by Jason Beymer
“I’m warning you. Keep this professional.”
“I always loved the way you looked. Especially naked. Like this.”
“I know.”
“But I hated when you shapeshifted. I wanted you to look like this all the time. It felt real. When you changed, it made me think of Garrick. It made me feel trapped.”
Lorraine rolled her eyes. “I know.”
“You were the only real thing in my life. We constantly murdered and cleaned up bodies and listened to Garrick’s goddamned sweepstakes talk. But you knew me. You understood me. You even understood my screwed-up family. I would have killed everyone in the world to keep us together.”
“Yeah. You killed every man I ever spoke to. Sometimes that was hot, but mostly it annoyed me.”
“So why did you leave? Why did you start sleeping with him?”
She held up her hand. “Don’t.”
“We’re not going anywhere. So give me an answer. I walk by our house every day hoping to get a look at you.”
“Stalker.”
“You and Pearl finally agree on something. I call you all the time. I leave messages, but you ignore me. Every time I get close, Garrick finds some way to wedge himself between us. Now it’s just you and me.” He reached for her bare shoulder, and his hand passed through it. “Tell me why you started sleeping with him. Tell me the truth this time. Did you want to win the sweepstakes that badly?”
“Don’t try to touch me. It freaks me out.” She stepped away from him. “Do you really want an answer?”
“Yes.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Do you remember that night in the hospital? When the doctors found the IUD?”
“Did you think I’d forget it?”
“I knew you’d be too angry to listen, but I had to make you understand. We could have pretended I still had the IUD. The scarring wasn’t bad. If you’d listened to me, we could have gone on with our lives.”
“I remember. But I can’t see how it—”
“I fucking told you not to confront the old man! But no, you had to screw up everything. Running out of the hospital, driving straight to his office.”
Burklin looked away. “You knew my temper. I couldn’t let him get away with it.”
“I know.”
“So tell me why you’re sleeping with him.”
“Your face … When you came back to the hospital that night, I didn’t even recognize it. And when I—” Lorraine stopped and sniffled. “On the drive home I asked what happened. You moaned like a baby. Old Burklin was gone. I begged you to go back to Garrick’s office and make him return your soul, but you whined, ‘I ca-an’t,’ like a scared little puss.”
“Is that why you’re fucking him then? To get back at me?”
“No, idiot.” She clenched her jaw and stabbed a finger through his chest. “I’ve been fucking him so he’ll change his mind. I’ve been trying to get him to put your soul back.”
“What? Why?”
“So we can be together again. So you’ll change back into the asshole I married. So we can follow through on the plans we made and start a family. You are so stupid.”
“Do you really want me back?”
She blew out her lips. “Not like this. Not the way you are now.”
“I tried to—”
“Hey,” she said, moving toward the wall. “Is that new?”
A door materialized behind the pouring black oil. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Fuck off. Is that new or not?”
He nodded. “It’s new to me. It looks dangerous.”
“Jesus,” she said, wiping away tears. “New Burklin is such a pussy.”
Chapter 24
In the Mood
Deep down, Garrick knew defiling the dead was a no-no. Some rules existed for a reason. Don’t have sex with, or on top of, a corpse was one of them. “Corpses are not mattresses.” But Delores complicated his ideals. Something about the woman raised his libido to dangerous levels. Maybe it stemmed from the way she had bludgeoned their son with an ashtray. She’d ordered Garrick to clean up the mess, then returned to the couch with her Kahlua and cigarettes as if nothing had happened.
Garrick didn’t care about Delores’s excessive weight, or the way her sandpaper skin chafed against his. And though her cough sounded like two charcoal briquettes dry humping, he had to have her.
“I knew it was you,” Delores said, wiggling out of her sweats.
Garrick nodded. “My illusion doesn’t work on you, does it? You can see right through me.”
“Yes, but you’re much fatter now.”
