Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  "Fuck you."

  "No, fuck you, man." I watched him put his shirt under his knees and reluctantly pulled mine off as well. "You could have warned me you were bringing some nineteenth-century gunslinger to my door!"

  He frowned. "I think she's eighteenth century."

  I peeked between a couple of dirty cushions.

  Cowboy hat, dirty-blond hair twisted into a braid that draped over her shoulder. She wore a brown vest over dark denim jeans and a pair of black leather chaps.

  "No, man, she doesn't look, I dunno, all colonial times or anything. Definitely mid- or late-eighteen hundreds."

  "Right, eighteenth century!"

  "That's nineteenth. It gets confusing because seventeen hundreds is actually eighteenth, eighteen hundreds is nineteenth," I said in a low, panicked whisper. "But you have to count the first century, which is actually zero through one hundred."

  "Ugh, confusing."

  "Right?"

  Both of us sat bare-chested on our shirts. I nodded for him to grab the couch at the bottom. Slowly, we scooted our knees and pulled the massive piece of ancient furniture backward, toward the kitchen door.

  As we did, another couple of rounds hit the cushions. Feathers filled the air, which was a concern because it was a foam couch.

  Sally had laid glass all around us, but with the shirts beneath our knees, we could slowly scoot back, using the couch as a shield, without getting cut.

  "Jesus, I think she's in the house," the Actor hissed.

  "I locked the door," I said. "That should give us an extra minute."

  The Actor looked over at me and scowled. "You have man titties, man."

  "Shut up."

  "And you look like you're wearing a sweater," he said. "A sad brown sweater full of sad little holes."

  "Really? That's what you want to talk about now?" I looked at him. "Christ, do you shave your chest?"

  "No, of course not," he said. "I have other people do that."

  "Ugh," I said. "Maybe you already work for Satan."

  The Actor looked at me and smiled slowly. "You missed me, didn't you?"

  I raised my elbow and looked back. We were nearly at the door to the kitchen and home free. Safe.

  That's when I heard a click, and the front door handle turn. She was coming inside.

  "New plan," I said, jumping up. "Let's run!"

  "I thought you said you locked it!"

  "Run, man!"

  To avoid the remaining glass, we both jumped, landing in the kitchen, rolling end over end and banging into each other.

  Sally came through the door, both pistols held high. She pointed at us, and I put my hand out and flung the refrigerator door wide open.

  Thwack, thwack!

  I definitely wasn't getting my deposit back.

  Seconds later, we were out the door, running through the backyard.

  Chapter Four

  The Hooded One sat in his purple leather lounger, watching three employees in the hot tub, which had been filled with vanilla pudding.

  They didn't look happy.

  "Sir," the girl in the yellow bikini said. "I'm worried about what this stuff is doing to, um, my bathing suit parts."

  Another, a young intern in his early twenties, leaned back on the edge of the tub with an uneasy smile. "I don't know. It's rather, uh, refreshing. I think it might be doing wonders for my skin."

  The third, a heavy-set man in his forties, who had been borrowed from accounting, was in the center, moving in small circles. Only his head stuck out. A dollop of pudding fell from his chin as he moved slowly through the dessert. "It's… better if you move around, I feel," he said, it seemed, to no one but himself. "I've gone quite cold in my lower extremities."

  The Hooded One stood, rolled his eyes, and sighed.

  "All you people do is complain," he said and looked up to a black window, waving his hand. The pudding began to bubble as the jacuzzi jets came to life. "Heff once told me people loved his pudding pool. Relaxing helped them be more efficient in their work."

  "Yeah, but I think he might have paid them to say that," the woman said, frowning.

  "You are being paid, employee!"

  "I'm an intern," one of the men said. "I'm, you know—"

  "YOU get paid just enough to prevent you from suing the company," the Hooded One said. "If I had it my way, you would pay me to work here."

