Mike Jones - Infernus

Another student stood to be heard. “Why didn’t you just write it in three acts?”

“Because I didn’t want to write it in three acts. This is the only opportunity you have to learn them. I never had any desire to delineate them plainly in the text.”

“Why not?” asked the same student.

“Because I sincerely believe there are women and men in this world that are a hell of a lot smarter than I am, and it would insult their intelligence to write down to them. They would tell me I was pretentious and superficial. The third invisible act is hyper-violently surreal.”

“But, I already think it is hyper-violently surreal,” another student said.

“Uh, no you don’t,” the man said, smiling, and left it at that for the week.

“BLOOD AND GUTS”

The demon’s elbow rested just below the man’s chin. The rest of his arm (including his forearm) was down his son’s throat.

“This proves my love for you, my son. Put your hands under my massive genitals, and hold onto those two black stones.”

He wrenched his goo-covered arm from his son’s throat instantly, shredding flesh in the process. The man wrapped his hands around the leathery black bags and gripped them tightly.

“Yes, that’s right, my son. Now burst them with your grip.”

The man squeezed until yellow blood flowed freely between his fingers. He bowed his head to the sizzling liquid trickling between his knuckles and lovingly lapped it up with a slave’s humility.

“Thank you, Father,” the man said.

Later, after they passed many miles along the shore of a boiling lake, they came upon a beach. They looked out across a sea of sand. Many humans lay roasting like meat on the burning grains.

“Let’s walk among them,” the demon said, and they did, entering the field of the flesh. “This one was known in life as ‘The Killer.’ No such proud designation can be given him; here he would be referred to simply as, ‘The Killed.’ ‘The Killer’ was possessed of a specialty — the eyes — it was his favorite thing to gouge out with a scoop in his dreams.”

Red drove one of his clawed feet into the eyes of the gaping head. He did this over and over and over…

“And this was a human with breasts,” the demon said as they moved on to another specimen. “It had a will to tell lies to anyone who would listen. So now, if any of our ears hear one word issuing forth, we all urinate on the top of the head. This is great humiliation to this creature of ego.”

And to prove it, he covered the protesting head (for five spaces of time) with his acidic urine. The man laughed at that and kicked it from behind for one thousand times. He loved to watch the bleeding head reel from the violent strikes, and loved hearing it make little mewling sounds.

“Son, I give you the gift of The Satyr.” The demon waved his great arms wide.

The man felt the changes and looked at his body. His legs began to cramp as they cracked backward and sprouted hooves. Black wire hair grew rapidly from his ankles to the tops of his thighs. The satyr’s arms thickened, becoming corded with large veins and matted with black hair. It flowed wildly across his chest and around his back like water. A black goatee instantly grew on his chin and he stood in glorious, handsome masculinity before his father.

“You will forever be ‘Satyr.’ It is a gift from your father, who loves you.” He approached the satyr. “Now your body is ‘suited’ for my affections. It has been strengthened to the point where I won’t rip you to shreds, although it was joyous for both of us, I know.”

The demon knelt before the satyr and sifted through the thick patch of pubic hair. “My son, I now, in sacrifice, take your member in me, and I will dine from you.”

And he did.

“Let me have some of your precious blood, my son.” The demon held out a hand. The satyr lifted one of his legs and placed a wool-covered hoof into it.

Red held it between his teeth and suddenly bit down, cracking the split hoof into four bloody pieces and pouring salty blood into his mouth. He pulled the hoof in further and sucked loudly.

“Oh, Dr. Mountfountain, you were coming along so well, too. Now, after three days, big Barney drags you back in a straightjacket after your failed escape attempt. Don’t you want to get better? What did you say, Barney? You ‘nailed’ him in the woods and now Dr. Mountfountain is a wide receiver? Was there blood? Ahhh, a virgin. Well, you go along now, Barney. I’ll do an extensive cavity search — I hope you didn’t leave any deposits behind.”

Big Barney and the small man laughed quietly for a few moments.

After Barney left, the other doctor guided the bewildered Mountfountain onto a flat metal trough.

“The water is shallow, Doctor. I’m not going to drown you. I’m just going to lay you down in it, all right? I’m pulling off your pants now. My, aren’t you a big boy? I’m attaching two small clips to your testicles — oh, you baby, that didn’t hurt! The wire goes to this generator. Now with the added conductivity of the water, you’ll feel like a piece of -

… brrzzzapppp!…

The class was mostly quiet after this session. The Legend — although no one referred to him this way, and he would be unknown by this name until Infernus was, well… known by others later — packed up his things and left until next week.

“WASTING WITH TIME”

“My son,” screamed the demon in the satyr’s mind. “Do you know what my parting gift will be to you in three billion, trillion generations?”

“Why must there be a parting?” cried the satyr weakly in Red’s mind.

“The toils we pass through will have honed your body to invisible perfection. My final parting gift to you in three billion, trillion generations,” and here a blood tear fell hissing to the stony ground, “you will become ‘The Scream.’”

Satyr gaped. “Is such a treasure possible to attain?”

“Not only is it possible, but it is necessary. In your path to become Everything, you must literally become everything. Are you pleased?”

“More than pleased — my pain threshold just increased three greatness levels.”

“Then all is proceeding as planned,” gushed the demon lovingly.

The truth that the two shuddering, smoldering lumps at the bottom of the mile-deep shaft may yet discover was that nothing was done or said lovingly here. All was stated in the most naked horror imaginable. No love lay behind the intent. Rather, the satyr now knew that his body was being distilled and rarified so that he would lose the detritus of his individuality and become assimilated by “The Scream.” To be invisible, to scream forever and be, in essence, that scream made the two smoldering corpses shudder and clatter their bones together more violently. But, they could not wake themselves. They could never do that .

[This next section, considered by even some ardent Satanists as The Most Hideous Profane Thing , is survived in only phrases and a few pages of text. What follows is, according to the foremost expert, Doctor Helen Gaines, to be all that survives.]

The demon thrust his member into the cavity of the satyr’s spine, then folded the canvas of flesh back over the wound and made it heal, and went to pounding the mound of flesh…

“…with my son, place this between your lips and pierce it with your teeth. Swallow the pus and slurp down the rotted bits of flesh that come sluicing…”