A Matter of Words

1. Brian Paone – Outside of Heaven-3

He turned to run around the side of the hotel to follow the spiders. He didn’t quite know why, but he felt the need to see where Grace was being taken. As he rounded the next corner, he smacked straight into Alice.

“They killed my dad!” she screamed. “What the hell are they?”

Alice wiped a flood of tears and rainwater from her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

“I don’t know. They got Grace too.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see where they are taking them,” he yelled and continued to make chase.

Alice swallowed, blinked the raindrops out of her eyes, and stood in a sort of limbo.

“Hey! Wait up,” she yelled.

Cecil slowed down. “I’m not responsible for you, you know.”

“I can take care of myself,” she grumbled.

Cecil and Alice made it to the end of the building just as the spiders took their last steps before entering the patch of grass behind the hotel, leaving the Blue Leaf Motel looking like Swiss cheese. The three monstrous arachnids were now in full view.

Alice shrieked when she saw her dad still impaled on a spider leg, rising and falling with each step. Her scream was loud enough where it should have attracted the attention of the monsters. None of the spiders reacted as though they had heard Alice at all, nor did they seem to pay attention to any of the guests scampering around the parking lot.

Cecil thought that maybe the spiders didn’t care about the people, and the deaths of Grace and Gabriel were accidental. Maybe they were just stepped on as the spiders made their journey forward. Perhaps the hotel was just an inconvenient barrier for the spiders and not the epicenter of an attack.

Cecil grabbed Alice’s arm just as the spiders reached the churchyard—all walking in unison.

“Look,” he said, pointing.

“What?”

“There is a third body on the last spider’s leg. Can you make out who it is?”

Alice squinted through the rain and tried to focus through the mist that had rolled in from the churchyard.

“Not really, no. Where do you think they’re carrying them?”

Cecil shook his head. “I really can’t say. I know as much as you do.”

The spiders continued traipsing toward the church without faltering in their stride or momentum.

“Should we keep following them?” Alice asked.

Cecil was about to ask her what she thought following them would accomplish, when they both heard a cry for help from inside the hotel. Alice glanced backward at the hotel.

Cecil gasped. “What the …?”

Alice spun around to face the churchyard again. The spiders were gone.

“Where the hell did they go?” she asked, bewildered. “Those things were huge. They vanished, just like that? We’d be able to see them if they were hiding behind the church, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes. I don’t think they are hiding.”

“So where the f**k did they go with my dad?” Alice squealed.

Cecil swallowed hard and felt the tips of his fingers go numb. The muscles in his legs and arms trembled involuntarily. He couldn’t answer her. He felt like everything in his body was paralyzed. His brain was shutting down. Shock had set in.

“Is anybody still out there?” a voice from inside the hotel room bellowed.

The cry for help snapped Cecil out of his catatonic state. He turned around and ran as fast as he could toward a broken hotel window.

Alice watched him go, looked back at the churchyard one last time for any sign of the absconding spiders, and then quickly ran toward the hotel to catch up with Cecil.

Cecil was already through the window and standing in one of the hotel rooms when he heard Alice approaching. “Be careful. There’s broken glass everywhere.”

They were halfway into the room when Alice thought she could see Father Jackson on the floor, the lower half of his body trapped underneath the dresser. Cecil lifted the dresser off Father Jackson’s back.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” he said as he got to his feet.

“Anything broken, Father?” Cecil asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Alice looked around the room in dismay.

Cecil followed her gaze. The ceiling had four large holes where the spider’s legs had stepped through the roof. He was certain that every room in the Blue Leaf Motel mirrored the shambles of this room.

“I’m glad you were not one of the damned, child,” Father Jackson said to Alice. “I see they didn’t take you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The archfiends. They passed over you. Today was a day of reckoning, and only the pure were saved. The Earth has been finally cleansed again, this time not by a flood but a meticulous removal of the impure.”

Initially Cecil thought Father Jackson’s comment was preposterous. But then he remembered telling Grace that it was the end of the world. Maybe Father Jackson was on the right track.

“They took my dad,” Alice snarled. “My dad was an amazing person. A Christian.”

Cecil felt a pang of guilt that his own initial reaction wasn’t like Alice’s: to defend a loved one. He hadn’t even thought to stand up for Grace.

“Did you get a good look at them?” Father Jackson asked.

“They were spiders. I’m not too sure if they were actually demons, like you proclaim, but I can tell you that they were abominations of some kind,” Cecil said.

“How many were there?”

“Three. Each spider had taken one person. They disappeared when they reached the …” Cecil slowed down his words and never finished his sentence. The unspoken word hung like a piece of dust in the air. He hated to admit that Father Jackson’s evaluation of the situation might very well be correct.

“The church?” Father Jackson finished.

“Yes. They disappeared there, just as suddenly as they had appeared.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Alice sobbed. “If what’s happening here really is some kind of biblical rapture, then why would the spiders—”

“Child, the good Lord’s ways are not for us to make sense of. It’s for us to accept,” Father Jackson interrupted.

