take one of the huge messed up universe.
warnings: mocks religion, uses religious figures in a mocking light, takes the antichrist unseriously, god is a fictional character and so is jesus, all sorts of wrongly represented ideas and meanings of religion, language, and so on.
There's a place in Kansas where there's a crossroads with signs all pointing towards civilization, and a homemade sign with yellow glitter and smiley faces points to the left. It's down a dark and narrow road that nobody ever drives on because why would you go where someone's trying to do a practical joke. Or not so practical- there's been some murders in Kansas lately. Usually involving cars.
That sign, right, back on that. It's put up because of rule number 73 that states "AND HELL SHALL BE PROPERLY LABELED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC". Nobody said it had to be labeled plainly or with all intent serious. That sign was made by Hell's third grade class as a project to make Hell more appealing. They thought smiley faces were comforting.
If one were to follow that sign down the narrow roads and the twisting paths with other signs to throw you off, such as FREE TACOS THIS WAY, DO NOT PASS- HELL, and the favorable DEAD END AHEAD since they all love puns in Hell, you'd end up at this vast and empty land that resembles normal Kansas. Ever driven through it? Neverending.
Once the differences of no cows and the endless dark sky would be apparent you'd realise you weren't in Kansas anymore(when it was made they found it hilarious to greet new souls this way until about- no, they still do it) and then there's a large hole in the ground. Literally hole with a road heading down into it. So it's more like a tunnel, only called 'THE HOLE OF DEATH' since Death likes to name things after herself.
At the end of the tunnel there's no light. No bright flashing changes, only one second your in your car and the next you're outside this beat-down town and you can't drive anymore. There's a collection of pink cows standing in the road, as usual, and that's that.
"You're not in Kansas anymore, you lucky bastard," the greeter, a very angry looking girl with long nails and a bitch pony-tail, says. She raises an eyebrow and hands over a ticket. It says, 'ONE FREE ADMISSION TO HELL. YOU'RE LUCKY DAY! :)'.
If she gets thanked the girl rolls her eyes and says, "nobody ever says that once they're in the town." If she doesn't get thanked she goes back to her magazine, reading an article about NINETY WAYS TO DIE A VIRGIN SACRIFICE.
In the town center, located right across from The Diner and Pete's Adult Superstore, they're having a meeting. It's nothing serious. Just some people talking about the state of cows blocking traffic, the increasing number of teenage deliquients smuggling pot into the afterlife, and what they're going to do about the cult group trying to bring back Hyde(also known as the modern poor-man's Hades god) by blocking more streets than cows.
A human named Rashida who's only twenty-one and the most outspoken person on the people's side of representation says, "we should just tell them to move or we'll drive on through with a truck. A really huge truck."
"Isn't your boyfriend out there?" Tony, the only zombie in this collection of people, asks.
Rashida stares at him like she wants to filae him with a knife and eat him for breakfast. "Ex, thank you," she says stiffly.
Sitting behind the desk is a skinny girl with thick, matted black hair. She rubs at her face and shivers in the heat. When she opens her eyes she looks crazed, as normal. "Why don't we just ask them to move? Huh? Anyone going to tell me they tried that?"
"We did. You were there, remember?" Rashida asks.
"Right." The girl twitches and goes back to tracing patterns on her desk.
Gerald, dressed in a sharp suit, leans over into Anna's space. "What's wrong with her?" he whispers in the dead silent room. He ignores that everyone looks over at them and waits.
"She found out her sister is coming back," Anna whispers back, smoothing out her skirt. "And we're all very aware of this now, Death, you can stop pretending it's a drug withdrawl."
Rashida has, meanwhile, been walking towards the window. She opens it up and leans out, yells, "YOU'LL BE DEAD FIRST, CHUCK!" The group of representitives groan collectively.
Off to the side Muse, a shapeshifter who owns the music store downtown, looks unimpressed. "You guys, we should really talk about the cows. I couldn't go to a concert in Asian Hell and I'm still upset about it."
"Nobody cares," Tony yells because he's bitter about not being invited.
The rest of the meeting lasts like that. Tony pretends he isn't jealous of Chuck having dated Rashida, Gerald looks uncomfortable, Anna and Lucy braid each other's hair, and Death falls out of her chair. They find out her flask wasn't alchohol, just cough syrup. Rashida drags Death to her apartment and they call it a day until tomorrow.
Down at the protest, Charlie, called Chuck in people's fits of rage, is trying to find his shoes. Someone took them when he was making a smoke run at the gas station two blocks down. It's disgusting and he's not wearing socks and there's mud everywhere, thank you.
"WE ONLY HAVE TO LAST FIVE MORE HOURS," Ray, the campaign manager, shouts on his megaphone. Charlie wants to take it away since he's been shouting useless shit all day. Like they all need reminding it's the hottest day in the history of Hell. "WE CAN MAKE IT! WE CAN MAKE IT FOR HYDE!"
As the chorous of 'FOR HYDE' picks up around the gathered group, Charlie slinks to the outskirts. He looks for Hazel but can't find her and takes a seat at the empty bench. It's nicer in the shade than in the direct sun. Hell isn't always this hot, but they modeled it after Kansas this milineium.
Last time it was after Omaha, Newbraska. Why they picked Kansas of all states-
"Chuck! Wow, I'm really glad to see you," Sandy squeals as she takes the seat right next to him on the bench. She pushes her hair out of her face and grins wide at him, looking like the twelve year old she is at heart.
Charlie's still not over her harrassing him last week over some cream puffs. "What do you want?" He asks.
"I just wanted your interview for the school paper," Sandy says.
"Uh huh. That's all."
"What kind of girl do you take me for? I know you and Rashida just broke up. I would wait before making my move on you! Sheesh, Chuck, do you even know me at all?" Sandy asks in outrage. She huffs and recrosses her legs. "Okay. I'll start with an easy question: tell me about what's going on here."
Charlie watches a bird land on the tree branch above him. "Well, we're trying to bring back Hyde so he can throw the neverending party. Apparently he can bring lots of beer anywhere, even down here. So," he explains, leaving out the minor detail of Hyde being the one and only with a million different awesome supernatural powers.
"That's all?"
"We also needed an extra-curricular activity to graduate. It's mostly seniors from the high school," he says. "Plus some homeless people we offered five bucks to stand here for-" he looks at his watch "-it's been seven hours. We're verging on twelve. Then we'll do the ritual, or whatever."
Sandy writes it down like it's the gospel. She sticks her tongue out between her lips and scratches and scribbles in her reporter's notepad. "Okay. All good stuff. What can you tell me about the ritual?"
"Um, all I know is that there's a lot it isn't."
"Please explain."
Charlie shrugs. "We tried to sacrifice a cow, duck, or chicken but Death said animal cruelty doesn't belong in this Hell, that's a special kind of hell, and then virgin sacrifice was never an option since nobody's one here. Ray tried offering up his first born but he's gay. And we almost got past offering up sex-"
Sandy cuts in with a, "just tell me about what you're doing."
"I think-" and Charlie never finishes that sentence because the crowd erupts in cheers and the music kicks on in full blast. There's no way you can hear anyone here. Charlie's thankful to whoever timed that wonderfully and he waves Sandy off to disappear in the crowd again.
Death's house is this nice little suburban home with pink paint and a white-picket fence to block in her garden. She's got mourning glories, tulips, sunflowers, and a whole bunch of other flowers that aren't in season, nor do the exist outside her garden.
Dragging a body up to the front door is quite hard because of these flowers. Regardless of who made them, flowers still try to eat whatever part of Death they can reach. The REFRIDGERATOR CORNHUSKS use their razor sharp teeth to grab her shoe and tug. BLACK TACOS try to suck on her fingers for blood, and then CHILD EATERS eat a chunk of her hair.
"Fuck," Rashida says as she nearly trips for the third time. She digs her keys out of her bra and unlocks the screen door, then the front door. "Jesus, Death, you're heavier than Chuck."
She's not over Chuck yet, in case you couldn't tell. She's not even sure why they broke up in the first place. Last time she asked Chuck he'd said you should know all judgemental like and Rashida didn't appreciate it so she shouted back something about just giving you a chance to apologize and walked away.
