Hellfire

by Jeff Provine

  “The fire, then. Tell us.”

  Nate looked up at Ticks. He smacked his lips a few times and then spat, landing a thin slime of saliva and mucus on the leg of Ticks’s black suit.

  Ticks growled. “Mr. Parvis.”

  The hammer came down twice again, once on his good arm and another on his ear. The second pain drowned the first, but together they were more than Nate could stand. His whole body seemed on fire. The small hunchback’s giggles rang in his ears.

  The cycle went on over and over. Each blow was worse than the last. The pain never dulled. Nate lost count how many times the hammer fell.

  “Honestly, Mr. Kemp,” Ticks said, “we’re going to run out of new places to hit you. I’d hate to have to start repeating ourselves.”

  Nate spat again, this time on the floor. He could taste blood. “You can kill me. I’m not going to tell you anything now.”

  The short hunchback took a step forward again with eager wheezing. Ticks put his hand in front of the hammer and stopped it.

  “I believe you, Mr. Kemp,” Ticks told him. “And we are going to kill you.”

  Nate panted through his pain.

  “You don’t seem too afraid, and of course you wouldn’t. What do you care for a life spent shoveling coal just to watch it burn up? There are things out there more important, like your mother.”

  Nate held his breath.

  “That’s right,” Ticks told him. “It wasn’t difficult to overhear. ‘Mrs. Martha Kemp, on Wilkinson Street,’ I believe?”

  The air in Nate’s lungs burned. He forced the old out. His new breaths were cold and chilled him.

  “There’s not much you can do about yourself, but it is well within your power to ensure nothing happens to her.”

  Nate shuddered. He looked down at the wooden planks. “All right. You leave her alone, and I’ll tell you everything I saw.”

  Ticks let out a soft chuckle. “You have my word.”

  Nate shifted into a sitting position, leaning his aching back against the cedar walls of the airship storeroom. He settled himself and said, “There was a thing in the firebox.”

  “A thing?”

  “A monster. I don’t know. It was something horrible.”

  “Anything different about the fire? Would it start properly?”

  “No, it was a bad fire…” Nate looked up at him. “Why would you ask that?”

  Ticks’s mustache twitched. “Never mind. Tell us about the thing.”

  Nate stared up at the ceiling, trying not to picture it. Still the thing passed before him in the shadows. “It was horrible. Claws, tentacles, eyes, like nothing I’d ever seen. It was evil. Don’t ask me how I knew it, but I knew it from the first.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I had to destroy it. I took the rest of the catalyst and threw it in the fire.” Nate paused and squinted. “The catalyst was wrong, too. It didn’t act like it should’ve. It blew up instead of burning hot. I used it to blow up the thing.”

  Parvis made a high-pitched grunt.

  Ticks cleared his throat. “What exactly happened?”

  Nate shook his head. It ached as it moved. “I don’t know.”

  Ticks stamped on the floor. “Of course you know. Tell us!”

  “I don’t know!” Nate blurted. “The locomotive went strange.”

  “Strange? What does that mean?”

  “It was wrong, weird. It looked like the waves coming up from a sand pit on a hot day. Things started coming out from the fire. More things, with wings and eyes. And they sounded bad, all whining and screaming.”

  The sound rang through his head. Nate gagged. His stomach turned itself inside out, and he spewed out a wet, reeking pile onto the floor. He tried to pull away from it, but his wrists caught against the shackles chained to the wall.

  Ticks grunted. “Disgusting... What else?”

  Nate shook his head. The foul taste lingered in his mouth. “I separated the cars, and the locomotive went runaway with all the things writhing over it. It must’ve crashed, but I don’t know how… the track should’ve held at the speed we were going.”

  “Very well,” Ticks replied. His boots thumped across the room. “Throw him from the balcony. The fool jumped when he tried to escape.”

  The short hunchback grabbed Nate’s shackles.

  Nate gasped. “What?”

  Ticks shrugged. “We’re finished with you. You’ve given us all we needed from you.”

