Chapter 16

“Well, we’ve definitely made good time here. We’re just inside Mercer County, which is a good place to stop for the moment, don’t you think? I could use a chance to stretch my legs. What about you guys? Maybe a visit to the mall? Banks are closed, of course, since it’s Sunday, but we can empty our remaining accounts tomorrow. I hadn’t thought about that until just now, but we’ll have to stay that long in Jersey at least. Got to close the accounts, use the money to buy practical things, and then leave for good,” David Howard announced, getting the absolute support of his twenty traveling companions on that bus.

“Wait until they get a load of me!” Tozroman laughed as he joined the others, fully prepared to defend any of them who encountered trouble.

There was a reason or two to worry about that, indeed. Despite the overall more tolerant attitude that most had about sexuality and such, the Mafia was notoriously old-school, and they ran the state these days. One never knew how they might react to seeing a bunch of naked and half-naked folks walk around in public with a demon. Then again, that was another reason to go armed as well. David, for his part, had a T-shirt and jeans on, plus short socks, sneakers, and a bomber jacket.

It was a bit cooler today, after all. Average local temperatures had paradoxically dipped a bit since Fireball Day, leading some to speculate that the sulfur, smoke, and ash had pushed some solar radiation back into space. Was it worldwide? Without government funding and promoting the research, it was hard to tell. Global warming might have been prevented, but perhaps at a steep price. Only time would tell for sure if something akin to nuclear winter or a Little Ice Age was in the making. While indoors, though, any shivers from nudity or semi-nudity were less of an issue due to climate-controlled environments.

“Of course, the collapse of most nations’ manufacturing sectors in some places might have had an impact, too, you know. Big cities are traditionally the backbone of heavy industry, aren’t they?” Melanie observed, getting nods from the others.

“A good point. Much less pollution entering the atmosphere, far fewer greenhouse gasses, to say the least. Rather abruptly, at that. Who knows what the state of industrial sectors and what the fuel will be like in the future, of course. Maybe steam? Who knows?” Tom thought aloud as they entered a local mall and walked inside it to stares from many folks.

Steven, for instance, still wore those assless chaps, and this drew more than a little attention to him in particular. His tank top combined with the chaps to really emphasize how underdressed he was, too. Kyle was completely naked, wearing only his dress shoes and Melanie’s collar, attached to a leash that she used to lead him around. Basically all of the women were either topless, bottomless, or nude as could be as they paraded their gorgeous flesh for all to see. The ink prompted comments, too, not to mention wolf whistles, as did the piercings.

“Maybe I should get you a Prince Albert. That would really get their eyes bugging out, wouldn’t it?” Melanie snickered while people ogled the group.

It was, however, Tozroman who prompted the most wide-eyed reactions. Most thought that he just wore a demon bodysuit, albeit a convincing one, but there were absolutely folks who figured out that he was a real, live, flesh and blood devil. His warning was correct, as was proved when one mall security guard approached them and asked for identification. Tozroman didn’t have any, so the guard threatened to escort them off the premises.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, buster. I’m not messing around here. Don’t make me angry, sport,” Tozroman warned him to back off.

Something in Toz’s eyes terrified the mall cop and he walked away, convinced now that he had met the Devil Himself. He had even pissed his pants, earning some ridicule from the other mall cops, two of whom now prepared to arrest Steven among others for indecent exposure or public lewdness. Accompanying them close behind, watching the action with more than a little anxiety, were two nuns, a priest, and two men in business suits with dark sunglasses. Everything about the last two screamed “mafiosi,” of course, or perhaps agents of the feared new Special Crimes Division of the New Jersey State Police. It was widely rumored that SCD drew its agents from within the syndicates, anyway.

“Look, back off, guys, and I won’t have to sic my demon on you, okay?” David cleverly posed the threat directly at the guards and others.

“Your ... demon? Who are you? The Antichrist or something? Is he a real, honest-to-God, demon?” the priest spoke up at last.

“No, I’m an angry, embittered, unemployed demon, put out of work by the closing of Hell, okay? Lack of souls to torment tends to be bad for one’s employment prospects, trust me. At least it is for a demon. Don’t make me possess you! Just let us do our thing, we’ll be gone before you know it, and then life can return to normal, okay?” Tozroman actually reasoned and leveled with the man.

“Hell’s ... closed? Why? Why is Hell closed? What about Purgatory, then?” the priest itched at his collar, just before Tozroman closed the distance on him.

“Father Ian William Farnsworth, am I right? Age thirty-four, member of the Society of Jesus for the past decade, from what I can tell. Yes, yes, a proper Jesuit priest. Tell me, Father Ian, what did Declan Gray tell you after you shoved a candle up his ass and threatened to light it? What about Tommaso Nguyen, after you pinned him down to a bed, yanked down his pants, and started buggering him with only some Crisco as lube? You thought that because he was only half-Italian, the other half Vietnamese, that it wasn’t logged in the records of both Heaven and Hell? Think again.

