Hellwalkers

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  He dived to the side, colliding with a bike messenger who was tearing up behind him. They both hit the ground, the van crumpling the bike and slamming into the side of a building. The door blew off, a cloud of ash billowing out, choking Marlow. He spat, the taste of it impossibly familiar. He’d been breathing it in for the last three days.

  It was the taste of hell, pure and simple.

  He got to his feet, sucking in air, feeling his windpipe shrink as the asthma caught up with him. He fumbled for the inhaler as he broke into a run.

  Behind him, the street was a war zone. There had to be ten cars piled up and burning, punching a fist of smoke into the sky. The windows of the apartments were exploding like firecrackers as the people inside—watching the carnage, no doubt—caught fire then burst. Others were sprinting toward him, twenty, thirty yards away, the farthest of them twisting into shapes of flame, vanishing a second later. They were pumping out so much heat that the trees had caught fire, swaying like the arms of burning men.

  And the ground under them—it was growing soft, the asphalt melting, the rock beneath starting to glow. Their shoes were sticking to it, rooting them in place.

  It wasn’t this that drove Marlow on, though; it was the thunder in the air. It rose up over the screams, over the shriek of rending metal, over the sound of his own painful wheezing. It was like a radio being tuned, impossible to make sense of—until he’d covered another few yards and suddenly it fizzed into clarity, bursting into his thoughts as sharp as a scalpel.

  A voice—a voice that spoke a language the world had not heard for centuries, but which Marlow understood like his own.

  I AM FREE.

  It was like a concussive wave of dark sound, one that ripped up the street and knocked him flat on his face. He lifted his head, a string of drool hanging from his lips, his forehead smarting where he’d scraped the sidewalk. Groaning, he turned onto his side, trying to remember what to do with his feet.

  I AM FREE.

  It came again, as powerful as the shock wave from a nuke—the force of it extinguishing the burning trees, scattering cars, rolling Marlow along the asphalt.

  It was too much, he could make no sense of the vortex of his thoughts. He just looked through that sea of burning people, through the dancing clouds of ash. He looked, and he saw.

  He saw the Devil step out of the dark.

  It rose like an inverse sun, blistering a path up from the horizon. It dragged the darkness with it, like it was wearing the night as a cloak—only it wasn’t really night, Marlow saw, it was something so much worse. It was as if reality were a photograph and this thing was burning a hole in it, scorching it from existence. He wrenched his head away, blinking. It had left an imprint on his vision, a shape inside that darkness—a too-tall figure who walked unsteadily on sapling legs, whose arms were curled up to its empty chest, who dragged a yoke of machinery behind it, and whose face arranged itself from shape to shape, which turned to him and spoke.

  GIVE IT TO ME.

  Marlow pushed himself onto his knees, then onto his feet, so night-blinded that he didn’t even know which way he was supposed to be running. He turned back again, by mistake this time, almost falling into that ink-spill dark. The Devil was walking, anyone close to him bursting into flames, exploding with such force that they left craters in the sidewalk.

  He staggered, feeling like his mind had been overridden, the controls taken over by somebody else. The world was a tornado of sound and fury, battering him. All he could see was the dead and the dying, all he could hear was their screams. He could smell them, he could taste them, he could feel them settling in his nose, in his ears. He had the sudden image of their spirits clambering onto him, into him, whispering, It’s your fault, Marlow. This is all because of you.

  And they were right, this was his fault.

  “Hey,” said a voice, quiet and yet the loudest sound on the street. Marlow looked to see Pan there. Her fingers rested lightly on his elbow. “We need to go. Whatever you’re thinking, we need to go.”

  She steered him like he was a horse, leading him away. But they’d only taken a couple of steps when they saw Herc barreling back toward them, canister held to his chest, his cheeks puffing with the effort.

  “That way!” he roared, skirting around them, heading straight for the Devil.

  “What?” shouted Pan. “Are you—”

  The apartment building to their left flew apart in a tsunami of bricks and steel. There was something inside it, a mass of twisted muscle, easily as big as a house, tendrils of darkness whipping around it. Even though it didn’t really have a face it looked pissed.

