CONTAINS CONTENT:
EXTREME terror regarding a sequence in hell. Doubles, doubles being eaten alive by demons, molestation, etc (all in the hell sequence). Horror at the realization of what Tundra was. A GENERAL WARNING – this chapter is extreme overall. Read with Caution, and go to the matching trivia to see a rundown of what happened in hell.
{{Unedited}}
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Kirra opened the door in her white lab coat and glared at Austin for a few moments like she didn’t recognize him; emotions warring in her expression that he didn’t quite understand, and this scared him.
“Hi,” he said, flatly as he crossed his arms and looked down, abashedly. “I’m sure that you were expecting this.” The last time that they’d been standing on opposite sides of a door – in Italy – he was silent and she was talking too much.
He fumbled for words, but she was evading his gaze as he looked down at her, and then flicked his eyes to the lump under the white sheet in the room beyond, then back. “Kirra, I have to know,” he whispered. Then he looked down between them again. “I have to see him.” Silence as Kirra bit her bottom lip and glanced back the covered body. “Listen I -,” he tucked his lips in, “you’re – you’re examining me,” he gestured to the white sheet, “and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a little violated right now, and-” he met eyes with her briefly, “the way that you’re looking at me right now- like you’ve seen the devil, I-”
She cut him off, “I’ve seen everything but,” She began, gently, “I’m not looking- or, staring… I’m handling him as respectfully as I can,” she paused, “for the situation…” what did that mean? “The same way that I’m handling everyone.”
There was an awkward silence, and Austin put his temple to the doorframe and stared at her with desperation in his eyes. “Kirra, please let me see him.”
Kirra momentarily tucked her lips in, and tilted her head to the side, “Some things m-might be better if you don’t know,” she stammered, evading his gaze.
He tilted his head back at her, “Kirra…” he whispered and her eyes flicked to his, that familiarity there again; maybe even desire. “Now, I have to know.”
She took in a deep pull of air and glanced over her left shoulder. “Klara, coffee break?”
A voice from behind said, “Ja!”
Kirra met eyes with Austin and shook her head, sadly for a moment before she straightened her back. “Fifteen to twenty… don’t manipulate him, or move him. If you touch him at all, use gloves.”
Klara moved out with her; she didn’t even look at him. Not good.
“Kirra?” She paused in the hallway. “Thank you for trying to save my life, and thank you for healing Marielle first.”
“You’re welcome, love,” was all that she said as she turned and followed Klara away.
For a moment, Austin stared into the room as if it was haunted and the ghosts were waiting for him to cross the barrier and move into their territory. This reminded him of another archaic comparison… when did you actually become the vampire? Was it before or after you were welcomed in? Did you have to want to be invited? Was it out of desperation for blood?
He swallowed hard and stepped into the room, one foot, then the other.
At first, he ignored both bodies and simply stared at the room itself; there were several machines, many he was unfamiliar with, but one or two that he knew well.
He knew, when he looked at one of the screens, that he was looking at the coding of a strand of DNA, and considering the table on the far left near where he walked in with the needles on it, he knew that this strand of DNA was Tundra’s.
The body near the machines was Sasha’s, he could just barely make out a strand of blonde hair poking from under the sheet.
Ice ran up Austin’s spine; Tundra’s sheet was going to sit up and turn to him any moment now, wasn’t it; then the real horror film would begin. The one where the doppelganger chased him down the hall, cornered him, slit his throat, shaved his own head, and stole his life, no one the wiser.
He rubbed his arms – was it cold in here, or did he just have the creeps? – he looked the shape under the far-left sheet over, him; his height, his general size, although a bit thinner, his musculature. He glanced away.
There were body drawers along the wall, and he remembered the last time that he was in this room. It had been with Marielle as she tried to understand Klara’s double, and… what was the woman’s name? Iselin? Sasha had been with those bodies too, hadn’t he? How odd that Sasha was here again, having died to his worst fear.
Austin felt like he was lifting off the planet. Nothing was right.
