Inferno.

By Simon Collinson.

I had been told a new nightclub was a place to avoid. “Inferno” they called it. It had a terrible

and frightful reputation. Whatever you do, don't go there!

“It lies in the wrong part of town,” they told me.

But I was drawn to it, for danger excited me.

I just had to give it a try.

Like a moth drawn to the flame, my curiosity got the better of me.

I wish it hadn’t.

I found myself blown along a twisted, winding path towards the “Inferno club”. There was an

eerie silence as I stood outside a shuttered and dusty, flaky building, shrouded in mist.

It wasn’t much to look at from the outside. All dark and rusted.

I trembled and hesitated at the threshold.

Then a voice, from somewhere inside, spoke to me.

“Come along, come on in,

Mortal, dare to seek what few humans have the courage to see,

Come on in, come take a look,

A welcome is bid you,

And a chance to gain knowledge and power,

Beyond your wildest dreams,

Come along, come along,

Dare to dream,

That Potentiates, princes and presidents,

Will bow before you.

It's all in here,

If you have the courage to look,

Come along, come inside,

Step this way, don’t delay,

Opportunity and fame,

Bids you welcome,

Mortal will you step in?

Come along, come along,

Come in, come in.

This way now.

And a force pulled me, stumbling inwards.

The warm dinginess clung to me as I stepped nervously forwards.

I clambered down the cavernous stairs. Groping in the dimness for a sure footing.

I reached the bottom and a door opened itself to reveal a large room, swathed in gloom.

It was so smoke filled my eyes could not at first make out what was contained in this place. I

hesitated to step foot onto the misty floor.

But the voice once more beseeched me,

“Come along, come along, come on in.”

And I walked through the open doorway.

What a shock when I crept through the doors.

And The fading mist revealed the startling sight.

Shades and shapely shadows just standing there like statues.

The shades took no notice of me or showed any reaction to my presence.

There were a few that I thought I knew.

Many long dead. Others that I knew were still living.

But for how much longer?

I knew not.

The shapes slowly started to move.

And a voice whispered,

“They were awaiting your entrance to begin the dance.”

The shapes and shadows were now gracefully gliding and twirling around the room.

All around me I could see the dead and the dying.

They were twirling and spinning,

Whirling wraiths with expressionless faces.

I shivered from head to foot.

There was a sickening feeling that those who were alive in this place would soon be dead.

A sort of sinking premonition.

In front of the dance floor was a massive screen upon which a film was projected. The film

showed the lives of the soon to be departed. All their deeds for good and ill, all their secrets. I

could not take my eyes off the screen, I felt compelled to watch on.

In this place I was in a dreamlike trance.

The living people I saw had no recollection of being at this place.

But slowly one by one they all departed the dance.

And then they departed this life.

Outside of this place I found that the people died in the order they left the dance.

And then one by one they soon departed the world of the living.

I dreaded to see a loved one who danced in such a place,

knowing that soon they would join the ranks of the dead.

I asked myself what am I doing in a place like this?

“ You are here to listen and observe.”, came a reply.

“But I don't want to be here anymore!”, I cried out.

And I thought I heard a hollow laugh.

And the voice came wafting over the room,

“Oh you will, you will. You’ll keep coming back and the allure of this place will draw you in.

You will return, of that you can be sure.”

The voice spoke the truth.

No matter how terrible this place was, I just had to come back to it and learn its secrets. The

knowledge of who would live and who would die and how people had really led their lives

was too precious to spurn. My mind became excited by the opportunities presented to me by

this knowledge that no one else knew.

My doubts were quickly overcome by my desire to succeed and prosper.

I started to anxiously listen to the chatter of the wraiths around me. I found their

conversations illuminating and intoxicating.

They say “don’t speak ill of the dead”.

That’s ironic.

For in this place, the dead had plenty of ill to say about the living.

I think that once you’re dead you have no fears to keep hold of your tongue.

Their tongues were full of all sorts of sordid secrets about the still living.

For the likes of me it was a goldmine of information. I couldn’t write it down quick enough,

anxious lest I miss a juicy morsel of scandal.

Now I live with the dread and fear of my nightly visits to this detestable place.

I fear what I will see, who I will see.

For I now know any living person I see there is doomed, sure to die soon.

And that knowledge is a terrible thing to carry around when I meet these doomed ones in real

life when I’m out of this dire club. This place is most infernal.

But I must carry on going there. The tales that the departed carry are too exciting and

valuable to miss.

The things in human shape that inhabit the club infernal are strange. They are insensible to

my voice or touch. They carry on as if I were not present but gently drift and glide on as the

smoke that departs from a dying flame.

Each new soul that was presented there had a film projected onto a massive screen of all the

major events in their life. All the good and bad deeds they had done as well as some deeds

yet to be done. I could see and hear everything.

It was intoxicating.

I wanted to run away. Yet was compelled to watch on. There is some compelling fascination

to look upon the monstrous horrors that nightly move about at the dance infernal and the

monstrous tales they have to tell of the living. This drama unfolding was drawing me in. I

watched every scene. And thought I could make use of the information to prey upon the

living and bleed them of wealth while yet they still lived.

The more I went to this infernal place, the more information I collected. I soon became a

regular visitor to the place. I remembered what the voice said when I first went there. The

promises of power and importance on offer were too good to turn down. I hoped the voice

spoke true.

Where before I was reluctant to go to the “Inferno,” I now rushed with alacrity to gather the

information and morsels of human unkindness, so I could reap a harvest of gold upon others'

sorrows. And their sins ! What I learnt about the behavior of my fellow citizens I could

barely believe they could stoop so low in depravity. Everyone has secrets and now that I

knew them I resolved to take full advantage of my knowledge.

