Penemue's Inferno

by Ramy Vance

  According to Mickey, all that time spent walking took place in the span of four seconds. I tried to look up at the sky and gauge time by the position of the stars. Of course, that only worked so well, but with a few points of reference, I could at least confirm the passage of time. But that proved to be a dead end as well, because the stars didn’t seem to move at all, but rather hung still in the night air.

  I was starting to think that it was just part of the design—that we were really in another plane of existence with its own night sky. That the celestial lights above were more decorative than anything else.

  But then we got to the river and I realized that time really did stand still in Hell. “Hell is about being stuck in now.” I was starting to understand what the angel meant as I stared at river that flowed forward for exactly four seconds—the same four seconds of Mickey’s second hand—before its low waves and bubbling whitecaps reset and the river flowed those same few feet again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “Hell is being stuck in now.” I snapped my fingers at the river, whose waters didn’t appear remotely appealing. They frothed as though polluted, hued in a strange shade of red. “That’s what the bastard meant.”

  Bella nodded as she stared at down at the same repetitive flow. “This kind of makes sense,” she said. “This is exactly what I would have done if I were Hell’s architect.”

  “How so?” Judith asked.

  “Think about it … we’re stuck in the now. Which means that whatever is happening now is how it will always be. Tomorrow, and the day after that, will be exactly like this. And when things will never change—can never change—well, that is when hope is truly lost.”

  “And that’s why Hell is now. It’s the only way our celestial torturers could stamp out our hope.” I walked over to Bella and reached for her hand.

  She willingly took mine, and things just felt perfect … aside from being in Hell.

  “Yeah,” Bella said, “but I think it’s a bit deeper than that.”

  “Jean-Luc Matthias being shallow? Well, I never,” Judith said in a mocking tone.

  “And Judith being a sarcastic b—”

  “Play nice.” Bella retracted her hand, folded her arms over her chest and gave us a look perfected by many second-grade teachers. “And as I was saying, I don’t think the point was to stamp out our hope. I think they constructed it this way to mock it. After all, hope is so ingrained in us. Humans built everything we have on hope. To truly remove it would be to change who we are. But torture, to be truly effective, needs to keep our essence intact. Hence the repetition.”

  She looked down-river before adding, “And I’m willing to bet that other places in Hell have longer loops … You know, just to keep things interesting.”

  I considered her words and saw the truth in their simplicity. “Hell is now,” I mused. “The Devil was a bastard.”

  “He was smart,” Bella corrected. “He understood us better than we understood ourselves.”

  “Clever, yes.” I pointed at the river’s looping rush. “Still a bastard.”

  Bella smirked and Judith scowled, just like the old days. Then the specter pointed in the direction the river would have flowed if time permitted it to do so. “I’m assuming the entrance is that way. Make sense that water would flow into a village or town, rather than away. At least, that’s how we built our own settlements.”

  Bella shrugged. “We can’t assume upstream or downstream.”

  “Well, we have to make a choice,” I said. “We can’t sit around here all day if time really is limited. And given what’s at stake, whatever choice we make better be right. What happened in Dante’s Inferno?” Then, rubbing my hands through my hair, added, “I don’t suppose anyone brought their smartphone or a copy of the book?”

  Judith scowled again. “In the poem, Dante doesn’t encounter a river until they are inside the cave.”

  “So we’re looking for a cave, then.” I stretched my memory back to my own reading of the poem. But that was a long time ago and most of my memories of the epic verse came from Penemue quoting it to me and then correcting all the things the Italian bard got wrong.

  So really, I was stretching my memories back to the angel Penemue. Thinking of the old drunken fool made my heart ache; he had his flaws, but if you weighed every wrong he ever committed against the good he did, the scales would tip over and away from a place like this.

  I shook my head. No time to get sentimental now. Now, we needed to find him and … and … do whatever it took to get him away from here.

