Heaven and Hell (55 page)

“Hello?” she asked, reaching into her cloak and coming up with one of the glowing gems that Abaddon had provided her with. The shape of this one allowed it to create a beam, like a flashlight. She directed it toward the icy ground, scanning in the direction of the commotion. Then she saw it, perhaps 40 or 50 feet away. At first it looked like a rounded rock. She might have passed over it completely had it not moved slightly when the beam hit it. She hesitated before moving cautiously toward it. It wasn’t until she was about a dozen feet away that she realized that it was a head, a man’s head and a little bit of his neck, protruding up from the icy ground. He was facing in nearly the opposite direction, and ice and snow clung to his frozen hair and bluish skin.

“Who’s there?” asked the man, in a trembling voice. He tried to turn his head, but with little success.

“A friend,” answered Serena, drawing still closer.

“A friend?” gasped the man, “I don’t think I have any friends anymore. Not anymore, not here.”

Serena stepped around to see the man’s face, one blue with the cold and covered with crystals of ice. She knelt down before him.

“You’re not a demon?”

Serena shook her head. “No, of course not, I’m human just like you.” She reached out to touch his face; it was as cold as ice.”

“Yes,” was the response, “I can see that, but how?”

“It’s a long story,” said Serena. “I was just passing through. I’d stopped to rest, only to find you here.”

“Just passing through? Oh, that’s rich,” said the man, in a tone of voice that was either a laugh or a cry. Serena wasn’t quite sure which, yet there was a trace of madness in it. “You, you’re on the run, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m on the run.”

“I know what it’s like to be on the run,” gasped the man, apparently having trouble breathing. “I’d much rather be on the run, than be stuck here in this frozen hole.”

For a moment he seemed to be struggling, fighting to move his body; totally encased in the ice. It was an exercise in futility.

Serena was confused. She should have steered clear of this guy. She really didn’t want to be having this conversation. It reminded her of that half day traveling through Hell, traveling to her own demise. “Why…”

“Why did the devil send me here? Is that what you want to know, girly?” The man seemed agitated. “I was set up. I’ve always been set up. I was dealt a pretty lousy hand in life, not that anyone ever cared.” He tried to look Serena in the eyes. It was so difficult for him to move his head amid the dirty ice that surrounded him. “They said that I murdered them, that I murdered them all, they said it at my trial, and at my judgment. The state sentenced me to the gas chamber, and then God did the state one better, He sentenced me to Hell.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re innocent?”

“Hell, no,” the man said. “I don’t think you’d believe that. The jury didn’t, and neither did God; and He is supposed to know everything, right? I’m just saying that they had it coming, the ones I killed. They weren’t no angels, that’s for sure. The world was a whole lot better off without them.”

“You took a human life; but you have no remorse, do you?”

“Only that I got caught, that satan sentenced me to this place. He didn’t even have the nerve to do it to me himself, he had a couple of his flunkies bring me out here, almost naked, shackled hand and foot.

“They used some sort of crazy firebomb to melt this permafrost, or whatever you call it. It turned it into warm quicksand. Then they just threw me in and left. I thought I might have been able to get out of this stuff, but I couldn’t, not with my hands cuffed to this heavy belt around my waist, and my ankles shackled tight together. I had to really struggle just to keep my head above this stuff, to keep from drowning.”

“But you can’t drown here,” objected Serena.

The man chuckled in a way that made a chill course up Serena’s back. “Yeah, girly, I sort of figured that one out. I figured it out, even as this stuff started to freeze around me. If you don’t put up a fight you freeze in solid with your head beneath the ice. You suffocate as well as freeze. That’s even worse. Yeah, I just kept fighting, kept my head above water, even still, the pain was like a hundred knives being driven right through me, but it didn’t kill me…no, it just kept getting colder, hurting more.”

The man paused. “Soon I was frozen in solid, and the cold just kept going into me, deeper and deeper. You know, you get use to it eventually, you become sort of numb. Oh, it still hurts, but you learn to deal with it. At least some people do. You know, there are people out here in the ice that scream their heads off for hours at a time. Others don’t make a sound, cuz their totally buried in the ice.”

