A Short Stay in Hell (8 page)

She looked at me. “Do you want to go up and
see the text? Maybe it will make up for today’s
disappointment.”

I did not let go of her hand.

“Rachel, you can go if you want …” I never
got to finish, because she kissed me. The deepest, most satisfying
kiss I’d experienced in a hundred years. We never did find out what
that text was.

Have you ever loved someone for a thousand
years? I would have bet it impossible, but that’s how long we were
together. A thousand years we traveled the halls of Hell together.
I don’t remember fighting. She was magic. Nights were wondrous.
Days full of laughter and long, slow conversations. Once for fifty
years we discussed dogs and decided to spend a few years pretending
we were dogs, running on all fours and eating only dog food out of
a dish, or occasionally gnawing on a meaty bone. Oddly enough, it
caught on and several people joined our pack. We pulled the
mattresses down off the beds with our teeth and slept on the
floor.

In our 708th year together, we started an
elaborate game of tag that involved hundreds of people and lasted
for over twelve years. We developed a series of complex strategies
for freeing prisoners and gaining allies when we were It – and we
were always It together. We were a team, Rachel and I. Oh, I miss
her so much. I think our love could have lasted forever. I’m sure
it would have. She was so … no, I won’t cheapen it by trying to
express it in words and short sentences. I loved her. That is
enough.

YEAR 1145: THE GREAT
LOSS

T
HINGS STARTED TO
FALL APART when Dire Dan, “the prophet of doom and truth,” grew in
popularity and established a following of several ten thousand men
and a handful of women. He claimed to be from the other side of the
divide and to have been visited by God himself. God appeared in his
room at night and bade him rise and hear the truth. This is how his
conversation with God went:

GOD. Kneel before me, slime. Hell dweller.
Stink in the nostrils of the Great God who holds in his hands your
extinction. Kneel, less than a worm. Tremble, smudge on existence,
twisted and unholy scab.

DIRE DAN. Speak, O Great One. I am your
servant.

GOD. You are no servant of mine, puss of
gall. You are less to me than the half remains of a worm discarded
in a bird’s unfinished meal, left in a gutter to dry, rot, and
stink. Do not bother me with cries of “servant,” nor speak useless
flatteries in my ear.

DIRE DAN. Yes, Lord.

GOD. But I will make you a tool. Those in
this Hell must be taught who it is they have offended in their sin.
They must be made to feel my wrath. The time has come that they are
to be scourged. You will be like a whip in my hand. You will be the
sword in my clenched fist. You will bring them to punishment. The
days of this peace in Hell are ended. Kill them again and again.
Rape them, torture them, cause them pain and fire. Leave not a
moment of peace. Teach them the wrath born of their sins and
rebellions. Strike them when they are awake. Smite them when they
are asleep. Cut without mercy. Slice without pity. The day is now.
Teach them the horrors of a just God!

DIRE DAN. It will be done.

And so the Direites spread like a pestilence.
Their numbers increased under the promise of a bright heaven to
come when they had scourged Hell to the utmost. Their numbers
swelled to thousands in a year. They made recruits across the gulf,
on both sides of the library. Never before had we seen such terror.
They hunted in packs of ten to thirty men and occasionally a few
women. They were bound by oaths to cause as much hurt as they
could. If you did not join, they would keep you prisoner for days.
Engaging in torture. I will not describe it. It is beyond my
ability. We became like animals. We ran. Hiding. Running. Watching
both sides of the library, for the two sides worked together to
hunt us down. We just wanted to travel to where there were no
people, but the Direites kept the borders of the four directions
carefully guarded.

One day, in this time of terror, two people
popped out of one of the stairwells near where we were enjoying a
meal. Their faces were stretched in unmistakable terror. They
looked at us and screamed, “Run!”

