Note: Italicized lyrics herein are from the song "Hell" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers, which inspired the story.
In the afterlife
You could be headed for the serious strife
Now you make the scene all day
But tomorrow there'll be Hell to pay
Pain.
Nothing but pain.
Searing, scorching, burning pain consuming his entire being. His skin is on fire. His hair is on fire. His eyeballs are on fire.
His throat is on fire but somehow he can feel that he's screaming. He can't hear it over the roaring in his ears, because oh yeah, his ears are on fire too.
"Sorry 'bout that," a voice cuts through the chaotic swirl of nothing-but-pain. A calm, unconcerned, suave voice. "Get this right for ya in just another minute, Mr. Castle."
"Not there, that's too short," mutters another voice, and "Shaddup," the first voice grumbles back.
The pain hasn't receded at all. Surely no human being's psyche can withstand-
"Better. Now the other one."
"I know, I know, geez."
He's still screaming. His throat is on fire, both literally and figuratively. How is that even possible? Doesn't the literal interpretation necessarily preclude -
"Definitely a writer. Always overanalyzing," one of the voices chuckles.
"Hey, leave 'im alone," the other sniffs. "I liked those books, that, uh, Derrick Storm. That's good stuff."
"Gonna kill him off," he manages to mumble. Oh. He has stopped screaming, then. Is the pain fading yet?
No. It isn't. He resumes screaming.
"Kill him off?" The voice sounds wounded. "Why would you do that? Guy like Storm gotta be practically bulletproof, all the crap he's gone through."
"Not gonna happen now anyway," the other voice says, and a distinct air of sulking arises.
"There we go. Almost done," the voice continues.
He stops screaming again as he realizes that shapes are beginning to become visible through the haze of pain clouding his eyes. (But his eyeballs were on fire; how can he be seeing anything?) Slowly he focuses in on the two shapes in front of him, fussing over his burning body with furrowed brows. A tall one and a short one.
They look disappointingly normal. Like stereotypical elderly Jewish tailors. Except for the pointy ears, of course, and the forked tongues.
"Jewish tailors," the short one scoffs. "Now that's original. Like we've never heard that one before."
"Anyway, Jews don't come here," the taller one puts in, and they both guffaw.
The fiery, all-encompassing pain hasn't eased at all, but the bizarre conversation provides a distraction that his brain is all too happy to latch onto. The pain recedes momentarily to the background of his awareness as he struggles to focus his vision, to discern any details of his surroundings. But it's all haze and shadow.
"Sorry," he manages to get out through his burning throat. "Didn't mean to offend."
"Offend," chuckles the shorter one. "Where does he think he is, anyway?"
The taller one just shakes his head. "Don't worry about it, pal," he says. "We appear however you want us to. You see what you expect to see, here."
Somehow, it feels like that makes sense. It's crazy - ridiculous - outrageous - but he finds himself nodding, accepting. Sure. You see what you expect to see. That sounds right.
But a nasty realization is twisting his guts - if he still has any guts - and as the two people (creatures? beings?) resume doing whatever they're doing to him, he blurts it out.
"Am I dead?"
"Catching on at last," the taller one says, in a surprisingly gentle tone. "Dude, about freaking time."
"But I - what happened?" He doesn't remember. He doesn't remember, but the pain is so agonizing, and what if he - He begins to scream again.
"Eh," says the shorter one. "You'll get there. But meanwhile," with an assessing frown, tilting his head toward the other, "a tad longer, or what do you think?"
"Nah. It's fine," his companion responds.
A pause. He's still screaming, burning, trembling. His mind keeps recoiling from the knowledge, but he can't remember. He can't remember. He can't remember. He can't - Wait. The road. The highway. The Ferrari. The Hamptons.
"Did I crash my car?"
"Don't worry about it," the taller one tells him. "No point now. Ready?"
