Escape From Hell

by Larry Niven

  “What’s a Vestibule?” he asked. “Sylvia? Suicide? You Sylvia Plath?”

  “Why, yes —”

  “I had a teacher who used to read us your poems. Never knew what they were about, but they scared me.”

  “I’m sorry —”

  “Why? I ought to have been scared. I should have been scared to get in that car with Tony. How far do we have to go here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “A long way.”

  “Yeah. Well, like it ought to be a long way.” He looked across the dike to the desert and shook his head. “Never saw either one of them out there.”

  “Either one of what?” Sylvia asked.

  “The priests. The ones who done me.”

  “Priests — did you?” Sylvia looked bewildered.

  “Yeah, sure. That’s why I’m out here.”

  “You’re in Hell because you were abused by priests?” I demanded.

  “Well, yeah, man, look, I got to liking it. And after Father Steve hanged himself, I heard Father Danny looked funny at some of the altar boys, so I went and found him, and like, yeah, he really wanted it, I could tell, so I went to his place one night. He didn’t want to do it, but I got him to. It was great. What’s the matter?”

  Sylvia was staring at him.

  “It was Father Danny used to read me your poems,” Angelo said. “He really dug that stuff. I’m sorry, it didn’t mean much to me, but he said it was like rad so I was like I liked it, too, until one night I stole his book and hid it so he wouldn’t be reading it to me anymore.”

  Sylvia turned away.

  “Guess she’s mad at me,” Angelo said. “How far is it? We nearly there?”

  Sylvia walked in stony silence. Something was eating at her. I wondered if it could be the same thing that was bothering me. What was Angelo doing here? Sure, what he’d been doing was awful, but did he know that? It was a priest who got him started.

  “Angelo, how old were you when Father Steve abused you?”

  “Abused. That’s a good word. They called it molesting,” Angelo said.

  “Molesting?” Sylvia said, and laughed.

  “Anyway, how old were you?”

  “Ten. We carried on till I was fifteen. That’s when he hanged himself.”

  “Why did Father Steve hang himself?” I asked.

  “Like somebody snitched on what he was doing.”

  “Somebody?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Well, okay, like it was me. But it never got out who told.”

  “Why did you tell on him?” Sylvia asked.

  “He wouldn’t give me any more money,” Angelo said.

  “Was he giving you money?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but like it wasn’t enough.”

  “Did he have more?”

  “Well, he could have had more,” Angelo said. “There was plenty of money around that church.”

  “So you snitched on him because he wouldn’t steal money from the church and give it to you?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I mean, like it wouldn’t have been hard for him to get some more money. He just wouldn’t.”

  Sylvia shouted at him, “Don’t you see how awful that was?”

  Angelo edged away from her. “Sure didn’t work very well.”

  “It was wrong whether it worked or not,” Sylvia said.

  “Well, I don’t know, it was, like it might have worked. He wasn’t so happy with me anymore anyway, he’d found Malcolm. I told on him and Malcolm. I never let on he was doing me.”

  We walked along in silence for a while. Sylvia came over to me. “You understand French, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I understand everyone. But everyone understands me, too.”

  She was speaking French, but I heard it as English. Or as something I understood, anyway. It was clear that Angelo didn’t understand her. “I know. Allen, do you think that boy belongs in here?”

  “You mean in this circle, or in Hell?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “Dante would say so.”

  “Dante was medieval.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I guess he does, but I’m wondering what good it does to put him here. He doesn’t seem to have learned anything from being put in Hell.”

  “Pour encourager les autres?”

  “Allen, that’s horrible! It can’t be justice to punish one person so that others will learn from the example. Can it?”

  “Especially if no one knows,” I said.

  “Allen — he’s not ready to leave here.”

  “If you really believe that, the remedy is obvious,” I said.

  “Sure. But I can’t do it.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Oh, you can,” Sylvia said. “You’re strong enough. You don’t want to. I don’t think I can do it whether I want to or not.”

