OVER 1,000,000

COPIES IN PRINT

YOU’D THINK THE POPE WAS signing copies of the Bible, Don thought, scowling at the aquarium-like glass of the store’s street-facing windows. He could see the press of people against the locked doors of the entrance—heavy coats, knit hats and gloves bordering eager faces and shining, anticipative eyes. Fanatics.

They’d begun lining up two days prior. To Don’s astonishment—and bewilderment—they’d brought sleeping bags and pup tents, portable charging stations for phones and hotplates, propane camping heaters to fend off the late Autumn chill. After the first morning, Don had ordered stanchions put up, fifty feet of sidewalk for the pigeons to roost upon while they waited. By late afternoon, they’d surpassed the stanchions and were tickling the edge of 45th, beginning to make the turn toward Madison. He’d had to call the city, pull an event permit. Hours later, police barricades arrived. By the time he closed that night the line was two blocks long. Other businesses complained, said their entryways were impacted, that it was loitering, that the city shouldn’t allow the lines to camp out, to expand. A city official finally came down to talk it out and decide a best course of action, choosing to widen the barricades and let the lines stay, acknowledging that trying to calmly disperse the resolute crowd wasn’t a great option. These were not your average rabid book nuts. These weren’t Stephen King weirdos or George RR Martin devotees. There were no costumes, no theme. Just people. People who wanted to believe—who needed it like they needed food and water and oxygen. People of faith.

“It’s a scam if you ask me,” a voice said from behind him, and Don jumped in surprise, felt the cold prickling on his neck that only a good scare can cause. He spun, irritated and shaken, to see his worst employee eyeballing the crowd, just like he was.

“Jesus, Tom,” Don said. His eyes flickered nervously from his employee, then to the growing mass of people, and finally settled on his watch. Twenty minutes until they opened the doors. Thirty until the kid was signing books for the horde. Exactly six hours after that, it would be over, one way or another. Anyone left in line when the clock struck six would be turned away.

And won’t that be a hoot, Don thought. But it wasn’t his first rodeo, and he always hired additional staff for these bigger events. Plus, after the chat with the city, he knew there would be a police presence throughout the day to keep folks calm, the crowd orderly.

Even the crazies.

Don gave a final consideration to the wide-eyed, glassy stares of the line, part of his mind searching for red flags, for unforeseen danger. He caught a flash of yellow, a frantic-looking woman holding a poster board sign, big blue letters on canary: WE LOVE YOU, LAKE! WE BELIVE! (sic, Don thought despite himself). He watched the way the letters caught the dim morning light. Damn thing’s written in glitter. Don didn’t know whether to be amused or sickened.

Beside him, Tom noisily slurped a coffee brought from the break room (against policy) and, Don noticed, was not wearing his nametag while on the floor (strike two). “Tom, are you on?” Don asked, his tone more stern than usual.

Tom looked away from the windows, looked at Don sheeplishly. “Yeah, Don. Since nine.”

“Then throw out the coffee and put your tag on, please.”

Tom nodded but didn’t move. A sly smile broke over his face. “You know who’s creaming over this kid, don’t you?” Don grimaced and wiped his forehead. He didn’t need this shit. Not today. “Old Sue,” Tom continued in a muted tone, feigning discretion. “She’s one of those … you know … religious nuts.”

Don didn’t want to point out the multitude of corporate personnel rules Tom was breaking by making that statement to a manager about another employee, but it was several. Enough to get him fired ten times over if Don felt like the dealing with the hassle of reporting it and sitting through a series of HR interviews (he didn’t).

Besides, Don thought with an inward pang of discomfort, the kid’s right.

Sue Myers was your standard issue mid-50’s, wide-bottomed, cat-loving, cardigan-wearing bespectacled auntie type, complete with Midwestern folksy idioms (“Ain’t that a stick in the eye” when vexed or, if the sky were cloudy, “Gonna rain pitchforks and bullfrogs, see if it doesn’t!”). She even had the proverbial prop of a glinting silver cross riding atop her ample, paisley-clothed bosom. Don once overheard an employee describe her as a cliché right out of Castle Rock; the trope character that spat Bible verses and shook her well-thumbed good book at the duck-tailed bullies tearing down Main Street in a hotrod fueled by demons.

Don chuckled at his internal rambling. That’s what I get for working in a bookstore.

“What?” Tom said, grinning like an angry raccoon, likely hoping for a round of shit-talk with the big boss. A story for the break room, no doubt. Guess what good old, straight-laced Don said about that fat piggy Sue-ee! You’re gonna piss yourself ….

“Nothing,” Don said. “Now please, let’s just get this show on the road. I want everyone on the floor, ready to go in five.”

“Sure, Don. You’re the boss,” Tom said, and started away, getting in one last noisy slurp of his coffee as he went.

Don fought off rolling his eyes. “Hey, is the kid still in the break room?”

Tom turned back, that raccoon smile there for a second, then gone, as if he’d recalled a particularly nasty childhood memory, or a mistake he’d once made that would never be set right. “Yeah, he’s there. Him and the preacher.”

Don nodded, sighed heavily. He watched Tom walk toward the employee area at the rear of the store, then took a last look at the event space they’d set up that morning.

