The God Gun in: I Dreamed the Lord of Hell Incarnate

The God Gun

 

in

 

I Dreamed the Lord of Hell Incarnate

Preface:

Story based on a mild nightmare. A police detective takes an undercover job, trailing after a series of murders and robberies, when he discovers there's a correlation between the crimes and sacrifices made to an ancient and evil god.

Enter the Portal

...All doors are closing. I am still undercover, but poor Hector is as white as a ghost. Before I could execute my escape plan, Frederick's men pounced on us from both sides. Hector struggled, his skinny arms waved pathetically at his husky captors.

Frederick made his entrance almost gracefully, a tiger mimicking a house cat. Frederick was enameled in stylish gown and dark coat, but his unreasonable and sickening hatred could not be contained by his poise, nor could his guise veil him from my own keen senses. He noticed me, but without returning my gaze.

Frederick had a way of letting you know that he was aware of you, even when he wasn’t looking in your direction. He unnerved me, this beast that walks in the guise of a man.

Hector ceased to resist his captors when Frederick’s eyes touched upon him. The boney man, now trembling violently, seemed almost to surrender all his will under the fearsome shadow of Frederick.

It was in this moment of fear frenzy that an ultra-phobic terror seized my heart. My will to survive replaced my cool senses. I forgot about keeping my operation covered under the guise of a supervisor in Frederick’s shipping scheme. All that remained was my utter astonishment of a creature standing before me, and one that could not possibly be human. How could I have ever confused the two?

Hector had betrayed Frederick, coming forward to the police about the illegal operations of Frederick’s shipping company.

Frederick's manners were almost all gone, and this worried me---for surely he couldn't know of my true identity. Had Frederick been a man of practiced manners, but without a heart or maybe even without a soul?

The once eccentric businessman who had danced his way over to great me for my first day on an unofficial job was now towering over Hector without mercy.

The warehouse was at first an ordinary storage chamber, but before my eyes the chamber expanding into infinite darkness. Now there was only Frederick pitching his dark voice on the edge of the rising floor. Frederick commanded with his voice, "Hector! You think that I didn't know you looked into my things?" Hector began to protest, but one of Frederick's henchmen applied more pressure to the wrist behind the skinny man's back. Frederick smirked at the compliance of the skinny man and continued,

"You have a choice...". Pausing, the tall Frederick threw back his long hair with his large bony hands. I thought that I saw a spark of hope in Hector's eye, but quickly diverted my attention back to the tall beast whose hair was waving as if in the wind.

I felt no particularly strong draft in the warehouse, but I had a hunch that things were about to get a whole lot weirder--if not violent. At exactly that thought I knew what I must do.

At the first opportunity I would spring on the most vulnerable man, the one that had left Frederick’s side to help constrain Hector.

"You can either come down with me to the room that you were not supposed to look in, and we'll talk about this, or..."

Hector began squirming and shaking his head. No words came out of the skinny man, only the stench of fear... a fragrance that only a beast like Frederick could smell, and one which he lusted.

"... you can shoot yourself now!" My face must have changed expression, for at that moment one of the henchmen lunged at me.

Frederick pulled a 12-gauge from out of his coat and tossed it to the trembling skinny man. I saw the lunacy in the act and the henchman released his grip as Hector turned away from the airborne shot gun.

I acted swift. My suit was a bit cumbersome, but I was as agile as a cat, and I might say, as heavy as a bulldog.

My left arm caught the barrow of the shotgun, while my right hand gripped the blunt side, taking it up and bashing one henchman's face in. The tough man fell to the floor in a heap of his own spit and blood. My ear caught the wind of the other henchman making his corpulent body move on me as if he meant to tackle me to the ground. I pivoted with my right foot back and pumped that dog with a full round of the shotgun. His corpse to be flew back and spun across the marble.

Quickly, I spun and reared back as Frederick came at me, leaping from aloft a raised platform like a mountain lion.

With the shotgun in position, I fired the gun just as Frederick began to say something. The words were drowned out by the blast, but I had missed. I missed at point blank!

Frederick quickly brought the barrow of the gun up with one long arm. I acted by bringing the back of the gun's blunt under and up for a counter strike.

