Get Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  “We’re not hunting them,” Paul snapped.

  “Why the hell not? I want to hunt a person!”

  “And we’ll find someone at a soup kitchen for you. But this man is very important. This is Sam Smiley, or, as you might know him better, the Antichrist.”

  “Whoa,” Rand said.

  Heather’s head snapped around. Well, that got her attention.

  “So we’re not hunting him, we’re sacrificing him.”

  “Can I hunt the girl, then?”

  “Maybe,” Paul allowed. “But if I remember correctly, our Mr. Smiley has the devil’s charm and a weak spot for the ladies. Keeping her around will ensure he doesn’t use his infernal powers against us. Won’t it, Sam?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Another lie. You’re a chip off the old block, aren’t you, Sam? Barnabas, Jeremy, take these two to the dungeon and secure them.” This last was directed at Frodo and Yolo, and was probably their real names, but after Rand christened them, there was no way I was going back.

  “I’m going with!” Rand exclaimed.

  “The tour was going to the dungeon eventually,” Paul said. “Might as well head there now.”

  With one meaty hand clamped on my wrist and the other one encircling the back of my neck, Frodo gave me the bum’s rush. He practically carried me down a flight of carpeted stairs, then a flight of stone ones, each step giving my shoulder a little twinge. The whole time, Paul kept up the tour for Rand, who responded with distinctly Californian noises of amazement.

  “Normally, I would show you the first sublevel before getting to the dungeon. I’m certain you’ll find the sex arena and the spawning range to be to your satisfaction. The dungeon can store a combination of willing and unwilling guests, with no need for any alteration in basic accommodations.”

  He wasn’t kidding, either. The dungeon was exactly that. It had authentic-looking stone walls with steel rings bolted into them, some equipped with chains and manacles. The lights were electric, the kinds of fake lanterns usually intended for outside use. Not really dungeon-appropriate, but they probably didn’t want to deal with open flame, no matter how much ambience it might have added. The devices scattered throughout the room were decidedly not period-accurate, though. Made the whole place look like David Cronenberg’s gym.

  “And this is the largest sex dungeon on the West Coast.”

  I didn’t give him a derisive snort, since Frodo still had my favorite neck in a vise. But in point of fact, the Vatican had a much larger one in Santa Clarita. Supposedly disused, they kept it around to “test” themselves. I should know, I spent the bulk of one summer picking up sex toys from this giant warehouse store in Sun Valley and taking them to the dungeon. It was a long, hot, extremely uncomfortable summer in which I did my best not to look at anyone directly.

  Still, this was easily second place and nothing I could think of touched either one. Not that anything would want to. Not without all the hand sanitizer in the universe.

  “It’s pretty big,” Rand allowed. “And I can work out down here whenever I want?”

  Paul scratched his goatee and, in a slightly frightened voice, asked, “You know this isn’t a gymnasium, correct?”

  “I stay in shape with tantric calisthenics and penile stretches.”

  It was the first time I had ever seen Paul creeped out by anything. I wanted to applaud, but Frodo wasn’t having that. “Uh... well, we are fully equipped for anything you might wish to do sexually.”

  “Paula Deen!”

  “I meant hypothetically.”

  “Oh.”

  Paul sighed. “Secure them.”

  Yolo slammed Heather against a stone wall, clapping manacles over her wrists and ankles. “You can violate my body, but my soul has advanced far beyond your understanding,” she said. There were no takers.

  Frodo picked me up and stuck me onto a leather saddle, strapping me into place with a series of belts and cuffs. I quickly determined that moving too much would get me probed a little more than I generally like.

  “And you... I expected more of you,” Heather sneered at Rand.

  “Baby, I give a hundred and fifty percent of myself at all times. On screen. In reality. To...” he reached out and pointed at her face in a manner that suggested Elvis Presley after a debilitating stroke. “You.”

  “You weren’t always like this! Remember when you bought the whole crew massages after we had that long day on Adrenaline?”

  Rand’s face was blank. “Are you a hairdresser?”

  “No! I was your co-star!”

