Hell Hath No Fury Read online

  Hell Hath No Fury

  By

  Alexa Grave

  §

  Haunted Unicorn Publishing

  §

  HELL HATH NO FURY

  Copyright © 2016 by Alexa Grave

  ASIN B01B0S582A

  Cover Art “Devil Woman” by pisicasfioasa / 123RF Stock Photo

  Cover Design and Formatting by Haunted Unicorn Publishing

  All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Hell Hath No Fury

  Blackness, emptiness, darkness. All good words to describe what I was suspended in.

  So this was death. Big surprise.

  I had seen the truck weaving on the other side of the road, approaching me, cruising along on my motorcycle. My death was pretty much instant. At least I hadn’t felt any pain. What hurt wasn’t the collision, but knowing that all my ex-boyfriends had been right when they said I shouldn’t be riding my bike alone at night. I had only taken their admonitions as sexist, them implying a woman should be on the back of a Harley instead of controlling one, not that they cared about my well-being. Could be their warnings had been a hint from the gods.

  Oh, well.

  I tried to get comfortable in my nothingness, but my impatience got the best of me. Am I stuck here for eternity? I didn’t see a line to wait in. Side stroke, butterfly, I was still in the same spot no matter how much I attempted to swim. Unless I was moving and just couldn’t tell. Endless torture in a vat of black paint. I didn’t deserve such a destiny.

  “Moira.” The voice didn’t just come from around me, but inside also. It was sultry and feminine. A voice that could get a lot of customers at a phone sex company.

  “That’s me. And you are?” It actually didn’t feel that awkward, talking to a disembodied voice.

  “Pandora.”

  Even had the name of a phone sex operator. “Like the chick from the Greek myth?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What kind of Pandora are you, then?”

  “Just me.”

  How wonderfully descriptive. “Well, I can’t see you, so that doesn’t help much.”

  Laughter rolled around me, a laugh that would give any man a hard-on. Good thing I was straight.

  “Moira, you are a piece of work,” Pandora said. “How delightful. I am what many people might call the devil. And you can see me – I surround you; you’re suspended within me.”

  Well, the living sure had it all wrong. So much for horns and a tail, not to mention the gender. “Let me guess? You appear in different forms to different people?”

  “I don’t interact much with anybody, and when I do, it’s like this. But I will say, humans have a wonderful imagination. I’d never have fire and brimstone in Hell. Too uncomfortable.”

  At this point I would normally say, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ The thought of the horrible pun stopped me. There was no reason for me to end up in Hell. I never committed any atrocious wrongs. Had a few relationships that ended in breakables being thrown across the room at each other, but that’s life.

  “This is Hell?”

  “No, this is me. You’re at the back door.”

  This was surreal. Maybe I was in a coma, dreaming. “What’s wrong with the front door?”

  The nerve-wracking laughter vibrated around me again. If I were to go back to the living, I’d make sure to tell them that the devil was a cross between a succubus and a black hole. They’d throw me in a nuthouse.

  “I’ve chosen you, Moira,” Pandora said. “You’re to be a Welcomer for the second floor of Hell, so you’ll see plenty of the front door.”

  Enough was enough.

  “Why me? Not just for this Welcomer thing, but why am I in Hell? I know I was no angel, but was I that far away from Heaven?” Or Limbo, at least. Not that I’d ever given much thought to such places when alive – I wasn’t religious and pretty much a pagan at heart.

  “Who said there’s a Heaven?”

  I had the sense that my head should have been throbbing, but I guessed being dead and inside the devil didn’t much let me feel any physical pain.

  “Moira, Moira. I can’t tell you why your soul is routed to this particular place. Only you can see that for yourself. It’s that way with everyone. I’m Pandora, but I’m not all knowing. Consider me a Gatekeeper, and you’re to be one of my underlings.”

  “What’s the benefits package like?”

  Great, I had to give her another reason to laugh. If I heard that full-throated sound one more time, I’d... what could I do to a devil that didn’t have a form?

  A pile of neatly folded clothes appeared in my hands. On top of it all was a headband with two red, sequined horns. The rest of the attire looked skimpy. A costume from a lingerie store. Lovely.

  “That’s your uniform,” Pandora said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot.”

  A pitchfork popped into my clenched fist.

  “I have to play to the imagination of humans, you know. It’s all business.”

  No more laughs, just the voice of a boss, although the sexy couldn’t be removed from the words.

  “There are three other Welcomers on your floor. They’ll tell you what needs to be done.”

  For once in my life, I was speechless. Well, I guess my life was over. So it was the first time in my unlife. I knew I wasn’t the most charismatic of people, and this Pandora was insane if she thought I could play Welcome Wagon with a smile on my face.

  I had no time to formulate a rebuttal, though.

  “Good luck, Moira,” Pandora said.

  My sight blanked out. I no longer saw the nothingness, if I had actually seen it at all. But I heard Pandora’s laughter in my ears, as if I was the best entertainment she’d had in years.

