Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim)

by Richard Kadrey

  “I don’t even know how I got here,” Alice says. She notices the sky behind Neshamah’s head and it must have just registered that the darkness isn’t night, but a coffin lid of smoke blotting out the sky.

  Alice looks at me.

  “Did you just say you’re friends with Lucifer?”

  “Not friends really. We’re more like professional assholes who play golf occasionally and get drunk at the clubhouse before talking business.”

  Neshamah smiles and addresses Alice.

  “Actually, there is no Lucifer at the moment. The old one is retired. Your friend James here is up to replace him. As is Mason.”

  Alice gives me that I-don’t-know-who-you-are look again. Wraps her arms around herself.

  “Is that really why you’re back? You’re finally going to whip them out and see whose is bigger?”

  I look at Neshamah.

  “The Gnostics were right about you after all, you evil motherfucker.”

  I turn to Alice.

  “I came back here because I love you. But I’m also here to kill Mason because he needs killing. He’s not going to be Lucifer or this sack of shit,” I say, nodding at Neshamah.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have to go. Let Rain Man here explain it to you.”

  Alice stares at Neshamah.

  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  “You might have run into one of my brothers.”

  “Do you think you could possibly not be a prick long enough for me to go and finish this?” I ask.

  “Are you running off to Pandemonium alone? That’s magnificently stupid.”

  “I’m going to Houdini someone out of Tartarus, but I don’t even know where it is. Do you have a map of the stars’ homes or something I could borrow?”

  Neshamah scratches his chin.

  “I have to hand it to you, kid. You’re a pain in my ass but you’re not boring. Tartarus is in the Badlands.”

  Alice reaches for my arm but her hand goes through me.

  “Wait. We finally see each other again and you’re dumping me here with a stranger?”

  “I know this stinks. But trust me, getting you out of the asylum wasn’t rescuing you. What I’m about to do is.”

  She turns to Neshamah.

  “Who are you? You’re part of this, aren’t you?”

  “He can explain it to you after I go.”

  Neshamah pats Alice’s shoulder.

  “And indeed I will.”

  “So how do I get to the Badlands?”

  “Are you sure you want to do this? Once you’re in Tartarus, there’s nothing I can do for you. It’s not my domain. It belongs to my brother Ruach. And if you think I’m a bastard, you should meet him sometime.”

  “If he’s around, I’ll give him a peck on the cheek for you. How do I get there?”

  “The same way you got to the asylum. Three hundred and thirty-three paces, but in the opposite direction.”

  “You really like that number.”

  He nods.

  “Actually I like nines. Sacred numbers. You’ve got to love them. If you people were better at math, you’d be as smart as me.”

  I nod in Alice’s direction.

  “You can take care of her while I’m gone, right?”

  “She was taken from her place in Heaven, so unlike some people, she’s one of mine. No one will hurt her.”

  I start down the ramp. Alice follows me a few paces. I stop.

  “Can you for sure stop Mason?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then promise me this. If you can’t win and everything is going to fall apart, you come back here so we can ride it out together.”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay, then,” she says.

  I half turn away then pivot back.

  “Did you spy on me for the Sub Rosa?” The question just charged out on its own. I can almost feel the angel trying to reach into my mouth and snatch the words back.

  Alice stands still. I can read faces pretty well. If she had a heartbeat, it would be spiking right now. That’s all I need to know.

  There’s a crack like a cannon going off as the building the Kissi set on fire collapses. I wave to her once and go.

  I COME UP in the Badlands, though I don’t see how this parcel of the L.A. shit-scape is supposed to be worse than any of the others I’ve seen. In fact, I’d find the area downright restful if it wasn’t for all the blood.

  I’m in a deserted industrial area surrounded by collapsed warehouses and bent and twisted railroad tracks following the L.A. River. The river’s concrete banks are stained the color of old bricks from a rushing river of blood, a tributary of the Styx. I guess this is the source of the blood bubbling up out of the sinkholes.

  There’s nothing here that points to Tartarus. No signs, burning bushes, or sphinxes playing Jeopardy! for clues. The one time a sphinx tried that with me, I held it down and shaved it until it looked like one of those hairless cats you see in Beverly Hills pet stores.

