Kingdom come
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4. Stull, Kansas, is home to the best-known and best-documented and most active of the Nine Gateways to Hell. In a famous Time interview this diminishingly small town was referred to by Jean Paul II as “unholy ground,” over which he declined even to fly. In 1987, National Geographic dispatched a survey group and a documenteur to investigate the stairway which opens like a cellar among the graves of a small churchyard in Stull—the so-called “Stairway of the Unfortunate.” Supposedly this group traveled down for hours, what must have been fathoms and fathoms, until the air and the walls around them started to warm, and indistinguishable sounds began echoing up from what sounded like a great distance. This expedition was aborted. It was a stairway the bottom of which no one was ever known to have reached. A.G. Devonwald, Lucas’ contact in Stull, often thought of starting a Slinky off at the top— Devonwald was currently a Baptist minister, formerly a Satanic minister. At the moment he was in charge of protecting the stairway from the enthusiasts and vandals who sought it incessantly. Fraternities would come from miles around to haze. Neo-Druids and other types might make their pilgrimage to the site from any country in the world. So a few years back a small machinegun nest of simple pine slats and black steel girders was erected next to the old fire-gutted chapel, and from here A.G. Devonwald kept watch with a powerful searchlight and an M-16. First, he would hit intruders with the beam, then fire over their heads. Then, only if they hadn’t fled, would Devonwald land a shot on one of them. He didn’t have to go through the whole process very often, once trespassers began losing life and limb. But as the End of the World approached, Devonwald knew the true threat lay within the doorway itself. Thus he had asked for and been granted backup for the year-switch. But at 1:30, in the wee hours of January 31—a few hours before Lucas d’Estime was scheduled to arrive—Devonwald witnessed the trapdoor open. This had never happened before, and the sight caused him a painful jerk of surprise, as a small hirsute mammal, a sort of demonic outrider, climbed up impassively among the stones. When Devonwald flashed the animal it was about forty feet from him. The creature looked like a kind of stocky upright possum, ugly and stump-nosed, wiry hair over its whole form. It gave a stretch as the beam landed over it, scratching under its arm. Then, with calm, the animal peered into the light. And Devonwald’s gut iced-over.
He fired a warning over the animal’s head, three tight reports, three slugs bursting open a divot in the dirt behind it. The creature frowned, puzzled by the noise. Devonwald continued to recite from the Enochian Keys, their ageless Seraphic tongue. Is holq qaa nothoa zimz he said, od commah ta nobloh zien: soba thil gnonp prge aldi, ds vrbs oboleh grsam. He squeezed the trigger again. This time the slugs fell at the animal’s feet. Devonwald sweat copiously. Now he shouted. Move, therefore, and show yourselves. The minister’s voice went ragged. Open the mysteries of your creation. Be friendly unto me: for I am the servant of the same your God, a true worshipper of the highest! The creature yawned as Devonwald aimed carefully upon it’s brow. Devonwald closed his eyes and squeezed. Amen— The next few events were too rapid to be parsed and understood. Devonwald heard the trio of shots, felt the kick of the rifle, heard a brief rustling he could not identify, exhaled, and thought suddenly of the farm on which he was raised—his mother at the hand-powered cistern, the wild blackberries that grew along their gravel approach, the cats that lived under the house, the teetering useless gorgeous old barn, the four-wheelers—and