  The accounting guy took a swallow of the yellow goo, instantly regretting it. "I think this pudding has turned."

  Hood glanced at a notification on his cell phone then casually looked at the door. He would need to start making his rounds soon, but most of that was just injecting a bit of thrill into the lives of his adoring subordinates.

  Later that night, though, he would get to see how the beta algorithms were moving along. The thought made him smile. That wasn't only about the shiver of pleasure he got from wielding the unparalleled power of his empire, which had wormed its way into every country on the planet. It included nearly every home and every life. But of course, it was mainly about the shiver.

  No, he had a job to do. Misery was his business, and business was good.

  "One more hour," he said, pulling on the strings of his hoodie, his fists in balls. "Then we try tapioca."

  Chapter Five

  "Where's your car?" the Actor asked as we wove through the neighborhood, cutting through backyards, back lanes, and back alleys.

  "I don't have a car," I said, already huffing. I wished I were in better shape. In fact, that little self-admonishment could have been said at any point in my life. It seemed more important at the moment since we were being chased by a gunslinger named Sally.

  "How do you not have a car, for Chrissakes?"

  We passed through a gate, and when I spun back around to close it and throw the latch, I saw a cowboy hat just over the hedge across the street.

  "Shit!"

  We ran through the yard, passing a koi pond that looked like the owners of the home had fed them raw chicken for the past few years.

  "What kind of neighborhood do you live in? What are those, piranhas?"

  A shed sat in the back corner, which seemed like a good place to hide. It also seemed like a small room surrounded by thin metal that wouldn't stop bullets. Or rocks. Or even hurtful words.

  I pointed to a work site, the skeleton of a building on the rise behind the property.

  "She's got two six-shooters that never run out of bullets," he said, squeezing through the gap. "You want to fight her off with a belt sander?"

  There was about a hundred-meter dash to get to the construction, which I'd been told by one of the people at the laundromat was going to be a day care one day. Children. They're the future.

  We ran down a line of trees on the far side of the property and crossed the road, nearly getting hit by a big white van carrying senior citizens for some outing.

  It was a Saturday afternoon, so we didn't see any workers milling about. A yellowed trailer nearby had a window open, and a heavyset man with a clipboard was smoking a cigarette, sitting on its steps. He seemed pretty wrapped up in his paperwork, so once on the grounds, we switched to a casual stride, as if we were simply walking by.

  "Maybe we lost her," I said.

  "Please, I've tried to lose her for weeks. Why the fuck don't you have a car?"

  We needed to get out of sight, but I couldn't see anywhere within the construction we could hide. Then I saw an option. "Over there," I said and ran.

  "Oh, fuck. Really?"

  There was a line of a half dozen identical green sheds. My legs burned as I came up beside one near the far end. I opened the thin plastic door.

  "No way, man."

  "Come on, she'll be around that fence any second," I said. "At least here we can work something out."

  "In a shitter?"

  "Sure, I do my best thinking on the toilet."

  "Yeah? You don't have a car. You don't have a job! How's that thinking been going so far?"

  I slipp
ed inside and went for the only seat available. Thankfully, it had a lid, which I put down before the smell could make me barf. Unfortunately, the lid was thick, hard-shell clear plastic.

  The Actor growled as he came in and pressed his back against the wall opposite where a green plastic urinal bulged like a burst cyst. When I reached for the door, he took a deep breath of outside air.

  The door closed. I locked it from the inside.

  "What's that going to do?"

  "Last line of defense, man," I said. "Okay, we need to come up with a plan."

  Staring at my friend, waiting, I frowned and said, "If you don't take a breath, you're going to pass out."

  "Nope," he said, his lips damp.

  "Fine." I absentmindedly tugged on the sad roll of toilet paper. "Where is this contract?"

  He shrugged.

  "What does that mean?"

  Again, he shrugged, but this time he squinted his eyes closed and slapped his hands over his mouth and nose. He was definitely turning a little blue.

