The Lord of Always

by David Brian

  Peter fell into distress, his face graying with the prospect of this further abandonment. “You’re just like Daddy. He left and never came back. You’re just like Daddy.”

  “I’ll be back, kid. It’s just I’ve got things to do. And it’ll be safer and easier all round if you’re not with me. But I will come back for you.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, tears tracking his face as he balked at the prospect of being alone again. Truthfully though, I couldn’t blame him for feeling this way. I realized fairly rapidly that I would have to keep the boy with me; even as dangerous as traveling to the bowels of this house was likely going to be. The kid wasn’t in any fit state to be left behind, and the noise he was making would likely soon draw attention – assuming it hadn’t already.

  “Alright, kid, you win. But you need to stop your blabbering, okay?”

  Thankfully it didn’t take too long for me to settle the boy, and my sworn promise to keep him by my side succeeded in calming him.

  A short while later I was able to take hold of Peter’s hand, and lead him through the dark toward the stairs. It was at this point I found myself uttering a silent petition to ancestors whom I’d never considered – let alone bothered trying to converse with. Still though, I found myself pleading their assistance in helping me to save both Peter and his mother from further pain. I also begged they oversee a safe reunion with Roz.

  Just as we reached the staircase, what sounded like a male voice emanated through the depths of the building. The scream curdled my soul, and Peter’s fingers tightened, his nails digging into the flesh of my palm. A second cry confirmed the source of the noise. I whispered vain reassurance as the child first stiffened, then melted into a tremulous wreck. Despite vain words of encouragement, it would have been obvious even to a village fool that there was dreadful suffering being inflicted beyond these stairs. I asked myself once more: Should I risk keeping the boy with me as I move farther into the house?

  My free hand slipped to the bulky tool-belt, confirming I hadn’t displaced any of the fluid it carried. Lifting a bottle from the holster, I handed it to Peter. I had already primed him on when and how best to use the fluid. Withdrawing the blade from my shoulder strap, I scooted Peter up with my left arm so he could angle his bottle over my shoulder. He smiled as I told him: “I’m relying on you to watch my six.”

  I withdrew another bottle and placed it into my left hand; holding it before me, I stepped into the darkness below.

  Chapter 30

  As we descended, the stale heaviness of the air caused us to draw short, irregular breaths. It was a purposeful effort to avoid breathing in the clinging decay of this lower level, but even shallow breathing didn’t alleviate the nausea twisting my gut. In the darkness, I could feel Peter burying his nose against my shoulder, his small frame trembling with fear. The steps beneath my feet proved sturdy, and this at least offered a measure of relief. I’d expected them to creak and groan; betraying us with every step taken. Even before we reached the bottom of the stairwell my eyes began adjusting to the gloom, and I realized we were coming onto another passageway, considerably narrower than the one above. The brickwork here felt damp and crumbly.

  As we proceeded on, the boy at my shoulder began making odd gargling noises, fidgeting against me in an effort to further conceal his face. The odor of decay was making him retch, and I have to admit to being both surprised and relieved that he managed to refrain from puking over me.

  I remained conscious of the fact that the kid likely wouldn’t spot any threat approaching from the rear. He was struggling even more than I with the reek of this place.

  Not for the first time since arriving in this monstrous dwelling, I fumbled for a light-switch. This time my efforts were rewarded.

  Peter raised his eyes toward the bare bulb. Its cord invisible in the dull overhead, I was reminded of the stories I’d heard in Suez, our pilots reporting balls of light in the skies. These same foo fighters had been reported trailing planes throughout WW2, and were then present during our desert operation. The solitary bulb cast unsettling shadows along the corridor, its spiteful glow resembling a mini archon. Could the archons be responsible for those foo fighter sightings? They certainly have a penchant for conflict.

  Scant light reflected off the damp concrete beneath my feet, and somewhere farther along the passageway a leaking pipe drip-dripped, coating the floor of the corridor with a gleaming luster, a silver slug-trail inviting me along a road toward oblivion.