  Rand laughed. “No, you weren’t.”

  “I was!”

  “I’d remember that. My co-star on that picture was... was... Kate Winslet?”

  “Me!”

  “No, wait. I wasn’t in that one.”

  “Yes, you were! I was there! Don’t you remember? The director was an assh... taskmaster. Taskmaster! And he drove us all crazy?”

  “Baby, I’m the sanest johnny in this place. Now, you want to get out of here and get some grounds for a paternity suit?”

  “We’re not letting them out,” Paul said wearily.

  “Hi, I’m Rodrick Rand,” Rand said, reaching out to Heather. “The Rodrick Rand.”

  She reflexively tried to extend a hand, causing her chains to angrily clink.

  “Come on, Rodrick. Let’s show you the rest of the place,” Paul said tenderly, almost as though he were talking to a child. A child who had apparently switched his anti-psychotic meds for cocaine.

  “All right.”

  The Satanists abandoned us in the dungeon, though they left the lights on. It wasn’t out of concern for us; it was because the First Reformed Church of the Antichrist was so obsessed with evil, they did things like leaving the light on and pulling the little tabs off of the lids of gallons of milk.

  Heather was fuming in her chains. “Doesn’t remember me? Doesn’t remember me? I was his co-star!”

  Adrenaline was a flop, and not one of those Joe Versus the Volcano kinds of flops where a good movie gets buried by an indifferent audience. No, Adrenaline was as crappy as its nearly nonexistent reputation suggested, and generally only got brought up as the answer to the trivia question, “What’s the only Rodrick Rand movie to lose money in every country except Moldavia?” And to be perfectly honest, I had totally forgotten Heather was in it.

  “He seems like he might do a lot of drugs, and then there looks to be about a mountain of crazy on top of that,” I suggested.

  “Still. I’m an actress, Jim. That’s how I earn a living... and now not even the co-star of my biggest movie remembers me.”

  I didn’t want to press, since I was pretty certain she hadn’t worked since that film. Nowadays, my guess was all her money came from doing nasty errands for the Rosicrusophists.

  “I’m saying it has nothing to do with you. It’s not that you’re unmemorable or anything. I mean, I fully plan to tell my girlfriend I met you... if I had a girlfriend, that is. I don’t have one of those.” Crap. Didn’t need another total psycho knowing about Mina.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes, definitely. This is a very big day for me. I mean, back when I was...” Shit. What did Jim Dawson do? When his nethers weren’t being lightly tapped by threatening latex? That’s right: “Agenting. Being an agent. When I was doing that, I’d have given my left arm for a client with half your talent.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “That’s sweet to say.”

  “We can talk about it later. Now we should probably focus on maybe figuring a way out of here.”

  Heather quieted down, swallowing the tears that had been threatening to explode out of her. “Why do they keep calling you Sam?”

  “Maybe we focus on getting me off the... penis rodeo thing?”

  “Sam. The way he said it... he was so sure. He knows you. As Sam.”

  “It’s like I said. Lots of drugs and some crazy
.”

  “Rand, sure. But he wasn’t the one calling you Sam. Paul Tallutto, who you said you had never met before tonight, called you Sam and acted like he knew you.”

  “I don’t think I ever said that. You might have implied or inferred it. I always get those two confused, don’t you?”

  “You implied it. Answer the question.”

  “Well, you know Satanists...”

  “Do you?”

  “Well enough to get strapped to a sex toy, apparently.”

  Heather watched me without blinking. I promptly withered under that gaze. “You’re changing the subject, Sam. Tell me how they know you.”

  I had to think fast. Granted, there was no way for Heather to murder me right at that moment, but I had plans, plans that involved not dying that night. Meant I didn’t want to burn any bridge I didn’t absolutely have to. And also, there was a part of me that believed she would find some way to kill me from ten feet away.

