by Amy Cross
“But -”
“Put it like this,” he continues. “Imagine a man builds a whole new town. He finances it, he plans it, he oversees the entire operation. It takes years of hard work and effort, but finally it's done. Meanwhile, over in the Hellform world, none of that hard work takes place. The Hellform version of the new town simply pops into existence as a foul, rotten mirror of something that has been created in this world. The buildings, the streets... Even the people all have their Hellform counterparts. They're like dark reflections of everything in our world.”
“That's not possible,” I tell him. “It sounds like -”
“Madness?” He grabs the latest print-out as it emerges from the machine. “Sure, that's one way of describing it. I would love for you to be right. I could die happy, if I believed I'd imagined it all.”
“Let me see,” I reply, reaching out to take the sheet of paper, only for him to swat my hand away. “I have a right!” I say firmly. “That's my wife!”
“Oh, you'll see it soon enough,” he mutters darkly. “But trust me, you need to wait a moment.”
“But if she -”
“She's still alive,” he adds, glancing briefly at the photo while keeping it turned away from me. “Oh absolutely, she's definitely alive. After all, corpses don't scream, do they? They don't bleed. They don't look at the camera and beg for mercy, while strips of flesh and muscle hang from their bodies.” He hesitates, still staring at the picture. “The time to worry is when the images stop coming, because that means he's finished with her. It means he's not using her to taunt you anymore.”
“Taunt me? Why would he be taunting me?”
“Someone on the other side of this printer knows you're here,” he explains, tapping the top of the machine. “They all do, over in that place. The Hellforms know about our world, and sometimes they even manage to reach out to us. Not often, but it happens, and believe me, they want it to happen more often. They want to break into our world and spread their unlimited anger and hatred like a plague. Sometimes I think that yearning is the root of their anger. Every so often I see little flashes that make me wonder if they're getting better at reaching us. In their world, pain and torture are a form of pleasure. How they would love to bring that here to us.”
He takes the next sheet, glances at it briefly, and then places it on top of the others. Already, the printer is working on another.
“So you're saying someone on the other side is sending these pictures deliberately?” I ask.
He nods. “Once he figured out what was going on. That this machine is acting as some kind of link.”
“I sent a message through the printer,” I tell him. “I thought it was a joke.”
“That was probably a mistake,” he continues. “He undoubtedly had suspicions before, but once he realized there was definitely someone on this side, his efforts would have been redoubled. Tell me, did anyone in this apartment see anything unusual? Figures, perhaps? Blurry, vague -”
“We all saw them,” I reply. “What are they?”
“Hellforms,” he explains. “Monstrous, rotten things, bloated lumps of blood and bone, filled with hatred. Like I said, they want to come here and cause as much pain and misery as possible. Fortunately they haven't found a reliable way yet, although obviously this particular bastard was able to snatch your wife and son and drag them through. The printer, this freak of nature, must have helped him. I've got a nasty feeling that the Hellforms are getting smarter and more daring, although the existence of this machine in your home undoubtedly made it much easier for him. I'm sorry, that's as much as I understand.”
He takes the next print-out, and I see a flicker of shock in his eyes before he sets it down on the table.
“What?” I ask.
“Later.”
“What's he doing to them?”
He shakes his head.
“What's he doing?” I shout, filled with panic.
“He's sparing your son so far,” he replies. “It's... Your wife is taking the worst of it, but the important thing to remember is that she's still alive.”
“But -”
“When I first went through to that place,” he continues, interrupting me, “I thought I'd lost my mind. I was only six years old, I was trapped in a world of pain and fear, torture, murder, the most horrific acts imaginable, and they were taking place all around me. I spent weeks hiding. Cowering, terrified in case one of them spotted me. It took a long time before I realized I wasn't imagining the whole thing. Mr. Holland, has anyone in this apartment started suffering from hallucinations of a violent nature, perhaps seeing flashes of events that either happened a short while ago, or unfolded a little later?”
“I saw a -”
I pause, thinking back to the woman at the service station, and the fact that less than twenty-four hours later my vision seems to have come true. There are so many parts to this madness, it's impossible to see how they all fit together.
“I saw a dying woman,” I whisper, “and...”
I look over at the window.
“People outside at night. Watching this apartment.”
“You've been exposed to the Hellform world,” Wolonovsky explains. “Enough to make you a little sensitive to violence in this world, even to events that haven't quite happened yet. I'm going to guess that your son might have been sick, too.”
“He had to be hospitalized for a night.”
“Children suffer the most when there's a connection nearby.”
“So you're saying that it's the printer's fault?” I ask. “This printer somehow made things from that other world notice us?”
“That's how it works in layman's terms,” he replies. “I don't really understand the mechanics myself, but I know one thing. If one of them reached through and snatched your family, that means the creatures in the Hellform world are smarter and more powerful than I believed. This won't be the last time something like this happens, either. I've long suspected that they'd begun to make their presence felt more and more in our world. I fear your family's experience is only the beginning.”
