eyes were so enticing, and the green in them was unlike any shade she had ever encountered. He smiled back, and her stomach tightened, then flipped over. She was thankful that she passed on the in- flight snack. “I haven’t been with them for very long, actually. I’m a consultant, and they’ve asked me to sit in on this meeting to make sure that everything is in order. So far, it looks fantastic.” Amanda conducted countless sexual harassment seminars in her years of work, and was bored to tears with all of their rules and regulations. When it came down to it, in her mind, flirting was harmless fun. At the last seminar they were forced to, one of her co-workers made the joke that it was only sexual harassment if the person was ugly. Standing here, flirting with a consultant from a prospective client, Amanda could not have agreed more. And if that were the truth, she thought, then this was nowhere near sexual harassment. They caught an elevator together, and he twice caught her checking him out in the reflection of the brass doors. The image it gave her reminded her of a fun house mirror, but the strength that she felt in his hand as he helped her out of the car pushed that away, and she pictured him as some sort of Gladiator, shirtless and sweaty. The thought made her feel warm, and her legs weakened a little. She felt excited in a way that she had almost forgotten, and her hand absently stroked the outside of her thigh. He noticed, and his smile thickened, and she wondered if anything else did as well, stifling a laugh. The ride up to the 33rd floor was long, and they spent most of it in silence, like teenagers on a first date. When she finally went to speak, the bell announcing their destination cut her off, and she immediately forgot what she was about to say. He looked down at her, pausing for a glimpse of the cleavage that she used to get her way in more than a few of these meetings, and this time she noticed. God, she loved this dress. She waited until his eyes met hers, and when he found that she saw, it was his turn to blush. “Everything check out?” She asked, and he let his smile answer her. He placed a hand on her back, just above her waist, and her spine sent waves through her whole body. “After you.” He said, just loud enough for her to hear. It took every ounce of her will to make her legs do anything.

-3- Thankfully, when she got into the meeting, her professional brain took over and everything else followed flawlessly. The other men in the meeting were basically reduced to agreeing to whatever she asked for. Even the two other women, who glared at her when she walked in as if they just caught her with both their husbands, were not immune to her charms or her ability to do her job, and they shook her hand before she left as if they were old sorority sisters. She was amazing in a boardroom, and it was a talent that made her a very wealthy woman. She orchestrated some of the biggest deals in her company’s history, and she was the first woman to ever be made a Vice President, as well as the youngest, male or female. Most people mistook her self-imposed loneliness as good, strong work ethic, but only her closest friends knew that she replaced the love of her life with the only thing that could keep her distracted enough to not pine over it forever. One by one, everyone congratulated her and went about their business. Everyone except for the illustrious Mr. Kerr. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she packed up her things, and he glanced her way occasionally. Both of them understood that they were doing the dance, and both of them knew what the next steps would be. He would of course spend time talking with all of the other people in the room, working his way slowly to her. Eventually, everyone else would be gone, and they would be left alone to travel down another long elevator ride. At some point, maybe while they were still in the building, or maybe when they were just getting ready to say their goodbyes, he would offer to show her the town, or get a drink, and she would politely decline, saying that she needed to get ready to fly home. He would insist, and she would finally give in, with the stipulation that it be just one drink, even though they both knew it would be more. It could be so much more, if she wanted, and standing in that conference room, watching him begin the dance that she avoided for the last few years, she couldn’t be sure exactly how much she wanted. For the most part, everything went on as planned, except the ride down the elevator was silent again. She really expected him to talk more, and she was starting to doubt her intuition when they reached the front door. The rain’s vacation was ended now, and they both stood watching it fall like a curtain. “No umbrella either, huh?” He asked the question without even looking at her, and for a second it opened a fresh wound in her heart. She pushed it back, not feeling as guilty this time, and shook her head. He smiled at her, then lifted up the side of his coat, silently offering her shelter underneath it. She paused for just a moment before sliding next to him. She could smell his cologne, and she breathed deep, letting the waves wash over her again. All she wanted to do was stand here next to him and breathe in his amazing scent. She was so lost that when he started moving towards the door she almost tripped and took them both down. “Here we go.” He gave just enough warning to avoid the fall and then swept her outside. The rain made a sound on his jacket above her head that reminded her of riding in a convertible during a thunderstorm, and again she pushed the memory that came with it further away. If she didn’t take this chance now, she might never be able to move on, and she did know that Jackson would have wanted her to be happy. The realization which she fought for so long pulled another single tear out of her, and she was thankful when she stepped out from under the coat that the rain was there to cover it for her. She got in the limo, and he waited outside, his coat still pulled up over his head. He started to talk, and then she reached up and pulled him inside. He went to say something else, and she placed her finger against his lips. He smiled, finally understanding, and then leaned in to kiss her. His lips were strong, and again his cologne filled her senses. At that moment, she would give him anything, with him needing only ask to be granted access to all of her. He only kissed her though, and their hands moved slowly across each other’s bodies until the limousine pulled up outside her hotel. She decided she didn’t want to wait for him to lead in this dance, and made the next move herself. “Would you like to get some dinner with me?” As she asked, she pulled just enough of her lower lip between her teeth and let it slide back out. He kissed her again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have other plans.” Her smile faded, but she tried to maintain her cool. “That’s ok. I’ll just. I mean. You’re not married are you?” The question escaped as soon as she thought it, and she cursed herself for not having a stiffer filter. She over-corrected. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business, I was just-“ This time it was his finger that stilled her lips. He kissed her again. “It’s ok. I’m not married. I was just supposed to have dinner with my brother. I tell you what though. Give me 30 minutes, and then meet me in the lobby.” “Make it an hour. And I’ll be waiting.” She pecked him one last time, on the cheek, and then slipped past him out of the open limo door. The rain had stopped, and she looked up at the sky as she stepped out. Not a cloud in sight. She smiled, and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Don’t make me wait long.” She didn’t wait for his answer, and when she walked away, she made sure that her hips gave a little extra swing for him to think about for the next hour.

-4-

Amanda missed her flight home the next morning, and then missed the flight that she scheduled in place of it. She called her office and told them she wasn’t feeling well at all, and that she would be staying in Seattle until she felt better because she couldn’t stand to fly in that condition. Her boss was so excited by the news of her success at the meeting that he told her to take as much time as she needed, but to feel better. As she hung up the phone, she thought that she didn’t know if it was even possible to feel any better, and she rolled back across the bed. Closing a deal was a tremendous feeling, and she had compared it to sex on more than one occasion over the past few years. Now, lying on the silk sheets that were rearranged in a way that required two people and some intense aerobics, she knew that she had been completely wrong. Nothing could compare with the feeling she felt now, and it was something she denied herself since Jackson. The thought made her feel guilty again, and she told herself that it was something she would eventually learn to live with. He was gone, and he was never coming back, so there was no reason to spend the rest of her life as a nun. She mourned, God knew she mourned, and now it was time for the butterfly to emerge from the cocoon of grief that she lived in for what seemed like forever. Amanda listened to the sound of the shower, her head hanging upside down over the edge of the bed. She closed her eyes and thought about the past 24 hours. Yesterday morning she was on her way to Seattle, focused solely on completing a deal that would turn out to be the biggest of her life. Now, she was lying sideways in a stranger’s bed (but he didn’t feel like a stranger anymore, and after what they shared the night before, she felt he knew her better than anyone had in quite a while) and waiting to see his breathtaking naked form come out from the shower. The water cut off, and a minute later, she was not disappointed. He crossed the room to where she was laying, water still slipping down his chest, leaving wet footprints on the tile floor. When he reached her, he pulled the covers that she wrapped herself in, and she rolled back around until she was uncovered and equally naked. He climbed above her, and a water drop fell from his hair, hitting her cheek. It crept down across her neck and settled in the valley between her breasts. As he kissed her, more drops joined it until his wetness had become hers as well. They spent the rest of the day and the following weekend in the hotel room, charging room service to her account and eating it off of each other. It was a time unlike anything that she ever experienced, and when it came time for her to finally leave, she consciously stopped herself from crying. She knew that it would be ridiculous to tell him that she loved him, but she willed the words back from her lips no less than four times. He drove her to the airport and held her hand across the console of his car as they rode. When she said goodbye at the gate, he promised to come and see her as soon as he could. Neither of them acknowledged the cross-country obstacle that their relationship faced, but surrounded by all the good times that they had shared for the past several days, neither saw any good reason to. When she finally pulled away from him, he watched her all the way through the gate, and when she turned one last time to look, his eyes still followed her. He smiled, and she hoped that if she didn’t see him again, maybe she could hold on to that image for the rest of her life. She turned away, swishing her hips again for effect, and then laughing out loud at herself. From the plane, she looked to see if she might be lucky enough to catch one last glimpse of him, but the windows of the airport only reflected the outside world back at her. As the plane lifted off, she closed her eyes and thought about Terry Kerr, and her hands slipped back to her thighs as she did. He had been amazing, and their time together had been even more amazing. She could hold on to her memory of this weekend for the rest of her life, even if she was right about never seeing him again. As it turned out though, she could not have been more wrong. Chapter 9

Jackson sat on top of the Eiffel Tower, watching rain fall across the desert. It was the first time he saw it rain in Las Vegas, and it struck him as odd that he had never seen it before. He visited plenty of times when he was still alive, and he and Davis arrived almost a year ago, but somehow every time it rained, he happened to be somewhere inside. As he watched it fall through the atmosphere, he thought about the humidity that never really came with being in Vegas, and wondered if it would be any worse now that some moisture actually fell. He looked around him, feeling lonely for someone to talk to. Davis had gotten homesick as they talked about Amanda and the past and decided to go visit people he missed. Jackson decided to stay behind, and he already missed his companion. He took a break from seeking out people to help, deciding to travel to places he always wanted to see. There was something amazing about standing next to penguins on icebergs in Antarctica without worrying about freezing to death. He even traveled to the South Pole, just because he could. As he sat on the ice watching snow blow around him so thick that even his improved vision could see no more than ten feet away, he thought about other places on his Post-Bucket List. The next thing he thought of was a volcano, and preferably one that was still active. He floated up, getting closer and closer to the clouds, until he found himself wondering for the first time exactly how high he could go. He continued up, watching the ice below him dwindle away until it was almost unrecognizable. He went further, moving through clouds into places that he only previously saw from the window seat of an airplane. He remembered Amanda again, and how she always hated the window seat. He never understood how she could prefer to rub elbows with a stranger who usually turned out to be larger than the seats would allow, but there were plenty of things he could never, and now would never be able to understand. The memories of her didn’t hurt anymore, and now that he shared his past with Davis, he was beginning to actually enjoy them. They were still sad, but the life that he shared with her had been over for some time now, and the fact that he finally got all of those feelings off his chest made it easier for him to think of her without considering it a total loss. He didn’t think about searching for her anymore, and he thought it was best to keep it that way. No good could come of finding her, especially if she had moved on, which he desperately hoped that she had. Years had passed, and the thought of her still holding on to him at the expense of her own life was not one that he was comfortable with. He didn’t like to think of her being with someone else, but for her own happiness, at least on that side of the glass, he hoped that she was. The clouds ended, and Jackson kept on moving up through the atmosphere. From where he was now he could see land that he guessed to be South America. He looked down and tried to imagine how high he was, but it was an impossible estimate. He was well above the clouds now, and as he looked towards the continents, he saw planes that were cruising along below him. He decided to move towards the land he saw, figuring that somewhere in there was a volcano and wishing that he paid more attention in his World Geography class. He watched as South America crept underneath him, moving slowly around the invisible axis of the Earth that gave him so much difficulty grasping during his life, and he realized again how little people truly understand about their existence. He looked towards the North Pole and caught a thick gray cloud moving through the sky over a small island. He moved a little closer, watching the cloud grow larger, and he wondered if he was watching a volcano erupt from space. The view was incredible, but his curiosity urged him to go check it out closer. He plummeted to the ground, feeling the heat that he saw on the underside of returning space craft without the pain that would usually accompany it, until the island was dead ahead of him. The smoke plume poured out of the mouth of the volcano, which he could easily see now that he was back underneath the clouds. He slowed his descent to take the whole scene in. The mouth of the volcano was spewing smoke that reminded him of his old kitchen during Amanda’s first attempt to make French toast. It was a smell that they were forced to live with for days after the episode. The smell of the smoke from the volcano was decidedly worse. The closer he got, the more details of the eruption he could see, and he watched as the lava broke free from the cracks in the side of the volatile mountain. It slid down the sides, forming up with other streams of the molten rock, enveloping whole areas of the mountain side. He stopped directly over the mouth of the volcano, and from here the smoke was so thick he couldn’t even see down inside of it. He slipped down through the smoke, feeling the air thicken as the heat intensified, and when he passed through the darkness, he found himself inside the smoldering volcano. The heat was incredible, and the sights around him were unlike anything he could have imagined. Pieces of the rock inside the mouth fell down into the pool of molten lava and it melted instantly. The sound of the eruption was riotous, like sitting inside of a jet engine. The roar grew and grew and eventually the eruption popped free again, spitting the thick lava through a large crack a few hundred feet away from Jackson. He moved towards the crack, which was pushed wider by the pressure of the eruption, and found it was big enough for him to move through without touching either side. He slipped through it and set down on the side of the volcano. Its vibration shook him slightly, and he could feel the pressure beneath the surface building up again. He wondered how many times a volcano could erupt, and an answer came in the form of more lava bubbling through the crack he just passed through. He stood watching as the lava poured out all around him and noticed that the area where he stood somehow remained untouched by anything. The lava seemed to cut a path around him as if it were a stream that he diverted with a large, well-placed rock. He realized that he was thinking about it passing around him, and he imagined it coming towards him. Incredibly, it stopped its diversion and passed right through the spot where he stood. He imagined it going around again, and when he opened his eyes, it parted as if his name were Moses. He tried his experiment a few more times, but the more he consciously considered stopping the flow, the less it worked. It was a reflex at first, but now he was having more and more trouble getting it to follow his will as he thought about what he was doing. His concentration was broken by a shriek, and he spun around to see where it came from. At first he couldn’t see anything because the steam coming off of the lava and through the cracks was as dense as fog. He lifted, moving slowly around the base of the volcano, and he heard it again. This time, he spun fast enough to catch the source, and he found a boy, no more than 10, trying to work his way down the mountain. Lava was moving towards him from all directions, and the only thing keeping him alive was a raised area that he found. Now, as he looked around for his next safe step, the molten rock was getting deeper and creeping up towards him. It completely surrounded the small raised rock, and the boy was debating his ability to jump over the river of fire. One small miscalculation would end with his foot submerging in a liquid that was well over 1000 degrees, bringing a painful and inescapable death. Further down the mountain, Jackson heard another shout, and as he turned to see its origin, he found three other children, two boys and a girl. The two boys looked to be about the same age as the trapped one, and they appeared to be local children from the village below them. The girl was the one who screamed, and looking at her he could tell that she was the boy’s sister. The other two were not related, at least not directly, and as he looked into the fear on their faces, he knew that they dared the boy to go up the mountain, completely unaware of how close the eruption was. Now they were forced to watch as their friend was consumed by the magma, building towards a fiery death that would haunt them all for the rest of their lives. The boy balancing on the rock had waited too long to jump, and now he knew that escape was impossible. He started to cry, and the tears dripped down onto the rock, evaporating immediately under the intense heat. The soles of his left shoe were inches away from the lava, and the heat started to melt the rubber. He could feel the temperature rising through his shoes, and he tried to lift his feet, alternating them in a dance that would be funny under different circumstances. The lava crept higher, and Jackson now stood just a few feet from the boy. Lava poured through his invisible feet, but they offered no resistance to it and the heat from it was little more than an abstract feeling he no longer noticed. He was focused, trying to direct his thoughts to make the lava clear a path for the boy to escape, but the screams of the sister were distracting, and the little time that the boy had left was only making it more difficult. He didn’t want to lift the boy to safety, fearing the attention that would come from it. There were obvious witnesses this time, and even though they were children, he still couldn’t risk the story of a boy being lifted out of harm’s way by unseen forces if he could help it. He found in that moment that he had fully embraced his anonymity, and wondered if he was willing to sacrifice this boy to salvage it. The realization appeared to focus his energy, and as the boy stood on one foot to avoid the tide that would engulf him in just a few seconds, Jackson felt his mind pushing against the lava. It denied him at first, but he persisted, and as the lava started to recede, the boy didn’t even notice. His hands were pulled tightly over his eyes, trying to avoid seeing his own death by hiding the way he did under the covers when he feared the monster in the closet. When his sister screamed again, he finally opened his eyes on a narrow path that led all the way down the mountain. The boy gingerly placed his shoe down on the solid ground, still able to feel the heat in it from the lava that was there just seconds before. It was hot, but it was possible, and he hopped down from the rock and started moving at a speed that only children can. Jackson felt a throbbing in his head and willed it away. The natural path of the volcano’s eruption was changed, and it apparently did not react to that kindly. He pushed harder, feeling strength pouring out of him, and when he collapsed to his hands and knees, submerging them in what had become several inches of hot liquid, he barely had the strength to turn and see the boy leaping into his sister’s arms. She spun him around, the folds of her dress billowing out behind her. Jackson could see the tears streaming down both of their faces, as well as the other two boys, who were standing behind the siblings trying to figure out what they should be doing. The lava was still creeping towards them, and Jackson shouted at them to get their attention back to the fact that they weren’t in the clear yet. They didn’t hear him, but he knew that they couldn’t, and he was too weak to do anything more. Finally the sister looked up, screamed one last time and ran away from the oncoming puddle, still clutching her brother to her shoulder. He floated away from the volcano, moving like a kite let loose in the wind, and when he reached a palm tree a few hundred yards away, he collapsed at the base of it. He had never felt so drained, and he wondered what the cause of it was. He and Davis both experienced plenty of intense activity, all without even thinking of sweating (especially since thinking about sweating was all that they could really do now). He used his mind to stop the flow of the lava, but he used his mind to do everything that he did now. Jackson had just enough time to consider all of these thoughts and then, for the first time since dying, Jackson Hamilton slept.

-2-

Sleep was actually the farthest thing from what Jackson was doing, but the basic concept of recharging that most people associate with a good night’s sleep was close enough. He spent too much energy fighting the lava, and it was the first time he discovered that his own energy was not as infinite as he thought. As he lay beneath the palm tree, his mind traveled to places he had never seen, and Jackson was treated to his first vision. At first, he was in the volcano again, before the eruption began. He was deep in the lava, and he felt the pressure building up all around him. It vibrated his body, getting steadily stronger, until he felt as if he might be shaken apart by it. When it finally exploded, it sent him hurtling through the atmosphere again, and this time he was unable to slow himself. He flew out into space, his speed increasing the further out he got. He soared past planets, actually moving through the rings of Saturn. He shielded his face against them, and found that he passed straight through it all just like the dirt above his grave. He sped up again, now going so fast he didn’t notice passing out of the solar system. He saw objects flying through the heavens in all directions before he finally came to a stop in an area surrounded by brilliant light of all colors in all directions. He floated in space, turning and looking for the way back to Earth. He saw the Horsehead Nebula, which from his current proximity looked nothing like a horse’s head. He looked another way and found he could shoot through the entire area, passing galaxies on both sides and searching each planet in the instant that it took to name it. After he searched far enough, he returned to his original spot before his mind finished the thought. Earth was nowhere to be found, but he saw worlds upon worlds that the living would never imagine, let alone see. The vastness of the universe struck him, but at the same moment he saw every inch of it. He saw a star, ten thousand times larger than the Sun. Its surface bubbled and spit, sending huge flares miles out into space. Some of them reached far enough for him to touch, and he pulled back from them. One of them spun out like a tentacle, growing until it was long enough to wrap itself around him. He cringed, waiting for it to burn straight through him, but it collapsed on itself as if he didn’t exist. The star’s radiance stretched until it forced him to shield his eyes against it, and then its glow took on a different quality. It was so bright that he still saw it with his eyes squeezed shut, and he felt it filling his eyes despite his efforts. When his eyes didn’t explode in their sockets, he tried to focus them on the magnificent scene in front of him. The star was exploding, and he was witnessing a supernova of one of the oldest and largest stars in the universe from the front row. It grew still more magnificent, engulfing everything around it. Planets, comets, asteroids, and anything else unable to remove itself from the red supergiant’s path simply flashed as they touched the surface, vanishing from existence. Jackson held his place, searching the increasing surface of a star that had grown big enough to be impossible to contain in his field of vision. It was like trying to see the top of the Empire State Building from the base of it, and he gave up the efforts as it crept closer to him every second. He felt no heat from the star, even though he watched it burn through whole planets in seconds. The destruction was unimaginable, but somehow the complete silence turned it into a beautiful scene, contrasting the universe’s brutality and tranquility at the same time. It glowed bright yellow in the center, but the edges turned a deeper shade of red with every second as it burned farther out into space. Jackson began to wonder how big it could possibly get when the core of the giant star started to collapse on itself, as if it were being deflated from the inside, and the red edges of the star pulled back accordingly. It pulled until the edges reached the center, its speed increasing, and the flash of light that followed was so brilliant that Jackson thought his eyes were lost at last. The force that pushed out from the center was devastating, and everything within a light year disappeared like dust. Jackson was unaffected by the blast, although he felt the wave flow through his body, and he watched as an explosion that made nuclear power look like a fly’s sneeze tore through the cosmos. As far as he could see, there was no match for its power, and it continued well past the time that he turned to look back at its source. At the center of the space where the star had been, a black hole was forming, and now everything that cast out in the initial blast retreated towards that center. At first, Jackson watched with awe, imagining all the people who dreamed of seeing this moment. A few seconds later, he started to feel the pull of the dark mass tearing at him. He fought it, closing his eyes to focus his efforts, but when he opened them he was moving steadily faster towards its power. The forces pulling on every inch of his body were on a level of gravity that nothing could survive, and he was thankful for his current state, because he knew that he would still be alive when his living body started crushing itself. He turned away from the black hole, trying in vain to escape a pull that was insurmountable. When he looked back on it a final time, he was close enough that the black hole now overtook his vision just as the giant star had before its destruction. Light around him was starting to bend under the effects of the gravity, and he felt his consciousness stretch still further. He had a sinking feeling like the first big hill on a roller coaster, except this time it didn’t end, and he was pulling into the darkness. All light vanished around him, and Jackson found himself in a darkness that filled the space around him and all through him.

-3-

The next time light touched his face, his eyes squeezed shut against it. He was afraid of what he might see, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that his fear was justified. The landscape below him was red like Mars, but life did more than exist on this world, it filled it. He watched millions of people scattering around like ants, and he became aware that they were floating above the ground. They moved quickly, leaving the dusty floor untouched, but clouds rose whenever one of them stopped or started. He assumed that the things he saw were people, but as he moved closer, he saw that humans made up a tiny percentage of the life zooming in every direction. The majority of the creatures moving around were as alien as the planet that he found himself on. Many of them shared human characteristics, such as two legs, or hands, or even a head shaped like a person, but they were undoubtedly different species. Even the people that he saw looked different somehow, but he couldn’t be sure what made him feel that way. He floated down, expecting to be able to move through them the way he moved around on Earth, but a large orange blob with a mouth full of teeth nearly ran straight through him. It swerved around, and the curse thrown his way was a series of undecipherable sounds. He understood it anyway, and the gist of it involved him getting the fuck out of the way. He stuck his hand out as another brown creature came by, and it swiped at him with a bright orange claw that protruded from the top of its semi-human hand like a talon. It cut him all the way to the bone, and blood flowed freely from the wound. Jackson started to panic, but the wound closed itself up just as quickly as it opened. No pain accompanied the blow, but the shock of it caused him to freeze up, and a large pack of creatures bore down on him with no sign of slowing down. Just as he wondered if his body would heal from a crash that catastrophic, a warm hand closed around his ankle and pulled him down. He slid down just in time to avoid a large green beast with no less than three mouths and one large unblinking eye in the center of an enormous forehead. As he fell underneath the creature, he saw that the things flying by him did not ride any kind of vehicle, even though they were sitting as if they were. All of the beings, including the humans, seemed to travel without any outside assistance. He turned his attention down to try and figure out who was pulling him, but the body that belonged to the hand was far enough behind him that his own body hid its identity. He tried to lean forward, but almost got his head shaved off by something moving too fast to be more than a red blur. Jackson decided to pay more attention to what was around him, deciding that he would find out who (or what) was pulling him down soon enough. They plummeted towards the ground, and the closer they got to the surface of this new planet, the fewer life forms they came in close contact with. As he looked back up, he saw a gigantic mess of traffic from all different species. There were things that looked like giraffes, but with human shaped limbs. One creature roared like a lion, but when he followed the sound of it he found something not much bigger than a house cat. He watched as it turned its six eyes towards him before letting another roar loose, as if to confirm it was the one making all the noise. Something too big to comprehend moved a few feet from his face, and Jackson shut his eyes as he awaited its impact. When none came, he looked up again to find that the traffic was gone, and the sun was blotted out by an enormous dark cloud. The cloud appeared to be moving, and when the suns (at least the six that were visible from his current location) returned, he could see that the shape that obstructed them was not a cloud, but something that could only be compared to a spider. Its immense body split into numerous segments, with separate circles of eyes rotating around the center of each segment. As he watched it pass over him, the eyes moved out of their linear arrangement, several of them bunching together to inspect him while a few hundred moved towards the direction the spider-beast was walking. Its legs were not rigid like a spider, although it did have eight of them, but they wriggled like an octopus’s tentacles, pushing along so smoothly that its movement was easy to mistake for a cloud as it towered over top of him. The eyes evaluated him for a moment before moving to the back of the monster’s abdomen. They moved like ants scurrying around an anthill, and pushing his mind closer to them, Jackson saw that each eye attached to eight tiny tentacle legs of its own, one of which connected into the creature’s body to send a signal from the optical scout. As the spider/octopus moved away from him, Jackson checked the ground one last time, and found that they were approaching it at a speed that would make it difficult to land without crashing. He finally tried to pull free, struggling against the hand, but it squeezed tighter. He struggled to fight it off, prompting his captor to increase the force holding him. The ground was rushing up at him, and he could see from this distance that it was not a surface that he cared to explore. It was the color of Mars, but shards of rocks jutted out from every side of the rock walls looming over the soil, and Jackson understood why this planet’s inhabitants traveled far enough above ground to avoid them. Each of them looked like a shattered window, and he couldn’t see anywhere that would be safe to land. Tiny barbs lined each of the rocks, and they seemed to be swaying in the wind despite their solid appearance. As Jackson came closer, he saw that they were not rocks swaying at all, but some kind of alien coral plant that was moving back and forth searching for food. He wondered if he was intended to be that meal, but his choices were too limited to do much about it. As he debated, one of the rocks swung out above him, missing his head by a small enough margin for the wind to move his hair. He looked up and saw that the underside of each rock consisted entirely of rows of teeth, each moving around on its own and searching for something to devour. Several other rock creatures took a turn at grabbing him, but they all fell just short as his descent continued. He felt the person holding him touch ground first, and he stopped in midair for a moment. It gave the lowest rock creature, which was also the biggest, one last chance to make a play for him. It swung down, its teeth spreading apart, and he saw the remnants of its last meal still rotting in its mouth. He floated in the air, still held fast by the hand, a sitting duck against the rock monster that looked hungry and pissed off. He willed himself to move, but nothing happened. Just as the teeth moved to close around his arm, the force on his ankle gave a sharp tug, and he flew just out of the creature’s reach. He heard the sucking sound it made as it grasped for its meal, and his skin crawled. He crashed to the ground, his head knocking against the actual rocks, and he felt a warm trickle run down towards the back of his neck. From down here, the suns blinded him as they reflected off the glass-like surface, and he shielded his eyes to recover his vision. He could see the shape of his captor/savior, but the shadows of the rock creatures surrounding them obscured any distinguishable features. As Jackson stood up, brushing dust that was more like flour than dirt off of him, he stood face to face with the mystery man. The sun that was most directly in his eyes slipped behind a cloud (or a spider/octopus), and he saw blonde hair framing the face with one curl standing out to the side of it, and the green eyes burned out at him from inside the shadow. His breath stopped. He noticed for a moment that he was actually breathing, and when he placed his hand on his chest, he could feel a heart beating anxiously underneath it. He looked back at the woman, and saw Amanda standing just a few feet in front of him. Years had passed since he looked at her, but he saw that her beauty only grew in the years since he left. He felt emotion welling up in his stomach, and he tried to force it down, but it spilled out of him like a strangled cry of an animal. Hot tears rushed to the corners of his eyes, spilling out and streaking the red flour-dirt that stained his cheeks. His vision blurred, and he reached out to her. “Amanda. I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you so much.” His hand searched for her, but made no contact. He moved it back and forth trying to feel the warm cheek that he missed every day, but still found nothing. He began to panic, wanting to touch her, to pull her close and smell that familiar smell that was the one thing he held on to. He realized how much he needed to see her at just that moment, and as the tears became stronger, he became more anxious, trying frantically to grab hold of her. He wiped the tears from his eyes, smearing them with the dust that coated his arms. He blinked to clear them, reaching out to try and grab her, but his hands met a cold, damp substance. He jerked them back, rubbing his fingers together. It felt like water, but his eyes were coated with the dust, keeping him from seeing anything. He brought his fingers to his tongue, touching it gently, and he immediately recognized the perfect remedy for his condition. He reached out again, feeling the water wrap around his arms as it passed through the wall of water, and he stepped into it. It washed his face, and he went to step back out, but it started to spin around him, pulling him farther into it. As he fought it, he realized it was a sphere of water, spinning a few feet off the ground, totally out of place on this red, dusty planet. His struggles continued in vain, and it didn’t take long for his entire body to become engulfed in the water. It crashed in on him, and he tried to breathe despite knowing that breath was unnecessary. From inside the sphere, he could see a form approaching him, and again his mind convinced him that Amanda was here. A hand reached into the ball, grasping his wrist, and electricity surged through it all, sending the water raining down in all directions. As the drops fell, they made no sound. A voice, recognizable but at the same time distant, spoke a single word. “Help.” Jackson collapsed to the ground, the figure’s shadowy form towering over him. He saw two eyes flash red in its face, then darken until they vanished. “Help who? Help you? Amanda?” He reached out for the figure, but it flashed red before vanishing, and a large rock tentacle took its place. It closed around Jackson, teeth piercing his body in a thousand places and beginning to move back and forth. The sensation was like being sawed apart, and the pain was agonizing. Blood poured out from where the tentacle wrapped around him, and he was shocked at how much of it came. It thrashed from side to side, and he experienced his body being sucked out from the inside and swallowed whole by the monster that finally found its breakfast. He screamed, but no sound escaped, and when he looked up at the sky, every creature in the air stopped perfectly still. Every one of them stared down at him, and he felt billions of eyes burning into him. The spider/octopus moved towards him, and all its eyes crawled within a few inches of his face. When he released another soundless scream, they leapt into his mouth, and he knew that he would suffocate from them.

