Inferno bound and the he.., p.1
Inferno Bound and the Hell Hounds, page 1
Inferno Bound and
the Hell Hounds
Patrick C. Harrison III
Full Contact Fiction
This is a work of fiction. None of the people, places, or events described in this novel actually exist or happened. So don’t go driving around Northeast Texas looking for Mangle County and Nora Avery. You will be disappointed.
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4th Edition
Copyright © 2018 Patrick C. Harrison III All Rights Reserved
For Petal
Acknowledgements
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A writer, frustrated by the progress of his latest story, tosses his work into the wastebasket. Later, his loving spouse retrieves it from the trash, reads it, and ultimately convinces the writer to complete the story. Okay, it didn’t exactly happen the way it did for Stephen King, but it was close.
In 2015 I wrote the original version of Inferno Bound and the Hell Hounds as a short story. It had basically the same premise, but missing from the story was the person who would become the most important character in the novel: Nora Avery. The short story left the reader hanging at the end, and my wife, Rachael (Petal to me), expressed her displeasure for the way I drew the tale to a close. She did not want to guess at how things ended; she wanted me to tell her.
I mulled this over for the better part of a year while I was occupied with other things. In this same time period, Petal began listening to erotic literature on Audible, taking a liking to it that, in a way, made me envious. Thus, Nora Avery was born. And with her, a short story with no ending became a novel. Thank you, Petal!
I would also like to thank Jeff O’Brien for his editing work. I never would have had the courage to publish it without getting your feedback first. And thanks to Cody Higgins for his late inning relief appearance!
Thank you to my parents for feeding a creative seed and letting it grow. I guess I’ll never become a baseball player, but a writer…. well, here I am!
Sincerely,
Patrick C. Harrison III
Greenville, Texas
January 6, 2018
His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard,
His belly large, and claw’d the hands, with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs
Dante,
The Inferno
And know not that I call’d and drew them thither
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed
John Milton,
Paradise Lost
I cannot breathe
with your hands on my neck,
but I like it like this
I’m your beautiful wreck
Xtina Marie,
Dark Musings
1
Some think that dreams are just the mind’s way of occupying itself while the body rests, the sleeping brain not unlike an idling motor. It’s also been suggested that dreams are images and emotions that are inadvertently created as the mind tries to catalogue the preceding day’s information. Others say dreams have meanings, like some Freudian disciple attributing your dreams about your teeth falling out or going to work without pants, to your subconscious desire to fuck your mother.
For Corey Moore, one dream in particular had consequences. That’s not to say that it changed his outlook on life or gave him any exceptional insight into the universe. In fact, a minute or two after waking, he didn’t even remember it. The dream had faded from his mind, much as the morning fog had faded away from the parking lot and fields surrounding his motel room. And yet the dream–the nightmare–had changed him, slithering into the depths of his mind, past barriers of the human brain that evolution or God himself had long ago put up as defenses against atrocities and evils that man could be capable of. The wretched dream crept past these small pickings. The nightmare, whether born of Hell or a yet unseen terror of pathology, reached a portion of Corey’s brain that should have stayed forever closed, like the door to a safe with a long forgotten combination. Upon this doorstep of unknown power and terror, the dream did not knock. Nor did it attempt the door’s combination or test the handle. It tore the door from existence as easy as a page being ripped from a book, replacing it with a highway leading straight to Corey’s subconscious.
The Dream
Corey walked down a seemingly endless hallway; dimly lit and dirty, stains covering its green, ragged wallpaper and faded, blue carpet. Darkness seemed to creep in from every crevice of the corridor. Above him, the hallway’s walls stretched upwards for miles before disappearing into thick, rolling storm clouds.
A clap of thunder roared from the sky, echoing down the hallway, piercing through Corey’s ears. He cowered on the filthy carpet, hands over his ears, teeth clinched. His eyes traveled skyward, expecting to see oncoming rain. Instead, a bright light caught his attention. At the now visible end of the hallway, several hundred yards away, was a doorway illuminated in a bright orange glow.
He stood up, fascinated by the orange glow; its brightness so intense that he could not make out anything beyond the threshold of the door. Though he did not know why, Corey knew he must go towards this door. An unknown destiny awaited him.
As he began walking towards the orange radiance, he noticed that the walls were now decorated with picture frames; one after another, from the floor to the sky. Within the picture frames were not paintings or photographs, but movies; movies of Corey’s life. Corey slowed his pace, watching the depictions of his life.
Here was eight-year-old Corey, sitting in his second grade classroom, his head down, long hair covering his tear-filled eyes. Behind him sat Dylan Price, one of the most despicable creatures to ever walk the halls of Twin Oaks Elementary. His face was red from repeated laughter. His spiked hair, downturned eyebrows, and jagged yellow teeth completed the look of the perfect school bully.
