Holy Sheoly

by Hunter Blain

  “Doorway? Like Gehenna?”

  “Yes. Much like the gateway between Earth and Hell that you used, we can surmise that the River Styx acts as a doorway between Hell and Sheol.”

  “What about when I’m down there? How do I get back? Could I just, like, cut my way from Sheol back up to Hell when we are done below?” I asked hopefully, feeling good that I might have solved the riddle on how to return.

  “I’m not sure who created Sheol, or even why for that matter, but I do know it is at the furthest reaches of creation, resting on the shoreline of oblivion. No angel, even wearing Father’s armor, has ever been able to shift there. That being said, I am confident that you would only be able to use the gladius and cut back to the in-between while below, which would be an exact copy of the torment those in Sheol experience already.”

  “Only slower,” I drawled, feeling my chest tighten as anxiety stuck its clawed hand out from under the bed, clicking sharp nails together ominously as I pulled the covers above my head in a futile defense.

  “However, I am also confident you’ll find a way back through the doorway.”

  “Heh,” I unconfidently said.

  Another question popped into my head, fueled by the creeping sensation of doubt spreading throughout my mind.

  “How do you know this will work? Lowering me through the River Styx, I mean.”

  “I don’t, exactly, because no angel or demon has ever attempted to use the door.”

  I started thinking about all the souls falling off the bridge to burn in the river before ending up in Sheol. Then I thought about Da in the dungeon of Faerie, and Dawson outside the punishment cubes of Hell.

  “It’s all so confusing.”

  “Which part?”

  “Well, freaking all of it. But especially where the River Styx is the doorway between planes, but angels, demons, and souls that die anywhere in the universe end up below. It counters the logic of having a door in the first place. I...I don’t get it.”

  “Like I said, I have no idea who made the doorway or why Sheol was even constructed. It might simply be a forgotten space within our universe where conscious life is drawn to before being swallowed by oblivion. The souls falling through the river might have created a natural pathway, like a stream through a mountain, until a doorway manifested. But what I can say for sure is only someone who isn’t dead, like you, would need the doorway to go below.”

  I let his theory marinate in my mind, answering most of my concerns.

  “Question,” I began as I narrowed my eyes and stared off at nothing, “If another angel was down here, wouldn’t they be able to do the same thing? Manifest a sphere thingy, I mean, and go below.”

  “Angels are not allowed in Hell. Michael has forbidden it on the punishment of excommunication and banishment from Heaven, including being stripped of all celestial gifts, like the armor.”

  “Ah, got ya,” I said. “Soooo...this will be the first attempt to getting into Sheol by any soul, demon, or angel who hasn’t been killed.”

  “Pretty sure we covered that part already,” Baleius said with a grin. He knew I was unconsciously stalling the inevitable. “Are you ready, my friend?” he asked.

  I took a quick, steadying inhale, set my jaw, and nodded while locking gazes with the demon I called friend.

  He extended his hand, and the bottom half of a sphere sprang to life on top of the now mostly frozen River Styx. I saw it was comprised of ivory with gold etchings, and I turned to see Baleius was just as surprised as I was.

  “Weird. Thought it would be made of obsidian or something,” I said.

  “I must confess I did as well,” Baleius concurred.

  I locked eyes with my body, and the bond of trust between us grew to new strengths. We both knew the armor reflected the innermost person, and I think Baleius was now on the side of Light.

  “You should manifest your wings,” I suggested with a smile, excited to see if they would be feathers or leather.

  “I-I’m scared,” Baleius said. An entire symphony of stringed instruments began playing random notes while slowly moving up the fretboard as his words rung out in my heart.

  “Do-don’t say that,” I commanded, all of a sudden dizzy.

  Baleius looked at me quizzically. It hadn’t occurred to me that he hadn’t been able to read the books on my last trip to Hell, nor had he been there when both Dawson and Joey were murdered.