-4-

Jackson heard the scream building within himself, and when it finally broke out it reverberated in his head. He tried to close his mouth, but found it full of something. He fell forward coughing to clear it out. “Hey man, are you ok?” The voice registered in his mind, but he lay still. He was aware that the sharp pain in his sides from the teeth of the rock monster was gone, and the heat that he felt from the six suns was much cooler. He reached a hand up to his face and found that it was no longer covered in tear-streaked red flour-dust. “You okay?” The single sun above him now cast a shadow over the man stooping over top of him. “Jackson, hey. Are you all right?” The shadow passed, and Davis was standing over him, his hand out. Jackson took it and stood up, looking around. He was back at the foot of the volcano, and enough time had passed that the lava had already hardened. He looked back at the ground where he was lying, and the dream began to slip away from him even as he still debated its reality. He wanted to explain it to Davis, so they could determine what it meant. Eventually, all that he could remember was a single word. He looked at Davis, speechless, and found his friend smiling at him. “What happened?” “I was hoping you could tell me. How the hell did you end up down here?” “I wanted to see a volcano.” The events that preceded the dream were clear enough, but the word Help was all Jackson held onto from his experience. “Well then it looks like you got your wish. What were you doing on the ground?” “Sleeping.” At this, Davis’s look changed. He stood up straight and stepped back from Jackson. “We don’t sleep anymore.” His eyes were wide, and for a split-second he looked afraid. He caught himself and tried to force a smile. “I mean, we don’t need to sleep right?” “I know. I don’t know what happened. I guess I used too much energy somehow. I should have borrowed some more. How did you find me?” Davis’s smile became a little less forced as he patted Jackson on the back. “I could hear you screaming a thousand miles away. You better make sure you don’t wear yourself down like that again. In the meantime, I’ve got something that I think will pull you back together in no time.” “What’s that?” “I found her.” Davis paused, waiting to see if Jackson would catch on. He didn’t. “Found who?” He was still bent over, resting his hands on his knees. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t place it. He still felt tired, exhausted in fact. Sleeping and dreaming raised new questions in his mind for the first time in a long time, but Davis’s answer pushed any other concerns into the back seat. “Amanda.” He waited again for Jackson to react, and this time he did. He stood straight up and looked him straight in the eye. Davis smiled. “She needs our help.” Chapter 10

The sun coming in through Amanda’s windows told her that it was after noon already, but she bet everything that she owned that that was wrong. Luckily there was no one to take the bet and turn her homeless, because her alarm clock confirmed that she slept until almost 1:00, a record since she left college. She sat up, rubbing her eyes with the sheets, and tried to remember the night before. She recalled drinking, she was sure of that, and that she went home with someone, but the bed next to her was empty. The indentions on the pillow told her that she either slept on the entire bed, or someone shared it with her. She lifted the covers, found herself totally naked, and flopped back down on her own pillow to try and recreate the scene of the past 12 hours. The sound of the shower cutting on caused her to shoot straight up out of bed, and the teenage boy who often spied through her window got a great shot of her muscular backside. She heard a voice humming and crept to her wardrobe, pulling out the short silk bathrobe that hung inside it. As she slipped into it, the humming grew louder, and she snuck toward the bathroom, tying the sash around her waist. She looked down at herself as she reached the door, making sure everything was tucked in where it was supposed to be. She smiled at her worry, whoever was in here obviously saw everything, but she told herself that she didn’t remember, so it didn’t count. She nudged the crack in the door with her knee to move it just a fraction, trying to avoid a creak that would give her away. When it was open enough for her to slip through, she slid into the bathroom, her breasts pushing against the door jamb. She took a deep breath, pulling them up, and she was in. The frosted glass of the shower door kept her friend’s identity a secret, so she looked for his clothes (God she hoped it was a he) so that she could check for a wallet. The floor was bare, except for the underwear she wore the night before, tossed aside next to the toilet. She stepped back, resting her butt on top of the counter, waiting to see if her shower visitor’s voice revealed anything else. On its own, her hand slipped into the drawer and closed around the heaviest brush she owned, just in case. She looked him up and down, and despite the blurry effect of the door, she liked what she saw. At least her intoxicated self didn’t have lower standards, she thought, and she stifled a laugh. She covered her mouth with the palm of her hand, biting down on it to kill her giggle, and the water in the shower cut off. She bit harder on accident, actually hurting herself, and this time she fought not to shout. She looked to the door, but there was no way that she could make it there in time to avoid being seen. She looked at the tiny linen closet on the other side of the bathroom, but the shelves made it useless as a hiding spot. She resolved to stay put and began working on her story when the door opened. Terry Kerr was in her shower.

-2-

“Hey doll, I didn’t know you were awake.” He grabbed the towel next to the shower, but took his time pulling it to himself. She watched the water dripping from his hair down his body, and parts of last night started waving back to her. She stared a little too long, and he laughed at her. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” She kept trying to look at his face, but there was too much else that she wanted to see. Her right hand slid up to tuck a single strand of hair behind her ear as she asked. “Nothing. Did you sleep well?” He ran the towel through his hair, and some of the water splashed across the room towards her. “Yes. Yes I did. I can’t believe what time it is.” He finally wrapped the towel around his waist, and she found that it made looking him in the eye much easier. “I know. We must have really needed the rest. Although I can’t say I’m surprised. You were in rare form last night.” He paused and looked her up and down. The right side of his mouth curled into a sly smile. “and this morning I see.” She felt her cheeks get warm, and glanced over her shoulder to see them redden in the mirror. She looked back, and he moved quickly across the bathroom. He placed his hands on either side of her, and she pushed back against the sink. She had no memory of him coming to Orlando to visit her, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him. “Are you alright?” He tried to look into her eyes, but she fought it. “I’m, I’m fine.” She didn’t know why she was so flustered, but she could feel her legs starting to shake. He must have noticed it too, because his hands slid around her hips underneath her. He lifted her up onto the sink, sliding his hands to her waist. She smiled at him, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she forgot that she was flustered at all. His hands snuck around to the knot in front of her, pulling it loose so smoothly she didn’t noticed that it was gone. Her robe was open, exposing her completely. He kissed down her neck, sliding in between her breasts. She laid her head back against the mirror, looking over to the side to catch a view of him from the mirror on the closet door. Her foot slid up his leg and caught on the top of his towel, and she used her toes to pull it free. She leaned back, running her hands along his chest, and then he was inside of her. It didn’t take long for both of them to scream out at the same time. She collapsed against him, and he felt her heart pounding against his chest. As she slid down off the sink, she held onto the counter with one hand to steady her legs, which were not ready to support her full weight yet. She pressed past him and into the shower, and after a minute he joined her. Amanda decided that she couldn’t remember her last Saturday like that one. She didn’t even bother getting dressed until it was time for them to go to dinner. They made lunch after their shower, and she wore the short bathrobe while she fixed him a sandwich. She bought the robe just before Jackson died, and he never saw her in it. She knew when she found it that it would drive any man crazy, and though he wasn’t her initial target, Terry did not disappoint, and they christened several pieces of furniture in her condo, including the kitchen table and a corner bookshelf that was her great-grandmothers. She watched him getting dressed, and thought that the way he knew exactly what she liked was uncanny. She earned her fair share of experience, and Jackson was the best lover she ever had, but Terry was different, and not in a bad way. He knew what she wanted him to say, even how she wanted him to take her, and he could tell if she wanted to be held or to just lay there in post-coital bliss, sweat running down their sides as they collapsed onto their backs, fighting to catch their breath. At dinner, she finally confessed to not remembering the night before, deciding that she more than made up for it in the hours since waking up. He laughed, and told her that she was extremely drunk when he showed up at her office, and the memory of the impromptu office party rushed back at her. They celebrated her big account in Seattle, and the partners produced bottles of champagne that seemed endless. After her bosses left, shots were poured, and she vaguely remembered something called a liquor luge, although she couldn’t recall what that meant. Terry had shown up just as she was finishing a body shot off one of the interns (she thought his name was Josh, but she never knew before last night, and although he would probably be telling all his friends about it, she would not). He took her home, much to the dismay of Josh and several others who were determined to keep the party going, and she stripped naked as soon as she walked in the door. In hindsight, she was eternally grateful that he was the one who gave her a ride, and she concluded that he arrived just in time. “So, my hero.” she started, and her face dropped to her manicotti as she tried to muster up the strength to ask the question she wrestled all day. “Did we…” She let the question trail on, hoping that he would pick up her insinuation without being offended. When he laughed, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and looked back at him. “No.” He took a sip of his wine, almost spit it out laughing again, and set the glass back down. “You were too far gone for us to do anything. You took off all your clothes but your underwear, and then you announced loudly and proudly that you were going to go pee. You told me to get comfortable, and then you proceeded to pass out on the toilet.” Her face turned a whole different shade of red, and she was thankful that the restaurant was dimly lit. “I did not.” “I’m sorry, but you did.” He smiled at her to ease her embarrassment. It worked, and she wondered where someone learned to smile like that. “I left you in there for quite a while, afraid to bother in case you were doing something you didn’t want me involved in.” “Like what?” “I didn’t want to know. It’s been my experience that a man who follows a woman into a bathroom does so at his own risk.” “Fair enough. So how did you know I passed out?” He smiled at her again and took another sip of wine. “You started snoring.” She felt her face get hot all over again, and this time it was her turn to choke on the wine. “No!” Her mouth fell open and she looked at him. The shock on her face was endearing, and he swallowed another laugh to keep from adding to her misfortune. “Oh my God, I am so embarrassed.” “Don’t be.” He touched her hand, stroking the side of her thumb. “It’s really okay. I can assure you I’ve seen much worse. I came in when I heard you, and you were leaned against the back of the toilet. Your head was all the way back, and if you hadn’t been snoring, I probably would have suspected something much worse.” “Like Elvis?” He laughed out loud at her. “Exactly like Elvis, minus the fried peanut butter and the drugs. And trust me, if I have to walk in on someone naked on the toilet, you’re my choice. It certainly makes for a great view.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. She blushed again, but for an entirely different reason. “So, after I tried to wake you up for a few minutes, I lifted you up and took you to your bed. I was going to sleep on the couch, but I couldn’t get all of me on it, so I slipped into bed next to you. I hope I didn’t freak you out.” “No, not at all.” She looked him in the eye, and he gave her a questioning glance. “Ok, maybe a little. I just didn’t remember anything before waking up. Even the party was a complete blank until you told me about it. I’m sorry if I made a fool of myself.” “Not even for a second. Like I said, I have seen much worse. Besides, I would put up with anything last night to have a day like today.” This time, she thought she saw him blush a little. Terry spent the next three weeks with Amanda, and it exceeded every expectation. During the day he sent her flowers or surprised her at work to take her to lunch. At night, they watched TV until it was time to go to bed, but sometimes they didn’t even make it to the bed. He was everything she looked for after Jackson, and it was no coincidence that she was the happiest anyone had seen her since then. She told all her friends about him, and then introduced him to all of them. She even moved the picture of her and Jackson off of her nightstand, setting it on the desk in her home office. She considered putting it away completely, but every time she thought about it, the a combination of guilt and grief forced its way back to the surface. As long as she kept that picture where she could see it occasionally, she felt him watching over her, and she knew that he would be happy for her. Chapter 11

“Firefighters have been working around the clock to contain the fire just north of the city, but this year’s drought is creating lots of dry material for it to burn through. Chief Gibson is optimistic that they can get it under control by the end of the weekend. So far, at least a dozen people have been killed by the fire, and more than 50 have been treated at local hospitals for injuries. No cause of the fire is known at this time.” The five men sat in the tiny bar in Pigeon Forge watching the newscaster describe the tragic events for the third time that morning. It had been a hot summer, even by Tennessee standards, and the near total lack of rain made the forest ideal for a severe fire, as the firemen were quickly finding out. The bartender, a short bald man named Glen, tended the bar for so long he finally bought it a few years back, renaming it after himself, just as he always wanted to. Glen’s Spot was a little bit out of town, and they all knew, although none of them said it, that if the fire wasn’t contained soon enough, it would reach their favorite hangout before the weekend was over, so they hoped the chief’s estimate was right. Glen wiped a glass clean, looking around at the other four men who he considered regulars and (most of the time) friends. Teddy, a tall red-headed man, was the youngest, and one of the few customers to still have all of his teeth. The G Spot, as they called it, was not a bar for tourists, and on the rare occasion that they got lost and ended up in here, the atmosphere made sure that they never stayed for more than one drink. Outsiders were not really welcome, and the men made sure that the message got through loud and clear when it was necessary. The other three men in the bar were all brothers, although no one really knew who was the oldest. People often speculated whether they were brothers at all, since no proof was ever established, but the talk died down after Darryl, Zeke, and Chris met the only man with balls (or beer) enough to question their relation, and his curiosity earned him a trip to the hospital with a broken arm and a jaw to match. He never came into Glen’s again, and everyone agreed that was a good choice on his part. Zeke was not the oldest but he was definitively the biggest, and he made it clear that if he ever saw that man’s face again, he would be putting something harder than his fist through it. Conversation in the bar was nonexistent, but Glen guessed that was normal for a Thursday morning. He was just about to try and start something around the group himself when Darryl spoke up. “Ya’ll know who started that fire?” He didn’t look up from the plate of wings he tore through as he said it, but the other men all turned to look at him. None of them answered his question, and no one asked him who, but he went on as if they had, stopping to suck the wing sauce off his large callused thumb. He looked at Glen, who stopped cleaning to join in on the conversation, and the bartender noticed something different about Darryl. Before he could ask anything, Darryl’s tale continued. “was the devil done started that shit up there. I seen him do it mahself.” At this, Zeke and Chris smiled at each other, thinking that Darryl was setting up another practical joke. They loved tricking Teddy into believing them, and one night after several pitchers they convinced him that aliens picked people up at every new moon. Teddy spent three nights in the woods searching for proof, and a picture to make him rich, and when they finally went out there the third night to scare the hell out of him, he was curled up in his tent whimpering and pleading for the aliens to come and take him back to be with his momma. The brothers felt bad enough to hesitate, but not bad enough to leave him alone, and Teddy was afraid to go to sleep for a week after they tortured him, beating on the sides of the tent and shining flashlights all around. When he burst out of the tent, stark naked and screaming for the aliens to take him, they laughed hard enough to fall down. Chris, the slowest of the three brothers, pissed his pants, causing him to have to ride home in the bed of Zeke’s truck. The UFO thing had been Darryl’s idea too, so when he claimed that the devil was burning the forest, the other two went right along with it. Glen, who was looking at Darryl when the topic came up, understood at once that this was no joke. Darryl might be crazy, he thought, but he believes every word that he is saying. As if to illustrate that very fact, Darryl turned and chopped Chris in the throat, ending his laughter and making him spit the food he was chewing up onto the bar. “What the fuck’d you do that for?” Chris was still clutching his throat, trying to get his air back, but apparently he was more than capable of talking. “Cause I ain’t tellin no joke for you assholes to laugh at. I seen the devil start that fire mahself.” Glen, always trying to keep peace in his own bar, chose to humor Darryl. “Now, Darryl. Whaddya mean you seen him?” He lifted another glass, wiping it absently as he looked straight into Darryl’s large brown eyes. When Darryl turned to meet his stare, the look that Glen saw in them made his eyes drop. “I was out tryin to catch us some food t’other day, and I heard some noises. I snuck through some trees, duckin under a brush to see what it was. Then I seen this animal floating in thin air. I froze, still as shit, and watched it wigglin back and forth, like summen was holdin it round its middle. I crept up a lil closer, tryin to get a good look, and I saw it was a berr cub, still tiny nuff to be hangin round its mama. I figured it musta been caught in some kind of trap, but I wanted to make damn sure that wasn’t no other berr gonna come along and whip my ass in the middlah tryin to help it. When I stood up, I felt summen lookin at me, so I lowered back down. I took a step around a tree, and then I seen the baby’s mama, deader than shit and torn open all down the front. I almost screamed, but the sound got holed up in my throat and all that come out was a gurgle. I looked back at that baby berr, and I know I seen two eyes flash out at me, like they was smilin. Eyes cain’t smile man, and I know it sound crazier than hell, but I seen it.” He wasn’t even looking at any of them anymore, and his voice seemed to be drifting away. He was staring at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and his eyes didn’t blink even once. Chris caught his breath, and he was chewing slowly as he watched his brother tell the story. Zeke’s mouth hung open, trying to take everything in. Teddy was the only one not panicking, but it was only because he figured they were just messing with him again. Glen still wiped the same glass, trying not to look into Darryl’s eyes, even though they were staring directly over his left shoulder. Teddy was also the only one able to speak, again largely because he didn’t believe a word of it. “So what was they like red eyes?” He sipped his beer as he asked, and he started to smile. The urge was interrupted by Darryl whipping his head towards Teddy, now staring straight into his eyes. Any doubt that this man was lying left Teddy quicker than the piss that started running down the side of his thigh. “Hell no. They was dark, and I don’t mean black. Those eyes was just dark, as if there wasn’t nothin behind em at all. Like I could see into nothin.” He kept staring at Teddy, and now Teddy was freaked out. He couldn’t break the stare, and he hoped one of the other men would ask something else so that they could take Darryl’s attention. The door to the bar answered his prayers and swung open, slamming against the wall behind it. The room filled with an unusually cool breeze given that the temperature outside was close to 90. The smell of smoke wafted in with it. “Then what happened Dare?” Zeke’s voice was quiet as he turned back from the door, not wanting to get the same look that made Teddy wet himself. Darryl answered, but his eyes never left the door, which swung in the breeze, knocking on the wall behind it in a maddening rhythm. He was also the only one not to jump when it slammed open. “Damn eyes looked right through me. And then they turned on that lil berr, and it started wailin like it’s bein skinned live. I covered mah ears, cause it was the worst noise I ever heard. It kept fightin and screamin, and then it just burst into flames. Whatever was holdin it let it go, and the damn thing just ran howlin all through the forest, lightin lil piles of needles and leaves like they was kindlin. I looked back for the eyes, but they was gone, so I got the fuck up out of there.” His eyes drifted back to the pictures of the fire on the TV. “Fire’s been goin ever since.” Glen wanted to say something, but every time his mouth opened, he drew a blank. Chris was still chewing, even though he swallowed his last bite even before the door slammed open, and Zeke was speechless, a phenomenon none of the men had seen before. Teddy stood up, finished his beer, and looked at Glen. “Well on that note. I think I’ll jes get the fuck outta here. How much fer the beer Glen?” He pulled out his wallet and started thumbing bills out onto the bar. Glen nodded when he reached three dollars, and Teddy added one more for a tip. He stuffed his wallet back into his back pocket, nodded at the other men, and slipped towards the door. He was just at the threshold when he stopped, and the men in the bar turned towards him. Darryl was again the only one not to turn, but his gaze was fixed on the TV, which turned black. In it he saw a reflection, and if any of the other men were looking at him, they would see tears rolling down his cheeks into his beer. They expected Teddy to say something else, but he started to make a gurgling sound, and Glen thought that he was going to throw up in the bar. He started around the corner to get Teddy outside before he got sick, and he noticed that a puddle was forming around Teddy’s feet. He moved towards him, thinking his bladder let go again, but Teddy twisted around and they saw that his eyes were gone. In their place were two dark sockets, and it struck Glen that they were even darker than he expected empty sockets to be. The puddle that he mistook for piss spread to his feet, and he looked down to see that it was actually blood. When he looked back at Teddy, it was running down the front of his shirt in rivers. Zeke and Chris were both staring, mouths agape, but Darryl got up and went around behind the bar. Glen stayed rooted to the spot as Teddy’s hollow-eyed face turned to each one of them, and he swore that the man was looking at him, eyes or no eyes. He turned back to see Darryl rummaging under the bar, and understood at once that he was going for the shotgun that he kept back there in case of trouble. Now Darryl had decided that trouble was here. Teddy ignored Darryl, instead focusing on the two other brothers. They heard a voice coming from him, but his mouth never moved and there was nothing human about the sound of it. “Do you still doubt my existence?” Zeke made the mistake of thinking this was a question. “Well actually we-“ his reply was ended, along with his life, by a swarm of black bugs that shot out of Teddy’s left eye, engulfing the large man. He staggered from his bar stool, and they could all see that the bugs swarming around him, plunging in and out of his bulbous stomach. Blood spattered the floor, and the bugs landed in it and began to suck it up too. Zeke flailed around, clutching at his face as the bugs passed through his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Chris screamed and got up to help him, but the thing that was Teddy lifted its arm and Chris was frozen still. Zeke’s cries died out, and most of the bugs returned to their home by way of Teddy’s empty eye socket. The few that remained continued feasting on the puddles of blood on the floor. Glen looked at them and suppressed an urge to vomit. They were like mosquitoes, but the size of a large moth, and they had wings that reminded him of a miniature bat. They had several eyes on antennae, and they seemed to be looking at each of the men as they dined on what was left of Zeke. From their nose was a sharp sticker, but the bugs were big enough to show tiny teeth moving back and forth along it like a chainsaw. They buzzed like a car with no muffler, and the men could hear the slurping sounds of them sucking up the blood from the floor. Glen looked over at Darryl, who finally found the shotgun. He expected him to point it at Teddy, but Darryl snapped it open and checked the shells. Glen waited for him to shoot, but he knew that even if they did turn the weapon on what was left of Teddy (and there was no doubt that Teddy was no longer at the party), it wasn’t likely to do more than piss him off. Chris turned to his brother, and he did shout at him to shoot the bastard, but when Darryl looked up, they knew exactly what he meant to do. “I’m sorry Chris. Sorry Glen. I can’t go where he wants us to go.” And with that, he turned the shotgun around, placed his thumb across the trigger, and buried the muzzle in his mouth. Before either of them could stop him, the blast went off, and Darryl’s head painted the mirror behind the bar. Not-Teddy’s voice filled their heads again. “It’s a shame he was not strong enough. I come to offer you something greater than your wildest imagination. Do not be afraid, I am here to offer you eternal life. All I ask in return is loyalty to me. The alternative, as you can see-” he motioned to Zeke, “-is less than ideal. The choice is yours, gentlemen.” Not-Teddy stood still, and his hands dropped to his side. They noticed that he was not looking at either of them, staring at the wall as if he was shut down. Neither Glen nor Chris spoke a word, but the look that passed between them said all that they needed to. They turned to Not-Teddy, and both men nodded. The lips underneath the dark eyes curled up, and they saw the horrible yellow teeth that lived behind them. He didn’t say a word, but as he opened his mouth, the darkness that lived behind his eyes filled the bar. When the fire made its way down to the bar, three bodies were lying inside of it, waiting to be consumed. The last of the bugs, too greedy to follow their master and his two new apprentices, burned and left no evidence of their existence. The fire burned for a week, and 32 more people lost their lives in it, although autopsies that seemed unnecessary would have revealed that only a handful of them actually fell victim to flames.

Chapter 12 Terry Kerr was turning out to be everything that Amanda was looking for: sweet, charming, friendly, and incredibly thoughtful. When she went to work one day without the papers she needed for her presentation, he noticed and rushed up to bring them to her. He loved all of her friends, and the feeling was more than mutual. Amanda couldn’t help but notice a bit of jealousy when she introduced them all to him, and the way that the women looked at him as he talked showed her that any one of them would abandon their husbands and boyfriends in a heartbeat if they had a shot at him. He resigned from his position at Kent and Roberts, although officially they called it a sabbatical. She suggested that they move in together, but he told her that he was old-fashioned, a child of a different era, and that they should wait a little bit longer. He moved in to an available apartment one floor below to compromise. He hinted around a pending engagement on several occasions, and when Amanda talked with her friends about the topic, the green- eyed monster reared its head once again. On the record, after all that she had been through, she deserved to be happy more than anyone. She knew her friends well enough to know that off the record, they were madly envious of her, and the competitive spirit within her enjoyed their jealousy. They were together almost non-stop for six months when her birthday came around, and he was smart enough to not make a big deal about it. Amanda decided to stop celebrating birthdays about the time that Jackson died, partly in mourning, but mostly because she didn’t want to celebrate getting any older. When he was alive, the two of them went all out for each other’s birthdays, and she couldn’t imagine any kind of merriment that wouldn’t remind her of what she lost. Instead, she treated every birthday as if it were just another day, often working late or doing some tedious task like laundry just to get her mind off of it. Terry, having talked to all of her friends, was well aware of the birthday moratorium, but he had plans of his own, and when he wanted to be secretive, it was something he could do very well. He planned the night perfectly, arranging for dinner at the restaurant that they enjoyed during his first weekend visiting. Her friends would all be there, of course, but they wouldn’t make their presence known until after dinner. They would be waiting in a special room that he reserved, and he would make sure that Amanda made an appearance, using a quick fling in the deserted room as his excuse. The only thing that wasn’t planned perfectly was her sexual appetite after a few glasses of wine, and when they stumbled into the room for everyone to yell surprise, her hand was already forearm-deep in the front of his pants. She yanked it out at once, and then she burst into tears. There was a tense moment where everyone wondered if the whole thing had been a mistake, but when she uncovered her face, they all saw that the tears were joyful, and the party began. Terry barely got to see her during the party, as she mingled with people she hadn’t seen in years. One of her old college roommates managed to make it, and no one could believe all of the people that Terry somehow rounded up for the festivities. If it had been possible for her parents to be there from beyond the grave, they joked, he would have found a way to make it happen.

-2- As it turned out, a couple of guests were able to make it to the party posthumously, although they weren’t Amanda’s parents. Jackson and Davis found themselves just outside the restaurant as Amanda and Terry were eating, and they stuck around to witness the rest of the evening. Jackson froze when he first saw her, and the sight of her left him speechless. He stayed still as he watched her through the window, letting a number of people pass through him muttering about a sudden cold draft. Davis finally forced him into the restaurant, but they stayed at a distance so as not to overhear the conversation going on between the two lovers. There was no doubt that they were lovers, and Jackson felt a good bit of jealousy himself, to the point where Davis reminded him that he held no claim to her anymore. “I know. It’s harder than I thought it would be though.” The words were hollow, and when Davis looked into Jackson’s eyes, they seemed to be as well. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here. We should go.” Davis was trying to pull Jackson away, but he might as well have wrestled a tree. “No, it’s ok. I need to see this. I’m happy for her, I really am.” He tried his best to sound convincing, but wondered if Davis was buying it. He wanted to be happy for her, and in the years that he had been dead, he thought about her dating someone else often. The idea that she should spend the rest of her life under a vow of celibacy was ridiculous, and he never expected it. Seeing it in person was harder than he ever could have known, though. He was happy to know that she was going on with her life when Davis had told him, but now, faced with the reality of it, he struggled. He told himself the only option was to confront it head-on, and standing here watching them share a dinner on her birthday was the best way to do that. He never knew about her birthday boycott, so he had no way of knowing just how much all of this meant to her. Terry filled a space that nothing else was able to, and it was a void that Amanda herself hadn’t recognized until he came into it. Watching them together, it was obvious that they were in love, and that comprehension only made it more difficult for Jackson. They followed the two of them the rest of the night, listening to conversations and trying to figure out what was endangering Amanda. Davis told him on the way there that he went searching for her after hearing Jackson tell their story, wanting to show him that she was happy. When he found her, he borrowed from her, and he felt a sense of fear and danger all around her. He went immediately back to find Jackson so that they could help her. Now, faced with how happy she really was, he was starting to wonder if he made a mistake. After the night ended, and the two lovers retreated to Amanda’s apartment, Jackson and Davis stayed away, choosing instead to sit atop Hogwart’s Castle in Universal Studios and enjoy the view it offered. “I’m sorry Jackson, I guess was wrong. She doesn’t appear to be in danger at all. I don’t know why I felt that, but it looked like everything was fine tonight.” Jackson stared off into the horizon, watching a boat sink into it. “What if you were right. I trust your intuition here, and if you felt something bad, then I can’t leave her until I know that she is safe. Just because things are going well now doesn’t mean that we can count on them to stay that way. If we could, I wouldn’t be here in the first place, and Amanda would be my wife.” He paused, and Davis could make out a chill in his voice that he never heard before. “Ok. I’m with you man. If you want to stay here for a while, I’m all for it. I’ve never been here either, so I’m sure there are plenty of things to occupy us. You want to go see if we can help somebody?” Davis was trying hard to get his friend to think of anything besides the woman he obviously still loved. “No, you go ahead. I’m going to stay here tonight and just think. I haven’t done that in quite a while.” “Suit yourself. I’ll come back later and we can go do something entertaining. Or more surveillance, whatever you’re up for.” With that, Davis lifted off and slowly slipped down to land. He looked up to see if Jackson’s attention had shifted, but his eyes stayed fixed in the same spot as before. Davis shrugged and left his friend with his thoughts.

-3-

Jackson spent the entire night atop the castle tower, and his eyes never moved from their spot on the horizon. All that he really saw was Amanda and Terry and the happiness that surrounded them like a dense fog. He tried to put it out of his mind, but it always raced back to the front after a few seconds. He tried to remember more from his dream, but the word “Help” was all that remained. He worked to dig deeper, asking aloud who he was supposed to be helping, but all that flooded his mind was images of his former fiancée with the man who, at least at the present time, seemed destined to become her future husband. He chastised himself for the way that he felt about Terry, especially with no evidence to suspect he was anything short of a perfect gentleman. He followed him around for almost an hour earlier that night, trying to find some justification for the hatred, but every time he observed him, all he got was a deeper loathing for his own selfish inability to be happy for the woman that he supposedly loved. He wanted to be happy for her, he knew that much, but some part of him just wouldn’t let go of the fact that she was his “But she’s not.” He said aloud. Speaking the words made them more real for him. “She’s happy now, and that’s what she deserves. Fuck’s sake Jackson, what did you want to see? Did you really want to find her holding onto you like some child with a stuffed animal? Do you want shrines to you everywhere she looks? You want her to be happy, you always have. He makes her happy. End of story. What kind of an asshole do you have to be to wallow around pitying your own dead ass while she’s been without you for years?” He found himself shouting, and looked to make sure no one heard him before he realized that the last time anyone heard him was a long time ago. But as he looked down, someone was looking up at him. At first he thought that they were just looking up at the castle, but the more he examined, the more sure he was that they heard him. How was that possible? No one ever heard him unless he borrowed from them, and even then he consciously sent the thoughts to that person. Was it feasible that he could make noise that living people could hear? If he could interact with them after he borrowed from them, moving things or even pushing people, why couldn’t sound follow similar rules? The sound that he heard when he talked to Davis wasn’t sound at all. Maybe he hadn’t actually talked since the day he died. He wanted to try it again, but he didn’t know how to start. He shouted again. “Hello? Can you hear me?” But the people below him stopped looking up at all. He shouted as hard as he could feel, trying to make a sound, but he could tell that the voice he was projecting was all in his head. The thought of being able to talk to people made him forget all about Amanda and Terry for a moment. More accurately, it made him forget all about Terry. He wanted to learn to talk so that he could say something to Amanda. He wanted to tell her that she should be happy, just in case some part of her was still holding onto him. Maybe that way he could finally let her go. He shouted again, but still no one looked. He leaned forward and lost his balance, and he was falling towards the concrete below. He knew that he couldn’t be hurt by the fall, but slipping caught him off guard, and he shouted again as he stumbled. This time, it felt different, and he knew instantly that he made a sound. As he stopped falling just as he reached the ground, people all around were looking for the sound that they just heard. He moved among them, listening to some of them discussing it. “-sounded like it was falling.” “I heard it too. Where was it?” “Was it a person? Did somebody yell from up there? “-park’s closed at night. Must have been some kind of weird wind thing.” “-could have sworn. Very strange.” He screamed as he fell, and people heard him, there was no doubt now. He wanted to find Davis and show him, because he felt the difference between words spoken in his head and words spoken out loud. He knew that he could do it again, and the thought of speaking to Amanda made him take off from the ground so quickly that the same people who heard him shout on the way down felt the wind whipping around them. When they heard another elated shout moving up into the sky, it was the wind that received the blame for it again.

