With her good right arm, Eleanor picked him up by the ankle of his left foot and dragged him out of the kitchen. His head thumped loudly on the doorsill and the door swung back, slamming into his side, cracking his ribs. She dragged him into the entrance hall, across the cold marble floor, to the crematorium door.
She opened it and started down, pulling the limp Jackie behind her. He bounced heavily from step to step, breaking his left arm, separating his left shoulder worse than it was, and fracturing his collarbone. At the bottom of the stairs, Eleanor dragged him across to the cage and flung him against the bars, breaking his other arm, his right leg, and both his hips. Jackie collapsed to the floor on his back, his head turned back at Eleanor, eyes glazed.
Eleanor stood over him, breathing heavily and fought the urge to kick the little brat. He had nearly spoiled everything. Now she had less than fifteen minutes to complete the sacrifices before midnight and the consummation of the final ritual. She had to work fast, despite the intense pain in her face, chest, broken arm, and just about every place else on her body, all thanks to the brat who lay at her feet.
Again she got the urge to kick him and keep on kicking him, but she stepped over him instead and went into the cage to get Davy Torrez. Halfway there, she had to stop and lean against the bars while a wave of pain and dizziness swept over her. The beating she had given Jackie had taken its toll on her as well; her body was a pulsating mass of pain and exhaustion.
"Girl! Get that thing in here," Eleanor wheezed at Jennifer, who stood quietly near the crematorium door. Jennifer did as she was told, pushing the gurney around Jackie's limp body and into the cage where she collapsed it. Eleanor used her foot to roll Davy Torrez's upper body onto the gurney while Jennifer lifted his legs and swung them on. She pushed the lift lever, raising the gurney to its upright position, and with Eleanor by her side, leaning on her for support, wheeled him out of the cage to the embalming table.
Eleanor didn't bother removing Davy Torrez's clothing. There was no time. She cut his filthy pajama top open with her knife and yanked his bottoms down enough with one hand to reveal his genitals. Dipping her fingers in the jar on the instrument table, she hurriedly painted his chest while quickly chanting the accompanying words. In less than a minute, she had the symbols done. She picked up the knife, sprawling it over the boy's chest as she traced the symbols, cutting deeply in places in her rush.
Davy Torrez never made a sound. As soon as Eleanor laid her hand on him, his mind had completely disintegrated in terror and disappeared. There was no Davy left to feel the pain, much less cry out.
Eleanor finished the chant and the tracing of the symbols with the knife. She raised it over the boy's bloody chest and let it fall, plunging it into the center of the circle of symbols she had drawn on his chest. The child flopped twice, expelled air in a long sigh, and never took another breath. While she cut his chest open, his left hand and right leg twitched.
CHAPTER 43
Put it in the oven for baby and me.
A ten-ton pile of hurt was jumping on Jackie's body. It trampled his legs, crushed his hips and back, and drummed through his head. The hurt was so bad that he wanted to cry, wanted to scream; but this hurt was beyond crying, beyond screaming. This much hurt had to be close to dying.
He tried opening his eyes and found that they were already open. All he could see was a billowing gray cloud with a swarm of needle-shaped lines of light coursing through it. Slowly the gray began to fade into a blurred mass. Something was moving to his left, but he didn't think he could turn his head to see what it was. Directly ahead, and above him, was a row of tiny, bright lights.
The hurt jumped harder sending him wading into the gray cloud again. When his vision returned, the room came into sharper focus. He was able to make out the oven with its roller-topped conveyor belt ready to feed it. Someone was standing near it. He squinted and realized it was Jennifer.
Where's the witch? Everything came back to him at once, doubling the pain he already felt.
I'm right here, the witch said in his mind.
Jackie winced, stiffening involuntarily, driving the pain in his body to new heights.
I'll be with you in a minute.
The witch's horrid cackling came from his left. Jackie also recognized the sound of the knife cutting deep into flesh and knew what the witch was doing.
