There was a long silence. I could hear the ravenous whisper of the forest behind me, a vast wasteland of primordial hunger, all that need, just under the skin. I looked at the boy. In his stupor, he again looked like a child.
“I can’t,” I said. Dmitri moved over to me.
“Choose carefully,” he whispered. “Your people need you. Nadja needs you. The revolution cannot continue without you. The boy is an owner. A parasite. There are millions like him, sucking at the life of the workers. It is such a small sacrifice.” He pushed me toward the exile leader. “Go on. Tell him.”
I looked out at the twitching forest, at the sickly tribe, up at the sky. I closed my eyes against the rain. “The boy,” I said, into the hungry silence. “The boy is the cow.”
The tribesman nodded. “Excellent. He is a good cow. Everything eats.”
“Everything eats,” Dmitri and I responded in unison.
ETERNITY AND THE DEVIL, by Larry Hodges
Ever since graduate school ten years ago, I’d been obsessed with solving “GUT,” the Grand Unified Theory of physics. It would unify the four forces of physics—gravity, the electro-magnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces—into one equation. Physicists since the time of Einstein had tried and failed. Solving this problem would be my contribution to humanity, and why I was still at the lab at MIT, scrawling equations on a blackboard at 2:30 AM despite another throbbing headache.
Unfortunately, I was getting nowhere. Depressed, I collapsed into a lounge chair. My work was at a standstill, with no progress in a year, not even a semblance of a breakthrough. With no papers to publish, no progress to report, my time at MIT was coming to an end. The department head had as much as told me so. Not a threat, just reality.
Depression overwhelmed me. I was licked.
“I would sell my soul to solve this problem,” I muttered to myself. Except I wasn’t the only listener, as the smiling Devil himself appeared in a flash of cigar smoke, with contract and pen in hand. The cigar smoke smelled of …well, sulfur and brimstone.
“Dr. Virgil Nordlinger, I believe we can do business,” said the Devil, talking through a cigar in a Bronx accent—with perhaps a bit of British and Jamaican? He was an ordinary looking man in a gray business suit and black tie, short and chubby, perhaps 50 years old. He had a tie tack shaped like a tiny pitchfork and wore an old-fashioned derby hat. His piercing eyes stood out—one sky blue, the other bright gold.
“I have here the standard contract, personalized for you. You’ll solve the Grand Unified Theory of physics, and get the standard 50 years of good, healthy life, followed by the standard eternity in Hell. Wha’da’ya say?”
“Uh,” I began, rubbing my eyes. “You’re supposed to be…?”
“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” said the Devil. “I’m used to people finding this hard to believe. Does this convince you?” There was another burst of cigar smoke, and the ordinary businessman was replaced by…the Devil.
He was seven feet tall and husky, and as popularly pictured—red, with ram-like horns and a pointy tail flicking back and forth. His eyes were still blue and gold.
In a deep, booming voice, the Devil said, “Now you believe. Of course, I can take on other appearances, but this seems to be the most convincing.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “It’s sort of a stereotype, don’t you think?”
There was another burst of cigar smoke and he was back to his business persona. “Now, I’m a rather busy man. You ready to deal? Wha’da’ya say?”
Selling one’s soul to the Devil isn’t something you should consider lightly. But I’m an idealist, and solving GUT would really move mankind forward in understanding the universe. I was ready to sacrifice myself for the good of science and humanity. But why settle for the Devil’s first offer?
“I think I’d like to have more than 50 years,” I said. “And a few things besides GUT.” I was about to outline other scientific breakthroughs I wanted, but the Devil interrupted.
“Sorry, very little of this is negotiable,” he said. “You see, there are lots of others I do business with. There are only so many things I can give away and I have to spread them around. You get GUT, a major prize, but I have to keep other scientific discoveries for other deals. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have anything to bargain with. And the 50 years—I got tired of negotiating that all the time, so I’m firm on that.”
