The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  “Why isn’t it very hot?” Demanded a very angelic looking angel.

  “That’s your global cooling, isn’t it?” Baal said. “You know, because of the environment getting polluted and what have you.”

  Hell certainly wasn’t as hot as it had been in its heyday. He strongly suspected that it was something to do with that lot upstairs siphoning off the hellfire and brimstone to heat their hot tubs. Angels liked a hot tub party as much as the next person and indeed, the odd shamefaced angel was sentenced by God to a week or two down here as a direct result of their hot tub antics. Obviously God knew what went on at hot tub parties as He could see everything all the time. What a job – policing angels in hot tubs and zooming in for a closer look if anything untoward was occurring. Nice work if you could get it.

  He tore his mind away from hot tubs and back to the task at hand. “Right then, this is where we check their paperwork and put them into the appropriate room for all eternity,” he said. “Now, who can tell me what the main categories for evil doing are?”

  “Lust, fraud, violence...” began an angel.

  “Oh no,” said Baal. “That’s the Imperial categories. We stopped using them because they were out of date.”

  There had been particular problems with heresy because no-one had really been sure what it meant. Treason had been on the slow side since the days of Guy Fawkes, whereas the rooms set aside for those who had committed lust, fraud and violence had been standing room only.

  “We’ve got modern ones now,” he continued. “There’s using your mobile phone on the train, being a BMW driver...”

  “You can go to Hell for being a BMW driver?” Interrupted a very earnest looking angel, who was taking notes.

  “Oh yes,” said Baal. “They get a point every time they cut someone up, change lanes without indicating or jump the lights. A thousand points and they’re in. Only one person who owned a BMW has ever made it into Heaven, and that was a man who got hit by a lorry when pulling out of the dealership in his new car. Even he had clocked up forty five points just on the test drive.”

  “Now, where was I? Being a BMW driver, leaving the toilet seat up – the feminists made us put that one in – hogging the remote control, wearing white socks with black shoes, having ever towed a caravan, being an American and being a bit of an oik.”

  The angel’s pencil hesitated over the last category.

  “That’s for any BMW drivers who haven’t quite hit their thousand when they crash and burn,” he supplied. “We missed that one guy, and we’re not going to miss any more.”

  Another angel raised a tentative hand. “What about Limbo?”

  Limbo was where the sorting office used to put all the people that they weren’t really sure about. A lot of people had ended up there either first thing on a Monday or last thing on a Friday, when the sorters weren’t feeling motivated. And virtually everyone was dumped in Limbo over the Christmas period or on the approach to a Bank Holiday because it was far easier to do that than to trawl through all the paperwork properly.

  “Limbo isn’t allowed anymore,” said Baal. Trading Standards had paid a visit and announced that the title was misleading unless Limbo did actually contain limbo dancers. Lucifer had duly employed some as he wasn’t all that averse to the idea of conducting some very thorough interviews with a stream of exotic dancers. But then the Audit Committee got involved and said that people were supposed to go to Limbo to be punished. They asked how they were being punished if they could sit on their behinds eating kebabs, drinking coconut milk and watching girls in grass skirts duck under the bar. So then Limbo got shut down and everyone in it got shared out between the other categories.

  “Where are all the red hot pokers?” Asked a boy angel, watching a group of the Damned being herded along with pitchfork handles.

  “Not allowed,” Baal told him. “Health and Safety. We’re only allowed luke warm pokers nowadays.” He moved the group onwards, to a door with a BMW badge on it. “This is where all the BMW drivers go. They are condemned to spend all eternity driving round and round a duplicate of the M25 in rush hour, when the only other drivers are also in BMWs or towing caravans.” He opened the door a fraction and a burst of noise escaped – car horns blended with swearing, with a strong smell of exhaust fumes. He hastily shut it again and they moved onwards.

  The door next to it bore a picture of a mobile phone. When Baal opened it, a hundred thousand voices could be heard, all talking at once, all braying at maximum volume. There were irritating ringtones, there were children shrieking, there was a barely audible announcement that the train was going to be delayed even further. Baal slammed the door shut – even a couple of seconds of that place were enough for him. The demons who kept order in there were the ones who’d spent their school years smoking behind the bike sheds, and indeed it was the threat of ending up in mobile phone land that had spurred Baal himself onwards to revise for his exams.

  “So they have to stay in there forever?” Asked the note-taking angel.

  “Only until the final trumpet sounds,” he said. Everyone knew that this was the case, and when Hell had hosted a series of jazz concerts, the conclusion of the evening’s final number had provoked rather a mad scramble for the exits, the residents hoping that any final trumpet would secure their release. Baal was a bit hazy on who exactly would be playing the final trumpet and when it would be played. It was unlikely to be God because jazz music gave Him a headache, and Baal knew for a fact that Jesus played the bass guitar.

  When Baal had been young and keen, he’d meant to look it up in the Bible. Rumour had it that the Bible burned the eyes of the Unfaithful, but that wasn’t true. It was just so incredibly boring that you always gave up wading through all the theeing and thouing and begetting before you found out what you wanted to know. Baal much preferred Hell’s Unholy Book, the Elbib. There were several very thoroughly illustrated sections devoted to fornication, which had often served to brighten up a long and tiring day.

