Aftertaste

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “The lobby’s right through that doorway, asshole.” Ogerak’s most polite demeanor wasn’t very. “Use your eyes. They’re big enough.”

  Inside the building, Ogerak quickly ascertained the procedure. Humans stood in line until they reached one of several hooded windows, at which point another human dispensed the parchment from hiding. He considered bypassing the line since he was master of the city but decided to observe the process in more detail first.

  And then he was at the head of the line. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I would like some money, please.”

  “Do you have an account with us, sir?” The voice was bored. Ogerak recognized boredom; he had experienced it for 665 of his 666 years.

  “I am newly arrived in this city and do not understand all of its customs, but I have need of money.”

  “Do you have a traveler’s check then? Or something else to be cashed? A money order, perhaps?”

  Ogerak was hungry and frustrated. “I have told you. I need money. I am Ogerak. Tremble in the presence of my puissant evilness and give me what I wish or take the consequences!”

  The attendant recoiled and a moment later Ogerak heard something very much like the wailing sound of the monster that had chased him the night before. Desperate, he caught hold of the enclosure with both hands and tore it free, which generated a chorus of screams and much running about. He saw a tray filled with rows of the magical green parchment and snatched up two handfuls, then turned and made his way hastily outside. The wailing meant that either there was a similar monster dwelling within the building or one was being summoned. He heard a popping sound behind him and a series of light jabs tickled him between the shoulder blades as he turned and began to run. Well, lumber. Running really wasn’t one of his accomplishments.

  The pursuit was more persistent this time and more than an hour passed before the wailing sounds subsided and Ogerak, who had broken into an abandoned warehouse, sat on the floor and tried various conjurations without finding one that would trigger whatever magical potential the green parchment contained. He finally gathered it up and tucked it neatly into a pocket in his harness.

  Two blocks away, three figures had turned their heads toward the clamor. “Let us investigate,” said Murmural. “The irritating Ogerak may have drawn attention to himself.”

  Inkarion protested. “It is I who irritates. The faithless Ogerak is merely off-putting.”

  “Whatever,” Murmural answered, rolling his eyes.

  Purchasing food from street vendors proved to be relatively easy and the yawning chaos in Ogerak’s gut was finally assuaged, at least for the time being, although a human would have been much more satisfying. He had managed to find a few who counted beast flesh among their wares, although for some reason they insisted upon burning it before they would allow consumption. As darkness began to fall, Ogerak decided to emulate the humans and rest indoors. He had even learned that some of the buildings in the city catered to travelers and that these were called hotels. He found one such that was suitably dirty and unkempt and asked the attendant to explain the procedure for acquiring temporary dwelling privileges.

  “You pay the nightly fee, in advance. No drugs, no women, no loud noises.” The attendant considered Ogerak’s oversized frame. “Break anything and you pay for it.”

  Ogerak laid out all of his money on the counter. “Is this sufficient?”

  The clerk’s eyes opened widely and he nodded. “For one night, sure. But you’ll need more if you’re planning to stay any longer.” The money had already disappeared, confirming Ogerak’s suspicion that it was magic.

  “The depository is not likely to give me any more,” Ogerak observed glumly.

  “Depository? Oh, you mean the bank. Broke, huh? Don’t you have a job, friend?”

  Ogerak shrugged. “I have only what you see.”

  “Homeless too.” The attendant shook his head. “Well, you’ll have to get a job if you want more money, and you’ll need more money if you want to stay here another night.”

  So that was it, thought Ogerak. The reason the attendant had been unwilling to give him money when he asked was because he had no job. He had not noticed that the humans were carrying such a thing, but perhaps they only produced it when they reached the window. “Where would I get one of these jobs?” he asked earnestly.

  “They’re pretty hard to come by. I feel for you, friend.” This was patently false. “I was on the street for a while myself. If the guy who worked this desk before me hadn’t up and died, I’d probably be there still.”

  Ogerak’s brow wrinkled. “So you perform your duties here and your masters reward you with this job thing?”

  “Well, sort of. Yeah.”

  “And once you have a job, the depository will dispense money at your request?”

  “Within reason, yeah, depending on how much you get paid.”

  “And you succeeded to this post because of the death of your predecessor?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I understand.” Ogerak smiled because he had already detected the distinctive odor of damnation, then unhinged his jaw and lunged forward.

  It took the three demons several weeks to track Ogerak down and they ultimately found him by accident. They had entered the run-down hotel seeking lodging for the night and none of them had recognized the oversized desk clerk at first. He was wearing a shabby overcoat and his eyes were downcast and full of misery. Luckily Nuramor was hungry enough that he was examining humans closely, hoping to find one of the irretrievably damned.

  “Ogerak! Is that you?”

  It was a moderately joyful reunion with much slapping of backs, punching of ribs, gnashing of teeth, and pulling of hair. Eventually Murmural called them to order and informed Ogerak that he was to be taken back to hell, by force if necessary.

