2013: Beyond Armageddon (45 page)

“God finally had to face up to the fatal flaw in his design. Me. He changed my name to Satan—the Adversary—and created Hell. He ‘cast’ me and my band of followers down here. Since then He has provided an endless supply of souls for me to tempt. Some resist, but many succumb. When they die in a state of sin, I swallow their souls and they become a part of my dominion.”

Again he waved an arm to indicate the legion of souls burning in the sea of fire that stretched as far as the eye could see. “Cain was my first tasty morsel. Since then it’s been a luscious cornucopia of evil. He keeps makin’ ’em and I keep takin’ ’em.”

Zeke ignored his attempt at humor and pressed on. “You mentioned all the names you have been given. Which do you prefer?”

“Lucifer, actually. I do not like Prince of Darkness. I am no Prince. I am King.”

“Of the Underworld.”

“Of all.
I
am the King of Kings.”

Fear and adrenaline raced through Zeke’s body. He couldn’t let that last statement go unchallenged, and yet to disagree was inviting disaster. He took a deep breath while considering what response to make, if any. Finally he said, “Jesus Christ would dispute that.”

Soul-scorching hatred glowed from the Devil’s eyes. His voice was a hoarse whisper drenched with the contempt of millennia. “Jesus Christ can dispute nothing. I have already destroyed Him. Remember that little episode on the cross?”

Zeke was unable to suppress a shudder. Satan noted it with pleasure and went on.

“Yes. Many of my minions helped me pull that off. Herod was particularly creative in trying to serve his Master. His slaughter of the innocents wasn’t successful, but he was a good man. Some called him ‘Lucifer’s Liege.’ I like that. Very fitting.”

“Are you saying that Herod was—”

“Mine.”

“What about Hitler?”

“Oh yes. My greatest creation.”

“The Marquis de Sade?”

“Another superstar.”

“Manson?”

“Mine.”

“Jeffrey Dahmer?”

“Mine.”

“John Wilkes Booth?”

“All mine. All the baby killers, the rapists, the serial killers, the ones who make the wars—they all belong to me. Always. Sometimes, just to keep from getting bored, I take on pet projects. Right now I’m especially proud of the mass murderers. And the priests having sex with altar boys. Ohhh yes, to get my cock sucked in the House of the Lord—”

“You control them?” Zeke blurted the question not only to move the conversation away from an image so vile, but also to quell his rising gorge.

“Yes. They cannot do otherwise. I control their thoughts, and therefore their actions. Even when I tell them it is I who bids them, they cannot get other humans to believe in me. How delicious it is when they tell everyone that the ‘voice of Satan’ made them do it, and you put them away. That makes my job much, much easier.”

No matter how absurd or obscene this interview exercise was becoming, Zeke knew he had to forge ahead with his memorized list of questions—questions to which he’d always told himself he would give anything to have the answers. Now that he was getting those answers, he couldn’t dwell on the atrocities they described. If he did, he would snap, blind rage would take over, he’d do something foolish, and the battle would be finished before it began. Satan was delighting in the chance to brag about his exploits, so Zeke pressed on.

“The John Kennedy assassination. Was it a conspiracy?”

“Yes.”

“Who was behind it?”

“Me.”

One question was too painful to ask, but he couldn’t come this far and not ask it.

“The hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center?”

A purring travesty of amusement oozed from Satan’s throat, then his reptilian tongue slithered out to lick his lips. “What do you think?”

“They believed they were working for God. Allah.”

“They were wrong.”

“Are they down here with you?”

“Of course. They have their own wing, so to speak. Stuck in those planes forever. Just them, with no windows to jump out of to escape the inferno.”

Zeke felt a grim satisfaction even as he knew it was a hollow victory.

“What about the eternal strife between the world’s religions? No matter how pure their intent, Man corrupts it into something to kill over. Countless innocents have been slaughtered in an endless religious war to prove who are The Chosen or which Path to follow. The perversion of something good into something evil would seem to be your handiwork.”

