I raised a hand. “Wait … this house is … what? A brick and mortar peep show into eternal damnation?”
Nebelia’s eyes were like liquid smoke and they bored into me like a dentist’s drill. I avoided her gaze thinking she’d get into my head somehow and that seemed to tick the fallen angel off even more. She clothes lined me, sending my host careening across the kitchen floor and into a wall of cabinets. Glassware and plates fell from the shelves, shattering into hundreds of shards that scattered across the linoleum.
And, yet again, Nebelia grabbed my ankle. She dragged me across the broken glass and ceramic carpet I’d just created only seconds ago. Shards of glass cut into my coat. The back of my neck and head bounced across the floor leaving a spattering of blood every which way.
Another big bump and she dropped my leg. Once more, an invisible force lifted me off the floor and pushed me against a pane of glass that should have looked out onto the street. Instead I had a front row seat to a man laying in a hospital bed. Clear tubes and electrical wires were attached to his body as high-tech machines that monitored his every breath. He was close to his end.
Where were his children? His extended family? The man was of advanced age, unless he was a monk or gay, he’d have had some relatives, somewhere. He stared up at the ceiling and I watched as a tear fell from the corner of his right eye, dribbling down his bony cheek and dripping onto the bedsheet.
“Nobody came,” he whispered with his dying breath. A monitor showed a flat red line as a deafening beep filled the room.
A nurse rushed in and flipped a switch, turning off the machine, deafening beep and all.
I pulled away from the window. “A lonely old man who died by himself. No family. Nothing. Damn, that’s rough.”
Nebelia grinned. “It is of his own creation. It begins again in about a minute or so.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re serious?”
The fallen angel shrugged. “As I said, death-dealer. Hell is of one’s own design. That pathetic old man is cursed to relive his dying moment for all eternity. Forced to spend his final few seconds knowing he was cast off by his children. No friends. Nobody to comfort. Nobody to mourn after he’s gone. It is quite terrible and somehow fitting.”
“Unreal,” I whispered.
I’d never glimpsed the hereafter from either side; heaven or hell. Until this moment. It had never occurred to me that I should be in the least bit interested in the great beyond because I would never see the place. I was as soulless as those creatures I hunted. I was just a small part in a great big machine that churned out birth, life, death, judgement, punishment or reward. I had seen countless hellish scenes of death and dismemberment throughout human history. I shouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about what I was seeing, but strangely, I did.
“This house is but a mere vessel for communicating what comes to all mortals. said Nebelia. “And you were probably expecting hell fire and brimstone. Typical.”
I nodded. “Well, yeah. That’s what they all say about hell; their preachers. Through the ages, the same thing: burning forever in a sea of fire. Eternal torment. Pitchforks and devils with pointy tails.”
Nebelia folded her claws serenely in front of her breasts. “Stupid humankind doesn’t realize they are being controlled. Churches paint the most vivid picture of damnation which terrifies the flock into submission.”
“So, what is hell?”
She leaned forward and lifted my aching chin with a long sharp claw. “Hell is what each human fears the most. It is the torment they’ve buried in their hearts all their lives. At the end. For all time.”
“Yep, that’s about as awful as I can imagine,” I said as I picked flecks of glass out of the back of my neck. “This house is a view portal into hell. Got it. So, yeah, way past my pay grade. I’d just like to head on out of here but … aw shit.”
“What?” the fallen angel threw me a confused look.
I exhaled shakily as a wave of nausea splashed through my stomach. “Just one question: why is there a view portal into hell shaped like a fifty-year-old brick two storey family home in the rough part of Sudbury?
Nebelia waved a dismissive hand. “In order to answer that question, there is one final window for you to look out on. It looks into the future … someone you know but have not yet met.”
I wasn’t expecting that. A light at the end of the tunnel. If there was someone in my future I was supposed to meet, it meant I was going to make it out of this thing intact.
“How does that work?” I said after a moment. “I thought these visions of hell were live broadcasts or something?”
She motioned for me to follow, so, I limped along as we headed up the stairs.
“Time does not exist.” she hissed. “We are always and forever in the moment we are in. But His most precious creation loves to keep track of things, so they created what you see as time. Those like us don’t experience time. We see what has happened and what will happen.”
“Perfect … DAMN!” I yelped as a tremor of pain shot up the right side of my body. My broken ribs cut into my flesh with each step I took.
We wandered down a narrow hallway to a bedroom with a picture window. Nebelia waved me forward and I quickly limped to the glass. I gazed out to see a burning cityscape with pillars of smoke that towered high into a crimson sky. Two enormous suspension bridges dripped molten metal into a harbor whose waters churned and roiled amid a fiery wind.
The stench of burning feces and sulfur filled my nostrils. I gagged as the scene shifted to a smoldering hill overlooking the harbor entrance. Ships of every shape and description dotted the churning waters and each was burning uncontrollably. The air filled with the terrified screams of tormented souls. Their despair bore down on me as the sky filled suddenly filled with an oppressive weight that made me want to crawl underneath a boulder to hide from it.
