Disenchantment 38

Part IV

 

February/Anthesterion

 

Into Hell

 

 

 

 

I love you.

 

I have always loved you.

 

I have loved you ever since I met you and I truly believe that I was already in love with you before I even met you. Somewhere in my soul, I believe that I was destined to meet you and love you and be with you forever.

 

I will always love you.

 

You are what gives me purpose. You are my muse, my light, my everything.

 

Remember the first time we made love? That is probably my favorite memory. All of my favorite memories involve you, or...at least most of them seem to. Sure, I had been with many girls before you, but that beautiful experience with you was so emotional such raw energy. You made me believe in love. You made me believe that I was supposed to be with you.

 

It started before that, really. Usually after a gig, if a girl wanted to get down, I would. I also wouldn’t fuck around and drag it out. I always made it very clear that I was all sorts of up for getting laid, and that was about the extent of the relationship I would have with other women before I met you, but you were so different. After we became a relatively popular cover band, many women wanted to be with me, and I let them. But, I was always aloof. It didn’t matter. No matter how gorgeous some of them were, I was just there for the biology, the urges. I was there for the fuck, and then I wasn’t going to be there after. I let them know that before we hopped in the sack.

 

When I first met you, when you approached me after the show...wow! I wanted to handle everything perfectly. Remember that? You were so drunk, and even sticking your hands down my pants. I had sweated my ass off while performing, and I just felt unclean. Normally that didn’t bother me with other girls, but it definitely did with you. I gave you my number and took yours, and I called you the very next day. I absolutely refused to get together with you that night and it was not at all out of a lack of interest. I wanted it to be better, be the best ever, and it was.

 

I made sure that we went on five dates before I brought you back to my place. I wanted everything to be perfect, and it was. It was great.

 

As I said, it is my best memory, that first time. It’s a sacred moment, etched into my psyche forever.

 

Your decision, it has shocked me. Maybe I wasn’t always there for you, and I appreciate what you have given, but things aren’t the same, not the same at all. I wish I could go back in time and change every single time I was too busy for you, or too lazy. I wish I could store up all the good times and repeat them on a loop forever. I know that I would never get bored of that, if there were nothing new, I wouldn’t get bored just repeating all the old and great stuff. That would be fine by me.

 

I wish that I had been a better husband, a better man. I thought I was doing fine. Shit, I could have done better. I know that.

 

We can’t go back, can we? No matter how much we want to, we can never go back. Things have...happened. Things completely out of my control have convinced you that I am secondary to someone else.

 

So be it.

 

I think I have told you most of it, of what happened after you went missing and what happened leading up to that night that I came for you, and I brought others to their dooms. Some of them deserved their fates I suppose, others didn’t. Mark didn’t

 

Ah, let’s begin. That night, the night I came for you. We realized that shit was weird, we knew it was the night, that quiet starless night. Shit, the non-English-speaking hired guys, they started speaking English. It was weird. That was maybe one of the first unusual things that occurred. It wasn’t the last.

 

It was so weird. Ricardo and Jesus suddenly started speaking English. The situation was...so weird. They even claimed that they were still speaking Spanish and that we were speaking Spanish, but we were all clearly speaking English. I am only fluent in English. Floyd suggested it was the place, so close to the underworld, maybe some sort of magic. Maybe that’s how the damned can communicate with other cultures? Maybe there is only one language in the afterlife and it just seems like English to me?

 

I don’t even know what happened to Ricardo and Jesus. I hope they got out. I hope they’re okay.

 

We soon began moving toward the river, toward you, some of us were heading toward a place we would never return from...

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

Malbourne was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. This couldn’t be real, yet it was. They were at a strange stone fire pit, circular, approximately two feet off the ground, and the flames were a surreal purplish hue. This can’t be happening. Oren Phileus apparently was not crazy. This was real.

 

They had crawled through a tear in the fence, that Malbourne wasn’t sure was there before. He knew for an absolute fact that the concrete wash was not there before when the sun was still out or on previous nights, but suddenly it was. They had made their way into it, and that was when he noticed the foul stench that invaded his nostrils. It was so bad that it had almost given him a headache.

 

A sense of dread had slowly spread through his body as they walked toward a firelight in the distance The ground was soft and muddy, and there were things in the darkness, barely audible, that slithered and hissed, always staying out of the reach of the flashlights. Unknown and alien plant life littered the area for a time before they came to the clearing that housed the fire.

 

As they came upon the odd fire pit Malbourne realized that he absolutely did not want to go any farther. Enough was enough. If this was real, if they were going into some mythical underworld that housed the dead, he wanted no part in it. The money was becoming much less appealing.

 

The strangeness had started earlier with the silence and lack of stars to light up the night sky, yeah the night had become off, but it had really started hitting home when the Mexicans had started speaking English. He knew damn well they couldn’t speak English.

 

They had started off, following Oren, who had claimed to remember how to get back to the dark river that he had encountered the last time that he had been at this place that was entirely off. When they arrived at the strange, surreal flames, Malbourne had officially decided that he was done. “Oren, uh...I was thinking... You said that you need four people, but we have five. We wouldn’t want something to go wrong. Right? What will happen if you have too many people with you?”

 

“I don’t know,” replied Oren. “I suppose that we can leave someone behind when we get there.”

 

“Maybe we’d better do that sooner. Maybe it will be too late when you get there. I think that I’ll volunteer.”

 

“Volunteer for what?” asked Oren.

 

Volunteer to stay, you know to give you guys the chance to—“

 

“Hey, we’re not going any farther either.” Ricardo had said, interrupting the conversation with absolute determination in his eyes.

 

“Hey, whoa, all you of you. Hold up.” Oren almost seemed like he felt betrayed.

 

“Yeah, you are being paid well enough,” said Malbourne to Ricardo.

 

“So are you, and you ain’t going.”

 

“Hey, wait a minute, all of you,” said Oren, visibly upset. “Come on, we all made a deal. You all said you would go. If you need more money, you’ve got it. No problem. Come on, let’s get this done.”

 

“This is supernatural. This is a place that good people don’t go. There are warning signs everywhere, mister Oren. This place is evil. We can’t go any farther. Jesus and I are going back to the cars. You can have your money back. It’s better to live under God’s grace humble and poor, than to take money to be with the devil.” Jesus didn’t speak, but he did seem to nod at every point Ricardo made.

 

“Actually,” said Floyd, “it’s not the devil. Hades isn’t necessarily evil, per se, just the god of the dead. Both good and evil souls enter his domain upon death. The good are rewarded and the evil are punished. You shouldn’t fear this.”

 

“Mister Floyd, we appreciate your views, but we do not agree with that. We believe in the father and son, in the holy trinity. This place is pretty far from that. I’m sorry, no amount of money will convince us to go further. That’s what the devil wants, to convince you that he doesn’t exist.”

 

“Please...” said Oren.

 

“How is it that you are speaking Spanish, yet you clearly think I am speaking English? You don’t speak Spanish and we don’t speak English. This is witchery, a dark magic. We don’t want any part of it.”

 

Malbourne did see where the two men were coming from. He didn’t believe in Christianity. He thought it was as foolish as the inane babble that Floyd Benson was spouting out. However, he did believe that something was very wrong here. This was a rare occasion in his life where money was secondary to safety.

 

“You have to come. You agreed. It is far too late to find anyone else to replace you. Whatever you want, if it’s in my power, I will give it to you. Please, please. You have to come. Oren looked defeated, worn down, done.

 

“With all due respect, mister Oren, we don’t have to do shit.”