by Rich Hayden
Amil couldn’t remove his gaze from the shy being as it peered at him from behind the safety of rotted wood. It wasn’t until Amil inched backward, and broke the mutual stillness of their common stare, that the Spirit Ripper again resumed its spastic gait. Quicker than Amil could properly witness, the beast lashed its arms around one tree and then the next as it sped away, until nothing more was left of it than the commotion stirred among the branches.
Amil exhaled deeply and looked again to the woman with whom he had been speaking. She sighed at him and turned her face away. She knew he wanted answers, even if they were unpleasant, for the explanation of troubles always seems to bring about a sense of comfort, but for the questions in his eyes, there were no answers. He respected her plea for solitude, and as Aphelianna instructed, he continued toward the mansion in the distance.
He passed woman after woman, each spiked up and bound to an unimaginable misery. Some groaned as he walked by, others attempted to engage him, and a few even heckled him with showers of obscenity and spittle. But Amil paid no attention to them, as a swelling guilt was his to bear as he solemnly pulled his crippled body through the grove. With the prospect of seeing another crucified little girl, he tried not to look up as he pressed further into the orchard. This was quite a difficult task to accomplish, for there is an intangible intrigue that rests alongside abject horror that draws the human eye.
Amil would never know why, but in a fateful instant, he allowed his body to stop, and he again raised his eyes to the Spirit Ripper’s trophies. It was an act that served to give him a new understanding of the definition of pain.
Tied to a thin tree by a mass of knotted rags was the body of the love of Amil’s earthly life. Ali was rawboned, much skinnier than he remembered, and, other than the rags, she was naked. Her face had been creased by deep lines of age and her skin was dotted by goose bumps. A dull glaze coated her blue eyes. Lethargic in their movements, they stared to the sky above. The thick brown hair that once framed her face in a shroud of enchantment hung limp and thin.
Amil screamed, a howl of madness into the air, until his lungs depleted themselves and failed to offer to his mouth the bare necessities for speech. Like an animal that begs for the mercy of a death that refuses to come, he walked sullenly over to Ali’s tree. As her feet dangled before his face, his arms wrapped around the rotted trunk and his head rested against the bony pillow of Ali’s shins. His mouth dropped incoherent pleas for forgiveness, as he continued to clutch at the most beautiful part of the wonderful life he had so foolishly squandered.
“Please, stop touching me,” Ali meekly voiced.
“Ali, I’m...so...sorry,” sighed Amil as he looked up to her in disbelief.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Wh...what? It’s me...Amil.”
“Just leave me alone, please.”
Amil could feel her skin as it trembled, and he heard the fright in her voice. As she continued to gaze into the sky, he sensed her panic. The fact that he was unable to chase her fears away, or to bring her any amount of comfort, hurt him the way no weapon could, but what cut him the deepest was Ali’s refusal to look upon him.
“Ali, please...look at...me.”
“I don’t know who you are. Please, I’m so scared. Just let me go.”
“Ha! The new ones are always so timid,” a gruff voice cackled.
Amil twisted his head around and glared into the direction of the words. Cloaked in a red nightgown, and pinned into the highest branches of a tree, was an old woman. She barely had any hair, and all but a few crooked teeth had fallen out of her mouth. She looked at Amil and sneered at the sight of a young man as he held on tightly to the slender legs of his love.
“What did...you say?” he commanded of her.
“Y...y...y...you don’t talk so well, do ya?” she teased.
“Fu...fuck...you.”
“It was probably just days ago. He chased her down and strung ’er up! It was real quick like, she didn’t even fight too much as he fondled around with ’er. You wanna know how he did it? First, dem tentacles got up under her clothes and stripped ’em off. Whoosh! Then, dem feelers got all over her skin and those nails started a cuttin’-”
“Shut up!”
“Fine, I’ll stop,” the woman stated indifferently, with a shrug. “Was pretty interesting if you ask me, though. Anyway, she ain’t said but two words before you come along.”