  Angelo had been watching us suspiciously. “What are you talking about? You talking about me?”

  Sylvia turned to him. “Don’t you feel anything? It was horrible what you did to those priests.”

  Angelo laughed. “Sure. Both of them buggered me and I’m supposed to be sorry. Can I help it if I liked it?”

  “But you knew it was wrong!”

  He shrugged. “I know lots of people said it was wrong. But lots of those were getting rich out of it, out of stuff they said happened twenty years ago and they were just remembering it. Bullshit. You get buggered by a priest, you remember it all right. How you going to forget?”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone when it first happened to you?” Sylvia asked.

  “Why should I? I mean, the big deal to me was that I found out I like being done by a man. I always thought I was supposed to like girls. I never did, but I figured it was because I wasn’t old enough. Then he told me I was never going to like girls.”

  “And you believed him?” Sylvia asked.

  “He was a priest. It made sense to me, and so what anyway? I liked it, he liked it. Wasn’t anybody else’s business.”

  “But you asked him for money,” I said. “You must have thought it was wrong if you could get money to keep from telling.”

  He laughed. “Well, I sure knew everybody else thought it was wrong,” he said. “Yeah, maybe I’m sorry about doing that to Father Steve. But he didn’t like me anymore! He had Malcolm. I just wanted him back. But when they found out about him he went and hanged himself. Why’d he do that to me?”

  “He didn’t do it to you, he did it to himself,” Sylvia said. “So now he’s a tree. Maybe he’ll be a tree forever. Do you think you ought to do something about that?”

  “Nothing I can do.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s plenty you can do,” Sylvia said. “If you want to.”

  “What good would that do me?” he demanded.

  “Well, it would be the right thing to do,” Sylvia said. “And it just might earn your way out of Hell.”

  “Why should I earn my way out? I can follow you.”

  I told him, “I don’t think you’ll make it. Angelo, there are far worse places than this, and we have to go through them to get to the bottom. There are places for seducers. For thieves. For frauds. And far down there’s a place for those who betrayed friends who trusted them. We have to go through all those places. Any of them sound like you?”

  “What’s wrong with me? You can get out but I can’t. Why?”

  “Attitude,” I said.

  “You don’t have a conscience,” Sylvia said. “You know right from wrong, but you just don’t care.”

  “Maybe that’s right. So what?”

  “So it’s God’s universe, and He says you should care,” Sylvia said.

  “Sylvia, I’m scared now.”

  “You ought to be scared! Stay scared! They do horrible things to those who betray friends!”

  “All true,” I told him.

  “Worse than out there?”

  “Yes.”

  “So like what do I got to do?”

  “Rescue Father Steve,” Sylvia s
aid.

  “I don’t even know how to find him.”

  “He’ll be in the Wood of the Suicides. If you look for him, you’ll find him,” Sylvia said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I find him and — and what? You said he’s a tree! What can I do with a tree?”

  “I was a tree,” Sylvia said. “Allen stacked broken branches around me. Then he got fire and burned me.”

  “You’re both crazy.” He was awed. “Didn’t that hurt?”

  “Worse than anything that ever happened to me in my life,” Sylvia said. “But I burned to smoke and then I wasn’t a tree anymore. And that’s what you have to do for Father Steve.”

  “What happens if I don’t?”

  “You betrayed a friend,” I said. “And you didn’t make it right afterward. Angelo, I did that. I pushed a friend into the Pit of the Evil Counselors. He may even have belonged there. But it was betrayal! Just before it was too late, I turned back and helped get him out.”

  “Listen to him, Angelo,” Sylvia said. “It’s your best chance.” She shook her head. “I don’t know everything. Maybe a saint will rescue you. God wants to love you —”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard all that. Jesus loves me, this I know. So does Ragtime Cowboy Joe.”

