Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  Then it dawned on her. All the windows in her home were double-glazed and sealed and locked. The doors were mortised and bolted. The fireplaces had all been sealed up long ago. She had definitely closed the French doors behind her. The house was like a fortress. So how had the bird got in?

  ‘Hello Sheila,’ said a voice behind her. ‘I believe we’ve met before.’

  She turned and she saw him. A squat big-bellied bald man with an eerie smile. She recognised him instantly, from their previous brief meeting and from the press coverage. It was Gogarty, the serial killer.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said calmly.

  He thought about it.

  ‘Seeking sanctuary,’ was his cunning response.

  Sheila beamed sweetly.

  ‘They you’ve come to the right place, my dear,’ she said, and walked towards him and was seconds away from nudging the panic button with her foot when a hand grabbed her from behind.

  Sheila screamed; and her scream was stifled as a huge red hand covered her mouth. A familiar stench filled her nostrils. The raven had shapeshifted. She was being grappled by a demon.

  ‘Put her down,’ said Gogarty, as Jacob and Veda came bounding into the hall.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ screamed Jacob, as he saw the huge demon and the bald man.

  The demon dropped Sheila and she fell gasping to the floor. Jacob lunged. He was fast and he was strong and he had Gogarty in a headlock in seconds. But the demon seized him and yanked him so hard that one of Jacob’s arms was severed. Wet clay spat from the stump.

  ‘Don’t fight!’ screamed Sheila. She knew defeat was inevitable.

  The demon squealed as a blurred figure coalesced into the shape of Troy, who had leaped on to the demon’s face and gouged both its eyes out with a scissors in less time than a blink. Then Thea emerged, holding Sheila’s gun in her two hairy hands, and she was aiming it at Gogarty. And she fired.

  Time stood still.

  Sheila watched in awe as Thea froze in position. She’d shot the gun but the silver bullet was stuck half way between the barrel and Gogarty. Troy was hanging on to the demon’s face, legs stuck out in a frozen ballet manoeuvre. Jacob’s shocked expression was as eternal as the smile of Donatello’s David. And Sheila too was unable to move, though she could still see and hear.

  As she stood there, frozen, she saw Gogarty step forward and take the gun out of Thea’s hand and punch her in the face with his fist.

  He clicked his fingers and the bullet flew past him and buried itself into the staircase. Blood spurted through Thea’s fur. And the demon who she later learned was called Naberius hurled Troy to the ground and roared. It was a roar that evoked an age before time began, and it sucked the fight out of the unbaptised baby in an instant.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Gogarty, as the attack on him and his demon ended as abruptly as it had begun. He smiled, though Sheila sensed a certain unease in him. Thea had damn near killed him then just then.

  Veda appeared at the door. Her big gazing eyes stared in disbelief at the scene. She saw Jacob, clay gushing from his stump. She saw Troy trampled and dazed. She saw Thea with a bloodied face writhing on the hall carpet.

  ‘Mum?’ said Veda.

  Sheila knew what was going to come.

  ‘Here, creature! I command thee thrice to come.’ Gogarty’s tones were silken, and impossible to resist.

  Veda tottered towards Gogarty. She stared up at the bald man blankly. Gogarty stroked her soft cheek with his thick thumb.

  ‘If any of you attempts to hurt me,’ said Gogarty, ‘or in any way allows me to be hurt - for instance, by calling the cops - then brimstone shall boil in this creature’s veins and arteries and the pain will be, well, it will hurt a great deal. I so decree it.’

  He was a warlock, Sheila realised. A rogue warlock. Her knowledge of what he was capable of appalled her.

  She looked at the red demon. It was blinded and in pain but still terrifying. And yet it was cradling Troy in its arms now, comforting the battered child. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ the demon murmured.

  A spellbound demon, she realised: not a monster at all. Gogarty was the monster here.

  ‘Anyone else in the house?’ said Gogarty.

  Sheila wanted to lie. But she feared the consequences. ‘My husband. He has a studio, on the top floor.’