-4-

The second time that Amanda Massey got engaged reminded her of the first time for a variety of reasons. First of all, the proposal was a complete and total shock to her, and she was again speechless when he asked. Second, they dined at a restaurant that held a special meaning to both of them. Third, she couldn’t wait to tell all her friends the good news. Unfortunately, those were not the only reasons that her second engagement was like her first. For one thing, Jackson Hamilton was present at both of the occasions, although Amanda had no idea he witnessed the second. More importantly, but also more tragically, Amanda would never get a chance to marry the second man who proposed to her either. Terry lived in Orlando for six months before he asked Amanda to marry him. They were dating and getting steadily more serious for the entire time, but the subject of marriage was only mentioned in passing. Terry knew about her previous engagement, as well as the loss that followed it. He knew that her heart still belonged to Jackson, and in some way it always would, but he also thought there was enough of that heart to commit her life to him as well. Whether or not Amanda stopped to consider this idea, she also knew that the path they were on was headed in that direction. She talked with her friends about it a few times, but she was always afraid of jinxing anything. After what happened before, Amanda was more cautious than anyone around her really understood. When he did ask her, a small part of her said that she wasn’t ready, but she chalked it up to missing Jackson once more and pressed herself to move on anyway. It was what he would have wanted, she told herself, and that logic was echoed by all of her friends and co-workers when they found out. The fact that she felt awkward about being engaged again was obvious to everybody that talked to her, but they all did their best to make her feel better about it. After a few weeks, she began to plan her wedding with all the excitement that she swallowed when her first engagement ended. During all the rush and anticipation, and despite his best efforts, Jackson did not get the opportunity to use his newfound ability and talk to Amanda. The fact that he happened to witness her engagement was just blind luck, although Jackson debated whether that luck could be considered good or bad. He tracked her down nearly every day, trying to get her alone so that he could test his theory about talking to the living with her. He spoke to a couple of people on the street, an idea that Davis tried vehemently (but unsuccessfully) to talk him out of. When he did, most of the people just turned around and looked behind them, shooting anyone around strange glances before hurrying away. His success excited him at first, but the fact that everyone dismissed whatever they heard so quickly dampened that elation. He needed to be able to hold a conversation, and the closest he came was an exchange with a blind man waiting on a bench for the bus. The man held the conversation long enough, but when he asked to shake Jackson’s hand and was denied, he got angry and left. Davis protested especially hard after that ordeal, and he tried explaining to Jackson that talking to Amanda would not help her in any way. If she could hear him, and she did believe that it was him, it would only slow down the process of getting over him. They argued about it for an entire day before Davis finally took off on his own, telling Jackson that he could ruin people’s lives if he chose to. Jackson’s resolve was not weakened by Davis’s protests. If anything, it made him more desperate to talk to her. Being alone reminded him of the time before he met Davis, and the solitude he attributed to being dead. Looking back, he realized how much he struggled with his adjustment, and how much easier having a friend made everything. Now, alone again, he wanted to reach out to her so that he could help her move on with her life, not hinder it. Somehow though, no matter how many times he said it out loud, he couldn’t get himself to believe that those were his only motives. A small part of him knew that he wanted more than just for her to get over him. Seeing her with Terry was torture for him, and he had resigned to leave Orlando altogether on more than one occasion before ultimately changing his mind. In the end, the thought of leaving her alone just to later find out that something happened to her afterwards was too much for Jackson to risk, so he stayed anyway. A part of him tried to justify letting her die so that they could be together, but that idea was so terrible he couldn’t begin to give a voice to it. On the day of Amanda’s second engagement, it was Davis who came to Jackson and told him that he finally found a chance for him to talk to her. He still didn’t support the plan, but he understood the importance of it and knew that Jackson would not give up until he tried. Jackson was ecstatic, and he spent the whole morning and afternoon practicing what he would say. He rehearsed not only the speech, but the process of speaking so that she would be able to hear everything clearly. Davis sat by him, watching silently. Jackson thought about what a good friend he was as he practiced, and determined to treat him better after everything was over. He knew that he had to speak to her, and he knew that both of them had to move on. After tonight, he could do that in peace, and she would have a way to call him if she ever needed his help again. “Okay, run through it one more time for me.” As the time grew closer, Davis got up to help, and he was having Jackson recite what he wanted to say to help calm the nerves that he could sense growing. “Here goes.” Jackson cleared his throat, a habit that made Davis laugh out loud. Jackson smiled back, and then shook his head and arms to clear his mind. “Amanda, it’s me Jackson.” “I still can’t believe you’re going to lead with that.” “What else would I lead with?” They debated the opening line of Jackson’s speech ad nauseam, but no suitable alternative presented itself yet. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking that if I were alive and I all of a sudden heard my dead fiancée talking to me, I would be pretty sure I was losing my mind. I don’t think I would ever in my wildest dreams believe that it was actually happening. Maybe you should start out with something that only you would know. A pet-name, or something like that.” “I don’t know what that would be though.” Jackson was starting to get frustrated, and he sat down to calm himself. His emotions were one of the few things that he kept after his death, and right now he wished that he hadn’t. “There wasn’t anything that you used to call her?” “When we first started dating I tried calling her Mandy, but she hated it.” He hesitated, and the memory came back to him fully. “That could work.” “Yeah, but what if somebody else called her that, and that’s why she got so bent out of shape?” “You’ve got a better idea?” Jackson just shook his head. “Ok, well let’s get past the opening. I’ll just see how it feels when I get there, and we’ll play it according to that. So anyway. Hey Mandy.” “I like that. It’s enough to get her attention, but it’s not Hiroshima.” Jackson continued without acknowledging the interruption. “I need to talk to you, but I know that you can’t see me. I don’t know if you can recognize my voice or not, but it’s Jackson.” He stopped and lowered his head into his hands. “What’s wrong?” Davis was waiting for the next line with his head back, people- watching. “I’m just thinking of all the ways that this could go wrong. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t do this.” He waited to see if Davis would agree, but he heard nothing. He looked up to find his friend staring straight at him, but not saying a word. “What do you think?” “You know what I think. But I know that you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do, and if that includes having a conversation from beyond the grave with your still-living fiancée, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. I’m going to leave this to you. La Coquina’s the restaurant where she will be eating tonight, I heard Terry telling her that he might be running a few minutes late. You should have a few minutes alone with her before he gets there. Good luck. After you’re finished, head on over to the castle, and I’ll be waiting for you.” He lifted off, not waiting for Jackson’s response. Jackson followed him with his eyes until he was too far, and then dropped his head to face the ground. He ran through the rest of the speech, pausing a few times to allow the inner debate to continue. Eventually, he knew that he would have to try and talk to her, just to see if she would listen. If he didn’t he would always wonder what could have happened, and if eternity was what he had left to look forward to, he couldn’t leave that hanging over him that whole time.

-5-

Jackson’s hopes of talking to Amanda that night were dashed before they even got off the ground. He got to the restaurant and waited for her, but when she pulled up to valet park her car, there were far too many people around. Inside the restaurant, the table where she sat was surrounded by other tables, and every time he worked up the courage to start, someone else came by to ask if she needed anything. He thought he was going to get his chance at last, but a man playing violin decided to stop by for the lady sitting alone. Jackson borrowed from the man, then called to him from what the violinist thought was across the room. As he left, Jackson realized how ridiculous this idea was, and he stared at her from across the table unable to move or speak at all. She was beautiful, even more so than before. Her hair was longer too, he noticed. He always begged her to let it grow, but she never liked the hassle of it. It would have made him happy to know that she finally let it grow in honor of that wish, but she never told anyone the reason behind her choice. Her eyes still glowed as they did in her reflection the first time he saw her, and he didn’t think that she had aged a day since then. Sitting in the restaurant took him back to the night he proposed with a detached feeling, as if it was some movie they watched together. They went to dinner, got engaged, and then watched a terribly tragic movie where the man died just after proposing. Everything else since then seemed like a dream to him as he stared into her eyes. Looking at her from the closest since dying in her arms, it was almost possible to believe it all was. As he allowed himself to be swept into the fantasy, a word escaped him. “Mandy.” He said it so quietly that he barely heard it himself, but he could tell that she heard it as soon as it left his lips. Her neck straightened up, and her eyes burst open. The knife she had been holding fell to her plate with a clang, and the other people around her turned and looked. Jackson wished that he had a heart just so that he could feel it beating as swiftly as he knew that it would be now. She was looking straight at his face, and he wanted more than anything for her to be able to see it. He smiled, looked back at her, and told himself that this was what he had waited for. He opened his mouth to speak, and she stood up. His mouth snapped shut, thinking he frightened her, but she was smiling too. For a split second, he thought that she could see him, and she was rushing around the table to wrap her arms around his neck. Maybe it had all been a dream, and now it was going to end so that they could be happy and spend the rest of their lives wrapped around each other. He would never let her go again, and this time they could retire to an island where all they needed was each other, because nothing else mattered at that moment. He was so happy, and now he was getting exactly what he wanted because she was coming around the table, her arms lifting from her sides. Could it be true? “Hey gorgeous! Wow that dress looks fantastic on you.” Jackson’s heart crashed back down to earth at the sound of Terry’s voice, and he slumped into the table hard enough to spill water from the glasses on it. The people around him looked again, and Amanda spun around to see if she bumped it. When she saw that she hadn’t, her eyes lingered on the table for longer than usual before she turned back to Terry, covering his face with tiny kisses that left a hint of the pink lipstick she was wearing. Jackson stood up, not wanting to share the same space with the man who was taking the love of his life, not to mention his after life. He sat at an empty table a few feet away, wishing that he still possessed the ability to enjoy a stiff drink. She heard him, he was sure of that, but it was too late. Now he was forced to sit and watch them share a dinner that he shared with her years before. He considered leaving, but chose to stay in case Terry left the table again. The next time, he would not hesitate. He came too close to turn back, and now he needed to know what her reaction would be. By the time dessert came to the table, Jackson rested his head on his own table, rolling his eyes as the two lovers enjoyed their intimate dinner. The rest of the customers left by that point, and as the maitre d’ came over, it became obvious that Terry arranged for them to have the place to themselves. Jackson began to suspect something, but he could not have been less prepared when a glass of champagne headed towards the table carrying an extra glint in it. He got up and moved towards the waiter, examining it closely, only to find a large diamond ring sitting in the bottom of the glass. With no one else in the restaurant, it was impossible for him to explain it away to himself, and he sank to the chair behind him as all of the strength drained out of him. He couldn’t stay to watch, but he couldn’t tear himself away. He sat horrified as the two glasses were placed on the table, but not before Amanda was instructed to close her eyes. When she opened them, the look that spread across her face was one that Jackson had seen before. He was too far away to hear what they were saying, but it isn’t necessary to overhear a proposal to be able to tell how it is going. She screamed and jumped up out of her seat, rushing to Terry and hugging him hard enough to almost knock him over. When she went back to sit down, he drank the champagne in a single gulp, then produced the ring from between his teeth. She laughed excitedly, and he dropped down to one knee. She screamed yes, and Jackson was forced to compare her level of excitement with the night that he proposed. Even though he knew better, he still thought that she seemed more eager to be Terry’s fiancée. Having seen enough, he stood up and walked through the large window at the front of the restaurant, knocking a candle off the table next to it as he passed through it. He didn’t even notice that he did it, and he didn’t look back after he was on the street. If he had, he would have seen that inside the restaurant, Amanda was hugging Terry while she looked towards the candle rolling on the floor. “Jackson.” She whispered, just quiet enough for Terry not to hear. Chapter 13

When Glen sat up, he was all alone. The sound of water running helped him to come to, but as he looked around the tiny log cabin he had no idea where they were. He stood up to go and talk to Chris, but the memory of the bar flooded his mind, and he fell back down. He could still hear the shotgun ringing in his ears as it took Darryl’s head off, and he could still see the holes where Teddy’s eyes had been. The bugs that finished off Zeke followed close behind in his mind’s eye, and he decided a shower was exactly what he needed. When he walked into the bathroom, he found Chris hunched over the sink, totally naked, scrubbing furiously at his hands. “Hey, Chris, you all right?” The man at the sink didn’t bother to acknowledge anyone else around him. He kept scrubbing, and Glen noticed that the water in the sink was a shade of pink that made his stomach lurch. He thought for a moment that Chris was actually scrubbing his fingers so hard that they were bleeding, but when he reached to stop him, he saw that his own hands were covered in dried blood. He screamed and stumbled back, falling into the shower and clutching the curtain as he fell. When he landed, his head hit the side of the old ceramic tub with a thud, and his vision blurred. He could barely make out Chris at the sink, still not noticing him despite his noisy flailing. He raised his hands to see the blood on them, but it wasn’t until he went to pull himself up that he found that he was covered in it. It ran all down the front of his shirt, dried to the point of making the shirt stiff as he moved. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed it before, and the sight of all of it made him sick. He leaned over the toilet and let go, but very little came up. His stomach growled as if to let him know that there was nothing in there to vomit, no matter how much he might feel the need to. He walked back to the shower and cut the water on before stripping out of the bloody clothes and climbing in. Behind him, Chris continued his obsessive cleaning, and Glen understood that he was trying to get all the blood from under his fingernails. They had been so caked with it that it looked as if the two men tried to perform surgery. He stood under the warm water, letting it rinse the blood down into the drain. When the water turned cold almost thirty minutes later, Glen decided he should get out. By then Chris had finally given up on cleaning his hands, and Glen called out to him, but got no answer. He wrapped the towel around his waist without drying off and stepped out into the only other room of the cabin they were sharing. Chris was nowhere to be found again, and Glen noticed that the front door was slightly open. He stepped outside, his hand holding his towel around him, and saw Chris at the base of a large palm tree, still naked, staring up at the top of it. “Chris man, what the fuck are you doing?” Chris answered without even turning around. “There ain’t no palm trees in the Smokies, Glen. Where the hell are we?” They were both hungry, so they washed their clothes in the tub and laid them out to dry so they could get food. When they went to search for a town nearby, they found nothing but more woods, and they settled for some berries that they found on the way. The berries tasted strange to them, and they discussed the possibility of them being poisonous. Neither man seemed to care too much, their hunger forcing them to eat whatever they could find, but they reconsidered when they both got violently ill later that night and brought every bit of their dinner back up. A few hours later, Glen woke up to a new horror. Chris was gone, but he could hear a terrible sound coming from outside the cabin. Some kind of animal was caught in a trap, and from the sounds it made, Glen knew it was in excruciating pain. He went outside, expecting to find his friend helping the animal escape, but instead he found him with his mouth pressed to the side of a large buck, streams of blood running down his chin. The buck kicked violently, but Chris kept it from moving with a single hand placed on its rump. When Glen saw him, he expected to be nauseous, but to his revulsion he found that his stomach rumbled more. Chris raised his head, licking blood across his lips, and looked straight at Glen before returning to his meal. Glen walked towards him, trying to say something, but the sight of the blood was doing strange things to him. He wanted to have a bite, just a small bite, and he felt like his hunger was getting the best of him. He had eaten venison before, and although this was a little fresher than he liked, he saw no choice. He didn’t know when he ate last, and the sight of all that meat right in front of him was too much to bear. He fell to his knees right next to Chris, leaning forward until he could smell the blood. He gripped the side of the deer, digging his nails into it, and his fingers pierced its tough hide. It let out another gurgling scream, and Glen bent forward to feast. They ate all of the deer without speaking a word, leaving only the bones when they were finished. Chris stood up first, letting the remains of the two-hundred pound buck fall to the ground. He walked inside and Glen heard the sound of the water cutting on in the bathroom. He sat still, examining the carcass and letting the reality of what they had just done sink in. He only wanted a little bit to eat. He was so hungry. The meat itself should have made them sick, even if the blood didn’t, but the still living deer was the best meal he ever ate, there was no doubt about that. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so satisfied after a meal either. The sun began to set above him, and he got to his knees to go inside. He could start washing their clothes while Chris was showering, and then he could wash himself off. When he walked into the cabin, he felt a chill, and he tried to remember if they had air conditioning. He looked around for a thermostat, but found nothing. Just as he pulled his shirt over his head, he heard the voice, and it froze him solid. “Good eats?” It was the voice that came from Teddy after he lost his eyes. Glen finished pulling off the shirt and looked around the cabin, but he was alone in it. “Who are you?” The question almost caught in his throat, and he stopped once and took a deep breath before he could get the words out of his mouth. “No matter.” The voice came from right behind him, and Glen swung around, falling over an end table and into the chair it sat next to. He felt hands gripping his shoulders, but when he turned to look, there was nothing on them. He could actually see the color rushing out of his skin where the unseen fingers squeezed, and it reminded him of a corpse that he found in the woods when he was 12 years old. He shivered and tried to get up, but the hands pulled him back into his seat. “All that you need to concern yourself with is what I need from you.” “How did we get here? What did you do to us?” The hands squeezed harder, and in the mirror Glen could see the fingertips starting to pierce his skin. He thought that the fingers felt more like claws, and he was glad that he couldn’t see the thing that held him. He had a bad feeling it was less human than it sounded. And right now it sounded angry. “You have no business asking questions of me. I gave you a choice, and you chose to follow. Followers are not entitled to answers from their leaders. I will tell you what I need, and you will do it. The alternative is something that you will not prefer.” “What do you mean?” The hands gripped again, and now there was a tiny stream of blood starting its way down Glen’s chest. “I said no questions. All I will tell you is that failure will make you wish for the fate that ended your fat friend’s life back at your shitty bar.” Glen’s breath stopped as he remembered the mosquitoes that had killed Zeke. “Anything you say.” “That’s more like it.” The thing sounded pleased, but it did not loosen its hold on his shoulder, and the blood starting to pool in his lap grew every second. “You will leave this place and head south. There is someone I need you to meet.”

-2-

Chris stepped out of the shower, reaching for a towel. He heard a noise from the next room, and he stepped out further, peering around the corner. Glen was sitting in a chair, but his face was far from relaxed. Chris tried to catch his eye, but he was staring straight into a mirror. He noticed blood on his chest, and at first he thought it came from their meal, but as he looked closer, he saw that it flowed from a wound that appeared to be caused by clawed fingers. He slid back behind the door, moving out just enough to see his friend. Something held him down, and he heard Glen talking to whatever it was. He sensed the cold in the room, and knew that the thing from the bar returned for them. He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out into the doorway, feeling a sudden anger at the thing that took his brothers from him. He balled his fists and stepped towards the chair. Glen shook his head for him to stop, but Chris paid no attention. Something gripped his throat, halting his advance. It felt like a hand, but the skin was scaly, as if some kind of snake were wrapped around him. He struggled against it, but the grip only tightened. He tried to back away and it lifted him until his feet were kicking a full foot and a half off the ground. He looked at Glen and saw that his shoulders still held the marks of two hands holding firmly, and he wondered exactly what they faced. “What the hell are you?” Chris forced out of his constricted windpipe. The hand flung him back against the mirror, shattering it and sending the shards raining down on him. He felt them slice into the back of his shoulder, and the blood started to flow down his side. As he leaned back, tiny pieces of glass crunched under his weight, pricking him in a hundred different places. He went to stand up, but a different force rested on his chest. It felt like a foot this time, and he looked at Glen, nearly 20 feet away, wondering if there could be multiple creatures attacking. “There is only one of me.” The voice answered his thought as calmly as if he asked what time it was. The shock in Chris’s eyes was obvious, and it was met with a laugh that made the hair on both men’s necks stand at full attention. “Do you honestly think that doing something as simple as reading your mind is beyond my ability? Believe when I tell you that you have not seen even one-thousandth of my power. I could turn your bodies inside out where you sit trembling even now, and you would be alive to feel all of it. This is not a time for asking questions, but since you both seem so determined to find out the truth, I will tell you some of it. I warn you, though, you may not like what you hear.” The foot against Chris’s chest pushed down, and more glass lodged itself into the small of his back. “You are angry for my ending of your brothers. Funny that two men who you spent your life with could become like brothers, but the blood that runs down from you now holds nothing in common with those two men. They confessed your secrets to me, as I hold their souls even now in my company.” Glen looked at Chris, trying to ask a question with his eyes, but the man on the floor was staring at the ground now. “I cannot understand how lovers could decide to pose as brothers. Or did the thought of incest turn you hillbillies on too much to resist?” Glen watched in horror as Chris tried to get up, his eyes aflame. The foot in his chest let him move just enough, then shoved him back down hard enough that Glen heard his hip snap when he hit the hard floor. Chris opened his mouth to scream, but the sound trailed off even though his lips still stayed open, and Glen felt like all sound was being sucked from the room. The cold laugh came again, and following the silence from before, it was even more chilling. “Ahhhh, thank you for that delightful scream. The power you humans create with your rawest emotions is divine, but you are even stronger now that you have fed on the life of another.” They both looked at each other now, and Glen remembered that the blood from the animal still stained his chin. He felt ashamed, and he knew that Chris did as well. “Feel no shame, my followers. That worthless emotion is something I mean for you to never feel again. I made you more powerful than any creature whose heart still beats, but the price you pay is a thirst for blood. I created something better than you were, something that has not walked the Earth for some centuries. At a time there were many more of your kind to serve me, but the humans destroyed even the greatest. Now, my new power will mark the birth of a new world, one of my design, and you will sit at my right hand when the time is right. I have told you enough for now, and I require that you complete the task that I have given you, Glen.” Hearing the creature say his name filled Glen with a new fear, and the situation became even more real than before. Chris looked at him, tears streaming down his cheeks, and raised his eyebrows as if to ask what he knew. Glen nodded back, the only gesture he could manage. He felt weak again, and the blood in his lap soaked all the way down into the chair. It still ran from the wound in his shoulder, and he felt that if he didn’t stop it soon he would pass out. As the two men looked at each other, they felt the restraints against them loosening. When Glen could finally breathe, he fell forward onto the floor. They lay still for a moment, catching their breath, and then the voice boomed above them again. “Get on your knees fools.” This time it shattered the windows of the cabin, and the two men covered their ears with their hands, only to find that the voice filled their heads, and escaping it was impossible. They scrambled blindly to their knees, crying like children, and their master laughed at them again. “I will heal your wounds, and they shall be the last wounds you shall ever know. I will know everything that you do, say, or think for the rest of your existence. Do you understand?” They nodded through sobs. “Do you understand the consequence of failure?” He paused only long enough for them to nod again, then continued. “Soon you will see signs that will lead you to your destiny. They will be invisible to the living, but you are not alone on this plane, so do not be foolish enough to expose yourselves before it is time. Do you accept your fate?” Glen consented immediately, but Chris hesitated, and he felt the shards of the mirror working their way deeper into his flesh like worms digging into dirt. He screamed out his acceptance and begged for mercy. “Good. Now I will give you the tools to find your way. Your eyes shall become mine.” With that, they felt a burning in their sinuses, and it focused into their eye sockets. As the first burst of flames shot out of their heads, they felt no more pain.

-3-

The two men walked through the woods without sharing a sound. They wore dark sunglasses, even though no sunlight pierced the heavy cover of trees above them. They knew to travel under cover or at night if possible. The direct sun didn’t kill them, but it burned their skin enough to send them into shady areas. They never slept anymore, and the deer remained the last thing either man ate, though neither of them knew how long that had been. They felt no need to speak to each other, sharing thoughts as if they were common knowledge to everyone, like the color of water or the smell of grass. Their eye sockets were empty, but losing their eyes seemed to improve their vision. Chris sighted a bird almost two miles away from them the day before, and Glen saw animals hiding from them in the brush without turning his head to look. The greatest thing about their new vision, though, was the path, painted like a trail of blood to the two of them. Neither of them knew where the path would end, but the further they walked it, the more they began to forget every bit of their humanity. The thought of becoming a monster began to seem more attractive with every passing minute, and Glen and Chris both anticipated their goal with giddy delight. A vision of them terrorizing the world, living for thousands of years with no restraints flashed between them, and the two men quickened their pace at the same time without exchanging even a glance. Chapter 14

Preparations for the wedding rushed along at a similar pace, and arrangements plagued Amanda everywhere she went. She wanted to get married as soon as possible, determined to let nothing stop her this time. They scheduled the wedding a month after the engagement, and inviting everyone proved incredibly difficult. Now, getting all of the details in order seemed even more challenging. The maid of honor, one of Amanda’s oldest friends named Allison, arrived to try and deflect some of the pressure. The two were college roommates, and it was Allison who stayed with Amanda after Jackson died. Now she tackled an even tougher task: getting her friend ready for a wedding day that she believed would never come. “I’m not saying you’re a Bride-zilla, but you are kind of being a bitch.” Allison draped another large wedding dress over her arm, waiting on the bride to check out the twelfth. “I am not. I’m just saying I have a feeling that something is going to go wrong.” The voice on the other side of the dressing room door showed signs of stress that most of her friends and co-workers never heard. “You’re just being a pessimist. You’re a good person, and you deserve to be happy. What makes you think that some force of the frigging universe is determined to keep you from ever getting married?” “I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I get sometimes.” “You know, most of the brides that we see say the same thing.” The salesgirl was trying her best to restore the cheerful mood that usually accompanied trying on wedding dresses. “Something about being in the dress makes it all a little more real, and lots of women panic and think that everything is going to go wrong.” Amanda popped her head up above the door and shot the girl a look that told her to mind her own business. “How many of those girls held the man that just proposed while he died?” Her head dropped back down, not waiting to see the girl’s reaction. The rustling of the dress continued. Allison looked at the shocked girl and tried to force a smile. “Don’t mind her. She’s having an extra awesome PMS session this month.” “I am not Allie. And don’t make excuses for me. I’m a bride, and I can be a bitch if I want. Besides-“ She flung the door open and stepped out, the next candidate finally clipped behind her. “I’m sure they’ve seen much bigger bitches in here than me. I’ve watched those shows. Right?” She smiled at the girl, offering a peaceful resolution if she agreed with her. The girl snapped at the chance. “Oh absolutely. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve heard in here. One girl called her own mother a ‘stupid whore’ and the mom just laughed it off. Brides can be crazy sometimes.” She stopped herself before she started digging another hole. “That one looks great. I really think you found it.” Allison nodded in agreement. The dress was fit for victory, there was no debate about that. The strapless bust held her high and separated, offering the epitome of cleavage as the first view. The bottom of the dress went out from her hips at an angle, hugging the curves of her hard- earned backside before dropping to the floor. Beads up the back of it like a corset completed the look. A train ran ten feet out from the back of the dress, fanning out like a peacock’s tail laid flat. It was perfection, and when Amanda turned to see herself in it, her breath left without returning for a beat. All her premonitions faded. “Wow your boobs look amazing in that. I am so jealous.” Allison massaged her own chest, trying to imitate the effect of the dress. “And where did you get an ass like that? You are a freak of nature.” “Shut up.” Amanda turned back and forth to see the dress from all angles. “No keep going.” She laughed. “I’m serious. You stole some nineteen year old’s ass. That is so not fair. I’m strutting around here looking like somebody’s mom and you’re hotter than fucking in a forest fire.” She glanced at the sales girl, placing her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.” The girl waved it away. “Please,” she said. “If you can offend me, I’ll give you 20% off.” The two women laughed, but Amanda did her best Narcissus impression without taking notice. “Who was the designer for this dress?” “Umm. I think- Let me check something really quick.” The girl rifled through several papers on the table in front of her. “That dress is a Vera Wang.” “Decision made.” Allison clapped her hands together. “C’mon Amanda, I’m gonna eat my arm. You’ve tried the dresses on, so now can we actually eat something.” “Okay, okay. Let me just get out of it, and we’ll go.” She turned away from herself, pausing for one last look at a sight she had resigned to never see, and then looked at the girl attempting to calculate her commission check. “We’ll take this one. What else do we need to do?” “Great.” She reminded herself to tone down the smile, a trick that the best salespeople know without being taught. “I just need to get some information about the wedding, along with your contact info.” “I can take care of that while you get undressed, hon.” Allison’s stomach rumbled as she took the salesgirl’s arm. “And apparently my stomach says you need to hurry the hell up.” Amanda laughed. “I’ll be there when I’m good and ready.” She stepped back into the dressing room as the other two women walked away. She looked at herself in the mirror again, and she felt the emotion of the moment. She had held it at bay every second since Terry proposed, not wanting to get invested in something only to be disappointed again. Now, standing in her wedding dress, she couldn’t fight it back any more. A tear swelled at the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away before it could assault her makeup. She reached behind herself to get the dress off, but the fastener was just out of her reach. “Dammit.” She said to no one. She stuck her head over the door, looking for anyone within earshot to help, and as she stretched, she felt the fastener pop loose. “Oh, that’s a problem. We’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen at the wedding, or somebody’s grandpa gets a free show.” She held the dress against her, looking for one last time before she started to slip it off. “Always did look amazing in a Vera.” She froze, pulling the dress back up. She spun around the dressing room, turning on tiptoe and looking up over the walls to see who spoke to her. She was all alone. “Who’s there? Who said that?” She bent down and looked under the wall to the next room, but saw no feet there either. She heard her heart pounding in her ears, and her breath became shorter. She sat down to try and calm herself before she hyperventilated. “I must be losing my goddamn mind. This stress is really getting to me.” She stared at herself in the mirror and forced a smile. “Get it together Amanda. Get it together.” A knock on the door made her scream. “Sorry, I was just checking to see if you were ready. Did I scare you?” Allison’s head peeked over the top of the door. “Oh Jesus magnum Manny, are you still in the dress? C’mon girl, it looks amazing, but if I don’t eat soon, I’m going to run out in the woods and kill something.” “Okay, sorry. I thought I-“ She couldn’t bring herself to tell her friend what happened. She feared if everyone thought she was too stressed, they would try and postpone the wedding, and that couldn’t happen. “I’ll be right out.” She watched Allison’s shoes step back, but she still heard her fidgeting outside the door. She slipped the dress off and put it back on the hanger. “Are we all good to go?” “Yeah, I gave her all the info. You just have to come back later for a fitting. Sorry if I scared you hon.” “No, no it’s all right. I just thought I was alone in here.” She looked around the tiny dressing room one more time, placing her hand on the mirror and half expecting to see someone else in it. “Are you here?” She whispered. “What did you say?” Allison walked back over and her shoes were right outside the door again. “Nothing. Just muttering to myself. Are you ready?” She opened the door and grabbed the dress to take up to the counter. “You better not be hearing voices, love. Too young and too hot to go crazy.” Allison pinched Amanda’s arm, then spun her finger in circles around her temple, laughing. “Yeah, look who’s talking.” The two women walked away, but Amanda snuck one last glance at the empty dressing room before they rounded the corner.

-2-

Jackson watched the two women leave the dress shop, standing in the empty dressing room until the salesgirl came back in to straighten it. He slipped through her, pausing to borrow a little before moving in to the back where they hung Amanda’s dress. He ran his hands across it, feeling the silk, and imagined what it would be like to stand in a church, waiting on her, surrounded by all of his friends. He saw the double doors in front of him, felt his heart pound for an apparent eternity, and when they opened, light poured around and through him, and he shielded his eyes to it. When he lowered his arm, she was standing there. The dress made her more beautiful than ever, as any good wedding dress should. He could tell as soon as she picked it out that it would be the one, and he knew it would be a Vera Wang before she asked. The longer he existed, the more he learned that the universe’s connections flowed deeper than people ever could understand. He stood in the back of the shop for half an hour, tracing every inch of the fabric and running through a dream of their wedding day that he couldn’t imagine until that moment. He hid from her memory for a long time, but it found him despite his best efforts, and now he wanted more than anything to let her know that he was there with her. He needed her to know how happy he was for her, and he wanted her to stay so for the rest of her life. Her pain was the only pain he still felt, and he would make sure she lived a life that was long and blissful, even if that meant spending it with Terry. When Jackson left the dress shop, he looked around to see if he could spot the two women, catching them eating under a large umbrella a few blocks away. He moved towards them when he heard Davis’s voice in his head. He turned to find him, but saw no sign. He floated up above the buildings, waiting to hear it again, and then it came. The call was faint, but it was Davis. He closed his eyes and focused on its sources, finding the young man on top of a building that he recognized. He couldn’t place it at first, but as he pulled back, he saw that it was the building Amanda called home. “I’ll be right there.” Jackson shot over the city and landed beside Davis. “What is it? Why are we here?” Davis didn’t answer for a second, looking down towards the street. “I think I found our danger. Come with me.” He lifted off before Jackson could ask any questions, and he took off after his partner. He caught up to him, but the look on Davis’s face told him he didn’t have many answers. They moved outside the city, passing over highways and lakes, passing through a plane in the middle of its descent. The people inside shuddered and looked around at each other, but the flight attendant explained that sometimes rushes of cold air could be forced out during a landing. She didn’t tell them that it scared her enough to make her grab for her emergency oxygen mask, and she reluctantly let her fingers slide off of it and back to her lap as the air returned to normal. Davis slowed down as they reached thick forest north of the city. Jackson looked behind them, estimating the distance at 50 miles. They landed in a clearing, and Davis started looking around them. “What are we doing here?” Jackson stood still where he landed, confused and wary. If the danger was real, why were they so far away from Amanda? Shouldn’t they be close, protecting her from it? Davis continued his search without acknowledging the question, and Jackson stomped towards him. “Davis, I asked you-“ “There. There it is. Look.” He pointed a shaky finger away from the two of them, back in the direction they just came. Jackson turned and looked. “There’s nothing there. What’s your game Davis, are you trying to stop me from talking to her again, because -“ He grabbed Davis’s arm, but the finger stayed still. Davis did not respond, but just nodded his head towards where he pointed. “Look again. Closer.” Jackson dropped his arm and turned back towards the spot. He stepped forward, and the sun drifted behind a cloud. As it did, the shade grew longer, and inside of it was a long red line. It looked as if a hunter dragged his bleeding prey through the entire forest. “What the-“ Davis didn’t give him time to finish the question. “I found it while I was flying over this area last night. I didn’t notice it at first, but I kept seeing it again, so I followed it.” “What is it? Is it blood? Why couldn’t I see it before?” Jackson kept firing off questions, not giving time for answers. Davis interrupted again. “I don’t know. It isn’t blood, because nobody else pays any attention to it. I’m guessing it’s not visible at all. At least not to anyone living.” Jackson spun towards him, and Davis saw anger in his eyes. It was a look that he never saw before, and he stumbled away from him. “Did you do this? What did you do?” He grabbed Davis by the shoulders and shook him. “Jackson, calm down. Why would I do this and then show it to you? It’s a path, and something follows it. If you look back that way you see it there too.” They both looked away from the city, seeing the same marks. “Did you follow it?” Jackson was staring off, but Davis hesitated. “Yes.” “Where does it go?” He waited, and heard nothing. He turned back to Davis, moving towards him with a rush. “Where does it go?” His voice grew, and above them, several birds escaped the area. “I called you when I found the end of it. It ends at her condo. At the building.” He didn’t look at Jackson to see the impact of the answer. After fighting countless criminals without suffering a single blow, he buckled under his only weakness. He staggered back from Davis, his eyes scanning the forest floor without seeing anything. He fell to one knee, and his hand dug into the leaves and dirt below him. “Why? What could it be?” The questions weren’t aimed at anyone, but Davis answered them. “I don’t know. There’s only one way to be sure.” He looked down the path of the marks, then back at Jackson. “We have to find what’s following it.” Jackson nodded, and then stood up. His eyes were blazing, and Davis wondered just what he was capable of. “Let’s go. I can’t sit and wait for it to find her. We have to stop it.”

