It didn’t matter how fast I tried to run, the whistling kept growing closer. My feet were already slick with blood from pounding across the rocky ground that lay between the trees, and my arms and face were covered by a dozen scratches. It felt like the branches were reaching out to me as I passed, and perhaps they were, but I saw no way to avoid them. There was nothing but trees and fog and dark in this place, and while I wasn’t growing tired, I knew I was losing ground.
Then I saw what looked like a dim light in the distance. I had no idea whether it was a good sign or not—the idea of finding any kind of help or safe haven in Hell seemed unlikely—but at least it was something new, and it was hard to imagine it making things much worse. I veered to my right and headed toward what I could now see was flickering firelight, though the flames were a sickly green color that sent weak shafts of illumination between the trees as I approached. The whistling was even closer now, but I had forced myself to slow down and look at the figures surrounding the campfire.
Hiding near the edge of the light, I peered around the thick trunk of a tree at the small group gathered at the camp. I had no real point of reference, but they looked like they might be demons. All of them were twisted and monstrous, and while they all looked dangerous--some with ragged claws and others with dozens of tooth-filled slashes in their flesh that smacked hungrily in the dancing firelight--they all looked somewhat broken and sad too. It sounds strange to try and apply human emotions and behaviors to such alien creatures, but dejection and fear came off them like a stench, and every time the wind blew hard or ice cracked somewhere out in the dark, several of them would jump and look around uneasily.
I had the thought that I was surprised they hadn’t gotten spooked by the whistling, but then I realized the whistling was gone, and its absence wasn’t a comfort. Whatever had been making that tune was still here. I could feel it.
I almost went out to the group of monsters, both to warn them and to hopefully get safety in their numbers, but that’s when I noticed that they were cooking something on the fire. It was a pair of human children. I sucked in a deep breath, deciding to sneak away and keep moving, but that’s when I saw something at the perimeter of the firelight on the far side of the camp.
It was me. Or at least something that looked like me. Its eyes were glowing in the green light, and I realized with mounting horror that it wasn’t looking at the demons or the roasting children. It was looking at me. I was about to bolt when the other Cora gave me a smile and put a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture while shaking her head.
Then she was on them, moving like a blur and ripping into the half dozen creatures despite their large size and fearsome appearance. She wouldn’t kill them outright, not at first. She would maim them each in turn, crippling them enough that they could only crawl or stagger away from the light into the forest. Like wounded deer, they scattered in every direction, and my mirror self let them, licking her gore-soaked hand idly as though waiting for something.
Time passed, and then suddenly she was gone in a blur. A few moments later I heard an inhuman howl far in the distance. Then a second, a third, more…until all of the demonic campers had been tracked down and dealt with. It was hard to gauge time here, even in my head, but after the second scream I had begun to run. It didn’t seem I made it far before the last scream began, and within a short while I was hearing the whistling again. Closer this time and gaining fast.
I cast my gaze in every direction. There were no more landmarks, no more fires. Just deep, dark…Fuck. The poem! What was the poem? I didn’t know if I could trust Uncle Teddy’s suggestion, but I was out of options.
My voice sounded strange and hollow in my own ears as I began. “Hell is a forest both dark and deep…” Shit, that wasn’t right. And the whistling was almost on top of me now. “Hell is a forest deep and dark. Its ground is…fuck. Hell is a forest deep and dark. Its earth is cold, its trees are stark. Among the shades dwells the Hunter’s face…” My feet left the ground as I was shoved hard from behind and slammed into a tree. I slid down its surface with a grunt, my back burning where I had been touched. I looked up to see the Hunter, still wearing my face, walking up with a smile.
“Please send another in my place!”
Everything blurred and I felt like I was floating for a moment before landing back on the rocky ground with a groaning thud. I lifted my eyes, expecting to see the Hunter still coming toward me, but it was gone. Or rather, I was. I was still in the forests of Hell, but it was a different spot. To the left I could hear the roar of what sounded like a waterfall, and under that sound, what might have been the soft notes of a violin being played.
Teddy had bought me some time at least. Hopefully it would take some time for the Hunter to…
There was a blur of motion and it was back in front of me again. It wasn’t smiling any longer, and its anger, even using my expressions, was a terrible sight, pulling a discordant wail from my throat as I scrabbled back. I was ready to give up, to give in. There was no beating this thing or running from it. All I had done was piss it off. I kept moving backwards in an awkward crabwalk, scraping up my hands as I went, but I was out of options.