Garrick hadn’t always been this big. Before he’d died, he’d been a skinny neurotic with a receding hairline. He had tried every weight-gain powder imaginable, every mail order product intended to bulk up his physique, but nothing worked. For his ego, death was a blessing.
He stroked his erection.
“Lord Almighty!” Delores exclaimed. “That’s what I’ve been praying for.”
Garrick had begged the Bureau for this assignment, for incarnation into a bulky, intimidating alpha-male with an enormous penis. He wanted to appear overbearing, frightening, everything he hadn’t been while alive. Garrick only regretted requesting long hair. No matter how many times he attacked it with scissors, it grew back. He wouldn’t age, wouldn’t lose or gain weight, and wouldn’t change his features. Long hair and ponytails went out of style sometime in the nineties. Nowadays, only defense lawyers, hippies, and guest stars on Cops wore long hair. For the sake of vanity, he’d purchased the fedora.
Garrick positioned Delores’s pelvis on top of Burklin’s corpse. “Are you ready for me, darling?”
She opened her legs wider and dragged deep on the cigarette. “Fill me up.”
Garrick inserted his erection. Burklin’s hipbone raised Delores’s butt off the floor for easy access.
“Ooh,” she croaked. “That’s the good Lord’s work right there.”
Garrick drove in all the way, then worked into a rhythm while she puffed and wheezed. With each thrust, Delores’s gelatinous saddlebag hips rippled. He pumped slowly, then picked up the pace, faster and faster. Finally, and with a loud moan, Garrick blew his seed. As he spurted deep inside her, Delores spat out the cigarette, gurgling a phlegm-filled “Oh God!”
Garrick finished and pulled out. They separated, gasping for air. Delores lit another cigarette. She used Burklin’s jacket to wipe off the excess semen and fluids.
“You’re a bastard,” she said, “but I swear the good Lord anointed your cock with oil.”
Garrick’s eyes shifted to the television, where the banner read Senator McPhee barricades herself in ladies’ room.
Delores blew smoke into his face. “Did you have to say all that to Donner? You shouldn’t have told him you were his father. It lessened the satisfaction the good Lord poured into my bosom.”
Garrick sat up and buttoned his shirt. “That brings up a question,” he said. “You’ve been calling Burklin for years, nearly every day, asking him to call you back. But when he finally comes to your doorstep, you murder him.”
“Is there a question in there?”
“No,” he said, watching her closely. “I suppose not.”
“The good Lord returned my prodigal son to my doorstep. God wanted me to exorcise his demons with that ashtray.”
Garrick tore off a strip of duct tape as she talked. It made a loud ripping sound.
“What are you doing with that?” Delores asked.
“Ah, you’ve noticed the duct tape.”
Delores rolled onto her side. She started to crawl away, but Garrick grabbed her arm.
“Let go of me!”
“All apologies, dear, but that isn’t going to happen.”
Still holding her arm, he strapped the duct tape over Delores’s mouth, then wrapped the adhesive around her head. He lifted her and proceeded to bind her wrists and ankles to the chair.
“Sorry about this, darling,” he said, then reconsider
ed. “Okay, not tremendously sorry.”
Delores screamed into the tape, but no sound came except a whistling from her flared nostrils. Garrick pinned her to the seat while binding her.
“I’m glad you understand. Though the sex has satisfied a deep-down itch, I am unhappy you murdered Burklin before I could instruct him. There isn’t time to bring him back to life and murder him again. Still, you did raise Burklin in an admirable, unloving way, so I won’t end your life yet.”
Garrick tightened the tape on her arms. “Right about now, I suspect Burklin has reunited with Lorraine. He still loves that rotund woman. And though she would never admit it, Lorraine loves him, too. She’s spent the last two years trying to persuade me to return Burklin’s soul.”
He dragged the chair containing Delores out of the house, through the backyard and into the garage. All the while, the woman cursed through the tape, wriggling as if in the throes of an exorcism.
When Garrick reached the garage, he perched the chair at the edge of the pit. Delores stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Yes,” he said. “This is for the best, my darling.”
