Never Fear (61 page)

The rules of punctuation were a lost
art, Pitch mused. So now he was stuck here, working in one of the
outer levels of Hell, beside the black waters of the River Acheron.
The Uncommitted, souls who had never made any real decisions in
life, spent eternity here. The weak, the complacent, the yes-men,
three-year community college students and the like. There were some
angels here, those who had not taken sides in the Great Battle. But
they pretty much kept to themselves. The human Shades wandered
about aimlessly over rocky terrain covered with writhing, biting
worms and beetles. Stinging wasps, hornets, and mosquitoes filled
the air, darting and swooping at the exposed flesh of the
Damned.

A ragged crimson banner zigzagged
through the air, several feet off the ground, fruitlessly pursued
by dozens of desperate souls. Others struggled to stand on rocks or
sought shelter in narrow crevices, seeking a brief respite from the
constantly biting insects. Good luck with that.

Pitch sighed again. Back to work. He
began wheeling his battered, wooden pushcart over the rocky,
worm-covered ground. Fat, obscene worms burst as the wheels crushed
them. Shrill shrieks followed in his wake, along with the stench of
their bright green ichor. They wouldn’t stay dead for long though.
Nothing died down here. Except my dreams, Pitch waxed
poetically.

There were walkways and paths carved
into the sides of the cavern by centuries of use, but they were not
well maintained by any means, and the pushcart rattled and bounced
as he pushed it along. Ancient torches were set into the walls,
although they didn’t really provide any light. Just added to the
smoky air.

Pitch scowled, swatting a particularly
determined wasp. The stinging insects didn’t bother Pitch. Their
stingers couldn’t penetrate his thick, pebbly skin, so they
basically left him alone. When one was foolish enough to try to
sting him, more often than not Pitch grabbed it, squeezed its head,
and ate it. A minor perquisite of his current job. Speaking of
jobs, it was show time.

“
Hey, losers! I got your
insect repellent! Get your insect repellant! Guaranteed relief!”
Ragged heads turned. Hollowed eyes widened in anticipation and
hope. Tattered, emaciated forms shuffled toward him, crowded around
him, skeletal hands open and grasping.

“
Hold on, take your turn.
There’s plenty for everyone!” Pitch said, rapidly handing out tubes
labeled “Insect Repellent-Extra Strength.” In less than five
minutes, he had given away his entire supply.

“
Sorry, all out. Get me
next time.” The shades drifted off, clumsily smearing the amber
fluid on their exposed bodies. Others, further back, returned
empty-handed to their spots along the rock walls. A scuffle broke
out as three or four Shades fought over one bottle.

Moans began to pick up. Swarms of
insects were aggressively besieging the Shades who had taken the
tubes. The ragged souls weakly swung their arms and swatted vainly
at the insects, but it made no difference. One of them, completely
covered with hornets and wasps stumbled into the side of a cliff
and fell over. Biting insects swarmed over it, and within seconds,
there was nothing left but glistening bone.

Pitch stood, arms akimbo, watching his
handiwork. He had spent the better part of the morning squeezing
out the actual insect repellant and refilling the tubes with
honey.

He felt no pleasure in this. Not like
he used to. It was too easy. And they fell for it every time. He
did it three times a day, every day. Not that there were “days” and
“nights” down here. However, there was the time clock, and that was
what mattered. The work cycle determined when they worked, when
they ate, when they slept. And speaking of the time clock, he was
almost off. In fact, Vlad, his replacement, was slowly making his
way up the circular path. Pitch wheeled the cart back to the
plastic bear-shaped honey bottles, which were magically refilling,
as they did three times a day, and took off his leather
apron.

Pitch was short by human standards,
about four feet tall and just as wide. He had no neck to speak of,
had to turn his entire torso to look from side to side. His skin
was dark orange and very pebbly and tough. His eyes were large,
with vertical slits like a cat’s. His nose was broad over a large
mouth full of short, sharp teeth. His arms were long and muscular
and hung down past his knees, although his legs were short and
bowlegged. He wore a soiled breechcloth made of some type of skin;
lizard, or human, he wasn’t sure. And he served his master
faithfully.

