Authors: Edward Lee
City Infernal (9 page)
“Just tired, I guess. I must’ve been out in the sun too long.”
“Go lie down. I’ll cook dinner.”
“I’m fine, really. I want to do it. Go watch your sports stuff.”
“You sure?”
“Sure. Two people in the kitchen is one too many. Makes me bitchy.”
Her father laughed, retreating back to the family room.
Cassie poached the fish in soy sauce and fresh-ground horseradish. But when they ate, she barely tasted it. “This is great!” her father complimented. “You could be a chef!”
Cassie picked through her food, still bothered. Of course, what she’d seen today—Via—had been her imagination, minor heat-stroke or something.
It had to be.
She looked blankly at the huge television: a pre-season football game. Nothing seemed more pointless in the world than grown men running back and forth over grass trying to move a leather bag full of air.
“Fuckin’ Leon!” her father suddenly shouted, pounding the coffee table with the bottom of his fist. “Do us all a favor and chicken-walk your ass back to Dallas, you lazy no-talent sham motherf—” He caught himself in the tirade, looked sheepishly to Cassie. “Er, sorry.”
She just smiled and took the plates back to the kitchen, washed and dried them by hand rather than using the newly installed dishwasher. Something was side-tracking her thoughts, and she knew exactly what it was.
She knew what she wanted to do.
“I’m going up to my room, Dad. Gonna listen to some music for a while.”
“Okay, honey. Thanks for cooking. You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Enjoy your game.”
She edged out, started walking up the carpeted stairs. Brass flicker-bulb lamps lit the way up, throwing shadows on the various old statues and oil paintings.
Yes, she knew what she wanted to do.
On the second-floor landing, she glanced down the dark hall toward her room. Then she glanced up the next flight of stairs.
Her father’s muffled shouting echoed from the living room: “Don’t bother trying to tackle the guy, Leon—oh, no! We wouldn’t want you to actually break out into a sweat for your EIGHT MILLION A YEAR!”
Cassie looked at the cassette tape. She’d probably just picked it up somewhere, or found it. Or maybe Roy had given it to her. The name on the cover sounded sinister.
ALDINOCH.
No, Roy must’ve given it to me, and I don’t remember. I’m just having some weird drug flaskback from all that crap they pumped into me at the hospital.
Now she felt convinced.
There was no Via. There was no dead girl.
More hesitation. She could go back to her room and listen to the tape, or—
She started going up the next flight of stairs. Every few steps creaked. A chill crept beneath her skin; if the story was true, she was making the exact same trek that Fenton Blackwell had—with the babies.
Only a few lights glimmered on the third floor. The halls to either side were grainy with darkness.
Another glance upward. Deeper darkness.
The final flight of steps was carpetless and much more narrow. When she flicked on a wall switch, only the most meager light winked on up above.
She took one step up, stopped, then took another.
Oh, come on! Don’t be such a chicken! What? You think you’re going to go up there and find people there? Come on!
She ascended the rest of the way quickly. There was no door to the oculus room; the stairs merely emerged up into it.
There. See?
A single hanging bulb lit the room. There was no Via, no people waiting for her. Three bare mattresses lay on the dusty floor, and this bothered her a little when she thought about it. Cobwebs festooned the small room’s comers, and the walls appeared to never have been papered, just old wooden slats.
The oculus window stared back at her like an odd face.
Then something caught her attention. Against one rickety wall stood an old tea table, and sitting on top of it was a dusty boombox.
She fingered her cassette tape. She could plug it in now, listen to it here. But as she hit the button to pop the cassette lid, she saw that a tape was in there already.
Her guts were already beginning to sink when she pulled out the tape. ALDINOCH, it read.
It was identical to the tape she had.
Her heart rate jumped. “Don’t freak out,” she slowly demanded. “There’s an explanation. Just ... get a grip on yourself.”
She reclosed the lid and pushed the PLAY button. The sudden blare of volume shook her; she quickly turned it down.
