Highways to Hell (9 page)

He cast his memory backward several moments. He saw the cleaver blade entering the stranger’s neck again. Then a second time. And he remembered the lack of spurting blood. There’d been no blood at all.

Jack cleared his throat and said, “What are you?”

The stern expression melted, giving way to a grin. The hands lifted the head to its former spot between the body’s shoulders, set it down, and wrenched it into place. There was a bit of grunting and the stranger grimaced. The hands came away from the head and the head stayed in place.

It looked to have been seamlessly restored, the skin perfect and unbroken.

The stranger made a sound of relief. “Aaaaah! Much better.”

Jack swallowed another lump in his throat.

He was starting to feel sick again.

The stranger rubbed his hands together briskly, then clapped them once, like a door to door salesman about to make a pitch. “So, Jack, you wanted some personal info?”

Feeling like Alice falling through the hole, Jack nodded once.

The stranger grinned. “Jack, I’m your guardian angel.”

Jack grunted. “Really.”

“Yep.” The grin gave way to a more solemn expression. “Look, I understand that you’re skeptical. Guardian angels don’t show up every day, otherwise you’d hear about it, right? We’re just in old movies, right? Wrong. Thing is, not everybody has a guardian angel. It’s sort of a spiritual reward, Jack. You get one assigned to watch over your soul if you’ve done something truly extraordinary in a past life.”

Jack frowned. “Yeah? So what did I do to make me special?”

The angel smiled and shook his head. “I can’t tell you much, Jack. It’s just not allowed. You did a great thing in a past life, a truly extraordinary, selfless act of rare heroism. And you died in the process.”

Jack liked the sound of that. Thinking of himself as a hero rather than a maniacal murderer was infinitely more pleasing to the soul. “I was in a war, huh?”

Saying it out loud, Jack knew it was true.

No hidden memory from his former life emerged through the fog of the past, but he felt the truth of the statement in his bones. It was an immutable fact. Somewhere on the other side of the earth, and in another body, he’d died on a battlefield.

A noble, honorable death.

Tears welled in his eyes.

The angel shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny that, Jackie boy. I can’t tell you anything other than what I’ve already said. On that subject, that is. I’m here to make you an offer, my friend.”

He started walking toward Jack.

Jack’s knees began to shake.

The angel placed his hands on Jack’s shoulders and gazed at him with sympathetic eyes. “Jack, I’m gonna offer what amounts to a heavenly get out of jail free card. You have a choice. You can do as you wished. You can reverse what’s happened. You can undo it. Or...” He glanced away a moment, appearing to hesitate. His gaze came back to Jack. “Or you can say no and face God’s judgment now.”

Jack swallowed a lump. “What, and go to hell?”

The angel shrugged. “That’s not for me to say, Jack. You can ask God for forgiveness, but it’s up to Him whether He grants it. And I can’t tell you what he’d do, because I honestly don’t know.”

Jack grunted. “So my choice is obvious.”

The angel cocked an eyebrow. “Is it?”

Jack laughed. “Isn’t it? I can put things right. Lorene and that coffee shop asshole can live again.” A tentative smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he thought about the possibilities. “And I can atone by living a better life, an exemplary life. I’ll do good deeds and do what I can to make the world a better place.”

The angel’s eyes crinkled and he sniffled. “That’s beautiful, man.”

Gentle mockery.

Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m serious.”

Some of the humor faded from the angel’s eyes. “I know you are, Jack. And I respect you for it. So I’m going to do this thing for you. I hope you make the best of your second chance, my friend. Be forewarned, however—you’ll be cursed with the memory of what you did. Undoing the deed will not free your conscience of this burden. It will haunt you.” He sighed. “I’ll leave you with a piece of advice—keep your head down and your powder dry.”

Jack frowned.

The words seemed familiar and resonant, like some dimly recalled bit of dialogue from a long-ago movie. For a moment, he was transported beyond this time and place, and his senses were clogged with an omnipresent stench of death and the sputtering cough of machine gun fire.

The memory snap passed in a nanosecond.

Like a firefly darting in and out of his field of vision.

The angel stepped back. He smiled. “Let’s do this, man. Kinda in a hurry here, pard. There’s a Salvation Ale with my name on it, and I’m feelin’ mighty thirsty.”

He clapped his hands.

Said something in a language Jack didn’t recognize.

And disappeared.

Jack blinked.

He experienced a jarring sense of displacement. He was standing at the door to his apartment. He had his overnight bag slung over his shoulder and the key to his apartment in his right hand.

