I soon noticed that the heat had been turned off. I began to shiver violently.
Draping the sodden blanket over me did little to help. Then, without warning, the light went out.
I sat in the total darkness, my head in my hands. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve treatment like this? I tried to conjure up the woman I’d seen again, tried to find anyone from my past. Nobody came. Maybe the scenes in Washington, wherever the hell that was, had just been the fruits of my imagination. Maybe nothing meant anything and I couldn’t even trust my own mind.
I fell away into an abyss, my breath rapid and my limbs locked by the chill.
The only thing I could hope was that I had died. Did that mean there was an afterlife? The idea was attractive. Perhaps I was in the underworld. Or in limbo. Or even purgatory.
Then the cold bit into me again and I was back in hell. It was obvious that whoever was doing this to me had a deep knowledge of cruelty and evil.
I had the feeling that I’d met more than one person like that in my unreachable past.
Two
I cowered in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. The cold grew even worse and I couldn’t control my shivering. I tried to sit without the damp blanket, but soon found that I needed the meager insulation it offered. At least the music stayed off, though the silence became almost as disturbing.
Finally, the scene in the place called Washington came back to me. At least I had some memory function. I still couldn’t remember who the woman was, or what we were doing there. What did the episode tell me about myself? That I was supposedly some sort of expert in crime. A policeman? A criminologist? In any case, I couldn’t have been very smart, insisting on going to a notoriously dangerous district and provoking the robbery. I hadn’t behaved in a very courageous fashion, either. In fact, I’d behaved like a major asshole. But the blonde woman didn’t seem to think so. She had submitted to my whim and had accepted the loss of her valuables without much concern. What did that say about her feelings for me? And something made me think she was some kind of crime specialist, as well. Were we both researchers? Cops? I couldn’t reach an answer that rang true and slapped the wall in frustration.
The blanket was making the skin on my shoulders and back itch. My nostrils were filled with the stench of vomit, which had somehow survived immersion in the water. I tried to breathe only through my mouth, but that made me cough heavily. Eventually I willed myself to sleep, but kept jerking awake in the darkness, my heart pounding. Finally, I fell like a stone into the pit, where scaly-skinned devils laughed at me in my nakedness, ramming rust-covered tridents into my flailing limbs…
Simultaneously the light came on and the door crashed open. Four men in gray uniforms covered by knee-length leather aprons burst in. Two carried long truncheons, which they dug into my armpits to raise me up against the wall. The others pulled a pair of what felt like paper trousers up onto my legs. I was lowered to the floor and a shirt of the same material was pulled over my arms. Not a word was spoken during the whole procedure. I opened my mouth to protest and one of the truncheons was pushed hard between my teeth. I got the message.
I was heaved out through the door and nearly collided with the wall on the other side of a dank corridor. The four men formed up around me and started to move forward. A truncheon in the small of my back made me stumble ahead, the muscles in my legs tingling from lack of use. I caught glimpses through open doors of other cells. Naked prisoners of both sexes stood with their legs apart and their arms raised to the side. They looked like they had been frozen in the middle of gymnastic exercises. But it was their eyes that were most striking—wide-open and bloodshot, staring across blankly at the wall above. Was that mindlessness the fate awaiting me—or could there be something even worse?
We moved on through more corridors, passing doors marked only with numbers. There was a faint smell of chemicals and the hum of machinery. The air seemed unnaturally dry. Then I was stopped outside a set of double doors. One of my escorts tapped the buttons on a touch pad and I was pushed through.
It was a large space, with lights shining at the far end.
My stomach clenched when I saw what I was being led toward.
The wooden post was taller than a man and about a foot wide. Ropes hung from it at neck, waist and ankle height. The untreated timber was stained a reddish-brown between the top and middle ropes. This was a place of execution.
