Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

  With a groan, I got myself somewhat vertical and saw that Marty had indeed knocked out Bella and Judith … and Medusa. All four of us were in various stages of head-throbbery, groaning as we found a way back to our feet.

  My head hurt, my stomach hurt … Hell, all of me hurt. But I wasn’t angry. Well, I was a little bit angry at Marty for biting me, but the homicidal rage that had consumed me minutes earlier was gone.

  And that’s when it hit me that I had almost killed the two people I loved most in the world … and Judith. I almost took Thor’s hammer and bludgeoned them to death, while fully planning to kill myself afterward.

  “What the … Ow.” I grabbed my head in pain at the effort of speaking. That’s when I realized that Marty had not only knocked us out, but also managed to drag us all down the hill. How strong was that viper?

  “Yeah,” Bella said, giving me that look she had when she was sorry but wasn’t quite ready to say it yet.

  Judith set two fingers at the bridge of her nose. “I wanted to kill you all.” Then, looking at me, added, “Not terribly unusual when it comes to you. But Bella …” She stopped as the thought of hurting her daughter flooded her with emotion.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I was right there with you.” I figured misery loved company, and me admitting that I also wanted to kill Bella would ease her guilt. But from the look Judith shot me, I realized that wasn’t the case. She just got angrier.

  “What happened?” Bella asked.

  “This place,” Medusa said. “That’s what happened.” The Queen of Gorgons’ eyes misted over as she held Marty lovingly in her arms, stroking the viper’s head like one would a cat … a hairless, scaly cat.

  “What do you mean?” Bella asked.

  Medusa looked up at Bella with apologetic eyes. “That place up there possesses the echoes of Penemue’s anger. Those echoes washed over us, amplifying our own anger—not the angel’s. I was angry at you for …” She paused, as if deciding whether to continue speaking before letting out a heavy sigh. With renewed resolve in her heart, she continued, “I was angry at you for having Jean’s heart. I was angry at Judith for protecting you. And I was angry at you …”—she looked at me, holding my gaze—“for not looking at me the way you look at her.”

  Yeah, it was all starting to make sense. This place fed off our bad feelings, bringing them to the surface and exaggerating them to epic proportions. But it had to be our own anger, our own miseries. Not someone else’s. If we simply felt Penemue’s rage at his students, that wouldn’t have had much impact. After all, we can only get so angry at things that just don’t matter as much to us …

  But our own angry? That was something that could really torture us and that’s exactly what happened. We all got angry at each other for reasons that, in some twisted way, made sense to us.

  Medusa at Bella, for having my heart.

  Judith at me, for having Bella.

  Bella at Medusa, out of misplaced jealousy.

  And finally, me at both Medusa and Bella, for leaving me. It didn’t matter why they left … all that mattered was that they did. And I wanted to kill them for it.

  I was embarrassed by my own feelings and where they took me, and I wanted Marty to bite me again—this time with some kind of amnesia-inducing venom.

  But that wasn’t going to happen and I would have to live on knowing that deep down within me, I resented them for dying.

  If only I could afford a shrink …

  No one spoke for a long time. We just sat, silent and distant as we wallowed in our own shame.

  I don’t know how long we would have stayed that way had Medusa not spoken again. “You were right to be angry with me, Bella,” she said. “But not for my time with Jean, as short as it was.”

  “I was never—” Bella started, but Medusa lifted a hand.

  “No, please. No more lies. No more hidden truths. You were angry, but you need not be. It’s you. It was always you.” Medusa sighed. “You know, as I breathed my last, part of me was relieved to be free of you. Free of these feeling that I knew would never be returned. I think that is why I so willing burnt so much time on the beach that day.

  “And when I finally turned to stone, I felt a sense of peace that I believed would be forever. I don’t know how long I was gone, but I heard a voice—a familiar one—say, ‘Perhaps I can undo some of the wrong that was done.’ And I felt the power pull me.

  “It pulled until I was here, lost and alone.”

  Looking at Medusa, whose chin struggled not to crumple, I knew that—even after everything she had endured, in life and in Hell—she was speaking from a true, vulnerable place. An incredible thing for anyone.

  Which was why I loved her, as well.

  Bella nodded. “That’s what I felt, too. But when I arrived here, I wasn’t lost, exactly. I was standing before an open portal, staring at you.” She smiled at me, and for a second, my head stopped hurting. Then she turned back to Medusa. “I arrived at the exact same moment that Jean did. But you … it looked like you’d been here for a while.”

  “I have. As best I can tell, it’s been months.”

  “How?”

  Medusa shook her head. “I don’t know. All I can say is that I had been lost in the forest, forced to forage and hunt. Because there was no sun to judge time by, I have no way to know. But given the number of meals I ate, the number of times I slept … months. Easily.”

  “Why?” I said. “Why would Penemue make it so that it felt like months to you and hardly any time for Bella? Even I followed Penemue no more than a few hours after he created this place. From that perspective, it must have felt like you were here far longer than even he was.”

  “Not necessarily,” Medusa said. “In terms of hours on Earth, it might have only been a handful, but time here … that could feel endless.”

