The Devil To Pay

         Maury trudged up the final few steps to the 34th floor landing, a red file folder in his hand.  Sweat ran in little rivulets across his bald head and dripped onto the front of his starched white shirt, leaving small wet blotches.  He was out of breath and his short stubby legs ached. Being only three feet three inches tall was a definite disadvantage in this job.  But, that’s why he was put in this position. Nothing made the boss happier than misery and suffering.

         After a brief respite to wipe away some of the wetness, he took the large watch from his pocket and checked the time to make sure he wasn’t late. Smiling because he was on time, for once, he put the watch away, lifted his chin and marched off down the wide hallway.  His loud echoing footsteps bounced back to him from the steaming, stone walls and ceiling. A pair of blood red eyes watched him from up ahead, blinking once before receding. As hard as he’d tried, he’d never gotten a good look at whatever was there. This had bothered him for the first hundred or so years, but anymore, he just ignored the beast. Occasionally, a creeping vine would snake out of a dark corner and attempt to grab his ankle. A swift kick would send it retreating back to where it had come from.

         The passage eventually ended at a set of massive, double bronze doors with half a large stylized, ‘S’ on each one.  On either side of the large letter, were numerous carvings depicting men, women and children in the throes of torment and agony, their mouths open in silent screams.  Blood dripped from their empty eye sockets and the occasional crying of a child could be heard in the distance. An intense heat radiated from the doors, making Maury sweat even more. Since there were no doorknobs, Maury always had to knock. 

Maury took in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly.  He quickly rapped on the right hand door, hoping to escape burned knuckles, but it was no use. No matter how quickly he moved his hand, he would have blisters for the next several days. A deep rumbling sound filled the corridor as the floor began to shake.  The doors started to open slowly outward. A flash of fire shot out through the widening crack between the doors, followed by gray and white billowing smoke, accompanied by the almost overpowering stench of sulfur. Maury stepped aside and rolled his eyes.  The boss was such a showoff.

         After the smoke cleared, a two foot rat-like creature scurried out from its hiding place and tried to take a bite out of Maury. Maury quickly stepped aside, dropped the file folder, raised his hands in front of his face like a set of claws and let out a primal scream. The beast stopped, whimpered and skulked backward toward the shadows. Maury chuckled to himself. He picked up the folder and walked into the room.

         The room was dark and cavernous. From his position by the door, he could see a desk fifty yards in front of him. The boss sat at the desk with a file folder held up in front of his face. The doors slammed shut with thunderous reverberation just inches behind Maury, causing him to jump and look back over his shoulder.  The man in the black suit sitting at the desk emitted a deep baritone laugh, his eyes looking like flames in the dark. 

         The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started. “You’re late.”

Maury knew he really wasn’t, but he knew better than to argue with the boss. Instead, he ran to the desk as fast as his stumpy little legs would move. “I have this week’s figures, Mr. Satan,” Maury said putting his red file folder on the corner of the desk. 

         Satan eyed it for a few seconds and then sighed heavily before picking it up. He looked inside briefly, wrinkled his nose and the folder disappeared in a flash of fire.  “People just aren’t selling their souls anymore,” he said shaking his head, his eyes changing from red to a bright yellow and back again.

         “Will that be all?” Maury asked, bowing slightly at the waist and backing slowly toward the door.

         “No, I want you to look at something and give me your opinion.”

         “But sir, I’m just one of the …”

         “Oh, do shut up, Maury.”

         Satan stood up and vanished in a cloud of smoke. He instantly reappeared in a flash of fire at a long black table where a large roll of paper lay on one end.  His black suit was gone, replaced by a red jogging suit with the words To Hell with Everybody written across his chest.  Tiny fingers of flame flickered in his hairline as small electrical sparks jumped from his fingertips.

         “Just look at it and tell me what you think.  I’ve come up with a new scheme to get souls,” he said, spreading his arms, watching the paper unroll itself and lay flat across the top of the table.

         Maury approached the table, put his small hands on the edge and pushed himself up onto his tiptoes.  His eyes took in all the details from one end to the other and from top to bottom.  The paper was black and filled with yellow, white and green lines and arrows.  Scattered about the spaces between these, were circles, squares and triangles containing symbols that weren’t the least bit familiar to him.  Notes were scribbled in every margin and between the lines and arrows.  Small patches of fire flickered here and there without causing any damage to the paper.  A drawing of a snake came to life and slithered across the table until it fell onto the floor. Satan bent over, picked up the hissing reptile and hung it around his neck where it eyed Maury menacingly.

         Maury first closed just his right eye and then just his left. He tilted his head first to one side and then to the other.  He squinted and then opened his eyes as wide as he could. No matter how he looked at it, he didn’t have a clue what he was looking at.

         “It looks like a plan to me, boss.”

