by Greg Chapman
* * * * *
HELL-O-WEEN
Hell is always at its brightest in October.
A deep orange glow, powered by a billion, billion candlelit human skulls, is a sight to behold. The light seems to seep into the rock tunnels and brighten flames in even the darkest pits of the Underworld.
Demon children can’t help but be excited by the festivities and their contemplation of All Hallow’s Eve – Halloween is infectious. Therefore, October 31 is celebrated with much spectacle. Like those children in the living world, the demon children take to the pastime of “Trick or Treating” with equal gusto. They don their traditional vampire and mummy costumes and head out to knock on the doors of the neighbourhood.
The “neighbourhood” in Hell however, is well beyond the norm. Streets can disappear into shadow, houses don’t necessarily have walls and the people who greet you at the door can be quite temperamental.
Such was the case when four young demons set out to Trick or Treat the bowels of Hell one particular Halloween.
Xek, a rather rambunctious little fellow, was considered the leader by his friends: Glod, Sysk, and Sannastasia. Xek, dressed in the cliché-worn Dracula costume, complete with pointed fangs and real blood on his chin, was the poster boy for the celebration. Glod’s approach to costuming was minimal; an executioner’s hood with the eyeholes cut out and a tomahawk. Sysk wanted to go as a werewolf, but due to a mishap involving him standing too close to a pit of flames, he had to go as a mummy instead. Sannastasia looked adorable in a Lizzie Borden costume; complete with an axe that Glod was most envious of.
The quartet set off down Blood Brick Road, determined to make this particular Halloween the best ever.
‘Where are we going first?’ Sysk said with a voice slightly muffled by his blood-soaked facial bandages.
‘Machecoul Castle,’ Xek replied, a wide smile on his unnaturally white face, courtesy of an acid bath from his mother.
‘I thought we were going to check out Amityville?’ Sannastasia complained, her axe dragging along the ground.
‘No, not this year,’ Xek told her. ‘I’ve got it all planned out. We’re gonna see some real sights tonight.’
They followed the Blood Brick Road for about half a mile and passed other demon children screaming in fear as one of Cerebus’ pups gave chase. They saw other children knocking on the Black Gates only to lose their hands to some huge shape on the other side. The sight brought raucous laughter from the foursome.
Eventually the children came to the ruins of the Castle of Machecoul. Hell isn’t all just fire and brimstone; it is also the graveyard for the living world’s most evil locales. The Castle was a pile of stones and dust, blackened by Hell’s flaying heat. The children tried to find the front doors.
‘Maybe it doesn’t have a front door,’ Glod surmised, scratching his hooded head with the edge of his tomahawk.
‘Of course it has a front door,’ Xek reprimanded him.
‘Had a front door,’ Sannastasia said, somewhat annoyed. ‘Can’t we just go onto the next house? There’s no one here.’
A voice suddenly rose out of the shadows, thick and French. A man, long dead, dressed in rusting knight’s armor fused to his skin, stumbled towards them, his neck crooked from being hanged.
‘Children! Children!’ he said. ‘Please don’t fight on my account. I am here now.’
‘Who are you?’ Sysk said, trembling beneath his bandages.
‘Gilles de Rais, at your service,’ he said with a bow that looked awkward because of his neck.
‘Is this your house?’ Glod asked.
Gilles de Rais looked around him. ‘It was once, yes. But it was knocked down a long time ago.’
‘By who?’
‘You mean, “by whom”,’ de Rais corrected him. ‘My enemies knocked it down.’
‘Why?’ Sannastasia asked, curling the hair of her lice-infested wig.
Gilles stepped towards her, his steel shoes clinking on the rocky ground. His gaze was menacing.
‘They hated me. They hanged me and then they burned down my castle.’
‘They hanged you? Cool!’ Xek exclaimed. ‘You must have been pretty mean when you were alive Mr Deranged.’
Gilles snapped. ‘de Rais! Gilles de Rais, you insolent little cretin!’
Xek and the other children withdrew, heading for the Blood Brick Road. De Rais kept after them, his armored body creaking and bleeding.
‘Wait! Don’t go! You can come inside and play! I promise I won’t hurt you!’
‘No thanks Mister,’ Glod told him, shaking his hooded head.
‘Treats!’ de Rais continued. ‘I have treats inside! Come and play with me!’
But the children were gone, leaving the decrepit knight and his filthy home behind. They ran together holding hands, all keeping a watchful eye on the madman who fell to the ground to cry into his skeletal hands.
‘Who was that guy?’ Sysk asked.
‘Some looney,’ Xek told him. ‘There are so many of them on this road.’