when his eyes opened again the crazy hirsute little face was just millimeters from Devonwald’s own. As quickly and inscrutably as that the creature’s smile opened with a scream into a cornucopia of white, scalpel-like teeth, and Devonwald heard his body rend as he exited it. Back in Las Vegas the President emerged from the Four Seasons, descending the front steps in his trademark stride. With one hand he waved to the multitude. Proudly in the other he bore an official-looking document, which contained the agreement he had procured. Little did the President know that certain enzymes this document held were activating certain pigments, as other enzymes deactivated certain others—and that the message, unseen, was altering itself. “Good afternoon,” said the President as he reached the podium. “Rah,” said the crowd. “I want to say I appreciate you guys hanging in there with me.” “Not a problem—” said the crowd. The President paused, waving to a few nonexistent people in the front row. “Some folks,” said the President, “said it was no use negotiating with Satan.” “No, no,” said the crowd. “Some people said I was too kind-hearted, or even too trivial of character to deal directly with the forces of evil.” “Hmm…” the crowd said. The President held aloft the agreement he had procured, on which the fiendish transformation was now complete. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got one word for you...” Fools. **
First they had departed I-70, then 24-40, and now they were on a simple one-and-a-half lane road. Once again they departed before light, and now, as the sunrise warmed before them, the searchlight beam was dissolving like a rainbow. “I have your pills—” said Nadyenka, breaking the sleepy stillness of the ride. Lucas looked over slowly. Nadyenka smiled back at him with her childlike menace. Silently in his mind Lucas rummaged for the pills she referred to. The last place he remembered putting them was his gun case, where there was a special niche for the bottle. He couldn’t remember if he had seen them the last time he closed the case, there in the men’s room. He cleared his throat, eyes returning to the road. “You have what now?” he said. “Nulepsin D,” said Nadyenka. “That’s a second-generation dopamine blocker, yes?” Lucas was quiet again. “You, uh,” he said. “You researched this.” “I have the Internet on my phone,” she said. “Ah.”
“So you’re psychotic?” Lucas nodded. “No.” Nadyenka smiled. “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “I’m kind of into it.” “Be that as it may.” “Nulepsin is an antipsychotic,” she said. “Yes, I take a micro-dose. Mental patients would take in the area of a thousand milligrams a day. I take twenty-five.” “Okay.” “If I took a full dose I’d sleep for seventy-two hours, literally.” Nadyenka nodded. “And how does it gel with your natural pathology dogma?” “Well,” Lucas said. “But I’m not really a natural pathologist.” “You’re a neo-holist.” “I’m a neo-holist, that’s right.” “And how does it gibe with neo-holism?” “I’m not sure,” Lucas said. “You never thought about it?” “I try not to.” “You’re not psychotic, though.” “Not to the best of my knowledge.” Nadyenka thought, brushing her flat olive belly, its fawny white hairs. “I guess it’s forgivable,” she said. “Great,” Lucas said. “But I’m gonna hold on to them for now.” Lucas nodded. “Great—” The sky in front of them was a kind of periwinkle. They passed a small green rectangular sign: Stull, pop. 124. “Up up up—” said Lucas to the two in back. MacAbee bounced along in a nightmare of the white, astringently perfect body of Jacqueline d’Estime eeling over his own like a ghost. Jacqueline woke from her light dreamless sleep and immediately began searching for her nicotine dispenser. The sign before the gate which led up to the hillside church said simply: GO AWAY.
