In Media Res: A Walking Tour of Hell

I hate writing short stories.

For the life of me, I can't seem to write a short story without trying to tack a beginning and end to it.

So when this came to me just as I was about to sleep two nights ago and kept bouncing around my head the whole day after, I figured I'd better let it out.

The story so far: Tommy Hyatt and Jenni Briar are childhood sweethearts. So when fairies abduct Jenni, it's poor slow-thinking Tommy to the rescue. Unfortunately, the roads to Faerie are closed and the only way open is through the gates of Hell.

Cutting a deal with a demon, Tommy finds a way to get to Hell and gets an unpleasant surprise in the bargain...

It was the thirteenth month of the Year of the Fish when the suicide boy first came to bustling Larque City, that ancient city of the dead.

Jaded Tommy had been walking since sunup, having crossed the Lake of Burning Ice and the Screaming Forest of Regret (which had burnt down in the Summer of the Flies and was now reduced to a whining grove) with a steady consuming pace. His feet, clad in moccasins, hurt by then.

Though he would have said he had traveled with alacrity after crossing over the Miasmic River, as the noonday sun passed over his head, Tommy had become quite bored with the country-side: a barren, wind-dusted yellow wasteland that bore only broken grass stalks and ancient machinery as evidence of change. That, and the trail of footprints he left behind. But even those were soon swept away by winds that snapped and snarled like malevolent whips.

By sundown, he caught a glimpse of the smoking pillars of the necropolis. And when he crested a hill of pale bones that could only belong to titans, he saw the city of Larque stretch a mile before him like a gigantic, sprawling mat of carnivorous fungi.

The City of Larque! It was a metropolis of cemeteries, mausoleums and catafalques, petrified trees and haunted barrows. Tall, dirty-white bulb-shaped towers and bulging, red-rimmed black cathedral domes dotted the city landscape while decrepit chalk-colored buildings shaped by diffident hands crowded each other like children’s blocks a-top one another. Spike-lined walls that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other jutted sharply like landlocked sea-cliffs guarding the city from the outside (or kept its inhabitants inside) as a thousand stacks of a thousand factories churned black, lung-burning smoke to cover the city.

Though he was still a distance away, the stench of rotted flesh and acrid brimstone was so overwhelming that he gagged at the noisome smell. With great reluctance, he hitched up his pack and proceeded down the hill.

Halfway to the city, he saw the first sign. A board made of metal and bolts hammered to the ground, it had been seared black with words that read: WELCOME TO THE CITY OF LARQUE. ENJOY YOUR STAY...

A third of the distance, he saw another sign, a stone arch with writhing, swirling cavorting serpents carved into it and these words: ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE...

Finally, he saw the third sign, a forlorn termite-ridden piece of plank that some wit had smeared with a dark-brownish color and then nailed to a post: YOUR CREDIT IS GOOD BUT WE NEED CASH...

He reached the first gate of the city just as the Lord’s Star peaked at the apex of the cold night sky. Fortunately enough, the road to Hell was lined with burning torches on bamboo posts stabbed into the ground to help travelers see their way (how helpful of them, he thought wryly). However, the smell and smoke from the human fat used to fuel the torches soon had his eyes tearing badly and his stomach turning queasily that he swore there and then never more to eat meat.

Standing before the monolithic ivory gates were three guards: aborted fetuses with their milky eyes, bearing long sharp pikes and perpetual looks of amazement.

As payment for entrance to the city, he used his knife to cut (by this time, he was used to it) his finger and squeezed a drop of blood on the wrinkled hand of one of the fetuses, its umbilical cord still wrapped around its neck. With a wave of the pike and a nod, the fetus let him pass as it sucked on the proffered blood. The other corpse-babies looked at the chosen guard indifferently and turned their dead eyes back on the road.

As Tommy strode forward, he saw a large brown dog the size of a small horse rooting through a garbage heap beside the gate. Scabs and suppurating bloody patches covered half of its body as dark-pink mottled skin showed through scattered tufts of brown fur. Likewise, its tail seemed to have seen better days, with its chewed tip and ragged length. Strangely enough, it smelled like all wet dogs did and made Tommy sentimental about the small farm where he had once lived.

As if pricked by the gaze, the dog looked up and Tommy flinched at seeing the dog’s three heads. But Tommy was even more surprised when the central head of the dog (one head was still rooting in the garbage heap while the third gazed at him placidly) spoke to him with a cultured accent:

“Hello. I don’t suppose you have anything to eat on you?’

Tommy closed his gaping mouth and dug into his pack. With one hand, he drew the last remaining piece of jerky and threw it to the dog. In a flurry of snarls, the three heads fought over the piece until the second head—the one that had looked at Tommy placidly—managed to tear the piece away from the others and gulp it down.

In a flash, the other heads stopped fighting.

“Thank you. That was quite tasty,” said the central head again.

“You’re welcome,” Tommy croaked, his voice too dry from a whole day of not speaking. That, and the barely-closed slash at his throat still pained him. He didn't regret cutting his own throat to get to Hell but still, he wished there was a faster way than the one he used.

I thought of using this idea as a 15-minute writing exercise like what gabe does. But this one had its own lifespan that lasted more than that, keeping me awake 'til the wee hours of the night.

Now I'm off for my first coffee-and-cigarette break for the day...

(I'll be adding a little polish to the story as time goes on. The devil is in the details, they say.)