What felt like a sharp-tipped fingernail nudged his leg. He flinched, knowing his attorney kept his nails cut to the quick. Curiosity and soaring trepidation ripped through his trembling guts. He dared to open one eye.
The girl sat next to him.
“No!” he screamed. He shot a glance at the driver up front; he obviously didn’t see that the bitch had taken the place of his attorney. Fear stole the breath from his lungs; he pressed back in the seat. “You’re not here. I’m seeing things. Under a lot of pressure—” He covered his face with his hands.
She laughed and arm-punched him. “Oh, Jack, you have no idea the pressure coming your way.”
“Go away, go away, go away,” he repeated like a mantra. “You’re not really here. You’re dead, you’re dead. This is a hallucination.”
“Don't you want to hear the news?” she teased, running a sharp nail up the length of his leg. Her voice sounded like broken glass scraping a chalk board. He pulled deeper into the corner of the seat, desperate to get away from her.
But her voice was inside his head.
Your hit man had an accident. He’s dead.
“Gregor?” Not Gregor. He can’t be dead. I need him.
“Yes. Gregor’s definitely dead. Last night I fed him to my hounds.”
“Hounds?” A shiver shot down the back of his legs. For a wild second, he thought he was going to shit all over himself.
Her voice in his mind continued the torment. You should have heard him beg.
Bronson wiped tears on his sleeve and cringed. How could she be both inside his head and beside him in the limo? She can’t be either one, he reasoned. She’s dead.
But her voice tortured not only his mind, but permeated every cell in his body, leaving him to shiver with incomprehension and … suspicion. He ground the words out through chattering teeth. “No way Gregor begged. He’s a fearless cut-throat.”
“Really?” she teased. “I’ll let you listen. Then you can decide for yourself.” She snapped her fingers.
What came was a nightmare. Gregor’s pleading was broken by sniveling and sobbing as he begged, followed by snarling, as from a huge animal. No—more than one animal.
Her hounds?
He tightened his sphincter, fearing release was imminent. Then Gregor’s voice erupted into an unrecognizable high-pitched scream punctuated with gurgling and ripping, snarling and tearing. The screams weakened and dwindled to moans and cries, then came crunching, followed by a nauseating silence. Bronson bent forward and retched onto the limo floor. “Go away,” he moaned.
She patted his leg with commiseration and ignored his pleas. “Not going to happen. But I’ll see you at Gregor’s funeral. Oh, and maybe I’ll bring one of my hounds. See you then.”
He closed his eyes and put his head back. He couldn’t think and he couldn’t breathe. A fear he never thought possible invaded his heart and mind, and he wildly considered asking the driver to return him to the prison. She disappeared as suddenly as she arrived, leaving behind her wicked laughter; he gasped with relief.
His attorney, oblivious of the hell that had just happened in the backseat, spoke. Bronson gazed at him with shock. “What’d you say?”
“I said, I’ll see you at the funeral. A real shame about Gregor. No one should die like that.”
The sinking sensation of panic returned to Bronson. His heart constricted painfully in his chest, but he had to know. “How did Gregor die?”
“They found his remains out in the woods north of town—what there was left of him. According to the coroner, it was some kind of animal attack.” He tisked and shook his head. “They had to identify him by dental records. All they found were his feet and his skull … minus his face.”
Bronson clamped his lips together and had nothing to say the rest of the way home. They dropped off the attorney and proceeded to his mansion, which had been pulled out of foreclosure prior to his release.
He sat morosely in the back seat of the limo, not having the will to go inside.
“Sir?” the driver asked through the intercom. “Is there somewhere else you’d like to go? I understand the staff has prepared your rooms and stocked the kitchen.”
Bronson snorted with disbelief. During his time in prison he’d possessed only two goals to sustain him. The first being told of the girl’s death at Gregor’s hands. The second being this moment when he returned to his life.
