John Connolly - The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

“Question not the need,” said Angry. “If it isn’t nailed down, we’ll have it. And if it is nailed down, we’ll find a way to un-nail it and have that as well.”

Constable Peel’s brow furrowed. A cloud of dust seemed to be following them. As it drew closer he saw that it was being preceded by a fast-moving rock.

“Look at that,” he said. He pulled back the glass separating the front of the van from the serving section. “Sarge, we’re being chased by a rock.”

“You don’t see a rock rolling uphill very often,” said Angry. “Very unusual, that.”

“It’s gaining on us,” said Dozy.

“Stop the van,” said Sergeant Rowan. Dan did as he was instructed, and they all listened over the music.

“That’s the sound of an engine, Sarge,” said Constable Peel.

“So it is, Constable,” said Sergeant Rowan as the rock pulled up alongside them, its doors opened, and what looked like a ferret with mange jumped out, closely followed by a cloaked demon wearing big boots and an expectant smile on his green face.

“Two bags of jelly beans, please,” said Nurd. “And a cone with chocolate.”

He waved a small gold coin in the air, just as Constable Peel’s head appeared through the service hatch.

“Well, well, well,” said Constable Peel. “Would you look at who it is?”

Nurd’s jaw dropped. Wormwood helpfully picked it up and reattached it.

“Oh, nuts,” said Nurd.

“No,” said Constable Peel, “but we do have sprinkles…”

SAMUEL AND BOSWELL, FRIGHTENED and tired, traversed the landscape of Hell. There were great causeways of stone that crossed chasms filled with fire, and dark lakes in whose depths swam nightmarish forms, their fins and tails occasionally breaking the surface as they hunted and were hunted. They saw demons large and small, sometimes in the distance, sometimes up close, but even those upon whose path they stumbled paid them little or no attention. They seemed to assume that if Samuel and Boswell were there, then they were meant to be, and were therefore some other demon’s concern, not theirs.

But for the most part there wasn’t a great deal to see, for Hell looked largely unfinished to Samuel and Boswell. True, the skies above their heads continued to rage, and Samuel sometimes felt that the clouds were looking down and mocking him before resuming their never-ending conflict of noise and light, but vast stretches of Hell’s landscape had little or nothing to offer at all. 30There was just dirt beneath their feet, or cracked stone, or low mounds of short black grass unenlivened by even a single weed.

After a time, the ground began to slope upward, and they ascended a small hill. As they reached the crest they saw arrayed before them an enormous banquet. It covered a table that stretched so far into the distance that Samuel lost sight of it in the dreary white mist always lurking on the horizon, but he could see every kind of food imaginable laid out on it, from breads to desserts and everything in between, with dusty bottles of fine wine interspersed among the bowls and dishes. It was a feast beyond compare, yet although Samuel and Boswell were starving, they did not feel their appetites piqued by what they saw. Perhaps it was because the food, regardless of its type, was a uniform dull gray, or because, even as they drew closer, they could detect no smell from it.

Or it may have been the behavior of those seated at the banquet, for chairs stood side by side along the length and breadth of the table, so close that there was no room for anyone else to squeeze in, and they were all occupied by thin, wasted people who forced food constantly into their mouths, and guzzled wine while their jaws chomped tirelessly, half-chewed meats and gray liquid dripping from their chins and staining their clothes.

Samuel and Boswell were now close enough to the feast to be noticed by the man seated at the head of the table. He wore a tuxedo with a crooked bow tie. His shirt buttons were open, and a distended belly bulged through the gap, but it was not the belly of a fat person. Samuel had seen poor, hungry people on television, and he knew that chronic malnutrition made the stomach swell. This man was starving, yet he had more than enough food to eat. While Samuel watched, the man tossed aside a half-eaten chicken leg and began chomping on a juicy, if slate-colored, steak. As one dish was finished a new one appeared, so that there was never an empty plate on the table.

The man spotted Samuel, but he did not stop eating.

“Get away,” he said. “There isn’t enough for anyone else.”

“There’s barely enough for us,” said a woman to his left, who was eating caviar with a huge wooden spoon, shoveling the little fish eggs into her mouth. She wore an ornate ball gown, and her head was topped by a white wig dotted with crystals. “And you haven’t been invited.”

“How do you know?” asked Samuel.

“Because if you were invited there would be a chair for you, but there isn’t, so you haven’t. Now run along. Don’t you know that you shouldn’t interrupt people when they’re eating? You’re making me talk with my mouth full. That’s rude.”

“And she’s spilling some,” said a tall bald man sitting across from her. “If she doesn’t want that caviar, I’ll have it.”

He reached for the bowl, but the woman slapped him hard on the hand with the spoon.

“Get your own!” she snapped.

“But the food has no smell,” said Samuel, almost to himself.

“No smell,” said the man in the tuxedo. “No taste. No texture. No color. But I’m so hungry, always so hungry.” He polished off the steak and moved on to a bowl of trifle, using his hand to scoop up mouthfuls of jelly, sponge, and custard. “I’m so hungry, I could eat you. And your dog.”

And for the first time in centuries, for he had been at the table for a very, very long time, the man in the tuxedo stopped eating, and began thinking. There was a new hunger in his eyes as he examined Samuel the way a chef might examine a pig that has been offered to him by the butcher, sizing it up for the best cuts. Beside him, the woman turned her gaze on Samuel, her mouth open, caviar falling from her tongue. The tall bald man set aside a fish head, and picked up a sharp knife.

“Proper food,” he whispered. “Fresh meat.”

The words were taken up by the elderly man beside him, and the wizened old lady whose toothless jaws could only suck the meat from bones, and the children dressed like princes and princesses, passed on and on down the table until they, like the distant, starving guests at the feast, were lost in the mist.

“Fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meat…”

Samuel picked up Boswell and backed away from the table. The man in the tuxedo put his hands on the arms of the chair, preparing to rise, but found that he could not stand. He tried to shift his chair, as if hoping to shuffle it toward Samuel, but it would not budge. His hands stretched for Samuel, but Samuel was beyond his reach. The tall bald man with the sharp knife howled in fury, slashing at the air with the blade as though his limbs might somehow extend far enough to cut Samuel’s flesh.

The bewigged woman tried to be more cunning. “Come here, little boy,” she whispered, offering him a gray piece of chocolate. “I’ll protect you from them. I had a little boy of my own once. I wouldn’t hurt a child.”

But Samuel was no fool. He stayed out of her reach, clutching Boswell tightly.

“At least leave us your dog,” said the man in the tuxedo. “I hear dog is very tasty.”

All along the table voices were raised, shouting threats, promises, bribes, anything that might convince Samuel to approach, or to hand Boswell over, but Samuel just backed away, never taking his eyes from them, fearful that if he did so they might find a way to free themselves from the prison of their chairs. Then, one by one, their appetites got the better of them until the guests resumed their great, tasteless meal, all but the woman with the wig, who stared after Samuel, repeating over and over to herself, “I had a little boy of my own, long ago…”, and only when Samuel was again at the crest of the hill did she turn back to her caviar and lose herself once more in the feast.