by Mike Jones
“To say the least!” he fumbled. “We will definitely hawk them off as fiction, to avoid any awkward misunderstandings.”
“All the work was done on my laptop. I’m hinting, that once I did all the editing (with many suggestions by the dark brotherhood), I threw the edited stuff into the electronic trash bin and scattered it into cyberspace. Never to be recovered. Yes, later I erased and reformatted my hard drive. In a way, I wish it hadn’t been I who found them. Thankfully, you will never know the effect of poring over documents such as these. For example, I had to decode most sections (that I have been promised will never be published) that use the most unrestrained, hideous names for all races of people. Not words you might hear anywhere, my friend — the vilest names. By a process of elimination, I was able to tell which phrases belonged to which race, or group.” She paused, and caught her breath. “Five years, exposed to that.” She pointed to the box.
Early morning sunlight glittered through the dewy window and danced lightly across the forest green blotter on the desk. No light can touch that book, she thought, and then her mind laughed. And maybe laughed again, but she stopped it.
“Yes,” he said, “you have excluded much text here.”
She laughed aloud. “It is best.” She smiled wearily. “Are you familiar with what is known as The Apocalypse According to John?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“In the Apocalypse According to John, also known as The Book of Revelation, there is mentioned in the first verse of the thirteenth chapter that there is a beast coming out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads.”
“Alright, I’ll take your word for it, having never read it,” he said as he unconsciously steepled his index fingers again, safe in the protective church of his mind.
“It also states that on each of the Beast’s heads there is a blasphemous name.”
“And,” he smiled like the Cheshire cat, “your point being?”
“In the unedited version of the book I translated thirteen essays that graphically describe what was written on each head and what it meant. It also described how believers in the Messiah would be impaled on the horns, after the Beast had defeated Him and His angels in the last great battle, the battle in Megiddo, or Armageddon. I thought it wise to purge those kinds of things from the finished product. The Beast was apparently seen, at great length, by the book’s author.”
He couldn’t help but smirk. “Interesting! You’re quite sure the original is safe, Doctor?”
Her laugh was a challenge. “There is a brotherhood that no one knows, my friend, whose existence is so deep and dark that only a few of their own brothers on earth know who all the members are. One of them joked that they made the Masons look like the New York Times. I do not know this. They have promised me that no billions of dollars could ever make the real book surface again, even if I wanted it, or begged them. I wouldn’t, of course. They wanted all of it. They adore the complete text; and I even imagine they will worship it, as damnable as that may sound. Because they contacted me during the translation process, I could not, under torture, tell you their location or even who I gave it to. All the details of my handing it over to them were quite clever and I shall never reveal them. So, yes, believe me, the original is quite safe. Not one word of this present manuscript had better be deleted or added, or the deal is off. There’s a symmetrical reason for this, as you may notice, if you have read it often enough, as I have. It must remain as it is — just as we agreed — or I’ll walk to another publisher. Or, better yet, never seek to publish it at all.”
“Well,” he said, “I’ve read it. It’s concise and brief. There’s no grand need to edit any of it.”
“Naturally, I made a few changes — only a few. As I said before, the language of the completed text is unnerving, unhinged. Every last thing was described in the coarsest language imaginable. I exchanged a few words to give the text a more clinical, less hideous effect.”
“This book will make you a very rich young woman, if not for the royalties, then for the set contract.”
“That’s all, then,” she said, nearly rising. He was not finished, she could tell. She politely sat back down, smiling slightly.
“Oh, one last thing, Doctor. The little matter of the title. Did you think over my suggestion of a title change? You’ve stated that the title literally translates as, ‘The Book That Unwound You.’”
“That’s right, I have thought it over. I think I’d like it to be called simply, ‘Infernus.’”
“His name,” the publisher paused for effect, “for Hell.”
She turned her head to stare out the window, and began reciting what he considered must be a well-practiced poem. “’Gold is for strength, Green is for pus; White is their neutral, but Red is mine leader.’”
He leaned over the desk and cocked his head to hear her mere whisper. “What did you say? What was that?”
“A poem I translated, but never included in the text.”
He almost believed he saw a thin tear run down her sallow cheek and disappear into her clothes. “And why is that?”
“I thought the colors would be obvious.”
“The colors of the demons? And are they? Obvious, that is?”
She turned and looked at him, which she seldom did. Her right eye blinked seven times. “Oh, yes.” She paused, and then winced as if someone had spit in her eye. “Oh, yes they are obvious.”
“Well, maybe the people would want an annotated version -”
“I don’t care what the people want!” The only time she ever raised her voice during the interview. She was breathing heavily, ending it with a sigh.
He realized she was pressing her hands over her pants often, although they seemed immaculate, creaseless. Her fingers were pencils. Short, chipped, unkempt nails. Brittle, like the rest of her. What was she like before? he asked himself, not sure if he hadn’t said that last part aloud.
“You may wonder,” she said quietly, “if I am a mere shell of my former self. Simply put, yes, I am.”
“Then why not just give the book to this, uh, so-called ‘Dark Brotherhood’? Why publish it at all? The money?”
