Alice In Wonderhell

by catt dahman

  I was so glad we couldn’t smell that. Even though the people had been there for ages, they still vomited as the wafting scent enveloped them, and Danny said they added fresh feces often and experimented to find the worst textures and smells possible.

  “What did they do?” Dana asked as she wondered about a man who was buried to his chin.

  “They have gifts of speech: one group of people, who used words in speech or writing to hurt in order to gain something, are punished here. Their words were crap, and so they are living in crap.”

  She wrinkled her nose at Danny, “That’s awful. Isn’t that the comedian who always made fun of people with cruel, snide remarks?”

  “It is.”

  Dana nodded, “Makes sense, I guess. Yuk.”

  “You can also find those who used their gift of speech to use flattery to trick people. There are those who promised women great film careers but instead got them hooked on drugs and put them in porn films.

  You also might find ones who lied to children, saying they were looking for lost puppies or had ice cream, but kidnapped the children instead.”

  “That’s horrible, too,” I said.

  “They used flattery and clever words, like Satan himself, to get what they wanted:power or money.”

  “It sounds like they got what they deserved,” Coral muttered.

  “Next are the Halls of Simony.”

  “Who?”

  Danny laughed, “Not who but what. Simony means paying for religious offices.”

  On the ceiling were blocks of stone, and between each pair was a human’s head, held into place by large vises.

  They were so tight that a person was left hanging a few feet above the ground by the stone, and each had trickles of blood, which ran from where their ears were being mashed and torn by the blocks of stone all the way to the ground.

  They were lined up in rows that looked as if they went on forever but made an enormous circle, actually, and had roads like the one we were on, dissecting the large circles.

  As the victims hanged from the ceiling, the victim’s feet were above pits of fire that were fed coal by workers. Flames licked up to bare feet to blister, burn, and char tender toes and soles.

  Although many kicked and tried to draw their legs way from the heat, there was no escape, and their feet eternally burned.

  “Now I get ‘holding one’s feet to the fire’ as a phrase,” Cory muttered.

  “Religious offices should be given to those who are called to serve and can best serve and care for their parishioners. Buying positions to gain more power and money while doing evil deeds is evil,” Virgil told us.

  Wails and screams for mercy made my head throb.

  The next area featured people called False Prophets. They suffered, having their heads turned and twisted cruelly because in their time alive, they had engaged in twisted, false information in order to procure money from followers. Some astrologers were there, along with sorcerers, and many fake faith healers, as well.“They lied to people and gave them false predictions, false hopes, and misled them in order to get rich. That’s nasty to promise people cures for maladies and tell them to throw away their medicine and then they take their money,” Coral said.

  Danny showed us the next tableau: corrupt politicians immersed in a pool of boiling tar. They were stuck in the tar, and the more they were caught in their own lies and deceit in the real world, the more they struggled in the tar, never to be free.

  He said, “All they get to eat is tar. They were supposed to have helped people, but instead, they grew fat and rich and only cared for themselves, so for their evil mouths and fat bellies, they get hot tar.”

  Wild Hog, Dog Scratcher, and Curly Beard were among the twelve beasts that guarded the tar babies. Each was gnarled, black of skin, horned, and winged; fungus grew on their skin.

  Among the people in that pool of boiling tar, I recognized a few high-ranking females who still had bad hair styles and make up disasters and continued to be the fashion police’s worst nightmare; a congressman who smiled a lot while he lied through his teeth; and a self-educated, tall, thin man, who was known to wear a fancy top hat and once held a very high office. Along with these, I noticed Asian rulers, several dictators from South American and Middle Eastern countries, and a mean-spirited Frenchman; all struggled to get out.A big man, still smoking a cigar and now out of his well-known tomb, flayed in the tar, along with so many others that I lost count. Each was gnarled; blistered--sticky black skin; horned; and winged; fungus grew on their skin.

