The Hell Season (22 page)

Thomas returned his attention to where the demons stood near the hole. Just in time, it seemed.

A great, jointed black limb like the leg of a monstrous spider reached out from that dark circle in the earth. Another limb accompanied the first then two more as the great bulk of the creature pulled itself up and into view. Thomas gasped. After all that he’d been through, he thought he was beyond horror. He was wrong.

“Another denizen of the deep,” said Ron, the amusement evident in his voice. “Hell is a fertile breeding ground for monsters, you see.”

Thomas did see. This particular monster was, in fact, a giant spider. Or something like that. Actually, the more he looked at it the more he realized that it appeared to be a cross between a member of the arachnid family—something of the tarantula variety—and a crab. A crab the size of which had not lived in the world of man since the age of dinosaurs or even earlier. Or ever.

By now the creature had pulled itself completely free of the hole. It was twice again as tall as the demons which had gathered around it in a loose circle. He could hear the barking shouts of one of the demons as it waved its spine weapon about, apparently giving orders, directing the others into position. What were they doing? Were they going to act as some sort of escort for the thing and corral it over toward the Wal-Mart? The very thought made Thomas’s knees go weak.

“It has to be stopped,” said Thomas not sure how such an act could be carried out, hoping Ron might have an idea. Hoping even more fervently that Ron might actually help in such an endeavor.

Again, Ron laughed. “Just watch.”

And Thomas did. How couldn’t he? It was quite the spectacle, after all.

Another guttural shout and the demons moved in on the creature. It took Thomas a moment or two to figure out what was happening. They were attacking the thing. With their spine weapons they struck at the creature’s eight legs. Great cracking and splintering sounds like those made by falling trees reached Thomas’s ears. The monster screamed. The bulk of its body was covered in what appeared to be a thick, pinkish shell, the part of it that most resembled a crab. From the body jutted a great, bulbous head with a row of black horns running down the middle of it. To either side were bulging, compound eyes like those of a fly. In front of and below the eyes was the mouth which, when opened, Thomas could see was lined with long, yellow, fang-like teeth. The legs were covered in bristly hairs as thick as a human finger. At the end of each leg, where the foot would be located on most animals, was a curved, wicked looking claw. It was with these that the spider-thing tried to mount a counter attack. It reared up on its four hind legs and lashed out at its attackers. But the demons were too fast, blinking in and out of reality quicker than they ever had before. More cracking noises could be heard and the creature bellowed again. It tried to scuttle back toward the hole but the demons suddenly massed there and struck in a bewildering blur that hobbled the spider-thing and quickly brought its body crashing down to the ground. Then the demons were on it, beating the thing about the head with stunning ferocity. Soon the eyes were smashed to oozing, gelatinous pulps as the head was pummeled beyond recognition. The monstrous hybrid gave a great shudder and lay still. And just like that, the immensely one-sided battle was over.

“Come on,” said Ron as he turned and started walking over toward the back of the building where the ladder led up to the roof. Thomas stood there and watched him go. Then, with a sigh, he followed.

*

Even here, still about a hundred or so feet away from the demons and the dead spider-thing, the stench was nearly unbearable.

“My God,” said Thomas through his shirt which he held bunched up over his mouth and nose—for all the good it was doing—as he tried not to gag. “What are they doing?”

Ron laughed, the smell apparently not bothering him at all. “Just watch.”

The demons tore into the monster’s carcass. First, the legs came off with popping, gristly sounds. Then the head was pulled off and tossed aside, rolled a dozen feet or so then came to rest, discarded like so much trash. Next, the great pink carapace was pried free from the body with cracking and wet peeling sounds that made Thomas cringe. Ron chuckled, rather amused by the grim spectacle. What had happened to this man, this friend of his, in the time he had been dead? This was most definitely not the same individual he had come to know in recent weeks.

Now the demons were pulling forth bones and viscera, great lengths of unidentifiable, glistening innards from the body, laying them in organized piles with much more care than had been given to the head. When the body had been thoroughly picked clean, the shell that formed the creature’s underbelly was tossed unceremoniously into the hole from which the thing had only recently emerged. The head soon followed.

