APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (5 page)

             
“He is well. At present he is eating ice cream and watching Tom and Jerry.”

             
The Doctor laughed. “I too happen to enjoy watching that odd pair on occasion.” Still smiling, he motioned for Regeliel to sit as he took his place at his desk and said, “Now at our last session you were telling me about your kingdom and the Nephilim. Please, tell me more of this race of people. I find their story fascinating.”

             
Regeliel nodded, accustomed to this routine and thought that if he told the doctor everything he wished to know, then maybe they would allow him to take his leave and find the help he was searching for.

             
“The Nephilim are a race of giants, mighty men of valor, and the descendants of angels. The angels descended from heaven when they found that the daughters of man were beautiful and took them as wives. Their offspring are Nephilim, as I am Nephilim,” said the giant.

             
“Are all
Nephilim
as noble as you?”

             
Regeliel shook his head a sour expression on his face. “Nay, we are like any race. There are evil ones as well. Great evil that would destroy all that is good in your world.”

             
The doctor’s eyes were full of concern. “Sadly, you are the only Nephilim I have ever seen, my friend.”

             
“My wish is that you never meet the other kind, Sir Murashell.”

             
Rangwalli listened to the giant as he spoke of his home, of how he missed his betrothed, but that he would first need to find the sons of David that would aid his people because most of his own people were fearful of the renegade Nephilim, Baliel the Lich of Ba-al, who was a follower of Lucifer.

Eventually Regeliel and Rangwalli settled into a conversation that was reserved for friends, where Rangwalli told Regeliel of his own wife and of his children. He told the giant how he also felt as if he were an alien in a strange world, that his family still lived in
Pakistan and that he missed them more than words. Regeliel knew that the doctor spoke truthfully; he could see the sadness in his eyes when he spoke of them. When he spoke their names it was as if he were savoring the way each name tasted upon his tongue.

             
At the end of his session the giant stood and the doctor hugged the lost knight. The giant, Sir Regeliel, patted one enormous hand gently against the doctor’s thin back before the orderlies escorted him back to the room he shared with His Imperial Highness, the Emperor.

             
The orderlies helped Regeliel back into his bed while Napoleon cast an annoyed glance in their direction, clearly not amused with the noise they were making.

             
Suddenly the cable went to black and white static on the television and the Emperor threw the remote at the screen cursing it. Regeliel had not known there to be that many curses but he supposed that a wise Noble such as His Highness would know more than most.

             
The shrill voice of Napoleon suddenly calmed from its diatribe and his tone softened to an eerie facsimile of its normal incarnation.
“I see you Regeliel…I see you well.”

             
Regeliel knew that dialect. It was Nephilim. He turned to look at Napoleon. That one milky white eye stared at him, daring him to respond. It seemed to Regeliel that his roommate had been taken over, possessed by a sorcerer that Regeliel knew well.

             
“
Yes, Regeliel, I see you well,”
repeated that high sinister voice.

             
Regeliel met the stare and would not glance away. “Then we
are
well met, for I see you as well.” Regeliel said with a shudder as he pictured the decomposing face of Baliel, of Ba'al the necromancer.

Prologue Pa
rt 7 - Gold Fillings and a Box of Brass

Farrell Company Fun Factory

Parkersburg, West Virginia 

             
Mike Dunlap was thirty-five years old, but his face was lined and wrinkled well beyond his years. His eyes were hard and a pale blue color that made for a piercing stare. Dunlap liked to use their odd appearance to intimidate others when he felt threatened. Today the stare hadn’t worked as he was unceremoniously ushered into the small office and instructed to wait there until the
man
arrived to deal with him properly.

             
He intertwined the fingers of both hands as he contemplated the decision of which seat to take. It really wasn’t much of a choice.

             
There were two chairs sitting at odd angles but facing the front of the desk. Dunlap chose the one on the left.

             
He always picked the one on the left. It left him with his strong side exposed and he felt less vulnerable for some reason. He felt more in control. A man should always feel in control even when the powers that be threatened to define your role. He was not a sheep and refused to be herded as such. The choice of chairs was a small comfort that he allowed himself at all times, even if he had to ask someone to switch places with him. Dunlap would admit, though, a small, petulant part of him wanted to lay claim to the overly large cushioned chair at the other side of the desk.  He noticed that the chair on the other side of the desk was not only wider and plusher, but it also sat a few inches higher than the others. Imagine his amazement that the boss man wanted to appear bigger, more imposing, and more powerful than the little man that was fortunate enough to be given a glimpse of his task master’s domain.

             
The enormous desk looked like a barricade, possibly to protect the big shot behind it from the primates he was forced to oversee…at least until he climbed the monkey ladder to a new more impressive rung and got an even bigger status symbol.

             
The glossy black lacquered surface was polished to a mirror finish. It was, admittedly, a fine piece of furniture and it must have cost the company a small fortune. His eyes were drawn to it and it seemed to beg for his attention, so he took a moment, out of curiosity, not vanity, and observed his reflection mirrored in its surface. It reminded him of a photographic negative. Dunlap’s face was not distorted in the least and was in perfect proportion; as if he were staring back at himself, but somehow, the exact opposite and his mind captured a fragment of nostalgia; there was something fascinating about staring into an abyss and having the abyss stare back into you.