  My dark thoughts were broken as Peter whispered in my ear. “It’s this way,” he said pointing into the gloom.

  “You sure, kid? You remember this corridor?”

  His head nodded against my shoulder. “Nana brought me back this way…Nana brought me along here after Mommy…”

  A sniffle escaped the boy’s lips, but he stifled any further outpouring by biting into his bottom lip.

  “We’re going to find your Mom, Petey. That’s a promise, Okay?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Okay.”

  “Good boy. We’re going to keep moving now, but you tell me the next time you see anything looks familiar, alright?”

  “Right,” he agreed.

  “Good lad.” I lowered him to the floor. “Best you walk for a bit, just in case I need to start kicking some monster butt.”

  He didn’t protest my not carrying him, although his eyes revealed a lack of conviction in the bravado of my words. We moved carefully along the hallway, the dim pool of light cast by that solitary bulb fading behind us. I half expected to meet disaster by way of something leaping out of gloomy shadows, although the narrowness of the passageway limited the plausibility of such a scenario. Nonetheless, I insisted Peter hang a hand on the belt fastened at my waist. I needed to feel his presence, even as my eyes scanned the darkness ahead.

  Finally, we reached a door at the far end of what seemed an impossibly long corridor, though it proved only scant relief. We found ourselves in a second, equally narrow passageway. Peter again intimated we were headed in the right direction, a zig-zag of rancid goo stained the walls, and its patterning and stench left the boy with no doubt this was an obscenity he had passed previously. Of more concern even than the smell, was the ramping up of volume along this level. The noises we were hearing were of unified suffering, a multitude of voices crying in pain and fear. My heart thumped in my chest, and I was compelled to take Peter in my arms, raising the boy to me as another wave of fear stifled him.

  I forced myself onwards, and soon we came to a T-junction. Thankfully, even though rigid with fear, it took relatively little persuasion before Peter was able to indicate taking the opening to our right.

  The passageway opened onto a wider area, and after another scrabble to find a light switch, it was revealed to be a white-walled cellar, stacked with assortments of bric-a-brac and old furniture. There were four archways leading off from the cellar, with the one before us obviously leading to the source of the horrors being perpetrated. At this stage I regretted having Peter with me, the boy had already experienced way too much. I considered leaving him hidden among the junk of the cellar, concealed in the dim shadows until I returned with Roz, and hopefully his mother and grandfather, too. I doubted Peter would be in favor of what he would see as further abandonment, but I felt obliged to make the suggestion.

  I barely commenced making the proposition when something caused the both of us to start. Whatever the spark of this joint intuition, the fear on Peter’s face – along with the sudden sense of revulsion crawling over my flesh, and the frightful drumming of my heart – prompted us to hide. We crouched behind an old sofa – even given the danger of the situation, I still found time to observe the absurdity of someone having managed to maneuver what was the biggest leather couch I’d ever seen through such narrow corridors; the how, and also the madness of why anyone would bother, is doubtless a mystery destined forever to remain unanswered. Regardless, our knowing something was amiss proved our salvation.

  Two fi
gures appeared from the opening to our left. The long faces of the archons being as androgynous in appearance as the fiend who ruled over them, their skin, pale almost to the point of translucence, even more so than she we encountered in the village. Such was the sheerness of the membrane covering them, it allowed us to observe the multitude of creatures worming their way, wriggling and chewing, burrowing – seemingly unnoticed by either host – through the almost-too-soft inner flesh of their bodies. I glanced at Peter; he was the color of fallen snow. The horror of seeing these hideous minor burrowers, infecting what were already monstrous hosts; it was too much for any rational mind to endure. The archons shimmered and pulsed as they moved, their radiance further highlighted by the dull lighting of the room. I too was grossed out by these eerie, ghostlike apparitions, although grossed out is, I assure you, an understatement of considerable magnitude. If I hadn’t already realized it, I now conceded this time I was spending in Cornwall, was the all time low in my life.

