9:00 A.M. 

     Ensign pounded on the front door. 

     For five minutes he pounded. 

     Nothing. 

     Inside the house, the lights were off. 

     The people inside were obviously still asleep. 

     That was unacceptable, though. 

     Brock'd hired a moving van for his stuff, for one thing. The van now sat in the driveway, its driver behind the wheel and getting paid by the hour. 

​     Anthony stood at Ensign's side. He called Estelle's number over and over.

     "Hey!" Ensign shouted. "Wake up in there! Let's get this show on the road!" 

     Nothing. No response. 

     "Come on!" Ensign roared. "At least one of you can come to the door!"

     He pounded for another ten minutes before he began to get worried. Maybe they were more than just asleep. Maybe something had really happened inside the house since they'd been there the previous day. The four of them were such an odd group anyway, and they ​did have something to do with that mess up in the arctic and...

     Ensign pounded on the door even harder.

     "I know you're in there!" he roared. "Are you hurt? What's going on? Do I need to call the police? Why doesn't somebody..."

     The door opened...

     a crack. 

     Estelle stuck her head out. 

     Her greenish-gray complexion made Anthony think she'd been poisoned. He noticed that she wore her robe, but it didn't look like she had anything on underneath it. 

     And it didn't look like she was on her way to the shower, either.

     What in the hell was going on?

     "Where's Shawnacy?" Ensign demanded. "I want to see her. I need to know she's all right. Go get her."

     "Fuck you." 

     Estelle felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Shawnacy. She wore jeans, a top, tennis shoes, a coat. She'd run a brush through her hair, but that was about it.

​     She passed Estelle and Ensign to descend the steps that led to the front lawn.

     She didn't even get halfway down before Ensign stopped her. 

     "You've been partying," Ensign said.

     Shawnacy smiled without showing teeth, but her eyes seemed focused on a cloudy, distant horizon.

     "You drank that peach vodka I bought for us, didn't you? You and your friends. Did you get any sleep at all last night?" 

     Shawnacy smiled as Ensign said the words "friends".

     Ensign grabbed her shoulder. 

     "Hey!" This from Estelle at the door.  

     "I thought we had something going," Ensign said. "I thought we..."

     Shawnacy recoiled from him, out of his grasp. 

     She stood alone halfway down the stairway. 

     And then something truly miraculous happened. 

     The sun came out.

     It'd been cloudy and rainy all week, yet, right then, at a little after nine o'clock or whatever, the clouds parted, and the sun came out...

     and the rays of the sun fell on Shawnacy.

     Shawnacy closed her eyes, and this time her smile beamed as radiant as the sunshine she found herself bathed in.

     She held wide her arms, and she rose.

     Estelle, Ensign, Anthony, all three of them watched Shawnacy ascend until she became but a speck, until they were no longer certain they could see her at all as she continued to rise...

     into the sky...

     into the sunshine...

     all the way to heaven.

END OF NOVEL

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