Authors: Allan Burd
“The Book of Jude states that the watchers themselves are bound in the valleys of the earth until Judgment Day. I believe Balzuzu was trying to bring that about.”
“Fuckin A. All the more reason to stop him forever.” I tilt my head to the multitude of weapons, realizing that even with everything Miguel just told me, none of it helps me put Balzuzu down for good. “So what do you suggest I bring?”
“Whatever you can carry,” Miguel replies.
I dress myself in the fireproof thermal suit my pa had specially made for me years ago when he met me in Romania to hunt dragons. It’s made of lightweight vermiculite to withstand temperatures of up to 2000 degrees and comes with its own closed circuit self-contained breathing apparatus to let me rebreathe my own air. I have a duffel made of the same material which should be enough to get me, and whatever I can fit in there, through the portal without bursting into flames.
I start packing. I’ve learned firsthand that a direct confrontation with Balzuzu is a losing proposition. Still, I grab some
night-time hunting supplies, a couple of long daggers, and my Lupara, simply because I feel naked without them. I know this job requires destructive efficiency, something that gives me a huge bang for the buck and won’t take up a lot of space. Weapons that are portable, easy to carry. That simplifies my choices.
I grab
close to a dozen grenades then load up the rest of the duffel with all the Composition C-4 it can hold. Both have minimal risk of being accidentally set off, and most importantly, they both blow shit up. Hopefully the opportunity will arise to shove one right up Balzuzu’s asshole. I grab some customized blasting caps, code them into the remote detonator, and place the entire triggering package in insulated pockets.
I look around to see if there’s anything else I can use. I see Miguel holding the Super Bazooka. It’s a
n M20. It weighs twelve pounds and breaks into two parts. The High Explosive Anti-Tank rockets weigh about eight pounds each. Unfortunately, I can’t take that with me as well.
“You should throw that in the truck, just in case he comes back through,” I say.
Miguel nods. “I will. Hopefully, it won’t be necessary,” he responds.
A few moments later, we’re in the front seat of Miguel’s pickup truck. The Harley’s in the back
along with everything I plan to bring with me. We’re fully loaded, heading back to the graveyard… literally on a road to Hell.
“So, what do you think it’s like down there?” I ask, making small talk.
“Can’t say,” says Miguel. “Never been. Never met someone who has,” he adds.
His response triggered something I hadn’t really thought about before. Balzuzu, Miguel, and my father all had a past. A past that involved Balzuzu killing my brother. If he did come through the portal six years ago, he didn’t seem like the type to just kill and go back. I’m fairly certain he would have stayed. Miguel veers off the road and the car bounces onto a path that skirts the woods.
“How exactly did Balzuzu kill my brother?” I ask.
“That’s a discussion you need to have with your father. He would want it that way.”
“It’s been years. If he wanted it that way, I would know by now.”
He stares a
t me for a beat, deciding if he should reveal what happened. Then he says, “Today was the first time in millennia Balzuzu’s physical body was able to break into our plane of existence. But he doesn’t need to be here physically to wreak havoc. Aside from shifting the souls of others into new bodies, occasionally he shifts his own.”
“Demonic possession,” I mutter.
“Yes,” responds Miguel. “And it is not something he would do lightly as it renders his real body vulnerable. It is only something he would do with great purpose. Your father hunted evil too. Not exactly the same kind you do. Humans, but no less monstrous. There was an African warlord that went by the name Kubla Kotise, a savage man responsible for unthinkable acts, many of which were against women and children. He prevailed against every attempt to stop him. He claimed to work specifically for the devil. Your father went off grid one night with a small band of Marines and ended his reign of terror once and for all. But something that happened on that mission spooked him. After encountering Kubla, he believed he spoke the truth. Your father brought back with him religious artifacts that he found on Kubla’s person and showed them to me. They were dark, mystical objects that no man should be in contact with. One was a ruby with ‘The eye of the devil’ inscribed on it in Latin. I recognized it immediately as a summoning device. Kubla wasn’t lying when he said he worked for the devil.”
“Balzuzu,” I said, knowing it was not much of a leap.
Father Miguel nodded. “The mystical ruby allowed them to communicate with each other. What I didn’t realize at the time was that there were two rubies. You’re father only gave me one. The other he kept, I think as a reminder to himself that there was true evil in the world. A few months later your mother and father were hiking in the woods. Out of nowhere they were attacked by a bear. Your mother was mauled, near death. There wasn’t anyone around for miles. There was no way humanly possible for your father to save her. So, in desperation, he used the ruby he kept to contact the devil. The devil offered him a deal. He would save your mother if your father would give up a piece of his soul.
“Of course your father thought he was talking about his own soul. So he eagerly accepted the deal. He loved your mother very deeply, still does. The thought of sacrificing himself to save her wasn’t even a thought at all. However, what he didn’t know was that when two people who love each other make a child, as well as the physical
, a piece of each of their souls is passed along. Your father unknowingly sold your brother’s soul to the devil instead of his. Another day, when your father and brother were hunting in the woods, Balzuzu possessed the demon bear again and claimed your brother.
“
In the church that day, I immediately realized what happened. Both bear attacks were no mere coincidences. It was Balzuzu’s revenge. Kubla Kotise was one of Balzuzu’s human assets. Your father took him from him. Balzuzu took something from your father in return. He personally transferred his own soul into the bear, possessed the creature, committed the attack, and quickly returned back to his realm. When your father confessed what he had done to your mother, how he saved her, she never forgave him for it. That is why she left. That is why your father became an alcoholic. Balzuzu broke him that day. He has never recovered. I used the ruby I had. I contacted the devil, looked into his eyes, and told him I would make him pay for what he had done. He told me he was coming. I had been preparing for him ever since.”
