Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II (15 page)

Then he was upon her, sharp fingernails scoring her
flesh, small teeth biting her breasts and face. Her reaction was
not to fight but to escape, and she tried to crawl away, to climb
out from beneath him. He was a child, after all—and no matter what
he did to her, she found it impossible to hurt him. But soon the
attack became more severe, and from his blood-smeared mouth fell
parts of her body. Her lacerated nipple dangled from her breast by
a grisly string of flesh.

Gloria raised her knee and slammed it hard into the
boy’s stomach, finally slowing him. He grunted and tumbled over,
wrapping his arms around his midsection. She dragged herself away
on hands and knees, blood pouring from her screaming lacerations.
The boy reached toward her, unrelenting in his attack despite his
obvious pain.

“Get
off
!” she screamed, kicking out, her
heel connecting with his face. His nose splintered beneath her foot
and he squealed, fell onto his back, his small hands covering his
face.

“Help …” he sobbed, his voice small, wounded, and
for a moment Gloria forgot what kind of monster he had been, for a
moment wanted to help. But he lowered his hands and grinned, his
tongue darting, licking the blood that dripped from his nose.

“Like hell I will,” she said, kicking him in the
head again, sending him reeling across the ground. She couldn’t
have him chasing after her; he’d already slowed her too much as it
was.

She retrieved a candle from a few feet away. She
struggled to her feet, using the wall for support, and headed
around a corner. “Where are you, Angela?” she muttered, palming
blood and dirt from her cheeks. Endless caves ahead, moans and
screams coming from all of them, but none of the voices belonged to
her daughter.

The candle sputtered. Not much life left in it, and
she’d again be plunged into darkness. Wandering around hell was
like being lost in a topiary maze—many false starts, corridors that
led to solid walls. She’d often had to backtrack, and at the same
time tried not to lose her way. She still needed to remember how to
return to the tunnel of light.

The candle flame died. Gloria cursed, dropped it to
the ground. The individual caves were lit, but now she wouldn’t be
able to see if her corridor resulted in a dead-end. Her fingers
slid along the stone surface of the wall and she crept along. She
sensed someone—some
thing
—ahead, could hear its shallow
breath, phlegmy and raspy. Turn back? Turn back to what? This was
hell. She wasn’t exactly safe no matter what direction she
took.

“Gloria,” the thing in the darkness said, and she
froze, sucked in a useless breath. “It’s about time you joined us.
I was just starting to miss you.”

“Who are you?” she gasped, and she felt a hand take
hers, a clammy hand, but a human one nevertheless.

A moment later she was inside a cave, face to face
with Vlad.

*

“What happened to you?” he said, tongue racing over
his bloated lips, corners of his mouth upturned in a jackal-grin.
He reached out and flicked her damaged nipple, and she flinched,
backing away until she was up against a wall.

“What do you want, Vlad?” she asked, trembling.

He laughed. “Let’s not be coy.” He turned partially
and stretched his arm out dramatically, as if showcasing the room.
“Let’s make a deal. Shall we?”

Across the cave, Angela lay out on a rack, splayed
arms and legs stretched unnaturally, almost at the separating point
of limbs to joints. Bite marks and burns covered her flesh. Torture
devices were displayed on a table beside the rack.

Vlad grabbed Gloria’s hair and shoved her toward
Angela. He pushed her again, and shoved her to her knees.

In front of the table, he fondled the various
devices until he selected one, and lifted it to show Gloria. “This
is my favorite,” he said.

It was a speculum, but three times the normal size,
its metal sides layered with razor blades and barbed wire. A
knife-life protrusion jutted from its head.

“Angela seems fond of it as well.” He pushed it into
the girl’s cunt, and she threw back her head, unable to move her
stretched limbs. She sobbed, begged him to stop.

“No!” Gloria screamed. Still on her knees. She
reached out, grasped handfuls of air. “Please stop,” she cried.

Vlad fucked the girl with the speculum, chunks of
her flesh flying with streams of blood.

“Goddamn you!” Gloria screamed, jumping up and
rushing toward Vlad. She threw herself on top of him and knocked
him away from Angela.

