by Tony Moyle
The clock on Dr. King’s wall clicked through the hour mark and acted as a prompt for his next appointment.
“Well, I do need to go, I’m afraid, otherwise I’ll be late for my next engagement.”
“Of course. I appreciate you seeing me in these circumstances. There was one question that I wanted to ask you of a personal nature if you don’t mind?” asked David.
“Well, if I can I will,” replied Dr. King.
“The person who recommended you said I needed to be patient as you had a rather pronounced stutter. Yet in all the time we have been speaking you’ve not stuttered once.”
“Well, your friend must have known me from a very long time ago. My stutter hasn’t affected me now for some twelve years.”
“How did you treat it?” asked David curiously.
“I didn’t seek treatment for it. It happened whilst I was performing an exorcism on a famous popstar. Strangely my exorcisms never worked that well, but on this day it was quite effective. Ever since then, I have lost any trace of my voice impediment. Now I really must insist you leave, or I won’t get to my funeral in time.”
“I thought you weren’t involved as much in the Church anymore?” replied David who had done more than enough homework on his roles and responsibilities.
“It’s for a family friend so I’m allowed by the college to lead more personal duties of God.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss. Who was it that passed away?”
“My good friend Herb Campbell sadly passed away last week. Took his own life, poor soul.”
“How is that possible?” asked David.
- CHAPTER TEN -
BUILT ON SAND
When the hooter sounded it ushered in a shift change at the front gate of Hell. It was impossible to say how long shifts lasted or indeed who was responsible for sounding the hooter. When time was effectively non-existent you could make it up as you went along. It was incorrect to say that there wasn’t any time because stuff happened all the time. Stuff needed time. Whether seconds, minutes or hours had passed was irrelevant. Just because barely a second of Earth time had passed since the last shift change had no bearing on the amount of work the demons had put in.
The outgoing Shift Manager set the Soul Catcher to pause and the five demons stretched out their bodies, each one built from a unique element of the periodic table. Off into the distance they trudged to do what demons do when they’re on a break. Not all of them had that luxury. The senior demons, like Brimstone, only really got time off for good behaviour when something brown and smelly hit a spinning object used for cooling people down. Fans weren’t popular in Hell. Shit was far more prevalent.
Brimstone stood at the entrance waiting for the next team to drag their sorry arses into work. They were never late. After all, none of them were French, the only race capable of being late in a place where time doesn’t exist. The new team assumed their positions at the various points amongst the complex machinery. Two stood at the conveyor belt waiting to direct the vessols to the correct levels. One sat at the controls overseeing the lists that illustrated in- and outpatients. The other two were responsible for loading vessols to the bulbous end of the contraption where a valve protruded from the base.
None of them relished their work. Where was the job satisfaction? Routine was the name of the game here. Demons didn’t need recognition and they had no great ambitions for a higher office. The mind of a demon didn’t have that capacity. But they did get physically tired. When your shift appeared infinite and your body ached from the dual challenges of manual labour and too few of you to pull the weight, there was no shortage of disappointment.
“Right, team!” shouted Brimstone as they all reached their normal positions. “Ready to go?”
The five demons crossed their arms and shot Brimstone messages of discontent. It was clear who they blamed for this monotony.
“Mr. Shiny, can you remind us of the team motto, please?”
Mr. Shiny, a lanky demon with skin that reflected the scenery onto himself, was one of the demons standing by the conveyor. He looked at the others for encouragement, hoping they might nudge his memory into action. Finally it came to him. “Where there’s a soul there’s a way.”
“Very good. Let’s remember that, shall we? There are plenty of souls ready to greet us and there are many ways we can punish them. Let’s begin.”
Brimstone signalled for the machine to be fired up, and with a pulse of energy it rattled into life. The vessols started to fill up and join the conveyors. Brimstone stood as he always did in the centre of the cavern purveying the activities. This was only one of two jobs he had to oversee today. The second had become increasingly frustrating. Even though they’d scanned every one of the levels from one to twelve they still had not located John’s remains.
Brimstone was starting to believe he wasn’t here at all. It was possible that he had been. But it was also possible that he’d come to some sticky end while exploring. After all, there were plenty of opportunities for accidents in a place like this. Until there was evidence of that, Asmodeus would not let it go. He wanted to make an example of him. Plus, John was just too important to be on the loose.
“WE’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE,” came a shout from the control seat.
Up in space a dark blue mass with the ferocity of a comet was directing its force towards the translucent barrier. It ripped a gully in the subservient atmosphere of electric blue energy that collected at the mouth of the Soul Catcher that poked through into another dimension. They knew what it was and they knew what it meant.
“Navy Blue Warning,” shouted Brimstone. “Get ready.”
The rogue soul hit the tip of the Soul Catcher with the force of an earthquake. The demons had acted quickly. After all, this was not an isolated event. Many shadow souls had come this way since John’s disappearance. The other souls inside the bulb had mostly been siphoned out and the ones out in space had been barred from entry. All except for this one, of course. This type of soul did whatever the fuck it wanted. You couldn’t close the door on a thug. The shadow soul expanded out against the inner walls of the Soul Catcher searching for any signs of weakness.