The Hunter moved toward me, its hand outstretched as it drew near. But then it was gone. The Hunter had just vanished into thin air. I sobbed with relief at first, slowly standing on shaky knees, but then I let out a scream. Laying where the Hunter had been was a burning doll.
The burning doll was mine.
“Ladies and gentleman, if I can have your attention please.” Standing on a low table in one corner of the room, I looked out across the gathered assembly of some of the most powerful dark magic users in the world. Most of them were old and ugly. You would think that performing the blackest of black magic rituals, potentially condemning yourself to eons in Hell (or worse if the rumors of the Hunter were true), would at least come with some guarantee of being young and hot. But no, while there were a few people that normally stood out from the crowd, here in my magic no fly zone, they looked as old, fat and homely as the rest. There was more that one black velvet muumuu in attendance, I can tell you that much, as well as several Victorian silk chokers that looked like wrappings around a turkey’s neck.
The reason, of course, was that they were without their glamours and enchantments. They had none of the tricks and trappings that they used to deceive others, none of the powers that gave them their air of superiority and their ability to control and ruin lives. What you were left with was something that looked vaguely like a goth threw up on a nursing home.
Still, they were all supremely dangerous. Intelligent and vicious sociopaths, they were more than capable of killing me if I didn’t play my part just right. And that would mean not only condemning me, but poor Cora, to Hell for a much longer period of time.
So I had smiled and chatted all night. Told jokes and acted friendly. I could tell some still viewed me with suspicion, but most had been mollified by my turning over Cora. They were all so arrogant, so used to getting their way, that the idea of “the dollmaker” betraying them seemed as alien as finding a dog reading a newspaper. But that’s the problem. Just because you don’t see something or think it’s possible doesn’t have any real bearing on what is or isn’t real. And you never really know what that dog is up to when you’re not looking.
“I gathered you here tonight in a celebration of all our years together.” A scattering of applause from the crowd, and then I went on. “As you know, I’ve painstakingly crafted you all new dolls as parting gifts tonight. A way of paying you back for all you’ve given me.” This time the applause was much louder and lasted some time before fading away.
“You’ve given me horror. Loneliness. Guilt. And a blot on my soul I might never be able to wash away. Though my hope is that tonight will be a good start.” The herd was looking confused and nervous now, glancing at each other questioningly. I pushed on before they could start interrupting.
“A couple of unique features about this house. This room, where I was brought back from Hell just days ago, is replicated on the floor below us and the floor above us. There, as here, only two doors lead into the room and both have a reinforced titanium core. There, as here, those doors were locked ten minutes ago.” Now the crowd was murmuring, confusion turning to anger as people started shouting questions. What was the meaning of this, etc. Typical poutiness from arrogant people starting to smell their own end.
“Now, in the room below us, large logs of the ritual wood we use for our little “undo” rituals have been set in the proper pattern and soaked in gasoline. They’ll be ignited on a timer in five minutes. In the room above us, are all of your new dolls. Painstakingly made, as I said. Crafted with care. Do you know how hard it was to get right? I had to make the dolls close enough to perfect that it would bind you to them but just off enough that they wouldn’t actually bring you back.”
The partygoers were largely silent now. Listening and calculating. I needed to wrap this up soon. “As some of you may know, you only get one shot at being brought back from Hell with a doll. If the doll bound to you is flawed, or if the ritual itself gets messed up…well, you’re going to have a bad time. So when your new dolls burn, you won’t be coming back again. Ever.”
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. Just rush me and kill me, find a way to thwart my plan. Or try and call for help, getting some of the guards and drivers waiting dutifully outside to break you out before the fire and smoke reaches this level. Both solid ideas. Which is why we have this.” I pulled a gun out of a small holster at the back of my waist, “And this.” I kicked the top off a large hatbox that sat on the table next to me.
“The gun is obvious. You rush me, I shoot you in the face. I can’t kill all of you with the gun, but I have a sneaking suspicion that your individual threshold for altruism and teamplay is pretty low, and wouldn’t it suck to be the one who gets the bullet?” I smiled at the crowd, feeling the waves of hatred and fear baking off them like heat. “The box is less obvious, so allow me to explain. Inside it is another, much smaller, ritual site with only one doll in it. It’s a very special doll made for someone very special. Or, if I’m being totally accurate, two very special someones. You’ll get to meet one of them when I set it on fire. You may have heard of them. They’re called the Hunter.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the room. These idiots had decided this was all some strange practical joke. But among them I saw a few terrified looks from those that were starting to understand what I had done.