  ‘Deal with it,’ said Gogarty and Naberius moved, with eerie swiftness, and was gone.

  Sheila realised that Gogarty was staring at her lustfully. She was only forty-one, but it was a considerably long time since anyone had stared at her in such a lascivious way. She was disgusted and repelled and yet -

  And yet, better that, she thought, than let him notice how beautiful her Veda was.

  Sheila forced a smile. ‘If you’d asked nicely,’ she said in her sternest voice, ‘there’d have been no need for all this nonsense.’

  Gogarty grinned, amused at her bravado. Sheila tried not to think about how long it would take Jacob to grow his arm back. Or what might happen to Veda if the serial killer chose to violate her. Or indeed what might happen to all or any of them. She made a vow to stay calm, and guileful. They had to survive this. No matter what.

  That was two weeks ago.

  Since then, Gogarty and his demon bodyguard had been her house guests. She’d fed them, hid them, and endured Gogarty’s cruel wit and endless threats. Every day, she was filled with dread at the thought of what would happen if the authorities tracked Gogarty down. For she knew what would happen if the cops tried to capture him while he was in her house. She would get the blame; and her children would suffer for it. All she cared about was keeping her children safe.

  As for Fred – She couldn’t even begin to think about what had happened to Fred.

  Chapter 9

  Skip back twenty years.

  It was Tuesday evening, the fifth of February, 2002. Sheila – still a virgin at the age of twenty - was stark naked on her hands and knees in a room full of roving male and female eyes. Her bum was thrust up in the air; her breasts dangled between her outstretched arms; her mouth was open in a shocked frozen scream.

  She was thoroughly enjoying herself.

  It was art, after all. And it was a job too. Life models could get as much as twenty quid an hour. And, in her opinion, it was far better than bar work. Most importantly of all though it was her opportunity.

  For Alfredo Cuaron Whittaker was a genius and she wanted more than anything in the world to be his lover.

  ‘Sketch the patterns of light. Use the charcoal, leave the gaps. You see the shadows on the thighs. Paint the shadows, define what is there by what is not there. Hold the pose, my lovely.’

  Alfredo spoke brusquely, almost angrily. His body was a fist of energy; his jet black pony tail bounced when he walked. His body was muscular and taut; he clearly harboured the body of one of the Greek gods he sculpted so beautifully beneath his shabby T-shirt and ripped and torn jeans.

  ‘How’s this?’ said a pretty - very pretty in fact - young female artist.

  Alfredo stood close to her. Provocatively, sexually close, as Sheila couldn’t help but observe from the corner of her eye. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I think it’s promising.’

  ‘Promising what?’ He looked at her daubs. ‘It’s shit. It promises nothing more than further shitness. Keep working at the lines till it’s no longer excremental imbecility.’ His tone was cold, he rolled his eyes. The student’s face was bright red.

  Sheila was amused. She enjoyed watching the interplay of this genius and his minions from her podium vantage point.

  Sheila was depicting a goddess who was about to be seduced by Jupiter in the form of a bull; although ‘coerced’ was perhaps the more accurate term. She didn’t know which legend it was based on and she didn’t care. It wasn’t the reclining full frontal she had expected. She was poised in doggy position, immediately prior to the moment of penetration, and the pose was hard to hold. But she held it with barely a t
remor for nearly fifteen minutes. Then she got up, stretched, and resumed.

  Alfredo didn’t allow cameras in his studio, though that would have made life easier for the model, i.e. herself. But he wanted his students to capture the nakedness with their eyes and their charcoal. It was an exercise in seeing.

  Alfredo bullied his students ceaselessly; he berated them on their poor technique and also berated them when they had good technique. He mocked them for being slow and mocked them if they were too ‘glib’ i.e. fast. And when the session was over he placed the robe over Sheila himself, and she did not miss the look in his eyes.

  When the students went home Sheila remained.

  ‘We’ve met before,’ he told her.

  ‘Last year,’ she agreed. ‘In Brecon. I did your artists’ retreat.’

  He remembered. ‘One hundred and ninety nine pounds you spent and you aren’t even talented.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Was I rude to you?’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘And yet here you are.’

