“Let’s go,” he said finally. “Stay together, and whack anything that smells bad.”
They stepped outside, and immediately, Lucas felt the air change—gravity itself becoming somehow different. It was colder too. While the pub had possessed no detectable temperature, outside it was crisp and frigid.
“It feels wrong out here,” said Vetta, making the same observation as him.
“Yeah,” said Jake. “It’s freezing. And I feel… I dunno.”
“Heavy,” Simon answered for him. “I feel sluggish. Like I just spent an hour on an exercise bike and now I can’t walk right.”
“It feels wrong,” Vetta said again. “Wrong.”
Lucas nodded. “This place is a hernia in reality, a bulge outside of normality. We need to be careful. I don’t think Julian ever planned for us to leave the pub, but now that we have, he’ll rethink things. Hopefully he’ll make a mistake.”
Shaun looked around warily. “Why doesn’t he just let us go? What is he hoping to achieve?”
Lucas remembered Julian referring to him as a ‘token’ and his death being intended as some sort of payment. But to whom? Who did Julian serve if not himself? And why did he possess one of the nails used to crucify Jesus? Lucas reached into his pocket and clutched the chunk of iron now, checking it was still where he’d put it. It was, and it somehow felt important not to lose it.
They headed down the small decline in front of the pub and approached the shops opposite. The chippy was closest, its heavy glass and aluminium fire-door hanging wide open. The counter inside lay abandoned, so the group went in cautiously and spread out warily around it. Jake wasted no time in moving behind the counter and rooting around the cupboards. Simon and Shaun went to investigate the back area, but reported finding nothing except machines for cutting potatoes and adding batter. Lucas knew many things, but he couldn’t see how either machine would help their current situation.
“Score!” shouted Jake, grabbing something from underneath the counter and clonking it down next to the cash register. It was a large glass jar with murky water and bobbing items inside. “Gherkins,” he explained. “I love these, and I’m starving.” He twisted off the lid and dipped his fingers into the vinegar, snatching out a pickle as if it were a dozing green fish. He bit into it like a savage, which was why it was so surprising when he spat it out onto the counter a moment later. “Gross!”
Shirley rushed over and patted him on the back, assuming he was choking. “What is it, love?”
“Tastes like shit. Tastes like…”
“Ash,” said Lucas, pointing at the half-eaten mouthful on the counter. The green skin and juice were dissolving, turning to a grey powder. “It’s not a pickle.”
“Sure as hell looked like one,” said Jake, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It’s a trick?” asked Shirley. “Are you okay, Jake?”
“Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting it.” He nudged the jar of pickles away from him on the counter.
Lucas tried to explain things. “This place is formed from a pact with an aswang. It’s as much a part of Hell as it is Earth, and you cannot gain sustenance in Hell. Any food or water you try to eat will turn to ash in your mouth. If you try to get warm, you’ll only get colder.”
Annie rolled her eyes at the back of the group. “You’re telling us we’re in Hell?”
“No, we’re in a place influenced by Hell. It’s like being influenced by a planet’s gravity once you get too close. We’ve been pulled in enough for Hell’s rules to apply, but some of Earth’s too. It’s not all bad—Hell is a place I know well.”
“You being The Devil and all,” said Annie.
“Let’s just keep looking, shall we? We need to find that aswang.”
Mentioning the creature stopped their conversation, and they followed Lucas silently out of the chip shop and back onto the featureless grey pavement. Lucas peered up the small hill back at the pub and considered retreating back inside. The orange glow from its windows was warm and inviting, and the beer inside was real. It wouldn’t turn to ash. He theorised that the pub was the anchor between this fabricated reality and the one they belonged in, therefore the pub was closer to Earth than Hell, which is why the normal rules of existence still applied inside—more or less.
So why the hell did I drag us out of there?
Because we have no other choice. We have to get ourselves out of this oven before the door slams shut.
Next up was a small supermarket. Its double-doors were shut, but when Lucas pushed on them, they opened easily—if a little heavily. He glanced back to make sure the others were still with him. They were breathing a little heavily, but they followed him inside without complaint.
