Inferno- Go to Hell

by Scott Reeves

  Beside Mike, Paula screamed and toppled forward onto her face, fainting dead away.

  Someone out in the lava screamed, “Nigel! No!”

  Just before he himself leaned forward and vomited onto the rocky shelf, Mike looked out across the lake and saw Stacy, bobbing and twisting, screaming, “Nigel! Nigel! No!”

  UNSEEN CLAW-TIPPED hands grabbed at Jason’s dangling legs. Thrashing wildly, he barely managed to fend them off. If they managed to get a grip, he was lost. Stingers repeatedly punctured his lower legs, sending excruciating pain racing along his nerves. He felt the blood running down his calves, dripping from his feet.

  Abruptly there was a shivering crackle-snap in the air, like a discharge of electricity. The barrier blocking his passage winked out, and the balloon charged upward, tugging him after it.

  A few seconds later, he burst through to the surface and continued rising. The darkness around him bloomed with faint light. Stars twinkled in the blackness of the night sky, and far-off city lights shimmered on the horizon.

  In the sudden light, he saw the shrub-covered ground dwindling quickly. With a great heave of his legs, he swung himself sideways and let go of the balloon. He dropped twenty feet to the ground. He hit the ground and rolled away from the narrow black maw of the chimney hole, tumbling head over heels down a slight slope until he came to a jarring rest against the thick bole of a large oak tree.

  The winged creatures did not immediately realize that he had dropped. They raced after the makeshift balloon, which, having been released, unfurled into the gossamer thin sheet of dead flesh that it was and fluttered away on the gentle night breeze. When the winged creatures realized he was no longer with the balloon, they merely looked down at him before flapping away into the night, freed at last from their nightmarish cage. He watched their silhouettes against the moon until they were lost in the distance of the star-speckled sky.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – Hell on Earth

  THE MINE ENTRANCE HAD been to the east of where their car had broken down, so he reasoned that if he headed westward, he would have a good chance of stumbling upon their car or Nigel’s house. Jason used the Big Dipper to locate the North Star and orient himself, then picked his way westward through the heavily wooded English night.

  He hadn’t gone very far when a dark shadow detached itself from the silvery silhouette of a bush up ahead and moved to block his path.

  “Hold up,” said the shadow. A man’s voice.

  Jason wasn’t entirely sure whether the man meant the words as a command to stop, or as a statement that he was a robber and was holding Jason up. But Jason stopped, figuring that was the wisest move in either case.

  The shadow moved into a patch of moonlight, and was revealed to be a man dressed in a policeman’s uniform. Or was it a constable’s uniform? Or a bobby? He wasn’t sure what the preferred British word was.

  But the officer was holding a gun on Jason, who was slightly surprised, because he been under the impression that English policemen didn’t carry guns. The officer also had a radio at his waist, with a microphone draped over his shoulder.

  Jason suddenly became all too conscious of his near nakedness. Funny how quickly he had forgotten it in all the excitement of the last few...hours? Days? What must this officer think, coming upon a sweaty, hairless man, dressed only in his—well, in Mike’s—underwear, wandering in the woods at nighttime?

  Jason grinned sheepishly, “I know how this must look, but there’s a perfectly good explanation.” Yeah, right. A perfectly reasonable and sane explanation. Ha.

  “How did you get inside the perimeter?” the officer demanded.

  “Inside what perimeter?” Jason asked, confused, thinking the officer was talking about the wards—the now-fallen wards—that had enclosed the hellish underworld. In which case, he had gotten outside the perimeter, not inside.

  “The perimeter we’ve set up around this whole area,” the officer said. “You sightseers aren’t supposed to cross the line. It’s against the law.”

  Jason shook his head, still confused. “Look,” he said. “We need to get out of here. It’s not safe, and it’s about to get a lot less safe.” He doubted the officer would believe him, but he had to take the risk. “Creatures have gotten loose. Creatures you won’t believe exist until you’ve seen them with your own eyes.”