  “So no-one ends up in the fiery pit anymore?” An angel asked. That was what everyone was interested in and wanted to see – Hell’s fiery pit. Although these days, it was less of a fiery pit and more of a gently glowing ember. It was hot enough to roast a potato or fry an egg, and still put in sterling service for the weekly Friday barbecue, but nowhere near hot enough to be truly impressive. Still, with everything cooled down a bit, at least your break-time newspaper didn’t spontaneously combust while you were trying to do the crossword.

  Baal sighed. He had really wanted to pop in on the punishment room devoted to those who had insisted on leaving the toilet seat up. The penalty for that crime was particularly eye watering but the room was policed by feminist demons who were having a phase of Embracing Their Womanhood by wearing sinfully short skirts with thigh length boots which laced all the way up. Baal even dared to hope that they might have burned their bras, and paid frequent visits to try to prove his hypothesis one way or the other. He hoped that this phase lasted a long time, having endured the previous feminist phase that had involved wearing dungarees and heavy shoes.

  “Okay then, we’ll go and look at the fiery pit,” he said, and led the way.

  “Do you like it down here?” An angel enquired. Just his luck to get some angels who were hot on all this touchy–feely, get to know you as a person psychology nonsense.

  “I’ve got no complaints,” said Baal. “We get to be bad all the time, which is something, I mean, if you spend your whole life being good, where does it get you? Heaven, where you have to learn to play the harp, join the gardening club and hang around with the sort of people who think that ‘blast’ is a swear word and who will report you to God if you swear, forget to put your recycling out or don’t sing hymns loudly enough.’

  Surprisingly, there were murmurs of assent.

  “Are you allowed to smoke grass down here?” A boy angel asked, blushing furiously.

  “Of course you are,” said Baal. “In fact, it’s virtually obligatory.
You have to be cultivating at least three bad habits.”

  The angels digested this as they walked. “Are you allowed to do your gap year here?” One asked.

  “Yes,” said Baal. “But God won’t like it.”

  Baal, however, did like angels on gap years because they were so keen and helpful that they’d do anything, even the really horrible jobs like sorting the recycling bins into heads, limbs, brains, livers, kidneys, intestines and Parts of Unknown Origin. It was a messy business, but somebody had to do it as the Council would no longer collect unsorted waste.

  God, on the other hand, wasn’t so keen on angels having gap years in Hell because they tended not to come back once they’d had a taste of freedom. Baal couldn’t blame them – who’d want to spend their lives wearing robes and making communion wafers when they could be wearing a pvc miniskirt and torturing the damned? Even if they did return to Heaven, the angels were never quite the same again and they often ended up getting sent back down for offences such as growing weed in the gardening club and using the F word in church.

  “And can you...”

  Baal had had enough of the questions. If they got finished quickly enough, he could drop this lot off at the Careers Centre before tea break, and have time to pop back to the Toilet Seat Offenders before he had to collect the next lot of angels.

  “Fiery Pit’s at the end of this corridor. The first person who gets there can push someone in.”

  People were only supposed to be pushed into the Fiery Pit if they’d been particularly wicked, but in particular BMW World and the Train of the Damned got so crammed full that there was no room for the newcomers. Baal and his colleagues reasoned that since no-one was down here because they hadn’t been wicked, they were all fair game. They operated a strict and fair first in, first out policy, so anyone who’d done ten thousand years was hiked out and fried. Although there was only the one pit of molten lava which Lucifer insisted on reserving for the first class customers such as bankers, so the rest of them had to make do with the glowing embers. Therefore, rather than meeting a quick and fiery end, people tended to be barbecued slowly, evenly and somewhat noisily.

  The angels all rushed off and Baal lit up a joint. He inhaled deeply and blew out a perfect ring of smoke – the best way of getting to wear a halo. It hovered above him for a second or two, then dispersed into the sultry air.

  Dealbreaker Case 097

  By Brian Brickbichler

  In the dead of night a woman’s heel clicks echoed through the vast offices of Obeck and Petersmith. The noise is soon replaced by the sound of rustling papers as she stops outside of a large oak door to fumble with the huge caseload of documents while trying to wriggle a key out of her tight pinstriped pants and insert it into the doorknob of her private office. After several annoying seconds, and a near drop of the heavy load, she slides it on in and enters. Walking on in, she closed the door with a swift bump from her well-toned thighs, and drops the mountain of work, all due by tomorrow, on her desk. That’s when she became aware of a dark silhouette of a man made by the faintest light peering through her blinds. Instead of screaming, a futile act in this deserted time of night, she reached for her desk light.

  “Please don’t do that.” A gruff voice came from the shadow.

  “What do you want from me?” She asked, taking a step back.

  “Just a little of your time Miss Dubra.” The man swivelled in her leather chair revealing only stark whites eyes with absurdly small pupils and menacing teeth twisted into a grin.

  “How di-did you know my name?” She babbled as she tried to remember where her pepper spray was located. Then it came to her.

  “If its money you want it’s in my purse.”

