by J. R. Mabry
“I am well aware that this is the first time that a nuclear device has ever been used as a weapon on US soil. I am also aware that this is the first time a nuclear bomb has ever targeted US citizens, and I grieve this decision deeply. They say heavy is the head that wears the crown, and never has that been truer than it is today. For today, the decision fell to me to choose between the lives of the innocent people of Dearborn and the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans all across this great land, had the terrorists not been stopped.
“No, I had to act, and act quickly. And I did the only thing that would stop all of the terrorists in their tracks. And we stopped them cold. We stopped their evil and nefarious plans before they ever got off the ground. We paid a terrible price to stop them, to be sure, but allow me to assure you—the innocent people of Dearborn did not die in vain. They died heroically. They died so that you could live.
“Critics are going to say that we should have waited for federal authorities to make this decision. Would you have taken that risk? I don’t know about you, but I know how Washington works. They would have dickered and argued and wrung their hands until the window of opportunity had long passed. And I don’t need to tell you about the deliberative nature of this administration. So yes, I could have waited, and tomorrow, you could have been burying your loved ones.
“Instead, let us mourn for the good people of Dearborn, all of us. Let us honor them as heroes. And let us be grateful for our crack intelligence agencies, and the brave soldiers of our National Guard, who did not waver in their dedication to preserving American lives. God bless you all. God bless you as you enjoy your tomorrows, safe from the murderous plans of Islamic terror. And God bless America.”
At that moment, a siren cut through the stunned silence of the cafeteria. A police officer entered, followed by a paramedic. “Oh shit,” said Richard.
38
AS THE SKY continued to rain terrified, screaming animals, Kat covered her ears with her hands and backed up so that she was pressed tight against the solid, furry body of the Sandalphon nearest her.
An ostrich ran in crazy circles but then began to run directly for her. Ice ran down her back as déjà vu washed over her. “You were in my dream,” she said as the ostrich suddenly wheeled and scampered off in a different direction. Other animals ran by, too close for comfort. When a hyena landed two feet away and began shrieking and lashing out, she screamed and buried her face in the Sandalphon’s fur.
She kept moving, farther and farther into the fur, until she realized that she had somehow passed into the Sandalphon and she was surrounded by a warm, black, quiet, womblike presence that was calming and comforting. She slowed her breathing and had the same feeling that she had had as a girl when her mother combed her hair at the end of a long and tiring day of play.
Soon, her heartbeat was normal again, and so was her breathing. A large, gentle hand seemed to nudge her, and she realized that she was being encouraged to step back out into the desert. Once on the outside again, she saw that it wasn’t a hand at all but the Sandalphon’s other foot. She smiled at this for some reason and stretched out her hand to touch the fur, not wanting to lose contact with its comfort and protection.
She looked around her. Terry and Charlie were still crouched with their hands over their heads, but they, too, were starting to straighten up and look around. Beyond the circle of the protective Sandalphon, she saw that the rocky surface of the valley floor was dotted with thousands—no, tens of thousands—of disoriented animals. No zoo on earth could hold even a fraction of a collection of this size. She gaped in wonder at the sight of it. Like triage nurses, hordes of looming Sandalphon seemed to float across the plain, comforting, leading, sorting the distressed beasts.
“Children of the Prophet,” Terry repeated the words of the Sandalphon, shaking his head. “I have no idea what we are seeing.” Their own Sandalphon, perhaps perceiving that the crisis had passed, straightened up and, like Australian shepherds, seemed to be herding them back into motion. “Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to concern us. Let’s get moving.”
Terry once again set his face toward the space between the mountain ranges and trudged on. Kat was shaken by what they had witnessed, but she steeled herself and fell into step behind Terry. She was determined to share in everything this community faced, and she knew that she must muster courage on a regular basis to do that. She rallied that courage now.
“I’m tired,” Charlie complained.
“You’re only tired because you think you should be tired,” Terry said. “If you tell yourself you’re energized and rested, you will be.”
