by Robert Ryan
He took one deep breath, reflexively clenched his jaw, and went to the face on the right. It was a young male, perhaps in his early twenties. Its features were frozen in an sneer of eternal contempt. The hair on its head had been shaved down to a stubble. In the middle of the whiskery growth, as though branded or tattooed there, was a swastika.
This thing had once been a skinhead.
How could something so recent have gotten here?
Zeke took off his pack and removed a crucifix. Just before it touched the stone beside the leering face, the thing’s eyes popped open.
They locked onto him. Bottomless hatred glowed from fiery red pupils.
Zeke jerked the crucifix back and held it directly in front of the demonic sentinel.
Loathing exploded from the undead eyes like fire from the window of a burning building. A revolting black tongue erupted from its mouth. It coiled around the crucifix and flung it to the ground. Soft, vile cackling trickled from an unseen throat.
Zeke grabbed a bottle of holy water from his pack. Ripping off its cap, he shook the blessed liquid onto the face. The water ate through the skin, all the way down to the bone. Smoking flesh filled the air with the putrid stench of a rotting corpse. Anguished wails accompanied the cacophony of death.
Zeke grabbed another bottle and went to where the other skull waited.
Eyes wide open. Following his every movement.
In the last instant before he began flinging the water, the white-hot loathing in those eyes turned to something else.
Fear.
Bracing himself for the sickening smell and sound, he emptied the bottle into the face until a wary silence finally descended.
Zeke forced himself to inspect the skulls.
Their flesh was gone. Only bare bone remained, the eye sockets now empty and lifeless. He got two crucifixes for the ritual, but abruptly stopped and reconsidered. There was no need. Whatever had possessed these two had been driven out by the holy water. Thinking of his limited and dwindling arsenal, he needed to start saving his weapons for use elsewhere.
Wanting to get away from the smoldering nightmare, he placed the empty bottles on the ground beneath each skull, shrugged the pack onto his shoulders, and forged ahead.
He walked almost in a daze. When the echoes of madness in his head finally died out, he considered the encounters, sifting for insights that might be helpful.
The crucifixes and holy water were both working—so far. But he needed to conserve them, and the skulls were showing up more often. And getting fresher. He hoped he didn’t have to deal with any more of them. At least for a while.
That thought struck him as a sign of weakness, and he shook his head as if to cast it out. “If I have to I have to,” he said aloud.
A moment later two more faces hovered on either side of him.
Fresh.
Eyes open.
Tongues flicking.
Zeke shot a quick video then attacked them with holy water. The result was the same.
He had enough footage of the skulls. He’d save the rest for Hell and Satan. Less than a hundred yards later, he repeated the grisly scene on another pair of what he now believed to be nothing less than guardians of the Pit itself.
A short distance later he came upon two more. The interval between each new pair was definitely shrinking. They were at most twenty yards apart now. Maybe less.
He needed to save the rest of the holy water for Hell if he got there. He ignored the skulls and moved on.
He’d only gone a few steps when his light flickered and went out.
The dark seemed alive, crawling over him. Constricting him. He steadied his breathing while convincing himself nothing was actually on him.
A confusion of noises up ahead got his attention. He cocked his head to listen.
The jumbled sounds were impossible to identify, but they certainly weren’t human. From the babel he picked out something like hissing, and low, animal breathing, coming from many throats. Fighting off a fear that threatened to engulf him—the fear that whatever it was might be coming closer—he knelt and fumbled in the pitch blackness for a fresh battery. He’d rehearsed this move many times, but not under circumstances like this. There were no circumstances like this.
His hands shook, and he angrily clasped them together to make them stop. From the depth of his being a savage war whoop erupted through the chamber. In its wake he willed himself to find and change the battery as he had practiced it.
Agonizing seconds later, he finally had light again. Preparing himself for the worst, he aimed the light toward the ominous din ahead.
What met his eyes was a scene that could only take place in the anteroom of Hell.
The heads on each side were embedded less than ten feet apart now. A steady line of them dotted both walls as far as his light could reach. They must continue into the darkness beyond.
Far worse than their sheer hellish presence was the fact that, from all of their mouths, black, vile tongues snaked and undulated in the air, as though beckoning him. Worse still, the shaft was narrowing.
He couldn’t go any farther without going through that writhing, hissing chain of horror.
Instantly he assessed the essentials of the situation. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it quickly. He couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t stand there and think. Thinking would lead to doubt, and courage that had taken weeks to build would disappear in seconds. There was only one consideration:
How could he get through?
There was only one way. He’d have to run as fast as he could. Maybe he could hold them off by sprinkling them with holy water from an open bottle in each hand. He only had six bottles left. Two probably wouldn’t last the whole distance, and he wasn’t going to want to stop once he started…
He had the grenades, but from here he couldn’t get a good enough angle for impact, and in there he’d be too close to guarantee enough flight to trigger the explosion…and he couldn’t keep using his ammunition or he’d have nothing left for the final showdown.
He made his decision. Jamming four bottles in his front pockets, he grabbed the remaining two and pulled off their tops. When these ran out he’d use the others. His only hope was to reach the end quickly. He refused to let himself consider the alternative: that the heads might go on for miles…
After several deep breaths, he unleashed the savage cry of a berserker and plunged headlong into the nightmare.
