"What does that mean?" Harry cried. "I don't even know what that—"
The poker came down across his fully exposed back, the pain so omnipresent he puked up chunks of chicken fingers and French fries undigested from lunch.
"Why won't you stop?"
"You still don't understand, Mr. Maitland," the woman said with a shake of her head. "We're not doing this to hurt you. We're doing this to save you."
Harry wept.
Mr. Robertson struck him three more times before Harry lost consciousness.
Thank goodness for small mercies.
When his eyes opened again Harry was lying on his back. Even through the pain he could tell they had spread him out on the makeshift crucifix. A choir pa-rum-pa-pum-pummed "The Little Drummer Boy" on the record player, and Mr. Robertson was on his knees tying Harry's left wrist to the horizontal board. Harry realized he couldn't move his arms even if they hadn't been tied down. He wasn't sure if it was the sedative or the injuries to his pelvis and back that had made movement below the neck impossible, but what he did know was that his hosts meant to drive nails into his hands and feet, and let him hang from their homemade cross until he was dead.
There would be no pleading with them. If there was one thing Harry had faith in, it was that. These two lunatics would not relent. He saw no mercy in their eyes, only the fervor of old-time religion.
The Passion of the Robertsons, he thought.
Blood trickled from the corners of Harry's lips when he laughed.
Eric Robertson gave Harry a queer look while picking up the mallet and spikes. With the tools in hand the man glanced up at his wife. From his expression Harry could not tell if the look was for encouragement or in the hope she'd put a stop to this madness before it went so far they couldn't turn back. Mrs. Robertson was out of Harry's line of vision. But he didn't need to see her to know she'd nodded once more.
Mr. Robertson rested the narrow end of the spike on the meat of Harry's left palm, and poised the mallet above it to strike.
The sound rang in Harry's ears like the clang of a choir bell. Metal split flesh and separated bones like the parting of the Red Sea. Harry's agonized scream unintentionally harmonized with the choir of voices from the record player. Mr. Robertson muttered along to the music, and when he struck the spike again it was synchronous with the "ding" of their bell.
Harry had naively assumed the second strike would be less painful. It was not. The wrist contains eight bones, and each one detached further as the spike drove in, stretching outward so that his hand felt as though it might burst at the sides.
On the third strike, Robertson bashed his own thumb.
With a wincing intake of breath, the man brought his injured digit to his mouth and sucked on it. Harry managed a weak laugh through his tears.
"Give me that, you big baby," Mrs. Robertson snapped, as if she were talking to a child.
Through a blur of tears Harry watched Mrs. Robertson kneel at his side and snatch the mallet from her husband. He caught a glimpse of beige satin panties between her thighs and in some distant, painless galaxy Harry felt the stirrings of arousal.
The Last Temptation of Harry, he thought. God, I really am going to Hell.
Mrs. Robertson caught his eye and clucked her tongue in disapproval. But she wasted no time in scrounging up the other spike by tugging down her dress.
And while she drove the final nail, the pain blistering up his arm with each additional strike, Harry focused what little consciousness remained to him on the shimmering fabric between her legs, imagining himself hammering railroad spikes into the delicate, downy folds of her privates, before crushing her husband's testicles with the mallet.
When the job was done, and the choir sang "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," Mr. and Mrs. Robertson hoisted the crossbeam onto their shoulders and dragged Harry and his crucifix toward the kitchen doorway, where they laid it to rest against the arch.
And so it came to pass that Harry Maitland, atheist, bad boyfriend, Hometown Hardware employee and part-time alcoholic, was crucified in the year of our Lord 2015.
Hanging by his hands, his lungs felt constricted. He could barely get a breath. Blood oozed from his stigmata and pattered on the carpet. They'd made him a footrest, but it was of little comfort or joy.
He would not repent.
He would not accept Jesus as his Lord and personal Savior.
He would not let the Robertsons beat him.
