As he was feeling around his regenerated eye with his fingertips, he became aware that he was hearing a distant murmur of voices from somewhere out in the corridor. Curious but apprehensive, he got to his feet and crept closer to the thorny bars.
The voices were somewhat louder, echoey with the corridor’s acoustics, but from this angle he couldn’t see anyone . . . just a few other cells like this one, facing his. They were untenanted, however, with their doors standing open. Leaning closer to his cell’s door in the hope of making out the unknown speakers’ words, he curled his hands around two of its bars between their spikes . . . and the door shifted forward, swinging out a little. He had been left in an unlocked cell.
What kind of trick was this? Some diabolical game? Were those apparently human voices meant to lure him into a trap?
He eased the door outward some more, grateful that its hinges didn’t squeal, and dared to poke his head into the corridor. His reactivated heart was pounding at maximum power.
To the right the corridor went on a good ways, showing only more abandoned cells, but the sounds had come from the left and in this direction he was met with an unexpected sight. In an open intersection of corridors, about twenty Damned—all in fresh black outfits—stood facing a group of six human beings in snowy robes with the hoods drooping behind them like crumpled wings. These were undoubtedly blessed souls—people who had died under the good graces of the Creator. Angels . The only time he’d ever seen Angels before, they were tourists venturing into Hades on safaris to hunt the Damned. Evidently Paradise grew boring.
Standing to either side of the Angels, no doubt to protect them from the Damned, were two taller figures wearing cone-like red hoods, through the eyeholes of which a white light glowed, their bodies also cloaked in red. They carried assault rifles. These were obviously Celestials, the equivalent of the Demons: entities that saw to the needs of the Angels just as Demons saw to the punishment of the Damned. They were said to be more terrible than Demons, but like Demons they could be destroyed—killed— because they had no immortal souls. And what Damned didn’t dream of killing Demons and Celestials?
One of the Angels, a corpulent elderly man, bald but for a semicircle of white hair tucked behind his ears, looked over and spotted him and motioned to the others. Even the hooded Celestials turned his way. He felt the irrational urge to dive back into his cell . . . as if that would protect him if those crimson-robed warriors came striding down the corridor.
Another of the Angels, a tall woman perhaps in her early sixties, with silver-white hair flowing to her shoulders, smiled and raised a hand to gesture to him. “Come here, sir . . . don’t be afraid. We bring you season’s greetings!”
5. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
He hesitated. The tall woman, who must have been model-beautiful in her younger days and was still striking—poised and sapphire-eyed—gestured again but maintained a patient and gentle tone. “Come on, don’t be shy now. What is your name, sir?”
He was reassured that at least the Angels didn’t have guns. Obediently, he started down the corridor toward the unlikely party. When he was close enough for his nervous voice to be heard he said, “Andrew Nabors.”
“Andrew! Did your parents name you after Andrew the fisherman, brother of Peter, son of Jonas?”
“I don’t know.”
“Any relation to Jim Nabors?” the corpulent man asked in a wheezy voice, grinning.
“Not that I know of,” Andrew said.
“Andrew, my name is Eva,” said the woman, apparently the leader of this group. Andrew resisted the urge to ask if her parents had named her after the first woman. “This is my son, Patrick.” She indicated the corpulent man, who had obviously died many years after his younger-looking mother. Eva went on to introduce the other members of her party . . . aside from the nameless Celestial escorts.
Andrew nodded to each Angel in turn and at the end muttered, “Nice to meet you.” He noted that the other Damned were watching him expectantly, as if he might tell them what was going on, their faces no less uneasy than his own. Several of them were children. One of the Damned women held a boy of maybe five in her arms, straddling her hip. Surely not her own child, because—as was clearly not the case in Heaven—one of the punishments of Hades was never to allow family members or spouses to be reunited in death. Hades was vast enough that they could be distributed impossible distances from one another, that even an eternity of traveling might not be traversed. The boy made Andrew think of his son at that age, and the thought of the boy’s fear compressed his heart in a vise.
