Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 (8 page)

 
“Ya know, I just jumped off a building,” I say, “so if you don’t mind—”

His eyes glow a little red for a second and then they’re back to blue. When he speaks now, it sounds like an eagle screaming at a rabbit he just swooped down on, “Think about it, a story that’s over two thousand years old! You think that the version they tell today has any resemblance to the truth that was? You think I’m the soul-torturing monster in that book? You’ve witnessed the world you lived in. That angry mob is not
my
creation.” He pauses and closes his eyes for a brief second. Then he breaths in slow and exhales slower. “I am simply . . . crowd control. All of that. . .?” He tilts his head back and looks up. “I wish I could conceive of such misery—the vile putrescence you call life.”

When he looks back down at me, I can tell he’s pleased with himself. And he tilts his head down farther, and then he rolls his eyes up and says, “Your life is a new beast of burden, never before seen in any eternity. Protection, compliance . . . submission to judgment. Some of you terrify—” He tilts his head back up and fakes a shiver through his shoulders. “You all scare the
Hell
right out of me.”

I look up to see what he keeps looking at. Nothing up there but dark sky and the flicker of flames. Bet I can guess who’s up there, but then that would be. . . “So, why are you here?” I ask. “If you aren’t offering to. . .?”

“About that,” he says. He unfolds his hands and points right at me, and all I can focus on is his finger. It feels like looking at the barrel of that PAIC’s big .60 cal, back on the roof. His voice is more serious now, though, “I’m not required to offer you anything. Technically, I already own you. You are part of the Word.” He looks up above his head. “Management does not approve of its subjects taking matters into their own hands—acting and thinking for themselves, you know.”

I crane my head back and look above him again. For some reason, I can see the roof of the scraper this time. The one I just took a swan dive off. “I hear ya,” I say. “They don’t like it either.”

He chuckles and it sounds like a raven cawing. Then flames roll up from his wings and above his head. “We’ll get to them.”

Holy shit!
I think.
What the. . .?
Then I think about it for a second . . . but I don’t know where to go or what to say next. Clearly he’s here, and if he is, then a whole lotta other shit is real too. If that’s the case—ipso facto—the jump pretty much fucked me . . . for good.

He laughs harder now and I can feel the heat on my face. We both look back down and into each other’s eyes. “Amusing,” he says.

“What is?”

“For good,” he says. “Interesting that you should put it that way.”

“What?” I’m trying to keep up. It might be my only chance at—hell, I have no idea what’s going to happen—lake of fire, Purgatory, some other shit. I do know one thing, it won’t be good.

“Exactly,” he says. He’s more excited now—teacher who sees the spark in his student. Then he puts his hands back together. I think I hear his knuckles crackle. Like an old-world fighter, getting ready to clean someone’s clock. “You may be mine for all life’s eternity. . .” He lets the words linger in the air like doom. Tortured in Hell forever. That’s what he’s talking about. As unpleasant as it sounds, he could have done it by now. “. . .and that will have nothing to do with good. However. . .”

“However,” he keeps saying that word. I know that nothing before it means shit. The truth always comes after. He’s weaving lies and truth in together. Whatever he says next, that will be the meat of it.

“Ah, meat,” he says, “fresh meat. I like how you think.”

I can feel the pressure as his thoughts work their way through mine. He’s infecting his way in and around an idea, and my head is dizzy from it.

Maybe if I stay in front of him? “I jumped,” I say. “I know what that means. So let’s get on with—”

“I told you,” he says. Then he gets a look on his face that I don’t recognize. And he looks up again. “It’s not quite what you might believe.”

If it is who I think up there, this is going to get weird. It’s not every day that you get to see the face of God. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s just one day. Too bad I had to die to do that, too. What the
hell
am I going to say to that guy?

The light blasts me so hard that I can barely make out the shape of an . . . A. . .

“Yes, Jake,” the voice is soft and comforting. It kinda sounds like a whale moan, but I can understand it.

Where did that come from?
“Whale moan?” That’s just too much nature feed on the PIN when I was a kid. I guess it doesn’t have to make any sense—no one knows what death is like. But the moan has that tone in it. Like when your mother or your wife catches you with contraband porn again—judgmental and shocked, as only a woman can be at a man’s obsession with sex.

