Highway To Hell (34 page)

Nobody spoke for a few minutes. The banishing of Nakir – for they all knew that was what it had been – left them all ill at ease. The humming sound continued to push its way into their ears, and for the first time since they had gathered to listen to that what they must be told, they noticed Sammy’s eyes. They were bleeding, not as though someone had taken a knife and divided an artery, but certainly more than the weepy nature of the crusted over wounds would have warranted under any normal circumstances. Even Sammy raised a hand to them and felt the sticky residue on his fingers as he pulled them away.

“They’re not too bad. Honest, just a bit… wet, that’s all,” Becky lied to him. She knew she was lying, and worst of all she knew that Sammy knew it, but it was what he needed to hear. She had been in the position where a small and completely unconvincing lie had been the best medicine.

Nemamiah noticed it also, as did Sariel, but neither moved to offer any help: instead they looked once more at the ground and then decided to continue with their tales.

“The concept of multiple layers and worlds within the fabric of your own can be a tough one, but at this moment in time it is not imperative that you understand, but simply believe. Understand that Lucifer means to take much more than just your world and those that exist within it. He looks to claw his way back into the heavens and this time he is strong enough and has an army large enough to be a real threat to the balance.” Nemamiah accented his words and mimicked mortal speech as best he knew, and could see on their faces – with the exception of Graham – that they were at least willing to consider what he had told them.

“Okay, but what can we do? I mean, you said that you guys, sorry, I mean the angels, have been fighting Lucifer for a long time. I don’t understand what we can do; I mean, you have stated our insignificant stature in the overall balance of the universe several times, so why are we here? Why pull us out of Hell, and not some other creature, a clan of warriors or… or… I don’t know, something more useful. I just don’t get it.” Marcus posed the questions, but they were all a variation of the same one that danced on all of their lips. He had one arm crossed over his stomach and the elbow of the other rested on the enveloping forearm. Marcus scratched his chin as he tried to think and stay at least one step ahead of the game, or in this case as few steps behind as possible.

Nemamiah considered this for a second, his head tilted slightly to one side. He looked at Marcus, and opened his mouth several times before closing it, trying to find the right words for the occasion. “You of all people, Marcus, should understand the concept of fighting for a cause that you cannot fully explain. You dedicated your life to fighting the very things we now speak of. The low level sentient beings that manage to slip through the openings that appear or those that use battle as a cover, fleeing when our eyes are diverted.” Nemamiah’s answer was vague, yet Marcus nodded. He thought he understood.

“It is God’s will that you help; He gave us your names and told us to pull you from Hell. You all died a death that was not due; you were all plucked from the earth by something, and that has never happened before, not to the extent it did with yourselves. You were sent straight to the judgment chambers. You should have been sent to one of the grey worlds to await your trials.” Nemamiah did all of the talking now.

“So what made us so special?” Becky asked.

Marcus turned his head to face Becky as she spoke, and in doing so he caught a glimpse of the look which had set itself on Graham’s face. It was as if the wind had changed direction and frozen it in a look that was not anger but one of worn patience. It spoke volumes to Marcus. Graham was clearly exasperated, because, despite it all, everybody seemed to be coming round to the ideas being presented to them – everyone apart from him, that was. Graham thought it a waste of their time. He wanted to get through this and then either wake up or simply move onto the next stage of his afterlife.

Becky was scared by the possible reaction her words may have elicited from the angels, even as she said them. She knew what she had experienced in Hell, she knew that was where she had been, and deservedly so in her own eyes.

“Nothing makes you special, not that we can tell. Your deaths were unique; they were random; you were victims of circumstance. The portals opened exactly where you all were. It has long been rumored that Lucifer was searching for something in your reality, something that was lost when he fell, and we took this to be a signal of his intent, so we intervened,” Sariel said, his tone one of moderate – forced – enthusiasm.

“We all died at the same time? That must be something special, surely; you said these portals were difficult to use yet five of them managed to open up and swallow us simultaneously.” Marcus didn’t speak but rather speculated his mind.

