The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  Anger immediately leapt up in Will's breast, but he swallowed it back. "Nothing. She didn't do anything to me. I'm looking to her for help. Now, she was around thirty-eight when she died so she's about middle-age now."

  "Middle-age? Are you stupid, or what?"

  "I'm new here."

  The man sat back with a big grin. "Fresh meat, huh? Well you've come to the right place because I know all sorts of information, but you have to give me something first. What year did you die?"

  Will was most eager to answer, but another voice, the exact match of the blonde man's spoke up from the next-door down, "Don't listen to that liar. You trade information down here and he'll suck everything out of you and give back nothing. I know because he did it to me."

  The blonde became strident, "He's the liar. You shouldn't listen to him. Now, since this is a private affair, I suggest that you whisper. What year was it that you died?"

  Will stepped back from the door and looked upon the blue eyes that stared out from the little bars with suspicion. The two voices were so alike that he had to assume that he was speaking to the same person somehow. To satisfy his curiosity, Will went to the next-door down and was amazed to see another of the grey pig-nosed beings.

  "You were smart to come to me," the pig-nose said, sounding exactly like his fellow prisoner. "I have a great deal of information that I've been holding back for..."

  Rudely, Will walked away. When the grey creature spoke, his long nose flapped upwards and it had caused him to get sick to his stomach in an amazingly short time. He made his way back to the blonde and spoke to him with authority, "We will trade information. I came here in nineteen-eighty-eight. Do you know the gypsy I was referring to? She died eight years ago and like I said she was about thirty-eight at the time."

  "All gypsies deserve hell and I would never purposely speak to one. Are you a gypsy?"

  The man's condescension grated. "What a waste of a question. No, I'm not a gypsy. My turn. How is it that you and that thing sound so much alike?"

  The loss of the question angered the man. "You're the one that sounds like that thing, not me. Maybe you two are related. That's not a question, just a guess." The man paused to see if his jibe had angered Will, but it didn't and Will only stared patiently awaiting, until the blonde continued, "I know that in nineteen forty-five, the Furhur was forced to commit suicide, but was he alone when he did? Was there anyone with him, anyone that might know where he is now?"

  "I won't answer that until you answer my last question." In truth, Will didn't know if he could answer the man's question, he remembered that Hitler had a girlfriend of some sort and that she had died with him, but he was pretty sure there might have been others, but who they were he didn't know.

  "I answered your question," the blonde said with some defiance and an even greater portion of anger.

  Will didn't like the man. "Hardly to my satisfaction."

  "That's not my issue. It's yours."

  From the next room the pig-nosed thing called out, "I can tell you why we all sound alike."

  Despite his revulsion, Will went to the thing. "I'm afraid, I won't have much information that you can possibly desire."

  "You could tell me a story...anything would do. Do you have offspring?"

  Will was loath to mention his coming child to any being from the Void, but he was also reluctant to go back on his word. "I have a baby girl on the way. Two months."

  "Is two months a long time?"

  Suddenly, he feared that he had been down in the Void well past sixty days and in desperation, he tried to calculate how long he had been there. It was impossible to know. Feeling lower than he had yet felt, he mumbled, "It's not long at all." There was a silence between them.

  "I have heard that human offspring are grown inside another human and that they eat their way out. Is that true?"

  "No."

  "You are an idiot!" the human in the other cell called out. "He's asked you three questions and hasn't answered a single one of yours. He sounds like a Jew. Ask him if there are any Jews where he's from!"

  The creature's large nostrils flared wet and pink, and it spoke with its tiny eyes downward, "Well it is true that my information is likely worth quite a bit more than your simple anecdotes. I would think another couple of..."

  Will had enough. In a blink of the pig-nosed creature's beady little eyes, he shot his arm through the bars and grabbed the long nose with one hand and pulled back with vicious strength. The thing made a small strangled trumpeting noise.

  "Why do you two guys sound alike?"

  "Oh! That hurts...stop please and I'll tell you."

