Hell Patrol Read online

  R.D. TARVER

  FOURTH MANSIONS PRESS

  CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

  CONTENTS

  PART I Prologue

  1. Hell Hole of Death

  2. In The Lair of The Ice Queen

  3. Deep Well Doom

  PART II Interlude

  4. The Burning of Beelzebub

  5. Woe To The Vanished

  6. Prisoners of Flesh

  PART III Epilogue

  7. Invaders From Hell

  8. The Forgotten Order

  9. Into The Rift

  Afterword

  HELL PATROL

  Copyright © 2020 R. D. Tarver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express permission in writing from the copyright holder.

  “Hell Patrol”

  Words and Music by Glenn Tipton, Rob Halford and K. K. Downing Copyright ©1990 EMI April Music Inc., Crewglen Ltd., Ebonytree Ltd. and Greargate Ltd. All Rights on behalf of EMI April Music Inc., Crewglen Ltd. and Ebonytree Ltd. Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing llc, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219 International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  “Hell Patrol”

  Written by Kenneth Downing, Rob Halford, Glenn Raymond Tipton Published by Round Hill Songs II

  All rights administered by Round Hill Music LP

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Fourth Mansions Press, LLC Charlottesville, Virginia

  fourthmansions.com

  ISBN: 978-0-578-82580-9

  Cover art & design ©2020 Anthony Roberts

  Interior layout & design by Anthony Roberts blackmindseye.org

  For the metal gods…

  HELL PATROL

  PART I

  Prologue

  “Hell,” Henry’s father began. “Hell was a warning.”

  Henry braced against the ominous string of words propelled by his father’s gruff and booming voice.

  Even in his few short years, he had come to realize that there were times when being a professor’s son definitely had its drawbacks. More specifically for Henry, those times were in the early morning hours when his father would try out his new material on the captive familial audience before his lectures at the University.

  “More than just an antiquated Bronze Age treatise on morality, some scholars also believe the concept of Hell served as an allegory among Neolithic pastoralists,” his father said, adjusting his notes. “A dire portent heralding an encroaching evil that threatened their way of life—the walls of civilization, and the rule of law that lay at their foundation.”

  Held hostage by the morning’s lesson plan, Henry did his best to sit still and feign interest as his father continued to fill the small study

  with stuffy-sounding words.

  His younger sibling, Vincent, was far less reserved. Like their father, Vincent was quick to summon a foul temper which could manifest at any moment. Such a disruption had the potential to prolong the mock lecture and disrupt the day’s itinerary. Henry had a tight schedule to keep. The Herculoids were on in an hour.

  The professor shuffled his notes atop the sleek cherrywood dining table. “As nomadic hunter-gatherers shifted towards agrarianism, their world began to grow smaller, ushering in increasingly dynamic social landscapes in place of natural ones. Along with civilization came humanity’s descent into sin.”

  Henry cringed as his brother’s tiny voice filled his ears.

  “Why would the nomads want to live behind the walls when they could roam free?” Vincent asked.

  “Shh. Save the questions for the end,” Henry said, cupping his hand over his little brother’s mouth.

  The professor let out a hearty laugh.

  “An excellent question, dear boy—are the walls of civilization inevitable? Are they necessary for humanity to thrive? And what is the long-term cost of circumscribing our species from the natural world?” He pulled at his thick salt-and-pepper beard, pausing occasionally to brush the dandruff from the lapels of his tweed blazer as the questions lingered unanswered.

  Vincent wriggled in the heavy wooden chair. “I hate the walls,” he said, undoing his wool cardigan and tossing it on the floor.

  “Ah yes, resistance,” replied Henry’s father. “In an attempt to resist the negation of freedoms imposed by this new cultural development, the disenfranchised often expressed their displeasure by clinging onto tradition and reverting back to the old ways.”

  His father trotted over to a nearby bookcase. In one deft motion he pressed down on a concealed lever and sidestepped the bookcase as it swung away from the wall, revealing a hidden panel. Inside the secret space was a shelf covered in old, dusty books, an acrylic display case filled with ancient artifacts, and an array of strange-looking electronic equipment mounted to the interior. Above the display case, a large sepia-colored world map spanned the breadth of the panel. The map was marked with strange sigils and handwritten annotations that Henry could not decipher.

  His father selected one of the tattered, leather-bound volumes from the shelf and closed the panel.

  He wiped off the cover of the book, sending up a plume of dust made visible by the solitary beam of sunlight that pierced through the stained glass window of the otherwise darkened study.

  “The ancients utilized fables, parables, and folklore as the means of escape to overcome the challenges of straddling the dichotomous spheres of physis and nomos.”

