Timothy Long - The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole

Agent Gallstone yells excitedly into his cuff, “Visual confirmation of target’s giant ugly fucking face, Control!”

Agent Lickspittle doesn’t care if Fred has gone shithouse-rat-crazy. As long as he can shoot his gun at any demons that attempt to intercept them, the man is okay in his book. Lickspittle turns and looks the Lord of Hades, Satan, right in his giant obsidian eyes. The Devil’s head protrudes from a gargantuan crevice in the side of a mountain, and it is fucking huge. Bigger than the Humscalade. Bigger than most houses. It regards the approaching vehicle with cool disinterest.

Agent Lickspittle cranks the wheel and slams on the brakes. Agent Gallstone grips the door and steadies himself without taking his eyes off the giant Devil face. Half a dozen razor-backed demons spring from the surrounding rocks. They gnash their teeth and charge the sideways-skidding Humscalade. Agent M opens fire, taking out the nearest two with the cruel efficiency that has made his name legend among other secret agents. The other four remain clustered, and Agent M fires a second missile and blows them to small smoking chunks. Satan flinches as shards of sandstone rain down across his giant exposed face.

“You guys are dicks!” the Lord of Darkness bellows with enough force to rock the Humscalade.

Agent Lickspittle straightens his tie and opens his door. Agent Gallstone tells his cuff, “We are making contact and serving the Cease and Desist, Control,” and opens his door as well.

Two more demons leap at them, and Agent M shoots them out of the air, follows the corpses to the ground, and then cuts them in half with the .50 caliber. Agent Lickspittle nods at Agent M, who responds with a thumbs-up.

“That was a jerk move, Satan,” Lickspittle says calmly as he stands in front of the giant red face “How about we call it even and get down to business?”

“Hmmph,” Satan hmmphs. “You guys are at the wrong end. Just turn around, follow the broken highway until you see the huge red ass crack sticking up into this blasted desert sun and jump right in, mother fuckers! Hahahahahahahahaha!”

“I don’t think so,” Agent Lickspittle says, neither impressed nor afraid. “We are special secret agents in the employ of the United States government.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a sealed letter. “This,” he waves it in front of the giant black eyes, “is a formal Cease and Desist order from the United States government. We are giving you until sunset to remove yourself and your legions from United States soil.”

Agent Lickspittle isn’t sure where to put the document.

“Stan! C’mere, Stan, and take this tiny envelope from these government agents,” Satan says.

A tall, spiderlike demon crawls from the far side of the mountain. A dozen long, slender legs dance as it navigates the rocky terrain with ease. Each leg is forty feet tall and looks to be as sharp as a samurai’s sword. The torso is humanoid, but where the arms should be, tentacles twist and slap at the air. Stan the spider demon leans down and comes face to face with Agent Lickspittle. Up close, Stan looks almost human except for the two clusters of insect eyes peering at Lickspittle hungrily.

“May I?” Stan asks very politely for a demon.

“No,” Agent Lickspittle tells him. “I must serve the papers to Satan himself.”

From behind Stan, Satan says, “Actually, I prefer Beelzebub. And I officially empower Stan the spider demon as my representative when dealing with stubborn agents who should be crawling in my ass.”

Stan smiles, revealing long, barbed fangs. “I’ll take that,” he tells Agent Lickspittle before yanking the letter from his hand with a thick purple tentacle. He uses a second tentacle to tear open the envelope. His insect eyes scan the document Agent Lickspittle penned in the Humscalade the night before.

“It is hereby recognized, blah, blah, blah, Satan, Lord of Darkness, blah, blah, blah, wreaking havoc, blah, blah, peaceful gentle country, bullshit, blah, blah, blah, immediately ordered to Cease and Desist apocalyptic actions post haste, blah, blah, signed some pathetic human.” Stan tears the Cease and Desist into tiny shreds.

“Wrong move, Satan,” Lickspittle says, turning away from the giant face of the Devil. “I’ll give you time to consider it. At sunset, we’ll blast you back to Hell.”

Agent Gallstone reports to his cuff, “Papers served, Control, now we wait.” He turns and follows Agent Lickspittle to the Humscalade. The two climb in and slam their doors behind them.

Outside, Beelzebub, as he prefers to be called, jerks his giant head at Stan, and the spider demon skitters to his master’s service.

“Yes, my Dark Lord.” Stan bows before him.

“Kill them. And then stuff their corpses in my ass.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Stan says and turns to attack the agents, but Beelzebub stops him.

“Stan,” the Master of Evil tells him, “you’re doing a hell of a job.”

“Thanks, Satan,” Stan smiles. Venom drips from his grin as he scuttles toward the vehicle

Inside the Humscalade, Agent Lickspittle turns to Agent Gallstone.

“That went better than I expected.”

Stan taps on the window, and Agent Lickspittle rolls it down. The agent opens his mouth to say something, but one of Stan’s swordlike feet stabs through the window and then through Lickspittle’s chest. Blood gushes from the agent’s eyes and ears as Stan pulls his twitching form, still impaled on his foot, from the Humscalade.

Agent M aims the .50 caliber at Stan, but the demon swipes one leg straight down and cleaves the gun’s barrel in half. Agent M pulls a knife and puts it between his teeth. Then he pulls two more, one for each hand, and leaps at Stan. The giant spider raises a leg and lets Agent M’s own momentum impale him there.

Agent M drops both knives from his hands and inadvertently bites down on the one in his mouth. The force of his bite cleaves his head in half, and the top bounces off the Humscalade’s hood with a wet thud. Inside the vehicle, Agent Gallstone screams while rolling up the power windows, locking the power locks, and scampering into the driver’s seat. He slams on the gas, and Stan gives chase, slamming the corpses of Lickspittle and M into the ground with every step. The demon roars, and Agent Gallstone spins a wide donut and thumbs the air missile switch. A thick plume of silver smoke follows the missile to Stan’s chest, where it explodes in a rain of fire and spider legs.

Agent Gallstone slams on the gas again, and soon the giant red face behind him is lost in the sand kicked up by his screaming wheels. “Two agents down, Control. I’ll regroup and head home, Control. I’ll get even, I swear to you,” Agent Gallstone tells his cuff as tears cut wet paths down his dirty cheeks.

Leon sits next to Bud in the back of General O’Coddle’s stolen Hummer. Bud is reading a copy of The Daily Cunt he grabbed when they last gassed up. The cover features a picture of two bulbous red ass cheeks surrounded by rock and earth. Every now and then Bud says, “Damn,” before turning the page.

The leather-g-string-wearing sheriff glances in the rearview mirror and asks, “What the shit are you reading?”

Bud holds up the paper so Smoochole can read the title emblazoned across the front of it.

“I’m an avid reader and diehard fan of The Daily Gab, but I gotta say I think this is better,” Bud says solemnly.

“More titties?” Smoochole asks.