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Back Happy Hour In Hell
Chapters (60)
  1. DAW Books Presents
  2. HAPPY HOURINHELL
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. prologue
  8. one
  9. two
  10. three
  11. four
  12. five
  13. six
  14. interlude
  15. seven
  16. eight
  17. nine
  18. ten
  19. eleven
  20. twelve
  21. interlude
  22. thirteen
  23. fourteen
  24. interlude
  25. fifteen
  26. sixteen
  27. seventeen
  28. eighteen
  29. nineteen
  30. twenty
  31. twenty-one
  32. interlude
  33. twenty-two
  34. twenty-three
  35. twenty-four
  36. twenty-five
  37. twenty-six
  38. twenty-seven
  39. twenty-eight
  40. twenty-nine
  41. thirty
  42. thirty-one
  43. thirty-two
  44. thirty-three
  45. thirty-four
  46. thirty-five
  47. thirty-six
  48. thirty-seven
  49. thirty-eight
  50. thirty-nine
  51. forty
  52. forty-one
  53. forty-two
  54. forty-three
  55. forty-four
  56. forty-five
  57. forty-six
  58. forty-seven
  59. forty-eight
  60. epilogue

Slowly at first, then faster and faster, we rattled up the great pipe. The lifter car, which was built more like a bank safe than a flimsy human elevator, nevertheless shook and screeched so much as it was tugged or pushed upward that at first I was certain we were going to derail, or whatever the hell elevators do when they go wrong. Instead we just kept going faster and faster, so that my ears began popping like popcorn. Then a flat, uncaring voice said, “Sour Milk Park, Hateful, Lower Childskull,” and the elevator slowed to a banging halt. The fly-buzzard man waited until the door squeaked open, then stepped out without a backward glance, as if in a hurry to get away from me. Just like folks back home.

I waited as the steam built up again (or whatever), everything hissing and vibrating. The door began to slide closed. It was amazing to consider that after all I’d gone through, I was now only a short elevator ride from my destination. If I had been a regular angel I would have felt confirmed that God really was watching over me after all, and was going to reward me for all my years of good behavior. Of course, if I had been a regular angel I would already have banked a few years of good behavior just in case. Sadly, though, that is one of the many accounts with my name on it that’s come up a bit short.

But just before the door finished closing, something dark poked through and stopped it. The appendage gripping the door looked less like a hand and more like something you might find buried in a cat’s litter box. The force of the door being restrained seemed to make the whole lifter strain, as if it was determined to break the deadlock or destroy itself trying. The mechanism whined, the shuddering increased. Then the door slid back open.

The thing that stepped in was a bulky man-shape made entirely of mud. It was naked and nearly without features except for a popped bubble of a mouth and a blob of wet clay that I guessed was a nose, mostly because it was somewhere near the two glowing yellow smears it wore for eyes. If I tell you those eyes looked like some kind of irradiated slugs emerging from a seabed, you’ll maybe begin to grasp how much I didn’t like looking at them. But it wasn’t just the eyes. I could feel this new thing, feel its age and its inhumanity. I don’t know what it was, but it was no ordinary demon.