"What?" he exclaims, but they pay him no mind. Their hands are on him, turning him. Every movement and touch causes bright flashes of intensified pain, licking at his skin.
"There," says the shorter one in a tone of satisfaction. "Perfect, am I right?"
"Perfect," the other agrees.
He stares in astonishment. It's a mirror. They've turned him to look at a mirror, and he sees himself, clothed in flame. They've crafted the fire that consumes him into a very stylish three-piece suit.
"You like?" the taller one nudges. He gapes.
"Uh, nice," he manages at last. "Yeah, nice." They both preen.
"Good, good. Glad you like it. Better get used to it." They have an air of wrapping-up, now, like they're finished with him. But he isn't ready for - for - what comes next?
"Wait," he exclaims, trying to grasp on again to the memories that keep fading through his fingers like mist. "Wait, I have to know, what happened? My car crash? What about my family, my-?" He grunts in frustration, the knowledge slipping away like an eel each time he almost manages to seize it. There was someone, he knows. Family. Several someones he needs to worry about. "There was someone," he gets out, and abruptly the pain makes itself known again, surging back to the forefront of his awareness. He howls in agony as the two beings shake their heads.
"Don't bother," the taller one says. "It doesn't matter any more."
"Doesn't matter," the shorter one echoes. "You're here now. For good. Well-" He chuckles. "Forever, that is."
"But." Pain, nothing but pain. Agony. He screams again and struggles to focus what's left of his mind on the need to know.
"There must be exceptions," he gasps, fighting to push the pain back out of his mind again. "There's always some loophole."
The two - demons? - roll their eyes in unison. "Loophole," the shorter one snorts, shaking his head.
"This isn't a movie," the taller one adds, a little less unkindly. "You don't get to solve some riddle and defeat the Big Guy and come out triumphant. That ain't how it is, down here."
"The Big Guy," he repeats, a sudden flare of pain matched by a surge of excitement in his battered chest. The two creatures groan.
"Here it comes," the shorter one grumbles, but he hardly even notices, too intent on keeping hold of the thought, not letting it slip away into the maelstrom of agony.
"I want to see him," he declares. "I want to talk to him."
"Forget it," the shorter one says firmly. "You don't get to talk to Him. No one gets to talk to Him. He doesn't care about you."
He bristles irrationally at that. "Don't you know who I am?"
The taller demon groans as the shorter one smirks triumphantly. "Pay up," he needles. The taller one scowls blackly and reaches into his pocket, handing over a crumpled bill, before turning back.
"Get it through your skull, buddy. You're no one any more. No one here is anyone. You've got no face, no name, no past. Who you were doesn't matter. Here, you're just another soul in torment, same as everyone else. All the same."
"Well, if it's all the same, then why are you short and he's tall?" he demands, rankled, but they both scoff and wave their hands dismissively.
"That's just a narrative convenience, to allow you to tell us apart."
"Oh, wow," he exclaims, the eternal torment of his body-made-flame momentarily forgotten. "You can break the fourth wall in Hell?"
"Buddy, we break everything in Hell," they chuckle. He realizes that they are beginning to blur together, to look alike. The short one is getting taller, or the tall one shorter, or both - he isn't sure - but it fills him with irrational alarm.
The pain of the inferno comes roaring back into his consciousness and he screams and groans in agony, managing to grunt out "Wait-" between gritted teeth.
"Goodbye," one of them says, and he shakes his head violently, protesting, as smoke begins to cloud his vision.
"No! Wait, I have more questions."
"Have a nice eternity," the voice trills from within the smoke. "Next!" And they're gone. Or he's gone, cast out from the fitting room into the true depths of Hell.
Now the D and the A and the M and the N
And the A and the T and the I-O-N
Lose your face, lose your name
Then get fitted for a suit of flame
He finds himself wandering the streets - if you would call them that. There are long straight stretches of pale-gray ground upon which he walks, and dark, vaguely menacing square shapes loom up on either side, which his mind persists in perceiving as buildings. No point in fighting it. He'll call this a street, he'll call those buildings. So this is the city of Hell.
