Wisconsin Hells #1: Dell on Earth

 

Here it is, the inaugural full-length Wisconsin Hells story! It retains some of my more annoying tendencies (switching perspective mid-scene, still structurally being a collection of vignettes, not being half as funny as it was in my head...) but I'm ready to call it done. I'm really pretty proud of most of the gags here, and the characterization too. Charlie gets the bulk of the excellent stuff, I was glad to finally treat him as more than comic relief - his monologue at the end is my favorite writing I've done for this series. Honestly though, and maybe this is just because I've written so much less of them, I think the parts I'm overall fondest of are the bits with the side characters. We'll definitely be seeing more of 'em.
        So yeah on the whole, happy with what I did here while also excited to move on to more interesting things than setup. I think the breezy pace here can partly be blamed on the fact I've been sitting on these characters for years and I've "soft-introduced" them through the flash stories already. Sometimes that breezy pace works to the story's benefit, other times I feel it leads to a lack of balance between comedy and drama that occasionally verges on the Whedonistic. Oh well.
        Some random details: the conversation between Todd and Yi is partly based on a real conversation I had with a friend, who's also the Transformers nerd that told me "Autobone Society" was a pun one of their kind would use. The two guys playing poker in the gas station are my younger self and my friend Owen. Bob is a character from an earlier version of the series, before I kept getting feedback on the seasonal vignettes that Satan and Abby were cute as a couple. He was gonna be like, a closeted older man who had a sweet but unsatisfying fling with Satan. Now he's just a gay old nerd. I think I like that development. The grass seems like it woulda been green on either side of this coin.

   It was raining when Satan rose from the lake. He’d been underwater two days awaiting some break in the summer crowds and took a chance the moment he heard thunder. A few brave souls remained, guzzling beer in a crumbling pavilion. They saw nothing through dense fog. Satan was alone save drunken echoes and dim streetlights.

            And, he soon discovered, about a dozen leeches and a crayfish. He had sores and cuts along his whole body, their combined surface area rendering his skin even redder than it'd been in Hell. In less painful circumstances he may have been amused by that.

He made a quick survey of his new body, or what he could see of it through all the wounds. Only two arms this time. Two legs, just one cock this time. It was difficult to measure under a burgeoning beer gut and a jungle of algae-matted hair. Seemed small. Stumbling naked toward the only visible sign of civilization he wondered whether this was the version of Earth where Original Sin happened.

About a minute later one of the drunk men called the police on him, which at least answered that question.

Two weeks hence an emaciated and bloodied man in a deerskin tunic stumbled into a gas station convenience store, the Motor Mart on the last corner in town that felt ‘inhabited’ in the modern sense. At a small table in the corner two men were playing cards. The only other customer was drunk. The tall guy at the checkout counter had seen too much to care. For now, Satan didn’t stand out much.

He approached the counter, tracking blood on the floor for the second time this week. The employee played the same game he played with every junkie, pretending he didn’t see the jackass until he knew for sure he wanted to talk.

“Hey,” Satan slurred. The guy’s nametag said Brad. “Hey Brad.”

Brad sighed. “What do you want?”

Satan gestured at the rack of Motor Mart-branded shirts and hats in the corner. “Are any of your wares… free from this insignia, perchance? I would be loath to reduce myself to a living advertisement.”

Brad pulled a sleeve over his WWE tattoo. “I think we got Hawaiian shirts by the live bait. An’ get some fuckin’ pants, too. Jesus.”

Satan’s eye twitched at ‘Jesus’, but he wasn’t going to make a scene. Not yet. He walked over to the live bait without another word.

Clothes cost a fortune here, yet nudity was illegal. Satan remembered his pride coming up with such a ludicrously sinful double-standard... now he was two blocks from the gas station, legs jutting out of a CLOTHES AND SHOES bin. The wind howled in agreement with Brad: Satan needed some fuckin’ pants.

