Hell's Pawn

by Jay Bell

  “Thanks for the offer,” John said, “but I’m going to pass.” J acobi looked crestfallen, and Dante argued with him, but it was no use. J ohn had made up his mind. He was going to play the game, and then he was going to Heaven.

  Chapter Three

  Dante wasn’t kidding when he said that P rops threw themselves at residents for assistance. I n just a week, J ohn had earned 2,000 points without having to exert much effort. He had done so by breaking up a fight between two P rops, helping a lost P rop child find its P rop parent, and giving money that had mysteriously appeared in his pocket to a P rop beggar. All of these situations had presented themselves to him while he explored the city and tried to get a better feel for life in Purgatory.

  J ohn felt he had already seen most of it. I n addition to the restaurants, there were banks, police departments, schools, and libraries, but all of these were somehow connected to schemes involving the P rops, such as the bank robber that Dante had apprehended. Aside from redemption point quests, these locations had no real functions.

  Nor were there any homes. W ithout physical possessions or a need for sleep, no one needed private space to return to. W hile the need might not exist, the desire certainly did. The entire population of P urgatory was constantly out on the streets. J ohn could find no privacy, not that he was sure what he would do with it. The only breaks from the monotony were the restaurants, which he suspected existed solely to stave off insanity.

  The food, he discovered, was bland and almost flavorless. E ntrees tasted either like boiled chicken or white bread. A steak with fries and G erman chocolate cake became the equivalent of boiled chicken with bread on the side and bread for dessert. B ecause no one had any need to eat, this may have been intentional torture—which seemed to be a reoccurring theme in P urgatory. I n addition to restaurants serving food that couldn’t be tasted, the library was full of books that couldn’t be opened, and J acobi’s park had sports fields but lacked the equipment needed to play games.

  J ohn tried not to let it get to him. He worked one night as a waiter, not so much for the points but to feel more like a real person. The work also presented him with a chance to socialize, which wasn’t very satisfying either, since all anyone talked about were the lives they had left behind. There was no current news to share, no gossip from the office, no big story in the newspaper. Only past lives and an empty present.

  During the second week, J ohn began experimenting with some of the tricks he had seen Dante perform. E arly on he learned to make his file disappear just by shoving it into his pocket. I t always fit, even without enough physical space for it. The pockets were only symbolic. John could pull the file from thin air, just as he saw others do.

  He didn’t understand how Dante managed to create cigare es, not that he ever smoked, but J ohn was eager to change his clothing. He asked around until he found someone who knew the trick. B y remembering an outfit as something other than it actually was, he could change it. J ohn started with the basics, keeping the same suit but altering the color. The jacket he changed to plum, and to add pizzazz to the drab world he was trapped in, he made his tie electric blue. O ccasionally he would find the suit had reverted to its original color, but the flexing of some mental muscles soon put it right again.

  The third week he drank. J ohn could no longer stand the predictable games required to earn points any more than he could tolerate another dreary conversation about loved ones left behind. He drank dozens of beers, never feeling full or having to urinate, regardless of how much he guzzled. S obriety would come—along with demerits—but John didn’t pause in his quest for release.

  E ventually he tired even of this. C onsulting his file, he found that he was back down to 312 redemption points. J ohn walked the streets, thinking that he would get back on track and earn more reds, but he ignored every opportunity that presented itself. He walked faster, enjoying the feeling of needing to hurry somewhere, a false sense of urgency that he had a place to be, people waiting there for his arrival, their lives incomplete without him. He let his mind roam as he rushed along, often thinking of the life he had left behind and how good it had been. He barely realized how he had become one of the crowd, an anxious animal in an unhappy herd, hurrying toward nothing.

  During one of these restless wanderings, J ohn found himself in a familiar park.

  There, still in the middle of the baseball diamond, was J acobi. He had returned to standing motionless, but now he had adopted a different position. O ne leg wrapped around the other, he held his hands skyward. They were cupped, as if he expected rain, but Purgatory had no weather. After a moment’s hesitation, John approached.