“Well, I want to get out of here before the next wave of whatever stomps through,” Cecil said.

“I’m with ya on that. The faster the better. Let me just grab some supplies before we go,” Alice said.

“You live here?” Cecil asked.

“Yeah. In the barn behind the hotel. My dad renovated it after Mom died.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Father Jackson boomed, his voice increasing in volume as he spoke. “We need to make sure there isn’t anyone trapped in the rooms before we leave. We were spared the fire and brimstone because we are the pure and the righteous. If we don’t take a few minutes to check the rooms for any survivors, we would be negating the reason why we were saved in the first place.”

Cecil looked at his shoes and nervously touched his bandaged hand. The wound had stopped bleeding again, but the blood had crusted the gauze. He nodded in agreement.

“Fine,” Alice said with a little more reluctance, “but I’m gonna grab my stuff first before I help look.”

“We’ll come with you. Who knows what else might have been unleashed and is lurking in the shadows,” Father Jackson said and headed toward the door.

Cecil thought that Father Jackson eerily sounded like the clairvoyant Tangina from Poltergeist when he spoke like that. There was something unsettling about the priest.

Cecil and Father Jackson followed Alice around the back of the hotel to a large barn sprawled out in front of them. Alice unlocked the door, and they went inside. The interior of the barn had been meticulously renovated to mimic a penthouse suite. Astonishingly it remained completely untouched by any of the spiders.

“This place is amazing,” Cecil said, looking around in wonderment.

“Thanks. I’ll be right back,” Alice replied and trotted up a banister-less staircase that was flush against the back wall.

When Alice was out of sight, Father Jackson opened one of the doors to his right and peered inside.

“What are you doing?” Cecil whispered forcefully.

“That girl’s father was one of only three people taken away from here. Obviously he was a miscreant. I’m just interested in finding out what his sins were.”

“That is an incredible invasion of that girl’s privacy.”

“Well, looky here,” Father Jackson exclaimed and stepped farther into the room.

“I don’t want to know,” Cecil said sternly and looked away.

Father Jackson emerged from the room a moment later with a small mirror that sported a single line of white powder.

“Illicit drug use is a direct violation of God’s design,” Father Jackson stated, and then tilted the mirror, dumping the powder to the barn floor like snow. “It’s purposefully destroying the vessel that God created for us. That, to me, is like a proverbial middle finger to Him and His divine love for us. No wonder that girl’s father was taken away. God punishes the heathens.”

“How do you know that isn’t Alice’s?” Cecil said, trying to play devil’s advocate.

“Because she is still here, and he is—”

“What are you doing?” Alice demanded fiercely, coming down the staircase. “Who told you that you could snoop around in here?”

The mirror fell from Father Jackson’s hands.

“Child, your father has already been judged. All of his dirty little secrets have been exposed. He joins the ranks with the abortionists, gays, atheists, adulterers, cheaters, liars, and whores.”

Was that why Grace was taken away? Because of the affair? Cecil asked himself.

“You know what?” Alice said to Cecil. “I’ll help him look for any survivors in the hotel, but if you choose to keep company with him when we leave, I’ll be going my own way.”

“I believe there is safety in numbers,” Cecil rebutted. “We don’t know what the state of the rest of the world is in.”

“I guarantee only peace and harmony,” Father Jackson interrupted. “Anyone still remaining shouldn’t have any more deviant thoughts. We were chosen because we are the virtuous.”

Alice darted toward the barn door but stopped to address the priest. “Everything you say condemns my father’s drug use. Even as illegal the act may have been, I don’t believe my father to be immoral.”

Father Jackson and Cecil silently followed Alice back toward the Blue Leaf Motel. They entered the building through a side office door and inspected the damage.

“This place will never be the same again,” she said.

“I don’t think anywhere on Earth will ever be the same again,” Cecil added.

“This isn’t Earth anymore. God has brought Heaven down to us as a final gift to mankind. Now that the spiders have removed the filth and slime from the planet, Heaven can permanently reside right here.”

“You’re a f*****g loon,” Alice spat and jogged toward the hallway of the hotel. A moment after turning the corner, she noticed a man walking away from her. “Hey! Hey, you!”

The man stopped and turned his head. The fluorescent hallway lights that hung from the ceiling flickered and buzzed.

“Man, am I happy to see you folks,” the man said and walked toward Alice. “Is there anyone else still alive in here?”

“That’s what we are trying to find out.”

“Did your hand get hurt in the attack?” the man asked Cecil.

“Work-related injury,” Cecil replied, touching the bandage.

“What’s your name, brother?” Father Jackson asked the stranger.

“Mel.”

“We’re about to give the hotel a once-over before heading out. We could certainly use your help. I’m Father Jackson.”

“Absolutely. I’m just happy that I’m not the only one left here.”

“Do you need to get anything from your room first?”

Mel looked at his hotel door suspiciously. “Nah. I think I have everything.”

Cecil glanced at Alice to see if she had picked up on the same creepy vibe he was getting about Mel. Alice scrunched her shoulders and opened her eyes wide as if to say, This guy seems weird.