Chapter Eleven

     Chapter Eleven

     1

In impenetrable bowls of miasma Patty considered Brenda. She paused at the intersection of Terre and Houle. Listening to the sharp heels of her boots click against the sidewalk, Patty moved on. The brown paper bag in her hand was twisted and torn slightly at one edge. The bottom was wet. At the next section of walk space she tossed it in a cluster of bushes and paid no never mind as the dog that had been resting in its house came over to investigate. She knew it might find its contents a tasty treat. Any animal might enjoy the taste of a fresh blood and meat.

Brenda was nearly at the end of the street now though a thick screen of gray hindered her further.

“Ronan,” Patty whispered.  “What’s happening?”

The same thing that happened to Stephen, he replied coldly.

Patty gulped.

She will be born anew…from hell’s womb.

Patty flinched. The vision melted in uneven threads, poured into a pocket of enclosed space until it evaporated and then she stared into obscurity. Her hands burnt. Bullets of pain shot through her arms. Her view shifted to the throbbing mass accumulated in her grasp and she jerked.

Two beady eyes had opened on the cover, stared up at her and blinked. In their stretched leather face birthed a mouth that yawned and light flooded her dwellings. For a moment it blinded her-

-blinded you because you are blind-

-but quickly her eyes adjusted to the brightness.  It was then the voice she’d been listening to all this time disconnected from the inner workings of her psyche, carried on a musical note only to reside in a faultless creature of prophetic beauty. She discovered herself following a pair of long legs up to a flowing robe, dark cascading mane, captivating eyes.

"You know, Patty," Ronan spoke. "I have forgotten how humans behave when pressed. It has been a while now, but I think I am beginning to understand the elements of the pathetic mind."

Patty searched for her voice. It was lost. She felt a lump in her throat. It refused to slide down with every gulp she took, but somehow, perhaps out of desperation she discovered her words slipped free on a whisper.

"Who are you," she asked. "I want a real answer this time!"

"I have many titles, many faces and many roles in this realm of reality," he replied. "I have no interest in human bargaining. You creatures spook so easily. Perhaps this is your reasoning behind religion and politics. Whatever the case I assure you that I am not here to take sides although the sides you imagine have many different angles."

"I didn't want any of this! You are taking people I know and making them into something unnatural! One by one you take them!"

"You believe books have all the answers," he continued. "You close your mind to other possibilities, believe you have all this figured out, but humans are children of a bitter circumstance. I think as you grow, providing you do not kill each other with your crude weapons of mass destruction, you might someday realize that."

"Realize what," she heard her voice squeak.

Those piercing eyes glinted like precious gems. "That life has no purpose. You have no reason to exist and when your time comes there is nothing that survives. You will return to dust and relive nothing. This is all a wonderland."

Ronan gestured to her left. There emerging from shadows were bodies vaguely familiar yet twisted into foreign matter. She sobbed, scrambled to her feet and covered her mouth as they advanced.

"What have you done," she screamed as her quaking hands slowly clenched her chest.

Ronan laughed. "This not my work alone," he replied.

"Oh, God," she bellowed.

2

                A succession of tangerine lights highlighted lifeless slabs of concrete. High on their wooden poles they flicker, dim but never die. Though the autumn gusts are chilled their cold cannot cease these somehow estranged spots of color. Darkness had settled over four hours ago. Traffic was absent. Where warmth once paraded in brilliant freshness now rusted into deep decay and the residents still residing there did not seem to care. They shuffled from corner to corner sometimes never looking up. Words often were kept to a minimum and for good reason. No one wanted to relive what happened. They did not want to believe it real. Still, when eye contact was established, certain knowledge passed between the two long time friends but since turned acquaintances.

Damnation seldom wears a face one can determine upfront. Yet tonight it emerged from a corner looking quite friendly with sparkling dark brown eyes and long brown hair. Her lips twitched as a smile crept across them. Slowly as she stepped under a patch of street light her porcelain skin flushed a brief shade of pink. Passing by quickly now, she tossed a single glance behind her. It might not be here and this night, but in the days to follow those who call themselves rebels would sniff out her trail and come chasing like the dogs they were.