  “On the contrary, I cannot wait to return. This world is a madhouse whose illogical rules have created an existence so unbearable that I now fully understand why humans sacrifice their immortal souls in order to escape. Here one must have a job, which is not simply assigned by a higher authority but which must be discovered by the individual, and only then if that individual possesses certain documents attesting to his personal history. But this history must be established by those same documents, a circular logic which makes them unobtainable save through subterfuge.” Ogerak reached into the pocket of his overcoat and withdrew a battered wallet, opened it to display a social security card and driver’s license. “I was forced to assume the identity of my former employer after I had eaten him.”

  Even Murmural found this hard to credit. The bureaucracy in the fourteenth century had not been nearly so advanced.

  “Nor can one survive with a single job. I myself spend my evenings ejecting boisterous individuals from warrens where rhythmic sounds are played at such a high volume that they inflict permanent damage on the hearing of those humans present. And don’t get me started about their politics.” He would have regaled them further with details of the horrific world in which he’d trapped himself, but Murmural intervened.

  “It is time for you to return and face the consequences of your indiscretion.”

  Ogerak beamed at him. “I welcome the ritual dismemberment. Let us be off.”

  Murmural glanced around. “Not here. I can only perform the ritual a single time and there must be ample space for the vortex to generate a Portal.”

  “There’s a park at the end of the block. Would that be big enough?” Now that Ogerak had the chance to escape the human world, he was impatient to be gone.

  “We shall see.”

  Presently, the four demons stood at the edge of the small fenced area. Two men with rakes stood on the far side but there was almost no other pedestrian traffic. “This should be adequate,” said Murmural. “It will only take a few moments to invoke the Portal. Let us proceed.”

  Murmural had barely uttered the first few syllables when they were interrupted. The two humans they’d noticed ear
lier were approaching, brandishing their rakes. “Hey! Can’t you jokers read? Keep off the grass. We just finished seeding here.”

  Nuramor was so furious that his disguise began to slip but Murmural stepped in front of him until he had restored control. “Our apologies, gentlemen. We did not mean to transgress.”

  “Yeah, well, move along then. And try not to make too much of a mess on your way out.”

  They left while the two men efficiently raked over their tracks.

  “This way,” urged Ogerak. “There is a larger park only a few blocks away.”

  There were humans there as well, but it was indeed much larger and the demons were able to find an open space among a cluster of trees where they believed they would not be observed. Murmural began the invocation again and this time the opening stages went smoothly. Ogerak was exhilarated by the sight of a Portal beginning to form in the center of the clearing, spinning lights and gouts of flame slowly taking on substance.

  The Portal was half-formed when they were interrupted.

  “Hey, buddy! You got a permit?”

  Ogerak turned to see a uniformed man approaching rapidly. He moved to intercept. “Is there a problem, officer?”

  “Not if you got a permit there isn’t. But if you don’t, there’s a very big problem.” He glanced up at the coalescing Portal. “Pretty impressive, I’ll give you that. But you need a permit to do any kind of performance art here. Particularly with pyrotechnics.”

  Ogerak sniffed but the policeman, though nearly a lost cause, was not beyond redemption and was therefore untouchable. He thought quickly. “You don’t understand. This isn’t a performance. My friend here is very religious and this is a miraculous event. Surely we don’t need permits for miracles?”

  “Well then, it seems we do have a problem after all. Use of public land for religious ceremonies is a violation of city ordinances. I’m afraid your friend will have to cease and desist at once or I’ll be forced to arrest him.”

  Ogerak began to protest, but the policeman stepped past before he could react and placed a hand on Murmural’s shoulder. The senior demon started and shook his head, and the Portal began to oscillate. “Unhand me, human offal!” he shouted, forgetting himself, but it was too late. The outer rim of the half-formed Portal began to break up and the center began to deliquesce.

  They were dismissed with a stern warning that they hardly heard. On their way out of the park, Ogerak asked if Murmural could try again, perhaps at night.

  “I lack the power to repeat the ritual. We’ll have to wait for the next scheduled Portal.” He grimaced. “Which won’t be for twenty years. But it is merely a drop in the bucket compared to eternal damnation, after all.”

  Ogerak helped them settle in. Inkarion and Nuramor became tag-team wrestlers for the WWL. Murmural hosted a radio talk show. Ogerak himself went back to managing the sleazy hotel. The years passed as a steady stream of minor torments and when the time finally approached that they would be able to return to hell, Ogerak felt that he had survived the worst that the human world could possibly throw at him.

  He was wrong, of course. Two weeks before the Portal was due, he was randomly chosen for audit by the IRS.

  A Misadventure to Call Your Own

  ADRIAN LUDENS

  “You’ll pay dearly for what happened every day for the rest of your miserable life!”

  It’s not a proclamation one wants to hear first thing in the morning. You open your eyes to the dim interior of your bedroom and search for the voice’s source. Perhaps you’d only heard the interior dialogue of a vivid dream.

  The strident voice continued. “You’ll pay financially, emotionally and physically. I’ll bleed you dry, until you’re left with nothing but worry and suffering.”

