Highway To Hell

by Alex Laybourne

  Marcus retched from the memory, while the sight of the thousands of pairs of tiny legs that jutted from creature’s black pulsating underbelly was too much for him, and he vomited. The roach’s legs seemed to wave at him; they beckoned him towards them… hug me, they screamed.

  Young Marcus felt the bug trying to crawl down his throat: his mouth was closed, so there was no other way for the creature to go. Coughing and spitting, Marcus tried to empty his mouth, but the roach held firm. Marcus threw the bedcovers aside. The bed was infested with roaches, ranging in size from that of a ladybug to the size of a grown man’s fist. They charged towards him like a flood, covering Marcus’s legs in a rolling sea of hazel brown bodies and black antennae. He thrashed with his legs, and while bugs fell to the floor, the covering never seemed to lessen; it was as though his lower body was in fact comprised of them. He began to hyperventilate, and in doing so he managed to suck four or five – he wasn’t sure of the exact number – roaches into his mouth before they were subsequently swallowed. Marcus had heard the stories of cockroaches being able to survive a nuclear blast, and for months afterwards he couldn’t help but wonder: had they died or merely found a warm place to sleep?

  His screams had woken his parents, and they came running. His mother had fainted when she caught sight of all the bugs, while his father, ever the calm and deliberate man, had swept Marcus up and charged out of the house with him. They drove home that night and never went back to those woods again. The nightmares haunted Marcus the rest of his life. At least once a month he would wake up, his skin soaked with sweat, his legs and mouth itching from the delicate patter of their feet, acid burning in the pit of his stomach. A small part of him always believed those swallowed beasts had survived.

  Marcus looked around, desperate to avoid any eye contact with the large cockroach beast, yet he was drawn to it like a moth to the flame. The beast seemed to recognize this and stood still. Even its legs seeming to have frozen, allowing Marcus to get a good look.

  “Are you ready to be judged, maggot?” the creature asked. All the previous niceties – and it was a stretch to call the previous voice that – were gone.

  Marcus’s eyes reached the head and he shut them just before the image you hit his brain. When he opened them, he didn’t see a hideous half-insect creature like something out of a David Cronenburg movie, but something much worse. The image developed like a Polaroid picture: it took a few seconds for Marcus’s brain to assemble everything to create the image. It wasn’t a bug’s face, but a human’s. A woman’s, with creamy white skin and long black hair, and eyes a sparkling emerald green, shielded by long eyelashes, with a delicate nose, albeit one refined by a surgeon’s hand rather than that of God.

  “Melanie,” Marcus croaked, his voice a broken whisper.

  “Oh, how sweet, you remember me. How are you, Marcus? It’s been a while,” the once athletic bodied college student said.

  “What are you doing? Just let me go,” Marcus demanded, seeming to find his strength now that he knew his captor.

  “You still don’t get it, do you? Still the same stubborn old Marcus. You’re dead, champ. Died on the streets, don’t you remember? You couldn’t save the girl either. Such a shame.” The roach creature shook its human head. With every flicked lock there was a whip-like crack followed by a bright orange flame which erupted from the tip.

  Marcus looked down and saw blood flowing from his stomach. A wound glowed a bright orange like the embers of a dying fire. Everything then fell into place. The events appeared before his eyes, playing out in his head like a silent movie, only every line of text that came onto the screen was the same phonetically spelt cry. The words (Young Infant) in brackets each time told Marcus all he needed to know.

  “So once again you are the Devil that comes into my life, hey, Mel?” He looked at the beast puzzlingly, eyes searching for something. He fought the rather absurd notion to smile and won.

  “Don’t be foolish; I’m no Devil. I am what you want to see, what your soul has deemed to be your punisher. In actuality I am just a humble chamber guardian, here to ensure you see your past and are ready for judgment.”

  The creature took a scuttling step to one side.

  A hole appeared in the solid rock. Blood swirled in the opening. A whirling crimson vortex, suspended as if awaiting a command to move. It began to separate, beginning with a small circle in the center, which expanded, the blood not falling away or lessening, but merely pulling back like a curtain to reveal a play already in motion.