  I’m not far from a burned-out, crumbling version of the old Fourth Street Bridge. It’s all big Roman arches with a few out-of-place Victorian streetlamps to class up the thing because you don’t want your industrial wastelands to look tacky.

  There’s something strange under the bridge. A bright patch of green. There are palm trees on either side and they’re not on fire. The green looks like fresh, healthy grass. In the middle of the little oasis is a white stucco forties bungalow. It has red slate shingles and it’s styled with the vaguely hacienda look you see on the older places. I go up the pristine walkway out front and knock on the door. It opens and the woman inside smiles at me. Her face shifts and re-forms, showing the phases of the moon.

  “I told you that in the end you’d come to me,” says Medea Bava.

  “So this is your dirty little secret. Tartarus is the Inquisition.”

  “No. I’m the Inquisition. Tartarus is your fate. The Dies Irae,” she says, and recites, “ ‘Just judge of vengeance, grant me the gift of forgiveness before the Day of Judgment.’ ”

  “I like the sound of that forgiveness part.”

  “And some receive it, but I’m afraid you’re a bit too late for that.”

  I step out of Bava’s way, tromping on her perfect lawn with my bloody-sewage-waste boots.

  “Then why don’t you scoot us on over to the Club Double Dead and let me in?”

  She comes out, locking the door behind her.

  “Seriously? You think someone’s going to steal your stamp collection all the way out here?”

  “You’re not the only one in Hell with a chip on his shoulder. I don’t believe in taking foolish chances.”

  “That sounds boring.”

  She leads me to a rickety-looking metal staircase leading up to the bridge through a hole chiseled in the roadbed. Medea gestures for me to go first. I take hold of the railing and shake it. The stairs wobble a little, but it looks like they’ll hold. I start climbing.

  “You know, I’ve been waiting here for you your whole life.”

  “I hope you’ve got cable, or you’ve missed a lot of good TV.”

  When we reach the top, she heads for the far side of the bridge and I follow. She stops abruptly halfway across and looks at me.

  “You know that once you get inside, you can never leave.”

  “That’s what Angie Summers said in the back of her daddy’s Cadillac on prom night. If I can get away from her, I can get away from you.”

  “It’s refreshing to meet a man so anxious to embrace annihilation.”

  “Okay. You’ve had your supervillain moment, now can you show me to the front door?”

  Medea steps back a few paces and holds out her arms.

  “We’re here. Behold Tartarus.”

  I turn around, looking for something.

  “We’re nowhere. Behold fuck-all.”

  “Look down,” she says. “Then jump.”

  I look over the edge. We’re r
ight over the Styx.

  “In your dreams, Vampirella.”

  “Is Sandman Slim afraid of a little blood?”

  “He’s afraid of how deep that is. You want me to jump and crack my head on the bottom.”

  She shakes her head. Shadows make her shifting features even more disturbing.

  “This is the way in. You can keep a little dignity and jump, or I can push you.”

  “Try it.”

  I start for her and suddenly I’m airborne. When I land I slide about twenty feet. Medea just smacked me with a hex that felt like a tornado giving birth to a hurricane. I climb to my feet and brush the dust off my coat.

  “If you put it that way, maybe I’ll just go ahead and jump.”

  “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since you’ve been here.”

  I climb onto the wide concrete railing and tightrope-walk down to where Medea is waiting.

  “You’ve got the home-field advantage here, but I bet you can’t throw hoodoo like that back on earth.”

  “We’re not on earth, and whatever power you have in this place, I will always have more. Now jump.”

  “I’m going to look you up when I get back to L.A.”

  “You’re not the first person to say something like that.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the first one who means it.”

  She gestures impatiently toward the river.

  “Go.”

  I glance down at the bloody waves and turn back to her.

  “I don’t have time for one last smoke, do I?”

  “Jump or I’ll throw you.”

  I put my arms out and take a breath.

  “As a great man once said, ‘I should never have switched from scotch to martinis.’ ”

  I lean back and let myself go over the edge, tumbling through the air and slamming into the red river.