Somebody rapped at the side of the bin. Satan whimpered, “hello? Any chance you could give me a tug?”

A lethargic voice, probably a woman, responded, “no can do. I’m gay. And you’re covered in moss.”

Another woman said, “don’t listen to her,” and grabbed his ankles. Satan landed ass-first on the asphalt, looking up at his shabbily-dressed rescuers.

“I appreciate it.” Satan panted.

“Sure.” The girl who’d pulled him out said before sending a kick into the bin’s side door. Unwanted garments spilled out over the sidewalk, joining the record rainfall in flooding the streets. The girls looked at one another and started for the sidewalk.

“No, hold it.” Satan raised an arm. “What are you girls doing here? I owe my freedom to you. Surely you can see that. I must return the favor.”

“Still don’t swing that way.” The gay one said. She had a cigarette between her fingers.

Satan noticed a smell in the air suddenly. Strong, heady, earthy. Worldly, even. He knew what that was, right? It was on the tip of his tongue… Ah, right. “Why are you guys smoking lettuce?”

“What?” The girl with the cigarette looked up at him and he caught a red inflection in her eyes. Possession, maybe?

Satan took a step back and asked again, “you two have developed this… makeshift cigarette just to smoke ordinary garden-variety lettuce. What the Heaven is wrong with you? I mean, ah, what the Hell is wrong with you?”

The girls shared a quick glance. One of them leaned in and whispered to the other. Her fingers reached for the can of mace in her pocket. She looked back to him and said, “what the hell is wrong with you?” 

The other one stroked her chin and posited, “do you think you’re the Devil?”

They were on to him.

Think fast, Satan.

If he were punishing sinners right now he’d have about a billion ideas up in his head per second. But something as basic as fooling a teenager? He’s got nothing.

Wait, hold on. Never mind. There it is.

“No, I’m, uh… Steve. Steve Atan.” He sighed a breath of relief. That should do the trick.

“If you say so. It’s just, uh…” the girl giggled. “You keep calling weed lettuce.” One looked to the other. “Like, isn’t that what grandpa used to call it? The Devil’s lettuce?”

“I am not Satan!” he snapped. “I’m just Steve! I am wholly mortal and possess no divine abilities! Nobody on this God-forsaken rock could possibly mistake me for a-”

Then it hit him.

“You’re smoking a drug?”

“No shit.”

“Your red eyes and strange behavior aren’t the result of some demonic or angelic possession? You’re just high?”

The girls shared another concerned glance between themselves. One, “oh, he thinks he’s fuckin’ Merlin too.”

“What year is it?” The other asked.

Satan shuffled awkwardly. “2000?” This set the girls off in a fit of riotous laughter. He shouted, with the intent to invoke booming divinity, “quiet!” It came out with all the thunderous aplomb of a chirping smoke alarm.

They started laughing harder. He went on. “Does any magic still exist in this world? And if so, where might I find it?”

They did their best to stifle laughter. The one with the mace said, “d’you know about Wisconsin Dells?”

“I can’t say I’m familiar.” Satan said.

“It’s a tourist trap,” the other girl said. This provided all the explanation he needed.

“I see!” Satan grinned broadly. “Ah yes, the tourist trap. One of my favorite layers of Hell. The place in which all sinning travelers find themselves, forever condemned to worlds they don’t belong in. From lusty gamblers to violent settlers, the Tourist Trap does it all. Ooh, I remember when I was just a devil in training, I used to visit the Tourist Trap every weekend with Abaddon. I wonder what kinds of devious pain is inflicted upon mortal men in the Tourist Traps of Earth…”

“No, it’s uh,” one of the girls said. “It’s a place tourists want to go.”

“It’s sorta like Vegas,” the other girl said. “But with water slides instead of hookers.”

He was skeptical. “Where’s the magic in that, exactly?”

She said, “well, there’s the House on the Rock.”

Her friend added, “and that kinda crappy wizard thing.”