They landed in a pile a foot away, Gloria pounding
her fists into his face. But Vlad laughed, and punched her hard
across her mouth. She went flying and landed on her back.

“You’re no match for me, you stupid cunt,” he said,
standing, returning to Angela.

Gloria lay on the floor, moaning, weeping quietly.
He was right—how could she ever expect to fight him? He outweighed
her by a hundred pounds, and he was a massive little troll. She’d
always been intimidated by him, and it seemed as if he had been
controlling her life forever. Now he was even controlling her
death—and worse, controlling her daughter.

He was raping Angela again with that hideous
contraption, and Gloria sat on the floor and watched. Watched the
assault on her only child. Watched as the disgusting little man did
as he pleased.

She couldn’t watch any more.

Maybe Vlad didn’t know what Gloria had endured, on
earth and in hell. Maybe he didn’t know what she was capable of.
But she knew. And she wondered how she could have let this fat
little bastard intimidate her for as long as he had.

She climbed to her feet and approached the table.
Quite an assortment to choose from … she wanted something powerful,
something with substance when hefted. The mace’s handle was thick
seared wood, and a blackened steel ball embedded with six-inch
spikes topped it. She lifted the medieval weapon high overhead and
swung it at him.

He ducked, but it still clipped his shoulder, and
sent him reeling across the floor.

“You stupid bitch!” he yelled, climbing to his
feet.

“Stay out of my way, you fuck! All I want is
Angela.”

He slowly approached, eyeing the mace. His face was
contorted with rage. “You think you had it bad before?
Do
you
?” Spit flew off his lips. “That was nothing. Nothing!”

He extended his hand, and Gloria froze, positive
that he had some powers, that he would use them on her. She’d seen
him appear in her apartment through locked doors, had witnessed the
creatures he’d brought back from hell. Surely he had some ability,
favors bestowed by hell.

The mace slipped in her hand, but she held on to its
shaft.

Vlad rushed the table and retrieved a razor-studded
belt. He swung it at her and it tore into her cheek, gouging out
chunks of flesh.

She hefted the mace in both hands and swung. It tore
his ear off, sent it flying across the room. Blood gushed from the
gaping wound, and Vlad slammed his hand against his head.

He looked up at her, stunned. His mouth dropped open
and he took his hand away, examined the river of blood pouring
through his fingers. “No!” he screamed. “you promised! You promised
me immortality!”

Gloria looked around, wondering who he was talking
to, expecting to see someone else in the cave. But they were alone.
Whoever he was yelling at, they weren’t in the room.

Vlad was overcome with a fit of rage and attacked
Gloria with the belt, swinging wildly, the razors shredding her
skin, flaying her. The last blow gouged out her eyeball, and she
threw up her hands, trying to flee his assault. She used the table
as a shield, pushed it on top of him when he charged after her
again.

Lifting the mace one last time, she brought it
crashing down on Vlad’s head. The spikes imbedded in his skull,
splitting it open, blood and brains oozing from the gaping holes.
Vlad spasmed and shuddered, his feet kicking out, vomit trickling
out of his mouth.

Gloria dropped the mace. “Do
you
heal, you
motherfucking troll?” She rushed over to Angela and untied the girl
from the rack. Angela screamed as her limbs were loosened, as her
arms and legs popped back into their joints.

“Can you walk?”

“I don’t know.” Angela’s words were hesitant, her
voice weak. “I’ll try.”

Gloria wrapped her arms around her daughter’s waist
and lowered her to the floor. Angela stood on wobbly legs, but they
supported her weight.

Angela looked up at her mother. “Why’d you come for
me?”

“That’s a silly question.”

Angela leaned against the rack and rested. “No it’s
not. After what I did—why would you come and rescue me?”

“Because you’re my daughter, and I love you. We’re
getting out of this place.”

Angela shook her head. “And go where? There is
nowhere else. I belong here. In hell. I deserve to be here. And so
do you. I don’t love you—I don’t even know you.”

“You don’t belong here, baby. Nobody deserves this.
I don’t care what you’ve done. Nobody deserves an eternity of this.
We’ll leave together, and maybe someday you’ll love me. But for
now—we have to leave!” She grabbed he daughter’s hands and pulled
her from the rack, and ran with her toward the cave exit.