Meanwhile, the Ft. Worth Church of Satan was celebrating the finest two days of its existence. Scores of gun dealers, psychics, poorly-reviewed metal trios and so on returned to their daily lives with an unprecedented sense of fulfillment—even as hundreds stayed to revel. A Babel of blackened goat carcasses stood in the fairway of the par five 13th at Teeter Brook Links, a sister-property of Lucas’ former sub-division. Downtown, on the steps of the Scientology Library, facing a pleased, weary crowd, a short, brunet man named Howard Pujamin approached the microphone. He wore highwater-ish brown slacks, brown hobnailed oxfords, a flimsy white shirt and maroon tie beneath a sports jacket of socialist beige. “Ahem,” he said. “Well.” The draggled crowd screamed, rejuvenated by his arrival. They stretched from the library steps all the way to the Temple of the Morning Star and around the corner to the macrobiotic food mill. “Well,” Howard said again. He smiled. “Yea Satan.” In Vatican City where it was mid-afternoon a young man called Enzo Damico sat before a long mahogany table. Enzo was one of a hundred or so readers of the Pope’s daily unsolicited mail. He was just then opening a simple envelope which lacked a return address. Enzo had no way of knowing it, but this letter was from Nadyenka Czillicz’s former companion, Daniel Murrain. Addressed to the Pontiff and unsigned, it contained a simple message. “Fine, I give.” In Stull, the wayfarers had just arrived at the site of A.G. Devonwald’s undoing. MacAbee was stricken by the grim display, and he stood over it for long silent moments, while the girls complained about the smell and then the bugs and then the cold and then their boredom. MacAbee stood where Devonwald had sat and just felt. He stood there and felt. And when they asked him what he was doing up there that’s what he told them. That he was standing there. Feeling. Lucas correctly deduced the smattering of innards to be the remnant of his intended contact. He further intuited the strange and tremendous category of thing with which they had come to deal. Having inspected the open stairway, knowing his employers would at least require a substantive report, Lucas took a final opportunity to suggest the others turn back. He was far beyond being able to guarantee their safety. Now he could guarantee their peril. “I have to go down this rabbit hole,” he said. “At least until I find an explanation.” Jacqueline nodded. “’And?” “Well...” said Lucas. “And I think you guys have come far enough.” “Fuck that,” replied Jacqueline “Totally,” Nadyenka said. Lucas nodded. “Right.” Jacqueline’s attempt to lure back her inamorato Jean-Baptiste through sex-envy by fornicating with Hitch MacAbee—and thus making her husband jealous enough to sleep with her as well—turned out to be a non-starter. As a result she felt she had little satisfaction left to her in life but that of dogged bitterness. “I wish—” MacAbee was saying, as they stood among the whitewashed stones, “that I could do what you say. But I can’t. I’m supposed to follow you until I get understanding. I don’t think I probably have.” Lucas smiled at MacAbee. “When you do gain understanding, my friend, you will realize you can do exactly what you want to.” “Fucking New Age pap,” Jacqueline suggested. But MacAbee gazed at Lucas a long time. “I’m scared,” MacAbee said. Lucas nodded. “Fear is a funny thing. Your fear is about to put you in cartoonishly severe danger. Our heads and hearts don’t always do what they’re designed for. When you have understanding you will acknowledge that the problem of whether you have lost your mind, or whether it’s everyone else, is not finally a fruitful line of inquiry.” MacAbee thought. “Just the same—” They all went down. MacAbee was thinking of an old conversation. It floated out of his memory as they descended, and had taken form in the very rear of his attention, images thrown up in the furthest corner of his eye as though on a screen. It was a late night after a show and he was in the office of Tot Tot Maddock. He remember the damp basement smells of that room, like old laundry or wet cardboard. “I’m not funny anymore, Tot—” MacAbee told his manager. “What’s that?” “I don’t feel funny anymore,” said MacAbee. “It doesn’t matter,” Tot said. “Doesn’t it?” “No.” MacAbee thought. “Am I funny?” “Sure.” “Did you ever get stage fright, Tot?” The adult film veteran shook his head, still piecing through a sheaf of itineraries with bored frustration. A pair of motorized buttocks sat motionless beside the telephone on his desk. “No,” he said. MacAbee sighed. “What’s your secret?” Tot shook his head. “I don’t know.” “Well...” MacAbee said. “What do you want out of life?” Tot looked up, expressionless, his big New Jersey mouth hanging. “Longevity—”