  Looking over at Bella, I saw that she had stretched out her hands, fingers folded. “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  She lifted a shushing finger. “I’m concentrating.”

  I was about to ask, “On what?” but that shush floored me with the tidal wave of memories it brought flooding back. It was the same shush she had used a million times during a million arguments that I’d lost, and hearing it again was heaven.

  Bella stretched her hands out. “I was brought here as a guide, but I don’t know much more than you. It’s almost like the position of guide needed to be filled, and I was the only applicant. Still, I might not know where he is or what’s happening, but I can feel him. It was his pain that first called me and it is his pain that beckons to me now.”

  “So, what are we doing?” I asked. “Some twisted version of The Wizard of Oz, except instead of the Yellow Brick Road, we’re following the echoes of pain?”

  Bella lowered her arms and opened her eyes. Her lips pursed as she suppressed a smile. Then one finger went up—another shush—and she started her pain-finding, tai-chi-esque motions.

  “What she ever saw in you,” Judith said, drawing near to me, “I’ll never know.”

  I looked down at my no-longer-a-ghost of a mother-in-law and said with a wink, “That’s because I’m wearing clothes … So yep, you never will.”

  Judith winced at my crassness and, to my satisfaction, stepped away.

  In the game of immaturity, I am unrivaled.

  ↔

  As we stood on the river’s bank near the forest that encroached so close to the water, greedy roots popping out of the soil and disappearing into the water, Bella continued her strange motions for seventy-three river loops (I counted) before she finally pointed in the direction that, for a normal river, would have been upstream. “There,” she said.

  As soon as those words left her lips, a growl echoed through the shuddering trees and over the water. “That’s not good,” I whispered as Marty tightened around my forearm.

  I’d been right. A prescient tingle ran up my spine just before a three-headed monster the size of Labrador leapt from the tree line. The three heads were a wolf, a lion and a leopard.

  Seeing the monster reminded me of another fun tidbit Penemue had shared about Hell. “In the Inferno, Dante’s isn’t beset upon by three separate beasts, but rather one beast with three heads.” I didn’t pay much attention to him then, and seeing that thing now, I really wished I had.

  The monster jumped at Bella, its claws raking her extended hand, sending blood gushing from her forearm.

  Seeing her in pain sent me into berserker mode, and letting a Rambo-worthy roar, I charged forward and kicked the beast so hard in the ribs that I heard the unmistakable crunch of cracking bone.

  The beast fell into the water and writhed in the shallow waves, each head wailing the howls of its species before friggin’ dissolving in the water. Note to self, I thought, do not drink the water.

  I rushed over to Bella, who held her arm. Judith was already by her side, ripping the hem of her dress to use as a bandaid. “Are you OK?” was all I managed to say before Marty hissed, his viper’s body leaping off my arm as his fangs dug into the neck of another three-headed beastie.

  “Shit,” I yelled as I saw what was coming for us. There was a pack (or was it pride? Or spot?) of these creatures coming at us. They weren’t enormous, but they didn’t n
eed size when they had numbers. “Run,” I yelled, scooping up Marty as we rushed in the direction Bella had pointed.

  “Hellelu—ahh, I mean … Empty Hell,” I groaned to myself as we ran.

  ↔

  Bella and Judith ran ahead of me, and even though I had General Shouf’s pistol, I chose not to use it. I only had so many bullets, and if this was what waited for us outside of Hell’s gates, then I could only imagine what waited inside.

  Pulling out my hunting sword, I took the rear and chopped down any three-headed monster who got close enough. Fun fact: chop one head off these little beasts and the body dies. I’m guessing they’ve got three heads, one heart.

  We followed the river, running as fast as we could while the monsters tracked after us. Based on the pattern they were chasing us in, I knew their tactic immediately. They weren’t trying to run us down—they were trying to tire us out.

