Infinite Games

3. Pull the Trigger

Simon sat in a back seat of the game tent, watching his bingo card fitfully as the numbers were called.

"N Fourty-four."

Nope.

"O Ten."

Nope.

"G Eight."

His clawed hand applied a smudge of blue ink over the tiny square. He yawned out of boredom, as the game hadn't stopped since he arrived. How long had they been playing? Simon had no recollection of passing days. The other demons to the left of him had mentioned this place, Demimonde, made any immortal lose all track of time. The only way to tell how long a demon sat was the growth of his horns. Angels could check by the molting of their wings.

Simon's horns had just begun to emerge from his scalp. It was akin to the feeling of new teeth growing in, but where teeth stung, horns made hellfire. His scalp tingled uncomfortably at all hours. Sometimes he would tire of the bingo game and try to fascinate himself with his own new features. But the budding protrusions on either side of his head had grown so painful he dared not touch them. Today --Tonight? Tomorrow even? He had no clue of the date-- was grueling. The game had grown old to him and he wanted time off. The demons had begun to lose, and it did nothing but set his morale beneath the cloudy floor. A win would serve him good about now.

"Bingo," a high voice chimed.

Not a demon, Simon sighed. This is torture. The angel fluttered to the front of the room, and soon after a new, glowing body emerged from the back of the tent. They were such smug, pompous creatures, angels were. An air of superiority washed across the room as the new angel sat down. Simon dared not look at the opposition, for their pretentiousness made him sick in the gut.

"First row," bellowed The Lord of the Underworld, golden skin gleaming as he stood up. "You are relieved of the game. Until next round."

Both first rows moved forward as if attached to an invisible conveyor belt. Then dropped through the murky floor into an abyss.

"Where did they go?" Simon asked in shock. "Did they die?"

How ridiculous his question sounded as he asked. Of course they weren't dead. They were immortal, and none had stared into the golden Lord's eyes.

"They have been sent to their places. The angels shall climb to the heavens with their wings, while we fall to the underworld, as we have nothing to prevent our descent," answered the demon beside him. He was an older satyr, his chest hair no longer the youthful caramel Simon's was. It was black as the darkest shadow, and so were his horns, which were beginning to dip into the first curl of his existence. The older a demon, the more curls his horns bore. Each full twist represented about a century of mortal time. Simon couldn't even imagine what it had been like, playing bingo for a century. It sounded dull as a way to spend the afterlife. Yet the demons who had just been dropped to the underworld each held three full rotations from their heads. Their leg and chest hair had been a ghastly white, Simon recalled as he looked at the empty room space where they had sat. Each one's skin had remained taut, except around the neck and gullet, where it had loosened. Their pigment had faded to a dull pastel color that reminded him of crab meat. How pitiful to live forever and look as if one was dead.

Simon touched his growing horns in alarm to check for aging, and bit back a yelp as they stung severely. He laid his pulsing head upon the desk and closed his eyes to wait for the pain to reside. Just a little rest would be good, he thought. God, how it hurt. He had been bitten by a snake once, back on Earth. A "tame" rattler used in a western film. The venom had acted fast, and Simon had been darn lucky medics had been on set.

Worst part wasn't the bite though. He had been doubling as a cowboy, and the rattlesnake had slithered up to him and the tied horses while he dismounted after a particularly exasperating gun fight. The giant thoroughbreds spooked when they heard the serpent's warning, and Simon fell off his steed into the dirt. One of his feet held him captive, as it twisted itself around the stirrup straps and prevented any escape.

The rattler bit him good, but couldn't wriggle to safety before it was bashed by a trampling symphony of sparratic hooves. Of course, that being said, Simon couldn't escape either. His left leg was snapped in three places, and two of his ribs were cracked by the same hooves that had saved him. The surgery costed loads. Simon couldn't finish the stunt job, and barely got enough payout to cover his injuries.

His momma had a hissy fit over him, calling his work "reckless" and "unstable," even though his freelance stunt work was what kept the both of them eating while she wasted her days sitting around. It was out of hatred that he had gotten the snake tattoo during his recovery. That was the turning point where his money was running too thin, and the both of them were thinning, too. Simon had yelled that she couldn't keep mourning dad, since he wasn't able to pay for it any longer.

She had gotten a full-time job at a Burger King the following week, and worked nights at a hotel. But Simon didn't stop the tattoo sessions until the entire black rattler was complete, which was the same amount of time it took all his injuries to heal. The sting of the needle had been almost as terrible as his splintered leg and ribs, but none of that compared to his horns. Someone was jabbing daggers through his skull right now.

"Head up, Devil Tellard."

A sinewy hand yanked his head from the table, and Simon ground his own teeth into nubs. The pain was nearly unbearable.

"Why?" he cried. "It doesn't matter."

"Play or I'll kill you myself."

Simon froze. A demon was not the one holding his head up. The Lord of the Underworld --with his all-seeing eyes of death and destruction, as a few of his fellow demons had put it-- was. Simon kept his eyes tightly shut. He risked death if he didn't.

"Answer me, Devil."

"I'll play, my-my Lord."

"Good."

The golden grip slammed him, right horn first, back on the table. The skin around the bulging black kernel leaked molasses-like blood down the side of his ruby face. Devil Simon Tellard wiped it away as his teary eyes directed themselves obediently back to the bingo card. The Lord of the Underworld had already returned to his seat. The numbers began again.

"I eighteen."

Nope.

"G Fourty."

Nope.

"I thirty-five."

Nope.

"B ninety."

Nope. Wait...

"Bingo? Bingo!"