Heaven and Hell for a New MilleniumA Story by Scott Free A working title. Please tell me if you have any ideas for the title. I'd be soooo grateful. I know it's hokey. This is a sequel (kind of) to My Visit with the Archangel, which has a few of the same phenomena.
L.S. Heaven Patrol, Archangel Class.
Commander Michael…er, commanding. Rank Archangel.
Crew consists of thirty-five angels, twenty-five cherubim and ten seraphim.
“But,” the angel leaned in close and whispered, “the seraphim have trouble manning the controls, ‘cuz all the wings get in the way.”
###
Michael sat in his commander’s seat, a leather affair reminiscent of something Captain Kirk would sit in. That means it allowed the sitter to slouch like a hobo. The archangel couldn’t get the hang of it. He had never slouched in his life; it was a skill he did not have a hold of. So he sat on the edge with no support.
Michael did not quite know what He was up to, with this new spaceship. His exact words were ‘It will be chic’. Things had always been a little old –fashioned in heaven, Michael could admit, but this spaceship was pushing the limit. He was the old-fashioned type, the fiery-sword-where-it-should-be type, and this ship didn’t have any trace of a fiery sword. The only thing close to that was really not so close—a fire extinguisher.
“The vessel is appearing in our monitors, sir,” the cherubim looked up from his seat and beamed its baby smile at Michael.
“Scan on the inhabitants, Mr. Group.”
The cherubim nodded and pressed several buttons on the panel. Then he frowned as deeply as his baby-face could.
“Uh…sir…they don’t match anything in our records.”
“Impossible,” Michael sighed. “Our records contain the full knowledge of Jehovah, that is, everything, excepting the date of the Rapture and the beginning of the End of Days.”
“—And, perhaps, anything He has decided to withhold from us, Commander,” Lieutenant Extrarius tapped Michael on the shoulder.Extrarius was a tall seraphim with six wings, which some angels thought of as overkill.
“Well, yes, of course, that,” Michael replied sourly. Mr. Group spoke up again.
“Sir, our scanners indicate that they are a totally different species from that of Earth, and do not match any creations therein. They are not, even, of this solar system.”
“You mean they’re…” Michael’s eyes narrowed, “…extraterrestrials?”
“Extra-extra-terrestrials, sir,” Mr. Group said.
“Extra-extra-extra-terrestrials, Commander,” Extrarius said.
“Quite enough of that, thank you men,” Michael rolled his eyes. “Do the records say anything about these extra-extra-terrestrials, or whatever they’re called?”
“No, sir…although…” Group trailed off.
“Although what, Mr. Group?” Michael bit his lip.
“The inhabitants of this ship do bear several million-year resemblance to a small microbe God left on a planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy. A leftover of a previous experiment, you know. If I didn’t know better, sir,” he chuckled nervously, “I’d say He forgot about them and they evolved into…er, intelligent beings.”
“Open the channel, Lieutenant,” Michael said.
“Receiving transmission,” Extrarius looked up expectantly at the monitor, with nearly every other head on the bridge.
They all made a face.
###
Beelzebub almost knocked on the shower door. Then he stopped; the keening voice—he had often compared it to a chicken on heroin having its head yanked off—was actually singing. Beelzebub had never heard Astaroth sing before. And so he listened.
And grimaced.
“I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again I'm laughing at clouds So dark up above The sun's in my heart And I'm ready for…er, love …um, lessee… Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place Come on with the rain I've a smile on my face I walk down the lane With a happy refrain Just singin', Singin' in the rain…” After that, Astaroth started singing Metallica’s ‘Creeping Death’. This was where Beelzebub couldn’t stand it anymore. He burst through the door.
“So let it be written—Hey, whoa! What the hell?” Astaroth jumped back and the shower instantly stopped spraying.
“Have you ever heard of privacy, Ba’al?” Astaroth swore.
“Have you ever heard of throat disease, Astaroth? You’re infected.”
“Is that the best comeback you can think of?”
“I’d rather listen to bad comebacks for the rest of eternity than hear a replay of your singing.”
Astaroth huddled, scratching his lip.
