Inferno Read online

  Inferno

  Written by Yolanda Olson

  Copyright © 2017 Yolanda Olson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Inferno Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My PAs, Lis Garcia and Linda Cotter, thank you for sitting through the headache that is Yolanda Olson and not quitting on me. You ladies kept me laughing through this entire thing when I doubted my sanity. You’re the best!

  Daqri Bernardo of Covers by Combs for this amazing cover that I knew I had to have the moment I saw it! Thank you for once again making my story come to life with the striking visual effect that only you can create.

  Evelyn of Pinpoint Editing. Thank you so much for your hard work on this! Your comments made this fun to read through!

  My Darkling Little Beta Team. I know I was driving you guys crazy, so thanks for putting up with this story in pieces. I appreciate it more than words can say!

  To my readers...

  I have no warning for you this time. Go in blind and come out on the other side with the light shining brightly in your eyes.

  Good luck.

  Inferno Foreword

  Sometimes, things just are what they are. Twist them how you choose. Spin them around in your hopes. Sugarcoat them. Slap pretty gold stickers on the murky spots. Lie to yourself and everyone around you. Even spray them down with cold water. That’s fine. It’s what most people do. Denial is how we survive realities so atrocious they can’t be tackled. Most turn around and walk the other way, pretending they didn’t see it or just all together blind.

  Still: Nothing changes. A whore you dress for church still sucks dick for crumpled bills in dark corners and in filthy cars. In the end, only the truth remains: The Latin word for horror is still horror. Hell is still hell. And you, my fearless friend, have just entered its tangled gates by opening the pages of this book. You cannot go back. You won’t. That’s not how it works in Pater’s sickening world. (Pass the aloe).

  Step into the monster’s vile home; a place created by a puppeteer whose name should only be a synonym for Satan no matter what its Latin meaning. It is behind his dingy front door, where only nosy neighbors dare knock, that you will discover a family built on depravity so deep it remains undiscovered.

  Between these pages, the Regina Horror Yolanda Olson has set out to pen a book so horrific it burns the souls of all who read it. She has succeeded. Once a member of Pater’s egocentric tribe, his legacy will scorch you. And that is not the worst of it. Like it or not, this shit happens in real life every day, which is probably the most horrendous thing of all.

  As a member of Yolanda’s Darkling Little Beta Team, I spent weeks afraid to knock on doors in my day job as a home-based therapist wondering if real-life monsters might be the men to answer. Knocking on these doors made me sick to my stomach, convinced I’d find behind them victims like Jocelyn, Vaughn and Eloy. Or worse: Pater, a man who has haunted my dreams ever since I read of him.

  There were times when I almost didn’t have the courage to face Jocelyn’s reality for another word more. But it was the reality of the world Yolanda both promised and delivered that kept me hooked. Like a masochistic lamb, I offered myself to Pater’s slaughter and Jocelyn’s paralysis; surviving both terrified and shocked.

  Even though I see the worst in human behavior in my work, I found myself screaming at these pages in frustration, disgust and contempt because I know they are truth for so many undiscovered victims. You will too. There is something about feeling useless in a ride so dark you can’t find the exit to that brings you to its very entrance and back again. You don’t want to look but can’t stop yourself. That is Inferno.

  Welcome to hell. Try not to burn too slowly. I can promise, at the very least, you will come out scarred...

  Erin Lee, author, therapist, burnt survivor of Inferno

  Prologue

  Everything makes sense now.

  Why I’m here.

  Why it had to be me and no one else.

  I’m okay with it; as okay as I can be, anyway. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I am enduring, so I’ll gladly take everything he has to offer and praise him the way he tells me to.

  Things are easier when I just comply with what he wants. He doesn’t do me harm that way, and I even get food when I’m good.

  I shake my head as I bring my dirty, bruised knees up to my chest and hug them close. He says when it’s over I’ll be canonized and that I’m doing this for the greater good, but I’m convinced he doesn’t know what good is. It’s so misconstrued that I sometimes wonder if he can tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

  But it’s okay.

  I’m okay.

  I’m used to the way things are and I’ll make sure that, no matter what happens, he’ll be happy. And in turn, I’ll still be of use. Not that I really do much but stand and kneel when he tells me to. He says it helps him with what he needs to achieve and I don’t question him. I just do as I’m told, and you would too if you could see his eyes go dark and cold when we enter his special rooms.

  I’ve never been afraid of much before him, and I can honestly say that after being here for the years he’s chosen to keep me, the only thing that scares me is telling him no.

  That brings the worst kind of repercussion, and the weight of having disappointed him. Solitude and darkness for seven days and seven nights until he’s had time to cleanse himself of my negativity. That’s how he explains it: a cleansing.

