The Damned: The Damnation Chronicles, #1

By Joseph Sweet

In a desperate bid to save his sister's life, Marcus becomes trapped in the underworld, forced to watch helplessly through the eyes of a shape-shifting demon as it begins to systematically destroy all which he holds dear just to torment him. With time running out, the promise of possible escape looms on the horizon, but how far will he go to free himself and save those he cares about? How far would you go? And would the price be more than you could bear?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Sweet
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466077195

Joseph Sweet

Joseph Sweet was born October 31 1976, and has been writing seriously since the age of sixteen. He currently lives in the upstate NY community of Watertown. Aside from writing he plays guitar and keyboard, writes and sings his own songs, and is an amateur photographer. He has worked in Television and radio doing voices and making and editing commercials, played in several bands, and acted in theater, but his greatest passion is and always has been his writing.

Book preview

The Damnation Chronicles

Book One:

The Damned

by Joseph Sweet

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Joseph P. Sweet on Smashwords.com

Copyright © 2007-2024 Forsaken Press and Joseph P. Sweet. All rights reserved.

Copy-edit consulting is provided by Twisted Knickers Editorial Services.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, or internet posting without written permission from Forsaken Press, or the Author, except for review purposes, or that deemed fit by the author for promotion. All persons, places, and organizations mentioned herein, except those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious. Any similarities to any persons, places, or organizations, living, dead, undead, or otherwise, are purely Coincidental. No trees were harmed during the making of this E-book.

3rd revised edition April 2024

Printed in the United States

Forsaken Press

[e-mail]

This book is recommended for ages 18 and up.

Contents:

Copyright

Dedication

Part One: The Decent

Chapter One: All Debts Paid

Chapter Two: The Guardians & The Hall Of The Damned

Chapter Three: Damnation For An Act Of Kindness

chapter Four: The Key to Apocalypse & Rebirth

Chapter Five: Ashes to Ashes & Tormentors

Part Two: Apocalypse

Chapter One: Sleep Walk & Sacrifice

Chapter Two: All Hell Breaks Loose

Chapter Three: City of the Dead

Bio

Dedicated to Vincent J. Condino

1948-2009

Artist, Author, Photographer, poet, Friend.

Rest in Peace Brother.

We’ll meet again someday.

Vince helped with editing this book, a month or so before his passing. He was a good friend. And although I wish he was still here, I am happy that he is no longer suffering.

To Wendy Foster, and others who test-read this book for me. You were all a great help.

And to you Dear Reader.

The masses sick

With bitter madness

A jealous rage

Tinged with sadness

Putrid flesh

The maggots thrive

Cold stiff limbs

And clouded eyes.

The Damnation Chronicles

Hades’ Memoirs

Part One

The Descent

Prologue

IT IS COLD, DARK, WET, and gray; a typical October evening in Watertown, New York. The trees look dead, or almost there. The sky is overcast and dark, giving no hope of any light beyond, except for the dim white, hazy ball of the moon.

The trees, still vibrant with red and orange during the day, have become bleak, colorless, and menacing, in the bland grey from the evening sky and the weak artificial glow of sparsely placed street lamps. In such light, the sentinel pines and maples look like something out of a fairy tale gone wrong.

It is just past 11 pm on Tanis Lane, a little dead-end street off Brainard. It’s not a street that you come looking for intentionally unless you know someone who lives here. Tanis Lane is the street you stumble upon accidentally when lost, and if you didn’t know better, you would think the world had ended. So far from even the mild traffic of the main streets, this entire section of town seems completely devoid of life at such a late hour.

Perhaps most people would ignore the feeling of dread building inside on such a night – that tingling uneasiness at the base of your spine, telling you that something is wrong – and try to convince themselves that it is just their imagination, but there is undeniably something different about this night. Something menacing about the way the shadows seem to climb up from the spots where they lay, stretching across lawns and out from under porches and sewer gratings, as though they are living things, reaching for you, hoping to drag you down into the darkness where they reside – screaming – and then devour you.

It is the type of night that would have been perfect for Halloween, perhaps even the perfect location for a climactic scene in a horror movie, except that nothing appeared to be going on at first glance, and it is two weeks early for that dark, ancient Holiday.

