TWENTY-THREE

I stand in the beautiful mountains beside a sparkling blue lake laced with drifting patches of ice. The morning sun dazzles the eastern sky. The air is fresh, the stillness a wonder.

I hear someone saying my name and turn to see who it is. To my surprise I see Seymour and Matt. Seymour has his head bowed and is weeping. He keeps calling out to me. Matt is on his knees, silent, holding a body in his arms.

One that looks awfully familiar.

“Shit. Am I dead?” I say aloud.

The question is ridiculous. I can’t be dead and talking to myself. If I was really dead I’d be talking to Krishna. I remember shouting his name a moment ago. I remember I called to him because . . .

Matt was firing his laser rifle.

He was going to shoot Seymour.

That’s why I leapt in front of Seymour . . .

There’s a dark red hole in the chest of the body Matt’s holding. It looks serious; the hole pierces her heart; it’s no wonder she’s dead. And I should stop trying to think of her as someone separate from myself because it’s obvious she’s me and I really am dead.

Okay, I got that settled. Sort of.

“Damn. I can’t believe it,” I say.

I might have it settled on one level, but on another level I’m not buying it. This is like no death I ever imagined. Where is the bright white light? Where are the angels? How come Krishna hasn’t come to take me to his abode in the starry sky?

“What am I doing with Seymour and Matt?”

The question feels kind of cold, even if it is coming from a dead woman. I mean, it’s obvious the two of them are broken up over what’s happened to me. I should be more sympathetic. On the other hand, Matt was the one who shot me. It’s his fault I’m dead.

No, that’s not fair. It was really that damn Array. It got ahold of his mind and somehow transformed him into a nut who was jealous about his girlfriend being turned into a vampire when all I was really trying to do was keep her alive.

Which reminds me, how is Teri doing?

She’s probably still up in the cave.

I want to check on her. But I feel guilty leaving Seymour and Matt. For that matter, I find it hard to leave my body. I keep thinking it’s going to heal. I’ve been beaten up before and survived. I’ve been stabbed, shot, almost had different limbs blown off. I even got staked once, through the heart, when my old house exploded, and that didn’t kill me. Maybe I can get over this latest injury and slip back inside my body. I should probably wait around and see what happens.

Then I notice something strange. The cave up on the hill. The one where Teri is changing into a vampire. The entrance is glowing. It’s not giving off a bright white light like some kind of tunnel to heaven. But the glow is definitely there. It shines with a faint silver radiance. The color seems familiar. It’s not something I can simply ignore.

Seymour and Matt continue to grieve over my body.

Christ, I feel so guilty leaving them to take care of it.

“Listen guys, I know you can’t hear me, but maybe you can pick me up in your minds. If you can then I should probably stop rambling and get to the point. I’m pretty sure I’m dead, for real this time, and I want to tell you that I’m sorry. Not for the dying part, but for leaving you to take care of the Telar and the IIC. I assumed Krishna would keep me alive long enough to help kill the bastards but I guess he has other plans. Anyway, you both know how much I love you and how much I’m going to miss you. Seymour, meeting you made my life complete. I’m sorry I’ve got to go now. The light in the cave—I feel it calling me. If I don’t go now, I don’t think I’ll have the strength to leave later.”

I give them both hugs, which they don’t feel, and tell them again how much I love them. Then I hike up the hill to the cave. The light continues to glow, although it doesn’t get any brighter when I enter the cave. For a divine sign it isn’t very impressive.

Yet a small miracle occurs when I reach the rear of the cave. Teri’s where I left her, beside the burned-out fire, wrapped in Seymour’s jacket. I can tell by her coloring and her rate of breathing that her transformation into a vampire is going smoothly.

Teri has nothing to do with the miracle. It’s the cave itself. It no longer stops where it did before. It continues on, as does the faint silver glow. Finally, I’m beginning to get impressed.

I kneel and give Teri a hug and a kiss.

“I’m going to miss you. I hope you enjoy being a vampire. I only changed you because I figured it was better than being dead. Of course now that I’m dead I have to wonder if that was such a great idea. We won’t be able to hang out together like we used to. But the way I figure it, you’re too young to die. Matt needs you, and so do Seymour and Shanti. Take care of them for me. I love you.”

