A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Hell Today: Chapter Two

My Headlong Dive through the Looking Glass

Of course, my entrance wasn’t all that inconspicuous. Not unsurprisingly you can’t just walk into Hell. That’s a good thing if you think about it, sort of guarantees that no one bumbles into it accidentally, and gives a certain sense of confidence that no one can just leak out. Whatever Michael did seemed to have triggered a lightning storm, and I came in right through it. Everything went topsy turvy for twelve or thirteen seconds while I flipped head over heel trying to find my feet, and then I was very abruptly standing under my own power in a billowing cloud of sand.

When the dust cleared and I had a firm handle on my stomach again, I blinked my eyes open and found myself standing in what appeared to be an abandoned circus in the middle of the desert. Faded tents that had seen better centuries were scattered haphazardly around in a disorienting pattern. Carnival wagons with split wooden sides and peeling paint listed dangerously against the wind. Over the tops of the tents I could even see the glint of rides, including a ponderously turning Ferris wheel with half the seats hanging by only one chain. It brought to mind that old psalm about the tents of the wicked and I couldn’t help thinking I’d rather be peeling grapes for dung beetles in Heaven than standing here on the brink of Hell.

The first thing that beckoned me was the arching gate with its altered sign. It spanned the width of a highway leading toward a smudge of light just barely visible through the hazy desert that I had to assume would be more populated than this abandoned place. Though why someone would abandon a circus out here was anyone’s guess. I slowly approached that gate, glancing around to see if there were any three-headed dogs lurking in the shadows. You know, just in case.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” I muttered under my breath. Truth to tell, there was very little about this place to inspire hope. I glanced to one side and noted an old wood-sided wagon with a perversion of the clown’s prayer spray-painted on the side: Let me create more tears than laughter, dispense more gloom than happiness, and spread more despair than cheer. I’d never been partial to circuses in general, and empty they seem even creepier. An empty, abandoned circus on the outskirts of perdition? Count me out.

Still, with no other recourse left to me, I turned up my collar and shuddered miserably. Who would have ever thought Hell would be cold? Good call on the trench coat. A Bermuda short would be less than useless down here. “So this is Hell.”

“Actually no,” a dry voice answered my entirely rhetorical statement. “Hell proper is that way, this is only a waystation on the road to damnation.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, spinning to face my unknown companion. Spotting him, I felt a cold hand close itself around my heart, and had to bite my tongue to keep myself from exclaiming in shock. The owner of the voice was a white-faced clown complete with oversized clothes, overdone hair, mangy everything else, and fangs. That’s right. Fangs.

A flicker of movement caught my eye and I glanced sideways, noting the figure of a hunched over old carney-looking demon with scraggly hair and broken teeth that stood in the shattered doorway of the funhouse (whose name was crossed out to read Mad House). I turned my head and saw another one wearing an apron and a paper hat by a cotton candy stand that appeared to be spinning something red and stringy which was clearly not cotton candy.

I suppressed a shudder of revulsion, and my gaze swept over the sudden crowd materializing out of the gloom. I realized more than a little nervously that this circus was anything but abandoned. As a matter of fact, it teemed with movement. A strange assortment of demons that fit weirdly well with the circus theme in every twisted sense of the imagination now surrounded me.

Doing my best to look like I fit in, I glanced in the direction he’d pointed. There appeared to be a ticket barrier set up under the gate complete with turnstiles and ticket booths. Somehow I had the feeling that barrier was constructed more along the lines of keeping people in rather than out. “That way?”

The clown grinned, showing off more of his fangs. “Of course, you’d know that… if you really belonged here.” He straightened up and began inching closer in a way that made me very uncomfortable.

“Believe me,” I muttered, forcing myself to stay rooted in place. “I don’t think anyone belongs here.”

A maniacal laugh drew my attention away from the clown and I spotted the ringmaster. The actual ringmaster, that is, with a top hat that barely concealed the short horns sprouting from his forehead. This place hadn’t skipped any of the details, apparently, and the demons had wholly embraced their theme.

See the thing about demons, no one really knows where they came from. Well, no one but the big guy upstairs, and He hasn’t exactly gone out of his way to loop the rest of us in. There are all sorts of theories of course—twisted souls devolved after millennia in the Pit, the children of Adam’s first wife Lilith, an aberration created by Satan himself. All nice theories in general, but not a single one substantiated by a shred of evidence. Especially considering that while there was a first man, and a first woman to which were granted souls, pretty much everything else from the creation myths are complete machinations. But standing here, facing the demon fancy dress squad, I suddenly found myself inclining toward the different species end of the spectrum. Because no soul, no matter how demented, would ever choose to be a crazy clown in this circus.

“What’s with the theme party?” I asked, waving my hand around to take in the weirdness.