I talked him into adding a provision that would cure my migraines, and my name was soon on the contract. I signed with a blue ballpoint. The Devil, a lefty, extended an index finger, revealing a long, claw-like fingernail. He jabbed it into the palm of his other hand and signed in blood.
“It’s a couple minutes before 3:00 AM, February 27, 2010,” said the Devil, tipping his hat at me—revealing two small growths coming out of the top of his forehead, where the Devil’s horns had been. “I’ll give you the extra two minutes and we’ll call it 3:00 AM. I will see you in 50 years!”
“Wait a minute!” We both turned to see the lab’s secretary, Beatrice Summers, at the doorway. Had she been eavesdropping?
She and I were opposites in every way imaginable. I was tall but rather out of shape from deskwork; she was short and fit. I had dark brown hair; hers was sandy blond. I wore whatever was comfortable and cheapest; she wore designer clothing, which didn’t hide the fact that she was about as plain-looking as one gets, nothing to look at. The odd looking mole on her chin didn’t help. Other than the mole, I’d rarely noticed her.
“Sorry, but I’ve been listening. I want a deal too!” She hesitantly stepped into the room, eyes wide and staring at the Devil.
“No, you don’t want to…” I began, but the Devil waved a hand and my mouth jammed shut.
“I believe we can do business,” he said to Beatrice, as another contract appeared in his hand. They bargained briefly, and soon the Devil had another signed contract in hand. Beatrice would get 50 years of actress fame and a simple mole removal. In both transactions, he acted in a professional manner, other than shutting my mouth.
“Was that wise?” I asked her afterwards, when control of my mouth was returned and the Devil had left.
She looked back with excited eyes. “This is my dream,” she said. “This is my shot and I’m taking it. Just as you are.”
I tried to convince her that sacrificing oneself for the good of mankind is different than doing it for selfish reasons, but she disagreed, saying “Same result for both of us, right? Eternity, fire and brimstone?”
How long is eternity?
* * * *
The years went by quickly, and the Devil followed both the letter and the spirit of the contract. I solved GUT, and we now have an almost complete understanding of how the universe works. The ramifications were stunning—everything from space travel to renewable energy. We solved food problems—grow it on the Moon, send to Earth with cheap energy. Pollution is a thing of the past. Even traffic and car accidents are gone—who needs a car when you can fly to work in a personal transporter powered by clean fusion power? All this because we now understood “how things worked.”
After solving GUT, I moved on to temporal studies. I left MIT and switched coasts to join the research staff at Caltech in Pasadena, California. I progressed rapidly in those studies, as GUT gave us a new fundamental understanding of time itself. The prize money from both Nobels went to charity as I had no need of anything beyond my lab. I became pretty famous, and must admit I enjoyed that.
I followed Beatrice’s career as she took over the box office as the number one actress in the world, with one blockbuster after another. Even as she aged, her appeal remained as she moved from glamorous roles in her youth to more mature ones later on. The Devil had done an incredible job on her. With a few subtle changes in her appearance, and newly-found acting skills that were the envy of her peers, she truly was the greatest in her profession.
Of course, what was 50 years of fame compared to an eternity of Hell? I too had sold my soul, but I had sacrificed mysel
f for the good of others, a contribution that would last forever. I had come to accept my fate, although as the years went by I had a growing sense of uneasiness. I buried myself in my work, and the years went by far more quickly than I would have believed.
And then, out of the blue, the phone rang, on the 49th anniversary of our “Deal.” It was Beatrice. Her voice was shaking. “Virgil? Is that you?” she asked.
“Beatrice?” I was caught off guard, but quickly recognized the voice. I’d just seen her in “Rising High,” another Oscar performance where she played the grandmotherly heroine who sacrificed her life to save her family. In the end, she’d bravely smiled as she met her fate, but a tear rolled down her cheek. Was such sacrifice worth it? If for the right reasons? “It’s me.”
