by Tony Moyle
“How did you get past the security guard at the airport?” enquired Laslow.
“I don’t know.”
“Who told you what to do in the hotel corridor?”
“I’m not sure.”
“When you ran out of fortune, who has been guiding you through your journey?” goaded Laslow, spinning a riddle that John would need help to find the answer to.
“I don’t know.”
“When we last met I said that there were powers at work beyond your wildest comprehension. The power I referred to was partly my own. It has been by my will that you are here. I have controlled your every move,” said Laslow, “even your own death.”
John’s memory cast itself back to the moment of the car crash. The moment he drew his last breath. The incident that in all probability could not, or should not, have caused his death. He closed Byron’s eyes and pictured the scene in his mind. The broken postbox, the smell of leaking fuel, and the warm trickles of blood running down his face. Harder than he had done before he attempted to focus on the old man peering over the windshield of his car. A man of impossible age. A man whose skin clung tightly to his skull, whose eyes burnt with an anger unparalleled to anything he’d witnessed before. The face that had for so long been blurred, developed in his mind like a roll of old photographic film.
“YOU!” he turned the gun away from Sandy and pointed it directly at Laslow.
“Finally you show some real emotion. It’s anger, not compassion, that drives at the truth. Do you want the truth, John?”
“I WANT MY LIFE BACK,” screamed John, pulsating with so much fury his soul wanted to leap out of its body. “I WANT THE LIFE THAT YOU HAVE STOLEN.”
“Interesting how you attack me for dabbling in the fate of others. What about your own acts of manipulation? Yes, I have influenced you to aid my agenda. What of poor Byron? Have you not also done the same to him? It’s Byron that stands before me in mortal peril, a puppet to meet your ends. Have you spared a thought for his destiny?”
The irony was not lost on John. Laslow was right. Byron might have been an abhorrent individual capable of stealing the souls from the very people he should have been protecting, but what right did John have to judge him? What right did John have to lead him to his death?
“It’s different. Byron had his chance, he deserves everything that he gets. He was also responsible for dominating people against their will,” replied John with an argument that just seemed to play into Laslow’s hands.
“Playing God again, John? I see that two wrongs do make a right. Very well, in that case I accept your absolution.”
“No, it’s different. I’m doing what is right.”
“Who’s to say what is right?” replied Laslow. “One man’s view of right is alien to someone with opposing opinions. A terrorist fights for a cause he believes in, just like your friend Violet. Does it make her right? Whose perspective is acceptable? We’ve all been doing it, John. You, Byron, Violet, even Sandy here. We have all used our will to define the outcome that would best suit us. The difference is that I have no conscience to regret my actions, so sue me.”
“It’s different, I AM RIGHT,” raged John.
“You’re a pawn, John. An insignificant piece easily sacrificed but totally unable to influence the outcome of the game. We oversee a billion human experiments here on Earth. Each one moved around the board and changed for our own amusement. The only difference between you and me is the scale of the power available,” replied Laslow, instinctively knowing which buttons he needed to press to stoke John’s aggression. After many years of scientific observation he knew how humans behaved.
John in an instant did the only thing that would give him back a semblance of control. His anger helped turn his gun back at Sandy and without hesitation or mental debate he fired a single, silent shot. The bullet pierced Sandy’s chest and the corpse of a blue-grey pigeon hit the floor. It was followed swiftly by a blue, gaseous form that floated underneath the ioniser for a moment, and a fraction of a second later it was gone.
“That’s how insignificant I am. Your words might cut at my soul, but they can’t change the past,” John said calmly.
“Proud of your power, are you?”
“I feel sorry for you, Laslow,” replied John.
“I really wouldn’t.”
“You may have started out as a human, but you have lost all human qualities. Your power is worthless. Real power isn’t the ability to harm or meddle. Real power is overcoming your frailty when every sinew of your mind tells you it’s impossible. Real power is facing up to your problems when you want to hide from them. Real power is picking yourself up from a fall and redoubling your efforts. Real power is the strength to choose what is right. I just did what was right, not what was easy.”
“We’ll see. These things have a habit of correcting themselves. You can’t fight what you don’t understand,” replied Laslow still appearing calm and controlled. “Now that you have dispatched your friend, perhaps we can start with the real business?”
“Not until you give me some answers, even if I can’t live with them,” demanded John, fearing the same fate as Sandy and developing a sudden thirst for understanding. He knew in his heart he was only stalling the inevitable.
“We have time?” Laslow replied, glancing up at the ioniser for a moment.
“When you spoke to me during Nash’s exorcism, I was under the impression that you were on my side. Whose side are you on?”
Laslow’s demeanour changed. The corners of his chiselled jaw straightened, removing the psychotic grin that had been permanently etched on his face. His nostrils flared like an agitated dragon and it was clear that John had said something that Laslow had not expected. Something had momentarily broken Laslow’s control and John’s emotions and memories whirred around Byron’s head in order to find it and use it to his advantage.
“Mine,” Laslow grunted. “I’m only on my side.”
“It wasn’t you. So, if it wasn’t you, who was it?”