  Now it was the officer’s turn to look confused. “I know,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “What is this, a joke? Why do you think we set up the perimeter in the first place? The beasties have been sighted all over the area for the last few days. We even caught one of them.” He stepped closer to Jason, searching Jason’s face for signs of deception. “Have you really not heard, or is your ignorance just a pretense?”

  Jason felt the clock ticking: his friends were burning, and the Beast was rising. “Just pretend I’m completely ignorant and tell me what’s going on. Please?” He held up his arms, palms out, hoping to appear innocent.

  The officer looked doubtful, but he played along. “I’m the local sheriff. I found the body of a local man a few days ago. This is his estate.”

  “A man named David?” Jason hazarded a guess.

  The officer cocked his head suspiciously. “That’s right. How did you know? We haven’t made that public.”

  Jason sighed. At least that explained why David had never returned and opened the door for them, way back when.

  “You’re an American, aren’t you?” the officer asked.

  Jason nodded.

  “Is your name Mike? Or Jason?” the officer asked.

  “Jason,” said Jason. “How did you know?”

  “Your car was found at the side of Doesberg Lane,” the officer said. “We’ve been searching for you, along with everything else that’s been going on. Do you know the whereabouts of the rest of your party?”

  Jason felt like he was wasting valuable time with these incessant questions, but he needed an ally, and this man might just be it. So Jason tried to draw him out further. “Please, what else has been happening?”

  “The man had been ripped limb from limb,” the officer said matter-of-factly. “Then other local residents reported seeing winged humanoid beasties with stingers flying around. People were attacked, a few minor injuries, a few deaths. Some disappearances. Sightseers started coming, hearing rumors. More deaths, more disappearances. I called in backup, and we captured one of the things. Got it caged back at headquarters right now. Then the Army was called in. Cordoned off the area and established a perimeter.”

  Jason sighed. So the creatures had gotten out the first time the wards had fallen, and apparently had been wreaking havoc ever since, unable to return down below, or bring others down with them.

  The officer pointed back behind him, westward. “Back at the road, it’s a real freak show. All the UFO nuts, the crop circle freaks, that sort of folk. They’re saying demons are walking the night, and for once, I don’t doubt it. We’re having trouble keeping the ghost hunters and the amateur demonologists out of the quarantine zone.” He gestured with his gun. “Your turn. Convince me you’re not one of the Art Bell nuts.”

  Jason quickly told his story, beginning with their descent into the mine and his recent escape. When he finished, the officer looked understandably shocked.

  “Ordinarily I would say you’re a complete loon.” The officer put his gun away, apparently deciding Jason wasn’t a threat. “But after seeing the beastie what’s locked up at HQ, I’m inclined to believe you.”

  “Just like that?” Jason said suspiciously. “I still half don’t believe it myself, and I lived through it.”

  “Well, we also found the mine entrance and couldn’t open the door. Found your chimney vents too. Felt the heat coming from them, which oddly enough doesn’t show up on infrared. It’s the damnedest thing, that. The freak show crowd is having a field day with this place. And one other thing.” The officer tugged his shirt from his waistband and turned around, revealing a swath of skin to Jason. A large red welt sw
elled from the small of the officer’s back. “The one we captured stung me before we bagged it, two nights ago. Then the thing actually breathed fire on me after we got it into the cage back at headquarters. It hurt, but didn’t leave a mark on me. So yes, I believe you.”

  Thank God! “Help me rescue my friends,” Jason implored.

  The officer stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’m Sheriff William Stewart.

  Jason shook Stewart’s hand.

  Stewart nodded. “Right, then. Let’s go talk to General Moore. If we can, we’ll rescue your friends and the other poor bastards down there.”

  There was a sudden roar behind Jason, a deafening sound like an avalanche, and the ground quaked weakly. He whirled. Behind him, through the trees, light emanated from the ground, shining skyward, like the lights of a distant city. As he watched and listened, the roaring sound swept northward and southward, and hellish red light burst forth in an ever-growing line across the horizon.

