Outside Hell

by Milo Spires

  In response to Rex clutching his chest and the knife sticking out from it, Hoidrious had leapt forwards in horror from his slouched position, and the demonic crowds surrounding the cavernous room froze tight. They’d only ever known Rex as their leader and expected him to always to be there.

  A second had past and even the four meatheads attacking Dracus had paused and then looked up in horror too. Rex’s body had given way at the knees and the grotesque form that he was, then slumped forwards and spiraled down over the edge. He’d crashed down face first into the dirt beneath it, and then lay there in a heap of red sacrificial robes not moving. A second passed and then from the silver blade within, the effects took hold and his body started to sizzle. The warriors had run over to him but by the time they’d reached him, the evil bastard had already burst into flames.

  The crowds needed no introduction to what death would look like should they ever succumb to the bite of a silver blade, and with the sight of their coven leader dead before them, suddenly their frozen states had changed into that of wild anger. Only as planned, the bowman’s friend Lucious had been watching the whole thing through a tiny peephole in the heavy stone door. He was ready for the moment that Rex was killed and as he’d seen the dagger take flight, he’d slid the bolt back on the door and started opening it to let Dracus escape.

  Dracus hadn’t waited either, the moment that he’d seen the dagger embedding itself into Rex’s chest, and the warriors turning to look behind them at their leader dying before them, he’d run.

  Then once he’d run through the doorway, he and Lucious had slammed it shut so fast behind him that the blade of surreal light that he’d seen upon coming through it earlier, hadn’t even reared it’s head.

  Then taking the two swords that Lucious had placed outside the door earlier, with their white handles and gold bands looking like serpents as they’d weaved along the leather handles, they’d charged up the eighty flights of stairs. Then once outside Lucious took his own pathway for freedom and leapt up into the moonlit sky, whilst Dracus with his magic unmasked from the deep evil that was beneath him, summoned a portal and told it to take him to Regina.

  Chapter 15 – Entering Hell

  (Racing down to HELL)

  Regina dropped to her hands and knees in agony. She was on some kind of dark grey granite slab that was hurtling down at unbelievable speeds into the pits of HELL. It was about 2 meters square and a meter thick, and by its appearance it had looked as if a giant had just ripped it up from a Manhattan walkway or something.

  Looking at her she looked like some master slayer out of a Flash Gordon movie or something that was happily travelling into battle on her flying machine, only she was not enjoying the experience at all.

  There was flame roaring off the sides of her rock in multiple colors, its effects reminiscent of that when a meteor blasts its way down through the atmosphere.

  All around her without any way to escape, the space that she was travelling through was filled with huge flames that roared up, and were so wild and full of heat that she was feeling deeply anxious and overcome by it all. She’d felt stifled and had to bury her head down underneath her chest, keeping her face inches away from the rocks hot surface, and trying desperately to shield herself away from the encroaching heat and fumes that were everywhere.

  The flames took various shapes and appeared to be fighting one another, as they’d darted viciously across the infinite space that was surrounding her.

  At the same time her mind was raging with the most intense, and unfathomably deep pain that she’d ever experienced in her whole lifetime. It’d felt as if some battle worn warrior was in her mind with a huge axe or something, and with every swing of his evil weapon, the beast was carving out huge chunks of her brain. Either that, or simply that her own head had developed masochistic interests, and was strangely trying to consume its self.

  Then turning around she’d slipped but at the last second managed to thrust her fingers out in all directions behind herself. The razor sharp nails of her former life weren’t there any longer, but somehow her quick reflexes had saved her from falling over the side, leaving her back and half her bum hanging raunchily over the edge.

  Looking down she’d swallowed deeply at the sight of what was beneath her. The drop was gigantuous in every way. It was an abyss full of ardent flames that were vehemently darting, roaring, blasting here and there and lashing in all directions as far as the eye could see. She’d never seen so many. It was like a forest fire but even more than that. If you multiplied it by say a thousand, she’d have doubted if even then you’d be close.

  Then beneath all the flames and something like fifty miles down there’d been a castle that had appeared to be carved from the mountainside. It had looked by its sandy color and flat walls and roof to be of middle-eastern design; only she’d doubted that anyone called Allah lived there. She did however have this horrible gut wrenching feeling inside of her that she’d met the owner a couple of days previously in Paris, and that he was about 8 feet tall with horns on his head, going by the name of Satan.

  It had been hard to take in everything and she’d daren’t look over the side again, but she was sure that the rock that she was standing on was heading there. The castle had been in flames and on one of the sides there’d been a pathway that led out down the side of the mountain.

  Also encircling it were massive flying demons that were obviously guarding the place from any possible unauthorized entry or escape.

