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"The Little Green God of Agony" is a short story that was published in the 2011 anthology A Book of Horrors. It was also published in the short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Plot

Andrew Newsome, the sixth richest man in the world, has been confined to his bed since he got into an airplane crash that only he survived, now 2 years ago. According to the many doctors he already visited, he should have recovered enough by now to start walking again, yet he is still in too much agony for that. Katherine Macdonald, a nurse hired by Newsome to be his private caretaker, has so far kept her quiet about his lack of recovery, but deep down she thinks her employer is just too weak willed to handle the pain that comes with making a full recovery, and always tries to look for shortcuts.

When one day Newsome turns to an old reverend named Rideout (who according to Newsome’s researches has healed a great many people) for help in return for enough money to rebuild his burned down church, Katherine finally speaks up. She confronts Newsome with what she believes to be the facts, and calls Rideout a charlatan; the first of many that will come now that regular medicine has failed, at least according to her. Newsome is about to fire her for this outburst, but Rideout insists that Katherine should stay around since she needs to regain her faith and sense of compassion according to him. Rideout continues to explain that Newsome has been invested by a small demon god that feeds on his pain, and he plans to exorcize and capture this creature. He requests Katherine and Newsome’s personal assistant Jensen to help him; Jensen has to spray the creature with pepper spray when it leaves it’s host, while Katherine has to whack it with a broom so Rideout can put it in a lunchbox.  Katherine agrees, but only after checking Rideout’s sleeves and the lunchbox to make sure there are no props inside. When they turn out to be empty, she starts to doubt her own skepticism.

The exorcism begins. Rideout successfully forces the demon god, which looks like a slimy, green tennisball, to leave Newseome’s body. However, things go horribly wrong when  first the exorcism proves too much for Rideout’s weak heart and he dies of a heart attack, and next Jensen accidently sprays his own eyes with the pepper spray. The creature uses the commotion to jump onto Melissa, the housekeeper, causing her to experience extreme agony until Katherine knocks the green demon god off her and squishes it under her foot. Newsome is feeling better again, but then the light goes out due to the generator failing. In the darkness, Katherine feels the green demon god crawling up her hand…

Comic

Beginning on 15 October 2012, the story is being adapted into a web comic by Dennis Calero with "serial installments on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for eight weeks."

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