Devil in the Dollhouse: A Sandman Slim Story (3 page)

By the trucks the soldiers have broken up into small groups. Good. We did the same thing after a bad day in the arena. It’s not something you think about, it just happens. You fall into the orbit of friends and familiar faces. You don’t even have to like each other. You just have to be there to remind each other that you survived and that this is real. I’m sure there’s a scientific name for it. The old fighters just called it Tea Time.

Geryon says, “No one knows if the town exists anymore. Hell has fallen apart so badly since Samael left and with the beasts on the road, we’re the first visitors out this far in years.”

I take another hit off the Aqua Regia and recork the bottle. This isn’t the time to drink as much as I want to.

“I guess one way or the other we’ll know tomorrow.”

“I hope they’re all gone,” says Geryon. There’s an edge to his voice I haven’t heard before. “One set of monsters is enough.”

“Amen to that.”

N
ight and day are kind of abstract concepts out here in the hinterlands. Hell exists in a kind of perpetual bruised twilight, but in Pandemonium and other towns there’s an agreed-upon cycle for morning, noon, and night. Out this far the only difference between 12
A.M.
and 12
P.M.
is a slight color change in the sky. Still, after eating everyone sacks out. A lot of the troops fall asleep. There are guards posted but this far out all they’ll probably see are desert rats and sand fleas.

Around what I think might be midnight, the trees start to move. It begins with a rustling. It sounds like wind but I don’t feel anything on my skin.

The camp comes awake around me. The troops heard the sound too. Hellions look around for the noise, the breeze, or whatever, as puzzled as I am.

The first scream comes from deep inside the dead grove, followed by another on the edge. One of the guards, a big bastard with a revolver grenade launcher slung over his shoulder, disappears into the trees. Whatever is happening, he doesn’t die all at once. There’s a dull thump and a grenade explodes in the middle of camp, scattering soldiers and weapons high into the air. A second later another grenade goes off right above the treetops, lighting up the grove. That’s when we see the trees moving.

They come apart like ripping cloth and fall to the ground in a tangle of branches and blasted trunks. They writhe and then crawl. A second later they’re on their feet running at us.

Guess what? They aren’t branches and they weren’t trees, thank you very fucking much. They’re bodies, as dry and rotten as week-old roadkill. They were wrapped around each other in a frozen graveyard embrace and we woke them up. There’s hundreds of them closing on us, and more in the distance.

The firing starts before any of them make it into camp. The sound of piss-scared soldiers blowing clip after clip on full auto fractures the air and numbs my ears, but it doesn’t do much else. It sure as hell doesn’t slow the roadkill. They charge into camp like a bone-and-gristle Mack truck, mowing down rows of heavily armed and severely motivated soldiers.

I pull out the na’at. Extend it to its full length. Keep the Freud jokes to yourself. Sometimes a killing stick is just a killing stick.

It doesn’t take much to stop each individual roadkill. They’re not much more than mummies with an attitude. Their teeth are sharp and their talons are long but you can slice them up like buttered toast if you have a sharp blade. I wish I could explain that to the idiots with the guns.

The scene reminds me of LA when a load of High Plains Drifters—that’s zombies to you—were running extremely amok. Bullets didn’t slow them either and even if they did, how do you know which one to shoot when there are six or seven on top of you ripping you to pieces? That’s how these brainless bone sacks win. They wear you down until it doesn’t matter how many of them you kill. All it takes is for a few to swarm you and you’re gone. Short of flamethrowers, nukes, or a bunch of trained Drifter killers, the best strategy is nature’s simplest: run like you’re a zebra at a waterhole and a pride of lions just showed up with ketchup and silverware. But where do we retreat to? No one is going to follow me into the rain ring and there’s no forest to hide in anymore.

I shout, “Up the hill. Get your asses to Henoch Breach.”

I grab Geryon. He’s a scholar, terrified and useless in a fight. I stuff the hem of my coat in his hand.

“Hold on to that. Keep your head down and keep moving. If you fall I’m not coming back for you.”

I circle the long way around the grove, keeping clear of the trucks and the close-in fighting. Anyone penned in there is going to die. At least in the open there’s somewhere to run to. I twist the na’at grip until it’s like an extra-long broadsword and start hacking my way through the roadkill blizzard. The bad part is that there’s a lot of them. The good part is that they’re dumb and the ones I don’t kill forget me as soon as I pass, zeroing in on the doomed assholes playing Last Stand at the Alamo in the trucks.

