The Hallowed Land Experience

Authors: Veyanne and Chris

Names have been changed to protect the 'innocent'

Christians Roasting on an Open Fire

 
Liander stretched out languidly on his beat up old couch, wearing only a loose pair of boxers. It was another lazy morning and the young demon of Fate was bored. The previous night had been entertaining, convincing drunks into embarrassing displays of human stupidity always was, but that cruel pleasure had faded with the sun's return. Liander aimlessly flipped from channel to channel on the television until a story on a news station caught his eye. There was going to be a party of some sort at 'The Hallowed Land Experience', a bible-themed tourist pit in Orlando. A number of prominent members of the Religious Reich were scheduled to attend. Liander scratched his chest idly, wondering whether or not that much hypocrisy in one place might cause the universe to implode.

"One can only hope.", Liander said to no one in particular.

Liander's musings were interrupted by a familiar tingling sensation at the back of his neck. It was the telltale sign of another celestial being about to manifest in the physical realm. Liander closed his eyes and smiled as he felt the press of warm flesh take form above him. He opened his eyes and took in the sight of the preternaturally alluring woman who now straddled his bare stomach.

"Hey baby.", he said with a smile.

Liander looked up at the beautiful dark skinned woman who was sliding her body back and forth over his. She wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing and her flesh sparkled with beads of perspiration. Slowly she opened her eyes and looked down into his.

"Hey, where did the other guy go?", Kiri asked.

"Umm.", Liander began to answer. But he didn't have any answers. All that he had were more questions.

"Who...", he started.

"The guy that I was just doing.", Kiri answered quickly.

"Oh well.", she added and reached back underneath Liander's boxers towards his cock.

Kiri's talented hand had Liander's cock hard in seconds. Liander smiled broadly as Kiri slowly slid her body down his chest towards it. He felt the end slowly start to enter her and he closed his eyes, relishing the feeling. Even though hell had it's major shortcomings, heaven was never like this.

"Liander.", said a voice, but it wasn't the soft, sweet voice that he was expecting. The voice that he heard was inhumanly cold and sent icy feelings into his very soul. It spoke in barely a whisper, but the sound echoed in his ears as if it had been screamed.

His cock shrank and retreated.

"Oh yeah.", Kiri said non-chalantly. "I was supposed to tell you that we're going on another mission."

Liander barely heard her. In a flash he pulled himself out from underneath Kiri and turned his head all around looking for Kendra. His mind raced through the last few months trying to remember whether he had promised Kendra anything that he had forgotten to deliver. That would have been bad. He couldn't remember anything, but that didn't make him any less nervous. The voice spoke again and Liander noticed that it was coming from the television set. He turned to look at the screen and suppressed the urge to press the off button on the remote.

The anchor man's head was now moving in slow motion and his eyes appeared like black coals in shriveled eye sockets. Liander watched the man's lips moving slowly, forming words that matched the chilling voice coming out of the speakers.

"Jerry Farwell. Pat Roberson. Gary Blauer. Bob Barry. Bill McCarthy. Bob Jonas.", the voice spoke as the images of the men flashed in the box over the anchor man's shoulder. "These men are adulterers, pedophiles, sodomites, sado-masochists, and necrophiliacs."

Liander got a visual image in his mind involving Gary Blauer that he tried very hard to get rid of.

The voice continued, "Go where they meet. Entice them. Make them sin. Catch them. Film them. Bring the evidence to me. We shall destroy them."

"Cool.", Liander thought to himself. Feelings of relief began to wash over him as Kendra's voice faded.

The television screen went back to normal and the anchor man began talking about Iraq. Liander noticed that his heart was pounding and that he had broken out in a cold sweat. He took a moment to gather himself.

"She'll give us a few minutes before she takes us there.", Kiri said as she crawled over and put her hands on Liander's chest, "That'll give us just enough time."

"Uh, shouldn't we get dressed?", Liander said regretfully as Kiri's lips got closer and closer.

"Oh, ummm, yeah.", Kiri conceded.

Liander hurriedly dressed up in his usual stylish threads while Kiri threw on whatever was handy. Just as Liander put on his gargoyles the scene changed and they were in a mall in Orlando.

Liander's mind was reeling from all the changes over the last few minutes, but he had learned that when Kendra sent you on a mission that you had to act and act fast.

"I'll get the gear.", he said to Kiri, who looked far too adorable in one of his dress shirts and a mismatched pair of socks. "You find something to wear that's enticing and fits the period."

"I don't have those.", Kiri said grinning.

