by Brian Keene
Roy wants to make a joke. He wants to tell her that maybe she should switch over to writing garishly-covered horror novels instead, but when he opens his mouth to speak, all that escapes is a low sigh.
“No offense, Roy, but do your job. If hopelessness and betrayal and terror are all you know now, then let yourself feel them. More importantly, let your world feel them. You’re an artist. Make art. The laptop screen is your canvas. If that doesn’t work, then try a new form of canvas. But it’s time for you to start telling the truth again.”
Roy nods, still unable to speak. The waitress gives him a sad smile and then walks away.
He sits there, head hung low, staring at the table. He doesn’t look up again until Marsha brings him his meal. It occurs to him to ask about the other waitress but he still doesn’t trust himself to speak.
He eats slowly, considering what she’s said. Marsha brings him his check, which he pays, leaving a thirty percent tip. Then he leaves, and heads back to his car.
A few minutes later, Roy opens the door to his apartment. He sees the couch and the coffee table that his girlfriend left behind. He sees the worn, brown carpet that was new decades ago when this apartment complex was built. The kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures are just as dated. The blinds over the windows are new, but only because Roy bought them himself when he first moved in. Everything else in the apartment is either broken or failing. The windows are drafty, the water pressure sucks, the bathroom mirror is cracked, the molding around the front door is loose, and the heating takes forever to warm the place. The chipped paint on the walls is a dingy shade of cream, and is about twelve coats thick. If you look closely at the walls you can see hair and dirt embedded in the previous layers of paint, and poorly patched nail holes left over from previous tenants.
Before today’s lunch, the decrepitude deepened his depression. Now, it inspires him.
Roy scans the living room, looking at his possessions. A plasma television which is only four years old and already shows ghost images in the upper right hand corner. A DVD player that was new back when most people still bought videotapes. A few framed photographs of people he no longer feels anything for. And books. Six cheap pressboard bookshelves bought at Walmart and put together over a long, frustrating weekend, crammed with over two-thousand paperbacks, hardcovers, first editions, and signed limited edition collectibles.
In the bedroom, there are six more shelves, also stuffed with books, but these are all ones that have been written by Roy, along with magazines, anthologies, and other outlets that have featured his work. The bedroom also has a cheap pressboard desk (purchased the same weekend he bought the shelves). His laptop and printer occupy the desk, along with stacks of miscellaneous papers receipts and dirty coffee cups. The laptop is on its last leg. It takes forever to start, and the battery only lasts a few minutes when it’s not plugged in, and the question mark key doesn’t work. Anytime Roy wants to type a question mark into a manuscript he’s working on, he has to open Google, find an image of a question mark, and then copy and paste it into the document. Luckily, due to the writer’s block, he hasn’t used the laptop much in the past year. The bedroom also has a bed, and next to that, a rifle cabinet, containing the various firearms he used when he was still an avid hunter. He hasn’t gone much in the last five years. As he gets older, the cold bothers Roy more and more. But he still has all the guns.
Roy realizes that the only things of value that he owns are the books and the firearms. Everything else is shit. The police will probably take the guns as evidence later, but what of the books? They’ll probably be unceremoniously tossed in the dumpsters by the apartment complex management. He’s seen this happen before, almost on a weekly basis. Someone doesn’t pay rent, the sheriff puts a notice on their apartment door, and they abscond in the night, leaving behind their belongings, which management then tosses in the dumpsters. He’s seen furniture, bedding, toys, and even electronics equipment thrown away in such a manner, and has also seen his neighbors dumpster diving for it all after management has left. He thinks about his books filling up a dumpster, and the illiterate tenants picking through them, looking for DVDs or videogames because who the hell reads anymore? For a brief moment, this image is almost enough to make Roy reconsider his decision.
But then, shrugging, he walks into the bedroom, opens his rifle cabinet, and takes out an AR-15 rifle and a .357 handgun.
Nobody reads anymore.
His muse was right. He needs to reflect and communicate the horrors of the world around him.
