Darkest Thoughts

by P W Hillard

  The woman was different, her thoughts coming through loud and clear. She was human then, or at least different from whatever the others counted as. Her problem with the man was clear as day, bubbling at the top of her thoughts. This was all over a trouser press, the one in the man’s room was broken.

  “He can take my room,” Darren said. “I don’t need a trouser press.”

  “How did you?” The woman said as she turned.

  “I heard you talking,” Darren spluttered quickly, brushing aside her question. “I don’t need one, and I haven’t checked in yet, so I don’t see why we can’t swap rooms.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “Oh yes, totally.”

  The man stepped forward, hand outstretched. Darren took it and shook it. The grip was vicelike, the handshake of a man used to getting his own way.

  “Thank you, sir, that is most appreciated. Ah Perrin, it has been a while isn’t it. Is your mother coming?” The man had a sly smirk across his lips.

  “She is. Darren, this in Yanlou Wang, one of my mother’s…competitors. Yanlou this is Darren Bolton, he’s a consultant.” Perrin gestured to Darren.

  Yanlou looked at Darren, taking his measure with his eyes. He smiled, letting out a short snort. “Interesting. Very interesting. You mother grows desperate I see. Well, still, I thank you sir. Now, I have some belongings to move I believe.” He turned to the reception desk. The woman had vanished through a doorway reappearing behind it. “My new key?” He held his hand out expectantly.

  Darren was sat in the bar, drinking from a glass of cola that tasted a little too sweet, clearly not a name brand. Perrin had vanished off to her own room, but he was forced to wait whilst Yanlou transported his belongings. It was taking a while, Darren wondered exactly how many belongings a supernatural being could possibly have. His mind thought back to Perrin’s case and its extreme weight.

  He took another sip of the cola, the fix tingling his mouth as it went down. He scrolled upwards on his phone screen. Through the glass text loomed. Darren had decided that it was a good idea to read up on the various hells. There were a lot, far more than Darren had imagined.

  “Everything going well, Darren?” The voice came from a man who plonked himself onto the barstool next to Darren’s. He was wearing a tracksuit, its crisp polyester a brilliant white. On his curled blonde hair sat a flat cap, it’s white matching his suit. His thoughts weren’t human but were different again from the others. Rather than crashing waves of emotion, it was one long single tone, a dull perfect note, unwavering and unchanging.

  “You know my name?”

  “Of course, Darren,” the man said, repeating it for emphasis. “It’s my job to know. You’ve got yourself in a right pickle here, a real nest of vipers.” The man wasn’t looking at Darren, instead watching a woman walk across the bar. She was wearing a red dress with spots, her raven hair tied up with a matching handkerchief. She was followed by a woman wearing a lacey black dress, her dark makeup matching her clothing. “Somewhat literally in some cases.”

  “What do you want? I know you’re…one of them.”

  “What, one of these little tinpot dictators, squabbling over the scraps of souls? Trying to carve out their own little metaphysical domains, their own personal hells?” The man shook his head.

  Darren was at a lost for words, next to him, the bartended simply continued to clean a glass. The man’s openness had shocked him. “I, uh, well…”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him. The staff are all ensorcelled. They think this is all for insurance. Hey, barkeep,” the man said, snapping his fingers obnoxiously. “I’ll have whatever classes for bourbon in this crap hole. By the way, the afterlife is real, everyone here works for hell.”

  “Would you like ice sir?” The bartender said, seemingly nonplussed. The man shook his head to decline.

  “See, not a sausage. Oh, I’m Mickey by the way.” He picked up the glass that the bartender had slid before him, taking a sip.

  “So, Mickey, which hell do you work for?”

  “None,” Mickey said. “I’m just here to present an award. Lifetime achievement. They asked me to come give it out to my sister, and that will just drive her up the wall. So obviously, I agreed.”

  “That’s a little petty isn’t it?”

