Letters From Hades Read online

  The next cramped street I found myself in didn’t have the rows of strung skeletons dangling above it, and was something of a modest marketplace. Clothing folded on tables, pots and pans hanging on hooks, pottery glazed in glum colors, soaps and candles. There weren’t many foodstuffs to be had; a few vendors had nothing to offer but baskets of those white pumpkin-like gourds, and several others displayed tubs of ice in which were presented crabs like those that had swarmed across the volcanic plain outside Caldera. There were some salt-cured, eel-like creatures, as hideous as deep-sea fish, hanging by their tails from one makeshift booth. They had no eyes, but fangs overflowed their protruding jaws. I pointed them out to a Muslim woman swaddled in black, who waited in line to make a purchase.

  "Is there an ocean or a large body of water near here?"

  "There is the Red Sea, near here. But these fish do not come from the sea."

  "Where do they come from?"

  Her dark eyes, all that showed of her, narrowed intensely and her voice was gravely confidential. "They are mostly found in the Valley of Steam. They swim through the air…and a sufficient number of them can devour a man so quickly that they will eat him again and again before he can fully renew his body. One attacked by them could spend months trying to crawl far enough away from the valley to entirely regrow his form."

  I nodded. "Um. Thanks. Well…I guess it’s only fair that we eat them, too, huh?"

  "They’re quite good," she told me.

  I wandered on, further scanning the market’s comestible wares. There were big canvas sacks and tall woven baskets of what appeared to be a kind of grain (from which the city’s bread is made, I gathered)—at least this stuff seemed fairly abundant. Here and there, a number of wooden trays exhibited gnarled roots that looked like the deformed and swollen hands of old women. But there was not much else to be seen, at least in this street, that indicated that many edibles found their way even to such a densely populated center of commerce as Oblivion.

  However, I did see a man in a blood-caked apron pushing a wheelbarrow down the cobblestoned sidewalk, and in it was a huge slab of crimson meat marbled with fat and sinew. I thought it must be from one of those large animals that are provided for hominids, aborigines, Native Americans and others who predated the Son’s coming, to hunt for flesh and fur. But there was something disturbingly anthropomorphic about the shape of this butchered carcass. My eyes flicked to the doorway the aproned man had emerged from moments before, which had been held open for him by a similarly gory assistant.

  In the front window of this shop, the headless and limbless torsos of three wooden mannequins hung from hooks. On each mannequin was painted a word: WALSH’S. FINE. MEATS.

  "Oh…no," I muttered to myself, drifting toward that illuminated showcase yet unable to will myself to go into the store itself. But I did touch the arm of a man on his way toward the threshold.

  "Are those…do they sell human meat in there?"

  "New?"

  "Me? Yes, fairly."

  He smiled. "Good meat is scarce in Hell."

  "But to eat other people! To kill other people! Don’t the Demons torment us enough, without people doing things like this to each other?" I ranted.

  The man held up his beefy hands. He was burly, thick-necked, looked like he had enjoyed many a good steak in his mortal span. "Hey, hey…calm down…maybe there are other butchers who take their meat from unwilling victims, but Walsh doesn’t do that. His supplies are all donated. He pays good cash for them."

  "You mean…people sell their own bodies?"

  "Sure. Why not? Getting your head cut off is a lot to go through." He shrugged. "But your body grows back, right? And if you’re desperate enough for money, it’s a good way to make a nice pocketful."

  "It’s insane! I can’t believe anyone would debase himself selling his body like that…let alone eating someone else’s body!"

  "Hey, you do what you have to do!"

  "But we don’t need to eat to survive!"

  "Things are different here. You’ll find out the longer you’re here."

  "Look, we need our pride more than we need to eat!"

  "Do we? Why? Anyway," he jerked his thumb at the shop, "it isn’t really flesh, is it? It’s an illusion. A copy." He winked. "And it tastes good on a grill." And with that, he pushed his own bulky meat through the front door.

  Holding my head in my hands, as if I were afraid the devastation from my shotgun would reassert itself at any second, I stumbled toward the end of this street as quickly as I could. At its corner, however, I came upon a bakery, many of its wares on hand outside: baskets and trays of rolls, buns, loaves. The smell was heavenly this close, and even though I didn’t need to eat, my stomach churned painfully. I caught the attention of a woman seated behind the baskets.

  "I want to get something," I stammered, "but I don’t have any money. Do you take anything in trade?" I slung my book bag around, started to open it. "I have some clothing…"

  She winced with sincere apology. "I’m sorry, but we don’t take payment in trade. See that building down there? With the ivy?" She pointed and I followed her finger. Rising above the flat rooftops of the brick tenement slums was a colossal building apparently of black marble, with few windows, some of these looking like holes in the purple ivy that completely covered one of its faces. "That’s the bank," she went on. "They take trades there. They’d probably accept the clothing if it isn’t too shabby."

  "Thanks," I muttered. For the briefest of moments, I envisioned myself putting my head down on a block while a man in a crusty apron raised his cleaver. Why shouldn’t money be of importance even in Hell? In life, I had found it to be one of the profoundest sources of anxiety.

