Goodbye Lucifer

Goodbye Lucifer

  By John Harold McCoy

  Copyright 2012 by John Harold McCoy

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

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  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  GOODBYE LUCIFER

  By John Harold McCoy

  Lucifer sat at his desk grumbling and shuffling papers. The papers weren’t important; he just wanted something to do while he grumbled. Finally, all grumbled out, he dropped the papers on the desk, sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and pouted. A few minutes of pouting, a long resigned sigh then a sudden thought. He sat bolt upright.

  “Lauderdale!” he pronounced loudly.

  A demon appeared in the office doorway. “Are you all right?” it asked with a concerned look.

  “Yes!” exclaimed Lucifer. “Yes, I’m fantastic. Oh, and by the way, I quit.”

  He stood up, strode across the room to the door, patted the little demon on the head and said,

  “I’m outta here.”

  ONE

  IN THE SPRING, when clear moonlit nights are just right, gentle breezes carry the fragrance of newly bloomed night jasmine through the open windows of the fine old houses on Meljac Lane. In the second story bedroom of one such fine old house, Jilly Meljac lay sleeping in the massive old bed, the frame for which her great grandfather, Karol Meljac, had hewn from the corpse of a great oak, ravaged by lightning and causing numerous casualties in the chicken coop atop of which it fell almost a hundred years ago.

  In sleep, oblivious to the ghosts of long-dead chickens, Jilly wove through a world of dreams reserved for well-adjusted sixteen-year-old girls from well-adjusted families—well-adjusted that is except for David who although semi-okay as a little brother was in Jilly’s estimation crazy as a loon.

  Little David’s latest obsession, brought on by too many ill-chosen comic books, was playing vampire. Yesterday, while running around the house gnashing his teeth and nipping at everyone in sight—as he imagined vampires did—David had bitten Jilly and consequently was grounded. There was a new rule in the Meljac household—no more vampires. Then again eight-year-old vampires, even play ones, don’t always follow the rules. And on this clear spring night, Hugo the Terrible—David’s new adopted name—stood in the moonlit bedroom beside Jilly’s old oak bed with the intention of giving her another good solid bite.

  The wooing squalls of two amorous cats from a neighboring yard had brought David out of his own dreams only a few minutes before. Frightened at first by the strange caterwauling, a sound he’d never heard before and one which even grownups find somewhat unnerving, he’d eventually figured out it had something to do with cats, but nothing to do with him. David was a bright boy.

  Even so, his initial fear had shocked him wide-awake and he lay there inwardly grumbling over being grounded for play-biting silly Jilly. He hadn’t even bitten her hard, at least not as hard as he should have, being a vampire and all. If she knew what was good for her she’d watch out from now on because of his blood lust. You didn’t mess around with blood lust. Everybody knew that, at least everybody in the stack of tattered, many-times-read comic books on the nightstand beside his bed.

  David started at the sound of another cat squall from the yard below his window. He wondered if the moon was full, in which case there was always the possibility the cats below were actually were-cats. If there were were-wolves, he reasoned, then there must be were-cats, too. He decided to stay awake for a while just in case.

  He sat up in bed and reached over to the pile of comic books. Taking the top one from the stack, the moonlight from the window providing enough light for his young eyes, he began scanning pages filled with pictures of fanged creatures terrorizing frightened maidens. One picture in particular caught his attention. In it, a young woman lay asleep in bed, an ominous figure with bared teeth looming over her. David stared at the picture for a moment, a plan forming in his mind, then slipped quietly out of bed. In less than a minute, Hugo the Terrible stood in Jilly’s bedroom looming over her sleeping form.

  The same cat sounds that had awakened David had brought Jilly to the brink of wakefulness, and the slight creak of her bedroom door as David crept into her room finished the job. She lay on her side, awake but unmoving, wondering what the little creep was up to. Through barely open eyes she watched him tiptoe to her bedside and bend over her. As David’s fangs drew near her bare shoulder, inspiration struck Jilly in the form of a slight grumbling in her lower abdomen. Barely able to suppress a giggle, she farted: long, loud and fragrantly. Eyes still almost closed, she watched as David jerked upright, stood for a moment as though confused then backed slowly towards the door.

  Jilly could hold it no longer. At her sudden burst of laughter, David yelled, “Jilly, you’re gross,” and ran out of the room, all blood lust forgotten.