Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck

by Dale E. Basye

  “Looks like we’ve got company,” he growled.

  The great lolling tongue of the bridge slapped against the outer lip of the Gorge. The wooden walkway trembled under the oddly dainty feet of some massive, galumphing creature as it passed through the gates and onto the drawbridge. A gruesome, blobbish, and unfortunately familiar figure, perched atop a saddle mounted upon the beast, leaned forward over the edge.

  “Peek-a-boo,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb snarled from above. “I see you.”

  Milton gulped.

  “Nice costume,” he replied, doing his best to keep from trembling.

  The drawbridge creaked as the creature beneath the principal shifted its considerable weight. A spray of splinters rained down from beneath the wooden walkway.

  The principal smirked.

  “This is indeed a treat for me, and a nasty trick for you,” she said with fiendish delight. “Now the only question is, should I force you to smell my feet, or give my Heckifino something good to eat?”

  Principal Bubb pulled a delicious Reuben sandwich, dripping with Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut, from the inside of her leather cowgirl vest. The twisted pile of Pangs stirred as their gruesome yet finely tuned snouts detected the presence of food, like a drop of blood hitting shark-infested waters.

  Milton stared at the mountain of wriggling Pangs. The mound shifted like a game of Tetris played with fatty blobs for blocks, and in an instant of sparkling clarity, Milton saw a path.

  FOUR KOOKS swished into the stockroom in their blue robes.

  “What is going on, Junior Knight Necia?” the Guiding Knight demanded as he spied Lucky atop the pile of boxes. “I thought we had expressly forbidden the exercising of that, that … rodent you insist on keeping.”

  In that moment, Lucky saw with his keen pink eyes a human bridge spanning from his box to the open curtain. The ferret coiled backward, compressing his haunches with intent to spring.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Necia muttered as she lunged forward.

  Lucky leaped through her arms as she went to grab him, landing on the Guiding Knight’s shoulder.

  “Eeeeeee!” the tall man squealed shrilly. “Not my face! Not my face!”

  Lucky leapfrogged to the next frantic knight’s shoulder, then to the next, and then finally he landed atop a small Filipino man just emerging from the curtained doorway.

  “Ack, you filthy animal!” he yelled as he swatted at the ferret grinding its back claws into the side of his neck.

  And, with a faint parting spray of musk, Lucky sprang through the curtains into the store beyond.

  Milton darted across the bottom of the Gorge toward the shifting, writhing mass of Pangs.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb hissed as she yanked the reins of her Heckifino. The creature stumbled back. Its spindly back leg snapped through a rotten plank as two demon guards in tofu suits watched from the open maw leading into Blimpo.

  Milton scampered up the mountain of slowly awakening Pangs, stepping on each with an athletic grace he exhibited only when linked to Lucky. He bolted up to the top of the quivering mound and turned back to Annubis.

  “C’mon!” Milton yelled. “There isn’t much time!”

  Annubis stared fixedly at the drawbridge. Bea “Elsa” Bubb locked eyes with the dog god’s, their glares clashing like swords.

  “What up, dawg?” the principal seethed, tightly drawing in the reins to her Heckifino. The creature gobbled in protest as it teetered backward on gangly red-and-gray-striped legs.

  Annubis winked at the principal and gave her a conspiratorial thumbs-up, as much as a half-dog can.

  As the principal puzzled over Annubis, the dog god drew in a deep breath, then bounded toward Milton on all fours, doing his best to follow the boy’s path precisely.

  “What’s that cur got cooking?” Bea “Elsa” Bubb pondered aloud as Annubis scampered away.

  Meanwhile, Milton nimbly sprang from the plump pile of Pangs and grabbed the lip of the Gorge. He swung himself up almost effortlessly. Annubis trotted behind him as the Pangs untangled themselves from one another.

  “Hurry!” Milton called as his former path—slowly filling in by sluggish, stupefied Pangs—disappeared behind the panting dog god. With all the strength he could muster, Annubis leaped from the collapsing mound and landed next to Milton on the salty, dusty rim of the Waistlands.

  “Where to?” Milton asked.

  Annubis scanned the bleak terrain, sniffed the brackish air, and cocked his head to one side.