Jackie looked at Jennifer. She was staring vacantly in his direction, not seeing him at all. He blinked at her, trying to get her attention, but she didn't notice. While the witch's voice rose with hoarse chanting, Jackie tried to speak.
"Jen," he thought he said, but no sound came out and he wasn't sure if his lips had even moved. He tried again and produced a whisper that shook him with a pain so intense it brought the gray cloud back momentarily. His sister remained unmoved.
"Jen," he managed to say louder, and cried out at the hurt that stomped him when he spoke. A loose tooth fell out of his mouth and bounced on the floor near his head. "Help me, Jen," he croaked, whining and groaning.
He could hear a sizzling noise and knew the witch had tossed another set of private parts into the burning bowl. A second later he smelled them burning. He couldn't see what she was doing but knew by the sounds coming from behind him that she must be feeding the heart to his mother.
Jennifer blinked and looked at him, giving him a goofy smile. "Help me, Jen," Jackie pleaded again. The words came out of him in painful, mucous sobs.
"Shut up, boy," the witch rasped from nearby.
"Please don't eat me. Please don't eat me. I didn't eat your gingerbread house," Jackie cried, the pain making him delirious.
Cackling laughter spilled from the witch like hot lead in Jackie's ears. "You're my own little Hansel and Gretel, aren't you?" the witch said gleefully in her raw voice. "I like that. My little Hansel and Gretel," she mused.
"Please don't eat me. Please don't eat me," Jackie continued to mumble.
"Gretel!" the witch called to Jennifer and cackled with delight. Jennifer ran to her, crossing in front of Jackie and passing out of his line of vision. She came back into it a moment later pushing the blood-dripping gurney with its mutilated cargo past him to the oven. The witch followed and together they placed the last boy on the conveyor belt. The witch opened the oven door, and she and Jennifer slid Davy Torrez inside. Closing the door, the witch turned up the dial that controlled the jets of flame. Smoke poured from the seams of the door, adding to the sooty cloud already hanging low in the room. After a few minutes of anxious waiting the witch, coughing harshly, removed the ashes and bones and spread them around the circle with her right hand. The left one hung useless and shuddered with each coughing spasm. When she was done, she advanced on Jackie.
"Jen, please," Jackie pleaded with all the feeble force he could muster.
"Quiet, Hansel. Your time has come. You're plump enough for me," the witch cackled. Her feet crossed to directly in front of his face and he felt a hand grabbing his hair. She picked him up that way and dragged him over to the gurney.
Jackie let out one short, pain-filled scream, then was silent.
What's going on?
He was enveloped in grayness, but this was not the paininduced grayness of unconsciousness that he had felt before; this was something else. It was thick and sooty. It smelled horrible, like bacon burnt to a crisp. It swirled around him. He looked at himself and realized it was swirling through him as well; his body was transparent and he was floating inside the grayness. For a moment he thought there was someone else floating by his side, but when he looked, all he saw was the cloud.
The grayness grew sparse and parted for a moment. Jackie saw a room, and realized he was floating near the ceiling. This is like my dream, he thought. The grayness around him was smoke. It was pouring from a large arched metal door below and to his left, set into the wall, and from hundreds of candles set around the room. Jennifer was standing near it. He started to call to her but noticed someone else in the room. It was his mother, naked
and tied to a reclining chair in the middle of a star within a circle that was painted on the floor and enclosed with a ring of ashes. Near her bending over a naked boy on the table was ... the witch!
Suddenly it all came back to Jackie. He cringed at the memory of what the witch had done to him, but realized he no longer felt any pain. The unbearable hurt that had been destroying him was gone. It had left his body.
The witch moved away from the table and Jackie realized why he felt no pain His naked, broken body was lying on the table below him, his torn clothes crumpled around him. The witch returned with a jar and began painting squiggly lines in a circle on his chest.
She's going to kill me, Jackie thought, but giggled. I think I'm already dead, he answered himself. No, that wasn't true. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. He was close to death, but he wasn't there yet. If the witch continued, though, he knew he soon would be. He thought he should do something, but the desire to just remain there and float was great.
