Ryan's Suffering

by Lloyd Paulson

  Tom nudged me. "Are you sure they're here?"

  "There was someone in the window. You saw them too. So yeah, I have a feeling we're on the right track."

  I moved deeper into the gloom of the foyer, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. To the left was a darkened room. Tom shone his flashlight in, and his beam honed right in on my father, sitting in a chair.

  My heart trip-hammered heavily in my chest. He was older, but there was no mistaking him. He sat, looking steadily into the beam, though it had to be blinding him. He didn't wince, and his face held no expression.

  Tom walked into the room, and I followed, standing in the doorway. Tom flicked the flashlight beam around the room, and satisfied there was nothing else of interest, returned the focus of the beam back on my father. "So this is your father, Paul."

  Tom was looking to me for confirmation, and I nodded slightly, but I was looking at the figure in front of us, perplexed. Thinking of the dream.

  Unlike the dream, this figure spoke. "I was right. You never did amount to anything."

  The flood of emotions at seeing him was bad enough, but it was amazing the power that his voice could still have over me, even as an adult. I felt my face redden, and I said nothing. Endurance, baby…and there was something else. A stirring that I couldn't place my finger on, but what was distracting me was that the flat look hadn't left his eyes, and that reminded me of the dream again. What I couldn't feel in that dream was the vibrations of the living. Despite the flood of emotions, I wasn't feeling that now, and that was setting off warning bells. I glanced around, half expecting to see my goddamned fleabag cat for some fucking reason.

  "Mr. Vischer," Tom said, "where can we find Mrs. Turner and the children?"

  Paul's gaze slowly drifted from me, to Tom, though JC wanted to know how he could see anything through the glare of the flashlight beam. "While you seem to be acquainted with my son, who's had the audacity to reject a proud family heritage, I've not had the privilege of being acquainted with you yet, Mr.?"

  "Burkes."

  I had a sense of unreality about this. SOB wanted to know what kind of fucking bullshit jack-off cocktail party conversation this was turning out to be. Out of prudence, Joe Cool suggested I keep an eye on our six, as it seemed we were purposefully being distracted. I shined my flashlight back around the foyer, and into the gloom beyond. However, I saw nothing of interest but a rat scurrying along the floorboard moldings of a long abandoned farmhouse. Surprisingly, the cat didn't chase after it, and only watched it, intently.

  I walked deeper into the room, staring hard at my father's age-lined face. That queer flatness to the eyes was disconcerting. "Where are Trish and my children?"

  He looked at me, unblinking. "You never had any finesse or patience. All you've ever thought about is what you wanted, and that's all you're thinking about right now. That's not the way things work, son. Lord knows I've tried to teach you otherwise and failed. Spare the rod and spoil the child, and still, you've turned out spoiled despite my desperate efforts to turn you around. There's much more at stake than what you want, you selfish little whelp. So you must learn. And right now, you need to learn to be patient. Wait your goddamned turn. So right now, just shut the fuck up and wait." He turned his attention back to Tom. "Where were we, Mr. Burkes? I believe we were just getting acquainted. How is it you know my wayward son?"

  Tom was looking back and forth between us, his mouth agape. I was staring at my father, thinking, he never blinked once. SOB wanted to know if I was just going to sit there and take that shit from him. Instinctively, I pictured the whole house in my mind, and I pressed downward, hard. I felt like my head was in a vice, and the harder I pushed, the more intense the pain became. I could hear the cat, hissing and yowling in the hallway.

  My father's visage cracked with concern. "What are you doing, you little bastard quarter-breed?"

  I pushed harder, and the whole house groaned, the walls wavering. The pain intensified, settling deep into my forehead, like a nail. I felt as if a heavy, invisible backpack had been burdened on my shoulders, and the muscles in my neck sang from the high, relentless tension that settled in. Still I pushed harder, willing everything downwards, into the in-between. Crazy zigzags zipped across the plaster, and chunks fell from the ceiling.

  With a terrific wrench and a sudden bang, everything tore loose into freefall and accelerated downwards. The pressure lifted suddenly off me and I felt tremendous relief with the weightlessness. We landed with a crash, like a bad landing from an amateur helicopter pilot or a rough landing in bad weather from a discount airline, but we came through intact and none the worse for wear.

