Letters From Hades by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online

slope like a mudslide or avalanche. Was the town of Caldera beneath my very feet even now?
    When I crested the hill I found a hollow below, and there protruded the flat roofs of several small buildings. Some jutted up in their entirety, starkly white against this ash like pulverized obsidian, while other roofs were half exposed, or only showed one piercing corner like the prow of a sinking ship. Lumps in the black blanket suggested roofs that were fully submerged. I descended, half-sliding, the ash getting into my boots, into the hollow and found myself standing atop one of the taller roofs. So tall that its top level of glassless windows was just above the level of the ash.
    Crouching, I eased myself through one of these windows into an unlit, sparsely furnished room. The wind had blown so much ash into it that its floor was covered, dunes blown halfway up its crude walls, which had the look of stucco or baked white clay. But there was a rough door made of purple-colored planks across the room, and when I pushed it open I found myself in a narrow hallway that had only the barest sifting of ash across it.
    The hallway was lined with more doors made from that bruise-colored, decay-colored wood. And behind one of them, I heard a low moaning.
    I knew a Demon would not be moaning, but a Demon might be in there causing the moaning, so I looked around me for a weapon of defense. There was nothing, really. So I crept to the door as stealthily as I could, and pressed my ear against it. The moaning was clearer, but I heard no other sounds. No sadistic chuckling, no growling, as from the pathetic baboon devils. No sounds of blows or chopping. I decided to risk it. Steeling myself for the possibility of my own pending moans, I cracked the door open as quietly as I could manage and peeked into the chamber beyond.
    There was only one occupant of the room. A female child, on the floor. No, the head was so disproportionate to the body, even for a child. A dwarf, perhaps…
    I opened the door all the way, stepped over the threshold, and heard the woman on the floor gasp. I nearly gasped myself.
    We knew we were both of the Damned. She didn’t scream, but looked up at me with glassy-eyed anguish. I looked down at her with as much pity as I could squeeze out of my exhausted soul. The woman’s head was of normal size, but her body was as tiny as that of a five-year-old. A five-year-old made emaciated, cadaver-thin, naked and withered. Without strength to hoist herself up onto the room’s dusty bed, she had pulled off its blanket and made a nest for herself. She dragged a fold of it across her, more I think out of shame for her deformity than for her nudity.
    "I was harvested," she explained, her voice distorted: squeaky and thin, "but my head was deflected off the blade before it was sucked in. It rolled aside and I was forgotten. When enough of my body grew back, I dragged myself here. It was horrible, worse than being buried. The crabs tried to eat me but I got away." She turned her face to show me where half of it had been nibbled to the bone but was forming new muscle and skin. "I don’t know how I ever made it in here, but I did." She let out a jagged, sorrowful sigh. "My body is coming back…but it hurts so bad…it hurts worse than losing it…"
    "I’ll find you some clothes," I whispered, and I began to search the room. In the next room, I found some and returned. I put them into a pillowcase and set that down beside her. "Do you want me to help you into something now?"
    "No. I’m all right for now. I’ll grow into them. Soon. But it seems to take forever…"
    The room was gloomy, without a window, so I had left the hallway door open to let in the barest dregs of light. Still, I wanted to write in this journal and wanted more light to see by. I set out on another search, and found a glowing lantern in one of the rooms. The gelatinous fluid inside it was not oil, was not even aflame, but it gave off its own cool, orange-hued