Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II (16 page)

Gloria began to weep exhausted tears. Their escape
had seemed too easy, and now she understood why. This was their
choice. They could return to Earth … return to life … but not as
humans.
As worms
. Or they could attempt to reach heaven and
face God’s judgment.

Karma’s a bitch.

“We have to go back!” Angela shrieked, scowling at
her revolting, pasty gray body.

“Wait, honey. Think about this.”

“What the fuck is there to think about? I can’t live
like this!” Angela’s features were melding into her flesh, nose
dissolving into a pulpish mash. “What was in that other tunnel? The
one we passed?”

Gloria opened her mouth then thought better of it
and closed it again. Angela caught it.

“What? You know, don’t you? What’s in there? What’s
in that other tunnel?”

“It’s better you don’t know.”

Angela laughed, a cruel, harsh sound that wounded
Gloria like the lash of a whip. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re
still trying to protect me? Look at me! I’m a fucking
worm
!
I’ve been raped by demons, by a fat slimy con man, by my own
father! I’ve been tortured worse than anyone could ever imagine.
And now I’ve been reincarnated as a fucking king-sized maggot! And
you want to protect me? Fuck you! What the hell is in that other
tunnel, Mother?”

Gloria gave up. “God.”

“What?”

“That tunnel we ran past is a doorway to
heaven.”

“Then what the fuck are we doing here? I never
wanted to go back to the world anyway. It never was any better than
hell, and I definitely don’t want to go back as a giant earthworm.
Why didn’t we just go into that other tunnel to begin with?”

“Because … what if he doesn’t want us?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what if he sends us back to hell? What if he
takes one look at us and decides that we were right where we ought
to be?”

“He … he wouldn’t. You said it yourself—nobody
belongs here. He couldn’t send us back!”

Gloria thought about the boy she’d rescued from the
insects. Remembering how he’d attacked her. “Nobody’s in hell by
accident. You don’t think he knows we’re here? Maybe he just
doesn’t care about us. Maybe he put us here himself. It’s all part
of his plan or something.”

“No! Bullshit! He has to love us. That’s what all
the churches say. God is love. If there’s a hell, there has to be a
heaven. There has to be love!” Angela’s eyes filled with tears.
That at least meant she was still partially human. Even if she did
look like fish bait.

“But what if he doesn’t? What if this is all there
is?”

“No! I can’t believe that. I won’t accept that! You
can stay here as a goddamned slug or go back to the world or
whatever. But I’m going to heaven.” Angela shimmied back down the
tunnel, her slug-like body oozing along the ground.

Gloria paused for a moment. From the end of the
passageway, she could almost see the afternoon sun high in the sky.
She turned and followed her daughter.

Gloria and her daughter crawled back through the
tunnel in silence. Their bodies slowly began to lose substance,
reverting back to the familiar look of their human souls. Still,
they said nothing to each other. Gloria was locked in her own world
of fear and excitement. It was not every day that you went to meet
your maker.

They reached the spot where the road had forked and
Gloria paused. “We could always go back.” She sighed in
resignation.

“Back to hell? What—are you on crack? Did you see
what happened to the others? Those demons ripped them apart! I’m
not going the fuck back there. I’m going to heaven. Are you with
me?” Angela turned without hesitation and entered the light.

Gloria followed on shaky legs that felt like those
of a child on her way to her parents’ room to receive some unknown
punishment.

This new tunnel was much brighter than the first.
Not sunshine but something else … like starlight, radiating a light
like a supernova.

They had walked a few hundred yards when the tunnel
disappeared. A field of green surrounded them.

“What is this?” Angela whispered, smiling at her
mother. “Is this heaven?”

“I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be this easy.”

They walked across the field. The sky was solid
light. No clouds. No sun. Just endless white. Off in the distance,
a figure moved toward them. It didn’t take long for Gloria to
recognize her.

“Who’s that?” Angela asked.

“It’s your grandmother. Hello, Mother.”

The woman hugged Gloria, who stiffened at the
embrace. It had been a long time since anyone had touched her in a
way other than to cause pain. And her mother had never been this
affectionate.