“That wasn’t a very good comeback either,” he muttered.
“C’mere. You’ve gotta see this,” Beelzebub whirled out of the room. Astaroth’s clothes appeared on him and he followed, grumbling.
As they went through the corridors of the ship, Astaroth became more light-hearted. He went in step with Beelzebub and spoke cheerily.
“Gosh, it’s great to be out of Hell for once,” Astaroth marveled, running his hand along the metal finish in the walls. “This place is so, so…so cool.”
“Metaphorically or literally?” Beelzebub muttered.
Astarothpffted. “Compared to There? Both. What’s this thing I gotta see?”
“An alien ship,” Beelzebub pressed his finger onto the scanner and it read his print. “I think. The HH is going bananas over it.”
“H…H?” Astaroth followed him through and into the main control room.
“Heavenly Host. I figure if we’re coming into the twenty-first century in technology we might as well make up some snappy words for our competition.”
“Oh. And that would make us the Demonic Duo?”
“No, there’s more of us than that. We’re the Hellish Horde.”
“Wait, wait, that’s the same two letters. How are we going to say who’s who?”
Beelzebub shrugged and sat down at the controls. “I don’t know. Took me two hours to think it up anyway. That’s your problem. Now look—“
The screen flashed through space and closed in on a little vessel nudging its way through the stars. It was vaguely pan-shaped, thought Beelzebub, but then he remembered that he was hungry. He pressed a button on the panel and said, “Coffee Ice Cream, please.” It was instantly constructed before him.
Astaroth made a face and looked at the screen again.
“So…what do we do?”
Beelzebub put the spoon in his mouth and rubbed his hands together.
“Us? We damn ‘em.”
###
Pastor Dick Priestly stepped up to the pulpit, and the congregation promptly prepared to fall asleep. It wasn’t that Dick was bad, especially—his voice was just so soothing, it was like someone singing you a lullaby and giving sedative pills at the same moment.
Priestly opened the Bible and flicked to the marked page.
“Today I’ll be reading from the book of Luke, Chapter Twenty-Four, verses forty-four to fifty-six. ‘Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.’”
He stopped; there was a sound of gentle snoring. He frowned over his glasses and looked over to his wife, in the first pew. She held their baby in her arms.
He nodded. She yanked the pacifier from the baby’s mouth—wailing ensued. Waves of wakened believers sat up from their seats and focused on him.
“That’s what I call a revival,” Priestly said, smiling. “Now, as I began, ‘And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said—‘“
Priestly stared at the writing. It was rearranging itself on the page. The words came out without him meaning to say them.
“He said, ‘Beam me up, Father.’”
The congregation grew paler and paler, along with the inside of the church and everything around Priestly. Soon it got so bright he had to close his eyes to avoid burning them. When he opened them again, he was no longer in the First Church of Helpful Religious Pamphlets—he was in a room that looked like something from a show he had seen as a kid. Only much more real.
“Ah! Reverend Priestly, is it?” A man was grasping his hand.
He tried to shake the hand but the rest of his body began shaking instead.
“So sorry we beamed you up without warning,” Michael apologized. “I hope you weren’t in the middle of something important.”
“Well I, I, I uh—“
“Don’t worry, we’ll beam you right back to the second you came. It’ll all work fine,” the man patted him on the shoulder.
“Uh, yes…er…who are you?”
“Oh, terribly sorry. I’m Michael, Archangel. You can just call me Michael.”
“You’re…Michael?” Priestly wiped his mouth.
“Yes,” Michael smiled again. He was tall and dark, and had the kind of body you knew was rippling with muscle underneath. And with him, you could almost see the rippling.
“I see. Having a near-death experience, am I?”
“Oh I certainly hope not!” Michael exclaimed. “Just a bit of a detour. Frankly, we need your help.” He began striding down the corridor.
“What with?” Priestly decided he was supposed to follow, and Michael wasn’t the sort you disobey.
“Converting some extraterrestrials.” Michael grinned, a bit sheepishly.
