“I’ll tell you about it when we get home.” Kanz said. “In the meantime, enjoy the lovely day!” He gestured to the view around us. And so we continued walking. In places, the earth seemed to be made of bleeding, pus spewing, diseased flesh. Mostly it was grey soil saturated with what seemed to be blood and feces. The sky above was varyingly bruise purple, sickly yellow-green or Halloween orange, and the sun, or whatever it was that hung like a broken whorehouse lamp in the sky of Hell, shone down upon us with a light that was alternating between blazingly hot and somehow arctic cold. “How can the sunlight, the actual sunlight, be cold?” I asked Kanz. He favored me with another of those ‘you can’t actually be so stupid, can you?’ looks. “This is Hell,” he said. “And that,” he said gesturing at the light in the sky, “Is not the sun.” “What is it then?” “Joe, I’m a damn demon, not an astronomer. Watch out for that landmine.” I stopped dead in my tracks, because there was indeed a landmine, or what appeared to be one directly in front of me. In fact there were about a thousand of them arrayed in a field in front of us, blocking our path. “Kanz, I don’t think this is the way we came, “ I told the demon. “Yes, it is. Minefields spring up from time to time here in Hell. At least these are above ground and visible.” The demon sighed. We’ll have to find a way around. This is going to cost us some time.” “Cost us time? What does it matter, Kanz? We’re in Hell. We’ve got lots of time. Are we late for an appointment or something?” Kanz scowled at me and said, “Listen, Human…” but he was interrupted by another demon who appeared suddenly beside him. It was one of the “monster” demons, one of the ones Kanz had called The Raging Ones. This one did not appear to be particularly raging, however; he was quite calm. About seven feet tall, he looked rather like a humanoid rhinoceros wearing what appeared to be a Boy Scout uniform. “Excuse me,” he said, “but you two can’t go through here because I just laid out a mine field here.” “Yes. This I see is true,” Kanz told the lesser demon. “Yes, Sir,” said the rhino demon. “Just laid them out. About a thousand I’d say.” He seemed very proud of himself. “Your job, is it?” Kanz asked him. “Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir it is.” He snorted and looked out over the minefield. “I’m a mine layer,” he added. “Well then,” Kanz said, “Which way would you recommend as the best and quickest to get around your excellent minefield?” “Which ever way you choose, Sir,” said the rhino. “One way is about as fast as the other.” “Alright then.” Kanz looked at me and said, “Left or right, Joe?” I didn’t answer; I just started walking parallel to the minefield. The demon followed. “Excuse me, Sir,” the rhino demon called after us. “What!” Kanz snarled without turning around. “What?” “Er, if you’re not going to eat that Human, can I have him?” Kanz stopped in his tracks, turned around and strode back to the rhino demon. “What is your name, if I may ask, Raging One?” The rhino hesitated. He seemed to be unsure if he was being singled out for praise by a superior or if he was in trouble. “My name? My name, Sir? Why, my name is…” But he never finished, because Kanz hit him in the chest with his staff hard enough to knock him twenty feet or so out into the minefield. He landed on a mine, of course, and there was a tremendous explosion that blew the Raging One to tiny bits and also started a chain reaction of explosions that had the effect of clearing a path through the minefield. Kanz turned to me. “Let’s go this way, Joe,” he said. And we began to walk through the plainly visible cleared path through the minefield. “Thank you, Kanz,” I told him after a while. “The Raging Ones can be so tedious.” was all he would say. So we walked, Kanz and I. We made it through the minefield and continued through the awful countryside of Hell. A couple of times, we saw bands of Raging Ones in the distance, tearing around like little storms of monsters, swirling tornados of horrific beings. Lobster claws and tiger teeth, polar bear claws and gorilla arms, squid dragons, things that looked like the offspring of grizzly bears and tyrannosaurs, or the spawn of giant spiders and bats. Twice we saw Humans. One was a beautiful woman in an evening gown dripping with diamonds and other gems. She was standing out there on the plains of Hell with a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and she shouted at me as we passed, “Excuse me! Sir! Excuse me! Can you give me directions out of here? I seem to be lost. Can you direct me to the train station?” I turned to Kanz and asked him, “Is there a train station nearby?” I meant it as a joke, but Kanz said to me, “No, the train station is leagues from here, and the trains haven’t run in centuries.” He stopped and shouted to the woman who was standing some distance from us, “Just walk straight ahead, Madam. You’ll see it.” “Oh, thank you very much,” the pretty lady said and immediately set out walking. She made it about a hundred yards before a thing that looked like a cross between a crocodile and a scorpion suddenly emerged from a hole in the ground and devoured her in one bite. The second Human we encountered was an old man, naked and covered in filth, who appeared from behind the wreckage of a B-52 bomber and announced to me, “Don’t worry, son; I know how to deal with these bastards.” He then attacked Kanz with his fists. The demon let the old man pummel him for a second or two before striking him in the forehead with his staff which dropped him to the ground with a thud. I looked at Kanz and asked him, “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain to me about these two. The people, I mean. The Humans.” “Well,” said Kanz, “They are both Humans, like you, born here in Hell. The woman’s the lucky one; the Pretagrex ate her, and now she’s dead and perhaps will be born again someplace other than Hell. Perhaps even Heaven, for all I know.” My jaw dropped, and my eyes widened. “Heaven?” I asked Kanz. “Heaven? Kanz, tell me about Heaven.” Kanz looked at me with his eyebrows raised and said, “Joe, I’m a damn demon, man. How much do you think I know about Heaven?” “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Besides,” said Kanz, “We’re home now. Here we are.” And he tapped his staff against the grey stone wall in front of us. One of those doors that only demons can open opened, and we went inside. I found myself in a familiar grey stone corridor. The demon and I proceeded down the corridor to my cell, Kanz opened the door, and we both went inside. And here I was again in Hell as I first knew it: a freezing cold, grey stone cell with only a three legged wooden stool beneath the window and the door that I knew would be invisible once closed. Kanz looked at me and said, “I want you to think about what we saw outside today, and I will see you soon. You have, as I have told you before a job to do, and it will begin shortly.” “I thought you were going to tell me about the people in the forest, the ones feasting and singing…” I began. But Kanz cut me off short. “And so I shall.” he said. “Very soon. I bid you goodbye, Joe.” And with a swish of his black robe, Kanz turned and in the same motion shut the door. I was alone again in my cell. Alone in Hell.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 23:23:17 +0000
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