by Allan Hatt
“Let me get this straight,” said Pain, waving his arms frantically. “We have, in effect, actually granted this psychopath immortality even though we didn't intend to?”
“Something a lot like that,” replied Death.
“Then I'll go find him and tear his heart out,” said Pain. “Problem solved. Again.”
“Yeah, that doesn't work either,” said Death. “No matter what, until he breaks the rules we set down he won't get his ticket punched to the hereafter. He's golden unless he talks or gets caught.”
Pain paced the room. Death sat down at the table.
“Okay,” said Pain. “I got a way out of this.”
* * *
Victor walked home, whistling the verse to a Barry Manilow song under his breath. He paused briefly at a trashcan and deposited a brown paper bag with a blood stained knife into the receptacle. He blew the concealed knife a kiss and continued down the street.
As he rounded the final corner that led to the townhouse he lived in, Victor stopped dead in his tracks. His home was surrounded by police cars and policemen. There had to be some policewomen too, he suspected. The entrance to his townhouse was roped off with yellow tape and a very small crowd had formed outside temporary, vinyl barrier.
Even from this distance Victor could see that the lights were on in his dwelling. Some indistinct figures wandered past the few windows that faced the direction of where he stood. These figures were obviously searching his apartment for evidence. They were touching and moving his carefully arranged furniture, snapping photographs of whatever they found.
Victor removed the nerd glasses from the breast pocket in his coat, adjusted them on his face and watched the activity in the window for a moment, an implacable expression on his face as he searched for agents from the Kwork dimension. He could see none in his immediate field of vision. He knew this didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t agents present. They likely were there somewhere, hiding from view, standing in the night shadows for protection. Kworkians were clever and very good at disguising themselves, after all. It wasn’t until they were opened up that their ultimate, true selves were revealed. They usually hid themselves in the pancreas, a highly overlooked organ that was susceptible to possession.
His curiosity satisfied, Victor removed the nerd glasses and returned them to the pocket he had taken them from. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, realizing that it was time to move on. There was nothing more he could do here.
Victor turned and began to nonchalantly walk away. As he passed under a streetlight it flickered off and on a few times before the bulb silently imploded, casting that portion of the street into sudden, murky shadow.
Victor seemed to disappear into the darkness.
* * *
“Have they caught him yet?” asked Death.
“Nope,” replied Pain.
A week had passed since Pain had made a telephone call to the authorities of Earth and alerted them to the exact location of the perpetrator of a score of open murder investigations. Pain also provided an accurate physical description of Victor and his methodology, giving details that weren’t publicly known so the authorities he spoke to would be convinced of their validity. Both Pain and Death presumed that even a marginally competent officer with physical disabilities would be able to capture Victor with the specifics they had provided. Much to their chagrin, they had been proven wrong.
“Where can he be?” asked Death, pacing the room. He glanced nervously at the television they had set up to watch Victor when his biorhythms indicated murderous intent. There had been no activity on the television since the night they had reported him.
“Have you checked Kwork yet?” asked Pain smugly.
“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” said Death.
“Look,” said Pain, slightly annoyed by Death’s nervous manner, “it doesn’t matter if the idiot is found right away or in twenty years. Eventually he’ll feel the compulsion to ‘save’ someone else. I mean, he’s a fanatic and fanatics are, at the very least, reliable in their obsessions. When that happens, we’ll get instantly alerted and we can alert the authorities on Earth again. It’s nothing to stress about.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right, old pal,” agreed Death after considering this for a moment. The odds of their pet psychopath not killing again were quite slim and when he did they would be able to react instantaneously.
“It’s just simple human nature,” said Pain, shrugging. “They are predictable morons. I’ll never understand why that awful biological mess of a species seems to have protected status from us higher beings.”
“There is a complexity to humanity neither of you have the cognitive capacity to comprehend,” remarked Gabriel as he entered Pain and Death’s room. “They have their place in the Framework. This is all you need to know and respect.”
“Just the entity I wanted to see,” said Pain as he stood up to address Gabriel. “We’ve taken care of that little problem you mentioned earlier. Everything is cool and back to normal.”
“You have proof to this effect?” asked Gabriel.
“Proof?” asked Pain and Death together.
“You didn’t expect me to accept your word that you had properly settled matters.”
“Well, sort of...yeah,” said Pain.
“An incorrect presumption on your part,” said Gabriel. He took a few steps into the room and struck a majestic stance. He tilted his head slightly upward so he appeared to be looking down his nose at Pain and Death and said, “Let me see your proof.”
“Thing is...” started Death. He stopped immediately as he realized he didn’t have anything to say that would be helpful in this situation. He clamped his jaws together in a rictus grin and suppressed borderline hysterical tittering.
Gabriel’s cheeks reddened slightly in frustration that his request wasn’t answered immediately.
“Proof,” said Pain absently. “Well, I wasn’t prepared for that. I’m sure I have some here in a bucket or something. What sort do you need?”
“The convincing kind,” replied Gabriel tersely. His impatience becoming almost tangible.
