Jamie had been cruising home after training, just minding his own business and enjoying some good tunes. It had been a good session in his opinion, the bat had just been feeling great in his hands the entire time. Arguably his pitching had been pretty off, but he was focusing on the positives right now. Just like the lasagna he had waiting at home for him, that was a serious positive. His mum really was the best cook, nothing he ate could compare to his mum’s homecooked stuff.

It was as he was drooling over the meal awaiting him that he noticed some incredibly bright headlights in his rearview mirror, headlights that were gaining on him pretty fast. Now that did slightly sour Jamie’s mood, some asshole in a suped-up pickup was never a fun time, especially not when they were coming up behind him, well over the speed limit. He did check his own speed to make sure, but he was doing the limit. He sighed and waited for the truck to overtake him so that he could flip them off. That moment didn’t come though, the truck didn’t make any move to overtake him at all, it just continued to get closer and closer. Jamie was confused, what the hell were they trying to do? The headlights got closer, but he couldn’t quite make out what sort of truck they belonged to, they were so bright that he couldn’t make out much else.

Jamie floored it, not interested in playing whatever game they were trying to. His clunker wasn’t the best, but he could get a little more out of it, hopefully enough to get away from whatever asshole was tailing him. As he sped up he kept his eyes on the rearview mirror, hoping to see some road open up between him and whoever was behind him. There was none, the headlights just got closer and closer. It was only when he looked back to the road in front of him that he noticed black tendrils beginning to snake across it. If he hadn’t floored it already he would have then and there, instead, he just kept pushing his clunker as hard as it possibly could be.

Jamie watched in horror as the road filled up with the creeping black tendrils, he looked at the trees lining the road and found that the tendrils were slowly coiling their way up them as well. He decided to try something drastic, he dropped the handbrake and sharply snapped the wheel to the left, releasing the handbrake and accelerating just as the car hit the right angle. He didn’t have much experience drifting in his car, it was something that his mate had been trying to teach him for a while. He realised he had made a serious error pretty quickly when the car just continued to spin out of control, sending him off the road. His friend had mentioned that he needed to stick to a lower speed, he probably should have thought about that.

He clamped his eyes shut and braced for impact, knowing that it wasn’t going to be pretty. Strangely, it felt like the car was falling more than anything. Jamie hadn’t ever been in a car crash, so he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be feeling. He was getting a little confused though, surely he would have hit something by now right? That’s when he felt the impact and tensed up, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he was expecting. It felt like his car had landed on something, not like he’d been travelling at least 80 and wrapped himself around a tree. He cautiously opened his eyes and found something really unexpected, he was in a car park. It looked like one of those big multi-story car parks you’d find in the big cities.

Jamie had only tried to park in one once and absolutely hated it. The parking spaces always felt way too small and he’d never quite had enough space to comfortably get out of his car, let alone back in. He wasn’t a small dude, standing at about 6 foot 2 he was pretty tall but he’d also always been a bit stockier of a guy. He’d always been into athletics which helped keep all that mass more muscle than fat, but he was still bigger than your average guy. All in all, it meant that he didn’t fair too well with small spaces. Jamie looked around from inside his car and noticed that the place was incredibly dark, there were no lights at all. He checked his rearview mirror and was surprised to see some light, but just a massive band of it. He got out of his car, curious enough to try and inspect it.

Stepping out of his car, he realised there was something really off about this place. The air didn’t feel right, it felt kind of stagnant and there was no breeze at all, not even the slightest draft. The whole place was uncannily still. If it wasn’t for the running of his car’s engine he was sure the place would be silent as well. It was entirely unnatural, more so than the concrete monstrosities usually were. His growing suspicions were only confirmed when he walked towards the band of light he could see, realising it wasn’t quite a band. He was standing on the floor of a massive concrete car park, completely surrounded by this massive field of white light.

“Oh,” Jamie exclaimed, “I’m dead.”

The realisation didn’t bother him quite as much as he expected it would. It was what it was he guessed. He didn’t have much of a say in the matter in the end. At least he could still think and move around, in whatever twisted form of afterlife this was. He doubted it was Heaven, unless Heaven just had a massive car park for some reason, the true American way. Hell? That felt more likely, he didn't quite think he was deserving to end up in Hell but the big man must have decided otherwise. He never had been too keen on going to church and stuff, that was probably it.

So, what now? Was the Devil going to come up and start torturing him or something? He wasn’t sure what to expect from Hell, he never had been too interested in hearing people talk about such a depressing place. He was startled as a sound broke through the silence. It was the sound of laboured movement. A car door creaked open. Jamie moved fast, got to his boot and opened it up, pulling his bat out and getting ready. He wasn’t going to let any demons have their way with him without a fight. He watched as his thoughts were confirmed. Things started shambling out of the darkness towards him. His car headlights highlight a few of them and what he saw was horrific. They looked like they had been people, but their eyes had yellowed out and their skin was turning black, mottled and fetid looking.

