Awake in Hell Read online

  Awake in Hell

  By

  Helen Downing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Helen Downing

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Beau Coup Publishing

  http://www.beaucoupllcpublishing.com/

  Cover By

  JRA Stevens for Beau Coup Publishing

  Photo Retro telephone Silhouette© Jara3000 | Dreamstime.com

  Photo Flames © Sebast1an | Dreamstime.com

  Photo Silhouette of a Girl at her Vanity © Ponytail1414 | Dreamstime.com

  Photo Vintage clothing © Mikhaylovaelen | Dreamstime.com

  Photo Closet of Clothes © Velusariot | Dreamstime.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  For:

  Rev. William Downing

  Marty Downing

  Linda Jackson

  Patrick Haughey

  Larry Wiles

  And In Loving Memory:

  Eddy Downing

  With all my love.

  Acknowledgements

  The amazing folks who gave me the opportunity to finally find the book hidden inside of me and get it out onto paper…

  Michelle Vinson – Who was at the start and said “Keep writing!”

  Diana Welch –Gave me safe haven to finish the book.

  Gabrielle Mappone – Photographer, friend, cheerleader.

  Larry Wiles – Who taught me to practice what I preach, how to forgive, how to love again, and how to keep the story going.

  Friends and Family who read the book and asked for more! I love each and every one of you!

  Chapter One

  Waking up in Hell is the worst part of my day. During sleep you can kind of forget where you are — dream about happy places, happier times — other than the heat, the oppressive heat that is always here. Because, what else would Hell be if not hot?

  My bed is actually kind of comfortable. Well, more comfortable than anything else here. Sometimes I dream about when I was alive. Nothing major like working out life’s big mysteries, but little moments like having an orgasm, or the look on my best friend Linda’s face whenever I gave her relationship advice (something I am not qualified to do, by the way.) She would look at me with this intent admiration, as if no wisdom could be greater than mine. Dreams are the one thing Hell cannot take away from us. It is as if our creator is giving us one last peace, despite our sins.

  My alarm is set to go off exactly one hour before I want to get up. It's a psychic clock. We have a whole different set of tech down here. Regardless, I wake up every morning with that sense of being more exhausted than I was when I went to bed. That's just one of the lovely amenities this place has to offer.

  When I say amenities, please hear the facetious nature with which I proclaim such a thing. My “apartment” is about 8 feet by 8 feet. No TV, no phone, no air conditioner (obviously) and one window that does not open. The walls are gray, the floor is bare wood, and nothing is designed with comfort in mind. This is not my sanctuary, where I can escape Hell. It’s my little corner of Hell that I get to call my own. I live in a relatively small building. I think there are about a dozen other tenants here, but we are not what you would call a friendly bunch, so I don’t exactly know my neighbors. I rarely hear any of them. The occasional scream will seep through my walls, but that is pretty much it.

  I hit the snooze button (which never works, yet I still try each morning) and I wake yawning and rubbing my sore, dry eyes against the super-heated air. I get dressed quickly, since I have little choice in my closet. It changes from day to day, but today is a prime example of what greets me each morning; a pair of shit-tan hip huggers a size too small (circa 1977) complimented by a blue polyester shirt with a lapel wider than the ass of a waitress at a greasy spoon. Additionally, I have been issued a g-string stained with some unknown substance. I cast it aside. Oh well, in keeping with the glass half-full mantra I've been employing lately, I think to myself, “beats yesterday's five layers of itchy underwear from the Victorian era.” And if, by chance, today’s outfit is worse than yesterday’s, I simply look at the clothing of others and am eventually bound to see some poor soul clearly worse off than myself. Indeed, as I look out my window right now, I spot someone across the street in an Eskimo coat and wool sweat pants. Who says the Devil doesn’t have a sense of humor?

  Ah, but it gets worse. Aside from the tortuous togs I must don for the day, there are other truths to face. One immediate concern — I need a job. I was fired three days ago from the job I've held ever since I found myself here. I can’t say exactly when that was because there is no way to keep track of time in Hell. Although it is possible to make tally marks on the wall (one for every time you wake up) it seems futile and a bit of an annoyance. Things change down here all the time, with little or no warning. Like, for instance, my employment status.

  I was in tech support at the IP&FW (Internet Porn and Fetish Web). See, we have high speed Internet down here but every search leads right to IP&FW. If you search for your grandmother's recipe for chocolate zucchini cake, you arrive at a site where naked girls sit and squirm on your granny's favorite dessert. If you attempt to look up your favorite football team, you land on overweight gay romance. Oh, and if this would have ever turned you on when you were alive, it will not down here. For instance if you search “hot lesbian sex,” you’ll be taken to images and videos of disfigured lesbians literally on fire, attempting to have sex. What can I say? This is Hell. I spent every day at a call center listening to newcomers bitch about not being able to follow their favorite sports teams or download a single Miley Cyrus mp3 from their computers. Then one day, I got a call from a gentleman who claimed that he couldn't get online at all. I asked him if he'd reset his modem and he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I then asked him if he'd had Internet when he was breathing and he claimed that no, he was unable to get Internet access when he was among the living due to the fact that he lived in the woods and eschewed technology while he was alive. I pondered why he might want Internet now when he had gone so long without it. I imagined maybe he had more to entertain himself when he was alive; like HBO or masturbation. He claimed to have spent his entire welfare check every month on baked beans and guns. Oh, and the occasional purchase of lye and burlap bags for body disposal. Anyway, to make a long story short, I told him that he will occasionally have to reset his modem by unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds and plugging it back in — simple right? EVERYBODY knows that — right?