“Hello, Gloria, Angela. You’ve both come quite a
long way.”

“Mother … what are you doing here?”

“I was sent to meet you.”

“Oh, really?” Gloria muttered. “God too busy? What
else is new?”

“God’s been with you, Gloria. You just haven’t let
him into your heart.”

“That’s bullshit, Mother. God abandoned me a long
time ago.”

“So where’s heaven? How do we get in?” Angela asked,
skipping the niceties.

“It’s right here. But only one of you may
enter.”

“What? What do you mean?” Gloria shook her head. She
and Angela looked at each other with expressions of absolute shock.
“That’s not fair. How can that be?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

She shivered as she imagined going back to earth to
live as a human-sized maggot, but it was better than having Angela
go through it. “You go,” Gloria replied, her shoulders slumped in
defeat. “I’ll go back to earth.”

“Thanks, Mom! Well, let’s go!” Angela said, stepping
forward and grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m afraid the choice isn’t yours, child. It’s
his.”

“What do you mean?” Angela asked.

“I mean only one of you has redeemed herself. Only
one has improved as a person during her time in hell, proved to be
worthy of paradise. You, my daughter. You may enter heaven.”

Gloria was speechless. She looked at her mother’s
smiling face, a face that hadn’t smiled at her like that since
before Gloria had left home to suck cock and lick pussy on camera
for a living. Then she looked at her daughter’s horrified grimace
as the girl’s face fell to pieces.

“No! Mommy, you can’t leave me here! You can’t! Take
me with you. You have to take me with you!”

“But why? What did she ever do to deserve to go to
hell?” Gloria cried.

“Honor thy mother and thy father
. She
betrayed you. Tricked you and led you to hell.”

“But that’s not right! Why should she be expected to
honor parents like me and Ryan? If I wasn’t such a bad mother, none
of this would have happened!”

“It’s not your fault. We all have free will, and she
chose her path. Now she has to live with it … for eternity.”

“Mom, please. Don’t leave me. Please take me with
you,” Angela begged.

“The choice isn’t hers.” The old woman scowled
bitterly at her granddaughter.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mother. The choice
is
mine.”

Both women looked at Gloria.

“What kind of God would separate a mother from her
daughter? How can there be a heaven when those we love are
suffering in hell and on Earth?”

“Mom.
No
.”

“Just like you said, Mother. We all have free will.
The choice is mine and I’ve made my decision. I will not abandon my
daughter again.”

“She was ready to leave you behind. Ready to abandon
you when she thought she was allowed into heaven, Gloria. You want
to sacrifice everything for someone like that?”

Gloria nodded. “I’m not leaving her.”

The older woman shook her head.

Angela turned toward her mother with eyes filled
with tears. “You’d give up paradise for me?” Her face was a riot of
pain, sorrow, and confusion.

“I love you, Angela. There is no paradise. Not if it
means leaving you behind to suffer.”

“You know what this means?” The old woman asked,
staring at her daughter and granddaughter as if they were both two
pitiful fools.

“Yes. I know.” Gloria took her daughter’s arm and
turned away from heaven, back toward the entrance to hell. Somehow,
the tunnel didn’t look as dark as it had before

Wrath James White and Monica J. O’Rourke

The journey back to inferno seemed to take much
longer. Gloria and her daughter stumbled along as if in a daze, now
stripped of all hope. The tunnel felt even more claustrophobic now.
The darkness grew as heaven receded into the distance.

Even with the light of heaven shining against their
backs, casting frightening shadows against the hot, unctuous cave
walls, it was as if they were walking through the dripping bowels
of some impossibly large beast. Smells of rancid blood and
putrescent flesh assailed their senses. Screams echoed through the
dank corridors and bounced off cave walls. Even the heat was more
oppressive than Gloria remembered.

Eternity
, Gloria thought bitterly.
We have
to spend eternity here.
She thought it best not to share her
terror with her daughter—although she couldn’t imagine why not.
What was she protecting Angela from? The kid wasn’t stupid.

