Men of Perdition

by Kelly M. Hudson

  His forehead was cut and he had to blink back the blood to keep it out of his eyes. Brad tumbled from the car, cursing, hoping he could find the stray dog that had caused his wreck. Tears mixed with the blood as he saw the damage done to his beautiful car, a restored ‘68 Mustang. It had taken him a couple of years to save up the money to get her in the running condition she was in, and now it was all for nothing. A growl raised the hair on his arms and he turned slowly.

  Standing opposite of him was the Bone Sniffer, its body rippling with tense, angry muscles. It had blood stains around its mouth and on its back paws and front hands and it stunk of misery and pain. Brad took one step away from the creature before it leapt for him. And in the next few moments, he forgot all about his anger towards Jenny and his sorrow over his car. He was too busy being smashed and devoured to care about such things anymore.

  Blake and Edith Shylock were sitting down to a fine meal that Edith had prepared when the doorbell rang, interrupting their dinner. Blake shuffled off, sad to be away from the woman he loved so much for even the slightest of seconds.

  They were eating late tonight because their Sunday School class had met to discuss plans for the upcoming bake sale the Constance Baptist Church was going to sponsor. It was that time of year again and, as usual, Blake and Edith headed the effort to bring some extra income to the church they loved so much.

  They worked together in everything but their daily jobs, and the time spent apart was an agony to both of them. Blake remembered, as he walked to the front door, the first time they’d met and how they both felt the uncanny sense that they’d found what was missing in both their lives. All his thoughts fled when he opened the door and the Weeping Lady stood outside, hands to her face under the white veil she wore, crying desperately. When he asked her what was wrong and she didn’t respond, he called for Edith.

  When his wife arrived, the Weeping Lady peeled back the veil and revealed her true face while asking if they’d seen her children. Blake’s hand found Edith’s as their bodies convulsed. Black tears ran down the Weeping Lady’s shining, ivory cheeks as she waved a bony finger in the air, pointing it at Blake. Foam erupted from his mouth as his head turned by a hand not his own. He sprayed Edith’s face with his stomach acids and watched, helplessly crying, as the face of his beloved wife melted before his very eyes. Edith lunged forward, her skull leering at him through the dripping taffy that had become her face.

  She bit his lips, pressing them together beneath her front teeth, and tearing them away. He tried to scream, tried to move, tried to get away, but he could do nothing. As the Weeping Lady wept, so did he and Edith, and they devoured each other, taking turns taking bites from one another, all under the watchful, teary gaze of the lady in white.

  By the time they had eaten the flesh from their faces all the way back to their ears, they bled out enough to lose consciousness and collapse. Still they fed, chomping until their skulls were gleaming, bereft of skin. Only then did the Weeping Lady leave them behind, still holding hands.

  II

  Hazel Reed

  Hazel Reed sucked on her cigarette like it held the cure for cancer, not the cause of it. Cancer was the last thing on her mind, though, given what she’d just seen, what she’d just lived through. No, a smoke was fine for her right now, especially since she’d quit two years ago and a day hadn’t gone by when she didn’t want to light one up and let it burn.

  She drove down the road, heading for the Sheriff’s Office, as her mind drifted, back to what she’d just gone through, the hell caused by her loving husband, Harold.

  Her husband, her fucking, cheating husband, had nearly gotten her killed. That creature, that big hairless rat-looking thing had killed nearly everyone at the barbecue and would have killed her, too, if she hadn’t gotten away.

  That wasn’t exactly true now, was it? After Harold had kicked her from the car, she fell to the ground, cracking the back of her head on a tree root. She lay there, knocked silly and unable to move, as the world spun all around her. She watched as Harold started the car, backed out, and sped off down the street, leaving her to die.

  The screaming from the backyard, loud and so persistent it had become a background buzz in her ears, suddenly stopped and the silence was so thick and ominous it made her even dizzier. She was struggling to sit up when the front door slammed open and Tom and Dolores burst out, running for their car, as the creature tried to follow. Hazel tried to call for help but her throat was thick and unworkable, and by the time she could speak, the taillights of Tom’s car disappeared around the corner at the end of the block.