  “Therapy. Nice. I’ll be honest our family could use it. You’re an only child, right? You wouldn’t get it.” Mickey took another sip of his drink. His nose wrinkled in disgust. “Funny thing, meeting someone like you here. You know, back in the day your kind would be priests for this lot. And ours. Sad thing, that decline. Now it’s mostly people who like the sound of their own voice and a captive audience.”

  “And by yours, you mean, the opposite to this lot? I guess that makes sense. You aren’t what I expected honestly.”

  “Yeah everyone fucker say’s that. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last.”

  “Honestly?” Michael said. “The nineties boyband look isn’t helping.”

  Mickeys face was overcome with shock. “This,” he said gesturing to himself, “is Louis Vuitton.”

  “Yeah, and my car is a Porsche and I live in Dubai. Pull the other one.” Darren tipped his drink back, only to find all that was left was the ice melting in the glass. “Can’t imagine there is much money in the afterlife game.”

  “Eh, it’s not so bad. Being immortal gives you plenty of time to make investments, so I do well enough. A lot more money to be made on the other side. Plenty of people pass on who know their way around money. Investment bankers, stock brokers, CEO’s and the like. I’ll tell you now, none of those people end up upstairs.”

  “I have a question,” Darren said.

  “I’ll save you the time. No-one knows.”

  “I didn’t tell you what the question was.” Darren gestured to the bartender, signalling for another drink.

  “You were going to ask if there is a God,” Mickey said. He leant back on the stool, resting his elbow atop the bar. “Everyone always does. You ask some of the people here, and they’ll say they’re gods. Like Ammit and Helen over there.” Mickey nodded towards two women sat in the corner of the bar. They scowled back at him. “You mean like, Abrahamic though. All powerful, all knowing. And honestly, no-one knows.”

  “You don’t know? Really?”

  “Honest to God,” Mickey said with a grin. “Everything way back then is really…hazy, for everyone here. Downside to being so old. So, we get what we have, a whole bunch of pantheons arguing amongst themselves because no-one can remember who is actually right.”

  “Sounds like some clients of mine. They get into these long family arguments, that are always really about the most recent issue. Whatever started it in the first place is lost.”

  Mickey nodded. “Sounds about right.” He finished the last of his drink. “Right, nice meeting you. I’m off to my room. Not here mind you, I picked a much nicer hotel.” Mickey vanished, disappearing between blinks, a woosh of air filling the gap where he had been.

  “You paying for his drink then, Sir?” the bartender asked.

  ***

  Darren’s room was disappointing, even against the low standards the hotel had already set. There was a single bed up against one wall, coated by a strange duvet that seemed weirdly slick. At the other side of the room was a worn wooden table, a kettle sat upon it, though Darren hadn’t found a spare plug for it yet. Next to the kettle was a television, a huge old CRT kind, overhanging from the edge of the wood worryingly.

  It was clean, at least to the eye, though Darren was sure if you shone a blacklight across the room you might see the odd strange glowing stain. Not that it bothered him, his own flat was in far worse of a state. He sighed, and opened the bathroom door, intending to check that.

  “Jesus Christ don’t do that!” Darren said, as Perrin was standing behind the door. “Will you just stop, popping up where you want? Why did you even bother getting on the train when you can
apparently just teleport at will.”

  “It’s not at will. You’ve been doodling right?” Perrin said, pushing past Darren and taking a seat on his bed.

  “Yeah, these weird shapes.” Darren’s mind jumped back to the strange icons he had scribbled whist first speaking to Anne. He had kept drawing them without thinking, the shapes scratching out whenever he had a pen in hand. He had even scrawled some onto his phone in a drawing app.

  “Locator sigils. Part of a teleportation spell. Along with some protection runes. My mother dumped them into your head when she came to you. The whole mind reading thing not paying off so well now is it?”

  “Not really no. I don’t like that, not at all.” Darren sat on the table, the television wobbling as he did.

  “Thankfully, those protection ones will stop it happening again, which is good because apparently you can’t help talking to people. Dangerous people.”

  “Mickey?” Darren said. “He seemed alright.”

  “He’s trouble. A real snake.”