Dylan flicked Corey’s ear, Corey flinching and sinking into his chair like a turtle into its shell. Dylan roared with laughter as the teacher, Mrs. Compton, having grown sick of repeated verbal battles with Dylan and his parents over his behavior, simply ignored him and continued writing spelling words on the chalk board. “Dream, D-R-E-A-M,” she was saying. Corey covered his ears, but this was no deterrent for an experienced bully. He merely switched from thumping Corey’s ear, to thumping his skull. Flick, laugh. Corey, shaking with distress, scooted his desk forward as far as he could, causing his pencil to roll off and onto the floor. Flick, laugh. Corey stared at the pencil on the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks. Flick, (that’s one flick too many, Corey thinks as he watches the scene from the hallway) laugh.
Second grade Corey, having finally had all he could take, snatched the pencil off the floor and, spinning around so fast that his long brown hair temporarily lifted from his face and showed his rage, buried the pencil in Dylan Price’s neck. Even now Corey remembers how easily the pencil slid through the boy’s skin. He remembers the popping sensation as it punctured his throat. And he remembers the smell; the smell of blood and graphite. Flakes of the pencil’s yellow paint had mixed with the blood pouring from Dylan’s neck. A stream of blood had shot four feet across the aisle, ruining Andrea Smith’s new dress. What Corey didn’t remember, but now heard as he watched, were the screams. Mrs. Compton along with every child in class were delivering their own version of a horrified shriek. Only Dylan wasn’t screaming; he was gasping.
Dylan had lived, though he wasn’t much of a bully after that. Corey had his first run in with the police and got booted from school.
Another picture frame: Here is Corey at the Mangle County Fair. Sixteen. By sixteen, he was a regular piece of shit. Homeschooling with his dope-head mother since the second grade had not done him many favors. Trouble had become a daily occurrence.
No, not this. I don’t want to watch this, Corey thinks, but is unable to pry his eyes away from the movie. Sixteen-year-old Corey was walking through the crowded county fairgrounds with his friend, Peace. What a fucking name. His damn hippie parents were still so caught up in the ‘60s that they named their son Peace. And he was one violent mother fucker to have such a name. Without interest they passed by the funnel cakes and farm animals and ring toss games. They even passed up the idiot in the dunk tank. They were looking for a victim.
Peace pointed her out, Corey laughing hysterically as he agreed she was the one. He pulled the string of Black Cats from his pocket and lit the fuse. Nonchalantly, Corey walked past the elderly woman, dropping the firecrackers into her purse. He would find out from the news that the woman’s name was Glenda Lemon. Eighty-two-year-old Mrs. Lemon heard the fuse in her purse and reached in, pulling them out. Rather than throwing them to the ground, she stared at them, a confused look upon her face, likely trying to remember if she had indeed packed this item in her purse along with her keys, makeup, and spectacles.
“Grammy, Grammy!” a toddler yelled as he ran up, wrapping his arms around Mrs. Lemon’s legs. “Can I have a fun cake, Grammy?” The firecrackers started popping. Screams. Mrs. Lemon did not, however, throw the firecrackers to the ground. Instead, even as blood began trickling down her arm, Mrs. Lemon, Grammy, held them over her head, remnants of burst fireworks and sprays of red landing in her recently permed, bluish-gray hair. Corey, seeing the death grip that she had on the firecrackers even as they ripped her hand apart, realized that she was holding them up to protect her grandchild. She would lose her right hand in protection of her grandchild. Corey was never discovered as the culprit, but the image of that woman screaming as her hand was blown into uselessness would stay with him forever.
Corey continued his trek down the grim hallway, tears in his eyes as he passed by the evidence of his life’s accomplishments. Here was a scene of Corey forcing his girlfriend into an abortion clinic. Here he was with Peace, breaking into houses, stealing guns and jewelry. Here they were drunk, bashing in car windows for the hell of it. Here was Corey holding a Beretta in the face of a gas station clerk, making off with all of $342. Here he was calling his mother a whore as she lay feebly in her bed, eyes sunk into her skull, mouth agape, unable to even lift her arms, dying of cancer.
I could have been worse, Corey thinks, sobbing. With my upbringing, I could have been a hell of a lot worse. Peace is in the pen long term for double murder. I never did any shit like that. I’ll do better God, I swear!
Corey stopped six feet from the doorway, its brilliant glow making the walls of the hallway and floor appear orange. Beyond the doorway was a landscape engulfed in flames. Trees were charred black skeletons of their former selves. Grass and bushes had been burnt from existence, the ground covered by blackened soil and streams of molten lava. The glow of the blaze faded as Corey looked skyward where thick blooms of smoke filled the atmosphere, blocking any view of stars or clouds or sunshine. He stepped to the edge of the doorway, the heat singeing his eyebrows and goatee, the roar of the fire obstructing all other noise, reminding Corey of the sound of a waterfall: loud, powerful, and never-ending.
Though he clearly saw the peril before him, understanding that proceeding any further would only mean pain and death, he walked beyond the door and into the infernal land. His clothes and hair instantly caught fire as Corey started screaming. His skin melted away, falling in splats on the burnt earth like clumps of mud. His nose, ears, lips, and penis were quickly scorched from his body, his fingers and toes not far behind. All the while he remained alive, not succumbing to death, but only more agony.
