A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck

  She said this coldly, without complaint, staring at her hands, then added, “Well, at least I can enjoy a steak. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with a cow. How could it?”

  I nodded and reached out and took her hand. It was slightly cool, but its physicality was real and soft. I gently rubbed her fingers and massaged her palm with my thumb. I felt her relax and sigh. No cows, no chickens, no pigs were connected with our food, of that I was sure, too. There was no life here. Hell was a machine. Except us. Here, her hand in mine was the one reality that severed us from the cold click-clack of Hell. I rubbed her hand and she sighed; wasn’t that meaning? Wasn’t that something we could cling to? I could be with this other. I could form no other relation, but maybe her hand in mine was enough, both sufficient and necessary. In Hell there was no sense of place, because all places were the same. Uniform monotony. A place without place. A place without context. But, here, now, I could rub her hand and she would sigh. She was a difference. Perhaps each person was the only difference in all these halls of unchanging ranks of books, kiosks, clocks, and carpet, and that, and that, at least, we had to hold to.

  I noticed we were alone. Someone had just said another sentence had been found about a hundred floors up, and everyone had made a dash up to see it.

  She looked at me. “Do you want to go up and see the text? Maybe it will make up for today’s disappointment.”

  I did not let go of her hand.

  “Rachel, you can go if you want …” I never got to finish, because she kissed me. The deepest, most satisfying kiss I’d experienced in a hundred years. We never did find out what that text was.

  Have you ever loved someone for a thousand years? I would have bet it impossible, but that’s how long we were together. A thousand years we traveled the halls of Hell together. I don’t remember fighting. She was magic. Nights were wondrous. Days full of laughter and long, slow conversations. Once for fifty years we discussed dogs and decided to spend a few years pretending we were dogs, running on all fours and eating only dog food out of a dish, or occasionally gnawing on a meaty bone. Oddly enough, it caught on and several people joined our pack. We pulled the mattresses down off the beds with our teeth and slept on the floor.

  In our 708th year together, we started an elaborate game of tag that involved hundreds of people and lasted for over twelve years. We developed a series of complex strategies for freeing prisoners and gaining allies when we were It – and we were always It together. We were a team, Rachel and I. Oh, I miss her so much. I think our love could have lasted forever. I’m sure it would have. She was so … no, I won’t cheapen it by trying to express it in words and short sentences. I loved her. That is enough.

  4

  YEAR 1145: THE GREAT LOSS

  THINGS STARTED TO FALL APART when Dire Dan, “the prophet of doom and truth,” grew in popularity and established a following of several ten thousand men and a handful of women. He claimed to be from the other side of the divide and to have been visited by God himself. God appeared in his room at night and bade him rise and hear the truth. This is how his conversation with God went:

  GOD. Kneel before me, slime. Hell dweller. Stink in the nostrils of the Great God who holds in his hands your extinction. Kneel, less than a worm. Tremble, smudge on existence, twisted and unholy scab.

  DIRE DAN. Speak, O Great One. I am your servant.

  GOD. You are no servant of mine, puss of gall. You are less to me than the half remains of a worm discarded in a bird’s unfinished meal, left in a gutter to dry, rot, and stink. Do not bother me with cries of “servant,” nor speak useless flatteries in my ear.

  DIRE DAN. Yes, Lord.

  GOD. But I will make you a tool. Those in this Hell must be taught who it is they have offended in their sin. They must be made to feel my wrath. The time has come that they are to be scourged. You will be like a whip in my hand. You will be the sword in my clenched fist. You will bring them to punishment. The days of this peace in Hell are ended. Kill them again and again. Rape them, torture them, cause them pain and fire. Leave not a moment of peace. Teach them the wrath born of their sins and rebellions. Strike them when they are awake. Smite them when they are asleep. Cut without mercy. Slice without pity. The day is now. Teach them the horrors of a just God!

  DIRE DAN. It will be done.