  “You have sinned, my shadow warrior. You have known the carnal pleasures of a woman outside of your matrimonial bed. Sinners must face their punishment. Stand up for their crimes, face their victims and let them know the truth. Let them know exactly what has happened. Only then can you hope to avoid punishment.” The voice grew in volume and lowered in pitch until every trace of femininity was gone.

  “I don’t understand,” Marcus said, his head beginning to spin. He felt woozy, as if someone had spiked his drink. His eyes were drawn to the opening; it held him in a trance with a silent promise of knowledge, of answers.

  The roach continued to speak as if it hadn’t heard him. “Sinners will be punished, not before God, but before the Justice Courts of the Netherworld. The kings will decide your fate. So look upon your carnage. Look as the damage your loins have caused is brought forth. Your time is at hand. How much blood do you wish to shed to hide who you are?”

  Beyond the creature, the doorway or portal, for that was how Marcus saw it, had opened completely. He looked through and into another time, another place, but one he remembered as if it was only yesterday. He had just finished training, a particularly grueling session that had seen him knock out two sparring partners in successive rounds.

  On the other side of the blood window Marcus was busy training for the Whitmore fight, a seasoned fighter who had only ever been beaten once, early on in his career when, much like Marcus, he had been bullheaded and cocksure. It was the fight that was to put Marcus’s name on the map. He was still somewhat of an unknown, and in the eyes of the Whitmore camp Marcus was nothing but a moving target for their man.

  Marcus had had other ideas.

  He had trained harder for that fight that he did for any other fight. Brutal training sessions, late night runs; midnight runs and protein shakes, early morning runs and full-time training sessions on top of that. It was all back in the days before sports nutrition became a topic studied by the masses. He had won the fight inside of three rounds, knocking his opponent out with a series of powerful body shots followed by a big right hook to an unguarded chin. By current standards the fight would have been stopped in the second round after Marcus split open Whitmore’s left eyebrow.

  Silence filled both worlds. Marcus watched on, his emotions drained because he knew what came next. He realized then what he was meant to see. It was her: the woman whose head was now stuck on the body of a cockroach.

  Marcus looked around. The referee stood between him and his slain opponent. The crowd was on their feet. All of them roaring for the upset that none had even contemplated. All around them flashbulbs exploded in dizzying stars of bright white light, forever capturing a piece of sporting history no matter how trivial in the grand history of the chosen sport. The sound came back to his world and with it so she entered. Rising into the ring as if summoned, called out as an offering to him, the barbarian warrior – as became his boxing name.

  “Melanie,” Marcus said from within the chamber, and was rewarded with a blow across the back which felt as though it had been delivered by a baseball bat. Marcus grunted. His mouth clamped shut to hold back the scream. Meanwhile, the picture played on. Marcus saw his hand raised in victory. And there it was: the moment that began it all. Melanie, who at the time had been a college student who looked to earn some extra cash being a ring girl at any local fight, held his other hand aloft and whispered in his ear, “Congratulations. I wonder, do you fuck as hard as you fight?” The words ha
d been coarse and raw, unexpected given her sweet face. Melanie had had the kind of face a thousand men had fallen in love with at first glance. She was tall, her skin was tanned, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty; the same age as Marcus, who even then looked older than he was.

  Marcus turned his head to look at her. She wore a pink bikini, the top of which pushed up her chest, maximizing her cleavage, and her nipples were a teasing swell beneath the fabric, while the bottoms showed her natural curves and smooth skin. Yet above it all, her emerald green eyes were what held Marcus captive.

  “Why are you showing me this? It was a long time ago, come on Mela- whoever you are.”

  Marcus was ashamed of his past, but then again he didn’t know anybody who wasn’t ashamed of something. Everybody has a skeleton hanging in their closet somewhere.

  “Where were your wife and kids here?” the voice asked. “Where were they and what did you tell me?” the Melanie-roach asked, ignoring Marcus’s query.

  “I wasn’t married back then. If you were Melanie you would have known that.” He paused.

