There was motion, my vision rocked. Stopped. My head was raised and I realized that he had dumped me across Sybil's unresistant body.
"Go, both of you, go. Go to Heaven." He laughed, choked, laughed even louder.
"Well—not quite Heaven as you shall discover."
Blackout
Chapter 5
Something happened.
I couldn't remember it, could not begin to describe it. I did not want to think about it. I had far more important things on my mind. Like the fact that I was still paralyzed and lying facedown in red grit of some kind. I couldn't fee] it but I could smell it. A rotten, sulfury smell.
Smell! Yes, it certainly was there, and growing stronger and stronger. Which meant something important. After I had been zapped couldn't smell or feel anything: I could now. Which must mean that the paralysis must be wearing off, because I was vaguely aware of a scratchy pressure on my cheek. I concentrated, struggled hard, harder—then felt my fingertips move ever so slightly.
Recovery did not end quickly, not the way the onset of the paralysis had, but slowly and soon very painfully. Waves of red agony that ran through my reviving body that threatened to block my vision. My eyes were watering, tears ran down my cheeks as I writhed in agony. Slowly, very slowly it died away and I managed to roll over.
Blinking away the tears to stare up at a gray rock ceiling above. There was a low moan and with a great deal of effort I turned my head to see that Sybil was lying oh the ground next to me. Her eyes were closed and her body twisted with pain as she moaned again. I knew what she was experiencing. Slowly and exhaustingly, with a great deal of grunting and gasping, I crawled to her, took her hand,
"The pain," I managed to say, "it goes away."
"Jim. ~.." Whispered so quietly I could barely hear it.
"None other. You're going to be all right."
This was a pretty pathetic reassurance but was about all that I could think of at the moment. Where were we? What had happened? If this was Heaven it was pretty different from the place that she had described. Sharp volcanic gravel instead of grass; rock instead of sky. Where was the light coming from? And what was the last thing that Slakey had said? Something about not quite being Heaven.
With some effort I managed to sit up and saw the opening in the rock walclass="underline" we were in a cleft or a cave of some sort. And beyond the opening was a red sky.
Red? There was a distant deep rumble and I felt the ground beneath me tremble; a cloud of dark smoke roiled across the sky. Clutching to the rock wall I managed to drag myself to my feet and stumble over to Sybil. I helped her sit up with her back to the wall.
She tried to speak, starting coughing instead. Finally squeezed out the words. "Slakey—he was one step ahead of us all the time."
"What do you mean?"
"He was playing with us, and must have known that you were in the building. He cut his sermon short, made some kind of excuse about an unexpected meeting, turned the organ on instead, along with a recording of everyone singing. Asked us all to leave. Everyone except me. He took me aside, said that he had something most important to tell me. I was curious of course, besides the fact that I couldn't think of anything else to do except do as he had asked. Then, as soon as the others were gone he pointed something at me. I had only the quickest look at something like a silver spiderweb, before I fell down. It was horrible! I couldn't move a muscle, not even my eyes. I was aware of him dragging me into that back room in the darkness—and the worst part was that there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I couldn't move, do anything at all, couldn't warn you that was the worst part. Then the lights were on, and you were there, falling. I remember him talking to you. After that—nothing.
"That's about all that I can remember—until I opened my eyes here."
I patted my side pocket, felt the lump of the communicator, felt a slight touch of hope at the same time. I put it to my ear, turned it on. Nothing. The same went for every other device on my person. All dead. Batteries and power packs drained. I couldn't even open the blade on my Schweitzy Army Knife; it seemed to be welded into a lump. I looked at the small pile of metallic debris and felt the urge to kick it across the cave. I gave in to the urge and did just that. It clattered nicely.
"Just junk now. All dead. Nothing works." I turned and stumbled towards the light.
"Jim, don't leave…"
"I'm not going far. I just want to look out, satisfy my curiosity, find out where we are."
Leaning one hand against the rock so I wouldn't trip, I took step after shuffling step until I was at the entrance and staring out. I felt my jaw fall open with shock as I dropped to my knees. For long moments I could only stare. With an effort I turned away, managed to stand again and went back to Sybil. She was sitting up now and very much more in control.
"What's out there, Jim?"
"Certainly not Heaven. The sky is red, not blue, no white clouds and certainly no grass. A geologically unstable area with an active volcano nearby. Plenty of smoke, but at least no lava. And there is a big and swollen sun like no sun—or star—I have ever seen before. It is light red in hue, not white or blue, which explains the russet coloring of the landscape."
"Where are we?"
"Well—" I groped for something intelligent to say. "Well we know now that we're not on Vulkann," was the best I could come up with. "And…"
She noticed my hesitation. "And?"
"I just had a glimpse."
"Some glimpse! You should see your face—you've gone all gray."
I tried to laugh at this, but it came out as a pathetic gurgle. "Yes, I saw someone—or something. For just the shortest instant I could see sort of a figure, going away, fast. Biped, erect." My voice ran down and she looked very concerned. "Sorry. I'm just being stupid. It really moved too fast for me to see any details. But I think, no I'm sure, that it had a tail. And… it was bright red."
There was a long silence before she spoke.
"You're right. We're certainly not in Heaven. How is your theology?"
"Not too good—but good enough to know that I should not be thinking what I am thinking. Before you arrived I did a little theological digging in the net about the Heaven concept and all the afterworlds and afterlife, to find out more facts, to get some insight as to what it was all about. I'm afraid that my early religious education was more than neglected. Here is how it goes. There are as many concepts of Heaven as there are different religions. What I did was outline the Heaven as seen by the attendees at the Temple of Eternal Truth and search for comparisons. I found a really interesting assortment of religions with a great variety of names. I narrowed these down to the ones that featured a dichotomy of Heaven and Hell, which are places that are occupied after you die. There is an object called a soul, which you can't see or find or anything like that. It comes from somewhere unspecified. The description was pretty vague at this point. This soul, in some undescribed manner, is supposed to be you. Or the essence of you. Don't look at me like that—I'm not making it up! Anyway, this soul wants to end up in Heaven. There is a mention also of a sort of halfway house called Purgatory. And, I'm sure that you have heard of it, a direct opposite kind of place called Hell."
She looked shocked. "Then you think that.. perhaps we have ended up in this place called Hell?"
"Well, until a better idea comes along—and I hope it willthat seems to be the conclusion
There was a distant rumbling roar, the ground shivered beneath my feet. A sudden weight seemed to press down and I dropped to my knees, put my hands out to break my fall. I was heavy, suddenly very heavy; Sybil was sprawling on the ground again.