  Well, I supposed I needed to find me a job. Again, though I had violently rebelled against the concept, the torture plants came immediately to mind. This was why bakeries and food markets and such amenities were tolerated. Because one must suffer, and cause suffering to others, to easily afford these things.

  Yes, I had some clothing to trade…but my current clothing was by now ripped, bloody, filthy from ash and sweat, not to mention having been a source of some amusement to that one man back on the plain of heads outside Caldera, since it was the uniform of Avernus University, marking me as a novice. I decided to change into fresh clothing, and use whatever extra articles remained for trade. I reminded myself, forcefully, that I did not require food, much as my body told me otherwise.

  The buildings in this section were so tightly compressed that there were very few alleys between them, but at last I found one barely wide enough to accommodate me. Though the Demons went about nude, proudly showing off their powerful forms, I was too shy to change my clothing in the middle of the street.

  What little there was of the alley was filled with trash, shards of glass and pottery, and an old man who blinked out at me from under a large discarded rug he’d pulled around him like a tent, despite the summer-like warmth of the streets that was perhaps a result of the sky of lava overhead. I nodded at him, then proceeded to change my clothes. There would be no privacy even in this little cranny.

  I changed into a dark brown pair of trousers which were a bit baggy for me, a pale brown T-shirt also loose on my frame, with clean socks and underwear beneath that. The old man reached a hand out of his foul-smelling nest, and with understanding, I handed him my old clothes. Then I emerged onto the street again, feeling at least slightly better about myself. Had to look presentable if I were to find a new job. Smelling presentable was beyond me for the time being. I sweated, but at least I didn’t have to defecate or urinate unless I had food or water, which obviously I didn’t.

  A woman was sweeping the door stoop of a building just ahead of me, raising up a gray cloud; actually I’d noticed a lot of sweeping going on, and that there was a powdery ash between the cobbles in the streets and sidewalks. Everything seemed dusty, in fact, even the citizens. I wondered if great storms of volcanic ash blew into the city; maybe it had come from tha
t erupted volcano I myself had witnessed.

  Before beginning any kind of job hunt, I still intended to try my luck at the bank, so I worked my way in that direction. I entered onto another of the infrequent wider streets, this one too with twin rails set into it, though I had yet to see a streetcar or train.

  Two sphinxes of black marble flanked the arched front entrance to the bank, looking like bipedal lions with eagle’s wings, the comely breasts of human women and denuded human skulls. From the shorn-off tops of their marble skulls, lurid violet flames lapped at the air. As I trudged up the glassy ebon steps, I was almost afraid one of the giants would come to life, seize me and cram me into its fiery cranium.

  The interior of the bank seemed to consist primarily of one huge room with a high echoing ceiling. Little open offices ran along the walls, with people lined up waiting to either approach the main counter or be seen in one of those side cubicles. All of the clerks I saw were Damned souls, though two Demon warriors, naked but carrying sheathed swords and tall spears, flanked the front door while two more stood at either end of the long main counter. And in a sort of huge black birdcage suspended from the ceiling, like an imprisoned sun, rested a somewhat smaller version of the half dozen serenely smiling, orange-glowing Overseers in their watchtowers surrounding the city.

  After viewing the variety of transactions from afar, I decided on which queue to enter. (And not a moment too soon; it looked like one of the Demon guards wanted to give me a poke with his lance). Some tellers were handing over small bags of coins from shelves or cabinets behind the counter, which suggested that citizens could actually trust their savings to be safe here. Well, if money were so hard won here, it made sense to protect it from other citizens. Other tellers, however, were accepting goods across the counter, and giving bags of money in trade. Did the bank then turn around and sell these goods directly to vendors, supply the goods to stores it owned itself, trade them with other cities, or use them to pay their human employees? Possibly all these things, though I supposed that it really didn’t matter; the bank was just a way to create some order, some system, in the city. Money can do that, too.

  While I was slowly shuffling along in line, I watched workers behind the counter load food, clothing, various crafts and wares into wagons and drag them off through doors along the back wall. From one of these far metal doors, I saw one of those bubble-headed, part-insect, part-skeleton Demons of the administrative caste emerge. I didn’t doubt he was the bank president, at least one of its primary supervisors, though whether he or the Overseer were of higher rank I had no idea.

  Yes, it was beyond obvious now that—unlike Caldera, which had been entirely founded, built and populated by humans—Oblivion is a city that has been provided for the Damned. The Demons keep their presence to a minimum, but they are in the rafters, pulling the strings where necessary. But I didn’t want to fall into the trap of seeing them as our benefactors. I had to remind myself that Oblivion is not a refuge but just a different setting for suffering. Also, as I had learned, the Angels find it entertaining to visit Hell in full armies on occasion, so as to do battle with certain cities. To rape and pillage like lusty Vikings. Oblivion is like a child’s intricate castle of building blocks, stacked neatly up so that he can sadistically trample it down.

