Bits and Pieces

Despite the rain, the grass of the soccer field was still a somber brown. The field was designed as a slightly lopsided square, with a thicket of leafless foliage lining a single side. Dirty grey clouds swirled overhead, the panicked sun desperately trying to puncture the thick must with slender beams of yellow light. Off to the side, as to not attract too much attention, a crude iron manhole was slightly unhinged near the beginning of the skeletal wood.

Callie was alone in the mist, clutching a slightly deflated soccer ball with her sad lip puckered, and eyes tucked beneath half-closed lids. A ragged canary yellow jersey barely clung to her soaked shoulders, and sagging black shorts hugged her hips. Matted tangles of jet black hair curled pleasantly to frame her small, dripping chin, which she had desperately tried to tame back into somewhat of a ponytail.

Setting her ball down by mud-speckled tennis shoes, she got on her knees to feel the grass for an heirloom locket that had dropped from her pocket during the fray of her winning goal.

Instantly, her palm clammed up from the slimy, chilled surface of the manhole. A calm gray steam wafted from the crack in the top; it wreaked of scorched meat and the pungent stench of sewage. The glinting necklace had rolled to the edge of the hole, and when she reached out to retrieve it, she accidentally tapped it with a 'ping' into the smoking pit.

Callie swore, and slipped her hand beneath the iron grate into the cool, damp air of the portal. Feeling for a ladder while sliding the cap off, she breathed in deeply and squeezed her nose between two fingers to keep the smell bearable.

Like a welcoming sauna, the heated mist whipped around her. When she finally found her footing on a creaking ladder, the world began to dissolve like spilled ink around her, and the comforting steam room turned into the smog of an overdone industrial park.

Chunky runoff pitter-pattered on the top of her head as she made her nervous descent. Upon finally making contact with the floor, Callie cringed. Her feet sunk and sloshed through a thick syrup of gooey brown waste. Letting go of the last rung, she looked up. Not even a speck of light could be seen any longer, and every movement she made seemed to echo through undiscovered halls forever.

Surprisingly enough, the gently rolling stream turned out to not be what she originally assumed, but a hot river of bubbling fresh blood. She was already painted red up to her knee-caps. Callie froze; something splashed her in the face with a blob of steaming gore.

About one hundred meters ahead, a tiny form stood crouched in front of an oozing grate, splashing it's stringy hands playfully in the stream. It's figure was difficult to make out because of the constantly shifting green light emanating from the red water below. A rasp slur rolled from the shadow's tongue, and a single gnarled finger beckoned her closer. Nervously, the girl complied, wading through the sludge with a waddling slosh; each step she took echoed for what seemed like miles.

The closer Callie became, the more distant the summoner appeared, until it was nothing more than a speck in the putrid haze, and then vanished altogether. A child's moans reverberated from behind, and the slouched form was splashing her from the back. Globs of thick blood soaked her hair and stained her jersey; it stung her arms, boiling and sizzling upon contact.

Her neck cracked when she turned her head sharply; the bottom rungs of the original ladder had been clawed away, so that the nearest one was far out of reach. An immediate fear overtook Callie.

"Hello?" She murmured, too afraid to shout; nothing but an incessant dripping replied.

"Hello!?" She braved a shout, and put her hand to her ear to listen; nothing but a faint mimicking taunt echoed back.

"I saw you! I know you're here... uh, the ladder broke. I'm stuck! If you can just help me up, I'd totally appreciate that!" Callie's nerves began to dissipate a bit, and she settled to sit atop the mound of severed rungs gently rocking in the bloody ripples, but was not phased. She was too tired to be disturbed at the moment.

Suddenly, Callie tensed at the choppy symphony that began to surround her. By the time it washed over the girl like a melodic tidal wave, a second presence emerged, introducing itself with a soft tapping on her shoulder.

The scratchy record continued to swamp her in a passionate whirlwind of operatic allure: an orgasmic finale of trumpets and flutes; of the furious pounding on drums and the groans of baying trombones.

At this point, the taps lessened to curious strokes, tingling down her spine like an urgent whisper.

