Hell

Rebecca Black’s “Friday” was playing in the background, reaching every corner of Hell. It was on an endless loop as the tortured souls moaned in agony, while one being watched over it all, taking in the pain and suffering of the souls as if it were a fine wine.

It gets less funny each time I see it happen.

“You can’t stop me!!”

No matter how many times I punt that fucking bitch halfway across creation, she always manages to come back, determined as ever. At first it was funny to see her try to make her way back, just to kick her all the way back, but after the first thousand times it just started to get boring.

“I’m going to escape this place! You’ll see!”

In all my time sitting on this throne, I’ve never seen anything like this. And it fucking pisses me off. I had Hitler broken in seven days! Why won’t this bitch yield?!

“I’m coming for you, Castle!”

The armless, legless, hairless body of Ma Gnucci dragged itself across the burning fields of hell, rolling, turning and using her teeth as she made her way towards Satan himself.

“Ma Gnucci is coming to kill you!”

I enjoy Frank Castle’s work. Hell, he’s my biggest supplier of tarnished souls next to Disney, but right now I fucking hate his guts for sending this one my way. I have to get rid of this bitch before she drives me completely fucking nuts.

GREETINGS FROM HELL

By Tobias Christopher

Mercy Hospital
New York
Days Later

“I have the results of this Jane Doe,” the doctor said to the nurse as he stood over the body of a woman in her early forties. “I’m afraid she’s brain dead. The damage is too severe…she will never wake up again.”

“And there’s no family to sign the waiver to keep her alive,” the nurse added. “Can I unplug her? You got to unplug the last one.”

“Well, you did keep quiet about me leaving my surgical scissors in that kid’s stomach after his appendectomy,” the doctor said with a smile. “Go ahead, you earned this one.”

As the nurse went to touch the plug the Jane Doe sat up in the bed, gasping for air. The doctor and the nurse looked at the woman in shock as the Jane Doe looked down at her hands. She started laughing as the doctor and nurse slowly backed toward the door.

“I’m back!” the woman shouted as she continued laughing. “I told him that not even hell could keep me from getting my revenge!”

The woman, not used to having legs for several years, stumbled out of the hospital, not even caring she was only wearing the hospital gown. She had too much to do to let little details like that stop her. She had to rebuild her resources and get her revenge of Frank Castle.

In her eagerness to get back to her old, evil ways, she walked out onto the street…right into the path of a speeding bus.

WHAP!

“Well, luckily she survived,” the doctor said as he looked at the chart. “Unfortunately we had to amputate both of her arms and legs. Then the stress of the situation made all of her hair fall out, but at least she’s alive.”

Ma Gnucci, now back to having no arms, legs or hair, sat in the hospital bed, stirring with rage…but she wasn’t going to let this stop her. She was going to have her vengeance, one way or the other.

“Gee, Ma, you look really good,” said one of the few loyal men she had left. It had been several weeks, and she’d gone through every contact she could reach, but ultimately she could only get a few people to believe that she returned from the dead.

“Shutup, you idiot,” said Ma as she looked around the room. “Is this all there is?”

“Well, yeah,” the man said, looking around. “They’re pretty green, but you gotta start somewhere, right? I called all the old guys, but they’ve either got better paying jobs, retired or are just flat out scared to go up against the Punisher.”

“Cowards,” said Ma as she sighed. “But I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. Once the Punisher is dead, the Gnucci family will return to its former glory. First we have to find the Punisher. Where is that son of a bitch now?”

“He’s pretty impossible to keep track of,” said the man. “He’s been killing mobsters and drug dealers all across America. He never stays in the same place.”

“Then we’ll just have to lure him out of hiding,” said Ma Gnucci. “We’ll have to find something he cares about. I know, we’ll dig up his family’s corpses and use them as bait.”

“Um…actually, that’s been done,” the man told her as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Remember Nicky Cavella? He did that last year, and well, the Punisher kind of…beheaded him.”

“Okay,” said Ma bitterly as she thought. “Okay, what if we make him believe he has an illegitimate child? We’ll use the brat and lure him—”

The man cleared his throat as he looked around uncomfortably. “He kind of does have an illegitimate kid. There was a big treasure hunt to find the punk, but Cavella kind of ruined things for everyone when the Punisher got to him—”

Ma stared him down angrily. “Okay…I’ll just find a replacement for the Russian. Someone, bigger and meaner—”

The man cleared his throat again as Ma looked at him. “Yeah…there was this guy named Barracuda…”

It was at the three hour mark that Ma started running out patience as well as logical ideas.

“So the Russian was rebuilt as a cyborg and the Punisher still beat him?” asked Ma as the man sat in the chair, looking worn out. “Okay, this idea has to work. We’ll set the Punisher up to murder innocent high school students by framing them as drug dealers—”

The man cleared his throat once again, having already ate a box of lozenges, as Ma finally lost her patience*.

(*That’s right, folks, I just referenced the Punisher Vs. Archie.–TC)

“Are you telling me that I clawed my way out of hell to kill the Punisher, only to find out that every way to conceivably kill him has been done?” asked Ma as her face started turning red. “Are you telling me that Frank Castle is unkillable!?”

