Satan Burger

by Carlton Mellick III

  And the dark ones catch up to us. The females, with their hook-blade claws, rip into street people who are too close to the car. They frighten into balls and some of them run away, clearing a path for us to fly-flee again.

  But the dark ones come too quickly, one female gets onto the roof, straddling the Gremlin. Another female pop-breaks my window and tears into my shoulder, worming its claw-fingers deep-deep into me.

  I don’t seem to feel any of the pain.

  Then her face appears to me, as her other arm grabs my neck. She pauses, stare-growling. Fang-like teeth and snake-like eyes. And I just stare at her… she’s actually a beautiful creature — maybe it’s because I’m drunk-crazy from the rain, but she is extremely attractive to me right now. Her slender white body, chiseled breasts. Her eyes are black pools, trancing me. She tears at my shoulder, howling at me like I’m her food.

  She reaches her head inside, my body shock-shaking at the pain I do not feel, opening her mouth to expose sharp snake teeth to my neck. She lures my body closer. My head penetrates the window, my skin is opened by the glass shards, cutting folds of meat from me. Vodka screams in a faraway place…

  My head emerges into the outside whirl… ruffling around me… her face wrinkles lewdly. A naked feeling seeps into me, like the passion of being born; this must be the passion of death as well. Orally defeated by a beautiful snake woman. And the dark female screeches, leans closer to chew my neck apart. But stops biting…

  She gushes out her BIG goo-tongue, pressing against my chest, long-long and thick but like a human’s, and tough. It gorges into my shirt, probing, tasting the blood that streams there. It’s large enough to drench-hug most of my torso, and it caresses my neck and face, a pepper-melon flavor that drools into my nose and taste. My hand begins to polish one of her breasts. They’re rubbery but nice — a nipple harder than a human’s could get. She is powerful and strong, not a soft little girl like my blue woman.

  She grips harder into me, clawing upward under my skin. I don’t feel the pain; her nails soothe instead of worry. She bites my chin to the bone. Then the tongue slides over the wound, tasting, healing it. She loosens her grip and slithers her giant tongue into my mouth. She pulls my jaw far out of lock and forces it down my throat, painfully shoving it in and out. Fucking it.

  I awake a few minutes later, detached from the dark female.

  Vodka is covered in red and whine-driving uncontrollably over curbs and street people — they come in flashes as we go through, skiing in a forest. They had cut him, the dark male and female, from his neck to his stomach, jugular open and sheeting him. His eyes are fading in and out, but he won’t die. A large hole is in his stomach, and his insides mumble-screech and bubble. My body seems fine, though bloody and molested. I look around at what’s going on with chaos-eyes.

  Vod’s voice makes a gurgle-blood noise. “Get it off the roof!” he shrieks.

  There’s still one hanging onto us. She’s trying to cut into the car’s top, holding on tight and getting in a scratch or two at Vodka’s face. His whimpers turn to shrieks at each of her attacks.

  The dark female’s yowls scorch into me, just above my ear, in a torture-fury, and I scream, “How the hell am I supposed to get it off the roof?”

  But Vodka doesn’t answer. He’s zoning zombie-minded and curling at the eyes, driving harder. We destroy anyone/anything in our way, breaking through crowd and rubble, unstoppable. The dark female cuts into him again, screaming at him, and again, but he doesn’t feel it or seem to care. His meat is dead, and all of his blood is resting on his lap.

  Then there is Silence.

  The Gremlin piles straight into the Silence, and everything clears.

  No more crowd ahead, just quiet and deserted… The dark female’s howls continue for a few more seconds, then fade away, eaten. Even the engine sounds go away, we feel deaf. The car razors into a wall, near the autocar graveyard — where I found the blue woman. I don’t scream before we hit, I let it come, I don’t even bracing myself.

  Vodka just didn’t seem to care enough to hit the brakes.

  I awake alone, Vodkaless. In the rain-molested autocar.

