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Chapter 15: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
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What Hell May Come Prologue
PROLOGUEThe ritual had taken eighty-one days.They were at it for more than a quarter of a year.Eighty-one days of smoke, and animal shrieks, and groans of pleasure, and spilled blood. Months of heady incense burning. The occasional hallucinogen was tossed into the mixture, turning the world into a fever dream. Weeks of chanting. The constant intonation fell behind the ears and awoke powers in the subconscious. Robed heroes of all races and classes came and went, adding to the celebration, until they collapsed and were dragged off to recuperate.Crixen Runeburner, elf mage, had been there for all of it. The chanting, the killing, the sex. He had cast down enemies, seen proud heroes fall, and evaded all magical traps to come here at this time. Many adventures across bleak and alien landscapes had led him to this ancient crypt. He had faced dagger fanged monsters, green skinned humans with cruel blades, and pale shadows of the formerly alive. All of these he had struck down to reac
What Hell May Come Chapter 1: Do Unto Others First
CHAPTER 1Do Unto Others FirstEvil had always been in Jon St. Fond’s life. Lurking behind the wallpaper. Breathing down vents. He would turn quickly and in the span of an eye blink, the beast would be there. A horned shadow on the wall, a cold dusk of air, a tail slap on the door, a fallen picture frame, a deformed insect scuttling over the ceiling. It was there.Right now, he couldn’t care about any of that. Right now, Jon was kicking open the screen door at the back of his parents’ suburban home and bringing something cupped in his hands over to the sink. He placed it gently into the basin and wrapped a hand towel around it.It was the end of Indian summer in 1986. School had just started up and all of the anxieties that went with being a teen in the ‘80s plagued Jon. Lack of social graces, teenage awkwardness, no money—all these bothered him, but none of his problems loomed as large as his family.Jon heard a sharp intake of breath. The warning “Oooooo,” of his snitchy little
What Hell May Come Chapter 2: The Tragedy of Man
CHAPTER 2The Tragedy of ManBuffalo was the faded queen of old New York, the leftovers of an industrial era ground to shit. It had once been a showpiece of culture and success, industry and shipping, where the working slobs could pull down beer money and the educated snobs could twitter their noses at a host of artistic feasts. It wasn’t fully gone, but the city was quickly fading into a new Detroit or Baltimore—hubs of corruption and squalor. As opportunity slowly leaked away, so did Buffalo’s best and brightest. More and more vanished each year, leaving behind only those who were too lazy or stupid to get the hell out. Nowadays, all the city had to boast about was a chronically losing football team and the invention of Buffalo wings.If the city proper was that bad, Jon’s home of Black Rock, the area he now pedaled through, was its retarded cousin. Once the berg had been a commercial rival for its dominant sister and had nearly been the chosen terminus of the Erie Canal. The War
What Hell May Come Chapter 3: What Rough Beast
CHAPTER 3What Rough BeastFather found him on the way back from Kathy’s house.A town car, freshly minted and fully loaded, pulled up to Jon on an empty street. It sparkled under the streetlights and the yellow eyes of its driver sparkled along with it. Jon’s father stepped out. Well-muscled and trim, he was always perfectly dressed with neat crisp lines. He never seemed to sweat or get dirty. He always knew what to say and how to act, to get what he wanted. Perfection clung naturally to him. From that perfection came a confidence Jon could never hope for.Punishment was looming. Mother found the problems. Father corrected them. He towered over Jon like a giant. The teen shrank under his shadow. The elder fixed him with his eyes, seeming to drink in Jon’s every weakness before saying, “So you didn’t do as you were ordered.”He let that dangle like a viper between them.“What do you have to say for yourself?”Jon’s head hung down, his ball cap shading all but the lower jut of hi
What Hell May Come Chapter 4: The Judas Goat
