Steven W Heinrich

American Heat Steven W Heinrich

Castle Hargrove looked again at the stars. Orion's belt hung shimmering above the southern horizon in the night sky like a jeweled ribbon. He focused on the three main stars that made up the belt, and as he waited for the C-4 charge to explode, he remembered being told by his grandmother - who was a very kind and religious person - that the gateway to heaven lay just through that nebula. She had always been a favorite of his as a little boy, and he liked hearing her stories about God and Jesus before his life had turned so cold and strange. He remembered her saying that at the Second Coming, the righteous would travel home to heaven through the Orion Nebula along with Christ and all His angels. He smiled thinking of the journey across the heavens with all the angels, not that he had any chance of traveling that starry road now. He smirked at that thought and looked away from the stars that made up Orion's belt. It had been a long ways from his grandmother's knee to this place, and sometimes he wondered how his life had gone so far astray.