Chadpocalypse - 3:8 The Outsider

The train shuddered to a halt amidst a wash of flames. The last droplets of water hidden in Chad’s skin high-tailed it away, bubbling to a fine mist in the exquisite heat. With the chintz chairs and chandeliers, he felt as though he were being baked in the world’s most opulent oven. What a way to go.

When he thought he could take no more, the doors to the train opened and a wash of cool air blew in. Outside was what looked like a massive study. Polished wood floors spread out from the train, somehow managing not to burn in the scalding heat. The edges were singed to be sure, but Hell’s fire appeared to have its limits. Looking at the room, it reminded Chad of The Order. He wondered if there would be a snooty guard to escort him here too.

“This is your stop, Chad,” called the conductor.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Chad stepped out of the train and into the room, basking in the cool air that came with it. “Who would have thought The Devil would have air conditioning?”

“That’s just the congregated spirits waiting for their turn to appeal,” commented the train driver for a final time.

The cherub who had been weeping on the floor was slowly crawling toward the train exit, but the doors snapped shut. His eyes went suddenly wide with fear. Chad listened as the creature pounded its tiny fists on the door, trying to get out. There was a muffled yelling, but Chad could not make out what he assumed was a vulgar tirade. Despite the slight affection he had felt for the cherub at times, ultimately, the little bastard was a demon and had killed him more times than he cared to count.

The cherub scrabbled it’s way to the viewport and looked at Chad with pleading eyes.

“Anything you’d like me to relay?” asked the train conductor, blowing the steam whistle.

Chad thought it over. “Tell him, I’m going to try my best, and for what it’s worth, I hope they go easy on him.” It was the truth. He didn’t want the cherub to experience eternal pain or any such terror, but the little bugger did deserve to experience something.

The cherub cocked his head, listening to what the train conductor was saying and then turned his attention back to Chad. He nodded his head and then held up both his middle fingers as the train pulled away.

A pang of guilt hit Chad in the gut, but it didn’t last long. “Good luck, my little friend.” In the end, if Chad really was at the end of his journey, the cherub was safer elsewhere. Chad took a moment to breath. Spirits or no, the chilled air was a delightful reprieve. A tingling sensation at the back of his brain reminded him that he was still in very real danger and needed to stay alert.

He walked further into the room, taking in the rest of the architecture. Crooked pillars, carved with faces in various stages of agony reached upward, supporting a vaulted ceiling. Above, a man with a paintbrush was suspended in a harness, working on a massive mural. It depicted ancient demons alongside more modern figures in sharp detail.

Chad squinted and was able to make out several reality television stars, political dignitaries, and mixes of the two. If he had a vision of the Devil’s antechamber in his mind, this was far from it. He let his gaze drop to the far end of the room where a crackling fire belched smoke in an open fireplace.

Hanging over the fire was a man who had been tied to a spit and was slowly turning. His skin cracked and blistered, but somehow he still managed an unearthly moan. Chad thought about the ghosts flying overhead and wondered what exactly they had done to warrant an appeal.

Above, the painter yelled suddenly. “Get away from me, Maria! You’ve been here for twenty years, he’s not coming, get away!” The man slapped at open air as far as Chad could tell, but the action caused him to swing precariously. The harness holding him to the ceiling buckled and snapped.

Chad took a step back as the man fell and landed on the wood a few feet in front of him. Up close, he could see the painter was wearing what looked to be a traditional Italian costume, or at least what Chad perceived as Italian. He hadn’t exactly traveled enough or read enough books to truly discern the origin.

“Reset me,” groaned the painter from the floor, in extreme agony. “Put me back. I must finish the painting.”

Chad stepped over to him. “Reset you?”

“What have I told you about bothering the ghosts?” came a familiar voice.

Chad jumped and looked to his right. Standing beside him, still wearing her diner uniform was Mrs. B. “No—” he started.

“Look, if you’re going to keep fighting with the undead, Mikey, we’ll find another painter. Devil knows there’s plenty of them who would want your job.”

“Reset me,” pleaded the painter.

“Mrs. B?” Chad asked.

She ignored him, continuing the conversation with the dying man on the floor instead. “Well, I’m afraid Darius is on holiday, so you’ll have to wait for him to get back. You know I can’t reset you, it’s not in my job description. So quit your moaning, we’ve already got Brian for that.” She motioned to the man rotating on the fire.

