Hopes and the Damned
Jim Brown
White doves floated in a bright blue sky, circling above a green grove of large leafy trees. A creek ambled by, adding the sounds of tiny waterfalls. A group of people picnicked in a meadow at the center of the grove. This gathering included what seemed to be every race of humanity residing on the Earth. Ages varied from just old enough to be out and about to what looked to be over a hundred. Laughter and love floated in the air not unlike the doves above.
He wanted to join them, but couldn't. He was a watcher to this wonder, a voyeur to this joy. This then, he deduced, must be a dream.
From the distance came a low rumble as storm clouds appeared on the horizon. The laughter disappeared. Within seconds, black clouds covered the sky. Doves began falling to the ground, singed black and smoking. Everyone bolted for the cover of the trees but never made it. Chains with sharp hooks shot out of the sky and caught the crowd, yanking them one by one into the sudden night. The creek turned red as a rain of blood fell on the meadow. The sound of waterfalls was drowned out by screams from above.
Two were spared. The oldest and the youngest. The oldest cackled a laugh so shrill that the baby's ears bled. The baby's cries could not be heard.
The dreamer suddenly found himself at the baby's side. It was no longer crying and instead smiled as blood spattered its face. its eyes were black as night and it turned its head towards him. He noticed a very ornate lacquered box, sitting on the blanket covering the baby. The old man stopped his laughing and spoke, pointing at the sky.
"Look at that, child! All of them! Gone to Hell's Heaven! You are the way! Oh yes! You are the way!"
The dreamer heard bells chiming and felt a gust of cold air hit the back of his neck. He instinctively turned to see the source.
A church was on the other side of the creek, its doors open wide. The cross on its steeple was on fire. The ground began to shake violently and he noticed that the church was sinking. In it, he saw a bearded man in robes falling against one of the pews. This man looked out at them and started to yell.
"In my Father's name, I cast thee...".
The doorway to the church disappeared beneath the earth, muffling the rest of the sentence. Within seconds, the church was underground. The cross was the last to go, making a popping, crackling sound as it went.
The dreamer felt the stares of the baby and the old man. He heard the old man take in a deep raspy breath, then...
"Wake up!"
Andrew Riest awoke to the ringing of his phone. He felt disoriented for a good three rings as the dream seemed to call at him. It took two more rings for him to pull himself out of bed and get to the phone, the experience becoming more forgotten by the second. If one rehearsed a dream, Andrew knew, a person would be more apt to retain it. No rehearsals today.
"Dr. Riest?" Said a gruff voice, sounding far too alert for 3:13 a.m..
"Yeah." came the reply wrapped in a yawn.
"Could you please... come down to the Willowby Building? We have a... major situation down here... and I'm afraid... well... um... Just get over here, will ya?"
That was Sheriff Tom Burke. This must be something really bad, thought Andrew. Tom was rarely bothered by anything. It was said that he shed one tear at his parent's funeral, probably the only tear he would ever make. Whatever could make that man fumble, thought Andrew, would make most people crazy.
"Sure Tom. I'll be right there. Are you okay?" asked Andrew.
There was a few seconds of silence, followed by a cough. Then, "No. Don't suppose I am. See you in a bit."
The line went dead. Then came two things, the dial tone and a dread the likes of which the twenty six year old doctor had never known.
The dream was all but gone now.
He began dressing, thinking of what he would need. The medical bag had most of his tools in it and whatever ambulance showed up would no doubt have the rest. He would make sure to grab a soothing CD on the way out. This would allow him to get his mind in the right frame before arriving on whatever terrible scene awaited him.
This new soul was now ready for Leviathan's consumption, thought the Cenobite. He had tortured the soul's flesh until it was just about to cross over into madness. Easing up on the barrage of sweet pain just enough to hold the soul in limbo, he thought of the skill he had acquired through the dark decades since he himself was converted.
The task of balancing a soul on the brink of madness was only for the most experienced of Cenobites. A little too much and the subject would escape into madness. This would bring dire consequences for the only way to bring a soul back was to administer the kind of pleasure that brought Leviathan pain: the pleasure known as Joy. Not a smart thing to do. Typically, the privilege of serving the Great One was taken away. A Cenobite would be stripped of scars and power and forced to be nothing more than a subject, a definite step backwards. Conversely, if not enough pain was administered, the subject would begin to build defenses against the pain. The more defenses built, the finer the line to madness was, which increased the chances of demotion.
