Heaven, please

HEAVEN, PLEASE



Is Heaven real?

I know Hell is real; I’m living it every day.

I, Rachel Teal, am dying.

Seth has his hands around my neck, fingers interlaced. He’s squeezing. I can feel life leaving my body. I need the relief of unconsciousness.

I claw at his hands, my fingernails dig deep into his skin. The flesh on his knuckles tears away, like a snake shedding his skin. He doesn’t seem to feel anything, except the rage of Hell.

He takes one hand from my neck. I know what is to come next.

I breathe in grasping for each molecule of air. Why am I fighting so hard to live? If I die, will I trade one Hell for another?

He’s pulling at my underwear. He’s thrusting into me now. Harder and harder, faster and faster. Each thrust is like a knife slicing me from the inside. I want to scream. I don’t scream. I can’t scream.

My hands drop, my arms stretch out, my body forms a cross, or more like an X, on the old mattress in the dingy basement I call home. I’m ready. This time he’s going to kill me.

This happens more and more lately. I usually just black out, he finishes, and lets me gain conscience on my own.

Not this time, this time is different. His anger is so intense, I can see it in his green flaring eyes; he’s going to kill me. I know it. I didn’t mean to make him angry. I always know what comes when he’s angry.

Maybe death is a good thing.

I feel myself spin, as if in a dryer on high heat. I’ve lost consciousness before, but usually everything just goes black. This time I’m weightless, as if I’m a balloon full of helium and drifting on the wind to Heaven.

I open my eyes with a sharp stab of dread. Do I have to experience everything Seth is doing or going to do to me awake!?

Or am I dead?

Is this what death is? I always imagined seeing a bright light, blinding me, but I don’t.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn slowly, I’m in Hell, and the Devil wants to meet me.

I finish turning, at eye level I see a blue tie with red horizontal candy strips. My father’s tie, his favorite, the one I gave him on the last father’s day I spent with him. My vision becomes hazy. I’m afraid to look up. Is this a trick of the devil?

A hand touches my chin, lifting my face up. I see a chin, up more, a lip, up more, black fuzz covering the top of the lip, up more, a nose. Up more, I force my eyes to keep looking; I see bright blue eyes, like mine, and black hair covering his brow, like mine.

“Dad?” I can’t believe my eyes. I blink. A tear rolls down my cheek, dripping on his thumb holding my chin.

“Hi, my butterfly. Please don’t cry,” the man says.

I know the voice. This is no trick. It can’t be real...right? “What’s going on? Am I dead? Is this a trick?” I try to swallow down the question, but I have to ask. “Are you the devil?”

“No, my butterfly, you are not, and no,” he smiles, “I’m not the devil.”

My arms wrap around his waist giving him a bear hug.

“You must go back,” my father says.

“No! I want to stay with you,” I say, stepping back, before wrapping my arms around him tighter.

“You have work to do; you have to go back,” he says, pulling my arms free. He smiles again.

“Work? What work can I do? I’m dying, and if that means staying here with you, that is what I want. Seth killed me. There is no one to rescue me. If I go back he will just kill me again; if not today, or tomorrow, it will be soon.” Tears streak my cheeks, dripping as if rain was hitting my face.

“We have sent someone to help you. Someone to lead you down the path of a wonderful life and help you forget about the last three years. You just have to trust us.” My father bends down and kisses my cheek. “He’s calling you. Now go. Remember I will be waiting for you when you have lived a full and wonderful life.

I hear a whisper, “Rachel. Rachel can you hear me?” I turn my head. When I turn back my father is gone and the blackness encompasses me.



As I drift off into the abyss my mind wanders. This wouldn’t be happening if my father was alive, but he’s not. He’s dead. He left us, Mom and me. She married another man, and can’t help me either. She’s in jail, for killing this other man, who abused her as Seth abuses me. What a joke my life has become. My stepfather’s son, Seth, a guard at the prison, started abusing me physically when I was only fifteen. He’s evil. I’m now eighteen. My mother has been gone for three years that’s when Seth told me I would no longer be going to school. He cut me off of all my friends, family and even my mother. I have no one. Maybe death is a good thing. I could stay with my father.