  Sam Smiley’s actual bio wouldn’t help me much. I created him while trying to get in with a group that actually looks at evil as something fun and desirable. They have the moral compass of a Silver Age comic villain. These idiots self-identify as evil, which is something supposedly no one does. In Hans Gruber’s mind, he’s just a good thief. Darth Vader was the thin black line between order and chaos. Sauron was like the Dude: he just wanted his stuff back. Sam Smiley, on the other hand, was a bad guy who would call himself such. Proudly.

  I couldn’t give him a criminal record, since I was relatively young at the time, and too much time inside wouldn’t have been believable. So I started with a sealed juvie record. I created a string of residences, never staying at any one address for more than six months. I then seeded fake stories to follow me around: vandalism, malicious mischief, animal-related sex crimes, that kind of thing. When I applied for the job, I could point to that stuff and say, “See, I’m as evil as you guys. Now let me get you lunch.” The things I did for that job. Another reason I tried to leave it all behind.

  Anyway, I couldn’t use Sam’s history. Had to come up with something on the spot. “Well, you know how I used to be an agent, and I wasn’t doing all that well? I had this one guy who could fit six chipmunks in his mouth at once, but that’s good for what, two bookings tops? I mean, once you do Letterman, that’s it. So like any agent in that situation, I turned to Satan. Turns out, Satan has a bit of a ‘physician heal thyself’ attitude when it comes to his favorite occupations. So I thought maybe the Rosicrusophists could help me out, seeing as there’s so many stars of your caliber involved in the group. I thought I could get some clients, but instead I found a great new way to live my life. I didn’t mention my prior affiliation because I didn’t want you to think I’m Misguided.”

  “This is a pretty bad Omission,” Heather said. Omission was capitalized. Since technically Rosicrusophists never lie (except to Misguided and then it doesn’t count), any deception was considered an Omission. “But it doesn’t answer my question. Why do they think your name is Sam?”

  “You think I would join a Satanist group and give them my real name?”

  “That makes sense.”

  It should; for once, it was even the truth.

  She thought about it some more.

  “And why do they think you’re the Antichrist?”

  “You’d have to ask them. That’s new.”

  Heather appeared to consider it.

  “Is that it?” I asked her. “Can we get to breaking out of here?”

  We tried and we failed. I couldn’t do much more than twitch, the way I was wrapped up. They had even left my phone on me, but there was no way to get to it. Heather had a little more freedom of movement, and I knew for a fact I could crack her cuffs in a couple seconds if I got my hands on them. Problem was, both hands were strapped to something moist and latex and I didn’t really want to think about it. After a solid hour of both of us struggling, we both sagged back.

  “Come on, Jim! Stay positive. We just need some way to apply Dr. Wood’s teachings to the situation and we’ll be out!”

  “I think when Dr. Wood said we were all prisoners, he didn’t mean it quite so literally.” I yawned. “Look, they’re not killing us yet, so I’m thinking we take this opportunity to get some sleep.”

  “You’re going to sleep?”

  “That’s sort of what I meant by that, yes.”

  “How can you sleep at a time like this?”

  “Use the technosis, Heather,” I yawned. “You’ll...”

  I might have finished the sentence, or I might not have. It didn’t really matter, since I was going on something like thirty-six hours with no sleep. In my dream I was camping, which should have tipped me off I was dreaming, because screw camping, and I was wrapped up in a sleeping bag so tight I couldn’t move. I kept hearing things off in the woods, outside of the comforting firelight. And that’s when something behind me started prodding my butt. As I tried to move away, it got more insistent, and this worried me, to put it mildly.

  “Wake up,” something growled.

  I opened my eyes. The thing was still poking at my butt. “Oh, it’s just the dildo,” I sighed with relief.

  Frodo loomed over me and for a moment, he frowned, trying to process what I’d said. He settled on, “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake, Frodo.” I yawned in his face. “Sorry about that. Haven’t brushed my teeth in... yeah, let’s not go pulling that thread.”

  He pulled me off of the machine and put me on my feet. I had spiders going through my whole body, so I nearly collapsed before Frodo kept me upright with one of the fingered hams he called hands.

  “Jim!” Heather said.

  “Yeah?”

  “No, I was calling your name. They’re taking you out, and when that happens, you call the person’s name.”

