Suddenly they lifted their heads. We had arrived at Nexus 29, out of a thousand and one Nexuses, I had to pick 29 to lie about. They slid away from me. Zoat vanished first through the normally impenetrable Nexus wall. Flunk's head followed.
Gregory's face reflected his pain and fear. His eyes pleaded for help.
I welcomed air into my lungs, fetid as it was. I'd miss Gregory, but my first duty had to be to the girl. Didn't it? However, I needed the Find to save her. And if I happened to rescue Gregory at the same time, so much the better.
Decision made, I lunged for the disappearing tail. And missed! With no grace at all I scrabbled after the tail, and just as it faded from view I clutched one of the foot long spikes at the end.
As the tail dragged me through the exit I felt the line of demarcation between the benign climate of the Nexus and the area I was entering. My hands grew hot. I'd never been to 29. I held my breath and envisioned a glass of Christine's home-brewed iced tea.
I let go of the Dinocat's tail as I cleared the stone face of the exit. The oppressive heat and humidity stunned my lungs. I ran across the Nexus clearing and crouched at the beginning of the trail to check out the new section of Hell.
Noise assaulted my ears. It took a few seconds to sort out what the terrible sound was. Cries of pain, shrieks of anguish, long screams cut short—souls in torment. I closed my eyes to steel my emotions against what I was sure lay ahead. You don't ever get used to it.
The demons waddled off down a trail to the left. Gregory hung limply on the big one's right side, arm flopping lifelessly with the slow rolling gait.
I looked around.
Jungle. Dense rain forest. Vegetation that writhed within itself creating shadows within shadows. Trees that reached hundreds of feet high yet appeared to lean over, peering at me. A beautiful white and red orchid snapped at me. A spiked vine tried to wrap around my ankle. And overlaying it all were the howls, wails, and screeches of the damned.
I cut the vine from my leg and started cautiously up the trial. Souls became visible, pale bodies, naked or dressed in tatters, moving against the blue green backdrop of jungle. To my right I heard the ripping sound of something running through thick vegetation.
A male soul burst onto the trail, his body streaked with blood and sweat. A few feet behind a huge bright-striped serpent followed. It had spikes on top of its head and its three foot wide jaws stretched open. On the far side of the trail the serpent caught the man by the leg. It raised its head ten feet off the ground and shook the soul like a puppy worries an old sock. Bones popped and crackled like a dry brush fire. With a deft flip the demon snake positioned the man's head towards its throat and let the still struggling body slide down. When the soul was a only a slight bulge in the two foot thick body the snake turned pitiless slitted eyes on me, then slid its blood speckled form back into the jungle.
I continued on. It got worse. Souls swarmed the trees, trying to climb to safety. They were attacked by mobs of monkey-like creatures that threw them screaming off the trees into giant spider webs attended by foot long spiders with thick, hairy legs. The spiders bound the souls with silk and hung them out till their time came to be sucked dry and dropped into boiling pools of puke green mud. Some made it to the tree tops, only to be picked off by Skyhooks and carried away to some other terror. Huge serpents coiled around trees. Occasionally they shit a soul who fell screaming into the thick underbrush.
A few souls recognized me as different. They pleaded for help. In all my trips to Hell I'd steeled myself to the suffering I witnessed. It was hard sometimes not to interfere. Did all these souls deserve such torment? I had to remind myself that during the thousands of years of Hell's existence mankind had performed millions of monstrous acts whose victims might think these souls were getting off easy. I couldn't help them.
Gregory, an exception to noninterference I will not try to justify, and the two demons were ahead. The trail forked often and I fell behind. I couldn't stop to help the souls. I just couldn't.
I hurried on, constantly watching for Noose Vines dropping from above, attacks from the side and back and even the trail itself with its own particular dangers, Snap Dragons and Barbecue Pits, among others. Two snakes fighting over one soul held me up. Finally I had to leap over one of them. I was too late. The trail branched into four. My quarry had disappeared.