  Jason gasped. Though he couldn’t see it through the intervening trees, he knew the earth was exploding outward, opening up like a zipper as the winged creatures burned away the last thin layer between the underworld and the surface with their fiery breath, exposing the deep chasms beneath the ground.

  A wave of dust and heat came blasting through the woods and washed across Jason and Stewart. A fine shower of pebbles and dirt rained from the sky.

  When the last hissing of the dusty rain had ceased, an ominous quiet settled over the woods. Bugs stopped singing in the night. The rushing sound of distant water vanished. It seemed even the wind stopped blowing as the night held its breath.

  Then thousands of the winged creatures Jason had come to fear rushed upward from the unseen rift. All along the horizon and the ribbon of hellish light shining upward, they rose into the night sky like gigantic bats pouring from a cave, so thick they blotted out the stars. The night filled with the loud roar of leathery wings beating against the wind.

  “Oh my God!” Sheriff Stewart said. He stumbled back a step as several of the creatures raced by overhead.

  Jason, no longer scared shitless into inaction by the sight of the things, grabbed hold of Stewart and yanked him into the relative safety of the bushes. Right now, Jason doubted anywhere was truly safe, but at least the bushes offered a scant concealment from the eyes of the aerial monsters.

  Moments later, from the west came the sound of distant screams. The winged creatures that had just passed overhead began racing back toward the rift with their booty. Jason and Stewart stared up at them as they hurtled past just above the treetops, screaming people dangling from their claws.

  “They’re taking them down to the lake of fire,” Jason told Stewart, his voice choking with the horror of it.

  With a trembling hand and a matching tremble in his voice, Stewart took hold of his microphone and said, “Sheriff Stewart to General Moore.” There was a hiss of static, but no response. “General Moore, I’ve got someone you need to speak with at once.”

  Machine gun fire suddenly erupted from the west and the south, accompanied by distant screams and shouted commands.

  “General Moore?” Stewart again said into the microphone, and again was met with static.

  “Sounds like he’s too busy to answer,” Jason said.

  The heavy booming rumble of a mortar explosion sounded far to the east, and the horizon flickered with a blinding flash that lasted mere nanoseconds.

  For the moment, Stewart gave up on trying to raise General Moore. He and Jason began creeping through the woods, headed toward the road which Stewart said lay to the west. Jason figured it would have to be the same road where their rental car had stalled, mere days ago. He had to laugh at that. Days! It seemed as if he had been underground for far longer.

  As they crept along, they had to stop often and as a winged creature or three soared by overhead. Sometimes the creatures would have human prey struggling in their claws; other times the creatures were empty-handed and clearly searching for prospects to drag down to the lake, intently scanning the forest below or perhaps even winging east to London itself. Whenever the creatures passed by overhead, Jason and Stewart would leap behind a nearby bush, or simply stand as still as statues, breaths held anxiously and hoping they wouldn’t be noticed.

  They even encountered a few of the creatures skittering along the ground on all fours, their stingers waving. On one such occasion, Stewart bashed the creature’s head in with a big rock. A gunshot to the head would have been the better choice, but that would have attracted attention, which they desperately wanted to avoid.

  On another occasion, five of the creatures went skittering past the bush where Jason and Stewart had taken cover. Two of the creatures looked straight at Jason and Stewart, clearly seeing them in the shadows of the bush.

  One of the creatures even sneered at Jason and hissed, “It’s the escapee.”

  Another creature, perhaps the leader, said something in that creepy inhuman language of theirs that was punctuated with clicks and pops.

  Then the whole platoon moved on, completely ignoring Jason and Stewart.

  Stewart was shaken. “Those things can talk,” he whispered, horrified. “They’re not just animals.”

  Jason nodded.

  Stewart asked, “But...Why didn’t they come after us?”

  Jason shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, even as a sick certainty twisted his gut: the creatures had ignored him because he had been mind-melded to the Beast. They were deliberately letting him go free. That disturbed him.