  “It sounds silly because it’s all wrong,” Sylvia said. “I didn’t say God loves you. Maybe He does, but I sure don’t love you right now. You’re not lovable.”

  “You want me back in the fire.” He looked nervously at my pickaxe.

  “No, Angelo, I want you to be the kind of person who doesn’t deserve to be in the fire. And right now, you deserve to be in that fire as much as Father Steve. Come with us and that’s what you will get. Or worse. Far worse.”

  “You’re scaring me again!”

  “I hope to God I am scaring you,” Sylvia said. “Being scared is the only thing that’s going to save you.”

  “You’re saying I need to go back in that fire ‘cause there’s worse will happen if I don’t. You ever been in that desert?”

  “Yes, we both have.”

  “You’re saying I can’t stay with you when you get out of here. You won’t let me?”

  “No, that’s not up to us,” I told him. “We won’t decide. You think you can talk your way out of anything, don’t you? Angelo, is any of this getting through to you at all?”

  “Sure. You hate me. God hates me.”

  “It’s not what we said, but, all right, assume that’s true,” Sylvia told him. “God hates you. Why? Because of what you did. You have to make that right so God will love you.”

  “Sylvia —”

  “It’s the only way he’s going to understand it, Allen. The beginning of wisdom. Angelo, if you come with us you aren’t going to get to the bottom. You won’t.”

  “Which way do I go?”

  I pointed. “Run that way for two hours. Count minutes if you have to. Then turn straight left and go until you see the woods. Then search the woods for Father Steve.”

  “What if I see Father Danny out there?”

  “Maybe you will. If you do, explain all this to him. Maybe he’ll come with you, to help.”

  “Oh!” Sylvia put her hand to her mouth. “One more thing. If you see — this is going to sound silly. Just before you get to the woods you’ll see an ice–cream stand. It’s safe in there.”

  “Sylvia.”

  “He’ll see it, Allen.”

  “Because it’s good poetry?”

  “Yes, and because it’s right. Go, Angelo, it’s your only chance.”

  He was standing near the edge of the dike. I wondered if I should push him off, but I knew I wasn’t going to do that. I remembered how easy it had been for me to get down to the Tenth Circle with the traitors after I pushed Benito into the pit.

  God help the kid, I thought. “Go!” I shouted.

  He hesitated, then ran uphill along the dike. “You’re going to throw me in there!” he shouted.

  “No,” I said. “We won’t do that.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He ran farther away from us.

  “Come on, Allen. We’ve done all we can,” Sylvia said. She took my hand and led me down the dike. “We tried to put the fear of God in him.”

  We walked until we could hear a roaring sound.

  “The waterfall,” Sylvia said. She glanced back up the dike. Hell’s eternal twilight kept things dim, and the steam from the stream kept visibility down. “Is he still back there?”

  “I think so. Following us. Sylvia, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “I don’t, either, Allen, but what can we do? If we take him farther down, he’ll end up with the Seducers. That’s if he’s lucky. Betrayers, more likely.”

  “Yeah. I know —”

  “You!”

  Someone was shouting at us from out in the desert. I looked out to see a big man, muscled, scraggly beard with holes burned in it, long black hair hanging down his back. I thought the hair should have burned away, but it hadn’t. It took me a moment to recognize him.

  “Frank,” I said.

  “Yeah. Frank. You told us there was a way out of here.”

  “And you told us to go to Hell,” I said. “I remember.”

  “Well, I been thinking about it. I want out.”

  “You know the way,” I told him.

  “Allen, who is this?” Sylvia asked.

  “Hell’s Angel,” I said. “He was a hitchhiker when I crossed the desert with Benito. Actually more like a highjacker. He was going to throw us off the cliff.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “Billy,” I said. “Billy showed Frank he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.”

  “Hey, man, I’m sorry,” Frank said. “We got off to a bad start, let me make it up to you.” He came to the edge and held out his hand.

  “Allen, be careful.”

  I didn’t trust Frank one bit. I stood looking down at him.

