The Other Place: Hell 1.1

T

he Other Place

Hell 1.0 (v 1.1)

Copyright 2013 William Jacobs

Published by William Jacobs at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for personal enjoyment. This ebook may be re-sold or given away to other people only if deleted from all devices of the seller / donor, just like a printed book cannot be in two places at once. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1 Welcome

Chapter 2 Briefing

Chapter 3 Check

Chapter 4 Blueprint

Chapter 5 Breaking

Chapter 6 Edges

Chapter 7 Scheming

Chapter 8 Theft

Chapter 9 Resurrection

Chapter 10 Cedric

Chapter 11 Etiquette

Chapter 12 Freedom

Chapter 13 Raid

Chapter 14 Confession

Chapter 15 Burden

Chapter 16 Web

Chapter 17 Connections

Chapter 18 Beer

Chapter 19 Reunion

Chapter 20 Cats

Chapter 21 Snap

Chapter 22 Abuse

Preview - Litost - Hell 2.0

Appendix - Revision History

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Johanna Hix for initial critiquing and invaluable editing help, but more importantly, her cheerleading that helped me stay on task and realize when I was finished with Part I.

Introduction

In the appendix following the book, you will find a revision history explaining the (world's first?) version number assigned to a book. It will offer readers insight into the process that went into writing it and perhaps offer encouragement to other writers. Good stories can become better ones by evolving. Fair warning, there are not only plot spoilers aplenty in the appendix, but misleading passages that were never used; not to mention other ideas that will only happen in the sequel: Litost.. Looking at the appendix will potentially not just ruin this book but the next one as well. For those of you who find joy in peeking at the end of your books, you have yourself a twofer.

The version number also serves as a message to those who enjoy reading this book. They are not necessarily done when they finish the last Chapter. This is the revision of the original Hell 1.0 with its new title: The Other Place. Hell 1.2 may be released in the future including new subplots or dialog items, improvements to existing ones, additions of entirely separate stories following bit part characters down their own road, or something I haven't even thought of.

So, if you think of a better solution to a problem in the book, a detail I overlooked, or an inconsistency I need to correct, send it to me at williamjacobs@gmail.com. If I write a new passage using your suggestion, I'll send you a voucher for a free copy of the next release. For the really good stuff, I'll include you in the acknowledgments.

Hell 2.0 - Litost will be out this year. If you like Hell 1.1, send me an email for a notification and promotion code.

Dedication

To my beloved wife, mother, and children.

None of whom should even THINK about reading this book.

PROLOGUE

New Jersey

March 2005

I'll look into that when I get back to the office tomorrow, Harv, said Paul turning onto Gunston Road for the long, winding stretch home.

Harv didn't drop the matter.

I just said I'd look into it tomorrow, Harv. I don't have anything in front of me that will give me an intelligent answer. If you want some wild guess I pull fresh out of my ass, it's all yours, Paul said.

The Beemer sedan passed the bridge where the cop car could sometimes be seen lying in wait, and Paul celebrated the officer's absence with an extra helping of gas pedal.

Jesus, Harv. Is your job riding on this one deal? You're acting like Goldmine is our only client, and frankly, it's barely on my radar screen. It may mean big money someday, but it's a fucking startup, Harv! Just some snot-nosed kid's idea of a business that happened to land some capital from someone, who will probably turn out to be a blood relative, Paul growled into his cell, Either look up the info yourself, or wait for me to do it tomorrow. If I'm going to work overtime, it sure as hell isn't going to be Goldmine that I'm busting tail for. Shit, if you want the account, it's yours. I give it fifty-fifty odds that it's not here this time next year.

The car caught air as it crested the hillock in the glen before the woods-strewn portion of Gunston. It met the ground with minimal bounce; the gas shocks sweetening the ride.

Get a clue, take a hint, Harv. I'm done. You need me to babysit you, okay, but it ain't gonna be tonight and you owe me big for this one. Fuck Goldmine. Look up Galveston Metals in the paper files...same dynamic as Goldmine. Use the same sales approach to haul them in, Paul said sliding around the first curve of three past Bradford Park Lane.

No, dumbass. What I'm saying is that the two companies have the same market cap and are catering to the same clientele - mainly automakers, but other industrials as well. Galveston has established supply chains and cash streams but Goldmine is a data integration firm. It's really just a name. Do you know thing-one about your client, Harv? What the fuck do you do all day?

