Damned Fiction

by David Kempf

  Mother’s meat….

  All evidence eaten… almost gone.

  The younger one handcuffed me. The older, fat one stood by his side. I was confused. Then he took an evidence bag and put something inside of it. My wife’s finger. How I could have been stupid enough to leave the wedding ring on it is beyond me. I thought I cleaned out the freezer. But no. I remembered it wrong. I thought Damien ate all of her. No such luck. Social services took my baby. That’s how I ended up where I did, resting here in the cell.

  I’m sane though.

  They can’t keep me here forever. Truth be told, I like it here but I suspect it was the devil’s plan to punish me for the good we did as father and son.

  “Yes, doctor, that’s good, we will talk.”

  I wanted to stay in my straitjacket for just a little while longer. I was snug as a bug in a rug. Simple as that, I think.

  ***

  “So, you’re ready to talk?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Good,” the doctor said.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “I would like to know everything, please wipe that smile off your face. You were not as conspicuous as you thought you were.”

  “My son?” I asked fearfully.

  “Damien is in foster care now, so he is safe. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Now what can you tell me about your wife?”

  I thought for a moment. Why should he be asking all the questions? My son was with some strangers. They might be evildoers like his mother was. They might worship the Devil for all I knew. I hated his condescending attitude and his wretched tone of voice.

  “Dr. Glover, I’ve been here for over a month. Has Damien been baptized like I requested?”

  “I don’t honestly know. I’ll try to find out.”

  Yes. You do that, condescending one. It’s all in the mind, no such thing as right and wrong. It’s all about self-esteem and mutual understanding.

  “Dr. Glover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you baptized?”

  “Sorry, that’s not any of your businesses. It’s irrelevant to your treatment.”

  I stared at him and I think I snarled at him.

  “I suppose there is no reason for me to be rude. No, I wasn’t baptized.”

  “I see. You can’t relate to how much I miss him.”

  “Wait,” Dr. Glover said softly. “I can’t tell you too many personal things but I do have children. When my youngest was your son’s age, he did many amusing things that touched my heart.”

  “Like what?” I asked him.

  “Well, like throwing dishes when he was only a toddler and also his strange ways of communicating with me.”

  “Like what?” I asked again.

  “Well,” he continued slowly. He looked like he had made a terrible mistake. Now the nut in the nuthouse knew that he had children. I also knew that at least one was a boy. “When his communicating skills were very limited, he would blink his eyes at me all the time.”

  “Is that so, Dr. Glover?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Now I knew what I was dealing with.

  From God’s lips to my ears, I thought. This man’s child was trying to tell me something.

  Fiend! I knew what he was now. It took a long time to finally find another evildoer like my wife. Now I knew why I ended up here in the nuthouse. I knew what he was and what I had to do next. I also knew he was very anxious to take my straitjacket off. When I was done with the good doctor, I would have to escape and find my son. Damien may yet still have the stain of original sin on his soul.

  I didn’t ever want to tell anybody anything but I must get my son Damien baptized!

  3

  The Devil did come to Donnis University on a bright but cool late September morning. Dr. Henry David Wells had frequent office hours (he was very popular with his students) and a huge ego. The Devil wasn’t sure how he would come to Wells, but at last Satan chose his form. He made himself look young, blonde and in good shape. The type of young man Dr. Wells would love to be around. He would, after all, attract young ladies and that was something Wells was always in favor of. The old man could bag the young man’s pretty rejects.

  He walked down the stairs and waited a moment. Then he saw the office door but there was conversation going on. Satan could overhear Wells talking to a young lady.

  “Do you really enjoy my short stories?” asked the lovely thing. Satan grinned. He’d never actually heard someone simper before.

  “Yes,” Wells answered.

  Peeking in, Satan saw that Wells had aged quite a bit since his good old days of being on the NY times bestseller list. He was not as old as he looked, prior to Christopher cheating the Jinn; Wells had fought in the Revolutionary War.

  The beautiful girl was about twenty-one so Wells could get her drunk first, probably. Her stunning black hair was something to behold as were her deep brown seductive eyes. It wasn’t her eyes Wells was looking at however.

  “If you need someone to really help you…”

  “A private mentor you mean?” the girl asked.

  “Precisely. I know what you need and I intend to give it to you.”

  Wells heard the rough cough of someone outside his office door. The sound of the cough reminded him of the old men on the board of directors. He suspected that even with tenure, his appalling behavior would be the death of him someday. Time to end this meeting.

  “Well, e mail me and we’ll talk,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  The young woman opened the door and walked out. She smiled at the handsome young student waiting impatiently for Wells.

  “Do I need to invite you in first or can you just walk in by yourself all alone?” Wells asked.

  "I’m not a vampire from one of your books Mr. Wells."

  Wells frowned.

  “Please forgive me, Doctor. Wells…”

  “That’s better…”

  “Like I said, I’m not a vampire or a ghoul…”

  “What did you say?” Wells asked.

