The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole! (1) (38 page)

Big tears roll down Don O’Coddle’s cheeks as he tells the general, “I like your hair, big brother.”

“Oh good. Then you won’t mind if I take yours.”
 
General O’Coddle smiles before ripping his little brother’s scalp back with one firm yank. He drops the screaming Don to the floor and admires the bright red scalp in his hand. Then he kicks his little brother in the ribs and stuffs the hair into his shirt pocket, which quickly grows sodden with dark blood. Father O’Coddle tries to crawl away from his brother, but both his hands and the floor are slick with his blood. Mac grabs Don by his priestly collar and picks him up.

“She left me too, Mac,”
 
Don whispers as his brother leans close, “for a navy guy.”

General O’Coddle growls as he sinks his teeth into his brother’s neck. He shakes his head and pulls away chunks of tendon and muscle. Instantly the meth in Don’s blood hits General O’Coddle’s dead system. His heart twitches back to a slow life, and his dead eyes dilate. His big meaty hands shake, and his big square jaw pops back and forth.

Pestilence fluffs his cloak as he walks through the door. He steps over the dead priest behind the counter. He picks up a thirteen-inch pink dildo
and tosses it over his shoulder. Even as Pestilence digs through his cocoon of sex toys, glass and particleboard, Jerome remains in the fetal position with his eyes closed. Pestilence leans down to talk to him, but Jerome whines and tries to duck under the remnants of the counter. Pestilence shakes his head and gestures at the counter. General O’Coddle grabs what’s let of it and rips it away with no effort. He tosses it behind him, where it shatters and knocks the few remaining DVDs to the floor.

“Where is your tweek?”
 
an enraged Pestilence yells.

“We smoked it all,”
 
Jerome whimpers from his fetal position.

“Bullfuck,”
 
Pestilence tells him. He nods to General O’Coddle. The general reaches one large shaky hand down and grabs Jerome’s ear. The fat man uncurls and scrambles to his feet. General O’Coddle’s dead hands twitch, and he accidentally tears Jerome’s ear off. The man bellows, and General O’Coddle holds up the ear, regards it curiously, then eats it whole. Jerome screams and wets his pants, and Pestilence asks again, “Where is your tweek?”

With one hand cupped to the side of his head, Jerome sobs, “In Father O’Coddle’s hollow leg.”

Something dawns in General O’Coddle’s brain, but the meth pounds more thoughts over it. He mumbles, “Don only had one leg”
 
as he pops the prosthetic off his brother’s corpse. Rather than searching for some opening mechanism, he crushes the hard plastic limb to shards and tosses Pestilence the Ziplock bag half full of crystal meth. “Mai Ting only had one leg.”
 
More thoughts chase that one away too.

Pestilence tucks the baggie away in his robes and nods at Jerome. O’Coddle answers the nod by grabbing Jerome and throwing him onto his knees in front of Pestilence.

“Where is the rest?”
 
Pestilence demands. “I smell more.”
 
He sniffs and walks toward Leon’s closet and the peepshow hallway. “Strange chemicals. WHERE?”

“No more,”
 
Jerome sobs.

General O’Coddle wraps his dead hand around Jerome’s live one and squeezes. Jerome squeals in pain as O’Coddle crushes his hand to mush. He screams again when the general lets go of the mass of sinew and bone where his hand used to be.

“In the fucking closest! In the fucking mop bucket!” Jerome screams, while goggling at the bloody stump where his beat-off hand used to be.

Pestilence runs to the janitor closest and wrenches the door open so hard the hinges snap. He tosses the door down the hallway behind him with a clatter. He spots the oily mixture in the filthy yellow mop bucket, and he grabs it with both hands and raises it to his gaping jaw. Pestilence guzzles the homemade LSD and lets it run down his chin and chest. He leans forward for a breath, and long strands of his greasy hair fall in into
the half-empty bucket. His eyes dart back and forth,
then
roll madly in their sockets. He raises the bucket to his face and chugs it in the same sloppy fashion. When he is finished, he stands up, drops the empty mop bucket, and laughs out loud when it grows dozens of spindly legs and crawls out of sight down the dark hallway.

He walks slowly back to the main store, each step sending shivers up his spine and twitches to his fingers and toes. He raises his arms as he stands before a kneeling Jerome. Pestilence feels great razor-sharp wings grow from his back and reach for the sky. He feels titties bulge and flop from the flesh on his sides and belly. He feels realizes bells have grown from his wings when he hears them ring. He opens his eyes, and colors roll and dance around each other.

Pestilence feels flowers sprouting from his palms, so he turns them up and vines wrap his arms and the tits on his sides and belly. He looks at down at the spot where Jerome used to be, but a wounded hippo has taken the whimpering man’s place. Pestilence drops his hands to his sides and feels his wings, tits and vines turn to large drops of fluid and run down his body, each tickling and pleasing him. As the drops hit his dick, he explodes all over the inside of his robe.

Pestilence falls to his knees, his eyes wide and wild, and tells Jerome, “I want more.”

“Leon took the last,”
 
Jerome whines. “But he is fried as fuck and headed to Vegas.”

“Vegas,”
 
Pestilence repeats as his mind dances through a postapocalyptic disco.

“Make me more,”
 
Pestilence grins at Jerome with his graveyard smile.

Jerome holds up his stump and cries, “I can’t!”

Pestilence huffs and waves his hand. General O’Coddle grabs Jerome by the back of his neck and throws him through the back door and into the arms of the waiting zombie horde. The camo-clad creatures rip and tear at Jerome, opening his belly and carrying off his organs.

