Hopes and the Damned
Jim Brown
The Sun slowly worked it way towards the west, occasionally visible through openings in the clouds above Andrew. He followed its lead as he chased Kenneth’s pickup truck. He knew where the sun was without even looking, as well as the moon and thousands of other objects in orbit around the Earth, both of human and non-human origin. There were small alien objects watching and recording, avoiding objects around them and sending short bursts of information toward a specific star, one in the constellation known as Scorpio. This was worth investigating, but not until after Hell had given up its innocent tenants. Whatever aliens were watching us (and for a very long time) would have to wait until this particular quest was finished, either by Andrew’s death or capture, or by victory.
His capture, he thought, was the worst of possibilities. If he was caught and converted into a servant of Hell, it would be all over for the Earth. Andrew was able to open doorways at will, and Hell would gain a permanent foothold. In a way, he would then be the Antichrist.
Andrew Riest the Antichrist? Wait a minute…
There was a connection there.
Andy… Anti... Andy Riest. Antichrist. Andy Clayton Riest… Andy C. Riest. Andy Christ… Antichrist. Oh god…What kind of corny sicko was my mother?!
No wonder no one could find his father or any references to Riest at the time he was born, his name was a play on words. His mother knew all along what he was, or at least what she intended him to be. He was to be the Antichrist. The utter stupid silliness of his name was outweighed however, by it’s dark message. He didn’t want to think about that. It was too…
Back to now…
Andrew had read Kenneth’s mind and knew that he had already started working the box but stopped when he reached his truck. He wouldn’t try again until he got home. That gave Andrew plenty of time to get the box from him without drawing too much attention…
The Antichrist train of thought quickly went to the back of his mind as he concentrated on his current mission.
… but in case there was a new guardian, he didn’t want to make a move until they were out of town. This would hopefully keep the risk of hurting innocent bystanders to a minimum. Besides, Kenneth had picked up a hitchhiker. Some guy named Ian who was on his way home from basic training. Andrew had probed his mind as well and hadn’t found anything of great significance there. Ian was just catching a ride back to a town that was a half an hour out of Kenneth’s way.
He skimmed along the bottom of the clouds, watching the truck weave its way out of town. Up ahead, a very large dark bird disappeared into the clouds. Andrew avoided probing it in case it was the guardian. Surprise was his greatest ally in this endeavor.
There was subtle change in the air, like a small room when the door is quickly pulled open. A battle was coming.
Old one must have been destroyed... Whatever could do that can no doubt destroy me as well. I must protect the box and the soul near it… Whatever is following me might be that which destroyed the old one. I must make no assumptions nor take any chances… Perhaps the old one got too sure of itself. Mistakes must be learned from if Hell is to be served properly… Have to find a way to bring the follower to a vulnerable place and make the attack unstoppable. Keeping the enemy occupied long enough to let the doorway open and close is all that is required… Time to begin.
The next one is on the way, thought Copulas. Time to prepare.
Copulas understood the ways of the Order of the Gash clearly. Her next responsibility was to take part in the creation of the third member of her sect. Had she also been made from human stock?
Doubtful, she thought, that species is quite young, and besides, I have always been here.
This was just an experiment to see if a Cenobite could be made from a human. Her question became fuzzy and disappeared.
Once again, she found herself staring at him as he stood patiently awaiting the next soul to travel the void and enter Hell’s embrace. The pins in his head were placed in such an orderly fashion that she found herself imagining how that must have felt to have them put there. That combined with the regal way in which he carried himself made him… She felt the blood run down her legs and licked her lips to the sharp pains caused by her own lust. She could never have him, so Copulas vowed to make sure to whet her appetite on the soul coming in.
She also took care to stand behind him and to one side. Perhaps one day she would be the first sight a new soul would see, but for now, she was content to play second scalpel.
Andrew pushed a little ahead of the truck and carefully reached out with his mind. The city was behind them now and there was no longer a need for slyness. He would check for the guardian and if it was far enough ahead, Andrew would swoop down, grab the box, and be off before anyone had a chance to react. It would no doubt scare the daylights out of Kenneth and Ian, but considering the risk, this was acceptable.
The trouble was, he couldn’t sense the Guardian anywhere. Either it was vastly more powerful than the last one, or it was just better at hiding. He scanned for a couple of minutes more and then decided that was enough. The large bird was staying ahead of them and deciding to scan it, he found its mind was simple and serene. There was no trace anywhere of Hell’s programming.
"So much for the cat and mouse shit," he said aloud and then started his dive.
As he stood waiting for the next soul to come through, the Cenobite suddenly sensed another portal opening. He could sense no other Cenobite close to where the opening would be, yet something was definitely on its way to Hell. For a second, he thought that maybe it was his offspring, but that thought disappeared as he realized it had an artificial flavor to it. The boxes and various other kinds of puzzles used to create the energy fields and frames of mind that pulled souls to Hell had a distinct ‘taste’ to them. They were more incantation than exact science, which was why Hell didn’t just spill over to other dimensions, it was not completely understood how the doorways worked. It was more raw subconscious creativity that made the devices, not conscious cleverness. Whoever was coming was using a new kind of technology to open a doorway, one that felt precise, clean and efficient. There would be no light shows, or energy sparks. It would simply exist.
He started towards where he knew the opening would be (a few minutes walk). Copulas started to follow. He came to abrupt stop and turned his head slightly towards her. She stopped and took a step back.
He continued out of the room and headed down a long dim passageway.
He walked for a few minutes until he came to what felt like the right room. A shiny black spider was putting the finishing touches on a web in one corner of the doorway. He glanced at it, getting the feeling that it was satisfied with its labors. As he stepped through the doorway, one of the pins on his head caught the web, pulling it off the doorway. The spider came with it, landing on his shoulder. The Cenobite turned his head so that he could see it. As the spider looked up into those cold black eyes, a violent tremor went through its tiny body and then it went into spasms. Two seconds later, it died of fright, then fell off. Its last thought was the realization that it was seriously outclassed and that the attention of whatever it had landed on was worse than death. It had quickly made its escape before it had been snared. With one quick motion of his hand, he stirred the air, which in turn pulled the web off the pin that it was caught on. The web floated to the ground, becoming a death shroud for its lifeless creator.
The room was empty and had been for quite some time. The echoes of its last occupant's suffering however, could still be felt - if one was sensitive enough. The Cenobite had always prided himself on his sensitivity. He had been able to sense an approaching portal since his own conversion and now his senses were screaming 'Here!'. He felt a ripple in the room as matter from his universe began to mesh with matter from another. He probed the opening mentally. It did not take long to find the source of the increasing connection between universes.
They called themselves the Y'huni. They were aggressive invaders of other dimensions, opening portals and pouring through, taking what resources they could and then closing the portals if necessary. If they happened upon weak enough races on the other side, they would establish a stronghold and expand from it. They had spread into hundreds of dimensions and had explored thousands more. Just the catalog he was receiving was priceless, let alone any tidbits about their technology. Unfortunately, even their collective knowledge had very little in the way of portal opening. Those who designed and engineered the mechanisms for this accomplishment were most likely far away and safe. These minds he now perused were soldiers, nothing more, nothing less.
Hell was about to welcome them with an open maw.