As he adjusted one of the long pins that had been driven into his flesh long ago, he became aware of the human soul buried within him, squirming to break free. The adjustment was for that soul. It had cost him his chance to establish a dominion on Earth, something for which there was eternity to exact revenge. Leviathan tolerated these ambitions, he guessed, because such endeavors typically meant more souls. There had certainly been a bounty culled from the Cenobite's attempt to leave.
At that moment, he felt the call. The room he was in began to shudder as if a great beast was chewing on it. One of the walls began to darken. Then a large part of the wall seemed to dissolve as the chewing sound became a deafening roar. He instinctively eased up on the pain to the victim. The direct attention of the Lord of Hell would threaten anyone's grip on reality. The new acquisition would no doubt be absorbed into the puzzle box God, and it was important to make the transition as painful as madness would allow.
A great black beam shone into the room, encasing the flesh of the subject (even the scraps on the floor) in a bubble of darkness. The bubble lifted up and floated through the wall, picking up speed as it went. The Cenobite could not see Leviathan, but there was no mistaking its presence. As the bubble passed through the wall, the wall slowly regained solidity. The roaring and the beam faded away and as the wall remade itself whole, the room settled down. The whine of a high pitched wind and chains clanging and rattling was all that remained to keep the demon company. His newly anointed assistants were busy with their own subjects. Four souls had been brought to Hell. The Twins took two. One went to the Princess and the last offered to Leviathan.
The Cenobite knew there would be no thanks. None were necessary. He simply did what he was created for. That was all. The newly absorbed soul would be frozen in that last moment before the darkness surrounded it, exuding extreme terror and suffering for as long as Leviathan contained it.
Once again, the angel of pain had justified his existence. It was now time to check in on his troops.
Andrew barely missed the deer that bolted across the road in front of him. The car came to screeching halt sideways in the road. He was just about to cross the Bethany Creek bridge. Now he was parallel to the river and in his headlights, he could see the deer run down the bank of the creek. It splashed through the water as it made its way to the other side, its white tail bouncing like a ball. Just before it reached the bank, it suddenly stopped and turned to look at him. its eyes glowed bright as they reflected the headlights. The deer sniffed the air. Andrew felt a chill as his imagination played a nasty trick on him and suggested it was talking, warning him of a coming terror. It then turned away and bounded up the bank and was gone.
Andrew pulled himself together and got his car going again. He was now quite awake and scanned the street sides much more carefully as he went. He noticed that a lot of people were out in their yards and on the sidewalks. How they stared at him as he drove by! Their expressions made him feel like the only entry in some dark parade of doom. Their apprehension couldn't have been more visible if they had painted it on big glow-in-the-dark banners and waved them at him.
The Willowby Building was around the next left and then the right after that, up on Thompson Hill. Andrew recalled the story of the miser, 'Old John' Thompson, who had built the place and had supposedly given it to the town on his deathbed, with the catch that it only be used to house the poor. His request was honored and fourteen years later, it still housed the town's down and out. All utilities were covered by the old man's trust fund as well as upkeep on the place. There were currently twelve people living there: a husband, wife, and their two children; two very old ladies, each without a family; a war vet who'd seen saner days; and five siblings who'd been abandoned a few years back. They had appeared at one of the local bars on Halloween night (the eldest, Joleen, turned eighteen two days later, was appointed guardian of her younger siblings and given a job at the feed mill). The four minors had recently began causing trouble in town and by all accounts, seemed to have fallen in with some bad, out of town elements.
Andrew saw bright colored lights at the top of the hill as he made the last turn. This wasn't the first time he'd made this trip. Two people passed away in that place since he came to town last year (both from poor health and self neglect) and he wondered how many would be added to the toll tonight. He pulled his car over out of the way and got out. As he ran to the building, he got his answer. All four of Joleen's siblings. This information came from Mrs. Batesley, the town snoop. He barely caught an 'I told you so' as he came into the front yard of the place. Sheriff Burke was at the front door, holding Joleen who sobbed uncontrollably. Andrew couldn't see any of the other tenants. Tom looked up from Joleen and noticed Andrew. He gently steered Joleen towards a man in white, who escorted her away from the scene. The sheriff met Andrew halfway down the eight or nine steps to the front door.
