The Angels from Hell

Dani

Dani wished that someone would come and shake her awake, pinch her arm but she was not asleep, and this was not a dream. It wouldn't have even been a good dream. The plane descended and she felt the familiar sensation of weightlessness in her gut. No one in the plane seemed to have noticed when the old man next to her had vanished in a burst of white light, perhaps they had seen stranger things on airplanes.

His final words to her, rattled around in her head. "You have a week to decide. Do not keep me waiting."

With a thud, the plane levelled out and decelerated along the runway, the seatbelt sign flicked off and people started to unpack their bags and move towards the exit. Dani remained still.

This should be something that she wanted to believe, not something she believed because otherwise she was going mad. It was the answer to many of her problems and yet...Dani did not stand up. Everyone around her was talking about their futures, their plans, family reunions, holiday destinations. She had always imagined she would run for years and now she might only have one week.

"Your lifeform will be prematurely collected," he had said. It should be an easy chose. The angel had promised her heaven, all she had to do was sign. What was a couple years on Earth when hell was eternal.

"The plane has landed miss," said a flight attendant. Jumping up from her seat, Dani rushed past her snatching up her luggage. She pushed the other passengers out of her way and began to run.

Though the weather was beautiful, and Dani's body felt stiff after the flight, when all the usual airport baggage collection was done she waved down a taxi. The tourist brochure she had snagged from the inside of the airplane seat had indicated a bus stop about a ten minute walk away, but she imagined a bus full of other people and a shudder curled through her.

The taxi driver turned back to her, "Where would you like to go?"

"To the cheapest hotel and no talking..." Dani said, looking up from her seat buckle to the driver's face. For a second Dani's heart stopped. His face was lined, paper-thin skin, sunken cheeks. Her hand jumped to the door handle, and it was half open before she relaxed. His eyes were brown not blue. It was just an old man, nothing more.

"Just drive," she snapped, resting her head against the window and staring at the lines of excited tourists holding hands with partners, mothers trying to control their children, people whose biggest concern was where they were going to go for dinner. Her mind wandered back to the plane.

"What is ten years when I can give you eternity," the angel had said.

"Eternity?"

"Of bliss. I can give you everything you desire; all you have to do is sign."

"People who died before me, can I see them in heaven?"

"That can be arranged, just sign Danielle, or else I'm afraid you will suffer. The demons in hell do not forgive like we do."

This was certainly the cheapest hotel. The carpet crunched beneath her feet, and it took four rings of the counter bell for a gum-chewing receptionist to appear.

"A single room, one night," Dani said shortly. The world was moving so slowly around her. She wanted to keep running, keep going. How would she be tortured in hell, a cage, crushing in on either side? She pictured the flickering lights of a fire around her, dancing against the grimy wallpaper peeling at the edges. No, she would not think of that.

The decision should be easy, why was she hesitating? Why hadn't she signed the paper then and there?

"I cannot force you to sign, I do not need you to. We can find someone else."

"Why did you chose me?"

"We have been watching you for a long time?" The angel flickered for a moment in Dani's memory, she saw a young woman in jogging clothes, a man with a thick moustache and thin face, one of frequent customers at her old job, a child with blonde curls from a burger joint.

"What do you get out of this? What do you gain?"

"We come only to help," the angel had said. Dani wondered if angels could lie.

In a lumpy single bed where one pillow was too hard and the other too soft, she could not sleep. She flicked a lighter between her finger watching the fire flare and disperse. A little gasoline and she could burn this place to ashes. It would not difficult.

If she stayed in this room, surrendered to the flames, it wouldn't be an end to this all, not anymore, not now she knew the truth.

"You have a week to decide." One week to decide. Sacrifice ten years for an eternity of bliss or refuse and suffer. She reached for the tv remote on the bedside table, hoping it still worked. There was no point trying to sleep, not now, not here.