  "You'll tell me right now," Will replied and added a twist to his wrist for emphasis.

  "Oh! All the lower creatures speak the same language and sound the same. The demons don't want to bother themselves with translations or dialects."

  "The girls too? They sound like the guys?" For some reason this struck Will as very strange.

  "Oh! Please stop...please." Will squeezed harder in response to the request. "Oh! No the females all sound like females. There is one in the next cell. She is young and tasty, you can ask her to prove that I'm not being dishonest."

  A young girl?

  The vision of his wife flashed in Will's mind and letting go of the long nose, he raced to the next cell, yet despite the fact that it was locked, there didn't appear to be anyone in the little room. Jumping up to the bars Will pulled himself up so he could see in properly. A girl, young and blonde was doing her best to hide against the wall, it wasn't Lisa. Yet the little that Will could see of her was painfully familiar.

  "Katie? Is that you?"

  "Go away! You're nothing but an illusion and I don't believe in you."

  "No Katie, it's really me...it's Will."

  "La,la, la! I'm not listening. La, la, la."

  Will's arms grew tired and slumping down he inspected the lock closer. It was large and crude, strong but possibly easy to pick if he could find something to pick it with. Glancing around the hall, he saw nothing that he could use.

  "Hey Katie..."

  "La, la, la, I'm not listening!" she began again drowning him out. It was annoying and it set his teeth on edge.

  "You shouldn't listen to him, little girl," the grey pig-nosed creature called out to Katie. "He's the demon in disguise."

  Now Will was truly angered and he launched himself in a fury at the cell door that held the nasty looking beast. His shoulder slammed into it, causing it to rattle appreciably, so much so that it had practically come crashing down. Immediately he forgot the beast and ran to Katie's cell and threw his shoulder against it. Three times, he repeated this before the hinges snapped and the door fell in awkwardly, still hanging by the heavy lock.

  Katie, clearly believing him to be the demon, went mad with fear. Around her neck she wore a thick metal collar and from that, a chain went to the floor. Once Will had seen someone walking a cat on a leash as if it was a dog. It was a sad thing to see, as the cat was quite incapable of understanding the concept of a leash and hurled itself about in the most extreme manner in an attempt to free herself. Katie looked eerily similar to that cat and Will worried she would hurt herself.

  Will jumped on her, easily pinning her. She felt so light and weak, also her face seemed younger than he remembered and briefly he wondered what his own face looked like. "Katie, it's really me, your brother. I'm no demon. Look me in the eyes, ok?"

  She barely glanced. "Liar!"

  Will was desperate to get her to see the truth, and he showed her in the only way he could think of to convince her. For the barest second, he allowed a little of his light to show forth. Just a glimmer, but it was enough to blind them both for a few seconds. When he could see again, he noticed that the little girl had latched onto him and was sobbing into his chest. Her grip about his waist was formidable.

  "Are you dead, too?" she asked him.

  "No, I'm not and neither are you." Sadly, Will explained what was happening a
nd what his purpose had been in coming to the Void. As he spoke, he grew more glum, his purpose was now useless. Katie had already been sacrificed to the demon.

  "I'm not dead? Shouldn't I be happy?"

  Will tried to smile to reassure her, but couldn't. Being trapped in the Void, meant happiness would be beyond her forever. Her best hope was for Will to go back to his body and then rescue her as he had done with Talitha. Yet after all the pain and death, as well as the evil, malicious insanity affecting his sister, he wasn't at all eager for the opportunity. In fact, in his heart he knew that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't. After every sacrifice that had been made for her, Talitha wanted to go back to hell. What a waste. What a waste of lives and pain.

  He loved his little sister, but he wouldn't—couldn't do it again.

  "Come on, I'm going to get you out of here."

  "We're going back to...earth? How?"

  "No, not earth, not back to your body. I'm taking you to heaven." He was shocked when she pulled back suddenly on his hand.

  "What? You're not going to rescue me properly? You rescued Talitha, but you won't rescue me? Why? Is it because you love her more?"

