by Wood, Rick
Groggily moving forward and scrunching up his face in anguish, he limped his way into the building and through the doors to the boy’s toilets.
The reflection in the mirror made him flinch. It was a bloody, humiliated mess. Barely recognisable as his own.
He thought about Kristy seeing this face. He saw her laughing at it, in stitches over his pained misery.
Switching the tap on and cupping his hands, he lifted the water over his face. Beneath the blood was only mild bruising, meaning it wasn’t obvious what had happened; which was good, as it would save him some pride.
It would save him having to explain to everyone that he just got the shit kicked out of him by his best mate while his girlfriend cackled in joy.
Lifting his top to expose his wounded chest, he flinched at the sight of a large, grey bruise across his right ribs. It explained the agony he was enduring in his torso, but at least that could be covered.
At least he didn’t have to explain anything to his mum.
Then he remembered the warning letter to his mum. The part that said if he wasn’t punctual to lessons, they could still get fined. The bell had gone ages ago.
“Shit.”
But surely they would understand?
Understand what? He was hardly going to tell them, was he?
He brushed the door open and limped through the corridor. He planned to just sit there through double maths without attracting attention. Just keep his head down and shut up.
Making his way up a few steps was difficult; but hurriedly making his way up three flights of stairs was impossible. The strenuous pain was constant. He told himself to be a man, put up with it. Deal. So he had a few beatings; don’t most men at some point in their life?
This was just a lesson about who to trust.
As he opened the door to the maths room, following a long, tedious ascent up the wooden stairs that practically fell apart beneath him, the entire class turned and looked at him.
Including Kristy, whose grin couldn’t have been any bigger.
“Martin,” observed the teacher in an irritably haughty voice. He couldn’t even remember the guy’s name; his hair was grey, he wore an embarrassing green tank top over a small pot belly and pulled an expression like someone had just shit in his breakfast. “Why are you late?”
Martin glanced once more at Kristy.
“Couldn’t find the room,” he made up, looking to his feet.
“Well, as fleeting as your appearances here have been, you have still been coming here for five years, and I undoubtedly believe that you are able to find the maths room on time.”
Martin looked blankly back at him. He had nothing to say. He barely understood a word of what the teacher had said, to be honest.
“Remove your hoodie before you enter,” the teacher commanded and turned back to the class.
If he removed the hoodie they would see the bruising on his face.
Kristy would see the bruising on his face.
He couldn’t do it.
He just wanted to get to the back of the classroom and keep his head down silently. Why couldn’t this teacher just let him do that?
“I ain’t removing my hoodie.”
“Yes you are.”
“No, I ain’t.”
The teacher’s eyes widened and his hair practically stood on end. Had this guy ever heard of a comb? He placed his text-book on the table and turned fully toward Martin, as if bracing for unleashing hell.
“You are in this school, are you not? In body if not mind?”
“I guess.”
“Then you will follow its rules. We do not allow hoodies as part of our uniform. You are lucky I am not confiscating it. Now take it off before you enter my classroom.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do I need to take it off? It’s hardly going to affect my learning, or your shitty lesson.”
As soon as he said the word “shitty,” he knew he’d done it. No turning back. His place there was under threat.
Good. They can exclude me then. Give me some days off without fining my disabled mum, you bunch of pricks.
“Martin, I don’t know who you think you are, other than an insolent little child –”
“Don’t call me that!”
“What? Insolent? Child? Which one of these things do you disagree with, Martin?”
“Why you gotta be such a dick, man? What are you getting out of this?”
“Grey hair, most likely,” the teacher quipped, smirking in a hugely infuriating way.
“Oh, you’re fuckin’ funny, ain’t yuh?” Martin raised his voice, his head nodding with annoyance, his arms shaking, his legs exchanging balance from one to the other, the pain in his body replaced with adrenaline.
“Excuse me?”
“My life ain’t no fuckin’ joke, dick head,” Martin continued. “As for your education, you can stuff it up your bellend.”
“Do you know who –”
“Who what? I woke up this mornin’, then fed, toileted, washed my mum, then happened to put a hoodie on after I’d spent two hours doing that. Then I come here and you all tell me what to fuckin’ do, like you have any idea what life is like.”
“Look –”
“Nah, you look. You can stuff your shitty education, mate. I ain’t in need of none of it.”
Martin turned his back on the classroom and marched down the stairs. He could feel his furious flinching sneer stuck to his face. His lip stung, his ribs throbbed and his knee agonised.
But he didn’t care.
He just didn’t care anymore.
These people had no idea what it was like for him. So he was supposed to leave his mum to take of herself when she can’t even feed or go to the toilet, so he can go to this building and get a poor excuse for an education?
Those people could afford a carer; not that they’d ever care enough to help get one for him.
They couldn’t understand.
He was the carer. And that was all he had.