The restaurant will be his first new canvas and he will paint it red.
As he drives toward it, Roy hopes the other patrons will still be there.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Michaels didn’t answer. He, Adam, and Terrell were hunkered down in an alley behind a stack of corpses. Raw sewage bubbled up from the cracked pavement, soaking their knees and feet with filth. The black sky boiled and spit. Instead of hail, decapitated heads fell from the clouds. Michaels hoped the storm would end soon. He much preferred rains of blood or shit—they didn’t hurt when they struck you.
Terrell tapped Adam on the shoulder.
“What?” Adam whispered.
“Check this out.”
Terrell buried his face between the rotting breasts of a particularly obese corpse and made motorboat sounds. The mounds of flesh jiggled, disturbing a nest of beetles that had burrowed inside them. Terrell came up for air and picked insects and decaying flesh from his chin. He and Adam giggled.
Ignoring them, Michaels peeked over the carrion pile and stared at the barracks. Nothing had changed. Two Ushers still stood out front, guarding the door. Their chisel-slit eyes remained alert, and their nostrils flared. They did not move. Shivering, Michaels ducked down again and glared at Adam.
“What did you ask me?”
Adam repeated it. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“The worst thing I ever did was let you assholes talk me into doing this.”
Terrell grinned. It was not a flattering look for him. Every day, the Mephistopolis blossomed with new diseases, and Terrell always caught them. It had been the same way when he was alive. Any time a new venereal disease came along, Terrell got it. As above, so below. This week, the flesh was sloughing off his face in waxy, glistening sheets.
“Come on, Michaels,” he slurred. “You want out of here as bad as we do. So don’t even front.”
“Of course I do. But there’s got to be a better way.”
Even as he said it, Michaels knew it wasn’t true. This was the only way, unless they wanted to wait for another Deadpass to open somewhere else. Who knew how long that could take? A week, a decade, an eternity? Of course, here in Hell, every day was an eternity. Terrified as he was, Michaels knew this was their only shot at escaping—right through the very bowels of Hell—into the House of Ushers. Deadpasses—holes between the living world and the Hellplanes—were few and far between. The only other ways out were through the Labyrinth, ascendancy to demon-hood, or divine intervention. As slim as the chances were of finding another Deadpass, those options were even less viable. Adam’s plan was their only opportunity to escape.
A head splattered against the pavement, showering them with brains and interrupting Michaels’s thoughts.
“Seriously,” Adam asked a third time. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Humor me.”
Michaels sighed. “First of all, you’re ripping off Peter Straub. That’s the opening sentence to Ghost Story. You’re a writer. That’s theft—a sin.”
Adam shrugged. “Have you taken a look around? Given our current situation, I don’t think that matters. It’s one small sin among a sea of great ones. The end result is the same. And you’re right. It is the opening sentence to Ghost Story. But it’s a good sentence. It has presence and weight. It fucking resonates, man. If you hit it with a hammer, you’d hear a resounding gong. So I’m stealing it.”
; Michaels grinned. “Is that the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“No...”
Adam fell silent, suddenly afraid. Each man felt it. In Hell, the obsidian sky never changed. There were no moons or sun. Daylight was a memory from their previous existence. But now, against that churning blackness, a shadow soared overhead—predatory and horrifying. For something to inspire fear in this place, it had to be exceptional, and the shadow was. It glided over the city, blotting out the falling heads.
A dead cat hissed at the far end of the alley. The cat had seen better days. Apparently, it had been mummified at some point during its existence. Dirty, tattered bandages hung from its skeletal frame. Without warning, the shadow swept down from the sky. It made no sound as it attacked. Something black and shapeless seized the howling cat and the shadow took flight again, leaving coldness in its wake.
All three men shivered.
“Yo,” Terrell whispered, “we can’t keep hiding behind this pile of dead bodies. If that thing—whatever it was—don’t get us, then the damn garbage trolls will.”
“He’s right,” Michaels said. “They’ll be along to load these corpses into a Meat Truck any time now.”
