It was the glorified body of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. The Messiah was right here in this very room.
He stood before a quaking Pilate, his robe pure white and radiant. He raised his hands and showed Pilate the scars in the center of his wrists, beneath the big bone. The nails bit him as he hung from the cross.
“Know that I am He,” said Jesus Christ.
Pilate blubbered and breathed in painful gasps. Jesus stood before him and the Roman was immobile with fear. It clenched his heart like a miser. The manifestations of Pilate’s fear were the only sounds heard. Time seemed to slow for Pilate, almost stop. The moment before the presence of the Risen felt an eternity. All that he saw was brightened and sharpened in detailed clarity.
The moment was meant to be remembered, the curtain drawn back. The Truth bathed in harsh light.
The Christ placed his hands upon Pontius Pilate. He felt the heat acutely and he couldn’t catch his breath. The radiant light issuing forth from the Christ bothered Pilate’s eyes. He watched in horror as his amputated fingers grew back and then split at the tips.
Jesus released him. Pilate fell to his hands and knees and uncontrollably voided all bodily wastes, violently retching until he was dry.
“You washed your hands of me,” Jesus accused him. Pilate’s hands began to burn. The talons sprung instant from torn finger tips and shred flesh, but the burning pain persisted. “Your soul shall now be cursed,” the Christ judged, “with eternal earthbound life.”
Pontius Pilate cried out in agony and despair. He knew what was coming. Pilate was cursed with earthly damnation. He rejected the Blood of Christ, so shall he now survive, instead, on the blood of man.
Pontius Pilate came to with a start. He looked all around. Jesus of Nazareth was gone. Pilate heard dark laughter faintly and fading. A servant entered the room behind Pilate. She was trying to be as quiet as a mouse. So quiet as to make no discernable noise, but he knew it was his servant. He even knew which one she was. Pontius Pilate could now smell her blood as if it was bread rising.
The vampire thought she smelled delicious.
….THE END
MADE FROM THE TEARS OF A CONJOINED TWINS HYBRID
“CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC”
“I beheld the wretch, the miserable monster whom I had created.”
Victor Frankenstein
-Mary W. Shelley
PRO TERMINUS
WE REMEMBER SO CLEARLY HIS BODY FLUIDS. As We stared, enraptured, they dripped down nicely into the collection pan. The big commercial fish dehydrator was leaching out every tiny liquid jeweled drop of Elron Hunt. We watched it drip, transfixed by its drop by drop progression. We waited patiently for the pan to fill. We had already selected a large soup bowl and equally spacious spoon. Elron moved slightly, startling us out of our revelry. We rose out of our chair and made sure that his airway was open and secure and that Uncle was still breathing; for just a little while longer, anyway. Then it will no longer matter. No, Sir; not one tiny bit. Then he cannot be. Elron Hunt does not need to live forever. No one does. No one except for Us, that is. We also had a clear line tubing of icy water trickling down his gullet. The extra fluid infused will aid to force more of Us out of him, and retrieve some more of ourselves. Eventually, We will be made whole for the very first time in our collective experience. In a sense, We shall be born anew.
Elron Hunt opened his eyes and he stared, helpless, at his own ceiling. We added a minute dollop of Downtown Leroy Brown into his line of water. His eyes soon clouded over as he turned his head and tried to focus in on Us. The uncertainty stamped on his face was a bit distressing. Elron recognized the meat puppet We were using, but he did not know Us. We were way too deep down for that. As the pan filled, the thick wool of darkness was pulled over his eyes, allowing Elron to die rather peacefully and in his sleep. We need to reclaim from him, but We’re trying to be nice about it. A part of him, We could tell, wants this. Even if he doesn’t know who or what We are exactly, he wants to let Us go.
There is no reason for Elron Hunt to suffer. He has to die so We can grow and become, but We don’t have to be a huge Richard about it. Going to the Next serenely is just fine by Us.
