OVER 1,000,000
COPIES IN PRINT

 

 

YOU’D THINK THE POPE WAS signing copies of the Bible, Don thought, scowling at the aquarium-like glass of the store’s street-facing windows. He could see the press of people against the locked doors of the entrance—heavy coats, knit hats and gloves bordering eager faces and shining, anticipative eyes. Fanatics.

They’d begun lining up two days prior. To Don’s astonishment—and bewilderment—they’d brought sleeping bags and pup tents, portable charging stations for phones and hotplates, propane camping heaters to fend off the late Autumn chill. After the first morning, Don had ordered stanchions put up, fifty feet of sidewalk for the pigeons to roost upon while they waited. By late afternoon, they’d surpassed the stanchions and were tickling the edge of 45th, beginning to make the turn toward Madison. He’d had to call the city, pull an event permit. Hours later, police barricades arrived. By the time he closed that night the line was two blocks long. Other businesses complained, said their entryways were impacted, that it was loitering, that the city shouldn’t allow the lines to camp out, to expand. A city official finally came down to talk it out and decide a best course of action, choosing to widen the barricades and let the lines stay, acknowledging that trying to calmly disperse the resolute crowd wasn’t a great option. These were not your average rabid book nuts. These weren’t Stephen King weirdos or George RR Martin devotees. There were no costumes, no theme. Just people. People who wanted to believe—who needed it like they needed food and water and oxygen. People of faith.

“It’s a scam if you ask me,” a voice said from behind him, and Don jumped in surprise, felt the cold prickling on his neck that only a good scare can cause. He spun, irritated and shaken, to see his worst employee eyeballing the crowd, just like he was.

“Jesus, Tom,” Don said. His eyes flickered nervously from his employee, then to the growing mass of people, and finally settled on his watch. Twenty minutes until they opened the doors. Thirty until the kid was signing books for the horde. Exactly six hours after that, it would be over, one way or another. Anyone left in line when the clock struck six would be turned away.

And won’t that be a hoot, Don thought. But it wasn’t his first rodeo, and he always hired additional staff for these bigger events. Plus, after the chat with the city, he knew there would be a police presence throughout the day to keep folks calm, the crowd orderly.

Even the crazies.

Don gave a final consideration to the wide-eyed, glassy stares of the line, part of his mind searching for red flags, for unforeseen danger. He caught a flash of yellow, a frantic-looking woman holding a poster board sign, big blue letters on canary: WE LOVE YOU, LAKE! WE BELIVE! (sic, Don thought despite himself). He watched the way the letters caught the dim morning light. Damn thing’s written in glitter. Don didn’t know whether to be amused or sickened.

Beside him, Tom noisily slurped a coffee brought from the break room (against policy) and, Don noticed, was not wearing his nametag while on the floor (strike two). “Tom, are you on?” Don asked, his tone more stern than usual.

Tom looked away from the windows, looked at Don sheeplishly. “Yeah, Don. Since nine.”

“Then throw out the coffee and put your tag on, please.”

Tom nodded but didn’t move. A sly smile broke over his face. “You know who’s creaming over this kid, don’t you?” Don grimaced and wiped his forehead. He didn’t need this shit. Not today. “Old Sue,” Tom continued in a muted tone, feigning discretion. “She’s one of those … you know … religious nuts.”

Don didn’t want to point out the multitude of corporate personnel rules Tom was breaking by making that statement to a manager about another employee, but it was several. Enough to get him fired ten times over if Don felt like the dealing with the hassle of reporting it and sitting through a series of HR interviews (he didn’t).

Besides, Don thought with an inward pang of discomfort, the kid’s right.

Sue Myers was your standard issue mid-50’s, wide-bottomed, cat-loving, cardigan-wearing bespectacled auntie type, complete with Midwestern folksy idioms (“Ain’t that a stick in the eye” when vexed or, if the sky were cloudy, “Gonna rain pitchforks and bullfrogs, see if it doesn’t!”). She even had the proverbial prop of a glinting silver cross riding atop her ample, paisley-clothed bosom. Don once overheard an employee describe her as a cliché right out of Castle Rock; the trope character that spat Bible verses and shook her well-thumbed good book at the duck-tailed bullies tearing down Main Street in a hotrod fueled by demons.

