THERE WAS AN odor in the air; a smell which I can only describe as one of corruption.
Ahead lay what appeared to be a sprawling collection of hovels. I'd say a village but there seemed no arrangement to the shacks and huts. "What is this place?" I asked.
"A gathering place for those of similar nature," Albert said.
"She isn't--" I began to ask, then couldn't finish, the idea too dismaying to voice.
"I don't think so," Albert answered.
I was going to say thank God when it occurred to me that where Ann was might be worse than this. I tried to resist the thought but was unable to dislodge it. I knew it was unjust to her but couldn't help it, the baleful influence of the realm was affecting my mind.
There was no sound ahead as we approached the haphazard jumble of shanties. All I could hear was the scuffing of our shoes on the gray, flinty soil.
Off to our right, I saw some people moving aimlessly, others standing motionless, all dressed in shabby clothes. Who were they? I wondered. What had they done--or failed to do--that they should be there?
We walked within a few yards of a group of them; several men and women. Even though Albert had said he didn't think that Ann was there, I found myself looking closely at the women. None of the people glanced at us as we passed. "Can't they see us?" I asked.
"We're of no interest to them," Albert said. "They're absorbed by their own concerns."
I saw some people sitting on boulders and it gave me an odd sensation to realize that those boulders were created by their minds. They sat, heads bowed, hands hanging loosely, staring at the ground, immobile in their desolation. I know that, unless they were deaf, they heard us walking by but none gave any sign of noticing our presence.
Again, I found myself looking at the women. Don't, I thought abruptly. She isn't here. But Albert didn't say that, came the sobering response. He said that he didn't know. Was it possible? I thought, looking closer still.
We were so near to several of the people now that I could make out their features despite the gloom.
The sight made me catch my breath.
"Get used to it," Albert said, "you'll see worse."
His tone seemed almost unsympathetic and I glanced at him, wondering uneasily if the place was changing him. If he were unable to resist it, what hope was there for me?
Shivering, I looked back at the people. Ann couldn't be here; she couldn't.
The features of the men and women were exaggerated, like those of acromegalics; not so much the faces of people as bloated caricatures of them.
In spite of my resolve, I looked intensely at the women. Was that Ann's malformed face?
I fought it off. No! She wasn't there!
"She isn't here, is she?" I pleaded moments later, not strong enough to retain conviction.
"No," he murmured and I exhaled long and hard.
We passed a young man lying on the ground, his clothing torn and stained by grime. I thought, at first, that he was looking at us, then realized, from the cast of his eyes, that his gaze was on his thoughts, a stare of withdrawn despondency. I swallowed as I looked at his lost expression and the fetid air felt as though it were trickling down my throat like cold glue.
"Why do they look like this?" I asked, pained by the sight.
"One's appearance retrogrades with one's mind," Albert answered. "The same thing happens on earth, people's faces altering, over a period of time, with their actions and thoughts. This is only a logical--if terrible--extension of that process."
"They all look so grim," I said.
"They are," he replied. "Grim in their preoccupation with themselves."
"Were they--are they--all so bad?" I asked.
He hesitated before answering my question. Finally, he said, "Try to understand, Chris, when I tell you that this is nothing compared to what lies ahead. The people you see here may not be guilty of sins which were, in any way, horrendous. Even a minor transgression takes on darker aspects when one is surrounded by those who have committed similar transgressions. Each person multiplies and amplifies the failures of the others. Misery loves company, is what they say on earth. It should be: Misery, in company, grows ever worse.
"There's no balance here, you see. Everything is negative and this reverse animation feeds upon itself, creating more and more disorder. This is a level of extremes--and extremes of even a lesser nature can create a painful habitat. You see their auras?''
I hadn't noticed in the paucity of light but, as he called them to my attention, I did. All consisted of drab shades of gray and brown; dismal, muddy colors. "These people are all the same then," I said.
"Fundamentally," Albert replied. "Which is one of the curses of this realm. There can be no rapport between the people because they're all alike in essence and can find no companionship, only mirror images of their own shortcomings."
Abruptly, Albert turned to his right. I looked in that direction and saw the first-- relatively--rapid movement I'd observed in this place--the lumbering hobble of a man behind a hut.
"Mark!" Albert shouted. I looked at him in startlement. He knew the man?
Albert sighed unhappily as the man remained out of sight. "He always runs away from me now," he said.
"You know him?"
"I've been working with him for a long, long time," he answered. "There've been times when I thought I'd almost gotten through, convinced him that he wasn't a prisoner here but had brought himself to such a plight." He shook his head. "He won't believe it though."
"Who is he?" I asked.
"A businessman," he said. "A man who, in life, concerned himself with nothing but the acquisition of wealth. He spent almost no time with his family or friends. Days and nights, for seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, he thought only of monetary gain.
"And yet he feels betrayed. He thinks he should be rewarded for what he did. I worked damned hard, is his constant lament. No matter what I say, he tells me that. As though his total absorption in profit was its own justification. As though he had no responsibility to anyone or anything else. An occasional donation to some charitable cause convinced him of his generosity.
"Remember Marley with his chains?" Albert asked. "The simile is apt. Mark is encumbered with chains too. He just can't see them."
I looked to my left and stopped in sudden alarm as I saw a woman who looked so much like Ann that I was sure it was her and started toward her.
Albert held me back. "It isn't Ann," he said.
"But--" I struggled in his grip.
"Don't let your anxiety to find her make you see her where she isn't," he cautioned.
I looked at him in surprise, then started turning back toward the woman. She did look like Ann, I told myself.