Copulas felt a pang of anxiety. She had wondered when she might be the first thing a soul sees, but she didn’t expect it so soon. She had already taken part in exploring a few of the new members to Hell’s fodder, but she was not even close to knowing how to make one of her kind.
He’ll be back soon, she assured herself.
It hit the side of her head like a brick. Before she knew what happened, she was picking herself up off the floor. Hanging in the air was a tentacle with various slicing, mangling parts at its end. They whirred and spun and sliced the air as it seemed to watch her. She followed it to its source of which there was none visible. Its trunk just faded into the black of a corner.
In her mind she heard it say that she was given an honor, bringing one into the fold. How dare she doubt the gift and shrink from the responsibility, rather than embrace it with enthusiasm and a desire to do well in the task.
Again it lashed out. She quickly ducked to one side and held out her hands, into which flew two large knives from the blackness in another corner of the room. She made very fast hard slices up and down, her arms becoming a blur almost instantly.
The ‘head’ of the tentacle hit the ground, sounding like a dropped bag of wet sponges. The neck of the thing recoiled into the wall with a high pitched squeal of pain.
Copulas dropped her hands as the knives returned to their part of the darkness. She went over to the severed mass and picked it up, examining it. In her mind she heard its last thought. It was just two words, thank you.
This was puzzling. Why would something thank her for killing it? It seemed to be in service of Leviathan and had obviously been sent to make sure she took the challenge of conversion as a blessing. Had it attacked her hoping she would kill it? Its message contradicted its actions. It all added up to ‘You should be glad to serve Leviathan. I serve Leviathan and want to die.’
This mystery would have to wait however, for the portal could open at any time. Perhaps some day she would be able to sense openings, but at this point, she had to rely on her mentor.
The thing started to dissolve in her hands. She tossed it to a corner of the room and as it hit, it broke into tiny pieces, which in turn broke down even more. By the time the thing came to a stop, it was little more than a puddle. She didn’t doubt that the puddle itself would evaporate shortly, and all evidence of the mind that prodded her and confused her would be gone. She would be left with the message of purpose and the question of its suicide.
Give and take. Such was the balance and mystery of Hell.
Andrew hit the top of the truck and ripped it open like a child with a gift. The truck (as does most wrapping paper) didn’t stand a chance. Kenneth’s eyes were wide with shock as he looked up at Andrew. Ian’s face however was quite different. Ian yelled something to Kenneth and then sprang up into the air through the hole in the roof, catching Andrew completely off guard as they flew up into the air.
Andrew felt his flesh ripping as the demon tore into him. They were ascending quite quickly, and at this rate, would hit the clouds in a few seconds. The guardian inside Andrew began thrashing as well, yelling in his mind how it would torture him once he was defeated.
Andrew shut off his nerves and made himself as malleable as he could to lessen the damage. Although he couldn’t be killed or even seriously hurt like this, he couldn’t fight back either. He would need to solidify in order to do any return damage.
Andrew worked up a body in his head, one that would be all weapons and thick skin. His wings would need to be smaller and faster to give him more maneuverability. He sent the order to his flesh and prepared to strike back.
Kenneth barely got the truck under control as he skidded to a stop amongst some trees on the side of the road, he grabbed the box and jumped out, looking up in the air for Ian and the attacker. They were high up in the air and still climbing. He couldn’t tell which was which. All he saw was what looked like some kind of skeleton with wings ferociously attacking something with immense claws and even bigger wings.
"This thing is here to prevent you from getting into Heaven! Open it, now! I’ll hold it off as long as I can!" Ian had shouted.
Then Ian had jumped up into the air with surprising strength and taken the monster who attacked them with him. Kenneth saw the surprised look on the demon’s face. He was sure it mirrored his own. Slamming the brakes, he went off the road into the woods to the left.
Kenneth was now leaning against a tree, listening to the roar from above. The sound echoed in the woods around him, which was all he could see in any direction. The combatants were now a dot in the sky. He decided he’d better get started on the box before the battle was done. If Ian lost, that dot would come down and take the box, and Heaven, away.
He went around the tree and sat down with his back to it and began studying the box, turning it over and over again. It slightly reminded him of another colorful puzzle box that was popular a few years ago. He had figured that one out in a day.
Ian had shouted that he needed to open it, so the challenge was not to rearrange the box to some kind of order, instead it was to take the order and undo it. Whatever was inside the box would be exposed.
Kenneth had to find a way in. He glanced at the pickup truck, a reminder of the hell he lived in, rusty, barely functional, down to earth… boring. He crossed his legs in a squatting position and began to feel around the box for both a way in and a way out. He was going to Heaven and to hell with everything else.
He stood in the room where the Y’huni were trying to bridge the gap between their dimension and what they hoped would be a weak and bountiful one. Their thoughts spilled in like water through a hole in a sinking ship’s side.
Gleaned from one of the stray thoughts was the subconscious memory of an ancient beast. It had been the Y’huni’s natural enemy back when fire was a newly discovered tool. They had drove the beasts into extinction, but the memory was still in their collective subconscious. They thought they had dreamed it up in their fictions without knowing that at one time, they faced extinction themselves at the claws of this ‘old enemy’.
This memory would serve his needs. He left the room and went the opposite way he had come. He walked past a few doorways - pausing occasionally to savor the sweet sound of suffering - and entered a room near a five-way junction of dark hallways.
In this room a dozen large long wooden blocks hung on chains, swinging and turning on their own. The buzzing of flies mixed with the high pitched whine of the wind. Four chains with lit bulbs at their ends hung from various parts of the room. They clanged against other chains that ended in hooks of various sizes, some small and sharp, others large and dull (like the kind used for pulling). Various hooks and cutting tools jutted out from the blocks, each with a piece of meat or bone on it. Some pieces just hung there, while others moved or shook, like bugs on pins.
An eyeball skewered on a pin which pierced an ear and held part of a severed human leg swung into view. The leg was pulled around the side of the ‘block’ (the bend of the knee at the corner) and was nailed through the ankle on a circular chunk of wood that stuck out from the face of the block slightly. This circle slowly turned, causing a sharp cracking sound as it did so. The leg convulsed.
This was only one of the many pieces in the room. Again, he took a moment to savor it all as he walked further into the room.
He stopped in the middle of the room and turned towards the largest of the blocks. All the knives and pins and nails retracted into the block, the limbs and various other human parts they held falling to the floor with loud slaps and splats. He then looked in turn at each of the blocks and each of the walls and they did the same. It was a rain of human flesh, and in a matter of moments, the floor of the room was covered with it. Most of the pieces were twitching. During this, the whine of the wind grew.
The Cenobite walked to the doorway and turned around. He surveyed the flesh on the floor and as his gaze moved around the room, each piece shook a little.
He lifted his arms slowly with his palms up, and as he lifted them, a circular piece of the floor rose, becoming a small pedestal, as far across as he was tall and about half that in height.
The top of it split into pie slices in which the points at the center rose up and away from the center. Small mechanical ‘arms’ were pushing each piece, making it resemble a dark flower in bloom. Other devices rose out of the new hole, each on a limb or a mechanical construct. Sounds of metal scraping metal filled the room. The noise of the wind stopped as more devices rose out of the pedestal.