Don chuckled at his internal rambling. That’s what I get for working in a bookstore.

“What?” Tom said, grinning like an angry raccoon, likely hoping for a round of shit-talk with the big boss. A story for the break room, no doubt. Guess what good old, straight-laced Don said about that fat piggy Sue-ee! You’re gonna piss yourself ….

“Nothing,” Don said. “Now please, let’s just get this show on the road. I want everyone on the floor, ready to go in five.”

“Sure, Don. You’re the boss,” Tom said, and started away, getting in one last noisy slurp of his coffee as he went.

Don fought off rolling his eyes. “Hey, is the kid still in the break room?”

Tom turned back, that raccoon smile there for a second, then gone, as if he’d recalled a particularly nasty childhood memory, or a mistake he’d once made that would never be set right. “Yeah, he’s there. Him and the preacher.”

Don nodded, sighed heavily. He watched Tom walk toward the employee area at the rear of the store, then took a last look at the event space they’d set up that morning.

Two of the portable shelving units had been pushed against the far wall to make room for extra chairs, of which there were sixty currently sitting in neat rows, the usual wall of floor-to-ceiling nutrition guides and cookbooks now obstructed by a foot-high stage holding up a long folding table. Behind it, a six-foot tall blue curtain was spread across cheap piping the length of the dais. Through the split curtain was a few feet of additional space, a makeshift backstage area where the kid could hide for five-minute breaks if needed, have a can of Coke or pray for strength. Whatever it takes, Don thought, because based on the line outside and the massive inventory of books they had on hand – stacks of which rested provocatively on the signing table – this was going to be a long day. Especially for a nine-year-old kid. The books themselves, hardcovers all, had bright yellow jackets with bold black lettering along the spine: Meet Me in Heaven: My Journey.

There were piles of the book all around the store; stacks on the floor, at the signing table, and on the checkout counter were plentiful. Not to mention the fifty or so we have on the window display and the ten emergency cases in the back, Don thought. He did the quick math and put the count at an even five hundred copies, not including the display.

Five hundred … and if the kid’s hand doesn’t cramp into a claw, we’ll go through each and every one.

Don turned back around, studied the storefront windows one last time. The morning was gray and damp, the street wet from dew, hints of frost crusting the edges of car windshields, the glass eyes of curbside parking meters. To the left of the storefront—where the line started and the earliest gatherers were stationed—stern, open faces looked back at him impatiently. Waiting.

They don’t even look excited, he thought, and swallowed a sliver of bile kicked back up by his morning coffee. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they looked pissed off.

 

THE SIGNING WAS SCHEDULED FOR noon, and corporate made the call to keep the store closed until then to better manage the expected crowd. At first, Don had been annoyed by the mandate (losing two hours of sales could potentially affect his monthly numbers). But now, seeing the worst-case scenario come to fruition, he was beyond delighted to keep the big glass doors firmly locked until the event was due to start. He didn’t want to have to worry about one of these zealots sneaking into the employee-only area to get a glimpse of “The Boy Who Saw Heaven” on top of everything else.

Just this once, Don thought, I agree with Tom. What a fuckin’ scam.

Feeling increasingly anxious and surprisingly bitter, he straightened chairs and made last-second adjustments to the event area while wearing a deep scowl. He approached the signing table, neatened the stacks of bright yellow books. I mean, c’mon already with this afterlife shit ….