“Well, Andrew,” said Eva, “you were the last we were waiting for. Now that we’ve all been properly introduced, why don’t we go on to the main hall to talk about the reason why our little expedition came here today.”
The Damned followed the Angels through a series of corridors until they entered a large chamber with a high arched ceiling that Andrew hadn’t seen when he’d been briefly held in this facility before. The room was undecorated, windowless, but a long table made of black wood from infernal trees, with benches pulled up to both sides of it, dominated the floor. A miniature cloud, glowing white, billowed and knotted in upon itself in the air above the table, giving the room its illumination. Were banquets held here for visiting Angels? Meetings for Demonic officials? In each of the room’s four corners, unmoving as titan suits of armor, stood a Torus Demon with a spear. The vapors curling from the sigils on their robes were like an audience of ghosts lurking furtively at the fringes.
Eva turned to face them all, passing her smile from one to the next, and announced, “Today, my friends, is Christmas Eve.”
Another of the perks of Heaven? Andrew wondered. The passage of time was charted, known?
No one reacted, except for the dark-skinned boy on the woman’s hip, who twisted around alertly in her arms. In life he might not have celebrated that holiday, but he obviously knew of its festivities. Seeing the child’s instinctively eager reaction out of the corner of his eye squeezed from Andrew another dollop of pain.
When no one said anything, Eva went on, “A group of us in Paradise have undertaken to forego our own Christmas celebrations this year to bring them, instead, to unfortunate souls like yourselves. We call ourselves the Carolers, because in life some of us—myself included—went door-to-door singing carols outside people’s homes on Christmas Eve.” Her smile grew more beatific at the memory. “There are presently almost two hundred of us. Because Hades is so immense, we can’t possibly reach out to all of you, but we hope for more volunteers to join the cause in years to come. Nevertheless, we Carolers have spread ourselves out as best we can, and our particular group has chosen this place—chosen you— for our visit.”
Some of the Damned exchanged wary looks. When was the trick going to be revealed, the trap sprung? Andrew, however, felt Eva and her group were sincere. He had grown up with religion. He recognized the missionary, the evangelist, the midwife to those who would be born again. But it was too late for any of them to be born again, wasn’t it, when in Hades they had been consigned to eternally die again . . . and again.
Eva looked a bit embarrassed or disappointed that no spontaneous exclamations of gratitude, nor even a single smile, had greeted her announcement, but she soldiered on. “Tomorrow morning is Christmas, and we’ll have some festivities for you . . . some special surprises. But for now, we want you to enjoy the anticipation that makes the night before Christmas so magical. We invite you to interact openly with each other, to talk freely and move about this facility as you care to. There will be no punishments, no torments, nothing to fear tonight. This respite is our gift to you. Tonight you can reflect on your lives . . . on Christmases past. We encourage you to sing songs together, play games! And we most certainly invite you to talk with us as well. I’m sure most of you have regrets about decisions you made in your lives. We will listen to those regrets with open hearts, and you may find a degree of comfort in the telling. Confession is good
for the soul, and it’s unlikely that in life or thereafter you’ve ever taken the opportunity to truly confess—to confront your sins in a manner that is contemplative, that doesn’t simply involve the punishing consequences of sin.” She spread her arms, palms upturned, saint-like. “We welcome you to talk of this, or any other thing you may care to express.”
“Ooh,” her son Patrick wheezed, looking toward a doorway at the far end of the great room. “Here come some treats!”
