Highway To Hell

by Alex Laybourne

  It was then that Becky felt the tremors, felt the floors beneath them begin to melt and roll as if they stood on a waterbed. She threw out her arms for balance as the screams in her head grew worse. The cries of those who were left behind, strapped to their tables for however long their sentences were deemed to be, the cries of her daughter’s life, marred and influenced by the absent parents, the mother who cared so much for her baby and died in a fight to keep her, and the faceless father who didn’t even know she existed. Becky’s world became vague, her head became warm and heavy, and she was sure that she cried out her daughter’s name before the darkness consumed her.

  VII

  “It’s okay. We’ve got you.” It was him; the cop. He had caught her and pulled her into the center of the room, away from it all. While the entire room still trembled, the ground underfoot felt sturdy.

  Becky’s vision continued to shimmer; it was like looking down a long stretch of road on a hot summer’s day. She hadn’t lost consciousness; she had passed out enough times in her life to know this was different. She looked back at the hole in the floor. The wailing was gone, the sobbing vanished, the fires of hell extinguished and replaced instead by a simple hole in the ground. There was a faint light in the center but its source was still some way off.

  The ground stopped shaking so abruptly that it threw them all off balance.

  “Are you okay?” Helen asked. “Come on, you’d better sit down for a second.” She took a step closer to Becky, but stopped. She didn’t want to get any closer to the trapdoor than was necessary.

  “No... No, I’m fine. Did you guys hear that? As it opened, did you hear the screaming?” Becky asked, her voice still trembling from the images that her head had produced.

  “I didn’t hear anything. Did you, Marcus?” Helen answered before reposing the question to the man they had unofficially elected their leader.

  Marcus gave no answer at first; his attention was diverted to the whole in the floor. “No, I didn’t hear anything.” He looked up at the two women. “I think it’s this place; it plays tricks with your mind. When I first got here I kept hearing my wife calling my name – well, more yelling my name, and…” He paused. “Well, the finer points aren’t necessary details at the moment.” He stopped. They didn’t need to know everything yet. Not about his past at least. What would be the point?

  “I have it, too,” Helen said just as the silence began to settle. “I keep seeing Luther, the thing who tortured me in Hell,” Helen added, speaking the words before she had a chance to think them through. They leapt from her mouth like a juicy good secret. She was shocked at herself; usually she kept her problems to herself; why would anybody else be interested in what was wrong with her life? Everybody had problems; she knew that.

  Marcus moved closer, leaning over the hole, peering into its depth to get a better picture of what faced them. All he saw was a tunnel that descended on the vertical, before turning into a slope that headed away from the hotel – outside – taking the light with it. There was rickety ladder which looked as though it were as old as the earth itself. Marcus understood that at that same moment they would have to make the descent and trust that the wood wasn’t too rotted. It looked old and unstable; a homemade contraption from planks of driftwood and rusty nails – but at the same time he had a feeling that it would hold.

  “Well I’ve found the way, it would seem,” he said as he stood up straight again, hearing his back pop as he stretched.

  The two women moved next to him and peered over the hole, both grabbing a hold of Marcus as they did so. Both fully expected their respective demons to come charging at them through the darkness like Graboids, taking them back down below where punishment would be waiting.

  “Where do you think it leads?” Helen asked nervously. Sure, there was a light, but where did it come from? It could have been anyone or anything; there wasn’t any way for them to know whether what say lurking in the basement was friend of foe.

  “We won’t know if we never go down there,” Becky said, making the first move. More than anybody she was eager to get out of the room. She hoped that getting away from the four walls would stop the voices and cut down on the splitting pain that continued to rip her head apart with the relentless ferocity of a wild dog with a bone.

  Becky made the first move, and Marcus shot Helen a compassionate look that said she was right. Helen knew it. They had no choice but to follow. After all, they were just rats in a maze. Helen was resigned to follow them, but couldn’t shake the idea that some hidden corner of Hell had been opened up just for them.

  Becky went first, stepping gingerly, tapping each of the rickety wooden steps several times with the ball of her foot before taking the actual step in its entirety. Against her better judgment Helen allowed herself to be ushered into the mid position, with Marcus taking the rear, keeping his eyes open and attention focused on anything that may come after them. His footfalls were swifter and more assertive; he reasoned that his two cohorts had passed over them with no ill effects, and he was eager to leave the hotel behind him. He loved his wife but hearing voice constantly whispering in his mind was too much; the things she said, the threats she made.

  The deeper they descended the cooler it got, and they all realized for the first time how hot it had been in the room – or maybe hot wasn’t the right words; airless perhaps being the more fitting term. There had been windows, but none open, and it had created a stifling atmosphere, like entering a car left out in the summer sun.

  Marcus lost track of how far they descended, but after a while their pace increased, their footfalls became less tentative and more assured. The two women were completely focused on the way ahead; it was only Marcus who noticed that the hole in the floor that had been their entry point had sealed itself tight not long after they had all passed through its threshold. He wasn’t surprised, and so said nothing. He saw it as a pointless bit of information at the time. After all, there was no other way for them to go and he knew it, they did, and with more clarity each step they took.

