Highway To Hell

by Alex Laybourne

  Marcus wanted to speak but found himself frozen, his lungs filled with air, but when it came out it brought no sound. It was like he had been hypnotized, yet all of them were aware of what occurred around them. After a while Nemamiah resumed his tale and they all stood, their minds filled by the words yet hungry for more, as if they had been offered fruit plucked from the tree of knowledge itself.

  “Once Lucifer found the portals and learnt how to use them it was merely a matter of time before he became strong enough to travel through them. Your world is not the only one, as I am sure you now understand.” Nemamiah swept his arm out before him showing them once again the barren, oven baked land upon which they stood. “Yet it was man that he was truly seeking, it was man that he blamed most for his fall, and man who, sadly to say, was the easiest to corrupt. He filled your world with hate, murder and deception. Envy and lust became mainstays of your existence and the more you sinned, the more his power grew. Yet despite it all, he could never take you whole, unlike the spirits and beings that dwell in the outer worlds. He had to wait for your death before he could claim your spirits, a small parting gift from us to him when he fell.” The voice had changed now, or maybe they had become accustomed to it. Maybe all angel stories were told in such mesmeric tones and it you just had to build up a tolerance.

  “If he could move around all this time, why hasn’t he broken out already?” Marcus said. He had many a great many questions stored up, but he feared at least half of them would not be answered – but this question was one that he wanted to get out in the open. He treated it as a test to make sure they weren’t just playing a trick on them. It was a question that he hoped would give him enough information to be able to use it at a later date in a number of different capacities and help them on their way.

  “Travelling the portal pathways is not easy; it drains you, and if you get lost along the way the energy of the paths will consume you,” Nakir said to them, but Marcus noticed – he could not speak for the others as he had forgotten that they were there, with the exception of Helen – that neither Nakir nor Sariel dared stepped forward now to speak, nor did they look so bold and brash. Apparently an angelic ticking off had a lasting effect.

  “Then what is so different now?” Graham asked, his tone of voice still one of deep cynicism. He sounded quite annoyed, as if they had woken him from a good nap or pulled him away from a good football game to talk at him nonsensically.

  “A great many things have changed. Lucifer’s domain has grown, and broken through the portals. He has fused masses together across the pathways, breaking them down and setting the balance of everything off center. Each new piece of land, every extra world he adds to it, causes the balance to topple further,” Sariel answered. His tone was much like that of Graham. One of deep annoyance, and Marcus couldn’t quite work out whether it was a good imitation or if they were genuinely annoyed at being made to talk to humans.

  Another tremor shook the ground, this one lasting about thirty seconds, and even the angels seemed to look startled. In the distance, lost somewhere in the reaches of the wastelands, a pillar of orange fire spurted into the sky, glinting in the sun like a tower of jewels. The power of it was felt even in town: they could all hear the foundations of the skeletal buildings creak and groan. Fibers snapped even further as the wave of heat washed over them, pushing a cloud of dead, dusty earth before it like a shield, preserving its heat for as long as possible.

  “The underworld is a powerful place, and Lucifer was the most powerful angel in paradise, but even he is not exempt from the effects of the portals. The large beings, like Lucifer and what remains of our other fallen brothers, are easy enough to find and contain, but his army grows at such a rate even we cannot keep track of them all the time. It has always been so; beings escape through the portals and come out in other worlds. Their sole purpose is to recruit, to gather new souls, new bodies for Lucifer to bend to meet his will. ”

  “You mean on earth?” Sammy raised his voice. He looked blindly towards the angels.

  “To coin a popular phrase, there are other worlds than this. Have you not understood that yet? There are beings, energy forces everywhere that can be taken. The lost souls of mankind are but a small piece of the population. You are merely Lucifer’s own personal fascination, to be honest, in the grand scheme of things; you are but cannon fodder for his soldiers.” As he spoke Nemamiah cast a nervous glance at the floor beneath their feet, where thin snail-like traces of a warm orange glow could be seen shining through the crust. “We must be quick,” he added in a tone much more somber than anybody would have liked.

  “Why us?” Marcus asked, another one of the questions he felt must be asked.

  “The answer is simpler than you realize. You are God’s favorites. He had us, and then he created you, and commissioned us to ensure your safety. Lucifer will do anything to control mankind simply to anger our father.” It was Sariel who spoke, his gravelly voice resonating deeply in the air.

  “I mean us,” Marcus said again, only this time he swept his arm out and drew an imaginary circle around the five of them. They had moved closer together again.

  “In good time you will know,” Sariel said, before he stood back and turned the floor back to Nemamiah.

  XV

  All around them the strange humming sound began to work its way into their heads, not forcing its way but rather worming inside them, sneaking in through the back door while they were occupied with other more important matters.