  Well, he didn't and I told him exactly what to do step-by-step, which constitutes being helpful. Being helpful in tech support at IP&FW is in direct opposition to their primary directive, which is an immediate terminable offense. Fuck IP & fucking FW. How was I supposed to know that I was talking to the ONLY person in the entire Hell-verse that would find the resetting-the-modem spiel actually helpful?

  So, now I have to find another job.

  Here, there are no social services. You work for any of the small cottage businesses that pop up all the time, or you work for IP&FW, or you get stuck working for one of the big chain stores or a law firm. If you turn out to be totally unemployable, then you go work fo
r the government. I would assume, the government of Hell is run by SATAN. I would assume, although I can’t say that I’ve ever met the guy personally. Trust me, no one goes to work for the government on purpose. With that in mind, I hit the streets telling myself I won't go home until I have secured employment somewhere.

  I walk out and immediately have to adjust to the outside environment. Hell was created (I assume it was created at some point, as opposed to just sprouting up after the Fall) to look like any old city; it has standard grid streets, homeless people, tall buildings that seem to go up forever. There are a few random smaller buildings in between that seem to say the city was built up around them, although, I think that is just part of the illusion. I mean, do you think Hell used to be a much nicer neighborhood with rising property values? No, me neither. There’s an orange color to the atmosphere, like ambient light, making everything seem as if it’s about to catch fire but never does. This is accompanied by the smell of phosphorous, like someone behind you has just struck a match. All of this seems to magnify the hot and make it even hotter. People behave here just like they do in any city of the living, rushing around like they are late to something really important. The sidewalks and streets are worn and cracked and filled with potholes, but still usable. Every once in a while there will be a repair crew out to fix one, but I don’t think it’s to improve our infrastructure. I think it’s because laying tar on a street, in temperatures close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, sounds like a perfect job for someone in Hell. There is no sky here. If you try to seek the heavens, whatever it is up there will burn your eyes, and you will be blinded for a few minutes, like with a camera flash.

  So, you have to be on your toes if you're going to stroll around in Hell.

  There are three coffee shops within walking distance from my apartment. One makes weak, watery coffee strained through dirty socks, one makes strong, bitter coffee strained through dirty socks, and the last claims to be “organic”. The populace believes that they are serving the waste produced by people drinking the stuff at the other two shops. I'll need my caffeine boost today so I go for the strong, bitter choice. I walk past the hoard of beggars. Believe it or not the beggars are actually employed by the government to stand outside and beg from folks sent to Hell. It's one of the more dead-end jobs you can have around here, no pun intended. I step inside and walk up to the counter. I'm third or fourth in line so I look at the bulletin board next to the cash register while I wait and see if any jobs are posted. They have the usual job fair notices from the chain stores, one from (grrrrr) IP&FW, and a help-wanted sign for the coffee shop itself. So, I take a look behind the counter — could I do that for 12 to 14 hours a day? I shrug and commit to asking for an application when I get up there. Then I notice a small piece of paper tacked way up on the corner of the board. I can't really read it until I reach up and take it down. Then I see:

  DO YOU BELONG HERE?

  CALL US TO FIND OUT!

  SECOND CHANCE TEMP AGENCY

  (666)-573-2236

  I look around and when I'm sure no one has noticed, I stick the note in my pocket.

  Chapter Two

  Here comes the part you’ve been waiting for, the part where I tell you how I got here. See, the note that is now sitting quietly in my pocket is screaming in my mind. Do I belong here? I can’t honestly say I know, without a doubt, that I deserved to go to Hell. However, I do know that I didn’t in any way, shape, or form earn a ticket to Heaven either. I didn’t do anything. And I don’t mean that as an indignant “I was framed” kind of defense. I mean I didn’t do anything with my time, with my talent, with my life. I was born Louise May Patterson. All things considered, I had a normal childhood and a very nice set of parents. I was in my mid-forties when I bit it, but I was still acting like a teenager. I lived at home with the aforementioned parents, or on the street, or with the occasional lover. I was always managing to never pay a single dime in rent, ate for free, and never reached the mentality of a true adult. I used to joke with Linda, back when she was still partying, that if I ever got a job she should shoot me in the head and put me out of my misery. We would laugh at all the “rats running the maze” every day, going to work at ‘o’dark thirty’ in the morning to try and screw the other rats out of the title of “assistant manager of paper clip requisitions”, or something equally meaningless. Wake up, rush through a cup of coffee, spend nine to five at a job they all hated, go home and go to bed just to do it again the next day. That was never me, and never would have been me. I mean, really, what’s the point?