  Bully for her. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to laugh for a long time, if ever again.

  * * * * *

  Light filtered into my mind, my sight going from black to blurry. The edges slowly sharpened, and for the first time since dying, I had a sensation.

  I was dizzy enough to puke.

  I reached out and steadied myself with something soft, my fingers sinking into fabric. It felt like upholstery. The wave of nausea passed, and I found myself facing a small, open kitchen, the pile of clothes and pitchfork Pandora had the nerve to call a uniform clutched to my breast with my free hand.

  I turned to see the couch that had saved me from falling flat on my face. Three guys sat on it and shouted at a football game on a big screen TV.

  The devil was a female vixen who enjoyed aggravating her employees, and Hell was a dormitory. I guess it made sense – it was Hell, after all.

  “Hey, look at this,” one of the guys said. “We have a new Welcomer for the floor.”

  All three intently stared at me, since there was a commercial on. I only hoped the game would come back on soon, so they’d forget about me. Me and the opposite sex had a tendency not to mesh well, unless we were in the bedroom with the same goals. Sports freaks annoyed the piss out of me. I hated it that most men assumed if you rode a bike, you also liked sports. Assumptions like that could get a drink spilt in a lap. On accident, of course.

  The game did come back on, but the man’s shouts had brought a few more people into the vicinity from another area, through several do
ors off to the right. Everyone gawked at me, a dozen people at least.

  The big double doors to the left opened, admitting a girl dressed in the uniform – which looked even skimpier on her – leading a middle-aged man by the arm. She must have been explaining something to her charge, but she stopped in mid-sentence when she saw me.

  “Oh,” she said. “You must be the new Welcomer.”

  Normally, I’d come up with some retort after two people had stated the obvious. I didn’t see anybody else around with sequined horns and a pitchfork. Duh came to mind, but I was still in shock, coming from Pandora into a communal living area, so instead I stared back at everyone.

  Before it got even more uncomfortable around these strangers, I heard a voice from behind one of the people-clogged doors. “Moira?” Jared pushed past and into the living room with a stupid grin on his face.

  Good thing I still had a hold on the couch. This obviously was Hell, especially if I had to spend eternity with this particular ex-boyfriend. It hadn’t just been a messy break-up, but an endless emotional ride in a canoe with holes in it down Niagara Falls.

  Instead of throwing out the stream of curse words that had been my only communication with him for the last month of our relationship, and continuing after that until he was extricated from my life totally, I asked, “You died?”

  “Um, yeah. About a year ago. Girlfriend caught me cheating, and we made amends. Well, I thought we had. She drugged me right after we had sex, then smothered me with a pillow.”

  “Fitting.” His constant cheating had been the final straw. Sex addict came to mind, or someone who had absolutely no self-control. Eh, you reap what you sow.

  The grin dropped from his face, and the spark I was used to seeing lit up in his eyes. “Let me guess: the motorcycle?”

  He had to bring it up. We’d purchased the bike together, and I’d swiped it out from under him after our breakup. Until I had paid him his half, he’d remained a constant headache. Even then, he’d made it clear he thought he deserved the Harley, instead of a scrap of a girl.

  I left the steadiness of the couch behind so I could wrap my hand around his neck. As always, he didn’t react in time to block me. “Fucking prick.”

  Now was when he was supposed to call me a bitch or cunt, or some hybrid of the two. Instead, he looked ashamed, the anger fading as quickly as it had appeared. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was uncalled for.”

  I removed my hand, suddenly feeling even more pairs of eyes on me. When I glanced around, the crowd had doubled. No one had said or done anything, just stood watching me with dumbstruck looks on their faces.

  Jared grabbed my arm and pulled me toward one of the doors on the right. Not knowing what else to do, I let him lead me. The people in front of the door parted to let us through.

  He dragged me into a good-sized bathroom. I’d have thought it would have been like a dormitory bathroom, but it only had one of everything. Nice and homey, although the lacy shower curtain was a bit much.

  No windows. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any windows in the living room area, either. Maybe Pandora had lied and there was fire and brimstone on the other side of the walls, hidden until she wanted it to be seen, so she could have a laugh at the looks on the faces of the dead.

  Now Jared stared at me.

  “What?” I asked. “Do I have a third eye on my forehead or a zit the size of a tomato on my nose?”

  He shook his head.

  Then the knowing feeling settled in my chest. He had prodded me in here. Jared might be dead, but there had been only one thing he wanted whenever he tried to get me alone.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  He stepped up to me. “You think that’s what I want? Please. If dying the way I did wasn’t enough, being dead does nothing for one’s libido. I just wanted to get you out of there. It’s good to see you, Moira.” He touched my cheek.

  A thrill shot through me at the feel of his skin on mine – so warm. It felt alive. A knot tightened in my belly.

  I didn’t want this. I hadn’t even felt this kind of passion well up for him when we were dating. Yes, the sex had been great, but this was a yearning that was hard to ignore.

