What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [71]
He sighed, mostly too tired to care that the only thing that crossed in front of him were a few leaves and bits of trash carried by an intermittent breeze. He gripped the steering wheel with human hands and worried: Had he been right to come to Earth? Had he been right just to leave like he had? To leave, and live as a human, abandoning the world and His Plan to work themselves out? Of course, he had figured that, without him, things couldn’t go forward. That was The Plan, after all, wasn’t it? He was essential, wasn’t he? It was his job to instigate things – he felt sure of it. Mostly sure, anyway. How could it possibly happen without him? It couldn’t. No way. But then, all the signs seem to suggest that that’s exactly what was happening.
The ex-goddess Enodia continued to be a stubborn bitch, but the Devil hardly noticed as he sat, lost in his thoughts, watching as zero cars crossed through the intersection in front of him. He also failed entirely to notice the monster-sized truck that came up behind him (of course, the Italian guys who build the cars claim that Lamborghini drivers don’t really need to bother looking at what is behind them), or the low-pitched urrrping sound of its knobby tires attempting to slide to a stop. Nor was he aware that the truck, emblazoned with flames, images of the Confederate flag, and various stickers professing the driver’s loyalty to the National Rifle Association and to the Lord Jesus Christ, Savior and King, had, in fact, been following him for nearly twenty miles. He did, however, register a jolt as the behemoth smashed into the back of his Lamborghini, crushing the hand-crafted engine.
The stoplight finally changed to green.
The next thing Satan was aware of was his window being shattered with a crowbar, and bits of glass spraying his face. A pair of hands reached in and grabbed his jacket, trying to drag him through the small opening. This will not do, he thought. The hands disappeared, and the Dark Lord heard a surprised scream. He glanced out the space where the window had been and saw that there were at least three men.
“Oh, shit! What the fuck is that?” said one of the men.
“He turned Jimmy into a newt!”
“That’s not a newt, you dumbass. It’s a komodo dragon.”
There was another scream, though this one sounded more like a scream of pain than fear.
“He bit me. Get it off! Get it off!”
“Don’t kick Jimmy, goddamnit!”
“He bit me!”
Inside the car, Satan reeled. His cheek hurt. He reached up and felt something hard and sharp on his skin. It was a glass shard, and it came off easily, as if it had just been sitting there on the surface of his face. When he pulled his hand back to look at it, he saw that it was covered with blood. In fact, his whole hand was covered in blood. A strange, new sensation enveloped his body. His head felt lighter than normal. His heart rate shot up, like it did when he got angry, but instead of the urge to destroy things, all he felt was a very strong desire to sleep.
The men outside, having apparently come to grips with Jimmy’s ascension to the komodo dragon plane of existence, returned their attention to the car. Or, rather, the individual inside the car. Hands reached in again, clawing and pulling. Satan scooted away from the door, but the men yanked it open. He reversed course, and started to get up out of the car, just as one of the men grabbed him by the lapels. Tight jeans, thought the Devil, much too tight. He tried to set those pants on fire, but there was only smoke. He tried again.
“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” said the man, whose arms were now burning. He let go of Satan’s jacket, and toppled backward onto the cement. The Devil stood, wondering why the whole man hadn’t caught on fire. But his wondering was cut short by another one of those first-experiences-for-Satan-in-a-human-body moments – that of having a crow bar crash down on his skull.
The next thing he was aware of was that he was being dragged by the arms,