I started shouting as I was dragged to it, demanding to know what was going on, but the men paid no attention. Two held me against the post, while the others tied the ropes tightly around me. They stepped away and I saw a line of men in the same gray uniforms moving toward me—these in berets, as well. They held old-fashioned rifles and stopped about fifteen yards away.
An officer with a pistol in his hand appeared at the side of the line. He gave me a contemptuous glance and then turned to his men.
“Ready!” he barked.
My heart was hammering and my eyes were wide. Even though the ropes didn’t allow much movement, my whole body was shaking.
“Aim!” the officer shouted.
“No!” I screamed, my voice breaking like a teenage boy’s. “No!”
“Fire!”
I was deafened by the thunder of the guns and blinded by the muzzle flashes. It was only when I opened my eyes that I realized I was still alive. I looked down at my chest and saw that the paper shirt was unblemished.
“Bastards!” I yelled. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
The line of men had turned their backs on me. They were marching into the dark at the far end of the room. The officer remained for a few seconds. He didn’t speak, but fashioned his lips into a grotesque and chilling smile. Then he, too, turned on his heel and paced away, the pistol still in his hand. At least there hadn’t been a coup de grâce.
“Bastards!” I yelled again, straining at the ropes. Then I dropped my head and started to sob. I had become aware of a warm dampness in the paper trousers. I’d lost control of my bladder when the blanks had been fired. At first I felt ashamed, then anger coursed through me. I had no idea why I was being treated like an animal, but the fuckers in the gray uniforms weren’t going to get away with it. I raised my head and looked for someone to test my new resolve out on, but they had all gone. I was left on the execution post for what seemed like hours, my soaked trousers growing cold and uncomfortable. One thing I was sure of—I would pay my tormenters back.
Suddenly I remembered a face, that of a man, though it could have been a demon’s: iceberg-cold blue eyes beneath short fair hair, a smile that made the firing squad officer’s seem benevolent. The canine teeth, top and bottom, were sharply pointed and the tongue flickered between the incisors like a snake’s. I knew who he was; he had remained despite my deficient memory. He called himself the White Devil and he had made a list of people to kill in revenge for what they had done to him.
I blinked hard and inhaled deeply. The face faded. The White Devil. I couldn’t recall everything he had done, but I knew that I had resisted him. The irony made me laugh. My old enemy had inspired defiance in me, even while I was roped to the execution post. I was in the hands of ruthless men who could kill me—or pretend to—anytime they wanted, but I was still alive. I swore that they weren’t going to reduce me to the state of the empty-eyed souls I had seen earlier.
The men in the leather aprons eventually came for me and took me back to my cell. They ripped the paper clothes from me, their lips twisted in expressions of mockery and disdain, then shoved me inside. As soon as the door slammed shut, the nozzle was inserted and the cold water spray started again. I forced myself to take it full on and cleaned myself as best I could.
Later, a lump of bread and a piece of meat that I couldn’t identify came through the hatch. I made myself eat slowly to stave off stomach trouble. The water that came with the food was less discolored than before. After I’d finished, I started to exercise, doing push-ups and sit-ups on the da
mp floor. My muscles burned, but I kept my breathing regular. I was in reasonably good physical condition, which made me feel better.
I knew what would be coming next—the loud music. I kept some of the bread back and dampened it to make earplugs. Then I closed my eyes and concentrated on recalling the music I had listened to in the past. After a while, some names came back and I concentrated on each one, making as many connections as I could.
When the industrial noise started, I blocked my ears and started to repeat loudly the strings of words I’d constructed.
“Page, Plant, Bonham, Jones.
“Jagger, Richards, Jones, Wyman, Watts, Taylor.
“Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young.”
It was exhausting keeping the grinding music at bay and I often lost track of what I was saying. But eventually the constant repetition made me focus and I could remember particular songs and albums, which I fashioned into other strings of words.
“‘Since I’ve Been Loving You,’ ‘Black Dog,’ ‘Hot Dog.’
“‘Beggar’s Banquet,’ ‘Let it Bleed,’ ‘Exile on Main Street,’ ‘Sticky Fingers.’