He’d seen this sort of thing time and time again over the years. The gluttonous market of “non-fiction” books based on folks who had died and come back. All true, they swear! Cross their fingers and hope to die! Pinky-swear! Don had been suckered into a few of these books, and that small sampling had been enough for him. Each of those autobiographical accounts came with their own unique vision of what was waiting on the “other side” during the default heart attack / car crash / seizure / etc. and inevitable “flatlining” occurred, whatever the tragedy was that accounted for their individual near-death experience, or NDE as it was popularly acronymed. All these titles sold well, preying gloriously on a human being’s innate desire for there to be something else, something beyond the mortal coil. Eternal consciousness. Energy. Whatever the fuck.

But the NDE stories that really sold, the ones that hit the bestseller lists and stayed there for a few months until the furor died out and the waters calmed, were the NDE books that not only showed something beyond death – a glowing tunnel; happy, smiling relatives; a feeling a warmth and joy, etc. – but glimpsed something oh so much greater than simply a continuation of self:

The ones that glimpsed heaven.

Or, better yet, saw Jesus Christ himself (usually the Caucasian, blue-eyed version) in the flesh. At the very least a few hovering angels, golden streets, pearly gates … something that tied-in with the worldwide religious fantasy of an eternal resting place for those who were this religion or that religion, who believed in Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit or Allah or Buddha or Muhammad. All those religions had a taste for the sweet afterlife. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus… billions of believers all over the world, all wanting, craving, that security, that assurance, of eternal bliss ….

Talk about a target market.

Don hadn’t read Meet Me in Heaven: A Journey, but he’d read enough about it to get the gist: A seven-year-old kid from Arizona falls off his roof trying to retrieve an overthrown baseball, slips and falls, smacks his skull on the driveway and the lights go out. Brain swells dangerously as he bleeds into the concrete. Rushed to hospital yada yada, thrown into surgery … cue the coma.

Twice the boy had been declared clinically dead. Twice he had flatlined. Twice he had been miraculously revived. After the ordeal, doctors prepared the parents for potential brain damage, warned them of a reality in which their only son might not ever wake up.

Goodnight sweet prince.

The parents, Joseph and Joy Divine, who were also co-pastors at a small Presbyterian church outside Janesville, prayed over his lifeless body day and night… prayed for a miracle.

And then it happened. And their lives changed forever.

It was just like in the movies: two weeks later, little Lake woke up, amazement in his eyes. Scans and tests revealed no brain damage, no lingering effects. The Divines purported the power of prayer, and local reporters flocked to the boy’s bedside for the feel-good scoop.

And boy, did they get one.

Lake revealed that while he’d been settled deep within the dark womb of his coma, he’d been in a different realm. The near-death of his mind and body had opened a mystical portal to the beyond and allowed his spirit to pass through.

He spoke of bright lights and a shining cloud city. God himself had cradled the boy in his arms, spoke warm parables into his ethereal ear. Jesus Christ was there as well, and a host of angels sang a chorus upon his arrival to the majestic land beyond.

Mere days after the story hit the papers, the three Divines were booked on national morning shows. Soon thereafter they landed a big-time New York agent, a book deal that went to the highest bidder. The first print run alone had been reported at more than a million copies worldwide. Not quite Harry Potter numbers, Don mused, but close. There was even chatter of a red-hot bidding war between some of the biggest Hollywood studios for feature film rights.

And just like that ….

Yeah, just like that, Don thought, and picked up one of the slim, glossy books off the top of a pile, stared at the pale face of the smiling boy on the cover, his teeth bared, his blue eyes wide and eager.

Believe me! that face said. Believe me or else!

Don flipped open the cover, turned past the title page to the Prologue. Without understanding why, and for the very first time, he decided to read a bit, first-hand, about this miraculous experience of Lake Divine ….

 

WE ALL DREAM.

When we wake up, we try to remember those dreams. Sometimes we tell our parents, or loved ones, or best friends maybe, about this “wild” or “crazy” dream we had in the night, while our bodies were powered down, sleeping like robots with our control knobs set to “Sleep.” Or, perhaps, “Dream.”

But dreams are hard to remember, right? My father once told me that dreams are part of a hidden world within our minds. The subconscious. Where our greatest fears and desires live and breed, only we can’t see them; we don’t even know they’re there.

