The Final Bwa-Ha-Ha 2

Nothing happened, though Mary stood expectantly, her head back and her chest thrust out, waiting to receive the lightning bolt.

Blaze laughed drolly. “The Rock of Eternity is the center of all existence,” she chirped. “But who’s to say Hell exists? And Beatriz, my flame probably wouldn’t burn you anymore than yours would me, but you wouldn’t last long impaled on my horns.”

“What about us?” Booster demanded, his fists upheld.

“Uh, what about us?” Ted whispered.

“I’m not with them,” Ralph said.

Blaze waved a hand dismissively. “I wasn’t going to bother, but since you ask, you could spend a small eternity protected by Michael’s forcefield, seeing how long it can hold out before you’re consumed by our flames. Seems like torment enough to me.”

“The fiend!” Ralph cried. “Making us count the seconds until we meet our demise!”

“I meant all of you being forced to keep each other company, but—” She turned her glowing eyes on Ralph. “You’re the one who stretches, aren’t you? I mean, all of you humans stretch, once we get you on the rack, but you can stretch everything. Grow everything. Elongate everything. The Elongated Man.”

Ralph mewled, “At least she didn’t mistake me for Plastic Man.”

“You leave him alone!” Mary shouted, not showing any sign of being deterred by the failure of her powers. “You can’t do anything to us! We’re not supposed to be here!”

Blaze checked her nails. “Do you know how many of you people are supposed to be here but aren’t? There’s a clown we’ve been expecting for a good ten years, but he never shows up.”

“That happened to me with an eBay buy once,” Ted said.

“There’s supposed to be a Day of Judgment at the end of time, but until then, you can see how an awful lot of things won’t be judged. So, since you’re here, I think we’ll be putting you to work. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how busy things get down here. Which is really a problem on your end, when you think about it. Sometimes I wish you guys would all start going to church and loving your neighbor—gay shit like that—just so the rush would die down!”

“You can’t force us to work for you,” Bea cried. “That’s slave labor!”

“Why, thank you for noticing! It’s so hard to pull off down here, since everyone we get is, you know, being paid the wages of sin…” A quick swish of her fingers and a scroll appeared in a gout of flame. Blaze studied it. “Beatriz, you’re actually here early. You’ve already been earmarked for one of our lesser vassals. Baal-Satyr.”

“Figures,” Bea sighed. “Let me guess: he’s going to eat me. Starting with my great big butt.” She glared at Ted and Booster.

“What’d we say?”

“What haven’t you said? La mierda that comes out of your mouths…”

“What Baal-Satyr does with you is his business,” Blaze airily continued. “Michael, Ted, you’ll be filming porn.”

“Wait—” “What?” the two said.

“I know, right? It’s so obvious that it almost feels like a twist. But no, we’re actually responsible for that.” She turned her gaze to Ralph.

“And what have you got me penciled in for? Horror movies? Rock and roll?”

“A man who can stretch his body to any length? You’re coming with me.”

“Alright, Ralph!” Booster cheered.

“Wait, that’s an option?” Ted asked. “Now I feel a little left out.”

“Maybe if you stretched something other than your waistline—”

“She didn’t pick you either!”

Ralph coughed loudly to interrupt them. “Excuse me, uh, Lady Ms. Blaze? I’m married. I really can’t have sex.”

Ted held up a finger, then lowered it. “Nah. Too easy.”

And Booster jerked upright as though coming to attention. “Oh. Right. I’m married too. No sex for me.”

“Are you sure? It’s been half an hour; she might have died of old age.”

“Polly is a vital woman who regularly exercises!”

“Needs to get in shape to chase you around the bedroom, does she?”

Blaze held up a hand. “We don’t care much for the institution of marriage around here. In fact, we do all we can to devalue it. Why do you think we make so many actors get married?”

“That’s you?” Bea asked.

“Uh-huh. Like I said, always the one you most suspect.”

“I’m telling you, I won’t do it!” Ralph insisted.

“You’ll do it or—” Blaze’s forefinger described a circle in the air and now Mary was surrounded by a ring of blue-hot flames.

“Mary!” Bea cried, jerking back before she could be burned, wincing at the sight of Mary reaching for her and then having to pull her singed hands back.