Then they all extended out to various points in the room, picking up the pieces of flesh and drawing them to the center. Much of what came out of the pedestal were needles on long metal arms. These needles started sewing pieces together. Bones were pushed together and ligaments sewn into them. Very quickly a large ribcage became visible as did what seemed to be a spine running down the center of it. As this was going on, many arms and legs were being created. Each arm had a long bone at the end which was sharpened into a blade. As each piece was completed, it was added to the whole.
Within five minutes muscles were being added and finally, internal organs were dropped in and connected. A large sixteen part heart began to beat as a very large lung took its first breath. Skin was dropped on the new body all the way up to where the head was being made. Pieces of skulls were arranged into one large head. This head had eyes all over it and those were also dropped in. All the needles concentrated on the head as the cavity was filled with gray matter and connected in various places to the rest of the ‘body’. There had been four humans in this room. They were now one.
A single loud roar filled the room as the beast was born. Its sound shook the chains dangling around it as its eight muscular legs touched the floor. It stood up under its own power and the pedestal that created it closed and returned to the floor. Eight deadly arms were brought up into view of its eight eyes. It then turned toward the door, each foot slamming into the floor with enough force to make the walls shake and pieces of paint fall.
As its many eyes focused on the Cenobite, it lowered its massive head in deference and let out a low guttural sound. More paint fell to the floor.
He was satisfied and began the journey back to the room of convergence, the newly made beast barely squeezing itself through the hallway behind him.
An electric shock jolted Kenneth from his trance. The puzzle box fell from his hand onto the leaf covered ground before him. It sat there, gold and black, amongst the reds, yellows and browns of Autumn. The unnatural in the natural. He began to feel quite frightened. What if this was a trick? What if he was being led down a path of damnation? All his options lie before him in two extremes, a magical escape from earthly trappings, or a safe, sane existence in the known and proven. Even if it was heaven that waited, would he wish that he had spent more years dealing with the mortal world so that he could more ably savor eternal bliss? He could not decide. He wanted to run and fall into his mother’s bosom and beg forgiveness for his desertion to the chase of bright plug-in things. Kenneth also wanted to scoop up the box and bravely step into whatever existence it offered, shedding once and for all the simple life. He just mumbled that he didn’t know which way to go.
An ant helped him decide.
One ant does not usually garner much attention, but this ant had already found many vast sources of nourishment for its hive. It now tasted the flakes of junk food in the tread on Kenneth’s boots. It grabbed a load and went as fast as it could towards the nest. It took it a little over thirty seconds to drop off the food and call for help in collecting more. A few seconds after that, it was headed back towards Kenneth. More joined the endeavor and soon there was a good number of the nest engaged in the transfer. A few went ahead and headed up the boot searching for an even greater bounty.
Kenneth felt the prickly wanderings of the ants on his right leg. He pulled up his pant leg to see the ants crawling frantically around through his leg hair. He brushed them off and stood up, stomping his feet.
The colony lost a total of twelve ants in the process but gained enough food to keep the remaining ants alive for a week. Humanity was losing one more of its members to Hell as Kenneth decided he wanted no more of what ants represented to him – endless toil.
He looked up at the box when he was sure the ants were no longer on him and his mouth dropped open. There sat the box, with what could have been its top, opened up towards the sky. It was as if a flower had been planted on the ground and had just bloomed for him. It glistened and shone, all at once seeming to be tiny and massive – a star sparkling in the distance and a roaring flame in a fireplace two feet away. There were other contradictory thoughts and feelings, but nothing as strong as the sense that this was it. His great moment was here. Kenneth could not hope to go back now, too much had already been revealed.
He took a tentative step toward it. If he would have bothered to look down, he would have noticed ants and every other kind of insect in an absolute panic to get as far away from the box as they could. They did so with no regard for safety or forest floor politics. A large caterpillar was stepped on and ignored by a brown spider who on any other day would have wrapped that same caterpillar in a nice tight web without a second thought (and in a later bought of hunger, would come back looking for it). Two beetles missed a perfect opportunity to mate as they sped along side each other, insect romance going out the window as the need for distance took precedence. They came up against a piece of bark that forced them to squeeze through a hole only big enough for one. The male knocked the female aside and went through. Before the female could follow, a light shone through the hole, immobilizing her where she stood. She sensed where she was going and without hesitation, flipped on her back and died.
Kenneth slowly walked towards the box, trying to see over its top to its internal workings. All around him, the woods crackled with a sound like two large rocks rubbing on each other. This was accompanied by the sound of cracking branches. In the distance a bell rang. This caught his attention. It did not sound like a heavenly bell. It was more melancholy, more banal. The clouds above became darker and the sun faded away. A strange luminescence took form all around the spot as nearby fields and roads were replaced by a giant maze of which Kenneth’s piece of the woods was perched on top of.
He heard the bell again and looked through the trees to the source. Kenneth saw a far group of trees disappearing and being replaced by an opening in the ground a hundred yards across. He could see what appeared to be roads along the top of ancient walls. These walls went down seemingly forever. Kenneth got the sense that he was standing on a vast plain that had been sliced up. The air had a stale, deathly smell to it. The clouds were moving very fast. Much too fast for the kind of day it was.
As he looked at the trees around him, he caught something moving in the distance. As he moved his head to one side, he noticed it was something turning… and it was very far away.
Kenneth then had the feeling that whatever brought him here (wherever here was) was done bringing him, for a sense of closing came over him. It was as if a lock was turned and his very essence felt the click of the bolt against a stop. Wherever he was, it was for good.
At that moment, the trees ahead of him began to fall. The furthest one dropped down and disappeared. Then the next closer and the next and so on. The ground just fell away as the snapping of roots and a very loud sifting sound came at him. The ground was falling into whatever abyss surrounded the small grove of trees and he would soon go with it.
He took a step back and was stopped by the tree he had leaned against while working the box. A cry shot out of his mouth but he couldn’t hear it over the din of the collapsing piece of forest.
The collapsing slowed and by the time it reached the two trees in front of him, it was moving at half the speed it had started out.
The two trees began to lean away from him, and as they did so, it revealed the spinning object he had glimpsed.
It was the box, or more accurately, a gigantic version of it. It hung in mid-air, spinning on some invisible vertical axis. On one side, it was opened just like the much smaller version which had brought him here. Kenneth glanced down to the box and there it sat, identical in configuration to the behemoth spinning in the sky.
The opening in the box in the sky began to glow as it turned away from him, but not a bright glow, rather it seemed to be glowing black. Then a black beam shot out and down, since that face of the box was pointing down a few degrees from level. The beam panned across the distant horizon and then came back his way. He noticed he was directly in its path and hurriedly jumped behind the tree.
Blackness hit and everything inverted in color. His mind was turned over and things that he kept repressed and buried were suddenly his topmost thoughts. The coping mechanisms he used to keep these thoughts at bay were suddenly repressed and he was bombarded by images he could not turn away from.
They came almost too fast to catch them, but catch them he did, despite his best effort to not do so. These images and sounds were a mix of internal organs and violence and sex. It was as if someone was watching television and changing the channels extremely fast… and every channel was showing something disturbing.
A small black and white calf hung in a metal gate choking and gurgling, its head stuck between two beams of the gate. A kitten squealed as a cow laid down and forced out the kitten’s last breath. A tiny mouse bit down on a scrap of bread as a cat landed on it and bit into its neck. A mouse shot up the pant leg of his father as he swung a hammer, missing the nail which was to hold a metal gate in place and instead smashing into his wrist with a loud crack.