I pause, before putting my head in my hands.
“I want to wake up now,” I say finally. “This has to be a dream. I think I'm losing my mind.”
“Good.”
I turn to him. “Good?”
“Absolutely. You'll need a far less stable mind if you're going to come with me to rescue your family. I have this working theory about how I made the journey the first time, and about how I ended up coming back.” He takes a look at the latest print-out and quickly places it out of sight, and this time the printer falls silent. “I think our friend is finished for now,” he continues. “Even monsters get tired, but I'm sure there's still time to save your wife. If he'd killed her...”
He pauses.
“Well,” he adds, clearly uncomfortable, “let's just say that if he'd killed her, he'd have sent the proof through by now. I guess he's taking a break, which gives us a chance.”
“You keep saying that,” I reply, “but you're not giving many details about how we're supposed to get there.”
“Everything that's happening in the Hellform world is effectively happening here too,” he continues, “in the same space we're in now. So getting there is mostly a matter of perspective, of letting your mind turn around until you can see the alternate world that's all around us. The dark side of each and every atom. Once you see it, you'll be in it, or at least that's my theory.”
He pauses, before taking the latest print-outs and looking at them, while taking care to keep them hidden from me.
“If I'm right,” he explains, “it'll be easier to break through at night, because that's when the human brain's circadian rhythm makes it more likely that you'll become aware of other impressions that reach your senses. Around 3am should be perfect. Which is just as well, because we'll need a little time to get you in the right state of mind.”
“State of mind?”
He glances at me, with fear in h
is eyes.
“What is it?” I ask. “What do I have to do? Whatever it is, just tell me!”
“You need to be broken, Mr. Holland. You need to be on the brink of madness, maybe even over the brink, but at the same time you need to have enough sanity left to find your family and bring them back. And I'm afraid there's only one way right now that we can do that to you.” He checks his watch. “It's almost 4pm. It's time for you to start looking at these photos of your wife. If we're lucky, by 3am you'll be a whimpering, screaming mess and your mind will be ready for the journey.”
***
“I'll be outside,” he explains, as he stands next to me in the main bedroom. “I'll make sure you don't give up before... Well, before your mind has broken down sufficiently.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I look down at the print-outs in my hands. So far, I haven't dared turn them over, and I feel a knot of fear in my gut as I realize that I'm about to see some truly horrific images. In my mind's eye, I've already begun to imagine what might be on these pages, but Wolonovsky has already warned me that the reality is going to be far worse.
It's hard to believe that could be true.
“It'll take several hours,” he continues, heading over to the door. “The only thing I can say to offer even a morsel of comfort, Mr. Holland, is that by doing this, you're potentially helping us both get to the other place so that we can save your family. I swear to you, this is the only idea I have right now.”
“How will I know when I'm ready?” I ask, as I realize that my hands are already starting to tremble.
“You'll know,” he mutters, before stepping out into the hallway. “Trust me. If this works, you won't have any doubt at all. I just...”
He pauses, and I see a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“This won't be easy for you,” he adds finally. “Hell, that's the understatement of the century. I've been through something similar to what you're about to experience and... Well, let's just say that you have my deepest sympathies, but I'll be ready to help you as soon as it's humanly possible. I'm so sorry for everything that has already been done to your wife, and I'm sorry that you have to see it.”
With that, he pulls the door shut and leaves me all alone in the bedroom, with the pages in my hands.
“I'm coming for you, Mary,” I whisper. “Josh... I'm going to get you back. Wherever you are, I'm going to find you and bring you home.”
I stare at the back of the first print-out, and then finally I turn it over.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I see.
The image is a little grainy and blurry, but it quite clearly shows Mary chained to a bed in this very same room. Her naked body has been slashed and burned in several places, and I can see crimson red slits between edges of flesh, exposing rich, glistening wet meat beneath. As bad as the wounds all seem, however, I realize after a moment that I'm specifically avoiding looking directly at her face. Even then, it takes a few seconds before I can summon the courage, at which point I see her beautiful features twisted and distorted into a rictus of pure agony, crying out as if she's begging for me to come and save her.
Or begging for death.
My whole body is trembling now, but I know I have to keep going. There are still a dozen or more of these images, but for a few minutes all I can manage is to stare at this first picture. My head feels strangely calm, as if parts of my thought process have shut down entirely rather than risk dealing with everything I'm seeing. My hands, too, seem unwilling to turn the next print-out over, as if my body is desperately fighting back and begging my mind to stop this madness.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, as I feel tears starting to roll down my cheeks. “Mary, please...”
I turn the next sheet.
As soon as I see the next image, I turn away and let the print-outs fall from my hands. In my mind's eye, I can still see a flash of that second image, of the razor and the blood, and the close-up, blurring shot of my wife's face. I might have only looked at the picture for a fraction of a second, but it's already burned into my mind. I close my eyes, but somehow that only makes the image stronger, so I open them again and look down at the floor.
