Christopher Golden - The Monster’s Corner - Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

Lilith laughed. “What makes you think it’s a burden? Come on, Jesus; how about it? You look like you could use some tender loving care. See what you’re missing! How can you really understand mankind if you don’t do as they do? Do everything they do?”

But he was already shaking his head again. “No,” said Jesus. “I made up my mind about that long ago. I can’t afford to be distracted by the pleasures of the world. I have a mission. Home and hearth, woman and children, are not for me. I have to follow my higher calling. Because so much depends on it.”

“Oh yes?” said Lilith. “And what about you and Mary Magdalene?”

He smiled. “We’re just good friends.”

Lilith laughed. “From you, I believe it.” She looked at me and shrugged, in a quite delightful way. “Sorry, Satan, I did my best; but you just can’t help some people.”

I nodded and sent her on her way. Her scent still hung around, long after she was gone. Jesus and I sat together for a while, both of us thinking our separate thoughts.

“Come on,” I said finally. “Your forty days and nights are up. Time to go back. I’ll walk along with you for a while. Just to keep you company.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d like that.”

So we got up and headed back to civilization, or what passed for it, back in those days.

“Sorry I had to do the whole temptation thing,” I said. “But … it’s the job.”

“That’s all right,” said Jesus. “I forgive you. That’s my job.”

I looked at him. “You know one of your own is going to betray you?”

“Yes,” said Jesus. “I’ve always known.”

“They’ll blame it on me; but it’s just him. Do you want to know who it will be?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve always known. I try so hard not to treat him any differently from the others. He means well, in his way. And I keep hoping … that I can find some way to reach him. And perhaps … save both of us. They’re good sorts, the disciples. Best friends I ever had.”

“You know how the story’s going to end,” I said roughly. “You can’t change it. Can you?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I could be tempted … but I won’t. It’s just too important.”

“You must know what they’re going to do to you!” I said. “They’re going to nail you to a fucking cross! Like a criminal! Like an animal!”

“Yes. I know.”

“It’s not right,” I said. I was so angry, I was shaking so hard, I could barely get the words out. “It’s not right! Not you … Just say the word, Jesus, and I swear I’ll come and rescue you! I’ll take you down off that cross and kill anyone who tries to get in our way! I’d fight my way up out of Hell, to rescue you!”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” said Jesus. “But you mustn’t. I have to do this, brother.”

“But why?” I said miserably.

“To redeem mankind,” said Jesus. “Because … I have faith in them.”

We walked for a while, in quiet company.

“Come on, Jesus,” I said. “We’ll never get there at this rate.”

So we went jogging across the desert, side by side, two sons of a very demanding Father, who might have faced the world together if only things had been just a bit different.

“Come on, Satan,” said Jesus, grinning. “Put some effort into it. Go for the burn.”

I had to laugh. Typical Jesus. He always has to have the last Word.

“The Awkward Age” copyright © 2011 by David Liss

“Saint John” copyright © 2011 by Jonathan Maberry

“Rue” copyright © 2011 by Lauren Groff

“Succumb” copyright © 2011 by John McIlveen

“Torn Stitches, Shattered Glass” copyright © 2011 by WordFire, Inc.

“Rattler and the Mothman” copyright © 2011 by Sharyn McCrumb

“Big Man” copyright © 2011 by David Moody

“Rakshasi” copyright © 2011 by Kelley Armstrong

“Breeding the Demons” copyright © 2010 by Nate Kenyon. “Breeding the Demons” first appeared in When the Night Comes Down, edited by Bill Breedlove and published by Dark Arts.

“Siren Song” copyright © 2011 by Dana Stabenow

“Less of a Girl” copyright © 2011 by Chelsea Cain

“The Cruel Thief of Rosy Infants” copyright © 2011 by Tom Piccirilli

“The Screaming Room” copyright © 2011 by Sarah Pinborough

“Wicked Be” copyright © 2011 by Heather Graham

“Specimen 313” copyright © 2011 by Jeff Strand

“The Lake” copyright © 2011 by Tananarive Due

“The Other One” copyright © 2011 by Michael Marshall Smith

“And Still You Wonder Why Our First Impulse Is to Kill You: An Alphabetized Faux-Manifesto transcribed, edited, and annotated (under duress and protest)” copyright © 2011 by Gary A. Braunbeck

“Jesus and Satan Go Jogging in the Desert” copyright © 2011 by Simon R. Green

KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of more than a hundred books, including his Terra Incognita and Saga of Seven Suns original epics, as well as Dune novels with Brian Herbert, and novels for Star Wars and X-Files. He collaborated with Dean Koontz on Frankenstein: Prodigal Son. He is also the editor of the three Blood Lite anthologies for Pocket.

KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Women of the Otherworld paranormal suspense series, the Darkest Powers YA urban fantasy trilogy, and the Nadia Stafford crime series. She grew up in Ontario, Canada, where she still lives with her family. A former computer programmer, she has now escaped her corporate cubicle and hopes never to return.

GARY A. BRAUNBECK lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, author Lucy A. Snyder, and five cats that will not hesitate to draw blood if he fails to feed them on time. He has published ten novels and ten short-story collections, as well as nearly two hundred short stories in a variety of genres. His work has garnered five Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination. He is the creator of the acclaimed Cedar Hill Cycle of novels, novellas, and stories, which has been compared to Ray Bradbury’s Green Town, Illinois, tales, as well as the Castle Rock stories of Stephen King.

CHELSEA CAIN is the author of the New York Times bestselling thrillers Evil at Heart, Sweetheart, Heartsick, and The Night Season. All take place in Portland, Oregon, and focus on Detective Archie Sheridan, rainbow-haired journalist Susan Ward, and Sheridan’s lovely nemesis, the serial killer Gretchen Lowell. Chelsea’s books have been published in over twenty languages, recommended on The Today Show, appeared in episodes of HBO’s True Blood and ABC’s Castle, and named among Stephen King’s top ten favorite books of the year. NPR included her book Heartsick in its list of the top one hundred thrillers ever written. Chelsea lives in Portland with her husband and remarkably well-adjusted five-year-old daughter.

TANANARIVE DUE — pronounced tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo — is an NAACP Image Award winner and American Book Award winner, the author of books ranging from mysteries to supernatural thrillers to a civil rights memoir. Her upcoming novel My Soul to Take (Fall 2011) is the long-awaited sequel to Blood Colony, The Living Blood, and My Soul to Keep. Due also writes the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series, in collaboration with her husband, Steven Barnes, and actor Blair Underwood. In the Night of the Heat won the 2009 NAACP Image Award. Due also brought history to life in Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights, which she coauthored with her mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due. Freedom in the Family was named 2003’s Best Civil Rights Memoir by Black Issues Book Review. Due and Barnes are raising their young son, Jason. Her blogs are www.tananarivedue.blogspot.com and www.tananarivedue.wordpress.com.