What Would Satan Do?

by Anthony Miller

  Now it was Bubba’s turn to smirk and scoff. “Didn’t think s—” He failed to finish his taunt, having been interrupted by Liam’s delivery of three quick punches to his nose, ear, and throat. These seemed to startle and confuse Bubba, at least inasmuch as he appeared incapable of deciding whether to grab his neck, his face, or the side of his head. He hunched over, trying to do all three, and putting his head within range of Liam’s knee.

  Liam did not hesitate to take advantage of this. He grabbed Bubba’s head, forcing it downward as he brought his knee upward. There was a nasty snapping sound, and Bubba flopped back, crashing into the wall behind him.

  Festus backed Liam up with a karate chop to the air and a victory grunt.

  The other soldiers were stunned by the sight of Bubba going down, and failed entirely to notice as Liam grabbed Danny Ray’s rifle, smashing it into the man’s chest. Danny Ray made a high-pitched chirping sound as all the air was expelled from his lungs.

  Liam tore the gun out of Danny Ray’s grip, spun, and swung it like a club, clocking Danny Ray in the noggin. The man collapsed in slow motion, like a dynamited building. Before he had even hit the ground, Liam had aimed the butt of the gun at Cletus’ neck. Cletus stood wide-eyed, and held his hands up in the air as he aimed a startled look down his nose at his attacker. Liam hesitated for an instant, but then decided that having one less soldier to deal with was a good thing. He jabbed the butt of the gun up, causing the Cletus’ head to smack backwards into the wall. Liam pulled the gun back, and the man slid down the wall.

  “Liam,” croaked Festus. Liam turned and saw that Buford had Festus in a head lock, a hand gun pointed at the side of Festus’ head.

  “Put that gun down,” said Buford. He tightened his grip on Festus’ throat.

  “Ack!” said Festus.

  Liam let his hand fall, so that the gun pointed at the ground. But he did not let go. Instead he sighed, and shook his head. He closed his eyes and rolled his neck and took a deep breath.

  “Put do—” Buford did not finish his sentence, having decided, apparently, that his breath would be better spent on a high-pitched scream. He let go of Festus, and ran around in little circles, which may have had something to do with the fact that his head was on fire.

  Liam gave Buford a good crack in the gourd with the butt of the rifle. Buford’s legs went out from underneath him, and the man collapsed. Liam tore off his shirt, and used it to smother the flames on Buford’s head.

  “Holy crap!” said Festus. “That was amazing! How—?” He gestured at Buford, who smoldered on the floor.

  “Come on,” said Liam. “Let’s go.” He tossed the rifle aside, and headed for the exit, trying to look casual. Festus scrambled after him.

  The morass of soldiers and patriots and trucks outside the church had expanded, and now included a lot of naked guys, most of whom seemed to be flocking together close to where Liam and Festus exited the church.

  “What the hell, Liam? How did you—? Whoa!” Festus stopped and pointed. “That’s disgusting!”

  Liam ignored Festus, and kept walking.

  “Hey! Liam! Stop!” Liam finally turned to see what Festus was going on about. “It’s Lola. In the middle of … that.”

  There are times when it is necessary to give a voice to your thoughts; times when you cannot just think a thing – you must say it.

  “What the fuck?” said Liam.

  Chapter 45. Lola and the Men Who Love Her

  Liam and Festus goggled, gaped, and stared (Festus goggled and gaped; Liam stared) at a swarm of naked guys. There were at least fifty of them, huddling together in what appeared to be a free-love rugby scrum, less than twenty yards from the delivery entrance of the Driftwood Fellowship Church. Lola stood in the middle, a flash of red and purple and blonde in the middle of a whole lot of pale hairiness, looking very much as if she did not want to be there. A few groups of soldiers hovered around the edges of the throng, looking vaguely disgusted and mounting desultory forays into the naked horde, which the nude guys fended off with ease.

  “What do we do?” asked Festus.