  "No, it's because I love you so much that I won't put you through what she went through. To save you means to leave you here, alone. It'll feel like thousands of years before I get back and Ba'al Zubel will torture..."

  "Don't say that name!" she hissed. "We're not in those dungeons...we're trapped by Ba'al Fie-ere."

  "Ba'al Fie-ere? How is that possible?"

  Katie only shrugged. Was being trapped by Ba'al Fie-ere worse or better, or did it matter at all? Will started pacing in the small cell, back and forth. "I guess it doesn't matter what demon is holding us, we still have to escape."

  "But my body?" Katie clutched herself and it was then that Will first noticed that she was just as naked as he was. He looked away.

  "I'll find your body back on earth and I'll find a way to close the gate. Now come on, before she knows I'm here." Will took his littlest sister by the hand and pulled her into the hall. Faces strained at the bars of the other cells as their occupants pushed themselves up to get a peek at them and soon whispers came.

  "Take me with you, please."

  "Take me! I know the way out."

  Take me. Take me. Take me. Up and down the corridor voices cried in hushed tones.

  "Don't listen to them, Will. They're all liars," Katie informed him. Her pretty face looked savage as she glared at the different prisoners.

  He didn't need her advice. The begging of the other prisoners rankled him to no end and he felt a good deal of hate building in his soul. It bothered him that he liked the feeling and it made him wonder how any part of Talitha was still good after all the time she had spent here. He began to run, pulling his little sister along. She began to bother him as well. Katie was slow, huffing, and puffing, stumbling.

  "Come on, faster! It's all in your mind, your body isn't even here, and besides you told me you ran track. This should be nothing."

  "In my mind?" Katie frowned a little and looked to be concentrating, soon she began running as fast as Will. In the end, it hardly mattered. It was all a set up. One second, he was dashing along the passage, taking left after left and the next, just as he saw the beginning of the shadow lands outside the dungeons, he was thrown to the ground and Katie's hand was separated from his.

  In a daze, Will climbed to his feet and saw that a heavy barred door has sprung up between him and his sister. Her hands reached out for him between the bars in a pleading fashion, she was crying in miserable fear.

  "Will, please...break the door! Break the door! I feel her coming."

  Somewhere behind her in the dark, a high cruel laugh rolled down the stones of the corridor. Without hesitation, he launched himself at the door, but this time it didn't budge. He attacked it in a fury of anger and frustration, and still nothing. His sister was trapped.

  "Don't leave me," she begged. "She's coming...she's coming. Can't you hear her? Can't you feel her?"

  "Quiet down!" Will snapped, his own fear making him angry. "You need to calm down right now. If I can't get you out of there, you'll have to do it yourself."

  "I don't know how."

  "Shush! I'm going to tell you. Somewhere near or maybe in the Void, there's a river that you can go to. While you're there nothing can happen to you, no one will hurt you. Just don't look in the water."

  "Why not? What happens?" Katie had settled down with such rapidity that Will looked at her sharply. Large endearing tears hung from her eyelashes and they sparked a distant memory of her that was just out of his grasp.

  "I'm not sure exactly what happens, but it appears, well, rather dreadful. There's something in the water or actually on top of the water that caused..." Will had to stop. Katie was leering at him with such intensity that she barely looked like herself. A faint whiff of suspicion suddenly drew him back from the bars.

  "What?" she demanded. "What's wrong? Why'd you stop?"

  "I don't know," Will said with honesty. Something wasn't right.

  Katie swung her head around to look down the tunnel behind her. There was nothing but unconquerable darkness in that direction. She turned back. "Will, I don't think we have much time. I need you. Please, tell me about the river. How do I get there?" Despite her vigorous movement, her tears still hung on to eyelashes as if they were glued there and suddenly Will remembered where he had seen those tears before.

  Years ago, long before the coming of the demon, he had let slip to Katie about the truth of Santa Claus. She had not believed him, and had gone, not to her parents, but to Talitha whom she revered for her knowledge. Talitha told her the painful truth and those tears had slid to the edge of her lashes, but hadn't fallen.