"Hey there, Andrew." Tom said as he wiped Joleen's tears off of his badge, trying not to be obvious about it.
"Sheriff." said the young doctor, trying hard to not let his fear show. The sense of dread had been multiplying the closer he got to the place. Then, "What's going on?"
"All four of Joleen's siblings seem to have been... butchered." The word hung on the air like a cloud.
"How? By who?"
The sheriff started up the stairs and motioned for Andrew to follow. They passed through the front door and once inside, Tom turned and spoke in a low voice just loud enough for Andrew to hear.
"That's the weird part. We have no idea. The room the kids were in is covered in blood. That room has one window and it is still locked from the inside. The door itself wasn't locked but as I opened it, I noticed the chain was. There is no way someone could have gotten out of that room after killing everyone in it. It's as if the killer disappeared altogether. All four kids were seen going into the building at the same time and we can't find them anywhere else."
"Bodies?" asked Andrew.
"Even weirder. There are none."
The next thought in Andrew's mind was that the kids pulled some elaborate prank but the sheriff's next statement brought that thought to an end.
"We thought it might be a nasty joke on their part, but those people who were in the building and can still talk intelligently claim the screams definitely came from the room. The stereo in there was off when we found it and there was no other way sound could have been piped in. They were killed and then somehow both them and the killer disappeared. I've thought of every possible angle and none of them fits the facts. We're looking at some kind of wicked mystery here, Andrew." The sheriff actually looked scared. This made the whole thing even more unnerving.
"What can I do?" asked Andrew, trying even harder to be professional.
"Well, I thought I might have some bodies or possibly patients for you here. I called once I was sure the killer wasn't here. But like I said, no kids. Everybody else is off to the hospital. I can't actually let you into the room but I can get you close. Wanna see it?"
Are you nuts?! thought Andrew. "Yes" is what came out.
At this the sheriff turned and led Andrew up the long stairs to the second floor. At the top he motioned to the left down the hallway. There were two officers at the other end of the hallway, going in and out of rooms. Andrew noticed a pool of blood on the floor in front of one of the open doors. He walked to the room's door and peered inside.
Blood everywhere. On the walls, on the four beds against them, the dressers, the ceiling and most definitely the floor. Everywhere in there, blood.
Andrew felt disappointed in himself and like many times before, doubted his sensibilities. This was because he felt absolutely no fear anymore, now that he was actually looking at the scene of the crime. He actually found himself fascinated by the patterns made by the splattered blood. This behavior certainly helped him in his chosen field, but it was downright distressing in this extreme. Can nothing get to me? he thought. A thought popped into his head that he'd been trying to keep deep inside.
He himself had lived in a place similar to this for a while, but it was actually an orphanage. His mother had given birth and a name to him and then died. Years later he used his influence as a doctor to gain access to the records kept on them and found out the truth, or at least some of it.
Then he noticed the glint of something shiny under one of the beds.
"See that?", asked Andrew.
The sheriff said he didn't, but obviously believed Andrew. He stepped into the room onto a spot on the floor that wasn't covered in blood. There were spots like that in various places and it was possible to negotiate most of the room without getting any fluids on oneself. Andrew pointed to a blanket hung over the bed next to the left wall and the sheriff maneuvered himself around so he could see under the bed.
"Some kind of box. Looks like it's made of wood and metal. We don't dare disturb it, but I'll definitely let the feds know."
This brought back more memories. He knew his mother had lost her mind before his birth and had to be watched all the way to the end of the term. She claimed she had solved some kind of puzzle box that guaranteed Heaven and actually went there. She had been blind all her life and was given the gift of sight by an angel of pain, what others would call a demon. She then did something no one else dared. She instantly fell in love and forced herself on him. He had been surprised by not only her lack of fear, but her utter adoration of him. He gouged her eyes back out with his thumbs and shoved her back through the portal she had opened. She tried to find the box but it was gone. She was now trapped here with no way to get back to her professed true love, the only sight she would ever see. As it turns out, she was pregnant. It said in the records that she agreed to hold on until the child was born and would then die after giving it an appropriate name.
The name he got was yet another mystery, Andrew Clayton Riest. Her name was actually Bonnie Lynn Henderson. He could find no local references to Riest as a last name but she claimed that indeed that was the father's last name.