  “That way,” the dog god said soberly, pointing to a murky, mountainous mass in the distance. “The last place anyone would think we’d go without being bound, gagged, and dragged there.”

  “That is hardly what I’d consider kosher!” screamed the only customer to enter Mazel Top-to-Bottom in the last two weeks as Lucky skittered across the gleaming floor.

  Mrs. Smilovitz gasped at the ferret currently undulating through her store.

  “A klog iz mir!” she moaned, clamping her hands to her cheeks.

  Necia raced after Lucky as he made his way to the door.

  “Come back!” she called with tears streaming down her face. “I promise I’ll hardly ever drug you if you just come back!”

  Lucky passed through the automatic sliding door and bounded into the mall. Necia and the other KOOKs followed close behind.

  “Oy gevalt!” cried Mrs. Smilovitz as the robed zealots rushed past her. “Let this incident serve as your eviction notice, you meshuggeners!”

  Lucky darted through the shocked crowd of Generica mall. His wet pink nose twitched, sucking in knots of aroma that he untied with his mind. The faint smell of burnt marshmallow tickled the back of his memory, a sharp sweetness that was half-fear and half-sadness, yet was entirely his only means of escape.

  Milton ran so hard he felt like he had pins in his lungs. Annubis—lean, lithe, and limber—struggled to keep up.

  “How are you … doing this?” he asked with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “I never took you to be an … athlete.”

  Milton smiled and wiped away a trickle of sweat that dripped into his eye.

  “It’s my link with … Lucky,” Milton panted. “My pet ferret. He must be running on his wheel … or something. It’s like he’s been asleep for a week and … only now … woke up.”

  Bea “Elsa” Bubb roared from behind them.

  “Not again!” she said as she snapped her whip on the Heckifino’s leathery flank. “After them!”

  The animal cautiously trod across the rickety drawbridge.

  “Faster!” she bellowed, shooting bits of corned beef out of her mouth. She took another big bite of her succulent sandwich.

  “Just being near Blimpo makes me ravenous,” she grumbled as rye crumbs tumbled into the Gorge.

  Beneath her, the Pangs became agitated. The smell of food—a marvelous specimen straight from the underworld’s infamous Psycho Delicatessen—roused the creatures awake like strong smelling salts. With their insatiable stomachs roaring and their chins slick with slobber, the Pangs piled on top of one another to get at the irresistible Reuben.

  “Faster, you lumbering, incompetent—”

  The Heckifino paused briefly to relieve itself.

  “—and shamelessly incontinent beast!” Bea “Elsa” Bubb bellowed.

  The drawbridge groaned and splintered.

  “Careful!” the stout demon guard yelled from the doorway.

  Pangs gripped the sides of the drawbridge as they clambered onto the straining span.

  “Don’t you ‘careful’ me!” the principal shouted. “I’m not going to let these fatheaded, overgrown, walking snack attacks let that little creep make a break for it—”

  The Heckifino stumbled as the drawbridge listed violently to one side. A dozen Pangs spilled onto the bridge at the beast’s pointed feet. The tonnage finally proved too great, and with a gnashing groan of shattering wood, the principal, her beastly steed, and the hung
ry Pangs tumbled end over end into the Gorge.

  The knights tumbled into a heap at the bottom of the up escalator.

  “Quick!” Necia yelled as she rose to her feet, frantically scanning the crowded atrium. “He’s making a break for it!”

  Warder Chango retrieved a missing Van before it ascended back up the escalator.

  “What’s, like, the big deal?” he asked Necia, wobbling as he slipped on his errant shoe. “Just let the thing, you know, go.”

  Necia stood on her tiptoes and stared out over the crowd toward the exit.

  “No! He’s my only connection to … him.”

  She noticed a commotion up ahead, the crowd suddenly breaking like waves, leaving a faint musky scent in its wake. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea, only instead of a Hebrew prophet and lawgiver, the cause of the disruption was a speeding white ferret.

  “There he is!” Necia yelped as she ran through the crowd.

