Chapter 6

“Here we are, guys. Hancock, Maryland. It’s a bit on the sweltering side, but that’s hardly a shock, given that it’s Maryland in July,” I noted as we pulled into what proved to not entirely be a ghost town.

“Well, I see some locals at least. How many would you say there’s likely to be, given the number we see so far?” Gabby spoke up after locking lips with Anwyn again.

“Dunno, probably five to six hundred, max. A good portion of the town still looks deserted, so two out of three could well have left the rest behind,” Lewis commented, even as he fought back his embarrassment.

Since fucking Cliff, Lewis had started sporting boners almost constantly and had yet to be able to proffer an explanation for his priapic tendencies. Something had changed in him, almost as if Cliff had transmitted the same condition from Tara to him ... but that couldn’t happen, could it? Then again, it was a contagion of some kind, so why wouldn’t it affect him? I would have to look into the matter and soon. Lewis might not want to face the implications, life-changing as they were, but he could well be bi instead of gay now. He was already clearly even more lecherous than before. This had real potential consequences for our group.

“Well, let’s approach someone and see about renting a room, shall we? Or a few rooms, in fact,” I proposed as I led the group out of the bus.

None of us knew if we could quite trust the locals, so unfortunately, we had to put on some clothes for now, just in case. Even so, I couldn’t help but notice that each woman opted for a sundress ... and no panties. Even Anwyn and Gabby seemed to prefer this get-up, and to make matters worse, they got very frisky with me. What was that about ... were they turning bi as well? Come to think of it, I realized, if Lewis did, why not them? Wilbur had fucked Anwyn, after all, as had Wilbur Junior, Jared, and then Cliff. Anwyn had then been intimate with Gabby. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, was it? They had been affected by this same condition, hadn’t they?

The hotel desk clerk seemed a bit odd, as did the name of the motel. The Angel’s Haven Inn, what was that and why wasn’t it on any map or directory of Hancock that I had seen? The desk nameplate read “Ariel,” too, which I always thought was a woman’s name, but the clerk was unmistakably a man ... a tall, blonde man with long hair and poorly concealed brawn. He would give Dolph Lundgren a run for his money, this guy. For a man with a rather effeminate-sounding name, he was as macho as one got. I assumed that this was a “Boy Named Sue” situation and wisely kept my trap shut about the name. He reminded me of the “man in Brussels” in the Men At Work video “Land Down Under.”

“Oh, hi. My name is ... Adam. My group here and I would like to rent some rooms at this inn, if that’s okay and you have vacancies. What’s the price?” I asked the clerk quickly and nervously now.

I was no slouch, being fairly recently ex-Navy, but this guy could break me in half without breaking a sweat. What was he, a former Marine or something? Russian Spetznaz? South African commando or ex-mercenary? SAS (British Special Air Service)? French Foreign Legion? Bundeswehr commando? Former Yugoslav soldier from one of the rival Bosnian militias? IDF?

“None of those. And your money’s no good here. Also, there are plenty of rooms and this place isn’t on a map because it’s temporary. It was just placed here for you. For this one time. Don’t count on it appearing again. We have our reasons, Adam Clarke, or should I say, Adam Slater, as that’s the name that you’re using these days? And no, I’m not Blackwater or CIA, either. I’m an angel, Adam. My name is Ariel, and no, that’s not a woman’s name. Not until Disney fucked me over. Look it up. It’s in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, aka the Old Testament. I’m a cherub, to be precise. Sometimes I look this way, sometimes differently,” the clerk informed me, turning into translucent radiance, his wings spread, in front of us to prove his point.

“Holy smokes!” Becca reacted with utter astonishment in her case.

“None of those exist, strictly speaking, but it would be a good name for a cannabis firm, don’t you think? In case we angels ever wanted to do a side business. Mind you, it’s the demons out of work now who need jobs these days. What with Hell closed up and all,” Ariel quipped, much to our surprise, as he returned to his previous state.

“Hell’s ... shut down? What about Satan?” Anwyn wondered aloud.