When we sleep, though, the door to those lands open, and we can explore, even though sometimes it can be scary! And maybe, when you wake up, you might remember being scared. Or maybe, just maybe, you remember how unusual the dream may have been. But you don’t really remember it, do you? Not really. You only remember bits and pieces. Glimpses. Random images or snippets of feelings.

For instance, you might remember it taking place in the water (perhaps a great black lake if it’s a nightmare!). Or in the mountains. Or at your house, or the home you grew up in. But the details would be vague. Cloudy. Shrouded in a mist that only unveils the “dream reality” while you’re asleep, then pulls it back tightly across that vision once you’re awake again, alert to experiences of the real world once more.

And the door is closed.

Soon, the dream evaporates. The curtain has done its work. The memory, if that’s what you wish to call it, is gone.

Don was sweating. He turned the page with a trembling hand.

But that’s not what happened to me. I had a dream that wasn’t a dream.

I dreamed of a great cloud city, with golden spires of impossible height, and streets that shone like diamonds. Of beautiful creatures that soared through the air…

Don felt the book grow heavy in his hands. The words blurred. A bead of sweat rolled off his chin, fell to the page and was absorbed.

…and crawled at my feet. And I know that it was not a dream.

It was REAL.

Don’t believe me? Then ask. Go on… ask me how I know it was real.

Ask me how I know it wasn’t a dream, Don.

Don’s eyes went wide. The words on the page twisted, the way a body might contort in horrible anguish. They reformed into characters he didn’t recognize, into words that could never be pronounced by a human tongue. He felt something snap open at the top of his spine, where the fibers of the body’s nerves tapped into the brain. Something hot spurted into his head, and Don slammed the book closed, shuddered violently. He felt a roll of nausea in his guts and set the thing down. Wet with perspiration, he unconsciously wiped the palm of his hand onto his pants, as if the slick dustjacket had been soiled, or greasy.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Don forced himself not to scream. His nose filled with the high-pitched scent of chemical flowers, he heard the rustle of stiff, heavy fabric. Warm breath tinged with stale peppermint tickled his ear.

“Isn’t it glorious?” Sue said, picking up (with the reverence one might lift a valuable, and fragile, antique) the very copy Don had all but thrown down, as if he’d found the pages infested with venomous spiders.

Sue hugged the book tightly to her bosom, closed her eyes and hummed what sounded to Don like an old hymn. “He’s inscribing mine right now,” she said proudly, but also a little devilishly, knowing she’d broken an unspoken rule by asking for an inscription from an author prior to a store signing (employee requests coming after the customers, and if time permitted—always). “I’ve already read it of course, but I’ll give that copy to a friend. Or perhaps a donation to my church library. I’m sure they’ll be desperate for copies.” Sue laughed, then gave a short snort, like a hiccup with teeth. Don was pretty sure she belched a little, and wondered he smelled the taint of digested eggs coming off her breath along with the peppermint. He didn’t overthink it.

“Sure, Sue,” was all he said in response.

“Anyway, just wanted to make sure you knew it’s five ‘til, Don,” Sue said. Her voice, husky and moist, was energized, her excitement reaching a boiling point. “Almost time.”

Don’t get your knickers all wet, Old Sue, he thought, then quickly, and silently, admonished himself. He was letting Tom’s cynical voice slither into him and made a note to draw a firmer line with Tom when he misspoke. If for no other reason than to keep himself on the straight and narrow. He was the Manager, after all.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and sighed. He looked around once more to make sure everything was in order, then nodded. “I’ll open things up. Why don’t you talk with our young author, give him a ten-minute warning.”

Sue nodded vigorously and sashayed off to get the child, prepare to bring him forth for the eager crowd. Don pulled a thick ball of keys from his pocket and headed toward the front doors, where a multitude of eager wet eyes awaited him.

 

THE DOORS HAD BEEN OPENED, and Don was secretly thrilled—and relieved—at the orderliness of the crowd as they entered and found seats.

