To Hell and Back

Author's Note: Trigger Warning!

This story deals with a character who has committed suicide, and this is repeatedly addressed. Please do not read if you find this to be triggering. If you are struggling with suicidal ideation, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline to receive help.

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The cycled Muzak playing on a loop was beginning to drive me absolutely bonkers by the time the partition slid open and a receptionist reached out to grab the clipboard I'd scribbled my name onto forever ago. This chair was uncomfy and too small for my fat ass; this arm rests dug into my thighs, the upholstery was ripped and stiff recycled foam made the back of my kneecaps itch where it poked out of the unusually coarse texture of the musty gray fabric. It was sweltering in here, like they still had the AC set to heat even in summer. All around me were other people who seemed equally bored, aggravated, and stuck waiting.

A man with a haggard cough was making me seriously uncomfortable. A summer cold would mean spending all of my PTO to recuperate and missing my birthday weekend. Sure, it was just a cheap dinner and some box wine with my two best friends, but working in retail meant that the small luxuries of life made all the difference. Every single day, I came home from my eight hour shifts and contemplated just giving up, living off cold cans of ravioli and FM radio as I slept in supermarket parking lots and bathed in gas station bathroom sinks. Would I be thriving? No. Would I be finally, truly living?

Well, that brings me to the real hook in this internal monologue, huh? The hand that reached out to grab the clipboard was reptilian. The voice that finally called my name was dark and guttural like a dog trying to do a trick and earn a treat from it's master. When I went up to the window I saw a horrific lizard with rows upon rows of sharp teeth, jutting horns and tusks, and perfectly manicured talons like a velociraptor.

"Suicide, homicide, or natural causes?" The monstrous receptionist asked in a bored tone.

"Uh, suicide." I replied in a small voice.

"Figures." She muttered, giving me a once-over. My face became a tomato as it burned red with embarrassment.

"Wow, okay. This is literally Hell but you don't have to be rude." I scolded her.

"And you don't have to be dead, but here we are. Both prisoners to our own shitty life choices." The beast of a woman grumbled, her claws tapping away at her keyboard with an impressive speed and precision. "Goremonger will see you now." There was a click and the unassuming door by her window seemed to unlock.

Hesitantly, I slowly opened the door. My fate awaited me just beyond this threshold, and I'd been forced to ruminate over my regrets and unfinished business with nothing to distract me in here. No TV, no phone, no magazines. God, I would have killed for a decade old People or Us Weekly, even just a TV Guide. Instead, I'd been trying to wake up from a nightmare where, finally, no one made it to my shitty apartment in time to save me from myself. Maybe they'd all gotten sick and tired of my constant jokes about ending myself, or hearing me over the phone at 3 AM when I was holding a bottle of pills, trembling, trying to get someone to talk me off the ledge. Maybe--

"Shit, or get off the pot." The receptionist's voice broke me out of my spiraling post-existential dread. I was still standing in the waiting room, holding the door open.

"Fuck you, I'm having a moment." I scoffed. Seriously, this was Limbo? Who hired her?

"If everyone who died got to have 'a moment,' I'd never have a lunch break. Close the damn door already." She growled, slamming the window shut before I could even think up a response. My blood was boiling. There was nothing worse than just wanting to smack someone but losing the opportunity to do it! Furious, I stomped out of the waiting room and slammed the door shut behind me.

"Woah, careful." A man's voice said. I turned, shocked to find that the hallway I'd been faced with outside the waiting room had suddenly become a tiny cubicle. But where was the door? Turning 360 degrees, I looked around so quickly, so utterly confused, that I nearly tripped over a chair leg. "Those portal doors date back to the 1980's, they're pretty fragile. Don't just go slamming them around. Putting in a service ticket down here is a nightmare." The man chortled, shaking his head. I stared at him openly. Like, wide-eyed and deep-set grimace staring, none of that bewildered good natured shit I always did in Wal-Mart.

"You're a cow." I stated.

"Incorrect." The literal bovine at the tiny desk replied. "I am a demon. Goremonger, to be specific." He informed me, introducing himself without batting an eyelash.

"But, you look like a cow." I insisted.

"But, I'm not a cow." He retorted.

"If it walks like a cow, talks like a cow, and looks like a cow--"

"Do you want me to send you back to the waiting room?" The cow named Goremonger asked me, a thinly veiled threat.

