Devil in the Dollhouse: A Sandman Slim Story Read online

  I lean into the rear compartment where the soldiers are.

  “Come on, kids. Time to pat your feet on the Mississippi mud.”

  Grumbling, they hustle out the back.

  “Go find some big branches to put under the wheels.”

  How do you describe standing knee-deep in the evil shit of an evil bunch of bastards? It’s unique. Warm and with unexpected bits of floating things that I don’t want to think about. The drowned carcasses of little winged lizards that pass for Hellion pigeons. My biggest fear is tripping on a hidden root. I don’t want to go facedown in this muck. There isn’t enough penicillin in the world to save me from the badass microbes living in this chocolate oatmeal outhouse.

  Geryon is doing even worse than I am. He’s frozen by the side of the truck, turning around and around in horrified circles like he’s trying to stomp shit into wine. He only moves when soldiers arrive with tree limbs and push him out of the way so they can wedge them under the back tires.

  “How are you doing, Geryon?”

  He doesn’t answer. Just stands with his arms crossed in front of him, watching the soldiers try to pry the wheels from the sludge.

  “Why don’t you tell me more about Henoch?”

  He can’t answer. Geryon is gone. I might have broken him.

  Something moves past my leg.

  “Hey. Didn’t you say one of the monsters out here was a kind of snake?”

  He looks at me blankly, and then nods.

  “Why do you ask?” he says. Then disappears, yanked below the surface by something underneath.

  A dozen nearby soldiers drop the branches they’ve been maneuvering and pull their sidearms, firing blind into the river.

  “Stop!”

  It takes a few seconds but they do.

  “Feel with your feet. Use your hands. Find him.”

  They’re not happy but the only Lucifer they know just gave them an order. Instead of rebelling and stringing me up like Il Duce’s corpse, they do what I say, reaching under the muck and feeling for Geryon.

  Elephant Man, still above us in the truck, points and grunts.

  A round hump breaks the surface of the river. Six soldiers reach down to grab it. They pull out one end of what looks more like a fat ten-foot earthworm than a snake. The snake is blind but its jaws are wide and round, like a lion-toothed lamprey. A few feet down from the head, the snake’s body is wrapped around Geryon’s waist.

  “Grab him. That’s an order.”

  This time no one gives a good goddam what Lucifer has to say. They’re too busy firing their pistols at the snake’s head. They’re hitting it too, with what should be kill shots. Maybe the thing really is more like a worm than a snake, because for all the hits it’s not going down. This thing must have the nervous system of a chicken burrito.

  I grab the na’at from inside my coat, extend it into a spear, and shove it into the snake’s body a couple of feet above Geryon. The snake whips around in my directions and takes a couple of blind nips at the air like it’s not sure where the wound came from.

  I twist the na’at’s grip and it goes slack. I flick it out like a whip and it goes around the snake’s body twice. Twist the grip again and the na’at is as rigid as plate steel. The whip loops dig deep into the snake’s flesh, drawing a dirty white ribbon of pus-like blood. It screams and lunges for the soldiers. They keep firing and I keep pulling. Its neck twists to the side as I cut through its thick jelly-like flesh. Geryon is holding onto the snake’s body, trying to keep his head above the filthy river. I dig in my feet and give one last, hard pull. The snake stiffens and lets out a piercing scream that’s like getting an ice pick through my ears. And its head slides off the body, trailing luminous insides into the muck. I reach down and pull Geryon to his feet.

  “Nice job, St. Francis. Were you trying to romance that thing?”

  Back at the truck I help him up and Elephant Man pulls him inside.

  The troops are all looking at me. I don’t know if it’s because they’re impressed or because they’ve never seen their boss covered in enough shit to fertilize all the weed fields in Humboldt County. I put the na’at back in my coat and say, “Get those branches and your asses in gear so we can get out of here.”

  Fifteen minutes later we’re moving again. A couple of minutes after that we crest a hill and it starts to rain. Shit streams off the windshield. I roll my window and stick my head outside, letting the water wash my face clean.

  Geryon pulls his hands from his filthy face and quietly says, “Oh no.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the last ring. Regret.”

