by catt dahman
“The dinosaurs are roaming, so we have no choice,” Danny told them.
“You have no dinosaurs either as your choices are roaming.”
Coral shrugged, “True.”
Stan Hatter didn’t argue, “Do you realize you have a big worm with you?”
“The worm in the apple catches the bird,” March-Hare announced.
“He must be early though,” Stan added.
“Yes, early apples are best. But back to the worm….”
“No shit. You think we need to go back to that subject?” Cory muttered, “but she’s our friend.”
“You shit, and there is no thinking,” March-Hare said.
Stan Hatter agreed, “No thinking at all. No wonder he missed the apple.”
“Why are the insane in hell?” I asked Virgil and Danny, tired of their games and word play. I snatched the tea pot away and poured it in the cups while Dana got more water and set a pot to boil so she could make more. We both stomped around a lot.
“They are insane, but they are also naughty. Stan was downright deadly when he burned down a school and killed five kids and injured a dozen. They said he was insane, but he was pretending. He was evil. Being down here so long and the smells I told you about have caused his insanity,” Danny said.
“I don’t know why I’m here, but that reason is as good as any,” Stan Hatter said, “I’ll take it, so mark it down.”
Danny went on, “Ed March-Hare worked alongside Jack-the-Ripper in England long ago. Sometimes, he whispers the name of the killer. He’s not good with secrets. They say he fell mad after seeing the first demon, but I don’t know if that is so. Is it? Ed?”
Ed only shrugged, “Did I see a demon? Maybe so.”
Danny grinned slyly, “Looky, what I have.” He held up small, amber, plastic bottles for the men to see. Both sat up straight and looked contrite.
“In the morning if you do as I say, I will give you each a bottle, and we’ll be on our way. If you give us trouble, we’ll toss you to the dinosaurs.”
And as if to make my point, outside one of the dinosaurs let loose with a terrible roar.
After both men nodded, Danny said, “Find a good pork roast, and make sure it is really pig and not human. I can tell. Find us good vegetables, bread, and fruit, maybe some butter, real chicken’s eggs, and make it quick. Cook dinner for us, and tell us when it’s ready.”
“For the pills? That’s all?” Stan Hatter rose.
“Some more tea, and then we’ll want a nice warm fire and pallets of clean linens and pajamas. While we sleep, I want our clothing and boots cleaned properly.”
Ed March-Hare got to his feet, “We’ll be back in a jiffy. I think we’ve an old tub back there if you don’t mind lukewarm water from the taps and hand made soap.”
We guarded the building when the men ran off to do as Danny commanded.
When it was my turn, I began filling the tub, undressed quickly, and wrapped myself in a short towel as I waited for someone to bring me the pail of hot water to add to the tub.
To my embarrassment, Virgil brought the pail of near-boiling water with steam rising around the handle. I froze in place and was aware of his eyes traveling from my feet to my face. Taking time to savor each detail. My face flamed, but I also felt a funny tickle and buzz in my nether regions, which embarrassed me further.
“Oh, I brought your water,” he said as looked flustered too, something he never looked.
“I was just getting ready for my bath.”
He poured the water into the tub, avoiding looking at me. Was I ugly? Probably so. He had looked me over, and maybe I was still fat or proportioned oddly, or maybe I was okay until he got to my head. My hair was too dark, or my face was plain.
I felt hurt. I wasn’t angry with him, but at myself for being unattractive. “You can leave now so you don’t have to look at my ugliness. Seriously,” I snapped. I was ashamed I had even considered he might like me.
“Huh?”
“Just leave.”
I took my time in submerging myself. The soap smelled of fat and a dark, old spice, but I tried not to think about it as I bathed myself clean.
It wasn’t the sort of bath to spend extra time enjoying, so once clean, I dried myself and yanked on soft clothing the men had brought: inmates’ pants, shirt, and socks. Plain clothing. Asexual. It fit me.
After I carefully tipped over the tub and emptying the water, I called for Pax, who, after having drawn a straw, was next in line. He noticed I was down and asked what was wrong, but I waved it off, saying I was just tired and ugly.
“Ugly? What?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you feel, Dinah?”
“Better,” she said and smiled. “Twinkle, twinkle, little lass; We will eat you mighty fast; Down our throats you will fly; You’ll be better once you die,” she sang.
“That’s terrible, Honey. Where did you hear it?” Cassie asked.
“The man who kept us on chains sang it a lot.”
I reached over and wiped away a tear that rolled down Dinah’s cheek, “That won’t happen. We’re far from him now.”
I wanted to go back and cut the man’s arms off again. That he would reincarnate, albeit without arms because they were quickly stolen and taken to trade or to eat, didn’t make me feel a bit better. He had the propensity to keep doing evil.
“Her parents were so poor the father sold himself to the Flensing Stations and then her mother did the same. They were both suicides in the old world, way back evidently because Dinah describes their clothing as very odd, maybe Roman like.”
We talked to Dinah and Cassie, straightened pallets with the blankets and linens that only smelled a little musty to us, and waited for our dinner.