  So, every day was a holiday for me and those in my circle at the time. This circle I speak of was always changing. My “lost boys and girls”, because everyone else grew up and left me. It didn’t bother me much. They all thought they were smarter than me, and I knew I was smarter than all of them. I would move on just as they moved on. I’d take on the newly single, the addicts, the newcomers to town, the young ones... Occasionally I’d find a sugar daddy, usually a married one, to take me away from the small, one-horse town, where I grew up and still lived.

  But I always came back. It might have been the charm of my home town that drew me back, but I sincerely doubt it. More likely, my adulterer and I just got bored with each other. I’d tell you the name of that town, where it is on a map, what great state it sits smack dab in the middle of, if it mattered. But it doesn’t. Just suffice it to say, “it’s a heap of shit filled with a bunch of smaller, less significant pieces of shit walking around in it.” Believe me, if you lived there, you would want to be wasted all the time too.

  My only saving grace in that town was Linda. She was my bestie from the moment we met. We were 19 years old and she was living with a group of guys who were dealing blow in the club where I hung out. I was one of their best customers. The night they finally invited me back to their place I had the adult version of sugar plum dreams. I had visions of being gang-banged and free coke dancing in my head. When I got there and saw her lying back on the sofa while some random guy was cutting a line on her stomach my heart lurched. Whoa, I’ve finally found a cosmic sister! She looked me right in the eye and gave me a dreamy smile. She had a barely noticeable overbite unless (as I came to learn later) she was giving you her “this is my dreamy smile” face. It’s a surprisingly effective face... then she scowled at Len (the leader of this particular pack) and said “Who’s the new bitch?”

  I actually let out a small squeal, like I did as a kid whenever I opened up the Christmas gift that I’d been wading through socks, underwear, and school supplies to get to. That night there was no orgy. There was no sex at all. It was just me and Linda, up all night, jazzed up on cocaine and letting every detail of our lives spill out all over each other like an overflowing milkshake. Indeed, I stained her with my strawberry, and her chocolate is still imprinted on me. We talked faster than the speed of light until our voices were hoarse and the boys had given up all hope of getting laid. By morning we knew everything about one another. I still remember watching the sun coming up and actually feeling different. Like today, I was a new person because today I had a friend who was going to change my life. I guess that is kind of like how falling in love would have felt, if I’d ever fallen in love. But for me it was always Linda. From that point on I didn’t need to fall in love, or get a job, or buy a house... as long as I had Linda, I was complete.

  I know what you’re probably thinking. That I died of a drug overdose or an accident involving drunk driving or something. Well, neener neener neener — NOTHING like that. In fact, my death was sort of valiant. I died of breast cancer, which, by the way, pisses me off beyond all reason. I was never very good about going to the doctor. First of all, I hated the fact that you had to have a blood test or a pee test and I’m sure they test for drugs even if they say they don’t. I know that hippopotamus thingy is supposed to protect you, but I OBVIOUSLY have a problem trusting people in authority positions, so I never really bought that either. I hardly ever got sick anyway. Besides it�
�s not like I just had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield card hanging out of my purse. One trip to the emergency room would mean avoiding calls from bill collectors for at least 6 months after. That was all more trouble than it’s worth. The only preventative care I took of my breasts was the fact that every other guy in the tri-county area had felt me up or had them in his mouth. Don’t you think at least ONE of those guys would have told me if he felt a lump? Nope. So by the time I noticed it, (I never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the drawer, you know) it was full blown Stage 4, “bend-over-and-kiss-your-ass-goodbye” cancer.

  There were some good things about it. It was the first and only time anyone other than Linda called me “brave.” I went from junkie-whore to hero. Everyone kept looking at me with tears building up in their eyes and they’d say some greeting card platitude bullshit like “everything happens for a reason” or “the One above works in mysterious ways”. As if that would make me feel better. But then they’d all say the word “BRAVE.” I was hardly signing up to be the new Buffy or running into a burning building or anything. It wasn’t like I had a choice. Dying of old age in my sleep, or getting murdered very slowly, in front of the whole town by an invisible killer. I couldn’t protect myself or stop it from happening. It’s truly weird how having cancer, a disease that’s not contagious or discriminative, will all of a sudden make someone a good person.

  I use the term junky-whore loosely, and mostly out of jest. I was never really a junkie, in the real sense of the word. Sure, I did plenty of drugs and even more men, but I was never paid to have sex. I never crawled around on my knees searching for a crack rock. I never stuck a needle full of heroin into my arm. I guess you could say I was classier than your average party slut. That’s a better term, not “junky-whore,” rather, “party slut.” I always looked amazing, had beautiful skin, great legs and a kick-ass wardrobe. The greatest asset I’d ever been given, I would assume by a higher power, but since getting here I can’t say that definitively, was my rack. I had the tits of a 25 year old even after I’d hit the big 4-0. You know the pencil test? The one where you take a pencil and put it under your boob and let go of it, and if it stays put then it’s time to see a plastic surgeon. My D-cups were still dropping pencils on the last day they were on earth. This, by the way, preceded my last day on earth by seven and a half months.