Through the In Between, Hell Awaits

by Robert Essig

  California was becoming stale, as any location Austin visited for too long had the capacity to do. He wasn’t sure where he would go next, but now that he was in the possession of something otherworldly, he was intrigued for the first time in a long time. He had a whole new reason to stay in San Diego, yet he wasn’t entirely sure what he thought he was going to get out of a little demon in a jar. The two deadbeats in the alley were dead and already yesterday’s news if their pitiful murders even made it into the paper or on the evening news. Austin felt for people, but the dregs had no place in society, and he couldn’t shed a tear for them.

  The more he thought about it the more he realized exactly what he wanted, what so intrigued him about the thing in the jar. He wanted to find out more about the woman who bore this strange parasite –if she was indeed a woman.

  The thing in the glass crouched and shivered as if cold. Austin stared at it with gleaming eyes that had found a temporary reason for being. Every city seemed to have a reason for being, all temporary. Perhaps this would be the one that would help Austin discover what he so yearned to know about himself.

  Now the question was where to begin.

  5

  The concert in Anaheim was rowdy and loud. The House of Blues was a small two-level venue with a bar on each floor, the crowd packed in like a can of sardines. Rich had several drinks before the show began and watched from the pit area in front of the stage, on the outskirts so he didn’t get pulled into the maelstrom that frequently occurred amidst a Death Fraud show. There were the usual skinheads and longhairs, tattoos and piercings, sluts and whores, and even a few straight-laced individuals that couldn’t be more out of place. Yet they were all accepted, if only for one night, as fans of the band.

  This was Rich’s seventh show of the tour and by far the strangest. He had been a fan of Death Fraud ever since they began. He thought he knew all of their lyrics, but Dano Grue’s vocals stuck out in Rich’s half-drunk mind in a way the man’s words never had before.

  They were a death metal band, so the content was violent and gruesome (the singer didn’t call himself Dano Grue for nothing), but, on this night, there were themes that stuck out in Rich’s mind like they never had before. Demonic possession and mutilation was a norm for many bands like Death Fraud, but lyrics like “she rips your flesh then she steals your soul, eats intestines from a skullcap bowl” resonated with Rich after what had happened last night in San Diego. It was as if Dano Grue was singing about the incident. As if he had been there.

  After the show, Rich stuck around sipping a Jack and Coke all the while looking out for his beloved harlot. She was out there somewhere in the audience and she would be there after the show, waiting with the other burnouts at the rear entrance where the band would inevitably make an appearance if for nothing more than a few autographs and maybe to snatch a few of the younger, slutty girls who were still a few years away from looking like the others.

  Outside, Rich kept his distance as he had on the other nights. He liked to watch the skanks biting like sharks at chum. The band came out, minus Dano Grue, like always, to sign autographs and find some girls to bring onto the bus for the night. It was the same thing night after night, but Rich got a real kick out of watching the vitriol amongst the leather-clad burnouts. At times, they were downright vicious with one another, which made for good entertainment.

  And like any other night, the woman Rich had become so interested in came out like a lion that smelled blood. Rich hadn’t even seen her during the show, which should have seemed unusual, but the more he thought about it, he realized that he had never seen her during any of the shows. It was as if she had followed Death Fraud from town to town the way he had explicitly for the freak show that always occurred after the rock show.

  She glanced at Rich as flirty as a worn out hag could. Something in that glance said a million words. It was an invitation of sorts and Rich knew it. She was telling him that she knew he was watching her, that she wanted him to watch her.

  And so that’s what he did.

  As the tripe was picked off one by one and nothing was left but itchy junkies and squatters, she made her move. The guy was so fucked up his eyes were slits embedded in his sunken face. A cigarette dangled from his mouth on the verge of falling to the ground, an inch of ash hanging. He’d probably taken one drag to light the thing and found himself too stoned to take another. She whispered something into his ear. His slack face faltered into a smile, but it was clear that he had no real clue of what the hell was going on. After last night, Rich understood why she waited for the losers who stuck around like dingle berries after the band was gone. They were so twisted on drugs and booze that they made themselves easy targets for a female assassin.