I brought out a lighter, summoning the flame and tossing it in the box with Cora’s doll with one motion. I then put the gun to my temple.
“I really don’t want to be here when the Hunter arrives, so this is where I take my leave. See you bitches in Hell.”
And then I pulled the trigger.
I tried to put my doll out, though I wasn’t sure for what purpose, but there was nothing to extinguish it with. I thought about the sound of the waterfall nearby, and while it seemed unlikely I could get any real amount of water to the doll in time, it was burning too fiercely for me to pick it up. With no better option, I started heading toward the waterfall with the idea of trying to carry water cupped in my hands if I could, but I only made it a handful of steps before I saw a naked Teddy jogging in my direction.
“Cora! Long time no see. Looking well-ish.” He tried to smile, but it faltered and fell from his face quickly. “Look, I know this has all be terrifying, and I’m very glad you’re okay. I’m sorry you’ve gotten pulled into all this, but it’s almost over. I’d hug you, but we’re both naked, and I’m not that kind of uncle. So for now just come over here and wait with me.”
I wanted to be angry with him, but honestly the relief at seeing someone familiar overwhelmed every other emotion for the moment. So I nodded numbly and went with him a few yards distant behind a thick tree. He smiled again, this time more genuinely, and gave me a wink. “Hard to judge the time here, but I don’t think it’ll be too long.”
After what felt like a few minutes, naked people starting appearing out of thin air. First one or two, then in several larger batches before slowing down to a trickle. Most of them were older looking, and I realized that I recognized several of them from my uncle’s wake. Even better, I saw that Milly and Dilly were among them. I gave my uncle a questioning look and he nodded, whispering, “The Hunter is making short work of them. In our world, if it kills them they go to Hell. In Hell, if it kills them…well, no one knows where they go. Speaking of which, our friend the Hunter will be back here shortly. Do not run when you see it. I think it’ll be busy with our friends there long enough to buy us the time we need.”
As if summoned by his words, the Hunter, now flickering between the appearance of the nearly three dozen people it had just killed, reappeared in the midst of their condemned souls. Every face it shifted to shared the same satisfied smile as it took them all in. They tried to run, but I saw it grab Dilly and tear her in half like tissue paper, her body disintegrating into a gray floating ash and then nothing. Milly let out a scream and the Hunter rounded on her as Teddy disappeared from next to me. I had time to feel a new swell of terror before my vision blurred and I found myself rolling off a table in Teddy’s ritual room.
I landed in a thick carpet of broken bones and gore. Retching, I tried to stand but kept slipping back down into it. Finally. I managed to use the table as support to get up. I almost fell again when I saw Teddy’s corpse laying on the table, a chunk of his head missing on one side.
The door on the far end of the room opened and Teddy came in, his new body whole but still disturbingly naked. He looked around the room and then at me. “Hey there, sunshine. You need a bath.”
“So I guess I owe you an explanation or two.”
I was freshly washed and scrubbed now, sitting in a large terrycloth robe on the sofa in Teddy’s parlor. Teddy sat across from me, his expression serious and his tone sincere. It helped him not making a joke out of it anymore, but I was still confused, angry and scared.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
He nodded. “Okay, well I’ll start at the beginning. For the last several years, going on almost a decade now, I’ve been studying and planning a way to get rid of them. Permanently. I didn’t want to just kill them, as I know enough to know some of them might find another way out of Hell. So the obvious solution was to ensure the Hunter got them all quickly, sending them to wherever it sends them. When I had most everything ready, I killed myself.” I went to ask a question, but he was already shaking his head. “Yeah, the whole stroke thing, not true. I had that set up to hide the fact that it was planned. I needed to get to Hell to pick up the last ingredient I needed for my plan. Hair from the Hunter.”
Now I did interrupt. “How did you get hair from the Hunter without getting killed yourself?”
“Well, I didn’t get it from the Hunter. I got it from a demon I’d been in contact with that thought I could get him out of Hell. Demons are not big fans of Hell anymore as you might imagine.”
I shuddered. “Yeah, I saw some of that firsthand.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry for what you had to go through. I didn’t intend for you to be a part of it at all past burning my doll, but when you stayed, I had to incorporate you into the plan as best I could. Anyway, the demon had gotten some of the Hunter’s hair at some point--he claimed it was from the Hunter’s final battle with Lucifer, but who knows really. He wanted to trade it for safe passage out, and when he saw I was lying to him, the bastard tried to gut me. I got away, but he was on my trail. Thankfully you got me out when you did.”
