I, Hell

by Ben Stevens

‘Activate the machine, Vanderbilt,’ he said tonelessly.

  Shrugging his acquiescence, Vanderbilt closed the door. Before activating the machine he typed a quick alteration to its program. This took only a second. He then walked slowly over to the Receptor, but his dangerously calm gaze was fixed on the patch of wall beside it.

  He was thankful that Chandler hadn’t seen what he had before and did again now.

  George Wilhelm Vanderbilt walked to the phone and quickly dialled a number.

  ‘Mrs Myerson? It’s George Vanderbilt – Yes, I’m so sorry to call so late… That’s right, it’s an emergency, Raymond’s here…’

  Vanderbilt coughed, and felt a little uneasy as he looked back towards the patch of wall at the rear of the narrow laboratory. He’d the strangest sensation of being watched.

  ‘…already.’ He waited as the woman woke her husband: it seemed as though they didn’t sleep in the same room.

  The incredible talent nature had given Richard Myerson for science and technology contrasted strongly with his lack of common sense and his appalling naivety regarding his fellow men: in some respects he was almost simple.

  The burly, balding man had somehow formed a deep attachment for Raymond Chandler, following him around with almost canine devotion. Myerson himself had never been insolent towards Vanderbilt, and neither had he ever given any obvious indication that he disliked his employer.

  He was, however, an exceptionally intelligent man in his particular sphere, and so could seriously affect Vanderbilt’s prospects were he to be employed by a rival company.

  Richard Myerson had become a liability, and thus needed to be dealt with accordingly.

  ‘Richard – I’m sorry to ring you so late… Yes, if you could come in. Raymond and myself have something to show you.’

  Vanderbilt smiled as Myerson spoke, interjecting, ‘Yes, it does work – we’ve been trying it out ourselves, in fact… Would you? Get here as quickly as you can, then, and you’ll be the third man in the history of the world to be teleported.’

  Vanderbilt replaced the receiver upon receiving his employee’s enthusiastic farewell – he was leaving immediately – and walked over to the Receptor.

  The head of the rat from the second experiment suddenly protruded from a patch of wall to one side of the machine, the white paint completely encasing it as it writhed and twisted in its fight to be free of the strangely fluid concrete. It was just the head, though; and this retreated back into the wall after only a few seconds.

  Vanderbilt smiled as Raymond Duskatti’s face now morphed into view, a silent scream stretching his lips before he too disappeared back into the wall.

  George Wilhelm Vanderbilt patiently awaited the arrival of Richard Myerson.

  The Bar

  I’d been living in Japan for almost a year. I liked it quite a lot. Nagashima (the city where I was based) was not too large, and there was a good mix of modern and ancient Japan existing almost together. By which I mean you could visit some temples and such in the morning, and then for lunch walk the short distance to an amazing sushi restaurant that was on top of a futuristic-looking shopping arcade.

  I’d been sent to Japan by my company, even though I knew next to nothing about this country and certainly didn’t speak the language. But my Japanese staff all spoke fluent English, and I was assigned an interpreter when this was needed, so I got by perfectly well using only the most basic words such as konnichiwa and arigatou (‘good afternoon’ and ‘thank you’).

  Like I say, my staff all spoke fluent English, and we got on well. In fact I became quite good friends with one man in particular – Akira Fukuyama. We often went drinking on a Friday evening after work, visiting a number of bars in Nagasahima’s large ‘pleasure area’ (as it was called in samurai times), which basically consists of almost countless places to eat and drink – and a red-light district.

  Well, what pleasures the red-light district had to offer I’m proud to say I never bothered finding out. But the bars were fantastic, open to very late and full of a fascinating array of people – foreign and Japanese. You could go in alone, and still soon be having an interesting conversation with someone. It was a great way to relax and unwind after a hard week’s work.

  But, usually, I was not alone. Akira and I were drinking partners. He was married and had two children (I’m still single), but his wife allowed him to stay out as late as he pleased on a Friday night. So we’d visit some bars, get something to eat, and just have a good time.

