“But we’re not damned!” he shouted back, before a terrifying thought struck him. What if they were? What if this was the place they were destined to end up? And now that they had arrived, passing through the other circles of Hell, was this the place from which they would be unable to escape?
“Let’s hope not,” he thought he heard her say as another scream tore through the hot, smoky air and he felt his neck being turned against his will so that he was forced to look down again at the spectacle being presented before him.
Furthest away, a young man pinned in a semi-recumbent position was having each of his teeth pulled out with an instrument that looked more suited for chipping wood. Next to him, an elderly woman who had been lain flat on a stone table was in the process of having the skin removed from her right leg.
And still that was not the worst.
Directly beneath where he was standing were two more victims. It was impossible to determine whether they were male or female. Their faces had not so much been removed as reconstructed to create monstrous, blood-streaked caricatures of their former selves. Displaced flesh was held in place by crude stitches of blackened cord that hung in long, untrimmed strands and had become plastered to their skin in the welter of blood that had pooled around their necks. These two made no sounds, as they no longer had mouths with which to scream.
Chambers tried again to close his eyes. When his lids remained stubbornly open, he knew that if they didn’t get out of there soon he would go insane. The Seventh Circle of Hell, the circle of Violence, was by far the most terrible they had encountered so far, and if things got worse from here on in, he would rather take his chances with the heretics, or that pit of anger, or any of the other places they had passed through on their way here.
He was wondering how much longer he would be able to maintain a grip on his sanity, when he felt someone to his left nudge him. Suddenly allowed movement, he found himself able to turn to see the woman who was trying to gain his attention. It was difficult because she, too, had obviously been a victim of the practices in the pit, and the twisted malformation that was the right side of her face meant that any attempt at speech was accompanied by a noisy exhalation. Eventually, Chambers was able to make out what she was trying to tell him.
“A . . . competition . . .”
“What?” He tried his best to make himself heard above the screams that were still emanating from down below. “You mean this is? What’s going on down there?”
The woman nodded. “Longest . . . wins.”
Presumably she meant whoever could withstand the greatest degree of mutilation.
“Wins what?”
This time she said nothing, but merely pointed upward.
“Do you mean death?”
She shrugged at that, and he could see her face had not been the only thing to receive the torturers’ attentions.
“Or escape?”
That was met with a more urgent nod.
Chambers’s insides turned to liquid. This was the first time any of them had been able to communicate with one of the damned souls in any of the circles, and now it was obvious why. The only way out was to be the one who could withstand the most pain.
“What did she say to you?” Karen had been allowed to move as well, now, and she shouted her question across in a desperate, trembling voice that suggested she had little distance to go in terms of losing sanity herself.
How could he answer? He wasn’t going to lie. After all, according to Dr. Cruttenden, Fraud was the next circle after this one. The corner of his mouth threatened to crease with the trace of a tired smile at that, but something kept his muscles frozen as they were.
“I think I know a way out,” he called back. “But it’s not going to be pleasant.”
With that he glanced down into the pit.
Karen said nothing, while Dr. Cruttenden started to squeeze past him. “May as well get on with it,” she said through bloodstained lips. “The longer we stay up here, the less we’re going to feel like going down there. Can you see where we’re supposed to go?”
Chambers couldn’t until she asked. Now an alcove in the wall behind them had opened up, revealing a narrow passageway and worn stone steps leading down. Dr. Cruttenden pushed her way through the mutilated individuals crowding her way, grabbing Chambers by the hand in case he was having second thoughts. He in turn made sure he was gripping Karen’s arm.
Karen refused to move.
He knew what she must be thinking, and he hated to have to put her through this but, if there was no other way, then the alternative would be for them to be trapped there forever.
“We have to go!” Once again he had to shout over the sound of screaming. “We have to, or we’ll never escape!”
Karen was silent for a moment, but it looked as if she was battling to speak. Eventually, the words came.
“Escape to where? To worse than this? To much worse than this? Have I got to go down there and be tortured just so I can go to another one of these circles and have something else terrible happen?”
“We’re nearly there!” Chambers didn’t know if that was true or not, or what they would find when they came to the end, but he knew they had to keep going or Hell would be welcoming three new residents. Perhaps it already had, but if he started thinking like that he would give up, just like Karen seemed about to. “Do you really want to stay here and try and bear . . . this?”
“Can’t we go back?”
“There is no going back.” That was Dr. Cruttenden, pulling at Chambers. “We have to see this through to the end now. Not just for us. You do understand that, don’t you?”
It didn’t look as if Karen did, or perhaps she was unwilling to. Chambers tried again.
“Karen, if you stay here, then we’ll have to stay here too. We can’t make it without you.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Karen took one step forward, and then another.
“I don’t want to do this.” She was talking through teeth clenched so tight he could barely understand her.
“None of us do.” He held her hand and squeezed it tightly. “Come on.”