  I reached up with two index fingers and wiggled them under his armpits.

  He blew out the breath he was holding and gulped in air. "Motherfucker, did you tickle me?"

  "Had to be done."

  "No tickling! I don't like—"

  "What in the hell are you boys doing in there?" The voice came from outside the plastic potty. For a moment, both of us were silent.

  "Answer me, fellas!" the deep voice shouted. "I know you're in there. Hell's bells, it's the only door here that says Occupied!"

  The Actor scowled at me.

  I said, "Your homicidal cowgirl has a very manly voice."

  "That isn't her," the Actor growled at me.

  "Sir, if you could give us a moment," I called out, my voice rattling off the thin walls. "My friend needs help with his medical tubing."

  "Tubing?"

  "Uh, sad story," I added, and the Actor looked at me wild-eyed. I shrugged. "After his girl left him, he got a bit whiskey-drunk one night and had an unfortunate accident with a canister vacuum cleaner."

  The man on the other side of the door whistled. "My condolences."

  "Dyson," I added, and the Actor punched me in the arm. Cut it out.

  "Very fine machines," the man said, his voice softer. "Lucky to be alive."

  "Yeah, but best ten minutes of his life."

  The Actor balled his fists and leaned in toward me. "Will you cut it out?"

  In the distance, I heard a low rumble that sounded like a Mack Truck passing by. The look on my friend's face told me I might be wrong.

  "Listen, I'm the foreman at this site, and I'm all for being open-minded about alternative lifestyles and all, but if you two fellas could take your business elsewhere…"

  I said, "Can you just give us a moment? It won't be more than a few minutes, I swear to you."

  The Actor shook his head violently. He mouthed, Gotta go, gotta go!

  I stood, stepped aside, lifted the lid and pointed into the gaping hole.

  He punched me in the stomach. My friend shouted through the door, "There doesn't happen to be an eighteenth-century gunslinger on a motorcycle coming down the street by any chance, does there?"

  We heard shuffling outside the door for a moment, work boots on gravel, then another few steps. "No, I don't think so."

  The Actor blinked slowly and let out a breath. "Oh, thank god."

  "I reckon she looks more nineteenth century."

  Leaning forward, I twisted the plastic handle, and the Actor and I burst from the tiny toilet, ran a few steps passed the foreman, then looked toward the street.

  Sally was casually putting the kick stand down on a beautiful black motorcycle.

  "What the hell you boys gotten yourselves into?" the foreman asked.

  Quickly, I scanned the gravel lot in front of the build. "Can we borrow your truck?"

  "No, you cannot."

  I pointed to the Actor. "But she's trying to kill him!"

  He shook his head. "Probably mad you broke her cannister vacuum," he said and grinned. "Those Dysons ain't cheap."

  I grabbed my friend by the shoulder, dragging him into the hulking unfinished structure. A spark flew just above my head as a shot ricocheted off a rusted beam. Another hit put a pucker into a wheelbarrow about twenty feet away.

  "Where are we supposed to go?"

  I looked at the open fields sprawling in all directions then back to the unfinished building.

  It was hard to tell, staring at the massive, skeletal creature, whether it was two stories or three. Above us, a concrete slab half the size of a football field was held up by an array of wooden bones draped with mesh netting. An exoskeleton fashioned from hundreds and hundreds of metal interlocking tubes surrounded its exterior.

  Another shot rang out and put a hole through a sign that read Happy Nappy Day Care Coming This Summer! Next to the words was a diapered baby with an ice-cream whip of yellow hair smiling and playing with a small truck. There was a hole in the baby's forehead.

  "Let's go… up."

  "Up? Up is a bad place to hide!" Another shot hit a one-person Bobcat tractor. Its headlight exploded.

  With few other options available, I ran forward through the dried mud that surrounded the site, hopping over a trench encircling the building. Half-buried within it was thick white PVC piping.