  Being alone was something I used to love and look forward to; now it’s something that terrorizes me more than anything he could ever say when he puts on his displays.

  I think I’m on day six of darkness now. I can’t remember because everything just blends together after a while; time, tears, blood. Each time I’m dumped into this fucking hole, I come closer to losing the will to live. But I come out stronger each time. I don’t want to disappoint him, and if I just lay down and died, it would be the biggest disservice in his eyes.

  Besides, I haven’t come this far, survived this much, just to fucking fall down dead. I don’t have it in me to quit, and I have to make him proud.

  The gate at the top of the makeshift dungeon opens and, shortly after, a shaky ladder made of r
ugged rope drops in. It must be the seventh day if I’m being presented with this gesture of freedom.

  But I know that this is a treason punishable by death unless Pater has given permission for any of us to be removed from the oubliette.

  Pater.

  That is not his name but rather a title that he requires we address him by. He’s earned it, he says, for putting up with us, for choosing to care for us in his own special way, and for all the years he spent studying his rituals.

  I know his real name because he’s whispered it into my ear during nights of unwanted lust and pain. I’ve survived as long as I have because I know that pleasure for him is not just physical; seducing his thoughts is the only way to stay alive, and even on nights when I wished that Hell would open and swallow me whole, I refused to leave the boys behind. I’ve stepped into their pain more than once to save them from things they shouldn’t understand at such young ages, things they should never have to experience unless it’s something they want, and he sees me as a prize for doing so.

  I fear the day he gets bored with me though, because then there will be nothing left I can do to keep them as safe as I can. It’s why I try my best to please him, to keep him happy any way I can, because nights spent down in the oubliette leaves them free to be tortured and fucked against their will.

  With the strength I’ve managed to hold onto, I get up from the dirty, cold rocky ground, and walk over to the ladder. It’s only being anchored by the strength of whomever is holding it, and I pray that it’s the older of the two. He’s the only one who can bear the strain of someone bigger than him, and if he doesn’t hold on, the ladder will fall and send me back down toward a sure death.

  If it were just me in this situation, then fine; let the ladder fall, let me die, but goddammit. I have to keep them safe and I have to get the fuck out of here to do that. I have to watch my mouth, I have to not speak back to Pater, and I have to do as he wishes at all times. If I don’t, I’ll know that the next time I’m in the oubliette, the others will suffer terribly, and it will be on my soul.

  I refuse to die a failure. I refuse to allow them such a fate alone when I know that my part in this is simple and I just have to learn to accept it.

  When he took me from my previous life, he told me he’d chosen me to be his wife; he’d even preformed some kind of ceremony to solidify this in his own mind, because I know that nothing we do here will be seen as such in the eyes of the law or anything above or below.

  A hand firmly grips mine as I reach the top, shaking me from the thoughts of what I know I must do, but have so much trouble abiding by. In a matter of seconds, I’m looking into the solemn, brown eyes of Vaughn. He’s lost a lot of the light and luster he had when he first arrived here and I can understand why, but beneath the solemnness I can see a sense a urgency, and I know that my early freedom was not orchestrated by Pater, but rather out of necessity.

  With a final grunt, he pulls me over the top and begins to roll up the ladder as I start the long sprint back toward the house. I won’t wait for Vaughn; I can’t. If I do, Pater will know I was helped out of my prison and that will put Vaughn in danger. Instead, I’ll just tell him I clawed my way out when he asks. I’ve been known to make it halfway to the top before breaking my nails as I slide all the way back down again.

  He’s seen me do it with his own eyes the first time he lowered me into this sensory deprived hell. But Pater is a complicated man and likes to see things as they are presented in the moment.

  He’ll believe me.

  He has to believe me.

  Because if he doesn’t, we all die.

  Chapter One

  What I stumble upon when I enter Pater’s home as I’m trying to frantically control my breathing is not what I expected from the urgency in Vaughn’s eyes. The waiting room is empty, the living room just as hollow, and there are no trails of blood or anything hinting toward punishment on his dusty wooden floors.

  So then why set me free ahead of schedule?

  A silent answer is my reward when I turn in time to see him running up the long walkway toward the still open door. He puts a finger to his lips before leaning down and attempting to collect himself. I know he’s scared, and I know that this must be important.

  He tosses the neatly gathered rope toward the door and beckons for me to follow him. I trust him enough to blindly fall into step behind him, though I can’t help but feel uneasy about where he’s leading me.

