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Chapter 13: The Conqueror Worm
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
What Hell May Come Chapter 14: The Devil’s Bellows
CHAPTER 14The Devil’s BellowsWas there ever a city fouler than Paris? The whole place was putrid. The food stank, the air stank, the water stank, and the people stank worst of all. No wonder it was the French who invented perfume. It was needed to knock out the fetid odors leaking out the hairy crevices of every Parisian. The metropolis was built on a foundation of human waste. Take two steps across any yard and your feet would scuff up some vile fart entombed two millennia ago by Roman soldiers.Adding to their stinkiness was their foul attitude. People say New Yorkers are rude, but they are nothing compared to the average Parisian. They all speak English but pretend not to. They will shove you aside. They don’t break for traffic lights. One whiff of an accent will bring on a barrage of insults spouted right to the person’s face—in French, of course. They assume the average tourist doesn’t speak their lingua. Even if you make an attempt to speak their language, it makes no differ
What Hell May Come Chapter 15: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
CHAPTER 15Slouching Towards BethlehemJon came back to the beginning. For eighty one days, the beast was fed. Crixen Runeburner, in human flesh, ate, drank, fucked, and shit in the mausoleum below Goodleburg Cemetery. All the cousins below, several hundred of the St. Fond family, continued non-stop until they were hollowed-out zombies, merely a shell for their magical egos.Acolytes scuttled up and down the rows of participants, picking people up where needed, making sure the cauldrons boiling with fat—animal and human—were well-stoked, adding incense to five massive burning braziers, occasionally shitting in them to add extra heat to the aroma, and scooping up animal carcasses littered about the altar. They were just menial ones, clothed only in black. Those in red robes, like Jon, performed the tasks. Endlessly chanting the spells of invocation. Having rough and degrading sex with all genders on soiled mattresses scattered about the chamber. Then taking turns slaughtering a creat
What Hell May Come Prologue
PROLOGUEThe ritual had taken eighty-one days.They were at it for more than a quarter of a year.Eighty-one days of smoke, and animal shrieks, and groans of pleasure, and spilled blood. Months of heady incense burning. The occasional hallucinogen was tossed into the mixture, turning the world into a fever dream. Weeks of chanting. The constant intonation fell behind the ears and awoke powers in the subconscious. Robed heroes of all races and classes came and went, adding to the celebration, until they collapsed and were dragged off to recuperate.Crixen Runeburner, elf mage, had been there for all of it. The chanting, the killing, the sex. He had cast down enemies, seen proud heroes fall, and evaded all magical traps to come here at this time. Many adventures across bleak and alien landscapes had led him to this ancient crypt. He had faced dagger fanged monsters, green skinned humans with cruel blades, and pale shadows of the formerly alive. All of these he had struck down to reac
What Hell May Come Chapter 1: Do Unto Others First
CHAPTER 1Do Unto Others FirstEvil had always been in Jon St. Fond’s life. Lurking behind the wallpaper. Breathing down vents. He would turn quickly and in the span of an eye blink, the beast would be there. A horned shadow on the wall, a cold dusk of air, a tail slap on the door, a fallen picture frame, a deformed insect scuttling over the ceiling. It was there.Right now, he couldn’t care about any of that. Right now, Jon was kicking open the screen door at the back of his parents’ suburban home and bringing something cupped in his hands over to the sink. He placed it gently into the basin and wrapped a hand towel around it.It was the end of Indian summer in 1986. School had just started up and all of the anxieties that went with being a teen in the ‘80s plagued Jon. Lack of social graces, teenage awkwardness, no money—all these bothered him, but none of his problems loomed as large as his family.Jon heard a sharp intake of breath. The warning “Oooooo,” of his snitchy little
What Hell May Come Chapter 2: The Tragedy of Man
