“And some shouldn’t even be seen.”
The bell rang. The boys lumbered, heads slumped down like overburdened pack animals, into the locker rooms. They slammed their bulk down on the benches and sulked.
“This is like a vacuum cleaner with Energizer batteries,” Hugo griped. “It just keeps sucking and sucking and sucking….”
Thaddeus kicked his locker with frustration. In the locker next to his—Virgil’s—several soul jars crashed.
“What was that?” Thaddeus asked suspiciously.
Virgil blushed hard. His head snapped toward Milton, who knew in that instant that all manner of beans were about to be spilled.
“We … it’s … just … a whole lot of—”
“Nothing,” Milton interjected while kicking Virgil in the shin. Unfortunately, his Pang skin fuel-injected his punt so that it not only hurt Virgil but also sent several soul jars tumbling in Milton’s locker as well.
“Sure is loud for nothing,” Hugo noted as he shoved his bulk alongside them on the bench.
“We just w-wanted t-to help,” Virgil stammered as Milton slunk an inch or so deeper in his Pang suit. “The s-souls, you know? The food was just t-too … rich and so we—ha ha”—(Milton, for the death of him, wasn’t sure what made Virgil suddenly laugh)—“just, you know, switched the recipe.”
“You switched the recipe?” Thaddeus said with horror. “You switched the recipe?”
Gene’s face went white. “Why would anyone do that?!”
The perspiration that had only just evaporated on Virgil’s black rubber tube top returned with reinforcements.
“It’s just that …” Virgil’s eyes locked on to his friend, like someone sinking in quicksand gazing desperately at a low-hanging branch. “You tell them, Milton.”
The last bean—a colossal one—spilled to the floor and rolled accusingly between Milton’s feet.
“Milton?” Hugo repeated. “Milton?”
“I—I—I,” Virgil stuttered in rapid-fire succession, “I meant Joe … um … Noah … uh … . Jonah.”
Thaddeus looked closely at Milton.
“I knew he was unbelievably ugly,” the boy murmured as he eyeballed Milton’s face. “Now I know why—you can see, if you look closely. Around the eyes. Like a mask.”
Hugo chuckled and leaned into Milton.
“So, the famous Milton,” he said, savoring every word as he rolled them slowly on his tongue. “The boy who escaped. How’s that been working out for you?”
He laughed in Milton’s fraudulent face.
“Now you’re here, messing with the only thing that made this place bearable and making things even worse for us in the process.”
Milton sighed. “I came back to help Virgil,” he uttered softly.
“Right,” Hugo said. “Helping him to more time in the DREADmill.”
Virgil cradled his head in his hands, not daring to meet Milton’s eyes.
“You don’t understand,” Milton explained. “It’s all a conspiracy to keep you here. I know it is. Making you fat so you can feed those awful machines.”
“You don’t understand,” Hugo said, pressing close to Milton. “I’m hungry and I hurt all over. If I don’t get my barbecue back, you’re going to hurt all over.”
Milton opened his locker. He pulled out an upturned Lost Soul jar and held it out to Hugo.
“You seriously want to eat this?” he said as the stormy black glob squished angrily against the glass.
The boys ogled the jar. Their mouths sneered with revulsion.
“Is that mean tar stuff really in that yummy food?” Gene asked dimly.
Hugo shrugged. “I don’t care what the ingredients look like,” he said. “I only care how they taste. And those ugly, nasty things might not be easy on the eyes, but they sure melt in your mouth.”
“Maybe if we gave the new recipe a fun name,” Virgil chirped suddenly. “You know … a silly name with lots of misspellings. Food always seems to taste better if it’s—”
Hugo wedged himself between Milton and Virgil, coiling his beefy arms around the boys.
“Here’s how it’s going down: you two are going to switch back the jars tonight so that we get Hambone’s original blend of souls and spice and everything nice….”
Hugo smiled at Virgil. “As a peace offering, I’ll even give you a tasty Smarts Doughnut.”
Virgil licked his lips. “A Smarts Doughnut?”
“Yeah,” Hugo said. “Here you go.”