Back toward the sunlight.

*

There were horrible sounds coming from up ahead, from
the direction of the tunnel home. Sounds of pain, violence, of
tearing flesh, splintering bone, shrieks of terror. Gloria knew
there was something different about these screams. They were not
the normal tortured cries that echoed ceaselessly from every
direction. They were more urgent, more like the sounds of
battle.

Gloria gripped her daughter’s arm tighter and
continued running in the direction of the tunnel. The noise
increased as they advanced, sounding like a massacre in the
darkness. Angela clung desperately to her mother, as if the
battle-scarred woman could provide any real protection. Her
daughter’s fear vibrated through Gloria’s skin; the girl’s resolve
crumbled with each step.

“Are you sure this is the way? It sounds like people
are being killed up there.”

“This is the way. And we can’t die remember? Nothing
here dies.”

“I’m scared. That sounds so horrible. You hear those
screams? Mom, I don’t think we should go this way. Something’s
going on up there.”

“We have no choice. This is the way out. I don’t
care what’s up there. If it’s standing between us and freedom from
this place, then we’re going right through it!”

Gloria gritted her teeth and continued forward,
staring straight ahead, unblinking, practically dragging her
daughter behind her.

“I’m not going!” Angela dug her heels in and locked
her legs.

“Yes you are!” Gloria jerked the young girl right
off her feet and dragged her across the hard dirt floor.

“I’m scared! Don’t make me go!”

Gloria whirled on the frightened little girl. “Do
you want to stay here? You like being raped and tortured by these …
these things? Is this how you want to spend eternity? In unending
pain? Well, I won’t let you. You don’t deserve this. And neither do
I.”

She snatched the girl up onto her feet and they
walked the last half a mile toward the tunnel of light.

“Do you hear that?” Angela said.

“What?”

“The screams. They stopped.”

“I can still hear people screaming,” Gloria said,
never slowing, still charging forward through the darkness toward
the light.

“Not the normal screams, Mom. The bad ones. They’ve
stopped.”

Gloria paused for a second and listened. “You’re
right. It’s quiet up there.”

“What do you think it means?”

“It means we’re getting the fuck out of here!”

Seconds later they burst out of the long passageway
and entered a huge cavern spattered with blood. The floor was a wet
crimson blanket.

“What happened here? Where’d all this blood come
from?”

Gloria was quiet for a long time, and when she
spoke, it was introspective, more to herself than to Angela. “It’s
from the others, the ones that were afraid to go in. The demons
must have come for them … that’s why there weren’t more of them.
The demons must know about this place. We have to get out of here
before they come back!”

“But why were they afraid to go in? What were they
afraid of?”

“Judgment,” Gloria replied solemnly. Then, without
hesitation, she plunged into the tunnel with her daughter in
tow.

*

After so many months in darkness, the light was
almost blinding. Gloria squinted against its harsh glare.

A fork divided the road ahead, but Gloria had been
expecting it. Ever since she first discovered the tunnels, she knew
she’d have a choice to make. One corridor led to heaven, the other
to earth. She turned left and continued to run, dragging her
reluctant daughter by the wrist. Gloria’s body grew heavier as
flesh returned to spirit, covered her frame.

They’d been running for miles when Angela
screamed.

“Oh my god!
What am I
?” The girl shrieked,
fell to the ground sobbing.

Gloria looked at her fallen daughter, and then
looked at her own newly formed body.

Their legs were fused into one long, sallow,
cylindrical tube. Their arms were a nest of tentacles that sprang
from the centers of their oily serpentine bodies. Their movements
were reduced to a crawl, a peristaltic slither, their eel-like
bodies rolling and undulating across the cave floor. The only
things that remained even remotely human were their faces, and they
were quickly changing.

They were turning into the same species of worm that
had tried to fuck Gloria to death in that hot tub, what seemed like
a century ago. That’s where Vlad had acquired the hideous larval
creatures. They were escaped souls from hell. That explained the
human voices she’d heard in their screams when she’d torn them
apart. She had not just imagined it after all.