I made my insincere excuses, bent my routine so that I could spend more time in this place of

twirling wraiths.

I couldn’t stay away from the place. Until every evening was spent in the decrepit ruins of the

“Inferno” wallowing in the mire of human misery.

I couldn’t get enough of the filthy and disgusting sins I was watching. I became immersed in

a sordid sea of filth and immorality.

I no longer wanted to be with my family, loved ones or friends. They were just wasting my

time. Time that could be spent wallowing in the mire of human weakness at the” Inferno.” I

ignored them and allowed them to leave. My wife said she no longer knew the man she had

married all those years ago. My children said they hardly ever saw me around these days.

Friends were tired of the excuses I kept making to avoid seeing them. They all said I had

changed from the person they once knew.

My wife said it was like living with a dead man. One by one they dropped out of my life.

But I didn’t care. All I cared for was the pursuit of knowledge and power at the “Inferno”.

I wanted to absorb every little dirty secret there was to know.

And there was so much to know and learn about the foibles of my neighbours and

community.

So little time to collect it all.

I became anxious lest I miss out on some morsel of misery that I could turn to my advantage.

Within the year I was wealthy and influential beyond my wildest dreams. People listened at

my feet and paid dearly for my advice and paid twice as much for my silence.

Potentiates, Princes and presidents indeed did come to parade before and consult with me.

The voice was right about that. I had them all dangling around me like brightly coloured

baubles upon a tree.

All feared me. We have all done things in our past that make us deeply ashamed. I knew

nearly all their innermost closely guarded secrets. Those who had risen the highest had the

worst secrets to hide and were willing to pay the highest price to keep them hidden.

They tried to find my sources but they never found out.

I never spoke to anybody about the “Inferno”.

I guarded that secret jealousy.

Anyone I suspected of getting too close to my secret was eliminated.

I had enough money and supporters to have these people disposed of.

Life is so cheap.

Besides if you know a person’s innermost dire secret it is a trifle to bend them to your will.

Dangle them as a cat would a bobbin of cotton reel.

Play and toy with them a while, then draw them in to do your bidding.

All feared me. I knew nearly all their secrets. I yearned to know all their darkest desires and

fears.

The first life taken troubled me. Maybe the second. But after that, the elimination of people

who threatened my secret became routine. I had no feelings.

Bit by bit with every visit to the “Inferno” my humanity was being peeled away from me.

I didn’t care.

All that mattered was my secret of the “Inferno” being preserved. I only cared about missing

out on a morsel of scandal that I could use against a person.

But people spoke in whispers. They always do. People are so jealous,

They said,” That one is part of the mob, or worse. He has sold his soul to the devil.”

Maybe I had.

I didn’t care. I no longer cared what anybody thought.

Only being at the “Inferno” concerned me.

Nothing else, nobody else mattered.

My heart had become a cold shell.

I knew what they were saying, the wraiths at the place Infernal told me.

“No one can see into our souls and read our thoughts, know of our deepest fears,

Surely there must be great evil at work here.”, the people were saying of me.

Of course I knew what they were thinking, what they feared or desired, because it was

revealed to me at the “Inferno”.

And the voice from inside spoke,

“Come on in, come on in,

Step by step, sin by sin,

Will draw you deeper into seeking

The sinkhole of iniquity and misery.”

I went along to the infernal place. Night after night. But now I can touch the shades and they

can hear what I am saying.

I was more excited for now I would be able to speak to the wraiths so they could give me

more information that I greatly desired about the people outside. I’ll make them pay dearly.

Then that familiar voice said, “come along mortal and watch the screen”

I could see the screen. I watched to see whose sordid secrets would be revealed. Then quickly

the shock of seeing my own figure appear.

It was a face I hardly recognised. It had aged tremendously since last I cast a glance at my

features. It reflected all the corruption I had collected and gathered since coming to this dire

place.

And I winced in pain and agony at all the terrible choices I have made. All the people I had

ignored and cast away. All the lives I had ruined or ended.

The worst was not watching the mistakes you make up there before your eyes, but in not

being able to do anything about it.

But worse is to come.

The show is not quite over yet.

For on the screen an awful thing reveals itself.

A travesty of a human, all mouldy, putrid and decayed from head to foot.

“What disfigured monstrosity is this?” , I cried out.

“Look, look,” the crowd of shades cried out, pointing to my legs.

I looked down to see that the terrible decay and mouldy greyness had already taken hold of

my feet and legs.

As I watched on as my hands and arms were being overtaken by rotting greyness. The smell

was awful like a festering rubbish dump in summer.

The shock and terror as my body decomposed rapidly right in front of my eyes.

Humanity flickering away so soon.

And the last thing I heard from all the shades around me was, “you’ll never leave this place,

you’ll be dancing in the “Inferno” for eternity.”

“Eternity”.

“Welcome to your fate. You have reaped what you’ve sown. You have placed everything else

that you knew and loved behind in your pursuit of this place.”

Then a new visitor arrives. I know them. I shout gleefully. But they cannot see or hear me.

And I am sad as I realise that every visitor to this club shares the same sorry end.

I am truly sad that I ever dared to dance at this place of the damned.

But my will is no longer my own,

My fate is sealed,

And I must dance on and on…

Inferno was the runner up piece in our exclusive Halloween contest 'Gothic Tales' written by Simon Collinson from England - A man seeking solace in the shadows.