Then there was a rushing sound like air from a sliced car tire and he saw the metal gate suspended and turning in mid-air as the calf and the kitten and the mouse and his father spun in the air around it, screaming and dying, blood flying everywhere. Kenneth’s sight turned red as blood filled his eyes. He smelled rotted flesh as the blood turned brown. The blood then fell away from his face and landed on the metal grate as it changed and contorted into various shapes. The animals and his father were pulled in and ground up, the mush piling on the ground below. The mass of flesh moved and shook, various cries and screams escaping from mouths that dissolved as soon as they formed.
The black light was suddenly gone and Kenneth found himself kneeling on the ground, screaming at the top of his lungs. The scream was so automatic that he didn’t realize it was his own for a few seconds.
Before he could catch his breath, something dug into his leg, then into his arm, and then his chest. He barely got enough air in to let out another scream as a wave of pain hit him. He saw three hooks imbedded in his flesh, each one at the end of a chain. He was yanked toward the box and he realized the chains were coming out of it’s opening.
Reflexively, he turned his body and pulled on the chain attached to his arm. It popped out and was violently yanked inside the box. Kenneth quickly executed more of the same kind of twists so that he could free himself from the other two. The instant they lost him, he ran behind the tree. He started to back away, keeping the tree between him and the box.
Kenneth realized opening the box had been a huge mistake. He didn’t know where he was, but it certainly wasn’t Heaven. He then heard the whistling of the chains as their hooks struck the tree. He turned to run but came to a very quick stop.
He was looking at what appeared to be a large flat one story structure. It went on to the right and the left indefinitely and there was no opening in it as far as he could tell. It was too high to get on top of and the ground he stood on ended a few dozen feet to each side. Kenneth was on a small flat area on the top of this maze, and he was trapped. Waiting for him was the box on the ground and its chains and the box in the sky and its dark light. This was Hell, he thought. Better to run off the edge into the abyss then face those two boxes. The black beam was now on its way back again. Kenneth let out a whimper and looked for the closest spot from which to jump that would allow him to not be caught by the chains trying at him.
He took one large step after choosing the spot and was in mid stride of the second when the sound of the chains suddenly stopped. Kenneth turned and noticed the box in the sky was closed and spinning harmlessly. He carefully looked around the tree and the box sat on the ground, closed as well, but not back in cube shape. Maybe what he had to do was reverse what he had done and it would take him home.
Perhaps that was it, maybe this wasn’t Hell after all. Maybe all he had to do was threaten to jump over the edge and the forces that controlled this place would cease their attack, this might buy him a chance to get home.
As if in answer, there came the grinding sound of a very large stone door sliding open on a similar floor. A bright light came from behind him and he turned to see the wall was opening up. It was as if someone sliced right down the wall starting a few feet from the top and then started pulling the crack open. The wall was not buckling however, it just seemed to compress on either side, like a curtain being opened. The bright light was coming from inside the structure.
Walking toward him, he saw a woman unlike any he’d ever seen. Though any specific details of her features were not yet visible due to the light around her, he saw enough to make his heart skip a beat.
Her silhouette suggested an almost impossible body. This woman was no workhorse, nor a waif. She was perfectly in the middle (for his tastes) - long strong legs, an extremely small waist, a massive chest (thrusting out to the rhythm of her gait, much to his delight), a head of hair that surrounded her face like petals on a flower, and arms that somehow seemed muscular and soft all at once. He had only seen bodies like that in magazines, and those were usually the result of just-so-lighting and implants and other tricks he knew were employed to make the caveman in him roar with desire. Those magazine bodies only hinted at what was before him. The most attractive thing, however, when added to all the physical traits, was her walk. Every step screamed want me! Every sway demanded give everything for me! He forgot about everything else except the moment she would come into full view. That moment was approaching and he felt his heart beating so hard, he thought it might jump out of his chest and lay itself at her feet.
Andrew struck as hard and as fast as he could. It sent the guardian spinning back through the air end over end, but it quickly recovered and came at him with a roar that would have made Andrew’s heart skip a beat had it been formed and functioning. He was quickly getting the hang of solidifying parts of himself and making other parts malleable. So as his wings and body were almost liquid in nature with the guardian’s blows passing right through, his arms and ‘hands’ became hard, sharp and deadly. There was one thing he did not have however, and that was the demon’s cold, calculating ferocity. All he had was the ability to pass…
That was it. All he had to do was jump dimensions, think of the box down below, and jump back. He could destroy the box before the demon even realized where he was. When it came for him, he could bring it with him to Hell and leave it there. Without a box, Hell was sealed off and he could then deal with it without worrying about people on this side.
He turned and shot into a cloud and thought about where he might turn up in Hell if he jumped over. He figured that in the air above wherever Kenneth would turn up would be a good idea. It was at that precise moment that he realized Kenneth was gone and had already crossed over.
He thought of Hell and went...
... and arrived at a point which was up in the air as he suspected, but that was all he was ready for.
What happened next caught him completely off guard.
The first thing he saw was a gigantic version of the puzzle box spinning in mid-air. The second was an immense black beam coming out of it right before it hit him. He was then bathed in darkness and pain. His sight was filled with images he couldn’t escape from. A feeling of utter despair came over him as well, which only intensified the images and sound he was hit with.
He saw various parts of people being assembled and disassembled. Horribly wretched beings came into existence screaming in sheer pain and were quickly ripped apart before they could get a full scream out. He saw people intertwined much like the two children were earlier, but dozens at once. There were also animals and other sorts of beings he didn’t recognize. It reached a deafening chorus of suffering and continued to escalate, the many moans and screams becoming white noise. Still it increased. Over it all he heard a clicking sound, and then a snake-like hiss. Various kinds of fruit fell in front of him and broke open. An apple flew at him which then split into two and passed to his left and right, each exploding in his ears, temporarily drowning out the screams.
Quite suddenly, he found himself in some kind of small, long building that had a curved roof which ran to the ground on either side. Each end of the building was a semicircle and the whole thing seemed like some large hollow cylinder which had been cut in two the long way and one half dropped on the ground.
He got the smell and taste of old dust as his eyes adjusted to the light, seeing a military cot. Judging by the items on it, he guessed that it belonged to a British officer. He heard a noise behind him and turned around. There sat a sweaty, thin, balding man with his back to Andrew. He sat cross-legged and was holding something which he seemed quite busy with.
Andrew started to walk around the man when he saw what he was holding. The box. Andrew started to say something in warning but just then, there was a click from the box and some kind of electric charge shot out, giving the man a good jolt. He dropped the box and backed away from it. Andrew wanted to go for the box, but he was rooted to the spot.
The box had begun to play what sounded like some kind of nursery rhyme in music box fashion.
He recognized the tune somehow. Andrew wasn’t sure, but something, somewhere in him seemed to wake up.
The man suddenly turned and looked up at him, ignoring the box as it played out the tune.
"Son!", he said. "You must not let me get you! Leave me to my damnation!".
Chains shot out of the box and dug into the man with small hooks at their ends. He let out a scream and Andrew started towards him, ready to undo it all and send him to Earth.
"Listen!" said the man, "Let it be! Do not risk yourself on my account! If you try to free me, you’ll only be damning yourself! Make me be the last one saved!"
