Hell inc, p.1
Hell inc., page 1
part #1 of Hell Inc. Series
Hell, Inc.
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Edited by Crystal Watanabe www.pikkoshouse.com
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For my wife, Tiffany.
You always ask, so here’s your answer.
This.
This is how much.
Hell, Inc.
a novel by
Dick Wybrow
Prologue
In the beginning, God cheated.
Looking at it objectively, to be fair, it’d be hard not to see that Satan got a raw deal. Not that he knew it.
At least, not at first.
Sure, there were several hundred million worlds in the universe where, over thirteen billion plus years, the Devil had begun to exert his supreme dark powers.
One example: He’d held final sway on the planet of Nal’tan, commanding and controlling its inhabitants. But the most advanced life form on that water planet was, by all accounts, a species of bitter starfish.
Where was the fun in that?
And, in fact, they’d been rather moody even before the Dark Lord picked up that planet, so what was the point?
And the gas giant, Phutatu-lit?
God had pretty much given up that planet without a fight, and Satan begrudgingly welcomed a microscopic, translucent amoeba to his evil ranks. And while, granted, these single-celled organisms could be categorized as “predatory,” in a good ol’ head-to-head Good versus Evil battle, they basically did fuck all but stain the shag carpet.
Now, on the other end of the scale, the hyper-advanced civilizations were also of little help to either God or the Devil because most of them had long since discovered the existence of the domains of Heaven and Hell through a combination of quantum physics, federally mandated employer holiday allotments, and budget travel websites.
On the whole, both chief magistrates of Good and Evil require belief and not, actually, outright knowledge of their existences. Belief fuels both Hope and Fear equally—they are the unique and powerful currency for the worlds above and below.
Surety, on the other hand, collapses Hope and Fear into Complacency and Resignation. Mere scraps to gods of all sorts.
As the Devil once expressed it at a quarterly board meeting, “Turning truly advanced minds to evil seemed to have so much promise. Like an old woman with Parkinson’s giving you a hand job. But in the end, it was disappointingly unsatisfying and just left little red welts from the cheap costume jewelry.”
But there was a zone, a “Goldilocks” intelligence/advancement zone—not too dumb and not too bright.
And laying smack dab in the middle of it was Earth.
Earth!
What a prize!
Not too civilized to dismiss (or possibly litigate itself out of) the influence of God or Devil and just advanced enough be the charging infantry of either side.
What fun!
Now, the same rules apply for gods, angels, demons, and so on as they do for the natural-born creatures that live in the universe: relativity and all its little inbred country cousins.
That’s where the trick lied.
That’s where the secret was buried.
And that’s how God got one over the Devil, right from the start—taking ownership of the Earth, quietly knowing it could never truly fall into Satan’s hands.
This is the story of Raz Frewer and how he inadvertently screwed all that up.
However, he had a very good excuse.
Chapter One
The wind gust hit me like a drunk stepfather, and I fell forward.
On all fours and exhausted, I struggled to keep from collapsing into the pools of rain in the long, shallow trenches time had clawed out of the dirt road beneath me.
The hidden beasts beyond the clouds were still tossing their electric balls to one another like some threat. I knew somewhere in my head it was just lightning, however, they now seemed content to limit their play to the part of the sky behind the dark man.
Naturally I couldn’t see his face, which was probably the point. Asshole probably thought it made him look cool or something, all backlit and spooky.
And I dunno… it kinda did.
Craning my neck up to look at him, I tried to pull his face, an expression, out of the darkness but didn’t try too hard. His was a face you weren’t supposed to see unless everything went real bad. Thankfully, when the sky flashed, all I could make out was the brim of his hat.
He may have spoken by that point. I don’t remember.
“Either way,” I answered. “I don’t…” I collapsed into a coughing fit. He waited until I was done, mainly because it seemed like he enjoyed watching me experience this very basic discomfort.
Maybe it reminded him of old times or early days. The simple pleasures.
Because it doesn’t seem like the Devil on Day One was all about burning souls for all eternity and all that. First morning on the job, he probably drummed up a couple hay-fever attacks, maybe someone got popcorn stuck in their teeth with no floss handy, a couple of light bruisings.
I lifted myself back off the road.
The only things that moved were his hands as they slowly manipulated the top of his walking stick. Where the stick met the road, there was some meshing or a bumper that stopped it from digging too deep into the Mississippi mud.
Then, I tried again: “I don’t know how it… works.”