  My arm comforted Peter’s shoulder, and I could feel his tension as the two devils passed almost too close. Neither of us dare take a breath, lest even a minor exhalation would alert them to our presence. They appeared to be communicating, although it was in a manner I couldn’t qualify as any language known to me – or indeed, I guessed, anyone native to this Earth. The noises they vocalized were painfully high-pitched. It was a racket best described as resembling birds chirping; though these chirps were accompanied by another din, one not unlike the hiss of a thousand kettles singing to the boil.

  I watched as they crossed the room, in the direction of the archway opposite from whence they came. They stopped for a moment, seemingly listening to something of which Peter and I were unaware. We remained frozen, desperately hoping we hadn’t been discovered. I knew the liquid we carried was deadly to these fiends, and I would have no problem attempting grievous harm on either of them. But common sense suggested our remaining undetected offered the best chance of recovering our loved ones, and perhaps freeing other unfortunates too. If, then, we should be forced to fight our way to freedom, so be it. But it was a battle best avoided for now…best avoided for as long as possible.

  I needn’t have worried.

  After only a short hesitation the archons proceeded on, though not in the manner I’d expected. Their course took a slight alteration, veering off to the left of the doorway. With a loud fizz, crackle and pop, they disappeared through the solid brickwork. We remained transfixed, both of us staring wide-eyed at the white wall of the cellar through which they passed – as easily as ghosts on a haunting. We stayed hidden for a few minutes longer, both, I suspect, convinced that should we dare leave the minor security of our hiding place, then this would be the precise moment the archons would choose to make a return.

  Finally, I indicated to Peter the need for us to move. With considerable haste, I took hold his hand and ushered him in the direction of the far exit. We passed into another poorly lit passageway, and on toward the area from which horrendous sounds of agony still emanated. As we proceeded I uttered another silent prayer, begging George Smoke not to fail us.

  The hallway seemed to go on forever. An exaggeration of-course, but it certainly took several minutes of hesitant advancement before we finally closed on the source of those wretched cries.

  I touched a finger to my lips and then turned the palm of my hand toward Peter, indicating for him to stay back while I checked the situation ahead. He nodded nervously, saucer eyes confirming he had no desire to encounter whatever lay ahead. As it turned out, my instructing him to hold back proved a wise move.

  Chapter 31

  It proved to be a good call leaving Peter hidden in the shadows. I shouldn’t have wanted him seeing the things I saw. It was a sight never unseen. I can’t help but wonder if the mental ordeal of such a spectacle has played some longer-term part in the trauma now afflicting my mind.

  Away to my left, heavy steel doors rested open, revealing a cavernous chamber and scenes of brightly lit torment I could barely comprehend. Perhaps a dozen men, women, and children, their wrists secured by black iron restraints, were shackled to a gray-rock wall more closely resembling the stonework within a cave. There were close to a dozen of the archons idling within the room. In the farthest corner, a trio of hoggish squatted over a bloodied mass spread about the floor. Their hulking bodies jostled in petty squabbles, gaping mouths hungrily seeking out the spilled innards of what had once been a male child.

  The archons gathered around a set of six slate-gray stones, set about to form a circle. Each stone was a slab more closely resembling some archaic mortuary table. Atop each of the stones lay prisoners in restraints, displayed in various states of health and undress. My mind reeled as I tried to comprehend what I was witnessing; writhing, pain inflicted bodies. It was mainly females strapped atop these slabs, but there was one doomed man among the group. And his were the cries which had led us here. I was amazed he remained conscious, his bloody sobs mollified by the removal of his tongue, now placed centrally on his chest. Arms and legs having been torn from his body, the brutality of the acts confirmed by the ragged wounds inflicted on his torso; and yet even the sight of this limbless man didn’t fully expose the hideous nature of the crime. It was only when I saw toes and fingers discarded about the floor, hands removed from forearms which in turn had been separated from flensed biceps, feet ripped or gnawed free of lower legs now cruelly detached from skinned thighbones, I accepted for the first time that Roz may be lost to me.