After twenty minutes every seat was occupied, and those who had waited along the sidewalk now filled the standing-room-only area around the small stage, the table heavy with books. The event space hit capacity and still they came, packing aisles, sitting in rows against walls that were out-of-sight of the stage, but where they could still hear the boy speak.

Don inspected the line of registers. He had four employees working the checkout counter, massive stacks of the book both on the countertop and lining the shelves behind. Don figured twenty minutes for the kid to talk, another twenty for Q&A, then the boy would take a break while they sold books and formed a signing line. Don hoped the kid signed fast, because the line was gonna snake the length of the store, and he didn’t have the manpower to make sure people didn’t try and cut in.

He looked back toward the entrance, the doors wedged open despite the cold, and was thankful the flow of Lake’s disciples had dwindled to a trickle, these last folks seemed less enthused, less passionate. Just regular old customers, Don thought. Remember them? Remember the good old days?

He also saw two of New York City’s finest hanging out on the sidewalk, chatting, and standing by in case trouble broke out. There was even a squad car parked in the red zone at the curb. Good. Once again, Don found himself wishing the event were already over, that these overzealous sycophants were out of his store, and Lake Divine and his pastor-father were long gone, heading to a sister store in Boston, or Los Angeles.

Anywhere but New York.

He imagined them gone—out of his store, his life—and smiled. He was ready for things to get back to normal. He’d heard J.K. Rowling had a new book on the horizon, and for the first time in his life he was eager to see kids (and adults) dressed as warlocks and witches, swinging fake magic wands and shouting spells.

Normalcy.

A current of gasps and a rising murmur of excited whispers flowed like a fast river through the crowd. From the rear of the store, Sue was winding her way toward the stage. Don saw the top of an ink-black head bobbing along behind her, and the pale, tight-lipped smile of Pastor Joseph Divine in tow, his dark suit and tie a somber outfit for what was supposed to be a festive day, his white hair and mustache trimmed and smooth, like a banker who would smile while declining your request for a loan.

Don forced himself to take a relaxing breath, then checked his watch.

Showtime, he thought, and made his way toward the stage, where he would announce the boy’s arrival to the salivating mob.

 

LAKE ADDRESSED THE RAPT AUDIENCE for just over thirty minutes.

He spoke lightly of the world in which he traveled while his brain and heart were stopped. He spoke of impossible towers, of a moon and stars like on Earth, but the moon had a golden ring of gods, and the stars spoke, called themselves angels. There were forests filled with strange creatures, some terrifying, some magnificent. There was an overwhelming feeling of great joy, of peace. Almost reluctantly, or so it seemed to Don, Lake spoke of his interactions with Jesus Christ, and the secrets that Jesus told him about the end of the world as we know it, about the great devourer of souls, Satan, and about the future of mankind in this new realm of light and peace.

“You can all go there,” he said, his voice high-pitched and steady. “The time will be very soon. But you must read the book first!” Lake said this loudly, and with a smile, and there was a general agreement of uneasy laughter throughout the crowd. Nervous anticipation, Don thought, and felt himself wanting to read the book again, to the very end this time, despite the strange experience—hallucinations, or nerves—he’d so recently encountered.

At one point, while Lake had been speaking of brilliant creatures that soared through the sky, there had been a loud snicker that broke the rapt attention of the audience. Heads turned in unison, like predators smelling prey, toward the intrusive sound. Don, horrified, also searched out the source of the disruption and found Tom, a hand over his face in faux embarrassment. That’s that, Don thought, a surprising fury coursing through him. That’s the last fucking straw. Hope you’ve enjoyed your last day, Tom. He followed the thought with a hateful look that caught Tom’s attention, who dropped the hand from his mouth and meekly disappeared into the shelves, likely knowing he’d gone too far, even for him.

Later, when the boy was finished, Don gave a small nod to Sue (who had apparently become the child’s unofficial handler, much to Don’s approval and relief) to move things along.