“‘Woodenships,’ ‘Cathedral,’ ‘Almost Cut My Hair,’ ‘Ohio.’”
When the noise stopped and the light went out, I found that I was recalling rooms where I’d listened to the albums and faces of people who had been there.
Some of their names came back to me, too—David, Caroline, Andy. Names and faces, but nothing more….
They were enough. I was soaked and shivering, but I was still myself. I once had a life, and I was determined I was going to get it back.
Even if I still didn’t know who I was.
When the light came on again, I turned onto my front and managed to get some sleep. The strange shape and angle of the bed no longer bothered me. I wasn’t prepared to let anything get in the way of what was best for me, and I needed rest if I was to be able to fight my captors.
I awoke to the slam of the hatch at floor level. This time there was only a small cup of water. I wondered what that portended. I sniffed it, but didn’t pick up any suspicious smell, so I drank the contents. That was a mistake. After a few minutes, I began to yawn widely and struggled to keep my eyes open. Whatever substance had been in the water was either flavorless or was concealed by the earthy taste.
Suddenly the door crashed open. The men in leather aprons came in again. I tried to resist, but I had little control over my arms and legs. I couldn’t stop them from dragging me out, so I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on something related to my past. If they were going to scare the shit out of me like they did with the firing squad, I needed a diversion. I looked down and concentrated on the scarring on my knee. Where did I get it? A car accident? A fall while skiing? I didn’t even know if I skied. Another sport? That seemed suggestive. Which sport? I saw a muddy field and players wearing brightly colored shirts. That was it. Rugby league. I saw myself holding an oval ball, breaking a tackle and then being hit from two sides at the same time. Blinding pain as my cartilage went.
I opened my eyes as I was pulled into a clean and well-lit room. People wearing green surgical suits were waiting. At first I thought my knee was about to be fixed, then I remembered what was going on. Behind the people was a bed with a long black box above it, cables and leads with suction pads hanging down. I couldn’t recall ever having seen anything like it.
The silent men in the leather aprons lifted me onto the bed and secured my arms and legs.
“Rugby league,” I said to myself. “Try. Drop goal. Penalty. Conversion.” I noticed that the underside of the box above me consisted of complex machinery—digital devices, electrical circuits and the like. I got a bad feeling about what was in store for me.
I smelled rubbing alcohol and felt a damp swab on my arm. Then a needle was slipped into a vein.
“Try. Drop goal. Penalty. Conversion,” I kept repeating.
I tensed myself to fight the loss of consciousness that I was expecting, but it didn’t come. I felt as if I were floating in the air, but I remained at least partly alert. The box above the bed was lowered, stopping only a few inches from my face. Then all the lights went out.
I kept silently repeating my rugby-league mnemonic. It was effective in countering the panic I was feeling in what had become a very enclosed space. Then lights came on all over the base of the box and a whirring noise started up.
“Hello,” said a soothing female voice. “Stay calm. Nothing unpleasant is going to happen.”
“Try. Drop goal. Penalty. Conversion,” I continued saying to myself.
Suddenly I felt latex-covered fingers on my eyes. They were pulling open the eyelids. Something metallic was attached to them and involuntary tears flowed. I wondered if they were going to blind me and my heart started to thunder. I tried to cry out, but found that my voice had gone missing.
“There we are,” said the woman. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
She was lucky I wasn’t able to tell her what I was thinking.
“Now, enjoy the show.”
A screen was lit up above my face. Strident martial music began to play and images of men in suits and the occasional woman appeared. I tried to identify them, but recalled no names. I had the impression they were all politicians, but I couldn’t be sure. Then the images started to change more rapidly and I lost track.
I went back to my rugby-league mnemonic, trying to ignore the pain around my eyes. But it was soon dashed from my mind as the brassy music rose to a crescendo and a picture of a hard-eyed man appeared. I knew I’d seen him before, I even knew he was the devil incarnate, but I couldn’t place him or remember his name.