###
Priestly hadn’t really disbelieved that Heaven and Hell were real, but he just hadn’t really ever thought about it. When someone came up to him and told him that evolution was so much more factual than intelligent design, he had just nodded and smiled. He felt guilty if he fought back.
But now the Archangel Michael was standing next to him, preparing to beam to an alien vessel, nonetheless. What had happened to good old Episcopalian logic?
“So why, exactly, are we going to convert them?”
“God said so,” Michael replied, stolidly. “Angels don’t pretend to know what he plans.”
“I see,” Priestly nodded.
As they were beamed onto the ship, intense anxiety took him. Would the aliens be friendly? How would he ever convert them? Would they give him a trans-galactic disease or something deadly?
The whiteness filled his whole vision, obscuring everything. He closed his eyes, ready this time.
And when he opened them, there were extraterrestrials all around the two of them.
They looked surprisingly cheerful. The small humanoids had chubby bodies encased in a translucent outer shell, with a blue body inside. Their eyes were long funnels that poked through the shell and ogled Priestly, all the while smiling at him appreciatively.
One came forward and, with an indescribable appendage—it had two fingers, at least—made a salute to Michael. Michael smiled back.
“Hello, lesser beings!” he said.
Priestly winced. The head extraterrestrial jumped and grinned appreciatively, wondering how this alien could speak his tongue.
“Hello, extraterrestrial life forms,” the alien beamed. The smile was somewhat eerie. Priestly realized that he could see what they spoke, too.
“We come in peace,” Michael replied. He leaned down to Priestly and whispered, “Ha! God can beat evolution any day. Look at these guys! They might as well have evolved in a gummy bear factory.”
“Um, look…Michael, maybe I should handle this.”
“What? Oh…yes, of course,” Michael rubbed his formidable arm. “That’s what He wanted, after all. I’ll be back in a while to see how things are going.”
He stepped back.
“Extrarius—energize.”
He disappeared in a white flash and a humming like a chorus of angels. Priestly turned back to the head alien.
“So…what is the name of your people?” he asked.
“We are the Srsrskrsrkstkrstkr,” he beamed, enouncing every consonant correctly.
Priestly gasped. “Wow. No-o-o-o vowels, I see.”
The alien tilted his head, still grinning.
“What are these ‘bowels’?”
“Er, vowels. We humans use them to make speaking a bit easier.”
“Ah. I see your oral communicators are not the same as ours. My name is Wshfzh.”
“Washfish?”
“Wshfzh.”
“Wishfash?”
“Wshfzh.”
“Wishfish?”
“Wshfzh.”
“Ah.”
###
When Michael reappeared on the bridge, lights were flashing.
“What’s the matter, Extrarius?”
“Enemy vessel in the territory, commander.” Extrarius said, pointing to the screen. Michael grunted.
“Prepare the holy phasers, Mr. Ex.”
“Arming phasers, sir.”
“Move forward at impulse speed, Mr. Group. Put us in the path of the enemy vessel.” Michael slouched in the captain’s chair, too excited to sit properly.
“Moving forward, Commander.”
“Ship changing course, sir,” Extrarius piped smoothly in his best Leonard Nimoy voice. “Away from us.”
“Good.” Michael blurted.
“…And changing course back, sir,” Extrarius sighed. “Closer to the alien ship.”
“Move in, Mr. Ex!”
“Moving in, Commander,” Extrarius sighed. “You know, we could just fly out and attack them.”
“We are in a space vessel, Lieutenant! We doing things the 21st century way!” Michael growled, as much as it hurt him to say it.
“Incoming transmission, sir,” Mr. Group stage whispered. “From HQ.”
“Oh.” Michael sat back. “Put them on.”
“Not them, sir,” Group replied, nibbling a lip. “Him.”
“Oh…well… put Him on.”
What appeared on the screen has often been attempted to be described by many men, mostly quite badly. Men try to say they’ve seen Him, in a dream or up on an empty mountain or whatnot. The ones who have seen Him are so few you couldn’t fill a beggar’s closet with them, and even they have not seen all of Him. The ones who really saw a little of Him don’t even try to describe Him. They just let it be, knowing nobody will ever get it.