  Parvis unhooked Nate’s shackles. The short hunchback was strong, and pain shot through Nate’s arms, but Nate tried to pull away anyhow. Parvis dragged him forward.

  Nate couldn’t get out resisting, so he went slack. Parvis looked down at him through the dark glass of his mask, pulling him along more softly. Eventually the hunchback’s grip loosened.

  With a swift motion, Nate jerked his shackles toward the short hunchback. The chain slipped through his gloved hand. He pushed, bowling Parvis over.

  Nate turned to dive for the door.

  The other hunchback, Biggs, was already there.

  Nate lowered his head and charged, slamming into the giant’s chest.

  Biggs grunted, but didn’t move. He caught Nate up in a bear hug and squeezed.

  The air leak out of Nate, gurgling in his throat as it went. He tried to breathe back in but couldn’t. Dull sounds of joints popping ran through the insides of his ears.

  The huge hunchback carried him out of the room and into the narrow hallway that ran the length of the airship. Nate tried to wriggle, but the hunchback’s grip was too strong.

  His body stank of spoiled meat. Nate gagged again and tried not to breathe as he fought. His vision spun.

  The hatch at the back of the airship swung open. As Biggs turned to drag him out into the cool night air, Nate at last had room to take a breath. It was free of cedar, but smoky with carbon and sulfur from the nearby air-screws.

  Parvis skirted around him. The short hunchback closed the hatch and wheezed out giggles. His long arms trembled under his coat.

  Beyond Parvis, Nate saw the distant horizon, over the dark strip of the Mississippi and even onto the land. The outskirts of Lake Providence were below him, twinkling like stars. His mother and sister were out there. What were they going to do without him?

  Biggs raised him up over the waist-high rail.

  Nate’s boots peddled, trying desperately to find something solid in the empty air. He whispered, “No, please.”

  Biggs only grunted and let go.

  As soon as he felt his freedom, Nate swung out his hands. He aimed to grab Biggs and save himself, if only for a moment. He would even pull the hunchback down with him if he had to.

  Nate’s right hand caught Biggs’s arm. He gripped the oilskin coat as hard as he could. Sharp pain ran through each stitch in his shoulder, but he held on.

  His left hand found the hunchback’s mask. Biggs lurched backward. A sharp rip sounded, and the mask came loose in Nate’s hand.

  Rumors said the hunchbacks wore their masks to make them ready for any weather, as with their heavy coats and wide hats. Other people liked to say it was because the hunchbacks were so ugly.

  “Ugly” did not begin to describe the horrors of Biggs’s face. It was like a bat’s face, the nose nothing more than loose flaps of skin. The skin was leathery and dark with splotches of oozing sores. His eyes were inky beads that flashed red in the starlight.

  Nate screamed. He could not hold onto anything so horrible. He actually began to push, shoving himself away, even if it did mean his death.

  Biggs screamed back. The sound came like a cat in heat. His mouth had rows of sharp, crooked teeth.

  Nate shut his eyes and turned away, but still the face haunted him. He rolled his body into a ball, holding himself as tightly as he could. The scream rang in his ears.

  The cold night air rushed around him as he plummeted.

  Chapter Eight

  Open your eyes.

  Nate heard words wi
thout anyone speaking them. This had happened before; he didn’t know how many times. It had always been the scaly voice of the fire, whispering out to him, putting pictures in his mind. He ignored it.

  Open your eyes, it repeated.

  There was something different about this voice. It was sweet, yet it was firm, not noisy and harsh like the light of a fire. It was the stern word of a parent.

  Nate slowly peeked out of slits under his eyelids. The night had been dark except for the stars and the streetlamps of Lake Providence. Now it was as bright as day. It was too bright. It hurt to look. Nate clamped his eyes closed again.

  Don’t be afraid.

  Nate shook his head. It was too late for that.

  He was falling hundreds of feet from an airship. The air around him was cold, but what shook him was the thought of what would happen to him when the falling stopped. Would it hurt? Would his spirit linger? Would he just cease to be?