  And so the Direites spread like a pestilence. Their numbers increased under the promise of a bright heaven to come when they had scourged Hell to the utmost. Their numbers swelled to thousands in a year. They made recruits across the gulf, on both sides of the library. Never before had we seen such terror. They hunted in packs of ten to thirty men and occasionally a few women. They were bound by oaths to cause as much hurt as they could. If you did not join, they would keep you prisoner for days. Engaging in torture. I will not describe it. It is beyond my ability. We became like animals. We ran. Hiding. Running. Watching both sides of the library, for the two sides worked together to hunt us down. We just wanted to travel to where there were no people, but the Direites kept the borders of the four directions carefully guarded.

  One day, in this time of terror, two people popped out of one of the stairwells near where we were enjoying a meal. Their faces were stretched in unmistakable terror. They looked at us and screamed, “Run!”

  We knew why. We did not need any other warning. Rachel and I bolted. We ran to the left as fast as we could. We could see across the divide that the Direites on the other side were directing the pack on our side to our location. We ran faster, our legs pumping like sprinters’. Suddenly, in front of us a gang poured out of a stairwell. We ground to a halt and turned the other way, sprinted into another nearby stairwell, and headed down. We flew down the stairs with the animals panting hot behind us like wolves. We raced down to another level and went right. We should have gone left. If I had one wish to make in this eternity of madness, if I could have one prayer answered in this empty place, it would be that we had turned left instead of right. Why? Why? has been my question ever since.

  We were surrounded. Another gang poured out of the stairwell in front of us, and we were surrounded. Their eyes were terrible, their countenances radiating nothing but fierceness and hatred. They moved slowly toward us, armed with clubs and spears made of cow and water buffalo bones.

  Rachel turned to me. She seemed surprisingly calm. “I love you,” she said, a beautiful smile on her face.

  Then she climbed up the railing and jumped. Several arms reached out to stop her, to hold her back, but they were too late. Many arms grabbed me, however, and held me fast against the railing. I watched her fall. She did not scream, she just fell downward, down, down, and down. The Direites all watched with gleeful cheers and laughter as she got smaller and smaller, until as an infinitesimal dot she merged with the ever-present vanishing point and winked out of my existence. My only joy was gone.