Mikey moaned from the floor.

“Right, well, I’ll get you a ball gag then.”

“The demon in the diner,” muttered Chad.

“Don’t worry too much about it, dearie.” She smiled at him broadly. “After my little stunt at the diner, I may have been brought down here, but they just put me on desk duty. Brian and I take turns manning the desk and the spit.” she pointed again to the man rotating on the stick.

“How are they not—"

“Dead? Well, that’s one of the many powers of Hell, dearie.” Mrs. B’s voice was unconscionably cheery for the surroundings.

“But I’ve died so many times since I’ve been here.”

Mrs. B chuckled. “Must not have had a skilled demon then. They control when you come back. They’re supposed to keep you alive through the pain, drive you mad, and then at the last second before you truly lose it, bring you back. You’d be surprised how long you can last.” She winked at him and jerked her head toward Brian. “He’s been on there a few weeks now.”

“Jesus Chri—”

Mrs. B hissed and slid away from him. “Don’t do that around Him or it’s going to be a very short appointment.” She brushed herself off. “Must have been a very lackluster demon indeed. Was that him on the train? Little pudgy bastard with stupid, tiny wings?”

“Yup, that was him.” Chad thought back to all the times he had been reset. Was the cherub trying to be kind after all?

“Pitiful little demon, and believe me, I’d know. Now, come over here and we’ll get you all checked in.” She waddled toward the end of the chamber where an ornate wooden desk with clawed feet sat in front of massive double doors that reached almost to the ceiling. At a preposterous height, about halfway to the vaulted ceiling was a brass knocker and a door handle.

“Is He really that big?”

Mrs. B laughed. “Oh no, he just doesn’t like visitors unless he’s scheduled them. Just ask the spirits up there. I keep telling them they need to fill out an appeals form, but poor dearies can’t even pick up a pen.”

“Can you see them?”

“Of course, I can, but you can’t,” she added, confirming Chad’s suspicion. “I don’t think you’re long for this plane, dear Chad, and that’s a good thing. If you were, you’d see the miserable bastards floating around up there, moaning all the time. It’s quite depressing.”

Chad looked up, trying to picture it. All he saw was the painter’s harness swinging back and forth.

“Let’s see.” Mrs. B went through a filing cabinet and pulled out a large envelope embossed with a blood-red wax seal. Grabbing a long knife from inside one of the desk drawers, she sliced the paper open, spilling documents and polaroid photos onto the desk. She spread them out, talking to herself under her breath as she did so.

Chad looked at them and saw images of himself standing over each of the dead horseman. From a third-party perspective, he thought he appeared rather mighty.

“My, my, three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. You got farther than he thought you would, my dear.”

“Still missed one though.” Chad reddened with shame at the thought of the motivational speech he tried on Death.

“Death is a sneaky little bastard,” agreed Mrs. B. “Didn’t even come for me himself. Sent a bunch of bastards in black suits crawling through my back window. Had to fill out all sorts of forms and go through processing. All that to end up working a desk down here.” She huffed.

“I’m really sorry about that, B.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault, dear. I’ve always been a bit of a rabble rouser. I’m here because a man skipped out on a breakfast check and I gouged his eye out with an ice cream scoop.” She laughed to herself as if it were some fond memory.

“What?” Chad started in surprise.

“No one ends up down here by accident, Chad.” She shuffled through the papers more and found a bloody image of the lobby he had just come from. “Making short work of the demons in Gentrification City I see.” She grimaced, looking closer at the photo. “Although, a lot of you in those piles as well, I guess. What was your demon thinking?”

“I’m not sure thinking was his strong suit.”

B Chuckled. “It would seem so. Well, this all looks in order. Let me get you to sign this form real quick.” She passed a piece of parchment over to him. Written in heavy cursive that was nearly illegible, Chad made out the words: ‘Terms and Conditions Agreement’.

“Really?” he asked.

“Really. Now, you can try to read over it if you like, but I’ve taken the opportunity to redline the important bits because I like you. Unlike our standard contracts, this doesn’t ask you to forfeit your soul outright, but it does state that you’re open to the possibility of forfeiting at a future date.”

Chad nodded, straining to read the cursive script on the page.

“Trust me, dear, don’t try and read it, you’ll go mad.”