Jake picked up a handful of chocolate bars from a basket right inside the entrance, then let them fall through his fingers. “So, none of this food is edible? That sucks so hard, man. My stomach is kicking off, innit?”
“Mine too,” said Shaun, tucking his pool cue under his armpit so that he could rub his belly.
“All part of the VIP Hell experience,” said Lucas, feeling pretty famished himself. Hunger was another new feeling that he didn’t care for. “Everything and everyone in Hell is desperate for nourishment, but unable to ever get any. Damned souls suffer every neglect imaginable, but it’s all in your mind. Try not to think of your hunger, or anything else you might be feeling, because it will only get worse.”
Shirley plucked a pack of samosas from a nearby chiller cabinet. Her mouth seemed like it was about to drool. “It’ll get worse?” she said. “The hunger?”
Lucas admitted he wasn’t entirely sure. “In Hell, your hunger would get worse and worse until it drove you insane—but this isn’t Hell. Hopefully, all you’re experiencing is a taster.”
“Nice choice of words,” Annie muttered. “Seeing as we can’t eat anything and will probably all starve to death.”
Simon scratched his beard, which made an impressively loud rustling sound. It got their attention, so he decided to speak. “Suppose we should get busy then, before we start eyeing up each other’s legs?”
Annie huffed, and then set off down the aisle. It was hard for her to be around them—or maybe just Lucas—and she was clearly struggling to hold it together. The others followed after her, but Lucas kept to the rear.
Simon hurried and caught up with Annie, which was good, because if Lucas had to choose one person to put in the firing line, it would be the large bearded man. Simon was unflinchingly macho, which meant his fear would be buried deep enough that he barely realised it was there. The man was prone to anger and aggression before panic and anxiety yet, despite that, Lucas was fairly certain Simon was a good man. A man who would fight to protect the others if—when—things turned ugly.
If a question mark hung over any of the group, it was Jake. The lad had been a thug last night, yet he seemed different now. Since Julian had crucified him and spilled his guts on the floor, and Lucas had subsequently healed him, Jake had become enthusiastic and helpful. Maybe even pleasant. Could the change be more than just a near-death experience?
Lucas studied the lad from behind, trying to get a read on him. Jake was searching the aisles with intent, prodding at shelves with the thick end of his pool cue, and glancing at the others in the group from time to time. Was he checking that they were okay? Was he worried about them? For obvious reasons, Vetta kept her distance from Jake, and he seemed to respect that, but every now and then he would give her a guilty glance. A glance that seemed to express remorse.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked Vetta quietly as he moved beside her. She turned to him and he saw how pale she was—sickly even. Her ordeal had been severe, and she hadn’t been given time to recover. Had Lucas truly healed her? Or was she still damaged? She managed to smile, but it lacked the warmth of the woman he had met last night.
“I am good,” she said evenly. “Frightened, but… I go on.”
“I’m sorry about all this.” God, that sounds
so ridiculous. “I wish I could take it all back.”
“You can’t though!” she snapped, then seemed to regret the outburst, her face softening as quickly as it had hardened. “But perhaps you can make amends. That is word, yes?”
He smiled weakly. “Amends, yes. I shall try very hard to make amends.”
Just like I have for the last two-thousand-and-odd years. And I’m more screwed than I’ve ever been.
The lights flickered overhead, making the empty supermarket feel like the setting for an apocalypse movie. Everyone yelped, getting more and more on edge. Where had the aswang scuttled off to? Was it watching them?
“It’s all just games,” said Lucas, shaking his head. “Everything about this place will try to unnerve you.”
Vetta saw something and screamed. She leapt against Lucas and pointed down the aisle. “Is that game? That thing is game?”
Lucas eased her towards Simon, who put an arm around her protectively. Lying in the aisle ahead, some slug-like beast slithered towards them.
