As concerned as he was for the boy’s anguish, he couldn’t help but smile proudly, affectionately at the sight of him in his lover’s arms. Her thick black hair, curly as Medusa’s, wild around her face. Those huge black eyes, so solemn and concerned. Could there ever have been a more affecting portrait of a Madonna? Still meeting his eyes, she kissed the top of the boy’s head and whispered comfort to him.
"It’s my fault," he wept. "I killed my Mom and Dad…I killed them…"
"No, my dear. No…"
"I did! I did!"
"It was an accident, my love."
"It doesn’t matter…it’s my fault…I killed them! I killed my Mom and Dad!"
At last, Roger came to the bed and sat beside Davina, took one of the boy’s hands and clasped it between both of his. "That’s not why you’re here, Mark."
"I’m bad! I’m bad!"
"No. Look at me. Look at Davina. Are we bad, too, Mark?"
The boy didn’t raise his face from her warm breasts, but his muffled voice said, "No-o…"
"It’s not fair, the things that happen. The fire. Us being here. Not fair, then, is it? But we don’t have to accept it. We may have to live with the pain of things, but we don’t have to accept them. I don’t accept that I belong here. I don’t accept that you belong here. That’s what makes us human—that freedom they can’t beat from us or bleed from us—and I’ve found that being human is more important than being an Angel. Or a…deity." He sighed, still holding the child’s hand. "I must not be making sense to you. But, what I’m saying is, they can punish us from now until the universe burns out, but that doesn’t make us evil. And you, my boy, are a beautiful, beautiful soul who would shame the most powerful, most lordly, meanest and ugliest God that anyone could ever worship."
Davina put a hand to the back of Roger’s head, stroked it, and spread her lips in a smile.
3: The Searchers
Dawn hid her face in her hands, as if they might staunch the flow of her tears…as if, if she refused to look at her surroundings long enough they would be gone when she uncovered her eyes, and she would be in Paradise again instead of this apartment provided for her and her husband, here in Hades.
Their Demon hosts no doubt believed they provided a comfortable and even beautiful environment for their angelic guests. The glistening, metallic scarabs that covered every inch of the walls were a living (in a sense) mosaic, that shifted every so often into an entirely new pattern of color and design. And even though Michael had assured her that last night the beetles had not swarmed off the walls and across him in his bed, she still shuddered at their numbers all around her. It wasn’t these creatures, though, that had brought her to such a state…but having been met by Iblis Al-Qadim and two lesser Demons, upon her arrival into the netherworld. Even though Michael had gone back to Paradise to fetch her personally, had told her what to expect, and held her hand when that metal hatch in the white-tiled wall squealed open, she had still gasped and squeezed her eyes shut at her first sight of the three skeletal devils—the looming governor with flame lapping out of the top of his head, inside the black miter he wore, and his two attendants: comparatively smaller and without headgear, a luminous green smoke wisping out of their open skulls in place of their superior’s emerald fire.
Neither of the lesser Demons had a black cephalopod perched on one shoulder, and the one on the governor’s shoulder seemed to have become more affectionate, or aggressive, in the mere hours since Michael had last seen it. It now had one of its slinking arms coiled tightly around Iblis Al-Qadim’s scrawny neck, like a noose.
But now Michael and Dawn were alone, and her sobs were finally diminishing…though she still refused the ice water he offered her from a pitcher. He didn’t proffer any of the brilliantly red unknown fruit, heaped for them in a silver bowl. Even he thought they looked too much like the small hearts of human children.
"And to think that Mark is in this place, huh?" Michael told her, pacing as she sat on the edge of the bed. "This is how you feel, even though you know you can return to Heaven anytime you want. Imagine being stuck in this place forever. And this," he waved an arm around the room, "this isn’t how the Damned live, down here." He still couldn’t help but think of Hades as being "down," as if beneath the Earth’s rind, though he knew it was more like a parallel dimension.
"Terrible," Dawn sniffled, at last lowering her slick hands from eyes burned red. "Terrible. I don’t think I ever really believed in a Hell," she admitted quietly, as if she herself might be damned by the confession. "Did you?"
"Yes," her husband muttered.
"I’m not even sure…I hate to say it, Mike…but I’m not even sure I really, really believed in a Heaven. I mean, I went to church every Sunday, like I was expected to…the way my parents did. But, I don’t know…I didn’t like to really think about an afterlife, even a Paradise, because…it just didn’t seem possible…"
"You see? This is what I don’t understand. The Father only counts the heads that go through the doors of His churches—He doesn’t look into their hearts. If He did, a lot of the people in Heaven would be here, and innocents like my son would be with us in Paradise. Instead of judging you by your acts, your purity, He’s…petty. He’ll throw you into the pit for buttering the wrong side of the bread."
"Honey," she looked up, "shhh!"
"I don’t care. I don’t care anymore," he grumbled. "I never thought that all Buddhists would go to Hell, even though I was told a million times there was only one way to get to Paradise—through the Son. I never believed every Muslim, every Jew, every atheist would be punished without even a look at their souls! It’s insane…it’s crueler than anything I could have imagined, even from Satan. And now, of course, I understand. There never was a Satan. Just our Dad—the big old Yin/Yang. He’s the real Lucifer. The angel of light, turned ruler of Hell. Angel and demon in one. Our Creator is the Devil."