We knew why. We did not need any other
warning. Rachel and I bolted. We ran to the left as fast as we
could. We could see across the divide that the Direites on the
other side were directing the pack on our side to our location. We
ran faster, our legs pumping like sprinters’. Suddenly, in front of
us a gang poured out of a stairwell. We ground to a halt and turned
the other way, sprinted into another nearby stairwell, and headed
down. We flew down the stairs with the animals panting hot behind
us like wolves. We raced down to another level and went right. We
should have gone left. If I had one wish to make in this eternity
of madness, if I could have one prayer answered in this empty
place, it would be that we had turned left instead of right. Why?
Why?
has been my question ever since.

We were surrounded. Another gang poured out
of the stairwell in front of us, and we were surrounded. Their eyes
were terrible, their countenances radiating nothing but fierceness
and hatred. They moved slowly toward us, armed with clubs and
spears made of cow and water buffalo bones.

Rachel turned to me. She seemed surprisingly
calm. “I love you,” she said, a beautiful smile on her face.

Then she climbed up the railing and jumped.
Several arms reached out to stop her, to hold her back, but they
were too late. Many arms grabbed me, however, and held me fast
against the railing. I watched her fall. She did not scream, she
just fell downward, down, down, and down. The Direites all watched
with gleeful cheers and laughter as she got smaller and smaller,
until as an infinitesimal dot she merged with the ever-present
vanishing point and winked out of my existence. My only joy was
gone.

