“Yeah, my name’s Hudson.”
They shook hands. “I’m Gerold.”
“I’ve seen you, too,” Hudson said.
I’m easy to remember. The young guy in the FUCKIN’ chair. “Oh, and you know, I think I saw you in the bar last night, the Lounge . . .” Gerold’s eyes thinned. “Er, well, maybe it was someone else.”
“I confess,” Hudson said. “It was me. I was . . . having a few beers.”
“Oh, yeah, and the baseball game.” But now it all felt dismal. It reminded him of going there in the first place, and seeing those two hookers.
“You look like something’s on your mind,” Hudson said.
“Yeah, I guess there is.” Then Gerold laughed. “I’m not even sure why I came here.”
“There’s a late service at 7:30, but you’ve still got a few hours to wait.”
“I . . . have a question, I guess.”
“Okay.”
“But . . . you’re not a priest, are you?”
“No, no, but I hope to be some day. I leave for the seminary next week. I just help out around here, Communion prep, Epistle readings”—he held up the big plastic bag—“taking out the garbage. If it’s spiritual counsel you want, I can make an appointment for you with Father Darren.”
The thought chilled Darren. “Oh, no, see, he knows me—”
Hudson laughed. “He’s a priest, Gerold. He’s sworn to confidentiality.”
Gerold wasn’t convinced. He didn’t want to be embarrassed or look foolish. “I’d rather ask you ’cos you strike me as a regular guy.”
Hudson chuckled. “Well, I am, I suppose. What’s your question?”
“If,” he began but at once, he didn’t really know what to say. “If you’re sorry for your sins, you’re forgiven, right?”
“Sure. If you’re really sorry.”
“Well . . . is it possible to be sorry for a sin you haven’t committed yet but know you will?”
Hudson paused, and something about his demeanor darkened. “I’m not liking the sound of this, Gerold. Are you talking about suicide?”
Gerold could’ve howled. How the hell did he know! “No, man. It’s just a question. I’m curious.”
Hudson’s look indicated that he didn’t believe it. “The answer to your question is no. Being truly sorry for a sin is fine, even a potential sin, but only along with an act of repentance. How can a person repent if they’re dead?”
Gerold said nothing.
“Let’s go into the office right now. I’ll hook you up with one of the hotlines.”
“No, no, you’ve got this all wrong,” Gerold lied, sweating hard now. “I’m not going to kill myself—”
“Let me get Father Darren. He’d be happy to talk to you—”
“No, no, please, it’s nothing—”
“Gerold. Swear that you won’t kill yourself, or I’ll call a hotline right now.”
Gerold cringed in the chair. Me and my big mouth! “I swear I won’t kill myself.”
“Swear to God.”
Gerold sighed. “All right, I swear to God I won’t kill myself—”
“Swear to God on the Bible.”
Gerold laughed. “What, you carry a Bible around in your back pocket?”
From his back pocket, Hudson produced a Bible.
“Come on, man,” Gerold groaned.
“Swear on it.”
Gerold put his hand on the Bible. “I swear to God on the Bible that I won’t kill myself.”
“Good.” Hudson regained his ease. “If you break that, you’ll be in a world of hurt. God’s a nice guy but he’s also been known for some big-time wrath in the past. Trust me, you don’t want to incur it—”
“I’m not gonna kill myself, man . . .”
“You’re coming to the service tonight?”
“No. Sunday.”
“For sure?”
Jesus! “Yes. I always do.”
“Good. I’ll make an appointment for you to talk to Father Darren afterward, okay?”
Gerold slumped in place. “Okay.”
Hudson grinned. “Now, if you don’t show up, I’ll find out where you live—it’s in the church records—and I’ll bring half the congregation to your apartment, and there’ll be a big scene, and you’ll really be embarrassed—”
Gerold laughed outright now.
“—so you’ll be there, right?”
“Yes!” Gerold insisted. “I promise!”
“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.