  “Well,” said Liam, “I think we should…” He didn’t finish. Sometimes, when you’re staring at a hundred naked guys, and someone you know is stuck in the middle of the gymnosophic mob, it’s hard to engage in any kind of proactive decision making. It’s like when you realize that you somehow dropped your wedding ring into the commode, and that it’s now resting among some other things you dropped. You know, on some level, that you want to reach in there to get it back, but then, you really, really don’t want to do that at all. The resulting cognitive clash can be paralyzing.

  Festus also seemed to be suffering from a mild case of rigor mortis as he regarded the naked horde. “Seriously, what is up with all of the friggin’ weirdos running around without clothes today? I have so exceeded my quota for witnessing flaccid dongs for like, the rest of my life. Seriously.”

  “You prefer turgidity?” asked Liam, still staring straight ahead.

  Festus grimaced.

  They watched through the crowd as Lola turned in slow circles, her hands held out in front of her as she plead with the men who surrounded her. Through a fleeting gap in the Brownian throng, Liam saw that a bunch of the men toward the center of the group were either squatting or on their knees, bowing down and raising themselves up, their arms extended toward Lola.

  “Are they … worshipping her?” he asked.

  “Well, she is pretty hot,” said Festus.

  “We need to get her out of there,” said Liam.

  A horrified look came over Festus’ face. “What? How do we do that? We’d have to go in there.”

  Liam nodded.

  “Did it ever occur to you that she might want to be surrounded and worshipped by a bunch of naked guys?”

  “No,” said Liam, tilting his head as if he were really pondering the question, “I don’t think she’d want that.” He marched into the horde, shoving and elbowing his way in as he headed toward Lola.

  Festus didn’t move. Whether this was because he was not able to goggle and walk and let his jaw hang open at the same time is uncertain. Whatever the reason, he stood perfectly still as he watched Liam enter the mass of hairy, pale flesh.

  Liam continued his march into the throng. “Um, hello,” he said to a particularly obstructive individual. “Please get out of the way.” The naked guy, however, appeared to be completely oblivious to Liam’s presence. Liam shoved the man and he fell awkwardly on top of another man. Dangly bits and bad places got together in NC-17 ways.

  “Ooh, that’s not right,” said Festus, as he threaded his way through the crowd behind Liam.

  “You know,” said Liam, “for an enlightened Son of God, you sure are homophobic.”

  The Lola-worshippers seemed not to notice or care about Liam or Festus, even as they pushed and shoved their way toward her. Liam would shove or give a gentle kick to a naked guy, and the naked guy would just grunt and move out of the way.

  “Look,” said Festus, stepping over a guy who, apparently overcome by the whole situation, was laying on the ground doing his best impression of frying bacon. “I like homos just as much as the next guy. I just don’t want to have any contact with another dude’s wang.”

  “Fair enough.” Liam strong-armed another clothes-free individual. They finally reached Lola, who was turned facing away from them, berating one of her followers.

  “You will not—”

  Liam tapped her on the shoulder. “Uh, hi,” he said.

  She spun. “Oh my god! Liam!” she said, and then added, somewhat less enthusiastically, “And Festus.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Liam. “What is this?”

  “I– I don’t know,” said Lola. “They just surrounded us.” She waved her hand in the direction of some of her followers.

  “Us?”

  “Raju is here … somewhere.”

  Raju poked his head out from the headlock of one of Lola’s followe
rs. “Hi.” Raju gave a perfunctory, limited-motion wave through the half-removed sleeve of his shirt. “Help.” His captor renewed his grip with a shake, while another man tried to pull Raju’s shirt off.

  “Are these men troubling you, Mistress?” asked one of the naked men. His eyes were fixed on Lola, but it almost looked as if he were staring through her.

  “No, no,” she said. “They’re my friends.”

  “Very good, Mistress. Please tell them to undress.”

  “What?” asked Festus.

  “They want you to get naked,” said Raju, flinching as one of the men waved some hairy, dangly, unpleasant things way too close to his face.

  “Not happening,” said Liam. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “They won’t let us,” said Lola.

  “Why not?”

