Michaela's stories have appeared in various Australian print 'zines and in
several Web 'zines.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God!"
The priest crossed himself frantically, backing away from the tiny
beast as far as he could. The priest had been utterly terrified by the
appearance of a small, gnarled demon with its huge, oversized baby's head
in his living room, and had run down the street, tearing at his vestments,
howling like a loon. When he reached his church, the horrible little
monster was already there waiting for him, and as he uttered the Virgin
Mary's name like a ward, the vile being merely smiled.
Grindle enjoyed playing with humans -- for all the torment Satan
inflicted on him, he inflicted on humans. Not that he was complaining, of
course. His boss was cruel but, well, who was he kidding? Fair? Perhaps
not. No, definitely not. He was just cruel.
The poor man of the cloth, faced with the sight of a being which, if he
believed it existed at all, must surely be the Devil, lost his already
tenuous grip on both bowels and sanity. By his beliefs, the Devil couldn't
enter a church, a place of God -- but here the Beast was, winking its green
eyes, and playing with its long spiky tail, sitting on the altar. Unable to
bear the sight of Satan's minion grinning at him in his Lord's house,
positive that his numerous sins had led to the Lord deserting him once and
for all, the priest grabbed the huge wooden crucifix which hung around his
neck, and thrust the long end into his left eye.
Grindle watched with amusement, his wide, sensuous mouth open in a
gleeful grin, his small green eyes glittering mischievously as the priest's
eye burst with an audible plop, and the ebony inlaid wood of the cross
passed through to his brain, killing him instantly.
Dear dear , thought Grindle. So much for the church. Oh
well, at least the altar boys can breathe a sigh of communal relief. There
are lots of others to choose from .
Admittedly, the job the boss had given Grindle was proving far more
difficult than he'd first expected. The Dark Lord had set him the task of
finding a human ally -- a person who could do his work in the world of
humans. He'd been told that the most likely candidates for the task of
assisting Satan would be degenerates, people who needed or wanted
power, people who were greedy, ambitious, amoral. People just like the
ones Satan was becoming bored with, down below.
So far, he'd tried this priest who had his hand in the church coffers
(and a few other places, as the altar boys would testify), a politician who
was on the payroll of the Mafia, a police officer who was dealing the
cocaine he received from drug busts back to the street kids in the area,
and the madam of a local illegal brothel.
The politician was a huge man, who lived in a very large house in one
of the more flamboyant suburbs. He led a high-powered life, dealing with
dangerous men and controlling equally dangerous amounts of money every
day. He didn't, however, see his coffee pot levitating three feet above the
table every day.
The man shook his head in disbelief, confused, and looked again. This
time a little grey thing was holding it. He rubbed his alcohol-reddened
nose for a while, thinking. Grindle thought, for a moment, that this was
the one -- that this man would not scream, or run, or try to kill himself at
the sight of him. The man's reaction was, however, disappointing. The
politician stood up unsteadily and stumbled out of the room, mumbling
about giving up the demon drink and taking up squash.
Grindle sighed, disconsolately sucking on the end of his tail. He'd been
sure this man would have had the strength, the sheer pig-headedness to
accept him as real. This job was getting harder by the minute.
The policeman was just the same -- although he tried to take a pot-
shot or two at him (which of course missed), and started yelling
something about drugged-out kids playing pranks, and wasn't it too early
for Hallowe'en?
The madam didn't even bat an overly made-up eyelid at the appearance
of a small demon at the head of the bed on which she sat as one of her
regulars received her monthly special services.
Oh God, now I'm seeing little men, she thought. She half-
heartedly batted one hand at Grindle, knocking him off the headboard, and
let out a bored sigh as she returned to giving her client his pleasure,
making a mental note not to take Valium with a shot of gin in future.
The little grey demon rubbed the growing lump on his skull, was about
ready to give up. What more could he do? No one in this world seemed to
believe their own eyes. Obviously, the planet had degenerated to such a
degree that even spirits like himself failed to scare anyone -- he couldn't
even get anyone to actually believe in him!
Grindle walked out of the brothel past a fat orange-and-white cat
(one of the many kinds of animal who could see him), and it stopped its
examination of a dead bird on the ground, hissed and spat at him, back
arched, striped tail fur bristled out like a bottle brush. Grindle stared at
it balefully.
Stupid thing, he thought, and the cat promptly exploded,
causing a small spray of fur and flesh to float away on the light breeze
which had sprung up. Ginger's owners would find only a few fragments of
fur, a cat collar and a very nasty stain on the pavement the following day,
and they were to be more mystified than mournful as they buried their
petıs last mortal remains.
Grindle was surveying the still-smoking stain when he felt a tremor
in the air. Someone in this dimension was trying to contact the another --
not very well, but well enough for Grindle's senses to pick it up.
This might be worth looking into , he thought, and he took
off in the direction of the tremors.
Harold Gregory watched the little spirit warily, not quite sure of
what to expect. He'd been sitting on his chair in the seance room,
contemplating the money he'd just made from one of his sessions, when
Grindle made his appearance. Harold had been doing seances for three
years now -- and was making a good living from it, too. He did it for the
money, he told himself. In fact he knew that the driving motivation for his
profession was the feeling of control and power over other people that it
gave him -- a feeling that he had access to something they needed and only
he could provide. He preyed on the bereaved, the weak individuals who
came to him for guidance and help in contacting their dead relatives. He
never really gave much thought to the pain he inflicted with his false
seances. As far as he was concerned, the few breakdowns he caused were
more than compensated by the countless mourning people he made very
happy, even if it was under false pretences.
At first, when the small, gnarled thing had popped its baby-like head
over the top of the table he'd been terrified. The demon had small green
eyes, and the rest of its body -- judging by the alien, grey appearance of
what was at that point visible -- didn't bear thinking about.
For a full three minutes the man and the beast sat looking at each
other, silent but for a strange swishing sound emanating from somewhere
under the large teak table. Eventually, seeing that the little monster was
apparently not about to leap up and devour any crucial part of his anatomy,
Harold cleared his throat, which was dry and painful. The creature's wide
mouth opened in a grotesque grin, and its eyes seemed to burn a little
stronger, twinkle a little more mischievously.
"What are you?" Harold finally mumbled. The little creature raised its
head, and moved backwards. Without a word, it started to turn, its body
now in full view of the man, in a parody of a model's catwalk strut, gliding
gracefully in a circle, showing Harold each part of its gnarled little form
as it moved around the floor. Harold noticed its tail, and realised what had
produced the noise from under the table. The demon had been twitching its
tail back and forth, patiently waiting for him to make the first move. It
was obviously not here to do mischief, and it suddenly occurred to Harold
that, as a charlatan by trade, none of this should be happening to him. He
didn't believe in this stuff, did he? What would his friends think, if he told
them he'd seen a goblin in the house, and it had done a fashion parade for
him? Yet here the beast was -- and no matter how many times he blinked,
its little grey body refused to disappear.
