Futile Efforts (29 page)

Wynne shrugged.
 
He was having a tough time figuring out where to draw the line between sick in the head and weary of soul.
 
Maybe when it came down to it, there was no difference at all.

McQuill
sat up a little straighter on the high rattan stool.
 
The grin grew even uglier and he leaned forward the way the nuns would do it when you were in the shitter and didn't know the correct chapter, the right verse.
 
"Maybe you only exist in some bedtime story that God is reading to baby Jesus inside the manger."

"If you're saying I might not exist at all, the fact that you're arguing with me implies that you also aren't here."
 
He tried to think of how the Jesuits would phrase it.
 
"That being the case, your logical imperative is no more stable than my own."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure, Belial, but it somehow makes sense to me anyway."

"That's because you're still crazy!"

One of the reasons Wynne had never done well in group therapy was because
nutjobs
could always break everything down into circular logic and just go around and around in a loop forever.
  
They never cared if they ever got to the end of the race so long as they got to stay on the track.

Is that the way Heaven and Hell worked?
 
Each side trapped in its own circular logic and never even getting close to being a part of the same argument?

You could only take so much and wait so long before you had to jump, one way or the other.
 
There was no such thing as inertia.
 
The world spun around and moved you anyway, no matter how hard you tried to fight.
 
If anything, the Day of Judgment proved that much.
 
Even if you just sat around in your sweat pants drinking rum, your dead dog would stand up and get your ass back in gear.

"You don't hate me,"
McQuill
said.
 
"Why should you kill me?"

"I hate what you represent."

"And what's that?"

"My own pain."

"Then you admit we are a part of one another."

"I admit that the worst of what you are is the same as the worst of what I am.
 
I'm disgusted by it, and I can sense that you embrace it."
 
He held the plastic fork with the missing tine out in front of him, hoping that Belial would cower before the glory and might of valor and virtue.

Except nothing happened.
 
Wynne kind of jutted the
plasticware
forward.

"What are you doing?"

"They're supposed to transform into burning swords."

"When?"

"I don't know."

"You look kind of silly, if you don't mind me saying," Belial, second Seraphim following Lucifer, soft in voice but full of treachery and lies, told him.

Wynne didn't, really, because he knew it was true.

The old man lifted his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.
 
When he turned his gaze back on Wynne, you could see the ages of despair and misery within him, even something like confusion.
 
It reminded Wynne of just about every psychiatrist, counselor, analyst,
aromatherapist
, herbal healer, professional colon cleaner (he'd been to two), and holistic practitioner that Wynne had ever met.
 
They all gave him that same sorrowful look.

"Do you want to know what hell is?" Belial asked.

"No," Wynne answered.
 
He already knew.

Hell is when you're four years old and you're playing with your puppy out on the front lawn.
 
You love the dog more than anything, more than you'll ever be capable of loving anything else, as it pounces and flounces over your legs, and you're laughing louder than you ever have or will again in your sick life.
  
Dad's on the porch watching over you, but he's put in forty hours of overtime and he's nodding off with a beer in one hand and the paper open in his lap.
 
The dog, it's running around in a big circle, tripping over the flagstone path leading up to the house.
 
There are dandelions growing between the rocks, waving in the wind, and the puppy moves to one, then the next, then the next down the walkway towards the road.

You're calling the dog back to you but it just keeps prancing closer to the curb, and then it's in the street.
 
You get to your feet and you start to move, a half-choked cry unable to escape your throat, and you rush a little faster, still faster as the dog sets off to run across the road.
 
A car is coming.

Some teens in trashed '73 Mustang needing a lot of body work, but the engine's tuned fine.
 
You watch your puppy traipsing along, tail wagging wildly, until it's in the middle of the road.
 
The Mustang bearing down, the engine screaming now as the bastard behind the wheel stomps the gas and tugs the car left, the slightest squeal to the tires as you rush forward with your eyes wide and your mouth wide and your hands wide open, raised above your head as if angels will set down in your palms, and the dog you love so much barks once, calling for you, and the fucking Mustang...the goddamn Mustang...

...it
misses
.

You love.

Oh Christ how you can love, but there's a piece of hell inside you that wants to witness the destruction of all you hold dear and sacred.
 
Even then, at the age of four, you realize that this is what's inside you.
 
It's always been there, and will forever be.

I.

You.

You are hell.

I am Hell, Wynne understood.

And in his hands were two burning swords.
 
Belial actually let out a little laugh of satisfaction, like he was happy that Wynne realized the truth of the matter.
 
Crazy or sane, you couldn't get away from the fact that wherever you went, you brought hell with you locked up within yourself.
  
The old man showed his teeth again and sort of bounced off his stool, clambering over the counter and trying to stage dive.

The weapons of flame raised in his hands, Wynne held his ground and felt
McQuill
impale himself upon them.