“There are others around here?”

“A whole bunch,” confirmed the man, “scattered out all over. Maybe the demons will catch you and plant you here with the rest of us. I wonder if you’ll just stand there like a rock or if you’ll scream like a stuck pig.” The man lifted his head as high into the air as he could. “Hey demons, I’ve got a live one for ya, fresh meat. Hey, don’t you hear me? Don’t you want her?”

Serena stepped back.

“You can plant her here right beside me,” he continued. “Even better, plant her right in front of me, facing this way. I’d just love to watch the look on her face for the rest of eternity.” Quite abruptly he grew silent and a broad smile came over his face. “Well, well,” he mumbled.

Serena was startled when she felt the hand on her shoulder. She spun around to see Abaddon standing right behind her.

“I asked you not to wander,” he said, in a patient tone.

“Hey, big fellow,” said the man in the ice, looking toward the dark angel, “why not plant this one right here beside me.”

Abaddon didn’t so much as acknowledge him. He looked to his companion. “Ready to go, Serena?”

“Yes, if you are,” she replied, drawing her dark cloak more tightly about her.

The man in the ice seemed confused. “Hey, I thought you guys were supposed hate humans. Well, torment her; plant her in the ice with the rest of us. During my life, I sent you guys a whole lot of girls, just like her. I sent ’em on the highway to Hell. The least you could do is give me a special girlfriend. Let me gaze into her eyes for the rest of eternity.”

Abaddon simply shook his head.

The man’s agitation grew as Abaddon drew Serena close to him. “Hey, who are you anyway?”

“I’m her ride,” replied the dark angel, bounding into the air with a single stroke of his wings, leaving the man in a cloud of dust and ice crystals. He continued to rave on wildly, yet neither Abaddon nor Serena could understand him, for they had already left him far behind.

“If we are going to survive as a team, you need to follow instructions,” said Abaddon. There was no anger in his voice at all. If anything, Serena detected a note of concern.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.

“Yes, I know you are,” confirmed Abaddon. “Did you learn anything useful from that man back there?”

“No, not really,” replied Serena. “There was something very disturbing about him. There was no repentance at all in his heart. I could feel it. Even the pains of Hell haven’t changed him. If he were to be released right now, I believe he would go back to his old ways. He would go on killing. Why do people have to be that way? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes, I know. Many, if not most, of the souls here are just that way.”

“There is just no peace in this place, not anywhere,” lamented Serena, who was nearly in tears now. “Even out here in the dark, in the ice and snow. Satan’s victims are everywhere. How can he keep hurting people? He’s just like that man back there, but with the power to hurt so many. Why doesn’t someone stop him? I don’t want to leave the island again, never again. I don’t even want to step outside the cavern.”

“Easy, Serena,” said Abaddon. “We’re flying home now. It is a long flight, but I am well rested. I do not believe that we will have any more trouble.”

Serena remained quiet as she watched the cold, hostile landscape slip farther below them. It grew even colder.

“This flight will be a difficult one,” continued Abaddon. “We will be flying very high to find a river of wind that sweeps forever westward around the globe of Hell. It will take us far above the realm of demons and shorten our sojourn, but the air will be thin and very cold. I know you will be uncomfortable, but I do not wish for any demons to follow us home. I shall endeavor to make this as fast a flight as possible.”

Ever higher the two ascended, toward the glowing auroral curtain above. Though Abaddon did everything within his power to make his companion comfortable, the cold and rare air made the trip, to say the least, miserable. Serena took deep breaths, yet they yielded little reward.

It was a few minutes before the great sea of fire appeared on the horizon, and as they crossed above it, the air seemed a little warmer. Serena tried to sleep but she couldn’t, it was just too cold.

Slowly the horizon before them brightened, becoming the familiar bow of blue, yet it took the form of a majestic arch, so great was their altitude. It became brighter and brighter, until Serena could almost imagine the location of the sun at its center, somewhere just beyond the glowing horizon.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” said Abaddon. “We are about twelve of your miles above the great sea. I doubt that any of your kind has ever seen what you are witnessing now.”

