About five minutes later…
The fire crackles and pops as grease drips from the sizzling meat. The beast is ran through with the broken broom from mouth to rear, turning on the makeshift spit.
Light from your little floor fire dances on your face, casting sinister shadows. Your eyes are wide as they survey the feast, taking in the bouquet of Hell Beast (basted with a sweet Mango glaze). In the middle of the living room you sit, wearing its fur like a grisly, crusted skull cap; your face drizzled with caked blood like war paint.
For reasons unknown, you’re wearing nothing but a loincloth.
Suddenly, the fire alarm goes off. You jump to your feet with a screech, your injured leg throbbing, but you ignore it as you rush upon the beeping machine. Each squawk pierces your skull like a needle. You try screaming at it. It doesn’t work. With a grunt, you rush back over to the spit, rip your meal from the broom, and thrust the bloody shaft into the beeping monster. The panel falls with a clatter, leaving a sole nine volt battery hanging loose by blue and red wires.
You howl in glory!
Wandering back, you splash a small glass of water of the fire. It dies with a hiss, swirling smoke in the window’s breeze. You sit, grab the cooked remains of the Furby from hell, and dig into it.
There’s a knock at the door.
Rising slowly, you hold the broom spear at the ready. You sniff the air and grunt, then shuffle a little sideways. Everywhere you step is a blood stain, not yet dried. Your toes squish as you cautiously close in on the door.
Knock, knock-a knock knock!
You huff and grunt, bearing your teeth and banging your chest. Yet whatever rests on the other side doesn’t seem deterred. Swallowing hard, you bring the spear up, and with a raging bellow, wrench the door open.
Standing at your doorstep is Dennis the Menace. Or at least something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Either way, it’s about as little boy as they come.
You lower your spear.
“Well, well, well!” he says. “You’re not looking too good, Mack.”
You sniff a couple times and crook your head.
“Looks like ol’ fuzzy turned you savage.”
“Who…?” You mutter.
The phone rings.
You jerk around.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” says the boy, casually stepping past you into the living room. “You should go ahead and answer that.”
Holding a wary eye on the child, you swipe the phone off the couch.
“God?” you ask.
“What? Man, that’s a strange way to answer the phone.”
Coworker.
“So, hey, didja catch the halftime show?”
“The what?” You ask, distracted. The kid is wandering around, glancing furtively at the remains of the spit.
“Madonna, man! She is so hot! And she’s like, in her fifties. Oh, I’d so tap that.”
You sigh. “No, I’ve told you before, I’m not really big into… you know what, never mind. Look, I have—”
“Oh shit! I just remembered that you had that little pest problem!”
“Yeah,” you say, staring longingly at the warm meat, still accumulating hair on the stained carpet. Your stomach growls. It really does smell good.
“OK, all you have to do is pour vinegar on them.” he says.
“You…wait, what?”
“Yeah. They totally dry up like salt on slugs man. Nasty.”
“You couldn’t have just…said that?”
“I was in a hurry man! You can’t be late for a colon cleanse. It’s just a matter of priorities.”
You rub your eyes.
“So, yeah! Halftime! They had Spartans, and dancing, and Nicki Manaj, and those laugh-my-ass-off guys up there! And that one M.I.A. chick flipped the camera off. People get so over the top sometimes, you know? Anyway, it was so awesome! It was, like, the awesomest thing ever! I think there was some kind of game going on too, but I just turned it once Madonna was done.”
You miss all of this as the phone hangs forgotten at your side. You’re focused on the strange boy. He seems fascinated with the shattered TV, not in the least concerned with all the blood.
“Jesus,” he says with a cough, waving his hands in the air. “It’s smoky in here. Don’t you have a smoke detector?”
“Never mind that, who are you?” you say, stepping in front of the hanging nine volt.
“Oh, sorry!” he says. “I should have introduced myself! Tada! It’s me!”
Good introduction.
“Me…who?”
“God of course!” he beams.
Of course.
“Why are you here?”
“Weeeeelll, after our last chat — I was absolutely sure you were going to die by the way — but anyway, after our last chat, I went ahead and checked into that whole,you didn’t die debacle. And, as it turns out, I kinda suck at paperwork, and, well, kinda sent the Hell Spawn to the wrong house.”
“Uh huh.”
“New guy at the office!” he chuckles. “That’s me.”
“Right.”
“So, yeah, that was meant for your neighbor, Tom.” he says. “Anyhoo, I was kind of feelin’ a little pooey about you gettin’ all rustled up, and figured I’d come on over and, well, you know.”
“Apologize?” you ask.
“Oh fuck no! I never do that! Apologies denote mistakes, Mack, and I’m omnipotent.”
“But you just said—”
“Nah, I just wanted to come let you know that it was tomorrow after all. So, you can expect another one of those showing up sometime tonight probably. Or maybe two. One might not be enough by the looks of it!”
He smiles.
“Thanks.”
You become distantly aware that Coworker is still emphatically ranting. He’s saying something about Dirty Harry and the Boater Pity, whatever the hell that means. Probably some movie or something.
“But hey, it ain’t all bad.” says God as he walks back to the door. “I’ll tell ya what, since I am kinda responsible for your TV being broken and all, I’ll go ahead and give you a new one. I can do that, ‘cause I’m God.”
Just like that, the TV is replaced, good as new.
“You make an excellent deus ex machina,” you mutter.
“Yep.” he nods. ”Anyway, you don’t mind taking care of the blood though, right? I don’t really do carpets.”
You stare at him.
“Well, gotta get going. See you tomorrow!”
With that he wanders off down the road, whistling a catchy tune.
You close the door behind him.
Suddenly you hear screaming from the phone. Your heart jumps in your throat as you pull it up. “Coworker? What is it? What happened?”
“It’s the Giants, Mack! They won! Twenty one to seventeen, bitches! I have no idea what that means, but praise his holy name, they won the Super Bowl! Wooo—”
You hang the phone up and drop it on the table.
You figure you have a few more hours before two or more infernal rodents viciously rip your limbs asunder, so you better spend your last moments well.
Exhausted, you flop hard on the couch. Scratching at the bandage on your leg, you reach down and grab the hunk of meat and the Xbox controller. Brushing some hair from it, you shove the “Hell Scrat” in your mouth and load up the game.
In minutes, a zombie is detonated by a shotgun that shoots explosive rounds.
A familiar smile crosses your greasy lips.
© 2012 J. Chris Lawrence