-3-

Glen and Chris heard a shout through the forest, and they knew exactly what to do. The master came to them in the night and told them that someone would try and stop them. They did almost all of their walking at night now, preferring the dark to the burning light of the sun. Besides, the path glowed brighter at night, and its radiance filled them with warmth and joy that only increased as the neared the end. They were sitting when they heard the noise, and the birds flapping overhead a minute later told them that whatever sent them out wasn’t far. Glen stood up and walked over to the large pile of leaves that they made and reached underneath it. He turned his head towards Chris, beckoning him from his resting spot to help. They gripped two large sticks that they tied to several others, making a lattice panel, and lifted it. A few of the leaves piled on top of it rustled and fell to the side, but the majority held. Underneath the panel, a hole that they dug this morning offered sanctuary. They dug it entirely by hand, and the rocky dirt and the tree roots reduced their fingers to bloody stumps, but the wounds healed while they rested. Their fingers grew back sharper, with a new level of strength that only heightened their anticipation of the future. They lifted the sticks high enough to step down into the hole and then lowered them back over themselves. The design allowed them to hide while still letting them see through the holes between the leaves. “How did he know about the birds?” Glen was the first to break the silence that held since their visit the night before. “He knows everything.” Chris’s answer sounded like a growl. They heard air rushing before they saw anything, and at first they thought their hideout’s spying technology failed. When Jackson and Davis touched down just a few feet away, they realized they could see everything the master needed them to. Glen nudged Chris to ask if he noticed the two men falling from the sky, but Chris paid no attention. He killed the deer first, and his lovers’ gruesome deaths pushed his mind to the brink of insanity. He fully gave himself to their master, and if he asked, Chris would devour his own partner to please him. They watched the two men walking around, looking through trees and bushes. They looked different, but neither of them could say why. They came from the sky, as if they flew, and that was odd enough, but the way they moved, it seemed as if they were pictures taken in a dim light. They blurred when they walked around, and even when they stopped it took a second for the rest of their shapes to come together. Chris felt that without their new eyes, they might not see these two men at all. He wondered what they were, and he looked at Glen to see that he noticed the same oddities. “Why did we land here?” Jackson stopped searching, trying again to pick up the trail that they had been following from the sky. “I thought I saw something.” Davis continued his hunt, kicking leaves to the side and even lifting up rocks. Chris grinned at the thought of them hiding under a rock. Jackson spoke again. “Something was moving.” “We’re wasting time looking for something we don’t even know.” “We’re dead Jackson, we have all the time in the world.” Davis moved towards the hiding spot, and Chris and Glen drew in sharp breaths. They moved back from their lookout spots, trying to avoid any chance of him catching their movement. “We might, but Amanda doesn’t. If whatever is following this path gets to her before we find it and something happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself. I can’t spend all that time thinking about the horrible fate I left her to.” Davis stood on the stump that Glen was on when the first warning of their pursuit flew overhead. Jackson, on the other hand, moved closer to the odd pile of leaves. They held their breath as he peered in, and then he swiped his hand through them. Glen jumped, and Chris reached over and squeezed his leg, making him bite down on his tongue. He swiped the leaves again, and this time a ray of light shone through the covering into the hole. They slid further down, trying to become a part of the ground. “Jackson.” Again, birds overhead scattered from their resting spots. “You’re right. We’re better off staying close to her so that we’re ready for anything there.” Jackson nodded and moved away from the leaves. Chris leaned forward to spy out again, but the men were already gone. They waited at least thirty minutes before easing their way out of the hole. They debated the rest of the day about what they heard, finally reaching the conclusion that the two men were ghosts, just as their master was, but the power from them paled in comparison to what they felt from the master. He told them to hide this time, but Glen and Chris both felt that when the time to deal with the two ghosts came, there would be no problems out of either of them. They waited until the sun slipped below the treetops and then turned to look at their path once again. They walked side by side, marching through the forest without making a sound, and any animals that found their way into the path made sure to be out of it before the evil reached them. They felt no hunger, but the sight of blood caused their greatest delight, and the master’s plans never told them not to kill anything.

-4-

Jackson and Davis returned to Amanda’s condo to find the path shining brighter than before. Jackson was discouraged, but Davis reminded him that finding anything heading their way was especially challenging since they didn’t even know what to search for. In the end, the only way to be sure that nothing could harm Amanda was to stay with her, a task that Davis knew would be no problem for Jackson. The bigger problem lay in trying to keep him from interfering with the wedding only a week away. The week passed without a hitch, except for Jackson, who still felt it very important to give Amanda his blessing. He tried on at least a dozen occasions to talk to her, but a bride seldom gets time to herself the week before her wedding, and the constant stream of people helped run interference on any interaction between them. “I don’t see why the hell it matters what I do?” Jackson sat on the couch in Amanda’s living room. He and Davis watched Allison straightening the wedding dress for the last time. The other three bridesmaids got dressed for their bachelorette party, and Amanda put on makeup at a bench in the bathroom. They grew increasingly tired of listening to the women discussing every aspect of the wedding, from the flowers to the cake flavors to how Terry was going to pull the garter off. That discussion ventured into topics that men would have been shocked to hear, and when Jackson heard someone mention “girth,” he decided enough was enough. He moved to the main part of the living room, and the sound of the girls talking, mixed with fits of high-pitched laughter, served as notice that everything was ok without requiring any more oversharing. “I know you’re intent on doing it, but I can’t understand why. She’s happy. She’s finally moving on with her life. Why would you want to come in and screw that up?” Davis tried to be the voice of reason, but this argument started to sound familiar to him. He tried almost every day to convince Jackson that talking to Amanda would only open up the feelings that she fought so hard to put away, but the message fell about twenty yards short every time. “This might be her last shot at getting married, so I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want her to have that. Do you trust the guy?” Jackson nodded, but kept looking out the window to his left. They checked Terry out, following him around and learning as much as possible about him, when they first saw him, but Davis found nothing to insinuate that he couldn’t be trusted. He actually did seem to live up to the billing, but Jackson still held on to a nagging feeling that Davis attributed to jealousy. “It’s her wedding, man. A girl’s wedding day is the biggest day in her entire life. Shit, even I’m excited for her, and I’ve never even met the girl. Well, she’s never met me I guess. I know you want to help Jackson, but the best thing you can do is just stay out of the way. If she needs you, you’ll be there, but other than that-“ “Alright.” Jackson didn’t turn away from the window, but the tone of his interruption told Davis that the discussion reached its end. “I’ll wait until after the wedding. If everything is ok, I will leave her alone.” He turned and looked at Davis, and there was no mistaking his annoyance. “Does that suit you?” Davis knew that there was sarcasm in the question, but he took whatever victories he could get, so he smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. Jackson turned away again, but Davis left his hand still, and Jackson made no attempt to move it.

Chapter 15

For the next 36 hours, Jackson all but wished for something to go wrong just to give him an excuse to talk to Amanda. Despite his yearning, everything went according to plan. The girls went out for a bachelorette party complete with strippers, cocktails, and a trip to McDonald’s at 3:30 in the morning where a limo full of topless bridesmaids stood up through the sunroof, demanding free apple pies. The hangovers the next morning were brutal, but everyone survived, and Amanda seemed to shake hers off as soon as she took a shower. The adrenaline was full force, and they arrived at the rehearsal looking as if they spent the night before reading Bible verses and singing Kum- ba-ya. Jackson and Davis sat in the back of the church, watching as the priest ran through everything the couple needed to know for the big day. Allison and the other bridesmaids watched intently, but Terry stood alone on his side, making the scene look strangely unbalanced. Terry’s lone groomsman, his best friend and best man Malcolm, had missed his flight, but he assured everyone that he would arrive in time for the wedding. Jackson noticed a slight annoyance on Amanda’s face, and apparently the maid of honor did as well, because she leaned forward and whispered something that sent them laughing loud enough to earn a dirty look from the organist. They covered their mouths to stifle the giggles, and the older lady shook her gray-blue perm before returning to her music. The dinner following the rehearsal made the two ghosts wish they could enjoy food again. It was the first time Jackson faced such a spread since his death, and he wished his ability to smell was left six feet down with his nose. They floated through the window, avoiding the smells but staying close enough to keep watch on everything, and Jackson looked at Davis. “I’m having a hard time with this.” Before he finished the sentence, his eyes dropped to the ground below them. “I mean, when I was helping people I didn’t really consider Amanda most of the time. I thought about her every day, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t pine over her like this. I know now why you didn’t want me to talk to her. If it made her feel like this, I couldn’t forgive myself for that. Thanks.” He looked back up at Davis, expecting him to gloat about being right. When he didn’t, Jackson continued. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been a really good friend. I just wish that I was a better one. I know it sounds terrible, but whatever is going to happen, I just, I wish it would just get it over with. I don’t feel like being here anymore, and I want to get on with my life-“ his face screwed up at the Freudian slip, and he shook his head. “Ok, my death, just as much as I want her to get on with her life. Tomorrow will be the day that all begins. After that, I don’t know if I can hang around and wait for something to happen to her. I can’t watch her be happy with him as newlyweds. I’ll go crazy, Davis, I swear I will.” “It’s ok. I know, I feel really bad about bringing you back here, like all this is my fault. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll do it. If nothing happens by tomorrow, then I’ll stay here and keep an eye on her, and I can always call you if something starts to go down. That way you can keep her safe without torturing yourself every day. If we wanted to be in hell we would have had more fun while we were alive.” Jackson finally let a smile creep across his lips, and the two men shared their first laugh in too long. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’m just ready for things to go back to normal. As normal as they were when we were just two dead guys saving the world, I mean.” “Soon enough my friend. Soon enough.” Inside, the dinner wrapped up, and the girls headed home together. The clock tower in the street neared midnight, and Amanda was adamant about not seeing her groom after it struck. Her superstition earned her a few jabs from the other guests, but they all laughed at the traditional bride, knowing that once midnight arrived, the day belonged to her anyway. Terry kissed her cheek as they said goodbye to everyone, then they walked out together. The other girls piled into the limo, standing up through the sunroof and shouting about apple pies. “I’m going to assume that’s a joke I don’t want to know the punch line to.” Terry smiled and squeezed his fiancee’s hand, pulling her back to him. She laughed and turned to tell the girls to get back into the car, but their muffled laughter told her they already had. “Goodbye my fiancée.” She kissed him several times lightly, then he pulled her in for a deep kiss that drew the wedding party back out of the roof for catcalls. “That’s the last time you’ll be able to call me that.” “I know, love. The next time I see you, you’ll have a different title altogether.” He kissed her again, and the church bells started to ring out. “It’s our wedding day. Better get going. God knows we don’t need any bad luck today.” She said as she slipped away from him. Their hands held on, but she kept moving away until her fingertips slid between his. He stood on the sidewalk, looking at his reflection in the tinted windows until the limo pulled away. He laughed as the girls waved to anyone and everyone like parade participants. Behind them, sitting on the roof just above the driver, Jackson and Davis looked for any sign of trouble. Whatever followed the path still sat out there, and they didn’t want to be caught off guard when it struck.

-2-

As he rode the elevator to his apartment, Terry considered stopping on Amanda’s floor to listen in on their festivities through the door, but he thought about how mad she would be if she caught him and changed his mind. He decided to sit on his balcony instead, hoping for some eavesdropping potential there. The doors slid open, and he walked into his apartment, throwing the keys on the table as he stepped into the darkness. He flicked the light switch, but nothing came on. He reached under the lamp to change the bulb, but the pieces of shattered glass still in the socket sliced his finger. He placed it under the cold water of his kitchen sink, using the light from his cell phone as a flash light. He wrapped a paper towel around his finger, squeezing the extra water out of it, and pushed a button on the phone to make its light cut back on. He found his way to the fuse box, opened it, and started looking for the tripped switch, but nothing helped. He walked back outside, looked around, and started to knock on his neighbor’s door when he heard something fall over behind him. He spun around and stepped back into his apartment, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then he heard something in his bedroom. He crept forward, flipping the cell phone closed to hide himself. A quick breeze blew past him, and he turned to try and see what caused it, but nothing was there. “Come out.” He shouted. “I know you’re here. Come out where I can see you. I don’t play bullshit games.” The light in his bedroom clicked on, and he heard something rustling inside. He inched towards the door, trying to peek through the crack above the hinges and see what he faced, but nothing moved. He stepped in, slamming the door shut behind him, and he heard the noise coming from his closet. He walked to it, gripping the doorknob with his injured hand, and whipped it open. Clothes swung back and forth, but he didn’t see anyone in there. “I said come out. You’re making a big mistake. Do you have any idea who the hell I am?” His voice roared at the last sentence, and he banged his fist against the mirror on the outside of the closet door, shattering it. He heard laughing from the living room, and he rushed back out there, swinging the door into the dresser behind it and sending a stack of books tumbling to the floor. The fridge stood open, casting light across his path, and he saw footprints on the floor. He stooped to touch them and found that they were blood. Terry traced back to the source and saw them begin just beside the fridge. On the counter right by the kitchen entrance he saw a knife with blood running down the point and dripping off onto the carpet beside it. He started to move in that direction, but decided that where the feet led was more important than where they started, so he moved towards the room on the other end of the apartment. He rounded the corner and found two dark shapes sitting on his couch. He heard a slurping noise, and noticed them passing something back and forth between each other. The light from the moon illuminated the sides of their faces, but the bottom half of their faces were dark, as if they wore uneven masks. Their eyes sunk in, and he thought that they didn’t have eyes at all anymore. They both looked as though they hadn’t eaten in weeks. The larger man stood up, and when he did, a flash of lightning outside lit his face enough for Terry to see that the mask was blood, and the man was covered in it. His hair barely covered his head, but he reached a red hand up to smooth it back like a gangster from an old movie. Another flash of lightning showed the smaller man with something pressed against his mouth, but Terry couldn’t tell what it was. The man stayed standing and didn’t approach him, wiping his bloody hands on the front of his even bloodier shirt. “What the hell are you doing here?” Terry bellowed, his shock turning to anger. “And what the fuck are you eating.” The man on the couch stopped sucking at whatever he held, and the larger man turned and looked down at it. He reached back and took it, holding it out to Terry as if it were a stick of gum. Lightning flashed again, and Terry saw that the men were eating a cat. The thunder followed, and the large man jumped slightly. Terry watched his lips curling up in a bloody grin. “Glad we finally found you.” The man’s voice sounded less human than he looked, and as he talked he took two small steps forward. Next door, Mrs. Dean heard a booming shout, followed by the most blood- curdling scream she heard in her 84 years. She fumbled for her phone, knocking it off the table. The screaming in the apartment built to a crescendo, and it sounded like someone was being skinned alive. She screamed herself and reached for the phone again, but her chair tipped her out on to the floor. She fell forward, breaking her collarbone as soon as she hit the ground, and the pain ripped up her spine, causing her to scream again, but she didn’t hear herself over the sounds coming through the wall. She clutched her chest with her right hand while her left groped for the phone. Finally, as one final scream ripped through the room at the same moment as a crash of thunder shook the entire building, Mrs. Dean’s heart gave up, and she went to a better place without remembering the terrible screams that she heard in her dying moments.

-3-

Jackson spent the entire morning watching the love of his life prepare to marry another man. All things considered, he was in a much better mood than he expected, and a large part of that was due to the rare beauty that women find on their wedding day. The girls started the morning at the salon with mimosas to calm their nerves while hairdressers, masseuses, makeup artists, and at least four other women zoomed all around them, giving pedicures, taking pictures, refilling glasses, and catering to their every need. It was here that Jackson’s mood began to shift, and the transformation shocked Davis equally. The morning started with Jackson’s reluctant agreement to follow the bridal party. He wanted to stay at the condo and wait for whatever was coming while Davis kept an eye on Amanda, but by the time the sun rose, the path had disappeared. Both of them took this as a bad omen, and so they agreed that neither should leave her for the rest of the day, or at least until the reception was finished. Anything after that was the business of the bride and groom, though Davis agreed to continue their watch privately without intruding. On the way to the salon, Jackson confessed that he didn’t think he could watch her get ready to marry another man, and Davis nodded silently, but as the festivities took full swing, Jackson brightened just as the morning had after the storm the night before. It was hard not to get drawn into the merrymaking, with all of the girls having such a good time that other salon customers stopped by to give their best wishes. The more the women fluttered around like worker bees, the more beautiful the women became, and in the center of it all, Amanda became a goddess. As they finished her hair, Jackson was talking to Davis about what they should do at the ceremony to keep watch, and he stopped mid-syllable as his train of thought derailed at the sight of the most stunning woman alive, somehow even more striking than before. She stood up, and the other girls around her stopped what they were doing to look, mouths hanging open. At that moment, Jackson realized he was watching the same preparation that would have happened on his own wedding day, but this time he got to see it from a perspective that he never could before. The cold wall that he built around his heart since coming back to help Amanda melted. She looked spectacular, and his mind swam back to the vision of waiting for her to come through two large wooden double doors, hearing his own heartbeat in his ears. In his vision, Davis stood beside him as his best man, and he leaned forward to tap the groom on the shoulder just before she entered, whispering “good job” to the happiest man to ever stand in front of a church. Jackson watched the rest of the preparation festivities from a first row seat, sitting directly in front of Amanda while they finished getting her ready for the biggest day of her life. From where he sat, he pretended that she looked straight into his eyes instead of at the mirror behind him, and the warmth he felt as he stared into hers filled him with a happiness he never knew he missed. It was a feeling he held on to for every second of the rest of his existence. The girls laughed and drank for the first few hours of the morning, and Jackson sat right next to Amanda the whole time. Davis stayed out of the way, knowing that nothing he said would do any good. He also knew that Jackson intended today to be the last day that he spent with the love of his life, and he couldn’t take these last moments away for anything. For the first part of the morning, he feared that Jackson might lose control and try to talk to her again, but as the day wore on he saw that all he wanted was to share this day with her, even if she never knew he was there. She seemed to look at him a few times, and Davis started to get up in case things took a turn for the worse, but she was just looking closer at some part of her preparation each time. As she put on her lipstick and made kissing faces at herself, she leaned forward until only an inch separated them, and Davis watched Jackson mimic the kiss. He looked for just a split second as if he might try to kiss her, but her lips passed right through his as they touched, and Davis relaxed his grip on the arm of his chair. They faced each other for the better part of two hours, and when it came time for her to go to the church to finish getting ready, Jackson stayed sitting on the counter for a few seconds more, looking down at the seat that she just left. He looked as if he would cry if it were possible, but the smile on his lips showed how happy the morning made him.

-4-

News of the groom’s absence spread quickly through the wedding party before stopping at Allison. She told all the other girls not to mention anything to Amanda, since she was already stressed enough to make four trips to the bathroom before noon. Malcolm was nowhere to be found as well, so Allison suggested that maybe they were all together, planning something special. She wanted to believe that, but she knew that her best friend expected the worst since the day she got engaged, and a growing part of her felt that the bride was right. Preparations continued in earnest, with everyone let in on the secret under the promise of total secrecy towards the bride. They all hoped silently that he would show up just in the nick of time and everything would go off perfectly. If that happened, they would all laugh about the incident after it was finished, but if Amanda learned anything before Terry appeared, she would never see any humor in it. All the girls put on their fakest faces as they told her how beautiful she looked. They helped her into her dress, posed for pictures, told stories about their dream weddings, and even sang a capella karaoke, all in a feeble attempt to keep an already pessimistic bride from finding out just how founded her fears could be. The only other people in the dark about Terry were Jackson and Davis, as a result of their constant vigil over Amanda. By never leaving her side, neither of them heard the whispers spreading through the entire church like a fire. Ironically, they were the only ones who understood what his absence truly meant, and the only ones who could do anything about it, but fate determined the events of the day long before, and their choice to stay by the bride’s side sealed everyone else’s fate at the same time. Allison first heard about Terry when they got to the church, and Davis just missed overhearing the news as the church’s wedding coordinator passed it on. “What the hell are we going to do?” “Allie, don’t say hell in a church!” “I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to have to tell her that her fiancée is missing, do you?” The girls argued outside the door, but their voices rose quickly, and the coordinator hushed them both before Amanda found out the bad news in an even worse way. They debated what they should do, suggesting all kinds of solutions, but the unavoidable reality was that they were running out of time. The wedding was small, and most of the guests were already seated. They could drag it out as long as possible, but once everyone arrived, it would be virtually impossible to postpone the inevitable any longer without some kind of explanation. One of the bridesmaids set the lone clock in the room with Amanda back half an hour just so she didn’t stress about why things weren’t starting on time, but they all seemed to know that they would have to tell her eventually. A couple of the girls excused themselves to go to the bathroom just so they wouldn’t have to keep lying to her about everything going great. The girls came and went again and again, and Jackson started to get suspicious. He sent a silent message to his partner. “Davis, I get the feeling there’s something we don’t know here.” “What gives you that impression?” “Have you noticed the girls keep leaving the room and coming back, only to leave again a few minutes later? I’ve never been inside the inner sanctum of a bride’s room, but I would expect them to hang out in here, trying to keep her distracted so she doesn’t freak out.” He glanced over at Amanda, but freaking out seemed like the last thing on her menu. She checked the clock every few minutes, thankfully unaware that her wedding was already running late, but for the most part she seemed perfectly normal. Jackson looked around for Allison, but couldn’t find her. He couldn’t remember the last time that he saw her at all, and his worry deepened. He knew Allison from before, and it was very unlike her to be away from her best friend’s side a few moments before she walked down the aisle. “Maybe I should go check things out.” He stood up, but Davis placed his hand on his shoulder. “No, let me. You stay here with her. Just in case you’re right. I’ll be right back, and I’m sure I’ll be letting you know that everything is going just fine.” He moved through the door, and Jackson turned back to the window, looking down on the parking lot. He saw a few people parking their cars and racing to get in the front door, and he checked the clock again. The wedding didn’t start for another 20 minutes, and he wondered why everybody should be in such a rush. He stuck his head through the wall into the next room, leaving his hands and body with Amanda, and looked around for a clock. He found a small digital clock radio sitting on top of a piano and noticed that its time read 1:40. He pulled his head back through the wall, checking the clock he looked at since they arrived at the church. 1:10. Something was definitely wrong. The wedding should have started 10 minutes ago, and no one even hinted to Amanda that things were running behind schedule. He knew from other weddings that people rarely told the bride when problems appeared, but someone even went so far as to set the clock back thirty minutes, meaning that they knew something was going wrong a while ago. He pushed his head through the door, looking for Davis, and found the rest of the girls gathered in a circle a few feet to his left. They looked worried, stealing nervous glances between the door to Amanda’s room and the hallway that led to the sanctuary. He tried to hear them, but they whispered quietly, seeming to argue with each other. “-nothing we can do-“ “I don’t want to-“ “-she deserves-“ “But, you’re the Maid-“ “Fine I’ll do it.” Allison finally raised her voice, and the other girls stopped talking as soon as she did. Jackson watched as she took a deep breath, her chest continuing to grow for several seconds as she steeled herself to ruin her friend’s life for the second time. She shook her head as she exhaled, and her shoulders slumped. She looked at her shoes, kicking at a piece of lint that lay on the carpet, and walked towards the door. Jackson pulled back in, but she opened the door with a rush and walked through him with a shiver that made her look back down the hall one last time. She shut the door and swallowed hard, moving towards Amanda and the lone remaining bridesmaid. As she got closer, Amanda turned and looked at her. “Hey Allie, have you talked to Terry today?” Jackson saw Allison’s breath catch in her throat, but Amanda turned back away as she was asking, so she didn’t notice. “Now Amanda, you know you aren’t supposed to ask me things like that.” The other bridesmaid’s eyes opened wide and she gave Allison a questioning look. The Maid of Honor shook her head from side to side and then motioned towards the door with a nod. The bridesmaid stood up quickly, then reconsidered and moved towards the door with an obviously fake calm. It clicked shut, and now the room was silent. Jackson, Allison, and Amanda all stood next to each other, one of them preparing to devastate the other while the third stood invisible and helpless. “Hey hon, I need to talk to you for a second before-“ she paused and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to work up the strength to break her best friend’s heart. “Before we go.” Jackson could see her hands shaking, and he knew that his premonition was more accurate than he had ever wanted. He wished for Davis to come back, and he called to him silently, but heard no answer. He needed to borrow from someone, just in case, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it to Amanda, so he stood in front of Allison. As he did, he saw the bomb that she prepared to drop, and he understood that they made a mistake. The path led to Terry instead of Amanda, but that didn’t make things any safer for his bride-to-be. He pulled back from her and stood, his mouth hanging open, trying to decide what he should do next. “Allie, are you all right?” Amanda stopped brushing her hair and turned around, looking at her friend right through Jackson. “Yeah, why?” “You said you needed to talk to me and then I said okay, but then you just sat there.” Allison looked at her strangely, but before either one of them could say anything else, a roaring cry rang through Jackson’s mind. He covered his ears and fell to the ground. When the noise stopped, he opened his eyes and saw the two women still staring at each other. They heard nothing, which meant that it happened on his side, not theirs. That also meant that it had to be Davis. Jackson couldn’t wait any longer, but he wanted to make sure that Amanda was safe. He was torn, but he knew that anything that caused Davis to make that noise endangered everyone in the church. He dashed through the door, leaving the girls behind, and headed towards the sanctuary. Chapter 16

