Highway To Hell (14 page)

Becky screamed. Her hands yanked at her hair, which came away in clumps. The face in the mirror was young, a teenager, and clearly not Becky. The skin was sallow, the face thin, clearly lacking in all forms of nutrition. The teeth were yellowed and hung crooked in her mouth. Large boils and spots had sprouted over her face. Yet the cool green colour of her eyes made it impossible for Becky not to recognize who the girl was.

“My baby!” she shrieked. “No… no, I won’t let it. Send me back, please, just let me take her away,” Becky pleaded. Her breaths came short and sharp. She stared at the girl in the mirror, the reflection of her child, truly an image of her mother.

“Your time has come. You have seen your sin. Your addiction is hers, her sustenance a level on from your own; the pressures of a modern world call for modern relief.” There was a flash of light; an explosion. The sound of shattering glass was all she needed to hear.

Becky and her daughter both screamed, although the younger of the two was silenced not long after. Smoke and fire filled the portholes through which Becky observed, and when it cleared, her baby girl Alyssa once again looked back at her. Only her face had changed. The spots were gone, replaced by burns. The right half of her face was disfigured, scarred and lumpy, her eye but a milky white orb. Her ear was missing and all of her hair had been burnt away.

“Please, I’ll do anything you want,” Becky pleaded, her hands locked together in prayer, her eyes stinging with tears.

“Of course you will, you’ve said that often enough; you are a whore, after all. A worthless piece of filth that dredges along and clogs your world, a bottom feeder; yes, you would do anything, isn’t that how you created your spawn in the first instance? A bit of extra cash for a wet session. I have seen all you did; you forget I have held you in the dark for many years, bitch. You are a liar. A cheat. You stole to feed your addiction; you stole from merchants, you stole from your ‘Johns’ – you stole a life away from your own child. You would have been better served to suck her from your broken cunt before she knew anything about the world!” the voice roared, and the ground trembled.

“No, please, not my baby girl – it’s a lie, you’re lying to me.”

“You have been judged. I hope you find the Chamber of Flames a fitting place, for I see you being there for some time.” As the voice spoke the cloud thickened. This time its choking presence was just too intense to be resisted. It filled Becky’s lungs, pouring through her mouth and nose. She could even feel it seeping in through her pores. “Be gone from my court!” the voice bellowed. The smoke shot through her body, and Becky couldn’t help but to scream.

When Becky came to she was still screaming. The image of her daughter’s burnt face was seared into her memory; every time she closed her eyes she saw her with stark brutality.

Becky was tied down. The surface beneath her was hard; a table. It was hot against her skin, like a leather chair in the middle of summer. She looked around, her head buzzing like a bad hangover style headache; she was covered in sweat and yet shook with cold.

It was dark. A warm breeze brushed her skin and so Becky turned her face towards it. Even her drug fried brain understood that whatever it was, whatever caused it, it came from a point which granted it entry, and that meant an exit. She tried to move but her restraints held her firm; her arms were pulled high above her head and her legs were pulled taut in the other direction. She remembered more now: the cop, the black cop who had been there. He had tried to help, or was he the cause of it all? She couldn’t remember. She was so thirsty; her throat was dry and felt like it had been lined with sandpaper.

Becky tried to swallow, but her throat cramped shut. She turned her head out of the way of the wind, which had increased since she had woken. It had grown hotter, too. When she opened her mouth to call out, her lips split open as if they were made of crepe paper.

“Help me!” a tiny voice called out from the darkness. Becky looked around, trying to make sense of things. Slowly everything came into focus. The first thing Becky noticed was that it wasn’t black that shrouded them, but red: a deep and powerful red.

“Who’s there?” she asked. “What’s happening?” she added after a short pause.

“My name… Oh God, I don’t know anymore –” the tiny voice began, but a second voice finished: “You’re in Hell, rookie, and it’s frying time so get ready for a real baptism of fire!”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand, I was just…?” Becky asked, her own voice breaking as she dry spat every syllable.

