Hopes and the Damned
Jim Brown
Clouds floated peacefully above the world and all of its turmoil. Since before life appeared on the surface of this muddy rock, clouds had lived their lives in the air. They played games of shape, forming and reforming, imitating the things below. Clouds controlled weather patterns in a fashion that even the smartest beasts could not grasp. The atmosphere was their ocean, and they swam from one end of their lives to the other.
They made love without shame or reserve, their children floated off, billowing across the heavens. Those children later rejoined their parents as they prepared for the Storm: the time when clouds lost control of their lives and were taken over by the dirt below. The dirt, combined with the clouds, became the beasts and plants that roamed this world. As those beings fell and rotted away, the clouds would be reincarnated. Again floating, they shared stories of the lives they’d lived (or touched). It was one of the many, near perfect, cycles of the universe, and like many of these cycles, was unknown to the ‘sentient’ beings who probed that universe.
It was well known in the cloud community that the surest way to depress, tease, or irritate most of those beasts below was to block their view of the sky. It was also an old favorite to move in the way of the beasts who stared through long tubes. The beast would then look up at the cloud, frustrated that it was not able to probe those imagined wonders out in space, not realizing that one of the greatest wonders it could ever know just floated right into view.
The clouds also noticed that great steps had been taken in order to learn how to predict them. Those beasts had no clue that they were not just guessing at wind patterns and lay of the land effects on it, but instead were trying to guess at the behaviors of beings that thrived on variety and change.
Then one day, a cry of alarm shot through the clouds. Apparently, one of the smooth-skinned apes from below had discovered the Shaping. As the beast flew through and above the clouds, it touched them and sent shock waves through their numbers as it changed forms, experimenting with its powers. If one beast could do it, it wouldn’t be long before the rest would too.
Many meetings took place and many Storms ensued. It was a frightening time to be a cloud. An attempt was made to knock the beast out of the sky, but the beast never even realized the threat as it deftly flew out of harm’s way. The chance of being discovered was too great a risk, so it was agreed that all actions would be reduced to ‘float with the flow’. After all, they’d been hiding in plain sight for eons, and when all else failed, it was best to follow one’s instincts.
Let the beast play, thought the clouds, if it hadn’t realized the truth when it touched them, it was likely it never would.
Andrew flapped his wings a bit faster and rose quickly. He kept at it until he sensed the thinning of the air. He then let himself soar, expanding his wingspan so that he fell only a few inches for every mile he flew. After a short time this got boring, so he collected his wings about himself, tucked his knees into his chest and allowed himself to fall like a bowling ball. Just as he was about hit the top of the clouds, he flung out his arms, legs and wings and did a swooping pass a few feet above them. With the force of his momentum, he then shot straight up as high as he could, laughing the whole time. As he reached the apex of his climb, he began to flap again.
He wished that he could stay like this forever; flapping and falling, rising and flying. The years he had spent locked to the land would be much better as a distant, unwanted memory. This was the life. If only he could stay up here. If only he could enjoy his luck instead of pushing it. If only…
He let himself enjoy this aimless flying (and aimless thinking) for a few more minutes before allowing the reality of his mission to reenter his world. He had these powers, this gift, not from luck, or from some jolly well-wishing deity who wanted only the best for its recipient, but instead for the purpose of spreading pain. He was a pawn in a diabolical scheme. A pawn that was moving it’s way about the board; flitting and scheming on its own. A pawn after no less then checkmate.
He had experimented with reshaping his body to provide himself better camouflage. First he had tried to elongate a finger, (he also disabled the nerves so he wouldn’t feel the pain of reshaping). He extended the tip about an inch and then put it back to its original state. He reactivated the nerves. No pain. He extended it a foot, borrowing flesh from the rest of the finger and his hand. He then put it back. This went fine. Considering he did this while flying meant he should have no trouble doing this in an emergency.
The next thing he had tried was adding more flesh to his body. Andrew tried to absorb his clothes and shoes and found he couldn’t. Flesh manipulation seemed to be his limit.