  In the darkness behind his eyelids, the horrid face of the hunchback flashed. Then, the even more horrible thing from the firebox writhed before him.

  Open your eyes and leave your fears behind.

  Nate started to shake his head, but he stopped. He wanted to leave his fears behind. As a kid he’d been afraid of being weaker than the other boys because he was smaller; it had gotten him into more fights than he could count. When his father died, he was afraid of what would happen to his ma and little Ann, so he worked even when his back was sore and the fires told him awful things.

  Now his life was about to end, and for once in it, he was done being afraid. Nate opened his eyes. The light was bright, but he refused to turn away from it again. There was something in the light. It looked like a man. “Who are you?” Nate asked.

  You are right to ask who I am. You do not know me.

  Nate grunted. “That doesn’t answer my question. What’s going on? Am I… dead?” He didn’t remember hitting the ground already.

  Now is not your time. I have work for you to do. There is a great evil coming to this land, and I have chosen you to stop it.

  “Me?” Nate blurted. “What good work can I do? I’m just a fire-stoker!”

  I work in mysterious ways.

  Nate gritted his teeth. That’s what the minister had said at his father’s funeral. “What kind of loving God takes a man away from his family? Why would I have anything to do with you?”

  The voice was quiet.

  “Just leave me alone!” Nate told the voice. “I can take care of myself! Myself and my family!”

  Can you?

  “I can! I’ve done it so far!”

  Again, the voice was quiet.

  Nate wanted to scream at it more, but he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want anyone’s help, but he did need it. In one day, he had lost a friend, destroyed his train, been arrested, and seen the world fall apart around him. Now he was about to die.

  Something welled up inside Nate, and he cried. His face twisted itself up so much it hurt. Hot tears rolled. It had been a long time since he cried.

  His life was hard, but he bore it well. The stoking was rough or a yardman yelled at him for being late or his mother gave him a look for visiting the saloon. Day in, day out, those feelings dragged him down. He hurt. Nate had always waited the hurt out or lashed back at them or drowned it in another drink if one were handy. How many times had that only made it worse?

  Now he had nothing. He didn’t want to die. Not like this, not with so much left to do.

  Nate called out to the voice in the light. “Help me!”

  The voice didn’t say anything.

  “Please!” Nate screamed through his tears. “I need you!”

  Softly, firmly, the voice spoke. You do.

  “I know I haven’t been the most… righteous person,” Nate said. He coughed out the last of his tears. “But I need you.”

  I am with you.

  The words warmed his chest. Nate almost smiled.

  Trust me.

  Nate nodded his head slowly. “I will.”

  Out of the light, an image came. It was Lake Providence, surrounded in flames. The city warped, shrinking and growing, as if he were seeing it through a bubble. It was what he had seen on the train before letting the engine go runaway. Nate didn’t know what it meant, but he knew in his heart it was very bad. That was his work.

  The light faded. As it left him, Nate felt cleansed somehow. Pain lingered, but the air smelled fresh and cool.

  Nate called out in the softening light, “Why did you have to take my father?”

  It was his time, the voice replied simply.

  The light became darkness again. A few lights twirled. Nate didn’t know whether they were stars or lamps.

  He was still falling. Nate blinked at the wind whipping in his eyes. He should have fallen only a few seconds, but he was still in the air.

  Then the ground crashed around him.

  Chapter Nine

  The Gloriana State Mental Hospital had been completed only the year before, but already Ozera Jacey noticed cracks in the plaster. Now was not the time to worry about them, though. She clutched the glass bottle of ether in her hands and rushed as fast as was polite to go.

  The huge new hospital had been built along the architectural designs of Philadelphia’s Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride. Ozzie hoped to meet him one day. She had a few critiques for him.