  “Funny, he said the same about your lot.”

  Chapter Five

  Darren pulled the covers over him, the cloth was oddly smooth as if it were somehow made of plastic. It was cold, a damp breeze sneaking through a gap in the window that he couldn't quite keep shut, the wind rattling the wooden frame. Darren was regretting his choice now, wishing he had chosen a room in a more high-end hotel, cursing his own laziness. He tried to bury himself deep into the mattress, wishing the breeze would just crash over him like the sea against the coast. It wasn’t working.

  “God damn it,” Darren said, throwing the covers off and stamping across the room, clad in only his boxers. His stomach wobbled awkwardly as he tiptoed across the room, eager not to make too much noise. He placed his hands on the window, trying to push it fully closed. It resisted, the white paint flaking off in his hands, the wood aged and cracked. It finally closed with a click, and Darren tutted to himself, his hands slapping together as he tried to brush off the flecks of paint. “This goddamn hotel is falling ap-”

  He stopped at the sight of it, the malignant thing lingering in his room. It was standing by the bed, arms outstretched, long obsidian claws held ready to strike. The creature was thin and tall, its body hunched against the ceiling. The creature was black, darker than the room around it, it’s body a perfect void, visible only in the moonlight. It looked at Darren and hissed, a low long spitting noise that rattled through the room. No thoughts came from it, no feelings or emotions. It was a dead thing, some living nightmare.

  It stepped towards him, its body folding unnaturally against the ceiling as it stepped up onto the bed, bending back as it stepped down again. As it moved it ran its claws along the ceiling, raking deep into the lumpy Artex. It crossed the room in long, stretching steps, legs bending at unnatural angles as it moved. Its head twisted to look at him, unseen eyes examining Darren.

  "What the fuck," Darren said, his voice barely a whisper, unable to muster even a little volume. The creature was close now, right before him. It was still looking him up and down as if it was as puzzled to see Darren as he was to see it. "Let's not do anything too hasty here buddy," Darren said.

  The creature replied with another low hiss. Darren took a step backwards, edging away from the beast. It lashed out, its talons slicing through towards him. Darren threw himself to the ground, slamming his naked chest against the rough carpet. The creatures strike passed through the antique television, slicing through easily as if it were liquid. Claw marks hung across its front, they seemed strange, as if they were an image imposed on the screen. Within them was a vortex of blacks and purples, a swirling abyss.

  Darren rolled to the side as it brought its other arm down, talons held tight together. Again, it missed, cutting a trench in the carpet. No floorboards appeared from beneath, instead, it left a gap in reality, a crack to the beyond.

  Darren had never been much of a fighter. He had never needed to, his ability meaning he could avoid confrontation. He had thrown exactly one punch in his life, during an ill-advised spat in high school. He had managed to land a solid hit on his opponent's jaw, the kind normally reserved for tough-guy cops in movies. He had been proud of it at the time. His strike now was different, panicked, sloppy, the lashing kick of a terrified man. His exposed foot hit the creature in the shin. It’s flesh, or at least whatever there was where flesh should be was cold, but solid. It stumbled backwards, shocked at the audacity.

  Emboldened by his success, Darren felt his voice returning, the terror shaking loose. “Perrin! Perrin!” He didn’t know if she could hear him, or even if she would come, but it seemed a good a tactic as any.

  Darren was vindicated a moment later as his bathroom door opened, Perrin stepping through. She had her hair tied into a bun, held in place by a large black scrunchy. She was wearing a T-shirt that was much too big for her and precious little else. The face of Freddie Mercury beamed out from her shirt, the light catching the fading image on the front. A sleep mask rested on her forehead.

  “This better be good,” Perrin said as she stepped through the doorway. “Ok. What the fuck?”

  The creature turned towards the new arrival, it's hissing growing louder, more vitriolic. It crouched, talons raised ready, poised to strike.

  “Perrin! Look out!”

