The War in Heaven (6 page)

“Sounds like you’ve made a study of it,” said Carson, who tried to sit up, unsuccessfully.

“I have,” said Bedillia. “In another life I was a counselor. I have, or had, a master’s degree in counseling.”

“Seems to me that you’ve got your work cut out for you here,” said Tom, trying to move into a more comfortable position. He felt weak and drained.

Tom took a moment to look around the room as best he could. It was not a large room, perhaps twelve feet on a side. Its walls appeared to be composed of hewn rock. There were two small paintings on the walls—one a stormy seascape, the other an alpine meadow. They seemed so very incongruous in what appeared to be a cave. His cave hypothesis was strengthened by the lack of any windows. There was one entryway with drapes across it, but no actual door. In the corner, another set of drapes hung from the ceiling, but it didn’t look like an entryway. The chair upon which Bedillia sat appeared to be made of cut stone, while the only other piece of furniture, a small table on a pedestal, was also made of light gray stone. What caught his eye was the earthen pot in the middle of the table, a pot from which a leafy plant with several orange flowers grew. He’d never imagined that he would see a flower again. This place was absolutely bizarre. “Meet the Flintstones,” he murmured.

That comment elicited a smile from Bedillia. “Betty Rubble at your service,” she giggled.

Tom smiled. No, Bedillia didn’t look like Betty Rubble. She was dressed in a simple brown dress, certainly nothing fancy, but it wasn’t anything primitive about it either. He wondered if it were some sort of uniform.

Tom hesitated. He really didn’t know how to ask the next question. “I guess I’ve been wishing that this whole thing was a nightmare, maybe a delusion brought about by a prolonged illness. Eternity shackled to an altar, being eaten again and again by birds of prey. It was so horrible. I’d hoped that maybe I’d wake up in a hospital, my wife waiting there by my side, praying for my recovery. She always did have more faith in miracles than I did. But it’s not going to happen, is it? I’m dead, and I’m in Hell.”

Bedillia placed her hand on her patient’s arm. “Yes, Tom, I’m sorry. It wouldn’t make any sense to lie to you about that. God’s judgment is final. We are on the only island of relative safety for humanity in this horrible realm. It is the remoteness and the unpleasantness of the climate above that helps ensure our safety.”

“So there is no Purgatory, no earning our way out of Hell through repentance?”

Bedillia only shook her head.

“Too bad,” said Tom, who could think of nothing else to say. Apparently, the nightmare wasn’t over. “It still doesn’t make sense to me…Hell, that is. My trip here is such a blur now. I remember tumbling through a tunnel of clouds, then floating in the darkness. I was so cold and I couldn’t breathe. The next thing I knew, two winged demons had snatched me up. Then we were in some sort of subterranean labyrinth. There were these tiny cells built into the walls. There must have been thousands of them. I remember being thrown into one of them. The demons had roughed me up pretty badly. I had lacerations that must have been half an inch deep. But they healed up in minutes. But the healing hurt.”

Bedillia nodded occasionally but didn’t say a word as Tom continued.

“I was dragged before Satan a day later dressed only in that awful gray loincloth and surrounded by an audience of hideous demons. I felt almost naked—it was so humiliating. Satan didn’t spend half a minute on me. He rushed through the whole proceedings. He said I’d been greedy and uncharitable, and that for the rest of eternity I’d offer myself to the birds of the air. Then he demanded that I be removed from his presence. I guess I wasn’t worth any more of his time. I was taken out of there through some sort of portal by two demons and shackled to that black altar. And there I was abandoned for I don’t know how long. Look I don’t even know where Hell is. I used to think that if it even existed, it was in some sort of cavern deep underground. But it’s not, I know that much.”

Again, Tom tried to sit up. This time he succeeded, with Bedillia’s help.

“I’m sorry,” said Tom. “I know I’m rambling on.”

“It’s OK,” assured Bedillia, “you need to get it all out. I know how you feel, believe me.”

“I’m so confused,” said Tom. “I still don’t even know where I am, or why things are the way they are. When you’re lying there, chained to an altar, being disemboweled by an army of huge voracious birds, you really don’t have the time or the inclination to consider the nature of existence.”

“But that’s the whole point,” replied Bedillia, “Satan doesn’t want you to know where you actually are or why things are the way they are. He wants to keep you as ignorant of your situation as possible. He wants you to be confused. He wants to inflict pain.”

