Hellwalkers

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  And he would.

  He smiled as best as he could remember, felt the fabric of his face start to shift and turn.

  Then he began.

  THE FURY

  Pan wrenched the wheel, the truck thumping up a section of broken asphalt before slamming down again. The suspension groaned, the cab rocking, but it was an old Ford, practically indestructible, and it was holding itself together.

  So far.

  She didn’t know how much longer it would last, because up ahead the world was ending.

  Literally.

  The sky was black, as if somebody had peeled it away to reveal the ceiling of a cave—as if everything she had ever been told about the universe was a lie. People were fleeing, painted white with ash that had once been their friends, their neighbors, their families. There was so much blood in the air that she had the wipers on, smearing it across the windshield.

  She steered to the side to avoid a man, then ripped the wheel the other way as a demon came bounding out of the smoke. It thumped off the fender, too consumed with bloodlust to even notice her. A bus lay on its side across the broken street and she cut right, accelerating up a hill before screeching left, the apocalypse that gripped Staten Island swinging into view again. Up here she had a better idea of where she was going, that impossibly dense cloud of darkness boiling in the sky maybe three blocks away.

  Three blocks, not so far, and the thought had only just entered her head when a peal of thunder detonated beneath the storm. The world seemed to lift, tearing toward her like a tsunami. She screamed, twisting the wheel too hard, the truck bouncing, tilting, then collapsing onto its side. Then the maelstrom was on her, a hurricane of noise and debris that shunted the truck back down the street, rolling it onto its roof, then its side, then its wheels, over and over and over. She gripped the seat but it wasn’t enough, the truck spinning her like she was inside a washing machine, thumping against her hips, her head, her arm.

  Her skull was an inferno of white fire, and for a moment she was lost to it. Then the world began to settle around her, piece by piece. She heard somebody shouting her name, realized that it was her, like she was calling herself back from the brink, screaming for herself to move.

  But she was still alive.

  She shuffled around, kicked at the passenger side window. It took a few attempts before it shattered and she crawled through, legs first, her bones made of burning coals. It seemed to take a hundred years before she could stand again, and even then she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to stay that way. Everything was catching up with her—the years she’d spent fighting, injury after injury after injury, the broken bones, her shattered heart, not to mention her time in hell. Her body was a clockwork toy, winding down, the key lost.

  But she was still alive.

  She put one foot in front of her, trying to remember if this was how you walked. It seemed to work and she tried the other one, staggering over the rubble. The people who had once lived here, worked here, watched her with glass eyes.

  I’m sorry, she tried to tell them. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it.

  And she wouldn’t stop it. She knew that now. Ahead of her, the storm pulsed into the sky like a torch of black light. In the clear patches between the clouds, through the ash, she could see stars there, in the middle of the day, crowding around like spectators. The world was ending. This thing was going to finish it.

  But she was still alive.

  She walked, seeing a demon up ahead. It was injured, sniffing the air through half a face. She almost fell on it as she walked by, a hand on its fleshy ribs to stop herself from toppling. It snapped at her but it was too weak. She wondered if this demon had once been an Engineer like her, trapped in hell for an eternity, forgetting herself a little more every single day as she lapped at the Devil’s blood.

  I’m sorry, she said, transmitting the thought down through her fingers even as the bellows of its lungs shuddered to a halt. She pushed up, a sob falling from her. Another demon was hurtling this way, distracted by something, vanishing into the smoke with a shriek of glee.

  She walked. One block passed, then another, the scene of ruin growing worse with every step she took. It was only when she’d crested the hill, though, that she understood the true extent of the devastation.

  The world ahead was a crater, as if a meteor had struck. Buildings were nothing but matchsticks, the people nothing but dust. The slope of the ground led up into that churning madness of smoke and shadow, its movements leaving black scars on her vision.

  In the middle of the storm was a man—no, a devil. She could see its nightmare form, its body strung with fat black veins. It seemed different, somehow, infinitely more powerful. And that could mean only one thing: it had its heart back.

  No, she realized. It meant two things.

  Marlow was dead.

  She scanned the wasteland of Staten Island but there was no sign of life, no sign of anything other than the Devil as it strode over its kingdom of rubble and dust. Pan called Marlow’s name but only inside her head. She had no words to give, not now, not here, with the world ending before her. Marlow was dead. Herc was dead. Night was dead.

  And in minutes, she would be dead too.

  But she’d go out swinging. She didn’t know how to do it any other way.

  She took another step, stumbling in the dust, in the rubble. The Devil was lost in its own art, releasing a rippling vortex of unlight that shook the street, launching a cloud of detritus. Some of it was sucked into the sky, but the rest hailed down around her. She waited for the end, for her head to be staved in by a brick, but she kept walking. Something clanged off the ground a few feet away and she picked it up as she passed—a length of metal pipe, almost too heavy for her to carry. She rested it on her shoulder like it was a bat, focusing on the Devil’s head, digging inside the empty husk of her body for the strength to reach it.