Still she held back. “Will it hurt?”
What could he say? “Not as much as staying here. Not as much as giving up.”
She followed him down the steps. Chambers was impressed with Dr. Cruttenden’s resolve as she led the way at a steady pace. The light dimmed as they reached the arena, just as another wave of louder, much closer screams, assaulted their ears.
Dr. Cruttenden passed through the stone archway first, stepping boldly into the space beyond. Chambers didn’t think he could do it, and he knew he would have to pull Karen though as well. She was already beginning to resist.
But there was nothing else to do. He tightened his grip on Karen’s hand and dragged both himself and her into the arena.
It was empty.
The screams that had until that moment filled them with terror had vanished, along with those who had been making them. The torturers, too, were no longer there, having disappeared along with their victims.
All that remained were the torture instruments.
“Are we supposed to torture each other?” The prospect of momentary respite seemed to have allowed Karen to find her voice again.
Chambers followed Dr. Cruttenden to the center of the circle, avoiding the bloodstained straw as best he could.
“I don’t know,” he breathed, surprised to realize he could hear himself. He had expected the crowd on the balcony to be making noise now that they were down here, jeering at the strangers to their realm, egging on the torturers who were going to submit them to the ultimate test. Instead, they were oddly quiet. When Chambers looked up he could see why.
The spectators, too, had vanished.
As had the archway through which they had entered.
Dr. Cruttenden looked down at the tray of rusted instruments beside her and picked up a tarnished-looking meat cleaver. When Chambers and Karen both took a step back, sh
e responded with a mirthless laugh.
“Don’t worry,” she said, giving the cleaver an experimental swing. “I’m not going to harm either of you. The problem is, I don’t believe I am capable of torturing myself either.” She offered the cleaver to Chambers. “You’re the medic,” she said. “I don’t suppose you would care to . . . ?”
Chambers shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.” Dr. Cruttenden dragged the instrument table over to the dentist’s chair they had watched the young man being tortured in. She sat down, rested her left arm on the bench, and raised the cleaver high.
It was thirty seconds before she put it back down again.
“It’s no good,” she said. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this.”
“I can’t either.” Karen was eyeing the other tables of instruments. “I just . . . can’t.”
Chambers swallowed and shook his head. “We haven’t had to do anything like this before. Perhaps it’s not the way out.”
The shuffling sounds above them resumed. Chambers looked up to see their audience had returned. “Why do I get the feeling we’ve just failed some sort of test?” he said, as the archway reappeared.
Karen looked around her. “What’s that noise?”
“I believe our audience is coming to join us,” he replied. “We’ve proven we can’t escape from here, so I have a horrible feeling they’re coming to welcome us into the fold.”
The sound of limping footsteps was growing louder now, and it was being overshadowed by something much worse. The gargling, groaning howls of those damned to the Circle of Violence.
“What will they do to us?”
It was Dr. Cruttenden who answered Karen’s question. “Nothing more nor less than what they have been cursed to do forever to each other, I should imagine.”
“Then we have to get out of here!” Karen’s eyes were blazing with fear, but there was something else there now as well—a determination borne of utter terror.
She picked up the cleaver Dr. Cruttenden had put down and looked at both of them. “If you won’t go first,” she said, “then I will.”
Eyes still bright with approaching madness, Karen raised the cleaver high above her head. She was about to bring it down on her outstretched arm when a cry from Dr. Cruttenden stopped her.
“Wait!”
The shuffling sounds were getting closer now.
Karen blinked tears from her eyes as she looked at the older woman. “Why?”
Chambers was wondering the same thing.
“There may be another way.” Dr. Cruttenden was raising her arms above her head.
The violent dead were beginning to enter the chamber now. Whatever her idea was, Chambers thought, she’d better do it quickly.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
They were the ancient words that had effected their escape from the Circle of Heresy. But would they work again here?
At first Chambers thought all hope was lost, and from their expressions both Karen and Dr. Cruttenden shared his despondency. But then Dr. Cruttenden moved slightly, and Chambers realized he could see one of the dead approaching from behind her.
And that he could actually see the damned soul approaching through her.
A little of Dr. Cruttenden’s substance had vanished.
“Say the words again!” he cried. “And keep saying them!”
Dr. Cruttenden looked confused, but she didn’t argue. She recited the unearthly phrase a further three times and, on completing each guttural chant, she became more wraith-like. There was little more than a shade of her left when Chambers turned to Karen.
“You have to say them too.”
Karen looked close to panic. “I can’t!”
“Yes, you can!” He took her hand. “Say each part after me.”
Dr. Cruttenden had now completely vanished. The dead shambled over the area of floor where she had recently been standing. Karen stared at the approaching creatures, numb with horror.
Chambers squeezed her clawed fingers tightly to get her attention.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh . . .” he said.
Karen shook her head.
“You can say it! Now come on! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh . . .”