“So where are we, Bedillia? I know we are in Hell, but where is Hell?”

“I’ve had it all explained to me several times,” replied Bedillia. “I still don’t totally understand it. Abaddon would be the best one to explain such things.”

“Abaddon, the angel who released me?” asked Tom.

“Yes, he is our leader,” replied Bedillia. “He told me that Hell is in the middle of outer darkness, not in the middle of the Earth. He said that it was part of space isolated from the rest of space. You could go on forever from here, travel as far as you wanted, and not end up anywhere but here. Jesus talked about it, a bit indirectly, in one of His parables. He said that there was a great impassable void that separated Hell from any place else. Hell circles the star Kordor, the only star in outer darkness, the only source of light and heat. I guess that makes Hell a planet. It is the most horrible planet you could imagine, but it’s all we’ve got. There are no stars in the night sky, only blackness, and here in the land above us, it is always night. Abaddon will explain it all to you, if you wish. You’ll probably understand it better than I.”

“When can I see him?” asked Tom.

“Once you’ve had a few days to recover. You’re in no condition to see him now. His orders were to allow you to rest for a few days before a meeting is set. But before you can meet him, you’ll have to be able to walk to that meeting. Are you ready to try and stand?”

“I need to sooner or later,” said Tom, “might as well be now.”

With Bedillia’s help, he managed to place his feet on the stone floor. It was only then when he realized that even the bed was made of stone, save for a thin cushion of some other type of material. Actually, it was little more than a rectangular stone slab. He also noticed that the meager loincloth he had been wearing these past months had been replaced by a loose fitting shirt and a pair of knee length brown shorts. Being dressed was a relief.

“OK, here we go,” said Bedillia, assisting Tom to his feet.

Tom swayed uncertainly. He had the strength to stand, but there were other problems. The room, rather quickly, began to fade, and Tom returned to a sitting position. “Not this time.”

“We’ll try again in a few minutes,” assured Bedillia. “It has been over 18 months since you last stood on your feet for any length of time. You’ll do it again.”

Tom rubbed his eyes. Already his vision had returned. “If I may ask, how many people have been rescued by this Abaddon guy?”

“Over 1,100 at last count,” said Bedillia. “Each was rescued from a terrible torment. You see, we are building an army. Eventually we will end the suffering of humanity here and become the masters of our own fate, at least as much as it is possible.”

“I see,” replied Tom. “And how many demons does Satan have in his service, in round numbers?”

Bedillia had to think about that one. “In round numbers? We estimate just over 180 million, give or take.”

“And they’re stronger than we are,” noted Tom.

Bedillia nodded, “Yes, quite a bit.”

“So we’re hiding,” deduced Tom.

“For the moment,” replied Bedillia.

If Tom wasn’t confused before, he was now. “OK, so they are stronger than us. I can attest to that. They have us outnumbered by 1,700 to 1, give or take, and they have one very organized infrastructure.”

“Their infrastructure is Hell, Tom. And, yes, one day we are going to bring it down around their heads,” said Bedillia. “We have a mission here. We may be abandoned by God, but we don’t have to be under the cruel yoke of Satan. That pompous devil doesn’t have a mandate from God to rule this place. He and his legions of demons are prisoners here, just like us. Maybe it’s time that we take matters into our own hands. Maybe it’s time for a change in leadership.”

“Like this Abaddon of yours?” Tom asked.

“Why not?” responded Bedillia. “He is a whole lot better than the current management. He is more of what an angel should be—merciful, noble, worthy of our trust. I’ve known him for a long time; trust me, he has the qualities of a great leader. I owe him more than I can say.”

“Abaddon rescued you too, didn’t he?” asked Tom.

“And my daughter,” noted Bedillia.

“Excuse me if it seems to be a personal question,” asked Tom, “but what was it like for you. What sort of horror did Abaddon rescue you from?”

Bedillia seemed taken back by Tom’s question. Her face took on a distant and fearful aspect. He was certain that he had just violated some unwritten law of etiquette. He was quick to respond. “I’m sorry if I’ve said something that upset you. I guess I’m still sort of out of it. I apologize, really I do.”

