The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole! (1) (18 page)

She was bigger then, and when she used to walk around upstairs, it didn’t just make the house groan, it made the poor thing break down in tears.

As though remembering those days, the house shudders as another earthquake hits. Chuzz holds onto the railing for dear life even though he is only on the third step. The polite double knock comes again, and he is tempted to go downstairs, get his gun, and shoot the knocker in the kneecap.

He puffs up the stairs and slams open the door. It swings back and hits the wall. This is the part where it normally smacks him in the face. But thanks to all the Viagra, it smacks him right in the cock, and that’s when he loses it.

“Mother fuck! Mother fuck! I am going to kill the fuck out of you if you are a mother fuck of a door-to-door salesman. I am going to kill you and feed you to Phil! You hear me?”

Phil picks that moment to let rip an explosive fart that probably leaves chunks on the wall. Fucking Phil!

The kitchen is a mess. Mom hasn’t been around the last few days. Probably shacked up with those guys again. The Malore Twins. He shudders at the thought of those former wrestlers tag-teaming his mother.
Those poor poor little men.

The kitchen table is littered with
popsicle
sticks, and it appears Mother has been hard at work building a new clock. The massive timepiece covers most of the surface area. Mom always did have crafty fingers. There is a pack of Platinum Lung Busters on the table.
Big cigarettes without the filter.
About the size of cigars but intended for inhalation.
He tried one once and puked for half a day. Learned his lesson, because Mom laced them with Pine-Sol.

The ratty blinds don’t open anymore, so he slips his finger between their greasy slats and peers out. There is a shape in the shade of the porch, but all he can make out is brown.

“Oh a delivery!” he says and opens the door wide to greet the UPS driver. He is pretty sure he hasn’t ordered anything recently, but maybe they are bringing him something anyway, maybe something he ordered years ago that had slipped through the cracks until now.

He puts a smile on his face to greet the driver.
A big smile that says
“Welcome to the neighborhood.
I’m glad I don’t have to kill you.”

The shape doesn’t move so much as unfold. Two talons uncurl where the feet should be. They scratch at the old concrete patio as the shape shifts. Chuzz’s gaze moves up the skinny legs, which end at a brown overcoat.

Long fingers fall from sleeves that are torn and burned in spots. Black smudges streak along the jacket as though it had caught fire and its owner rolled to put it out. Through the coat’s many holes, Chuzz can see something like smudged gray ash on feathers.

The man’s face is painfully handsome.
Rugged, like a model or a baseball pitcher on the edge of retirement.
He looks built, too, like he’s hiding an Ah-nold body under that thing. Not much of a neck, but what does show is thick and ripped with muscles.

Blue eyes sit under blond hair held back by a thin gold band. He doesn’t have a lick of facial hair, and one side of his perfect face is black and blue.

“Help you?” Chuzz asks. Voice stupid in his head because the thing on his porch should not be. He has the urge to tug his sweatshirt down again to make sure it covers his erection in case this guy is after his cock. Stupid faggots. Can’t ever tell where they’ll turn up!

“Hello, Chuzz. I got a delivery for you.” The man’s voice is ridiculous. While he speaks slowly with a sense of vibrato that hums across the tiny space, he sounds like he just inhaled a huge hit of helium. He sounds like a fucking chipmunk about to break into a Christmas song.

“You do?”

“Yep. Got a beer?”

“No. And I think you should …”

The massive man shoulders past Chuzz like he isn’t even there. He grabs Chuzz’s hand as he passes and shakes it vigorously. Nathan returns the shake automatically,
then
wipes his hand on his shirt. The guy with the talon feet has very cold hands.
Cold and clammy.
Gross.

“I bet you think a bunch of stuff, buddy. I bet you think I’m here to do bad things to you.” He stops and spins around to confront Chuzz, who comes up short. The man’s eyes are wide open like he knows a secret.

“Uh.”

“Whole lot of that today. Whole lot. I’m Gabriel, by the by.”

“Uh.”

“Right.
Archangel, warrior, representative of the Almighty hisdamnself.
Praise Jesus and shit.” He opens the refrigerator and extracts one of Chuzz’s PBRs. He pokes a hole in the side with one clawed finger. He puts the hole to his mouth and in one smooth motion pops the top and shotguns the entire thing in two point four seconds.

“Uh.”

The man … angel … lets out a loud burp. He wipes the back of his mouth with his hand, leaving black smudge marks behind. A look of discomfort troubles his flawless features, and he reaches in his pocket and pulls out what appears to be a small finger. It wiggles around until he drops it.

Was that a little dick?

“Stupid Cockbugs.” The big man smashes it with his boot and grinds it into a pulp.

“Cockbug? Am I losing it?”

“Probably. I came, well the boys and I did. We came to give battle, to protect the world.
Only one problem, bud.
Know what that is?”

“Uh.”

“I like you, Chuzz. You’re simple, and I can respect that. Anyway. The problem is simple, like you, as I just mentioned. We got our collective asses kicked six ways from Sunday. Boss man never showed up to help out or to collect for the rapture. All those people sitting around, being good, thinking they were on the way up. They are so screwed.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I bet you don’t, but time is short and you are all I have. Well, you and perhaps one other. I’m leaving you with some gifts. Have a nice life, Chuzz.”