Into the chamber came a procession of a dozen Demons of a smaller size than the Torus, better adapted to this structure’s maze of narrow, low-ceilinged corridors. They were very much like old but still powerful chimpanzees, shaved completely hairless, their pale and stubbly bodies and even their faces luridly and colorfully tattooed with scenes of the Holocaust, and child molestation, and the tortures of Inquisition. Overlarge penises swung between their legs as they loped along. They often ravished female and male Damned alike, even the children, and the Damned had nicknamed their species Rapes. But now, incongruously, they bore platters of illusory food for illusory bellies. Breads and crackers and cheeses, ruby-red grapes and other infernal fruits that didn’t quite correspond to earthly varieties. Earthen jugs of wine, water, and milk derived from infernal animals. Pastries and candies and nuts. The platters were laid out along both sides of the banquet table. Then, with a few flashed snarls at the Damned and a couple of barking cries, the Rapes turned and waddled out of the room again, their great arms swinging at their sides.
“Please,” Eva said, waving her arm like a woman revealing a car behind a curtain on a game show, “enjoy yourselves!”
6. The Breaking of Bread
Though some of them no doubt suspected poison, or razor blades or broken glass secreted in the food, not one of the Damned refused partaking of it, so strong was the hunger they constantly suffered. The young woman who had taken it upon herself to care for the little boy sat him beside her on the bench and plucked grapes for him.
Partly what reassured the Damned was that Patrick and a couple of the other Angels were digging into the feast themselves. “Mm,” he mumbled, chewing, “this is a helluva good cheese!”
“Patrick,” his mother warned, casting him a chastising glance. She continued speaking with one of the Damned who had approached her, a timid-looking man who had died in his seventies. He had revealed that he was a newcomer to Hades, the drowning pool having been the first of the punishments meted out to him. In a quavering voice he had confessed his sin: in life he’d been an atheist.
“Is it true,” he asked her, “there’s no Satan . . . never was? Only the Creator?”
“Yes, Richard,” Eva replied. “A truly loving and strong father knows when to spank just as he knows when to caress.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “One cannot blame Him for their fate; one can only blame himself. Those who sin bring about their own punishment. They wield the sword against themselves.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe, Eva, I’m sorry!” Richard sobbed, breaking down. “Now I know better! Why do I have to suffer for all eternity just because I made a mistake—a stupid, blind mistake?”
Listening in on their conversation, chewing a cheese sandwich he’d put together, Andrew cut in before Eva could reply. “In life, supposedly, we can be forgiven for our sins if we confess to them and repent. Why can’t we be absolved after our deaths, if we feel contrite?”
“Oh, Andrew,” Eva said, facing him, “by then it’s too late: judgment has been cast. The opportunity to die in a state of grace has passed, but the opportunity was there. May I ask you—and of course you needn’t answer if you’d rather not—what sin brought you here?”
Andrew put down his plate, and his voice gained strength, defiance. “I shot a man—a priest who’d been abusing my son, and who knows how many other boys, for years.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your son. Did you kill this priest while he was attacking your child, to defend him?”
“No. I hunted him down after the fact. I shot him in the street. And for that, for killing that monster, I’m here. I was a devoutly religious person in life, but here I am. And I strongly suspect that Father Gordon MacArthur is at this very moment enjoying Christmas Eve in Heaven, attended by a flock of golden-haired Celestial slave boys. Is that true, Eva? Did he make it into Paradise?”
“Andrew,” Eva sighed, “I don’t know of this man. But if he felt honest regret in his heart for his actions, if he made confession and paid his penance in life—in life, before you killed him—then yes, Andrew, he would have.”
“I see. Sure. Make some bullshit insincere confession, go through the motions, and why not? So tell me this: how about my son? Where is he now? Because I forgot to tell you this part, Eva: my son was so distraught over what that scumbag did to him that he hanged himself. He killed himself, only fifteen years old.” His voice choked on the last few words.
“Oh, dear,” Eva said, wagging her head sadly, her tone that of a compassionate doctor relating that a loved one’s prognosis was dire. “If he committed suicide, then I’m sorry to say he’d be denied entrance to Paradise.”
“Of course!” Andrew blurted, though this news was not unsuspected. “Of course he would!”
