Nick took the paper from Ariana. Before he could get a good look at it, he found himself in front of a large, brick building. Even if it appeared to be nighttime, there was a stonework sign outside that read “PANDEMONIUM POLICE DEPARTMENT” in bold lettering. Next to the building’s entrance was a large circle, adorned with intricate, interweaving writing that formed its border. Despite this strange flourish, in a lot of way ways, it resembled Boston D-6, the police district where Nick would park his Charger every morning. But in many other ways, it was worlds removed from anything Nick had seen. The building seemed to project an aura of authority compounded by feelings of dread and hopelessness. Nick's prior coldness was replaced by an intense heat. It licked at his face, blew down the sides of his torso and stung his feet. He thought he could hear moaning in the distance.
He pushed hard against the heavy front door and entered the precinct. The door closed shut with a crash that echoed through the hallway that seemed to stretch into infinity. As he walked down the hall, Nick peered around at the tall, looming architecture. Although the interior had a decent amount of lighting, shadows seemed to throw themselves in just the right angles to make you think someone or something was going to jump out at you. It was like he had entered one of those Halloween mazes, but without the underpaid actors. At last, he saw a door that looked like it led to an office.
He went to approach what looked like the front desk before he stepped back. Sitting in front of him was another freak at a desk. Its skin was police-blue, and indeed it wore something resembling a modern police uniform. A pair of stubby horns adorned its skull. It had a bony, clean-shaven face with sunken cheeks, reminding Nick of one of those older substitute teachers that everyone hated back in school. It seemed to be chewing on something. It looked up at Damon, revealing green, glowing eyes. Its nametag read "Panpeus".
"Nick Nemo?" Panpeus said. His voice was higher than Nick anticipated. Somehow, he expected all demons to have low, growling voices, like they had smoked nothing but cigars made out of the ashes of the foulest souls, but nope, this one sounded nothing like that. This one sounded more like a squeaking door. Nick nodded, trying not to laugh. Panpeus tapped the side of his head. "He's here," he said.
"Good, about time," another voice said. Nick looked to his right and saw another demon approach him. This one had dull purple skin, and carried itself like it had no pressure to get to Nick in any prompt span of time. He had a blank, apathetic look on his face, and walked with a posture that was right between casual and professional. He seemed to be chewing on something. He stopped and studied Nick for a moment with his dull yellow eyes. His uniform had more adornments than Panpeus and the material seemed to be something other than cotton. Compared to Panpeus’ shirt’s lack of wrinkles, this guy’s shirt looked like it had gone through the wash a couple of thousand times, with wrinkles that would not come out no matter how much one ironed. He reached out his hand.
“Ripaliel,” he said in a low, grating voice. Somehow, his voice managed to be both low and high pitched at the same time, like two voices were coming out of the same body. “Call me Rip.”
“Nick,” Nick replied, shaking the demon’s cold hand. Rip’s long, blunt nails scratched the inside of Nick’s palm as they shook. The demon’s listless face didn’t change as he released the handshake and started to walk towards the hallway from where he had entered the foyer.
"Let me give you a tour," Rip said. “Then, we’ll swear you in.”
Nick stood there for a moment as Rip continued to walk away. He caught up with him.
“I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but can you maybe stop and tell me what the hell is going on here?"
“That’s exactly what’s going on,” Rip said. “You’re observant for a human.”
Despite himself, Nick laughed.
“That’s not the first time I’ve been told that.”
“And I doubt it’ll be the last. Unless you’re a total screwup.”
“You’re gonna throw me down just like that? I haven’t even done anything yet.”
Rip just looked at him and shook his head. He continued to stroll down the long, long hallway to wherever they were going. Nick wished that the guy would just hurry up, but he kept on strolling along with his hand in a single pocket, looking straight ahead, as if nothing else in the underworld existed. This guy was way too laid-back to be the boss around here. Still, Nick had to humor him. What was he going to do, fire him? Literally?
The two walked into the office. It was a wide, open space with cubicles upon desks upon caches of papers upon stacks of papers. All around, there were rows of open desks full of humans, almost-humans, and other creatures. Some stared at computer monitors, others were conducting calls in a language that sounded like throaty gibberish. Nick saw curled, tall, and spiky horns, short tails and those that coiled upon the floor, petite wings and those that draped over the office chairs. Nick must have seen every manner of unholy adornment upon almost every person or living thing in the room. By reflex, Nick felt himself reach up and do the cross upon his chest, triggering a few cross looks in his direction. Rip seemed to be unaffected as he slowed down to a stop.