As he thought about this, he remembered Tom's statement about the feds.
As if on cue, he noticed a group of suits and uniforms rounding the corner at the top of the stairs and coming towards him. One of the men motioned Andrew towards the stairs. He complied and glanced back as he walked away from the room.
Andrew overheard the sheriff telling one of the newcomers about the shiny box. This individual quickly walked to the room, slipped some plastic bags over her black shiny shoes, pulled some rubber gloves out of her pocket, put them on, and immediately disappeared into the room. Thirty or so seconds later, she reappeared, holding the box. Andrew caught only a slight glimpse but enough to see some kind of pattern etched on it.
It then hit him like brick. It was the box from the dream this morning and it also fit his mother's description of her box as well. Again, the feeling of dread.
The federal agent headed for the stairs, wrapping the box in some kind of cloth. As she was about to pass by Andrew at top of the stairs, she fumbled her parcel. Andrew wasn't sure, but it seemed the box jumped out of the woman's hand right at him. Andrew caught the shiny box with both hands in a kind of cradle grip.
The first thing Andrew felt was a massive jolt, as if he stuck his entire hand into a light socket.
The next thing he felt was a surge of knowledge; knowledge of everyone's deepest fears and hopes. This was initially limited to the people in the building and the yard outside, but it was expanding outward through the town. Within a few seconds, he knew every deep dark secret of everyone within the town limits and a few surrounding farms.
He also felt a chill at the edges of his consciousness. He could sense something was terribly wrong with the world. No, that wasn't it. Something within the world, yet somehow removed from it. A sense of overpowering suffering seemed to nip at his mind, begging him to think it into existence. The hair on the back of his neck seemed to almost jump off of his body, such was the severity of it.
He tried hard to think of nothing. Absolutely nothing, but the world wanted in. He then noticed his eyes were shut and tightly so. He started to open them but there came light so bright that it was painful. His ears were then bombarded by a roar so loud it almost drowned him with its fury. During this, his nerve endings started burning. He felt as if someone had placed him in a red hot furnace, baking him with a fire strong enough to melt metal. He wanted to scream but his jaws and tongue screamed back a resounding 'No!'
He thought about his apartment and how much he would like to pull the pillow on his bed over his head, but that thought disappeared in the storm of sensations. He felt the first pangs of madness and the sensory flood eased up and then fell away. He opened his eyes slowly as the roar died out. He began to see colors and solid dark shapes moving by him to his left and right. This puzzled him. He could sense he was moving, but if he was in the building, he should see the walls.
Everything began to come into focus and the shapes slowed their passage. As they solidified, they came to a stop.
The shapes were the buildings and cars which lined the street he had just driven through a little bit ago. He noticed that the sun was out and it looked as if it was late in the morning.
This can't be, he thought. What's happened to me? No answer. Then, six hundred and fifty three answers. All fueled by fear. All showing the same scene. Some were fuzzy because those minds were imagining what had happened based on what they were told. There were reporters here with their skeptical eyes. There were protectors of the peace; the FBI, CIA, etc.. Everyone who was anyone was on their way. A miracle some said. A savior, some cried. Others, a devil.
He then got a basic understanding of what transpired from what their minds painted. When the box had fallen/leapt into his hands, he had burst into bright light. He had stood there for a few minutes, then had lifted off the floor and floated down the stairs, out the front door and through the yard. He had floated down the hill toward the center of town where he was now. It had taken six hours to do this, with the media buzzing the town like wasps. The National Guard were on the way to secure the area. Everyone who got within a few feet of him got dizzy and passed out. Sheriff Burke and his officers, as well as the suits, were all recovering nearby. This he got from all the minds around him, each lacing it with their own take, but the essential facts were the same.
One mind stood out among the rest. A mind with knowledge of a world beyond ours and in it. A mind as sharp as a surgical saw, but with a heart as empty as a vacuum. Empty of all compassion, all warmth, all love. It was a servant and guardian, a taker and giver, a demon on a long leash. It was the puzzle box's keeper and the box was a doorway to Hell.
...and who is this? Why are they on this side? They've the gift of reshaping and yet do not use it on the flesh near them. Is this a test? Has my usefulness ended? ...and is this the replacement? Has there been a change in Hell that I am not allowed to know? I gaze homeward and all seems fine. The suffering crests an all time high. New souls go daily through many, many doorways.