  Apparently something’s amiss, but whatever you may have done, this seems like overkill. You sit up amidst a tangled sheet and gaze blearily at the speaker. As your eyes adjust to the light, you see a short slender figure, their arms crossed in judgment. The speaker’s hair is tousled to the point of disarray. The speaker is naked and has addressed you from the foot of the bed.

  Your bed. The bed you share with your One True Love. You squint again.

  Who is this?

  If you realize you are simply role-playing with your One True Love, turn to page 3.

  If you recognize the speaker as an elderly neighbor who is obviously having one of their “bad spells,” turn to page 4.

  If you’re too hungover to remember what happened last night, take two aspirin and turn to page 5.

  Feeling hungover and still quite confused as to what events transpired over the past few hours, you raise your hands in a pleading gesture. You need time to think. Who is this person? How did they get here?

  The figure pads around the bed and leans down so the two of you are eye to eye. The sour scent of mixed drinks wafts around your head and a wave of nausea threatens to drown your calm. Uh-oh. Now you recognize the face, and it’s from a distant past you’d rather not revisit.

  “You won’t be able to explain this when your significant other returns from that business trip,” your guest—who has certainly overstayed their welcome—hisses in your ear. “There’s no way out!”

  You open your mouth to respond, but your tongue is a shriveled and lifeless mummy curled in the corner of your mouth. You didn’t have a witty retort ready anyway.

  “Apparently you thought I wasn’t good enough for you so you moved on.” Your accuser is trembling with rage, or possibly excitement. “But I tracked you down at the bar last night, got you to take me home. After what we did—after what you did—you belong to me now! I pull the strings now, puppet. Bow down to your new master.”

  A sliver of drool dives gracefully from your guest’s bottom lip and disappears into the folds of your rumpled sheet. You decide they’re trembling from excitement.

  “What are you going to do now?” your new master inquires.

  If you decide to call your One True Love immediately to confess everything, turn to page 8.

  If you just remembered you’ve been concealing an ice pick under the pillow all along, turn to page 10.

  If you realize all this talk has made you hungry, turn to page 12.

  “I need to get some food in my stomach,” you announce as you push aside the sheet and stand beside your guest. “Let’s go up to the kitchen and discuss this like rational adults.”

  Feeling a pair of angry eyes practically burning holes in your bare back, you shuffle up the stairs, feigning a calm that isn’t quite there. In the kitchen, you grab lunch meat, processed cheese slices and mayo from the refrigerator.

  You can hear soft footsteps behind you. A board creaks but you don’t look. I need to come up with a plan. You decide a steak knife might level the playing field, so you pull open the silverware drawer. Your hand freezes in midair. All the knives are gone.

  Your guest snickers behind you. “Do you think I’m that stupid? I hid the knives before coming downstairs to confront you. What do you think about that?”

  If you want to grab a fork and try to do the job anyway, scream “Fork you!” and turn to page 14.

  If you want to grab a cool beverage and see what’s on television, turn to channel 16.

  If you want to grab your accuser and give them a kiss to trick them into dropping their guard, turn to page 17.

  You smile broadly and confidently cross the kitchen. You reach out with both hands but this move is one your guest clearly does not welcome.

  “Back off!” your former-lover-turned-one-night-stand-turned-blackmailer warns, and you notice they don’t look too confident all of a sudden. Instead of stopping you lunge in for a claustrophobic “I could never stay mad at you” hug.

  “Let me go!” your guest complains, and presses both palms against your shoulders in an effort to leverage their body free.

  You unclasp your hands suddenly and your blackmailer staggers backward. Their arms flail and suddenly your guest tumbles ass over teakettle
down your stairs.

  Gazing down at the body sprawled at the bottom of the stairwell you realize immediately that your unwelcome guest is dead. You’ve seen enough broken necks in movies to draw your own conclusion: this looks fake so it must be real.

  You slump against the cool counter behind you and consider your next move.

  If you want to dispose of the body right away, turn to page 20.

  If you want to grab that cool beverage and finally see what’s on television, turn to channel 16 already.

  If you just noticed that there’s a new message on your answering machine and you haven’t listened to it yet, turn to page 21.

  Gazing across the room you notice the red light on your answering machine staring at you like an accusing eye. Who called? You never heard it, so perhaps the phone rang last night when you were otherwise indisposed. Knowing you’ll never be able to focus on the problem at hand until you’ve heard the message, you approach the phone. You reach out a shaky finger and pause. Instead of a miniature devil and angel verbally sparring on your shoulders, fear of discovery battles anal-retentive compulsion.

  Is checking your messages really a priority right now? Would any rational, sane person be distracted by this? The answer is no. But still, you are curious about who called . . .

  If you think the message is from a bill collector, press delete and turn to page 22.

  If you think the message is from a bill collector, but you plan to cite that segment you saw on the news about fraudulent bill collectors as an excuse not to pay, slyly turn to page 23.

  If you think the message might actually be worth hearing, because it may turn out to have some plot-convenient bearing on your present situation, press play and turn to page 24.

  You press the playback button and hear your mother’s voice:

  “Hello, dear. I’m afraid I have some sad news. Your uncle Marlin passed away two days ago.”