The Mouth of Hell

This is the next installment of The ShambElla Saga. I will be publishing one a day henceforth to complete the series.

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The Mouth of Hell

The path that led out of the forest revealed an impenetrable fog that whispered unholy things.

It moved over them, a sinewy, disjointed hydra, a thick, pressing murk which separated them from the sight of each other, putting an extradimensional distance between them which was not in keeping with the reality from which they just departed.

Each companion heard something different.

Siris heard the chiding voice of his mother.

You always were a failure, boy, and you always will be! She hissed. Yur weak little ass couldn’t fight off insomnia, let alone demons! You think you can come in here and play the hero? Yur gonna end up getting’ yur friends killed and damned! KILLED AND DAMNED!

Siris fell to his knees, hands upraised, screaming into the swirling mist: “SHUT UP! GET OUTTA MY HEAD! I LOVE YOU, MA! PLEASE STOP, PLEASE!”

Two hands rested on his shoulders, and the memory of another matriarch flooded his mind. “Gram?” he said weakly, head in hands, weeping.

He recalled how, after his ma tore into him, his Gram would sit him at the kitchen table as he cried, squeeze his shoulders, and make him a snack. He felt the hands squeeze, and he knew it was her.

Sam was steeling himself against the accusing voices of his daughters.

The day of the turning, Jane invited him to a family barbecue, but he didn’t make it. His bum leg acted up and he called Cassidy to tell her to pass along his regards.

By mid-afternoon his neighbors were killing each other.

The three men with whom he’d originally traveled after the Turning were spared, apparently so he could later become their executioner, something else which still weighed heavy on his heart, though he knew he did the right thing.

The voices were those of the girls when they were just girls. Why didn’t you save us, daddy? Why? Why didn’t you save our babies?

Sam knew it was a trick. He didn’t need any reassurance. Nevertheless, he felt the soft brush of flower petals against his cheek and was sure they were orchids.

He stood calm and ready for when the fog cleared, waiting to do what he did best: pull and shoot.

Ella heard her mother screeching, and recalled her running at her husband, Ella’s father, with a butcher knife. This is in the past, she thought, this is in the past. But the sound was muffled by the slamming of a door. She had locked herself away from the spectacle, while she listened to them kill each other from the other side. She'd huddled in the corner, crying.

She felt David brush against her. She reached down and picked him up.

There was nothing the voices could tell David that could rattle him, even a little. The person he most loved, his greatest reassurance against the pain of a brutal life, was holding him in her arms at this very moment.

“Get ready, David,” she whispered into his ear. She was shaking but holding herself together. A single tear ran from her cheek into the fur on David’s head. He counted it as a blessing, the sort of anointing that preceded a holy quest.

The EYEGOONS buzzed and a familiar theme filled the air.

All the friends understood what Colt was trying to tell them, an extra pat on the back.

O friends, not these tones.

Hold fast.

The fog lifted.

As it cleared, the scene revealed Colt and the goons hanging from the flabby lips of a giant, sealing his mouth closed with their bony fingers.

The fog came out in tendrils from what openings there were, but it could not spread far.

With the clearing of the evil mists, so too did the sinister whispers abate.

Sam was first to draw, both hands blazing with light, taking down myriad imps hobbling and rushing toward him.

They were snarling, the brownish-red of bloody muck, pockmarked and pussing creatures with needle teeth.

Siris fell sideways from his position on his knees, just in time to avoid losing his face to the gnashing maw of a tiny demon.

He drew with his right hand as he fell, blasting its head clear from its shoulders.

Then he rolled into a standing position and pulled his other gun, firing away at the imps to the left of the giant while Sam continued to take out the ones on the right.

Ella dropped David to his feet and they ran up the middle side-by-side.

Immolating demon flesh with bright red light, Ella screamed as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy filled the atmosphere.

The giant was covering his ears to block this holy music, all the while trying to shake off the goons, who held fast.

Ella used her guns to perforate the giant’s kneecaps, as David ramped up his barbarous names while the music faded out.

Colt, in the middle of the other goons, swung down from the giant’s flabby lips and kicked its bony feet right into the throat, puncturing the larynx and lodging itself there. One giant hand tore the goons from his lips while another grabbed for Colt, but it was too late.

The damned creature’s knees buckled and tore away as he fell onto his back and David, mewing and yowling, pounced on his chest.

His body shook, convulsed, and went still.

He dissolved into fog as David jumped away.

Colt rose and wiped his hands together as if clearing a little pesky dirt.

The landscape revealed was a nightmare of putrescence.

Barren, scorched earth was dotted here and there with raging fires, steaming green acid pools, and blasted trees that sometimes flinched and twisted, though there was no wind to move them.

More imps of various shapes were coming toward them.

They weren’t very bright creatures.

Some fell into the acid pools. Others burnt up in the unholy fires. Some were snatched by the gnarled trees and smashed into the ground.

Hell, it seemed, could do itself no favors.

But despite all this there was quite a horde.

In the distance stood an obsidian tower against a sky that inexplicably roiled like lava.

Circling at its greatest height were three dragons.

One separated from the others, heading their way.

The forest was gone.

There was no turning back now.

***** * *****

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