“So…,” begins Ben.
Ryan looks up from the trash bag where he’s secured the plastic trays, ready to drag them back home to use again tomorrow night.
“How can I help you, Ben?”
“Actually, I was just wondering how I could help you.” Ben replies. The words sound hissy without a cheek to help hold in the air and fashion the sound. Couldn’t the Master have given him a body that wasn’t quite so pathetic? One that at least had an intact face? “Seems nobody else is willing to hang around long enough to ask.”
“Yeah, well.”
Ryan slings the bag over his shoulder and limps from behind the counter. He looks like Santa in a child’s worst nightmare.
Santa, Ben thinks suddenly. Poor little Julie was scared of Santa, even a smiling Santa in his white beard and red suit. I tried to tease her, to make her laugh so she wouldn’t be scared. It didn’t work too good but I tried….
He shakes his pained head and clenches his jaws. The last things he needs are memories of Julie. “Master, don’t make me think of her, not now,” he whispers.
“What’d you say?” asks Ryan.
“Nothin,” says Ben. “I’ll get the door.”
The night air is a bit fresher than that inside the station, scented with wet leaves and exhaust. Ben struggles with the chair; why he had to be this crippled to do the job is beyond him. His head continues to pound. The wheels snag in deep gravel, and Ryan reaches over to take the chair handles to wriggle Ben free. Ben is caught immediately by the heat roiling off Ryan, pouring from his body in waves. Clearly, the man has some kind of sickness. Ben holds his breath until Ryan steps away; a knee-jerk reaction, left over from the days when he was alive and catching someone else’s disease was a thing to avoid. Ryan then says, “See ya, Ben,” and turns north to head into the deeper bowels of the city. His strides are lopsided and wretched, though he picks up a good speed. Ben stares after, then calls, “Hey!” He shoves the heels of his hands against the wheels and, with great effort, chases after Ryan. It’s harder steering the thing than he would have imagined. When he reaches Ryan, he is panting.
“What do you want?” Ryan doesn’t seem angry, just tired, distracted.
Ben makes sure he stays at least five feet from the preacher. The man’s body heat is still detectable. “Listen. I got a couple bucks in my pocket. How about a beer?”
“Beer?”
“Yeah, you know. Bud. Miller. Corona. A beer?”
“I know what a beer is.”
“Well?”
One of Ryan’s brows furrows; the one over the bad eye looks paralyzed. Then he says, “If it’s on you, okay. I’m flat broke. But you sure you want to be seen in public? The rest prefer their privacy. This is a dangerous city, especially for us. Ordinaries have little patience with Discards.”
Ben cringed at the name. He was no more a Discard than he was God. He was what he was, a dead, joke-cracking fuck-up who’d gone to hell for living a miserable life he’d pretty much forgotten after seventeen years. Now he spends all his time just trying to humor and please the Master, trying to keep him off his back, trying to keep hell’s tortures to a minimum. “I’ll be all right. Where’s the nearest store?”
The nearest store is up a couple blocks past empty tenements, some closed junk shops, and several bars with blacked-out windows. The store is half the width of a typical shop, with only enough room to squeeze down the narrow aisle between the counter and the single row of shelves. Unable to fit inside, Ben watches from the street as Ryan limps in with the wad of bills Ben has given him and selects a six-pack. The guy at the counter—old, white hair, sneers—growls, “Didn’ I tell you damned freaks to stay out of my shop?” until he sees the money in Ryan’s hand. Then he shuts up.
A freak preacher walks into a store to buy some beer…. Ben can’t think of a punch line for this one. Later, maybe.
Ryan comes out with the six-pack, stands holding it in the pus-yellow light that leaks from the shop’s door. Just looking at Ryan makes Ben’s head hurt all the more. That damned ear and screwed up eye. The arm that looks like it should belong to some freaky doll. He tries not to let his discomfort show.
“So, where you live?” asks Ben, though he knows. The Master has shown him all he needs to know, told him all he needs to hear. In won’t take long to toss out the hook and reel this one in.
Ryan says, “Not too far.” The way he says it lets Ben know that Ryan’s ability to keep up the kindly minister act is waning fast. He’s tired. He’s starting to sound irritated.
