bungakertas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bungakertas) wrote2018-01-21 06:47 pm
bungakertas) wrote2018-01-21 06:47 pm
Entry tags:
Nine Circles
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): violence, minor character death, death themes, hell themes, general dark and unhappy atmosphere
Summary: The Grim Reaper carries a scythe, and the Devil has a pitchfork. When your parents say your dog "went away to a big farm", they're not being metaphorical.
Author's Notes: Based on the prompt in the summary.
*~*~*
It had been a week since Roscoe went missing. A whole week without that dog trotting along right beside the back wheel of his bike. Rich was way past worried and straight into downright terrified. It was dangerous to go missing around here with Nine Circles just up the road. And he was more than scared enough to do something he really, really shouldn’t do.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned. His parents didn’t make a lot of money because anyone who could afford to moved very far away from this town. In lieu of getting away, they had made sure he understood the dangers of their area. Every kid who intended to live to be eighteen understood the dangers of their area.
Dark Woods was a town that, first off, didn’t have a lot of woods. There were a few scattered clumpings of trees here and there, but there were whole sections where nothing at all would grow. Not even grass. So the town was always dusty, because they lived on a place that seemed nearly flat when you looked at it, so the wind just picked up everything and blew it along with nothing to stop it or break it up but the occasional building.
Dark Woods wasn’t flat though. The ground sloped just slightly. You couldn’t really tell except that it was a little easier to walk towards Nine Circles, on the outskirts of town, than it was to walk away from it, because Nine Circles was actually in a slight bowl depression. The ground sagged beneath it. Every so often Mom or Dad would say that the slope was getting steeper, but Rich had never noticed it. He’d just assumed it was a thing grown-ups said sometimes.
The thing was, even if it was easier to walk towards Nine Circles, nobody should do it. Ever. If you were headed in that direction, you were always going somewhere else. You never went “by Nine Circles.” You always went “to such-and-such.” It was easy to get turned aside and end up closer than you intended, too. So if you were taking your bike home from the store, you had to keep your destination clearly in mind, or else you could end up headed straight to the gate and not even realize it. And it always took longer to turn around and leave than you thought it would.
Rich was terrified that Roscoe had gotten turned aside. It happened sometimes.
So here he was, hiding his bike in a ditch outside of Nine Circles, looking at the stile over the fence that he would have to climb to look for Roscoe. Mom was gonna ground him forever, but it’d be worth it if he could find Roscoe and bring him back okay.
Dumb dog. Everybody knew not to get mixed up with Nine Circles.
The stile was easy enough to climb. Straight into the Nine Circles apple orchard.
It was a beautiful orchard. Nice, tall trees with big, juicy fruits ripening on the branches. The colors were slightly…muted. Like a picture that had faded a little. The story was that all these apple trees had been bred out of a single fruit from a long time ago, and that they tasted delicious. Rich had never eaten one.
The fruits are sweet, but they are rot,
They’ll keep you wide awake.
And if you sleep, you wish you’d not.
You only dream of snakes!
It was an old clapping game about Nine Circles the girls in his class used to play. Looking at the big, tempting apples, it didn’t seem like a very fun game right now. He’d filled up on snacks before he crossed onto Nine Circles, but he was still hungry from the faint smell of apples in the air.
Still, there was no sign of Roscoe, or any animals at all in the orchard, so he pressed on to the next field.
It was a corn field, long straight rows of plants, not quite at their full growth, but over his head, anyway. He could see signs of people having been here, but no actual people were around anywhere. Which was good. Rich wasn’t looking to meet anyone here.
He plunged into the field, not really thinking beyond wanting to look for Roscoe. Something about the distance seemed off, though. Like the farm took up a lot more space than he would've thought, walking around it. Or maybe he was just moving more slowly?
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when he heard voices at the far end of the field. They all sounded very flat, being chased towards him by a stern, hard shout.
Rich forgot caution and ran for the edge of the cornfield, away from the voices, desperate to get away from the field before anyone entered it.
He burst through the last row of corn to see a dirt road, with nowhere to hide at all, but across the road was a vineyard stretching for what seemed like an endless distance.
Rich made a dash for it anyway, racing to the third row and throwing himself to the ground to look back at the cornfield. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was sure they would hear it, but no one appeared to notice him.
People were filing into the cornfield, and it looked like they were watering each plant by hand. Rich wasn’t sure why since Nine Circles was huge and made plenty of money. Not locally, but there were some places he’d heard of where Nine Circles was the preferred brand. They could afford to have a commercial watering system, but here they were with people—who looked hot and miserable—doing the job instead. A man followed them, gaunt to the point of skeletal, carrying a scythe and hurrying each of the workers along. He didn’t do or say anything that was overly threatening, but Rich could see the workers were all scared of him and cowered or flinched when he came near.
