Joe’s feet hit
the floor with a thump and he shook his head. The pre-game
show hadn’t started yet, so he couldn’t have dozed off for
very long. He shoved the hassock out from in front of his
chair and stood to look over the kitchen clock. Ten forty-three
on a Sunday. Who the hell was…?
Knock-Knock-Knock!
He snatched open
the door and immediately wished he’d looked through the peep-hole
first. Black slacks, white shirts, dark ties—at first Joe
thought it was the gawd-damned J-Ws or the Mormons or maybe
even the Baptists again, then he took in his visitors’ ruddy
complexions and stubby black horns. There were two of them,
one tall—well over six feet—with slicked black hair and an
oiled goatee. The other was squat and bald with curly black
hair on the backs of his hands past his knuckles.
“Good morning,
Mr. Worley. We were wondering if we could have a few minutes
of your time?” Both figures smiled reassuring smiles, the
short one displaying pointed, shark-like teeth.
“Is this a gag?”
The taller of
the two shook his head. “No gag, Joe. We’re taking a page
out of the competition’s playbook and hitting the streets
with a special offer. We knew you’d be home, and thought
you might be interested. My name is Azaerel, and this is
my associate, Mr. Burke. May we come in?”
Joe was awake
now, and it didn’t take him long to find a reasonable answer. “I
don’t think so, no.”
“I understand.” Azaerel
said. A hint of sadness touched his smile. “You’re not quite
ready to invite two agents of Satan into your living room
this lovely Sunday morning. I understand entirely. Why don’t
you just step out on the porch with us, then?”
Joe sneaked a
look back over his shoulder for his wife, Mary. “Don’t worry,
Joe. Mary’s out sunning herself on the back deck, waiting
for the Smith boy to start mowing the backyard next door,
so she can ‘accidentally’ turn herself over without doing
her top up and give him an eye-full. She won’t be back in
the house for at least an hour.”
Joe stepped out
on the porch and pulled the door shut gently behind him. “What
are you talking—” The sound of the mower starting up behind
his neighbor’s house made him chop his question short. “What
do you want?”
Azaerel chuckled
and leaned back against the porch rail. “What, hadn’t you
noticed how nicely kept the Smith’s lawn has been this summer?
No? Never mind. You’ve got a sweet thing going on with your
secretary anyway, right? Oops, that’s not what they’re calling
them anymore, is it? I mean your new administrative assistant.
You know. Jenny.”
“How did you—”
“How do you think?” Azaerel
gave him a look much like the ones Joe’d received from his
guidance councilor in high school. “Don’t worry about it,
Joe, we’re going to make you a good deal.”
“What kind of
deal?”
The two devils
glanced quickly at one another. “If you’ve given it any thought,” Azaerel
said, “which I’d guess you haven’t, you probably realize
you’re going to hell, right?”
“Now wait a minute!” Joe’s
ears reddened.
“Chill, Joe. I’m
not telling you anything you shouldn’t all ready know for
yourself,” the devil said. “You’ve played fast and loose
with more than one commandment over the years. Hit most of
the deadly sins pretty regular, haven’t you?”
Joe pushed off
from were he’d been leaning on the door. “What commandments?” he
asked angrily. “What deadly sins?”
“Come on, Joe,” the
devil said. “We’re not here to rehash your whole life. Were
you honoring you mother and father when you used to dig through
their closet in search of your old man’s skin mags? Don’t
you remember how you used to watch Patti Barlowe?”
“Who?”
“That redhead
who lived next door to you, back in your first apartment.
Beeler Street? The one married to the Air Force sergeant?
Remember how you used to think about her when you woke up
in the mornings? I’d say that was a pretty clear case of
coveting your neighbor’s wife.”
“Hee hee hee,” Mr.
Burke chuckled. “Plenty of sins on your slate, mate. Sloth
on Sunday mornings, lust, gluttony at the buffet line, wrath—remember
punching that guy in the bar? Back when you and the missus
was just dating.”
“The point is
that, like most people today, you’re likely going to find
yourself toiling in the eternal furnace,” Azaerel said. “Sure,
there’s always the chance for a death bed act of contrition.
Let me tell you, Joe, hell is full of people who counted
on a last minute change of heart. Isn’t it, Mr. Burke?”
