Landis, Jonathan
JOURNAL ENTRY 10

"Seriously?" Belial whines childishly. "Both of them?"

"I'm afraid so, sir," I tell him, nodding slowly.

Belial grunts and sits back on his haunches. His "office" has no desk to speak of due to his irregular dimensions. We attempted to build him one early on and found it best to use a long countertop fixed to the wall instead. The sizes of the desks we prepared absurdly dwarfed any humans in the room and proved inconvenient seeing as how Belial doesn't actually sit down; it's more like squatting. To see him sleep is also a bit off-putting. One begins to adjust to his appearance because of his mostly human mannerisms and personality. But to walk in on a large Ziz lying flat on an office floor can be disconcerting. Not to mention they sleep with their eyes open.

When he sleeps, thin gels from within his eye sockets slide over his corneas like a submerging crocodile. Often I've found myself leaning over him, staring into the mucilaginous-looking goggles and wondering if he can see me. I've never asked.

In the open space of his office, he's squatting in the center of the room and making tortured groans.

"Both of them?" he asks again in disbelief.

"We found Anne Hathaway dead last night," I explain. "They're suspecting it was an ectopic pregnancy."

Belial puts his face in his hands and moans.

"Ectoplasm?" he asks in disbelief, looking at me through his fingers. "What? Speak English!"

"The... uh...embryo was growing in the wrong place, from what I gather."

He covers his face and moans again.

"What about the other one? The annoying one?" he asks, his voice muffled by his palms.

"Ashlee Simpson died moments ago, sir. There was a... problem with the sutures."

"What kind of problem?" he asks cautiously.

"Well sir, they sort of exploded."

"Exploded?"

"Yes sir. There was quite a bit of hemorrhaging as well. The doctors could not preserve the specimen."

"No time to mourn." Belial says, suddenly rising back to his feet. "Who's next?"

"We have two groups in incubation, sir. Another batch of celebrity applicants as well as the first group of unimpressives."

"Who do we have in the first group?"

"Natalie Portman, Zoey Deschanel, Victoria Beckham, Megan Fox, Christina Aguilera, and that girl from Saved By The Bell"

"Ooo," Belial coos, eyes widening. "I hope she doesn't die." He drums his claws on his chin contemplatively. "How are they looking?"

"It's hard to tell, sir. We're already having some problems with Portman and Fox. The others seem to be fine so far. Beckham could deliver any time now."

"What about the other group? The nobodies. Anyone die?"

"I wouldn't know, sir. You'll have to ask Pendington."

"Oh, right." he says and starts to laugh. "The little woman. Of course. Bet you hope everything goes capital with her, huh?"

"I want what's best for the organization," I answer flatly without looking at him.

"Yes of course," he says with mock professionalism.

The oversized office door flings open and Joseph Phinney comes barreling in.

"Belial!" he keeps shouting. "Look what I made!" He lifts a wad of tinfoil crudely fashioned to the rudimentary shape of a handgun. "It's my laser!" he proclaims and points it at me, making annoying zapping noises.

"Oh for God's sake," I protest. "Sir, can you send it away?"

"Come now, Johnny Boy," Belial says, stepping over to the countertop lining his office wall. "Let the little children come to me." He rummages through some clutter and uncovers the Magnum pistol confiscated from the angry woman in the delivery room. Dark crud soiling the barrel. "Here," Belial says as he hands the weapon to the child. "This is the real thing."

"Wow!" Phinney squeals and turns the gun around to look down the barrel.

"Is that thing loaded?" I ask accusingly.

"I don't know," Belial shrugs. "It has at least one bullet missing right?"

The kid's mother rushes into the room panting.

"I'm sorry... sir," she says, shying away from the sight of Belial. She turns to her son, whose back is facing her. "Joseph, I told you about bothering Mr. Belial in his office!"

The kid turns to face his mother and points the Magnum in her face.

"Look what Belial gave me, mom!" He shouts.

