02- Satan! Page 3

  “I can’t see inside at all.”

  “Yeah, it is rather dark. Hmmm.”

  My girlfriend looked around and then walked over to a cream hatchback with brown faux-wood paneling at the bottom. The vehicle had a Chevy bow tie on the front of the grill, but then Charlotte ripped open the car with an easy twist of her claws. She rolled back the hood as if it were made of tin foil, then dug into the innards of the engine compartment as if she was trying to find the matching shoe in her closet. I stepped aside as she tossed a piece of the engine where I was standing, and then she yanked a giant chunk of radiator free.

  “Here, hold this,” she said as she cut open the metal around one of the headlights with her fingernail. Then she ripped the light out of its socket and handed it to me, complete with wires hanging loose. Almost as if she gave me a live eye.

  “And this.”

  She lifted an engine battery with two fingers and passed it to me. I grabbed onto the rubber handle at the top and had to drop it on the ground with a surprised yelp. The block felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and I hadn’t expected its heft.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as she set about tying the wires of the headlight to the opposing terminals on the battery I had set on the ground.

  “Oh, ummm. Nothing,” I said as I cleared my throat. “Are you sure this is going to work? That car looks like it was made twenty years before I was born.”

  “Taadaa!” she giggled as she attached the second wire and the headlight began to glow.

  For the few seconds, her laughter lasted, the serious expression left her face, and she looked like a typical school girl hanging out with her friend. My heart warmed at her joy, and I almost forgot about the Tunnel of Endless Darkness and Doom waiting ahead of us.

  “Okay, take the light and the battery. I don’t really need it, but I can’t have you tripping and breaking that cute face of yours before Satan does.” She giggled again and then gestured for me to follow her into the tunnel.

  “Yeah, I guess we have to make sure that Satan gets me-- Did you just say ‘cute face?’”

  “You are really clumsy. Even for a human.” Her smile faded, and she shook her head while she rolled her glowing red eyes.

  “But you think my face--”

  “Sherman, you know I can’t get attached. You are Satan’s. He’s going to devour your essence.”

  “But why are you taking me--”

  “Look, we are running late. He’s going to be angry. You don’t want to make him angry. I need to keep my hands free, so be a dear and carry that light?” She winked at me and then walked toward the tunnel.

  “Ummm, okay.”

  I tightened my stomach muscles as much as I could and lifted the heavy battery with my right hand while I carried the headlight with my left. I had to kind of hunch, kind of lean over far to my left to counterbalance the weight of the block, but I managed to follow the succubus toward the abyss.

  I wondered why I was even following her to Satan. Charlotte had made it clear that the Lord of Evil was going to kill me, or maybe torture me, or maybe do much worse. Yet here I was, following my dream girl to a most certain death.

  She really had an amazing butt, though, and it wasn’t as if I could actually escape her. She’d catch me in an instant. Even if I somehow did get a chance to run from my girlfriend, I was in Hell, and there was no way I’d live for more than a few minutes with all these demons running around.

  My only course of action was to let her take me to Satan. Maybe I could beg for my life, or soul, or whatever it was that the Lord of Hell wanted from mortals.

  Or maybe Charlotte would change her mind. In animes and mangas, the girl love interest often fits this ‘tsundere’ archetype. They would start off not really liking the hero, but then later warm up and come to love him. This was exactly like Charlotte and my relationship, except that she’d already kissed me. So, I figured that I was slightly ahead of the traditional anime storyline trope arch.

  I followed the beautiful succubus into the dark tunnel.

  Chapter 3

  We walked for about five minutes before my girlfriend had to carry the battery.

  I was somewhat embarrassed that she had to take over for me, but at least she didn’t comment on my lack of strength. She just growled with annoyance, turned as she walked, and easily lifted the block from my fingers. It looked as if the battery didn’t even weigh anything, and she swung it around while she walked as if it were one of those tiny purses.

  I still carried the light in my hand, and I made sure that the path that the sunken railroad tracks followed was clearly illuminated.