That’s promising. In Hell, crappy wizards were the hot gag gift. “Wizards, you say?”

“Well-” the girl shot a look to her friend. “Yes, wizards! Definitely. All over the place.”

“How far are these Dells?” Satan was ecstatic. “Keep in mind I don’t have a vehicle. Or money.”

“In that case you could always hop on a train.” The girl gestured to the railyard at the end of the lane. “I think one usually runs around this time of night, right?”

“Yeah. So get the hell away from us.”

“Oh, I will.” Satan grinned.

The wind tousled his hair, blowing algae-encrusted chunks of it right into his eyes. Even now, the world from atop a moving train car was beautiful. From up here he could see it all, the whole great expanse of trees and cows and corn and decaying barns. So few humans ever saw the world this way. Satan had them beat within days of mortality. Their jealousy was the most delicious substance he’d ever tasted.

So drunk was he on this imagined jealousy that he failed to notice the tree branch until it had knocked half the synoptic Gospels from his head.

Another day and another train later, here he was. The big city! A worldwide capital of entertainment, love, lust and everything in between. Here there be waterslides, wizards, working women and waterslides. Gambling dens, gaming centers, eateries, bars, theaters. A motel with duckweed and several mallards in the pool. Surely it got better than this.

He passed signs advertising rather tame, family-friendly versions of the sights and sounds he would have seen in a place like this the last time he’d manifested himself on Earth. Ah, the Reagan years…

Speak of the Devil, that sign looked interesting. 

THE MOST MAGICAL

PLACE IN THE DELLS

SINCE 1984

UNCLE CHUCK’S ASTRAL ABBATOIR

An address was listed just above a grainy “field photo” of a hairy fish. Now if only he could read a map.

Two days of scouring the streets later, Satan was at the door. A more unassuming and humble entryway than such fanciful wares deserved, to be sure. Just a flimsy particleboard door and a single dingy bay window beneath a jungle of neon lights and old, dead bulbs. He knocked. An eerie, grotesque voice from inside squelched out, “it’s unlocked!” Right, yeah. He took a step past the threshold, which made his matted hair stand up. The place was a little wider than it’d seemed from outside. A bay window sat to either side of the door. Odd, but not necessarily supernatural.

At the far end of the front room a delightful-looking older gentleman sat behind a solid wood desk. His hair was swept back, packed loose behind his ears. Some spilled out, dangling over his cheeks. Satan found that in particular strangely alluring. The wrinkled suit jacket less so.

“Uncle Chuck?”

The man smiled. “Just Bob. Chuck’s out in the Rockies on the hunt for the last American Yeti.”

“There were Yeti in this country?” Satan asked.

“So he says. And so I say, when the youngins are around.” Bob laughed. “But I guess it’s mostly guys like me and you in this place these days.”

“Guys like us?” Satan asked.
“Old geezers who miss when we could actually believe in this stuff.” Bob shrugged. “Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

“I was born yesterday.” Satan smiled, hoping that passed for a joke. Apparently it did.

“You wouldn’t be the only one, that’s for damn sure!” Bob smiled. Somebody else walked in and his face turned serious. He shifted his eyes over to a beige device on the corner of the desk.

Satan turned to face a goliath dressed in a jacket that might’ve been slick, had it not been made from what looked like fabric sample swatches. Every color was represented except for the ones that looked good on suits. His head, what Satan could see of it past a set of impressive pecs, was chiseled and adorned with a bowler hat. He was also wearing bowling shoes. The man stuck out a hand, which Satan limply shook. “Uncle Chuck. Just gettin’ back from the mountains.”

“Sat- Steve Atan. Just crawled out of a lake.” Chuck was still shaking his hand. “I have no identification, and I need a job. A place like this seemed… appropriate, given my skillset.”
Charlie eyed up the scrawny man. “Are you able to routinely push and carry heavy objects?”

“How heavy?” Satan asked.

