The Anchoring Feast: Divine Intermission, #4

By L. David Hesler

Carl the Mistake has just learned two facts.

Hell is real, but it is called Nevernot.

And it is run by the mysterious Ministry of Dark Deeds.

The last thing Carl remembers is getting clocked in the face with a magical toaster before falling from the celestial steps of Elysium, Inc. Now he’s stuck in the hellish Nevernot where demons drink pig urine and everyone possesses spectacularly disturbing surnames.

For instance, consider the beheaded demon Malizia Lustyslime, who recently tried to tempt Carl from his quest during a surprise visit to the Infinite Beach. She’s intent on taking Carl to see his former best friend Chip suffer through the Anchoring Feast, the ultimate torture for any demon, hag, or slithering hell beast. She believes Carl is the Mistake that will bring eternal chaos to all the multiverse.

And she might be right.

But Carl has the Cosmic Swing of Things on his side. Time is running out for his best friend, his new friends in Nevernot, and the rest of the myriad universes he’s never even visited. And if there’s anything Carl has learned in his several thousand recycled lifetimes, it’s that when the going gets tough…

... it's only going to get worse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. David Hesler
• Release date: Oct 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386503958

L. David Hesler

L. David Hesler is an author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction for teen and adult readers. He currently produces the horror fiction podcast Bad Notes; he also co-produces the Be Mega Podcast, where he spends a few hours every week creating absurd super heroes with his friend Adam Martens. When he isn’t crafting weird tales, he is either pounding away on a Schecter guitar in his home studio or he’s trying to catch up on a reading list that’s been growing since 1995. L. David Hesler’s work includes the short story collection “Prismatica,”the ongoing novella series “Divine Intermission,” and the YA fantasy novel, “Children of Aerthwheel.” His poetry and short fiction have appeared in the literary magazines “New Wine,” “The Ivy Review,” and “State of Imagination.” His original play “Public Domain” was produced in 2012. He has also published the YA fantasy adventure “Roswell Newton,” a re-imagining of his own independently produced web comic “The Adventures of Roswell Newton.” Hesler has also written and performed music for several alternative rock albums with the bands DeepSkyTraveler and The Pale Hypnotic. In 2011, he released an album of music inspired by his novel “Children of Aerthwheel.” Occasionally, he performs live music in the virtual world of Second Life. For approximately seven years, Hesler was heavily involved in local theater to the point that he co-founded a production company that ran performances of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)” from 2000 to 2003. As you read this text, he’s probably thinking of ways to simultaneously give you goosebumps and make you giggle. Be warned.

Book preview

Hell is your home away from home.

This was part of the original marketing campaign to attract tourists to the hellish realm of Nevernot.

Theobold Lucifern was Nevernot’s marketing director at the time. He had recently graduated from Belial University, where he obtained a degree in underworld management. His instructors had all loathed him for having what they considered good ideas. Nevernot was not an environment fit for good ideas.

This didn’t stop Theobold. He took the first marketing job that became available; the previous marketing expert, an utter failure named Barbaro Kittensmash, had been boiled alive in a stew of boiling pig urine.

Theobold knew Nevernot was in trouble. A record low number of souls had just been recorded by the Ministry of Bad Math, leading everyone to believe that the pious folks at Elysium, Inc. were somehow cheating. Theobold’s idea for fixing matters was quite simple. He believed a quaint catch phrase would help draw more visitors.

Hence, Hell is your home away from home.

He envisioned Nevernot as a cozy and inviting place where it might be warm, but never too hot. He wanted it to be a place where families could spend eternity together without fear of judgment. He’d heard stories about the souls who went to Elysium, Inc. They were ridiculed and mocked for having failed to uphold so many antiquated values.

He wanted to provide an inviting alternative to the Netherverse’s heavenly fields.

The problem was this: Nevernot was not inviting.

It was filled with lakes of boiling bodily fluids, mountains of rotting flesh, and rivers of brackish blood. Flea-plagued hounds roamed in packs, feasting on whatever happened to be in the area at a given time. The ground split open and revealed glowing and eternal torment below; it oozed out in great rivers like pus from behemoth lesions.

