Are you there Satan? It's me, Alice.   

I tried calling God but He wasn't answering so I thought I'd reach out to you before I die.

But for real - What's the point of talking to you when each time I want to talk, neither of you respond?

Like, I always question why we naturally reach out to higher powers when we're hopeless and desperate.

You still there, Satan? 

I want to make a quick confession - I heard people do those before they die. Confess their sins and stuff.

I want to say it now in case I die in the next fifteen minutes.

Look, I don't know if I deserve to go to Hell or not, but you should know my side of the story to how the world actually ended;

I heard you evaluate everyone's lives before you let them pass through your flaming gates so I wanted to make sure you got the right version.

Now let these pages show that I, Alice, will speak from the bottomless pit I call my heart, and will the tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.

You still there, Satan?

Good. Because it's one hell of a story.

P.S. Ever thought about getting a fun voicemail? Like:

Hi, you've reached Satan at Hell Services. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Bet you're wondering where we are. Well put your mouth up to the phone, and leave a message for when we get home. If you make your message rhyme, I'll call you back in half the time. Beeeeeeep! 

+++

It starts with a prank call.

"Best way to answer the phone:

Mario's pizzeria and abortion clinic, your loss is our sauce."

"We're about to die and you're making prank calls?!  Gimme that cell phone!"  I snatched it out of her wrinkly hands that smelled like dish soap and stuffed the phone between the car seat and my butt. 

"You suck up our data plan like a starved teenager returning from a weekend camping trip in Boonie land.  Now load up your fucking gun," I snapped.  I jerked my head to the front of the car. 

"You suck the joy out of everything," Bones grumbled.  The heavy ker-chunk of her gun cocked behind me, and I relaxed my fingers on the steering wheel. 

Unlike my heart strings that were being yanked around, doing a frantic number on my pounding chest—I was almost okay.  

Bones scratched her nose, skin always a deep copper, burned and freckled under the summer's sun.  "I'm supposed to be saving the world right now, but instead, we're waiting for Lettuce Head," she ranted.  "Can we just leave him?  We can take on the destroyer of our planet with just the two of us girls."

My voice remained calm unlike the mental voices screaming in my mind.  "His name is not Lettuce Head.  We went over this." 

Bones snorted.  "Like his real name is any better." 

If Morgan Freeman took an acid trip, smoked six packs a day and had the mouth of a trucker, you'd have Bones. 

Or picture Michelle Obama drowning herself in the fountain of old age, and then carrying around stab-tastic knitting needles and a metallic cane to hold up both her dead weight and ego. 

Back when it was the simple life, this eighty-year-old chainsmoker first introduced herself as Baby Bones.  "But most people call me Baby," she told me when returning my rent forms.

"I'll just stick to Bones," I answered before handing over her room key.

I should have never given those keys. 

Yet here we were, smack in the middle of a world crisis—a few minutes before I called you up, Satan.    

My fingers drummed against the steering wheel.  Fixing my rear-view mirror for the hundredth time, I glimpsed at Bones and said, "You smell like death."

"It's the one smell that keeps me alive," she replied. 

The front door of the house slammed shut and his feet rushed down the porch steps. 

"Fina-fucking-lly," I murmured.     

"Honey, don't forget your lunch box!  Your dad packed you and your friends some sandwiches from the shop!" spoke a motherly tone that made me cringe. 

Sandy's heels stopped thumping against the grass and he twisted around.  "Mom—I told you.  Bones is allergic to bread!  She's gluten free!"

"What?  Then tell her to replace it with crackers I packed." 

I dropped my forehead into the steering wheel and the hoooooooonk startled Sandy on his parent's front lawn. 

"Hurry up before Granny dies back here!" I muffled into leather.

"Hmph.  You'll probably die before me," Bones remarked and kicked the back of my seat. 

"That's not how the circle of life works, little bean.  The old should always die before the young."

"Tell that to the writers of the Hunger Games." 

"I love you, Sandy!"  His mother, Vhalerie, brought one hand to her heart and waved with the other. 

Her pink bun was tight like her skin, it stiff and washed out from her long hours at the elementary school and barber shop.  I'd tell her to take a break, but she'd slap my face. 

She hated my existence since I let her seventeen-year-old precious son live under my roof instead of hers. 

Sandy slipped into the front seat next to me, and shut the door behind him.  "Are we going to save the world now?"  He ran his hand through his sandy brown hair, making the faint red tips stand up even more than usual. 

Ladies and jerks, I present to you this one-hundred-thirty pound sack of awkwardness.  Sandy's dad owns a sandwich shop across my house—and his parents named him Sandy Witch.

I know—I've never seen this kind of child abuse before.

"How many times do I have to tell you, we're not saving the world."  I tossed my thumb over my shoulder.  "Stevie Wonder behind ya is gonna do it."

Her cane hit the roof of my car.  "Just because I'm old and black doesn't mean jackshit."

I winked in the rear-view mirror and Bones scowled.  "You know you love me," I cooed.   