“Look at that,” Blaze chuckled. “No matter how many people have said it, Beatriz, I guess you really aren’t hotter than Hell.”

That didn’t dissuade Bea from wheeling on Blaze, the green fire that was her body pushing back the red of Hell like an oasis had suddenly sprung up.

“You hurt her and I’ll kill you, puta!”

“Oh, and where would I go?” Blaze counted off the fingers of one hand with the forefinger of the other. “There’s no escape, no fighting, and no talking your way out of this. I’ll be nice and give the little one an easy job, but the price to be paid is her elders’ cooperation.”

The four adults looked at each other dismally.

Ralph’s nose twitched.

“Wait a minute!” he cried. “If you’re so all-powerful here, why do you want to make a deal with us?”

Blaze shrugged. “I’m a devil. It’s what I do.”

“I think you’re bluffing. You don’t have any power of us because we’re not supposed to be here. And if we just believe and have confidence, we can bust right out of this place! C’mon, everybody! Let’s get the Hell out of Hell!”

Five minutes later, they were all in chains, considerably more bedraggled than they had been upon their arrival in Hell.

“That was your plan? Run for it? Fight our way out?” Booster demanded.

“Sometimes a simple plan is the best,” Ralph reasoned.

“That wasn’t simple! That was retarded! Where were we even running to?”

“Well, you hear about the Gates of Hell all the time, so I figured—”

“You hear? You hear? You hear about cold days in Hell too, all the time, do you think that means we should be on the lookout for mittens and scarves!?”

“Don’t yell at him,” Ted said. “At least he didn’t think we got Tronned.”

A demon came by, little more than five feet of bones wrapped in leathery skin, and took the end of Bea’s chain from the post it’d been locked to.

“Oh, thank God,” Bea said as she was led away. “Or whoever.”

Ralph hung his head and moaned. “I can’t believe I’m going to be unfaithful to my wife!”

Booster perked up. “Oh, right, I can’t believe I’m going to be unfaithful to my wife either.”

“Give it a rest, Gold,” Ted said.

“I think we have definitive proof that there’s no rest for the wicked.”

Another living skeleton came by to collect Ted and Booster by their leashes.

“Well, filming porn, how bad can that be?” Ted equivocated.

“It’ll be, you know, normal porn, right? Straight porn?”

“I don’t see how it can be lesbian porn.”

“But there will be women—”

“Man, if we ended up in Hell, I have to imagine plenty of women did too. And I don’t think Hell is all that into, ah, gayness. I don’t know which religion got it right, but it can’t have been the Republicans.”

“Don’t know? We’re in Hell! That makes it pretty clear.”

“Yes, but this might be Jewish Hell, Muslim Hell… you think there’s a Mormon Hell?”

“A place where everyone who’s not a Mormon goes? I think it’d be nicer than this.”

“The irony is, anyone who lives in Utah would be used to this temperature…”

Ralph and Mary were all that was left.

Mary spoke first: “I don’t want you to do anything to betray your wedding vows, Mr. Dibny. Your marriage is a sacred covenant between you and Mrs. Dibny and God. Don’t throw that away because of me.”

“Mary, you’re just a kid. I can’t let you suffer because of me.”

“I can take it. We just can’t let these… these servants of evil despoil your love!”

“Sue would want me to protect you, no matter what it takes. You have to stay safe.” Ralph straightened; his thumb stroked his wedding band. “You’re young. You joined us on a lark and we’ve all been trying to protect you some. Maybe we thought that would just be keeping Guy Gardner out of earshot, but… you’re a good kid. I’ve seen so many good kids get kicked around and dirtied up and turned sour by the world. I don’t want that for you. You’re staying good. Maybe the rest of us are has-beens or never-wases, but you’re going to make something of yourself. None of the others could live with themselves if they stopped you and neither could I.”

Tears welled in Mary’s eyes. She couldn’t say anything. She just rested her head on Ralph’s shoulder.

“Mr. Dibny?” she said after a while, as another skeleton appeared and headed for their chains.

“Yeah, Mary?”

“Why does she care so much that you can stretch your body? No offense, but that always seemed like a bit of a weak power to me.”

“Oh, she uh, she—” Ralph forced his nose to wiggle. “It’s a mystery. See? See?”