  ‘I saw your sculpture. The one the Royal Academy – didn’t take. I loved it.’

  ‘You like art?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well – it’s – nice.’

  He snorted with contempt. ‘Art is a waste of time. You should get a job. Have children. Don’t waste your time on art. It’s an obsession. It’s the only way a human being can touch the beard of God. But even so – who gives a fuck? Why bother? Why not just enjoy yourself? I would, if I only could.’

  ‘You regret being an artist?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Are we going to make love now?’

  ‘That depends on you.’

  Sheila hesitated. ‘The thing is though - I’ve never – I haven’t –’

  It took him a moment to grasp her import. When he did, it hit him hard.

  ‘Oh Lord,’ he said. ‘I can’t – not if you’re – hell! I’ve never, as it were, deflowered a woman before.’

  ‘Do you want me to go?’

  He thought about it. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to fuck you.’

  ‘And I want to fuck you too.’ He thought, intensely. ‘But I also want you to enjoy your first time. Truly enjoy it. Most people don’t, you know. It’s an anticlimax. Painful. Embarrassing. And you’ll need to be – I have to find a way to - prepare you. Make you ripe and ready, so you will feel nothing but joy. And trust me, I shall. And I’ll make it special. Come, come. Relax. I’ll take you through it.’

  For the next two hours, Alfredo structured her first sexual experience as carefully as if he were painting a mural on a cathedral wall. He told her how to hold herself. He taught her how to lose herself sensually. He stroked her and caressed her and moistened her in gentle and imaginative ways. He suggested how she might arouse him, and then he aroused her by even more skilful means. He proposed words and phrases she should say to him during coitus that would drive him wild with desire, which they duly did. Then he fucked her like nobody’s business for ages.

  He was a fine lover.

  And afterwards, when he was relaxed, and was neither painter nor lover, he proved to be rather a nice man. Emotionally generous and a little shy, despite his arrogant demeanour.

  ‘You can stay, if you like,’ he suggested.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Forever.’

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘You sought me out.’

  ‘I did,’ she conceded.

  ‘I was your first.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘That shows tenacity. And courage. And – let us be candid - exceptionally good judgement! Stay.’

  And so she did. For twenty years.

  She remembered when Fred first showed her his new style, his Neo-Greek period. Classically inspired painted sculptures of athletic nudes. They were raw, physical, often sexually explicit, and naturalistically coloured; Sheila eventually featured in several. He began doing them in early 2003, a year after they first met.

  Fred was very much swimming against the tides of artistic fashion by that point. He was yesterday’s man, compared to the Damian Hirsts and Tracy Emims and the graduates of the Slade School. But he made a living, just about; and to Sheila he was a god.

  He had a studio near Brick Lane, with sash windows and a roof terrace and a fridge full of beer which neither he nor she ever bought, yet somehow the fridge was always full. She became used to gorgeous men and beautiful women walking naked around the studio as Fred worked on his canvases and sculptures. The men strode around with huge cocks bobbing; the women were cheerfully at ease, breasts and hairy muffs bared. She used to make the models tea and biscuits and they all loved their Auntie Sheila, as they called her. Even though she was only in her early twenties then.

  Fred was inspired by the classical tradition, by Michelangelo Buonarotti and Donatello and Rodin and Giacometti. He loved the physicality of bodies; he celebrated male and female nudity in equal measure. He sculpted men and women fucking and made it art. And it was. It really was! It wasn’t ‘smut’ or ‘kitsch pornography’, as some of the reviewers said. It was genius, in Sheila’s view.

  One of his greatest sculptures was called Conjoined. It deliberately echoed Rodin’s The Kiss with its powerful male nude wrapped in an embrace with a voluptuous female nude. But in Fred’s version, the embrace was far more intimate. The man was on the bottom, the woman on top; his cock was thrusting inside her, her arms were uplifted, and she was shouting with joy. It captured the moment of female orgasm in a way that Sheila had never seen before. The twitch that was spread across the woman’s face, the howl emerging from her mouth, the tilt of her head, the illusion that her breasts were actually trembling with passion; the intimation that every part of the statue’s sculpted body was awash with joy. Sheila loved that sculpture.

