Highway To Hell (28 page)

The group remained at the table, yet was far more relaxed than they had been at the start. The wine flowed in more irregular streams rather than in the previously adopted synchronized style. Even Sammy had brightened up and seemed to be feeling far more comfortable with his position.

“Does it hurt?” Becky asked with genuine concern, touching Sammy on the shoulder with the merest of brushing movements, just to let him know that she was talking to him and because she wanted to know, not through pity or through awkward formality, but because she genuinely wanted to know.

“Not anymore. It did, but once I got here it began to fade,” he answered, looking right at her as he spoke.

“How come… I mean, I got… um, well, injured when I was, you know, down there, but when I got here everything was gone,” Becky stammered as she tried to find the right words to use when phrasing what she viewed as a delicate question.

“It’s true,” Helen agreed, her cheeks flushing a warm scarlet. “I was tortured for years, but I don’t have a mark on me,” she finished. Despite all they had been through, it seemed remarkably easy for them to talk about it all. The initial fear that had held them all in its vice-like grip while alone had begun to loosen in the presence of company. Much like an abusive spouse, it seemed happy to play along while the others were around, but nothing comes without a price, and it would be reaped when the time was right… when they were alone again.

“That’s because the demon that put their hands on you was powerful. A demon of the second hierarchy, and not someone you would expect to find getting their hands dirty in the lower levels of the pit such as the chambers you five occupied. His name was Rosier, and we cannot undo his touch,” a new voice said. It was deep and monotonous and made all five of them jump.

Unlike the others, Marcus and Graham reacted more then jumped, both leaping to their feet. Marcus noted how sprightly Graham was for an older man.

“Who the hell are you?” Marcus demanded. He turned as he snapped to attention, and saw the four other men standing at the head of the table far to his right.

“Sit,” the one in the middle ordered. He stood half a pace ahead of the other three, who stood with their arms straight, hands resting over each other in the center of their waist like personal security, or the guardians of the Matrix.

Marcus felt an overwhelming urge to take his seat again, and very nearly did when he heard a chair scraping behind him. Out of the corner of his eye Marcus saw that the others had also risen to their feet, even Sammy.

“No. You see, I’ve had about enough little surprises and strange goings on for one day. You sound like someone who can give us some answers, so why don’t you start by telling us who you are and then, maybe, if we like what we hear we’ll sit. What do you say?” Marcus stood firm, his shoulders back, blood surging through his veins. He was nervous. His hands shook but he held them before his body, fists clenched. The fact that he felt so nervous was actually a comfort for him.

“How dare you speak to...” One of the minders took a stride forward, his face a thundercloud of restrained rage. His eyes seemed to flash and spark like a live electric cable, while his hulking muscle ridden frame looked to have expanded and stretched the skin that covered it to the limit. The other man, the obvious leader of the group, simply stuck his arm out and held up his hand in a silencing gesture.

“Calm down, Nakir. They are sinners, and know no better. Besides, they are right; we haven’t introduced ourselves to them yet.” He turned his head to his friend as he spoke, then turned back to look at Marcus. After some pause, he added, “My apologies.” He flashed them a smile and folded his hands before his body much like the others. Behind him, the one he called Nakir had resumed his place in the line. “My name is Raguel, and these are my brothers. Nakir has already made his presence felt, as is often his way. The fellow on my left here is Sariel.” Raguel pointed to the man that stood at the end of the line; he was an ordinary looking man, not as large or imposing as Nakir. Raguel wore a pair of faded blue jeans, a regular work shirt and a pair of black shoes. His hairline receded slightly as the later stages of youth began to give way to approaching middle age, and also unlike Nakir, whose eyes were so dark they seemed black, Sariel’s were green; nothing out of the ordinary but clearly more colored than his muscular counterpart. “And this is Nemamiah.” He was dressed in a casual suit. He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose but he seemed to not understand their purpose for he kept removing them and then replacing them, and when his name was mentioned and the attention directed his way he dropped them. He was the youngest of all four, or so he looked. Nemamiah offered them a strained smile, but for the rest, his body did not move.