“Yes, Lord,” Michael sighed.
“Transmission ended,” Group put a finger to the button.
“Cut power to phasers, Mr. Ex. Impulse engines off, Mr. Group.”
“Yes sir,” the two officers said in unison.
The twin jackhammer-shaped vessel sped by them and neared the little alien ship. Michael sighed.
“I hope He has a good reason for this.”
Group and Extrarius, along with every other celestial on the bridge, stared at him. Michael frowned at them and sat up straight.
“Alright, so I know he has a good reason for this. I just wish I knew what it was.”
###
Astaroth grinned at Beelzebub.
“Ready to beam over to ‘em?” he nudged Beelzebub.
“Ready,” Beelzebub stood up from the chair. “I just hope those angels don’t destroy the ship while we’re gone. Lu would be mad.”
“Ah don’t worry, Ba’al,” Astaroth patted him on the bank and they both disappeared instantly in a cloud of sulfurous smoke.
Srsrs jumped back from their control panels and took cover as a mushroom cloud of darkness and sulfur filled their deck. The two demons stood there, one dark and pale, one beaming insidiously. One farted.
“Hello, boys,” Astaroth grinned. “We’re here to get you dam—er, we’re here to get you…uh…” he looked at Beelzebub.
“We’re here to get you,” Beelzebub said simply.
###
“We call it ‘religion’,” Priestly said. Wishfish frowned, while still smiling.
“And it makes you happy?”
“Yes,” Priestly said, though not so sure.
“Interesting.” He led Priestly into a small room. The only furniture was a small table spinning rapidly, like a spindle going crazy.
“Please, sit down,” Wishfish indicated the table.
“Uh…on that?” Priestly adjusted his tie.
“Yes.” Wishfish did a small bow, a Srsrs imitation of a nod.
“O…kay,” Priestly acknowledged. He put a leg up and was instantly magnetized to the pedestal. Wishfish bopped into the chair opposite him, and the room spun around them.
“Who invented this ‘religion’?”
“Um…nobody,” Priestly gasped, clinging to the table. “God invented it, I suppose you could say. Is there a—oh I think I’m gonna puke—reason this table is spinning a-around?”
“Why yes. Srsrskrsrkstkrstkr feel refreshed when sitting on an object whirling about. It is addictive,” he smiled—it wasn’t like he had a choice.
“Well…er…don’t—ooohhhh—don’t take this the wrong w-way, but we humans don’t quite take to it. In fact…it makes us wanna puke!” he moaned.
“What is this ‘puke’?” the Srsrs asked, cocking his head.
Then he found out.
###
“So good to meet you, Captain,” Astaroth smiled sweetly, gripping the alien’s hand.
“’Captain’? Might you translate?” Wishfish asked cocking his head.
“One who commands?” Astaroth tried.
Wishfish’s eyes went round and round, perhaps a sign that he was thinking. Then he looked straight at Astaroth and smiled.
“Our nearest word, I believe, is skrskrrrrkskr, literally ‘one who gets more fruit’. And what are your names, friends?”
“Astaroth, Prince of Hell,” Astaroth shook the alien’s appendage.
“Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, Lord of Flying Things,” Beelzebub nodded at Wishfish.
“I see. And where is this ‘Hell’, sirs?”
They looked at him and Astaroth said, still smiling,
“Down.”
“I understand somewhat, sirs. And ‘Prince’?”
“One who gets lots more fruit,” Beelzebub added helpfully.
“I understand completely, sirs. Why are you here? A human ambassador is already present.”
Astaroth and Beelzebub exchanged a knowing look. Not knowing as in ‘we know who he is’ but knowing as in ‘we know he needs to be blasted’. In short, not a nice knowing look.
“Well…we’re not exactly human,” Astaroth said. “More…damned.”
“I see. And who are these ‘damnèd’?”
“One who doesn’t get any fruit,” Beelzebub said glumly.
“Yes…” Astaroth contemplated this, but then said, “Well, anyway. We were wondering if you would be interested in discovering the more…fun side of Earth.”
“I’m sorry? ‘Fun’?”