On Grindle's part, he was quite enjoying the show. He'd never before
had such a controlled and calm response from a human. He'd followed the
tremors caused by Harold's mock seance, and found the man alone in this
room. Perhaps this task would not be so difficult after all -- he could only
hope that here was a man of low morals (and high greed).
"Well? What do you think?" the little demon asked demurely. Grindle
spread his knobbly hands out in front of him, shrugging his shoulders.
Harold was shocked from his reverie, and surprised at the soft,
almost tender tones with which the beast spoke.
"I ... I ... Um ... What should I think?" stumbled Harold.
"Oh dear," Grindle sighed, exasperated, and effortlessly lifted himself
to sit cross-legged on the table top. "What do you think of me, then? Do I
scare you? What do you think I am? Do you know where I came from?"
Harold thought about this. Should he answer truthfully, or guard his
reaction? He opted for the truth.
"I think either I've just discovered my previously latent
schizophrenia, or you're a demon. From Hell?" he offered tentatively.
Harold had never been big on religion, but in the absence of any other
likely explanation, it was the best he could do.
Grindle threw back his head, and laughed with obviously sincere
amusement. What simpletons humans were.
"Well, that's what you are, aren't you? You're certainly not normal, are
you?" Harold's voice cracked. The monster's laughter unnerved him, set his
teeth on edge.
"No, no, don't be offended. I am a demon, of sorts, and yes, I do come
from Hell -- and do you know what that means?" Grindle leaned forward
eagerly, sucking on the end of his tail, waiting for the human to
respond.
"OK, I give up. Why do you want me? I don't even believe in you -- why
are you here? How can you be here?" Harold slumped down in his chair. He
wanted nothing more than to wake up and discover heıd been having a bad
dream.
"Well, I'm here to elicit some help. Well, an ally. A friend, if you like.
My master is the Dark Lord, Satan, the Devil, and he's trying to find
someone. He needs a human to help him -- and believe me, you'll be greatly
rewarded. Gifts and honours beyond your feeble comprehension will be
yours for the taking. Are you prepared to have contact with Beelzebub?
Are you interested?"
Harold nearly laughed. This had to be one of his private
megalomaniacal fantasies, surely. The charlatan knew he was destined to
do something special with his life -- something even more powerful than
'reaching the dead' for bereaved relatives. But a business proposition from
a little grey goblin on behalf of Satan, a goblin who at that moment was
sitting, brazenly in full view on his seance table, busily sucking the end of
its tail? Surely it was too absurd!
"OK. Tell me what you're talking about."
So beast explained to man the terrors of the Underworld and its many
and varied inhabitants. Harold listened with rapt attention and growing
interest as his role became clear. With his help, the Dark Lord would have
more souls for the furnace, Grindle would have his reward, and Harold
himself would have riches and power beyond his wildest dreams.
Harold knew that such an important opportunity would surely never
come his way again. After all, hadn't he reached his potential with his
present powers? Who else could he convince, amaze, and rip off? Wasn't he
getting just a smidgen bored with doing the same old thing each day, no
matter how lucrative it was?
His heart in his throat, Harold finally agreed to go along with Satan's
plan. Grindle took his hand, ignoring the human's shudder of disgust, and
set about returning to the Lower Reaches of Hell.
The Devil was terribly bored. He sat disconsolately, using his trident
to poke at the soul of a long-dead judge which lay screaming in pain at the
base of his blood-red throne.
Always the same souls, always the bad people, never anyone
interesting , he thought, absently scratching his shiny red belly with
one taloned finger. They get to choose who they let in , he
thought angrily, glancing upwards to some unseen place above his head. He
sighed and watched dispassionately as his breath sent the soul of the
judge into fresh paroxysms of agony.
"Shut up!" he boomed, and kicked the unfortunate soul away into the
murky red fog beyond the throne. At the sound of his voice, a thousand
souls in various stages of torture wailed in terror and sympathy, and
Satan put his huge hands over the tiny ear-holes which sat on either side
of his monstrous head below long, wickedly twisted horns.
"Quiet, minions! I have a headache!" The screaming of the souls
gradually dwindled to an array of quiet whimpering. Satisfied, the Dark
Lord cast around for something else to torment, and was half-heartedly
chasing the soul of a child murderer 'round and 'round the throne when
Grindle arrived with Harold.
Harold, having never experienced inter-dimensional travel before, was
feeling a little worse for wear. When the tiny demon had taken his hand,
the warm, dry feeling of its grey skin had sent shivers of revulsion down
Harold's spine, but that was nothing to the nausea and terror he felt in his
gut at the ghastly sight which now met his eyes.
The room (he assumed it was a room, although he couldn't see its
boundaries), was filled with a thick red mist and an unspeakable stench
that made him gag. In the centre stood a huge red throne, and as he looked
closer, he was disgusted to find that its hue came from blood dripping
from the ceiling. A small, indistinct figure was trying to hide behind the
throne, shivering and crying as it desperately twisted from side to side,
obviously seeking escape.
In front of the throne stood a huge, horned being which the terrified
human took to be Satan. The being's yellow eyes shone with an impossible
inner light. It grinned at Harold humourlessly, revealing rows and rows of
jagged, evil fangs. Satan's red skin glistened from the bloody rain, and his
huge body ended in an extremely long, spiked tail.
The soul which the Devil had been chasing saw the sudden appearance
of one of its Master's henchmen as an excellent opportunity to escape from
his torture. It made a mad dash from behind the throne. Satan casually
speared the tiny soul with his huge trident and lifted it, screaming, off its
ephemeral feet.
"I'll deal with you later, so don't go too far away. Not that there's
anywhere to go, of course," he gloated, and flicked the howling murderer
into the roiling fog.
When Harold finished vomiting, he straightened up and looked around
to find, to his embarrassment, that Satan and the little goblin were both
staring at him with a mixture of satisfaction and amusement. Harold
cleared his throat, and nodded to Grindle expectantly. The little spirit
turned back to his Master, and bowed deeply.
"I have found an ally, Lord. He is a charlatan -- a false mystic. He has
agreed to help us -- I mean you." Grindle looked up at Satan as best he
could from his bowed position, waiting to see his reaction.
Satan looked Harold up and down, sucked his fangs and was obviously
not impressed.