“Virgil, it’s been 49 years since we last saw each other.” Technically, I’d seen her often on the big screen, but that’s not what she meant.
“I know,” I said. “One more year to go.”
She asked if we could meet, and we arranged to do so the next day at a local restaurant. She’d fly in on her personal jet.
She showed up, bodyguards discreetly keeping their distance. She was in disguise—a wig and large hat pulled over her eyes. She joined me in a back table I’d reserved. In the dim light, no one would recognize her, so she removed the disguise. She was now about 70, but looked 50.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Yes. A long time,” I agreed. “And time is what we’re running out of.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. But I had no answer for her.
Over steak and salads we discussed the past 49 years. “You know, after the first few years, you realize fame isn’t really anything,” she said. “It’s just a lot of people who know you because of what you did. And I didn’t really do anything. I didn’t earn anything.” Her eyes teared over.
“I didn’t earn anything either,” I said. “The Devil did it all.”
“At least you did it for others,” she said. “I did it all for myself. And now look what I’ve done to myself!” Now she was crying, her bowed head in one hand. I put my hand on her other hand. Both our palms were sweaty.
“Back then, I thought I did it for others,” I said. “But now I realize that I did it for the same reason you did. For fame and fortune. I was driven back then, and when I failed, I grabbed at my only chance—just like you.” And it was true—all these years I’d convinced myself I’d done it all for mankind. I had been fooling myself. I was no better than Beatrice.
I shook my head and continued. “He—Satan, the Devil, whatever, he just gave us what we wanted. Not help for mankind, not acting ability. Just fame and fortune, disguised as what we thought we wanted. We grabbed at it. We were both weak.”
She looked up. “Is there any hope for us?”
I could lie, but what good was raising her hopes? There wasn’t anything I could say but the truth. “No.”
She nodded her head and squeezed my hand back. “I’m glad you can be honest with me. If we only have one year left, let’s make the most of it.”
We began seeing each other.
She retired from acting and bought a mansion in Pasadena to be near me. She wanted to move into my more humble home, but it just wasn’t practical. We’d be mobbed by her fans. The mansion, with a security team, gave us security so we could live our final year in peace. So I moved in with her.
It was strictly platonic. Forty-nine years ago we had seemingly been opposites, but those differences now seemed minor. We were thrown together by our common experiences and our common future. We enjoyed each other’s company. If we were going to spend eternity together in Hell, we might as well get started now.
As we moved into the final year, I put more and more hours into my temporal studies, trying to avoid thinking about the unavoidable. But that was impossible, and often I was grief-stricken. How could we have made such a deal?
They say a person in grief goes through five stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I went through all five. The Devil ignored me when I pleaded out loud for him to appear to renegotiate our deals, but thought I heard fleeting laughter coming from somewhere. That led to depression, and finally acceptance.
* * * *
I made the breakthrough with six months to go. Until then, my temporal research had been theoretical. But recent work by myself and others led to another possibility: a working time machine. Others were working on it, but it was years away. I didn’t have years.
With that in mind, I moved to a sixth stage—determination. I began work on the time machine, which I kept secret from all but Beatrice, working mostly nights when others weren’t around.
I had been wrong to tell Beatrice there was no hope.
The last six months could only be described as hell on Earth as I pushed myself to the brink of human endurance to complete the time machine. I had a firm deadline to meet. Despite my apparent advanced age, I had great energy. True to the deal with the Devil, I was in perfect health—I looked 85, but physically and mentally I was still 35.
I still made time for Beatrice, and she often visited me at the lab, but we both understood what my priority had to be. Seeing her gave me strength.
With just days to spare, the time machine was complete. It vaguely resembled an old-style Volkswagen, with a domed top. The ceiling and sides were mostly glass, so you could see in all directions. It had a door on each side and a storage area behind the two passenger seats. Beatrice had painted the non-glass outsides bright red—perhaps appropriate if we ended up in the burning fires of Hell?