Terrell nodded. “We need to get the fuck inside those barracks.”
“Not yet,” Adam cautioned. “We can’t do shit until they send a squad out. If we go in there before the Ushers leave, we’ll be outnumbered—toast.”
Three more heads exploded across the pavement. Michaels wished for an umbrella.
“We’re going to be toast anyway,” he said. “So why don’t you fucking answer your own question while we wait, Adam? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
Adam paused. When he spoke again, they had to strain to hear him over the constant wails of the damned. His eyes were wet and red.
“I killed my wife. She was pregnant. The kid...wasn’t mine. I lost my mind. Made it look like an accident, pushed her out of the attic window. That’s what got me here.”
“Jesus Christ...”
Terrell flinched. “Michaels! You know you ain’t supposed to say that name here. The fuck is wrong with you? Want to lead them right to us? You’ll bring all of Hell down on us.”
“Sorry.”
Adam wiped away his tears. “How about you guys? What did you do to wind up here?”
“I shot a baby,” Terrell said. “My crew was at the zoo, tracking down this bitch that ripped us off. Found her with this baby. Boss-man told me to shoot the baby. I hesitated, but you know how it is. Peer pressure and shit. If I hadn’t done it, that would have been it for my ass. So I did. And then the bitch we were chasing shot me and I woke up here.”
Michaels shook his head, disgusted and speechless.
“What?” Terrell glared at him. “You too good to be here, Michaels? You an innocent man? You here by mistake?”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Michaels said, “but it’s certainly not because I killed somebody. I just lived my life. I’m not an evil person.”
Adam started to respond, but a wailing siren cut him off. All three men risked another peek at the Usher barracks. Red lights flashed inside as the alarm continued to blare. Sulfurous smoke belched from the tall, crooked chimney on top of the building. In the alley, the pavement rumbled beneath their feet.
Michaels gasped. “Feel that?”
“Fuck,” Terrell whispered, “it’s a stampede.”
“It’s not a stampede,” Adam said. “It’s our chance. Cross your fingers.”
Frightened, Terrell grabbed Michaels’s hand and squeezed. Michaels returned the gesture. Terrell’s ulcerated skin burst, squirting pus between Michaels’s fingers, but Michaels didn’t mind. In truth, he barely noticed. His attention was focused on the House of Ushers. Even though he didn’t need to anymore, he forgot to breathe.
Adam leaned forward, watching intently. “Here we go. They’re sending out a squad. Soon as they leave, the barracks will be empty—just a few Ushers and a skeleton crew. All we have to do is make it past them, find the basement, and go through the Deadpass. Then we’re home free.”
Michaels rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, no problem—easy as pie.”
“Do you want to back out? Because now is the time.”
“No. But these are fucking Ushers, Adam. They fuck and they kill and they fuck what they kill. That’s what they’re bred for—pain and mutilation and rape. It’s like trying to kill a bull with a toothpick.”
Adam shook his head. “They’re not invincible.”
“Shit,” Terrell said, “they’re damn close. Can’t kill the fuckers on Earth.”
“No, we can’t,” Adam agreed, “but we can kill them here. Ushers can die in Hell. Blow their heads off, chop them up, cut out their hearts—and the benevolent damned can cast spells on them here, too.”
“Except,” Michaels reminded him, “none of us are benevolent damned.”
“No,” Adam said, “we aren’t. But we do have weapons. And they’ll work.”
“They better,” Terrell said. “I had to suck the pus out of a thousand infected clits just to score these things.”
“You’d have done that anyway.”
“Fuck you, Adam. I didn’t like eating pussy when I was alive, and I sure as shit don’t like it now.”
Ignoring him, Adam lifted the legs of a corpse and pulled out a large sack. He’d stashed it beneath the bodies when they arrived, safeguarding it from discovery in case they were captured. He opened the sack and reached inside. Michaels and Terrell crowded around him. The first thing Adam pulled out was a sword. The blade was long and thin and very sharp—forged in the Mephistopolis. The metal held a reddish tint, and glinted in the firelight. The hilt was fashioned to depict a mockery of the crucifixion; Christ hung upside down, nailed through the eyes as well as the wrists and feet, his face leering with a madman’s grin, his penis replaced with a crude gaping vagina. Michaels shuddered as he accepted the weapon from Adam. It felt unclean.
