Letters From Hades
Page 20
The man to his left began trying to speak, his lower jaw gone. It would grow back just in time for him to eat a little bit of something. Chani slid the man a pad to write his order on. She looked irritated at the distraction also. In fact, Fleming thought her eyes even appeared moist...
The pull yanked him backwards off the stool suddenly; he almost fell but righted himself, leaned away from the pull to fight it a moment longer, caught hold of the counter. No one but Chani was looking at his struggles.
"Next year," he promised her.
"Next year," she smiled.
He slid toward the door. Through it. Out. The bells jingled. The door closed. Warm yellow light came through the windows, but he couldn’t see anything other than that through them. Otherwise he might stay here and watch Chani through the glass until next year. Mouth conversations to her. Maybe they knew he would want that, and kept the glass one-way.
"Hey, buddy," a voice addressed him. Two hooded Angels came sauntering toward him, their robes splashed red, one with an UZI and one with a chainsaw. "Agnostic, huh?" Good guess. It was branded across his forehead.
"Nice coat, clown," the other one mocked him. It was full of bullet holes already, slashed by swords. "Need some new holes?"
Fleming turned slowly and grinned. "How about you?" From inside his coat came the stolen automatic, and he fired. The UZI went off, but he got them good first. Both went down. It might not hurt, and they might regenerate ten times as quickly as he, but he still felt better for it as he bolted away. The air froze the insides of his lungs to crystal. But he laughed. Angry laughter. Sad laughter.
Yeah, those little pleasures. You could still thumb your nose in Hell...in between the Angels cutting it off.
Don’t feel so bad, he cheered himself while he ran. It wasn’t his fault that the breaks were so short, and he’d worked enough years of his life that he should be used to that by now. Bosses were bosses, people were people...as above, so below.
Next year, he’d promised her. Next year, he promised himself.
He had all the time in the netherworld.
Jeffrey Thomas is the author of such novels as Deadstock, Blue War, Health Agent, Monstrocity, Everybody Scream!, Letters from Hades, Boneland and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers. His short story collections include Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Grey (with Scott Thomas), Voices from Punktown, Voices from Hades, Doomsdays, Aaaiiieee!!!, Unholy Dimensions and Thirteen Specimens. He is the brother of author Scott Thomas. They have both lived—and worked—in New England all their lives.