  “Today I am a flower,” J acobi said without opening his eyes. “I become the things I miss, the very things I long to see again.”

  J ohn nodded. The idea would have sounded crazy three weeks ago, but now it was almost appealing. At least it was more productive than pacing the streets. He couldn’t help but smile, and found it hard to imagine the eccentric old coot as having been a bad person in life.

  “Why are you here, Jacobi? What did you do?”

  J acobi’s arms fell to his sides. He opened his eyes to regard J ohn before he answered. “I was a heretic. I spoke out against the authority of the church. I disputed the authenticity of the B ible, and I pleaded with men to listen to their hearts instead of acting on their fears.”

  “Is that so serious a crime that you can’t work off your debt?”

  “Heresy?” J acobi chuckled. “G oodness, no. I t’s as common as infidelity. I could have left here ages ago, were I not so stubborn. You see, when I arrived they still burned sin out. They called it purging, thus the name P urgatory. The process was very painful, but at least back then there were angels to sing the hurt away at night. I rather liked the angels, but every time they tried to purge me, I would blaspheme some more. It frustrated them to no end, but I outlasted them, didn’t I?” J ohn frowned. W hy fight against leaving this place? The purging process didn’t sound pleasant, but at least the mindless games didn’t exist back then. “W hat happened to the angels?”

  “G one. B ack to Heaven. P urgatory was abandoned by the church, cast away, much like all the souls stranded here. I ’d say it was poetic justice, but now life here is even worse.”

  “I don’t follow you,” John said.

  “The church back on earth made philosophical changes that had ramifications in this reality. You’ve heard the saying ‘as above, so below’? Well, it works both ways.” J acobi tugged on his beard. “The Vatican decided to downgrade P urgatory from being a place to more of an idea. A soul wouldn’t actually arrive in P urgatory, they insisted.

  The idea of a safety net took the fire and brimstone out of their sermons, you see, and so they did away with it. That’s when the changes started here, resulting in the parody of reform that exists today.”

  “How do you even know what the Vatican is?” J ohn asked. “I thought you were from ancient Greece?”

  “O h no,” J acobi smiled. “I ’m just a fan. I ’m from the sixteen hundreds. B ack then the Vatican was known as the Holy S ee, and it wasn’t the best era to speak out against the church. I chose my appearance because I embrace the ideals of the ancient Greeks.

  Well, aside from the naked O lympics, but that’s mostly just because I don’t like sports.”

  John smiled. “If the angels have all gone away, then who is in charge of Purgatory?”

  “No one knows. C ertainly not the P rops. I ’ve studied them, and they don’t show any signs of real intelligence. E ven those paper shufflers working in administration are merely souls who have been promoted. I f they know who they report to, they aren’t telling.”

  “And you’re content to stay here for all eternity, doing nothing?”

  “Doing nothing requires more effort than you might think.” J acobi sighed. “B ut yes, I ’ve wanted to move on. M y stubbornness faded long ago, and I started to play the game, but then events took an even stranger
turn. About five decades ago, all sorts of souls began showing up here. B uddhists, M uslims, Taoists, you name it. E ven atheists.”

  “Where else are they supposed to go?”

  “To whatever afterlife they believe in, of course. O r nowhere, or back to E arth to reincarnate. Anywhere but here. They don’t belong in a Christian paradigm.”

  “But neither does Purgatory anymore,” John replied.

  “P recisely! An astute observation! Now, one could imagine that all the undesirables are being sent here by other religions. J ust look at our friend Dante. B ut not everyone here is as unabashedly naughty as he is. I ’ve spent decades talking to the other souls here. L earning about the times and places they come from has been wondrous, but you know what else I noticed? M ost of the people here are good. O h sure, none of our hands are exactly clean, but not so much that our own belief systems would reject us.

