Disenchantment 44

*****

 

 

 

 

Malbourne looked at the two men, illegal aliens to the country most probably, not that it mattered too terribly much when the world had gone to shit. There was no love lost between him and them. He could care less about them and they knew it. Even though there was a way to communicate with them in the place that they found themselves, they did little talking to each other.

 

They had returned to the first unnatural fire that rose out of a seemingly endless pit that, as far as he knew, came from the very depths of the center of the Earth itself. They had stayed at the fire for a time, not sure what to do.

 

“Shall we continue on, gentlemen?” Malbourne asked.

 

Jesus nodded, but then neither of the men made a move to leave.

 

“Should I go first or bring up the rear?” he asked of them.

 

They looked at each other briefly, then back at him. “You can go first.”

 

Malbourne didn’t trust them, not that they really had any reason to do him harm. Malbourne didn’t trust anyone. Every person he met in the world fell into two categories: those he could use and those he couldn’t. He decided what he could get out of a person and then acted accordingly. There was nothing that he could get from these men except perhaps safety in numbers, so they were mostly insignificant during normal times. This particular instance they could be of some use. “I think you two might want to head out first. I’m a bit older and your eyes might be better adjusted to the dark.”

 

“We don’t have a telephone. We left ours back with the cars You do have one. You should go first.”

 

“Here, you can use it.” Malbourne turned on the flashlight feature of his phone and handed it to the younger of the two men.

 

“Coward,” said Jesus under his breath, barely audible, but Malbourne heard it.

 

He merely smiled at the two men, choosing to pretend as though he didn’t hear the insult. He could be vindictive later. Manipulating people required knowing when to appear agreeable and harmless and when to strike. He needed to be amiable, at least until they were back on the road, back in the real world that he was familiar with.

 

“What’s that?” asked Ricardo

 

Up ahead was a small person, maybe only three to four feet tall, hooded in a brown robe, remaining still and facing them. “Just walk around him. Don’t get too close,” said Malbourne, already heading off to the right instead of going straight toward the... person.

 

As they began to head away from the fire and cut right to go around the humanoid, it remained perfectly still, only moving its head to apparently follow them with its gaze, not that any features could be made out from under his hood with only the unnatural firelight giving anything to see by.

 

When they got up even to the creature, it released its stick. As soon as the old, gnarled branch touched the ground, it immediately turned into a black serpent, that also immediately split into two, those split into four, then those split into eight. Within the span of roughly around ten seconds, there were a hundred.

 

Malbourne looked around to see thousands of them coming from every direction. “Oh shit, what do we do?” he asked the others.

 

“We keep going,” said Ricardo.

 

“No, fuck that.” Malbourne ran back to the fire. “Come back here, guys. Oren says they won’t get close to the fire.”

 

“We’re going to keep going,” said Jesus.

 

There were snakes between himself and the other two. They stayed about two feet away from the fire and about one foot away from the other men. They were all completely surrounded. The snake-like creatures were not quite snakes. They moved like snakes and looked like snakes at first glance, but their faces were not much like snakes. They had beady black eyes that glowed in the dark, like cartoon characters designed to look cute and cuddly with overdrawn eyes, yet grotesque and writhing bodies. They reminded him of a documentary he had seen many years ago that differentiated between snakes and legless lizards.

 

As he looked, Ricardo and Jesus were inching forward, and as they did, the snakes moved back. The creatures always left about a one-foot radius from the two men, yet they allowed the two to continue forward. Malbourne looked for the little creature, but he was no longer there.

 

“Hey guys, wait for me,” he said and began to inch forward himself. However, the snakes would not back away. Malbourne moved to be within less than an inch of the serpents near the fire, yet they did not back up.

 

Ahead, the two latinos were getting farther away. “Hey, uh...Ricardo, Jesus, my friends. Wait up. They aren’t moving away for me.”

 

“Tough shit,” one of them said.

 

“Hey, I’ll pay you. Come back for me, please. Please come back for me. They’re leaving you alone.”

 

“Maybe they only eat assholes.” That was clearly Ricardo’s voice.

 

“Yeah, maybe you can pay the snakes, guy. We’re going home. We’re done with your shit.” The other voice, obviously belonging to Jesus.

 

Negative and racially charged words almost leapt to his tongue, words the dealt in race and class and mockery for differences, but Malbourne held them at bay, hoping the men would change their minds. “Please come back, I’ll do anything you want.”

 

“We’re not playing with this devilry. If they’re letting us leave, we are leaving.” Malbourne noticed a definite Spanish accent creeping back into the voice that had been recently a very bland and standard American accent.

 

“See you later, asshole.” The voice was from the other as they disappeared and the accent was much stronger, making the words almost unintelligible. The two men disappeared into the strange plant life that existed in the place.

 

“Fucking wetback, unemployed spic fucks,” Malbourne muttered quietly, still hoping they would come back, not daring to say it loud enough for the men to hear.