By the time Amanda learned the truth, the guests were already starting to get restless. Several of them turned around in their seats, waiting for someone other than the priest to be standing in the front. Jackson’s emotion pushed him fast enough that he forgot to pass through the doors, sending them flying open with a crash that made everyone, including the priest, jump. He searched the entire church looking for Davis, but found no sign of him. He scanned the room, but everything seemed to be ordinary. As soon as that thought entered his mind, a small door to the right of the altar opened, and in the silence that followed the door booming, the hinges creaking filled the room. Every eye turned to the door, with the exception of the priest, who seemed to be thumbing through his notes to find the right thing to say if he was asked to present the bad news. He didn’t see the two men come out of the door, although the people who did wondered if they were still men at all. They wore ratty clothes that looked as though they washed them in a mixture of dirt and blood, and they slinked across the stage like two-legged snakes. Their eyelids stayed closed, but as they moved, they opened them slowly to reveal empty eye sockets. One of them licked his lips, and they looked around the room, daring someone to scream or move, just to give them an excuse to unleash unimaginable horrors. Their hands looked mangled, but as the large man put a finger to his lips to tell the people to be quiet, Jackson saw that their hands held claws instead of fingers, and he thought that the blood that covered them was not their own. They crept towards the priest, and the tension became too much for one of Amanda’s coworkers sitting in the third row. “Father, behind you!” His shout echoed thorough the large room, and several people waiting for something to happen screamed. The priest turned around, but the warning came too late, as Glen and Chris traveled the final forty feet to him in a second. Chris fell on him, beginning to tear through his robes before reaching his flesh, and the sound of his laughs couple with the priest’s screams horrified the crowd. People shrieked and tried to run for exits, but Glen rushed to the large doors and stood in front of them, welcoming anyone to try and escape. A tall, muscular man threw his jacket aside and ran at him, but the monster caught his fist and crushed it before sending him thirty feet through the air with a kick to his chest, and the sound of breaking ribs mixed with the torture of the priest from the front of the room. Jackson swooped in to knock the man away from the door, no longer caring if anyone saw his efforts, but just before he made contact, Glen turned and looked at him through empty eye sockets. Jackson froze as the clawed man reached out, grabbing a girl hiding behind the back pew. He faced Jackson, holding one of his talon fingers at the girl’s throat. When he spoke, his voice hissed like a snake, but the words were decidedly human. Whatever this man was now, Jackson had no doubt that his humanity was lost, just as he had no doubt that the man could see him. “Don’t want to let innocents die do we?” He slid his nail across her neck, starting to cut into her flesh. A trickle of blood ran down into the top of her dress, blooming as it hit the fabric, and she tried to scream. He squeezed her jaw and the noise stopped. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this. It’s me that you want.” Glen laughed, and the sound sent shivers through the crowd as they pushed away from him, trying to see who he spoke to. Behind them, Chris finished off the priest and stood up, blood running down his chin. Glen continued talking, trying to keep Jackson attention. “You have no idea what we want. You cannot presume to know the master’s plan. Even we do not know what destiny we are meant for, but we do whatever we can to help him. And to stop you” He lifted the girl up by her throat and threw her at Jackson. The people in the church screamed in unison, but the sound stopped as the girl’s fall came to a halt in mid air. She flailed around, but as she realized she wasn’t moving, she wrapped her arms around whatever held her. The people gasped as she lowered slowly to the ground. “It’s a miracle-“ “God has come to help us!” The rear doors slammed shut and the stained glass window behind the altar shattered as a new voice filled the sanctuary. “Your God has abandoned you, and now I am your redemption. And your damnation.” Everyone covered their ears, but it did no good against a voice that came from within their heads. Women cried, children screamed, and even the men in the room cowered between pews as the glass from the window streamed towards the back of the church like a swarm of bees. Jackson watched in horror as the shards of glass reached the man who tried to warn the priest, tearing him apart. Glen laughed, and Jackson saw the glass sticking out of his chest and neck. He pulled them out, dropping them to the floor, never stopping the horrible laugh. Behind the people, Chris joined in the laughter, and he moved towards the crowd brandishing an especially large and jagged piece of the window. Up on the altar, the priest lifted off the ground, dragging his arms and legs like a rag doll as he floated towards the cross. As he reached it, his arms flew held straight out, mimicking the pose that Jesus held behind him. His eyes shot open, and they burst into bright white flames. The people watched from their hiding places as he rose, screaming again as the flames spread across the rest of his body. Instead of the white fire that flew from his eyes, these flames were as dark as the empty eye sockets of the two men. He remained still, but they could see his body burning through the flames. The fire burned the same as any other, but no light cast off from the blaze. Jackson thought it seemed to be sucking the light out of the room, as if the sun went behind a storm cloud, even though they could see through the shattered window that no clouds covered anything. The voice that deafened them all roared again, but this time it came from the priest, and Jackson saw with growing horror that the burning man’s mouth actually moved as it spoke to him. “Impressive. You would offer yourself to protect these husks?” The voice hissed as it spoke the last word. “You are right, I have come for you. I will not be opposed, and although I do not understand how, you stand between me and my ultimate goal. I will end you, and take your soul as mine, but first I will show you unthinkable pain so that your suffering might bring more power to me when I do. Kneel before your master, or find hell today.” Everyone fell to their knees, thinking that the voice addressed them. “Who are you?” Jackson’s attempt to make his voice heard wavered, and for a second he thought he might not be up to facing this horror. A couple of people turned and looked his way, making him feel a little better. “I have caused more death and destruction than mankind could ever conceive. I am the beginning, and I will be the end. This world and all others will be mine, and no small boy can do anything about it.” The fire around the priest still blazed, but it didn’t seem to affect his body. Whenever the voice spoke it burned brighter, and when it stopped it smoldered on his skin. “Are you too afraid to show yourself? You need to use that man of God to make your point? Am I supposed to be afraid of something I can’t even see?” This time, Jackson’s voice boomed across the sanctuary, and the people cowering behind the pews obviously heard it. He heard a murmur spread through them as they tried to figure out what was happening. His confidence swelled, and he felt he might actually stand a chance, until the flaming priest suddenly went out and crashed to the ground, followed by a wail that shook the walls. The ceiling started to crumble, and every window along the sides of the church shattered inwards, killing several more people. Everyone started screaming again, and one man decided to make a run for the windows after the glass settled. He burst into the same dark fire as soon as he reached the space where the window was, and instead of sunlight streaming in through the space there was total darkness. Hands with pointed claws reached through it and grabbed the man, pulling him in several different directions until he finally disappeared through one of the windows. They still heard his screams for a few seconds after he was gone. The hands, still hungry, reached in and grabbed anyone else close, pulling them back into the darkness and leaving trails as their fingernails dragged the floor to prevent their demise. “Anyone else want to leave?” The voice sounded quieter now, almost human, and as they turned back to the front of the church they saw a man who could have passed for a priest himself, although his robes were solid black, dark enough to make the space around him take on some of their blackness. They were the color of nothing, and Jackson thought that touching them would pull him into their darkness. He stood with his back to the congregation and without raising his voice, but they easily heard him when he spoke. He held his arms out as if preparing for worship, and his gaze drifted up to the cross hanging above the altar. He clapped his hands together, and the cross came crashing down, smashing the altar and falling right on top of him. He didn’t move, but it missed him anyway, falling through him, and then he turned. His hair was as dark as his robes, and Jackson expected to see the same awful empty eyes that the other two men had. When he turned completely however, the eyes looked normal. He smiled a terrible smile and the light caught on yellow teeth. As he drew closer, they could see that the teeth were putting off a light of their own, as bright as the sun but colder than ice. It was as if the man was made of darkness itself, and every adult in the room remembered what it was like to be a child afraid of the dark. “They can see you.” Jackson didn’t mean to say it out loud, but he noticed the people peering over the pews to get a glimpse of the dark man. “Of course they can, boy. I have powers beyond match, and the fact that you dare challenge me only makes this all the more enjoyable. I drew you here, making you believe it was your choice, and your punishment draws closer. In fact, I think it’s just about time now. Where is our guest of honor?” With that he waved a hand and the large wooden doors swung open. The ceiling above them crumbled as they smashed into the walls, and the dust fell in a thick cloud. When it cleared, Jackson’s worst fear came true, and he saw Amanda standing in front of Allison and the other bridesmaids. “There she is. Now I think we’re missing something aren’t we.” He waved his hand again and the priest’s corpse stood up and walked over to the organ like a puppet, where it started playing the Wedding March. The music began, but it turned darker, and what started as the Wedding March became Hell’s version of it. He watched in horror as Amanda stormed into the room, incredibly oblivious to the danger that she was in. She was so focused on the dark man that she didn’t notice the other people lying dead on the floor in front of her. “What have you done with him?” She cried. Jackson couldn’t help but be impressed as he watched her gripping the sides of her dress, standing up to the most dangerous thing on Earth and demanding that he tell her where her fiancée was. Her strength caught him off guard at first, but he recovered quickly. “If you don’t bring him back here right now, I’ll-“ The dark man squeezed his fingers closed and Amanda’s mouth followed suit. She pulled at it with her fingers, panic filling her eyes, but it remained tightly shut. “She’s not the one you want.” Jackson screamed, moving quickly in between the two. She heard his voice and stopped struggling with her lips, but when she looked in front of her, all she saw was the dark man. “I have told you, I will take whatever I want, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.” He held his hand out, as if choking someone, and behind him Jackson heard Amanda struggling to breathe. Alison charged into the room to try and help her, but Glen grabbed her leg as she ran past him and she fell to the ground, cracking her head on a piece of the ceiling. “Leave her alone.” Jackson’s voice rose as he yelled, rivaling the volume of the dark man’s entrance. The few people still alive screamed again, and the ceiling started to rain more rubble to the floor as it cracked under the vibration. He looked at Amanda, saw her pleading eyes as she clutched her throat, and turned towards the dark man. Anger poured through his entire being, and the power he felt surging through him was as strong as he felt the day of the tornado. He picked up a slab of the ceiling and flung it towards the dark man. It smashed against its target, hitting him in the chest. It failed to knock him down, but it broke his concentration enough for Amanda to take a gasping breath. She fell to her knees, supporting herself with her arms and wheezing as she tried to get oxygen back into her lungs. Jackson took advantage and flew at the man in black at full speed. He hit him right where the rock had, and it felt like flying into a solid concrete wall. The man stumbled back, but only a step, and then he dug his claw-like fingers into Jackson’s shoulders. He spun around and threw him upwards, and Jackson saw the people passing by underneath him. He flew straight through the roof of the church without touching it, trying in vain to stop his ascent. The dark man walked down the aisle towards Amanda, but she was too weak to move. He reached down and grabbed her hair, pulling her up until she was inches from his yellow teeth. “So, my love. So good to see you here, although I’m sure you would disagree. Such a shame to kill a bride so beautiful, but I will be quite excited to have your soul for whatever I desire. Not quite the wedding you wished for, but let’s see if we can take care of that. Father?” The priest stopped the organ, standing up in his marionette style. “I know pronounce you king and wife. You may kiss the bride.” The dark man grinned, and darkness filled his eyes as he leaned in towards Amanda. She spat in his face, but it passed straight through him and splattered on the floor. He let go of her hair pushed her to the ground, and she took the chance to stab a piece of glass into the side of his neck. He didn’t flinch when it pierced, but the blood that flowed out of the wound was black. He turned and faced her, smiling. “I knew you had it in you. Pity your boyfriend didn’t. I expected a better fight from him.” Tears flowed down through the dirt on her face, but she stared straight in his face without flinching. He reached up and pulled the piece of glass out, then pushed his hand towards her, sending her crashing into the wall by the door. He ran his finger along the glass, letting some of his black blood run down it. “Goodbye, my wife. I must say, of all the women I ever met, you were the best. Take that solace into the darkness, because you will not see the other side.” He flung the glass at her, her head still down. She raised her eyes just in time to see it flying towards her face, but she was too late to move out of the way. She closed her eyes and braced for the end, surprised to see that Jackson appeared to her in the last moments of her life. She smiled and waited for the pain to come. “Noooooooo!” She heard the scream from above her, but she was too afraid to open her eyes. When she heard the glass sliding into flesh, she finally flinched. After a second, she realized that she felt no pain, and she opened her eyes. What she saw in front of her was a dream, but even as she thought so, she knew that it wasn’t. “Jackson.” Her voice was drowned out by the surprised shouts of the people in the room, but he heard it all the same. He opened his eyes, crouched in front of her, and they met hers for the first time since she watched him die. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks and he smiled at her. “How-“ “Impossible!” The anger returned to the dark man’s voice and as Jackson stood and faced him, Amanda saw the shard of glass sticking out of his back. No blood flowed from the wound, and she reached out to touch him. When her hand actually felt his shoulder, she drew it back as if it burned her. She gripped his shoulder again, and he reached up to rub her hand. Over his shoulder she could see the dark man starting to grow larger, and his eyes lit a bright red before disappearing into the same blackness that seemed to envelop him. He rose twenty feet off the ground and looked down on both of them. “This ends now.” Dark fire flew out from both of his arms, pouring down towards them like black lava. It splashed onto the rest of the people, and they howled in agony as it burned through them. Jackson reacted without thinking, lifting up and taking the full brunt of it against his chest. It knocked him back, but it didn’t hurt him. The more of it he felt pouring against him, the more it gave him energy, and he looked down to see it absorbing into him. It splashed around him, and he moved closer. The dark man’s face was changing between his human mask and many other faces he wore, and he became angrier with every inch that Jackson advanced towards him. “Why aren’t you dying?” he screamed. “You can’t stop me. I WILL KILL YOU!” Jackson felt something grab his ankle, and he looked down to see Glen trying to hold him back. He reached down and grabbed him, pushing his fingers into the hollow sockets in his face. He lifted him up into the fire, and whatever was left of the man burst into flames, screaming as he melted. Jackson smiled up at the dark man, who pulled his arms back and ended the flow of the fire. “I don’t know how you survived, human. I will finish you, and I will ensure that pain is all you know for the rest of your pathetic existence before I do. Today, you sealed the fate of everyone you love.” He looked over at Amanda, her mouth agape as she tried to process the past five minutes. “She will suffer.” He clapped his hands together, and a rumble filled the room. The ceiling crumbled further, and more of the ceiling fell a few feet to Amanda’s right. When Jackson looked back at the dark man, nothing but a shadow remained. More of the church’s roof fell to the floor, and the burning people were crushed under the rubble. The windows filled with sunlight again, and Chris abandoned Allison to escape. Amanda shook Allison to try and wake her, but she was completely lifeless. Jackson landed beside them, taking his love and her Maid of Honor in his arms as he lifted them both out through the growing holes in the roof. As they landed in a clearing in the woods behind the church, they heard the rest of the building collapse. There was one final roar as the rocks settled down, and then everything was silent. Chapter 17

“Is it really you? How is this possible? I thought I was dreaming. I saw you right before I died. Am I dead? Are you dead?” Amanda’s questions rattled off one after another, not giving Jackson a chance to answer. He smiled at her and touched her face. He didn’t know how he became visible, but when he saw the glass hurtling towards her he threw himself in front of it and begged it to stab him instead. He pressed a finger to her lips and her voice trailed away. “I don’t know how long this will last, so I want to hold you while I can.” “What do you mean? What’s happening?” “I can’t explain all of it, but I promise I’ll tell you what I can when we’re safer. I am dead.” She winced at the word. “I’ve been with you for the past several days, though. I was with you-“ “In the restaurant?” He nodded. “And the dress shop?” He nodded again. “I knew it. I knew I heard you, but I thought I was going crazy. You told me I was… beautiful.” Her eyes glistened and he stood up, taking her hand and lifting her to her feet in front of him. “You are, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He kissed her, and the feel of her lips was electric. Allison stirred at their feet, and Jackson pulled back. “I can’t let anybody else see me, Amanda.” “Why not?” Panic spread across her face, as if she sensed what he was about to tell her. “I know I can trust you, but if she wakes up and sees me, how would we explain that? I’m dead, and nothing can change that. Trust me, love, people don’t deal well with things they can’t understand.” “But why do you have to leave?” “I don’t have to leave completely. I don’t think I could right now anyway. There’s no guarantee that someone or something won’t come back for you. I fully intend to stay with you, but I can’t stay by your side while I’m visible. I’m not sure how I did it in the first place. I have to leave for now, until I return to normal, but I will be close.” “What’s normal?” He saw the panic in her eyes again, and he reached for her hand, squeezing it. “Normally, you won’t be able to see me. I can still talk to you, and I can still touch you, but I don’t know how long I will stay like this.” “What do we do then?” She pushed her nervousness down, reaching up and tucking her hair behind her ear, but he knew it wasn’t gone. “I’m not sure. This is why I haven’t revealed myself before. I don’t know what happens next for you or for us.” Allison made another noise, and her hands rubbed her eyes. “I have to go. I love you.” He kissed her again, and then started lifting off the ground. She held his hand as long as she could, and when it slipped through her fingers, she shielded the sun as she watched him rising above her. He lifted about 30 feet, then blew her a kiss and disappeared. There was a rush of wind as he left, and the tree tops swayed as he passed over them. “Wha- What happened?” Allison’s eyes were open, and she looked in the same direction that Amanda did, but saw nothing. “It’s ok Allie. Everything’s ok.” She sat down on the ground, wrapping her arms around her best friend. Allie hugged her back, squeezing hard, and then she continued talking, seemingly oblivious to their current surroundings or the events of the past hour. “Honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Terry’s gone. Nobody knows where he is. I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Allison buried her face into Amanda’s dress, not noticing the blood and dirt caked on it. “We tried to fix it so that we wouldn’t have to tell you, but I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding.” Her sentence trailed off into sobs and she started convulsing against Amanda’s shoulder. “No, Allie love, I don’t think there will be. But that’s okay.” Her eyes filled with tears and they ran down her face, splashing on the front of her dress. She looked up at the sky, and the tears shifted down the sides of her neck. “That’s okay.” They were in that same position when the firemen found them, and they treated Allison for a minor head injury. She babbled about nothing as they wheeled her into the back of the ambulance, and Amanda climbed in behind her, still wearing her wedding dress. She was fine, the only one who survived unharmed. On the way to the hospital, she cried tears of incredible sorrow for the fiancée she lost, and then she cried tears of remarkable joy for the fiancée who returned to her. One of the paramedics turned to her and handed her a tissue. “What happened in there?” He asked her. She shrugged her shoulders as she dabbed the tears at the corners of her eyes. “Police said there was some kind of attack, but they didn’t know what caused the explosion yet. I just wondered if you saw anything.” She shook her head and then turned to look out the window. They would find a way to explain everything. As she looked out at the trees whizzing past them, she saw something in the sky. She pushed closer to the window, rearranging her dress to give her better access. As she did, it moved closer to her. She smiled as she looked up to see Jackson following her, and she thought she saw him smiling back at her.

-2-

Jackson sat outside the hospital, waiting on Amanda to come out. He started to go inside, but then he remembered that people could actually see him. Since he wasn’t sure how long that would last, he thought it was probably best to not disappear into thin air in the middle of a crowded hospital. When the ambulance pulled up and they took Allison inside, he landed in a park across the street. Amanda caught his eye and nodded after her maid of honor, and he understood. He smiled and nodded back, then sat on a bench and watched her follow Allison into the hospital. More questions than ever filled his head, and he cursed out loud that nobody could answer them for him. To make it worse, he knew that Amanda was going to have a whole slew of her own questions, and he didn’t know where to start answering those either. He wished he knew what happened to Davis, but there was no sign of him anywhere. He wanted to go back and search through the rubble that used to be the church, but he knew he should wait until he couldn’t be seen anymore. He never thought he would wish to be a ghost again, but readjusting to life among the living was harder than he ever imagined. Just traveling through the air as he had for years was almost impossible. He never knew who might be looking up just as he passed by, and a flying man would make the front page in a second. He could still pass through things like a spirit, which meant that he needed to borrow in order to touch them, too. Whatever happened at the church drained him almost completely, and he wanted to avoid another blackout dream if possible. He also realized he needed to be careful who he borrowed from since he couldn’t walk up to someone and stare into their eyes without getting kicked in the crotch or sprayed with pepper spray. He imagined the panic that would ensue if someone did try to shove him out of the way, only to find out that he wasn’t there in the first place. He ran his hands through his hair, leaning forward and staring at his feet. He had to keep reminding himself that other people could see him, because from his own eyes, things didn’t look any different. He closed them and thought back to the church, remembering the two men who came out from behind the altar. He didn’t know what was wrong with them, but he didn’t doubt that the dark man was responsible for it. The dark man was a different matter on his own, assuming he could be called “he”. Jackson thought he might have been human once, but from the way he looked now, that was a long time ago. His power was terrifying, and Jackson thought about how lucky he was to have stopped him at all. He stopped short of patting himself on the back, knowing that the danger was far from over. Whatever happened, he felt sure he hadn’t defeated the man, and that meant he (or it) could come back for them anytime. Part of him started to get attached to the idea of spending more time with Amanda, and he tried to push it to the back of his mind. Her safety was still his top priority, and for the first time since he died, he also had to worry about his own. The scream that he heard from Davis in the church was obviously connected to his disappearance. He didn’t know whether that was permanent, but it could be. It never occurred to him that something could hurt him after his death. Now though, he wasn’t sure what was possible, and the fact that he took his safety for granted seemed ridiculous. He looked at his hands, trying to figure out how he would know when he started to disappear again, but they looked the same as before. He only realized that he was visible when Amanda looked at him. At first he thought that she died, allowing her to see him, but as he turned to face the dark man, he saw all eyes in the place staring at him, wondering how he had just appeared, and the look on the dark man’s face told him that something didn’t go according to plan. Maybe Amanda would remember more, or maybe together they could put it all back together. He looked towards the door of the hospital, waiting to see the woman in the tattered wedding dress. He watched people rushing to save lives, ambulances pulling in and unloading passengers whose time on earth might be drawing to a close. He thought again of all the things the living took for granted, not to mention all the things that they couldn’t imagine. He wondered how many people would fight death if they knew it was a rebirth, allowing them more freedom than any living human. A part of him missed being alive, and as he considered the differences, he decided that there was exclusive freedom on both sides of the coin. The grass was always greener, they said. He looked up at the sky, checking to see how long he had before dark. At the very least, the sunset allowed him to move around with less chance of being seen, even if it wasn’t as good as being invisible. Inside, he debated whether he wanted to stay as he was or return to invisible at all. Being undetectable made it easier to help people without being discovered, but the look on Amanda’s face when she finally saw him brought him more joy than helping a thousand people. He stretched and leaned back on the bench, turning his head from side to side to check his surroundings, a habit he developed after his death. As he did, he caught a glimpse of someone that made him freeze. A few hundred yards away from him sat a man reading a newspaper, but as Jackson looked closer, he saw that the man wasn’t reading at all. The man’s eyes peered over the top of the paper, and he stared straight at Jackson. He sat on the bench watching the man. Neither of them moved. There was no question that the man was watching him. Two people sat down next to him and started talking, and it seemed to Jackson that they didn’t notice the man sharing their bench. He told himself they could be preoccupied, but they hadn’t even glanced at him as they passed. Jackson wondered if he was the only one who could see his observer. All he could see was the top half of the man’s face, and he held the newspaper strategically so that it covered everything below his eyes. Jackson turned back towards the hospital, feigning interest in something else, but when he turned back again, the man still watched him, his eyes steadily resting on Jackson. “Jackson? Jackson where are you?” He looked back to the hospital, and there was Amanda, still in her wedding dress. People around her looked questioningly, but most of them just laughed to themselves. As he looked at her, Jackson couldn’t help but admit that she was quite a sight. Her dress was torn in several places, and it carried several dark stains that could only be blood. She held it up as she walked, making any movement below her waist impossible to see, but she looked back and forth anxiously, and he knew she was afraid that he left again. She hesitated when he told her to go with Allison in the first place, and he knew she didn’t want to let him out of her sight now that he was back in it. He smiled, and then stood up and called to her. Her head spun towards him, and he watched the fear melt away as an enormous smile stretched across her face. She pulled her dress higher and sprinted towards him. He stood still, locking eyes with her and waiting to feel her pressed against him again. She reached him and leapt into his arms, and he squeezed her around her waist. He supported her full weight easily, and she kissed him passionately. He started to spin her around, but resisted the urge as he heard applause breaking out around him. He set her down, and they looked at the people around them. Nervousness overtook him as he realized that every eye was on him. He looked at Amanda to see she was blushing. “We should probably get out of here, you know, before something else happens. Apparently a bloody bride commands a lot of attention.” She nodded and took his hand, and they walked towards the street to catch a cab. He didn’t tell her that he spent the last few years trying desperately to avoid any attention, and the sudden bounty of it stressed him out. “How’s Allison?” “She’s good, they said they needed to keep her overnight, but everything looked okay. I’ll come back and check on her later to make sure-” He halted, remembering the man watching him, and he pulled her back to him. He turned towards the bench where the man was sitting, getting ready to ask her if she could see anyone, glad for someone to be his living litmus test, but the man was gone. He searched the park for him, but knew that he wasn’t going to find him. “What are you doing? I thought you wanted to go.” Amanda looked worried, and Jackson realized that he probably did too, so he smiled and kissed her again. It would take a while for him to remember that she could see him. “Nothing, sorry. I wanted to see if you could see something, but it’s not there anymore.” She still looked confused. “I know you’ve got questions, love, but this isn’t the place for it” He checked their audience again and found them still watching. “Let ‘s go back to your apartment.” He remembered the path that led to the apartment and Terry’s disappearance, and he reconsidered. He didn’t want her to check out Terry’s place until he got a chance to do it himself. She started walking, but he pulled her back to him. “Or, maybe we should just get a hotel room or something. But-“ He paused, embarrassed, and looked down at his feet. “I don’t really have any, uh.” “Oh damn baby, I’m sorry.” The familiar term of endearment warmed him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he heard it. “Yeah I guess you probably wouldn’t have any money. I think my purse is still in Allison’s trunk back at the church, but I don’t have her keys.” “That’s ok. I think I can figure something out.” He smiled and looked at her, but it took her a second to figure out what he meant. “Oh. Yeah, I guess you can.” Her voice dropped a little, and she sounded disappointed. He thought she just remembered that he wasn’t really here with her, at least not alive, but he didn’t want to ask. He knew that eventually she would begin to examine the aftermath of her wedding day, and when she did it would probably cause more problems. The first order of business was getting her somewhere safe, so he moved to the street and signaled for a cab. Needing a car to travel was foreign now, but as long as she held his hand, he would cherish every second he was allowed.

-3-

They checked into a hotel after a short stop at the church. Crews sorted through the debris, so Jackson went to get her purse by himself. Amanda waited in the cab as he crept to the car. He looked around twice before ducking into the back of Allison’s Honda, then stuck his head inside the dark trunk. He looked for the emergency trunk release, popping it quietly and grabbing Allison’s purse. Once he had it, he hurried back to the cab to avoid being noticed by the people working, and thankfully they were too busy to care. Once they got to the hotel, they stopped by the gift shop to get Amanda something besides a wedding gown to wear. “I thought it worked well with your suit. Which leads me to a question.” “You can ask me all the questions you want when we get to the room. For now, let’s just get you something else to wear. I can change up there if you like.” As Amanda thumbed through the racks, he stood next to her looking around. She found what she needed and went to pay, leaving Jackson standing against the wall. He watched her walk to the register, laughing with the cashier as she dug through her purse. He heard her say that the wedding dress was a gag, but he thought he heard her voice catch as she said it. They went back to the front desk, where the clerk gave them a free upgrade in honor of their wedding day, and Jackson and Amanda found themselves staring at each other as if they actually were newlyweds. The girl behind the counter cleared her throat and they apologized, taking their keys and heading off to the elevators. As soon as they got to the room, Amanda charged at Jackson to kiss him again, but she flew straight through him into the door. She spun around, glaring at him. “What the hell did you do that for?” “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I mean, I couldn’t stop you.” “What do you mean you couldn’t? Now all of a sudden you don’t want to kiss me?” Her voice was rising, and he thought about how much time passed since he saw her mad. It was good to see that some things never changed, and he smiled, but that only irritated her more. “What are you smiling about, ass?” “I wasn’t- I mean I was, but it’s just because I forgot how much I loved it when you get mad. I do want to kiss you. I really want to kiss you. I can’t though, and I have to explain something before I can.” He stopped looking away from her, and the way that she looked at him delighted him. He thought being seen was impossible for so long, and he couldn’t fully understand how it was happening now. “I can’t always touch things that are still-“ he stopped, searching for the right words, “on the living side.” He saw that his search failed from the look on her face. “Here, Amanda, sit down.” He pulled her over to the couch and they sat facing each other. “Maybe this would be easier if you asked me questions, because there’s so much I want to tell you that I don’t even know where to start. But first, I need something from you. You won’t feel a thing, at least I don’t think anyone else has ever felt-“ he stopped again, noticing the worry creeping into her face. “It’s okay Amanda, I promise. Just look at me.” She looked at him, but he could still tell she was nervous. He looked into her eyes, just as he had thousands of times, and he felt the familiar warmth of her energy filling him up. He saw moments from her life, among them the night he died. He pulled back at that, unable to face it again. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t answer him at first, and he panicked. He grabbed her hand and shook it, then placed his other hand on her cheek. “Amanda, honey, I’m sorry. Please wake up. Oh shit, what did I do? If I-“ Before he could finish the sentence, she shook her head. “You’re touching me again. What happened?” She was smiling, and he relaxed. He kissed her, and she held it for a full minute before he pulled away again. “You don’t remember anything?” “No, I mean, you were looking at me, and I could see you looking deeper into my eyes, and then it was kind of like I just zoned out for a minute. It reminded me of when we used to get high, and I would just stare at the pretty colors on the TV.” Jackson gazed at her curiously. He never thought about what happened when he borrowed from people, but it made sense that they would feel like they just lost a second or two. He was glad to know that it was harmless, and he felt a small pang of guilt at the fact that he never considered what he did to other people before. His thoughts were interrupted by the first of many questions. “So what did you do to me?” He answered that question, as well as the rest of them, as much as he could, but there were several issues he didn’t know how to answer. They sat up until two in the morning, and by the end of that time she understood everything that he did. He couldn’t explain what happened at the church, and he didn’t know why he became visible. He told her about his adventures over the years, and he explained how Davis brought them back together. As he did, he realized how close he became with his friend, and the thought that he might never see him again crossed his mind for the first time. His pause allowed similar thoughts about Terry to creep into Amanda’s mind, and when he looked up at her, she fought an urge to cry. He watched as her mind swam to the wedding, finally putting the pieces together from the day and realizing how much she lost. No one survived the wedding besides Allison and her, and she could never see them again. The loss crashed down on her, and her body gave out as it all poured out of her. He pulled her to his chest without saying a word. She cried harder then, but he made no attempt to stop her. He held her as she cried about her loneliness, and at that he kissed the top of her head and told her he would never leave her. She sobbed into his chest until she mercifully fell asleep, and he held her until she woke up. Chapter 18

Amanda sat up, bringing her left hand to rub her eyes. The room was completely dark, and she squinted her eyes to try and see the clock across the room. 6:16. She closed her eyes again, starting to fall back asleep and grasping for the dream that she just woke from. Something about her wedding, and Jackson was in it, but it wasn’t him- “Good morning.” She pushed back into the corner of the couch, suddenly remembering the events that led her here. She rubbed her eyes again. Her eyes adjusted to the little bit of light the moon still threw in, but as she looked at the spot on the couch where she woke up, all she saw was the couch. “Are you ok?” The voice came from that same spot, and she knew it was his, but he was nowhere. She stood up, realizing too late that one of her legs was asleep, and she crumbled to the floor a few inches short of the coffee table. She heard him getting up and felt his hands wrap around her arm, lifting her back on to the couch. “Hey, what’s going on?” She looked again, and she could see the place where his hand squeezed her forearm, but it looked like the skin was squeezing itself. “I- I can’t see you.” She fought the urge to panic, but her heart was thumping louder every second. She couldn’t understand what happened, and the shock of waking up next to a ghost shook her more than she expected. “Hold on, I’ll get the light.” She heard him rustling on the cushion next to her, then a sound that told her that he got up to walk towards the door. For a second she thought that he was leaving, and she got up to stop him, suddenly ashamed at her fear. Whether she could see him or not, it was still Jackson. She wondered how she would know if he left or not, but the thought was interrupted by a flash of light. She brought both hands to her face and shielded her eyes, trying to let them adjust to the new conditions. “Sorry. I should have warned you. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about pupils.” He moved back to the couch, and his voice sat right next to her. “Is that any better?” She slid her hands away slowly, letting the light creep into her eyes a little more gradually. When she felt like she wasn’t staring at the sun anymore, she lowered them to her lap and looked around the room. “Are you still here?” “Right here.” He was still sitting directly beside her, and his voice sounded dejected. “Still nothing?” She shook her head. “Dammit.” She heard him hit the cushion on the other side of him. “Sorry.” She continued to try looking around, hoping that her eyes would come back into focus and she would be able to see him again. She recovered from the shock, and his voice comforted her, but his invisibility frustrated them both. She fell asleep dreaming about waking up to him, and now he was here, but not seeing him made it much more difficult. “It’s not your fault. I thought this would happen eventually. I’ve been dead for years, and you were the first person to ever see me, so I knew that it was probably temporary. But still-“ He stopped, and she wished she could see the expression on his face. She found herself imagining it anyway, hearing the tone in his voice and knowing exactly what he would look like when he said it. She beamed at him, but he didn’t look up. “I hope it doesn’t freak you out.” She didn’t say anything, but she searched for his hand with hers. When she found it, she slid her fingers up his arm to his cheek. His lips curled into a smile, and she closed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him. As long as she closed her eyes, she forgot about not seeing him, and she could touch and kiss him as much as she needed to. After several minutes, she pulled away to catch her breath, but she kept her eyes closed, imagining him before she opened them. When she did, she thought she saw him for a moment, but as soon as she blinked he vanished again. A tear slipped out of her eye as she thought about losing him again, and she felt his hand wipe it away. “You don’t have to cry Amanda, I’m not going anywhere.” He paused, and her mouth dropped. His hand rested on her knee. “I can hear you thinking. Whenever I borrow someone’s strength, it creates a connection between us. I guess I left that part out last night.” “Yeah you could have mentioned it maybe.” “Sorry, don’t worry, I won’t dig around for anything. But it does let us talk without you talking to someone who isn’t there.” “That would be nice, especially if we’re out in public. The last thing I need right now is to get locked up for talking to myself.” They both laughed, and she wondered if anyone else could hear his voice. Again, he answered before she could ask. “Sometimes, but I usually have to consciously make it happen. If you direct something at me, I’ll hear it automatically, and I can do the same to you.” “But you talked to me before, I mean before the wedding.” “Yeah, I can make sound if I focus, kind of like touching things. It took practice though.” A knock at the door interrupted him, and she looked worried. She heard his voice in her head. “They didn’t hear. It’s ok. I’ll see who it is, just stay here and be totally silent.” She didn’t hear him move from the couch, and she half- expected him to actually open the door, but when she heard his voice again she realized he didn’t need to. “It’s the police.” “Amanda Massey, it’s the Orlando PD. We need to ask you some questions if you’re available.” The knock on the door sounded very official, and she thought she should have known by the way they pounded on it the first time. “Should I?” She concentrated on keeping the words from reaching her lips. “Probably.” She wondered if he was still on the other side of the door, but as she got up to get it, she felt him take her hand and squeeze it three times, their inside signal for “I Love You.” She gave his hand four quick squeezes, adding “too,” and then she felt the fingers slip out of her palm. “I’m right here, so don’t worry.”

-2-

The majority of the questions involved the wedding, and trying to put together a guest list so they could identify some of the bodies. Luckily, they hadn’t realized that the church collapsing had little to do with most of the deaths, or they would probably have not let her go so easily. At that, she lost the fight against tears for the second time, and they agreed that the rest of their questions could wait until a later date. Jackson rubbed her back as she talked to them, and she held his hand in hers. The officers got up to leave, and she let go of him to see them out. “Ms. Massey, are you going to be staying here for a while?” The question sounded like an accusation, so she paused before answering. “Probably. Is that okay?” “Absolutely. I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to get away after something like that. Would you mind if we took a look around your apartment?” “Of course not.” She relaxed. “If you find anything, will you let me know?” “Yes ma’am. Have a nice evening.” They faked a smile at her as she closed the door, and she leaned her forehead against it for a second. “I can’t believe they found us, that scared the piss out of me.” She came back to the couch, dropping next to him with none of the sadness from before, although he felt it in the back of her mind. “I never thought about them looking for me, but I guess it did look a little suspicious for me to not go home after all that.” She knew without seeing that he sat with his left knee pointed at her, leaning against the back cushions with that same arm across them so he could face her. He laughed as she sent the thought his way. “You know me too well, love.” She smiled back at him, but he felt her mind drift somewhere else. He watched her, and he knew that she was thinking about Terry, but trying not to. “It’s okay, I would be pretty shocked if you weren’t upset after that. Yesterday was a nightmare that most people would never recover from. Under the circumstances, I’d say you’re doing an incredible job.” He lifted her hand and kissed it, and she felt fresh stinging in her eyes. He pulled her back to him and placed her head on a shoulder that she didn’t see. “Let them go, you’ll feel better. I want you to tell me about him, and don’t leave anything out.” She looked up toward his face. “Okay, leave some of it out.” They talked until the sun went down again, and Amanda’s stomach reminded her that she still needed to eat, whether her companion did or not. “When was the last time you ate?” “It’s going to take a while for me to get used to you knowing what I’m thinking.” “It happened all the time before anyway, don’t kid yourself.” He bent down and kissed her. “Now I just know it word for word.” “Fair enough, Mr. Hamilton.” It shocked her how quickly she could fall back into life with Jackson, but she knew that she never really let him go anyway. “I can go get you something.” He offered, forgetting that food floating up to the hotel room could be suspicious, and she thought that he had fallen back into it just as much as she had. “Maybe we should just order some room service.” “I’ll tell you what, now that I can’t be seen again, I want to go check out a few places, to try and get an idea what happened yesterday. You should be safe here, but I’ll move really quickly just so you’re not alone for long. Why don’t you order some food and get a shower, and I’ll be back in a little bit, okay?” She answered him with another kiss, and he got up and brought her the menu and the phone. He placed a finger under her chin and brought it up until he met her eyes, then bent down and kissed her again. “I’ll be back before you know it.” She kept her eyes closed again, and when she opened them, she didn’t know if she was alone. “Are you in here?” She asked out loud. When she got no response, she opened the menu in her lap and searched for something to eat. Once the order was in, she stripped her gift shop outfit off and stepped into the shower. The hot water felt amazing, as if she was shedding a whole layer of skin underneath the stream, letting it pour out over her scalp and rain down on the rest of her body. She lost Terry, and there was no way to know if he would ever come back again. She loved him, she told herself, but being with Jackson again complicated everything. A part of her hoped that Terry would stay gone, and she tried to push it away, but it popped back into her mind every few minutes. She stepped out of the shower, staring at herself in the mirror as the water ran down her body. The hair and makeup were completely gone now, the last remnants of the worst wedding day in history. No matter what happened, she was alive and Jackson wasn’t, so they could never truly be together. She knew she could never marry a ghost, but his return to her life made her happier than Terry on his best day. Her reflections were ended by a knock at the door, and as she wrapped another towel around her hair, she checked the first towel to make sure that room service wouldn’t be getting a free show. She checked the peep hole in the door, but all she saw was a hotel uniform, so she opened it without really thinking. The man who turned around to greet her made her uneasy, but she dismissed it after the past 24 hours. “Come in.” He held her gaze a little longer than she felt comfortable with, and then bent to push the tray into her room. “Where would you like this ma’am?” His voice did nothing to reassure her, and she hesitated before answering. He spun towards her, and a quick scream escaped. “Ma’am?” “I’m sorry, I just- You can put it over there.” She gestured to the other side of the room, more to get him away from her than anything else. He returned to pushing the cart, moving slowly across the carpet. “Sorry if I scared you ma’am. I didn’t mean anything by it.” She watched him as he walked, noticing how greasy his hair was, both on his head and in his beard. His eyes were dark, and he looked like he needed sleep desperately. She tried to tell herself that the hotel was working him too hard, but her attempt at self-deception failed. When he turned around, she saw a look in his eyes that flashed in her memory. This was the man from the church who had been holding Allison. The grease in his hair was blood, and the beard looked like animal hair. As if he read her thoughts, he turned on her and pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt. She opened her mouth to scream, but he forced his hand over it and pushed her backwards. She stumbled and he fell on top of her, pulling her towel free from her hair. He wrapped it around her face as she tried to bite his hand, and he slapped her cheek with the back of the hand holding the knife. He held the blade to her throat, and she relaxed. A smile crept across his lips, and he leaned down to her neck, placing his nose right beside the blade and inhaling deeply. She screamed for Jackson in her mind, praying that he could make it back in time to save her.