He finally dared the sheet and stepped toward it, eyeing the ground as he approached. Then, he was standing side by side with himself, and all that he could hear was the sound of his own, panicked breathing as he took hold of the sides of the cover and slowly pulled it back. He expected to see his own eyes, blue and empty, fixated on the ceiling, and a gaping hole… that wasn’t what he saw.
He saw ashen skin, closed eyes, black hair, a bit longer than his had been before it was shaved, and a packed hole in between his eyes so it neither bled or gaped. He found it odd that his only thought for a moment was nice shot. Then he rolled the sheet back a little more, taking in his own body; the same small patch of black hair between his pectorals, the same small mole on his left side between his shoulder and peck. There were even a few freckles on that arm that he recognized.
What am I looking for? He wondered. Any sign that I am not…him.
He noted that the small holes in Tundra’s ears were empty, and looked up at the little metal table where the needles in plastic were.
Pulling away, but still keeping a fearful eye on Tundra, he went to that table and glanced it over. There were various things on it. Some were the piercings, but Austin tilted his head, curiously, there were several more than ten, several barbells. Oh… He put the back of his wrist to his mouth, disgustedly. Oh my God…
Shaking, he felt up his cheekbone until his fingertips brushed his own silver hoop and he swallowed hard. Was that the beginning of his own self-mutilation; his own disgusting journey downward? He’d wanted to get a few more in his left ear earlier this month; it had been fleeting, but still a thought.
He swallowed hard, letting out a ragged breath as he reached for one of the needles, which he uncased, and put to a vein in his arm, drawing his own blood as he glanced at the dead man on the table.
Shaking, he stumbled to the computer at the back and figured out where the slides, glass plates, and magnifiers were. He’d done this before in training, when he was in the criminology department, but it’d been a few years. So, between his shaking, and trying to get his thoughts in order, he fumbled a bit.
Donning powdered white gloves, he put a dot of his blood onto one of the square plates and put it under the microscope, and pressed the scan button.
The computer processed, and lined its readings up with the images on the screen. Things whirred and clicked and what came back was… exact match.
Again, Austin put his shaking wrist to his mouth, he could feel the vomit start to come up, and his eyes blurred with tears.
He turned back to the departed and went to his side again, looking down at his bare shoulders, his ashen skin and he felt such intense hatred for himself that he wanted to find the nearest knife and- there was a knife… it was on the table as well, it was the one that Tundra was using on Marielle. There was also something else there… a wallet.
Austin’s eyes flicked back to the knife.
He was going to… cut Marielle’s tongue out. He had also bitten her so hard that she was bleeding.
That’s when vomit actually came up, and he rushed to the sink and lost whatever he’d eaten last. The reality was… he couldn’t remember what he had eaten last. His last meal might have been with Marielle in front of the fireplace. He might have eaten on the plane, but he didn’t remember any of it.
He rinsed his mouth, and sprayed the sink clean before shakily going back to Tundra’s body, where he eyed the table and the wallet again.
“Getting to know yourself, my friend?” Vincent’s voice sounded like screaming and Austin jerked back, grabbing at his throbbing chest.
Austin looked to Vincent, then the body, then Vincent again. “W-who is he?” his voice came out thin and shaking.
Vincent was standing straight and tall, his hands crossed at the wrist behind his back. “You’re a serial killer, Austin.”
Austin’s eyes widened in terror, he hadn’t processed the words, fully. What did he mean a serial killer? He killed, yes… but for the government. No, Vincent must have meant- “I-I don’t work for the government?”
Vincent was as still as ever. “No, you do. And then when no one is looking, you open up some veins.”
Austin took a step back, then another, mentally trying to put as much distance between himself and his double as humanly possible before he stumbled, landed on his butt, and pushed back against the body drawers. “I’m- he’s…” he couldn’t find the words. “He was going to hurt her… and he liked it.”
“Oui. That’s not shocking to me.” Vincent bent, looking Tundra over, and shook his head. Vincent took a moment to stare sadly at Austin’s white face before putting his fingertips to the sides of his face and tipping his own head down as if praying. “Goodnight, brother,” he whispered, before standing tall again and addressing Austin, whose face was white as a sheet. “You have a specific… taste, mon ami. You kill prostitutes.” Vincent waited a beat. “With long black hair.”