“Retired. Dude got tired of it all and just said, ‘fuck it,’ took his pitchfork and walked away from it all. Hot hoofed it out of there and closed it up like an unstable coal mine. He didn’t consider the impact on devils, because they don’t need food or money or anything like that. He forgot that they need diversion, that they would get bored with no one to torment anymore.

“So, count on one thing. There are unemployed demons everywhere, doing whatever appeals to them in their tedium and sheer boredom. To say nothing about former damned souls who are now just hungry ghosts traveling in the ether or else people with scarred and badly burned temporary bodies that will likely expire from their Hell wounds, sooner or later,” Ariel explained to us.

“Not to mention the Devil Himself,” I observed.

“Him, too. But you’d probably have no clue if you even met him. Yes, he still has powers. He just wants to keep a low profile, especially these days. At least for now,” Ariel stipulated, “anyway, here are your room keys. I’d advise you to use the Angel’s Haven Diner next door for your dining needs, I would hasten to add.”

“Thank you, kind sir. Are they run by angels, too?” I asked him.

“Just one. Lavelle. He used to be human, but now he’s very much an angel. And no, there’s no charge at all for his food. It’s all free. By the way, that condition that you’ve noticed, it’s only going to keep spreading, as it was intended to do. Heaven created the condition for a reason. Some might call it a disease or disorder, but it’s actually very handy in many ways. By the time that it’s finished, every one of you will have it and thus be able to do so much more sexually than you ever thought imaginable.

“Think of it as a divine gift, if you will. And yes, you’re all going to be omnisexual now. Just deal with it. No gay, no straight, no lesbian. Just omnisexual,” Ariel informed us, just as we prepared to go to our rooms.

“Well, thanks for clearing that up, Ariel. I look forward to seeing what tonight might bring us all. Are we on the right track, trying to send them back to Wales?” I asked to clarify that issue.

“Yes, but only for those two ... and Lewis. They’re to form a triumvirate of sorts, one Prince and two Princesses of Wales. Anwyn, Gabby, Lewis is to marry both of you and rule together with you. You’ll find out soon enough. That was a divinely inspired idea, Adam. Very solid execution. You just needed to add Lewis to it. Think about it ... why else you would locate the one campus cop of Welsh stock?

“Anyway, the rest of you ... you’re to head for Haven. That’s out west, in case any of you didn’t know that. A place where you can help rebuild a city on a hill, or a beach in this case, a shining light of law and order in the future Dark Ages of savagery to come. Man needed to be knocked down a peg, for an era of sorts, so as to save the planet, but he’ll be back. With your help and a much more sustainable model for development in the future.

“Embers and sparks are needed to be able to reignite the fires of civilization in the future. In the present, though, it will be darkness and barbarism for much of the world. That’s just a fact. The future civilization will naturally be much improved, as I said, but as the cliche goes, it’s always darkest before the dawn. The new dawn in this case. Anyway, run along now. I don’t have time or permission to share with you the entire agenda for Man in this day and age. You had best get to that diner, alright?” Ariel sent us on our way now.

We rushed to our rooms now and freshened up just a bit before heading to the diner, where, sure enough there was a host/clerk/waiter ... a short order cook named Lavelle according to his nametag. He was a rather hefty black man who looked to be sixty on a bad day, fifty on a good one. He had a silvery Afro on his head and a cook’s hat over that. He also had the shiniest teeth conceivable to man, preternaturally white. He was clearly an angel, but again no wings were evident.

“Lavelle ... the angel, right?” I asked him, while the rest of my party waited to give their orders.

“Ariel told you, did he? Did he tell you that I was killed in a car crash years ago? When I was still mortal, that is. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina, originally, that is. Anyway, eat up, folks. I highly recommend the chicken-fried steak. Trust me. It’s to die for, if you’ll pardon that phrase. I used to be an Army mess cook, after all. I know what I’m doing here. Lavelle Dumas, no relation to the author, of course. A descendant of slaves, now an angel, what do you make of that?” Lavelle laughed about that irony.