I missed again. Impossible!

Somehow, he repelled the gun, like two magnets of the same charge would repel each other.

The dark man stood before me smirking, but I didn't waste time exchanging cute expressions. I decided to wipe that smile off his face with a straight jab.

The gun is out of my hands. Simple as that.

I threw a right hook and Frederick blocked it, then returned a solid swing with the gun. I crouched and moved forward, as I came back up, taking my right forearm into his wrist, grappling with that hand and pulling the tall man down to me. My left arm swung instinctively and caught his right arm just above the elbow. His arm cracked!

The gun slid to the floor.

By this time, Hector had regained his senses. As the shot gun slid across the marble floor, the skinny man picked it up and secured the gun with some dignity. I found myself saying, despite the oddity of what had just happened, "You're under arrest for kidnapping, animal cruelty and..."

I began to feel that my hold on Frederick was slipping unnaturally, as if his arm wasn't really under my control at all. I was unable to get his compliance through pain. Frederick snickered and spat out, "And murder!"

I lost my hold on the tall man completely. The feeling was both astonishment and irritation. Had my hands failed me? Was my mind projecting this? Just when I had mustered the courage to act, my body was failing me?

"Gregg," Fredrick's voice resounded in the warehouse that had now transformed into an amphitheater. And it was in bad taste, some kind of Gothic revival.

"you are so worried for your new friend?" There was a mirthless chuckle followed by, "I was going to save this experience for Hector himself, but since you interfered with our business--policeman--you can join him!"

Hector looked afraid, but not for himself this time.

I, myself, began to tremble now. Yes, the broad shoulders quivered and sunk forward in undeniable cowardice. The brave ex-green beret, and the loyal friend and detective had transformed into a cowering boy before Frederick.

No! I fought the urge to run! I fight back now!

I... I wanted to end it!

"Go ahead and ruuunnn!” Frederick laughed wildly. “Go now, policeman! Abandon this skinny wrench, and leave him to his fate with me!"

“Wrench?” I muttered inaudibly.

Yeah, lift this unworthy wrench from the dunghill.

It was a phrase I’d read somewhere before. Or maybe I had heard it in church sometime when I was a kid. Hell, it could have been God talking to my inner ear for all I know. I knew only in that moment that every ounce of my human spirit was on trial. Not Frederick. He wasn’t on trial. He was already damned. And this thought gave me something to weigh my faith in.

Frederick fancied that I would flee, but his smile turned to a grave and

evil expression of dispassion.

"So be it."

A hole between dimensions opened, and an old canvas on the wall behind us animated, and yawning as a dark and cavernous mouth. The portal began to pull at my body.

The chamber whisked away from my field of vision, as if the world of man had suddenly taken a plunge off into outer space.

I was afraid to look back at the dark, sunken faces, but I could not escape that ghastly sight!

I could hear Frederick in the back of all the noise rushing out of the darkness,

following the howls and moans, and that blasted screaming!

These were people, and I think I knew them somehow, but I did not know them in this life. I became confused and enchanted in the realm of chaos.

Breaking the enchantment over my mind was the ambient voice of Frederick,

"These are your brothers and sisters."

Frederick's voice trailed off. I fell for what seemed like an eternity. And, I became very aware that I had somehow known all these pale and sunken eyes around me. I felt a sort of compassion, and at that moment my descent increased temperamentally.

And now Hector was being pulled down by the last descending demonic things that were his ghastly family, grimly familiar to me, too. I searched for any limb protruding from the hole and shouted to him, "Hector!" The sound I heard then was an awful recall... the sounds of pain from a man suffering under the cruelty of inhuman things, like that of torture, torment and molesting before murder. I wanted to heave.

I think I am losing my nerve now. All is dark, but I recall now... Yes. My heart was faint and I could not shout, until... Yes, I remember now... I heard Frederick's malevolent hiss behind me, towering above me.

"Fear eats even the strongest of your kind! You are bereft of badge and honor. You have no authority here. There is no justice!"