-3- Jackson slipped into the apartment building, glad to be unseen again. It was heartbreaking to adjust to being around Amanda without her seeing him, but he couldn’t deny that being invisible felt better somehow. He checked the names on the mailboxes until he found Terry’s, and then he passed straight up through the ceiling. As he entered Terry’s apartment, he found that he wasn’t alone. The detectives that questioned Amanda were among several officers examining the scene and sorting through the wreckage in the room. Jackson slipped next to the man who appeared to be running the show, borrowing from him to find out how much they knew. An ambitious young detective named Glasgot, Jackson saw promotions, commendations, and arrests galore, but he pushed through them to the information he wanted. Blood seemed to be everywhere, but there was no body in the apartment, and no sign of where it could have been taken. Jackson doubted Terry’s survival, given the scene, and the detective shared his assessment. Outwardly, he reserved to make a final judgment, and Jackson thought that he knew more about Glasgot’s thoughts than the detective himself. There seemed to be no limit to the possibilities of where he could be, a fact that he overheard one of the other officers bemoaning as he walked away. He resigned to check the place out once they finished, then moved on to Amanda’s apartment. He gathered a few things that she requested, moving quickly in the dark before the police decided to check out her place. Nothing changed in the rooms since the morning of the wedding, so he knew that they had not been up there yet, but he had no doubt that it was next on their list of places to check out. He scooped up everything she wanted, then opened the window and flew up to the roof to set them down. Once he removed everything she needed, he returned to her apartment to look at it himself before the circus of investigators changed it. Everything looked normal, as if its owner was only going to be gone for a few hours. After a few minutes, he heard voices in the hallway and saw Detective Glasgot walking towards Amanda’s door. He gave up on his search and went back to the roof, grabbing her things. Just as he prepared to head toward the church, he heard her scream, and he stopped in midair. Amanda screamed again, and he needed to get back to her immediately. He moved quicker than he knew he could, passing through her window with enough force to shake the glass. The clothes that he was carrying could not follow him, and they drifted to the sidewalk below as he passed into the hotel room. In his rush, he barely noticed. They landed on a man waiting for a taxi, and he looked up to try and find their source with no luck. The hotel room was empty, and Jackson tried screaming for Amanda, both out loud and inside his head. She didn’t answer either of them, and he searched to see what she saw but there was nothing. He flew from the living room to the bedroom to the bathroom, looking for any sign of where she could be, but the only thing he found was a towel on the floor by the door. He flew through the door passing into a woman walking by, and she screamed at the cold wind that appeared. He looked around, but saw nothing else. He flew back through the room and out the window, screaming at the top of his lungs from a few hundred feet above the ground. Below him, people turned and looked up to find where the sound came from, but he remained hidden to all of them. He sat on the ledge outside of the window, his head hanging. He ran his fingers through his hair and cursed himself for leaving her. His mind searched for someone else to shoulder the blame, but there was only him. He slipped back inside, searching for a clue that might show him where to start. He didn’t know what to do, and the helplessness ate away at him. He moved through other rooms on the floor, trying to see if she had been dragged into one of them. He knew that she didn’t go through the lobby because her clothes were still sitting on the bathroom floor. Anyone trying to drag a naked woman through a hotel lobby would surely attract a lot of attention, so that only left a couple of possibilities. Either they took her somewhere else in the hotel, or they left in a way that no living person could. He tried to reestablish the connection between their minds, but drew a blank. It was almost as if she wasn’t in the world anymore, and the thought of her not being alive crept into his mind. He fought it off, but it only shoved his mind to picturing her with Terry. He tried to dismiss that, but he wondered what would happen if her other fiancée did return, and an unfamiliar sickness filled him. He imagined her leaping into the other man’s arms, kissing him and telling him how happy she was to have a man she could see. His thoughts betrayed him, and the jealousy turned to anger. He sped through the other floors of the hotel, searching them to try and occupy his mind. Over the next couple of hours, Jackson intruded on every person staying in the hotel. During his search he found a dominatrix punishing a state senator with a large leather whip, an eleven year old boy watching porn while his parents sat at the bar looking for someone to swap with, and enough people doing cocaine to make him think he was back in the eighties. All it managed to do was degrade his faith in humanity, because he found no sign of Amanda anywhere. He darted out to the sidewalk, looking for any sign of her, and he noticed that the clothes he dropped were missing. He saw a homeless man resting against the wall a few feet away and moved towards him to ask if he saw anyone with the clothes. As he looked at him, Jackson saw the young black man that watched him in the park outside of the hospital. As their eyes made contact, Jackson recognized him, and he was amazed that he didn’t identify him in the first place. “Marcus?” His shock made him forget to speak in his mind, and a man passing by turned to figure out who spoke to him. Marcus didn’t answer, but got up and held his hand out to Jackson. “You might want to take a little more care who hears that voice of yours Junior.” “What are you doing here?” Jackson took the man’s hand wondering if Marcus was visible to others. “I heard about what happened at the wedding. Bad business there. I was afraid you were-” Marcus’s face was calm, but Jackson felt as if there was something that he was hiding. “Looks like you need some help, Junior. Let’s go somewhere so we can have a talk like we’re supposed to.” “You can help me find Amanda?” “Among other things. I’ve got a lot to tell you, and I maybe should have told you a long time ago, but that’s past done now. Either way, your lady friend’s runnin out of time, and the longer we sit here shootin’ the bull, the less that time gets.” “Do you know who took her? Or where she is?” The questions burst out of him, and Marcus raised his hand to stop him. “I said we don’t have a lot of time, but I intend to answer your questions as best I can. We better get a move on then.” “Where are we going?” Marcus placed a hand on his shoulder and gripped it tightly. “I’ve got just the spot.” Marcus smiled at him and squeezed harder on his shoulder. “Better get a grip for yourself though.” Jackson gripped Marcus’s forearm. He felt the ground vibrating underneath him, and he looked down at it. People all around them walked down the street as if everything was fine, so he thought they were the only ones who felt it. The vibration started to move his feet, and it traveled up his legs. It didn’t hurt, but it felt as if it could shake him apart where he stood, and he wondered how well he knew Marcus. “You can trust me, Jack.” The vibration shook his entire body, and as he looked at his hands around Marcus’s wrist, he saw that they were starting to fade. A look of panic rushed across his face, and he looked at Marcus for reassurance, but what he saw didn’t help him at all. Where Marcus was standing a moment before, there was nothing, and the only thing left of the man was the arm attached to Jackson’s shoulder. It slowly disappeared too, disintegrating as if it were made of sand. He considered letting go, but thought better of it, and as it reached him, he felt as if he was falling. He watched his body disappear up to his neck, and then the sensation was even stronger. Everything around him was black, but at the same time he saw landmarks from around the world. The White House was there, along with the Sphinx and several of the Great Pyramids. Big Ben sat alongside the Great Wall of China and the Sydney Opera House. Niagara Falls, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Kremlin, Tokyo, the Empire State Building, and then nothing. The falling stopped, and there was only darkness around him. Chapter 19

The first thing Jackson did when he finally stopped falling was to feel all of his body to make sure that he didn’t leave anything behind. When everything seemed to be in the right place, he tried to stand up, but found that he was on some substance that reminded him of gelatin, and the floor seemed to move as he stood on it. He worked to hold his balance, then decided just to hover a few inches off the floor. Below him, the ripples in the floor settled, and its appearance was that of glass. In the distance he saw a small speck of light, and he moved towards it. “Marcus? Is that you?” His words echoed even though he thought he spoke them in his mind, and he continued towards the light. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer, so he sped up, but the light remained as far away from him as when he first saw it. He closed his eyes, floating in place, and imagined the light in his mind. He saw it, then willed it closer to him, instead of the opposite. The harder he concentrated, the more it seemed to approach him, but it grew brighter as it did. He had no way to shield himself from its light, so he allowed it to come to him until he felt it flowing all around him. When he could see nothing but the light, he opened his eyes, and he found himself looking at his own reflection as the light faded. He put his hand out to it, expecting it to pass straight through the mirror, but he touched solid glass instead. His fingers bent as he pressed the glass, and when he moved his hand back, his fingers left smudges on it. He called Marcus’s name, but he was alone with his reflection and infinite darkness in every other direction. Jackson tried to move around, and his reflection repeated everything he did, never breaking eye contact. He smashed his hands against it, but when his doppelganger copied him, a wave of sound knocked him back from the mirror. When he looked up, he saw that his reflection was still standing. It looked at him, and as he got to his feet he saw that it was saying something. He tried to read his mirror image’s lips, but he couldn’t make anything out, and as he placed his fingers to his own lips, he was shocked to see that they moved in the same way as the mirrored lips, but a few seconds behind. He closed his eyes and focused on his mouth, and the voice that he heard in his head was Marcus’s. “This is the first test for you. To pass it you must know yourself inside and out. Just as he knows what he is capable of, so you must understand even your deepest secrets. See yourself, then unsee yourself, and you will be granted entry.” He looked back at the mirror and saw that his reflection was gone. He looked around the side of it, but it became an ordinary piece of glass. He looked down at himself, examining different parts of his body and concentrating on making them disappear. By the time he reached his toes, he grew frustrated, and he pounded on the glass again. As the sound hit him for the second time, he steeled himself and resisted its impact. ‘I don’t have time for games, dammit. You said yourself time is short, why is this necessary?” No answer came through the darkness, and Jackson stared back at his hands. He looked at them, thinking of all the things he used them for since he died, and as he ran back through his memories, his fingers started to fade. He got excited, and they returned to normal, so he refocused. He thought about his time after death, tracing back across the years, seeing things that made him incredibly proud and things that made him full of shame. He saw his death, then fell back into his life, seeing all of the things that made him into the man he became. When he looked back down at himself, the bottom half of his body was gone, and he looked up to see it standing on the other side of the mirror. He slipped deeper into his mind, trying to understand the path of his entire being, and he saw things he barely remembered. As he watched his mother kiss his forehead for the first time, he felt a pop and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself literally on the other side of the looking glass. “Impressive. I’ve only brought a few people here, but none of them ever passed through that quickly. It appears I may be right about you.” Marcus stood behind him, but when Jackson turned, he didn’t recognize him. The homeless disguise was gone. Instead he wore a long robe, and the hood of it covered his face enough to completely hide it. Marcus walked away as if to say that no questions were going to be answered yet. Jackson caught up to him and they walked side by side, never exchanging so much as a glance.

-2-

The path they followed narrowed as they continued, and Jackson tried to see anything else around him, but the lighting didn’t provide for much. Jackson couldn’t see his feet, but the way the robe swayed as they moved, he knew that neither of them was actually walking. He felt that they were not alone, and several times he thought he heard something moving in the darkness. He asked if there was anything else there, but Marcus gave no indication of hearing. When they finally stopped, the robed man stood with his hands behind his back, and Jackson finally turned to face him. “Where are we?” He looked around as he said it, but the darkness enveloping them did not reveal any features of whatever landscape they were on. “It’s a place I found a long time ago, one that I use to do my best thinking.” There was something different about Marcus’s voice, as if it came from a much larger man. It was deeper than usual, but it seemed to echo off of everything around them, until Jackson felt it as much as he heard it. “I’ve brought you here now because I expected too much of you. I told you that you would learn things on your own, and you have done exactly that. In fact, the things you learned exceeded anything I’ve seen before. Unfortunately, it will not be enough to save her. I underestimated your feelings for her, and that was my mistake. If I don’t help you now, she will pay for that mistake.” He paused, staring at the area behind Jackson, and when they looked, a fire blazed up in the middle of a circle. On either side of it, pieces of wood were arranged in triangular shapes, and another pile of wood sat barely visible on the edge of the darkness. Marcus floated to one of the triangles, and then his cloak lifted above it as he climbed into some kind of seat. Jackson moved to the other triangle, and as he stepped into it, something lifted him into position equal with his mentor. He started to ask a question, but waited for Marcus to speak first. “You have many questions, I see them flowing throughout you, but I need you to dissuade your haste. While we sit here, time crawls on the other side, so your love is safe as long as we do not waste any time here. I have much to tell you, and more to teach, so I ask that you listen to me now, and the time for questions will come.” He waited for Jackson to agree, and once he received the nod he wanted, Marcus continued. As he started talking, he slipped the hood from his head, and Jackson saw nothing of the man he met on his first day of death. The young man had aged, and not gracefully. Marcus’s face carried countless scars, with one large gash crossing his right eye and passing through his nose. His bottom lip looked as if it had been punctured on more than one occasion. His left ear was horribly deformed, with little more than a piece of skin around the hole in the side of his head. He had no hair, and Jackson saw that the scars continued around his head, covering it more thickly as they did. “You are only the third man to see me as I am, as I used to be. This face is a map of a hundred lifetimes, and I wear it proudly, but to reveal it would reveal more about myself than I prefer. What is the meaning of life, Jackson?” He paused just long enough for Jackson’s face to drop at the daunting question, then smiled. “Exactly. To expect you to figure out the mysteries of your own world, let alone the universe, without guidance was foolish of me. I believed that if you were the Ethera, all would be understood immediately, so your ability to succeed or fail on your own became my litmus test.” Jackson started to interrupt to ask what that word, Ethera, meant, and he felt as if he had heard it before, but Marcus continued before he could say anything. “I thought that you could defeat him without any help because of who you are, but something has changed. The dark man gained a power that was not meant for him, and his plans have become more ambitious, threatening the entire universe, so now I must explain the ways to you. Doing this goes against everything that we believe, but I see no choice anymore. It’s time for me to start at the beginning, just as you asked me to that day on the beach.” He closed his eyes, and the image of a baby lying on his back appeared above the fire. It looked so real that Jackson believed it was, and he started to move to save it from the flames. Marcus’s voice entered his mind, and he stopped still. “There is no baby, Jackson, but I see your capacity to save mankind is strong. That pleases me, because you will need that strength. The baby serves my point, and you will see why.” As they watched, the baby grew older, moving from crawling to walking. The boy became a man, and gray hair replaced the brown, until the man became frail and fell to the ground. “This is the part of life that a living human understands. For the past few years, you have seen the next step, although your path is decidedly different from most.” Jackson watched as the old man faded to dust, then a creature that he could not recognize took its place. “Most beings, upon their death, experience life in an entirely different way, for the purpose of learning more about the universe. These life cycles continue into infinity so that each being might increase their understanding with each turn of the wheel. Do you understand?” This time he waited for Jackson to answer his question, although it took a moment for him to put his thoughts together. “Are you talking about reincarnation?” “That is the closest concept that mankind has found, but it falls far short of the reality, just as most of their concepts do. Reincarnation remains an Earthbound idea, and the universe is far too complex for one simple planet to contain all life. Mankind’s arrogance clouds its ability to see. How else could the existence of life on other planets be debatable? Could it truly be possible that of the thousands of heavenly bodies, only one carries life? And of all that life, only one species could be evolved enough to be self- aware? The vanity behind that idea is laughable at best. Man is early in the stages of life, but they show promise in their ability to adapt. Were it not for that promise, the dark man’s agenda would be no matter to the rest of the universe.” “So he intends to destroy mankind?” “His final goal remains a mystery, but it seems to follow that idea.” “Who is he?” “His origin is unknown as well, but he has spent many centuries gathering power, and it seems to be his only interest. Some of the most evil acts of history bear his signature, though no one on Earth would ever suspect his existence, much less his involvement. He usually takes the form of an advisor to someone powerful, influencing the course of history from behind the scenes to avoid suspicion. If his plan fails, he leaves an easy scapegoat behind. Adolf Hitler would probably be most recognizable for you, but I assure you there have been many others.” “He was Hitler?” “You’re not listening. He advised Hitler, for the purpose of exterminating an entire segment of the world’s population, as well as killing millions more in the war. When the plan met its demise, he ensured that Hitler did as well. It’s known as a suicide, but when a man dies in a locked chamber, with no one else in it and no way for anyone to escape, the most logical explanation is the one that sticks. You should know that by now.” “Why would he do that?” “Misery is his lifeblood, and suffering brings him great pleasure. His soul became perverted over his life cycles. Instead of finding the greatness in the universe, he focused on its evil, and the result is the creature you met in the church.” “How many life cycles do people get?” “I forget how much of Earth still lives in you, but that is to be expected. It may be a weakness for your development, but I think it will be a strength for you in time. Life is endless, Jackson, just as all forms of energy in the universe are. A life can be ended, but it only creates a new one in turn. It is that same arrogance that causes man to believe that he has the power to end life. Death is just as much the beginning of a new life as it is the end of an old one. Each cycle is different, as if it were a path. The universe determines the course, and it is our responsibility to discover as much about ourselves as possible while we follow it. The cycles allow us all to learn more about our worlds as we pass on.” “How many cycles have you had?” The question felt oddly personal, and Jackson wished he hadn’t asked it. “Don’t be ashamed, you have not crossed a line. Unfortunately, I can’t answer your question, only because I can’t remember. Not all of the cycles allow for the recording of time, but I can tell you that it takes more years than most people can imagine to reach the level I exist on today.” He watched Jackson trying to figure his age, and laughed. “With all the mysteries that exist from the beginning of time to today, would it really be possible to learn the truth in less than a century?” “I guess not.” “You guess correctly. It would be a sick joke to expect people to unravel all those truths on their own in a matter of decades, especially since each truth exposes new questions. People believe they will receive all of the answers when they die, but nothing in their world or any other comes that easily. Like everything worth having, it must be earned.” “So, should I understand more than I do?” “Probably not. As I said, there has never been anyone like you, so there is no point of reference for your education. I still believe that you are the Ethera, but I know now that I couldn’t expect you to succeed entirely on your own.” “I’ve heard that word before. What is it?” “As with most words, it holds many meanings. At a time, it referenced any spirit that came from Earth. Over time, it became a spirit that is born into Earth. Eventually it evolved into a being that would protect the Earth from her greatest threat. Since you are the first being to satisfy the word’s two original definitions, I believe you are the one who will satisfy its newest.” “But what makes you believe that about me?” Jackson’s skepticism amused Marcus, and the old man laughed. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. For most spirits, many cycles have passed to teach them some of the things that you already know. Flight, for instance. How did you learn that?” “From a bird?” It was a statement, but Jackson felt as if he were asking Marcus if that were true. “Brilliant.” Marcus looked incredibly proud, and Jackson felt embarrassed. “It takes most spirits at least one full cycle as a flying spirit to learn that. And what about Elamast, what you call ‘borrowing’?” “I was trying to save a drowning girl, and I borrowed some of her strength. That allowed me to grab her and pull her up.” “Jackson, I know that I have probably made you feel inadequate here today, but I want you to know that your accomplishments are unrivaled in the entire universe. During my cycles I have studied all aspects of life, and no one I know of has ever gained as much self-taught ability as you.” Jackson looked at the fire, and Davis rushed to his mind. “Wait, Marcus. There is someone else. Maybe he is the Ethera?” “You’re talking about your companion, Davis. I’m still searching for his origin, but I promise you he was much older than he led you to believe.” “But he told me-“ “I know what he told you. I have seen all that you know of him within your mind, but I believe he lied to you. I don’t know why. Perhaps he believed you were lying to him, so he returned the favor.” He noticed Jackson becoming angry at the accusations against his friend. “I apologize if I upset you. But no one by his name died in the town he claimed. In fact, no one by that name has ever lived there, so at the very least, he lied about that.” Jackson forced himself to relax, stunned by Marcus’s revelation. He wanted to trust him, especially with Amanda’s life on the line, but Davis seemed like such a good friend. “I won’t say he was against you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Marcus sensed Jackson’s inner debate. “All I know is that he misled you, but as you’ll find eventually, that is much more common in the universe than you can imagine.” “So how do I know you’re telling me the truth?” “Good, very good. The short answer is that you don’t. I have given you this knowledge so that you can save the woman you still love. Again, most beings do not hold on to their love so strongly, but I believe that is another of your strengths in this matter. Your desire to save her has already helped you defeat him once.” “I didn’t defeat him.” Jackson’s calm was returning, but he remained apprehensive. “He did not succeed in killing her or absorbing you. I consider that defeat, and I’m sure he does as well.” “Absorbing?” “The dark man possesses souls, usually for the purpose of adding to his power. You have stopped him twice, both at the tornado and in the church. I can guarantee he will want to possess you, if only so that he can understand how.” A new question pushed to the front of Jackson’s mind, and he blurted it out without thinking. “Do you know how I became visible?” “I have studied that skill in particular for several cycles, and it remains outside of my grasp. I believe that stopping the glass from hitting Amanda has something to do with it, but I’m not sure how. Can you do it again?” “No.” Jackson’s head dropped. “I turned back after a few hours, and I’ve been this way ever since. So it’s possible to switch back and forth?” “You saw the dark man do it in the church didn’t you? There are few abilities that cannot be learned, given the time and the motivation. If you like, I can teach you some that might help you in your fight.” Marcus stepped out of his triangle, passing through the fire and reaching his hand out to Jackson. Jackson took the scarred man’s hand, which held its own disfigurements, and floated down from his perch. Chapter 20

Amanda awoke to darkness. She blinked a few times to try and see if she could adjust, but still found nothing. She heard sounds in the distance, and she tried to figure out what they were, but they were too faint. She tried to get up, but her muscles refused her command, and she wondered if she was drugged. She closed her eyes and focused on wiggling a finger, but felt no response. When she screamed, no sound escaped her lips. Panic started to set in, and her mind raced across the possibilities. For the first time, she wondered if someone had killed her. Amanda tried to remember Jackson describing his death, and she realized that of all the subjects they covered, that wasn’t one of them. The more she thought about death, the more convinced she became about her own. A voice answered her thoughts from a few feet to her left. “You’re not dead. Yet” The voice echoed, and she jumped, but her muscles remained relaxed. It sounded like they were in an enclosed area, like a cave or a closet, and she pushed the voice to talk again, desperate for anything besides the terrible silence. “Who are you? Why are you doing this? Where-” She rattled off questions without waiting for answers, and the voice’s owner slapped her across the face to stop her. “No questions bitch. Keep asking and I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it back to you.” She could tell he was American from the accent, something from the south she thought, but she couldn’t place it any more specifically. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared. Why can’t I move?” He slapped her again. “You should be scared. You can’t move because I don’t want you to. Ask another question, just one. Please.” She could hear the sick satisfaction in his voice as he begged her for a reason to hurt her. Despite his warning, the one thing Amanda wanted to do most was ask another question. It reminded her of her father telling her not to make another peep when she went to bed, and the overwhelming desire to say ‘peep.’ This time, though, the punishment for disobedience would be much worse than a spanking. She struggled again, and she felt as if something was pinning her down, but she didn’t feel straps across her arms or legs. Whatever held her did it without putting any pressure directly on her body. The owner of the voice heard her thoughts before, so she wondered if it was the man from the church. She also thought that being in her mind might give him the ability to restrict her movement. She screamed for Jackson in her mind, just like he had showed her, and the voice responded with a shrill laugh. “Oh please call your little lover man. I hate to break this to you, but he’s not anywhere that he can help you at all. Once the dark man finds him, there won’t be any need to keep you around, and then my master says I can do whatever I want to a pretty thing like you. Can you guess what I’m thinking about doing right now?” He laughed again, and a shiver ran down her spine. “Oh, just thinking about it getting you all hot and tingly, honey?” It felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees, and a cold hand rested on her leg just above her knee. The laugh continued, and she begged it to stop, but it grew louder in her ears until it drowned out the sound of her screaming in her head. It stopped suddenly, and she realized that she was screaming out loud. She tried to scream again, to call for anyone nearby to help her, but her lips refused to open. She felt as if someone was pinching her nose shut, covering the lower half of her face. She couldn’t breathe, and she willed her limbs to fight to free her, but her body gave no response. She fought for what seemed like several minutes, and as her chest burned from lack of oxygen, she felt her mind starting to cloud. This must be what suffocating feels like, she thought, and she gave up fighting it. She felt as if she was floating now, but her body was still rigid against whatever she was lying on. Her head felt light, like she inhaled too much helium, and she wondered if her voice would sound funny if she could talk. Amanda imagined herself floating up into the air, drifting like a balloon set free by a small child. She turned her head and saw her ten year old self, watching the balloon float away and crying at the mistake of letting it go. Now I’m really dying, she thought again, and the clouds above her turned black as they moved towards her. Inside each of them she could see herself, dead and bloated, and as the clouds pulled closer together, blocking her path into the heavens, the eyes on the thousand corpse faces all sprung open at once. She recognized the eyes from the man in the church, and she tried to shout again, but the eyes stared into her and no sound could come out. She felt the clouds swallowing her, and then the corpses opened their mouths, revealing daggers of teeth. The inside of the mouths were as dark as the eyes, and long snaking tongues reached out and wrapped around her, squeezing her arms into her sides and crushing her ribs. Her lungs burned as the oxygen was forced out of them. The tongues pulled her into their mouths, biting into her and tearing her flesh. She screamed again, and this time her mouth opened, and she felt a rush of air as her lungs fought to fill themselves. As the air charged into her chest, she took one deep breath before she collapsed against the hard surface underneath her. The voice laughed again, but much quieter, and she kept her eyes closed. She knew that the light was still gone, but seeing the face horrible enough to accompany that voice was not worth the risk. In her mind, she whispered ‘Jackson’ over and over, until finally the creature holding her down stopped laughing. “Enough of that.” He dug his fingers into her leg, and she felt warmth run down behind her knee. “Girls who don’t behave get punished.” The harder he squeezed, the more she slipped away from her body, imagining Jackson returning to her in the church, opening her eyes to see his face inches away from hers. She thought about him sitting with her during her wedding preparations, and in the dress shop, and she relived each moment. This time though, she knew he was there, and they stood in the dressing room looking at each other while the two women outside talked to each other. When she got the dress on, he helped her zip it up, and she turned and faced him with her eyebrows lifted. He gave her a thumbs up, and she heard him in her head. “Perfect. You’re even more beautiful than I could imagine. That dress is magic on you, and if I had my way, you’d wear it every second for the rest of our lives.” She leapt into his arms, and they shared a kiss that sent shivers down her spine even as she lay in captivity, and the thing holding her suddenly let go. “What the hell was that? You shocked me you bitch.” It grabbed her forearm, and she imagined it was Jackson grabbing her and running away from their wedding to steal a quick romp with his new wife in a dressing room. He pulled her close and pressed his lips to her neck, kissing up towards her ear lobes until another shock ran through her. Again her captor screamed. “Goddammit. I’ve had enough of you, you’re on your own until he’s through with you, then I’ll get you back for that, you cunt.” She heard him get up, stomping across a floor that was definitely wooden. As he stormed off, cursing her the whole way, she heard a door slam. She was inside, at least that much was confirmed. In her mind, she went back to Jackson, sitting on the desk as she put her makeup on before the wedding. She leaned forward to see better, unable to see him but still aware of his position, and this time, their lips met.

-2-

“You will not need to borrow here, and your energy is limitless, so show me what you have learned.” Marcus closed his eyes, and his cloak changed color, becoming gray and fitting closer to him as if the color poured down from his shoulders. When it reached his waist, it changed to denim, and Jackson saw that he wore jeans instead of the robe now. “Can you teach me that?” “It is something you will learn, but the dark man can see through any disguise you might try to use, so it is not beneficial for now. Show me how you would fight him if you met.” He stepped toward Jackson, keeping his hands by his sides. Jackson shot to him, aiming to punch Marcus in the chest, but his hand passed straight through him. As it reached through his back, Marcus turned solid again, and Jackson’s hand was stuck. “You will have to adjust your style to fighting things that can change. Now escape it.” Jackson released his energy, and his hand pulled back through Marcus’s chest. He swung his leg at the same time, trying to catch Marcus off guard, but the man just lifted above the swipe with no effort. “You are focusing on causing me pain, but the truth is you cannot impact me anymore than I could you. Making our mind’s image of our bodies solid is a trick that only benefits us on the living plane. To battle a spirit, you need to understand where that body comes from.” “Your mind?” “Exactly. The body that you see, that other people feel, is a representation created by your mind. You have no arms, no legs, no eyes. We can throw punches at each other for eternity, but they will do no damage. The only way to affect a spirit is to-“ Marcus stumbled backwards, his eyes wide. Jackson stayed still, his lips curling into a smirk. “Better. Using surprise will be an excellent weapon for you. Remember, there is no such thing as fighting dirty. Fighting is a dirty enough business in itself, and once you have entered it, the goal is to win.” As Marcus finished speaking, Jackson felt something hit him in the back of his head, and he bent forward. Another force met his chin, sending him onto his back. Something that felt like a foot pressed down on his chest, holding him against the floor. When he raised his head, Marcus remained ten feet away. “Am I holding you down?” Jackson relaxed and the force stomped down on the floor underneath him. He blinked and was back on his feet. The two men faced each other down, each waiting for the other to make a move. Jackson’s patience stretched thin, but he wanted Marcus to break the truce first. He got his wish, and he felt Marcus moving towards him even though his body stayed in the same place. Jackson relaxed, letting his instinct take over, and he caught the old man in mid air, driving him into the ground and rolling over top of him. Their bodies stayed motionless at the edge of the circle, but inside it the two men battled in an invisible clash. Blows that landed against each other did nothing to affect the bodies staring into each other’s eyes from a distance, but Jackson felt the force of each shot, and he felt sure that Marcus did as well. Their efforts continued for several minutes, with neither man able to get an advantage. Finally Marcus knocked Jackson to the ground and reached his hand toward the fire. The flames shot out from the wood, wrapping around his arm and licking his face. He held his hand high, letting the fire weave its way around his entire body. When he threw his next punch, it fell short, and Jackson thought that he had dodged the blow. To his surprise, the fire poured out from Marcus’s hand, washing over Jackson as he fell to the ground. Even more surprising, he could feel the fire as it burned around him, and he screamed at pain that filled him. He covered his face with his hands, even as he felt it burning into his eyes, and when Marcus spoke, he remained cowering for a few seconds. “You have forgotten pain already.” The voice was calm, and Jackson slid his hands down to his legs. He opened his eyes, and the fire was gone. “How did you do that?” “Would you like me to show you?”