  We walked for what seemed like forever through the oppressive darkness. It seemed to claw at the light beam with a malicious hatred; it seemed to push down upon my shoulders like a weighted vest, and I felt it trying to sneak up on me like an endless shadow.

  Then we walked for what seemed like another forever.

  The silence was oppressive, and I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my heart slamming into my chest, my panicked breaths, and our footfalls across the concrete. I didn’t know how much farther I could go. I just wanted to curl up, rest, and let the darkness crush me.

  “We are about a quarter of the way there,” Charlotte whispered, but her voice seemed to carry through the large tunnel as if she had shouted into a megaphone.

  “Only a quarter?” I gasped the question as my heart sank.

  “Yes, but you are doing well. I figured you would have gone insane by now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This isn’t like a tunnel you’d have on Earth.”

  “I know. This one is way darker. The flashlight almost can’t penetrate the light.”

  “Uh, huh.” I could see her glowing red eyes look at me, but I thought I heard movement on the ceiling, and I flashed my headlight upward.

  Nothing.

  “Did you hear that?” we asked each other at the same time.

  “Let’s walk a little faster,” she whispered as she increased her pace.

  My beam of light came across a subway car lying on its side. It was covered with red and brown graffiti, but I couldn’t decipher the writing. The train was in surprisingly good shape, and I wondered if it would still work.

  There was a sound behind us.

  We both spun, and my light danced frantically through the blanket of inky blackness. It was like trying to shine a flashlight through the ocean waves at night, and my light didn’t go far.

  “Mean. Mean. Charlotte.” It sounded as if Joro’s voice came from all around us.

  “Aww, shit. I was afraid this would happen,” my girlfriend said, and her voice rang with fear.

  She hadn’t sounded afraid when she fought the four parking-lot demons, so her tone caused my heart to burst into a panicked gallop.

  Charlotte put down the battery and stepped a few feet away from me.

  “Let’s talk about this, Joro. We don’t need to fight.” The succubus’ voice was confident, but I could see her slight frown.

  “I want him, Charlotte. Give him to me.” It sounded like every other word was coming from a different direction in the tunnel.

  “Do you even remember his name?” Charlotte said, and there was silence for a few seconds.

  “He was nice to me. I want him. Mean. Mean. Charlotte.”

  “Let us pass, Joro, or I’ll tell Lord Satan.”

  “You aren’t going to get to Satan, Charlotte. You’ll never leave this tunnel.” There was a playful giggle, and the sound filled the tunnel.

  “What is she?” I asked my girlfriend as my bones tried to shake free of my muscles.

  “She’s a-- Look out!”

  Charlotte pushed me out of the way with a clawed arm. My sweaty hands let go of the headlight, and I fell on my ass. A goopy, thick string of rope shot out of the darkness and stuck to the succubus’ left wrist. The string suddenly went taut, and my girlfriend spun to the side and fell to the ground in a flurry of wing an
d tail movements.

  “Shit!” Charlotte yelled and tried to pull her arm away from the rope.

  The fallen light illuminated her struggles, and I saw that the rope was made up of thousands of smaller strings. The cord reflected the light in a weird way as if it were made of a silvery silk. It almost looked like the webbing that Spider-Man used in the comic book.

  I jumped to my feet as the rope went taut and dragged Charlotte a few feet farther away from the light source. I almost couldn’t believe Joro was pulling on it. From my brief glimpse of her in the hallway, she’d looked like a thin Japanese girl, and I knew that Charlotte possessed super strength.

  The succubus dug her heels into the concrete floor and pulled against the sticky rope attached to her arm. I wondered why she just didn’t rip it apart with her claws, but then I noticed that it stuck to her forearm as if it were glue, and I guessed that her claws would get entangled in the mess if she tried to cut the line.

  Charlotte grunted, and the concrete at her feet started to buckle as if it were made of dried mud. The rope that attached to her wrist went incredibly taut and made the sound of a deep guitar string. The noise echoed through the tunnel and made my ribs vibrate in my chest.

