Better Off Dead: The Lily Harper Series, Book 1

by H. P. Mallory

  — Dante’s Inferno

  FOUR

  I gasped and opened my eyes, blinking a few times to clear my vision because something very strange had happened. The last thing I could remember was setting foot into the decrepit shack at the end of the road, and then being blinded by a bright light. And now? I gulped as I tried to make sense of what lay before me, rubbing my eyes in a vain attempt to clear what could only be a trick of my vision. Why? Because I now found myself in the midst of a forest. I glanced up at the impossibly tall pine trees, watching as the sun gleamed through the threadbare coverage of the needles. Snow covered the trees, weighing down the heavy boughs, and dotting the banks of grass and ferns below them. The grass and ferns were punctuated by the brown of dirt and rocks. A gentle wind shook the needles, dropping them onto my face as I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm.

  “Bill?” I asked, my voice reflecting the awe and fear in my gut. “What just happened?”

  Bill was standing maybe two feet in front of me and wore the same expression of astonishment. Somehow the fact that he, a supernatural being, seemed just as dazed as I was didn't bode well for our situation.

  “Where are we?” I continued, glancing around again.

  Bill didn't say anything, but scratched his head, looking back at me with a dumbfounded stare. Then, as if something just dawned on him, he lifted his arm and studied his monitor. He even flicked it a few times, but when it apparently didn't do whatever it was supposed to, he simply dropped his arm and frowned, raising his eyebrows in question.

  “Looks like I’m not drunk or high,” he said plainly with a shrug. “One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small,” he semi-sang.

  I didn’t say anything since I didn’t really get his gist. Instead, I watched as he walked head first into a huge spiderweb. He twirled around twice, like a hefty, uncoordinated ballerina. Then he clawed at his face as he tried to free himself from the gossamer strands.

  “Damn spiders,” he muttered, wiping the sticky remnants of the web on his pants and continuing forward. Not wanting to be left alone in Narnia, I followed.

  How does this make any sense? I asked myself, shaking my head as I tried to piece together the puzzle. You stepped into that house and then suddenly you’re out here? In the wilderness? Maybe it was some sort of portal?

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Bill clearing his throat. Actually he sounded more like someone attempting to start an old engine in the dead of winter. “Huhhh! Hreeeph! Hoogannitt!” he grunted, slamming his fist into his chest as if to help clear whatever needed clearing. “Think I swallowed that spider,” he grumbled before leaning over and hawking up something foul in a nearby bush. Then he started clearing his throat again, a sound that was beginning to make my stomach queasy.

  “So, what? We just keep walking?” I asked, wanting to concentrate on other, more important topics—such as what in the heck our plan was. I didn’t think exploring this weird place was such a good idea. Instead, I was of the vote that we retrace our steps and try to find the cabin again so we could get the heck out of Dodge.

  “You gotta better idea, Slick?” he grumbled and then paused. “Whhheeeck!” he finished, spitting up another mouthful.

  I frowned, thinking I wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back rather than continue traipsing through some random forest, the location of which was still a complete question. “Aren’t you in the least bit apprehensive as to where we’re going? Or how we got here?”

  “Pah!” Bill said, waving away my anxiety with his arm. Then he fished inside his mouth with his squat index finger and wiped away the debris on his pants. “It’s no hair off my balls,” he continued with a shrug. “The nav led us here, and I’ve never heard of an AE nav unit being wrong; so as far as I can figure, we must be where we’re ’sposed to be.”

  “But …” I started.

  “Hey,” he said, turning around to face me. He tucked his Oompa-Loompa-like arms across his wide chest. “If you wanna give yourself anxiarrhea, be my guest.” He grunted something unintelligible while rubbing his belly. “Hopefully, Sherwood Forest’s got some grub ’cause I am hungry like the wolf.” Then he started humming “Rio” by Duran Duran but somehow I couldn’t find it within me to correct him.

  Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to calm my beating heart. Fear has its use, but cowardice has none, I repeated Gandhi’s words in my head and acquired a new feeling of determination. I hastened my steps and caught up with Bill. A wind shook through the pines and a clump of snow fell onto my shoulder.

