Opportunity is where you find it, thought Milton as he crept behind the Butter Mobile, sometimes even in a big stick of butter.
He stealthily opened the side door, and there, on the seat, was just what he’d suspected: a fiberglass butter costume with a matching cream-yellow leotard.
Milton peered nervously over the stubby hood of the vehicle. There was no way he’d be able to make it across the parking lot dressed as a stick of butter without the driver noticing.
He looked down the driveway leading to the hospital’s back entrance. At the end of the slope was an empty delivery area. Milton snatched the costume and a sympathy balloon, sucked in a deep breath, and wrapped his sweaty palm around the vehicle’s parking brake.
Maybe I’m not such a goody-goody after all, Milton reflected, releasing the brake and backing away from the Sympathy Express vehicle as it crept backward down the incline.
He stole toward a patch of nearby hydrangea bushes for cover. The Butter Mobile slowly gained momentum as it rolled down to the delivery entrance.
“My Butter Mobile!” the driver yelped. He dropped his coffee and ran down the parking lot.
Just then, a bread delivery truck entered the rear parking lot.
“Look out!” the Sympathy Express driver shrieked as his wobbling vehicle slammed into the approaching Your Daily Bread van.
The fiberglass butter pierced the van’s side with a horrid, grating squeal. The driver leapt out of the van just as it burst into flames.
“Are you okay?” gasped the Sympathy Express driver as he grabbed the frazzled bread driver by the shoulders and pulled him away from the wreckage.
“I … I think so …,” the man huffed. “Do you think my van will be okay?”
Flames licked the side of the van. Painted depictions of freshly baked loaves bubbled and dripped down the vehicle’s side in molten clumps.
“I think it’s toast,” the Sympathy Express driver sympathized.
The great cube of charred, fiberglass butter melted, ultimately collapsing upon itself.
“Is that real?” the Your Daily Bread driver asked, wiping oily soot away from his eyes.
“The butter?” the Sympathy Express driver replied. “No … it’s fiberglass.”
“Wow. I can’t believe that’s not butter,” the man replied in awe.
Meanwhile, Milton climbed into the costume, which was several pats too large for him. Taking advantage of the diversion, he trotted into the hospital. He pulled up the saggy yellow fabric bunching down around his knees and approached the reception desk.
“H-hello,” Milton managed from inside the costume.
The middle-aged nurse smirked. “You’re not the usual guy. What are you, some kind of butter substitute?”
“Um … y-yes,” Milton stammered. “He … he’s having a vehicle malfunction. I’m kind of his apprentice.”
“Oh,” she replied absentmindedly while systematically checking off a stack of forms on her desk. “That’s cute … and a little sad.”
“I’m here to see Damian Ruffino.”
“Hmm,” the nurse murmured while scanning a stack of admissions records. “He’s in ICU, so you can’t see him.” She looked up over the horn-rimmed glasses teetering on the tip of her long nose and eyed the bobbing get BUTTER SOON balloon.
“Aren’t you supposed to have a gift or something? I mean, the balloon on its own is just kind of … well, pathetic. Even to a kid in a coma.”
Milton gulped and, after a moment’s hesitation, set the backpack he had been clutching in his left hand onto the counter. He rummaged through it, stopping with surprise, pulling out a small, gift-wrapped package.
“Uh, yes, here it is,” he said, “ready for poor little … Damián.”
The nurse glanced uneasily from side to side.
“Okay, I shouldn’t really do this. But go on up. Just be quick … and take the stairs, to be on the safe side.”
Milton shuffled off. “Thanks,” he said with a wave just as the nurse’s phone rang.
“Hello, Generica General. What? In the parking lot?”
Milton rushed into the “Staff Only” stairwell. He was panting so hard he sounded like Darth Vader having an asthma attack. The suffocating costume smelled like that Udderly Unbelievably Nothing to Do with Dairy! spread that his mom bought to save money after the family had been hit with a larger-than-expected bill for Marlo’s funeral. Mom and Dad had gone all out, going for the Deluxe Simu-Marble Cryptoleum, even springing for the Gothic lettering and Take-It-for-Granite trim. Marlo would have loved it. Mario …
Milton’s legs wobbled, and his head started to spin and lurch like a dryer with sneakers in it.