  “No need for that Miss Dubra,” the man’s grin widened. “You’ll find that pepper spray won’t have any effect on me.

  She stopped her slow reach for her purse. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know,” he told her. “But that doesn’t matter. What does, is what I can do for you”

  “And what’s that?” Susan Dubra eyed him suspiciously.

  “The chance to know the minds of the judge, jury, and prosecutor. Basically all the knowledge you’ll need to win any case you want to.” He told her.

  “And how can you do that for me?” She knew the best method for dealing with these types were to keep them happy and keep them talking. That’s what they paid her to do. That and look good, but that was the last thing she wanted to do now and raise the risk of get raped by this…

  “Stop that line of thinking right now or you risk angering me. Then I might do something that you won’t like.” Horrifying images of torture, both sexual in nature and not so unnatural, flowed through her mind when she was compelled to look into his hateful eyes. “But if you... how do they say it, play ball. you’ll have the power to read minds among many other abilities.”

  “What do I have to do?” She trembled in fear.

  “Don’t worry,” he chuckled. “No blood oath required, you just sign a contract and the deal is done.”

  “Can I read the contract?” She was hesitant to ask.

  “Sure thing,” He snickered as his total bald head disappeared into the darkness, and after a few seconds of the sound of shuffling paper, when he reared his ugly head again it suddenly disappeared with a deafening noise, spraying menstruate and mucus coloured fluid across half of her office. She averted her gaze away from the mess on the wall in order to prevent herself from puking and adding to the horrible smell. When the man with the ruined head suddenly stood up, she fell backwards onto her ass. Then the door, which Susan saw had a big hole in it now, flew open, and a tall stranger stepped into the room brandishing a revolver so big that it could only be described as a cannon. Seeing the man raise the huge gun, Susan cowered behind a flimsy chair reserved for clients, and in that moment she cursed herself for being so cheap.

  When a loud noise finally erupted a few moments later, she was relieved that she didn’t feel any pain, and hadn’t lost any part of her body due to shock. She was still clinging to the chair with eyes completely shut in anticipation of another blast when she felt a heat radiating from her left side. Opening her make-up crusted lids she found the man without the crown of his skull ablaze just left of her. Flinging herself away from the inhuman torch, she crab-walked until her back was pressed against the wall, yet she was unable to look away from the sight. The flames consuming the man were both strange and beautiful. It was blue with streaks of black that extended well pass the boundaries of the fire scorching the wall black when it came into contact with it.

  “Don’t worry,” a rough voice startled Susan. “The flames might singe the carpet, but it won’t burn it. Then there’s the matter of his ash. Now that will be hell to clean up.”

  She was still transfixed on the bluish light. “Bu… but he’s still burning.”

  “Yeah he’s a tough one alright,” the man said moving over to the chair to rummage through the burning man’s belongings. “He’s harmless without his head though. He’ll be done in a minute or so, but I don’t suggest touching him.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” she shouted at the stranger as he jammed a few objects into his heavy trench coat pockets. From the corner of her eye she saw the light go out and turned to see the promised black-gray mess more plastered to the floor then a typical pile of ash.

  “Well you should be safe now,” the man in the dark trench coat approached her with a small white card tucked between two dirty fingers. “Call me if any strange people are following you again.”

  She took the card. It read, David Fallow. Deal Breaker, and a phone number was centered on the business card in bold black print. She jerked her head up to the tall man’s face, he was sort of handsome in a rough, almost cowboy way, and asked. “Deal Breaker, what the hell is that?”

  David stared down with his steel gray eyes. “It’s just as it says, I’m a deal breaker.” Then scratching his miniature black beard he looked at the rema
ins of his victim. “I’ve been following around this particular deal maker for three days, and finally when he offered you a contract he let his guard down. That’s when I made my move.” He lifted those barrel-like eyes to survey the room. “Sorry about the mess, but I really have to be going now.”

  When he turned to leave Susan just sat there dumbfounded. It wasn’t until he was passing through the battered doorframe that she stood up and spoke her mind. “But you killed a man. What am I to tell the police?”

  He looked back, and she could see the cold tint in his one exposed eye despite a few strands of black hair over it. “Tell them what you want… or nothing at all. You’re a lawyer after all. You know how these things go. And for your information that thing there wasn’t human even before walking into this room. I’m sure even the latest in DNA technology would tell you the same.”

  With that said he left, and Susan’s weak knees collapsed, falling back onto the butt she was so proud of.

  ***

  After a brisk two-block walk, David Fallow jumped into his black Range Rover and sped away. The girl still concerned him. The deal maker obviously wanted something from her, but what? She had nice peach shaded skin, so it could have been that. Then again, it could have been the aqua-blue eyes she possessed. But he knew from experience that unless she had beyond 20/20 vision that wouldn’t be the case, and he thought he had seen a pair of reading glasses on the desk. It could be anything, her long naturally blond hair or any other part on the exceptional beauty.

  But David didn’t really think that it was any external part that the deal maker wanted. For her to be where she was at, at her age, she had to be fairly intelligent even being the looker she was. So his money was on the brain, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he had the old man take a look at the blank contract made for her.