  “I mean, I don’t know what will happen if I manifest them. It’s kind of a huge deal, know what I mean? What if...what if they’re all leather, like a bat? I don’t know if I can handle that disappointment right now.”

  “We’ll try when I get back. How about that?” I suggested, forcing a smile.

  Baleius nodded and I turned to climb into the sphere, holding onto the dock for support. It was surprisingly sturdy, though I was still extremely careful when climbing in, not unlike with Charon’s boat.

  Without telling my soul-body to do so, I lowered into a classic Terminator position. I knelt on one knee with my other leg posted on my foot, and touched my fists to the bottom. I lowered my head and torso until it was touching the thigh of the posted leg, and nervously said, “Do it.”

  The sphere closed around me, and I could both hear and feel it start to submerge beneath the surface of the River Styx. Intermixed with the sound were my own short gasps as I forced my body to act against my instinct to get the hell out.

  It was evident from the vibrations against my knuckles that, even in the in-between, the lava was flowing around my capsule, or maybe that was just my mind filling in what it knew was supposed to be happening. Truth was I had never been under lava before, so had nothing to go on.

  The sound of thick, sloshing liquid moved up the sides until the entirety of my celestial sphere was swallowed in muffled ambience.

  To my relief, the capsule held as I continued to sink, judging by the feeling of displaced lava being pushed around where my fists were touching. I could imagine the bottom being clear and watching as I descended, like a commercial where they put a car in one of those aerodynamic testing tunnels. You know the ones, with the lines of smoke dancing over the car while a sexy voice-over tells you about its curves.

  I continued for several minutes, my chest growing tighter with every passing second, like tightening fresh strings on a guitar. Too many twists of the knob and the string would snap with a twang. I hoped whatever was going to happen would happen soon, because I didn’t know how far Baleius could push my capsule down and still maintain control.

  “At least if he loses control, it’ll all be over in an instant, and I’ll be with Da after all,” I whispered to myself with a constricted throat choked with existential fear. If I could sweat, I would have drowned in my capsule.

  The bottom punched through something and I began to fall, my head slamming into the roof of the manifestation. My arms and feet shot out to brace against the edges, and I pushed myself as best as I could to the middle. The nail floated in front of my face and I realized I had dropped it in my sudden panic. Snatching it from the air, I used my fist instead of my palm to push against the wall, right as I slammed into something solid.

  The manifestation shuddered and then vanished, leaving me in a heap on a dusty floor.

  Bringing my nail-clenching fist closer to my chest, I looked all around and was terrified I couldn’t see anything. It was the blackest black I had ever seen in my entire existence, and I had been buried under several feet of packed earth before. This was more than the absence of light; it was the lack of everything and anything.

  “Oh my Lilith,” I panted, only to be met with my echo in reverse. It wasn’t the familiar echo of the in-between, and that simple fact made me anxious. It started off quiet and was quickly replaced with an almost uncomfortable repetition of my words. The following sentence began before the previous one had ended, creating an unnerving reverb that made my hairs stand on end.

  I thought Charon said there was no sound, I said to Baleius bef
ore the cold reminder that I was alone sunk in, chilling me to the meat of my bones.

  My breaths came in shallow gasps that also echoed, and I slammed my mouth shut to stop the noise. I inhaled deeply through my nose, and even that bounced back at me.

  I climbed to my feet, careful not to make noise, since I wasn’t sure who would be listening, and slowly pivoted all around. My eyes flicked through the blackness but were rewarded with absolute darkness.

  A moan slipped up my throat only to be squelched by my tight lips as I felt thick unease blanket my back and make my skin crawl. It reminded me of when I’d been alive in Ireland and had discovered a burned-out house that had been long since abandoned. Slowly walking through it had made my breath catch and heart flutter, as I knew people were supposed to be living in it, but weren’t. It felt...unnatural.

  I took a step forward with my free hand outstretched while the other kept the nail clutched tight against my chest. I waved my arm around me while taking shallow steps.

