Escape From Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

back,” I told her. But of course I’d had a reason for coming back out of the grotto. “I came to tell everyone there’s a way out of here! To show them the way out!” To earn my own way out? It was a new thought.
    The banner said PAY IT FORWARD again. It veered off to the left. I followed, but it seemed pointless.
    “Everyone?” Rosemary asked. “Even the angels?”
    “Angels?” I asked, but then I remembered. Dante said there were angels in the Vestibule, angels who’d refused to take either side when Lucifer rebelled against God. That didn’t make sense to me. Angels knew about Good and Evil, and about God and Satan. How could they refuse to take sides? But how could any sane mind take sides with Satan?
    But I couldn’t shake the notion that I needed to earn my way out of Hell.
    •    •    •
    “W e couldn’t find the FDA woman,” I told Sylvia. “And I couldn’t catch that banner.”
    She was quiet, so I broke off a twig. She didn’t even whimper. “ ‘Infinite power and infinite sadism.’ That’s a most depressing thought,” Sylvia said. “If that’s true I was justified in committing suicide. Only it didn’t work! He won’t let me die.” She sounded scared now. “Allen, tell me you found proof that’s not true!”
    “Proof? No. But I did find the grotto. I did see Benito climb up and out of here. I thought that was proof enough.”
    “And you don’t now?”
    “Sylvia, I saw a lot of horrible things, but I can’t say that there was no justice in what I was seeing. Carried too far, but it wasn’t just whimsical torture. There were points being made. I was shocked when Benito said Hell was a place of justice. But —”
    “Now you think he was right?”
    “He might be. He said everyone had choices. No one is here by accident.”
    “Did you see anyone who didn’t belong here?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know everyone’s story. What about you? Do you belong here?”
    “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m right where I belong. I knew better than to throw away my life.”
    “Forever?”
    Her branches rustled in no wind. “No! Not forever! I know better now. I want out! But I don’t know what to do about it.”
    “Me, either,” I told her.
    “Something will come to us. You were telling me what happened to Rosemary Bennett.”
    •    •    •
    I ’d got curious about the undecided angels. Demons I could understand. Lucifer was the brightest of the angels; the highest, God’s prime minister, and he thought it was beneath God’s dignity to have human beings so high in God’s favor. Let them enjoy the favor of God, but don’t put them higher than angels who love and obey! Let these creatures called Men worship God through the angels.
    That was the story I’d read. Lucifer made that pitch and some of the angels agreed with him. They chose the wrong side, and were banished with Satan, and now they served God in Hell as guards and tormentors of the damned. If there had to be a Hell, then somebody had to do that work. From what I’d seen they enjoyed it. Was that punishment, herding damned souls?
    But angels who wouldn’t choose sides? “Have you met any of them?”
    “Met any of what?” Rosemary demanded.
    “Angels. Undecided angels. The ones who’re supposed to be in the Vestibule?” At least Dante’s Virgil had said they were here.
    “I don’t know. Someone told me they’re the ones who carry the banners, Allen. That’s how you pick a banner: you’re looking for the most sympathetic angel, or the most powerful, or —”
    “You mean everyone in here is condemned to chase angels who couldn’t make up their minds?”
    “I think so.”
    “It might fit.” This came from the silver–haired guy who’d been Crinatelli’s lawyer. “Who would be more appropriate to carry those banners?”
    I couldn’t think of an answer to that. “Has anyone talked with them?”
    “How?” Rosemary asked. “You can’t catch them. You’re not