He burst the doors to the school open and stormed out, not even thinking about looking back.
24
A beetle scurried over Jason’s chest. Despite being dead, his physique had not improved in an angelic or demonic way. His bare torso still hung off him with the fading of age. The ground beneath him bumped into his back, the heat of the minute stones burning his skin.
He weakly raised his head, kneeling on his arms, looking down upon himself. He had no idea how he got wherever he was, nor did he understand why he wore nothing but ragged shorts, ripped and shredded over his skin.
“Granddaddy?” came the familiar voice of Ava behind him. Wrath crawled under his skin, bumping up to his mind and filling him with rage.
He threw himself to his feet and turned to see the body and face of his granddaughter gazing up at him. His stomach twisted into knots; seeing a person he loved so much was even worse than his eternity in painful solace.
It was evil. Evil taking on the form of beauty. It was sinisterly poetic, almost; the angelic form consumed with self-indulgent malevolence.
“She never called me Granddaddy,” Jason spat. “It was Grandad or Papa.”
“Sorry, Papa,” it smiled sweetly.
“You are not her. So you call me neither.”
He stretched his aching muscles, turning his head, surveying the everlasting malicious horizon beyond him. They were on a stone mound, surrounded by a landscape of spewing lava.
“Where is this?”
“Hell.” So direct, so matter of fact, so dismissive. Nothing like Ava at all.
“What do you want with me?” Jason whimpered through his detestation, forcing his anger to take the forefront, masking his despair. “I did what you asked.”
“You did some of what he asked. You still have one more thing.”
He flung his head backwards, grappling his hands over his head and through his hair.
More?
“What more do you want
from me?” he screamed, flinging his arms outwards to emphasise his fury. His words reverberated back to him again and again and again. “I did every damn thing you wanted. I crashed that plane. I did it. What else?”
“Your final task.”
“Why…” he cried, the pain consuming him. “Why can’t you take someone else’s form? Please stop using her face…”
“I will stop once you are done.”
His emotions fluttered back and forth like a flickering light. One moment he was filled to the core with rage, then filled with love for the face of his granddaughter, then filled with desolation and anguish at the sheer loss of control.
“I can’t… I can’t take this…”
“You can and you will. You have one more task.”
“No.”
“You will do one more thing or I will stay like this and torment you forever. Then you and your family will suffer an eternity in hell. Is that what you want?”
Jason fell to his knees, covering his face in his hands. He cried. Cried like no one was watching. Like there was no other way he could manage his emotions.
He had spent his life proving against the paranormal, debunking the actual truth. He was spending his afterlife haunted by those he never believed in. A whole afterlife held captive by his invisible enemy.
When would he find some peace?
When would he be released?
When would they stop tormenting him with the face of someone he missed more than the oxygen that no longer filled his lungs?
“What?” He shook his head, sobbing through his tears, speaking delicately. “What do you wish me to do?”
“The Devil’s Three.”
“What?”
The beast wearing Ava’s face took another step toward him.
“You must be one of The Devil’s Three. You will take the place of the one who is dead. You will help him rise.”
“Him…?”
He rose his head as it dawned upon him.
“You want me to raise the devil?”
Ava nodded.
“No. I can’t do that.”
Ava reached out her hand, sticking it into his chest and clutching his no-longer beating heart, squeezing it.
A stabbing pain soared throughout his body. His mind was filled with images of his family in tears. His wife stripped. His daughter whipped. His granddaughters ripped apart by teeth. His whole family raped and humiliated.
She withdrew her fist and looked at him.
“That will be your family’s fate, should you refuse.”
“I –”
“The devil will rise either way. This is the only way your family will be safe from him.”
He bowed his head. Help the devil rise and protect his family.
He agreed to do it.
He was ashamed.
25
Kelly’s mind filled with mist, fogging any sense of clear thought, or understanding. She held Eddie’s hands firmly in hers, a sympathetically desperate look on her face.
“The Devil’s Three?”
“Yes. The wounded, the dead, and the prophet.”
“And who could they be?”
Eddie sat back in his chair and shrugged his shoulders, looking around the room anxiously. He had contemplated it so much that his mind was beginning to hurt. Kelly could see that. She could see the confusion etched over his face; his distant look, the twitching of his mouth in frustration, the leg that bounced up and down in agitation, even his hands that Eddie retracted from hers to clutch the side of his seat.
“Could I be, I don’t know… the wounded?”
“I don’t think so. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, you could say you’re the prophet.”
“No. I would imagine I’d be the catalyst. They would want to bring forth the devil to unleash me, so I couldn’t be part of the ceremony itself. I would be… What the ceremony is for.”
Kelly bit her lip. She was only trying to help, and he was being dismissive. She did her best to understand, to realise he had been at this a lot longer than she had. It was so unfair that either of them had to have these burdens.