  I’d had to bail out on a Friday evening three weeks before. Came down with a bad cold and had to go home early. Spent the weekend in bed. I got the phone-call on a Sunday evening, when I was starting to feel a little better.

  It was the police, asking if I knew anything about Akira Fukuyama-san’s whereabouts. (I was called by an English-speaking detective.)

  He’d gone out that Friday evening by himself. He’d been seen in a few bars and then… Well, basically it was like he’d vanished off the face of the Earth.

  They were looking for him still. There was not a trace of information concerning his current whereabouts.

  So come the end of the week, I decided to go out by myself. I went into Nagashima’s ‘entertainment district’, passing the usual groups of young Chinese women who offered me and any other males they could see a ‘massage’. I visited a couple of bars but found that this evening, for whatever reason, they weren’t that lively.

  I went back outside, walking along some of the narrow streets that cut through the entertainment district. It’s almost like a maze; stray too far into Nagashima’s pleasure area and you can get hopelessly lost…

  There were groups of Japanese businessmen –salaryman, as they’re called here – and also a number of foreigners including several American servicemen on leave from the nearby military base.

  As was usual, a number of attractive Japanese women were stood along the streets, handing out leaflets and trying to get any passing male to accompany them to a ‘snack bar’. This is a place where you sit with female company and get your drinks poured, your cigarettes lit and your ego stroked – all at a price, naturally. Generally speaking, I tended to avoid snack bars. I liked the plain-old ‘standing’ bars best of all.

  But this evening, I found myself captivated by one of the women whose job it was to try and attract custom. She was young – certainly still in her early-twenties – and so slender. Her glossy black hair flowed down almost to her waist – and when she looked at me and smiled, I felt something melt inside.

  It was like something came over me. I walked over to her and said, ‘Konbanwa.’ (‘Good evening’.)

  ‘Would you like to come with me to a special place?’ she said in English. Her voice was low and sultry; that ‘melting feeling’ I had inside only intensified.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ I returned simply. Surprisingly, she took hold of my hand, and we began to walk. I kept turning my head to look at her, and when she met my gaze she gave me that smile that seemed to say: If you’re lucky, I’ll give you an experience that you’ve never had with any other woman…

  Yes, even if I had to pay for it (something I’d certainly never done before), I wanted to sleep with this woman. More than anything. I was bewitched by her slender beauty and… Something else; something almost indefinable that lay in her sparkling eyes and that secret smile.

  We walked deeper into the entertainment district. Further than I’d ever gone before. Countless small bars and neon signs everywhere. But then the streets seemed to get even narrower and the signs started to thin out. Darker. Much less busy with people now. I’d absolutely no idea where we were; I was entirely dependent on this woman to lead me.

  For some reason, I felt the first small prick of fear in my belly.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked the woman, who was continuing to grasp my hand with a strength that was surprising, given her slight build. She gave me that slight, secret smile again, exposing teeth that were so white.

  ‘We�
��ll be there soon,’ she said.

  The street lighting now was sporadic. Many of the buildings we passed lay in darkness. Then something made me look up at one of the rooftops. Out of the corner of my eye, just for a split-second, I thought I’d seen something dart along the roof, moving at an incredible speed before it again quickly concealed itself from view…

  Some sort of animal? And yet the impression I’d got from this briefest of glances had been of a… Well, human shape. But no human could move at such a speed… I must have been mistaken…

  I tried to take my hand out of the woman’s grasp, but her grip was like steel.

  ‘Hey, you know what, I think I’d better head back,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  She smiled at me. A flash of white teeth that I now realized were strangely sharp. Funny how I’d not noticed that before.

  ‘But we’re almost there… and your friend wants to see you again,’ she said, in a voice which now caused a shiver to shoot down my spine.

  ‘My… friend?’ I said incredulously. ‘What are you talking about – my friend?’

  ‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’ she replied, suddenly leading the both of us into a darkened doorway. Then all at once we were in a small bar with a couple of tables and a counter.

  There was only one other customer there; a man in a suit who was sat hunched on one of the seats at the bar, his back towards me. The woman working behind the bar smiled at me as I entered, her brilliantly white teeth flashing. She was young, too, and had the same flowing, supremely ‘glossy’-looking black hair that went down almost to her waist.

  There were a couple of low-lights, that was all. I instinctively looked back, as though preparing for my escape from this strange place, but behind me was just an impenetrable blackness. I couldn’t even see the doorway we’d passed through, although it had been only a couple of seconds before…

  The man sat at the bar turned to look at me, and I gave a gasp of surprise – no, shock. It was my missing friend, Akira Fukuyama. He looked strangely younger than I remembered, his eyes gleaming and oddly yellow as he stared at me. Still the woman was holding my hand; I tried to tear it away as Akira slowly rose from his seat and began advancing towards me, but it was hopeless…

  ‘He’s been waiting for you,’ said the woman who’d brought me here, her smile very wide now, exposing fanged incisors. ‘We all have.’

  ‘Hello, Bob,’ said Akira, his eyes strangely glowing, his teeth also sharp and pointed. His voice had changed considerably; now it was like a winter wind blowing through dead leaves. Instantly I felt my bowels loosen. The woman previously stood behind the bar began to come round. She was also grinning. Three sets of glowing eyes in the near-darkness, and the flashing white of those teeth…

  I tried to back away, but the woman held my hand so tightly. She started moving her mouth up to my neck. Akira and the other woman were also very near me, now.

  I was trapped…

  ‘You’ll like it here… after,’ said Akira. ‘It’s not so bad, once you get used to it…’

  ‘Don’t…’ I said, my voice a barely-audible whisper. ‘Please don’t…’

  They fell on me – and as the sucking started, I gave my first scream.

  The Devourer of Men

  A story inspired by the book Papillon (Henri Charriere).

  In a small café situated along the Rue des Grands Augustins, close to the River Seine, a fat man sat at his customary table and regretted his life. Once the official prosecutor of the Palais de Justice of the Seine, he now spent his days drinking brandy and boring anyone who would talk to him (and these were few and far between) with his tales of woe.

  True, no one now had any concept of the bitch that had been her. A bitch with a God-given face and body; a bitch whose voice had been a silky, bewitching purr; a bitch who had driven Pierre Pradel almost crazy with lust and desire...

  When seeking to possess such a bitch (considered Pradel as he stared at his glass), a man can no longer be held accountable for his actions. For possession – absolute possession – becomes a must, a prerequisite for his existence...

  And the bitch had worked such feminine black magic on Pradel himself, so that from being one of the most feared court prosecutors in the country he’d fallen to become nothing more than a laughing stock.

  No longer was he able to concentrate for any significant length of time. No longer was he able to flatter and sway the twelve country-bumpkin fools on the jury into believing that they were his social and intellectual equals. All his old fire and vigour deserted him; he became utterly unable to practise his own type of black magic any longer. So men – both guilty and innocent – who previously would certainly have been sent to the guillotine or the penal colonies walked free.

  And when Pradel had one day discovered that the bitch was busy sleeping with (or so it seemed) half the population of Paris – both male and female – and that the other half of the population was aware of this while he himself had been wholly ignorant, he’d sought solace in the bottle.

  Alcohol had granted him the necessary, albeit temporary relief – but what total enslavement it had extracted in return! The years from this point to now… These had passed in a slow, murky haze, Pradel occupying a dilapidated room in the nearby rue des Beaux-Arts, spending every day from morning to late evening in this café.

  In the last month, however, something truly wonderful had entered his life. That Raymond did nothing more than offer Pradel a sympathetic ear was of absolutely no concern to the former prosecutor. At least one person did not avoid his company like the plague; at least one person seemed happy just to sit and listen as he bemoaned his useless life.

