The Fool Who Closed Hell

The Thing Inside Eli

The parking lot was quiet again, but Jack did not trust the quiet.

He stood at the edge of the cracked asphalt, watching Lydia hold the third shard. The bone glowed in her palm, pulsing with a dark rhythm that matched his own heartbeat. The other two shards in her pocket pulsed along with it, three pieces of the same broken lock, calling to each other across the space between them.

Eli was on his knees. His face was gray. Blood dripped from his nose onto the asphalt, and his hands pressed against his chest like he was trying to keep himself from splitting open. The bone shard inside him was responding to the others. It wanted out. It wanted to join its brothers.

Harris knelt next to Eli. "Can you walk?"

Eli nodded. He lied. Jack could see it in his eyes. The man could barely breathe.

Miles Drake stood by the car, his pale face even paler. He had not expected this. None of them had. They had come for a shard buried under concrete, and they had found it. But finding it had cost Eli something. Maybe everything.

Lydia walked over to Eli. She knelt in front of him and placed her hand on his chest, right over the bone. Her golden eyes glowed. Eli gasped. His back arched. His mouth opened in a silent scream.

"Stop," Harris said. He reached for his gun. "What are you doing to him?"

"Quieting it," Lydia said. Her voice was calm. "The shard inside him knows we have the others. It wants to join them. If it tries to come out on its own, it will kill him."

Jack watched. His hand was in his pocket, wrapped around the brass coin. The coin was hot. Not as hot as before, but warm enough. It did not like the shards. It did not like any of this.

Lydia pulled her hand back. Eli slumped forward, catching himself on his palms. He was breathing hard, but the gray had faded from his face. The blood had stopped dripping from his nose.

"It is calm now," Lydia said. "But not for long. We need to find the last two shards quickly. Every time we collect one, the shard inside Eli grows more restless."

Miles opened the car door. "Then let us not stand here. Get in. All of you."

They piled into the car. Harris drove. Miles sat in the front passenger seat, his hands gripping the door handle. Jack sat in the back between Eli and Lydia. Eli leaned against the window, his eyes closed, his breath shallow. Lydia stared straight ahead, her golden eyes reflecting the passing buildings.

Jack looked out the window. The city moved past him. Coffee shops. Laundromats. Subway entrances. Places he had mopped. Places he had hidden. Places where the seal was cracking and no one knew.

They drove for twenty minutes in silence. Then Harris spoke.

"Where is the next shard?"

Lydia pulled out the map from her pocket. She had marked four X's. Two were crossed off. The dock shard. The parking lot shard. Two remained.

"The fourth shard is inside Eli," she said. "We cannot take it out yet. It would kill him. We need the fifth shard first."

"Where is the fifth?"

Lydia pointed at the map. "Here. The old train yard. It is abandoned. No one has been there in years. But the shard is there. I can feel it."

Harris frowned. "The old train yard is gang territory. Worse than the docks. The people there are not thieves. They are killers."

"Then we do not go in shooting," Miles said. "We go in quiet. We find the shard. We leave."

"Quiet is not my specialty," Harris said. His shadow shifted on the seat behind him.

Jack tapped Harris on the shoulder. When the cop looked back, Jack pointed at himself. Then he pointed at the map. Then he made a walking motion with his fingers.

"You want to go alone?"

Jack nodded.

"No. Absolutely not. The last time you went alone, you nearly died."

Jack shook his head. He pointed at Harris. Then at Eli. Then at Miles. Then he made a staying motion with his hand. He pointed at himself. Then he pointed at Lydia.

"Just you and the girl?"

Jack nodded again.

Harris was quiet for a long moment. His shadow rippled. The extra arms stretched across the back seat, then retracted.

"Fine," Harris said. "But if you are not back in two hours, I am coming in with guns."

Jack turned to Lydia. She smiled. It was not a child's smile.

"Let us go," she said. "The shard is waiting."

---

The old train yard was a graveyard of rusted metal and broken glass.

Jack stood at the edge of the fence and looked inside. Rows of abandoned train cars sat on tracks that had not been used in decades. Some of the cars were overturned. Others were burned, their windows shattered, their metal skins peeling like old skin. The ground was covered in weeds and trash and things Jack did not want to name.

Lydia stood next to him. Her golden eyes glowed in the afternoon light.

"The shard is in the center," she said. "In the biggest train car. The one that still has its roof."