  The Silence is gone too, traceless as it came, and another crowd of street people has filled the area, gushing in as the Silence cleared the way. The pain starts in, from my forehead — broken over the dashboard. Skin flaps from my shoulder, where the dark woman’s nails screwed like shanks.

  I feel sick.

  I have to get to Satan Burger.

  The crowd is too BIG. There’s more people here than there is space. Head-dizzy and grrrrr ing, I can’t even open the car door. I climb out of the collapsed window, to the roof. Vodka’s living corpse is up here. He’s sitting there wet and soggy, like the street people, rocking-rocking, red-stained clothes.

  “I thought you were dead,” I tell him.

  “I wish it were possible,” he tells me.

  The street people wave-ripple in the storm. Miles, miles of ocean-crowd, rolling with patchy colors, dissolving in the distance. They really seem like an ocean now. The car’s roof is our raft.

  “We need to swim for it,” I tell Vodka.

  I can’t hear his reply in the metal-clanking rain.

  I lug-haul Vod off the raft. We go into the water — sweaty smells from the water-people. He’s lunked over, drug-headed it seems, not swimming very well. I have to pull him so that he won’t drown.

  The ocean people press tightly together, then roll-expand a little so we can move a few feet, then they crash together again. Everyone is struggling to move but nobody’s getting anywhere. We get shoved back toward the raft, then forward across a building wall. A piece of the water claws another gash into me. Blood drips through my fingers when I hold my face.

  My breathing is weak. I’m trying to stay above the water, trying to get some breath going. I find Vodka’s hand slipping from mine… he’s getting away. The water behind me is moving back toward the raft. My body is going forward. I stare Vodka in the eyes, examining his stone expression. Then I let go.

  The force wasn’t even that great. I could’ve kept us together easy. But I let him go.

  Looking into his face, I didn’t see Vodka in there at all. I saw an empty container. There was no soul behind his eye-windows, just a calm brrrr noise. So I let him go, and the crowd swallowed him up, another one of them. It doesn’t take long before he gets to the distance, and I can’t tell which one of them he is anymore.

  Vodka didn’t seem to mind.

  Scene 20

  The Man Who Loves Everything

  I flow a few miles, emptying into rivers, taken by the people-current toward Satan Burger, ignoring the faces on the water surface. When I get there, the lot is brimming; persons climbing the steps to get out of the people-ocean, some falling off. They’re screaming insanities at each other.

  Then a swish of thinking bleeds into my emotions, a grind-spinning view of the area above me, on the hilltop.

  And what I see is: Satan Burger is gone.

  I swim to the steps for a closer look, but there are too many people, too many rage-frustrations inside of me. The sickness gets stronger. I get claustrophobic.

  I start climbing.

  Halfway, I meet a familiar face. It’s soggy in the rain and I’m surprised I recognize him with my acidy eyes.

  “Satan,” I call.

  He notices me and squeezes in closer.

  “What happened?” I scream over the insane ones before he reaches me.

  The insane ones hand out jabs and tickles.

  Satan Burger was destroyed,” he yells, getting closer… His face is sooty and blood-cut, his nice clothes are rip-sliced apart too. As ironic as it sounds, he looks like he’s been to hell and back. I can’t even see his gay-pride button.

  He shouts, “An earthquake hit, tore the whole building in half, into pieces.”

  I shout, “But there aren’t any earthquakes in New Canada.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he yells. �
�Child Earth did this, the little shit. He was pissed off that I was stealing the souls of his new toys and sent an earthquake after me. I should’ve never touched the fucker.”

  “What do you mean, touched ?”

  Still screaming: “I’m responsible for putting breath in this planet’s lungs. I touched it. I have the touch of life, remember. I made it alive. I made almost every planet in this damned universe alive, with my gay fucking hands.”

  The sense of the whole situation hits me, and I say it to myself: “Earth is a demon?”

  “I’m getting out of here,” Satan yells. “I suggest you come with me.”

