The Devil Needs an Accountant

Alisa starred at the Indeed posting for an Exec Accountant wanted in a remote location. She applied for the job simply because it paid more, and it couldn’t be any more work than she was doing now. She was currently working as an Accountant for Wilson and Phillips Ad Agency. Totally hating it by the way. The first job right after grad school, and it was practical, comfortable, and safe. Her mother practically guilted her into accepting the job. All her talk of “Do you know how much money I spent on school for you”, really made Alisa feel guilty like she had to take the job to start paying her mother back. Her father died before she got to high school and her mother NEVER let her forget how hard it was raising her alone. She would remind Alisa every day before she left for school to keep her grades up so the colleges would pay HER to come to their schools. For the most part, she did, she graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University. Right after that, she spent an additional year earning her Masters, something that she felt she should be prouder of. Every day since then she’s just felt like something was missing. Maybe her dad, or her entire teenage livelihood (or lack thereof thanks to her mom’s strict rules). She couldn’t figure it out, but she just felt empty. Her mother bragged to all her friends about how “Lisa’s making big-time money at that agency”, but in Alisa’s mind it couldn’t be more boring. Like bored to literal death boring. She didn’t work with ANYBODY her age, being 24 and being surrounded by 30+ generation is excruciating. Every weekday, she did the same thing. She got up at 5:00 a.m. slid into a pants suit and spent zero time on “work appropriate” makeup. Nothing special. There’s no one worth looking at or flirting within accounting. It was just herself, old lady Colleen (32), grumpy all-day Mr. Grandal (42), and Jason Stocks (asshole, 53). The under 30 crowd could typically be found in Marketing, which is what she should’ve majored in. Alisa checked her phone, she didn’t like to spend too much time brooding over what she wanted to change about her life, she’d rather just suck it up and eat it. The phone read 6:45 a.m. “Fuck, I’m going to be fxckin late!”, she groaned. She grabbed a stick of gum because gum stops excessive smoking, and she was down to four cigarettes a day. She grabbed her purse and kissed her dog Allie on her way out. She ran down the hall of the two-story apartment complex and made it down to the back door entrance. She could see her bus pulling up right as she was crossing the st….

She felt eminence, unimaginable pain and then nothing. Alisa’s body was lying in the street clear as day, mangled by the truck that collided with her as she ran across the street. As the crowd gathered in awe, Alisa wasn’t breathing. Flashes of light. Darkness. The smell was like a combination of sandalwood, sulfur, and dead dog carcasses. She felt like her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see anything, feel anything, it was as if everything had stopped working but she was conscious still. She groaned. “OH, she’s coming to get the files ready”. She heard whispers coming from everywhere. “We’ve never filled a position like this, this has to be against, their laws”, the voices continued to talk amongst themselves. “He cleared it with upstairs and this isn’t one of theirs, so she was free to recruit, let me do my job”.

Alisa opened her eyes to complete darkness. “I’m fuckin blind! Am I dead!”, she began to go into full panic, patting herself down. She ran her hands over her face, she just had to make sure her body was in one piece. The last thing she remembered was leaving for work. “Where the fuck am I”, she screamed. “Give your vision time to adjust”, the voice of a woman said. “…. I hate doing this part, new humans….”, she mumbled. Alisa blinked a few times, and she regained her sight, but everything was still dark. It looked like it was past midnight or something, she looked at herself and she was fully clothed. Ugly clothes but it was business casual. What the fxck is happening to me, she hyperventilated. She looked out the glass window to her left, there was nothing but a dark black reddish void of a sky and red, hot, coursing brimstone below. She began to hyperventilate heavily, “Holy fuckin SHXT I’M IN HELL!!! I’M FXCKIN DEAD!”, she yelled out. The succubus snapped her fingers in Alisa’s face, “Hey! Keep your shxt together okay, you’ve got it better than those forsaken souls”, she said pointing towards the screams of the tortured dead. She seems really agitated, Alisa thought but she was the one who just died! “Now let me explain, we chose your application to fill a much-needed position here in hell, Executive Soul Accountant”, she explained. Alisa’s face sat blank… “The devil…. needed a Fxckin accountant so you killed me?! I was only 25!”, she went from panicked too god damn furious. “Why me! I didn’t ask for a job! I had a job!”. Then she began to think back to the job she had applied for right before she left. Account in remote location, uuuhhhh I did this, I answered the job posting. This is NOT the supernatural shxt they taught her about in Sunday School. She took a breath and regained her grounding, looking around at her surroundings… I’m dead… but I’m not…. dead? Okay. I’m dead, but I’m alive down here but not in pain. And I have a job….? “Yes, exactly”, the succubus responded. “Yes, I can hear your thoughts, so can he by the way”, she concluded. The succubus continued her welcome presentation. “So, now that we’re kind of on the same page let’s continue. As we understand this is sudden and you may be wondering, why you? Well Alisa”, she paused and pulled up a projection of an obituary with Alisa’s name on it. She stood up in disbelief and read it out loud. Alisa Kat Ruize, 06/09/1988- 10/31/2021. That’s a week from now. She was going to die…. either way. She felt herself welling up with tears, but she held them inside. “Okay, so knowing that you have vast knowledge in many different areas of accounting, our Dark lord decided your talent and therefore your soul would be needed here”, she said opening the door to the hallway. Alisa looked around to see if she had anything. “Don’t worry, all your things will be provided to you during a different part of the presentation, follow me please”, she said ushering her out the room.

