Hell

by Tom Lewis

  The crowd screamed and scrambled for exits as flames quickly blocked their paths. Thick flaming chunks of roof and rafters crashed down on them and sent burning timbers through the air.

  Those partiers who reached the exits found them closed and unable to be forced open.

  Something held them shut.

  And their dying screams echoed into the night.

  ****

  November 21

  Cassie awoke on the forest floor to the feel of wet pellets peppering her face. She opened her eyes and found herself staring up at the outline of trees against the dark nighttime sky. It was so startling and confusing, it took her a moment to realize she wasn’t dreaming.

  Where am I?

  She slowly sat up and brushed the water from her face. She was cold, and wet, and caked in mud and twigs. And she had no idea how she got there.

  She searched her memory for clues, but it came up blank. The last thing she remembered clearly was going to school that morning. If it had even been that morning.

  She climbed to her feet and swayed dizzily as the blood rushed from her head. She gave it a second to pass, then took a look at herself. She was in a black dress that clung to her like a wet washcloth from the rain. It was something she had worn to raves back before — before she died.

  She had thrown this out along with the rest of her “rave” clothes.

  She remembered doing it. She had even thought about burning them, but in the end she had packed them in garbage bags and hauled them to the trash. It had been part of her cleansing.

  She looked around through the forest and spotted a road through the trees. She trudged off through the mud toward it, and as she reached it, a sense of déjà vu struck her. She knew this road. It was where she died.

  Why couldn’t she remember anything? As her thoughts swam in a murk of confusion, she heard distant sirens quickly approaching. Colored lights soon rounded a bend as three fire engines sped toward her. She stepped aside onto the muddy shoulder as they roared past. They were headed toward the old garment mill where they had attended raves.

  A fire. There had been a fire. She didn’t know how she knew this, but it was there in her memory. Images flashed of flames sweeping across the floor, and walls, and ceiling; kids stampeding for exits; kids burning alive; the roof crashing down and crushing people beneath it... She felt their desperation as they pounded on doors; but they couldn’t get out.

  He wouldn’t let them.

  A numbness gripped her. So many of them had died. But how did she know this? Had she been there? She had the memories of seeing it, but those memories didn’t feel like hers — it felt like watching someone else’s memories on a movie screen.

  And if she had been there, how was it that she woke up in the forest?

  She knew that was where the fire engines were heading, and she also knew they were too late. She started to head in that direction, but then stopped. She couldn’t go there; she couldn’t see it; because seeing it would make it real.

  She turned and trudged off toward town.

  ****

  It was hours later that Cassie finally shuffled into town. By then, her mind was a numb haze from the rain, and the cold, and the fatigue... and the images of the fire that continued to assault her. It was there on the outskirts of town that she finally collapsed.

  She lay there in the street next to the curb and stared numbly at the dark sky overhead. Maybe if she just lay there long enough, she could sink into the street and dissolve into oblivion. To just be gone.

  She had just closed her eyes when she felt the first whisper in her mind’s ear. Something was there with her. She opened her eyes, but there was nothing for her to see — only to feel and sense. And dread.

  A pressure began building in her mind, and she felt its foul rot seek to invade her. It fingered and probed at her will, seeking vulnerabilities in the meager resistance her fatigued mind could muster. It wanted inside her and would persist as long as it took to force her into submission.

  “No,” was all she could mutter in her pathetic groans. But she was locked in a battle of wills with a being that refused to accept “no.” And it pressed harder. And harder...

  And then the Shrill hit.

  The warnings Kyle had given her about the Shill did nothing to prepare her for the excruciating reality. Cassie convulsed in sheer agony as dark talons tore through her mind in searing pain. It lasted only a moment but had felt like an eternity. It shattered through her resistance like wet paper and left her broken and beaten... and without any will left to resist.

  And the demon entered her.

  When Cassie rose from the pavement, she was no longer guiding herself. It was in her, and It directed her movements. And each time she fought to resist, a searing pain shot through her mind.

  Dark toxins of hatred and filth spilled through her as the demon seized an ever-increasing control over her. It led her down the street, past quiet houses where families slept.

  Fear the night, for I walk while you sleep.

  As she passed one such house, a large dog rushed at her, barking. She turned her gaze on it and watched as it shrank back in terrified whimpers. A terrible fear showed in its eyes — something a mouse might have when cornered by a cat, with no hope of escape or mercy as it faced imminent doom.

  This thing inside her took pleasure at the dog’s terror, but the Cassie who lay buried deep within the rot of her own mind felt sickened. And powerless.

  ****

  The demon led her several blocks down, where she came across a party. It was still going strong at the late hour, and she watched as kids from her school hauled a fresh keg from the back of a truck and into the house.

  Cassie stalked in the door like a predator, her hair and clothing drenched from the rain. There were kids in the living room where she stood, and they all stepped back to give her a wide birth. Those who hadn’t experienced the Disturbances before, were sensing it now, and no one dared to question her presence at the party.