  Vaughn never has much to say these days. He lives in his own world most of the time, and he usually only ever comes to life when I’m around because he knows of my need to protect them. He does the same for me in his own way. Whenever I’ve been tossed into the little part of the world where Pater can forget about me for a week at a time, he sneaks out and drops scraps of food through the small cracks of the door.

  It’s not much, it never is, but it’s enough to keep me alive and from starving to death as I think Pater wants for me sometimes. I don’t know why he would want such a fate for someone he’s taken as his "wife”, but he has his reasons.

  Maybe one day we’ll find out what they are. Or maybe we’ll die in the dark, confused as to what this all truly stood for.

  As we near the opulent kitchen area where Pater eats like a fucking king, Vaughn turns to look at me and presses a finger slowly to his lips. A few steps later, we’re both peeking around the door frame and now I understand why I was taken prematurely from my punishment.

  Pater is leaning against the counter, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, with Eloy sitting in a stool. I roll my eyes at how pristine he looks and how we always look like we’re mired in shit.

  Eloy is the youngest of the three of us. He’s thirteen and, for the moment, he’s dressed as cleanly and beautifully as Pater. I hear the voice of someone I don’t recognize and crane my neck to see if I can get a better look, but Vaughn pulls me back just as Pater’s eyes start to wander in our direction.

  “Get cleaned up,” he whispers in his soft voice. “We have to go in and speak to that lady.”

  And as he walks into the kitchen, leaving me in the hallway, it’s the first time I noticed since being pulled out of the pit that he’s dressed like a prince, too. I’m the only one who looks like I’ve been through Hell, because I have.

  A wide smile stretches over Pater’s face as he sees Vaughn entering the room.

  “And this is my other son,” I can hear him say. I cringe at those words. My other son. If only this person who we’re being presented to knew what kind of man Pater is, what kind of woman he forces me to be, she would take Vaughn and Eloy and run.

  I could tell her.

  I could weave a powerful tale of the horrors we face here, the things we’re forced to endure, the evil man that Pater is, but I won’t. If she doesn’t believe me—and who would believe such a fantastical story—I go back into the oubliette permanently.

  I sigh as I run toward the other end of the house. We are not allowed upstairs unless Pater requests our company because it’s his home, and he deems that his personal space. It’s how he keeps us separate from what he calls his ‘normal’ life, though there are times when he’ll invite me upstairs, but never the boys.

  That I know of, anyway. The only thing I ever pray for anymore is that they have never been forced to go with him into his room. They know they can trust me and tell me if they have, but I never broach the subject because they’re afraid of me. Not as much as they’re afraid of Pater, but they’re still afraid.

  I don’t blame them.

  I would also fear the person that’s supposed to be like a mother to me, who instead decides to carry out painful and sometimes erotic punishments as directed to her in the most terrible ways.

  This is why I know I never want to bear children of my own. If this is what I’m forced to do—to actually be capable of putting them through—then the only thing I truly deserve is a slow death at their hands.

  But they fear me and will never raise a hand again
st me because I’m the only person who knows their pain and torture. I’m the only person that would believe them, and I’m the only person that can keep them as safe as possible from Pater.

  I take their places as often as I can, but there are even nights when I’m so physically and mentally exhausted from the constant torrent of abuse that I can’t save them. I believe that those are the nights that their hatred for me grows and the fear begins to slowly drift away.

  If they did end up killing me, I would not blame or despise them for the deed. I would only hope that they allow me the opportunity to send Pater to Hell before me.

  What do I wear? I don’t even know who that woman is.

  Pater, Vaughn, and Eloy were dressed casually but a little more presentable than normal when we have guests, so I assume she’s of enough importance for me to wear a dress.

  I just have to find one long enough to cover the scratches on my knees.

  Pulling open the closet doors, I begin to quickly pick through my choices.

  “I’ve always liked this one the best.”

  My body freezes under the weight of his breath, hot on my ear. One hand reaches forward and retrieves a blue and white floral sundress, while the other gently rests on my side.

  He could crush me right now between his hands if he wanted to, but then he would have no wife to present to the woman in the kitchen.

  “You know that as soon as she leaves you’re going back in.” It’s a statement, not a question, but I expected nothing less.

  I nod as he lets his lips rest gently on my neck. “Maybe I’ll fuck you before I throw you back. Or maybe I’ll punish you a little more. Decisions, decisions.”

  “Whatever you desire, Pater,” I reply quietly. That’s the answer he likes the best, and I’m only here to maintain a happy home for him, which means he has to be happy as well.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of fucking you,” he whispers as he reaches down and begins to push my torn, dirty panties off.

  I take a deep breath and use every ounce of bravery I have to gently push his hands away.