  Yes, I was stupid enough to think being Lucifer would be just a little fun.

  The troops have the rear door open. Some lean out and others jump, running along behind the truck and letting the rain wash them clean. Other soldiers pull them back in, then jump out to take their place.

  It doesn’t look like regret to me.

  There’s a choked sound.

  I look over at Elephant Man. I’ve never seen a Hellion cry before. It’s disturbing. The mood in the back is changing. A second ago everyone was whooping like it was their team won the Super Bowl on the same day they hit the lottery. Now nothing.

  A wave of memories.

  Crawling out of Hell to save Alice, only Alice was dead and there was nothing and no one there to save. Then there’s Candy. I told her I’d be gone for three days. It’s been a week now and I don’t know when I’ll figure a way out of here, if ever. I see the arena. The early days Downtown: Most Hellions had never seen a live mortal. The months of flat-out torture, games, and fun fair experiments on me for a paying audience. Then the arena and learning to kill. What’s worse: Committing murder or learning you’re good at it? Mason killed me and he’s kept on killing me every day for years. I’m going to be here forever. I’m never going to leave.

  Geryon is curled up like a baby, shaking, his hands over his eyes. The troops in the back are worse. They’ve been on edge for months, ever since Samael left and Hell went balls up. Whatever this is, it’s broken the weak ones. There’s a line of them in the road behind the truck. They went out to feel the rain and never bothered getting back in. We could go back for them but what’s the point? The ones that haven’t shot themselves already are sawing on their throats or wrists. Black blood flows in the gray rain. The second Unimog moves slowly, trying to avoid the bodies.

  The truck stops. Elephant Man puts his head on the steering wheel. I know what this is. The memories flow like poison from a cobra bite but I’m still here. Eyes still open. The fire burns my gut but it doesn’t kill me. It’s familiar. An old friend you never wanted to see again but still someone you know. I pull Elephant Man from the driver’s seat and shove him into mine. Slide behind the wheel and hit the accelerator. This is the ring that’s supposed to put the final nail in my plain pine coffin? Regret? Memory? I spent eleven years down here dining and dancing to bad memories and regret. I’ve had my shots for the memory, measles and rubella regrets. I’m fucking immune. Okay, not immune. My hands shake and my throat’s dry but I thought Hellions would laugh off three-hanky flashbacks. Instead they’re crying like a school bus full of little French girls whose ice cream all melted.

  Half a mile on, the clouds break. The rain fades to a drizzle and sputters out. A few minutes later the second truck pulls up behind us. Geryon points to a stand of bare trees.

  “Henoch Breach is at the top of the next hill. We should rest here for a few hours.”

  “Okay by me.”

  After we’ve pulled into the trees and everyone is out of both trucks, I do a quick head count. We haven’t even reached Margaritaville and already lost a little over half our troops. The “fuck this shit” human part of me wants to turn around right now and head back to Pandemonium. What do I care that Samael promised these demonic knuckle draggers to scare the monsters out from under their beds? Then the Lucifer part of me pipes up. No matter what, I can’t look weak. Like a pathetic mo
rtal. If I’m going to ride this out and stay alive, then I’m king high ballbuster. I took on God and almost did the old man in. A few grumpy horns and hoofs types and a petting zoo full of rabid Pokemons? I’m Satan. I can deal that and play “Smoke on the Water” while getting a lap dance on a runaway train all at the same time.

  Some of the soldiers unload supplies from the Unimogs. Food. Guns. Ammo.

  The nearby trees are bare. The whole glade looks dead. The trunks of the trees are twisted up to branches that look like snakes made of finger bones. Soldiers gather fallen limbs into a pile to start a fire.

  “Why don’t you send up a fucking flare and let the monsters know we’re coming?”

  They stop and look at me.

  “No fires. No camp sing-alongs. No square dancing. Have something to eat and drink, quietly. When we ring the doorbell on that castle up there, it would be swell if it was just a little bit of a surprise.”

  Without a word they do what I say. Toss the branches aside and settle around the trucks, passing out cans of food rations and bottles of Aqua Regia.