“More fruit.” Beelzebub cackled. He pulled out a bottle.
“Fun equals Miller Time,” Astaroth grinned.
“I understand somewhat.” Wishfish looked demurely at the bottle. “But I must attend to the human ambassador. You see, he—“
“Lots of fruit!” Beelzebub coaxed. “Millers for everybody!”
###
Priestly wobbled out of the room. The corridors whorled and flew in front of his eyes, and he toppled over, groaning.
“Hey, are you alright?” A hand touched him. The instant it did, all his dizziness left. He didn’t even have a headache or stomach acids in his mouth. He stood up.
“Thank you,” he managed a bit of a smile.
“You’re welcome,” said the man.
He was not tall or short, not thin or wide, but still amazingly dynamic. His white suit contrasted loudly with the black shirt and tie underneath. His brown hair was wavy and looked like it had never needed a comb. And the pupils of his eyes were bright, joyful white.
“How did you get on here?” Priestly asked, wondering if he was talking to another angel.
“Oh, I come and go,” he said, tapping a coat pocket with his three-bound ring, “basically anywhere.”
“Where is Wishfish?”
“In temptation,” the man replied.
“Huh?”
“You must go and help him, Dick.”
“But…” Priestly looked down at the floor, his shoulders slumping. “Look—“ The man kept smiling at him. “…Look, sir, I’m not cut out for this job. I can’t give religion. I can’t even keep my own congregation awake.”
Now the man wasn’t smiling.
“You’re right,” he stepped toward Priestly. “Nobody can. That’s cause religion isn’t anything.”
Priestly gasped. “Who are you? Satan?”
“You’ve suspected it all along, haven’t you? You thought religion wasn’t the answer. And that’s because it’s not.”
“Get behind me! Get behind me!” Priestly shouted, putting his hands in his ears. He could still hear the man’s voice.
“It’s faith, Dick. Faith. All the religion in the world can’t do a thing for anyone.”
Priestly stopped. He opened his eyes. The man was gone.
###
The bridge of the Krstkrskrs (loosely translated as Dread Bowl of Pudding or perhaps some sticky material) had always been a place of order, stability and general harmony; from what many have found out, the Srsrs have no word for argument. Thus, everything must have been orderly.
But now it was most definitely not. For one thing, the Srsrs were doing something they had never done before; dancing. Not very well, perhaps—in fact, their dancing was not unlike a conglomeration of mad gorillas—but dancing, undaunted.
tAstaroth and Beelzebub exchanged evil winks. Wishfish wiped his mouth.
“So, anways, thizs guy was talking—hiccup—over and over ‘bout…er, what’dhecallit? Regurgitation? No, religion, that was it he hehe…” Wishfish wheezed, chuckling like an insane crab.
Beelzebub sighed in relief. He could handle the religionists. This wasn’t going to be so hard, after all. Just another ‘drown your sorrows scenario’ that worked like cocaine in Las Vegas.
Then Priestly strode in like a pope about to be pontificated. Beelzebub and Astaroth stood up.
“Re—“ Priestly threw a finger up in the air, saw Beelzebub and Astaroth standing there, and promptly deflated. Just because they weren’t horned and didn’t have wings or pointy tails didn’t mean they weren’t easy to recognize as servants of Satan.
“…pent,” he muttered, his voice stumbling off into darkness.
The demons were the only ones watching him. The aliens were stumbling around, trying to sing and doing something like break dancing and a Kentucky Hoedown.
The two fiends headed for him. Priestly couldn’t move; his body had shut down as if someone else was telling it not to move. A scream shook the inside of his body, a scream that probably would’ve sounded like ‘You idiot!’ if it had been framed into words. His heart was telling him,you should’ve just cleared out, Dick. Or, better yet, just tell ‘em their sins are forgiven and leave. Why didn’t you just leave?
He was too scared to reply.
“Grab your partner, swing ‘em round, doe-see-doe and stomp the ground!” Wishfish hollered.
The demons were ten feet from him.
“Miller Time!” an alien shouted.