“Chock-full,” his
partner agreed, “and getting fuller every day.”
“That’s right,” Azaerel
went on. “Do you know the two most common ‘last words’ of
accident victims today, Joe?”
“Um, no.”
“‘Oh, shit!’ And ‘Oh,
fuck!’” Azaerel informed him. “Neither of which will
open up the pearly gates for the departed soul. So, if
you’ve been counting on that—”
“And we think
you have, mate,” his partner injected.
“Then we think
you need a backup plan.” Azaerel held up his long, red hands
in a broad gesture of supplication. “If you manage to chip
in an act of contrition at the end; good for you. Give Gabe,
Mike and the guys a wave for me when you get in—I haven’t
seen them to speak to for millennia. If you don’t make it, —and
like I said, most don’t—I have a better deal for you to think
about.”
“What kind of
deal?” Joe couldn’t help but show some skepticism. After
all, deals with the devil were infamous.
“Nothing complicated,” the
devil assured him. “We’re not after your soul, Joe. Fact
is we pretty much have that locked down already. Since you’re
coming our way anyhow, we thought we’d offer you a leg-up
once you check in.”
“How’s that?”
“I’ve confused
you. I’m sorry, Joe. Let me back up and give you a better
picture of how the afterlife works, down with us.
“Hell isn’t all
fiery pools of eternal torment. It started out that way,
back in the way-back, but we moved past that, ages ago. Originally
the fallen host toiled away tormenting the souls of the damned
and that was it. I’m one of the original fallen myself, and
I remember. We tormented, the doomed suffered and pretty
much everyone was miserable—which was the whole point, of
course. But the doomed souls kept rolling in, well, shuffling
in anyway, and the fallen host wasn’t getting any bigger.
After a while we were getting overwhelmed. Instead of suffering
exquisite agony for every second of eternity, the doomed
were just suffering ordinary torment most of the time, until
one of us could get around to giving them a moment’s personal
attention.
“This didn’t please
the boss. He had a contract for us to torment souls and,
if things went on as they were, soon most of the doomed would
be whiling away most of eternity in only mild discomfort,
waiting their turn for a tormentor. That would never do.
“So just about
the time of the first reorganization, when we made the original
boss chairman-of-the-board and put a new devil in as day-to-day
manager, we started a program of promoting doomed souls who’d
already suffered a good bit of eternal torment and used them
to spread the agony among the newcomers. That’s where Mr.
Burke and his ilk come in—he’s not one of the fallen host,
but instead has had to work his way up from the pits to the
post he has now.”
“Which is?” Joe
asked.
“Pit-fiend, first-class,” Mr.
Burke declared proudly. “One of the first of my era to make
it, too. I’ll be due for a promotion to Devil, third-class,
in another century or so.”
“And when did
you, er, die?”
“I was crucified
by the Roman Emperor Augustus.”
“That was…”
“More than two-thousand
years ago,” Azaerel said. “Unfortunately souls like Mr. Burke
are quite uncommon. Sinners, alas, are all too common. Administration
is turning into a major problem. One of the solutions we’re
come up with is what I’m here to talk to you about today,
Joe. How would you like to reserve yourself a fast-track
slot in Hell?”
“What if I don’t
want to go to Hell at all?” Joe asked.
“Well, I suppose
it’s never too late to start living a virtuous life, Joe,” the
devil answered him. “But who are you kidding? You like the
life you have. You like fucking off on the weekends, watching
football and drinking beer. You like cheating on your wife,
cheating on your taxes, cheating on your golf score. You
cherish your grudges—you can’t wait to cut out Kenny at the
office and finally get that big promotion he so richly deserves.
Things are going pretty good for you in the here-and-now,
and you don’t really want to make a change, do you?”
Joe straightened
up from where he’d slouched against the door. “I might,” he
said.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Mr.
Burke laughed right in his face. His breath smelled of sulfur
and old vegetables. “Sure you will. You’ll give up that sweet
thing from the office, stop going to titty-bars with the
guys, file an amendment on your last fifteen tax returns
and stay home every night, reading the Bible. You won’t give
in to wrath or lust or vanity, and you’ll say your prayers
every night. Good luck with that, chum.”
