It was hot in Josh’s 2006 Toyota Celica. The air conditioning hadn’t gone out, but it was definitely on its way there. Considering the car was now nineteen-years-old, this was no surprise. The air had been fixed four times already.
“It’s too hot in here, Josh,” said Amy, and her tone was not kind. “When are you going to get a real car?”
Just the sound of her voice was grating upon him, but this was also no surprise. She had really been getting under his skin lately, but he didn’t want to let her go…No one else was going to love him…Of course, it wasn’t like she loved him anyway.
Amy wasn’t exactly a supermodel, but she wasn’t a dog show, either. She was a cute twenty-two-year-old blonde with a bob cut and blue eyes, a little white girl for a little white boy, because that’s what Josh felt like ninety-percent of the time, a little twenty-two-year-old skinny white boy with a complex about it, and as a couple, they were an unusual pair anyway…Everybody knew white girls liked to date black guys. It was common knowledge.
He was five-foot-nine, a skinny five-foot-nine, true, but he wasn’t ugly. He was handsome in his own way, with short brown hair in a business cut and deep brown eyes to match. Today, he was in his good, grey, three-piece suit and red tie, because they were currently travelling to an interview for him, one that involved twenty-five dollars an hour. Maybe he’d get it, and then they could pay for some things…
Still, he didn’t like her attitude.
“Maybe when I get this job,” he replied.
“If you get the job,” said Amy with a verbal frown. “If. There’re probably a hundred people applying for this. It’s not like you’re special.”
It was things like that that got under his skin. She was just so backhanded in everything she said to him. He wanted to stay with her, but she was just making it so difficult. At one time he’d even wanted to marry her, but now…
“Maybe if you had a better job you could get a car,” frowned Josh.
He shouldn’t have said that. He reeeeeaaaally shouldn’t have said that.
“At least I have a job,” she sniped back.
“You work behind a counter at a gas station,” replied Josh.
“And?” asked Amy. “It makes money…unlike you.”
*****
The heat was really getting to her. Amy couldn’t help but pick away at him, because…honestly…he deserved it.
“That’s why we’re going to this interview, Amy!” said Josh.
He’d said it forcefully, angrily. Sometimes, she’d wished she’d never met him. His very presence was irritating, just being around him, it just…it made her…
This heat was driving her crazy. They were traveling in this ancient piece of junk down some random gravel road out in the middle of nowhere to go to an interview out in the middle of nowhere, out in this stupid heat, and it was making her see red, making her wish she’d never even talked to Josh at Simon’s party, but Josh had been chatting it up with Becky Hanover at that party, and Amy hated Becky with a passion, the passion of ten-million burning suns…
It wasn’t like Josh was ugly. Yeah, he was skinny, but he was still handsome, and who else was she going to get? Besides, she’d rescued him from Becky….but still…maybe it was time to cut him loose…
But it wasn’t like he was ugly. That was her main point of this mental tangent.
She, herself, did not particularly like the way she looked. The bob cut had been a mistake…Maybe a pixie cut?…No, that’s what lesbians sported…
Today, she was wearing her purple tee, her blue jeans, her white crew socks, and her dark-blue canvas comfort shoes. She looked okay in this outfit, but honestly, it was all she could afford, but at least she could afford some things…unlike Josh…
Of course, her body was a little chunky…No, she was an hourglass and of normal weight, and her boobs were a good size, but her nipples and areolas were all bumpy and weird, and she didn’t even want to start thinking about what rested south of the border…
No, she was not going down that mental road again. That led to a downward spiral of negative thinking. She was just going to have to learn to love herself. Besides, Josh wasn’t exactly going to impress any new girls, not with that little dingle between his legs…Five-and-a-half inches?…So sad…
She stared down at the book she was currently reading, and she clutched the large hardback within her hands like lost treasure that had just been claimed. The cover of Forbidden Love of Knossos displayed in full glory the mighty form of Asterius, the legendary Minotaur, and in his powerful arms was beautiful, half-naked Aspasia, the virgin sacrifice, the only one whose love could overcome the insatiable hunger of the beast…
Why couldn’t Josh be like Asterius and have a foot long, a nice, thick, twelve inches? Oh, to be Aspasia and to be the one to tame the beast, to feel his monstrous embrace, to open up for powerful, beautiful Asterius for the first time, Aspasia’s rose blooming, a blossoming rose coated in dew for the advent of the man-bull’s mighty spear, just like in chapter 12…
*****
Josh couldn’t help but notice he’d gotten no response for his own angry one.