‘Then why did we come here?’ Sannastasia whined. ‘How are we going to get any treats if we don’t knock on any doors?’
‘Okay, just settle down,’ Xek ordered her. ‘It’s not much further to the next house.’
The next house they find was just around the corner. But it wasn’t a house, it was more like a small city. Gas lanterns burned in the boiling air and the brick walls seemed to sweat in response. The demon children huddled together in fear as a thick darkness crept towards them. More corners appeared, leading to alleyways, where, at the end, was a half-naked eviscerated woman.
‘I don’t like this place,’ Sannastasia said.
‘What are you kidding? It’s fantastic,’ Xek replied, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘We’ll get treats here for sure.’
‘But I don’t see any doors, there are only walls and alleyways,’ Sysk said, worriedly looking over his shoulder.
‘We have to keep going,’ Xek reminded them. ‘We can’t go home yet.’
So they walked hand in hand, trying not to look down the alleys, but they were everywhere, as if they were sprouting from the shadows. There seemed to be more and more with each step and the women’s bodies got bloodier and bloodier.
Abruptly a shadow in a top hat and coat burst from the cobblestones at their feet. The children screamed and howled like a pack of wolves.
‘Hello, children,’ the shadow said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Trick or Treating,’ Xek replied, putting on his bravest Dracula grimace.
The shadow gasped. ‘Truly? Is it that time of year already? Although it’s not really celebrated where I come from. It’s more of an American pasttime.’
‘But it’s about witches and they came from Europe,’ Sannastasia pointed out.
The shadow produced a shadow-gloved hand, which held a very long and very sharp knife, fresh with blood. The children shrunk back.
‘That’s true, my dear girl, but by tradition, the New World is the one pagan nation. Yet we are far too civilised for such things. We have order here. Everyone knows their place. The Queen sits upon the throne and her subjects give their lives for her.’
The shadow, like a stage performer, turned his hand deftly to show the children the end of an alleyway. There, in the corner, was a woman holding her entrails in her skirts.
‘Mary here gave her life for the Empire, as have all the other girls. It’s only fitting that I take care of them.’
Xek tried not to look, but couldn’t turn away. The other children all had their eyes squeezed tight shut.
‘Do you … have any treats, Mister?’ Xek asked.
‘Please, call me Jack. Everyone else does.’
‘Jack … do you have any treats?’
Jack reached into his black cloak and produced a leather apron, dripping with blood. He handed it to Xek.
‘This is all I have, I’m afraid.’
Xek snatched it and turned to his friends.
‘Run!’
They ran, almost tripping over each other to get back to the Blood Brick Road. Tjack waved them goodbye, but seconds later he was stalking another woman down another alley. She looked just like all the others the children were forced to see. They breathed a lot easier when their little clawed feet felt the familiar pulse of the Road.
‘Who was that?’ Glod exclaimed.
‘I don’t know, but I don’t ever want to see him again,’ Sysk said.
Xek stepped forward and waved the bloody apron in the air triumphantly.
‘Yeah, he was weird, but check out the treat he left us.’
The children mingled to get a better look at the apron. The only thing remarkable about it was the fact it appeared to be bleeding, not just soaked in it.
‘That is so cool,’ Xek whistled.
‘How are we going to share that?’ Sannastasia said.
‘Gee, I don’t know,’ Xek said. ‘What, do you expect me to cut it up into four pieces?’
Sannastasia’s gaze could have turned him to stone. She turned and started to head up the Blood Brick Road.
‘I’m going home,’ she squealed. ‘This is the worst Halloween ever! I should never have come with you!’
‘Fine! Go home then! See if I care!’ Xek shouted back.
Sysk tugged at his bandages. ‘I don’t want to go if she doesn’t.’
‘What are you a bunch of wussies? We can’t give up now – we’ve already got one treat.’
Glod looked at the ground. ‘I thought we would get a bag of maggots or some eyeballs. I don’t want a yucky leather apron.’
Xek wrapped his arms around his friends. ‘Come on guys! This is Halloween. There’s a few more houses this way.’
Reluctantly, Sysk and Glod followed Xek along the Road. They were all quiet for some time. Great hungry bats screeched overhead, running circuits around them. They came to the crest of a hill and found a man sitting in a battered old Volkswagon. He was dressed in a dirty, blood-stained suit. He gave the boys a wry smile.
‘Hey, fellas,’ the man said. ‘Aw, are you guys trick or treating?’
Xek was enthused to run into someone else, but he frowned when he saw the man was strapped to the driver’s seat by a plethora of cables and wires. On top of his neatly parted hair was a metal cap.