  “You know, a ghoul, a servant of the Jinn.”

  Henry David Wells looked stunned.

  “Get in here now!” he demanded.

  “Thank you….”

  “Now please sit down,” Wells said.

  The handsome young noted with amusement that the famous author and professor did not wish to look him in the eye.

  “What can I do for you, son?”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “I see,” said Wells. He looked the young man in the eye albeit very briefly. It was merely a glance to show his courage.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked the young man.

  “I know you’re not a vampire or a ghoul. I think you’re something far worse…”

  “You’ve dealt with powerful beings before, have you not?”

  “You mean the Jinn?”

  “Yes, of course. But you are not one of those.”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Who are you? Jesus Christ, is that who you think you are? Who do you say I am?”

  “You know I’m not here to save you.”

  “Neither were they,” Wells said contemptuously.

  “What was there purpose?”

  “They wanted to damn me just like you.”

  The man said nothing. He smiled right at Wells.

  “Right?”

  “No, nothing is ever done exactly the same way twice….”

  “What do you want from me, Dark Lord?” Wells asked.

  Satan was astonished that Wells knew right away who he was dealing with.

  “A book.”

  He paused and looked above Satan’s head; he could not look him in the eye.

  “What else would I want from you?” asked the young man.

  “You want the same damned thing from me they did, don’t you?”

  “Yes, essentially that is tr
ue. I mean do you think I came because of your charm or to observe your pitiful come-ons to young stupid girls who think they can write?”

  Wells knew a secret, most young aspiring authors whether male or female, could not write very well. There was however, one young lady who was a serious threat to him but—he would not bring this up. Instead, he said:

  “So now the Devil himself wants me to write a book?”

  “Yes.”

  Wells laughed and looked all around his office. Homer, Shakespeare,

  Dickens, all the great books from great writers of the past were on his shelf. But none of them ever had this, the ultimate honor in the history of dark fiction.

  “Do you know why?” Satan asked him.

  “So… you can read my stories to understand how humanity works?”

  “Ha!”

  “What then?” Wells asked.

  “So that humanity can come to understand me.”

  “What about the Bible?”

  “Don’t mock me!”

  “Just a thought,” said Wells.

  “One you should have kept toy yourself, David.”

  "You know my real name?"

  “Yes, I know all about you and how old you really are. The real question is why do you know Christopher’s wish was real but he does not?”

  “Christopher was a recent convert to the service of the masters….”

  “The Jinn are now your former masters…”

  “Yes, there was still too much good in him left inside him, even though he had many narcissistic inclinations, to really become a full-fledged ghoul in the service of man’s destruction.”

  “I see.”

  Wells made a dismissive gesture. “What do you want me to write?”

  “I think some short stories would be nice at first. If I like them, I will allow you the greatest honor of all.”

  “Which is?” David asked.

  “To tell my story from my point of view.”

  "The Bible doesn’t work for you?"

  “You test my patience, little worm. Contrary to churchgoers who attend services on Christmas and Easter, there is not all that much written about me in scripture.”

  “Milton and Dante then?” Wells asked.

  “They did a better job, certainly.”

  “Well, what the hell was wrong with ask one of them? Why wait until now, and ask me?”

  “They were devout men of integrity, while you are a scumbag and what did you call Christopher Wisdom?”

  “A narcissist?” David hazarded.

  “Yes, you’re one the biggest of all time, I should know,” Satan said.

  “I suppose that’s true. You of all creatures should know.”

  Satan crossed his legs. “I liked your story about the crazy man and the unbaptized baby, by the way, he said.

  “Original Sin, you mean?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “We should talk about that sometime.”

  "It’s nonsense, you know. People choose to be evil because it’s just too much fun. I mean the power is there all along to choose goodness over evil."

  "What about free will?" Dr. Wells asked.

  Satan scoffed. "Like putting a loaded gun in a room with a five-year-old and locking the door. The worst mistake He ever made…”

  “He? You mean God?”

  “He’s not my God…”

  Wells took a breath. Tell me this, then. Is free will real?”

  “Yes,” the Devil answered reluctantly.

  “The Jinn will try to oppose you.”

  “No, they won’t—they can’t, they are no more.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Gone,” Satan answered Wells.

  “They were like mindless slaves themselves, did they have masters themselves?” Dr. Wells asked the Devil.

  “No, they only had one central source, one master.”

  “Who was that?”

  “We have no time for this now,” Satan said. I need you to start typing out some stories for me. I want new ones and damned soon.”

  “I knew this day would come, it’s like something from a dream.”

  “Don’t you mean something from a nightmare, Dr. Wells?”

  “My life has been a nightmare for a very long time.”

  “Sure has,” said the devil.

  “I assume just for hanging out with you alone, I am already damned….”