Inside the house she starts making some tea after she throws Death onto the living room floor face up. Rashida finds her dog food and fills back up the dishes, then she lets in the Hellhounds from the backyard. They run in barking and yelping and slobber all over her legs.
Rashida doesn't get paid enough to deal with this. She picks up the angel statue the hounds knocked over from the counter and looks at it. It's all white with a smooth cut, and the angel has curly hair. When she squints at the face the angel has no eyes and it's teeth are like razors and remind her of the flowers.
Creepy. Rashida sets it back up carefully and walks away, feeling like it's watching her.
Death's sitting up on her couch now. She's relaxed once more and no longer in shambles, petting her favorite hound, Past. Present and Future are snuggling in front of the fire despite it being 86 degrees in the house.
"I'm beginning to worry about my dearest sister, Rashida," Death says melodramtically. She throws up her hands until Past whines. She puts them back down and rubs at Past's belly.
Rashida barely manages not to say 'everyone else does, too' but it's not the time. "She's the Antichrist. It's not exactly the best of titles someone can have-"
"My sister has a pure heart! I know she does. You know all she's done since she... figured it out? You know she's only done one thing?"
"We all know. She went back in time to Woodstock and got hooked on acid, and now she's clean, yes," Rashida recites from memory. She knows she's missing something- oh, right. "And she also met the love of her life. Now their a hippie Antichrist and mute musician team."
Death groans and closes her eyes. "I can't believe he loves her. Hasn't Sunday School brainwashed enough people into hating her? Why couldn't he have gone?"
"You've never even met him," Rashida reminds her. "Don't judge the poor man. He's probably under enough stress dealing with your sister. If I had to handle her all the time, well. I'm just glad I'm your assistant."
Hazel finally finds Charlie at the protest with only thirty minutes left. "Hey, asshat, about time. I was going to have to bum some off people," she says, grabbing a carton of cigarettes and lighting one up. "My savior."
"You still owe me," Charlie says, taking out his own. He watches Ray recruit some band to play The Stroke and fails to get the speakers turned up loud enough.
"For what?" Hazel asks. She's distracted by checking out the ass of a girl who walks past in a leather mini-skirt. "You haven't done anything."
Charlie sighs. "I'm here, aren't I?"
There's a moment and then Hazel rubs the back of her neck, blushing. "I totally forgot about that. Thanks, man. I'm pretty excited about how this will work. Especially since we're the reason this is happening."
"We're totally going to jail, aren't we," Charlie says.
"Only if this ends badly." Hazel smiles at him. She punches his shoulder and heads off, claiming she wants to 'go get one last in with that leather girl before it's just conjual visits and horror'.
Charlie counts down the next twenty-seven minutes by shoving his tongue down the throat of a guy who makes the mistake of giving him a peck on the lips. They break for air half way through and the guy says, "my name's Muse?" and his eyes are a stunning red. Charlie grins and wonders if Hazel got her girl, bleatedly, before going back to making out.
"IT IS HERE, PEOPLE! THE TIME HAS COME!" Ray shouts to the crowd. They all cheer and stare up at him, awaiting the ritual. "NOW, BASED ON MY RESEARCH, ALL WE NEED IS SOME HEARTFUL MESSAGES AS OUR SACRIFICE. HYDE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR. COME UP HERE, PEOPLE, AND TELL US YOUR POEMS AND YOUR FEELINGS."
Everyone's so far gone that they actually get in line to do it. Ray marvels at his work, or really Hazel and Charlie's, and starts it off by talking about the time he, in his past life, lost his pants at an amusement park.
Hell, Kansas, is known for being a small town, depsite all the names people will give it (like LAND DOWN UNDER, THAT PLACE THAT'S HOT, HELL FOR WIMPS, LOST SOUL REUNIONS, or just plain old A PLACE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T GO TO CHURCH BUT WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH FOR REAL HELL) it is still a suburb town.
Which means that right before they summon Hyde and ask him for the best party of their lives, people from the Cult of the End, not to be confused with our current Cult of Ray, rally all their soccer moms and little kids and deadbeat dads and they get their own signs and start crashing the protest/summoning ritual three minutes before success.
"We don't want the devil here! We've already got Death!" They shout to the crowd of supporters. Their signs are hastily written because, apparently, only the higher up government people knew what it was about. Until Charlie had given that interview nobody knew.
"You asshat, what about our plans?" Hazel yells as she punches Charlie in the face, but that's not as important to talk about.
Ray takes up his microphone and starts chanting the poems of Richard Siken's Crush, managing to make everyone cry and feel moved. On the other side Tammy, a mom of three and a half, takes the only copy of the Bible they have in Hell and starts reading about The End.
Over in Death's house, as she pours herself a stiff drink, she feels incredibly angry and pissed off for no reason. "Son of a bitch," she says to the televison showing that it's hot in Topeka up above. She takes a large swallow and ignores Rashida doing her charisma practice in the bathroom mirror quite loudly.
Death leans down and picks up Past, rubs between her ears, and sits back up on the kitchen counter. The television cuts to an emergancy broadcast and shows the remains of where the protest was. It's a helicoptar view(even though those suckers can't fly down here, what the hell) and Death wonders.
"You hear about that?" Rashida asks, walking back in the room.
Death counts to ten and then yells, "they don't even know what the fuck is coming, do they?"
With a mouth full of blood and saliva, Charlie coughs it all out in a trashcan down the block from the failed rising of Hyde. It ended up with Ray and Tammy screaming books at each other and then, wham! a flash of light. Then it kind of stopped and nothing happened at all.
Hazel's holding his jacket, standing stiffly off to one side. She keeps shifting her weight and if she had pupils he'd guess she was purposely not looking at him. On her right knuckle there's blood, dried and thick.
"So, biggest waste of time ever or what?" Charlie asks. He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand and then onto his pants. "Don't answer. I'm still pissed you clocked me."
"Shut the fuck up, it could have worked if you'd have kept your trap shut," Hazel says.
He pretends it's an actual thought and shrugs. "Okay. Whatever. Wanna go to The Diner?"
That's also the time where time stands still for a few seconds. Of course if it's standing still you can't tell because you aren't aware, but it's a gut feeling. The kind you get about 'this dark alley isn't safe for me' or 'this person has a gun, let's go'. Charlie knows that he missed out on a few seconds.
"YOU IDIOTS," Death says in her normal voice, but. They can all tell that she's screaming at them and really scourning them. She's been mayor for, well, ever, so they all sort of know the way she rolls. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ALL JUST DID. FUCKING IDIOTS, DO YOU?"
Some poor soul shouts out a negative to her, and she snaps her fingers and smites him where he stands. Charlie jumps because, wow, she only does that when they've all royally fucked up, or lost to Heaven in Trival Pursuit.
Death straightens her posture. "OH, YOU ASSHATS. THERE'S THIS THING CALLED THE APOCALYPSE AND YOU ALL BROUGHT IT UPON THE MORTAL WORLD. CONGRADULATIONS, NOW EVERYONE IS GOING TO HATE HELL EVEN MORE." She rolls her eyes and throws up her hands. "AND NOW I HAVE TO STOP IT. I'M ONE OF THE FOUR FUCKING HORSEMEN- IF I STOP THE APOCALYPSE I'LL BE KICKED OUT."
"Out of what?" Another idiot yells out. At least she doesn't smite him. Death just looks at him like he's the most worthless piece of shit she's seen which, they're in Hell, means a lot.
"OUR 'POWER OF FOUR RIDING GROUP'- NO, YOU DIPSHIT, IMMORTAL DEATH POWER USAGE. NOW I HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO END THIS SHIT YOU ALL STARTED," Death explains, and it's amazing she's still talking like she's standing next to each of them.
Then she's gone after another time freeze. Between the crowd's confusion and choas a fight breaks out between Ray and Tammy, out of all the people. Charlie grabs Hazel's arm and drags her out of the crowd with him, and they end up in the diner.
Hazel says, "I wonder if we could ever learn to vanish like that. All I can do is deattach body parts, and you can like... hum really well." She waves her fry in a vague motion to describe his humming.
"Thank you," Charlie says, and he starts humming the Authority Song.
Up in Heaven, in the clouds and with all that metaphorical symbolic shit happening, God is talking with Her followers. "I was wondering how you felt about letting the apocalypse happen," She says. "Because it's been a real long time since we've had one. And then all your family and friends would be up here with you."
