Hellwalkers

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  “Marlow,” the thing that wasn’t Danny said. “I wondered when you’d show up.”

  “You’re not real,” said Marlow, closing ranks with Pan, standing back-to-back with her. He felt her fingers worm into his and he held her tight.

  “I’m not real?” the ghost said, not slowing. “You got some cheek, Marlow. You’re the one who isn’t real. You’re the intruder here, the imposter.”

  “No place here for you,” said the other man, walking faster now. “Any of you. You’re not welcome.”

  Marlow steeled himself, waiting for their heads to crack open, for those black limbs to slice free of their stolen skin. It’s not Danny, he kept saying. It’s not real, it’s not real.

  “Just keep your heads,” said Night, spear at the ready.

  “You’re not welcome!” cried Danny, a hollow sound from his distending mouth. He roared, and as he did so the inferno on the horizon began to gutter.

  “Oh no,” said Pan.

  With a rumble that Marlow could feel in his bones the final gasp of sky fire burned out, and in the darkness that followed came a pounding of feet and a howl of rage.

  GHOSTS

  The dark was absolute, like her eyes had been ripped from their sockets.

  Pan was a spinning top, her mind reeling, and she collapsed onto the conduit. The sound of drumming footsteps was almost on her, the ghosts howling as they moved in for the kill. She knew it wasn’t Christoph, the rapist who’d assaulted her years ago in Queens, the man whose murder she would have been imprisoned for if it weren’t for Herc, coming to her rescue, stealing her away to join the Fist.

  It couldn’t be him, but it had looked so real, so real.

  “Incoming!” yelled Night. She grunted, something growling. Pan heard the whump of her spear as she swung it, the crack of metal on metal. Then something laughed in Pan’s ear and a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her from behind. They tugged hard, almost lifted her off the ground, but she managed to wrap her fingers around a piece of the pipe, rooting herself.

  “Don’t fight it,” said Christoph. It wasn’t his voice but they were his words. She’d know them anywhere. “You’re mine, Amelia.”

  He pulled again, and she clung to the pipe with both hands, feeling like her fingers might snap. Above his laughter, above the loud cries of whatever lay beneath them, Pan could hear a sound like tearing flesh. The ghost was changing, shedding its disguise.

  It was going to eat her.

  She kicked back, hitting air. Christoph laughed, tightening his grip around her waist. She could feel his body pressed against her and it was changing, something fracturing beneath his skin. She kicked again, her heel connecting with something that shattered like glass. Christoph made a choking sound that bubbled back into laughter.

  “That all you got?” he whispered.

  She smashed her head back into the ghost’s nose and his hold on her loosened. Christoph’s laughter was liquid thick, gurgled through blood. She could feel his fingers pushing into her waist, trying to claw into her skin.

  “Come to me, Amelia,” he said. “You know you want to.”

  She kicked out, squirmed loose, managed to turn onto her back. She could see nothing, but she imagined him there—shirtless, grinning, expectant—and she kicked up with everything she had.

  The heel of her foot hit with a wet crunch, a jarring pain shooting up her leg. The ghost whined like a beaten dog and she kicked again, fumbled her way to her knees—too frightened to stand.

  “Marlow?” she said, her voice trembling. She could hear somebody fighting but she didn’t know who it was. “Night?”

  Something whipped up to her side—just a whirl of sound—and punched into her flank. It slid free with a lightning show of pain and she collapsed. When she put a hand to the wound she felt her own blood, as hot as spilled coffee.

  “Pan!” came Marlow’s voice. “Watch out! I think it’s—”

  Something barged into her and she rolled over the edge, the world dropping out from beneath her. She reached for the pipe, grabbing a part of it with blood-slicked fingers. Her legs scuffed the side, seeking purchase, but the agony in her ribs was too much, it felt like her body was about to tear in two. Beneath her the ocean screamed and screamed.