"Ah, I see you're familiar with receptionsaurus rex." I muttered, finding my way to the single chair in front of his desk.

"Sheila gets grumpy around lunchtime. She's always a treat after she's had her low-fat mealworm salad." Goremonger assured me, but I found it hard to believe. "Now, let's pull you up in the database. Name?" He asked me.

"Jubilee." I sighed.

"Full name." He told me.

I hesitated. "Rebecca Ruth Lawrence." I finally said. If I was dead, being difficult wasn't going to do me any good. Not like I could turn back, now.

"Birthday?" He asked. I told him, and he entered that as well as my place of birth and parent's names. "There we go. Seems you committed suicide by self poisoning with painkillers. Pronounced dead upon arrival to the St. Laurel Memorial Hospital." He murmured under his breath as I looked around his office. An odd amount of feline related decor. A certificate framed on the wall of some sort. A trash can full of crushed cans that were a crimson red with gold and black accents. I squinted to look more closely, hoping to god it was a Hellish version of Red Bull so I could have a good laugh.

"Virgin Blood?" I gasped, looking up at him in horror.

"Demon." He said in a sing-song-y voice as he pointed to his giant cow head.

"You're in a cubicle! Wearing a button down shirt!" I pointed out, my voice rising as my blood pressure did. The pounding in my ears was growing louder and I felt panic rising in my throat as I fully began to process that I was actually dead. Not only that, but I was in Hell for taking the 'easy way out.'

"My leather and chains are at the dry cleaners." Goremonger replied with mild sarcasm. He snorted, the ring in his wide nostrils moving with them. "Now, I just need to place you accordingly. Hm, let me just..." His meaty fingers jabbed at the keyboard slowly. While he worked, I studied him in detail. It helped keep me grounded, at least a little. He resembled a dark brown bull, perhaps a Longhorn, though he had four sets; the two biggest atop his big head, and three sets that protruded down his neck and back in smaller and smaller sizes. His eyes were completely red, no whites at all, and when he picked some food from his teeth I saw that they were like a tiger's; two huge fangs at the front, and made for ripping into jugular veins. Glancing under the desk gave me the view of two bovine hooves, though they were as big as the silver platters he probably had his virgins served up on each night.

"Are you really a demon?" I asked him in a voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes met mine. "Yes," He replied. "I really am." Everything about his demeanor changed, and I felt the truth of it drag the air from my lungs.

"This isn't just...a nightmare?" I asked, some small sliver of hope lingering. Maybe I'd wake up, go to work, and have a renewed sense of purpose...just for a few days?

"Do you often spend three months stuck in your nightmares?" Goremonger asked.

"Three months?" I demanded, shocked. It had felt like a few days but nothing that ridiculous! I'd only fallen asleep a couple of times since showing up in the waiting room. "Why have I--how have I--just, what!" I pressed my palms to my eyes and pushed. The pressure made the throbbing vein on the side of my head recede just a bit.

"It's a normal amount of time to wait for a registration. Humans have become so numerous, and you're all increasingly damned by the day. We've been seeing some record numbers of intakes in a day ever since you discovered, uh, what is it...internet." He snapped, pleased with his observation of human social evolution. "One porn ad is now a seed that reaps bountiful souls bound for damnation. Truly a marvel." Goremonger grinned wide and smoke billowed from his nostrils.

"Does that mean I'm going to burn in the fiery lakes for the rest of eternity?" I asked, every passionate warning from those crazy people outside the Planned Parenthoods and my parent's coffee shop coming back to me in a symphony of righteous accusations and slut-shaming.

"You know, everyone thinks that." Goremonger smirked and shook his head. "That's pretty much been taken over by the seriously nasty souls we house. Rapists, murderers, people who double dip."

"Naturally." I nodded.

"Souls like you, however, are not so easily placed. Did you commit a sin? Yes. Do we, as a non-Heaven affiliated entity, see it as such? No. So, we have guidelines on these sorts of situations, but it's largely up to the discretion of the intake professional." He explained, cracking open a can of his favorite gruesome beverage as we chit-chatted idly over my potential immortal fate.

"So," I took a deep breath. "Where are you going to place me?" I asked.