  I took a step toward my girlfriend, but the strange rope suddenly snapped. It sounded as if a gunshot had gone off in the tunnel, and I found myself lying on the ground with Charlotte on top of me. My head hurt, my back screamed, but I didn’t really care about all that since the beautiful succubus lay on top of me and her firm body pressed against me everywhere.

  And my hands cupped her perfect breasts.

  It had been a reflex, or something. I’d just caught her when she crashed into me, and I hadn’t actually meant to grope her, but now I felt the dark tunnel spinning from a strange mixture of awe, terror, and arousal.

  “Damn it, Sherman!” Our lower bodies had also landed pressed together, and I guessed that she could feel my boner. She grabbed my hands, flapped her wings with a strong pull, and we both lifted off the ground to stand on our feet a half a second after she had yelled at me.

  There was a scurrying, tapping sound as if hundreds of crabs walked across a tile floor. I lifted the headlight and turned it around us to try to find what was making the noise. The beam wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the thick darkness, however, and I realized that my frantic efforts were probably just giving Joro a better idea of where I stood.

  “She’ll want to kill me first. I kind of think that she’s forgotten about you. She just remembers that I’ve wronged her,” Charlotte whispered at my side, and I saw her glowing eyes dart around the blackness.

  “Can you see her-- Ahhh!” One of the ropes shot out of the darkness and hit me at the knees. I tried to stand, but the impact plowed me over like someone had leg swept me, and I landed on my side painfully.

  “Sherman!”

  Charlotte moved to help me, but the beautiful succubus was foiled by the sudden appearance of rope between us. She jumped back into a handspring that turned into a flip when a dozen more ropes shot from the darkness like arrows. These were thinner cords, but I guessed that they were just as sticky.

  The rope around my leg was yanked, and I slid across the smooth concrete. I twisted on the ground and found a seam between the railroad track and the floor that offered me a place to hook my fingers. The cord tightened around my legs, and I let out a yelp of pain when my spine cracked.

  “Sherman!” Charlotte screamed as she took to the air in a winged ballet dance. The thinner ropes had almost filled the entire darkness, and they reflected the light from my dropped headlamp as if they were mirrors. The inside of the tunnel became illuminated, and I felt my stomach churn when I saw what my girlfriend and I were battling.

  They were dozens of dog-sized spiders.

  Granted, they were small dog-sized spiders, maybe the size of Chihuahuas or Yorkshire Terriers, but each of them sprayed a strand of corded webbing at my girlfriend. She was doing an amazing job of twisting and turning through the air to avoid them, and her motions made me think of an awesome jet fighter pilot, but I quickly realized that these creatures might not necessarily have wanted to ensnare my love. No, as I watched her spring through the air, I saw clearly that they were building a massive web that would close off one side of the tunnel.

  Then I turned toward my feet and saw Joro.

  Her chest was bare, and I could see her pert breasts and dark nipples. I kind of tunnel-visioned there for a moment and memorized every detail of their shape, size, and lift. I knew that it was impolite to stare, but the pretty woman had decided to take off her robe before she…

  Turned into a giant half spider.

  “Ahhhh!” I screamed when I saw Joro’s lower half.

  The spider parts were tiger-striped bright yellow with a big fiery red dot in the middle of the massive abdomen. The legs were probably as long as I was tall, and the front two were in the process of pulling the webbing attached to my legs. Behind the spider-woman-monster was a thick wall of more webs, and I saw at least thirty of the Chihuahua-sized spider minions crawling across the strands. A few of them crept onto the ground as I watched, and then they rushed toward me like a yellow ocean wave of legs, eyes, and fangs.

  “Ahhhh!” I screamed again as the spider legs yanked on the rope attached to me.

  “Sherman!” Charlotte screamed, and I tore my eyes away from the half-spider-sexy-woman-monster-demon to see that the smaller spiders had finally managed to catch one of the succubus' wings with their web. The beautiful girl was dangling from the thin threads and thrashing around in an attempt to escape.

  This was all sorts of bad.