“The money?” She laughed, perhaps too much, nearly mocking him. “No, I told you. They will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams should the book fail to sell.”
“Yes?”
She stared up at him from beneath her brows, just this side of madness. “No, you see, they want this book shoved rather rudely into the public eye. They want others to read it. To infect them.”
“But… but,” he stammered. “That’s damnable!”
“Interesting choice of words. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Damning them all.” He rose and extended his hand. She stood, glad that this part was over, shook his hand, and asked him, “Do you know what the preface was in the beginning of the book?”
He flipped through a few pages in his in box, and frowned. “I wasn’t aware there was a preface.”
“No, don’t look for it. I didn’t include one. What the poor soul was forced to write, apparently, was this: ‘As in Hell, so there are tears continually in Heaven. Both weep evermore. One feels only horror and an unspeakable pain; the other sees nothing but beauty, and can only be grateful.’”
As she was leaving, she thrust a small piece of paper into his hand. “You can choose to include this as part of the book, if you choose. I don’t know what to do with it. It was an explanation I wasn’t sure belonged in the book.”
He looked at it. It was seven short numbered notes. He read it as he stood there, and she waited, glaring at him the whole time.
“A few things to remember about ‘life’ in Infernus (I must tell you a few things so that we can communicate in a common language).
1) You (whoever is receiving this as an exercise in automatic writing) are writing what happens to me in the present. Everything you write will come to you in the present tense; it’s up to you to change that, if you feel it is necessary.
2) The reason this is so is because there is no time here. A fitting phrase that is as follows: To live in a nanosecond that never ends. It is a definition that can be understood by you. Everything that will ever happen to you in Infernus happens during the same nanosecond. Imagine every paper cut, every severed finger, every toothache, every disembowelment, every cold, all happening to everyone at once.
3) How you are able to hear me at all from my eternal exile is unknown to me. I just sense that it is so.
4) In Infernus, no one ever tells the truth. There is no longer any need for truth or maintaining the truth — for there is no hope here. Everything in Infernus is in an absolute state.
5) Since all the pain of all mankind is shared by all, no real conversations take place. Consequently, no permission is ever asked for anything, and none is ever given by anyone. The strong take what does not belong to them — the souls of others.
6) All of the mouths of all mankind are opened as far as “inhumanly” possible in a permanent Scream Eternal. All happens here through a veritable sea, a tumultuous wall of sound. Ten billion souls screaming and screaming and screaming.
7) Either you are made to do things by those who outrank you in authority (the only thing that determines strength here) or the words scrape through your brain like a migraine. No, a migraine is bearable compared to this. This is like a bag of broken glass that sits in your head that someone can shake when they wish to. No actual conversations take place ever — all is done in the brain as bursts of hideous migraines. The smallest words sound like hammers. However, in order to convey everything I am compelled to share with you, you must write down everything that I dictate to you, so it will flow, as a narrative.”
“See what I mean,” she spoke in a tired voice. “I’m not even sure where I’d put it. Maybe just throw it away, right?”
Then she left his office, and closed his door with a smart, metallic click. She barely stifled a laugh, but thought instead: He bought that, hook, line, and sinker. She walked to the elevator, and pushed the down button. Dark Brotherhood, indeed. “More like Dark Motherhood,” she said aloud, but hadn’t meant to.
“I thought so,” he spoke softly behind. He pulled the lit cigar out of his mouth and blew smoke between them, obscuring them.
She turned, smiled, and entered the quickly closing elevator. They never saw each other again.
She went home and had a dream that night that she was floating beneath 17,000 layers of flame. The same dream she had had ever since she was a little girl.
* * *
A brief silence followed his last words. Then a male voice in the back of the room said, “What the hell was that?”
Another voice said, “Hey!”
The teacher stood. She sighed, and the class could hear her breathing. “Do you plan to come back and finish this story?”
“Yes, I -”
“That story was boring!” an anonymous male voice shouted at the back of the class.
“Boring? What? Why?”
The young man stood up at the back of the class. “It’s just a conversation between two talking heads.”
The old man was clearly surprised. “But, I thought it was exciting because it is so necessary to what follows.”
“No,” he repeated. “I would suggest that you put this chapter at the end of the book, as an appendix, so anyone could read it, if they wished, when the whole thing was over. Just go right to chapter two, where I assume the meat of the book begins.”
“Hmmm,” ruminated the nude man. “That might not be such a bad idea after all. I’ll think about it, how about that?”
The young man sat back down without speaking again. The nude man smiled, and began deliberately, slowly putting back on his clothes. “You will ask me to stop reciting my book somewhere during the next few chapters. Nearly everyone does.” Bright sunshine was glaring through the windows in amber streams and bathing his naked, hairy body.
A woman in the room asked, “Why?”
“Because people tell me it is hideous, unrelenting and it gives them nightmares.”
Another voice: “Isn’t it just a story?”
“Yes,” he said, pulling his pants to his waist. “I made it up. Completely! We cannot proceed unless that is established first. It is complete and utter fiction.”
A large, beefy young man stood up. “Then why? Why would someone tell you to stop reading it?”
