The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

“I don’t want to,” I cried.

“I know, babe. I know. But Sarah promised she’d be there. And you’ve got Julia and Alex. You’ll be okay.”

Ray was starting to fade, right in my arms, and I started to sob. “Don’t go,” I whispered. I put my arms around him, as tight as I could, and they just sank through.

“Ray! Wait, please! There’s something you need to know!”

But he was gone. My vision swam, and I was falling, like the day we were skydiving. I could see the ground, far below, and the wind buffeted me. I reached out to take Ray’s hands, but they weren’t there, he wasn’t there, and skydiving without him was horrible. I was terrified, and I couldn’t find my parachute. The instructors were gone, and it was dark, and I sobbed, because I didn’t want to be alone, I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t want to go on, but I had to. Everything spun and went black and I heard, as if it were my own voice, far away, screaming.

Something to hope for (Ray)

I was losing strength.

I was losing myself.

What did she mean? There’s something you need to know. What was it? I didn’t know, and as hard as I tried to stay with her, as hard as I tried to stay with her dream, and reassure her, I’d spun out of control and lost contact. The last I saw she was falling, and I was afraid I’d done it to her.

I got up from the bed and stepped away from Carrie.

Sarah had been right. I was making it worse. Every time I tried to push through and communicate, every time I tried to let her know how much I loved her, I just made it that much harder for Carrie.

I needed to walk away and let her go. I needed to figure out what the hell was going on with me. I needed to know what to do next. And I didn’t have a clue.

I walked out of the darkened room.

In the living room, Ambassador Thompson sat, holding a glass of scotch. His hair was rumpled, a look of exhaustion and sadness on his face. He was speaking quietly with Julia and Crank. I didn’t know any of the three well. Crank and Julia were constantly on the road, and we’d only met twice, last New Year’s and then at Dylan’s wedding.

Dylan sat on the arm of a chair, his arm casually thrown across Alex’s shoulder. He wasn’t looking so good either, and it bothered me how his eyes kept returning to the scotch. Dylan didn’t drink and came off the painkillers after his leg injury far sooner than he should have. But every time Carrie’s dad raised that drink to his lips, Dylan’s eyes followed it.

I sighed. I’d have liked to shake him out of whatever dark space he was in. But I couldn’t, just like I couldn’t with Carrie. Because even though they hadn’t signed the death certificate and planted me in the ground yet, I was as good as dead. And the people I loved? They were going to be moving on without me.

I waved at Daniel, who was standing, looking alone.

“Come on, kid. Thanks for walking down here with me.”

I couldn’t stay in here. Somehow, with Sarah gone, it was worse.

Crazy as she was, she’d helped me stay balanced since the accident. I walked out of the hotel room and wandered down the hall, then found myself in the street, halfway between the hotel and the hospital. It was almost like I was being pulled, back toward my body, and I didn’t resist. Not after what I saw with Sarah. I didn’t know if there was a God. I didn’t know if there was an afterlife. I didn’t know shit. But I’d seen with my own eyes that she’d been sucking the life force right out of her own body.

I was starting to worry about me and Daniel, and what all this meant.

I didn’t know if there was any hope for either one of us, but if there was, I wasn’t going to make it any worse if I could avoid it.

I felt the tension in my body ease as I got closer and closer to the hospital. It was dark out, and probably past midnight, but traffic was heavy, cars rolling by with music blasting, crowds of young people spilling out of the bars and restaurants onto the sidewalk. I walked up the center of the street, ignoring the traffic. A car drove right through me, and I felt nothing. The cars drove away, their red taillights receding in the distance, and just down the street from me I saw a crowd of people, mostly college students, laughing around the sidewalk tables of a bar.

It was lonely out here, even with the kid walking beside me. Hideously lonely. At one time I would have casually walked up to the people outside the bar. I’ve always been the guy with a ready smile and plenty to talk about, the guy who was comfortable walking up to a bunch of strangers and ending up making a lot of friends. I watched them now, and it was like a wall between us.

I couldn’t help but ask myself the question. Did I believe that anything would come after this?

Twenty-four hours ago, I wouldn’t even have believed what was happening to me now. And that begged all kinds of questions. I’d never been a believer. Not in any religion. I went to church as a kid, with my parents, but it was just a place we went. Rituals, a part of life, but what bearing did it have on reality? None that I could see. An afterlife? Laughable.

Yet here I was. And this was nothing like any afterlife I’d ever heard of or thought about. As a matter of fact, the concept of wandering around like this forever ... unable to touch anyone ... unable to talk to anyone ... that was the