In the human part of Heaven they rebel and yell and scream against Her. They say it's not right and a whole bunch of other things She already knows they feel.
"Okay, thanks. How do you feel, angels?" She asks them. God makes eye contact with enough that she knows the number won't be incredibly high. She sighs, and prepares for the onslaught.
And that's how God got kicked out of Heaven. She takes the loyal angels and gets ready to leave when Jesus stops Her. "I'm not an angel," he says, "but I'll go with you. I guess."
God grins wide as the sun on a sticky, hot summer day. "Thank you, son," She says. She kisses him on the forehead and they go on, walking for refuge away from the rebelling humans of Heaven.
"So does this mean Judgement Day is coming soon, or like in fiftey years or some ridiculous shit," Hazel says, on her third milkshake and still feeling hot. She sticks to the vinyl of the booths and winces as her skin pulls when she moves her legs.
Charlie shrugs. "I don't think about being judged down here often. We're in Hell, remember?"
"They never said we'd be excluded, did they? We're technically still 'alive' because we could call people up above if we cared. We're living at the same time they are. There was that guy in European Hell who called his old girlfriend and then she killed herself and they were together. Touching stuff."
"Whatever. I'd rather not think about being judged because, hate to break it to you, the best we've ever done is those community service hours. And that was mandatory for everyone," Charlie says, "we'll probably be sent here again. Only Death will be disappointed-"
"And we're fucking screwed, yes. Or wait. Wait. What if they got rid of Hell and then it restarted, and we got judged again and then we ended up in a worse place because we're awful people even in the damn afterlife?" Hazel asks.
"That's," Charlie stops and takes a drink of his milkshake. He'd miss these if he had to leave. He'd miss the whole Diner minus Sandy being their waitress all the time. "That's a sad thought. Please don't say it agian."
Hazel gives him an unimpressed look, steals some of his fries, and slouches in her seat. Fucking vinyl sticking to her pants. "Here's a sadder thought: what if your soul mate is already dead? Or in our case, alive?"
Up in the real world there is a guy named Milo Sloan. He lives in an old apartment with creaky floors with a single bedroom where his mother stays. They're too poor to buy him a bed, and choosing to feed themselves over it, he sleeps on his thrift store stained sofa. He doesn't know about Hell, Kansas, because nobody really knows about it until they're in it.
He wakes up at three in the morning to take a shower, get dressed, and eat his Cheerios and past date chocolate milk. It's disgusting and he hates it but he eats it anyways. Milo shoves it in his mouth and watches the television on mute.
If it wasn't on mute the news would have been saying, "-REPORTS HAVE COME IN THAT THERE'S A MASSIVE HURRICANE HEADED TOWARDS FLORIDA AND JAPAN, AND THEN THERE'S A DROUGHT STARTING IN THE MIDWEST, AND THEY'VE DECIDED THAT APPARENTLY KENTUCKY IS TIRED OF THE 'PRESIDENT CRAMPING ITS STYLE' AND THREATENS TO ANNEX ITSELF UNLESS THE GOVERNMENT STOPS THE REVOLUTIONS IN TENESSEE-"
But Milo stares at a silent television screen and sees cars burning up and things being blown up and thinks it looks strange. He changes the channel to some reality show about friends in new york, and one of them is threatening to jump off the roof if he's guessing correctly.
His girlfriend, Freda, walks in with an oversized t-shirt, not Milo's, but still proclaiming the band AC/DC. She gives him an odd look at his cereal. She takes out the Cheerios and gets a bowl of them with normal milk from his mother's secret hiding spot.
Milo's almost alseep on the table when Freda says, "are you related to this girl?" and she's asking about the one screaming at everyone she's going to jump off the roof of a one story building.
He would say something witty back but he's so damn tired, and his name is Milo Sloan, and he doesn't know it yet but he's Hazel's soul mate and he has much bigger plans than being a slacker.
In Death's kitchen Rashida calls an emergancy meeting. The council shows up, and they bring some other people, and one of them is a psychic, and then Death finally shows up twelve minutes late with their lunch.
"Does anyone know what kind of apocalypse this is going to be?" Tony asks. He's grabbed all three of the cream filled donuts and Rashida's trying to distract him so Anna can grab one of them. It's not working.
Rashida gives up and says, "nobody down here would know. We stopped the last one so it's God's turn this time. She'll know which one it is."
"Yeah," Death says quietly from the back, lying on the living room floor like a corpse, "there's gonna be a problem with that plan. I heard Heaven got angry God wanted to roll with the apocalypse and She left in some sort of self-saving deal."
"Really," this guy with a suit asks, frowning with his glasses sliding down his nose. "That's utterly ridiculous, shouldn't She stay up there and fix it?"
"Well she's not. And we're the last people-"
"We're Hell, Death, why should we stop the apocalypse?" Rashida asks.
Death rolls over so she's on her back facing everyone. She looks worn out and Rashida wonders if Death has ever slept, even before all this. "Because if God won't clean up Her act, we've got to step in. And I feel now would be a good time to mention we've started every apocalypse since the start of time, excluding that horrible one with Hitler."
Nobody protests, and rightly so, because if there's one thing Hell, Kansas, doesn't want to be known for it's for doing the apocalypse a million times and then not cleaning it up. All the other universes and hidden places and that other Hell in England and the one in Asia would all stop inviting them over for sport tournaments and poker night.
On the edge of town the girl is still sitting there reading her magazine. She ponders the difference between 'sexual intercourse' and 'losing your virginity'. They have arguementive pro and con sides for the similar and not alike points. She wonders if people in town would agree with her point of it doens't matter.
"Excuse me," this girl with brown hair says, tapping the edge of her desk.
"Holy shit," the girl behind the counter says. She sits up straight. Nobody's ever been able to sneak up on her. She knows all, sees all, and hears all. Unless the person showing up is super important and can be undetected by the human scent.
The other girl, with brown hair, holds up her three bags. She gestures to the guy standing beside her with sunglasses and short hair and freckles and says, "so I'm here on temporary leave of absence, or whatever my sister said. Can you get my bags?"
"Who the hell are you?"
The girl laughs. She straightens her shoulders and stands to her full height, grinning. It's not a pleasant sight. Just as nice an image as, when you're watching the nature channel, watching the prey's head get snapped off by a predator.
"I'm the Antichrist, here to make your acquiantince," the girl says. She hands the girl behind the counter her bags and starts walking. They fall into step, and the Antichrist says, "that's my consort, Henry. He's a musicionfrom Woodstock."
"Okay," the girl says. "Nice to meet you. I guess."
The Antichrist laughs again, throws back her head and really laughs. When she's calmed down she shakes her head and throws Henry a kinder smile. "I'm not even sure what's so funny. How long did you say that pot would last?"
News of the Antichrist showing up spread pretty fast. Hazel heard about it from everyone on the streets and then again when her little sister Louisa called, asking for the pay per view code so she could watch some adult on demand stuff.
"Stop bothering me about this," Hazel had said before hanging up and turning off her phone for good. She stops to take off her tights and then leaves the diner to meet Charlie at the fountain.
First she stops at the drug store to grab some things. She gets a six pack of root beer, a lesbian skins magazine, and a box of Cheerios. The line is shorter in the left checkout counter so she stands behind a woman and her daughter, trying to hide her skin magazine out of the kid's sight.
"You still shop here?" Death says, stepping up behind Hazel in line. She hand't been there when she went in the store- damn, Hazel thought, she was letting down her guard. "That's always a good thing to know."
"Need something?" Hazel asks. She puts the condoms Death added to the conveyor belt back on the rack, making sure that's all the new items she's collected.
Death grins and leans in close. Hazel can see the dark circles under her eyes, the slight shift of her cheeks that means she really doesn't have skin and that's flesh but she's making you picture skin, and that's disgusting. You dont' want to see that about someone. "I know you convinced Ray to summon Hyde."
"Yeah, I know that too. What's it to you?"
"I just- did you seriously not take the Cult of the End into consideration?"
Hazel sighs and says, slow to get her intentions across, "we wanted Hyde to come back because we researched him and found out he can bring beer and parties anywhere he goes. After you banned the beer because everyone was drinking and not doing anything else, well, it's ruined our high school parties. We just wanted it back."
