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Death's Door Discovered
By ALI GHERI
CORDILLA, Ga. -- Five miles outside this tiny, rustic town is a small forest with a large cave and a massive iron gate.
"It's not a place you want to visit," theologian and paranormal researcher Danton Fernoe told us after returning to town. "Make sure your readers understand that.
"When I read that Satan visited this cave after tangling with Bigfoot (Weekly World News, July 25, 2005) I decided to check it out," said Fernoe. "I arrived and saw a woman sitting at a small table behind the gate. She was dressed in a business suit with a short skirt. There was a gold key and a laptop on the table, nothing more. She stopped playing computer Solitaire as soon as she saw us."
"Where's your escort?" the woman asked suspiciously.
Prof. Fernoe told her he didn't understand.
"Oh," the woman said. "You're not dead." She resumed her game of Solitaire. "Go away."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because this is Death's Door and I'm Petra," she told him.
Fernoe felt a chill. "Are you the guardian?"
"The one and only. I'm like St. Peter but without the Pearly Gates. Just these," she said, fingering a pearl necklace. "A gift from Satan for 2,000 years of devoted service. Now I suggest you move along."
"Why?" Fernoe asked. "If I'm not dead, how am I at risk?"
"I sit here 24/7 and, as you can see, there's not a lot to do," she said. "Sometimes, when I'm bored, I cause things to 'happen' just so I'll have a soul to process." She pointed to a boulder teetering on the ledge over the cave directly above Fernoe's head. "Get my meaning?"
"I do," Fernoe said, backing away. "A question, though. Technically speaking, aren't the Pearly Gates also 'death's door'?"
The woman shook her head. "Those are the doors to eternal life. There's a difference."
Theologically speaking, she was correct.
Suddenly, a voice came from deep in the cave. It was too dark inside to see who it was.
"Pssst. Petra!" the voice said. "How about some nice, shiny silver? The cave's full of it. You can have as much as you want!"
The woman rolled her dark brown eyes. "Float off before I text-message Satan to haul you away!" she warned.
Fernoe heard a whoosh. "Who was that?" he asked.
"A soul looking to get out." She pointed up. "They all want to go to the other place. They don't like the flames and the scourging they get here so they slip notes through the bars, try to bribe me with material goods. I even had one guy steal the Devil's pitchfork and try to snag the key. That got him 500 years in solitary. I tell them, 'You should have thought about all this while you were busy embezzling or murdering or claiming there were weapons of mass destruction when you knew there weren't any.' "
The theologian saw a rattlesnake in the brush nearby. He noticed the glint in Petra's eye and decided it was time to go. As he left the woods Fernoe noticed souls drifting through the trees, accompanied by black-suited aides to the Grim Reaper. He felt bad for them.
"But, as Petra said, they should have considered that while they were alive," he said, then added, "Consider this a cautionary peek through death's window."
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