C1 Sin
by Candice Green
COLOPHON
Sin
Candice Green
© 2019 Candice Green
All rights reserved.
Author: Candice Green
8 Bethway Dr Apt 104 Sykesville, MD 21784
ISBN: 9783965444324
Preface
"I have a story to share with you. A tale about the most unlucky of men, seven bored demons, and a contest. The luckless soul is called Jerry Kinkade and were you to look up 'loser' in the dictionary there would be an out of focus picture of this poor sap...”
A figure steps from a bar's dark interior into the hazy afternoon. The slight drizzle of rain abruptly stops, as though it feels Jerry is not worth the effort. A cold wind moans down the alley as the man shuffles by with his hands in his pockets. Jerry sighs heavily. He had enough on him for a couple of cheap draft beers, not nearly enough to dull the ache behind his eyes. He trudges toward his apartment imagining the look on his girlfriend’s face when she finds out he's been fired from another job. Your basic minimum wage nightmare.
“You see Jerry is the type of guy who would wander past where he lives, while pondering something, leading him to an abandoned old house on the outskirts of town, as a real tempest comes swooping in…”
The rain starts to fall, and soon turns to ice. The wind whips up around him and Jerry is ripped from his gloomy musings. He looks around, startled, unable to get his bearings at first. Lightning strikes an old oak on the other side of the street, blinding him. He catches his newsboy cap pressing it to his head, to stop it from getting stolen by the wind. Jerry runs for the porch of a dismal house whilst still trying to gather his wits, ice and wind assailing him. Once there, it becomes immediately apparent that he will not be going anywhere soon with the storm growing in intensity. Without expecting the door to actually open, he turns the rusty knob in an attempt to get out of the weather. Surprisingly, the door opens with a soft, ancient creak. He steps into the interior briefly lit by a flash of lightning, kicking the door shut behind him.
The place is only warm by comparison to the cold outside and has a smell that put one in mind of a grandma's attic in mid summer. The scent of dust and dry wood makes it obvious no one has lived here for some time. Stumbling around, Jerry tries to use the intermittent light to guide him. Eventually he finds an old candelabra in a corner with a couple of candles nearby. Snatching them up, he pulls his lighter and lights one. Force of habit kept the lighter in his pocket, though he gave up smoking a couple of years back. Using the candle to navigate, he soon finds himself in a small, dingy parlor with a fireplace. A quick glance around reveals a shattered table and chair, most likely the work of the same vandals whose artwork lined the walls. After collecting a small armload of wood, he sparks a cozy fire to life in the fireplace. Those two years in boy scouts really paid off he thinks, as he stokes the flame. The storm continues to rage outside, the walls of the old house moaning with every gust of wind. After a time, he fishes his phone from his pocket in an effort to call his girlfriend, Laura, to pick him up. He presses the power button only to find that he has forgotten to charge his phone yet again. Shoulders slumping, he sighs once more. Besides, he thinks, I ’m not even sure there ’s time left on my card. Removing his coat and cap, he sits down in front of the fire. He gazes into its depths as he wonders, for the thousandth time, why life always wants to drag down him.
Shadows dance on the walls around his slumped form in an almost magical performance. He is miles away, his thoughts drifting towards the past... of family. He had been happy when he was young. An only child, his mom coddled him and his father always told him there was greatness in him. At the age of twelve, everything went sideways during their annual family vacation. The joy of swimming, fishing and boating at their small cabin ended that year. Jerry had been the only survivor of a horrendous boat accident. Orphaned and alone, he was sent to live with his father's sister, Aunt Erin, and her brute of a husband. Over the next six years he would play the role of ‘Cinderjerry’. Aunt Erin and her husband, Salvadore, would drone on about how bad his life would be without them. Never once did they miss an opportunity to reiterate just how much he should appreciate all they did. All they did, Jerry snorted. All they did was bankrupt him, spending his small inheritance on whatever pleased them; tvs, entertainment systems, expensive steaks... For some reason it was the steaks that irked him the most. They did not actually starve the boy, a school might have picked up on something like that. However, by the time he turned eighteen he was beyond sick of peanut butter and jelly, dry cereal or for a ‘special treat’ bologna sandwiches.
