All of Us Are Going to Hell

THIRTEEN

11 Minutes Since the Arrival of Satan, 42 Minutes into the End of the World
 
The devil doesn't bargain
He'll only break your heart
It isn't worth it, darling
He's never going to change
DEVIL DOESN'T BARGAIN, ALEC BENJAMIN
 
“You can't hide in there forever, you know!”

    Satan, actual Satan, is banging on the door.

    We slammed the door in the Devil's face.

    With each bang, and each shout of “OPEN THE DOOR!”, I can hear screams billowing around him, with a second and even third voice, both hoarse and raspy, shouting along with him. Beneath the door, the shadow on the floor has grown longer, taller, and seethes with evil.

    I stare at the shadow's head. Horns.

    Mark asks us the obvious question: “Now what?”

    “OPEN THE DOOR!” The door rattles. The handle jars. The air hisses. The ground shakes.

    “Y'all are sure he can't open it, right?” Iris asks no one in particular, chewing on breath mints. “Like, holy ground and everything?”

    “Consecrated,” Hadassah corrects sharply, tugging her sleeves.

    “Same diff,” Iris retorts.

    “Holy ground or not,” Elijah says, looking from person to person, “we can't wait for Satan to come pick us off one by one. We need a plan.”

    “OPEN THE DOOR!”

    The next bang sounds like thunder. The ground beneath us is rumbling—I can feel the floor vibrating. Then, the shadow disappears and the banging stops.

    We all freeze and listen. “He's gone,” Jabari finally says, shattering the silence. “Where'd he go?”

    “He'll be back,” I say, brushing strawberry locks out of my eyes. “He's never going to give up that easily. Elijah's right. We need a way to get out of this.”

    From across the room, Mark releases a mirthless laugh. I know that laugh pretty well. It's the laugh he gave me when I told him I was pregnant.

    “Get out of this?” He brushes his hair out of his eyes in a swift motion. “Didn't you hear him? We're all fucking going to Hell. How'd you wanna get out of that? Charmspeak him?”

    “Well, we have to try!” I scream at him.

    Mark's eyes grow. My breath hitches in my throat and tries to slice its way out. He purposefully directs that look my way, the look that's just another form of pure evil.

    Evil that has ruled my life for four years.

    Evil that is going to take me to Hell.

    I turn away.

    “Lilith is onto something,” Hadassah agrees. “But Mark has a point. How exactly do you stop the Devil from taking you to Hell?”

    And, to my absolute horror, Jabari says: “We help each other. We find out what we all did.”

    “Teamwork. Oh, yeah—that's gonna save us from damnation.” Mark claps with all sarcasm. “Nice work, Walt Disney. The magic of friendship and togetherness will save us from the burning fires of Hell.”

    Jabari glares daggers at him. “If you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it, Mark. It was your party that brought us here in the first place, so I'd like it if you contributed for once and stopped shooting everyone else down!”

     “So I'm to blame for hosting a party?”

     “You two, stop!” Elijah grunts. “You're not gonna be of any help if you fight. Calm the fuck down.”

    Mark folds his arm and laughs. “How the Criminal ascends.”

    I'm not sure Elijah heard that.

    “Satan wants to divide us,” Jabari continues. “If we're separated and alone and vulnerable, he can pick us off easily. He's done it before. He can do it again. Think of this as a sort of bonding. If we're together, it's gonna be tougher for him.”

    Tougher, but not impossible. This is the same entity responsible for half the world's conflict, half the deaths, the murders, the sins. What makes us think that we—six teenagers—have a chance at beating him at his own game, on his own battlefield?

    Mark scoffs again. Elijah is thinking into a distance none of us can see, probably thinking about what he did. We all know Elijah's dealing drugs, but what could he have done that's gonna take him to Hell?

    Hadassah looks like she's swallowed poison and knows she's about to fie from it. Maybe the idea of sin-sharing's fazed her more than I thought. She can't have done anything that bad. She's Hadassah Lyle.

    Right?

    I can hear Mom saying the exact sans thing about me. My little Lilly bear? she would say. She'd never do something like that.

    But she did do it. And worse.

    “So, now we play, what, Two Truths and a Lie or something?” asks Iris, her voice lowering a few decibels. She's ruined a few lives. Does that make her eligible for eternal suffering? I can see sweat glistening on her brow. She's fazed too.

    We all are.

    Satan was right. We didn't just mess up.