He had heard of this man. Some people called him Uncle Heinrick, though Rich had never heard of anyone who was related to him. Nobody said out loud what his scythe could do, but everyone agreed it was awful. It was certainly sharp enough.
A hand clamped down hard over Rich’s mouth and a huge body fell on top of his, pinning him down and preventing him from moving.
“Do not be afraid. Do not cry out. Do not panic or struggle. It is very important that we do not get caught,” a man’s voice said above his ear.
Waitaminnit. He knew that voice. It sounded like…
“I will remove my hand from your mouth. Nod if you agree not to yell.”
Rich nodded.
The hand moved and he turned his head.
It was Joe, from church. Rich knew him. He was nice. Or, at least, Rich had thought that he was.
“You work for Nine Circles?” Rich hissed in shock.
“I absolutely do not. And you should not be here,” Joe replied. “I came to get you.”
“Roscoe ran away. I’m afraid he ended up here.”
A dark look passed over Joe’s face. “Your dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Your concern for your companion is righteous, but you take on too great a risk for the sake of an animal, however beloved. We will leave. We will keep watch for the dog as we go,” Joe informed him.
There was a sick-sounding “thud” from across the road, and Rich looked to see one of the people working in the cornfield lying on the ground, very, very, very still. The man with the scythe was standing very far away with a horribly satisfied look on his face.
“What did he do?” Rich asked fearfully.
“The worker’s term of service has expired. Heinrick takes them very quickly after that,” Joe explained. “Come, quickly. We are leaving.”
Joe led him back, deeper into the vineyard, making Rich walk where he could be watched at all times.
Rich had always been vaguely unsettled by The Family at church. Two men, Mike and Gabe, were the oldest of the siblings, and they had a seemingly endless supply of brothers. They never gave a last name, so everyone just called them The Family. And despite being so enormous, nobody knew where they lived. Not any of them.
All of them were huge, and serious, and stern. Never rude or unkind or short. And they spoke to everyone with the same measured formality. Old, young, men, women, didn’t matter, they didn’t seem to notice. The only adjustment they ever seemed to make was for young children, they never used big words. Or for Mr. Harris, who was hurt in his brain and didn’t always make a lot of sense. But that was just a change in the words they used, they were exactly the same way otherwise. Rich had never seen any of The Family laugh. Not ever.
They were always doing nice stuff for people, though. If you got stuck somewhere, they would fix your bike up without even asking what was wrong with it. They just knew. Or if you were building a new shed or something, five of them would turn up right on time if just one of them heard about it. They brought food to people when they were sick, read to old folks who were stuck in bed. Always busy helping people.
They were still really scary, though. They were so big and serious, even if they were nice. So Rich knew he was safe with Joe, but he still felt nervous around him.
At the edge of the vineyard, Rich saw another dirt road. Joe suddenly pulled him to the ground just inside the last row of grapevines. “Be silent.”
They waited quietly as a rumble filled the air, and then a huge silver truck came rolling up the road. Other than the fact that it looked like all the other over-sized, expensive trucks that his dad wanted but could never afford, Rich didn’t recognize the brand. There was a logo of four horses on the front grill, but he’d never heard of a car company with a logo like that. It passed them, and as Rich watched it roll away, he saw the tailgate was down and the worker who’d collapsed had been dumped in the bed of the truck next to a blue tarp.
“Was that—?”
“It was the man who fell,” Joe told him. “We will resume our trip.”
The two of them crossed the road quietly, into a fallow field where a herd of goats were grazing. On the far side was a fence with another stile. It seemed to take them a very long time to reach it. Joe hurried him to the stile and urged him over. The two of them began walking around back towards where Rich had stashed his bike. Weirdly, it didn’t seem to take as much time to reach the bike as it had to cross just the field with the goats. They didn’t speak the whole time, but Rich did find it was easier to stay focused on not slipping through the fence onto Nine Circles land with Joe beside him. And Joe kept an eye on the farm next to them, on guard for the slightest sign of trouble.
Rich retrieved his bike from where he’d hidden it in the ditch.
Joe watched him pull it up and said, “You were wise to hide this. Foolish to enter the Nine Circles, but you did exercise some foresight.”
“Were we ever in danger?” Rich asked, wondering now if he’d imagined how creepy everything had seemed.
“Very grave danger,” Joe assured him. And that was that. The Family had a way of knowing things, they were always serious, and they never, ever joked. If Joe said the danger existed, it did.
So, he took the bike and they walked back towards the main road and the gate to Nine Circles. Rich scowled at it. Over the big wooden gate, usually left open, was a huge metal arch with something written on it in weird letters that no one could read. Nobody even knew what language it was in. But it didn’t say anything nice, everyone was sure about that.
In the road was a plain white truck. Old, but well-cared for. One of The Family's trucks. They had a supply of them seemingly as endless as they had brothers. None flashy or over-sized, like the ones from Nine Circles, but homier.