He slugged Virgil hard on the shoulder.
“Oww!” Virgil yelped, rubbing his upper arm.
Hugo grinned wickedly. “Smarts, don’t it?”
“But eating human souls is wrong,” Milton said, the words sounding as sensible to his ears as fire is bad and school plays are humiliating for all concerned. “It’s exactly what they want.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Hugo hissed into Milton’s ear. “You’re exactly what they want. And that’s just what they’ll get—you—if we don’t get our grub back on. Got it?”
Milton’s body—his real body, compressed inside the Pang—grew numb and sick with dread. Though Milton wasn’t completely sure what he had hoped to accomplish by coming back to Heck, he knew it wasn’t simply to be served back to Bea “Elsa” Bubb on a platter. He had no choice.
MiDDLEWORD
There are two sides to everything, even things that actually have three or more sides.
Take a coin … actually, give it back. I only meant that figuratively. Thank you. Now, this coin is like a regular coin, only one side is a deep-fried, Gorgonzola-stuffed Twinkie triple-dipped in dark chocolate, then rolled in coconut, almonds, hazelnuts, candy corn, and toffee bits, and the other side is half a stale rice cake with all the salt licked off.
One side of this admittedly odd coin is all about padding who you are. But, though you think you’re insulating yourself from the cruel world around you, you’re really trying to hide away from yourself: the nougatty center of your soul that others have convinced you isn’t worth a used ketchup packet. On the other side, it’s just the same, only the opposite: forcing you to twist, fold, spindle, mutilate, and slenderize your body so that it fits into the narrow little space the world has carved out for you.
Insecurity flips this coin, and only you can call it heads or tails. Better still, just swipe the coin while it’s still in the air and invest it. That way, you can buy the homes of all the kids who made fun of you and evict the whole jeering, mocking lot of them! Ha! Not so funny now, are you, fending for yourselves out in the unpleasantly cold or uncomfortably warm?!
Okay, maybe it’s not a coin. Perhaps it’s more of a rope. A tug-of-war. On one end of the rope are those who want you to get bigger. To always want more. Filling you full of food until food is all that makes you feel full. On the other end of the rope are those who want you to get smaller. To always want less. Depriving you of fullness so that emptiness is the only thing that makes you feel full. And where are you in all of this? In the middle: stretched like taffy, jerked like chicken, until you’re ultimately pulled apart like pork. But you know what also happens? The tuggers fall. They need the tension of the rope. Without it, they’re just on the ground, in the mud, left holding the rope….
23 • LOST AND HOUND
ONCE AGAIN, MILTON and Virgil found themselves riding the old wooden swells of Blimpo’s hallways—their legs aching from multiple DREADmill sessions—on another midnight raid of Hambone Hank’s Heart Attack Shack.
On this outing, the hallway was graveyard quiet: no deep snores, no garbled sleep-talking, just a thick silence.
Milton waved for Virgil to stop while he peeked into the tin shed through the take-out window. Inside was … a whole lot of nothing. No sleeping chef (thankfully) but (unthankfully) no soul jars—either of the lost or Make-Believe Play-fellow variety. Hambone’s cooking cauldron was missing, too. Milton crinkled his drawn-on brows.
“No one’s here,” he whispered to Virgil. “It’s like
the place was cleaned out—”
The boys heard a steady tink-tink sound coming from the kitchen. Milton crept around the shack—barely squeezing past it, considering his inflated self—and discovered a nondescript, unmarked door. He carefully opened it and found that it led to Chef Boyareyookrazee’s kitchen. The tink-tink was the lid on Hambone Hank’s simmering cauldron. Surrounding the cast-iron pot were dozens of Lost Soul jars and several small tubs of what looked like lard.
“Virgil,” Milton whispered, beckoning him over. “There are more jars in here, but I don’t see any of the—”
Something grabbed Milton by the wrist and pulled him inside the kitchen.
“So you’re the one who has been tampering with my recipe!” Hambone Hank snarled from behind his surgical mask while waving a meat cleaver with his free hand. Milton was transfixed by the cook’s deep, familiar eyes: so sad and—fittingly—soulful.