As his wing muscles grew tired, he tried reabsorbing them and creating new muscles. This worked. He also found he could render the changes quicker with practice. He still needed to get new material into himself regularly, but over the two days he had been traveling he had ‘optimized’ his body to the point to where he could get by on an apple a day and a half of a glass of water. He did, however, encounter a very rough storm the evening before, and had burned up a lot of energy making his way through it. He had needed two apples this morning and three glasses of water. Still, that wasn’t too bad considering all the effort he had put out to stay aloft in the tumult. Not only that, this honing of his skills would definitely come in handy in his endeavors.
Endeavors, indeed!, he thought to himself. More like impossibilities.
Andrew chided himself for his negative thinking and then made sure this wasn’t being whispered in his mind by the demon he had absorbed. The demon was quiet for now, no doubt scheming and trying to find a way to break into conscious control of its jailer. Andrew let out a great laugh and forced himself to feel as if the world was a wonderful, loving place, only thinking of the good things he knew. This adjustment was for that demon. He had realized that it was the demon who first forced him to go to Hell. It had found his ability to open the doorway to Hell before he did and had ‘activated’ it, trying to return home.
Andrew considered figuring out a way to destroy the demon, but decided against it out of fear that his shape-shifting ability was the result of the demon’s presence in him. His mind reading ability was his own, that much he knew, but the shape-shifting was in question. He would keep the demon… alive, if that was what it was… for as long as he could control it. The demon had thought out loud that Andrew had the ‘gift of re-shaping’, but there were many contradictory statements in the demon’s mind. These were meant to confuse Andrew, of course, but he had sorted through the best of the lies, but this one eluded him.
He was learning more about the demon all the time, as his sub-conscious attacked the demons mind, sifting for clues. One recent discovery was that it was actually referred to as a ‘guardian’ and not a ‘keeper’. Although this distinction wasn’t really important in the grand scheme, it was enough to make Andrew doubt some of his information.
He then sensed the box a few miles ahead, down below the clouds. After spending a minute or two looking for good sized break in the clouds (it wouldn’t be very helpful to his mission to enter the clouds and end up a bloody pulp on some pilot’s windshield) he quickly dropped through the cloud cover and surveyed the layout of the land. He descended towards a point a few miles from where the box currently was. This was in case someone noticed his descent and alerted whatever was sent to guard the box. The area was some kind of suburban sprawl on the outskirts of some major city. The box lie near the center of the city. Andrew picked what seemed to be an empty backyard and headed down.
The Twins and Angelique were being disciplined for their failure. The fact that this had come at the hands of someone with greater power was the only thing that saved them from being stripped of rank. Still, it would be some time before they would be trusted alone with any of the chosen damned.
Meanwhile, their Cenobite mentor set about the task of finding out just what had happened. He knew it had to be his offspring and this raised a disturbing question. Why did the boy come and take those children away, and to where? He was supposed to snatch souls into Hell, not from it.
The answer, he found, lie inside himself.
At the time he took part in the conception, he had not been aware of the human named Elliot Spenser buried inside him. Elliot must have had some input into the programming of the seed, adding a conscience where there shouldn’t have been one. The Cenobite’s scheme had backfired. Leviathan would no doubt destroy him, or worse, if this was found out. It must then remain a secret. The reconditioning of the Twins and Angelique would wipe those events from their mind, he would see to that.
He had faced Leviathan to answer questions about these events. He could easily have said that his troops had lost control and destroyed the children, but that was too easy. The challenge lay in telling enough of the truth to protect it. This was achieved by admitting that there might have been some element of the creation process he didn’t pay enough attention to, which resulted in the problematic weakness. He also admitted there was no excuse for this and that it was the result of his own inferiority. Leviathan did not appear to realize that he was talking about his child the whole time rather than his disciples. He gave every indication that he expected to lose all his rank for this, knowing full well that such signs of humble and intense loyalty were the keys to a god’s favor. He succeeded and with some open disciplinary action inflicted on him, purely for show, he returned to duty..
That left the task of capturing or destroying his son.
One of the four children recently taken was still here in Hell. This child was inside Leviathan and quite unreachable, but the Cenobite’s spawn might still come for the boy. It was just a matter of time.
He was soon to be assigned some new charges to study under his tutelage. Hell was waiting for three who possessed enough of the raw material in them to be put into Leviathan’s service. As they arrived, he would be given the honor (as many times before) of shaping them into full fledged members of the Order of the Gash. One extra order had been passed on and that was to make sure they were more combat ready than the Twins and Angelique had been. He had already decided to make this part of their final form. Also, he had decided they would help him with his quest for his son. He would make this part of their new personality, a hidden part. He wasn’t the first teacher to use the classroom for selfish personal gain and if Hell still had its way, he wouldn’t be the last.