  VIII

  The light grew steadily brighter; it both guided their way and kept their spirits bright. The slope began to level off and a relief swept through the three of them when they finally reached the bottom and saw the tunnel stretch out before them. It wasn’t a dead end, not yet. It was a T-junction, with a tunnel branching in each direction, although their choice was a simple one because the light only came from one branch. They turned right without even stopping. They followed the light like Theseus followed the string through the labyrinth once the Minotaur was no more than a rotting pile meat behind him. Unlike the lighted gel bubble that had drawn Marcus and Helen from their room and brought them to Becky, this light seemed to be a genuine; a beam of sunlight, or at least electric lighting.

  The tunnel widened as they left the stairs behind them, and the crude wooden floor that had been laid at the base of the ladder was exchanged for compact earth. He saw old, dead roots poking up through the ground, and a shudder went through him as he remembered the arms he saw reaching up out of the boiling vats of human fat. The skin, blackened circles surrounding raw red wounds that sparkled as if encrusted with tiny jewels, yellow blisters and thick clumps of wet skin hanging from their bones as they clawed and dragged themselves above the surface in a pointless attempt to escape. Marcus pushed the image out of his head and carried on after the girls, who had picked up speed since the ground leveled off.

  “Do you smell that?” Becky called from up ahead. Her voice sounded loud and booming when in reality it was not much more than whisper. “Vanilla. Oh my God, I feel like I’m high again. I can taste it, right in my mouth.” She was panicked by her choice of words, and hoped that the others would ignore them. Marcus heard, but thought nothing of it; his own head spun with overpowering sensations and it was all he could to not collapse onto his knees.

  The all stopped and, yes, they could smell it. The aroma filled their noses and made their heads swim like alcohol. It a
ttacked their bodies and made them reel.

  “Bacon, I smell bacon,” Marcus said, his mouth dribbling as he spoke. His stomach began to cramp as the aroma travelled through his body, reaching his brain before being shot out through his entire frame like an air raid siren during the war. Incoming, Incoming. Brace yourself.

  “Coffee. Oh God, it’s so strong,” Helen said quickly, her head spinning just as fast as Marcus’s, only her stomach wasn’t quite as strong and she began to retch. A white froth spewed from her mouth and Helen collapsed to her knees. Helen couldn’t help but laugh as she vomited once more. “It’s so strong, I can’t take it.” She giggled despite the sour taste that burned in the back of her throat and stung her eyes.

  “Come on, why are you just standing there? Let’s go,” Becky asked. Turning, she resumed her high tempo walk and strode away from them without waiting.

  Marcus bent down beside Helen, resting his arm over her shoulders, pulling her hair out of her face. “Are you okay?” he whispered, not wanting to speak too much for fear of throwing up himself. “Just count backwards from ten. It always works for me.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and when Helen was ready he helped her back to her feet.

  “We’d better follow her before she gets lost or forgets all about us.” Helen rolled her eyes in the direction Becky had taken.

  Marcus and Helen soon caught up with Becky not half a mile further along the tunnel. The aromas had become so strong that Becky had been forced to stop. She stood like a sprinter at the end of a tough race. She was panting. Sweat dripped from her brow and the floor around her feet was sodden with vomit. Marcus had Helen stopped a few paces short of where Becky stood; they understood enough of who she was to know they didn’t need to get any closer. When Becky was ready she looked over her shoulder at them, gave them a half smile and once again they walked away as a group.

  After a gentle dog leg to the left, the tunnel came to an abrupt and rather unexpected end. When they reached it nobody spoke. The large circular door filled the entire tunnel, leaving only enough space for the light to spill through around its circumference like a corona during a solar eclipse. The door itself was made of iron, solid iron, and engraved with all manner of symbols. They covered its every inch; swirling patterns, symmetrical designs and oriental looking characters. Marcus was the one to take them closer. They had come this far, and he knew that the way behind them was not only sealed but had begun to disappear like the corridor before, forcing their hand and putting them up against a very strict clock.

  “What are they? Hieroglyphics or something?” Becky asked, knowing that they weren’t but unable to find a word suitable.

  “No, they’re something else entirely.” Marcus exhaled as he spoke, a long, drawn out breath.

  The aroma of fresh coffee and hot food was strong still; they could all smell cinnamon buns and fresh bread, vanilla and a great range of other aromas that created a kaleidoscope of patters inside their brain, like a psychedelic montage from the sixties and seventies. Their heads spun with the intoxicating mix, their stomachs cramped from the pain while their legs struggled to support them.

  “We just need to find the key,” Marcus began. “Look around; there must be something, a lock or a button, something.” Marcus hoped they would find something as he was already lost in the designs of the wheel.

  Marcus reached out and ran his hands over its surface. He was surprised to find it was cold and damp.