Faintly in the reflection he thought he saw something. There was something other than him staring back from the depths of its smooth surface. He squinted his eyes and for a moment, just a fraction of a second, he saw that there was something wrapped around his dark reflection. It was his face, but spread over it like a gray-black gossamer shroud he saw another. He shivered, and in his heart he knew that it was Envy incarnate. The image morphed his expression into a sneer, full of bitterness and rot. He felt his heart hammer within his chest, a prisoner threatening to break through its bars made of bone. Then as mysteriously as the image appeared it faded and he saw only his own face, though it still possessed that sneer, which transparently exposed the rot within his heart. The sneer slipped from his face like melting wax and he wondered what he had become. He almost gave in to the vertigo that made his head swim.

             
Control,

             
He shook his head and felt that familiar smirk cross his lips again. Why shouldn’t he be envious? It seemed almost a righteous emotion, especially in this case.

             
He absently rubbed the small burns on his hands. They would heal and turn calloused in time. It was a common thread of the working man. Calluses and broken down boots. You can learn a lot from looking at a man’s hands and boots, but most people don’t care to look that close, unless there is a designer label affixed to it.

             
Dunlap surveyed the organized clutter upon the desk, but it wasn’t the paperwork that caught his eye, instead it was the polished silver framed photographs that caught his immediate attention. Dunlap recognized the man in the photo as one of the bosses he had seen earlier this morning. The boss had immediately dismissed Dunlap as he hurried past, careful not to make eye contact. The man in the picture stood beside a stately home that was immaculately kept, waving at the hidden photographer.

Dunlap knew that type of hand. That same type of hand that had shaken his in the guise of camaraderie and unity, they had the same slimy, fleshy feel to them of softness and greed. It was like shaking a salamander.

              Dunlap never for a moment presumed that he deserved this lavish a lifestyle, but neither should this schmuck. After all, it had been his sweat, his abused body and others just like him that had helped the fat bastard pay for it.

             
Dunlap’s eyes then moved on and scanned the walls of this tidy little cage. They were lined with certificates, also framed in polished silver, in
honor
of his dedication to the company. All in recognition of his apparent efficiency at the expense of the lesser man in steel toed boots.               Some sell their souls dirt cheap.

             
Didn’t his boss realize that he was a rat in the trap just like his underlings? For certain, his trap was far more opulent and prettier than theirs. But gold chains are still chains, reserved for fools ready to believe they make the man. Didn’t he realize that he was just as expendable as they were?

             
Dunlap knew that it would eventually come back around.

             
It always did.

             
Power comes in degrees, but it is not necessarily equivalent to the power trip it causes.

             
In the wrong hands, even a small dose of power can induce major delirium. It can eat through a lifetime of morals and ethics in a matter of moments and transform a human into a monster. He believed that was what Mary Shelley had been trying to say. He had seen it unfold a hundred times. There had been several good people in the factory below who had gotten a promotion then
BAM!
They started acting like they didn’t even know the rest of those bums that they had eaten their lunches with for the last ten or fifteen years.

             
But oh how easily that power can be destroyed or matched by another. It never takes much; a handful of metal can buy it or cancel it out.

             
Power is a big game of duck, duck, goose.

             
Dunlap felt like spitting on the desk, a big fresh one, black with the dust that everyone in the factory breathed day in and day out, but he elected not to as his eyes trekked around the remainder of the Martha Stewart designed cell. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction that they had managed to piss him off, but he was weak now.

             
Dunlap felt sick with disgust and he felt his envy transformed into rekindled anger.

             
Why would he envy this man? He hated himself for that earlier weakness and resolved to channel it to where it belonged,

             
Every scar, every callous on his hands was a testament to the fact that he had never sold out. He could have done so, like so many others had done before. He could have told them all the lies they wanted to believe, all that they wanted to hear to get a better, easier job, but he refused to live his life as a liar. At least he wasn’t some fat cat in a tailored suit, soft from the plush lifestyle built on the backs of the poor. At least his calluses weren’t on his knees. He still had his soul. It might be a darker shade than some, but it wasn’t for sale.

              He tensed when he heard them enter the office.

             
They always traveled in packs, like jackals. They had their hired guns with them as well. One of them walked to the desk and tried to intimidate him by looming over him where Dunlap sat.

             
Dunlap rolled his eyes.
Same shit, bigger pile,
but he allowed them their moment.

             
The suit had a cardboard box in one hand and Dunlap secretly wished that it was to hold his boss’s personal items as they cleaned out his office.

             
He would have given anything to see the boss standing in the unemployment line with all the miscreants he had fired for ridiculous reasons. There, he would be just another number and it would have to deflate that grotesquely swollen ego somewhat. Humility is good for the soul.

             
The suit tossed the box on the desk and Dunlap heard a light sound of unseen items tinkling against each other and immediately knew what they were.

             
“How’re those powder burns, Dunlap?” asked one of the suits sarcastically.