  Malacoda was the leader of the Malebranche guards; his name meant Evil Tail. Periodically, one would use a sharp claw or a tail to press the politicians deeper into the boiling tar, sometimes sending them in to suffocate.

  When a politician wailed and cried for mercy, the Malebranche howled in guttural laughter, rumbling malevolently.

  When one of the devils, Farfafello, or Goblin, as he was called, came too close, sniffling at us, Virgil would swing his sword into the creature with a thunderous force, sending Farfarello into the air and into the edge of the tar pit.

  As we left that area, one of the devils climbed from the tar, whining and mewling, to the amusement of the other devils.

  They could have attacked us, but they were a little frightened of the two angels with us. Even fallen angels carried a certain position in hell.

  The next area looked normal, or as normal as one could find in hell. There were stalls, small houses, buildings, a few parks, and dying trees.

  I saw the usual demoness mothers with reptilian children, demons busy along the street, human and demon prostitutes and pimps.

  The School of Morbid Learning was the place where the students were taught to glorify Hitler’s crimes and beliefs, make flesh-eating bacteria and bombs, write obscene poetry, and sing songs about the humor of the carnage of September 11. During recess, the human and beast teachers walked and played with children.

  A fire station made me wonder what happened there until Danny said that periodically the fire crew got a call, and the firemen drove to a house where they sprayed it with fire hoses until the building was properly engulfed in flames.

  After that explanation, I could guess what the police at the police station did.

  As we passed various restaurants, I gagged and shivered at the fare they offered. Essel’s Pepper Palace had a little sign that read: ‘Try our habenero to raise you temperature and blood pressure.Puppy Palace assuredly didn’t sell pet treats.

  And Limmerfer hissed at the Puppy Palace unhappily. He had dog friends back at home.

  Danny pointed.“Fly in My Soup is a popular place, too, and you would not believe the things they set afloat on top of the soups. Rat droppings and other ripe-smelling items were grated, as Parmesan cheese would be, atop creamy potato soup. It was seriously disgusting.”

  In a window, we saw an intestinal crank. The shop was called Lilith’s Spanish Spider since she was like a black widow that wove webs of torture. We could see an array of devices meant for torture that people could buy for fun.

  “Why?” was all Dana would say, her eyes wide with wonder.“What kinds of nuts think up these places?”

  Saul’s Brimstone and Assorted Fineries sat nestled between Beth’s Baby Bludgeoning Boutique and Scotty’s Pre-Sanded Toilet-Paper Emporium (‘your ring of fire’). Dan’s Funeral Home was on a corner and claimed to both ‘stab ‘em and slab ‘em.

  “I think horror fiction writers own some of these shops,” Danny said, “Look. Cracked Spine Books: they break them, you buy them, but do you know what the book spines are made of?Or the paper?Or the ink? Exactly. Sick, huh?

  Over there, see the smoke boiling out into the sky? Gary’s Baby Oil Refinery. They say he doesn’t always produce a pure product but adds all kinds of other oils and junk into his wares, and that’s the best they say,” Danny added.

  “This place should be burned to ashes, Danny. It’s an affront to decency,” Coral said.

  “Yes, it
is. Satan makes sure it stays repugnant and offensive. Imagine the energy this place uses in keeping up the revulsion. Hatred alone keeps the lights burning here.” Danny pointed out the Department of Racism and Bashing that he said conducted enough power, alone, to run the Infernal Subway.

  “I wish our mission was to burn this place away,” I said.

  Nothing much looked differently here than where we arrived days ago, but this was supposed to be a worse area where people suffered more. Except for everyone seeming slower, as if he were walking underwater and sweating badly, there didn’t seemed to be anything odd.

  “So what’s the deal?” Cory asked. He noticed the same.

  “These are hypocrites who live here,” Virgil explained. “Watch how they move.”

  “Slowly. They sweat a lot, too,” Cassie wrinkled her nose.

  “All clothing here is infused and lined with lead, a lot of lead. Lead in hats, shirts, dresses, pants, underwear; everything has the extra weight even socks and shoes.