Theobold Lucifern’s marketing campaign fell apart as soon as it was on paper. He fell into a deep depression and spent a few centuries torturing various organisms to help ease his own emotional pain before resigning altogether from the Ministry of Notorious Marketing. He vanished into obscurity.

It was at this time that the Ministry of Dark Deeds, the soulless beings responsible for such dastardly creations as airborne disease, hemorrhaging wedgies, and random tax audits, sought to change Theobold’s original plans. The members of the Ministry were, in all honesty, a pack of sadistic purists concerned more with tradition than commerce. They cared little for anything that didn’t bring about at least a small bit of pain and suffering.

The Ministry of Dark Deeds was aware of Theobold’s hope that Nevernot might someday be a happy and less flesh-searing place. The cloaked members of the Ministry were also aware of the growing imbalance in the Cosmic Swing of Things. Many morning meetings had been dedicated to discussing the increased upheaval of reality and its connection with something or someone deemed the Wondrous Blunder.

The Ministry even hired a demon to try and infiltrate the mysterious Sock of Crumb to find some answers. That demon did not survive its quest.

One eternal evening, as the Ministry was ending a session of decision-making and insult-slinging, one shrouded figure rose from the table of ancient bone, and cleared his throat.

This was done quite literally as he did not have any flesh from his jaw-line to his sternum. He dug a particularly pesky grub from the cavern of his esophagus and then offered it as a snack.

When no one accepted, he tossed the grub aside. I have an idea.

The other figures, most of whom were tired of listening to ideas and were frankly ready to see some impaling or flaying, groaned or shrugged or rolled their obsidian eyes. They were quite disgusted with the whole notion of thinking and very much interested in activities of the painful variety.

No, he said, shaking his head and crossing his skeletal arms. This is a terribly awful idea. You’ll all want to hear this, I’m sure.

And, as all the players of this divine farce have managed to do, the Ministry of Dark Deeds laid a ludicrous plan. In this case, the plan required a chance meeting of ambitiously innocent Theobold Lucifern and the Wondrous Blunder known by some as Carl the Mistake.

The members of the Ministry grumbled with approval and encouraged their colleague to continue. He smiled in the way that only a living corpse void of soul and compassion can manage.

We’re going to break the universe with stupidity.

1.

––––––––

When Carl awoke, he was laying on a firm bed. His feet were pinned in place by an enormous blanket that had been tucked tightly beneath the mattress. The bed was at the center of a narrow and long room. A television with a broken screen sat on a crooked table at the foot of the bed. The walls of the room were pale yellow with various discolored splotches. Some of the stains looked like the remnants of blood splatter, some were more likely urine, while others appeared to be rotten cottage cheese and moldy pea soup.

Carl tried to move his arms. They were tucked under the blanket, too. He could barely breathe. The room and everything in it smelled of old smoke, as if an aged smoker had spent the entire last century breathing used and rancid air into this miniscule room. Even the blanket stunk like an ancient smoker’s tongue.

Welcome, a voice said. It was thin and seemed coated in some foul fluid. If bile was a voice, it was this.

Carl looked around the room. He saw no one.

A toilet flushed and a door at one end of the room swung open. Water rushed out of a faucet and someone in the restroom began to hum. The tune was an exercise in discord.

Hello? Carl asked.

The water faucet was shut off and a small man walked out of the restroom. He wore a blasphemously yellow and red leisure suit that was about three sizes too small. It looked as though it was made for a child. Around his neck was a golden chain and a pendant in the shape of an upside-down letter A. Black hair sprouted out from the neckline of the suit.

Hi there, ho there, the small man said. His voice seemed the result of mucus-covered glass shards being scraped across a broken sidewalk.

Um, where am I? Carl asked.

The small man smiled and tried to pull his sleeves up around his forearms. His flesh was covered in miniscule red blisters and more patches of black hair. Carl thought he could also see parasitic insects crawling through the hair on the man’s arms.

Well, as far as I can tell, you’re in the best suite here at the Hotel Spitz. Even got a boob tube.

Did you say spits? Carl asked.

The man approached the broken television and slapped it on the side. A plump spider crawled out of the cracked screen and regarded him for a moment. The short man snatched the insect up between two chubby