It was all unfair. Every bit of it.
“And you think they want to do it here? In this house?”
“What is with all of these bloody questions?” Eddie snapped, turning away. In the same breath, he stood up and marched upstairs, the heavy stomps of his feet resounding throughout the house, ending with the slamming of their bedroom door.
Maybe she could take a step back a bit. Let him think. Give him the time and space to figure it out.
But then again, how could she, when she too was being attacked?
Maybe that was why he was so frustrated, because he knew how much it affected her too, and he couldn’t deal with the guilt…
These thoughts spun and spun into a web that blew apart in her mind. So many strands, so many possibilities, so much to consider.
I need to cut him a break. Support him.
She stood up, took a glass from beside the sink and filled it with water. Once she had drunk it, she placed the glass in the sink and followed Eddie’s path upstairs.
As she approached the bedroom, she saw the door ajar. She grew cautious. She wasn’t sure why she was slowing down and edging toward the door, there was just something about it. Something unclear that filled her with dread.
She creaked open the door, revealing Eddie stood beside the window with his back to her.
“Eddie?” she asked, so quietly she could barely hear herself. In a way, she didn’t want him to respond. Didn’t want him to answer. She wasn’t sure why, there was just something bad in the air.
She placed one foot carefully in front of the other until she reached him, placing a hand on his arm.
He didn’t move.
“Eddie?”
“Kelly. I…” he began, and trailed off.
She tucked her arms around his waist, holding him closely.
“I know.”
He turned around and took a firm hold of her face with his hands. She remained motionless, staring up at him
His eyes… they were strange. Different. They felt aggressively demanding.
It was a look she hadn’t seen before.
Without any warning, his lips forced themselves into hers
She was taken aback at first. How could her kiss her so passionately at a time like this?
Then again, why shouldn’t he?
Maybe it’s what they needed?
He pushed his mouth harder and harder against hers. She reciprocated, despite feeling a little intimidated. He was kissing her hard, harder than passion requires, and it was making her lips hurt. She practically choked on his tongue as he slipped it into her mouth.
Peeling himself away, he hurled his top off and threw her onto the bed.
This is what we need. I know it, she decided. And she was right. It had been a while.
Before she could even think about objecting, he was on top of her, peeling off her clothes. As she went to kiss him more tenderly, eager to bring a sense of romance to the occasion, he grabbed her by the neck and turned her over.
For a few moments, all she could feel was his fist on the back of her head, pressing into the hair. He was pulling it. It hurt.
She struggled to breathe, her face choking into the pillow.
She made a weak attempt at thrashing her hands, but then she stopped as she felt him inside of her.
He was rough and it hurt. She was dry, but he had forced himself inside her without taking a second to think about whether or not she wished to partake.
She managed to peel her face away from the pressure against the pillow and put her weight onto her forehead.
She could finally breathe again.
She watched him, upside down, behind her. The smell of his sweat turned her on.
Just as she began to enjoy it, even feel him inside her in a pleasant way, he got even rougher.
He was pulling back and thrusting h
imself inside of her with such pounding frequency that she gave out a yelp. She tried objecting, but it turned into a whimper that went unnoticed.
She was merely his doll. His way of feeling better. He didn’t care about her.
Was this even okay? Had she even given her consent? Did she need to?
She felt a trickle of blood slide down her inner thigh and decided it was time to stop.
She hit her arms out behind her, crying out, “Eddie! Eddie!”
He took a hold of her arms and restrained them determinedly behind her back with one hand, and used the other to grab hold of her hair.
“Eddie, stop!”
Tears filled her eyes. She attempted to struggle out of his grasp, but it was no good.
She was bleeding harder. It was trickling down her legs.
She cried. He wasn’t stopping, and there was nothing else she could do but cry.
He heatedly scraped her insides. Everything hurt. He was plunging himself into her too deeply, too hard, too quick.
She felt used.
“Eddie!”
The flashbacks of cows and sheep underneath her as she rode them played in her mind like a cinema screen.
She remembered how it felt.
She remembered how it hurt.
“Eddie, stop!”
Eddie froze.
She froze.
They stayed still, him inside her, but not moving. A few seconds later, she felt him take himself out of her.
She slumped onto her side, sobbing.
“Kelly?” Eddie knelt beside her.
“What do you want?” she cried out through her snarled teeth. He had never made her feel this pain before. She was physically, and emotionally, numb.
“Kelly.” He took hold of her hand in his, but she flinched it away.
“What?” she snarled again.
“Kelly, what just happened?”
She turned and looked at him, hostile, ready to snap.
His eyes were filled with tears. He looked feeble, emotional, distraught. This was not the face of the person who had just invasively assaulted her.
“Eddie?” she wept curiously.
“Kelly, I have no idea what just happened.”
