Infernus

legs and placed a wool-covered hoof into it.

Red held it between his teeth and suddenly bit down, cracking the split hoof into four bloody pieces and pouring salty blood into his mouth. He pulled the hoof in further and sucked loudly.

* * *

“Oh, Dr. Mountfountain, you were coming along so well, too. Now, after three days, big Barney drags you back in a straightjacket after your failed escape attempt. Don’t you want to get better? What did you say, Barney? You ‘nailed’ him in the woods and now Dr. Mountfountain is a wide receiver? Was there blood? Ahhh, a virgin. Well, you go along now, Barney. I’ll do an extensive cavity search — I hope you didn’t leave any deposits behind.”

Big Barney and the small man laughed quietly for a few moments.

After Barney left, the other doctor guided the bewildered Mountfountain onto a flat metal trough.

“The water is shallow, Doctor. I’m not going to drown you. I’m just going to lay you down in it, all right? I’m pulling off your pants now. My, aren’t you a big boy? I’m attaching two small clips to your testicles — oh, you baby, that didn’t hurt! The wire goes to this generator. Now with the added conductivity of the water, you’ll feel like a piece of -

… brrzzzapppp!…

* * *

The class was mostly quiet after this session. The Legend — although no one referred to him this way, and he would be unknown by this name until Infernus was, well… known by others later — packed up his things and left until next week.

CHAPTER TEN

“WASTING WITH TIME”

“My son,” screamed the demon in the satyr’s mind. “Do you know what my parting gift will be to you in three billion, trillion generations?”

“Why must there be a parting?” cried the satyr weakly in Red’s mind.

“The toils we pass through will have honed your body to invisible perfection. My final parting gift to you in three billion, trillion generations,” and here a blood tear fell hissing to the stony ground, “you will become ‘The Scream.’”

Satyr gaped. “Is such a treasure possible to attain?”

“Not only is it possible, but it is necessary. In your path to become Everything, you must literally become everything. Are you pleased?”

“More than pleased — my pain threshold just increased three greatness levels.”

“Then all is proceeding as planned,” gushed the demon lovingly.

* * *

The truth that the two shuddering, smoldering lumps at the bottom of the mile-deep shaft may yet discover was that nothing was done or said lovingly here. All was stated in the most naked horror imaginable. No love lay behind the intent. Rather, the satyr now knew that his body was being distilled and rarified so that he would lose the detritus of his individuality and become assimilated by “The Scream.” To be invisible, to scream forever and be, in essence, that scream made the two smoldering corpses shudder and clatter their bones together more violently. But, they could not wake themselves. They could never do that.

* * *

[This next section, considered by even some ardent Satanists as The Most Hideous Profane Thing, is survived in only phrases and a few pages of text. What follows is, according to the foremost expert, Doctor Helen Gaines, to be all that survives.]

The demon thrust his member into the cavity of the satyr’s spine, then folded the canvas of flesh back over the wound and made it heal, and went to pounding the mound of flesh…

“…with my son, place this between your lips and pierce it with your teeth. Swallow the pus and slurp down the rotted bits of flesh that come sluicing…”

…and the next thing he saw, or thought he saw, was a large man defecating fetuses into a rat-infested pit. The rats yipped like little dogs, eagerly awaiting the flesh of the mewling unborn.

And because he saw the hideous thing without the permission of his father, the demon rapped him across the face until the satyr’s teeth were flying everywhere…

…the satyr’s arms were lying motionless on the ground in front of him.

“This will please you,” said the demon. He picked up both heavy arms and began smashing the satyr with strong blows.

When the satyr regained consciousness, the demon was nowhere to be seen. He looked between his legs and saw one of his arms lodged in his arse.

[Thus ends this partial section.]

“Look, my son,” the demon said. “On our walk through my jurisdiction, we come across the bones of some whalers. If their bones are here, where do you suppose the other parts of their bodies rest?”

The satyr did not know and vomited on the rock floor in response.

“Well, that’s good, but not quite what I had in mind.”

The satyr stood next to him and gazed into a boiling black pool set in the floor.

“They are all lying on the bottom of this percolating pool, spineless, boiling, unable to move, unable to breathe… just screaming.”

The satyr stared into the pool in mock horror. The black boiling mass must be old blood, he thought. His reattached limbs grasped both sides of his handsome face in a grotesque imitation of terror. His mouth stayed open in its perpetual scream, and the satyr’s eyes were bulging. He really wanted to roar with laughter.

“It is funny, isn’t it?” the demon asked. “I only come to this exhibit to cheer myself.”

Red pulled all of the skin off the satyr in one mighty jerk at the back of the neck. He ripped the spine out of the nerve-exposed body and flung it to the ground.

“You must be purified even further, my son.” He prepared himself to throw the jelly-like mess of the satyr into the boiling pool. “I will only allow you to remain in here for one thousand times. I will then pull you out and we will continue our adventures.”

The demon slowly lowered the shuddering corpse — oh how it shuddered — into the pool. When the water reached his eyes, they popped and oozed a thick, green liquid.

Red released the jelly creature, then stood and urinated into the pool. He waited one thousand times.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“BLACK BALLED AGAIN”

“Now, my son, since your pain threshold has increased three greatness levels, we are going to enter the second level, or the next dimension of torture.”

“There are others?” the satyr asked casually, examining his reconstructed body.

“They are infinite,” the father said.

He mounted his son from behind. As the sound of pounding became deafening, the demon’s wings folded around them, and they vanished into another plane.

* * *

They appeared in a new place: The Second Level, or Stair of Torture. They watched a small hooded woman