Pitiful as it was, this made him laugh—an awful sound that trailed off into the sky, folding itself into a roll of thunder. This made the damp, dead grass tremble, and for a brief moment individual blades shed fat drops of rain; the ground on either side of the road appeared to burst with starlight.
Then, dark again.
“Seriously, man—” I said.
“Of course, you know how it works,” he said. “That’s why you came.” Silent for a moment, I could feel his eyes on me, taking me in. “What’s your name, boy?”
“I dunno… I thought you’d know that.”
With a twitch of his hand, he lifted his walking stick, and through the torrent of rain, I felt a dull throb of pain where my neck met my skull. It rose like a fever and then washed over me.
“Don’t fuck with me,” he said flatly, as if he’d just ordered a cheese sandwich or something. “Me, I know your real name. The names you had before you were born to this shithole, that is. Hell, y’all don’t even know that much. What do they call you ’round here, is what I was asking. What is your name?”
“Raz,” I said. ”My mother called me Rasputin. Named after some—”
“Shut up. Don’t care.”
“Got it.”
“Raz,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Ha! That is one fucked-up name you got. Goes well with your fucked-up life, I suppose. And your fucked-up wife.”
My fists turned to balls, and this time I looked up at him, caught his eyes. I wanted to hit him. But I knew better. At least, I knew now was not the time. Not when I needed something from the prick.
That aside, who throws a punch at the Devil?
That seemed like a lose-lose scenario to me, so I kept my knuckles buried deep into the Mississippi muck.
The dark man let out a big breath of air, like he’d been holding it for a long while. It stank like he’d been licking a dog’s ass half the day, then ate a corndog found in the back of a refrigerator three months past its sell-by date and washed it down with some warm Clamato.
Couldn’t hit the guy, but I could at least rag on him. If only in my mind.
“Okay, so, me I’m not an accountant or anything,” he said, his words tumbling down onto my head, “but… I don’t have to be. Got a fuckload of accountants. Christ, we’re up to our c ollective assholes in accountants, truth be told. And lawyers. And more recently, corporate ‘brand ambassadors.’”
By the way, no joke, the Dark Lord of the Underworld, Satan himself, actually used air quotes with his long fingers when he said that last bit.
“Whatever,” I said. “Like I care about your overcrowding issues. Just tell me: What do I have to do?”
The stick went up again, but he didn’t strike me. Instead he said: “If you’d just— Damn it, your kind does not listen! That’s your big problem. Everything’s about you, you, and you.”
My arms were weakening, so I locked them to prevent myself from collapsing, but I couldn’t hold my head up any longer. Dropping it, my chin hit my chest, and I closed my eyes and listened as the rain poured down my face.
“Gotta check what it’s worth,” he said. “What you’re puttin’ up here—barter, right? That’s the plan?”
He stood up to leave, and I snapped my head to where he’d been sitting earlier. He was gone from the stump.
“Right,” I said. “Yes, that’s the plan.”
“You’ll know,” he said, standing next to me now. “We’ll have one of our people reach out.”
I nodded, then nodded harder so he was sure. “Yes, yes. Whatever, yes!”
He chuckled, the laugh dry and heartless. “You don’t even know the deal yet, but you’re already saying yes to some accord?”
“Yes, yes,” I said, spitting out water and snot. Raising my head, I still couldn’t see his face. My eyes wide, I said again: “Yes.”
He took a few steps, but I couldn’t tell which direction.
“Don’t work that way, Raz. Wish it did, but there are rules,” he said. “But let’s say you and me, we’ve got a tentative agreement. You gotta sign off on the final still.”
My chest began heaving. I was sobbing. “Yes! Christ, yes! I’ll do it.”
For the first time, I saw a part of his face. Just his mouth, really. He smiled wide. “Not yet. But real, real soon. It will all come together real soon.”
I yelled with what little strength I had left. “You… but you promise to do your part? That’s how it works, right?”
“Sure, of course. As long as you meet the terms. Need to run the numbers, and then—”
“Just save her,” I screamed at the smug prick. “It’s eating her up from the inside, and you fucking probably put it there in the first place.”
“You lookin’ to blame someone for your wife dying, you gotta look up, not down, little brother. Not my thing, Raz.”
Leaning on an elbow, I cocked my finger and pointed at him. “This is exactly your thing!”
“There are concentric circles, sure, but… nah. I don’t get into that line of work. Me, I’m more of a global mover.”