Liander scratched his head for a moment, then he got it. He also realized that Kiri wasn't trying to make a joke. He was going to have to give her simpler directions. Liander located the nearest costume store and asked the clerk to find something both sexy and biblical in Kiri's size. Then he headed off to The Sharper Image hoping that Kiri wouldn't have gotten herself into too much trouble by the time that he returned.

Liander worked his way through the throngs of shoppers, varying his pace every so often. To most observers, his actions didn't even register but Liander knew that those few moments lost or gained by those around him would have consequences. An abrupt pause here to admire a window display and the young lady who just had her hair done would have an unpleasant encounter with a flock of pigeons. A quickened step there and the new father pushing his darling little baby in a stroller would, later that day, enter a cross walk at the worst of all possible moments. Liander just smiled and walked on.

At The Sharper Image, Liander browsed the various overpriced gadgets for sale. He briefly considered picking up a rather elaborate personal massage wand as a gift for Kiri. He thought better of it, muttering softly to himself, "She'd just break the damn thing in the first ten minutes, anyway."

Not wanting to keep Kendra waiting, Liander got to the business at hand and picked up the most expensive digicam available along with all the essential accessories, long distance zoom and lots of recording time. He also selected a set of lipstick cameras, perfect for the covert voyeur. Testing out the camera, Liander playfully filmed the cute sales girl leaning against the counter. He thought of a few other poses he'd like to see her in but, alas, there wasn't time. If Kiri was being true to form, she'd be riding some poor guy into a heart attack by now.

Liander handed his credit card to the girl, allowing his fingers to briefly come in contact with hers. A flood of images flashed through his mind. Her name was Cindy and she was struggling to balance the pressures of work and school. A new semester was about to begin at the local community college and she was in desperate need of tuition money. Perhaps Liander would get to play filmmaker after all.

Still touching Cindy's hand, Liander used another of his abilities. Feelings of warmth and friendship washed over the well-tanned little blond.

"Cindy, right? How'd you like to make some spending cash? I've been looking for someone to star in a little movie I'm filming. You would be absolutely perfect." Liander smiled disarmingly and began to trace lazy circles on the back of the blushing girl's hand.

Blinded by Liander's charms, demonic and mundane, Cindy agreed without hesitation. "I'd love to! I've always wanted to be on film." She quickly scribbled down her phone number on Liander's receipt. He picked up his purchase and smiled at her. "I'll call ya."

Liander hurried back to the costume shop, hoping that Kiri hadn't gotten any noticeable stains on her outfit yet. As he reached the door he saw two mall cops leaving with a couple of silly grins on their faces. Liander was slightly relieved that the two weren’t dragging Kiri out of the store in handcuffs, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t wearing a pair.

The store was empty and no one was behind the counter. “We don’t have time for this.”, Liander muttered to himself as he walked swiftly towards the door to the back room. Just before he passed by, a belly dancer burst out of the dressing room and turned her head towards him. Although her face was mostly covered by a veil, Liander recognized Kiri’s alluring eyes.

“Hiya.”, Kiri said lifting her hands above her head. She began to clap out an enticing rhythm with her finger cymbals and rocked her hips seductively from side to side. For a moment Liander was transfixed. Then the moment grew longer. He watched Kiri twirl around, flexing her arms slowly to the beat, and writhing in a way that would make a snake jealous. She was a vision of middle eastern beauty, covered from head to toe in flowing pink veils and decorated with rich looking gold and silver trinkets.

“The Religious Reich doesn’t stand a chance.”, Liander thought to himself. Then he noticed the sales clerk stepped out of the dressing room tucking his shirt into his pants.

“Will that be all miss...”, he started. Then he looked up and saw Liander staring at him. “Oh crap. Umm, uh.”, he stammered.

Liander looked sternly at him, appearing as if he was one wrong word away from flying into a jealous rage. He slowly pulled out his credit card and handed it to the clerk who nervously rang up his order. Without speaking Liander signed the receipt and walked out with Kiri dancing along after him. The clerk breathed a sign of relief and decided that when his shift ended that he would go out with his friends and have a beer, completely forgetting that tonight was the night that he was supposed to meet his fiancé and her parents for dinner.

Of course Liander wasn’t at all jealous. He wasn’t the jealous type. It was just that whenever he went on a mission with Kiri it seemed like he was the only one who didn’t get to do her. But he had a job to do and he was determined to do it well. He knew that the better he performed on his missions for Kendra, the more of Kiri he would get to see. Those were the times that made everything worth while.

“Where to now?”, Liander wondered out loud.

“The Ditsy bus.”, Kiri said bumping her hip against him twice and staring provocatively into his eyes. “Kendra beeped me while I was in the dressing room.”

“The Ditsy bus?”, Liander wondered, “Won’t that take us to Ditsy World?”