  She loved it even more because the woman was her.

  Admittedly, as a purist in such matters, she would have preferred the sculpture to be in plain white marble, thereby making it ‘nude’ not ‘naked’. But she had to concede that using colours on the marble added a degree of richness and realism. And in this particular instance the bodies weren’t the colour of skin: they were the colour of earth, like Tuscan soil.

  It was a gigantic sculpture, and it took a crane to lift it away once Fred had paid some builders to take the roof off his studio. Fred had hoped to exhibit in the Turbine Hall, but that hadn’t worked out so they’d hired a gym in Clapham and shown it there instead.

  No one had bought it. So instead Fred had rented a storage space in Clapham Junction. And he’d bribed the man to give him the key. Then he and Sheila had snuck in at night and spent hours fucking among the boxes in the lockup by the light of a camping lantern, with the giant lovers of Conjoined peering down upon them. Before finally falling asleep in each other’s arms.

  In the morning – ah. Now that was a tricky one to get out of! They’d had to bribe yet another guy to turn a blind eye to it all, then they’d legged it round the corner and scoffed a breakfast in a greasy spoon. The tea was vile; the sausages were greasy.

  For Sheila, it was pure bliss.

  Skip forward ten years.

  It was March 2015, one year after the Occlusion.

  Sheila carried the box into the kitchen, knowing there’d be a fuss and probably a fight. And relishing the prospect.

  ‘Jesus! What kind of fucking dog is that?’ said Fred, irritably.

  ‘It’s not,’ said Sheila sternly, ‘a dog.’

  Fred frowned. His hair was grey now; he still had a pony-tail but also a bald patch. His gut had grown. As the years had passed, and as the world had changed, the old Alfredo had somehow disappeared. And now she was married to a ‘Fred’.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were going back to that nonsense,’ he said nastily.

  For almost four years, after they’d moved to Walworth and bought the house there with Sheila�
�s legacy, Sheila had run a small business dog-sitting and dog-grooming. But then their own dog Charlie had died, and she’d decided her heart wasn’t in it any more.

  ‘It’s not a dog,’ Sheila rebuked him.

  ‘What the fuck is it, then?’

  She opened up the box, to reveal a tiny pug-like creature, with an ugly face and eager eyes. Its mouth was open and it was slobbering drool from its dull-red upper gum on to its elastic lower jaw. It wore a collar with an electronic tag: a legal requirement, Sheila had been firmly told.

  ‘It’s a bull,’ Sheila said.

  ‘Bull?’

  ‘Well, like a bull. Bull in origin. Or perhaps minotaur, the genealogy is – never mind. There’s a fee, you see, for looking after poor little lost mites like this one. Three hundred a week, plus expenses.’

  Fred blinked. That was more than he had earned from teaching in all of last month. These days Sheila’s cleaning jobs were all that were keeping them going.

  ‘Is it a mutant?’ Fred said, with forced cordiality in his tone.

  ‘Chimaera. Part bull, part - something.’

  ‘Who pays that kind of money?’ Fred asked, practically. ‘For looking after a miniature bull?’

  ‘Mammon. Apparently. There’s a fund.’

  Fred’s face was a mosaic of clashing emotions. He hated Mammon and all he stood for, but he also liked money.

  ‘Fucking Mammon,’ snorted Fred.

  ‘Sheila,’ said the bull pup. ‘Is this Fred?’

  ‘Oh, it speaks then,’ said Fred calmly. Fred still suffered occasional acid flashbacks, thirty years after his bohemian student days. In consequence, very little that happened in real life could startle him.

  ‘It’s sentient,’ Sheila explained.

  ‘Is that a breed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It just means, I’m sentient,’ said the tiny bull, impatiently.

  ‘It just means, it can think. And talk. Fred, we need the money.’

  ‘We don’t –’

  ‘You haven’t sold a sculpture since –’