Finally: Chapter 2: The Letter

Maggie:

You aren’t going to understand much of this, but I need to tell someone else, and you are the only person I can trust. Please pass this on to a lawyer, maybe my parents as well, because this is also my last will and testament.

You get all my stuff. I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread in Red Rock Canyon, somewhere near Overlook Point. I don’t care what needs to be done, but please make sure this happens. Oh, and tell my parents I’m sorry for the nightmare I’ve put them through during my lifetime.

Like I had said, this isn’t going to be easy to understand, and it’s gonna sound almost insane, but you have to trust me. And I promise to you with whatever soul I have left that I am not on drugs. I promise you!

Ok, here goes…

Lucifer is real. He’s fucking real, and he’s a cold, calculating bastard. For whatever reason, he found me, and I really don’t understand why he chose me as the schmuck to tell his grand plan to. I’d say he was drunk, but do Fallen Angels get drunk? Do demons drink? If I had time, I’d ask the philosophers, or maybe the Pope, but I don’t. Maybe you can look into it.

I was at the Double Down Saloon last Monday. You know the place, I’m sure. It’s really close to the Hard Rock Hotel. It has some cool art, and the Bacon Martini. Go there if you haven’t yet.

Anyways, the Monday night football game had just ended. The bar started to empty out a touch, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I ordered another Bud Light and stepped outside the backdoor of the joint to have a smoke.

So I’m standing there, trying to light my God damn cigarette, and he walks out from the dark alleyway.

I gotta give Lucifer some credit. The fucker has amazing fashion sense. He was wearing this really old suit, and a fedora. He reminded me of a mobster from the 1930’s, like Al Capone, but more sinister. He’s also huge. He has to be close to 6 foot 5 inches. The combination of a huge guy in a mobster suit and fedora, and the five beers I had downed during the evening, had me a little scared. At the time I didn’t know it was the Prince of Darkness himself, but I knew this wasn’t a normal person.

And then he started to talk. He knew my name. He knew my name!

“I knew I’d find you here, Slaton,” he said.

“Who are you, and how the fuck do you know my name?” I asked him. Lucifer smiled. He’s got a crooked smile, by the way.

“I have many names, given to me by many people for many years. You can call me Lucifer. I think that name might ring a bell with you.”

“No,” I kinda chuckled. “You don’t exist. You’re from a really shitty story.”

So then he laughs. “True, it is a shitty story, and completely false. I’m not here to discuss the historical relevance of the ‘Holy’ Bible.” He took off his fedora and walked towards me. I tried to back away from him, but had nowhere to go. Trapped like a fucking rat. “I’m here, because I have chosen you as the recipient of a gift. You understand the darker side of humanity more than most, so please to enjoy, the end of all things.” Then, faster than humanly possible, he grabbed my head before I could do anything to stop him.

He commanded me to look into his eyes. Did I have a choice? It’s Satan, for shit’s sake! I was scared as Hell at this point, so I stared into those dark eyes, as black as…well, I can’t think of anything that isn’t a cliché, but they were dark.

And I was given a vision of things to come, of the end, but not it’s not like people think.

The Antichrist won’t be a seven-headed beast with thirteen horns, like the Bible says. He will be a smooth, calculating, and cunning bastard whose personality will ooze inspiration in those around him to form together and take on the rest of humanity. He is essentially a puppet, fully controlled by Lucifer. He will at first use the flag of peace to rally nations behind his cause, and destroy nations who do not give in to his plans.

At the same time, natural disasters will occur. All of the recent tsunamis were a test by Lucifer to see if he has the power to create such disasters.

The vision I was given started with these plans, a simple outline to the end of the world. Lucifer plans to use the Antichrist, along with his powers to destroy the earth as he sees fit to sow chaos. He has no other purpose. He has no motive aside from chaos and anarchy, and from the vision I witnessed, the Rapture is one-sided. God or Jesus will not intervene, despite humans pleas for help.

After the vision was over, I fell to the ground, crying like a little bitch. Lucifer smiled down at me, and handed me a handkerchief with “555” engraved on a corner. I whimpered and sniffed for a few minutes, while Lucifer hummed “Raindrops keep falling on my head,” and lit a cigar.

I thanked him for the handkerchief and asked why it had 555 on it while I regained some composure. He snorted.

“It’s no more random than the 666 mark of the beast bullshit,” he said, moving his cigar around in his mouth. “I also got a discount if I printed fifty of them. Gotta save money where I can, right?” He laughed, took another drag, and continued.

