Through the In Between, Hell Awaits

by Robert Essig

  Rich smiled as he took the open road to his becoming. He wanted to pet the little soul sucker as if it were a pet, but he thought better of it. For all he knew it would bite. As he drove, he watched the little beast for clues as to which way he should go. Whenever he needed to switch freeways or take an off ramp the soul sucker would turn its gaze from the road and direct Rich with a wretched little voice. It was rather creepy, and Rich had to keep in mind that he was a lot bigger than the soul sucker and could grab and squeeze it to death if he had to. Not that there was anything to fear. He just felt the need to remind himself that he dominated the little thing. Rich had a feeling that domination was going to have a lot to do with his life very soon.

  The cabin was a little off the beaten path, but easy enough to find with the assistance of the soul sucking GPS Jeanie provided. Despite Rich not knowing where he was going, it made the trip effortless.

  He parked his car beside the two that were already there. One of the cars was probably Jeanie’s, and the other belonged to the poor sod she had lured out to the cabin for the ritual.

  The mountain air was cold as Rich stepped out of his warm car. The soul sucker climbed up his arm perching itself on his shoulder like some absurd replacement for a pirate’s parrot.

  The silence was ominous. Flickering light shinned through the cabin windows—probably candlelight. What Rich was about to endure weighed heavily on his heart. Butterflies churned in his stomach as he walked from his car to the front door. There was no turning back. After tonight, he would be a god.

  His footsteps echoed as he ascended the four steps to a creaky wooden porch. The front door opened. Rich drew in a breath of anticipation. The soul sucker leapt from his shoulder and disappeared into the figure that met him at the door. It was horrible, but he’d seen Jeanie in her natural form before. It was something he was going to have to get used to, seeing her in such a gruesome state.

  “Come in, Rich. I’ve been waiting for you. Everything is ready.”

  Rich followed Jeanie into the cabin, speculating but not knowing what to expect. He knew nothing about satanic ritual aside from the lyrics of so many heavy metal bands he listened to, and what they wrote was probably based on assumption and popular belief. This was real, and he was ready for whatever she had in store, but as ready as Rich thought he was, there was no proper preparation for the state of the interior of the cabin.

  “Oh my God,” said Rich as he took it all in.

  “God has nothing to do with this. Even Satan himself has no knowledge of my power, for he is relegated to ruling over Hell and I am but a sentinel of his creation sent to the In Between to protect his seedlings. I am of his power, and here on Earth his power is very great. I want you to be with me, Rich. I want you to possess the same powers, and there is only one way for you to achieve such dark divinity.”

  The back wall was adorned with four men stripped naked, hanging by bindings wrapped around their wrists, which were suspended in the air above drooping heads. As Rich realized that the man lying on the floor was Dano Grue, it became clear that the four men were his band mates. They had all been lured to the cabin by a groupie they had all become very familiar with; they’d trusted that the drugs and girls she told them would be at the cabin would in fact be there. As for Dano, he’d been lured by something else altogether.

  “The whole band?” asked Rich. He had been a fan of Death Fraud for some time now and wouldn’t have been able to fathom such a tragedy as this, all of them eviscerated in a cabin in the Sierra Mountains. But things had changed and Rich’s loyalties were now dedicated to Jeanie.

  “Yes. Having enough sacrifices is just as important as this very place. It isn’t the isolation that is key, but where we stand parallel to the In Between, because you will be making a journey back and forth and I have to be sure no one from my former tribe will be there searching for me. There are certain places they will not step foot i. This cabin stands in one such place.

  “Shall we begin?”

  Rich nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “I’ll need you to sit in that chair,” said Jeanie. Her gray, knotted hand pointed to a chair that sat very near Dano’s place on the floor. It looked like something from the inquisition. It was made out of wood with several leather straps fastened to the arms and legs.

  “That chair,” said Rich with worry on his voice. He didn’t like the straps and as much as he told himself that he was going to have to give Jeanie full control over his body, he was having second thoughts.

