A Kiss Before the Apocalypse by Thomas E. Sniegoski

stages in the human life span.
    Remy moved through the lobby and down the crowded corridor, following the signs for the Bigelow Building elevators. No one so much as looked in his direction. The center elevator chimed happily as its doors opened, and he joined a small crowd headed up.
    While everyone else watched the numbers over the doors climb, Remy and a baby boy stared at each other. The child began to laugh, pumping his chubby arms crazily as drool trailed from his toothless mouth. Gently, the angel brushed the child’s head with the side of his finger and mouthed the word hello . The boy laughed even harder, squealed loudly, and tossed his melon-shaped head back, flailing his arms. The mother glanced around nervously, looking for what had excited her baby so, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She smiled and kissed the child, calling him her silly monkey, as they exited the elevator on the floor before Remy’s.
    He had little problem finding Mountgomery’s room. Still unseen, he approached a tired-looking nurse who was doing paperwork at the nurses’ station. He moved up silently behind him and whispered into his ear. The exhausted young man put down his pen suddenly, as though he had just thought of something he didn’t dare forget again, and wheeled his chair over to a computer terminal. He began to type on the keyboard, and Remy watched as Peter Mountgomery’s medical records appeared. He was in room 615. The nurse checked some information, nodded to himself in satisfaction, and went back to his paperwork. Silently, Remy Chandler thanked him and headed down the hall.
    The angel heard it even before he’d reached the room he sought, the doleful, ethereal cries of a soul in distress wafting down the corridor. Remy entered room 615 and approached Mountgomery’s bed, wincing as the man’s life force screamed to be freed from its prison of flesh.
    What is keeping you here? he wondered, staring down at the man, desperate for answers. Why hasn’t your soul been taken? The man lay in the hospital bed, his head and neck swathed in bandages stained with blood and a yellowish discharge. He was hooked to a number of machines that monitored his condition and provided life support. Tubes of various sizes carried fluids to and from his body.
    Remy took Peter’s hand in his and gently squeezed. “Why are you still here?” he whispered, speaking directly to the spirit trapped within the broken body.
    The imprisoned soul moaned all the louder, sensing the presence of a being who might free it from its confines. The anguished cries tore at the essence of Remy’s true self.
    “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do,” he told it. “It’s . . . it’s not my job.”
    The soul continued to cry out, and the angel’s thoughts turned to the one whose purpose it was to answer these plaintive cries. Remy let go of Mountgomery’s hand, stepping back from the bed, watching the man’s chest rise and fall with every breath—with life. Something was wrong.
    Horribly, horribly wrong.
    And then Remy heard the others.
    The pleading wails of Mountgomery’s soul rose in intensity, joining with other tortured cries from the intensive care unit, and it was almost more than the detective could stand. The accumulated misery was deafening, and he quickly left the room, making his way back to the elevators. He had to get away.
    Tormented souls beckoned to him as he passed other rooms, begging for his divine attention, and he apologized to them all, sorry that there was nothing he could do to help them.
    It isn’t my job.
    At the elevator he wondered, Where is Israfil? The question replayed itself over and over again as he practically threw himself into the elevator to escape the mournful pleas.
    Where is the Angel of Death?

CHAPTER FOUR
    R emy headed for his Beacon Street office, his brain feeling as though it was about to explode. For some reason, souls were not being collected. Life essences were trapped within bodies that