Hellbound: Chronicles Read online

  The church was fenced in all around with concrete and steel bars expect for the front gate. When I opened the door I saw Charlie again, standing in front of the gate at the end of the long cobble path; same evil smile, still waiting for me to join him. I would never willingly go with him. I ran and jumped over the fence, running as fast as I could, I made it to my home. Shannon was sitting there, crying and pretending to watch TV. I immediately felt relief. Like maybe Charlie had finally given up. I walked around the house, still suspicious of her actions. I found the bedroom empty and the bathroom, too, but when I made it to the utility room, there was someone in there: Charlie and his evil grin.

  "It's time, my son.” Just then, the door slammed behind me. “It's time for you to join your damned brethren, the unholy outcasts of heaven. Those deemed unfit to join Him." He paused. I was at the edge of my seat so-to-speak. I was waiting on what he was going to say next. In a way I already knew, but I had to hear him say it. "HELL." With a flick of his wrist, he waived his hand and giant black door appeared. Not a door, no. It was just a hole in the fabric of reality. I couldn't see anything inside it or even on it. No hinges, no knob. He jerked my arm towards the menacing door but I struggled. My instincts to stay alive kicked in and I knew I didn't want to go. "Stop this! It's futile to try and delay. Even if you could escape me again, I would find you and take you there. We’ve already been through this, Jon. This is your ultimate resting place. You cannot avoid it!"

  "No! I have to stay here with my wife!" I couldn't just leave. My time wasn't finished here. Just because I had died didn’t mean I wouldn’t eventually find a way to talk to the living and “live” once again. Besides, she needed me more than Hell did.

  "Very well, have it your way." He put both arms to his side and slowly raised them up over his head as if he was lifting something very heavy and as his arms rose I began to float upwards. I looked at him and his eyes were red embers. “‘Until death do us part,’ remember?” He pushed his arms forward and I went flying through the gate. I felt like I was traveling for some time. I don't know how long but it felt like an eternity. My life returned to me in thought. Not the good parts this time, only the evil I had done; everything from my death, to me stealing my kindergarten classmate’s cookies.

  When I landed it was soft, like oh so many pillows. I looked around but could see nothing. The giant room I was in was completely black with no end in sight. I could feel nothing. No joy, no pain, nothing. Complete nirvana washed over me and I was lost in it. I walked, hoping I would find some way out of this. This hell seemed completely empty and I knew there was no way I would be the first person to be sentenced. I continued on my way, looking for an exit or at least some other damned soul to keep me company for eternity. I walked for some time and finally a small form of white appeared in the distance. I ran towards it as hard as I could. As I got closer, I realized what it was. It was Charlie‘s pale face. “Nice of you to join me, Jon,” he said with a crooked smile.

  "Is this Hell?" I asked.

  “You naive mortal! You should be so lucky. This is what some refer to as Purgatory, a realm between life and death. This is where you wait for me. Wait for me to take you to your final resting place. And you are one of those not so lucky to see me again. Now come!" I had no choice he threw me toward the first wall I had seen since I came through that portal. My mind went back to my wife and everything I had lived for. I thought about all the people I had let down; all the people crying over my dead body. I had no way to talk to them to let them know I was sorry. I pushed to my knees and looked up. There was another door, but this one was guarded. There were two hellish looking dogs guarding either side. They were hideous, like someone took a rottweiler and turned it inside out. Gnashing and snipping at the nothingness of Purgatory. Their bark was only echoes. Their eyes were black as coal and they pierced me. They filled me with fear as Charlie dragged me to the door. When he approached, they backed off. When that happened I lost my fear, but, just as I did, they took a bite at me. My reflexes managed to save me, but I almost didn't make it.

  I wondered, ‘Can a soul die? Could these creatures bring me final death?’

  "Are you ready Jon?" Charlie asked.

