HELL crawls up his gullet, a smouldering magma that replaces the blood. Horrendous cracks pierce the air and his screams follow; it’s his jaw that snapped, right between his two bottom incisors. In the hole created, the beginnings of horns appear, hulking, polished things that curl inward and outward. Still, he screams; the sound more open than it was before, now that his mouth is no longer a mouth at all. Have I got your attention?
He’d emerged through the sliding doors of a local Premier Inn, looking nothing at all like the brochures and television advertisements. Potted plants stand guard at either side of the reception desk, looking in dire need of some sunshine and water. He was almost certain they were leaning their frail leaves in the direction of the rain outside, rather the same way sunflowers lean towards their namesake.
Water oozed from the holes in his trainers. Like the skies above his sleepy little hometown, his jeans darkened and became heavy with water. Everything about him was heavy, from his rucksack to the gravestone curve of his shoulders. His expression was a garden rockery; an unpleasant sight to behold. He’d left in a rush, anyone with a working pair of eyes could see it, especially the teenager working the front desk. She frowned at him but not out of concern or anger, he could tell.
“Good Evening.” False lashes fluttered in an owlish blink. “How can I help you?”
“Hi, I uh, I booked a room under Harry?”
She typed something into the outdated computer. “Room 27?”
Harry gave a curt nod and a tight smile, the girl rose from her seat and pressed a key into his awaiting palm. He recoiled from her touch. Too much fake tan.
“Breakfast runs from seven ‘til ten, we ask that you keep all noise to a minimum after half nine.” Her lips parted in a smile that showed far too many teeth for it to be genuine. “Have a nice night!”
“Yeah. Ta, love.”
It took twenty minutes to locate the room, shuffling along the worn carpet. A couple charged past him, exchanging venomous words under their breath. He stopped to watch them, head tilted. He wasn’t alone. Behind him, a chorus of doors creaked open, all revealing people in bathrobes or their loungewear. Fascinated, he drank in each expression, seeing in them the faces of his neighbours. A man’s bellow drew his gaze back to the couple, he’d dropped his bag, arms raised to his sides in question. She answered by dropping her own bag, her arms akimbo as she scowled up at him. She did not shout, and kept her voice low as she stalked towards him with all the grace of a lioness. This seemed to terrify her partner and he hung his head as she strutted away, leaving him to struggle with their bags. They disappeared down the hallway after that.
Doors came to a close behind him, a buzzing chatter following soon after. He frowned, likening the sound to scuttling beetles. Ignoring the discomfort, he shuffled away. His mind kept wandering. Meandering down rabbit holes, within which his girlfriend’s screech echoed and all of his wrongdoings were hung upon the walls like family photographs. When he did finally gain access to room twenty-seven, he exchanged his soaking clothes for drier ones and his trainers by the radiator that sat under the window.
The radiator was colder than stone, and moths had gotten to the curtains. Nothing about the room seemed welcoming nor functional. A fact that became startlingly apparent when thunder shook the very walls. Do I still have your attention?
At his feet, his bag buzzed twice. Plucking the phone from where he’d stuffed it between his socks, Harry read his screen:
ST. MATTHEW’S PSYCH WARD:
URGENT UPDATE RE: MISS Y. ZHAO.
ST MATTHEW’S PSYCH WARD:
URGENT UPDATE RE: VISITING HOURS.
An unpleasant knot twisted in his stomach, fear bleeding over any concern for his mother’s wellbeing. He’d shipped her there for a reason, and I’m afraid it wasn’t out of love. The taste of his past surged up his throat with alarming intensity. If one were to peer beneath the law degree, the charming smiles, the saintly attitude, they may find something ungodly.
Something that lay in wait.
His first birth occurred prematurely. That wasn’t pretty. Sometimes, if he sat there and thought hard enough, he found himself deafened by a woman’s screams.
Let me go! Please, let me go! Let me go! PLEASE!
Distorted chants usually follow:
Cut it out!
Kill the devil!
If he closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into his sockets (you know, the way children do, giggling at the pretty colours that float around them when their eyes reopen) he’d see a blade cutting through the fleshy walls of his mother’s womb. Like the abandoned packet of mints one usually finds at the bottom of a woman’s handbag, he saw light for the first time. When the owner of the knife hoisted his newborn body in the air, he began to cry. Hollers of victory echoed, piercing the night. They were short-lived.
Along the damp, brick wall, a shadow emerged, horned and ancient. As a child, he’d assumed that this nameless shadow had been his hero, and had delivered him to safety. What else was a lonely child supposed to believe? How else was the naivety of a child’s mind supposed to comprehend a devil staking its claim?
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
Blinking, he was confronted with more notifications.