  “Every world that Lucifer conquered or emptied was welded to his own, but nothing is able to satiate his quest: his hunger for control over humanity has transformed him. There have been battles for as long as your time has existed. You hear them but cannot interpret them for what they are. Besides these worlds there are parallel existences, where humans live in the same place as you, the same time, but you never meet. Time runs adjacent in each parallel, but the portals access them all.” Nemamiah had once again resumed control of the story telling. He stood more relaxed now, as if he had grown slightly more acclimatized to his guests. If there had been a sofa and a few beanbag chairs, Becky was fairly sure he would have sat down in one and resumed his tale, possibly smoking a pipe as did. With this image in her head she could not help but give a smile.

  “You mean like a parallel universe; a world existing within our own, people living in the same house as us, shitting in the same pot,” Graham scoffed.

  “Yes.” Nakir’s curt response came out even before Graham had finished speaking. “More than one. Yyou may catch glimpses of them from time to time; reflections and shadows from for the most. You call them ghosts.” At this both Graham and Becky gave a stifled laugh. One in disbelief, the other a distorted form of understanding. “Believe me or not, for I have no time to deal with the simple gradient of your thoughts,” Nakir snapped before being thrown another, if not even more furious glance from Nemamiah. So heavy was his face that even Nakir’s black eyes seemed to pale compared to the thunder red rage that appeared on Nemamiah’s face. Without saying another word, Nakir spread his wings; wings so bright and pure that none saw, apart from Sammy; they shone in his mind’s eye as beams of pure brilliance, with a detail that the human eye could never even hope to comprehend. Then with the speed of a flying bullet he was gone, and Sammy felt a wave of depression sweep through him as his world was once again restored to darkness. Even the light of the remaining two angels seemed dark in comparison to what he had just witnessed. He let out a slow, quiet sigh.

  Nobody spoke for a few minutes. The banishing of Nakir – for they all knew that was what it had been – left them all ill at ease. The humming sound continued to push its way into their ears, and for the first time since they had gathered to listen to that what they must be told, they noticed Sammy’s eyes. They were bleeding, not as though someone had taken a knife and divided an artery, but certainly more than the weepy nature of the crusted over wounds would have warranted under any normal circumstances. Even Sammy raised
a hand to them and felt the sticky residue on his fingers as he pulled them away.

  “They’re not too bad. Honest, just a bit… wet, that’s all,” Becky lied to him. She knew she was lying, and worst of all she knew that Sammy knew it, but it was what he needed to hear. She had been in the position where a small and completely unconvincing lie had been the best medicine.

  Nemamiah noticed it also, as did Sariel, but neither moved to offer any help: instead they looked once more at the ground and then decided to continue with their tales.

  “The concept of multiple layers and worlds within the fabric of your own can be a tough one, but at this moment in time it is not imperative that you understand, but simply believe. Understand that Lucifer means to take much more than just your world and those that exist within it. He looks to claw his way back into the heavens and this time he is strong enough and has an army large enough to be a real threat to the balance.” Nemamiah accented his words and mimicked mortal speech as best he knew, and could see on their faces – with the exception of Graham – that they were at least willing to consider what he had told them.

  “Okay, but what can we do? I mean, you said that you guys, sorry, I mean the angels, have been fighting Lucifer for a long time. I don’t understand what we can do; I mean, you have stated our insignificant stature in the overall balance of the universe several times, so why are we here? Why pull us out of Hell, and not some other creature, a clan of warriors or… or… I don’t know, something more useful. I just don’t get it.” Marcus posed the questions, but they were all a variation of the same one that danced on all of their lips. He had one arm crossed over his stomach and the elbow of the other rested on the enveloping forearm. Marcus scratched his chin as he tried to think and stay at least one step ahead of the game, or in this case as few steps behind as possible.

  Nemamiah considered this for a second, his head tilted slightly to one side. He looked at Marcus, and opened his mouth several times before closing it, trying to find the right words for the occasion. “You of all people, Marcus, should understand the concept of fighting for a cause that you cannot fully explain. You dedicated your life to fighting the very things we now speak of. The low level sentient beings that manage to slip through the openings that appear or those that use battle as a cover, fleeing when our eyes are diverted.” Nemamiah’s answer was vague, yet Marcus nodded. He thought he understood.

  “It is God’s will that you help; He gave us your names and told us to pull you from Hell. You all died a death that was not due; you were all plucked from the earth by something, and that has never happened before, not to the extent it did with yourselves. You were sent straight to the judgment chambers. You should have been sent to one of the grey worlds to await your trials.” Nemamiah did all of the talking now.

  “So what made us so special?” Becky asked.

  Marcus turned his head to face Becky as she spoke, and in doing so he caught a glimpse of the look which had set itself on Graham’s face. It was as if the wind had changed direction and frozen it in a look that was not anger but one of worn patience. It spoke volumes to Marcus. Graham was clearly exasperated, because, despite it all, everybody seemed to be coming round to the ideas being presented to them – everyone apart from him, that was. Graham thought it a waste of their time. He wanted to get through this and then either wake up or simply move onto the next stage of his afterlife.

  Becky was scared by the possible reaction her words may have elicited from the angels, even as she said them. She knew what she had experienced in Hell, she knew that was where she had been, and deservedly so in her own eyes.