         Satan had been watching Maury’s reaction to the scheme. He rolled his eyes at Maury’s remark. “You’re a moron, Maury.  You don’t even know what it is, do you?”

         “Sure I do. It’s your…uh…new scheme.”

         “Look up here, idiot,” Satan said pointing to the top left edge of the paper.

         Maury looked over to where Satan was pointing and noticed that the jogging suit had been replaced by a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt with large purple flowers, a pair of purple shorts and a straw hat with a wide brim. Wisps of smoke escaped from beneath the snake, causing the reptile to cough periodically.

         “Like any good businessman,” Satan said, “I start by creating a demand.  Making people think they want something more than they actually do. Then I give it to them. I’ll give them as much as they want, as often as they want, with little or no effort on their part. Hopefully, in the process, this will lead to a worldwide addiction.”

         “Addiction to what?”

         “Stuff, Maury. Stuff that will lead them down perdition’s road; stuff that will leave them craving more.”

         “Like what?” Maury asked.

         “Well, mostly pornography,” Satan said smiling down at Maury.  “But maybe some illegal gambling thrown in just for fun or adult chat rooms that will encourage spouses to cheat on their partners. I will provide them with whatever they want and, being human, they will naturally obsess over it and will be sucked into the abyss without their even realizing it.  Then, once we have them in our grasp, we move over to here. ”

         “What’s pornostrophy?” Maury asked.

         “Never mind,” Satan said shaking his head.

         Maury watched in awe as Satan’s left index finger moved to the middle of the paper, leaving a small blue fiery trail behind it.

         “Oh,” Maury said.

         “See here?  People won’t think twice about putting themselves or their families at risk, exposing all their deep, dark secrets to complete strangers with no regard for the consequences.”

         “Why would they do that?”

         “Because it will be the thing to do. After all, everybody will be doing it.”

         “What will you call that?”

         “I was thinking maybe, social networking. And here,” he continued, pointing to the top edge. “Strangers will take advantage, creating hate and discontent by exploiting those secrets...stealing each other’s identities and bank accounts. Maybe I can even get the governments of the world to use it to spy on their people, causing general distrust of elected officials. Not that I need any more politicians, though.”

         Satan paused for a second and then spread his arms out toward the ceiling. “I can see it all now. People will lie, cheat and even kill each other because of this. My numbers will go through the roof.”

         The snake Satan had placed around his neck hissed loudly at Maury. Satan thumped it on the head and it glared at him hatefully before turning and watching along with Maury.

         “But how is that going to make people begin selling their souls again?” Maury asked.

Satan closed his eyes, leaned his head back and then rolled it around in a circle. Maury winced at the horrendous cracking and popping sounds.  He then sighed loudly.

         “They won’t have to anymore.” 

         “So, will everybody come here then?” Maury asked.

         “No, not all of them,” he sighed. “There will be a few holdouts, but I’m working on getting them too.”

         “That sounds pretty devious to me,” Maury said stepping back from the table, glad to be off his toes.

         “Why thank you, Maury.  That’s very nice of you to say. Remind me to give you a day off one of these years.”

         Maury ignored Satan.  “So, how do you plan on implementing this…uh…scheme?”

         “I’ve already started,” Satan said spreading his arms upward again. It’s the 1960s up there, Maury. It’s the age of innovation and the framework of the plan has been seeded into the minds of future political and economic leaders.  They’ve already begun developing my most life changing device.  It’s called a computer.  I predict it will quickly become a worldwide phenomenon. Within just a few years, every person on the planet will want one.  Most will have one. Then, others will learn how to connect them all together and allow everyone to talk to each other, creating what will become known as the Internet.  Shortly after that, the social networking I told you about will begin, and that, my faithful servant, will be the downfall of mankind. Why they’ll even be doing it on their telephones and televisions someday. ”

         Maury thought about this for a minute. All this talk confused him. He’d never even heard of telephones or televisions. Suddenly, Satan vanished again in a bright flash of light and instantly re-appeared back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk. This time, he was wearing dirty white sneakers, a lime green tank top with What the Hell? printed across the chest, a pair of ragged jeans and a ball cap worn backwards.

         “I’ve just had a thought,” Satan said dropping his feet to the floor and sitting straight upright. “I used an apple in the Garden of Eden to lure men astray, so I wonder if I could work it in here somehow. I’ll have to give that some serious thought.”

         He turned his attention back to Maury. “Are you still here? Don’t you have work to do?”

         When the heavy bronze doors opened, Maury bowed slightly and walked backwards until he was back in the corridor. As the doors slammed shut, Maury looked at the large bronze doors. He wasn’t sure how, or even if, Satan’s plan would work. Most of them didn’t. What he did know, however, was that people would, indeed, have the Devil to pay for their indulgences. But that was nothing new. They’d been doing that since the beginning of time.