Andrew hadn’t tried to sense the minds of anyone near him in order to keep himself hidden from the new guardian. He was going in blind. He watched the windows of the houses within sight as he touched down. He quickly walked toward an alley at the end of the yard in which he landed, reabsorbing his wings as he walked. He would travel by alleys as much as he could, so as to not be out in the open. He gave himself a new hairstyle as well: short. This was very different from the long brown locks he had when he started this adventure. Andrew watched the windows carefully as he did this. He waited for a second or two. It looked like no one had spotted him.
As he passed the tree furthest from the house, he heard the snap of a twig from just behind the tree. A small boy suddenly fell out into plain sight. Andrew took a quick step backwards. The child couldn’t have been more than six. He looked up at Andrew; big blue eyes amidst a mop of bright red hair. Andrew realized that the boy must have been trying to keep the tree between them, and was making his way around the tree as Andrew passed by when he had tripped on a fallen branch.
The boy seemed to notice that Andrew had stepped back and it appeared that he had taken this as a good sign, because the little boy slowly stood up, not looking scared as much as simply surprised.
"Are… are… you an angel?" came a tiny voice.
Andrew said ‘yes’ without thinking.
"Are you my… guardian angel?" asked the boy.
The look of wonder and awe on that little face was so intense that Andrew felt a strong urge to turn around and check to see if a real angel was floating behind him. He ignored the urge and instead took a step closer to the boy and went down on one knee.
"No, not yours. Another little boy’s." Andrew replied softly. "A little boy who needs my help."
Andrew sensed nothing but raw, unspoiled innocence emanating from this child. He thought of poor Thomas, trapped inside Leviathan. He began to feel angry, but looking at the boy in front of him, another deeper emotion came near the surface, along with some wicked memories. Memories of the orphanage, and the cruel, crazy man who had ran the place for two years before he’d been caught beating one of the children… Andrew, and had been taken away.
A flood of memories bombarded him and it was all he could do to subdue them. His eyes started to water before he got control, but he did get control, and blinked the wetness away.
The little boy’s expression changed from one of raw awe to one of simple puzzlement.
"My dad does that," the boy said.
"Does what?" asked Andrew, wondering if he meant his dad was a ‘guardian angel’ of sorts, a helper of children.
"Tries really hard not to cry," came the answer. "He has to fight really hard. I wish he’d just cry. Could you make him cry?"
Andrew was momentarily taken aback. The sheer power of this child’s question pushed the right/wrong button… and then, Andrew broke into tears.
This time, some memories made it out. Andrew wasn’t even sure of the cruel man’s real name, he had demanded being called ‘sir’ from day one. The kids had called him Mr. Deem (short for demon). His favorite method of ‘discipline’ was locking a kid in a wooden chest in the basement. Andrew had ended up there more often than the other kids, simply because he would stand up to the man and he also had trouble sitting still. He remembered too vividly having his mouth washed out with soap by Mr. Deem and then being locked in the chest with no supper. He spent many nights hungry, with his lips burning from having them smashed against his teeth, and a mouth full of soap, flaking and stuck to the insides of his mouth. He would cry himself to sleep, but would wake up many times during the night disoriented and choking, and would think he had been buried alive. Even now, when it was very quiet, he could hear the echoes of his sobs and screams. A few of those sobs were now escaping.
He finally got a hold of himself after the most aggressive of the tears had fallen. As he wiped them away, he felt the hand of the little boy on his shoulder. Andrew looked up and swore that he saw, in the blue sky eyes of this child, all the wisdom of the world. He finished with his tears and took the boy’s hand in his. He could feel his resolve increasing with each breath he took, due in no small part to the presence before him.
"What’s your name?" Andrew asked.
"Andy" came the reply.
"Well Andy," said Andrew "thanks for being my angel."
Andy smiled. "You’re welcome." He paused and then said, "Are you… going to have to go now to help the other kid?"
"Yes, I am."