Looking up at their handiwork with smiles of approval, the Robertsons took each other's hands, and though his agony reigned supreme Harry wondered if their little passion play had ever been an attempt to save his admittedly wretched soul, or if it had been an excuse from the very beginning for the couple to torture a man to his death.
As they watched their sacrificial lamb for signs he'd received the Holy Spirit, Harry found himself studying the angel atop the Christmas tree, placed at an odd angle, and thinking about how the words angle and angel were similar, wondering if the similarity held a deeper meaning.
He noticed the top of the tree had bent at the same angle, the wire pulled taut.
"You forgot…the crown of thorns," he gasped, and chuckled when the Christmas cheer dropped from their holier than thou faces.
A discordant twang interrupted "Silent Night." A heartbeat later a small metallic object struck the wall behind Harry's head and the tree sprang forward, launching the angel through the air. Bulbs and ornaments crashed to the floor.
And like Harry had turned toward his inevitable destruction rather than leap out of the way of approaching death, the Robertsons whipped round as the tree landed in the hearth and burst into flames.
Mrs. Robertson's nylons caught next. She dropped to the carpet and began to roll, but the fire spread to her dress, the carpet, the red and green table runner, while Mr. Robertson stared down in horror, seemingly immobile.
The fire alarm began to blare as Mrs. Robertson writhed on the carpet. Bulbs burst like popcorn. Ornaments and plastic needles dripped into a black puddle on the floor. The record had warped, the choral voices rum-pa-pum-pumming became ghostly and surreal.
Already the sulfurous smell of Mrs. Robertson's burning hair filled Harry's nostrils. Her cooking flesh smelled something like burnt pork and the coppery tang of bubbling blood. This combined with the foul stench of burning plastic should have conspired to make Harry sick.
Instead he smiled.
Calm as can be, Mr. Robertson bent to pick up the revolver from the coffee table. He turned his back but Harry could still hear the man ask God for forgiveness before firing a single shot into his wife's head.
The woman stopped moving.
Mr. Robertson's arm rose and he put the pistol in his own mouth.
Realizing he was in direct line of fire should the bullet pass through Mr. Robertson's skull, Harry tried to move his head. He could not, and so he closed his eyes instead, awaiting the end.
The second shot rang out. Hot blood struck Harry's face like a splash of holy water on a newborn babe. He heard the thump of Mr. Robertson's body hitting the floor. Unable to believe he'd survived, when he finally dared to open his eyes the fire had already begun to smolder.
Mr. and Mrs. Robertson were dead. Or if not dead, well done.
He was saved.
Saved by a nail.
And he had to wonder if it was a coincidence that nails had very near killed him, but a single nail had spared his life.
Now you won't see Harry Maitland around the Ram's Head these days. Harry doesn't come in here anymore, not since he found God that night at the Robertsons's house.
The fire alarms were tied to the Robertsons's home monitoring system, you see. When the voice of the customer service agent called over the box Harry thought he was hearing the voice of God. It was not God, it was a man named Jim from AlarmSquad Home Security.
Now I have to ask you, do you think what happened to Harry Maitland on the night of December 28th 2015 was an accident of fate? Or was it "divi
ne intervention"?
Would you call that a "Christmas miracle"?
Heck, don't ask me.
But you have to think, if God was there to save him, then didn't God also let the Robertsons kidnap him in the first place? And if a god would put someone through so much torture just to teach them a lesson, then what the hell kind of sick, depraved sadist have we been praying to all these years?
Not any kind of god I'd want to stand before awaiting judgment, that’s for damn sure.
Hellscape - Rich Hawkins
Freya walked the stone path through the graveyard and approached the church, as the sky turned to red and winged forms with thin limbs swooped through the crimson clouds. It was an alien sky, like the desolation and death of Mars. All the birds were gone and the planes had plummeted to earth in smoke and fire. She’d woken to a blue sky yesterday morning, when everything had been fine and pleasant and she hadn’t yet killed her husband. And now she was trembling with grief and guilt, trying to keep hold of her memories and all the little things that made her the person she was. But she was slipping away, very slowly, and her only wish was to find her missing son before she lost her mind to the creeping darkness stalking the world.