  Bobbing and weaving like an eel in a fur stole, Lucky skillfully dodged the footfalls of shocked Genericans. Faux marble tiles whizzed beneath his sprightly feet with geometric regularity. His bright pink eyes winced at the gush of light pouring from the exit. Lucky stopped briefly to pant his little weasel pants.

  Necia’s patent-leather shoes slapped the mall floor, tapping a steadily quickening rhythm.

  Startled shoppers pitched out of Lucky’s way as he made his final push toward the parking lot. Necia dashed through the door, hot on his furious ferret heels.

  “Stop!” she shrieked. “You’re going to get yourself—”

  Wheels screeched across the asphalt of the parking lot. A Ford FrankenFuel hybrid slammed into the side of a Solar Lexus with a metallic crunch. The drivers rushed out of their vehicles and stared at the lifeless white lump lying prone between their hot, ticking cars.

  Fresh tears streamed out of Necia’s dark, quivering eyes.

  “Killed.”

  Milton and Annubis sprinted across the Waistlands. Milton looked over his shoulder with amused relief at the tumult in the Gorge. Suddenly, some invisible force slammed painfully into Milton’s side.

  “Milton?” Annubis exclaimed as the boy keeled over onto the ground. Milton tumbled and rolled in the dust, energy draining from him like water through a sieve.

  One moment he had been filled with the surefooted confidence of a superhero dodging raindrops. Now Milton’s temporarily ferret-heightened senses dulled and receded until all was black, and Milton was, for all appearances, dead to the underworld.

  31 • DiViNE iNTERVENTiON

  MOTES OF TWINKLING dust flitted playfully in the artificial sunbeams streaming through the stained-glass windows. The heady, honey-sweet scent of ambrosia filled the spacious cathedral.

  A luminous white marble table stood in the middle of the meeting chamber, standing atop ornately carved legs some twenty feet tall. Surrounding the table were seven sleek chairs of equal height. Here, perched atop their towering thrones, the seven archangels held their quarterly meeting.

  “Let us tarry not and partake in this most holy of meetings,” Michael said imperiously, flexing his majestic wings just a little farther than any other creature could. “As you all know, the Big Guy Upstairs has been, shall we say, distracted as of late, and the bulk of His duties has fallen on our wings….”

  “I’m up to my halo with governing paradise as it is,” Zadkiel interjected, sipping from his Heaven’s Best Angel, MDCXII mug.

  Raguel scratched beneath the white Nehru collar of his immaculate vestments.

  “What I wouldn’t give to govern paradise,” he grumbled while rubbing his molting wings on the back of his chair. “Try being the archangel to the infirm and woebegone. I just came back from consoling a pediatric head lice ward. You’ve got paradise, Zadkiel, and I’ve got parasites.”

  “Oh, wherever did I leave my tiny violin?” Zadkiel mocked as he and the other archangels subtly scooted their chairs farther away from Raguel.

  Rafael raised his hand.

  Michael smiled. “Yes, brother Rafael?”

  “Firstly, while the Big Guy Upstairs has his existential crisis or whatever,” Rafael said, “what are we supposed to be doing?”

  “Doing?” repeated Michael as he swatted away a playful cloud of motes. “What we always do, only more so: show humanity that our gates are always open. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  “Metaphorically?” Sariel asked, removing one of his earbuds. Harp-driven dance music squawked from the dangling earpiece.

  “Yes,” Gabriel answered sarcastically in his crisp British accent. “It’s a big word that means not really.”

  “Technically the gates are locked,” Michael explained. “We sure as heck can’t just let anyone in, or it would cease to be exclusive. Speaking of Heck …”

  Gabriel and Uriel stiffened as Michael reviewed the bottom of his parchment. Uriel’s forehead beaded with holy perspiration.

  “Apparently,” Michael continued, “there has been a series of disturbances that have caught the Galactic Order Department by surprise. And, as an organization that strictly adheres to a Divine Plan, we do not tolerate ‘surprises.’”

  Uriel began to twitch. Gabriel glared at him, silently entreating the nervous angel to keep it together.

  “A boy named … Milton Fauster,” Michael went on, “was darned for all eternity despite a lack of compelling transgressions to justify such a judgment. Shortly thereafter, said boy escaped from Limbo.”

