Employee (Dead Run)

Employees are a demonic humanoid species who guard the souls of the damned in Hell.

Biology
Employees are externally very similar to Humans, but their faces have deformed, sunken features, especially seen with their skeletal, seemingly empty eye sockets, giving them a fittingly demonic visage. However, they appear capable of limited shapeshifting, able to take on perfectly Human-like appearances. Additionally, Employees have enough strength to send adult Humans flying with a single strike, and are capable of summoning flames to their palms or fingertips, the latter of which allows them to burn through Human skin with a mere touch.

Culture and society
Employees, as their name suggests, are employees of a "company" that collects, transports, and imprisons the souls of the damned. As Human souls are immortal, the souls of the damned, unable to move on to Heaven, linger on Earth long after their body has died, and the purpose of the Employees is to keep the damned souls imprisoned in Hell as to not overrun Earth. Living Human employees of the company ferry the damned souls to Hell one way or another, where the Employees wait to receive them. Despite the demonic origin of the Employees, the head of the company is none other than God, referred to as only "The Boss," although the Employees get little to no direct orders from God. Rather, the orders come from Human managers, who were once Human ferrymen who got promoted. Employees, while completely subservient to the company, still act rather hostile towards both living Humans the damned, lashing out when questioned or opposed by burning the skin of the other person, smacking away Humans who interfere with their duties, even if said Human was trying to help them, and acting generally rude. However, Employees can be very easily pacified or bribed by being given cigarettes, which they are all addicted to. Employees handle damned souls very roughly, constantly whipping them and throwing them to the ground while relocating or herding them.

Employee uniforms somewhat resemble that of police officers, with pickup station Employees wearing light-colored uniforms while Hell Employees have dark uniforms, but both groups wear helmets with darkened visors almost completely obscuring the upper half of their faces. However, Employees who work at rest stops on the interdimensional path between Earth and Hell, referred to as the Low Road, take on Human appearances and act as waiters, cooks, and attendants to the Humans.

Technology
Employees have been seen using technology resembling that seen on 20th century Earth within their rest stops. However, Employees also utilize whips of glowing blue energy to herd the damned. It is unknown what type of energy or technology makes up the whips, but they are capable of actually harming the damned and causing them genuine pain, as the damned feel no pain from conventional weaponry or physical force.

History
At some point in the ancient past, likely as long as modern sapient Humans were around for, Employees were used by God to guard the souls of the damned, who were considered waste that must be kept away from the righteous and the living. As such, Hell was created as a sort of waste dump, with the immortal souls of the damned sent to a run-down, ever-expanding city-like prison, with Employees tasked with both keeping the damned in Hell and collecting them on Earth, bringing them to an interdimensional passageway called the Low Road, which manifested actual roads or paths that crossed from Earth's dimension to Hell. There, the damned would be picked up by workers who ran various forms of transportation. Living Humans were hired to do the transportation, and by the late 20th century, there were many different types of routes and transportation methods for each country. Big rigs were used in the United States, buses in Mexico, trains in China and India, tram lines in Russia, and presumably many more types of vehicles all over the world. Regardless, all transportation methods led down the Low Road, and somewhere down the Low Road, Employees who took on Human-like appearances would run rest stops for the living Humans. At some point in time, the Humans discovered that they could give Employees cigarettes to keep them from becoming hostile or otherwise abrasive towards them.

At some point in the 1980s, a Human trucker named Pete, who was employed as a soul transporter, hired a friend of his, Johnny Davis, into the company, as Johnny was having trouble finding work after getting into too many accidents. On Johnny's first run, he and Pete arrived at a pickup station to retrieve a supply of the damned, where Johnny, not realizing that the people he was seeing were already dead, tried to protest when he saw Employees handling them roughly. One Employee, angered that Johnny would question him, walked up to him and demanded that he be silent, burning Johnny's flesh with a poke, before Pete quickly offered him a cigarette to make the Employee go away. Later, Johnny and Pete stopped at a truck stop halfway down the Low Road, where other Human truckers had gathered, quietly whispering rumors about unrest in management as male and female Employees served them food and smoked.

When Johnny and Pete arrived in Hell, an uprising of the damned began, with whip-carrying Employees deployed to put the damned down, but one Employee was swarmed and pushed to the ground. Johnny, seeing what happened, ran to help the Employee, managing to push the damned off him, but saw the Employee's true face, as his helmet had been knocked off. The Employee then struck Johnny in the chest, sending him flying away, where he was picked up by other damned souls, where he discovered that many of them were damned for seemingly petty reasons. While the Employees got the situation under control, Johnny met Gary, a former company manager who was sent to Hell after death, who claimed that the current management was pushing things too far, abusing their power of deciding who goes to Hell to damn the undeserving. An Employee then found Johnny, just as Gary left him. The Employee demanded to know who he was talking to, but Johnny managed to brush the question aside, although the Employee still took Johnny to see upper management. There, Johnny found that the new managers were in fact simply damning whoever they didn't like, taking advantage of the fact that God left them in charge with seemingly no supervision. However, Gary had told Johnny the location of the High Road, which led to Heaven. During his next shipments, once Johnny was clear of Employees, he stopped at an intersection of the High Road and Low Road, determined which of the souls in the truck were undeserving, and then let them go up the High Road. The Employees, oblivious to what he was doing, continued their jobs as Johnny and Gary prepared to lead an insurrection against upper management, knowing it would get God's attention and put proper managers in charge.

Appearances

 * "Dead Run", by Greg Bear (1985)
 * The Twilight Zone, s01e19b "Dead Run" (1986)