Garrick leaned the chair backward and let it tumble into the pit. With a crash, Delores’s weight collided against the goo-covered boxes below. He replaced the wooden planks and covered her up.
“Farewell, Delores. Thank you for the romp. It has cleared my testicles. Now I must get to the Steadman Arms before the senator gives birth. I must reclaim my rightful spot, lest I cease to exist. And who would rescue you from this pit if that happened?”
Chapter 25
Welcome to the Nether
The only sound in the room, aside from Max’s mouth breathing, came from the constant drip of red ink falling from the tip of the fountain pen. It sat atop the parchment on the circular table. Each drip slapped the paper, striking with a reverberating thud.
Lorraine reached into the tar covering the door and pawed around. She sniffed. “It smells like the stuff all over your apartment. Vinegar?”
Netherite, Burklin thought.
Lorraine removed her hand and wiped her face, unintentionally smearing black goop all over it.
“Don’t touch that stuff,” Burklin said.
“Did Garrick say not to?”
“No, it’s … What if it dissolves your hands or something?”
“Your vagina is talking again. This door is different from the one you came through. That one had a handle. This one has a knob.”
“Why are we seeing tables, chairs, and pens anyway? Handles and knobs? Doesn’t it seem weird to you? I thought the afterlife was futuristic. You know, sliding motion-detecting doors that swish when they open.”
“Are you serious?” Lorraine said. “It’s a door. We’re naked. There’s a table with a red fountain pen. There’s a wrinkled slip of paper. None of this makes sense.”
Burklin reached for her arm. Lorraine flinched from his transparent hand. “Do that again,” she said, “and I’ll deck you. You’re already on my shit list for making me cry.”
“It might be dangerous.”
Lorraine opened the door. The hinges creaked. “See? It’s just a squeaky old door. Nothing to worry about.” She took a step, then turned to face him. “Don’t follow me. Let’s say our goodbyes and be done with it.”
Burklin put his hands on his hips.
“Fine,” Lorraine said. “Don’t say anything.”
She left the room and closed the door behind her.
“What’s that fat chick’s problem anyway?” Max asked from the floor.
“Shut up.”
“She’s got issues. I’m still high, right? None of this feels real. Damn, dude, you’ve got a porn schlong.” He laughed. “You should get your own website.”
“Lorraine doesn’t have any problems,” Burklin said. “I’m not even supposed to talk to you. It’s against the rules.”
“That’s what fat bitch said too. Dude, I can tell you’ve got it bad for her.”
“How would you know?”
“It’s obvious. Not because of the fat schlong.” Max clenched, and closed his eyes. “Fuck, this hurts. Why don’t you go after her?”
Because it’s hopeless, he wanted to say. With him dead and Garrick alive, he’d lose all over again. He’d never get his soul back now. And without his soul, Lorraine wanted nothing to do with him.
His eyes drifted to the table, and to the slip of paper beneath the fountain pen. Burklin walked to it. The parchment seemed to drink in the red ink, absorbing it. Each drop pooled, then evaporated before the next one hit. Burklin brought his face close, and read the paper’s words aloud: “Welcome to the Nether. Before proceeding into the Welcoming Chamber, please review the terms and conditions. A greeter will assist you with adjustment. Once assimilated, the staff will transport you to a holding pen for further instruction. The Bureau appreciates your dutiful service. Please sign on the line to indicate you have read and understood this agreement. This parchment will absorb and store your signature. Sign now to receive a limited edition commemorative pin. Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery.”
He glanced at Max. “You stay here.”
“What are you doing, dude?” Max asked.
Burklin reached for one of the high-backed chairs tucked under the table, intending to skid it along the immaculate floor and wedge the door open, but his hands passed right through it. Damn, he hated this ghost stuff. He would have to walk through the door. Burklin moved toward it and stood before the waterfall of crude oil. “I’m going after Lorraine,” he said.
He took a deep breath and prepared to pass into the unknown. Right away, his paranoia exploded. He’d probably walk straight into the fiery pits of Hell, where the devil paved the streets with human skulls and polished them with melted flesh.