  “I love you too,” I said to the empty air below me. I was hit over the head with a bone and saw nothing but blackness.

  ~~~

  WHEN I WOKE up, I noticed I had been moved and was looking under one of the beds in a sleeping room. Then I felt a sharp pain, and everything went black again. I woke up again, noticed the same perspective I’d seen before, heard a whistle of something swinging through the air like a baseball bat, and darkness again. This continued for thirty-seven days, which for me lasted only a few seconds.

  Thinking in bits and pieces over the course of more than a month was new to me, but time and practice brought increased efficiency of thought. I had about six seconds before I was clubbed. About two of which was spent in orienting myself by recalling where I was in the thinking process, then with the remaining four I deliberated on my situation. Of course to me, the month passed in only three minutes of consciousness, but during that three minutes I hatched a plan and reached a point where I was ready to execute it.

  Upon awakening, I rolled as quickly as I could in the direction away from my invisible attacker. Then, having secured some distance between
me and my attacker, I rolled and leapt to my feet, and turned quickly to face my assailant. He was clubbing down with a large cow thighbone and was startled to find me gone.

  I was not surprised to find myself in one of the small rooms next to a bed, but here sat my assailant, rubbing his eyes.

  “Well, well, well, you got away. At least I beat Higgins’s record, but not even close to Barley’s.” The man stood up and looked at me.

  “Want some coffee?”

  There were a few other people getting up, a few going to the bathrooms, and some making their way out to the kiosk. I suddenly noticed that near every bed was a crumpled body, lying still, its head bashed in and fresh blood pooling on the floor. I felt sick at the sight. What were these people doing?

  “Maybe some orange juice,” I said suspiciously.

  At that the man shrugged and motioned for me to go out to the kiosk.

  “Don’t try to get away,” he cautioned. “You’re a slave.”

  “A slave?” I asked.

  “Indeed, you’ve been adopted by the brotherhood. You will serve us, or you will be used as a morning sacrifice – as you have for the past month. As the master teaches, ‘To murder a sinner in the morning is the start of a blessed day.’”

  I was speechless.

  “There’s a chance to escape both these fates, and that is to join us and undertake the oath. One of the teachers will instruct you with the other Arisers this morning after breakfast. Go grab something for breakfast.” And with that he marched into the bathroom. I stood there, stunned.

  Death lay all around me, but those still living seemed not to care. They stepped and maneuvered around the many bodies like it was a normal morning. I walked out of the room and came up to the kiosk and ordered an orange juice. Bodies were everywhere. People were crumbled in the hallway. Fresh pools of blood seeped under many of the twisted bodies. I saw one man being beaten by several others. They beat him until he fell to the ground, where they kicked him until he was dead. There seemed to be no malice in their actions. It was as if they were almost bored, going through a morning ritual that needed to be done, like brushing their hair or ordering a meal from the kiosk.

  I walked over to the railing and peered over, thinking of Rachel’s last jump, which for me had only been a few minutes ago, but I knew in reality had been weeks ago. A wave of sadness and loss spread over me just as a voice said,

  “Don’t think about jumping. We’ll catch you before you get a foot on the railing. Then we’ll torture you in ways you would find rather unpleasant. The great thing is, every day we get to start fresh. We have people we’ve tortured for over a year. Great sinners, of course. They deserve it. It’s God’s great work.”

  I stared at him like he was a madman.

  “You’ll get used to it. Their screams, I mean. It’s all God’s work.”

  He looked uncomfortable for a moment then turned away. He stood in silence for a minute and then turned to me again.

  “Let’s go.”

  He led me to a stairway. I was seated on one of the steps that led upward with about four other men. I had not seen any women yet, but I’d heard some Direites were women. Not many, but a few.

  A man came in and stood in front of us, his back to the hallway. He looked no different than any of us, with the same haircut and clothes we all had. I could not tell if he was a prisoner or a captor until he proclaimed, “I am Dire Dan.”

  My blood ran cold. My stomach lurched into my throat, and I felt as if I were choking. Here was the man who had caused years of pain and suffering to thousands. Here was the man who had forced Rachel into the chasm. Here in front of me, only a few feet away, was the man of my worst nightmares. My fists clenched, as rage boiled inside me.

  “Listen to my words and be saved from this place. Ignore me and you will suffer beyond anything you thought possible. I am God’s mace. I am his calipers, his judgment …”

  I will not sicken you with all his words. He was arrogant, full of his own importance. He could speak of nothing but his glory in the world to come. It was mad. Was madness possible here? Apparently.

  When he finished he said, smiling, “Here is the decision you must make. You can join us and inflict pain and suffering, or …” and he let the moment hang, “you can be one of those upon whom suffering is inflicted.

  “If you do join us, you will be assigned a client, someone who has refused the offer you now receive. To your charge you must make this place a Hell to the fullest ability of your pathetic power. You must convince me you have made this sinner suffer to the greatest extent of your abilities. Don’t worry, you will be trained …”