He walks the streets, occasionally catching glimpses of other people. Well, other souls in torment, he supposes. Sometimes one of them will suddenly start screaming, as the mind loses its tenuous control and the pain takes over. Sometimes he's the one doing the screaming.
He walks for an eternity, maybe. He doesn't know. He has walked for blocks, for miles. From one end of Manhattan to the other, if he pretends that this is the Upper West Side. He turns right at the next intersection just for the Hell of it. Maybe he'll find Central Park.
He walks for another eternity, finding no park, no anything of any interest at all. Just more street, more vast shadowy buildings, more fiery scorching pain. Once in a while he has to stop walking and fall to the ground, writhing, screaming, as the agony overtakes him. Each time, he's eventually able to force his mind onto some inconsequential topic, which provides enough distraction to get his flaming body back upright and moving again.
After several eternities, he notices a neon sign in the gloom, blinking pale and wan against the haze that clouds everything.
BAR, it says.
Naturally, he can't resist. It's the first thing he has seen this whole time that was at all different. He heads straight toward it.
Beauty, talent, fame, money
Refinement, top skill, and brain
But all the things you try to hide
Will be revealed on the other side
There's a building, a door. Windows letting thin, pale light out onto the sidewalk. He opens the door (pain goes screaming across his palm and up his arm) and enters.
You see what you expect to see, he remembers as he walks into the space. He expects to see tattered booths lining the walls, rickety tables surrounded by equally decrepit chairs filling the floor, and a long, polished-to-a-shine bar stretching along the length of the far wall, lined with stools on this side, a mirror and a wall full of sparkling bottles on the other side.
He sees all of that.
He also sees, as expected, a few ragged shapes slumped on chairs and in booths, drinking in solitude, flames flickering silently around each body. Time has no meaning in Hell, but here in this bar it's definitely a late-afternoon kind of crowd.
"A guy walks into a bar in Hell," he muses aloud, moving toward a stool.
"And the bartender says, 'Well, I'll be damned,'" replies a low, smooth, rich female voice from behind the bar.
Pain stabs through his cheeks and neck when his jaw drops in astonishment, taking in the bartender. Now this he definitely didn't expect.
She's tall, slender, with wavy hair cascading across her shoulders. In the dim gloom of the bar, even the light thrown off by their burning bodies is weak, but he imagines that her hair was once golden-brown, her eyes green and knowing. The demon tailors have fashioned her flame into the semblance of a pair of skinny jeans and a low-cut t-shirt.
He slides onto a stool, his eyes riveted to her as she wipes the bar top with a rag. She's captivating.
"So, uh, what can a guy get to drink around here?" he asks. "Absinthe? A Fireball? A Flaming Lamborghini?"
"Funny." She rolls her eyes and sets a glass full of pale liquid down in front of him.
"An El Diablo?" He picks up the glass. "I've got plenty more where that came from."
"I'll just bet you do," she scoffs, shaking her head. "But you get what you get."
He takes a sip and nearly chokes. "Ugh! What the h - I mean - what is this?"
"Whatever it tastes like," the bartender shrugs. "Warm beer, usually."
"Not just warm beer." He takes another small, cautious sip. "Warm terrible beer. Possibly watered down with monkey pee."
"Welcome to Hell," she says blandly, and moves as if to turn away.
"Wait," he blurts out, surprising both of them. But she's the first person he has managed to make contact with, here, and he's curious. "Who are you?"
The flames flicker gently across her body as she studies him for a long moment. "I'm nobody," she says at last, slowly. "Everyone's nobody here, Mr. Castle."
He blinks. "You realize of course that that makes no sense." And suddenly, as he squints at her, he becomes aware that he can ... see ... information floating around her like a hazy halo. It's hard to describe, or understand, but he just knows things about her, just like that. "Kate Beckett," he says, tasting the syllables of her name on his dusty burnt tongue. "Detective Kate Beckett."
