Marked (2 page)

But before she could start freaking out, she was thrown off balance as the elevator stopped abruptly.

“Level One. Orientation!” The chimp announced.

“Wait!” Kara pushed herself away from the elevator wall and wobbled up to the chimp. “I don't understand. What's Orientation?”

With his finger still on the button, he turned his head. “Orientation is where all the new GAs are categorized.”

Kara stared stupidly into chimp 5M51’s yellow eyes. “What are GAs?”

“Guardian Angels.”

“Huh?”

Kara heard the swish of doors opening. A hint of a smile reached the chimp’s lips. He raised his arm and pressed his hand on her back—

She flew out the elevator.

Chapter 2. Orientation

K
ara belly-flopped onto a cold stony surface. Face glued to the floor, she raised an eyebrow. The floor vibrated against her cheek. She winced. Chaotic noises hit her ears, as though thousands of voices were speaking at the same time.

She lifted her head off the ground and looked around. Her jaw dropped.

“Oh my God!”

She was surrounded by people. As she jumped to her feet, she saw they were gathered inside an assembly hall the size of ten football fields. Lines of people of every shape, size and ethnicity twisted through a maze of offices and corridors. The air was humid, and it smelled remarkably like the ocean.

Crack!

Kara turned just in time to see the elevator with chimp 5M51 disappeared back into the ground. “Well, there goes one monkey I’m not going to miss,” she muttered to herself.

The commotion was louder than a rock concert. Kara pressed her hands to her ears. There were thousands of them, and they were all dead—just like her. They pushed and shoved one another, itching to get to the front of the line.

Kara was alone, lost and
dead
. She knew she should be feeling something like happiness. After all, she’d just discovered that life after death existed. Beside her, an oversized middle-aged man chatted happily with an old bald man.
They
looked pretty excited. Most of the walking dead around her seemed overjoyed, except for a few people who looked like she felt—nauseated and horrified.

Not knowing what else to do, Kara joined the line nearest her. She stared at her feet.
Don’t make eye contact.
Don’t make eye contact
. She wasn't up for a chat, especially with some stout dead old guy who was prancing around like he’d just won the lottery.

But she wasn’t
ready
to die just yet…she wasn’t
finished
. All her hopes and dreams—vanished into thin air. The soundless empty hole where her heart once lived was cold. She knew her life was over.

“Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat.

Oh no
. Kara kept staring at her feet.

“Excuse me, miss. Are you feeling okay?” the man persisted.

Was there any hope that she could avoid
sharing?
Couldn’t she just disappear?

Unfortunately for Kara, it appeared that he wanted to share. “You know, it's really not
that
bad,” continued the voice.

Kara stole a look and saw that the voice belonged to the fat old man. His face was plastered with a lopsided grin. He licked his pink lips in anticipation. “We're in Horizon! Alive! Can you believe it! Well—sort of alive. We're dead but alive! Isn't this great!”

Kara lifted her head. She tried to fake a smile, but the corners of her mouth were sewed in place. “Yeah. It’s really great.”

The man beat the air with his arms. “This is
so
exciting!” And with great effort, he leaped into the air and twirled. His tiny legs kicked underneath his gigantic undulating belly. He hovered for half a second and then landed with an echoing
boom.
“Who would have thought that Horizon actually existed! Life after death—it's
real!
” If he wasn't already dead, Kara was sure his heart would burst out of his chest like red chunky sauce and hit his neighbor smack in the face.

She studied the man for a moment. “What's Horizon?”

He stopped twirling to give her an answer. “Utopia. Shangri-la. Zion. Elysium. Horizon is the afterlife. It's real and we're here! Isn't this wonderful?”

Kara scowled as the man spread his enthusiasm to his next victim, in another row of the dearly departed. She felt a presence behind her and turned to see that at least a hundred newly expired folk were bringing up the rear. The noise level increased, if that was actually possible. Kara hung her head and tried to cry—but no tears would come. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared into space.

Time seemed to have no effect at Orientation. Before she knew it, Kara was next in line to enter one of the score of office buildings that surrounded the acres of happy dead. She wrinkled her face and stared at the building. From the outside, it looked like a regular office: beige painted walls draped with beige colored paintings, beige industrial carpeting and glass windows with beige horizontal blinds.

Creative.

The door was the only thing that looked out of place. It was ancient, with a mammoth sized wooden frame, and it was decorated with a brightly lit neon sign which read:
oracle Division # 998-4321, Orientation
.

Kara frowned. She wasn't sure whether or not she should knock. Sooner or later she knew she would have to make up her mind, for thousands of impatient dead people were anxiously pushing her against the door.

She sighed. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

Making a fist with her right hand she raised it to the door. And as her hand lingered in the air, the door swung open with a screech. The office was jam-packed. She sneaked in and stopped. A salty gust of ocean fragrance embraced her. Hundreds of scattered papers covered the ground and littered the desks. Filing cabinets filled the office, stacked on top of each other, twisting all the way to the ceiling—and giant crystals balls.

It was like a crazy bowling alley. Huge glass balls rolled across the office flattening everything in their path. Tiny old men ran balanced on top of the spheres like circus acrobats. Their silver gowns flowed behind them. Using their bare feet, they maneuvered the balls effortlessly in all directions. Like single entities, man and ball moved as one.