  It was slow going, creeping along and ducking for cover, all the while hearing the sound of rapid gunfire and the distant boom of mortars. It was like creeping across a battlefield. Hell, it wasn’t like creeping across a battlefield; they were creeping across a battlefield.

  “The army has the whole area cordoned off,” Stewart explained as they walked. “A huge circle, ten miles in diameter, with all guns pointed inward. Hopefully nothing will be able to break the perimeter.”

  “The seal must not be broken,” Jason muttered with a chuckle. “What’s inside must not get out.”

  “What’s that?” Stewart asked.

  “Nothing,” Jason said. “You’re telling me the British army was called in and set up a perimeter, ready for bear, just because of a few strange creatures flying and crawling through the night, attacking local farmers? Sure, it’s good and convenient that they’re here now, but...”

  Stewart shrugged. “It’s good practice. I don’t suppose they had anything better to do at the moment, anyway. Things are pretty quiet in the world right now.”

  “Yeah, sure. Pretty quiet,” Jason said sarcastically.

  They eventually came upon the mine entrance where this whole nightmare had started. Coming out of the woods at the edge of the pasture, they paused and looked down into the depression at whose center the cavernous opening yawned.

  But the vista had changed slightly from how Jason remembered it. A long, wide, jagged rift now ran across the depression floor and slashed eastward into the woods, as if it were a spoke radiating outward from the center of the deep underworld that Jason knew lay hidden beneath this whole area. Intense light and heat radiated up from the rift, lighting up the night. A steady stream of winged creatures poured from the rift to scour the countryside for human prey. Others reentered, claws full of struggling humans destined for the lake of fire far below.

  But the creatures didn’t have an easy time of entry and egress. Soldiers were scattered across the pasture and near the rim of the rift, firing machine guns at the emerging creatures. The soldiers were clearly choosing their targets carefully. They weren’t shooting the returning creatures that held humans, for fear of killing the humans rather than their captors. Thus, while a good number of the creatures were killed, an even greater number managed to avoid death and escape into the night, only to return later with human captives and once again avoid death.

  The job of th
e soldiers was made more difficult by a host of winged creatures that flapped about the area, harrying the soldiers. The creatures swooped down, raining great torrents of fire upon the soldiers. Their demonically distorted human faces swiveled back and forth as their mouths spit out great tongues of flame which they raked across the ranks of the soldiers.

  Fires were breaking out all over the place. Grass was burning, bushes were in flames. All across the horizon, isolated fires were growing, spreading and merging. The forested countryside was aflame, rapidly becoming a conflagration. A haze of smoke was settling over everything. The sour smell of brimstone and sulfur wafted up from the rift.

  Even as Jason and Stewart stood watching the chaotic battle, the steady stream of winged creatures gradually dwindled, until finally no more emerged from the rift and no more returned. The soldiers scattered across the pasture and the depression looked around, searching the sky for targets.

  Jason looked across the burning countryside at his back, eastward, northward and southward. All across the area, the black tide of winged creatures swarming the sky had abated. Had they all taken to the ground? Jason wondered. The sudden silence, the absence of leathery wings beating at the air, was ominous. He didn’t believe for a second that things were over. No, he had no doubt this pause meant that things were about to get a lot worse.

  “Something tells me,” Jason muttered, “that all hell is about to break loose.”

  Stewart grunted in agreement.

  And then, silent as a whisper yet horrifying as a scream, an immense, blubbery white body rose from the rift. Huge tentacles gripped the side of the rift, lifting the body high into the air. It climbed forth from the rift until it towered a good hundred feet in the air, standing on a dozen tentacle legs. Two immense, unblinking watery eyes on either side of its bulbous, squid-like head peered imperiously down upon the soldiers far below it, soldiers who gaped up at it, shocked into inaction by the ungodly size of this new beast who had just crawled from the bowels of the Earth. A net-like sack dangled from the underbelly of the creature.