by Bruce Blake
I dodged a vicious kick from Marty and hammered him in the temple with a looping right.
“Go, Icarus, save your son. I’ll take care of these two.”
She engaged Todd again as I nodded and pivoted toward the door. Marty had already recovered from my last blow and stood blocking my path, the shotgun in his hands.
“Whoa, Marty. It’s me, Ric. You don’t want to do this.” The shotgun blast wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt and it would slow me down. I couldn’t afford the time. “Let me by.”
He levelled the shotgun, holding it waist-level like he thought he was Clint Eastwood. But Marty was an overweight dead guy who smelled enough like rotting flesh to get a whiff of him ten feet away, not a shoot-from-the-hip cowboy-type. Of course, he was possessed or something, which might pose some difficulty.
“Marty--”
I lurched toward him, hoping to catch him off-guard and get past the muzzle of the rifle before he pulled the trigger. The gun roared; momentum carried me forward, slamming into his chest, forcing him back. His heels hit the bottom of the steps leading to the church door, driving him to sit down hard, and I climbed him like a living part of the stair. Rushing forward, I patted my body. No holes. At the door, I glanced back to see if he followed, but Poe held each man by the front of their shirts and, as I watched, rammed their heads together, staggering them. She gave me a desperate look.
“Go!”
I leaned into the door, expecting it to be locked or barricaded, but it swung open as easily as if I’d shown up to attend a wedding. Darkness filled the foyer leaving shapes and impressions: an overturned table, white leaflets scattered across the floor. I hurried to the doors into the church, heart pounding in my ears. I put my ear to them before pushing them open.
Silence.
A faint light flickered through the crack under the door--the candles I’d noticed through the stained glass windows. I gritted my teeth and hoped Trevor still lived. My heart skipped past a few beats. No time to plan. I pushed through the doors and began to cross myself out of habit but stopped abruptly at the testicles branch of the cross.
Overturned pews littered the room, most splintered to kindling; the crucifix normally adorning the wall behind the altar had become intimately entwined with the organ and the mish-mash thrown across the room. Shredded pages torn from every Bible and hymnal in the place lay strewn across the wreckage, chunks of paper covering everything like a snowfall of faith. Hundreds of candles burned around the room, miraculously without setting the wreckage alight.
Father Dominic stood at the pulpit, looking as nonchalant as if he conducted yet another Sunday service and smiling like he’d been expecting me. Beside him, my son lay motionless on the altar. The priest held a dagger in his left hand.
“Welcome, Icarus,” Father Dominic said in the tone of a man inviting me into his home. “Welcome to Hell.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Father Dominic smiled at me across the obstacle course of ruined furniture and smashed artifacts, his arms held out to the side as if nailed to some invisible cross.
“Priest!”
My bellowed word echoed amongst the ceiling’s high arches, reflecting off stained glass windows depicting Mother Mary and winged angels. Father Dominic didn’t move. Beside him, I thought Trevor shifted atop the altar, but sometimes hope can cause hallucinations as surely as despair. As I stepped over the holy water font lying empty on the floor, the room wavered in front of my eyes the way heat streams off asphalt on a hot summer day. When I stopped, it did, too.
“Come to save someone else’s son, have you? Surely you shouldn’t care so much about a child who didn’t issue from your loins?”
His words jabbed at me, made me clench my teeth, but I retained control of my anger. For now.
“Let him go.” I took another step forward, foot splashing in the spilled holy water, reminding me of the puddles I trod through the night I died. The room vacillated again. “It’s me you want. Take me. Let him go.”
“Very noble, but I’ll not be making you a martyr.”
“He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“You’re right, he hasn’t. It’s what he’ll do for me that’s of interest.”
The priest lowered his arms, smile disappearing. He paused as if waiting for me to ask what he meant, but I didn’t. I took another couple of steps forward instead. The air continued to shimmer, the temperature increased.
Not good.
“His death will be your final punishment, the last thing you see before you leave this world for good.” he said, answering the question I didn’t ask. “And he will go with me to Hell, where you sent me with Azrael”
“No.” I leapt over an upended pew, reaching for the priest and my son though they were on the other side of the room.