  Tom's earpiece started spiraling upwards in a terrific shriek of feedback. Tom yanked it out of his ear, and it popped and released a tendril of smoke, now quiet. I vaguely remembered an amusingly theory that stated every electronic component contains a puff of smoke. If it gives up that puff of smoke, it's fucking broken beyond repair.

  The dust settled around us as bits of plaster fell from the walls and ceiling. Tom looked over at me. "What in the heck was that, Ryan?"

  I shrugged. "Welcome to Sheol, as your boss calls it. The Shadow Lands. The great in between. "

  Tom shone his flashlight on me. "My god, your nose is bleeding like a stuck pig."

  I put my hand to my face, and pulled it away. Blood covered my hand, and now I realized I could feel it dripping off my chin. SOB muttered, "Fuck me running sideways." Joe Cool wanted to know what the fuck that meant. I pinched my nose and tilted my head back. I looked back at the hallway. The cat was nowhere to be seen.

  Tom looked around. "How do we get back?"

  "I suggest you make sure I don't perish. Do you have any spare clips for this gun?" I pulled the gun out of my waistband.

  Tom nodded. "Yeah? Why?"

  SOB asked me, "Seriously?"

  The pistol barked a sharp cough through the silencer. It was still loud in the confines of the room.

  Tom looked at me, dumbstruck. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

  I looked at Tom. "You said 'fuck'. I didn't think you had it in you."

  "Never mind that. Why did you do that?"

  I tilted my head back again to staunch the bleeding. I waved my gun at the chair. "Look for yourself, Tommy Boy. Things aren't what they seem."

  Tom looked back at the empty chair where Paul used to sit, then looked back at me. He shook his head, bewildered. Tom couldn't register that Paul had just plain disappeared when I shot him. "How could you tell? How could you know he wasn't real?"

  I glared at him. "You of all people have to ask a question like that about someone like me?" I shook my head. "You can be awfully dense sometimes. Give me the spare clips, and follow me."

  Tom handed me two spare clips. I pocketed them, and we walked into the dining room. My father was sitting at a table there. He stood up. "Ryan…"

  I shot him.

  I walked into the kitchen. I expected him to be chopping carrots, but apparently, he was waiting for me when I walked through the door. He threw the pan of boiling water at us, and I scrambled backwards just in time, pushing Tom out of the way as we scrambled back into the dining room. I looped around into the hallway, and shot him as he was coming out of the kitchen.

  "Well, Tom, that should be it for down here."

  "You mean there are more of them?"

  I nodded. "Upstairs and we have to find the original."

  "What about Tanner?" Tom asked.

  "Yeah, that too." Christ, I forgot about him. "What do I have you two fucktards for?" I asked JC and SOB.

  "Ryan?"

  I had been peering up the stairwell, thinking about the inevitable hand of fate—and hands that can drag you down into oblivion. "What, Tom?"

  "What am I doing here with you?"

  I blinked hard. "You might be vital at some point."

  "And I might not—and for that, I'm risking being stuck in some kind of purgatory for eternity on the off-chance you might need my help
to get your wife and kids back? No thank you. Send me back. Right now. It's not worth the risk."

  I rolled my eyes. "Up until this point, you never struck me as being a pussy."

  Tom pulled his head back, and blinked. "Come again?"

  I shook my head. "I said I never figured you for a pussy. The Harmon Group is not involved in getting my goddamned wife and kids back. That's not why you're fucking here, that's just you're bullshit excuse to back out like a fucking candy ass wuss. You're here to make sure that the gates to Hell never open, which is what my father's probably up to. Since this is where he's at, then this is where the actions at, and therefore that's where you need to be, you fucking pussy."

  "Uh…ok…but aren't you scared?"

  "Fucking shitless. But this has to be done, and no one else is stepping up to do it."

  I stared at the stairway, thinking about fate, thinking about choices. Do I have a choice? The answer was probably No. Inertia and fate are both motherfucking relentless cock knockers. I clomped up the stairs, gun at the ready.