“Oh no,” he murmured as he leaned against the wall, holding the rail with trembling hands. “Not another spell.”
The stairs, the NO SMOKING sign, the metal handrail, the buzzing fluorescent light, they all seemed to reel in wavering arcs across his field of vision. It felt like full-body vertigo, like every part of his body wanted to puke but couldn’t.
Milton had some dream or memory—he wasn’t quite sure—that when he had died, he’d lost his sentient body, the energy “glue” that held him together, to something called the Transdimensional Power Grid. And ever since his return to the living, he had been experiencing these weird, sudden “skips” in himself at odd moments, usually when he was stressed out about something, which was practically all the time. From the murk of either memory or madness, he could hear a dead pirate talking about physical and etheric bodies, shifting out of phase…
Finally, the nauseating carnival ride slowed to a stop, and Milton’s reality—if you could call it that—settled into place. He gulped, drew in a deep, stale buttery breath, and stared at the present in his hand, the one that had, inexplicably, been in his backpack. It was so light it was no wonder he hadn’t noticed it in his bag. It was wrapped in shiny silver paper that warped his reflection. There was a small rocket ship-shaped tag that read simply: To Milton, From Mom.
She must have put it in my backpack before school, thought Milton. She’s been so strange, ever since …
Milton heard voices from above. He had to hurry before someone kicked his butter back out into the street. He passed by two nurses as he entered the children’s ward on the fourth floor.
“You know they say that wearing a butter costume is actually better for you than wearing a margarine costume,” deadpanned the curly-haired nurse to her friend.
Milton walked down the hall, touching the smooth, cool wall with his fingertips to steady himself. He poked his head into a room. Through the eye slits in his costume, Milton could see a dark lump surrounded by blinking boxes. A symphony of dull beeps, staccato chirps, and labored wheezes swarmed about this claustrophobic, pine-scented tomb. In the middle of it all, conducting this high-tech orchestra, was Damian.
A plastic tube snaked out of his mouth, winding its way to a mechanical bellows that sucked and puffed in a slow, steady rhythm.
Milton gently closed the door and knelt beside Damian. An IV tube was spliced into his wrist, while a heart monitor blipped and blinked like a first-generation Atari game. He looked so peaceful. But Milton knew better. Damian was a nuclear bomb swaddled in blankets. Beside him, on the nightstand, were cartons of popped popcorn, in various flavors. Actually, boxes and bags of popcorn were piled all over the room. Damian must have really liked popcorn, Milton thought. Who knew?
“Damian,” Milton whispered nervously. Even though Damian was, for all appearances, dead to the world—this world, anyway—cold sweat trickled down Milton’s back out of sheer habit.
Milton shook Damian’s sturdy, lifeless arm. “It’s me … Milton. C’mon. Don’t you want to beat me up?” he said.
The comatose bully’s eyes darted about beneath his eyelids.
Ignoring the old adage “Let sleeping thugs lie,” Milton tried shoving Damian awake, but he wouldn’t budge.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. Hard patent-leather shoes slapped a
gainst the linoleum floors, getting closer with each step. Milton slammed his fiberglass shoulder against Damian’s side.
“Heck,” he whispered. “Is there a Heck?”
Damian’s eyes fluttered open. He registered Milton’s presence with flat, dilated pupils.
“B-butter?” he gasped.
Damian’s eyes closed and he fell back into unconsciousness.
The footsteps in the hall drew closer. Milton didn’t have much time. If he wanted proof that he wasn’t crazy, he had to get it now.
With all his might, Milton slammed into Damian’s side. Little did he estimate that his slight build could be amplified by pounds of fiberglass. Damian rolled violently to the wall, then—like a human pendulum—barreled back with such force that he lurched off the bed in a tangle of cords.
The life-support machines came crashing down, yanking out plugs and wires.
Milton gasped. Panic wrapped its fingers around his heart as his mind was dragged back to Heck, to the time that Damian had first entered Limbo.
“Well, after the … incident,” Damian said while absentmindedly twirling one of the soiled bandages unraveling from his head, “I was taken to the hospital and hooked up to a machine. Some idiot tripped on the cord and unplugged me, though. It’s all a little hazy. I think I saw a gigantic stick of butter holding a balloon that said ‘Get Butter Soon’!”