Lucas soldiered silently, Dutch machine-pistol in hand, what was essentially an automatic handgun that could be outfitted in the field to fire with the force and range of a larger carbine. Lucas was oblivious to the patter of his companions—ears trained. Jacqueline pinched his ass at one point, but when he looked back he saw that her heart wasn’t really in the gesture. She just looked tired and morbid. Now the group came to a stop at a wide unadorned landing about 30 stories below ground. It was clean and rectangular and about forty feet wide. So far, the temperature held. Lucas instructed the team to rest. As MacAbee and Jacqueline sat on the floor, catching their breath, Nadyenka wandered out toward the center of the room, scanning the ceiling and walls. At this time Lucas noticed there was an orange pill bottle in Nadyenka’s right hand, where she stood turning it absently. This sight triggered a mercenary instinct in Lucas that he did not question. In two strides he covered the distance between Nadyenka and himself, and with his left hand he clamped the one of hers that contained the Nulepsin D. Nadyenka tried to wrench away, but the grip was adamant. Lucas smiled and with his other hand clobbered Nadyenka’s face— (It will do here to explain that Lucas was a huge feminist.) As she fell back Nadyenka forgot about the pills, naturally, and Lucas slid them from her retreating hand without effort. She landed badly, and the thunk of her head on the cement reverberated grimly around them. Jacqueline and MacAbee stood in astonishment as Nadyenka squirmed from the source of the blow. “But you slept with me,” she shrieked, choking a breath, feeling the break in her lip with a trembling hand. “Of course I slept with you,” Lucas said. He pocketed the bottle. “It seemed to be what you wanted.” “I’m nothing to you!” she cried. Lucas considered it. “Nothing is an ugly concept,” he said. “Slept with who?” roared Jacqueline, storming forward. “The communist?” “Who’s that?” said MacAbee calmly. And something in his voice made them all look at him. Then they looked where he pointed. Who is Cerberus? The answer is: Exactly. It is almost impossible to describe the Cerberus creature fully. An adequate definition of him, at any rate, will confess its inadequacy—for this creature is everything at once. Upon first meeting the wayfarers, for instance, Cerberus will appear as a thin, well-accoutered Caucasian male. This is only one of his heads, however. And the heads of Cerberus are practically infinite in number (see: “Practical Infinitude”). ** In Ft. Worth, Texas, among the still guttering ruins of Rancho Ranchero, beneath the rubble and smolder of what had been the d’Estime’s possessions, an answering machine hid, mysteriously unharmed. The cord that connected it, to what had been the wall but was now only a skeleton of carbonized two-by-fours, remained intact as well. And just then, inaudible to anyone in the universe and never to be recovered, a new message was being left. The voice of old Mother d’Estime—accomplished matriarch, famous her income bracket for rudely insistent Fundamentalist Christianity and unpredictable jeremiads—rang in its mellifluously patrician manner, which took on a second elegance in the lady’s advancing years:
Beep.
“…You know what I don’t get,” Cerberus was saying. “Is why some people won’t just come out and say anything.” “I know what you mean,” said Lucas. There was about five yards between them, the inadequate torchlight turning their teeth and the whites of their eyes pink. “Yeah?”