  “Ostheim,” Marlow said.

  The monster fell clumsily from the building, flopping and rolling onto the road. One of its tentacles punched into the street, skewering a truck and shattering asphalt, and it somehow managed to push its bulk up. A split opened up in its ass-ugly face and it vomited out a wet howl, dragging itself down the street.

  Marlow didn’t hesitate this time, turning and bolting after Pan. The ground was shaking as Ostheim followed, another immense howl right on their heels. The Devil was closer than ever, striding across its stage of dancing dead.

  IT IS MINE.

  The hole in its chest seemed to stream with darkness, those pieces of machinery hanging there, but if it was weaker without its heart it showed no sign of it. The heat was unbearable, Marlow’s feet stinging from the steaming sidewalk.

  Herc was ahead, running faster than Marlow thought possible. Running right for the Devil. He reached the van, the one that had almost hit Marlow, and ripped open the passenger door. He was inside in a flash, Charlie jumping up after him. By the time Pan and Marlow reached it Herc was hunched over the wheel, trying to turn the key. The whole of the cab was a sludge of melted plastic, the seat covers gone, the windshield burned and cracked.

  “Seriously?” said Pan.

  “Shut it, Pan,” he said. “Get in.”

  The key was fused in the ignition, but Herc wrenched it hard and the van sputtered. Marlow looked over his shoulder, the skyline dominated by the tumorous mass of evil that was rolling toward them.

  “Herc,” he said, backing against the van. “You’d better hurry.”

  Somebody else ran past, devoured by fire. Marlow watched him go, watched as he ran straight into the path of Ostheim. The monster flicked him aside with a tentacle and he soared out over the street, exploding like a firework and releasing a dark starburst of ash. Then Ostheim was coming even faster, galloping, the whole world seeming to tremble.

  “Herc,” Marlow said again.

  The van roared to life. Herc stuck it in reverse and slammed his foot on the pedal. The engine rattled, screamed, but the fender had welded itself to the wall.

  “Get in,” Herc yelled again, and Marlow did as he was told, Pan throwing herself onto his lap. Herc tried the gas again, the van shaking like a washing machine. Then, with a mighty clank, it ripped free from the wall, leaving its bumper behind as it lurched backward.

  A blade of darkness sliced through the space they’d just vacated, hammering into the side of the building and reducing it to dust. Another followed, but Herc was reversing fast, the van sliding from side to side as he fought with the wheel. Pan swiveled around on Marlow’s lap, kicked at the broken windshield with her bare feet until it popped free from the frame. Then Herc was spinning them in a circle, Ostheim filling the empty windshield.

  All four of them swore together as Ostheim’s mouth split into a cavern big enough to swallow the van in one go. Herc punched it into drive, the van’s gearbox stuttering. Then he spun them to the right, the van bruising off a parked car. Another vehicle slammed into them from behind, shunting them toward Ostheim. He threw another of those giant tentacles at them but Herc flicked the wheel and the weapon grated down the side, powerful enough to knock the van onto two wheels.

  “Christ on a bike,” Herc yelled, wrestling with the wheel like it was a bear. They landed, rocked hard, Ostheim loom
ing up in front of them. The beast roared, spraying black spit, Marlow’s mouth full of it. For some reason Herc had flicked on the wipers and they flopped back and forth over the glassless windshield. “Hang on!”

  He spun the wheel the other way and they one-eighty’d. Ostheim vanished, replaced with the carnage farther along the street. The Devil was there in its pocket of burnt earth, closer than ever, that subsonic boom still radiating from it.

  YOU CANNOT KEEP IT FROM ME.

  Herc turned the van around again, steering past a car that was tearing the other way, engulfed in flame. Another one cut in from the side, like they were riding bumper cars, this one crunching into them hard enough to ring Marlow’s head off the sidewall.

  He shook the flurries from his head. Herc was driving up the middle of the street, weaving between the stationary cars. Through the windshield was nothing but traffic, the Devil behind them and Ostheim nowhere to be seen.