  After walking for four or five minutes, I tripped over something and crashed to the ground, which apparently was made up of dense dust. My hand disappeared halfway up to my forearm in the stuff, and I yanked my arm free, waving it in the air to get the clingy stuff off.

  Some got into my eye, and I lifted my clean fist from my chest to rub the dust out, careful not to stab myself, when an idea came to me.

  Sitting up on my knees, I brought my nail hand up above me and said a silent prayer. The angelic gladius blazed to life, casting light for several feet in all directions.

  “Ha!” I cried out in delight. “It worked!”

  Once again, the cold feeling of loneliness took hold, and my mind attempted to form a troubling thought as to how the gladius was alight if I didn’t have my dark passenger any longer.

  At the simple thought, the flames began to flicker and dim.

  “No, no, no, no, no, nonono!” I shot out like a machine gun before slamming my eyes shut and repeating the initial prayer over and over again. The image of proud, smiling faces belonging to my mother and father flashed into my mind, and peace bloomed.

  I could feel the warmth of the flames returning as the light shone through my eyelids, and I opened my eyes to see the heavenfire had returned to a steady flicker.

  “Haha! Yeah!” I called out in excitement, realizing that I was creating the flames. Me! John Cook!

  Bringing my hand up to stroke my beard, I smelled the sand on my hand and scowled as I remembered tripping over something.

  Now that I could see with the flames of Heaven illuminating the darkness, I turned my head to find what I had tripped over and yelped in surprise while falling to my ass and scrambling away. It was a withered corpse half swallowed by the dust.

  “Jesus Christ,” I whimpered while covering my gaping mouth with my free hand, ignoring the odd smell of the dust coating my arm.

  Shifting my stance to walk forward on my knees, I moved closer to the body and saw it had deteriorated to the point where I could see through the rib cage and even sections of the skull.

  The arm that wasn’t submerged in the ground flung out toward the light with an explosion of dust. Eyes shot open and reflected shiny silver orbs back at me as the corpse’s gaze locked onto my flaming sword. A mostly skeletal jaw began flapping open and closed as a dry croak hissed incoherently.

  I threw myself backward and scrambled away while keeping my flaming gladius high above me. Once it was at the edge of my light, the corpse slowed in its movements and I struggled to get to my feet without taking my eyes off the thing.

  I took a few tentative steps forward with a dust-covered gaping mouth and eyes that were a mixture of fascination and horrified disgust. The corpse looked like it was being consumed by the ground itself, almost like a tar pit.

  The damned soul seemed to have used the last of its energy, and dropped its arm to the ground in front of it while silver eyes devoid of sentience stared up at my gladius. Only an animalistic, reactionary spark of life could be seen in the reflective pupils.

  A few steps closer and I crouched down to one knee and leaned forward, well out of reach of the now lifeless arm. What I saw made an echoing moan sing through the air around me as I saw the body was decomposing into the dust rather than being swallowed by it.

  Quivering eyes the size of dinner plates looked down at the ground as my free hand probed the dust with my fingers, dragging four lines for several inches as my brain tried to process what it was seeing.

  “Oh Lilith,” I gagged as drool slipped over my bottom lip and into my dusty beard.

  “Fuck!” I cried out without the accompanying echo as my free hand forcibly patted my face and beard in a futile attempt to get the dead people off my face. “Eeeehh!” I panicked as my attempt to free myself from the clingy dust did nothing. I could smell and even taste the dead on my tongue. It was bitter and made me gag.

  I aggressively spit several times, knowing it wouldn’t do much good but desperate all the same.

  A moan echoed around me, making me freeze in place for several seconds. Had that been me? It didn’t sound like me.

  Another moan came from a different direction and was unmistakably female, while the first had been male.

  I shot to my feet and held my sword high as I twirled in place with quick, gasping breaths. I could feel the cords of my neck standing out as my mouth hung in a perpetual gape of horror.

  Twin silver orbs reflected back at me from the darkness, and I froze as they drifted closer. The outline of thin bodies shambled into existence, as thin as the corpse I had tripped over.

