Escape From Hell Read Online Free PDF

screamed.
    “Dante.”
    “Who’s Dante?”
    Others chimed in. “Who has appointed you as our savior? If God wants us saved, why does He not send His Son to lead us?”
    Another banner floated past. I couldn’t see anyone carrying it. THE UNIVERSE IS BATHED IN THE GLORY OF THE LORD. RENOUNCE THE WORLD AND ENJOY IT. COVET NOTHING. It had a dozen followers.
    The wasps were gathering in strength. My pains from — congealing? Reassembly? — were almost gone, but the wasps were making up for it. Standing here wasn’t going to do anyone any good. There was a banner with no followers. It said simply REPENT! I ignored it. “Follow me!” I shouted, and took off.
    A fair number of them did. I tried to remember how Benito and I had found Charon’s ferryboat. Off to the left as I faced the river, I was pretty sure of that. I ran that way, leading a mixed party of men and women still slapping wasps. The tall guy with the funny haircut wasn’t with them. He’d gone a different way. But Rosemary Bennett was right with me.
    “You believe me?” I asked her.
    “Allen, I don’t know. I want to believe something. Can I believe you?”
    •    •    •
    I broke another twig from Sylvia’s tree. “Sylvia, it was then I realized just how serious this all was. I was asking people to believe in me, and I didn’t know if what I believed made any sense. What if I’m wrong? Just who did appoint me savior?”
    “Why did Rosemary believe you?”
    “I was afraid to ask her. I was afraid if I asked her she’d see I was a fake.”
    “But you’re not a fake!”
    “Well, but I was afraid she’d think I was. I wanted her to come with me!”
    Sylvia said, “She’s not with you now.”
    “No.”
    “What happened to her?”

Chapter 4
    Charon And The Acheron
----
     
    All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land;
And ready are they to pass o’er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on
So that their fear is turned into desire.
    I was looking for Charon’s ferryboat … but I’d remembered the woman I’d talked to last time, the one who told me, “We’re in the hands of infinite power and infinite sadism.” She’d scared me with that. I wanted to tell her what had happened and see if she had learned anything. She’d upset me as much as anyone I met in Hell.
    I was still thinking about her when a banner crossed my path. It said PAY IT FORWARD. That was what I thought I was doing. Benito had helped me. So had others I couldn’t pay back. The banner changed. FREELY YOU RECEIVED. NOW FREELY GIVE.
    Justice. Pay it forward. I thought I could make out someone carrying that banner, and I ran toward it. When I got closer I saw that it was like the others, floating free with no one carrying it.
    Now I was running in circles like everyone else. My entourage was still following me. I don’t think I’d lost a single one of them. Rosemary Bennett was right with me, half a step behind and off to the right. “I can’t find her!” I said.
    “Can’t find who?”
    “Fat lady. Morbidly obese. She’d been an FDA attorney. Made the decision to ban cyclamates.”
    “Cyclamates?” Rosemary asked.
    I waved it off.
    “Sugar substitute? Why would she be here for banning cyclamates? Why would she be in Hell at all for that, and why here?”
    “You expect Hell to make sense? To find reasons?”
    “I hoped to find reasons,” she said. “They told us not to hope, didn’t they? But I still hoped to make sense of this place.”
    “Hoped. You gave up, then?”
    “Until you came along. Why did you come?”
    “Wasn’t my fault. I got blown up by an exploding … soul.”
    “You didn’t come back to us for a reason?”
    Now the banner said BEWARE LEST ANY MAN MAKE YOU HIS PREY THROUGH PHILOSOPHY ACCORDING TO THE ELEMENTAL SPIRITS OF THE UNIVERSE. I was trying to absorb that when it changed again. ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU; SEEK, AND YE SHALL FIND.
    “I didn’t choose where to come