CHAPTER 2The Tragedy of ManBuffalo was the faded queen of old New York, the leftovers of an industrial era ground to shit. It had once been a showpiece of culture and success, industry and shipping, where the working slobs could pull down beer money and the educated snobs could twitter their noses at a host of artistic feasts. It wasn’t fully gone, but the city was quickly fading into a new Detroit or Baltimore—hubs of corruption and squalor. As opportunity slowly leaked away, so did Buffalo’s best and brightest. More and more vanished each year, leaving behind only those who were too lazy or stupid to get the hell out. Nowadays, all the city had to boast about was a chronically losing football team and the invention of Buffalo wings.If the city proper was that bad, Jon’s home of Black Rock, the area he now pedaled through, was its retarded cousin. Once the berg had been a commercial rival for its dominant sister and had nearly been the chosen terminus of the Erie Canal. The War
What Hell May Come Chapter 3: What Rough Beast
CHAPTER 3What Rough BeastFather found him on the way back from Kathy’s house.A town car, freshly minted and fully loaded, pulled up to Jon on an empty street. It sparkled under the streetlights and the yellow eyes of its driver sparkled along with it. Jon’s father stepped out. Well-muscled and trim, he was always perfectly dressed with neat crisp lines. He never seemed to sweat or get dirty. He always knew what to say and how to act, to get what he wanted. Perfection clung naturally to him. From that perfection came a confidence Jon could never hope for.Punishment was looming. Mother found the problems. Father corrected them. He towered over Jon like a giant. The teen shrank under his shadow. The elder fixed him with his eyes, seeming to drink in Jon’s every weakness before saying, “So you didn’t do as you were ordered.”He let that dangle like a viper between them.“What do you have to say for yourself?”Jon’s head hung down, his ball cap shading all but the lower jut of hi
What Hell May Come Chapter 4: The Judas Goat
CHAPTER 4The Judas GoatJon woke with a start on Michael’s bedroom floor. The grungy shag carpeting had scored a number of macaroni-sized ruts in his face. The usual disorders of not knowing where he was claimed him for a second, but his senses took in reality quick enough. The stink of yesterday’s clothes, hard particles of crud from a carpet that had never been vacuumed, stale air from an unventilated room.A typical teenage boy’s room. Iron Maiden posters on the wall. A pile of dirty laundry in the closet. A tottering stack of well-read comics next to the bed. Porno mags hidden under the bed. Trashcan filled to the brim. Loose leaf paper, pens, spiral notebooks, backpack. Textbooks with a brown paper bag cover to minimize damage. Not much different from his own, except the furniture was more ragged.He shook the sleep from his face. Michael was elsewhere, which was just as well, Jon needed to scratch his balls and didn’t want anyone around for that. After the game last night, w
What Hell May Come Chapter 5: Sign of the Beast
CHAPTER 5Sign of the BeastHe stayed with Michael the next two nights, at the latter’s insistence. Jon didn’t need much of an arm twisting. Where else did he have to go? Michael’s parents didn’t want him there, but they paid so little attention it was easy to sneak by. The dad got up early to go to his job repairing conveyor belts, while the mom ran out soon after for her job as a crossing guard at the elementary school. Most nights, they went out bowling after a fast-food meal. Meanwhile, Michael’s brother was always high or in the process of getting high, so he didn’t care. He just stayed in the room reading comics when the parents were home, then scavenged for food afterwards.It couldn’t last, though. What was he to do? Become some kind of homeless derelict, eating garbage and collecting aluminum cans? There was no job he could get above minimum wage. Even if he could work full-time, he would be living out of an abandoned car or with ten other guys in a fly-trap college flop. E
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What Hell May Come Chapter 15: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
