Limbus, Inc.

by Anne C. Petty

  “Ah yes, the Reverend. Well, it has been said by many that the great and abiding human frailty of the preachers of our day is that they do not live what they teach. That could not be said of the old Reverend. He lived it, to the ultimate fault.”

  The passageway opened up, and Ryan realized that they were standing in what remained of the worship hall. The front had all but caved in, the pews moldered and rotted where they were left behind. An ancient baptistery sat at the front near where Ryan stood. It was bone dry, a scattering of dead leaves within, and Ryan thought it remarkable that such a thing ever contained water.

  “When Sally Jenkins went missing,” Samuelson continued, “the last place the authorities thought to look was here. But one can only search the woods and fields for so long before the truth becomes evident. They found the Reverend, bathed in her blood, in the heart of the stone edifice that is the foundation of this church. Her body lay upon the ancient alter, her insides spilled across the floor. He had cut off her arms and legs, leaving one in each of the cardinal directions of the circular room, as if forming a bloody compass.

  “It is said that the old man had gone crazy. Mad, as any man who does such a thing must be. When they found him, he would speak not a word in answer to their questions, muttering only to himself that he had made a mistake. That he had been wrong. That more was required than her blood. When they found him, he held a needle and thread in his hands. One of her eyes, he had already sewed open. He was in the midst of doing the same with the other. It was said that, in his madness, he thought that if only her eyes remained open, life would return to her body as well. A foolish thing, though I suppose no more foolish than some other such beliefs.”

  “What happened to him?” whispered Ryan. “Was he tried for his crimes?”

  Samuelson chuckled. “No, no, no trial. No, those were the days when justice for such incidents was often swift and devoid of mercy. When they found him, they did not waste their time with lawyers, judges, evidence, or courtrooms. The tree, the one that stands in the midst of the graveyard, the old oak with deep roots that burrow into the earth, the one that looks as though it has stood here since the beginning of time? It was there then as well, and its branches were strong enough to hold a man. It was from it that they hung him.

  “He did not protest. Rather, he accepted his fate. Accepted it gladly even, some said. He thanked his captors, thanked his executioners. He told them that they were doing what must be done. It enraged them further, to hear him speak so. That he had killed the girl was bad enough. That he had butchered her as he had, sadistic. But the thought of this man welcoming the end? Praying for death? That was simply too much. Too much for any good man of Salem to bear. Thus they not only killed him, they left him there, hanging from that tree. Till the birds and the beasts and the insects of this land devoured the whole of him.”

  Samuelson looked at Ryan and smiled. “As you can imagine, such a thing had a negative impact on church attendance. With its flock gone, this edifice fell into disrepair. That is, until my associates found it and restored it to its former glory and purpose.”

  Ryan cast a glance around the empty worship hall, allowing his beam of light to guide his eyes. “No disrespect, Mr. Samuelson, but it doesn’t seem like much restoration has been done.”

  Samuelson smiled. “Ah, let not your eyes deceive you, Mr. Dixson. All this is but an illusion. Follow me, and we shall see what goes on beneath.”

  Ryan did as he was told, following behind Samuelson as the man climbed the steps behind the broken down altar and empty baptistery. There was a tomb in the rearmost room, a stone sarcophagus. Samuelson’s lamplight fell upon it. He looked to Ryan.

  “You seem to be a perceptive young man, Mr. Dixson. This is the oldest of the sarcophagi in this church. Notice anything about it?”

  Ryan looked, but he did not see. Before him was nothing but a great stone slab, the familiar winged death’s-head at its crest. But it was only a moment before it became obvious.

  “There’s no name,” he said. “There’s no name on the tomb.”

  “That is correct, Mr. Dixson. There is no name, but there are words. Do you know your Latin, sir?”

  Ryan grinned in the darkness. Where he came from, Latin was not high on the list of required courses. “Two years of Spanish,” he said, “and I don’t remember much of that.”

