Tandem of Terror (3 page)

The Lizradian vessel closed on its target.
The Mark XI Adder was simply drifting through the void carried on
by its momentum. The three members of the Lizradian pilot crew
joked and laughed as they blew the Adder out of the sky. Their new
weapon, to target the human themselves rather than their ships, was
indeed going to win the war for them.

Clatter
Bones

John Grover

It had been a mistake. It had
all
been
a mistake. Clatter Bones, the fallen angel, sat upon a hill of
rancid flesh and bleached bones, pondering. He no longer wanted to
torment the damned, tear the flesh from their bones with spindly
fingers and razor nails. The flames of Hell no longer held their
sway over him, no delight, no sallow joy, no glorious triumph over
the sins of the righteous.

The creeping dark offered no comfort. The
screams and shrieks were no longer musical notes that brought
rapture to his ears. Sulfur was not the scent of choice. It reeked
and stank, an offense to his senses. His brethren were deformed and
ugly, outcasts, awful creatures to be shunned and feared.

Clatter Bones was filled with regret. He
wished he'd never supported the rebellion, the revolt against
Heaven. Living in Hell was not what it was cracked up to be. It
lacked the splendor, the unity, the...love. Why had he ever done it?
The promises Lucifer made withered into ash blowing on blistering
winds. Nothing he said had come to pass and millennium after
millennium he told lie after monstrous lie.

He wanted out, he wanted to go back. He
wanted to be in Heaven again, wrapped in its warmth and loving
light. But how...how would he gain its favor again? He wanted God's
forgiveness. He needed God's forgiveness to return.

All he wanted in all of eternity was
redemption. But how could a fallen angel ever catch God's eye
again? How could one that had done such evil, such unspeakable
things to God's most beloved children, man, be welcomed back to
paradise?

For a thousand years Clatter Bones sat and
thought, trying to find a way to be forgiven. And one day the
answer came. He knew exactly what to do.

He would kill Lucifer.

Assassination. Yes! He would assassinate the
Prince of Darkness. Do God the favor of a lifetime and rid this
existence of the foul one once and for all. That would surely earn
him forgiveness. It had to. God would be so pleased, so thankful
that he would instantly love Clatter Bones again and welcome him
back to Heaven with open arms. How could he not? The war between
them would be over and God would at last be the victor and have him
to thank for it all. If that didn't win forgiveness nothing
would.

Now the details needed to be worked out. How
would he do it? Lucifer was smart, and had spies everywhere. But he
was not perfect, far from it. God's perfect angel shed that title
eons ago when he attempted to overthrow Heaven and failed. And if
he failed once, he could fail again. It meant he was not
invulnerable. There was a weakness somewhere, Clatter Bones just
needed to discover it, flush it out. Observe. Scheme. Use all the
skills he'd been taught living in the bowels of torment and
damnation.

Clatter Bones sat and pondered, for perhaps a
little over another thousand years but the exact method of
Lucifer's assassination would not come to him. At last he decided
to go for a walk, a stroll if you will, to clear his mind.

He walked through the Hall of Ashes, a place
where arsonists and pyromaniacs were set on fire over and over
again, their souls stuffed back into their bodies only to be set
ablaze and burned alive for all eternity.

It bored him. The scent of scorched flesh and
the screams of the tortured were joyless. He moved on.

The pit was no better. Down in the darkness
with walls of cold stone, dripping with blood and bile, the souls
of more damned were cast, huddled together, tormented with
blindness and unending whispers. Those who lusted after the flesh,
who fed upon voyeurism and spying were denied their senses and
constantly tempted.

Clatter Bones slipped down into the pit,
wallowed with them but got no inspiration. He left the pit and the
begging, pleading souls of the perverse.

The chambers for murderers and warmongers
were equally uneventful. The same agonies again and again.
Repetition to the extreme. Murderers metaphysically killed by
visages of their victims. Clatter Bones yawned.

He slinked and slithered his way down
corridors of bone, caves of ice, pools of sulfur, fire and
brimstone. He sat and watched pods hatch the newly spawned demons,
fledglings eager to learn the ways of temptation, lying and
deceiving. Again nothing.

He visited the inner circles, the orgies of
higher demons, the feasts of the cannibal souls but alas...

It was then that he crossed paths with the
false prophets who babbled to one another incessantly. They stood
on pedestals, their feet rooted into the stone so they could never
sit or leave their eternal podiums. Out loud they raved on and on,
reciting bible versus that had been twisted and made senseless for
only themselves to hear and take heed in.

It was among this babble that Clatter Bones
caught bits and pieces of a plan coming together. Snippets of the
sermons sunk into him.

"
An eye for an eye, a tooth
or a tooth."

"
Ashes to Ashes and Dust to
Dust."

"
Flesh of my flesh and bone
of my bone."

It finally donned on him. They were all kin
here, brothers as Lucifer liked to call them. God had created them
out of the same source, so he would need a part of himself to kill
the Ruler of Hell. Nothing inside or out of Hell could handle the
job, but something from within might hold the key.

Clatter Bones hid away in a small corner of
shadow and used his gnarled claw that resembled a talon to rip his
left arm open. With teeth like daggers he gnawed away until part of
his black, filth-ridden bone gave way. With the first stone he saw,
he began sharpening one end of the bone to a point. His shunt was
ready.

One last thought crossed his mind, should the
tip be poisoned? He wondered if the bone itself was enough to stop
the evil one's black heart. He supposed it would be safer to find a
poison but what, nothing in Hell could harm the beast. Suddenly, he
realized what he needed.

Clatter Bones materialized inside of an old
church just outside of France in the dead of night. Unseen by human
eyes he dipped the sharpened bone in some holy water, blessed in
the name of the Father. He figured God would not mind if he spent a
moment in one of his churches, since he was doing him the most
supreme of favors.