CHAPTER 15Slouching Towards BethlehemJon came back to the beginning. For eighty one days, the beast was fed. Crixen Runeburner, in human flesh, ate, drank, fucked, and shit in the mausoleum below Goodleburg Cemetery. All the cousins below, several hundred of the St. Fond family, continued non-stop until they were hollowed-out zombies, merely a shell for their magical egos.Acolytes scuttled up and down the rows of participants, picking people up where needed, making sure the cauldrons boiling with fat—animal and human—were well-stoked, adding incense to five massive burning braziers, occasionally shitting in them to add extra heat to the aroma, and scooping up animal carcasses littered about the altar. They were just menial ones, clothed only in black. Those in red robes, like Jon, performed the tasks. Endlessly chanting the spells of invocation. Having rough and degrading sex with all genders on soiled mattresses scattered about the chamber. Then taking turns slaughtering a creat
What Hell May Come Chapter 14: The Devil’s Bellows
CHAPTER 14The Devil’s BellowsWas there ever a city fouler than Paris? The whole place was putrid. The food stank, the air stank, the water stank, and the people stank worst of all. No wonder it was the French who invented perfume. It was needed to knock out the fetid odors leaking out the hairy crevices of every Parisian. The metropolis was built on a foundation of human waste. Take two steps across any yard and your feet would scuff up some vile fart entombed two millennia ago by Roman soldiers.Adding to their stinkiness was their foul attitude. People say New Yorkers are rude, but they are nothing compared to the average Parisian. They all speak English but pretend not to. They will shove you aside. They don’t break for traffic lights. One whiff of an accent will bring on a barrage of insults spouted right to the person’s face—in French, of course. They assume the average tourist doesn’t speak their lingua. Even if you make an attempt to speak their language, it makes no differ
What Hell May Come Chapter 13: The Conqueror Worm
CHAPTER 13The Conqueror WormJon was burnt out. The world didn’t spin on its axis and his attempts to find out the ways of his family made him feel more and more the drone of some sinister hidden ant queen. Father had allowed him to drink on the plane, shooing away the disapproving flight attendants so the trip quickly became a blur.“It’ll take a little time to work out your trip to the ancestral family estate. Our sanctum sanctorum,” Father had told him on the cab ride back to Black Rock. Jon blinked and suddenly the old man’s yellow eyes were in front of his. “That is, if you’re still interested.”Drunk and emotionally exhausted, Jon nodded stupidly. The world was a blackout nightmare. The alcohol did help make him not care, though. It pushed all the problems into a tiny box on a far-away island. Even if he tried to focus on his fears and worries and the evil deeds of the last few days, they wouldn’t come closer. He was happy for that.Back at their home, Mother stared darkly
What Hell May Come Chapter 12: Deal With the Devil
CHAPTER 12Deal With the DevilIt had been days. Most of it was spent in darkness, as his captors kept his head covered by a stinking burlap sack. After he first was kidnapped, the villains had surrounded him, licking their lips, each wielding a knife, a gun, a chain, or a broken beer bottle. They all had cheap clothes adorned by some bizarre accessory above their social rank. A ruby ring, a diamond stud, a glittering belt buckle bragging about the size of Texas. His shoes were taken, along with his leather belt. The crooks seem very interested in his teeth, and whenever a new member of the gang came in, they delighted in showing them off.Only one spoke actual English—sort of spoke it.“You money, eh?” the man asked, scraping a bowie knife across Jon’s throat.“I don’t have any money.”“You money!” the man thundered, then reconsidered. “Papa? Daddy? Daddy?”Jon nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah, he’s loaded. Money all over.”“Good. Good,” the man smiled, showing an upper row of rot
What Hell May Come Chapter 11: Vaya Con Diablos
CHAPTER 11Vaya Con DiablosTijuana, Mexico—The rank scrotum sack of North America. Named after someone’s syphilitic aunt—or tía—who had been run out of Spain after her whorehouse was burnt down for allegedly holding occult rituals in the wine cellar. The woman, Juana, ran to the New World and opened a trading post, offering hospitality and cheap native pussy to leftover conquistadors and Jews escaping the Inquisition.The city would’ve ended up a cum-stained husk if, by luck, the American border hadn’t been slapped right in front of it after the annexation of Texas in 1845. Since then, it’s thrived on offering flimsy goods and illicit services to every gringo wandering into the country.None of this was on Jon’s mind as he flew into the airport attached to the region. The gravity of his actions still weighed him down, still clutched him like a tumor on his conscience. Father had been right to suggest he take this trip. For some reason, a change of scenery made all that horror seem