  “Well, then allow me to translate. It says, ‘sepulchrum omnes’ which means, ‘The Grave of All Men.’”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Death, my friend, is everywhere. All men will die, whether they truly live or not. And when they do, they will return to the earth. But there are some places where death is more present than others.”

  Samuelson placed his hand upon the skull and pressed. To Ryan’s amazement, the stone slab seemed to give away at the simplest of efforts, opening a great black maw, like the mouth of some unholy beast. But it was not so long before Ryan became aware of a preternatural glow emanating from the cavern beyond.

  “Let us go, Mr. Dixson. What I want you to see is beyond here. What you need to see if you are to find our Angela.”

  Samuelson stooped low, slipping beneath the marble overhang, sliding into the shadowy mist, passing into what was both an unnatural light and a frightful darkness.

  Ryan rose to find that the cavern opened up after he passed beyond the mouth. It was tall enough, in fact, that he could stand upright with no trouble. There were stairs that led further down. Without speaking, Samuelson began to descend. And so, without speaking, Ryan followed.

  Down they went on that spiraling stone staircase, curving around itself into the depths of the earth, until the air that had been frigid seemed warm by comparison, the cool constant of an underground cave. How long did they descend? Ryan couldn’t say. But when they reached the bottom, Samuelson turned and said, “Follow close. The corridors are many and winding. As in life, they are full of twists and turns. We must follow the right path, lest you find yourself lost.”

  The old man had not exaggerated. While the descent had been long, the walk through the curving tunnels was interminable. It was only when Ryan wondered just how far they had gone that they turned the final corner.

  They came to a great archway. Two men, suited and stoic, were standing on either side of the rounded opening. Beyond them, Ryan could see the flickering light of great candles or torches. And he could hear the murmur of the gathered crowd. When the men saw Samuelson, they nodded. One turned, and from somewhere beyond the archway he produced two goblets, handing both to Samuelson. He in turn gave one to Ryan.

  “The drinking of wine,” Samuelson said, “is a holy rite in all the world’s great religions. It is, in some, the only truth they bear. For as man bleeds, and in bleeding dies, so too does the grape give up its life to produce that which in lies truth. And just as the blood maintains its vitality even when it leaves the body, so too does wine give life even when it has been pressed from the grape. Don’t you think?”

  Ryan had questioned his presence here several times, but it wasn’t until then that he began to consider that perhaps Samuelson might truly be mad. It was an unfortunate time for such a revelation, here in the depths of this place, where he was at the man’s mercy. So he did all that he could to appear as if he believed fully in the person who stood before him. He nodded once, and took the cup that was offered him.

  “Excellent,” Samuelson said. “To the gods!”

  He raised his glass, and without waiting for Ryan to do the same, drank down the wine in one furious gulp. Ryan followed suit. But just as the liquid had barely touched his tongue before he swallowed it, it was but only an instant before he regretted the decision.

  Samuelson smirked, and there was something sinister there. “Exquisite, isn’t it? The effects are almost immediate.”

  Ryan barely heard him. It was as if he had swallowed fire. The flame coursed down his throat and into his stomach, and then it was flowing through his arteries and his veins. Every
inch of him burned, and even the sweat that drenched his clothes could not smother the conflagration that engulfed him.

  “Come,” he said, “I have much to show you.”

  If his legs hadn’t begun to move of their own volition, Ryan would have sworn that he was unable to follow the old man’s command. And yet, move they did. It was a bizarre sensation, a passenger in his own body, watching as his feet carried him into the great, vaulted chamber. His movements were swift, if unsteady. He passed through the archway into what could almost be called an amphitheater. There were four different entrances to the circular hall, cut into the rock at diagonals. In the center was a massive, raised stone slab. And surrounding it were men standing in ascending rows five deep. In another circumstance, Ryan would have felt underdressed, for all of them wore their finest outfits. The noise of their chatter had been deafening, but when Ryan entered, their roar fell steadily down to silence. They turned their faces upon him, and in their eyes, Ryan saw recognition.