Adam produced a second weapon from the sack; a pistol, remarkably similar to a Wilson Combat 1911, but it was manufactured from the black bones of a Great Wyrm. The magazine held ghoul talons instead of bullets. The deadly projectiles had hollow centers, and each one contained a corrosive, acidic center. Terrell held the pistol sideways, so that the sights were pointing to the left.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” He nodded in satisfaction.
“You’re holding it wrong,” Michaels told him.
“That’s how they do it in the movies.”
“Fire it like that and the acid’s gonna splash back on you.”
“Shit.” Terrell sneered, and more of his face fell off. “Ain’t no brass flying out of this thing. Acid gonna go out the front. And besides, you see my motherfucking skin? Acid burns would be an improvement on that shit.”
Michaels shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Adam pulled out a collapsible shotgun, the twin-barrels folded over the stock. He snapped it into place and locked the hinge with a cotter pin carved from the fang of a Vamphyr. Then he reached into his coat pocket and smiled.
“What kind of ammo does that thing take?” Terrell asked.
Still smiling, Adam pulled his hand from his pocket and opened his fingers. Rough lumps of melted silver lay in his palm. Michaels and Terrell both gasped in surprise. Adam dropped the loads down both barrels.
“Yo,” Terrell asked, “where the fuck did you get silver?”
“You don’t want to know. Let’s just say I paid a price and leave it at that.”
Michaels studied the weapon. “How’s it going to fire? Don’t you need some kind of primer or powder?”
“Nope,” Adam said. “Trust me, it’ll work just fine. Remember that angel they captured last month? Before it died, I snuck into the dungeons and had the angel bless the shotgun. It shoots spells, and never runs out of ammo. The silver is just an extra measure.”
Michaels whistled with appreciation. “You thought ahead.”
&n
bsp; “That’s right,” Adam said. “Every step of the way. Soon as I found out there was a Deadpass inside the House of Ushers’ basement, I started planning. So relax. I’m telling you, this will work.”
“It better.”
“What you got back on Earth, anyway?” Terrell asked. “What’s so important, Michaels?”
“You mean escaping from Hell isn’t reason enough?”
“For me and Adam, sure. But you’re different. Could be you don’t belong here, like you say. But whether you do or don’t, I ain’t never met a man that wanted out of here more than you do. I can tell. I read people like books.”
“Is that so?” Michaels raised his middle finger. “Here. Can you read sign language?”
The barracks’ doors flew open and an Usher battalion poured out into the street. Adam, Terrell, and Michaels hugged the pavement, biting their lips and praying to the God who’d condemned them here that they wouldn’t be spotted. The Ushers were dressed for urban riot control—studded leather armor with blood-stained, razor-sharp spikes and edges; great, curved weapons with sigils etched into the blades; firearms that could disintegrate a body with one fiery blast; massive clubs that could pulp the heads of a dozen men with one blow. But the armament was more for psychological use than practical. The Ushers didn’t even need it. Their inhuman design was one of Hell’s most enduring and efficient legacies. An Usher’s claws could rend steel and their jaws and teeth were powerful enough to chew through bedrock. They would lay waste at random, decimating a city block and slaying all who dwelled there. They would rape, dismember, torture, and kill—then do it all over again to anything that was left, regardless of whether it was still recognizable or even intact, all in the name of civil obedience and of keeping the populace on its toes.
All to retain the status quo.
Trembling, Michaels dared to peek over the corpses and watched the battalion march out of sight. The Ushers moved like a column of ants. There were hundreds of them and their stench was terrible. Cloven feet pounded the pavement. The buildings swayed from the vibration. The damned stopped wailing, terrified into silence.