  I swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  “That it’s good to see a familiar face.”

  “No, no. About death and–”

  He laughed, pulling back. The desire dropped without him so close.

  “Oh, that. We’re dead, Moira. We don’t have needs like we did when we were alive. Are you hungry?”

  I had to concentrate before I answered. No biting in my stomach, although I had been starving before the collision. “No.”

  “Thirsty?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have to pee?”

  That I’d think would be a yes. I mean, I was in a bathroom. It was stupid to have a bathroom if no one needed it, but I didn’t feel any urge along that line. I shook my head.

  He slipped up to me again, this time wrapping his arm around my waist. “Horny?”

  His body pressed against mine flooded my lower regions with heat. From the questions he had already asked, I assumed the answer to the latest was supposed to be no also. My body spoke to the contrary, tingling at the feel of his fingers digging into my hip.

  He must have taken my silence as a no because he stepped away. It was a relief to no longer have him pressed against me. This was an ex I didn’t even want to consider screwing again, dead or alive.

  “We don’t have the urges we had while alive,” he said. “The kitchen and the bathroom are for those who wish to pretend to enjoy the things they did when they were alive and to make those newly dead more comfortable by allowing them to take part in familiar things.”

  “So, no one has sex here?” I had to ask.

  The smile on his face was an echo of the one he always had when he cornered me in the bedroom. “I said people still do things they were familiar with in life. Not to mention you can still enjoy sex if you wish to.”

  That smile didn’t do any good for my so-called nonexistent horniness. “Wish to?”

  “You can have almost anything you want here. Basic things of course, nothing like a genie from a lamp. A sundae? You got it. Want to watch a favorite movie? Well, if you can pull the idiots out there away from the game, yes. For some reason it’s the only TV available – no others can be wished into existence.”

  I had never had such a long conversation with Jared in our entire relationship. And he didn’t seem annoyed that I wasn’t trying to jump his bones.

  I thought too soon.

  “If you wish, and can find someone willing...” he said, this time pushing my back to the wall. His lips hovered directly over mine. “...you can fuck your afterlife away.”

  I nearly didn’t stop myself from shuddering at the jolts that coursed through my body, and it was much harder to suppress the idea of how enjoyable it might be to fuck my afterlife away with Jared. It took a heap of courage to force the right words out of my mouth. “And how many dead women have you screwed? Necrophiliac prick.”

  That look of remorse passed across his face again. He didn’t move away from me, though, but continued to push me against the wall. “None,” he whispered.

  This time I shuddered, but it was more from the overwhelming finality and shock of his statement. There was nothing Jared had enjoyed more than tumbling into bed. Or on the couch, in the shower, on the kitchen table, or the fire escape.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on mine for the briefest of moments. A comfort I had never known in life washed over me, then disappeared when he drew back and opened the door.

  What was going on with me?

  “I just thought it best to get you out of that situation,” Jared said. “I know how volatile you can get when people are acting strange around you.”

  “They do that with everyone who shows up?”

  “Just the ones that come through the back door. They think there’s somethin
g special about Welcomers. Something different that makes Pandora choose them, but no one here can ever figure out what.”

  I shuddered again, the sound of Pandora’s laughter vivid in my imagination.

  “See you around,” he said, and left me alone in the bathroom.

  Special. Different. If that meant being sex-crazed for a man I hated in an afterlife where no one else had the driving need to screw, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  * * * * *

  It was hideous. I would have never been caught dead in a get-up like this in the waking world, for a job or anything else. Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror made me want to turn around and hug the toilet, even though I didn’t physically feel the need.

  Now I knew what people meant by things being all in their heads.

  The Welcomer from earlier had peeked in not so long after Jared left, asking me to get into uniform. Emaline – she would guide me on my first pick-up. I was replacing her position, since I guess she had done her time. If I were her, I’d snap the pitchfork over my knee, stick the horns in a blender, and do a small dance. With no one else watching, of course.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asked, returning to the bathroom.

  “It will be when I walk outside and everyone stares at me. How can you stand to wear this? I’m shocked it didn’t come with a pin-on tail.”

  “The people out there respect this uniform.”

  “Please tell me I don’t have to wear this all the time.” I’d have to hunt down Pandora and rip her vocal cords out before she could laugh at my anger. Then again, I wasn’t sure if nothingness had vocal cords, but then that would mean she shouldn’t have been able to laugh or speak.

  The headache that should have formed behind my eyes refused to surface, not allowing me to feel normal in the least.

  “Only when you’re working,” Emaline said. “One pick-up left tonight, and then you don’t have to worry until tomorrow. You might even be able to do things you enjoy while waiting, if the people in processing slow down their already sluggish pace. It happens more often than you’d think.”

  “I can’t enjoy anything while in this scrap of fabric.” I didn’t know how it was possible, but the corset top managed to give me a lot of cleavage even though there wasn’t much to work with.