by Tim Miller
“Behold! The False Prophet has arrived! You sir! Have you come to deliver yourself to the Father for judgment?” The large archangel said.
Charlie rolled his eyes and looked at The Bishop who just shrugged.
“And we have the Son himself who has returned from the Abyss. Have you sir come to beg your Father forgiveness?”
“I’m not here to deliver myself to anyone,” Charlie said. “I’m here to see the Father in person and knock him off his throne. I suggest you don’t get in my way.” It was mostly bullshit, as Charlie had no idea how he’d even go about that, but it sounded tough at least.
“Very well. Prepare for your ultimate destruction!” The archangel pulled his sword, a huge broadsword made of flames and fire that was at least as long as Charlie was tall. The rest of the archangels did the same and instantly charged him. In a panic, Charlie turned and their whole group began running. Running in desert sand was not the easiest of tasks and the creatures were on him in an instant.
Charlie’s foot got caught in the sand and he fell to the ground. Looking up, one of the monsters stood over him still mounted on its beast. It was holding the flaming sword over its head just as he brought it down. Charlie curled up into a ball, placing one hand over his eyes as he held out the other one in a hopeless attempt to defend himself. He squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for the life-ending blow that was about to come.
Instead there was a series of loud screams and a roar before it was silent. Charlie held himself like that though, and opened one eye to see they were all gone. Looking around he saw remains of armor and swords lying around along with gooey chunks of what used to be the archangels and their beasts. Rick ran over and helped him up.
“That was amazing Charlie! You did it! You beat them!” Rick said.
“What the hell did I do?” Charlie asked.
“You disintegrated them.” Rick jumped up and began reenacting the whole thing as he described it. “You fell to the ground! You thrust your hand out!” Rick threw his hand toward Charlie as if he were a running back giving a tackler a stiff arm. “And in an instant your enemies were vanquished! They separated into thousands of little pieces, now they are nothing more than fragments of their former selves!”
“Well, I have no idea how I did it, but whatever. At least they aren’t cutting us up with their flaming swords. And why didn’t you help?” Charlie said pointing at the Bishop.
“I told you Charlie. My powers are somewhat limited these days. Plus, this heat, it’s ghastly!”
Charlie shuddered to think he once worshipped this creature and that he actually helped run the universe at some point. He wondered if the Father would be as disappointing as this heavenly realm turned out to be. Part of him hoped so, would make his job easier. With his luck though, highly doubtful.
“Rick, is this place within walking distance? Where exactly is the Father?”
“Well, that’s the thing, we’re not far from those who support you. But, no one knows exactly where the Father is. He kind of stays hidden.”
“Well that’s just great. So this guy is all powerful and all-knowing and whatever else, but no one has seen him and he refuses to show his face or reveal his location?”
“Pretty much,” Rick said.
“I’m not impressed with your dad, Bishop.” Charlie said.
“No wonder he has fuckin’ daddy issues.” Lucifer said.
“Look. I might be able to take you to him.” The Bishop said. “At least I can describe it to you. I never saw him, but I was outside of his part of the realm. I know where his throne is. Just never went inside.”
“Oh really? You’re just telling us now?”
“Look! This has been difficult enough for me as it is, but yes. Let me try and explain it and you can take us there Charlie.”
Lucifer chuckled as they all looked at him.
“Well,” Lucifer said. “This should be interesting.”
Chapter 6
They all put their hands on Charlie as he closed his eyes imagining the place the Bishop was describing. It sounded like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz, with the throne room for the Wizard and everything. Charlie wondered what he would find behind the curtain. He focused on the place and felt the ground moving beneath his feet. There was a quick shift in the ground before he was standing on something solid.
Opening his eyes, their whole group was now standing on a large hill. Looking down, there was a valley covered with rocks and caves. In the center of the valley was a huge palace. The palace was made of stone, with a giant wall around it.
“That thing looks fortified. Why the hell would God need a fortified palace like that?” Charlie asked.
“All is not as it seems in The Realm, Charlie,” The Bishop explained. “Besides, you people made up all that nonsense about golden streets and angels playing harps. So don’t you put that on me!”
“Calm down J.C.” Lucifer said, playing on the Bishop’s real name, Jesus Christ; at least as we knew it.
“Why do you keep this savage around? You should have left him in that infernal black hole.”
“Shut up already. So how do we get to it? It’s surrounded by jagged rocks and shit.”
Rick who was standing by, finally spoke up.
“There is a cave nearby. You go through there and it comes out just inside the wall.”
“Really?”
“Yes, very few know about it. Right this way.” They followed Rick down a trail and came to a place with some large stones stacked up. Rick came up to the larger stone, gave it a push as it rolled away and revealed a large opening.
“Wow, rolled away the stone. How ironic,” Lucifer said.
“Well, let’s go I guess,” Charlie said as he headed into the cave. As they stepped inside, Charlie noticed Rick wasn’t moving. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t go into the caves.”
“Why not?” Charlie asked, but Rick instead rolled the stone back over the entrance, trapping them inside.