  I expected a whole cadre of replicant fathers, pointing the way to the room with Tanner. What I didn't expect was the eerie empty gloom that greeted us instead. What in the bloody fucking hell? Cautiously, I crept down the hallway, shining my flashlight into each room, unsurprised to find each one empty save for cobwebs and discarded trash. Old books. A bed frame. An old dresser. Each room was empty.

  The final door was closed, and didn't sport a nameplate engraved with the name "Tanner".

  I decided to walk in unannounced.

  I pushed open the door, leveled the gun, and walked in confidently to confront Tanner.

  Alone in the room, sitting on an old bed frame, staring back at me with a baleful stare, was Trisha, with a gun leveled at me.

  Well, fuck me, Freddy.

  Moloch's Due

  "One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying."—Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), Trial Transcript, 1431

  I dropped my gun to my side. "Are you alright, Trish?"

  Trisha kept her gun pointed at me. "The prodigal son returns to the scene of his crimes."

  I stepped into the room.

  Trish cocked the hammer on the revolver. "I wouldn't come any closer if I were you."

  I held my hands up. "Whoa. Hold on a minute. What the fuck, Trish?" I could feel Tom standing in the doorway behind me, hovering over my shoulder.

  Trish sighed. "Did you forget about the goddamned restraining order, psycho-boy? Drop the damned gun."

  I set the gun down on the floor and stood back up, my knees popping. I glanced back at Tom, but he just stood in the door, watching us guardedly. I turned back to face Trish. "But you and the kids were kidnapped. They caught the guy who did it. The same guy with all the other kids. He wouldn't tell us what he did with you, though. That was new. Usually he killed the parents."

  Trish shook her head. "What the fuck are you talking about? I left with your father, you sick fuck. I've heard all about you, and what you did eleven years ago. And to think, they let you loose afterwards. I lived with you. I married you. I had children with you. After you did those kinds of things. There's no way I'll ever let you come near my children again. Not as long as I'm alive. I came here to get the fuck away from you, and to keep you from getting anywhere near my children. I didn't think there was any way you'd find us here. Speaking of which, how did you find us? And who the hell is that?" She waved the gun towards Tom.

  I turned and looked at Tom and shrugged. "That's Tom Burkes. He's here to help me find Paul. That's how we found you. We came looking for my father. We've found him several times already."

  Trish looked perplexed for a moment, but shook her head. "What the fuck are you talking about? And why are you looking for him? So you can keep him from stopping you again? I saw the pictures of what you did to your girlfriend Sarah. Were you planning on doing the same thing to me? Suspending me from an upside down cross? Slitting my throat, bleeding me dry in some sick psychotic ritual?"

  In that instant, a veil lifted. I could see within my mind, the memory of Sarah hanging in front of me, upside down, naked on a cross.

  My father handed me a blade. "Ba'al Mot demands his due." I looked at the blade, which may have once been a spear tip. My father drew his finger across his throat, and pointed at Sarah, hanging upside down in that clearing eleven years ago.

  I looked up at Sarah. She was struggling against the bindings that held her to the cross. Blood rained steadily from steel spikes driven through her arms just below her wrists, her hands flopping wildly. Blood also ran down her legs and across her torso in bright red rivulets from the spikes driven just above her ankles. A thick gag barely muffled her desperate screams. The veil of darkness descended again within my memory, and I reeled in confusion, looking at Trish, horrified.

  I shook my head. "No…No. Never." I stumbled back into the doorframe. Sarah? How could I have ever harmed her?

  Trish smiled, smug. "Ryan, I saw the pictures of what she looked like afterwards. You're a sick, twisted individual. You are the worst thing to have ever entered into my life, and I regret ever having met you."

  How many deaths to lie at my feet? The body count just keeps climbing. When is enough, enough?

  No answers from the peanut gallery. Some fucking help they are.

  I stooped down, picked up the gun, placed it at my temple, and looked at Trish.

  She was staring, wide-eyed.

  I thought, "If I killed Sarah, then I don't deserve to live." The veil lifted again, and suddenly I could see all, oh so clearly. Everything was sharp and bright, from eleven years ago. It was horrifying, but I knew the truth.