We went back to our chair, tableside. The collection tray was flush. We tipped the tray into our bowl, slap-sloshing lumps like a loose stool. It was cooling down to a nice, warm body temperature. We spoon it up and savor the salty goodness. The bloody lumps were first-rate and substantive. We squashed the lumps between our tongue and the roof of our mouth. They explode with flavor like the greased juices of cooked burger meat. We can sense some of our presence; maybe even touch a taste of Us as well. The compulsion to rejoin is instinctive and intense. We can already feel, as We scoop and swallow, scoop and swallow, ourselves thickening and gaining substance. We were attracting and accepting our lost essence. We’re manifesting this, our coalescence.
We finished the bowl, feeling better already. We wait for more. And when the fluids of Elron Hunt are completely consumed, We still have the jerked meat to work through. That will take some time. The fluids and bits are gobbled directly, but our puppet can only consume so much meat a day. We also have to get him to skin the carcass, do something with the bones…
Elron Hunt’s fluids resumed exodus. We have to wait for the collection pan to refill, before We can eat some more of ourselves. We will become whole. We can feel it. It will plainly take more time and labor. And more people.
We shall go backwards…
UNUS
THE GOOD DOCTOR STEPPED OUT OF THE TELEPORTER and into his office. He was below ground, in a sub-basement level of Hell’s Mouth Determining Hospital. The Good Doctor held his large coffee and his newspaper, and he had his over-sized travel slippers on. He went to his spacious desk and laid the items down on its face. He turned to the closet behind the desk. The door recognized his voice and opened smoothly and nearly soundlessly. The shoe racks came forward. They spread open like a fan.
“Suggestions,” The Good Doctor said. A red eye of laser light scanned him from the top of his majestically long and regal looking salt and pepper dreadlocks, past his dove gray Nehru suit, terminating at his stocking feet.
The first of the three pairs of soft, clone-leathered loafers slid to the front. They were all custom-made out of necessity, for The Good Doctor had six toes on each of his feet.
He removed them all from the tray. He placed them, one pair at a time, onto his feet, checking to see which one worked best with the fall of his pant legs. They all fit perfectly, but he liked the way the last pair looked with the whole ensemble. He put the other two pairs of shoes back on the rack. The whole contraption snapped back together and re-folded itself into a closed fan. Noiselessly, the doors slid shut.
The Good Doctor made his way back to the big desk. It covered a fair portion of the hospital’s Chief Medical Administrator’s humongous office. He unbuttoned and removed his suit coat, hanging it on a nearby coat rack. He had his double shoulder holster on. The Good Doctor pulled the two old-fashioned 9mm handguns from the holster and placed them on the desk. He sat down.
The Good Doctor sipped at his cup of java while perusing the day’s caseload. He liked to schedule his surgeries in the late mornings, so he could be finished by late afternoon. The Hellbound made quite a long list today. It seemed as though everyone wanted to work on their score cards at once. They were all bucking for a better position in the eternal underworld. The lower the scores, the better and more peaceful eternal Damnation will be.
The Good Doctor scanned the long sheet of procedures he would be personally involved in. His own score was already a very respectable and comfortable seven below par, but he truly enjoyed helping others. By torturing them.
It is good to give.
Old Man Misanthrope was The Good Doctor’s first case of the day. The geriatric patient was ancient like dust and had a score of still just par. He was close to the end, so the patient was getting understandably nervous. If he was to enter the Afterlife wit
h his present score, he could count on an eternity of torment by the demons and the Damned that inhabit it. Why the geriatric patient didn’t address this issue much sooner was not for The Good Doctor to say or concern himself with. What did matter greatly was that he was going to have something big done now to make up for lost time. The Good Doctor will get to surgically crack open the old guy’s chest and slice directly into the heart’s protective pericardial layer. Once inside, the surgeon will drop an awesome nosocomial infection bomb directly into the heart muscle. He was thinking of an E Coli. Old Man Misanthrope will suffer much from the operation and will probably die because of it. It was the high price that must be paid. The Good Doctor didn’t make the rules, he just followed them.
My goodness, The Good Doctor thought as he smiled. What a wholesome day to be alive! He hummed “What a Wonderful World” to himself, seeing fields of green and red roses too. His satisfied smile twisted up in a curl.