That takes a moment to sink in. Death rubs her face with her hands and sighs. "You mean this apocalypse got started because you wanted some beer? Seriously?"
"Dude. The last one was because we wanted the soul of all the Beatles. And we lost, so-"
"Just stop talking or I'll smite you." Death vanishes with a trace of smoke lingering around her. It smells like sex and sweat with cigarettes.
On the surface, Milo Sloan is sitting in his high school like everyone else. He's at lunch, sitting in the cafeteria with a tray of school lunch, untouched, in front of him. It's chicken fried steak only it's 'healthy' so it's baked in grease. He prods at it with his fork.
John is telling a joke about the end of the world. He says, "stop me if you've heard this one-" and Milo Sloan feels like he's heard it when he's never listened before. It's a strange feeling, not one he'd like to explore, and he goes back to his fake smoking break.
When he's back in class, history, Milo feels something burn in his throat. He coughs and blood splatters on his desk. Milo sits back and stares, he thinks he may have done some other things, and then someone comes in and drags him out of there and next thing he knows he's in the hospital.
"Why do you think this is happening, doctor?" His mother asks. She stands by the door worried and fretting. "Is he sick?"
The doctor sends her out for water and turns to Milo slowly. "You, my son, have been marked. By the devil."
Milo sits there and is less than thrilled by the news, if you can believe it.
"It's okay," the doctor says, "you should have three months to live. If your luck pans out."
Sandy talks for a long time about this program they're going to run. It's supposed to help people who suck at morally right things and ideas get help before Judgement Day.
"You couldn't not tell her, could you?" Hazel says, looking as if she'd like to punch Charlie in the face again.
"He didn't," Sandy says, "but he hangs out with you. So that must mean my darling needs some help getting on the Right Path and I wanted to extend my faith-"
"You're from the Cult of the End, aren't you? Oh fuck you are," Hazel says. That seems to sum up her life. People being idiots and screwing up her plans left and right. "I don't need your help finding the right path, chick."
Sandy straightens up and puffs out her chest. "I wasn't asking you. I was asking Chuck."
Charlie blinks at both of them. "Um," he says, backing up. If they're going to fight he's not jumping in to save Sandy. "No thanks, but I'd rather save myself. And you sort of told them where to crash our ritual yesterday, so still pissed about that."
They're standing in the middle of the high school courtyard and Charlie wishes they were in a library, or something enclosed, so the entire school wouldn't have gathered around them. They're small schools down here. Not that many teenagers in Hell, Kansas. But what's there is nothing useful.
"Whatever, man," Hazel says. She rolls her shoulders and takes a step back. "Good deed number one, I didn't marry Sandy's face to the concrete. Let's go, Charlie."
"Seriously," the Antichrist says when she walks into The Diner. "How is this packed all the way up? It's, like, five in the morning."
Henry mouths something like ZOMBIES and gives her a look. The Antichrist takes it as it is and walks over to this table with two people, Hazel and Charlie, sitting in it already. "Can we join you?" She asks, nice as possible.
Charlie shrugs and switches sides of the booth to sit by Hazel. The Antichrist and Henry sit across from them and both parties just stare at each other until Hazel says, "so do you have superpowers as the Antichrist, or just a badass sounding name?"
They talk about everything from her real powers as Antichrist, the everlasting cat versuses dog debate, and end up talking about Hazel and Charlie's theory of 'how good you have to be to get out of Judgement Day'.
The Antichrist exchanges a look with Henry. Henry's thinking about it in terms of ratios, one bad per one good, and the Antichrist figures that's a good way. "Maybe you have to, like, make up for all the shit you've pulled. Make a list and do something good for all the bad."
"When'd you say Judgement Day was again?" Charlie asks, drinking his milkshake. He twists the straw between his fingers and frowns. "I just think this is all ridiculous. We could end up dead or destroyed because of that stupid apocalypse."
"Tell me about it. It wasn't like we knew those Cult of The End assholes would show up and shout shit during our ritual," Hazel says.
"If I ever get fully powered up down here, I'll bring you two back," The Antichrist says. She picks at her eggs and grins when Hazel slides her toast on over. "Thanks," she says.
When Death shows up and demands the Antichrist comes over to her house, their early breakfast ends. Death vanishes the second Charlie and Hazel ask about Judgement Day's arrival. The Antichrist pays for her's and Henry's food and says bye to them before they walk out of The Diner like everyone else.
"You bring a book or something?" Hazel asks because Charlie's mom just locked them in the basement on accident because she's going through some issues, and they've learned to move on. So she's moving on and wondering if they have food stashed down in this whole.
"You made me bring How to Stage a Breakup or you'd kill me, so yes, I do have that book," Charlie says. He digs it out of his backpack and frowns down at the tattered cover of a girl sitting in a bathtub with blood all over.
"Milo Sloan sure knows how to have a good life," Hazel says, because they have this library with the lives of everyone written like they're an actual novel. All the lives they could have, did have, or would have. That's how you know how you died and such.
How to Stage a Breakup is Hazel's favorite. It's the life of Milo Sloan if he didn't die in a car crash with his girlfriend, Freda, when he was driving home from work on a Sunday. The tragedy is he did die and it's fiction, but Hazel likes to pretend it happened.
Charlie starts reading it out loud. "And when he woke up in the hospital, there was the beeping of the machine and a girl with thick, curly hair sitting next to him in the bed. He knew it wasn't Freda and found he only missed the idea of her...."
Death's house is exactly how the Antichrist remembers it. She'll never associate the smell of sweaty sex and cookies with anything else. She takes a seat at the bar and shoves her chair next to Henry's so she can hold his hand without being too sappy.
It feels like her middle school years all over again. Sitting at the bar and waiting for Death to come judge her life choices that always seemed to be wrong. It's not like she had high hopes, what with only using the Antichrist as a name lately. Her name is Jane and she likes that better.
"So, you and Henry," Death says. She's not even bothering to sound uninterested. Just leans over the counter to stare into their souls. It's creepy and the Antichrst shifts in her seat.
"Yes. We've been together for a long time now. Henry is awesome," the Antichrist says.
"That doesn't mean much if-"
The Antichrist interupts her with, "I checked. We're soul mates through and through. And Death, listen, when we were at Woodstock we stepped out into the woods and there were actual flesh-eating zombies and my baby took out all of them with his guitar. His guitar."
Henry squeezes her hand and she can hear him saying something in the back of her mind and smiles over at him. "You'll get me when you meet the one. Trust me, they're out there for you. Somewhere. You've got a fucking enternity to find them."
That seemed to have been the wrong thing to say. The Antichrist watches as her sister gets paler and says, "about that..."
Milo's mother is uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back home. She fiddles with the radio and won't look away from the road as she drives. Something about not trusting Sunday drivers, she usually says. Except not today.
It's not as if Milo is going to say anything. He's given up explaining to any of these people that sometimes he knows things and it feels like someone's telling him he has to do other things. The last person he tried to tell was Benny and she called it a breakdown after Pam died.
It wasn't, because that would have gone away six months ago.
"You could stop looking so angry," His mother says, barely heard over the music blaring.
He looks over at her and shrugs even if she can't see. Milo's not going to agree when he doesn't feel angry. Just upset, and a little confused that the devil's marked him somehow to die. That didn't seem possible at all. Doesn't even feel true.
The feeling of something being wrong creeps back in and Milo focuses on it. He feels unsafe, like something really bad is going to happen. He looks out the window and sees a girl with a black cloak and scythe watching him. They're going sixety-five miles per hour and the girl is still there-
"Pull over," Milo says, and then when his mother doesn't he says, louder, "pull over."
His mother does, but she complains and gets ready to yell at him when she says, "honey, are you- honey, calm down. Take in a deep breath. Just breathe, Milo." She rubs his back and waits it out with him.
When he's better again she drives again and doesn't say a single thing. Milo keeps his eyes focused on his hands in his lap. He thought he was done with this stuff when he got into high school.
"Huh," the Antichrist says when she hears about the plan for Death to save the world. "That sounds interesting. I'm wondering if you were here for the part where you lose all your godly powers and become a zombie. Like, just honestly fucking curious about that."
