by Borne Wilder
“Come now, it’s a joke, did you really think I would allow my dears to meet heads of state in Wally World attire?” Azazel beckoned two immaculately dressed Watchers forward, “Don’t they look lovely?” The rest of the watchers turned and trotted single file into Layaway. “I think they’re disappointed that you didn’t laugh.” Azazel pouted.
“I might be a little more jovial if I didn’t have a war to start in a few hours. Get my boys for Iran and Saudi Arabia on their way; I want a nuke popped over Tehran, no later than four o’clock pm, Greenwich. We are going to be cutting this close.”
Azazel smiled, “In your wildest dreams, did you ever think those words would come out of your mouth?”
“I can’t believe how fucking smart I am.”
“Yes, well we still need to work on the potty mouth.”
“Do I not sound like royalty?”
“Why do you have winged demons following you?”
“They are a present for my dad.”
One by one, the Watchers returned, dressed in Caraceni suits. It wasn’t lost on Ron, that Azazel had dressed them better than she had him. She would whisper in their ear, and they would disappear. Ron smiled, just like I dream of Jeanie. His guys could travel like Nolte, minus the piss. “Make sure they have their passports, I don’t want these guys arguing with some fucking gate guard, or Marine over their diplomatic status.”
He turned toward his pack of smurfs. “Let’s go boys.” In unison, they alerted and followed Ron to the front door. “The angels are going to shit when they see you guys.” Ron looked up at the church steeple and smiled, before he stepped back, allowing the tiny demons to bum-rush the parking lot. Immediately a rifle started cracking, sending asphalt from the parking lot spraying into the air. Ron wanted to stay and watch, but he had to get to Jordan and get the party started. “No man knows the hour or the day.” Jesus once said. Ron knew that to be true, but he had a feeling that God was waiting on him. “Jim crack corn, Motherfucker.” He sent the words, right into Nolte’s head.
21
Nolte poked his head over the sill, careful not to knock the cherry off his Virginia Slim. The angels were just standing there, not even bothering to watch out for another shot. Michael was no longer a silver monster. Nolte wondered if he had imagined his transformation. Their arrogance chapped Nolte’s ass. Slowly he rose up, stepping back so the rifle didn’t protrude from the window and to hide his muzzle flash. He took aim.
"Hey, Asshole." There came a still small voice in his head. "Hey, Asshole, I have a present for you." It wasn’t the little coward, this time, it sounded like Cupcake.
"Look down here; I want you to meet my little buddies."
It was Cupcake! He was standing just inside the entrance to Wally World. Nolte took aim at him and was releasing his breath when the doors suddenly burst open. A hundred or so black midgets spilled into the parking lot. Nolte’s dream of dreams had come true; it was Clock Tower Day! Nolte squeezed off two air balls, missing everything, but the ground.
"Jim crack corn, Motherfucker." Cupcake whispered into Nolte's head.
The demons ran toward the angels but suddenly stopped in unison. Except for the flapping of a few wings, they seemed to be frozen. The archangels hadn’t even flinched at the charge of creatures.
Slowly, one by one, the demons snapped their heads in Nolte’s direction, until all were staring at him. Nolte grinned around his Virginia Slim and squeezed off a shot. The demon nearest the angels exploded. This seemed to get their attention. The three twinks also looked up at Nolte. “Holy Water, Motherfuckers! I’m using your magic!” Nolte screamed and cackled like a mad man. He fired twice more, in short succession, blowing two more of the demons to pieces. Nolte cackled again.
Michael smiled at Jerry and Gabriel, “How, in the hell, do you think he handled Holy Water in his condition?”
“He’s resourceful, I’ll give him that.”
“The Fifth Trumpet hasn’t sounded; we should get rid of these.” Gabriel stepped forward and raised his hand. Michael quickly grabbed his arm.
“Let’s see how many he can take down, before they can get him. Baal’s gone, his head’s splattered all over Jerry, someone needs to take out the little guy.”