Without even realizing it, Thomas moved a few steps closer to the grisly spectacle as his fascination and curiosity grew.

“Uh, uh,” said Ron, reaching out and touching Thomas on the arm. “I wouldn’t get too close if I was you.”

What the hell are they doing?
Thomas wondered.

Now the demons seemed to be randomly selecting sections of bone and joining them together, actually building something out of the mismatched pieces. There were clicking sounds as a curved bone resembling a rib was attached to something like a massive pelvis. More ribs were snapped into place and then a long section of spinal column—about as thick as that used by the demons to fashion their weapons—was attached to the pelvis. A part of Thomas’s mind rebelled at what he was seeing, the part that still remembered the science lessons from junior high and high school when he had learned that the outer shell of an insect or a crustacean
was
its skeleton. No such creature of Earth, as far as he knew, had both inner and outer skeletons. This was no creature of Earth, though. It was becoming apparent that this spider-thing had been designed for a specific purpose. By whom or what he could only guess. The why of it was clearly beyond him too.

The demons continued assembling the strange contraption out of the bones of the dead monster. When they finished they carried it over to the edge of the hole where they set it down next to one of the lighting rigs before stepping away. A demon approached with a handful of short, sharp bones which made Thomas think of curved railroad spikes. It used its spine weapon like a hammer to drive the bone spikes into the pelvis which served as a base for the bizarre machine, attaching it in place to the ground. A long arm of bone extended out over the pit. At about waist height there was a circular plate of bone with a handle jutting from the side of the arm.
A winch
, Thomas realized. All that was needed was a length of rope or chain for the thing to be fully functional. What was the plan here? To lower something down into the pit? Or to lift something out? Despite the heat, Thomas felt himself go cold at the thought.

While the winch was being moved and secured into place, a pair of demons had been pulling a long strand of nearly transparent filament like fishing line from within the dead spider-thing’s ropy, internal organs. When they were done, a thick bundle of the stuff had been collected which was brought over and fed onto the winch’s bone wheel as one of the demons tirelessly turned the handle. When only about a twenty foot length of filament remained free of the wheel, the winch was pivoted on its base so that the arm was back over solid ground again. Now the filament was fed up through the hollow bone tubes of the arm. When it emerged from the opening at the far end, one of the spider-thing’s vicious looking black claws was tied securely to it. At this point, Thomas thought he was beyond amazement with what he was seeing. He was wrong. While he watched, one of the demons grabbed the claw hook with both hands and held on tight as the winch arm was turned to point out over the black abyss of the pit once again. Then the bone handle of the wheel was rotated in a clockwise direction and the demon hanging from the hook was lowered into the hole. Soon the creature was lost to sight as the wheel continued to turn. Minutes went by. Thomas did not speak. He had no words. Ron stood silently next to him. After more than fifteen minutes had passed, the wheel stopped turning. There was a brief period of waiting and then, on some unseen signal, the wheel was turned in the opposite, counterclockwise direction.

The line was reeled in, the hook raised.

Next to him, Ron had started bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “And so it begins,” he said, the excitement and anticipation evident in his voice. “And so it begins...”

*

The following day, Thomas and the others were given some idea of what lay in store for them. At dawn the humans all stood in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart where they were treated to a rather rambling and loquacious speech by Ron. Or, to put it more accurately, the entity that looked like Ron. The more Thomas was around him, the less he resembled the man he once knew.

“You will not rest unless you are told to rest,” Ron was saying from where he stood in the bed of a pickup truck, his voice loud and trebly issuing from the bullhorn he held to his mouth. “If you do not work as efficiently as I feel that you should be working then you will be punished. If you stop to help a fellow worker who is struggling or lagging you will be punished. Time is of the essence. The project must be completed within the allotted time. If it is not… Well, perish the thought. It
will
be completed within the allotted time. Failure is not an option. From here on out, think of it as the reason you are here, the one and only reason…”

Like a warden at a concentration camp
, thought Thomas from where he stood behind and to the left of Ron in the bed of the pickup truck. Two lines of demons flanked the vehicle to either side, the tops of their horned heads the same height as Thomas’s shoulder even at his elevated position. Thomas looked out at the crowd gathered before him, saw the fear in some of the eyes there, the confusion, the dull look of acceptance in a number of faces. Where was Dana? There she was, toward the back standing next to Tanya. He looked away from her, ashamed that he was up here, separated from his fellow survivors, placed above them by Ron. Thomas wasn’t sure why. Because they had been friends? Did he consider this some sort of favor? Or was it some added form of punishment?