What Hell May Come Chapter 10: Blessed are the Victorious
CHAPTER 10Blessed are the VictoriousLombardos was not a small place, but it was carefully designed so that every table felt intimate. It was close, warm but not hot, with tasteful, but not distracting, art about the room. Taken as a whole, each room in itself could be considered a work of art, so elegantly did every table, chair, color, and painting swirl together.Jon did not notice any of this. All he had eyes for was the young lady across the table slurping down lobster ravioli. He picked at his salad, filled with odd vegetables he’d never heard of and sipped a diet Coke, served to him in a wine glass to help make him seem grown up. As he did so, Jon mused on what it had taken to bring them both to this spot.After Jon had told him of the success the previous day, Michael had stormed off up to his room, predictably reciting one of his foul limericks.“There died a young girl named Maria,Well known for slutty behavior,When the priest thought her shriven,And fitted her fo
What Hell May Come Chapter 9: Drowning the Ceremony of Innocence
CHAPTER 9Drowning the Ceremony of InnocenceOn the way out, Jon was subjected to all the nocturnal haunts exactly as what happened at Goodleburg Cemetery. With every blink, a new horror filled his sight. It was so ghastly he nearly fell through a hole in the floor. Michael needed to guide him down the treacherous stairs. He asked questions all the way about what Jon saw.As had happened at the cemetery, visions of evil clouded his senses. Up and down the structure, people from different times and fashions committed vile acts. Beatings, thefts, rapes, and murders viciously played out around him. Dark creatures with indistinct features floated all around. Dark tendrils, rippling with profane power, rubbed over the evil doers, transferring a joy of sin to the men.A spectral Brian Elder was on the bottom floor of the grain elevator, dressed in the style of the 1920s. He had pinned down one of the demonic things and was sucking power from it via a paper straw punctured into its skull.
What Hell May Come Chapter 8: Snakeland
CHAPTER 8SnakelandMichael claimed he was fatigued, so they agreed to meet after school the next day to attempt contacting Brian Elder. The school day stretched on at an agonizing pace, until that blessed final bell released them all from captivity.The day would’ve easily been forgotten, tossed into the lump of other boring days in their memory, except they were about to leave the building with a gaggle of Italians, led by the snarling Gabbaducci. As usual, the girls followed. Jon’s nightly fantasy girl was among them.“I heard you’ve been telling people that I’m a faggot,” Gabbaducci yelled at Michael. His nose bumped Michael’s.“I ... I didn’t.”And of course, he hadn’t. It’s just that the boy wanted to fight and rather than find a reason, he manufactured one to justify his assholeishness.Gabbaducci slammed Michael’s head into the wall.“You want to fuck me in the ass? How ‘bout I do it to you and we’ll see who’s the queer.” He punched Michael in the nuts and s
What Hell May Come Chapter 7: Hammer or Anvil?
CHAPTER 7Hammer or Anvil?“They do not listen, but they hearCowards who strut like a buccaneerThey’re committed to evil,Their soul’s past retrieval; You’re the devil’s puppet, I fear.”That was Michael’s opening line as they drank coffee and ate scumdogs at one of the innumerable all-night Greek diners riddling the area. After the coffee was dropped off, he had dumped twelve creamers into it and churned the mixture slowly with a spoon, turning the black liquid light tan. He refused to tear his eyes away from the vortex being created in the middle of the cup.Jon bit into the scumdog. The specialty of the house. Onions, eye-watering mustard, hot sauce, and some kind of Greek glop were ground together into a lumpy greyish-brown paste and dumped over a lonely hot dog. It needed to be eaten fast as the concoction had a tendency to dissolve the bun into a sticky blob. The mixture sounded disgusting, but damn it tasted good. Hurt going out the end, though, especially after about f