“Call Mr. Silica. Tell him we are in need of his services,” said Brimstone to Mr. Shiny.
It didn’t take long for him to arrive. He’d been put on standby and relieved of his normal duties due to his unique role in managing this ever-increasing plague of shadows. The process had taken its toll. Brimstone rarely looked down on his peers, but now he had to kneel to get to Silica’s eye level.
“Silica, how are you doing?” said Brimstone sympathetically as the stream of sand rebuilt itself into a dwarf-sized humanoid figure.
“I’m a little tired,” replied Silica. His voice had become higher and softer as if someone had recently and regularly been kicking him in an area that boys should never be kicked in.
“We have another one, I’m afraid. Can you spare us another vase?”
“There’s not much of me left.”
“What about that bit there?” offered Brimstone, pointing to a region somewhere around his midriff.
“That’s a kidney,” he squeaked.
“Well, you don’t need that, do you? Think about the good that it’ll do. I’m sure in a while you will think back with a sense of pride and satisfaction.”
“Easy for you to say. I don’t see you giving up any of your organs.”
“But mine are worthless. They’d be rejected by the host. But you. You’re a match every time.”
Mr. Silica had always been a decent size, back in the day. Not the biggest demon in Hell, but certainly noticeable in a crowd. Not any longer. So many shadows had broken into the Soul Catcher he was starting to lose count of the number of donations that he had made. It couldn’t go on forever. There would come a time when he was called to the front gate and a single grain of sand would jump about trying to get noticed.
“Ok, take the kidney,” he said reluctantly.
Ev
en though Brimstone was incapable of offering any donations himself, he was still an important part of the process. He was the surgeon to Silica’s patient. To make glass you needed sand and incredible heat, and Brimstone was full of it. Brimstone’s face was a constant stream of molten material. He scooped off a bead of lava and flicked it into Silica’s chest, instantly turning that region from a solid to a liquid. Brimstone removed it with care and started to blow it into a bubble.
“Mr. Shiny. Get Mr. Aqua down here, would you?” he said, as he manipulated the glass with an artistry not normally associated with a walking lump of rock. This was Brimstone in his element, making an object of beauty and precision, rather than running a machine whose only purpose was a portal of misery to what lay ahead. Just as Silica had done moments earlier, a stream of water flowed into the cavern. It rose up into a column, spinning furiously to stop it collapsing to the floor again.
“Thank you for getting here so quickly, Mr. Aqua. As usual, this will sting a bit,” said Brimstone, placing a molten glass vase and separate stopper into the water to cool it down.
Mr. Aqua made a fizzing noise not dissimilar to an electric bulb blowing.
“That should do it,” announced Brimstone.
Once it had cooled sufficiently he marched the vase to the end of the Soul Catcher where the shadow was still beating the panels, desperate to escape. When the vase was in place around the white tip of the exit valve, he waved up to the control panel. The Soul Catcher shuddered into action as the shadow burst out and into the glass receptacle. Brimstone secured the stopper and quickly placed the vase on the floor where it rattled and groaned.
“Mr. Shiny, if you’d be so kind as to take that up to level twelve and place it with the others. Back to the infirmary for you, Mr. Silica. Go get some rest. Who knows when we might need you again?”
“Brimstone,” replied Shiny, moving gingerly towards the vase, “I don’t think we got all the normal souls out before the shadow arrived.”
Inside the Soul Catcher a solitary blue cloud was limping its way around the circumference like an amateur marathon runner had just hit the proverbial wall. The demons knew the consequences that accompanied a normal soul being housed with a shadow. A shadow had no control over itself. It did whatever its emotions told it to. If its emotion said hunger, it ate. If its emotions said to fight, it fought. If its emotion said love, it shagged. Brimstone looked into the bulb and contemplated whether the poor thing had been eaten, beaten or buggered.
“There’s only one way to deal with this,” said Brimstone to the others. “Let’s see what we have in the storeroom.”
Any soul that wasn’t expected or balanced would not accept a normal vessol. Brimstone knew that all too well from his experience of dealing with reincarnates and a certain John Hewson. It wasn’t an exact science as to what would work, so they kept an array of alternatives in a storeroom just off the main cavern. There were all sorts in there. People, creatures and objects. It was all about trial and error. As Brimstone rummaged through the various options that were organised in alphabetical order on shelves that ran in a circle no more than three feet high, he noticed an anomaly.
On the rack listed as ‘S’ there was a sea lion, a squirrel, a Scouser, and a space. The space wasn’t supposed to be there. Brimstone knew only too well what should. A shrew.
“John’s on level zero,” shouted Brimstone at the top of his voice. “Call Primordial.”
*****
Hide-and-seek was a stupid game for people who lacked imagination. It had only been played for centuries because no one had the good sense to invent game consoles yet. The odds were always stacked in favour of the seeker. The hider never had sufficient time to make the decisions fast enough, causing them to panic and hide in the most obvious places like under the bed or in a wardrobe. The seeker would regularly cheat by either counting more quickly than agreed, opening their eyes a fraction or, in the most cunning of cases, walking, looking and counting at the same time. The hider never won because they were either found or gave up through boredom.