Jack looked. At the center of the yard, surrounded by smaller cars, sat a massive train car. It was longer than the others. Older. Its roof was intact, but its sides were covered in rust and graffiti. Some of the graffiti was in languages Jack did not recognize. Some of it was in languages that should not exist.

"Do you feel it?" Lydia asked.

Jack closed his eyes. He felt it. A pull. A pressure. The same pressure he felt when the seal cracked. The shard was calling to him. To the lock. To the thing inside him that had closed Hell.

He opened his eyes. He nodded.

"Then let us go."

They climbed the fence. Jack went first, his good hand gripping the chain-link, his bad hand tucked into his pocket. His left hand throbbed. The bandage was soaked through. But he did not stop.

Lydia dropped down next to him on the other side. She did not make a sound. Her bare feet touched the ground like smoke.

They walked through the train yard. Past overturned cars. Past piles of trash. Past things that had once been animals but were now just bones and fur. The air was thick and still. No wind. No birds. No sound except the crunch of Jack's boots on the broken glass.

The massive train car loomed ahead. Its door was open, hanging on one hinge, creaking in the wind that was not there.

Jack stopped at the entrance. He looked inside. Dark. So dark. The sunlight did not reach past the threshold. It was like looking into a mouth.

"The shard is in there," Lydia whispered. "But something else is in there too. Something that woke up when we took the other shards."

Jack looked at her. She was not afraid. She had spent eighteen years in the breach. A dark train car was nothing.

He stepped inside.

The darkness swallowed him. He could not see his hand in front of his face. But he could feel the shard. Warm. Pulsing. Calling.

He walked forward. His boots echoed on the metal floor. Behind him, he heard Lydia's soft footsteps. She was following. Good.

The shard pulled him deeper. Past rows of seats that had been ripped out. Past windows that had been boarded up. Past walls that were covered in symbols Jack did not recognize.

Then he saw it.

A light. Faint. Blue. Coming from the end of the train car.

The shard.

It was floating in the air, just like the others. A bone. Yellowed. Ancient. Carved with characters so small they looked like dust. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched Jack's heart.

He reached for it.

Something grabbed his wrist.

Jack froze. The hand was cold. Too cold. It had too many fingers. He looked down. The hand was not attached to an arm. It was attached to a shadow. A shadow that was crawling up his sleeve, reaching for his throat.

Jack tried to pull away. The shadow held tight.

"You are the Lock," said a voice. Not from the shadow. From everywhere. From the walls. From the floor. From the air. "We have been waiting for you."

Lydia stepped forward. Her golden eyes blazed. "Let him go."

The shadow laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound. "The child who lived in the dark. You should be on our side. You are one of us now."

"I am not one of you," Lydia said. "I am still human. Mostly."

"Mostly is not enough."

The shadow tightened its grip on Jack's wrist. Pain shot up his arm. He clenched his teeth. He did not scream. He never screamed.

His free hand went to his pocket. The brass coin. He pulled it out and pressed it against the shadow.

The coin blazed. White light. Hot. Bright. The shadow screamed. Its grip loosened. Jack pulled his wrist free and staggered backward.

The shadow retreated to the walls, writhing, hissing. But it did not leave.

"You cannot hurt me with that forever," it said. "The coin is old. Its power is fading. Soon it will be nothing but metal."

Jack did not care about forever. He only cared about now.

He lunged forward and grabbed the floating shard.

The moment his fingers touched it, he felt everything. The breach. The dark. The weight of a thousand years of hunger. The shard screamed in his hand. Not a sound. A feeling. A raw pulse of pain that shot up his arm and into his chest.

He held on.

The shadow lunged at him. Lydia stepped between them. Her golden eyes blazed. Her hands shot out, and the shadow stopped. It hung in the air, frozen, like a snake about to strike.

"You cannot touch him," Lydia said. "He is the Lock. He is protected."

"The Lock can break," the shadow hissed. "Everything breaks."

"Not today."

Lydia pushed. The shadow flew backward, slamming against the wall of the train car. It stuck there, writhing, hissing, but unable to move.

Jack turned and ran. He ran through the dark train car, past the boarded windows, past the ripped-out seats, toward the door. His boots pounded on the metal floor. The shard in his hand pulsed with every heartbeat.

He burst out of the train car into the sunlight.

Lydia was right behind him. Her golden eyes were dimmer now. She looked tired. More tired than Jack had ever seen her.

"Go," she said. "It will not stay frozen for long."