  “There aren’t any other chairs in here.” Cold, mercury eyes glared at Rich and it became clear that he’d better do what he was told. She wanted him to be like her, and he didn’t want to be around when she lost her shit. He’d seen the damage she could cause and wanted nothing to do with being at the end of that equation.

  “Let me tell you something, Rich. What’s going to happen here may be painful, and though your mind is willing to succumb, your body might revolt. I will need to strap you down in case of that. You have to trust me. You have no choice.”

  Rich nodded and sat in the cold wooden chair. This must be what a prisoner on death row felt like back when they used ole Sparky, thought Rich. He didn’t like it at all. Jeanie’s body shifted back into something more human before she tightened the leather straps and fastened Rich’s arms tight. He caught her eyes, now more brown than mercury, and he saw something there that put him at ease. They weren’t the eyes of a nurturing mother, but of a trusting friend. She was very careful not to tighten the straps too much. The very grace of her actions spoke volumes and fully set Rich’s mind at ease.

  Dano stirred and groaned. His arms were behind his back and restrained with what looked like heavy-duty stereo wire. His legs were bound the same. He was too dazed to gather what was going on. His head lifted itself, eyes opening just enough to allow candlelight in, and then his neck went out and his face smacked the floor knocking him back out of consciousness.

  Suddenly the fear hit Rich again. He saw the trust in her eyes, but there was something else in there too, something that could restrain five men in a cabin in the middle of the mountains. Her regard for life was nonexistent.

  But then again so was his—now.

  “What are you going to do to me?” he asked.

  “You have to consume souls.” She pushed his head back gently placing a leather strap across his neck then fastening it. “And then you have to die.”

  Rich’s eyes nearly popped. He couldn’t move his head but only pivot it from side to side. “What?” Claustrophobia washed over him and he began hyperventilating.

  “Calm down, Rich,” said Jeanie in an oddly calm, soothing voice that was half monstrous and half human.

  “Jeanie, what are you going to do to me? Don’t kill me! Please, Jeanie, don’t kill me!”

  “Rich? My name is not Jeanie.” Her voice began to deepen as her true self became more apparent. “I am Dagana. And once you consume these souls and die you will travel through the realms to the In Between and you will become . . . ”

  “What? What will I become?” Panic, fright, horror!

  “Well, hopefully you’ll become like me.”

  “What do you mean hopefully?”

  “You must relax. You don’t want any complications, do you?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “No buts, Rich. You have to eat. None of this is for me. They’re all yours, but it’s going to be a little different that it was last night. You have to consume their souls, all of them. That means you have to eat their brains.”

  Rich grimaced, but it couldn’t be all that much different from eating viscera.

  “It’s not so bad, Rich. Once you complete your becoming you will hunger for human flesh. You have nothing to fear. It will seem strange on this side of life, but once you make it to the In Between you will become something beyond human, and you will never regret the pain you feel in your final moments of life. I am not alive, Rich, and I am not entirely dead. I’m something
else, something nightmares are made of, something fears grow from, and soon you will be, too. You want that, don’t you?”

  Rich didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ll begin.”

  Dagana was prepared, but Rich knew nothing of what was in store for him. She had a long funnel like the ones Rich had seen his brother the mechanic use for transmission fluid. It appeared to be unused. Next to that were several knives. Nothing special or ritualistic, just long kitchen knives—very ominous. And then there was the blender connected to an extension cord that Rich hadn’t noticed until Dagana lifted the pitcher from it.

  “What’s that for?” asked Rich. In his mind, his voice sounded childlike and weak. Goddamned fear!

  “Shhhhhh. You must be patient. Accept what is going to happen to you. You won’t regret it.”

  Rich took a deep breath and let it out through his nostrils.

  Dagana grabbed one of the knives clenching it tight in her human hand. Her body was somewhere between human and sentinel, but she needed small hands and skinny fingers to perform the ritual that would send Rich to the In Between. She stood before the first of Death Fraud’s members, Mickey Dagger, the drummer. Mickey had joined the band for this tour when their former drummer died of an overdose of alcohol and downers. Never did he think his end would come in a cabin in the Sierras.