He was yanked onto the box and while Andrew watched, his father was torn apart and pulled into the box, screaming the most horrible piercing scream he had ever heard.
As the last piece of his father was yanked into the box, it changed. Long pins came out of it at each juncture in its patterns and also in its corners. He heard his father’s scream become a most evil laugh which echoed into silence.
He heard it stop laughing and faintly was able to make out Come to me son, before it faded altogether.
The box then changed again, but this time became the apple he saw earlier. The pins were pulled into the apple and it again broke into two, but this time, there was something between the two apples. It somewhat resembled a snake, but not quite. It looked up at him and hissing, jumped at him.
Andrew then found himself falling towards the ground, the black beam had moved on. He flapped his wings and barely caught himself before he hit the ground.
He tried to get a sense of where the box lay. He realized it was miles away. Andrew had been carried in the beam for a while before he had fallen out. It was now swinging around again and he had only seconds before he was once again in its grasp. He had no choice but to jump back, for if that beam got him one more time, he feared he might be caught in it forever. He jumped back to Earth…
… to discover that the Guardian was waiting. Somehow, it knew precisely where he would come out at, and came at him full speed.
A small round object suddenly bounced into the middle of the room as the Cenobite entered it. He turned his head slightly back towards the beast and it backed up a few feet.
He walked up to the object and picked it up. It was a crystal sphere of sorts, with energy of some kind inside it, bouncing around its interior. The Cenobite suddenly pulled it towards his stomach and it exploded. The effect was that one second he was standing there holding it, the next he was flung in pieces all over the room. Then as if the pieces were somehow connected by elastic bands, they snapped back together and he once again stood there intact. His eyes glowed a bright blue, which quickly faded into black again.
He sifted through the thoughts on the other side. It had been a device commonly used to soften up the area before entry. They were on the way.
The Cenobite then turned and walked out of the room and stopped by the beast he had made. It grunted something and then walked (or more accurately, thundered) into the room where the bomb was.
Just as it entered the room, a soldier came through. Before there was time for it to react, the beast took off its head with one clean swipe.
The Y’huni was very similar to the beast, four legs and four arms (which were now thrashing about aimlessly, while the head sputtered to its death under its own body). The Y’huni was much smaller however and would have never been a match for its killer in a close fight. Like many other evolutionary stories, the Cenobite thought, it was the weapon-making ability that allowed this smaller race to thrive and dominate the larger one. Since it had died, it meant they were not immortal here. They would not be able to draw the kind of suffering that humans were able to survive, but it would have to be enough.
The beast then leapt through the portal. As it did so, the Cenobite walked into the room and soon followed it, walking directly into the shimmering area where the two atmospheres met, and disappeared.
Everything was bathed in brown. He glanced at the sky and there sat a tiny brown star. This was not the Y’huni’s home world. Even these soldiers did not know where that was, as they were born and raised far from it, serving one purpose only, conquer new dimensions for their unseen progenitors.
He heard the roar of the beast next as it was being pummeled by energy weapons not more than twenty feet away. He searched the nearby minds. They were full of terror. The beast served its purpose. Every Y’huni was terrified of the beast to the point to where they just stood in shock. It was weapons controlled by artificial intelligence that were doing the firing. In a few seconds, the Y’huni would recover and would add to the barrage against the beast. That was time enough.
The Cenobite knew it was hopeless to try and figure out how the device worked in this short of time. He instead went for the knowledge on how to keep the portal from closing. The answer lie in the mind of a Y’huni also twenty feet away, but on the other side of a clear crystalline barrier. He started directly towards the spot, pulling the details of the operation of the portal opening mechanism as he walked. His powers of matter manipulation were intact in this place, so he caused the room that this Y’huni (and five of its kind) were in to turn on them. By the time he arrived at the barrier, they were hanging from ceiling by the hoses and cables that had suddenly came to life and ensnared them, nearly squeezing the life out of them, but not quite. He then found the proper pitch to shatter the barrier and used two of the blades hanging from his waist to generate the sound.
With a loud crash the barrier shattered. He stepped through the rubble and approached the mechanism which controlled the opening between worlds. He reached out and ripped out a few pieces of quivering flesh from the same Y’huni whose mind had held the workings of it (the Y’huni’s scream muffled by a power cable that snaked across his face and filled his mouth before pulling tight, cracking many teeth as it did so) and placed the flesh in such a way as to prevent the device from being ‘closed’. That done, he began to build a shield of his own design to keep others from it. Using pieces of the previous shield and flesh from the Y’huni hanging from the ceiling, he pieced together a very deadly, living mass of muscle and crystal shards. As he turned and walked away, he heard the first few lashings of his new child as they tore through what was left of the few Y’huni still conscious. He also heard the death cry of the beast he had created as the other Y’huni came to their senses and quickly cut it down.
He stood in the center of a large open, dusty area. The landscape was just dust, dirt and large boulders as far as he could see. He stood in what looked like an encampment of sorts. Walls had been erected for the purpose of shielding the Y’huni in case something went wrong.
He was then pummeled by many energy beams. They had absolutely no effect. The Cenobite turned toward the portal and called with his mind. Soon Hell would flood this place with Cenobites, Guardians, and other forms of whatever customized life Leviathan chose to send. Within a few hours, it would be secured and the task of deciphering the technology that opened doorways at will would be gleaned from this dimension. A most glorious era for Hell would begin, and he would be its herald.
Andrew had no more time for the guardian if he was to save Kenneth. He suddenly had an idea. He turned himself into a large spear with wings and drove himself into the guardian. The guardian let out a roar as Andrew then collected himself inside it and expanded himself outward.
The guardian was shattered into a million pieces… and reassembled in mid-air a few feet away.
This was going to be quite tough, he realized. He was not sure that he himself could survive what he had just done to the guardian, and that scared him. The demon inside him roared with laughter as the demon outside him came at him afresh.
He couldn’t go back to Hell just yet. Kenneth was out in the open where the black beam was. He had no choice but to beat this thing so that he could time his jump into Hell to avoid the beam. He already had no idea where the beam was at this point.
Andrew got another idea. Something had held the guardian together even when it was split apart the way it was. If he could disrupt that energy, or magnetism, or whatever it was and pull of the same splitting of it again, he just might destroy it.
It was a tall order, but one that needed accomplishing if was to win. As the guardian came at him, he deftly slipped out of its path and continuing this, scrambled for a plan.
Copulas strode into full view of Kenneth as she sensed her master stepping into another dimension. She was truly on her own with this conversion.
Kenneth’s arousal suddenly turned to utter disgust and fear when the woman stepped out into the light.
She appeared to have little to no skin. Her body was mostly covered with black leather. At certain points, there were various clamps and similar mechanisms that opened even deeper parts of her for anyone to see. He could see both ends of her tongue as it licked about. He could see her reproductive organs (He could identify that based on what he once saw in a book). There were leather straps across it all in various places, but strategically located to both contain and showcase her inner workings. As she walked, the whole mass of her moved about in its leather cage.