The ringmaster glanced about, a faint trace of amusement on his twisted features. “Don’t recognize it?” he grinned at me, “I’ll admit it looked a lot better back in its heyday, and the audiences have been a bit thin these past ten thousand years or so, but this place was once a sanctuary the likes of which you’ve never seen.” He started low, building to a booming pitch befitting his getup.

Sanctuary. The word triggered a memory and I looked around again. My eyes were drawn up to the banner billowing in the wind. ULTIMI PARADISI. The Last Shores of Paradise.

Sanctuary was the last bastion of the First War where the forces of Heaven cast down the wicked and closed up the gates of Hell. I’d actually been here before, back then. Of course it looked a lot different in those days. Once, it was a fortress of high walls and battlements. On one side were the forces of Heaven, and on the other was Hell. The rules of engagement have changed a couple times since the dawn of time, and the fortress was long ago abandoned and relinquished back to the denizens of this sad dimension. Apparently, keeping up the place wasn’t high on Satan’s priority list.

I resisted the urge to swear. Michael’s little mirror trick had landed me directly at Hell’s own front door—right smack dab in the middle of Hell’s own unwelcome party, emphasis on unwelcome.

“Is that so?” My eyes grazed the perimeter and took anxious note of the many, many demons surrounding me. “Well, I’m sorry to have missed the glory days. Guess I’ll have to come back when you’ve got the act cleaned up.”

“We don’t get many newcomers around here these days,” he purred. The sound of it was like taking sandpaper to an open wound. His gleaming eyes glittered while he examined me. “You look… clean.”

Yeah, none of that screamed stranger danger! “I showered before I fell.”

He chuckled a bit at that. “Well let me be the first to welcome you, then. Ad descensus vocat! The descent beckons!” He spoke the last bit in that same booming voice that echoed off the storm-laden sky and made the dust shake out of the air.

“What’s with all the Latin in this place?” I muttered under my breath.
He didn’t answer that. Instead he asked, “What brings you down here, friend?”

He used the word friend but I doubted he knew what it meant. “I had an unfortunate run-in with an Arch and he felt compelled to relocate me to a more distant locale,” I answered honestly. It’s always good to stick with honesty, especially down here, even if it is a little creative. Heaven only knows what little misstep an angel has to make to earn a permanent change of address.

“You boys sure know how to throw out the welcome wagon,” my eyes fixed on the crowd of demons edging in. “And I do mean throw out.”
A round of cackling laughs echoed my words, and the ringmaster stepped nearer. “You planning to go on into the city?” he asked, a strange hunger to his words.

I shifted ever so slightly away from him. “That was the intent.”
“Well then, friend, don’t let us stand in your way.” He gestured toward the arch and its ticket stands. “Toss a coin to the devil, and pass freely through.”

“A what now?” I frowned, ignoring the melody now playing on a loop in my head.

The white-faced clown who first greeted me leered in, “Sounds like you don’t have a coin to spend, doesn’t it?”

I dug in my pants pocket and came up with a dollar bill. “Don’t suppose this spends well down here, does it?”

This elicited actual squeals of delighted laughter from everyone, the sort of laughter that sent splinters of glass up my spine. “You hear that boys?” the ringmaster announced giddily, “The newcomer can’t pay!”

Swallowing back the rising taste of unpleasantness, I pivoted just enough to keep most of the demons around me in view. “So if that isn’t it, then what do you want?”

The clown shuffled forward, now flanking the ringmaster, fangs bared and bloody. The ringmaster himself was looking a little Hannibal Lecterish as he leered at me. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had any good entertainment around here. I bet you’d look pretty dangling on a string.”
Right. That’s my cue.

I turned toward the gates and found my way barred by the filthiest assortment of creatures I’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. Little impish demons half-in and half-out of clown makeup, gargantuan demons as strongmen, lithe demons as acrobats, demons on stilts, demons with snakes, demons with bearded feminine faces, demons riding demonic horses, and somewhere off to the side, something that looked a bit like a demon elephant. I was starting to feel like I hadn’t brought enough ammunition.

“You know,” the ringmaster growled, drawing my attention back to him. “I can’t actually remember the last time we had a new face pass through here.”

“Oh?” I asked, my eyebrows going up as I tried to play for time. “Judging by the conditions topside, I’d figure you’ve got souls passing through here all the time.”

The ringmaster shrugged, inching closer to me with the crowd on his heels. “Souls, sure, but that’s not what you really are, is it?”

Feeling very uncomfortable now, I tucked a hand in one pocket and wondered which of these junk drawer items would get me out of here quickest. “Oh?”

“You think we can’t smell a fallen a mile away?”

Fallen? Of course. I glanced at my coat. Apparently Michael’s idea of hiding my “more angelic nature” was to simply conceal my grace. And here I’d been hoping to pass as mortal. I shrugged off the thought.