  “Scared of me? You don’t have to. I’m a changed man,” Frank said. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Look, I know I did you wrong, I’m asking you to forgive me.”

  I leaned over toward him.

  “Allen!”

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” I told Sylvia. I laid my pickaxe down and took Frank’s hand and shook it. He held on.

  “Pull me up,” he said. It wasn’t quite a command, but it wasn’t a request, either.

  I thought about it.

  “For God’s sake, pull me out of this fire!”

  I hauled him up. I’d thought he’d have been heavy, but it didn’t take much effort. He stood on the dike still holding my hand. “Jesus, that feels good,” he said. “Not to be in the fire.”

  “You can let go now,” I said.

  He kicked my pickaxe over the edge into the desert.

  “I’ll let go when I fucking well feel like it, punk.” He looked at Sylvia. “What you staring at, sweetie? Like what you see?”

  “Frank, didn’t being in that fire teach you anything at all?” I asked.

  “Enough to know I don’t want back in it,” he said. “Who the hell are you people? Last time I saw you, you were driving across the desert, telling people you knew the way out of here. Then you tell me the way out is to jump off the cliff! Doreen believed you, you know. She did it. Jumped off. Never saw her again.”

  Before Sylvia could ask, I said, “Another hitchhiker. She was too scared to jump. Guess she found some courage. Let go of me, Frank.”

  “Just thinking what I ought to do.”

  “You ought to get me my pickaxe,” I said.

  “Sure. You going to call Billy?” He looked around. “Don’t see him.” Frank laughed.

  Motion uphill caught his eye. Someone was coming down the dike. “Who’s that?” Frank let me go and stepped away from me. “Billy? Hey, I was just kidding,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  Angelo came closer.

  “You’re not Billy! You�
��re that damned kid, I know who you are!” Frank lunged to grab Angelo. “Got you!”

  “Put me down!”

  “Sure I will.” Frank half carried and half dragged Angelo to the edge of the dike.

  I realized what Frank was going to do and started toward them. “Stop —”

  “Stop what?” Frank shoved Angelo hard. The boy fell off the edge and down into the fire. “Just wait till I catch you again!” Frank yelled.

  Angelo looked terrified. A fat fireflake fell on the back of his neck. He screamed. Then he looked to Sylvia. “Which way?”

  She pointed. Frank looked to Sylvia, then back at Angelo, and before I could stop him, he grabbed Sylvia and pushed her off the edge. She fell hard.

  “Now you!” Frank said.

  “No.” I moved toward Frank. His eyes narrowed, and he looked the way he had when he thought he’d seen Billy coming.

  I took Frank by one arm and a leg and lifted him above my head. He didn’t seem heavy at all. He hit me in the face with his free hand. I carried him to the edge and threw him out into the fireflakes. Then I bent down to reach for Sylvia. She took my hand and I lifted her back onto the dike.

  Frank was standing there staring at us.

  “Who the Hell are you people?” he screamed. He looked around. Angelo had vanished into the falling fireflakes. There was no one else near. Frank looked back up at us. I moved closer to the edge. My pickaxe was down there and I needed it. I jumped off.

  “Want to play umbrella?” I called up to Sylvia. “We can look for Angelo, with Frank as the umbrella.”

  Frank stared at us for a moment, and then ran off without a word. I reached the pickaxe up to Sylvia, and scrambled up with her lifting, until I was back on the dike.

  “Maybe we should look for Angelo,” Sylvia said.

  “You don’t really want to.”

  “No, I don’t. And I don’t know if we should, either. He’s out there now. Maybe he really will go find Father Steve.”

  “We —”

  “We’d never find Father Steve,” Sylvia said. “Even if we did, it’s not our forgiveness he needs. Allen, you don’t want to rescue Father Steve.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “And we can’t rescue Angelo. He has to do that for himself.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “Father Steve is rooted. Who’ll help him?”