It was hot-but this was not the broiling hot fiery place he’d been taught about in Sunday school. There weren’t any people running around on fire, and there were no red devils poking people with pitchforks. It felt more like he was on the moon than in hell. He’d thought this place would be full of people, but it looked like he was the only one here.
“Hello?” He called, hoping to hear his mother’s voice. Even the sight of the demon would have been welcome at this point, he thought. He could speak, but it was like yelling into a vacuum. The sound just didn’t carry very far.
He decided that he’d better move somewhere. He’d never find his mother standing here on the rocks wondering what to do next. There really was just one way to go, and that was down. The whole thing reminded him of a program he’d seen on television about ant lions, which were bugs that made a big funnel-shaped trap in the sand. When an ant came by it would fall into the tunnel and the ant lion would eat it.
He wondered if this place was like that-a giant trap to catch you when you went down to the center. He supposed if that were the case it was already too late. He couldn’t see any other way to go but down.
There was no path, but it was easy to navigate. The only landmark was the cherry-red mouth-like opening at the bottom, and that lit up everything with just enough light to see by. The slope definitely headed downward, but not so steep that he’d have to worry about falling. His mother was down there somewhere with that awful demon. Todd wasn’t sure what he’d do when he found them, but he’d already committed to this by jumping through the gate, so he guessed he’d figure it out as he went along.
He slowly made his way down the rocky surface. Actually, as he went lower the thing did get steeper, and the volcanic rock was shinny, sleek and slippery. Its jagged edges did give him plenty of footholds, but they also cut into his hands and feet.
As he approached the large center opening, Todd became away of two things. First there was the overwhelming sense of loneliness and aloneness. He had never, ever been this alone in his life. His parents or an adult was always nearby. Even if he were alone in his room, he knew his mother or father were in the house, usually in the room next door. Any cry of help would be immediately heard and they would come to him. He’d almost felt this way when he was lost in the woods. But that had been different, too, because there had been sounds. Birds, crickets, and even the sound of the wind. And he’d felt that awful voice calling for him. No, he hadn’t really been alone that night. At least the thing hadn’t gotten back into his head.
The second thing he became aware of was the smell. It was a weird smell, and not altogether unpleasant-it wasn’t anything like the smell of burning flesh that he’d smelled lately, and it didn’t come close to that awful reek that the demon gave off. Just the thought of it made him want to throw up again. This was different. It was a little sickening, like the small of moldy fruit. But it was also a little sweet and pleasant, like a ripe coconut that had just been cut open. It wasn’t either of those things, really, but it was close. He just thought it odd that hell would smell like a tropical fruit. Whatever it was didn’t really matter, he thought. And if it did-well, he’d figure that out later, when he got to where he was supposed to be.
2
It seemed like he fell forever. Somewhere on the way down, he lost his grip with Johnny Dovecrest and the two men were separated, but he knew his friend was beside him, falling down as well. He felt like he was dropping like a bullet, with no end to the fall in sight. Everything around him was a piercing black that no light could penetrate, and he felt the wind rushing past him. He never had minded heights, but falling terrified him; he tried to close his eyes and pretend he was floating, but his stomach had different ideas. It was all he could do to keep from vomiting, and his head whirled around as if he’d been in a centrifuge.
At last the speed of the fall seemed to slow, and he began gliding, or so it seemed. Tentatively, he opened his eyes. In the distance far below him he saw a black opening, surrounded by a cherry-red circle of what appeared to be hot coals. He wasn’t sure if that was where he came from or where he was going to, but the opening seemed to be getting larger. He could now vaguely see Dovecrest’s shape beside him. The Indian flashed him the thumbs up sign to indicate he was all right. Though Erik didn’t feel all right himself, he flashed the sign back.
He tried to speak and, even though he was shouting, no sound escaped his lips. It just seemed swallowed up in this endless, vast expanse of nothingness. There was no sound and no light other than the cherry-red glow of the coals below.
Finally, they landed on solid rocky ground. It was, in fact, the same kind of black, polished obsidian that the altar was made of. Only this was a virtual sea of volcanic rock. It went on for as far as the eye could see, downwards towards the black hole surrounded by hot coals. It was as if they were standing on the rim of a giant funnel leading downwards with a fire-ringed opening at the center. The center looked miles away, and it didn’t appear that there was anything here except that endless black rock.
Erik wasn’t sure what he imagined hell would be like, but it wasn’t anything like this. Hundreds of millions of tortured souls, perhaps. Sinners being cut or burned or ripped apart by monsters. Endless pain and suffering. Fire and brimstone. Whatever vision he had of hell contained people, people who had sinned. He had imagined hell contained people like Adolf Hitler, Caligula, and Vlad the Impaler. Rapists, murderers, serial killers. He’d imagined there would be millions of sinners, from the most notorious criminals to those who simply did not believe.