"This puny ... thing?" Satan sat back heavily on his throne, tilting his
head back to catch the slow trickle of blood from the ceiling in his
mouth.
Harold suspected that all of this was probably some sort of a test,
and he forced himself to get hold of his nausea as he saw in his mind's eye
the riches and power Grindle had promised slipping from his grasp.
"I'm not puny. People trust me, and come to me for help ... Um ... Lord ...
um... Sir," he stuttered as he heard the Devil suck in his breath.
Harold dropped into a bow and bit his lip, waiting to feel the sharp
prongs of the trident.
"Oh, really?" Satan asked sarcastically, and called Grindle to his side.
The small grey demon scuttled, still bowed, over to the throne, where he
sat on its arm, eyes glittering mischievously.
Harold watched nervously as the two evil beings conversed in low
whispers, sometimes laughing, sometimes glancing over at him and
nodding enthusiastically. He slowly rose from his bowed position, and was
becoming impatient when finally Satan stood up, brushing aside Grindle,
who fell with a wet thud onto the lumpy floor and crawled round to the
front of the throne to sit rubbing his bruised rump at his Master's left
hoof.
"It's agreed. You'll do. Congratulations." The Devil offered his right
hand, and Harold looked at the huge taloned thing in front of him
incomprehendingly. "You've got the job. You've scooped the pool. Get
it?"
Swallowing nervously, Harold gingerly took three of the Dark Lord's
bloody red fingers in his hand, shook once and dropped them quickly,
wiping his hand on his shirt involuntarily. Satan's shoulders began to
shake, and he threw back his huge horned head and laughed, the sound
echoing around Hell until it became an unbearable cacophony.
The quiet murmur of voices in the room stopped abruptly as Harold
Gregory walked in. He was wearing his customary black trousers and tunic,
and a large silver pentacle hung on a long chain around his neck, glinting
as it caught soft light from the numerous candles scattered around the
room.
Harold let them sit there, watching him anxiously for a full minute,
soaking in the powerful feeling these events always gave him. Finally, he
spoke, his voice heavy with melodramatic importance.
"Please join hands."
The group around him obeyed. They were a mixed bag of people - a
young woman of perhaps twenty, with light brown hair and a plain,
uninteresting face; an older man, wearing a sombre grey suit and an
equally dark expression. Another woman, who looked like she could be his
sister, sat next to him. The final figure at the table was a third woman
who looked frail and sick, but had made an unsuccessful attempt to hide
her pain by using too much makeup, which served only to heighten, rather
than hide, the hollow, sad look in her face.
Celia Brown glanced nervously at her brother-in-law Peter and
squirmed in her seat. The feeling of power and arrogance emanating from
the mystic made her feel uncomfortable, and she began to think that
perhaps coming to see him had been a mistake. Two days before, she'd had
a terrible argument with her husband Jack about a pathetically trivial
thing. Their cat Ginger had died in mysterious circumstances the week
before, and Jack refused to get another pet, ignoring Celia's protests.
She'd stormed out of the house and bought a beautiful grey Persian cat
anyway, and returned some time later to discover her husband dead on the
loungeroom carpet, having apparently suffered a massive heart-attack.
"Whom do you wish to contact?" Harold asked the heavily made-up
woman.
"My husband -- Jack Brown." The woman's voice was cracked and
tired.
"Very well. I need you all to concentrate. Think of the happiest time
you spent with this man. Concentrate on it."
Jack Brown's family closed their eyes and concentrated.
"Jack Brown," Harold's voice boomed inside the room, "Hear me. Your
family wishes to speak with you. They beg you to leave the company of the
dead, and communicate with them. Give me a sign that you are here."
The table began to vibrate, and the Brown family opened their eyes
with a simultaneous gasp as the table slowly began to rise. It hovered for
a moment two inches above the floor, and then dropped suddenly, hitting
the floor once more with a muffled thump.
The family watched Harold fearfully as he continued.
"What did you want to say to your husband?" he asked Celia, who was
now crying quietly to herself, the makeup running down her gaunt
face.
"I want him to know we love him. We had an argument, you know, the
day he died. I wanted to apologise." Her body started to shake with sobs.
Her daughter Martha reached over and comforted her mother with small
murmurs.
"Did you hear that, Jack? Your wife wants you to know that she's
sorry. Do you understand?"
This time the candles, as Harold had expected, flickered briefly. Celia
Brown finally broke down completely, and her voice had an unsettling edge
of hysteria in it.
"I'm sorry, Jack. I love you. I didn't want you to die. It was just a cat,"
her voice rose almost to a scream, "Why didn't you let me buy the stupid
bloody cat, Jack? I don't want to live alone! Is Ginger there? Is he there
with you?"
Celia looked up at the air above the table, hoping against all logic to
catch a sign that her husband really was in the room, and was shocked
from her hysterics by the sight that greeted her. She could see the spirit
of Jack Brown floating above the seance table, and as she stared,
horrified, a tiny grey goblin crawled out from under the table and swiftly
grabbed hold of Jack's arm.
Surprised, the dead man looked down and tried to shrink away from
the horrible little demon. With a small cry of glee the monster turned,
winked at Harold and disappeared, taking the unfortunate soul with him. In
Harold's safe another large pile of gold bullion suddenly appeared next to
the several million dollars worth already there.
Harold saw the look on Celia's face, and realised that the woman had
seen Grindle take her husband. He was able to bring the spirits down from
the Other Place -- the place the Dark Lord forbade his minion to speak of,
the Good Place -- so that Grindle could catch them. He knew that this
woman could destroy their plans if he didn't get her out of the house
immediately, and she looked in imminent danger of having some sort of
breakdown, which he didn't particularly want to have to deal with.
He jumped up suddenly, and shouted "Look what you've done! You have
scared away the spirit of your husband. He is no longer present!" He
pretended to be angry, and the family stared at him, dumbfounded.
"I - I'm so sorry," she mumbled. "I suppose I lost control," she wiped
her eyes, smearing the thick makeup across her face. "Are you sure he's
gone?"
"Yes, I'm sorry, quite sure. You could try again another day, if you
like," Harold held his breath, knowing that another seance would bring in
another hefty cheque.
"Yes, perhaps we will," Celia's brother-in-law stood up, and walked
over to her. "Come on, Celia. That's enough for one day." The family stopped
long enough to make an appointment for another seance, and left.
Harold was pleased with his work, and wandered into his loungeroom
to check the safe. Satisfied that he had been paid for his services, he left
the huge mansion in which he now lived. He tucked his swiftly growing
tail which he normally kept hidden in one trouser leg carefully beside the
seat and climbed into the new silver Rolls Royce which had appeared in
the driveway two days before. Heading for nowhere in particular, he drove
down the road, the Devil's laughter still ringing in his ears.
