A Deafening Silence In Heaven - Thomas E. Sniegoski Page 0,106

stone being rubbed together.

He poured the liquid to the rim and placed the glass deftly in front of Remy without spilling a drop. “Drink up.”

Remy picked up the tumbler and brought it to his mouth, quickly tossing it back. It tasted a little funky because of the dust, but other than that, it was a fine drink of scotch.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

Methuselah retrieved the glass and filled it again.

“You don’t remember?”

“Let’s just say I’m not the man I used to be.”

The golem studied him again, tilting his head from one side, to the other. “Care to explain?”

“I’ll keep it simple, but it won’t sound any less crazy,” Remy said as he reached for his second glass of whiskey.

“Try me,” Methuselah urged.

“I’m not the same Remy that you knew,” he said, keeping the momentum going before the barkeep could tell him that he was full of shit. “I’m a different Remy, from another reality. I’m not sure yet why I’m here, but I’m working on it.” He downed the whiskey, strength for what he was sure would follow.

“Yeah, there’s something missing in the eyes,” Methuselah said, studying him. “You’re not as far gone as the other, but after what he went through . . .” The golem trailed off, sliding the filthy bottle over to Remy.

“You don’t seem at all fazed by my story.”

Methuselah shrugged. “In a place like this you see it all, and besides, Gerta hinted about something like this after you left. . . . Well, after the other you left.”

“Gerta?”

The golem looked over to the floor of the bar, at the covered bodies there. “Don’t tell me—you don’t remember them, either.”

Remy saw that the shapes beneath the sheets were beginning to move. The first to emerge was a strange-looking creature, its skin incredibly pale, its body thin. He knew at once that it was a child and that it was alive only because of him.

Images exploded in his mind, and he had to hold on to the edge of the bar so he would not lose his balance. Remy saw a vast underground chamber beneath a great mountain, and inside that subterranean room was a craft of some kind, the wood of its hull ossified by the passage of time.

It was a ship—no, an ark.

“I . . . saved them,” Remy said, remembering the creatures that had been excluded from Noah’s great ship when the deluge came. They were the Chimerian . . . the orphans . . . Noah’s orphans.

“You did at that,” Methuselah said. “And you saved them again after the fall of Heaven.”

Two more of the orphans emerged from beneath their covers, rubbing their eyes with clawed hands. And Remy was surprised to see normal-looking children poking their heads out as well, eyes used to the total darkness, now squinting in the light.

“Is it time to wake up?” asked one of the kids, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Who are they?” Remy asked. “Am I responsible for them as well?”

“You are,” the golem answered. “You’re responsible for saving all of them.”

A child, no older than six, crawled out from beneath her sheet and walked over to where he stood.

“Hello, Gerta,” Methuselah said.

Remy stared at the beautiful child in the Hello Kitty T-shirt and pink sweatpants, her hair a mass of pale blonde curls, her eyes the lightest shade of blue he’d ever seen. There was something about this child—something that made her as different as the Chimerian children.

The little girl leaned against the bar and stared up at him.

“So you’re Gerta,” Remy said, extending his hand.

She continued to look at him, ignoring his hand, the stars in her eyes twinkling strangely.

“You’re another him,” she said.

Remy was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“You’re another him. Another Remy.”

She looked at Methuselah and smiled at the stone golem behind the bar. “Didn’t I tell you that another Remy might come?”

“You did,” Methuselah confirmed. “Although I wasn’t quite sure what you meant at the time.”

She laughed, a twinkling sound, and then looked back at Remy.

“You knew that I was coming?”

Gerta nodded vigorously. “I saw you in one of the windows.”

“Windows?”

The child seemed to become bored with the conversation and hung from the bar’s edge, dangling like some sort of monkey.

“Gerta’s gift is the ability to see into other realities—windows, she calls them. And since you’re one of her favorites . . .”

Remy couldn’t help but smile at her before turning his gaze to the other children. Suddenly, he knew that they were all gifted, with