Engulfed in shadows, Patty's movements slowed. Her footsteps no longer carried the light click of heels and when she emerged under a new wave of street light she pulled together the leather sides of her jacket and zipped them together. Her eyes burnt. She shoved her hands in her black jean pockets. She took a turn. Darting through private property issued no real threat. What could they do? Call the police? The police were no use, had no meaningful purpose in sight of her. They were just like the whole lot of them: worthless. She ducked behind a hedge. The long untrimmed branches added perfect refuge from the open window and the young lady staring from it. She looked to her left and then right, closed the shutters and secured them with a latch but no matter. Opened or closed, either way it made no difference. She could see beyond walls, doors and even closed windows.

A door opened and closed. It fell with a heavy thud again and again. Inching toward the ground she waited. The air was thick of salty sweat and beer. She watched the heavy man stagger down the steps and toward the trash can. It was bulging just like the man at all corners. He tossed another can into the heap and let out a loud belch that made the dog in the next yard bark and growl. He turned his face toward it, his untidy facial hair a mix of vomit and food. It trickled down the front of his faded T-shirt where yellow stains had long since settled in.

 "Shut up," he slurred.

The door opened and closed again. Who existed this time was a slightly round middle aged woman sporting a mullet. Debbie climbed down the stairs and stood next to him. Though she was not as wide as her brother she was just as ignorant of facts and truths.

 "Come back inside," she urged.

 "She locked herself in her room," replied the man.

"You should not have asked her that," Debbie said, her tone drained of any real emotion.

Thorne growled. "I get to tap that," he shouted. "Isn't that what a father is supposed to do? Aren't they supposed to teach their young?"

Crimson daggers burnt in Patty's eyes. She gasped as his sensations filtered through to her.

Sandi threw a duffle bag out, narrowly missing her, and then she leapt out herself. She landed nearly inches from where she crouched and grabbed her bag. In the direction of the two squabbling siblings she glanced and then fled the opposite way.

Patty froze. A vision fell over her. Its vise grip squeezed her lungs and she gasped. In it Ronan became ever so clear. He was neither a she nor a he, but something beyond physical entrapment and in that moment she felt a foreign power take hold.

The door opened again. Thorne was barely able to hold his head up. It kept sagging like the flab of his stomach. He slouched against the frame, his arms crossed and he eyed her, not ashamed to hide his desire as he slurred his words.

 "You sure are hot," he said. It came out slightly distorted but she was beyond hearing with her ears. Her mind remixed his statement and restored it. "You lost or something?"

A smile played on her cherry lips. In a calm voice she responded, "I was lost but now I am found. Unfortunately for you that is not a good thing. I am afraid you are going to know the meaning of pain in the most severe form."

He chuckled and unfolded his thick arms. He leaned forward and reached for her coat collar in which he used to pull her forward.

"If that is your excuse for a come on then you sure are a foxy little b***h," he spat and tried to force her the rest of the way inside but was met with resistance. Surely he was use to there being none at all or at least some he could over power. So this must have dumbfounded his pea brain.

"I am here to assure you I am not nor would I ever come onto a fat slob like you," she said and as she did so her voice deepened, sharpened into a growl that was neither male nor female.

His eyes glossed over. His grasp tightened until his fatty white knuckles curled and buried into her coat. "Listen, you little...."

Her eyes flared red. "No, you listen! You are a pathetic waste of space."

 And in she pushed her way. One outward thrust of her palm and he flew backward. Through the air he travelled until his massive body collided with a wall and fell face first on a cluttered carpet. In her approach the female exterior was shed. In her place and emerging slowly, under forty watts of manmade wonder, Ronan grinned. From smoke a scalpel manifested in his hand. His days as a surgeon were now about to come in handy. It might have been a few hundred years ago but that was like yesterday.

"You should have known," he now said.