‘Yes, sir,’ Xek replied. ‘Do you have any treats?’
‘What’s your name kid?’
‘Xek.’
‘Mine’s Ted. Hey, if you help me out of the car, I can help you look for treats.’
Sysk and Glod, who were standing back aways from Xek and his new friend, whimpered. Xek turned to them and saw they were both shaking their heads.
‘You’re not scared of me are you, Xek?’ Ted said.
Xek gulped. ‘No, sir.’
‘Well, why don’t you help me out?’
Ted smiled even wider and winked at Xek.
‘Why are you tied up in your car?’ Xek inquired.
‘I did some bad things and I’m being punished.’
‘Oh, okay, that makes sense,’ Xek replied, but then he thought for a second. ‘What bad things?’
Ted sighed and put his head back. He seemed very tired.
‘I couldn’t control myself around women,’ Ted said. ‘I liked to get my rocks off with them – whether they liked it or not. Usually it ended in them being dead.’
He ended the last sentence with another smile, a smug bastard smile.
‘Why?’ Xek.
‘Geez, kid, you ask a lot of questions. Tell ya what, you let me out and I’ll answer all the goddamn questions you want. Okay?’
Xek stared at Ted for a long time, contemplating. Then he said:
‘Give me the treats first.’
‘What?’
‘You tell me where your treats are and I’ll let you out.’
Ted laughed heartily.
‘You got some balls kid. They’re in the trunk.’
With Sysk and Glod’s help, Xek cracked open the trunk. Inside was a duffle bag. They opened it and inside were ropes, gloves, a balaclava, handcuffs, an ice pick, a box of trash bags, a flashlight and a crow bar.
‘Awesome!’ Xek said.
Sysk and Glod sighed miserably.
Xek bundled the duffle bag in his arms and ran back to Ted.
‘Thanks, Mister!’
‘You’re welcome kid. Now what you’ve got to do to get me out is – ‘
But it was too late. Xek had pulled the door handle and a series of electric sparks cascaded over the car. Inside Ted writhed and screamed and spat as tens of thousands of volts riddled his body. The energy was so fierce the car’s cabin burst into flames. Ted was fried.
The boys ran and ran all the way along the Blood Brick Road to escape the ensuing fireball.
‘I can’t do this anymore!’ Sysk said. ‘I want to go home!’
‘All the more for me then,’ Xek said, excited by his second lot of treats. ‘Man that guy just exploded! Lucky I got his stuff out of the trunk.’
Xek stopped and looked for his friends. They were some distance back, running for the hills.
‘Wimps!’ Xek yelled after them.
The little Dracula demon hefted his duffle bag and tucked the piece of leather apron into his shirt pocket. He began to chuckle at how much luck he’d had. He couldn’t wait to see what was around the corner.
Over another craggy hill was a large house swarming with crows and flies. Xek fought his way through them and got to the door. He knocked and a short fat man, dressed in a tattered, but colourful clown outfit greeted him. The make-up made his face look like a skull.
‘Hey there,’ the clown said.
‘Hi,’ Xek said. ‘Trick or treat.’
‘How old are you?’ the clown asked.
‘1400.’
‘Fourteen-hundred?’ the clown suddenly looked anxious and licked his lips, the make-up coming away.
‘Yes, sir. Do you have any treats?’
‘Why don’t you come inside and we’ll have a look?’
Xek looked past the clown and saw many corpses rotting away in the living room. He cringed, but more at the thought of the smell than anything else. He’d seen worse.
‘No, thanks!’
The clown sniffed and feigned a smile. He didn’t know what else to say.
‘I like your costume,’ Xek told him.
The clown looked at what he was wearing. ‘It’s all I have.’ He considered Xek’s Dracula costume. ‘Yours is nice too.’
‘Would you like to swap?’
The clown mulled it over for a while. Occasionally, he turned to observe the mass decomposition occurring in his home. Then he took off his clown hat and kicked off his clown shoes, finally the whole costume fell to the floor. Xek undressed and gave the clown the Dracula costume. It looked way too small on the fat man. Xek was over the moon with his new costume.
‘Thanks Mister,’ he said.
‘That’s okay. I have to go now. I have to put all this …’ he indicated the bodies ‘…away.’
With that, the clown closed the door and Xek, dressed in his new costume, and carrying his new treats set off down the Blood Brick Road. He thought about heading south onto the next house, but abruptly he could hear laughter and thoughts in his head of catching up with his friends and making them feel sorry for leaving him to haul or the treats.
As the Halloween fires raged on, Xek smiled and headed north after them.