The church disappeared, Father Dominic and Trevor gone along with it. The temperature soared and my feet touched down in a different place. Instead of wrecked pews and torn bibles, I stood in a decrepit room in an abandoned building, a table before me, its Formica top chipped, faux-chrome legs spotted with rust. A single chair sat tucked under the table, a bare bulb hung above it at the end of a long cord dangling from a ceiling of cracked plaster. A heap of torn blankets lay in a corner of the room; on the table sat a needle and tourniquet.
My Hell.
But this was no vision brought on by Michael. This was the real thing.
My breath caught in my throat. I spun around, looking for the way I got here so I could get back out. Nothing. All the flesh on my body prickled with a chill despite the sweat brought by the intense heat.
Or it might have been temptation bringing perspiration to my brow. No matter, I wouldn’t consider touching the grubby syringe, not with Trevor’s life hanging in the balance.
I made a wide berth around the table but I still bumped it, my hip catching the corner painfully. The needle lay within arm’s reach, and I swear it called my name, its voice full of snake-like sibilance.
Icarusssssss.
I stumbled back a step, took a wider berth around the table; this time my foot caught on one of the legs. The hypodermic rolled toward me, leaving a trail of cloudy fluid across the scarred surface.
I licked my suddenly dry lips.
Trevor.
I grabbed the edge of the table and threw it on its side. The chair toppled, clattering to the floor, and the mound of moth-eaten blankets stirred. I knew instinctively it wasn’t some Hell-version of Trevor hidden beneath, but something I should avoid coming face-to-face with at all costs.
I stepped toward the door hanging askew on one rusted hinge and almost trod on the syringe lying on the floor, needle pointed at me like an accusing finger.
“No,” I growled.
The thing under the blankets growled back. I threw a glance its way; nothing revealed itself. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the needle for more than a second, afraid if I did, it would roll across my foot, up my leg, and embed itself in my femoral artery.
A droplet of sweat ran down my nose, hung from the tip for a second then fell, slow-motion, to splatter on the floor beside the plastic-barreled syringe.
You don’t have to. You never had to.
The voice in my head clearly belonged to Sister Mary-Therese. My jaw clamped tight, grinding my teeth; the cords in my neck tensed and bulged. Needles like this one lorded over me too many years, ruined too much of my life. Cost me my wife and my son.
Time for it to end.
“Fuck you,” I muttered and stomped on the needle.
The hypodermic split beneath my foot, spilling the impure heroin onto the floor as I twisted my heel, grinding the thing to pieces. Satisfaction washed through me; relief permeated my lungs and limbs. A sense of loss, like I’d said good-bye to an old friend for the last time, tempered both. My broken rib flared as I breathed deeply of the room’s foul-smelling air: sweat, puke, feces, every imaginable unpleasant aroma wrapped up in it.
At that moment, it smelled like freed
om.
A movement at my back pulled me from my sense of victory and sadness. Whatever lay hidden beneath the blankets had pulled itself free and I had no desire to find out what it was. I rushed the door, hitting it headlong with my shoulder instead of manipulating it open through more subtle means. The one rusted hinge provided little resistance and I stumbled into the far wall of the hallway beyond, hoping it led back to the church.
It didn’t.
Flames consumed the corridor: walls, ceiling, floor. Decorative wall sconces engulfed in flame hung at regular intervals along the hall; floral-pattern carpet camouflaged by fire covered the floor beneath my feet. The urge to jump back into the room tensed the muscles in my thighs but the growl of whatever-it-was detangling itself from the filthy heap of blankets convinced me otherwise. I stepped away from the doorway, fingers trailing across the flaming wall, but it didn’t burn me. Flames undulated against my hands, licked the tips of my fingers, but no pain.
More movement behind.
Which way do I go?
The thump of a ponderous body moving across the room toward the doorway convinced me the act of moving was more essential than the direction I chose, so left I went.