The witch looked up at Jennifer and a strange thing happened. Jackie became aware of tentacles of light like living things stretching from the witch's forehead to Jennifer's forehead. The same beams of light also went from the witch's head to his mother's. Each rod of light was like a twisting snake, pulsating with surges of colors that ran back and forth between the witch, Jennifer and his mom.
They're under her spell, he thought. That's what that is. I'm seeing the witch's spells over them. He looked at his transparent body floating above his real one and realized something else, too. The same lines of living light very subtly filled him also, but were unconnected to the witch or anyone else.
I've got to do something, he thought. I've got to connect with Jennifer like the witch is and make her help me. But how?
In the back of his mind he heard the witch cackling and calling him and Jennifer Hansel and Gretel.
Jackie laughed.
"Jennifer."
Jennifer looked up and saw her grandmother standing before her, leaning over her. My, what big eyes you have, she thought with a giggle, but said, "Yes, Gram?"
"Mom said you were supposed to take care of me," her grandmother said.
Jennifer laughed at Grammy saying such a funny thing, and in such a funny voice. "Yes, Grammy. I will," she giggled some more, wondering what kind of new party game Grammy was playing.
"Yes," Grammy said, as if reading her thoughts. "We're going to play a game. Now listen carefully."
Jennifer leaned forward, listening intently as her Grammy explained the game. The party was going wonderfully; a game would only make it better. Jennifer tried hard not to laugh as she listened, but it was difficult because Grammy's voice sounded so funny. As she listened, Jennifer wondered why Grammy would want to disguise her voice to sound like Jackie's.
Eleanor worked furiously, painting Jackie's chest with the bloody circle of power symbols. She had less than four minutes left to sacrifice him and prepare herself for the final ritual. Out of the corner of her eye, as she worked, she saw the girl get up and walk toward the podium.
"What are you doing, my little Gretel?" she asked chuckling. She liked the idea the boy had put in her head. It was fitting.
What do you think I'm doing? Edmund's voice came back at her. It set off a chain reaction of pain inside her, exploding through her chest, out to her arms and up into her head worse than any previous pain had been. She staggered from the force of it. Her erratic heartbeat became like thunder in her ears. She leaned over Jackie's body and puked blood onto his stomach.
You're finished, Eleanor, Edmund said when she looked up. He was standing at the podium, The Demonolatria in his hands. He strode to the crematorium furnace with it. No! Eleanor pleaded. I'll die without that!
Why should I show you mercy that you never showed me, or anyone else? Edmund ranted. It's time to face your lies, Eleanor! It was you who killed Mother with your dreams, not I. It was you who made Father come to your room and rape you. All those years you had me fooled thinking you were the victim; thinking you were weaker than I. But the truth was you were much stronger, wasn't it? You were so strong that you were even able to use the Machine on Father and keep it from me. You were so strong you were able to make me kill Father and think it was my idea. You were so strong that you were able to hide your plan to get rid of me. And I was stupid enough to think that I could hear all your thoughts.
"You left me!" Eleanor screamed out loud in pain. Remaining bent over Jackie's body, she slid the length of the table and tried to walk. "You were going to perform the rituals and leave me again."
Now you're leaving, Edmund said, opening the furnace door.
"No, you can't," Eleanor gasped, staggering away from the table.
Why not?
"Because you're not real!" Eleanor screamed in a hoarse whisper.
I'm not? Edmund asked, and tossed the book into the oven.
Jackie blinked his eyes as he regained consciousness. The smell of vomit and smoke was thick in his nose. He twitched his nostrils trying to block it out. They, and his eyes were the only part of his body that moved. He had a vague memory of a weird dream, but all that remained of it was the sensation of no pain anymore; he could feel nothing and could move nothing below his neck.
His head lay turned to the left and, across the room in his horizontal line of vision, he could see Jennifer standing next to the oven door, holding up the witch's big book. Suddenly the witch came into view screaming in a hoarse, garbled voice.