“Next I’m going to tell myself I’m a wish-granting fairy,” Charlie said acidly.
“Works for me,” Terry said, flashing them a grin.
After what seemed like an hour of walking through dry and empty waste, Terry halted just short of what looked like an enormous pit. It was about a half mile across, and Kat could see no bottom to it. No light escaped from it, but wisps of smoke or vapor wafted from it, only to dissipate into the dry desert air.
Terry walked over to the nearest Sandalphon, and joining his hands in a Namaste gesture, he bowed slightly. The Sandalphon all bowed in return, turned around, and began to lumber back toward the desert in the direction that they’d come.
Terry faced Kat and Charlie. “My friends, I welcome you to the Abyss.” He made a sweeping gesture toward the pit. “When you want to get rid of demons, this is where you go. The Abyss will take them right back to where they belong. If you want to access other spiritual powers or principalities, this is the elevator that will take you there. In fact, there are few places in this universe or any other that you can’t access here.” He turned and whistled. Facing them again, he said, “In a moment, you’ll see a giant hand hovering over the pit. We’re going to step on it and say where we’d like to go. Got that?”
“Just out of curiosity,” Charlie said, “what would we have seen if you hadn’t just told us that?”
“That, sir, is a very excellent question, and I’m glad you asked,” Terry smiled a proud smile. “My guess is that we all would have seen different things. I would have seen a giant hand because that is what Richard told me I’d see when he trained me all those years ago. But you might have seen an elevator car, because I’d just used that as a metaphor. Or maybe you would have seen a pterodactyl. Who knows? The important thing is that we’ll be able to share the experience better if we’re accessing it through the same symbols.”
“Is that how religions work, too?” Kat asked. “They provide symbol sets for real things that can’t be perceived except through symbol and metaphor?”
“Right,” Terry said. “And symbol sets are more or less arbitrary. We can have cultural and emotional attachments to them, of course. But if we ever confuse the metaphor or the symbol for the thing that it points to…well, there’s a word for that.”
“What’s that?” Charlie asked.
“Idolatry,” Terry said.
Just then an enormous human hand appeared, the size of a football field across. It seemed to be floating in free space. Its surface rose to match the level of the plain they were standing on, and without hesitation, Terry stepped onto the thumb, walking across it toward the open palm. He waved them in. “Don’t just stand there—he’s not going to wait for you all day,” he said. “And don’t stand too near the edge—it’s not safe.”
Kat gulped and jumped onto the thumb, although she didn’t really need to jump. Charlie apparently saw that because he simply stepped off and walked more or less normally. In a moment, they caught up with Terry, who turned to face the place they had just come from.
“Abaddon,” Terry called, “please take us to Hell.”
Instantly, the hand began to plummet at a dizzying speed. Kat fell to the heel of the great hand and held on to a fleshy fold for dear life. Charlie struggled to gain his sea legs, but Terry stood confidently, his feet set apart at an odd angle as if he were surfing. His han
ds were behind his back, and a hot wind whipped through his stiff black hair. He smiled at them reassuringly. “You’ll get used to this. The Abyss is something we make frequent use of. Abaddon is the angel of the Abyss. It’s his ‘hand,’ as it were,” he explained. “Or his elevator car, or magic carpet, or whatever it is the user sees. The point is, if you want to go somewhere, you ask him.”
“And does he automatically take you wherever you want to go?” Charlie asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Automatically?” Terry scowled. It seemed to Kat that Charlie was just a wee bit too eager. “No. He’s not a machine. You ask. If it’s permitted, he’ll take you there. If it isn’t, he won’t.”
“And us going to Hell is permitted?” Kat asked, not at all sure about this.
“Sure,” Terry said. “There’s nothing to be scared of in Hell. You’ll see.”
After what seemed like an overlong carnival ride, the hand eventually slowed and finally stopped level with a stone outcropping. They seemed to be in a cave, carved from long-dead lava. Kat expected to smell sulfur, and she was not disappointed. In fact, she was nearly knocked over by both the heat and the smell of rotten eggs.