CHAPTER 4The Judas GoatJon woke with a start on Michael’s bedroom floor. The grungy shag carpeting had scored a number of macaroni-sized ruts in his face. The usual disorders of not knowing where he was claimed him for a second, but his senses took in reality quick enough. The stink of yesterday’s clothes, hard particles of crud from a carpet that had never been vacuumed, stale air from an unventilated room.A typical teenage boy’s room. Iron Maiden posters on the wall. A pile of dirty laundry in the closet. A tottering stack of well-read comics next to the bed. Porno mags hidden under the bed. Trashcan filled to the brim. Loose leaf paper, pens, spiral notebooks, backpack. Textbooks with a brown paper bag cover to minimize damage. Not much different from his own, except the furniture was more ragged.He shook the sleep from his face. Michael was elsewhere, which was just as well, Jon needed to scratch his balls and didn’t want anyone around for that. After the game last night, w
What Hell May Come Chapter 5: Sign of the Beast
CHAPTER 5Sign of the BeastHe stayed with Michael the next two nights, at the latter’s insistence. Jon didn’t need much of an arm twisting. Where else did he have to go? Michael’s parents didn’t want him there, but they paid so little attention it was easy to sneak by. The dad got up early to go to his job repairing conveyor belts, while the mom ran out soon after for her job as a crossing guard at the elementary school. Most nights, they went out bowling after a fast-food meal. Meanwhile, Michael’s brother was always high or in the process of getting high, so he didn’t care. He just stayed in the room reading comics when the parents were home, then scavenged for food afterwards.It couldn’t last, though. What was he to do? Become some kind of homeless derelict, eating garbage and collecting aluminum cans? There was no job he could get above minimum wage. Even if he could work full-time, he would be living out of an abandoned car or with ten other guys in a fly-trap college flop. E
What Hell May Come Chapter 6: Blessed are the Bold
CHAPTER 6Blessed are the Bold“The name means Hill of the Ghouls. Isn’t that messed up?”The black van clunked on through the fading light of day. It was All Hallow’s Eve and rather than get drunk and steal candy from children like their peers, Jon and friends were bundled away in warm winter gear and passing around a bottle of scotch Kathy had stolen from her parents’ liquor stock.“How much longer, you reckon?” Louis asked.“Soon. Maybe twenty more minutes,” Michael answered from the driver’s seat.“You actually been there?”“Uh ... ”“That’s what I done figured.”“Hey, I got a road atlas.” He hefted up a massive spiral notebook filled with the finest AAA maps. “It’s current. Came out last year. I know where I’m going.”Michael lapsed back into discussing the fanciful and grotesque history of Goodleburg Cemetery, their ultimate destination. Jon only tuned in with half an ear, since he knew the first thing Michael said was untrue. The place was named after one o
What Hell May Come Chapter 7: Hammer or Anvil?
CHAPTER 7Hammer or Anvil?“They do not listen, but they hearCowards who strut like a buccaneerThey’re committed to evil,Their soul’s past retrieval; You’re the devil’s puppet, I fear.”That was Michael’s opening line as they drank coffee and ate scumdogs at one of the innumerable all-night Greek diners riddling the area. After the coffee was dropped off, he had dumped twelve creamers into it and churned the mixture slowly with a spoon, turning the black liquid light tan. He refused to tear his eyes away from the vortex being created in the middle of the cup.Jon bit into the scumdog. The specialty of the house. Onions, eye-watering mustard, hot sauce, and some kind of Greek glop were ground together into a lumpy greyish-brown paste and dumped over a lonely hot dog. It needed to be eaten fast as the concoction had a tendency to dissolve the bun into a sticky blob. The mixture sounded disgusting, but damn it tasted good. Hurt going out the end, though, especially after about f
Latest chapter
- What Hell May Come Chapter 15: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- What Hell May Come Chapter 14: The Devil’s Bellows
- What Hell May Come Chapter 13: The Conqueror Worm
- What Hell May Come Chapter 12: Deal With the Devil
- What Hell May Come Chapter 11: Vaya Con Diablos
- What Hell May Come Chapter 10: Blessed are the Victorious
- What Hell May Come Chapter 9: Drowning the Ceremony of Innocence
- What Hell May Come Chapter 8: Snakeland
- What Hell May Come Chapter 7: Hammer or Anvil?
