Escape From Hell (4 page)

“Red banner! Red is best!” Rosemary’s silver–haired opponent was adamant.

There was a red banner in the distance. It said, for a moment, LIFE IS PAIN. THE PAIN IS CAUSED BY CRAVING FOR LIFE. Then the message changed to something I couldn’t make out.

“Green! It is vital!” another shouted.

Several began a chant. “Hey hey! Ho ho! Green banners have got to go!”

There were cheers, but someone shouted over them, “One, two, three, four, put red banners out the door!” That got more cheers, and now we had two parties, red and green, each with passionate defenders, both chanting.

“Which do you like?” I asked Rosemary.

She looked pained. “Do you really think it matters? Or even that they think so? Besides, the colors change.”

She pointed to a blue banner. For a moment it said O DANIEL, SHUT UP THE WORDS, AND SEAL THE BOOK,
EVEN
TO THE TIME OF THE END: MANY SHALL RUN TO AND FRO, AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE INCREASED.

I thought about that for a moment. Truth or humor? The words were changing as the banner retreated. OH COME TO THE CHURCH IN THE WILD WOOD!

As that retreated another came across. KARMA’S FORCE ALONE PREVENTS WHAT IS NOT DESTINED. The letters blurred, and then I made out FOR THEREIN IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD REVEALED FROM FAITH TO FAITH: AS IT IS WRITTEN, THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.

I announced, “Follow me, if you’re tired of banners.”

“Others have said that,” someone said. “Many others. Sometimes we see them again, but some never return.”

That voice sounded Italian. Crinatelli? He’d got lost in the chanting crowd, and I couldn’t see him. “Did you know Benito?” I shouted.

He heard me. “Of a certainty. He asked us to follow him. It was not the first time. I followed him once in life, until the king dismissed him. We all deserted him, but he came back and demanded obedience again, but then he was a mere puppet of the Germans. I had had enough of him, but I could not choose another side. The Germans shot me for my indecisions. I found myself here. Then Mussolini came here and asked us to follow him. He seemed different, less certain of himself. He had no Germans with him. None of us would follow him. Why should we? We knew who he was.”

“I did follow him,” I said. I didn’t think I was speaking Italian, but he seemed to understand me. But then so did all the others. “I followed him all the way down, through the circles, past Satan. I watched him leave Hell! I’ll show you how!”

“Follow you through Hell,” Crinatelli said. “Why should we do that? Who are you that you may lead us out of Hell?”

“I’m the guy who knows the way!”

Crinatelli’s silver–tongued counsel shouted, “Because you have read a book? Many of us have read that book!”

“What book?” someone screamed.

“Dante.”

“Who’s Dante?”

Others chimed in. “Who has appointed you as our savior? If God wants us saved, why does He not send His Son to lead us?”

Another banner floated past. I couldn’t see anyone carrying it. THE UNIVERSE IS BATHED IN THE GLORY OF THE LORD. RENOUNCE THE WORLD AND ENJOY IT. COVET NOTHING. It had a dozen followers.

The wasps were gathering in strength. My pains from — congealing? Reassembly? — were almost gone, but the wasps were making up for it. Standing here wasn’t going to do anyone any good. There was a banner with no followers. It said simply REPENT! I ignored it. “Follow me!” I shouted, and took off.

A fair number of them did. I tried to remember how Benito and I had found Charon’s ferryboat. Off to the left as I faced the river, I was pretty sure of that. I ran that way, leading a mixed party of men and women still slapping wasps. The tall guy with the funny haircut wasn’t with them. He’d gone a different way. But Rosemary Bennett was right with me.

“You believe me?” I asked her.

“Allen, I don’t know. I want to believe something. Can I believe you?”

•    •    •

I
broke another twig from Sylvia’s tree. “Sylvia, it was then I realized just how serious this all was. I was asking people to believe in me, and I didn’t know if what I believed made any sense. What if I’m wrong? Just who did appoint me savior?”

“Why did Rosemary believe you?”

“I was afraid to ask her. I was afraid if I asked her she’d see I was a fake.”

“But you’re not a fake!”

“Well, but I was afraid she’d think I was. I wanted her to come with me!”

Sylvia said, “She’s not with you now.”

“No.”

“What happened to her?”

