Rabbit Blood

Chapter 29 - The Hazbin Redemption

Friday turned to Saturday, and Leslie spent a restless night dreaming about her family. Usually her bad dreams revolved around Alastor, or the car crash that killed her; this one was a drastic change in the genre, as her sister and their parents wanted to know why, oh why Leslie had abandoned them.

She figured it was caused by Alastor digging through her past: the photographs, dancing videos and so on. Living in Hell, it was easy to forget what regular human beings looked like. Memories stirred up memories, which led to weird dreams like this. Sitting up in bed, she tried to recreate the sounds of her family's voices in her head, and it was alarmingly difficult. Forgetting them so soon.

The movie showing was at 1pm, so Leslie killed time at the Front Desk, shotgunning several gin bucks in a row. Anything to quell the nervous nausea - unless it wasn't nerves at all, and the ingested magnet was just fucking up her gizzards instead. Was that a thing? What effect did magnets have on the human body? They were drawn to metal, and blood happened to have iron in it... Confused and feeling stupid, she turned to the internet to assuage her worries.

From the bar, she watched the open doors of the reception hall. When Vaggie and Charlie walked through, dragging a five-pound bag of premade popcorn, she followed them in. The set-up was surprisingly modest, reminding Leslie of school. Rows of hard-back chairs, at 90 degrees to the stage, faced a chalkboard easel with a white bed sheet draped over it, and a movie projector somewhere in the middle. Vaggie tore open the popcorn, piquing the interest of fifteen-or-so demons already present. They ambled towards it, like dairy cows to a bucket of feed.

"Hey, no sticky mitts, please!" Charlie scolded. "Paper trays are over here!"

Leslie chose an aisle seat in the back row, keeping one for Angel Dust; she figured his height would be a problem to the other guests. It didn't matter where he sat for teaching sessions, but here, she could imagine the disgruntled chorus of Down-In-Fronts.

As 1pm came and went, the guests continued to trickle in, including Ginerva, who looked excited to be off work for a few hours. Mr. Rapier didn't much like losing two waitresses on a Saturday afternoon, but at least he hadn't fired them. Leslie's blood began to chill as Alastor teleported into the room with his desk chair and made himself comfortable, also at the back row, as it happened. Their eyes met.

"Hi," she said.

As pre-arranged, he winked at Leslie, who checked her pocket, and there was the other magnet. He kept it til now to make sure she didn't 'accidentally' lose it, and silently commanded her to gulp it down. Though the public setting precluded Alastor himself from feeding it to her, he could watch as she placed it on her tongue like a pill and swallowed. There was no sleight-of-hand or concealment under the tongue, and he was happy. All that remained was to wait for the fireworks.

Angel Dust took his seat beside her as Charlie thanked everyone for coming. "I see we still have some empty seats," she said, "but the others should arrive when the movie's over. Please take some time during your viewing to think and reflect on what our characters are going through, and we'll share our thoughts at the end! OK, thank you!"

The lights dimmed, the projector whirred electronically, and finally they settled in for The Shawshank Redemption. It began in late-1940s Portland, Maine, with its protagonist, Andy Dufresne, listening to a car radio. Leslie felt her face warm as she recognized a song by The Ink Spots. Only a week ago, Alastor played the same tune in his office.

"Fuck," she whispered, giving Angel a nudge. "This must really hit different if you were alive for this."

"'47's the year I croaked," he whispered back. "Jus' missed it."

Leslie sat tall, taking in the story. There was a new feeling, one she hadn't known years ago on her first viewing. As Andy was bussed down to Shawshank prison to serve two life sentences, the apprehension etched into his face was clear, she knew what it was. She knew it from her first days in Hell: a feeling of fear, not belonging, and having to be quiet about it for safety's sake.