Two of the portable shelving units had been pushed against the far wall to make room for extra chairs, of which there were sixty currently sitting in neat rows, the usual wall of floor-to-ceiling nutrition guides and cookbooks now obstructed by a foot-high stage holding up a long folding table. Behind it, a six-foot tall blue curtain was spread across cheap piping the length of the dais. Through the split curtain was a few feet of additional space, a makeshift backstage area where the kid could hide for five-minute breaks if needed, have a can of Coke or pray for strength. Whatever it takes, Don thought, because based on the line outside and the massive inventory of books they had on hand – stacks of which rested provocatively on the signing table – this was going to be a long day. Especially for a nine-year-old kid. The books themselves, hardcovers all, had bright yellow jackets with bold black lettering along the spine: Meet Me in Heaven: My Journey.

There were piles of the book all around the store; stacks on the floor, at the signing table, and on the checkout counter were plentiful. Not to mention the fifty or so we have on the window display and the ten emergency cases in the back, Don thought. He did the quick math and put the count at an even five hundred copies, not including the display.

Five hundred … and if the kid’s hand doesn’t cramp into a claw, we’ll go through each and every one.

Don turned back around, studied the storefront windows one last time. The morning was gray and damp, the street wet from dew, hints of frost crusting the edges of car windshields, the glass eyes of curbside parking meters. To the left of the storefront—where the line started and the earliest gatherers were stationed—stern, open faces looked back at him impatiently. Waiting.

They don’t even look excited, he thought, and swallowed a sliver of bile kicked back up by his morning coffee. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they looked pissed off.

THE SIGNING WAS SCHEDULED FOR noon, and corporate made the call to keep the store closed until then to better manage the expected crowd. At first, Don had been annoyed by the mandate (losing two hours of sales could potentially affect his monthly numbers). But now, seeing the worst-case scenario come to fruition, he was beyond delighted to keep the big glass doors firmly locked until the event was due to start. He didn’t want to have to worry about one of these zealots sneaking into the employee-only area to get a glimpse of “The Boy Who Saw Heaven” on top of everything else.

Just this once, Don thought, I agree with Tom. What a fuckin’ scam.

Feeling increasingly anxious and surprisingly bitter, he straightened chairs and made last-second adjustments to the event area while wearing a deep scowl. He approached the signing table, neatened the stacks of bright yellow books. I mean, c’mon already with this afterlife shit ….

He’d seen this sort of thing time and time again over the years. The gluttonous market of “non-fiction” books based on folks who had died and come back. All true, they swear! Cross their fingers and hope to die! Pinky-swear! Don had been suckered into a few of these books, and that small sampling had been enough for him. Each of those autobiographical accounts came with their own unique vision of what was waiting on the “other side” during the default heart attack / car crash / seizure / etc. and inevitable “flatlining” occurred, whatever the tragedy was that accounted for their individual near-death experience, or NDE as it was popularly acronymed. All these titles sold well, preying gloriously on a human being’s innate desire for there to be something else, something beyond the mortal coil. Eternal consciousness. Energy. Whatever the fuck.

But the NDE stories that really sold, the ones that hit the bestseller lists and stayed there for a few months until the furor died out and the waters calmed, were the NDE books that not only showed something beyond death – a glowing tunnel; happy, smiling relatives; a feeling a warmth and joy, etc. – but glimpsed something oh so much greater than simply a continuation of self:

The ones that glimpsed heaven.

Or, better yet, saw Jesus Christ himself (usually the Caucasian, blue-eyed version) in the flesh. At the very least a few hovering angels, golden streets, pearly gates … something that tied-in with the worldwide religious fantasy of an eternal resting place for those who were this religion or that religion, who believed in Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit or Allah or Buddha or Muhammad. All those religions had a taste for the sweet afterlife. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus… billions of believers all over the world, all wanting, craving, that security, that assurance, of eternal bliss ….

Talk about a target market.

Don hadn’t read Meet Me in Heaven: A Journey, but he’d read enough about it to get the gist: A seven-year-old kid from Arizona falls off his roof trying to retrieve an overthrown baseball, slips and falls, smacks his skull on the driveway and the lights go out. Brain swells dangerously as he bleeds into the concrete. Rushed to hospital yada yada, thrown into surgery … cue the coma.

Twice the boy had been declared clinically dead. Twice he had flatlined. Twice he had been miraculously revived. After the ordeal, doctors prepared the parents for potential brain damage, warned them of a reality in which their only son might not ever wake up.

Goodnight sweet prince.

The parents, Joseph and Joy Divine, who were also co-pastors at a small Presbyterian church outside Janesville, prayed over his lifeless body day and night… prayed for a miracle.

And then it happened. And their lives changed forever.

It was just like in the movies: two weeks later, little Lake woke up, amazement in his eyes. Scans and tests revealed no brain damage, no lingering effects. The Divines purported the power of prayer, and local reporters flocked to the boy’s bedside for the feel-good scoop.

And boy, did they get one.

Lake revealed that while he’d been settled deep within the dark womb of his coma, he’d been in a different realm. The near-death of his mind and body had opened a mystical portal to the beyond and allowed his spirit to pass through.

He spoke of bright lights and a shining cloud city. God himself had cradled the boy in his arms, spoke warm parables into his ethereal ear. Jesus Christ was there as well, and a host of angels sang a chorus upon his arrival to the majestic land beyond.

Mere days after the story hit the papers, the three Divines were booked on national morning shows. Soon thereafter they landed a big-time New York agent, a book deal that went to the highest bidder. The first print run alone had been reported at more than a million copies worldwide. Not quite Harry Potter numbers, Don mused, but close. There was even chatter of a red-hot bidding war between some of the biggest Hollywood studios for feature film rights.