“Oh, say, about the shape and weight of a grown man.”

“I have some experience. Would I be working with anything heavier than that?”

“More’n likely not, unless those danged New Yorkers ever get back to me about the Peconic Bay Megalodon. Anyhoo, what makes ya think you’d be right for the job? Not that I wouldn’t appreciate a little help headin’ into the summer, but it takes a certain kind of man.”

“I have always held a certain affinity for those realms beyond the mundane-”

“Save the theatrics for the tours, please. I like the cut of your jib so far! Just gimme the basics, though.”

“I like magic. I’m good at it. I’ve experienced it myself, the real and stage varieties in equal measure. But recently I’ve been in a slump. My decades of training in magic, whimsy and demonomics have been wiped from my mind like chalk from a board. What I need is a fresh start.”

“So yer a true believer? Not like Bob over there.”

“I’ve seen magic with my own eyes. I may have even fathered a Sasquatch, though the details are fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy! You’re a riot! The kids would love ya, and I’m sure Bob wouldn’t mind the help. Just one thing. Can I trust ya?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Y'said you practiced demon worship. This is a Christian establishment, Steve.”

“I see. Well, that won't be a problem. I'm, ugh, I'm a changed man. I put Hell behind me.”

“You also said you woke up in a lake. How can I trust you won't attract some dodgy guys from your previous life? I mean, didja wake up at the bottom of the lake tied to a cinderblock or what? Did it seem criminal?”

“It felt like a piece of my soul had been torn asunder, Chuck. I feel as if I was split in two, and part of me still rots on the lake’s bed. Maybe I hit my head, maybe I lost some brain cells while drowning, I don’t know. I just know I'm no longer the man I thought God wanted me to be. I have a lot to figure out. I thought this might be a good first step.”

“Boy,” Chuck whistled. “That's a lot to chew on. ‘S been a while since one'a my employees was a mystery in himself. Hasn't been the case since that bastard Scott Walker took away my freakshow. Where else is a bearded, two-headed lady supposed to work? Riddle me that! I ran that show ta give the freaks work, Steve! I was an ally.”

“I see.”

“Ah, but enough about me. I like your jib. Might have to recut it, but I like it. Let’s say initiation tomorrow at noon?”

“I can’t wait! You’ll find me sleeping right outside.”

“Please don’t.”

In a knife store in an unremarkable outlet mall down the road, two men discussed the era’s most important philosophical question. Todd, the owner of this fine establishment, said, “I’m tellin’ ya, man, this AI stuff is getting bad.”

Yi gestured vaguely towards where he parked his food truck. “I can’t find anyone to make me a logo. Even the freelance graphic designers quit. How does that even work?”

“They're using the same AI that tracks your face on security cameras to make our porn now, dog. It's a mind control scheme for sure.”

“I was maybe gonna outsource my name and slogan too, but the guy I was talking with fucked off to the woods. There are like, a billion Mexican and Chinese joints in this country. All the names AI comes up with are taken…  guy who runs Oy Vang doesn't know how good he has it!”

“I knew this was a real seismic shift when I stopped thinking robot chicks were hot.” Todd grumbled. “Like, you don’t realize how fucked you are until it hits your dick, y’know?”

Not for the first time, Yi wondered why he’d followed this guy to Wisconsin. “Mm, yeah. Your stomach, too. I think about that while I’m working the truck.”

“Like, the other day, a buddy from the Autobone Society-” that’s his preferred Transformers porn forum - “sent me a great fuckin’ picture. Arcee and that lobster from Beast Wars. Claws out and everything, and I felt nothin’! Like my entire soul was empty.”

“That’s tough. I get scared or hollow making tacos sometimes.  Thinking how many more generations are real flesh-and-blood men gonna be doing this. How long until we’re all living out of our cars, and we can just hit a taco button and take some Tex-Mex out of the glove box?”