“Wh...why doesn’t she...recognize me?”
“The hell should I know, boy?”
His eyes lifted back up to Ali. She looked so sad, so hopeless and distant. She didn’t return his stare, and she didn’t appear to have any interest in the exchange between Amil and the old woman. Ali just blankly stared off into nothing.
“I...wo...won’t let...you stay here. I promise,” he whispered, and kissed her feet.
As Amil recalled the warning given to him from the woman in the tattered gray clothing, he elected to leave Ali upon the tree. As he looked upon her, and then found the strength to turn away, his face twisted in pain. He clenched his teeth and sunk his fingers into the acidic soil below him. Rising to his feet, with eyes downturned, he staggered away, in search of answers, of any solution that might properly reunite him with Ali.
As he trolled though the orchard, Amil was made to realize that Ali had died. It was an impossible occurrence for him to contemplate. She looked significantly older, but for how long had he been in this wretched place? Did the hours turn to days? Had he wandered the fields and this accursed grove for years? Or had it taken Aphelianna this long to tear him from the material bindings of the earth? Perhaps when eternity is the measure of existence, time loses all importance and urgency.
“Please...help me,” he begged to the base of the tree that held the woman who had attempted to comfort him earlier.
“Was that you I heard screaming? The voices of men aren’t heard here very often.”
Amil just nodded.
“Did you find something terrible?”
“Yes, my...Ali. She didn’t even kn...know me.”
“I’ve seen this happen before. It is very painful to witness.”
“Wh...what is?”
“You see, when we pass from the earth, most of us do so without the retention of our memories. Many have little scraps, while others are just blank slates. I’m sorry, it can’t be helped.”
“But I...kn...know her. Her name is...Ali, and she’s very-”
“Not anymore, now she’s just a shell. You should be grateful that she didn’t bring her memories to this place. It only makes it more difficult,” she whispered.
“Then why...do I know her?...I remember everything.”
“You’re a Ghost, and so am I.”
“A Ghost?” asked Amil.
“That’s what we’re called, the ones who carry all their memories into this place.”
“Can I save...her?”
“No, she is lost,” the woman assured quietly, but with conviction.
“Where are...you?” screamed Amil, his eyes in search of the Spirit Ripper. “Where are...you...you wretched...where are you? Show yourself!”
“Please stop! He won’t come, and you won’t find him. There’s nothing to be done, just leave this place and pray that your memories fade with time,” she calmly stated, with a quality in her voice that resembled love, if only love were permitted to exist in such a place.
“Have...your memories faded? Ho...how long have...you been here?” demanded Amil.
“I was drowned, in Europe, for practicing witchcraft. I honestly don’t remember the exact year,” she admitted.
“God...the witch hunts,” muttered Amil.
“Hmm, God, I was killed in his name.”
“Have...you really been here that...long?”
“In what year did you die?” she asked, with a tremble of hesitation in her voice.
“It was the 21st century,” Amil said. He was unwilling to give the exact year. Uttering such a fact aloud se
emed too cruel, although, he couldn’t be sure who exactly his vague answer was designed to shelter.
The woman closed her eyes, and Amil knew that she was made to reflect upon all that she could still remember as he devastated her with the news of all the time that had passed. Tears slipped from under her closed lids and her mouth formed words, although their sound was muted, and, like the rest of her prayers, they were meaningless.
“Please, leave this place. You can’t help Ali, and you can’t help me. Just go, find your own way in this nightmarish world.”
Amil nodded again. He knew that he reminded her too much of a life long gone. His presence was upsetting to her, and, in a way, the most comforting gesture that he could offer was to leave her alone again to hang from the tree. As he turned away, he watched as a few of the crows returned and landed upon the branches and the prizes that they held. A few of the birds settled down upon the outstretched arms of his acquaintance. One of the birds pricked her skin with its beak, an act that made her flinch, but most rested quietly upon her body. She had been there for so long, that after such a vast expanse of time, it appeared as if the woman and the crows had actually formed a sort of kinship. It was a monstrous reality, and, as Amil thought of Ali, and all the birds which surely bit into her naked skin, he walked back toward Aphelianna and the fountain.