He also caught other points, though he tried hard not to. Where she would have had eyelashes, she now had needles. Her lips around her mouth had been pulled back with hooks which were at the ends of strings buried into her flesh. She was slowly opening and closing her jaw and her tongue lashed out in between bites. Her nipples were pierced and long strings ran from them to various points in her arms and to each other, so that when she moved her arms, it pulled on her in a way that made him cringe to imagine the pain. Each strand of her hair had a hook at the end of it, some were imbedded in her and some flipped about as she occasionally tossed her head. A few inches down her legs, a skirt of some kind had been sewn into her flesh, so that it appeared that it had been pulled down part way. This ran to the ground so that he could not see her legs. Nor did he want to.
Kenneth noticed parts of skin here and there, and immaculate skin it was, enough to give one the sense that there were still pieces of what might have been an extremely beautiful woman there, but now had been twisted and maimed into the monstrosity that approached him.
She was still walking in the same sultry way as she was in the shadows, but now it was almost too much. All he could think of was two things, sex and pain. He began to feel faint and thought he might have passed out, but found that he couldn’t. No matter how overloaded he felt, unconsciousness would not come.
He realized at that moment, as the smiling, inside-out she-demon walked towards him, that he had willingly stepped into Hell, and that here, no matter what happened to him, he could not become unconscious, nor could he, by the condition of the woman in front of him, die no matter what wound was inflicted on him.
Again he thought of the abyss and turned to it. Suddenly there was a hot wet hand on his shoulder, he closed his eyes as a similar hand came to rest on his other shoulder. He was frozen to the spot in terror. A whimper escaped him as he was spun around. He felt hot moist breath on his face and quite suddenly, he was pulled toward her, her lips locking with his. Before he had a chance to react something grabbed his crotch and ripped out his manhood. He screamed, and in so doing, opened his mouth. Something long and slimy shot into both ends of him, thrusting in and out, his face was almost split open as his new opening down below was violated in much the same way.
He was lifted off the ground and done in this way for what seemed an eternity. Kenneth screamed the whole time, but only occasionally did any sound escape, and what it was more resembled a gurgle.
In fact, it was only ten seconds.
He was then thrown to the ground and landed on his side. He pulled into a fetal position involuntarily and sobbed loudly, begging for it to stop.
Copulas walked to the box and picked it up. She ran her fingers around the circle on the top and then pulled part of it up, turned the piece and pushed it back down. This put it back into its cube shape and just as it sealed, tiny little motes of light appeared and proceeded to fill the cracks, disappearing as soon as the motion was done. She paused for a second. If Kenneth was so chosen, the box would stay until such a time as he temporarily escaped. He would then bring more souls down with him when he was eventually reacquired. This happened very rarely. Most of the time, the box would disappear from the welcoming cenobite’s hands and it returned to Earth.
This was not one of the rare times. The box shimmered and disappeared. Kenneth was hers forever.
She then walked back over to him. He was still whimpering on the ground, blood running from between his legs into the ground around him. Plants had begun to grow up over him as the piece of earth he had brought with him tried to consume him. This combined with the knowledge Copulas had of his desire for ‘anything not down to earth’ gave her a starting point for his conversion, now that her initial appetite was satisfied. She of course could have went on screwing him in that way for months, but then she had a mission to accomplish and didn’t want her master to return to find her only thinking of herself. She wasn’t here in Hell for her own desires, she had a job to do.
Copulas reached down and grabbed Kenneth by the hair and proceeded to slice him in various places, savoring each yelp of pain from him as she did so. The plants had pretty much covered his lower half, locking him to the spot. His arms flailed, but a few quick lashes from Copulas’s sharp blade quickly had him holding them in.
Once she was done and he was bleeding profusely from all over his body, she lobbed off the scalp where the hair she held was attached (the largest piece of undamaged skin he had at that point) and watched as his head smacked the ground. He had been screaming all the while, but by this point, it wasn’t all that exquisite. The first few minutes of pain always elicited the best tones from flesh. After that, it was all the same old song.
He lay there bleeding as the plants spread over his body. She waited until there wasn’t much of him visible and then with a series of slices, cut him and the plants in him from the ground. She could sense that his awareness of who he was disappearing, as continued overwhelming pain tended to do. He was slowly becoming nothing but pain. This, she guessed, was the point where one began the Rebuilding.
She commanded him to stand up. He did so before he even knew he had. She then reached out and grabbed each one of his ribs (they had been partly exposed in her earlier endeavors) and pulled them out. He just stood there and screamed. Some part of him was convinced that if he did exactly as he was told, he just might catch a break. A lot of Hell’s suffering was endured this way, much to Leviathan’s satisfaction. Suffering met with a smile was the most delicious appetizer, since it then yielded even greater suffering when the subject realized its error.
Copulas took his ribs and sharpened them. As she did so, the ground gave up two thick tree roots. She handed Kenneth his ribs and slicing the roots to a length of a few feet, added them to his armload.
She then pushed him toward the opening in the wall. He fell as his screams reached a slightly higher pitch. She bent down and picking him up with every roughness possible, threw him through the entrance. He skidded on the floor and hit the wall on the far side. She held out her hands and her palms opened up as dark thin tentacles with slicing and biting tips came out and collected up the ribs and roots, pulling them up and into her arms.
As she carried her parcel to and through the doorway, one word came to mind…
Harvester.
… and with that thought, a creative spark in her came alive, it spread throughout her system, igniting hidden powers and abilities far different than her teacher’s. Blades of grass were pulled into the air behind her, as were more roots, and leaves and branches, and bugs, and some of the dirt, until they formed a dark cloud of swirling nature. She was bringing up a small storm, and this small storm crackled with energy. Blue light shot around it and in it.
One of the major milestones for any Cenobite came when it created another of its kind. That birthing opened up fully the buried potentials in them, and full-fledged, they were now truly members of the Order of the Gash.
Copulas stepped through the doorway with a new sense of regality. She would no longer need to touch her subjects to accomplish her goals. She could now stand there - impassive, clicking her teeth, gnashing her tongue, bleeding in lust – and put her charges through Hell without exerting herself, or extending herself. Cold, incalculable suffering was now hers to administer.
Kenneth was lifted into the air and brutally attacked by the cloud. His flesh was softened and made malleable. His arms were removed from the elbows down and replaced by various roots. His ribs were attached at the ends of the roots so that his fingers were now giant bony knives. He was wound inside and out with plants and bugs and branches. His eyes removed and replaced with the eyes of all the insects in him, so that his face looked more like a spider’s nest than anything else. His legs became thick trunks of roots as well and his scalp was removed and thick vines sprang from his brain, winding around his shoulders and plunging down to his midriff. The stain of his missing manhood was still visible and a gaping hole could still be seen. This was Copulas’ brand on him.
Harvester was set upon the ground and his many eyes focused on Copulas. He then knelt and dropped his head. She nodded and as she did so, leather came flying from the shadows and wound him tightly. As he was contained, the straps pulled tighter until he winced from the pressure. When it was done, she turned and closed the opening behind them. The last thing the two saw right before the wall sealed was a glint of dark light as it reflected off their god.
Copulas and the Harvester were two of the deadliest additions Hell had seen in a while. Leviathan was satisfied as it spun in the air miles away and above, anticipating the great suffering those two would no doubt bring it.
The call came for reinforcements from Copulas’ maker. They headed for the opening to the Y’huni’s dimension. Play time was over.