He finished wiping down the cart. He
kicked a skull over the edge of the Circle. He watched it bounce
off the rock walls and disappear into the darkness below. Below.
That’s where all the action was. Not up here with these losers.
Pitch ducked as the banner flew close to his head, followed by
dozens of emaciated, insect-bitten poor souls chasing it in
vain.

“
Watch it, you morons,” he
growled, shoving one of the stragglers. The Shade was an old woman,
and she weighed almost nothing. She staggered toward the edge of
the rocky path that led around the edge of the Pit. She stood on
the edge, her arms pin-wheeling for balance, mouth open in a silent
scream. A heavy arm reached out, planted a meaty hand on her bony
chest, and shoved. She went over the edge, tumbled in the swirling
air, caught by the wind, and slammed into the side of the pit. Her
battered, broken body fluttered downward.

Vlad, a heavyset Level Three demon,
guffawed. He was wearing his usual outfit of mismatched chainmail
and armor. Today he had on a metal Viking helmet with a ram's horn
on either side of it. It was much too small, and Vlad had fashioned
a chinstrap out of a length of tendon, which was tightly knotted
beneath his protruding lower jaw.

“
That was a good one, eh,
Pitch?” he said, gazing happily into the pit. “She spun at least
three times before she hit the side. Normally the best I can get is
two, maybe two and a half.”

Pitch nodded beside him. “Yeah.
Barnaby said he got a seven spinner once, but you know
Barnaby.”

“
Full of shit,” agreed
Vlad. “The secret is to aim for the middle of the Abyss. Avoid the
sides as much as possible. Anyways, how was it today?”

“
How is it every day?”
Pitch shrugged. “You know nothing ever changes.”

“
Is that so bad?” Vlad
asked pulling two time cards from an uneven slot on the rock wall.
He glanced at them and handed one to Pitch. Pitch slid his card in
the time clock until there was an audible click. A puff of black
smoke came from the top of the time clock. Pitch put his card back
in the slot in the wall as Vlad clocked in.

“
I guess,” Pitch lied.
Like many of the Legions in Hell, Vlad was content. He had a place
and a purpose. He was a demon, a tormentor of lost souls. And that
was enough for him. But Pitch felt something was missing. He was so
close to Hell and could even see the flames at times, but was
unable to get any closer. He was so far from the action down in the
Pit. Barnaby, of course, said that he had met Satan twice, but as
everyone knew, Barnaby was a liar. He wasn’t called Barnaby the
Deceitful for nothing.

Vlad sat on a wooden stool, emptying a
bottle of insect repellant into a wide pool filled with murky
water. Beside the pool was a handwritten, wooden sign stating
“Drinking Water.” Several skeletons lay nearby. Vlad nodded out
over the Abyss.

“
I know you’d rather be
down there, but I like it up here. No pressure. They tell me when
to get up, when to work, when to quit. It’s easy. And I get to mess
with these jokers—oh no you don’t!” A shade was reaching for one of
the bottles. Vlad picked him up by the scruff of his neck, shook
him, and slammed him into a huge boulder. His skull collapsed with
a loud crunch. Bits of bone and brain splattered the rock. Vlad
turned and flung him headlong into the Abyss. They watched him
fall.

“
Two spinner,” Vlad
remarked disappointedly, getting back to work.

“
You’d better be careful,”
warned Pitch. “You’ve lost two already.” Loss Prevention allowed
them to “... misplace, reallocate, destroy, or devour...” seven
souls per shift. Pitch had never lost more than one. But did anyone
recognize that? Of course not.

Vlad shrugged. “What am I going to do?
I’m a passionate guy. And it’s not like they’re losing anything.”
He nodded, gesturing toward the unfortunate soul he had just thrown
over the cliff. “That joker’ll be back by my next
shift.”

Pitch couldn’t think of a response to
that. “Well, see you tomorrow.” He nodded as he headed down the
path to his cave.

“
You too, buddy.” Vlad
nodded. “And Pitch—”

Pitch paused, turned back.

“
Relax, man. You’re too
stressed out. Have some fun.” He showed his enormous teeth in an
encouraging smile. A Shade had been sneaking towards him saw that
smile and slowly backed away. Vlad scowled at him. “You’d better
keep moving.”