“Thank you everyone! Lake will be back in a bit, and you can now buy books for him to sign!” she announced as she led the boy off the stage amongst wild applause, hoots, and euphoric yells. She gave Don a tight wave from across the room and he returned it, then made his way to the stage, directing the attendees to the sales counters as Lake, Joseph, and Sue vanished behind the curtain.

 

PASTOR JOSEPH DISAPPEARED HALFWAY THROUGH the signing.

Don hovered anxiously behind the table as the boy greeted each patron. The stacks on the table were long-gone, and the piles at the registers and on the shelves behind the counter were also sold-through. Don had Tom and George, a sixteen-year-old kid working a few hours a week after school, bring out all the boxes from the back, the cashiers ripping them open at a frantic pace to keep the lines moving steadily.

Two hours in, and Lake showed no signs of slowing. The kid’s an absolute machine, Don thought as he watched the boy shake every offered hand and casually sign each book, inscribing easily when asked, laughing along with the awkward humor of the acolytes, nodding at their own stories of near-death, of dreams, of visions, of heaven. Don hadn’t noticed the boy’s father leaving. He’d been bouncing between the counter and the signing table, checking the front door and the storage area. He’d been busy.

And where the hell is Sue? Don felt anger rising in his chest, in his neck. Their biggest event of the year and he couldn’t see any of his people on the floor. The line was still over a hundred people long, and those that had their signed copies, Don noticed, weren’t leaving. They were camping out in nooks and crannies of the store’s main floor, their books open on their knees, clutched in sweaty palms, their eyes wide, devouring. As Don scanned some of these people where they huddled in clusters, his vision of the room darkened, as if clouds were thickening outside, blocking the sun. These people look drugged, he thought. Their mouths were slack, eyes glassy, empty. He saw one guy, in a white rumpled suit and disheveled hair, drool as he turned the pages, his chin wet with it, a silver string connecting his face to the words.

He looked back to check on the kid, who had the energy and savvy to meet his eyes with a grin and a wink as he signed the book of a young woman wearing a short, bright-red dress and five-inch heels. As Don watched, she kneeled over the table, pressed her palms beneath her breasts and pushed her cleavage forward. The boy just smiled and raised his ass from the chair, pushed the pen across her tits like a Big Ten quarterback after winning a championship game.

“Hey!” Don said and took a step toward the table. The woman just giggled and grabbed her book, stepped off the dais and into the crowd. Don turned to the boy.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said, half-heartedly and with all the authority of a substitute teacher. “It’s not right.”

“Sorry, Don,” Lake said, but his blue eyes danced as he greeted the next person in line.

Don dropped to a knee beside the boy’s chair, lowered his voice. “Where’s your father?” he asked, but Lake ignored him, laughing along at some stupidity with the middle-aged woman he was signing for. Don watched another minute, feeling suddenly and inexplicably like an outsider. He stood up, wanting to pace, his anxiety and frustration quickening his blood, tightening his neck and shoulders. A sharp headache pierced his temple and he rubbed at it.

“Fuck this,” Don mumbled and, figuring the kid could hold his own for a few minutes, stalked toward the rear of the store to find his missing employees and the good god-damned Pastor Joseph Divine.

 

DON PUSHED THROUGH THE DOOR marked “Employees Only” and walked briskly past the small managerial offices toward the storage room—essentially a small warehouse with a rolling door for deliveries, scattered stacks of pallets and a wall of Post-It flagged books set to be shelved or returned. He threw open the metal door, ready to cut loose on whoever was idling back there while he was sweating out the biggest event of the season by himself.

To his surprise (and slight concern), the warehouse was empty. He saw a few empty pallets where the extra copies of Meet Me In Heaven had been stored, but no employees—lazy or otherwise—were in sight.

Anger tilting toward confusion, he turned and walked back into the hallway, made a left toward the employee entrance and the small break room… and stopped.