“Come on, Abaddon’s a busy cuss,” Terry said, hopping onto the ledge. Kat and Charlie followed him, and his little legs worked quickly as he scurried down a main shaft cut into the rock. Waves of heat poured over them, and were it not for some fluorescence native to the rocks surrounding them, they would have been in complete darkness. “This way!” Terry called to them. “You don’t want to lag here.”
In a few minutes, the darkness dissipated to a haze that was vaguely reminiscent of twilight. They emerged from the shaft of the cave into what seemed like a city street. Kat looked up and saw skyscrapers disappearing into a pink sky obscured by clouds. Cars and buses were everywhere, but they were still. In the distance, a single man was visible—sweeping the street.
Terry shook his head slowly. “Okay, this is not good.”
“Is that guy a demon?” Charlie asked, pointing at the street sweeper.
“No, just a human,” Terry said. He turned a 360, taking in all that he could. “This is the bureaucratic district. This should be as bustling as the business districts of New York City or Chicago. We should be seeing demons everywhere.” Terry looked around him uncertainly. “I do not like the look of this,” he breathed.
“Let me ask a question,” Charlie said. “Would these demons be wearing suits and ties and carrying briefcases?”
“Well, yes. You’ve been here before?” Terry said.
“No…I…just wondering,” Charlie said, looking uncertain himself.
“Oh, I see what you mean,” Terry said. “Again, what you see would be determined by paradigmatic contextualization. If you were from a medieval Arabic culture, this would look like a souk, a “marketplace.” You’d see the same peop—er, demons, but they’d be wearing different clothes and riding in different kinds of transport. If, that is, there were any demons to see.”
“How does this change our lesson, Terry?” Kat asked.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t. It’s just…strange, that’s all. Another day, another mystery, I suppose,” Terry said, intentionally brightening. “Let’s press on.”
They walked past street after empty street. Newspapers blew in lazy patterns through alleyways, and bars and shops were locked up tight. Every now and then, they saw a lonely person doing menial work. Kat waved at them, but they did not look up or even take any notice of them. Kat stared at the odd color of her skin, caused by the pink ambient light that filled the place.
“So, Terry, if this place was crawling with demons, like it’s supposed to be,” Kat asked, “why wouldn’t we be afraid of them?”
“Because their focus is elsewhere—they’re strategizing and wheeling and dealing for influence on Earth and other planes—market share, I guess you could call it. You’re not a threat to them here, and, truth is, they barely notice you. After all, they can’t tell the difference between you and one of the human damned. They’re always underfoot as far as these guys are concerned. We’re just servants and peons.”
“There’s no, like, immigration control?” Charlie asked.
“Uh…Hell isn’t trying to keep anyone out,” Terry said over his shoulder with a grin. “And it’s not like you’re going to run into any police.”
“Then how do they keep order?” Kat asked. “Because the infrastructure here is incredible. It’s not chaotic.”
“Strict hierarchy. Get out of line, and the next guy up just toasts you. No questions asked. Believe me, it works.”
“How does he toast you, exactly?” Charlie asked. Kat wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer to this.
“Souls are not eternal,” Terry asked. “They can be destroyed…eaten.”
“Ho-o-kay,” Kat said, feeling a little lightheaded from panic. “So, why don’t they eat us now?”
“Because they don’t really crave nourishment like we do,” Terry said. “They crave influence. Power. If they destroy you, they can’t rule you. If they eat you, they end up hungrier for what they really want.”
“Oh.”
“And that’s the real pull of Hell,” Terry said. “It’s rarely actual evil. Evil is a byproduct. It’s almost always the lust for power, and often it’s disguised by an impulse toward philanthropy.”
“You mean, people tell themselves that they want power so that they can do more good in the world?” Kat asked.
“Exactly,” Terry said. “It’s a Moebius strip. You start out on one side, and it twists around to the other. There’s no getting around it.”