Chapter 4

Charon And The Acheron

All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land;
And ready are they to pass o’er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on
So that their fear is turned into desire.

I
was looking for Charon’s ferryboat … but I’d remembered the woman I’d talked to last time, the one who told me, “We’re in the hands of infinite power and infinite sadism.” She’d scared me with that. I wanted to tell her what had happened and see if she had learned anything. She’d upset me as much as anyone I met in Hell.

I was still thinking about her when a banner crossed my path. It said PAY IT FORWARD. That was what I thought I was doing. Benito had helped me. So had others I couldn’t pay back. The banner changed. FREELY YOU RECEIVED. NOW FREELY GIVE.

Justice. Pay it forward. I thought I could make out someone carrying that banner, and I ran toward it. When I got closer I saw that it was like the others, floating free with no one carrying it.

Now I was running in circles like everyone else. My entourage was still following me. I don’t think I’d lost a single one of them. Rosemary Bennett was right with me, half a step behind and off to the right. “I can’t find her!” I said.

“Can’t find who?”

“Fat lady. Morbidly obese. She’d been an FDA attorney. Made the decision to ban cyclamates.”

“Cyclamates?” Rosemary asked.

I waved it off.

“Sugar substitute? Why would she be here for banning cyclamates? Why would she be in Hell at all for that, and why here?”

“You expect Hell to make sense? To find reasons?”

“I hoped to find reasons,” she said. “They told us not to hope, didn’t they? But I still hoped to make sense of this place.”

“Hoped. You gave up, then?”

“Until you came along. Why did you come?”

“Wasn’t my fault. I got blown up by an exploding … soul.”

“You didn’t come back to us for a reason?”

Now the banner said BEWARE LEST ANY MAN MAKE YOU HIS PREY THROUGH PHILOSOPHY ACCORDING TO THE ELEMENTAL SPIRITS OF THE UNIVERSE. I was trying to absorb that when it changed again. ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU; SEEK, AND YE SHALL FIND.

“I didn’t choose where to come back,” I told her. But of course I’d had a reason for coming back out of the grotto. “I came to tell everyone there’s a way out of here! To show them the way out!” To earn my own way out? It was a new thought.

The banner said PAY IT FORWARD again. It veered off to the left. I followed, but it seemed pointless.

“Everyone?” Rosemary asked. “Even the angels?”

“Angels?” I asked, but then I remembered. Dante said there were angels in the Vestibule, angels who’d refused to take either side when Lucifer rebelled against God. That didn’t make sense to me. Angels knew about Good and Evil, and about God and Satan. How could they refuse to take sides? But how could any sane mind take sides with Satan?

But I couldn’t shake the notion that I needed to earn my way out of Hell.

•    •    •

“W
e couldn’t find the FDA woman,” I told Sylvia. “And I couldn’t catch that banner.”

She was quiet, so I broke off a twig. She didn’t even whimper. “ ‘Infinite power and infinite sadism.’ That’s a most depressing thought,” Sylvia said. “If that’s true I was justified in committing suicide. Only it didn’t work! He won’t let me die.” She sounded scared now. “Allen, tell me you found proof that’s not true!”

“Proof? No. But I did find the grotto. I did see Benito climb up and out of here. I thought that was proof enough.”

“And you don’t now?”

“Sylvia, I saw a lot of horrible things, but I can’t say that there was no justice in what I was seeing. Carried too far, but it wasn’t just whimsical torture. There were points being made. I was shocked when Benito said Hell was a place of justice. But —”

“Now you think he was right?”

“He might be. He said everyone had choices. No one is here by accident.”

“Did you see anyone who didn’t belong here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know everyone’s story. What about you? Do you belong here?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m right where I belong. I knew better than to throw away my life.”

“Forever?”

Her branches rustled in no wind. “No! Not forever! I know better now. I want out! But I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Me, either,” I told her.

“Something will come to us. You were telling me what happened to Rosemary Bennett.”

•    •    •

I
’d got curious about the undecided angels. Demons I could understand. Lucifer was the brightest of the angels; the highest, God’s prime minister, and he thought it was beneath God’s dignity to have human beings so high in God’s favor. Let them enjoy the favor of God, but don’t put them higher than angels who love and obey! Let these creatures called Men worship God through the angels.

