Free A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck Page B

barn and doing occasional flips, but
he seemed in control. I suppose he had had all day to practice,
while I was falling as dead and helpless as a crash-test dummy. His
look was one of pure and absolute hatred. He maneuvered a little
closer and started screaming at me what appeared to be a
well-rehearsed speech.
    “You maggot! Do you know against whom you
fight? Dog! You fight against God! Against God. You …” He could not
finish; he let out a scream of rage, folded his arms to his side,
and dove straight at me, head first. I tried to flap out of the
way, but whereas he seemed to be a guided missile, I was completely
out of control. Our heads collided like two hollow melons.
    When I awoke, it took me a long time to find
him. I tried to look around, but I was still not in control, so I
used his trick and spread out my arms, and found I was stabilizing.
With my perfect recollection of the past, I thought of pictures I
had seen of skydivers and tried to mimic the impression I had of
their falls. After an hour or so I was doing quite well and could
even control my direction.
    Dire Dan, I finally noticed, was about three
hundred yards below me. It made me sick to think when we hit the
bottom I would have to deal with him there, but it also occurred to
me Rachel would be there too. So would others who had been forced
to jump because of this evil man’s gangs. I figured when we hit I
would have lots of allies.
    My enemy was trying hard to spread himself
out and slow his fall. He was heavy in build – more muscular than I
– and apparently with less friction he had fallen a little faster.
He would occasionally look at me and scream things I could not
hear, but I too had learned to slow down. Through the day I started
feeling pretty hungry and thirsty. We flew down, and I watched as
my nemesis slowly drifted further and further away. I kept angling
my arms so I was flying away from him, and we seemed to be drifting
in different directions. It was a strange feeling, falling for so
long. The wind roared in my ears, but there was a peace to it, a
relaxing sense of freedom I’d never known before. I was enjoying
it, I had to admit. Enjoying it immensely. New experiences in Hell
were few and far between, and I was having a ball. Once I hit
bottom, I planned to climb back up with Rachel and jump again.
Floors flew by at an astonishing rate. I could see people
occasionally stop and stare at me. Some looked on in pity, others
in amusement, some with the expression that plagued those in Hell:
boredom. I was surprised to see so many people, because I knew I
had been falling a long time. Did the travelers of ’52 make it this
far down? How far to the bottom?
    Just before the lights went out, I caught my
last glimpse of Dire Dan. He was just a pinprick far, far below me,
and we were separated by a great distance. As complete darkness
gathered around me, I had a strange feeling of safety. I stayed
awake for hours, but just before dawn, that inevitable moment
through which no one in Hell has ever been able to stay awake, that
strange hour when books are returned, the dead revived, and all
wounds healed – I fell asleep and did not wake until the turning on
of the lights.
    Dire Dan was gone. I was never to see him
again. Nor has anyone I have ever met since. He, like me, is lost
in the library. Alone. I wonder, does he still feel he is the fist
of God?
    I was getting very thirsty. I was hungry too,
but the thirst was the worst. Throughout the day I passed hundreds
of drinking fountains and kiosks and could do nothing but watch
them fly by. My mouth was parched and my tongue felt thick in my
mouth. I tried to take my mind off things by practicing my flying.
I found that by pulling my arms inside my smock and bowing them out
under the fabric I could get pretty good control of my direction. I
learned to increase or decrease my speed and get some measure of
navigation, but the downward motion dominated everything I did, and
even when I was