“I love you too,” I said to the empty air
below me. I was hit over the head with a bone and saw nothing but
blackness.

~~~

WHEN I WOKE up, I noticed I had been moved
and was looking under one of the beds in a sleeping room. Then I
felt a sharp pain, and everything went black again. I woke up
again, noticed the same perspective I’d seen before, heard a
whistle of something swinging through the air like a baseball bat,
and darkness again. This continued for thirty-seven days, which for
me lasted only a few seconds.

Thinking in bits and pieces over the course
of more than a month was new to me, but time and practice brought
increased efficiency of thought. I had about six seconds before I
was clubbed. About two of which was spent in orienting myself by
recalling where I was in the thinking process, then with the
remaining four I deliberated on my situation. Of course to me, the
month passed in only three minutes of consciousness, but during
that three minutes I hatched a plan and reached a point where I was
ready to execute it.

Upon awakening, I rolled as quickly as I
could in the direction away from my invisible attacker. Then,
having secured some distance between me and my attacker, I rolled
and leapt to my feet, and turned quickly to face my assailant. He
was clubbing down with a large cow thighbone and was startled to
find me gone.

I was not surprised to find myself in one of
the small rooms next to a bed, but here sat my assailant, rubbing
his eyes.

“Well, well, well, you got away. At least I
beat Higgins’s record, but not even close to Barley’s.” The man
stood up and looked at me.

“Want some coffee?”

There were a few other people getting up, a
few going to the bathrooms, and some making their way out to the
kiosk. I suddenly noticed that near every bed was a crumpled body,
lying still, its head bashed in and fresh blood pooling on the
floor. I felt sick at the sight. What were these people doing?

“Maybe some orange juice,” I said
suspiciously.

At that the man shrugged and motioned for me
to go out to the kiosk.

“Don’t try to get away,” he cautioned.
“You’re a slave.”

“A slave?” I asked.

“Indeed, you’ve been adopted by the
brotherhood. You will serve us, or you will be used as a morning
sacrifice – as you have for the past month. As the master teaches,
‘To murder a sinner in the morning is the start of a blessed
day.’”

I was speechless.

“There’s a chance to escape both these fates,
and that is to join us and undertake the oath. One of the teachers
will instruct you with the other Arisers this morning after
breakfast. Go grab something for breakfast.” And with that he
marched into the bathroom. I stood there, stunned.

Death lay all around me, but those still
living seemed not to care. They stepped and maneuvered around the
many bodies like it was a normal morning. I walked out of the room
and came up to the kiosk and ordered an orange juice. Bodies were
everywhere. People were crumbled in the hallway. Fresh pools of
blood seeped under many of the twisted bodies. I saw one man being
beaten by several others. They beat him until he fell to the
ground, where they kicked him until he was dead. There seemed to be
no malice in their actions. It was as if they were almost bored,
going through a morning ritual that needed to be done, like
brushing their hair or ordering a meal from the kiosk.

I walked over to the railing and peered over,
thinking of Rachel’s last jump, which for me had only been a few
minutes ago, but I knew in reality had been weeks ago. A wave of
sadness and loss spread over me just as a voice said,

“Don’t think about jumping. We’ll catch you
before you get a foot on the railing. Then we’ll torture you in
ways you would find rather unpleasant. The great thing is, every
day we get to start fresh. We have people we’ve tortured for over a
year. Great sinners, of course. They deserve it. It’s God’s great
work.”

I stared at him like he was a madman.

“You’ll get used to it. Their screams, I
mean. It’s all God’s work.”

He looked uncomfortable for a moment then
turned away. He stood in silence for a minute and then turned to me
again.

“Let’s go.”

He led me to a stairway. I was seated on one
of the steps that led upward with about four other men. I had not
seen any women yet, but I’d heard some Direites were women. Not
many, but a few.

A man came in and stood in front of us, his
back to the hallway. He looked no different than any of us, with
the same haircut and clothes we all had. I could not tell if he was
a prisoner or a captor until he proclaimed, “I am Dire Dan.”

My blood ran cold. My stomach lurched into my
throat, and I felt as if I were choking. Here was the man who had
caused years of pain and suffering to thousands. Here was the man
who had forced Rachel into the chasm. Here in front of me, only a
few feet away, was the man of my worst nightmares. My fists
clenched, as rage boiled inside me.

“Listen to my words and be saved from this
place. Ignore me and you will suffer beyond anything you thought
possible. I am God’s mace. I am his calipers, his judgment …”

I will not sicken you with all his words. He
was arrogant, full of his own importance. He could speak of nothing
but his glory in the world to come. It was mad. Was madness
possible here? Apparently.

When he finished he said, smiling, “Here is
the decision you must make. You can join us and inflict pain and
suffering, or …” and he let the moment hang, “you can be one of
those upon whom suffering is inflicted.

“If you do join us, you will be assigned a
client, someone who has refused the offer you now receive. To your
charge you must make this place a Hell to the fullest ability of
your pathetic power. You must convince me you have made this sinner
suffer to the greatest extent of your abilities. Don’t worry, you
will be trained …”

He droned on, but behind him the two guards
standing beside him left for a moment. From the stairs on which I
was sitting, I could hear screaming in the hall, and the two guards
bracketing Dire Dan had first turned to watch, and then walked
toward the commotion – leaving no one between Dire Dan and the
landing, the hall, and the railing. I did not hesitate. I had never
been filled with such a sense of rage and vengeance. He had taken
Rachel. He had tortured my friends. He had destroyed our peace. All
of this rationalization occurred later. In that second that I saw
the clear shot, I did not hesitate. My month of learning how to
think in the few seconds after awakening in the morning served me
well at that instant. I leaped from the step and with the speed of
a linebacker picked up the low creature with all the strength born
of Rachel’s loss and launched us both over the railing.

I had him around the waist and did not let go
as we tumbled into the great divide between the two walls of books.
He was kicking frantically and screaming that he would kill me. And
he did. I had him around the waist, and he leaned back and grabbed
my head and gave it a quick hard twist, breaking my neck.

In the morning we were still falling. I was a
little disappointed, because I knew we were traveling down at about
a hundred miles an hour, and I hoped that after a day and night we
might have hit the bottom. The grave fear that it might be
bottomless welled up in me. I suppose it was that fear that had
kept so many of us from jumping before. I estimated we had traveled
fifteen hundred miles, and still no bottom.

My enemy was still with me. He was about two
hundred feet above me and was in a parachutist’s dive,
spread-eagled and looking right at me. I was still winging my hands
like a chicken tossed from a barn and doing occasional flips, but
he seemed in control. I suppose he had had all day to practice,
while I was falling as dead and helpless as a crash-test dummy. His
look was one of pure and absolute hatred. He maneuvered a little
closer and started screaming at me what appeared to be a
well-rehearsed speech.