Part 4. The challenge of Aphelianna
“Help her! Help h...her!” begged Amil in a scream, as he approached Aphelianna as she again rested next to the water of her sickened fount.
As she watched him laboriously advance upon faulty legs, she rose from the stone. She saw him emerge from the orchard, and in the grief that contorted his face, Aphelianna saw another chance for salvation. No doubt his task would end with the same result as all the others, but if he was brazen enough to beg for her challenge, she would oblige him.
“Cut her d...down. Hel...help her, save her,” he commanded meekly, as he came within a few steps of her.
“Your concerns are not mine, and even if I desired to grant whatever insignificant whim that you have, I am powerless to do so.”
With no reservation, Amil drew back and attempted to strike Aphelianna. His fist froze in flight, inches before her face, and he felt as his entire body was rendered immobile and held in suspension by an impenetrable nothingness. Held captive by forces unknown to him, Amil watched in a terrified helplessness as Aphelianna leaned in toward him. She rested her forehead against his, and with this act, the feckless corpse of a man was treated to another patch of frostbite.
“Please, let...me go. I must...he...help Ali,” he begged.
Aphelianna turned away, and, in concert, Amil’s body was dropped to the ground. As he lay next to the cracked stone of her fountain, he stared again into the fields and the mass of the reanimated dead as they awaited Aphelianna’s guidance. He focused on a girl, maybe no more than 16, who wore a green t-shirt that read, Atlanta! - 2050. She had a gruesome gash in her neck, and the left side of her face was smashed in, but it was not her damage that troubled Amil. The year printed on her shirt, and the man beside her who wore a powered wig, confirmed that the dead of the past and of the future yet to come stood before him.
Amil thought of Ali. How long did she wallow among their ranks before being seized by the Spirit Ripper? Weeks? A millennia? For that matter, how long had he stood there within that sorrowed mass before wandering off and then back again, only to awaken alone? Time made no sense to him. Up was down and quick turned to slow, as everything he had known before was relegated to the description of inconsequential. All that remained was pain.
“Please, help...me,” he again said.
“Why?” asked Aphelianna as she turned, returning her audience to him.
“I need to...help Ali. She...doesn’t...deserve this.”
“I suppose she is now one of the Spirit Ripper’s pets, yes?”
“Wh...what is that thing?”
“He got what he deserved,” she offered coldly.
As Aphelianna relayed this information to Amil, as cryptic as it was, it made him shudder. For he now knew that the Spirit Ripper wasn’t some mindless beast acting upon the nature of its kind. It was something else, something perverted that was under the curse of a divine punishment. He wondered if the condition of the Spirit Ripper was Aphelianna’s doing, and, if so, what could she do to him?
“Don’t...let her...don’t let this be...her fate.”
“What would you do to free her?” asked Aphelianna with a stroke of sorrow in her voice.
“Any...anything. Just make her...sa...safe. Let me...let me hold her again.”
“I will secure her release, but there is something you must first do for me,” Aphelianna explained.
“Wh...what is it?”
“Somewhere in that house, there is a key. It hangs from the neck of my sister, Isadora. She sleeps while I suffer, out here alone to bear this curse. Bring me that key, free me of this curse, and I will free your Ali.”
“...you were sentenced to...this?” asked Amil, in bewilderment.
“Yes. That house was once mine and those fields were once lush. But now I am unable to return, that is part of my arrangement. I have sat here alone, tending to these things, since the Earth began its travel around the Sun. I tire of this duty, I long to go home.”
The end of Aphelianna’s speech was whispered, and for the first time, Amil saw her as a living creature with the same wishes and hopes of all beings.