  The Devil’s head. It seemed to shift, just like it had back in hell, but there was something new there, something familiar. It was only when it turned its face toward her, though, that she understood what she was looking at.

  And this time, she had the strength to call his name.

  “Marlow?”

  It couldn’t be him, and yet it was. It was his face, one that clicked and spun like a Rubik’s Cube, but which always juddered back to its original form. His eyes were black holes, and that infernal heart clung to his chest, its beat audible even over the chaos of the storm, over the patter of falling rocks. Pan was too far away to read his expression but she could see the emotion there, the story of it etched in lines.

  “Marlow,” she said again, her voice just a whisper against the storm. It hurt to speak, hurt to breathe, and she wondered if she’d broken a rib. He was fifty yards away now, closing fast.

  She called his name again, took another step. It was one too many and she dropped to her knees. The pipe clattered away. It was like she had a demon sitting on her neck, her head too heavy for her to lift. But she grunted, stretching up, watching as that impossible figure crossed the distance between them, pulling the storm overhead like it was covering her with a shroud, like it was about to bury her.

  Let it, she thought. Herc had been right, this was their penance. They had done bad things, terrible things. And even though she’d always tried to justify it, she’d always told herself she was doing them for the right reasons, she’d always known. Deep down she’d always known.

  Take a life and save a billion, Herc had always said.

  But she’d taken a billion lives to save her own. This had only ever been about her. Everything she’d done had been to make up for a crime she hadn’t even committed. It had all been for nothing.

  “Marlow,” she said again, but the storm was too loud. It was like looking up as a cold, dark wave surged toward her. She was dwarfed by the fury of it, by the power there. It would roll right over her and she would never even feel it. She’d just be another ghost of ash, dancing into the night.

 
“Marlow,” she said, louder, as loud as her body would let her. Marlow walked on, his face a Halloween mask that looked ready to fall right off. It twisted from joy to grief so fluidly that she couldn’t tell the expressions apart. His eyes blazed with nightmare light, and the sight of it, the sight of those Devil’s eyes burning in his face, made her sob out his name, a scream that cut through the storm, that finally caught him.

  He stopped, twenty yards from her, the winds that circled him kicking up huge clouds of dust and ash and smoke. He thrummed like a generator, the force of it making her bones tremble. The ground beneath him was flowering into mold, erupting into spores. The mechanisms of his face opened and closed like a puzzle and he cocked his head, studying her with those empty eyes. She understood she’d already lost him. Whatever the Stranger had done to him, he was gone.

  “Marlow,” she said again, only this time it was a sob.

  It didn’t matter what happened next. It only mattered that she wasn’t alone. She was in too much pain, death already creeping inside her skull, nesting there.

  Marlow took a step toward her. The darkness in his eyes was like nothing she had ever seen before. But he was blinking like he was trying to make her out, like he was trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

  “Hey,” she said, coughing blood but trying to smile. “And I thought I was having a crappy day.”

  The heart thumped against his chest, blood spilling from his sliced skin, from his broken ribs. The veins that connected it to him rocked like water hoses as it filled him with poison. But still Marlow fought against it, his face falling into a frown. His mouth opened and he shaped a word, one that might have been her name. She reached up to him, so close, and he flinched, as if she were the one who burned with darkness. He took another step in her direction and she could feel the kinetic force that radiated from him, like she was about to erupt into flame. He opened his mouth, and when he spoke it was with the Devil’s voice.

  I AM NOT REAL.

  He shaped her name with his mouth, dropping to his knees in front of her. The sound of it, of the storm, of the ending world, the relentless beat of the heart, was enough to pulverize her. But she was still alive, she was still here, and when Marlow stretched his bloated hand toward her she reached out, she grabbed it.

  She saw it in an instant, she saw all of it, his memories played out in a single moment of time—his brother’s death, his mom’s collapse, Ostheim sitting on that sofa offering an unthinkable bargain. And she felt it, too, felt the crushing weight of his misery.

  I AM NOT REAL.

  The words echoed around her own head like she was standing inside a cathedral bell. But she saw it as he had seen it, a story told by the Devil. And what had she always been told, that the Devil was the master of lies?

  I AM NOT REAL.

  She saw him step from that web of darkness, a boy shaped in shadow, whose eyes blazed inkwell black.

  I AM NOT REAL.

  And she saw him grow, day by day. She saw his mom tucking him in at night, reading to him, she saw her brush his teeth, she saw her teaching him how to swim, how to ride his bike, how to bake, how to read and smile and laugh. She saw them together at school, saw her clapping when he stood and sang his first national anthem on stage, saw them sitting at Chuck E. Cheese sharing pizza and fries, saw her wrapping bandages around scrapes and cuts, saw him crying on her shoulder, saw her crying on his, saw her come home one day with a box, one puppy paw sticking out like it was waving, saw her holding him and kissing him and singing to him and loving him, loving him.

  And she watched the young Marlow change. She watched him grow. She watched the darkness leak out of him day by day by day. And yes, his mom had grown more distant, she had sunk inside the bottle again. But she had done enough. She had made Marlow twice: once with a deal, but again, with love. She had made him real.