"No one's anyone here," she reiterates, but she doesn't turn away. He leans forward, his eyes glued to her.
"What did you do, Detective? Why are you here?"
She tosses her head defiantly, her hair fluttering around her face. "Killed the man who murdered my mother."
"Oh, shit," he breathes. "Really?"
She nods. "Hunted him down and shot him in cold blood, him and the man who hired him. Got them both before their henchmen took me out." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "You?"
"Wow." He lets out a huff of astonishment. "Uh, I don't know, honestly. I guess I was just generally kind of an asshole."
"Mm." She nods. "I get a lot of those in here."
"Huh." So is this her own personal Hell, then? If so, where is his?
Unthinking, he takes another sip of the awful beer, and gags. The pain comes flooding back into his awareness and he cries out anew, trying to control himself - to keep his calm in front of her - but to no avail.
He drops heavily back onto the stool and spends a few long, agonizing moments or eternities twisting and groaning in terrible pain. She doesn't seem bothered. She picks up her rag and wipes a glass, slowly, slowly, almost meditatively.
Finally he forces his way back up out of the paroxysm, gasping. He instinctively reaches for his drink, although he knows that it's not going to help. He takes a big gulp and shudders, but manages to keep the pain at bay this time.
"It," he gasps, coughing and trembling, suddenly almost grateful for the all-encompassing heat of the flames, because otherwise he would be blushing hot with embarrassment. "It just seems so banal, doesn't it?" he manages to get out at last, pushing the awful beer away. "Going to Hell because I was a bit of a jackass?"
"Well, maybe it's not that," she muses, picking up his glass slowly, emptying it into her little sink. "Maybe it was a sin of omission. Something you didn't do, someone you were supposed to help."
She looks up at him from under her eyelashes (how does she still have eyelashes?), a dark, meaningful look that he entirely fails to comprehend.
"Yeah," he says, for lack of anything else to say. "I guess, maybe."
With no sense of transition, abruptly he finds himself back on the street, surrounded once again by buildings that reach high up toward the - well, is it the sky? He doesn't know what to call it. He spins around in a helpless circle, his aching eyes seeking desperately for the BAR sign, but it's nowhere to be seen.
"No," he groans into the dead air, despairing. He wants to see her again. Ka- ... K- ... Damn it, her face is burned into his memory, but he's already beginning to forget her name. He grasps urgently for it, his mind reeling. He falls to the ground howling with pain once again.
An eternity later he's back on his feet, plodding hopelessly down the neverending streets. Dim memory has been returning in slow, infuriating chunks. There was a phone call. Someone handled it for him. Something about a murder and his books, the police, his fan mail. The police asking permission to look at his fan mail. Wanting to interview him. His agent and publicist said no. The case was solved. Wasn't it? Was it?
But maybe he should have - what?
He has to find her again. Has to tell her. This is Hell, but there must be a way out. He can fix this.
He plods onward. Dim shapes of other souls in torment drift past him. Their occasional screeches and yells of agony fill his ears. Pain is his everything, pain is all that he knows. Pain, and the thought of her.
He was supposed to help her.
If he can only find her again, tell her, make amends. It's the only thing he can focus on now. He has to find that BAR sign again, and then she'll be there, and he'll make it right.
He has to find her. He will find her.
He has all of eternity, after all.
Author's Note: I know this story is very weird. I can only say that inspiration comes in bizarre ways sometimes. The idea for this story has been tormenting me for many months now, every time I listen to the song "Hell" by Squirrel Nut Zippers (which is quite often, because my kids love the song), and the Castle Fic Promoter Halloween Bash seemed like a perfect opportunity to exorcise this story concept from my brain. So here it is.
Any logical contradictions or inconsistencies in this story should be assumed to be intentional.
Thanks for reading, and as always please feel free to tell me what you think!