Chester tugs his lips back in something suspiciously like a grin.
The slot machines fly over the front of the truck and smash all over the street, sending coins and shards of wood and metal into traffic. The resulting scene resembles overdone movie action as every driver on the freeway tries to adapt to the impromptu obstacle course.
The rider taps the stallion with his left foot, speeding him to the side of the road so the rider can see what’s going on.
Chester drinks it in. The guy he frightened tries to get out of his car, but a limo hurtles into the truck pushing the Dodge into the side of the car. The door flies back and pins the man to the side of the vehicle before his head pops like a melon.
“Sorry!” the man calls.
Chester is not.
Death is confused.
Nothing is going right. The seals haven’t been found. That was the first bit of concern he brought to his colleagues. The fact that all seven were still intact. But they didn’t listen; they said it was time to make up their own rules instead of living up to something a bunch of guys high on mushrooms wrote almost two thousand years ago.
The chosen are going to be pissed. Jesus is supposed to appear and take them to Heaven (which ain’t all that great; Death has been there and no one has a sense of humor) leaving the others to roast in Hell. Well it sort of works that way. Once he takes the good guys away, the four Horsemen have free reign. But none of it is happening the way it’s supposed to!
Where are the plagues, the fires, the mass deaths? Where are the locusts and shit? And where the hell is Jesus?
He wanders the streets, which are filled with partiers indulging in all manner of revelry. What the hell else would they be doing? It’s the end of the world and no one cares. Well he is going to make them care, he and the other three Horsemen. No one makes a mockery of them the way that woman on TV did today.
But he has something else on his mind right now. Something about which he has been thinking for thousands of years. Something that he is not supposed to try, but what the hell, the rules are all messed up. Nothing is going as planned.
“Its Arma-fucking-geddeon and no one cares!” he yells at the top of his lungs.
“Armageddon! Wooooooooo!” a bunch of college kids yell back with their hands and drinks in the air.
“ARMAGEDDON!” others yell farther down the street.
Death shakes his head and considers breaking out the old scythe right here and now.
He comes across a place that is just what he’s looking for. It was probably a pawnshop until recently, but the sign has been torn down and replaced with a fresh handwritten one. The windows are brightly lit, and the object of his quest is just inside.
He dismounts and shoos his horse away. Just before it departs, Death is pretty sure his steed gives him a sardonic look. What the hell is wrong with everyone today? The steed spins in a full circle, front legs kicking at the air. It stops with its giant horse cock pointed at Death and then leaps into the air and is gone in a half heartbeat. The air ripples where it passes.
He turns his attention to the shop. The figures in the front are pretty good-looking as far as mortal women go. He was always partial to those angels, the arch ones with the blond hair and muscular bodies, but most of them were far too pure and chaste to take up with him. He heard that War got a hand job from one once, but War was probably just talking out his ass.
A leggy blonde strolls up to him and hands him a flyer. She is dressed in a see-thru white top and a bright pink thong that reads Eat At Ella’s on the waistband. Her age is hard to guess, because she has enough make up caked on to make a clown break down in tears and worship her.
“Welcome to the Fuck Pit. My name is Ella, and here are our rates.” She sounds and looks bored. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”
“I have a face like that.”
“With all those tattoos? I bet you don’t at all. Are you in the movies or something?”
“Like you said. With a face like this?”
“Christ. What a day I’m having. With all the crazies in the street talking about the end of the world it seems like every virgin within twenty-five miles has been in and out of here.” She cocks a hip and strikes a pose that Death assumes is supposed to be sexy.
“Isn’t in and out all part of the game?” he asks.
“Nothing gets by you, smart guy. We just opened. Carl said it was on the up and up, but I have my doubts. You don’t just have a whorehouse spring up in the middle of the city in a day. There are palms to grease, people to blow. Why the hell am I telling you all this?”
“I guess confession is good for the soul.” He grins.
“So what do you want? Just look at the little flyer there, and I’ll bring out some girls.”
She rings a little bell on her hand, and within seconds seven or eight women in various states of dress enter the room. Death looks them over and settles on a brunette dressed in a bright red latex top that hugs her skin so tightly he wonders how she can breathe in it.
“Her.”
“Terra? You got a death wish or something?” She smiles.
“Her.” He grins.
“Fine. Work out the details in the room.”
The woman smiles demurely at Death and takes his hand. She is about five foot five, but with her red stilettos she must be closer to six feet, because he can see the back of her neck straight ahead. He can also see her ass around the strip of plastic she wears as clothing.
“My name is Terra Fuckbunny. Mind telling me what you had in mind?”
“Something I have always wanted to try,” he almost whispers.
She draws him into a room filled with all manner of paraphernalia. Straps and chains hang from every wall along with whips and paddles of all sizes. He whistles appreciatively. Death knew a few Inquisition types that would get hard-ons at such a display.
She turns to regard him, and he holds out the flyer with his finger pointed at one of the options toward the bottom.