“Here?” my eyebrows rose, “I’d be surprised if you could smell anything over the stench of shite”

This elicited a raucous round of laughter that was loud enough to split the sky open, and I found myself glancing longingly at the arched gateway. I’d never really thought I’d willingly hitchhike my way to the center of Hell, but honestly, if that was the only way out of this freak show, I’d take it in a second.

“The newcomer’s got a point, boys!”

Another round of disturbingly creepy laughter.

Mr. Ringmaster leered at me. “Look around,” he spread his mangy arms wide. “We freaks of the underworld have you outnumbered, featherhead. You came through the wrong door this time.”

Of course Hell would have a caste system, and it looked like the Devil had kicked the trash to the curb when he set up his throne. Honestly, I couldn’t really argue with his choices, in this matter at least.

“We’ve no place in Heaven,” the demon drawled on, “and no home in Hell. And we get mighty hungry out here with nothing but the leftover bones to chew on.” His eyes and horns gleamed. “But just look at you, a tasty little chicken nugget just ripe for roasting!”

Yep, I’d definitely seen about as much of this place as I wanted to see. My hand closed around a random item—Michael’s instructions to use them sparingly flying out the window—when a rumbling roar grew over the noise of the circus and the howling winds.

The ringmaster cursed and tore his hat off, stomping on it with both hooved feet.

Curiously, I turned toward the noise and saw a line of motorcycles charging toward us, kicking up a good-sized dust storm in their wake. Demons scattered on all sides as the bikes rode recklessly through their midst. They carved a path all the way up to the gate, a few staying back as if to guard the turnstiles, while the rest roared on toward me.

“Great,” I muttered, “more guests. Just what this party needs.”

The bikes came to a skidding stop about twenty feet away and I got my first good, up close look at a fallen down here. And I gotta say, these guys had not aged well. It almost hurt on a visceral level to look at them. Now, I’ve seen plenty of fallen of course, and more than my share of demons. But that’s usually topside when they’re coming at me with overlarge meat cleavers, or vying over the latest batch of human souls. I’ve never seen a fallen in Hell, and once I got past the swirling tattoos and grimy beards… it wasn’t pretty.

The thing most people don’t really think about is that every fallen is still an angel. We’re all made of the same spirit and fire, just like Hitler and Ghandi shared the same breath and clay. That means that every fallen down here was once just like me. The only difference between us now is where we chose to reside—within grace or without it. Some might think angels hate the fallen, but that isn’t the way of it at all. Because angels can’t hate, it just isn’t in our makeup. And even if it were, how could we hate our own brothers?

There’s not a one of us who doesn’t remember the tragedy of the First War. And there’s not a one of us who doesn’t weep for what we had to do.
These guys didn’t look like they needed any tears shed over them though. In fact, most of them already had those tears tattooed on their cheeks. They straddled their bikes, engines idling loudly, and more than a few pulled out shotguns or swords from the sheaths on those bikes. Fortunately, they didn’t point any of those weapons at me.

Their leader—or who I assumed was in charge given his presence—levelled a scathing look at the demon circus before turning a glare on me. “All the ways to land down here, and you chose the front door?” he rumbled.

I shrugged, “I’m out of practice.”

“Uh huh.” Hell’s very own angel turned back toward the carneys. “You know the rules, if they’ve got the coin to pay, you let ‘em pass.”

Coin? There that was again.

The leader of Hell’s biker gang side-eyed me. “I sure hope you’ve got the coin, friend. Otherwise…” he grimaced and glanced meaningfully back at the demons, “you know the boss’s rules.”

Coin!

I patted my pockets down frantically, hoping I hadn’t lost the blasted thing in the tornado that brought me to Oz. In the small pocket of my pants I felt the cool, flat surface of Michael’s parting gift. Thank you, commander. Withdrawing it, I held it up between two fingers.

The grumbling growl that came from the circus folk sounded like low thunder. Turning toward the gate and feeling slightly more confident with Satan’s enforcers at my back, I strode toward the arch with its turnstiles.

I walked up to the fallen now standing beside his bike at the gate, beefy arms crossed over a broad chest. He glared down at me through glowing red eyes. I wasn’t sure about the etiquette in Hell, but didn’t think it was too polite to just walk by him without at least a nod of recognition. And if I could get any information from these guys, it was worth a shot. “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” I murmured a bit hesitantly.

His expression didn’t shift, “Why should I be surprised to see another angel fall?” his reply carried an eternity of bitterness, and he jerked a thumb toward the gate. “City’s that way,” he indicated, “this is our territory, and we don’t share. So leave if you can.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other to him, “Or become demon chow.”