Austin’s mind went blank… Yes, yes, he did. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew it. He could feel it; almost like he and Tundra were- “W- when did this start?” He stuttered.
“We don’t really know, but best guess? Shortly after Marielle died.”
Austin face twisted into an expression that was truly distorted, and he had a hand to the body drawer behind him, almost like he was trying to force his way in. “D-does anyone know?”
“We all suspect… but no one has proof. Cory, he knows. He encourages it.”
Austin drew his knees up to his chest, and frantically tried to stand. It wasn’t working. He felt like he was slipping on wet Jello. “How do you know it’s me – him then?” He remained on the ground.
Vincent swallowed hard, trying to force his tongue and lips to cooperate with his mind, “You do weird things to the bodies, Austin.”
“W-weir- like?” His haunted expression went to Vincent’s face.
Vincent had crossed his arms and was leaning against the table that held Tundra, looking down at Austin. “Some things I think it’s best that you don’t know, my friend.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “What I can tell you is that in almost all cases, the bodies – or what was left of them – had been previously frozen.”
Austin put his hands up to his face, and shuddered; this was also true; he knew it. It was as if he was suddenly gaining Tundra’s memories. “No… no, oh God, no…”
“He thought that he was god, Austin. He eventually drove himself mad chasing it.”
“How- how did he get this way?” Austin sobbed.
Vincent chuckled humorlessly. “You’re the profiler, not me.”
There was a moment of silence, “H-he’s not me,” Austin stammered. “He… he doesn’t have the tattoo gun; he didn’t even know about it.”
Vincent stood back for a moment, “It’s interesting how these things work out,” he sighed and turning, he slowly took the sheet down a little more revealing a scar on Austin’s right side. But as Austin narrowed his eyes at it, trying to process, he realized that it wasn’t a scar at all, but a brand etched into his white skin above his right hip. There was a dollar bill sized snake – a viper on his side. He recalled seeing Sabine use these in the lab. “I did it,” Vincent explained. “During our last fight.”
“That’s why you called me a snake,” Austin whispered mostly to himself.
Vincent hummed. “It’s interesting that in this world Chamber did that to you,” Vincent nodded at Austin’s right arm. Austin clamped his left hand over his forearm as his lungs became tight. He couldn’t find enough air to fill them. “I don’t understand- I don’t understand,” he was panting. “You said that we were friends, I- he was married to Marielle.”
“We were all of these things. I loved you, Austin, like a brother. You became completely… unhinged,” Vincent’s voice was steady, calm; he was reading a grocery list. “You just got worse and worse.” Vincent shook his head. “I believe that you made your first real kill right after you turned thirty. We all noted the change, and not just because Marielle had died.”
Austin felt his chest tighten again, and his heart begin to pound. Where was Marielle? He needed Marielle. She’d calm him. No… he hadn’t seen or spoken to her for hours. Not since they went to separate rooms. “Where- where’s Marielle?”
“She’s asleep. I was finally able to calm her down, but I had to give her something to take the edge off.”
“Oh, God, Vincent… that-” he pointed a shaking finger at Tundra’s body, “that thing traumatized her.”
Vincent’s eyes grew dark, and glaring through Austin, he replied with a weighted, “I know.”
Austin felt the weight of this, Vincent was saying with those words – I didn’t start this, mon ami… you did, a long time ago. Vincent had been trying to warn them for months now. He wasn’t exaggerating, Tundra was the devil. “Is- is she okay?” Austin cried. “Can I see her?”
Vincent shook his head. “She’s said almost nothing since this happened and I think you and I both know how she’s processing this.” Vincent sighed and removed his glasses for a moment, biting the end as he looked Austin over.
Austin palmed his mouth and looked off, visibly shaking.
Again, Austin held back vomit, his eyes wandering to that computer screen… exact match…
Yeah, they both knew how Marielle was processing this… Austin Rancor had just molested her, bit her to bleeding, slit her lip open, told her he was going to cut her tongue out.