Groups of soldiers fall in behind us as we work our way up the hill. Now that their ammo is gone, they’re using their rifles like clubs and making a lot more headway than before. Halfway up the hill I look back at the clearing and I can’t even see the trucks. They’re completely covered around and on top by roadkill.

It’s a long way up the hill. Henoch Breach is like a cross between a gothic mansion and an old cavalry fort. The mansion look fooled me into thinking it was a small place but it turns out it’s more of a fort, which means big and a lot farther away than I thought. With every few yards we gain, we’re losing soldiers. I still feel Geryon hanging on to my coat.

After what feels like an hour, we’re finally at the Breach’s big double front doors. I don’t know how many roadkill bastards we’ve killed on the way up but it isn’t enough. There’s a shuffling mob maybe a minute down the hill from us. I don’t want to kick the door in if I don’t have to. I don’t know if there’s anything inside to barricade it with once we’re in. But the windows are sealed tight behind metal bars. Around the side I find a fire escape leading up to a single door three floors up. I extend the na’at into a billhook and get the curved part of the blade onto the ladder and pull. It swings down in a shower of dirt and rust. I have no idea if it will hold our weight and not a lot of time to do an OSHA inspection. I shove Geryon up the ladder and head up after him.

The door at the top is solid. It takes three good kicks to get it open. Plenty of time for the first of the roadkill to catch up with us. I shove Geryon inside and pull in a couple of soldiers behind me.

It’s dead black inside. I can’t see a thing. The first screams hit us as Henoch’s last booby trap catches up with us. Why didn’t Geryon know about the trees? Is this whole thing a setup? If it is, does that make him a suicide bomber or just another loser caught up in the hit on me? I’m going to hurt a lot of people and ask a lot of questions if we get out of here alive.

One of the soldiers cracks a handful of glow sticks. I grab a couple and lead the way deeper inside the Breach. More soldiers are stumbling in but the roadkill is just a few seconds behind us now.

There’s no way I’m running upstairs and getting trapped on the roof. I start down a wide grand staircase, heading for the front door. With any luck we can wait for most of the roadkill to come in upstairs and flank them by going out front and down the other side of the hill into Lucifer’s traitor town. The only kink in this plan is if some of Henoch’s freak beasts show up, but I haven’t seen or heard a peep from them and it sure doesn’t smell like anything has been living here in a long time.

We never make it to the front door.

We hit a series of hallways on the main floor. They twist and turn in on themselves and it doesn’t take long to lose track of which way it is to the front door. I stop to get my bearings. Geryon is behind me. He’s pale, holding his side like he’s about to cough up his lungs. There aren’t more than six soldiers behind us anymore. We’re at a crossroads. All four hallways look exactly the same and then it hits me. We’re not in normal hallways. The main floor of Henoch Breach is a labyrinth.

“Why have we stopped?” asks Geryon.

“We’re lost. I’m trying to figure if I can get us back to where we started.”

“Is that a good idea?”

The screams from behind us make his point for him.

“I remember someone once told me that in a maze the trick is to keep turning left and eventually you’ll get out.”

“Is that true?” Geryon asks.

“I don’t know. I never tried. And maybe it’s the way to get to the center and not out.”

Geryon slumps. Puts his head in his hands. None of the soldiers have weapons anymore. They’re ripped and bitten and bloody, and they’re all staring at me like lost kids at the zoo. I say the first thing that pops into my head.

“Try the doors. Maybe there’s a window or a place to hide and figure a way out.”

That gets them moving. We head in different directions down all four corridors from the crossroads, rattling and kicking at doorknobs. They’re all locked but there’s nothing else to do. We keep trying one door after another. Finally one opens.

“Here,” I shout. “I found one.”

I push open the door with the glow stick held high. The room is empty. On the far wall is a barred window. I head for it. Three steps in I hear a crack and the floor gives way beneath me. The last thing I see is Geryon’s shocked, scared, stupid face as I fall.