But this place was empty, barren, devoid of any life whatsoever. This version of hell was an aching void of emptiness and loneliness. It was silence and it was aloneness, the ultimate form of solitary confinement with miles and miles of hard, barren landscape and no where to lie your head. It was like being on the moon, but with no spaceship and no way back. And it would be like this for an eternity. He would have preferred the fire and brimstone. At least it would have been something.
For the first time he understood what it meant to be eternally separated from God-not only God, but all of his creations.
He looked at Dovecrest and saw the same thoughts reflected on the Indian’s face.
“It’s worse than you could possibly imagine,” he said, and realized that his voice could now be heard after all. “I was expecting Dante and his circles of suffering. Not this. Where is everyone?”
“Oh, I suspect they’re here,” Dovecrest said. “Probably by the millions. But this place is so vast, so infinite, that they won’t ever find one another.”
“Then how will we ever find my wife and son. And that awful thing that took them?”
“Your wife and son are alive. They don’t belong here. They’re not damned souls, remember? And for that matter, neither is that demon. At least not damned in the way we know it. We’ll be able to find them. They will stand out.”
“How do you know that?”
“Simple,” the Indian said. “You can see me, can’t you?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“If I were a condemned soul, we’d never be able to find one another and communicate. Not even if we were standing just three feet apart. That’s the punishment, don’t you see? Eternal banishment-from everything.”
Erik nodded. In a weird way, it made sense.
“All right,” he said. “Where do we begin?”
3
The demon Wrath didn’t need to climb down the portal that entered hell. It flew straight down the center and through the red-hot fiery gates, carrying the pregnant woman with it.
It was not pleased with the fact that it had been driven away and forced to come back to this wretched place. It had looked forward to spending some quality time with the people of earth, just getting to know them and their suffering. It had enjoyed the time spent there and was looking forward to a very extended vacation, so to speak. It hadn’t grown tired of inflicting pain and suffering-after all, that’s what Wrath was all
about.
It believed it was one of the most formidable of the demons and, in fact, was not really a demon at all, in the true sense of the word. It was more a personification of sin itself. Compared to other demons-lust, envy, spite, and a host of others-Wrath felt very terrible indeed. It almost laughed to itself. It just couldn’t see lust biting a man in half and chewing on both parts at the same time.
Things had been working out exactly according to plan until that meddling preacher had shown up and sent him back down to hell again. Not that it was the end of the world. It felt more like a child that had been disciplined and sent to its room without supper. The demon’s pride was hurt as much as anything, that this little, meek, half-baked pastor had gotten the better of it.
Not that it liked being in hell. No, by all means, hell was…well, hell was hell, even to those who ran the place. There was a reason people did not want to go here. It wasn’t all fun and games and good times. It had looked into some human minds during its time on earth, and it had been amazed at the things it had seen. There were some who actually thought hell was where you were able to do all of the forbidden things that you couldn’t do when you were alive because they were wrong. These people thought hell was just a huge orgy of sex, drugs, and good times. If that were so, they’d be dying to get here, the demon thought.
On the contrary, hell was not a happy place. It wasn’t like the way it was pictured, though, that was for sure. There were no devils with pitchforks or scalding hot oil or perpetual burning. What kind of God would torture His creations that way? No, but the reality of hell was much worse. Sometimes it wondered at God’s sense of humor.
The reality of hell wasn’t burning and fires, at least not in the traditional sense. When people came here they got exactly what they had wanted, and what they deserved. People who came here did not want to know God, had, in fact, turned away from Him, and did not want to be bothered with Him or his rules. So that’s what God gave them. Eternal separation. He showed them the light, dangled it before them like food to a starving man, and told them what they could have had, if they had chosen it. But they chose the alternative, so He took it away, just as they realized how absolutely wonderful it would have been….
Wrath knew all about hell. Because the demon too, was eternally cursed and could never be redeemed. It had chosen the dark side, never realizing the absolute radiance of the light until it had seen for itself, and then had been taken away. And now, to have to live for the rest of eternity with its sin burning up inside it like horrific brimstone, burning and eating away from the inside out forever and ever. And to have seen what could have been, and then given this instead, this miserable existence that could never know love or comfort, or freedom from the burning sin within…. That, indeed, was hell, and it was worse than anything that could ever be imagined.
Sure, it had escaped for a short time, and had been able to indulge in the sin that burned within it. But the story was the same. It was forced back into its room, and the wrath inside it would continue to burn and blaze and smolder. It was the personification of a sin that it could not indulge in while it was here, not without a trip back to earth. And now that was over, at least for now.
But this time would be different. This time it had brought a plaything back with it. It felt the woman writhing in his grip. Apparently she was having another contraction. They were coming closer together now. That meant the baby would come soon, all young and new and innocent. Its terror would be extreme as it died, and its delivery and birth in hell would cause quite a stir. Its death would be even more interesting.