“That’ll cost you.” She grins as she looks him up and down.
Death gives her a few of the hundred-dollar bills he found in the woman’s purse at the talk show that morning. She had a whole pile of them rolled up along with pills and powders of all sorts.
“Now get on your knees!” she orders, face suddenly stern.
When he is down, she puts one stiletto heel on his back and leans over to whisper in his ear. Death tries not to grin. Then the world is turned upside down.
Cock Slapped!
Much later in the day and Charlie has watched the man in the robe for hours. He can’t figure the guy out. He orders enough vodka and Red Bulls to placate an army of alcoholics. He downs them, belches, scratches his ass. He shuffles from foot to foot, and every time he reaches into his robe he pulls out money. Where the hell does all that damn money come from?
Charlie returns. He has to learn about this guy. He is dying to know how he can hold in that much booze and not go to the bathroom. And where does he keep that fucking money stashed?
Weaving through traffic once again, he makes his way to the table. Past a newspaper stand where he spots The Daily Gab and its news of The End. Big headline that proclaims the Apocalypse has begun! Idiots, all of them. All of those assholes in the media. Anything to scare people into buying more trash mags.
Daily Gab. What kind of name is that? He glances at it again with a frown on his face and for just a moment he thinks it says The Daily Cunt. And what the hell does that headline say? Charlie rubs his eyes and snatches up a copy, but he must have been seeing things. It is still called The Daily Gab, and the cover story is still “The Beginning of the End!”
He tosses it aside and stomps over to the guy in the robe. The man who has blown him off, stood in one place for three days and spent a fortune on the table. He is wobbling now, moving from side to side like the booze is finally hitting his system.
People stop and watch him toss dice. They stare for a minute then shake
their heads and walk away. Some leave. Others cash out their chips and go to the bar.
“How are you this bad at the game and yet you keep on playing?”
“Bored.”
“Oh.”
The guy has a stack of chips that can’t be more than ten or fifteen grand. The dealer keeps her eye on him as much as she does on the dice.
“Can I ask your name?” Charlie wonders why no one has thought about that.
“Sure.”
“Um, what’s your name?”
“I am that I am.”
“Sounds like some shit Charlton Heston would say,” Charlie chuckles.
“So that’s where Dad got it.”
A woman in a bright red dress that barely covers her voluptuous form steps up to the guy and runs her hand over his arm. He looks at her, at her cleavage and then at her legs, which are on display thanks to a slit that runs ALL the way up. Charlie even watches as she moves.
“High roller. I like your style,” she says. “Is this silk?”
“Samite.” He looks away from her to watch the dice as they crash against the back of the table. The ground shakes as they strike.
“ME!” the man yells when he tosses twelve for the second time in a row. The woman stares at him with suddenly adoring eyes.
“You can’t be serious!” Charlie yells just as another, larger quake shakes the place. This one is much stronger and almost pulls him off his feet.
“Can’t I?” the man whispers, and his voice, though quiet, is everywhere at once.
A trick of the building, the way sound carries. The place moves again, and this time the power flashes out. The room goes silent for a split second before people start shrieking.
“Ah crap.”
“Craps,” the dealer corrects just before an enormous red shape smashes through the middle of the building from the floor up. It tears apart tables and tosses people aside like they are kindling. A man in a suit, is smashed into the ceiling as the giant column tears it apart.
Massive. Charlie has seen water towers that aren’t this thick. It rises, slowly, curves over in its relentless path of destruction. The building is sheared in two around him, and all he can do is cringe. He finds himself cowering near the man in the robe and uttering the Lord’s Prayer by rote. The first thing that comes to his lips, even though he has not been near a church in at least two decades.
The man in the robe tosses back a drink but stands unyielding as the ceiling joins the floor. Daylight pours in for the first time since the place was in the early stages of planning. Massive chunks of concrete with lights still attached fall to the ground. Tables explode under the impact, and the unmistakable sounds of coins tinkle as slot machines fall over or are crushed.
A river of chips falls into the chasm that is left by the giant red thing. Charlie stares after them and counts thousands of dollars. His mind is doing stupid things like wondering how in the fuck they are going to recover the money.
Then the man pushes back his robe and utters words that seem to set the air on fire. He raises his hands, but before he can get his entire phrase out, the giant red column whips back over and smashes him to the ground.
Charlie tries to avoid the enormous red thing, but it is moving too fast and he is far too scared. As it descends and pulps his body to a mass of skin and blood, the last thought his mind manages is, “Is that a giant fucking cock?”
Pestilence Rides a White Pony
Despite the meager shade provided by his gray cowl, the sun burns his eyes. They have grown accustomed to the dark. The desert sun is brutal even with the massive plumes of smoke darkening the sky. He smells thousands of rotting corpses broiling in the sun and flash frying from hellfires below. The stench doesn’t bother him as much as the ride. He rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and fucking forth. His horse moves forward, trudging through deep ruts of tank tread. If it could whistle, he bet it would. Smug motherfucker. But then again, it didn’t need a fix.