  Kirkbride’s psychiatric advice was to heal the patient’s minds by happy surroundings. It meant a great deal of fresh air and windows, and Ozzie agreed completely. Unfortunately, giving every room its own window meant the building was long and thin with sprawling hallways. Sometimes the end of the hall was so far away with so many uniform doors on either side, it made her dizzy to walk down them. She doubted that could be good for the patients.

  This wing of the hospital was quiet, reserved for patients who suffered hysteria and needed peace to settle their nerves. Most of them had not woken up yet, except for the few who had not yet gone to sleep and spent their time looking out the many windows. The soft padding of Ozzie’s shoes was the only sound in the long hallway.

  “Nurse!” the doctor called from beyond the end of the hall.

  Ozzie winced and dashed the last few yards into the spacious receiving room. Past it was the more unsavory portion of the hospital, the wing dedicated to violent patients. She could hear the grunting mumbles of their newest patient already inside the surgery ward.

  Ozzie slipped into the room. It was all white with large windows to let in plenty of sunlight for the surgeons to see their work. “I’m here.”

  Their new patient lay on the table strapped down with leather belts. Those hadn’t been enough, and two of the black freedman orderlies held him while they watched on. The graying-haired Dr. Sims stood behind them, scratching his chin.

  Ozzie handed the glass jar of ether to him.

  “At last,” Doctor Sims said. He was a red-faced, portly Yankee, constantly sweating in the warm weather of the South. His bushy eyebrows and equally bushy mustache twitched. “How many times have I told you to keep this cabinet locked?”

  Ozzie didn’t reply. She had no key to the cabinet with the chemicals, so it couldn’t be her fault. Still, the doctor needed someone to take the blame, and she quietly accepted it.

  Dr. Sims carefully poured ether onto a cloth. “Now, then. We’re going to give you a little anesthetic and then deal with those old stitches.”

  The patient jumped again. The straps caught him, whining as the leather pulled tight. The orderlies readjusted their grips. After a moment of pinning him, the patient gave up and fell back limp onto the table.

  “No, there’s no time,” the patient said through gritted teeth. “I have to warn someone! I have to warn everyone!”

  No one replied. It was another rant from another patient brought in by locals. Ozzie had been folding bandages when the patient had been brought to the hospital. She still had a great deal of work to do to make sure all of the patients with recent surgeri
es had clean bandages, but they could wait a few minutes. There would always be more work to do.

  A pair of farmers had brought the patient in, saying they had found him stumbling though the muck at the edge of one of their pigpens, covered head to toe in mud and filth. They had initially tried to chase him off their land, but the man seemed shaken, in some kind of trouble. When he said he’d fallen out of the sky, they decided to take him to the state hospital.

  The patient’s story of needing to warn people was a tame one. Ozzie had heard worse.

  Orderlies hosed him down and got rid of his ruined work clothes and boots. That was when they discovered the stitches in his right shoulder. After they’d dressed him in one of the patients’ white gowns, they took him straight into surgery.

  Dr. Sims leaned over the patient with the ether-cloth. “Take a few breaths. We don’t want to hurt you when we explore that wound of yours.”

  The patient grunted, but there were enough hands on him that he had no choice but to breathe in the ether. He mumbled something into the cloth. Finally, his eyes rolled back into his head. The orderlies gingerly released their grips, ready to tackle him if he was only pretending. At last they were convinced and stood back with arms crossed.

  “Nurse,” the doctor called and held out the cloth.

  Ozzie took it from him. She lined up the medical instruments and waited.

  The doctor leaned over the patient’s shoulder. “These stitches should have been taken out a week ago. He’s practically healed up.”

  Ozzie nodded. The patient had been fairly healthy, just a bruise along his backside. It did look like he’d fallen, strangely enough.

  “Scissors,” the doctor called.

  Ozzie handed him the tiny pair of surgical scissors from the tray. The patient didn’t move as the doctor snipped them one by one.

  The patient was handsome, in a rugged way. His hair was fiery red, and though he was a head shorter than the orderlies who had dragged him in, he was strongly built. Judging from the scars along his arms, he had spent a good deal of time with furnaces.