  They are weighted down by their hypocrisy; they each carry more weight as time goes on until those who have been here a very long time can no longer move.” Virgil pointed to what I thought were life-like statues of humans with a Roman-demon look. They sat in hunched-over positions.

  “And why don’t they just refuse clothing and go naked?” Coral asked.

  We walked a little more, and finally Danny found someone he was looking for:a prostitute who wore a tube top and very short shorts; we could see a lot of her. Threaded deeply through her skin were lead safety pins, or the like, but they were soldered closed so they could not be removed. These added weight.

  “She must have tried that, to go naked, but the Legions of Lead found out and made sure she was weighted down. They get no second chances here,” Danny told us.

  He pointed out another example. A woman had lead pellets inserted and stitched into her collarbone area and around her ankles and up her shins. It looked as if tiny things lived under her skin.

  We learned that these, the hypocrites, were weighted down by false faces and false words and so were weighed down as their punishments. Everyone in this area was always tired and struggled to get around with the lead holding each back.

  “Poetic justice,” I said.

  I had listened to my father talk about how criminals and evil people never got what they deserved, that prisons were too easy, and so was the death penalty. He always said criminals should have to face the same types of misery comparable to their crimes. Dad had no sympathy for people who harmed others, stole, or lied.

  I knew that people did, in fact, face horrible, just punishments for their crimes. I wondered how Dad would feel knowing how long criminals suffered and how badly.

  To be honest, I cared, but I didn’t care; I was ready to stop seeing this. It was one thing to judge and wish bad things on people but another to see it happening. Of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing people suffer a little for what they had done to my friends. I would gladly kill those dogs over and over.

  “I think this is stupid. Could anyone not think of a better punishment than lead clothing? What a joke,” Ellie said, “being in the prison was far worse.”

  “It seems bad to me having to carry all that weight,” Coral said.

  “Really? I think it’s a joke.”

  “Not to them,” I told Ellie.

  She giggled, “They look weird moving all slow.” She mimicked their movements.

  “I haven’t seen anything funny in hell yet. Even if they deserve it, I don’t enjoy seeing torture,” I said.

  “Have you seen lice-hookers? They are funny. So is the Duchess,” Ellie said.

  “I didn’t find them humorous, and the Duchess is vile, not funny,” Coral argued.

  “Really? Her suckling-pig baby?” Ellie smacked her lips.

  I gave her a dirty look.

  “Now, this area here gets a little better or at least more fun and exciting,” Ellie said.

  “We don’t have time for The Game,” Danny told her.

  Another tableaux had a demonic guard glared angrily at us; he stood with several other guards; all of them were yellow-white like dreadful larvae. Rolls of fat covered their bodies, dark horns sat on their heads, and long, curved wickedly sharp claws motioned to us.

  Glancing at Danny and Virgil, I wondered if we were about to fight these guards and was worried because they looked dangerous and because several dozen were around the area.

  The guard who spoke to us pointed, “You are almost late.”

  “We’re travelers….” began Danny.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass who or what you are. It’s time for the show, and in case you are unaware, the Obscenity Act of 1998 requires everyone to attend. That means travelers, too.”

  “Okay, where do we go?”

  The demon showed Danny as he pointed out a building that looked like a Roman coliseum. That didn’t seem like a good omen.

  As we found seats on the wooden benches, attendants sold bugs in a bag and other nauseating snacks so the place, Cassie told us, smelled like vomit and wet earth.

  When the show began, Ellie explained it with excitement that unsettled me, “Now see there? Those are like centaurs, but as you, no doubt, have noticed, they are a little different.”

  I thought centaurs to be semi-attractive men with the bodies of horses in mythology and very good with the bow and arrows. Their faces were hideous since their noses and lips were enormous and eyes tiny. Their human skin from the waist up was maggot-white, soft, and hairless. A milky white fluid oozed out as sweat.