Death Metal, just as she’d thought. Multiple layers of abrasive guitars and discordant synth-drums washed back and forth over corroded vocals:
“Inverting every cross toward Hell
This church is now the Goat’s!
Praise him, whores of holiness,
Before I slit your throats!”
Cassie’s lips pursed as if she’d tasted something sour. She liked the rhythms and the dense cords, but the negative lyrics turned her off.
Next, a chorus roared:
“I have chosen my afterlife
And darkness it shall be
Satan!!! Open wide the gates of Hell for me!”
The Gothy mix of Hard-Industrial treatment with Slayer-like lyrics didn’t work for her. She switched the boombox off. But what could explain this strangeness? It was the same cassette tape that the girl in her delusion had given her. The tape in the boombox was real, and so was the one in her hand.
And there was another coincidence, wasn’t there?
I just happen to find a tape full of satanic music ... in a room where a satanist supposedly sacrificed babies.
I just happen to find a tape full of satanic music ... in a room where a satanist supposedly sacrificed babies.
She sighed and turned. The round oculus window full of stained glass re-faced her. The faintest light glowed in a scarlet pane—the moon, no doubt.
Something urged her to open the window. The metal hinge squealed when she pushed against the circular frame. Warm air brushed her face. She looked out the window.
And fainted at once.
It was not the rolling nighted landscape that she’d glimpsed when she looked out.
It was a city, miles distant and seemingly endless. A city silhouetted by a luminous dark-red sky.
A city that wasn’t there.
(II)When Cassie wakened, she felt as though she were rising from an entrenchment of hot tar. Some aspect of her consciousness pushed upward, and when she opened her eyes, she saw only strange blurred squares. “Cassie?”
The voice helped her to focus; the squares sharpened. They were, of course, the fancily embossed brass and tin ceiling tiles in her bedroom.
She was lying inert on top of her bed.
“Cassie, honey? What’s wrong?”
The voice, warbled at first, was her father’s. He leaned over, his face stamped with worry.
Scraps of memory began to re-assemble.
I was upstairs....
The oculus room.
A breath seemed to snag in her chest.
That ... city.
A city that didn’t exist. A city so immense that it seemed to go on without limit. The south side of Blackwell Hill extended as miles of open farmland and then a gradual rise of forest belts that ended at the mountains.
But when she’d looked out that window ...
No Blue Ridge Mountains, no farmland, no trees.
Instead she’d seen a cityscape that glowed as if built on embers. She’d seen a starless twilight of raging scarlet. She’d seen bizarre, lit skyscrapers haloed by dense shifts of smoke.
What WAS that?
“I found you upstairs, in the oculus room,” her father said. “You had passed out.”
“I’m ... all right now,” she murmured, leaning up in bed.
“I should probably call a doctor—”
“No, please. I’m okay.”
“What were you doing up in that room, honey?”
What could she say?
“I thought I heard something. I’d never been up there before, so I went up.”
“You thought you
heard
something?”
heard
something?”
“I don’t know, I thought so.”
“Then you should’ve come and gotten me.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to bug you. Sorry.”
Her father sat in a cane chair beside the bed. He looked exerted, which was no wonder because he’d obviously been the one who carried her back downstairs to her room. She didn’t like to lie, but how could she tell him the truth?
There’re dead people living in the house, and the sky outside is red. I saw a city where there IS no city.
He’d have her committed for observation immediately. No, she couldn’t tell him the truth.
There’re dead people living in the house, and the sky outside is red. I saw a city where there IS no city.
He’d have her committed for observation immediately. No, she couldn’t tell him the truth.
She didn’t even know what the truth was.
The difficulty of the next question shone in his pinched expression. “Honey, have you been drinking again, or taking drugs. If you have, just tell me. I promise I won’t go apeshit, but I need to know.”
“I haven’t, Dad. I swear.” The question didn’t anger her as it had in the past.
After all my screwing up, what’s he supposed to think?
“It’s just the heat, I think. Too much sun. I’ve felt kind of sick all day.”
After all my screwing up, what’s he supposed to think?
“It’s just the heat, I think. Too much sun. I’ve felt kind of sick all day.”