Withdrawal tugs at his guts, and the constant rocking motion of his steed forces vomit up his throat. The rider pulls at the reins wrapped around his long slender fingers. The steed rears back on its hind legs, and the rider curses and clutches at its neck. He swings off the horse, his gray cloak billowing, and lands on his knees in the sand.
The notorious Pestilence of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse gags and spits out a mouthful of ash and vomit as his horse walks a slow, steady circle around him. He has nothing left in his stomach, but still the need twists and tugs and he dry heaves in response.
“Keeeerist, let me die,” he begs with drool and snot dangling from his slender face.
“Sir?” a frightened voice asks from behind his kneeling form.
Pestilence wonders to himself how long he spent in that last opium den. If people are already calling him “sir,” then War must be riding around on his hard-on raising an army of the dead and loosing the Dark Lord. War is a smug motherfucker too. War would be pissed that Pestilence is so far behind the plan.
As his chest heaves and burns, Pestilence doesn’t feel like hearing about it. It occurs to him somewhere deep in his ancient subconscious that zombies don’t normally talk. And it’s common knowledge that most demons speak with foreign accents. He is supposed to be the first Horseman to hit the scene but, damn it, there is great heroin in San Francisco. If War got impatient and did what Pestilence was supposed to do, then he might be out of a job. Screw it. The job has gone to shit anyway.
Every plan Satan has spent millennia planning has gone to shit.
The Antichrist is dead. Stabbed in the eye by an old lady. What a pussy.
The brilliant aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic Cockbugs Satan and Pestilence created together were too effective. And that was kind of his fault. Pestilence, on a six-decade runner of highballs, speedballs, heroin, meth, and sometimes straight dirty cotton, insisted that they should get people high. They got humans really high. And really horny. The orgy, always intended to be a slaughter, got wayyyyyy out of control. The fucking hole got plugged. Satan himself couldn’t push through all the rotting corpses. The Dark Lord went insane with anger and exploded on Las Vegas, leaving demons from all 147 circles of Hell pushing at the corpse plug for a chance at the Earth.
No word on Jesus.
He hasn’t heard about God.
An angel hasn’t fucked with him for as long as he can remember.
If War doesn’t get here soon, Pestilence will crawl back to an alley in Reno and fill his veins with something. Anything.
“Sir,” the small voice reminds him, “we are awaiting orders.”
Without standing, Pestilence focuses his sunken bloodshot eyes at the Army captain staring at him. Recognizing the man as living, Pestilence stands straight and notices the line of military vehicles and tanks. Hundreds of soldiers mill about; piled in the shade playing cards, napping, and a few cleaning their weapons.
“Who are you?” Pestilence hisses.
“Captain W.B. Firepot, United States Army,” the captain says with a snappy salute.
“How long have you been out here?”
“A few days. General O’Coddle got his brains splattered, and he never gave us our next orders.”
“Sooooo,” Pestilence says, the throb in his throat nearly choking him, “Where is the junk?”
“Sir?”
“The smack. The crack. The wack. Something to get me high!”
“Sorry, sir,” the captain frowns. “We dumped our supplies of drugs, recreational or otherwise, a few hours ago.”
“Bullshit,” Pestilence says in a terrible booming voice that draws all the soldiers’ attention. He sniffs the air and addresses the lot of them. “I know someone is holding. DO NOT hold out on ME!”
Apocalyptic Stank
Nathan Chuzzle picks up his keyboard and contemplates smashing the stupid thing against the desk. He’d tried to dig up some dirt online for the blog, but the connection kept dropping. He jiggled some cables and cursed a good bit. One mi
nute he was on, and the next he got a blank screen. He tried to stay patient, but it was a long lonely walk up that road for Chuzz.
If he ever gets online, he will go double Chuzz on Chuzzles-guzzle.com ‘where the world can eat my shit.’ He might be a little nuts, but it’s all good, ‘cause his fans love it. All fourteen of them. They adore his ranting, and he tolerates them for it. Most of them. Some people don’t like him, and that isn’t good for them. Chuzz likes to be confrontational. He likes to get back at people, and he has the perfect tool for it.
He has a computer.
With just a name he can dig up stuff from everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace. He can hit them all. He can start posting against his enemies right away. Emailing their friends and telling them what bad people they are. He can start fake Twitter accounts with their names and have a field day.
He masks his IP by swinging through Sweden, hitting a proxy in Paris, then it’s back to the good ol’ USA where he can do his work and have his revenge.
Take the aptly named Travis Hole. Hole spoke out about Chuzz on his own forum. Said he was a loser, had a pathetic life. Oh he was going to show Hole what a pathetic life he had, all right. He’d already found out where the guy worked and even gotten an address.
Wacktards of the Apocalypse Page 10