  I hit flat on my back. It feels just as good as falling fifty feet into blood sounds. I hold my breath and try not to breathe in anything.

  I sink and keep sinking, like the gravity in the river isn’t the same as the gravity outside. I’m pulled down into soft mud at the bottom. At least I hope it’s mud. Another gladiator once swore to me that he’d sailed to Pandemonium on a river of shit. I hope there wasn’t any backwash down here.

  I’m instantly engulfed in the muck. My lungs want to crawl up my throat and hitch a ride back to Hollywood. The angel in my head chants a serenity prayer. If I could punch my own brain, I would. The angel stops long enough to remind me that everything has a bottom, even Hell.

  I’m being squeezed down through sediment that gets harder every inch I go. The sucking soon turns into pushing, like a hydraulic press is pounding me down into the riverbed. This must be what pasta feels like coming out of a spaghetti extruder.

  Then I’m fucking falling again. But only a few feet this time. I slide through a tight fleshy opening in the roof and down a steep incline, like a garbage chute. Nice touch.

  I slip down another level and slam into the ground. At least I’m not moving anymore. I lie on the floor and breathe. My heart is pounding. I know I’m surrounded by souls, but they’re not paying any attention to me. They’re used to hard-luck cases sliding down the poop shoot.

  The angel is awestruck by where we are and pissed about being stuck inside me. It never really believed I’d take us this far. The absolute end of the line.

  Welcome to Tartarus.

  I FELL THROUGH what felt like a mile of blood, but when I get to my feet, there isn’t a drop on me and my clothes are dry.

  It’s cold here and dim, like light that can’t decide what it wants to be. Dark. Light. Or some strange wavelength that’s simultaneously the opposite of each.

  The walls and floors are dull gray metal. There are gleaming conveyor chains overhead. Souls hang from hooks by their ankles. They’re being taken away, but I can’t see where from here. If we were on earth, I’d swear that I’m in a busy industrial meat locker.

  The place is packed shoulder to shoulder with double-dead Hellions, human souls, and Lurker spirits. I can even see Kissi scattered around in the mob. It’s like a strange exodus, frozen just before it got started.

  Aside from the overhead conveyor and the distant hiss and bang of machines, the place is almost silent, like the tens of thousands of dead around me and the thousands in the adjoining lockers have sunk so low in their misery that they can’t even acknowledge each other.

  I didn’t think seeing Tartarus would get under my skin the way it is. I always imagined it would be Hell cranked up to eleven. Torture, chaos, and cruelty on a planetary scale. Mountains of flensed flesh. Mad bone seas. But this is worse. Tartarus is a dim, crushing despair. Heaven might not have been where you were headed, but now even Hell is a long-gone distant memory. Dante got it wrong when he put the “Abandon All Hope” sign at the entrance to Hell. This is where all hope dies, even for monsters.

  I’ve only been here for a few minutes and the place is starting to bring me down like the permanent residents. I think about Candy, but it’s already hard to remember her face. I can make out the ghost of her body, but not her voice or how she felt. When I try to remember our room at the hotel, it feels as dismal and dead as this place. What am I doing getting close to her? Even assuming I get out of here, do I want to drag her into this life? Look what happened to Alice. Look where I am now. I’ve been here ten minutes and I already miss Hell.

  Candy is a big girl and can make her own choices, but what if she chooses wrong? Will I be doing this again in a year when someone murders her and steals her soul?

  The angel in my head isn’t handling any of this well. Tough shit. I didn’t exactly enjoy the ride when it took over while I was sick with zombie hoodoo. I suffered through its choirboy routine so now it can limp along while I figure a way out of here.

  What looks like mist in the distance shifts and parts. It’s steam coming off an enormous old-fashioned open-face furnace beneath a gigantic boiler with transit pipes on top. Like a scene out of Metropolis, blank-faced but efficient workers take souls off the conveyor chains and toss them into the fire. The ones who aren’t frying the double dead are adjusting iron valves and enormous levers. They inspect gauges and bleed off hurricanes of steam to keep the pressure steady.