-3-

Marcus stood silent, watching Jackson demonstrate his new skill set. When the pupil finished, he turned and looked at his teacher, waiting on some kind of encouragement. Marcus gave none, but disappeared from the spot he stood and popped up behind Jackson. In a split second, Jackson sensed him appearing, and he released the form of his body, seeing the entire area around him as if he floated above it. When Marcus reappeared, Jackson saw him below, and he focused his force into the same spot. The old man vanished, and his young student stood in his place. A voice came from all around him. “You’re ready. At least as ready as I can make you.” Marcus’s feet returned, floating over the triangle outside the fire, and Jackson watched as the rest of his body grew out of them. He closed his eyes and moved himself to the opposite triangle. “I’m ready to fight him? Do you think I can defeat him?” He wanted some reassurance, a vote of confidence from the only mentor he knew on this side of the glass. “No.” Jackson’s face dropped, and Marcus continued. “and yes.” When Jackson looked up, Marcus’s face lit up with a smile. “You can never be ‘ready’ to face something that you are unfamiliar with. Life is the same way. There are certain steps that no one is ready for, no matter how prepared they may be. Death itself represents one of these places. It is impossible to be ready for your life after death, but you may be prepared for it. As far as defeating him, I believe you have every tool that you will need, and a few that he will not. He will underestimate you, despite the fact that you have already defeated him twice, because his arrogance will not allow him to believe you can truly conquer him. He will also have weapons that you do not, though.” “Can you teach me some of those?” Jackson couldn’t understand why Marcus would leave out anything that would help him defeat the dark man. “No. The weapons that he will use cannot be learned. He is evil incarnate, and he will try anything to defeat you this time. He has already slaughtered an entire church of people without a second thought. Mercy does not exist in his mind, and he cares only for himself. He will use anyone he can against you, and their lives are meaningless to him. It is something you cannot copy, because you possess the capacity to care for others. When you discovered your abilities, what did you choose to use them for?” “Helping people. It seemed like the obvious answer to the gift I received.” “For the dark man, the obvious choice involves enslaving and killing everyone weaker than him. The idea to use his powers for good never occurred to him, and for that reason you cannot reach the level that he has. His darkness gives him power, but it also weakens his soul. The more evil he takes on, the less human he becomes, and in a world designed for humanity, you can be stronger. I don’t know if you would stand a chance on any other planet, but everything serves the universe, so it is no mistake that this fight takes place in your world. I told you before that you still held strong connections to mankind, and his connection is forever lost, no matter how many souls he consumes. That strength that you draw from them makes you more powerful than he realizes, and I think that gives you the best chance at success.” Marcus beamed at him across the fire, reminding Jackson of his father years before. “What will happen if I can defeat him?” “I cannot predict that, any more than I could predict whether you will defeat him. A spirit’s path remains a mystery until you reach each point. You can always reflect on where you have been, but it is impossible to know where you are going. The future is unwritten, and the choices you make will dictate it.” “What about destiny? If I’m the Ethera, shouldn’t my fate be pre-determined?” “When a parent watches a child’s life, often times they know where the path will lead, but they cannot say how the child will get there. If you are the Ethera,” he saw Jackson’s face questioning his choice of words. “and I believe that you are, then much has been written about you and your destiny. To say that your path is determined for you eliminates free will, the greatest gift that intelligent life ever received. Someone may know what choices you will make, but in the end, the choices are yours. So far, you have chosen well at every turn. I trust that you will continue to follow that same path as long as you choose to.” “How will I find her?” “I can’t answer that either. I can tell you that you will know that she lives as soon as you return to your world. Beyond that, your first priority must be finding the dark man, but I suspect that he will find you. As long as he exists, no one is safe, living or dead. Once you stop him, you can find Amanda.” “Then what?” Jackson had given little thought to what happened after his battle ended, and he hesitated to now, afraid of losing his focus on the task at hand. “As I said, your existence will be yours to choose. There will be forks in the road for as long as you walk it. Which path you take depends entirely on you. Do not hesitate to consider your future at the expense of your present. Time becomes blurry the longer you walk on this side, and I know as well as any that you must be mindful of every step along the way. Otherwise, you will repeat the missteps that caused pain for you and those around you. Any other questions?” Jackson considered the question that kept returning to his mind. He debated again whether to ask it, but Marcus saved him the trouble. “You wonder what determines where people will go when they die. Do people who live evil lives get their punishment after their deaths? I cannot say for sure, but I see enough of the universe to know that it has a way of correcting unjust actions. Humans call it karma, and with all I witness, I would have a hard time disagreeing with it.” “Is there anything that can prevent the cycles from progressing?” “People who commit suicide prevent their own cycles. They are not punished for the deed, but they are not rewarded either. Some time ago people attempted to speed up their learning by ending their lives to begin a new one. As is usually the case, this loophole was not what they expected. Every life that you live serves a purpose, and suicide is never that purpose. Cutting the path short is a perversion of free will, and the lessons that you learned become lost, dooming people to repeat their mistakes. The only way to complete a life is to reach the path’s own end, whatever it becomes through your own choices.” “How do you know all this?” Jackson thought of the question as soon as Marcus started explaining things to him, but he felt like it would be rude to question anything then. He debated whether to ask it at all, but the knowledge that Davis had lied, even about where he was from, made him wonder how much loyalty he could expect from anybody. “A fair question, but not an easy one. I’ve told you that I spent many cycles learning the things that I shared with you. I also had a mentor for most of that time, a spirit who showed me how blind I remained to the truth despite my efforts. Of all the beings I crossed paths with, he came closest to enlightenment.” His voice trailed off, and Jackson thought he might have crossed into a sore subject. “I’m sorry Marcus, I shouldn’t-“ “It’s alright. You are the first person I have talked to about much of this. I knew you would ask where he was now, and I wish I could tell you. I lost him, on the edge of what he called ‘his ultimate reward,’ and no amount of searching has found him yet.” He closed his eyes briefly, then shook his head. “Enough of that, though. You need to be positive if you will succeed. Don’t bother yourself with my troubles, there are far too many to fix.” He turned away, as if to say there was nothing else to add on the matter, and Jackson watched as he slipped out of the triangle and took a few steps towards the fire. He sat down, pulling his hood back up over his head, and Jackson walked up behind him. He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder, but it passed through and the robe, along with its wearer, became smoke. Jackson watched the smoke drift off, spreading out before disappearing altogether. He began to wonder how he should return to Earth when another light appeared in the distance. He started to walk towards it, and again it held firm. Deciding to test his new powers, he held out his hand, focused his mind, and pulled the light towards him. It appeared to move closer to him. He pulled again, and the light flew towards him, enveloping him. It was too bright to see anything, but when it faded, he found himself standing in a cemetery. He turned around, and felt little surprise to see that the grave he stood in front of was his own.

Chapter 21 Jackson didn’t know where to begin to look for Amanda, or the dark man, so he stood still, looking down on his grave for a moment. So many things had happened since the day that Marcus had pulled him up in this spot, and he tried unsuccessfully to remember what he felt on that day. He remembered being extremely confused and wanting to know exactly what he was supposed to do, but his memory past that was clouded. He concentrated and felt the clouds thinning. He pushed further, and he felt a strange sensation, like being lifted off of the spot, but when he looked down, he saw that his feet remained planted on the ground. As he imagined the events of the past several years as a path, he started to see landmarks behind him. He saw the school shooting, and the baby in the dumpster, and pushed past them. He watched himself fighting a tornado, and he realized that the events did not reveal themselves in order. Jackson stopped, looking all around him, and he saw his life, as well as the time after his death, all around him. Each event connected to another, and the end result was a giant web. He watched the events surrounding him, seeing them all happening from his own perspective. As he inspected them closer though, he saw that he could witness them over and over again from sides he had never seen before. He focused on the day he met Marcus, watching himself be pulled up from outside of the scene. He watched the episode at the church from somewhere outside of the entire event, and he understood that he was tapped into a global network of witnesses. He felt the presence of millions of spirits all around him, and their senses were his. Passing through the mirror had finally cemented his place on this side of the universe, and a very unexpected side effect presented itself. He closed his eyes, trying to block out everything that had just filled him. When he opened his eyes again, he stood alone in the cemetery. He searched for any sign of Amanda, and for a flash he heard her screaming, but before he could pinpoint her location, a door slammed shut in his mind, and she was silent again. He sensed that someone prevented him from finding her, and he pushed back to try and find her again, but the trail was lost. He lifted off, moving towards the clouds but stopping just short of them, and he opened his mind to the landscape below him. He could feel himself stretching out through it, crossing over people and places that he never visited, but understanding them deeply as soon as he crossed past. He felt something pulling him further south, and he turned his attention towards it. All around him, the world continued spinning on its axis, everything falling into place exactly as it does every day, but a piece that didn’t fit the puzzle became clearer as he searched. He passed Georgia, slipping into Florida from its northern border, and the feeling that called him originally turned into a voice. He recognized it from the church, and his mind raced as he thought he found the dark man. The closer he pulled to it, the more he realized that the voice was not strong enough to belong to the dark man, and he guessed that it was human. He searched his memory of the wedding, trying to find someone who survived the terrible day, but all he saw was the dark fire engulfing the innocent people. He remembered Marcus’s warning about the people who could be killed for stepping into the dark man’s path, and he understood what he meant with sickening clarity. The screams of the burning wedding guests became too much to bear, and he pulled out of the memory, focusing his energy on the voice he heard in the present. As he listened closer, he heard a second voice arguing with the first. It sounded familiar to him as well, but different, and he started to search his path to try and match it. Just as he began, one of them called the other by name, and his memory rushed back to him. “I don’t give a shit what you think the master wants, Chris, I sacrificed more for him and I will be the one giving orders. If that doesn’t suit, I’ll end you where you stand.” “If you insist on being that way, I’ll follow. But if I hear any indication that the master doesn’t approve, you’ll be the one drawing his last breath.” He recognized the man named Chris as one of the men that attacked the church at the wedding, and he assumed the second belonged to some other creature. Their fight involved eating something, but he couldn’t say how he knew that. Pulling back from his memory, Jackson concentrated on the two of them, and he saw two shapes bent over a third. The picture started to clear, and the two men became visible to him, but they were shadows amongst the trees. He stretched to make out their faces, but they kept the light off of themselves in perfect position. Someone watched them, and Jackson sensed him, but the fighting men remained unaware of their voyeur. He turned back to the two of them again, trying to look at the surrounding area, but his vision limited itself to the two men. He tried to warn the watcher to run, fearing what could happen if they discovered him, but beyond sensing his presence, Jackson could do nothing. He sent a message through his mind, but knew before it faded that it would do no good. He came back to the two men just in time for them to notice their spy, and Jackson felt the person fill with terror. He looked down and found himself dressed in camouflage, realizing that this man was taking his last hunting trip, only to become the prey for a far more dangerous hunter. He turned to run, and Jackson could hear their footsteps behind him. The watcher fled, but the branches crunching under his pursuers told Jackson that the chase would not go on for very long. He looked ahead and saw light through the trees. The man was close to escaping, and he chanced a look back, but saw nothing. He could still hear the sounds of their hunt, so he knew that they were still coming, but he couldn’t see where they would come from. The light grew brighter, and Jackson found himself willing the man to run faster, hoping that his escape from the woods could provide some sort of clue that would help him find them. He reminded himself that he watched through another man’s eyes, and urging him to move faster would do no more good than yelling at a movie screen. The light shone just ahead, and he started to think that the man might escape when he heard a sound like stepping into a pile of mud, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. The man looked down, showing Jackson a large talon sticking out of the front of the camouflage shirt. The material around it darkened as the blood flowed out onto it, and Jackson saw the man’s hands try to grab the razor-sharp claw that pierced his chest. His hands grasped it feebly, but they were useless against it, and when it pulled back out of his chest, blood poured out of him. The second creature dropped in front of him, staring him straight in the face, and the light beyond the trees was blocked out. All that Jackson saw of the beast was blood red eyes, but he smelled its breath as it leaned closer to its victim. He watched as it raised one of its arms, and on one end of it he saw a talon just like the one that punctured the man’s chest a second before. It swiped down, and the world spun. Jackson thought he was being sent back to the spot where he began, but the spinning slowed and eventually came to a stop. Jackson lay on the ground, but he couldn’t make out what he saw. Something moved in his field of vision, and the light returned. He looked out of the woods, spotting a movie theater in the distance. He focused on the name of it, but the man’s vision was dimming. Something shook, and Jackson realized that the creature lopped the man’s head off. He remembered his 8th grade science teacher telling him that a person lived for a few seconds after being decapitated, and understood he was watching the man’s final moments. Just before the vision faded completely, Jackson made out the words Sunrise and Intracoastal. As soon as the man’s last image passed before his eyes, Jackson found himself back above the cemetery in Charleston. Looking down, he searched for a computer, and found the Apple store. Thanks again Steve ol’ boy, he thought, darting inside and searching for a computer that he could use without alarming anyone inside. He found a laptop in the corner that was set aside while a mother tried to get something away from her child and decided it was his best shot. He flew over to it and typed the two words he saw into the search box. As he waited for the results, he saw the woman heading back to him, her son pacified. He tapped nervously on the area below the keyboard, wishing that he could make the machine faster. Just as she settled back down into her seat, he saw his results. There were two theaters with both words in them, one in Miami and the other a little further north in Pompano Beach. He stopped to borrow from the child who had just been scolded, then lifted through the roof of the store and sped south.

-2-

The theater in Pompano became his first target by virtue of being closer than Miami, but as soon as he saw it he knew it was not the one from his vision. He rushed past it on his way to Miami, seeking out the spot where he saw the attack. He found the theater easily enough, and even located the spot where the man died, feeling the blood still fresh on the ground. As for the men who killed him, they left no trace of their existence. Jackson felt as if they watched him while he stood there, and he remembered that they could see him in the church even before he stopped the glass, and he soared above the trees to avoid the possibility of an ambush. He gave the woods around the theater a good search, finding more blood, along with a heap of camouflage tucked into one of the higher branches of a tree. After completing his search, he floated back down to the street, contemplating his next move, and sat down on one of the curbs. Searching for the men could help him find Amanda or their master, but he wasn’t sure that he could make them talk. He knew their humanity was a thing of the past, much like the dark man himself, so he doubted whether he could infiltrate their minds to get information either. Frustrated, he stood up and got ready to take off and continue his search from the sky. As he did, a large man came out of the store behind him carrying several sheets of plywood. He paused to look at the man and then checked the sky again, finding a sparse cloud cover that hardly looked ominous enough to warrant boarding up store windows. The man set the panels in place and began to attach them to anchors on the outside of the store. Jackson watched as a woman approached the store. She paused just outside the door, watching the man for a moment before questioning him. “Are you open?” Her voice sounded polite enough, but Jackson sensed her annoyance at the prospect of being denied her necessities. “Yes.” The man answered in between strikes of his hammer, equally annoyed at her interruption. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of one heavily tattooed arm and then set the hammer down as he turned to her. “I’m just getting prepared for the storm.” Jackson watched the lady turn her head up towards the sky, apparently having the same idea that he had. “I hadn’t heard about any storm.” She seemed to be considering whether she really needed to go in this particular store at all. “It just popped up out in the ocean. Hadn’t seen anything about it until half an hour ago. All of a sudden the water just started swirling, and now they’re saying that it could be a Category 3 by the time it hits here.” The lady’s eyes opened wide, and she rushed inside for whatever she needed in time to get home before the storm hit. As the man picked up his tools to continue his project, Jackson lifted up above the street, going high enough to see a hundred miles in all directions. The sky around him was perfect, as blue as a robin’s egg and filled with just enough clouds to provide sunbathers some relief from the sun’s sweltering heat. As he looked east though, everything changed. He saw the clouds forming, and he sensed something strange about them. In his mind he connected them to the clouds he met at the tornado, and he understood that neither storm was born of Mother Nature. He dropped back down, borrowing from the man standing still hammering, and as he did, a car drove by with its stereo loud enough for him to catch the tail end of the report. “-never seen before. These clouds are forming rapidly, and this might be the first hurricane of the season to make landfall. It will almost certainly go down as the most surprising-“ As the woman hurried out of the store with her bags, the owner stepped out to yell at the man for not hanging his plywood fast enough. Jackson felt a small pang of guilt for getting the man in trouble, and he borrowed from the owner, shutting him up in the process, to help the man hanging the boards.

-3-

As Jackson lifted off towards the hurricane clouds, he saw with total clarity the beginnings of the storm. He knew the dark man created it, and as he approached them he saw the water underneath the storm swirling violently in one direction, only to stop and reverse itself in a heartbeat. No storm moves like that, he thought, and he knew that something held the hurricane in one place. Jackson wondered if the whole setup was an enormous trap, with the lives of the people on land as the bait. The clouds grew darker, and he saw lightning flash in the distance. As Jackson reached the center of the whirlpool, he stopped, looking around him for any sign of his nemesis. Dark, swirling skies loomed above him, and sheets of rain shielded everything from his vision beyond a few feet. A wave rose to meet him and he relaxed, letting it flow straight through him without causing so much as a ripple. A gust of wind pushed at his back, circling around him and forcing him to counter-balance himself. He was surprised to see the wind affecting his flying, and he wondered if the dark man could create forces he could not escape. He stopped himself, steadying his body against the assault of the hurricane, preparing for whatever waited to prove him right. He didn’t have to wait long, as the sky darkened further, creating night in the middle of the day around him. The gloom radiated out from a spot in the eye of the storm, and Jackson moved towards it, searching for the source. All light faded from around him as he passed into the eye, and he turned to see how far it stretched. In the distance beyond the storm, he saw sunlight, but the black curtain that fell from the clouds spread closer to the shore each second. His instincts begged him to turn back, knowing that the dark man sat waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but the image of Amanda in excruciating pain pushed him further. As he reached the center of the eye, the wind weakened and he rested. The fight just to get here drained him more than he realized, and Jackson understood why the dark man chose this location for their showdown. There were no people around to endanger, which seemed to favor Jackson as he entered the storm, but it also meant that once his power depleted, he had no way of getting it back. The storm swelled farther as time passed, making his escape more difficult the longer the fight dragged on, if it ever began. All of this passed through his mind in a flash of lightning, and he lowered his guard just enough during that flash. He expected the dark man to come down from the darkness within the clouds, but his expectations failed him as his enemy rose from the ocean, connecting with Jackson’s face. The blow landed hard enough to send him back into the swirling winds, and he felt them spinning him like a toy. He recovered and reentered the eye, searching for the man and remembering Marcus saying that all fighting was dirty. He heard his laugh, and as he approached the center, the laughing grew louder. “You won’t find your next attempt so easy.” He shouted, smiling to himself, and the laughter cut off at once. A bolt of lightning connected the sky to the water, hitting ten feet away from where Jackson stopped. “Who says I need to show myself to hit you boy.” The voice rumbled from the sky as the thunder clapped, and their combined force shook the water below. “Where is she?” Jackson focused on projecting his voice, and it rumbled across the ocean as loud as the dark man Back on the shore, people started to gather at the sounds, staring into the storm with reckless curiosity. Several of them remarked to each other that the thunder sounded like voices, while others heard laughing in the cacophony. The laughter returned, but it was not as loud as before, and Jackson shouted his question again, overpowering the dark man’s mocking laughter. It cut short, and the voice that answered him showed signs of aggravation. “What matter should I have for your silly bitch, boy?” A pause stretched out as another flash of lightning sliced the sky. “My ambitions stretch beyond your imagination, but I will admit I would most like to be left alone with such a fine representation of the human form.” Now it was Jackson’s turn to lose his cool, and he screamed into the storm as another bolt lit up the darkness. His enemy laughed again, drawing power from his irritation, and Jackson felt the man coming at him from below again. He moved at the last second, allowing the dark man to fly past, then reached up and grabbed the dark robed ankle. The man shouted and looked down, and Jackson saw fear in his eyes for the first time. Jackson swung him down, sending the dark man crashing into the water below them, but he smiled up at Jackson as he hit. He stopped on the top of the water, the ripples of his impact spreading across the surface. Jackson floated twenty feet above, looking down, as the dark man held out his hands in another mock crucifixion. “The images of your humanity are so powerful, don’t you think?” He let his head drop down, feigning death, and then his eyes shot open. Jackson saw that they took on the full darkness that he saw in them the first time they met. The water around him shook and then pulled in towards the dark man, creating a pillar and lifting him towards Jackson. He stopped when they were level with each other, pivoting up on his heels to face Jackson, and the two men stayed a few feet apart, neither of them moving. The dark man nodded and the column of water that lifted him charged at Jackson. He relaxed his mind and expected to pass through it, but it hit him with its full force, shoving him backwards into the storm’s winds again. He spun out of it, but it snaked behind him, and he raced back to the eye. The rain around the clear center of the storm fell in huge drops, creating a curtain of water that stopped Jackson as he reached it. The column of water behind him closed the distance he created, and he turned to see it bearing down on him. Just as it reached him, he vanished, and the column crashed through the curtain into the eye. The dark man failed to prepare for the counter, and the water collided with his chest. He tried at the last second to stop it, but the speed was too great and it knocked him back underneath the surface. His concentration broken, the pillar collapsed and rained down above him. When he came back above the water, he searched for Jackson. Finding nothing, he began to flail his arms, sending bolts of lightning from the clouds in all directions. Thunder rolled continuously as each bolt cracked across the sky, and someone on the beach screamed. The dark man turned his attention toward them, remembering his ace in the hole, and he moved the clouds in their direction. From where they stood, people swore they could see two dark spots in the storm, blacker than anything they could imagine. Jackson appeared between the storm and the beach, facing the dark man and willing the clouds back away from the people. For a second, it worked, and panic spread across the evil face as he saw his plan crumbling. Jackson’s strength faded, and he felt the darkness spreading through him. He fought it, but every step his power fell seemed to give more to his nemesis, and his face contorted as pain filled every inch of him. He screamed, his entire existence burning under the power of the dark man, and the people watching screamed behind him. He turned to face them, trying to draw some strength, but it gave the dark man an opening to finish him off. Another column of water shot out of the ocean, pushing into Jackson’s back and forcing him back toward the storm. The laugh returned, and it grew louder as Jackson approached its source. The dark man floated straight in front of him, and Jackson fought to move away, but his strength failed him. He passed through the darkness, draining him completely, and then he fell. As he hit the surface, he waited to float to the bottom, but the water continued to push him down into the water, swirling through the ocean and creating a giant whirlpool. He gave up his fight as it forced him to the bottom, and it increased its speed until he smashed against the ocean floor. The dark man descended through the water until he rested next to Jackson, and his voice echoed in the water as his teeth held their terrible yellow grin. “You were a fool to come here. I am ashamed to say I considered you a worthy adversary. I should have known you would disappoint me, just as all of the others before you. Even your precious Marcus kneeled before me, so it was idiotic of him to believe that you could succeed where he failed.” He watched as Jackson’s face attempted to argue, but water filled his mouth even though he tried not to use it. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” Another laugh filled the ocean, and schools of fish scurried away from it. “Why do you think he doesn’t stand next to you? He knew that he was no match for me, just as he knew that you were not. I will destroy a thousand lives tonight, as you lie here helpless on the ocean floor, and their blood will forever be on your hands.” Jackson fought to get up, but the water continued to pound down on him, and the pressure held him on the floor. He watched helplessly as his foe climbed back towards the surface. He saw the dark clouds beginning to move towards land. Jackson continued to struggle, but his efforts only drained him more. He resigned himself to defeat, and Amanda’s voice screamed for him to fight. He willed it with everything inside him, but he felt blackness filling him again, and he wondered what would happen when the dark man consumed his spirit. He relaxed his body, letting the water continue to punish him, hearing his love scream in agony as he lay helpless on the bottom of the sea. He heard a sound to his left and turned to see a dolphin swimming towards him. It reached him and swam through the current that held him against the ocean floor, seeming to mock his vulnerability. He cursed it as it swam back and forth, stopping just on the other side of the current and dashing back through it, but it continued its dance nonetheless. After a few minutes, his frustration boiled up, and he swung his arm towards the annoying animal. When he tried, he found that his entire arm lifted up off of the bottom. He swung his other hand, watching as it lifted too. Looking back at the dolphin, he made eye contact and realized it was helping him escape. As it swam faster through the current, it weakened it, and eventually he was able to stand up. He moved out from under the pillar of water, watching as it collapsed on itself against the floor. As he started back towards the surface, the dolphin came towards him. He reached down to pet its back and it moved around to meet his eyes with its own. He placed a hand on the side of its head, and his mind spun down the path to the night he saved the drowning girl. As he watched, he saw a dolphin that looked shockingly like his current savior, and he remembered hearing the word Ethera for the first time. “You’ve come back to help me now haven’t you?” “I have. I knew that my path would lead me back to you when we first met many years ago, and I’m glad to see what you have become. Will you allow me to help you once more?” Jackson nodded, and the dolphin kicked its fins, placing them on his arms and holding him still. It stared into his eyes, and he felt his strength returning, growing stronger each second. He held its gaze as long as it held him. “You are the Ethera. You can stop him.” “How can I do that?” “Your path lies before you. All you can do is follow it. Release doubt, and trust in your own ability. It will not fail you.” With that, the dolphin kicked its tail and swam away, its voice returning to the sounds Jackson expected a dolphin to make as it faded into the distance. Jackson watched it leave, feeling its power surging through him until it felt as strong as the power he borrowed from the baby during the tornado. He raced to the surface, breaking through it fast enough to make a small pillar of water rise underneath him. The dark man and his clouds were several miles away, but Jackson saw his head spin around as soon as he emerged, and he sensed fear rising up in his eyes again before they switched back to windows of shadow. He charged towards Jackson, the dark clouds of the hurricane flanking behind him like his army. Jackson hurtled towards him, the water below rippling with the speed that he crossed it. They slammed into each other, forcing all the water around them outwards from their central impact, and the ocean cratered as if a meteor struck it. As the water rushed back to fill the void, the sound of the impact reached the beach as loud as a crack of thunder, but no lightning accompanied it. The dark man struggled to wrap his hands around Jackson’s throat, but his brute strength failed him. Jackson smiled up at him, enraging him further, and then disappeared. His hands closed on each other, and when he looked up, Jackson stood underneath one of the clouds, rain and hail pelting off his shoulders. The dark man pulled back, stretching his arm out, and Jackson heard the sound of wind rushing towards him. He turned to see a gust forming out of the hurricane winds, and he plummeted into the water to escape it. The wind passed overhead, and Jackson sprung back out of the water to face down his foe. The dark man reached again, and the wind followed his orders, but this time Jackson stood his ground. It rushed all around him, and he stood still against it, feeling it envelop him. It circled him, coming around again and again as he looked into the dark eyes that stared into him. Jackson focused his mind, and he felt the wind respond to his will. It surrounded him, gaining speed until he created a tornado of his own, and then he pushed it towards the dark man. The full force of the wind hit him, spinning him within it, and Jackson forced it to continue around him. The dark eyes spun round and round, trying to find Jackson as they did. He watched the man’s form change, unable to hold its human shape under the stress of the wind. Jackson’s face remained stone, but he lowered his eyes and the tornado followed his gaze until it touched the surface of the water. The dark man fought harder, but it only made the wind pull in tighter around him. Jackson closed his eyes, and the water underneath the whirlwind began to pull up into it. He heard the dark man’s screams as the water wrapped itself around him, entombing him in a giant waterspout. The spinning grew faster, and his voice became muffled under the sound of the water crashing against itself. As Jackson listened, he heard the evil screams begin to take on the garbled tone of someone drowning. The cyclone moved out of the eye of the storm, and the rain and wind that poured from the sky joined it, creating a wall of water so thick that only the dark eyes penetrated it. The spout lifted off the surface of the water, becoming a globe of water that Jackson had seen before. The dark man’s eyes glowed against the sky, and Jackson looked straight into them as he concentrated on the darkest storm cloud he could find. It moved towards them both, and he saw panic starting to enter those dark eyes as it got closer. The water cloaking him was too dense to fight against, and it only became thicker as more of the rain fell to meet it. The sky grew darker still, and the area around them became as black as night, but still the eyes were visible, even darker than the sky around them. A flash of lightning lit it up, striking just beside the spot where the dark man was held captive, and Jackson watched as his sinister eyes realized what was happening. He heard the master shriek, a horrible sound that caused the onlookers to cover their ears in agony, and the second blast of lightning found its target. The sphere lit up in the dark sky, electricity shooting out in blue arcing shots all around it. They bent around, shooting in and out, and Jackson heard the dark man within them screaming, although he thought for a split second that the scream almost sounded like a terrible laugh. A flash interrupted the thought, and a tremendous bolt of lightning shot out of the globe straight into Jackson. He felt the energy ripping through him, and he fought to contain one of Earth’s most powerful forces. The bolt connected him to the sphere, and he could feel the dark man struggling inside of it. He saw the dark eyes again, and he looked deeper into them than anyone had ever dared. He borrowed from them, feeling the darkness fill him with an incredible power and rage. Jackson also felt fear entering his enemy as the man realized that this was no ordinary spirit he fought. As the knowledge passed between the connection, Jackson felt the dark force dwindling. “Ethera.” In the massive storm, the word never could be heard, but Jackson felt the dark man’s fear, and with the darkness that he had taken, it gave him unimaginable strength. He took the opportunity, forcing the lightning back at the sphere with everything inside him. The flash blinded everyone watching, bouncing back and forth between the clouds and the water as a deafening scream shook everything around them. Thunder roared across the landscape, shaking buildings and shattering windows, and then all was calm. The clouds above Jackson separated, and the rain fell to the ocean in a final roar, and the storm faded back into the ocean as quickly as it came. There was no sign of the dark man. Jackson came to rest on the surface of the water, and in the distance he heard the squeaking of the dolphin. He turned to look for it, but the sun reflecting off the ocean was too bright to see very far in any direction. Chapter 22

Victory was never so disheartening, and Jackson sat on the ocean for nearly 30 minutes. He accomplished exactly what Marcus wanted him to do, but he failed to find out who held Amanda captive, or where to find her. For all he knew, the creatures that watched her received orders to kill her if no word came back from their leader. He felt sick, but possessed no stomach to get sick from. He felt like crying, but he hadn’t produced a tear in so long he wasn’t sure if he would even remember how. He did everything he could to stop the dark man, and it seemed to work, but the price that he would pay for saving thousands of lives was the loss of the life that he truly cared the most about. He hoped that something would reveal itself once the dark man fell, but the more time passed, the more he realized that he probably doomed his former fiancée by virtue of his victory. He wanted to fly through every last corner of the world searching for her, but he didn’t even know where to start. He listened for her as soon as the battle ended, but found only emptiness and silence as he searched. He got to his feet and headed back towards the shore, needing the noise of living people to help drown out the voice in his head that just kept repeating “you killed her.” He glided across the surface of the water, careful to lift his feet high enough to avoid disturbing it. When he reached the beach, the crowd amazed him, and he thought even more people came out once the storm died down to get the story from the witnesses. A few news vans pulled up to the scene, and the cacophony of the crowd served the exact purpose that Jackson hoped they would. His mind went blank as he passed among them, taking in bits and pieces of everything they said. He checked absent-mindedly for any indication that they saw something supernatural, but most of them just continued to talk about how weird the weather could be. He was thankful that the cameras from the vans were just now getting set up, knowing that they might have captured enough of the fight to start raising some serious questions. An image of the dark man’s eyes on every TV in the country filled his mind, and his victory started to bring him comfort. He continued his path through the growing mob, passing through people without bothering to try and go around them. He continued on to the street, turning back to look at the people swarming to the spot where others still pointed out into the ocean. He wondered what story would be spun to explain what happened, especially concerning a hurricane that appears and disappears in the span of an hour, but in the back of his mind, every thought hung on Amanda. He fought a losing battle attempting to distract himself, and the longer he waged it, the more hopeless it seemed. As he lifted up above the group, his mind started to play tricks on him, and he heard his name repeated, cursing him for abandoning his only love. He pushed it away, trying to pick up the details that one reporter gave a live TV audience, but it persisted, growing louder each time he heard it. Finally, he flew high enough to eliminate the noise of the people on the ground, and he thought the voice sounded like Amanda. It wasn’t until the fourth time he heard it that he allowed a glimmer of hope to enter his heart. He searched for the source of the voice, but it was impossible to tell exactly where the sound came from. Just as he was about to chalk it up to her memory punishing him again, he felt a rush of emotion fill his entire being. He fell almost all the way back to the ground in the aftermath of the feeling, and he knew that the voice had to belong to her. He sped back up to a few hundred feet, searching for her with his mind and trying frantically to reopen the connection that he established before she was taken. He caught a glimpse of her, but it was too faint to establish any kind of location from. Wherever she was, she was alone, staggering around and screaming his name. He let his mind go further, and he felt his body stretching out. The power from the dolphin still flowed through him, and as he searched for Amanda the way he searched for the dark man, he felt his body stretching with such speed that the landscape around him blurred together. His consciousness pushed outward in all directions, covering the globe like the shadow of an eclipse. He reached the southern edge of the country and continued across the Gulf of Mexico until he crossed Cuba and passed into South America. At the same time, he reached past New York, seeing the Statue of Liberty at the same time that he saw the Christ the Redeemer on a mountain in Rio de Janeiro. The possibilities on this side of the looking glass were limitless, and the further he spread, the more he was watching. As Jackson pushed towards the northwest corner of the country, he heard Amanda’s voice again, but it had definitely gotten louder. He reached toward Alaska, following the sound of her screams, and he sped up as he moved towards her. When he crossed through Canada, he could actually start to feel her again. He raced across the landscape, borrowing effortlessly from every living creature that he passed along the way, and he started to see the path to her. A pack of wolves ran across a snowy field, and he smelled with their senses, finding her scent and following it. An eagle flew through as he continued, and he felt himself soaring on its wings. He searched its mind and found that it saw the place where Amanda was held, and he implored it to lead him. The eagle abandoned its hunt and joined him. He saw a small shack in the distance, and his speed increased again, this time fast enough that not even the eagle could match it. He reached the building and found the door standing open, with no one inside of it. He felt her presence all around him now, but her voice had fallen silent. He found a set of footprints, almost covered by the snow that continued to fall, but he sensed her in them. He followed them to a small cave, and here he allowed himself to slow his reach across the globe. He pulled all of his efforts to the mouth of the cave, and his body returned just as he stepped inside of it. He could no longer sense any other parts of the world. Every ounce of his being stood in the cave, and when he turned the first corner, he found her.

