Lucifer's Lottery

“Hmm.”

Hudson moved on. The ruckus of helicopters snapped his gaze up to the twilit sky. His ears thumped; several large helicopters—clearly military—roared overhead. They were flying strangely low. Then:

Wow!

Several jet fighters screamed past in the same direction: north.

I wonder what that’s all about, Hudson thought. Maneuvers, probably; there were several big air bases nearby. He wheeled the suitcases down the sidewalk and across the street. Exactly sixty-six steps later, he arrived at the glass-shattered bus shelter where he detected the ember of a cigarette brighten, then lessen.

“Oh, you,” a ragged voice greeted. “How’s it goin’?”

It was the homeless guy from the deaconess’s church. “Hi, Forbes. I’m fine.”

The bum sucked the cigarette down to the filter, then flicked it away with begrimed fingers. His body odor seemed thick as heavy fog. “You goin’ on a trip?” he asked, noticing the suitcases. “Shit, man, the Greyhound station’s the other way.”

Am I . . . going on a trip? Hudson could’ve laughed. “No, I’m just going home.”

Both men jerked their gazes up when several more jet fighters screamed by overhead.

“Been goin’ on for a while now,” Forbes said, then burped. “I was with a john ’bout a half hour ago, and while I’m doin’ my thing he’s got music on the radio but then the music cut off and then an emergency broadcast comes on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, man. Somethin’ happened couple counties north of here, some big lake.”

“Something happened?” Hudson couldn’t imagine why military aircraft would be sent for some mishap on a lake. “What was it, Forbes?”

“Don’t know. The john turned it off—said it was fucking up his karma or something.”

Hudson’s perplexion sparkled, but then he sighed with a smile. What do I care? I’m a Privilato.

Forbes showed a nearly toothless grin. “Hey, how ’bout I do a mouth-job on yer johnson for twenty bucks.”

“Oh, no thanks,” Hudson said.

“You can blow right in my mouth. Lotta guys like to do that for some reason, and I can always use the extra calories.”

“Uh, no. No thanks.” Hudson pulled some twenties out of his pocket and passed them to the bum. “But here’s some food money for you.”

Even in the dark, the bum’s face beamed. “Hey, man! Thanks! God bless ya!”

Not God. Not anymore . . .

Now was the first time he contemplated exactly what he had done. It was a deep contemplation. After a lifetime of SERVING God with my whole heart, I’ve now ABANDONED him . . .

He felt a state of exuberance well up from the core of his being with such power that he thought his eyes must surely be alight.

“Yeah, I’m takin’ the bus to the John’s Pass Bridge to sleep,” Forbes jabbered some more. He reached into his horrific mouth with two fingers and pulled out a rotten tooth.

“What’s that, Forbes? The bridge?”

“Yeah, it ain’t bad, ya just gotta be careful of the fire ants. But there’s no way I’m sleepin’ in the deaconess’s church no more.”

“Yes, I remember you telling me. Bad dreams.”

“But I sure miss her.” His flinty brow furrowed. “Somethin’ happened to her, somethin’ fucked her up.” Now Forbes looked beseeching. “You seen her tonight?”

Hudson stared down at him. “Do you really want to know, Forbes?”

“Well . . . sure. You seen her?”

“Yes. About ten minutes ago—or, more than likely, six minutes ago—I saw her commit suicide in a house across the street—the Larken House.”

Forbes’s pose stiffened. “No way, man!”

“I’m afraid so. She killed herself as a means of executing a contract I had just signed.”

“Fuck! A contract?”

“I sold my soul to the Devil tonight, Forbes. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Shit yeah, man! The Devil? Really?”

“Yes,” Hudson calmly stated. “The Devil. I’m protected by the Devil. I am now a disciple of the Devil.”

“Aw, you’re full’a shit,” Then—

SCHULP

Hudson never saw the knife in Forbes’s mangy hand, until that same hand was already pulling it out of Hudson’s lower abdomen.

Holy—You gotta be—

Shock—and also outrage—made Hudson’s face feel twice its size. Blood like hot soup poured through his fingers; he also smelled his own waste as the knife had clearly punctured intestines. He began to convulse as he slumped to the other corner of the shelter.

“Fuckin’ people always tellin’ me bullshit ’cos they just think I’m a retarded bum, man,” Forbes complained. “Well, fuck them and fuck you.”

“Forbes,” Hudson croaked. “Call an ambu—”

“Here’s your fuckin’ protection, fucker.” The bum stuck the knife in again, several more times.

What Hudson felt more than the pain was simply outrage.

“I could use some new clothes, ya shit,” Forbes said, but he just stared and stared when he opened one of the suitcases. He scratched his beard, begetting dandruff. Then:

“What a fuckin’ great day!” He slapped the case closed. “Thank you, God!”

Hudson watched through hemorrhaged eyes as Forbes grabbed the suitcases and ambled away in the dark.

What a rip-off . . .

Each time Hudson coughed, blood sprayed into the air and more innards uncoiled in his hands. He died exactly six minutes later.

(V)

What stepped out of the lake next was a man in a leather strap-skirt studded with brass plates. He wore shin guards, a fat buckled belt, and one arm was covered with metal bands that reminded Dorris however obliquely of a Roman gladiator. He even held a sword, and as he strode up to her, dripping, muscles tensing, she noticed first that the skin of his chest existed as faces stitched together, while his own face . . .

God Almighty . . .

Dorris saw that the severed faces of babies had been grafted onto the man’s own face as effectively as patches stitched onto a shirt.

Dorris stared at the impossible man.

The tip of the sword touched her throat. His voice sounded sonorous and grating like rocks clacking together. “What place is this? Answer me and you may be allowed to live . . .”

Tremoring, Dorris replied, “It’s-it’s . . . Lake Misquamicus . . .”

“This is . . . the Living World, then?”

“It’s-it’s—Fluff-Fluff-Florida . . .” The man must be an alien. “Florida, on the planet Earth.”

“God’s green Earth, then?”

Dorris drooled as she nodded. Her eyes had yet to blink.

“State your name, your function, and your origin.”