“You have paid full fair, so I’ll carry you through,

For it’s only right you should have your due.

Why, the laborer always expects his hire,

So I’ll land you safe in the lake of fire,

“Where your flesh will waste in the flames that roar,

And my imps torment you forevermore.”

                                    -The Hellbound Train

CHAPTER FOUR
 

We stood silently for a brief moment, as if he was giving time to take in what he had just said. His head was turned away from me and I had no idea how to react. He had completely shattered any hope I previously had of finding Tiffany. I couldn't understand why.

"No?" I asked dumbly, a wave of disbelief washing over me. "...what do you mean...no...?"

His head snapped in my direction and glared at me. His eyes had become so dark. It was almost as if his pupil had expanded to encompass his entire iris. This was it. This was the evil that had created the monster.

The room had grown so cold. I felt as if I were choking.

And in a blink, his eyes had returned to normal, and his face softened. He turned his head down and ran a hand through his hair, obviously searching for the words to say. I kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to anger him again.

"Kirsty," he said, finally, "Tiffany is not here."

I could literally feel the blood drain from my face.

She wasn’t here? Then where was she?

"But I saw--"

"She was never here," he continued, cutting me off. "I'm afraid you've fallen victim to the Lament Configuration."

She was never…

I felt like crying. I felt like screaming. I felt like pulling out my hair and banging my fists on the floor and taking Elliot Spencer, or whatever the fuck his name was, and beating him over and over again until it made sense.

"You mean...you mean she was never...she wasn't here?" I could hear my own voice crack. "Ever?"

He made no reply.

"Then where is she?" It didn't make sense. "You're lying! No one has seen her for weeks."

He must be lying! She had to be here! She certainly wasn’t in the “real” world, that was for damn sure.

Faster than I could have ever imagined, he strode towards me and shoved me down onto to the bed, pinning me under his weight and grabbing me by the shoulders. His eyes went straight through me.

"Did you learn nothing from your first visit?" His voice was a venomous whisper. I felt his fingers biting into the flesh at my collarbone. "We all have our own hell."

I've come for my father!

But he is in his own Hell, child, and quite unreachable.

I don't believe you!

But it's true. He is in his own Hell, just as you are in yours.

I felt like dying. I was going to die. And so was Tiffany. I had failed Tiffany. I had failed her.

"But..." I looked up at him and chose my words carefully. His grip had loosened considerably, but he was still rigid and pressing me down onto the mattress. "...but then how did I get here?"

"You may enter another's hell, but only if they allow it," Captain Spencer said calmly. "The first time you visited hell, your uncle, Frank, he invited you into his hell, but your father did not. That is why you were unable to reach him."

I nodded, trying to grasp what he had just said. His face had become expressionless and his eyes were staring at me, but they weren't focused on me. He seemed to be in a trance.

"Why did it bring me here, then?"

My question snapped him out of his reverie. "I don't know, quite frankly. Although, he might be trying to..." He trailed off and his eyes glossed over again.

"Being trying to what?"

"Not long ago, I brought another here. I had hoped that she might help me capture the beast."

I racked my mind. "Joey?"

For the first time, he smiled faintly. His hands had slipped away from my neck, and I could feel his fingers playing with my hair. "Yes, Joey.” The smile fell from his lips. “I'm sad to say, she didn't quite succeed."

I shuddered involuntarily. She didn't quite succeed. I could only assume that meant I probably wouldn't quite succeed, either.

“So what am I?” I finally asked.

He looked down at me thoughtfully. “I suppose you would be the other half.”

Other half of what?

As if he had read my thoughts, he explained further. “Like it is to me, you would have been to Joey.”

It to him? It? As in, IT—it?

“So I’m a pawn?” God, my head hurt so much. “I’m here to…to…?”

Captain Spencer sighed and finally pulled back from me. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the tingling sensation in my legs. He had been lying on top of me so long that my feet had fallen asleep. He shifted to where he could sit on the bed and look down at me. I stayed were I was.

“It would seem that he brought you here to help dispose of me,” he said, coolly.

He was being so calm about the whole situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t seem concerned, but had I been in his place, I doubt that I would have wanted to be in the room with my eliminator. Hell, I didn’t want to be in the same room with him earlier, and he had been trying to help me!

I eventually found my voice. “So what do you suggest I do?”

“Well, I—”

His voice cut off as the atmosphere suddenly changed. We both watched as the light gradually dissipated. Before I knew it, the light was completely gone and I was left alone in the darkness. The warmth from the captain’s body had disappeared and was instead replaced by an arctic chill.

It was then that I heard the bells.


Chapter 5