Gloria tried to keep the tears from spilling, wanted
to be strong for her daughter. But the realization of what she’d
done overpowered her. She’d turned her back on heaven.
Heaven.
Had turned her back on God. Now what?
Really,
she thought.
What the hell is next
? She almost laughed at
the absurdity.

Though she didn’t regret her decision. She’d chosen
her daughter over Paradise and was proud she’d found the strength.
Now she just needed to somehow live with her decision. And to find
a way for her and her daughter to survive damnation.

“Mom? I know I’m the reason you’re here. You
could’ve left me behind to rot. I don’t know why you didn’t, but,
um … thanks.”

“I did it for us.” And that was the truth. She had
done it for herself as much as for Angela. But something felt off …
and she tried to ignore the memory of Angela’s performance on
Earth, how easily she’d tricked her mother. She wanted to believe
in Angela. Gloria would die—
had
died—for her daughter, and
it had been a selfless act, in part anyway. Part of it was Gloria’s
personal redemption. Remorse for having chosen her addiction over
her child so many years earlier. Gloria realized and accepted this.
But whatever her true reasons, she had chosen to be with Angela, to
sacrifice her own happiness for her child’s.

But she wondered what Angela was thinking. Gloria
had experienced far too much misery in her life to take much of
anything at face value, even when it involved her daughter. Was the
girl truly overwhelmed with love and remorse, sincerely grateful?
The skeptic in Gloria had a rough time wrapping around that bit of
reality. She tended to believe Angela had one goal in mind:
herself.

“Besides,” Gloria said. “I have to wonder what kind
of God allows the existence of a place like this. And what kind of
a god allows the conditions to exist on earth that brought us
here.”

Gloria shook her head, grabbed Angela’s shoulder,
and they stopped walking. “Whatever I am,” she said, with a bit of
urgency, as if these words were vitally important, that Angela
would need to hear them to survive. “Whatever
you
are.
Whatever decisions we’ve made—he’s ultimately responsible because
he made it all. Do you understand?”

Angela shrugged and seemed distracted, bored with
her mother’s words. She tried to pull away but Gloria held
tight.

“If a car doesn’t run properly, you don’t punish the
car, right? You punish the maker. Hell is just where God sends his
mistakes so he doesn’t have to be reminded of his own failures.
We’ve been swept under the rug. It isn’t fair, baby. And I want no
part of a God like that. It’s better to stay in hell. At least we
know what we’re up against here.”

“Do we? Do you really think they’ve done their worst
to us?”

Angela was still terrified and uncertain. She looked
utterly depressed and defeated. This last rejection had destroyed
her. It would be up to Gloria to rebuild her.

Gloria’s indignation gave her strength, turned her
sorrow to rage. She felt better having focus for her anger, even if
it was toward someone as untouchable as God. At least it kept her
from turning her rage inward and hating herself. She could
understand the desire to project your own failures outward and
blame others. She understood why God felt it easier to blame man’s
free will for the evil in the world, rather than on his own flawed
design. She was doing the same thing by blaming him. It was the
only way she could live with the horror, and she supposed that if
she were God, looking at the myriad atrocities on earth, she would
do anything to avoid taking responsibility for it, maybe even
punish her own creations for their faults.

“I don’t want to be tortured again!” Angela cried.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

She didn’t have an answer. Not yet. But there had to
be a way. Had to. Gloria didn’t want to be tortured again either,
but how long could they avoid it? This was hell, and there was no
way they would be allowed to simply exist in peace. They would have
to fight or find some way to escape. Heaven was not an option, but
neither was returning to Earth as a ridiculous giant slug. Perhaps
there was a purgatory after all, despite all mention of Purgatory
having been expunged from the bible. Maybe it had never existed.
But if heaven and hell existed, then maybe there was a possibility.
Maybe another corridor somewhere. Gloria didn’t know, but she was
sure that if it did exist, someone in hell would know where to find
it. Just like they’d known about this tunnel. There was still so
much to consider.