Then Andrew stood up, ruffled Andy’s hair, told him to be good and turned away. He started down the alley behind the houses and glanced back once to see if Andy was waving goodbye. He wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps he was running to tell someone about the angel that came to visit him. Perhaps he wasn’t even there. Andrew thought about the name irony and wondered if Andy wasn’t just a part of himself that had been ‘brought out in the open’ for him to deal with and draw inspiration from. Could be, he thought. Then again, does it really matter? The effect was the same. He was more focused now than he had been in a while. Andrew was sure about one thing, he needed that focus.
Up to this point he had reluctantly done what he was doing, with a part of him not wanting to face up to the challenge he had gotten himself into. His antics in the clouds were an example. Meeting Andy had done something, however, that changed that. He knew what was at stake. Something vastly more powerful and merciless had taken one innocent child to Hell, a child who should never have went. Who knew how many others languished there, victims of someone else’s desire to enter or to escape Hell. Whether he liked it or not, he had the power to end their suffering.
He stopped and closed his eyes. In his mind he conjured an image of Leviathan from the mind of the demon inside him. He saw an immense set of wings. Along with this image was the knowledge that this was the way that the guardian saw Leviathan, that every kind of being saw it differently. What would Leviathan look like to him, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He would find a way to destroy it, and for the guardian’s benefit, Andrew imagined the giant wings bursting into flames and collapsing. He sensed intense fear from the demon. This was a good sign.
Andrew began to whistle softly as he walked. It was only a matter of time.
Andy sprouted small white wings, giggled, and shot into the sky. He went so fast, no human would have been able to see him go. After a few minutes of gaining speed (he was now leaving the galaxy, if one cared about such details) he passed into his dimension. He had wondered, like any angel created from a mortal soul, if he should have stolen a visit to his parents. They were probably still grieving. He resisted and thought of his mission. He had been given the task of making sure that Andrew had somewhat of a clear mind for the quest ahead. With that done, he now needed to return. The Order of Healing most likely had another mission lined up for him already. A child’s work was never done.
Mindy took a towel and wiped herself off. She had gotten quite sweaty in that last scene and was looking forward to a nice cool shower. Her legs were still tingling from the orgasm (it was nice now and then to have a real one and not have to fake it). One of the camera men had gushed at her about how she was the best there was. She made up her mind within seconds that he would never have her, but pissing off a camera guy wasn’t smart, business-wise, so she just smiled and thanked him.
Pampering time was now over since all the guys in the room (actors and crew alike) had gotten what they wanted. She would now be left alone. As she turned on the shower she heard loud laughter from out in the main room. The guys were most likely sitting around and congratulating each other on having such great jobs. Someday, she thought. I’m out of here. She still didn’t quite have everything paid off or had she built the nest egg big enough yet, so she’d stay in the business for a year to two more. Then it was goodbye.
After the shower, she dried off and put on a robe. There would be a wrap party and she figured she’d hang around and enjoy the free food and drugs. She knew she was lucky in that she could totally get into that stuff for a night and then the next day was able to easily say no. Not everyone had the self-discipline or stamina for it. Their loss, she thought. Her self-discipline and stamina was also what allowed her to excel in porn. There was no other woman in the business who could go longer and harder, and still be able to keep an aloof attitude onscreen, which of course, drove the viewers nuts.
She walked over to her trailer and once inside, looked at her ‘to do’ list. Nothing much. She had already called her agent to confirm her next film and called her mother to wish her happy birthday. All that remained was the box.
Mindy had been working on it for days now. The man who gave it to her said he was looking for someone to do some light S&M and needed someone with some brains. There were going to be a lot of lines and a short shooting schedule. She had started on the box immediately, but hadn’t gotten anywhere with it. Tonight would be different.
She let her robe drop and walked into her bedroom. Mindy felt intense excitement as she noticed the box laying on the bed, glistening seductively in the late afternoon sun. She sat on the bed cross-legged and naked. She picked up the box and held it in her lap. She was suddenly aware of a growing wetness between her legs.
"Ooooh. You’re a hot little number, aren’t you?" she purred.
Mindy then noticed how her cunt was reflected in the box’s surface. It was not hers, she thought, but her screen alter ego’s. This alter ego went by the name of Jennie Hott.
In reflections, she saw Jennie, not Mindy. Mindy was on this side, doing a job and paying bills. It was Jennie who enjoyed it and had sex for it’s own sake. No responsibilities. No worries except how to get off in as wild a way as she could. Nothing more, nothing less. Such an easy, simple life.