  Tom grabbed my hand. "Ryan. Don't do it. We're still in Sheol. Don't do anything crazy, or we'll all be trapped here with no way out."

  My hand shaking, I put the gun down. "It's ok, Tom. I remember now." I turned back to Trish, and smiled. "Trish, you've got it completely wrong."

  She smiled sweetly back at me. "Well, you're going to get your wish, darling."

  My smile faltered. "What's that?"

  Her eyes flickered over my shoulder as I heard a smack and a thump. "You're going to meet your father tonight. Hello, Paul."

  I turned around, and saw my father's bloody fist looping down, just before everything went dark.

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  The fire burned brightly, a pyre that blazed high into the night sky. Ryan struggled against his bindings, but it was useless, he could barely move, and he was stuck, trussed on the ground. He turned his head, and could see his sister still sitting near him, also bound. He turned back forward.

  A cross lay on the ground, with Sarah lying on top of it. Paul was hammering the last spike into Sarah's ankles, her shrieks punctuating each clanking blow of the hammer as she arched her back in agony, her arms already pinned to the cross.

  As soon as Paul stood up, Tanner started pulling on a rope rigged to pulleys, lifting the crosstree up into the air. Sarah's shrieks became more pronounced and desperate. She was whipping her head violently, cracking it heavily against the thick wooden beam. Paul walked over and bound her head with a gag, which only partially muffled her shrieks.

  Paul and Tanner walked over to Ryan and Carla. They stood Carla up, and walked her over by the fire.

  Paul looked at Tanner. "Does it have to be this way?"

  Tanner nodded. "Ba'al Moloch demands his due. It's the only way."

  Paul bent down and kissed Carla's head. "I'm sorry. I love you." Paul pushed her into the fire.

  Ryan could hear her shrieks as sparks and ash flew upwards into the air. He could see her struggling in the flames, writhing in inhuman agony. She crawled through the fire, her flesh crackling and peeling away from her bones as she went, almost making it to the edge before she collapsed.

  Paul walked over to Ryan, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry son. But it's the only way. Soon
we'll all be together again. She was living in sin, doing things with her unholy boyfriend she shouldn't have been doing. Your mother's there too. We need you to set them free. We need you to open the gate."

  Paul cut Ryan's bonds, and walked him over to Sarah. "First, Ba'al Mot demands his due."

  He handed the spear tip to Ryan, and drew his fingertip across his throat. He stood back, and Ryan looked at Sarah, who was suffering in agony on the cross.

  Ryan shook his head. "No."

  Tanner said, "You have to, son. It's the only way. Ba'al Mot demands his due in flesh and blood. Only then will he help you open the gate when you go down."

  Ryan turned to look at him. "Go down where?"

  Tanner smiled. "To Hell, son. As one who can walk in Shadows, you are going to go down to help open the gates of Hell."

  Ryan looked at Sarah. Looked at the fire, where Carla lay as so much ash. Ryan then slit his left wrist in two quick motions, traded the blade between his hands, and slit his right wrists. "Fuck both of you. I'll see you both in Hell first."

  Paul rushed forward. "No!"

  The spear tip tumbled from Ryan's hand, and Ryan sat down heavily.

  Tanner leapt forward, and grabbed the bloody spear tip. With a quick motion, he slit Sarah's throat. "Goddamnit. There's still time to open the gate, Paul."

  Tears slipped down Ryan's face as he watched the blood rain down Sarah's face, her mouth working soundlessly. Ryan's eyes fluttered as Sarah's struggles ceased, while Paul worked furiously to cinch tourniquets on his arms.

  Paul looked up at Tanner as he picked Ryan up. "Fuck your gate. There's still time for him to live. I'm calling an ambulance. He's still my son."

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  "Welcome back to Never-Never Land, Sweetheart."

  SOB muttered, "Never-Never Land?" I blinked. I was standing in the twilight, under the goddamned shoe-tree again. Joe Cool pointed out it was as good of a name as any for the Shadows. Dear old grand pappy was just looking at me. JC pointed out we were a fuck of a long way from Dark Harbor, last he knew. "How the fuck did I get here? We were already in the Shadows."