He patted her hand. “You want me to get you anything?”
“No, that’s all right. I just want to go to sleep.”
“If you’re still not feeling well tomorrow, you’re gonna tell me, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get your old doctor out here right away.”
“Dad,
she’s in D.C.”
she’s in D.C.”
Her father shrugged. “Then I’ll charter a goddamn helicopter and
fly
her out here.”
fly
her out here.”
She managed a giggle. “You would. I’ll be fine. I just need to go to sleep.”
“Okay. You call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “Sorry to be such a pain in the butt.”
“Yeah, but you’re
my
pain in the butt. Remember that.”
my
pain in the butt. Remember that.”
“I will. Go back and watch your game. I know how much you love to bitch about Leon Flanders or whatever his name is.”
The comment instantly set him off. “That lazy, no-effort, non-football-playing son of a bitch! He missed
twelve
tackles in the first half!” He walked out of the room and back down the hall, his complaints fading. “Jesus Christ, I’m a fat old man and I could tackle better than that talentless bum!”
twelve
tackles in the first half!” He walked out of the room and back down the hall, his complaints fading. “Jesus Christ, I’m a fat old man and I could tackle better than that talentless bum!”
Well,
Cassie thought.
At least he’s back to normal.
Cassie thought.
At least he’s back to normal.
She rubbed her eyes.
But what about me?
She dawdled about in her room, exhausted yet wiry with fret. She turned off the lights, stripped and donned a short nightgown, and next she was walking out the French doors onto the gable-sided terrace. Night-sounds pulsated—crickets, peepers—and then a warm wind stirred. She looked out over the moonlit landscape and saw no smoking, luminous city. Just open land and forests which extended to the crisply edged mountains.
What did you expect?
Sighing, she walked back in and went to bed.
Sleep pulled her down like muggers sneaking up from behind. She felt stuffed in a black ravine as nightmares hulked overhead.
First, as always:
Lissa’s face, twisted into a mask of insane hatred.
And the death-rattle voice. “My own sister ... How could you do this to me?”
Then the gunshot and the hot blood splattering into Cassie’s eyes.
No, please....
More fragments of nightmare plodded over her. Yes, she lay immobile in a ravine—or an open grave.
Her mouth felt sealed shut.
She could smell malodorous smoke, could hear muffled cracklings of a roaring fire. Again, she saw the city under the scarlet sky.
The city seemed endless.
Distant screams careened to and fro, like sirens miles away. But with each frantic beat of her heart, the visions lurched closer....
The city raged before the infernal terrascape, a firmament of inversions whose highest edifice winked at its peak like a beacon of luminous blood. Cassie’s vision trailed away on stinking, hot winds, shooting through abyssal avenues and abhorrent boulevards as though it were a scream itself. In one avenue, a troop of man-like
things
with chisel-slits for eyes shouldered into a crowd of haggard people, and with inhuman three-fingered hands, these same
things
began to select
victims for
whatever purpose there was on this horrid night. Faces were dragged by fingers hooked into eyes. Wan mouths opened to scream ejecting innards and blasts of blood. Heads were prized apart, raw brains rowed through by the fat taloned fingers. One man was being seared with prods of white-hot iron, another was eviscerated with one fast swipe of a talon. The guts were then summarily shoved into the victim’s mouth as he was being forced to eat. Women faired worse, stripped to emaciated nakedness and plundered for sexual possibilities that defied all human imagination.
things
with chisel-slits for eyes shouldered into a crowd of haggard people, and with inhuman three-fingered hands, these same
things
began to select
victims for
whatever purpose there was on this horrid night. Faces were dragged by fingers hooked into eyes. Wan mouths opened to scream ejecting innards and blasts of blood. Heads were prized apart, raw brains rowed through by the fat taloned fingers. One man was being seared with prods of white-hot iron, another was eviscerated with one fast swipe of a talon. The guts were then summarily shoved into the victim’s mouth as he was being forced to eat. Women faired worse, stripped to emaciated nakedness and plundered for sexual possibilities that defied all human imagination.
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