Flicking water at both sides as best he could, he sprinted through the hate-filled faces. Amidst a burning, yelling, groaning spectacle that would have thrilled De Sade, the tongues lashed his arms like hot pokers being dragged across his flesh. Some blows felt as though they might be slicing his skin open. He couldn’t tell and couldn’t stop to look.
Only drops of the water must be hitting their targets.
It wasn’t enough. Dear God, it wasn’t enough. He’d never make it like this.
Suddenly he had another idea. He ripped off his pack and crouched. Tongues flicked all around him. One raked his cheek, leaving a trail of searing pain behind.
Jaw clenched tight, sweating profusely, a groan of pain and madness rumbling low in his throat, Zeke refused to look at the writhing evil surrounding him. In a controlled frenzy he pulled the last four bottles of holy water from his pockets.
As tongues continued to tear at him, he ripped the tops off two bottles and poured their contents onto his head. The tongues reeled back for a moment, then began to go after areas lower on his body where the water hadn’t reached. Gritting away the pain, he emptied the last two bottles on his torso, scattering the drops as much as possible.
The tongues recoiled. They kept darting, coming within an inch but not touching him. In one deft movement he slipped on his pack and plunged ahead. Frustration and hatred seethed in the eyes of his tormentors as he passed.
A short distance later the heads abruptly stopped appearing, and the torturous ordeal was over. For the moment at least.
; Zeke jogged on for several minutes to be certain he was in the clear. Finally convinced, he slumped to the floor and relaxed for the first time in what seemed like days. Relief and a thousand other emotions flooded over him, gradually draining away until he was limp and unable to move. He sat for a long time, dazed but alert.
Gradually his senses returned. He checked for injuries. There were burn marks on each arm, but they weren’t real deep. Some might leave scars, but they should heal. He ran his palms across his face, then checked for blood. There was none. His face felt tender and painful in spots, but it was still intact as far as he could tell. Beyond that he didn’t want to know.
He clicked off his light and closed his eyes, wanting to remove all stimuli for a moment as he assessed his latest environment. He listened.
There was absolutely no sound other than his own breathing. He opened his eyes and waited for them to adjust to the darkness. After several moments of staring into nothingness, he became aware of a change.
The darkness was not complete. From somewhere farther down the tunnel—the distance impossible to guess—came a very faint glow.
Leaving his headlamp off, he slowly got up and walked toward it. He proceeded tentatively at first, unsure of his footing without his light trained on the floor. The distant glimmer quickly began getting brighter, however, and he accelerated his pace accordingly. Soon the pale orange glow illuminated the entire shaft.
Light like that could not come from an artificial source. The way it flickered about the tunnel could indicate only one thing.
Fire.
Not far ahead, and fast approaching, the tunnel suddenly widened to reveal a huge opening, like the entrance to a cavern.
All around him now, eerie light and shadows danced a macabre ballet.
Zeke defiantly strode the final steps to see what lay beyond that gaping maw in the rock. At the threshold between the tunnel and the opening, he stopped to look inside.
Steps hewn crudely into the stone led down as far as he could see.
He knew at once where they must lead.
Gathering every drop of courage he possessed, Ezekiel Sloan headed down the steps. In his eagerness to get to the end of this insane journey, he began to run down them.
Suddenly the steps ended and he began a free fall through a void of utter blackness. As he fell through space, it didn’t surprise him that he felt no fear, no urge to scream.
More than anything, he felt relief.
Because he knew it was the wings of destiny that carried him now.
To a fate that had long been decided.
CHAPTER 69
Zeke landed softly on his feet in a netherworld whose dimensions existed outside the realm of time and space. He was aware that he stood on a stone floor, somewhere inside the Earth, but it had no boundaries that he could see. He might have been an astronaut cast adrift in space, a hapless soul just emerged from a gravitational vortex that had sucked him from one universe into some hostile alien world in another.
He might have been, but he was not.
He was Ezekiel Sloan, and he was in Hell.
He stood in awe, eyes ablaze as they scanned the panorama of horror that assaulted them.
Numerous indistinguishable shapes and shadows lurked and flitted about at the edges of his vision. Although unable to see them clearly from this distance, their skulking presence emanated a palpable evil.
To his left, perhaps fifty yards away, he saw the inspiration for the Biblical description of Hell. There, the twisted and gnarled rock floor gave way to an undulating sea of fire. It stretched away from the shore into a seeming infinity, flames leaping in profuse frenzy across its surface. In the rise and fall of its fiery swells, humanesque shapes bobbed about. Zeke couldn’t see them clearly, but he could see them well enough.
Much worse, he could hear them.
Thousands, millions of damned souls. The polluted essence of every cruel human being that had ever walked the Earth, their undead voices combined in a ceaseless uproar of agony and despair, doomed to burn for eternity in an endless ocean of fire.
Zeke had to look away quickly. The sheer molten evil radiating from that filthiest of cesspools was starting to melt his iron-willed resolve. His head automatically swiveled to the right, where there was much else in the nightmare vista to command his attention.