  “I want to thank you.”

  I didn’t notice Geryon coming up beside me.

  “You had no reason to save me. I’d told you the story. You didn’t need me anymore but you saved me all the same.”

  “Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything personal. I just don’t believe in leaving my crew behind.”

  “All the same, I owe you my life.”

  Elephant Man comes over with a bottle of Aqua Regia. He hands it to me and I take a pull. Pass it to Geryon.

  “So tell me the rest. What does the city of traitors have to do with all this?”

  Elephant Man goes back to the other troops while Geryon and I settle on a log passing the bottle back and forth. The booze helps me forget that we both still smell faintly of Hellion shit.

  “It doesn’t even have a name,” he says. “Lucifer didn’t want to give them any cause for pride, so he gave them a place but no identity other than as a land for the shame of the lowest among us.”

  “I thought that used to be me. Nice to know there was someone even more fucked up. So what does being a traitor mean down here? I mean, you’re fallen angels. Doesn’t that make all of you a bunch of traitors?”

  Geryon half turns his head toward me then away again. I guess it’s not worth the argument.

  “The early days after the fall were hard. Some didn’t survive the fall itself. Others went mad. There were murders and suicides. Lord Lucifer, Samael, gathered the fallen and just as in Heaven, he became our leader. He urged us to build and create our own civilization. One to rival even Heaven. He saved us. Still, with all that, there were some who refused to follow.”

  “Because he fucked things up so badly during the war?”

  I pass Geryon the bottle and he shrugs.

  “I’m sure they told themselves they had reasons, but it was really simple greed. Some had escaped Heaven with weapons and riches. Enough, they thought, to mount a new war. Lucifer knew this would destroy us, so he attacked them first. The ones who survived he exiled here.”

  I can’t help but hum a couple of lines from “Town Called Malice.”

  “What did they do all the way out here?”

  “Through the tunnels they lived in they mined the mountains. They grew spices and created rare potions from local plants. In short, even in exile, our Lord made them earn their keep.”

  “Is the town still there?”

  By the trucks the soldiers have broken up into small groups. Good. We did the same thing after a bad day in the arena. It’s not something you think about, it just happens. You fall into the orbit of friends and familiar faces. You don’t even have to like each other. You just have to be there to remind each other that you survived and that this is real. I’m sure there’s a scientific name for it. The old fighters just called it Tea Time.

  Geryon says, “No one knows if the town exists anymore. Hell has fallen apart so badly since Samael left and with the beasts on the road, we’re the first visitors out this far in years.”

  I take another hit off the Aqua Regia and recork the bottle. This isn’t the time to drink as much as I want to.

  “I guess one way or the other we’ll know tomorrow.”

  “I hope they’re all gone,” says Geryon. There’s an edge to his voice I haven’t heard before. “One set of monsters is enough.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Night and day are kind of abstract concepts out here in the hinterlands. Hell exists in a kind of perpetual bruised twilight, but in Pandemonium and other towns there’s an agreed-upon cycle for morning, noon, and night. Out this far the only difference between 12 A.M. and 12 P.M. is a slight color change in the sky. Still, after eating everyone sacks out. A lot of the troops fall asleep. There are guards posted but this far out all they’ll probably see are desert rats and sand fleas.

  Around what I think might be midnight, the trees start to move. It begins with a rustling. It sounds like wind but I don’t feel anything on my skin.

  The camp comes awake around me. The troops heard the sound too. Hellions look around for the noise, the breeze, or whatever, as puzzled as I am.

  The first scream comes from deep inside the dead grove, followed by another on the edge. One of the guards, a big bastard with a revolver grenade launcher slung over his shoulder, disappears into the trees. Whatever is happening, he doesn’t die all at once. There’s a dull thump and a grenade explodes in the middle of camp, scattering soldiers and weapons high into the air. A second later another grenade goes off right above the treetops, lighting up the grove. That’s when we see the trees moving.

  They come apart like ripping cloth and fall to the ground in a tangle of branches and blasted trunks. They writhe and then crawl. A second later they’re on their feet running at us.

