Hallowed Horror

by Mark Tufo

  The battle was lost to Zepar. Nothing he said would turn out in his favor. The demon battled with humility, an alien concept to him Zakerny noted with a hint of irony. The demon’s body tensed, his rough hands opened and closed several times before they clenched into fists.

  “You will leave us.” The voice of the Lightbringer was soft but firm.

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  The defeat was almost tangible, and Zakerny reveled in the demon’s anguish. The demon’s pain was no different to him than human pain, no less delicious. I would surely rise against a ruler who treated me as such, the human mused. Could I ever accept anyone—even the Lightbringer himself—as my master?

  Zepar ignored Zakerny when he stalked out of the room. The large creature’s shoulders hung slightly, and his face was creased with frustration. The human turned to Lucifer who shot him a scrutinizing look, blue eyes sliding over his pale physique. Zakerny watched as Hell’s master pondered, a finger tapping against his beautiful lips. For the first time, Adolf Zakerny truly felt naked and he bristled with annoyance.

  “You thought I would look like a big red demon with horns on my head?” Lucifer raised one eyebrow and a corner of his mouth twitched with mirth.

  “I should have known better.” Zakerny clenched his jaw and his fists as anger rose in his stomach. I will not be made a fool.

  “You’re not the first to make this mistake.”

  “Mistake,” Zakerny echoed, while he battled his inner turmoil. Frustration clung its fingers to the inside of his throat.

  “It is very human of you.”

  The words stung. Zakerny had no wish to be human, or to be compared to his race. This meeting with Lucifer was not as he expected. He’d always assumed the Lord of Hell would see that which made Zakerny unique.

  “Humanity finds it difficult to separate beauty from ‘good’. Yet if you look to nature itself, often the most beautiful creatures are the deadliest.” Lucifer chuckled slightly, and with a languid movement, he stood up from his chair. His full shape was now visible; he was tall, not quite the height of the demon Zepar, but by his own right the Lord of Lies was far more impressive. Lucifer was neither broad nor slender. His build could be described as ordinary, yet the way he stood—his shoulders pulled back, overflowing with confidence—there was nothing ordinary about him. The Lightbringer dressed in a simple yet stylish grey suit. A white tuxedo shirt with the top two buttons undone revealed the hint of a bronzed chest. He looked like a laconic businessman, his outfit was pristine, yet he wore no shoes or socks. His feet, as symmetrical as his face, were bared and perfect.

  Lucifer walked towards the glass doors and looked out, his back turned to Zakerny, who still stared at his feet.

  “Mr. Zakerny,” he said after a long pause. “Welcome to Hell.”

  “Then this is Hell?” The human looked at the manicured landscape outside and felt an odd sense of disappointment. The whole place did not correlate with his visions of torture and a fiery Abyss. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “You judge your surroundings too soon, Adolf. You’re an impatient man. You judge Hell the same way as you judged its master.” Lucifer didn’t look at him, but he shook his head with what Zakerny interpreted as disappointment, as if he was a father speaking to an ill-behaved child. Anger flared up in his stomach.

  “I don’t understand,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Of course you don’t. Look at your surroundings. Where do you believe you are?”

  “A house?”

  Lucifer turned to Zakerny, his blue eyes shone from underneath thick eyelashes.

  “A house,” Lucifer repeated the man’s words with a dull tone. “Just a house?”

  “Your house?”

  “Do you know what a privilege it is for a mere mortal soul to be invited to my home?”

  “I think my actions earned such a privilege.”

  Lucifer steepled his fingers under his chin and raised an eyebrow. The corners of his mouth curled slightly, but he made no direct response to Zakerny’s remark.

  “This is only a part of Hell.” The Lightbringer’s hands moved as he spoke, as if he were weaving a casual spell. “Like Earth, there is variety on these plains, and like Earth, Hell is vast. My house is built for my comfort.” He leaned towards the naked man, and asked with a wry smile: “You didn’t expect me to live in squalor did you?”

  “I never considered you ‘living’ at all,” Zakerny retorted. “I thought your sole existence was to torment souls, not to ‘relax’ in your mansion.” His voice was as cold as his eyes when he spoke, and Zakerny could not hide his disgust. The demon lord met his disgust with a twinkle in his eye.