Henry gives her a look like she's being dumb, but Henry does that a lot.
There's a place in Kansas where there's a crossroads with signs all pointing towards civilization, and a homemade sign with yellow glitter and smiley faces points to the left. It's down a dark and narrow road that nobody ever drives on because why would you go where someone's trying to do a practical joke. Or not so practical- there's been some murders in Kansas lately. Usually involving cars.
That sign, right, back on that. It's put up because of rule number 73 that states "AND HELL SHALL BE PROPERLY LABELED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC". Nobody said it had to be labeled plainly or with all intent serious. That sign was made by Hell's third grade class as a project to make Hell more appealing. They thought smiley faces were comforting.
If one were to follow that sign down the narrow roads and the twisting paths with other signs to throw you off, such as FREE TACOS THIS WAY, DO NOT PASS- HELL, and the favorable DEAD END AHEAD since they all love puns in Hell, you'd end up at this vast and empty land that resembles normal Kansas. Ever driven through it? Neverending.
Once the differences of no cows and the endless dark sky would be apparent you'd realise you weren't in Kansas anymore(when it was made they found it hilarious to greet new souls this way until about- no, they still do it) and then there's a large hole in the ground. Literally hole with a road heading down into it. So it's more like a tunnel, only called 'THE HOLE OF DEATH' since Death likes to name things after herself.
At the end of the tunnel there's no light. No bright flashing changes, only one second your in your car and the next you're outside this beat-down town and you can't drive anymore. There's a collection of pink cows standing in the road, as usual, and that's that.
"You're not in Kansas anymore, you lucky bastard," the greeter, a very angry looking girl with long nails and a bitch pony-tail, says. She raises an eyebrow and hands over a ticket. It says, 'ONE FREE ADMISSION TO HELL. YOU'RE LUCKY DAY! :)'.
If she gets thanked the girl rolls her eyes and says, "nobody ever says that once they're in the town." If she doesn't get thanked she goes back to her magazine, reading an article about NINETY WAYS TO DIE A VIRGIN SACRIFICE.
In the town center, located right across from The Diner and Pete's Adult Superstore, they're having a meeting. It's nothing serious. Just some people talking about the state of cows blocking traffic, the increasing number of teenage deliquients smuggling pot into the afterlife, and what they're going to do about the cult group trying to bring back Hyde(also known as the modern poor-man's Hades god) by blocking more streets than cows.
A human named Rashida who's only twenty-one and the most outspoken person on the people's side of representation says, "we should just tell them to move or we'll drive on through with a truck. A really huge truck."
"Isn't your boyfriend out there?" Tony, the only zombie in this collection of people, asks.
Rashida stares at him like she wants to filae him with a knife and eat him for breakfast. "Ex, thank you," she says stiffly.
Sitting behind the desk is a skinny girl with thick, matted black hair. She rubs at her face and shivers in the heat. When she opens her eyes she looks crazed, as normal. "Why don't we just ask them to move? Huh? Anyone going to tell me they tried that?"
"We did. You were there, remember?" Rashida asks.
"Right." The girl twitches and goes back to tracing patterns on her desk.
Gerald, dressed in a sharp suit, leans over into Anna's space. "What's wrong with her?" he whispers in the dead silent room. He ignores that everyone looks over at them and waits.
"She found out her sister is coming back," Anna whispers back, smoothing out her skirt. "And we're all very aware of this now, Death, you can stop pretending it's a drug withdrawl."
Rashida has, meanwhile, been walking towards the window. She opens it up and leans out, yells, "YOU'LL BE DEAD FIRST, CHUCK!" The group of representitives groan collectively.
Off to the side Muse, a shapeshifter who owns the music store downtown, looks unimpressed. "You guys, we should really talk about the cows. I couldn't go to a concert in Asian Hell and I'm still upset about it."
"Nobody cares," Tony yells because he's bitter about not being invited.
The rest of the meeting lasts like that. Tony pretends he isn't jealous of Chuck having dated Rashida, Gerald looks uncomfortable, Anna and Lucy braid each other's hair, and Death falls out of her chair. They find out her flask wasn't alchohol, just cough syrup. Rashida drags Death to her apartment and they call it a day until tomorrow.
Down at the protest, Charlie, called Chuck in people's fits of rage, is trying to find his shoes. Someone took them when he was making a smoke run at the gas station two blocks down. It's disgusting and he's not wearing socks and there's mud everywhere, thank you.
"WE ONLY HAVE TO LAST FIVE MORE HOURS," Ray, the campaign manager, shouts on his megaphone. Charlie wants to take it away since he's been shouting useless shit all day. Like they all need reminding it's the hottest day in the history of Hell. "WE CAN MAKE IT! WE CAN MAKE IT FOR HYDE!"
As the chorous of 'FOR HYDE' picks up around the gathered group, Charlie slinks to the outskirts. He looks for Hazel but can't find her and takes a seat at the empty bench. It's nicer in the shade than in the direct sun. Hell isn't always this hot, but they modeled it after Kansas this milineium.
Last time it was after Omaha, Newbraska. Why they picked Kansas of all states-
"Chuck! Wow, I'm really glad to see you," Sandy squeals as she takes the seat right next to him on the bench. She pushes her hair out of her face and grins wide at him, looking like the twelve year old she is at heart.
Charlie's still not over her harrassing him last week over some cream puffs. "What do you want?" He asks.
"I just wanted your interview for the school paper," Sandy says.
"Uh huh. That's all."
"What kind of girl do you take me for? I know you and Rashida just broke up. I would wait before making my move on you! Sheesh, Chuck, do you even know me at all?" Sandy asks in outrage. She huffs and recrosses her legs. "Okay. I'll start with an easy question: tell me about what's going on here."
Charlie watches a bird land on the tree branch above him. "Well, we're trying to bring back Hyde so he can throw the neverending party. Apparently he can bring lots of beer anywhere, even down here. So," he explains, leaving out the minor detail of Hyde being the one and only with a million different awesome supernatural powers.
"That's all?"
"We also needed an extra-curricular activity to graduate. It's mostly seniors from the high school," he says. "Plus some homeless people we offered five bucks to stand here for-" he looks at his watch "-it's been seven hours. We're verging on twelve. Then we'll do the ritual, or whatever."
Sandy writes it down like it's the gospel. She sticks her tongue out between her lips and scratches and scribbles in her reporter's notepad. "Okay. All good stuff. What can you tell me about the ritual?"
"Um, all I know is that there's a lot it isn't."
"Please explain."
Charlie shrugs. "We tried to sacrifice a cow, duck, or chicken but Death said animal cruelty doesn't belong in this Hell, that's a special kind of hell, and then virgin sacrifice was never an option since nobody's one here. Ray tried offering up his first born but he's gay. And we almost got past offering up sex-"
Sandy cuts in with a, "just tell me about what you're doing."
"I think-" and Charlie never finishes that sentence because the crowd erupts in cheers and the music kicks on in full blast. There's no way you can hear anyone here. Charlie's thankful to whoever timed that wonderfully and he waves Sandy off to disappear in the crowd again.
Death's house is this nice little suburban home with pink paint and a white-picket fence to block in her garden. She's got mourning glories, tulips, sunflowers, and a whole bunch of other flowers that aren't in season, nor do the exist outside her garden.
Dragging a body up to the front door is quite hard because of these flowers. Regardless of who made them, flowers still try to eat whatever part of Death they can reach. The REFRIDGERATOR CORNHUSKS use their razor sharp teeth to grab her shoe and tug. BLACK TACOS try to suck on her fingers for blood, and then CHILD EATERS eat a chunk of her hair.
"Fuck," Rashida says as she nearly trips for the third time. She digs her keys out of her bra and unlocks the screen door, then the front door. "Jesus, Death, you're heavier than Chuck."
She's not over Chuck yet, in case you couldn't tell. She's not even sure why they broke up in the first place. Last time she asked Chuck he'd said you should know all judgemental like and Rashida didn't appreciate it so she shouted back something about just giving you a chance to apologize and walked away.
Inside the house she starts making some tea after she throws Death onto the living room floor face up. Rashida finds her dog food and fills back up the dishes, then she lets in the Hellhounds from the backyard. They run in barking and yelping and slobber all over her legs.