Jackie couldn't believe his ears. Something had happened while he was unconscious; the witch, of all people, was accusing Jennifer of not being real! Suddenly he remembered something else about his dream, that it had something to do with a fairy tale.
Before he had time to think of what the tale was, Jennifer threw the witch's book into the oven. Jackie cheered in his head. Suddenly it came to him, brought back by the memory of the witch's voice: You re my little Hansel and Gretel.
The witch let out a gasping shriek and staggered to the oven. She climbed over the side of the conveyor belt and reached into the oven for the book. Go for it! Jackie shouted to Jennifer in his head and hoped the witch heard him.
Jennifer ran at the witch and gave her a hard body block in the rear with her right shoulder. Grunting, the witch sprawled into the oven, her wrinkled, flabby ass and veiny legs hanging out, splayed on the conveyor belt. Jennifer reached out and released the lever and wheel that closed the door. It came down with a heavy crunching thud on the back of the witch's waist.
Jackie could hear the sizzle of the hot door melting into the witch's skin as she screamed in the oven. She began to squirm, frantically trying to pull herself out of the oven. Jennifer hesitated a moment, then reached over and turned the dial that powered the flames to full.
Fire shot out from under the door, licking up around the witch's naked legs and butt. She let out a scream horrible beyond words. Her legs and feet began to kick wildly as the skin on them began to cook, reddening and bubbling with blisters. The witch's screams rose, climbing higher and higher without pause for a breath until they reached an hysterical barking, gasping, laugh/screaming that seemed to go on forever, echoing like thunder in Jackie's head before it finally faded and died away. The convulsions of her legs and feet, which at first hammered frantically on the melting rubber top of the conveyor belt, the skin peeling from them under the assault of the flames, soon followed suit, diminishing to feeble sporadic twitchings.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Jackie thought with vengeful joy.
Jennifer staggered and nearly fell over from a sudden feeling of dizziness. She put her hand to her eyes and reached out to steady herself, but touched something hot. She opened her eyes and looked at the oven and conveyor belt next to her. There was something stuck in the oven door and it was burning with a horrible stench and clouds of black smoke as its skin blackened and bubbled under the flames shooting out from the half-open oven door.
Those are legs, Jennifer realized. She backed away nauseous at
the sight. She turned around. Her mother was behind her, naked and strapped to a leather reclining chair, her legs outstretched, her feet tied to metal stirrups. Her head was moving back and forth and her eyes were blinking.
Gasping, Jennifer saw her brother lying broken and bloody on the metal table to the right of his mother. He was naked, too, and looked to be in terrible shape, but Jennifer ran to her mother's side first, and began undoing the straps.
Jennifer had no immediate recollection of what had gone on in the crematorium, but she did know that she had to get her mother out of there. For some reason, that was the most important thing she had to do. It didn't matter how hurt Jackie was, even if he was dying, Jennifer had to get her mother and the baby to safety.
As Jennifer undid the leather thongs holding her mother to the chair, her mother moaned, and a gush of brown, fishysmelling fluid came from between her legs.
Jackie was drifting, losing sight of the room every few minutes, then slipping back into it again. Every time he did, he looked at the smoking, burning flesh of the witch still stuck in the oven to be sure she was really dead. Her legs were blackening, torched by the flames still shooting out through the billows of black smoke from under the half open iron door. Only her ankles and the soles of her feet remained white. Her calves were bright red and covered with blisters. Her blackened thighs and buttocks had cracked open. Melting fat ran through the fissures and sizzled as it dripped from her body.
She was really, really, most sincerely dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead Meat! The last thought sobered Jackie's joy as he drifted on the edges of reality. He had seen too much Dead Meat this day. With all that had happened, he thought it might have been better if the witch had killed him first so that he wouldn't have to live the rest of his life with the terror of her inside him. He knew that if he lived, and that prospect was getting dimmer as he began to find himself drifting on the ceiling for seconds at a time, he'd never forget this; it would haunt his life forever.
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