ZACH & PETER LAW OFFICE:
RE: The Lawson Case.
ZACH & PETER LAW OFFICE:
RE: Your Leave of Absence.
MISSED CALL FROM: RACHEL.
YOU HAVE (6) VOICEMAILS.
Harry didn’t need to listen to the voicemails to know what they entailed. She was probably ending it. She was probably throwing his belongings out into the front garden to them ablaze, and invite their entire neighbourhood to watch. She was probably smearing his name to anybody who would care to listen. Maybe they’d dance around the flames, make a real party of the whole affair. Not that he cared. He’d be back at work by Monday morning. It’d be like none of it ever happened. And that was exactly how he wanted it.
Women never really served much purpose to him. His mother didn’t push him out of her, men cut him out. His so-called girlfriend didn’t work for the money she spent every weekend, he did. What’s more, that new secretary didn’t tell him no at that Christmas party last year, she hadn’t uttered a single word. If his memory served him correctly (and I must confess, it did, though I think he forgot the way she cried) she was as stiff as a school teacher’s spine the entire time. He hadn’t put much thought to the incident after that night, why would he? Co-workers do that sort of thing at Christmas parties all the time, don’t they?
Harry soon found himself staring into the glow of his laptop screen. His fingers glided over the keyboard, words of professionalism pouring from him in the form of profound apologies and well wishes. He had perfected the art of wielding his forked tongue like a weapon at a young age, keeping anyone who dared to get too close at arm’s length.
Seconds became minutes, became hours, became intangible.
He’d eventually fall asleep, sprawled out on his front in the rickety bed, looking to the world as plain as plain could be. That was five hours ago. Hair had been falling into his face, lips had been parted, eyes closed and expression serene. A far cry from the picture of horror he is now. It’d started with the sweating, when he snapped awake in a pool of it, breathing hard through his nose. That was four hours ago. Next came the songs of the damned and the tormented. Can’t you hear it? A call to arms! Phantom trumpets wail with his becoming, voices he cannot name call to him in dead languages. That was three hours ago. Migraines followed those, a knocking against his skull, an ache in his bones, and he convinced himself that some water and some ibuprofen would solve his sleeplessness. That was two hours ago.
An hour ago he woke up again, clawing at his flesh with blunt nails, shedding his skin one painful layer at a time. As all things do, it started from below, a rumbling in his stomach, a tightness in his heart and his lungs, a breathlessness in his throat. Finally, the screaming began and, well, you already know what happened after that.
Human hands grope for his hair, finding nothing, only a gnarled, leathery scalp. His knees hit the cheap carpet, his palms planting themselves against the horns and tugging them. Bones snap, though any evidence of it is covered by the thunder rattling the walls. The flesh of his neck seems to be the turning point, a place where human flesh meets the bloodless scales of the devil. His torso remains as it always has been, smattered with wiry black and grey hairs, his belly a swelled hill of gluttony. Where the lower abdomen meets his hips, a woollen fur covers the broad expanse of his thighs, his bony knees and right down to his ankles. Two hooves protrude from the ends of his legs like claws.
Motionless, he screams. Brown eyes are now nothing more than vast, milk-white circles in his skull and his nose no longer exists at all. Look upon him and see his true visage. Empty eyes for an empty heart. All sound stops, save for the rain that continues to batter the window. Its maw closes. It does not breathe. It does not move.
I’m quite afraid to say that this process is long and arduous. It will not be pretty, it cannot be.
Have I still got your attention?
A knock comes at the door of room twenty-seven. Its head moves deliberately, its unblinking eyes glaring at the source of the noise.
“Is everything alright in there?”
It assumes the voice belongs to a staff member.
“We’ve been getting complaints of screaming.”
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” a voice like snakes rubbing together answers, though its maw does not open; “I’m sorry for the noise, I have trouble sleeping.”
“Well, I’m going to have to ask that you keep it down, it’s past our half-nine curfew, sir.”
“Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Footsteps filter back along the corridor, leaving the devil alone once more. It feels only the soreness in its throat from all the screaming. It waits until it can hear nothing but rain against the glass and the occasional hum of an engine. It finally rises to stand, towering above the bed, catching sight of itself in the window’s reflection. Nothing more than a black silhouette with headlights for eyes. Its maw opens, a quiet and keening moan rumbling from somewhere deep within its chest. It does not remain standing for long. The creature collapses into the mattress, curled in on itself in the foetal position. For many, many moments all that can be heard from it are discordant gasps of air that could almost be sobs. They soon even out, and the creature falls into a dreamless slumber. It shall never dream again; it shall only know the sound of dying thunder and the steady lilt of rain as it falls against the surface of the world.
I hope you paid attention.