He could hardly remember the last birthday party he had with his parents and, at this point, he didn't acknowledge he had them at all.
“Such things are not for useless little orphans,” Sal used to say.
He hadn't thought of Salvadore and Erin in years. Some time ago he had heard that Sal had taken ill and was practically an invalid. It crossed his mind, at one point, to go and visit his former tormentor. Just to pinch him hard for all the times the man had pinched him for no other reason than to hear him yell. Jerry never did go of course. Under his shabby exterior he was still a nice guy, unfortunately. Often times, he felt it was the niceness that caused him so much trouble. A lways getting the blame for other people's shit.
He massages his temples, Laura drifts into his mind. She was the kind of person he needed the least in his life. Always ordering him around and talking crap about him to her girlfriends, even when he was standing right there. Life had done a fine job of serving him up to her on a silver platter. Miserably, he stares at the fire. Running from his thoughts he finds himself caught in the gentle, uncaring embrace of slumber. He starts to doze, struggles against it for a moment, then ultimately gives in. He curls up with his coat for a pillow and lets the drone of the rain lull him to sleep.
“Now one might think ol’ Jerry was going to sleep out the storm and go back to his crummy life. But we’re talkin’ about Jerry. He's the kind of guy that would walk into an annex of Hell and lie down to take a nap…”
The afternoon turns to night with the storm still splitting the heavens and Jerry remains asleep. In fact, he sleeps so deeply that he never realizes that the house is changing around him. Whispers drift through the air. Jerry, had he been awake and paying attention, might even become a bit concerned.
*
*
*
At one end of purgatory, a horned figure on a large throne stares into the darkness. Lucifer, as he is known, is not a bad guy. So he cheats at Mah Jong, nobody's perfect, and he does have an important role to play in controlling the Chaos. Chaos rests behind the throne of Hell, literally. It serves as kind of an interdimensional, self-baking oven cooking up demons out of the ether. The number of -actual- demons, not damned souls or Hell's elite, has remained relatively consistent since the dawn of time. When their number does drop, however, Chaos sneezes a few new ones into existence leaving Lucifer to deal with the result.
To be fair, it's the same on the other side of the coin. Although, God does let the Archangels take over occasionally. Lucifer does not have such luxury and has learned, from experience, to always stay on his toes. Long ago there was an accident of sorts, one of those chaos buggers got loose, and it took him a millennium to fix the damage. None of that, however, will have any relevance to current events and Jerry's sad little life, which is about to be changed in so many ways.
*
*
*
Numerous dark shapes move along the walls. One of these shadows pulls itself free and drifts behind the man’s sleeping form. Soundlessly it coalesces into a lovely woman with big blue eyes and silvery blonde hair. She was the kind of woman who stopped traffic whilst walking down the street. The faint scent of honeysuckle and vanilla permeates Jerry senses, even in his slumber. She pokes Jerry but all she gets for the effort is a soft inhalation of air. She turns and signals for the rest to emerge. Several other shadows peel themselves free of the walls and become six, rather interesting if not odd looking, creatures. Another female, with raven hair and bottomless dark eyes, glances at the sleeping form and back to the first woman. Around them five men slide silently into existence. Their appearances range from young and disheveled to attractive and well dressed. Technically, among this strange gathering there is none called leader. Although, one especially well-groomed man possesses a quality any rulership would envy. Confidence, like a force of nature, exudes from his very being in waves, that compel onlookers to give him their undivided attention. This man, who calls himself Hubris, gazes down at Jerry.
“Really?” he snorts in distaste.
With this illustrious statement, Jerry awakens.