I kiss her once more and walk deeper into the cave.

The floor begins to slant downward. Overall the terrain becomes more rocky. To my immense disappointment the silver light begins to fade. Here it’s the only thing that vaguely resembles what people who have near-death experiences talk about and it’s going away. It fades to the point where I can barely see where I’m going.

Just when the dark becomes almost impenetrable, I spot a burning torch jammed in a crack in the wall six feet above the floor. Unsure if I’ll find another light along the way, I grab it and continue on. The incline gets steeper and I have to be careful not to slip and fall.

The walls and floor of the cave are coated with a red dust that I would assume was iron oxide, if I was in the real world. I noticed the dust building up as the silver light failed, and wondered if it was responsible.

On the whole, the cave is bland. The only thing that interests me is my torch. I have no idea how it keeps burning. It’s just a stick with a baseball-sized bump on the top that happens to spout orange flames. I wonder why God didn’t give me a kerosene lamp or even a flashlight.

After about an hour of hiking, I run into a much larger cave that’s also heading down, but at a more gentle angle. This subterranean passage is fifty feet across, with a ceiling that’s at least twice that in height. The light of my torch struggles to illumine many details, not that I think there’s much to see. The new cave is larger than the old one but just as boring.

I notice an occasional small cave converges with the larger one, and to my surprise a person suddenly walks out of one of these caves. He looks like a middle-aged Japanese businessman. Wearing a dark suit and red tie, he has a torch like mine and walks with it held aloft.

Unfortunately, when I try striking up a conversation with him I get nowhere. At first I figure it’s because I’m speaking English, but when I switch to Japanese it makes no difference.

Then I notice how glazed over his eyes are. He appears drugged or else severely traumatized. “Are you okay?” I shout at him.

He grunts and keeps walking.

I spot more caves, and every now and then another person walks out of one of them. Going by their nationalities and dress, they appear to be from all over the world. Most are older, sixty-five or more, but I do bump into quite a number of African children. They’re generally more animated than the lobotomized adults, but they scurry away from me when I try to speak to them.

I hike for another hour, with my herd of zombie companions, before the tunnel finally opens into a massive cavern. The walls, the ceiling—I can’t even glimpse them, although I assume I’m still underground. Yet the sight of the cavern causes me to increase my pace because a mile away from the end of the tunnel is a black river with several thousand people gathered on its shore.

Even though the majority of these men and women wander aimlessly about, the river still feels like a viable goal to me. For it’s lined with giant torches, held high by arms carved out of stone, and I see small boats moving back and forth over the water, ferrying people to God knows where.

I assumed my traveling companions were semi-brain-dead, but that might not have been entirely true. Most of the people who exit the tunnel with me suddenly pick up their pace, as if they now have a purpose. They head straight for the boats that wait at the edge of the black river.

Yet the other class, those who wander the shore, look like they have been there a long time. As I approach, I see they’re not just dressed in foreign clothes, a lot of them are clad in historical garments. There are plenty of people from the forties and fifties, and the early part of the twentieth century. Others have on buckskins, kilts, and even togas.

I realize I’m seeing people who have been dead for decades, if not centuries. For some reason, I feel the sudden urge to try to shake them out of their lethargic state. Climbing onto a nearby boulder, I shout at the top of my lungs.

“Does anyone know what’s going on here?” I yell.

My shout draws the attention of a few, but only one guy seems alert enough to understand what I asked. Wearing a World War II uniform and chewing on a dead cigar, he walks over and offers his hand.

“Lieutenant Gregory Holden, Fifth Army,” he says. Taller than me by six inches, the man has a face so dirtied and bloodied from battle, his features are hard to distinguish. Yet his voice sounds clear and the blue in his eyes is visible even in the dim light. I shake his hand.

“Alisa Perne. Pleased to meet you, Gregory.”

He acts delighted. “Lord, ain’t you a looker. Where you from?”

“Los Angeles. And you’re from Virginia, I can tell by your accent.”

“You have sharp ears. What were you doing out in LA?”

“Trying to break into Hollywood.”