  “Are you going to read us a story?” asked Vincent, eagerly eying the book. “I want to hear the one about the Devil and the violin.”

  “You’ve heard that story a million times,” chided Henry. “There’s more to life than music, you dork.”

  Vincent made a face at his brother.

  His father ruffled Vincent’s hair. “As you like Tartini’s Dream, my son, you will certainly enjoy this story—and rest assured, there is music involved.” He paced around the table holding the book as he spoke.

  “But before we begin, I want you both to consider the following: what if there was a more literal interpretation of these ancient descriptions of Hell? Is it possible that we have mistaken allegory for anecdote?”

  Vincent let out a high-pitched squeal that forced Henry to cover his ears. He watched in fear as his father tried to retain his composure at the outburst.

  “Very well, lecture over,” his father said, switching on a nearby reading lamp. “Time for a story.”

  Henry let out an internal sigh.

  His father opened the weighty tome and took his seat at the table. “Within an oasis surrounded by barren desert, the delicate flower of civilization had begun to blossom and, along with it, the preserva- tion of humanity’s cumulative knowledge of the primeval.” His father paused, repeating the line under his breath as he scribbled down a final note before continuing. “These cultural transmissions of knowledge—ancient tales and whispers in the dark—were cemented into the walls of the cities of Uruk and Mari that were erected out of the swamps and marshland of the Fertile Crescent.”

  Vincent scrambled out of the chair and fell to the ground. He kicked off his shoes and dug his heels into the plush Persian rug that surrounded the cluttered dining table. “This story better have music in it,” Vincent said as he crossed his arms. “And it better not be boring.”

  “Be quiet, it’s starting,” Henry said. He sat next to his brother on the rug and held him still as their father began to read from the ancient book.

  ✠ ✠ ✠

  According to one such tale, on a particularly st
ill night on the eve of the vernal equinox, Mendak the shepherd and his two eldest sons, Kabu and Ninshe, were slowly navigating their flock over the unforgiving terrain of the upper Tigris highlands—an inhospitable landscape marked by craggy ravines and treacherous cliffs.

  Their destination was the small agricultural settlement of Tethe, an outlier community soon to be incorporated into the ancient city of Assur, where they would trade the wool and milk provided by their flock for grain.

  A heavy spring rain had forced the shepherd and his two sons to shelter the flock for the night before continuing their journey.

  The youngest of the two brothers, Ninshe, had become distracted from his chores, tossing stones through one of the narrow fissures from within the cliffside hollow that overlooked the waters of the Tigris river below.

  Hearing his father’s call, the boy ran back to the shelter entrance where Mendak was preparing a fire. Ninshe approached cautiously, seeing the beads of sweat that had formed on his father’s furrowed brow.

  “Have you finished the fence like I asked?”

  “Yes, father,” Ninshe replied. He pointed to the makeshift barrier of date palm branches and mardi reeds, constructed to protect the flock from jackals and hyenas that roamed the countryside.

  “Then come and play us a song while your brother makes our supper,” Mendak said. “Your mother would be ashamed at how seldom you use her gift.”

  “Yes, father.” Ninshe produced a thin reed pipe from his pack—a recent gift from his mother who had encouraged him to take up the instrument to help his father calm the flock. His fingers fumbled over the small holes as he tried to replicate the tune his mother had taught him.

  A loud crash interrupted the performance as all eyes turned towards the mouth of the shelter.

  One of the ewes had managed to topple over a section of the protective barrier that held the sheep at bay. Ninshe watched in horror as she bounded over the fallen branches and ran out into the darkness beyond the fire.

  Mendak called to his sons to drive the ewe back into the shelter as he tended to the rest of the flock. Ninshe and Kabu chased after the sheep, who had followed a game trail into a ravine carved out by the waters of the mighty Tigris river.

  The brothers followed the bleating of the runaway sheep as it ran inside a narrow opening in the cliff face along the edge of the river.

  “You go in first and scare her out,” commanded Kabu. “I’ll wait out here and watch the trail in case she comes out another way.”

  “Father says I’m not to follow your words anymore now that I am of age,” said Ninshe.

  “Father is not here, and I am the eldest.”

  “Father says there is no power over man other than the gods.”

  “Father also says to obey your elders. I am the eldest. I know best. Now get in there before I tell him that it was you who neglected your duties—this is all your fault.” Kabu punctuated the sentiment with a hard shove that nearly knocked Ninshe off his feet.

  Ninshe submitted and entered the mouth of the small cave. The sound of the sheep’s hooves clattering against the limestone outcrop echoed off the cavern walls. His flint too wet to spark a flame to light his lamp, Ninshe proceeded into the darkness by feeling his way along the wall of stone.