  She rolled back over and the creature was sitting next to her, sniffing her hair, its hot breath, stinking of copper and meat, blowing into her mouth. She screamed and punched the monster on its nose. The creature stood and shuffled off, seemingly disinterested in her. It growled and loped around the house as Hazel managed to clamber to her feet. She took off down the road, stumbling and shambling like a zombie.

  The farther she walked, the more her dizziness dissipated and her head cleared. Other than the foul taste in her mouth and the smell of the creature in her nose, she was doing alright, all things considered. So she walked on, down the street and turning right, following the path Tom’s car did. She was headed into town, and although she knew there wasn’t much but woods and countryside between her and the Sheriff’s Office, she’d walk all the damn way to hell itself if she had to. She was going to find Harold and beat the living shit out of him.

  A mile down the road she came upon a house with all the lights on. For the first time since the attack, hope stirred in her heart. If the lights were on, people were probably home, and if they were home, they could help. She would have used her cell phone earlier, but it was in the car, along with her purse and her asshole husband. She walked wearily up the gravel driveway and onto the front porch, sticking her finger out to press the doorbell. She froze in place.

  Blood was smeared across the doorbell, sticky and still wet. She swallowed and gathered her will. She needed to go inside and see if anyone was there, but she was frightened. Had the creature already been here before heading to Tom’s party? A branch snapped behind her and Hazel spun, scared out of her mind, afraid that the creature had followed her, saving her for a midnight snack and now come to collect. Instead, what she saw disturbed her almost more than the monster had.

  Three children, two girls and one boy, all pale and gaunt, with dirty black hair and eyes that glittered like obsidian rocks in a stream of cool mountain water, stood side by side, staring at her.

  “Have you seen our mother?” Katy said.

  Hazel shook her head. She didn’t know what to say. There was something to these kids, something that didn’t seem right. They had an air of evil about them, of something so foul even the devil would give them wide birth. And they stunk, reeking of rotten cabbage.

  “Have you seen our mother?” Hippy Girl said. None of the kids moved, they simply stood and stared at her, their black eyes unblinking.

  Hazel noticed their hands. They were red, like they’d been dipped in paint, only it wasn’t paint dripping from their fingers, it was blood; blood and bits of flesh, human flesh. She almost vomited, and would have, if the boy in the group hadn’t spoken up.

  “Have you seen our mother?” Red Shirt said.

  She reeled and stumbled back against the front door. The children stood perfectly still and didn’t move. They stared at her, those black eyes full of malevolence.

  “No,” Hazel said. The word was barely more than a grunt, but it seemed to do the trick.

  “Okay,” Hippy Girl said. She joined hands with her two siblings and they walked down the gravel drive and disappeared around a row of bushes.

  What the fuck? What were those kids? Why were they out this late at night? And why were they so creepy?

  She shivered, a good solid chill crawling up her spine. After a few moments of staring after the kids, she turned and banged on the front door, even though she
knew it wouldn’t do any good. She knew whoever was in there was dead, that those kids had killed them, and that the creature at Tom’s party wasn’t the only monster in Constance tonight. There were others out there; she could feel them. The thought made the hair bristle on the back of her neck.

  Hazel turned the doorknob and hesitated as the door creaked open. Despite whatever horrors may await her in there, she needed to get the car sitting out in the driveway and get out of town. To do that, she had to go in and find the car keys.

  She wasn’t prepared for what she saw inside.

  They had been a family, Hazel was sure of that, but they lived no longer. Their bodies lay strewn about the living room, naked and skinless, their raw, wet nerves sparkling in the overhead light. The skins of the family, a man, woman, and four children, were pasted against the far wall of the room, stuck there like an obscene crayon drawing by a first-grader. The skins were arranged left to right, man, woman, and then each of the children in turn. The flesh had been peeled off the bodies, flattened, and slapped against the wall, glued by the congealing blood underneath.