The demon flew easily through the inner portal and into the main chamber of hell itself. This was its home, of sorts, such as it was. A deep funnel leading to the bowels of an entirely different dimension.
It thought for a moment about the human scientists who tried to explain things. This place defied their physics in so many ways. It wished it’d brought one of them with it, just to hear how they’d explain this world. They’d probably try to bring in rotating black holes, quasars, and quarks to make sense of it all. But this was so very far beyond their comprehension as to be laughable. The mortals thought they knew how things worked and what the universe was like. But their science was so very, very far off the mark.
It passed through the gates to another entirely different world, a world like a chocolate layer cake leading endlessly downward. This world was populated by billions of people, more people than what currently lived on the earth. Only they weren’t people anymore. They were disembodied souls. Still alive-yet not alive. Dead, but not dead. And each one very much aware of its own misery. The demon Wrath could see each and every one of these souls. But the irony of it was that, although there were billions of them, they couldn’t see each other. They existed in the same place of existence, often flowing through one another. But each one was as unaware of the next as they endlessly searched for others that they would never, ever be able to find. It was a doomed, damned solitary existence that would last for eternity.
The demon passed through the portals and came to a soft landing on the barren plains inside. This was an endless world of black sand and volcanic rock that went on for as far as the eye could see, and stopped just on the edges of infinity. No single being could ever search every corner of this world, not even in eternity. But they were each doomed to try in the ill-conceived hope that they would find someone, anyone, they could be with. At first they would search for specific loved ones from their past. But soon enough they would search for anyone, just anyone that could fill the void that was endless separation from God and all that was good.
The demon gently eased Vickie onto a patch of soft, black sand. It didn’t want to hurt her or the unborn child-not yet. It untied her bonds. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
As she sat up, the trance she had been in seemed to wear off some, though shock and horror kept her from becoming completely alert and aware.
“Where am I?” she said. “Where have you taken me?”
The demon looked at her for a moment and almost felt sorry for her. But it had lost all emotions millennia ago when it had become so consumed by rage that it had actually become the sin of wrath, in the flesh, so to speak. It no longer knew or felt anything except the pleasure it derived from inflicting pain and suffering upon others.
The demon folded its wings onto its back and sat down next to her.
“I am afraid that you and your unborn daughter are in hell,” it said with a sneer.
The woman recoiled and moved back. “And who-or what-are you?”
The monster decided it was time to relax a bit and lose the demon persona. It pulled its wings back out and folded them around itself, covering itself completely, as if in a leathery shroud. It waited for a moment and allowed the transformation to take place. Then it unveiled itself to reveal a human form, a human male, naked and perfectly formed.
The woman was already so shocked that Wrath didn’t think anything could shock her more. She looked at it for several moments before speaking.
“You’re…human…,” she said.
“I am whatever I choose to be,” the demon corrected, now in a smooth and deep male voice. “Right now I choose to be human. At least in my form.”
The woman seemed to relax a bit. Then another contraction came and she lay back on the sand and breathed in short, powerful spurts. It watched as the shade of an old man walked completely through her solid form, calling for the shade of his dearly departed wife. The cursed soul was as unaware of the pregnant woman as she was of him, both completely oblivious to each other.
“The grave’s a fine, private place, and none I think, do there embrace,” the demon said.
The woman’s contraction ended and she looked at him for a long moment. “You quoted Andrew Marvell,” she said. “How do you know about poetry? Who are you? What are you and what do you want with me?”
She seemed more surprised by the fact that it knew this mortal poet than by the fact that
she was now sitting in the middle of hell holding a conversation with a demon that was sin in the flesh.
The monster smiled. Yes, that human poet had been so close to the truth, at least for those who ended up here. His soul was down here somewhere, with the billions of others, searching for his own lost love.
“I know about a lot of things,” it said. “But mostly I know about suffering. And you and your daughter will know about suffering too before your time with me is done.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1
“Well, let’s head downward,” Erik said. He had to almost shout to be heard. It was like talking into a vacuum. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
The Indian nodded.
They made their way down the rocky slope as quickly as they could. It was steep enough to be treacherous if they were not careful, but not steep enough to slow them down very much.
“This is going to be difficult when we come back up,” Erik said.
Dovecrest forced a laugh. “Somehow I doubt that we’ll be coming back this way again.”
Erik wished Pastor Mark was here right now. The preacher might be able to give him some insights into what he was seeing and experiencing. To him this was nothing but a vast wasteland, completely devoid of life, love, and hope. The pastor might understand all this better. But for now he had just one goal-to find his wife and son and get them out of this place and back home where they belonged.
The heat increased as they approached the portal. It was like the opening in the bottom of a funnel, with red, glowing embers all around it that lit up the entire world, or whatever it was, Erik thought. He wondered if they’d get burned going through the opening. It was large enough to drive a tank thorough, at least.
The Altar Page 24