His eyes widen. “I knew I seen you before! You were in that film with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. That one she convinced him to kill her husband. You played her daughter.”

“That’s right. Turned out in the end I was the only decent person in the whole film.” The movie came out the year before the war ended. It was probably the last film he saw.

He slaps his leg. “Imagine that! Me meeting a famous movie star.”

“Tell me about this place, Gregory,” I say, pointing to the black river, the wandering mass of humanity, and the torch-lit ferryboats. “What goes on here?”

“You must be a new arrival,” he says.

“I just walked out of the cave.”

“Lucky you. You get a fresh start.”

“What do you mean?”

Gregory points to one of the ferryboats, which all seem to be manned by old guys in black robes. “You want to walk over there and see if you can get a ride across the river,” he says.

“What’s on the other side of the river?”

“No idea. But you don’t want to stay here. This is no place for a pretty girl like you.” He adds, “Trust me, I’ve been here a long time.”

“Why don’t you take a boat across?”

“Lord knows, I’ve been trying. Before they let you in one of those boats, you’ve got to answer a riddle.”

“What kind of riddle?”

“It’s different for everyone. But the answer’s supposed to be something you learned when you were alive.”

“Wait a second, Gregory. So you know you’re dead.”

“Sure. I’m afraid you are, too. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Best you accept that fact and move on. But I know how you feel. I felt the same way when I first got here.” He adds, “I never even saw that bullet coming.”

“What was the riddle you didn’t know the answer to? Or have they asked you lots of riddles?”

Gregory frowns. “It could be the same riddle. Only, right after they ask it, if you don’t know the answer, you forget it right away.”

“Why do you forget?”

“Beats me, I can’t remember.”

“But they might ask more than one riddle?”

“Sure. Who knows? You just got to answer it right once and they take you over to the other side.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Trust me, it’s hard. I keep trying and I keep getting it wrong.”

“Gregory, do you know how long ago World War Two ended?”

“No, and I don’t want to know.” He turns away, frustrated, but has the decency to call over his shoulder. “Good luck, Alisa.”

“Take care, Gregory,” I say.

I’m not 100 percent sold on his advice. The more I stare at the dark river and the old bony dudes in their black hooded robes guiding their ferryboats, the more I feel like I’ve fallen into a Greek myth. I still can’t get over how every book I ever read on near-death experiences talked about traveling down a blissful tunnel filled with bright light and loving relatives. And this is what I get. Of course, the people who wrote those books, none of them had really been dead.

“To hell with it,” I swear, and walk over to a ferryman that isn’t busy. I might have made a bad choice. The guy’s hood is hung so low I can’t see his face, beyond a pit of wrinkles and a row of yellow teeth. As I draw near, the ferryman doesn’t look at me, he just goes very still.

“Hey. Can I hitch a ride to the other side?” I ask.

The guy nods and I swear I hear his neck creaking, even though he is hardly moving. He speaks in the kind of dry rasp a mummy might make if you gave him CPR and he suddenly came back to life.

“What’s the most useless human emotion?” he asks.

“That’s an interesting question. It’s sort of broad. Can you give me a hint?”

To my surprise, the ferryman helps me out. “Several words describe the emotion. They are all correct. Pick one.”

“Does this useless emotion apply to women as well as men?”

“Yes.”

“Who suffers from it more?”

“It depends on who raised you. Now answer the question.”

I recall Krishna speaking of the three qualities in the heart: love, hate, fear. He said hate could overcome fear. A warrior could do anything if he really believed in his cause. He could sneak into an enemy camp with just a sword and start killing people and not worry about what happened to himself. A more modern example would be a suicide bomber getting on a bus and blowing himself up, along with a bunch of innocent women and children. The point being that if someone was pissed off enough, fear wasn’t going to stop them.

But love could also conquer fear. Every day soldiers laid down their lives to protect their loved ones. And love was also capable of overcoming hate. Love allowed for forgiveness, which negated anger. Therefore, of the three, love was the strongest emotion and fear was the weakest because love could defeat the other two, while fear could be removed by the others.

I feel pretty confident with my chances with the ferryman.

“Fear is the most useless emotion,” I say.