Vincent’s face twisted in disgust. “Can you- Can you tell me what he was doing to her?”
“God, I don’t want to even think about it.” Austin shook his head.
“Just say yes or no,” Austin nodded frantically. “Did he rape her?”
“I got to him before that, but he was certainly on his way… also on his way to cutting her tongue out, he said he was going to.”
Vincent nodded, sighing heavily. “Yeah, he always hated that she said no.”
Austin sobbed into his caged hand as he shook and fought for air like he was clawing for the top of water, but remained fifteen to twenty feet down, and at any moment he was going to explode. The entire room had shifted and was sitting at a weird angle on its side.
Where’s Marielle? I need Marielle.
Then a look of sheer terror spread across his face… he’d hurt her, wouldn’t he? He was going to hurt her. He had to stay away from her.
Vincent looked down as something tinged on his watch, and he lifted it up, squinting and nodded before turning to leave. “I’m sorry, Austin. There’s more… but for your sanity- I just can’t tell you,” he explained before exiting the room.
Austin continued to try and fight for air before he dragged himself back to the metal table, and picked up Tundra’s wallet.
He knew he shouldn’t and couldn’t do this, but the need to know outweighed any consequences. So, he quickly slipped the wallet into his pocket, left the building, and made his way to the parking garage where he slipped into his car, and drove home.
***
Marielle was curled into a ball on the bed, awake and crying again.
Chamber was sitting with her on the edge of the mattress, and he was gently stroking her hair from behind.
For a moment, he desired to trade lives with Vincent… or Austin, for that matter; his instinct was to comfort her, to dry her tears.
He wanted to make love to her; he felt like if he could just make love to her, he could heal her somehow. But she wasn’t his, so he sat on the side of the bed, knelt over her, gently touching her face, and petting her.
“Did you know, Marielle… that my mother used to take me to a little French village every Christmas?” he asked, trying to put her mind anywhere except wherever it was. He knew that she was having nightmares and flashbacks.
She shook her head. “No, tell me more,” she forced, squeezing her middle, and steeling herself as best she could. She knew what he was doing and was open to accepting it if it would change anything in her mind.
Chamber smiled down at her softly, the need to lean down and kiss her was overwhelming, but he refrained. “My mother was in the oldest profession, but she was good, and kind. She never wanted that for herself, but she did it to try and pay for my father’s many surgeries and stacking medical bills. They were endless.” He cleared his throat, collecting one of her tears with the curl of his finger. “But there was a place filled with wonder and magic. Even after my father died, it didn’t matter how badly we were off, she would save-” he paused to chuckle, “she had a uh… cookie jar shaped like a little Russian girl? She would put money into it, all year long just to take me to this village for Christmas because she knew how much I loved it and my time there with her. There was a little candy shop and she’d let me buy whatever I wanted from it… uh… dark chocolate with candied orange peel.” He smiled softly at her, realizing that the slow ministrations of his fingertips were becoming gentler… more intimate. The realization for maybe the first time that Vincent had come and possibly taken her away from him hitting him more deeply than he expected. “A favorite of mine. My mother used to make them during the holidays when I was very little.”
“I don’t know how…” She wiped a tear away, “but I knew this,” Marielle replied quietly. “Your favorite chocolate, I mean.”
Chamber smiled at her, his instinct to lay with her, and tuck her body against his. He understood now. He’d always understood, but it was becoming clearer, and deeper. He would do anything to protect her in this moment. Hell, if she’d asked him to marry her, he’d have done it then and there.
He forced a smile at her, and she read it, knowing fully well what was behind it. “Where’s Vincent?” she breathed, shakily.
He swallowed and looked down, “Je suis là, Marielle.”
“My Vincent,” she clarified.
Something in Chamber’s heart began to hurt, and his eyes said one thing and one thing alone –Leave Vincent… I’ll take care of you.
She hid her face… why? Why add another layer of complication? Why? Why now? She squeezed the blankets in her fists, unable to sleep even with the sleeping aids, unable to rest, even with two of the strongest, bravest men – the same man, but separate – guarding over her.