"Michael," Dawn warned him, glancing with a start at the seething, rustling walls as the insects suddenly scurried over each other to reconfigure their positions. For a moment, she had thought the bugs would pour over her husband and eat him alive for his blasphemies.
"I would hate Him less if there were a Satan to blame for this." He swept his arm around him again. "But Satan is the only Demon that was created by Man. The rest are His."
"Enough, Michael, please."
He whirled to glare at her, his goateed chin thrust forward. "I believed in Him! I worshipped Him! I was devout! And here is my son, only eight years old, in fucking Hell! They’d better find him, these monsters. They better bring me to him soon or they’ll see some real wrath."
"I feel sorry for our parents," Dawn said, letting her head sag. "They don’t know our souls live on. They might think we’re gone forever. My poor Mom and Dad. I’m so glad they’re baptized…churchgoers. My brother, too." She wagged her head. "They must be so heartbroken. Now they have to live the rest of their lives thinking about how young I was when I died. The horrible way that I died. It will haunt them, every Christmas, every time my birthday comes along." She moaned. "Why did he have to fool around with matches…why?"
"You blame him," Michael stated. She lifted her head. His sudden calm tone frightened her more than his furious rants. "You blame him for us being killed."
"Michael, I’m only saying…"
"He’s a child. I played with fire, too, when I was a kid. Burning my toy soldiers, watching their faces melt. Seeing how paper burned, Styrofoam. Who left those matches out, by the way?"
"You always liked the candles I burned. Their smell," Dawn managed weakly, close to tears again. "I thought you liked them…"
"You left the matches out."
"So now it’s my fault? You say I hate Mark for doing this to us, but I don’t! I’ve gone to Paradise; I’m not the unlucky one, he is. But don’t you think that tortures me, too? I loved him! You might not believe that, but I loved him like he was my own son. It isn’t that I blame Mark…the thing is, you blame me! Yo
u blame me, for what happened to us. And for him being here."
Michael came over to her, spreading his arms open, looking appropriately angelic in his white robes. With his slicked-back, short dark hair and neat goatee, she thought he resembled a modernized Jesus. He put his arms around her and she began sobbing, again, against his chest.
"I don’t blame you, baby. I don’t." He rubbed her back in circles. "We didn’t make this place, did we? We didn’t make these rules. Look…there’s nothing you can really do here. There’s no sense in your staying. I’ll take you back."
"But I wanted to be with you," Dawn whimpered, clutching him. "And I wanted to see Mark. Really."
"When I find him, I’ll come get you again."
"But how long do you think you’ll be here, honey?"
"As long as it takes."
"Well, if you find him, what then? We can’t take him back with us…"
"I don’t know, what then. All I know is I want to see my boy. I want to be sure he’s not in pain. I can’t bear it, Dawn…I can’t bear the thought of my boy suffering…"
««—»»
The Demon seated importantly behind a desk of black marble resembled Iblis Al-Qadim and his underlings in that he appeared like an unwrapped and reanimated mummy, his jointed body vaguely insectoid, but above his skull-like face his head ballooned into a huge translucent sphere, almost like a boneless fluid-filled sack that Michael was surprised the thing’s neck could support. The governor and this Demon had exchanged a few guttural gurgles in an alien tongue, and now the globe-headed entity turned the fiery pinpricks of his eyes to Michael, staring at him intensely. It’s probing me telepathically, he thought, using me to get Mark’s scent. He could almost feel the Demon’s bony digits unraveling the knotted convolutions of his brain and fingering them like the beads of a rosary.
Seated opposite the creature, Michael fidgeted in his chair, vaguely nervous, as if he were a young man applying for his first job. But it had been a long time since Michael had squirmed before a superior. He had died a career military man, an officer, a decorated veteran of the Gulf War. A man on the ground, not on a plane, not directing rockets through windows as if playing a video game. He had two confirmed kills; two faces he had looked into before he had extinguished the life behind them. And were his victims in Hell with him, even now? He had heard that in Hades, infinite as it was, the Damned were prevented somehow from encountering their relatives or spouses, even their friends from life. Would that mean that when his first wife died, she would not be permitted to join her son? It must mean exactly that. He wished he could warn her, like Marley visiting Scrooge, to change her destiny. Despite how disillusioned he had become with his faith, Michael prayed that his former wife would change her mind about religion and become baptized at last, so that she could move about freely between Heaven and Hell as he did. So she could see her son again…if Mark truly could be located.
The globe-headed Demon broke their gaze, and Michael went a little limp in his chair. Had he merely been tensed, or had the thing’s brain been holding him transfixed? The Demon looked up at Iblis Al-Qadim and gave a gravelly hiss.
"You are in luck, sir," the governor announced. "We have found him. It was helpful that he has not strayed considerably from his original point of entry. He is in a city called Apollyon—not far at all from this palace."
"Take me there," Michael said.
"As you wish, sir."