  Her look there in the dungeon on the edge of the Void was identical. Too much so. Will stepped back even further and like a cold mist, the shadows of the Void began to curl about his ankles.

  "Since when do you call me, Will?" he asked and now the shadows covered his knees.

  "Aw shit," the little girl cursed. She stood and waved away the bars as if they were smoke. "What gave me away?"

  "Just the fact that you're an evil bitch and Katie isn't. Ba'al Fie-ere, right?" Surprisingly, Will wasn't all that afraid, but all the same, he took another step back.

  "Ba'al Fie-ere in the flesh...so to speak. Do you like it? The skinny nubile look?" She posed in a sick erotic manner wearing the guise of their young sister.

  "Please stop it. It's just annoying is all," Will asked the demon as nice as he could. "Do you have Katie? Here?" He tried to put a placating smile in his voice.

  "Not yet, but soon...very soon and what's more, I will have a gate to the world. My very own gate. Thanks to that moron, Amy Harris and our dear little virgin sister. Truly, I haven't been this happy in an age." Ba'al Fie-ere stretched and as she did the tan skin of Katie tore into sick bloody ribbons and a great black beast erupted up and up. She towered high above him and he barely stood as tall as her knee. Her skin was velvet jet and looked deep and soft. An irrational part of him longed to reach out and touch her, but he fought the urge, afraid of what would happen. She was very beautiful, breathtakingly so, and he stood perfectly paralyzed in awe of her, all he could do was stare.

  She chuckled at the stunned look on his face and the sound of her laughter was vaguely musical, a combination of tubas and bass violins and deep thrumming drums. "Do you like the new me?" Will could only nod slightly and her smile broadened so that he could see the rows of tremendous white teeth filling her hungry mouth. "You are looking at the new tyrant of the Void, well almost. As soon as I get my gate, it will happen."

  There was a pause and it seemed to him that she wanted him to clap or cheer. He could bring himself to do neither and when he only stood there feeling lost, she glowered and then swatted him into the shadows as if he were a fly. It hurt terribly bad, but he still had the presence of mind to limp deeper among the dark trees of the shadow for
est that surrounded her dungeon.

  "Don't bother trying to hide, Will. I can feel your thoughts. You can't stop thinking about me, which is very flattering, but also rather stupid. There you are..." A hand the size of a loveseat grabbed him about the middle and hauled him above the tops of the shadow trees. "That was fun and here is your reward."

  Her skin, when she first picked him up, was as soft as he had expected, but now it became hard as tree bark and she squeezed. Odd sounds came from his crushed chest and ruptured lungs; she smiled down at him in a motherly way. "Now don't go thinking you're going to die so easily. Here in the Void, you can be readily healed. Now if we were in my dungeons, it would take quite a bit longer. The difference is that out here, we're in no man's land and each individual can command the shadows to a degree and really what are we if not shadows?"

  The reality for Will was that he was now almost beyond thought. His mind was all about the racking pain in his chest, as his broken ribs slid against themselves with each of his shallow breathes and her words were wasted on his ears. Ba'al Fie-ere didn't notice or care, she blew gently into his face and he could feel his lungs re-inflate and his breathing become easier. It was such a relief, that he almost thanked her.

  "Tell me about the river," she asked gently. "How do the souls get there and how do I get them back?" She waited with quiet expectation as if she was just curious, but Will could see the eagerness behind her eyes.

  "I... I...the river is... is," his words came stumbling from his mouth. He hadn't been afraid before, but now he was very much so. He had a feeling that no demon knew about the river and that to give away its secret would be to give away his only chance at escape. "I... there is, uh...uhh-ooooh! Stop, please." The demon had squeezed again at his delay. "I've only been there in my...your old dreams. I'm trying to remember how she got there." The demon's eyes narrowed slightly, but she relented and her hand opened up slightly and the phantom air of the Void rushed into his lungs.