A man was at the wheel. It was Tate! Rich had only seen him a few times, usually talking with Mike and Gabe. He must be pretty important in The Family. Joe and he made a beeline for the truck.
Tate looked him over as they approached. "You frightened us, Richard Andrews. I am pleased you are well."
"How did you know I was here?" Rich asked, as Joe loaded his bike into the truck bed, suddenly realizing that it was pretty strange they had known to come after him.
"Nine Circles loses workers often and seeks to fill their ranks with whoever they can lure in. We watch the edges of the property as much as possible and try to retrieve anyone who crosses them," Tate told him.
"They kidnap people?" Rich asked in surprise, looking to Joe who was coming back to join them again. Obviously there was something…weird about the place, but he hadn't thought they would do that.
The brothers shared a frustrated look. "Not technically," Joe told him. "They will always offer a choice. The terms will be stated, but they will always be unfair. The only way to defeat them is to refuse them."
"Well, hey there!" called a voice from behind them.
"That was faster than expected," Tate said, sounded very displeased.
"Welcome! Don't get a lot of people hanging out near my gate!" the voice said, insistently.
The three turned to see a Heinrick standing with his scythe next to the man who'd called out to them, who was holding a pitchfork. They were standing in front of that huge silver truck with the horses on the grill.
If Heinrick had looked gaunt before, he looked more or less dead next to this man. He was vibrant and handsome. Tall. Inviting. He held a pitchfork loosely in one hand, and was gazing on them with a…very cold look, now that Rich actually noticed his eyes.
"Oh, hey there, Rich! I've been looking for you," the man said, holding out the hand that was not hanging on to the pitchfork. "Luke Scratch."
Rich looked to Joe and Tate in panic. Everybody had heard of Mr. Scratch. He ran Nine Circles—ran, not owned, nobody ever said "owned"—and nobody wanted to cross him. But being friends with him came with its own set of problems, most of them worse—at least he'd heard—and he didn't want to have any of those either. So nearly everybody avoided him as much as possible.
"I won't hurt you," Scratch said. "Just want to talk."
"He will stand by his word as it is given. Be certain of the words he uses," Joe told him.
Rich stepped hesitantly forward, just a hair over the threshold of the gate (which Joe and Tate were frowning deeply over) and shook his hand. It was cold.
"Listen, we gotta get this guy out to the morgue pretty quick, but I heard your dog had gone missing a few days ago?" Scratch said.
Rich started in surprise. "You've seen him?"
"I have. I can show you, if you like."
"Oh, that's great! I've been worried! Tell—" Rich cut himself off, and looked back to Joe. And it occurred to him that Scratch hadn't said that he would show him where he'd seen Roscoe. Only that he could. He thought for a moment and said, "What I mean is, I would like it if you could tell me where he is."
There. He would like it. But he hadn't actually asked for anything. Or agreed to anything.
Scratch's eyes narrowed, but his friendly manner didn't falter. "Well, when I help someone, I do usually ask for their help in return. How about we just say that when you turn eighteen, you come do a few jobs for me?"
Rich felt his blood run cold. Scratch had said he had seen Roscoe. If it was true that he stood by his word, then he had. A few jobs didn't sound so bad. Roscoe had been missing for a week. He was probably in real trouble. No one else had seen him. Scratch was the first, real, solid lead he'd found.
Rich looked over at Heinrick, who was wearing a distinctly hungry expression. And back to Joe and Tate who were shaking their heads.
"I think…that's a very generous offer, Mr. Scratch," Rich said, feeling his heart sink, "but I should probably keep looking for Roscoe on my own."
Scratch's eyebrows flew up but he didn't look angry. "Independent. I respect that. For that, I'm gonna tell you for free." He gave Heinrick a nod and they moved to the truck. Heinrick climbed into the cab while Scratch swung himself smoothly into the bed of the truck. As the engine started, there was a flash of that blue tarp and then Scratch threw something out of the truck bed that landed on the ground with an awful thump.
It was Roscoe.
A horrified cry tore out of Rich's throat as he ran forward to see. But it didn't matter, Roscoe was dead, he was dead, he was dead, and there was nothing he could've done. He was too late and he had always been too late and he should never have come here at all.
He fell to his knees next to the still form that would never move again, barely even aware that he was crying as he reached out to touch Roscoe and he didn't even feel warm.
"Glad I could help you find your dog, kid!" Scratch shouted as Heinrick pulled them out of the gate and they swung onto the road towards the center of town. Rich buried his face in the awful, cold fur and wished the ground would fall away under him and he could drown.
Pounding footsteps rushed up behind him, and Rich found himself seized by Joe. "Come back from him, Richard. He is gone," Joe told him, pulling him close in a hug. "I am sorry, but he is gone."
"It was too late," Rich choked out. "Why didn't you tell me it was too late? You said you watch!"