“Ah, yes. The Chosen. All religions are man’s creations. There is only one God. And one Me. All else is window dressing. It is a beautiful spectacle, to watch all your pathetic little groups scurrying around, yelling and beating their chests as if to say: ‘
We’re
the chosen ones, God! We’re the only ones who truly understand You and the Bible! Pick us! Pick us!’

“What fools. By competing they keep hatred alive and stay divided. They do my job for me. You believe Halloween is my favorite day, but you are wrong. Christmas is. I watch the killing and the bickering about Jesus Christ and God around the world—people fighting over whether they can put up a cross or some little fucking statues—and my faith in Mankind is restored. Mankind. Now there’s an oxymoron.”

“Religious strife is not as bad now as it was long ago.”

“‘Long ago’ has meaning only for you creatures. Your entire existence on Earth—from the beginning to its fast approaching end—is but one long night to me. All your wars, all your struggles—merely hors d’oeuvres to the main course. Mere gambits in the chess game between your God and myself, to see who will win control of all those luscious souls. Of course there has never been any doubt. I will win. Evil is stronger than good. Have you noticed?”

“If you are so all-powerful, why didn’t you just overtake God in your initial rebellion, rather than allowing yourself to be banished down here?”

“He had me greatly outnumbered then. His army was much bigger than my little band of followers. My original faithful minions, by my side forever.”

He pointed to the foul things to his left that continued to watch from their invisible posts. Loyal subjects to their king, in his kingdom of the damned.

“So the battle lines were drawn,” said Satan. “It is a war that is won one soul at a time. From every new soul that I possess I take its energy. That is how I get my power. And new recruits are coming over to my side faster all the time. Fewer and fewer people are going to church. Oh yes, I am winning.”

Satan paused, as if waiting for disagreement, but Zeke realized the utter futility of having a debate he could never win. Instead, he had been staring into the eyes of the Devil, trying to read
his
soul. And for one fleeting instant he felt he had glimpsed the truth:

Satan respected God’s power. Despite his bravado, he was not sure he would be the ultimate victor.

At least that’s what Zeke
thought
he saw. What he believed. If so, there was still hope.

He kept staring and waited for Satan to continue.

“Besides,” said the Beast, “it is much more fun this way—to inflict so much suffering on so many of God’s creatures. Every day brings such a smorgasbord of delights. Perfectly good souls blown to bits, babies murdered, throats of young girls being cut, pregnant mothers becoming addicted to crack. Crack. I love that word. The drug is like a crack you can peek through into my world. Beautiful. Onomatopoetic.”

With an affected air of nonchalance, he dropped his bomb.

“Mowing down people with a rifle is one of my latest hobbies.”

Zeke flinched. Satan saw it and smirked.

“Your little Leah gave me special pleasure. Oh yes, I was there.”

Zeke’s control was faltering. He was thinking of how quickly he could open the pack and get to his arsenal. He needed to wait for a good opening rather than allow Satan to goad him into making an ill-timed rush.

Hold on. Hold on. Ignore this son of a bitch. Stand your ground.
“What did you mean before when you said that the end is ‘fast approaching’?”

“Things were coming to a head anyway, but you have hastened it, my overzealous young fool. You have discovered my home. Others will follow. I must end the game before that happens. You are an ex-football player. Consider this the two-minute warning.”

“The human race has been around for thousands of years and you haven’t won yet. If you are more powerful than God, why are you still down here in this hellhole?”

Satan let out a roar as he extended his arm and snatched Zeke up. From a distance of no more than ten feet Zeke looked directly into the enormous face of the Devil. He was being squeezed so hard he could barely breathe. Sudden pain in his eyes made him think they might burst. Satan used the tip of his long thumbnail to push Zeke’s chin back against his neck, further cutting off his air. The edges of the nail drew blood.

The Devil slowly drew him closer. His breath was the vilest stench Zeke had ever smelled. He vomited instantly. It flowed down the side of Satan’s hand. The Prince of Darkness seemed not to notice or care. This close to the monstrous face for the first time, Zeke saw eyes that were fiery slits tilted up at the corners. No pupils or whites, only glowing demonic red. Two pointed spikes that might have been ears or horns shot upward from his temples at least three feet. From his cheeks two larger, broader spikes angled up alongside the horns. The teeth were even rows of long, sharp fangs, glistening like polished silver needles.