“Wrong,” the ferryman says and raises a hand. His robe briefly slips up his arm and I see his fingers are made of bone. “Forget,” he whispers as his palm passes over my eyes.

I stagger back, dizzy. Up until then, I hadn’t noticed that the grim underworld had a particular temperature, yet suddenly I’m aware of just how stuffy the cavern is. Sweat drenches my brow. The heat and humidity remind me of a dragon’s lair. I struggle to hold on to the riddle in my mind but I feel distracted and it slips from my grasp. Bowing my head, I walk away from the ferryman and try to collect my wits.

I can’t remember when or where I set down my torch, but wish I had it with me. The water in the river is so dark, it gives me the creeps. I try keeping a distance from it. At the same time, the wandering horde is poor company and I avoid them as well. A few talk to themselves, muttering a series of questions, and possible answers. At least they have some life to them. But the others—it’s like most of them have given up.

I don’t know how long I walk around. But eventually I run into a young woman dressed in contemporary clothes. On the thin side, she has blond hair and blue eyes and a winning smile. I could swear she looks familiar but I can’t place her. Whatever the ferryman did to me is still messing with my mind.

“How did you do?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I think I got the wrong answer.”

“That’s okay. I answered wrong the first time. You just got to try again. Let me give you a hint. Think before you respond, don’t rush yourself. They give you plenty of time.”

“You act like you already got it right.”

The woman nods. “I did. The last time I spoke to the ferryman.”

“What did he ask you?”

“That doesn’t matter. My question might confuse you. Just focus on what he asks you the next time.”

“But if you gave the right answer, how come the ferryman didn’t take you to the other side?”

“I’m with the same ferryman as you. So is a friend of mine. We’re not going to cross until you’re ready to come with us.”

“Why are you waiting for me?”

She smiles. “The ferryman usually takes three at a time.”

“I didn’t know that. Where’s your friend?”

“She’s around. You’ll meet her soon.”

“Has she already given the right answer?”

“Yeah, she got it the first time. But she’s wise, you can’t compare yourself to her, none of us can.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“You will.”

“I’d like to talk to her before I go back to the ferryman. If she’s so wise, maybe she could give me some hints.”

“The most important thing to know is that you already know the answer to the question he asks you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t ask it.”

“Does he ever ask trick questions?”

“Well, they’re riddles so they’re all kind of tricky.”

“You look like you just got here,” I say.

“I did. I got here not long after you did.”

“How long after?”

“A week or so.”

“Hey, hold on. I haven’t been here a week.”

“Time is hard to keep track of in this place. That’s why you see people from hundreds of years ago. A lot of them feel like they just got here. But some of them have been asked hundreds of questions.”

“The ferryman gives you that many chances?”

“I was told you can’t go on until you get one of them right.”

“God. I hope I don’t end up like one of those losers.”

“Relax, you’ll do fine. You’re pretty wise yourself.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.” She leans over and hugs me but before I can ask another question she slips away and vanishes in the crowd. Her kind words have given me renewed confidence. I head back to the ferryman I spoke to before. I think it’s the same guy, although they all look alike.

He stands in his boat with his hood covering his head, a long black pole in one hand, a torch in the other. Like before, he seems to freeze as I draw near. I don’t understand how I can remember that little detail when I can’t remember what he asked me the last time.

“I want to go to the other side,” I say.

“What’s the greatest quality a human being can have? That can also turn out to be the most dangerous quality?”

“That’s a hard one.”

“Yes.”

“Can you give me a hint?”

“Perhaps.”

He doesn’t offer one so I assume I have to take the initiative.

“There are many human qualities that can be both good and bad.”

“Yes.”

“Being a hard worker can be good. But if you work all the time, you never get to spend time with your family. You can get fat and out of shape and die of a heart attack in your fifties and you end up here.”

“Is that your answer?”

“What?”

“Being a hard worker.”

“No. I just used that as an example. You said you’d give me a hint.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s wrong with my answer?”

“Being a hard worker is not the greatest quality a human can have. Nor is it the most dangerous.”

“I see what you’re saying. You’re speaking in absolutes here so I need to raise the bar and go for the one thing that can either totally make your life or totally screw it up. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me where you get these questions?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you get these questions?”

“From you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You bring them with you.”