“I ain’t gonna spoil it for you, bitch, I been down ‘ere for fuckin’ years and I ain’t been given no answer yet; don’t got no fucking clue what they want from me. So I ain’t gonna waste my breaf on youse. Just save dem quistions ‘til your one on one time. They can make you scream goo,d whore. Maybe you’ll even fuckin’ like it,” the second voice interrupted, and the echo that murmured around the room seemed to be one of equal hospitality.

Becky shrunk back, her skin sizzling as the burning metal rivets and the shackles around her wrists and ankles seared her flesh. Becky bit her lip. She wouldn’t let herself cry. She had learned that from her pimp. An all-around education, he had called it. “Give them whatever hole they want, keep quiet, take your dough and come out again.” He had spoken not out of love but from a business perspective. She was a financial investment for him, and nobody wanted to pay top rate for a cut up whore.

It was only small at first, so small in fact that for a while she just through it was some trick of the dark, a fuzzy spot where the complete absence of light was broken. The tiny orange dot gave her a glimmer of hope.

“Here it comes, bitches!” that same alpha dog voice cried out, while others began to beg for mercy. While many whimpered, Becky was fairly sure that majority stayed silent. She put herself in the latter group, or so she hoped. Even from such a great distance Becky could feel the heat radiating towards them. The only two sounds that could be heard was the distant rumble of whatever it was that was speeding towards them from the other end of the tunnel, and the maniacal cackling of that same boisterous voice. It was wild with excitement and yet Becky could tell its owner was terrified.

The heat increased, the temperature going up and the humidity going down. Becky’s eyeballs itched, and when she blinked she could feel her skin scraping across the gelatinous surface, scratching like wipers on a dry windshield. Becky knew exactly what it was that hurtled towards them. She was determined not to scream. She failed.

It was fire, a burning ball of fire that shot towards them, incinerating anything that stood in its path.

The room was lit up, as if someone had changed the fuse and flipped the switch. Becky’s reduced range of motion hampered her view, but she could see a few other tables on the same level as her. The bodies on them lay still, jaws clenched in anticipation.

Becky closed her eyes, when the wind stopped… no, it didn’t stop, it reversed. The wind was sucked back on itself, pulled towards the burning ball of fire that continued to rocket towards them all. Becky realized then that there were more people than she could even begin to contemplate. All crammed in together like passengers on a Japanese express train in rush hour.

God, she wanted a fix, her whole body itched, wanting that sensation… that rush of peace.

All around her Becky could hear people begin to beg. Screeching for clemency like a repentant man taking the walk to the gas chamber. She couldn’t see them, but hundreds of thousands of bodies writhed on wooden slabs much like her own. They stretched out into the distance for miles and miles. The walls too were stacked high with tables, some flat, others ranging through various gradients all the way to completely erect, some people even inverted. While many were naked, the majority were clothed. Becky could see all manner of clothing, from business suits and swimming costumes through to wedding dresses and fancy costumes. She saw men and women, boys and girls of all ages, each bound individually to their own table, custom made to their size.

“No, no more, please, please, I’m sorry… I’m sorry!” Becky heard a voice scream.

Becky looked and saw a young girl only a few years older than herself.

Becky vomited; choking and spluttering as she swallowed a great deal of it back down into her lungs.

The girl was black, her skin coloured not by race but flame. Her entire body was chargrilled, the flesh peeling off in large, thick flakes, revealing the raw skin beneath. It glistened like dew on an early spring morning. Her hair was all but gone; just a few burnt locks remained clinging weakly to her scalp. Both of her eyes had burst, leaving two empty holes behind, yet they stared at Becky, pleaded with her as if she was the key to their release.

The rumbling of the flame grew louder, as did the gnawing need for a fix. Becky’s stomach was twisted into a large knot that wouldn’t move. Her throat burned from the vomit, while her head spun and sang out at the top of its voice. She could feel the hot air burn her skin, she could smell it cooking, the way she could smell her skin after a day in the sun. The fireball was closer now; she could hear the screams from the others as it hit them, roasting them but somehow keeping them all alive. Just before it hit them Becky heard the unmistakable sound of rain. The drops were intermittent at first, but soon they became a downpour. It didn’t take long for her to realize that it wasn’t rain that was falling, but the result of a multitude of bladders all releasing that the same time. A strong smell filled the air for those last few seconds. A golden shower fell, and soaked them all.