I stared at her. There was little actual resemblance. I blinked and looked more closely. I had never suffered from hallucinations in my life. Was it to start now?
I kept staring at the woman. She was sitting, huddled, on the ground, covered from head to toe by a network of thin, black threads. She didn't move but stared ahead with lifeless eyes. I take that back. Like the young man, she was staring inwardly, gazing at the darkness of her mind.
"Can't she break those threads?" I asked.
"With the least of effort," Albert answered. "The thing is, she doesn't believe she can and the mind is everything. I'm sure her life on earth must have been one of great, self- pitying frustration. Here, that feeling is exaggerated to the point you see."
"I thought she looked like Ann," I said, confused.
"Remember what that man said," Albert told me. "Be alert at all times."
I looked at the woman as we walked off. She didn't look at all like Ann. Still, she made me wonder. Was Ann in a similar plight, imprisoned in some other place like this? The thought was harrowing.
As we continued through the silent, formless village, past its mute and wretched population, I began to feel so tired that it brought back memories of the weariness I'd felt just after death. Lacking the strength to do otherwise, I found myself beginning to hunch over as I walked, taking on the posture of some of the nearby people.
Albert took hold of my arm and straightened me. "Don't let yourself be drawn in or we'll never reach Ann," he said. "We're just starting out."
I forced myself to walk erectly concentrating on resistance to the weariness. It helped immediately.
"Be aware," Albert repeated what the man had told us.
"I'm sorry," I said.
A wave of depression beset me. Albert was right. We were just starting out. If I was vulnerable already, how could I hope to reach--?
"You're hunching over again," Albert warned.
Dear God, I thought. It has happened so quickly, the slightest thought affecting me. I would resist it though, I vowed. I wouldn't let myself succumb to the dark blandishments of this realm.
"A powerful place," I murmured.
"If you let it be," Albert replied.
Speech, I thought. Silence was the enemy; negative reflection. "What are those threads around that woman?" I asked.
"The mind is like a spinning wheel," Albert told me. "In life, it constantly weaves a web which, on the day of our passing, surrounds us for better or worse. In that woman's case, the web became a snare of selfish concerns. She can't--"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said because my gaze was drawn to a group of people crouching and kneeling around something I couldn't see, their backs to us, their hands rapidly conveying something to their mouths. All of them looked bloated.
Hearing the sounds they made--grunting, snarling, rending noises--I asked what they were doing.
"Eating," Albert said. "No, change that. Gluttonizing."
"But if they have no bodies--"
"They can never be satisfied, of course," he said. "They do it all from memory, only believing that they eat They might, as easily, be drunkards swilling nonexistent liquor."
I diverted my eyes from the sight. Those people, Robert, were like creatures gorging on a kill. I hate this place, I thought.
"Chris, walk erect," Albert said.
I almost groaned. That instant of hatred had been strong enough to bend me forward. More and more, I was beginning to appreciate the import of that man's words: Be aware.
To our left now, I could see a tall, gray structure which resembled a rotting warehouse. Its massive doors were open and, seeing hundreds of people moving about inside, I started in that direction. Maybe Ann--
I was forced to stop as vibrations from the structure hit me so hard that I gasped as though physically struck.
I stared at the figures moving in the cavernous gloom, their clothes hanging loosely on their bodies, their features distended and pale. Each person walked with bowed head, taking no notice of anyone around, pushing others aside without a vestige of reaction if they happened to collide. I don't know how I knew it but their thoughts were open to me, massed on one dark theme: We're here forever and there is no hope for us.
"That isn't true," I said. For Ann's sake, I couldn't let myself believe that.
"It's true as long as they believe it," Albert said.
I turned my head to shut away the sight. This must be hell, I thought; limitless and grim, a place of--
"Chris!"
"Oh, God," I murmured, frightened. I was hunched again, my movements slowing, aging. Would I never be able to resist the baleful influences of this realm? Was there no hope at all that I--?
"Chris!" Albert stopped and forced me upward. Holding my arms tightly, he gazed into my eyes and I felt a flow of something coursing through my body, restoring energy. "You've got to remain alert," he said.
"I'm sorry," I muttered. No, don't be sorry, be strong! I told myself.
I tried to concentrate on resisting as we moved on through the nebulous light, leaving the dingy sprawl of huts behind.
This place was not silent. As we neared it, sounds of anger and contention rose in volume; people quarreling, their voices strident, savagely vindictive.
Soon I saw them.
No one touched another person. Contact was entirely by words; vicious, cruel, assaulting words. A malicious haze hovered just above the people, an intermingling of their murky auras, ugly red flashes of fury darting between them.
Albert had warned me that we approached an area where violent spirits crowded together. This section was the least of it, he told me as we walked. The violence here was, at least, confined to verbal abuse.
"Is this a place you've gone to before?" I asked. I had to speak loudly to make myself heard.
"One of them," he answered.
As we circuited the mobs of clashing people, I began to feel their icy thrusts of venom at us. They didn't even know who we were yet they hated us completely.
"Can they harm us?" I asked, uneasily.
"Not if we refuse to accept their wrath," Albert told me. "They're far more likely to do harm to living people who aren't aware of their existence. Fortunately, their mass thought rarely focuses. If, on occasion, it does, stronger mentalities above become aware of it and dissipate the output so it cannot hurt the innocent on earth.
"Of course there are individuals on earth whose nature is receptive to these thoughts; who provide an access to them. These cannot be helped. That's the pitfall of free will. Any man or woman possesses the capacity to give entry to dark thoughts."