Mindy explored some of her fantasies through Jennie, but not all of them. Jennie was aloof and had her limits. She had been screwed by men in practically every way except ‘very painful’, and she had experienced other women as much as the average sex toy would allow. But that was nowhere near what lie underneath. Mindy felt internal urges too intense and twisted to admit fully to herself, let alone anyone else. Deep down, she wanted more, much more.
She had flashes of men bathed in blood, masturbating and screaming as she tore their skin off with her bare hands. She saw women dangling from the ceiling, pierced in every possible way, moaning for mercy and getting none. Mindy saw orgies which would last for days and would end with her alone still alive. As soon as these images found their way to the surface of her mind, she’d push them back down. She would swear to not rent any more S&M titles, but she knew better. The stuff she rented was to fill an urge already there, to appease it. This allowed her to live her life.
She had decided long ago to never start doing serious S&M, because she knew if she did, she’d never be able to stop and would lose any semblance of decency. She’d probably wind up killing a co-star and that would be it. No, she thought. Better to play with herself and fantasize it, rather than act it out.
As she was thinking of this, running her fingers over the box and feeling for an opening, the box clicked. It was a small click, but there nonetheless. Her heart skipped a beat and she almost yelled in celebration. She noticed now how the reflection was shifting. Then, she swore she felt a tingling in her cunt. It felt as if someone were lightly running their fingers over her pubic hair and lips, teasing her with utmost urgency. She again caught the reflection and as the reflection bent, she was sure she could almost feel it. Her body was aching to change too. To be free of earthly limits, to be able to warp and twist without constraint. That was the ultimate freedom, to be a body unbound. She would spend eternity as flesh in constant, savage change. The box was calling her, seducing her, giving her hope for the kind of existence that only damnation could provide.
Her conscious mind shoved this partially away, but that was all. Jennie was in there, trying to be aloof, but getting scared. This existence was not what a highly paid, posh loving, aloof porn star should want. The tease was the thing. These thoughts shattered all pretenses and threatened her materialistic side. That side fought back.
"Now, now lover," she whispered. "Mustn’t get too pushy. Jennie will say when."
The box felt hot, almost too hot to the touch. Still, it also felt soothing to her hands. She, on the other hand, felt too hot not to be touched. Mindy was so horny right then that she was absolutely sure a strong breeze across the bed would thrust her headlong into an orgasm so intense, she’d lose her mind. Jennie faded away and Mindy, or more accurately, the deep dark animal in her, took over.
She lay back slowly and let the box slide across her inner left thigh toward her cunt. As her head came to rest on the bed, so did the box against her throbbing wetness. Her hands continued to work the mysteries of the surface and these motions further pushed her closer and closer toward ‘the little death’.
Mindy felt a very strong clicking from the box and then she heard music. The music made her think of a music box she loved as a child. The box began to vibrate and she heard the sounds of metal sliding on metal. She could feel that the box was changing, but she also felt a vibration coming from the box. It held her right at the threshold of release. She dangled there while the box shifted and changed.
She opened her eyes and stole a glance toward it. One part of the box was sliding down into the other. The top of this piece looked much like the shape of a star. Then, when it finished, the box began to vibrate even more.
That was it. She fell back and let out a yell as the first wave of a massive orgasm smashed against her. She pulled the box even tighter against herself. Pushing it as hard as she could into her cunt, she roared as more waves of ecstasy rolled over her. She took in one big breath and held it for a second as another wave began. As the wave hit, she began to let it out. This was the biggest one yet.
… and suddenly in the midst of this mother of all orgasms, something attacked her. She didn’t know what, but it had no mercy. As part of her still reeled in the most intense orgasm she’d ever felt, the other part reeled in excruciating pain. She felt hooks and knives slicing into her body. She tried to reach down to fend off the attack but noticed her hands were pinned to either side of her. She tried to scream, but instead a laugh came out. She tried to kick with her legs but instead felt her knees hit the sides of her head. She began to hear popping sounds and felt a warm fluid running all over her body.