He turned to stare at his other half, taking his eyes off the road for a second, but she was staring off into space, her eyes a million miles away, a look of pure daydreaming ecstasy in expression upon her pretty face…
“Why do you have that stupid grin on your face?” he asked, but he was annoyed as well this time, not just angry.
This statement snapped Amy out of…wherever…she had been.
“I was just imagining what life would be like without you,” she frowned.
That cut it. That made him mad. That made him mad, and this time he could not help himself…
“I’ve done the same thing,” he muttered.
She scowled at him. He could literally feel that scowl, her lips turning, a burning brim of hatred, a merged crescent sliver of pinkish-red moons that radiated an inner hatred that had been building for quite some time; he could tell.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Oh, you have, have you?” asked Amy, but he could tell she was pissed. “Then why don’t you go talk to Becky Hanover. I’m sure that skanky slut will spread her legs for you.”
Maybe this was it. He didn’t know, but things were heating up in here, and it wasn’t because of the blazing daylight outside. Nevertheless, his anger got the better of him.
“Maybe I will!” he replied, but this time he was mad, really mad. “At least she’ll put out.”
He stared over at her to gauge her reaction, and it was…not good. Her blue eyes were blazing with an internal flame, her lips twisted in what could only be fury, but there was also the hint of tears in those sapphire orbs, something completely unexpected, because he’d never shaken her in the past…
Maybe she was human after all?
*****
That hurt. What he’d said really, really hurt, so a retaliatory shot was in order.
“Even Becky wouldn’t jump on your mini-pickle,” she choked out. “Five-and-a-half inches? I guess you never finished puberty.”
“That’s average!” scowled Josh. “That’s an average size!”
“Right,” snorted Amy. “Average for an eleven-year-old.”
“What do you want!” he said, his voice rising to an unacceptable decibel. “Do you want to jump a big donkey dong?…Oh, my God…It’s because of those stupid books you read! That’s what this is about!…You…You have one right now!…Wait…That’s a…That’s a monster! That’s monster smut! What is wrong with you!”
She shrugged. She was feeling particularly mean, and she couldn’t help herself.
“At least Asterius has a real penis,” she said dryly.
He winced at that word, that word “penis.” He didn’t like to be reminded of his micro-member…Good. She was getting under his skin.
“That’s it,” he said angrily, but she could hear a whine in his voice. “That’s really it.”
There was the hint of tears in his brown eyes…Maybe she had gone too far. Maybe she had actually hurt him this time, but he…he was just so…Didn’t she love him? She’d thought so in the past, but now…
“What’s it, Josh?” she scowled. “What’s really it?”
“Maybe I’ll just call Becky, then,” choked out Josh. “She won’t treat me like trash.”
What Josh had just said was unforgivable…To choose Becky over her? Amy couldn’t believe it.
The rage came upon her like a lit stick of dynamite. That fuse had been lit a long time ago, that fuse had burned down to nothing, and now…now she could no longer contain that explosion.
“You piece of…!” she cried, but she was so angry, she couldn’t even finish that expletive.
He glared at her, but she couldn’t stop this time, not this time.
“Go hump Becky, then!” she screeched. “Go have your thirty seconds of sex before you pop one off! I hope your tiny little micro-penis falls off after she gives you an STD! You’re just a spineless, nutless, little man-baby anyway!”
The car weaved as he let go of the steering wheel. Amy saw the raised blow coming before she felt the impact, but the pain did not emanate from her left cheekbone until a few seconds later.
*****
He’d hit her. He’d balled up his right fist and dropped a hammer blow on her.
The car fishtailed on the gravel, but Josh put both hands on the wheel and steadied it in a frantic correction of weaving this way and that. The car went off the road onto a dirt embankment, the vehicle sped toward a thick wooden power pole at way too high a speed, and finally, he could hear Amy cry out in fear.