  Or an assassin hiding behind a female façade.

  Rich followed the duo from the alley behind the House of Blues onto the main drag where he watched them hail a taxi. For a moment, Rich though he was going to lose his opportunity to follow. There was no way he was going to be able to grab the next taxi and follow them like in the movies. That was bullshit. By the time the next taxi came by they would long gone, therefore Rich ran toward their taxi waving his arms in the air.

  “Hey! Hold on! Do you want to share a cab? I’m going the same direction.”

  The junkie guy had slugged his way into the cab first, but Rich’s intrusiveness seemed to really hit a spot with him.

  “What the fuck is this guy talking about?” said the junkie. “What the fuck, man?”

  “I just want to share a cab. We’ll go halvsies.”

  The woman gave her precious junkie a look and said, “He can ride with us. It ain’t gonna make no difference. Lighten up.”

  “It’s cool, man,” said Rich.

  The stoner’s eyes slackened again. He was trying hard to be a big shot when all he was was a dumb shit. Both She and Rich knew it, but they had to play stupid to remain conspicuous, not that the moron would figure anything out. But he certainly took the defensive when Rich asked to share the cab, which showed that even in his state of inebriation he was on edge.

  “Come on in, Honey,” said Mrs. Tramp.

  Rich followed her into the back seat of the cab and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Jeanie. You know, like the type that come out of bottles.”

  Rich smiled, shut the cab door, and then stuck out his hand. “Rich.”

  Jeanie shook. He could see something in her eyes again, but this time it was something bestial. For that second as they shook hands he saw her real eyes, silver and boiling like mercury. They shone for a moment and then were gone.

  “What the fuck are you talking to that guy for?” whined the drowsy-eyed fuck-up sitting beside Jeanie.

  “Chill out,” said Jeanie. “It’s cool. We’re going back to you place, just you and me. This guy’s just splitting the fare with us.”

  The sacrificial lamb seemed content with that answer. He really was nothing more than a sheep. Probably due for another heated spoon full of dope, and by the time he was finished with that ritual he probably wouldn’t be in the mood anymore, not that that mattered.

  The cab ride was silent and somewhat uncomfortable. The cabby had had gas or he had eaten an egg salad sandwich before picking them up. Either way, it was nauseating. And so was the way Mr. Junkie tried in vain to flirt with Jeanie. He was probably so fucked up that he couldn’t see what a goddamned horse-face she really was. Rich was glad he had seen the real Jeanie. The thing beneath the skin was something to behold.

  When the cab stopped, Rich acted like it was a coincidence that he was going to the same area, and that he would ditch the cab with them and pay for half the fare. Mr. Junkie was so fucking distraught and lost that he couldn’t seem to locate his money. More like he didn’t have any goddamned cash. Rich paid the whole fare to which Mr. Junkie actually forgot about his previous lust for Jeanie and invited Rich up to his place to party a bit. Apparently, he had an ounce of weed, some shitty Mexican black tar heroin and even so
me pills, though he couldn’t remember if they were uppers, downers, laughers or screamers. He also had a half a fifth of grain whiskey.

  Rich accepted his offer and before he knew it, they were walking through the front door and up the stairs of a thoroughly scummy apartment building. He had thought that he would have to spy on them and wait outside the door until Jeanie was ready for him, he didn’t expect it to be this easy. Not that he knew what he was getting himself into. It felt right, but he wasn’t sure just what the hell was going on. Back in Ohio, Rich was reluctant to follow his senses. He would never have allowed himself to get into a situation like this, but being on the road was like wearing a new skin, living a new life, and Jeanie seemed to have him mesmerized.

