by Mark Tufo
“We…I let them die.” I took a step forward raising my axe.
“Wait, Tallboat. It is worse; much, much worse.”
I watched incredulously as the executioner changed from some sort of deranged medieval hangman into a form that had fueled my nightmares from my earliest memories. The spikes shrank down and melted into colorful dots, the black hood grew scraggly and turned a bright shade of orange. The leather tunic became a large, ruffled shirt.
“A clown,” I gulped. “He’s turning into a fucking clown.” Pretty sure I took a few steps backward before I steeled myself to hold my ground; I did not advance. I wasn’t capable. His nose became bulbous and bright red. Opening his mouth to scream, revealed rows of razor sharp teeth. “Is…is this all for me?” I asked no one in particular. He’d already disposed of his previous audience. Or so I thought. The cries for mercy and the screams of pain I’d heard just moments before were completely dwarfed by the tortured shrieks of the damned happening now, as severed limbs and heads, split skulls, broken bones, cleaved midsections, and ribbons of spilled intestines began to repair themselves. People that were beyond human recognition began to heal themselves, it was a slaughter in reverse; every bit as gruesome and obviously just as painful, if not more so.
The newly un-deceased had but a few moments to shake the cobwebs from their reeling heads before the terror started anew and Booze-O the clown began to chop and bite and tear through the throng again. They were as terrified and tortured as they had been by the spiked henchman.
“What am I watching, Linnick?” The depths of pity I felt for those victims was something I was having a difficult time dealing with; and I have seen my share of horrible death.
“The demon you see is a Vlantan. They have the ability to reanimate corpses; very handy for a creature that feeds off the fear they produce from their victims. That gathering is his herd; when the demon is hungry, he will slaughter them a few dozen times before he is sated.”
“How long do they get between feedings?”
“It is difficult to say. I have heard it said the Vlantan are insatiable, so it may only be a matter of minutes.”
“How long do those…I mean, how long can those people last?” I already knew the answer as I looked out at that group of lost souls. Each of them wore clothes from their prospective eras. I saw a leisure suit from the 1970s, some deerskin clothing that could have been from the 1860s or 2160s. There were mullets, afros, beehives, and mohawks. On closer inspection, I thought a few of the people might not even be considered modern homo sapiens but rather Neanderthal. How bad did a Neanderthal have to be to get to this place? Did he piss upstream of his village? If he indeed was one of my early ancestors, he’d been here for tens of thousands of years, dying multiple times in the most horrific ways, each and every time thinking it was the first. “Surely, they have paid for their sins and then some, right?” The last part I asked to Linnick.
“There is no ledger down here. Once you are bankrupt, you can never repay the debt.”
“Fuuuuck.” The word dragged out of my mouth.
“We should go, Tallboat. If he spots you he will attempt to draw you in.”
“Yeah, we should.” My last image before I turned away was of the giant clown sticking a rather large kitchen knife into and through a small woman’s midsection. He then pulled the knife up violently, completely cutting her in two. Both halves fell away as if he had just butterflied a shrimp. I’d sort of been stumbling, as I thought more about what I’d seen, then at some point, I just stopped and vomited. There wasn’t much there, but the queasiness in my stomach had to be relieved somehow. I didn’t feel much better for it, but we soldiered on anyway. After a while, I felt somewhat better, though I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen.
“Why only humans?” I asked.
“That is not always the case. But your kind are abundant down here. You have a great proclivity for sin and fear. It is a strange tandem which makes you a sought-after commodity for the Vlantans. My kind are sought after by other demons for their ability to endure pain.”
She did not elaborate on the specific reasons, and I didn’t want to know anyway.
Chapter 7
ELIZA’S REBIRTH
“Ah Eliza! It is not often we get one of your kind down here, and with your soul intact? This is indeed a boon for me. Although, how I am going to keep news of your arrival truly a secret eludes me. The great one himself, when he finds out, will want you for his own, and that does not suit my plans well.”
