Deadline by Randy Alcorn Page A

filled this place now.
    Then Finney’s eyes returned to a very tall and muscular being, looking for all the world like a decathlon champion, only three feet taller, standing at the edge of the crowd. His face seemed expressionless but his eyes were alive with interest and a keen sense of participation in the party, as if he had vested interests in Finney’s homecoming. Around him were still crowding those dozen of his kind, who seemed to Finney like comrades in arms, welcoming a buddy home from a special mission, exchanging stories and celebrating a long awaited return in the unique way soldiers do. Finney recognized him as the one who’d come through the passageway with him.
    Finney contemplated the mystery. Who exactly is this, and why did we leave the other world together ?

CHAPTER FIVE
    S ue sobbed quietly, head in hands. Jake barely heard her whisper, “Goodbye, best friend.”
    Jake sat in dazed silence. Only once in Vietnam had he been there at the moment of death. Moments before and moments after, often. He’d seen vibrant, pulsing, youthful soldiers, then an hour later helped carry off their lifeless bodies on a stretcher. He’d seen the badly injured, but when they died it was in a medical compound, not with him. When death seemed near, he’d never lingered. He’d always managed to put distance between him and it. Except that one time, and here again now.
    Having given herself but a moment, Sue turned to Little Finn. He seemed strangely reconciled to what had just happened, almost excited, as if he understood it somehow. Must be denial , Jake thought. Little Finn hugged his mom, giving more strength than he received.
    As the two shared their intimate grief, Jake stared wide eyed at Finney. Or is it Finney? The body so familiar to him, once his friend’s house, now seemed no more alive than the furniture or light fixtures. It wasn’t frightening, like dead bodies were supposed to be. Who could be scared of a piece of furniture?
    Finney’s gone. But gone where? Gone into oblivion? Or merely relocated outside the range of Jake’s senses? The house had been vacated. Was there a forwarding address?
    Suddenly the room teemed with medical staff. A nurse, as though acting under specific instructions, pushed a wheel chair up to Jake. He didn’t resist. He could do nothing for Finney now. The nurse said nothing as she wheeled Jake to the elevator, then toward his room. He was grateful for the small favor of her silence.
    As they rounded the corner near Jake’s room, Nurse Natalie appeared, hands on her hips. The ICU nurse noticed her stern and frustrated glare. She stopped, walked ahead between Natalie and Jake, took her aside, and whispered briefly. Natalie nodded, her features softened, and she quietly helped Jake out of the chair and back in his bed.
    “Please rest now, Jake. I’m sorry about your friend.”
    Jake didn’t respond. He was exhausted, drained, depleted. There no longer seemed any reason to stay awake. He welcomed the escape of sleep. It was the waking up again he did not look forward to.
    Three hours later he woke. For a moment he hovered in that netherworld of uncertainty, when in the very core of your being you fervently wish your vivid memories of an event are either reality and not a dream, or a dream and not reality. Jake’s gut ached as his growing consciousness convinced him Finney’s death was not a dream.
    He pushed the button, calling for a nurse. He was glad it wasn’t Natalie, for both their sakes. She was young, blonde, and competent. He didn’t have the energy to be charming.
    “Can you tell me about my friend, Doctor Lowell?”
    “Let me call ICU and get an update.”
    Unexpectedly, she picked up Jake’s phone and dialed an outside line. The phone cradled between her left shoulder and cheek, she said to Jake, “It’s much easier for me to call than to send out a search party to find you.” She smiled sweetly to say she was just teasing, but made clear she’d been