“Oh, okay,” said Pain, nodding and doing his best to waste time until inspiration hit him. “Convincing evidence. Go it. Well, you know, what I find convincing might not fit your standard of the definition. One entity’s definition of convincing might be another’s somewhat satisfactory.”
“Do you or do you not have proof?” asked Gabriel, his voice slightly raised above its normal level.
“Sure, sure,” said Pain. “It’s just that --”
“Then show it to me,” said Gabriel angrily, “and quit fucking around.”
Pain and Death did a genuinely surprised, somewhat comedic double take at Gabriel. Archangels never, ever swore. Not even if they stubbed a wing or were assigned to sort souls in Purgatory. Something was definitely wrong with this scene, but both Pain and Death were too dumbfounded to properly put the pieces together.
Gabriel’s mouth formed a perfect “O” shape. He timidly smiled and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, obviously uncomfortable with the shocked suspicion in the air. His eyes darted around as he internally searched for an explanation for his sudden lapse in character.
Gabriel sighed and slumped. “Dammit,” he said at the floor. He turned and said to the entrance of the room, “The jig’s up, fellas. I blew it royally.”
Pain and Death could hear a few mingled curses from outside their room. The door to their room opened and four figures entered. In filed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...War, Famine, Pestilence and Death’s younger brother, Death.
“Hey, bro,” said the younger Death, raising a skeletal hand in greeting to Death as he closed the door behind himself.
“Okay, since when did the Horsemen start hanging out with archangels?” asked a very confused but remarkably coherent Death.
“Actually,” said Gabriel as the air around him started to swirl and coalesce, “I’m not exactly an archangel.”
<
br /> The form of Gabriel began to disappear into a cloud of pure duplicity and morphed into the entity known as Deception. Once the transformation was complete she spread her arms wide, smiled and said, “Surprise!”
Pain starting laughing as he realized they weren’t in any actual trouble and had been the butt of an elaborate joke.
However, Death just stood looking at everyone, radiating an aura of obvious confusion. He managed to say, “Okay...what?”
“You don’t get it?” asked Pain. “They played a practical joke on us. Beautiful setup. Beautiful.”
Famine pointed a fleshless finger at Pain and Death and said, “This is payback, bitches. For that time you told us it was the apocalypse when it wasn’t.”
Everyone but Death was laughing wildly.
There was a polite knock at the door.
“Just a minute please,” Death shouted at the door. He turned to Deception and said, “What I don’t understand is how you knew what our plans were. How did you know we were up to anything?”
“We didn’t know anything specific,” answered War. “But we figured you two were always up to something the higher ups wouldn’t approve of. So we persuaded Deception here to dress up as Gabriel and scare you into changing your ways.”
There was another knock at the door. This time it was more urgent and forceful.
“Yeah, yeah, be right there,” said Pain to the door.
“Oh, I get it now,” said Death, chuckling. “You had Deception play the part of Gabriel and the killer.”
“What killer?” asked Deception, wiping a tear from her eye.
Pain looked at Death. Death looked at Pain.
At that moment the door to the room burst open and the real archangel Gabriel sauntered magnificently into Pain and Death’s room. He did not look appear to be pleased about the congregation in this room or the fact that he had been kept waiting outside in the hallway. His perfectly formed hand rested on the golden hilt of his sword and his facial expression implied the intent to use it with very little provocation.
“There is an urgent issue with the Kwork dimension,” announced Gabriel, his angelic voice commanding an attention that Deception hadn’t managed to capture in her impersonation. “The High Priest of that dimension is demanding a council to discuss the exceptionally high mortality rate they have been experiencing. I have investigated and it clearly is above average expectations.”
“There really is a Kwork dimension?” muttered Death.
Gabriel leveled his gaze at Pain and Death, saying, “We will have words now.”
One was Pain. The other was Death. Together they were in deep, deep shit.
* * *
Dream woke up, hearing a commotion from the room next to his. He couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but he also couldn’t work up enough energy to care.
Rising slowly, Dream walked to the bathroom. He pulled down his Spider-man pajama bottoms and commenced urinating half in the toilet and half on it.
Dream ran a pale hand through his hair and wondered why the inside of his mouth tasted like Pez.
Afterwords
Thanks for purchasing this collection of short stories. I do appreciate it. I hope that you found them interesting or, at the very least, entertaining on some level. Hell, even if you acquired this for free somehow I still hope you enjoyed what you read. I’m that kind of guy.
I have to admit, I really don’t know what else I’d like to say here. Anything else seems self-serving and indulgent. I also get a little awkward climbing out from behind the comfort of the word processor and discussing myself or the inspirations behind the work you just read. I could just get all pretentious and say that I prefer the work stood on its own merits without further extrapolation from the author...but, the truth is, whenever I find myself trying to discuss my work I just stutter, stare uncomfortably at the floor and mutter incoherent, buzzword phrases about the “process” and “voices” and respecting the inherent intelligence of the audience.
I’ll spare you the boredom that would likely produce. You’re very welcome.
That being said, if you do want send some feedback you can do that on my page at Smashwords, or you can email me directly at: [email protected].
Again, a sincere thanks. Take care and I hope to have much more available soon.
Allan Hatt
September 2011