  Mr. Junkie opened the door to his apartment letting his counterparts inside before he closed and locked it. The place was dark, so Rich was fairly sure that there were no roommates, though someone could have been sleeping at that hour in the morning. But the possibility of a roommate didn’t seem to matter to Jeanie. As soon as the deadbolt was slid into place, she took her fist and cracked Mr. Junkie a good one right in the side of his head. She popped him in the temple and knocked him out cold.

  Fear caused Rich’s stomach to clench, but the look in Jeanie’s mercury eyes was like a tranquilizer and set his mind at ease. She was no threat to him. Her merciless acts were something she wished to share with him. He knew it was crazy, knew that he was in the midst of something absurd and mad, but he liked it. He liked the thrill, the rush his body felt as her fist smashed the man on the side of his head. He was so stoned that he hardly made a sound until his emaciated body hit the floor.

  Jeanie’s mouth salivated as her meal lay before her. Rich didn’t know what was next, what he should do. He assumed that she would feast as she had in the alley, but he had the feeling that something bigger was going to play out. His mind screamed at him that this was all wrong, but he banished those thoughts. This is what Death Fraud was all about. This was something few people were privileged to partake in.

  “You like to watch, right?” asked Jeanie.

  Rich was speechless. He did indeed like to watch her, had been doing so ever since the beginning of the Death Fraud tour, but he wasn’t sure how he should answer her question. He’d done a lot of watching all of his life. More watching than doing. It was his great regret with everything. He watched the girls but never asked them out on a date; watched people having fun but never attempted to join in; watched his favorite bands play music but never tried to play music himself.

  It was about time he stopped watching and started doing.

  “I don’t want you to just watch this time, Rich. I want you to understand me. You can see me, but you don’t understand. I think you’re the type who can understand. Are you?”

  Rich nodded. He didn’t know what she was getting at, but he was all in. Back in the alley when he was watching a couple of deadbeats and fantasizing about killing them, he never thought he would end up in a situation such as this one. Did he even have the capacity to witness murder again? Yes. He did or he wouldn’t be here. It was whatever she would ask of him that he wasn’t sure about.

  Jeanie knelt down and grabbed the body lying before the front door. She hauled it across the threadbare carpet to the center of the living room. Rich watched, waiting for her instruction. He began to see her again, the real her. The demon beneath the flesh began to show. Perhaps it had something to do with her hunger that brought the demon forth, perhaps not, but whatever it was, she abruptly ripped the clothes off the body and used her talons to rip into the man’s abdomen. The junkie’s eyes flashed open wider than Rich had seen them all night and he screeched for just a moment before her talons ripped his throat destroying his voice box. The body fell limp and she fed. Blood saturated the carpet, but they would be long gone before it began to seep to the unit below and create a stain on that tenant’s ceiling.

  Jeanie lifted her bloodied face from the mess that was the man’s stomach. Rich was startled at the transformation. She didn’t look like herself. Her face was elongated, chin pointed and sharp, her eyebrows lined with some sort of jagged protrusion. In her incisor-lined mouth was a mess of chewed gore. She swallowed and licked her chops with a green-blue forked tongue the color of a giant vein beneath the skin.

  “Now it’s your turn, Rich.”

  Rich’s gut wretched at the thought. Was he supposed to dig into the man the way she did? A wave of coppery odor swept over as he stood in the presence of a fresh murder. Not twenty-four hours ago he couldn’t imagine himself considering such nastiness, but Jeanie was something special and she deserved the best out of him. She was something he had never seen before, something that he could have all to himself. All of his life he watched everything from behind the scenes like some sad puppy dog, always wanted to be a part of the action, and here was his chance to be the action.

  As if she knew or could sense his distraught and worry, Jeanie reached a bony talon-lined hand into the wrecked belly and removed a piece of viscera. She crossed the room to Rich whose eyes grew with every step, the anticipation of what she wanted him to do weighing heavily on his mind. He knew she wanted him to be like her, but the idea of eating human innards left him feeling paralyzed. As much as he knew she meant him no harm there was something about her demeanor that seethed dread and fear no matter how much Rich was strangely aroused by the gruesome situation.

