A slate gray Cadillac idled beside a tiny station, little more than a brick kiosk and a few parking spaces. The blonde girl we met in that bathroom in New Haven stood leaning against the fender. Spotting us through the window of the train, she winked and waved.
Wendell swept through the parking lot, the fabric of his suit shimmering in the wind. That little mousey centipede creature zipped along the pavement and caught up with him, scurrying up his pant leg. Wendell kissed the girl on the lips and swung around through the open door into the driver’s seat.
Only as the train began to pull out of the station did the appendages restraining Urszula relax and subside. Freed of their grip, she exploded out of her seat and screamed in frustration, drawing nervous glances from an older couple seated at the far end, the only other occupants of the car, who had so far been oblivious to all of these strange happenings.
The tracks paralleled the main road. We picked up speed and passed the gray Cadillac as it stopped at a traffic light at the edge of a decrepit downtown. Ellen scrambled for her plastic sack, fishing out an eyeliner pencil still wrapped in plastic.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing down his p-plate number. Th-that was a death threat, guys! We have to report him.”
“To who? The police? What are they gonna do?”
“He threatened to kill us!” said Ellen, scrawling numbers onto her hand. “New York. FRLC 888. I mean, the guy admitted … outright … that he murders people!”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it murder.”
“Say what?”
“He was right. These people want to die. It makes a better situation for them. A lot of them would have ended up killing themselves anyway, and that would have sent them to a worse place.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you, James.”
“I know what I’m talking about. The Liminality can be a nice place to hang. Parts of it, anyhow. A lot nicer than some people’s lives.”
Ellen gave her head a shake. “Okay. What’s this Liminality thing you guys keep talking about?”
“It’s … the place I go when you see me tuning out.”
“What, like a dream world?”
“No dream,” I said. “It’s very real.”
“I don’t understand. Where is it? How do you get there?”
I sighed deeply and rolled my eyes. “It’s hard to explain exactly where it is geographically speaking, but it’s connected to here. It’s some kind of threshold … a front porch, foyer or lobby or something… for the afterlife. The place collects suicidal souls. I don’t mean like mopers and sad sacks. I mean people who are really serious about wanting to die. I mean like on the brink of offing themselves. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be some kind of ‘scared straight’ deal. You know, to give people a second chance to reconsider. But some souls only last a few minutes before they’re reaped. And then there’s other folks who go back and forth for years. Like me for instance … and Wendell … and Urszula, for that matter, though she’s a special case. We’ve learned to game the system. It’s our hangout now. Like a second life. These people who Wendell … facilitates … they want to spend all their time there. Forever. Make it permanent, without all this back and forth I have to do. Only, setting that up is tricky. If you off yourself, you just end up in the Deeps, which is a sort of waste bin for souls. Hell, I guess. But not like the Hell you read about. Are you following me?”
“I … think so,” said Ellen. “It sounds so crazy, but what else is new? Who am I to argue after all I’ve seen you do?”
“I take exception,” said Urszula. “The Deeps is not a ‘waste bin.’ It is simply another plane of existence.”
