Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [59]
Gagging, you watch more. The captives, now swollen as if pregnant, are roughed off the gurneys and shooed out of the camp, their mouths and crotches “welded” shut forever.
Then your eyes steal back to the hideous pumps where the next deposition of unfortunates are being filled. Each gallon dings a bell, abdomen’s quickly distend; then they’re sealed with the welder and moved on. A stolid efficiency.
“Why?” you rail. “This makes no sense! Why are they FILLING PEOPLE WITH PISS!”
Howard shrugs off your alarm. “Because the very notion pleases Lucifer. He quite simply thrills at the idea—he likes for his detractors to be filled. Wombs, bellies, bowels. By your abhorrence, I take it that you’d prefer not to witness the Excrement Pumps at the next compound?”
“Get me out of here!” you shriek.
“Fill ’em up!” the Constab yells again, and as Howard hastens you out, that steady ding-ding-ding of the pumps follows . . .
A mental fog veils your vision as Howard lopes away. You pass several Agonicity Transformers, which each contain a Human dangling from a trestle by his or her wrists. Wires threaded through tiny holes drilled in their skulls coil upward to sizzling capacitors. Constabs heave pitchers of boiling water on each “power element,” and the resultant rush of agony fires the pain center of the brain, which is then converted to occult energy and dumped into the local power grid. “Power without surcease,” you think you hear Howard comment, “made possible by the immortality of the Human Damned. It’s curious to ponder, eh? When God made the Human soul immortal, did he ever even conceive that some of those he condemned to Damnation would be utilized by his Nemesis as inexhaustible generators? Likely not!” More small compounds pass by and you can’t help but notice the signs: BONE MELTERS, FACE RIVETERS, BROODREN KILN, PENECTOMIST. The compounds are interestingly arranged throughout the Reservation, each intersected by quaint walkways, and it’s along these walkways that you notice chatty groups of well-dressed Demons and Hierarchals traipsing along. They stop by each compound and peer in with dark smiles, some fanning themselves, others looking more closely with objects like opera glasses. Finally your curiosity pushes past your loathing, and you propose: “All these Demons on the walkways . . . They don’t work here, do they? They look more like—”
“Spectators?” Howard says. “Indeed. Because they are. Punishment Reservations such as the State Punitaries prioritize not only punishment but also commerce. The societal upper crust is urged to patronize these areas. They pay admittance. In Hell, punishment exists as sport, and such places as this serve equally as amusement parks.”
“Oooo’s” and “Ahhhh’s” resound around the next bend where the sign reads: ROASTERY—BETS TAKEN. Several Coves stretch out in a line, while revolting spectators clamor to buy tickets printed with various numbers from small huts before each exhibit. Roastery? you wonder but can already smell something. “Step right up, folks,” a ghoulish barker announces before the first Cove. “Let’s watch and see which one of these despicable anti-Satanic insurgents can last the longest with a head-cooking.” Then you notice three grim-faced Imps lashed to iron chairs facing the audience. Horned attendants busy themselves at a large circular oven in which a considerable pile of small stones are heated till they are red-hot. Chain mail sacks are then filled with the stones and carried over with tongs. Atop the head of each Imp a sack is lain, sitting much like a hot water bottle. Spectators watch in hushed fascination as each Imp’s face billows and then they begin to let rip with soul-searing howls. Eventually, of course, their heads cook, but the one who screams the longest is the winner. Bets are taken more excitedly at the next Cove where demonic mouths are filled with the scorching stones and held shut by unfeeling Golems. Worse was the last Cove, where three stunningly attractive Succubi have been hung upside down by their ankles, legs widely spread, and vaginas opened with