  C ertainly not. S o why are we here, and most important, where do they really send souls when they graduate?”

  J ohn shrugged. “M aybe P urgatory works for all religions now. The souls who need a little more work come here first before being sent to where they really belong.”

  “I could ask to see your file, J ohn, but I don’t need to. I can read it in your face that you’re a good man. Do you really think you’re not worthy of Heaven as you are?” J ohn thought about it. “I once stole a bo le of my grandma’s cooking wine. W hen she noticed it missing, I blamed it on grandpa, and she thought he’d fallen off the wagon and made him go back to AA. Then there was the time I put thumbtacks on my history teacher’s chair, but I swear he was an old Nazi.” J ohn paused, but J acobi nodded encouragingly. “I used to shoplift C Ds all the time, and who doesn’t download music illegally, right? I n fact, I ’m pre y sure I left my computer running the night I died. I t’s probably still sharing the entire AB B A discography with the whole world, which is an embarrassing thought. Uh, do you have any idea what I ’m talking about?”

  Jacobi nodded but said, “Not a clue.”

  “Well, I might have some reasons for being here, but they don’t seem that serious.

  I ’ve never killed anyone, and I lived a pre y decent life most of the time. I don’t know if I belong here or not, but I know that I don’t want to stay.” J acobi gave a conspiratorial wink. “Any good escape plan relies on accurate information. You want answers, and I think I know where to find them, but there are obstacles.”

  “O bstacles that you think I can overcome.” J ohn tried to hide his smile and failed.

  After three weeks of boredom, he was ready for some adventure, even if it meant damning himself to Hell in the process.

  * * * * *

  Three men huddled together on a street, examining something at their feet. From an outsider’s perspective, it was hard to see what. Through the gaps in their legs, a bystander might spy a bit of concrete or a discarded cigare e bu or two that had likely been dropped by the dark-haired man who was smoking another. The oldest of these men squa ed with hands on bony knees, eyes watering in concentration as the fair-haired man pointed repeatedly at the same empty spot.

  “You really can’t see it?” John asked.

  “What are we looking for again?” Dante asked.

  “The sewer grate,” J acobi said, squinting his eyes so tightly they were almost shut.

  “There! I saw it flicker before it disappeared again!”

  J ohn glanced back down. For him the manhole was as clear as day. Unless his new friends were crazy, some sort of illusion prevented them from seeing it. Dante couldn’t even keep the idea in mind before asking—

  “Seriously now, what are we doing here?”

  “Try to open it,” J acobi said. “G o on! B efore he asks us again. I only spo ed it while pretending to be a row of hedges one day, and spent a good hour fighting off the urge to forget it. Anything they don’t want us to notice, that tries to erase itself from our minds, must be important, right?”

  J ohn nodded. The manhole existed, but how was he supposed to open it without a crowbar? He reached down to hook a finger in the hole where such a tool would normally be inserted. His finger tingled as it brushed against the metal, the sensation similar to the dampeners. J ohn gave a tentative tug to see if the cover would even budge, and was surprised when it provided no resistance. The manhole cover was as light as paper! He flipped it over onto the street.

  “Now I can see it,” Jacobi said, prodding the discarded cover.

  Dante shook his head. “Yeah. M e too. That was weird. The thought kept slipping my mind, no ma er how hard I tried to remember. Now I know how G ran must have felt.”

  Jacobi glanced up and down the street. “Get inside before somebody sees. Quickly!” A ladder led down into an ominous gray void, but at least it was somewhere new.

  J ohn went first, on Dante’s insistence. The ladder ended ten feet down in a featureless room with a short passageway ahead. O nce Dante climbed down, they both turned their heads upward expectantly. J acobi wasn’t following. I nstead his worried face peered over the edge.

  “O ne of us has to close this again,” he said, “and play decoy in case we tripped an alarm.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Dante said. “Get down here, and we’ll all make a run for it.”