  One of the naked guys stood awkwardly, swaying back and forth. He had kind of a vague smile on his lips, and kept sighing long, satisfied sighs. Finally, he cleared his throat, held up one classically-trained, Shakespearean hand, and announced in a clear voice that rang out over the droning of the other men. “We have found her!”

  Liam looked around to try to locate the man’s intended audience, but it didn’t look as if he’d directed his pronouncement to anyone in particular. In fact, the rest of the men seemed just to ignore the man. “I’m sorry? You’ve … found her?”

  “Yes!” said the man with another manual flourish. A couple of the other men stopped and looked up. “She,” he said, “is the Whore of Babyon!”

  The entire throng went bananas, whooping and hollering, high-fiving, and doling out triumphant fists pumps as if there weren’t a shortage of such things – which there isn’t, but still.

  One of the men stood suddenly, his body rigid. He thrust his finger out in front of him, where it waggled crazily, as if it were a herring and he was trying to shake it to death. His lips moved as if he were mumbling something to himself. Finally, he seemed unable to hold back. “Whore of Babylon!” he screamed.

  Festus spun to face Liam. “See? I told you!”

  “What?” said Liam. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did. I said I know who she is.”

  “I didn’t hear you say anything about the Whore of Babylon.”

  “You weren’t listening,” said Festus, stroking his beard.

  “I heard everything you said, and you didn’t say that.”

  “I thought it.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “Well…”

  “Not the same thing,” said Liam. “And you need to stop stroking your beard before I yank it out.”

  Lola, meanwhile, had spun to face her accuser. “I’m not sure what that means,” she said, “but it sounds really bad, and I want you to take it back right now.”

  “Mistress?” A surprised and worried look came over his face, as if she’d just pointed out that he’d killed her dog. “You want me to … take it back?”

  “Yes, I want you to take it back. Right now.” She folded her arms across her chest, which had the dual effect of indicating her level of seriousness, and depriving the men of a view of the Promised Lands.

  “Um, okay,” said the guy. But then, under his breath, he muttered, “Whore of Babylon.”

  The Whore of Babylon hesitated, and then, apparently deciding on an altogether different tack, attempted to put her pointy-toed Jimmy Chu into the guy’s abdomen, by way of his crotch. Her well-motivated foot – being rather larger and rounder than, say, a knife or an ice pick – was hindered in its progress toward the man’s abdomen by a grouping of obstructive and rather sensitive anatomical components – to wit, his ‘nads. The man’s internal organs were therefore preserved intact, and continued to function normally. His external organ, on the other hand, suffered severe blunt trauma, and the man promptly fell over. The other streakers turned to regard their fallen comrade.

  “Come on,” said Liam, shoving the last naked guy between him and Lola out of the way. Lola nodded and reached for his hand. They threaded their way out of the crowd, with Raju following a few steps behind.

  “Mistress, no!” Three of the men threw themselves at Lola’s feet, grabbing her ankles to prevent her from disabling any more of their brethren.

  The men began to chant. “Whore of Babylon! Whore of Babylon!”

  Lola raised her eyebrows at Liam.

  Liam pulled out his gun, and held it up in the air, pointing it straight up as if to suggest that, if they didn’t let go, he might shoot the hell out of the sky, or maybe kill a cloud. “Okay, guys,” he said. “It’s time for the Whore – uh, her – to go.”

  The men called Liam’s bluff, swarming him and smacking the gun out of his hand. They moved quick for naked guys, which is to say that they moved without the awkwardness that might encumber more self-conscious naked people. Liam fell backward, and only avoided smacking his head on concrete because there were fleshy, uncovered bits in the way.

  One of the naked men grabbed the gun, and stood over Liam. He pointed the weapon at Liam’s head, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger. There was a pop, and then everything got very quiet.

  Chapter 46. Blasted Bits and Way Too Many Ralphs

  “Liam!” screamed Lola. She tried to claw her way through the throng. “Liam!”

  “It’s okay, Mistress,” said the man who’d pulled the trigger. “It’s okay.”