  After placing the blender’s pitcher on the hard wood floor, Dagana grabbed Mickey’s lolling head with her free hand. It happened very quickly and with uncanny speed and skill. She took the dull end of the knife and cracked the perimeter of Mickey’s head like breaking a coconut. She then wedged the knife in the cracked skull and pried it off his head leaving his brain exposed but still connected to the brainstem. Rich thought a brain would fall out under such circumstances, however he had never really considered this aspect of human anatomy before, and it had him feeling a bit queasy. Mickey screamed as the crude extraction of his brain occurred, but as soon as Dagana pulled it free and slid it into the blender’s pitcher, he went limp, blood pooling below his body. The other three men hanging beside Mickey’s body remained as they were, doped up enough to keep them knocked out even in the case of a 9.0 earthquake.

  Dagana did the same with the next member of Death Fraud, Gary Death. He hardly made a whimper before he gave up the ghost. His brain in the pitcher, the beginning of the ritual was ready to commence.

  Placing the pitcher back on the blender base, she pressed a button and began liquefying the brains. The sudden whee of the blender startled Rich and woke Dano Grue, though it was quite obvious that he was dazed and confused.

  Dagana cut the power and pulled the pitcher of brain goop from the cradle. She looked at Rich with something in her lucid eyes that had an element of pity matched with envy, as if she would rather be the one who had to consume the brain liquid.

  “I don’t have to . . . ?” said Rich.

  Dagana nodded. “The soul, like blood, flows through the body, slowly dissipating in death. But the soul holds onto the brain as long as it can before it leaves the shell. By blending the brain the soul becomes fragmented and cannot easily move on. You have to drink this and they will be cast into your body.”

  Rich’s eyes grew in his head as she held the pitcher above him. His stomach fluttered and his mouth watered not from hunger but with the urge to vomit. His breathing became sporadic, and though he wanted what Dagana had to offer, wanted it so badly, he found his reflexes and the very nature of his being were working against him.

  “Do you think you can handle it?” asked Jeanie-Dagana. She really was both of them as she stood over Rich.

  He wanted to be a man and take it, but couldn’t. He wanted everything to work out the way it was supposed to, so he swiveled his head from side to side as much as he could to indicate that in fact he couldn’t handle the task.

  Dagana nodded then set the pitcher down. Her actions were sharp and gave Rich the impression that she was disappointed or even angry with him. She came up with the funnel and a roll of duct tape that Rich had not previously seen.

  “I was hoping you would be strong enough, but I suppose humans are basically weak.” She held out the funnel, “This is going to hurt,” and she slammed it into his mouth and down his throat, and then took the duct tape wrapping it around and around his head to keep the funnel in as his natural reflexes tried to spit it out.

  Rich flailed and convulsed, but he was strapped into the chair tight enough to leave him defenseless. As she wrapped the tape around his head, he wished dearly that he had never seen her kill that man in the alley, that he had never followed her after the Death Fraud shows, and that he had never left his wife and kids in the first place. Not that he missed them, but that he wanted nothing to do with the pain if having a funnel jammed down his fucking throat!

  “Stop squirming! It’s the only way. You want this, don’t you?”

  Rich shook his head from side to side as much as he could, tears streaming down his cheeks, but it was no use. Dagana poured the thick blend into the funnel to Rich’s dismay. His cheeks blew out like a puffer fish and dribbles of gray matter squeezed through the duct tape, but enough of it was choked down his gullet for the sake of the ritual.

  “Don’t fight it,” said Dagana as she slowly poured. “You are becoming more than a man.”

  Rich gagged, threw up into the funnel, cried, tried to scream, and choked, but the soul-filled gore was forced into his gut, and Dagana was at work with the other two band members, Johnny Blade and Mort. Mort screamed like a banshee after the first smash of the dull end of the knife, but he was dead soon enough. Mr. Blade was far too drugged to feel his own demise. The brains were blended and forced down Rich’s throat once again. This time he choked on them quite badly and Dagana feared that he would stop breathing, which may not have completely upset his becoming, but he managed to keep the brackish human matter down.

