The last of the sand finally collapsed enough to where Erik and Johnny Dovecrest could crawl out of the sand pit and back to the surface of this strange world. Erik got to his feet and helped pull his friend up. Then, suddenly, he jumped back as he noticed that the place was very different from the way it was when he was unconscious. There were people everywhere.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
Dovecrest shrugged. “I’m not sure why, but I think we can see them all now.”
“See them all? Who?”
“The damned. The souls of all those who were sent to hell.”
“Oh my God…,” Erik said.
They were everywhere, looking pathetic and empty and completely without hope. He could hear them now, too, as they moaned and wailed. There were hundreds of them, no, thousands of them, stretching off as far as they eye could see. There were young and old, men, women, and children, in all sizes and shapes and from all races and cultures. They weren’t people, really, but were shades, ghost-like and yet human at the same time. They were all dressed in their burial clothes, which had rotted away to rags on their bodies, and now hung from them like moldy laundry.
They did not seem to be aware of one another as they ceaselessly wandered, searching, it seemed, for something.
Then, all at once they stopped and turned towards Erik and Dovecrest. The two men looked at one another, and with sudden realization he knew what had happened. The shades couldn’t see each other, but they could see them. In a single moment of realization, Erik understood. He could tell that Dovecrest did, too, and sudden terror flooded his soul.
All of these damned souls were searching for someone, for anyone in this place of utter desolation and aloneness. There must be billions of them here, and they couldn’t see one another. They’d been alone since they died-some of them had been here for thousands of years. All of them damned, from serial killers, rapists, murderers, and child molesters, right down to liars, cheats, and unbelievers. They were all here, searching for someone to interact with. And now suddenly Erik and Dovecrest had appeared, as if out of nowhere.
“We are so screwed,” Erik said softly.
It took a moment for the scene to register, but when it did the hundreds of damned souls nearest to them reacted as one. Erik could see their faces lighting up. They thought it was merely a vision, at first, a mirage. But then he could see the realization dawning on their faces.
There were three of them closest to him, an old woman, a middle aged-man, and a teenaged boy. They stepped forward, coming towards him, and leading a swarm of hundreds more that followed. They held their hands out to him and began to touch him, grope him. He staggered backwards, but more were surrounding him now. He looked over at Dovecrest and saw that he, too, was being overrun. The voices were everywhere, almost blending into one.
“Help me!” the teenager screamed. “Mom, please help me.”
“Betty, is it you? Is it you at last?”
“Oh, Harold, hold me!”
They all thought he was their loved one. And they all wanted a part of him. They swarmed like an army of ants, knocking him down, climbing on him. Their bodies melded into one another, and still they weren’t aware of the shade next to them, the shade that had actually melted into them….
So this was how the demon had really imprisoned them, Erik thought. He’d trapped them within a mountain of damned souls. He’d buried them in a sea of ruined, lost souls who were searching for something that he couldn’t give them….
“Leave me alone!” he screamed. “I’m not your mother! I’m not your wife!”
But still they came, an endless tide that overwhelmed him, suffocated him with their needs. He could hear their thoughts, feel their despair. Their misery was infinite; their wretchedness was endless. And he knew he was now doomed to endure their agony and despair forever.
“This isn’t fair!” he screamed. “I wasn’t sent here! I’m not one of you! I don’t belong here!”
Their need suffocated him as more and more of them came, like vultures to a rotting carcass. They buried him so he couldn’t see. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, and he desperately gasped for air that didn’t even exist in this nocturnal place. His mind, his body, and his soul were crushed beneath them. Even as their mass was without weight, their need was so very heavy. Their voices were deafening. Their smell was stifling. They grabbed him touched him, squeezed them against their formless bodies.
He felt like Jesus must have felt when the crowds of deformed and sick and diseased had come to him, swarming upon him to heal them.
“Dear, sweet Lord, help me!” he screamed. “I can’t heal them!”