  I push my way through the mob. It’s like walking through a wheat field. They’re so insubstantial that I can barely feel the spirits around me. The meat locker goes on for miles in every direction. I could wander down here for years without ever seeing a familiar face.

  I yell, “General Semyazah!”

  Heads slowly turn in my direction. The motion ripples out in small waves, like I dropped a rock into a pond of the dead. No one here has paid attention to anything in a long time.

  “General Semyazah!”

  Nothing. I feel around in my pocket and pull out Mason’s lighter. I spark it and hold it high like I’m hoping for an encore of “Free Bird.” The room fills with light. Thousands of souls that haven’t made a sound in years suddenly try to speak. It sounds like a wind from the far side of a hill. Some souls rush to me and fall to their knees, holding their hands up in prayer. They think I’m Jesus at the final judgment come down to save them. Sorry, but I don’t think any of you are high on the Rapture list.

  “Semyazah!”

  Someone yells back at me. The voice is faint at first, but it gets louder as the crowd shifts, parting for someone muscling his way through. I can’t tell much about him except that he’s wearing the filthy remains of a Hellion officer’s uniform. I head toward him with the lighter over my head.

  It takes about twenty minutes for us to meet in the middle.

  “General Semyazah?”

  He hesitates, not sure if he should admit it.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “I’m here to get you out of here.”

  “Are you? And why would the Father send an angel for me, one of his most devoted betrayers?”

  “God wouldn’t send you a pizza even if it was y
our birthday. And I’m no angel. I’m Sandman Slim.”

  Semyazah is thin but moves gracefully, like he was built to always be in motion. His face is almost as scarred as mine. When he smiles half of it doesn’t move.

  “Another one? I’ve met a hundred Sandman Slims down here. You’re not any more impressive than any of them. Less, in fact, in those filthy rags. Besides, Sandman Slim is mortal. You’re Hellion.”

  “No. He’s not. It’s him,” another voice says.

  I close the lighter and turn. The crowd sighs and groans when the light disappears.

  It’s Mammon.

  “Enjoying my face, are you?”

  Where his face should be is all raw red pork roast.

  “Hi, General. How’s the neck feeling?”

  Semyazah looks at me but talks to Mammon.

  “This is who butchered you?”

  Mammon nods.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I hold out my hand to Semyazah.

  “Shake my hand, General,” I say.

  He looks at me like it’s the last thing he wants to do.

  “I’m not asking you to be roommates, but I’ve come a long way to see you. It’s the least you could do.”

  He lifts his hand slowly and puts it in mine. It has weight and mass. I can feel it.

  “Mammon was telling the truth. They stuck you in here alive.”

  “And they took great delight in watching me go.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  We’re both looking at Mammon, who looks right back at us.

  “Rumor is you’re not a fan of Mason Faim. How would you like your legions back and a chance to stop Mason’s war from destroying your world?”

  He straightens and squares his shoulders.

  “Our war with Heaven was just. It was for the worthy cause of releasing angels from our existence as slaves. Mason Faim’s war is pure vanity. He’s used that and fear to gather the generals who’ve fallen in with him. I want no part of it and I believe that other generals agree with me but are too frightened to say so. As you see from my circumstances, public disagreement has a high price.”

  “So you’d like to stop him.”

  “Very much.”

  “Good. Then let’s get you out of here.”

  I didn’t realize how hard I’d been concentrating on Semyazah until the conversation stopped. Talking to another living being was like being sucked into a different whirlpool of light down here. When I look around we’re surrounded by souls. I recognize a lot of them. Most at the front are military men and women I killed. Azazel, my old slave master, the Hellion who made me into a killer, is there. Beelzebub. Amon. Marchosias. Valefor. Maybe a dozen others. There are members of Hell’s nouveau riche in ghost furs and jewels. Beyond them are rows and rows of other Hellions and human souls. More than a hundred. I’ve never seen them in one place before. I had no idea I’d killed so many down here. They press in from all sides, trying to crush me. But Tartarus has reduced them to empty spirits with no substance. Shadows on panes of glass. I manifest the Gladius for a second and they stumble back, leaving a no-man’s-land around me.