Sandy's nose—sprinkled in a constellation of freckles—scrunched up, brows drawing together with confusion.  He always looked as if he'd ran a few miles, a constant tinge of pink under his tawny skin.  "But I thought—" he started.

Sirens wailed behind us as a flash of blue and red pulled up beside our parked car.

I groaned, dropping my head into the steering wheel again.  "We haven't even left our street yet.  Why is this happening?"

The familiar jangle of keys and clunky black boots thumping closer caused my eye to twitch.  A voice muffled on their walkie talkie, and my foot teased the gas pedal.

A knock came at my door.  With the roof down in my deep blue convertible, I cleared my throat to hide the anger steaming in my throat.  "Yes officer?"

"Do you know what I just caught you doing, Miss?"  He peeked behind me, and shared a glare between Sandy and Bones.

"No," I spoke in the most serious tone possible. 

He whipped out his notepad and licked the end of his thumb to flip to the next page.  "You parked in front of a fire hydrant."

Bones cackled in the backseat.  "You dumbass."

I cocked my head towards the sidewalk and the red fire hydrant stared back.  "That hydrant wasn't there when I got here." 

He kept nodding as his pen wrote across the ticket.  "Tell that to the law." 

"Seriously?!"  I collapsed into the back of my seat.  "You'd think I'd get a ticket for something cool like street racing or hiding a body in the trunk of my car. But for a fire hydrant?  Dogs should be getting ticketed too.  You know how often they park their shit in front of a hydrant?"

The officer glimpsed around the back seat of the car.  "Is there a valid reason for the pile of shotguns, rifles, pistols and swords sitting next to your grandmother's feet?"

I casually remarked, "One, she's not my grandmother.  Two, we didn't have time to put it in the back pack.  Don't you ever just toss shit to the side because you don't have the time for it?  Like what you probably do with your wife?"

Bones snickered in the back, and Sandy reached over my lap.  "Officer, she didn't mean that.  She's just off her meds."

A smile stretched across my cherry glossed lips.  "The only meds I'm off are my anti-depressants."

Sandy shoved his hand in my face and said, "Sorry, sir, but the old woman in the back has to save the world and we can't do that when you're pulling us over.

"Save the world?  You two kids?"  The officer raised his brows and rested his two hands on my window.  "And your grandma is supervising?"

"Kids?  I'm eighteen.  I could probably school your ass in combat," I snapped.

The officer lowered his blue aviators to the tip of his crooked nose.  "Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?  You know, the old wise guy teaches the young prophets in something that's supposed to help them save the world?"

"You're so ageist," Sandy said.

"I'm happy to disappoint, but this isn't one of those plots. Now if you'll excuse me, I have someone's limbs who need cutting."  I shooed his hands off my window, and was about to put my key in the ignition.  

"Look, I'm going to have to take your license plate number."  The scratching of his pen against the paper made my other eye twitch. 

"We don't have it memorized," I replied.  "New car. But you're welcome to go around the back and check."  I gave an apologetic smile, and he grumbled in annoyance, stomping around to the end of the car.  

"Alice, I know my license plate number," Sandy commented.

I spotted the officer behind the trunk and grinned.  "Vroom, vroom, bitch."  I hit the gas pedal, clouds of dirt flying up his uniform and blasted down the street. 

Bones let out a hoot in laughter, pounding her cane against the floor.    

I patted Sandy's leg.  "You don't have the same license plate, buddy."

"What?!  What does it say?!" he screamed above the wind.  We whipped down the empty street, going over one hundred clicks.   

The officer behind us coughed, waving his hand to move the smoke as our license plate stared back at him:  370H55V

"It says asshole!" I screamed, black wisps of hair cracking against my cheeks.   

Hollywood has spent millions of bucks to make the Chosen Ones look like the good guys.  But there's nothing good about what we're planning to do.  Like, we're killing people.  Almost religiously now.  Yet here we are, called the Chosen Ones.  

Still want our face on the front of a lunch box?

Then the whistle of the wind cut short.  A sharp ring passed through my ears as an eerie descend of silence stretched down the street.  Something was wrong.

A cold drop hit my brows, and I looked up, a slow rain descending into a harsher fall.  Drops hanged onto my lashes before rolling down my cheeks and I quickly wiped the back of my hand across my face.

The Almighty Gods were preparing themselves; ready to use the weather to wash away the blood into the soil.  They probably see it as fertilizer. 

Satan—remember that world crisis I mentioned?  Yeah.  That. 

Sandy as per fuckingusual, filled the silence: "I may be dumb, but I know no one would willingly shut up in this car.  Unless there was—"

A beastly roar followed by a choir of screams reverberated through the skies.  It struck everyone's hearts with a bolt of fear.

"Oh man.  Here we go," Sandy breathed through clenched teeth. 

I grabbed his wrist, it stiff between my fingers and quickly patted his leg.  "Sandy."  I pinched my fingers between his chin and forced him to look at me.  "We've trained Bones for this exact moment.  She'll be fine." 