“I do,” Lucas said. “Openness can be difficult for people.” “You’re, uh,” said the hell-beast. “You’re a nice guy.” “My desire is to heal,” said Lucas, sliding the Universal Machine Pistol back into the long nylon sleeve across his back. Cerberus nodded. “But most people are dicks.” “I understand that conclusion,” said Lucas. “It’s my job to keep them here,” said Cerberus. “All day long, that’s all I do is throw people back down into hell. Do I get a lot of joy out of it?” “Don’t see how you could.” “No, but here I am coming up for a peek, just to see the world one last time before it ends, and finally I meet a guy—” “Sure.” “The world is ending, right? You knew that.” “I did. Although, according to Terminus Cosmology, the world ends all the time.” “That’s interesting,” said Cerberus, shifting on his dapper cane. “You know what? I like you. Who are your friends?” Lucas turned to where the rest of the group were cowering. “Oh,” he said. “Them.” “—No,” Jacqueline was telling the others. “I’m saying something.” Lucas’ heart fell as his wife sallied forward. The unspeakable horror smiled at both of them, naïve. “Lucas Michael Van Vondren d’Estime. I demand to know what in God’s name you have gotten us into.” Lucas knew then that he should have killed all three of his companions back in Ft. Worth. That it was irresponsible of him not to do so. The Male Conflict-Conflict. “Darling— ” “No,” she said. “No. You just hold the hegemony, buster.” The word “buster” made both MacAbee and Nadyenka laugh. The laughter made Cerberus smile. Lucas was sick. “No,” said Jacqueline. “I want you to explain to me how this is supposed to contribute to my spiritual life.” “It’s not—” “I want to know how I married into a murder syndicate, or whatever you are.” “There’s no syndicate, dear.” Lucas looked at Cerberus, whose features were beginning to harden, as to a threat—whose heads roiled behind him like tails. Lucas returned to his wife. “Jacqueline, please,” said Lucas. Jacqueline was taking out her cell phone. “No,” she said, “you’re right. I know who can settle this.” Lucas sighed. “Who?” he said, though he knew. “There’s no reception in here,” Cerberus said helpfully. Jacqueline nodded at both of them, florid, and maniacal, continuing to dial. Then she put the unresponsive receiver to her head. As Cerberus’ lip was pulling back from his upper teeth, things became clear to MacAbee in a way they hadn’t been his whole life. “People,” said Cerberus. “People will never come out and say it, you know?” Finding that her phone wasn’t functioning, Jacqueline began to moan in the Lucy Ricardo fashion— “No,” Lucas answered the beast. “No, most people are dicks...” As MacAbee turned back to the stairs, he heard Nadyenka shriek. He heard the voice of the monster become a slaver—that of a wronged pit bull. He heard Jacqueline’s yelp of disbelief as her cell phone scudded across the flagstones, and he heard Lucas’ large repeater slide again from its holster. “...It takes discipline to get beyond,” Lucas was saying. MacAbee wasn’t afraid anymore. He ran—
“What a night,” said Pestilence, who still carried his small trapezoidal zither case. They all nodded. “Merry Christmas,” said Rape. They smiled. “It’s all about the memories,” said the Antichrist. And they all had to turn and laugh at him… The well-dressed young man was receding into the hell-dog at this time, and like the changing of a pre-electric traffic signal the head of a gigantic Mastiff rose, jaws wide as a hippo’s. Beside the Mastiff there emerged the greasy and matted aspect of an Irish wolfhound, similarly outsize; and beside the wolfhound, on a much shorter neck, came the small, ill-shapen head of a Boston Terrier. It began yapping immediately. As MacAbee and Nadyenka were turning tail behind him, Lucas was studying the beast. He knew very well that he was going to die. He was going to lose badly. He looked at his wife, and he knew she was going to die also. She was weak and emotionally unprepared. But he saw that in this state she was looking to him, trembling and sniffling—needing him unmistakably and in the most ancient feminine manner: holding out the privilege of dying in her defense. Lucas accepted. “Cerberus,” he called, after the animal had slapped away Jacqueline’s cell phone, hulking over her, teeth unsheathed. The animal paused and looked over. Lucas smiled. “I just realized this,” he said. “You’re a fucking mutt.” Three pairs of eyes blinked. “Oh, sweetie,” said Cerberus, pivoting. “Don’t—” When the hell-dog was riled, his movements would become sudden enough to exceed the shutter speed of the human eye. Thus, if Lucas waited till the creature made its move toward him, the battle would have been over in a stroke. So Lucas leapt out of the way of the blow he thought was coming, and an instant later two pairs of scissoring jaws whistled by his face, like the tails of a monstrous flog—one dwarf head yapping after. Sprinting, Lucas