  “Where—”

  Pan’s question turned to a scream as a woman ran in front of them, blinded by terror.

  Herc swerved as she exploded, the force of it bursting a front tire, the van skidding around again. Ostheim was closing in fast, one of his limbs cleaving a path along the metal flesh of the van, exploding Marlow’s window. It curled up into the air in front of them, angling down like a striking cobra.

  “Mother of—” Herc spun the wheel to the left but Ostheim was too quick, that razored limb spearing through the hood. The van stopped like it had hit an invisible wall, Marlow slamming into Pan, Pan slamming into the dash. The back of the van lifted up and spun around its new axle, then they were airborne, Ostheim jacking the entire vehicle up off the ground like a landed fish.

  Marlow rolled over the back of the seat, falling, thumping into the rear doors hard enough to smash them open. He flailed, fingernails scraping the metal, sliding over it, catching on the handle. Beneath him the world shrank, thirty, forty feet below, Ostheim’s immense bulk holding them up like a trophy. Bags of dry cleaning dropped earthward, landing on the burning cars, on the exploding people. Marlow clung on with everything he had, the pain of it like he had plunged his hands in boiling water.

  “Marlow? Marlow?”

  He couldn’t tell if it was Charlie or Pan calling his name, he couldn’t make out either of them in the darkness of the van. There was only the drop, and Ostheim, and past his freakish mass the Devil carving a path their way. The air pressure was changing, Marlow’s ears protesting. It was like the tide receding before a tsunami, because that awful call came again, shaking the street.

  IT IS MINE.

  The words hit them like a strong wind, the van swinging wildly. Marlow’s left hand slipped free and for a second he thought he was going, then he recovered, crying out as his back cramped from the effort. Ostheim seemed to recoil from the Devil’s call as well, as if even he was afraid of what stalked the shadows behind him. He moved fast, his bulk flattening cars, pushing through the trees. Marlow saw another road ahead, and past that the silver scar of the Hudson.

  “Marlow, what the hell is he doing?” Herc called.

  He had no idea, and even if he knew he wouldn’t have been able to say it. His jaw was clenched with the effort of holding on, his teeth on the verge of shattering. Ostheim’s mouth sagged like an open wound, spraying a guttural noise that might have been words. He raised his snaking limbs, the world shrinking even further as the van rose and rose.

  Then suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet Marlow—a heartbeat of stomach-churning acceleration. Marlow screamed, letting go. He landed awkwardly, the van crumpling next to him.

  “Pan!” he tried to shout, but his lungs were empty.

  Ostheim lifted the van again, shaking it. There was a thump, a rattle, and this time the canister tumbled from it. It hit the ground hard, not even bouncing, sending a ripple across the earth. If anything, the pulse from inside was beating harder, calling to its master.

  Ostheim was too busy to notice it. He was still shaking the van, his tendrils rummaging inside like he was trying to find the last Skittle in a bag of candy. Marlow could hear Pan shouting, Herc, too. Then Ostheim was off again, sliding into the river.

  “No!” Marlow yelled, but it was too late. With a roar, Ostheim plunged the van beneath the water.

  Marlow started toward them, then stopped, looking back. The canister with the heart was lying there, and behind it the world grew dark. How long before the Devil found them? How long before it pushed that rotten organ back into its chest? How long before it became a god?

  The van was sinking. They were going to drown, all of them. But what were three deaths next to a million? A billion?

  But it’s Pan, it’s Charlie, he thought, knowing even as he said it that if the Stranger was made whole again then they would die anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to them, watching for a moment more, until he could find the strength to tear himself away. He doubled back, heading for the heart.

  DROWNING

  The van hit the water like a sledgehammer.

  Everything went dark, freezing water boiling up through the open doors, covering Pan’s head, forcing itself inside her ears, her nose. She reached out, grabbing Herc or Charlie, feeling them grab her, too.