Rashida doesn't get paid enough to deal with this. She picks up the angel statue the hounds knocked over from the counter and looks at it. It's all white with a smooth cut, and the angel has curly hair. When she squints at the face the angel has no eyes and it's teeth are like razors and remind her of the flowers.
Creepy. Rashida sets it back up carefully and walks away, feeling like it's watching her.
Death's sitting up on her couch now. She's relaxed once more and no longer in shambles, petting her favorite hound, Past. Present and Future are snuggling in front of the fire despite it being 86 degrees in the house.
"I'm beginning to worry about my dearest sister, Rashida," Death says melodramtically. She throws up her hands until Past whines. She puts them back down and rubs at Past's belly.
Rashida barely manages not to say 'everyone else does, too' but it's not the time. "She's the Antichrist. It's not exactly the best of titles someone can have-"
"My sister has a pure heart! I know she does. You know all she's done since she... figured it out? You know she's only done one thing?"
"We all know. She went back in time to Woodstock and got hooked on acid, and now she's clean, yes," Rashida recites from memory. She knows she's missing something- oh, right. "And she also met the love of her life. Now their a hippie Antichrist and mute musician team."
Death groans and closes her eyes. "I can't believe he loves her. Hasn't Sunday School brainwashed enough people into hating her? Why couldn't he have gone?"
"You've never even met him," Rashida reminds her. "Don't judge the poor man. He's probably under enough stress dealing with your sister. If I had to handle her all the time, well. I'm just glad I'm your assistant."
Hazel finally finds Charlie at the protest with only thirty minutes left. "Hey, asshat, about time. I was going to have to bum some off people," she says, grabbing a carton of cigarettes and lighting one up. "My savior."
"You still owe me," Charlie says, taking out his own. He watches Ray recruit some band to play The Stroke and fails to get the speakers turned up loud enough.
"For what?" Hazel asks. She's distracted by checking out the ass of a girl who walks past in a leather mini-skirt. "You haven't done anything."
Charlie sighs. "I'm here, aren't I?"
There's a moment and then Hazel rubs the back of her neck, blushing. "I totally forgot about that. Thanks, man. I'm pretty excited about how this will work. Especially since we're the reason this is happening."
"We're totally going to jail, aren't we," Charlie says.
"Only if this ends badly." Hazel smiles at him. She punches his shoulder and heads off, claiming she wants to 'go get one last in with that leather girl before it's just conjual visits and horror'.
Charlie counts down the next twenty-seven minutes by shoving his tongue down the throat of a guy who makes the mistake of giving him a peck on the lips. They break for air half way through and the guy says, "my name's Muse?" and his eyes are a stunning red. Charlie grins and wonders if Hazel got her girl, bleatedly, before going back to making out.
"IT IS HERE, PEOPLE! THE TIME HAS COME!" Ray shouts to the crowd. They all cheer and stare up at him, awaiting the ritual. "NOW, BASED ON MY RESEARCH, ALL WE NEED IS SOME HEARTFUL MESSAGES AS OUR SACRIFICE. HYDE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR. COME UP HERE, PEOPLE, AND TELL US YOUR POEMS AND YOUR FEELINGS."
Everyone's so far gone that they actually get in line to do it. Ray marvels at his work, or really Hazel and Charlie's, and starts it off by talking about the time he, in his past life, lost his pants at an amusement park.
Hell, Kansas, is known for being a small town, depsite all the names people will give it (like LAND DOWN UNDER, THAT PLACE THAT'S HOT, HELL FOR WIMPS, LOST SOUL REUNIONS, or just plain old A PLACE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T GO TO CHURCH BUT WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH FOR REAL HELL) it is still a suburb town.
Which means that right before they summon Hyde and ask him for the best party of their lives, people from the Cult of the End, not to be confused with our current Cult of Ray, rally all their soccer moms and little kids and deadbeat dads and they get their own signs and start crashing the protest/summoning ritual three minutes before success.
"We don't want the devil here! We've already got Death!" They shout to the crowd of supporters. Their signs are hastily written because, apparently, only the higher up government people knew what it was about. Until Charlie had given that interview nobody knew.
"You asshat, what about our plans?" Hazel yells as she punches Charlie in the face, but that's not as important to talk about.
Ray takes up his microphone and starts chanting the poems of Richard Siken's Crush, managing to make everyone cry and feel moved. On the other side Tammy, a mom of three and a half, takes the only copy of the Bible they have in Hell and starts reading about The End.
Over in Death's house, as she pours herself a stiff drink, she feels incredibly angry and pissed off for no reason. "Son of a bitch," she says to the televison showing that it's hot in Topeka up above. She takes a large swallow and ignores Rashida doing her charisma practice in the bathroom mirror quite loudly.
Death leans down and picks up Past, rubs between her ears, and sits back up on the kitchen counter. The television cuts to an emergancy broadcast and shows the remains of where the protest was. It's a helicoptar view(even though those suckers can't fly down here, what the hell) and Death wonders.
"You hear about that?" Rashida asks, walking back in the room.
Death counts to ten and then yells, "they don't even know what the fuck is coming, do they?"
With a mouth full of blood and saliva, Charlie coughs it all out in a trashcan down the block from the failed rising of Hyde. It ended up with Ray and Tammy screaming books at each other and then, wham! a flash of light. Then it kind of stopped and nothing happened at all.
Hazel's holding his jacket, standing stiffly off to one side. She keeps shifting her weight and if she had pupils he'd guess she was purposely not looking at him. On her right knuckle there's blood, dried and thick.
"So, biggest waste of time ever or what?" Charlie asks. He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand and then onto his pants. "Don't answer. I'm still pissed you clocked me."
"Shut the fuck up, it could have worked if you'd have kept your trap shut," Hazel says.
He pretends it's an actual thought and shrugs. "Okay. Whatever. Wanna go to The Diner?"
That's also the time where time stands still for a few seconds. Of course if it's standing still you can't tell because you aren't aware, but it's a gut feeling. The kind you get about 'this dark alley isn't safe for me' or 'this person has a gun, let's go'. Charlie knows that he missed out on a few seconds.
"YOU IDIOTS," Death says in her normal voice, but. They can all tell that she's screaming at them and really scourning them. She's been mayor for, well, ever, so they all sort of know the way she rolls. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ALL JUST DID. FUCKING IDIOTS, DO YOU?"
Some poor soul shouts out a negative to her, and she snaps her fingers and smites him where he stands. Charlie jumps because, wow, she only does that when they've all royally fucked up, or lost to Heaven in Trival Pursuit.
Death straightens her posture. "OH, YOU ASSHATS. THERE'S THIS THING CALLED THE APOCALYPSE AND YOU ALL BROUGHT IT UPON THE MORTAL WORLD. CONGRADULATIONS, NOW EVERYONE IS GOING TO HATE HELL EVEN MORE." She rolls her eyes and throws up her hands. "AND NOW I HAVE TO STOP IT. I'M ONE OF THE FOUR FUCKING HORSEMEN- IF I STOP THE APOCALYPSE I'LL BE KICKED OUT."
"Out of what?" Another idiot yells out. At least she doesn't smite him. Death just looks at him like he's the most worthless piece of shit she's seen which, they're in Hell, means a lot.
"OUR 'POWER OF FOUR RIDING GROUP'- NO, YOU DIPSHIT, IMMORTAL DEATH POWER USAGE. NOW I HAVE TO FIND A WAY TO END THIS SHIT YOU ALL STARTED," Death explains, and it's amazing she's still talking like she's standing next to each of them.
Then she's gone after another time freeze. Between the crowd's confusion and choas a fight breaks out between Ray and Tammy, out of all the people. Charlie grabs Hazel's arm and drags her out of the crowd with him, and they end up in the diner.
Hazel says, "I wonder if we could ever learn to vanish like that. All I can do is deattach body parts, and you can like... hum really well." She waves her fry in a vague motion to describe his humming.
"Thank you," Charlie says, and he starts humming the Authority Song.
Up in Heaven, in the clouds and with all that metaphorical symbolic shit happening, God is talking with Her followers. "I was wondering how you felt about letting the apocalypse happen," She says. "Because it's been a real long time since we've had one. And then all your family and friends would be up here with you."
