The alleyway was narrow, a few dim lights doing little to pierce the gloom. June tried to breathe through her mouth, the odor of old urine and vomit causing her stomach to twist.

MARCY, I LOVE YOU. PLEASE COME BACK had been scrawled on the wall. There were other bits of writing. Hateful screeds, desperate pleas, love letters that had probably never been read.

“God, this place is horrible.”

“Not much of a God here,” Hank said. “If he ever existed.”

“Think they’re wrong?”

“Who? The Rapturists? Sure. People don’t Move On by sitting on their ass and waiting for someone else to do it.” Hank shrugged. “Not certain if I’d want to Move On. Who says there’s anything beyond it.”

“What?” June glanced at the door. It was chained shut, the rusted links as thick as June’s fingers.

“Everyone talks about Moving On like letting go. This is the Memory Lands. We’re here because we didn’t let go. What if Moving On just means you… fall apart? Let go of everything that was you and then just stop existing.”

“That’s… pretty depressing.”

Hank shook his head. “Sorry, it’s this place. Let’s find out what your Mom is doing, grab her and then get back out of here.”

“Right.” June looked at the door. “Except… Want me to try to break it?”

“No. Way too loud.” Hank looked up. “How about a little climb?” He gestured above her head to where there was a battered, ancient fire escape.

“Okay.” June looked up and frowned. “Boost me up?”

“Right.”

Here I am, a dead girl, being boosted by a guy who died in the 1950s, to a fire escape that looks like it’s a memory of the 1920s. June shrugged. Sometimes, being dead was weird, even after she’d had a year to get used to it. But now Hank had put his hands together and June put her foot in them, reaching up as Hank lifted her up. She grabbed the rust-covered metal and pulled herself the rest of the way up onto the little platform. There was a squeaking sound, and June paused, waiting for the whole damned thing to tear loose.

But it stayed. She lowered the ladder to the ground, every squeak and scrape of unoiled metal loud in her ears, but nobody seemed to notice. Then Hank swarmed up the ladder, and they went to the window. June couldn’t see anything in it, but the window itself was locked.

“Break it?” Hank asked.

June shook her heard. “If we want to let everyone in the place know we’re here, sure.” On the other hand… “Hey, wanna see me try to do some homework?”

“Is it going to kill us horribly?”

“We’re already dead.”

“Which means we get to experience the entire “horrible” part of dying again.”

June rolled her eyes. “Just hold on.”

Remember, Memory is the key to the world you live in. Teacher’s training. June stared at the window. It was locked. But not really. It was the memory of a locked window.

But just the memory, with no power of will behind it. June closed her eyes, and remembered all the times she’d opened the window in her room, to smell the flowers and clean air, or just look out on a crisp morning. To do that, she had to unlock the window.

Like this window was unlocked.

“And there we go,” June said as she carefully raised the window. The formerly cloudy glass was clear, the rust and soot gone from the frame.

“Nice. You didn’t use one of your memories, did you?”

June shook her head. “Nope, still here. Let’s go.”

Inside, the room was full of moldy costumes sitting on changing racks. June paused at a makeup table. There was an old, old letter on it, notifying someone that their home was due to be foreclosed.

She shook her head. Hank’s right. The sooner we get out of here…

The door was half-open, and June pushed it the rest of the way open, looking up and down the hallway.

Nothing. Just closed doors.

“Let’s head to the theater,” Hank said. “That way. Should be an opening onto the balcony section, at least if the inside is like theaters were in the Living Land.

“Right.” June said. She could hear indistinct words. A lot of people.

They crept down the hallway, the few working lights casting long, twisting shadows behind them.

The door at the far end was open, and the noise was louder. June glanced at Hank. He nodded.

They dropped to their hands and knees and pushed the door open, moving. Beyond it were chairs, set up along an arching balcony. Sickly greenish light flickered over the stained and torn fabric of the chairs, but nobody could see them from the ground level.

June kept moving, once or twice wiping her hand in disgust as she touched something wet on the floor.

“Here,” she whispered. “Behind the pillar. I don’t think anyone can see us there.”

“Right,” Hank said.

June slowly rose up and looked down into the big theater.

Holy crap, she thought.

Below, on the stage, there was a great bonfire, the flames greenish blue, and seeming to suck the heat out of the air. The flames twisted and moved, sometimes looking like tormented figures.