“Please,” Eliza said, “I’m just a girl. I don’t understand what is going on.”
“That is the beauty of this, my dear! Half of you, the part that was lost so long ago (by your standards) has not even a remote understanding of the events that have transpired around you. But that other half, that piece of you so cunningly hidden behind that countenance of innocence, oh, she knows. She knows perfectly well why you are here and why you must suffer unimaginable and hideous terrors. Your life, or whatever you call this pitiful existence, will be hostile beyond your abilities to comprehend, and you will cry out ‘Why me?’ They all do. You will endure pain the likes of which you cannot even begin to imagine. So,” the demon smiled. “Shall we get started?”
Eliza’s first screams ripped through the soft lining of her throat; these were immediately obscured by Jazmixer’s laughs.
“It is beyond my scope of comprehension how a being so fragile of mind, body, and most assuredly, soul, is allowed to preside over such an important realm. But, it’s of little consequence. All that will change, and soon. While we wait…” Jazmixer first swelled to double his size, then began to fold in on himself. Eliza shrank back as she watched him assume a new shape. His head pulled into a bullet shape then sprouted thick, black hair which parted to reveal very close-set, almost beady eyes. A prominent nose lay nearly flat against the left cheek; as she watched, a heavy, salt and pepper mustache grew below it and covered a mouth that smiled cruelly. The transformation complete, the thin lips pulled back into a malicious leer as he gazed upon his daughter.
“It has been a long time, no?” He stood there with his hands on his hips, he was not a tall man, but he was powerfully built, as if he’d been hewn from a solid piece of oak.
“No papa!” Eliza wailed, she looked for a way out of the enclosure she was in. As she did, even that began to change, to shrink down to a small hut, no more than sticks and mud and a few dirty furs to line the floor. A dying fire barely lit the tiny dwelling. “This isn’t real; it can’t be.” Fat tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“It’s real, Lizzie.” Her younger brother, Tomas, had come inside with a meager armful of branches and twigs. “Father hit you hard and you fell over, knocked your head against the fire pit. I did not think you were going to wake up,” Tomas sobbed. “I have tended to you for four days and nights; you have lain moaning in your sleep.”
“That will teach you to be slow with my dinner,” Ellard said as he sat down on the only chair in the room.
“This isn’t real. I’ve…I’ve been alive for hundreds of years. You’re dead. I left this place centuries ago…I’m…I’m a vampire.”
Ellard guffawed. “It appears your sister is as weak of mind as you are, boy! How is it my lot in life to support two idiot children? I work until my back aches every day so that you two can stay at home and what, eat bugs together? What exactly is it that you two do while I’m away? Are you two diddling behind my back? Are you cheating on me, my sweet Lizzie?”
“I…we would never!” Tomas shouted. “That’s not right!”
“Not right? Not right, the simpleton says. By whose law? I brought the ugly little whelp into the world. I feed her and shelter her; I’ll do to her and to you as I please. You should be grateful I don’t throw you out or that my appetites don’t run towards boys. Huh? What would you think if I pressed my fat snake up your ass? Hmmm?” Ellard grunted and pushed his chair back, thrusting his hips. “I’ve heard say
it’s quite the thrill, especially with one so young. Perhaps we will try it sometime; maybe the next time your bitch-sister is lying unconscious. If you don’t want that to be tonight, get me my dinner.”
Eliza touched the side of her head, it was tender where she prodded around the edges of the makeshift bandage Tomas had wrapped there. “But I’m powerful,” she whispered.
“Powerfully stupid.” Ellard had said to her. He threw a heavy wooden bowl at her; it hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. “Fill that.” He stood and pointed to the bowl which had rolled close to the fire where an iron pot of gray, bonemeal stew was bubbling over a dirty pit.