Despite the roaring fire and his own screams, the holes where Corey’s ears had once been heard a different sound. Short burst of sound amongst the booming inferno. They had begun distant, but the sounds were becoming louder and closer. Though his flesh was gone and the ends of his extremities had become nothing more than useless nubs, his eyes, now without lids or lashes, remained unharmed. He scanned the fiery landscape for the increasingly loud bursts of sound, noticing that the doorway and hall from which he had come were gone, replaced only by more of the same blackened land.
And then he saw them; thousands of them. Cresting every surrounding hilltop and marching through every scorched valley and swimming in every molten river, were dogs. Dogs of every size and breed, and they were all going in one direction: towards Corey. They ran through the flames unharmed, the sounds of their barking and howling and trampling of their paws overtaking the roaring of the fire. Like ants converging on a sugar cube dropped in the dirt, the dogs stampeded towards him from every direction, snarling, showing their teeth, showing their rage.
The dogs reached him. Corey was swiftly buried beneath hundreds of blood thirsty canines, their teeth and claws ripping muscle and fatty flesh from his body, tearing it from his bones. His arms and legs were yanked out of their sockets by a team of large, vicious German shepherds. Corey lived on, feeling the pain. His abdomen was torn open and intestines devoured by a dachshund, a beagle, and a Scottish terrier, its thick, black fur matted and red with blood. The powerful jaws of a pit bull cracked his skull and the dogs began eating his brains. And still, Corey lived and felt. A Doberman wiggled its thin head into Corey’s ribcage, shredding through the thin tissue that made up his lungs, coming to the crown jewel, the heart, and, with one ferocious jerk, ripped it from his chest.
2
Nora Avery stood naked at the end of the bed, inspecting the redness around her wrists, hating herself as she always did the morning after. Looking across her dimly lit bedroom, she could see her body in the full length mirror. She could see the red marks around her ankles and bite marks on her breasts and nipples. Her long brown hair was in disarray. She stared into her own eyes; dark, almost black, the color of strong coffee, and full of hatred.
Nora brushed her hair out of her face with her fingers, pulling it into a sloppy ponytail. From her mahogany dresser she grabbed a pair of cotton black panties and pulled them on gently over her hairless pubic area, gasping quietly as she anticipated a protest of soreness from between her legs. The movement of pulling on her panties alerted her to an area on her abdomen where the skin was not being allowed to move with its normal elasticity, instead stinging slightly as she bent down and stood up. Nora looked down, seeing the shiny, crusty white substance on her stomach, around her naval. Damn it, she thought and scratched at it, flakes floating to the carpet like a post orgasmic snowfall while others clung to her finger tips. She smelled her fingers, closing her eyes as she did so, hating herself all the more for even wanting to do such a thing, then brushed it into the wastebasket beside the dresser.
As she donned her bra and black tank-top, Nora’s mind reluctantly drifted to the events of the night before. The pain and the pleasure, how her body and mind had long seen them as one in the same, preferring neither over the other, but wanting both instead of just one. The bites could have been harder. The restraints could have been tighter. Nora had discovered that even when people say they’re ready to inflict the sexual torment she desires, they rarely are.
Nora put her foot on the edge of the mattress, shaking it as she looked down at the two warm bodies still in bed. The man, Michael Francis, a big-shot-lawyer from Dallas (as in, “I’m Mike Francis the Texas Tornado! I’ll BLOW AWAY the insurance companies and get you the money YOU deserve!), lay face down in the bed, exposing the less than attractive sight of his perfectly round bald spot surrounded by graying hair and his sizable rear end that appeared to be trying its damnedest to suck his boxer shorts up his rectum. Nora noticed a half consumed glass of tea on the nightstand beside him. Apparently big-shot-lawyer Mike had taken it upon himself to grab a beverage from her fridge without asking. Not that that should have mattered to Nora. You’re gonna let this dumbass stick his dick in you as he bites on your tits, and let him cum all over your stomach, but then you’re gonna get bent out of shape over a glass of tea? she thought to herself. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.
The woman, Sara Francis, the big-shot-lawyer’s wife, was completely covered by the bed sheet, save for her curly red hair that appeared to be sticking out everywhere. She had been fun, Nora couldn’t deny that. She had a suspicion that Mrs. Francis had needed some narcotic persuasion before her husband could coerce her into what had to have been a bucket list experience for him. Nora also had a suspicion that Mrs. Francis was awake under those covers; naked and embarrassed, and probably mad as hell at her big-shot-lawyer of a husband who decided he wanted to cum all over the younger, hard-bodied nympho rather than his middle-aged, slightly overweight wife. Yeah, she was mad. Madder than Nora could ever be about a glass of tea (which really had nothing to do with tea). Nora had a good idea he would be paying for his night of fun in the near future.
She kicked at the mattress again. “Get up. I have to go to work.” Not the slightest morsel of emotion in her voice. She may as well have been talking to her cat. No, scratch that. I like my cat. She may as well have been talking to a priest who had just explained to her the importance of celibacy and the danger of impure thoughts. Much better.
The big-shot-lawyer rolled over, a stupid grin on his face. “Good morning,” he said.
“Morning,” Nora said, returning the grin, though with less enthusiasm, her eyes staying cold, lacking the invigoration that they had been filled with last night.