  Not an ocean, then, she thought, and she finally made sense of the motion she’d seen there.

  “Pan?” Night this time. “Where are you?”

  She grunted, the only sound she could make. Her hand was slipping and she tried to adjust her grip. Her fingers might have had razors for bones, the pain unbearable.

  “Pan?”

  Night sounded closer this time, and her fingers brushed the top of Pan’s head.

  “Marlow, she’s here. Pan, grab my hand.”

  Footsteps, panted breaths, then Marlow: “Quick, I don’t know where Danny went.”

  She let go of the pipe with one hand, reached up. It seemed like an eternity before somebody grabbed her, fingers locking tight around her wrist.

  “Come on!” said Marlow.

  Pan reached for Marlow with her other hand. Then she planted a foot in a divot, the iron biting into her sole.

  Marlow and Night hauled, reeling her up.

  Then something even darker than the night loomed up above Marlow and his grip on her vanished. She fell, slipping through Night’s fingers, reaching for the conduit and finding nothing but air. She tumbled into the void, her stomach looping, her cry locked in her throat. Beneath her the chorus of screams rose into a nightmare crescendo, as if the ground knew she was coming. She fell, and she fell, and—

  She landed on something soft, something wet, something moving. Her breath was snatched from her and she had no time to claim it back because she was rolling, gaining speed as she thumped her way deeper into the earth. Nails scratched at her, fingers grabbed her hair, she could hear teeth snapping, and all the time that bone-shaking chorus of screams and shouts drummed at her ears.

  She grabbed hold of something that felt like flesh, managed to stop herself. Whatever she was holding struggled against her and she let go, trying to stand on ground that lurched and swayed. Jaws flexed beneath her, teeth chewing. A million figures pressed in around her in that blinding dark and the noise of them was deafening. Her senses had been robbed—all apart from the agony in her side, the wounds that were being opened up in her feet and legs.

  They were going to crush her, she knew. They were going to crush her, and devour her, and when hell remade her down here they’d do it again, and again, and again.

  No.

  She pushed into the crowds, into those endless moans and cries. Bodies thumped against her, tried to wrap their hands around her, tried to press their lips against hers. She pushed them away, grunting through their embraces. The smell of them was unreal, like she was swimming in rot. Each breath held a thimbleful of air and her whole body howled with the effort of it. Blood still gushed between her fingers, dripping to a floor that was already drenched with it, like she was wading through marshland. Each step she took sank ankle-deep and she felt the people who lay beneath the water try to claim it.

  No.

  She tried to focus, tried to get her bearings. They’d seen the edge of the canyon, seen the wall of rock. All she needed to do was get to it, but which way was it? She looked up; nothing there but the night, coffin dark. Somebody took hold of her hand, spoke to her in a language she didn’t recognize, her voice laced with desperation and madness. She tried to pull loose but it wouldn’t let her go and she lashed out with her fist, punching wildly until she was free. She’d only taken two steps before somebody else took hold of her, this one uttering frantic gasps of English that rose above the pulsing wave of sound.

  “… told her, I told her, I … are you her? Mary? Mary?”

  She shunted her way past, thumping into another walking corpse and ducking around it. But somebody hit her before she could straighten and she fell, splashing into the pool of liquid rot. A foot stood on her head, pushing her deeper,
a finger sliding into her mouth from below, scraping her tongue and making her gag. The pressure on her disappeared and she arched her head out of the blood, managing half a breath before somebody else stepped on her, crushing her into the mess. She twisted her head to the side, trying to keep her mouth above water. There were too many people there, all of them shambling and stumbling, trampling her.

  “Help!” she screamed, not sure who she was screaming at, knowing it would do no good. “Pl—”

  Somebody tripped on her, fell, their hand slamming into her nose. She tried to push them free but they were too heavy, pushing her into the mud of blood and flesh. Somebody else landed, squeezing the last drop of air from her. They were all sinking, the water bubbling up over her mouth, her nose. Her arms were too weak to free her, the pain in her side too great. She took a breath but there was nothing in her lungs but old blood. More and more people fell, tumbling onto her, pressing her, crushing her.