Burklin closed his eyes and stepped forward, passing through the wood. As he emerged on the other side, his foot hovered above a layer of putty. This floor didn’t have the same perfect white sheen as the room behind. This one produced a sickly green light, like a flashlight on an algae-covered lake. The entire area resembled a hollowed-out train tunnel, or what a camera showed traveling through a gas-filled colon. It seemed to go on forever to his left and right, sloping at a thirty-degree angle, but thick fog prevented him from seeing far. A constant drip, drip, drip came from every direction.
The walls of the cavern bled Netherite.
Burklin paced forward. The elevator music grew louder here, squawky and stuttered. He recognized the tune as Celebration, or maybe Enter Sandman. Too distorted to tell the difference.
Several perfectly proportioned miniature men, all under three feet tall, worked at various computer consoles. They sported mullets atop high foreheads, puckered lips, and flat, large-nostriled noses. Most wore button-down Hawaiian shirts.
Burklin had seen these creatures before. They drove the trucks that removed the bodies from the Dumpster.
Lorraine yelled at one of the men. As she spoke, her feet sank into the soft putty. “Why won’t any of you talk to me?” she said. “I’m right here. Hello, I’m naked. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Burklin moved toward her. If not for his ghostly state, his feet would have squished on the mucusy floor, too. When Lorraine saw him, she rolled her eyes. “You came,” she said. “I told you not to. This place stinks.”
Burklin shrugged. “I can’t smell anything.”
“Lucky you,” she said. Her breath rose on the air. “It’s cold. And no one will answer my questions.”
“Maybe they don’t speak English.”
“Or maybe I don’t look threatening enough. I wish I could shapeshift in here.”
“Did you look for another door?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been gangbanging midgets. Of course I looked for another door.”
The heavy mist obscured the lower section of tunnel. A voice erupted in the fog: “Marked protectors.” Burklin reached for Lorraine’s hand, fumbling uselessly. The deep voice filled the
vastness of the cavern. “You are not scheduled for assimilation. This intrusion is rude and ill timed. And you, Drifter, have some nerve even walking into my sector.”
“This can’t be real,” Burklin whispered.
“It beats lying in the ground getting eaten by worms,” Lorraine said. “But not by much.”
“Where did you come from?” the owner of the voice demanded.
“The waiting room,” Burklin said.
Laughter filled the darkness. “Never heard any of the slaves call it a waiting room before.”
“Slaves?”
“Yes. Your trinity watches over Lord Avnas, does it not? Pathetic. Two thirds of your trinity stands naked before me. The Bureau made the right decision in stripping Garrick of his charge.”
Burklin scratched his head. “Okay, you’ve breached my weirdness threshold. Who are you?”
Mist and fog vented out of the cavern. The speaker materialized and Burklin regretted asking his question.
The creature towered over them, three-stories tall, and appeared to have no bone structure. It was a giant dollop of chocolate pudding, or one of Pearl’s leavings after she ate one too many pig ears. Of course, a pair of eyes had never emerged from Pearl’s leavings before. From the top of the slug’s head, two spindly wires reached high in the air. Each stalk contained an oversized eye as big as a basketball.
Lorraine advanced toward the giant slug.
“Where are you going?” Burklin asked.
She gave him a look that could punch a hole through brick. “I’m getting answers. Nobody else will talk to me. Maybe that blob can tell us how to get out of here.”
“Lorraine …”
“Don’t.”
The slug’s antennae moved, and its bulbous eyeballs tracked Lorraine. The little people in Hawaiian shirts hunkered down, as if sensing danger. Their fingers moved faster at their workstations.
Lorraine stopped walking. She planted her feet in the muck, cleared her throat, and said, “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
With one eyeball focused on each intruder, the slug’s wiry antennae extended. A gaping hole appeared near its midsection and expelled a stream of green slop. “We expected neither of you,” it said through the opening.