  She turned and vomited.

  The room stunk of blood and puke, of piss and shit. If she stayed there any longer, she knew she was going to pass out. The room had already started to spin and her face got hotter by the second. She stuck out her arm to steady her body against the wall, when her fingers squished into something wet and rubbery. She turned and screamed when she saw her fingers were stuck into the eyes of the man of the house. On the wall opposite of the skins, the eyeballs of the family had been nailed across from the hanging flesh of their former owners, each eye placed so that it looked on what had become of its skin across the room.

  Hazel fell to the floor, tripping over one of the raw, dead bodies. Next to her was a pile of clothing that belonged to the massacred family. She rifled through the two pairs of pants on top and found the car keys and a pack of smokes.

  Cigarettes. That would be so perfect right now.

  Fishing around, she found a lighter. Hazel stuffed her treasure into her pockets and rolled to her feet. She stumbled out of the house and into the fresh air outside. She gulped it down deep, gathering herself, before turning to the car in the driveway. She ran over and jumped in, firing it up moments after she did a cigarette.

  She smoked as she drove down the road, heading for the Sheriff’s Office. When she got there, if she found Harold, she was going to grind a cigarette out in his eye for what he’d done to her. He left her to die, that sorry bastard. And instead, she had lived, nearly driven insane at the carnage she’d witnessed.

  As she drove, she had to roll up the window and let the smoke billow inside. The nighttime air of Constance was filled with screams and cries for mercy. They drifted on the wind and echoed off the trees and houses. Whatever was happening out there was bigger than just her and Tom’s barbecue. It was affecting the entire town. For a brief instant she thought of just driving away, but then she thought of Harold and the bitterness and anger superseded her good judgment. She was going to find her husband, kick him in the balls, and then she was going to drive right the fuck out of town and leave this insanity behind.

  III

  Constance, Kentucky

  In the first two hours of their assault, the Men of Perdition murdered nearly half of the town’s population. They worked in a pattern, combing the outlying areas, getting all the stragglers and folks that lived spaced out from each other, and worked their way towards the center of the town, to the Square. The closer they got, the more people there were. The more people, the more who died. The slaughter grew easier with each step, with folks grouped closer together.

  Spring-Heeled Jack came from the west and killed a family of four. The rest of the residents of the small suburb where the family lived poured into the street to investigate the screaming of their neighbors only to be greeted by the jumping creature and his button eyes. He literally leapt down the street, lopping off heads by the dozen with his long knives. Who he didn’t get on his first pass, he got on his second and third, so that by the time he was done, the whole suburb laid dead or dying, forty-three people in all. Then he moved on.

  The Weeping Lady had more subtle kills, but she, too was able to destroy whole family groups as she worked her way from door to door, heading in from the east.

  The Children combed several neighborhoods, getting unsuspecting residents to answer their doors and then unleash terrible murders upon them. They split up, each taking a house or a farm, until all who were within were dead. They came from the south, heading up towards the Town Square. They killed so many they had to frequently stop and wipe off the chunks of flesh that clung to their hands.

  The Mad Gasser, much like the Weeping Lady, had a more restrained approach as his most quality kills took a bit of time. But as the night wore on, he worked faster, stopping only to deal out his poisonous gas and not to linger and enjoy the suffering he was inflicting. He came from the north and traveled to the center of town, leaving misery and death in his wake.

  Finally, the Bone Sniffer roamed the countryside, killing whoever had managed to slip through the grips of the other four. He worked in a chaotic pattern, going from north to south and east to west, but slowly and surely making his way to the Town Square.

  On and on it went, the cries of the damned a symphony to the Gods on the Other Side.