A half block away, two young men are walking slowly this way. Their heads are down but swerving left and right every few yards, eyeing the shadows as if they suspect an attack.

They will most likely write off what they are feeling as fear of the confrontation that will undoubtedly take place soon; fear of what might happen to them then. Each of them will discount the possibility - at least on the surface - that anything supernatural is going on.

However, if they had been paying close attention, they might have noted how the shadows, upon closer inspection, are stretching in the direction of the very house they are headed toward. It is as though the building itself were some great gravitational force sucking in even the shadows.

The house seems to be reaching out for something, death maybe, and very soon, perhaps, it would open its jaws and have what it hungered for.

Chapter One:

All Debts Paid

1

MARCUS AND GREG SLOWLY closed in on Frank’s house at the end of Tanis Lane. It was a three-story Victorian, dark and menacing in the lifeless light of the moon. Two ancient pines, and one massive, scarred, and twisted oak, towered over it like grim protectors, waiting to smash and tear through anyone attempting to lay siege upon their master’s home. There was a light on inside, with the shade drawn halfway, which made the house appear in that instant as though it were some large predatory creature lying in wait with one eye half open, ready to pounce.

Marcus brushed off his unease as paranoia and tucked it away. The only real danger, he told himself, was in being spotted before he and Greg could get to the door. Still, as they stepped onto the sidewalk at the edge of the property Marcus eyed the giant oak with mistrust. It was the closest to the street and the one they would have to walk beneath to get to the front door. He knew that he was being foolish, but he couldn’t seem to help himself tonight. It was like something from a nightmare. Its twisted, battle-scarred trunk, winding upwards to deformed, dead-looking branches, looked like the diseased, beckoning, undead arms of some massive creature. Still, even knowing that his fears were completely irrational, Marcus felt a shiver move through him as he passed beneath the ancient giant.

He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and determined that this sudden anthropomorphism wasn’t helping at all. Stress and lack of sleep, he told himself, not to mention one too many late-night movies. Trees didn’t uproot and attack people. There was nothing supernatural about a house with 13 in its number, no matter how creepy it looked in the dark. Still, no matter how much he mentally shunned his fears, every shadow seemed threatening, and both he and his friend Greg - at one point or another over the last two blocks - had contemplated running home more than once. Marcus closed his eyes for a second, refocused on the purpose of this trip. When he reopened them, he seemed to have gained a little confidence.

Alright, the idea is to scare him into giving us the money and my property. No one gets hurt. He realized suddenly that he sounded like some officer in a movie, giving orders to the soldiers under his command, though his military – or even law enforcement – knowledge, ended right there with the movies. Just who the fuck do I think I am? he asked himself silently. What am I even doing here? He quickly realized he didn’t have the luxury of an answer. That would only raise more questions in his mind. Questions that would undoubtedly only instill more fear in him, more than what he already felt, more than he could keep in check—that might get them both killed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made one last attempt at refocusing on the situation at hand.

Except, he couldn’t stop thinking about Madison: His sister, who at this very moment, lay helpless and near death in a hospital bed across town.

She wouldn’t leave his mind. One second, he was wondering how he was going to help her, and the next he was wondering if she would even want him to. Would she be disappointed in the brother she’d always looked up to for the situation he’d gotten himself into over her?

Marcus thought then about the statement he’d just made to Greg – No one gets hurt – and looked around as if checking to see if anyone had noticed the obvious lie. Someone would get hurt tonight. He could feel it. He just hoped it wasn’t his friend. He also hoped – at least a small part of him did, anyway – that he wouldn’t be the cause of the hurting. He knew that once he got a look at Frank, he might not be able to restrain himself. He choked back the feelings of anger, rage, and betrayal, which fought to defeat his calm exterior. Marcus liked to think of himself as a nice guy, but there had always been a bit of darkness there, just below the surface. Abandoned by his biological father at a young age, betrayed by his mother, and verbally and physically abused by his domineering, control freak of a stepfather – betrayal, and violence against him and those he loved were and always would be his greatest triggers. He thought he had risen above his past. With the help and support of some influential people in his late teens, he’d shaped his personality and immediate world to fit the image that he thought would be expected, and become a better person for it. Now, however, standing before this house, he felt as though that goodness had merely been a self-constructed illusion. One he’d put up to fool himself into thinking that he wasn’t like his father or step-father. And he wondered as the rage inched closer to the surface, if he would be able to contain the rising urge to choke that fucker Frank to death for the sheer pleasure of it.