The Good Doctor placed the surgery schedule on the desk blotter directly in front of him and between his two guns. The Right to Bear Arms long overturned, The Good Doctor’s firearms were licensed for carrying and concealment by The Harbor’s Village Council. Since he was an influential member of the Council, The Good Doctor didn’t have any trouble acquiring this privilege.
The 9mm on his right was as black as death. It held a modified 20 shot clip. Its silver fraternal twin was modified too, but not with an expanded shot capacity. This 9mm was hard shiny silver in the light. It glowed with a deep, rich purple in the darkness. This color change kept The Good Doctor from accidentally placing the wrong gun in his mouth when inebriated. The finger grip and trigger were designed to face backward.
Noting the schedule, The Good Doctor pulled a small, cooled cylinder from the desk freezer and unscrewed the top. Inside were soft frozen plugs of Downtown Leroy Brown. The plugs were the solidified ear wax of Trudge & Drudge. The conjoined twins were genetically altered clones, designed and grown by The Good Doctor with a small, but usable bit of Adam’s Rib.
The Good Doctor stood up from his desk. He took one of the potent frozen ear wax plugs. He squeezed them between two fingers and slid them down the back of his trousers and up his rectum with practiced ease. The plug would melt nice and slow throughout his workday, releasing a powerful, but silky smooth opiate high. It was often euphoric in the extreme. Not everybody can even handle it, but The Good Doctor loved this gift from his twins. Even so, sometimes the heroin-like plug pulled The Good Doctor too far down the rabbit hole. A blast or two of Uptown Girl balanced the opiate out. It came from the hugely oversized Herman Munster head of Trudge & Drudge. The dandruff flaked off of their nearly hairless scalp daily. It was better than the best blue-tinge cocaine and the high lasted as long as top-drawer crystal meth. The combo of the two diametrically opposed narcotics provided The Good Doctor with what he felt was the ultimate, nearly perfect high.
The Good Doctor picked up the silver 9mm with the reversed grip and trigger guard. He placed the business end in his mouth between his teeth. He fired the first shot. The aerosolized spray blasted Uptown Girl down the back of The Good Doctor’s throat and into his lungs. He held it in, letting the acres and acres of blood supplied surface area in the lungs absorb the potent spray. He held it in for a six count and slowly exhaled. He fired the 9mm again, repeating the process. While holding in this second blast, The Good Doctor liberated the clip and checked the remaining cartridges. He replaced the two spent Uptown Girl shells and pressed the clip back into the gun.
Powered by ethanol and an HFA 134a propellant, almost 100 micrograms of Uptown Girl was delivered with each actuation. By the time The Good Doctor had put the ersatz 9mm back on his desk, the elder statesman was rushing his stones off. He started chattering to himself non-stop as the amphetamine rush of the twins’ aerosolized dandruff kicked in with full force. The Good Doctor started talking nineteen to the dozen like an agitated squirrel. He jabbered nonsensically with closed eyes, the orbs twitching beneath the lids. He grasped the edge of his desk for stable purchase. The Good Doctor began to shake a little, peaking. He tightened his grip, surfing the pharmaceutical wave.
“Gosh darn it. Goodness sakes!”
The Good Doctor put his head back and rode out the rougher part of the rush. After a few moments he brought his head level and opened his eyes. The Downtown Leroy Brown was melting nicely and smoothly and was really beginning to kick. The Uptown Girl rush was fading and calming down a touch. The Good Doctor had found his balance, which was necessary if he was to perform effective surgery. Always put the patients first, he thought. He smiled and exhaled with delight.
The Good Doctor took a sip of his sweet coffee and lit a rolled bud-smoke of home-grown. He sucked in the vapors and blew out a column. He watched as it lazily floated up to the light above him and his desk. He stuck the joint in his gob and turned to face the safe in the wall behind him. He opened the door and placed the two 9s in the safe, beside the priceless fragment of Adam’s Rib. He shut the door and secure-locked it with the print from his sixth digit; a second fully functional thumb, on the opposite side of his left hand. When clenched, the left hand made a perfectly circular and very firm grip. He could crush things with this grip; organic, living things. He can create with it as well; organic, living things.