  Suddenly Regina was taken back by the sheer amount of wailing screams that she could hear all around her. It was so intense and they were growing louder and louder by the second as she’d plummeted downwards at bullet like speeds. Then with each second that had passed, the increase in volume of these now deafening screams had made her head pound with unbelievable agony. They were screams of the damned. Those found guilty by GOD, the master judge of all judges. Cast out of the cue for Heaven before even seeing the Pearly gates, and then left to wander the empty planes of time, only Satan’s demons as they’d have been looking for another way in, would have then surrounded them and dragged them down into hell, kicking and screaming.

  Regina desperately tried to clamp her hands over her ears to cut out the unbearable sound, but there was so much of it coming from everywhere that it was impossible to stop. Billions upon billions of souls were screaming up at her. It was like a huge oppressive wind of great magnitude, and by the demonic levels in their screams, it’d sounded as if they were all suffering the most tormentous levels of pain and anguish, far exceeding that which anyone could possibly bare.

  All the while her headache was getting worse. It was raging out of control and because of it, she’d found that she was unable to stop herself from wanting to vomit.

  She’d felt a massive pain in her back and then her mouth had suddenly thrust open and as the intense feeling of vomit overwhelmed her, rather than food coming out, pure fire and noxious gases had roared out instead. There was so much of it, that her jaw had cracked viciously open to allow the furnace to escape.

  Startled by it, she’d tried to slam her hands across her mouth but stopped as she’d caught sight of her fingers that were now ablaze. It’d seemed that strangely the closer and closer she’d got to the castle, other parts of her body were beginning to set alight too.

  Meanwhile the granite slab that she was on began to make massive crunching noises, and then with supernova sparks bursting out from underneath it, suddenly the slabs already wild temperature had raised to a level that was almost unbearable to stand on. Every cell in her body had screamed out for escape. It was a scream for the ages full of every emotion that she’d had within her. It was a scream of fear for what was yet to come. It was a scream of rage born of the helpless woman that she’d turned into. It was also a scream of sadness because she’d the deepest feeling that she wouldn’t be leaving this place again either.

  A moment passed in her mind of wild confusion. What could she do to escape it, there
had to be something she could do? There was no way that any of this made sense at all? Seconds before she’d been standing beside her husband Kaine in the old wooden playboy shack high up in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, and now she was here. They’d gone there to confront the vampire who’d killed his parents. Then after downing a few drinks to warm up from the arctic conditions that they’d had to endure just getting there, they’d found themselves going through to the back bar. As they’d entered it was pretty much empty. She’d remembered that there were just a couple of guys there who were drinking shots at the bar, and then a small group of men who were sitting around a table in front of them drinking. Then as Kaine and her had approached them, they’d spun around ready for action like the whole thing had been a setup. She’d remembered hazily that she’d heard a noise and then as soon as a gun had been drawn, everything in her mind had gone blank. It had felt like a lifetime had passed, and then when she’d come around she was in this furnace. If there was any way she could go back up, she’d take it. Somehow Dracus do your magic that you did before in the Palace de Versailles, summon her, call her away from this place. She’d thought.

  With the desperation that she’d suddenly felt inside trying to consume her, suddenly tears of flames dripped out of her eyes, and began to roll down her cheeks.

  Then looking down she’d desperately searched for the Scareb bracelet that the bowman had given her but it wasn’t there, it had gone. How could that be?

  Regina had known the truth though and just didn’t want to admit it to herself. In her mind she was telling herself that she must be dead.

  Then with that thought she’d tried to scream, only she’d had to close her mouth again fast to block out the deeply oppressive heat that was trying to get inside.

  Then as a second past the granite rock that she was standing on started vibrating, whilst making huge crunching sounds as it slowed down even more.

  Aware that soon she’d be approaching hell’s entrance, she’d spun around half holding her painful head and half fighting to ignore it because she’d had to find a way to escape. Could there possibly be one though that Satan hadn’t seen, and that all those souls before her had missed too?

  Then with her desperate thoughts of not wanting to be there anymore, suddenly her husbands handsome face with his chiseled looks and his slicked back blonde hair flashed into her mind, and with it she’d looked up towards Heaven and prayed. She’d prayed that she would be reunited with him again and that her sins, although she couldn’t think of any, would be forgiven.

  Then suddenly a fleeting thought had visited her, one that’d caused curiosity with just how she’d found herself in this place anyway. Hell wasn’t for her; it was for those people who’d been bad in their lives. Then she’d reasoned that because she was there, Heaven must have made a terrible mistake? She’d wondered how a mother of a baby girl who’d been savagely killed, and a woman who’d never even had revenge for her death. A woman that hadn’t ever committed a single act of indecency, stolen, killed, lied or held any unjust negative thoughts towards another, (except her daughters murderer), was even in this place.

