More Stories from the Twilight Zone (32 page)

“I know about bootleg whiskey, and the snake heads as the secret whiskey ingredient. You have to hide it, all of it, tonight, or you might lose everything. What you have is almost priceless to your family.”

“Valuable, maybe,” Trooley said, mulling over her words. “Nothing is priceless.”

“This information is. And your bar could prosper for another century with a treasure trove like what you've got.”

“And why are you telling me this, may I ask?”

“Let's just say I've invested quite a bit in the future of your bar.” She wordlessly handed Trooley the matchbook she'd had in her pocket since the start of the evening. It commemorated the 140th anniversary of the bar, reading “1866–2006.”

Trooley sipped from his teacup solemnly amidst the melee. It was almost too loud to think properly.

Definitely too loud to hear the device in Beatrice's pocket beep urgently.

Repeatedly.

And then go silent.

 

Devin MacCleary woke up still drunk, which was understandable considering he'd been half-submerged in a bathtub full of some of the best champagne in history, and had drunk a considerable quantity of it both awake and asleep.

History. The future. He didn't know why he bothered with any of it. He should have just taken Beatrice to Costa Rica 0007 and
thrown the device into the ocean. They should go back right now. He'd left the device's charger back there, anyway.

He was very cold. He opened his eyes.

Reli had thrown Devin's suit over him and propped him upright in a booth. He was still naked.

“I can't figure if this is the best or worst night of your life, bro,” she told him seriously.

“For real,” the drummer of the band, Lex, added, tossing back the last of his champagne. “If people knew your bar got this kind of action, you'd be jammed all the time.”

“Jam!” cried MacCleary. “Truth Machine jaaaaam! Aurelia . . . Reli . . .
really
. . . you gotta hire these guys.”

The singer stared hard at Devin and Reli in turn. “So, Bar Fraulein? What do you think of it? Your man says yeah.”

Reli shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Call me tomorrow and we'll book a date. You handle all your own publicity.”

The band members grinned amongst themselves. “Cheers,” said the singer, and with that, they left.

MacCleary looked earnestly at all four of the Relis he was drunkenly seeing. “Beatrice broke my heart again, Reli. She left me for the last time. I don't think she'll come back.”

“Well, I'm sorry to hear that, Dev.”

“S'okay. She'll be happier then. I'll be happy now, before my old future happens.”

“Do you want some water or coffee or something, dude?”

“No! But, hey, if you want some champagne, there's a nice . . . niiiiiice. . . . bottle of Comet Vintage Veuve Clicquot in the cooler.” MacCleary burped. “I told you I'd be right back. Right back from 1811!”

“Comet Vintage, huh? I probably shouldn't open that, what with it being priceless and all.”

“Then save it . . . in case the band doesn't get you enough business. But I think they will. And if they don't, I'll buy the place in
gold!
” He slapped the banquette victoriously to accentuate this point.

“You really give a damn about this place, huh? That's very sweet of you.” Reli used the latter sentence several times a day at patrons, but this time she actually meant it.

“This place, this time, you. It's your fault, you gave a damn about me first! Damn.
And
you're hotter than all the whores this place ever had.”

“Well, that really is very sweet of you, Devin, thank you.” Reli laughed and shook her head.

“Hey . . .
hey
. . . I'm naked.”

“Yep.”

“You should get naked, too.”

Reli couldn't have put it better herself. Locking the door, she shut off all the lights save the oil lamps, then walked back down the long bar to the booth, shedding garments like a snake sheds her skin.

 

Trooley returned to work, unperturbed by the anachronistic matches.
Don't say I didn't warn you,
Beatrice figured. She'd at least
tried
to save the bar.

A good-looking man in a white suit, shoulder-length blond hair, and a white Panama hat sat on the other side of Beatrice. He was reading a large stack of loose notes that appeared to be hieroglyphs.

“Do you mind if I ask what you're reading?” she inquired.

“Well, the devil of it is, I'm not sure,” he replied. He had a British accent and an immaculately trimmed mustache. His blue eyes shone out from his suntanned face. “I'm just back from an expedition in Cairo for the university—I'm in the Egyptology department—and I can't make heads or tails of it. It appears that the Egyptians had devised a way to combine acid with metal rods in small pots that may have served as electrical units . . . but I
can't quite make out from the hieroglyphs exactly
how
. It's fascinating.”

“You mean they might have had electricity in the pyramids?”

“Indeed, as preposterous as it may seem. It's a strange beast, electricity. Power, force . . .” He tilted his head toward hers. “
Magnetism
. Intriguing.”

“You're the intriguing one,” Beatrice decided. “Tell me more.”

 

Trooley's Tourist Tavern was rocking. Reli could barely keep up. Patrons were lined up three deep all along the bar. From the stage, Universal Truth Machine was singing a song about whiskey that people were flipping out over, dancing and whooping along under the fierce guitars. Behind the bar, Devin helped to sling drinks to the crowd. Every time he and Reli brushed past each other, they smiled.