“Truth be told, for this is what you must hear, there were more than just the five of you, and your deaths were not simultaneous. Marcus Fielding, you died in 2009; Graham, your wonderful skeptic, died a few months later. Helen, here, you were pulled back in 2007; Sammy, you left your car and girlfriend wrapped together a half year before that in late 2006; and, Becky, well, you obviously share your date with Marcus. Everything happens for a reason; we angels do not believe in coincidence, as you would have it phrased.” Nemamiah was quick with his information, rattling it off like one of those pitching machines used in batting cages and tennis courts. “We do not have time for questions; you must all be educated on what is happening. There are battles that do currently and soon will rage, and you must learn how you are to play your part in our war. I beg of you, please, listen to me now.” Nemamiah held his hands outstretched, palms facing upwards, his request a genuine plea for all ears to be cast in his direction, questions held until after the sermon and a change in venue.

The humming noise began to drown out the sound of Nemamiah’s words. Turning them vague and diluted, muffled somehow, like talking inside a night club. The ground now had also started to groan, growling as if digesting a large meal; Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas dinner. The ground beneath their feet had begun to move. It was softening, melting as the intense heat below continued to worm its way up to the surface. The all found themselves adjusting their balance and foot positions regularly. If they stood still for too long they were sucked into the ground the same way your feet disappear into the sand when you stand in the surf.

“You asked about our battles, and yes, the war between Heaven and Hell as you view it is not the signal of the Armageddon, unless you will acknowledge that the final battle began millennia ago and is but nearing its conclusion.” Nemamiah paused for a moment, then continued, “Lucifer is powerful and as his empire grows so does his strength. He is driven by anger and rage, emotions that when harnessed are stronger than all others. We have not seen him for many generations now, but he has been changed, the same way our other fallen brothers and the beings he caught as he fell were changed. The problem is that his empire is built from not one thing, but many worlds crafted together, crossing through the dimensions and portals of time. It is a fragile place, forever shifting and changing its position, and as Lucifer changes, his control lessens. It is in these periods of change that many sentient lower grade beings escape. The majority of the time these shifts simply move them to another place within their own world. Yet sometimes they land in a light world, one inhabited by those who are righteous, or, like your world, one filled with those yet to request judgment. It is only once they arrive here that we will learn of it and the problem will be dealt with.” He paused, his face pensive as he tried to search for the right –
simplest –
words to use.

“However,” Nemamiah continued after his brief period of thought, “we cannot be everywhere, we are not omnipresent; sometimes we are simply too late. If a being enters a world of the righteous, or your own,” he added with a snort of disgust, “then they will do the one thing that they know, and that is to collect. They will gather en-masse like a harvest.”

“Earthquakes; you’re talking about earthquakes, aren’t you? I mean, shifting pieces of ground, a lot of people dying.” It was Marcus once again who drew all the conclusions, yet once it was said the others saw it too. It was embarrassingly obvious when they thought about it.

Nemamiah regarded them with a look that was hard to place but when pushed the closest would have been pride. The sort of look a parent gives their child when watching the school play or seeing them score the winning goal in a soccer game. He wasn’t necessarily surprised that they had figured it out, but was just pleased with the speed they had done it in. He could read it from all of their faces – even the old man – that they understood as a group.

“Yes, but what you feel and see in your world it is not a result of a shift, but from the force of the portals when they open; the ones that open into your world, the world you all came from. It is key you understand that you all came from the same world, the same time, and the same plane of existence. The force of the gateways opening pushes around the plates that cover your planet and creates what you call earthquakes. In fact, the same applies for everything you consider a ‘man-made’ disaster.” While he didn’t use air-quotes, when he spoke the word ‘man-made’ they all had an image in their minds of Nemamiah doing so. It was the tone his voice took on when he said it. Thankfully – or so they thought later on when looking back on this first fateful day – Nemamiah didn’t seem to notice and continued to talk unbroken. “Earthquakes and hurricanes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are all the result of portals being opened. Those who perish are taken regardless of their worth, their righteousness. Sometimes we arrive in time; we see the signs building the same way you humans can do with your machines and the technology we allow you to develop.”

“Seismologists,” Graham scoffed. His contempt for the angel was now clearer than ever. “You’re telling us that seismologists have been able to track the battles of Heaven and Hell, and that earthquakes are little snippets of Hell that escape into our world.” He laughed as he spoke, not with joy, but rather a vicious sounding laugh, and it made the colors of Nemamiah’s face darken several shades.