Mine is the honor of serving the greatest of all, LeMarchand's Configuration. That name was Hell's sustenance for centuries. There were other configurations, but none as pure. It breathes of Hell's power. From one's hands to another's lap to another's bosom to another's hands. And I, its sail. The winds of desire and damnation carry us further on.
Leviathan, the one who was without form but whose form was Hell, fulfilled the Configuration's dream for a likeness in order to open the door wider. A new doorway for the unschooled, the lazy, the low. Flesh being flesh, it is permissible...
Why is this one floating? He traveled, in a trance, from the place of the opening to the middle of this village. He has come to a stop and has dimmed from the glorious white of hellfire. He senses me. My mind is open to him. How did he get over here and why hasn't he been recalled for more training? He is not using his power in the way it was intended.
Ah. Mine is the task to oppose him. He has the Configuration. I must bury my true plan under layers of false routes. He seems new to the game of the reading. Here is the advantage and the way. A victory.
The Cenobite stopped at the doorway to the room that The Twins were in. He sensed an old wind blowing from the past and remembered his decision to let a woman have him in passion. He also remembered planting his seed in her, with the instructions to not devour hers, but to give her seed the powers he had. He had programmed the awakening to occur during any contact with any Configuration. The seed would then be able to open a doorway at will. Leviathan wasn't aware of this part of the plan. When the Cenobite faced judgment for pushing the woman back through, he had told the god that '...To inflict great suffering, Lord, one must know great suffering.' Leviathan had believed him, forgiven him and set him high in Hell's hierarchy. Now, all that was needed was to wait. It now looked like the waiting was soon to be over. Still, he had duties to perform. He stepped through the doorway to the Twins room.
Two teenagers hung in the middle of the room. Their limbs were interwoven in a nearly impossible fashion with parts of them pierced by chains coming from the walls and ceiling. Each little movement by one of them caused the other great pain and the subsequent reaction caused the initial mover even more. Their flailing came in waves as did their agonized screams.
Excellent, thought the maker of the Twins.
The Twins had stumbled onto him and the Princess as they were debating on how to bring about the end of the LeMarchand line (presently known as Merchant). He had twisted the Twins together into a Siamese bond (this choice affected their choices in torture as well). The LeMarchand line had survived that day and looked to continue on. One day, the Cenobite knew, he would meet that bloodline again, and next time it would be the end of it.
He turned back to the hallway. His non-involvement in the Twins play was enough for them to know that their actions were satisfactory.
As he made his way to the Princess's area, he thought of Hell's future. its god was growing more powerful every time someone came through the portal. It had souls from a thousand dimensions and had spread its presence into a few of them. It was said that each type of being saw Leviathan in a different way. Those from Earth saw it as a massive puzzle box. Those from elsewhere saw it as a massive tree, or a cloud, or an eye. The interpretations of Leviathan were endless, and so were those of Hell itself. This was Heaven, or a place visited during sleep, or a place of some beings' true birth, the world behind being no more than a cocoon.
In addition, beings that came over had different traits here. For instance, Humans were mortal on Earth but were immortal here and any power they had was buried deep in areas of their brains which, as of yet, were dormant. Not all of them had this buried power though, and the ones who didn't became nothing more than playthings. Leviathan had found a way to awaken the abilities of those who had the buried potential and hence, the Cenobites.
He heard a long loud scream coming from the room the Princess used. What sweet suffering had she pulled from the fourth of the children? He would soon know...
Andrew floated down and settled to the ground. The box he now held was the way for him to flesh out the demon that traveled on this side of Hell. It would have no choice but to come for it. He had read the demon's deeper intentions without it knowing. This creature was definitely going to be honored. It would be the first to fall.
Andrew started walking back towards the hill, a crowd awaited him. He gave them the warmest smile he could. When he got to within fifty feet of them, he stopped. The demon was amongst them.
"Please do not fear me," he said. "I have been blessed with a great gift. This box I hold is a doorway for evil. It jumped into my hand and woke a part of me that had been dormant. I now have what would be best described as telekinetic powers... I can manipulate matter with my thoughts." The demon would be making a move soon, he could sense it. "Among you is a demon, sent to watch this box. This demon won't hurt you. It is bound by laws older than time to not directly cause injury to any human or it forfeits its right to be here. It would then be pulled back into Hell and the box would go unguarded."
