OPEN
Joyce Ferguson sat across from the devil—or more accurately—a devil. She was sort of glad not to be considered important enough to be seen by the big guy himself. She was only meeting with a caseworker of Hell.
“Looking over your record, I see you traded your soul in exchange for a car that never needed to go to a mechanic," the man across from her said in a calm voice lacking the wickedness she was expecting from someone in Hell. “Later, you also traded your soul to a different devil for unlimited hex support.”
Guilty as charged. Joyce made a noncommittal noise.
She had watched enough television shows with lawyers giving advice to know not to admit her guilt. She attempted not to squirm under the caseworker’s gaze.
He was a petite, Asian man in a black kimono, the fabric covered with a macabre print of skulls. His aura of calm rivalled any Buddhist monk.
She wondered if this was the man’s true form, or if he took on this face and shape to trick her into letting her guard down and forgetting she was in Hell.
“Perhaps you didn’t realize that two bargains would only add more time to your service.” He folded his hands on his wooden desk. “Also, your file indicates you tried multiple times to get out of the contract you made.”
The office almost looked peaceful and ordinary with the tasteful shodo watercolors of misty mountains and the miniature Zen garden on his desk. Though, instead of a rock in his frame of sand, there was a pile of excrement he’d made patterns around with his miniature rake. The only thing out of place was the window behind him, showing a cavern filled with flames.
A beatific smile laced the caseworker’s lips. “You thought if you plotted to die a year earlier than when your contract outlined, your bargain would be void, and you wouldn’t have to sell your soul to the devil. How did that work out for you?”
“When I laid on the railroad tracks, every train switched tracks. When I tried to step out in front of the bus, a good Samaritan pushed me out of the way. My attempt to die early in a skydiving accident by not pulling the cord failed because the instructor somehow caught up with me and strapped himself to me.” Joyce also learned she couldn’t drown. Pills hadn’t worked, instead, they just gave her permanent liver damage-which caused health conditions that eventually caused her death.
Her contract had ended at that point, meaning the devil was free to take her life. Even so, he’d waited another five miserable years. By then, her car had also failed and died. Satan probably thought this last detail was some kind of poetic justice for trying to end things early.
Joyce’s final days had been Hell on earth.
“Let’s get this over with. What is my punishment going to be?” She crossed her arms. “Are you going to boil me in pits of hot lava?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “An eternity of hot lava is reserved for child molesters, serial killers, and rapists.” He waved a hand behind him at the window. A naked man writhed in the flames. He looked a lot like her state’s former senator. “Being whipped while shackled to the walls of Hell is reserved for corrupt politicians, sleazy lawyers, heads of insurance companies, and corporate CEOs whose companies are destroying the environment. There’s a special place in hell for people like you.”
Joyce held her breath.
The devil reached into a desk drawer and removed a folder. “You sold your soul to the devil in exchange for material goods, not once but twice. Had that been all, you would be spending the next two lifetimes, 160 years in your case, as his servant. However, you also tried to cheat my employer, so you have another two lifetimes added onto your sentence. You’ll be in the devil’s service for 320 years.”
Her jaw dropped. Three hundred years wasn’t eternity, but it would feel like it.
He continued on in a matter-of-fact tone, as if this was everyday work for him. “I found your special place in hell using our career survey. The best fit for your skills means you will become one of Satan Industries’ consultants, finding the mortals on Earth who are willing to trade their souls for material goods, power, wealth, or other selfish pursuits.”
“No! I don’t want to be a bad person. Isn’t there a job that doesn’t involve being a con-artist?” Joyce could already feel her karma withering away.
It was as if he had looked into her soul and figured out what would be the worst torture to her that didn’t involve physical pain.
He folded his hands over the file. “This job is perfect for you. I guarantee you’ll love it.”
She was fortunate she’d dated a servant of a devil for a short time. Bub, her former girlfriend, had given Joyce tips on ways to navigate the afterlife.
“I’m Buddhist,” Joyce said. “How does this factor into my religious beliefs? I don’t believe in Christian Hell.” Buddhist Hell was so much better—which was pretty much what life on Earth was. “I need to transcend to the next plane of existence through good deeds and peaceful actions.”
