Just to See Hell
Page 21
Two women pushed through the crowd to stand at the front. One was shockingly beautiful, the other bloated and haggard and sickly. They both held entire bottles of champagne. “My Jane, my Crazy Jane, she was there for me when you weren’t,” said the gross one. “Fuck you. Fuck…you. And I bet you can’t eat pussy nearly as well as she does, you pompous piece of shit.”
“Don’t worry,” the other woman said to Jesus. “I took care of her. It appears that another common thread here is that most of us got help from someone or something else while you sat in your clouds and ignored us all.”
A man with a crew cut and military fatigues said, “I saw some things that no loving God would ever have allowed. I had to do things that…” He trailed off, looking down at his boots. “I was just following orders,” he said quietly.
The next man to speak was tall and thin and gray-haired, and he held a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He wasn’t wearing shoes. “I prayed, you know,” he said. “Never helped. I just got worse and drank more. Fuck, I had to crash on some planet out of a Bradbury novel in order to get fixed. The things there cured me, but you weren’t among them.”
“Listen,” Jesus said loudly. “I’m busy, okay? I run the bingo club four nights a week, and the cherubs need to hear their stories. Plus, my dad gives me all sorts of chores. I have to do my own laundry. I walk Shiloh and Winn Dixie. Sometimes I even have to make my own dinner, and once, I had to scrub a toilet. I just don’t have time to get to everyone’s prayers.” He looked at the devil and said, “Why am I here? Why are they here? What’s going on?”
Grinning that grin of his, Lucifer said, “I won the bet, remember? And the stakes were, if I won, I got to make you a permanent resident of the Hotel Empyrean. Unfortunately for you, though, you’re not a Platinum Member like the others, here. You see, these folks have been requesting your presence for a very long time. I promise to fulfill all of my prized residents’ desires, but bringing you here has been the one thing on which I just couldn’t deliver. I pride myself on my hospitality, though, and I assured them that one day they would have their chance to do to you as they please.”
Jesus took a step back on his Jell-O legs. “And…um…what do they want to do to me, exactly?”
The devil shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Ask them.”
The angry sinners, smiling and relishing in all of their newfound privilege that they’d been denied all their lives, started putting down their drinks and picking up the various weapons.
“You can’t die, here,” Lucifer said. “But you can feel pain.”
The armed men and women were advancing, even the child, brandishing their weapons in hands shaking with anticipation and excitement.
“They’ll be busy with you for a long time, I suspect,” the devil continued. “And once they decide to take a break, I’m quite sure I’ll have more residents who’d like to take a turn.”
Jesus turned to flee, but the door that had been there moments ago had been replaced by an endless wall made of white bricks. He looked over his shoulder at the approaching attackers, and then he collapsed onto the floor, his legs no longer able to withstand the all-consuming fear that had seized his body.
The devil had vanished, but his disembodied voice thundered from somewhere in the darkness and said, “That’s it, kiddo. Make yourself comfortable. You’re in this for the long haul. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
Jesus would go on to scream forever, but God did not listen.
God listens to no one.