by Corey Brown
He jams his thumb into her mouth, stretches her cheek back, exposing a row of jagged, discolored teeth. He can feel her jaw working, grinding into Cody’s arm.
“Chew on this,” Derek says, shoving the switchblade toward her mouth. Before he can run the switchblade through her cheek Derek feels an odd sensation in his left hand. He looks, and is horrified to see that his entire hand, not just his thumb, has disappeared inside the woman’s face.
From the wrist down, his hand is totally gone. It looks as if he’s banging the stump of his arm against the woman’s cheek. Derek knows his hand is still attached to his arm because he can still sense his fingers. But they are growing stiff and losing feeling as if living rigor mortis has set in.
“Holy shit,” Derek shouts, pulling back. But he cannot remove his hand from the woman’s face. “What the…?”
He pulls again, harder this time and his hand begins to slide out. But there is a sound like Velcro tearing apart, the pain is so intense Derek expels a blood-curdling scream and he stops pulling. The sensation of living death is growing beyond his vanished hand and moving up his arm. Only now he feels something tugging on his fingers, something with tiny, razor teeth. It is nibbling away, biting into his skin and pulling him back inside the woman’s head.
Another shriek escapes his mouth but Derek realizes blinding agony or not, his hand has to come out. In a single, muscled jerk, Derek breaks free, half expecting his hand to tear apart at the wrist. Again, the pain is fantastic. It’s as if the skin were being peeled off his bones. Again, he screams in agony.
Derek’s hand comes out of the woman’s head making a sticky, snapping sound, and for a moment the thing attached to his fingers hangs on. It is some kind of round, fish-like creature, covered in oily, matted fur. Then it lets go of his hand and drops to the floor, landing with a thud. The beast opens its mouth, showing thousands of razor teeth and hisses, like a cat. But the sound is choked off as living in this world begins to kill it. On instinct and ignoring the pain, Derek drops the switchblade, pulls his sidearm and cracks off two rounds, obliterating the creature. Then Derek feels a thick, warm swell rising from his gut. He knows he is about to faint.
Todd hears the first scream, everyone does. Deputy Haines and his team spit out their cigarettes and point their shotguns everywhere, anywhere. By the second scream, Todd has scrambled out of the car and is running past Greg by the third.
“Hold up,” Greg says, catching Todd by the arm. “You can’t go in----”
Two blue-white flashes illuminate the church windows and the pair of dull pops confirms it is gunfire. For a moment everyone freezes and in that second of hesitation, Todd pulls loose from Greg’s grip and heads for the church door.
With his good hand, the one still holding the semi-automatic, Derek reaches for the back of a pew and drops to one knee. Beads of sweat dot his forehead. Feeling flushed Derek gulps air, desperate to stay conscious, desperately wishing the pain would stop. And, in a way, it does. The original pain was so brilliant, so complete that the throbbing burn left behind actually seems tolerable.
“Goddamnit,” Derek says, in almost a whisper. “That hurts like a mother.”
He looks at his hand. It is gray and withered, his fingers curling inward toward his palm. They are like bent and dying twigs. But beneath the pulsing ache, as if in reverse of the creeping death that poisoned his hand, Derek senses life creeping back in.
Not noticing at first, and not caring now, Derek realizes he is kneeling only a few inches from the edge of the abyss. Ten minutes ago just looking at the huge expanse of nothingness would have given him vertigo. Now it simply does not matter. He looks out into the huge expanse and once again feels a layer of heat emanating from below, hears what might be metal gears turning and smells what could be something burning. Then, in a slow wave of comprehension, Derek realizes the abyss is not that at all. It is not an enormous patch of space or emptiness separating earth from some other world. It is the ugly woman’s world. It is Hell.
At first, the notion finds purchase in Derek’s mind as simple, intellectual understanding. In one way it was fascinating, Hell had broken through to his world, the physical had blended, crossed paths with the spiritual. Two worlds, not intended to share proximity, were touching, connected.