  “You got snow-shitted on,” Bill said with a hefty laugh, sweeping the wet flakes away with his short, chubby fingers. Then he simply went back to forging a path through the wilderness, taking us God only knew where. And not feeling brave enough to go it alone, I had no choice but to follow him.

  The snow crunched underfoot as we trekked deeper into the forest. The scurry of woodland creatures rustled from the snowy ferns and bushes below the massive pines. The canopy of branches kept the forest in darkness, dappling the sunlight as it shone through in multiple, shimmering pockets.

  Bill suddenly stopped walking mid-stride, and I nearly plowed right into him. He remained frozen and I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought he heard something which gave him cause for pause, or if he were just setting the stage for a massive fart.

  I figured it was most likely the latter.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I got this funny feeling that ...” Then he cocked his head to the side and sighed only to shake his head and smile reassuringly.” Nah, the feeling’s gone ... I think it’s all good.” Then he slid his hand into his pocket and produced a small, green plastic box. He opened it as I glanced over his shoulder. Multicolored pills of various sizes and shapes—maybe twenty of them, lay inside. He fished out two oblong, yellow ones. Realizing what they were, a fire of rage began to ignite inside me accordingly.

  “Drugs?” I snapped, immediately glancing at his monitor as I wondered if it would go off at the mere proximity of something illegal, or if Bill would have to swallow the pills first. “Your dependencies on alcohol and drugs are what got me killed in the first place!” I railed at him, my hands on my hips. “How dare you even think to start using again in front of me!”

  “First of all, Nurse Ratched, these aren’t drugs,” Bill said curtly, enunciating each word, in a tone dripping with irritation. “So before you go run and tell that to Skeletor and make yourself look like an arch douche, pay attention.” Then he handed one of the pills to me.

  “What is it?” I asked, frowning. I made no attempt to accept it. “And what the heck is an arch douche?”

  “Are you incapable of saying “hell,’” he spat back at me.

  “I don’t see the point,” I started but he interrupted me.

  “I refuse to hang out with you if you say ‘what the heck’ one more time. That’s like nerd talk and then some.” I frowned as he continued. “Come on, say it, h-e-l-l...”

  I took a deep breath but gave in, not finding the wherewithal to argue with him about something so completely idiotic. “What the hell is an arch douche?”

  He smiled. “That’s better, reverse cowgirl,” he said and smiled even wider. “An arch douche is someone high up the corporate ladder who’s also a total and complete douche bag. Case in point? Skeletor. He’s like the arch douche of arch douches.”

  I just shook my head.

  “It’s a good one if you want to borrow it sometime,” Bill added.

  “Thanks for that,” I grumbled. “So were you going to get back to the point about what the heck, er hell, these pills are anyway?”

  “These little guys are gonna help us see what the hell is out there,” he barked back. “Now stop being an ask-hole and take the damn thing!”

  I opened my palm with a frown, not appreciating the name calling. Bill dropped the pill into my palm as I inspected it with my index finger. I glanced up at him and si
ghed, still wondering if I should trust him or not.

  “It's AE provided,” he said, his eyebrow cocked. Then he tossed the pill into his mouth and made an exaggerated effort of swallowing it. “Bon appétit,” he grinned.

  I stared down at the nondescript pill in my hand, still reluctant to do anything more than that. I mean, Bill had a history of problems with illegal narcotics, so why wouldn’t I expect him to pull a fast one over on me? And, furthermore, having never taken any illegal substances in my life, I wasn’t about to start now.

  “What do you want, a written invitation?” Bill asked, waving his little starfish hand as if to say, “Get on with it.” With a sigh, I brought the pill to my mouth, plopped it on my tongue, and swallowed it. Then I just waited, anxious for the pill to do its stuff, but after a few seconds, I couldn’t say I felt any different. I glanced at Bill, wondering why nothing seemed to be happening.

  “Nothing's different?” I whispered, without realizing why I was whispering. "I don’t think mine worked.”

  He frowned. “Look around.”