  “Holy sh—”

  “Jean,” Judith said in a warning tone.

  “—Shredder on a skateboard,” I said. “Not only is Hell perpetually now, but time drags on here?”

  The gorgon shook her head. “I have never visited this domain before, but from what I know, time doesn’t progress here. It remains still. The rest of the universe moves forward, but this place does not.”

  “So, what? Earth, Heaven and every other place in this universe has time, but not Hell. How does that even work?”

  “Well, it is possible—”

  “You know what? I don’t need to know. It’ll just make this headache worse. What I really want to know is why he brought you here first, then me.”

  “I have something to say about that,” Judith said, lifting her hand like a kid at school. “I saw something that might make sense of all this.”

  ↔

  We all stared at Judith with a collective look of, What is it? that I like to think also carried with it a You didn’t think to mention this earlier? kind of vibe.

  She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think it was important. Besides, I was distracted by my baby girl’s appearance.”

  “And?” I said, smug in the fact that I could be the judgmental one.

  Another eye roll. “I saw Penemue create the portal and close it, then open it again before closing it a third time. Each time the rip was tiny, a small crack in a curtain, if you will. But then the doorway was opened a third time and it was much bigger. That’s when I got you. That’s when we saw Bella.”

  I stared at Judith as I mulled over the implications of what she’d just said. The portal opened and closed three times, which meant that Penemue could open and close it. All this time I thought that he was limited in what he could do, that he had opened it and stepped through, unable to close it behind him. But if he could open and close it at will and he had invited Bella and Medusa to Hell, leaving the door open for us to follow …

  “He wants us to save him,” I said.

  Bella nodded. “I think you’re right. This is his cry for help.”

  “Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Why couldn’t he binge
-eat a tub of Häagen-Dazs like a normal person? I’d be right by his side then.”

  “You’re by his side now,” Bella said with genuine pride.

  She was right. I was in Hell, trying to save him. If that didn’t scream BFF, I didn’t know what would.

  “But,” Bella continued, “we have to get to him soon, because he might stop wanting our help.”

  “How so?” Judith asked.

  “Think about it. We got so angry at each other up there. Hell grabs you, manipulates your emotions. If he spends long enough in here, well, there might be no coming back from that.”

  “Hell is now and now is forever here,” I muttered, getting to my feet. “We better get moving. We have an angel to save and—” But I didn’t get to finish the thought.

  I heard Bella say, “What in the GoneGods is that?”

  Looking up, I saw a rolling darkness coming in from the horizon.

  I guess Penemue wasn’t done destroying after all.

  Rolling Darkness, Pinpricks of Light and All Hope Be Damned

  There are so many accounts of the day the gods left—the GrandExodus—and what it was like to be expelled from the heavens or hells that the Others were in. So many different stories about the pain and confusion that occurred that day. But no matter who you spoke to, no matter what domain they came from or what kind of mythical creature they were, they all shared two crucial and critical elements:

  The gods’ final message to everyone. Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.

  And the rolling darkness that forced them out of wherever they were and onto Earth.

  Seeing the dark, foglike cloud come our way was unmistakable. Penemue was reenacting his own GrandExodus, only with us as the denizens to be expelled.

  But when we heard Penemue’s slurred words … “Thank you for trying to save us—I mean, me—but it’s too late. You’re leaving. Best of luck.”

  … followed by an unmistakable hiccup …

  … it was time to run.

  Away from the cloud of darkness and toward whatever pinprick of light Penemue had chosen as our exit.

  ↔

  The direction Penemue was herding us was obvious: away from the mountainside floating in the distance. That was where the dark fog emanated from, and so we ran away. But away meant back down the hill and toward the hells beyond.

  Except we were no longer on a hill, no longer standing in the ruins of a destroyed classroom. We were standing ankle-deep in mist … And as soon as I heard the rumble of rolling thunder and saw a flash of lightning beneath our feet, I knew exactly where we were.

  On a cloud.

  In the middle of a thunderstorm.

  Penemue is nothing if not dramatic.

  We ran as lightning flashes shot up from the ground, accented by crackles of thunder. And every time I looked over my shoulder, I saw the impending darkness get closer and closer.

  And off in the distance was the promised pinprick of light—the portal back home to Earth, where we’d be safe from the doom and gloom of what was behind us.

  “Over there,” I said, not that I needed to. On this cloud there was only one place to go, its guiding light as obvious as a blinking neon sign on an empty (albeit electric) highway.

  As we ran, my mind raced with the possibilities that lay ahead. We were headed toward the portal home—that much was clear. And I was sure that as soon as Judith and I jumped through, we’d be home again … Maybe in Paradise Lot, maybe somewhere else on the globe, but we’d be on Earth.

  But what about Medusa and Bella? Would they also be on Earth, returned from the dead? Could this really be a chance for them to live again?

  I had no understanding of Penemue’s powers, but I did know from speaking to him and Miral and Michael—three angels who were privy to knowledge most did not have—that the Creation Crystals were a power that God had forbidden them to use. And angels, being angels, obeyed. Even the fallen ones.