Milton looked up at the bobbing balloon he held clenched in his trembling fist. A bad taste formed in the back of his mouth before slowly trickling down his throat. Milton was the butter. He was the one who had, inadvertently, sent Damian down to Heck, unleashing upon the woebegone children of the Netherworld a demonic force that made the torments before seem like a library puppet show. It was all true: Heck was real!
Alarms and buzzers sounded. An unwavering tone sliced through the din, the unmistakable sound of a patient flatlining. Milton bolted down the hallway. To his right was a gaggle of nurses and candy stripers.
“Stop that stick of butter!” one of the nurses shrieked.
Milton scrambled toward the stairwell like a frightened animal. Another bout of vertigo spun his internal compass, and he fell down a flight of stairs, a rolling pin of squealing fiberglass and tights. Shaken but unhurt, Milton slammed through the emergency exit and out into the parking lot.
He dove into a thatch of nearby shrubs and wriggled out of the costume like a big sweaty larva abandoning its egg. As he stepped out of his tights, Milton was struck by the feeling that he had forgotten something. Then, as he kicked the gnarled ball of hose away, it hit him: his backpack was still in Damian’s hospital room.
He reviewed the contents of the bag—books, mostly—and relaxed a little. There was nothing in it that connected directly back to Milton, nothing that could possibly identify him…
Milton’s stomach sank down into his sneakers. The “To Milton, From Mom” gift.
Several security guards emerged from the hospital. Milton would have to postpone feeling sorry for himself until he got home. He crouched down and darted through the maze of dense shrubs, hoping that there was something—anything—that could make him “feel butter” about his desperate situation.
4 · DEAD GIRL’S BLUFF
A HIGH-PITCHED peal of piercing whines echoed down the hallway. The squeaky-wheel-of-a-broken-shopping-cart sound burrowed under Marlo’s skin like a sonic porcupine in the throes of death.
“Wait,” one of the demon guards said to the other as they herded Marlo, Norm, and Takara to their first class. “She’s doing it again. It’s a hoot!”
The demons followed the shrill sounds to a pair of green metal doors labeled GIMME. Snickering, they set their pitchsporks against the wall and pressed their snouts against the doors’ inset windows.
Marlo elbowed her way to one of the smudgy panes of glass. It was reinforced by embedded chicken wire. Probably so it won’t shatter due to the screeches, Marlo thought. She peered inside.
The room was lined with elevated shelves stuffed with shiny new toys and candy. At the center was a human pyramid of raging toddlers mewling with want, their faces slick with a mixture of tears, drool, and snot. One little boy with a look of righteous entitlement teetered at the top with his trembling hand outstretched toward a glass jar brimming with fresh-baked cookies. The delicious odor was so powerfully enticing that Marlo could smell it even through the thick metal door.
Just as the furious boy was about to touch the jar, it was yanked away, suspended by fishing line. Marlo followed the translucent cord up to the ceiling, where it coiled through a pulley, then stretched across the room to a long pole manipulated by a chuckling demoness wearing a tiara. The creature reeled the line in with the teasing, expert hand of an old Greek fisherman, until the pyramid of whining children collapsed.
As the bruised, undeterred children clambered over one another to start their futile efforts anew, a herd of deep voices and clomping footfalls thundered from an intersecting hallway.
“I ken not wait to show you boys ze expensive, state-of-ze-art arcade we have just sealed up,” a snooty Frenchman sneered, tugging his flowing red velvet robe along the floor. The man was followed by ten miserable-looking teenage boys who shambled along behind their teacher, staring at their shabby penny loafers.
“Yes, Cardinal Richelieu,” they chanted dejectedly.
Norm stared at the group and blushed. “Boys,” she mumbled while attempting to fix her hair, despite it being past the point of repair.
Hmm … Rapacia for boys, Marlo reasoned. Girls and boys -pried apart, then locked away in their own gender-specific torment. Just like in Limbo and European boarding schools. Brutal.
