Woke up swallowing my own blood again today. It made me gag and wretch so hard my vision wobbled and my skull felt like a fucking IUD went off inside it. I tore some tattered curtains into adhoc bandages so I could keep my innards from spilling out and tripping me whenever I moved. It’s funny that when one of us conscripts is in Entropolis we can be wounded as if we were alive, but back in the Fake we’re like fucking zombies.
It’s impossible to tell how long I’ve been entrenched here in the Branch Inn. Time’s all fucked up in The Warzone. Seems that a cadre of pain-in-ass soldier demons took it upon themselves to claim this shitty little tavern as their own personal sadistic pet project. I’d come to this dive in order to “go AWOL”, so to speak, but when I got here, I was taken totally by surprise by them. The little fuckers. Visibility in The Warzone is shit under any circumstances, but it’s even harder to spot soldier demons. You can only see them when they open their hideous little maws. When the brimstone shines out like red-orange flares obscured by a forest of malformed teeth. And they only open their mouths when they attack. And by then it’s too fucking late; you might as well cozy up to the idea spending eternity in Il Purgatorio. And, since the nearest point of exit was about a mile west and up a bridge from here, the thought was looking sunnier by the eternal moment.
I don’t even know how I got past them, but once I was inside I hid in the rotted freezer for what seemed like an eon. Then I systematically tested every filthy inch of that condemned place for weaknesses in their blockade. Every door, every window, every possible hole. Hence the rotten bandages keeping my intestines from trailing behind me like something out of Clive Barker’s head. (I hear he writes propaganda for THE LIGHT, but it’s probably just more Divine bullshit.)
I would say that being in Entropolis is like being in Hell, but the only ones who know for certain what Hell is truly like aren’t talking. Maybe the SubRasa has some kind of nondisclosure policy? Maybe that’s what keeps them in business? The only thing I know for certain, squatting here in this fucking umbral wasteland, is that Nick the Black better send some fucking help, or I’ll never see another sunny day, even if it’s only an illusion of Divine Providence.
About what seemed like the 1000th day of my internment, if that’s even the right phrase, or even the right estimate, there was a peculiar light shining through one of the western-facing windows. It reminded me of every description St. Elmo’s Fire I’ve ever read; a sort of ghostly flickering campfire. When I went to the window to investigate, I heard the unmistakable sounds of battle filtering through the broken glass. There was the sound of a gun, only it was drenched in some strange flanging cadence. Also, I heard shouting from a throat that was definitely not that of those trying to end me. The conflict seemed to go on for days, and at several points, I thought I heard my own name being called.
It was all so surreal to me. I mean, who knows how fucking long I’d been absconded in that place? The shifty smoky bastards had plenty of time to work up a fantastic mindfuck in order to confuse me. So I stayed put, until I heard that voice, the one that sounded human and not like some steel barrel being torn apart by a chainsaw, shout, “Bella, are you in there?!” There was no way that these demons knew my name, being that names are unimportant to their agenda. Following an immeasurable moment of consideration, I finally screamed, “Yes! I’m in here!”
Another eternity passed before the man outside shouted, “I think I can keep them off, so get your ass out the back exit!”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll do a round of ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’, what the fuck do you think?!” a brief pause, then, “We can run up the alley and get the fuck--” he paused, and I heard a loud noise like the hammer of a blacksmith on molten steel, “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!”
I ran around the right side of the bar, made my way through the restaurant and slammed my shoulder into the rear eastern exit, taking me outside. I could see the sun in it’s half-eclipse directly overhead, and then a sudden flash of that eerie light as a tall man in a dark trench coat ran around the corner of the building from Union, that same light blossoming from his hands. I heard him scream ‘RUN!’, and I did just that. We ran around the corner of the tavern, turning west down the alley in the rear. The stranger’s hands flashed wildly behind him as we did so. In the peculiar half-light, I could barely make out, in my peripheral vision, the blurred cobalt smoke of our pursuers, as we both made a mad dash for the end of the alley, which was a few blocks from the bridge that meant our salvation. so to speak.
Almost comically, the smoky fuckers seemed to lose interest in us the closer we made it to the bridge that spanned the Rio Grande River. And once we were over the river entirely, their pursuit was stopped completely. We jogged a few more steps before we realized that the skirmish was over. After sucking in a couple of deep breaths, I finally was able to take in face of my liberator. He was nearly two heads taller than me, wearing a black knit cap on his head. He sported a narrow soul patch running the length of his chin, and looked like something out of a music video. The kind of video you’d see at 1AM on MTV in 1996. Long dark coat, old ratty T-shirt that said something like Warlord Piñatas, but a Raiders logo & black cargo’s tucked into worn military issue boots.
“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked the guy who pulled me out of my last stand.
“Doesn’t matter”, he said, looking down at my midriff, diagnosing my wound. He then slipped off his shirt, being careful not to upset his cover, and tore it in half. Wincing regretfully, I might add, and wrapped it around my stomach like an adhoc bandage.
“Thanks.” I spat through my teeth, as the pain melted into me like a spider-bite from hell.
“Yeah”, he said, pointing up the hill from the bridge, “see that weird light coming from around that corner up there? That’s where we cross over.”
“Okay man”, I gritted, “lead the way.” I felt like I was going to pass out.
Without another word, he slipped his arm behind my wobbly legs and picked me up like a sack of potatoes and started up the hill.
Everything from then until now, as I became numbly awake, is a black mark on my memory. My eyes opened onto bright light, which made the scene a blur of dark moving shapes. I heard a muffled voice tell me to may bill, or was it lay still?
As my vision clarified, I recognized one of the dark shapes hovering over me. It was Nick.
“You’re free and clear, Bella.”
And, for the first time in years, I felt the sensation of warm tears run down my cheeks.