"Tour ends here. Here’s your desk," Rip said, patting an aged chair slotted inside of a desk that looked almost as old as him. The desk was empty, and reminded Nick of the desks he had to empty over the years. There were several stacks of papers already piled on the desk. More than anything prior, this was the sight that made Nick feel like he was indeed in Hell. He looked up at Rip, who was just as dry as he had been for the whole introduction. “Not a fan of paperwork?”
“Who is? Last time I had to do this was the first time I entered the force.” Nick folded his arms and grinned to himself. “I used to be quite the celebrity in my unit, you know.”
Rip just stared at Nick.
“Well, some things are the same,” Rip said. “Kind of.”
He snapped a finger and a heavy, brown book appeared in his bony hands. It was bound in a leathery, ornate skin, and it seemed to writhe in Rip’s hand. He shifted it to his palms and held it out in front of Nick, who just stared at it.
“Go on, put your hand on it. ”Nick glanced between the book and the demon, keeping his hands at his side. Rip tapped the cover of the book, making it growl at him. “C’mon, it won’t bite...”
Nick swallowed before reaching out and putting his hand on the book. He gasped, feeling like all of the air he had in his lungs had been expelled with just that touch. Then, he thrust his head upward.
“I do swear, that I will well and truly serve our dark lord and his realm as a police officer, with extreme prejudice, malice, and ill-will, until my soul is released from the underworld, that I will see and cause the karmic balance of this realm to be kept and preserved, and that I will prevent to the best of my power, all offenses against that balance, and that while I continue to be a police officer, I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties thereof, faithfully, according to Satan’s law.”
He took his hand from the book and his head fell from its rigid posture. He fell to his knee and began to cough and gag, his throat all of a sudden feeling like he had gargled brimstone. Rip just smiled to himself and opened the office door for Nick. As he got up from his sudden fit, Nick felt like he needed a lozenge, maybe one that was blessed by the Pope.
“You were goin’ on about you who used to be. Lemme ask you this. Who were you for the past three years?"
The word "were" stuck out in Rip’s question and stabbed into Nick's head, like the pain he felt in purgatory.
"Officer Nemo, Boston D-6" Nick said.
"And now you are Officer Nemo of Pandemonium, an agent of Captain Ripaliel,” Rip said.
Nick didn’t know whether he should feel honored or frightened. Rip put one hand on his hip and made a deep sigh.
“Come on, let’s meet your partner.”
He walked off in another direction, back into the expanse of desks and demons. As much as Nick would prefer to pull out his standard issue handgun and try to find the next layer of the afterlife, he had little other choice.
--
Rip and Nick arrived at another desk, where a red-skinned demon sat with his feet up on the desk, snoozing away. This one had curled horns that accented a shock of pitch-black, wild hair. Unlike many of the demons in this precinct, this one sported red skin that wrapped itself over wiry muscles that threatened to burst themselves out of the police shirt. The sleeves were torn off of the shirt, inky, sweeping tattoos adorning his deltoids and running all the way up to his hands. His hands were taped up with some sort of gauze, and he sported claw-like fingernails, sharper than Rip’s. He slept with an audible snore, and drool dripped down from his mouth to the ground with a sizzle. Rip’s eye twitched and then the sleeping demon flinched, almost falling to the floor. As he composed himself, he gave Rip a violent look before staring at Nick.
"New human?" The demon had a husky, textured voice, one that would wear away at your patience like a sandpaper.
“Yep,” Rip replied.
The demon looked back at Nick and sneered, revealing sharp teeth that went along with his yellow, glowing eyes. Despite the hostility, Nick reached out his hand.
“Nick Nemo,” he said.
The demon’s sneer faded into an unsure frown. He stuck out his bandaged hand. "Damon," he said. "Just Damon."
Nick shook his hand for a second before pulling it back, shaking it hard. He felt like he had just touched a hot stove. His hand felt tender, and if he knew any better, he almost got a welt.
"What gives?" he said. Damon shrugged.
"Could be worse," he said, making a toothy grin. "I could've put a mouth on my palm."