Alisa walked into the hallway and waited for further instructions. She examined the creature before her, she was shaped like a woman, full chested, long legs, she was tall. She was careful not to think anything inappropriate. She looked out the glass windows at the different levels of torture and the skyscraper buildings. Clubs. Movie theaters. Like actual theatre from the Shakespeare era. …. why are all these amazing, iconic people in hell, she thought. “They don’t approve of self-expression upstairs, if you’re not 100% for the cause then pfft, down to hell”, the succubus answered rolling her eyes. She opened the door to a glass elevator and they both stepped inside. It parted from the building and whisked them over lakes of lava and potholes of fire. The succubus opened her binder and typed in the number on the panel alongside the elevator door. “Okay, so because he was very…let’s say unfair in his pursuit to hire you, our Dark lord is offering free housing for any property here in Hell. The housing committee drafted a few suggestions, and these are the ones he approved”, she pointed. You don’t know how lucky you are, most employees live together and work together for all eternity but, we don’t often interfere in the living realm to end a life. That’s comforting, Alisa scoffed, I’m the first murder of the new millennium. The elevator stopped adjacent to a lovely high-rise condo next to a lake of lava. The succubus cleared her throat, “Here we have a D12 Level 5 Modern Style Condo. She has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an open concept living room “, she showed Alisa pictures of the inside in her housing binder. The bathtub is where Alisa always goes first when picking a place and this one wasn’t big enough. The fact that she was worrying about bathtubs in hell was just baffling to her. The succubus giggled “Yeah, we didn’t really like the bathtub either, you should’ve seen the other ones”, she snickered. “No worries, moving along”, she said putting in another number in the panel. Alisa was still in complete shock and amazement. No matter how quickly the elevator moved, it felt like the pace of a typical elevator ride like on Earth. The elevator slowed down next to what looked like an apartment on the 6th floor in an 8-floor apartment building. The succubus giggled again, “You’ll learn soon enough to think bigger when it comes to His choices, this isn’t a 6th floor apartment, you have the whole sixth floor of the building”, she opened her housing binder to show Alisa pictures. She seemed more excited about this one. The succubus chuckled “I am more excited. I love this space. Three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a breakfast area, open concept bathroom, a small library and a built-in sauna”, she winked at Alisa who had immediately fell in love with the bathtub. She could imagine soaking her body after a long day at work. The succubus laughed “And there will be very, long, days luckily you’ve got all eternity to deal with it”, she laughed. “So do we love this space”, she asked. Alisa nodded; how could she refuse such a generous offer after such a shxtty introduction. “You couldn’t, our Dark lord is not usually so generous, this is something to be grateful for. So, let’s get you coded into your new home”, she directed the elevator to the front entrance of the building.

They stepped out and on to the warm, dark, igneous sidewalk. She looked up at the dark reddish glow of the fire below the level. She followed the succubus inside. She stopped at the Desk Clerk and then handed Alisa a swipe card. “This card gets you through the front door, the code on the side of the card is your door lock combination so do not lose the card, if you do then you’ll have to take that up with the Dark lord in person and security m’kay”, she smirked. Alisa nodded. They rode the elevator to her floor; Alisa lifted the panel on the elevator door and put in her door lock code and when the door opened, she could’ve absolutely died if she hadn’t already. She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop smiling. She was dead. She would never see her friends or family again. She would never see her dog Allie. She could never go to the movies on Saturday alone. But she looked at this big, beautiful, home that she could never afford back in the living. Okay…. okay… how bad could this be, she thought. It couldn’t get any worse than dead and in Hell. The succubus laughed “Oh yes it can, you could be upstairs. Humph! Bunch of judgmental prudes that bunch”, she mumbled. “Please stop reading my thoughts”, Alisa demanded. “No”, she replied bluntly. “Okay! So, all your clothes are in the closet, you were a size 16 in dress and a size 7 1/2 in shoes so we got a variety of things based on your file information, great figure by the way”, she said admiring Alisa’s curves. Alisa raised her hand “What’s in my file, and how do you get that information? Does it come from upstairs”, she asked? She had ssssooooo many questions. “We collect data on every human, mostly just sins so they can be weighed, but every human gets a demon who follows them throughout life”, she concluded. Alisa plopped down on the comfy gray sectional. She looked around her living room. Her…. living room. 55in mounted flat screen, balcony, the view wasn’t great but what could she really expect. “Okay Alisa! Here is your folder which contains all your “need to know” work info such as what to expect on your first day of work, the dress code, your workplace etiquette handbook, a bunch of forms to sign, and direct deposit and bank information. We generally have employees report to work immediately but being that this was a special case, you have 48hrs to learn the realm before your first workday”, she said handing Alisa a drug dealer phone. The succubus laughed but did not say anything this time. “This is your transportation summoner, it doesn’t matter where you are, just press 9 and the operator will pick up to issue you transportation to wherever you’d like to go”, she smiled. Alisa took the phone and watched as the succubus set down all her paperwork on the coffee table. “Be sure to have everything filled out by the first day”, she said. She made her way to the elevator door and stepped inside “Alisa”, she held open the elevator door “Welcome to Hell, we’re so glad you answered our job posting”