  “Come girl, come on out. This is no place for either of us if the rains keep coming,” said Ninshe. The rising water from the nearby river was seeping into his sandals as he called out to the animal.

  He pulled out the small reed pipe from his pack and began to play a soothing melody to calm the frantic sheep. The cavern picked up the song and washed it about like the waters of the swelling river. The notes lingered in the air long enough for Ninshe to play against his own pipe, forming an interplay of dissonant notes that grated against the air. A fierce thunderclap answered back, splitting through the night sky.

  Unsure if it was a trick of sound caused by the approaching storm, or the lingering echo of his pipe, Ninshe thought he heard the unmistak- able sound of a distant horn blowing from beneath the ground in the deep darkness of the cave.

  Without warning, the ewe suddenly shot past the boy and out into the coming storm. Ninshe turned to catch the sheep, and in the process slipped and fell, dropping his pipe. As he crawled in the darkness to find the instrument, another deep, bellowing blast shook the cavern.

  The sound was deafening, causing Ninshe to cup his ears as he ran towards the lightning flashes that filtered in through the cavern entrance. Leaving behind his mother’s gift, he fled from the source of the terrible noise as he began to feel the presence of another within the cave.

  ✠ ✠ ✠

  Outside, Kabu was tying a length of rope around the neck of the run- away ewe who had wandered casually over to him on the trail. He looked to the entrance of the cave for any sign of his brother. Thunder filled the air as the storm grew in intensity.

  He called out to his brother. “Ninshe, quit fooling around! We need to get back to the shelter.”

  The crackling of tree limbs resounded throughout the ravine.

  Kabu turned to examine the sound and watched awestruck as every tree in the palm grove began to bend towards the ground. At first, he had assumed the force of the storm was responsible for the strange occurrence. Then he noticed that the unseen force that propelled the trees seemed to emanate from the center of the grove pushing outward, forcing the trees to bend out in all directions against the wind.

  A second thunderclap threatened to break the night sky in two.

  A strange bellow, sounding off like a deep horn blast, echoed in the wake of the thunder. Kabu stood frozen as a large, shadowy giant emerged from the cavern, dragging his brother’s lifeless body in tow.

  Lightning reflected off the ornate golden crown that adorned the demon’s monstrous countenance, revealing a great, solitary horn that erupted from the creature’s snarling snout.

  The beast tore the horn from its flesh and held it to its lips, creating an earth-shattering clarion call. The sounding of the horn caused the very earth to open up beneath its clawed feet. The great demon dragged Ninshe’s body down into the parting ground, which sealed behind it as it descended into the depths of Hell.

  Unable to believe his eyes, Kabu ran to the site where the demon had taken his brother beneath the ground only to find the fractured pieces of his brother’s reed pipe atop the undisturbed soil.

  ✠ ✠ ✠

  Henry’s father closed the book and leaned back in his chair. “Now that we have provided some context, what insights might this ancient tale reveal about its authors?”

  “They were scared,” offered Vincent. “Scared of the demon.”

  “Demons aren’t real, stupid,” Henry replied. “It’s just a made-up story to scare children into doing their chores.”

  The comment elicited an elbow from his younger brother.

  “What do you think, Vincent? Is Henry right?”

  Vincent thought for a moment as he considered his father’s inquiry. “The demon was afraid too.”

  “Interesting observation. And what do you think the demon was afraid of?”

  “The boy’s song.”

  C H A P T E R O N E

  Hell Hole Of Death

  1

  Jesse Lynn watched the sky for any sign of weather as he lay on the roof of the family station wagon—“Jaws,” as his mother called it. A solid steel behemoth, the great white ’78 Pontiac LeMans sat parked beneath one of the numerous pecan trees that surrounded the double-wide trailer he currently called home.

  Home.

  The word was beginning to lose all meaning.

  Any metro-area yokel with a working tv set knew it was only a matter of time for one of these tornado magnets to bite the big one. He closed his eyes and tried to commune with the wind.

  A placid blue sky stared back through the branches that diffused the glare of the late-afternoon sun. With no cataclysmic storm likely to manifest any time soon, Jesse would be forced to contend with the new lodgi
ngs for the foreseeable future.

  A condoling wind rustled through the trees, shaking loose their bounty, whose tough shells resounded off the trailer’s metal roof like the spring hailstones common to this part of the Southern Plains.

  Thanks, but you need to step it up if we’re ever gonna get out of this dump.

  The trailer was a recent acquisition that his stepdad, Randy, had bought off of one of his old army buddies. It reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer; Jesse even thought he had seen some bullet holes in the walls of one of the back bedrooms.