  The archangels surrounding the table gasped, save for Gabriel and Uriel, who gaped in feigned surprise.

  “But that’s impossible,” Rafael remarked.

  “And that’s not all,” Michael went on. “The Fauster boy used lost souls to make good his escape. The Prime Defective is very clear about the reintroduction of unprocessed souls to the Surface. To say that it is frowned upon is to say that the Great Flood was a bit of a drizzle. Then the boy had the audacity to return, aiding and abetting his sister in the disruption of a ceremony in Mallvana….”

  “Ooh,” Sariel cooed. “Mallvana. There’s a place I’d like to warm my Sacredit Card!”

  “The girl is now undergoing an Infernship down under,” Michael continued, “while the boy is still at large.”

  Gabriel straightened his white silk tie.

  “A fascinating story, Michael, but what does this have to do with us? Surely this is a matter for the Powers That Be Evil….”

  “This has everything to do with us,” countered Michael.

  The archangel polished his gold Galactic Order Department (GOD) badge—a pair of wings sprouting from a glowing pyramid with a little eye perched at the tip—unconsciously with his thumb.

  “I’ve got a feeling that this goes deeper than down there,” Michael continued. “It upsets the whole scheme of things. On its own, this Heck business is inconsequential. But if it set some kind of precedent, it could unravel the very fabric of creation!”

  “The Academy Award for Best Actor goes to …,” Sariel scoffed.

  “Listen here, you cupid fool …”

  As the two archangels argued, Gabriel scribbled a quick note on the torn corner of his parchment, plucked out one of his feathers, attached the note with a dab of saliva, then put it in his palm and blew it surreptitiously over to Uriel.

  The feather floated gently into Uriel’s coffee mug. The angel fished the small note out with his fingers.

  CALL ME. NOW. THEN HANG UP.

  Uriel shot Gabriel a sideways glance before scratching behind his ear, causing the gleaming gold band crowning his head to hum ever so slightly. Immediately, Gabriel’s halo began to ring and hover. The other archangels frowned at him.

  “Whoops,” Gabriel apologized. “I must have accidentally left it on.”

  He tilted the rim of his halo down to his ear.

  “Hello, this is … oh … sir … yes, of course!”

  Gabriel mouthed “It’s Him” to his fellow seraphs. The angels’ eyes widened. Michael’s perfect
features soured with jealousy.

  “Immediately, sir. We’re just wrapping up … Uriel, too? Yes, we’ll tend to it. Godspeed.”

  Gabriel fingered his headpiece, causing it to settle back onto his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Well, apparently He is planning an act of Himself and wants me and Uriel to chip in on some of the details….”

  Gabriel nodded to Uriel and the two scooted back their chairs.

  “Michael, I’d like to say it’s been lovely,” Gabriel said with a smile. “But I, in good conscience, can’t. So, until next quarter, fare thee well … Come on, Uriel.”

  The two angels fluttered down to the white marble floor. Gabriel led Uriel across the basilica to the relative privacy of an ornately carved marble column.

  Uriel nervously chewed his nails, which, with each nibble, grew back to their original length.

  “I can’t take much more of this,” Uriel whined.

  “It’s not up to us,” Gabriel asserted. “It’s what the Big Guy Upstairs wants. He believes in us. That’s why he picked you and me specifically to head His most righteous covert operation.”

  Uriel leaned against the column and sighed.

  “I don’t know …”

  “We can’t just clasp our hands together and pray that this will all go away,” Gabriel replied.

  Uriel looked up with a hopeful smile.

  “Well, if you think about it, we could—”

  Gabriel shook his head.

  “He’s testing our faith. And, by the looks of it, this isn’t some open-book pop quiz. He’s getting ready for the final exam.”

  Uriel stared back at the imposing table of bickering angels.

  “Everything is moving so fast,” he said nervously. “Why start with Heck?”

  Gabriel shrugged his wings.

  “GOD works in mysterious, patent-pending ways,” he replied. “Until He contacts us, we simply need to shut our angel-food-cake holes and take everything on faith value.”

  Up above, Michael eyed Gabriel and Uriel with suspicion. He leaned close to his remaining archangels.

  “I’d like to propose an emergency measure,” Michael whispered.