That was the story I’d read. Lucifer made that pitch and some of the angels agreed with him. They chose the wrong side, and were banished with Satan, and now they served God in Hell as guards and tormentors of the damned. If there had to be a Hell, then somebody had to do that work. From what I’d seen they enjoyed it. Was that punishment, herding damned souls?

But angels who wouldn’t choose sides? “Have you met any of them?”

“Met any of what?” Rosemary demanded.

“Angels. Undecided angels. The ones who’re supposed to be in the Vestibule?” At least Dante’s Virgil had said they were here.

“I don’t know. Someone told me they’re the ones who carry the banners, Allen. That’s how you pick a banner: you’re looking for the most sympathetic angel, or the most powerful, or —”

“You mean everyone in here is condemned to chase angels who couldn’t make up their minds?”

“I think so.”

“It might fit.” This came from the silver–haired guy who’d been Crinatelli’s lawyer. “Who would be more appropriate to carry those banners?”

I couldn’t think of an answer to that. “Has anyone talked with them?”

“How?” Rosemary asked. “You can’t catch them. You’re not supposed to be able to catch them.”

“How can we learn from them if we can’t catch them?”

Another voice chimed in. “What makes you think we’re supposed to learn anything from them? Or learn anything? We’re dead!”

“You can still make choices,” I said. “It’s harder, now that you’re dead, but you can still change your path.”

We were still running in circles, and maybe I was a little scared to get on Charon’s boat again. There were a lot worse things to do than run in circles with a following, people to talk to. I wasn’t back in the bottle. The wasps weren’t stinging. I wasn’t getting tired, there was nothing to be scared of.

Nothing except we were running in circles. We weren’t getting out.

“It is a way out for you, perhaps. You have not been commanded to stay here.”

I looked around to see who’d said that. This gift–of–tongues thing has its drawbacks; you don’t know who said what and in what language.

A green banner was coming up behind me. It bore black scrolls. Every time I looked at a scroll, it rolled shut with a snap. Whatever message they carried, it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t see anyone carrying it. It just moved. Its followers were faster than mine, and were mixing with my followers. “Hey! You’re stealing my people!”

“And why are they yours?” the same voice asked.

“Are you an angel?”

“You would say so.”

“Angel. You have powers! I know the way out of here! Use your powers! Help us!”

“I think I would like to do that, but I cannot. But when you stand before the Court, tell Michael that we here obey. Tell him that Ganteil awaits a command.”

“Shouldn’t I tell God?”

“Do you believe yourself so highly favored that you will stand in His presence? But if ever you are, tell Him.”

The banner’s markings were changing faster than I could read them. It moved past me, faster than I could run, but not faster than most of my followers. When it turned away from the river I was left with six followers. I remembered Benito had told me that he often started with many, but only one at a time ever got out of Hell. But some had, he’d watched them go, just as I’d watched Benito go. I wished I had asked him how many he’d saved. More than one, I was sure of that, but I didn’t know how many.

Rosemary Bennett was still with me. “That was an angel.”

“Said he was, anyway. You heard?”

“Yes. Why would an angel need a messenger to tell the Archangel Michael anything? Wouldn’t Michael already know?”

“I don’t know. Why do we need to pray to God? He already knows what we want.”

•    •    •

“G
ood question,” Sylvia said.

“It’s too obvious,” I told her. “Any smart person would think to ask that. The preachers and theologians must have answered it already.”

“If they didn’t, Jack did.”

“Did you know Lewis well?”

“Not really well. Dinner a few times. I heard his lecture on pain, and I read his novels. And his essays on criticism.”

“He was Catholic, wasn’t he?”

“Anglican. So was Tom Eliot.”

“How are Anglicans different from Catholics?”

“Depends on the Anglican. And the Catholic. Jack Lewis said he was Christian but what brand didn’t seem to matter. Tom Eliot was more Catholic than the Pope, but he started out Unitarian. They both talked about religion. Everything made sense to them. Especially Jack Lewis. He really believed.”

“You?” I asked.

“Nothing special. I grew up Unitarian,” Sylvia said. “I cursed God when my father died, and I never really got over being mad at Him for that. But like most people my age I didn’t really believe in anything that kept me from doing what I wanted.” She laughed. A nervous laugh. “Ted felt that way, too.”