  The skeletal Demon stalked off in ghastly slow motion, and then it was my turn at the counter. The teller was a pretty Asian woman, with a B that meant Buddhist branded on her forehead. I showed her what I had to trade: a white long-sleeved peasant blouse, a pair of black shorts and a pair of coarse woolen socks. She accepted them without any qualms, but instead of a nice little bag she pushed three individual coins across the black marble counter. Somewhat dejectedly, I picked them up. Each coin, heavy and gray as if molded from lead, had one of those fire-headed sphinxes stamped on one side, and an eye on the other that reminded me of Frank Lyre, on this journal’s cover, until I realized it was meant to represent the Creator.

  "What do you think I can get with these, in the way of food and shelter?" I asked the woman.

  "Depends on where you go. Maybe three nights in a hotel. Or three good meals."

  "I guess I’ll try a combination of those things, then. Thanks."

  So I departed from the bank in search of a place to stay. I suppose I was too discouraged by how rough it was going to be eking out a living in Oblivion to address the job situation just yet. As I wandered the city further, though, I did see more than just torture plants. There were carpenters’ places of business, and the steaming shops of blacksmiths. Small brick factories that clanged and hammered mysteriously. I tried to be optimistic; I couldn’t expect to find my fortune in a single day on the streets. If I could make it here, though, I could make it anywhere.

  After traveling for several blocks I came into the presence of a monumental tower that seemed to support the molten sky like a column. Where most of the large skyscrapers had windows, housing either citizens or perhaps the Demonic class of Oblivion, this one had not a single pane, and its flanks were entirely formed of intricately woven black machinery heavily scabbed in corrosion like dried blood. Further, this machine building thrummed, gonged, chattered, whined, rang, chittered, hissed, rumbled, causing its immediate environs to vibrate. Steam billowed out of vents along its great height, curling like specters escaping from a gargantuan funereal obelisk.

  In the foothills of this metal mountain was a shabby and skinny brick hotel that seemed squished between its taller flanking brothers. I ventured inside, found a man behind the front desk. As I had been advised at the bank, I was informed that one night would cost me one coin. That was what he said: "One coin a night." Obviously, the coins—without words or numbers on them—had never been given a name.

  "Ah…one night, for now. Can I buy food here?"

  "We can bring you a bowl of broth, a hunk of bread and a cup of water for one coin."

  "All right, then. I’ll want that, too. Thank you."

  The proprietor summoned a dirty-haired teenage girl from a back room, and she showed me up to my room on the third floor. Its one window’s view was obscured by the bulk of the machine building, which also caused the panes of glass to audibly tremble. Still, the sight of a bed made up for that, however meager the mattress.

  Under the circumstances, I couldn’t tip the girl; not that I had bags. But she lingered in the doorway. After a hesitance, she said, "For another coin, I can come visit you tonight."

  I was appalled, especially considering the girl’s age. But I pitied her. I didn’t know if the proprietor expected this of her, or whether she did such things just to feed herself. Not wanting to offend her, I smiled gently and told her, "No thank you. I’m…very tired…I need to rest now."

  She smiled, appearing embarrassed, and exited without another word…leaving me here to record these events and impressions of my first day as one of the citizens of the city of Oblivion.

  Day 50.

  Today is my day off from work, so I thought I’d return to my neglected journal. I think Lyre was glad to see me after having been hidden away in his bag for over a week.

  My second day as a citizen I spent scouring the neighborhood of the hotel for work, knowing that I only had one coin left to my name. Finally, toward the end of the day, I found a job in a factory several blocks away. The building is only two stories high but covers a lot of ground, and it has a tremendous solitary smoke stack. Its tarred roof is covered in little shacks and tents like a dog’s hide covered in fleas, but a lot of the inhabitants of this miniature rooftop shanty town work for the company.

  All I really do is stand at something like a conveyor belt that has white marks on it like the increments of a ruler. Spaced here and there along the belt, though, are red marks. And they’re not evenly spaced, oddly enough. Several red marks will be fairly close together, then I might not see another one for ten minutes. I’m not sure how long this belt is, how far it extends through the mechanical guts of the place. In any case, every time one of these red
marks comes along and lines up with a red mark etched on the border of its track, I have to throw a lever. And that’s it. But it’s an important task, my group leader has impressed upon me; if I daydream and miss just one red mark, one lever throw, I’m sacked.

  Not only do I not know what I’m achieving by throwing my lever, I don’t even know what this plant produces. I’ve asked several of my coworkers, but they seem recalcitrant about it. One simply answered, "Shh." Another, "Who cares?" Someone said, "I think we make dolls; there are eyes on my belt, little eyes…they might be glass, or maybe they’re not." Still another laborer whispered to me, "We keep the Creator running." But someone told me this laborer has lost his mind.

  At least I’ve found out what the dust in the street is, which is so frequently swept up from between the cobbles and flagstones. I’m watching it rain outside my window even now: a brightly glowing downpour of lava from the sea of magma over the city. It’s pattering against the outer sill of my window, even forming little rivulets and small pools, but they quickly go cool and fade to a gray ash. Orange fluid trickles between the cobblestones like a glowing web, runs in the gutters, pours into sewer grates. I’m so glad I’ve found a place to stay, lucked out and got a job. I pity the people who sleep in the choked little alleys, or camp out in tents and other inadequate shelters. In fact, I can hear someone outside screaming horribly even now.