  “You were damned from the moment you invited the Jinn to be your masters…”

  “Do I get immortality on earth out of this?”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” said the young man. He turned to Wells and smiled. The young person who had once gone by the name David Proctor was gone. Now there was only an old man who sold his soul to the Lord of the Fire. Dr. Wells had already essentially signed his own name in blood to Satan in a contract for his soul. He had done this but he still refused to look into Satan’s eyes as he watched him leave his office.

  4

  Hostile Work Environment

  By Henry David Wells

  Wilbur Roberts had that familiar look of dread on his face. He had it. Mrs. Roberts had no doubt about that and she rolled her eyes at him.

  “Wilbur, you’re worried about getting raped at work again, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Wilbur answered in a whisper.

  “I thought as much. Well, we need the money, you’re just going to have to go.”

  He knew that she was right. These damned things…

  Morphs…

  When al-Qaeda dropped the chemical bomb, it changed people from human to hermaphrodite creatures from hell.

  Bisexamorphs, Transmorphs, Unisexamorphs…

  The actual name for them quickly forgotten.

  Now they were known simply as Morphs.

  He knew his boss and, of course, he knew the CEO of his work place. The others, male and female were damn near impossible to tell them apart. Once these things took over and humans became a minority, it became unthinkable to look for another job to try and work for other homosapiens.

  “It’s cold dear, dress warmly,” said Elizabeth Roberts.

  “I will,” Wilbur replied.

  He was a good looking man, fit and thin in his late twenties, ripe for the picking of these foul things. They were, unfortunately always sexually aroused. The terrorists responsible for these monsters had designed in a way that would cause the most harm possible. They looked like rotting corpses, zombies if you will. They had, below the waist a vagina and a penis. If the two organs were just a bit closer, the Morphs would surely fuck themselves.

  Wilbur Roberts knew this to be true.

  The realization the previous night, Sunday that the weekend was coming to an end was almost more than Wilbur could bear. His heart beat fast and he had panic attacks. Eating Monday morning breakfast was always a wasted effort. Wilbur could put his time to better use but he never did.

  “You better go, dear, you don’t want to be late.”

  There was an awkward pause. Wilbur held back anger.

  “Right?”

  “Yes,” he answered his selfish wife.

  Oh God, there were many times when he really hated her. It wasn’t as if she wanted him to be harassed by monsters but to keep her in the lifestyle she was accustomed to….

  There were even times when Elizabeth, who had not worked for years, tried to reassure him that he was oversensitive and things weren’t so bad.

  He hated her more than the Morphs then. At least they couldn’t help it; they were the victim of a terrorist attack or rather designed by wicked minds to do harm.

  The man who dreaded work walked slowly towards the subway. The ride wasn’t long, perhaps half an hour at most.

  He had a lot to think about on the way.

  The stench: That God awful smell.

  These things smelled worse than they looked and that was no easy task. Once your eyes were cursed to look at the sheer horror of these things, they would haunt your memory forever.
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  Then that stupid word popped into Wilbur’s head. Morphophobic. Yes, we wouldn’t want to be a morphophobe, would we?

  The worst thing of all was that these damned things had a vanity about them. They actually thought they were sexually arousing and those who wanted to avoid them were repressing some deep and significant part of themselves.

  Foul things….

  It wouldn’t be long until the subway reached its destination and Wilbur would have to hop on foot to the place he dreaded the most: The work place.

  “Hey mister, could you spare two dollars?” asked a homeless man. He had snuck right up behind Wilbur.

  “Yeah, buddy, sure,” Wilbur answered.

  “It’s a curse to be human now, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes, I suppose so…”

  Wilbur gave the man a twenty. His eyes lit up and his expression, albeit brief gave him the look of a man whose troubles had all magically vanished.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure.”

  The ticket man walked down the middle aisle of the train and gave the homeless man a look of sheer disapproval.

  “Was that man bothering you?” the ticket man seemed to come from nowhere and startled me.

  “No, sir, I’m fine.”

  “Good.”

  Wilbur had a window seat. He looked through the glass and watched a terrible world pass him by. The poor and unemployed humans all dwelled in the same awful sections of the city.

  He pitied them.

  He did not want to be one of them.

  Wilbur did not wish to be a bloody Morph either. The President of the United States was human. Most of the Senate and half of the Supreme Court were still human beings, people of flesh and blood.

  Why did they not overthrow these creatures?

  Then he remembered why.

  Wilbur Roberts walked slowly towards his building in the center of town. The doorman Michael greeted him. He liked Michael because he was human.

  “I guess they keep you out here for good appearances,” Wilbur said.

  “Mr. Roberts,” Michael whispered. “Please try and keep it down, you know I need this job. You’ve got a wife. I have a wife and a son to provide for.”

  “Sorry, Michael,” Wilbur said.

  “That’s okay,” Michael answered.

  “Have a good day.”

  “You, too, Mr. Roberts.”

  “I’ll try.”