  “No!” I shouted, and I felt the tension on the rope around my leg suddenly relax.

  “What is wrong?” Joro asked, and her spider minions skidded to a halt.

  “Huh?” I gasped as I turned between my hanging love and the spider woman.

  “You shouted ‘no.’ I thought you wanted to meet me?”

  “Let him go, you ugly eight-legged--”

  “I was speaking with my fiancé! Mean! Mean! Charlotte!” Joro screeched, and the spider minions resumed their creep toward the ensnared succubus.

  “Your fiancé? He’s not your fiancé! Are you crazy?” Charlotte twisted against the webbing with renewed vigor, but she just couldn’t break free, and dozens of spiders were closing in on her prone body.

  “Yes, he said he wanted to meet me. He is so nice. I need a husband. I want to make more babies.”

  “Wait. Stop, Joro! Stop your spiders!” I pleaded with the Japanese demon.

  “Why?” she asked, as she made a motion with her hand that did stop her minions from descending the web onto Charlotte.

  “I thought-t-t we we-we-were f-f-friends?” I stuttered.

  “We are friends, but I love you so much. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, I understand. Please let Charlotte go. She’s my friend.”

  “No, she is your girlfriend. Once I kill her, you and I can be together. You can marry me and give me babies. I want to be a bride again. So badly.”

  “Again?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask about her other husbands!” Charlotte shouted.

  “They gave me babies. Do you see all my children? Aren’t they beautiful? Do you like them?” the Japanese woman gestured to the forty or fifty spiders around us.

  “Run, Sherman! Forget about me. Just get to Satan!” Charlotte yelled.

  “No, no, no. He needs to watch you die. Then we can be wed.” The spiders started to move again.

  “No, wait. She doesn’t need to die. I’ll marry you right now!” I couldn’t think of anything else to do that would save my girlfriend, so I just said the first thing that came to mind.

  “You will?” both Joro and Charlotte asked at the same time.

  “Yes, but you have to let Charlotte go.”

  “No. Never. She is mean. So mean! She wants to keep you from me!” Joro screeched.

  “She needs to officiate!”
My brain scrambled to try and find a reason that would make Joro release the succubus, and it was the only explanation I could come up with that wasn’t just ‘I love her, so please let her escape.’

  “Officiate?” Joro asked.

  “Sherman, I can’t--”

  “In order for us to be married properly, we need a minister. We should really go have Lord Satan do it, but if you want to get married right now, then Charlotte will have to be the one to perform the ceremony.” Joro’s spider legs had relaxed all the tension on the rope attached to me, and I sat up so that I could speak with more confidence. I didn’t stutter, but my heart raced a mile a minute. I was terrified that Joro would either call my bluff and kill Charlotte or go through with the wedding.

  “Hmmmm,” the spider woman put a finger to her lips and then glanced between Charlotte and I. “Do you really want to marry me?”

  “Of course!” my voice cracked a bit, and I tried to keep from wincing. Was this actually going to work?

  “Wonderful! Take her down!” she yelled to her spiders, and the creatures crawled over my love. Within a few seconds, Charlotte was freed, and she floated down to stand next to me.

  “What is your plan?” she whispered under her breath.

  “You are going to have to marry us and maybe tell Satan I couldn’t make it?” I winced and shrugged.

  “No. I’m not--”

  “Charlotte, marry us!” Joro clapped gleefully, and her spider legs danced nauseatingly until she stood next to me.

  “Uhhhhh,” Charlotte glanced between the two of us and bit her lip. “I’m not sure how I should--”

  “I thought you said she knew how to do this?” Joro turned to look down at me, and her eyes burned like hot lava.

  “I didn’t say that. I said that we need an official. She’s the closest to Satan,” I said as I tried not to stare at her naked breasts. I think I failed since they were quite nice looking. I just had to ignore the horrific spider lower body.

  “But if she doesn’t know how to do this, then how is it going to be official?”

  “We just need to let Charlotte--”

  “Ugh, you are always like this! I really want something. Why can’t I just ask nicely for it?”