“Fourthly, military convoys and personnel have absolute priority. If they are coming through, get out of their way because they will not stop.” The Lieutenant looked grim for a second. “You may have heard that we had some protesters here a few days ago. They laid down in the road in from of a tank convoy. By the time the convoy had passed, they were a thousandth of an inch tall and about eighty yards long. Something like a tank convoy can’t stop, understand? OK.
“Fifthly, wandering around is a bad idea. Hell isn’t linear, don’t ask us why, we don’t know. If you really want an answer, we’ll tell you it’s because the polarity is reversed but that’s just saying we don’t know using different words. But, it means this. You walk in a straight line out, turn around and walk in a straight line back, you will not end up in the same place you started out from. On walking distances, its only a small error but in the refugee camps, that will get you lost. And that will displease us.
“Lastly, when the bus comes to pick you up, you leave. You’ll have about an hour or so before that happens. Please don’t make us come in and get you. That’s all. Any questions? No? Excellent. Thank you.” The Lieutenant left quickly, giving the orientation speech wasn’t a prized duty either and he wondered what he had done that had displeased his Captain so badly.
Another bus pulled into the reception building and the visitors were conducted into it. The driver was another morose private expiating some unknown military sin but there was also a professionally cheerful young woman on board. She handed out breathing masks as the visitors entered. Once they were all seated, the bus pulled out as she checked everybody had their masks on properly. “Did you all get your lecture from the Lieutenant?” There was a mumble of agreement. “He is a bit fierce isn’t he? Still, Hell is a hostile environment, but you follow his advice and its safe enough. He probably skidded you past the questions bit so if I can answer anything. My name is Elva by the way, Elva Jones.”
The bus slipped through the Hellgate and the inside darkened as the overcast Earth sky was replaced by the red-gray of Hell. Junior stuck his hand up. “You’re not wearing a mask.”
A chuckle went around the bus at the boy’s presumption. The guide smiled for the same reason. “I don’t have to Johnny. I’m dead you see.”
One of the men up near the front of the bus couldn’t help but ask. “Miss, ummm, how did you…”
“Die? I was an air hostess and my plane crashed. So, when I was rescued, I got this job.” She looked at the man who was about to ask something else. “A DC-2, remember them?” The man nodded and she smiled at him, not many people knew much about old airliners.
“People, we’re now entering the Phelan Plain. This is named after Philip Phelan, a mall security guard who gave his life to rescue a group of schoolgirls from a Baldrick attack. We’re hoping we’ll find him soon so he can come visit us. The Phelan Plain is where everybody stays after they arrive or are rescued, until they find a better place of course. Now. We’re going to the American Arrivals Area, all the people you want to see are there. Just give me your ticket, I’ll tell you where to get off and give you a map.”
“Miss Jones, the Lieutenant said that people are different. Will we be able to recognize…”
“Certainly. If your relative died before middle-age, menopause for women, they’ll look just the way they did when they died. If they died much older, they’ll look the way they did in middle age. To quote the Lieutenant, don’t ask us why, we don’t know. Right, first stop. Mr and Mrs McLanahan and your son? Here you are, just follow the map, it’s only a few yards.”
Elva had been right, the small hut allocated to Rose Matthews, Naomi McLanahan’s mother, was only a few yards away from the bus stop. Privately, McLanahan guessed that wasn’t an accident, that the bus routes were planned to drop each group off close to their destination.
“Oh Naomi, its so good to see you. And you brought little Johnnie too. Come in, why don’t you, it’s a bit small but it’s only temporary. Johnnie, would you like a drink or something to eat? You can come in too John.” John McLanahan reflected that being dead hadn’t affected his mother-in-law at all. Physically though, the change was stunning. When he had last seen her, she had been on a bed in the hospice, breathing through a tube in her nose and fading away as the lung cancer had killed her. Now, she looked like a well-preserved mid-forties, very much like Naomi’s sister rather than her mother. And so, he followed them in and settled down
The problem really was that nobody had actually created a set of etiquette rules for speaking to dead people. The ridiculous mummery that the fake mediums had invented when they ‘spoke to the dead’ were of no help at all and a lot of the normal small-talk subjects just weren’t relevant. So, the conversations staggered along. Eventually, it found an interesting area where Rose Matthews started to tell her guests about the people living around her. Oddly it had been Junior who had sparked it off when he had asked his grandmother if she’d met Jesse James yet.
“Goodness me no. Nobody around here is famous. But then, there are so few really famous people and there are so many of us, I suppose the chances of meeting a famous person are very low. But if I see Jesse James, I’ll tell him you asked after him.” Grandmother and parents exchanged adult glances at that. She’d gone on to speak of her neighbors, of the new arrivals who exchanged news and opinions on what was happening on Earth and how they looked after those who had been rescued from the Hellpit. They’d been shattered by the experience and it took them a long time to realize the horror was over.
“So you are staying here Mother?” Naomi asked the question delicately but her mother’s eyes twinkled. She guessed her daughter and son-in-law were finally getting around to the real reason for their visit.
“Here? Oh no, certainly not. This is just temporary until my Villa is built. Should be ready in a few weeks.”
“Your villa momma?” Naomi didn’t like the sound of that.
“I’m going to be a citizen of the New Roman Republic. I’ve even got my citizenship paper, look, it says here ‘In the year of the consulships of Gaius Julius Caesar and Jade Kim, Rose Matthews being a landowner in the New Roman Republic, is accorded all the virtues and privileges due to a Citizen of Rome.”
“Look Rose, we wanted to talk to you about this. When you died, the lawyers said you’d changed your will and left all your money to yourself.”
“That’s right John. Changed it myself. Saw the advertisements on television while I was staying in the hospice and thought, well that sounds like a good idea. So, I made some inquiries and decided it really was a good idea.”
“But, we thought we would be the executors of your estate.” McLanahan was trying to find a way of complaining about being left nothing without actually saying so.
“And you thought you would be inheriting everything when I was gone? Not going to happen. I’m sorry John but Mark and I worked hard all our lives to save for what we had. We owned our house free and clear, when Mark died, we didn’t owe a penny to anybody. He’s out here somewhere, maybe still in the Hellpit, perhaps he’s been rescued already and we just haven’t found each other. That takes time you know, even with computers to help out. But, when he is rescued or we do find each other, I want a nice home ready for him, just the way we left our old one, free and clear.
“Oh can I meet Julius Caesar?” Junior sounded awe-struck at actually meeting Caesar, it even beat the chance of meeting Jesse James.
“Certainly, the First Consul is always touring Rome, meeting the people. So does the Second Consul, you come to stay at my Villa Johnny and you’re sure to see them.”
Junior sat back, his eyes glowing at the prospect. Rose stared at her daughter and son-in-law, her eyes triumphant and just a little malicious. “How often have you two refinanced your house? To pay off credit cards, buy that new trendy in-thing you just have to have and then threw away as soon as you got bored with it? Well, you’d better change your ways because you’re getting nothing from me. All the killjoys were wrong, now we can take it with us and that’s just what I’ve done. So have nearly all my friends at the Hospice. There’s going to be a lot of disappointed kids who won’t get the windfall they’re expecting and serve them right. Mark and I made it on our own and now we’re going to enjoy it. I suggest you start to think about doing the same because when you die – when Naomi, it’s not an if – you’ll need everything you’ve saved as well. Or, you’ll spend eternity living in a little shack like this and working on a road gang to earn money.