The ivory white feathers float around like a satin sheet and the hair is . . . no way to describe . . . it’s like no color at all. The sight is incredible. The form is familiar, like a best friend. About the only way I can describe it. But there is no mistaking the near-invisible wings . . . and the breasts.

I know what you’re thinking, because I’m thinking it too. It is God, for Christ’s sake—how the hell can I be looking at her tits? But don’t give me any shit here—you know you would look.

Anyway, I’m probably already headed to Hell, so how much worse can it get? If I’m here, she’s real . . . and I swear to God she. . . Maybe I shouldn’t swear to that.

It takes me a second to speak, but holy shit! “You’re . . . God?” I ask. “You’re a woman.”

“I am that I am,” she replies. “I am love, I am hope, I am all things to all. I am the beginning and I am the end.”

I guess that clears that up
, I think. I try not to look lost, but unraveling that statement is some confusing shit.
No wonder the God-dogs fucked up the interpret
—I cut the thought off and wonder if she can read my mind. He could, so it stands to reason—

“Yes,” she says. And then she smiles. When she does, everything is warm. Not like the searing heat from him. Sort of like the tropical island screensaver when the PIN isn’t broadcasting—eighty-one degrees and sunny every day. To someone in Seattle, that’s . . . pacifying. But she looks strange.

When I stop squinting from the light, I figure it out. That’s the trouble with a nice set of. . . It takes concentration to look her in the eyes. And hers are jet black—huge orbs of shining onyx.
His were ice blue?
I would have figured that the other way around.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but you’re a—”

“I am what you need me to be,” she says. “If you had needed me to be a man, I would appear to you as such.”

“I
did
picture you as a man,” I say. “Everyone does,
even
women. But, so you’re saying that Moses wanted you to be a bush?”

I can’t see him, but I feel the heat when he caws and laughs.

Her face grimaces a little and she closes her eyes, obviously annoyed—I know the look. When she opens her eyes, the black is blacker—if that’s even possible.

“A burning bush?” I say. “No offense, but that’s just . . . messed up.”

“Times were different,” she says. “I have appeared as many things to many people since”

I have a million questions. Who wouldn’t? When else are you going to get a chance to find out . . . about everything? But I don’t think this is Q&A time. “Look,” I say, “about the roof thing—”

“There is still hope, Jacob,” she says.

And that catches me off guard, because I’ve been prepping myself for the worst. “Um, how's that?” I ask. “You mean I can still go to Heaven? But I . . . I jumped. Isn’t that against the rules?” I look around, trying to see where he’s gone. I can smell him out there in the dark, I just can’t see him.

His voice burns through the air, “I told you as much. The story morphs. The next rewrite shall be no different.”

Interrupting in class—wonder if they whip you up here?

She looks up briefly and then back down. “These are different times—challenging circumstances,” she says. I can feel her annoyance growing. “The opportunity for you to choose remains.”

“Challenging. . .” That’s politician-speak for “shitty.”

So, what do I have that she could possibly want? “Free will?” I ask her. “
That’s
the answer?”

“Yes.”

It seems too simple. And what did I tell you about simple? “So, you're telling me . . . that I can go around and break the rules—do anything I want—then repent when you show up at the end, and it’s all good?” I ask. I think that’s what she’s saying. “No wonder.”

“Not exactly,” she says. “As long as you choose fai—”

“A moment, please,” the voice burns down at us. It sends the temperature way up and I squint. He doesn’t reappear—just his voice—and it’s hotter now and it feels like my face is getting sunburned when he speaks. “He does not possess all the facts. How can you expect him to choose his own judgment without all the information? That . . . is not free will.”

“What facts?” I ask. “I jumped and here we are—Purgatory, or Judgment Day, or whatever shit. Game over.”

“He does not fully understand,” he says to her.

Something is up his sleeve. It’s easy to see that. But curiosity. . . “Know what?” I ask.

“He does not require this to make his decision,” she says. “Salvation is faith, not facts.”

“Oh, I would vehemently disagree,” his voice is more confident. “In point of fact, she is the
sole
reason he jumped.”