  It was a common strategy amongst smaller pack hunters. We were larger than they were. Stronger, too. But because they had the numbers, they would most likely overrun us eventually and make a meal off our carcasses. But they’d take heavy losses in doing so. After a few rundowns, well, the herd would thin out so much that they wouldn’t be able to overrun anything anymore.

  But slowly wearing their prey down—tiring them out, making them weak, slow, stupid … and, if exhausted enough, forced to give up entirely? Well, that would mean a hell of a lot fewer losses.

  We needed a defensible position, somewhere we could make our stand and take down enough of them that they would go off in search of easier prey. At least, that’s what a pack of coyotes would do, and these creatures didn’t really seem like the avenge-their-fallen-comrades type. They would cut their losses rather than continue fighting.

  Here was hoping that a drunk, listless Penemue had watched enough Discovery Channel to imbue these guys with a similar pack mentality.

  We followed the river for some time until we came upon a low hillside, so jagged and rough as to form a wall. It wasn’t ideal, but given what we were up against, it was better than nothing. “There,” I yelled, pointing at the small enclave near the base of the hill.

  “What are we going to do there?” Judith countered. Even out of breath, she managed to sound all kinds of judgmental.

  “Mother,” Bella said, grabbing her arm and steering her to the enclave, “listen to Jean. This is what he does. And from what I hear, he’s damn good at it.”

  “Awww,” I said. “I’m good?”

  “Nothing to be proud of,” Bella said, and my heart sank. It was true: I was damn good at fighting Others. Killing Others. And of all my talents, that was the one thing Bella truly didn’t like me for.

  We made it to the enclave. I grabbed Marty by the base of his jaw and ran his fangs along the flat of my sword’s blade. “Sorry about that, little fellow,” I said. “We need your poison.”

  Marty hissed. Angrily.

  I handed Bella my sword. “A flesh wound should kill these guys now. Judith, watch the hilltop and make sure none of the more enterprising little beasties get the drop from behind.”

  “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know … Don’t your scowling powers come with a heat ray?” I said as the little bastards tumbled closer to us. “Just warn us. Now get ready!”

  Then, picking up a large rock in each hand, I readied myself for the attack.

  One by one, the little raptor-like, three-headed beasties showed up until they formed a perimeter around us. Like coyotes, they kept their distance, with the occasional go-getter dipping in to nip at our heels.

  Bella or I would take a swing, but the damn thing would jump back before we could make contact. Swinging—especially with the intent to kill—was tiring.

  I was right: Penemue had seen the same documentary as me after all.

  On the other hand, Marty was a hell of lot quicker than us, lurching forward with such speed and timing that he managed to take one down as it lunged forward.

  “Go Marty!” I said.

  Marty hissed approvingly.

  Bella eyed me. “Who?”

  “The viper,” I said, swinging and missing again. “He’s named Marty.”

  “Where did you get a pet viper named Marty?”

  “This isn’t really the time,” I said—when would it ever be the right time to explain how I knew Marty?—but added, “He’s a friend of a deceased friend who now lives in Castle Grayskull.”

  She didn’t get a chance to question me further—thank the GoneGods—because at that moment, Marty lunged for one of the beasties that was trying to bite Bella and managed to save her. And all at once we were back in the thick of it, with the viper as MVP.

  But despite Marty’s success, he only managed to take down one of the little bastards. There were dozens, and they weren’t giving up. I considered pulling out my pistol. As much as I wanted to conserve bullets, being lead-frugal wouldn’t do us much good if we were dead.

  I did a quick count of how many rounds I had. Eight clips, eight bullets in each. OK, I thought, pointing my pistol at the lead veloci-three-headed-raptor, let’s make this count.

  But before I could pull the trigger, three of the beasts went down with arrows in their sides. The three-headed beast turned around, each of their heads crying out a roar, howl or yelp as another three fell dead.

  Then there was a loud cry with an eerie, human quality to it (if that human were immensely powerful and Freddy Krueger scary). That was enough for the little herd of nasties, and the remaining ones ran off.

