Jesus, Super Fetus in The Devil Went Down to Georgia


by Robert Bowen

It was the kind of night that cliche horror directors dreamed of. Dark and wet like a freshly extinguished burn victim. The clock on the wall was nearing 11, and Jesus, Super Fetus, Aborted Hero of the Second Coming Detective Agency had just called it a night. The familiar closing ritual already in progress. As he finished off the contents of the glass and set it clumsily next to the bottle that would soon be refilling it, the phone rang...and with it came a feeling.

Even though the abortion left Jesus’ five major senses stunted and underdeveloped, his sixth sense sprouted strongly like it was injected with Miracle Gro. Which it may very well have been, given the restricted access to safe abortions that gripped the nation in 2022 causing his mother to try a number of unsuccessful means to bring her unwanted pregnancy to an early end.

A second ring from the telephone smashed through the propaganda stirring in his mind. ‘No time for morality messages’ Jesus thought as he reached the phone, trying hard to ignore the feeling of doom and gloom that burned in his gut like the burritos he regularly punished himself with from Sam & Ella’s Lunch Truck.

His hand hung hesitantly over the phone’s receiver, the proverbial devil on his shoulder winning the argument with its calls for after hours apathy...but the feeling. He just had to know if he was right. And he was.

As he picked up the phone and placed it to his ear, the eager voice on the other end stinging with panic didn’t even wait for a greeting of any kind before it rang out.

“The devil went down to Georgia!!”, the voiced spat before drawing a deep breath that showed the person it belonged to was completely out of air. “I repeat, the devil went down to Georgia!”

There it was. The one coded message Jesus had earnestly hoped he’d never hear after it had been decided on years before. The one whose very utterance changes everything. The nervous voice desperately spoke again.

“Jesus, are you there?! I say again, the devil went down to Georgia!”

Jesus’ good eye drifted to the window as a bolt of lightning shot across the sky like the UFO’s and the truth he knew was out there. The rain slapped against the window like a wave seeming angry at the shoreline.

“This account’s voicemail box is full.” Jesus robotically replied.

He hung up the phone, grabbing up the bottle and tipping it with reckless abandon towards his glass. The caller’s words echoed in his head, “The devil went down to Georgia!!” He swallowed hard as the whiskey’s burn joined the one in his belly.

“Too bad it’s fucking raining,” Jesus said in to the empty room, “I don’t do shit in the rain.”