  The three of them – the ladies joining in a little later, their hands trembling as they approached – searched every inch of the gateway that was within their reach. They found nothing. There were no buttons or hidden levers like all good rich people have built into their libraries. Marcus even traced the outline of the engravings to see it was like some sort of puzzle box with the engravings that needed to be turned in a certain way, forming completely new images that would in turn unlock the door and grant them passage into the next phase of the unknown. He found nothing. Everything was as it was supposed to be. Frustrated, tormented by the aromas and – possibly the greater factor of the three – exhausted, Marcus slammed his fist against the surface of the blockage with a flat wet slap. He grunted from the jarring shockwave that travelled through his wrist and up into his shoulder. Once the dull echo of his knock receded, the ground began to shudder. The door winched open as the sound of old machinery sprung into life.

  “Of course, why didn’t we think of just knocking on the door?” Becky quipped. Helen and Marcus gave a short chuckle as they waited patiently to see what awaited them on the other side.

  IX

  The group walked through to doorway together, unaware of the bond that had formed between them in such a short space of time. The strange grey shroud that had been so smothering in the hotel rooms was gone, vanished into nothing. Instead they found themselves standing in an elaborately decorated room with a high ceiling which was decorated with all manner of ornate designs. Only upon closer inspection Marcus saw that they were not casts, but one immense flowing sculpture, carved into the building itself. Large crisscrossed beams created regularly spaced squares, which were further segmented into triangles. From the centre of each cross hung a large chandelier, and along the horizontal axis of each triangle was a hidden light source that beamed not down towards the guests but rather up against the ceiling, reflecting a much crisper light that could ever be achieved with a bulb. A marble floor traced its way around the room. Its grain flowed and swam much like the floral patterned wallpaper in the other building, while the main flooring was jet black, and as cold as pack ice beneath their feet. Large arched windows were covered with heavy gothic style drapes, which stopped a barely perceptible distance from the floor. Everything about the great hall was pristine, every detail perfectly arranged and placed with precision.

  It was daylight outside. None of them knew how they knew this, but they were certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that on the other side of the walls the sun was shining, the air was clear, the temperature warm and summery. Yet the drapes kept this locked outside and their dark fabric and dense texture helped create a rather strange and surreal atmosphere. In the centre of the room, running lengthways, ran a large dining table, or quite possibly a series of dining tables. It was set with a bone china service, plates and bowls stacked high in the centre of each place setting. Nestled upon the apex of the china tower was a napkin folded into a rose. A pure silver ring glistened at the base of the flower, keeping it in perfect balance so that neither stem nor bud touched the plate. The cutlery was laid out in rows: forks and knives of all shapes and sizes, spoons and serving cutlery all lay in perfect formation. There were crystal glasses for water, wine, and of course the after dinner brandy, and they all glinted and chimed melodiously in the electric atmosphere of the room.

  The trio walked along the table, the two women on one side and Marcus on the other. He ran his hands over the backs of the chairs as he walked. They were heavy to his touch and refused to move when he tugged on them. They reached the end and stood together, looking down the unoccupied table, wondering what it all meant.

  Looking down the room back the way they had just come from, none of them were surprised to see that the large iron door complete with its strange markings was gone, vanished completely, not like the doors back on the other side, but removed in its entirety. In its place, mounted high on the wall, hung a large oil painting of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment.

  Behind them a glass rattled and a gasp filled the air.

  X

  “How did you get there?” a startled, aged voice asked. “Who are you people?”

  The voice came from behind them. Marcus turned first, followed by Becky. Helen froze; she turned slower, her face tensed, eyebrows raised in a mixture and surprise and apprehension.

  The three turned around and saw the room was all of a sudden much longer, extended at least the same distance that they had travelled. The tables continued, unaffected by the sudden change in the room’s volume, their elonga
ted surface decked immaculately once more. The only difference was that the large, silver serving dishes were filled with all types of food, fresh fruit and breads. Butter dishes with fresh butter, margarines, pastes and spreads. Decanters filled with red, white and rosé wines were positioned every other chair. In total there were five settings stocked, with three glasses already filled with generous amounts of each. Leaning against the back of the first chair sat an old man, certainly in his seventies and possibly older if he had aged well, and likewise younger had he experienced a tough life. His hair was white and he had a faint beard that covered his strong-featured face. He was a solid man, his clothes fitted him well, but he was broad shouldered and had a wide chest. His T-shirt showed that despite his age his arms held a deep rooted natural strength; his forearms etched with deep, sweeping, curved lines of muscle. Without invitation, Becky, Helen and Marcus walked to the place settings that they understood had been laid for them. It was then they saw the second man, a young man, not much older than a boy. He was sat in a semi-catatonic state, his head bowed, staring into his own lap. He was pale, his face damp with sweat. His arms were wrapped around each other as he hugged himself. He didn’t look up as the newcomers sat down. He didn’t seem to notice them at all.