But nothing lasts forever. The sun went behind a cloud and for the first time Galen started to feel a little cold.
‘I think it’s time for a walk,’ said Rose getting out of the pool and putting on her dress. Galen looked at her. He was sure that it was the same dress that she’d been wearing when they’d first met but somehow it didn’t complement her figure in the way that it had before. Amy had also put on a dress. It looked like it ought to cling to her wet body in a provocative way but instead it seemed strangely un-alluring. Galen started to walk over to his clothes but the two women took him by the arms; Rose on the left and Amy on the right. They held him gently but for the first time Galen caught an air of unfriendliness.
‘Don’t worry about those things,’ said Amy. ‘You won’t get cold with us.’
‘That’s right,’ said Rose. ‘Clothes would just get in the way where you’re going.’
‘You mean where we’re going?’ said Galen
‘No,’ said Amy. ‘I think it’s just you. Isn’t it, Rose?’
‘Yes, just you,’ said Rose with a hint of mockery creeping into her voice. The women’s grip on Galen became a little firmer and they steered him down a path behind the house. Stones hurt his bare feet, biting ants crawled up his leg and a leech fell from a tree on to his head. Rose and Amy marched on oblivious to his discomfort and apparently unaffected themselves. Galen started to get a feeling of foreboding.
‘Not much further to go,’ said Amy. ‘It’s amazing to see the light of the setting sun on the rocks with the lava pools glowing below.’
Lava pools? The full realization of what was happening struck Galen as if a giant hand had grabbed his stomach and twisted it through 360 degrees. He tried to pull away but the hands on either side of him tightened to a vice like grip. Rose and Amy stood as if fixed in concrete.
‘You didn’t think that pleasure comes without a price,’ said Rose her face twisted into a malevolent sneer.
‘It’s amazing how we fooled you into thinking that we were enjoying ourselves with someone as pathetic as you,’ said Amy mockingly. ‘Pretty good actors, aren’t we? Don’t worry. It’ll all soon be over but before that you’ll be wishing it was sooner.’
They started walking again. The uncomfortable stones turned to sharp clinker that drew blood; thorns and sharp-edged leaves cut into his body and they passed through a swarm of biting flies that only seemed interested in him. The forest opened out into a clearing where the rocky ground rose towards a small volcano. Amy was right, the setting sun did look amazing on the rocks and even the lava pools were beautiful if you didn’t think about how hot they were. Amy and Rose brought Galen to the edge of the shimmering molten rock. He coughed in the searing sulphur-laden air and shook in spite of the heat. ‘OK, let’s get it over with,’ he said.
‘It not quite sunset yet,’ said Rose. ‘We’ve still got time for a little chat. Do you remember when you wet yourself in front of the whole class at primary school?’
‘What about how Samantha Guisley laughed at you when you asked her out,’ said Amy.
‘You had a huge crush on her didn’t you?’ said Rose.
‘Did you think I would really fancy someone like you.’ Amy exactly imitated Samantha’s voice. On and on they went dragging up every embarrassing, painful and humiliating moment in his life until a dip in the lava pool started to seem like merciful release.
‘It’s nearly time,’ said Rose, her words grating in Galen’s ears.
How could this be the woman who only hours earlier had been ecstatically gasping in his arms? He thought that they had brought up every unhappy incident in his life but Amy and Rose, in a quick fire finale, rattled off a list of things that he had blocked out and which were now being extracted like barbed arrows until he was sobbing in despair.
‘Kill me now. Please kill me now.’
‘Oh how sad, he’s crying,’ said Amy.
‘He’ll be crying even louder in a moment,’ said Rose.
‘Time for a swim I think,’ said Amy and they pushed him into the lava.
He ended up waist deep in the viscous liquid. Thoughts of ducking his head under the surface to end it quickly came to nothing. He was paralysed as if tied to an invisible pole. Through the blinding pain he remembered the other times. Always a day of pleasure followed by a fiery death but different every time; the creativity of his torturer knowing no bounds. It was bad enough being burnt to death once but Galen had been through it so many times before. Amy and Rose stood close by still taunting him but all he was aware of was the pain; the memory of the previous occasions and the sound of terrible screaming.
Everything went black and then he found himself lying on a floor in a pool of dim light. The walls of the room were either lost in the darkness or didn’t exist. Galen’s heart and breathing were racing but he was alive and whole and the only pain was in his head. The scene was depressingly familiar. He didn’t know if he had died and gone to Hell or whether his mental patterns had been captured electronically and he was living out eternity in a computer simulation, or if some other fate that he could not understand had befallen him. Were there others on nano-processors only a hair’s breadth away living out similarly horrendous existences or even other versions of himself undergoing the same torments as he was? He couldn’t clearly remember dying. It might have happened so suddenly that he hadn’t been aware of it. Or could it be that his original body was still alive and it was only a hacked copy of his thoughts that had been put into this alternative universe as the unfortunate play thing of a sick mind? The mediaeval idea of Hell with devils and pitchforks might be a myth but Galen was experiencing the real thing.
After some time, there was no way of knowing how long, he heard a voice. ‘It’s time to choose again, Galen. What’s it to be, ice or fire?’
‘Ice, I suppose,’ said Galen reluctantly.
Instead of lying on the floor he was on the rubber base of a life raft. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that were already soaked in the freezing water that was sloshing around in the undulating craft. In the sea around him were ice floes stretching to the horizon in all directions. Here we go again, thought Galen. It wouldn’t take him long to succumb to hypothermia. Not as bad as what he had just experienced but he wondered how many of these icy scenarios he would be able to withstand before he was desperate enough again to opt for the ecstasy and the agony of a glorious day ending with humiliation and death by fire.
the end About the author
Alan won the Julia Bradbury prize for Capturing the Spirit of the Wolds for his story in the anthology Dreaming of Steam. Since then he has featured in the Dummies Guide to Serial Killing collection. Damned if you do… is Alan’s third story to be included in Fantastic Books’ anthologies and he is now cooking up some new writing projects. Alan has also written and performed sketches for his local amateur theatre group and enjoys painting and making music. He lives happily in Lincolnshire with his wife Jane. They have three children and three grandchildren.
ELEMENTAL SACRIFICE
John Hoggard
At sunrise Basnra brought his cart to a halt. Daar Alu, once the greatest of Dwarven Fortresses, appeared slowly from the darkness of the plains ahead. The last time Basnra had passed this way Daar Alu had glistened in the dawn as the gold-covered tower reminded all of the skill and avarice of the Dwarves who lived within its walls. Now the tower was blackened by fire and the gold had been stripped from the surface. The Dwarves were gone, abandoned by their warring cousins in the mountains, driven from their home by Tarmouth and his armies, they had fled like rats into the ancient tunnels and caves beneath the earth.