by David Gallie
At first, I thought it was my own, but as I waited a few seconds for my vision to focus properly in the poor light, I noticed it was way too fat to belong to me. The meat hook I held in my right hand began to glow along with the gold band on my finger. The gold band that was my power supply when it came to dealing with the scum from hell, or in this case, the scum that was going to hell.
However, I had one last question before I permanently removed Slick from the streets of New York.
‘Did he say anything? The monk. Did he speak at all?’ I was certain the answer would be no but was surprised when the fat hustler replied.
‘Yeah. He muttered something like the heart of the sinner or some such crap. I wasn’t really interested. I just wanted to get the gold chain from him and then make him go away. He really freaked me out.’
The heart of the sinner. What the hell did that mean? It was a question I was going to have to ponder on later. Right now, I had a job to do.
Gripping the steel hook as tight as I could, I swung it fast and hard in the direction of where I thought the fat man's head would be behind the wall.
An agonized scream filled the air and a flock of birds who had been nesting on the roof of the building suddenly took flight away from what they thought was a danger. I pulled the hook towards me and watched as Slick stumbled out of the darkness and fell to his knees in front of me.
The hook had punctured his right temple and burst through his eye socket, from which a stream of crimson blood was now pouring. He quivered before me in fear, and I couldn’t deny that it actually felt quite good. I used to feel like shit for days at a time after a contract had been completed, but this time, I felt excited, happy even. And the thought of what I was about to do next began to put a smile on my face.
‘Slick. You really should have learned to stop taking things that do not belong to you.’ I said, and then the screams began as I twisted and turned the hook until it was free of his head.
He looked up at me with his remaining eye. Lips quivering and his body wracked with pain and fear. I couldn’t explain why, but as I looked down on him I could feel nothing but hatred and contempt, and something inside, the really nasty part of me, was determined that his death was not going to be a quick one.
I raised the bloody hook above my head.
‘Please…Please don’t kill me…I…’ It was too late to beg.
I brought the hook down hard, smiling as I heard the tip of the blade break through the top of his skull and bury its self in the soft tissue of his brain. My pleasure seemed to grow as I pulled the hook free and watched the fat, greasy old street urchin convulse violently on the floor. Blood poured from his nostrils and mouth making him choke.
It took around fifteen minutes before his body finally went limp and his soul was now safely in the possession of the Grimoyles somewhere in Hell. I stood there looking down at his lifeless body, a feeling of glee washing over me as I thought about him being stuffed into a tiny cage and then racked to a torture table each and every day for the rest of eternity.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Screamed a voice inside my head. You’ve just murdered a man and you’re standing there on the verge of a hard on.
The voice was right. There was something very wrong with this situation. I had never felt anywhere near close to good when I had to take someone’s life and yet here I was standing over a man I had just butchered with the biggest smile on my face possible like I had just won the lottery.
However, the smile quickly faded when I realized that even though he was dead, Slick still hadn’t told me where the necklace was. Normally I would have started to panic, but I felt certain that he still had it on him, and after a quick check of the inside of his jacket I found not just one but three gold chains.
I noticed, however, that only one had a small gold pendant in the shape of a heart. On the heart was etched flames licking at the sky above. That had to be the one I was after. It seemed obvious, and going on previous experience, what I was looking for always seemed to be the obvious choice.
‘There’s nothing like watching a man who enjoys his work.’ Came the unmistakable voice of Satan from behind me.
As if out of instinct I closed my hand over the chain I thought was the prize and left the other two dangling over my open palm.
‘I wasn’t expecting your company.’ I said bluntly, all feelings of happiness quickly dissolving into a stagnant hatred for the beast posing as a man.
‘Most people never are.’ He said cheerfully. ‘I’m glad to see your playing by the rules Samuel. I would hate to have to void our deal. Especially when our relationship seems to be getting warmer.’
Yeah, it’s warmer than hell. I thought to myself as I offered my open hand with the two chains for him to inspect.
‘The one on the right is what you’re looking for.’ I said, noting that both chains looked pretty much identical except for the one I told him to take were slightly thicker.
I watched as he snatched the chain from my open palm and stuffed it into the pocket of the white suit he was wearing.
‘Great stuff. The sinners’ heart will sit nicely in a case next to my throne.’ He said still smiling, and I tried to hide my surprise that he didn’t even take a moment to inspect the chain he had just taken from me. ‘I find it rather annoying when Humans try to take what doesn’t belong to them.’
I looked down at the dead con man known as Slick and shrugged my shoulders.
‘Well, I’m pretty sure he has a nice spot in your kingdom now.’ I said, tossing the remaining gold chain onto the dead man’s body.
‘Oh, I have a very special place just for those who try to steal from me, Samuel. I can assure you he will never rest for eternity.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ I said, wishing he would just go away and leave me alone.
‘I’m growing concerned about you. I feel like there is a distance between us. Like maybe you’ll try to find a way to get out of our agreement.’
