Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [53]
You’re grateful for the distraction of still another sign: THE DEPARTMENT OF PASSES AND BYWAYS UNWELCOMES YOU TO THE HUMANUS VIADUCT. You envisioned yourself gulping when you get a good look at this “bridge,” which stretches miles from the top of the corpse-mountain, across the appalling river, to a polygonal black structure sitting atop another mountain (this one of pinkish rock). The sights are spectacular in their own horrific way, yet your thoughts can only dread what must be to come.
The bridge—this Humanus Viaduct—is scarcely ten feet wide and consists of objects like railroad ties lashed together, one after another—countless thousands of them—which all comprise the spans of the bridge. A meager rope-rail can be seen stretching on either side.
“We’re not driving the car over that, are we!” you object.
“Why, of course, we are,” Howard says. “The view is thrilling, and it’s crucial that you be thrilled.”
“No way, man! That bridge looks like something in a damn Tarzan movie! It’ll never hold us!”
“Mr. Hudson, please, don’t worry yourself. Naturally the Viaduct has been charged by various Levitation Spells.”
You try to feel reassured. You can see the rickety bridge sway in a sudden hot gust, and as the car rises to the gatehouse, your vantage point rises as well. Now you can see the surface of the links.
And all at once, you don’t need to be told why it’s called the Humanus Viaduct.
Atop the links of railroad ties exist a virtual carpet of naked human beings, who have all been lashed together as well. All these people—like the ties, thousands upon thousands—form the actual driving surface of the bridge.
You can only stare when you rattle through the gatehouse and pull in. The Golemess robotically shifts the vehicle into a lower gear; then you lurch forward.
“We’re driving on people, for God’s sake!” In a panic you look down. “And they’re still alive!”
“Indeed, they are. Hell exists, in general, as a domain of all conceivable horror, where every ideology functions as an offense against God. But in particular, it’s a domain of punishment. Hence, the ‘human asphalt’ beneath us.”
They chug onward, narrow tires rolling over bellies, throats, faces, and shins. You watch the faces grimace and wail. “How come they don’t die?”
“They’re the Human Damned—who cannot die. That is why they call it Damnation; it’s eternal. Only Demons and Hybrids can die here, for they have no souls. But as for the Human Damned, their bodies are nearly as eternal as their spirits. When your soul is delivered to Hell, you receive what we call a Spirit Body that’s identical to the body you lived in on Earth. Only total destruction can ‘kill’ a Spirit Body, in which case the soul is spirited into the Hellborn life form with the closest propinquity. It could slip into something as large as an Abhorasaur, something as commonplace as an Imp, or something as minuscule as a Pus-Aphid.”
Men bellow, women shriek, as the steam-car rocks on. Rib cages crack and sink inward, bones snap.
Yet in spite of the horror you’re witnessing, more questions spin in your mind. “Great, but I don’t have a ‘Spirit Body.’ I have a pumpkin—”
“A Snot-Gourd.”
“Okay, so what happens if this Snot-Gourd gets destroyed?”
“An astute question but immaterial. Should your Auric Carrier be subject to mishap, your Etheric Tether would simply drag your soul back to your physical body at the Larken House. But I say immaterial since you are not, as yet, one of the Human Damned.”
As yet, you consider. I’m not Damned . . . but they WANT me to be?
The Viaduct sways back and forth as the car lumbers ahead. In the middle—with already several miles behind them—the bridge dips so severely that you feel certain it will break from the vehicle’s weight. Levitation Spell, my ass. But soon enough, you begin to ascend again, that queer black shape