The silence that continued between them for another few seconds was tense. Bedillia looked away from him, “It’s OK,” she replied, though her words were slow and faltering. “You didn’t know. It is something that we don’t talk about here. It is an understood thing among us. We’ve all experienced the torments of the damned. There are those here who experienced it for centuries before they were freed. It is a part of our lives that we want to put behind us, yet most of us can’t. Perhaps it is because we all realize that we live an uncertain existence at best. We all have our horror stories here, Dr. Carson. We all know that those stories could be resumed in a heartbeat; that we could be returned to that horrible place where Satan put us if we fail. If our hiding place were to be discovered by Satan and his minions before we are ready … well, our fates would be sealed. As you have already noted, we are only a few against many. Yes we have our resources; we could put up a fight for a time. We could make Satan and his minions hurt in a big way. But in the end, we would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. We need more power in our corner to even out the odds. That is why we need you.”

“Me?” asked Tom. “What could I possibly do for you?” Then he thought back to his deliverance from the altar, something the dark angel had asked
him. “Does it have something to do about my knowledge of plasma or particle physics?”

Bedillia nodded. “Yes it does. I’m sorry, I’ve already said far more than I should have. Abaddon wanted to speak to you about this himself. I’ll let him explain to you what we need from you.”

“Then that is the only reason you saved me from the altar, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not,” replied Bedillia. “You judge us too harshly. You are a good man, Tom. You were a bit misguided on Earth, but I believe that you see that now. The very fact that on that altar and in your delirium, you prayed almost unceasingly for forgiveness tells me that you have seen the light. You even prayed for the others. The experience of the past eighteen months has purified your character, burned away the hay, wood, and stubble. You don’t realize it, but you’ve told me volumes about yourself in the past six days. You are a good man. I know that you yearn desperately for a second chance. We knew that when Abaddon and the others decided to rescue you. It would not have happened otherwise. You want a second chance? Well, here it is. Do you want to help change an entire world?”

Tom nodded. He wouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth again. He was here; he had escaped the torments of the altar. Surely whatever awaited him here beat the alternative by a wide margin.

“But I guess I haven’t answered your question,” continued Bedillia.

“It’s OK, you don’t have to,” said Tom.

“No, I want to tell you. Maybe you’ll learn from my experience. Unlike you, Satan gave me more than a passing glance at my sentencing, though I wish he hadn’t. He spoke of my being a poison to my family, of how I abused my own children. I couldn’t deny it. It was true. I had my daughter committed to a mental hospital when she was 13, not to help her, but out of revenge. She was a difficult child. I wanted her to know just who the boss in our family was and what could happen to her if she stepped out of line. Yes, Tom, that was the kind of person I was on Earth. I made my home a living
hell for my husband and my children. I knew about Christ’s gift of salvation, but I ignored it. I knew how I should live, but chose another path. I served myself and made no apologies for doing so. For this, Satan sentenced me to my own personal hell, a place where I would exist in isolation forever. It was a place where I couldn’t hurt anyone else, but I could be hurt plenty.”

Bedillia’s tone of voice had changed. She was far more intense now, even agitated. Already Tom found himself wishing he hadn’t asked this question.

“It was Satan himself, along with two demon escorts who led me from his audience chambers and into some sort of mystical portal…you’ve seen it; we call it a gate. It led right into a hot, misty tunnel. It must have been well over a hundred degrees in that corridor. I could smell the sulfur and hear the muffled roar of the flames. Then there were the screams; I can still hear the screams at night when I sleep. Along both walls of that tunnel were heavy iron doors, each with a small circular window just about eye level. Through most of those small thick windows I could see the glow of the fires that roared through the chamber on the other side. It provided the only light in that corridor. Each chamber was a furnace, a crematorium, for some damned soul, a victim of Satan’s wrath. They forced me to gaze into one of the windows, to see the horror that awaited me. At first I didn’t see anything, it was just too bright.

“Then I saw it … a figure writhing in the flames. It was a woman, though it was difficult to tell. She was hanging from the ceiling by shackles around her wrists that were so hot that they were actually glowing. Her skin was a charring mass of flesh, bubbling and seething. Her body was like a broiling, overcooked steak. No, it was even worse than that because it was a living, breathing human being. It was an awful sight. I think Satan showed me another woman in torment to put into clear perspective what was about to happen to me.”