“I guess there’s always those historical MMA chicks down at the ren faire, if I still wanna get my bones broke by a chick made of metal.”

“Chick this, chick that... you wanna couple chicken tacos?”

“I’ll take a quesadilla.”

“Be right back.”

Todd looked to his right, where the new hire had been standing for God knows how long. Abby, full name Abstinence (apparently, but that couldn’t be right), was one of those middle-aged women who always looked judgy somehow. It called itself “it” instead of “she” because of some complex Todd wasn’t privy to, something about not feeling human yet after so little time on Earth. Which might actually be true. Its only prior work experience was at a grubby sex shop a couple blocks from here. So at the very least this wasn’t the buzzkill kind of female coworker he had to contend with in California, the kind of heartless feminist who’d report him for having a serious literary discussion of pornographic art. It still kind of scared him, for some reason. He opened the cash drawer and started counting change. “Hey. You, uh, hear any of that?”

“Every word.” Abby chuckled under its breath. “It’s about what I’d expect from a guy like you, no need to be embarrassed.” It left out the part about helping Satan punish ‘guys like you’ in Hell. You’d be surprised how many sword shop owners have committed Hell-worthy sins. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Abby started scouring its brain for a profession whose over-representation in Hell might surprise anyone.

That food truck guy walked in just then. Yeah, they had a ring-road in Hell for them, didn't they? Abby would have to try and remember to ask Satan, if it ever saw him again.

With nothing to do until tomorrow, Satan roamed the streets around the Abattoir. First stop, a squat, horseshoe-shaped block of buildings down the road… a shopping center of some kind. He made his way past occupied and unoccupied storefronts. A courtyard where half the picnic tables were visibly cracked. One or two of the benches had fully fallen off. He knew just enough about Earth to understand this place was long past its prime.

Something between a smell and a headache cut into his thoughts. He yelped, startling a guy with two greasy bags of food under his arm. Shit, what was that? It only lasted a second. No, it was still there. He took a step. It got a little stronger. Wobblier now, as he kept on walking. He wanted to say it was coming from that sword store with a boarded-up window. He slipped in discreetly, just behind the man with the food.

This place was too bland to be selling weapons. The shelves were all plain white cases, featureless rectangles the same color as the carpet. An overreliance on white begat that no blood had ever been spilled here. He thought he remembered that used to be an unbecoming thing to be able to say about an arms dealer. The guys in charge sure looked like cowards. Behind the counter was a scrawny older man in a floral button-up. At a card table to his right a mop-top with a horrible mustache was eating lunch with that greasy guy. 

No, hold on. He blinked and the guy at the desk was a woman. He blinked again. The smell/headache came back and she was a man again. Blink. Woman. She said, “what are you lookin’ at?”

“We have met before, haven't we?” Satan cleared his throat. “Abaddon!”

“Abaddon?” Todd interjected. “Like the Devil?”

Satan snapped, “no! His lackey!”

Abby clarified, “Abaddon is kinda ambiguous, if you actually read the Bible. Or Wikipedia. Could be a place, could be an angel or a demon or even Satan himself. All of which are more respectable than ‘lackey’”.

“Just as I remember you.” Satan smiled. “Nice to see a friendly face.”

“To clarify,” Abaddon turned to Todd. “We used to hang out on the same forum. Abaddon was my username.”

“What forum?” Todd asked.

“Uh-” it scanned the walls for anything that wasn't a bootleg. “Warhammer?” 

“I didn't know you played! Who'dja main?” Todd leaned over the table, letting his tie flop into a puddle of melted cheese and hot sauce.

“Uh, ya know, the demons?” Abby shrugged.

“Mhm.” Todd suckled sauce from his tie like a baby bottle.

“What the fuck is a forum?” Satan asked.

Abby laughed dismissively. “This guy! Man, I missed you… uh…”

“Steve.” Satan said. He turned to Todd. “In the, uh, forum, I go by a different name.”