Derek glances at his friend and knows Cody is, somehow, responsible for the breach. In a slow-roasted kind of way, it makes sense that Cody was half in, half out of Hell. It explained how his hand was outside and sixty yards away while his body was right here.
Without fully grasping what is before him, Derek understands that Cody managed to tear open the divide and became trapped between Earth and Hell. But then, slowly, another kind of understanding settles in.
“Oh shit,” Derek says, feeling sick all over again. “Jesus, my hand….”
“Yeah, I know.” Cody says. “Hey, how long have you been here?”
Surprised, Derek turns to look at Cody. “What?”
“Todd?” Cody says. “Is he…is he okay?”
Derek’s breathing is shallow. Air comes in short, hard gulps. Sweat runs down his cheeks. He cannot understand why Cody is so lucid when just moments ago he sounded like a raving lunatic.
“Yeah, he’s is safe,” Derek says, his voice a scratchy whisper. “He’s outside, in my car.” Derek struggles to his feet. His hand is getting better but it still hurts like crazy.
“Does Jamie know about Todd?” Cody says. “Does she know he’s safe?
“Uh, yeah….yes, I called her, talked to Gus, too. They’re on the way.” Derek points at the woman’s head. “Who is that, what the fuck happened?”
Cody waits, expels a sigh then says. “Oh, her. Yeah, well, she is Calí, some kind of witch or demon or both. But what happened is complicated, I’m not sure we have time. Let’s just say love and evil had a head-on collision. And love lost. Or maybe it didn’t exactly lose but came up with something less than a draw.
Derek considers this, makes a face. It sure as shit did not answer his question but then, again, he wasn’t entirely certain he really wanted to know.
“How’s your arm,” Derek asks. “Does it hurt?”
Cody nods then shrugs. “Probably, if I think about it. How about your hand?”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“Don’t worry,” Cody says. “You should be okay. You didn’t go all the way in, you didn’t get stuck there.”
“What about you? How do I get you out?”
Cody slowly shakes his head. “Forget about me. I’m on the last train to Clarksville.”
Derek has reached the point of mental and physical exhaustion. He wants to walk away but hears that same sorrow in Cody’s voice. He searches for some measure of resolve, some thread of strength, anything that will get Cody to safety. But once in, just how do you get out of Hell?
Oddly, Derek remembers how the two of them met, how a chance encounter with a mob wise guy led to drinks in a bar, which led to swallowing saltwater while trying to stay afloat in the Gulf of Mexico as a million dollar yacht burned and sank.
“No C-4?” Derek says with a weak smile. “No insurance policy?”
“What?” Cody says. Then he gets it and chuckles. “Oh, yeah. Man, we could use a wad right about now. But I’m not sure it would work here.”
“Probably not.” Derek looks around, he sighs. “I gotta tell you this whole deal is messing with my head. I have no idea what to do, but a minute ago you said something about faith. What did you mean?”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you said faith wasn’t there, you couldn’t find it. What did you mean?”
Cody waits a moment then says, “I don’t know. I just don’t have any faith, I guess.”
Derek’s mouth tightens. He considers his own beliefs, wishes he had something more than a thirty-year old Catholic Confirmation to lean on. He thinks about Nance Kozlowski and how a crime boss could share a church pew with other, regular parishioners. Derek thinks about how he’d concluded
that maybe Nance was, in his own way, faithful.
“Me neither,” Derek says. “I’m in church with Sarah and Jake almost every Sunday. I sing, I kneel and say the Lord’s Prayer, all of it. But nothing ever carries over, at least not outside of Saint Ann’s Cathedral. Until now I didn’t get it, I didn’t know what I was supposed to believe.”
“What about now?”
Derek shrugs. “I don’t know. But I gotta figure it out.”
The two are silent for a few seconds.
“Cody,” Derek says, his voice hardly a whisper. “I’m not leaving you, there has to be a way out of this. Those Cubans couldn’t take us down, why should some ugly bitch from Hell do it?”