Was this what was going to happen to him? Hell no. The demons shambled towards him and Jamie took no chances. He struck first and struck hard. The demon’s heads were far too weak and easily exploded as his bat made contact with them. After taking out a few he realised that this was going to be an endurance event, as more shambled out from between the parked cars. It wasn’t pretty work, but he could swing at this pace for hours. He began to shout with his exertions, flooding his body with strength. He always found that shouting helped him perform better, one of his mates tried to explain it with some broscience once. He didn’t care enough to really listen though, he just knew he felt better when he did it.

After a while of fighting the demons, he began to tire. It was much more exerting to have to move around and constantly avoid the lazy lunges of the demons than it was just to stand at the diamond and swing at balls. Was that their tactic? To just keep sending more and more of these weak demons at him until he ran out of energy? That was a pretty lame way to go, so he kept powering through it. He’d fight until his very last breath. He’d already died once and that hadn’t felt too bad. Thankfully there did seem to be an end to the demons, he vanquished the last of them and took a moment to catch his breath. Slaying demons turned out to be quite the workout, more cardio than he was used to. That’s when he noticed some more light had appeared, it was a little weird though. It didn’t seem to have a source point, everything he saw was lit evenly.

“Huh?” He said to himself, “where’d this light come from? There ain’t no lights around here?”

There were no lights hanging from the ceiling at all, and there didn’t seem to be a source, it was quite peculiar. That’s when something stepped out from behind the wall, no, someone. He couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming, cutting the guy off.

“Hey there-”

“Christ, what the fuck happened to you?”

The man was in rags, literally. He was wearing some sort of wrecked leather armour like you’d expect the dudes that went to those medieval fair things to wear. His clothes underneath were literally torn to shreds, what he assumed were once jeans had gotten the worst of it. Then there was the blood. The man’s lower half was caked in dried blood, but he couldn’t see any injuries which concerned him. The weirdest detail though was the dude’s hands. They were wrapped up in these bright pink bandage things, like what he’d seen boxers wear. It made for a peculiar sight for sure. The dude himself looked young, maybe a year younger than himself. He had hair that was a messy brown and certainly needed a clean, his green eyes looked energic though, which gave him hope. The dull yellow of the demon’s eyes had been rather harrowing.

The dude put his hands up like he was surrendering. “Hey I’m Nick. I’m guessing you just found yourself here. Are you alright?”

It sounded a little too casual to Jamie, it didn’t feel like the sort of place to be casual in. The light seemed to be coming from the guy because as he stepped around the wall the area around him was flooded with the light. The light revealed the mass of dead, hopefully dead, demons laying around him in gruesome detail.

“Yeah. I’m doing alright, how about you? You seem a bit worse for wear,” Jamie replied.

He was doing alright he guessed, other than being dead and having just fought demons, he was doing pretty well. He noticed that Nick was limping, something wrong with his foot.

“Yeah, I’m moving, still alive you know. I know you’ll have some questions but I’ll have to explain on the way, we’ve got a nest of pretty nasty looking dudes nearby and I’d rather not stick around. Grab whatever you want from your car, I don’t think taking the risk of driving into a Brute is worth it,” Nick said.

Jamie didn’t really understand what the guy was saying, but decided to go along with it anyway. It’s not like he had much else to do. He went back to his car all pulled out his bag, he really didn’t have much else in there. He kept his car nice and clean, only the important stuff. It was cool that even though he had died, he got to bring his stuff with him. Making sure to keep his bat in hand, he couldn’t be sure when more demons might show up, he walked back over to Nick.

“Say dude, what did you do to end up in Hell?” He asked.

*****

Nick looked at the guy with a puzzled expression, “Hell?”

The young guy gestured around them, “Yeah, Hell. I think I’m here because I wasn’t that devout a believer you know? My mum was always on my case about not taking it seriously enough, guess she was right,” he finished with a laugh.

Nick started leading the way towards the hotel, they were getting pretty close and Nick could see the building just off in the distance now. He thought about how he should handle this whole situation.

“My dude. We aren’t dead. My whole family and I were in our car when we got dragged into this place, The Complex by the way. There’s a heap of people here and from what I’ve been hearing it feels like more a kidnapping than dying,” Nick explained.

“I was certainly about to be in a gnarly car wreck, there’s no way I shouldn’t be dead right now,” The dude sounded pretty adament.

“Well, wait what’s your name?” Nick asked.

“Oh whoops, I’m Jamie,” Jamie introduced himself with a smile and reached out to shake his hand.

Nick shook his hand and noticed he had a very solid grip. “Nice to meet you Jamie, I think I said it before, but the name’s Nick and I’ve been here for almost two weeks now. Boy do I have a lot to fill you in on.”