  "Do I really have a choice?" He just smiled his wicked smile and waived his hand. The door opened revealing something strange I wouldn't have imagined in a thousand years. It was a giant cave. There was no fire or light, but I could somehow see all around. When the door completely opened, I felt a tremendous push on my soul. A great depression fell upon me like I had never known. I could feel God finally taking his watchful eye off me. I could feel His pain of losing one of His sons to the darkness of life. The dogs cowered from the pain and even began to whimper. Charlie did not enter. He just stood and pointed. Slowly, I trudged my way into my new home…Hell.

  2. The Torments of Hell

  So there I was, in Hell for eternity. I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like Charlie had given me a manual or anything. I had never read “Hell for Dummies”, so I was lost. I began to wonder in, slowly. It was immense, but I guessed it would have to be to house all the lost souls of the world. People seemed to be so evil. I imagined this place had an infinite amount of people from across all ages and across the entirety of the world. I looked down at my feet and noticed something strange. There were foot prints on the rock ground, but these weren’t ordinary print. These footprints were glowing a bright white. I went to put my feet on them; they were much smaller than mine, but, as I stood on them, the depression was gone if only for an instant. I felt this heavenly love like no other. More than a parent can love their children or a wife her husband. The depression, although, quickly came back to me and I fell to the ground.

  I struggled to my feet and looked back. The door I had come through was now framed in but the blackness of the door itself had dissipated, leaving only the crude looking, stone frame. I looked to my right, just a big cave wall that stretched into the blackness overhead, my front, a seemingly endless path. As I looked left something hit me over the head and I blacked out. Yes, even after you die, you can still suffer damages.

  When I woke, I was somewhere else in Hell, I assumed. It was like a city in there, only, dilapidated. The only way someone would feel at home there was if you were born and raised, then lived and died in a Hoover Ville. I didn’t see anyone else. It seemed almost empty where I was. Lying in the dirt streets, I began to sob, sitting, elbows on my knees, and looking straight at the ground. I could shed tears now, and of course there was the noise of a broken man, a man that had finally given up hope. I was defeated.

  “Welcome, Jon,” a man’s voice said to me. I didn’t raise my head. Charlie had known my name and I figured it was either him or one of his minions. “I addressed you, now you have to look me in the eyes. Didn’t I teach you anything?” The voice was suddenly familiar. I looked up but quickly averted my eyes. It was my father, but not as I remembered him. He was disfigured. His left eye had traveled down the side of his face and was now resting at the side of his mouth. His nose had completely vanished; the hole was still there, but no skin or bone. “I know what I look like, and it may be monstrous, but I’m still you’re father damn it, and you will look me in the eyes!” His voice was just as powerful as ever. I mean, it might have been just because he was my father, but I couldn’t help but obey.

  “I would if they were next to one another!” I chuckled, trying to ease the pain.

  “Good one!” he laughed with me.

  “How did you end up here, Dad?”

  “Jon, there are some things a man shouldn’t tell his son. Every person lives a life all his own. He chooses to let some things out and chooses to keep some things inside.” I understood. I didn’t want to tell him of my death and I couldn’t expect more from him than I would give. I was so ashamed of myself. “I’d always hoped I wouldn’t be able to see you as a man. I knew if I did, you’d be here, too.”

  “Like you said, ‘Every man lives his own life,’.”

>   “Good point.”

  “Well, since I ran into someone I can trust, how the hell did I get here?”

  “You mean you didn’t meet the man in black?”

  “Who? Charlie? Yeah, I met him. What an ass.”

  “Then what do you mean, son?”

  “I mean, when I got to Hell, I got hit with something and then I ended up here in the street. Feels like I was hit by a semi. How did I get here?”

  “Same thing happened to me. Well, almost the same thing. You were lucky.”

  “How do you mean I was lucky? I got hit in the head. What if I had died…again?” ‘Could I die again?’ I asked myself.

  “It’s not as easy to kill a man the second time around, you needn’t worry about that. I mean you were lucky you didn’t see them.”

  “Who?”

  He paused and looked around. Then he whispered, “The demons.”

  “The…” and he covered my mouth.