Rip sighed and snapped his fingers. A dense hunk of flesh appeared in his hand. He reached out to Nick’s breast pocket and stuck the flesh inside. Nick felt the flesh throb and pulse out of rhythm with his own heartbeat, which he was shocked to feel return.
“Thanks for the welcoming gift, I guess,” Nick said. “What’s this thing supposed--”
He felt himself gag and his head tensed up. An image began to form in his mind’s eye. There were a group of humans and several demons huddled around two figures whose presence seemed to glow with divine light, albeit somewhat faded. They were bound with crackling, purple light, and several demons were reaching above their heads to scratch at their halos with their claws. As they tortured the angels, their screams made Nick’s ears ring.
The vision ended, and Nick fell to his knees, reeling from the intense episode. Rip just chewed with lidded eyes before giving a half-hearted wave.
“Good luck.”
He left Nick panting on the floor. Damon stood over him, grinning to himself. He crouched and slapped Nick on the back.
Nick’s police siren blared above his Charger as he watched the perp speed ahead, burning rubber in its midst. The rain splattered against his windshield, the windshield wipers dashing left and right to wick off the water obscuring Nick’s vision. He turned the wheel sharp to the right and then floored the accelerator as he exited the curve. But, a sheet of water flooding the street, otherwise hidden by the downpour, traveled beneath his tires. Nick felt himself lose control of the wheel, and then his world turned upside-down.
Nick felt a sharp pain in his skull, and his vision went black. For that moment, he ceased to exist in this world or the next.
A few seconds later, he blinked again, and he found himself in a white void. The whiteness filled his entire view, imposing and ever-present. He looked down at himself, seeing that he was still in his uniform. But this was not the driver's side of his Charger.
Just ahead of him were several rows of people. In fact, the rows seemed to stretch into infinity. He got up from his chair and looked around. There were dozens and dozens of rows of chairs, filled with people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Most of the chairs were occupied, and occupying those seats were people, but with one difference. One woman was in hospital garb, clutching her side, blood staining her fingers and tears filling her dead eyes. One man held onto his severed arm, covered with blood that dripped down onto the white floor before fading out of existence. Some of the chairs were unoccupied, but over time, people faded into view, filling those chairs. The space was filling with more and more people, people who seemed to be alive, but...
He looked down at himself again and felt that sharp pain once more. He reached up to his head out of reflex and felt a wet spot. He looked down at his hand and saw blood coating his hands. He flinched and began to open his mouth to shout, but the people in front of him began to get up. He held his mouth open as they advanced further down their row and further into the white void. As he stood there, he felt a finger tap his shoulder. Looking behind, he saw an endless row of disgruntled, injured people. He looked ahead into the void, feeling too cold to move. He took a deep breath and swallowed, advancing with the line. His head continued to throb.
He walked ahead for a while, walking toward nowhere, it seemed. He looked down at his watch, seeing that it was 7:59pm. He looked back at the unending scene in front of him. The white void had no vanishing point other than the endless rows of chairs, and aside from the shuffling of feet and sounds of breathing, he heard no other sounds. There was the occasional groan of pain and listless sigh, but nothing else. He held his mouth half-open, as if a dozen words were about to fall out, but nothing came out. He reached up to feel his chest, to feel the throb of his heartbeat, but felt nothing. What would have otherwise set it beating again just made him lower his arm to his side and continue marching onward.
The cycle of waiting, moving and more waiting continued. Nick looked down at his watch. Still 7:59pm. Maybe time went slower here? He looked ahead, seeing the same void. How long was this going to last? Where was everybody going? Where was he going? He tried to open his mouth and speak, but still no words came out. He tensed his throat and tried to scream, but nothing. He looked around at the others, looking straight ahead, like zombies. Could they not speak, either, or was there just nothing left to say?
Soon, the rows of people began to disappear into a thick fog. Nick drew closer to the fog as the line of people ahead of him grew shorter and shorter. He looked at his watch one more time. 7:59pm. He felt a twinge of fear, and a greater coldness than that which had filled him for the endless span of time that had passed. He wanted to stop, but he felt compelled to move forward, not just by the people behind him, but by some unknown force that was driving him onward.
Nick reached the threshold of the void and paused for a second. Fog drew forth from nowhere, creating a wall that seemed to reach into the sky and expand in every direction. It looked like it was swallowing the entire world, leaving nothing at all beyond its wake.