As if this moment had been well-choreographed and practiced many times before, Wynne found his leverage and thrust forward, driving the fiery blades into Belial's heart, listening to the final mutters and resentful laughter of the old man.
 
His flesh vanished in a few seconds, stripped away by the cold light of the swords.

But the Grand Duke of Hell beneath stood for another instant, throwing his luminescent head back to give a silent howl of hatred, denial, or triumph.

Wynne walked outside and, in a fit of the rage that had never left him and still felt so familiar, dropped to his knees, closed his eyes, and pressed the burning swords into himself hoping to destroy the hell within him.

It didn't hurt quite as much as he thought.
 
When he looked down he saw he was jabbing the busted plastic fork and knife into his ribs.

It didn't matter though.
 
He knew something about truth and beauty.
 
Of what he was, and what he would be bringing with him to the gates of heaven.

Understanding this now as he began to rise above the city streets and ascended to paradise, sane and beloved in the all-consuming nature of the Lord's purest love.

Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell

The tortures of that inward hell.

Byron–
The
Giaour

By Michael
Laimo

T
om Piccirilli was my Mentor.

Ten years ago I was an aspiring writer…no, correct that. I was still a reader, but a voracious one enthusiastically delving into the small presses. I'd already partied with the Kings and the
Koontzes
and the
McCammons
of the horror world and was in search of a new, fresh voice--someone I'd never heard of before but could keep me turning the pages well into beauty-sleep hours. So I sent away for copies of magazines like
Dead Of Night
and
Not One Of Us
and
Terminal Fright
, and read them from cover to cover, quite soon noticing that all these little '
zines
' had a single common attribute: they contained short fiction by a guy named Tom Piccirilli.

Quite soon thereafter, I realized something: I wanted to write.

To me,
now
an aspiring writer, I began to pick up many other small press
zines
, and to no surprise (and much delight), saw that most contained Tom's fiction. Man, his stories just blew me away. They were deliberate, powerful, shocking, introducing me to nightmarish territories I'd never known to exist. And yet, at the same time, they were real enough to make me wonder:
could this really happen
?

As it turned out, Tom lived a mere stone's throw away from me. So I contacted him, and we hooked up. Me, aspiring writer, and he, my newly self-appointed mentor. At the time Tom didn't realize that he had a zealous protégé on his hands, but he went with the flow anyway like the great guy that he is, and for the next five years I listened and learned and did my best to watch Tom as he worked his way up the ranks of the horror community hierarchy.

Tom Piccirilli is my mentor.

Tom has the uncanny ability to alter a familiar theme into something horridly twisted. Here we have a brand new tale entitled "Traveling", a title as innocent as the blank piece of paper it was first typed on. But, below the title, the story commences, and we soon discover that there is something intriguingly odd within: the underlying madness that creeps into the main character's thoughts also tempts the reader with a bit of psychological second-guessing. Why? Because when braving this story, you won't recognize that things are terribly wrong until you've committed yourself to an optimistic outcome. Then Tom does what he does best: he winds up and smacks you in the face with a horror so unexpected that it forces you to go back and figure out just how in the hell he pulled it off. See, Tom has a way of fucking with his readers like that. How can you not admire that? (Tom still doesn't know it, but I
am
his protégé. I've read almost every damn thing he's published, and truth be told, I've learned something every single time out, as I did after reading this marvelous story.)

Tom Piccirilli will always be my mentor.

I suppose Tom will eventually find out that I admire his work to no end, and that he is my mentor, whether he likes it or not. One thing is for certain: if he keeps on writing stories like "Traveling", then I'll always read them with rampant enthusiasm, and I'll always smirk with delight. And, perhaps, with a bit of purpose. You see, with stories so well-written, so imaginative, and so brilliantly original, I'll find no choice but to continue labeling myself as an aspiring horror writer. Which is just fine by me.

–Michael
Laimo
, author of
THE DEMONOLOGIST
and
DEEP INTO THE DARKNESS

W
hen in doubt, set everything on fire.

That's all it takes, apparently.
 
You see it in every movie you happen to catch on cable at 2am.
 
Some dumbass horror flick where you've got a wimpy guy being chased through a small town full of inbred killers or trundling fish-men.
 
The hero is trapped in a warehouse and 52 murderers are closing in on him, brandishing their scythes and axes, waving their tentacles.
 
He backs up to the far wall and has nowhere left to go, finally turns frantically to the left and the right and sees, what else?…ten drums of gasoline.
 
Kicks one over, flicks his Zippo off his ass cheek, and the place goes up.

All the gurgling fish-folk maniacs-almost all of them-squeal and burst into flame, run around bouncing into walls, setting the rest of the place up.
 
Hero jumps out the window and falls three stories into a little puddle.
 
He's safe and limps off to watch the whole town burn from afar.
 
Maybe one of the chainsaw freaks makes it out too, giving us a ten minute showdown on the screen.
 
How's the wimp get out of that one?
 
He kicks the killer in the nuts, grabs up the chainsaw, and rams it home.