Lucas approached the thing cautiously, trying to make it out in the dim light. The lights continued to flicker overhead. The monster was human. Bleeding and broken, but human. Someone Lucas recognised. Not at first, but once the broken face peered up at him with those dark-brown eyes and bushy eyebrows, the man’s identity was unmistakable. “G-Gheorgie?”
The Romanian reached out a hand that was missing all its fingers. His lower lip was torn down the middle and flapped down in two pieces like the collar on a dress shirt. The only part of Gheorghie that hadn’t experienced massive trauma were his eyes. The human, pleading eyes of the amiable young man Lucas had shared many drinks with last night. How had he ended up this way?
Lucas knelt on the floor and took Gheorghie into his arms, adding his blood to the stains already on his shirt. One more innocent soul tortured because of him. Gladri had called him an artificer of catastrophe, and it was true. “I’m sorry, Gheorgie,”
“What are you doing?” Simon demanded. He had his pool cue raised like a baseball bat. “Get away from that thing.”
“I know him,” Lucas shouted back to them. “He’s a… a friend of Vetta’s.”
Vetta started. “Who?”
“It’s Gheorgie but stay back! Let me help him.”
Vetta cried out to Gheorgie, but she came no closer. Simon kept his arm around her while she sobbed, and Lucas turned his attention back to her tortured friend. There was no question what had to be done.
Lucas had to heal Gheorgie.
He closed his eyes and placed his hands on the man’s ruined face, wincing at the floating, shattered cheekbones beneath the skin. The power came more easily this time. Having fumbled blindly for it the last two times, this time he knew exactly where to grab and found the power right where he expected it to be. He pushed it around Gheorgie, trying to draw away the man’s pain and injury. Slowly, miraculously, the young man’s grievous wounds started knitting together, blood retreating back into his veins, bones snapping back into place. His anguished eyes sparkled with renewed life. His pitiful moans became exultant gasps.
Lucas’s eyes rolled back in his head and he tumbled away from Gheorgie, drained and disorientated, but he lay on his back happily. Gheorgie rose gingerly to his feet—fully healed—and exultant sounds spilled from Vetta. He had given her a miracle—his third of the day—and perhaps it went some way towards making amends.
But then it all went very wrong.
Vetta ran to Gheorgie and threw her arms around him. The man was understandably confused, peering around like a newborn kitten. “W-what happened?”
“We’re in trouble,” said Vetta. “You were hurt, Gheorghie, but you are okay now. Lucas made you better.”
Shirley was staring at Lucas with an impressed look on her face. “You could win Britain’s Got Talent with that.”
“Aye, maybe that’s what I’ll do when all this is over. I’ll need to make a living somehow.”
Shirley tried helping Lucas to his feet, but she succeeded only in getting him into a sitting position. He was happy enough taking a short rest, and he watched happily as Gheorgie and Vetta reunited. The Romanian’s clothing was torn and bloody, but he seemed fine underneath. He laughed and smiled. “I leave my wallet at pub,” he said. “I come back to get and then…”
“Julian is an evil magician or something,” said Jake. “He must have jumped you when you came back on your own.”
Gheorghie frowned at Jake, either surprised at what he said or the fact he was not shouting racist obscenities at him. There was a slender trail of blood dripping down his right ankle, but no one seemed to notice, including Gheorghie himself.
Lucas frowned. What the?
The trail of blood increased into a cascade. Vetta flinched when it washed over her shoes, and she leapt back from Gheorgie in fright. Gheorgie’s face turned ashen. His mouth opened in mute horror, but he spoke no words. His terrified eyes said everything.
Lucas tried to get up, but he was still weak. Simon grabbed Vetta and pulled her away from what was happening. They all retreated several feet as Gheorgie shook before them in the centre of the aisle. His eyes bulged, and he looked at them imploringly. “W-what is happening to me? V-Vetta?”
Vetta moaned, but everyone else fell silent. Gheorgie started to bleed from his eyes, and then from everywhere else, skin slicing apart like it was being cut by invisible knives. His elbows snapped the wrong way, forearms pointing backwards. His neck contorted inhumanly. Finally, his knees buckled, and he collapsed onto his stomach, once more dragging himself along like an oozing slug. His dark-brown eyes dulled with pain, and they focused on Lucas accusingly.