Two images down, at least ten still to go, and already I'm a weeping, trembling mess.
“I can't do this!” I call out to Wolonovsky, as I get up from the bed and head to the door. My knees feel weak. “There has to be another way! You can't ask me to look at these!”
I pull on the handle, only to find that he's holding the door shut from the other side.
“If you come out now, your wife and son are lost,” he replies. “The fact that you're struggling is a good sign, it means the pictures are having the intended effect, but there's still a lot further to go. Please, Mr. Holland, go back to the pictures and look at them all. And remember, as horrific as they are, they show that your wife is still alive.”
“There has to be another way,” I sob, wiping tears from my cheeks. “Please, this is inhumane...”
“Absolutely,” he continues, “but if there is another way to break through, I don't know about it. We don't have much time, Mr. Holland, and every second you waste is another second that your wife is trapped in that place.”
I want to break the door down, to go out there and tell him he's wrong, but instead I shuffle back to the scattered pictures and gather them up. I feel numb and hollow, which I guess is my mind's way of preparing for the awful images I know I'm about to see. All I can do is tell myself that I'm doing this for her, and that getting her back is the only thing that matters.
In a daze, I start looking through them.
Each is worse than the last. I see photos – some blurred and indistinct, some not – showing Mary undergoing unimaginable torture, and I have to stop several times and look away, just for a few seconds at a time. Tears are streaming down my face and my hands are trembling, but I force myself to keep going. In some of the shots, parts of her body are literally being split open. While her face is often obscured, a few of the photos show her terrified, anguished and tear-filled eyes as she screams for her life.
In one photo, I see a hand reaching into the frame, holding her throat.
In another, I see the lower half of her attacker, forcing himself into her.
This is like some sick monster's wet dream.
And slowly, despite the overwhelming sense of horror and shock, I feel a sense of anger rising in my gut. Whoever this bastard is, I'm going to find him and I'm going to make him pay for what he's doing to my wife. The anger quickly grows, as if it's flooding my body and replacing all the shock and horror. Soon anger is all I feel, and a cold sweat starts running down my face as I catch myself fantasizing about what I'll do to this bastard once I get hold of him. Whoever he is, I can't stand the thought of him enjoying Mary's misery.
Once I've looked at the last photo, I go through them again and again. I'm still trying to imagine what I'll do to the monster when I reach the Hellform world, and how I'll drag Mary away from his clutches. She'll be fine, she'll recover from her injuries so long as she's still alive, but the perpetrator...
I've never been a violent man, but for the first time in my life, I feel capable of cutting someone's throat. Then again, even that feels too quick and easy for him. I want to make him suffer first. I want him to beg for mercy before I end his miserable life. And each time I look at another of the images, I feel a little stronger, a little more determined. They're like fuel, pushing me onward.
“I'm gonna get you,” I stammer finally, as the print-outs fall from my hands. Getting down onto my hands and knees to gather them back up, I instead find myself staring down at them all. Spread out across the floor, they seem almost to be burning into my mind, and all I can do is stay completely still as I feel the desire for revenge building in my chest.
I can kill this bastard.
I want to kill him.
In my mind's eye, I see myself pushing him against a wall, with my hands around his throat. I see myself squeezing ti
ghter and tighter, ending his miserable life as he slides down the wall and his eyes start bulging from the sockets. I imagine his blood-stained hands reaching out, trying to push me away, and I imagine myself pushing down harder and feeling the life being squeezed from his body. And I imagine myself finally letting go of his lifeless corpse and standing over him, and then placing the heel of my boot against his face so I can crush his skull.
“Almost,” a voice whispers. “We're nearly there.”
Still looking at the images, I realize that I've stopped paying attention to the pictures of my wife's body getting tortured and mangled. Instead, even though my eyes are still looking at those images, my thoughts are consumed by fantasies about how I'll make her tormentor pay. I want to gut him, I want to drive a hook through his belly and tear our his intestines, and then I want to gouge out his eyes and make him eat them, and then -
I let out a sudden cry, squeezing my eyes tight shut as my thoughts are flooded. All I can think about now is the fact that I need to gain revenge.
In my mind's eye, I see myself slicing a hook through the bastard's throat and up into his mouth. I see myself torturing him until he begs for death, and then I imagine all the ways I could prolong his agony. I don't know how many hours pass, but all I can think about is the fact that I have to make him pay. A couple of times I even allow myself to imagine him dying, but then I realize I'd have nothing left to do. So I go back and imagine what it would be like to torture him again, to keep him hovering on the brink of death. To feel his warm blood flowing over my hands as he whimpers for mercy.
Suddenly another voice screams in the distance.
A woman's voice.
Mary's voice.
Looking up, I find that I'm still in the bedroom, but everything has changed. The usual furniture is gone, replaced by a crumpled, dirty bed and the same wardrobes I saw in the photos. All around, the floor and the walls are covered in blood and other body fluids, and I can hear Mary still crying out in one of the other rooms.