yoked Jacqueline at the waist and swung them behind a sandstone girder, where they were partially shielded for a tiny moment. As they went, Lucas released a guesstimating barrage of 45. caliber fire behind them. He already sensed the next bite coming as he shoved the launch-module onto its mount, and scrambling back to his feet Lucas threw himself away from Jacqueline as far as he could. This time Cerberus lunged over twenty feet at once, the jaws slamming together close enough to remove Lucas’s shirt at the shoulder. The beast had adjusted to Lucas’ timing somewhat, and though his two more intimidating aspects came through a micro-instant late, the teeth of the Boston Terrier slid cleanly through the top of Lucas’ right ear, which disappeared as though guillotined—blood slinging through space. Lucas had only sacrificed this instant of evasion in order to get a clearer bead on his opponent. Now, just as the creature’s heads where pulling back upright, Lucas released a second series of blasts from his machine pistol, tighter and fewer than before. These rounds blew a straight line across the neck of the mastiff, and this guise promptly went bumping and stumbling across the stone floor, dragging a gory mess behind it. Cerberus looked at the fallen limb dumbly, then slowly back to face Lucas. Terrier and Wolfhound smiled, teeth bloody. A new head was rising among the others, now, as though walking up from behind. This head was harder and more slender, something in the style of a velociraptor. During this tiny lull Lucas dropped a forty-millimeter flash-bang shell into the launch chamber. As it sang home he knew the fight had gone about as far as it would. Gauging the remainder of his life to comprise about four seconds, Lucas took one of them to gaze upon his wife, and across the stone enclosure he found her gazing back: Beneath yellow-gray battle fog and ribbons of thrown blood, he saw her smiling, sincerest. Jacqueline was beautiful when she was sincere and had there been time there were things Lucas would’ve liked to discuss. But there were only three seconds now and this was about the time Lucas made his leap toward the big suit-wearing dog, as spastically, unpredictably as he could manage. Unfortunately Cerberus presaged the maneuver with ease, matching it exactly. So in the next instant when Lucas rammed the muzzle of his grenade launcher between the bases of two necks—one furry and one plated in green flinty scales—coefficient with this action Cerberus plunged two raptor talons, similar in size and shape to scimitars, into the soft tissue beneath Lucas’ breastbone. Now there was one second left, and Lucas was falling back, still straining to perform his final action, which was simply hanging on to the auxiliary trigger of his weapon. That protracted instant was a feat of strength, as with all the contents of his body Lucas willed his forefinger taut, gravity yanking down on every molecule that belonged to him. Somewhere near the end of this final second Lucas felt the trigger click back and consented to being blown clear. The blades of the hell-dog withdrew along with most of Lucas’ insides at this time, but Lucas was no longer present. Jacqueline heard a muffled woof followed by a sickening wet sound as the mortar shell entered the demon point-blank. The thundercrack that followed an instant later was so loud, bright and sudden it brought her brain wobbling to the brink of unconsciousness. She wavered on the floor, catching the sandstone pillar against her, as for a moment the bang shook every molecule in the enclosure, traversed the space again and again, communicating out through opposite passages piecemeal till it was gone like an angry ghost. Cerberus had flipped backward entirely, landing on all his heads. Now there was a sort of confused interim, as the fiend went tottering backward, spouting flesh and flames, careering thirty feet before he struck the far wall and collapsed with a wet thump. Silence returned, except for a low hiss, a sizzling that went on several moments. The room was rife with the odor of incinerated soft tissue and bone. Under different circumstances it might have been appetizing, something like fajita meat. Cerberus lay still a long time. As the smoke settled over him, the head that had appeared before the foursome, the dapper young man, began struggling to the surface, streaked with cinder, spattered in filth. Looking down, Cerberus began to chuckle, slapping the areas of himself that were still smoldering. The sound coming from him grew louder, rasping, and Cerberus went on laughing awhile, as though at some private irony. At the site of Lucas’ decease, Jacqueline sat looking upon her husband’s body, baptized black and purple. Jacqueline had no fear left. She loved him. Across the room Cerberus coughed, hoarse. He was shaking his head. He sighed. “What a guy.”
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