I glanced back and saw the gang leader and his men right where I left them, all eyes on me now. Holding my breath, I turned back to the turnstile and dropped the coin into the slotted box. For a second nothing happened, and I could practically feel the demons leaning towards me in anticipation of a bloody feast. Then there was a slight electronic buzz, and a green light flashed. Quickly, before it changed its mind, I stepped through the rotating arms.

From the other side I looked back at the bike gang. They stood in place with clearly no intention of crossing over behind me. “You aren’t coming?” I couldn’t help the words slipping from my mouth.

The leader of the enforcers dipped his chin at me, “No place in the city for the likes of us. Boss prefers we stay out here. We like it better too.”
Well that wasn’t at all cryptic.

He eyed the highway behind me, “Hope you like wandering in the desert. It ain’t a short hike.”

A huffed a laugh at that and turned to face the blowing red sands and empty highway stretching out before me. I’d managed forty years in the desert with Moses, and while that man may have hated public speaking, he sure was a storyteller. Just one yarn from him felt like forty years all on its own.

I tucked my scarf up over my face and turned up the collar of my coat, trying hard to block the AC/DC guitar riffs from my head. Lightning laced between earth and sky all around me as I set out.

Out on the desert flats I could hear the howl of souls so alone and filled with anguish they could not even hear the howls of the other souls all around them. If I squinted hard enough, I could even see them standing against the wind while the sand slowly abraded away their very sense of self. These were the sinners of despair, the suicides and hopeless ones who lived alone and died alone.

As I squinted at them through the haze, I realized with a growing sort of horror that it wasn't sand filling the air. It was souls. Little pieces of these poor pathetic beings as they howled in their anguish, disintegrating into dust, carried by the wind to add to the very storm tearing them apart. And there were thousands of them. Millions maybe. Billions if I was doing the math right in my head. None stood more than a few inches from another, each close enough to reach out and touch, but not a one of them did. The howling loneliness that ripped through this desert, that filled their keening cries with agony, lent such a vast sense of emptiness to the air I'd thought I was alone. But I wasn't. None of us were.

Fun fact: About the only thing Dante got right about this place was the circles. That is, they exist. Oh he royally screwed up the order and their purposes in his social satire, but aside from that minor point of poetic license, he was on the right track. I didn’t have a Virgil to guide me, just a few snippets of information from the commander’s black file, but I’d gleaned that much. And if I'm not mistaken I was standing in the largest outermost circle, fondly known as the Desert of Despair. It might make a nice summer home if it wasn’t for the wind and the sand, and you know, the complete lack of anything resembling hope. It’s also one of the biggest levels, stretching out as a wasteland in all directions and as utterly alone as one can feel out here. But of course, not empty. Never empty. The truly sad part is that these poor lonely souls never reach out to realize that.

That’s the thing about Hell a lot of people don’t realize. Oh we’ve all seen the paintings and read the classics that depict this place as a fiery furnace which promises exquisite tortures hand-picked to suit the sinner’s state of life. And while there’s as much truth to those as there is to Dante’s tale, they mostly get it wrong. You see, the only thing that really gets you thrown down here is the very thing that created this place to begin with—the absence of God. There are a lot of roads that lead to Heaven, some way more bumpy than others, but only one highway to Hell. Simple as that. And the very thing that got you set down, whatever it was that created that breach, well that’s what you’re cursed with for the rest of eternity. And have a nice day.

I turned away from the miserable wretches surrounding me and tried to focus on the road and that smudge of light growing gradually brighter in the distance. If my quarry was out here in this desert it was going to take more than a few eternities to sort through and find him. I hoped fervently that wouldn't be the case, because if it was, he'd be dust before I got to him. And then I'd have to spend another several eternities gathering all of his grains. Not that I wouldn't, I just really didn't want to. But its not like there's a big flashing sign reading, “Domingo Santiago This Way” though, much as I could have used one.

I couldn’t really say how long I walked that lonely sand-blasted highway with the aching howls of the damned thrumming in my ears before a vague shape started to appear through the sand-filled sky. At first I thought it was a hallucination, because it was a big flashing neon sign. It wasn't until I was almost right up on it that I could see it said LUCKY'S DINER in big block letters. The K was burned out though, and the rest of the letters were flickering with every gust like they'd go at a moment's notice too.

I wasn't feeling particularly lucky, but I was glad to spot something somewhat resembling civilization out here. The souls around me seemed to be avoiding the place, which didn't exactly give me warm fuzzies, but that didn't stop me from approaching either. What appeared to be an old gas station and general store materialized out of the haze, with the sort of Americana diner that dots the western highways beside it. It was mostly deserted, but the diner appeared to be occupied. Well aware that I was probably going to regret it, I turned toward the diner anyway and headed for the door, wondering idly if they served good coffee in Hell.