The red clouds pulsed erratically. Yesterday blood had fallen from the sky, and before that it’d been some kind of black rain, oily and pungent, its smell reminding her of human grease.
She gripped the machete as she walked through the church’s front entrance, moving into shadow and cold air. A respite from the toiling heat of the apocalyptic summer.
Inside, a congregation of villagers, the last of the believers, prayed for salvation from the terror of this new world. There were no children present. No sign of her son. The reverend stood before his ragged flock, not acknowledging Freya as she sat at the back of the pews and placed the machete at her side. She looked at him. The reverend was an old man, but he knew little, and he was frail and doubtful, carrying on through habit more than true faith. He was urging his parishioners to stay strong in the face of the devilry outside and believe that God would guide them through the crisis and into a purer, better world once the hordes of sinners and sexual deviants were destroyed.
The congregation listened, prayed, muttered scripture from their holy book, and took comfort in the reverend’s words and the house of their Lord with its thick walls and stained glass visions. And the reverend was reciting from the Book of Revelations, when the first of them began to twitch and grunt in their seats, then bleed from their mouths and eyes. Those not yet affected cried out in horror as family members and friends were overcome by awful seizures and bleeding, but within moments they, too, were wracked by the same symptoms and then the entire congregation was a mass of wretched bodies all shuddering and whimpering. Some screamed, beseeching their saints and calling out to Jesus, meek and mild, their saviour, the Nazarene.
Freya watched, impassive, too far gone to be shocked by what her eyes showed her, for there were greater terrors beyond the church. Her hand tightened on the machete grip as the people of the congregation began to split open with wet ripping sounds and spluttering. Fleshy spikes and spines erupted from beneath their skin, and their limbs contorted into suppurating appendages of sopping meat. Faces stretched, tore, and mouths widened obscenely. Some of them spoke through the wrecks of their red skulls as hair and skin fell away. Tortured cries and shrieks. Hands clawing at faces and eyes. Tongues pulled from mouths. And at the end of it all the entire congregation was a turgid gathering of wretched bodies all mangled, useless and crippled.
The reverend was unchanged, and stood there with his hands at his face and a damp patch spreading on his crotch.
Freya rose from the pew and went to the congregation with her machete held high. The worshippers still with eyes regarded her as she walked around the pews. Some spoke in alien words and guttural snorts.
The reverend was making a shrill sound, whistling through his clenched teeth, and he did not stop Freya as she set to the believers with her machete.
The awful forms of the congregation screamed and screeched. Freya hacked and slashed, shredding flesh and rubbery tissue, ligaments and the wrinkled muscle of their innards; she splintered bone and severed hands with several swipes. Blood gushed, sputtered, flew, then dripped to a halt with the failing of hearts, and when she was done, she stood panting and feral, trembling and covered in gore. Her arms were heavy with exertion, threaded veins straining against her skin. She wiped her face and spat. Then she looked to the reverend, who now sat on the steps that led to the altar, his head in his hands. There was piss on the steps, sluicing down to form a puddle on the cold stone floor.
Freya went to him, raised the machete as he cowered, then lowered it at the last moment. She turned away and walked outside, leaving behind the church and its slaughtered flock.
She walked along the main road of the village, stepping between the people lying sprawled on their backs and staring up at the violent sky. She looked for her son, but couldn’t find him. An old woman in a stained nightdress giggled and spoke of old gods with terrible appetites. Freya ignored her.
People were losing their minds in the streets. A man capered past her, muttering with his hands over his eyes.
Everything was dreamlike and vague, and minutes bled together.
There was a writhing horror in the sky, and its nest of great eyes scoured the land below. It was plucking victims from the ground and taking them into its cavernous mouth of sharp pink tongues. They screamed as they went into the sky. Freya wondered if her son had been taken, and the thought of it almost stopped her heart.