Josh panicked as he jammed his foot on the brake and turned the wheel back toward the road, and for a moment, he thought they were screwed, but his desperate steering worked, and his ancient 2006 Toyota Celica slowed to an eventual halt, the wheels resting half on gravel, half on plain dry and cracked earth.
He put the car in park, turned the key so that the engine shut off, and then stared down at the beige steering wheel.
With that speeding-toward-death fiasco aside, there was only one thing on his mind…
He’d hit her…He was one of those men now. He was one of those.
He looked over at her, but she was looking straight ahead, not at him. Her left hand was covering her left cheek, but he could see her shoulders shaking before he actually witnessed any tears.
He must have hit her hard.
He did not know what to think. He did not know what to do. He was not one of those men. He was not one of those. He did not want to be one of those, but she’d…she’d finally pushed him to a point of no return…
It was just…She was just…She kept on him all the time, and this was just…
“I want out,” choked out Amy.
Her voice was thick with tears. She was actually crying now, and he’d never seen her cry before…It…It got to him…
“Amy, I’m sor—” he began, but she cut him off.
“I want out,” she repeated. “I’ll get Rachel to pick me up.”
“I can’t leave you here,” replied Josh, but he winced at the whine in his own voice. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. It’s too dangerous.”
“No, you don’t understand,” said Amy. “I want out, Josh. I want out of…of this. I don’t love you, Josh…I want out.”
That hit him like a freight train.
He tried to say something in return, anything, anything at all.
“No, I…I don’t…” he stammered. “This is…It’s all screwed…Just…Just let me drive you home.”
*****
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
She’d provoked him, but he’d never hit her before, and now that he had, and now that she’d been struck…it was over.
Amy took in a gulp of saliva and tried to wipe away her tears. This had gone south really fast, and now there was no going back.
She looked over to Josh as he turned the key to start the car. He turned the key once, twice, and then three times, but nothing happened.
“What?” he said quietly, but that quiet voice was not meant to last.
He tried the key again, but nothing happened.
“What!” he cried out in a loud and angry tone. “What the fu—!”
“That’s it; I’m leaving,” choked out Amy.
She unbuckled her seatbelt, clutched her precious book in her left hand, and unlocked the passenger’s-side door with her right hand. She picked up her smartphone from between her legs and held it in her right hand. She exited the vehicle after that and slammed the car door shut with a forceful push of her right shoe.
Josh exited the vehicle a second later, but she ignored him. No, she rested her book on the hood of the car as she brought up her phone and hit the power button to flip on the screen, but much to her surprise, nothing happened.
“What!” she spat out in much the same manner Josh had.
She tried to turn on her phone by holding down the power button, and then she fiddled with the phone, and then she struck the phone out of anger, striking it with her left hand.
Nothing happened, of course.
She threw down the phone in angry disgust. The phone hit the dirt below, bounced once, and then rested on that cursed ground, its now cracked screen up, a mocking final insult added to injury.
She broke down after that, sobbing into her hands.
“Amy,” said Josh.
She looked up at him through a deluge of tears and shook her head no. He’d been right…This really was it.
This was the end. This was the final nail in their relationship. It was all done, all over, finally, and now that it was, she did not feel free, she only felt a terrible emptiness, a lack of anything even resembling—
Her brain broke as she looked up and stared at the car in the distance.
*****
He’d called out her name, but she was staring in wide-eyed, teary horror at something.
“Amy?” he asked again.
He turned to stare at what held her attention so, but what he saw made him freeze…and it filled him with an intense fear.
It was his car. His little blue 2006 Toyota Celica was destroyed. It had crashed into that telephone/power pole he had thought he’d avoided. The front end of the car had caved in, that front end was wrapped around that pole, the windshield a cracked mess, but it was the figures in the car that caught his eye.
He could see himself. He could see his motionless body slumped over the steering wheel, and beyond it was another body, that body being…
“Wha…Wha…What’s going on!” babbled Amy.
He had no idea, but a thought came to him, and that thought was an unpleasant one.
“Are…Are we dead?” he asked in stupid reply.
“No…No…NO!” screeched Amy.
And with the sound of that screeching, with the reverberation of that revelation, he fell.