"We did not see him," Tate said, bundling up Roscoe into a blanket he'd retrieved from somewhere. "He did not cross into Nine Circles where we could see it."
Rich nodded, wanting to throw up at how sick he felt. Tate put Roscoe in the back of the truck, and they all drove home. No one spoke, but Joe held his hand the whole way.
When they arrived at his house, one of Joe and Tate's brothers, who they greeted as "Rafe" helped them to greet Rich's parents and explain what happened. He'd brought, of all things, a sapling tree. Rich was confused by that until he explained that he would help them bury Roscoe. They planted the tree as his headstone.
All three brothers stayed for dinner, which was quiet. And Rich didn't even say thank you. He just went up to bed afterwards.
Rich saw Joe again at church that Sunday and made sure to find him after the service.
"Hello, Richard. Are you well?"
Rich shook his head. "I was…really hoping he'd be okay."
"I am sorry your trip was unsuccessful."
Rich nodded. "Thank you for coming to get me. And for helping…after. That was really nice of you. I didn't say so that night."
Joe nodded solemnly. "Your distress was understandable. I am pleased you are safe."
"I guess it'll be easier to stay away from there from now on."
Joe shook his head. "Nine Circles is easy to succumb to. And it is in Luke's nature to be persuasive. He will try again. He always tries again."
Rich scowled. "I hate him."
Joe nodded. "Yes. I am sorry. For your companion.”
Rich looked down. “Me too.”
“Do you wish me to sit with you?”
“You don’t have to.”
Joe nodded. “I do not. Do you wish it?”
“You’re very literal,” Rich observed. “Like Mr. Scratch.”
“He was a brother of mine, a long time ago.”
Rich thought for a moment. “Yeah. We could sit for a while.”
And they did.
*~*~*
Author’s Notes: So, according to the ‘pedia, the Grim Reaper probably originated in his current form in Middle Ages Holland, or thereabouts. So I learned that. "Uncle Heinrick" is given as definitely coming from there. I veered away from using Thanatos (my favorite of the Death avatars, because Greek) since he doesn't really fit with the Grim Reaper persona. He's not evil, and neither is Hades. So, since we're looking at Hell here, anyone who works for the place is gonna be rotten to the core. So, not Thanatos. What is left is mostly just pure Grim Reaper.
Obviously the major allusions are to Dante’s Inferno, with the Hell ranch being called Nine Circles and there being a malevolent inscription on the gate. The name of the town being “Dark Woods” is also a reference to the “salva obscura” just outside Hell in Inferno. Goats also not exactly a subtle reference to the animal commonly assigned to Satan in a number of stories. And, of course, Luke Scratch with his pitchfork might as well be wearing a tee-shirt reading “I AM THE LITERAL DEVIL.”
Less obvious is the nod to The Screwtape Letters. Everything kind of sloping towards Nine Circles and it being easy to accidentally end up there, but harder to turn around and leave plays off the end of letter 12 where Screwtape writes “It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Something that didn't make the cut for being referenced is the line from "The Second Coming" by Yeats. "What rough beast, it's hour come 'round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" I don't think it really fits, so it's not directly or indirectly referenced anywhere. However, the poem as a whole is very Atmospheric, so that kind of attitude of this general feeling of decay, things…falling apart, the slow and inexorable creep of entropy was something I tried to keep in mind as I wrote.
Mike and Gabe are Michael and Gabriel, the two archangels and the only two angels mentioned by name in the Bible. The angels who show up in the story are from various non-Biblical lores. "Joe" is short for "Jophiel," who is supposedly the "spy of Heaven" and the fastest angel there is. Which makes him perfect to sneak into Hell and save the crazy kid who wandered in there. "Tate" is short for "Metatron," who—the disaster of his seasons on Supernatural notwithstanding—is supposedly the "scribe of Heaven," which frankly sounds like a very polite way of saying "Director of the Celestial Intelligence Agency." Thus making him Jophiel's boss. "Rafe" is "Raphael," who is the angel of healing.
Angels having no sense of humor at all does have a slight grounding in the Bible. Gabriel, at least, didn't seem to appreciate when Zacharias pointed out that he was a mite old to be having kids, and curses him with muteness for the whole of his wife's pregnancy. It certainly doesn't sound like someone with a sense of humor to me, anyway. So I carried this out to the other angels. Kind, focused, no humor.
Yup. Death is the driver of a "pale" (silver) truck with horses on it. The other horsemen are probably out there somewhere, also with their trucks.
A lot of stories will say distance in Hell is warped somehow. In this story, I'm going for a TARDIS effect. Hell is bigger on the inside than it ought to be, but not in a good way. More in a Hotel California way. Logic doesn't apply, geometry doesn't apply, it will drive you crazy to try and understand it, it rejects order and sense. So Hell, in this case, is easy to get into, but—because it's so enormous—it takes a very long time to get out.