“I don’t appreciate backseat cooks throwing in new ingredients. In fact, they can easily become ingredients, if you get my meaning.”
The butcher’s knife hovered over Hambone Hank’s cloaked head, trembling as if deciding which of Milton’s limbs to sever. Milton only hoped that his Pang suit would protect him from the mad cook’s inaugural “chop.”
“Milton!” Virgil cried from the doorway. “Are you okay?”
Milton laughed despite himself. “Do I look okay? Get out of here! Now!”
Hambone Hank’s eyes bore into Milton’s.
“Wait!” he barked.
Still holding him snugly by the wrist, the tall, slender creature sniffed Milton up and down, especially down.
“Um …,” Milton said as Hambone Hank sniffed the back of Milton’s pants, “this is awkward.”
Hambone Hank let go of Milton’s wrist.
“Run, Milton, run!” Virgil cried.
“It really is you,” the cook murmured in a smooth rumble.
Milton rubbed his wrist. He noticed that the back of Hambone Hank’s black robe was … wagging. The cook took off his mask, revealing a long, wet nose, and slipped off his hood.
“Annubis!” Milton cried.
The regal dog god—whom Milton had last seen ingesting his gelatinous colleague in Limbo’s Assessment Chamber—smiled a mouthful of sharp white canine teeth.
“Why are you wearing this costume?” Annubis asked. “Its smell confuses me.”
Milton grinned. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, “about the costume, I mean. Virgil, it’s okay … come on in.”
Virgil hesitated in the doorway.
“Sure,” he yammered. “It’s just that I’m more of a … cat person.”
“Aah, I see,” Annubis said in his dignified baritone. “You are here in hopes of freeing your friend. You have a lot of nerve for someone who doesn’t belong in Heck.”
“How can you tell that I don’t belong?” Milton asked.
Annubis smiled and tapped his paw-hand to his snout.
“The nose knows. Your soul smells … good. A smell something like your human Froot Loops. Not that boiled-cabbage/rotten-tooth smell most of the other boys bring with them.”
The steady tink-tink of the simmering cauldron reminded Milton of why he was here in the first place.
“Why are you, of all creatures, here, doing … this?” Milton asked as he surveyed the soul jars littering the floor.
The tail from beneath Annubis’s robe drooped. His eyes grew wet, and his snout grew dry. He sat down on a container of lard.
“It all started when you jammed Ms. Mallon’s rib into my associate Ammit.”
Milton gulped. Uh-oh, he thought guiltily, I never thought how that would affect Annubis.
“I didn’t think that you …,” Milton said apologetically.
Annubis raised his paw-hand for Milton to be silent.
“Ammit had it coming, I assure you,” the dog god replied. “Actually, it was your sister’s terrible singing that drove me to the brink, though I still check in with Bones Anonymous every once in a while to keep my weakness in check.”
“In any case,” Milton offered, “on behalf of the Fausters, I’m sorry.”
Annubis folded his lean forearms together.
“Even in Heck, eating your coworkers is frowned upon. The Powers That Be Evil removed me from my post and—unbeknownst to me at the time—took my family down to—”
Annubis shivered.
“The Kennels.”
“The Kennels?” Milton repeated, twisting the words up at the end to make them a question.
“A Heck for animals, of sorts.”
“There’s a Heck for animals?” Virgil asked incredulously. “But … why? I didn’t even know that, no offense, animals had souls.”
“Or why they would be darned for all eternity, just for following their instincts,” Milton added.
Annubis smiled the mysterious grin of a dog.
“The same could be said for you humans, too,” he replied. “Let me just say that, like everything else down here, the Furafter is … complicated. But, yes, animals do have souls, I assure you. All life does. It’s just a matter of degree. So my lovely wife, Anput, and my daughter, Kebauet, are …”
Annubis whimpered softly to himself.
“Caged … in the Kennels. I can almost smell their despair. Principal Bubb said that if I ever wanted to see them again, I would have to work for a year in the Pitch-Black Market, as a cur-rier.”
“I knew Principal Bubb was behind this!” Milton spat.