He was pulled down into darkness, complete and utter darkness, a living, breathing darkness that shot him downwards like a cannon, pulling him down as if he were traveling toward the center of the Earth.
He was keenly aware that he was naked, as naked as a mole rat, and he was also aware that he was moving really fast, far faster than the human mind could comprehend, far faster than even the speed of light.
Josh landed on pitted, cracked, and dry red earth. The air was so dry here, he could feel that dryness in every fiber of his being, and he was suddenly so parched, he could barely breathe.
And then there was the heat. The heat was so intense, he felt like he was trapped inside of an oven.
The first thing he heard was the screaming, a screaming from billions of souls, and he could feel them, sense their presence with a clarity previously unbeknownst to him on a level he could have never previously imagined.
He knew where he was, and he knew why he was here, and that knowledge was fed to him against his will, but there was no escape, not for him, not for anyone here. That sunk into him, deep, deep down into him, because he knew, he knew, the end goal of Heaven was no longer within reach.
The first thing he did was stand and cover his bare crotch. It was a stupid thing to do, considering where he was, but it came to him out of instinct, so he did it anyway.
He’d never been a particularly religious person in the past, but now he was, but it was too late to make any kind of a change. No, it was far too late for that.
The darkness around him was so pervasive, so terrible, it pressed upon him like a smothering blanket, yet he could somehow see, and what he saw would have made him empty his bowels in the living world.
*****
Amy fell. It was like a trap door opening beneath her feet, and then she was falling, falling at an immeasurable speed over an immeasurable distance. A darkness so black it was indescribable swallowed her, and then she was screaming, screaming as her suddenly naked body was propelled at a speed faster than any normal universe could comprehend.
She impacted cracked and glowing red earth. The sky was nothing but that…a pitch nothing, but she could see, and she could sense the others here, billions of them, lost souls screaming and screaming and screaming in both torment and fear…
She screamed. She knew why she was here, but now that she was here, now that she could review every terrible little thing she’d ever done in her life, it was too late.
She stood and covered her bare breasts with her right arm and then covered her naked crotch with her left hand. It was a stupid thing to do, but considering where she was, she did not have the wherewithal to do anything else.
She was cut off from Heaven, she could feel that, she understood that, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. There was nothing in her now but terror, pure unadulterated terror, because this was it, this was really it, this was eternity, and she had made this bed of nails via her own stupidity.
The heat was stifling to a degree that could not be accurately described in the living world. It dried her up, like a starfish baking in the sun, and she wanted water, she needed it, but she knew with one-billion degrees of certainty she was not going to get so much as a drop.
She swiveled on the balls of her feet and stared at the crowd of familiar faces in the distance, though those faces were wreathed in shadow. Her family was here, her entire family, all sitting in wooden chairs, her mom and her dad and her brother and her sister, her aunts and her uncles and her cousins…They were all staring at her, and she knew it was them somehow, but their faces were hidden, though their burning eyes of judgement were not.
“Someone has called to me,” came a deep and rumbling voice from behind her. “Now, I am here, little morsel.”
She felt the oppressive weight of two very, very large hands on her bare shoulders. She whined in complete, soul shaking fear as she clasped her hands just above her bare crotch, because she already knew what was going to happen, and this cosmic knowledge made things so much worse.
The large hands upon her shoulders were covered in brown fur, the nails upon them brown and jagged and dirty, and she could feel the snort of hot breath blow over her blonde bob cut a second later.
Her deepest sexual fantasy had come to life, and the labyrinthian beast of legend she’d so favored was now going to have his way with her, but this was not what she had wanted, not even remotely.
She realized too late that she was not Aspasia, that this was not going to be of mutual consent, and to make matters so much worse, her entire family was going to witness the entire thing.
Amy knew with one-billion degrees of certainty as to what was going to happen, she knew with one-billion degrees of certainty that it was not going to be pleasant, and she knew with one-billion degrees of certainty that she did not want to go through it.
There was going to be blood, a lot of it, all of it hers, and she was going to be violated and then torn apart and eaten, eaten alive, because she couldn’t die down here, and she knew that, and she knew she was going to feel every last bit of it in every deepest nook and cranny of her naked soul, and all the while, her family was going to look on in both disgust and a cold vindication that she most certainly deserved every single second of it.