I stalked from one trail to another searching for a sign. Nothing. I had to get the Find back. A Lifer could never survive here. And I couldn't do that to Christine. She'd lost her father and brother to Hell. If I disappeared, she'd come after me, and Hell would claim us all.
Why did I go, then? That's a question I ask myself on occasion, though I prefer not to think about it. It's what I do. Hooked on the adrenaline rush of fear, to help those who need it, being part of an almost unknown group of adventurers, stories for my father, money. Those were the easy answers, all true, yet not the whole truth. I'm not much for introspection, let the hundred-dollar-an-hour shrinks worry about that, but I suspect the real reason I go to Hell has something to do with curiosity and redemption.
Man, talk about adventure. Though the fear is always with me (after all the price for screwing up and really dying is spending eternity in Hell) there are some strange and spectacular things in Hell and I wanted to see them all. I saw the first Indiana Jones movie fifteen times.
Neal Tannenbaum was the cop killed in that robbery when we were rookies. He went in first, took my bullet. I know in my head that it was pure chance, he happened to get there first. He could run faster than me. My gut, however, is not totally satisfied that I didn't slow down ever so slightly so that Neal had to go first. That is totally not true, but every time I put myself in danger I think maybe I'm trying to prove to myself, to my gut, that it isn't true. Well, let the shrinks figure it out. I had a soul, who could have been my daughter, to retrieve.
Disgusted with myself for losing the demons, I looked back and wondered if I could find my way back to the Nexus.
That's when I saw the naked woman in the bushes.
Chapter Five
Despite the dirt and blood and ratty dark hair, it was easy to see the woman was beautiful. She crouched behind the large claw shaped leaves of a low bush and stared at me. Every few seconds she glanced nervously behind her. Her skin had a luminescent whiteness to it, and I had no trouble seeing that whatever time she had spent in Hell had not ruined her figure. If she was acting as a diversion for some hungry demon, it worked.
The woman stood up, took a step toward me, then froze. Her huge dark eyes grew big with alarm. She darted a glance behind her and ran.
A huge Saber Bunny leaped out of the bushes in pursuit. Two leaps and its protruding jaws with backward curving teeth would have a mouthful of muscular, finely sculpted thigh. Instinctively, at the sight of a damsel in distress, the male chauvinist in me emerged. I raised my gun to blow the hungry demon away. I didn't have chance to fire. A thick Noose Vine dropped out of the branches and plucked the woman off the ground. The Saber Bunny's jaws clacked shut on hot, humid air. Momentum carried it into the jungle.
The Vine began to raise the struggling woman into the dense canopy. I raced to her, leaped, and caught her ankle. The Vine stretched with the added weight. My feet touched the ground, but the woman still hung by the neck, choking and gagging. I pulled her down until I could reach up and cut the Vine, all the while intensely aware of the naked leg, thigh, and hips I held. So much for non-interference.
If yielding to temptation is what leads a person to Hell in the first place, resisting it when you're there is doubly hard. Since I first went to Hell with my late wife's father, I resolved to emulate him and the other Hell Cops I met. I kept my trips on a professional level and did not yield to the many temptations available. Like the one naked and splendid in front of me. I could do what I wanted with the soul gasping on the dirt in front of me. I could beat, rape, torture her unmercifully, all with impunity. There were few rules in Hell and none of them to the Damned
Souls benefit.
To take advantage or abuse a soul was as abhorrent to the men of honor and integrity, of which I count myself as one, who came on missions of mercy to Hell as to like men from the real world. The more so because of the total freedom Hell offered. Occasionally, a Hell Cop overstepped the boundaries and indulged his perversions. These people are dealt with harshly by other Hell Cops.
I cut the Vine from the soul's neck and helped her stand. She eyed me suspiciously, yet showed no fear. Actually the jut of her chin and upward tilt of her head suggested a certain haughtiness that I suspected didn't come from being an old hand in Hell.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice hoarse from the strangling she'd just suffered. “You are not a demon, are you?”
I resisted taking advantage of that straight line and said, “No, I'm not.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are a Lifer. I've heard of them. What is your name, Lifer?”