It was then that a raggedly dressed man with unkempt hair and an even more unkempt beard stepped through the crowd. He moved swiftly towards Andrew, his arms outstretched.
The federal agent who had originally picked up the box also broke from the crowd, her eyes fixed on the man coming towards Andrew. She drew her gun and pointed it at the man and yelled for him to stop. The man kept coming and Andrew knew it was now or never.
She pulled the trigger, and as Andrew expected, the bullet came at him and not the bearded man.
The bullet stopped in mid-air two feet from Andrew's face and dropped to the ground. At the same time, the bearded man also dropped, hiding his head under his hands and sobbing loudly. Repeating the word 'incoming' over and over again.
Andrew held out his hand and beams of light shot from ends of his fingers and struck the woman with the gun full in the face. There was look of surprise on her face and then she changed shape into a skeleton with horns, fangs, and wings as a grid of light encased her... it. The keeper let out a ear piercing roar and in a flash of bright light, disappeared, its scream echoing through the town.
He stood there and stared at his hand. What he did to the keeper just... happened. It seemed completely natural to him, as if he had been doing this sort of thing all his life. But he hadn't, had he? He was unsure. As a doctor, he had repaired flesh and started the healing process in order to...
Flesh?!
He realized he was thinking of the people he had healed as mere flesh. This is not good, he thought as he let his hand drop to his side. Something was happening to him. Something was trying to take over his mind. He suddenly began to feel that destroying the keeper was wrong.
No! It was right to do so! Flesh must be protected! No. Wait. Not just flesh... People. People with souls, dreams, ambitions... People with hope...
He had just begun to feel exhilaration at the power he had. Not anymore. He was changing. The power was changing him. Into what, he wasn't sure, but if these thoughts he now had were any indication, it wasn't good.
The scraggly man jumped up and started backing away, looking at Andrew with an expression of intense fear.
"What is it?" asked Andrew.
"You're... you're... pulsing!" the man replied, and continued to move back, whatever memory the man had just been reliving was once again forgotten.
The crowd started murmuring and also began to move back. Andrew looked down at himself and noticed his hands and arms were indeed pulsing. And they were pulsing with light. The light seemed to be in his veins and arteries. Every beat of his heart caused them to light up, bright enough to be seen through his skin. He ran his left hand over the palm side of the opposite wrist, where the blood vessels were closest to the surface. He felt his pulse. Normal beat. This meant something solid was moving through his veins and arteries. Something solid and it was glowing.
Then the truth about the keeper surfaced in his mind. He hadn't destroyed it, he had absorbed it. It was the demons life force that pulsed through his veins, and it was the demon's mind that was trying to take him over. Now that he was aware of it, he stopped it. It was still in there but powerless. The keeper's thoughts were but a faint whispering in the back of his mind, and he ignored it. The light show also stopped.
He wondered if he now possessed the keeper's ability to change. He imagined he had wings and tried his best to believe it. He then felt a sharp sting on his back and a sudden pull as if something had grabbed his shoulders and pulled them back hard. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder. Andrew now indeed had wings and strangely enough, they felt normal there. Once again, the strange and bizarre changes in him somehow felt perfectly natural. Could this be why blood and gore and death didn't shake him? It made sense now. How could a body's exposed inner workings compare to a body's reshaping? Thinking of that reshaping, he tried and found he could move his new wings. He tensed his back muscles and the tips of the wings appeared in his peripheral vision, black and leathery. He also lifted off the ground a couple inches and dropped back down.
Incredible!, he thought. He could be whatever he wanted! He flapped his wings a few times, which brought him five feet up in the air. He flapped just enough to stay aloft and hovered there.
Andrew looked at the people still moving away from him. He moved towards them slowly.
"I won't harm you. It's still me, Dr. Riest. I've just... well... changed some. Believe me, I have no intention of hurting..."
Something went wrong. He felt a pull. Not like the pull on his back, it was as if something was tugging at his very essence. It was the chill he had felt when he first got his powers. Hell was calling. It wanted him and it wanted him badly. There was no denying it. He could feel his world begin to slip away, being inexorably replaced by the place which had given him his powers.
He saw a bright light and all at once, his world slipped away entirely.