  Scanning the tree line, I looked for our savior, fully aware that we might have upgraded being eaten by a pack of three-headed raptors to being eaten by a huge, three-headed T-Rex.

  I caught a glimpse of what—or rather, who—had saved us.

  And my heart sank. “Medusa?” I said, pointing at the figure standing at the edge of the tree line.

  But before I could say anything else, she dropped back among the trees and was gone.

  Ahh, So I Was Kind of Seeing This Gorgon

  Was that really Medusa? I had only seen the figure for a second, and she wasn’t like the gorgon I knew. She didn’t look like the girl who used to work for the Paradise Lot police department, the girl who had a Hello Kitty handbag and rouge-painted cheeks.

  The girl who had sacrificed herself for the greater good, giving her life so that Paradise Lot wouldn’t be overrun by the murderous, apocalyptic monster Tiamat.

  The creature in the trees was feral, covered in mud and dirt, wearing animal skins rather than Gap. She was a huntress, a killer … Still, she had the same olive skin and rosy cheeks as the Medusa I’d known. And then there was the head of snakes. I even saw a snake that looked like Marty on the crown of her head. If that was Medusa, she’d found another Marty, and I was sure the murderous, mythical viper by my side wouldn’t take kindly to that.

  Assuming it was Medusa, that is.

  I looked over at Marty. The viper scanned the tree line and from the way his head looked around, I knew that he’d seen her, too. Or at least, he also thought he saw her. Just like me.

  “Medusa?” Bella came over to my side. She took my hand in hers—her touch was electric—and said, “Doesn’t Medusa live in Paradise Lot?”

  “She did,” I said, not taking my eyes off the tree line. “But she died saving us from … Well, saving us,” I sighed. What I didn’t say was that she’d saved Paradise Lot while on a date with me.

  That was something both Marty and Judith knew—and I could feel the mutual condemnation wafting from them. But I’d just reunited with my wife and I wasn’t going to blow day one with an awkward, “Ahhh, so I was kind of seeing this gorgon … It’s OK, though. You were dead and I was trying to move on, just like you would have wanted me to. Right?”

  I’d take condemnation over that conversational land mine any day.

  “I see. And you think you just saw her? Here?” Bella asked.

  Still looking out into the f
orest, I shrugged. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast, it could have been anyone, really.” As the words came out of me, I knew that I didn’t believe them.

  “Yeah. You’re probably right. I mean, as weird as this place is, why would she be here?” And from Bella’s tone, neither did she.

  Because my nightmare would be having the only two women I ever loved—the two I failed, the two who died because of my failures—in one place at once, I thought.

  Worst episode of Three’s Company ever.

  ↔

  I bent down to examine the dead bodies of the three-headed raptors. None of them had died from the darts themselves, the wounds too shallow to have caused too much damage, which meant they’d died from poisoning. And not just any poison. Their bodies were petrified, their skin stone-like. Another tick in the It’s Medusa column.

  I pulled out as many darts as I could find and put them in my backpack. They probably had a little venom still on them. That done, I stood up and said, “We should go before more of them come back.”

  “Yeah,” Bella said. “We can’t count on our savior coming back when they do, can we?”

  I nodded. “Not sure we can count on much here.” I headed toward the stream, and as I did, I saw Judith watching me, wearing a very suspicious and uncharacteristic smile.

  ↔

  We followed the stream for several hours, and all the while my attention was on the trees surrounding us. I’d like to say that I focused there because I was worried about another attack, but that would be a lie.

  Well, not a complete lie. I really was worried about what was in the forest. But that wasn’t what preoccupied my thoughts. I knew what I saw. I knew who I saw … and I also knew that what I saw wasn’t real.

  It couldn’t be Medusa. She was dead. More than dead … she was a statue standing on Paradise Lot’s shore. It was her last act: turning herself into a statue that would stand forever vigilant, forever guarding the home she’d adopted after the gods left.