  “Don’t listen to it,” she said, more blood than words. “Don’t listen to it.”

  He pulled his hand free like she had scalded him, lifted his head to the roiling sky and screamed.

  “It’s not real,” she shouted, pulling his hand to her, holding it tight even though it buzzed like a live wire. “What it’s showing you. It’s a lie, Marlow.” She didn’t know it, of course, it might have been the truth, Marlow might have been forged from smoke and shadow. But it didn’t matter. “Love can do that,” she said. “Love can make you real.”

  She thought back, saw him the first day she’d met him—lying on the floor of a parking lot. He’d saved her life then, there was no doubt about it. And how many times had he saved it since? Not just from the demons, from the Devil, from the wormbags and ghosts and Patrick. How many times had he saved her from herself?

  “Love can do that.”

  Marlow howled again, one hand on his head as if he were trying to tear it from his shoulders. The heart swelled, as big as a watermelon, its organic and mechanical parts thrashing. His face moved like there was something beneath the skin, but Pan could only see that goofy grin, the way he’d always smiled at her, the way he’d looked when he was drifting off to sleep, when she’d tried to kiss him.

  “It’s enough,” she said again. “It doesn’t matter what you were. Only what you are. Love is enough, Marlow. Love can do anything.”

  He fell away, tearing at the heart fused to his chest.

  “It’s enough,” she said again, louder now. “Love makes you real. Your mom’s love made you real.”

  Marlow growled, and even this had force—an invisible hand that rolled her back. And he was there again, his fingers wrapped around her throat, lifting her up like he meant to hang her.

  But she was still alive.

  “Her love made you real, Marlow.”

  She forced the words out, even though there was no air to shape them with. She looked Marlow in the eye, and despite everything, she smiled.

  “My love makes you real.”

  LOVE

  In the heart of the tempest, he heard her.

  He heard her say his name.

  He was almost lost, caged inside a version of himself that might have been a machine, an engine of parts whose blades thrashed and churned in every direction.

  Every direction except one.

  He stared up and out of himself, through the ocean-dark smoke, through the ruin. And he saw her there, hanging from his own fist. Her face was so familiar, but he couldn’t remember her name.

  The Devil’s blood still flowed. All there was was all there had ever been—an entity that had burned through the universes before they had even been formed, that wanted those universes to collapse back in on themselves so there would be silence once again, and peace. It was everything he was, because he was a child of darkness, spawned from something ancient, something evil. His fingers twitched, the energy there pulling at him like a leashed dog. He could wipe this girl out with just a thought.

  She gripped his hand, her touch drawing something out of him—memories, a golden thread of them, things that he hadn’t thought about in so long, a life with his mom that he had somehow forgotten. They were so bright that they seared through the murk of his thoughts.

  “My love makes you real,” she said again.

  The heart roared its chthonic pulse; the girl spoke. He was caught between a storm and a forest fire, pummeled by the force of it. But all he could think about was a journey to hell, a girl he loved being held by the throat—not by him, but by another Devil—the idea that they might not spend an eternity together after all. All he could picture was Pan, held up by a demon on the first day he had met her, her eyes shards of flint.

  “Do your worst.”

  All he could see was Pan, her eyes locked on his, her lips moving, shaping those words, speaking to him even as her eyes rolled up in their sockets.

  “My love makes you real.”

  And it was enough. Because love could do that.

  He let go, putting his hands on the heart that bulged from his chest. The disgust was a furnace that burned i
n his own heart. He sank his fingers into the grotesque meat of it, and pulled.

  The Devil’s heart had rooted itself deep, and it had the strength of the universe inside it, but it had given that power to him, too. He pulled harder, the pain like he was gouging out his own organs. A wave of vertigo made him feel as if he’d been hurled off the edge of the world, and he staggered, recovering, seizing a fistful of those fat black veins. He wrenched at them, feeling them slide from his arm like hypodermics. They whipped through the air, furious, black blood misting from the severed ends. And already they were worming their way back inside him, seeking out his nerves.

  He tore at them, and he was faster—even though the blood was draining out of him, even though his skin was torn in a hundred different places. He was faster.

  Then Pan was there, too, clawing at the heart, swearing over and over as she tried to rip it free. He tore at the last few veins then he pulled, pulled as hard as he could. His skin was fused there, and even past the thrum of the blood he could feel the agony of it peeling loose. He was losing himself inside a tunnel of darkness, and he suddenly understood that the heart would kill him rather than let him go.

  Maybe that would be the end of it? Maybe if he died, then the heart would die too. The world would rid itself of two demonic creations. He grabbed it again, but it wouldn’t come loose, it had burrowed too deep.

  He collapsed to his knees and Pan dropped down next to him, her hands on his face.

  “I’m going to get a knife,” she said. “Cut that bastard thing out of you.”

  It doesn’t matter, he thought, and somehow she picked the words out of the air.

  “You’re real,” she said. “I promise you that.”