Yes, Satan killed the dog. Sorry not sorry. Satan is evil. He does mean things and he thinks it's fun. Of course he killed the dog.
Warning(s): violence, minor character death, death themes, hell themes, general dark and unhappy atmosphere
Summary: The Grim Reaper carries a scythe, and the Devil has a pitchfork. When your parents say your dog "went away to a big farm", they're not being metaphorical.
Author's Notes: Based on the prompt in the summary.
It had been a week since Roscoe went missing. A whole week without that dog trotting along right beside the back wheel of his bike. Rich was way past worried and straight into downright terrified. It was dangerous to go missing around here with Nine Circles just up the road. And he was more than scared enough to do something he really, really shouldn’t do.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned. His parents didn’t make a lot of money because anyone who could afford to moved very far away from this town. In lieu of getting away, they had made sure he understood the dangers of their area. Every kid who intended to live to be eighteen understood the dangers of their area.
Dark Woods was a town that, first off, didn’t have a lot of woods. There were a few scattered clumpings of trees here and there, but there were whole sections where nothing at all would grow. Not even grass. So the town was always dusty, because they lived on a place that seemed nearly flat when you looked at it, so the wind just picked up everything and blew it along with nothing to stop it or break it up but the occasional building.
Dark Woods wasn’t flat though. The ground sloped just slightly. You couldn’t really tell except that it was a little easier to walk towards Nine Circles, on the outskirts of town, than it was to walk away from it, because Nine Circles was actually in a slight bowl depression. The ground sagged beneath it. Every so often Mom or Dad would say that the slope was getting steeper, but Rich had never noticed it. He’d just assumed it was a thing grown-ups said sometimes.
The thing was, even if it was easier to walk towards Nine Circles, nobody should do it. Ever. If you were headed in that direction, you were always going somewhere else. You never went “by Nine Circles.” You always went “to such-and-such.” It was easy to get turned aside and end up closer than you intended, too. So if you were taking your bike home from the store, you had to keep your destination clearly in mind, or else you could end up headed straight to the gate and not even realize it. And it always took longer to turn around and leave than you thought it would.
Rich was terrified that Roscoe had gotten turned aside. It happened sometimes.
So here he was, hiding his bike in a ditch outside of Nine Circles, looking at the stile over the fence that he would have to climb to look for Roscoe. Mom was gonna ground him forever, but it’d be worth it if he could find Roscoe and bring him back okay.
Dumb dog. Everybody knew not to get mixed up with Nine Circles.
The stile was easy enough to climb. Straight into the Nine Circles apple orchard.
It was a beautiful orchard. Nice, tall trees with big, juicy fruits ripening on the branches. The colors were slightly…muted. Like a picture that had faded a little. The story was that all these apple trees had been bred out of a single fruit from a long time ago, and that they tasted delicious. Rich had never eaten one.
The fruits are sweet, but they are rot,
They’ll keep you wide awake.
And if you sleep, you wish you’d not.
You only dream of snakes!
It was an old clapping game about Nine Circles the girls in his class used to play. Looking at the big, tempting apples, it didn’t seem like a very fun game right now. He’d filled up on snacks before he crossed onto Nine Circles, but he was still hungry from the faint smell of apples in the air.
Still, there was no sign of Roscoe, or any animals at all in the orchard, so he pressed on to the next field.
It was a corn field, long straight rows of plants, not quite at their full growth, but over his head, anyway. He could see signs of people having been here, but no actual people were around anywhere. Which was good. Rich wasn’t looking to meet anyone here.
He plunged into the field, not really thinking beyond wanting to look for Roscoe. Something about the distance seemed off, though. Like the farm took up a lot more space than he would've thought, walking around it. Or maybe he was just moving more slowly?
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when he heard voices at the far end of the field. They all sounded very flat, being chased towards him by a stern, hard shout.
Rich forgot caution and ran for the edge of the cornfield, away from the voices, desperate to get away from the field before anyone entered it.
He burst through the last row of corn to see a dirt road, with nowhere to hide at all, but across the road was a vineyard stretching for what seemed like an endless distance.
Rich made a dash for it anyway, racing to the third row and throwing himself to the ground to look back at the cornfield. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was sure they would hear it, but no one appeared to notice him.
People were filing into the cornfield, and it looked like they were watering each plant by hand. Rich wasn’t sure why since Nine Circles was huge and made plenty of money. Not locally, but there were some places he’d heard of where Nine Circles was the preferred brand. They could afford to have a commercial watering system, but here they were with people—who looked hot and miserable—doing the job instead. A man followed them, gaunt to the point of skeletal, carrying a scythe and hurrying each of the workers along. He didn’t do or say anything that was overly threatening, but Rich could see the workers were all scared of him and cowered or flinched when he came near.
He had heard of this man. Some people called him Uncle Heinrick, though Rich had never heard of anyone who was related to him. Nobody said out loud what his scythe could do, but everyone agreed it was awful. It was certainly sharp enough.