She grabbed the ladle and scooped the chunky, boiling liquid into the bowl. She briefly entertained the notion of throwing the hot contents into Ellard’s face, but she didn’t think this would be enough to kill him and she could not take the chance of merely wounding a dangerous beast. He eyed her warily as she approached, as though he had seen her thoughts. Once she set the bowl down on the table, he gave her a backhand whack with his right that sent her reeling away. Blood leaked from the corner of her lip as she collapsed to the ground.
“I don’t like how you look at me, girl. Your mother used to look at me that way sometimes, but I beat that defiance right out of her. Women are things; they are possessions, like dogs. They do as they are told to do, nothing more and certainly nothing less. You mumbled in your sleep about leaving, I heard everything. Who is this Victor fellow with the surname of Talbot? Hmmm? Sounds English. Are you tramping around now? I will not allow my daughter to be defiled by others. That is my job!” He grinned as he slurped at the gruel-like substance in his bowl.
He greedily drank to the bottom of his meal, a fair amount getting stuck in his facial hair and falling onto his chest. When he was done he flung the bowl, careening it off Lizzie’s head. She yelped in surprise and pain.
“Clean this shit-hole up! I am going to get some ale. When I come home you will service me, as is your duty. I have been saving it up for four long days and this isn’t going to take care of itself!” He laughed as he grabbed at the front of his pants, outlining his penis. Lizzie turned away in disgust, Tomas began to wail. They listened to Ellard’s laughs trail down the path but did not move until several minutes later.
“Are you alright?” Tomas asked as he helped her up off the ground.
“None of this is real, Tomas. I escaped, long ago. I got away from that pig. I was, I am, a powerful vampire, and I turned you. Oh no! I turned you! What have I done?” She caressed the side of his face. “Your life has been one hell after another. I…I wanted to save you from this place but I should have left you just the way you were. I had no right to do such a thing, my sweet Tomas. This world is much too cruel for someone who is as sweet as you. Perhaps there is something wrong with your mind, or perhaps it is my mind that is warped; perhaps I couldn’t hold on to goodness, but you are the way the world is meant to be. How much kinder the world would be if everyone were as tender as you? I have done unspeakably horrible things all these years, Tomas, yet you were always there, always trying to bring me back home. Not this home, but the home of our hearts— one where we could live together, to laugh and be free.”
“Eliza, you have gone nowhere, done nothing bad. You have been here with me. I have tended to you, bandaged your head. You were delirious with fever and heat. I thought for sure he had killed you this time.”
“You lie sweet, sweet, Tomas, and that is how I know this is not real. My Tomas would have never lied to me; nor would he use a name I adopted long after I left this stupid hovel and that piggish man!”
Tomas laughed as he swelled in size. His chortle growing deeper as he grew. “Oh, my Eliza, I know I put fear into you; I could feel the power of it quake from your skin, if only for a moment. Well done! You have caught me this time, but we have all eternity for me to break you. Eventually, your mind will weaken and I will snap you in two like a dried femur.”
“Why? Of what value is my broken spirit to you?”
“Value?” He laughed bitterly. “Why, none at all. It is not the break that fascinates me, it is the journey we will take together, how I bring you there, to that brink; that is what holds the true fascination.” The fire, the table and chair, and even the hovel itself all diminished then faded away. Eliza stood in a place of nothingness. “Perhaps that memory is too distant; let us try a different tactic.” The shadowy light turned into a uniform gray flatness that stretched to a vast, unseen distance. Lost, lonely, souls glided about, each adrift, contemplating in their madness the endeavors that had placed them in this eternal despondency. Eliza once again found herself floating aimlessly among them.
“I cannot!” she pleaded. “I cannot be here again!”
“I will leave you here to drift awhile. Perhaps it will make you more pliable when next we meet. I will return for you in one day less than eternity.” She screamed in anguish as he vanished; though she remembered nothing from before, she sensed the despair that was about to envelop her mind. Even his company was preferred over the crowded lost.