As Pitch slowly made his way around
the circular, stone path, occasionally kicking a skull out of his
way, he wondered why he couldn’t relax. Things weren’t so bad. He
had a good job, a comfortable sleeping mat, and a few acquaintances
and friends. It could be worse, he thought, watching as another
shade fell through the air. Pitch shook his head. Vlad loved his
work.

A dark shape flew up and snatched the
unfortunate soul out of midair. A harpy. Her leathery bat wings
flapped rapidly, holding her suspended in space as she tore at the
shade. Clawed hands pulled and twisted, and with a wet popping
sound, she tore off an arm. She let go of the body, which continued
its descent.

“
Hey, Pitch.” She nodded,
her mouth full of blood and rotten meat. Her yellow eyes glinted in
the misty light.

“
Oh hi, Sybal.” Pitch
waved. “What’s up?”

She landed beside him, still tearing
at the arm. “I’m passing the word. He’s doing Christmas
again.”

Sybal wiped her mouth with a feathered
forearm and held out the bloodied limb out to Pitch.

He shook his head at the offered arm.
He had outgrown a taste for human flesh years ago.

“
Christmas already?” It
was so hard to measure time down here. Most Demonkind were not even
aware of the concept of time. Eternity was just... eternity. But
ages ago Pitch had found a soiled copy of a 1952 Greenway Auto
Parts calendar. It was full of scantily-clad human females engaging
in various recreational activities. He kept it in his hovel, beside
his sleeping mat. He didn’t understand how months worked, but he
liked to keep track of the seasons and holidays. When he got home,
he would change the month to December.

“
I still don’t understand
why, out of all the Surface holidays, he chose Christmas.” Pitch
shook his head in bewilderment.

“
The way I hear it, the
Big Guy likes to throw a bone to the unfortunate ones every once in
a while. I guess that just because we’re in Hell, it doesn’t have
to be “hell,” if you know what I’m saying.”

“
I guess.” Pitch shrugged.
“But Christmas?”

“
It’s also a big ‘fuck
you’ to Him.” She nodded upwards.

He glanced up, then met her gaze. “So
I suppose they’re doing the Secret Santa again?”

“
Yeah.” She sucked the
flesh off the pinkie finger, looked over the arm one more time,
grunted, and flung it over the edge. “I just signed up.” She
glanced around, motioned at a female Shade struggling to fill a
battered colander from a muddied water hole. “Hey, you! Come
here!”

The Shade bowed its shoulder and
approached. Sybal reached out and grabbed her shroud, pulling her
close. She used it to wipe her mouth and shoved the Shade away.
“Get back to work!” The Shade put its head down and returned to its
endless task. Sybal turned back to Pitch. “I gotta go. I’ll see you
later.”

Pitch held up a claw and watched her
leap over the abyss, catch an updraft, and rocket up and
away.

*

The commissary was unusually loud and
boisterous. The Christmas decorations and the excitement and
uncertainty of the upcoming Secret Santa gift exchange had buoyed
the spirits of the Demonkind. Garlands made of intestines stretched
across the length of one wall. The upside-down crosses were turned
right-side up. Volunteer imps wearing crimson Santa caps had been
nailed to each one.

Laughter and chatter rang throughout
the cavern as Pitch approached the food line. He took a battered
metal tray from the stack and slid it along the counter. A heavyset
Shade wearing a loincloth and a stained chef’s hat spooned some
type of brown sludge onto his tray. Pitch peered at it. He wasn’t
sure what it was, but there was something wriggling in it, so it
couldn’t be too bad. He looked over at the other choices of side
dishes on the steam table.

“
What’s that?” he asked,
indicating a red, mucus-like liquid in which an eyeball floated.
The Shade looked at him vacantly. Pitch shook his head. “Forget it.
Just give me some. With extra eyeballs.”

Pitch glanced around for a familiar
face. A burst of laughter caught his attention and he glanced over
to the right. Of course. The SCS table. They always sat together,
with their matching jackets: black with white sleeves along with
the fiery-red badge emblazoned with “SCS.” The Soul Collection
Squad.