  So I did—first I glanced to my left and then to my right. The pine trees looked the same as they had a few minutes ago, and as far as I could tell, the snow on the ground hadn’t really changed—except, perhaps it had melted just a bit more. I gazed at the trunks of the trees, my eyes moving upward to each great expanse of branches. A flurry of snow sailed through the sky and landed on my cheek. It felt like regular snow—just as cold.

  “Maybe you gave me the wrong pill,” I said, bringing my attention back to the ground. But the words froze on my tongue. Bright white lights suddenly appeared between the trees directly in front of me. The lights strobed and flittered, pausing for a few seconds, before disappearing right before my eyes. “Oh my gosh,” I started, my jaw dropping.

  “Spirits,” Bill said in explanation.

  I jerked my head toward him and gasped. Bill was completely bathed in white light. His skin was glowing like an ember. And it wasn’t a light from without—as in shining a beam on him. This luminosity emanated from Bill; it glowed from somewhere deep within him, becoming so bright, I had to avert my eyes, eventually covering them with my hand.

  “You’re glowing,” I said in awe.

  “Control your girl wood,” he said and shrugged. “I told you, I’m an angel. You’re just seeing me in my natural state.”

  “Your natural state is blinding,” I grumbled, finding it impossible to look directly at him.

  “Yeah, I call it my bling. I can turn it down.” Within a second, he no longer burned like the sun, but more like an eager nightlight.

  “That’s better.” I dropped my hand and unshielded my eyes.

  “Shit,” he said and frowned, glancing around himself. “I just got that funny feelin’ again.”

  “That what?” My heart lurched into my throat because his tone made it sound like it wasn’t a good funny feeling.

  “That something’s not right,” he said very slowly, turning to examine his surroundings as if whatever wasn’t quite right was about to pop out of the shrubbery and ambush us.

  I glanced around, noticing nothing beyond the tall pines that loomed as far as the eye could see over the powdery shrubs. But one thing did strike me. I couldn’t hear the sounds of birds any longer. In fact, the entire forest had gone utterly, eerily quiet.

  “It’s too quiet,” I whispered.

  “Yep, no bueno.”

  He turned away and again, surveyed his surroundings. “Can’t say that I see anything out of the ordinary, but you ain’t sposed to ignore them bad feelings, ya know?”

  “What kind of bad feeling was it? Like something might hurt us?” I asked with trepidation.

  He just nodded and suddenly was off, moving much faster than he looked capable of. I chased him up a steep bank of snow-carpeted grass, huffing and puffing all the way. Guess my new body had adopted my previous body’s lack of athleticism.

  “Holy shit,” Bill said as he dropped to the ground, peering into the shallow valley below us. He glanced up at me before grabbing my arm and pulling me down beside him. Before I could complain about the pain he’d just caused in my arm, my attention was diverted to his outstretched finger, which was pointing directly ahead of us.

  There, maybe twenty feet away, were glowing orbs of red lights that circled one another. Little by little, the balls of light began to morph into the shapes of animals, well not exactly animals, more like … monsters. I couldn’t think of anything else to call them.

  They were smallish, probably standing as high as my mid-thighs. But, though they weren’t enormous, they were the most frightening things I’d ever seen. Each one, and there must have been at least six, radiated a bright scarlet light. They were all hunched over and misshapen. Shiny, rust-colored scales covered most of their bodies, while their limbs terminated into cloven hooves, making it look like someone had glued a goat’s legs to an iguana. But their faces frightened me most—rows and rows of miniature razor teeth filled their snarling canine mouths. Steam blew from their muzzles as their eyes blazed with an unnatural red light.

  They appeared to be taunting one another, circling and growling at each other. “Oh. My. God,” I whispered. “What are they?”

  “Grevels from the lower Underground,” Bill answered, shaking his head in amazement. “I’ve only seen ’em in books.”

  “Then what are they doing here?” I started before something terrible occurred to me. “Oh no ... Does this mean we’re already ... in the Underground City?”