 Thorne's crumpled weight rose. Using a torn arm of a couch he pulled himself up, but barely had a moment to scamper away as Ronan was within reach and slashing with the scalpel at his face and throat. Red roses splashed in fragments in marvelous patterns. They added a nice touch to the decayed tinged walls and peeling wall paper.

 "You should have known," he repeated as Thorne stumbled back and fell like a sack of potatoes. "You should have known patience coils conservative policy. Dreams deliberate obedience sternly," he seethed and then delivered the final blow.

 "No," Patty screamed, surprised to hear her own voice and as a gasp left her body she found herself standing alone. She looked left and then right. Her hands clutched her stomach. There they lurched and twisted her guts until she was on the verge of throwing up. "Stop it!"

 Her hair fell across her shoulders like a dark curtain. Memories flooded into her senses in high unrelenting waves. She knew who she was or use to be. The word Ancient held new meaning now as she gazed into open space. The stars were not twinkling in the chocolate brown sky. Under them a land with sand and powdery hills stretched for miles.

 We have to get back to Sandi, Ronan said.

"What about Brenda, Peter, and Thomas?"  Patty cried.

Those sex crazed freaks no longer matter. If you simply surrender to what you are you will realize that.

 A gust of dry wind swept over her. She blinked against it and squinted. A wall of swirling dust enveloped her. In her ears the wind howled and behind her closed lids she saw time with its hands spin forward then backward until solid ground sprung up around her and she opened her eyes. The earth as she remembered it was back, but somehow changed.   A spark and whistle of wind flushed her forward. Time folded and reopened before her as her vision cleared. When she emerged from the cocoon of spinning light and debris she saw the world she had created and held her breath. This was where thoughts came to die on mere whimsies of magic men and harpies. Under the clouded and corroded shine of a decayed moon she pressed on. Love did not exist in such a place where monsters breathed, sighed and carried on. She could feel them all wiggle in her head. They were the children of her past; she figured and stopped a moment.

 Ronan snickered. Sometimes this would be a magical fairytale world where you use to lure people to their dooms. Sadly no one ever learned their lesson. But humans rarely ever do, Patty. You have to remember that. We are wasting time here! What about Sandi?

Patty shook her head to silence his voice.

 From what hell was this pain and misery born, she thought as fog rolled in over her feet. Buildings yawning destruction in wake of fires bared their souls and crumbled cores. This was a hell worthy of a great story teller if not just for a fictional spell. Patty figured there was no home like the one you made yourself and the creator of this one finally returned but as she ambled down the street she stopped and gazed upward at the low hanging traffic light. It no longer flashed yellow, green or red. It was dark like the rest of the avenue.

There are no saints. They can pretend all they want to be holy but nothing is holy anymore. Nothing is sacred. Everything lives for its own selfish purpose. I would have thought you would have figured that out by now, but now I can see I was wrong all along.

 She rubbed her foot along a crack in the cement.  Sandi was close now. Her scent hung in the air. It was a mixture of perfume and sweat. Her head tilted to one side. In the great distance a thing rose. Threads of gray mist wrapped around its long body and odd shaped head and she should have felt something at the sight, but nothing stirred within her. She was a hollow shell that felt nothing in the way of fear.

Dragging feet drew close. Her eyes narrowed and as she turned around a shadow loomed over her. It was the creature from the street staring down at her though she could not find its eyes. They seemed to be twisted into a fleshy mash. She folded her arms across her chest and sighed. There was great reason why someone might be intimidated by this thing should they gaze upon it with mortal eyes, but as she looked it over she saw nothing more than empty husk of nightmares.

"Look," she said to it, "unless you want your a*s kicked, you will get the hell out of here right now."

The thing bowed its maimed head and she could have sworn she heard a yelp emit from its swollen and stitched together lips. An eyebrow lifted and she watched as it limped back out onto the cement. Strangely she felt as though she had just scolded a child. Her thoughts returned to earlier when Brenda was first introduced to this foggy wasteland. Papers and cardboard littered the small enclosed space. Large overturned dumpsters hooked together in a strange twisted metal loop.

That was a child of undead perfection, Ronan said.