  “They don’t like that word. In Heaven, angels are referred to as ‘Elohim’. They didn’t think their rebellion was wrong and still consider themselves equal. I’ve watched a man be torn apart for calling them that. Anyway, they are hideously disfigured. You think I look bad? You just wait until you finally lay eyes on one of them. You’d better stick around me for a little while until you learn the ropes.” I smiled and nodded. “Now get up.” He put down his hand and I reached for it. I looked down and noticed the clothing I was wearing. It was the same thing I had died in but was now just like everything around me, tore up and decaying. I assumed I looked the same, physically, as my father, but everything was dry and I didn’t think I would find any water around to see my own reflection, and I was sure that no one would have a mirror. If everyone looked like my father, no one would want a reminder of themselves. We started walking.

  “So what is it that I need to learn to survive here?” I asked.

  “There are quite a few things actually.” He said. He paused and just looked at me. I think he was happy to see me but at the same time disappointed that his son had followed in his footsteps. No man wants his son to grow up and make the same mistakes as he did; especially a mistake so bad as to be sent to Hell. “I guess I should start with the basics.” I nodded and we continued walking. There was still no one around. “First off, this is the first level of Hell. There are seven altogether.”

  “What do you mean, ‘level’?”

  “Well, Hell is obviously like a cave, but it’s a cave with a spiraling hill. The first level is here and you can continue on and up the stairs to the next. You can travel to each level of Hell like that except the seventh.”

  “Why can’t I go to the seventh?”

  “The seventh level is reserved for the most lost souls. I haven’t ever been there, but I hear that the souls there are more tortured than any other. The Elohim actually revel in torturing them. I think that if you can actually get there, then you won’t make it back. Like that feeling you got when the door first opened, its nothing in comparison to what you would feel in that hole.”

  “I don’t understand why there are different levels; different punishments for different sins?”

  “In a way, each sin has its own severity of pain. Different levels cause different amounts of pain and if you haven’t committed the level-specific sin, the pain will be slightly less. I mean it’s still there, it just won’t hurt quite as bad.” A woman came walking from behind the building we were next to.

  “Hi there, David,” she said.

  “Hey, Muqtaba. I’d like you to meet my son, Jon,” my father responded. “Jon, this is Muqtaba.” She was an African woman. She was obviously an African native. She had the stick through her nose and the disc in her lip. Also, she wasn’t wearing a shirt. She too had a deformation, but it was different: the right side of her skull had collapsed. I wondered if that was how she had died or if it was one of the punishments she received for her sins. It made me curious, yet fearful of what I looked like.

  “It’s nice to meet the progeny of such a great man.” She said as she walked by.

  “Where was I?” my father asked. “Oh yeah, the levels of Hell. You usually are taken to the first level. It’s the lowest level of punishment for most, but that’s not why you get dropped here. Anyway, it’s Lust.”

  “One of the seven deadly sins?” I asked.

  “Yes. Each of the levels is mostly acquainted with those. They all encompass more sins than just the few you learn about at church that they plainly name out.”

  “Dad,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, son?”

  “Who was that lady?”

  “I told you, that’s Muqtaba.”

  “I know…but she was from Africa. How come I could understand her?”

  “Well, the different languages of the world were just a curse that God had put on men. It’s a law that is only binding there. Here we all speak and understand all languages so well, we don’t notice the differences, so we basically all speak the same language. Anyway back to where I was, the second level is Gluttony, the third, Greed, then Sloth, Wrath, and Envy. The seventh is Pride, the worst sin of all.”

  “So, why did I end up here on the first level? That wasn’t my worst crime.”

  “Generally, the Elohim just drop you off here. They are usually busy with other things, and when you first come in, you are close to their training grounds. As you get closer to your level you will feel more pressure and pain on your soul. We may have died, but we retain our humanity, and that’s what makes us feel the pain. It’s not really pain, as I‘m sure you‘ve already figured out. You feel all the sorrow of the world. Every time someone commit’s a sin, someone else is always hurt by that, and that’s the pain you feel. Even if the other person doesn’t find out about it, their soul still knows. I don’t know how, it just happens.”

  “How do you know all this, Dad?”