  PART SIX

  I

  Jacob

  All eyes were on him as he stared at them, the remnants of the town of Constance, Kentucky. He couldn’t be positive they were the only ones left alive, but they were the only ones standing in front of him, the only ones who could fight. God had guided him here to stop what the Men of Perdition were putting into motion, and if he had to sacrifice everyone, including himself, he would gladly do it. Besides, it would be a relief to put aside this burden, this service to a God that most thought was a God of love. He knew better. God was harsh and cruel, a jealous master, and God was the only thing that stood between this world and that of the Other Side.

  “You were saying?” Sam said. That one, he had the look of doubt in his eyes. Jacob could see it, deep down, a heart blackened and hardened by loss. He had seen it many times in many different peoples but never once did it get easier to take.

  “They are called the Men of Perdition,” Jacob said. He was beginning a tale that most of them would not believe, but he had to convince them of its veracity. The fate of the entire world rested upon them.

  “They are five parts of a whole,” he said. “They came to this world not too long ago, all of them born from the catastrophe of the Second World War, five of many entities released into our world during those horrible, fateful years.”

  Martin lit a cigarette, nervously fumbling with the matches until he struck a flame and puffed the smoke deep into his lungs.

  Sheriff Monroe glared at Martin.

  “Ain’t no smoking in here, son,” he said. Martin put the cigarette out on the floor and focused on Jacob. He really wanted to keep smoking.

  “Go on,” Sam said, his voice snide.

  “Hitler. His killing of the Jews and gypsies and homosexuals was not an act of prejudice or racial hatred, but was rather an act of devotion,” Jacob said. “An act of devotion to gods and monsters so terrible, so vicious and vile, their very names would cause madness.”

  “Oh, brother,” Sam said. He rolled his eyes.

  “Unbeliever,” Jacob responded. “You yourself witnessed with your very eyes the reality of what I say. And yet you mock, and doubt.”

  “There must be a more reasonable explanation,” Sam said. He looked around at his fellow townsfolk for help. “Right?”

  No one said a word. Sadie slid her hand into Sam’s and locked their fingers together. She set her head on Sam’s shoulder and nodded at Jacob.

  “Please, continue,” she said.

  That one had the feel of a warrior about her, Jacob thought.

  “Long ago, when the Earth was void and the conti
nents hadn’t yet drifted apart, this reality was ruled by those very gods and monsters that I mentioned. They did as they wished, ruled as they saw fit, and enslaved all of creation. One day, a man came along, at least, what they perceived to be a man. This man was actually God, the creator, and He came to walk upon His Earth. He observed what these other creatures were doing and found it repugnant and sinful. Gathering all of His energies, God banished these monsters into another realm, what some call the Other Side, but in doing so, God so depleted Himself that he faded away, a whisper on the wind, to regenerate in heaven above. But before He left, He cast mighty spells to protect this world, to keep it safe from the gods and monsters seeking to return and restore this planet to what they deemed its rightful state.”

  “That sounds like Lovecraft,” Martin said. Everyone turned and looked at him. He shrugged, embarrassed. “He’s a writer.”

  “Yes,” Jacob said, delighted that someone else in the room besides the Woman of God understood. “Lovecraft was gifted by God. He could see into this other world. He wrote many stories, detailing what he saw and experienced, but the contact with the monsters warped his mind, driving him insane.”

  “Okay, great,” Sam said. He exhaled slowly, disgust in his voice. “We get it. Can you finish your little fairy tale now?”

  Jacob paused, studied Sam, and continued.

  “God returned to heaven, retiring there to rest, but He left us as protected as He could. Over time, the banished gods and monsters sought ways to return. They learned how to twist men’s minds, to make them do their bidding. They led these men to kill and commit atrocious acts. You see, for every murder, for every drop of innocent blood spilt, the barrier between our world and theirs grows weaker. These gods compelled men to kill and slaughter at their bidding. All of the great wars were caused by these influenced individuals, as well as heinous acts such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. On and on it has gone, down through history, as men of evil paid homage to their gods, weakening the barriers that God constructed. God, meanwhile, influenced mankind in His own way, but was still too weakened from His battle with the monsters to keep repairs up.”