  Something sliced through the wall of the van, as easily as a knife through butter. Another of Ostheim’s limbs cut in from the other side, this one gripping the metal and pulling it. The van crumpled like a soda can, halving in size. Pan screamed into the water as the ceiling crushed down, pinning her against the seat. Ostheim squeezed again and the van shrank even more. A body pressed against her, hands groping at her face, her hair.

  She tried to push up, to get to the windshield. Another limb wrapped itself around the front of the van and tightened, catching Pan in a metal straitjacket. They were sinking fast, into the cold, into the dark, and she was trapped, pinned tight. The van was her coffin, she would die here, at the bottom of the river.

  There was an explosion of something right in the center of her, something bright, something golden. Because death didn’t seem so bad now. Death was a good thing, compared with the horror of eternal life in hell. There would be no waking up on a mountain of bone, no new scars, no more pain, no more suffering.

  Just oblivion.

  It lasted a second, then she tried to breathe in and her lungs roared. Suddenly she was in the pit again, back in hell, trapped in the suffocating dark beneath a hundred frenzied, dead Engineers. The adrenaline hit was like a slap and she knew she didn’t want to die, not here, not like this. What had Night said? Hell destroyed all hope. If she died here then hell would have beaten her. It would have won.

  Never.

  She planted a hand on the crumpled roof and pushed, wriggling, the warped metal gouging into her kidneys. Her lungs were in spasm, her whole body screaming for air. The seat finally let her go and she wormed backward. There was no room to turn around, the dark like a cloth held over her face.

  And where were the others?

  She smacked the front of the van with her feet, trying to find a hole, but Ostheim had crushed it completely. White streaks cut through the dark, her brain running out of oxygen, preparing to shut down.

  No.

  There was a dull thump as the van hit the bottom of the river, groaning as it toppled onto its side. Pan kicked away, clawing over the tops of the seats, fumbling through the dark. Where were the doors? Where were the goddamned—

  There, and they were open. She swam into the dark, floundering up, her lungs on fire.

  Comeoncomeoncomeon.

  A smudge of silver, growing. Pan had nothing left to give but she forced herself to keep going, even as a deeper, more awful darkness started to creep into the edge of her skull. She kicked, she pulled, then she burst into the light, into the air, sucking down a breath before she was all the way clear and swallowing water. She coughed, tried again, the oxygen entering her bloodstream like a drug.

  Something exploded from the water beside her and s
he flinched, expecting to see Ostheim. It was Herc, screaming in a breath, clawing at his throat. He disappeared, then bobbed back up, treading water, blasting out hoarse swearwords as he fought to stay afloat. Pan called his name and he turned his head, his eyes big and red and full of panic.

  “Where…” he spluttered, but she could guess the rest. There was no sign of Marlow or Charlie but Ostheim was rolling into the water, his tentacles churning it into a foam as he ripped the van to pieces, probably looking for the heart. Behind him the world was slipping into an unholy twilight as the Devil closed in.

  “Come on,” Pan said, swimming to the side, trying to flank Ostheim before he spotted them. The river took pity on her, carrying her in its flow. It took her four attempts before she found the strength to pull herself onto shore. She flopped down onto a concrete walkway, shivering so hard she could barely breathe. Herc grunted as he rolled next to her, landing in a wet pile.

  “That guy…” he said, forcing himself up and offering her a hand, “is a major asshole.”

  Ostheim had finished dismantling the van but hadn’t found what he was looking for. He roared, his tentacles cutting through the flow like lamprey eels.

  “Pan!”

  It took her a moment to find Marlow, another moment to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. He was on the other side of the green, overshadowed by a slice of night that emerged from the trees behind him.

  And he was trying to wrestle the canister toward her.

  She struggled onto her feet, Ostheim howling again behind her. The ground lurched as he started to chase and she knew he would be too quick, she knew he’d be on them in seconds. They were trapped between him and the Devil, and this time there was nowhere left to run.

  Then the Devil spoke.

  His word was a ten-megaton blast, a shock wave filling Pan’s head with darkness. It rolled over the Hudson, roiling the water into a churning frenzy.