  “Are you ready to leave this life behind? Are you ready to Become?”

  Rich’s face was a mess of tears and blood and pulped brains and he wanted nothing more than for the funnel to be removed. The cold embrace of the Grim Reaper was as warm as a summer day.

  Dagana ripped the funnel off his face. He was close to death but there was one more member of Death Fraud left alive in the midst of his four band members, all hanging limp and bleeding onto what was becoming quite a slick floor. Dano Grue was beginning to understand what was going on, however he kept slipping as he tried to gain his footing with bound legs, which would have been amusing and funny to rich had he not been in such pain and restraint.

  Dagana picked up the other knife that was lying near the gory blender. She handed it to Rich before loosening his restraints. “You need to do one more thing before you can complete your becoming. You need to kill Dano the way we did the woman last night in the hotel.”

  Rich looked as sick as he felt. He burped up thick paste and swallowed, doing everything he could not to vomit brain soup all over the floor. He feared that he would lose his guts and ruin his becoming. He’d gone this far; he’d better go all the way.

  Rich kneeled on the ground before Dano. He swallowed the sludge that seemed to be backed up to his throat. How he would manage to swallow anymore, he wasn’t sure.

  “What . . . ?” said Dano. “What are you doing?”

  Rich lifted the knife. “I’m becoming.”

  Dano was in an advanced state of dopiness, but he howled when the knife slashed his stomach. Rich wasn’t a killer yet, and his trepidation was clear in that he didn’t put enough force into his slash to gut the man, which left Dano in an extended state of fear and panic as his stomach bled out onto the hardwood.

  For a moment there, Rich frowned for he felt his passion had been overridden by his own fear and the pain that was increasing in his gut with every second. The knife was swiped across Dano’s belly once again, this time spilling his innards onto the floor. Dano screamed and cried as Rich lost his ever-loving mind and rifled through the hot steaming entrails
biting and chewing like the maniac he’d become.

  When Dagana came from behind, Rich was far too consumed with his ritual to have noticed her. With the same knife she used to slit the bands’ collective throats, she completed the human part of Rich’s becoming by jamming the knife into his head.

  He fell dead in seconds, facedown in Dano’s warm guts.

  When Rich woke . . .

  . . . He was standing in a world he didn’t recognize.

  Desolate, quiet, cold—Rich felt nothing as he stood somewhere that had no true name, what Dagana had referred to as the In Between. Beneath his feet was a road paved with skulls that seemed to go on forever before becoming lost in a blanket of fog that lined the perimeter of the vacant land.

  He breathed yet his lungs didn’t seem to take in the stagnant air. His pains had vanished. The fear that consumed him during the ritual in the cabin was replaced with a sense of assuredness that Rich had never experienced before.

  The skulls beneath him felt strange, the rounded tops cupped by his bare feet. Between the skulls was a queer grout of bone fragments and dirt that filled them in enough to create a sort of rode, but it was crude and should have been uncomfortable beneath him, but nothing was bothersome.

  Rich decided to walk the skull paved road and that’s when things began to feel different. Physically something was askew, and then he looked down at his feet to find out why they seemed to be so sluggish, his mind was blown for perhaps the last time ever, because after this nothing could shock him again. That human feeling of shock was dead in the In Between and beyond—that was an emotion tied to mortality.

  His feet were mangled and deformed. At first glance, he thought that he should feel pain, but there was nothing. The vision of his deformation caused mental pain more than anything. He wasn’t quite like Dagana, worse in fact, but he supposed that was a part of his becoming. He hadn’t really considered the consequences, only the benefits.

  Hands in front of him, Rich tried to admire the handiwork becoming a new species. They were quite a sight, his hands—an eyesore really. He still had five digits, but the fingers had more joints than normal, and they zigzagged in a way that almost caused them to look like tiny abused accordions hanging from his palms, which were red like beefsteak tomatoes. His hands connected to arms that thinned almost down to bone and were lined with octagonal scales that were unkempt and ruffled.