A hand clamped down hard over Rich’s mouth and a huge body fell on top of his, pinning him down and preventing him from moving.
“Do not be afraid. Do not cry out. Do not panic or struggle. It is very important that we do not get caught,” a man’s voice said above his ear.
Waitaminnit. He knew that voice. It sounded like…
“I will remove my hand from your mouth. Nod if you agree not to yell.”
Rich nodded.
The hand moved and he turned his head.
It was Joe, from church. Rich knew him. He was nice. Or, at least, Rich had thought that he was.
“You work for Nine Circles?” Rich hissed in shock.
“I absolutely do not. And you should not be here,” Joe replied. “I came to get you.”
“Roscoe ran away. I’m afraid he ended up here.”
A dark look passed over Joe’s face. “Your dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Your concern for your companion is righteous, but you take on too great a risk for the sake of an animal, however beloved. We will leave. We will keep watch for the dog as we go,” Joe informed him.
There was a sick-sounding “thud” from across the road, and Rich looked to see one of the people working in the cornfield lying on the ground, very, very, very still. The man with the scythe was standing very far away with a horribly satisfied look on his face.
“What did he do?” Rich asked fearfully.
“The worker’s term of service has expired. Heinrick takes them very quickly after that,” Joe explained. “Come, quickly. We are leaving.”
Joe led him back, deeper into the vineyard, making Rich walk where he could be watched at all times.
Rich had always been vaguely unsettled by The Family at church. Two men, Mike and Gabe, were the oldest of the siblings, and they had a seemingly endless supply of brothers. They never gave a last name, so everyone just called them The Family. And despite being so enormous, nobody knew where they lived. Not any of them.
All of them were huge, and serious, and stern. Never rude or unkind or short. And they spoke to everyone with the same measured formality. Old, young, men, women, didn’t matter, they didn’t seem to notice. The only adjustment they ever seemed to make was for young children, they never used big words. Or for Mr. Harris, who was hurt in his brain and didn’t always make a lot of sense. But that was just a change in the words they used, they were exactly the same way otherwise. Rich had never seen any of The Family laugh. Not ever.
They were always doing nice stuff for people, though. If you got stuck somewhere, they would fix your bike up without even asking what was wrong with it. They just knew. Or if you were building a new shed or something, five of them would turn up right on time if just one of them heard about it. They brought food to people when they were sick, read to old folks who were stuck in bed. Always busy helping people.
They were still really scary, though. They were so big and serious, even if they were nice. So Rich knew he was safe with Joe, but he still felt nervous around him.
At the edge of the vineyard, Rich saw another dirt road. Joe suddenly pulled him to the ground just inside the last row of grapevines. “Be silent.”
They waited quietly as a rumble filled the air, and then a huge silver truck came rolling up the road. Other than the fact that it looked like all the other over-sized, expensive trucks that his dad wanted but could never afford, Rich didn’t recognize the brand. There was a logo of four horses on the front grill, but he’d never heard of a car company with a logo like that. It passed them, and as Rich watched it roll away, he saw the tailgate was down and the worker who’d collapsed had been dumped in the bed of the truck next to a blue tarp.
“Was that—?”
“It was the man who fell,” Joe told him. “We will resume our trip.”
The two of them crossed the road quietly, into a fallow field where a herd of goats were grazing. On the far side was a fence with another stile. It seemed to take them a very long time to reach it. Joe hurried him to the stile and urged him over. The two of them began walking around back towards where Rich had stashed his bike. Weirdly, it didn’t seem to take as much time to reach the bike as it had to cross just the field with the goats. They didn’t speak the whole time, but Rich did find it was easier to stay focused on not slipping through the fence onto Nine Circles land with Joe beside him. And Joe kept an eye on the farm next to them, on guard for the slightest sign of trouble.
Rich retrieved his bike from where he’d hidden it in the ditch.
Joe watched him pull it up and said, “You were wise to hide this. Foolish to enter the Nine Circles, but you did exercise some foresight.”
“Were we ever in danger?” Rich asked, wondering now if he’d imagined how creepy everything had seemed.
“Very grave danger,” Joe assured him. And that was that. The Family had a way of knowing things, they were always serious, and they never, ever joked. If Joe said the danger existed, it did.
So, he took the bike and they walked back towards the main road and the gate to Nine Circles. Rich scowled at it. Over the big wooden gate, usually left open, was a huge metal arch with something written on it in weird letters that no one could read. Nobody even knew what language it was in. But it didn’t say anything nice, everyone was sure about that.
In the road was a plain white truck. Old, but well-cared for. One of The Family's trucks. They had a supply of them seemingly as endless as they had brothers. None flashy or over-sized, like the ones from Nine Circles, but homier.
A man was at the wheel. It was Tate! Rich had only seen him a few times, usually talking with Mike and Gabe. He must be pretty important in The Family. Joe and he made a beeline for the truck.
