Faith of the Divine Inferno - Leslie Thompson (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

was nothing but terrible pain. This is not the first time I have drowned, and I always hoped each time would be the last. Drowning is one of the most painful things any living creature can endure. It drags you slowly down to the abyss, and while it does, your body fights to stay alive for as long as it can. For a mortal, it is a torturous four to six minutes. For an immortal, the fight can last for an eternity.
“Give me your name!” the voice raged.
In one last desperate violent rush, my foot made solid contact with the thing clinging to my ankle and it let me go. I swam for the surface, my legs kicking furiously and my arms moving through the insidious heat of the water in long, strong sweeps. My lungs were still struggling to force oxygen from the boiling liquid when my head broke the surface of the water and I brained myself on the cavern roof. I would have screamed my pain and terror had I the air to do so, and so I was left to writhe in agony in the dark limbo of a thermal cave pool and wait.
I jolted awake in my bed, covered in sweat and hot enough to be cruelly feverish. My heart pounded in a frantic beat while my lungs took deep, cool gulps of air. I remained paralyzed with relief until my body calmed and I was confident that I could move without falling down. Still trembling, I flung back the comforter and slid out of bed. I slipped on my robe to hide my nakedness and then I splashed cold water over my burning face and neck. My eyes looked large and haunted in the mirror, and my skin was splotchy and sickly gray. I disregarded my appearance as the result of sleep deprivation and a temporarily warped perspective and went into the kitchen in search of something to drink.
As I was turning the corner around my battered island counter, my ears rang and popped like the pressure of the atmosphere in the apartment dropped. The walls gave a mighty throb and cracked. Dark, thick liquid poured out of hair thin crevices and ran down the paint in long tears. The cabinet doors banged open and closed and my dishes flew from their shelves to soar in great circles through the air like birds. The floor buckled under my feet and in the living room, the couch cushions exploded in a cloud of foam and cotton batting. The lights went berserk next, strobing viciously in electric surges that buzzed like a hoard of bees, and the screen of my television exploded in a shower of sparks and broken glass.
“Give me your name!” the insidious voice from the dream demanded. I remained silent to it and watched my home declare war on me altogether. Knives and forks flung themselves out of their drawers and embedded themselves into the walls. Gunshots exploded through my bedroom as my small arsenal of hand guns fired themselves and drilled small holes into the sheetrock.
“Tell me your name!” screamed the voice.
I took in the scene before me dully, my mind too exhausted to be frightened or awed. All I could think above the noise of destruction and the evil hissing voice making it repeated demands for my name was, “My renter’s insurance premiums are going to skyrocket if this keeps up”.


