The Revelation of Gabriel Adam (5 page)

I’m alive
, he realized.

“Rate?” a woman asked.

“Pressure one twenty over ninety and falling,” a man said. “Rate one ten. He’s leveling out, Doctor.”

“Gabriel?” his father asked.

The calming sound of his voice pulled Gabe into the world, eyes fluttering open and beginning to focus.

Beside the bed, his father sat in a chair and held his hand.

Gabe looked around the room.
A hospital
. On the other side of the bed stood a doctor with a chart in her hand. She monitored a computer screen next to a young man in nursing scrubs.

“What’s happened?” Gabe asked.

“You’re in the emergency room. Had a bit of an episode, I’m afraid,” his dad said.

Gabe tried to remember the last place he’d been before blacking out, but his thoughts were preoccupied by images from the nightmare.

“Episode?” He rubbed his eyes and recalled a woman on a train. She had used the same word.

“You were at The Study Habit and just . . .” His father seemed unable to find the words. “The doctors think you might have experienced a seizure.” He smiled, a poor attempt to mask his concern.

“I’m fine.” Gabe sat up a bit and felt a sharp pain. An intravenous line connected to a needle in his arm. He reached to pull it out.

“Leave that in, please, Mr. Adam,” the nurse warned.

“A seizure?” It all came back.
Coren. The café
, he remembered and imagined the embarrassing scene left behind.

“The doctors say that evidently most of your symptoms are consistent with epilepsy. They want to keep you under observation and run some neurological and psychological tests when you’re up for it.”

“I thought I’d died.”

“Well, I’m happy to report you didn’t.”

Gabe looked to his hands and rubbed them as if to make certain of the reality. “I thought I was going to meet her.”

“Meet who?”

“My mother.”

His father squeezed Gabe’s hands. “I’m sure wherever she is, she’s thankful that your introduction will be postponed. Your mother, God rest her soul, would want nothing more than for her son to live a full and fruitful life.”

Gabe felt the sadness again and pushed thoughts of his mother from his mind.

Soon the nurse finished making his notes and followed the doctor out of the room, leaving Gabe alone with his father.

His dad watched them go and seemed to make certain they weren’t coming back before leaning closer to the bed. “I’m curious. Do you remember anything during your episode? Images? Hallucinations, perhaps? Doctors mentioned that sometimes epileptic seizures can cause vivid experiences, which the victims believe to be quite real. Do you recall anything like that?”

Of course he could remember. Everything. He considered telling him but knew how insane it would sound. He’d committed himself to getting into NYU. Telling anyone about the things he’d seen might earn him a commitment to an entirely different sort of institution.

“No. I had a migraine. After that, it’s all just blank.” Gabe wanted to forget the whole thing. He rubbed the back of his head. The tingling there had not gone away.

His father’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t pursue any more questions.

Gabe felt caught in a lie.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Despite the stop-and-go traffic and the irritating crunch the tires made in the icy slush, Gabe felt his spirits rise just from getting out of the hospital. Being that it was New Year’s Eve, the staff seemed eager to free up beds for the inevitable flood of those determined to overexert themselves throughout the night, and his father had been helpful in persuading the doctors for a quick discharge. Somewhere in that transaction had been a loose promise to see a specialist on a later date, but that was another day’s problem.

Gabe and his father drove along in the cathedral’s car with a radio show broadcasting from Times Square playing over the speakers. The host acted as though there was no other place in the world to celebrate. In the background, cheers and laughter nearly drowned out the man’s voice, the excitement permeating through the airwaves as everyone enjoyed the festivities.

Everyone, it seemed, except Gabe. He turned the volume down to a whisper and stared out the window.

Despite the bitter cold and the falling snow, no one seemed discouraged from being out on the town. The sidewalks overflowed with pedestrians. Many of them looked about his age. Gabe couldn’t help but envy their lives. Their freedom.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the traffic here. It’s bloody ridiculous,” his dad said, breaking the silence.

“London’s not this bad?” Gabe said, welcoming the distraction of some small talk.

“No. It’s not great, say compared to Manchester, but it’s not this bad, either. One million cars in the city and finding a parking space is akin to winning the lottery.” He laughed. “We’ll have to go to England someday. I think you’d enjoy it.”

A moment passed, the only sound from the radio and the intermittent swish of the windshield wipers.

“Do you miss it?” Gabe finally asked, uncomfortable with the silence between them.

“What? England? Occasionally, I suppose. Oddly enough, it’s proper English breakfasts that I miss most of all. You haven’t started a day right until you’ve had a morning fry-up. Mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, along with the usual eggs, toast, and bacon. Make that real bacon. Even after all these years, I’ve yet to become accustomed to the crispy sort they serve here in the States. But I don’t miss the weather there, so I suppose it all evens out. Although . . .” His dad looked up through the windshield at the large flakes falling outside.

Gabe looked out into the night as somber thoughts pressed at the walls of his mind. “I feel lost,” he said, almost an afterthought, and then turned to his father. “Like my life is out of my control.”