"Hm," He slurped the last of his drink that he had so casually chugged in one go and crunched the can in a fist before tossing it aside. A large black tongue licked his lips as he cleared his throat. "I could send you to work as a slave for one of the Kings or Dukes, or I could let you live in one of the Rings of my choice as an indentured servant since I see no reason to punish you for wanting to escape life, especially in America. Honestly, it is just a mess up there." He said, shaking his head like an old woman watching the local news.

"Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Wh-what do you mean, uh, indentured servant? Isn't that a fancy word for a slave?" I asked him almost rhetorically. I knew exactly what it meant.

"Oh, yeah. You'd be bonded to a demon sponsor, typically a merchant in the Rings." He told me lightly.

"Can you elaborate on that?" I asked.

"So," Goremonger leaned back and his office chair shrieked like a banshee under his immense weight. "There are nine Rings. We're in the First Ring, otherwise known as Limbo or Purgatory. This is honestly just a giant business office that handles intakes and other boring paperwork. Beneath us is the Second Ring, the most populated. That tends to happen when all the lustful souls and demons get together in one place." He chortled.

"Wait, so souls can procreate?" I interrupted.

"No, absolutely not. Well...not with each other. Let's leave it at that." He waved a hand dismissively and continued. "Third Ring is all about gluttony, and it usually functions as the most famous buffet in the entire underworld. Honestly, the baby back ribs? Immaculate. I'm getting hard just thinking about the fall-off-the-bone meat." He groaned, eyes rolling back in his head for a second.

"Uh, okay." I replied, completely thrown for a loop on that one. I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't an infernal Golden Corral.

"Fourth Ring is a bunch of snooty rich Dukes and Lords. Private property, and all. Fifth Ring is something similar to, what is it you human's have...oh! Monster trucks. But, Goliaths instead. So much blood and gore." He grinned, a rumbling growl overtaking his voice when he spoke of the violence in that ring. "Sixth Ring is super boring, in my opinion. Went there once, just a bunch of hippie drum circles and weird off-tune self proclaimed witches doing seriously cringy stuff with rocks and burning grass. Not worth the day trip. The Seventh Circle, which is ironically where you should be sent for suicide, is something like the slums. Lots of pick-pockets, cut-purses, fight clubs. Got some good, cheap hookers down there. Nice for a night out every once in a while, but if you're down there too long it can get pretty depressing." He told me, going over all of this like a city bus driver explaining the route map for his line.

"What about the other two?" I asked him, because he seemed to be done with his little segue into the sociogeographical layout of Hell, and I had only counted seven out of nine rings.

"Don't worry about those two, they're not options for you." He shrugged. "So, we can set you up as an eternal waitress at the Third Ring--"

"I'll literally find a way to kill myself again." I interrupted.

"Alright, not that one then. Cool, cool." He clicked out of a few open screens. "Hm. This one might be promising." Goremonger's dark, rich voice rumbled in his chest like rolling thunder. Looking over at me, his eyes moved from my hair to my bare feet, and every inch of me in between. "How would you like to be one of the most desired women in all of Hell?" He asked me.

"Depends. Would I be eaten literally or euphemistically?" I asked, my interest piqued but my cautious nature causing me to hesitate.

"Depends on what you're into, really. How much money you wanna make." Goremonger replied easily.

What did he mean by that? Was there really a market for souls who wanted to be eaten? "You might need to elaborate more for me, Gorey, my man." I said, slumping in my seat a bit. My ass was sore from all the seated waiting I'd done since death.

The demonic cow turned his computer screen to display an ad for what appeared to be some sort of strip club. Perhaps a brothel? Two naked women clad in strikingly different clothes--one in ancient robes with Grecian curls under a veil, and the other in modern attire reminiscent of a Forever 21 clearance rack--posed in similarly opposing stances bordered the ad for Brimstone, which appeared to be the name of the club. Along the bottom it read, 'Tits, Slits, and Clits! Mortal Whores and Holes!' At the sides were some of the services offered. "Ritual Service, Worship, Idolatry...Breeding, Humping, and Pumping?" I read aloud, giving Goremonger an open-mouthed look of horror. "Do I look like a whore, to you?" I demanded, a bit insulted.

