Unfortunately, Stan won't be in the next two chapters.

--

--

--

"God damn it," Kyle said. "First Stan, now Kenny?"

It was Thursday afternoon, and the paper was due in less than twenty-four hours, and they didn't even have the courtesy to show up. Well, he relented (a little), Stan had stayed home sick today. Kyle hadn't really expected him to appear. But Kenny had no good excuse - Kyle had seen him less than an hour ago, at which point he'd threatened him with bodily harm if he snuck off to dry-hump Rebecca again and didn't help.

Kyle growled a little and rubbed his eyes, which were starting to get blurry from staring at so much small text. This entire project - no this whole week had been one big headache. He didn't want to write a paper about how wonderful Hitler had been. He wanted to go yell at Stan for avoiding him, and maybe after Kyle'd yelled himself hoarse he'd explain everything to Stan.

"God," he grumbled, "I'd sell my soul for some aspirin."

"Well then you're shit out of luck. Jews don't have souls."

Kyle turned around and scowled at Cartman, who was flipping absently through Hitler's autobiography.

Cartman. Cartman. Stan abandoned him, Kenny blew him off, but Cartman still showed up at the library. Kyle honestly couldn't figure that one out.

"I figured you'd be the first one to ditch this project," he muttered, propping up his book on the table and glaring at him over the top of it.

"Kyle, I am more mature than those douches, and as such, recognize the importance of schoolwork."

Kyle snorted. "Bullshit. Why are you really here?"

"Maybe I just found a subject worth studying. Ever think of that, Jew boy?"

They glared at each for a while, then Kyle broke it off and looked down at his book. For the next several minutes he tried to focus on the tiny text, but ultimately found it to be impossible. Kyle let his book slip out of his hands so that it fell flat against the table with a clatter, and scowled at it.

"Do you have to bang everything?" Cartman demanded irritably. "Some of us are trying to work."

"I hate Mr. Dorcas and I hate this fucking assignment," Kyle declared. "I'm not even supposed to still be here. I'm supposed to be studying with Wendy."

"So why don't you quit bitching and just go?" Cartman asked rudely.

"Yeah, right," Kyle said. "And not write the paper, and get an F, and give that sadist the perverse pleasure of failing me."

"I could write it."

Kyle stared at him for a while. Then he started to laugh. Hysterically.

"Ey! What's so funny, you fucking Jew?"

"You, voluntarily doing schoolwork?" He chortled. "Even if you did, you'd just write a hate-paper."

"You really think I'd do something like that?" Cartman said, trying to sound insulted.

Kyle gave him a look.

"Oh yeah? Well fuck you too!"

"You think genocide is funny," Kyle sneered. "You can't tell me the paper wouldn't be one big excuse for you to spread your anti-Semitism."

"Christ, you people's egos are nearly as big as your noses. He killed cripples, retards, and fags, too."

He seethed. "You're a complete idiot if you think that's convincing me."

"Look, dumbass," Cartman snapped, "if you haven't noticed, that's the sort of paper Mr. Dorcas wants. It makes a fucking lot more sense for me to write it than you."

Kyle glared at him. He didn't want to admit it - oh lord, he really didn't want to admit it - but Cartman actually had a point. He couldn't think of a single good thing Hitler had done, despite a fairly stressful week of digging through textbooks. Cartman probably kept a list in his wallet.

Still... He narrowed, his eyes, suspicious. There had to be some catch in there, some reason Cartman was trying to talk his way into homework, rather than out of it.

"Why are you so eager to write this thing?"

"God, will you shut up? Just run off and go see Wendy. She gets off on those study sessions, right?"

"Why does it matter what Wendy likes?"

"'Cause maybe I don't want to listen to her bitching if she misses it. She's permanently PMSing as-is, I don't want to set her off."

"Hmm," Kyle said, and eyed him skeptically. Cartman scowled at him.

"Or maybe you're too broken up about Stan dumping you and want to drown your sorrows in textbooks," he said with sarcastic sweetness, which of course set Kyle off again.

"Fuck you, Cartman!"

"Fuck you too!"

"That's it; I'm out of here," Kyle snarled, shoving his things into his backpack and swinging it onto his shoulder, nearly beaming Cartman in the head with the edge of it. "Write the fucking paper yourself!"

"Fine! I will!"

"Go to hell!" Kyle shouted on his way out.

"I'm not going to go to hell; I'm not a Jew!" Cartman hollered back.

--

Kenny peeled his eyes open.

Above him the sky was a swirling mass of fire and sulfur, and the ground he was lying on was radiating enough heat to make him sweat in his parka, something that did not happen often, as the article of clothing was old and thin and worn out.

He sat up and patted himself down, making sure he hadn't lost anything on the trip down, and then he stood up. His legs sort of felt like they were trying to stand on solid ground after spending a week on a ship, and he stumbled a little before he managed to steady himself, and even then he still rocked a little back and forth. Kenny sighed and scratched the back of his neck.

Run over by a truck. How... boring.

He glanced around at the other new arrivals; they were screaming and carrying on and generally exhibiting the hysteria one could expect to feel in such a situation, a feeling Kenny had outgrown a very long time ago. The orientation director coughed and tapped on the microphone for attention, and Kenny glanced over absently.

"Can everyone hear? Yes? Okay, good. Well, uh, hello. I'm Greg, and I'll, uh, be your hell director today. I'm afraid Satan won't be joining us today, because he has a... headache."

Kenny snickered. That was, of course, code for 'He partied to hard last night and he's walking funny this morning.'

"So, uh, yes, this is hell, in case anyone was wondering. Looks like there's about 9147 new arrivals today, so let's, uh, get started."

At this point Kenny had lost interest and was making his way through the crowd. He ducked out of the introductory stage whenever he could. They never said anything he hadn't heard a hundred times before.