  “You know little of the Underworld, Adolf. Your humanity has gotten the better of you.”

  A snort escaped from Zakerny’s lips, and he took a deep breath to regain his composure. The soft nails of his fingers pierced into his skin as he clenched his fists. For a moment he considered arguing, but decided against it and simply shook his head.

  “Where are the souls?” His voice was tight, the struggle for control adding a soft vibrato. He would not allow this creature to see his anger, because that would make him weak.

  “Eager to witness the torments?” Lucifer winked at him. Zakerny exhaled with a sense of relief and nodded, his fists unclenched.

  “I care little for your mansion and your manicured lawns, my Lord. My desire lies elsewhere. I have no eye for elegance, only for malady—though I consider that a form of beauty in its own way. I wish to see the tormented souls; that is what I am here for. The souls are my destiny; to bring them pain is my purpose for existence.” There was passion in Zakerny’s voice, and he licked his lips hungrily. The thought of the souls made him forget his anger.

  “Would you like a little introduction to Hell?” Lucifer asked with warmth in his voice. “I would gladly show you around.”

  “I would be honored.” Zakerny gave a stiff nod. Lucifer smiled and his perfect hands with long manicured fingers gripped both the handles to the terrace doors. With an appropriate sense of drama the lord of Hell pushed down and threw open the doors in one elegant movement. No fresh air entered the room from outside; even the smell stayed the same.

  Lucifer stepped out onto the lawn, and by the time Zakerny followed, the Lightbringer had vanished from sight. His eyes scanned the manicured lawns and white marble paths that twirled in between the multi colored flower patches, then shifted their gaze toward the great labyrinth. Lucifer leaned with lazy nonchalance against the bright green hedge, wearing a different outfit than before. The suit was replaced by an open black shirt with a ‘wife beater’ of the same hue underneath, and a pair of equally black trousers. Again his feet were bare.

  Zakerny quickened his pace, eager to join the Lord of Hell. Lucifer didn’t look at him, but instead he inspected his fingernails.

  To his frustration, Zakerny found that his new body lacked any form of stamina, and it didn’t take long for him to be out of breath, his heart pounding against his ribcage.

  Somehow the serial killer had expected something different from the body he would wear for eternity.

  The ruler of Hell looked bored when Zakerny reached him, the shadows of his invisible wings were cast on the foliage behind him. His sharp blue eyes bore into Zakerny’s pale grey ones, and the expression on his face softened from an indifferent sneer to a bright grin. Paranoia gnawed at the human; he was unsure if Lucifer’s smile was genuine.

  “This—” The demon lord waved his arm at the labyrinth behind him. “—is what you wanted to see. This is the very spot where all the souls come to seek redemption.” A wicked twinkle gleamed in his eye, and he pointed both hands—palms up—towards the entrance, which was no more than an arch in the foliage. “Enter, walk around, explore. See that which you’ve been longing to see your whole life. This is why you are here, is it not? Your whole existence led up to this?”

  “Yes.” Zakerny’s toes clung to the grass under his bare feet,
the blades thick and soft, more like fur than grass. Everything was built for comfort in this place, he assumed, but when he stepped forward and made his way into the labyrinth, the surroundings changed. The grass faded into rough stones. No, these aren’t stones, Zakerny observed. Skulls, I’m walking on skulls.

  The foliage of the hedge thinned after a few steps and a dark material peeked from underneath, black in color with a metallic gleam. In the exotic material of the walls that formed the labyrinth were obsidian doors that glowed with a faint purple light.

  The whole place was unlike anything Zakerny had ever encountered, and he struggled to make sense of it. The air smelled sweet and meaty at the same time—he could smell a hint of stale sweat in there too—and as he inhaled Zakerny noticed a bitter taste on his tongue. Fear.

  With tentative steps he walked, and placed his hand on one of the black doors. The obsidian was warm to the touch, the way the metal of the knocker had been, and a slight pulse coursed through the material.

  It feels like a heartbeat.

  “Behind each door resides a human soul.” Lucifer’s voice boomed around him. “You may open the doors to look upon the suffering inside, if that is what you wish.”