Before long, the two men brought us plates of food; the food looked wonderful; both of them belched often, so no doubt they had already eaten. The roast was not good like Coral’s roasts, but it was passable as was the bread, purplish peas, red squash, and pale blue potatoes. The odd colors confused us a lot, but everything tasted just fine.
“They get bored here, and so they grow food of odd colors. It’s perfectly fine,” Virgil reassured us. I ignored him.
I thought that made sense. All had been here for a very long time, at least some had, and they didn’t have much change from day-to-day and knew they would have the same forever; that alone made my head throb with confusion. I could understand that people here grew bored and wanted anything to be different and interesting.
That idea made me think of myself since I had always craved sameness and the mundane, never showing curiosity or interest in anything. No wonder poor Dana hadn’t told me about her terrible ordeal.
Instead of appreciating and dealing with changes and interesting events, both positive and negative, I had tried to insulate myself and hide from everything in life. What a sinful thing I had done.
In the morning and well rested, we rose to finish the tea, bread, butter, and fruit, along with omelets that Coral made with left over vegetables. Our clothing had been cleaned, and our boots were polished; we dressed again, feeling clean and satiated.
Outside, Limmerfer hissed at noxious pile.
“Velociraptors,” Danny told us, “they must have our scent which means we must be very careful at night now, or they will attack any place we hide.”
“What were those pills?” I asked.
“Anti-psychotics. They think things will be better for them when they take the medication and can think clearly, but it will actually be much worse as they come to terms with where they are. I had no particular love for them. We needed something. They wanted something. I don’t care what it is they want.”
“Why is the sanatorium closed? Did everyone but those few get better or…?” Dana asked as she skirted a big pile around what looked like animal droppings.
Danny chuckled, “Think backwards. An Institute for Insanity doesn’t help people, silly goose; it provides medication, counseling, shock therapy, tortu
re, and behavioral therapy to incite insanity. They have about a ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent success rate in causing acute depression, sociopathy, schizophrenia, and manias.”
“Why did you dress like a rock and roll singer when you came to the diner the first night, Danny?”
“It annoyed you. It was a start and better than no reaction at all.”
I snickered, “I’ve thought about that. I am going to begin taking an interest in life from now on. It’s a waste to be so apathetic.”
“Good to know that.” Danny chewed his lip. “Now, you may have sympathy for some we’ll see today, but hold yourself back. Here, this is business as usual, and you can’t really save anyone even as bad things happen, and they can’t die and find release.”
“So I should watch torture?”
“You may save them this second, but they will be tortured a billion-zillion times more after you walk away. One time gives them false hope if anything, Alice.”
Chapter Twenty-One: King Henry VIII: King of Hearts
I mulled that over as we walked. Sometimes, the path was nothing but a packed, dirt road; sometimes it was littered with hay; other times it was a burned, wide spot that we walked across, listening to the dead grass crinkle. It sounded as if we were walking on shards of ice. Bad roads were a hell-thing, too, it seemed.
Danny and Virgil showed us a building that finally wasn’t dull grey concrete but was of layered, hand-sized scales of obsidian, a volcanic glass that the Aztecs once used a long time ago for tips on spears and for knives. The glass could be cut so thin and fine that it cut like a razor. Thin pieces were overlapped and layered on the building so anyone, bumping it or leaning against it, would be shredded.
Inside, the floor was the same obsidian, but it was cut into beautiful squares that were separated with blocks of lapis and thin lines of mother-of-pearl. The walls, lit brightly with candles, were plastered and painted light blue. On some walls, azure silk curtains rustled in the breeze and on others, enormous paintings hung and depicted sea scenes. The room felt tranquil.
It was the perfect foil for the gigantically obese man dressed in red, gold, and white. Every move he made: a raise of his hand or a half turn, caught our attention.
A contingency of women and men knelt at his feet, all dressed in shades of blue so they melted into the décor. One woman was rather dour-faced, dark and tiny; another was pale with witchy, long black hair and flashing black eyes; a third had soft brown hair and a sweet face.
“Who are they?”
“King Henry and his wives. Many times a week, a big ceremony is held, and he sends them to be punished all together, or alone, and sometimes along with various men who have been disloyal. The dark one who is smirking? That is Anne Bolen. They cut off her head, and then they replace it again until the next time. Once, they put Anne’s head on backwards; that was funny,” Danny said.
“Not to her,” Coral growled.
“Maybe not, but it really was funny to see that.”
“Off with her head,” Henry shouted, his crown sliding sideways. He pointed to random women as he yelled that many times.
“Is the Duchess here? I have some payback for her,” Dana whispered.
Henry spun, “The Duchess? Are you her friend?”
Dana held her head high, “I am certainly not. She’s a vile murderess, as well as a stinking, sneaky bitch, and a sick, twisted sadist.”
“Indeed? Well, we won’t gloat about her positive points. Off with the Duchess’ head, too.” Henry rambled about the room. And for no apparent reason, Henry spewed, “And the cats. I want their heads removed. And the gardeners, too.”
“It seems they’ll all be headless soon,” I remarked.
“And? Do you approve?”
“I don’t disapprove, but you won’t remove the head from our cat as he is our friend.”
“Are you friends with our gardeners?”
“No, your Royal Highness,” I said.
