Something cracked against his right shoulder and Mark cried out, turning around to face Gordon.
“I was just…”
“Do not turn around,” Gordon growled. “Never turn around. You’re looking at those who tried to turn back. If you turn back…there is a cross here for you.”
With that, the leather-clad “guide” sucker-punched Mark. He doubled over and fell to the ground on his ass, lifting his head to stare into the empty eyes of the dead woman. Something crawled in the flesh near her nose, just beneath the surface. He could see the tiny network of veins shift and move as something struggled to escape.
Mark shook his head and rolled to his feet. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he murmured and began to hurry along the path again. The familiar sting of the whip cracked his back again. His bare feet slapped along the uneven stone pavement, passing the flayed flesh of dozens of people who hung upside down, their skin removed, their breasts or genitals dangling from their bodies like raw meat. None of them had eyes-just empty holes in the fleshy decay of their heads. The farther he ran, the less scarlet their flesh became; their heads began to appear blackened and decayed, and some even betrayed the yellowed hint of bone protruding through elbows and the edges of eye sockets.
It was like a marathon through a nightmare. From ahead of him, the smell and sounds of the fire began to grow more palpable, and Mark strained his eyes to the path ahead, pulling his gaze away from the gore along the way.
The crosses did not stop at the fire.
Mark closed the gap quickly, now and then darting left and right to avoid the smack of the whip he knew was coming, and sometimes succeeding. He could hear the heavy breathing of Gordon behind him. The man wasn’t made for this kind of chase. And that gave Mark his only edge. In close quarters, Gordon could easily crush him.
But then again, this wasn’t so much a chase as a herding. According to Kharon, there was no way back. And Mark didn’t suspect there was any way to escape along the way. They were in some hellish dungeon that would only allow exit by running the gauntlet. Painful as that apparently was going to be.
The orange glow that he’d been seeing from a distance since entering the chamber and walking through the row of Watchers was finally at his feet. The air was thick with the smell of ash and cinder. Mark stopped at the edge of the fire pit, though Gordon’s whip did not. Mark cried out as it hit him again. He could feel the flesh turning raw and beginning to bleed in various places on his back. His skin cried out with every shift of muscle now. But he couldn’t go farther.
The path had ended in a sea of orange coals. He could see a stairway dozens of yards ahead, and an ominously high stone wall, but between here and there…was a glowing sea of embers. Smoke hung in clouds above it, almost hiding the rows of crucified corpses in a dismal fog. The crosses continued in a dual row on either side of him, straight into the coals, and the bodies in the midst of the fire pit were blackened and smoking. The scent of burned hair and overcooked meat hung in the air. Some appeared to have had all of their flesh sizzled and burned away; they were nothing but dark skeletons hung from the beams of wood, dusky teeth grinning sickly amid skulls skinned in char.
“Jesus,” Mark whispered again.
“Not here,” Gordon said. “Not here at all.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” Mark said. “So now what?”
“You walk the path of fire,” Gordon said.
“Like hell.”
“Exactly like hell.”
“I meant, there’s no way…”
Mark turned to look at his captor. “I can’t survive walking over that.”
Gordon shrugged. “That’s what they thought, and look at them now.”
“Yeah,” Mark laughed grimly. “They’re dead.”
“What makes you think they’re dead?”
“Well, they…”
Mark looked at the bodies on the crosses, especially those whose heads hung just a couple feet above the glowing coals. As he stared, he realized that now and then, the bodies shifted and jolted. Maybe it was because the flesh was bubbling and burning and popping, as he’d first assumed, but then again maybe…
“No way,” he said.
“We are in NightWhere,” Gordon said. “Kharon told me that the crucified are still alive. They can’t die. They tried to escape the path of pain…and they were punished. Kharon won’t let them die.”
“How can he stop it…”
Gordon lifted the whip and readied himself to crack it. “Walk the fire,” he commanded, and the leather snapped with a resounding crack at Mark’s feet. He jumped and felt the blood well up on the edge of his heel, where the whip had caught.
“Fucker,” he said.
“I can beat on you all day,” Gordon said. “And I’d love to do it.”
With that, he lifted his arm and the whip began to rain down on Mark without pause. The thin leather caught him in the back and the neck and slipped around and ripped against his cheek. Mark screamed in anger and turned on Gordon, grabbing at the leather.
He missed it the first time, and the whip smacked against his chest, leaving an instant red welt across his breast. But the next time Mark was ready; his hands held on to the braided leather and would not let it slip through. He pulled, trying to yank it from Gordon’s grasp. But instead, he only pulled Gordon closer to him. And the bigger man laughed. With one beefy fist, he punched Mark in the mouth.
Mark went down, releasing the whip as he slapped his hands on the hot stone ground, trying to keep from falling into the glowing pit.
“Do you know how these people lost their skins?” Gordon asked.
Mark curled in a ball on the warm stones, protecting his face and cock from the sting. His arms and back and ass absorbed one brutal slap after another.
“I’ll tell you how,” Gordon said, when Mark didn’t answer. “They refused to go through the fire. And instead of having their skin burned off, they had it whipped off…by someone just like me.”
The whip came down again and Mark screamed. “Stop it!”
Gordon grinned. “But I’m enjoying this.” He kicked Mark in the thigh and then again in the back. And then in the ass. With each prod, Mark rolled just an inch closer to the glowing pit of coals. His skin was already red and swelling with the heat coming off the sea of fire.
Fire was actually a misnomer. While there were occasional tongues of flame that erupted from the field ahead, the reality was that the stone path ended in a moat of glowing coals. On the other side of the pit was a stone path that led to a wall and a stairway out of this valley of hell…but to get there…
“You have thirty seconds,” Gordon said. “And then I’m going to start using this. I’d prefer, honestly, that you don’t cross the fire. But that’s your choice. I’ll be here for you, if you stay. And I don’t have to be gentle anymore.”
Mark looked up and saw what Gordon held in his hand. His captor had slipped the whip into a holster on his black leather belt, and now in its place he held a flogger. But at the end of each leather strap, the flogger featured a metal hook.
“I call this the shredder,” Gordon said. “I used to use it on my friend Amelia, and by the end…even I barely recognized her. Funny thing was, a month later, she was always ready for more. I don’t think you are half the woman she was.”
“What happens if I cross the coals?” Mark asked, staring at the ripples of orange and yellow that flickered across the top of the bed of fire.