“Son of a bitch!” Lucifer yelled. “That little shit. Can you will us out of here Charlie?”
“Come on,” Charlie said. “We’ll just follow it through to the palace. Can’t be that hard.”
Charlie noticed his eyes began to adjust and soon he was seeing clearly in the dark. It was like having built in night-vision. Things were shades of green and gray, but he could see the cave clearly.
“Let’s go, this way.” Charlie said as they headed into the cave. They walked through the dark cave, as Charlie kept his eyes focused all around for anything unusual that might jump out at them. Being in some other earthly realm, there was no telling what might jump out, as he had already experienced. It wasn’t long before he was right.
They got to a fork where two tunnels veered in opposite directions. In front of the tunnel was a huge creature that looked like the cross between a wolf and a lion. It had a lion’s body with the head of a wolf. It stood before them, growling with saliva dripping from its jaws.
“Great,” Lucifer said. “I just get out of the black hole, now we gotta go through Cujo.”
“Not quite,” Charlie said. “Bishop, any ideas? This is one of your creatures.”
“Don’t ask me. I never jaunted around these filthy caves. I had my own palace. The Father communicated to me directly.”
“Well of course.” Charlie walked up to the creature, which was slowly approaching him. Charlie was slightly bent forward in a fighting stance, though he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d do if the thing lunged at him. Not like he could just fight off whatever crazy beast this was by hand. The creature could tear him limb from limb if it wanted to.
The thing circled Charlie as he sat back waiting, taking a step forward slowly. Suddenly the thing did lunge at him. Its jaws opened wide as it knocked Charlie to the ground. He grabbed it by the throat, holding it off himself as far as he could, but the thing was too strong. He felt its hot breath against his neck as its jaws drew closer. Cha
rlie knew he couldn’t hold it off much longer; out of desperation, he placed his hand over its face and squeezed tightly. The thing howled as Charlie hoped his old trick would work on whatever the hell this thing was.
In a moment, the thing collapsed to the ground. Charlie jumped up and stepped away.
“Holy shit, you killed it!” Lucifer said.
“I don’t know, so we should keep moving.”
As they stepped around it, the thing began stirring again, and jumped back to life. Except it wasn’t the vicious wild beast it had been moments before. It looked confused as it yelped and galloped around howling. Charlie took off running down one of the tunnels as the others followed. He’d turned the thing into some kind of zombie hell hound. It seemed more scared and confused than dangerous, but he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. They ran deeper into the caves which wound and twisted about.
Before long they had reached the end of the cave. The opening was at the top of a steep incline. The three men stumbled up the steep climb to the mouth of the cave which was barely wide enough for each of them to squeeze through. Once they were out, they were standing just inside the palace walls. It looked like some kind of market. There were dozens of people milling about carrying baskets and pushing carts. All of them were thin, frail and dirty. Most were wearing old robes and rags.
“Well,” Lucifer said. “This is where the Almighty lives, huh? All-powerful, but these folks even look poor and hungry. Nice guy.”
Chapter 7
As they stood looking around, another group of archangels approached. Great, not what Charlie was looking forward to. This group was on foot, there were three of them and all were much taller than the previous bunch. They walked up to Charlie, and looked as if they’d seen a ghost. However, technically they had.
“Master Ghost?” The lead one asked. Charlie looked around slightly confused.
“Ghost? Me?”
“Yes sir. You carry the Holy Ghost.”
“I suppose it’s something like that.”
“So you are one of our masters. Are you here for the Father? The Father has been expecting you.”
“He has? Well that makes it easy.”
“This way. These two must remain. They are both exiled.”
“They’re both with me, so they come with me or I get to the Father my own way. And believe me, I will.” Charlie said.
The archangels turned and Charlie followed them. As they walked through the courtyard, the Bishop was muttering under his breath.
“What is your problem?”
“He said I was exiled. Can you believe that? I used to run this place. I’d walk through the courtyard and everyone would fall to their knees!”
“Don’t worry, now you know how I’ve felt for the last ten thousand years,” Lucifer said.
“That is because you are a vile and obnoxious beast! Plus you and your pals down there having sex with human women.”
Charlie’s ancestors were the spawns of such unions. It is where he initially got his ability to render people into an undead state.
“Ok, easy now,” Charlie said. “Can you two forget old beefs? None of that is gonna mean shit in a few minutes anyway.”
“So certain are you?” The Bishop said. “You don’t even know what the Father looks like. Not to mention he’s all powerful. What is your master plan?”
Truth was, Charlie didn’t have one. Not like that ever stopped him before.
“Just shut up and let me take care of this.”
They walked through huge double doors into the palace. The palace was dark and the inside was far cleaner than outside. The rock walls had been polished to a brilliant shine. There was exotic looking furniture set up all around and the palace servants wore evening gowns and tuxedos. Charlie wondered how these people in heaven (or wherever it was) ended up as servants to an egotistical being.