Two more cracks, from the bell tower, made a mist of two more demons. “Get some!” Nolte shouted from the belfry. “Get some!” The demons began flapping their wings and bouncing, trying to become airborne.
“Why can’t they fly?” Gabriel looked back at the other two angels. Michael shrugged, but Jeremiel smiled sheepishly.
“I owe him one, he killed Baal for me.” Gunfire erupted in earnest.
Nolte grinned, his dead eyes twinkling; the sustained gunfire had made his little niglets scatter. He paused, took a long swig of mescal and lit a fresh Virginia Slim. The added length on Virginia Slims kept the smoke out of his eyes, they were the perfect smoke for clock tower killing; this was the best day of his life. He popped up over the window sill and fired another burst; some of the demons had made it to the curb on Walmart’s side of the street. He painted the sidewalk black with their blood, he couldn’t miss. Again they scattered. The black explosions thrilled Nolte; the only way it could get any better would be if they caught fire, too.
Nolte would fire and the niglets would hop and run. The breeze coming through his firing port now reeked of rotten eggs. The little fuckers smelled worse than his diaper.
He had them pinned down, but every so often, one would grow a pair and charge the steps of the church, becoming a dark mist before it even got close to the first step. It hadn’t taken too many heroes rushing into his line of fire, before the targets of opportunity ceased. In his fantasies, there had been no lulls in the gunfire. He took another swig of mescal and put a round in the Prius next to Michael. The angel didn’t even flinch.
Nolte could see the winged niglets massing in two groups, one to the north of the church and another to the south. He knew they were about to make their move. He dropped below the window and reloaded his magazines. He took another extra-long pull on his mescal. Something told him he wouldn’t be coming back for another.
Looking out the window, he could see his opposition closing in. He tossed the three bottles of wine onto the steps below, the Jesus blood soaked the stairs, creating a nice demon barrier.
“Watch your step Faggots, that shit will burn your toesies!”
Nolte turned and squeezed down the narrow stairs, if this went hand to hand combat, he wanted some room to fight.
At first, it was just screaming, as the niglets danced in his Jesus juice. Then it was screams and a few tiny fists, banging on the church doors. Within seconds, it sounded like a hundred of them, growling and pounding on the heavy oak slabs.
Nolte took a knee and took aim; he wished he could have worn his ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ T-shirt. The doors bulged and throbbed, then burst open. The demons roared and poured in like liquid. Nolte fired blindly into the crowd, as fast as he could pull the trigger.
***
From the front seat of the Diablo, Charlie had watched it all. Exploding demons, archangels on an apparent smoke break, a sniper in a diaper, it was all definitely stuff you don’t see every day. Hell, he’d never even read about shit like it in books, but the only thing Charlie found impossible for his mind to accept, was the look on his brother’s face when he released the demons. Evil can be a facial expression.
Once the herd of demons broke down the doors to the church, the angels had ended their break and started walking toward the demon filled house of God. Soon the gunfire stopped. Charlie fired up the Lamborghini and drove off in the opposite direction.
***
“Sorry again, about the hour, but I’m a stickler when it comes to last wishes and one of Nolte’s last wishes, was to read his will at the stroke of midnight after he had been interred.”
Nolte’s lawyer, dressed as though he were aiming for a cross between Matlock and a 90’s GQ version of a stockbroker, complete with a t
hin, gold hoop earring. But what immediately caught Junior’s attention, was not man’s powder blue Gucci, or the man’s exquisite Windsor knot, or the fact that the man had his hoop in the wrong ear, it was the lawyer’s face. As far as Junior was concerned, they could have been twins. Junior felt as if he had found his doppelganger.
Though their mannerisms were much different, Junior was smitten, he watched the man closely. At the points in the conversation where Junior would usually express one of his confused looks, the lawyer would instead, smile, causing Junior to smile. Junior felt as though he was looking in a mirror, yet, seeing a more successful reflection. A version of the man he would have been without Alice.