The whir of the machine became louder and the images on the screen started to move so fast that I could no longer distinguish what they were. Then every nerve in my body seemed to be energized and I felt my back rise from the bed. I was being asked an incomprehensible question repeatedly, in a tone that required an answer, but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream as my whole being seemed to take fire and my head throbbed.
Then I heard the words at last.
“You will obey every command that you are given, will you not?”
I fought against the urge to respond positively, trying to get the words of my mnemonic going again. Then I saw how to give myself a chance.
“Yes,” I said, aware that the power of speech had returned to me. “Yes, I will obey every command.”
But deep down I was still repeating Try. Drop. Goal. Penalty. Conversion.
Until a siren sounded and I fell into the deepest of holes.
When I came round, I didn’t have a clue where I was. My head was ringing with strange sounds and I saw a blur of colors and shapes. Gradually my vision cleared, but my ears were still filled with discordant voices. There was a foul stench in my nostrils. I tried to move, but my arms and legs were confined. I looked down and saw that I had been tied to a wheelchair. I was wearing paper clothes again. I felt a twinge of alarm and glanced around. What I saw wasn’t reassuring.
I was at the back of a long hall with no windows. In the dim light I made out a mass of people of both sexes, their limbs jerking about. Many of them were young and muscular. They were all naked and were crying out words that I couldn’t understand. At the front there was a heap of large stones with a large upturned cross projecting upward from it. I began to get a very bad feeling.
Then a tall figure wearing a black robe appeared, hands raised high. I blinked and shook my head. I wasn’t seeing things. The face was larger than it should have been and seemed to be carved out of stone. I remembered where I’d seen the like—on the sides of churches. An uglier…gargoyle…would have been hard to find, the features twisted, eyes bulging and nose spread wide as if having sustained heavy blows.
Another figure followed, this one clearly male—he was naked, a huge erection moving to and fro as he pranced about, cracking a short whip. But his head was not human. It was that of a carnivorous animal, its jaws open to
reveal vicious yellow teeth, and without having to think, I knew immediately the word: hyena.
The gargoyle began to speak, the voice low and masculine. It sounded all around me, and I saw speakers on the walls. I also noticed the animal corpses hanging from the wooden panels—everything from rabbits and foxes to large creatures, bears. They must have been killed where they were suspended, as there was dark blood on the walls and pooled on the floor. That accounted for the stink. Looking closer, I realized that all the animals’ eyes had been mutilated. Some were hanging from their eye sockets.
“Silence, my fellow worshippers,” the gargoyle was saying. “Listen to the antiGospel of our lord and master. ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Lucifer, and the word was Lucifer.’”
The people in the hall broke into loud screams of approbation. A particularly crazed young man caught my eye—he dragged his nails down his bare chest hard enough to draw blood. I had seen him before. He had been in command of the firing squad.
The gargoyle spoke again. “Our lord Lucifer demands a blood sacrifice today, as he does every day. Bring on the victim!”
The man in the hyena head ran to the side, wielding his whip, but I was struggling to keep my eyes open now. Images were cascading before them, lines of men in uniform that went on and on. Then everything abruptly disappeared.
As I fell into the darkness, I heard a long, desperate scream.
Three
Hinkey’s Bar was in a back street near the Washington Navy Yard, less than a mile south of the U.S. Capitol. It took up the ground floor of a crumbling building. The upper floors were home to a dope dealer, a producer of Internet porn, and several sad-eyed people who couldn’t afford anything better. Hinkey himself was in his seventies. He’d been a minor-league baseball player in his youth and his exploits on the diamond were all he talked about. He sat in a corner with a bottle of cheap bourbon in front of him, while his son—known to regulars as Hinkey Part Two because, paradoxically, he bore no resemblance to his old man—ran the place with an attitude that veered between indifference and scorn, depending on the state of his hangover.
Maps of Hell Page 2