He was gone again, slipping away from my sight, my outstretched hand just hanging out there in the rain. A moment later, I felt his breath on my neck.
“Listen, you know what they say about pointing fingers?” he said, grabbing mine with a hand that was both ice cold and warm. His other hand, bone white, appeared in front of my face.
With that hand he merely pointed at my forehead as if it were a gun, then pulled back his thumb, cocking the hammer. “When you point a finger at somethin’, you got three pointing back… and one at God.”
The rain stopped as if a spigot had been twisted shut. There was a final low rumble off in the sky somewhere, but the lightning was gone.
Then everything turned black as a deep, deep hole in every direction.
Finally collapsing, wet gravel dug into my cheek but before I passed out, his voice drifting toward me one last time.
“My people… they’ll reach out sometime tomorrow. Then the clock will be ticking, Raz. You better get your rest.”
And with that, I was seconds away from passing out in the middle of a lonely, rain-soaked dirt highway in bumfuck Mississippi.
Some “Crossroads.”
Not that it mattered. I had already proven them wrong! They said she couldn’t be saved.
They said “say goodbye to her” and things like “it’s just her time.”
They said there was nothing that could be done, and they were wrong.
Wrong!
At least… shit.
I damn well hope they were wrong.
Upon brief reflection, as I passed out shivering and coughing, it occurred to me that I may not have thoroughly considered the totality of my actions before green-lighting my plan.
I had just made a deal with the Devil to save my dying wife.
Me.
Damn.
Chapter Two
The next morning, I woke up slowly, frying under the Mississippi sun and caked with Mississippi dirt.
Given the circumstances—that is, if evolutionary forces had been aligned in my favor—one might have guessed that, sensing imminent danger, I’d have instantly sprung up, crouching like a tiger dragon, ready to test my fight-or-flight instincts.
But no.
I’d fallen asleep, lying facedown on a muddy highway in rural Mississippi, and my mind was slowly drifting back into my skull as if I had no cares in the world.
As if there was nothing that should concern me. Nothing at all.
Like the fact that I was lying facedown on a muddy highway in rural Mississippi.
Ultimately, it wasn’t the sun beating down hard that finally woke me. A deplorably early riser, the sun had already been up for hours.
I wasn’t even stirred by the binaural hum in my left ear, which turned out to be two small black flies that had found a dark place to express their forbidden love.
And it wasn’t the choking dust, which had risen up again after the sun had burnt away last night’s rain. That put the humidity somewhere around what you might expect to find if you tested the gap between the plastic seat and the taint of a 350-pound NASCAR fan during the final lap of the Daytona 500.
No, what actually pulled me from sleep’s embrace was the sensation that my balls were being jiggled.
And it seemed, for the first time in months, I wasn’t the jiggler.
It took me a full ten seconds to finally process all this, but when I did, my body instinctively flipped over.
“What the fu—?”
Then I was on my feet, unsteady and momentarily blinded by the sun.
I ached everywhere but managed to swing my arms in the air, hoping whoever had been digging in the front pockets of my shorts would feel the wrath of my fists.
They did not, in fact, feel my fists’ wrath.
I stood there, eyes like slits, swinging my arms like an angry drunken orchestra conductor.
A gravelly voice tumbled toward me. “Aww, you ain’t dead.”
“What?” I said. “No!”
“Shit, I thought you was dead.”
Cracking one eye a little farther open and shielding my vision with a dirty hand, I saw an old woman, heavy and sweating, baking in the sun where she stood. Thick, bulky clothes despite the punishing heat.
She looked disappointed.
“Gross,” I said. “Weirdo. You normally go around jiggling the balls of seemingly dead men?”
She didn’t answer.
Stumbling a few steps out of the road, I found the stump the Dark Man had been sitting on the night before.
“I know this is a bit of a flash judgment on my part,” I said to her as she continued staring at me, “but if that’s your thing—ball-jiggling dead guys—you’ve got some deep-seated, emotional fucked-upness that you should probably address with a trained professional.”
She didn’t answer.
I plunked down onto the stump, and my sore legs briefly loved me as if for the first time. For a man of thirty-two, it didn’t seem like I should feel this old yet.
Could be that the previous night’s accommodations had been rather lacking.
Could be that many of my thirty-two were “hard-livin’ years” as George Jones had once put it. Or maybe that was George Thorogood. Possibly George Michael.
“I thought you was dead,” she said again. She started walking away, slowly and wobbly, in a way only old women can.