“Easy for you to say, the Yaw didn’t get into your brain. Even if I do live through this, my head will be fucked up forever.” Cody shakes his head. “I’m better off dead.”
“The Yaw? What’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Derek swallows. “Try me.”
“Okay, smartass, assume that pain in your hand is a thousand times worse. Then put it in your head. Trust me, I want to die.”
Derek looks at his hand, which is almost normal again. A thousand times worse? He cannot even imagine it. He swallows again. Derek has no intention of leaving Cody like this, but doesn’t know what to do. He does not like what Cody is saying, but knows Cody is probably right.
“I could shoot her,” Derek says. “I still have eight rounds and another clip.”
“Been there, done that. Look where it got me.”
The church door opens and a splash of moonlight silhouettes the person standing there. Derek squints, staring into the darkness. It is someone tall and thin.
Ignoring the blue-black valley of infinity to his right, ignoring the half-dissolved man lying on the floor, Todd walks purposefully toward the front of the church. Stopping a foot away from Cody, Todd looks at Derek, looks at Cody then at the woman. He takes a deep breath.
Without saying a word or making a sound Todd reaches for the woman, but Derek catches his wrist, stops him.
“No, Todd, don’t touch it. You can’t, you’ll go right through her.”
He stares at Derek, his mouth forms a tight slash and tension seems to ripple through his body. Todd knows Derek Simmons is someone important. Knows Derek is an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but isn’t really sure what that means, at least not here, not now. Todd hesitates, wonders how to answer.
“You can’t touch her,” Todd says. “But I can.”
“What do you…?” Derek pauses, stares at Todd then says, “How do you know?”
Todd shrugs. “I believe. I have faith.”
Cody makes a hacking sound. He coughs hard then cranes his neck and spits into the abyss. He coughs again, spits again and clears his throat, but doesn’t look at his son.
“Todd,” Cody says. “We’ve had our differences, but I’m lucky to have you. I----” Cody’s voice breaks. He clears his throat again. “I love you.”
“Not you, Dad. It’s me. I’m the lucky one,” Todd’s voice drops to a whisper. “I love you, too.”
Todd cannot see it, but Cody forces a weak, almost painful smile. As usual, Jamie had been right. She had said this would happen. Cody hears Jamie’s words echo through his mind, saying, ‘But you raised him. Someday he’ll understand what you’ve done for him.’
“You have to leave,” Cody says. “Go with Agent Simmons, go home to mom, she’s worried.”
Todd closes his eyes, deliberates, wonders what to do. Todd shakes his head, responding physically before speaking.
“No,” Todd says. “You came for me. Now it’s my turn, I’ve come for you.”
Cody swallows, chokes back tears. He is so proud of his boy. “It’s not that simple,” he says. “I’m already…” Cody pauses, choosing his words carefully. “No one can help me now.”
“You’re wrong, Dad, it is simple. It is just that simple. I can help, if you let me.”
Now Cody turns to look at Todd and sees conviction etched onto his son’s face. His boy is tall and young and naive and determined.
“I can help,” Todd says, his voice quiet, brave. “I know I can.”
Cody’s eyes pass from Todd to Derek and back to Todd. Cody looks away then draws a breath and holds the air in his lungs. He expels it and nods, giving approval.
Calí has been motionless since Derek yanked his hand out of her face. But Cody’s hard exhale seems to signal a change and her eyes open again. In them is a look of fear and contempt. Todd sees the look but ignores it. He carefully places a palm on either side of Calí’s face, covering her cheeks, wrapping his fingers across her ears.
She tries to bite down on Cody’s arm again but Todd quickly slides both thumbs across her front teeth, pressing in, lifting up. He squeezes harder and her incisors fold backward. Todd digs in, his hands almost working on their own. As if disembodied from his own limbs, Todd can feel his thumbs pressing inward, his hands pulling outward, trying to tear Calí’s head apart.