  “I’ve been pretty alone here for the past 12 years. Have you ever heard anyone say that when you die all will be revealed?” I nodded. “Well, it’s true in a way. All the knowledge of the world exists in the afterlife. You can find anything out because someone has to have had it happen to them. You just have to find the right person. You can find out anything if you have good connections, just like on Earth, but the most important thing to remember is that you are in Hell. Everyone you meet here has sinned in some way. You can’t trust just anyone.”

  What he said about trusting people made me feel a little uneasy. ‘How much could you possibly learn about a place like this in a meager 12 years?’ I asked myself. ‘Could this man really be my father? Or maybe he works for someone like Charlie.’ It started to worry me. I started to drift a little away from him. I mean he could easily have been my father, but I was still green and I didn’t want to have anyone take advantage of my naivety.

  “So, where are all the de…I mean “Elohim” at?”

  “They are around, I assure you. They sit and watch and wait until they find the perfect time to come out and torture an unlucky soul.”

  “Well, I guess it’s lucky we are traveling together, safety in numbers and all.”

  He laughed with an angry undertone, “Jon, you have a lot to learn, yet. Numbers don’t mean anything. Don’t you think that if we could take an Elohim out, we would? They are extremely powerful and something to behold. They make you fearful just by being in their presence. They would kill you in an instant without thinking about it. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine, but I’m your father and I know best!” I didn’t understand why he had become so angry. I was just making a joke. This was a terrible place and I was sure the people who ran it were just as bad. I wondered if it was just because he had been in Hell so long, and I wondered if it would eventually happen to me, too. I’d often heard about people that had gone to prison and came out a different person, more of an animal. It started to worry me. “Look, Jon. I have something to do right now, you will have to make your way around the first level by yourself for a while. Don’t worry, it�
��s not that big, and you won’t get lost unless you go up the stairs to the next level, which I don’t suggest you do. Meet me in the center in about an hour. There is an old fountain there. It doesn’t work, but that way you will still know where to find me.” He pointed and I looked at the fountain. I turned back to ask him another question and he was gone.

  I headed for the fountain. I figured that I might as well wait for him there. I didn’t know anyone or my way around, I thought it would be the safest place. I went and sat on the fountain edge. At least until I realized what it was filled with; blood. The crimson color was repulsive. I had never seen that much blood in my entire life and I quickly walked away with such a disgusted face. I turned a corner and ran into someone.

  “Get out of my way! What are you new?” he asked. I didn’t think he really cared if I was new; it was more of an insult. He spoke with a Boston accent.

  “As a matter-of-fact,” I replied.

  “Oh. Well, watch where you’re going!” He pushed me aside and continued on. He had a different deformation, too. His lips were sewn shut and he was crying blood. They weren’t sewn completely shut, obviously, but with thick wire. I felt around on my face to maybe come up with my deformity, but I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary about myself. I started back toward the center. I was in an alley, and I knew where I was. I walked back to a street and turned toward the square. Standing in front of the fountain, facing away from me, stood what I assumed was an Elohim. He had the blackest wings and no skin. He had a sword on his side and a small round shield on his left arm. There was an arrow sticking out of his neck. He turned toward me, but seemed uninterested. He studied me for a minute while I studied him. His eyes were fire and his teeth sharpened to fangs. I dropped to my knees and trembled in fear. He began to run towards me. I could hear the “THUMPS” of his feet getting closer and closer. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could. I didn’t want to die again, but I figured if an Elohim picked a fight with me, it would be all over. Closer and closer and closer. “THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!” I started to imagine all the things he could do to me without breaking a sweat. I could see myself sliced in two, my entrails pulled from my body, and burning alive. Closer and closer and closer he came. “THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!” …and then nothing. I looked up and he was gone. An evil laugh crackled through the air. He was laughing at my fear. They truly did delight in the pain they caused the damned. My father was right, but that wasn’t enough for me to trust him. I decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to just stand around anymore. I had to keep moving as to not run into another one of those beasts. I had no idea what time it was, nor did I have any idea how long it had been since my father left my side. I looked down at my watch; it was busted, of course. I almost asked why I couldn’t catch a break, but I quickly remembered where I was.