Michael rose from his seat, and nodded at the telepathic Demon in a kind of gruff thanks. But he could feel no real gratitude. The Demons did not sympathize with his plight, were merely being courteous because he was an Angel. These were the things that inflicted misery upon the Damned…and who could tell what this being’s brothers might be doing to his child even now.
4: The Skull
As Roger and Mark wound their way through the twisty, narrow streets of Apollyon, returning home from the print shop, they passed a pair of emaciated, child-like Kilcrops, but the Demons only giggled at them horribly as they turned the corner. Glancing back at the creatures, Roger couldn’t help but wonder if either or both of them had been grown inside his lover’s body.
"One thing I like about Hell," Mark resumed saying, now that the Demons were out of view, "is there’s no school here."
"Now, now," Roger scolded. "I should school you myself, just for saying that. You’re a smart boy…you shouldn’t be thinking that way."
"But why should I learn things I’ll need when I grow up, if I’m never going to grow up?"
"Maybe that’s another good thing about Hell," he muttered to himself. Never having to become an adult, that most awful of creatures excepting, perhaps, Demons. "It’s always important to learn and learn, as much as you can, and never ever stop learning. And there are cities and towns that have schools, you know—I’ve seen them."
"I’d rather just work with you instead. Because…" he produced a few coins from his pocket "…you don’t get paid for going to school."
"Terrible. Why are you so terrible this evening?"
Mark laughed, but then stopped and said, "Wow…Rog…what is that thing?"
Still smiling, Roger turned his head to look at where the boy was pointing.
A moon appeared to hover above the roofs and chimneys, huge in the bluish sky of flame, but even as Roger watched the great sphere was floating closer, in their direction. The sphere was the color of bone, and skull-like sutures squiggled across its surface, and this was why the Damned had come to call the thing the Skull, though there were no other features. Roger had seen it before. Once, here in Apollyon, and in other colonies of the Damned as well. It migrated, wandered, seemingly at random. He was reminded of the Black Cathedral, on its networks of train tracks, and other such roving structures that one hoped never to see enter one’s town.
"Hurry up, Mark," he said, reaching for the boy’s hand. He quickened his pace.
"What is it, Rog?"
"The Skull…"
"What does it do?"
"It’s a torture factory," he told him.
Roger began to look about him for a shop that might be open, into which they might duck if need be. A stranger might even let them into their house, out of sympathy. Then again, they might not want to get involved, for fear of being gathered up by the crew of the Skull themselves.
"It’s getting close," Mark said, sounding worried.
"I know. Here. Under here." Roger broke into a little run, dragging Mark beneath a crumbling aqueduct. They pressed themselves against the damp bricks, and saw the great orb’s shadow as it slithered across the street, darkening it in a brief eclipse as the Skull passed directly overhead, before it moved on and the street glowed blue again. At no point did they hear any sound from the titanic craft.
"It’s gone," Mark whispered.
"We’ll go tell Davina. We won’t step outside for a few days. These things usually only stay in one place several days at a time."
"Okay," Mark said meekly.
They ventured out again, kept holding hands. As they walked, Roger explained, "They collect people sometimes because they see us making cities, communities, creating jobs for ourselves, families. They let it go on for so long. And then one day, they want to shake you, shake you badly, to remind you where you are. They allow the other because it makes you almost comfortable. You can’t feel discomfort without comfort. You can’t know pain without pleasure. If they skinned us alive day after day, sooner or later your mind would shut off. You would become a robot, adapt to the pain and endure it. But this way…this way is worse, in the end."
"You are like my teacher," Mark teased him, trying to make a joke of it.
"Someone has to be, and keep a rascal like you in check."
Roger had taken them through a few alleys as shortcuts, and the one they currently squeezed through was barely wide enough to admit him, even having turned his body sideways. The slime on its bricks helped lubricate his passage somewhat. Mark, of course, had an easier time. He had slipped
into the alley ahead of him.
A chittering sound behind Roger made him glance back nervously. He saw a silhouette flicker briefly past the mouth of the alley, where they had entered. He hadn’t seen the figure clearly, but it hadn’t struck him as human in outline.
He looked forward again, and saw that Mark had reached the end of the alley. "Wait for me," he hissed, his palms slapping across the sludge-coated bricks as he advanced. "Mark!"
The boy cleared the alley and entered a bright street ahead. He turned to look back into the passageway. "Come on," he whispered, extending his hand.
And then, jarringly, as if Mark had dropped through a trapdoor, he was gone. For just the briefest moment Roger thought he saw the boy’s fingers rake across the bricks.
"Mark!" he called more loudly, fighting to shuffle along a little faster. He reached one arm out, clawed at the alley’s entrance, caught its edge and tugged himself clear.
It was a wide street, paved in flagstones, almost a plaza. Sometimes, the Damned even held festivals here, as on the day they judged to be Christmas (though Roger himself would no longer celebrate the birth of the Creator’s son). The Skull hovered there, above the street, one of its unevenly-shaped plates having opened along its sutures and lowered to the flagstones like a hatch or drawbridge. He heard screaming. He saw men and women being dragged up onto the hatch. Into the bone-colored globe.
Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades Page 12