One of the two Celestials, who had been lingering nearby, shifted forward and raised its assault rifle a little, but Eva waved it back.
Andrew lowered his voice to a hiss, pointing toward the child eating grapes, who was oblivious to their conversation. “What about him? What could he have done at his age to deserve being here?”
“He told me his name is Ravinder,” Eva whispered, leaning toward Andrew. “I’d say he was born of Hindu parents. I’m sorry, Andrew, I know how this sounds, but I don’t make the rules. The rules are not kept secret, though. In any part of the world where people live, people of any color or creed, who is not aware of the Son’s words, whether they choose to follow them or not? ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
“And that poor kid has to be tortured for eternity because he didn’t defy his Hindu parents and say, hey, fuck that, this Jesus guy is for me?”
Eva recoiled slightly, her expression gone chilly at his profanity. “You talked about contrition, Andrew, and forgiveness. May I ask you another question? Even if you could be forgiven for murdering that priest, and ascend from Hades to Heaven, can you tell me you are truly sorry for having killed him?”
Andrew didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” he said flatly. “I’m not sorry.”
“Well, there you go.”
7. The Eternal Night
None of them sang songs or played games that night, after the Angels had all left through that doorway at the far end of the banquet hall, presumably to retire to more comfortable quarters than the Damned had access to. They did, though, break off into pairs or little groups to talk in subdued tones while continuing to pick at the feast. Only a couple of them sat alone, perhaps reflecting too much on Christmases they had known in their mortal existence, one old woman weeping quietly and continuously.
Within Andrew’s earshot, a man approached the young woman tending to the small boy and asked haltingly, “Would you want to share a bunk with me tonight?”
“I’m caring for him,” she said, nodding at the child.
“Well . . . couldn’t someone else watch him? How about just for an hour?”
“Sorry.”
“I’m just looking for a little comfort,” he said, his voice catching.
“I’m comforting him .”
The man drifted away, mumbling. Andrew thought he might next ask one of the older Damned women, or the men, or even the twelve-year-old girl, but he didn’t.
Eventually people began leaving the hall, seeking cells in which to indulge in the luxury of undisturbed sleep. Andrew heaped a dish with more food, though he was full almost to discomfort, and took it with him. He didn’t think he’d find the same cell he’d woken up in but imagined it didn’t matter. He settled on a cell that was
unoccupied, with an unoccupied cell to either side, but with other people close enough at hand along the corridor that he experienced a faint measure of reassurance at their presence. He closed his cell’s door most of the way, but not entirely. It felt good to know it didn’t have to be closed all the way.
He set the plate down, removed his shoes, stretched out on his back with his fingers laced behind his head, and gazed at the ceiling with its striped rows of grooves for the bars to pass through when the wall of spiked bars was cranked forward. But not tonight. No such tortures this one night. Tomorrow was the birthday of Christ. But . . . hadn’t Christ died for their sins?
So why did they have to die infinite deaths to pay for their own sins? How did that work?
He realized he had never understood religion at all. That it was unfathomable except, perhaps, to the alien mind of the Creator. If He even understood Himself.
Andrew had almost dozed off when a stealthy shuffling from the corridor caused him to angle his face that way. It wasn’t Santa Claus with his sack. It was one of the Rapes, the front of its body tattooed with a scene of lingchi, the Chinese torture of Death by a Thousand Cuts. The simian-like Demon, its eyes entirely black, curled back its upper lip in a snarl-like leer and pointed one finger at him. Its member was erect, the head protruding between the bars. It might as well have said to him, though it said nothing, “Soon . . . soon enough.” Satisfied that Andrew had seen it, the Rape turned away, loping off down the corridor presumably to look in on the next prisoner.
Andrew thought, So much for Eva’s promise of one night of peace .
He got out of bed and, though it wouldn’t lock, he closed the barred door all the way.
Haunted Worlds Page 18