  Their lower bodies were those of horses, but not well-muscled, pretty horses, more of what a small child would form from clay. The mane wasn’t shiny, the muscles were wrong, and the legs were comically long and fat. Big green and brown snakes wound from their ribs to writhe in the air as capes or weird wings.

  “Cool. Huh?” Ellie said.

  The centaurs announced the game and welcomed everyone.

  I saw about half the crowd looked unhappy to be at The Game and miserable already while the other half was excited to be at The Game, cheering and shouting.

  In a few minutes, a group of thieves was ushered into the middle of the building. Their faces showed terror, and no matter why there were here, I felt badly for whatever they were to about to face. Would it be lions? Or worse?

  “Now watch this,” Ellie said.

  The thieves, a few men and two women, glanced at the next door that cranked open and then began running around the ring as fast as they could.

  From the open doorway, several giant scorpions raced out, followed by fast running lizards with teeth like sharks. Various snakes and smaller reptiles followed the large beasts. The creatures hissed and squealed with blood lust and the thrill of the chase.

  All who were running began to scream, but they had no weapons or protection.

  Within seconds, a man became cornered, and one of the scorpions stung him, but before the big lizards could eat him, his body started changing. His legs drew into his body, he fell to the ground on all fours, and a tail sprouted from his rear that grew long and shiny. His head bulged and twisted as he screamed with pain until he looked somewhat like a scorpion. His tail lengthened and curled up where a barb formed. His body segmented, and suddenly he was free to chase the rest of the thieves.

  A lizard bit a woman’s hand off, and within a minute, her body changed, becoming greenish, wart-covered, and lizard-fish like; then, she too was on the hunt.

  As each metamorphosed, he would twist and scream with the pain, rolling around and begging for help. The change was horrific, and I could not imagine the mental turmoil of such a thing. As soon as those were changed, the next group of thieves was released from a doorway to run around the stadium while onlookers cheered and groaned as bets were lost and won.

  “They stole when they were alive, and so in this punishment, their lives, their humanness, and their everything were also stolen and replaced by their being a bug or
lizard.

  They say it is pure insanity to be the one who is punished. He turns, and then he turns back bit by bit, very slowly over a month or so and is sent back to do it again,” Ellie told us. Her eyes shined with excitement and blood lust.

  “Tell me you don’t enjoy this?” Dana snapped at Ellie.

  “Well, I have been in prison a long time. I dreamed of entertainment, being clean, good food, and a man…or a woman.”

  “This isn’t entertainment. It’s sickening. What’s wrong with you?”

  She didn’t answer, and we sat through the rest of the show until Danny said it was okay to make our leave and not be penalized.

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Is Nothing out of Bound?

  The second that we left the show and were down the road, I furiously slammed Ellie against the side of a building. “I asked you what is wrong with you? I said. I have lost three friends down here and subjected other friends and myself to infernal misery and debasement, breathed noxious fumes, snorted demon bones, and will have nightmares the rest of my life in order to come here to save you.”

  “I….”

  I didn’t let her speak, “Tell me one reason you are worth any of that. Right now, I don’t see anything particularly redeemable about you.”

  “She’s kind of cute,” Cory said.

  Never turning my angry eyes from Ellie, I held one hand to my side, “Cory, shut up.”

  “Alice….”

  Again my arm went out, “Shut up, Danny.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come here, did I?” Ellie asked.

  Okay, I had developed a bit of a temper down in Hell, which was not a nice addition to my personality, but I was really angry.

  Without thinking, I popped Ellie right in her eye. There. That would swell up nicely and turn purple. She wasn’t going to be cute in an hour or less. I leaned in again, “Tell me one reason you are worth this.”

  “You hit me.”

  “Yep. I’ll likely hit you again.”

  Coral wrapped his big arms about me and carried me back several yards. He didn’t let me go until Dana reported that my eyes had become less glassy and I looked sane. Once I was free, I sat down on a dead tree. Everyone else sat around or stood about.