The lines on his father’s face contorted, and his brow scrunched together as if his seat had become uncomfortable. “Our lives are never truly beyond our control, Son. Certainly, circumstances may dictate what our choices are, but we make those decisions, and they carry us forward. You aren’t lost. You’re just a teenager with a big, wide world in front of you. It can be scary. I remember feeling the same when I was your age, stumbling through life, with no direction.

“I think that’s why I found the structure of the church so appealing. It offered a foundation from which I could find stability and thus, happiness. My parents didn’t mind the decision, either.”

“I’m not going into the seminary.”

“That’s not what I mean. Your path is your path. How you are to walk it is up to you.”

Fragmented images tore through Gabe’s mind. Everywhere he looked, he could see flame. “What if in the end the things you do make no difference? What if everything is predestined and what happens is going to happen no matter what?”

“God gave us free will, the opportunity to be whom or what we choose to be. Good. Evil. Both. This is the human experience, what this whole life on Earth is all about. I certainly don’t regret the choices I’ve made. I never would have been in a position to adopt you had I not chosen to be a part of the church. Just because you can’t see the path ahead doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You’ll find yours.”

Gabe thought of the nightmare and wondered if he had seen his path, but saying it out loud would only make it more real. More insane. He wanted to forget everything about the night, get it behind him, and feel better. He tried to think of something, anything else that would distract his worries. “Do you think my diagnosis will affect my NYU admission?”

“No, but what is important right now is that you get better. University concerns will take care of themselves.”

A moment of silence lingered between them.

“You wanted to see the ball drop in Times Square, did you not?” his father asked.

“Yeah, but there isn’t time. And there’s no way we could get there, especially in this traffic.”

“Well, we could do the next best thing,” he said and turned up the volume on the radio. “Just use your imagination.”

Gabe nodded, forcing a smile.

The shouts of laughter and cheers on the radio once again filled the car. As they drove, the radio frequency dropped slightly, making a hissing static sound.

Gabe felt the beating of his heart triple. His mind filled with images of the burning city. The sound of the crowd on the radio warped, their joyous outburst turning shrill. Their laughter became screams of pain.

A cold sweat moved over his skin, and he began to breathe heavily.

“You feeling okay?” his dad asked.

“I did see something when I was having my . . . seizure,” Gabe said, his confession just loud enough that the radio couldn’t drown him out.

His father slowed the car and glanced back and forth from Gabe to the road. “You can tell me about it.”

“I don’t know. It was weird. A hallucination or something, like you said.” Gabe hesitated and looked at his father, encouraged by his stiff upper lip.

He nodded. “Go on.”

“I think I saw the end of the world.”

CHAPTER NINE

Set against the billowing snow, the exterior of the cathedral was certainly worthy of admiration. The carved stone façade over the entrance portrayed a scene of angels battling gargoyle creatures, their forms locked in combat, faces fixed in anguish.

Twin bell towers provided a symmetrical grandeur to the building and reached into the night like arms held up to God in praise. Spotlights angled toward each of their four corners and illuminated snowflakes that sparkled in their beams, giving the impression that the towers were somehow magical.

Below, a man once known as Pastor McPherson stood outside, examining every detail, the bitter weather met with little regard. He was taller now, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. Gone from his face were decades of life, replaced by a youthful and handsome appearance.

The long coat covering his black suit ruffled in the wind. All his senses focused in perfect synchronicity, hell-bent on one single objective:
kill the boy
.

Richard lamented being at the cathedral this late.
Especially on New Year’s Eve
, he thought. But under the circumstances, agreeing to Father Adam’s request was the right move. With any luck, he hoped such favor might play into a more permanent position.

Right now there were parties at school raging into the night—even the seminary students knew how to let loose—but he was not invited to them. Not that he would have gone, anyway. The immaturity his classmates so often displayed would be showcased in every way tonight.
Such behavior is beneath me
, he thought and went to lock the main entrance to the sanctuary that led to the street.

The key to the lock hid somewhere on the overwhelmed key chain. Richard counted at least twenty keys on the ring. One after another he stuck into the lock until finally it turned. The noise it made sounded like the sliding bolt of a rifle being cocked, echoing throughout the sanctuary.

Richard thought of a firing squad.
Exactly what I’ll face if I forget to do anything.
He then switched off the power to the main lights. The vaulted ceiling disappeared, swallowed by the night.

He decided to return to the office and wait for Father Adam. In the back of his mind, he felt uneasiness grow as he crossed the sanctuary. The hovering darkness above forced a shiver, and he dared not look again. Going through his mental checklist of chores helped to ease his nerves, but the television in the office would work even better. His step quickened.

There was a noise at the front door. A thump and then a heavier bang, like something or someone outside had fallen against the wood.

His first instinct was to stay quiet, thinking they would likely leave if unacknowledged.

But if it’s somebody who needs help . . .

“Hello?” Richard shouted at the door, hoping his voice would carry through its thickness. “We’re closed for the evening. Thank you.”
Vagrants will move on
.
If there is an
emergency, somebody will shout back or knock harder
, he thought.