“Getter.”
“Prince Getter, my hero.”
Her eyes opened up like jewel boxes, offering two perfect emeralds for my inspection.
I was wasting time, but somehow it didn't seem as important as it had a minute before. Still, I did manage to ask, “Did you see two demons go that way a little while ago?”
Her right eyebrow arched just a fraction.
“Yes,” she said, drawing it out as if uncertain.
“Did you see which path they took?”
I tried not to let my returning desperation show.
Her left eyebrow rose to join the right, and she moved closer. She was three inches shorter than me, yet she didn't raise her head to look at me, just her eyes. This gave her a poor-little-old-me look that carried a message of little-girl vulnerability that I had no doubt worked like a charm back in her life. Fortunately, with my increasing anxiousness to recover the Find, and Gregory, came some clarity to my thoughts.
I needed her help. We both knew it. The question of price remained. She stood inches away. I swear I could smell the sweetest of perfumes over the stench of rotting vegetation. I steeled myself to play the game.
“Yes, I saw which way they went,” she said.
“Which path?”
“If I help you will you help me?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to go to the Lifer world.”
“I can't do that.”
She didn't seem surprised. “I thought not. Take me out of this jungle.”
“It may be worse some place else.”
“Possibly, but different.”
“If you help me find the demons and retrieve a soul they have with them, I will take you through the Nexus to our next stop.”
She took my hand and laid it on her proud, firm breast.
“And is that all you will do to me?”
I wanted to fall into her shiny eyes and join with the mesmerizing forms swimming deep inside them. With great effort I forced my way back from the brink.
“Yes,” I said with a catch in my throat.
A bloody neon sign flashed, Trouble Trouble Trouble, in my brain.
“This way,” she said with a toss of her head and took off with a bouncing jog.
Having myself witnessed women's newly expressed appreciation of men's butts I felt little guilt for the appreciation I felt for the sight of the smooth rippling muscles of the woman's rear that led me deeper into 29.
I asked her name.
“Helen,” she said.
She offered little explanation as to why she was in Hell except that she was a princess and many men died because of her.
“I did not ask them to die,” she said. “Should I be punished for that?”
I had no answer for her.
In ten minutes we caught up to the demons at a place where the jungle dropped off sharply to the right. Helen didn't even break a sweat. She did breathe heavily, though mostly for my benefit, I think. I was soggy with sweat. The special fabric of my fire-proof coveralls was supposed to breathe, but the heavy humidity of the jungle was too much for it. We followed at a distance while I caught my breath and figured out what to do.
The demons lumbered on undistracted by their surroundings. I could see my Find on Zoat's belt beside his own, so I thought a quick dash and grab would be as good a strategy as any.
I drank from my canteen and checked my equipment. For a second I thought of leaving it with Helen, but that neon Trouble light persuaded me otherwise.
“Okay, Helen,” I told her. “I'm going to do a quick snatch and then we run like Hell back to the Nexus. Remember, I can't take you through if I'm dead.”
She gave me a look that all those men probably died for and said rather melodramatically, “Good luck, my hero,” then kissed me, hard and hot. It felt like her tongue tickled the back of my throat. It was probably my brains melting. She released me and pushed me toward the demons. My head had a bad case of the whirlys.
I quickly fought through the effects of the kiss and gathered my wits. Gregory still hung from the Dinocat's side, his moans squeezed my chest, but the Find had to come first. I kept to the side of the trail and simply approached Zoat from behind and lifted my Find off his belt. An ex-pickpocket, who taught me a few of the basics when I was a regular cop, would have been proud.
I gave Helen a thumbs up. She waved back, a puzzled expression on her striking face. The next move was the tricky part. I yanked on leather gloves, breathed deep, then leaped on Flunk at the base of his undulating tail. I scrambled up his back till I was above Gregory. The little Scottish soul looked up at me with hope and pain in his eyes. A finger to my lips for quiet, a handful of barbed fur, a quick jerk on his collar, and he was free.
No time for a reunion. Gregory followed me down the broad back. As we got to the leathery rear of the beast that neon light proved to be correct.