  If that is what I wish? Zakerny swallowed a cutting remark. He could not taunt the Master of Hell, but he was disappointed. Somehow he had expected Lucifer to know more about him, to be able to look into his very essence and be impressed. The demon should know that he—Zakerny—would want to look upon suffering. His hand wrapped around the smooth round door handle, which felt soft to the touch as if it were flesh. He turned the knob. The movement was surprisingly smooth. The door opened without a sound.

  Beyond the door was darkness, and Zakerny stepped through. His ears popped, as if he’d ventured high above the clouds, and his stomach dropped with a dizzying effect. The atmosphere in the room was oppressive, and the darkness gave him the illusion of being invisible. He walked deeper into the room, his steps slow and deliberate. A light in the center of the blackness beckoned. When Zakerny got closer he observed something that looked like a stage, but at the same time the setting appeared to be very realistic, as if someone had torn a piece from a real life scene and placed it in the darkness. A man stood chest-deep in a pool of water. Above him hung a beautiful ornate branch filled with a plethora of fruits. Apples, grapes and even some sort of pink pears, all plump and appetizing, dangled from the wood. Zakerny smelled the tantalizing sweet scent and his new stomach growled. He looked at the lone figure. I know this man.

  “Tantalus.” The name felt heavy in his mouth, and his voice echoed through the empty darkness that surrounded him. Could this really be the man of the ancient Greek myth?

  The figure in the pool looked up at him. He reminded Zakerny of a lonely scarecrow who longed for the arrival of his birds to keep him company. The suffering in his eyes brought a smile to Zakerny’s lips.

  “It has been long since anyone has uttered my name,” Tantalus croaked. His eyes were hollow, and his body so thin it looked no more than a skeleton covered in skin—dry and cracked like parchment.

  “Centuries, millennia,” Zakerny agreed. Tantalus was the most tragic human being he’d ever had the pleasure to encounter. The man wasn’t just dead, he was empty inside.

  “I killed my son.” His voice sounded as faint and cracked as his skin. Zakerny’s smile broadened, for the old man to admit his sin to a stranger made his punishment worse.

  “You tried to feed him to the gods.” He was unsure if Tantalus looked at or past him, but there was a glazed look in the man’s dull eyes. “You chopped him up and boiled him, and the gods banished you to Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld. Is this it?” Zakerny looked around in wonder.

  “They… they didn’t send me here…” Tantalus croaked. “I killed my son,” he repeated in his raspy voice. Zakerny realized he was an outsider to this man’s pain, and he longed to be a part of it, he wanted the man to suffer at his hands. With a burning desire, Zakerny licked his lips, and leaned over to the tormented figure. He smelled the stale sour scent of the old soul.

  “Don’t you want me to get you some water?” he asked. He knew Tantalus hadn’t had a drop of liquid in millennia. Surely the old man had lost the memory of the water by this point. Zakerny wanted him to drink, to let him feel the sweet pain of the liquid on his tongue, only to take it away again. He wanted to give Tantalus back the memory of what it was like to be fulfilled, to be satisfied.

  Marquis de Sade—Zakerny was an avid reader of his works—always spoke about giving victims hope to make the torture more intense. Without hope pain was numb, and the worst part of the torment was when hope died. After that, there was little to do to a victim, Zakerny knew.

  “Perhaps I can bring you some food? Maybe pick one of those beautiful fruits that hang above your head. They look so tasty. I’ll bet the juice just pours out when you bite into one of those pears.” Zakerny’s voice brimmed with eagerness, he longed to touch this man’s brittle skin, and feel his sorrow as he bit into a piece of fruit.

  “No.” The answer was soft and filled with anguish. The old man hung his head forward, the water receded down to his waist. “I killed my son,” he repeated.

  A bitter taste of disappointment bubbled up in Zakerny’s throat. He felt rejected by the soul’s unwillingness to let him participate in the pain. Zakerny sought for words that would sting this broken soul, that would hurt Tantalus more than his thirst or his hunger, but he knew there was nothing to say. This soul was too far gone, too wrapped up in his own anguish. Mere observation wasn’t good enough for Adolf Zakerny, and he wanted to find a door that would be more suited to his needs.

