From Chapter Thirteen “The demon was a comedian!”

Illustrations by Jack Bateman

Later, when he would consider it, Oliver would conclude that being blasted into quadrillions of subatomic particles, flung through the cosmic ether and then reassembled atom by atom was one of the more relaxing portions of his journey to the underworld. As a cloud of bosons, gluons and other exotic hadrons, he was able to reflect on his visit to the nineteenth divine tier of the multiverse. It had certainly been informative. He looked forward to sharing his new knowledge with Teddy and Emma.

The journey had offered closure, the likes of which no living human had ever experienced, and Oliver saw this as an incredible gift. Just knowing that his father still existed as a productive member of an advanced society was a weight off his shoulders.

He would never again have to wonder what happened to Jack’s eternal soul. He’d had coffee and muffins with it!

Faith was great. Faith was important. But for secular mathematicians in a cynical society, faith had its limits. He, alone, was now party to evidence. Did his need for such evidence make him a doubting Thomas? He supposed it did. But better to be a doubting Thomas than a cynical Sandy.

Oliver was also overjoyed to know that the universe was infinitely more complex than human understanding could comprehend.

The idea that humans were somehow a species at the apex of knowledge had always depressed him, and now he could cast the thought aside. When it came to the cosmos, and the reconciliation of spiritual and scientific understanding, humans were idiots. This shouldn’t have been a big surprise.

He thought of all the television and YouTube scientists, so certain of their knowledge, and so quick to dismiss the spiritual as antiscientific. It was funny how unbelievably wrong they all were about the nature of things. If the swirl of pico-matter that constituted Oliver’s physical-self had been in possession of a face, it would have grinned.

He reflected on his dramatic exit from the divine version of Bob’s tiki bar. He could only hope Jack and Peter wouldn’t be in too much trouble. The cacophonous fanfare that had marked his departure was unsettling, sure, but in reality, he had no way of interpreting its meaning. Were the angels warning him not to go? Were they wishing him luck on his journey? Were they a bunch of Old Testamentarians, coming to arrest his dad? If so, what would they do to Jack? He couldn’t imagine the punishment for his father’s indiscretion would be too brutal. Heaven had seemed pretty civilized. But whatever the case, it was completely out of his control. Like an alcoholic at an AA meeting, he reminded himself to focus on the things he could change, and accept the things he couldn’t.

He hoped that if he could pull off his own mission, and rescue Emma, Bert, and Teddy without being captured by Amon and triggering a nuclear apocalypse, perhaps even the most stringent of the Old-Testamentarians would cut his dad a break. And the fact that Mayhem was on board with their plan reassured him. Surely, the cosmic not-quite-a-dog wouldn’t intentionally lead them into committing a biblical transgression—or at least, he hoped, not a serious one.

As Oliver’s essence coalesced, he mentally prepared himself for materialization. For a moment, he had the sensation of being nothing but a floating pancreas, and then the rest of him popped into existence.
He materialized lying on his back in an icy puddle, clutching a banana. A cold, howling wind whipped rain and salt spray across his face. Freezing water pooled in his paisley shirt and in the back of his trousers.

The twenty-seventh tier of hell was going to be unpleasant.

Squinting into the inky blackness of the tempestuous night, he found the dog. Mayhem whimpered, looking absolutely miserable with his ears back and his tail tucked between his hind legs.

“You look like a drowned rat, buddy,” Oliver whispered.

Scrambling to his knees, more cold water sluiced down the back of his pants and Oliver fought the instinct to yelp at the shock. If some horrible, hell-spawned beast was waiting for him here, he didn’t want to alert it to his presence.

Mayhem whined again, louder this time.

“Hey, it’s OK. It’s OK.”

Oliver picked up the wet, trembling dog-like being and cradled it against his chest. Mayhem shivered so hard, Oliver thought the poor thing would dislocate a hip.

He willed whatever warmth was in him to make its way to the unhappy celestial terrier.

If anything, Oliver had expected oppressive heat, and hadn’t mentally prepared for winter Hades, though, now that he thought about it, being cold and wet was a special misery unto itself, so perhaps such an environment was more appropriate for an underworld reserved for the eternally damned.

“This sucks,” he whispered.

Finding his bearings, he crossed the patio to the tiki bar, and set the banana on the uneven countertop. The bar stood askew, as though it had been blown loose from its anchor points.

Ducking low, he brought Mayhem inside. There was no escaping the roaring gale, but at least the bar could act as a kind of windbreak. He set the terrier down on the patio stones, out of the worst of the storm.

It had been broad daylight when he departed the nineteenth divine realm, but it was full dark here. Assuming time of day was constant between levels of the multiverse, he must have been in transit for at least a few hours.

Oliver circled the perimeter of the tiki bar, squinted into the dark, curious what the denizens of the underworld might look like.

As he did, the wind picked up, driving rain and sleet painfully against his skin. He held his hands to his face, palms outward and peered through the slits between his fingers. The palm trees, at least the ones he could make out, were bent double in the wind. Whitecaps ripped across the inland waterway.

None of the nearby homes were lit. This might have been due to a storm-related power outage, but then again hell might be without electricity.

The place gave him an overwhelming sense of depressing aloneness. The entire neighborhood could be abandoned, for all he knew. He might be the only person for miles in any direction.

Long ago, on a Sunday, after church, he’d asked his mother about hell. He would have been six or seven years old at the time. She explained that hell just meant separation from God.

The answer had been practically meaningless at the time to a kid who was worried about hot coals, and red devils with swishing tails, but now her words sent prickly shards of ice through his veins.
This was a place without any goodness. It was a place where happiness and joy would simply shrivel and die. It was a place of abandonment. Creation without creator.

He shivered. He hated it here.

(C) Jake Swan 2025