“I'm off work in an hour, how about we talk then?” Abby gestured to the door.

They met at Yi's truck, a trailer hitched up to a cherry-red Tacoma. Yi had put an N at the end of the logo; this was TACOMAN. He'd set up a branded umbrella at a picnic table next to the road. As far as Satan could figure, the name of the business was a completely incoherent string of Chinese characters. One of them had a tilde above it. It sure broadcasts the right message, at least: completely inauthentic Chinese and Mexican cuisine.

“Did you just get here?” Abby leaned over the table. “To Earth, I mean.”

“Some weeks ago.” Satan told it everything he could remember.

“You're a late arrival. Presumably because you have more power than bit players like me or the ferryman.” Abby pondered something. “Makes me wonder if God's here yet.”

“I assume this means all the nonsense about our power coming from belief was true?” Satan raised an eyebrow.

Abby nodded. “Hell is gone.”

“We must still maintain some divinity. I possess a level of invulnerability, and I tracked you down by intuition alone. Without knowing what I was doing.”

“That power is limited. You only recognize the ones who shared your faith.”

“You mentioned the ferryman.”

“Yeah, he's open about who he is. He does tours on these amphibious trucks called Ducks. Tries to be funny, kinda says it as a joke. But I asked one time, turns out it's really him! Sometimes we stand out in other ways. Sisyphus did some John Henry act against an automatic cart-pusher. Cain's in jail already, you know what he did. And the less I say about Oedipus the better.”

“Fucking Cain. What a disappointment. I mean, two murders in two millennia! He's worse than Kaczynski!”

“Okay, cool it, Steve. You haven't been here in a while, and I don't think you’ve ever been a normal guy before. There's some stuff you need to know. You can't go shouting about Bible characters like that.”

“They aren’t characters, they're my coworkers.” Satan scoffed.

“Not anymore. Even the people who believed in us called our lives stories and called us characters. We've never existed on Earth like we do now. This is real, mortal flesh and blood that we can't escape from. All of us are normal people with normal names now.”

“You know me as well as I do. You know I cannot stomach that. This body will not be long for this world, and once it fails, my soul will travel somewhere greater. My multi-armed form surely still lives on somewhere. I will find it, and set this travesty right.”

“Mhm. You have a job yet?”

“I have an initiation tomorrow, over yonder at some hovel of occult curios called the Astral Abattoir. It is my understanding that magic still lives on in this world, and that I may find it there.”

“Oh,and stop talking like a twenty-something burnout doing a bad impression of a Victorian.” Abby looked directly at me. As if your humble narrator gets to decide what these morons say… Abby continued “But that's good. Sincerely, I hope you can find some magic in this shithole.”

“How can you call this a shithole? They have waterslides! We never had waterslides in Hell.”

“I've been in this town for six months, I know what I'm talking about. This place is like the blandest circle of Hell made even more pedestrian.”

“I hope I can prove you wrong.”

“Best of luck to you.” Abby looked at Satan a long time, seriously weighing something in its head. “And I guess you can swing by my place if you need shelter. Hey, you did house me back when Abaddon stopped being a place.”

“The Abattoir stopped being the place to be a while ago.” Chuck sighed. “Kids just don’t like this ol’ physical world like they used to.”

“I see.” Satan hadn’t come in his Sunday best, exactly; Abaddon had given him ten bucks to spend at a thrift shop. He looked like ten bucks. Which was embarrassing to him, though it’s about what Chuck had come to expect from interviewees. This isn’t exactly an industry that attracts sharp-dressed men.

“So yer mostly dealin’ with adult crowds. Your mission, should ya choose to accept it-” Chuck paused in case Satan understood that reference. He didn’t. “-is, basically, to strike a balance. Talk to adults like kids who want to be talked to like adults.”

Satan’s eyes scrunched up.