I threw open the next door along the hall and bulled my way into the room heedless of what dangers it might hide. The door opened onto a school yard: a spring day, near twilight. No children played on the jungle gym or swings or teeter-totters. Judging by the style of the equipment--all metal with hard corners and places available for children to hang themselves with their own coats--it predated even my childhood.
I took a couple of strides into the room, into the waning sunlight, looking to find access back to the church, but quickly realized my mistake--the horizon stretched away, empty of buildings or doors. Maybe this wasn’t Hell anymore. Maybe it was the way out. But I didn’t recognize it; it clearly wasn’t near the church and likely wouldn’t get me back to Trevor. I turned my back on it. As I stepped toward the door to take my chances with whatever followed me, a movement caught my eye.
The playground wasn’t empty, after all.
Two boys stood to one side, obscured by a copse of trees and bushes. I didn’t recognize them any more than I recognized the school yard.
The bigger of the two boys spoke, but I couldn’t hear his words. The smaller boy shook his head and the bigger boy raised a fist, threatening. The smaller boy sank to his knees, disappearing behind a bush, his reluctance evident. A few seconds later, the bigger boy threw back his head and groaned with silent pleasure.
Enough.
I wanted to rush forward and slap the little bastard silly, but what good would it do in Hell? I went to the door, leaving the stomach-turning scene behind, and glanced up and down the hallway. Carpet and sconces and flame, nothing else, until I stepped through the door and a presence appeared at my back, menacing. I hurried along the hall without looking back. When another door appeared on my right, I opened it, hoping one of them would lead me where I wanted to go.
The doors clearly led to Hells belonging to someone other than me.
A queen-size bed against the far wall constituted the solitary piece of furniture in the room lit dimly by an unidentifiable source. Atop the bed, two women writhed in each others embrace, lips pressed together, legs entwined, bare flesh pressed against bare flesh. They didn’t notice my presence as I stepped into the room, propelled against my will. The door swung closed by some unseen mechanism, the sound of it shutting making me jump, but I didn’t take my eyes off the sight in front of me.
Seeing the women should have excited me, but it didn’t. I’d searched out while surfing internet porn, now here I stood watching the real thing--what should be fantasy rather than punishment--and felt nothing but rage. I’d never seen these women before, yet inexplicable emotions bubbled within me, their boiling point edging closer by the second.
One of the women looked away from her lover and smiled wickedly at me, taunting, teasing. I loved her, then I hated her, hated both of them. The space between me and the edge of the bed disappeared with four strides.
I looked down and saw a knife in my hand.
Where did that come from?
The glint of light off its blade mesmerized me as I watched myself raise it. I tried to stop but had no control. The muscles in my forearm knotted with the intensity of my grip as the blade pumped up and down, slashing the two women, stabbing them in the face, the chest, the abdomen.
All I could do was watch in horror as my body acted independent of my mind. I could only watch as I murdered the two women.
They screamed in surprise, fear, agony. I screamed at them, not knowing what I said: ‘I hate you’ or ‘I love you’ or both. Their howls of pain drowned out the words my mouth spoke with someone else’s voice.
A minute later, I stood beside the bed, staring at their blood soaking the white sheets. A stickiness tightened the skin on my face and hands as nausea tightened my stomach; my feet refused to move.
“I love you.”
The words came unbidden to my lips, unraveling the spell and giving me back control. I dropped the knife and ran to the door, throwing it open hard against the wall as I stumbled out of the room and threw up on the flaming hallway floor. Another time and place, I’d have taken a minute to hunch over, panting, wiping the sweat off my brow, attempting to decipher what happened, but the invisible thing encroached again, prompting me to hurry on my way still wiping puke off my chin.
I lurched down the hall like the drunken sailor of song, my stomach game to play the part of seasick gut. The passage stretched on before me, disappearing in the distance without sign of ending. If not for the presence at my back forcing me on, I might have sank to the floor and waited joyfully for the fire to consume me.
No. I have to get back to Trevor.
