Werewolf Radar: Tubular Hells by Nate Balding | Art by Luke DiBona

Werewolf Radar: Tubular Hells
By Nate Balding
Art by Luke DiBona
Published Issue 124, April 2024

People with no functional understanding of the justice system outside of folksy wisdom they were once told by another middle schooler are liable to, at some point, tell you that possession is nine-tenths of the law. Slightly less likely will they then tell you that, according to the Catholic Church, possession is way, way up. Like national debt numbers of demonic entities spreading cases of terminal spirit disease (also a great record — look it up).

Yes, that bastion of divine purity’s SEAL Team 6 for highly specialized ritual, The Exorcists — (not to be confused with my intramural goth soccer team) — have been facing down so many puissant Pazuzus that their very work-life balance is now being threatened by The Adversary. One poll of 120 enemies of Emily Rose uncovered the rather disturbing statistic that some were performing between 30 and 50 exorcisms a day. For comparison: A bartender working a weekend in any given metropolitan downtown may sell between 700 and 800 drinks in a night during a heavily antagonistic battle for their weary souls. But let’s assume the toll an exorcism takes is at least equal. Even though they’re not doing any sidework, the lazy fucks.

Still quite a few.

On top of that, they’re getting downright dangerous. In 2022, Father Giuseppe Bernardi — taking time off from carving marionettes that would one day become real boys — encountered a woman. Exhibiting remarkable hurdle skills, she leapt over a series of pews during a service to assault monks with both her fists and her words, insulting them in multiple languages in a violently demoniacal inversion of “Sticks and Stones.”

Initially he sought psychology — in an ACT OF SCIENTIFIC BLASPHEMY — but ultimately determined that, in fact, the woman’s hysterics were the work of servants of Satan and performed a nine-hour long exorcism. It would have been faster but, as everyone knows, exorcists are BOGO and his assistant was Neil Peart who insisted that hours 3 through 6 would be a holy drum solo.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Neil Peart is dead. Not in the hearts of fans across the planet, friend. Next you might be wondering how, if an exorcism can take nine hours, are these raggedy-ass priests doing 50 in a day? For an answer to this query you need only the claims of the Pope’s Exorcist hisself, Father Gabriele Amorth. In the words of Walt Whitman, “I contain multitudes,” and infernal goblins from Gehenna are those multitudes. In a 2000 interview, he purports to have kicked a cool 50,000 diabolical invaders from their fleshy homes. He also pointed out that many of these could take seconds and the boss fights might take hours. Exorcism is played by video game rules and Amorth was stomping hundreds of demons at a time. By May 2013, he’d high-scored the Vatican cabinet with 160,000 notches in the ol’ demon belt.

Impressive. Merely a dent, however, in the number of devils still left for the demon-plagued cadre of padre to contend with. Eric Jacqmin — yet another journeyman in the field of (bad) dreams — claims there are “… billions of devils, and much evil.” Whether or not this portends the return of leather biker jackets or the 1989 Camaro IROC-Z 1LE is unknown, but either way things are looking up for 80s heavy metal. In a recent interview Jacqmin stated that, after duking it out with the many spirits that were forcing a woman to urinate black while experiencing extreme stomach pains — two extremely obvious signs that she needed medical help — he subdued Lucifer himself. But fear not — the good Father is nowhere near out of a job after taking an unmissed shot at the king. He maintains that Lucifer can be many places, tormenting thousands of people simultaneously with things like drugs and sex and a perfectly prepared al dente carbonara and returning all that time you put into watching Lost.

So if you’ve been having a great time lately? Don’t bother the Church with it — they’re tired as Hell.

Have questions about the paranormal?
Send them to werewolfradarpod@gmail.com or on Twitter: @WerewolfRadar.
It’s a big, weird world. Don’t be scared. Be Prepared.

Nate Balding is a freelance humanoid who occasionally manifests in print and can most likely be seen at Werewolf Radar. Should you wish to hear him manifest audibly you can do so at the aforementioned Werewolf Radar’s associated podcast on Spotify and Apple, and if anything ever becomes humorous again, on a variety of stand up stages around the nation. If you’re truly craving further content there’s always @Exploder on Twitter — even if it is only a form of digital self flagellation at this point. His one thing that he considers actually accomplished was this time he was published in the journal Nature and then later collected into a volume called Futures from Nature, still available in places that have things.

Luke DiBona is a Boulder-based illustrator | See more of his work on Instagram.

Check out Nate’s February install, Stray Cat Smut, or head to our Explore section to see more of his work.