  “Yes,” Samuelson said, “the guest of honor has arrived.”

  The old man led him to an empty spot a few feet from the stone slab, positioning him so that he faced it. And then it wasn’t just Ryan’s physical body that was affected, but his mind as well. The world seemed to shutter and then crack. The flames that leapt from the torches that flickered around the hall seemed to dance before him, as if they had a mind of their own, as if some hand guided them. The faces of those who surrounded him melted and reformed, and in the shadows that played upon the walls of that accursed place danced creatures that no mortal man has ever gazed upon and lived.

  “The wine is powerful, yes? Tis the blood of the gods, or so the Greeks would have told you. The Christians too, if the rites are said properly over the fruit of the vine. And I can assure you, the rouge to which you were privy is most sacred indeed.”

  For a moment, the storm within Ryan’s mind seemed to ebb, and he thought the room grew dimmer. But this was not his mind playing tricks on him, but rather the image of the truth as the men who stood guard extinguished all but one of the torches that had lit the chamber before. It was as if the sun set in that place, and in the coming dark Ryan’s eyesight grew sharper, and although he should have been able to see little, his mind perceived all.

  From the portal immediately across from him emerged a figure. He wore a cloak, long and black, and the hood obscured his face. The room grew still except for his movements—the exquisite, graceful flow of his body as it moved. And it was from those delicate sliding footfalls that Ryan realized—this was no man.

  Her body flowed around the stone slab and came to rest in front of Ryan. His eyes grew wide as she removed the hood that had obscured her face. He had the same feeling of lightheadedness as he had experienced the first time he’d looked upon her. But the bright, crashing red of her hair had an unholy shimmer that night, and her eyes, those pale green flashes, glowed with a light of their own. But there was yet one more thing that was different from that first night in Hendricksville Community College. As the robe slipped off her shoulders into a black puddle around her feet, she was completely nude. And then she began to dance.

  At first she moved to nothing, her hips swaying to the sound of silence. But then there was a change in the air, an almost imperceptible drumming sound, the beat growing louder with every second, but never so much that Ryan could say from where it came or that it was anywhere other than his own mind. And the piping, the demonic flutes that called from some swirling chaos.

  “Why does she dance?” asked Samuelson. “She dances not for us, but for the gods to come. For dancing is like singing, don’t you think? An expression of pure, human emotion. This one through action, rather than sound. It is a beautiful thing.”

  He removed a silver case from the pocket of his jacket, pulling a cigarette from inside. With a flick of his wrist he struck a match. The flame glowed brightly in the darkened chamber, and the smoke, more pungent than any Ryan remembered, stung his eyes.

  “It’s the dance of the seven veils, you know?” the old man said, gesturing towards Katya with the lit end of his cigarette. “’Tis an ancient dance, the one that cost John the Baptist his head in the long ago. Of course, in this instance at least, the veils are left to the imagination.”

  He took a deep drag from his cigarette, and as he flicked ash to the stone ground below, he blew the smoke in Katya’s direction. But it did not dissipate as Ryan would have expected. Rather, it seemed to surround her, to cloak her in a translucent shroud. She moved within that mantle, her hands traveling over her body, starting with her hair and moving down her neck, farther, to her breasts. And then farther still, while her lips parted in the ecstasy of her fingers.

  “Yes,” Samuelson said, throwing the dying end of his cigarette down on the ground and crushing it beneath his heel, “she dances for they who are, for they who were, and for they who will be. For those who rumble in the darkness, who walk in endless night through the vast infinity of the cosmos. And for they who seek their return. She calls to them with her body, just as those nameless cults that built this temple—supplicants who never died and never will—shout and gibber their names into the howling winds in the lonely and forbidden places of the earth. And they hear them too, Ryan.

  “They hear them, just as surely as you hear me. They seek a return, when the stars are right. As they shall be one night hence, when the Beltane moon rises above this place, and the night of Walpurgis begins. They who were can be again. But of course, their entrance into this world is no easy one. For there can be no birth without pain, no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.”