“Do I bring the answer as well?”

“Yes.”

“Why did I bring such hard questions?”

“Because you’re going to need the answers.”

“Need them for what?”

He gestures with his pole, although he does not take it out of the water. “You will need the answers when you reach the other side.”

“What’s over there?”

“You’ll see. Now answer the question.”

“Wait. You have to give me time to think.”

“Think. Then answer.”

The greatest human quality versus the worst human quality. To me, the ferryman is clearly implying they’re one and the same thing. I struggle to remember anything Krishna might have said on the subject. I didn’t get to hear him talk much, but I read the Gita and I read Yaksha’s book and Yaksha wrote down several lectures Krishna gave.

I suddenly remember one Krishna gave on love.

He said how love was the sweet expression of life. The one thing that made life worth living. Love made difficult tasks easy. Raising a family could be a great burden, but if there was love, the sacrifice was a pleasure. And when love matured into devotion then everything you did for your lover was a joy. You would give up your life to save those you loved.

On the other hand, if love did not mature it could lead to bondage, to jealousy. If you loved someone, but felt possessive of them, you could end up treating them like an object that belonged to you. Just as bad, with your children, if you showered them with too much love, and never disciplined them, they would grow up weak and spoiled. At times, love had to be tough, or it could end up wrecking those dearest to you.

Krishna’s lecture was very insightful. That’s why I remember it so well, and that’s why I feel confident when I turn back to the ferryman.

“The answer is love,” I say.

“Wrong,” the ferryman says and raises his hand. Before I can stop him, his bony arm reaches up and his skeleton fingers pass over my eyes. “Forget,” he whispers.

Like before, I stagger back and feel stung by a wave of dizziness. The ferryman’s question and my answer just slip away. The weight of the underworld suddenly descends on me and I feel trapped. The place is too hot, too claustrophobic. Bowing my head, I stumble away from the river.

I wander far from the spooky water, trying to escape the confused throng. At the same time, I’m afraid to go too far in the dark because I don’t want to get lost. I have yet to replace my torch. The only sources of light I can depend on are the huge torches that burn above the ferryboats.

I finally find a rock and sit down.

Eventually, a beautiful woman approaches, wearing a silk robe and exquisite jewels. Her skin is like copper, her eyes like coal, and when she smiles at me I know she is a friend, even if I can’t remember her name.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi.”

“May I sit beside you?”

The boulder is hard but at least it’s clean. That’s the reason I chose it. “Sure. I don’t mind,” I say.

The woman sits and stares off into the distance, occasionally playing with her necklace, a gold chain filled with diamonds and rubies. There is something about the sparkling rubies that reminds me of another cavern I once visited but I can’t remember it clearly enough to make the connection. Nor do I know who the woman is. But I suddenly recall the blond girl who spoke to me.

“Hey, are you friends with that blonde I spoke to earlier?”

She stares at me. “We are friends through you.”

“Did I introduce the two of you?” I ask.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“When?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“She told me we’re all supposed to ride across the river together, with the ferryman.”

“That’s true.”

“Have you been to the ferryman?” I ask.

“I went after you did.”

“What did he ask you?”

“That’s not important. All that matters is I gave the right answer.”

“That’s what the other woman said. That’s why I went back and gave it another try. But I must have given the wrong answer because the ferryman brushed my forehead and I forgot everything.”

“That’s his job. He’s doing you a favor, you just can’t see that yet.”

“Will his questions come back to me later on?”

“The questions and answers should return when you need them. So it doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It just means you’re going to leave here with what you need to know.”

“Have you ever left here?”

“What are you asking?”

“Do you know what’s on the other side?” I ask.

The woman takes a long time to answer. “I saw it once in a vision.”

“What did you see?”

“It’s different for everyone. But you’ll see it soon, when you’re ready to leave.”

“I feel ready now. I’m sick of this place. But I don’t want to fail another test.”

“Don’t see the questions as tests. See them as lessons you learned on earth that you want to take with you to the other world.”

“Can’t you give me a hint what this other world is like?”

She smiles at my persistence. “For some it’s wonderful. For others it’s not so nice. It all depends on the sum total of the lives you’ve lived.”