  Most of the captive women seemed beyond compos mentis, but they stilled screamed, relentlessly. Many of these women were missing limbs. Though, bizarrely, barely any blood leaked from the numerous wounds; each brutality having been cauterized. Every messy end of leg, or wrist, or arm, wherever remained a blackened stump to display, there was also a glow of cinder and the reek of cremated flesh. Another body, seemingly that of a young woman, lay dead on a slab alongside those still enduring. The removal of this girl’s arms – her right cleaved just above the elbow, the left severed almost at the shoulder – was, despite the brutality of such action, most likely not the cause of her demise. A deep gash opened her from midriff to sternum, and flesh had been stripped from her lower limbs. But even such atrocities as these decried the probable cause of death. The woman’s head was missing, and the carrying out of this final brutalization seemed a far more likely explanation for her extinction. The creatures might have inflicted this final indignity post-mortem, but given the relish these monsters seemed to garner from the misery they inflicted, and the crescendo of cries still echoing through these bloody chambers, I suspected they kept her alive for as long as they could force her to endure. Either way, the removal of this girl’s head, and the charcoal stub of neck that remained, it proved a final cruelty delivered upon this young soul.

  Shaking with fear and rage, welling with sorrow and disbelief, I turned wet eyes to others held captive. Each and every one in restraints, arms and legs splayed and bound on altars, or held by iron-manacles affixing them to the walls of this dungeon. There were at least another ten figures, half of them female, and all but two displaying serious wounds to their person. Several had suffered barbarous amputations, and even beyond this fact each had perhaps half-dozen or more further mutilations. It was a sight which served only to affirm what the cries leading our approach had suggested; these poor souls were already beyond any assistance I might offer. They were likely beyond assistance on any level – other than perhaps the spiritual.

  There was nothing I could do, and this would be the case even if I found some way to negate this gathering of fiends. Sick with my own guilt – as much for the fact their plight was beyond my assistance as for the relief I felt when realizing Roz wasn’t among them – I knew I must move on. It sickened me to admit it, but these people had never been my priority.

  Waiting in the stillness of the corridor until I was sure none of the monsters were facing my direction, finally I retreated to the shadows, back along the corridor
to where minutes earlier I had left the frightened boy.

  Peter squatted with his back to the wall, still shaking, fists pressed into balls and resting on his temples. His eyes squeezed shut in the way children do when they believe that their not seeing will prevent some great evil from descending in the gloom of the night. But there were no bedclothes here under which this child could seek refuge from his monsters.

  “Peter.” The boy started in response to my hushed summons, and my heart melted as I saw the relief inspired by my return. “You okay, kid?”

  He offered a less than convincing nod, and I gestured for him to assume his prior position at my shoulder. As I scooped the child onto my arm, he aimed the squeezy bottle over my left shoulder.

  “I’m covering our six,” he whispered, and I couldn’t resist a smile.

  “Good lad.” I gave what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze, and then began moving along the passageway. Attempting as much stealth as unsteady legs would allow, lurking back in the shadows of the corridor, I purposely kept a hand to the side of Peter’s head, pulling him into my shoulder and turning him from the horrors at the open doors of the chamber. Once clear of the torture room I began moving with greater haste through the dim corridor. The air was no longer tainted solely by the stale sense of decay; instead it now seemed to carry the added promise of a painful, bloody end.

  At this one moment, any fleeting fantasy I may have harbored with regards being some sort of heroic savior figure for those held within the confines of this place had now been replaced by a solitary, terror induced need to find Roz, and to reunite Peter with his remaining loved ones – assuming any of the boy’s kin still were remaining – and then get us the hell out of this nightmare.

  There was scant relief when we reached the end of the corridor. Peter wriggled in my arms as he realized we faced another narrow staircase. This one descended steeply into murky gloom.