-2-

She was curled up with a small bear skin rug wrapped tightly around her, and Jackson thought at first that he was too late. As he moved towards her, he saw the steady rise and fall that indicated her breathing, and a feeling of relief washed over him, bringing him to his knees. It took everything inside him to whisper “Amanda, I’m here. You’re safe.” At first she made no movement, but the bear skin slid back as she raised herself onto her elbow. She still wore the clothes that she bought after the wedding, and her face started to turn blue. If she hadn’t found the cave to hide in, he felt sure that the storm outside would already have killed her. “Jackson?” Her eyes seemed to be frozen shut, and he moved to her and wrapped himself around her. “Keep your eyes closed. I can try to warm you.” He didn’t know if he could or not, but he also didn’t know if she would be able to see him, so he decided it would be best just to let her know that he was there. He touched his hands to her bare arms, concentrating on creating warmth, but nothing happened. Having never preformed in that way before, he didn’t know how to start. He also felt the strength that he borrowed from the dolphin fading away from him, spent on his global search. He scanned the cave for something to help provide heat, but it was as bare as the land outside. The wind howled at the mouth of the cave, and any ideas of taking her from this place disappeared. In the state that she was in, he couldn’t move fast enough to get her to warmth without causing further damage. He sat with his arms wrapped around her, feeling her shivering grow more and more violent, and he started to wonder if he would have to watch her die in his arms just as she watched him. She slipped out of consciousness, and he pushed the thought back and squeezed tighter, moving his hands up and down her arms to try and create enough friction to keep her from freezing to death. He heard the wind roar again, but much louder, and he feared that the storm started to make its way deeper into the cave. He turned to look and realized that the roar he heard came from a completely different source than he thought. A mammoth grizzly bear made its way into the cave, carrying several large sticks in its mouth. It walked towards Amanda, and Jackson felt as if the animal was looking straight at him. It dropped the sticks, nosed at Amanda’s foot, and sat down only a few feet away from them. The beast’s eyes met Jackson’s, and for a moment neither of them moved. When the bear stood up to its full height, Jackson scrambled back with Amanda, but the bear took another step towards them. It bent down, sniffing her from foot to head, and then its gigantic head came to rest just a few inches from Jackson’s face. Its mouth opened slightly, revealing countless gleaming teeth, and Jackson prepared to fight it off. This time, the sound that came from the bear was not a growl, but something that sounded like a laugh. The bear’s face didn’t move, and his expression didn’t change, but Jackson saw something in its eyes that told him it meant no harm to him or Amanda. It reached up with its tremendous paws, tipped with razors on each digit, and took Amanda from Jackson’s lap with as much care as it handled its own cubs. Jackson started to protest, but the bear never broke eye contact with him, and he understood that it meant to help him protect her. It lifted her up to its massive chest, pulling her into the tangles of fur there, and wrapped its long arms around her. For the first time, it took its eyes off of Jackson, and turned them towards the sticks that it carried into the cave. He got up slowly, turning so that he remained facing their mysterious savior, and to his amazement, the bear sat down with its back against the wall, enveloping Amanda within its huge body. Jackson turned to the sticks, piling them together for a fire. As soon as he finished, he searched the area for something to start it with, finding nothing. He heard the bear grunt and spun back to face it. His mouth dropped when he saw the bear nudge two rocks towards him. He took the rocks and turned back to the sticks, striking it only twice before a spark leapt onto the closest stick. He focused on the small ember, wishing for it to grow, and as he imagined it, the ember became a tiny flame. It spread to the other sticks quickly, becoming a raging fire much faster than he expected. The bear held Amanda for a few more minutes, letting the color return to her face and limbs, and then it laid her down next to the fire and left without looking back at either one of them. At first, Jackson thought that it went to get something else that they needed, but as the howling of the storm trailed off and the sun started to make its way into the mouth of the cave, Jackson realized that their furry friend would not return to them. He waited until the sun surfaced over the horizon, stepping outside and feeling its warmth on his face before he tried to move Amanda. He considered waking her up, but he feared that waiting too long would give another storm time to appear, so he lifted her gently and carried her out of their shelter. He looked around for any sign of the bear, but the snow covered its tracks enough to make Jackson wonder if the bear was real at all. He lifted off, Amanda cradled in his arms, and moved quickly through the icy land until he saw the first signs of it melting. He headed further south, making sure that they would be in a warm place when the Sun’s heat faded. He couldn’t fly as fast as he normally would have for fear of waking Amanda up in mid-air. He kept lower to make sure that the temperature wouldn’t affect her, but that meant being cautious against anyone seeing the flying woman. He wanted to get her back home, so no more suspicion would come from police who already had her on their interest list. As they slipped back into the city, he landed on top of a tall building, and here she finally woke up. “What- where-?” Jackson pushed his finger to her lips, making sure that she knew he was there since she still wouldn’t be able to see him. “I’ve got you. It’s me. Don’t worry. You’re safe now.” He whispered into her ear, and her face lit up. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she made no effort to wipe them away. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed hard enough to pull him down to the ground with her. She kissed his invisible face without opening her eyes, continuing for several minutes. Finally, she relaxed and asked him what happened, but he interrupted her. “I need to get you to a hospital, so they can check you out, but I can’t exactly carry you in there.” She stared off the top of the building, towards the spot where the sun started to dip down below the horizon. He waited for her response, but she didn’t give one. “I can drop you off nearby, but you’ll have to walk in.” “How will we explain me being frigid in Florida in the summer?” “I’ve thought about that while we flew, but I’m not sure what will be the most believable. The best I’ve come up with is that you got locked in a walk in freezer, but I don’t know where you would tell them it was.” “That’ll do. I can improvise the rest of it. Whatever I tell them, they would never believe the truth anyway. Or that I came there from Alaska in about twelve hours.” She laughed and kissed him again. She paused, looking down at her hands. Jackson noticed that the color still hadn’t returned to them completely. “Thank you for saving me, I will never forget it. I knew I could count on you to stay with me.” Her voice cracked as she talked, and he pulled her to his chest. Her tears sounded sad, but he had mistaken her reasons for crying on more occasions than he could count, both before and after his death, so he didn’t ask this time, and she was glad. She couldn’t tell him that she had a terrible feeling that he was about to leave her again, mostly because she didn’t want to know if she was right. He held her until the last of the light faded, and then they lifted off again.

-3-

Jackson set her down just outside of the hospital, in an alley where they wouldn’t be spotted. She shivered as they flew, but when they dropped down towards the ground, the warm air rushed up to meet them and her temperature returned to normal. He walked inside with her, holding her hand until they reached the front desk, and then he stayed by her side as they ran a series of tests on her, making sure her lowered body temperature had no lasting effects. He borrowed from her, linking their minds again so he could talk to her while she waited for the doctors without arousing any suspicion. When they finally came in with her test results, they told her she would be staying overnight for observation, but everything looked to be fine. The police came again, the same two detectives who visited her in the hotel room. They came armed with plenty of questions about how she came to be locked in a freezer, but luckily it wasn’t a crime, so they found no reason to investigate any further. She asked if they found any sign of Terry, and Jackson felt her heart pounding for the few seconds before they answered. When they told her that he seemed to have disappeared, he felt her grief as if it were his own. As she drifted off to sleep, Jackson sat next to her bed, stroking her hair. He watched her breathe, more thankful for her life than he had ever been before. As he watched her sleep, he watched the events that led her into the cave. He watched her lying in a cabin, remembering it as he passed over during his search. He saw her realized that her invisible restraints were gone, and he felt her excitement mix with fear as she felt around a dark room. It reminded him of how he felt the day he awoke in his grave, and he felt terrible for the ordeal he caused for her. Whatever she expected to find in the dark had left by the time she awoke, and when she found the door, she sprinted through it into the cold without a second thought. He witnessed her struggle through the deep snow, finally finding the cave to collapse in, and as she did, her dreams started to enter his head. At first, he thought he was picking up someone else’s thoughts, but as he watched more closely, he saw the strangeness that only occurs in a dream. He watched her cook breakfast, her hair an odd grayish color, in a kitchen masquerading as the kitchen they shared before his death. She looked different, like someone else playing the part of Amanda in this performance, but the orange tank top that she wore was one of his favorites. As she bent to pick up a piece of trash, he saw the boy shorts she wore underneath it and recognized them as a pair he picked out for her years ago. He watched her fixing eggs, although she didn’t break eggs to make them. In the dream, she poured them from a large jug with a picture of a chicken on it. He looked around the room and saw his old place, just as he left it. The picture of his parents sat on the mantle exactly where he placed it when his mother died. An original Dali that he bought as his first extravagant purchase after selling his business hung on the wall above the fireplace. He walked into the bedroom, seeing her clothes littering the floor, and he remembered their frequent discussions about how to use a hamper. In their closet, all of her clothes hung right where he remembered them, but on his side the only piece of clothing was his lucky suit. He walked back into the kitchen, and Amanda sat at the table. As she ate her breakfast in silence, he heard a gust of wind, and he turned to face himself. He realized at once why she looked so different as he looked at himself. He looked exactly the same as the day he died. This dream took place many years in the future, and the Amanda he met there aged more with every one of them, while he stayed completely unchanged. As he watched, his dream self walked across the room, passing through the furniture, until he stood behind her. She appeared not to notice him at all until he kissed her on her bare shoulder, but she didn’t jump. Instead, she lifted her hand to find his face, moving it along his cheek until she found his lips. The movement struck Jackson, and he wondered if she somehow became blind, but he realized that she still could not see him. She turned her head up to him, and they shared a long meeting of lips before dream Jackson came and sat in front of her. They talked, but their lips didn’t move, and he understood that the conversation happened in their minds. They laughed at each other as they conversed, giving the only indication that any exchange happened at all. He walked around the room, looking at pictures of Amanda in places all over the world. She traveled to all the places they dreamed of, but he noticed that she was alone in all of them. He looked closer, and saw that the way she stood made it look as if someone stood next to her. In one of them, her right arm reached away from her waist, and he had a feeling that he would see himself posing next to her in every one of them if he could see himself at all. The dream ended with a crash back in the real world, and Jackson looked up to see a girl in a wheelchair cursing a young man pushing her. He looked at Amanda to see if the noise woke her, but the exhaustion of the past couple days kept her knocked out. The girl swore again, and Jackson looked back at her. He tried to place her, feeling sure that he knew her, but the memory evaded him. He started to search back through his mind, but they moved away from the doorway before he could. He got up and followed her as she rolled down the hallway, her husband apologizing every step of the way. They stopped at a long window, and Jackson caught up to them just in time to see a nurse pointing toward a tiny baby, obviously born long before he was expected. Several nurses surrounded the boy, but they moved out of the way to allow the parents to get a good look at their child. The girl’s face lit up, and her husband bent down squeezing her hand. Jackson looked into her eyes as they filled with tears, and he realized who she was and where he met her before. Here, sitting in the exact hospital where he sat with Amanda was the girl he saved from drowning years before. She looked much older, and he thought that he probably would not recognize her if it weren’t for the connection they still shared. He searched back through his mind as he looked at the parents, wondering if the little boy’s father was the same boy who caused her to throw herself off the bridge. When he watched himself carrying her to the surface, the feeling rushed back to him, and he was thankful that her husband had nothing to do with her life then. He remembered what it felt like on that first rescue, and the emotion of saving her life filled him again. He walked through the glass, leaning over the baby and looking deep into his bright blue eyes. He felt the tiny boy’s life force, and it reminded him of another baby he met before. He thought again about the power of youth. He smiled, standing back up and walking to the girl’s side. Jackson leaned down next to her, and whispered into her ear. “He’s going to make it. He’s stronger than anyone knows.” She looked around quickly, starting to ask her husband if he spoke, but Jackson could tell that she made the connection immediately. She lifted her head up to the sky, tears now flowing freely, and whispered “Thank you.” as Jackson walked back towards Amanda’s room. Chapter 23

Jackson sat next to Amanda all through the night, wrestling with the most difficult choice he ever faced. When the doctors came in to wake her up, he could hardly believe that morning came so quickly. She stirred and reached for his hand before she spoke a word, and he placed it inside of hers. She squeezed it three times, and he squeezed hers back four as the doctors explained that she seemed to be perfectly fine, despite a close call with hypothermia. She was free to go as soon as they processed her paperwork, they told her, and as soon as they left she grabbed Jackson’s face and kissed his cheeks a dozen times. Amanda jumped out of the bed, doing the kind of silly dance that she used to do when they spent every night together, and Jackson laughed out loud in spite of his efforts. He knew what he had to do, but the thought of hurting her again hurt worse than dying the first time. He saw the dream, and he knew the life that she would lead if he stayed in it. He also knew that condemning her to that life wasn’t fair. She would never admit that she wanted him to go, and in her heart she probably didn’t. As long as there was a chance for them to be together, in any way, she would take it. At first he tried to convince himself that her happiness was all that mattered, and whatever he saw in the dream, she seemed happy. In the end, the girl in the wheelchair was the final straw. Jackson knew as he watched that girl, with her flesh and blood husband, staring at their flesh and blood baby, that he could never fulfill the wishes that Amanda held for the rest of her life. He felt the joy in the young girl’s heart at the thought of her baby being strong enough to live, and more than anything he wanted Amanda to experience that same joy. He couldn’t be sure that she would find someone else, but he knew that if he stayed, she would never move on with the rest of her life. He could keep an eye on her, keep her safe, and enjoy seeing her happy, but she could never know that he was there. She could never give her heart to anyone else as long as he still held it, and he hoped that they could be together forever when the time was right, but that time was not now. Dying taught him more about life than he ever knew, and he wanted her to experience everything that she wouldn’t be able to posing next to a ghost. If she got to live out her dreams, she deserved to do it with someone real beside her. As she got dressed, he sat silent, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would have to tell her. He wanted her to hear the words, but he couldn’t do it that way in the hospital, so he decided to wait until they left. “What’s wrong, you haven’t said anything since the doctors left?” She still held his hand as they walked towards the front doors, and she posed the question to him without moving her lips. When he didn’t answer right away, she squeezed his hand, and he returned it again. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been thinking.” “Don’t do that, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” She laughed in her mind, and he felt even worse for what he was about to do. He tried to return the laugh, but it came across too forced, and she noticed. “Jackson what’s going on? What aren’t you telling me.” They left the sliding glass doors of the hospital, and he pulled her into the courtyard where they first met each other after her wedding. He sat down on a bench, and he pulled her to sit beside him. When he spoke, his real voice shocked her, but she smiled at the sound of it. “Amanda, my time is running out here.” Her smile disappeared, and a frown replaced it. “What does that mean?” “It means that I have to break my promise to you. I can’t stay with you now.” His voice cracked, but he continued. “I came here to protect you, and I’ve done that. Now I have to take the next fork in my path.” “What path? Are you going to heaven now? Is this Ghost or something?” Jackson smiled, understanding how much she still didn’t know about life and death, and he kissed her. Knowing the truth would serve no purpose in her life, and that only strengthened his decision to leave. “I love you, I will for eternity, and I understand now just how long that is. I don’t want you to mourn me again, God knows you’ve done enough of that. I will be with you wherever you are, because a piece of me belongs to you. Even before I came back to you, I know that you felt it.” Tears started to run down her cheeks, and he lifted his finger to catch one. “You can’t leave me again. I can’t make it if you do.” “Yes you can. I’ve seen the strength inside you, and it’s time for you to give yourself credit for it. I can’t stay here with you like this, and I can’t be what you deserve to have in your life. I know that you don’t want to live your life with a man who you can’t see, do you?” He waited for her answer, but she just looked down at the bench. “I’ll always love you.” The words were little more than a whisper behind the sobs that she struggled to hold back. “I know. It’s too late for me to have the life I wanted, but not for you. There are incredible wonders on this side, but I watched a girl looking at her newborn baby for the first time today, and the feeling she had was one of a kind. In time, we will have the rest of eternity to share together, but your time here belongs only to you. It would be wrong of me to stay with you like this, and I know that you would never be able to tell me to go. Nothing in life or death has ever been harder for me than this, and I want you to know that so you will understand how much I truly love you.” “Will you ever come back?” Her voice was louder, and he thought it sounded stronger, but she still hadn’t stopped the flow of tears. “I don’t think so. I will keep you in my mind and in my heart though, and if there is anything that you need, I would do everything I could to come back to you.” At this, her sobs started fresh, and she buried her face in his shoulder. He ran his fingers through her hair, looking around to make sure that no one was taking notice of the strange scene in front of them. “The only thing I need is you! I can’t live without you, not again! I lost you once and it almost killed me. How can you ask me to do that again?” She shouted, and he jumped at the sound, checking around them again. “I’m sorry. You are the one, Amanda. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and the only one that I will ever be able to love. But it’s not too late for you. You can love again, and doing that will never diminish my place in your heart. You have to find love, it’s the reason that you live.” He paused, trying to think of what he could say to make her understand, then realized that he was coming from a place that no living person could ever fully realize. He pulled her body against his, feeling her heart pounding against his chest. He watched as a few tears dripped off the tip of her nose and splashed on the wood, then reached under her chin and lifted her eyes until he looked into them. He focused on connecting with her, helping her to feel everything that he felt, and he found her sadness. He wanted to make it easier for her, so he concentrated on his happiest memory. They watched together as their eyes met in a piece of glass mirrored against the storm outside. They heard the words that she spoke, and he saw her wrestling with them for the first time. She had almost not spoken, and he saw her taking a fork in the road that led them both to where they now sat. They relived the whole night together in a matter of moments, and they both knew that the feeling they left with that night was love. He let it run through her mind until he felt the sorrow fading, and then he pulled back to the present. When she looked at him, she was smiling again, but the tears continued to track down her face. He reached up and tucked the hair at her face behind her ear, and whispered “Every time this hair falls to your face, it’s me telling you that I love you again.” Their lips touched, and he forced all of the power that he took from her back into her body. He drove all of the happiness he could wrench out of his heart at the same time that he drained her grief into himself. She wrapped her hands around his back, pulling him closer and squeezing him against her as she did, and he could feel the corners of her mouth curling up into a smile. He pushed more of his joy, remembering every great memory they shared. He saw their first kiss, smelled her perfume as they rode home together after their first date, felt her hand as he reached to hold it for the first time, and then the memories swam by faster. He saw the light on her face as they slept together, her skin shining from the light sweat on her chest. He saw the day he bought the ring, as the salesman handed him the box and he tucked it safely into his jacket. He felt her kissing him, here in the courtyard, for the final time, and the happiness slipped away from him. “My heart belongs to you now. Protect it and I will never leave you.” He faded, and she felt him starting to go. She squeezed him harder, pressing her lips to his and trying with all her might to keep him with her, but it was too late. A few seconds passed, and her arms folded into her own chest, and the lips that she felt against hers were gone. Amanda sat on the bench for almost an hour, but her tears never returned. Instead, she lived through an entire lifetime of memories that were not her own, seeing her relationship with Jackson through his eyes for the first time, and finally understanding how extraordinary his love for her really was. As the sun started its inevitable descent again, she stood up, feeling stronger and more satisfied than ever. She felt emotion rising in her, but it was not sadness, and the tears that filled her eyes as she walked away from the bench were joyful. She felt Jackson still with her and knew he would be every day that she thought of him. She closed her hand into a fist, squeezing it three times, and she felt a fourth that she knew was in her mind, but it made her smile anyway. She stuck out her hand to call a cab, sliding into the backseat and looking back at the bench one last time. Back on the bench, Jackson watched silently as she left, hearing the woman driving the cab ask her where she was going. When he heard her answer “wherever life takes me,” he smiled, knowing that his answer was the same, with one minor difference. ####

Dear Reader, Thank you for finishing this journey with me. It began several years ago as many different ideas, but it wasn’t until I realized that they were all different sides of the same world that I was able to tap into the mind of Jackson. If you liked it, and I’m assuming if you finished it then you did, please email me any questions or comments at [email protected] I’ll be glad to answer anything that I can, but Jackson’s legend is far from over. The second installment is well under way, and I’ll have it out for you as soon as I can. Until then, here’s something to tide you over.

Chapter 1

Agent Sawyer stepped out of the helicopter into a heavy rain, and she thought about how well-prepared her new position seemed so far. When her heels dug into the mud, she thought about quitting for the first time. The policeman holding the umbrella apologized, trying to get it over her and failing miserably. She stepped out of the shoes, turned on her heels and squatted down to pluck them out of the puddle. “No problem.” She spun back up. Her standard issue knee length skirt barely shifted an inch during the exchange, a fact the officer noticed with disappointment. She waited for his eyes to find their way back up, then met them with raised eyebrows. The man blushed. “I’m looking for Sheriff Carrie.” He nodded and held out his arm for her to take. She stepped next to him, keeping her hands by her side. They walked in silence, but she felt him trying to speak the entire way. When they stepped into the tent, the sheriff sat at a desk made up of several tables connected under a large red fabric. Pictures, folders, and documents covered the entire surface, and she scanned them as she walked, trying to decipher their arrangement. When Sheriff Tom Carrie spun around in his chair and caught sight of her, he stopped mid sentence. His file told her that he would probably hit on her, but she would have known that as soon as she saw his jaw fall into his lap. The file also warned her that he would test her naivete. When he did, he could become difficult. What it didn’t tell her was how to get what she wanted anyway. They never seemed to tell her that. Maybe they didn’t want to know how she did it. She had an idea how she could get through Tom Carrie’s tough guy act. Tom Carrie, brown uniform, gun belt slightly loose to allow for maximum reclining while working. Hair cut close for cost and convenience, but his close shave on a Wednesday made her wonder if his wife didn’t run a tight ship back home. Tough guys always have tougher wives running the show. She never broke stride, even as the officer stopped to shake off the umbrella, and she reached him before he hung up his phone call. She stopped at his side, pulling a chair out and sliding close to where the sheriff still sat. Their eyes met for a second, and she waited for him to start breathing again. She smiled when he did, then turned her attention to the table and its story. By the time he stammered through a good-bye, she understood what she was here for and why they sent her. Sheriff Carrie clicked his phone shut and placed his hands on the table, leaning down to face her. He started to speak, but she interrupted by swinging her ID up into his face. “Agent Stefanie Sawyer, FBI. What are we dealing with here Sheriff?” She waved her hand across the papers, watching the information as she did. A picture of a crime scene, full of carnage passed under her arm. She stopped. She didn’t notice the picture the first time she looked, and she couldn’t understand how. A campsite, shredded and bloodied beyond recognition. She stood up, looking out the window behind the table. The tent, at least what was left of it, hung from a tree 25 yards from where they stood now. She pushed through the flaps and walked towards it, while Sheriff Carrie clamored after her. “Agent Sawyer, why is the FBI interested in a grizzly attack?” She sped up to avoid answering any of his questions, and he stumbled on a tree root. “Dammit. Agent Sawyer, I’m talking to you.” She ducked under the tape and stepped lightly into the area, watching her feet as she did. The smell burned her nostrils, and she held a finger to her nose to block as much as possible. She moved closer to the tent, coming around a tree behind it and finally seeing the damage first hand. She placed a hand on the tree beside her to stabilize herself, but her hand stuck to the trunk. She pulled it back and stared at a red palm. The Sheriff caught up to her and handed her a handkerchief. “Tried to tell you. You didn’t want to come out here.” He sounded more like he didn’t want to come out there. “I’ve started seeing this place when I sleep. It gets in your head. I’ve never seen anything like it, but my mom always told me not to fuck with a grizzly.” He shook his head, then jumped. “I mean, um, I shouldn’t have.” The tough guy act she expected made no appearance out here. “Don’t worry about it. I already know not to fuck with grizzlies.” She stretched across a mess of something she couldn’t recognize, stepping down into an area that she thought he wouldn’t cross. She was right. “Damn, you just walk right into that mess.” She thought she heard him gag. “Hey, um I’m going to go back and get some thing for you. Some gloves, maybe. Yeah you just sit tight. I’ll be right back.” Sawyer stood up to smile at him, then watched him hurry away from her. “Always hit em in the gut, right Dad?” She spoke up to the clouds and remembered her father. She gave the emotion a moment to take over, then pulled it back and turned to the task at hand. As she examined the pieces of the shredded tent, another helicopter flew in behind her. She watched it land, then quickly started looking at everything around her. Another helicopter usually meant a bigger badge, so she might not get another chance, and she already found too much to walk away now. If grizzly bears were capable of this kind of violence, then she thought all bears should be exterminated. Whatever attacked the campsite caused more destruction than anything she could imagine, and she doubted even ten animals could live up to it. Sheriff Carrie came bumbling out of the tent, following a tall suit. Sawyer continued without looking up, noticing everything. The suit walked with a purpose, moving toward her as if he floated. He left Carrie behind as he crossed under the tape, bending with his hands still in his overcoat pockets. When he got a few feet away from her, he spoke before he stopped moving. “Agent Sawyer, I’m afraid there’s been a mistake.” His voice sounded young, but the moon revealed gray hair combed neatly when she looked at him. “I need you to come with me.” “Can I ask who I’m coming with?” She searched through a bush as she asked, and he took another step in her direction. “My name is Agent Baker. I’ve been sent to investigate any possible threats in this area.” “Am I a threat?” “Not as far as I know. Should you be?” The moon caught a smile on his face as he said it. “Let’s move back to the Sheriff’s tent, we can talk there.” She started to protest again, but he gave her a look that told her something wasn’t right. Slipping her hand into her jacket, she gripped her pistol and hoped she didn’t need it. She walked behind him, and he made no attempt to talk as they did. When they got into the tent, Sheriff Carrie jumped up again, hitching up his belt and coming their way. Agent Baker held up his hand before the Sheriff could speak. “Sheriff, we’ll need some privacy here. If you could?” He didn’t tell the Sheriff what he could do, letting him fill in the blank for himself. It took a moment, but the man got the hint. He looked both ways, then chose left and hurried out of the tent. Sawyer wasted no time. “What’s happening here?” I need-“ Baker held up a hand to stop her. After the last few people exited, he turned and faced her. She saw in the light that his hair was bright blonde, and he was every bit as young as she suspected from his voice. His voice dropped to a whisper as he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the table. “How much have they told you?” “How much has who told me?” “That little. I thought this might be a problem.” She tried to respond, but he held his hand up again. “Say nothing. I was supposed to be here before you, so that you didn’t walk straight into all of this unprepared. You’re being promoted Agent Sawyer.” “Thank you sir, but I was just promoted to Agent a few weeks ago. Are you sure there isn’t a mistake?” “They don’t make mistakes at this level. You meet certain requirements for a special division. Candidates are promoted into the group very young, it helps to come into this without a lot of predispositions.” He caught her looking at his hair. “I have been a member for several years already. Your training is important, and it is exhaustive. We need you as soon as possible to begin getting ready.” “Ready for what?” “That is everyone’s first question. Unfortunately it’s also the one that we don’t have any answer to. I have some things to show you.” He walked around to the sheriff’s chair, pulling a briefcase up from the floor. He set it on the table and spun it to face her. The screen of the laptop flickered to life, and when it came up she saw the scene behind her again. “This is the campsite here tonight. We have examined it under satellite imaging for the past 36 hours. The “official conclusion” is a tragic grizzly bear attack. What is your honest assessment of that conclusion?” She looked at the picture, then back at Baker’s face. “Honest?” He nodded. “There’s not a chance in hell that was caused by any bear.” She waited for his response. “Okay.” He continued without any feedback, and she wondered if she had been too honest. “This is a car crash in Seattle six weeks ago.” She looked at the picture and saw cars upside down, cars sticking out of buildings, cars shoved through buses. “My God.” “We don’t know what started it, but the few people who survived said that cars were flipping over each other. And when I say few, I mean three.” He hit another button, and an image of a shopping mall. The bright lights made the blood splatters even more distinct, and Sawyer wondered what the connection between them was. “This picture was taken in Mississippi.” “From the mall shooting by that psycho?” “That is the official conclusion. Yes.” He said no more about it. “This is an airplane crash on the Canada Michigan border.” The plane was recognizable, but barely. The wings lay at an impossible angle, crossed back over the plane and pointed toward the nose. The cabin was brutally red and impossibly empty. Even the seats were destroyed, leaving only the frame that bolted them to the floor. “What did you do with the bodies?” “This is how we found the plane.” He watched the color drain from her face, and she slumped back into the chair. “You’ve seen enough?” “There’s more?” Her voice was quiet, no matter how much force she tried to put behind it. “Much.” His face was apologetic. “I will only show you what you can handle for now. Eventually you will know it all. You’ll have to if we are going to figure out what it means.” “What do you know?” She got to her feet, feeling the cool sweat across her forehead. She wiped it with her sleeve and leaned over the table. “Nice.” He smiled down at her. “I heard you graduated top of your class. Good to see you’ve got the chops to go with those…” He checked her out as he paused, and she pretended not to notice, “brains.” He lifted the laptop lid again, and bent over it to tap on the keys. When he showed her this time, a church filled the screen. It was pristine, and the contrast to the other pictures shocked her. He clicked the mouse and the same church appeared, now devastated. Another click and she saw the horror inside. People screaming, burnt to a crisp, their bodies skewered with the glass from dozens of windows imploding. The church structure showed no evidence of a fire. Baker spoke as if he read her mind. “Not even smoke damage.” She looked up at him, then back at the picture. “What happened?” “It all begins here, at least the parts we know about. Five years ago, a wedding in Orlando turned into this. It’s the first in a series of events that defy logical explanation.” “What was the official conclusion?” As soon as she asked, he smiled at her. “Good question. What would yours be?” “Officially?” He nodded. “A gas leak sparked by the candles in the sanctuary. Tragic, really.” “Not bad. Quite close to the actual conclusion actually, but that’s irrelevant. All that we need to know is what did happen there. Fifty people died horrible deaths, and we have no idea what happened at all. No prints, no witnesses, no evidence whatsoever.” “Survivors?” She pressed the buttons on the keyboard, switching between the pictures. “Two women.” She stopped and looked up, waiting for him to continue. “Both questioned extensively, but neither remembers anything.” He handed her two files, and she flipped through them. “What’s this?” He leaned over her shoulder, and she felt his chest press against her back. Neither of them moved away. “It says this girl survived without a scratch, then checked herself in to the hospital a few days later with hypothermia?” “Good catch, Agent. You do not disappoint.” “So you just set all that up for me to figure out on my own?” She made sure to convey her annoyance. “What a waste of time.” “We had to be sure you could keep up. I’m glad to see you live up to your billing. These events are getting more and more frequent, and something out there seems to want us to find it. So what would you do next here?” “Well it looks to me like somebody isn’t telling something. Suspicious people are suspicious for a reason. I say we go check in on Amanda Massey and see what the hell she’s been up to for the past five years.”