It seemed to Harold that the newspapers were becoming more
ridiculous everyday. He was sitting in the loungeroom of his two-story
mansion, sipping a martini and reading today's headlines.
"Jesus On the Way. The Second Coming is Nigh," he read out loud,
chortling.
He's probably wondering where all his souls are going ,
Harold thought with a grin.
He'd been enjoying trapping souls with Grindle for several months
now, and the riches he received from Satan for each seance were beginning
to make his wealth positively unmanageable. The only real drawback was
that once in a while his head would fill with the Devil's insane laughter,
which was most off-putting, as it sent Harold into a strange trance which
took away his self control. Harold now owned two silver Rolls Royce's,
mansions in London, New York and Paris, and a pile of gold bullion in the
vault which was forever growing.
The thought of his treasure made Harold smile to himself again, and
he put down the paper and stood up. Perhaps another quick peek at the gold
was in order. Just looking at all that loot made any of his other problems
unimportant. He made his way through the huge house, past the walls on
which hung numerous Rembrandt, Monet and Reubens masterpieces, to the
lower level, and the vault.
The vault was a huge, steel-lined room deep in the bowels of Harold's
mansion which he had built when the rewards Satan gave him became too
immense for the small safe he originally used. Harold keyed in the three
codes needed to open the vault, and the huge metal door swung open to
reveal a dozen or more tall piles of gold ingots in rows. His long spiky tail
twitched and swung behind him as he did a little jig of pleasure between
the piles of gold.
The Devil's laughter began to rise in his head once more as Harold's
dance gradually grew to an uncontrolled fit of rapture, and he spun and
ricocheted around the crowded vault. Satan's insane cackle filled his head
and he failed to notice that as he danced his body bumped and careened
into the huge piles of gold.
Finally he hit one square on, dislodging one of the gold ingots from the
top of one teetering pile. The heavy piece of bullion hit the mystic on the
top of his head, fracturing his scull. Harold slumped to the floor
unconscious, the impact of his body causing another six bars of gold to
fall. One hit his right leg, snapping it in two places, and another landed
with a sickening thud on his chest, breaking a rib which consequently
punctured his left lung, and finally his heart.
The stout, hairy young man lying on the banana lounge listened
carefully to what Gabriel was whispering to him. He sipped thoughtfully at
the beer he held in his right hand, silent until the other finished his
report.
"OK, man. Well done. Relax and smoke some weed, OK?" he finally said,
his voice slow and relaxed.
"Um, no thank you, JC. I'm fine," Gabriel tentatively smiled an apology
and hastily made his exit. The boy always made him nervous, all this stuff
about drugs and drink, and telling everyone to relax, be cool. How anyone
as proper and stiff as JC's father could have spawned someone so
degenerate was beyond him.
JC casually leaned over to the intercom which sat on a small table
next to the banana lounge, and buzzed his father. He stretched back and put
his hands behind his head, and consequently got his fingers tangled in the
mass of greasy black curls of hair.
Giggling, JC looked around as he extricated his hands, and waited for
the intercom to buzz back. The lounge was sitting on a large tiled patio
beside a huge J-shaped swimming pool. The pool was filled with large
bright purple fish which swam in the warm water, the sunlight glinting
pleasantly off their brightly coloured scales as they darted through the
crystal-clear green water. The whole area was surrounded by beautiful
gardens which were filled with all manner of animals, from tiny yellow
pheasants to huge herbivorous lizards which foraged and explored amongst
the lush greenery.
Well mellow , thought JC dreamily. If only there were
more women. Oh, and booze. And everything . He sighed and shrugged,
buzzing his father again. Maybe he's out on the golf course, as
usual.
On the edge of the pool sat an old man of at least eighty, dressed in a
long white robe, the edge of which dangled into the water. He was trying
to catch the fish in what appeared to be a small butterfly net, and was
talking earnestly to them as he did so.
JC was ready to give up and pour himself another beer when his father
finally answered.
"Yes, what do you want?" came the clipped tones of his father over
the intercom, "You've disturbed my golf game again!"
"Just thought you should know what Gabriel just told me. You know,
he's really a cool dude, if he could just relax a little ...."
"Come on Betty, get in the net," the ancient old man shouted from the
edge of the pool, obviously losing his temper with the obstinate fish.
"Can you keep it down, Pops? I'm trying to have a D and M with Dad,
you know?" JC waved his free hand at the old man, but Pops was too
engrossed in his piscatorial game to take any notice.
"Get to the point! Why don't you ever get to the point?" JC flinched at
the tone in his father's voice. Obviously Dad didn't do so well at golf today.
He always yelled when Mary beat him, which was often.
"Relax, Dad. You could do with some weed yourself, you know," JC
heard his father inhale, ready to shout again, and continued on quickly,
"Gabriel says there's this guy who's been, well, poaching from us and, see,
he's just died, so maybe you'd like to know about it."
JC waited for a reply. The intercom was silent for almost a minute,
and he was just about to pick it up to check it was still working when his
father's voice crackled through it again.
"Very well. I think it's time we had a little chat with our poacher.
Send Gabriel to my office."
JC informed Gabriel and sat back in time to see Pops stuff one of the
purple fish into his mouth, and swallow it bones and all with a satisfied
belch and a grin. JC sighed, shook his head and opened another beer.
Harold watched with mixed emotions as the ambulance officers
wheeled his broken corpse away. The irony of the circumstances of his
death was not lost on him, and as his spirit sat on the floor of the vault,
surrounded by homicidal ingots, he began to laugh. So much for the Devil
looking after his own.
The smile on his face quickly faded as it occurred to him that doing
Satan's bidding was all very well when he was alive, but he had never
considered what would happen once he was dead. He assumed that Satan's
deal included immortality.
Damn, he thought - I knew I should have asked for a written
contract.
He had never been a particularly religious person at the best of times,
but the idea of going to Hell permanently did not impress him. Of course, it
was a bit too late now to be worrying, having sold his soul to Beelzebub
for the gold which had now caused his untimely end, so he settled down to
wait for the inevitable ride to Hades.
Hours later, Harold was still waiting for Hell's emissaries to take
him to the Underworld, and he was becoming increasingly bored. His
spiritual bones were beginning to get stiff and achy from sitting on the
cold metal floor of the vault.
Hang on, that can't be right , he thought. Dead is dead.
How could his body -- or whatever it was now -- hurt?