“Is that always true?” Kat asked.
Terry stopped and faced her. “Yes, 100 percent of the time,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes.
“Then why do we have a prior?” Kat asked.
“To marshal us through dangerous situations where one person needs to call the shots. All the important decisions are made by consensus when we have the leisure and safety to discern together,” Terry answered.
“Pussies,” Charlie said.
Terry ignored him. But Kat didn’t. “Charlie, if you feel that way, why do you want to join us?”
Charlie didn’t say anything. But some kind of dam had broken in Kat, and she continued. “We’ve been nothing but sweet and welcoming to you, and in return you’ve been surly and sarcastic and bull-headed. Surely, you know that we are all going to vote on whether to let you in, right? And we don’t vote in assholes!”
Charlie looked humbled and a little hurt. “I…don’t know. It’s just so different from how it is at the lodge. At the lodge, no one says that they love each other—I don’t know how to respond to that kind of stuff. It makes me…queasy. It feels weird. And I feel insulted that my previous training isn’t being given its proper due. I feel like I’m being put back into kindergarten, like I’m being punished for some reason. It makes me mad.”
Kat touched his arm. “Okay, that’s honest. Thank you.” She gave him a hug.
Terry nodded. “That’s what I figured was going on, Charlie. It’s okay. But we’re starting you from the beginning because we are grounded in an entirely different set of assumptions than the lodge is, and you need to see how those work from the ground up.”
“Such as?” Charlie asked. “What assumptions are you talking about?”
“Such as—love being stronger than power,” Terry said.
“That’s just crazy,” Charlie said. He looked disgusted.
“Well, hold that thought,” Terry said. “You’ll see in a minute.” He continued to walk quickly, and soon they came to an ornate archway over the sidewalk. But the wall into which the archway was cut was ancient. “This was formerly the great wall of Dis,” Terry said, waving a hand toward the crumbling wall.
Kat could see that at one time there were enormous gates hung to her left, but the gates were long gone, and the pillars that had held them were little more than rubble. It reminded her of picture
s she’d seen of old temples in Greece.
She focused again on the archway. On this side was a city with soaring buildings, paved as far as the eye could see. On the other side of the arch was a rolling plain that looked like high desert—brown and still and lovely. Footpaths crisscrossed the hills, and although there were plenty of trees, they were void of leaves, their branches reaching toward the pink sky like desperate, spindly fingers.
“Welcome to the tombs,” Terry said.
“This is kind of nice,” Charlie said. “It’s beautiful, in fact.”
“It reminds me of Arizona or something,” Kat agreed. Terry stepped out onto the main footpath, and they followed eagerly, looking around with dazed interest.
“So, what happened to the flames and eternal torment stuff?” Charlie asked. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Propaganda,” Terry said. “This place has had a lot of names—the Greeks called it Hades, the Jews called it Sheol. At one time, everyone came here when they died. And you’re right, it’s not so bad. It’s just not…fulfilling. People here are kind of isolated. There’s no community to speak of. The most you’ll find is people who live here but work over in the bureaucratic district, just to stay vibrant.”
“What do you mean, ‘vibrant’?” Kat asked.
“Well, Hell is not eternal despite what the propaganda says. After a few decades here, a soul eventually just…fades out—usually when the last person on Earth who remembers him or her dies.” Terry pointed straight ahead. “Okay, take note when we go near this hill. Look closely at it. What do you see?”
Kat squinted and peered carefully at the approaching hills. Black dots appeared all over the hillside. As they grew nearer, she could see that they were caves. Closer still, she saw that over each cave mouth was an iron grill.
“They’re…prison cells?” Kat asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what they are,” Terry said. He walked directly toward a cluster of them. But instead of getting too close, he sat down on a rock. He gestured to the rock, inviting them to join him. They did, and he turned to Charlie. “So, in answer to your question about love being stronger than power, this is a fundamental Christian teaching.”