He calmly looked at the young man, sunlight glittering in his green eyes. “Because,” he began, then laughed, “maybe it is a novel in Hell.”
The young man smiled and shot back, “You mean a novel about Hell?”
“You tell me next week what you think,” the old man said, wearing his pants now.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said another.
“I hope not.” He began pulling his T-shirt over his short-cropped, gray hair. “It is merely a novel and a short one at that. But, what if I could get inside your head? What then?”
“I hope you do,” said a young woman named Josie.
“With a blender?” he asked, then left.
AFTERWORD
“THE REALITY OF INFERNUS”
In 1991, I discovered that my first lover, Michael was HIV+. His previous lover found out that year that he was HIV+, so I insisted Michael be tested. I wanted to find out what my future was going to be like. It wasn’t until ’93 that he began contracting the first signs of AIDS.
That was bad enough, being confronted with the reality that someone you love very much is terminal. That you are actually going to lose them. And you feel so amazingly helpless because there isn’t one damned thing that you can do about it. The utter helplessness you feel is overwhelming.
I’ll never forget Michael leaning into me as we sat on the couch one evening and saying to me, “I don’t wanna die.” We both cried together, silently, for a little while.
At some point in ’93, I began thinking of writing some book as therapy. I had no idea what I would write. None whatsoever. I had a lot of pent-up anger (turning to helpless rage) that I didn’t know what to do with. Feelings that had nowhere to go.
For years I had been thinking of these themes that became the whole of Infernus. All the loops of chapters that turn, as circles, into themselves; all the elements of eternity that now exist in the book. But, never as one book; not as a whole. Just pieces, maybe short stories, but not altogether as one book.
One day, as Michael was just entering his sickness that would last, for him, a year and nine months, quite like magic, a bright silver sphere appeared in my mind. I could see roads and canals and valleys in it that represented chapters and themes, all circling around each other. That sphere was Infernus.
Instead of ripping off Dante’s Inferno, I thought I would do an homage to it. So, instead of naming the chapters “Cantos” or after the circles of Hell, I would manufacture everything (and I do mean everything!) as circles. Everything in the book circles around to itself eventually. Sometimes merely a few pages later you will see something loop around to itself. Other times it’s many chapters later. But, that was my homage.
I felt I could turn this sphere in my hand, and look at it this way, and then that. And see it all, all the time. All the layers; how every chapter related back to this chapter, or that chapter. All the relationships I never had to build because they were already established in my mind. The ending, the colors of the demons. All of it. I could see it all whenever I chose.
(It is obvious to anyone who has barely any interest in the classics that Dante’s Inferno must have been a huge influence on my childhood. And you would be right. But, of course, in my twisted mind, I never felt Dante went far enough. I also knew, that in his day, he couldn’t have gone farther. It never would have been published. Or he would have been executed, or the like.)
I’ve placed this paragraph in the middle of this dull, dull, dull afterword (that no one’s gonna read) to discourage the uninterested scanner. Here it is: The next thing I’m going to say
is my theory… and it’s mine. If you ever meet me, please do not ask me why I wrote Infernus. I really don’t know. It appeared in my life rather rudely in ’93, and it’s been tormenting me ever since. And this is true whether the book sells a hundred copies, or twenty-million. Other than therapy for me, I have no idea at all why I wrote it. I’m just as much in the dark about it as you are. Heh-heh.
The first thing I knew was that it had to be handwritten. The visceral experience of actually touching the notebooks with pen was extremely important to me. I believed it was an essential part of my therapy.
Every time I put pen to paper, the book just flowed out of me, in the order you see it now. I could pick up exactly where I left off before. The book was written, in order, that way. All the layers were already there in my mind, just waiting for me to write them down that way.
I wrote when I had pain. Over the next three years (continuing two years after Michael had passed away) I wrote 86 pages, its original length. Over the next twelve years, through 2009, I added about sixty pages to it, refining and changing it here and there. (By the by, I do not recommend taking sixteen years to write a novella! No, indeed. Unless you go completely bonkers! Imagine Infernus in my head for 16 years total. Whew!)
Shortly before Michael died, dementia robbed him of the memory of who I was. He began to think I was one of his caretakers. That truly scraped my soul.
That defined Hell for me. So much so, that when I wrote chapter nineteen, “The Core,” and made this chapter the definition of Hell, the things the creature said as she lay disintegrating in Dr. Mountfountain’s arms were the same things I had heard Michael say to me. Taken directly from his conversations with me. “I’m sorry I came into your life and ruined it” and “Don’t ever send me away.”
Then I went quite mad with my writing. I decided instead of using pen to write with, I would (metaphorically) stab the paper with a knife, cutting and slashing and wounding.
Quite early in writing this mess I knew no one would ever publish it, so I decided, that instead of writing a horror book, I would write a horrible book. The distinction for me was this: Since I knew it was never going to be published (and who, in their own madness would publish such an offensive mess?), I would pour my guts onto the paper and just write like hell. Since it would never be published, why not put every dark horror I could think of on paper, and simply not worry about writing “down” to anyone? Make a horrible book just for me.