Hungry Ghost Hell chapter 4

  Josh is sitting in a kid's tree house, curtains drawn over windows and a lock on the trap door leading down the steps. Not the secure location he was expecting these people to send him too. But it is in the yard of a three story house up on a hill and overlooking the suburbs, which amount to an entire town really as they arn't connected directly to any other housing areas, its just open fields, spots of forests with the mountains making up one visual boarder; the mountains he had come out of, and the hills where this house starts at but he is told there is a city some distance past them; and beyond the large fields and off in the distance a forest that is always full of fog and easy to get lost in. Apparently the old guy "Bill" came from the city, another guy by the name of "Charles" had (woken up) in the very three story house where this tree house is located and strongly advised to never enter the house. The woman "Roberta" whose soul had been eaten by the black armored demoness had apparently come from the foggy woods. This was pretty much the story of all of them; they either appeared in these suburbs and either escaped or were rescued from the personal hells they were inside the houses or wandered here from another area mistaking the suburbs as a safer place. Apparently another guy "Rick" had started out in the small town just in the mountains Josh had found and was routingly being torn apart by those armored panthers and other nightmarish creatures.

   Which is something else Josh is mentally noting, these people don't (damage) the same way he does, nor do the demons here act like the ones he remembers back whereever that was he started. These people don't feel hunger or thirst to same degree he does; they can after a few days of ignoring it just get over it entirely; and they can sleep; well he can too now; but they always could. They also don't "ghost" when injured they feel it the whole time and don't heal till a little while after the pain stops; apparently realizing that its only when they experience too much damage all at once that they "respawn" somewhere else in the area. What happened with those twin armored demonesses however isn't anything any of them had ever seen before; the demons here eat the meat of their bodies or torment them, not suck out their souls. They were confused by his stories, even as he elaborated on them over the walkie; of being a wandering ghost in a surreal alien land scape. Everything here is familiar but strange, drinks and foods that taste wrong or are painful traps, home appliances and toys that attacks, chimera or mutant animals like the otter-wolf. As well as little people of all sorts, old man Bill had told them about these rankings and types his old group in the city had; ranging from traps, to monsters out of fairy tales and movies, to big beasts like sandworms, giant slugs, clear up to what he called "Alphas", the demons that really look like demons, they are big and smart. Apparently that centaur he had narrowly avoided a run in with according to Rick was the alpha demon of the houses of that little town in the mountains.

    Josh was told and described to him what he is keeping an eye out for, in the suburbs all the horrors are inside the yards and houses, for the most part. The local pool has some horrors inside. So long as they stick to the outskirts or clear out a tool shed, a tree house, or set up their own structures like tents and little wooden shacks they are safe from the things that stay inside the houses and yards. However there are other things, sometimes things wander through the area from the hills, mountains, or fields. Like the armored panthers, or mud zombies from the field, the evil smurfs, and others. That from a good vantage point will stick out as the only things moving against the plain background. They seem particularly afraid of two things, a giant mothman-woman that will fly over some nights and scoop people up to eat their brains and bones dropping the meat to the streets below, or something they described as a "shadow quill", a female shadow person demon that moves like a squirrel and has a long tail covered in black quills which are also up her back and coming off her head like a large mane of quills. This one he was told lurks around the hills he is stationed on, and there are more than one of them. Described to him in great detail and what sort of darting movements to keep an eye out for as well as what they look like when asleep during the day, buried partway in the dirt with a bush of black quills sticking up so you'd think it some strange hell plant or a land sea urchin of some kind.

   Of course he knows these people don't want him to stick around, not after he told them that these new two new "alpha demons" followed him and have his scent. After what happened at the shack, they did something to him, something he recognized as a branding; they may be able to find him instantly now. Josh *sighs* and looks at the walkie and the binoculars rigged up to look out the curtains. They want him to keep a look out, yet also warned him that moving the curtains too much might attract something, the woods around the house are full of weird things. he's already spooted squirrels with bird feet and human eyes, a boar with spikes sticking out of his head and back, and a golden shiny deer that as soon as it stepped out of the light turned into a see through deer with a skeleton covered in squirming black and purple slugs. Things that have convinced him that making a run for it through the woods is a bad idea. He thinks to the otter wolf, it took a chunk out of his arm but then backed down; he contemplates how often he'd end up going through that before enough predators learned he tasted bad to them; but then again those evil smurfs didn't seem to care, and doubtful taste would meant anything to that over stuffed scarecrow wielding a machete.

   "To think," whispers Josh to himself, "Just yesterday I thought I was back home after being knocked out by a gas leak from a cave."