 

“Adios puto,” one of them yelled, full Spanish, from beyond his sight, from somewhere much closer to his real and familiar world than he could get.

 

Malbourne stood alone, next to an unnatural fire, surrounded by impossible creatures, with his own terribly mortal thoughts.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

Hornblende had to continually remind himself that he was doing something good, something that was right and just and needed to be done. Throughout his life he had become accustomed to things not going well, things going sideways. His sister died; his mother did eventually as well; he was passed over for promotion; he had trusted people multiple times who had ultimately let him down; he had suffered heartbreak of the romantic kind. Each setback, each letdown, made him increasingly more reserved, stoic, unemotional. It had gotten to the point where some people thought there was something psychologically wrong with him. Maybe there was, but it was something he could always deal with. He expected things to go wrong. When they did, he did what was necessary to get back on track, without much thought and sparing as little emotion as possible.

 

That had worked until he found himself in his current situation, in Hell. He was beginning to worry about his sanity. Unknown and impossible things were happening. He was trying to take all he was seeing in stride, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Since he had arrived, fear had attempted to overtake him on multiple occasions. He had successfully pushed it back, but was wondering just how much longer he could do it. The place was an impossibility that he had difficulty using his reason in, and still tried to choke back emotion when it came.

 

He gathered that the impossibly tall figure that was now amongst them was Thanatos, based on Mark’s story and the current conversation. The god was clad in a black robe, hands that jutted from beneath it were impossibly white, the whitest and palest color that he had ever seen.

 

“I require an answer to a question.” The god had stated.

 

“A question?” asked Oren looking around nervously. Even Hornblende noticed that it seemed that Oren was stalling, and if he noticed, he was sure that a god would notice it as well. Oren Phileus was not a great liar.

 

“Yes, you know that. I told you to have an answer when you returned.”

 

Oren looked directly at Hornblende. It seemed that he could see him again. “I know,” he said, resigned to his a fate like a student who didn’t study for a test that he knew was coming. “I know.”

 

“No,” said Mark, “Don’t leave.” Mark seemed to be coming back to reality as well. He glanced at Hornblende and Floyd, then started searching frantically with his eyes for something that Hornblende couldn’t see. “Nannette? Mattie?”

“What does it mean to be mortal?” asked Thanatos.

 

Oren remained quiet for several seconds, slowly the four men and the god looked at him.“Okay, I’ve been busy. I’ve been worried about my wife. I’ll answer the best I can.”

 

“You’d better answer well if you want my help.” Thanatos’s metallic voice brought a sudden stillness and quiet to the place, a strong sense of finality clinging to his words.

 

“To be mortal means to love...and to be loved. To search for love. I love my wife with all my heart. I live and breathe her, you know?”

 

Thanatos remained impassive.

 

Sensing that Thanatos wanted more, Oren continued, clearly making things up as speech issued forth from his mouth. “To be mortal means to find someone to be with and just...be with her. I didn’t know what I had until she was gone. Now she’s gone and all I can think of is getting her back. To live is to love. That’s it.”

 

Hornblende thought that a middle-school student in love might have answered more impressively, but didn’t voice his thoughts.

 

“Would you wager your soul that your traveling companions would answer similarly? You had mortal months to prepare for this. You opted to take lightly a solemn vow to the god of death?”

 

“I didn’t take it lightly. I was just consumed by this. I should have paid more attention to thinking about it. She...was just in my thoughts. She always is.”

 

“I’ll give you another attempt to answer, but you need to be elsewhere now.” With those words said, Thanatos had grabbed all of them so quickly that Hornblende didn’t even see him do it.

 

Suddenly they were flying through the air for what seemed like an eternal instant. So quickly they travelled, yet so far and fast and slowly. All concept of time was lost on him as he felt Thanatos’s icy cold fingers dig into his flesh. Strange images and lights flashed before his eyes and stranger visions danced on the periphery of his vision forever, for no time.

 

Just as suddenly their travel stopped.

 

The four men were standing in a huge hall. Marble pillars stretched up far into what passed for sky in the dark place. Flames, with a real reddish orange color licked and spat beyond the pillars on all sides. Ahead of them, on a large, raised dais, were two thrones. The one on the left was golden, glittering in the light of the flames. The one on the right was much smaller, and silvery white, a normal sized chair for a human-sized person, it seemed. There was a woman in the second seat.

 

In the first throne sat a massively large man, maybe eighteen feet in height. He was black, not as in one of African descent, but black as night, as in one who is made up of the complete absence of any and all color.

 

There were other creatures around, below the dais. Some were twisted and malformed, while others looked human or near human, all in attendance to the quite obvious god on the throne. Hornblende had a good idea who the massive man was.

 

“Welcome,” said the epitome of black darkness. “Please come forward.” The god rose to his feet, towering above all others, brilliant and horrific.

 

Floyd excitedly said: “It’s Hades!”