My eyes flutter open, the brightness blinds me for a moment, and everything is white. I hear a beep, beep, beep. A face is above me. I see facial hair, a man. I start to shake. I blink and blink again. I focus on his eyes. He has brown eyes, looking into my blue eyes. I immediately think of a deer.

Was I dreaming of talking to my dead father? Or am I dreaming now?

The man’s voice startles me; I flinch away, slamming my head into the pillow cradling me.

“Rachel, please don’t be afraid. How are you feeling?” The man asks.

He leans back. I see his black shirt, showing his white-collar. I’ve been to church; the man is a priest. Yes, now I remember. I went to him for help, but I was afraid for my mother. Seth said he would kill her if I told anyone what he was doing to me.

“I’m fine. What happened?” I ask knowing exactly what happened, knowing that I needed to get back and not say a word or my mother would be dead. “I need to get home.” I sat upright and was about to swing my legs over the side.

“It’s okay. You need to just lay back and rest. You have been through a very abusive ordeal,” the priest said. “Can you tell me what’s going on? He asks as he sits in a chair next to my bed. “Don’t worry you are safe and so is your mother.”

I lift my eyebrows, staring at him. How does he know? Is he more than just a priest?

He motions for someone at the door. A woman enters the small isolated room.

“I’m Detective Carson. Are you able to give me a statement?” She looks at me with kind greenish-yellow eyes and squeezes my hand. “He is in custody, you are safe with us.” She looks at the Priest, and he nods his head.

I tell them everything. I didn’t want to, but it all spills out; I can’t stop myself. The detective is writing in her books as fast as she can.

“I remember going to see the priest, but once inside the church I couldn’t make myself talk to him. Seth had left the door to the basement, where he kept me, unlocked and the door ajar. I could see light so I took a chance, and slipped out of the house and down the road to the church I had seen many time as I walked to school.” I talked non-stop for over an hour.

The nurse came in and tells them to let me rest.

“You’re safe now Rachel,” the detective says as she heads for the door. Just as she reaches for the knob, she slips on a drop of water the nurse spilt when she entered my room with a pitcher. “Whoa. Nurse you might want to make sure someone cleans that up. Someone could fall and hurt themselves.”

The Priest follows the detective and the nurse out not saying a word.

I’m alone again. I turn on the television. I haven’t seen TV for three years. As I begin to doze off a women’s voice tells of a news flash. “A man by the name of Seth Greensbourgh has escaped. He was arrested today for kidnapping, rape and assault. The police tell us that no one should approach him he is armed and dangerous,” the voice says.

My eyes fly open. My breathing turns to hard and fast sputters out of my mouth.

I scan the room. I stare at the door hoping it won’t move.

It does.

On the other side is Seth. The knife he is holding drips with blood. Oh no, who did he kill to get to me. The Detective? The Priest? I need out of this bed. I pull at my IV. The tube comes out but not the needle. I jump off of the bed backing towards the wall.

“You bitch!” Seth screams at me.

The blood is pouring out of my arm from the needle. I’m trying to pull it out as I step back slowly. Wishing for someone to come through the door and help me. I’ve learned screaming just makes him angrier. So I don’t.

The blood on the floor is slippery. I slip on it. Keeping my balance just as Seth reaches me the needle comes in my hand. I hold it between my fingers needle point out toward Seth.

He laughs, “Stupid girl.”

He turns the knife in his hand to stab me. He slips on the blood in front of me and the knife goes into his chest as he tries to catch himself.



So is Heaven real? I say yes. And so is Hell and that is where Seth is now doing his time for eternity for his crimes.

My guardian angel, my father, spoke to me from Heaven and helps keep me safe. I don’t know where I will go from here, but I now know anything is possible and will be better than what I have been through. Maybe, living is the answer to all of my questions.



The End



The end