  “Right. Heather!”

  “What?”

  “Now I’m doing it.”

  “Move,” Frodo said, shoving me in the back, sending me stumbling forward to my knees while the blood was finally getting around to inflating my legs.

  “You know, I am the Antichrist,” I pointed out, getting slowly to my feet and wincing with the fresh spiders greeting every flex.

  “Then do something.” Frodo hauled me to my feet and shoved me again. I was able to keep upright that time.

  “See. Didn’t fall. Devil magic.”

  “Shut up and move.” Frodo punctuated that with another shove, because he lacked imagination. When we got to the stairs, he hauled me up in the bum’s rush hold. I got feeling back in my arms for this? I wasn’t going to give the guy the satisfaction of making a sound, even though my freshly revived limbs felt the twisting much more acutely than they had before.

  Frodo hustled me along to the ground floor. I started to hear voices, much louder than what had been waiting in the Temple when Heather and I had come in originally. This time the words were rhythmic and repetitive. There’s a name for that: chanting. And nothing good has ever come of chanting. Frodo pushed a door open with my face—I turned to take it on the cheek rather than my broken nose, but it still twinged the barely healed wound—and we were in a hallway just behind the Sanctuary. Yolo waited back here as well, draped in a black holocaust cloak.

  “What took so long?” Yolo asked.

  “This guy won’t shut up,” Frodo said.

  “Don’t listen. He’s the Antichrist. He’ll take over your mind.”

  “Fair point, Yolo,” I said. “Listen, how about you let me go, and I’ll give you a truly non-fattening alternative to ice cream?”

  They looked at each other, and I wondered if they were considering it or just baffled that I was still smarting off even with a Black Mass in the next room. “Here,” Yolo finally said, tossing some black cloth to Frodo.

  Frodo shoved me again and Yolo caught me, spinning me back into the same unpleasant hold. Frodo wriggled into the robe Yolo had tossed him.

  “The Dwead Piwate Wobutts leaves no surwivors!” I said.
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  “Huh?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  Frodo approached and each man grabbed an armpit. I giggled a little, because it tickled, and I’m only human. They lifted me about an inch off the ground and carried me into the Sanctuary.

  Yeah, it was definitely a Black Mass. I hate these things. They combine all the worst parts of religion and heavy metal, two things with precious few positive aspects. The worshipers stood in rows, all of them draped in black robes. Chances are they were totally naked under there, and considering that most Satanists had the same workout habits as your standard suburban swinger, this was not an appealing thought. They clutched black candles and chanted their silly gibberish.

  Up on the pulpit, a black altar awaited. There were more manacles and chains for whatever poor bastard got picked as the sacrifice, and at this point, I was sure that meant me. More black candles burned in gold candelabras, while stained-glass windows depicting the anti-saints gazed down on us from their rapes and murders. Paul Tallutto stood by the altar; as I got closer, I saw he was standing on a box. They had draped some black cloth over it, but I was pretty sure if I pulled that away, it would be an apple crate or something equally ridiculous. He wore robes, accented with a silver inverted pentagram hanging around his neck by a thick chain. He carried a serrated dagger that was practically a broadsword in his tiny hand.

  Paul’s harem surrounded him, and I don’t know what they were going for with those outfits, but they looked like Buck Rogers’s dominatrices. Really, bikinis should never have giant bladed collars. Nor do boots need talons, and no one should ever have heels higher than their own fibulas. It really was a shame Jim Lee wasn’t there to draw them.

  The last person waiting at the pulpit was Rodrick Rand. The light of every candle seemed to find its way into his eyes and glittered off his giant, too-even teeth. He chanted, putting his own little spin on things, throwing in extra gibberish every now and then, the expression on his face one of pure glee.

  Frodo and Yolo hoisted me onto the altar and the harem secured my wrists and ankles in the manacles. I was having trouble looking at anything other than the knife in Paul’s hand. These manacles would be child’s play if I had a single goddamn thing to pick them with. Things were beginning to look extremely bad for me.