Harold was deep in thought, pondering the possibility that maybe he
wasn't dead after all, despite a concussion, broken leg, punctured lung, and
a pierced heart, when he was abruptly interrupted in his contemplation by
a small cough from behind him. With a small cry of surprise, he jerked
around to see a very tall blonde man in a black suit and very dark
sunglasses. In one of the man's hands was a mobile telephone, and the
other was nervously trying to straighten his already perfectly straight
tie.
"What, the FBI want me, even though I'm dead? I am dead, aren't I?"
Harold asked, and the other nodded, "Boy, you guys sure do always get your
man! Deceased or otherwise!"
The tall man coughed again and held out a hand. "Good afternoon. My
name is Gabriel, and I'm with the General Omnipotence Department, not the
FBI."
The strange man's voice was deep and soft, and Harold felt an odd
sensation of deja vu as Gabriel took his hand. "We'd like to have a quiet
chat, if you don't mind," the man said, gripping the mystic's hand
firmly.
"Not again!" moaned Harold, and both men disappeared.
All things considered, Heaven was not quite what Harold would have
expected, had he been expecting to ever see it in the first place. He was
standing next to Gabriel in a large room decorated with taste and old-
world style in leather and wood. In front of him sat a distinguished-
looking middle-aged man behind a huge antique desk. He was wearing a
subdued pin-striped suit, and was smoking a pipe, looking at Harold
disdainfully over a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. To Harold's right was
another desk, smaller than the first, under which sat an extremely old man
playing with a Rubics Cube and muttering to himself. A scruffy, long-
haired youth wearing a caftan lounged behind a third desk, his sandalled
feet propped up on the corner.
The young man noticed Harold's attention and gave a cheery wave and
a grin, then returned to patting the large ginger-striped cat which sat on
his lap.
Harold looked nervously at Gabriel, waiting for a sign, some
indication of what he was expected to do. The other man was standing
silent and motionless beside him. The room was terribly cold, and as he
stood, trying to control his stomach and shivers, the only sound to be
heard apart from the old man's mutterings was the chattering of Harold's
teeth.
"Good afternoon," the grey-suited man finally spoke, his perfect
diction and clipped tones echoing off the high ceiling. Harold caught a
slightly odd accent, despite the quality of his voice. He wasn't sure if the
man had spoken to him or to Gabriel, and he offered a tentative smile. The
distinguished man had gone back to examining papers on his desk, and did
not look up. Gabriel looked at Harold sideways, nudging him discreetly
with one elbow.
"Um. Good afternoon, sir," Harold was by now completely bewildered -
- surely this wasn't Heaven? Heaven was supposed to be full of people
with wings, and clouds, and that sort of rubbish. Surely this was some
mistake?
"I suppose you're wondering why you're here, given your record on
earth," Harold opened his mouth to reply, but the middle-aged man
continued on, oblivious, "Well, that's quite natural, I suppose. You're here
because you've been up to no good down there, and we needed to have a
quick chat before you went ... below, so to speak."
The scruffy young man in the caftan giggled and scratched his greasy
scalp. "Yeah, man. You've been a naughty boy, but, you know, we're in a bit
of a fix."
The middle-aged man gave the hippy an irritated look. "What my son
is trying to say, Harold, is that unfortunately we need your help."
"Will someone please tell me what is going on? Where the hell am I?
Who the hell are you people?" Harold had had enough.
The older man winced as Harold's shout echoed and re-echoed around
the room. "Perhaps you could have phrased that a little more tactfully. But
I suppose you have the right to know. I am the Father, that is the Son," he
waved a hand in the youth's direction, "and that is the Holy Ghost." The
Holy Ghost had given up trying to solve the cube puzzle and had begun to
systematically pull off and eat each tile. The Father groaned, and wiped
his face with his hand.
"You can call me JC, my friend," the youth stood up and reached out a
hand to Harold. He noticed with a shock that when he looked down at the
hand he could see through JC's wrist to the floor. His stomach churned
once more as he dutifully shook the Son's hand and released it, trying not
to stare at the hole.
"You can call him HG. HG, Pops, don't do that," Jesus said half-
heartedly as the old man popped a green tile into his toothless mouth,
chewed as best he could and swallowed with a satisfied belch. "Always
putting things in your mouth, eh, Pops?"
"I don't understand. Aren't I supposed to be talking to God? You know,
one person? One entity?"
"Yes, that's us," replied JC, picking up the spirit of Ginger the cat
again.
Harold looked back at him blankly. With a deep sigh the Father took off
his spectacles and gave Harold a pitying look.
"We are GOD. All three of us. We are the General Omnipotence
Department. GOD. We are a committee of management consultants,
basically."
"No, we're more like a collective, man," interrupted the hippy.
"Rubics smoobix," muttered the old man.
"I thought Gabriel had explained," said the Father, ignoring his
relatives.
At the sound of his name the angel stepped forward, bowing
apologetically.
"Yes, Lords, I did mention it. Obviously it didn't sink in," Gabriel said
hurriedly, "May I be excused?"
"Sure dude. And remember, lighten up, relax," replied JC. Gabriel gave
the Son a tight little smile and scuttled away, exiting through a huge oak
door at one end of the room.
Again there was silence except for the Holy Spirit's mutterings and
the occasional sounds of plastic being chewed. Finally with a sigh the
Father continued.
"We want your help, Harold. I can't say I find the idea of working with
one of HIS henchman particularly palatable, but I don't think we have much
choice. You see we know you've been helping the opposition to steal souls
which rightly belong to us. So now we want them back."
Harold thought for a moment, and said, "If you're GOD, and all that,
can't you do it yourself -- I mean, yourselves?"
"Well, normally we would, but we had a slight problem. We don't know
which you took." For the first time during the interview the Father looked
uncomfortable. He shifted nervously in his seat, and coughed delicately
into his hand. Harold felt his unease start to fade as he began to see that
his position may not be quite as helpless as he had been assuming.
"OK. So why don't you know? Aren't you guys supposed to know
everything?" Harold stood with his arms folded, waiting for a reply as the
Father did some more coughing and shuffling.
"The computer was down."
Harold turned slowly to JC, not quite believing his ears.
"What?"
"The computer was down, man. You know, not operational, kaput,
dead?" Jesus picked at his teeth with one grimy fingernail.
"Are you telling me," Harold moved over to JC's desk and sat on the
edge, feeling more confident by the minute, "that all the records of who
deserves Heaven or Hell are kept on computer?"
"Of course they are, idiot! Can you imagine the paperwork if we had to
do it all by hand?"
