Lucifer's Lottery

“Good.” Hudson winked. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah. Later.” Gerold thought, What a pain in the ass! But at least he was laughing as he wheeled back down the block. His shadow followed him along the sidewalk. He didn’t feel very good about lying so outright but what could he do? Hudson expected him in church Sunday, but he was certain he’d be dead by then.

(II)

The Electrocity Generators hummed as the main phalanx of Ushers marched in formation about the security perimeter. The brimstone wall completely encircled the construction site, each joist fitted with a chapel in which Mongrels and the Human Damned were mutilated and sacrificed on a regular basis. The constant torture and screams and death kept the Hell-Flux about the Demonculus rich.

In the tallest minaret, the Archlock Curwen—the Devil’s Supreme Master Builder—watched from the eyelike observation port. He existed as Hell’s most talented Organic Engineer.

He looked up, up, up . . .

This close, the 666-foot figure looked mountainous. Tens of thousands of forced laborers had been required to build it, most of the abomination’s body being forged out of noxious slop by the bare hands of trained Trolls and Imps. The majority of the labor contingent, however, had been comprised of sundry other denizen slaves engaged in the task of hauling the immeasurable amounts of construction material from the Siddom Valley’s famed Basin Putrudus, the Inferno’s most immense corpse pit. Technically, the Demonculus was a Golem—the largest ever built—but unlike this lower variant, it was not made of corrupted clay; instead, the appalling wares of the Basin Putrudus were used: peatlike muck commingled with the putrefaction of unnumbered dead bodies—millions, no doubt. The material’s very vileness gave the Demonculus its sheer power. So gorgeous, Curwen mused. Looking at the motionless creature now, he thought of a heinous version of the Colossus of Rhodes . . .

The Master Builder was pleased, as he knew Lucifer would soon be as well.

Curwen had died in 1771 when suspicious villagers had raided his subterranean chancel and caught him in an act of blasphemous coition with a conjured demonness. He was buried alive on Good Friday. Yet his unrepentant sorcery—including the untold murder of children, the consumption of virginal blood for ritualism and sport, and the overall pursuit of all things ungodly—left him in great favor upon his death and descent into Hell, such that the ultimate Benefactor here entrusted Curwen to this most unholy of endeavors. Indeed, Lucifer had told him outright in his impossible, shining voice, “My brother Curwanus, you are perhaps the only of the Human Damned I trust; hence, it is into your hands that I place this task, one of the greatest offenses against God ever devised. I have foreseen that you shan’t disappoint me.”

Indeed, I shan’t, Curwen thought, still staring up at the beatific—and atrocious— thing. Soon, he knew, the lifeless horror that was the Demonculus’s very body would thrum with life . . .

MY life. To forever serve the Lord of Lies . . .

In his lofty title of Master Builder, Curwen wore the brand of the Archlock on his forehead—the inverted cross blazing within the Sign of the Eye, proof of his Oath of Faith and completion of Metaphysical Conditioning—and a radiant warlock’s surplice of spun lead. This rarest of garments shined much like Lucifer’s voice, and proved still more of his Lord’s trust in him. And being one of status, Curwen knew that the Demonculus was but one of many such new projects serving Satan’s un-divine plan, projects of the most serious import. He’d heard rumors—which were rife in Hell—that something incalculable was brewing in the Great Emptiness Quarter. Though he hoped that all ungodly pursuits succeeded grandly, his pride made him hope that the Demonculus succeeded above all the others, for there was no true god but Lucifer, the Morning Star, once the Angel of Light but now the Prince of all Darkness.

The creature’s sheer height—that of a seventy-story building—forbade the use of scaffolds, which turned impractical past 300 or so feet. Instead, crew pallets buoyed in the air by noble gas balloons—Balloon Skiffs— sufficed, each overseen by a Conscript and Air Operator. From the skiffs, Imps and Trolls leaned out to manipulate the Demonculus’s flesh, with bare hands and styli administering the final touches to the thing’s pestilent outer skin. Many such artisans fell—indeed, some jumped of their own will—but were replaced by the next cycle.

The Master Builder watched fascinated as the highest such balloon hovered at the Demonculus’s face, a slab of horror with gashes for eyes and mouth. Soon, Curwen thought, unholy life will shine behind those dead eyes, while MY heart beats in its infernal chest . . .

Hundreds of feet below him, a clamor rose, as did Curwen’s joy. Ushers and Constabularies were unloading prison wagons full of the next round of sacrifants, most of whom appeared to be women and children.

(III)

After sundown within the next six days, the words rolled around his head like dice. Hudson walked down the side road toward the glittering lights and hot-rod-and-motorcycle traffic of the main drag, his return trip from that evening’s church duties. The money hadn’t vanished yet, so by ten P.M. he had no choice but to believe that the entire incident with Deaconess Wilson was not the product of a dream.

That’s a lot of money, he thought.

Walking along, he wondered briefly about the young guy he’d spoken with earlier—Gerold, in the wheelchair. Hudson had seen that look before during his volunteer duties in hospices and critical-care wards. The look of death in someone still alive. One could only do so much, he knew, but at least Hudson felt some relief in the nearly universal notion that true suicidals never raised the issue. He felt reasonably sure that Gerold would attend Sunday services and talk to Father Darren afterward.

He damn well better.

He walked into the Qwik-Mart, a ubiquitous 7-Eleven clone that was stuck between a pizza place and a Thai restaurant. It was here that Hudson’s best friend from childhood worked night shifts—Randal—who’d now risen to manager. One could never see inside due to the literal wallpapering of the front glass with poster-size advertisements: mostly LatinoAmerica! phone cards and the state lottery. PLAY TO WIN! one poster assaulted him. Doesn’t everybody? Hudson figured. Does anybody play to LOSE? But then he caught himself staring.

Lottery, he thought. Senary. Then: It’s like . . . a lottery, he recalled the naked deaconess. But how could I win when I never played? I never bought a ticket, never got my numbers. Hudson didn’t even believe in lotteries, which tended to bilk money out of the poor with false hopes. When he nudged the thought behind him and edged into the store, an irritating cowbell rang.

No customers occupied the disheveled and poorly stocked store. A rat looked up from the hot-dog rotisserie, then darted into the gap between the wall and counter. I pity the rat that eats one of those hot dogs, Hudson commiserated. He frowned around the establishment. No customers, true, and no Randal.

A door clicked, then came the aggressive snap of flip-flops. Hudson’s brow shot up when a skanky young woman in frayed cutoffs and a faded but overflowing bikini top snapped out of the rear hall. Her sloppy breasts were huge, swaying as though the top’s cups were hammocks, and no doubt most of their distention could be attributed to the fact that their scroungy owner had to be eight-plus-months pregnant. The tanned, veiny belly stretched tight as an overblown balloon around a popped-out navel like someone’s pinkie toe. That’s not a bun in the oven, Hudson thought. It’s the whole bakery. But he saw women such as this all too frequently. A prostitute even lower on the social rungs than the women he’d nearly solicited last night. These drug-addict urchins were the flotsam of the local streets.

“Is, uh, Randal around?”

She frowned back, neglecting to answer. She kept her lips tightly closed, and began looking around the store. Hudson immediately got the impression that she had a mouthful of something and was desperate to find a place to expectorate.

When she found no convenient wastebasket—

splap . . .

—she bowed her head by a carousel of potato chips and spat on the floor.

Then she winced at Hudson in his neat black attire. “What are you, a priest or somethin’?”