Only, what once was important meant nothing now. Now, every decision from his long and ruthless corporate career had rung the bell, tolling his demise. Hell has sent its minions for me. There’s no escape. With no heart for tomorrow and what may come, he remotely told the driver, “Have a good night. I’ll need a ride to the funeral tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here, sir.”
Once inside, he went to his room and removed the suit he’d put on at the prison. After showering, he donned clean clothes and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His appearance was a shock. Where this morning his face had been full with the joy of release, now he was drawn and haggard with dark circles under his eyes.
The girl’s appearance had inserted a wiggling worm of fear into his mind. Every sound made him jump. He caught himself holding his breath in expectation until he nearly blacked out. His heart stuttered in his chest, turning his knees weak.
“Get a hold of yourself.” He ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to soothe his nerves when a distant sound caught his ear. Faint and undiscernible, he leaned toward it. As it came a little louder, he strained to grasp it, finally realizing with dismay what he heard.
Baying hounds!
His beleaguered intestines finally let go.
The next morning Bronson rose from bed without having slept. The hounds bayed all night long, faint enough to give him chills, loud enough to keep him from falling asleep.
He dressed in a suit and sat on the couch with a bottle of scotch. He took a long draw and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. “Might as well crawl in the casket with Gregor.” An image of Gregor’s faceless skull sitting atop his bare feet rose in his mind and he canceled that idea. His mouth went dry and he lifted the bottle again.
The baying seemed louder this morning. He closed his eyes and cocked his head, seeking to pinpoint the exact location of these demon hounds just by sound. He leaned to the left, sensing their approach.
“Sir, are you ready?” his driver said.
Startled from his listening to the hounds, Bronson leaped to his feet in shock and staggered into the corner, holding his chest. He flung the scotch bottle free and it landed on the tile floor and shattered.
His heart rattled and expanded, bringing sharp pains. He gasped, realizing he’d been holding his breath again, and sagged against the wall. Tears welled in his eyes, but he turned away, ashamed of his fear. “Of course.” The words came out strangled, but he straightened his jacket and made for the front door, his steps crunching across the broken liquor bottle without a care.
All the way to the funeral home, he was terrified of the girl appearing again, or worse yet, showing up with one of her cursed beasts. He sat small in the backseat, eyes tightly shut and shoulders hunched as if he could disappear. Just get through this. Just get through this.
A giggle next to him made his heart seize, but he refused to turn and look. The giggle came again and a sharp fingernail drew up his leg. He cringed and shrank deeper, but when he opened his eyes, no one was there.
During the drive to the cemetery a light drizzle had begun and he accepted an umbrella from his driver. “I’ll go alone. You needn’t come, stay with the car.”
Gregor had few friends. In fact, he likely had no friends. Aside from Bronson, there were three gruff looking fellows lurking off to the side.
Probably wanting to make sure Gregor’s dead.
The reverend droned on about eternal salvation and the heavenly afterlife awaiting us after death. Bronson closed his eyes, terrified his afterlife was already after him. A body pressed into his
legs. Rather than look, he began shivering and drew the umbrella close over his head. A voice spoke in his mind.
I see you! Can you see me?
He wanted to squeeze his eyes tighter, but his pounding heart couldn’t stand the stress of not knowing any longer. He opened his eyes. At his feet sat one of her demonic hounds. It looked up at him and opened its mouth, revealing teeth smiling in a parody of a greeting. It snapped at his hand, missing by the width of a hair.
He pulled away and teetered on the edge of the open grave. The white rose he clutched tumbled to the ground and he turned and ran for the car, sobbing. He tripped at the curb and went to one knee, ripping his pants. Hoisting himself up on the limousine bumper, he lunged for the open door and landed in the back seat.
The driver closed the door as if nothing had happened.
Bronson huddled in the corner. Blood ran from his skinned knee. An unpleasant hum filled his ears. Crushing fear stole his breath. “Just take me,” he sobbed. “Please, just take me.” A weight settled next to him; he clapped his lips together and buried his face in his hands. You fool, your pleading has summoned her.