They ran through the train yard. Past the bones. Past the overturned cars. Past the fence. Jack's lungs burned. His left hand throbbed. His right hand clutched the shard.

They reached the car. Harris saw them coming. He started the engine. Miles opened the back door. Jack and Lydia dove inside.

Harris hit the gas. The car screamed out of the train yard.

Behind them, the shadow poured out of the train car. It rose into the air, black and formless, reaching for them. But the car was too fast. The shadow fell behind. It shrank. It disappeared.

Jack slumped in his seat. The shard was still in his hand. He tucked it into his pocket with the others. Three shards. One inside Eli. One left to find.

Eli was staring at him. His face was pale. Sweat ran down his temples.

"I felt that," Eli said. "The shadow. It touched the shard inside me. It knows where I am."

Jack looked at Lydia. Her golden eyes were closed. She was breathing slowly, recovering.

"How long?" Jack asked. His voice was a dry rasp. The words cost him. The seal tightened.

"Not long," Lydia said without opening her eyes. "The shadow will tell the others. They will come for Eli. They will come for all of us."

Harris drove faster.

---

They did not go back to Miles's penthouse. Too exposed. Too easy to find. Instead, Harris drove to an old warehouse on the south side of the city. Boarded windows. Rusted doors. No signs. No address. Just a building that had been forgotten.

Harris had keys. He unlocked the door and led them inside.

The warehouse was empty. Concrete floor. High ceilings. Dust everywhere. But it was safe. No cameras. No neighbors. No one to ask questions.

Jack sat on the floor with his back against the wall. His left hand was bleeding again. He unwrapped the bandage and looked at the wound. The old scars had reopened. The skin was raw and red. He wrapped it again, tighter this time.

Eli sat across from him. The man was rocking back and forth, his hands pressed against his chest. The bone shard inside him was glowing through his shirt. Blue light. Faint but growing.

"It hurts," Eli said. "It has never hurt this much before."

Lydia walked over to him. She knelt and placed her hand on his chest. Her golden eyes glowed. Eli gasped. The blue light dimmed.

"The other shards are calling to it," Lydia said. "We have three now. Four if we count the one inside you. The more we collect, the louder the call."

"Can you stop it?" Eli asked.

"No. But I can slow it down." She pulled her hand back. The blue light faded to nothing. Eli's breathing eased.

Harris walked to the window. He looked out at the empty street. His shadow stretched across the floor, too long, too many arms.

"We have three shards," Harris said. "One more to find. Where is it?"

Lydia pulled out the map. She had marked four X's. Three were crossed off. The docks. The parking lot. The train yard. One remained.

"The last shard is in the hands of a man named Zach Shaw," Lydia said. "He is the one who confronted Jack in the subway. The one who was pulled into the breach."

"He is dead," Harris said.

"No. He was pulled inside, but he was not killed. The breach does not always kill. Sometimes it changes."

Jack remembered the oily eyes. The expensive suit. The fear on Zach's face when the hand grabbed his ankle. He had assumed the man was dead. He had been wrong.

"Where is he now?" Miles asked.

Lydia pointed at the map. "Here. The old church. The one where Jack fought the creature. Zach Shaw came back. He is not human anymore. He is something else. Something the breach made."

Jack stood up. His legs were shaking. His left hand throbbed. His throat burned. But he stood.

He walked to the map and looked at the church. It was on the other side of the city. Near the river. Near the old docks. Near where this had all begun.

"Jack," Harris said. "You cannot fight him alone. You can barely stand."

Jack turned. He looked at Harris. At Eli. At Miles. At Lydia.

He pointed at himself. Then he pointed at the church. Then he made a walking motion with his fingers.

"I am going with you," Harris said. "No arguments."

Eli pushed himself to his feet. "I am going too. The shard inside me will help. It knows the dark. It knows what Zach has become."

Miles sighed. "I am not a fighter. But I have money. I have resources. I will stay here and make sure no one finds this place."

Lydia stood next to Jack. Her golden eyes glowed.

"We go tonight," she said. "Zach Shaw has the last shard. We take it from him. Then we take Eli's shard. Then we rebuild the lock and close Hell forever."

Jack looked at the window. The sun was setting. The sky was turning orange and red. The crack was there, hidden in the clouds, waiting.

Seven days. Maybe less.

He touched his pocket. The three shards pulsed together. Warm. Alive. Hungry.

One more. Then the end.