Vincent had left to get food, and speak to Austin, he’d be back soon. But soon wasn’t soon enough.
Memories caused her to jerk. Half asleep, she reached down and tried to pull Tundra’s hand from her breast. It wasn’t there, and she sobbed again, shaking. “Masin,” Chamber whispered. Then he stood away from her, because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to control himself if he continued to try and comfort her in that moment.
“Just let me be,” she whispered, brushing his hand away. Everything felt like needles… every attempt at comfort felt like acid after that brief nightmare. She felt her lip split open, her teeth chattered at the ice that no longer plagued her body, her lower half felt exposed and violated by Tundra’s pressing into her. She instinctively covered herself with a blanket.
“Masin,” Chamber breathed, his heart shattering. “He’s dead. His body is on a slab downstairs. He can’t hurt you anymore,” he barely whispered.
She covered her eyes, “Please, just let me be.”
He scooted to the end and off the bed, but sat against it with his knees drawn up to his chest, it was all clear now; why Vincent loved her, why he wanted to protect her, why he had done what he’d done. Chamber felt all of it.
He was glad that he’d also done something else… it was all that he could do at the time, but it was something. He thought about it for a moment, and smiled softly, proudly to himself. It was a secret for another day.
***
STOP HERE AND READ SUMMERY IN TRIVIA IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ABOUT HELL
***
The earth had blossomed into a giant cavity and it had swallowed him whole.
Austin descended in slow motion – falling through the air on his back – hands reaching out for the surface which was disappearing as though he had been dropped into a dark sea. Chaos surrounded him from all sides; surreal, ugly, terrific, and beautiful.
As he continued downward, metamorphosis took place all around him, moving like clay as layers of brick red peeled back like rose petals. Except these were not rose petals; they were skin; layers of thin, blood-soaked skin. They were transitioning, transforming becoming more like… her.
Under the top of half of the image engulfing him, he could see a layer of sky where a dark, warring storm raged, and he noted arcs of lightning just before he smacked into something that felt like a giant sea anemone; soft… wet… warm… blood.
He couldn’t move, not a muscle, not an eyelash, as his gaze locked on his bizarre surroundings.
Home. He wanted to fight this thought as droplets of bright, thick red dripped onto him.
The soft, blubbery anemone he’d landed on embraced him, it’s tentacles slowly removing his clothing until he was naked; his final lover.
This wasn’t home, it was hell; he’d fallen into hell. He’d died, and there was no one, and nothing… just his nakedness, his terror, the layers of peeling skin, his sins, an eternity with them holding him close as the anemone wrapped its little tentacles around him, caressing him, and pulling him into the middle of itself- towards its mouth.
He tried to scream, but couldn’t, there was no sound. Or there was, but it sounded and felt like being inside a giant bass guitar that thrummed one sickening note every so often which caused his chest to burn like he was having a heart attack as he was sinking into the mouth of the anemone… soft…wet…
Forcing himself to move, which felt like knives in his skin, he clawed. No use, it overtook him and dropped him into its belly where he fell fifteen to twenty feet down again into a black room and smack into a line of other nude men like the place in line had been saved for him.
His eyes widened in terror, all the others were also him. They were being forced onward, forward, forever, marching for years, for eternity; no rest, no pause.
He looked ahead, then behind- it was like looking into an overlapped mirror, an endless image of the exact same.
And one – a specific one – robotically jerked out of formation with his face, except it was weird, stretched; his grin was unnatural, demonic, and the doppelganger smiled at him, then jerked back into line again with the others… Tundra…
And the next time that he robotically jerked his head back – like a pigeon – to look at him, he was a few men closer.
Then – after an eternity of singular steps, and no ability to speak or scream – the one in front of him turned its head the entire way without turning its body below the neck, and stared at him unblinking… a ventriloquist dummy; eyes locked, wide, and empty.
He could find no scream in his throat, even though he knew he was wailing internally as he ground his teeth together in anguish.
It stared at him for eons as it marched forward – he along with the others – in perfect unison; nazis, brainwashed and compelled on in perfect timing.