We take the truck as far as we can. Then we park it and ride through the woods on the motorcycle. It doesn’t take us long to reach the gate and we dismount right beside the otherworldly portal. A loud cacophony of odd pops and whooshing noises emanate from it like a ghostly warning. Flames erupt off its dark surface like solar flares off the sun, the air above it bubbling like boiling water.
As we stare into the reality of what I’m about to do, Father Miguel says,
“Perhaps now might be a good time to change your mind.”
I pick up a rock and toss it into the abyss. It drops about fifteen feet then makes a small popping sound as it disappears beneath an upcoming jet of flame. I’m not sure if the rock simply disintegrated or exploded into nothingness. “Fuck it,” I say.
“
It
seems to be a particularly pointless and painful way to die,” contends Miguel.
“You said God banished them to the other side with a flood. That means they lived when they were washed through. If t
hey can make it, so can I,” I claim.
“Do I need to explain to you how completely illogical that is?” asks Miguel. It’s a rhetorical question that doesn’t need an answer. “They are far more
resilient creatures.”
I ignore the logic
. “Pass me the rope,” I request. I put the protective helmet with the clear facemask on, making myself look like a spaceman. Miguel grabs the rope off the back of the bike and tosses it to me. I unravel it, get right to the edge, and slowly lower it into the hellhole. Flames reach out for it like slicing knives but it’s too heavily coated to burn. I give it more slack and the abyss crackles in response. A firestorm whips around it, ascending the twine with a flare that shoots upward at lightning speed. The hellfire coils around me before I fall back out its grasp then the flame dissipates into nothingness. To my credit, I still have a death grip on the rope which suddenly goes taut in my hands. For a second it’s like the pull of a fishing rod with a great white shark on the other end but then it immediately relaxes and the eruptions below die down. I get to my feet, untoasted, my end of the rope still in hand.
“It appears your way down just got cut off,” Miguel says, slightly pleased.
He thinks the lower part of the rope is gone, either severed in half or in cinders. It certainly must have appeared that way. But he’s wrong. “Sorry, father. Check this out.” I pull the rope up. At first there’s some tension that requires a modicum of effort then it’s practically weightless and I easily gather it up like a fishing line dipped in a pond. I show Miguel the far end, the one that slipped through to the other side. It’s slightly charred but otherwise right as rain. “What enters the abyss only appears to go poof.” I blow my hands up in some grand gesture. “In actuality, I believe the flames represent the chemical and physical reactions that result when something crosses the threshold between our world and theirs.”
Miguel grabs the rope, examines it closely. He looks perplexed but I can tell he understands. He releases the lower half of the rope back into the fiery darkness. Another predictable burst of flame spits out, twirls around the rope, and subsides. “May God guide your way,” he concedes.
“If I’m not back in a few hours, seal this gate tighter than Virgin Mary’s—” Miguel’s glance cuts me off. “Sorry, my brain goes to strange places sometimes. Do what you have to. And don’t worry about me. If I get stuck down there, I’ll just take over the whole damn place.”
Miguel drives a few spikes in the ground and we make double shit sure the rope knot holds t
ight. I wrap the slack around my right sleeve, stand with my back to the edge, and in one giant leap for mankind I repel down the side. A fireball erupts to my right but the suit protects me. I kick off the wall, drop a few feet, repeat the pattern until at about twenty feet deep I pass through something that feels like a bubble of jelly.
Hellfire engulfs me.
I plunge.
Then my worl
d literally turns upside down.
I lie there, flat on the hard surface, totally disoriented, nauseous to the point where I have the uncontrollable urge to hurl. I try to keep what little food I’ve eaten down where it belongs, but soon I’m spraying the inside of my clear facemask with chunks of last night’s beef stew. The contained smell is so vile I hurl again and again, until there’s nothing left but dry heaves.
I immediately lose the helmet, not even allowing my brain to process all the things that could go bad when I do. Extreme temperature, no oxygen, poison air… all pale in comparison to death by being locked in an airtight suit asphyxiated by my own vomit. I breathe in. Deep. Amazed at the fact that’s there’s something to breathe in at all. Somehow
, I’m inhaling oxygen. There is air here. It comes with a slight charcoal aftertaste but it’s air just the same.
I look around
and realize my arrival point is just the tip of a hell-fucked iceberg. The landscape is so alien I might as well be on another planet. For all I know, maybe I am. Glowing blood-colored stone make up the surface for as far as I can see, which isn’t all that far. Canyon-like walls made of the same stone, climb into pure darkness. Yet, I can tell I’m not in a large cavern. The utter blackness is Hell’s version of a sky, a void so devoid of color its presence presses down on this place like a blanket of despair.
Mossy, crystalized st
alagmites of varying heights rise up from the ground, cracking upward from the stony surface like hundreds of craggily old fingers pointing to the hollow blackness above. A few of them are so tall and sharp they remind me of giant fangs. The slimy vegetation that coats them reflects the crimson-hued luminescence of the rocky ground beneath me, giving off an eerie, puke green light that bathes the entire place in misery.
The gate
way to Hell is on the ground a few feet to my left. Flames swirl around it in a whirlpool pattern carried by a circular wind that brings in debris from our side, while sending the brimstone smell of this place out. That must be why there’s a breathable atmosphere in a place where no one needs to breathe. A twig shoots through, rising upward like a thrown spear before getting swept aside. As it drops down next to me I get it. Whatever comes through the portal is subject to an immediate gravity reversal. I fell through a hole, only once I was on the other side I was falling up. The whipping wind and the laws of physics, which at least somewhat mimic our own, did the rest, depositing me where I fell, like I just got off the roughest rollercoaster ride in existence. Like a sock in the dryer, I was literally flipped, tossed, spin dried, and lost.