He hesitated.

He placed an ear to the door and listened.

He heard heavy breathing.

Lorene moaning.

So it was true. Not that he hadn’t been presented with enough incontrovertible evidence already. Still, it was disconcerting to find his desperate wish granted. Lorene was alive on the other side of this door, getting passionate with the coffee shop stud.
Jack experienced a brief surge of his former anger.

He suppressed it.

He keyed open the door, drew in a calming breath, and stepped inside to confront the unpleasantness awaiting him. The shirtless stud reacted as before, yelping and grabbing his shirt. Jack clenched his fists tight as the mumbling, blushing kid stumbled by him.

The fists remained at his sides.

Jack released the breath he’d been holding and went to the sofa, where he sat down next to Lorene. Lorene didn’t say anything. She picked up her blouse, shrugged it on, and calmly started to button it.

Jack said, “I forgive you, Lorene.”

And then she began to cry.

He took her in his arms and held her.

After several months of soul-searching and many counseling sessions, Jack and Lorene got married. Jack impressed her by becoming a more sensitive man and a better, more attentive lover. He did the good deeds he’d promised the angel, donating significant portions of each paycheck to a variety of worthy causes.

All was well in Jack’s world.

Well, not quite all.

He did have nightmares about what he’d done prior to being granted his second chance. Mostly he didn’t remember them, but there’d been one so lucid it had almost seemed real. In this dream, he went further than he had in reality. In the dream, his state of intense arousal was not to be denied.

In the dream, he did...things...unspeakable, awful, sick
things
to Lorene’s limbless, headless torso.

Jack awoke from the dream feeling ill, barely making it to the bathroom in time to vomit his steak dinner into the toilet bowl.

Thankfully, that dream had not recurred.

And his waking life was filled with joy.

Then one night he went out for a walk. He stopped at a street corner to dig change out of his pocket for a newspaper. While he was counting out his change, a compact car with tinted windows rolled up beside him.

The passenger side window rolled down.

A vaguely familiar voice called out to him: “Mr. Roth!”

Frowning, Jack turned around.

For the slightest fraction of a moment, he perceived the muzzle flash of a pistol. Then he gasped as the first of three slugs slammed into his chest.

He fell dead to the sidewalk and the car peeled off.

Lorene snatched up the phone on the first ring.

A shivery sensation of pleasure snaked through her as she heard the beloved voice: “We’re free, baby.”

Lorene squeaked with delight. “Yes! You did it? You really did it?”

Jeb Marshall laughed. “Of course. You know I’d do anything for you. You should be hearing from the police soon.”

Lorene gasped. “Oooh! Let’s not talk about it over the phone.”

Jeb laughed again. “Gotcha. Listen, when it’s all over, we’ll celebrate our freedom at Mondo Java. Meanwhile, I hope you’re prepared to face the music.”

Lorene smiled and twisted the phone cord in her hands, wishing it was Jeb’s hair. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

“Coolness. Better go now. Hang in there, babe. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Lorene returned the phone to its cradle.

The prospect of facing the police made her a little nervous, but that wasn’t enough to dampen her excitement; she was beside herself with unalloyed joy. She was so glad she’d gone through these months of agony. All those stupid counseling sessions with Jack had been so worth it. Christ, to think they’d almost blown it when Jack came back from the airport that time.

It was a good life lesson.

When you get another chance to do things right, grab the fucker.

Lorene poured herself a cup of French roast, sipped from the steaming mug, and began practicing grief-stricken widow faces.

My best friend growing up was this guy named Mark Angel. Mark flaked out in college, ran away with the circus, and eventually dropped off the radar screen. I got postcards from him for a while, mostly from points south. The postmarks were from backwater burgs in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The postcards arrived intermittently over a period of several months, then they just stopped coming.
That was fourteen years ago.

Mark was just a memory—a long-forgotten one.

Until Resurrection Week, that is.

Check this out.

Saturday morning. The alarm was trilling inches away from my ear. I reached for the snooze button, then it dawned on me the sound I was hearing wasn’t the alarm—it was the telephone. I rolled onto my side, blinked away the last vestiges of sleep, and stared at the blatting monstrosity.

Then I looked at the clock.

“Aw, shit.”

The time was 9:07 a.m., too early by far for a sleep-in Saturday.

But the insolent device kept on ringing. Fucker.

“Jesus Christ, Craig, pick up the goddamn phone.” A pillow thumped the back of my head. “Or I’ll be forced to wrap the cord around your neck.”