Whether Primordial was still counting remained to be seen, but two pigeons and a schizophrenic shrew were most certainly hiding. Had Primordial seen the two pigeons flying from the rock column? Did he know that they were carrying their difficult passenger? The assumption must be yes, which meant they had to move quickly if they were going to keep John secret. That meant they kept moving until they were certain of their strategy.
Their current hiding place was in the shade of a willow tree, the deciduous equivalent of lurking behind an armchair. Secrecy was not their primary reason for being there. It was in this location that any creatures wishing to join Sandy’s army would come, but when? There was no such thing as night and day in Hell, only now. This made it a bit difficult to make any concrete plans. All that had been asked of Malcolm was to gather candidates and direct them here. The time was now and some at least had come.
It was hard to say what might have motivated them to gather. Intrigue, boredom, insanity or a general desire to escape might be amongst them. Based on the strange selection of candidates currently loitering in the clearing, it was hard to identify anything other than ‘insanity’.
“Malcolm, I think I said, ‘Bring me the most cunning, wise, strong and nimble,’ that you could find,” said Sandy.
“That’s right,” replied Malcolm, “and I said you’d only get those that were one horseman short of an apocalypse.”
“Well, you didn’t disappoint on that front,” replied Sandy.
Scattered around the clearing were a collection of life’s cast-offs, waiting in sporadic formation for their chance to prove themselves worthy. In all there were five. A black cat sauntered about ignorant of any of the others. A sloth was showing off by attempting the world’s slowest press-ups. An ox was on its front knees in quiet prayer whilst a gibbon attempted vainly to tickle its nostrils with a long piece of bullrush. He scurried away every time the ox opened its eyes. Finally, although it was hard to make it out at first, a tarantula sat alone on the furthest side of the clearing shooting webs from its spinnerets.
“It’s a start. Ok, everyone, listen up,” said Sandy.
A few of them paid attention to the announcement. The cat pointedly looked in the other direction.
“As you might be aware I am planning to break out of this place and I need some help. There is an artefact on level twelve that must be recovered and returned to Earth. Our mission will be difficult and it’s possible some of you won’t make it. If my theories are correct and we achieve our goal, we may also have the opportunity to suppress the demons.”
“I’m not sure they’re all listening,” added Ian unhelpfully.
“I’ll call you forward one at a time for an interview. Sloth, you can go last, but feel free to start moving now and you might get here when we need you. Ox, you can go first.”
The ox made the sign of the cross with one of its hooves before approaching the willow tree. Sandy hopped onto a broken branch to elevate his importance.
“Welcome. What’s your name?” asked Sandy.
“Abraham, but you can call me Abe,” replied the Ox, bowing his head slightly in reverence.
“And why did you decide to come?”
“Because I have never lost faith. My heart is full of love for our Lord. In his warm embrace, with his guidance and love, we will overcome all hardships and spread his message to others,” said Abe, dropping to his knees once again.
“You are aware that you’re in Hell, aren’t you?”
“Of course. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It sort of does. It means God wasn’t keen.”
“I think it must have been an admin error,” said Abe. “Happens all the time.”
“I thought God was supposed to be all-seeing. Surely he doesn’t make admin errors.”
“He’s just testing my resolve.”
“In that case you’re doing remarkably well. I still think you might need to adjust yo
ur belief systems a little,” said Sandy calmly, eager not to offend him.
“Never. Faith can move mountains, Matthew 17:20.”
“Well, let’s hope so, it might come in useful. Part of these interviews is to establish your skill sets and usefulness to the team. What did you do when you were a human?”
“I praised the Lord and basked in…”
“As a job,” said Sandy interrupting before a new biblical verse could be recited.
“Evangelical window cleaner.”
“Do you mean you were really just a window cleaner but tried to convert anyone you met?”
“Well, the evangelical bit was important in the scheme of things,” replied Abe.
“Are you trying to say that people looked out of their windows and thought, ‘These are a bit dirty, we ought to get a window cleaner in? But let’s not just get one of the many competent window cleaners who work this area. What we really need is a part window cleaner, part restorer of faith’?”
“All part of the service.”
“No, you go to a church for that kind of service. Do you have any special talents that might help us on this mission?”
“Encouragement, an unwavering belief in the Almighty, I’m very popular with the Chinese, and I’m excellent at ploughing.”
“All essential in the circumstances,” scoffed Sandy. “And what would you do if you faced a demon, other than praying?”
“Oh, I suppose I’d kick it in the head on the instructions of God!”
“That’s good enough for me, you’re in. Next.”
The remaining animals waited patiently for their breed to be called. Abe returned to the clearing and lay down in the grass quietly meditating.
“Cat, your turn!” shouted Sandy from under the willow’s branches as Ian continued to work in the background on John’s therapy with indifferent results. The cat didn’t move. He’d come when he was ready. It might be now, or later, or never. When the mood took him, really. The gibbon attempted to jump the queue in the cat’s absence, which seemed motivation enough for the cat to move.