The three men turned in surprised unison to stare at the speaker. HG
looked back at them, one hand poised to pop another cube tile in his mouth,
a look of extreme self satisfaction on his wrinkled old face.
"That's the first intelligent thing he's said this century, " said the
Father. HG grinned back at him, popped another tile into his mouth and
began to chew noisily. "Anyway, to the business at hand. You are being
asked to go back down to earth with Jesus here to retrieve the souls you
pinched. If you don't, you'll go to ... the other place. If you agree to help,
however, you may, and I stress may get to come to Heaven. There are no
guarantees, of course. What is you decision?"
Harold thought for a few moments. If he didn't help, he'd go to Hell for
certain. If he helped this bizarre trinity with its celestial damage control
he might go to Heaven, which frankly seemed a bit dull. Or he might go to
Hell anyway, which was even less appealing. The memory of Satan's
laughter rose in his mind, and he decided any time back on earth would be
worth almost anything, anyway.
"OK, I'll do it."
"Cool!" shouted JC as he leapt up from behind his desk, rushed over to
Harold, nearly tripping over Ginger in the process, and put one extremely
hairy arm around Harold's shoulder. "We're going on a trip!"
The Father looked sourly at his son, and shook his head.
"If you're going to go, you'll have to behave yourself. I do not wish to
see a repeat of last time."
"No, Dad. It'll be fine. Won't it, Harry?" JC shook Harold with one arm,
his bearded, dark-skinned face close to his own. He could smell garlic and
dope on the Son's breath, and his large, hooked nose was uncomfortably
close to his own.
"That's Harold, thank you," Harold replied, firmly extricating himself
from Jesus's grasp. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all.
"Cool. Whatever. Let's go," Jesus began to lead him towards the door
through which Gabriel had previously exited. A cough from behind them
halted the pair, and JC turned.
"The tail should go, I think," the father said, pointing at Harold's
rump.
"No problem" JC grinned and laid a hand on the tail. Instantly, the
offending limb dissolved into several dozen toads, which fell to the floor
with damp thuds and proceeded to croak loudly and jump around the floor.
Harold watched in wonder as JC snapped his fingers and the toads fell
through the apparently solid floor.
"Ready?" JC asked.
"I guess," replied Harold.
"Yippee!" cried JC, and both men stepped through the doorway, and
vanished.
Steven read the newspaper the following day with disgust. There was
a front page story about a shower of toads falling on the local church.
Most people were dismissing the story as impossible, a hoax, but there
were a select few who took it as yet another sign of the Messiah's
imminent return, the Second Coming, and continued their preparations
accordingly.
"What a joke! Even if he was coming back, we killed him last time, so
we can do it again." He looked over to Michelle, a small red haired woman
who sat at the kitchen table reading a romance novel.
"Yes, dear," she muttered distantly. All this Satan stuff -- Black
Mass, Lucifer and so on was a bit beyond her. She had met Steve two years
previously at a college party, they had gotten drunk and stayed together
ever since. He'd introduced her to all his Satanist friends, and they had
initiated her into their group. She didn't understand most of it, but they
got to dress up and sing songs and takes lots of drugs, and that was enough
for her.
"You're not listening. They reckon Jesus Christ is coming back to earth
just because they found a few frogs skewered on a church steeple. What a
joke! If Christ were really coming, the Dark Lord would have sent us a
sign. He would know, wouldn't he?"
However, no, he didn't.
Of course nothing was mentioned in the papers about a scruffy, dark
haired hippy and a bewildered-looking man (who bore a remarkable
resemblance to the mystic who had been tragically found dead under a pile
of gold the day before) who suddenly appeared out of thin air next to the
aforementioned church. The few witnesses there were merely assumed
that their eyes were playing tricks on them, that the two strange men had
been there all the time. Several made a mental note to complain to the
local council about long-haired louts hanging around their church.
JC and Harold gingerly stepped between the fallen toads, across the
church lawn and began walking away as quickly and discreetly as possible.
"If people realise I'm back, I'll be in big trouble," muttered Jesus,
rubbing the holes in his wrists. Harold watched, fascinated as the holes
faded and were replaced by apparently solid flesh.
"Why? Wouldn't the coming of Jesus Christ be good for the earth?"
Harold asked, struggling to keep up with him.
"Well, you see, I was sent here the first time as a kind of
rehabilitation exercise." He glanced over his shoulder at Harold, but the
deceased mystic stared back at him blankly. "Dad sent me here to dry out,
you know?"
"Oh my God." Harold stopped dead in his tracks.
"Exactly," said JC, taking Harold by the elbow. "Keep walking."
"Do you mean that the whole of Christianity came about because you
were a junkie?" Harold's voice cracked.
"Drugs, booze, women. That's me." JC grinned and picked up his pace,
apparently pleased with himself.
"Oh boy. So your father must be ...."
"Jewish. Right on."
"Oh dear. You created Christianity while you were on holiday."
"Yup. Except it was an accident, man. I was just too hip and laid back
for the time. Everyone thought it was a religious thing -- I thought we
were just hanging out. When they decided to crucify me, Dad didn't help out
because obviously I hadn't dried out and he was really pissed off. He
wanted me back in Heaven as soon as possible, and he hoped that me
kicking the bucket would put an end to the whole Christian thing, but it
just made it worse." JC came to a crossroad, stopped briefly and turned
left. "See, you have to understand that Heaven's not quite like it is in the
Bible. I had nothing to do with that Bible rap -- you guys wrote it, not me.
Anyway, there's GOD, that's us, and there's BUDDHA, KRISHNA, the GODDESS
and so on. BUDDHA stands for Building an Understanding Department --
Developing Happiness and Awareness, KRISHNA is ...."
"I don't want to know!" He paused, rubbing his aching head. "Where are
we going?"
"We're going to visit a bunch of Satanists I know of," he replied
matter-of-factly.
"Oh. Of course." Harold looked tiredly back at the Son, and shrugged.
"Why not?"
Michelle and Steve both jumped as the doorbell rang. Steve looked at
the calendar on the fridge as he went past on the way to the front door,
but there was nothing noted on it about having visitors. The next Mass
wasn't till the following weekend.
"Bloody salesmen," he muttered, and pulled the door open, his mouth
open ready to send the salesman away with a flea in his ear, but the sound
died in his throat. The sight of a strange man with blonde hair wearing a
flowing white tunic and an extremely dirty-looking hippy frankly took his
voice away.
"Who the hell are you?" he finally asked.
"Hi! I'm JC and this is Harold. We heard you were into this Satan thing,
and want to join." JC gave Steve his most friendly and enthusiastic smile.
He was a bit confused, because this look always seemed to work, but the
brutish man who opened the door looked anything but impressed.