He thought, briefly, over the people still up on earth. He assumed Kyle was going to be pissed he'd skipped out on the library. Never mind the fact he'd gotten run over on his way there and he didn't really have any control over it, Kyle would still be angry he'd left him with Cartman. And Kyle tended to be very irrational when he was angry.

Well, nothing he could really do about that now. Kenny shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled along the bank of Styx, trying to decide how to occupy his time. He could go see Damien, he supposed, who was an okay guy to hang out with even if he was pretty whiny. But then he'd have to go to his house to find out where he was, and Kenny didn't think he was especially welcome in Satan's household, considering heaven recruited him to thwart his evil plans on an irregular basis. Besides, Kenny didn't want to catch the guy while he was recovering from a 'headache.'

He could head over to The Asmodai, which was not, as many demonologists believed, an literal demon of lust, but in fact a very popular bar that served the best drinks and had the hottest waitresses. Kenny supposed he could see where people had made the mistake.

But he was hungry, and wanted something more than beer in his stomach, so he changed direction and headed toward the part of hell that housed those who had committed gluttony. That was were all the good food was, after all.

Everyone seemed to have this horrible picture of hell in their heads. Eternal torture and fire and demons wielding pitchforks. And, okay, that stuff was there. But 'eternal' was a bit exaggerated, the fire was actually a pleasant change from South Park's crappy weather, and the demons were short and did little more than prod people with sticks. Annoying, but far from unbearable.

Kenny actually preferred hell to heaven. The people who had never been to either generally gave him startled or pitying looks when he said this, but it was true. The company was much better in hell. He always had to avoid eye contact and speed-walk in heaven or else he'd get roped into some sing along or arts and crafts project. He didn't really care for the angels, either. Raphael thought puns were the highest form of comedy, Michael was constantly high on dry erase markers, and Gabriel had taken every opportunity to grope Kenny since he was eleven years old.

God was cool, though. Nice and laid back. Nothing fazed that guy.

Kenny paused when he got to the main street and glanced around for a while, deciding what he felt like. He finally ducked into a chicken joint and scanned the menus, which boasted things like "Deep fat fried in the hottest hell fire," and "No, that's not you cooking, it's our delicious buffalo wings!"

All of the restaurants in hell were fast-food. No big surprise there.

Kenny waited in line (one of the downsides of hell were the ridiculously long lines), and when it was finally ready he ordered one of everything on the menu (one of the upsides of hell were that you didn't actually need cash to get anything). He had accepted the tray from Princess Diana - her eternal punishment was to work at a fast-food joint - and turned around to find a table, when his eyes fell on none other but the insane German Jew-hater himself.

Kenny lifted an eyebrow. Not that it was a surprise that Hitler was in hell, but hell was a fairly big place. It had to be, to accommodate all its residents. It just struck Kenny as a little ironic that the man they'd been agonizing over all week was sitting there at a bright red plastic seat, eating popcorn chicken and drinking a milkshake.

Or, at least, Kyle had been agonizing over him. Kenny was pretty sure neither Stan nor Cartman cared about the assignment. Stan cared more about the 'rumors' going around about him and Kyle (and, really, Kenny had thought he'd already known) and Cartman - well, actually, Kenny had no idea what the fatass cared about. Every time he thought he had Eric Cartman pinned down he did something that surprised him - like pretending he was afraid of hell to trick ten million dollars out of his classmates, or punching Kenny in the face when all he did was comment on how nice Wendy's ass looked in her little soccer uniform, and how he wouldn't mind pounding it.

Whatever. Kyle was uptight and Stan was dense and Cartman had a myriad of serious emotional problems, but they beat the clingy-ness that was Damien or the faggy goth kids, and that was about how many options Kenny had for friends. The death thing tended to deter people.

Kenny marched over and pulled out a chair. "Mind if I sit here?"

Hitler looked up and gave him a somewhat bemused look, which Kenny took to mean, "Yes, by all means, and help yourself to my popcorn chicken while you're at it." Kenny did. It was heavenly. Or, okay, maybe that wasn't the best adjective. But it was still damn good chicken.

Hitler scowled at him. He seemed to like the chicken as well. A brief struggle ensued, but Kenny was poor and used to fighting over food, and therefore held the advantage.

"So," he finally said, monopolizing the chicken and taking a long victory sip from Hitler's milkshake, "I'm doing this report - well, okay, Kyle's doing this report - on you and your totalitarian regime. So tell me, what was so great about it?"

Hitler immediately broke into a long speech, which Kenny listened to attentively. For the first minute or two. Then his mind started to wander, and he wished there were 72 virgins in hell he could occupy his time with, and that Church attendance would probably take a big dive if word got out about the friendship bracelets and pine cone crafts. Then he wondered if Stan was still freaking out about the whole 'dating Kyle' thing. He felt it was most likely. He felt a great stirring of pity for Kyle, until he remembered Kyle was most likely pissed off at him for something he couldn't control and would actually like very much to stop. I mean, really. Dying fucking hurt, and Kenny was no masochist. Which spun Kenny's thoughts off in a more perverse direction, where they always ended up eventually.

He thought about Annie, who had a pretty plain face but a nice rack, so all was forgiven. Except Annie was into bondage, among other things - it was always the quiet ones - and Kenny was not. Maybe it was a result of getting his entrails ripped out and spread across the pavement on a regular basis, but he didn't get off on life-threatening situations.

Kenny realized Hitler was still talking. He focused on the man, and it occurred to him, vaguely, that if he brought back an interview with the Nazi leader, Kyle might forget he was pissed at him. After all, that had to be useful, right?

"Man," Kenny said, as Hitler babbled on. "I wish I could speak German."

--

TBC