Poker Alice clapped her callused hands. “Okay, girls, here are your teams,” she barked. “Miss Sussex, Miss Kitayama, and Miss Sheraton, you take Salvation Armani. Miss Radisson, Miss Fauster, and Miss … um …” The teacher stared at Norm, hoping to recall the visually unremarkable girl’s name.
“Rickett,” Norm said with the calm resignation that comes when a specific humiliation is continually repeated.
“Right,” Poker Alice continued. “Miss Rickett. You three take Halo/Good Buy.”
“Halo/Good Buy?” complained Marlo. “That’s a bargain bunker! I’ll have to lift twice as much as them!”
“That is your playing field.” Poker Alice shrugged. “But if you want to forfeit the game …”
“No, no, no,” Marlo interjected. “We’ll still win. I just wanted to go on record as saying that the playing field was uneven.”
“Agreed,” Poker Alice acknowledged, “and disregarded.”
Lyon swaggered up to Marlo, looking down her surgically perfected nose.
“I’ve made grown shopgirls wet themselves with fear,” she relayed with a malicious grin. “I can make an assistant manager’s hairline noticeably recede with just one transaction.”
Marlo stood on her tiptoes to look Lyon in the eye.
“Bring it on, Barbie.”
Poker Alice pulled out an antique watch on a chain, attached to her worn vest by a tarnished fob.
“Oooh, two dead little girls squaring off at one another, enough to soil my bloomers—if I were wearin’ any.” She smirked, staring at the small clock’s dusty face. “On your mark, get set …”
The six girls ran off, the group breaking in two as each team rushed toward its assigned destination.
“Go,” Poker Alice muttered, deepening her permanent scowl with a fresh grimace.
Marlo looked back over her shoulder, watching her teacher shove her cigar back between her thin, creased lips and plod toward the Angel Food Court.
Thirty minutes to fill up my pockets with out-of-fashion markdowns, Marlo thought. But she had to get—and get a lot—while the getting was good.
10 · LOOK WHO’S STALKiNG
MILTON AWOKE ON an olive-drab army cot in Lester Lobe’s office. Crowded with stacks of old newspapers, the room looked more like a nest built by some obsessive-compulsive bird than an office.
“Welcome back, earthling,” Lester joked while rolling a cigarette.
Milton’s mouth was as dry as a ball of cotton in a bottle of aspirin. “Water,” he rasped.
Lester put down his cigarette and handed Milton a dented canteen. “This should wet your whistle,” he said.
Milton gulped down the liquid and, despite his thirst, nearly spit it out across the room. “Ugh,” he gurgled. “What is this junk?”
Lester smiled a mouthful of brown teeth. “It’s my own special blend,” he explained. “You can’t trust the water. The government puts all sorts of stuff in it to keep the public passive and easily controlled. So I make my own Turbo Juice. It’s a power drink, with Kombucha mushroom tea, blue-green alga, and NoDoz pills, all mixed up. Keeps me on my toes … and in the head a lot,” he added, gesturing to the toilet in the corner.
Out of his head, more like, thought Milton as he tried to wipe the terrible taste off his tongue. He desperately wanted to tell Lester Lobe all about his descent to Heck. He knew that, unlike all the other people he had encountered upon his return, Lester wouldn’t just gaze at him with that pitying blank stare after hearing his tale. And that was part of the problem. For as much as Milton needed to talk to someone about his ordeal before it faded into a half-remembered dream, he was worried that Heck would become just another crackpot myth in Lester’s mad museum. Sandwiched between the miniature crop-circle garden and the fossilized Bigfoot droppings, Heck would become a big joke—and Milton a candidate for a padded cell.
He looked up at the IF YOU AREN’T PARANOID, YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION clock above Lester’s door-on-cinder-blocks desk.
“Five o’clock?!” Milton yelped, getting up a bit too fast. He sat back down on the side of the cot, waiting for the wooziness to pass. This was getting ridiculous, he thought. At first it was just dizzy spells. But blackouts? He must be getting more and more out of phase.
If he didn’t pull himself together soon, his next phase might be his last. He had to do something quick.
“What’s the rush?” Lester asked.
Milton staggered to his feet. “I’ve got to get back home. My parents think I’m at my therapist’s.”