*****
Josh stared up at the enormous, absolutely enormous, kaiju-sized, naked woman standing above him. She was indeed a woman, if you could call her that, but she was unlike anything he had ever seen or imagined before.
This giantess had ash-grey skin, she was completely bald all over, nude, completely nude, and bolted over her eyes was a metal plate, yet he knew she could see him in spite of that metallic ocular covering.
“What have we here?” boomed out the giantess. “A tasty…little…snack.”
She grinned down at him with a mouth full of fangs, that grin extending from ear to ear, and he cowered as her huge right hand reached down for him, plucking him up off the ground as if he were nothing but a doll.
He screamed as she lifted him up and up and up, up past her huge bald crotch, up past her giant exposed navel, and up past her enormous bare breasts complete with enormous dark-grey nipples.
Yes, he was getting to experience one of those fetishes he’d always held close to his chest, the nude giantess, every exposed part of her, and he was getting to see it in real time, to be a part of that fantasy, but this was not what he’d wanted; it most certainly was not.
Plus, he hated feeling so small in front of women. He was supposed to be a man. He was supposed to be a leader. He hated feeling like a tiny little nothing in comparison to the women around him, because they were always abusing him, and now…now that abuse was amped to an unbearable degree.
All he’d wanted was some control in his life, some ability to keep the women around him in line, but now…
He screamed as the naked giantess popped him into her mouth, but that screaming stopped as she began to chew, mainly because his entire body had been obliterated by a set of massive fangs.
*****
Amy stared at the familiar figure across the way.
The ordeal of the minotaur had ended, and it had most certainly not been pleasant, and it had happened again and again and again, as if she had lived through a hundred years of that torture, violated and torn apart and eaten alive right in front of her entire family over and over again, but now she was somewhere else, somewhere just as bad, somewhere, actually, that was even worse.
She was in a cave of some sort, and she was pinned to a black cavern wall like a bug on an entomologist’s board, merged with that obsidian wall as if she were part of it, her arms above her head, her legs spread below her.
Across the way, on a black wall a mere ten feet in front of her, was Josh, and he was pinned to that wall as well, merged with it, his right arm above his head, his left arm at his side.
The young man’s skin looked like melted wax, because he was burning like a torch, like a melting candle that was lit in its entirety. His melting face held a hideous expression, one of an open-mouthed, silent scream of pure agony, and this attacked her in every way, because as bad as she had thought he had been, she did not wish this upon him, or upon anyone else, for that matter.
She realized now that she had loved him, but she had abused him, not like the physical blow he had laid down upon her, but one of emotional and verbal torment that had built over their short time together.
This, of course, was the ultimate insult added to injury, because the injury she was now suffering was one of pure agony as well, because she was also on fire, engulfed in a never-ending flame, and her skin looked like melted wax, and she could feel that flame in every single cell of her body.
*****
Josh could do nothing but stare.
The ordeal of the giantess had ended, and it had most certainly not been pleasant, and it had happened again and again and again, as if he had lived through a hundred years of that torture, chewed up and swallowed and digested and defecated out over and over again, but now he was somewhere else, somewhere just as bad, somewhere, actually, that was even worse.
He was stuck to this black cavern wall, and to make matters worse, far, far worse, he was stuck staring at Amy’s open-mouthed, wide-eyed, melting face.
He could not stand to see her suffering like this, and he realized, too late, that he could not stand to see her suffer at all. She was like a living, immolated, melting candle with her arms raised over her head, and to see her like this…
There was no time here, only eternity, and now he was trapped here with his earthly tormentor, and now that he was trapped here with her, he realized with perfect clarity that he had tormented her just as much as she had tormented him.
He had struck her at the end, and that was what had caused the crash, and now he could think of nothing but her agony and the agony that wracked his own self, because there was no end down here, and there never would be.
He realized now that he had loved her, but he had abused her, not just like the physical blow he had laid down upon her at the end, but one of emotional and verbal torment that had built over their short time together.