One of the boys gave Marlo a quick once-over from the corner of his deep brown eyes. He shuffled down the hall with cool charisma, his hands thrust deep inside his pants pockets, giving him a permanent shrug.
Marlo smirked to herself. A fellow klepto, no doubt, she thought as she watched the intriguing, pale—almost translucent—boy disappear down the hall. He even has to steal a look.
The bell rang. The demon guards grumbled as they grabbed their pitchsporks.
“Looks like you girls are already tardy,” one of the guards said while picking its snout. “On your first day, no less.”
“That’s not fair!” Norm complained.
The other demon guard jabbed Norm in the bottom. “Neither is having corns on your toes the size of … corn … and sentenced to spend eternity on your feet,” it spat. “So just deal with it!”
The girls were prodded, poked, and nudged down the hall toward their first class.
The smoke in the classroom was thick and acrid. It curled Marlo’s nose so much she felt like her nose hair was getting a perm.
At the eye of this stinky, swirling cloud was a glowing orange ember—the tip of a foul cigar that flared and cooled in tireless rhythm. As Marlo groped for her seat in the carcinogenic fog, her movement fanned the smoke clear. At the desk was a wrinkled, jowly old woman puffing away at a small tobacco-filled log. She wore a mans work shirt, a khaki skirt, a frayed straw hat, and an expression like a rusty bear trap. The woman’s desk was covered in green felt with a deck of cards fanned out before her. Marlo’s breeze had caused the cigar to burn like a fuse, rapidly turning half of it to ash.
The woman leveled her cold eyes at Marlo. “Do you know how hard it is to get a Cohiba down here?” the woman rasped.
Marlo sat down at the only unoccupied desk, which was, unfortunately, right up front.
“I can’t say that I do,” she replied flatly.
Behind her, Bordeaux coughed. It was like the thin wheeze of a balloon animal.
“Aren’t there, like … laws against … smoking in a … classroom or … something?” Bordeaux managed between petite hacks.
The woman smiled around her cigar. “That must be why it tastes so dern good,” she said, her voice rippling like liquid tar paper.
“Don’t worry,” Lyon whispered to Bordeaux. “Secondhand smoke is a totally
awesome appetite suppressant. Plus, coughing is great for the abs.”
A display screen lowered behind the teacher. The lights in the room automatically dimmed, and the old woman rested her head on her desk, using her swollen hands as a pillow.
THIS CLASS IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
HALO/GOOD BUY, LOCATED ON
THE FOURTH TIER OF BEAUTIFUL,
EVERLASTING Mallvana.
A confused old woman nervously approaches the Pearly Gates. St. Peter is there behind a stately lectern, furiously scribbling away with a quill on a long sheet of parchment.
“Am I on your list?” the woman asks meekly.
St. Peter looks up, startled. “What? My list …”
He laughs uproariously. “No, of course not!”
The woman skulks away sadly while St. Peter returns to his writing.
“This is my shopping list for Halo/Good Buy,” he chirps happily to himself, “where divine deals and beatific bargains flow like milk and honey!”
The old woman sneaks past St. Peter and tries to push open the gate.
“Can’t … budge it,” she gasps breathlessly.
“Can’t budget?” St. Peter replies to the camera. “No problem! With bins overflowing with irregular sizes and damaged returns, you can always leave Halo/Good Buy with a heavenly harvest, even if in debt you did part!”
The old woman nudges open the gates and tries to tiptoe inside. St. Peter rolls his eyes and pulls a massive lever. A trapdoor opens beneath the old woman. She falls into the flaming pit, screaming.
HALO/GOOD BUY. IF OUR PRICES WERE ANY
LOWER THEY’D BE, WELL … DOWN THERE.
HALO/GOOD BUY: ONLY IN MALLVANA.
The lights came up, and the screen slid back into the ceiling. Marlo trembled. It didn’t matter that the store itself seemed kind of lame, she thought as she bit her nails. The hypnotic commercial had stoked the flames of desire burning within her to such a degree that beads of sweat formed on her greedy brow. She took a deep breath, clutched the sides of her desk, and looked around her. Norm, Lyon, Bordeaux—all of the girls—were gazing imploringly at one another with the pained look of QVC addicts who hadn’t paid their phone bills.
Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck Page 3