“Okay, those are nice names,” Marcus said sarcastically. “But not what I meant. Who are you?” he asked again.

Raguel opened his mouth to answer, pausing before continuing in a tone that was one of complete surprise, as if their names alone should have been introduction enough. “Why, we’re Angels of the Lord.”

XI

The sun beat down. The sky was cloudless a deep shade of azure, impossibly so. It was the kind of blue sky seen in surreal movies or comedies, and had Richard not been staring into it for the past week he would not have believed it even if someone had told him and made him watch their home movies of the trip to prove it. Truth was he had no clue how long he had been there, stranded on the top of a mountain risen in the center of a large desert. Although it wasn’t just desert, no, there were patches of what looked like dry earth, cracked open like the soles of the feet that must have tried to cross this landscape at some point in times past.

The sun moved across the sky, a large burning disc that traversed the world far too close to the ground to be considered a good sign – although that could have been aided by the impossible height of the rock which Richard found himself stranded on. It rose in the East, and lowered in the west, but its pace was as impossible to gauge as the mind of a woman, especially one who bases all of her important life decision on the measure of drink and liquor floating through her system at the time of asking. Some days would go by slower than the last afternoon of school before summer. The heat would boil the sweat while it was still beneath Richard’s skin, and the night would go even slower, the cold air freezing him. With no place to turn for shelter from either of the two extremes, Richard lay flat against the rock, fighting against the elements. The sun would rise and he would welcome he oncoming heat, and the moon would come out and usher in an equally welcomed cool. Then, just as Richard would get accustomed to the system, it all changed. The sun would rise; the temperature would shoot off the chart before the burning orb had revealed itself for the day to be gone in a matter of hours, before a night came that lasted twice as long as Richard could bear. There was no pattern to the concept of time, except maybe a randomness which could only be seen once the approaching insanity could decode.

The first few days after his arrival, Richard stood or sat in the same location, just waiting for the man, Jizo, to come back and take him further on whatever journey it was that he had to make; escaping Hell or simply being moved further into it, he wasn’t sure which. However, after a particularly long day and halfway through an equally slow night, Richard finally realized that he was waiting for something that would not happen. It was his move to make. On the fourth day Richard began his search for a way down, or at least a route that was less than vertical and offered a modicum of grip. There was nothing. He was stuck on the plateau of a large mountain in the middle of the desert without even so much as a tree to offer him shade. There was no way down that wasn’t merely a feat of chance. By the end of that fourth day the sun had begun to take its toll on him. Richard found himself weaker, the night was harder, and even by mid-afternoon on the fifth day beneath the blistering sun, he shivered. Richard was reduced to crawling on his hands and knees as he continued to scavenge the mountain top for something, anything. Each day he would cover the same ground, hoping for some change, for some miraculous or overlooked escape point. He thought he had seen a root or some other form of vine not far below the edge on the evening of the fifth day, and so he had headed for it, but no sooner had his grasping fingers found their target did the vines crumble in his hands, disappearing to dust and floating off into the wind.

At the peak of the sixth day, Richard sat back, resting on his elbows, forearms flat against the burning rock, like a holiday maker on Bondi Beach. He watched as a fascinatingly green colored scorpion crawled along his legs. The creature seemed rather interested in this new find, for it had stalked Richard for the best part of ninety minutes, much to Richard’s amusement. It circled him like a cat circling the unaware blackbird, moving it seemed in ever decreasing circles until the time came for its first approach. Richard’s body had been coated in sweat as the beast approached him. He was exhausted, unable to move away if he wanted to. His body burnt from the sun, blisters had erupted all over his flesh and they seemed to pulse in a strange rhythm, his right arm was tingling, while his left had lost nearly all sensation other than a dull ache which lingered in the back of his mind. The unusual coloration of the creature also held him captive; the fine hairs on its body were clearly visible and to Richard’s sun-bleached mind it looked like a gooseberry. Richard had laughed, chuckled until his stomach cramped. When he focused again the beast was gone; it had moved from the rock and now sat, perched neatly, on Richard’s legs. His trousers were torn at the knee, his legs exposed. The scorpion moved with a gentle grace. Its feet were tipped like needles yet they didn’t break the skin. Its curled tail twitched at regular intervals and its body expanded as it took a breath. The barb was a much darker shade of green than the rest of its body, dyed by the poison that filled it, no doubt. The large pincers were held up in the air, the left one higher than the right, as if it was taking up the defensive stance of a boxer, ready to strike with one claw while protecting itself should the enemy get a shot off or even evade the first attack.