Andrew had not been able to destroy the guardian and time was running out. He decided to try another jump, hoping he could catch it just right and avoid the beam. He had to try. Kenneth was no doubt already in the Cenobite’s merciless grasp.
He jumped, leaving the guardian behind.
As Andrew disappeared, the box reappeared down below. The guardian quickly shot down and scooped it up, speeding off towards the other side of the world. Once there, it could begin the task of catching souls for Leviathan, but it would have to keep an open eye for the day this enemy found it again. Until then, he would bring a record amount into Hell, and would perfect its own fighting and changing skills.
Andrew was once again in Hell’s sky, but this time the puzzle box god was just spinning, not shining anything except dread. Andrew was quite far from his initial spot and started toward where he thought Kenneth might be. For some reason, he wasn’t able to make the jump to where he had been before, but instead ended up exactly where he had fallen out of Leviathan’s beam. What he didn’t know was the truth.
Leviathan had great sway over some of how and where various beings passed in and out of Hell, though not enough to force it to happen. Andrew had simply been forced by Leviathan’s will to reappear where he did. Now that it was aware of Andrew, it was not about to make his intrusions easy. With Andrew back in Hell and with Leviathan sealed again and in control of its faculties (mimicking the box required Leviathan to give up control over its physical form, much to the god’s dislike, but it was a necessary evil) it began to exert its will even more, Andrew would find that he would not be able to jump back to Earth without an extreme amount of will, which just might delay him long enough to be captured.
Now all Leviathan had to do was find out how this threat had come to be. As soon as the one with pins in his head was finished with the opening forever of the Y’huni’s dimension, it would have to call him forth for interrogation.
Everything was proceeding to its advantage. It was only a matter of time before Andrew would be among its servants, if the current trap didn’t work. Until then, the Y’huni’s technology would suffice.
The Cenobite probed the minds of the Y’huni some more and found more detailed knowledge of some of the dimensions they had recently taken. There were a few of notable interest: one in which telepathic beings were commonplace, which would be an excellent way to create massive group suffering; another where pain was physically manifested as a liquid which poured from a sufferer; and yet another where joy was not possible and extinction was a major goal of any near sentient life. Many, many dimensions were perused in that few moments before the rest of Hell and Andrew arrived.
Also sifting through this information was the human soul within him. Eliot took note of a dimension that the Y’huni had not been able to take in which the entire universe was contained in a sphere roughly the size of the Earth's moon and was half full of water. Supposedly some had seen large wolf-like creatures amongst living clouds, while the ocean was full of ever-changing life. They were told to make sure this universe was never entered again, for fear of what those beasts could do. The name of the place was translated to ‘The Realm of the Wolves of the Water’, and Eliot began to form a plan.
A projectile hit the Cenobite in the back and nearly caused some damage. Here in this universe, he had to be careful. He was more vulnerable than he was in Hell. He wanted to give the Y’huni a sense of false hope however, in case there was another way to close the portal that he could not sense, and he did not want them to realize how hopeless their situation was until after the reinforcements had arrived. He knew of course that it might just be Copulas and whatever she had made with the next subject, for Hell didn’t risk too much in any endeavor. Three would be more than enough.
Actually, two more additional Cenobites were coming, putting the total to five. Leviathan decided to play a few big cards since it sensed an endgame of sorts was approaching (gods didn’t always know exactly how these things played out, but they always knew when major changes were coming, and Leviathan had sensed something quite massive was about to be set in motion).
Through the portal stepped a Cenobite with a human face pulled over its own destroyed face, heading towards the left. Another came through which had a large red head and piercing lidless eyes and a fully exposed set of teeth, and went to the right.
Copulas and the Harvester were coming down the hallway when suddenly a door between them broke open and out fell a bloody, skinless man.
In a thick, manly voice he said "I did it! I’m all together again! I did it!"
The Harvester picked him up with his long, sharp bony fingers and probed his mind. His name was Frank and he had nearly escaped Hell once (that’s what he told himself anyway) to only be reacquired and forced to be part of another near escape soon after. That was a few years ago and he had languished in his cell since, having been torn to pieces and scattered around the room. The Harvester proceeded to tear pieces of the man out and fling them back again into the room, where newer, deadlier devices caught them and took them to various parts of the room for a new variety of tortures. Copulas came up behind the screaming man and proceeded to do the same, but added a small storm that sent large jolts into Frank’s body, this making his screams escalate to the point to where they could faintly be heard by the three Cenobites in the newly opened dimension. The one with the removable face looked over to the first one.
"Yours?" came a deep voice in a lordly, European accent.
The first Cenobite just nodded, not looking in any direction but the horizon, his pins glistening in the bright brown light.
"Typical children," quickly snapped the other Cenobite, "Let us hope they do not dally long with Cotton. I would not want to be there if their play caused us to lose this dimension. Leviathan might demote them permanently, and seriously diminish us as well."
He just stood there, thinking his own dark thoughts. Frank Cotton had been working on his escape for a while, and he took no small satisfaction in his cries. He had embarrassed the Cenobite in front of his peers with his near escape and he would make a point to stop by when this was over to personally deal some more exquisite suffering onto him.
The last piece of Frank was tossed into the room as the door was shut. The Harvester was learning fast. Copulas nodded her approval and then turned again towards the room with the portal.
The three Cenobites in the Y’huni’s dimension decided to act. Weapons suddenly turned on their wielders, blowing holes where they once rested. What energy beams did get fired were absorbed by the Cenobites and sent back the way they had come. The Cenobites kept their eyes and minds on the distance, looked for signs of some remote monitoring station. None could be found. They headed off in different directions, spreading terror and pain to everything within mind’s reach.
Copulas and the Harvester entered the room with the portal and just before they stepped into the opening, something tore through the ceiling above.
Before they knew what was happening, Andrew laid his hand on the Harvester and undid what Copulas had done. Kenneth suddenly reappeared, naked but healed. He also reached out toward Copulas, but she successfully jumped out of the way. Andrew opened a portal to Earth and pushed Kenneth through (for some reason, it didn’t open right away and he had to really concentrate to make it happen, he guessed it was the dimensional doorway in front of him causing the interference, which he would investigate as soon as the two Cenobites were human and back on Earth).
He advanced toward Copulas as she attacked him. Everything she threw at him passed through him. Her storm cloud, which appeared suddenly between them, had no effect either. She closed her eyes to summon help.
She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder and then a bright light blinded her.
Mindy bent over and screamed, also naked and healed. She turned to strike at the man who put her back in her cage of flesh, but found herself standing in an alley.
Mindy was powerless and back on Earth. She fell down and sobbed. She remembered being a Cenobite and all the power and promise it held. She wanted back and cursed the monster who denied her that existence. A ripped pair of pants and a tattered t-shirt landed on the ground in front of her. Kenneth was nearby in a dumpster.
He had already gotten himself some clothes, but hadn’t yet fully dressed. He was standing there trying to block out what had just happened. He didn’t realize who she was, but she looked very familiar and since she came in the same kind of flash that he did, he guessed that she had escaped Hell as well.
She spat at him and grabbed the clothes, pulling them on violently. He was taken aback and just stared at her.
"You don’t know who we were, do you?" she spat.
He shook his head no.
She pulled the shirt over her head and then ran over and grabbed Kenneth by his new found collar.