  Cassie crossed the living room and over to an opening to the kitchen. Several jocks were in there, lowering the fresh keg into a tall bucket of ice. She watched quietly from the opening as they tapped the keg and began filling cups with beer.

  Then she moved from opening, and every eye in the kitchen turned toward her. They all stopped what they were doing, and a hush fell over the room. What they saw was a small slim girl most of them recognized from school, whose black dress clung tightly to what was obviously her naked body beneath it; and yet it was like a lion had just stepped among them.

  Nobody dared to speak as she took a cup from the counter and filled it with beer. Behind her, a few more students had crowded the opening to watch what was happening.

  When her cup was filled, she turned to see all those faces watching her, and a sinister smile spread on her lips. Their eyes all showed the same cowered terror she had seen in the dog.

  “Wendy,” she began, fixing her cold gaze on a pretty blonde who stood beside her basketball-player boyfriend. “How’s the baby doing, Wendy?”

  Wendy staggered back, her eyes suddenly wide with terror.

  “Oh, that’s right. You killed her, didn’t you? Never even gave her a chance to be born.” Cassie’s grin spread as her voice took on the eerie sound of a little girl.

  “Why did you kill me, Mommy?”

  This voice sounded nothing like Cassie; it was like another person’s voice had spoken through her. Wendy spun around and raced from the room. Cassie then turned her gaze to one of the jocks. “Peter,” she said mockingly with a shake of her head. “Peter the eater. Peter who likes to suck cocks and take them in his ass.” Her grin widened as she watched the boy’s face fill with horror.

  Then she turned to another one of the jocks and locked eyes with his. “And Jeff. Does Stacy know you’ve been staring at my tits since I came in?” Then her look turned seductive, but with an alarming air of menace — she would fuck your brains out, then rip out your eyes. “Would you like
to see them, Jeff?” she said, as she undid the zipper on her dress and allowed it to slide from her naked body onto the floor.

  “Cassie?” came a boy’s voice from the other room, and something inside her shifted. She felt a dark veil lifting from her eyes and the Presence inside her slipping...

  “Let me through,” she heard the voice say, and it was a voice she recognized and one she thought she knew. If only she could clear her mind...

  “Cassie?” The voice was closer now, and she saw the crowd part as someone squeezed through...

  It was Justin.

  Cassie blinked, and the Presence was gone from inside her. Her lucidity was back. Instantly the dynamic in the room shifted, and the kids snapped from the terror that had held them in its strange thrall. Cassie dropped to the floor and grabbed her dress in complete humiliation and scorn. She struggled to pull it on as Justin rushed over.

  “Cassie,” he said, helping her slide the dress on. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

  She broke into deep choking sobs and shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He took her hand and helped her to her feet.

  Molly raced in and saw Justin helping Cassie steady herself. “What’s going on?”

  “Give me a hand,” he said to her. “We need to get her home.”

  “Can’t she just walk?”

  Cassie looked over and saw the disgusted look on Molly’s face. “I gotta go,” Cassie said to Justin, then bolted off through the crowd.

  Justin started after her, but Molly grabbed his arm. “What are you doing? Let her go.”

  He hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t. There’s something wrong.”

  “I know. She’s crazy.”

  “It’s more than that. Just wait here.”

  He shook his arm lose, then squeezed off through the crowd.

  By the time he got outside, Cassie was gone. He looked helplessly up and down the street.

  “Cassie!” he hollered, but all he heard back was the storm and the music from inside the house.

  He thought for a moment about driving to her house across town, but he’d had way too many beers.

  “Justin.” Molly raced outside to join him. “What was all that about?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I saw something in her eyes. She was terrified.”

  “She was drunk and took off her clothes. And said some really weird stuff. Everyone’s talking about it in there.”

  “She wasn’t drunk,” he said, shaking his head. “It was something else.”

  “Look. Whatever it is, you’ll see her on Monday. Just talk to her then.”

  “What if Monday’s too late?”

  “It won’t be. Just trust me. There’s nothing you can do for her tonight.”

  Justin let out an exasperated sigh. He hesitated a moment, then finally nodded. Molly was right. He would see her on Monday. Everything would work out.

  He hoped.

  ****

  Cassie was destroyed by the time she shuffled into her bedroom. The demon had led her into a public humiliation and scorn, and she knew she could never see any of those people again. She had never known it was possible to feel so broken, and beaten, and alone. And defeated.

  She slipped out of her dress and into a T-shirt, then slid into bed. Maybe sleep would clear her mind, if that was even possible.

  As she lay there, she became acutely aware of the silence that surrounded her. It was the type of silence that tempts the ears to probe into its depths for any sound at all. The sound of a faucet drip, or footstep, or...

  Her door creaked open...

  Cassie tensed. She looked over at the door and it was now cracked open.

  “Hello?” she said in a hushed voice. She waited... but there was no response.

  She rose from bed and went over to the door. She looked out it into the dark hallway, but nobody was there. Only darkness.

  She closed the door and this time made sure the latch clicked shut.

  She climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to her head.