“John was a bitch, and high as a fucking kite when he wrote Revelation. Nothing works better than a bad shroom trip to take an already paranoid mind and throw it over the edge into full blown hysteria.” He paused to take another drag. “He did a better job writing that chapter than I ever could have imagined. What a fitting end to a book where God and Jesus forgive everyone for their sins. And the seven-headed thing with thirteen horns, which is supposed to represent the Antichrist? That’s astronomically awesome, in my opinion.” He put out his cigar on the ground, and picked me up off the ground, patted my shoulder and smiled again. “Now, go do what you must. I will be keeping an eye on you.” And he walked out of the alley.

It has been days since that vision, and I have not seen him since.

I don’t know when it will start, and I don’t know who the Antichrist will be. I don’t know if Lucifer can be stopped, or if his plan has already started. I still don’t understand why he showed me what he did, but it has left me scarred. Horrendous images flooded my head, the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City erupting in flames, humans filled with rage, lustily screaming in ecstasy as they shoot and stab other humans in the name of the Antichrist, mountains trembling and falling on cities, rivers running red with blood: these images I cannot get out of my head. I so desperately want them to stop, and sadly the only way I can think to end them is to kill myself. If Hell is real, I’m already going there, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Please pass this on to those who need to know. Give it to religious leaders, to political leaders, newspapers, anyone who needs to-

Fuck, he’s here. I have to end this now while he’s distracted.

Listen Maggie, I love you, and I hope you survive what’s coming, or die quickly when it starts. Tell my family I’m sorry. Please make sure you tell them!

Slaton

Hmm...

So I didn't work on my novel as much as I had hoped. I was busy with homework, but ultimately, for some reason I had a lot of nervous excitement yesterday which led to being easily distracted.

Curse my love of football too, as that most certainly didn't help quash the distractions today.

Oh well. Homework this week looks to be light, so hopefully 2 things will happen:

1. Get back to my routine workout schedule.
2. Work more on chapter 2, which I have a quick outline and start to.

On another note.. Damn Steelers.. blowing ANOTHER 4th quarter lead.

Guess I should show some respect to the Bengals for not bungling it...

Thanks!

I want to say thank you to those who provided positive/critical/negative feedback to my two introduction. The general consensus is I have a really good idea, and the first section was a good starting point, but with some changes I can have a whopper of an intro as a leaping point for the rest of the work. I'm editing the introduction and should have that done tomorrow. The second chapter is the letter Slaton writes, and after I edit that, I will post that up here, hopefully sometime this weekend.

Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks, and there is a lot more to come for those who are interested!

For now, here's the best office linebacker to ever play.

Gus

Introduction: Oh Shit, Part 2

The man stared at Slaton for what felt like an eternity, the dark eyes boring into Slaton with such intensity that he started to tremble slightly. A new Muse song entered into the fray to break the silence:

Break me in,
Teach us to cheat
And to lie, cover up
What shouldn't be shared?
All the truth unwinding
Scraping away
At my mind
Please stop asking me to describe him

Finally, Slaton managed to speak, despite his unrelenting terror pulsing through his veins.

“What do you want?” he sputtered nervously.

The well-dressed man let out a small chuckle. The tension was gone from his eyes. “Oh, I just happened to be in the neighborhood. You have some funny neighbors. Did you know that Mrs. Jensen down the street is committing adultery with two men at the same time right now, while her 2-year old takes a nap, and her husband is away on a business trip? Three houses down, John Basking has a meth lab in his garage.” He stopped for a moment to pull out a very large hand-wrapped cigar from a jacket pocket, lit it with a sterling silver Zippo lighter, and continued. “Here we are, in a perfect storyboard middle class suburban American neighborhood, and you have horrible things happening everywhere you look! I mean, you can’t make that shit up. It’s classic!” He blew out a ring of smoke at Slaton, and started to laugh in earnest.

“If you came here to have a discussion on middle class American life, you can just leave right now,” Slaton muttered. “I already know the world is blind to its own hypocritical nature when it comes to good and evil.”

“No, you’re wrong,” replied the man as he shook his head. “Humans refuse to confront it. Do you understand the difference, Slaton? The world goes on as it always will since its creation.” Another puff of smoke, and the man smiled. “Men are nothing more than a Godforsaken speck on the universal timeline, a small zit on the universes’ chin.” The man sat up slightly and leaned towards Slaton. “Come closer, I have a secret to tell you.”