As if waking from a fugue, she found herself standing before the front of the village hall. Beyond the stone steps rising from the street, the front doors were open, and a horrid stench of raw meat and brine drifted out to meet her.
She climbed the steps, her shoes dragging through drying splatters of blood, and stood in the doorway, cringing from the awful stink that smarted in her eyes and burned in her throat. She stifled a sob that shuddered in her chest, and bowed her head for a moment before entering the building.
And she barely made half a dozen steps before halting in the middle of the hall, surrounded by shadows and blood and more transformed villagers. They wheezed and sagged against the walls, hunching and twisted, misshapen by the fleshy spines and tumours bursting from their bodies. Freya recognised a few of them, and wished she hadn’t. Old friends and acquaintances. She wept for the people she remembered.
But, still, no sign of her son, and no children amongst the afflicted.
She visited each of them with her machete, hacking at their twitching forms until they were just scattered mounds of pulped meat and wet bone.
She left the village hall, streaked in gore and sobbing into one hand.
A house burned, consumed by fire that heated the air and made her falter. She could feel herself slipping away, losing bits of her mind in slow increments. A stupor inside her head. Her heartbeat was like a failing mechanism ticking down.
Slumping upon a bench on one side of the street, outside the village shop, she let out a tired breath and rubbed at her face with bloodied hands. Her ears filled with a low ringing that ached in the walls of her skull.
Around her, people laughed and cried. She recalled the last news report on the television, when it’d been stated in pragmatic terms that writhing behemoths were rising from the world’s oceans and giant portals had opened in the sky. Before that, there’d been natural disasters, burning cities and mass suicides, followed by the spread of madness across the globe.
Freya sat there until she was aware of someone standing nearby. She looked up and to her right, at the naked man working at his cupped testicles with a pair of nail scissors. His face was joyous, euphoric, and he didn’t notice her rise from the bench and walk away.
She heard the fluid from his scrotum splatter on the tarmac behind her, and the man cry out in exquisite pain.
Freya couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about t
he village primary school, but she was losing track of things; important names and dates. Information. Her son’s name was David, she was sure. David. It was always David.
She said his name as she walked up the short path to the front doors. She pushed the doors open and stepped inside. There was a cramped cloakroom, children’s brightly coloured bags on wall hooks, and the smell of decaying sea food. She found the first classroom deserted, but a dog had been bisected on a table. Its eyes were gone, nowhere to be seen. Its empty head glistened. She thought she recognised the dog, but didn’t stop to confirm it and entered the next classroom.
Empty. No sign of anyone. Drawings on the walls. A small mound of milk teeth upon the teacher’s desk. She spoke her son’s name.
When she stepped into the final classroom, the sight of the children lying on the floor amidst the tables and chairs stole the breath from her lungs. Her throat and chest tightened. The inside of her head swam, her vision whitening at the edges, and she tottered on weak legs. Then, steeling herself, she stepped among the children.
There must have been more than fifteen of them on the floor in shadowed places, their eyes open but glazed and unseeing. Their chests moved with slow breaths, gently shaking.
She cried when she found David curled against the far wall, his eyes set upon the floor, mouth partially open. His lips were dry and cracked. Freya looked at him then the others; it looked like they were under some sort of spell. She crouched next to her son. Her boy. The relief at finding him was tempered by his unresponsiveness to her hand upon his arm. He didn’t even flinch. Tears swelled in Freya’s eyes as she squeezed David’s arm and prayed for him to respond, to give her a sign, but her silent plea went unanswered.
“Hello, Freya,” a rasping voice said behind her. “Welcome to my larder.”
Freya stood and turned, and it took all of her nerve not to scream when she saw what had become of Miss Blinker, one of the teachers at the school. She was once a beautiful woman, adored by the children and several of the dads, but now she was something else entirely.
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