Infernus

“That’s right. What she looks like is, of course, unimportant. Pointless. Now, listen to what he is saying to his disciple.”

“No,” the blue demon whispered, clearly near the edge of being overcome with laughter. “That’s the shame of it all.” His teeth glittered bloody in the flames. “That’s not even the worst of it.” He fell into a sizzling urine pool, uncontrollably laughing.

“Oh, really,” she said, watching the fire constantly engulf her naked body, her skin popping and sizzling. “Something worse than dying, and leaving that drunk of a husband of mine, who beat me for ten years, to die and come here, or at least maybe dream this hell hole?”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes literally bugging out of their leathery sockets, his idiot smile mindlessly agape, drooling. “Even worse than all of that. In fact, it’s soooo funny, my head might explode from the sheer hell of it.”

“Hit me, creature,” she said, baiting him to top her hideous reality.

“Are ya ready? Here goes. You’re so pathetic; you don’t even know that the other world is the dream world. You were ruined when you woke up here. In other words-”

The dead woman looked to the son as if she might begin screaming now.

“-you’ve always been here! And, here’s the kicker, you are so stupid, you created that life with the abusive husband to forget about this place.” He began laughing until the top of his head actually did explode. He grinned from ear to ear. “I got one last bit of news for you, my little roast-pork suckling.”

“Worse than what you just told me?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, a lot worse!” His eyes were winking rubies. “Ready for a shot of love?”

“What could be worse than the knowledge that I’ve always been here and dreamed my former life? Hit me, creature!”

“You didn’t begin your life here as a woman.” He began tittering, searching her face for the reaction he knew would eventually come.

“You mean-”

He laughed in earnest now, fell to the burning floor, and rolled around hysterically.

She began an endless scream.

The father addressed the son. “That story always moves me to tears of joy.” He sighed, and moved the son to other tableaus of bliss and perverse beauty.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THE MILLING MURDERERS”

“Look, my son, the end of The Hall of Tableaus. Was it good for you?”

“Yes, my beloved. Look!”

The demon entered his son from behind and they both gazed at a golden arch with purple veins running through it, encircled with carvings of the finest diamonds. It led into a garden legitimately thought at one time (before the souls crowded its borders and it became a city) to once be a mere tableau.

As the father filled the son with love, they both wept openly. It was as still as a freshly vanquished life.

“My son!” the demon screed into his son’s ears. “We now come to a pit in the vast park known as ‘The Milling Murderers.’”

“Is it so, Father?”

“Yes, it is. It is a vast land of Hate Cults. It belongs to people who invented religion in their dream world and then used it to slay their fellow man through the service to their egos. It is the only place in my jurisdiction whereas if you don’t participate to increase their horror and pain, you will replace them in their torment. You would have found out, anyway, if you had been patient enough to watch the various threads of continuity. This is the place where the religionists have been throughout eternity. Thankfully, they are unmoved by facts or discussion; their minds are closed to anything other than the so-called reality of their self-righteous world, which means that you can torture them most heinously and they won’t even believe it is happening to them. To escape their torment here, they dreamed of a world where they were superior to others. Their man-made religion allowed them to believe they could treat any mortal with contempt, or kill, or slaughter thousands in holy wars. Or, better and funnier, they thought they could oppress children or other mortals with breasts. Infernus is too good for them. Their reality is that they burn and burn, as they always have.”

“Suppose,” the vampire satyr replied, licking his blood-encrusted lips, “I do both. I mean, refuse to torment them, then torment them.”

“You are truly the most hideous son ever born by a father. And you are my burden to bear. Prepare for my mounting.”

The father tore the son open from behind and intercoursed the wound for many lifetimes. The son screamed throughout, as did everything else that died there.

“Now we may enter, my child.”

“It is indeed a large pit, Father. Look here at the entrance. What do I see? On the left side of the wicker, decayed gate, it looks like a corpse lying — is its eyes nothing but seething worms? Yes! With a long wad of cloth rolling out of its mouth.”

“This is delightful!”

“Oh, Father, it is so enigmatic! It has writing on it. It says: ‘Suppose that servant is wicked and beats his fellow servants. He shall be torn to pieces and assigned a place for hypocrites.’ Is that what this place is, Father?”

“Let us proceed and see, shall we? Your threshold of pain will be increased many fold by the time you approach ‘The Wall of Full Cycles’ on the other side.”

“Please do not tell me, Father, that this is a place of religion, for my fury at what these demons have done in the names of the gods is hideous.”

“It is!”

“Then I now see how unnecessary it is to make us participate here. It will be my pleasure.”

“And mine,” Red said, blood flowing from his blackened sockets in pride for his son. “Look at our first charade.”

“But wait, Father — you have not allowed me to say what scene is repeated over and over on the right side of this wrecked wicker gate.”

“Oh, well, if you must, you pus-born bastard, proceed!”

“There are seven or eight men dressed in flowing robes that are chained to a great chest.”

“And what sign is attached on the treasure chest, my son?”

“It says: ‘It was for freedom that you were set free! Do not become slaves to legalities again.’ What can that mean?”

“There never was a more stupid race than man, my blood-filled bag. Not only would this foolish lot lock up the freedom they were given in a great chest of rules and regulations, but they willingly kept their own eyes from seeing it. Watch what the approaching beasts do to them. You won’t stop laughing for many lifetimes.”

Indeed, large blood-encrusted harpies came with razor-sharp spoons. They fell on all the self-imposed victims with no delay or mercy, scooping the tongues and eyes out of the screaming creatures. The job was efficiently done, as it had been done billions of times before, and the bound preachers screamed with exactly the same measure as they had before the harpies fell upon them.

“Don’t worry,” said the father to his son. “They will heal and you will get to see this again before you fulfill your destiny as our (the only) world’s greatest horror — The Scream. I promised you. Isn’t this hilarious?”

The son was already rolling on the hissing floor, helplessly laughing/screaming.

* * *

“My son, look at this, the first episode of ‘The Milling Murderers.’ Now, this is not — I repeat — not a tableau. Not a viewing of something long past, long dead. This is actually happening as we speak, and as I remount you.”