The crystal balls bumped into cabinets, and the men rummaged through the contents. They tossed their long white beards over their shoulders, flipped through papers and caused an avalanche of white parchment. Kara’s eyes flicked to a drifting sheet of paper making its way down towards her. She jumped up, caught it and read:

Guardian Angel: Peter Jones

Class order # 4321

Rank: Rookie 2nd year, W-1 Guard squad, (lowest rank)

Assignment: Elizabeth Grand. 5585 Sherbrooke Street, front entrance.

11:42 am. Crushed skull by slipping down 2 flights of stairs.

Status: Pass. Saved Charge. Soul untouched.

Kara shook her head. She bent down and picked up another paper from the floor and read it. It was similar, except for this time it was Tina Henderson who had saved Affonso Spinelli from choking to death on a meat ball, at Luciano's Porte Vino Restaurant.

Were all these papers about guardian angel assignments? She let the paper slip from her hand. She snooped around the filing cabinets. Papers rustled under her feet as she moved around the office. Along the way, she discovered several smaller rooms from which more men emerged treading above their glass spheres like oversized unicycles. They all appeared very much engaged at the moment—

“KARA NIGHTINGALE!”

Kara nearly jumped out of her own skin. Her legs wobbled as she made her way through the towers of filling cabinets and followed the voice. Around the corner to her left, she spotted another office. The door stood ajar. There, above a large crystal ball, sat another one of those men, surrounded by piles of paper. He jumped down to a great semi-circular wooden desk. He wore a frown on his brow and gestured impatiently.

“Come in. Come in. No time to waste. Lives to save!” he said in a strange high pitched voice.

Kara dragged herself inside the cramped office. More cabinets were stacked on top of each other and spread across the walls. A five-foot round pool was mounted in the back corner. The aroma of salt water was strong in the little office. A low
tick tock
distracted her. Following the sound, Kara spotted a huge grandfather clock leaning against the wall to her left, its long pendulum swinging from left to right.

She walked over to the desk and stood with her hands at her sides, biting her lips. She opened her mouth to speak—but shut it again. Alive, when she'd get nervous, her heart would pound so hard against her chest it would sometimes hurt. But not this time. No hammering or pounding, only nervousness with a silent core. It didn’t feel normal.

She forced the words out of her mouth. “How—how did you know my name?”

The old man stopped ransacking his desk and finally grabbed a file. His eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “Ah, yes, yes. Here it is. Kara Nightingale…aged sixteen…hit by a bus…pretty nasty way of dying…so sorry about that…soul was already chosen to be a guardian…” He stroked his beard and was silent for a moment.

Kara cleared her throat. “Um…excuse me, sir? Um—what am I doing here—?”

The man’s head snapped up. “Doing here? Why…you’ve been chosen, that’s what! And now we need to get you started on your new job. Okay. Let’s see here…what’s the assignment again…? Oh dear. I think I’ve forgotten.” His face cracked into a grin. “It’s not as easy as it seems—to see into the future. You tend to get the present and the future mixed up! Now—where is that piece of paper?”

Kara frowned deeply. “I don’t understand—what new job? I have a job?”

The file slipped from the man’s hands. He fell forward to collect the papers. “Oh! Right!” His face lit up. “Well—you’re
dead,
obviously. And you’ve been preselected to become a guardian angel! To work at saving lives! Isn’t that wonderful?” He crumpled the papers in his excitement. “And today is your first day on the job!” He scratched his bald head. “Or is this your second day? Oh dear.”

Kara stared at him. “Me, a guardian angel? No freaking way!”

“Well, let’s see here—right. As a rookie you’ll be stationed in the W-1 Guard Squad, of the Guardian Angel Legion, lowest rank. Your duties today will be to
observe
. Your combat training will commence
after
the orientation period is over—after your first trip.” His kind eyes glistened as he looked upon Kara.

She tried to speak, but her lips were glued together.

“Your petty officer will enlighten you with the details.” He closed the file, slammed it down against the desk with a
bang
, clapped his hands and bellowed, “DAVID!”

Kara glanced sideways and turned her head. A handsome teenager, a year or two older than her, popped into the doorway. His broad shoulders were covered by a brown leather jacket, which hung closely around his muscular build. He strutted his way towards them. Two golden stars marked his forehead, just above his brow.

“Yes, oracle? You called—your
holiness
?” Smiling widely, he combed the top of his blonde hair with his fingers. He stopped beside Kara and gave her a wink. His laughing eyes were the color of the sky. Normally, Kara would have blushed, but seeing as she was without blood flow, instead she felt a strange tingling, from the tip of her head all the way down to her toes, as if her body were under attack by hundreds of prickling needles.

The oracle jumped up and extended his arms. “Clara, meet David McDonald. David, meet Clara Nightingale.” His eyes darted from Kara to David. “
She
is to be your new rookie.”

“Uh—it’s
Kara
, not Clara.”

The oracle stared at her as if she had said the strangest thing. “Oh, right! Forgive me, Kara.”

David laughed. “They usually get it right after about a hundred times.”

Kara studied David’s face. His lips parted and twisted into a sly smile. He clasped her hand in his and shook it. She felt an electric current flow from her fingers to her toes. His hand wasn’t the blood warm touch she remembered feeling when shaking a mortal hand, but it wasn’t cold either. It was perfectly cool.

“Hey, there, Kiddo,” he said, as he flashed a row of dazzlingly white teeth. “Nice to meet ya. And it’s
McGowan
. Not McDonald.” He let go of her hand and lifted the collar of his leather jacket.