I could hear the pleasure in his voice as he spoke. He knew in a way just reminding me of the deal we made was a form of torture.
‘We’re both sticking to our end of the deal so there is nothing to be concerned about.’ I said, trying to find a way to avoid further the conversation, but it seemed he was in a chatty mood.
‘Come come, Samuel, at least try and put a bit of energy into your work. You looked like you thoroughly enjoyed hacking that man to death. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve seen you that happy since the day you met your wife Lisa.’
I closed my eyes and tried my best to contain the rage that began to well up inside me. I already knew he was going to bring her up in the conversation but I also he was doing it to get a reaction out of me.
‘Well, you’ve put her in a place where she is at least safe from torture. That’s good enough for me.’ I knew fine well that she may be safe from the Grimoyle’s but she was not safe from the torture of her own mind, thanks to Pertilius.
‘Oh Please, Samuel. We both know that’s not good enough for you. We both know you want her to be released into Heaven.’ There was a gleeful tone to his voice that I absolutely despised.
‘Well we also know that you will never let that happen, so what’s the point of talking about it.’ I snapped, trying my best to keep my temper under control.
‘Oh, at last, a little passion. That’s what I was looking for.’ He fell silent for a moment before saying: ‘I tell you what. I have some business that I really need to take care of. I’m going to need your help in a few days’ time. If you perform well enough we’ll talk about setting your wife free.’
I spun round to face him, all my focus had been on the dead man on the floor and how the police would describe his murder.
‘Is this some kind of a trick or just more mental torture for me?’ This time, my anger was gone and I could start to feel a fleeting sensation of hope.
‘No tricks or funny business. But if I do agree to let her go, Samuel, it will you
mean you remain my servant for the rest of eternity. So have a long hard think about that before you say anything more. I’ll be in touch.’
And with those words he was gone. A cloud of black smoke drifting upwards in the spot where he had been standing only seconds ago.
With my mind reeling from what he had just said, I decided I needed to get out into the open and as far away from the abattoir as possible.
The small apartment I rented was ten blocks away from where I had committed my latest crime, and although I was tempted to hail a cab, I decided that a walk would probably do me some good.
The streets were empty apart from the occasional car shuttling by, and I felt pretty certain there was nothing that could threaten my early hour's stroll through one of the toughest cities in the world.
My thoughts began to come back together again as I continued walking. Satan, unexpectedly, had a change of heart about Lisa. He was now willing to let her go, and only after a few weeks of my servitude.
That struck me as very odd for the lord of all things hellish. He hadn’t budged an inch during the initial deal making process and yet now he was willing to re-negotiate.
One thing I was certain of was that it was bad news for me. Whatever he had planned next was most likely going to involve something he did not expect me to come back from and hence he was simply trying to pacify me until that time came.
I realized as I strolled by a rundown apartment block, that I was still clutching the gold chain with the small heart pendant. I had been certain that it was, in fact, the real artefact Satan was after, yet he had made no attempt to even look at the chain he snatched from my hand.
Why?
Did he simply know it was the right one and had no reason to double check or did he simply not give a shit? If the latter was the case, then there was definitely something much bigger on the horizon and that made me feel very uneasy.
After about half an hour of walking, I rounded the corner of a bodega which had been closed for the night, its graffiti-covered steel shutters protecting the valuable stock inside.
When I looked up I noticed I was approaching a small, but old building with a children’s playground laid out before its front doors. As I got closer I saw that the placard screwed to the pillar of its gates stated it was St Helen’s Elementary School and Kindergarten.
I stood at the opening of the derelict building, my heart beginning to beat faster, as I soaked it in. The playground equipment had long been looted for its scrap value. Its windows were smashed and only partially boarded over.
Vandals had left their mark by spray painting just about every wall they had come across and I noticed that the front doors to the building had long been kicked in and there had been no attempt to reseal it after the fact.
My legs decided to carry me towards the main entrance, not entirely against my will, but my racing heart warned me that something was very wrong with being near this place.
You shouldn’t be here Sammy boy. Warned the voice in my head as I approached the small set of steps just before the entrance.
I stood there for a few seconds staring into the darkness of the building. I could feel my skin erupt in gooseflesh and suddenly I wanted to about turn and head back to the street. My body, on the other hand, had different ideas.
This is where Lisa worked Sam. Do you really want to be here?
The voice in my head had a habit of raising some pretty good questions.
Wasn’t this what I wanted? When Pertilius had mentioned the name of the school I knew instantly it had been the place where Lisa had once been a teacher. I wanted to know about her life before she had met me. I needed to know what the hell she did that was bad she ended up in purgatory for it.
Despite my inner turmoil I had continued to move forward without realising it and once I snapped back to reality, or what I called reality, I found myself standing in the darkened hallway which branched off on either side. The hallway on the left would lead to the elementary classrooms while the one on the right I was certain would take me towards the kindergarten.