  “Go where?” A headache spikes me. “Where is there to go?”

  “Through the walm,” he says.

  “That’s crazy. You could end up anywhere. Even in a place without oxygen and die.”

  “I’m willing to take the risk if you are.” Satan grins darkly.

  “Where is everyone else?” I ask.

  “Who cares.” Satan drops himself into the water crowd. “Come on, let’s go before another earthquake hits.”

  “Where are they?” I scream-ask again, but Satan gets carried away by the people current. He lets the crowd take him. The distance between us is suddenly very BIG.

  From the edge of the parking lot, he yells, “I’ll see you in hell,” which is the common thing for him to say when departing. Sadly, it makes him laugh.

  Then his body is gulped away from my sight.

  I find another way up the steps, on a side path, and I’m able to get up pretty quick, but on the wrong side of the hill. This side is open, and I have to stop to breathe in some space… Then I realize I need some time to sit. I find a rock underneath a demon-tree, who shelters me from some of the irritating rain.

  “He’s right, Leaf,” says a nearby voice.

  I don’t turn around right away, still breathing in the space, trying to relax this dizzy head of mine by squeezing my eyes closed…

  “Who are you?” I finally ask.

  I hear him sitting next to me. Dead leaves crackle.

  He says, “I am Jesus Christ.”

  When I open my eyes, I see a roll-pudgy man with a beard wearing a janitor’s outfit. A tag on his shirt tells me, “This is Jesus.”

  I can’t say anything, or maybe I can’t think of anything to say. I’ve never met the messiah before and I’ve never met anyone who ever has. I don’t seem to care.

  He continues, “Satan was right. The walm is your only out.”

  My mouth doesn’t say anything

  He says, “You have to save your immortal soul.”

  Then I shake my head. “I don’t know if it’s worth saving anymore.”

  “Don’t say that!” Jesus says, waggling sense into me. “That’s the walm stealing your lifeforce that made those words. You have to fight it.”

  I realize Jesus is right. Sort of.

  Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus Christ. Of course, he never got to. Maybe he did after his death, but I’m not sure how the afterlife situation works. I don’t know if you get to talk to Jesus right away or if you have to wait a hundred years. I think I’m one of the only living people to ever meet Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. I should probably feel special or something. But I don’t.

  Richard Stein was very Jesus-curious during his early thirties. This Jesus-curiosity caused him to accept Jesus into his life. But Richard Stein didn’t like God. He didn’t like the way God capitalized the word “He,” in regards to Himself. God seemed too-too superior to Richard Stein, and Richard Stein called superior people like Him Hot Shots. This is the way I figured it: “God is the ultimate authority figure, and people like Richard Stein don’t like authority figures.”

  Jesus was a lot like Richard Stein, though. Jesus was a human, he could be killed, stopped. He was the savior, but still needed saving. He could walk on water, but could still drown. He caused the better organization of society, but also caused wars over faith in him. To Richard Stein, Jesus was both a saint and a devil, and that’s what he liked about him.

  Richard Stein always wanted to meet Jesus so that he could see what he looked like, what clothing styles he liked, what foods tasted best to him, what regrets he’s ever had — all the small things that would make Jesus more human. He especially wanted to know if Jesus hated anything. He wondered if Jesus hated Satan — or if he pitied him, or was frightened by him. He wondered if Jesus hated evil and sin.

  Once Richard Stein said, “I already know that Jesus hates sin, I just want to hear him say that he hates something.”

  If Richard Stein was in my position, he’d have a whole bundle-pack of questions lined up for the savior. He would have loved the idea of Jesus being a BIG fat guy, ugly instead of the beautiful image people paint. But of all the questions he would’ve had, I can only think up one for him.

  I ask, “Why are you wearing a janitor’s uniform?”

  At first, I figured he wore it because he was the janitor at Satan Burger, but Satan said his demons did all the cleaning, so I just had to ask him.