June dropped back under the edge of the balcony and swallowed. “What is that?”

“No damned idea,” Hank said. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good.”

“My Children!” The voice was loud, but oddly… empty. It didn’t echo in the chamber, almost like there was nothing to echo. June looked at Hank.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

They looked back over the lip of the balcony. Now there was…

June winced. It was a robed figure, but it was hard to look at, wisps of greenish vapor twining around its form.

“My children…” the figure said. June looked for her mother, but everyone had their hoods up, concealing their form. “Today we have done well. You have spoken to the unbelievers. You have brought them closer to the Rapture.”

Closer to the Rapture?

“But we too, are held back from our final end. For the Rapture is an end to pain, and an end to suffering. Offer up your suffering!”

The crowd paused. Then one figure stepped forward.

“Offer up our suffering!” the words echoed through the big hall, and the bonfire rose up, its flames somehow eager.

June stared, watching as the first figure walked up to the flame and its attendant before kneeling and raising their hands, a little cloud of light forming. Inside the cloud, June saw an image of a little boy on a swing. The figure paused, and then tossed the cloud onto the fire, which roared up… but it actually got colder. June looked around and shivered, her breath coming out in wisps of fog.

They gave up their memory… June swallowed. Had the fire taken the memory, or destroyed it? The figure turned and left, and another came up behind it. Every time the crowd chorused.

“Offer up our suffering!”

Another figure, another memory, this one of a wedding.

“Offer up our suffering!”

A funeral.

“Offer up our suffering!”

A birthday party.

It kept going, more and more people tossing in memories as the fire grew. But even as it grew, the theater got colder and colder. Nobody down below seemed to be impacted, but on the balcony… June hissed as she pulled her finger away from some tarnished brass, leaving a little skin on the freezing metal. They were huddling together.

“I think we need to go…” Hank said. “This isn’t our place…”

“I…” June closed her mouth and tried to stop her teeth from chattering. “Where’s Mom?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to freeze solid if we stay here.”

“Just another minute!” June peered down. They’ve stopped offering memories, but—Now two figures walked forward. Pulling their hoods back, they revealed themselves.

June shivered. Their eyes were sunken in their sockets, skin pulled tight over their bones, jagged and yellowed teeth set in an eternal grimace. But there was something about the way they looked at everything. No anger, no joy, no nothing. They shambled forward.

“Brother Sims. Sister Theresa. You have given your memories of sorrow. You have given the memories of false joy that tie you to this false land. Now there remains one last step until you ascend, to be free of sorrow, free of pain, to take your final step to assist others to seek out their true destiny!”

They said nothing.

Do they have anything to say? If they’d given up all their memories of sorrow and even joy… June shook her head. There was a new smell in the chamber, the smell of rot and decay, but dry, bone dry.

“Advance and be cleansed! Cast your names into the fire!”

The two figures walked… into the fire? June gasped as the flames licked out and covered them. The man made a soft hissing sound, the woman stayed silent.

“Surrender your suffering!” the crowd shouted. “Surrender your false joys! Accept Ascension! Become our angels!”

And then the figures started to change and twist, the robes consumed by the fires, withered bodies now visible. Spikes of bone tore through the stretched skin, fangs grew around their mouths, and wings, twisted wings of bone and gristle and bloody feathers, exploded from their bads.

“What the fuck?” Hank said, his eyes wide. “That’s… how did that happen? Where did they get that self image?”

“I don’t know,” June said. Some spirits can change forms, but like that? You have to be strong, have power over your own self-image to do that, and they…

Then the two figures were kneeling before the fire and its attendant.

“You are freed of want and pain. Now you may defend us, to free others who do not understand what is needed from them. You may—“

There was a pause, and June blinked, as the attendant suddenly was looking up at the place where they were huddled behind the balcony.

“Well, angels, it appears that two lost lambs are already here. Bring them to us, that we may gift them with our freedom from pain.”

Hank was up and dragging June after him.

“Wait, Mo—“ Then there was a hideous shriek and June saw both the ‘angels’ run, their mouths opening impossibly wide, flickers of greenish flame in their empty eye sockets. Their wings opened wide, and suddenly they were jumping for the balcony. “No, time to go!” June shouted, and then she was running after Hank… Just as the two monstrous angels slammed into and through the balcony, scattering wood and seats around them.

I think Sally was smart. And then things got a little busy.