Afraid to even move, Richard lay still, his breath burning in his lungs, his legs trembling as his body began to scream for oxygen. For a while he thought the creature had fallen asleep; it didn’t move, didn’t breathe. It just sat still. Finally, after what felt like an age, with a startling leap the creature jumped from Richard’s legs and landed more than a meter away. It remained where it landed for a few moment – winded, perhaps – before scurrying off again, disappearing over the edge of the cliff. Richard watched the creature, awed by the certainty of its movements, and he was overtaken by a sudden surety that the answer to his eventual descent laid in the beast. Rolling onto his front, ignoring the cries of his body, Richard forced himself onwards. He crawled on his belly like a snake, not stopping until his bloodied hands hooked over the lip of his elevated prison. The sun blisters that covered him had burst, becoming open, weeping sores. Sweat stung them and the pain sounded in his ears like wind chimes. Richard also felt his crotch begin to itch, a mere flutter of a sensation that went away with a simple veering of the mind. Richard hauled himself further over the edge, giving himself a clear view straight down the side of the cliff. At first the scorpion was gone: Richard scoured the cliff face but saw nothing. Then, there it was, scurrying effortlessly down the side of the mountain. It reached about halfway down and stopped. Richard waited and watched as the beast jumped from the rock and plummeted towards the ground before a set of wings came loose from its back and began to flap furiously in a bid to slow its ever accelerating descent. With the task accomplished, the beating wings took on a much more rhythmic pattern, and the unique creation flew away, gaining height and picking up speed. Richard watched it go and then turned, exhausted, exasperated and defeated. It was at that moment, with his head still hanging over the edge of the cliff, that Richard raised the question of just letting himself fall straight down into the desert below like Wyle E. Coyote.

That wasn’t possible – although, if it could do that, then why can’t you?
a voice spoke inside Richard’s head. It was a voice he was familiar with, although in the past it had always been more aggressive. It was the instigator behind many of his sexual adventures, the whispering voice that sat on his shoulders, directing his moves, aiding and powering his thrusts, enhancing his love making until he could outlast even the most energetic of women in bed and leave them begging for more.

Maybe. I mean, nothing makes sense anymore,
his own mind answered the voice. It was the first time he had answered, or reasoned with himself, but the voice was different now; it was withdrawn, worried, maybe even scared.

If you believe it, then surely it makes sense, and then anything is possible. I mean, this rock you’re on, it looks a little, I don’t know... um... sandy to me, yeah, real brittle. I reckon you could just dig your way down, if you had enough time.

Richard found himself peering down the side of the mountain once again. He was shocked by what he saw, the sides no longer the hard, smooth rock of a few minutes previous, but fragile piles of sand that seemed to be flowing as the top layer drifted down to the bottom, where it formed the new base and pushed the pile back up to its full height.

Was it always like that?
he asked himself. No answer came.

Of course it was. You just missed it,
Richard gave himself the answer.

Richard’s movements were slow, more through his body’s weakened condition than as a result of any planned caution, but he swung himself over the ledge and, with a series of weak kicks, managed to create a foothold and followed this up by creating a second. He swung his second leg over and was now ready to begin his possibly foolish Papillion impression, and try to escape an inescapable prison.