Then the fluid ran over her face and she discovered what it was, blood. She knew without a doubt it was her own. She tried to open her eyes and managed to open them for the briefest of moments, enough to see a man looming over her. A man in leather fitted far too tightly. A man with a head impaled by dozens of pins. A wave of pain overtook the pleasure and she closed her eyes and screamed.
The screaming continued for hours, as did the pain. She wanted to escape, to death, to madness, but neither was available to her. She was so confused. Why was she suffering? What did she do? Where was she? Why was she?
"Please stop!!!" came the scream. "Oh God, no! Oh God! Please!"
Copulas looked at the woman before her, writhing and begging for an end to it. How lucky this woman was, she thought, to just spend her days without responsibility. To be able to just suffer and endure. Nothing more, nothing less. Such a simple, easy life.
Copulas decided to go over to the wall and pull a new instrument down. She was in training and the art of inflicting pleasure was by no means easy. You had to balance pain with calm, to keep the victim at the edge of madness, but firmly on this side of it.
As she reached for the nastiest looking tool on the wall, she noticed her own reflection in the wide metal blade of the tool. The reflection twisted and changed. She thought she saw a human woman for an instant. The woman was screaming and seemed to be trying to say something. Imagine that, thought Copulas, a screaming reflection. For some reason, she could almost hear the screams. They were very faint and hardly discernable, but Copulas was almost sure the woman was yelling a name. A name that sounded like ‘Mindy.’ There was also a fair resemblance between the reflection and herself. This might be what would she would have looked like had she been born mortal, as opposed to being a Cenobite.
Interesting, thought Copulas, Mindy the Screaming Reflection. She went back to work and chalked the experience up as one of the many wonders of Hell. Hell had such incredible sights to show her, and anyone with the vision to look for them could never, ever get bored.
As she inflicted pleasure on the woman before her, Copulas thought of a dream that she had recently. One in which she was alone, trapped in a delicate body, and dreaming of Hell and all its glories. The dream was fading. She knew that if one rehearsed a dream, it would be become a more permanent part of one’s psyche. No rehearsals today. She loved being a Cenobite too much. There was nothing in the universe that would make her want to be a frail, human weakling.
She also knew that one of those frail humans might break in at any moment and try to steal this woman from Hell. She felt this in every part of her essence. She would need to keep a mind’s eye open and be ready for any confrontation. Copulas knew, as she guessed any Cenobite did, that it was possible that a human could gain the power of the Shaping, or the power to open a doorway to Hell at will. If that ever happened (or worse, a human gained both skills), it could spell doom for them all. Cenobites were Leviathan’s first line of defense against such an enemy. She would not falter in that task.
He was too late.
Andrew felt the portal closing from many blocks away. He started running towards it at full speed. It was mid-day and the streets were full of people. He would have liked to change into something faster, but again, he was trying to sneak up on the box and its guardian. He wanted to get as close as he could before he was found out.
He then felt the probe of the guardian’s mind.
Andrew slowed down to a walk and concentrated on sending a false mindset. He thought of a imaginary wife and kids twenty minutes away and that they were going to rent a movie tonight and that he had to stop on the way home and get some milk. He allowed himself to look forward to it. He allowed those thoughts to float on the surface of his mind and set up a false history behind them. This history covered the shield he had erected, to hide his true mind and the demon inside him. The real Andrew knew that Hell fed on the bored, the angry, and the unsatisfied. It fed on those who yearned for more than this world provided, so he created a persona that was quite content with what it had been dealt. He felt the guardian’s probing almost reach the shield, but it stopped before going that far. The mind it believed was Andrew’s was sufficiently banal enough for it to lose the guardian’s interest.
Now he only had a few blocks to go and the box would be his.
Even the rocks seemed different in the city, thought Kenneth. They were alive with the histories of all those who had trod upon them. They contained the excitement of opportunity. All those people who could do whatever they wanted and see all the sights, without having to drive for two hours to do so.
Kenneth Derra loved coming to the city and escaping the farm, if only for a few hours. He reaffirmed his vow to save up enough money to move here and find a job. Then he would work his way up the ladder, and one day, he’d rule his own empire from the best house in the best neighborhood this city had to offer.
How many times had he said that vow? And how many times had he faltered, instead opting to purchase a piece of the magic, taking home some device or trinket which reeked of technology and promised itself as ‘the latest’. He then spent much of his free time enjoying it in his room. This room was upstairs in the dusty, cracked old farm house that his great-great-grandfather had built back when farming was something special and most everyone did it. Those days were gone, and now, the struggle to maintain the fields and/or raise the cattle had been overtaken by the struggle to pay the bank every month.