“Baltazaar,” whispered Laslow under his breath.
“Who’s Baltazaar?” asked an intrigued John.
“You should choose your friends more wisely, John. If you really care about humanity in the way you suggest, then you’d be best to stay well clear of him. Baltazaar is no friend of humans.”
“Given the choice between him and you at this moment, I’m not swinging in your favour. In fairness he’s not pointing a gun at me,” John replied sarcastically.
“You think you’re so clever revealing him to me. In truth, it’s your biggest mistake to date. If you have spoken to him it means you have experienced the Limpet Syndrome for yourself. Which means that you have suddenly become extremely dangerous. Only eleven others in your position have done that and I’ve killed six of them,” explained Laslow, taking another glimpse at the ioniser, waiting for an invisible signal that would bring the toying of his prey to an end. “It’s almost time. Do you have any other questions while we wait?” Laslow added flippantly.
“Yes, as it happens. I’m intrigued as to why a man who has the ability to melt things with the power of his own finger needs to carry a gun?”
“Very good, John. Now we get to the real points of interest. What do you know about the solstice?” asked Laslow back on message and impressed that John had noticed the irregularity.
“Longest day of the year, middle-aged men dancing around with bells on their flares, and until recently the destruction of time and space,” John scoffed.
“There are some other important qualities about the solstice you may not know. When the sun is in its highest position in the Northern Hemisphere it literally stops. Its name comes from the Latin ‘sol’ and ‘sistere.’ ‘Sistere’ means ‘stand still’ and ‘sol’ means…”
“The sun, or possibly a refreshing Spanish lager?” John was tiring of Laslow’s games of intellect. He knew he was about to die again, and all this did was delay the inevitable.
“Neither. It c
an mean sun, yes, but it actually refers to the soul. The soul stands still. In medieval times people would light huge bonfires to ward off evil spirits. Although the stuff of pagan propaganda, it wasn’t so far from the truth. If you know where to look for it, anyone’s soul can be seen at the point of the solstice, particularly if there is more than one of them.”
The timing couldn’t have been more fitting. John couldn’t say how long he had been underground since the earthquake, as time had become an unfamiliar concept in this foreign place. When they had fallen through the Earth, the Sun had only just risen. Outside in the world it was now creeping into its final position. As it did so a shaft of light burst down and out of the ioniser, brighter than a thousand lasers. The metallic gloom disintegrated as the whole of the sphere burnt with the reflections emitted from every slope and curve. John blinked uncomfortably trying to adjust to the dramatic change of conditions.
“See. There you are, John.” Laslow was pointing his finger directly at John. He was pointing at the exact position in the frontal lobe where John had been situated for several weeks. “I see the light is dim. Can you feel the shadow yet?”
To John’s surprise a spot of bright blue electricity throbbed through the translucent skin of Laslow’s head, and it wasn’t alone. There was a faint blue colour across the whole of Laslow’s body. This light was paler and stretched. It did not emit the same energy and brightness as the one that sat in his forehead.
“There is another interesting fact that I know to be true,” Laslow offered. “At the zenith of the solstice there are certain midsummer plants that have incredible healing powers. Even the power to bring back the dead. Plants just like this one here.”
He held out a plant with delicate white flowers that he’d plucked from his pocket. As the light bathed his hand the flowers seemed to grow by some form of accelerated photosynthesis. John had no idea what the significance of this was, other than proving that Laslow had finally lost the plot.
“To answer your question about the gun, I find the healing power of this plant doesn’t work on bodies that I have turned to ash.”
A gunshot echoed abruptly through the sphere. The sound danced around forever like the laugh had done before it. John felt a force from Byron’s chest that jolted him upwards and out of his position, pushing him through the mouth and into the brightness. Although he felt Laslow’s presence he no longer visualised it. Outside of Byron’s body a shock of electricity struck out at him as if it was trying to find protection. There was a brief battle between his soul and this other entity before he felt the inevitable familiarity of being flung skywards with an incredible force and the density of a burnt-out star.
Laslow edged forward to the crumpled, bleeding and broken body of Byron T. Casey. There on the glossy, cold surface lay a hollow body once home to a great, proud yet wayward politician. Death had come to him in a flash. A pain-free experience many in life would have appreciated. Clutching the white flowers in his hand, Laslow knelt down and whispered in Byron’s ear.
“What are we going to do with you, then?”
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE -
TIME IMMEMORIAL
There were no special arrangements for John’s final visit to Hell. No unique greeting or welcome party. No entrance by the back door or extended occupation of the Soul Catcher. There was no need for it. If he hadn’t suspected it before, then the meeting with Laslow had confirmed it. There were no deals with the Devil. Now he was a soul like all the others on the final journey that would lead to damnation. He had been part of a game in which his participation was still unclear.
He left the Soul Catcher as quickly as he had entered it, and for that he was extremely grateful. The idea of having to spend more time being bombarded by the panic of the wretched mass within filled him with uncontrollable anxiety. Before he knew what had happened he was standing inside his vessol manacled by the hands and feet and lined up on the conveyor belt with all the rest.