  “Where was your soon-to-be wife? Where was she that night? What was so important that she couldn’t come to your fight?” the beast asked. Marcus knew that it already knew the answer as well as he knew it himself and so he answered, refusing to get drawn into mind games.

  “She was at home, pregnant with....” He paused, unable to find the right words. His breath caught in his chest.

  “With your son,” it answered for him, completing the sentence Marcus took too long to answer. “It was a boy, right? That baby, the one she lost, the one that drove you to my bed night after night?” The roach smiled.

  “Yeah.” Marcus looked at the floor. A sudden pain caused his chest to tighten.

  The image cleared. They were in the cheap bedroom of the motel than they had driven to straight from the fight. Their passion erupted as they drove: Melanie had straddled Marcus as he drove, forcing him to make the last few turns blind. Her breasts filled his mouth, her skin pressed hard against his face as he devoured her.

  “Stop,” Marcus called out. He wanted to look away, willed it with every inch of his being but just couldn’t. He turned his head as far as the bonds would allow, but the scene moved with him, as if he himself was the projector.

  “What did you tell me? Where were they when you fucked me that night and the nights after that?” The Melanie in the image screamed out the questions. Digging her nails into Marcus’s back, drawing blood as she scraped deep gouges down his spine. In the chamber Marcus winced, as he felt his blood begin to flow.

  “Enough, I made a mistake, I offered my penance!” he shouted, noticing then that the chamber had gotten hotter.

  “No, I don’t think that was what you said. Tell me. Confess your sins, you beggaring maggot,” the voice boomed. The Melanie in the motel room slapped Marcus across the face with the back of her hand, and the real Marcus felt his cheek begin to burn.

  “I told you…” He hesitated. He remembered as clear as spring water what he had told her. “That I didn’t have a woman in my life.” He stopped, raising tear reddened eyes towards the Melanie-roach. “I told you that I was single, and that if you were looking for a good time I could give it to you.”

  “Go on, maggot, redeem yourself,” it screamed at him. The multitude of legs rubbed together in sweet anticipation.

  Marcus felt the tears sting his cheeks; he could feel the throbbing from the slap his other self had just been dealt. He looked back at the image, wanting to see. Melanie was on all fours, and Marcus had his face buried between her buttocks, and only then did he realize how strange sex looks when you see yourself doing it. Melanie moaned, her questions replaced by the more expected elicitations of pleasure. As the sweat gathered on his brow, the real Marcus felt the excitement swell from within the confines of his trousers. He saw the gaze of the Melanie-roach drop to his crotch; he didn’t care. His head spun with ideas and voices; crossover exchanges copied and pasted like the adverts on TV, where different shows were taken to create one fluid dialogue. Marcus had offered penance for his affair, he had atoned for his actions as best he could – everything other than confess to his wife. And deep down inside he knew that she knew. She had always known. Whenever they talked about that first pregnancy, she would make small comments. They sounded innocent, and would be delivered in a light hearted manner, but there was a look in her eyes that told a different story. Most of the time she kept it hidden, but sometimes, just every now and then, it would come to the surface.

  “When I asked you who the pregnant person your manager asked you about was, what did you tell me? What!” the Melanie on the bed quizzed. She bounced and slid further across the mattress with each powerful thrust. She screamed as her hand slipped between her legs, where it began to move with fervor.

  “I said it was my sister who was pregnant – my sister. God damn you!” Marcus yelled as tears stung his eyes.

  “Why, why did you lie?” Melanie asked as she arched her back. The words came out in a purr of ecstasy.

  “Because...” Marcus began. His own breaths came short and shorter as the scene continued to play out.

  “Give it to me. Give it to me now. The truth.” Melanie writhed and snaked with her hips. The bed squeaked and the headboard thumped against the wall.