The pointed finger nail drew up his leg, threatening his bowels to release again; he clenched his sphincter and wiped the snot from his nose. Waiting, he stared straight ahead, a dead man walking.
“Don't worry, Jack,” she said. “I’ll take you … when I’m ready.”
And then she was gone.
The driver asked, “Ready, sir?”
Bronson flinched and began sobbing. He waved the driver on with his hand.
As soon as he got home, he opened another bottle of scotch and went to his laptop. A search for ‘beasts of Hell’ brought a page of images. He peered closely, drawing deeply from the bottle.
From Biblical teachings to Satanic rituals, the hounds of Hell were regarded with the utmost respect for their ferocity and blood-chilling howl. Below, he read the headline. “Three sightings and you’re dead.”
I’ve seen one.
He gulped from the scotch bottle again, nearly choking, and lurched to his desk. He wrenched on a drawer where he kept a gun and tore off a fingernail when the drawer didn’t open. He shrieked with pain. The fingernail fell to the floor, leaving a trail of blood pouring from his mangled digit, now a match for his busted knee. “What the hell? This drawer doesn’t even lock.”
The giggle of his she-demon lilted through his mind.
Not until I’m ready, Jack. Besides, you haven’t met all the hounds.
He crouched and held his hands to his ears, unable to escape her voice inside his head and the howling hounds outside. He grabbed his bottle of scotch and bolted out the door to the front of the property.
A great oak tree shaded the edge of the circular drive, its massive height delivering a load of leaves each autumn, but it had great limbs for climbing. He kicked off his shoes and clambered up the first limb. At each level, he stopped and sat, gauging the best trajectory for a fatal fall. Even with a belly full of scotch, he managed to climb near the top. Wanting death is a powerful motivator.
At last he reached a high enough spot with clearance in the branches to give him a straight shot at the driveway. He stood and tested the branch, pictured in his mind his head-first pitch downward, and took a deep breath—
“Whoa, Jack. What’re you doing up here?”
Her voice startled him and sucked all the air out of his lungs; he grabbed for the tree trunk.
She stood beside him, hands on her hips, nimble as a butterfly. “What are you doing? You think this is going to save you from me?” She leaned out to see the view to the ground. “Yeah, that’s more likely to hurt you than kill you.”
Her words pried into his mind with logic and stopped him. Weary and drunk, he began the climb back down until her voice stopped him.
“But hurting you is my job, so … why not?”
Hearing Hell in her tone, he glanced up just as her foot struck him in the chest.
He woke slowly in a brilliant world of all white. White sheets draped over his suspended leg, and a white body cast covered most everything else. White walls and nurses in white uniforms hummed about in his peripheral vision. He rolled his eyes at the IV and prayed there was a decent dose of morphine in the bag.
Because she was right.
It hurt. It hurt like hell.
Tears flooded his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Without a free hand to wipe them away, they dripped into his body cast where they felt like fire pouring over his flesh. “Nurse,” he called feebly. “Help, I need help.”
But they didn’t hear him. No one saw his panic. Not one doctor came to check on him; no nurse stopped by to look at his vitals.
The pain was insane. Every bone felt broken, every joint screamed, every organ throbbed with contusions. He moaned, begging for death with every breath. In the midst of his agony, a preternatural silence cloaked his room. Suddenly, everyone was gone, leaving him alone with …
Click. Click. Click.
Toenails scraped against the sterile hospital floor—the long toenails of a hound. He rolled his eyes toward the door. The closer the toenails came, the more he sobbed, the more tears ran into his cast, the more fire managed to reach his crotch. “Help,” he squealed, sounding as faint as a mouse.
But only the hound came.
Trapped in a cast and bound by agony, he could only push against the foot of the bed with one leg in a pitiful attempt to evade the approaching terror. The clicking toenails stopped at his door and the hound peeked into his room. Drooling, grinning, red eyes pinning him, it entered and walked to his bed.