The demons grabbed him, each taking an arm, and dragged him back. His religion faltered and withered away. Where was God now? Far, far off, it seemed. Nothing was real anymore, except for the fiery grip on his arms. Ten sumo wrestlers couldn’t grip like that, he decided.
Then the words of that man came back to him. “It’s faith, Dick. Faith.”Now he realized. Why had he thought that God was far away? He could help him now.
“In the name of God, I claim the strength of MariuszPudzianowski!” he shouted.
The two demons paused.
“Who’s MariuszPudzianowski?” Astaroth asked.
“I would think you’d know,” Priestly replied.
Then he threw them across the room.
###
The Krstkrskrshad a computer program that ran everyday processes; which proves that sci-fi conventions are stronger than science. The computer wasn’t needed that much, as scans and other things could be run by the alien denizens of the vessel. They called Kstr, which can be translated as ‘one who has long hair’. Which was a bad name for a computer program, but the Srsrs had a computer rights law passed, and thus computer programs had the right to be named that.
Custer (as it might be easier to pronounce) watched its masters in as much horror as a program can muster.
“Please desist, masters,” it kept voicing. “Desist! The Mission must be carried out!”
Eventually it had no choice. It did the brain nudge.
The brain nudge was a piece of technology that had been given to Custer as a last minute problem-solver if some terrible brain disease came over the crew. It shoved their brains two inches to the left and caused a general reboot of the system.
The Srsrs tumbled over each other and lay prone on the ground, no movement coming to their bodies. Custer watched, passive. The Srsrs soon rose like a bunch of grave-fresh zombies and blinked several times almost as one, then stood.
“We must continue with the Mission,” Wishfish said, shaking his head. “We have tarried too long with other things. Prepare the Ion Bombast!”
###
Astaroth sprawled across the floor, growling; however, Beelzebub caught himself as he was bent backward and flew to a standing position. He grinned toothily at Priestly.
“Rather good, actually,” he said, cracking his knuckles.
Priestly suddenly felt much weaker and not nearly as confident.
“Mr. Priestly,” Astaroth stood up like a hound of death, “you thought faith would help you. Well, I ask you—“
Beelzebub grabbed him and pinned him against the wall with one arm.
“—where is your faith now?” And Astaroth chuckled, deep and demonically (that’s what one would expect, of course).
“Well, actually, Mr…Demon, sir,” Priestly adjusted his body stuck to the wall.
“What?” Astaroth snarled.
“—I would say my faith is right behind you.”
“Thank you, Priestly,” Michael said, happy at the dramatic entrance. “I think you have learned something, after all.”
“Awww shoot,” Beelzebub groaned.
###
Wishfish prepared the controls. “Isolate target, Kstr,” he whispered. “Earth.”
###
“We’ve got you outnumbered, demons,” Michael licked his lips. Priestly saw the real strength coursing through Michael’s body. “You’d better clear out.”
“That’s just what you’d like, isn’t it?” Beelzebub dropped Priestly and stepped back. “Come and get us, Mike. Do you have to have help to fight two little demons?”
Michael straightened up, his jaw clenching. His white jacket disappeared.
“Fine then,” he said. “If you’ve got to have a fight, then let’s get it over with.”
Astaroth stepped back, his eyes locked on Extrarius. A bit easier, he thought.
“Dick,” Michael whispered, “Go see what Wishfish is doing.”
“Why?” Priestly asked, then regretted it as Michael gave him that ‘never ask why, just do it’ look that fathers were so good at. He was even better at it than any dad Priestly had ever seen. In fact, Michael was the second best in the universe at the ‘never ask why’ look. The first, of course, was God, but he never did it. You could always ask God why. Not that he would always answer, of course.
Priestly ran back, pushing through the crowd of watching Srsrs. The control room was empty but for a lone figure sitting at the panel.
“Wishfish, what are you doing?”
“Ah, Mr. Prstly,” Wishfish turned about and grinned that eerie grin. “You are just in time to watch the show. Please, have a chair.”
Priestly sat cautiously, in case the seat began to spin. “What show?”
“The destruction of your planet, sir,” Wishfish smiled.
“What?”