“Be glad that Hell doesn’t exist anymore. You had reservations there for sure. A nice, toasty cave full of fire, brimstone, and vicious, bloodsucking vampire bats, just for you. For eternity, of course. With no hope of escape or release. You caught a lucky break when Satan retired. He was all set to go, what’s the human term, ‘medieval’ on you, in case you wondered. What did Susie Morgan say when you rubbed lit cigarettes out on her skin for threatening to tell her parents and Monsignor Randall about your crimes?” Tozroman stunned the priest, who shat himself and ran away in a panic.

“You ... clearly struck a nerve there, Toz,” Andrea commented.

“Yeah, well, it helps to be able to divine people’s secrets in real time, as they stand in front of you. This guy, for instance. This guard, Anton, right? Yeah, Anton Roberts, aged fifty-seven. Lied about his past on his job application. Didn’t reveal two felony convictions, one DUI, a misdemeanor guilty plea for drunk and disorderly, or his outstanding bench warrant for failure to pay back child support. Yes, yes, Anton, come at me, you fucking prick! I dare you! I would love to knock you flat!” Tozroman’s eyes went black as coal and his mouth smelled so strongly of sulfur that no amount of breath mints could cover it.

Anton drew his sidearm in a rage and Tozroman simply opened his mouth, letting black flames escape his throat to burn the guard to a crisp. Anton’s screams of agony were brief, but they could be heard clear across New Jersey, or so it felt to everyone present. The man’s ashes settled quickly to the floor in a puff of smoke and after that, the group was left alone, at least for the present. The two nuns went white with horror, while the other guard and the two mafiosi darted for the exits in abject terror. The gun was melted and its metal simply poured upon the polished hardwood as well.

“Was that... ?” Kait started to ask the demon.

“Literal Hellfire? Yes, it was. Ten thousand times hotter than most fires you can conceive. Trust me. Be glad that Satan dissolved Hell. Billions of souls are now still recovering from the sheer torment that they once endured, probably making them what are called ‘hungry ghosts,’ now, in many cases. Not even Father Ian deserved such unbearable pangs, but it wasn’t my place to judge. Now it is, to some extent, I suppose.

“Hell was unimaginably inhumane, everlasting torture, inflicted by a sadistic deity and his bitter, disgraced deputy upon a somewhat less depraved human race, or at least the souls thereof, for endless, countless aeons of eternity. There are no words to describe just how unbearable it was, but that’s what they were forced to endure without any chance of relief whatsoever. That’s just the ugly, naked truth, babe,” Toz spilled the beans in a way that really mortified many of the shoppers surrounding them.

“So, it was serious overkill, then,” Colleen spoke her mind, getting a nod from Tozroman.

“Batshit insane overkill, believe me. It was real, but it was fucking nuts. No loving, benevolent God would have allowed my existence or that of the world into which I was created. Hell was my birthplace, to the extent that I even had one, of course. It was not a world to which I would ever wish to return, trust me on that point. Despite what I said before, I’m glad that Hell is no longer a real place. It’s a much better universe in which it doesn’t exist anymore,” Toz opined, just before he noticed a bookstore and decided to go there next.

David couldn’t help but notice the curious way that everyone else looked at him as he was joined by Denise, Andrea, and Jenny on their way to a record store after the Hellfire incident. The impression that many of the other patrons had was that David actually controlled a real fire-breathing demon, which meant that he was a very dangerous man himself, perhaps even a sorcerer of some kind. He might even be the Antichrist, at least that was what some whispered. It made plenty of folks curious, others fearful, as these weren’t normal times. Fireball Day had shaken many a person’s beliefs and assumptions about how the universe worked.

The others in the group seemed to be okay, at least for now, even if people were a bit tense or anxious around them. People did their best to seem stoic, not least because any kind of false move might incur the wrath of the demon or his “controller,” which would be very bad for their health. Tozroman used that to his own sweet time browsing in said bookstore, well aware that none would harass in such circumstances. They stepped gingerly around him as much as possible, seeking to go about their lives without being incinerated.

Tom in particular got a discount at the smoke shop, apparently because the cashier there hated Anton Roberts and she wasn’t alone. Hesitant as they were, people with reasons for gratitude over the rough justice done earlier began timidly approaching the group. They now wished to express their thanks for what Toz had done by eliminating that abusive prick of a guard. He turned out to have been the worst kind of bully, someone who made both staff and patrons suffer whenever it pleased him. He would hardly be missed, that was the overall sentiment from the mall’s regular customers and personnel.

“Look, it’s a bit weird, but I mean, the dude was a complete jerk. Trust me on that. I wouldn’t have cooked him myself, but it certainly took care of the HR issues and there was no shortage of those,” the mall manager told Amanda as she shopped for candles in one of the shops near the central desk.