With no way to run, all he could do was stare at the ceiling and pray he didn’t shit the bed. Body quivering with abject fear and pain, heart ready to burst with terror, he peeled his eyes wildly to gaze at the hound.
It came to his side and sniffed down his full length, then climbed to sit on his chest.
Fearing the cast would give way, Bronson panted with anxiety, but then the beast lowered its snarling muzzle close enough to take half his face in one bite. The animal’s fetid breath bathed him in stink. Its feet trailed pieces of rotted flesh, making Bronson wonder how much of Gregor’s face was still in those razor-sharp claws.
In the doorway, the girl laughed.
She snapped her fingers and Bronson was sitting on his couch, the bottle of scotch in his hand. Nothing was broken, but he was quite drunk.
Not drunk enough.
She sat next to him, her hand on his leg. “I have bad news, Jack.”
A bubble of insanity rose and he burst out laughing in a girlish pitch. “Oh, do tell.”
She arm-punched him again. “Look at you, still with a sense of humor—all the way to the end.”
His rumbling laughter bubbled into sobs. “Does that mean it’s over?” Her hand rubbed his leg, consoling. “I’m afraid not, Jack. You see, I’ve decided on special treatment for you.”
He slid to his knees and grabbed her hands, face down, supplicating. “Please, no. No special treatment. I don't want anything special.”
She stroked his head like a child as he wept. “I do have good news, though,” she said and coaxed his chin up. “I’m not going to show you any more hounds. I think you’ve had enough of them.”
“Yes,” he babbled. “I’ve had enough hounds.” He tried to smile, to beseech her to relent in this torment, to somehow appeal to her sense of mercy. A feeble thought gripped him. Perhaps she’s tired of me.
A dash of hope dared to flicker.
“Come, there’s something I want you to see.” She hauled him to his feet. What had been his home swirled and became his chemical plant. A definite sense of imminent danger filled his body. “Why are we here? We shouldn’t be here.” He dragged his feet, but she pulled him along.
“I thought about what the judge said, about how the law doesn’t allow him to sentence you to a punishment you deserve.”
He didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “I thought you were�
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“Going to let you go?” She smiled.
She’s beautiful, he thought. For someone with such a black heart. I wish I’d let her live. He started crying again.
They came to a short set of steps and she pushed him up. They walked along a wooden platform. Through his tears, he slowly became cognizant of where they were. “We’re in the storage facility. Where—” The words froze in his throat. Where vats of chemicals are stored.
She stopped by one of the vats and flicked a finger. The cover lifted and dropped away, exposing a noxious smelling, bubbling vat of toxic chemicals. He backed up, but she grabbed his arm. “This is the sentence you deserve.” She shoved him into the vat.
He sank and disappeared before his head broke the surface. The fumes scorched his eyeballs until they popped and ran down his face. His skin peeled off in layers, leaving his muscles and nerves exposed to the searing chemicals. He screamed until his tongue melted in his mouth. He flailed as the flesh was stripped from his bones and what remained of him sank to the bottom.
Ransom, Dalton, and Zander had gathered at her back to watch Bronson disappear under the surface. She checked her watch, counting the seconds. “How long a loop did you put him on?”
“Sixty seconds,” Zander replied. “He should bob back up pretty soon.” He pointed. “Oh look, there he is.”
The skeleton surfaced and slowly the flesh returned. Fully re-animated, Bronson began flailing once again. The eyeballs popped, the tongue melted, and so on.
“I compelled him to die the worst death he could possibly imagine … every sixty seconds,” Zander said.
Dalton asked, “What’s actually in the vat?”
“Water.”
Bronson’s screams began anew.
“So, his torment is designed and delivered by his own mind.” Bella snapped her fingers and they appeared before Malachi. From the far side of Purgatory, Bronson’s agony could be heard every sixty seconds, right on schedule.
Malachi clapped his hands. “Well done, Bella. Well done to all of you.” He shook their hands. “When you didn’t release the third hound, I thought you’d gone soft. But this—”
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