“Well,” Lester replied, “maybe you are.”
He handed Milton a piece of binder paper with sloppy scribbles and doodles all over it. Milton squinted down at it through his Coke-bottle glasses.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a shopping list and some notes I had about how you might get that energy boost you’ve been looking for,” he replied with a lopsided grin.
Milton studied the list more closely. Jumper cables, meat thermometer, power drill … it was like supplies for one of his old science-fair experiments. Science fairs, Milton reflected. So much had happened since those carefree days where the most important thing in the world to him was a blue ribbon and a good grade. The stakes were so much higher now.
“Thanks,” Milton said as he thrust the list into his pocket and made his way back through the Paranor Mall. He hesitated at the Elvis Abduction Chamber. There was something strangely compelling about the dark booth. Milton picked at a peeling, yellowing picture of Lisa Marie Presley, Michael Jackson, and a chimpanzee dressed as a cowboy lacquered to the booth’s side.
“I’m not surprised you’re drawn to the Psychomanthium,” Lester Lobe said as he followed Milton into the museum.
“Why?” Milton said defensively. “Because I’m a psycho?”
“No,” Lester countered. “I’m the last person to be calling anyone a psycho. A Psychomanthium is a chamber used to communicate with dead spirits.”
Milton’s mind cracked. This freaky box was a connection to the beyond. It was his opportunity to contact the world below, the one that held his thoughts in its frosty grip.
“Supposedly, the spirits can be seen in the reflection of the mirrors,” Lester continued. “You’re supposed to say a fancy little spell and—presto changeo—there the spirits are, trapped in the mirror like the evil dudes in that second Superman flick. Not that I’ve ever tried it. The Psychomanthium is one of the few things here that gives even me the creeps. It sounded cool on eBay but, boy when I cracked open the box, I got a first-degree case of the willies and gave it the full-on Elvis makeover.”
Milton had a sharp yet mercifully fleeting bout of vertigo. His thoughts were slipping on broken ice and fighting for balance. He held on to the fiberglass extraterrestrial and shook his head clear.
“I’ve g-gotta g-go,” Milton stammered. “I have a feeling I’ll be back, though.”
Lester Lobe followed him to the door. “My doors are always open,” he said. “Seriously I can’t get this darned lock fixed. Be sure to tell me how your experiments in subtle energies turn out. I know how lonely the quest for truth can be. No one wants to follow you, and when you come back, no one wants to hear about it.”
Milton looked over his shoulder and gave the man a nervous smile as he opened the door to the street. “I gotta go. Thanks again.”
Milton walked down the sidewalk toward the bus stop. He stopped by a telephone pole, plastered with a dozen copies of the same flyer:
Before Stepping Into
a Court of Law …
… Get Yourself a Quart of
Cole’s Law!
I’m Algernon Cole. While I am, technically, not a lawyer—yet—I have the most popular law blog on the Internet.
I’ve helped countless people, just like yourself, tell the difference between a tort and a torte, a civil suit and a leisure suit, and a subpoena and a submarine. If no one will touch your case with a ten-foot affidavit (a written statement made und
er oath … see?), I’m your man. Did I mention I’m cheap?
Call me today at 1-800-COLELAW for your FREE consultation: your place, not mine (I’m in between offices … don’t ask!)
A lawyer! Exactly what I need! thought Milton, someone to help crack his confounding contract with the Principal of Darkness. If a lawyer could find some contractual loophole, some ambiguity to render Milton’s contract null and void, perhaps he could find a way to unravel EVERY dead kid’s contract, or at least free his sister and Virgil from eternal darnation.
Milton pulled off the number, printed on perforated tabs beneath the flyer.
The-price is definitely right, thought Milton, and Algernon Cole seems open to entertaining … unusual cases. But where could I set up a meeting?
“Happy trails, zombie boy” Lester Lobe yelled from down the block.
Milton turned and saw Lester in his doorway, waving, squinting at the setting sun. An idea struck him on and about his tired brain.
“Is it okay if I stop by tomorrow?” Milton called back.
Lester shrugged and rattled his doorknob. “Like I said,” he shouted. “Always open.”