“It would seem so,” said the man as Ma looked at the other young man sitting in the room. “You. Kill that man.”

“Me?” asked the younger man. “But I don’t have a gun.”

Ma looked at the man’s twin brother sitting next to him. “You, kill your twin, then kill that man, and use whatever means neccesary.”

“But Ma, he’s my twin brother, I can’t kill him,” said the man as Ma looked at the fourth man. “Kill all three of them and you’ll earn the money I was going to pay them.”

The man shrugged and shot the first man, then shot the twin through the face. He paused for a moment, took careful aim and shot the other twin in the exact same place. “There. Now they look identical again.”

“I’m going to need some more men,” said Ma, realizing she only had one person left now. “In the meantime, I need to find a way to kill Frank Castle, and this time, the Punisher really will die!”

Some time later

“Are you KIDDING ME!?” shouted Ma as she saw the men that her lone henchmen has assembled for her.

“Well, they’re willing to work cheap,” said the man, “and they need the work since their circus closed. And once I told them about you not having no arms or legs or nothin’, they jumped on board.”

Behind the man stood a group of sideshow freaks: the bearded woman, the fire breathing man, the man who can spit bees, a trio of acrobatic dwarves and a half teenage boy whose torso was sitting on a skateboard.

“And what guarantee do I have that they can kill Castle?” asked Ma.

“Well—” the fire breathing man said, inadvertently breathing fire and catching the bearded lady’s facial hair on fire. She screamed, running around the room, stepping the bee man’s foot, causing him to spit his bees at the dwarves, pelting them with stingers. One of the dwarves fell backward, knocking the half-boy down the staircase.

Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan was laughing his ass off. Things were playing out exactly as he intended.

After that, Ma Gnucci had finally lost what little sanity she had left. She had come back from hell to kill the Punisher and that’s what she was going to do, no matter how she had to get the job done. She had managed to track the Punisher to Indiana, where even the sight of the man who’d killed her before sent her into a rage.

With no men willing to work for her and no assets to hire any real help, Ma Gnucci had to rely completely on the lone man to do her work for her. This included carrying her around on his back like a backpack.

“Steal that bus, we’ll run him down in the street!” ordered Ma.

“But won’t that kill innocent people?” asked the man.

“I don’t care, just do it!” ordered the woman as the man carried her onto the bus, quickly ordering the bus driver and all the passengers off. Within minutes, the bus was out of the street as Ma, sitting next to the window, looked out onto the street. “There he is! There’s the Punisher! Kill him!”

The bus darted down the street, just as Frank was crossing. He looked up just in time to see the bus coming toward him at full speed. He quickly jumped out of the way as the bus flew by, drawing his gun. He knew this could have been a murder attempt, but who’d be so stupid to go about it like this? He followed the bus but, by the time he found it, Ma Gnucci and her henchmen were long gone.

In Illinois, days later, Ma Gnucci was sitting on top of Trump Tower looking down at the Punisher. “Okay, just throw the brick right on top of his head. At this height, it’ll split his skull open like a cracked egg.”

The man just nodded and started dropping bricks, which missed Frank by several inches. He looked up and realized it was another attempt on his life. He drew his gun and headed upstairs to the top of the tower, but missed Ma and her henchman by minutes.

Following Frank to Missouri, Ma had lost her last shred of sanity.

“You want me to what?” asked the man.

“I want you to walk up to the Punisher and kick him in the balls,” said Ma. “Then when he’s on the ground, I’ll bite his face off.”

“Ma, I think you might have…lost it,” said the man who had Ma strapped to his back.

“You think I’ve lost it?” asked Ma as she laughed at him. “Take your gun and shoot yourself, I’ll take out the Punisher by myself from now on.”

“You want me to…kill myself?” asked the man. “I don’t think—”

“Do you know who I am?” asked Ma. “I’m Ma Gnucci, the most feared woman in the United States! You will do as I say!”

The man took Ma off his back and held her limbless body in his hands, realizing that she was no longer powerful, no longer feared, and definitely no longer scary. Walking over to an open manhole, he held Ma Gnucci over it.

“What are you doing?” asked Ma. “Put me down or I’ll kill you like I’m going to kill the Punisher!”

The man just sighed as he dropped Ma into ther sewer below. She fell into the sewer water and floated there, staring up.

“You think this is going to kill me! I’m Ma Gnucci! You’re going to suffer for this!” shouted Ma as an alligator surfaced right next to her, it’s jaws opening wide.

Satan sighed as he watched Ma Gnucci arrive back in Hell. Lucille La Seur* held Ma Gnucci’s body in place as the ‘Peanuts’ theme started playing as Satan took a running start to punt her. Then, just at the last minute, Lucy pulled Ma Gnucci away as Satan fell onto his back.

(*Google it or I’ll beat you with a wire hanger– TC)

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed this lighter than usual issue, because next issue it’s back to business as we begin the arc that’s been building since this series kicked off. Be here for Punisher #20 as we begin “Saints & Sinners.” See you then,

-Tobias Christopher