One addition had been made to the decor of the bar. Near where Beatrice had always sat, on the back shelf facing the drinkers, was a fishbowl containing a single bright blue and purple crown-tail fighting fish. Reli and Devin had named it Beatrice. Underneath the bowl, a small sign told all the patrons whose eyes visited it:
WELCOME BACK . . . WHENEVER
.

 

 

Running out of time turns out to be the best time of all for the patrons of Trooley's Tourist Tavern. History may be written by the winners, but it is just as intriguing for the bystanders. And no one may just stand idly by in . . . the Twilight Zone.

 

The miracle of powered flight. What some once called the pinnacle of mankind's mastery over his world. But between takeoff and landing, mankind's world is about to change forever—leaving two hundred people hanging on the cusp of one man's cynical faith. A man with a glimpse of God's flight plan. Stow your tray tables. Seatbacks up. This plane is already descending . . . into the Twilight Zone.

When the Rapture came, it caught me on the afternoon shuttle between La Guardia and Dulles, Flight 1602, descending from thirty-five thousand feet at three hundred fifty miles per hour. I was enjoying my second Bloody Mary and a small bag of wasabi peanuts.

My first reaction was pretty routine. A startled, “Son of a bitch.”

My second: He's
effing
early!

The whole thing crept up unawares on the entire plane. A small, distant, plaintive wail, barely able to be heard above the drone of the engines. Only in the last few seconds, as it suddenly rose in volume and clarity, did I recognize it as a single, pure note blown on the Golden Trumpet. It neither wavered nor worried. Gabriel hit it perfect (and with ten thousand years of practice, I would otherwise have been surprised). A solid ten. Nine-point-seven on the
New York Times
arts page.

The Trumpet. A sudden chorus of angels singing out in breath-stealing harmony. Then a clap of celestial thunder. If you'd never
heard celestial thunder before that day, you probably thought that the sky had split open. Maybe you even wanted to look, but of course everyone was still blinded by the sudden flash of purest, whitest light that washed over the earth with the intensity of an Obama press conference.

Something like this happens, you expect a more physical reaction. The ground trembling. People getting knocked over by a mighty shock wave. At the very least you should worry that your drink has spilled (mine hadn't). Part of the eerie Otherness, though, was the complete lack of any physical sensation. The 737 gave only a slight bump as the Rapture lightened its load by a mere thousand pounds.

Five people.

Dammit.

Don't misunderstand me. I hadn't expected to get “called home,” as they say. I still had things to do. Places to be. I wasn't insulted, and quite honestly, if I had been among the chosen, I would have had some very choice words on the subject.

But among the Raptured five were half of the plane's flight crew.

That
I had not expected.

Besides some cursing among the first-class passengers and a scream from the flight attendant who had been inside the cockpit, the whole thing happened with little furor. There was a slight uproar from coach-class seating, though not as much as I would have expected. Yet. And one clear, distinct shout from far back near the plane's tail section.

“Elvis has left the building!”

So I knew there was at least one demon on board. Or a Graceland nut. Either way, I marked that one down as trouble.

My eyes burned with the after-glare of celestial light. Bright purple spots swam in my vision. I had at least thirty seconds before the flight attendant stumbled back from the cockpit and caused a near panic, easily a minute before the undercover air
marshal would pull his gun. So I closed my eyes, popped a few peanuts into my mouth, and felt around for the plastic cup resting on my tray table. Trust me. If there is a better complement to powered flight than vodka, tomato juice, and spicy nuts, God kept that one to Himself. Wasabi scrubbed away any aftertaste. Tomato juice salved the burn of the wasabi. And the vodka was Chopin—which was reason enough.

Unfortunately, there would not be enough time to really enjoy the last of my cocktail. With regret (and one final sip), I folded the tray table off to one side and handed the half-filled cup to my seatmate on the aisle. Nice lady. Expensive shoes. A regional manager for Halliburton (I just knew) and heading into D.C. for an affair with a married three-star at the Pentagon.

A business proposition in every sense of the term.

There were now as many Christ-our-kings and God-in-Heavens being shouted as curses. People were beginning to catch a clue. More voices shouted out as people began to notice that some of their traveling companions were missing.

“My husband? Where did he go?”

And, “That little girl, she just disappeared!”

“But I'm still a virgin!”

A part of me wanted to understand the thought process behind
that
one.

Our forward-cabin flight attendant was not about to give me the time. The cockpit door slammed back hard as she put her entire weight behind it. (All right, maybe one hundred ten pounds, but those doors are
light
.) Her little cap sat on the side of her head, wrenched around and held in place by a few bobby pins. I had found it rather charming during boarding. Now it was just sad.