  Ryan’s eyes grew wide as it happened. As he saw. From behind where she stood, where she swayed to the deep drumming of the earth. And the piping, those insane, discordant melodies. The black figure rising, hooded and cloaked. Ryan sought to cry out, but he was only a mute witness, as much a prisoner as if chains bound him. On she danced, oblivious to her fate. As all are.

  The hulking beast behind her—for Ryan could not be sure if it was a man or something else—produced a long, curved blade from somewhere within the folds of his cloak. He pressed the sharp metal edge to her throat. And yet still, she danced. Then, in one movement, he severed skin and tendons and arteries and veins. Her head hung in space, still attached to her body only by a thin flap of skin and the merest of pale, white bones.

  As the bright, crimson fountain sprung from her throat, showering Ryan in her thick, sweet, viscous blood, she still danced. Until Ryan, the sound of distant laughter dying in his ears, collapsed into the black oblivion of throbbing drums and maniacal piping.

  *

  Ryan awoke to sunlight as it poured through his open window on to the bed on which he lay. His hand went immediately to his chest, and he fully expected it to come away covered in crimson ichor. But there was nothing, even if he could still taste the metallic tang of the unspeakable in his mouth. He threw the sheets away, and only then did he realize he was naked. He flung himself out of bed, nearly stumbling over his open suitcase. The clothes that he remembered wearing were draped over a chair, just as he had left them when he had showered the night previous. For a moment he paused, wondered if it had all been some sick dream. The darkest, most vivid nightmare he’d ever had. More real than even the visions of war-torn lands that had invaded his consciousness, memories of that awful day in the deserts of Afghanistan. Dreams of things that had been real.

  “No,” he whispered, even to himself. “That was no dream.”

  He picked up the phone, still standing naked in the dawning light of a Boston day. He rang the front desk first. “What day is it?” he asked.

  “Saturday,” the girl answered.

  “No! The date! The date!”

  The girl on the other end of the line hesitated, and he realized he must sound mad.

  “April 30th,” she stuttered, her voice shaking.

  He swallowed hard. “Thanks,” he mumbled as he re-cradled the phone. A whole day. He ha
d lost a whole day.

  Or maybe he had lived it.

  He knew one thing though. Today was the day of which Samuelson had spoken in his dream or his vision or his memory. The 30th of April, the May-Eve, Walpurgis. He knew little of the date. Only what he had heard, read in certain forbidden books that he had enjoyed as a child. But what he did know frightened him. It was on Walpurgis, or so they said, when the veils between the worlds were sundered; when the ancients believed that those dark beings from beyond the borders of our world, could, if so invited, pass into our own. For centuries, they had built bonfires on that eve, great flaming beacons of light meant to chase away the night.

  He considered his options. He was sure now, certain, that whatever had befallen him the night before, there was one thing that was beyond doubting. Samuelson was no innocent. Whatever had come to the house of Angela Endicott was his doing. And if she was in danger, it was he who had put her there. What had happened to Katya was but a prelude, a glimpse of what was to come. For if it was blood that was required, it would be Angela’s that would be spilled, sacrificed to whatever dark gods, whatever fallen idols, that Samuelson and his associates worshiped.

  Ryan picked up the phone again, intent, despite his previous instructions, on calling the police. That seemed to be the one course of action that made sense. But he had not pressed a single digit before he abandoned his plan. He remembered who Samuelson was and, more importantly, who were his compatriots that previous night. They had been of wealth and power and privilege. No, the police could not be trusted. It was as Recruiter Hawthorne had said. They would be of no help to him.

  Hawthorne.

  He fumbled for his wallet on the bedside table, removing the still pristine business card contained within its folds. The tiny specks of diamond on the dappled globe shimmered. He dialed the number. It rang once, twice, three times before a machine answered. Ryan almost hung up then. But something told him, if he did nothing else, he should at least leave a message. And so he waited. A voice came on the line, one he did not recognize and did not expect.