“What’s happening to him?” cried Vetta. “Please help him!”
“He’s damned,” said Lucas. “Julian must have given Gheorgie as a sacrifice to bind the aswang. His soul is no longer his own. His suffering is like a battery powering this place.”
Vetta screamed at Lucas. “Make him better! Heal him again!”
Lucas battled to get up on his feet, and once he succeeded, he leaned against the nearby shelving to keep from falling back down. “You want me to put him through that all over again? I can’t heal him, Vetta. This place… I just can’t.”
Vetta yanked her hair in despair. “We have to do something. We can, we should, I…. The pub! Yes! We can take Gheorghie to the pub. It is different there, yes?”
Lucas was pretty sure it wouldn’t make any difference. Gheorghie wasn’t just hurt, he was damned. “I’m sorry, Vetta. Gheorgie has been dead since this whole thing began. That thing on the ground is not a living creature, it’s a tormented soul—just like the aswang. There’s only one thing we can do for him now. Give him release from this place so that he might go on to the next.”
Lucas expected Vetta to protest, but instead, she went over to Gheorgie and got down on her knees beside him, placing a hand against one of his ruined cheeks. “How do we do this thing?” she asked, addressing Lucas behind her.
Lucas stepped towards her. “Let me.”
“No, I will stay.”
It was her call. “Okay, but I’m not sure this will work. Gheorghie shouldn’t be in this place. It’s not a final resting place for a soul. If we take care of him, he should… ascend. Or descend.”
“He will go up. I know this.” Vetta looked into Gheorgie’s eyes, tears spilling from her own. “I understand, but I cannot do this thing.”
Lucas didn’t expect her to. He placed his hands on Gheorgie’s face and smothered him, blocking his nose and mouth. Gheorgie trembled, but he didn’t fight, limbs and bones too broken to even try. It didn’t take long, and within a couple of minutes, Gheorgie’s brown eyes stared off into space. Vetta sobbed quietly.
It was done. Best of luck to you, Gheorghie.
Lucas stood up, feeling strange. It was unexpected when he bent down and vomited into a chest of frozen pizzas. Did being human ever stop being such a colossal pain? What was he feeling now? Guilt? No…
<
br /> Grief!
He didn’t care for it.
Annie slumped against the chiller cabinet, looking like she, herself might vomit. She asked a question of Lucas. “He’s in a better place now, yes?”
Lucas nodded. “I think so. I hope so.”
“What if you did that to the rest of us?” Annie then asked, seemingly thinking of something. Her brow was furrowed, and she had a finger against the dimple in her chin.
Jake was the first to react. “What you on about, Annie?”
She no longer appeared angry, only tired. “This place is Hell,” she said. “Or close enough. I don’t want to die here and end up like… that thing.”
“That was Vetta’s friend,” said Jake, once again displaying his newfound compassion.
Annie sighed. “I know! I’m sorry, Vetta, but he’s in a better place now, right? He’s the lucky one.”
Vetta didn’t disagree, but she did look away to hide her tears. Lucas rubbed his temples and straightened up. “Let me understand this, you want me to kill you like I did Gheorgie?”
“Yes.”
Shirley gasped. “Annie!”
“What?”
“You’re suggesting suicide,” said Lucas. “Whether by my hand or your own, you are making the decision to die.”
“And we already know what happens to suicide victims in hell,” said Jake, shaking his head sadly. “They go to Hell and become monsters.”
“He’s right,” said Lucas. “The sentence I passed on suicide victims is still in place. Kill yourself and you’ll end up as an aswang eventually. You’ll be punished.”
Annie regained some of her anger. “You think suicide is a crime? How about you blame the messed-up world that makes people feel like they have no other way out? We’re just toys to God, aren’t we? Just wind us up and watch us suffer and punish anyone who refuses to perform.”
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