The devil was sitting on a tombstone one afternoon, waiting for the next soul to come along…. Wait, you’ve heard this one? Shit….
The empty garage is a dung-hole, that’s certain, situated at the back of a small, ruptured parking lot. The faded sign, “Martin’s Auto Repairs,” has long been down off the top of the building and is propped up against the front wall. Ryan hobbles on, over the potholes and briars, the beer case thwapping against his leg. He glances both ways before pushing through the door of the garage. Ben follows with effort, grimacing, his brain rattling in his skull.
The place still smells of the work that had been done here years earlier. Sweat and oil and gasoline and cold metal. Yet it is as hollow and forlorn as the service station where the Discards go to pray.
Ryan opens a small door near the back and descends the narrow steps. Without looking back he says, “Shut the door behind you and flick the lock.”
Ben sits in his chair at the top of the stairs and glares down. He shivers hard, so cold not only in this forsaken place but cold beneath his flesh. “How the hell…,” he begins, but Ryan calls up, “Just crawl down. It’s not that far.”
Fuckedy-fuck! Ben thinks. He has to keep with his charge, but now he’ll be even more gimped. Again, the Master is having him on, somewhere out there in the darkness, enjoying Ben’s misery.
What do you get when you cross a hole-faced, sluggish mutant with a set of cellar steps? One big splat at the bottom, that’s what.
Rim shot….
He shivers hard inside his skin.
Thump-thump-thump-thump. The rough wood of the steps scrapes the palms of his hands, leaving countless, needle-sharp splinters. His ass bounces heavily, his dead legs trailing at odd angles. He works hard not to lose himself and become the splat, the butt of his own stupid joke.
No candles in the cellar, only two battery-powered camping lanterns. It’s hard to see at first, and Ben’s eyes adjust only partly. There is a cot in a corner. A pile of blankets on the floor. Windows up near the ceiling, covered in wire mesh.
As he slops off the bottom step, he is hit in the face with the stuffy heat in the room. It’s like someone has turned a radiator way up. It’s Ryan’s sickness, whatever it is.
Shit on it all.
Ryan sits on the cot and rubs his knees with his good hand. Then he snatches a beer bottle from the carton on the floor and twists off the top with his teeth. Ben finds this mildly impressive.
“Your place sucks,” says Ben.
“You shut and lock the door?”
“No, I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ryan. His voice is softer now, drained, weakened. He’s almost ready for my offer. This shouldn’t take long. Good!
“Hey, Ryan,” says Ben. The pain in his head flares again. He grunts through his teeth.
“What?”
Ben drags his sorry body across the concrete floor toward the cot, over a damp drain hole in the center, through several dried and flattened mouse carcasses. “How long you been livin’ here?”
“A while.”
“You always been like….that? All messed up?”
Ryan shrugs. “Why?”
“Born that way?” Ben cocks his head, and the jaunty motion, meant to display cocky confidence, only makes the pain worse. He pretends it doesn’t. “How do you say it in that prayer? ‘We are as you have made us?’”
“Why do you want to know, B
en?”
“All that shit you talk about to the other…Discards. Telling them to accept how they are. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking brain damaged? I know you hate the way you are, the way they are, hell, the way I am right now. Look at me. A bag of human garbage on your floor! Could it get any worse?”
Ryan takes another swig of the beer. “Could it?”
Ben arranges his legs beneath him and pulls a beer from the carton. It’s so very hot near Ryan, like being too close to a bonfire. He fumbles with the bottle but his hands are sweaty and he can’t get a grip on it; Ryan takes it, opens it, gives it back.
Ben scoots away from Ryan and the man’s body heat, clutching the bottle. He takes a draw; some goes down his throat but the rest trickles out through his cheek-hole. The brew is wet and cool, but doesn’t taste as good as he remembers from his living days. Or maybe the Master has decided his crappy tongue should have crappy taste buds. He drinks the rest hard and fast, tilting his head to get it down, draining the bottle in just moments.
“Why’d you follow me home, Ben?” Ryan has finished his beer and he drops the bottle onto the floor. It falls over and rolls toward the drain hole, clack-clack-clack, past Ben and through the dead mice.