The door to the break room was closed. Don had never seen this door closed, didn’t realize the room even had a door. It had always been wide open, the room well-lit for employees who dipped in to eat a sack lunch, buy a soda from one of the vending machines, or a cup of coffee from the constantly replenished brewing station. Confusion turned into caution as he approached slowly, gripped the handle.

A pulse from the metal handle sizzled his brain like a jolt of electricity. The air thrummed and his vision flickered, reality jagged and stuttered like film caught in a projector; a bass-heavy buzz filled his ears. He mumbled a curse, shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shoved the door inward.

The first thing Don noticed was Pastor Joseph, leaning back against a white Formica counter, head bowed as if in prayer. The second thing he noticed was the pastor’s ghost-white legs, followed immediately by the realization that the man’s black suit pants had fallen to his ankles, fabric spilled over his shoes onto the linoleum floor. Before him, on her knees—her head tucked into his crotch and animated with an eager, voracious bobbing motion—was Sue. Her dress had been torn, or opened, and pushed down past her thick waist. Her bra lay on the floor near the upturned soles of her dingy black shoes. Her bare back was pink and fleshy, and jiggled like a Jell-O mold as her head and mouth did their sordid business on the pastor.

“Sue?”

The pastor looked up and saw Don across the room. Don looked away from those shining eyes and back to Sue. She grunted and smacked like a pig neck-deep in a trough. A fat line of blood slid down the pastor’s leg, slipping from beneath Sue’s chin and splitting his white thigh from groin to kneecap. To Don’s astonishment, the pastor was grinning broadly, not in the least concerned about what was happening to him, nor Don’s awareness, his violation, of their act. For her part, Sue didn’t even flinch at the sound of her name and carried on with the same veracity as before.

Don felt the world grow heavy and spin. The ceiling of the break room—white fluorescents and stained foam tiles—glowed bright, a pale yellow that stretched upwards for miles. A stark blue sky swirled like smoke within the walls, giving the space a temporary appearance, as of something in transition from one dimension to another. Don groaned and held fast to the door he’d pushed through for support, for solidity.

Seeing Don’s stupefied expression must have tickled the pastor, for Joseph began to laugh—a deep, throaty cackle that permeated the small room like dusty explosions. His eyes widened as he glared at Don with insane glee, the whites swallowed by a sparkling black, glittering like a night sky filled with a single star. They spiraled inside his pale face, adding to the illusory dissipation of reality, and Don didn’t know whether to scream in anger, or horror, or fear. Or madness, a part of his mind screamed, but he pushed the thought away, forced himself back to the moment.

“Sue!” he cried, this time sounding every bit terrified, like a man calling back a friend whose foot was aloft, ready to step down onto a mine. “Sue, please …. Sue, what the fuck?”

Sue released the pastor from her mouth and turned with a ferocious, animal glower toward Don. To his shame, he saw the tips of her breasts plainly as she did so. Giant, fatty sacks of flesh with dark nipples that stared at him as accusingly as her dark, threatening eyes. Her lips and cheek and chin were red with blood.

“Fuck off, Don!” she snarled, teeth bared, and turned eagerly back to her business. Pastor Joseph guffawed even louder at this, and Don, physically sickened, backed out of the room, stunned and confused and ashamed.

It was then that he heard the first scream.

 

DON SPRINTED DOWN THE HALL toward the retail space and slammed through the employee door. More screaming now. What the hell was happening?

He entered the signing area, expecting chaos, a terrorist attack, gunfire … something. But it was quiet. Calm. Lake still sat at the table, signing books for those who remained in line, which appeared to be no more than fifteen or twenty now. Don looked around at the people littering the store, yellow books gripped in their hands. Despite his anxiety—there had been screaming I heard it!—he couldn’t help but notice the now-familiar slack looks on the faces of all the readers, the way some of their hands trembled while holding the books, their eyes moving with rapid side-to-side precision, as if speedreading. Pages flapped like the fluttering wings of birds, a roomful of white doves taking flight.

Then he heard it. A gargled groan. A death-rattle.