This, of course, was the ultimate insult added to injury, because the injury he was now suffering was one of pure agony as well, because he was also on fire, engulfed in a never-ending flame, and his skin looked like melted wax too, and he could feel that flame in every single cell of his body.
*****
The pain kept increasing. She couldn’t have tolerated it under any circumstances before, normal or otherwise, but now the temperature was rising, and Amy could tell she wasn’t the only one feeling this, because the look on Josh’s face…He was grinding his teeth, gnashing them into powder, his melting face twisting with nothing but sheer agony.
She wanted to die, she needed to die, but she knew that was never going to happen. She deserved this, and she knew she deserved this, and she knew Josh deserved this, but oddly enough, she did not want this for him, and to be fair, she did not want this for anyone.
They had enjoyed good times together, her and Josh, but then things had slowly fallen apart, breaking up into entropy, but now…now she longed for those days. She longed to live in one second of those memories, and this made her torment that much more unbearable.
She could sense his own longing for her, the memory of their love inside of him, but this was not a reprieve or a soothing balm for her tormented soul. His love for her only made things worse, because there was no longer any possible way she could return that love, and her guilt only grew.
A demon appeared before her, a tall and ugly thing with a man’s naked body, only coated with coarse grey hair, that hair as thick as fur, like horse hair. This thing’s feet were goat hooves, but it had the head of a jackass, a donkey with huge buck teeth that could not fit in any way within its equine mouth. It had small dark-grey bat wings protruding from its back, and in its right hand was a poker, like an old-timey fireplace poker made of twisted black metal, though the sharp hooked tip was molten hot.
This donkey-thing laughed a wicked laugh, but it was a wicked laugh mixed with that of an ass’s hee-haw, and then it jammed the molten poker right into her right breast, savaging the melting bubble, punching the poker straight through her ribcage and into her chest.
*****
Josh wanted to leap off the wall and defend Amy, but he was stuck like glue, merged solid with the cavern’s black rock.
A love had blossomed inside of her, a love for Josh, himself, one that he had never expected, and he could sense this, could sense her longing for him, but this only made things so much worse for him, because now he could not confess the same to her, and his guilt grew.
Her love, however, got the attention of the jackass demon, because he knew it could read their minds. The donkey demon turned and thrust the molten poker into Josh’s exposed crotch, savaging everything down there, and the pain was so insane that he had no thoughts running in his head to even comprehend it.
The only thing that flashed within his harrowed mind was a panorama of all of the good times he had enjoyed with Amy, all of the little moments of love with her, and he wished so desperately to relive those times, but he knew they were permanently out of his reach, and knowing this was a pain that was worse than the pain of the molten poker savaging his groin.
As soon as he’d switched what was left of his thoughts to Amy, the demon turned and thrust his poker into her exposed crotch, and this only served to increase Josh’s guilt to an exponential level. She was now suffering in that timeless moment because of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
But even this would pass.
A slip of paper or parchment, a yellowed, weathered-looking slip, floated downwards from the darkness, and Josh instinctively knew what it said, though he had no idea why, and he knew Amy knew what the slip of paper said too, and he also knew that she did not know why she knew what it said.
The donkey demon, this Jabberwocky Jackass, stared at the slip of paper with wide, yellow, black-slitted eyes as the molten poker dropped from its right hand to the red earth below.
The yellowed parchment read:
“Behold, I come quickly: and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works.”
There was a flash of light as the slip of paper exploded in a blinding array of sparkles, the Jabberwocky Jackass lit aflame as he was thrown with great force out of the narrow cave, and then Josh was blinded, but more importantly, most importantly, the pure and indescribable amplified pain he was feeling vanished, and he knew it was gone from Amy as well, and what replaced that was…
*****
Amy gasped as she awakened. She lifted her head, reached up, and felt the blood from the gash across the right side of her forehead.
The seatbelts had held, but the airbags had failed.
The car was wrapped around the telephone pole, but the totaled vehicle was no longer running, so she was safe for now.
The first thing she did was break down and cry. She sobbed three times, swallowed her own saliva, and then wiped at her eyes and nose as she looked toward Josh.
He was slumped over the wheel, but at least the car horn wasn’t going off.
“Josh,” she said weakly.
She pushed against his right arm, but he was unresponsive.
