Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

It was a shame he was going to have to kill her.

Francis left the memory of Louisiana and the sweet, sweet sound of the Swamp Angel’s voice, and returned to Hell.

Louisiana? he questioned as he slowly emerged from the mire of unconsciousness. I’ve never been to fucking Louisiana . . . especially not during the Depression.

But he had. He just hadn’t remembered until the crazy angel that had saved him stuck a knife into his brain.

The former Guardian opened his eyes with a pathetic yelp, recalling the feeling of the glowing blade as it violated his skull.

He was on his back facing the ceiling of the cave, stalagmites—or were they stalactites? He never could remember—hanging down. He tried to move, but couldn’t.

Again he heard the rumbling sounds of Hell changing somewhere off in the distance, and he knew he was still a guest in the Magick Kingdom.

Francis tried to move again, and this time realized that his wrists and ankles were bound by thick leather restraints.

“What the fuck?” he said aloud, his voice sounding weird as it bounced around the confines of the cave.

Fighting a wave of dizziness, he lifted his head for a better view of his surroundings. His stomach flipped, threatening to make him yak up his insides, but he really hadn’t eaten anything since . . . When was the last time he had eaten? How long had he been in Hell? Time moved differently here; it could have been days, or maybe even months.

What I wouldn’t give for a Hot Pocket about now.

Through bleary eyes he saw the angel. His back was to him, and he appeared to be working, standing in front of a slab of black rock that seemed to have grown up out of the floor. And there was somebody else . . . someone who looked to be in even worse shape than Francis lying atop the slab. The Hellion was curled in a tight ball of nastiness at the angel’s feet.

“Hey,” Francis squeaked, his throat tight and dry.

“You’re awake,” the angel commented, continuing to work.

The Hell beast lifted its obscene head and hissed.

“Let me just finish here and I’ll be right with you,” said the angel.

Then he dropped something wet and red. It plopped to the floor of the cave with a spatter, and the Hellion reacted immediately, snatching it up into its awful mouth, chewing eagerly.

“Glad you won’t be needing that anymore,” the angel said with a chuckle to the being laid out before him.

Then he turned to face Francis. The front of the angel’s robes, already filthy with the dirt and soot of Hell, were now spattered with blood. He held his glowing blade in a relaxed hand, and Francis again recalled the agony as it had entered his head.

Though the muscles in his neck were screaming, the former Guardian angel could not—would not—lower his head. He could see the other figure lying upon the slab now. It had once been an angel. Francis guessed he was likely one of the few who had managed to escape the tortures of Tartarus, reverting to barbarism on the plains of Hell. Now his stomach had been opened, the skin peeled back.

Something that could have been a mountain crumbling roared somewhere outside the cave, and the angel tilted his shaggy head slightly, listening to the sound.

“The changes are coming closer,” he said. “I wonder what it will be like when he’s finished?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Francis demanded. A while ago he had expected to be dead, but now? He had a front-row seat on the crazy bus and it didn’t show any sign of slowing down soon.

“It’s all about change, really,” the angel said. The glowing scalpel disappeared somewhere inside his robes. “Take this poor beast, for example.” He gestured toward the angel on the slab.

“You wouldn’t believe the changes his body has undergone, living the way he did . . . changes that I never foresaw, and I was partially responsible for his design.”

Responsible for his design? Who is this madman? The thought coursed through Francis’s fevered brain as he fought to keep his head up.

“His internal workings have evolved to survive the rigors of Hell,” the angel continued.

Francis had no idea what this lunatic was talking about, but as long as it kept him from using the light-saber scalpel to open him up, he could keep right on talking.

“To survive what is coming, we must all evolve. I learned that quite a long time ago, but I’ve only recently come to truly understand it.”

The angel approached Francis, and he squirmed on the slab, but to no avail. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“But I knew that things were finally about to come around when I found you out there. It was a surprise, but not really.”

The angel reached out with a bloody hand to stroke Francis’s bald head.

“I knew you would be coming; I just didn’t know when.”

The scalpel was in the angel’s hand again, and all Francis could do was stare in horror at the figure looming above him.

“I was always proud of the Guardian’s design,” he said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Francis growled.

“You don’t remember me . . . yet,” the angel said with a smile that would have given Charles Manson the creeps. “But you will.”

He leaned toward Francis, one blood-encrusted hand holding the former Guardian angel’s head steady as the scalpel once more slipped effortlessly into his skull.

Like a hot knife cutting through butter.

Remy helped Jon bury Nathan as the sun started to set over the Arizona desert.

They were silent as they shoveled dirt over the poor man’s battered corpse with tools they had found after foraging through the wreckage of the biodome.

“Tell me about him,” Remy said, desperate to ease the uncomfortable silence.

“Nothing much to tell, really,” Jon said. He had begun to place large rocks atop the fresh earth in an attempt to keep the desert predators away. “He was a good man . . . a kind man, and I loved him.”

Jon looked at Remy with a sad smile as the tears began to flow down his dirty cheeks.

“There, I said it.” He looked skyward. “I said it, and the heavens didn’t open up, and fire didn’t rain down from the sky.”

“Did you think it would?” Remy asked him.

Jon shrugged. “Relationships like ours were frowned upon in the Sons,” he said. “So we kidded ourselves by ignoring our true feelings . . . lying to everyone around us, as well as ourselves.”

The man looked back to the fresh grave, then bent down to retrieve more rocks.

“How pathetic is it that only after he is dead can I say it out loud.” Jon shook his head in disgust. “You should have left me to die under the rubble.”

“He knew that you loved him,” Remy said.

Jon laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I’m sure he did.”

“I can sense these things better than most, but one would have to be in a coma to not see and feel the connection you two had.”

Jon knelt beside the grave. He stayed like that for a little while.

“Thank you for that,” he said finally.

“It’s the truth.”

“Well, thank you anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” Remy said.

Jon stared at the grave again. “It’s kind of funny,” he said. “I can still feel him around me.”

“Not such a bad thing, is it?”

“No, not at all. It’s really kind of nice.”

“We should probably think about going,” Remy suggested.

“Yeah,” Jon said.

“From what I remember of the map, we’re going to Louisiana, right?” Remy asked.

“Louisiana it is,” Jon agreed. “But we’ll have to be careful. It has to be done just right, or it could be disastrous.” He seemed to almost physically shake off his emotions, and was suddenly very professional. “The first thing we need to do is find some batteries for my hearing aid, and then get ourselves cleaned up. I doubt the Daughters of Eve would talk to us if we look as though we’ve just fought a war.”