Chapter 3

December 25, 2012
12:00:33 a.m.

My name is Paul.

I'm pretty sure I just died, but I don't think I'm dead.

The whole thing feels kind of weird but I think I'm dead.

Oh, wait. I'm not dead, am I?

Everything happened at once, you see, so it's all mixed up in my head. It was ... is Christmas Eve ... well ... it's technically Christmas Day since it's after midnight, but who really thinks of midnight as tomorrow, right?

Nothing makes much sense right now. One minute I'm sitting in a booth at the diner, having coffee and a cheese Danish. Then WHAM! Someone clicks on every light in town and shines them all in my face at once. It is so bright I can't see, but the brightness doesn't hurt my eyes.

Then this giant shows up, throws the front door off the hinges, and I think that's when I died—if I died. I think that's when a lot of people died—if they did—but it all happened so fast, I'm not sure I'll ever get it straight.

There was noise, lots of noise like the world's biggest blaring car horn stuck in the On position. You'd have to experience it to understand, because even that loud didn't hurt.

There wasn't time to duck and cover the way we used to practice in grade school. Everything happened at once ... and it started ... and was over ... at the same time...

... if you can imagine it.

God!

It was something only God could pull off.

But ... why?

Why here ... why now?

I've always believed. Always ... until I began to wonder if the atheists might be right and it all ends when we die.

Life can't be that cold and final, can it? Some nights I'd lie in bed and worry about what would be coming after I stopped breathing. Would it hurt? Would I be afraid? Would I see loved ones? My mother and father? Grandma?

These doubts have haunted me for years, and now it looks like I'm about to find out what's on the other side.

For now, I'm just gonna start with what I know. OK? I know my name: Paul. And I know I died. Well ... I think I died ... when everything happened.

First, I was right there in the diner.

And now I'm ... now that's a good question.

Where is here?

I can't answer, but I do know that I won't be here long. Something is happening all around me! Folks are simply disappearing!

It will be my turn soon. I know that, but don't know how I know.

I just know that I know.

There is so much to tell ... to describe.

Let's see.

When "It" happened (whatever It was), we were all just sitting around the diner and doing what people do in diners. Some of us were talking to friends; others were sitting alone and brooding about having nowhere to go on Christmas Eve and no one coming to visit for the Holidays.

There were a lot of us...

I need to hurry! I can feel it's almost my time! I need to tell you these things!

I don't have any idea what I'm saying except that I know...

I Have To Tell You!

Now I know I died! I can tell.

Everything feels different. Take my eyes, for instance. My eyeglasses fell off in the stampede, but I can see just like I had a brand new prescription pair. Better than that, maybe. It's better than even before I needed glasses. Then there is my bad leg, where my Dad hit me with the lawn mower back when I was eight. It doesn't hurt, and it always hurt.

Always.

People started to scream! You'd see them open their mouths real wide and suck in air like to give one of those scary movie screams. Remember Jamie Lee Curtis in "Friday the Thirteenth"? Then nothing came out. It was already over. Everything happened in that one instant!

Odd?

I never saw a lot of those screamers again ... after. It's like they simply weren't there anymore, or maybe we weren't. I'm not sure. Others that I hadn't noticed when I got to the diner were there, though, and everyone looked at everyone else, trying to figure out what had happened.

You need to know THIS before it's my turn! Don't let them fool you. They will try to tell you that nothing happened, or that it's all in your mind.

It all happened! Here's the secret. You need to remember this! I've got to hurry! It's my turn! Listen up!

Everything they told you in church? Remember?

Everything. You don't want to get this wrong.

Everything is...