   He had spoken briefly over the walkie about that, some of them were sure they'd been killed, knowing their last moments, others like him have no idea what happened. Just one day they woke up and were in what they have concluded must be Hell. A surprisingly indirect Hell with firearms available.

  "They have guns," Josh whispers, "and each other, but they are always on the look out, and their weapons don't work on the Alphas according to that old guy, sure as hell didn't work on the twins. Feels...weirdly like some sort of psychological horror with pain serving some round them up purpose; fuck..."

  He spies movement by the house, he is about to call it in when he realizes its Roberta. He lets her up the ladder to the tree house.

  "Switching already?" asks Josh.

  "No," says Roberta, "and don't get any funny ideas but I am sticking close to you."

  "Still think I'm some demon trying to infiltrate the group?" asks Josh.

  "No," says Roberta sitting in a tiny chair in the corner, "I want what you have. That kind of body."

  "I don't know what to tell you," says Josh, "I don't know how or why I'm like this."

  "Its obvious," says Roberta, "you were in some other Hell, some Buddhist hungry ghosts shit, and you fell into our hell by accident so it tried to respawn you and bam, here you are with some freaky hybrid body. All I need to do is find my way to the hell you came from."

  "I don't know where the cave is," says Josh.

  "No, but those demon babes can come and go. Next time they come for you. I'm following them through their wormhole. Simple as that."

  "That's your plan?" asks Josh, "just wait till they come to snack on me again, and wait till they turn around and what...rush the wormhole?"

   "Better than sticking around here waiting to be chewed up or tortured by some fucking animals. I have been living in lean tos and shacks, I wandered around that fucking fog for who knows how long as every stupid thing either sliced chunks out of me, burned me with acid, or slashed at me, slicing trees limbs, exploding acid frogs, fucking packs of demon wolves tore me limb from limb....and I felt every fucking second of it, it wasn't what i wanted,"

  She shakes her head, "not to mention the demon red necks and other goblins in those woods constantly hunting me just to torture me. I went through Hell...litterally. I didn't go ghost or numb, even a real living body would have died from shock or used endorphins to numb the pain after awhile; but no, I experienced every fucking second of it. Now I see them right in front of me, the promised land, and I am not losing this chance."

   ******

  As darkness falls, despite there being no sun the light levels still change, a call comes over the walkie, "Charles reporting in, looks like the new guy's friends are back. Just appeared north of the public pool, casually walking. Look like they're talking to each other and pointing at things."

  "Not going to make a run for it?" asks Roberta as they see the twin demonesses making their way up the long driveway to the house.

   Roberta's lips twist in an unnatural smile, "I don't blame you; mmmm, they're absolutely gorgeous, two demon preds hunting you down, dominating you, eating you but it doesn't hurt; a warmth..."

   Josh only watches in stunned silence as she throws open the trap door and rushes out into the night running straight for the twin demonesses. She stops not fifteen feet in front of them at the edge of yard throwing her hands out screaming, "I want what he has! Please! I want to feel your soft velvetty lips around me again, being pulled back by that long flexible tongue, squeezed down your long soft throat and craddled in your warm welcoming insides. I want that body!"

  She points back right at the tree house, "I want to hunted and eaten without the pain, without being torn or bleeding or burning, what you did to me, what I saw you can do to him. To be yours and yours alone, its my fantasy, my dream!"

   The twin demonesses look at each other and the black armored one points at Roberta while creating a sigil in the air, it has many boxes and strange symbols. The two of them look at each other and nod. Roberta doesn't move as they approach her, walk around her. The black armored one takes Roberta's chin between her thumb and index finger, the long red nails gliding over Roberta's field of vision. Her large red lips encase the smaller humans' own. Lights shoot from Roberta's eyes as the demoness draw back, pulling the small fist sized white fluffy cartoon cloud looking soul from Roberta's mouth, wrapped up in the long prehensile tongue of the demoness. She slowly sucks it into her mouth, a small whisp on the end wagging like a tail which the white armored one sucks on with a loud slurp as, the two demonesses embracing as a kiss as the black armored one's throat extends pulling down Roberta's soul. The white armored one reluctantly pulls away, their long tongues intertwined like breeding snakes resisting being seperated. The white armored ones draws a circle of blue light with her claw in tthe air. She summons a very large brown sack with a pull string. She scoops up Roberta's body with it and the two of them vanish through another portal with it.

  In the tree house Josh watched everything, surprising himself that he feels a bit of jelousy as they leave without feeding on him. However one other thing is certain, he can't stay here, not after this; no telling how these militia sorts will react to this news. He practically leaps from the tree house, running through the woods heading towards the road going north out of the suburb town and towards the city on the horrizon.