  “Nothing makes you special, not that we can tell. Your deaths were unique; they were random; you were victims of circumstance. The portals opened exactly where you all were. It has long been rumored that Lucifer was searching for something in your reality, something that was lost when he fell, and we took this to be a signal of his intent, so we intervened,” Sariel said, his tone one of moderate – forced – enthusiasm.

  “We all died at the same time? That must be something special, surely; you said these portals were difficult to use yet five of them managed to open up and swallow us simultaneously.” Marcus didn’t speak but rather speculated his mind.

  “Truth be told, for this is what you must hear, there were more than just the five of you, and your deaths were not simultaneous. Marcus Fielding, you died in 2009; Graham, your wonderful skeptic, died a few months later. Helen, here, you were pulled back in 2007; Sammy, you left your car and girlfriend wrapped together a half year before that in late 2006; and, Becky, well, you obviously share your date with Marcus. Everything happens for a reason; we angels do not believe in coincidence, as you would have it phrased.” Nemamiah was quick with his information, rattling it off like one of those pitching machines used in batting cages and tennis courts. “We do not have time for questions; you must all be educated on what is happening. There are battles that do currently and soon will rage, and you must learn how you are to play your part in our war. I beg of you, please, listen to me now.” Nemamiah held his hands outstretched, palms facing upwards, his request a genuine plea for all ears to be cast in his direction, questions held until after the sermon and a change in venue.

  The humming noise began to drown out the sound of Nemamiah’s words. Turning them vague and diluted, muffled somehow, like talking inside a night club. The ground now had also started to groan, growling as if digesting a large meal; Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas dinner. The ground beneath their feet had begun to move. It was softening, melting as the intense heat below continued to worm its way up to the surface. The all found themselves adjusting their balance and foot positions regularly. If they stood still for too long they were sucked into the ground the same way your feet disappear into the sand when you stand in the surf.

  “You asked about our battles, and yes, the war between Heaven and Hell as you view it is not the signal of the Armageddon, unless you will acknowledge that the final battle began millennia ago and is but nearing its conclusion.” Nemamiah paused for a moment, then continued, “Lucifer is powerful and as his empire grows so does his strength. He is driven by anger and rage, emotions that when harnessed are stronger than all others. We have not seen him for many generations now, but he has been changed, the same way our other fallen brothers and the beings he caught as he fell were changed. The problem is that his empire is built from not one thing, but many worlds crafted together, crossing through the dimensions and portals of time. It is a fragile place, forever shifting and changing its position, and as Lucifer changes, his control lessens. It is in these periods of change that many sentient lower grade beings escape. The majority of the time these shifts simply move them to another place within their own world. Yet sometimes they land in a light world, one inhabited by those who are righteous, or, like your world, one filled with those yet to request judgment. It is only once they arrive here that we will learn of it and the problem will be dealt with.” He paused, his face pensive as he tried to search for the right – simplest – words to use.

  “However,” Nemamiah continued after his brief period of thought, “we cannot be everywhere, we are not omnipresent; sometimes we are simply too late. If a being enters a world of the righteous, or your own,” he added with a snort of disgust, “then they will do the one thing that they know, and that is to collect. They will gather en-masse like a harvest.”

  “Earthquakes; you’re talking about earthquakes, aren’t you? I mean, shifting pieces of ground, a lot of people dying.” It was Marcus once again who drew all the conclusions, yet once it was said the others saw it too. It was embarrassingly obvious when they thought about it.

  Nemamiah regarded them with a look that was hard to place but when pushed the closest would have been pride. The sort of look a parent gives their child when watching the school play or seeing them score the winning goal in a soccer game. He wasn’t necessarily surprised that they had figured it out, but was just pleased with the sp
eed they had done it in. He could read it from all of their faces – even the old man – that they understood as a group.

  “Yes, but what you feel and see in your world it is not a result of a shift, but from the force of the portals when they open; the ones that open into your world, the world you all came from. It is key you understand that you all came from the same world, the same time, and the same plane of existence. The force of the gateways opening pushes around the plates that cover your planet and creates what you call earthquakes. In fact, the same applies for everything you consider a ‘man-made’ disaster.” While he didn’t use air-quotes, when he spoke the word ‘man-made’ they all had an image in their minds of Nemamiah doing so. It was the tone his voice took on when he said it. Thankfully – or so they thought later on when looking back on this first fateful day – Nemamiah didn’t seem to notice and continued to talk unbroken. “Earthquakes and hurricanes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are all the result of portals being opened. Those who perish are taken regardless of their worth, their righteousness. Sometimes we arrive in time; we see the signs building the same way you humans can do with your machines and the technology we allow you to develop.”

  “Seismologists,” Graham scoffed. His contempt for the angel was now clearer than ever. “You’re telling us that seismologists have been able to track the battles of Heaven and Hell, and that earthquakes are little snippets of Hell that escape into our world.” He laughed as he spoke, not with joy, but rather a vicious sounding laugh, and it made the colors of Nemamiah’s face darken several shades.