Hell in Heaven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Matt flew through the empty window frame and landed hard on the pile of wood he'd chopped an eternity ago. The logs skittered out from under him as he tried to get to his feet, sending him sprawling. He caught himself on one hand, and then that arm plunged through into the hole that served to cache the animal bones. He stifled a scream of pain as a jagged bone fragment slashed through his palm and tried to pull free. But the pile of logs had collapsed in on itself, and his arm was trapped under the weight of the wood.

As he struggled to free himself, he caught a glimpse of movement coming around the side of the house. How did she get here so fast? he thought. How can she even move?

Her legs were gone, swallowed by a mass of tumors. All over her body the growths had burst through the skin, which peeled and rotted around them. Blood and pus oozed out from the open wounds, leaving a trail of slime behind her. What had been a beautiful woman was now a quivering mound of rotting flesh.

And it was coming toward him.

He could still hear her voice. "You have to join me," she said, although he could see no mouth to utter the words, no throat to shape the air into sounds. "This is why you were sent here. You're mine."

The thing that had been Joan didn't have arms, but as it got closer he could see it was sending out something that looked like a limb, a pulsating cancerous growth that reached out for him.

He scrambled back as far as he could, but he couldn't get his arm free. With his other hand he felt desperately for some kind of weapon. There were the small logs he had split, but he was certain they'd disappear into that pulsating mass with no effect at all.

And then his fingers brushed against something cool and smooth. His body recognized it before his mind did and his hand closed greedily around the axe handle. It was swinging through the air before Matt realized what he was doing. The blade flashed in the moonlight, and then came down on the Joan-thing's outstretched tentacle.

The axe cut through the tumors like butter and thunked into the dirt. The Joan-thing let out a scream of pain and rage and pulled her dripping stump back into the pulsating mound of her body. The severed piece flopped on the ground twice and then began to decay into a black ooze.

The Joan-thing was coming for him again. Matt tried to pull his arm free, but it was still held fast by the weight of the wood. He yanked the axe out of the dirt and swung it backhand as hard as he could, aiming for where the thing's throat should have been. There was a flash of light as the blade caught the moon again, and then it was gone as the axe-head buried itself into the shambling pile of flesh.

Matt tried to pull the axe back for another swing, but he couldn't get it loose. And then it came free, sending chunks of diseased flesh flying into the night. Matt swung again, landing a solid blow on what should have been the crown of its head.

The axe might have been cutting through water, it moved so easily through the thing, splitting it in two. Matt pulled out the axe and for a moment expected the sides of the gaping wound to come together, bind themselves back into one. Instead, they both wavered for a moment, and then collapsed on the ground.