  “Because I wanted to fuck you. You pranced around in your bikini, winking at me, flashing me whatever you thought you could get away with, and I wanted to see what you had, to taste you. I wanted to fuck you every way I knew how and then do it all over again. Are you happy? Hey!” Marcus bellowed, as the floodgates in his mind, those erected many years ago, came tumbling down, releasing everything that he had pent up inside himself

  “Yes, yes!” Melanie screamed, collapsing onto the bed, and Marcus fell on top of her – while the real Marcus collapsed into his restraints. His penis twitched in his trousers. “Finally we have the truth,” Melanie panted. Her hair was wet and stuck to her flushed face. She rose from the bed and looked directly through the portal; she looked at Marcus. She smiled. “You have been observed and judged, my barbarian lover.” She blew him a kiss and the portal closed. The blood wall reformed before bursting like a blister, showering Marcus with a warm blood mist.

  “I never loved you,” he said to the room, to himself. Needing to hear the words. It was true. Maybe at the beginning he thought he did, but at the end he knew better. Melanie was a slut, plain and simple. Melanie had been relentless, an animal in bed, unable to get enough satisfaction, and it had been that craving within her that had grabbed Marcus’s attention. When he called it off, sweat drenching his clothes in fear of her reaction and the consequences it could bring, Melanie had merely stood up, and taken it – as she did other things – like a man. They hugged, she kissed him on the cheek, and left. That had been the last time Marcus had ever seen her.

  “It makes no difference, maggot. Besides, the time for apologies has passed. You have been judged, your crimes presented before the Kings. Now you must suffer the fate of all such sinners. The Chamber of Oil Cauldrons awaits you. Now go; get out of my sight!” The Melanie-roach screamed, the words uttered as the mask was dropped and the creature’s true face was revealed. Marcus looked but could not begin to comprehend what he saw; wet flesh, holes bored through it by maggots or some other kind of carrion eating parasite. Yet it was not the appearance, but rather the feeling that came with it that grabbed him. A depression thicker than anything he had ever known, an air of complete desolation washed over him, embracing him in a way that any powerful characteristic can do, and it risked swallowing him whole. He shook his head: it was in the past, and he had changed and would not let himself be pulled down because of a stupid mistake he made when he was young.

  “What –” Marcus began, but with no forewarning the walls around him disintegrated, and a wave of blood cascaded towards him, as if he were trapped in the Overlook hotel. The blood swept towards him like a scarlet tsunami. His bonds held him
down, while the floor crumbled in a similar but slower fashion to the walls. Marcus fell. He sank deeper and deeper until the red became black.

  Marcus began to fall.

  A deafening roar hit his ears and the closer the ground spiraled the clearer he could hear it. Not noise but screaming; the sound of a thousand agonies all being expressed simultaneously. It was underscored by a searing sound, like raw meat on a hot grill. Bright fires burned on the ground, while to Marcus they looked like orange rings, not dissimilar to the hobs on the electric cooker he had had in his first flat after moving out of home at the tender age of seventeen. There were walls all around him. Only they weren’t walls of cement or brick, but of people. Human bodies bound and bonded to each other like the strange folk from in the hills, the cities. Their skin was blistered and rotted, their eyes had burst and liquefied by intense heat. Yet they were not dead. They lived on in an agony that could not be explained or even contemplated.

  A monstrous roar that shook the air and silenced their screams for just a moment, and soon several dark shapes seemed to rise from the floor towards Marcus. The creatures were beasts straight from a nightmare, their bodies large, limbs gnarled and twisted. Stiff black wings sprouted from their backs. Their heads were long, eyes a burning red. They gazed at him, surveyed him like guards of Azkaban. Happy with his presence, they descended once more, eliciting a screeching high-pitched wail. A message to whatever waited below, confirming their guest and granting him full admittance. Alone again, Marcus could hear the groans of the bodies… souls. They were suspended against the walls. As Marcus descended he left behind older, rotted bodies, and reached those that were submerged in large vats of boiling oil. Cauldrons like the stereotypical witch’s pot, with bodies clawing at the edges to keep their heads above the boiling liquid, a pink, bloody froth at their lips. Others were large glass boxes, the liquid inside a pale yellow. It bubbled and cooked, the bodies stripped to bone in many places. Burnt skin peeled away from the flesh like the skin of a roasted pepper. Marcus realized then that it wasn’t just oil that the bodies were being drowned and roasted in, but bubbling, scalding human body fat, lanced over countless generations. It flowed from one layer to another like a hellish champagne fountain.