“Well, O’Fondle,”
 
Pestilence mumbles while turning to the front door, “WE are heading to Vegas. I want a taste of some fried Leon.”

He looks back to the general. O’Coddle’s dead eyes twitch and roll in their sockets, but he doesn’t feel the flames that engulf his head.

Pestilence blinks, and the flames are gone. “This is KILLER shit, O’Fondle.”

Pestilence mounts his steed and kicks it in the ribs. The general follows right behind, and the zombies stumble from around the building, most carrying pieces of Jerome for the road.

None of them notices the shit-filled pickup rocking back and forth in the parking lot. Wet moans sound from within the mountain of feces, and a
long thick log of shit reaches up and out. It twists and twirls in the air. Splits and spreads until there are four wiggling fingers. A second shit arm shoots up and twists into a giant shit pincher. The two shit arms grip the hood of the pickup, and the shit demon roars as it forms from its own defecation with only thoughts of revenge. And shit.

Jesus and Death get
Lit
and Take a Road Trip

They try a couple of cars, but none seems appropriate for one of the four Horsemen and Jesus. Death is quite aware of the irony, of course, one of the Horsemen without a horse. It’s sort of like War without that big old sword of his. Always gallivanting around, stirring up the masses. When he can’t get a decent war going, he calls in Famine, that fat bitch. Those two were thick as thieves even in the early days.

“What’s the plan?” Death examines a little Volkswagen Beetle, but it is too small for his scythe.

“We’re going to go have a little chat with that son of a bitch out in the desert.”

“You serious?”

“Yep. Then I’m going to punch him right in the eye.”

“Uh, boss, I don’t mean to question you, but you know he is as big as a skyscraper, and they say you can’t even see his entire body yet. He is still coming out of the ground.”

“Yeah. I saw that firsthand.”

The ground is littered with debris. A bouncing box with a gaping hole in one side hops by. It looks like a newspaper dispenser, but it says The Daily Cunt on the side. Snapping teeth line the opening that used to dispense papers.

Death just stares.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

A green demon the size of a gorilla hurries after the thing. He is covered in snakelike hair that shakes and spits as he runs. He catches up with the box, grabs it, lifts it into the air and then slams a pair of giant cocks into the metal monstrosity. It jumps and bucks, but he screws it like it owes him money, humps it right across the road until he disappears around the rubble of a fallen hotel.

“Me.”

“You can say that again.”

They finally find something large and stately.
A 1969 blazing red Plymouth Road Runner convertible.
The front is higher than the back, and it boasts gigantic gleaming silver rims. The roof is off, torn off to be exact, and it is the perfect size for Death’s scythe.

“Really?” Jesus asks, his dark eyebrow arching up

“Fuck yeah!” Death replies.

Death hops in the driver’s seat, and Jesus sits next to him. The keys are on the floor, so he fires up the engine. He has never driven a car, but he drove a giant chariot a few thousand years ago, so this thing should be no trouble.

He rides over a curb, chases a pair of tiny demons from behind a condom machine lying in the street and then runs into a Kia, which pretty much destroys the piece of crap.

“Fuck!”

“Practice.”

He drives like an old woman for a while, just until he gets the hang of it. Then he plows into a man being chased by a gnarly demon dressed in drag. The man is screaming while covering his ass. The demon is screaming while brandishing a male sex doll.

The guy crumples across the hood of the car and flops onto the ground. His head hits like a melon and opens up with a splat.

“Shit!” Death yells and looks over the hood.

“It happens.” New Jesus sighs.

They raid a 7-11 and come out with Big Gulps filled with Slurpee mix that is mostly melted. Even so, Death gets a wicked case of brain freeze almost immediately. The flavor is Electric Blue, but it tasted tastes more like electric fuck you. His head hurts so much he almost asks the man himself to touch him and take away the pain.

Jesus gnaws at a piece of beef jerky while appearing to be deep in thought. He chases the jerky with a shot of Cheez Whiz straight from the can. Death saw him grab a few six packs as well, but he didn’t see what they were. Probably beer. Who could blame him?

“You get some good brew?” Death asks. The wind is whipping at his hoodie, but every time the hood falls, he tugs it back into place. Old habits die hard, and covering up all the mass murder is one of them.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Really? I thought we might open a cold one while we cruise.”

“It’s not cold, but you are welcome to try some.” He retrieves a slim blue can from the brown paper bag and hands it over.

Death pops the top and takes a sip. It is sweet and tastes of chemicals. He grins and drains the can in one long swallow like he is shotgunning a beer. He suddenly feels happy, filled with energy. He hasn’t felt this way
in a long while.

“Red Bull?” He reads the side of the can aloud.

“Tastes wonderful with vodka.” Jesus grins, his bruised eye giving a twitch.

Death smiles and guns the engine. The car leaps ahead with a roar. He reaches for another drink and pops it open. He slurps this one more slowly, savoring the chemicals as they fizz down his throat.

A whole herd of dancing news boxes runs alongside them. They twist and turn, clank and crash across the road. Some range ahead of the car while others stay with them. The boxes come in various sizes and colors, but all feature the same logo. ‘The Daily Cunt.’

“Must be a hundred of the things,” Death whispers to himself.

Death pulls up to the next store he sees, and Jesus dashes out of the car. He runs inside with his hands over his head screaming about the end of the world. No one runs out. He walks out a moment later with a box of bottles and sets it in the back seat.