  He responds, “I am the janitor of mankind, not the shepherd as the BIG bible says. I clean up the dirty parts of society, the dirty sides of men’s souls. It is the job I was born to do, and I don’t get paid anything to do it.”

  “God won’t pay you anything?”

  “Well, God isn’t the person who would pay me if I got paid. He hires accountants from an agency to handle all of his income. But his chief accountant doesn’t think there is a reason for me to be the janitor of mankind, so he does not pay me. It is volunteer work.”

  I say, “It sounds too hard to be volunteer work.”

  “Hard work doesn’t bother me. To tell you the truth, I love to work.”

  “What?” I’m shocked to hear love and work in the same sentence. Jesus is beginning to seem crazy.

  “Work keeps my life in order. Keeps an even amount of hard times and good times in my life. When I work, I learn to appreciate the free time I have, I don’t waste it on trivial things like music and television.”

  “You don’t like music or television?”

  “Are you joking? I love those things.”

  “I don’t like commercials,” I tell him, wand-spindle voice. “That’s what makes television a waste of time.”

  “Commercials are better than nothing,” Jesus says. “If there were no commercials, what would fill the spaces where the commercials are supposed to be? The announcer would say ‘we’ll be back after these messages.’ There would be three minutes of black space. There would be nothing. Wouldn’t you prefer commercials over that?”

  I guess he’s right, He is Jesus, but I think television networks would just make television shows longer if there weren’t any commercials instead of add in black space. Jesus knows best though. “I guess you’re right, but commercials represent corporations and money. And money is the ultimate evil.”

  “No, I don’t believe so. Money is extraordinarily good. Money gives people a reason to work. Without work we’d still be sleeping in caves.”

  “Oh.” I seem annoyed by his replies.

  There has to be something that Jesus Christ doesn’t like. I’ve already asked him about the three evils of the world. Richard Stein always said that nothing is more evil than work, money, and commercials.

  “Is there anything that you don’t like Jesus?” I ask.

  “I love everything,” he responds.

  “You can find good in every single person, every single object?”

  “Of course.”

  Thinking of Richard Stein, I say, “But there is one thing you hate. You hate evil.”

  Jesus just shakes his head.

  “People don’t understand evil,” Jesus says, pinching a piece of sand. “Nobody realizes how absolutely necessary evil is.”

  He pauses, staring at the street people in the rain. The water drops are getting slender, and shrill-winding waves start in.

  He continues, “Satan wasn’t the p
erson that started it either. Of course, the bible says he did. But God was the one responsible for evil, and everyone in heaven knows this. He made Man with an evil side, but told him not to use it. God expected Man to succumb to his dark side eventually, wanted Man to, because without evil there is no God.

  “After evil was invented, there had to be an opposite to it. That is where good came from. So you see why I have to love it? Good comes out of evil. Without bad in the world, there cannot be good, because there is nothing to compare good with. That is one reason why I am not in heaven. Heaven is a terrible, boring place. It is too perfect. It is paradise. Sure it seems nice, but there is no evil there, no conflict, there is no such thing as satisfaction. And people forget how beautiful satisfaction can be.”

  He gives examples. “Nobody works in paradise, so there is no such thing as coming home after a hard day of work, and just sitting on your ass, doing absolutely nothing and getting absolute pleasure from it. Even love is boring in heaven, because there is constant love all around you there, and no hate at all. So love is nothing special. And you never go through the hardships of falling in love, which is what gives the winning of love a feeling of victory. And all the food is perfect in heaven, so you can’t compare it to bad food. And there is no excitement in heaven, because conflict and danger makes excitement. There is also nothing there to fear. Everything is comfortable in heaven, so even comfort isn’t satisfying. You last about two months in paradise before you get completely bored. And if boredom doesn’t find you, you’ll become one of the heaven zombies.”

  The word heaven zombies makes me turn my head to the crowd of insane ones. I ask myself, “Are they the same as angels are?”

  Jesus says, “There is one thing that I do hate. I hate it with passion. I loath it…”