Eliza did not know how much time had elapsed; how could time be measured in a place so devoid of events? Not even the light varied around her. For a while she searched the faces that passed her by, looking for anyone she might recognize, but no one returned her gaze. Finally, they all began to blend into each other, one drab grayness after another. She did not know how much more her mind could withstand. As if he knew this too, she finally saw Jazmixer standing up ahead. She did her best to not react to him.
“It has been many years since we have last seen each other. Do you remember me?” He asked, trying to gain her attention by floating his arm in front of her. She did not blink, she stared through him as if he didn’t even exist.
“Excellent. A blank canvas upon which to paint my masterpiece!”
Eliza’s heart skipped a beat as she found herself in a darkened alley; a tall man with a hooked nose held her arm fast.
“Are you ready my dear?”
“Ready?” Eliza asked meekly, attempting to wrest her arm away with no luck.
“To fulfill your destiny! To take charge, to right all the wrongs that have been committed against you. Consider this the beginning of your life-long quest for revenge. What will you do with unlimited power over those who once held sway over you? To all who abused that power? How sweet will their blood be upon your hands, in your mouth, down your throat? It will be everything you dreamt it to be and so much more.”
“Please, this…this is not the life I want.” She pulled more forcibly, yet he did not budge; his grip was unbreakable.
“I do not offer you life, sweet child. I offer you immortality, unyielding death, free from morals, disappointment, and pain. Now you will do as you please, to whom you please, and whenever you wish.”
“No. That will make me the same as those who have hurt me.”
“The Eliza I know jumped at the chance to avenge her pains, to pay the world back a hundred, a thousand-fold, for what it had done to her. What is this pathetic thing in front of me?” Victor's face wavered between that and the demon he was behind the mask.
“Lizzie?” Tomas shouted from the opening to the alleyway.
She turned her head to look at the brother she had left behind. In that moment, there was pain and confusion as the vampire bit deeply into her exposed neck. “No!” she cried out as her soul bled out and into the night.
She awoke in Tomas’ arms. He stroked the side of her neck, wiping away the twin trails of blood that ran down past her slender shoulders and were striking the dirty cobblestones.
“Get away from me!” she begged. “I am cursed.”
“You will always be my Lizzie,” he cried.
Her teeth elongated, she rose from his embrace and plunged them deep into the boy’s neck.
“Please, please stop!” His eyes grew wide with terror. “You cannot do this—I am your brother!”
Eliza reached out with both arms and
held him with an iron vise grip. Tomas’ eyes rolled up into the back of his head; his breath grew faint as she pulled more and more of the vital blood from his veins.
“This…is…not…what…happened!” Jazmixer shouted as he pulled away from Eliza’s bite and held her at arm’s length. “You were, you are racked with guilt and doubt for your actions against your mind-hindered brother!”
“But you are not my brother,” Eliza said as she stood. She dragged the back of her hand across her lips, smearing the blood rather than wiping it away. She licked around the edges of her mouth to gather more in. “I did not realize that demons possessed blood,” she said merrily. “We might have had fun sooner if I’d known. You look absolutely ghastly, by the way.”
Jazmixer reeled back and stumbled. Eliza did not hesitate as she sprung from her spot. She dragged her teeth against the creature’s neck, opening a large fissure; torrents of dark, thick blood spilled. She lapped at it like a thirsty dog.
“Tell me, demon, can you die?” She moved back, prodding her finger into the large wound. The beast winced in pain yet did not move, too weak from blood loss.
“Others will come once it is discovered I am dead,” Jazmixer wheezed. “It is not too late, Eliza. I do not have to die. I will be a…a kinder master, we will…be as close to partners as slave and master can be.”
“Slave? I am no one’s slave, Jazmixer. You have done your best to break me, but all you have succeeded in doing is making me stronger. I am Eliza. I walked my world for five hundred years wielding death and destruction wherever I went. What makes you think I would yield to one as lowly as you? There will be no partnership. I will feed off of you one more time then I will roll your useless carcass into the corner. I will make it my personal mission to find a way out of this accursed hell and back to my rightful place in the world, where those who put me here will pay.”