His parents had played it safe. When the farmers around them had taken out loans to expand and improve, using what they currently had as collateral, Kenneth’s parents said ‘no’ and stayed as they were. The Derra family then watched as everyone became richer. While they toiled with equipment that was as old as they were, the surrounding farms did the same work in half the time in machinery that was twice as expensive. Expanding or not expanding, it was a gamble either way, and everyone but the Derras won.
So a dozen or more years ago, the Derras joined the pack. They took out some major loans and caught up with their neighbors.
Then farming went to hell, and dairy farming was hit worst of all. The Derras had been dairy farmers for generations, and now the current two generations, Kenneth and his parents, faced the near end of that tradition on a monthly basis.
Kenneth was only a couple of years old when his parents expanded, and only a couple of years older when the bottom fell out. From that point on, his life was harder and more stressful than any of his ancestors, or so he thought. Not only did he and his parents have to work their fingers to the bone, but they also had to work for seemingly nothing. The bank got their money before the Derras did, and quite often the check would show up with zeroes on it, and they’d have to make do.
His parents had spent many evenings arguing about money, and he would lay awake, vowing that he would not make their mistake. He would not hesitate to chase his dreams, and would not only keep up with everyone else, but beat them to the punch. He’d learned from his parents, as every generation is supposed to. The trouble was, he applied it to the other extreme.
He was so hungry for the new and great, that there was nothing left for a rainy day. Quite often, he wouldn’t have enough money to put gas in his car, but he had the latest electronic toys.
When Kenneth came home with the latest tapes or CD’s or cartridges or game systems, his father always made a point to ask him ‘how is that going to taste next year if things go bad?’. Kenneth wouldn’t reply. He would just go up to his room, and imagine he had all the time in the world to play with whatever it was he had bought.
Now here he was, once again walking along downtown streets and looking for something, anything to take back home to alleviate his suffering.
As he passed an alley, he caught a bright sign out of the corner of his eye. He turned into that alley and as he walked toward the sign, he was able to read it. It was a very ornate neon sign spelling out the title Wonders of the World. Kenneth thought it was odd that such a store would be buried back in an alley, but he decided to check it out anyway. The name alone made it worth a look.
He was walking along the backs of other stores, and as he passed them, he could hear the chatter of workers on a break, or hiding from the boss, or flushing the toilet. Even these sounds were a lot more exciting to him here in the city. All that activity. All that energy.
He maneuvered his way through dumpsters and cardboard piles, careful to watch his step. He glanced further down the alley to see if perhaps he had taken the hard way and that a nice clear walk to the store was available from that side.
More dumpsters and garbage.
He stopped under the sign and looked at the entry way in front of him. A small flight of stairs ended at a screen door. He noticed that there were no windows on the back side of this building, even though it was easily four stories tall.
So, he thought, here was a shop tucked in an alley which made up the backends of many department stores. It felt like a secret place. One that not many city folk might know about. What treasures, he wondered, lay inside?
"One way to find out," he whispered to himself, walking up the small flight of stairs and then pulling open the door to the Wonders of the World.
The store was an odd mixture of old and new. Video game consoles sat next to ancient looking lamps, with both inside old display cases with extreme lighting effects inside. A tiny, full-color television sat atop a well-worn travel chest with stickers from places Kenneth had never even heard of. An old ornate sword was balanced on top of a glass container which had slow moving brightly colored liquids moving and shifting about in it. An impossibly old looking wood stove was the foundation for a large plastic video game cartridge case full of games. On top of the game case was an hourglass full of multicolored sand in which the sand changed colors as it sifted through the small hole at the center of the hourglass. The hourglass supported a lacquered box, the likes of which Kenneth had never seen.
The hourglass had a sticker on it which read ‘$100’. Kenneth had thirty, but wondered if the whole stack was a hundred or just the hourglass.
"What’s your pleasure, sir?" came a sudden voice from behind him, making Kenneth jump in spite of himself. He spun around and was greeted by a very tall, thin oriental man. He had a full head of gray hair, but the hair only touched his head at its roots. His head looked much like a willow tree with two small eyes and an even smaller mouth visible beneath.