“Lives? I think I’ve lived only one life.”

“You’re like me in that respect. I just lived one long life.” She smiles again and reaches out and squeezes my hand. “You’re going to be all right. You’ll see, everything will be fine.”

With that the woman gets up and walks away.

Yet her words stay with me, and once more I feel the courage to approach the ferryman. This time I find him reclining in his boat, as if he was taking a nap. His robe is bunched up around his legs and I notice he doesn’t have much skin down there. But he quickly stands as I come near, waving his torch close to my face as if he is trying to get a better view of me. He stands and goes very still.

“I’m ready for another riddle,” I say.

“What is the greatest secret in the universe?”

I feel my heart pound, and I’m surprised because I know I’m dead and I’m pretty sure my heart shouldn’t be beating at all. But it doesn’t matter. Finally, I know the answer to the question. I heard Krishna give it a long time ago.

Yet I caution myself to move carefully. The question isn’t worded the way I would like it to be.

“By secret do you mean mystery?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“So you could be asking what is the greatest mystery in the universe?”

“Yes.”

“Great. I’ve got it. The greatest mystery is that even though every man and woman know they’re mortal, they wake up every morning and know they’re not going to die that day.”

“Wrong.” The ferryman raises his bony arm and his skeleton fingers are about to brush against my forehead. I know what will happen next. He will tell me to forget and then, a few seconds later, I won’t even remember what he asked, never mind what the answer is supposed to be.

But this time I’ve had enough.

I reach up and block his arm.

“Stop!” I snap. “You’re making a mistake. Krishna himself said this was the answer to that question, and he was supposed to be an avatar, or a divine incarnation. How can you say my answer’s wrong?”

The ferryman struggles with my arm for a few seconds. It’s like he’s surprised at my strength. But when I refuse to let him touch my forehead he finally lowers his arm and answers me.

“The question was, ‘What is the greatest secret in the universe?’ You came close with your answer. It would have been the correct answer if I had asked, ‘What is the greatest mystery in the world?’”

“But I had you clarify your question. You said ‘secret’ and ‘mystery’ were synonymous in this case.” I pause. “You do know what synonymous means, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then explain how my answer can be wrong.”

“Your problem was that the question was about the ‘universe,’ not the ‘world.’” The ferryman goes to rub his bony hand across my forehead. “Now for—”

“Wait!” I yell. “I was close, you admitted that.”

“Yes.”

“I deserve another chance at the same question.”

“We don’t give second chances.”

“You have to give me one. I deserve it.”

“Why?”

“Because you tricked me. You asked a question I knew the answer to. But you changed one little word at the end to throw me off. That’s not fair.”

“Who says death is fair?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been dead before. But you hear what I’m saying and I think you’re afraid to give me another chance because you’re afraid I know the answer.”

“Very few people know the answer to that question.”

“You’ve asked it before?”

“A long time ago. Almost no one got it right.”

“Ask me again, right now.”

“You already gave your answer. It was wrong.”

“I’m telling you, you cheated! I deserve a second chance.”

“No one ever gets a second chance.”

“Well, I want one. I’m sick of this black river and all these zombies wandering around talking to themselves. And I’m tired of you. I mean it. I don’t think you’re playing by the rules.”

“That’s a serious accusation.”

“Well, I’m a serious kind of chick. Now do what I say. Ask the question again, and if I answer it correctly, then you have to take me and my two friends across the river. Deal?”

The ferryman bows his head and considers for a while. Finally he nods. “Deal,” he says.

I rub my hands together. “Ask away.”

“What is the greatest secret in the universe?”

“That the Lord and his secret names, his mantras, are identical. In other words, when I say, ‘Krishna,’ then Krishna is present. Correct?”

“Correct.” The ferryman gestures with his pole. “Get in the boat.”

“Thanks,” I say.

While I’m getting settled, my two friends appear. The young one, the blonde, sits near me at the front, while the wise one sits in the center, which is smart. Her position helps distribute the weight in the boat. Standing at the other end, the ferryman pushes off the shore with his pole.

“We’re finally on our way,” I say, excited.

My blond friend smiles. She looks glad for me.

The wise one simply nods. She appears more cautious.