Suddenly, I felt strength come back into my voice and a glow in my chest, like a radiant heart. I found myself thrown back into the amphitheater. The room was going through a stage of retrogression. Soon, I would be back in the warehouse. The walls transformed before my eyes. The portal would collapse, and I would be saved. But, Hector would be damned.

I knew instantly what I had to decide.

With my heart on fire, blazing with integrity and compassion, I dived toward the painting on the wall, that diabolic portal, with full force and all my weight. But its cavernous mouth had closed. Only a trail of darkness receded in the air now. Eddies of shadow spiraled around on the wall and the ceiling, gradually fading into nonexistence.

Frederick was gone.

I shouted at the top of my lungs, "No! You bastard! You cannot escape me!" Just then, my head reeled. I felt the floor turning. I must have at least put a whole through the canvas with that much force. I turned around and noted that indeed I had managed to break the canvas. There was a hole. I reached in it... something clutched my hand, but not another hand, rather a force like that of a magnetic field. Then the ghastly faces came up and pulled me down to where I would see Hector's destiny unfold.

There was a vast stretch of darkness. Time stood still.

Or had it not? I cannot be sure, even now. Am I really sitting here and writing

This report? I’ll be let go from the force without a pension, if not put in a straitjacket!

I can only recall the awakening that was swift and wrathful. I was in hell, or something like hell. I saw crowds and crowds of things, and what looked like people and things that were neither things nor people. Assaults on the flesh, molestation of the mind and tormenting of the souls encompassed my vision. I could not find where it began, nor where it ended. However, I sensed a mockery of my horror... an emotion of pleasure and joy that came from that beast that I knew as Frederick.

So, I did what I did best. I followed my nose through recesses of darkness and red open flesh and stench and noise. Hunger and lust were everywhere, but mourning and hatred were dominant. I felt sick and almost lost my scope on the laughter that was Frederick. I meant to find him first, and then decide what to do with him after.

I found Fredrick after what felt as if an epoch had passed over the realms of the undead. The creature that was Frederick was now a tiny toad like beast, and he sat upon a high stool, totally in the high and open. He gorged on human heads as if they were apples. I realized that he was not really so small, but rather very high up on a sort of stool that sat upon in this fleshy interior of some kind of forge in hell. Or was it a warehouse? I couldn’t be sure.  An industrial conveyor belt fed Frederick the bodies and souls of the dead. He ate and ate, as a mechanical thing himself. He wasted, defecated, and he feed scraps to hateful and starved dogs--Dogs that would forever be hungry.

I could not find Hector. I never did. I feel that this is a defeat I shall never get over. I had wanted to save him from this horrible fate. However, this was not the average search-and-rescue mission. So, I failed at finding Hector, but I would not fail to find Frederick.

As well, I learned the tricks to Frederick’s awful power. I watched how he ate and one of his hounds choked on a piece of flesh or bone. So, I laughed.  Moreover, I felt surprise in own action. I could not stop from laughing. And I laughed a good and hardy bellyful.

Frederick noticed my laughter, and then the other dogs began choking. They all died, and then subsequently died many times over. This replay of resurrection and death continued until it was as meaningless as their very existence. The demons and dogs all faded out of existence.

I focused this new insight. I simply didn't care what was happening. I allowed the fire to burn me. When it all became meaningless... it ended. I passed through the void leaving Frederick in a dimension that suffocated him and collapsed upon him from every angle and point in time. Frederick existed for me no more.

I still wonder if Hector ever made it out of there. I believe he did, but he is not on this earth. So here I am, back in good old city life as a cop.

Leaving what would be considered a rather unscrupulous report in the round file next to my desk, I left the office for the day.

I tip my hat in a memorized fashion and hold a door open as an act of chivalry for a young woman. She brushes into my shoulder - something more important on her mind, I guess. Well, I light a cigarette and walk past this familiar bus stop, and then I notice this church up on a hill just past the old library. The spire glowed under the sun. I beheld a shimmering cross.

Just then, I had a flash in my mind’s eye. It was the darn-est of things. But, I think maybe Hector’s smiling face shown through the clouds. And, well, I think Hector went on to a better place. As for me, I'm here and I'm still lost in the times.