  “I f that truly is an exit,” J acobi replied. “Anything could be down there, so keep your eyes open. If you do find the way out, come back for me.”

  “Have it your way,” Dante said, as the cover slid closed. “O ld man has been here too long. He’s spent so long dreaming of leaving that the idea must terrify him.” J ohn was only half-listening, his a ention focused on their surroundings. Walls, ceiling, and floor were all made from the same colorless material, textureless and completely smooth when touched. Walking created no sound, and no variations showed in the material’s bland surface. Not even shadow could take hold here.

  Despite there being no source of light, their surroundings were completely visible.

  W ith nothing to see or do, they moved down the short hallway until reaching a dead end, except for a square hole in the floor. This time there was no ladder, nor could a bottom be seen.

  “Ladies first,” Dante said.

  “What? You expect me just to jump?”

  “I promise it won’t be fatal.”

  J ohn scowled at him before considering the opening in the floor again. J acobi had said that P urgatory was once a series of levels, before all souls had been moved to the surface when the great change occurred. Descending through the old layers might take them somewhere, but John would feel a lot more comfortable knowing where exactly.

  “You have to go first,” Dante pressed. “I f there’s some sort of trap, you’re more likely to escape it than I would.”

  “I don’t suppose you can create a rope or something?”

  “No, but I can make you a cigarette if you want one final smoke before you go.” J ohn wondered if this was the I rishman’s version of revenge for having avoided him the past three weeks.

  “Or,” Dante said, “we go back up for Jacobi and toss the old geezer in first.” J ohn laughed, then braced himself. I f he thought about it any more he wouldn’t do it, so he silenced his fears and jumped. His stomach lurched, mostly out of habit, as he plummeted down. The wind whipped through his hair and his clothing flapped against him like a flag in a storm as he continued to drop. W hen the bo om failed to appear a few minutes later, J ohn began to wonder if this was how he was going to spend the rest of eternity.

  He heard Dante scream above him, signaling that he had chosen to follow. The scream ran its course, was followed by a thoughtful pause, and then a groan. J ohn was about to shout something smart up to him when he hit the ground, his legs crumpling beneath him.

  He felt no pain. He hadn’t experienced pain since entering P urgatory. J ohn’s legs, still remembering the basic rules of life, felt they should be broken and wouldn’t respond to his mind’s directives. After some coaxing they accepted that they
were still on duty and allowed J ohn to stand. He made it one step away before Dante came crashing down on top of him. After a series of curses and accusations, they took stock of their surroundings.

  They were surrounded by wild animals. S till on the floor and tangled up in Dante’s limbs, J ohn found himself face to face with a snarling boar, one of its long pointed tusks just inches from his eye. He froze instinctively. Oddly enough, so did the boar.

  “A bear,” Dante whispered. “There’s a flipping bear over here!”

  “Is it blue?” John asked.

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  S o was the boar. I ts fur was still the russet color that it should be, but the animal itself was glowing with blue light.

  “I think they’re stunned,” John said.

  “Then don’t touch them,” Dante said as they got to their feet. “We don’t want your freaky voodoo waking them up.”

  “Hey, are those elephants over there?”

  “M ight be,” Dante said, awe creeping into his voice. “C ould be every animal in existence.”

  For a moment, they were just as motionless and mute as the creatures around them, silenced by the sheer scale of what they saw. As far as they could see were every conceivable species of animal, all glowing blue, all unnaturally still. E ven with the afterlife’s strange ability to see great distances, J ohn couldn’t spot a wall in any direction. There was only fang and fur, as if Noah had traded his ark for a hangar the size of Texas.

  “I ’ve seen something like this before,” Dante said. “This guy went off his nut a few years back, started throwing furniture around, hi ing people, trying to destroy everything in sight. S ome P rops went after him, and I don’t know what they did, but the next thing you know he’s as blue as a Smurf and dead as a stone.”

  “I thought you said we couldn’t die.”

  “Right, but this is pretty damn close.”