“Once again, it looks like you think you’ve found a loophole.” His sly smile made her stomach flip-flop. “Satan Industries might make an exception in this case… just this once. We do want to honor your religious preference and desire to transcend to another dimension.”
Joyce had a bad feeling about what he might suggest.
“Would you care to make a wager?” He leaned forward, reminding her of a shark about to pounce. “After you collect your first 100 souls, we can discuss renegotiating the terms of your contract.”
That sounded promising. Still Joyce didn’t know why he looked like a cat that had just swallowed a canary. She tried to figure out what she wasn’t seeing that he did. “So I just have to collect a hundred souls, and then I can ask for another job?”
“We will reevaluate your qualifications and newly acquired skills. Then we can discuss other options that might be an appropriate fit.”
This sounded too good to be true. She wondered why he was so willing to discuss this with her. “And what you offer will be an actual job? It isn’t me being flogged in the pits of hell or being burned for all eternity?”
“Those aren’t jobs. Those are punishments. Jobs would include floggers, pitchfork personnel, guards, and other such staff. Of course, I suspect you’ll collect those 100 souls and find the job is more rewarding than expected. Most people do.”
It sounded so reasonable, like he was a real case manager.
“Do we have a deal?” he asked.
She bit her lip, thinking it over. What choice did she have? Either she could do the job and hate it for the next 320 years, or she could do the job and renegotiate after she reached her quota.
“Okay, deal,” she said.
He stood and extended his hand. She eyed his very normal-looking palm, covered in a map of wrinkles. He didn’t look like he would burn her. When she took his hand, she found his grip to be firm, but ordinary. He didn’t even write their bargain in her blood.
He seated himself and handed her the file with her name on it. “Review the contents. Your mentor will be with you shortly to show you the ropes.”
“So, you got Sensei Dan as your caseworker?” the devil in the blue suit asked. “He’s pretty good. Fair, but not lenient. Keep that in mind.”
Joyce’s mentor devil’s name was Beliel. Despite his old-fashioned name, he looked like a hipster with his sunglasses and pompadour. He drove them around in a pink convertible, which was able to teleport to locations of desperate mortals who had summoned a devil (or a Satan Industries’ employee) by saying or thinking the magic words:
“I would sell my soul to the devil for…”
No one stopped Beliel as he passed a security desk at the try outs for a New York Ballet academy to find his first client.
“How did you do that?” she whispered. The receptionist hadn’t stopped him. Security didn’t stop him.
“No one will notice you until you talk to them directly. Otherwise, you get to move around like a ghost.”
“But doesn’t that mean you might get hit by a car or something?” Joyce asked.
“We’re incorporeal. The physical world doesn’t apply to us. How long have you been dead? You haven’t been hungry once, have you?”
He was correct. She hadn’t even realized it. She didn’t need to sleep or eat. It was her soul that lived on, not her body.
After two hours of watching Beliel con mortals out of their souls, instructing her in the tricks of the trade, and teaching her about teleportation, she could see why some people—not herself, of course—might be enticed by an afterlife of magic and immortality.
“Will I get a car like yours?” she asked.
“No. You get to drive your old Toyota Camry.”
She’d been stuck with that ugly rust bucket for fifty years. She didn’t want to look at it in the afterlife as well.
She would probably stick to teleporting through doors—which was how they arrived at the bar in Reno, exiting out of the men’s restroom.
Beliel waved the scroll under her nose. The client’s wish shimmered on the parchment under the listed name with a sickly chartreuse glow.
Timothy Appler
Reno, NV
I would trade my soul to be able to drink as much as I want.
As Joyce scanned the room, she noticed a man at the bar with an aura that matched the chartreuse glow on Beliel’s scroll—not so different from the jaundice of his skin.
Beliel seated himself at the bar while Joyce hung back to observe. Her mentor hailed the bartender and ordered himself a drink. “You have no idea how much I want this drink.”
The man at the bar grunted.
Joyce understood Beliel probably did want to drink, but he wouldn’t be able to if he was incorporeal.
“I really shouldn’t,” Beliel said. “My doctor says I should quit.”
