“There is He”, dully said Jackson.
“Who? God?” I didn’t understand. However, the look of my vis-a-vis suggested an opposite assumption: “the Devil?”
“Call Him what you want,” Jackson returned to his former grumbling tone. “He deceived you into the belief that there are two beings. All dualistic religions keep repeating that, enticing new unfortunate idiots. But actually, He is one. Creator. Founder. He, or more likely It… The soul should return to its creator, huh? But why in the world do all of you think that it happens for your pleasure?!” now Jackson almost shouted. “That It is interested in anyone’s pleasure, except Its own? And the main thing—everything is on the surface! Sometimes his servitors speak out clearly—however, even they are blind and don’t understand WHAT they serve… they don’t understand that there will be no reward and no exception for them either… Flock, oh yes. The favorite Christian image, what could be clearer. And if only anyone reflected—WHAT are sheep to the shepherd, or to be exact—to the owner of the flock? WHAT role does he prepare for them?”
“Are you saying…”
“We are Its food. For this purpose It created us, and it is the only meaning of our life. And sinners, saints, believers, non-believers—all these have no value. These are senseless labels with which we amuse ourselves in our pen. Really, who is interested in the beliefs of livestock?”
“Well, it’s, of course, a curious hypothesis…” I allowed.
“It’s not a hypothesis, you idiot!” Jackson bellowed, and his chains tinkled. “I saw it with my own eyes! Or what I had instead of eyes… there. The tunnel really exists and I flew through it almost up to the end. But do you know what it is actually?”
“What?”
“It’s… it’s a throat.”
For some time he sat silently, looking at the smooth surface of the table in front of him. Then he continued:
“Actually, our fate is even more awful than a sheep’s. For He devours alive not our bodies, but our souls. More precisely, even that’s not so. A soul is immortal. This was not a lie. And He—It—feeds not on souls, but on their suffering. That horror and despair which souls produce in the process of digestion… eternal digestion,” Jackson made a pause again. “I saw it. There, where the throat leads… in the stomach. There is… as if braided brown space, all consisting of a torn, dirty, shaggy web. And in this web people hang… millions, billions of people. Can you imagine old, exhausted corpses of flies—the victims of an ordinary spider? It looks similar from afar, but up close it’s much worse. They hang there… semi-digested, dried, with tatters of flesh hanging down from their bones, many of them already have no extremities, or just gnawed stumps sticking out… Certainly, that’s not real, corporeal bones and flesh—our consciousness simply perceives the mutilated soul this way. But, eventually, if we feel it to be so, what’s the difference to us what their true nature is? And they shout. All of them eternally shout…”
“So ‘semi-digested’ or ‘eternally’? If ‘semi-’, there should come also the moment when completely…”
“It is not necessarily true at all. Do you know what an asymptote is?”
“Seems to me, something mathematical…”
“Yes. The state to which it is possible to infinitely approach, but never to reach. The same is here. A certain core of a soul always remains. That core that is capable of feeling horror and pain…”
“And how did you manage to get out of there?”
“I, naturally, turned back when I saw all this. As well as billions before me. But usually the people who have fallen that deep can’t return. Even if doctors manage to reanimate the body, the soul remains there. And on a hospital bed the next comatose ‘vegetable’ appears… But I was very lucky. There were those nearby who helped me.”
“Who? You said something about ghosts.”
“You see, it’s also true that those who die a cruel death get stuck between the worlds. They don’t fall into the throat. I don’t know why and neither do they. Perhaps, from His point of view they are something like unripe or, on the contrary, spoiled fruit… Or the suffering which they endured when dying reduces their, so to say, productivity after death—then they are an analog of a squeezed orange… But, for some reason, suicide doesn’t prevent souls from falling down Its throat. Here the legends are wrong—very few people are actually capable of committing suicide in a painful enough way… Most ghosts of course, prefer to keep close to our world, though in it they are almost powerless. They are shades and nothing more, almost incapable of interacting with living beings or with any material objects. The vast majority of ghost stories stating the opposite are myths. But ghosts still have the possibility of observing, traveling, and communicating with each other. That’s not too bad, especially considering the alternative… But there are also those who venture into the throat. Not because of curiosity—there is nothing curious there. They simply try to rescue souls falling there. Most often, their relatives and beloved ones, but sometimes also strangers as well. Ghosts try to push souls back to the world of the living—which is of course possible only when the body still can be reanimated—or to turn into a ghost, which is possible even less often if the death was usual. Besides, it is dangerous. If the ghost gets in too deep, it is sucked into the bowels like all other souls… It cannot spit or vomit.”
“Why don’t those who return after a clinical death report the same experience as you?”
“I’ve said already—they come back from halfway, having seen nothing. The majority—due to the efforts of doctors only. But even those who were pushed out… there is no time for explanations there. If you begin to explain the person who is being sucked into a whirlpool what awaits him at the bottom—you both will be drawn in. My case is special… I was pulled out from there, from where usually nobody is. On the one hand, I happened to be stronger than others. Strength of mind, in literal sense… not that I have especially strong will and so forth, but simply as, you know, there are people resistant to poisons or to radiation… one on a billion… it’s not a personal merit, just so I happened to be born. On the other hand, those who saved me took a terrible risk themselves… having taken my oath that if I return to the living world, I will fulfill their commissions. So it lasted longer than usual, and there was enough time for conversation.”
Suddenly he literally shot a glance into my eyes.
“I know what you think. That all this are simply hallucinations produced by lack of oxygen in a dying brain. Exactly how scientists explain all stories told by people after clinical death, huh? But here is proof for you. Do you know who Daniel Dorn is?”
“I know who Diana Dorn is,” said I, remembering again who was in front of me. “Your first victim. But there is no Daniel in the case materials…”
“Because he perished five years earlier,” Jackson interrupted. “He is her father. He was one of those who pushed me out. And he… didn’t get out himself. It’s like in physics—force of action is equal to the force of counteraction… pushing someone upward, you fall deeper yourself.”
“Well, in principle, you could learn this name without any…”
“Yes, of course,” Jackson grinned."The name. The address. The arrangement of rooms. And in particular—the security system code. In a city where I never was before, where I had no acquaintances and whereto I had to travel through half of America. Couldn’t indeed the cranky blood-thirsty maniac find a closer victim? And aren’t the surnames of Kraut and Poplavsky also familiar to you? After all, the police still could not answer the question how I’ve got into their houses so easily.”