Annubis gave a quick shake of his head. “Yes and no,” he replied. “Principal Bubb turned me over to the underbelly of the underworld, but even she does not know of my ultimate role.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Milton asked. “Why does Blimpo want you to feed souls to students? You of all people … creatures … should know …”
Annubis hung his head low in shame. “Yes, that is the problem … I do know. And it has brought me no end of misery. The vice principals want the students to gain weight—soul weight—so that they never lose any in the DREADmills. I suspect that they are using the machines not only to power Blimpo—an illegal exploitation of resources, even in the underworld—but also to sell off the remaining energy to other realms. But that is all I know. I’m sure the plot goes higher, or lower as the case may be.”
Milton stared at the bubbling cauldron.
“Who forces you to make the batches?” Milton asked.
Annubis clutched a black collar around his throat. A metal box was fused to the neckband.
“Chef Boyareyookrazee possesses my pink slip, as it were. And, if threatening my family ever loses its grip on my every waking—and dreaming—thought, he’s got me, quite literally, by the throat with this shock collar.”
Virgil shook his head. “Whoa, this is a lot to swallow,” he commented, turning to Milton. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? Last time I saw him, he stuck his paws in my chest and yanked out my soul.”
Annubis’s lips curled into a faint smile.
“Actually, the base of the brain and the upper back. You are wise to be suspicious. But the proof is in the pudding.”
Annubis walked toward a vat of congealed blood pudding. He plunged his paw-hand into the tub and emerged with a photograph: a beautiful Weimaraner woman with sleek, silver fur and a pup chewing blissfully on a Nylabone.
“I reasoned that the safest place to keep my mementos was in Chef Boyareyookrazee’s cuisine,” Annubis continued, “especially since no one is forced to eat it now, thanks to my barbecue.”
Milton scratched his borrowed head.
“But that’s the problem,” Milton said. “Why we switched the souls last night with those of Make-Believe Play-fellows. To save the souls. The real ones.”
Annubis’s normally regal posture drooped.
“I have been doing my best to use the souls sparingly,” he relayed with remorse. “But it’s the lost souls that give the soul food its … well, soul. I discovered your switch as I was
forced to prepare my latest batch, and I assumed it was some trick to test my loyalty. As if anyone would have to test a dog god’s loyalty. Anyway, I did cut the recipe with some of the Make-Believe Play-fellows, which managed to reduce the soul content considerably—”
“And, unfortunately, the flavor,” added Virgil mournfully.
Milton rubbed his disgusting rubbery face. “You’ve got to know that, no matter what you do for them, they’re never going to let you or your family go,” Milton said soberly.
Annubis stared at his sandaled feet. “But I signed a contract that specifically fixed my indentured tenure at one year….”
“Where did you sign it?”
“In Principal Bubb’s office.”
Milton shook his head.
“In Limbo—where time has no meaning.”
Annubis had what could only be referred to as a hangdog expression on his face.
“Ouch,” Virgil muttered. “She just threw you to the dogs.”
Milton glared at Virgil, then edged close to Annubis, patting him on the back and slowly moving down his spine until finding his scritchy spot. The dog god’s left leg moved uncontrollably.
“What we need to do is shake things up down here, give the fat cats a flea dip,” Milton soothed. “Then, in the confusion, we get you out of here to rescue your family.”
“Please stop,” Annubis implored, his leg flailing about.
“Sorry,” Milton said, leaving Annubis to lick his paw-hand and smooth down his fur until he regained his sleek, dignified composure.
“You are right,” the dog god growled, rising, his hackles raised. “I was a fool for thinking they could be trusted.”
“But what can we do?” Virgil said with distress, his voice hitting a register that made Annubis’s ears flutter.
“First, we take off that collar,” Milton said.
Annubis held up his paw-hands, which—while perfect for extracting souls—lacked the facility for complex tasks such as undoing the difficult shock-collar latch behind one’s own neck.
Milton stepped behind Annubis, who got down on his knees and held his head low while Milton worried the latch. After a few moments, he got it loose.
Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck Page 17