“Need to know
what
?” I ask. Maybe the confidence is wearing off on me. “What are you talking about? Kelly? I sent her to—”

He appears next to her and he isn’t smiling like before. Something’s wrong. They both look just like the State doctor when he told us. . . “I went back to get my gun,” I say to them, “but they caught up to me on the street after.” I still have no idea how they found me. “Then they chased me onto the roof. Nowhere to go from there but down, so she gets away and I'm with you two.”

But they aren’t listening—it’s like I’m not even here. They sound like a couple of crows arguing over who gets the ass end of a deer carcass. Now I’m the one getting annoyed.

When he does reappear, this time he looks different. Something is . . . he’s holding something. An old, red book. The thing is huge, but I can’t read the cover.

“The Word is written,” he says to her. “He chooses his own judgment. He believes that she escaped. Given that. . .” He looks at me and sniffs. “Right now, he does not care which way the tide turns. I can smell it.”

I scrunch my face. Watching bickering, still hard to tolerate. “She
did
get away,” I say.

I look at her and her warm face has turned to sadness and . . . it’s not empathy, but it’s close. And her bright hair changes to alternating gray and black.

He looks at me and tries to fake the same emotions. “Jake. . .” he says. The satisfaction in his voice tells me he already knows what I’m going to do. “You could not have predicted that they would do that. Do not blame yourself.”

Now I’m getting really pissed. I got plenty of self-loathing—enough to fill up a sea of Hells—but what is he. . .? “Show me,” I say. I know they can. At least she can. He might, but I probably wouldn’t believe what I saw. Anyway, I’m done with the charade.

He says my name again, “Jake”—each time he says it, I feel a twinge of heat go through my heart—“I’m on your side here.”

I look at her, then at him. Shit, they’re both holding back. “I’m not stupid,” I say. “Show me what happened . . .
now
.”

And then he slinks up to her, puts his long fingers on her shoulder, and leans into her ear. Then he whispers, “I think he’s serious.” It sounds like hissing.

I can see the waves of heat leave his mouth. I wonder why she doesn’t just crack a bolt of lightning up his ass or something. I mean, she
is
God, right?
CRACK!
—Evil, extinguished for all eternity. But she doesn’t even flinch or try to move away. She just keeps staring at me, like she’s deciding.

When he moves away, she raises her hand up, and then I’m gone.

— XIX —

KELLY HAD WARM, brown sugar hair, and the smile of a young woman who always looked for the cuddly part on a cougar. She wasn’t quite new-world-order crazy—a starving citizen who would eat anything they could get their hands on. She was more like a raw root grinder with a touch of black market meat every once in a while. She had no idea what she was in for with me.

I knew the appeal, it had worked in the past. The trouble with living every day of your life with an even keel is, when the inevitable rough seas in life hit, you need someone like Lieutenant Dan “You call this a fucking storm?” to pilot the ship through the shit.

Okay, maybe I did mess up the reference—it was a contraband copy of the damn old cinewave, anyway—but I like colorful cussing. Life is messy—people cuss. Get over it. Probably why they invented profanity in the first place.

Anyway, that’s the universe—yin and yang, and good and . . . not so good, all locked in a never-ending struggle to maintain balance, I guess. That’s what Kelly used to say. Too bad for her, because my “angel of nice” got me—angry, conspiracy-ranting “asshole,” I’ve heard said to describe me before. Could be true, people don’t like hearing what you really think.

Whoa. . . Way too much philosophy before breakfast, but that’s what is in my head. Sounds too preachy, even for me. I shrug it off and concentrate on seeing Kelly, because I know it’s her. But everything is surreal, like just before the sun breaks through the fog.

Surreal?
I got words in my head that don’t feel natural to me. Death. . . Whatever I thought I knew about—hell, looks like I don’t know shit about it. I doubt anyone does until it’s their turn. It’s not what I thought it would be, I’ll tell you that. More of the same kinda shit, though—trials and judgments that are out of my control. SSDD—same shit . . . not much different when you’re dead.

He’s here, or somewhere, rooting around in my head. Her too, for that matter, because I’m not making this shit happen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining—any chance to see Kelly again, I’m all in. I don’t feel scared or mad or any of the other poisonous emotions I carried around with the pointlessness of rocks in a backpack for most of my life. I feel sort of . . . relaxed, actually.