Finally – after a thousand years – he came to a wall where a giant metal door clanked up, letting him into an infinite room where giant, blobby white creatures with bulbous heads and no eyes were chained to a wall by their thick, pocked necks. There were three-foot slits where their mouths should have been and sharp, distorted teeth poked out.
The endless line of Austins were locked into this endless room and the thirty-foot-tall creatures began to reach down, pluck them up one at a time, put them into their mouth slits and clamp down upon their bodies, then pulling skin and muscle clean off the bone.
To his terror, some of the other Austins began to squat, and eat the remains of the others.
Austin whirled, running into himself left and right. They were all dead in the face; eyes, blankly staring, waiting their turn to be eaten. “No, I don’t belong here!” He screamed over the sounds of breaking bone, and thudding bodies crashing down around him. The determined bass noise every five seconds or so persisted; like someone was banging an inhuman drum; the soundtrack for hell.
He spun again, and again; trying to find a door, a way out, anything! There were pieces of human everywhere, and as he moved, he was being sprayed- and drenched with his own blood. His heart felt like it would collapse in on itself from terror, but somehow it persisted.
Then a hand clamped on his left shoulder, and the Austin that was Tundra forced him to his knees as he fought the whole way toward a dismembered arm. Tundra pointed at it, “Eat,” he ordered.
Austin tore at the air as he bolted upright dripping in sweat.
Had he actually fallen asleep? It didn’t matter, the nightmare wasn’t over. The bass was still in his ear… had his eardrum split? Is that what was causing the noise?
Unable to find his footing at all, he stumbled, tripping away from his bed and into the bathroom where he stared at himself in the mirror.
The ghostly image of a woman with long black hair appeared behind him in what seemed to be a black robe. She slowly took it down and it dropped away from her naked body. He glanced away; this was his mother after all.
She approached him and set a crown of twisted twigs upon his head and he glared at himself in the mirror, taking in the image that he so hated and feared. He remained a man, but when this memory had occurred, he had only been six or seven.
Then Isotta lifted a pitcher and raised it above his head, pouring blood in the center of the crown until it leaked out of the twigs and came down his face and chest in rivulets.
She leaned in and put her arms around him from behind, holding him against her nude body. “You just need your crown,” she whispered. “Pleasure god.”
He was frozen, unable to move.
Dropping to his knees, he tried to wipe the images away with his balled fists in his eyes. They remained. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut to blind himself to them. They remained. He began to sob, as strangled sounds emerged from his throat. “God…” he wheezed, drool streaming off his chin. “Jesus… help me.”
***
Swallowing, Austin woke from the dream again, this time alone- no more images outside of his head, but the ones inside were controlling him like a puppet.
He stared into nothing, not blinking, not moving. Laying on his side in nothing but sweatpants, he did nothing for hours except breathe in and out… in, and out… Then remind himself to breathe in and out.
There were no thoughts, only images. Only hell. Only his mother and her crowning of him, only the demand for him to eat. He couldn’t eat. Not after that. Not after what he’d seen in the photos in the wallet.
That wallet had stared at him from the passenger’s seat the entire drive home. Something inside of him was screaming don’t look. Don’t look. You really don’t want to look. He couldn’t help himself after he’d locked himself in his house and gone to his bedroom.
At first, he didn’t know what he was looking at. It took several photos, and several more times through.
When it hit him, all that he knew was that he had just broken himself for life.
There was no changing this; no going back. He’d never have peace again. The piano and pounding on it for hours wouldn’t fix this. The words from others wouldn’t cure it. The bottle wouldn’t take it away. Marielle… he couldn’t bear to even see her again.
For hours, he just stared into nothing. The sun moved across the room, and vanished into night. His stomach twisted in hunger, but he didn’t feel it. His throat craved the cool of water or drink. He didn’t care. And when thought of Marielle, he pushed thoughts of her away believing that he would hurt her… ruin her.
Vincent hadn’t been exaggerating. Like the forbidden fruit that the snake tempted Eve to eat- some things were best if you didn’t know them.