Bermuda Triangle (4 page)

The corpsman
left as Captain Mark Hanlon entered Jake Swann's room. He noticed that Swann
was breathing quite well; the massive dose of IV antibiotics he was on was kicking
in. Still, the place was littered with blood spattered tissues. Swann went
through a box a day. Hanlon's mouth tightened under the mask.
He's still
coughing blood for Christ's sake.
Hanlon managed a light expression and
said, "You're looking better."

'I'm keeping
food down. The corpsman even had me up for a shower."

"So. Settling
in."

Swann's surveyed
the room and laughed. "It ain't Heaven, but it'll do."

Hanlon smiled. For
the last two days he and Jake Swann talked often. Swann told him that everyone
in Heaven lived forever. No one got sick or even caught a cold. The angels had
no possessions and no real social order. There was no reason to fight. To the
best of his recollection, lacking any definite measure, Swann thought he had
been in Heaven for about three months.

Swan said, "You
know the hippy saying, when something is too much? They say, "Heavy,
man." Well that's what it is like here on Earth. Heavy. And gravity isn't
the only pressure. There is so much to deal with. It's like the chicken and egg
deal. Is humankind crazy because they are on earth? Or are they on earth because
they are crazy? Is it the environment here that makes us the way we are? Filled
with apathy, hate, fear, guilt and sin? Did God send us here because we deserve
it? In Heaven there is no anger, guilt, shame, or hate. In Heaven there is no
concept of sin. I was a different person there."

Hanlon gave a
noncommittal shrug. Now that Swann was speaking, he discovered that the less he
said, the more Swann talked. It was as if the man preferred to fill any empty
silence with sound. Hanlon had been having discussions with Swann for two days
and was no closer to getting solid answers. Too much just didn't make sense.

Captain Hanlon picked
up Swann's chart, and idly scanned through Slater's notes without really reading
them. Where had Jake Swann been all this time? While the people in Swann's
Heaven looked like angels, there were no long-lost loved ones, white fluffy
clouds or organ music. It didn't sound like any Heaven he'd ever heard of. Was
there a hidden door between Earth and another world? Had a wormhole transported
the submariner to some alien planet or different dimension? Hanlon's lips
lifted in a wry smile. The entire incident was reminding him more and more of a
Star Trek
episode. Or maybe
The X-Files
.

Restless, Hanlon
put the chart down and paced the short length of the room. Jake told him the
angels were incredibly strong. They were also faster and smarter than anyone he
had ever known, and they had wings. They sure didn't sound human. Where did
they come from? Where were the children? Like Jake, the angels didn’t sound
like they originated from Heaven. Strong and fast on a weightless world? Why?
If life evolved on a zero gravity planet, wouldn’t it be frail and formless? How
could there be a zero gravity world, anyway? Wouldn't everything that floats just…
float away? His lips twisted into a sardonic grin. They didn't on Pandora, the
Avatar
world.

Swann said, "I
know it sounds stupid -- it sounds cliché' but there is nothing in Heaven but
love. Love and music and art and beauty and sex! But you know, even though I
could have had anyone…I didn't want that. Not because of my Christian
upbringing either. Being with others, male or female wasn't a sin. They have no
taboos, you know? Lana was all I wanted."

"But how
did you return to Earth?" Hanlon asked."And if you enjoyed it so much
there, why did you leave?"

Swann paled and
his mouth pressed in a tight line. He had the look of a man experiencing a
sudden, sharp pain -- like a fist to the gut.

At Swann's
reaction, Captain Hanlon straightened, alert as a sonar operator tracking a
hostile contact
. Hallelujah! At last I've asked the right question!
Now
he only need wait. A couple of minutes went by. Hanlon, motionless, kept his
mouth shut.

With a deep
sigh, Swann finally said, "I needed to come home."

"Okay. But
how did you get back?"

Swann gave a
hollow, humorless laugh. "Dead easy. I grabbed my lifejacket and went down
that cold black hole." His body relaxed as if all hope had gone out of
him. His voice was a whisper, "Yeah, I fell down the hole and went back
where I belong -- straight to Hell."

"But why, Jake?
Why leave? Did they make you go?"

"No."

"Didn't you
like it in Heaven after all?"

"No! I
loved it there! I wanted to stay!" With a heroic effort the ill man sat
up, his face desperate; his grief almost physical. "Do I have to spell it
out for you? Don't you get it yet? It was all my fault! White Beard was right! Can't
you see that? I didn't belong there -- I should never have come. Maybe I was
sent there by the devil and I deserve a life of Hell!"

Hanlon stared at
him, unable to grasp the understanding that seemed just out of reach.

Swann's face
contorted in a mask of pain as he raised a red-flecked tissue. "Lana died
the day I left. She was coughing blood."

There
was a full moon on New Year's Eve, 2011.

In
the
mid-Atlantic,
460 miles southwest of the Azores Islands, the stars were faint and pale,
hidden by the light of a luminous moon. The moon was huge. It shone like a
white sun in a black, cloudless night sky. The sea was calm and quiet. There
was no breeze, no sound of waves, no fish, whale or living creature. In a vast
empty ocean, no one was there to see it, but something strange was happening.
One human head, two -- then twenty or more bobbed up from under the water
reflecting dark circular shadows on the flat, moon-washed sea.

If someone had
been watching they would have been incredulous as the heads turned into
figures, darting out of the water through the use of their wings. Anyone
watching would have instantly recognized the mythical spiritual beings sent by
God. For a few moments the Angels lingered, suspended above the ocean in a
stunning, flittering display. They cast shadows on the water; fantastic,
well-proportioned, graceful silhouettes. Both male and female, they were naked
and perfect; their beauty blinding. Every enchanting, delicate wing reflected
the light of the moon, startlingly pure and white.

Without a sound,
moving together, the Angels from Heaven lifted. As they rose their faces could
be clearly seen in the moonlight. Their eyes were cold and hard, their
expressions pitiless. It created an extraordinary dissonance; cruel beauty and
ruthless perfection -- there was nothing human in any of them. Such contrast
both attracted and repelled, as if these alluring Angelic forms suffered
demonic possession.

They turned as
one, toward the continent of North America and began to fly.

THE END

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