  “No! Fuck you! It’s not okay.” She grabbed a hunk of his hair and yanked his head down while bringing her knee up. There was a disgusting cracking sound, and the man collapsed, holding his face. The gun clattered to the ground.

  Raju picked it up, and then glanced around as he were looking for something. He hesitated for a second, and then shot one of the guys in the crotch. The man’s nethers exploded into a fine mist that sprayed all over his companions. That – being coated in blood and bits and pieces of the guy’s bits and pieces – and the sound of the panicked, frantic screaming and wailing coming from the shot guy seemed to break the spell over the amorous, nude guys. It was also very disgusting. One of the soldiers vomited. Then Raju urped up a bit of whatever he’d had for lunch. That set off a chain reaction of gagging and full-blown vomiting all around, which only compounded the disgustingness of the situation.

  “Liam!” said Lola. She shoved past naked guys, many of whom were still engaged in post-Ralphing coughing, sputtering, and gasping for air, and made her way toward where she’d seen Liam fall.

  “What’s up?” asked Liam. He shoved aside the naked guy who lay on top of him and stood, looking a little dazed, but completely free of bullet holes in his cranium.

  “Oh my God!” She threw her arms around him. “You’re okay? How did—? I don’t understand. He shot you! I saw it!”

  “Holy shit, dude!” said Raju. “That was magical!”

  Festus just stared, open-mouthed, and shook his head. “How—?”

  Liam let go of Lola, and turned to his Messianic friend. “I don’t know. I saw the bullet. I actually saw it. But … I’m okay,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  Festus hugged him. And then Raju joined in.

  “Enough,” said Liam. Raju let go, but then decided he wanted more, and embraced his boss again. “Raju, please stop. We need to get out of here.”

  They exited the throng and picked their way around military trucks, trying to keep away from the clumps of soldiers. The naked guys suddenly all seemed to be a little more concerned with their nakedness than with dealing with their Mistress and her friends, so Lola, Liam, and the two losers were quickly able to put a few meters between themselves and the horde.

  “Man,” said Festus, “that was harsh. You shot that guy. In the – in the dong!”

  “Dude, wasn’t that amazing?” asked Raju.

  “Um, no,” said Festus. “It was the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “No, dude. It was cool.”

  “You fucking shot that guy,” said Festus. “And dude!” He flung his arms out to his sid
es and turned to look back at the throng of naked guys just as a group carried their wounded friend away. “You fucking shot someone! With a gun! You can’t – you can’t do that! You can’t just shoot someone.”

  “It was pretty disgusting,” said Lola.

  Raju shook his head. “Dude, whatever. It was awesome, and you all know it.”

  The corner of Liam’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

  “It was not awesome, Raju,” said Lola. “It was gross.”

  “No, not the shooting. The hurling. It was like a nuclear reaction.” Raju immediately started a pantomime chain-reaction of vomiting. “Ralph, Ralph, Ralph…”

  “Please shut up,” said Liam. He took a couple of double-time steps to catch up with Lola, who was striding ahead as they threaded through a group of military vehicles. “You didn’t tell me – what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Lola, “I just figured I could help out.”

  “By acting as a magnet for all the naked guys?”

  Lola smirked. “Yes,” she said. “That was my plan exactly.”

  “But I thought you needed to go back to your office,” said Liam.

  “Well, Raju told me about—” she glanced around at the trucks and the soldiers and the naked guys, “well, about all of this.”

  Raju scooted up right behind Liam. “Dude, she totally wants you,” he said.

  Lola turned and smacked the palm of her hand into the side of Raju’s head.

  “You witch! Don’t you know? I have a gun!” He waved the gun in her direction.

  She took it, and smacked him again.

  “That was my gun, you heartless witch!”

  Lola checked the pistol, popping the magazine out and back in, and pulling the slide back to chamber a round. She stuffed it into the waist of her pants and then turned her attention back to Liam. The three men paused to stare with slightly shocked looks on their faces as they realized that, as disturbing as it sounds, watching an attractive woman tuck a gun into the front of her pants is a lot hotter than you might expect.