“How do I...find her?” he asked.
“With this.”
Aphelianna drug her hand through the muck of the fountain’s water, and, when her thin fingers again surfaced, she produced an archaic-looking key. It was large, and looked to have been formed from a dull metal. The edges were brittle, and it was beaten into a crude shape. The key hung from a length of scrawny metallic rope, which Aphelianna then lowered over Amil’s head.
As the charm came to rest against his body, a violent sensation rushed forth. He fell to the ground, as all the blood in his veins turned hard and sharp. It resumed its travel with a furious rapture, and, in doing so, it delivered a torturous agony to him. After intense minutes of this maddening feeling, the fluid again turned soft and warm below his skin. His heart awakened and beat once more. Amil felt as the injured muscles and bones of his legs repaired themselves, and the hole through the roof of his mouth sealed itself over. His skull was healed, the blur left his eyes, the sense of hearing returned to his deafened ear, and his speech was freed of its handicap.
As he continued to wallow on the cool stone of the ground, Amil found this reawakening of his bodies’ systems to be a temporary sensation. He felt his heart stop again, and though his lungs still heaved, they processed nothing. But it was the pain that had died away. His body actually felt good, physically strong, and somehow rejuvenated.
“Get up,” she whispered. “I have given you the means to find her, and I have erased the frailty of your being. Now, to your purpose,” Aphelianna instructed as Amil still lay in a ball, panting like a dog.
“Where do I even begin to look?”
“There are many rooms in the mansion, most of them are locked. That key will allow you to pass to where others cannot tread. It will open one door for every year of your human life.”
“How many rooms are there?”
“No one really knows. But there is one room for every year of age for every human that has ever lived,” she admitted with a smirk. The small smile that found her lips curved into a sliver of wickedness, like a chiseled slice of a new moon as it hangs among the empty sky. Amil felt her malevolence, but there was something more in her expression, something hidden. It told of defeat and hopelessness. It was a smile that one makes when confronted with a long task already failed.
“You tricked me! This is impossible! I’m only thirty-seven,” he said, in saddened disbelief.
“Then that is your obstacle to overcome, and your task is not impossible. Choose your rooms wisely, and find Isadora. You will
know her room, it is unlike any other. When you find her, take the key. Do not hesitate, and bring it back to me,” Aphelianna said.
“What does it open?”
“What it opens doesn’t concern you. Just bring it back, and I will grant your wish.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll never find the fucking thing anyway,” muttered Amil, below his breath.
“Oh, you better. Think of Ali if you like, but I will give you a much greater incentive against failure.”
They were there the whole time, this was certain, the most abysmal and vicious creations of all hell and ill-conception. They silently crept through the fields and the grounds of Aphelianna’s mansion. They skulked through the orchard of the crucified, too monstrous for even the Spirit Ripper to pay them any mind, and they surely roamed the halls and rooms that Amil was asked to navigate.
Gangly and of only the most perverse human description, these beasts were cloaked in a skin that was terribly burnt over the majority of the body. What hair they had grew wild and matted, while the nails of the fingers and toes were vacant, leaving only platforms of diseased flesh in their absence. The eyes were gone, but the openings of the mouth and the nostrils were all too occupied. Streams of vile slime, mostly black in hue, fell from the orifices and further decorated the bodies in a miserable sheen.
Some stood tall and erect, while most were hunched and bent into a pained submission by the unforgiving assault of arthritis. There were those who crawled upon the ground, as just the task of existing seemed sufficient enough a labor to call down the punishment of one thousand hells. All groaned, some seemed to cry and emanate other mournful squeals, but the most insufferable noises of all were the dry screams that tore at the throats of these wretched things. They bit at each other and swiped like wounded dogs if another of their kind strayed too close, and, as he watched them snarl, Amil knew that they were creatures bereft of any kindness or restraint.