It wasn’t long before they reached a huge chamber with a gigantic set of doors. Two archangels stood guard, holding spears taller than they were. These creatures had to be at least fifty feet tall, if not taller. Charlie didn’t even know what to think of these beasts. For the Father to create slaves for himself of this size he had to be showing off; that or just lonely.
One of the archangel sentries looked at Charlie and nodded as he pulled the door open. Inside was a gigantic throne room. This was by far the most decorated room in the palace. There was a long red carpet adorned with gold trim leading all the way up to a huge throne. The thing was several stories high from the back of the throne room. It had to be bigger than it looked once close up.
The men made their way down the carpet, all along the way there were huge swords mounted on the walls as well as the heads of various strange creatures. One looked like a giant bat.
“You never been in here?” Charlie asked the Bishop.
“I can’t say that I have. You’ve achieved something I could never do.”
It hadn’t yet sunk in to Charlie that he was soon to be in the very presence of the Creator and the ultimate being of the universe. He wasn’t sure if his human/deity brain could even comprehend it. They got closer to the steps of the throne and noticed the steps themselves were huge. Just as they reached the base of the steps, a voice called out from his right.
“Well Pastor Charlie,” said the woman’s voice. “It’s about time you got here.”
Charlie turned to see a tall, curvy black woman standing there. This beautiful woman was wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans. She had her arms crossed with a smirk that told Charlie she was up to no good. Though he couldn’t figure out who she was or why she was there.
“Who are you?” Charlie asked.
She stood laughing, even hanging her head for a second to regain her composure.
“Oh Charlie. That’s so funny. Who am I? I am the one you call The Father.”
Chapter 8
“What’s wrong Charlie? Am I not what you were expecting? Were you expecting some big old man sitting in this throne shaking his cane at you? Long flowing white beard?”
Charlie hated that she was right, but he wasn’t expecting God to look like Kerry Washington either. Not that he was complaining, she was stunning.
“Did you just take this form to fuck with me? Not like anyone has seen you before. Do you just sit in here while the Earth tears itself apart and bask in your own greatness?”
“Sure, I can take any form I want. I guess when it comes down to it, I really don’t have one, but this is the one I’m most comfortable in. Plenty of people have seen me, but just didn’t realize it. I walk among you people all the time.”
“But you don’t bother doing anything to help.”
“Like what Charlie? Helping you be rich? Ridding the world of war and famine? Feed the starving children? What did you do to help all that?”
“I was a preacher, we sponsored missionaries and all kinds of things.”
“Oh yes you’re right. That kept you busy when you weren’t slicing people up and crucifying them right? Do you have any idea what it takes to run the fucking universe? I mean seriously. You had your hands full just running a little church. Do you have any idea what it takes to hold it all together?”
“Why don’t you let me try, like in Bruce Almighty,” Charlie asked.
God laughed and shook her head.
“That’s cute Charlie. Very cute. I’m glad I gave you that sense of humor. But no. Besides you’re already godlike now with the ghost you somehow sucked in. Too bad you have no idea what you can do.”
“I have a few ideas.”
“So I’ve seen. You made it here. So here I am. Now what? You gonna tie me to a cross and cut me up.”
“He did that to me once, I don’t recommend it,” The Bishop said.
“Oh yes,” she said. “My only son. You should have stayed in your black hole. You’d have been safer there.”
“Why would you do that to me? You never warned me about Charlie. I had no idea what he was capable of.”
“What? I sent you to do a job. Did you want me to do it for you? Same reason I haven’t tried to extract the Ghost from him. He got what he deserved. Charlie beat him. What is your plan with me though, Charlie? Were you going to put your hand on my face and turn me into one of those spooky zombies? So scary!” She said, mocking a shiver as she spoke, but giggling to emphasize the lameness of the ability.
“I really don’t know what I planned to do. I was hoping I’d have some super god powers surface to help me vanquish you.”
“Well. I know you came here to kill me. So, it’d only be fair if I gave you the first shot. I’ll even give you a minute to warm up. Go ahead. Take your time.” She held her hands out while taking a step back. This made Charlie a bit nervous as being in this moment, he wasn’t even sure what he had expected or planned to do. He wasn’t sure what he could do. Yet here he was, standing before The Father, or Mother? This was not at all what he was expecting.
“Ok Charlie, I’m waiting!” She called out.
He stood and thought a little bit, and then had an idea. Holding up his hand, he concentrated until a large ball of fire, the size of a basketball formed in his hand. He hurled it at her, only for her to put her hand out, immediately extinguishing it.
“Seriously? A fireball? I expected so much more from you.”
Charlie’s stomach tightened. He wasn’t sure what the fireball would do, but figured it would at least do something. Now, she was about to make a move and he wasn’t looking forward to it one bit. She walked closer to him and smiled.
“Ok, my turn.”
As she got closer, Charlie thought fast. He decided it was time to cheat, if you could cheat against God. Concentrating, he formed a long hunting knife in his hand. Once she was a few feet away, he charged her, plunging the knife into her chest. Instead of blood, some kind of yellow fluid squirted out. She appeared shocked, but not in any sort of pain. After a second, she smiled.