Sounds only vaguely approximating what Chambers had said issued from her lips.
“No!” He hated shouting like this, but he was starting to panic as well. “Again! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh . . .”
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh . . .”
“. . . Cthulhu R’lyeh . . .”
“. . . Cthulhu R’lyeh . . .”
“. . . wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
“Say that one again.”
Chambers repeated the phrase more slowly. How had Dr. Cruttenden managed to master the alien language so quickly? he wondered. Karen repeated it to make sure she had it. Then they began to move away from the shuffling horde to the back of the chamber.
“Now say it again. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
Karen repeated the phrase. The words came out without the polish of a practiced scholar or member of the Human Protection League, but they seemed to be working.
“Again!” Chambers shouted. They were up against the wall now, and there was nowhere left for them to go. “Again and again and again!”
The dead were reaching for them both as he felt Karen slip from his side and into nothingness. Chambers babbled the eldritch phrase, mouthing the words as fast as he could without allowing them to lose their clarity. He could feel splintered bone scraping at his skin, the stink of corruption in his nostrils. As he slid down to the floor, preparing himself for an eternity in violent darkness, he hoped that the others would be all right without him.
THIRTY-ONE
CHAMBERS OPENED HIS EYES expecting blackness, which just made the glaring white light all the more shocking.
Where was he?
His eyes were still adjusting, and all he could see was a brightly lit blur. He was lying on another floor. This one was smooth, but more slippery than any surface he had found himself on so far. So frictionless was it, that he tried to get up twice and succeeded in little more than having his heels skid.
He put both palms flat on the ground behind him. It felt like glass. Chambers turned himself over so he was face down and peered at the surface through narrowed eyelids.
It was glass, and he felt a moment of sudden vertiginous horror as it dawned on him that the ground beneath the platform on which he was lying had to be several hundred feet below him. At least, that was what he was able to judge from the size of the myriad tiny human forms he could see scattered on the earth far beneath him.
Had they fallen from here?
He tried hard not to panic as he turned carefully onto his back again. How wide was the platform he was on? And how stable? He sat up and, using his right hand to shield his eyes, allowed the world to come into focus.
Under any other circumstances, he would probably have been delighted to be beneath a cornflower blue sky, and it was wonderful to feel sunlight on his face again. It only took him seconds to be reminded of his situation, though, and with a deep breath of the chill but fresh air, he looked around him.
It was a very good thing he hadn’t moved too far when he had turned over. He was lying on a sheet of glass approximately ten feet square. There were no barriers or safety guards of any kind, each edge merely meeting with open air.
And the glass itself was almost frictionless.
Chambers took two deep breaths, holding each for as long as possible before exhaling. He had never liked heights, could feel his fear mounting, and was determined not to hyperventilate. If he did, he just might end up dizzy enough to . . .
Don’t think about it.
Where were Karen and Dr. Cruttenden? He had no idea how far he could see, but there was no sign of them in the vast blue expanse that seemed to go on forever. Except down.
Perhaps that’s where they are? Perhaps
Dr. Cruttenden was on here before you, and she fell. Now it’s your turn. Once you’re gone, Karen will appear and the same thing will happen to her.
You’re not helping yourself.
Chambers was tempted to give himself a slap, but the danger of slipping meant he decided against it.
How was he going to get down?
Much as he didn’t want to, he turned himself back over and stared at the ground far beneath him. The longer he stared, the more he began to realize that the platform on which he was lying was not suspended in space by some supernatural means. Rather, it stood at the top of an immensely long, narrow staircase, which switched back and forth beneath him. The narrowness of the switchback was the reason he hadn’t noticed it before, but if he moved his head from side to side he could just make it out. The steps appeared to be composed of the same glass as the platform, and were almost invisible. Each step was about four feet wide. There was no handrail.
Even if I could get onto that, I’d never be able to reach the ground.
But what was the alternative? Stay up here forever until his muscles seized? The breeze was cool and not uncomfortable, but if he stayed here for hours his muscles would soon begin to stiffen. He could already feel them beginning to ache.
You’ve got to get going soon, or you’ll never get going at all.
Chambers pressed his face against the glass platform and cupped his hands around his eyes. There was the glass staircase, zig-zagging its way up to him, the glass platform sitting on top of it like a birdhouse on an immensely long pole.
But from which side of the platform did the steps lead down?
He gazed hard at the staircase. As far as he could tell it just came straight up—there was no deviation to any particular edge of the glass once it neared the top. Which could only mean one thing.
The way out was directly beneath him.
Chambers moved his right hand from his face to his side, and then slid exploratory fingers beneath his abdomen. It wasn’t long before they found a ridge approximately four feet square. The discovery filled him both with hope and with horror. There was a way off this platform, but to open the trapdoor he was going to have to balance on the very edge of the glass.
The Lovecraft Squad Page 30