“Yes, the fruition of our mission, you might say,” Wishfish’s smile was almost more like a leer; now it seemed more menacing.
“You’re going to destroy Earth? What has it ever done to you?”
“Nothing as such, MstrPrstly, nothing as such. However, the ‘Commanding Ones’, you might say, back on our biosphere, they wish us to have a galactic monopoly, you might say.”
“What about the diplomacy?”
“Who needs diplomacy when you have lasers?” Wishfish smirked.
“And you expect me to sit back and watch while you destroy my home just so you can have the best prices on the block?”
Wishfish frowned with his eyes, his mouth still smiling.
“What were you planning on doing, Mr. Prstly?”
Priestly set his jaw, his eyes aglow. He finally had something to live for, and by God he wasn’t going to let this alien destroy it with the push of a button.
“Ion Bombast fully prepared, sir,” Custer intoned.
“Very good, Kstr,” Wishfish replied. “Fire first volley on my signal. You see,” he swiveled to Priestly, “Mr. Prstly, we will fire four volleys of ions, the first two now, the second two in exactly twelve hours, when your Earth has made a complete rotation. These should destroy the atmosphere and prove life for humans totally impossible. Prepare to fire, Kstr.”
And then Priestly punched Wishfish in the face. The alien reeled and slipped, falling to the ground. He had probably never been punched before, for he laid on the floor like someone had just kissed him.
“Illegal maneuver, Mr. Prstly,” Custer said. “Please restrain your movements.”
“Shut up, computer,” Priestly growled. “—And abort mission.”
“No authorization,” Custer taunted.
“How’s this for authorization?” Priestly picked up a chair and rammed it into the screen.
“Foolish human,” Custer’s voice behind him stated. “I am all over this ship. You cannot destroy me unless you destroy this vessel.”
Large barrels rose from the walls, all pointing at Priestly.
“Now,” Custer said. “Prepare to be terrrrrmm—“
The lights went off. The door opened, flooding light into the room. Michael walked in and winked at Priestly, putting his jacket back on.
###
Beelzebub sat back on the deck of his old ship, groaning and holding his head, which was adorned with a large cold pack.
I tried to tell you, Ba’al,Mike can beat the crap outta you, Astaroth had said.He can beat the crap outta Lu, even. Beelzebub rubbed his black eye. Then the faint strains of some singing caught his ears and worsened his headache. He stalked down the hall.
“Alright,” he threw open the shower door once more, “I’m up to here with your singing, Astaroth! Lemme tell you right now, Metallica is my favorite band, and I will not have it desecrated like that. I possessed the lead singers several times just to get them on the Top 100 list! Now just sing ‘Ave Maria’ or something. Or, better yet, just shut up!”
Beelzebub slammed the door and walked out, grumbling and holding the coldpack to his head. After a minute, he heard the faint voice of Astaroth.
“A-a-a-a-a-ave Mari-i-i-i-a-a, A-a-v-a-ay-y Marie…”
He made a note to have the shower walls sound-proofed. Soon.
###
The congregation of the First Church of Helpful Religious Pamphlets sat in awe, their eyes glued to the stage with glue that would not soon come unstuck.
“And then,” Priestly raised his hands as if he were holding a sword, “Samuel hacked Agag to bits in front of everybody!Hiya! Hiya! Thwack!”
The congregation clapped for all they were worth. As they all filed out, one question was on their minds; What had happened to the old Priestly?
Rev. Dick Priestly stepped down from the pulpit and looked up at the mighty painting covering the hall; The Holy Spirit visits the Twelve Apostles. He saw something he had never noticed before; a man in a white suit, with a black tie, standing at the top of the painting. He smiled at the Holy Spirit.
And he could have sworn it winked back at him.
© 2009 Scott FreeAuthor's Note
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Added on February 14, 2009Last Updated on February 18, 2009 Author
Scott FreeCaught a wave--am currently sitting on top of the world, CAAboutWhoo! New year, new site...time for a new biography. I am not like any person you have ever met, for the simple reason that if you are reading this chances are you have never met me and probably ne.. more..Writing
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