  No, she said—to everyone, to no one.

  She tried again to breathe, and the dark night grew darker.

  GONE

  “Pan!”

  Marlow lunged for her, almost fell. Only Night’s grip on his arm held him back.

  “She’s gone,” Night said. “Come on, we’re not safe y—”

  Marlow felt it coming this time, a subtle shift in the air pressure as something big swooped toward him. He ducked, rolling into the dark, no idea which way was which.

  “Marlow,” said Danny—a voice that couldn’t have been his brother’s even if Marlow had remembered what his brother sounded like. “You took my place. You made her forget about me.”

  “Who, Mom?” Marlow grunted, pushing himself onto his knees. He knew he shouldn’t be talking with it, knew it was just trying to distract him, but he couldn’t stop himself. It was just too real.

  “It should have been me,” Danny said. “I should have been the one who lived. You messed it all up, Marlow. You wasted your life. You drove Mom to drink.”

  “And you got a big mouth, asshole,” said Night.

  Marlow sensed her leaping past him toward Danny, heard the wet slice of her blade against its flesh.

  There was another noise, too, something low and deep—a growl. Was it the ghost? He listened for it, every muscle tense. Something whispered past him, something big, and he heard the snap of teeth, a wet crunch.

  Marlow found his feet, teetered. He stepped along what he thought was the length of the pipe only to feel the edge, the abyss screaming up at him. He angled toward the sounds of Night laying into the ghost with everything she had. She was screaming in Spanish but the ghost was just laughing.

  “Kill yourself,” it said, the words chewed into lumps. “Kill yourself, Marlow. End it, just like Pan did.”

  “Shut up,” Marlow growled, feeling his way forward. “Shut your face, Danny, or I swear I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” More laughter, punctuated by the sound of Night stabbing the blade into the ghost’s body. “You did that already, Marlow. You did that and took my place.”

  “Go screw yourself,” he said. That growl again, the drumming of feet, a soft thud—and then the ghost howled as it tumbled over the edge. There was a soft snort right by Marlow’s ear, then something as big and as wet as a cow’s tongue slid over his face, leaving a trail of slime. He gagged, rolling back, hearing the thunder of footsteps fading.

  “Night?” Marlow said, wiping away whatever had been plastered to his face.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He crouched there, waiting for the ghost to renew its attack. Ten seconds passed, then thirty, and by the time he’d counted out a minute he let himself breathe. He felt Night’s fingers on his head, then she sat down next to him. Beneath them a million dead screamed into the night, and he knew that one of those screams belonged to Pan. He covered his ears, wincing as the wound in his back flared.

  “What happened?” he asked. “What were those things?”

  He felt her body tense as she leaned over the edge.

  “Whatever—they’re gone,” she said. “Pan, too. Come on, we should keep moving.”

  “We can go after her,” he said, but the words were just breaths, because he knew that however much he loved Pan—and he did love her, he knew, he loved her with every piece of himself—nothing could make him stand on the edge of this pipe and throw himself into death. Nothing, not even her.

  “Come on,” said Night, taking his hand, urging him up. “She’ll come back; hell will make her again. We have to keep moving, we have to get off this bridge.”

  She walked, leading him along behind her. Marlow was happy to follow, navigating the uneven surface without thinking. They’d seen the far end of the canyon, it couldn’t have been more than thirty yards away from where they’d been attacked, but all the same Night led him for what had to have been three times that distance before she stopped. The noise of the ocean was far behind them, just a dull rumble on the edge of his hearing.

  “Wait here,” Night said. He listened to the sound of her climbing down the edge of the conduit, then she spoke again from below. “It’s safe.” She snorted a laugh. “Well, maybe not safe, but solid.”

