John Connolly - The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

He looked back in the direction from which they had come, as though expecting to see that pillar of flame rising high above them and that dreadful woman’s voice asking about a boy and his dog. Slowly, Jolly began shuffling pieces of the puzzle around in his brain.

“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder, I wonder, I wonder…”

SAMUEL HAD OVERCOME HIS fear and, Boswell’s leash in hand, had decided to seek cover. As the nearest shelter was the forest of crooked, leafless trees, that was where he and Boswell aimed for. Boswell shivered as they drew near to the forest, and plonked his bottom down firmly on the ground. As far as Boswell was concerned, nothing in this land smelled good, sounded good, or looked good, but this forest felt particularly unpleasant.

“Come along, Boswell,” said Samuel. “I don’t like this place much either, but it really isn’t a good idea for us to be out in the open where anyone can see us. And not just anyone, if you know what I mean.”

Boswell twitched his ears and lowered his head. His life had once been so normal: wake up, go outside for a sniff and a wee, have a bite to eat, play for a while, have a nap, wake up, and repeat. Had he heard the phrase a dog’s life used in the sense of one’s existence being a bit harsh, he would have been slightly worried. As far as Boswell was concerned, a dog’s life was absolutely fine. It was humans who made things complicated; humans, and those nasty creatures with horns, and big teeth, and a stink of burning about them. His senses were flooded with the scent of those creatures now. This was their place, and Boswell loathed it.

Samuel tugged on the leash and, reluctantly, Boswell trotted along beside his master. The branches of the trees met above their heads, as though they were reaching out to one another for consolation, their extremities tangling. Their bark was pitted with hollows that looked like eyes and mouths, faces contorted in expressions of agony. He heard the leaves whispering as though a breeze had briefly blown through them.

But there was no breeze, and there were no leaves.

“Boy,” said a soft voice. “Boy, help me.”

“Boy,” said another, this time the voice of a woman. “Free me.”

“Boy…”

“Boy…”

“… help me…”

“No, me, help me…”

“Boy, I’ve been here for so long, for so very long…”

The mouths in the trees stretched and opened, and the eyes twisted in their wooden sockets. The branches moved, stretching for him. One snagged his jacket. Another tried to pull the leash from his hand.

“Boy, don’t leave us…”

“Boy, listen to us…”

Behind him the forest closed, the trees forming an impenetrable wall through which he could not retreat. Samuel picked Boswell up, shielding him beneath his jacket, and started to run, even as branches cut his face, and tore his trousers, and tried to trip him as he passed. They should not have come here. He had made a mistake, but they could not go back. Samuel kept his head down, barely able to see where he was going, and all the time the voices kept calling him: pleading, threatening, promising. Anything at all, he could have anything he desired, if only he would make the pain stop.

A presence appeared in front of him, and a voice said, “Back!”

The trees instantly grew silent and were still. Samuel looked up to see a hunched animal with a distorted mouth, blunt teeth, and ancient, twisted horns protruding from its head, which was bearded with shaggy white fur. It took Samuel a moment or two to see that it was a ram of sorts, but one that had learned to walk on two legs. Its upper hooves had mutated, lengthening to form two pairs of bony fingers, one of which held a long staff. Its coat was matted and filthy, and smelled of damp and smoke.

From deep in the forest came another voice, sinister and male.

“What right have you to claim him?” it said.

The branches of the trees parted like courtiers before a king, and Samuel was confronted by an enormous gnarled oak with a complex root system that reminded him uncomfortably of serpents writhing. This was the tree that had spoken. It had two holes in its trunk for eyes, and a twisted gash for a mouth, from which a reeking gas emerged as it talked. It stank of rotting vegetation, and worse: the slow decay of the nonvegetative.

“What right have you?” said the ram in reply. “He’s just a boy.”

“He could help us. He could free us.”

“And how could he do that? You are afflicted things. He cannot help you.”

“Give him an ax, and let him cut us down. Let him reduce us to splinters and sawdust.”

“And then? Do you still believe that mortal rules apply to you? The Great Malevolence would simply start again, reconstituting you into even more grotesque forms for his amusement. That will not bring your pain to an end. It will merely increase it.”

“Then give us the boy, that he might keep us company. We can gaze upon his beauty, and remember what we once were.”

The ram laughed, a low, bleating sound. “Give him to you so that he can rot slowly in your insides, more like, allowing you to visit some of your anger on him. He is lost, but not forsaken. He does not belong here, and he does not belong to you.”

The great oak seemed to snarl, and Samuel saw deep into the racked, tortured soul of it.

“We will not forget this, Old Ram,” it said. “Our roots grow longer, our branches sharper. We draw ever nearer to you, and soon you will wake in your hovel to find yourself surrounded by us, and our arms will draw you to us, and we will explore your body with our roots for our amusement.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said the ram dismissively. “Old Ram has heard it all before. You’re trees, in case you hadn’t noticed. You grow so slowly that even the Great Malevolence himself has ceased to find your misery amusing. Keep staring into your pools of stagnant water, and recalling what you once were. The child has no more business with you.”

He nudged Samuel with his stick.

“Come, my boy,” he said. “Leave them to their mutterings.”

Samuel did as he was told, but as he went he could not resist looking back at the great oak; for a moment he could have sworn that he saw some of its roots emerge from the ground. But then the forest closed around it, and he could see the ancient tree no longer.

Meanwhile, Mr. Merryweather’s elves, or dwarfs, or however they currently chose to describe themselves, had encountered a serious problem.

Somebody had stolen their van.

“And you’re sure this is where you left it?” said Angry. “You know, a lot of these dunes look alike.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” said Jolly. “We left it here. All of us. Not just me. And of course this is where we left it: you can see the tire marks.”

“Were the keys still in the ignition? Very unwise to walk away and leave the keys in the ignition. Invitation to thieves, that is.”

If a volcano could have assumed the form of a small human being, and had then been photographed on the verge of eruption, it would have looked not unlike Jolly at that moment. When he spoke, though, he was remarkably calm. Dangerously so, one might have thought.

“Yes,” he said. “I left the keys in it.”

“So that was a bit careless, wasn’t it?”

“Well, it might have been-IF SOMEONE HAD DRIVEN IT AWAY!”

The dwarfs looked at the space that had, until recently, been occupied by a bright yellow van decorated with a painting of a happy little person who bore no resemblance at all to themselves, even at the best of times, of which this was definitely not one. There were four marks in the dust where the van’s tires had stood, but there were no tracks indicating the direction in which it might have gone. Simultaneously all four dwarfs raised their heads, shaded their eyes with their hands, and examined the brooding skies above in the hope of catching a glimpse of their vehicle.