“Josh!” she cried out.
He was still unresponsive.
She sobbed out again, quickly undid her seatbelt, and reached for him. She held him tightly in his arms, but she could feel life in him, so she let go as he began to move.
He groaned and stirred, and then he leaned back, reached up, and touched the bleeding wound on the left side of his forehead.
*****
He could hear Amy’s sobs, but they were tears of joy, not despair, and this was very curious, very curious indeed.
He stared at the blood on his fingertips as his vision came back into focus.
The seatbelts had held, but the airbags had failed…Well…this car was nineteen-years old.
He looked up into Amy’s smiling yet still weeping face. Her crying made him want to cry, but he held in that emotion. He needed to look strong for her. There was something he needed to tell her, and if he didn’t say it now, he was never going to say it.
“Amy,” he said unhappily. “Amy, I’m sorry…I love you. I’ll never hit you again, and if you want to leave, then leave…
“No…No, you…you should leave. I hit you, and now I’m one of those guys, an abuser, and I can’t live with that…I shouldn’t be dating anyone…I think you should leave. I think you should leave, because I want you to be happy, and I understand if you’re not happy with me. I…I really am just a piece of—”
“N…No!” she cried out. “No…No, don’t go…”
She turned and forced open the passenger’s-side door, and it popped open with a metallic screech. She gripped that stupid book of hers and immediately tossed the thing like a frisbee as far as she could throw it while still sitting down.
This, of course, was nothing but confusing to him.
“Amy, that’s your book…” he started, but his voice trailed off as she vehemently shook her head no.
“N…No!” she sputtered out. “I don’t ever want to see that thing again!”
She squeezed her blue eyes shut, released a little whine as she grimaced, and then looked him straight in the eye.
“I was terrible to you,” she choked out. “I said all of those terrible things to you…I was awful.”
“I should have never hit you,” gulped Josh. “That was my fault.”
“Yes, it was, and you shouldn’t have,” said Amy in resolute reply. “You shouldn’t have done that, and there’s no excuse for it, but there’s also no excuse for what I did, what I’ve been doing, what I’ve been doing to you this whole time.”
Josh breathed out a deep sigh of relief. Whatever she was thinking, he did not know, but for now, she was not going to leave him.
“Let’s just…Let’s just forget this interview,” he said. “I’ll get a job like you’ve got until we can both find something better. In fact, I’m going to do better from now on. I’m not going to be such a…a…a lazy, whiney man-baby.
“I think…I think for now you should call your sister to come get us. Let’s just call Rachel.”
She nodded a few times in what had to be an eager reply. She picked up her smartphone from beneath her dark-blue canvas comfort shoes, and miraculously, the smart device was undamaged.
*****
“I need to get out of this car,” said Amy. “I don’t care if it’s hot outside.”
“Yeah,” replied Josh.
She stepped out of the vehicle as Josh unbuckled and attempted to pry open his own door, but in the end, he simply crawled across the seats and left via her exit.
The heat outside the car was stifling, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as where she’d just been. The torment was still fresh in Amy’s mind, and she knew it was going to bring her PTSD, inflicting that disorder upon her, but after that horror, there was really nothing else that compared, and she was definitely going to church now, and that was whether Josh liked it or not. She was not compromising on that one.
Also, she was going to ask him to marry her, and that was a little unorthodox, but she didn’t think he’d say no. After all, she was the one who had made it quite clear that she was never going to marry him, but after this…
That horror in her soul simply would not subside.
She needed to tell someone about her experience in Hell, and Josh was probably going to think she was crazy, but she needed to tell someone, and if this relationship was going to work any longer, she needed to be completely honest with him, and if she couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t tell anyone.
She looked him in the eye and winced at what she was about to say.
“Josh, I want to be honest with you,” she said in tremulous breath. “I can’t keep this in. I need to tell you right now, or I may never tell you.”
The look on his face was one of fear, though she’d not expected what he was about to say.
“Did you cheat on me?” he asked. “I’m not going to get angry; I just need to know the truth.”
“What?” asked Amy.
She gave a nervous chuckle and then shook her head no.
