A Short Story a Day

by David Michael

The Old Man rolled up to the northern Gate of Hell in his custom oversized black Cadillac Escalade at noon, the height of the daily tourist rush. He considered stopping to grab some lunch–a chubby, white used car salesman combining a business trip with a family vacation, for example–but decided against it.

Feasting on the flesh of a tourist within the Pit in view of the other tourists would cause a one-day spike in tourist dollars–after the initial rounds of screams and sickups–but the news tended to have an overall dampening effect on revenues for the next quarter. Demons might shit where they ate on a regular basis, but devils tried to keep an eye on the bottom line.

On top of that, going through the Rift with a full stomach was never pretty.

Not that going through the Rift was ever pretty, in or out.

The Old Man nodded to the burly security guard, a human, who manned the huge iron gate. The guard crossed himself, spectacles-testicles-wallet-watch, and finished by giving the Old Man the bird with his right hand while punching the button that opened the gate with his left.

The Old Man smiled. The guards thought themselves protected, safe inside their sanctified glass and steel boxes. And, in a manner of speaking, they were protected. Just not the way they thought.

Devils and demons fought side by side against the first humans who marched to the Pit and began erecting the fence. But after several years of back and forth, no side winning a clear victory, the fence going up and being torn down again with lots of losses on both sides, the Hellspawn realized they just didn’t care enough. They agreed to let the fence be built so long as there were four gates, one each for the north, south, east and west.

Peace negotiations went fine until one group of humans insisted that no east gate be built. And then another group lobbied against a west gate. Sun worship, it seemed, though in the form of a white man with a beard, remained alive and well.

The final Pit Gate Compromise–as the creatures from Hell called it, much to the chagrin of the sun worshipers who insisted that theirs had been a complete victory with no compromise at all since compromise was, they intoned, inherently evil–had been four gates, as originally stipulated, but on the north, south, southeast and southwest compass points.

After the compromise, the various sides of Hell on Earth went back to their lives and less direct means of attacking and feeding off each other. But with the fence and the gates came the illusion of safety, and then the tourist trade.

At first, the various churches and other organizations that built the fence controlled–and profited from–the tourist trade. The rank-and-file of those groups still thought their leaders controlled the Gates of Hell, but their leaders knew better, and paid up on time, every month. The devil was always in the details.

The Old Man parked in his personal space near the Pit. He recognized Goat Head’s huge, mud-covered four-by-four, and the smaller cars of non-princes Goiter and Thumb Screw, plus a few others. A lot of Pit traffic today.

He wondered, not for the first time, if word of his activities, or his ultimate plan that was the driving force of those activities, had been leaked. His research into ancient Sumerian artifacts and artificers hadn’t gone unnoticed, he knew. That kind of research always invited inquiries and speculation. Rumors of what he had been able to interpret and rediscover came back to him through the various grapevines, most of it inaccurate.

But maybe Goat Head or one of the other princes had guessed the truth.

That thought made the Old Man pause and reconsider his trip through the Rift. In Hell, he couldn’t be killed, but he could be detained. And that would be inconvenient, to say the least. Damned inconvenient.

His hesitation lasted only a second. Because even if Goat Head knew, or the Big Man Himself, they wouldn’t try to stop him. They would let him face the risks. If he failed and destroyed himself in the process, they would move in to take over what he left behind. And if he succeeded then the real games and power plays would begin.

The Old Man smiled again. Millennia of scheming and deviousness, lies and treachery disguised as honesty and trust, death blows concealed within caresses, pain within respect, and he still loved the game. Nothing compared to the games of Hell. And now the games encompassed this world, bringing new pawns and powers and pitfalls, expanding the risks and the rewards like never before.

He stood beside his car as he undressed, throwing his clothes into the front seat. Completely nude except for the fur that covered the left half of his body from the chest down, he hoof-stepped over to the edge of the Pit.

The jagged mouth of the Pit yawned before him, a dark maw with a swirling black and red vortex that swallowed all light.

The Old Man and Goat Head, with the help of five other princes who didn’t survive the ritual or the first passage through the Rift, first found the weakness in this world, a possible path to build a bridge through. As one–almost–the seven princes stabbed the at weakness and twisted their blades and the extensions of their power until the fabric of the world tore and created the Rift.

The Rift exploded out of their control with enough force to temporarily collapse the outer rings of Hell. And then imploded with enough force that entire Hellish species had been depopulated and scattered across what was now Hell on Earth.