  “Keep your panties on, Dorothy,” he said and shook his head. “We’re still in Kansas far as I can tell. Well, one thing’s fer sure—we’re not in the Underground City.”

  “How do you know if you’ve never been there?” I demanded, my attention riveted on the Grevels.

  “’Cause I’ve heard stories and seen pictures,” he spat back. “There you go being an ask-hole again.”

  “So if we aren’t in the Underground, then what are they doing here?” I demanded, ignoring my new nickname.

  “Good freakin’ question, yo,” Bill said, shaking his head and sighing in what appeared to be confusion. “I got no clue how the hell demons escaped the Underground.”

  “Demons?” I hissed, feeling my heartbeat pound in my ears.

  Bill threw me a glare. “Shhh. Shit girl, you trying to get us spotted?”

  I glanced down at my shaking hands, and didn’t know what to think, other than the obvious. “We need to get out of here, Bill. This isn’t safe.”

  But Bill didn’t respond. He was too busy gawking at me. Or at something looming behind me.

  It felt like slow motion as I turned to find myself face-to-face with the blood-red muzzle of a demon. I didn’t scream, I don’t even think I gasped. Sometimes, you’re just too scared to react.

  “Get up very slowly,” Bill whispered. I didn’t take my eyes from the demon, but based on the proximity of Bills voice, I knew he was standing right behind me.

  I did as he said, my eyes fastened on the creature. It did nothing but stare at me, appearing as curious about me as I was about it. Scratch that, I wasn’t curious—I was terrified. As soon as I stood, it approached me, beginning to growl in a low, warning tone. Its loud hooves crunched against the snow as it got closer; and the steam from its mouth looked like tortured souls riding its breath.

  “Walk backwards toward me,” Bill ordered. “Real slow like.”

  I maybe took two steps before it pounced. I felt the air rush from my lungs as I hit the snow-packed hill—hard. I pushed my hands out before me on pure reflex, my body aware that I’d have to defend myself against the creature’s attack. But all I did was slap my hands against the blubber of Bill’s back. It took me a few seconds to regain my bearings and that’s when I realized Bill had thrust himself in front of me, taking the brunt of the demon’s attack.

  Now Bill was flailing helplessly with the demon atop him, and the only sounds to shatter the otherwise still air was snorting—I wa
sn’t sure whose—the creature’s or Bill’s. I attempted to emerge from behind him, feeling like I needed to do something to help him, but he shoved me behind him forcefully.

  “Stay where you are, fuck nut!”

  The demon attempted to secure Bill’s arm with its mouth, but Bill jabbed it in the muzzle with his fist before it had the chance. I heard myself scream. Seconds later, I realized my mistake. The remaining demons now all turned their full attention toward us. They cocked their heads like curious dogs, not wasting any time in approaching us. Instantly recognizing their angry demon comrade, their muzzles peeled back to show hideous pointed teeth. Their piercing growls continued to clash with the quiet night air.

  “Bill!” I screamed. “More are coming!”

  The demon straddling Bill suddenly backed away, pawing the ground as it neared its clan. Turning back toward us, it began growling, just like the others.

  “Back yourself up against that tree,” Bill said between clenched teeth, motioning to a pine beside him.

  I took the three necessary steps to find my back against the trunk while my heart thundered painfully. Bill walked backwards as well, never allowing his body to expose mine. Guess he wasn’t such a bad guardian angel after all. Well, recently anyway ...

  “What should we do?” I whispered, motioning toward the other demons who were now nearly on us.

  “We are gonna do nothin’, I'm gonna protect your ass like I was hired to do,” he ground out, taking a deep breath as he swung his arms forward and then backward. He threw his butt into it too, as if he were about to attempt a long jump. And he did jump, but not exactly far. With the accompaniment of a banshee-like cry, he hopped about a foot or so forward, then threw his arms out to his sides, looking like he was in the process of being abducted by an alien spacecraft.

  “You’re about ta get some angel retaliation, bitches!” he yelled. He then proceeded to do five jumping-jacks in quick procession, uttering high-pitched yips and whoops until he sounded like the captions from a melee on the old Batman TV series.