“You don’t believe the crap you tell those monsters,” says Ben. “I know you don’t. You only do what you do because there is nothing else for you to do. Pretend it’s not so bad. Pretend you…they…are as they are because of some kind of fucking divine intention? Do you ever look at yourself? Do you ever listen to yourself? It’s like watching a bad comedian on the stage, dying with every joke. You’re pathetic! Well, my friend, I’m here to turn your sorry life around.”
Ryan reaches for another beer bottle but what Ben has said makes him pause. His good eye blinks. He paws at his melted ear with his stubbed fingers. It looks as if he is now trembling, ever so slightly.
Good. This is good. I’ve got him now.
Ben tries to sit up as straight and tall as he can for a man on the floor with bum legs. He needs to appear confident, in charge. Pain continues to pulse back and forth beneath his skull. The sooner he gets this done, the sooner he can get out of here. The Master will have his hands otherwise full with others he is tormenting and will leave Ben alone for a while.
“It can be different, you know,” says Ben. He glances about, sees a floor-length mirror nailed to one of the damp walls. It is covered for the most part with a ratty, mildewed bath towel. He drags himself over to it, panting, catches his breath, then gestures. “If I pull down this towel, you’ll see what I see. You’ll see what the world sees. You’ll see something no one in her or his right mind could care for. You’ll see why people in the city take potshots at you when they get to feelin’ feisty. You’ll see why nobody would ever come close to you, let alone touch you, Ryan. As He made you? You mean God? He made you a piece of shit, a cosmic joke, that’s what.”
“I don’t need to look.”
“Yeah, you really do.” Ben starts feeling a bit better, now that he’s into the job and through with the small talk. He yanks the towel away and watches as Ryan considers himself in the mirror. He can’t quite read the expression, but it certainly isn’t one of joy.
“When was the last time you got it on?” Ben asks.
Ryan coughs, doesn’t answer. He reaches for another beer, cracks off the top, swigs, burps, takes another drink. He gazes again at the mirror.
“Did you ever get it on with something other than your hand, Ryan? Ever get some real juicy pussy? Pussy with a smile? Free, willing pussy? Not one you had to be buyin’, Ryan?”
Ryan says nothing.
“You know, you could be a good-looking guy, if you wanted to be. Time to step up and take your golden ticket, boy. Time to claim what you deserve. And I’ve got it for you.”
Ryan looks away, up toward one wire-covered window. “Cover the mirror, Ben.”
“No, no, look again, Ryan. See what you are, and let me show you what you can be.”
“I don’t want to.” The voice is very soft now. The one eye appears sad. Ben’s spiel is working.
“Seriously, look again.” Ben pats the mirror. “Do you see yourself as you can be? I see it. So can you. Look, right there in the mirror! Tall, straight, whole man, handsome, confident! This could be you. Women will want you, fucking throw themselves in your direction! You’ll be sought after to work for companies who want an enigmatic, entrancing front man with just that right look. You’ll make money. You’ll be rich. You’ll be more powerful than you could have ever imagined. You’ll never have to live like this again; hell, you’ll never have to think about this part of your life again.”
Ryan struggles up from the cot and limps toward the mirror. As he gets closer, a wave of heat rockets off the man and catches Ben in the face like a slap. Ben wobbles, feels himself losing his balance even as he is sitting on the floor. What is wrong with Ryan? Why is he so goddamned hot?
But Ben keeps talking. He has to. No choice. Get it done. Get it done! “Just say the word, Ryan. Just say your soul isn’t worth that much to you, anyway. Offer it up. An easy trade. Crappy soul for a perfect, flawless, incredible life.”
Ryan is closer now, glancing back and forth between the mirror and Ben. The heat from the man is blistering. The hair on Ben’s head crisps. His skin reddens. He scoots away. Sweat pours down his check, neck, arms, and buttocks in slick, salty waves. His heart pounds.
“Just say the words, Ryan!” Ben manages, his tongue baked dry. “Just say, ‘I want to be handsome, I want to be rich, I want to be out of this body. I give my worthless soul for such a treasure!’ Say it, Ryan! And I promise you, you’ll start living your new life!”