The older man tipped back a drink so strong Joyce could spell it permeating off him from feet away. “Mine too. What do doctors know? My grandfather smoked cigars and drank all his life. He didn’t die from either.”
Beliel nodded. “I know. Some people get lucky with genetics, I guess.”
The bartender set a drink in front of Beliel, but he didn’t touch it.
“Life is short. I should be able to enjoy it the way I want!” Tim lit up a cigarette.
Beliel slapped him on the back. “Amen to that!”
Beliel nodded and offered sympathy for the next thirty minutes before offering Tim a solution.
“How much do you want to be able to drink all day without any consequences?” Beliel asked.
“I’d give my right eye for that!” the older man chuckled.
“I would give my liver to be able to get drunk all day!” Beliel said.
“I’d give my liver, but that’s the problem. I already did. The doc says I need to quit before I drink myself into the grave.” He sucked on his teeth, as if thinking it over. “I’d give my soul to be able to drink as much as I want, for as long as I want.”
“I can help you with that.” Beliel reached into the breast pocket of his blue suit and extracted a contract.
Joyce thought the contract was more than generous. Tim was allotted twenty years to live his life without it affecting his health.
“He’ll probably die from lung cancer anyway,” Beliel whispered as his client staggered off.
Beliel made the job look easy.
“Don’t you feel guilty enabling this man’s bad behavior?” she asked.
“No. I’m giving him what he wants.”
Joyce had initially been wowed by the magical aspect of the job, but she didn’t love the idea of making people’s lives worse by helping them give into their base desires.
Like she once had. She’d been shallow and given in to selfish desires when she’d sold her soul.
Beliel leaned back against the bar. “If you don’t want to work with alcoholics, you can find other people on the list who you want to help.”
Joyce harrumphed. “I’m not delusional enough to believe I’m helping anyone.”
“Suit yourself.”
Joyce watched a new name appear on the long list of names he had been crossing off. The names shifted around on the paper.
She nodded to it. “I think one just disappeared.”
“Some lucky devil got that one before we did. It happens.”
Beliel found another two souls in the bar who weren’t even on his list.
“Bars and casinos are my favorite hangouts. I always pick up a few extras that aren’t on the list, which means less competition. You just need the mortals to say the magic words out loud to make the bargain. But you can’t say it for them. I guess Satan has some sort of moral code.”
“Right.” She crossed her arms, doubtful.
“He was once an angel, right?” He tapped the scroll of names. “These guys have already said they want the bargain. They just have to sign the contract. You don’t have to be as strict with these suckers. But the freelance work, you need to convince them so they think of it on their own. That’s where the real work comes in. I suggest you leave those souls for veteran devils to collect.”
By noon, Beliel had crossed four names off the list and made five bargains, using his freelance technique on the desperate.
“You’re making bargains quicker than I thought possible,” she said. Despite how unscrupulous a job it was, she was impressed with his efficiency.
“What can I say? I’m too good for Hell.”
“How long does it take you to get a mortal to sign over their soul?” Joyce asked.
“These days? A few minutes to a few hours.” He smoothed a comb through his pompadour. “But that’s only because I’m good at recognizing desperate souls and what they need.”
She imagined it would take her longer as she built on-the-job experience. “How many souls can you collect in a day?”
“You won’t harvest any souls until the contract expires. Satan Industries is usually pretty generous with people’s life expectancy, giving them what they would guess a normal life would be, depending on risk factors.”
Her voice came out a squeal. “So that means I have to wait fifty years to collect a soul?”
“Or more.”
Dread settled into the pit of her stomach. Once again, she had been outsmarted by a devil. She was going to be at this a long time before she even got to discuss being considered for another form of servitude.
Her karma would wither away and she would someday—in 320 years—be born into a life worse than her last one. Life was suffering, as the Buddhists said. So was the afterlife. Her next life would be worse than her last because of all the conning she did in the afterlife.
She wondered if she could get out of that by becoming a born-again Christian and repenting. Then again… she already tried outwitting Satan multiple times and it hadn’t worked out for her any of the times she tried before.
That was how Joyce started her afterlife, suckered into the ultimate pyramid scheme, unable to escape.
You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website:
www.sarinadorie.com