Yes, it was beautiful, but Serena’s discomfort made it very difficult to appreciate it. All she could think about was the cavern and being warm again. Then she saw it, a dark silhouette against the fiery sea below, it was their island home, they had made it.

Their descent was swift; so much so as to leave Serena’s ears in considerable pain. The air warmed as they swung in over the tiny archipelago, spiraling ever downward. They were beginning their final descent when a white figure standing at the very summit of the islands lone peak caught Serena’s eye. A demon? No it didn’t look like one. Even from here she could feel a spiritual radiance from this being. It was an angel! But what had brought an angel to this place? She heard a groan emanate from Abaddon.

“Well, well, who do we have here?” he said, scanning their visitor from above. He swept low over the peak to get a better look at their unexpected guest. “It appears to be one of Gabriel’s brood, a messenger. I suppose we shall have to see what business he has with us this day.”

Abaddon pirouetted in midair and touched down 20 feet from their visitor in white. He released Serena and stood there like a statue, his wings folded.

Serena stepped forward eyeing their visitor, then she recognized him. Yes, this was the same angel! Before she could speak, Abaddon addressed their unexpected guest. “Welcome to my home, Aaron. I hadn’t thought to see you again.”

The angel nodded. “Peace be with you, Abaddon, and with you, Serena Davis.”

Serena Davis, not Serena Farnsworth, what had happened? Serena was full of questions, yet before even a single one of them could be asked, Aaron produced from his cloak a large envelope. By now Aaron couldn’t help but smile slightly. “Serena Davis; this communication is addressed to you.”

“For me?” she gasped, taking the letter in hand. She looked at it carefully. Like all proper letters of her time, this one had a return address; Christopher Davis, Heaven. She fell to her knees, tears of joy pouring from her eyes. “It’s a miracle!”

“Yes,” confirmed Aaron, placing a kind hand upon the weeping woman. “Your husband approached me this very day, handed this letter to me. He instructed me to deliver it here to you, a task I more than gladly fulfill. He remembers you, Serena. He told me that he remembers everything. It is a thing for which I have no explanation.”

“Let us retreat to the safety of the caverns,” suggested Abaddon. “Something is indeed wrong. Satan’s minions are on high alert, for reasons I cannot understand.”

Both Abaddon and Aaron assisted Serena to her feet and the three descended down the treacherous path to the cavern entrance. Serena held on tightly to the envelope, caressing it with her hand. She would open it after they were safely inside.

“I have been awaiting your return for several hours,” said Aaron. “I was about to depart.”

“Thank God you didn’t,” said Serena, walking between the two angels. “This is the most precious gift I have ever received.”

Serena considered their situation for a moment. “I take it that the two of you already know each other. Is that true with all angels?”

There was a pause. “Yes, Serena, that is indeed true, but our relationship is somewhat deeper than that, isn’t it, Aaron?” There was something about Abaddon’s tone of voice. Serena could sense an air of thinly veiled hostility about it.

“Yes,” replied Aaron. “We have worked together before, a very long time ago.”

Again silence, a silence that Serena seemed unable to dispel. They walked into the cavern entrance and toward the great room. Serena wasted no time opening the envelope and sitting down in her favorite chair to read it. The two angels watched. The animosity that existed between them seemed temporarily dispelled by their mutual concern for Serena as she read the wonderful letter:

My Lovely Serena, I miss you terribly. I am so sorry I left you behind. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. From the instant I entered the tunnel of light, until just a few days ago, the memory of you had been almost wiped from my mind. Yet, so strong was our love, that it bridged the great void between Heaven and Hell. You came to me in my dreams, stirring my memory, until I came to my senses, remembering all that I had lost. I came to realize that Heaven without you was somehow empty, eternity without you was empty. A letter is a poor substitute for being with you, yet it is all we have, for now. No one here in Heaven remembers their loved ones lost in Hell. I think that it is in God’s plan that I have remembered you. I still believe that there is some hope for us.