Free Letters From Hades by Jeffrey Thomas

Son.
    More and more people trickled onto the main road, until it was almost like an exodus, a pilgrimage to Oblivion. Inevitably, a few of my fellow travelers would fall in beside me for a while and we would briefly talk. One of these was a boy of about twelve with a British accent, who was carrying a wicker basket strapped to his back. It was filled with gourds like small albino pumpkins, which he said he would trade for some new shoes in the city. He was from some small town in the forest which he called Limbo. As we conversed, I came to understand that he had been in Hell since the nineteenth century. There was a fatalistic composure to him, even a kind of mild cynical humor. He seemed the worldliest person I had ever met.
    Several more carriages happened along, but none occupied by that sort of Jack-O’-Lantern being. One was a wagon loaded with logs, and ponderously drawn by two animals that looked like bulky, shaggy yaks with six curling goat-like horns. An animal designed for multiple uses, like those provided to be hunted by the Native Americans, Neanderthals and such. I asked my youthful companion if dogs and cats and other Earthly animals went to Heaven. Or Hell.
    "Neither," he said. "They don’t have souls."
    "I’ve had some dogs and cats in my life that sure seemed to have souls. More of a soul than a lot of people I’ve known."
    The boy only shrugged. It didn’t matter if he agreed with me or not; protesting this revelation was pointless…even if my own soul strongly argued against these facts. These celestial judgments, these cosmic designs.
    Well, animals are lucky then, aren’t they? To just die, just cease to be. It’s what I longed for that day, seemingly eons ago, when I took my shotgun in my hands…
    I envy the Demons, too. The same release is available to them. To the Creator, they must be like animals. Perhaps He even views His legions of devils as innocents. Merely driven to torture a human as a horse is driven to draw a cart.
    Another traveler who fell in beside me introduced himself as Jesus (Hay-zoos); I expected a bolt of lightning to strike him at this information. He was very chatty and jovial, but the branded "R" for Rapist on his forehead reminded me that there were some people in Hell who truly did belong here. He never mentioned the arrow protruding from my back, as though it were the most natural thing in the underworld. When he discerned I was a relative novice to eternal damnation in general and Oblivion in particular he was a fount of information.
    "Your best bet is to get work in one of the torture plants," he advised. "They’ll pay you for it…"
    "Demons don’t do that work?"
    "Some of it, but a lot of times they just supervise humans. They like to get humans to do that shit to each other…I guess they think it’s funny."
    "They want to see how much they can get us to debase ourselves."
    "But hey, like I said, they pay you. Then you can get better lodgings. Maybe even your own little apartment."
    "I couldn’t do that to my own kind."
    "Well, if you don’t work there or someplace else, you’ll be living in the streets. Maybe sleeping in an alley, some little nook or cranny if you can find one. But I wouldn’t want to be outside when it rains." He tilted his jaw at the churning sky above the city. I followed his upward glance. It wasn’t a pleasant scenario I envisioned.
    I extricated myself from Jesus as quickly as I could. A middle-aged Indian woman in a self-made sari became my next temporary companion. She asked me why I was going to Oblivion. Shrugging, I told her, "I guess I needed some place to go. It’s as good a place as any. And I was advised that it’s safer in a city than out in the wilds."
    "Not necessarily," she said. "But if you work for the Demons they can be lenient."
    "Do you trade in Oblivion?" She had a bundle of possessions or such.
    "No…I’m going there to settle for the time being. I’m coming from another city. The Demons invaded it in great