Alice tapped Junior’s shin with her foot, she could also see the resemblance, and could sense her husband’s confusion beginning to set in. This was the last place she wanted him looking stupid. However, she couldn’t help but wish, that she had met the lawyer before Junior had knocked her up, she figured if she was going to be saddled with comb-over adorned, pasty faced Twinkie disposal, for the rest of her life, a lawyer’s take home pay might make it more bearable. If the lawyer had seen the resemblance, he wasn’t letting on.
After making sure, all four of them had had an opportunity to see his smile, the lawyer opened the manila envelope on his desk. “Well, it seems that Nolte was meticulous in paying his bills. So often the decedent leaves behind a great deal of debt, which can largely reduce the estate. Nolte owed no one. Not one cent.” The lawyer beamed with pride as if it was he, himself, who was responsible for the good news.
Once the counselor saw no accolades were going to be offered him, he set to work explaining Nolte’s redistribution of wealth, first in legalese, then again, in terms; he felt the group in front of him might be able to understand. It was painfully clear, that the laws concerning marriage of immediate family members were not strictly enforced wherever these people came from. If he had to guess, gun to his head, he would venture their parents were first cousins, maybe brother and sister. He thought that father/daughter or mother/son might be a stretch. From the corner of his office, one of their offspring sucked snot and plucked incessantly at his crotch. It was going to be a long, dark night.
The sun was trying to peek through the curtains by the time the reading had ended. The sisters had nitpicked at every cent; it was going to take him days on the phone to reshuffle all of Nolte’s money. He could kick himself in the ass, for suggesting that Nolte just put in the will that all monies be divided equally, he had no idea the sisters were so greedily opposed to one another.
Though, in the end, the lawyer had never seen such happiness gathered together in one place. During the reading, along with the nitpicking, there had been many gasps through awe-dropped jaws, when actual account balances were mentioned. Nolte, by way of his mother, had been a very rich man, though not much of an investor.
Nolte owned no stocks or bonds whatsoever; he trusted no one with his money, in fact, if the old man could have had it his way, he would have dug a hole in his backyard and buried his fortune.
It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get Nolte to leave the money in the bank, which he finally did, but only on the condition that each account balance did not exceed $250,000 and never two accounts in the same bank. Nolte didn’t trust the government and the FDIC was the government. He would only deposit what they were able to insure. Just north of three million dollars had been divided and deposited into twenty different accounts.
Along with the sun’s appearance, came a banging in the outer office, as if furniture was being thrown about.
“Miss Nesbitt?” The lawyer shouted. “Miss Nesbitt, is that you?” Miss Nesbitt had worked for him for fifteen years and had always shown up for work on time and as quiet as a mouse. From the sounds emanating from the other room, he feared he was being robbed. Stealthily he trotted to the door, in a manner much too feminine for Junior, RJ and Junior-Junior to contain themselves; they sniggered openly.
As the lawyer silently cracked the door, he saw a disheveled Miss Nesbitt, frantically rifling drawers in a desperate search.
“Miss Nesbitt!”
“Oh shit! You scared me; I didn’t know you were here.” She tossed a thick folder to the lawyer, who didn’t appear to be able to catch something, even if it was placed in his hand. Papers scattered at his feet. “Pick that up!” Miss Nesbitt shouted. “That’s your account information, you need to go get in line, there’s a run on the banks. A nuclear bomb went off in the Middle East, everyone is panicking.”
As the lawyer squatted and scooped handfuls of paper back into the folder, Alice knelt beside him. “What does this mean? Should I get in line too? Where do we get in line?”
“I don’t know, New York, Houston, Dallas, Chicago. Look at the account information I gave you. Nolte has an account in town here, but he only kept a few thousand dollars in it. You can probably get your hands on that, but you need to get in line behind me. Soon the Feds will close the banks and then we’re all fucked.”
“What about our millions?” Alice was beside herself with overwhelming worry and confusion. Why would a bomb going off, a bajillion miles away, affect her newly acquired bank accounts? “What’s happening?” Junior placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she immediately sluffed off. At that moment, she noticed Junior was wearing two different colored socks. She looked up at him to find his expression twisted with confusion. It was more than she could take, she attacked, claws out.