  Standing before him, Jeanie hardly resembled the trashy whore he had thought she was when he began following Death Fraud. Her demonic body was almost completely visible to Rich, the fibrous gray skin, the protrusions sharp and deadly that covered her body like thorns on a rose bush. He wanted to embrace her but that would prove deadly. One passionate hug and kiss would leave him a bloody mess, yet he felt a deep desire for this thing before him.

  “Do you want to see what I see?” asked Jeanie. “My world is completely different than yours, on a different plane of reality than yours. I use your Earth as a hunting ground to prey on the weak minded and feeble, the junkies and losers.” She paused and stared into Rich’s eyes trying to read him. “You can see me now, can’t you?”

  Rich nodded as if in a trance. She had a world to show him, a new plane as she put it—something that no one has seen before. Rich would finally be something.

  Rich breathed heavier as he thought of his deadbeat father. He remembered the beatings, the welts his father’s strap caused on his butt and back, places that wouldn’t be seen at school. He remembered the abuse both physical and verbal, always being told he was worthless and would amount to nothing. The whiskey breath. The fear. He remembered all the years of his father coming home after twelve-hour days at the machine shop-gray from the stress and stinking of machine oil, face in a perpetual grimace, nothing good to say. “You’re never gonna do nothin’ with yourself, boy. You’re a poor excuse,” his father would say. For the first time in his miserable life, Rich saw that he could be so much more.

  Jeanie held out the red meaty chunk. Rich grabbed the offering and without hesitation brought it to his mouth and took a hearty bite. He chewed, his face a rictus of torture, fear and glee. The flavor revolted him causing him to gag. He did everything he could to keep the grotesque offering down, but he had no control over his body’s natural reflex to reject the raw meat as if it were poison. He vomited onto the floor a mess of liquor, food, and a pink substance that was formerly a part of the junkie’s guts.

  Jeanie smiled as Rich wiped his maw with the sleeve of his shirt. “The first time is never easy, but you’ll get used to it. Eventually you’ll see my world and be there with me. Would you like that?” Her dark eyes slanted in her bestial face.

  Rich looked at her, eyes watering, heavy foul breaths coming from his dripping mouth. “Yes,” he managed to say. “I would like that.”

  Jeanie nodded and returned to the body on the floor. She tore into it like the beast she was and feasted while Rich watched from a distance. He figured just watching her eat human fl
esh would desensitize him enough to allow him to do the same in the future. He was going to be a part of something bigger than merely following a band on tour like some goddamned rock n’ roll sheep. He thought he was powerful stalking the rock whores, but he had no idea what he was until Jeanie showed him something tangible, something that would make him real for the first time in his miserable fucking life.

  When Jeanie was finished, she rose and said to Rich, “We’ll meet again tomorrow night after the show. This time I want you to pick up a girl and go to her place. I’ll be following you, watching, just like you did me.”

  Rich wanted to say something, but she left the apartment before he had a chance to speak. He was shocked that she would go into the hallways covered in blood and grue the way she was, but it occurred to him that her demon self could not be seen by anyone else, and so she probably looked like any other piece of leather-clad trash. Probably anyone who saw her would think she was a hooker and do everything they could not to make eye contact as she walked by.

  Rich let out a huge breath and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply as he began to realize what had happened. He was an accomplice to murder and the man’s blood was on his lips, and the body was lying flaccid and destroyed on the floor.

  Rich opened his eyes in horror at what he had become a part of in the name of . . . what? In the name of what?

  A grin cracked his face as he tasted sin. It was on his lips not only in the form of coppery blood, but everything he just been introduced into. He breathed it in and began to calm as a twisted state of Zen came over him washing the horror away as he accepted the stakes of what Jeanie showed him. He was going to become something for once in his life, and if he ever made it back through his hometown, he would have to pay a special visit to his father. For old time’s sake.