Paul rounded the second curve. He narrowly missed the little broken-down sports coupe nestled beside the guardrail to the side of narrow Gunston Road. The BMW reacted smoothly enough and it might have managed to right itself after pulling back into the correct lane - if Paul hadn't been occupied with the cell phone while doing his usual excess speed. But, unfortunately, the truck coming in the opposite direction caught Paul's rear fender and sent him, and the car, over the guardrail nose-down into a gully. The lurch into the ditch shouldn't have been life-threatening. Paul might have survived if he hadn't thrown out the recall notice that warned of the air bags that didn't reliably deploy during collisions. Even the head wound against the steering wheel wouldn't have killed him if the paramedics had only found him soon enough. Instead, they helped the truck driver, who had crashed on the side of the road where he could be seen. Down in the ditch, behind the guard rail, no one noticed Paul until it was too late.

Harv Krakow thought Paul had hung up on him. Harv's unkind words never reached Paul's ears.

Chapter 1. Welcome

Paul stepped out of the crumpled car, rubbing his head and woozily looking at the bent steering wheel. He winked uncomfortably as blood slowly seeped into his eye.

Goddamn, he breathed, as he looked up the side of the ravine.

Looking back at the car briefly, he climbed the side of the ditch, reaching an empty road. There was no sign of the truck or parked car. He looked at his watch, but it was stopped. It was certainly odd how the crash would take out his watch but not his wrist. Not that his wrist didn't hurt; it did. Just not more so than the rest of him. He reached for his cell phone and returned to the car when he realized that it wasn't in his pocket. He found it in the footwell. He pressed the Talk button to call his wife but it hadn't survived the impact either. Paul sat heavily into the car seat and blew out a deep breath, thoroughly annoyed. He looked at the ground, then the door, then out at the trees. He tossed the broken phone over his shoulder onto the passenger seat and headed up the ravine again.

When he topped the hill, Paul noticed that there was no guard rail blocking the ravine. The crash had happened quickly and he couldn't be sure of his memory, but he thought there had been one beside the parked car which apparently had left the moment the driver realized he had caused a serious accident. He looked up and down the road and saw nothing. It was eerily quiet. Rush hour may have ended since he crashed and fell unconscious but, as a connecting byway, this road typically would have the occasional car pass by every few minutes. As the few minutes turned into fifteen, Paul looked back to the car thinking about what else he could do. He hadn't thought about what he would do if there was no traffic to flag down. There should have been some.

After wiping his brow for what seemed to be the hundredth time, Paul started thinking about getting himself some medical attention. It was entirely likely that his bleeding forehead and the bent steering wheel were intimately connected. He wasn't sure if the lack of pain was a good sign or a bad one. Either way, he felt that productive bleeding head wounds should be seen by a medical professional and Paul was getting concerned that he wouldn't see one any time soon if he didn't get to a road with cars moving on it. That meant walking and he was hardly dressed for it. He might have chosen less comfortable shoes for a long walk, but it would have been a tough selection process. The ones he was wearing were only a few weeks old and still needed breaking in. There was nothing to be done for it. He resolved to start hiking.

Paul looked up one way then down the other pondering which way was a shorter walk to a main road, but he couldn't decide. Driving the same way after so many years left the whole ride a muddle in his head. The daily commute was just something you go through each day and stop noticing. He decided to go towards his home figuring that if he didn't need the hospital, he could go there.

After 200 yards, he slowed his gait a bit. The area wasn't familiar. He knew he'd seen it before but it was slightly different. The contour of the land was the same. Stands of trees were more or less where he felt that they belonged but he remembered more buildings in the area. He couldn't say where, he just thought it should be less rustic than it was. Things certainly looked different when you weren't behind glass and moving 50-plus miles per hour.

The walk was pretty enough, if disconcerting, as the occasional drop of blood sneaked off his cheek and spotted his suit's lapel. Just how far was it going to be until he saw some sign of civilization? All the while he had been walking, no car had passed and it was as quiet as it had been back at the ravine.

15 minutes further along, he stopped again at a pasture. There'd been barbed wire around it. He felt sure of it. Still, he couldn't trust that someone hadn't removed the barbed wire at some point. It would only take a single day with the right equipment. He shrugged to himself and kept walking only to take note of a pebble in the bottom of his shoe. He grumbled as he wobbled on one foot to empty it.

Blood trickled into his eye again and Paul cursed as he tried to wipe it out as best he could. He couldn't see the wound but it seemed awfully productive to not have clotted by now. It was then that some dots connected in Paul's head. A gushing head wound, no cars driving on a busy arterial for an hour in either direction, and an absence of landmarks combined to force the possibility of his demise into his consciousness. It made more sense than being alive after smashing your head into a bent steering wheel and having landmarks and cars start to disappear immediately after suffering such a wound. Still, delirium wasn't out of the question and was an outcome that he preferred. The endless miles of indistinct scenery and extra stretches of meadow and woods he didn't remember fit with both scenarios. He could also be dreaming. That made sense since his bleeding gash didn't seem to hurt very much. Did one feel things less intensely in dreams or not at all? He pinched himself, tentatively, but it didn't hurt much either so it made a terrible test. Doing something that hurt a lot wasn't worth the insight he hoped to obtain. Walking until he woke up or went sane was just as good a plan.

