Under Angels: Chapter A

January 1, 2009

Under Angels
by Jace D. Albao (b. 1969)

Again. She arched her back on the hard gurney, her bare legs hoisted in the air. Doctors with bloody gloves scrambled as the sound of her pain filled the chamber of concrete walls.

Pete turned and darted out the door, escaping the cold operating room in his lead-soled boots. The damp corridor zigged nowhere in particular, becoming darker with every labored stride, zagging into twisted nothingness. He ran in slow motion through the maze to the cliff’s edge, his heartbeat drowning her screams, the rain and Pacific surf pounding the jagged rocks below. He finally inhaled–

Cold sweat. Pete awoke from his nightmare like a pretzel on the couch, gun in hand, a string of drool running down his unshaven chin. Salty. Ocean air blew horizontal rays of sunrise through the frayed living room curtains. Twisted orange shadows dripped across the dull hardwood floor.

Cut-off fatigues and a beer-stained wife beater tank top clung to Pete’s skin by a clammy musk. He scratched the head of his best friend with his toenails. A German Shepherd mix. His soul mate for now. Shadow.

Pete opened the revolver’s chamber. Two bullets left. He spun the cold cylinder with a swipe of his palm, and with a back-handed flick of the wrist, jerked the weapon shut, silencing the clicking buzz with a hard metallic clack.

“I’ll be damned.”

Finger on the trigger, Pete stood up and held the barrel to his own temple.

“What’s a hundred percent multiplied by two-sixths, man?” he said for what wasn’t the first time. “Superman can kiss–”

Point blank. The bullet ricocheted off Pete’s skull, bouncing off the wall before finding its home in the mess on the floor.

“My balls,” Pete continued, hurling the pistol against the wall in sarcasm. “It’s about time.”

Relief. Pete fell back into the couch, awake enough to remember last night’s revelation.

Time. All this time. It’s about fucking time!

Sitting on the coffee table in front of him, a laptop computer. Pete whacked the space bar with his index finger, waking the machine up. Numerous Web browser windows covered the screen, loitering around from the night before. An electronic paper trail of research. Los Angeles history. World War II blogs. UFO sightings and alien abduction forums. Black magic. Ghost hunts and paranormal reports. Government conspiracy theories. Satanism and the occult. Urban legend fact checking sites.

Pete picked up a cheap cell phone and dialed. It rang twice, and once more–

“Good morning, Sergeant Durante,” a voice scraped.

“This time I’ve got it,” Pete said in a deadpan tone reserved for telemarketers and wrong numbers. “Game over. Meet me at the diner.”

“You’re up early,” the voice said.

“The diner, Greamer,” Pete repeated.

Pete sat back into the couch for three moments, awaiting a reply.

“I’m in our booth now.”

Pete clasped the phone shut and stood up from the couch, his thumbs matting his uncut hair hair behind his ears with its natural grease. His bare feet paced the room of squalor.

The house, a 1945 California Bungalow near the Los Angeles Harbor. Jazz posters from decades past covered enamel coated walls that hadn’t been painted in sixty years. Model airplanes hung from a flaking drywall ceiling by translucent fishing line. The scratched wood floor sprawled through the furniture-less living room covered with beer cans, bullet shells, broken razor blades, pencils, newspapers, magazines, dog toys, and military board games. An old TV dinner tray in the corner stopped smelling weeks ago.

Pete grabbed his worn combat boots from the doorway and took a seat on the edge of the couch like a tired boxer between the two final rounds.

“This is the one, man,” he said. “After a lifetime of tries.”

Loose pills and bullet shells lay scattered on the coffee table. Pete popped two pills, washing them down with an open can of flat beer. He dug up two random socks from the corners of the couch, pulling them over his feet before slipping into his crusty boots. Leaning forward like a soldier lacing up for battle, he whispered.

“I finally get to die today.”