Tables, chairs, and sheets of paper littered the hallways as well as the occasional jacket which had been left behind by their owners. Despite how foreboding the building looked on the outside and how vandalized it was inside, I couldn’t detect a reason to feel the kind of fear I had done outside in the playground.
Fortunately, just like the abattoir, the roof of the building had been slowly disintegrating over the years and rays of pale moonlight flooded inside to light my way, as I continued towards the smaller rooms which were used for the kindergartners
There was six rooms in total and the first five that I came to had no doors blocking their entrance so I peeked inside, not exactly sure what I should expect to see. I actually felt a little let down when the rooms appeared to be barren of anything. Most of the furniture that was worth using had long since vanished and the rest dragged out into the hallways of the school.
A few items of clothing had been left behind and I noted in the far corner of room four there was an old mattress with a dirty sheet crumpled on top. I assumed it would make a natural shelter for any homeless soul in the area so again there were no red flags there.
As I moved to room six, the only one with a door, I tried peering through the small glass window, but the room seemed to be in total darkness. I could feel my brow furrow as I tried the handle and found that the door was locked, not jammed shut, but actually locked with a key.
I glanced up the hallway and into the darkness of the other side of the building. I could see and hear no one else and it certainly didn’t look like anyone had stayed behind to keep maintaining it. So why, was the only room in the kindergarten with a door, still locked at all?
Now my curiosity was really getting the better of me and after a moment’s thought, I decided that I needed to know what was in that classroom. It was possible they used the room as storage before closing the building and all I was going to find was stacks of tiny chairs and tables.
Then again there could be something else much more valuable in there, valuable to me at least.
I raised my leg and lashed out at the door. The air with filled with a loud crack as the hinges gave way and the door fell backwards into the room.
As I stepped into the doorway I could feel the gooseflesh return with a vengeance and cover me from head to toe. I could even feel my balls shrivel up a little as I looked into the room. The window on the door had actually been covered with a black paint. The classroom itself was actually brightly lit by the overhead fluorescents.
Soft toys of all sizes and descriptions lay scattered around the floor as if they had been dropped in mid-play. To my left was the teachers old pine desk complete with a tub full of pencils a photo frame and a few sheets of blank paper ready to be scribbled on. A chair had been pushed into the opening under the desk and the whole room had a warmth about it that made me feel like it was still very much in use.
The photo frame was the main item that caught my interest and would surely tell me who the teacher of the time was. However as I moved to take a closer look at it, I began to notice little details I hadn’t spotted on my initial glance round the room.
The soft toys were matted with blood and on the floor near the toys, I could make out the silhouettes of where a body had once been. A child’s body. I could feel my terror rise as I noted that there were at least six such silhouettes that I could easily pick out.
I glanced back at the photo-frame, praying that I wouldn’t see her face, but my heart sank like a stone in my chest when the first person my eyes fell on was Lisa. She was standing behind the kids in a group photo. She wore that smile which had won me over instantly and in her eye’s I could still see that lust for life that she had always had even after five years of being with me.
My brain reeled as I glanced back up at the room again, and it seemed like the amount of blood shed in the room was even more than you would see on a normal day at the slaughterhouse. There was n
o mistake that the kids had suffered a horrible and violent death.
I turned my attention back to the photo and I tried to concentrate on Lisa, but it was hard to ignore those innocent, smiling faces. Each of them at the beginning of their lives which seemed to have ended horribly in this room, in a kindergarten of all places. Worst of all it seemed their teacher, my wife, was the one who had done the killing.
‘The truth can be devastating.’
I spun around towards the direction of the voice, heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or dread as I saw the tall monk known as Pertilius.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, almost grateful to have his company, even if it did come with strings attached.
‘I often come here to make sure there are no lost souls needing my guidance.’ His speech was slower than I remembered, his words chosen more carefully.
‘I’m not a lost soul. I just came looking for answers, but I’m failing to see the illumination that you spoke of when you reminded me of this place.’ I felt a little bitter with the monk even though I knew fine well I would have probably ended up coming here at some point anyway.
‘Maybe you’re not looking closely enough.’ He said studying the room, and I got a sense that he knew there was something here that would make the visit worthwhile.
‘All I see is blood and death. And that’s all I ever seem to see these days.’
Pertilius remained silent for a few moments as if he was contemplating on how to point me in the right direction without actually doing so. That way he could always deny any responsibility should the dark lord get wind of his presence here near me?
‘I find it odd that there are seven children in that photo yet I only see the outlines of six in the room.’
Puzzled I followed his gaze to where each blood stained outline lay in the room. I counted each one slowly and sure enough, there was exactly six, yet a closer look at the picture clearly showed seven happy go lucky kids.
My brain tried to process what that extra or missing child as it may be, could mean to me and my search for the truth about my life. I was about to tell the monk just how confused it was making me feel when my eyes landed on the desks only drawer.