"We were Cenobites! I had just made you into one of us, and that prick came and took it all away! How dare he!" She punched the dumpster and stepped back. She suddenly realized that might have been a grave error. She got her anger in check and gave him a big smile.
"I… remember," he said, and then jumped backwards out of the dumpster. "I don’t want to go back! You go back if you want to, but leave me alone! I was wrong! You… can’t… make…"
He started to sob and shook his head violently, putting his hands to his temples in a vain effort to keep the memories out.
"Very well Harvester," she said, "You can run for now, but I will find the box or another way in, and I’m going to take you with me… Don’t go too far," she smiled at that last remark, which made Kenneth shake with fear.
He turned and ran full speed out of the alley into the open light, and tore down the street. Once he was sure he had put some good distance between them, he would call his folks and get home. The sight of dirt, and grass, and trees made him queasy, but the sight of stores and lights and all things bright and electric made him shake in fear. It was his chase of all things new that had nearly cost him his soul (if this wasn’t just a temporary reprieve that is).
Kenneth made up his mind right then and there that he was joining the Amish. He would be safe there.
Mindy sensed the box. It was quite far, and moving rapidly away from her. That would be the Guardian trying to keep it from whatever just reduced her to a mere human again. She was glad that her mind still retained at least that ability, but she now knew it all, that she was a human who became a Cenobite. Maybe that’s how all Cenobites started. She hoped that this knowledge would be wiped out when she was reconverted, if she could find a way back to Hell.
She had two choices. Try to catch up with the box, or make a new doorway. Mindy opted for the latter. She had a very minimal understanding of doorways in her mind and decided to head out into the world for now. She would work towards getting back into Hell, and no matter the obstacle, she would succeed. Someday, she’d be Copulas again. She wasn’t sure if she had it in her to make a new doorway, but the creative spark in her was dying to try.
If all else failed, she could track down the Guardian and ask to be returned to her proper place.
Mindy ran out of the alley, determined to taste the pleasures of damnation, and this time, permanently.
Andrew stood at the portal trying to close it with sheer will. It would not. He would have to find out how it was opened and undo it.
He stepped through the portal and saw the Cenobites a good fifty feet away, spreading their hellish control and securing the area. The two Cenobites he had undone were most likely intended to be sentinels of the portal.
A few beings were still alive here near the opening, although in great pain. He quickly probed their minds and it all came clear.
The lead Cenobite stopped and turned. The other two did the same. Something was wrong.
Andrew ran over to the switch… and barely jumped back in time as the sharp mass of muscles lashed out at him. He quickly made himself malleable and dove into it. The instant it touched him, it died. He began tearing his way through it. The switch was behind it.
Just as he caught hold of the switch, he felt something hit him in the back. He was suddenly yanked out into the open and dropped onto the ground, landing with a thud.
Andrew looked up into the black, cold eyes of his father. He was overwhelmed by the incredibly sadistic hunger for suffering that emanated from him. Andrew wanted to jump back to Earth and leave Hell forever.
He couldn’t for two reasons. One, he had to seal this portal, and two, he was quite suddenly cut off from Earth. There was a barrier of some kind now and he hadn’t sensed it go up. He stood up quickly and began to panic as the three Cenobites started towards him.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the internal demon realized it was now or never and began fighting Andrew’s will with renewed vigor.
The odds were seriously stacked against him: an internal demon that threatened to take him over; three Cenobites in front of him ready to most likely make him one of them; the god of Hell behind him; and no home to go to. He had to do something and do it fast.
Suddenly the pins in his father’s face shifted. He stopped and the other Cenobites turned and looked. The pins shifted again and this time they disappeared, along with the black eyes and the grid work of cuts deep in his skin.
For a brief moment, Andrew saw the man from his vision in Leviathan’s black light, the man who solved the box and warned him to not try to save him until all others were saved. This man was the human part of his father.
He yelled something incoherent. He seemed to then concentrate even harder and suddenly his voice was clear, but still heavily strained. This lasted for a few moments…
"Wolves of the Water son! The Realm of the Wolves of the Water!" he yelled and then the pins returned as did the black eyes and the pattern of sliced skin.
The Cenobite was gritting his teeth tightly as he regained control.
"Why do you have a man inside you?" asked the Cenobite with the lidless eyes and a wide, lipless grin.
He was waved off as Andrew’s father held out his hands. Chains shot out of the portal behind Andrew. He felt them coming and hit the ground again. The chains passed over him and imbedded themselves into the two Cenobites on either side of this father, each letting out a roar of anger as they were suddenly lifted off their feet and pulled through the portal.
Andrew jumped back up and threw himself at the mechanism of the switch, making himself into a slicing, smashing weapon as he flew through the air. He hit it and began ripping it to shreds, the portal beginning to flicker and fluctuate severely. He felt his father rushing up behind him and turning, lunged at him. The instant he touched him, he tried to push him to Hell. The Cenobites will was immensely powerful and even though he glowed white hot and energy coursed through and around him, he would not go.
He reached out suddenly and grabbed Andrew’s hand and gave up the struggle as the portal snapped shut behind him. The Cenobite was going back to Hell, and was taking his son with him.
Andrew suddenly remembered the human part of his father saying something about the Realm of the Wolves of the Water. He was being pulled out of this dimension and nothing could stop that, but he still had a say in where he went. The portal was now closed. This dimension was safe. Kenneth and Mindy had been returned to earth in human form. The two Cenobites that accompanied his father were now back in Hell and his father was about to join them. Andrew succeeded.
Andrew yanked his arms out of his father’s grasp as they started to go and concentrated as hard as he could on water, wolves, a moon-sized universe and living clouds (those last two details he had taken from the minds of the locals and had just now made the connection). The frustrated roar of his father echoed in his ear as Andrew slipped entirely from where he was and passed into whatever place would hold such things. He was taking a big chance, but to be locked in Hell with his father seemed a far worse option than heading into an unknown dimension.
He started to make himself malleable (just in case) as the dimension of the Y’huni faded away.
End of Part III.
Part IV is done. Click here.
01/10/99 It was almost a
week ago that I realized it had been over a year and Part III still hadn't been
delivered. As an experiment in meeting a deadline with a lot of material in a
short time (while maintaining some quality :), I decided to finish this story
by Jan. 15th, which would be exactly two years after I had made a task item for
it in Outlook . Two years!
Well, I looked at the size of Parts I and II (6926 and 7919 words
respectively), and knowing pretty much how the story was going to play out,
estimated there was about 23,000 words left to write (Part III taking another
10,000 more than I had done at that point, Part IV taking 8000, and Part V
taking 5000). Since I had approximately 10 days to do it, that would be an
average of 2300 words a day. Well, Part III ended up taking about another
10,600 words to finish (not a bad guess if I do say so myself, especially with
what happened in it) and ended up being 13,495 total.
I took basically two passes on what I just wrote, one to tell it as it
came to me (Jim playing storyteller) and the second one to take care of
oversights, inconsistencies, and awkward language (Jim playing editor). I
tried to resist the urge to change too much on a story level during the second
pass as that can suck your enjoyment of the process dry and months can easily
disappear. The only thing I added to the core of the story during the second
pass was the 'spider and Pinhead' piece. Everything else was there after pass
one.
I now have four or five nights left to finish the story. 13,000 words in
five days. Let's see how it goes.
Hellraiser © 1998 Miramax Films.