But Liander knew better. He walked Kiri out of the mall and they charmed their way on to the Ditsy bus without a riding pass. The couple behind them were not so lucky.

“No ticket. No ride.”, the bus driver scowled.

The couple was insistent but the driver still wouldn’t let them on. Liander smiled back at the them in a nasty way as the bus driver flicked his cigarette butt at their feet and closed the door in their faces.

“Some people. I swear.”, the driver began to rant.

Liander offered the driver another cigarette and a light.

“Thanks.”, the driver said. “These things are going to kill me one of these days.”

Liander just smiled.

The Ditsy bus pulled out of the mall and was soon cruising down Interstate 4. Kiri couldn’t sit still. She kept clapping her finger cymbals together and swaying to the rhythm. She even began to dance in the aisle until the driver told her to sit back down. She asked everyone around her if she looked sexy enough. They all said yes, but Kiri couldn’t hear it enough times. Eventually she asked the bus driver what he thought.

“Do I look better like this, or with more of my cleavage exposed?”, Kiri said adjusting her skimpy veiled bra.

The driver looked in his overhead mirror a few times. “More, show more.”, he said.

“How’s this, oops.”, Kiri said as one of her nipples popped out.

The driver couldn’t resist. He turned and looked over his shoulder and got an eyeful. Just then a school bus full of parishioners from the Tallahassee First Presbyterian Church cut in front of them. The school bus swerved hard and hit the brakes in an attempt to get to the exit ramp. Liander looked up and braced for impact as he saw that the driver was staring at Kiri’s chest and not at the road. The driver turned back around too late as the Ditsy bus slammed into the back of the church bus. Liander grabbed Kiri and pulled her back into her seat as the driver of the Ditsy bus was thrown halfway out of the windshield. Then both vehicles lost control and went skidding down the off ramp. Liander took a look out through the hole in the windshield and saw a semi carrying a tanker full of gasoline waiting at the stop light ahead.

"Bet they didn't mention this in the brochure.", Liander said bracing for the imminent collision.

The Church bus turned sideways and would have stopped in time if the Ditsy bus hadn’t been going full speed behind it. All three vehicles collided with a deafening crash as the impact threw everyone out of their seats. Gasoline began to spew out of the tanker all over the church bus and flowed out over the road. Liander grabbed Kiri’s arm and they both rushed for the rear exit. With inhuman speed they got out well before anyone else. The Presbyterians were also trying to get out of their bus, but both doors had been jammed shut by the collisions. Instead they desperately tried to get out through the tiny side windows. But only Kiri, Liander, and a few others on the Ditsy bus managed to get clear by the time the cigarette dropped from the mouth of the Ditsy bus driver and into the growing pool of spilled fuel.

The resulting inferno made the national news. All of the Presbyterians were roasted alive, and so were half of the passengers of the Ditsy bus including a lady who insisted on going back for her luggage. Charred bus parts and burning Mickey Moose dolls lay strewn all over the road. It was a total disaster.

On the outside Liander was smiling but on the inside he was a little shaken up. Not by the crash, he'd seen and experienced far worse during his early years in hell. What bothered him was that, for a split second, he wanted to help those people. His very first instinct was to grab Kiri and get out. His next impulse had been to run back in and save as many people as he could. The former could be explained in terms of self interest. The consequences of failing Kendra were harsh and Kiri was important to this mission. Besides, her costume was expensive. But the latter, it certainly couldn't have been an urge to protect someone he cared about. That wasn't the kind of thing a self respecting demon did. Liander was at a loss to account for the impulse to return to the burning wreckage. That disturbed him.

“Look! There it is.”, Kiri said pointing her finger across the street.

Liander turned to look. Sure enough, The Hallowed Land Experience theme park was within walking distance. Liander shook off his brief malaise and threw an arm around Kiri's shoulders. He grinned and winked at her, bumping his hip against her like she had done to him before.

"Time to have some fun.", Liander said happily. Everything was going as planned.

The pair made their way through the gathering of fire fighters, paramedics, police, media and various onlookers towards the park. As they passed by quite a number of eyes were drawn away from the horrible scene and towards Kiri's barely veiled assets. As they went along, Liander's mood brightened and he began to sing softly.

"Christians roasting on an open fire,
Gas fumes nipping at your nose.
An old man's head being crushed by a tire,
And shadows cast by the grisly glow.

Everybody knows a fuel truck and a cigarette,
Help to make the season bright.
Mourning parents with their eyes turning red,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know their baby's gone away,
And they won't see them again till Judgement Day.
And every mother's child is gonna cry,
When they find out what it means to die.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two.
Although it's been said many times many ways,
Merry Christmas to you."