Mark Rogers - The Dead

Max Sr. lifted his head. The trembling began again. His hands rose once more.

Max trained the gun on him, but didn’t fire. He was determined to hold back until his father’s will cracked once more, until he made his move.

“Stand up to him, Dad,” Max said. “He doesn’t own you. God owns you-”

“But possession’s nine tenths of the law!” a voice roared in answer. Like a mountain growing before Max’s eyes, Legion rose into view behind his father.

Max Sr. turned. Instantly a tremendous blow spun him back round. One whole side of his face had been caved in. Grabbing him by the hair, Legion flung him effortlessly over his shoulder.

“Enjoy your reunion, Max?” the demon asked.

Max screamed and squeezed off a shot. A quarter-sized hole burst open in Legion’s forehead just above the right eye, and a black rotten gust flipped his trooper hat from his skull as the bullet exited. But Legion was on Max before he could loose a second shot, and all at once the gun was smashed from Max’s hands-Max never even saw the blow. Laughing, Legion kicked the gun farther up the catwalk.

Max started to retreat; Legion’s mallet-like right fist hammered up under his jaw, splintering teeth on teeth. Head ringing, blood rivering from his mouth, Max sailed limply through the air, crashing to the catwalk on his back.

Still laughing, shaking his head, Legion gave him time to stagger to his feet and pull the machete out. Then he bashed the blade from Max’s grip and rammed him in the chest with a ribcracking straight right fist. Breath and blood bursting from his lips, Max went down again, gasping, helpless.

“Told you once about the machete, Max,” Legion chuckled. “It’s so insulting. You of all people should realize what you’re up against. You’re the believer-that’s what I like about you. Guys like you are my favorite fix. You have the sense to be really scared. You know about archangels. About suicide seraphim. About the kings of Hell.

“I was ancient when the universe was made, and it was me in Eden, not the Boss. Before The Flood they sacrificed their firstborn to me, and then I blighted their fields and demanded more. Sodom and Gomorrah were my work, and when the Man Upstairs died shrieking in despair, I was in on the hit… I’m the Lord of the Flies, the right hand of Satan himself, and you’re going to stop me with a fucking machete?” With a roar he brought his Frye-booted foot down on Max’s left shin. Bone snapped. Max loosed a shriek that flayed his throat raw, jerking up into a sitting position. Through tears of agony, he saw Legion raise his boot once more.

“Some more Captain Crunch, Max?” the demon asked jovially. “Before I go for the gas?”

The Frye-boot started to descend, slowly this time, toward Max’s other shin. Max tried to jerk his leg back; the boot dropped like a stamping press, pinning his limb between catwalk and sole.

“Faster than you,” Legion gloated, and began to grind.

But before flesh could tear or bone could break, an arm looped around Legion’s neck from behind, yanking him backward. The giant fell, toppling onto his assailant.

Max floundered onto his back, trying to grab one of the uprights and haul himself up. His hand brushed cold steel and plastic-the H and K.

Before him, Legion easily broke his opponent’s hold. Flipping over, he grabbed him and rose, hoisting the struggling figure high overhead with one hand. Max’s bleeding jaw sagged open.

It was his father.

Legion roared; with spine-shattering force, he smashed Max Sr. down on the right-hand rail, then lifted him again and hurled him away down the catwalk as if he were a ragdoll. Then he turned to resume his work on Max.

But Max had grabbed the H and K and switched it back to full auto; and Legion, even with his superhuman speed, was too far to close the distance before Max opened up.

For the first time, Max saw the demon’s hell-grin fade.

Spitting blood, Max smiled.

What happened then was almost more than he could comprehend.

The world seemed to rip before his eyes, as though the screen onto which reality was projected were suddenly tearing; he found himself hurtling through the rent, into cold stinking darkness, flying, falling endlessly.

Put down the gun, said Legion’s voice, quiet and reasonable. Just look, Max. Look ahead. See how useless that little weapon is. See me as I really am.

A light appeared in the void, bluish-green. As Max plummeted toward it, he made out human figures, dark silhouettes against the glow, falling ahead of him, tumbling, arms and legs waving.

The light grew rapidly. Its source was a vast circular opening, the mouth of a shaft or pit. Things were moving in it. As the distance closed, Max realized they were wheels, immense luminous wheels revolving on every conceivable axis, some interlocking, some passing impossibly through each other as they turned, their inner and outer rims set with blades and hooks and spikes, bulging with squirming eyes; and somehow visible beneath them all was a giant fanged mouth, chewing and grinding.

Bodies rained down into the wheels, were impaled and sliced; they clung desperately to spikes tilting inexorably downward; they fought to free themselves from barbs buried deep in their flesh, only to plummet farther into that churning machinery of death; they dropped in pieces from the blades. Fragments and whole figures dropped toward the mouth in a rain of blood, and the mouth received them all, devouring, crushing, punishing.

Max could only watch horrified as the pit filled more and more of his field of vision. He would plunge into it and be ripped asunder. And then…

And then you’ll go through again, Max my boy, came Legion’s voice. And each time it’ll be worse. That’s what those shrieking wretches in your pathetic little hallucination of a universe are really feeling. Deep in their minds, through the haze of matter, the blur of their flesh, they feel my blades, my spikes. The Hell of which the Hell of flesh is but a feeble copy. Auschwitz for real. Cambodia without the compromises. My world, Max. And that gun can’t save you from it.

The wheels and eyes and blades surged ever closer. Max felt a tremendous weight of despair, crushing the strength from his will; surely the demon was telling the truth. There was no escape. He wanted to fire a burst down into that champing maw, if only as a last gesture of defiance; but what good would it do? His finger remained motionless on the trigger.

Look at me, Max, Legion said. L ook at my power. Look at my vastness. I am immortal. I am eternal. It is not for nothing I was worshipped as a god. And nothing you can do can stop you from plunging into me. So put down the gun, Max. Put it down.

Max was entering the pit now. All around him, bodies jolted onto the spikes, were ripped open in floods of viscera, the eyes on the wheels turning to gloat at their agonies, widening in horrible pleasure…

Put down the gun.

Max almost let go-

Then recognized a figure impaled on one of the uprushing spikes.

It was his father. And strangely, he seemed to be holding a silver cross. It was burning in his hand, smoke pouring out around it. As Max dropped past, just missing the wheel, his father’s hand opened convulsively, as if he could stand the touch of the cross no longer. Without thinking, Max reached out and grabbed the glinting emblem-

And suddenly he was back on the catwalk.

Not a second had passed, or so it seemed. But Legion’s world was outside of time…

Facing Max was a corpse in a state trooper’s uniform. A mere human corpse, no matter what spirit possessed it. Legion was great and terrible. The right hand of Satan himself, beyond a doubt, a King of Hell.