Chapter 13

I was already sitting upright in bed when my eyes snapped open. My sheets and comforter were tangled around my legs leaving the rest of me bare to the moonlight that streamed through my bedroom window. I listened to the cloaking darkness intently, and I heard only the pounding of my own heart throbbing in my ears. Sweating and trembling from the residual fear of my nightmares, I leaned across the bed and flipped on the lamp I kept at my bedside. The warm light filled the room, showing no sign of the mayhem I had experienced. The walls were smooth and unblemished, and all of my property was unbroken and in their places.
Unnerved by the intense vividness of my nightmares, I slid out of bed and wrapped my bathrobe around my body. I moved carefully through my apartment, listening for any unusual sound amidst the hushed noises of air conditioning and nocturnal city life beyond my windows. There was a thump and a wail from my ceiling that startled me, but I quickly realized that the Cochran boy had fallen out of bed again. I braced my arms on the counter top and waited for my heart to stop hammering and for my breathing to slow. But I didn’t calm down. If anything I grew more frightened until I imagined the evil voice from my dream speaking softly, insisting that I tell it my true name.
Eager for the sun to rise and expel the darkness bleeding into my consciousness, I glanced at the small clock the counter and found that it was only two o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t wait another four and a half hours alone in my apartment to feel safe again. I had to get out. I dressed in a rush, grabbing the first clothes that came to my hand. I paused in the foyer long enough to grab my keys, wallet, and cell phone and I was out the door.
I paid little attention to my surroundings as I rushed through the breezeway and down the stairs. It was a stupid thing to do, considering I had two sinister groups gunning for my ass. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was grabbed from behind and slammed into a nearby wall, but I was. Dazed and blinking at the pretty lights that flashed into my vision, I grasped the small blade hidden under my shirt and I struck blindly. Kootch’s voice rose high and plaintively in a wordless cry of pain as the knife hit flesh and bit deep. I was immediately released only to find Baja standing in front of me with a fist raised.
“You have got to give Kootch a break,” he said with a malicious grin, “the man ain’t right and you’re making him worse.” And then he punched me in my face. I was aware of my bottom hitting concrete followed by the sensation of flesh swelling around my nose and eyes. Before I could do much more than think, “Ow”, I was flipped face down onto the pavement and my arms were restrained behind my back with plastic ties.
“I hate you both,” I snarled as Baja hauled me to my feet.
“I thought you would. If it makes you feel better, I think Kootch hates you more,” he replied chuckling. Cursing violently, Kootch struggled to his feet with one hand pressed to his side. “You okay, man?”
“No, I’m cut!” Kootch gasped pitifully. “Damn bitch got me again!” He seized me from Baja, and using my hair as a handle, Kootch proceeded to drag me across the parking lot toward a battered car. Baja followed closely, doing nothing to help me in my struggle to stay on my feet. He simply grinned and jogged ahead.
“You’re kidding me,” I complained as I stared into the black abyss of the open trunk that the men intended to stuff me in. “There is no way you’re going to put me in there.”
“I woulda let you ride in the car if you’d come nicely, but now you pissed me off,” Kootch snarled. His hands were busy as he pulled my arsenal of blades and bludgeons from my body and handed them over to Baja. He grabbed me by the seat of my jeans and upended me into the trunk and shoved my legs roughly after me.
“Come on!” I protested, grunting as my own knee was forced painfully into my ribs. “What else do you expect me to do when you jump me like that? I can’t ride back here! I’ll smother!”
“You ain’t gonna die,” Kootch snarled back.
“That doesn’t make smothering any more pleasant you know.”
Kootch didn’t care enough to think of a comeback to that. The trunk was closed with a hard bang, and I was left in the dark with the odors of gasoline, oil, and some vaguely rotten organic smell I didn’t want to identify. The car’s shocks were nonexistent, so I was bounced around until my teeth rattled in my head, and my joints were cracked. By the time they finally stopped, I was sore and nauseated from whatever had left the stink in the trunk.
I was grasped by my arms and hauled roughly out of the trunk to be plunked on my feet on a gravel driveway. The moon was swelling toward fullness and cast a weak silver light over the new environment, outlining a dense forest of trees and shrubs embracing a small, squat house. I searched for some landmark to tell me where I was, but a hood was dropped over my head and each man grabbed an elbow and hustled me off. I stumbled and tripped over every pebble and protruding root, sometimes by accident, but mostly because I didn’t feel like being very cooperative. When I tripped on the first step of a short flight of stairs leading up to the porch, Baja and Kootch lifted me by my arms and carried me to the door.
From there I was jerked, yanked, shoved, and carried through the indoors until I heard a door slam and I was pushed into a chair. I worried about that at first, but then I realized that I was sitting on cushions covered in real upholstery, and relaxed a bit. People who plan to torture you don’t usually let you sit in a comfortable chair first. I listened intently to the sound of shoes rustling against thick carpeting until the hood was whipped off of my head.
I blinked and saw that I was in a plush room decorated with vases full of flowers with enormous blooms, along with graceful furniture and masterpieces of art. The entire effect was one of tasteful luxury, with an eye to a subtle undertone of sex. Most of the paintings hung on the walls were elegant nudes of voluptuous women embracing muscular men, and the few small sculptures were mischievous as couples entwined their limbs in playful embraces, their broad smiles frozen forever in marble and bonze.
A man sat hooded and hunched next to me with his arms bound behind his back in a position identical to my own. He flinched at every sound and the muscles of his back and arms jerking as if he expected to be struck at any moment. He was a muscular fellow, with a worn t-shirt stretched across his chest and shoulders that moved shallowly because his bulging arms were twisted uncomfortably so that his breathing was restricted. Baja pulled the hood off of the man and I would have fallen out of my chair if I hadn’t been tied to it.
Shaw squinted angrily up at the big man and tried to lunge at him from his sitting position. He managed to force a grunt from Baja when one broad shoulder was planted into his gut, but in the end Shaw didn’t prove to be much of an opponent for Baja. He pushed Shaw back into