"Piss off," the man replied, and slammed the door. Steve was halfway
down the hallway when the doorbell rang again.
"Look, piss off or I'll ...." was as far as he got.
The pressure of recent events had reached critical mass inside
Harold, and something finally snapped. He grabbed Steven by the neck with
both hands and pushed him backwards into the house. The stricken man
gurgled and scrabbled at him, trying to extricate him from the other man's
grip, but to no avail. Harold steered him into the kitchen, where he threw
him roughly into a chair.
Jesus followed them quickly, greeting the attractive, startled woman
who jumped up from the kitchen table with a polite nod and one of his
most winning smiles.
"Don't worry. So long as you don't upset Harold, he's cool. So don't
upset him, OK? Harry, chill out." JC walked up to Harold, and slapped a
hand on his shoulder. Harold jumped and his head snapped round to look at
the hippy, his eyes suddenly clear.
"Thanks, JC," he muttered. He offered Steve his hand. "Sorry, don't
know what came over me."
"Yeah, well, that's OK. Um. So what do you guys want?" inquired Steve
meekly. JC was now standing next to Michelle, gazing into the woman's
eyes.
"Well, man, like I said, we want to join your group," replied JC, his
eyes never leaving Michelle's.
"Yes, well, I guess I can accept Harold here on his, um, credentials,"
said Steve tactfully. He was happy to accept Harold (frankly, the man
scared him, despite his own immense size). "But I'm not sure our members
would really approve of you. I mean, whoever heard of a satanic hippy?"
Steve tried his best to assert himself and regain control of the situation
by putting the hippy down, but he cowered as Harold bristled and moved
towards him.
Finally, Jesus wrenched his gaze away from Michelle, who let out an
audible sigh, and he looked at Steve.
"No, no, man. That's OK," JC placed a calming hand on Harold's arm.
"That's cool. How about I do something to prove that I'm serious?"
"What, like a test?" ventured Steve.
"Yup."
"OK," Steve relented, "that should do it. What did you have in
mind?"
"Do you like cats?" JC asked, a mischievous smile playing on his
face.
"Not particularly," replied Steven, nonw the wiser.
"Oh, I love cats. I think they're the best animals of all," murmured
Michelle, still gazing into JC's eyes, obviously hoping to impress him.
"Well then, I suggest you go for a long walk, babe," JC looked at
Michelle sternly, hoping she would do as he asked without asking any
awkward questions.
"OK. Will you be here when I get back?" Michelle batted her eyelids
prettily.
"Sure, babe. I'll be here," Jesus smiled and patted the girl on the rump
as she turned and left, ignoring Steve completely.
Harold watched all this with considerable concern. He was not at all
sure that they were safe in the company of a thug like Steve at the best of
times, and JC's flirtation with the lovely but incredible stupid Michelle
was undoubtedly inviting trouble. And what was all this stuff about
cats?
"Give us ten minutes, man," JC informed Steve, then stopped halfway
to the door and turned. "Unless you have a cat?"
"No," replied Steve, still completely in the dark.
"Thought not. See you soon -- relax, OK?"
JC and Harold walked out the door, a few metres down the street and
turned left, out of sight of Steve who had followed as far as the front
garden of the small house, and was looking after them, scratching his
head, bewildered.
"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Harold.
"Hey, man, I wish you'd give that really negative expression a miss,
OK? It's really not cool," JC looked hurt.
"OK. Sorry. What in heaven's name is all this about a cat?"
"Exactly."
"What?" Harold, as usual, did not follow. JC held up a hand to silence
the mystic, and snapped his fingers. A large orange-and-white cat
suddenly appeared on the sidewalk next to Jesus, a surprised look on its
whiskered face. It spotted JC and began purring and winding itself in and
out between his feet.
"Harold, this is Ginger. He joined us a month or two ago -- you
remember, he was with me when I met you. Some really mean dude blew
him up, you know?" JC picked Ginger up, and the cat eyed Harold
suspiciously. Jesus pulled the animal close and whispered something in its
ear which Harold didn't quite catch. The animal looked back at its master,
apparently considering what he had said, and finally meowed what Harold
assumed was acceptance.
"Thanks Ginger. You're one cool pet, you know? I owe you one. OK, let's
go back." JC turned to go.
"Oh no, no you don't. What are you going to do with that thing?" Harold
pointed an accusing finger at the deceased Ginger.
"Sshh, man," JC hissed, putting his hand over the cat's ears, "you'll
hurt his feelings. Have some soul! I'm going to use Ginger as a test to
prove we're the real thing, OK?"
"OK," muttered Harold, not at all convinced that it was. He followed
Jesus back to the house, where they found Steven sitting on the back porch
drinking scotch from an already half-consumed bottle. Harold decided that
he would retire to the front room ostensibly to keep an eye out for any
unwanted visitors. In fact he was not that keen to see whatever JC had in
mind for the unfortunate Ginger, despite the animal already being dead.
Several minutes later Harold was very glad he decided to stay away.
The sound of chanting reached his ears and he recognised JC's voice as it
rose and fell dramatically. Suddenly his voice was drowned out by an ear-
piercing shriek which shot through Harold's soul, followed by a ripping
sound and abrupt silence. He heard footsteps thumping rapidly towards him
through the house, poked his head into the corridor and was surprised to
see Steve stumbling towards him, one hand over his mouth. The sickened
man veered off to the toilet, and Harold decided that discretion had
definitely been the better part of valour in this case, and he would wait a
few minutes before attempting to join JC in the back yard.
Eventually he gathered enough pluck to tiptoe onto the back porch. The
sight which met his eyes was nauseating and oddly comical. Jesus was
sitting on the edge of the porch, Steve's bottle in one hand and a wicked-
looking ceremonial knife in the other. On the ground in front of him lay the
skinned carcass of Ginger the Exploded Cat, the flesh glistening in the
ever-spreading pool of deep red blood which oozed out around it. Two feet
away lay the animal's skin, a bloody bundle of fur.
Harold's gorge rose and he was about to lose whatever ghosts have in
their stomachs when the skin moved. Shocked, Harold looked on, fascinated
as the fur bundle twitched and writhed. Soon the carcass joined in, and the
grisly objects began to move jerkily towards each other. Harold glanced at
JC, but the Son of the Lord was drinking nonchalantly from the bottle,
barely even watching the morbid show going on before him. The two parts
of Ginger finally met, and the skin began to slowly climb, like a wet furry
slug, up and over the carcass, and the spreading pool of blood began to
recede, as if it were being sucked back into the cat's body. Finally fur and
body became whole, and the cat stood up, its fur still a little baggy and
misshapen.