“He’s mad,” Sammy whispered to Becky, who had loosened her arm around him, although they still leant against one another not for support but for the company. “He isn’t so bright any more, but kind of flickering like an old lightbulb,” he added.

“Hey, come on, Graham, don’t you think after all that we’ve been through we can be a little bit open-minded about this?” Becky said, pausing before speaking his name, having overcoming a strong notion to call him either old-timer or Nigel. The latter name, she had no idea of its origins in her mind, but then again given the way that the humming sound had now embedded inside her skull and thoughts it was possible that the name Nigel was simple a result of black noise.

As the humming increased, they all noticed that it began to sound less musical and more like moaning. It was Becky who recognized it first, for it sounded similar – if not less agonized – to the groans of thousands of humans having their skin peeled from their bodies after being roasted on an open fire like Christmas chestnuts. Her skin crawled and she found herself listening to the sound rather than the words being spoken. She could feel herself getting lost in it somehow, as if it created a maze inside her mind, one that twisted and turned, and the more she followed it the harder it would be to find her way back out again. She wasn’t sure of it, but guessed that the others all felt similar things, given the strained look on their faces.

“You are a non-believer. Even after everything you have been forced through, you disbelieve. Well, fine, don’t believe, but remember that I pulled you out of that Hell ground myself, and the moment I feel you overstep the mark, I will throw you back myself. I’ll reunite you with that rotting young girl whose life you took and leave her to have you in any way she sees fit. Just remember that as you keep your mouth shut.” Nemamiah was calm as he spoke, although the rage on his face and the obvious anger in his words made his rage clear. The words had that parental effect and tone to them, the same one used to deliver the famous,
‘I’m not angry with you, just disappointed’
speech. The one that crushes you and has more effect than any bellowed argument or length of grounding could even hope to accomplish.

Graham said nothing, and when he saw the whole party turn to look at him, like the naughty boy in school, he felt himself shrink back a little. He bit his tongue. Even for an old cynic like himself, the existence of God could no longer be denied. He had been to Hell, he had seen an angel, and was now about to watch a world be consumed whole. You cannot have one without the other, that was common knowledge in all walks of life, and so to have a Hell, there must be the other.

Before he continued talking, even Nemamiah raised his hands to his head and massaged his temples. Beside her, Becky felt Sammy begin to sway on his feet.

His eyes had begun to pulse, as if behind each blood encrusted socket was a small heart, seeping its precious cargo a little more with each rhythmical pulse.

“We do not have enough time to discuss everything, so I must be brief. I can feel the barrier breaking and the worlds merging. I’m sure you can, too, although it will sound different to each one of you, just as Hell itself is unique at many levels,” Nemamiah said, with his head lowered, hands still rubbing his temples, and when he took them away it looked as though he had worn through the thin skin that covered them, for where his thumbs had been circling, a bright light shone through, like a torch beneath a child’s bed covers or seen through a tent while camping late at night, telling ghost stories. Finally he was ready to carry on his monologue – without any further interruptions.

“What I say is what it is, how it is, and there will be no more questions,” he said to the group, but they all knew who his comment was intended for. “It is not only these earthquakes, as you call them, that mark Lucifer’s progress; more often than not a demon simply makes a lucky choice with the portal he takes and finds himself in your when and where. The same is for hurricanes and – what is it – twisters, it is strange that they descend from above while in fact they bring those from beneath up to the surface. It is dependent on the proximity of the portal to your world. The same is for the battles. You have all been witness to them, many times, yet they occur in a time different to yours, so that only the slightest of blows is felt. Thunderstorms, you call them: a clap of rumbling sound and a strike of pure brilliant energy. We are surprised that in spite of the large level of religious fervor in your world, nobody has yet made any concrete connections.” He had sidetracked himself, but without even a pause in the flow of his words, Nemamiah brought the conversation around and continued. “The storms are where you come in, for those who die in a thunderstorm, as a direct result of the storm, being touched by the lightning, or having their head implode as a clap of thunder rolls through their body, are people taken before their time, struck down in a fury. Friendly fire is the phrase you have created for it. Their souls are lost, banished from the world, and often they are grabbed by the beings who stand in wait along the edges of Lucifer’s kingdom like sentries. Others fall into the Purgatory realms, and are left to fend for themselves, for we have no way of tracking them…”