"Well, now... I can't deny myself company, now can I?" The voice was like a sip of poison draught that strangled every inch of her person, and the touch was the spider's fang sneaking to her fattest vein.

Callie's eyes had detached themselves from the shine of the trinket a couple of inches ahead, and she looked straight up.

Death stared back. He stared with those hollow eyes and a tangled mess of black cobweb hair glued to his long, bony face with blood and sweat. Licking his dry lips clean of a line of soot, the tips of his fingers tip-toed across her cheek. Having finger-printed ink spots beneath her eyes, he continued to draw black trails behind her ears.

"Yeah, I think you can." Callie sputtered, shaking out her hair with a nervous grunt; she still could not bring herself to struggle with the man's hold.

So lovely do scarlet stained sycamores grow

in a ring 'round thy dubious devil's grove

where chained there is, some bastard beastie loathes;

where wilting withered vines of ruby red do flow.

His response was curiously etched with a rusted railroad spike into the tattooed graffiti of the adjacent wall. Death ignored Callie's defense completely, and instead kept a foot in rhythmic tapping with the resounding orchestra spilling from slivers in the concrete.

"Was that supposed to scare me? I just want to get back up... I honestly don't really care about your stupid voodoo, or whatever." The girl mustered overtop of the muffled melody.

Death tipped his head to one side, hair shrouding his face like a clump of slimy kelp. The gears in his jaw must have been jammed; an unusually malicious smile would not fade from his broad lips.

"What do you want, anyways... money, sex; something to mark off on your criminal record?" Callie bitterly inquired, although her brain crossed its' fingers that he would just turn out to be odd.

"Company."

For a good moment, the shivering blackness that swelled around Callie was completely devoid of both scent and feeling of any sort, and then it all came rushing over her like a tidal wave of intense sensory overload.

Something swept her from her feet, gently lying her in what felt like a narrow, ice-cold box. Each side was rippled like poorly blown glass, but could be made out still faintly shimmering in the otherwise lightless room.

The outlines of two slender, pointed faces lowered to a few inches from Callie's face, breath prickling the girl's skin with a frosty chill. As tiny pinhead cerulean lights came to life on the ceiling, like thousands of pulsing sunspots, the whole room seemed to be caught ablaze.

This illuminated a horrible realization; the figures bent over Callie had seemed remotely humanoid by silhouette, but no longer.

Patchwork masks stitched together from all sorts of different faces were crudely nailed in lopsided fashions over otherwise featureless slick metal heads. The motionless, gaping mouths wiggled a bit, and blood-stained eye sockets had been sewn into the fleshy quilt upside-down. The eyeballs dangled from little chains that hung from two different ears on each abomination. Each hunched thing wore a heavy blood-soaked apron, with necklaces and bracelets linked with yellowed jawbones and teeth of their previous victims.

Fifteen stilted legs creaked as they skittered in unison like oversized spiders to a nearby slanted shelf. This was piled with discarded bones and rotting muscle, dust and webs, and trays of assorted neglected sharp objects. One retrieved a splintered measuring stick, and the other, a tray of what appeared to be knife shards and overused dissection needles.

The nearest abomination snapped it's partially skinned, wiry foot-long fingers as surprisingly tight braces dug into Callie's skin. They secured her ankles and wrists. A third arm snaked from the further abomination's fat neck, reaching for a muddy spade stuffed behind some hanging barbed wire and a cluster of recovered coffins.

The nearest clicked twice, and they both worked together to heave a hefty lid on top of Callie, completely sealing her from any sound in the outside room. Blue steam flooded the room, settling around the agitated creatures' feet. Callie could see nothing but white, as their features were distorted by the jagged prismatic cut of the container. One rapped at the outside with a bloody scalpel, humming mechanically.

Death stood over her casket, sipping a pungent lemon tea.

He flipped a shiny pendant between two knuckles.

Callie came to a gasping, airless revelation... peace.

Her lips were frozen in a dry little smile.

She watched 'welcome' stitch Death's lips between sips, and rolled over on her side, closing her eyes.

Callie listened intently for the end of the world.