  Guess what? They aren’t branches and they weren’t trees, thank you very fucking much. They’re bodies, as dry and rotten as week-old roadkill. They were wrapped around each other in a frozen graveyard embrace and we woke them up. There’s hundreds of them closing on us, and more in the distance.

  The firing starts before any of them make it into camp. The sound of piss-scared soldiers blowing clip after clip on full auto fractures the air and numbs my ears, but it doesn’t do much else. It sure as hell doesn’t slow the roadkill. They charge into camp like a bone-and-gristle Mack truck, mowing down rows of heavily armed and severely motivated soldiers.

  I pull out the na’at. Extend it to its full length. Keep the Freud jokes to yourself. Sometimes a killing stick is just a killing stick.

  It doesn’t take much to stop each individual roadkill. They’re not much more than mummies with an attitude. Their teeth are sharp and their talons are long but you can slice them up like buttered toast if you have a sharp blade. I wish I could explain that to the idiots with the guns.

  The scene reminds me of LA when a load of High Plains Drifters—that’s zombies to you—were running extremely amok. Bullets didn’t slow them either and even if they did, how do you know which one to shoot when there are six or seven on top of you ripping you to pieces? That’s how these brainless bone sacks win. They wear you down until it doesn’t matter how many of them you kill. All it takes is for a few to swarm you and you’re gone. Short of flamethrowers, nukes, or a bunch of trained Drifter killers, the best strategy is nature’s simplest: run like you’re a zebra at a waterhole and a pride of lions just showed up with ketchup and silverware. But where do we retreat to? No one is going to follow me into the rain ring and there’s no forest to hide in anymore.

  I shout, “Up the hill. Get your asses to Henoch Breach.”

  I grab Geryon. He’s a scholar, terrified and useless in a fight. I stuff the hem of my coat in his hand.

  “Hold on to that. Keep your head down and keep moving. If you fall I’m not coming back for you.”

  I circle the long way around the grove, keeping clear of the trucks and the close-in fighting. Anyone penned in the
re is going to die. At least in the open there’s somewhere to run to. I twist the na’at grip until it’s like an extra-long broadsword and start hacking my way through the roadkill blizzard. The bad part is that there’s a lot of them. The good part is that they’re dumb and the ones I don’t kill forget me as soon as I pass, zeroing in on the doomed assholes playing Last Stand at the Alamo in the trucks.

  Groups of soldiers fall in behind us as we work our way up the hill. Now that their ammo is gone, they’re using their rifles like clubs and making a lot more headway than before. Halfway up the hill I look back at the clearing and I can’t even see the trucks. They’re completely covered around and on top by roadkill.

  It’s a long way up the hill. Henoch Breach is like a cross between a gothic mansion and an old cavalry fort. The mansion look fooled me into thinking it was a small place but it turns out it’s more of a fort, which means big and a lot farther away than I thought. With every few yards we gain, we’re losing soldiers. I still feel Geryon hanging on to my coat.

  After what feels like an hour, we’re finally at the Breach’s big double front doors. I don’t know how many roadkill bastards we’ve killed on the way up but it isn’t enough. There’s a shuffling mob maybe a minute down the hill from us. I don’t want to kick the door in if I don’t have to. I don’t know if there’s anything inside to barricade it with once we’re in. But the windows are sealed tight behind metal bars. Around the side I find a fire escape leading up to a single door three floors up. I extend the na’at into a billhook and get the curved part of the blade onto the ladder and pull. It swings down in a shower of dirt and rust. I have no idea if it will hold our weight and not a lot of time to do an OSHA inspection. I shove Geryon up the ladder and head up after him.

  The door at the top is solid. It takes three good kicks to get it open. Plenty of time for the first of the roadkill to catch up with us. I shove Geryon inside and pull in a couple of soldiers behind me.

  It’s dead black inside. I can’t see a thing. The first screams hit us as Henoch’s last booby trap catches up with us. Why didn’t Geryon know about the trees? Is this whole thing a setup? If it is, does that make him a suicide bomber or just another loser caught up in the hit on me? I’m going to hurt a lot of people and ask a lot of questions if we get out of here alive.