“Zoat!” Helen yelled.
Zoat may have been an easy pickpocket mark, but he moved fast when he needed to. Suddenly he was there, flamegun, or flammer, standard issue for Hell's military and security forces, pointed steadily at my stomach. The Dinocat stopped. Its big feline head swung around and stared at us with unemotional yellow eyes. The vertical black pupils narrowed as they focused on us.
I felt Gregory's fingers dig into my shoulder.
“What now, Friend Getter?” he said under his breath. “You should have left me.”
“Good company is too hard to find down here not to make a little effort,” I told him.
I kept my eyes on Zoat. I thought I might be able to anticipate it if he decided to burn me sooner rather than later. But then Helen, all smug and superior, sauntered up to him and took his hairy arm with the familiarity of a long time lover. I had to look. It was definitely possible that a ball of fire from Zoat's flamegun was going to burn a hole in my gut and painfully consign me to Hell for all eternity. Yet, I couldn't help but note that Helen was still exquisitely naked.
“Very good, Getter,” Helen said with smug sarcasm. “You almost got away.”
“No thanks to you.”
“I gave you a chance.” She shrugged as if that were true.
“Come down, Lifer,” Zoat called to us, a grin on his thin coyote lips. “I'm sure Captain Boam, idiot that he is, will reward us for capturing a live Lifer.”
“Hey, Zoat,” said Flunk. “Maybe Boam will let us watch him torment the Lifer. What da ya think?” Flunk laughed at the thought, and the movement almost shook us off his back.
Helen moved in front of Zoat, her pale white skin stark against his massive dark body. He slid a thick, gnarly hand over her, cradling her breast with two fingers.
“Come down, Getter,” Helen purred seductively. “Maybe your torment will not be so unpleasant.”
“I would, but Zoat looks like the jealous type.”
She patted the hand that held her and smiled slyly.
“Zoat can be very friendly.”
“Come down now or I'll burn you where you stand,” Zoat said, flamegun held out like he meant it.
Flunk shook his reptile rear end and stretched his flat cat head close to us.
“Get off me, Lifer. You too, soul.”
We got to our feet and started down Flunk's body. His tail swept side to side like a lazy lizard in warm water.
“What now?” Gregory said low. “If they get you, you will die for real.”
“I know. I think I have an idea.”
“A good one I hope, because if you die, no hell will be hot enough to burn away my guilt.”
“Don't go scorching your lips on Satan's ass yet, Greg. When I yell ‘Go’ haul your own ass to the end of Flunk's tail and hold on. It'll take perfect timing, but if it works, we're going for a ride.”
“Shut up!” Zoat yelled.
Flunk's tail was almost at the end of its arc.
“Fuck you. And that demon right behind you,” I yelled.
So easy. Zoat looked.
“Go!”
Gregory and I leaped off the base of the tail and ran to the spiky end. I hoped something I'd heard Christine's dad say years ago was true. We grabbed hold and I plunged my knife blade into the tail right in front of the first spike.
“Hang on, Greg!”
Nothing happened. Oh shit.
“Zoat, you fool,” Helen cried.
“Lifer!” the coyote head growled as he swung the flamegun around.
I yanked the blade out and brought it down again.
Something happened. Flunk screeched and his tail lashed out, launching me and Gregory high into the air. I lost one glove to a hooked spike.
A fireball blazed past us and burned a hole through the giant spider web we tumbled toward. Luckily it took out a dull sticky section, not the shiny non-stick area I wanted to land on. Gregory tumbled out of control. At the last instant I grabbed his foot and yanked him away from a sticky part to a tangled landing.
Unluckily the fireball ignited the web. The flames crackled along each strand like a fireworks display.
“Down, Greg, down!”
We scrambled down the web, racing fire. I slipped, reached out, and grabbed a sticky strand with my bare hand. I pulled my knife to cut myself loose. The web convulsed as a major strand parted. I dropped the knife and it fell into the underbrush at the edge of the steaming mud pool below.
Hell Cop Page 4