Slaton shook his head. “No. You’ve already told me enough. You’ve already broken me down enough at it is, and I don’t care about your philosophi-“

“Come here, you worthless meatsack,” interrupted the man, practically hissing the words as his eyes glinted dangerously. Slaton had no choice, and got out of his chair, trembling as he kneeled down close to the man. The man licked his lips, and placed his mouth inches away from Slaton’s ear. Putrid hot breath, smelling of tobacco and a hint of cloves blended into Slaton’s senses, intoxicating him.

“you, you… humans,” growled the man, “have been abandoned by God. He has left you and your pathetic kind to find your own way through the universe. Do you understand? His greatest mistake was to create humans in His own likeness, and His understanding of that has left Him heartbroken and forlorn. He had such high hopes for your kind. You have killed and raped, pillaged and plundered in His name for thousands of years, and He has finally had enough of it, for it is a mirror of His own mind, and that sickens him. He…is….gone….”

“You lie, Light-Bearer,” whispered Slaton as tears slowly began to trail down his unshaven cheeks. The man laughed again, and stood up.

“Perhaps. I do tend to deceive when it suits my purpose,” the man sardonically replied. “However, this is not one of those times.” The man walked over to a Tool poster Slaton had splayed across his wall. “One of my favorite rock bands, these guys. They get it, the whole kit and caboodle.”

I have to finish, or at least send what I have done before he kills me, Slaton thought to himself. “Í have other posters of theirs in my closet,” he gestured as he wiped away tears and slowly made his way back to his computer desk.

“Hmm. Do you mind if I take a gander?” the man asked.

“Do I have a choice of saying no?” Slaton sarcastically said.

“Ah, Yes,” the man grinned, puffed from his cigar and walked over to Slaton’s closet. “Choice is what caused a large portion of this predicament you humans now find yourselves in.” The man started shuffled through the clothing, shoe boxes and old videogame machines in Slaton’s closet, searching for posters.

Now! Slaton quickly typed some remaining last words on his letter, typed in an email address on his Gmail, and hit send. I wish I had time to explain it all to her, but she’ll have to piece it together on her own. A great sense of relief washed over Slaton as he turned around to see the man holding up a poster of a pig with a fork in it.

“Magnificent,” the man murmured. He turned his attention back to Slaton, and sat back down on Slaton’s bed.

“So now what?” asked Slaton.

“Do you know why I showed you my plan?” the man queried as he drew air into his cigar. “What would be my purpose of showing a human my masterpiece of design and function?”

“I was wondering about that, and as far as I can tell, there really isn’t a good reason.”

“Wrong again, my boy. A plan this magnificent, this perfect and chaotic needs an audience! You just happened to be walking by, and I thought to myself, ‘here’s a slob I can trust to understand his duty once I have given him his direction to go.’” The man moved over to Slaton, and bent down to whisper in Slaton’s ear. “I know what it is you type on your computer. I chose you for this purpose because I know you are weak, and you have done what I had hoped you would do.” The man backed off and grinned at Slaton. “I want the world to know, because humans must know in order for my plan to succeed.”

My God, Slaton thought to himself, this is part of his grand plan. He wanted me to spread the word. I am nothing but this man’s tool to use… As recognition spread throughout Slaton’s thoughts, he started to sob.

“Father, forgive me,” he whispered.

“No, he won’t,” the man responded. “As I said, he no longer cares. The rest of this,” the man gestured spreading his arms, “this world, is now a big playground for whatever the fuck I want to create. And I want Chaos!” The man put out his cigar on Slaton’s bed, and pulled out a handgun with a silencer on his pocket.

I’ve done what I can. I just hope he doesn’t realize who I sent the letter to. A sense of peace, despite the threat of his impending death, flooded over Slaton.

“I am ready,” he said, and closed his eyes. The man laughed again.

“I don’t need to kill you,” the man pompously said. “You humans have done a brilliant job of doing that yourself since you were first created.” The man set the gun next to Slaton, and patted him on his head. “You know what to do.”

Slaton looked at the gun. “Why put a silencer on it?”

The man looked at Slaton with mock indignation. “What, and wake the neighbors? Always selfishly thinking of yourself, aren’t you?” The man then gave a thumbs up to Slaton. “I’ll see you on the other side,” the man said as he walked out of Slaton’s room.