Frustrated by his stubborn wound, he thought to bind his head in his shirt sleeves, but wanted to clean the itchy, crusted blood from his face first. This part of Gunston Road had been built along a flat stretch of land near a stream as many rural / outer suburb roads were, so the materials with which to clean himself were readily at hand. He crossed the desolate road towards the stream buried in a thick of woods a few hundred yards away. Watching for gopher holes or debris that he didn't want to run afoul of, he looked down at his feet. When he perceived he had about covered the distance to the brook, he looked up and saw he still had about 100 feet to go. The tree strewn area had been fairly even so he didn't need to look down anymore and realized by the time he got to the water's edge that the distance to the brook had stretched the same way Gunston Road had before. Everything seemed farther than it should have been.

Stepping onto the stream-bed of pebbles in his almost new shoes, he crouched down by the water's edge and scooped up handfuls of the clear water. He swabbed his eye with several handfuls before moving down to his cheek, chin, and neck. Without a mirror, he couldn't tell what kind of job he was doing but it felt as though he'd gotten rid of the dried blood and the water coming off his face ran clear. He risked staining a shirt sleeve cuff to dry his neck and chin. It came away from the job only a little pink. Tired, he turned back towards the road and through the trees he barely made out the glen next to it. He headed for it and was disappointed but not terribly surprised to find that when he broke free of the trees he could not see the road. Intervening hills he KNEW he hadn't crossed had appeared between him and it. Delirium slinked off the list of possibilities. He was left with the conclusion that he was dreaming or dead. While neither conclusion was pleasant, both offered the same course of action: muddle through.

He looked towards where the road used to be and back at the brook he just came from and decided to stay near the water. The road wasn't going to be much help and he didn't like the idea of losing touch with a supply of water too. If he were dead, he couldn't be sure if he would get thirsty or not in the afterlife. If he was dreaming, it didn't much matter where he went before he woke up.

Paul followed the brook's edge, walking downstream. He remembered from a Boy Scout manual or a Discovery Channel show that a good way to find civilization when you were lost was to follow water downstream. Brooks led to rivers which inevitably led to ports and civilization. Hopefully, this creek followed that much logic despite its contempt for the concept of object permanence.

The bank was muddy in places and layered with peat in others. Roots threatened to trip him on occasion so he watched his feet a great deal while walking. His head wound had apparently stopped bleeding profusely because he no longer felt dripping down the side of his face. That was encouraging since it was the first improvement in his situation that he'd noticed since he started his trip from his wrecked car. If he were dead, perhaps that was a promising sign. One would expect nothing got better in Hell. Still, one would hardly expect head wounds to bleed at all in the kind of Heaven he'd been brought up to expect. He smiled a bit realizing that the probability of his being in a dream had taken the lead. He could wake up momentarily and tell Melissa all about it, assuming he remembered any of it.

It was then that he recalled being able to control dreams once he realized he was in one. 'Lucid Dreaming' it was called. With that, he made an attempt to lift off the ground and take to the air, flying. Usually it was an act of will that started as a drifting motion low to the ground, like a duck lifting off from a pond, rather than going straight up like a rocket. When that didn't work, he imagined switching dream venues to a topless beach. He was disappointed but not surprised that he was still in the forest of bare trees next to the whispering brook. The dream option dived below the likelihood that he was dead and he grimaced bitterly. One of those tricks should have worked or he should have awakened when he knew he was sleeping.

Paul trudged downstream hoping the afterlife held at least some of the same rules his usual life had. The brook met another after a while and they merged into a stream of more substantial size. He had not called for help since he had left his car behind on the abandoned road. Since his wound had stopped dripping, he had not had much reason to think he was in any further danger. Calling for help hadn't been as urgent as when he'd been hiking down the road. The interval had grown lengthy enough that Paul thought to at least find a second opinion as to his predicament.

He shouted the usual things you think of to the surrounding thick woods and heard each echo as each cry returned, Hello!, Help!, Can someone please help me?! The sounds melted into the omnipresent nothing that had been there before. The nothing was more profound than he'd remembered from the smattering of times he'd hiked in the woods. He noted the missing sounds of crickets and peeper frogs and whatever other things made noises in the woods that he wasn't outdoorsy enough to name. He couldn't even be sure if crickets migrated into woods or if they were strictly meadow creatures. He simply knew that no place natural was this still. Only the stream's soft shushing of its eddies broke the enshrouding silence. It was simultaneously beautiful and disturbing.

Paul had been on his feet for well over an hour now and he was beginning to get thirsty. He hadn't made a point of getting hydrated for a long walk before work and now the ordinary condition of his body was coming up short of supplies. He didn't know what type of contaminants he might find in the water of the afterlife, but if he didn't get help soon, he'd have to chance it and try a little.

