Season 11 Week 2: "Living rent-free in your head"

THE SNATCHER

“. . . and that’s how you can live rent-free in your head, with Jesus’s help.  This is Reverend Bob of the Airwaves Church of God, KGOD Oklahoma, wishing you a bl. . . .”  Reverend Bob was interrupted by a slight malfunction.

Molochet smashed the radio in his truck with a hammer.  He had had enough; this brought him a moment of relief, but he knew it wouldn’t last.  Within minutes, the radio would be back, but for now, the ice cream truck was quiet, except for the howling of the souls in back.  Now that was music to his ears.  It sounded like home.

“I hate soul-collecting,” muttered Molochet to himself.

Transporting the souls of the damned to a hell mouth meant a reprieve from the agonies of the Pit, but Satan made sure it was still as painful as possible.  “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” appeared in flames at every transfer station, and He meant it – even on special assignments, Satan made sure that torment continued.

“You’re in God’s country now . . .” blasted the reconstituted radio, louder than before.  Molochet’s man-suit quivered and his rigid smile drooped slightly at the corners.

“If I break it again, it just gets worse,” thought Molochet, before throwing the hammer out the window.  “Best to avoid the temptation.”

A newer, bigger, more enticing hammer flew back through the window and landed on the seat next to him, just begging to be used.

“Next up,” said Reverend Bob, “The Peking Opera rapping all your favorite hymns in Mandarin!”

Molochet would have cried, except that his boiling tears turned to steam inside . . . who was it this time?  All he knew was this was the most uncomfortable man-suit yet.  His barbed tail was tearing a hole in some damned person’s mortal remains and it was stifling inside.  Of course, the van’s air conditioner was broken; Motor Pool had seen to that.  Where did they find an ice cream truck anyway?  Probably from some poor soul now roasting in the Pit.

“At least I’m not in Hell,” thought Molochet.

His soda disappeared, replaced by a cup of battery acid and his juicy, half-eaten hamburger was now some road kill.

“Skunk, by the smell of it,” he thought as tried to lower the window, which predictably jammed.  “Someone’s having too much fun with this.”

This had the expected effect.  Back at Administration, his personal monitor was sent back to the Pit, to be replaced by some minion who hated his new job.  The monitors made sure the snatchers didn’t enjoy their time on the surface, but they were not allowed to like the assignment.

“Gotcha,” Molochet gloated.  The volume on the radio decreased, since revenge and gloating were sins.  The food didn’t change and he was still hungry.

As a soul collector, or “snatcher,” he had to cover his territory and transport the souls of the damned to Hell.  They were carried in the freezer section of an old, battered ice cream truck to amuse Satan.  He wanted to tease them into hoping that maybe they had escaped the eternal fires.

The Angel’s Ice Cream truck couldn’t go more than 45 mph and he covered the whole Midwest, the worst territory.  All the snatchers wanted Vegas or D.C., which were rich in the damned and very compact.

Right now, he was on some dirt back road in eastern Oklahoma, sent to bring in Emma Jackson, who had sold her soul for “a little more excitement in my life.”  Satan had burned down her farm house, which had given her a heart attack.  Fifty-three years of pious living and now, after a moment of weakness, she was going to be in the same transport box as the soul of a serial killer.

Reverend Bob’s voice dwindled almost to nothing.

“More gloating,” thought Molochet.  Just then, a tire went flat.

His gloating had been followed by the tiniest bit of hope for a smooth collection.  Nothing made Satan madder than hope.

“Got off lucky,” he thought before he could help himself.  The other three tires went flat, and he had only one spare.  He could hear the jack breaking.  Moloch beat his hands in despair on the steering wheel.

Back in the box, the soul of Big Ed giggled.  Ed had been a drug dealer, and the more time he spent on the road meant less time in Hell.  If you’ve ever been in Hell, every second above ground mattered.  What Ed didn’t know was that his laugh increased his torment for eternity.  Nothing escaped Satan’s notice.

“I hate Him,” Molochet muttered.

The wheels and jack all fixed themselves.

“I really hate Satan,” Molochet yelled.

Nothing else happened.  He wanted to get his hamburger back, but at least now he could get going.

When he got close to Emma’s burned-out home, he fired up the loudspeakers and began playing “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” over and over again, with all the charm of a stuck recording played through tinny speakers.  Normally it attracted children, but Satan used it to summon souls for transport.  It was very effective, and the “Out of Service” sign broke the hearts of the little children, which was a nice bonus.

Moloch spotted Emma’s soul hovering unseen over her husband, John, who was staring dejectedly at the ruins.  He felt comforted by his wife’s presence.  As soon as she heard the music, Emma began to cry, knowing what it meant.  Feeling his wife leaving, John covered his face with his care-worn hands and began to sob.

“Perfect!” thought Molochet.  “Satan loves these touching family moments.”

All he had to do was go to the back of the truck and open the little freezer door, and in went Emma, tears and all.  He could hear her soul scream as the enormity of what was happening hit her.  The other souls laughed.  They were not a nice bunch; but then, they were on their way to Hell.

The last time he felt pity was for the soul of a little girl who wanted to bring her teddy bear.  This resulted in a complete release of his cargo so that he had to track them down again.

He despised Satan for dealing in children.  One time, after a 90-day Pit visit, Molochet had been allowed to resume his duties with the knowledge that his feelings had almost, almost, resulted in a transfer to Purgatory.  This was true torment, and for years the minions kept replaying the expression on his face in a training video for the hellkeepers.  It always brought a big laugh.

Emma’s soul was the last on his list.  His next stop was the hellmouth located near Heaven’s Rest Motor Park, just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, right in the middle of Tornado Alley.  Satan loved to locate the entrances to Hell in disaster areas.  Destroying whole cities seemed so biblical, and He had loved those days.

It was going to be a long, torturous drive – just the way Satan liked it.  The minions in Administration didn’t like to interfere too much at this point.  Satan was eager to get his new souls, and the monitors didn’t want to cross Satan by slowing snatchers down on their way to drop-offs.

Four days of slow, hot driving through Oklahoma and Nebraska was bad enough, but Molochet was forced to listen to Reverend Bob the whole way, at various degrees of loudness.  Reverend Bob was one of Satan’s favorites.  He was a small-town preacher who had sold his soul for a national radio show.  Of course, poor Bob hadn’t asked for a successful show, so the only listeners were top-side minions and lovers of conspiracy theories and UFOs.  Molochet couldn’t wait to collect his soul.

He finally arrived at the Heaven’s Rest Motor Park; even for RV parks, it was battered, dreary, and nearly empty.  Its main feature was an on-site bar, the Long Shot, where the few residents gathered to drink away their Social Security checks.

Next to the Long Shot was Molochet’s destination: the office and clubhouse.  The office was staffed by low-grade demons who took care of transferring souls from snatchers’ drop-offs to Administration for processing and assigning the proper torment.

Molochet wanted to get a drink at the Long Shot, but his man-suit was beginning to rot and most humans didn’t like drinking with someone with maggots on his face.  He had to get his next assignment anyway, so he had to report to Administration.

“I’ll see you in Hell,” Molochet said to the office demon as he disappeared with a burst of fire, leaving the man-suit behind for the demon to take care of.

After a punishing dip in the Pit, Molochet got his next job:  snatching souls in Florida.  It was a lot of territory but it was full of the damned.  The motor pool assigned him a decrepit rental moving van specially lined to contain souls.

Appearing in Miami wearing a new woman-suit, Molochet headed for his first pick up: the soul of a politician.  Once again, the air conditioner didn’t work and the radio was set to Reverend Bob.

It was the job from Hell.