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With no escape.
But there is an escape for us, I tell her. I just have to find a portal back to our world. If I was Perry I could create one myself . . .
It’s too dangerous to involve her. She’s had it bad enough as it is. But it doesn’t matter, she says. I know where there is one. I’ve seen them leave through it. But we would never get there.
We’re going to try. Hope is the only thing we’ve got on our side, mom. The only thing that they can’t control or even begin to understand. Love and hope. Those are the bonds that will break them.
Something wet drips on my shoulder.
Blood.
I glance up.
For the first time I’m really seeing the tunnel we’re standing in.
Its round walls are comprised of people, stretching off in both directions until the flame’s light can’t reach and then they’re swallowed by darkness.
All types. Fat, skinny. Young, old. Men, women. Some more alien than anything, faces and bodies warped by torture. All naked, some flayed, some nearly skeletal. All strewn together like sinewy fabric, their eyes glued to us.
I have the same sensation I did in the restaurant when all the eyes were looking my way.
My mother is staring at them too. They would have alerted them by now. She pauses, closing her eyes briefly. They are here.
And I can feel it too, that buzzing, droning sound of insects in the base of my skull, building and building and building.
Suddenly the tunnel of ravaged people start screaming. Loud helpless shrieks that echo and echo, until it sounds like the whole world is screaming.
Oh they are very near indeed.
This way, my mother says, grabbing my hand.
We run off back the way I had come before, the screams following us like angry wasps, except this time instead of reaching the previous station, the tunnel turns to the right. Up ahead I see a tiny pin prick of light, like we’re bugs in a can and someone’s punched in one hole for us to breathe. I can imagine Satan himself, sitting outside of this all, larger than all the world, the tunnel in his hand. Ready to squish us if he chooses.
The thought nearly reduces me to rubble.
Keep going, I tell myself. You have her, you can’t give up now.
I keep going. It gets harder. The light seems to be getting further and further away.
It’s an illusion, she says. We’re getting closer.
I trust her, I have to, even though every cell in me wants to lie down and roll over.
But I have faith.
And then suddenly we’re under the light. It’s an open manhole about forty feet up and surprisingly I think I see blue sky. It’s hard to tell, my eyes can’t seem to focus through the glaze that covers it like a plastic seal.
Is that . . .? I ask.
Climb, my mother says, taking my hands and placing them on the iron rungs of a ladder that I hadn’t noticed until now. No arguments.
But I want to argue. I came here for her.
Climb, she says again. Now!
A blast of putrid heat plows into us at sonic speed.
Ants crawl under my skin.
I turn to see a single match is lit, illuminating the demon from before, standing in the middle of the tunnel.
It’s smiling, I think. I still can’t look at its face.
The manhole cover slides on from above like rusty scissors.
We are enveloped in darkness with no escape.
I try to put up the walls, try to think but my brain is slush, dark and wet and melting.
Suddenly candles light up all around us, one by one, a magic trick on slender white wax sticks, held by aged candelabras.
We’re in a crypt of bones and altars and cracked stone slabs and rising up the tunnel walls are skulls.
Of men.
Of children.
And of beasts.
Terrible, terrible beasts that watch us with empty sockets.
The demon raises its hands as if to cast some spell on us, its horrible cloak screaming, then it lowers them.
Steps forward.
We would have upheld the bargain, it says. Truly. But then you pissed us off.
The sound is hatred personified.
I don’t say anything. My mouth has been strangely muted and my brain has stuttered. The pillowy down of my soul has been severed from my reach.
If only I’d known I would get only one shot at this.
Don’t feel too bad, the demon(s) say. Your guide didn’t do a very good job with you. It’s not your fault.
My guide.
Jay.
My Jay.
Even the thought of him hurts, hurts me like I never thought possible.
Down here there is pain after pain after pain.
Infinite.
Yes, they say. Yes. We are infinite. You will be too.
They. Demons. What was its name again?
Suddenly the demon stops, a buzz roaring from its body like hostile flies.
What is your name? I ask, my voice sounding hollow.
My mother holds my hand.
