James Anderson - The Altar

“Oh, I suspect they’re here,” Dovecrest said. “Probably by the millions. But this place is so vast, so infinite, that they won’t ever find one another.”

“Then how will we ever find my wife and son. And that awful thing that took them?”

“Your wife and son are alive. They don’t belong here. They’re not damned souls, remember? And for that matter, neither is that demon. At least not damned in the way we know it. We’ll be able to find them. They will stand out.”

“How do you know that?”

“Simple,” the Indian said. “You can see me, can’t you?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“If I were a condemned soul, we’d never be able to find one another and communicate. Not even if we were standing just three feet apart. That’s the punishment, don’t you see? Eternal banishment-from everything.”

Erik nodded. In a weird way, it made sense.

“All right,” he said. “Where do we begin?”

The demon Wrath didn’t need to climb down the portal that entered hell. It flew straight down the center and through the red-hot fiery gates, carrying the pregnant woman with it.

It was not pleased with the fact that it had been driven away and forced to come back to this wretched place. It had looked forward to spending some quality time with the people of earth, just getting to know them and their suffering. It had enjoyed the time spent there and was looking forward to a very extended vacation, so to speak. It hadn’t grown tired of inflicting pain and suffering-after all, that’s what Wrath was all about.

It believed it was one of the most formidable of the demons and, in fact, was not really a demon at all, in the true sense of the word. It was more a personification of sin itself. Compared to other demons-lust, envy, spite, and a host of others-Wrath felt very terrible indeed. It almost laughed to itself. It just couldn’t see lust biting a man in half and chewing on both parts at the same time.

Things had been working out exactly according to plan until that meddling preacher had shown up and sent him back down to hell again. Not that it was the end of the world. It felt more like a child that had been disciplined and sent to its room without supper. The demon’s pride was hurt as much as anything, that this little, meek, half-baked pastor had gotten the better of it.

Not that it liked being in hell. No, by all means, hell was…well, hell was hell, even to those who ran the place. There was a reason people did not want to go here. It wasn’t all fun and games and good times. It had looked into some human minds during its time on earth, and it had been amazed at the things it had seen. There were some who actually thought hell was where you were able to do all of the forbidden things that you couldn’t do when you were alive because they were wrong. These people thought hell was just a huge orgy of sex, drugs, and good times. If that were so, they’d be dying to get here, the demon thought.

On the contrary, hell was not a happy place. It wasn’t like the way it was pictured, though, that was for sure. There were no devils with pitchforks or scalding hot oil or perpetual burning. What kind of God would torture His creations that way? No, but the reality of hell was much worse. Sometimes it wondered at God’s sense of humor.

The reality of hell wasn’t burning and fires, at least not in the traditional sense. When people came here they got exactly what they had wanted, and what they deserved. People who came here did not want to know God, had, in fact, turned away from Him, and did not want to be bothered with Him or his rules. So that’s what God gave them. Eternal separation. He showed them the light, dangled it before them like food to a starving man, and told them what they could have had, if they had chosen it. But they chose the alternative, so He took it away, just as they realized how absolutely wonderful it would have been….

Wrath knew all about hell. Because the demon too, was eternally cursed and could never be redeemed. It had chosen the dark side, never realizing the absolute radiance of the light until it had seen for itself, and then had been taken away. And now, to have to live for the rest of eternity with its sin burning up inside it like horrific brimstone, burning and eating away from the inside out forever and ever. And to have seen what could have been, and then given this instead, this miserable existence that could never know love or comfort, or freedom from the burning sin within…. That, indeed, was hell, and it was worse than anything that could ever be imagined.

Sure, it had escaped for a short time, and had been able to indulge in the sin that burned within it. But the story was the same. It was forced back into its room, and the wrath inside it would continue to burn and blaze and smolder. It was the personification of a sin that it could not indulge in while it was here, not without a trip back to earth. And now that was over, at least for now.

But this time would be different. This time it had brought a plaything back with it. It felt the woman writhing in his grip. Apparently she was having another contraction. They were coming closer together now. That meant the baby would come soon, all young and new and innocent. Its terror would be extreme as it died, and its delivery and birth in hell would cause quite a stir. Its death would be even more interesting.

The demon flew easily through the inner portal and into the main chamber of hell itself. This was its home, of sorts, such as it was. A deep funnel leading to the bowels of an entirely different dimension.

It thought for a moment about the human scientists who tried to explain things. This place defied their physics in so many ways. It wished it’d brought one of them with it, just to hear how they’d explain this world. They’d probably try to bring in rotating black holes, quasars, and quarks to make sense of it all. But this was so very far beyond their comprehension as to be laughable. The mortals thought they knew how things worked and what the universe was like. But their science was so very, very far off the mark.

It passed through the gates to another entirely different world, a world like a chocolate layer cake leading endlessly downward. This world was populated by billions of people, more people than what currently lived on the earth. Only they weren’t people anymore. They were disembodied souls. Still alive-yet not alive. Dead, but not dead. And each one very much aware of its own misery. The demon Wrath could see each and every one of these souls. But the irony of it was that, although there were billions of them, they couldn’t see each other. They existed in the same place of existence, often flowing through one another. But each one was as unaware of the next as they endlessly searched for others that they would never, ever be able to find. It was a doomed, damned solitary existence that would last for eternity.

The demon passed through the portals and came to a soft landing on the barren plains inside. This was an endless world of black sand and volcanic rock that went on for as far as the eye could see, and stopped just on the edges of infinity. No single being could ever search every corner of this world, not even in eternity. But they were each doomed to try in the ill-conceived hope that they would find someone, anyone, they could be with. At first they would search for specific loved ones from their past. But soon enough they would search for anyone, just anyone that could fill the void that was endless separation from God and all that was good.

The demon gently eased Vickie onto a patch of soft, black sand. It didn’t want to hurt her or the unborn child-not yet. It untied her bonds. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

As she sat up, the trance she had been in seemed to wear off some, though shock and horror kept her from becoming completely alert and aware.