  I turned to run and saw two more sets of silver flecks coming toward me from the darkness.

  “No!” I cried out on the verge of madness as I moved in different directions, being stopped each time by approaching eyes.

  I was kicking up a cloud of dust that drifted into my open mouth, and I slammed it shut as if I had licked the arcing tip of a cattle prod.

  Hundreds of silver eyes bloomed into existence and began closing the distance to where I trembled in fright. Thin arms reached from the darkness, threatening to fray what remained of my sanity.

  “What do you want?!” I cried out as spittle flew from my mouth. Snot dripped down my nose, and I realized I was crying. This was all too much for me to handle.

  The simple act of being reduced to a helpless, sobbing baby sobered me up in an instant. Like twisting a shower faucet, I turned on the anger to replace the helplessness.

  “Erah!” I bellowed as I hoisted my blade toward the black sky and sent a torrent of heavenflame spewing upward.

  Hundreds and hundreds of silver eyes stopped in place and tilted up to follow the flames.

  Maintaining the geyser of fire, my head shot from side to side as I saw countless damned souls in varying degrees of decomposition struggling to see the only light they might have witnessed in an unfathomable amount of time.

  Once I saw they were only trying to see the light, I forced my nerves to relax while letting my flames die down to normal size. Maybe a thousand silver reflections that stretched out as far as I could see, dimmed to about a hundred as the light diminished. Groans of protest rang out, and I gulped as I approached the closest body resembling something of a normal human.

  It was an average-height Asian man with a patchy mustache and dark, sun-kissed skin.

  “You,” I said pointing with my free hand. “What’s going on here?”

  The man continued to stare at my gladius, which I kept above my head with the blade parallel to the ground.

  “Hey!” I barked in a commanding tone. When he didn’t respond, I repeated, “Hey!” while lightly slapping his face.

  The man took note of me then, and let his eyes drift down to latch onto mine.

  “Hu-huuuuhhhh?”

  “What can you tell me about this place?” I inquired, not knowing what information he would be able to provide but willing to try anything.

  “It’s nothing,” the man said in Vietnam
ese.

  I was fortunate to be able to still understand him, and said in his native language, “How long have you been down here?”

  “I...I-I-I don’t know!” the man stammered as if merely trying to think about the question pushed him closer into the depths of madness. I could tell the man was already up to his neck and nearing the point of no return.

  “Have you seen an angel down here?”

  The absurdity of the question seemed to bring the man closer to sanity as he shook his head as if to clear it, and said, “There have been several.” Then a hand went up to his throat and rubbed his skin. “I-I haven’t heard someone else’s voice in so long...anyone’s voice...even my own.” Tears began to well in his eyes as more of his mind cleared. “Oh God, where am I? Why am I here?”

  Remembering what Charon had said about there being no sound, paired with this man’s claims, I lifted my face to the flaming gladius, understanding that the light of the holy relic not only provided sight, but maybe the other senses as well.

  It pained me to do so, but I had to brush off his unimaginable reprieve from the darkness. Lowering my gaze back to the man, I continued.

  “What angels have you seen?”

  “I have seen both angels and demons. They are the only ones that shine in the dark...until you.”

  “Demons?” I asked, all of a sudden nervous as I glanced all around.

  “Yes. They feed off the souls that are lost.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. “They eat souls?”

  The man nodded with a furrowed brow and gaping mouth, clearly terrified of the thought.

  “Some go willingly, while others...” he trailed off and I got his point.

  “What...what happens to them?” I mentally face-palmed at my own stupid question.

  “I-I-I don’t know!” the man sobbed, beginning to slip down the slope of madness from which he had just crawled out.

  “They cease to be,” a woman’s voice said in a broken Vietnamese accent. I turned and saw a half-decomposed, young Asian woman step forward and place a hand on the man’s trembling shoulder. He seemed to ease at the touch of another person, and then I understood what my light provided.