He held his breath and stepped forward into the fog.
--
Nick found himself inside of a small office. In almost every manner, it resembled a regular office. There was a desk, a computer, and desk decorations. But sitting in the chair behind the desk was something unlike anything he had seen in his life, or so far in his afterlife. There was a creature with tentacles for hair looking right at him. Nick looked closer and saw that each tentacle had fangs and eyes, and joined their mother in her stare.
“Nick Nemo?” the creature-woman said.
Nick held his mouth open before replying.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
The woman nodded. She looked nonplussed, as if she had done this millions, billions of times before. Nick looked below and saw a golden placard on her desk, declaring her name to be “Ariana”. Her snake-hair mingled and writhed above her scalp as she typed on her computer. Behind her, a tall column of fire burned high, flaring and licking in every possible direction, almost threatening to eclipse the office and bathe it in unholy fire. But, it remained, static, just as Nick was as he waited. At last, Ariana spoke again.
“Born October 8th, 1988?”
“Yeah,” he said, crossing his leg. “Same day as my brothers.” He smiled, but he felt a sinking feeling at the same time. Ariana seemed to be unaffected.
“Died October 28th, 2015?”
Nick didn’t know how to reply. Instead, he started to smile again, although it felt a lot more forced this time.
“So, that’s it?” he said, starting to chuckle. “That’s all I get?” He started to slap his knee. “That’s fucking great. I bust my ass and I get in some freakin’ random car accident, and now I’m down here.” He folded his arms and looked toward the window behind Ariana, where the tall column of fire continued to burn. “Fucking great.” Ariana raised an eyebrow at Nick, whose smile faded. He nodded. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
Ariana continued to type away at her computer. She stopped for a minute, drumming her long, manicured fingernails on her desk as she waited for her computer to respond. Nick tapped his feet on the ground. Maybe in a few minutes he’d wake up in a hospital room, with a nice doctor who says that he survived a near-fatal crash on a back road that he ought not to use for a chase during a downpour. His brothers and sister would surround him, and he’d feel a wave of relief, feeling like the luckiest cop on the force. He felt tempted to pinch himself.
“Hm, says here that you had a history of accepting bribes, slacking off on your patrols, smoking pot on school grounds, double-timing your boyfriend...” Ariana paused to scroll down the page some more before pausing and shooting Nick a blank look. “In short, your karma rating is...not great.”
“The fuck’s that mean,” Nick spat back. “Be straight with me, I’ve got a long afterlife ahead of me.”
Ariana rolled her eyes and gave Nick a cross look.
“You’ve got a long afterlife ahead of you, all right, strapped to the back of a jagged boulder while some hotshot demon goes to town on your balls,” she said. “Does that sound like a fun time to you, Nick?”
Nick shrugged and crossed his leg again.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m not normally into the whole leather thing, but I could get used to it.
Ariana narrowed her eyes at Nick.
“You think you’re the first mortal to make that joke?”
Nick gave her a smug grin.
“I never said I was original.”
Ariana leaned towards Nick.
“You know what happens when you make the leather joke down here? They put the whip in your urethra. Have a funny human comeback for that?” Nick just stared at her for a moment. “I didn’t think so. Moving on.” She typed for a while longer, squinting at her monitor and looking even more sour by the minute. Nick adjusted himself in his seat as she worked. Just then, she locked eyes with him again. “Look, you weren’t a good enough guy to get sent to a paradise realm. And I doubt you want to be at the mercy of some demon for a couple centuries.”
“Might be worth a shot,” Nick said, flashing a smile. “I mean, I figured I was going to Hell anyway.”
“Most people do.”
“I mean, I thought I’d get some brownie points here and there. I donated to charity every year, you know.”
“The charity of Nick Nemo, you mean. You couldn’t have given out one less parking ticket?”
“I had a quota.”
“Well, I’ve got a quota, too.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Nick felt the buzz of his initial bravado fade away and be replaced by that now-familiar cold feeling. He flinched when he heard a printer start up out of nowhere. Ariana reached down and picked up the paper, glancing at it for a second before reaching for a stamp and stamping hard down on it. She handed the piece of paper to Nick before looking back at her computer.
“Have a nice afterlife,” she said without looking at Nick ever again.
