Hideaway

Vassago drove more slowly than he would have done any other night.
    He was waiting for a vision that would tell him if he should kill the child upon arrival at the park or wait until the mother was his, as well.
    Turning his head to look at her once more, he discovered she was watching him. Her eyes shone with the reflected light from the instrument panel. He could see that her fear was great.
    “Poor baby,” he said. “Don't be afraid. Okay? Don't be afraid. We're just going to an amusement park, that's all. You know, like Disneyland, like Magic Mountain?”
    If he was unable to acquire the mother, perhaps he should look for another child about the same size as Regina, a particularly pretty one with four strong, healthy limbs. He could then remake this girl with the arm, hand, and leg of the other, as if to say that he, a mere twenty-year-old expatriate of Hell, could do a better job than the Creator. That would make a fine addition to his collection, a singular work of art.
    He listened to the contained thunder of the engine. The hum of the tires on the pavement. The soft whistle of wind at the windows.
    Waiting for an epiphany. Waiting for guidance. Waiting to be told what he should do. Waiting, waiting, a vision to behold.
     
    ----
     
    Even before they reached the Ortega Highway off-ramp, Hatch received a flurry of images stranger than anything he had seen before. None lasted longer than a few seconds, as if he were watching a film with no narrative structure. Dark seas crashing on black shores under starless and moonless skies. Enormous ships, windowless and mysterious, driven through the tenebrous waves by powerful engines that produced a noise like the anguished screams of multitudes. Colossal demonic figures, a hundred feet tall, striding alien landscapes, black capes flowing behind them, heads encased in black helmets as shiny as glass. Titanic, half-glimpsed machines at work on monumental structures of such odd design that purpose and function could not even be guessed.
    Sometimes Hatch saw that hideous landscape in chillingly vivid detail, but sometimes he saw only descriptions of it in words on the printed pages of a book. If it existed, it must be on some far world, for it was not of this earth. But he was never sure if he was receiving pictures of a real place or one that was merely imagined. At times it seemed as vividly depicted as any street in Laguna but at other times seemed tissue-paper thin.
     
    ----
     
    Jonas returned to the living room with the box of items he had saved from Jeremy's room, and put it down beside his armchair. He withdrew from the box a small, shoddily printed volume titled The Hidden and gave it to Kari, who examined it as if he had handed her an object encrusted with filth.
    “You're right to wrinkle your nose at it,” he said, picking up his glass of wine and moving to the large window. “It's nonsense. Sick and twisted but nonsense. The author was a convicted killer who claimed to have seen Hell. His description isn't like anything in Dante, let me tell you. Oh, it possesses a certain romance, undeniable power. In fact, if you were a psychotic young man with delusions of grandeur and a bent for violence, with the unnaturally high testosterone levels that usually accompany a mental condition like that, then the Hell he describes would be your ultimate wet dream of power. You would swoon over it. You might not be able to get it out of your mind. You might long for it, do anything to be a part of it, achieve damnation.”
    Kari put the book down and wiped her fingertips on the sleeve of her blouse. “This author, Thomas Nicene—you said he killed his mother.”
    “Yes. Mother and brother. Set the example.” Jonas knew he had already drunk too much. He took another long sip of his wine anyway. Turning from the night view, he said, “And you know what makes it all so absurd, pathetically absurd? If you read that damn book, which I did afterward, trying to understand, and if you're not psychotic and disposed to believe it, you'll see right away that Nicene isn't reporting what he saw in Hell. He's taking his inspiration from a source as stupidly obvious as it is stupidly ridiculous. Kari, his Hell is nothing more than the Evil Empire in the Star Wars movies, somewhat changed, expanded upon, filmed through the lens of religious myth, but still Star Wars.” A bitter laugh escaped him. He chased it with more wine. “His demons are nothing more than hundred-foot-tall