M
artin Denny wakes me up. It’s “Quiet Village,” all birdcalls and tropical piano chords. Someone is pulling me from the floor and setting me on a bar stool. Carlos the bartender is the first thing I can make out clearly. Then plastic hula girl. Palm trees. I’m in the Bamboo House of Dolls.

“Maybe you’ve had enough for tonight?” Carlos says and turns to someone on my right.

“What do you think? Too much or just enough to take advantage of?” comes a female voice.

I turn and Candy is right beside. She kisses me. My head hurts and I’m as dizzy as the Teacup Ride at Disneyland.

Candy does a mock frown.

“Uh-oh. Too much, it looks like. Maybe we need to get you home.”

“Home?” is all I can get out.

Vidocq comes over. Puts an arm around my shoulder.

“You remember home. The lovely Chateau Marmont. It’s just a few steps away. Come. We’ll take you from all this,
le merdier
. You’ll never have to see it again.”

“Never again.”

They pull me to my feet. Candy, Vidocq, Allegra, and Kasabian. Kasabian has arms and legs. A complete body. He wags his finger in my face.

“You never did know when enough was enough.”

I look at Candy and my heart breaks all over again, just like it did when I lost Alice.

“I’m sorry to say but I know exactly when enough is enough.”

I pull the black blade from the waistband at my back and slice Kasabian’s head off. It rolls across the floor like a sweaty basketball. I whirl and stab Vidocq in the eye. Pull out the blade and shank him in the heart. Then I do the same to Allegra and Carlos.

“Stark. What are you doing?”

They’re screaming and they don’t stop until they’re in pieces on the floor.

I turn and look at Candy. She backs away, her hand held up to me. Bumps into the jukebox and freezes.

“It’s me, baby. What are you doing?”

I’m dizzy and nauseated.

“Doing just what you said. Getting myself away from
le merdier
.”

I flick out the na’at but I can’t go for her. I lunge and put the blade into the jukebox. Denny sputters and dies. I turn and hack the bar in half. Swing again and slice through the bar stools. Vault the bar and start in on the bottles. I take out a row of booze with each swipe of the na’at until I’m ankle deep in the stuff. Back over the bar, I push a candle over. The booze goes up in one big
whoosh
.

I’m feeling it now. That old arena feeling, where nothing feels better than something breaking under the na’at or my hands. Candy backs against the far wall. I stab it over her head, pulling out big chunks of plaster. I hack at the windows and floor. I slice apart the pillars by the door and the whole thing collapses. The decorations over the bar are burning and patches of the ceiling glow cherry red. Once it catches we all go down together.

“Right, Henoch?” I yell.

I hack at the beams in the walls. They start to sag. I hack at the floor until it starts to buckle beneath us. The ceiling catches. The air is sucked out of my lungs as all the oxygen in the room cooks off. I look at Candy. I pull out the black blade to throw through a window. She knows a flashover is coming.

“Enough.”

She screams it over the sounds of the flames. I don’t have to throw the knife. The window cracks. The air explodes, enveloping us in flames as thick as molasses. Then stops. The room goes black.

“Enough.”

It’s not Candy’s voice. It’s a man’s.

“What in Lucifer’s name is wrong with you?”

Light slowly comes up. I’m standing in a dimly lit stone room with an old man. Splintered pillars and support columns lean haphazardly against the walls and across the floor.

“You mean my name, don’t you, Grandpa? I’m Lucifer.”

Henoch Breach has wet rheumy eyes set in a sagging face. Scraggly white whiskers that might be the remains of a dead beard. His teeth are black and crooked, like fallen dominoes. He’s dressed in robes that probably looked regal about a thousand years ago. Now they look like a gaudy bath mat in a Tijuana flophouse. He looks around the room.

“Look what you’ve done to my home.”

“What was I supposed to do? No one told me there was a ring inside the house. Only this one wasn’t suffering. Did you really think the ‘it’s all been a dream’ gaff was going to work? Does anyone ever fall for it?”

He laughs and it breaks down into a wet cough. He finds a chair in the wreckage, rights it, and sits down. His voice is surprisingly deep and strong.

“You’d be surprised. Offer mortals or angels what they really want and the first thing they’ll give up is doubt.”

“Not me. Not down here. Doubt is my best friend. Doubt that I’m stuck here. Doubt someone like you is going to off me.”