Maybe I haven’t come quite as far as I’d thought.

If we’re just here to scare him, Greg started with a nervous and perhaps disbelieving tone, bringing Marcus crashing back to the situation at hand once again, why do I have to have bullets in this thing? He waved his revolver in the air for a second, waiting for an answer.

Marcus realized then that Greg looked more than just a little nervous, and he wondered if maybe they should just get the hell out of there. It wasn’t like this bastard was going to give back what he’d taken without some serious persuading, and suddenly he wasn’t sure that the two of them were the ones to be doing it.

In case we have to show that we’re not bluffing..., Marcus replied. You know, shoot a hole in the floor or ceiling or something. He kept his voice calm and tried to maintain that air of confidence, the one he’d been fighting to display all evening, but inside he wanted to run. He had never done anything like this in his life, and he was scared, not only for himself but for his friend and what might happen here tonight. Hell, the way he’d just waved the revolver back and forth had made him queasy. The thought that it might accidentally go off had entered his mind for a moment.

People would understand, wouldn’t they? Two days ago, I was working at a call center, he thought, helping people with billing problems, and today I’m standing outside some criminal’s house with a gun. This isn’t me... Somehow his inner turmoil, and cowardly attempt at self-justification in running away with his tail between his legs, only strengthened his resolve. He wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. That was enough. He remembered a saying some random adult at summer camp had left in his head as a child. Bravery is not the lack of fear. Not being afraid is foolish. Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyway.

To show we mean business... Greg said sarcastically, Right. and probably would have added a little okay sign if he hadn’t been holding the revolver with both hands like his father had shown him at target practice so long ago. It had been the only time he’d been allowed to even hold a gun until tonight. Marcus knew because he’d talked about it non-stop for days. This night, however – his father’s revolver in hand – he didn’t look too sure of himself or the protection of the guns at all.

Right, Marcus said, only half aware that the sardonically charged statement of his friend had not required any further input from him.

He knew that he would have to keep moving along quickly to get Greg through this, and he felt a little bad about getting him involved at all. He was, after all, the only one who had a real gun. And he had stolen it from his father earlier that night. He would be the one shouldering most of the blame if they got caught and the police became a part of this whole mess.

As far as Marcus could see though, there was no other way. Things had just gone too far, and the only way to salvage it was to get back what had been taken from him. A life depended on it.

Did it really, though? he asked himself then. Does her life really depend on all of this? Marcus wondered then, or was he just holding on to hope when there was none? Maybe Madison was going to die anyway. Perhaps it would be best to just deal with that fact and walk away now before things got any further out of control.

Greg took the initiative and rang the doorbell, yanking Marcus from his thoughts and making him wonder if he’d been misjudging him this whole time.

Regardless, there was no turning back now. Despite his ridiculous fear of everything around them – the trees, the house, the shadows, their distance from town – Marcus knew, or at least told himself, the real danger was about to start.

On the third ring, Frank answered. Wrapped in a dark blue robe, made of what appeared to be silk, with no shoes on, he looked as though he’d just been about to go to bed. His short black hair was slightly tousled, and at that moment, he looked like Marvin Aday, the lead singer of Meatloaf after a bad bout with anorexia. In the instant before Frank spoke, Marcus almost felt bad for him.

This had better be... he started, and they both assumed that sentence had been intended to end with, good. But as Frank’s eyes fell upon the revolver, he lost the need to finish his sentence. It wasn’t going to be good. Things that started with a weapon pointing at you most likely weren’t going to end well. After a couple of seconds, he managed to pull his eyes away from the gun and rested them firmly on Marcus. He looked a slight bit more pale than usual.

Surprised to see me? Marcus asked him, with hate evident in both his facial expression and voice as he resisted the urge to cave in this man’s face with his fists. He could feel the anger building and fought to contain it. He knew he had to maintain control here.

Look, I...I can explain. Frank stuttered.

Marcus’s rage let loose as he quickly flashed backward in his mind, recalling his rude awakening as he slammed into the ice-cold water of the Black River. That was only two nights ago and he could still feel the chill in his bones. He pushed Frank backward into the house, almost