He was in some kind of room, floating a foot or so from a wall. He spun around in mid-air, the use of his wings becoming more familiar by the moment. He heard something whistling through the air as he read the minds of the two beings in it. A sharp, long spike stopped and floated inches from his face and, like the bullet from a few minutes ago, harmlessly dropped to the ground.
The one who threw the spike was Angelique, a princess from ages past, remade by Hell into a princess of pain. The other in the room was her victim, one of Joleen's siblings, a girl by the name of Rebecca. He felt Angelique's mind probing his own and given enough time, she might be able to find a way in. Andrew had no intention of giving her that time.
He grabbed the spike and threw it straight at Angelique. Using his new found abilities, he caused it to change course at the last second and slip by her upraised hand. It then struck her full in the chest. She fell back, letting out a surprised scream as she did so.
His attention quickly turned to young Rebecca, who was hanging in the center of the room and whimpering. He spent no time cataloging what had been done to her, he simply undid it all. He was aware of chains and pieces of broken glass falling to the floor, and her scream. He then felt a presence in the hallway outside, a presence that sent a chill down his spine. Whoever, or whatever was out there, he was not yet ready to face it, so he grabbed Rebecca, screams and all, and thought of his pillow.
A bright blinding light once again blasted his eyes.
He found himself in his room. He looked down and in his arms he held Rebecca. She was healing rapidly, the wounds and scars disappearing in moments. He definitely had the healing touch. He wondered if he could heal the other wounds she had; the ones no bandage could reach. Maybe later. Right now he needed to rescue her siblings. Her mind revealed details that might help him. She had seen two of her brothers dragged into a room not far from her. This was encouraging.
He set her down once her physical damage was healed and concentrated on the room where her brothers might be. The bright light came sooner than he expected and he almost wasn't ready.
As before, he had a moment to assess the situation and act. This time was different in that he didn't waste time with whatever demon was appointed to torture the two boys. He simply dove at them and when he made contact, he again thought of that comfortable pillow of his. He would undo the mechanisms of their torture when he got back. The world was all light and again he was in his room, Rebecca on the floor.
He unwound the two boys, Jonathan and Nathaniel, from each other and healed them as best he could. While he did so, he probed all three of the children's minds for clues as to the fate of the fourth child, Thomas. All he could get was that a Cenobite with pins in his head took him to another room and later, a great roaring sound had been heard from that direction. The rooms themselves had shaken as if a hurricane were just outside. More disturbing than that was the remembered feeling of hopelessness that seemed to increase with the proximity of the perceived storm. The Cenobites had all stopped their tortures, kneeled to the ground, and not moved until the sound had faded away.
Andrew had enough pieces to guess at what had happened. Thomas had been fed to whatever power controlled Hell. He was for most part, unreachable.
The fact that he got three of the four out of there was a miracle in itself. He tried to feel good about that, but it was difficult. Thomas had been the youngest, merely ten. For that alone, Andrew thought, that power deserved to be destroyed.
He realized at that moment that the life he lived was over. He was no longer a small town doctor, fighting the ailments and sicknesses of a few hundred people. He was now an inter-dimensional traveler about to embark on a quest to destroy a god. If that wasn't a major career change, nothing was. He laughed out loud at the absurdity of this. While he laughed, he thought of the horrors he had seen and the horrors he was about to expose himself to. His laughs threatened to change to tears, so he stopped. He knew he could walk away from the challenge, use his powers on this side only and let the damned be damned, but there was Thomas and who knows how many others. Perhaps the boy wasn't innocent, but he certainly wasn't deserving of hopeless damnation. The memories of the children attested to this. Thomas went along with the others out of trust, not out of hatred or lust or envy. The boy needed saving and Andrew had the best chance of doing so. There was no time to waste.
He dropped the three children off at the hospital, altering his
appearance so none would recognize him. He also took the chance to slip a note
into the administrator's office, explaining that there was a life and death
situation needing his full and immediate attention which he couldn't discuss
with anyone. Once that was done, he took to the sky and circled the town to get
a better feel of where to go. A new keeper for the box had apparently shown up
and had swept the box away. That's where he would start, the acquisition of the
box. His senses were getting even better now and he could feel which direction
the box was. He went to his apartment one last time, took only what he needed,
and flew out of town.
Hellraiser © 1998 Miramax Films.