  She lay like this for some time, just staring at the ceiling and listening to the silence. She finally rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. But even with the darkness beneath her eyelids, her ears still probed into the silence.

  She didn’t want to hear anything. Especially not her door creaking again.

  She tugged her covers around her like a cocoon, as if that would keep the bad things away.

  And she was certain there were bad things. They were just waiting.

  She opened her eyes, just long enough to give the room one final sweep to make sure nothing was coming at her from the dark corners. Nothing was.

  She closed her eyes again and practiced breathing to relax. It took some time, but a while later she was finally on the cusp of sleep. Her mind had entered that twilight area between sleep and consciousness, where imagination blurs between dreams and reality. She watched in her mind’s eye as dark ghostly forms emerged from shadows and hovered through the air around her bed...

  Something lay in bed beside her.

  A foul breath had touched her neck from behind. She froze. Too terrified to move, or breathe...

  A hand reached across her...

  Cassie sprang from bed and bounded across the room. She braced herself against the wall and scanned the room...

  No one was there.

  Then what touched me?

  The Shrill suddenly hit her again, and millions of hot daggers tore into her mind. The pain was beyond comprehension. It blasted every fiber of sanity, and she screamed and convulsed in grotesque agony. She dropped to the floor, gripping her head, and slammed it over and over again into the wall. She needed out of it, to be out of her head. Her vision darkened, and her senses failed; her whole existence was swallowed in unbearable pain.

  She had no idea how long it lasted, only that at some point it began to fade, and she began to feel an awareness of her senses. Her vision was returning, along with touch, and smell, and sounds. She felt the warm puddle of vomit she lay in and the thick mucus strands that hung from her nose. Her breathing was harsh and came in gasps.

  She slowly sat up and staggered to her feet. She shuffled over to the bathroom and stumbled in the door. She caught herself on the counter and propped herself up. Still gasping for breath, she looked up in the mirror...

  The Face stared back at her.

  “Get out!” she screamed. She spun around, but only the empty doorway stood there. She turned back to the sink, and broke into deep bitter sobs.

  The Shrill hit again and screeched into her mind with excruciating fury. She vomited over the sink, then fell to the floor. She squirmed across it, gripping her head and screaming till her throat bled.

  It lasted only seconds, but it could have been forever. Cassie staggered to her feet, still reeling in pain. She clenched her teeth, then smashed her fist into the mirror, shattering it into jagged shards.

  Her knuckles were torn and bloodied. She gripped the counter to steady herself, then glanced down at those angry shards that mocked her from the counter.

  Just one quick slice across a vein, and it would all be over.

  No! She shook her head to fight that temptation. Death wouldn’t be an escape; it would be the beginning of an eternity of torment. She had to fight it, and as she looked back at those shards, she realized that maybe she could use them for another purpose.

  She picked one up and twisted it around in her fingers. She touched her finger to the sharp point and recalled the urgency of Kyle’s warning — “Once you feel that Shrill hit, you need to do everything it takes to get your mind off it.”

  Everything it takes... She clenched her teeth and prepared for this. She could do this. She had to do this. She had to shut it off if it came again, or she would lose her mind.

  She glanced over at the shower, where the frosted glass door was open. That’s where
she could do it.

  She took the shard and stumbled over to the shower. She climbed inside and sat down on the edge. She touched the shard’s sharp point to the back of her hand. Does she do it there? Or maybe her arm...

  Yeah. It would need to be her arm.

  The Shrill hit again. She tumbled down into the tub, dropping the glass shard as she fell. She threw her hands to her ears, but the Shrill wasn’t coming in through her ears; it was in her mind. She blindly fumbled with her hand for the shard and finally found it. Gripping it tightly, she pressed it down on the back of her arm till the point broke the skin.

  It wasn’t working. Her mind refused to turn from the excruciating pain that blotted out everything.

  Slice the vein, the voice in her head told her. It’ll all be over.

  “No!” she screamed. She dug the shard’s point deep into the back of her forearm and dragged it down.

  She screamed in pain, but it had worked. The Shrill began fading to a dull background drone. She pressed her hand to the deep cut to stem the flow of blood, but she had dug too deep. She tried to rise, but faintness was overcoming her, and she teetered on the edge of blacking out.

  She fell back into the tub and felt the warm flow of blood trail down her arm. There was so much of it, and she was growing so cold. And sleepy...

  “Help,” she pleaded pathetically, but her voice came out as barely a whisper. She no longer had the strength to cry out.

  She was dying...

  From somewhere in the distant blackness, a voice called her name. Then there were footsteps outside the door, racing across her room.

  The last thing she saw before drifting into unconsciousness was her mom racing in through the bathroom door. Alison was screaming, and so scared.

  Help me, Mom...

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Old Friends

  Cassie was again in that moonlit clearing, where faceless eyes watched from the haunted forest beyond its border. She stood in the shadow of that foreboding manor, whose massive bulk loomed darkly against a full moon. She was close enough now to feel its dark aura, and its reek of rot and despair fouled her soul.