  “I got this,” Perrin said, more annoyed at Darren’s warning than anything. She raised her hand, holding it steady before the creature. There was a loud rushing noise, like a fierce winter wind had been unleased into the room. The creature flew backwards, slamming into the wall. It seemed to loose cohesion as it struck, splattering outwards like dropped slime as it crashed into the wallpaper. What remained of its arms grasped at a long thin rod of stone that had sprung forth from Perrin’s palm, lifting it backwards and off the ground.

  Perrin, closed her hand around the rock still projecting from it and it broke free, dropping to the floor. The creature tilted slightly forward with it. Perrin raised her hand a second time and another rod screamed forth, hitting the creature in the chest. This time it lost all semblance of form, collapsing into a thin black slime that dripped into the carpet, before vanishing beneath.

  “That was, well that was amazing.” Darren was panting, realising that he was worryingly out of shape. Perrins emotions flooded his mind, the same images of serenity. She had dispatched the creature with almost casual ease. “What was that thing?”

  "Honestly? Not a clue. I've never seen anything like that."

  “It was like, it was made of nothingness? It was like hell, or at least when you took me there.”

  “Huh, what do you mean by that?”

  Darren turned towards the television, intending to gesture to towards the gashes across it. He was surprised to see they were gone, no evidence of the attack remaining. The carpet looked just as it ever had. “Oh, I was going to say like the marks that thing left. It looked like that. Was it not supposed to?”

  “Hell’s are metaphysical, they’re altered by the beliefs of about them. I don’t really experience it the same way as you do. That’s worrying, if it appeared to you as nothing. Though our worries are a little bit more pressing with that thing.” Perrin sat on the end of the bed. She suddenly became very aware of what she was wearing, crossing her legs and pulling the T-shirt down as far as she could.

  "Will…will it come back? Is it dead?" Darren asked. He grabbed a plastic sheet from the table, an amateur looking menu that had been covered in cheap-looking clipart and run through a laminator. He used it to cover his boxers, hiding his own shame.

  Perring shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I would bet good money on something though.”

  “What?”

  “Someone here does.”

  ***

  Darren looked down at the breakfast before him. It was massive, a monument to man's hubris. He had procured from the self-service bar a full-English breakfast, topping it with a grotesque amount of beans, the sauce threat
ening to dribble over the edge of his plate. He had added two pieces of toast, a bowl of off-brand cereal and half a grapefruit to the collection of plates on his table. It was a proud British tradition, getting as much value out of your hotel breakfast as possible, one it seemed was shared by the denizens of hell as they piled their own plates high.

  Perrin was next to him, her similar meal arrayed before her. Between them, they had quite the feast. They had collected the food silently, not saying anything to each other. They hadn't been able to sleep, not after that creature had appeared. They had tried to take it in turns, one keeping watch whilst the other slept, but sleeping barely clothed near a similarly attired near-stranger had been embarrassing. The thoughts of that looming horror didn't help.

  “So, are we going to talk about last night?” Perrin said, dipping her toast into the yolk of one of her eggs.

  "Not entirely sure I want to. I wasn't…uh…looking at you. If that helps?"

  “No! Not that idiot.” Perrin waved her toast angrily, orange ooze splattering across the table. “I meant that, thing.”

  “How did you do that, the thing with the stone? Can all of your kind do that? You are a demon, right? Or is that racist? I’m sorry if it is.”

  “No that’s fine. I’m not a demon. Well, not like you imagine them, the Abrahamic kind. Demon is probably the closest English translation though, so I’ll let it pass.” Perrin took a bite of her toast. “The stone thing,” she said as she chewed. “That’s something me and my brothers and sisters can do. Legend says our other parent was a mountain.”

  “Oh, uh, I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

  "Who knows, no one really remembers back then. It's weird in a way, to hear stories and myths about yourself and not know if it's real." Perrin took a long sip of orange juice, the glass provided by the hotel tiny, in a vain hope at restricting the gluttony of its patrons. "Hell, the legends say my mum is actually my dad. Maybe she was back then, gender is well, fluid for someone like her. Your standard nebulous being."