  Michael once told me that even the Devil would never defy God by using the power of a Creation Crystal for himself. I guess even the Devil had a line—a line Penemue crossed. In a moment of unimaginable grief, he shed the constrictions of his angel-ness and tapped into the crystal’s powers to create Hell.

  As in, literally.

  What else could he do? I mean, if he created all this, then certainly he could resurrect the dead, could he not?

  My heart thudded in my chest—not with the strain of my full-tilt run, but the anticipation that they two people I loved more than anything else could live again.

  “There,” I yelled again. “Through there.” I pointed at the pinprick, egging them on.

  They ran. As they did, my mind jumped to the last place it should have … to my friend, the twice-fallen angel, Penemue.

  We might be OK—Bella and Medusa might live again—but he would be stuck here forever, reliving the moments of his failure again and again on the endless loop that was Hell.

  Jumping through that pinprick of life would mean that I would live on, and so would he—in here. As much as I wanted to be in a world that was filled with Bella and Medusa, I could never live with myself knowing that I hadn’t done everything I could for him.

  For my friend.

  Not that he was giving me much choice. If that darkness was anything like the one that had expelled the Others from their domains, then the choice was simple:

  Jump, and live. Stay, and perish.

  My best friend was literally going to kill me if I didn’t do as he demanded.

  I got to the portal and saw where we were … back on the island where all this had started. There, General Shouf was still walking away as though we had just gone through.

  From the way she turned and looked at me, I realized that it might have been days in here for us, but it was only a few seconds for her. She must have thought we had changed our minds. Not that I had time to deal with the general now.

  I turned to help the others through as I watched the rolling darkness approach.

  First were Medusa and Marty. Grabbing her hand, I helped her through the portal, my heart thudding with anticipation as she stepped through. The way I figured it, as soon as she touched solid ground, she’d either evaporate into nothing or be whole again.

  She hesitated, squeezing my hand.

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  Medusa nodded. “What choice do I have?” And planting a kiss on my lips, she said, “There,” like she’d just pulled off a bandaid. Then she closed her eyes and stepped through.

  As soon as her foot touched the hard concrete of the prison island, her body became rigid as she fell over clutching her head and screaming in pain.

  Marty, who was wrapped around her neck, tried to comfort her with continuous hisses, but Medusa was writhing too aggressively to notice her snake. General Shouf went to her side, caring for her as though she were experiencing an epileptic seizure.

  And maybe she was. How was I to know?

  I sought to step out, to reach for her, but hesitated. Bella and Judith were still running over, and I couldn’t just jump through without knowing they were safe.

  Besides, if Medusa were to perish, then so would Bella, and there was no point in me stepping through without her. I couldn’t go on without her.

  But Medusa didn’t die. Instead, she stopped writhing as her body gained an effervescence. She lived.

  She lived.

  And if she lived, then so could Bella.

  I grabbed my wife’s hand as she reached the edge, and holding onto her, I helped her step through. As soon as her foot touched the earth, I watched her body writhe as she cried out in the same pain as Medusa.

  Judith jumped out to grab her hand and hold her daughter, who was whole and alive in her hands.

  I stared through tear-soaked eyes as the two women whom I loved very much stood alive and whole and well.

  “Come on.” Bella reached out a hand to me through the narrowing portal. “Come out. Come a
nd live.”

  I shook my head, looking over my shoulder at the approaching darkness. “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t leave him here.”

  “But Jean,” Bella said, running toward the open portal. Judith immediately got to her feet and held her daughter back from joining me in Hell. It was clear whom Judith sought to protect: Bella over me. I completely agreed with her choice.

  This is the part of the movie where everyone’s screaming, “You fool! What are you doing? You have her back. She’s back! Jump through and be happy.”

  They’d be right to think that, and they’d be right to label me a fool. An idiot.

  But they’d also be wrong. Wrong, because there was no way I could live on knowing that I left Penemue behind. Despite all his faults, all his nutty antics and all the times he drove me crazy … he was one of the good guys. One of the few who tried to make a positive difference, and I couldn’t turn my back on him. Not now.

  Not ever.

  But it went beyond just simply wanting to help him, even if it meant losing Bella again. I made a promise ... a promise to my dead wife who stood before me, alive and well. I promised to help, no matter what. To do everything in my power to be one of the good guys, and I couldn’t live with her knowing that I’d chosen happiness with her over keeping that promise.

  And neither could she. Sure, we’d tell ourselves that it was all we could do. That Penemue was literally giving us the choice to leave and live, or stay and die.

  But I knew that not to be true.

  Because no matter how far gone the angel was, there was no way he’d kill us. Or kill anyone, for that matter.

  The black cloud would stop. It had to. And when it did, that was the moment he’d be forced to face me.

  “I’m going back for the angel,” I said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Judith said. “You’ll die.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think Penemue has it in him to kill anyone, let alone his bestest buddy in the whole world,” I said with a wink.

  Bella reached out her hand, extending it even farther. Then she stopped as she recognized what I meant to do. If anyone in this world understood sacrifice for the greater good, it was her. And with a nod, she gave me her Go get ’em, Tiger look.