The sky was clear with a half-moon pointing its curve in the direction of the pink sky where the sun had set. Not getting up, he sent up into the sky yet another cry for help only to receive no reply.

He thought about getting up three times before surprising himself by actually doing so the fourth time. His feet protested as he began to wander downstream again when a loud whisper came from behind him, Pssst!

Startled, Paul swiveled his head left then right looking for the voice.

Yeah, over here, came the voice. It was a bearded face calling from behind a tree about thirty feet back.

Uh...hi! Paul said.

Yeah, um...can you take it easy on the calling for help thing? asked the bearded man.

Um, okay, Paul answered, I didn't know you were... I mean, that anyone was nearby.

And we'd kind of like to keep it that way, the man said.

We? Paul asked.

Yeah, um... Andrew, you want to say hi? the guy asked over his shoulder.

Hey, said a second, sandy brown-to-blonde, bearded man poking his head out from behind the tree on the other side. The second man waved with the kind of salute you give when someone lets you merge on to the highway.

Um, hi... Paul said, staying where he was.

Sorry we're being introduced this way, said the first man, I'm Gray Wright. This is Andrew Claybrook. You're new here, right?

New here, Paul repeated, as in... this part of Jersey?

Is that where we are? Gray said looking uncomfortable, Nevermind that. Andrew and I are not what you'd call decent at the moment, but we thought we better find you before anyone else did. Folks around here are rather ornery.

You don't say, said Paul, getting increasingly curious by the continuation of the conversation while his opposite was poking his head out from behind a tree.

Yeah, and Andrew will back me up on that one, Gray said. Andrew had disappeared behind the tree again.

Okay. Any particular reason? Paul asked.

Pretty much only ornery types find this place.

And you two aren't ornery?

Not as much as most people you meet around here, Gray explained, which is why we wanted to meet you first.

Paul couldn't stand it any longer, Is there a reason we're talking around a tree?

Well, that's mostly for your benefit. As I said before, we're not decent, but it can't really be helped, Gray said getting the uncomfortable look again.

You're naked, aren't you? Paul said, simultaneously amused and disturbed.

Chapter 2. Briefing

Gray exchanged his look of discomfort for one of sheepishness. Uh yeah, we're without a stitch. And we knew that would be a problem for a newcomer like yourself, he said, relieved he didn't have to spell everything out.

So I've wandered into an angry nudist camp and I should get out before I re-enact Deliverance? Is that what you're saying? Paul asked.

Kind of. Anywhere you go from here you'll run that risk, though. It's just that shouting for help like you were might make it happen a whole lot faster.

So which way do I get out of here so I don't get a nasty surprise?

Well, you can follow us and we'll keep you out of trouble as best we can.

Okay, Paul said, understandably apprehensive. You want my coat or something? he asked, moving to take off his sport jacket.

If it makes you more comfortable, I'll wear it, Gray offered. Andrew? Gray asked over his shoulder.

Paul couldn't hear any reply Andrew made.

Paul walked up to the tree and tossed his jacket to Gray and he disappeared behind the thick trunk momentarily. He emerged wearing the jacket with the sleeves tied back around his waist, the thorax of the jacket draping over him like a loincloth. It looked ridiculous. Gray took a step towards Paul and while still about ten feet away, proffered his hand. Thanks for the coat, he said.

Glad to oblige, Paul said, stepping forward to take Gray's hand how'd you lose your own clothes, anyhow?

I got mugged for them, Gray said. There aren't any stores around here to replace them either.

I can imagine, Paul said, looking back towards the stream. I haven't seen anything after three hours of walking.

I've been walking here and there for... Gray stopped himself, I don't quite know how long. Years, though. I haven't seen anywhere where you can buy anything.

So if there's nowhere to buy anything, what do you all eat? Paul asked.

Hooboy, he heard the other man grunt from behind the tree.

Gray looked furtively sideways towards the tree, looking frustrated or annoyed. There isn't much, Gray said, I don’t have anything on me.

So I noticed, Paul said, still not quite comfortable with his prospective guide.

And unfortunately, I only know where to find the sparest food. Gray said, finishing his thought. Can I suggest we start walking? If anyone heard you, they're less likely to find us if we get away from this spot.

Um, okay, Paul said, that makes sense. How can we help your friend out though? Nothing I have on is particularly useful for another Tarzan vestment.

Andrew partially emerged from the tree, I'll walk behind ya. You don't hafta see me that way, he suggested.

Paul wasn't entirely sanguine with that plan, but nothing better came readily to mind, so he assented.

Gray and Paul walked almost precisely away from the stream and Andrew fell in line behind them.

If you can, Gray said, try to tread carefully. You'd be amazed how far away you can hear a snapping twig.

Wouldn't they hear us talking? Paul asked.

"Well, since