  Zakerny closed the obsidian door to Tantalus’ part of hell behind him. His lips were dry and he felt a sickly longing, like a man whose needs were not fulfilled after a long buildup of anticipation. He didn’t go far to find the next door because they were interspersed every few feet in the metal walls. The rooms inside seemed to be made of endless darkness, but on the outside their entrances were placed close together. Zakerny picked a random door and entered, this time prepared for the pressure.

  The light in the room was dim, so only part of the scene was visible, the stage in the center revealed a small portion of a young girl’s bedroom. A child size bed with a white spread covered with little pink rosebuds stood in the corner. The metal frame was pink, and the foot was decorated with ornate hearts. Zakerny inhaled. The room smelled of daisies and cotton candy.

  “Sugar and spice and all things nice,” Zakerny whispered. The bed was the only thing visible on the stage, and it took Zakerny a while to realize that a girl sat in the shadowy corner, pressed up against the headboard, her soft arms hugging her knees. If he was really quiet—the kind of quiet that involved holding his breath—he could hear her sob.

  Is she the tormented soul? he wondered, or is she the tormentor? Hell had its own tricks to play, and Zakerny couldn’t take anything at face value. The sound of squeaking hinges drew his attention to a door that opened near the foot of the bed, and light cut the darkness in sickly yellow beams. A man, dark as a shadow, was outlined in the doorframe, and Zakerny heard the little girl whimper.

  “Kitten,” a deep male voice rumbled. “You’ve been a bad girl, Kitten. Daddy’s going to teach his little pussycat a lesson...” The words were slurred, and the man swayed slightly as he took a step into the room. The scent of musky body odor smothered the light feminine smells.

  The girl sniveled louder, and it appeared as if she tried to crawl into the wall as she pulled the covers up to her chin. The newcomer was tall, taller than a man should be. Zakerny wondered if he was a demon, or perhaps a mirage. Perhaps this creature is born out of the girl’s very fear? A grey suit with a white pinstripe clung to the man’s impressive shape. His black hair was neatly cut and brushed to the side. On his large nose, which was splattered with tiny red veins, balanced a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

  “I see you, Kitten. You can’t hid
e from Daddy.” The man pulled off his jacket and hung it neatly on the back of a little chair. Dark wet spots stained the armpits and back of his white shirt, and with nimble fingers he undid the buttons, every movement a rhythmic motion that reminded the serial killer of a dance.

  “Perhaps you can be a good girl now and make up for what you did.”

  Zakerny could smell the man’s breath from a distance, the sour licorice scent of Ouzo.

  The girl on the bed shifted, the sheets rustling with her movement. Her sobbing became louder, and from the way she breathed with irregular gasps, Zakerny could tell she was afraid. The man’s fat fingers reached for the buttons on his trousers, and fumbled to unbutton the fly. With a sharp movement he kicked off his shoes. He gyrated his hips as he pushed the polyester down his thighs, revealing a pair of red and white striped boxer shorts underneath.

  “I am very disappointed with your behavior, Kitten, as is God.” He stepped out of the grey trousers, and picked them up with his right hand. “Have I not always taught you that you have to honor your father? God is watching, and if you don’t obey, you’ll go to Hell. I’ve told you this a great many times, have I not?”

  The girl on the bed nodded. Zakerny could only see the movement, but he could taste her fear. The man pulled his belt from his trousers, which he then threw over the chair, and slapped the leather strap on the palm of his meaty hand. The sound filled the room. A grin filled with lust bloomed on his crude face, but his eyes were glazed over, and had a ‘far away’ look. His penis pushed against the fabric of the boxer shorts, and it twitched each time the leather strap connected with his palm.

  “Please, Daddy—” The girl’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  In grim fascination Zakerny watched the man walk towards the bed, his hands rubbing against the side of his soft-skinned naked legs in anticipation. With the movement of a snake, the man grabbed the girl’s ankles, and he pulled her into the light, forcing her to lay on the bed. She let out a soft yelp.

  Zakerny could see the girl properly now. She must have been at least eleven or twelve—older than the victims Zakerny himself chose because he liked children that hadn’t reached puberty. The difference between Zakerny and this predator was that the serial killer never had any sexual interest in children. He had no sexual interest in anything; death and torment were his exclusive pleasures.