With Adam’s Rib safely ensconced in The Good Doctor’s wall-safe, the physician-scientist was in firm possession of an original God Molecule, the key to Life. Satan ordered clones to be made in His image. He wanted to literally create a Hell on Earth. As the New God’s personal agent, The Good Doctor was overseeing these research trials personally.
Things were just getting going, but were proceeding quite smoothly. There were countless things to do and ostensibly all at once. His research was buzzing right along at an ever escalating pace and he knew the Peer of the Realm must be satisfied.
Juggling as fast as can be, The Good Doctor thought with a pained smile. So many balls in the air, though. There’s just so many…
****
After god the father stood by as one third of humanity died from plagues and wars that were biblical in scale, He then took his chosen third with him. After the Cataclysmic Events (ACE), the earth and its remaining inhabitants were on their own. Yahweh did not destroy the planet, nor did he build a new Zion as promised. He just took his favorites and skulked away in the middle of the night, in the twinkling of an eye, with nary a backward glance.
Now Satan was it. He called the ball and there was none left to stand in his way. Antichrists like The Good Doctor paved the way for the Darkness and Evil to become the accepted way of life for those who remain on this planet.
The Good Doctor, still contentedly puffing and humming, rose. He left his office behind, a huge grin staining his happy, happy face. The Good Doctor and his ilk were the new guardians of the gate. It was their time to shine.
The Good Doctor headed down the hall toward the operating suites of the hospital. It was time for him to earn his daily bread.
Hell’s Mouth Determining was housed in the remnants of a dilapidated old steel refinery that dated back almost two centuries. Except for the force-field GRID protected observatory and solarium, most of the hospital was situated several stories below ground. It was warm and safe there. For The Good Doctor it was warm and safe. Not so for the patients. But, Hell’s Bells, that’s what they come in droves for.
The Good Doctor made his way down and into the hospital’s surgical suites. He went into the changing room. He changed into a scrub suit with the help of a comely Halfling. One of The Good Doctor’s very best creations; her horns were short and sharp. Her red skin was so warm to the touch, her hands and mouth and girlie-girl parts were so accommodating. She undressed and dressed The Good Doctor with a light touch in a properly subservient manner. He would love to have her do more than dress and undress him. The Halfling was liquid sex. Someday, some fine day, The Good Doctor was going to invite himself in.
Dressed and no longer distracted by
the enchanting demon-girl, The Good Doctor left the changing room and went through an adjoining preparation room through a silently sliding translucent door. He went in and headed straight for the sinks. It was time to prep for Old Man Misanthrope’s E. Coli infected Endocarditis.
The bucket of foul smelling feces sat in the sink. The Good Doctor dunked his bare hands deep into the waste. He made sure he was covered from fingertips to elbow creases in fecal matter.
The Good Doctor was backing, with his dirty hands held aloft, into the OR suite when the cochlear implant bing-bonged deep in his ear. It was home calling. He answered it.
“Yes, Tug.”
“Dr. Sir,” began Uncle Tugmunkee. “Please forgive my intrusion.”
“Literal, I’m afraid,” The Good Doctor replied. “I’m going into surgery at this very moment.”
“I do apologize, Dr. Sir,” Uncle Tug countered, “but it’s about the twins and the salt in their tears.”
“Hmm,” The Good Doctor replied as he approached the wonderfully frightened patient. The old guy was eyeballing him fearfully. Do, he thought, DO fear the Reaper, old boy…
To Uncle Tugmunkee, he simply re-stated: “Salt, you say?”
DUO
UNCLE TUGMUNKEE LAY SLEEPING IN HIS NEST when the alarm screen sounded. It was still dark out and the chimpanzee was loath to open his eyes. He was having such a sweet dream. The dolphin he was making love to was chitter-chattering and quivering with delight. In his dreams, Uncle Tug was a super-suave, devil-may-care, man-about-town. Crowds cheered on his sexual exploits and he was deadly with the lay-days…in his dreams.
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