Her mouth stretches, starts to rip at the corners but then becomes renitent. At first the resistance seems mild and Todd tries harder. But nothing happens. Then, with his fingers buried inside Calí’s mouth, at the very tips, Todd feels it. He can feel the massive force, the entire weight of Hell pushing back, as if every demon is screaming at him, trying to get inside his mind, trying to end his life.
A spike of fear stabs at Todd’s heart and the emotion is so strong his body jerks in response. An instant later he feels a strange, sludge-like paralysis seeping into his limbs. The thick, powerless feeling breaks his confidence, pierces his faith.
Derek sees Todd’s frightened, wild-eyed expression and knows it is all about to end. Derek knows Cody is condemned to a perverse, unfair death and now Todd is about to be dragged in, too. He sees that Todd is scared shitless and something stabs at his own heart. But it is not fear. It is a deep feeling of remorse; he should have stopped Todd. Derek knows he could have---- should have----saved Todd.
Before Derek can fully process this profound sense of sorrow, something out across the abyss of Hell catches his eye. He’d already noticed the spherical object hanging at the outer edge of the rift. He had seen it as he approached Cody the first time and presumed it to be a planet or a star. It was black like the expanse of Hell, but of a different intensity making it appear layered behind the abyss itself, in the same way Cody’s hand and pistol were layered, lying just outside the church in the grass near the Sheriff’s deputy.
What has Derek’s attention is how the planet or star or whatever it is, now has a streak of light cutting across its surface, moving in fluid jags like a mix of lava and lightening. And the slash of light is growing wider, stretching across the entire planet. Derek squints at the sight, momentarily distracted, trying to understand what he is seeing.
Then a sound echoes through the tiny wooden church, bringing Derek’s attention back to what is happening on his own planet. The sound is at first jarring. At least for Derek, because it is so unexpected. But when he listens closely, the sound is actually soothing, repetitive and forceful like the sound of the ocean at night.
He listens, they all listen. Todd, Derek and Cody, all three of them listen to the sound. It is a multitude of voices speaking in unison, each one distinct, each voice some part of a larger whole. Like the ocean breaking upon the shore, the words sound like a gentle roll of water followed by the hush of retreat.
Todd strains to hear what they are saying and then he is speaking the words, too.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” Todd says, unsure at first but then his voice grows stronger. “I shall not want. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust in Him and not be afraid. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear nothing, for you are with me. Go out in the midst of her, and deliver this man’s his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord.”
Derek stares, listening to Todd. He recognizes parts of the phrase as the twent
y-third Psalm, but what about the rest? Todd repeats the words in unison with the other voices, which seem to be steadily growing in number. Todd’s expression has changed. It is not quite the same look of confidence he’d had a few moments ago, but as Todd shares in this verbal and spiritual commune, Derek can see he is no longer afraid.
There is a rhythm, a rise and fall to the hundreds, maybe thousands, or even millions, of voices repeating the phrase. Again, Derek thinks of the ocean. The sound is hypnotic and Derek feels his own mouth starting to form the words. He licks his lips, swallows, holds his tongue
Abruptly, Todd stops speaking and jerks his hands from Calí’s mouth. Frowning, Todd holds his hands palms up, at arm’s length, staring at them as if they are not part of his body. Todd glances at Derek, holds Derek’s gaze then looks again at his hands.
There is a new look on Todd’s face, something between confusion and understanding, between clarity and distraction. Derek realizes Todd is working out an idea, some new perception. An image appears in Derek’s mind, he sees bits and pieces of thought swirling about in Todd’s head, like a jigsaw puzzle tossed windward.
“Hey, are you all right?” Derek says, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “Did she hurt----?”
Todd flashes Derek a hard look, cutting off his question.
Another moment of contemplation then Todd closes his eyes and squeezes both hands into tight fists. At first, Derek thinks Todd is going to strike Calí, but instead of swinging Todd seems to relax, then a massive shudder rocks him. The shudder fades to a tremor then to a ripple. Still quivering, Todd sucks in a deep breath and holds it, flexing, contorting his arms. His body jumps a little and he exhales in a hard puff.