As Junior and Alice hit the floor, the lawyer turned toward the door, “If you don’t get what you can from the bank now and this doesn’t blow over, you won’t have any money at all.”
Outside the sun dulled. Inside, everything lost its color. Everything turned to various shades of gray.
Martha wailed and RJ wondered how he could parlay her emotional outburst into sex, Junior-Junior plucked at his crotch and Junior-Senior fought for his life.
***
The sun was rising on the war-torn neighborhood in Tremé. Snubs of broken pipe glistened and tall weeds sparkled with dew. Charlie sat in the Diablo, listening to the radio, though; his attention was divided between the shattered window and the flat tire on Ron’s Mercedes. He had tried to get the money out of the truck, but his hands felt like he was holding them in flames the instant he had touched it. He wasn’t getting past the archangel’s voodoo.
For the last two hours, at every position on the radio, no music could be found, only ‘News Alerts’ and ‘Breaking News Alerts’ and ‘This just ins’, all concerning the detonation of a nuclear weapon in Iran. Eyewitness reports were saying that most of Tehran had been obliterated by an air burst and whatever was left of it was burning out of control. At what distance, Charlie wondered, did someone have to be standing from a nuclear detonation to survive the blast, yet, still be considered an eyewitness?
Speculation was rampant from experts of this, and experts of that and according to all the flabbergasted voices on the radio, troops were massing in every country on the planet that had enough troops to assemble what could be considered a mass.
Several world leaders had committed suicide in the early morning hours; the British Prime Minister, the King of Jordan and the President of France. The world had turned to shit overnight and all fingers were pointing at Israel.
Although Charlie hadn’t seen any fires or explosions as he had entered New Orleans, the blue and red flash of emergency vehicles strobed everywhere throughout the city. On the worst morning of Charlie’s life, the sun painted the most beautiful sunrise, he had ever seen, across the horizon.
From the first time Charlie had ever heard about the End Times, deep down inside, he had been sure he would be alive to see it. Throughout his life, he had watched for the signs, he hadn’t devoted his life to it, or worried over it, he had just kept an eye peeled. Lately, more and more signs had presented themselves, in fact, according to history, there had never been as many signs present at one time, but for reasons, either due to repression of hi
s fears, or his unwillingness to let go of hope, the more the signs pointed to the End, the more Charlie seemed to doubt them.
Charlie considered himself to be a Christian and although, he couldn’t quote scripture, he liked to think he understood it when he read it. He didn’t consider himself to be like most other Christians, and definitely not like the brethren who wanted to usher in the second coming. He just believed. Once, he had heard Chuck Missler say; that ‘those who wanted to hurry the End of Days hadn’t taken the time to fully understand Revelation or the Book of Ezekiel. They had absolutely no clue, just how bad things were going to get, once God had had his fill.’
Without warning or fanfare, Michael appeared on the driveway of the witch’s cracker-box house. Three days ago, Charlie would have freaked out, had he seen a biker appear out of nowhere. The archangel flashed Charlie a sympathetic and crooked smile and took a seat on the front of the Diablo; Charlie got out of the car and joined him.
“What happens now?”
“Pestilence and war.”
“Doesn’t that sound dandy.”
“It’s not going to be much fun for you guys.”
The magnificent sunrise, Charlie had been marveling at, began to turn shades of gray at the horizon. Even the sun itself dulled. Flat tones and shades that one might expect to see on a worn out black and white TV, spread across the sky and bled out onto the land. No longer was the Lamborghini a vibrant yellow, it too, had dulled to somewhat of an earth tone.
“What’s the deal with the sun, is it fallout in the atmosphere?”
“Nope. The spectrum of light has changed. God is removing the Holy Spirit from the world. He has to separate Himself from what comes next. For the first time since creation, mankind will actually get to see, just how well they can do without Him. You all are going to get really shitty with each other.”