Besides the beasts, many lesser devils and demons found themselves pulled in along with the seven princes and their retainers. The Rift chewed up many of them before it spit them out, including the Old Man. Goat Head, who had hesitated just a fraction of second longer than the Old Man in the final step of the Ritual of Ripping, had come through largely intact.

Someday, the Old Man promised himself again, as he always did when he looked into the Rift, he would repay Goat Head for that.

His eyes drifted and he found himself looking at Goat Head’s four-by-four with its custom detailing of flames almost hidden under west Texas dirt.

“What the Hell?” he said aloud. “Why not?”

He walked back to the small parking lot and knelt down beside the four-by-four. With a grunt, he heaved the vehicle over his head, and then flung it toward the Pit. He watched it arc through the steel-blue sky and into the swirling center of the Rift. Blackness splashed up at the impact, just before the forces of the Rift alternately smashed the truck and pulled it apart.

Hardly repayment. But entertaining, nonetheless.

With a smile and wave for the tourists watching through the spectator telescopes, the Old Man jumped into the Pit, aiming himself to enter hoof-and-foot first in one of the outer eddies of the vortex.

Once in the Rift, the Old Man blanked the crushing pain of the passage from his mind. No creature from Hell willingly gave up control of anything, but in the Rift, seeking to master the environment was the fastest, most excruciatingly painful way to die. Or almost die, as the Old Man found on his first trip through. No safe path existed through the Rift.

The Old Man usually made the trip back and forth to Hell about once a year. To get access to resources that didn’t exist in Hell on Earth. To remind himself of Hell. And to remind himself of that the price of power was always pain, and that he should try as much as possible to make sure that someone else bore that price. He had been back twice so far this year, though. This would be his third trip.

He felt the change in the Rift that indicated his shift from one world to another, and flexed his arms and legs in preparation for arriving. Then he re-oriented himself so that he could land on his feet. The orientation of the Rift in Hell was vertical, at right angles to the Rift in Hell on Earth.

Yellow air and red light and a furnace blast of heat and he arrived in Hell.

He landed so that his hoof took most of the impact, then regained his balance and looked around.

He didn’t know if his dual nature, half human and half devil, a creature ostensibly of both worlds and neither, made his trip through the Rift easier or harder. He didn’t care. The arrangement provided other benefits.

The sex was better, for one thing. And his empathy with his torture victims.

And it set him apart in both worlds. With one glance, people in both worlds knew who he was. Both halves of himself hated anonymity.

“Welcome back, Prince Oladhman,” said the devil on duty. The hell hound on the guard’s leash growled, then yipped a  gout of flame and steam and wagged its tail.

The Old Man nodded in greeting to the guard, who flinched. Disgusted, the Old Man backfisted the guard hard enough to bounce him off the far wall, kicked the hell hound yelping in the other direction, and then strode out of the Cavern of the Rift, through the rebuilt arch that led into the outer rings of Hell.

He found Uncle Gorthaq in the Mall of the Third Ring, munching on the damned soul of a food court employee still in uniform.

The soul whimpered as Gorthaq’s teeth closed on an arm, then screamed as he ripped the arm off.

“Not me,” the soul protested. “You’re not supposed to–” He screamed again as his other arm was also pulled off and disappeared into the huge devil’s max. “I’m an employee … not on the menu …”

The Old Man–he didn’t have to think of himself that way in Hell, but the danger of having his True Name discovered didn’t go away here–if anything, with the Rift working two ways, the danger was even greater here–presented himself to his Uncle, standing where Gorthaq could see him, but saying nothing.

A gleam in Gorthaq’s eye was all the warning he needed, and he tensed his muscles in anticipation of the blow. A cloven hoof bigger than his own head slammed into his midsection, broke at least three ribs and sent him across the food court, colliding into other patrons and tables and chairs and a potted bonsai tree. The bigger devils and demons that he collided with cuffed him and kicked him as well. The smaller ones begged his forgiveness for not getting out of the way fast enough.

The smaller ones that hadn’t had the sense to get away fast enough after apologizing, and that didn’t have their patrons with them, he forgave with backhands and rakes across the face with his clawed hand. The succubus whose lap he come to rest in, of course, wanted both, took both, and her moans of pleasure and suggestive glances almost distracted him from his purpose. But he wasn’t here on a pleasure trip. At least, not yet.

“Oladhman,” Gorthaq said when the Old Man came back to stand by his table. Gorthaq wiped his mouth with his hand, and flicked the blood and spittle at the Old Man, who didn’t blink. “It is good to see you, nephew. Though you never bring me anything.”