Slaton picked up the gun. I have to do this. It’s too late for me. I have done what I can, he repeated to himself. He put the gun in his mouth, turned off the safety, and put his finger to the trigger. Magdalene, and Mother, forgive me. He closed his eyes again, and pulled the trigger.

The man could hear the thump sound as he walked down the hallway from Slaton’s bedroom. He took off his fedora and placed it on his heart, and muttered a prayer. Down the hallway, Mathew Bellamy could be heard:

it's time we saw a miracle
come on it's time for something biblical
to pull us through
and pull us through
and this is the end
this is the end of the world

The man laughed. “How fitting,” he mused as he put his hat back on and walked out of Slaton’s home, into the darkness of night.

Introduction: Oh Shit!

Here is the prologue to my novel. More coming tomorrow. Or the next day. Enjoy what I have so far, which isn't much.

But I'm getting tired and whiny. Enjoy!

Slaton could smell him. The musty scent of age and decay mixed with something sweet –cloves perhaps- mingled down the hallway into his room, viciously potent and alarming.

It didn’t hit Slaton immediately. He was busy working on something important, something revolutionary. Muse blared loudly through his computer speakers; a cigarette dangled from his chapped lips, ashes falling into his lap and keyboard, stinging his hands slightly; his phone sat next to his keyboard, beeping at him like a cat desperately whining for fresh cat food. Empty Funyon bags and half-empty Mountain Dew cans sat precariously on the edge of his particle board desk, waiting for the slightest shake to spill their contents onto the messy floor. His Oregon Trail “You have died of Dysentery” t-shirt that stuck to his skinny frame was stained with ash and Mountain Dew.

He didn’t care, and in fact, hardly noticed. Time and personal hygiene had become a blur to him as he feverishly typed his letter of warning, of prophecy, and an apology, to the world.

Almost done, Slaton thought to himself as he took a brief moment to rub his green-gray eyes, and pushed his messy blonde hair back from his brow. In the background, Mathew Bellamy swooned:

Is our secret safe tonight
and are we out of sight
Or will our world come tumbling down?
Will they find our hiding place
is this our last embrace
or will the walls start caving in?

Then, at that moment, the potent smell finally broke through his impenetrable wall of motive. Slaton went pale, as pale as Casper.

He is here, Slaton panicked. What the fuck is he doing here? God Dammit, he’ll ruin everything! Slaton stood up quickly, and went to close the door to his room.

A shoe managed to jam its way between the frame and door. A classic British wingtip shoe, made with aged leather that was faded gray with age, jutted its unwanted presence into Slaton’s room.

“Amusing, you little bastard,” growled the voice behind the shoe, “but it won’t do you any good,” Slaton had always thought the voice was a mix of Morgan Freeman and Krusty the Klown from The Simpsons.

No, no no no no! Dejected, Slaton opened the door, allowing his full vision of the person behind the shoe.

A large man, around 6 ft 3 inches tall, filled out the entirety of his suit with a muscular frame. The suit was a classic woolen suit that, like the shoes, was faded gray with age. It was almost impossible to gauge how old the suit was with just one look. Slaton got the image of a tailor in England, in the late 1800’s, working on the fabric, sewing on the three buttons for the jacket with delicate skill.

An impeccable white button up shirt was match with a blood red tie. Slaton could swear that in the right light, or right environment, he could see a smiley face shimmer on the tie. A white handkerchief, folded neatly into the breast pocket, managed to show the tip of a symbol, but it was too tucked in to see it all.

The last detail on the suit were the New York Yankees cufflinks, aged like the rest of the suit, an old gold and pearl-white.

The man wore a fedora, with a red ribbon. Under the hat, long brown hair was neatly pulled back into a braid.

His eyes, those eyes, are what scared Slaton the most, black as night, as black as they get, with constantly angry, arched eyebrows that sheared away any thoughts of ever pissing off this man.

His nose was slightly forked, with nostrils that flared when he spoke, lips that always seemed to be on the edge of sneering.

And the scar! Running thinly from one small ear to the next, along his cheekbones, right under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose, it startled Slaton with its brilliant, violent red sheen. It looked like a fresh wound days ago when Slaton met him, and it looked that way still.

Today he was clean shaven, Slaton noticed, and shuddered as the man walked into his room. The man contemptuously sighed as he looked around the filthy room, and sat down on Slaton’s full size bed that had no bottom sheet on it. Slaton took a seat in his computer chair, and prepared for the worst.