And at the top of a hill I spotted a lone female figure with her knees drawn up to her chest. She rocked her body back and forth on a carpet of crushed bones while a trio of hellish creatures took turns shrieking and hurling abuse. The word TRUST was tattooed on one of the monsters in hellion script that glowed brightly amid the gloom. SHAME and BETRAYAL were tattooed on the other two imps who each took turns punching and kicking at her.
“Don’t know her, obviously, I said. “What did she do?”
“Oh … something quite terrible that I cannot speak of,” said Nebelia. “But you will find out in forty or fifty years. That woman has not yet been born.”
The tormented soul raised her head. She blinked a few times and looked straight back at me. What happened next sent me reeling.
“I fucking see you, Reaper!” she roared as she threw an accusing finger my way. “You did this to me! You made me fucking choose! You damned my soul you bastard!”
Nebelia quickly closed the drapes. “Fascinating that despite her pain and torment, she could see you gazing up at her. She knows you. That is most interesting, don’t you think?”
“She knows me by name. Shit.”
The fallen angel nodded. “Yes, she does. She must be someone very special or precious or whatever silly emotions human beings cleave to. Yet you are not human, and these childish sentiments mean nothing to elementals such as us.”
I opened the curtain again and saw the poor woman had resumed her position seated on the carpet of crushed bones with her knees drawn to her chest. Her tormenters continued hurling abuse; each corrosive word lashed at her skin and burned like acid, but she didn’t cry out.
None of this made any sense. My evening started with my tailing a soulless killer. I’d fully intended to take him out of the picture before he took anyone else out of the picture. Then I learned that he had a pair of soulless buddies. I was duped into believing the girl in cutoff jeans was their next victim; the shovels and bags of lime sure convinced me. The girl turns out to be a fallen angel and I was getting a guided tour through a house that gave people the ability to see into hell.
“The
re aren’t any dead girls, are there?” I asked
Nebelia threw me a crooked grin. “Not today.”
“And the three soulless creeps? What was that about?”
“To parley. We know what you are, and we know what you do in your spare time. The soulless creeps as you call them, are our property. We are forbidden at this time to take direct action against you but that doesn’t mean we cannot use other means to warn you away. Temptation is, after all, our forte.”
I spat a gob of blood onto the floor and threw the fallen angel a weary look. “So … you basically beat the living shit out of me and then gave me glimpses into different kinds of hells only to finish my showing me the tormented soul of a woman I haven’t met yet because she isn’t even born?”
“I had hoped that you would stop killing our livestock in exchange for the woman’s soul,” Nebelia said flatly. “She knows your name and that means she is central to what you are meant to do.”
I blinked. Hard. “What I’m meant to do is get out of this shitty house and away from fallen angels. Sound good?”
“Not even close,” Nebelia rumbled angrily.
I pointed to the window. “I can’t bargain for her soul because I don’t know enough about whatever terrible choice she made even if it involves me. I’m practical that way. See, one thing you fallen angels don’t know about yours truly is that I can be just as amoral as you can be. We are, after all, elementals. I’m willing to bargain that you’re going to spare her soul because you’re just realizing now that I don’t give a shit enough about her to offer her any kind of help. Sue me. I’m an asshole.”
I turned and began hobbling down the hallway to the stairs. Another bad move on my part. Never turn your back on a ticked off fallen angel.
“I WILL DO ONE THING DEATH-DEALER!” The walls shook at the sound of her voice. I tumbled forward as Nebelia crashed into my already battered ribs. She sat on my chest and placed her slimy claw-like hands on my face.
“What’s that?”
“WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW!” she bellowed as we lifted off the floor. The house dissolved into shadows and I found myself laying on the grass of a schoolyard. I coughed as I tried to move. Blood filled my mouth as I looked around for the fallen angel, but she was gone.
I spat a mouthful of blood onto the grass and dug my fingers into the turf. I reached out with my essence; latching onto the living energy in the earth. Healing power flowed into my body. I could feel my host’s bones knitting together. The stabbing pain in my chest stopped as my cuts and bruises began to heal. It took about five minutes in total.
I stood up and gazed out at the schoolyard to see the grass had all died and turned into ash. Whatever trees had the misfortune of growing in the vicinity resembled chalky white skeletons that seemed to glow in the darkness.
I ran away from the school and dashed onto the street to get my bearings and saw that I was at the top of Kathleen Street looking back down onto the Donavon. I gazed down at my clothes and saw they were torn and covered with blood, I’d need a change of clothes before someone spotted me and it was at that moment, I noticed a red Buick rolling up Frood Road.
I glanced down at my bloody clothes one more time. I exhaled heavily and looked around for a car to steal. It took about three seconds for me to decide that shiny new Honda Civic about twelve feet away from me would do just fine.
“The hell with it,” said, heading to the compact car. “I can get a new wardrobe later.”
I might just have condemned a woman to hell in about forty or so years. Then again, maybe not. Fallen angels are the masters of lies though I did believe Nebelia’s claim that all this was about my hobby of killing the killers. It seemed a pretty elaborate way for the Fallen to grab my attention but then again, fallen angels love to put on a show.