Tate looked him over as they approached. "You frightened us, Richard Andrews. I am pleased you are well."
"How did you know I was here?" Rich asked, as Joe loaded his bike into the truck bed, suddenly realizing that it was pretty strange they had known to come after him.
"Nine Circles loses workers often and seeks to fill their ranks with whoever they can lure in. We watch the edges of the property as much as possible and try to retrieve anyone who crosses them," Tate told him.
"They kidnap people?" Rich asked in surprise, looking to Joe who was coming back to join them again. Obviously there was something…weird about the place, but he hadn't thought they would do that.
The brothers shared a frustrated look. "Not technically," Joe told him. "They will always offer a choice. The terms will be stated, but they will always be unfair. The only way to defeat them is to refuse them."
"Well, hey there!" called a voice from behind them.
"That was faster than expected," Tate said, sounded very displeased.
"Welcome! Don't get a lot of people hanging out near my gate!" the voice said, insistently.
The three turned to see a Heinrick standing with his scythe next to the man who'd called out to them, who was holding a pitchfork. They were standing in front of that huge silver truck with the horses on the grill.
If Heinrick had looked gaunt before, he looked more or less dead next to this man. He was vibrant and handsome. Tall. Inviting. He held a pitchfork loosely in one hand, and was gazing on them with a…very cold look, now that Rich actually noticed his eyes.
"Oh, hey there, Rich! I've been looking for you," the man said, holding out the hand that was not hanging on to the pitchfork. "Luke Scratch."
Rich looked to Joe and Tate in panic. Everybody had heard of Mr. Scratch. He ran Nine Circles—ran, not owned, nobody ever said "owned"—and nobody wanted to cross him. But being friends with him came with its own set of problems, most of them worse—at least he'd heard—and he didn't want to have any of those either. So nearly everybody avoided him as much as possible.
"I won't hurt you," Scratch said. "Just want to talk."
"He will stand by his word as it is given. Be certain of the words he uses," Joe told him.
Rich stepped hesitantly forward, just a hair over the threshold of the gate (which Joe and Tate were frowning deeply over) and shook his hand. It was cold.
"Listen, we gotta get this guy out to the morgue pretty quick, but I heard your dog had gone missing a few days ago?" Scratch said.
Rich started in surprise. "You've seen him?"
"I have. I can show you, if you like."
"Oh, that's great! I've been worried! Tell—" Rich cut himself off, and looked back to Joe. And it occurred to him that Scratch hadn't said that he would show him where he'd seen Roscoe. Only that he could. He thought for a moment and said, "What I mean is, I would like it if you could tell me where he is."
There. He would like it. But he hadn't actually asked for anything. Or agreed to anything.
Scratch's eyes narrowed, but his friendly manner didn't falter. "Well, when I help someone, I do usually ask for their help in return. How about we just say that when you turn eighteen, you come do a few jobs for me?"
Rich felt his blood run cold. Scratch had said he had seen Roscoe. If it was true that he stood by his word, then he had. A few jobs didn't sound so bad. Roscoe had been missing for a week. He was probably in real trouble. No one else had seen him. Scratch was the first, real, solid lead he'd found.
Rich looked over at Heinrick, who was wearing a distinctly hungry expression. And back to Joe and Tate who were shaking their heads.
"I think…that's a very generous offer, Mr. Scratch," Rich said, feeling his heart sink, "but I should probably keep looking for Roscoe on my own."
Scratch's eyebrows flew up but he didn't look angry. "Independent. I respect that. For that, I'm gonna tell you for free." He gave Heinrick a nod and they moved to the truck. Heinrick climbed into the cab while Scratch swung himself smoothly into the bed of the truck. As the engine started, there was a flash of that blue tarp and then Scratch threw something out of the truck bed that landed on the ground with an awful thump.
It was Roscoe.
A horrified cry tore out of Rich's throat as he ran forward to see. But it didn't matter, Roscoe was dead, he was dead, he was dead, and there was nothing he could've done. He was too late and he had always been too late and he should never have come here at all.
He fell to his knees next to the still form that would never move again, barely even aware that he was crying as he reached out to touch Roscoe and he didn't even feel warm.
"Glad I could help you find your dog, kid!" Scratch shouted as Heinrick pulled them out of the gate and they swung onto the road towards the center of town. Rich buried his face in the awful, cold fur and wished the ground would fall away under him and he could drown.
Pounding footsteps rushed up behind him, and Rich found himself seized by Joe. "Come back from him, Richard. He is gone," Joe told him, pulling him close in a hug. "I am sorry, but he is gone."
"It was too late," Rich choked out. "Why didn't you tell me it was too late? You said you watch!"
"We did not see him," Tate said, bundling up Roscoe into a blanket he'd retrieved from somewhere. "He did not cross into Nine Circles where we could see it."