“Then, why did you bring it up?” asked Henry.Henry again showed his dementia.
“Me? I…I have not one concern over the gardeners. I see some weeds, so evidently they’re not doing their jobs if there are weeds in the lawn.”
The king sniffed, “Pull those weeds, and then go get beheaded. We should do things in order, I think. Don’t get busy and forget the beheading part….”
I covered a laugh.
“What do you want here? I’m very busy,” King Henry asked.
I felt my muscles tense. Was it almost time to fight?
Danny reached into his coat and removed a small box made of tin and set with a glass top, like an odd paperweight. It was as large as his hand, and he showed the king what he had, “We want a mere nobody from your prison, a girl named Ellie. For her, I will give you this.”
Henry VIII ran a finger over the box, sniffed at it, and licked his lips lasciviously, “A virgin’s heart. How lovely…what a novelty.”
“I know you like hearts and this one…lovely, yes? So pure…so perfect,” Danny prodded.
“A mere nobody. Why are you interested enough in her to offer me such a priceless trade?” the king asked.
Danny shrugged, “Do we have a deal? The girl, Ellie, is new here and a little lost and silly. But her innocence,” he breathed softly, making his voice almost obscene, “it is interesting to me.”
“Tom, contact the prison, and see if this girl is still alive. Return, and tell me if she is there.” The king waved us away and told us that we could wait there while they played games on the lawn.
Following them, we found the entire royal entourage sitting about playing a game. A table of food was available, but we asked about each dish before sampling, afraid we might be fed something or someone, right?
In a few minutes, the king came over to us and said that when the servant confirmed that the girl was in the prison, which was very far away in the very heart of hell, we would have a deal.
He would give us a letter to release her. He looked over his subjects, and then, he turned to us, “Quite a bore, if you ask me, but then you didn’t. It’s a trade.”
Danny handed him the box, and we tried to make our leave, hesitating as we left because the trumpets blared and the crowd gathered. The Queen shrilled at us, “You can’t leave, now. The show is on. You must stay now.”
Dutifully, we sat down among the others as the servants wheeled out a strange device. It was more like a giant stage made of wood and rolled out with massive wheels; in the center of the stage sat a guillotine, its wickedly sharp blade glittering dangerously.
Two men wheeled out a cart and threw hay up onto the stage; it would soak up the blood.
The king looked at our confusion and told us, “Ann gave birth to a daughter if you can believe that, and then, she couldn’t give birth to a normal, live baby, much less a prince. Her two spawns were half-formed, dead, and hideous when they should have been male heirs.”
“Isn’t the male responsible for a child’s gender,” I whispered to Dana.
She nodded.
Henry went on, “She used witchcraft to seduce me. You can look into her eyes and see the evil. And now, she’s to be beheaded for high treason, adultery with no less then fifteen men, and incest with her brother.”
“All praise be, her remarkable traits,” a man in a black robe intoned.
“Yes, those things are quite respected here but,” he said as laughed, “off with her head!”
“Why is she in hell?” Pax asked.
The man in black looked bored, “She made the good king a heretic. Simple. She forced him to break with the church in order to procure a divorce from Catherine to marry her.”
I thought back to my history lessons. It seemed to me that he had chased Anne and decided to divorce Catherine on his own. He was the one who had made the choice.
“Off with her head…cut it off…let the heads roll.”
Anne walked up the scaffolding as she had countless times before, trying to keep her head up. Her
servants took her necklaces, and she gave a speech, declaring the king to be a kind, gentle man, despite the fact that he had sent her to the guillotine.
She knelt, her red petticoat shining and swishing loudly, and in one swoop, her head was severed and went rolling across the stage, leaking blood. Not a sound escaped her lips during the beheading. Her maids wailed.
King Henry stood, applauded, and gathered the royal party and walked back to the mansion, leaving us behind with the head, a few guards, and one another.
I didn’t want to see them take the head and reattach it so she could do this again.
The servant came back with news, whispered it to the king, and he nodded. After calling for ink and paper, he scrawled orders on the paper, waved it to dry the ink, folded it, and handed it to Danny, “The trade is done.”
We made our way back to the road, and I thought about Henry, the King of Hearts. I wondered how he could be called King of Hearts since he was heartless.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Second Circle of Hell
We walked along the road, some of our boots making little tapping sounds. For a few minutes, a yellowy, sulfuric rain fell, and a few demon children cavorted, dancing in the stinking liquid.
In a few minutes, the children’s reptilian, dark bodies were covered with a fine sheen of yellow. They opened their mouths and let the drops fill their mouths.
Lightning exploded in the distance, making the smoggy brown clouds light up. If the storm came closer, we’d have to take cover.It never did, so we walked along the road when the nasty rain stopped and ducked under trees or into a stall.
“This is the Second Circle of Hell,” Virgil told us, “it’s for lovers who have sinned.”
He pointed out an Egyptian area in the distance where laborers built a pyramid. They sweated and struggled to pull and push stones into place, but it was never finished, as their queen demanded it to be built taller, larger, and more magnificent. The monument was already the largest pyramid that the travelers had ever seen, and Virgil said it was four times as large as any in their world.