Intersections Read online

  She screamed when I tightened the knot rigged around my waist and shoulders, but she didn’t stop jogging. I couldn’t say that I would’ve had the same fortitude.

  “Why does this have to be my guts?” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Sorry, my viscera all got pulled back in.”

  “What happens when the plane lifts off and the landing gear goes up?”

  “Um, it’ll hurt, but I don’t think you’ll get disconnected. I mean, my fucking kitten heel keeps coming back. I have to think the same laws will apply here. The pieces of your soul will stick together, right?”

  “Damn well better.”

  Soon the plane idled at the end of a long stretch of concrete. This was it. Lift off. Shannon and I stood next to each other under the plane, holding hands. To the east, the sun crested the horizon.

  Shannon stared at me. I expected her to gaze lovingly into my eyes and say something tender and encouraging. Instead, her gaze drifted over my shoulder and she said, “Fuck my afterlife.”

  I turned around. Mr. Shady emerged from a patch of trees along the runway. The dark son of a bitch rode a mutilated stack of tainted souls. The mess’s distorted legs and arms moved at a blur, more oozing than running toward us.

  The plane’s engines revved. I stretched my hamstrings, though my ghost body didn’t seem to need warm-ups. I gripped Shannon tighter. She nodded to me, pain festering on her face. I wanted to tell her that I’d really grown to like her—that she was a solid young woman and one of the more impressive people I’d ever met, but the plane rolled forward. The engines roared.

  I figured I’d have the chance to tell her all of this on the other side. I was wrong.

  26

  The plane barreled down the runway like an oversized bullet. We kept up for a few steps, but the velocity proved too much. I couldn’t tell who stumbled first. We smacked the runway bouncing between the metal hull and the unforgiving concrete. Crack. Crunch. Thud. Each impact was a sucker punch from a giant fist. Even through all that hurt, an oozing chill crept through me. Mr. Shady was near.

  By the time we lifted off, my dented and broken body had been battered into a weeping flesh sack of bone fragments. That’s when the pain really started.

  The plane’s elitist nose tipped upward, exposing us to the rising sun’s brutal rays. Sunshine knifed inside my torn flesh. I flailed but there was no escaping it. The unbearable heat burnt my flesh and boiled my blood. As I writhed, I caught a glimpse of Mr. Shady dangling from one of the rear wheels. He, too, was burning in the sun. Good. If nothing else, I’d die knowing that I’d lured him to his death.

  I tried to scream, but my tongue turned to charred ash that clogged my throat. Somehow, I was still holding Shannon’s hand. We clenched each other so tightly that our fingers crackled.

  Metal clicked above us, and the landing gears slid upward into their chambers. With the last of my strength, I turned toward Shannon. Her face had been stripped almost to the bone. Her hair was smoke.

  We rose together and fell apart.

  Below, the world shrank. Long shadows stretched across suburban yards. The fields became a patchwork quilt of irregular squares. From up here, everything was so beautiful. This was how the world looked when I fell out of the sky yesterday. That seemed like a lifetime ago, but I supposed it was anything but.

  The relentless velocity pinned me to the craft’s belly. We passed into a nest of clouds, surrounded by brilliant clean white. It reminded me of walking in the woods after a massive snowfall. No other footsteps to dirty things up. The clouds offered a respite from the sun. For one halfway peaceful moment, it was just me and Shannon soaring through the air.

  The white dissipated, and we were no longer alone.

  The plane dragged us through a crowd of lumbering souls. We slammed through them, knocking women, men, and children aside like bowling pins. As we thrust to the front of the line, I thought I heard cussing. The sun’s burning faded. The Light protected us. All around me, dead-eyed souls stared resentfully at us. Their faces blurred into a white honeycomb pattern.

  The plane plowed right into the Light’s calm center.

  The radiant brilliance blinded me for a moment. The roar of the plane’s engines faded away, soon replaced by a pleasant humming and the sensation of slipping into a warm bath on a cold day. White light surrounded me. Filled me. My broken limbs inflated. When I could see again, everything had turned a thousand shades of white. The plane flew away, fading into the distance. At first I panicked, thinking we were about to fall.

  On the contrary, we rose.

  A column of light sucked us upward—higher and higher into the sky. Below us, perhaps millions of souls stared needfully after us. We’d found a way to jam ourselves into the Light, and they were left to wait endlessly. My heart panged for them.

  Higher and higher we rose, the both of us speechless.

  The sun shone directly upon us but the Light’s embrace kept us safe. I expected that the illuminated column would carry us through some kind of portal into a set of pearly gates—well polished and adorned with eternal orchids.

  Instead, it lifted us through the clouds.

  Higher still.

  All the way into space.

  Gravity dissolved around us. Everything went impossibly quiet.

  We floated above the Earth. Below, the mass of white souls loitered around the Light. There were so many of them—almost a whole continent’s worth. In the distance, the moon hung mostly in shadow. The column of light surrounding us faded. Its path petered out above the atmosphere, light fragmented in many directions. I could see now that a similar column of pure white light extended from the Sun toward the Earth. It glowed the way I imagined Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth would glow—a reassuring shimmer. Except, where the band of light reached our orbit, it fractured and fizzled out.

  Something had disrupted the Light’s path from the Sun to the Earth.

  No, wasn’t one thing. It was many things.

  Space junk. It floated all around us—the debris of shuttles, satellites, and rockets. Hunks of metal and discarded thrusters. Flat panels. Twisted rods. The ray of light reflected off this mess of trash and bent in all manner of crazy directions.

  This is why the Light’s clogged.

  Those were the words I meant to say to Shannon, except we floated in the vacuum of space. Beyond sounds.

  We looked at each other and shrugged. For some reason, the Sun didn’t burn us, even though we were closer to its rays. Maybe it was because we were free of the Earth’s atmosphere. Whatever the reason, the sunlight passed harmlessly through us. Shannon glowed like an angel. I suppose I did too. Her eyes were so blue I could’ve dived into them.

  The view of the Earth made me dizzy. Massive clouds. Night’s darkness still covered the western parts of North America. The world looked immensely powerful and shockingly fragile. And me, I was just a leaf on a tree. No, a bug on a leaf on a tree. No, a seed blowing in the wind. Up here, things like planets and stars weren’t abstract notions. There was no earth, sun, or moon. No, no. Here, we had Earth, Sun, and Moon. We were on a first name basis with God up here.

  My many wounds faded. Shannon’s guts spooled back into her belly. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but a profound peace infused my being. Shannon and I grabbed hands and twirled around. We laughed mutely, flying like goddesses between heaven and Earth. It was a perfect moment. Somehow, I knew everything was going to be okay.

  I was wrong.

  Mr. Shady grabbed Shannon from behind and sank his teeth into her neck. She screamed noiselessly. Her hands went ice cold. The blackness erupted from inside her.

  27

  Mr. Shady

  The tendrils of Mr. Shady’s minions had snagged one of the plane’s rear landing gears moments before take off. His slaves had wrapped around him and formed a black chrysalis, taking most of the impact as the building speed bashed them against the craft and concrete. When the airplane rose, the dawn ravage