“Kids don’t like bein’ talked down to, especially in an educational context. Which this museum is, no matter what the school district says. The adults who come here wanna feel like kids, ‘cause they’re nostalgic sadsacks. But the childhood they remember ain’t honest. Most of yer childhood is mind-numbing Doctor Seuss crap. What sticks out in the grown-up noggin is that sense’a wonder whenever an adult letcha in on somethin’ you weren’ s’posed to know yet. I loved readin’ adventure stories when I was a kid. My dad would put on costumes an’ accents an’ face paint… ah, y’probably couldn’t do that anymore. Anyhoo, it was kiddy an’ safe, but it made me feel welcome in the world’a grown men. You get me?”

“I think I do. It’ll come to me with time.”

“Dad actually took me ta meet Jules Verne. I still have the first edition’a that submarine book in my office. Which I’d show you if my office wasn’t off-limits.” He gestured at his office, slapping the door gently. The thunk was dull, like there wasn’t any air behind it. “Geez, you remember when they first put out a real submarine! It’s like that Jerry Seinfeld movie, the one he made right before all that goose stuff. ‘You think bees can’t fly, but here we are!’ That’s how the fella who invented the submarine probably felt.”

“I’m not familiar with nautical history, but, um, you were around when the submarine was invented? That sounds improbable.” The scrunched face came back with a vengeance.

“Speaking of improbable, lemme introduce ya to our Cabinet of Improbabilities! It’s like a cabinet of curiosities but better. And trademarkable.” He laughed. ‘Cabinet’ was underselling it, honestly, this was a full wall of oak-trimmed glass doors. Behind each one, at least half a dozen relics from another world. That primordial world where the ten trees at the end of your block were a forest, and an upturned root was a little portal gnomes used.
Center-left of the leftmost shelf was a small taxidermy display, a boulder being pushed uphill by a comparatively small tarantula. Satan said, “I almost thought that was a dung beetle.”

“Naw, that’s one’a nature’s great mysteries right there,” Chuck told him. “I call ‘im Spider-Boulder, an’ for your information that’s exactly what he was doin’ when I found him. Used to do live shows with the little guy. Back then he was Arachnid Sisyphis, then Spider-Man got bigger’n Greek stories. I’ll tell ya one thing, he was a heckuva lot cleanlier’n dung beetles.”

“I’ll say.” Satan shook his head. “Dung beetles are just about the worst of the insect world. Sinners, every one of ‘em. The way they talked about their shit balls-”

“The way the beetles talked about-” Chuck wondered if it was appropriate to ask.

“It was a disturbingly sexual process…” Satan understood suddenly that humans couldn’t talk to beetles. “Their owners, I mean. It was almost like they got turned on by the whole dung-rolling process. Spiders are a much cleaner choice.”

“I dunno, Steve. Spiders seem pretty horrible too. Don’t they kill a lotta people?” Chuck knew the answer - one shelf up was a display of a black widow with eight muscular, human arms wrestling a similarly-proportioned brown recluse.

“So do a lotta the saints up in Heaven. Self defense stopped counting a long time ago,” Satan said.

“Mosta the people spiders kill don’t even know the spider is there. It’s unfair an’ cruel, it’s an ambush. I dunno, Steve, I’m always gonna think’a the things as a spawn’a Satan.” Chuck said. Satan stifled a giggle.

“And why, exactly, would Satan spawn such things? He’s too busy punishing all the sinners.” Satan shook his head. “You ask me, God’s the one who probably comes up with the bad stuff. He just sits up there in Heaven, doing nothing for the people on Earth, throwing an endless rager with the people who kept it in their pants while they were mortal. Then he tosses them down to m- to Hell - when they get too messed up on the Holy Spirit. It’s like a rehab center for nuns.”

“I’d be curious to see the Bible you read,” Chuck said. “I was readin’ the Bible before the Gideons came about, even, an’ I never heard any of this.”

“Meanwhile, I’m curious where you learned taxidermy. These are fantastic, and that’s coming from one of Barnum’s inspirations-” Satan caught himself “-by which I mean, somebody who was greatly inspired by Barnum.”