“You are starting to get on my nerves, Mr. Sloan. Your next display of disrespect will be your last. I would hate to kill you before you’ve had the grand tour of my kingdom. But if you fuck with me again, I will. Do you understand?”

His head still pinned by Satan’s gigantic thumb, Zeke barely managed enough of a jerk to let him know he understood. He needed to play along if he wanted to live. Heroics could wait.
You’ve always wondered what Hell was like. Now you’re going to find out.

Good boy,” Satan said, loosening his grip and upturning his palm. Zeke fell into a sitting position in the gigantic hand. “Come then, let me show you my humble abode.”

Satan wrapped the hand back around him, this time in a firm but not painful grip. Only Zeke’s head jutted out from the gigantic fist. With surprising grace the Devil stood. Huge black wings materialized on his back. He flapped them once, twice, and effortlessly took flight.

They glided into position some fifty yards above the fiery sea. Zeke looked straight down into eternal damnation. Flames leapt greedily all around him, threatening to sear his face. They always veered away at the last moment, as if clearing a path, the heat never quite reaching the harmful stage. Satan had total control over his dominion, and was protecting him.

The Beast glided effortlessly, wings outstretched, riding the air currents rising from the heat below as he proudly conducted his guest on a tour of his Den, showing off his trophies collected over thousands of years. On and on they went, above a seemingly endless ocean of fire that wound its way deeper and deeper into the bowels of the underworld. Zeke saw a sea of lost souls, its boundless expanse filled with all the writhing, screaming, tormented damned since that fateful day when Evil began to walk the earth. Whatever its name, wherever it came from, it was locked in a battle to the death against Good.

As they sailed above the inferno, Zeke deadened himself to the horror. Only by going numb could he shield himself from the overwhelming despair emanating from the pathetic shapes that constantly receded beneath them. He could make out people of all ages, even children. At Satan’s approach, all arms below would rise up in supplication, hands and fingers desperately beseeching their Master to pull them out of their unrelieved agony, begging for salvation that would never come. Satan would sail by without the slightest acknowledgment, and all the arms would dejectedly go back down.

They veered to the right and descended back onto solid ground. As they touched down, Zeke saw what appeared to be a gigantic cavern, carved into the rock wall up ahead. A flickering glow danced on the walls, indicating fire somewhere deeper within. Satan closed the distance with a few enormous strides. At the entrance to the cavern, he put Zeke down.

“Welcome to my Hall of Shame,” he said, proudly surveying the immense chamber. “This is my favorite part of my kingdom. Very special things happen here.”

Despite being free from the Devil’s clammy grip, Zeke was finding it increasingly hard to breathe. The deeper they went, the more fetid the air became, forcing him to breathe shallowly. The relentless onslaught of rank cruelty had him wondering how much more he could stand.

Satan stared in rapt attention at the scene ahead. Zeke looked to see what he found so fascinating.

The cavern was so huge Zeke could only guess at its dimensions. The ceiling might have been a mile away. The rough-hewn walls and vast craggy floor ran for at least a mile before disappearing into darkness. Here and there were smaller openings, leading off into other rooms. Everywhere little fires flickered, almost decoratively, creating a macabre battle between light and shadow on the walls. As Zeke scanned it all, perversely fascinated, he realized that these various chambers were too symmetrical to be natural phenomena. They had been carved out of solid stone. The labor required would have been enormous. Where did it come from?

Satan read his mind. “Those who dug in the earth while alive put in a little overtime after death. Many times, during their insignificant lives, they complained about how hard their jobs were. Jobs that drove them to drink and all sorts of infidelities—drove them to shake hands with the Devil.” He snapped his hands open and closed like lobster claws, causing his own claws to click together loudly. “Do you think they would be thankful to have those old jobs back?”

The sound of pure gloating evil rumbled in his throat. Zeke ignored it by trying to figure out what was happening up ahead, too far to make out distinctly. He saw regular rows of shapes, seeming to move in unison, with a single shape off to the side.

“I see you have noticed the main exhibit. My Master Creation. We will go there shortly. But first I want to show you some of the other special exhibits along the way.”