With a satisfied shake, Ginger adjusted his fur and looked up at JC
expectantly. He picked up the cat and it began head-butting his chin
ecstatically as Jesus praised him.
"Good work Ginger. You're the best. You won't even miss that life --
what's one more out of nine, eh? Time to go now. Say hi to Pops for me."
The cat looked up into JC's eyes, blinked and disappeared.
"Good, eh?" JC asked Harold, who was staring open mouthed and dumb-
founded at the spot which had moments before been the scene of
unmentionable torture and carnage.
"Ugh," he swallowed.
"Thought you'd like it." JC gave a self-satisfied belch and took another
swig of scotch.
After Steve's explanation of the cat incident it didn't take much to
convince the rest of his group to accept JC and Harold. Steve still had a
few questions to ask JC (like how he cleaned up all that mess so quickly),
but every time he thought about the cat his stomach churned, so it had to
wait. The two spirits stayed with Michelle and Steve, despite the man's
objections, and, as JC put it, 'partied on'.
As Harold had feared, Jesus became extremely close to Michelle and
they were soon meeting for late night rendezvous and midnight trysts. Of
course, with all four of them living in such close quarters these events
were very difficult to keep secret, but Steve contented himself with the
fact that soon the two strangers would pass through and find someone
else's life to invade. After that business with the cat Steven wasn't too
keen to argue with them, anyway. They'd promised that there was a chance
that he'd get to meet the Dark Lord himself, which was his greatest
dream, so in a way he was grateful for the odd duo's presence.
It was at the end of the first week at the house that Harold and JC
finally met the rest of the Satanists. Having been to Hell more or less in
the flesh, Harold thought they were a bit a let down, all things considered.
He'd been expecting ranting maniacs wearing inverted crosses and dead
pigeons round their necks. Instead they were really quite normal.
Ally and Mark were two yuppies who attended the group as a way of
spicing up their marriage. John Phillips was a middle-aged priest who
was, in his eyes, paying God back for not giving him peace in his life on
earth, and his wife Janis attended merely to placate her husband. The
other member of the group was an elderly ex-teacher, and academic named
Geoffrey Humborg. He had joined the group basically out of curiosity and
boredom, had been pleasantly surprised by the intensity and seriousness of
the other participants, and hoped to write a book on Satanism in the late
twentieth century.
The odd group sat on the floor of Steven's loungeroom around a huge
pentagram chalked onto the wooden floorboards. The room was filled with
tallow candles and Steve had the soundtrack to The Exorcist on the CD
player, which struck both JC and Harold as rather funny.
"Adds to the atmosphere," muttered Steven as he noticed the two men
snickering. As the chanting of the music became louder and more frenzied
and the group joined in, Harold glanced furtively at JC. He was sitting next
to Michelle, holding her hand in his lap, and the hippy had a suspiciously
blissful smile on his face.
"Pervert," Harold nudged JC roughly with one elbow. The smile faded
from JC's face and he reluctantly let Michelle's hand go, giving her a
reassuring pat on the knee. Harold and Jesus had discussed the procedure
for bringing the spirits up from Hell, and JC had memorised several names
Harold had given him of souls which had been pilfered. The chanting
reached a climax and JC took over.
"Oh great one, Lord of Darkness, hear me," (JC desperately hoped he
wouldn't), "show me your minion. Send to me the soul of Jack Brown. Give
us a sign, that we may remain your most humble and obedient servants."
Harold looked at JC, wondering what had happened to the hippy. There were
no 'mans' or 'relax's' in the sentence, and it took Harold by surprise. The
group held their breath as they waited to see a sign from Satan.
The candles began to flicker and a sudden thunder clap above the
house startled the assembly, making them jump. Ally and Mark clutched
each other, huge grins on their faces as the thunder sounded again,
Humborg sat with a small smile of anticipation on his features as
Michelle, Steven, the priest and his wife all looked on in frank terror. The
ceremonies to date had been all chanting, candles and pompousness, but no
action until now. The floor in the middle of the pentagram began to blister
and smoke, and the priest's wife finally broke down into hysterical sobs.
The room was suddenly lit with a bright red flash and a stench Harold
found strangely familiar filled the room. Jack Brown landed gracelessly in
the middle of the circle of people, stood up with difficulty and said "What
the hell is going on?" JC snapped his fingers and the apparition abruptly
disappeared, leaving the room once more in silence and darkness. There
was a pause as the assembly picked their communal jaws off the floor,
and Humborg began to applaud, slowly at first and as the others joined in,
he stood up and gave an ebullient ovation.
"Well done, JC, brilliant. Awe-inspiring," he enthused.
"Thanks, Humborg, man. Want to go again?" JC grinned, and Harold
breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The Father looked dubiously at Jack Brown as he flicked through his
paperwork. The unfortunate soul had appeared in Heaven in the gardens
next to JC's pool, startling several pheasants beyond recovery. Gabriel
found Jack stuck upside down in one of the hedges, swearing roundly and
had brought him to the Father's office. It seemed that JC and Harold were
doing their job well, all things considered. He bid Jack welcome and
handed him several forms to fill in before allowing Gabriel to lead the
confused soul away for a well earned bath and a rest.
Satan sat on his bloody throne, one hoof resting on the opposite knee,
picking the grime from underneath his cloven extremities with one sharp
talon, oblivious to the actions of Harold and his celestial friend. Grindle
sat at his other hoof, enjoying his new rank, the reward for his work with
Harold. The Dark Lord was becoming bored all over again with all these
goody-goody types he was getting lately, and longed for the good old days
when sinners were sinners and those boring farts kept out of his way.
Grindle smiled happily to himself as he caught a piece of unholy hoof-
jam, rolled it briefly between two fingers and ate it. Satan was becoming
a bit of a wimp now he wasn't dealing with the really bad people any more.
Soon he wouldn't be able to tell him from the other ones, from the Other
Place, the Good Place. Grindle didn't mind too much though, as long as he
was kept out of the infernal flames. Even if it did mean digesting a few
bits of toe-jam once in a while.
The group held their Black Masses once a week, and JC 'resurrected'
several souls at each of these gatherings. He continued his dubious
relationship with the vapid Michelle, who managed to also appropriate a
fair amount of marijuana on his behalf. Between meetings, Harold went for
walks, watched TV and generally enjoyed being on earth, although he
missed the creature comforts that his mortal wealth had given him, while
JC got drunk, stoned and generally had a 'groovy' time. They had saved
about twenty souls three weeks into their stay on earth, and Harold was
becoming bored.