I tested it, moving forward a few minutes at first, and then hours into the future. Time travel was essentially instantaneous, at least to the time traveler, so you could travel as far into the future as you wanted within seconds. The more you turned the time dial, the faster you moved through time. It was set exponentially, so time travel speed escalated rapidly as the dial turned. Digital readouts showed where you were in time and how fast you were moving through it.
One of the implications of GUT was that time only moved forward—you cannot go back, which explains why we aren’t inundated with time travelers from the future, as Stephen Hawking had pointed out. So we couldn’t go back and cancel the deal. But we could move forward as far as we wanted, at least to the end of time. From GUT and other discoveries, we knew the universe would continue to expand for another 97 billion years, and that time would essentially end at that point when the universe collapsed backwards to a single point, a singularity. The Devil said I’d be in Hell for eternity, but that could not be true since time would end in 97 billion years. So, if necessary, we’d travel to the end of time. Surely Hell and the Devil could not last to the end of time? If they did, how would the Devil find us in the vast expanse of time?
* * * *
The appointed time approached: 3:00 AM on Feb. 27, 2060. We had to make sure to leave before that time. Shortly before midnight, I was prepared, with several months’ supply of food and water for two and other supplies in the storage area. I had no family or even close friends—I’d devoted my life to science and the advancement of mankind—so I’d leave little behind other than the lab.
Beatrice also had no living relatives and was leaving her wealth to various charities. Not wanting to think about it, she’d put off making these arrangements until the last minute, and so spent her final night on this Earth with lawyers. They charged her double-time for the late-night session, but we wouldn’t need the money where we were going. She said she’d meet me at the lab at 2:00 AM. How I wish I could go back and change that time!
At midnight, the Devil appeared in the lab, three hours early, dressed in his business suit. Sulfur & brimstone cigar smoke spread through the lab. “It’s time,” he said, with no preamble. No gloating, just very professional.
“It’s only midnight,” I pointed out. The Devil only raised his eyebrows and explained my mistake. What a blunder! I was in California—a different
time zone from our deal of 50 years ago, at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it was now…3:00 AM. The appointed hour.
“And so,” the Devil concluded, “I believe I have fulfilled my end of the contract. It’s time to go.” As he spoke, I slowly approached the time machine—and quickly got inside, slamming the door, almost catching my billowing lab jacket. I started up the controls and reached to turn the dial. The Devil merely watched, chuckling.
“If you are done with your…toy…we really need to get going,” he said. “And so…I send you to Hell!” he boomed. As he said this I turned the dial.
The time machine began to whir, and as I watched, the Devil began to fade from view. I was leaving him behind in time! Or …was I being sent to Hell? Had I been too slow in turning the dial?
The Devil must have realized what was happening, and with a growl, grabbed the time machine in his now rapidly disappearing arms. He was back to his full Devil persona, seven feet of spiteful red demon. But he was too late. Once started, nothing could move through the time distortion between the time machine and the outside world in either direction. As long as I was moving through time, I was safe from the Devil. But it also meant you couldn’t see in or out while time traveling.
The lab faded out, and after moving two hours into the future where I hoped to pick up Beatrice, I brought the time machine to a halt …somewhere else. I could see that I was no longer in the lab, so the Devil had done something before I’d turned the dial. But where was I? And what had happened to poor Beatrice, who must have shown up at the lab after I’d left, hours late due to my blunder?
It took a moment to adjust to the dim light. I could hear screaming, and as my eyes adjusted I saw the source—and wanted to pluck my eyes out to stop what I saw.
There were rows and rows of people as far as the eye could see. They were spread out evenly in lines, in a grid, about one every ten feet, naked. Each had a foot tied to a stake in the sold rock ground. And what was happening to these people was…nightmare. They were being burnt alive from flames that came out of the ground from the base of the stakes. They struggled and writhed, but the ropes held them firmly in the head-high flames that licked over their bodies.
The Haunts & Horrors Megapack: 31 Modern & Classic Stories Page 19