  Chapter 16 – The Raid

  (The Shack high up in Romanian mountains)

  As the soldiers had looked inside the shack, apart from the modified CS canisters that were nearly empty and only just trickling out gas in gentle plumes, the vampire women were all unconscious.

  Their lifeless bodies were filled with bullet holes and the special hollowed out bullets that were filled with MX1, had done their job. The bullets had been designed to enter the vampire and then once inside explode, releasing 10cc’s of the MX1 anesthetic.

  Vampire wounds never took longer than a day to repair themselves, so it didn’t matter about the bullet holes in them because by tomorrow when the sexy women woke up in the cells, their voluptuous bodies and massive breasts would be unmarked again, and the injuries would be gone.

  The scientists new the repair process and had made a rule not to operate on new prisoners that’d arrived to them until they’d been questioned, which was either the day after capture or maybe even two days after depending on their backlogs and current experiments. This system had ensured that their bodies would be unmarked, and that their limbs would be ready for amputation with their old and rusty, two man saws.

  Guns trained and flicking from one shadow to another, the soldiers climbed in through the destroyed timber boarding on the front of the shack. Then as their heavy snow filled military boots had landed with a thud on the floorboards beneath them, even though they were alert with their fingers poised on their triggers of their MP5 machine guns, all of them had fully expected the vampires to be out cold. They’d believed from witnessing the cannon fire tearing through the building and the ten vampire women collapsing like they’d been given a date rape drug or something, that from there on the mission would be nothing more than a bag and tag situation, only they’d been wrong.

  The back room to the left of the entrance had a chimneybreast that Kaine with his lovers limp, and Regina had past when they’d come through from the relief bar. It was solid brick and structural like the backbone of the building, and the only true reason that the timber shack had managed to stand year upon year against the extremities of nature being blasted at it.

  The cannon fire had ripped through the outer timber wall with ease, and then because the bullets were full of the MX1 liquid, instead of going through they’d literally disintegrated, as they’d hit the chimneybreast.

  Sorchek and his band of unruly vampires who taken part in Kaine’s capture and Regina’s death, had been in the back room slamming down drinks when the choppers had landed. Then as they’d heard the bikini chicks running along the corridor above them, he’d leapt off his bar stool to run into the front room. Only when the bullets had ripped the face of the shack to pieces and then ricocheted around taking victims, he’d dived for cover behind the chimneybreast. Then when the cannon fire had stopped, he’d swung his head around and looked into the front room. It was unbelievable, the blizzard had entered the shack and the dust that was falling down from the ceiling was instantly sucked out into it, whilst mountains of snow and ice were blasted in. Then as he’d seen his bikini chicks literally lined with bullet holes from head to foot, and watched them as they’d struggled to stand before collapsing and passing out, he’d known then that he was in deep shit.

  Then seconds later and as the howling blizzard from outside had grown even stronger and with it threatened to suck him out into the room as well, suddenly strange metal canisters had been thrown inside that were pumping out thick white gas, and that’s when he’d decided to leave.

  Sorchek had spun around and then as he’d charged for the bar, he’d leapt over Kaine’s paralyzed body and trod heavily on Regina’s headless corpse. Only to be sure that he’d have enough time to leave, he’d told his vampire brothers that were still there with him, to get outside and fight the intruders.

  Then as they’d locked and loaded their weapons and were struggling to breath from the gas that had found its way into their room, and rather than helping them, he’d leapt over the bar sending dirty glasses crashing everywhere as he’d gone for the trap door instead. Only as he’d dropped down the other side he’d realized that he had to lift the carpet up first and there was boxes of beers on top of one of the sides, and the other side was firmly wedged underneath the storeroom door. Then as he’d heard his brothers coughing deeply before their bodies had made a huge crashing sound as they’d succumbed to the MX1 drug and passed out, he’d raised his head to glance back over the bar and grinned at their stupidity for staying anyway. Only then as he’d heard heavy boots walking across the floorboards in the next room and coming in his direction, he’d thought fuck the carpet and ripped it out of the way with his razor sharp black fingernails instead.

  The carpet had torn straight across revealing the hatch beneath it.

  Only when he’d finally got the trap door up and was just about to drop d
own through it, he’d heard human voices that were deeply muffled like they were behind masks and screaming at him to stop. Sorchek had thought fuck this and then dropped down through the hole with high velocity bullets zipping overhead, and smacking into the floorboards behind him. Then as he’d leapt over a snowmobile and wiped away the piles of snow that were covering the steering column, he’d turned the key and pressed the electric start. The engine had unenergetically whimpered in disgust and struggled to turn over, with the lights blinking badly suggesting that the battery was dead. Then as the soldiers bullets had rained down at him through the trap door, he’d leapt off it and tried another snowmobile that was out of sight from their weapons.