In the human part of Heaven they rebel and yell and scream against Her. They say it's not right and a whole bunch of other things She already knows they feel.
"Okay, thanks. How do you feel, angels?" She asks them. God makes eye contact with enough that she knows the number won't be incredibly high. She sighs, and prepares for the onslaught.
And that's how God got kicked out of Heaven. She takes the loyal angels and gets ready to leave when Jesus stops Her. "I'm not an angel," he says, "but I'll go with you. I guess."
God grins wide as the sun on a sticky, hot summer day. "Thank you, son," She says. She kisses him on the forehead and they go on, walking for refuge away from the rebelling humans of Heaven.
"So does this mean Judgement Day is coming soon, or like in fiftey years or some ridiculous shit," Hazel says, on her third milkshake and still feeling hot. She sticks to the vinyl of the booths and winces as her skin pulls when she moves her legs.
Charlie shrugs. "I don't think about being judged down here often. We're in Hell, remember?"
"They never said we'd be excluded, did they? We're technically still 'alive' because we could call people up above if we cared. We're living at the same time they are. There was that guy in European Hell who called his old girlfriend and then she killed herself and they were together. Touching stuff."
"Whatever. I'd rather not think about being judged because, hate to break it to you, the best we've ever done is those community service hours. And that was mandatory for everyone," Charlie says, "we'll probably be sent here again. Only Death will be disappointed-"
"And we're fucking screwed, yes. Or wait. Wait. What if they got rid of Hell and then it restarted, and we got judged again and then we ended up in a worse place because we're awful people even in the damn afterlife?" Hazel asks.
"That's," Charlie stops and takes a drink of his milkshake. He'd miss these if he had to leave. He'd miss the whole Diner minus Sandy being their waitress all the time. "That's a sad thought. Please don't say it agian."
Hazel gives him an unimpressed look, steals some of his fries, and slouches in her seat. Fucking vinyl sticking to her pants. "Here's a sadder thought: what if your soul mate is already dead? Or in our case, alive?"
Up in the real world there is a guy named Milo Sloan. He lives in an old apartment with creaky floors with a single bedroom where his mother stays. They're too poor to buy him a bed, and choosing to feed themselves over it, he sleeps on his thrift store stained sofa. He doesn't know about Hell, Kansas, because nobody really knows about it until they're in it.
He wakes up at three in the morning to take a shower, get dressed, and eat his Cheerios and past date chocolate milk. It's disgusting and he hates it but he eats it anyways. Milo shoves it in his mouth and watches the television on mute.
If it wasn't on mute the news would have been saying, "-REPORTS HAVE COME IN THAT THERE'S A MASSIVE HURRICANE HEADED TOWARDS FLORIDA AND JAPAN, AND THEN THERE'S A DROUGHT STARTING IN THE MIDWEST, AND THEY'VE DECIDED THAT APPARENTLY KENTUCKY IS TIRED OF THE 'PRESIDENT CRAMPING ITS STYLE' AND THREATENS TO ANNEX ITSELF UNLESS THE GOVERNMENT STOPS THE REVOLUTIONS IN TENESSEE-"
But Milo stares at a silent television screen and sees cars burning up and things being blown up and thinks it looks strange. He changes the channel to some reality show about friends in new york, and one of them is threatening to jump off the roof if he's guessing correctly.
His girlfriend, Freda, walks in with an oversized t-shirt, not Milo's, but still proclaiming the band AC/DC. She gives him an odd look at his cereal. She takes out the Cheerios and gets a bowl of them with normal milk from his mother's secret hiding spot.
Milo's almost alseep on the table when Freda says, "are you related to this girl?" and she's asking about the one screaming at everyone she's going to jump off the roof of a one story building.
He would say something witty back but he's so damn tired, and his name is Milo Sloan, and he doesn't know it yet but he's Hazel's soul mate and he has much bigger plans than being a slacker.
In Death's kitchen Rashida calls an emergancy meeting. The council shows up, and they bring some other people, and one of them is a psychic, and then Death finally shows up twelve minutes late with their lunch.
"Does anyone know what kind of apocalypse this is going to be?" Tony asks. He's grabbed all three of the cream filled donuts and Rashida's trying to distract him so Anna can grab one of them. It's not working.
Rashida gives up and says, "nobody down here would know. We stopped the last one so it's God's turn this time. She'll know which one it is."
"Yeah," Death says quietly from the back, lying on the living room floor like a corpse, "there's gonna be a problem with that plan. I heard Heaven got angry God wanted to roll with the apocalypse and She left in some sort of self-saving deal."
"Really," this guy with a suit asks, frowning with his glasses sliding down his nose. "That's utterly ridiculous, shouldn't She stay up there and fix it?"
"Well she's not. And we're the last people-"
"We're Hell, Death, why should we stop the apocalypse?" Rashida asks.
Death rolls over so she's on her back facing everyone. She looks worn out and Rashida wonders if Death has ever slept, even before all this. "Because if God won't clean up Her act, we've got to step in. And I feel now would be a good time to mention we've started every apocalypse since the start of time, excluding that horrible one with Hitler."
Nobody protests, and rightly so, because if there's one thing Hell, Kansas, doesn't want to be known for it's for doing the apocalypse a million times and then not cleaning it up. All the other universes and hidden places and that other Hell in England and the one in Asia would all stop inviting them over for sport tournaments and poker night.
On the edge of town the girl is still sitting there reading her magazine. She ponders the difference between 'sexual intercourse' and 'losing your virginity'. They have arguementive pro and con sides for the similar and not alike points. She wonders if people in town would agree with her point of it doens't matter.
"Excuse me," this girl with brown hair says, tapping the edge of her desk.
"Holy shit," the girl behind the counter says. She sits up straight. Nobody's ever been able to sneak up on her. She knows all, sees all, and hears all. Unless the person showing up is super important and can be undetected by the human scent.
The other girl, with brown hair, holds up her three bags. She gestures to the guy standing beside her with sunglasses and short hair and freckles and says, "so I'm here on temporary leave of absence, or whatever my sister said. Can you get my bags?"
"Who the hell are you?"
The girl laughs. She straightens her shoulders and stands to her full height, grinning. It's not a pleasant sight. Just as nice an image as, when you're watching the nature channel, watching the prey's head get snapped off by a predator.
"I'm the Antichrist, here to make your acquiantince," the girl says. She hands the girl behind the counter her bags and starts walking. They fall into step, and the Antichrist says, "that's my consort, Henry. He's a musicionfrom Woodstock."
"Okay," the girl says. "Nice to meet you. I guess."
The Antichrist laughs again, throws back her head and really laughs. When she's calmed down she shakes her head and throws Henry a kinder smile. "I'm not even sure what's so funny. How long did you say that pot would last?"
News of the Antichrist showing up spread pretty fast. Hazel heard about it from everyone on the streets and then again when her little sister Louisa called, asking for the pay per view code so she could watch some adult on demand stuff.
"Stop bothering me about this," Hazel had said before hanging up and turning off her phone for good. She stops to take off her tights and then leaves the diner to meet Charlie at the fountain.
First she stops at the drug store to grab some things. She gets a six pack of root beer, a lesbian skins magazine, and a box of Cheerios. The line is shorter in the left checkout counter so she stands behind a woman and her daughter, trying to hide her skin magazine out of the kid's sight.
"You still shop here?" Death says, stepping up behind Hazel in line. She hand't been there when she went in the store- damn, Hazel thought, she was letting down her guard. "That's always a good thing to know."
"Need something?" Hazel asks. She puts the condoms Death added to the conveyor belt back on the rack, making sure that's all the new items she's collected.
Death grins and leans in close. Hazel can see the dark circles under her eyes, the slight shift of her cheeks that means she really doesn't have skin and that's flesh but she's making you picture skin, and that's disgusting. You dont' want to see that about someone. "I know you convinced Ray to summon Hyde."
"Yeah, I know that too. What's it to you?"
"I just- did you seriously not take the Cult of the End into consideration?"
Hazel sighs and says, slow to get her intentions across, "we wanted Hyde to come back because we researched him and found out he can bring beer and parties anywhere he goes. After you banned the beer because everyone was drinking and not doing anything else, well, it's ruined our high school parties. We just wanted it back."