Ron went on for another ten minutes or so, throwing around terms like “predestination” and “grand destiny.” He also made it very clear that anyone found with what could be considered a weapon of any kind on his or her person would be dealt with harshly and immediately. When he had said his share, he dismissed those gathered before him, told everyone to get a good night’s rest. Because with the following day…

The great work would begin.

*

In the morning a selection process was put into effect. Just exactly what people were being selected for, however, nobody knew for certain. What was obvious was that it had something to do with the project Ron had spoken of the previous day.

“Okay, everybody,” Ron said through his bullhorn in the attentive silence, the words echoing of the front of the Wal-Mart, a pair of demons flanking him. The rest of the creatures seemed to be busy elsewhere. “Line up, side by side, backs against the wall. We’ll try and get this over with as quickly as possible. I apologize in advance for any… discomfort… you may experience during these proceedings. But, alas, some things are simply unavoidable.”

That’s when the numbers were assigned. Ron and two of the demons approached the left end of the line. An older man—Thomas thought his name was Russ—stood there, cowed by the man and the creatures before him. If he hadn’t been frightened enough, what one of the demons did next surely put the fear of God—or some more sinister deity—into him. The looming, flickering figure lifted a hand high above its head and barked a series of harsh, incomprehensible syllables. The hand burst into flame. As it lowered the hand, the flame dwindled and died but the clawed fingers now glowed a brighter, deeper red than the rest of its body. The air around the hand shimmered with heat.

“Your arm, sir,” said Ron to the stooped, wide-eyed man before him. In his fright, all the man could do was turn a questioning look in Ron’s direction.

“Hold out your arm.” Ron’s voice now held a hint of menace.

Dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, suitable attire for the rapidly warming day, the man did as he was told, a defeated look on his face. Ron reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist.

“The pain will be intense but brief. Do not try to pull away.”

“What are you—“ said Russ, finding his voice. The answer to his unfinished question came as the demon with the glowing hand extended its index finger, reached down and drew a short line with its claw on the exposed flesh along the underside of Russ’s forearm. The slight hiss of burning skin could be heard by those nearby including Thomas who stood just a few paces behind Ron. The older man cried out but, to his credit, did not pull back until Ron released his wrist.

“You are number one,” said Ron.

Then he approached the next person in line, a young woman named Renee, and a similar procedure occurred. Afterward, Ron declared, “You are number two.”

It wasn’t until number eight was marked that someone tried to make a break for it. Without a word, a man named Edgar whom Thomas hardly knew at all, took off running. He was the thirteenth person in line and the number lived up to its reputation for rather unfortunate luck. Edgar looked to be in his late twenties, a handsome fellow with shoulder-length hair and a build that had been put together in a gym. He ran as fast as he could away from the front of the store and into the parking lot, gave the impression that he may have run some track at some point in his life judging by his speed and form. But he was not nearly fast enough. With great, loping strides one of the demons took off in pursuit, quickly gaining ground on the fleeing human with every sudden disappearance and reappearance that it made. About halfway to the road at the far side of the parking lot the demon came up close behind the man and reached out with its spine weapon, jabbed the would-be escapee in the small of the back. A burst of bright yellow electricity enveloped Edgar and he collapsed to the ground, tumbling a bit before he came to rest, unconscious or quite possibly dead, the energy encasing him dissipating with an audible crackling sound. Grunting, the demon bent down and lifted Edgar’s inert form, slung the man over a shoulder as if he weighed hardly anything at all. Then the creature walked back and laid the man on the ground at the place in line he had vacated. Edgar’s chest could be seen rising and falling, taking in deep breaths after his recent exertions, reassuring those around him that he was still alive.