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Chapters (60)
  1. DAW Books Presents
  2. HAPPY HOURINHELL
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. prologue
  8. one
  9. two
  10. three
  11. four
  12. five
  13. six
  14. interlude
  15. seven
  16. eight
  17. nine
  18. ten
  19. eleven
  20. twelve
  21. interlude
  22. thirteen
  23. fourteen
  24. interlude
  25. fifteen
  26. sixteen
  27. seventeen
  28. eighteen
  29. nineteen
  30. twenty
  31. twenty-one
  32. interlude
  33. twenty-two
  34. twenty-three
  35. twenty-four
  36. twenty-five
  37. twenty-six
  38. twenty-seven
  39. twenty-eight
  40. twenty-nine
  41. thirty
  42. thirty-one
  43. thirty-two
  44. thirty-three
  45. thirty-four
  46. thirty-five
  47. thirty-six
  48. thirty-seven
  49. thirty-eight
  50. thirty-nine
  51. forty
  52. forty-one
  53. forty-two
  54. forty-three
  55. forty-four
  56. forty-five
  57. forty-six
  58. forty-seven
  59. forty-eight
  60. epilogue

In The Inferno, written in the days when the Church and other important moral influences still thought suicide was a cheater’s way out, the Wood of Thorns was where all of those folks wound up after death, stuck inside the trunks of trees. “Stuck inside a tree forever,” you say, “hah, that doesn’t sound so bad.” But in the poem, there are all these harpies flying around, things that looked like tubby owls with women’s breasts—which doesn’t sound frightening so much as just plain weird. The harpies would pluck limbs off the trees, which apparently really hurt, and would make the suicide trees weep. All together, a creepy setup. Tip of the hat, Mr. Alighieri. But if you offered every one of the souls in the real version of the Woods their choice, I think they’d have voted unanimously to move to Dante’s version, which would have seemed pretty much a romp in the park compared to what they had.

I didn’t know that yet. I didn’t know that until I stumbled across my first self-murdered soul.

At first I thought he was a large lump of moss dangling from the limb of an ancient, gnarled oak tree, but as I got closer the mist cleared between us, and I could see the whole shape, including the pale feet and hands. Compared to some of the things I’d already seen, that wasn’t much. Then as I got a bit closer I saw that the hanging man was alive and struggling.

I really should have figured it out at that point. I mean, Forest of Suicides, right? If killing yourself was a crime—or had been when these people were judged by Heaven—why would they be allowed just to hang around peacefully in Hell, being dead?

As I slogged through the mire toward it, I could see that the corpse was twitching, even clawing weakly at the noose around its neck. Yes, I know, I said “corpse,” because that was sure what it looked like, with all the signs of post-mortem lividity (see, I’ve watched cop shows, too), eyes sunken, tongue black and protruding. But dead or not, this poor bastard was definitely suffering. I pulled out the big knife Riprash had given me, then scrambled up the spider-legged cluster of roots until I could hack through the rope. The first thing the suicide did when he hit the ground was to grab at the noose and loosen it around his throat.

“You shit!” he gasped, his voice as rough as you’d guess with someone who’d spent a good part of forever hanging by his neck. He was on his hands and knees, craning his head around on his lengthened neck so he could glare at me. “What have you done? Why did you interfere? I don’t even know you!”