I steadied my gait and pressed on. The baleful thing behind me closed in, its noticeable pressure heavy against my spine. I fought the urge to look back, fearing whatever-it-was might have materialized, taken a form so awful as to prompt me to claw my eyes from their sockets.
I didn’t notice the door until I’d gone a step past it. After the last two rooms, I forced myself to take a second to open it a crack and peek in. An empty space.
I slipped in, closed the door behind me, and stood with my back against the wooden door for a minute, chest heaving, sucking in air hot enough to singe my lungs. A quick survey revealed a room spacious due to its emptiness but which was the size of an average living room, with nothing but four bare walls painted a light brown Rae would have called ‘mushroom’ or ‘taupe.’ I’d have said brown--tan at best.
I wanted to rest--for a minute, only a minute--to collect my breath and my wits, but feared the thing behind me would search me out. It was closing in and every wasted second brought it nearer. I reached for the doorknob, prepared to run for my life, when five whispered words stopped me.
“You did this to us.”
Goosebumps rose on my arms as my blood transformed into winter run-off. A woman’s voice spoke the words, not one I recognized, but certainty of who it belonged to came along with the chill. My hand gripped the doorknob tighter, intending to twist it, but it resisted. I gave in.
The two women wore nothing except the blood covering them like body paint, its wetness shimmering in a light cast by no particular source. The red layer of gore shellacking their flesh didn’t hide the slashes and stab marks marring their torsos, their chests and legs, their faces. Some of the gashes moved and puckered, like so many sets of lips, all of them accusing me of the heinous crime against these once beautiful women.
“There’s been some mistake. It wasn’t me.”
“You did this.”
They each raised a hand, like two marionettes controlled by the same string, pointer fingers extended in condemnation. I backed away and walked into the door a step behind. My back pressed against it, felt the faint radiation of heat from the burning hall beyond, either real or imagined; I sniffed the aroma coming from it
like the smell of a child’s wood burning set and was thankful it concealed the coppery smell of blood.
The women approached and I closed my eyes, willing myself to be anywhere but here. It didn’t work. Their hands touched my face, then their bodies pressed against mine. Anywhere they touched, I felt the trace of blood left behind: tacky prints finger-painting me with guilt for something I couldn’t have done. Their bodies writhed against mine, staining my shirt and pants. I tried not to, but my hand caressed the curve of a hip; I jerked it away when it touched a seeping wound.
Through my clothes I felt their wounds on my flesh, moving like maws seeking to eat me and gain their revenge. The smell of drying blood, metallic and sharp, over-powered the scent of singed wood; it clouded my head, made me feel faint, the taste of it on my tongue worsening with every breath. If I didn’t get away, unconsciousness would leave me at their mercy--though I suspected mercy was one sentiment they’d be loathe to show.
I can’t let them keep me here.
I put one foot against the door, and pushed with all the strength my spinning head allowed me to gather.
“No,” I bellowed, stumbling away.
My feet tangled, spilling me to the floor in a painful heap. I scrambled onto my back, ready to defend myself, but the women were gone, the sole sign of their presence a bloody hand print in the middle of the door. I struggled to my feet, rubbed my hands absently on my soiled shirt and found it free of blood. Gone, all of it gone.
“It wasn’t real,” I said aloud, not expecting the room to respond, but it did in the form of a moan.
The sound startled me. I spun around to see a table in the center of the previously empty room; a woman lay atop it. Sweat plastered dark hair to her forehead, a flimsy white nightgown stretched across her belly bulging with child. Her knees were drawn up, her hands gripped the edge of the table with enough effort to whiten her knuckles.
I gaped.
Three more figures appeared, fading out of empty air like a bad effect in an amateur home video. I recognized all of them. Sister Mary-Therese crouched between the woman’s legs, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, concentration creasing her brow. She was younger than I’d ever seen her, and her lips moved like she spoke to the woman though I heard nothing but the pregnant woman’s rapid breathing and strained moans as she pushed. The other two figures stood back from the table; the women gave no indication they were aware of their presence. Recognizing the two men drained all the blood from my limbs.