  He wasn’t sure he could make it, but he eased himself over the edge and started to descend. His back felt like one big slab of pain, everything soaked with blood, but he made his way slowly, surely, downward. When his foot hit warm ash he almost cheered. He wasn’t quite ready to trust it, though, dropping to his knees and using his fingers to feel for any sudden drops. But there was only ash. This whole place was made of ash.

  “We should wait here,” said Night. “Wait for the light.”

  “Best idea I’ve heard yet,” said Marlow, leaning back against the conduit and yelping at a sudden bloom of cold shadow inside his head. He lay on his side instead, on a pillow of dust, exhaustion making the night even darker than it already was. He closed his eyes, but all he could see there was Pan—Pan fighting, Pan screaming, Pan calling his name, Pan dying.

  Pain pulsed in his back, in his muscles, in his head. He wondered how bad the wound was, whether he’d bleed out in his sleep, wake in the pit with teeth in his throat. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Night.”

  “You quitting already?” she said with a soft laugh. “No mames.”

  “Huh?” he slurred. He thought he could actually feel the life draining from him, or was it just sleep pulling him in? Death and sleep, he wasn’t sure he could tell the difference anymore.

  “No mames,” she said again. “You’ve been here, what, two days? Try hundreds. Try almost a thousand. That’s nearly three years. You stay here that long, then you can start whining.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Back there?” said Night. “Who was that? Ghosts always take the form of somebody you know.”

  “My brother,” he said.

  “Didn’t even know you had one.”

  “I don’t.” Marlow tried to remember his brother the way he’d known him. “I mean, not anymore. He died when I was five. I never really…”

  Marlow had been so young that he could barely remember Danny. He was just a photograph on the kitchen wall, desert camo, Oakley shades, big smile. Marlow couldn’t even think about what his mother had been like back then. He reached into his head, searching for one memory, for any memory, but there was just a cushion-soft void, one he felt like falling into and never coming out of.

  “Leave them alone,” he said, speaking to hell, knowing it was trying to wipe his mind clear, trying to drive him insane. “They’re mine.”

  “Qué?” asked Night.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Was it true?” she asked. “The things he was saying?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know how they do it,” she said. “How they know things. Your brother isn’t actually in hell, right?”

  “No, of course not,” said Marlow. “He never used the Engine, died in Afghanistan
.”

  “So how does it know that stuff about your mom, about her drinking?”

  Because hell seeped into your head, Marlow thought. Because it cracked open your skull with icy fingers and peered inside.

  “It got it wrong, about me and Danny. We did know each other, when I was a kid.”

  Again he reached for those memories, and again he found nothing.

  “We should sleep,” he said. “When it’s light we need to go back, we need to look for Pan.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Night.

  But there was nothing in her voice that made him think she was telling the truth.

  He lay there, visions playing against the backdrop of the night—Danny charging at him, Pan falling, as clear as day even though he hadn’t seen it. He thought he would see those things until the end of his life.

  Lives.

  Yeah, lives. Hell would torment him with these visions until the end of time.

  A soft growl, the same one he’d heard before. But whatever it was, it could have him. Sleep was smothering him. He couldn’t have sat up if he’d wanted to.

  “Good night, Pan,” he said.

  “It’s Night. Not Pan.”

  “Yeah,” he slurred. “That’s what I meant.”

  But it was Pan he spoke to, and it wasn’t so much good night as goodbye. Because he was afraid there were some deaths you couldn’t come back from, not even in hell.

  ASCENSION

  They were burying her alive, entombing her in flesh and blood.

  Another weight thumped down onto the pile, pressing her deeper. She lay on her stomach, a mask of rot choking her, her vision a mess of static.

  And still they came, shambling onto her like the walking dead, like they were seeking out her life, her warmth. Hands grabbed at her, fingers like iron rods pinching her skin, jagged nails tearing. The weight of them was impossible, surely enough to snap her spine, to turn her organs to jelly.