* * *
The written directions from the janitor were both well-illustrated and tirelessly explicit. He had clearly drawn them much, much earlier. Either that, or he had the same time-defying hand as Lou. It wasn't that far-fetched.
As Alan walked, he passed many things that he thought didn't belong in an eternal pit of suffering at all: A courtyard with chess tables, a Squash court, even an arcade with pinball tables and a popcorn machine. But as fascinating as he found these, he had somewhere to be, and therefore didn't stop to inspect any of it. He looked down at the directions the janitor had given him:
Turn left at the stalagmite that looks like it has a big bite though it. Check. Keep walking twenty paces until you find a stalagmite that's twenty feet tall and looks like it's covered in dragon claw marks. Good. Now spin left three times, close your eyes after the second turn, and say--
“Too bad for Heaven, too good for Hell;
“What place can there be for a soul like me to dwell?”
As Alan said the words, he felt some kind of disturbance, somewhere between a headache and a gust of wind. And then there was a door.
It was the plainest door that Alan had ever seen in his life. It was inoffensive, unobtrusive, and unspectacular in every conceivable way. It must have taken a group of twenty bureaucrats to design such a door, and not one of them must have been allowed to have a hobby.
Alan reached out and opened it. He couldn't see what was on the other side. It was just a blinding glare of shapeless, white light. He had to go in.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and entered Purgatory.
At last, he could see the denizens of Hell. He was expecting pitchforks. He was expecting forked tongues, flaming eyes, mangled flesh and burnt hair. He was expecting impossibly ugly creatures a thousand times stronger than men, he was expecting the smell of rotting flesh and the screams of mortal torment. He received none of these things. The Denizens of Hell were no more remarkable than any other random sample of the human population. Hell is where regular people go; it never occurred to Alan that they might remain that way.
Alan pushed his way through the throngs of standing bodies. He must have been somewhere outdoors, though it couldn't possibly be anywhere on Earth. It was amazingly hard to navigate, since that there was no way whatsoever to tell where he was going. The ground was gray. The sky was gray. There were no stars in the sky or markings on the ground. There wasn't even a breeze. He tapped a demon on the shoulder.
“Can I help you, mister?” asked the demon. He was an elderly, cheerful man with a sparkle in his eye and the blues in his voice.
“Yes,” said Alan. He held up the contract. “I need to find the Devil.”
The demon eagerly grabbed the document and read it. “My stars,” he said. “You’re him! You’re him!”
“I think... yes,” said Alan. “I'm me, last time I checked.”
The demon held up the contract for all to see. “Bless you, man! You came!”
Other demons started turning their heads. Their eyes went wide, and their mouths opened with smiles and laughter.
“It's him, man!” the demon continued, this time shouting so that everyone could hear. His voice was clear and could be heard all throughout Purgatory, as it was no longer constrained by the pesky laws of physics. “I got 'im! The Contract Holder! HE'S COME AFTER ALL!”
The demon pressed the document back into Alan's hand. “Go on, son,” he said. “Go and sing your song, man.”
Alan felt hands pushing him and shoving him, guiding him and leading him. He drifted through the crowd, awash with smiles and shouts of excitement. Whispers of positivity drifted all across Purgatory.
And finally, Alan could see something ahead. A small hill right in the middle of the crowd. The Epicenter. The start of the Apocalypse.
The last gentle hand escorted Alan to the base of the hill, and he was on his own. He looked up. The hill was tall and steep. He couldn't see the end of it. But as he started climbing, it was easier than a set of stairs.
Finally, he reached the top, and was greeted by several figures. The first was a blond man clad in white, with blue eyes and a melancholy look on his face. Standing behind him were two more white-clad figures, equally solemn.
It surprised Alan to find a pair of figures he recognized: A tall man in a wide-brimmed black fedora, and a swarm of bees in shape of a column. The last figure at the top of the hill was Alan's long time, cheerful neighbor, Lou.
Lou, as it was now powerfully clear to Alan, was the Devil.
Lucifer was a powerful, imposing figure, who emanated might with every inch of his body. When he moved, his muscles danced and writhed like hungry snakes. Lou turned to Alan, the ground trembling with every tiny step, and smiled.
“There you are,” said Lou. His voice thrummed the very air itself. “I was wondering when you'd get here.”
“Is this him?” asked one of the men in the white robes.
Alan looked over the man in white robe's shoulder and tried to find Heaven's army, but all he could find was a small, pathetic group of people in white robes near the base of the mountain. There couldn't have been more than a hundred people, and not one of them looked happy to be there.
“Alan,” said Lou, gesturing towards the taller of the white-robed people, “I'd like for you to meet my good friend, the angel Gabriel.” He pointed to the other two white-robed figures. “And here's Ezekiel and Elijah,” and at last introduced Alan to his own cohorts. “And here's the Tall Man, and my second-in-command, Beelzebub.”
The Tall man nodded once, and Beelzebub buzzed, “Pleazzed to mzzeeet you.”
“Have you got something for us, Alan?” asked Gabriel expectantly.
Alan smiled. “Yes,” he said holding out the contract to Lou and giving Gabriel a smile. “I think I do.”
Lou opened up the document, and showed it to Gabriel. Gabriel practically wept with joy.
Lucifer turned to the denizens of Hell. “My friends!” he shouted. His voice boomed and roared loudly and clearly, thundering across the skies of Purgatory. “We have gathered here to initiate the final battle at the end of the world. We have waited century upon century to raise our swords and lay waste to the human world.”
There was a steely silence from the army of Hell. Each end every one of them was listening with all their might. Lucifer continued talking.
“And as much as I'd love to give the word and start the Apocalypse--” Lou held up the contract and unfurled it, its fiery letters shining like a beacon upon the armies of Hell.
And he finished. “--But I'm afraid I can’t. Because I have to return a lawnmower!”
And with those words, there came a hellish cheer.