His sandy brown eyes widened.  "But will we be?"

"Stop here!" shrieked Bones.

He jerked his head out of my hand, and I shoved my foot onto the breaks.  We both faced our torsos to the front dashboard, the tires squealing to a stop as the side of the car bounced against the curb. 

I could smell the werewolves; skin tough and flesh soft, hot rage pumping through tunnels of blood.    

They were close. 

We scrambled out of the car, hooking the guns onto our belts and other sharp, point objects that were considered dangerous. 

"Everyone!  Get off the bridge!" Sandy ordered, banging on the car windows of pedestrians.  Drivers threw him weird looks and passengers ignored his urgent cry. 

"Forget about them!" I yelled at Sandy.  My chest hurt to see him think he could save them all.  But everyone on this bridge was doomed.    

The scurry of claws rumbled under our feet as the wolves climbed their way up the bridge. 

"This is it.  What we've been waiting for," I declared and removed the two swords attached to my back. 

"Oh, I'm ready," Bones hissed, and stretched out her metal cane, bullets and hidden spikes ready to spring. 

Midnight blue fur crawled up the cement, hundreds of yellow eyes glaring at my warm, delicious skin.  They threw their head back and howled, releasing an icy air that stung my lungs like jogging in January. 

The chilly cloud captured the humans walking by, fog wrapping around necks, snaking into the mouths, eyes rolling back and—snap.  Their bodies hit the floor.

"We could've all avoided this if none of you went down to the basement under the basement," I mentioned.

"We know," Sandy and Bones chanted for the millionth time that day.

I leaped above the first werewolf that landed and drove my sword straight from the split between their legs, and swiped upwards, the blade cutting their stomach, to the chest, to the neck and finished off at the head, dividing him in half. 

The two floppy body pieces collapsed and my boots stepped into the pool of red, splashing the traumatized witnesses. 

I retracted the saturated weapon to dodge one fist to the right and bent to another, followed by leg swerving around, clipping both of their temples.

Woah, woah, woah.  Hold up. 

Are you there Satan?  It's me, Alice.  Hope you're still with me.

You're probably thinking—what in Hell's name is going on?  Why did she chop a werewolf and serve him up like sushi?    

The only way I can get you to read this life changing tale is to make sure you give fuck. 

Why do you care if Baby Bones gets eaten by a werewolf?  Or Sandy gets his legs chopped off?  Or I get turned into barbeque?

I have to make you care about us. 

And I can't sell it with our great looks because have you seen Baby Bones?  It's like someone purposefully drove a bus over her.  But I don't wanna sell you with some heartfelt back story since that's very superhero-y and we're no heroes.  Or villains. 

Let me take you back a bit farther. 

Let the scene fall into place around you: the linoleum yellow tiles painted itself on the decaying pavement of the bridge beneath my feet, and the harsh rain and cloudy skies faded away. 

I was still looking eighteen at that time, under the Christmas lights strung across the bricked walls of my apartment.  

"And one last thing."  I stopped in front of the red door that led to a staircase downstairs.  "You cannot go into the basement under the basement."

Back when I rented my little home out to the supernatural, it was Sandy's and Bones' arrival that triggered it all.    

We were at the final stop of my house tour, standing above the staircase that led to the basement and the basement underneath it.

The early spring called for a traditional dress of fine white silk that popped against the soft bronze of my skin.  The ends tickled the tips of my fingers when I put my arms down, and it was the same dress I wore for first impressions for the past three-hundred-sixty-eight years.    

"What's wrong with the basement?" Bones asked, putting her hand on the knob.  

"There's nothing wrong with the basement.  It's the basement underneath it," I explained.

"Is that where you keep the cocaine?" Sandy asked.  Judging by the smile on his face, he'd probably go down there.    

I opened the door to the basement, a shadow spilling onto my feet and over the rug. 

Bones peeked through, seeing absolute darkness.  "So we can walk around the basement though?"

"Yes.  But it's full of vampires."  A hissing sound answered any suspicion, glowing eyes the shape as gems blinking back at her.

Bones hissed back, and flashed them her crooked pearl teeth. 

"You know, normally people don't have a basement full of vampires," Sandy said. 

I put my hand to my chest.  "I'll have you know that every single of these vampires have saved my life at least once."

"What about that vampire head on your wall?" he shot. 

"Decoration.  He wanted to die that way."

"I thought vampires were immortal?" Sandy challenged again.

I laughed.  "Vampires aren't immortal.  Immortality is living without the fear of death."  I closed the door and grew a chilling, dark smile.  "And I have no fears."

+++

Author Note: 

Please tell me what you think! I appreciate all feedback—constructive criticism, honest opinions, the good and the bad.  I'm just a writer trying to grow. :)

Thanks for reading.  Whose your favourite character so far?  

Vote on my story if you'd like. :)

Love you lots. <3

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From your favourite type of pi,

Xx 3.14// Allandra Bones