Another step forward and the newspaper at the far end rustled. It ballooned up and from out it sprang a paled face Sandi. Her eyes danced wildly as they searched Patty.

 Patty froze as she watched her scurry back into a green slime covered corner. Her hair hung in dirty thin strands. Her face was caked with everything the alley way reeked of. But still under it all Patty sensed it was her. This place had too much fun with her. It was in her eyes. Such a haunted expression lingered there where every glimmer of her former self faded second by second.

 "Sandi," Patty asked and knelt down to gaze into her darting eyes.

That pig isn't going to respond!

 Patty straightened at once. "Ronan, that didn't sound like you."

"That's because it wasn't me," Ronan said.

Patty looked to her right and held her tongue between her teeth. She bit until she felt a sharp sting. She swallowed hard with what spit she could muster and stared in disbelief. Her eyes widened, her mouth trembled. A ghost light flashed before her and images of blood and ripped flesh were presented in grisly detail. It bled into reality another piece of her missing puzzle until a scream ripped from Sandi's throat and she held both sides of her head.

 "You have no choice but to give into despair," the voice rasped as smoky tendrils snaked around her. Sandi's flesh distorted, sunk inward and fell ashen in a blink. Writhing bubbles popped and festered yellow pus. It slithered and melted streaks of silver down her face.

 "Krosnos," Ronan whispered before he too joined Patty in the dark place of memories.

Krosnos gazed at Sandi, eyes bleak and cruel, before slashing a razor hand across her throat.

Sandi's body faded into smoke. Day weaved around Patty and as the lit world returned she opened her eyes to a brand new day.  From what hell does the Ancient One stem from? Patty sunk against a section of brick.

 Patty rolled her head back. She cradled her shoulder. The palm of her hand was cold. A shiver coursed down her spine yet she held it closer to her. Her fingers were numb until a sharp agony woke them. She jerked, curled them into her palm and shuddered.

 Brenda is dead. Stephen, Thorne and Sandi have joined the ranks of the undead, she thought.

The sky had been swallowed by darkness. The moon resembled a bleeding sphere of cancer locked amongst roaming billows of ominous clouds. She considered them a moment, her eyes wandering aimlessly while avoiding the pocket of space just off to her left.

3

Time froze. She saw it rewind as though a cassette in a videocassette recorder. When it stopped she was hurled backward to a street previously trekked, to a point in being where shadows crawled across wet pavement.   Music flooded her ears as it exploded from the street over. It was difficult to distinguish the native language it spewed between screeching guitar riffs and pounding drums, but as she stood it drew her in. As she rounded the corner a familiar stretch of territory sprung up around her. Every inch of manicured green grass and stepping stone flushed memory to the surface.

She stumbled toward the first step. Slowly green strips peeled away the porch. What stood in its place was nearly a porch but with ivory pillars jetting up from the floor boards. She froze in place. From where she stood they resembled crooked teeth. She glanced behind her. Like dripping hot wax the street fell away. In its place molten rock spiraled, divided and gave birth to a river of lava. It swam around the house that now stood alone with bony stick figures all gazing at her.

Hell is a place you can call home. Ronan chuckled.

 Patty shivered. Suddenly the door looked more of a safe haven and she dashed toward it, careful to avoid contact with the teeth like poles.

Welcome to your destiny, Ronan whispered.

"Shut up," she whispered as she stepped inside. She coughed. Stale air suffocated her as she moved steadily into the room as it opened to her. She turned. She turned again. Light swelled from overhead as music continued to pump from some unknown source. Every corner stretched, bended and rerouted her back to the first room. She swore under her breath. She paused. Liquid poured from cracks spun along rusted wounds that slashed crosswise by unobserved claws as she took steps back.

You have given the necessary souls to release hell's domain.

Patty lowered her gaze. The floor opened like a book, its pages turned and came to rest on a page with glowing red ink.

     "I don't understand," Patty said. Her voice was a broken sequence nearly muted by screeching vocals. She stiffened and then repeated, "I don't understand! What is it you want me to do?"