The Topeka/Generica Express pulled up to the curb. Milton waved at Lester and hobbled on. As the bus drove away, Milton saw a girl dart behind a cluster of lilac bushes across the street.
“Necia Alvarado?” Milton mumbled as the bus lurched from the curb, sending him tumbling into a fat man’s newspaper.
“Sorry,” Milton apologized as he fought his way against the g-force of the accelerating bus to find an empty seat. He looked out the back window, but between the bus’s jerks and the dizziness of an oncoming spell, Milton couldn’t make out the figure behind the bush. Maybe he was seeing things, he thought as he scooted into a vacant seat. He seemed to be seeing a lot of things recently. But the girl had that same bony, nervous weirdness of Necia. The ghost image of the girl burned into the back of his retinas. She had been dressed like a peppermint candy, all in stripes, and was holding what looked like a small gift-wrapped package.
11 · NERVES OF STEAL
MARLO STEPPED THROUGH the automatic doors and onto the sensible, off-white vinyl floor of Halo/Good Buy.
“Ah,” she said to Norm as they surveyed the unspectacular labyrinth of cut-rate merchandise, “looks like we’re flying coach.”
Norm shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said in her slow, vague way. “It’s kind of comforting. Reminds me of shopping with my mom. I used to hate her dragging me to these places—all quantity, no quality, ya know? She’d always force me to try on things that just made it screamingly obvious what a dumpy lump I was. But I’d give anything to be complaining to her right now.”
Norm sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Marlo patted her on the back. “I know what you mean,” she said with a faraway voice. “All the stuff that seemed so awful doesn’t seem so bad anymore. It’s probably just another way for them to torture us, from the inside, with memories.”
Bordeaux rolled her eyes as she joined the two girls. “Oh, boo hoo,” she said mockingly before scanning the store. “Ugh. This place is, like, so gross. I had to go to one of these once with our cleaning lady the first time my father was indicted. It was so depressing … there wasn’t even a concierge!”
Marlo rolled her eyes at Norm and walked up to a small trash receptacle and stuck her arm in. “Ah,” she said after a moment’s fishing. “Here we go.” Marlo exhumed a receipt. “That’s the ticket,” she said. “Always nice to have a little security in case of—”
Marlo scanned the store and stopped at a middle-aged man with aviator glasses who was pretending to be interested in skeins of multicolored yarn and a selection of knitting needles.
“—security. Five-oh at five o’clock.”
Norm scratched her head, which was exposed in patches thanks to her really bad haircut.
“That guy,” Marlo continued. “Totally a security guard. He’s got ‘the look,’ like some dork who couldn’t make the police academy and settled as a department store rent-a-cop. But, despite Guardilocks over there, it’s nice to be back in ‘the maze.’ C’mon … let’s get our unfair share.”
Bordeaux pointed to a large red and white sign on a nearby wall: ALL SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW … AND THEN SOME.
“Don’t get your Underoos in a knot,” Marlo replied. “That’s just to put off amateurs.”
Bordeaux shrugged, and the three girls walked down the Beauty, Bedpans, and Bermuda Shorts aisle. After browsing through an assortment of lip liners and glosses, Bordeaux found a tube of Kiss Off! lip glaze in bright Tickled Pink.
“Ooh!” she said enthusiastically. “This is the stuff that has actual bee venom in it so your lips, like, get totally swollen!”
She found a wall-mounted mirror at the end of the aisle, unscrewed the tube of lipstick, and smeared it on her already collagen-enhanced lips.
“Filching fun fact,” Marlo chimed in. “Normal mirrors are sheets of glass with silver stuff on the back. Two-way mirrors—the kind that let security sit back and snoop on you—have the silver reflector stuff on the front, so they can see you but not vice versa.”
Marlo took a mascara wand (Suburban Dismay’s “Lash Out”) and held it to the mirror.
“See?” she commented. “There’s no gap between the tip and its reflection. That means it’s time to smile your prettiest smile and do your dirty work elsewhere.”
The girls walked down the next aisle, which featured bins of discounted polyester jogging suits in odd sizes.
“So, are they on to us?” Norm whispered. “I mean, with the mirrors?”
Marlo smiled knowingly. She hadn’t been this happy since she was alive. “Yes,” she said through the side of her mouth. “But we have the upper hand since we know they’re watching us. Get it?”
