Hellfire Jones and the Angel Invasion

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

So, this demon walks into a bar. She's dressed to the sixes. Polished horns. Swishing sharpened forked tail. Hooves a-clickin' as she struts towards the tiny crowd seated around the bartender.

Oh yes. So many sinners ready to be shaked and baked. There's Hal who's been cheating on his wife with his secretary. Boring, sure, but you've got to respect the classics.

There's Andrew pounding his fifth beer while gorging on chicken fingers. Gluttony is on the Top 10.

Sheryl wakes up every day thinking about poisoning her poor sick burden of a mother. She hasn't actually done it, but those thoughts are oh so vivid.

Then there's the bartender himself. Danny's a swindler, gambler, brawler and pornography aficionado. Not to mention the fact that he's enabling the rest of these folks with his alcoholic libations. How many of his customers are going to be speeding home drunk?

The answer is zero, because they're all going to hell tonight.

The drunks are all commiserating about how awful and pointless their lives are. If only they knew. They're so oblivious in their bubble of self absorbed emo, they don't even see damnation marching right towards them until it's far too late.

Hal, always the wandering eye, is the first to see the fiery hellspawn scraping the foosball table with her barbed fingernails as she walks closer. Sheryl gags at the sulfuric stench while Danny drops a nearly full liter bottle of Maker's Mark. Poor Andrew almost chokes on chicken bone, which is just fine. When someone's going to spend an eternity in hell, it really doesn't make any difference if they die painfully or not, but seeing someone's eyes bulging as they gasp for air is always entertaining.

"Hey. Hey. Well. Well," the demon hisses. "The lot of you are going to..."

As the demon speaks, her crimson skin cracks and lava streams of pus gush from her face. Hal screams. Cheryl tries to stand up but is frozen  in fear. Andrew is still gurgling; performing the oral gymnastics required to keep the chicken bone from sliding down his throat. Only Danny seems ready to defend himself, grasping a bottle of low rate vodka as a weapon.

None of them bother to guess the ending to the demon's rhyme. So disappointing.

"Hell, people. It's Hell. You're going to Hell," the demon shouts, spitting out tiny skittering insects from her mouth while voicing the 'p' in people. "Most folks are on their knees begging me not to send them to the fiery pits. Do you know what I loved so much about the last demon/angel war? Audience participation! It's like crickets in here. Tell you what. I'll give you one last chance. You?"

The demon points to Andrew who is now flailing his arms frantically, gasping for air.

"Okay. Maybe not you. How about..." The demon does a little eenie-meenie-miney-mo while pointing at each victim with her freakishly long centipede of a finger.

"You! Bartender. Riddle me this. Who's going to save you? A) God. B) No one. C)...Well, we all really know the answer, don't we?"

Unnoticed to all, is the tiny crack in the ceiling above the hallway in front of the restrooms. No one cares about it unless there's a bad thunderstorm. Then the rain drips into the hallway and Danny has to place a bucket along with a cautionary bright yellow 'Wet Floor' sign that people always trip over.

Tiny as the crack is, it's no problem for an angel who is used to dancing on the head of a pin to squeeze through. And since an angel is a timeless being, he's also able to combine all the rainwater that had ever fallen in the bar with his own angelic light to create a dazzling rainbow. The bright colors reflect off his golden skin, drawing all attention away from the demon.