  And this, wholly in itself, was a marvellous thing.

  Pradel looked impatiently at his watch: eleven o’clock. In a few hours’ time he would feel weary with the brandy he’d drunk and he would doze in his chair, but at this particular time he was impatient for Raymond’s company. It was likely Raymond would be in soon, for during the last month or so his visits to this small, nondescript café had become increasingly more frequent.

  It seemed to Pradel that Raymond enjoyed his company – for there was no other discernible reason for the disfigured man to come to this place.

  ‘Another drink, Monsieur Pradel?’

  Pradel turned to look imperiously at the small, thin, weasel-faced man who’d asked the quiet question. As ever, the thin man avoided looking him in the eye. He seemed uncomfortable under such a stare, and it warmed Pradel’s heart to see a specimen more pathetic than himself – a man so beaten that he allowed his wife to run the café instead of himself. For it was her name above the door, not his, and it was she who gave the orders.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pradel curtly.

  As the thin man filled his glass, a woman’s voice called stridently from the counter:

  ‘Jean-Luc! Hurry up and take these two coffees to the couple seated outside!’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Jean-Luc wearily, and having poured Pradel his drink he walked hurriedly away.

  With a pompous grunt of amusement the former prosecutor sipped his replenished glass, and then started a few moments later as Raymond entered the café.

  ‘Dubois, get another brandy to this table!’ he bellowed, forgetting in his pleasure that Raymond never drank brandy or indeed any alcohol.

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Pradel. Good morning, Monsieur,’ said Jean-Luc. He nodded quickly at Raymond, who ignored him.

  A man who had at some point in his life suffered severe burns, Raymond shook Pradel’s proffered hand as he sat down. Only one half of his face was able to smile and thus register any pleasure at this meeting; the other half, his left, was an ugly patchwork of raw scar tissue, the muscles forever burnt frozen. Amidst this destruction there gleamed a glass eye.

  One of his hands on the same side was similarly burnt – still functional but now more like a claw than a hand – and he walked with a limp, as though his foot or his leg pained him.

&nb
sp; His greying hair was brushed back in oiled waves from his forehead. He looked to be somewhere in his late forties or early fifties, while his remaining eye somehow displayed with its gimlet stare unusual strength of will and above average intelligence. His skin was browned, suggesting that he’d spent considerable time in a tropical clime. Like Pradel, he was casually dressed in shirt and trousers.

  ‘Pierre, how are you today?’ asked Raymond warmly, as Jean-Luc scurried across with the (already greatly depleted) brandy bottle and a glass.

  Signifying with a shake of his head that he wanted nothing to drink, Raymond rudely dismissed Jean-Luc. Instead, he listened with curious intensity to Pradel’s answer:

  ‘I find myself bored, Raymond – bored and disillusioned with Paris. That’s how I am, if I’m to be succinct.’

  By now aware that there would be no return inquiry concerning his wellbeing, Raymond said with a sympathetic half-smile, ‘They say that if you’re tired of Paris then you’re tired of life. But they don’t say anything about being bored or disillusioned.’

  ‘If only I had family, friends – but I have none of these, excluding, if I may be so bold, your good self. No, Raymond, I have no one to help relieve the tedium of my days, to distract me from remembering just how cruelly I was treated in the past.’

  Having by now been completely acquainted with Pradel’s history, Raymond nodded his ascent.

  Then he started, and gripped the former prosecutor’s arm.

  ‘Pierre, I might just have a solution to your problem!’

  Pradel looked keenly at him.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I have not mentioned this before... I have recently returned from a long period spent abroad, and have purchased a house.’

  ‘In Paris?’

  ‘No, I could not live in such a place. It is too noisy, too busy... No – my house is situated on the outskirts of Hesdin, a tiny village in Pas de Calais. It is surrounded by fields and little woods, and there are no other properties close by. As a lover of solitude, it is perfect for me.’