Kenneth thought about his question. Although the hourglass and the rest of the stuff were cool, it was the box that held his attention. He had read about Chinese puzzle boxes and had seen some pictures of a few, but no picture he had seen could do this box justice. It seemed to call him, begging him to solve it. It was as if he was the only one who could, or would, dare to probe its mysteries.
What was strange about all this was that normally he would go for the ‘highest tech’ item he could find. There was something about the box that went beyond technology. It was as if the box was alive.
He knew what he wanted.
"The box", replied Kenneth, "How much is it?"
"Whatever you think its worth."
Kenneth had a bizarre feeling of déjà vu, but ignored it and said "twenty-five dollars."
"Thirty," said the old man.
"Twenty-seven fifty" countered Kenneth.
"Twenty-eight fifty-seven," shot back the old man.
"What would that work out to be with tax?" asked Kenneth.
"At five percent sales tax, about thirty dollars."
Kenneth smiled, admitting defeat. He then dug the money out and handed it to the shop keeper. The money disappeared in the pockets of what looked like a cross between a smock and a coat. He turned back to his prize.
He slowly reached out and picked up the box, tiny shivers of anticipation coursed through him. The box felt sharp, yet not unlike wax, and even more, like wood. As his mind tried to catalog the sensations his fingertips sent, it seemed to discover a new impression.
It was magic… and it was love at first touch.
Kenneth started for the door, not even thinking to ask for a receipt, so enraptured was he with the puzzle cradled in his hands. He half-turned back to the shop keeper and said thanks.
"Take pleasure in it," was all the shop keeper said.
Oh, he would. No doubt about it. He would.
Kenneth made his way through the dumpsters once again and then in the open air, headed back towards the parking ramp where his truck was, barely seeing the sidewalk in front of him. The puzzle had already vexed him, and his fingers were probing the surface, searching for a way in.
A policeman thought he saw movement in the alley. He was on walk today, and part of that walk was a quick jaunt down Dumpster Alley to chase away anyone loitering at the back of the stores. Can’t have the bums scaring away customers, he thought. He squinted his eyes into the shadows. He saw movement all right. Someone in a trench coat was making their way to the other end of the alley. He stepped into the alley in that direction, pulling out his talkie to call it in.
He heard a loud creak above and glanced toward the sound. An old rusted soda sign swung in the breeze, creaking and squeaking to the rhythm of the wind. It was a remnant of a day when this alley was a pedestrian walk way and thirsty souls would be lured into whatever store the sign used to hang over with the promise of an end to their parched state.
This place sure has gone to hell, thought the officer, as he made it to end of the alley, looking left and right, expecting whoever it was in the coat to be ambling away.
There was no one fitting that description in sight. He poked his head in every store on either side of that part of the street, but no one had seen anyone in a trench coat.
Oh well, he thought, whoever it was must’ve beat it.
He took one more trip down the alley and continued on his rounds.
Andrew arrived at the alley in time to see the policeman moving away at the other end of it and disappearing to the left. The box was no longer here. He could, however, sense an almost vivid echo of Hell’s magic amongst the dumpsters. He saw the creaking sign.
The box had been passed on to its next victim.
Andrew could sense which way the box had gone. For a moment, he heard the echo of a car starting in the parking garage down the street. That’s where it was.
He took off at a run towards it.
Now I must protect the box and it’s prey. They need the time alone. Hell must be fed. The wonders of hell await him. What happened to the previous one? It has guarded LeMarchand’s Configuration for a long time. Perhaps I will find out. Perhaps not. The last one was special. She has now become a Cenobite. Leviathan’s realm increases through many, many doorways. More Cenobites are happening. It will not be long and this world will be added. Then the Cenobites can roam free and the box will have served its purpose. I may then be able to guard it forever, sealed with it inside Leviathan as it takes this world and forever appears in this sky. I will be diligence. I will be success. I will be victorious in all my battles. It is Leviathan’s will which in turn becomes my will. He had left the large village. He will seek seclusion. He will delve into the box and shall not return. I will watch as the box seals and will make sure it is removed from the site. I will make sure it is put before the next. I will not falter. I am…
Something is following me.
Part III is done. Click here.
Hellraiser © 1998 Miramax Films.