Not reading a contract from The Devil didn’t seem like the right move, but a part of him still trusted B. “Before I sign, can I ask you a question?”

Mrs. B looked up at him with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Of course, but make it quick, as you can imagine, He’s not a terribly patient man.”

“Why did you come up to warn me?” For someone who was trying to avoid the apocalypse, B seemed to fit surprisingly well in Hell.

She sighed. “I may belong down here, there’s no doubts there, but that doesn’t mean I want Hell to walk on Earth. I loved my time up above and I don’t see any reason to cut it short for anyone else. Does that suffice?” She shook the contract at him.

It did. Chad felt a warmth and affection for B that was foreign in this land. The feeling was an intruder in an unholy space and even as he recognized it, his body tried to reject it. Need to get out of here soon, he thought, realizing the longer he stayed, the easier it was for his body to normalize exactly where he was. “Alright, run me through it.”

B Smiled. “Down here it’s saying that you bear The Devil no ill will and won’t try to do him bodily harm while you’re in his presence. Any attempt to do so would of course result in forfeiture of your soul.”

“I thought you said it wouldn’t ask me to forfeit my soul.” Chad’s suspicion rose again.

“Outright,” repeated B. “It doesn’t ask for your soul outright. Now, do you mean him bodily harm? Because, if you do, I’ve got another form for that and we might as well start there.”

Chad thought about it. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“Right, then initial here.” B pointed to a small blank space on the contract.

Chad looked for a pen and didn’t see one. “Let me guess?”

B held out the knife to him.

“It’s always blood.” Chad pricked his finger with the knife and scrawled his best initial on the paper.

“Great, this next section states that you are coming alone and not harboring any beings within you with or without your prior knowledge.”

“How would I know?”

B shrugged. “It’s always hard to tell, but if it turns out you do—”

“Let me guess, my soul is forfeit?”

“Exactly.” She smiled at him. “Always such a smart boy.”

Chad took his bloody finger and initialed again. The process went on for almost an hour as B continued to read him clauses of increasing obscurity.

“Finally, we have the jet ski clause.”

“Jet ski? Are you joking?”

“It wouldn’t be on here if it hadn’t happened before. So, in the event that you end up spinning a prize wheel after wagering your soul for the devil and receive a jet ski, this clause states that the warranty on said jet ski is only good for a year. After that time, if the jet ski breaks, you may exchange another soul or favor to The Devil in exchange for a replacement from the wheel of equal or lesser value.”

“Chr—” Chad started, but the corrected himself, “Hell.”

“Yes, that’s the idea. Sign at the bottom here and we’re all finished up.”

B pointed to a line at the bottom of the form and Chad signed with what little blood would still come from his finger. He looked down at the unraveled parchment, now covered in bloody approximations of signatures, initials, and dates. It had unfurled to the floor and curled up in a pile at his feet.

B snapped her fingers and the parchment rolled up. She tied it with a red ribbon and handed it to Chad. “You’ll give that to him when you enter. He might want to review it before you talk, but don’t worry, I’m sure everything is in order.”

“Fantastic.” Chad looked down at the little scroll in his hand. “How long will I have to wait to see him?”

“Hundred years, give or take,” B said with utmost sincerity.

Chad’s heart dropped into his stomach. He could smell the burning flesh of the man on the fire and the room suddenly seemed far too cold.

“Oh, don’t go all loopy on me, just a joke.” Mrs. B picked up an intercom on her desk and pushed a red button. “Yes, I’ve got Chad here to see you.”

A garbled voice replied.

“Yes, I’ve had him sign the form.”

The garbled voice replied again, sounding pleased.

“Oh, before I send him in, I almost forgot, Mikey fell off the roof again.”

More garbled response, but this time clearly exasperated.

“I’ve told him to stop harassing the ghosts, but you know how it is.”

A distinct sigh rose from the com.

“Yes, I do think it will affect the mural timeline. Especially with Darius on vacation, we’re not going to be able to reset Mikey for a few weeks.”

There was a pause and then a grumble from the intercom.

“Why don’t you come take a look at it when you’re finished with this meeting.”

The voice garbled back with reluctant acceptance.

“Sure thing, I’ll send him in.” B put the intercom down and put her hand beneath the desk to pull a concealed lever. A comically small door appeared in the frame of the larger one and swung open. “Good luck, dear. Make it count,” she said and winked at him.