The mother screams and reflexively covers her face with her hands as if to deflect any potential gunfire.

"Joseph!" she shrieks. "Put that down right this second!"

"Hand it here, kid," Belial offers, reaching out to take the gun. The mother places a hand on her chest, face still stretched in horror.

"Joseph..." she gasps. "Joseph..."

The door bursts open a third time and a Ziz doctor steps in, spatters of blood covering his scrubs. The Ziz reaches up and pulls the surgical mask from his long face.

"We've lost Victoria Beckham, sir," he wheezes. "She started delivering too early, there was a breech, she was dead before we could even call you in."

Belial squints angrily, bearing his teeth, then suddenly whips around and puts the muzzle of the Magnum against Joseph Phinney's temple. There's a jarring boom and the opposite side of Phinney's head pops open weakly, small explosion of grey matter spattering his mother's shocked face, a torrent of blood flooding from the opening. The kid's face contorts into a miserable, twisted expression and his legs slowly give way beneath him. He falls to his knees and his twitching arms rise to the wound, fingers trembling, as he tries to cover the exposed part of his brain. A moment or so passes as we all stare and the child's body finally begins to loosen and tumbles over, the contents of the skull shifting and spilling on to the carpet as he goes on kicking his legs.

Belial scratches his head with the smoking end of the magnum, looking disappointed.

"I'm real sorry," he says to the mother, who hasn't moved or even blinked.

"My bad," he adds.

The mother finally wakes from her stupor and wails an unfathomable bellow of guttural pain so intense I find myself covering my ears. She makes a sudden sprint in Belial's direction, still screaming, and the Ziz doctor seizes her by the waist.

"No!" she says again and again. That's all she says. Even as she is dragged down the hall and out of earshot, she keeps shouting "No."

"Take her to recovery!" Belial calls down the hall. "And get her some liquor! Lots of liquor!"

He turns and steps back into the office, placing the pistol back on the countertop.

"Guess that's why they tell you not to let kids hold guns, huh?" he points out, turning to face me.

"Sir... You're the one that fired the gun."

"Oh yeah... I guess I was," he realizes, then adds: "Guns are dangerous."

"Yes sir," I agree, wiping my face with my hand and checking to see if any blood got on me this time.

On the floor the child's body has begun to twitch and tense up again, and the obliterated pieces of brain are being carried across the floor on currents of thick, black-looking blood and cerebrospinal fluid. A thin whimper, like a moan, comes from the kid as he lies there.

"Why won't he die already?" I ask.

"Huh?" Belial looks down at Joseph Phinney. "Gross. Let's get out of here. Someone needs to clean that up."

Walking down the hallway, Belial steps close to me and puts an arm around my neck.

"We need to pay more attention to these applicants," he whispers. "You know the plan. We start with a celebrity and then bring out miss average Americana. The ladies say to themselves: 'Movie stars are signing up, and it works on nobodies too.' then they say, 'Me next!'"

"Of course, sir."

"That's five famous women left in the group we have upstairs and five normals by my count. We can have all five of the norms pop with no problem, but if we don't have a big fat famous face to slap on the label it won't matter."

"If one of the normals delivers successfully, can't we just get one of the celebrities to take credit and put them on TV?"

He steps back, furrows his brow thoughtfully.

"We can and we will. Just get one delivered. We've done it before and we can do it again."

"Absolutely, sir."

"I want you to keep a close eye on the third floor. If we lose another actress or pop star, I want five more applicants ready to file in."

"Right."

"Why don't you do some scouting and get them signed up as soon as possible. If we need them, we'll have them." "Good plan, sir."

"Right," he nods, pausing for a moment. "We're at a critical stage, Johnny Boy. Once we get the Nephilim project on its feet, we can move on to the next step."

"The next step?"

"Yeah," he says. "The one that comes after this one." He turns around and heads in the opposite direction down the hall, swinging his long tail as he goes.

"Come by my office later; I'll brief you on the details," he says. "But give it a while. It may take them a few hours to clean the carpet."