“Yeah, and your way of thanking me was to turn me over to those hags.” I grimaced. “Your buddy Dilly is quite the Hell historian, so she told me some stuff about the Hunter too.”
He sighed, rubbing his neck. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. But it really was necessary. I had to get them all here, and for that they had to still trust me, and the only way to regain their trust was to frame Myers and give you over. Plus, I knew I could get you back from Hell.”
Glaring at him, I took a deep breath before speaking. “So what exactly did you do to them?”
Teddy broke into a grin. “Now this is the good part. You know what a nesting doll is? It’s those little dolls that have smaller versions of the doll inside it. That’s essentially what your doll was. The head of the outer doll contained a smaller version, and that smaller version contained a tiny version. The outer doll was bound with the Hunter’s hair, as was the smaller doll inside. The tiny doll at the center had your hair, as well as blood from me. I had no blood to put on the Hunter’s doll other than mine or yours, so I used yours on a hunch--or my gifted doll intuition if you prefer. I already knew from talking to that demon that the Hunter liked to mirror its prey, so my hope was that your blood would act the same as kin blood for summoning the Hunter.”
I frowned. “But how did you know the Hunter would be hunting and mirroring me?”
He winced. “I don’t know a ton about the Hunter, but I know more than most. And the impression I’ve gotten is that it’s pretty vindictive. It does not like people escaping Hell via the dolls. So I figured it would be after you pretty quick since you helped me escape already.”
“So you guessed, and your best plan put me running from the Hunter for hours or days or whatever in Hell. It could have killed me, sent me somewhere you couldn’t get me back from. Did you think about that?”
His expression grew dark. “Of course I did. I hated it. But killing these people, obliterating them from the face of Hell and Earth was more important than you or me. This isn’t just about revenge. These people mean to break the universe. Tonight we took out some of their most powerful members, and if we got sacrificed along the way, so be it.” He smiled thinly. “Still, we didn’t, so yay for that. Now if I can finish explaining?”
I nodded sullenly. I saw his point, but I didn’t like it. I could still feel the chill of those woods on my skin, and I was having a hard time not constantly peering into the shadowed corners of the room. With an effort, I pulled my focus back on what he was telling me.
“Okay, so I got them all here. I locked them in that room with me, lying and telling them I had the ritual pattern set in the floor below them and the dolls above them. In truth, the pattern and the dolls were both above. I did have charges set to detonate on the lower floor if we weren’t back in a few minutes, but I didn’t plan on burning down my house if I could avoid it, in part because I didn’t want us returning to an inferno. But I was trying to hedge my bets. If the Hunter didn’t get summoned, or if he worked slower than I anticipated in killing them all, I wanted any outside efforts by their people to be focused on getting them out and dousing the logs, not the explosives I had hidden or the ritual room I had set up above them. As it turned out, the Hunter did come and kill them after all, and the timed incendiary I had set upstairs to light the wood and dolls on the second floor was already burned out by the time we got back.”
“But how did the dolls actually work this time?”
He shrugged. “Well, mine was like normal. I had gotten some blood from you before I turned you over, so I was set to get pulled back when mine burned. Theirs were all flawed--they had no blood on them and had several other intentional imperfections, so once they burned, using the dolls to return became a dead end for my dear friends. As for yours, all the layers of dolls were carefully prepared to keep burning. I had to make sure it burned all the way through to the inner doll or you’d be stuck there with the rest of them. So the outer doll burned and summoned the Hunter here, sending the doll to Hell. The middle doll burned, summoning the Hunter back to Hell and bringing the doll back here. Finally, the inner doll burned, sending it back to Hell and pulling you back here.” He sat back with a satisfied smile. “Make sense?”
I scowled at him. “Yeah. Shit. You were taking a lot of chances with all of this. I guess I get why, but fuck.” I paused. “So is it over now? Really and truly done?”
His smile was cold now. “Oh, I’m not done yet. There are a lot more of these people out there, and they need to go. I’ve got the resources I need to make that happen, and a lot of atonement is going to be required if I have a chance of not winding up back in the forest some day. But for you, yeah, it’s done. I’m going to be giving you a cashier’s check for ten million dollars, and after you deposit that, you don’t ever have to associate with me again.”
I looked at him in stunned silence, not sure of what to say.
“Of course,” he continued, his smile warmer now and his eyes dancing. “You could always stick around and help out your ol’ Uncle Teddy.”
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Credits
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