Norm nodded, though she was far from getting it.
“Hey, Frosted Flake,” Marlo called to Bordeaux, “it’s time to make yourself useful.”
Bordeaux strutted over. “Well, there’s certainly nothing worth buying here,” she replied, still not fully understanding that none of the girls could indeed buy anything. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ve been ID’d already,” Marlo said, “so walk around the store acting suspicious, so the lame-o guard follows you while Norm and I make like bandits.”
“Great,” Bordeaux replied, “then I won’t have to hang out with you freaks and get your dork stink all over me.”
Bordeaux skipped away, singing to herself.
“My body language never stutters,
moves as smooth as melted butter.”
The security guard touched his finger to a receiver in his ear, dropped a handful of crochet hooks, and followed Bordeaux down the Polydent, Pooper Scoopers, and Porcelain Figurines aisle.
Marlo tugged the sleeve of Norm’s sweatshirt. “Okay, we’re going to use the buddy system,” she whispered. “Your job is to build the nest.”
Norm stared at Marlo with a look of utter incomprehension.
“The nest,” Marlo repeated louder and slower, the way some people do when they try talking to people who speak a foreign language. “You take some stuff to a low-traffic spot, like the maternity section. I mean, we’re all dead, so who’s going to be pumping out little bundles of joy? Anyway, you store it for Magpie Number Two, yours truly, whose job is to pocket the goods and flutter out the door with our little bundle of joy. Got it?”
Norm smiled. This time she got it perfectly. “Birds of a feather steal together,” the large, shapeless girl said as she set out, with a spring in her step and a sparkle in her eyes, toward the Plastic Wrap, Plates, and Plumbing aisle.
Marlo brushed away the blue bangs from her face and walked confidently toward the Ziplocs, Zithers, and Zucchini aisle. But there was something—someone—in the corner of her eye. A dark blob matching her gait footfall for footfall. A shadow, only this “shadow” was obviously, by his feigned inter
est in a tube of Gee, Your Hands Smell Terrific! lotion, a security guard.
“Excuse me,” she called out to the barrel-chested man with the mirrored sunglasses (please). The man jumped and tried desperately to will himself invisible by reading the ingredients on the back of a jar of Papaya Smear face mask. “Sir?” Marlo persisted, skipping up next to him. “You obviously work here … could you direct me to the feminine hygiene section?”
The man’s face flushed deep fuchsia. His mustache wilted over his thin lips. “Um, n-no, I …,” he stammered before sighing with resignation. “Aisle seventeen. Hobbies, Horseradish, and Hygiene.”
Marlo grinned. “Thank you, sir!” She giggled as she skipped away, stopping at the end of the aisle and calling back over her shoulder. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll be at Macaroons, Megaphones, and Moist Towelettes, if you need me. See ya there!”
Marlo could practically hear him deflate, like a weather balloon over a javelin throw. Yet just as she was about to make her final approach toward Norm’s nest, an announcement squawked over the store’s public-address system.
“Attention Halo/Good Buy shoppers,” croaked an ancient, tremulous voice over the speakers. “For those of you mature enough to remember the Victorian era firsthand, you’re in for a treat! In Fan Belts, Fanny Packs, and Fashion, we have a sale on antique skirts and petticoats, vintage corsets, and assorted mourning wear. Take a walk or wheelchair ride down memory lane!”
Marlo stopped dead—or more dead—in her tracks. Well, she thought, maybe I could afford a brief little detour. I mean, how often does one get to try on authentic Victorian clothes with authentic Victorians?
12 · SPREE DE CORPSE
SURE, MARLO REFLECTED as she shuffled toward the Halo/Good Buy foyer, I got a little greedy … okay, a lot greedy, but it’s what this place does to you.
Marlo’s prelift anxiety had been off the charts. Usually a few outfits were enough to calm her down, but she was still so famished for fashion that she had actual hanger pangs. Just when she thought she might have actually taken enough to sate her greed, she’d think of the Grabbit. She’d feel a slow constriction, like a snake tightening itself around her—until she felt empty again. Hollow. And wanting to prove herself to the source of her torment, that maddening metal hare, more than anything.
Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck Page 7