Ryan stops a few feet from the mirror. Then he looks at Ben and smiles for the first time. The smile is unexpected.
Relaxed.
Peaceful.
Ben is pissed and scared. “What are you smiling about? Are you taking the deal or not?” He can barely breathe now; the heat burns his eyes and nose and the hole in his face. “Shit, what is wrong with you? Do you know who I am?”
“Tell me. Who are you, Ben?” asks Ryan. The voice is different now. It isn’t tired. It isn’t drunk. It’s calm, steady. Terrifying. Commanding.
“I’m a representative of the Master! Don’t fuck with me!”
“What Master?”
Ben blinks, swallows a gulp of stagnant air. “The Master! The Dark One! The Lord of Eternal Torment.”
Ryan chuckles softly. “There’s no such thing, Ben.”
“Of course there is!” Ben scoots back even farther, slamming up against the cinderblock wall. “Wait! No, no, oh shit, wait! Are you him? Are you him, disguising yourself to screw with me because you can? I was trying to do what you wanted me to do! Don’t hurt me anymore! Please!”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ben.”
“You’ve said that before! You lie! You’re the Master of Lies!”
“You’re mistaken,” says Ryan. “Now I ask you again. Who are you?”
Ben drives the heels of his hands against the floor, as if he could get away by sliding up the wall. The heat continues to stream off Ryan. Ben is certain it will soon melt his skin away.
“Who are you, Ben?” Ryan repeats kindly.
“I’m dead, I’m one of the dead! One of the cursed! You know that!”
“Why do you think you’re cursed?”
“Fuck you, Ryan!”
“Why, Ben?”
“I killed my daughter, okay? She was twelve. I was drunk, drove my new convertible into a tree. I…I….” Ben closes his eyes. He does not want to think of it, to remember it.
“Tell me, Ben,” says Ryan.
“You know but you just want me to relive it, don’t you? Okay, fuck you, but sure! My little girl smashed into the windshield. Split her head wide open. And I left her there to die! I blamed everybody but myself! The guy who sold me the car. The man who sold me the goddamned beers. I blamed Julie, for God’s sake, for begging me
to let her have a ride! Fuck me, right? Three days later I killed myself, still blaming everyone else. So I went to hell. Now I do whatever the Master tells me to do. I’m one of his groveling, obedient minions. He torments us. He torments me! Sometimes I get out to claim a soul, and if I’m successful he gives me a little break. But then he’s back to the tortures. But you know all that! You’re him!”
“I’m not him.”
“Of course you are! I can feel it! You’re hot like the eternal flames they told us about when we were kids. Hot like the lake of fire!”
“You say you’re in hell?”
“Hell yeah, I’m in hell!”
“And you mentioned eternal flames? The lake of fire?”
“Yeah! All that Biblical crap!”
“Then why do you feel so cold all the time?”
“I…what?”
“If hell is fire, why are you cold all the time?”
“Shit, why’d the chicken cross the road? Why’d the angel buy an umbrella? Why’d the devil rob the barbershop? I don’t know! Who really knows anything?”
Ryan nods gently. “Think about this, Ben. When those who are frozen come close to something that is warm, they hurt. They feel the warmth as painful, as if it were fire.”
“Shut the fuck up, Ryan! My head aches! I’m burning up! Leave me alone!”
“Look at yourself in the mirror, Ben.”
“No...! Why?”
“Just look.”
The voice is so certain, so authoritative, Ben finds himself reluctantly dragging his body back across the floor to the mirror.
“What do you see, Ben?”
Ben stares into the reflective glass. He sees himself as he was when he was alive. Ruddy-skinned, healthy, whole. Not handsome but not the worst looking of mankind, either.
“What do you see?”
“Fuck you.”
“What do you see?”
“Me. As I was. You know that, though, don’t you?”
As Ben stares at his reflection in the glass, something stirs from behind it. It rises deep and dark, a silhouette of ominous shape. No clear features but a perfect and terrifying darkness, stretching out with arms that end in clawed fingers, a head huge with nubs that lengthen upward into pointed horns. Then, punctuating the darkness, two coal-red eyes and white, razor-sharp teeth.
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