“It is good to see you too, Uncle.” He knew better than to protest with the truth that bringing souls back through the Rift had never worked. He wondered how long his Uncle would delay giving him the information he had come to collect. Because he also knew better than to hope for a quick delivery of one to the other. He had blocked out this entire week, clearing his schedule and hoping that a full week of sucking up to–and, no doubt, on–his Uncle would be the worst possible case. Prince Oladhman was, after all, Uncle Gorthaq’s favorite nephew.

“The True Name you wished me to verify,” Gorthaq told him after they had walked through all seventy-five levels of the Mall of the Third Ring and visited all of the stores, trying on every combination of stainproofed soulcloth overcoat and soulsucker suit and snacking on various parts of the souls and lesser devils that worked in the stores.

“Yes, Uncle.”

They stood outside the Mall and looked over the flat, barren plain that it dominated.

“The Beast you wish to Summon,” Gorthaq continued.

The silence of the plain pressed down on them, because even silence in Hell wished to dominate. And patience was just another form of torture.

The Old Man waited for what seemed at least ten minutes before he said, “Yes, Uncle.”

“What you desire and name truly will come to you.”

The Old Man nodded, pleased, and realized immediately that he had made a mistake. He cursed the expressiveness of his human side for the next three days as Uncle Gorthaq punished him.  His human half, and the added intensity with which he felt pain, made him a valuable commodity in trade. So his Uncle loaned him out to friend of the family, Lubin, who flayed the skin off him, beginning at the stomach and peeling slowly outward to the tips of his fingers.

“What you desire and name truly will come to you,” Gorthaq repeated. “But you will not get what you expect.”

This time, the Old Man waited, saying nothing, for three hours. Which proved easier, and perhaps had been the point of the lesson, with his Uncle’s enormous erection in his mouth and halfway down his throat, thrusting in and out, his Uncle’s claws and rough fingers holding his head steady.

“Yes, Uncle,” he said when it was over. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“And about the Binding,” Gorthaq continued, indicating his pleasure with his favorite nephew. “Think of it as an ‘escape clause’. A lawyer pet I had for a while told me all about escape clauses. He had the most wonderful cheeks,” Gorthaq added, then he stopped talking.

The Old Man noticed a stirring in Gorthak’s loins, and braced himself for another reaming.

But Gorthaq only fondled himself, as he went on. “An escape clause. In case what you are Summoning proves to be too much for you, you can kill the Binding, or ordered it killed and the Beast will be sent back to its own world.”

The Old Man waited a full day before asking his next question. During that time he regrew his skin–which hurt at least as bad as having it peeled off–fixed his jaw, re-straightened his teeth, and paid a visit to a certain succubus. He left her in trembling, bloody ribbons of flesh and ecstasy and feeling much better himself.

“But what if I want to eliminate the escape clause?” he asked. “How would I make the Binding permanent?”

The answer came with a lot of pain, but not as much as it could have been. Uncle Gorthaq must have been really pleased with both his ability to have his eyes burned out of his skull and–with equally as much pain–regrow them, all without a whimper or tear. Not crying, of course, was no special feat without tear ducts, but the Old Man felt no need to point that out.

“If the Beast consumes the Binding,” Gorthaq told him, “the Binding will be made permanent. Might I suggest, though, that you put off tasting this morsel of knowledge after you have used the Beast to do your more important tasks. You are my favorite nephew,” the big devil added, batting the Old Man’s head hard enough to chip a tooth, “and I would not want your plans to be ruined.”

The Old Man waited an appropriate amount of time to show that he was worthy of both affection and cuff, then thanked his favorite Uncle and returned to the Rift.

His plans would not be ruined. He cursed at the implied insult. And it was much more likely that his favorite Uncle simply didn’t want his favorite plaything of a nephew to have such a Beast at his command.

The Beast couldn’t be ordered through the Rift. The Old Man, Prince Oladhmanikstalor of Hell knew that. Even Commanding with a True Name had its limits. But maybe dear Uncle Gorthaq could be enticed to pay his favorite nephew a visit in Hell on Earth. A True Name isn’t necessary when the Command can be given with a pointed finger.

At the Rift a collection of lesser relatives waited for him, begging and pleading to come with him, devils wanting out of Hell, wanting to torment living souls.

In the past The Old Man had been more choosy. Today, though, with big plans underway, he didn’t care. And he still had some pent up suffering he had yet to meet out.

He picked up devil after devil and threw them into the Rift. He had to chase the last few and lug them back to the Rift hissing and writhing. He doubted more than half of them would survive the passage. But the ones who did, would have a job waiting for them.

Copyright © 2006 by David Michael.