The craggy stone floor went on and on, visible for several hundred yards from its edge at the sea of fire. Eventually it disappeared into darkness so deep, so utterly without light, it gave the impression of being a solid mass that walled off the chamber. And yet, scattered everywhere in that impossible blackness, an audience of…things…hovered, and flitted, and…watched him.
They seemed to be perched in midair, though it was possible they rested on rock ledges Zeke couldn’t see. Eerie glare from the hellfire reflected strobelike off the ghastly spectators, whose glowing eyes bore into him. Quick flashes of illumination gave only split-second glimpses of the monstrosities, making them appear pixilated into a lurid dance of death. Although he knew it must be a trick of the light, it made an already terrifying spectacle much more frightening. He had seen more than enough.
In those bursts of sight, he had seen every primal fear that haunts us from childhood.
Monsters.
Gargoyles.
Trolls.
Goblins.
Demons.
Only these weren’t fuzzy dolls from a toy store, or the creations of a Hollywood special effects wizard.
They were real. They were Satan’s henchmen. His minions. His original band of rebellious angels. They were to Lucifer what the seraphim were to God. Zeke had clearly seen light reflecting off black leathery wings.
Suddenly one of the horrors swooped down from its unseen perch, screeching maniacally as it came straight for him. Glistening fangs and a demon face triggered an explosion of adrenaline. The nerve-shattering whoosh of its huge flapping wings drove all thought beyond survival from his mind. Before he could get an arm up to protect himself, the tip of a wing raked across his cheek. The thing flapped back into the darkness and disappeared.
A deafening roar of vile laughter erupted from the center of the hellhole. All this time Zeke had been trying to avoid looking in that direction. Now he could put it off no longer. He checked to make sure the cut on his face wasn’t serious, then slowly, inexorably, turned toward the inhuman sound. He had heard it before.
His eyes came to rest on a figure dead ahead and perhaps fifty yards away.
Ezekiel Sloan looked directly into the face of the Devil.
“Welcome.”
He drew the word out, a deep menacing purr that slithered over and wriggled across Zeke’s soul.
“I’ve been waiting.”
Zeke stood transfixed.
“Step forward. Come into my…den. I won’t hurt you. Yet.”
The mocking invitation coiled itself around Zeke, pulling him closer against his will. When he was finally able to stop himself, he stood no more than twenty yards away from where the Lord of the Underworld sat on an enormous throne. The sea of fire was closer here, only twenty-five yards to Zeke’s left. He steeled himself for searing heat and the overwhelming screams of the damned.
Instead it was cool and silent. As if reading the confusion in Zeke’s mind, the Devil explained.
“I control everything here. I prefer it cool and quiet, don’t you?”
Zeke still resisted eye contact.
“Look at me!”
Zeke tensed himself against being knocked backward as the roar washed over him in a fetid wave. A moment later, unbowed and defiant, he stared at a being of pure evil.
Satan was immense. Zeke had to tilt his head completely up to see the monstrous countenance, which stared down from a towering height. Although he had imagined this moment for weeks, nothing could have prepared him for the soul-searing actuality of that stare.
Stay calm, Zeke reminded himself. Breathe normally. Don’t let him see weakness. To cover his nervo
usness, he took off his backpack and set it by his feet. Finally he found his voice, hoping that whatever came out wouldn’t crack or squeak.
“Who are you?” he managed, with passable vocal command.
“I am he.”
“Who?”
“Your writers and prophets have given me many amusing names. The Devil. Satan. Lucifer. Belial. Iblis. Mephistopheles. My favorite is Beelzebub. What an incredibly funny word. Beelzebub!”
A mockery of laughter spewed forth in a stench of rot. Almost from the moment Zeke had taken possession of the scroll, that sound had stalked him—through the telephone, the television, the stereo headset on the plane, Michael Price. As appalling as those encounters had been, none had assaulted his soul like this, as he experienced it for the first time with all the other sensory dimensions added. Waiting for the sound to cease, he struggled to maintain a calm appearance while adjusting to the supreme horror of looking at Satan himself.
Humanoid in shape, his skin appeared dark and leathery. Reptilian. It glistened in the flickering light. Enormous scaly hands, ending in fearsome talons, curled down the front of the armrests of the stone-carved throne on which he sat. Gigantic, well-muscled legs ended in proportionately enormous feet. The three toes on each foot were armed with huge, scythelike claws. Each claw alone was bigger than Zeke.
“Surely you have not always appeared as you do now,” he was finally able to say. “It would have been impossible for you to move about the earth.”
“Very true. I have many forms. Let me show you a few. I’m sure it will amuse you.”
Satan stood. Zeke tried to guess his full height, thinking of the movie monsters he had seen.
Godzilla seemed small and cute by comparison.
The Devil began a grotesque montage, transforming himself from one hideous shape into another. When each new manifestation was complete, he struck a pose to show off his handiwork, as though he were a model displaying the latest outfit.
Zeke watched the foul exhibition in horrified fascination. With each new vision, the inspiration for Satanic mythology became clearer, and Zeke’s lifelong ideas about what was real and unreal, normal or abnormal, receded further into nothingness.