Deep in the aisles, near Psychology. He moved closer … heard it again. A moan of pain … of defeat. A plea.

A few faces from those reading their books tilted up, eyes targeting the noise, but those eyes found Don and went quickly back to the pages. Some wore small, knowing smiles on their faces, like classroom children avoiding a teacher’s scowl by pretending to work.

Slowly, Don walked toward the Psychology section, closer to the strange sounds of struggle, of a dying animal ….

And found Tom.

His neck had been sliced open from right earlobe to the jugular notch at the base of his throat. The blood from the wound pumped fresh torrents over his flesh and into the drab brown carpeting. Tom’s eyes were wide and empty, his face blood-spattered. His blue vest was soaked to black, the white shirt underneath scarlet. His name tag was unreadable, his identity hidden by a wet curtain of crimson. A book on Carl Jung lay splayed open by one clawed hand, as if he had reached for it while falling, pulled it down into the darkness with him.

Don, numb with shock but, more deeply, burning with terror, immediately spun around and ran for the entrance. The police! he thought. There are police out front! A squad car ….

He made it to the front doors, found them closed tight. He struggled to pull one open and was not surprised to find it bolted shut. He patted his pocket for keys, but the ball of jagged metal had vanished, his khakis flat on his thigh.

Panic rising, he put his face against the glass. He banged his fist against the door, yelled out. “Hey!”

The two officers were gone. The curb where the patrol car had rested all morning now empty. Don slapped his palm against the glass again and again, harder now. The doors rattled but did not budge. “Hey! Hey!” he screamed.

But no one came. No passersby, no curious garbage men, no dog-walkers or street vendors. Pressing his cheek to the cool glass, he looked left and right, but the street was empty. And dark.

Impossible! It’s the middle of the day, he thought, and jerked his face toward the sky. Charcoal-gray clouds billowed far above the building-tops. The sun was blacked out. Don’s first thought was that a thunderstorm was rolling in, but part of him knew it was something else, something unnatural and sinister. Something you’d see in a horror movie, or a dream.

He backed away from the doors, heard murmuring from behind him, swelling. The beginning of a sad, broken hymn; the early tendrils of a Gregorian chant. He turned to see Lake walking amongst those who had gathered, all of them now on their knees, many with hands raised in passion, muttering nonsense. Most read from the book.

The chanting was not English. The sounds were guttural, choking. But in unison there was a clarity that Don could not deny. Something triggered in the back of his brain, that sharp heat he had experienced earlier that morning…

And the veil fell away.

The crowd was hollow-eyed and gray. The books moldy black ruins. The boy shone like a star as he went amongst them, through a grayscale world, tapping foreheads and outstretched hands.

“Dream,” he said, then touched another. “Dream.”

One-by-one the followers collapsed in ecstasy. Fell into the dream.

Despite himself, Don walked toward the gathering, toward the boy who wanted to show them the way to Dreamland, to the new Earth, to the pale sky and the gold-ringed moon, to the creatures who crept in the woods and flew across a blood-red sun, twisted and perched on golden spires. To the acolytes who scrambled at the feet of high priests walking down diamond streets. To the new Gods.

Unknown hands pressed hard on Don’s shoulders, forced him to his knees. The lights inside the room seemed to flicker and dim; the great windows facing the street grew dark as night. Feverish, terrified, afraid of the exultation that coursed through him, Don looked up in time to see the boy approach, his blue eyes bright as flames, his black hair spilled long over his pale skull, his lips red and smiling.

Tears fell down Don’s cheeks and he laughed aloud as the boy reached a hand toward him and gently tapped his forehead. The familiar sensation of a liquid heat that spurted from the top of his spine and into his brain consumed him fully. A volcanic eruption of white-hot light blasted wide behind his eyes, a tingling, dissolving warmth spread over his skin…

And then no more. Nothing but the dark passage which led to the light, and the undying echo of the boy’s ethereal, eternal, whispered command:

Dream.