Those red eyes stared at my chest and thighs. "Something of a butterface, but those fat tits and wide hips make up for it." He shrugged.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, offended. Sure, I wasn't a stunner, definitely never called a looker, but I had a couple good angles! In dim lighting you could barely see my acne scars, eyebags, or chin hairs.

"You've got, what is it...a dump truck ass? Is that what they're saying, now? Whatever. Might as well use all those assets to make a living now that you're dead." Goremonger told me, but I wasn't convinced. He seemed to pick up on that. "You're dead, Becky. Might as well take advantage of that. Reputations are different in Hell. It's not about how pure and proper you are, it's about who has your back and how steady you are on your own two feet." He said, providing a small speech that actually made me feel almost bold enough to accept this job offer.

My fingers tugged at my loose hair as I sifted through everything holding me back; my family, my friends, my dignity. Not that my family had ever really had high expectations for me, though; they'd personally escorted my sister to college and paid for everything, thinking she was 'The Golden Goose' of the Lawrences, slotted to succeed and mete out their lofty goals for the oldest child. I'd been kicked out before graduation and left out of every vacation, holiday, and funeral ever since. Even when Sarah became hooked on drugs and buckled under their pressure, even when I'd tried to guide her through the harsh world of adulthood and poverty she found herself in after our parents moved the spotlight onto our youngest sister, she had bit that hand that fed her like a feral wolf and left me scarred and traumatized from the entire ordeal.

My friends? The ones who constantly become pissed off because of these small, insignificant things like giving my opinion on their favorite movie, or trying to get them to stop leaving me on 'read' even during incredibly important rental related discussions? The ones who ruined my credit on a lease they kicked me out less than halfway through? Who stole my car to buy weed and damaged it, got caught driving it while it was unregistered, and racked up a couple thousand dollars in court fees and tickets? They talked shit about me in a private group chat I wasn't invited to, and I knew it. I'd ignored it, thinking I could work myself into the selective inner folds of our group for two years. Maybe I'd just been an idiot they strung along? Would real friends ignore your cries for help?

My dignity. Did I have any? No one in my life had ever respected me, not even my cat. He was probably eating my corpse when the cops finally did a welfare check on me. I'd never expected respect from anyone, and always given it freely to everyone. Did that make me polite, or a fool? Could you be one without the other? In the end, all that mattered was my opinion of myself. I wanted to be happy. Maybe, in death, I could let go of all my inhibitions and just finally live.

"I'll do it." I told Goremonger confidently.

He looked up. The soft music was recognizable to me. He was playing Frogger while I had my little 'Come to Jesus' moment. 'Come to Satan'? Same difference. "Perfect. We'll head down there and I'll introduce you to Basalt." He stood for the first time and I gasped. The demon behind the desk was a giant, easily nine feet tall and built like a Mack truck.

He also had an enormous erection under those khaki pants. "Um." Was all I could say, my eyes locked on the encased sausage that could justifiably rearrange my organs, literally.

It twitched. "Yeah, tends to happen whenever I get to talking about Brimstone." Goremonger laughed and reached down to adjust it's position from where it lay pinned to his inner thigh to a more comfortable place at his hip. "Get used to it, though. Brimstone caters only to immortal patrons." He advised me as he came around his desk. My head turned to follow his bulging trousers as if my eyes were lasers locked on his schlong. "You gonna follow me for our field trip, or you wanna just stare at me all day?" He chuckled, sounding very amused by my reaction.

I couldn't help it; he was twice the size of human men, and something about his scary looks and self-confident ego just drew me in. In a display of my complete lack of an ability to think things through, I reached up and pressed my left hand to the biggest part of his bulging package, where his balls were essentially held prisoner by the buttons of his pants, which were seemingly on the verge of snapping off. His cock throbbed and Goremonger groaned softly as I leaned forward to lick the drooling wet spot where his tip was. My tongue moved over the fabric in circles as I kneaded his bundled sac gently.

"Oh, fuck." He sighed, a large hand cupping my head at the back and pressing me against his straining sex. As my tongue continued to move over his head, and in an expected yet startling display of his size and virility, his trousers popped open and he sighed with relief as the pressure against his loins was released. My hands dug into his pants and found him thick, hot, and throbbing with every heartbeat. "Pull it out." He commanded, and I struggled to hoist the heavy shaft in an awkward way that had him flopping out and smacking me right in the face with that fat dong.