I caught up to the Buick after a twenty-minute chase that look us to the outskirts of town. Not much effort on my part, really. The Buick ran out of gas while the peppy little Honda Civic I’d stolen still had half a tank. I put him down along with his soulless buddy in the trunk and lit the car on fire.
As I drove away in the Honda, I glanced through the rear-view mirror to see the glowing skies of Copper Cliff in the distance. I decided to leave town and I went back to my room at the Driftwood Inn to collect my guns. I tossed them into the hatch at the back of the little car and climbed behind the wheel.
Maybe I’d head out west. I’d heard that Calgary was booming. Maybe they needed some guys to drill for oil.
My name is Tim Reaper. I go by Reg Dumont these days, but for how much longer is anyone’s guess. I’m on a fallen angel’s shit list now. Things are about to get interesting.
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Chapter 1
1919
It is a terrible thing to watch a child die. It is worse still when you carry the secret knowledge that a child’s death is your fault.
I observed the scene around the little boy’s bedside. It should have been easy for me as I had witnessed the conclusion of a life lived countless times in the past. This particular scene should have been no different than what happened in millions of hospitals and homes around the globe at all hours, every day and night. The dying time; a unit measured by fever and failing organs and seemingly endless final moments, each attuned to a fate set out by powers greater than mine from the moment of birth.
The grieving parents wore linen face masks as they hovered over the dying child whose face resembled some ghastly china doll. He might as well have been made of porcelain, because the flu hit hard and fast, smashing its way through his immune system, shattering any hope of a future into a million tiny shards. He was only nine years old, and his body betrayed him. Disease kicked his hopes and dreams to the gutter. It stabbed his mother in the abdomen, in the very womb from which he emerged only nine short years ago, and she would never be the same. She would blame herself until the day one of my kind comes to claim her. The loss of her only child would poison her mind, her life, and her marriage until such a point her husband leaves her for another less guilt-ridden woman because that is how this particular grieving family would play itself out.
I caused this.
These final seconds, like countless others occurring at the same moment only divided by human constructs like time and faith, is overseen by those who facilitate the natural order of things. Like me, we passively watch life’s end unfold until our shadow-like hands gently brush the collective faces of our intended and we whisper the words of timeless, ageless and limitless ending.
“Come with me,” I whispered in the little boy’s ear as I brushed against his clammy cheek.
He let out a sudden sharp gasp; a gulp of air from a drowning soul. A full life was his birthright, and I took it from him. I snatched it away. He emitted a last desperate breath and then my intended slowly exhaled; that final breath leaving his lungs like the air being slowly released from a balloon. His heart stopped beating within a microsecond, and that’s when tears began to flow.
This was the start of my punishment. The little boy was to be the last soul I would ever claim. There must have been some symbolism in it having been a child, though I didn’t have a freaking clue what meaning could ever be drawn from what I had just done.
His lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling; they looked through it. And it was in the very next moment I felt his soul emerge from the same body that once skated on the frozen edges of the lake with his pals. The child’s mother let out a haunted, painful wail as she drove her face into her dead child’s now motionless chest and sobbed.
The flickering image of the boy stood before his mother and reached out to her; his near translucent hand passing through her flesh. The Angel of Death and Transformation appeared a second or so later – a rarity because he never showed up at death side, that’s always a reaper’s job. He fired a contemptuous glare my way and then his features softened as he knelt before th
e visage of the dead boy.
“Take my hand, child,” Ezekiel said in a voice so filled with a tenderness I couldn’t believe this was the same Holy being that unleashed hell on earth in Egypt nearly three thousand years ago.
The boy reached out, and the moment his hand touched Ezekiel’s, Holy light filled the room. A host of angels sang His praise and the light diminished until there was only a crying mother hugging her dead child’s body as the grief-stricken father looked on.
I created the cataclysm that unleashed death on a scale not seen since the Middle Ages. It had been grinding at me for the last dozen souls I’d claimed: why must anyone die when death itself tears apart those who are left behind? My role had always been clear — I understood the natural order of things, and for millennia, I never questioned it. Doubts crept in like a winter chill seeping in through the cracks in a wall. There was something about claiming the souls of children that always haunted me. This one certainly wasn’t the first child I’d taken. With each dying child I encountered, I noticed they more than anyone else fought hardest right up until their last breaths. And it bothered me to see the end of innocence when so many I’d claimed as far from innocent as you can get. It angered me. It was unjust.
And that’s so completely unlike me.
No, seriously.
I’ve waited passively while a madman walked into a shipping office in London with a shotgun and two revolvers, blasting away at anything that moved. He killed eight people and me? I just observed the proceedings, oblivious the horrifying carnage. And the worst part? I wasn’t there to claim any of the eight victims; he was for me. It was my job to claim the crazy person the moment he fired both barrels straight into his mouth. There were eight other death dealers milling about, each assigned to claim the souls of his victim – they too were as oblivious as me.
That’s how it worked, by the way.
Hell House: A Tim Reaper Story Page 3