  He droned on, but behind him the two guards standing beside him left for a moment. From the stairs on which I was sitting, I could hear screaming in the hall, and the two guards bracketing Dire Dan had first turned to watch, and then walked toward the commotion – leaving no one between Dire Dan and the landing, the hall, and the railing. I did not hesitate. I had never been filled with such a sense of rage and vengeance. He had taken Rachel. He had tortured my friends. He had destroyed our peace. All of this rationalization occurred later. In that second that I saw the clear shot, I did not hesitate. My month of learning how to think in the few seconds after awakening in the morning served me well at that instant. I leaped from the step and with the speed of a linebacker picked up the low creature with all the strength born of Rachel’s loss and launched us both over the railing.

  I had him around the waist and did not let go as we tumbled into the great divide between the two walls of books. He was kicking frantically and screaming that he would kill me. And he did. I had him around the waist, and he leaned back and grabbed my head and gave it a quick hard twist, breaking my neck.

  In the morning we were still falling. I was a little disappointed, because I knew we were traveling down at about a hundred miles an hour, and I hoped that after a day and night we might have hit the bottom. The grave fear that it might be bottomless welled up in me. I suppose it was that fear that had kept so many of us from jumping before. I estimated we had traveled fifteen hundred miles, and still no bottom.

  My enemy was still with me. He was about two hundred feet above me and was in a parachutist’s dive, spread-eagled and looking right at me. I was still winging my hands like a chicken tossed from a barn and doing occasional flips, but he seemed in control. I suppose he had had all day to practice, while I was falling as dead and helpless as a crash-test dummy. His look was one of pure and absolute hatred. He maneuvered a little closer and started screaming at me what appeared to be a well-rehearsed speech.

  “You maggot! Do you know against whom you fight? Dog! You fight against God! Against God. You …” He could not finish; he let out a scream of rage, folded his arms to his side, and dove straight at me, head first. I tried to flap out of the way, but whereas he seemed to be a guided missile, I was completely out of control. Our heads collided like two hollow melons.

  When I awoke, it took me a long time to find him. I tried to look around, but I was still not in control, so I used his trick and spread out my arms, and found I was stabilizing. With my perfect recollection of the past, I thought of pictures I had seen of skydivers and tried to mimic the impression I had of their falls. After an hour or so I was doing quite well and could even control my direction.

  Dire Dan, I finally noticed, was about three hundred yards below me. It made me sick to think when we hit the bottom I would have to deal with him there, but it also occurred to me Rachel would be there too. So would others who had been forced to jump because of this evil man’s gangs. I figured when we hit I would have lots of allies.

  My enemy was trying hard to spread himself out and slow his fall. He was heavy in build – more muscular than I – and apparently with less friction he had fallen a little faster. He would occasionally look at me and scream things I could not hear, but I too had learned to slow down. Through the day I started feeling pretty hungry and thirsty. We flew down, and I watched as my nem
esis slowly drifted further and further away. I kept angling my arms so I was flying away from him, and we seemed to be drifting in different directions. It was a strange feeling, falling for so long. The wind roared in my ears, but there was a peace to it, a relaxing sense of freedom I’d never known before. I was enjoying it, I had to admit. Enjoying it immensely. New experiences in Hell were few and far between, and I was having a ball. Once I hit bottom, I planned to climb back up with Rachel and jump again. Floors flew by at an astonishing rate. I could see people occasionally stop and stare at me. Some looked on in pity, others in amusement, some with the expression that plagued those in Hell: boredom. I was surprised to see so many people, because I knew I had been falling a long time. Did the travelers of ’52 make it this far down? How far to the bottom?

  Just before the lights went out, I caught my last glimpse of Dire Dan. He was just a pinprick far, far below me, and we were separated by a great distance. As complete darkness gathered around me, I had a strange feeling of safety. I stayed awake for hours, but just before dawn, that inevitable moment through which no one in Hell has ever been able to stay awake, that strange hour when books are returned, the dead revived, and all wounds healed – I fell asleep and did not wake until the turning on of the lights.

  Dire Dan was gone. I was never to see him again. Nor has anyone I have ever met since. He, like me, is lost in the library. Alone. I wonder, does he still feel he is the fist of God?

  I was getting very thirsty. I was hungry too, but the thirst was the worst. Throughout the day I passed hundreds of drinking fountains and kiosks and could do nothing but watch them fly by. My mouth was parched and my tongue felt thick in my mouth. I tried to take my mind off things by practicing my flying. I found that by pulling my arms inside my smock and bowing them out under the fabric I could get pretty good control of my direction. I learned to increase or decrease my speed and get some measure of navigation, but the downward motion dominated everything I did, and even when I was getting some horizontal movement, I was still hurtling downward at an amazing rate. I remembered that in air, there was a limit to how fast you could fall because of friction. I recalled with my perfect memory that it was at around 120 miles per hour.