He returned to Hell, a smile upon his black
lips, a gleam in his yellow eyes and approached his former master's
bedchamber.

Lucifer slept on his great bed of silken
sheets and satin pillows, bed covers made of more threads than
humanly possible to count. All of Hell around him was barren,
grotesque and swallowed by filth and scum, but not Lucifer's
bedchamber. This place was the height of luxury and comfort.

He slept soundly without a care-a great
dragon sprawled on a bed that stretched for miles. A soft snore
escaped him as he curled into a new position that now made him
resemble a huge serpent.

Clatter Bones turned himself invisible as he
crept into the room. His master's scaly back was to him as he
glided across the room on a trail of slime. He stopped inches
before Lucifer's flesh and raised the bone high above his head.

"
Hello Clatter Bones,"
Lucifer said with serene tone. "Come to kill me at
last?"

Clatter Bones froze in his spot. "How did..."
his words fell dead.

"
I've been waiting for you
to finally get up the courage to go through with your plans. I
never thought you were going to get here. And I could hear you from
miles away. I can hear the bones inside your dead skin clattering
together. That's why I named you Clatter Bones. My
brother."

The great dragon, serpent-beast turned over
to stare into Clatter Bones' eyes. In an instant Lucifer
transformed into a beautifully angelic man, radiating with light,
hair of golden hues, eyes tranquil blue. He stood up and took his
demon's free hand. "Do you really think you're going to get into
Heaven by murdering me? What do you think gets you placed into Hell
in the first place?"

"
This is different," Clatter
Bones snarled. "God won't do this himself. He's been waiting for
someone to repent, to want their place back in Heaven. This will
show him how much I love him."

"
Oh really? Are you sure
about that? Look around. His own creations come down here by the
thousands, his perfect humans. The ones he loves more than anything
else he's ever created. He doesn't hesitate to abandon them down
here. And you think he's going to forgive you because you murder
me? Fool. He loves me as well. I was his firstborn. Harm me and he
will smite you."

"
You lie. He wants you
destroyed. He's been at war with you forever. Finally he will get
his victory."

"
You think he needs you for
his victory? How prideful. How selfish. How evil of you. Think
before you act. You will commit the gravest of all sins, murder,
and think that is the key to Heaven? Poor Clatter Bones. You don't
know what you're doing. Strike at me and He will take vengeance on
you more terrible than anything I could administer."

"
He will love me. He will
thank me. I am doing the right thing."

"
Since when is murder the
right thing? Have you read his book?"

"
No."

"
Have you taken his son into
your black heart?"

"
No."

"
Have you made confession of
all the evil you have done?"

"
I...there is a
lot..."

"
Have you simply asked for
forgiveness?"

"
Forgiveness? You must be
human to ask for---"

"
Human? Why yes. Only the
humans can ask and receive absolution. Don't you see that you could
never earn his forgiveness? It would mean being human. Do you know
what it means to be human?"

"
No, I don't think
so."

"
Would you like to find out?
It could mean forgiveness. A chance at a place in the Heaven that
you so desperately crave. It is the only way. Adding another sin to
your list will not get you that. Search your black heart my
brother. You know this is true."

Clatter Bones stood in silence. The bone
dropped from his claw and hit the floor, the sound of it echoed
through Hell. There was some snickering in the air, whispers,
giggling. Lucifer whispered in his ear as he closed his eyes.

"
Do you want to be human?
It's the only way to find Him and absolution."

Clatter Bones opened his eyes and answered.
"Yes. Oh yes."

Lucifer licked Clatter Bones' face with his
prickly, forked tongue. It burned and in a blinding white-hot
flash, Clatter Bones found himself lying in the street of some huge
city on Earth. The sun was just rising and for the first time it
hurt Clatter Bones' eyes. He looked around and saw that the city
was just waking and he was in the middle of it, naked,
vulnerable...human.

He looked at his hands...yes hands, they were
no longer claws but a man's human hands with flesh, and blood and
bone. He climbed to his feet and stumbled off to an alleyway. Pain
shot up his spine, his feet felt cold on the sidewalk, his stomach
churned with hunger. All sorts of new sensations that he'd never
felt before flooded through him. It was overwhelming...almost
agonizing. He didn't know what to do.

He looked around and saw a charity bin full
of old clothes in the alley. He pulled some rags from it and
dressed himself. On the other side of the alley a strange man
watched him, smiling. The stranger walked up to him and
laughed.

"
What are you laughing at?"
He asked defiantly.

"
Oh Clatter Bones," it was
Lucifer in yet another guise. "Enjoy your new life, your human life
and your new soul. That's right, you have a human soul now. And
when your human life is over, your soul is mine."

Clatter Bones' new eyes widened with shock
and horror...again new sensations he'd never felt before, new
emotions filled his body.

"
That's right. No absolution
for you. With all the evil and corruption you have inflicted on
your fellow man millennia after millennia, there's no way God will
forgive the likes of you. You will be right back with me in Hell.
Only this time...you will receive the torture you so gleefully
delivered."

Clatter Bones broke down and cried, falling
onto his knees and begging for forgiveness...he wasn't even sure who
he was praying to, God or Lucifer. It didn't matter. No one was
listening.

Laughter filled the air. "Be seeing you soon,
brother." Lucifer vanished from sight as Clatter Bones, having
failed like so many before him, waited for sweet death.

Dead
Stop

Eric S Brown

"
Run!" Mark shouted. Brent's
legs pumped as he raced to catch up to the train and take Hank's
outstretched hand. He could hear the snarling growls of the dead
behind him but didn't dare to glance over his shoulder to see how
close they were. Brent poured everything he had left into a final
burst of speed. Mark's hand grabbed his own and pulled him from the
ground as he leapt for the train.