“No,” she said firmly. “No, I’ve never cheated on you, but there were times when I almost did…I had the opportunity with Brian…and Dave…and Simon…There were quite a few times I had the opportunity, but I never did. I’ll be honest about that.”
“Oh,” said Josh with a visible and audible sigh of relief. “Oh, you scared me. There were times I wanted to cheat on you with Becky, but I didn’t. I didn’t do it…not that she would have slept with me anyway.”
Becky’s name made Amy flinch, but she cast that aside and just shook her head again.
“No, I was going to say…” she started.
This was a lot more difficult than she’d thought it was going to be.
“Yeah?” asked Josh.
“I was going to say, I…I think I died,” she said shakily. “I think the car accident killed me for…for a few seconds, or minutes, or whatever. I don’t know for how long.”
“What?” asked Josh.
“I died, and I went to Hell,” said Amy. “I…I died, and I went to Hell.”
Josh paled to the point where he looked like an albino. His expression was one that could only be described as terror, and Amy wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Did you hear me?” she asked. “I died, and I went to Hell, and you were there with me, and we were pinned or glued or merged with a black wall in a cave, and we were both on fire, and it hurt so much…”
She stared at Josh, expecting him to give her a “this woman is crazy” look, but he staggered backwards a couple of steps as if he’d just been struck by a bolt of lightning through the top of his head.
“That…That happened to me too,” he said in a quiet, very-meek voice.
“It did?” she asked without thinking.
“Yeah,” gulped Josh. “A…A…A demon that kind of looked like a donkey kept stabbing us with…uhhh…”
“With a molten poker,” finished Amy.
She felt like fainting. In fact, her blue eyes fluttered as her consciousness began to fade, but she was saved from falling over by the quick intervention of her other half.
He flung his arms around her, ran his hands up into her blond bob cut, and then hugged her tightly. This brought her back to complete lucidity, so she burrowed her neck into his, and at that moment, she knew everything was going to be okay from now on, and somehow, she knew he knew it, too.
BONUS STORY…BURN
Elly ran because she had no choice. The fire was everywhere, and the whole of everything was covered in the orange-red of flame and the black of smoke. It was all coming down around her, and she didn’t know what else to do but run.
She heard the screams of a little voice, a child younger than herself by the sound of it, and it came from one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Elly wanted to dash for the fire escape, but something pulled at her, a tugging of the heart, so she turned, ducked under the smoke, and ran back for the sake of someone else. It was unlike her to do so, but this time was different. She was only ten, and she had been ten for a very long time, but she was not going to leave anyone behind, not this time.
She ran through the smoke and grabbed the door handle to room 310, but she immediately regretted it. It was so hot that it burned her right hand, and this surprised her with wide-eyed disbelief. Her hand actually hurt, and like her age, pain was not something she had known for a long time.
She took off her blue jacket, wrapped it around her right arm and hand, and opened the door. The boy in the room was only four or five, and he was down on the floor with his hands over his head because he was terrified, but he was also underneath the smoke, so that was fortunate in its own way.
“Come on!” she screeched, and she grabbed his hand without thinking.
It surprised her that she could pull him up and along, but he ran with her without any hesitation. He was crying and shielding his face from the intense heat at the same time, but Elly did not check to see if he was burned or otherwise injured; there was not enough time to.
She pulled him along toward the fire escape door, and there was a brief blast of flame and heat from room 314, but she got them past it before the fire spread farther out into the hall. She gripped the fire escape door handle even though it was hot, not as hot as room 310, but still hot enough to hurt, especially on her burnt hand.
She guided him down the fire escape until they were on the street and could see others that had escaped the fire, other tenants standing in the distance.
“Can you see your parents?” she asked. “Do you see them?”
He nodded his head yes and pointed toward a young and weeping woman that was obviously his mother. He tried to pull her along, but Elly shook her head no.
“I can’t go with you,” she told him. “All those people that died in the fire I started on accident so long ago?…They want me to come home now. I have to go.”
He watched her turn and walk toward a bright light, and then she was gone.
The Harrowing of Josh and Amy Copyright 2025 © bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Burn Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 100 Tall Tales Matthew L. Marlott
Burn Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Note: The image for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of OpenAI and SendFame.com and modified courtesy of SendFame.com and Canva.com.