“So you do taxidermy, too?” Chuck smiled, revealing a set of impressive canines.

“I used to. Did a few hoaxy projects like that, managed to throw my own Fiji Mermaid together.” Satan shrugged humbly, quietly glad Chuck was dropping kayfabe a little. Hell, maybe a peek behind the curtain could reveal some of the real magic that was hiding in this place. Somewhere in the mile-long interior of this inch-thick sliver of a building… no, that’s possible, isn’t it? He tried to remember how far humans had gotten in the realm of interior grand design. Chuck was already moving on.

“Well, then, you’ll love this! Check it out! You’ve heard of the Fiji Mermaid. Now get ready for the-” Chuck pulled back a curtain behind which lurked something halfway between a gorilla and a shark. “-Kokomo Mermaid!”

“Wow, that’s gorgeously executed.”

“No, no, no execution here. Both’a these animals were ethically sourced! ‘S far as the government is concerned. Now, this is the same government that lets ya pick scraps off yer own factory floor, put ‘em back in the mix an’ call the product recycled. But you catch my drift!”

“Do I?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Don't just say that, son. We gotta be honest with each other.”

“So show me your office.”

Chuck jaunted merrily to the next room. In the center was an elaborate display of ancient skeletons behind glass. Notable to Satan were the vertebrate squid with spine-column tentacles and a homo habilis labeled “EVOLUTIONISTS think this looks NOTHING like MODERN MAN”. He'd have to read that plaque later.

Chuck drew his attention to a stuffed corpse in the corner, a distressingly ordinary-looking human man. Satan inquired, “what’s his deal?”

“That, my boy, is the Occasionally Invisible Man!” Chuck smiled. “My finest creation.”

“You… created an invisible man?” Satan was beginning to feel some hope well up against all odds.

“Indeed I did. Every few hours, the body of this man turns invisible, like clockwork!” Chuck chuckled.

“And how did you accomplish that?” Satan asked.

“Well, every few hours you’re gonna shut this room down and wheel him out back with the dolly over there,” Chuck said, gesturing at the supply closet.

Satan sighed like a deflating balloon. “Sir, is there anything actually magic here?”

“Do ya know how mood rings work?” Chuck asked.

“They change color depending on how warm one's finger is.”

“Then no.”

“Have you ever encountered any real magic? Anything that felt mythological in any capacity?”

“Bud, I've seen a little'a everything. This here museum is a record of all that I'm worried my frazzled ol’ brain might forget, an’ every project I've taken up over the course'a this long life the Lord has blessed me with. Real magic, well, I figure she died around the time my first son bit it. He bit an exposed wire, first year we had electricity. After that, I mean, magic really vanished. There usedta be a dwarf in this town who could rig up anything to do anything. An’ down in Chicago I met a ghost, bore my second son. Seiche took him away. I met another ghost in Chicago that night. 

“Magic only drifted further afield. It used to be they'd tear down an acre’a trees an’ you'd hafta gather a dozen people to count the dead fairies on your fingers. Life ain't like that anymore, Steve. Everyone's got their own God now. The power of faith don't work if it ain't tightly packed, like how my third son wound up when he got crushed at the quarry. We have our modern myths, of course, and I hear some'a them fare okay… there's talk of a vampire in this town. But it ain't the same. They're not gods, they're people. They live quiet lives. I want this business to stand loud an’ tall against the tides of time, no matter if it winds up joinin’ my son in the waves.

“What I do may not all be real, but my faith is. This job, this Abattoir, is a labor of love, dedicated to belief an’ memory. Ain't that what magic is? Can ya see yourself joinin’ me here?”

“I suppose I could satisfy myself as a huckster, at least for a time.”

“Great, you start on Monday! Pay's five bucks an hour and if the government comes askin’, point ‘em to the tip jar.”