Expecting to be housed in something ghastly or inappropriate, he looked down at his plastic body to see how he would spend eternity. What final humiliation was the Devil going to deal him as a constant warning to others? It wasn’t a surprise that he did not immediately recognise the figure that he occupied. After wearing so many different disguises in the last three months he’d forgotten what the real John Hewson looked like. It felt uneasy to be inside his own skin, even a plastic version of it. The truth was that John didn’t know who or what he was anymore. Perhaps being John Hewson was the ultimate humiliation? Why did it matter anyway? His soul was broken, whatever vessol he was inside.
John recognised many of figures that were busy making this endless process run smoothly. Brimstone stood by the Soul Catcher busy with his daily, never-ending workload. The steaming molten figure refrained from curiously looking over to where John was about to disappear from sight. John had become an invisible acquaintance, someone that he’d endured because he had to. Just waiting for the moment when he’d show his real feelings.
Around John stood hundreds of vessols of every possible demographic; females, males, young, old, short, and tall. All equally damned, all dressed in their white plastic and all undoubtedly consumed by fear and doubt. These were their plastic graves, whether they were held in them for the rest of eternity, or they were consumed by their despair and recycled into space. He pitied them for their fear. At least he knew what he was about to suffer and in some way was prepared for it. The only consolation was that Sandy would not face the same punishment.
As the conveyor belt crawled slowly along, occasionally stalling to welcome another inmate, John was aware that he was entering a part of Hell that he had not seen before. The conveyor belt led into a cave that was relatively small compared to the endless caverns of the inner levels. Inside, the main conveyor burrowed through an eight-foot-high steel arch that resembled a metal detector from an airport security checkpoint. On the other side of the arch the belt split into ten separate conveyors that sped off at different gradients into the holes in the wall.
The conveyor stopped as each vessol reached the arch. There a lamp beamed down from the top, bathing the figure in brilliant light and highlighting the blue soul within. As the light scanned the soul for a few seconds a glass panel to the left presented a solitary number. As the never-ending line of vessols passed by, John observed the numbers that flashed on-screen. A three, then an eight, a one, and very occasionally a ten. The majority of the numbers were between one and three.
Those in front of John would have been desperate to know what these numbers meant. Not only did he know, but he also predicted what number would flash when he reached the scanner. They’d place him where he would receive the most punishment. The vessol in front of him went through the apparatus and the number flashed with a big, bright ten. ‘Lucky sod,’ John thought. Knowing that the character in front of him must be a seriously nasty piece of work didn’t stop a bout of jealously within him. What he would do to swap places. The survival instinct of a doomed soul, desperate to avoid the fate that it knew would come.
John’s turn arrived and the mechanism’s light shone through his prosthetic body. It analysed his every emotion, like a computer scanning for viruses. Maybe it was his imagination but it appeared to be taking a lot longer for him than it had for some of the others. Some of the vessols had only been under for fractions of a second before a verdict had been revealed, as if there was little for the device to discover. Finally a number flashed on the screen. It was a twelve.
The machine seemed just as perplexed as he was. So far, on his previous visits, he’d been from level zero to level eleven, and to his knowledge there was no level twelve. The machine stopped with a grinding shudder, unsure of its next command. There were only ten conveyors and it was being asked to use number twelve. It searched for a piece of programming script that had been lost in the depths of its design.
John racked his memory to locate any reference that he had to a twelfth level. He knew that there were ten f
or inmates, Brimstone had shown him that when he’d first arrived. He recalled the lift that they had taken to the library on level eleven. Then it struck him like a punch to the face. There were twelve numbers on the lift. It was the only level whose contents had not been discussed. Was that a good thing? If level ten had been the closest level to the Devil himself, where souls were treated like royalty, was this place better or worse? Perhaps he was being rewarded for his efforts after all?
“Take him down,” called a voice a little way below to John’s right. He was lifted down by a demon that appeared to be a cross between a bolt of lightning and a ball of fire. The charged electricity from the demon’s hands pierced the vessol and the whole of John’s soul was left numb. The figure dumped him roughly onto the stone floor.
“Thank you, Mr. Volts, I’ll deal with him now,” said Brimstone, walking casually towards one of the exits. John shuffled after him, which even in death is hard to do when your legs are manacled.
“What’s happening, Brimstone?” he called to the small, bubbling figure now some way in front of him.
There was no response.
John’s question fell on deaf ears, although it was unclear if Brimstone had anything that even resembled ears. When they reached the lift that they had taken so many months before, at least by John’s calendar, they both got in. Brimstone pulled out a small stepladder from a corner of the lift to enable him to reach the button marked ‘level twelve’, which was normally unused and out of reach.
“What’s on level twelve?” asked John, now able to get some form of eye contact with Brimstone.
“You’ll find out when you get there, won’t you?”
“You promised me, Brimstone,” beseeched John. “You said that I would have my freedom.”
“That’ll teach you to make deals with demons, then, won’t it? Besides, you got two or three more months of fun out of your life, didn’t you?”
“Fun. You call that fun?” John exclaimed. “I think I would have had more fun if I’d stayed here!”