He takes off his overcoat and drops a bunch of doodads and toys on the floor. His skin is covered in feathers that were probably white at one time but have crisped around the edges to a nice golden brown.

“Uh.”

“Not everything is what it seems, and stuff will change out there, which will affect these things. They may be good and they may be evil. I have no control over that. I just grabbed a handful of them on my way down.” Chuzz can’t stop staring at the big wings that bulge up over the guy’s shoulders when he talks. A small pile of feathers is collecting underneath his angelic visitor, and that isn’t good. Chuzz sneezes just looking at them.

“I don’t really …” He wipes his running nose.

“Right.
As I was saying.
If you try hard enough, you may be able to warp one or two. Just think of what you want them to do and they may do it. It’s not some innate gift you have. It’s the toys. I mean, you are kind of a scumbag, but yours was the closest house to where I crashed.”

“Who are you calling a scumbag, you godless son of a whore?!” Chuzz blurts before he realizes that his lips are forming the shapes for words and his vocal cords are following suit.

“Nice one, buddy! I wish I could stay and hang you by your balls, but I need to run. Need to go find some help or something. Enjoy your last days, or day. Maybe hours. Hard to say at this stage of the Apocalypse.”
The man takes another PBR from the fridge and drinks this one more slowly, from the pop top. “You might be able to use some of that shit as weapons.
Hard to say.
Have fun saving the world. Later.”

“Uh. Why me?”

“Why not? Do you see anyone else around? Anyone? Besides, I like an underdog, and I don’t think I have ever seen a bigger one in my life.”

“Uh.”

“That’s a good shtick, man. Keep it up. Later, fucker.” The angel sweeps out his wings in an arc that smashes Mother’s clock to pieces. He looks up and raises one hand like he is Superman or some shit. Then he rises from the ground and rockets out of the house with a whoosh that tosses Chuzz on his ass.

“Uh … fuck.”

Chuzz covers his face to protect it from the falling debris, but some hits him anyway. Through the hole in the roof, he sees a missile streaking across the sky and the angel hauling ass to get away from it. Then another streak as one more missile joins the party and the angel disappears in a feathery explosion.

Dirty fallen feathers swirl around the kitchen. This is really going to play hell with his allergies.

Chuzz gets up and brushes himself off. Stares down at the mess and wants to cry. Mom is going to be so pissed! He pulls a curtain back from a side window and gasps because the world is on fire.

“Dammit! I had shit to do today!” He glances back and forth between the fire and his ridiculous hard-on. Now what?

Pestilence Rides a White Pony

Despite the meager shade provided by his gray cowl, the sun burns his eyes. They have grown accustomed to the dark. The desert sun is brutal even with the massive plumes of smoke darkening the sky. He smells thousands of rotting corpses broiling in the
sun and flash frying from hell
fires below. The stench doesn’t bother him as much as the ride. He rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and fucking forth. His horse moves forward, trudging through deep ruts of tank tread. If it could whistle, he bet it would. Smug motherfucker. But then again, it didn’t need a fix.

Withdrawal tugs at his guts, and the constant rocking motion of his steed forces vomit up his throat. The rider pulls at the reins wrapped around his long slender fingers. The steed rears back on its hind legs, and the rider curses and clutches at its neck. He swings off the horse, his gray cloak billowing, and lands on his knees in the sand.

The notorious Pestilence of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse gags and spits out a mouthful of ash and vomit as his horse walks a slow, steady circle around him. He has nothing left in his stomach, but still the need twists and tugs and he dry heaves in response.

“Keeeerist, let me die,”
 
he begs with drool and snot dangling from his slender face.

“Sir?”
 
a frightened voice asks from behind his kneeling form.

Pestilence wonders to himself how long he spent in that last opium den. If people are already calling him “sir,”
 
then War must be riding around on his hard-on raising an army of the dead and loosing the Dark Lord. War is a smug motherfucker too. War would be pissed that Pestilence is so far behind the plan.

As his chest heaves and burns, Pestilence doesn’t feel like hearing about it.
 
It occurs to him somewhere deep in his ancient subconscious that zombies don’t normally talk. And it’s common knowledge that most demons speak with foreign accents. He is supposed to be the first
Horseman to hit the scene but, damn
it,
there is great heroin in San Francisco. If War got impatient and did what Pestilence was supposed to do, then he might be out of a job. Screw it. The job has gone to shit anyway.

Every plan Satan has spent millennia planning has gone to shit.

The Antichrist is dead. Stabbed in the eye by an old lady. What a pussy.

The brilliant aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic Cockbugs Satan and Pestilence created together were too effective. And that was kind of his fault. Pestilence, on a six-decade runner of highballs, speedballs, heroin, meth, and sometimes straight dirty cotton, insisted that they should get people high. They got humans really high.
And really horny.
The orgy, always intended to be a slaughter, got wayyyyyy out of control. The fucking hole got plugged. Satan himself couldn’t
 
push through all the rotting corpses. The Dark Lord went insane with anger and exploded on Las Vegas, leaving demons from all 147 circles of Hell pushing at the corpse plug for a chance at the Earth.

No word on Jesus.

He hasn’t heard about God.

An angel hasn’t fucked with him for as long as he can remember.

If War doesn’t get here soon, Pestilence will crawl back to an alley in Reno and fill his veins with something. Anything.