“Before you go
undertaking any life-changing events, Joe, why don’t you
hear what we have to offer?” Azaerel asked. “Despite our
side’s reputation for contracts, the terms are really quite
simple—with no fine print.” From his back pocket the tall
devil produced a single slick sheet folded in three, like
a tourist brochure. The front covered in red flame with a
black box containing large yellow letters proclaiming “A
Hell of a Deal”. He opened it to the first page and
extended it toward Joe. “You cut your initial term of torment
to a maximum of one century, no matter how many sins you
rack up.”
“Is that good?” Joe
asked.
Mr. Burke snorted. “Kid,
I did a thousand years in a fiery pool before I ever picked
up a pitch-fork! Even with the new programs, most of the
doomed souls never get out of the pits at all. There isn’t
much to distinguish one soul writing in agony from another,
so promotions get to be…a little random.”
“Which is one
problem this new program is designed to fix,” his partner
continued smoothly. “Everyone going to hell gets tormented—that’s
the whole point—but with this deal you’re in and out and
on your way with a minimum of fuss. See, here is the torment
clause in black and white: “Torment of the consigned
soul limited to ten years for every grievous sin with a maximum
total of one century.” That’s less than you’d get right
now, should anything happen to you. Much less than you’re
likely to rack up in the next thirty to forty years, the
way you’re going.”
“Unless I repent…” Joe
said.
“Yes, the repentance
clause.” Azaerel turned to another flap on the brochure. “Right
here: “If the consignee manages an act of contrition
and repentance abrogating his consignment to hell, all obligations
under this agreement, by both parties, are null and void.” Pretty
cut-and-dried if you ask me. If you manage to hook your way
in with the harp-and-halo crowd at the last minute, well
and fine with us. It’s not as if we’re dealing with any shortages
of doomed souls, after all.”
“Hardly,” Burke
croaked. “Quite the opposite.”
“As a matter of
fact, our coming to you now has already given you an edge
on most mortals,” Azaerel continued. “You’ve seen us, you
know there is a hell and you are going to it. We expect a
certain—small—percentage of our clients will undergo a renewal
of their lapsed faith. In fact, we’re counting on it.”
“How’s that?” Joe
asked. “I thought you guys were all about tempting humanity
from God and into eternal damnation?”
The devils both
winced at the mention of God. “Please, don’t bring Him up
like that.” Azaerel pleaded. “Its true, our game plan has
always been to encourage sin. That was before the current
manager had his big idea, more than a hundred years ago.
He was just an underboss then—”
“What idea was
that?” Joe asked.
“He was fascinated
with political and economic theories,” Azaerel explained. “He
started inspiring different, competing ideologies in the
territory he was running, which was Europe. He had this crazy
idea—The details don’t matter. The result is what you see
today.”
“Things don’t
seem so bad today,” Joe observed. “Compared to the Middle
Ages or…or just about anytime, I guess.”
“Thank you, Dr.
Pangloss.” Burke’s sneer exposed even more teeth than his
smile. He worked a stubby black-nailed finger into his collar
and continued, “Did it ever occur to you there might be reasons—”
“That’s enough.” Azaerel
gave the fiend a quelling glance. “I think it suffices to
say a certain amount of suffering on Earth was supposed to
generate more hopes of reward in the hereafter, and we succeeded
in screwing the balance up. As a result, many marginal souls
who would have just squeaked in to heaven in the old days—through
the sheer numbing pervasive actions of near-universal worship
if not actual faith—are now queuing up for eternal torment
from us.
This brings us
back to you, Joe, and our offer.”
Joe took the brochure
from the devil’s hands and looked at it. “This is all about
the afterlife? Nothing in the here-and-now?”
Azaerel smiled. “Not
directly, Joe. Just the certainty of hell. Consider how that
might affect you, though. If you knew that you were already
maxed out in the sin department, might that not give you
some edge?”
Joe thought about
that one, scratching where sweat had started running through
the stubble on his chin. The sound of the mower had stopped
some time back—it was almost time for the pregame show. “You
guys want to come in? The game’s on soon and I’ve got beer
on ice.”
Azaerel smiled
softly. “Maybe for a minute or two.”