*

Only a hundred meters or so to go, Becky would have said. The burning orange light became too much for her and she had to just shut her eyes and grit her teeth…

And wait…

Her body screamed in pain as her skin began to blister.

The wait was always the worst part. Some days the fire would be slow, and on others it would seem to last an eternity. There was never a quick session: they didn’t like that. They liked to take their time, to play with them in the flames.

It hit.

… a brilliant flash of light.

… Becky screamed, but there was no pain.

Not this time.

Becky felt the table fall away as her body rose into the air. It felt cool – cold, even. Becky opened her eyes. She had grown accustomed to the regeneration process but still felt nervous about what she would see upon waking. Raw flesh, glistening as the guards watched over her, picking away the healing skin as it grew. Sometimes it was a bath of bloodsucking maggot-like creatures that would eat through her charred flesh. Only this time she felt something different. The bonds that held her were gone. She felt something rough and wiry beneath her. It was hard, but compared to what she had been used to it felt like velvet. It was carpet. Becky rose onto her elbows and looked around; she saw a door and a cupboard. She saw nobody. Not that she could have acted had she had company, for she passed out immediately.

~

III

Richards Lust For Life

“Hey, Dick, wake up; it’s time to play,” a voice called out, stirring Richard from his slumber. He opened his eyes with a start, the dream still vivid in his mind, like the ones he used to have when he fell asleep high. He sat up in bed; it wasn’t his, but that wasn’t a strange thing for him. The only two things that were unusual were his lack of a hangover, or the dull aching head that promised to deliver one. The other was a sharp pain in his upper back, in his shoulders. He raised his arms, swimming in the air, and when they both worked he threw back the bed covers and tried to stand.

“Where are you going, honey?” the feminine voice said. It was then Richard saw the chains. His legs had been fastened to the bed, spread eagled; not in a kinky way, but with real shackles. Heavy irons chains fastened each ankle to the bedposts and were weighed down by large iron balls like an old fashioned criminal. His feet were purple and swollen from where the cuffs cut off his circulation.

“What’s... Who are you? Where am I?” The succession of questions spewed from his mouth.

Richard looked around. He was in a plain, white walled room, the ceiling painted the same off-white shade. The paint was fresh; the Caution: Wet Paint smell hung in the air.

The woman emerged from nowhere; a door concealed in the walls.
It must be a trick of some sort, some crazy ass chick in a futuristic fucking house. Boy, Rich, you sure can pick ‘em,
Richard reasoned with himself. He wasn’t convinced.

She wore a lacy negligee, which covered her body and made no attempt to hide her curves. White stockings attached to a garter belt clung to her legs

“Don’t you want to play anymore?” she asked. Her eyes glistened as she pouted.

She walked up to the bed, her hips swaying from side to side. Richard liked what he saw and wasn’t embarrassed when his penis began to harden, forming a bulge in his underwear; the only item of clothing he wore.

The woman raised her arms and flicked her wrists, and all of a sudden Richard’s own arms were pulled above his head, which was immobilized by their vice like presence.

“Hey!” Richard called as he tried to lower his arms. But they were held by some invisible force. Richard craned his head back just in time to see thick burns appear around his wrists. “What are you doing? Listen, I don’t mind being a bit kinky, but this is too…”

“Shut up, man whore. Where do you think you are, some slut’s bedroom? You must remember, pretty-boy. You fell, and now you’re mine until it’s time to be judged.” Her voice was deep, beyond husky. Her hands glided up and down her body, pulling the lingerie. Yet all the while her eyes never broke their near mesmerizing contact she had with Richard.

Richard stared at her, his arousal overpowering his nerves. He had fallen, he remembered that, but he had been fine, so drunk at the moment of impact that his body simply bounced down the steps and into the yard. He had gotten up with nothing more than a grazed knee and twisted ankle. That had been weeks ago. He had stayed inside for a while, sulking about everything. Nobody had bothered him. His friends only came knocking when there was a party to throw.