Rich nodded, wanting to throw up at how sick he felt. Tate put Roscoe in the back of the truck, and they all drove home. No one spoke, but Joe held his hand the whole way.
When they arrived at his house, one of Joe and Tate's brothers, who they greeted as "Rafe" helped them to greet Rich's parents and explain what happened. He'd brought, of all things, a sapling tree. Rich was confused by that until he explained that he would help them bury Roscoe. They planted the tree as his headstone.
All three brothers stayed for dinner, which was quiet. And Rich didn't even say thank you. He just went up to bed afterwards.
Rich saw Joe again at church that Sunday and made sure to find him after the service.
"Hello, Richard. Are you well?"
Rich shook his head. "I was…really hoping he'd be okay."
"I am sorry your trip was unsuccessful."
Rich nodded. "Thank you for coming to get me. And for helping…after. That was really nice of you. I didn't say so that night."
Joe nodded solemnly. "Your distress was understandable. I am pleased you are safe."
"I guess it'll be easier to stay away from there from now on."
Joe shook his head. "Nine Circles is easy to succumb to. And it is in Luke's nature to be persuasive. He will try again. He always tries again."
Rich scowled. "I hate him."
Joe nodded. "Yes. I am sorry. For your companion.”
Rich looked down. “Me too.”
“Do you wish me to sit with you?”
“You don’t have to.”
Joe nodded. “I do not. Do you wish it?”
“You’re very literal,” Rich observed. “Like Mr. Scratch.”
“He was a brother of mine, a long time ago.”
Rich thought for a moment. “Yeah. We could sit for a while.”
And they did.
Author’s Notes: So, according to the ‘pedia, the Grim Reaper probably originated in his current form in Middle Ages Holland, or thereabouts. So I learned that. "Uncle Heinrick" is given as definitely coming from there. I veered away from using Thanatos (my favorite of the Death avatars, because Greek) since he doesn't really fit with the Grim Reaper persona. He's not evil, and neither is Hades. So, since we're looking at Hell here, anyone who works for the place is gonna be rotten to the core. So, not Thanatos. What is left is mostly just pure Grim Reaper.
Obviously the major allusions are to Dante’s Inferno, with the Hell ranch being called Nine Circles and there being a malevolent inscription on the gate. The name of the town being “Dark Woods” is also a reference to the “salva obscura” just outside Hell in Inferno. Goats also not exactly a subtle reference to the animal commonly assigned to Satan in a number of stories. And, of course, Luke Scratch with his pitchfork might as well be wearing a tee-shirt reading “I AM THE LITERAL DEVIL.”
Less obvious is the nod to The Screwtape Letters. Everything kind of sloping towards Nine Circles and it being easy to accidentally end up there, but harder to turn around and leave plays off the end of letter 12 where Screwtape writes “It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Something that didn't make the cut for being referenced is the line from "The Second Coming" by Yeats. "What rough beast, it's hour come 'round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" I don't think it really fits, so it's not directly or indirectly referenced anywhere. However, the poem as a whole is very Atmospheric, so that kind of attitude of this general feeling of decay, things…falling apart, the slow and inexorable creep of entropy was something I tried to keep in mind as I wrote.
Mike and Gabe are Michael and Gabriel, the two archangels and the only two angels mentioned by name in the Bible. The angels who show up in the story are from various non-Biblical lores. "Joe" is short for "Jophiel," who is supposedly the "spy of Heaven" and the fastest angel there is. Which makes him perfect to sneak into Hell and save the crazy kid who wandered in there. "Tate" is short for "Metatron," who—the disaster of his seasons on Supernatural notwithstanding—is supposedly the "scribe of Heaven," which frankly sounds like a very polite way of saying "Director of the Celestial Intelligence Agency." Thus making him Jophiel's boss. "Rafe" is "Raphael," who is the angel of healing.
Angels having no sense of humor at all does have a slight grounding in the Bible. Gabriel, at least, didn't seem to appreciate when Zacharias pointed out that he was a mite old to be having kids, and curses him with muteness for the whole of his wife's pregnancy. It certainly doesn't sound like someone with a sense of humor to me, anyway. So I carried this out to the other angels. Kind, focused, no humor.
Yup. Death is the driver of a "pale" (silver) truck with horses on it. The other horsemen are probably out there somewhere, also with their trucks.
A lot of stories will say distance in Hell is warped somehow. In this story, I'm going for a TARDIS effect. Hell is bigger on the inside than it ought to be, but not in a good way. More in a Hotel California way. Logic doesn't apply, geometry doesn't apply, it will drive you crazy to try and understand it, it rejects order and sense. So Hell, in this case, is easy to get into, but—because it's so enormous—it takes a very long time to get out.
Yes, Satan killed the dog. Sorry not sorry. Satan is evil. He does mean things and he thinks it's fun. Of course he killed the dog.