That takes a moment to sink in. Death rubs her face with her hands and sighs. "You mean this apocalypse got started because you wanted some beer? Seriously?"
"Dude. The last one was because we wanted the soul of all the Beatles. And we lost, so-"
"Just stop talking or I'll smite you." Death vanishes with a trace of smoke lingering around her. It smells like sex and sweat with cigarettes.
On the surface, Milo Sloan is sitting in his high school like everyone else. He's at lunch, sitting in the cafeteria with a tray of school lunch, untouched, in front of him. It's chicken fried steak only it's 'healthy' so it's baked in grease. He prods at it with his fork.
John is telling a joke about the end of the world. He says, "stop me if you've heard this one-" and Milo Sloan feels like he's heard it when he's never listened before. It's a strange feeling, not one he'd like to explore, and he goes back to his fake smoking break.
When he's back in class, history, Milo feels something burn in his throat. He coughs and blood splatters on his desk. Milo sits back and stares, he thinks he may have done some other things, and then someone comes in and drags him out of there and next thing he knows he's in the hospital.
"Why do you think this is happening, doctor?" His mother asks. She stands by the door worried and fretting. "Is he sick?"
The doctor sends her out for water and turns to Milo slowly. "You, my son, have been marked. By the devil."
Milo sits there and is less than thrilled by the news, if you can believe it.
"It's okay," the doctor says, "you should have three months to live. If your luck pans out."
Sandy talks for a long time about this program they're going to run. It's supposed to help people who suck at morally right things and ideas get help before Judgement Day.
"You couldn't not tell her, could you?" Hazel says, looking as if she'd like to punch Charlie in the face again.
"He didn't," Sandy says, "but he hangs out with you. So that must mean my darling needs some help getting on the Right Path and I wanted to extend my faith-"
"You're from the Cult of the End, aren't you? Oh fuck you are," Hazel says. That seems to sum up her life. People being idiots and screwing up her plans left and right. "I don't need your help finding the right path, chick."
Sandy straightens up and puffs out her chest. "I wasn't asking you. I was asking Chuck."
Charlie blinks at both of them. "Um," he says, backing up. If they're going to fight he's not jumping in to save Sandy. "No thanks, but I'd rather save myself. And you sort of told them where to crash our ritual yesterday, so still pissed about that."
They're standing in the middle of the high school courtyard and Charlie wishes they were in a library, or something enclosed, so the entire school wouldn't have gathered around them. They're small schools down here. Not that many teenagers in Hell, Kansas. But what's there is nothing useful.
"Whatever, man," Hazel says. She rolls her shoulders and takes a step back. "Good deed number one, I didn't marry Sandy's face to the concrete. Let's go, Charlie."
"Seriously," the Antichrist says when she walks into The Diner. "How is this packed all the way up? It's, like, five in the morning."
Henry mouths something like ZOMBIES and gives her a look. The Antichrist takes it as it is and walks over to this table with two people, Hazel and Charlie, sitting in it already. "Can we join you?" She asks, nice as possible.
Charlie shrugs and switches sides of the booth to sit by Hazel. The Antichrist and Henry sit across from them and both parties just stare at each other until Hazel says, "so do you have superpowers as the Antichrist, or just a badass sounding name?"
They talk about everything from her real powers as Antichrist, the everlasting cat versuses dog debate, and end up talking about Hazel and Charlie's theory of 'how good you have to be to get out of Judgement Day'.
The Antichrist exchanges a look with Henry. Henry's thinking about it in terms of ratios, one bad per one good, and the Antichrist figures that's a good way. "Maybe you have to, like, make up for all the shit you've pulled. Make a list and do something good for all the bad."
"When'd you say Judgement Day was again?" Charlie asks, drinking his milkshake. He twists the straw between his fingers and frowns. "I just think this is all ridiculous. We could end up dead or destroyed because of that stupid apocalypse."
"Tell me about it. It wasn't like we knew those Cult of The End assholes would show up and shout shit during our ritual," Hazel says.
"If I ever get fully powered up down here, I'll bring you two back," The Antichrist says. She picks at her eggs and grins when Hazel slides her toast on over. "Thanks," she says.
When Death shows up and demands the Antichrist comes over to her house, their early breakfast ends. Death vanishes the second Charlie and Hazel ask about Judgement Day's arrival. The Antichrist pays for her's and Henry's food and says bye to them before they walk out of The Diner like everyone else.
"You bring a book or something?" Hazel asks because Charlie's mom just locked them in the basement on accident because she's going through some issues, and they've learned to move on. So she's moving on and wondering if they have food stashed down in this whole.
"You made me bring How to Stage a Breakup or you'd kill me, so yes, I do have that book," Charlie says. He digs it out of his backpack and frowns down at the tattered cover of a girl sitting in a bathtub with blood all over.
"Milo Sloan sure knows how to have a good life," Hazel says, because they have this library with the lives of everyone written like they're an actual novel. All the lives they could have, did have, or would have. That's how you know how you died and such.
How to Stage a Breakup is Hazel's favorite. It's the life of Milo Sloan if he didn't die in a car crash with his girlfriend, Freda, when he was driving home from work on a Sunday. The tragedy is he did die and it's fiction, but Hazel likes to pretend it happened.
Charlie starts reading it out loud. "And when he woke up in the hospital, there was the beeping of the machine and a girl with thick, curly hair sitting next to him in the bed. He knew it wasn't Freda and found he only missed the idea of her...."
Death's house is exactly how the Antichrist remembers it. She'll never associate the smell of sweaty sex and cookies with anything else. She takes a seat at the bar and shoves her chair next to Henry's so she can hold his hand without being too sappy.
It feels like her middle school years all over again. Sitting at the bar and waiting for Death to come judge her life choices that always seemed to be wrong. It's not like she had high hopes, what with only using the Antichrist as a name lately. Her name is Jane and she likes that better.
"So, you and Henry," Death says. She's not even bothering to sound uninterested. Just leans over the counter to stare into their souls. It's creepy and the Antichrst shifts in her seat.
"Yes. We've been together for a long time now. Henry is awesome," the Antichrist says.
"That doesn't mean much if-"
The Antichrist interupts her with, "I checked. We're soul mates through and through. And Death, listen, when we were at Woodstock we stepped out into the woods and there were actual flesh-eating zombies and my baby took out all of them with his guitar. His guitar."
Henry squeezes her hand and she can hear him saying something in the back of her mind and smiles over at him. "You'll get me when you meet the one. Trust me, they're out there for you. Somewhere. You've got a fucking enternity to find them."
That seemed to have been the wrong thing to say. The Antichrist watches as her sister gets paler and says, "about that..."
Milo's mother is uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back home. She fiddles with the radio and won't look away from the road as she drives. Something about not trusting Sunday drivers, she usually says. Except not today.
It's not as if Milo is going to say anything. He's given up explaining to any of these people that sometimes he knows things and it feels like someone's telling him he has to do other things. The last person he tried to tell was Benny and she called it a breakdown after Pam died.
It wasn't, because that would have gone away six months ago.
"You could stop looking so angry," His mother says, barely heard over the music blaring.
He looks over at her and shrugs even if she can't see. Milo's not going to agree when he doesn't feel angry. Just upset, and a little confused that the devil's marked him somehow to die. That didn't seem possible at all. Doesn't even feel true.
The feeling of something being wrong creeps back in and Milo focuses on it. He feels unsafe, like something really bad is going to happen. He looks out the window and sees a girl with a black cloak and scythe watching him. They're going sixety-five miles per hour and the girl is still there-
"Pull over," Milo says, and then when his mother doesn't he says, louder, "pull over."
His mother does, but she complains and gets ready to yell at him when she says, "honey, are you- honey, calm down. Take in a deep breath. Just breathe, Milo." She rubs his back and waits it out with him.
When he's better again she drives again and doesn't say a single thing. Milo keeps his eyes focused on his hands in his lap. He thought he was done with this stuff when he got into high school.
"Huh," the Antichrist says when she hears about the plan for Death to save the world. "That sounds interesting. I'm wondering if you were here for the part where you lose all your godly powers and become a zombie. Like, just honestly fucking curious about that."
Henry gives her a look like she's being dumb, but Henry does that a lot.