  On the bottom floor, I could just make out where an office might go. I hid behind an unfinished wall and looked to my left at an area that appeared to be a meeting room with a sunken floor.

  Of course, it was some sort of day care or nursery. What sort of meetings would babies have? Angry, smelly meetings, I'd wager. Rallying against the smashed peas?

  "Where to now, genius?" The Actor came up beside me, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "She's armed! This is like hiding out in the crapper!"

  Another two shots rang out, sending sparks off the metal scaffolding above us.

  "She's not a very good shot, is she?"

  "That's her one redeeming quality," the Actor said, scanning the space around us. "She's pretty drunk most of the time, but it only takes one shot, and I'm done!"

  “Wait. I thought since you signed a Hell contract, you know, so you can’t be killed.”

  He growled. “No, she’s got hellfire in those bullets. She hits me, and I go up like a Roman candle.”

  "Okay. We gotta keep moving," I said and sprinted toward the back of the building where I had caught sight of a series of ladders. The Actor watched from his hiding spot.

  "It's only a matter of time, Actor," Sally called out and fired two more rounds to make her point. "Why don't you be a nice lil' quarry and wait right there to let me shoot ya?"

  She fired again, and two holes appeared on either side of the Actor's head.

  "Let's go!" I said, clambering up the first ladder, which buckled and shook under my weight. A few moments later, I pulled open a small mesh gate and stood up on the second floor.

  That level looked much like the one below—just a low, bare concrete ceiling with a series of unfinished rooms, the beginnings of a wall here and there. On my right, leaning against one side of the scaffolding were several unfinished partitions, all stacked up against each other.

  Red-tinted wooden beams had been nailed together in what would later be put up as another section of wall. Empty squares denoted where windows, outlets, and other features would later be added.

  A cement mixer lay idle. Next to it sat two wheelbarrows caked with bits of gray plaster.

  "Fuck!" The Actor came up behind me, closing the tiny mesh door. "There are fewer places to hide here than down there."

  I'd forgotten how much of a complainer he was.

  "Up again," I said because he was right. Not that those words would ever pass by my lips.

  "You want to go higher?" he asked, peering down to the ground below. "Where will that get us?"

  I turned back to the series of ladders and grabbed the next one, taking each rung as fast as my legs would go.
If Sally were to stand under us, she would have a clear shot. And if she did shoot, the bullet would have too big a target to miss.

  The top floor. On one side lay spool after spool of thick black cable. The electrics were probably far from being installed, so those were sitting like high-top bar tables off to one side. Funnily enough, they looked like cheap toys for some infant in the nineteen forties. If, of course, that infant were as big as a T-Rex.

  I shivered.

  The skeletal beginnings of a couple of rooms stood to our left, again with a big area in the middle.

  Another meeting area? What are babies getting up to?

  The Actor pushed me aside and walked past, scanning the floor. "Huh, a play area," he said. "A huge, wide-open space, which in no way can stop flying bullets. What a great plan!"

  Oh. Play areas. That makes more sense.

  I'd had a very bad idea, the culmination of which was on the street side of the building. First, I looked around for other options, any other option, scanning the near-barren floor, so panicked it was hard to focus.

  On the right side were what might be a couple of offices or bathrooms one day.

  What would babies need with offices? Who are these babies?

  Below us, I heard an impressive litany of cursing over the sounds of a shaky, metal ladder.

  The Actor scowled at me, pointing toward where we'd just come from. He spoke through gritted teeth. "She's coming up here now, and we've got nowhere else to run!"

  He was right.

  "You suck at plans, Raz," he said. "If I die, it's your fault."

  Out of options, I pointed to the other side of the unfinished room as I ran. Time to throw caution to the wind, or more specifically, a dwarf into a hamster tube.

  Behind me, the Actor was still looking down.

  "Fuck, I hate heights."

  "Let's go!"

  Up on the third floor, the face of the building offered a beautiful panorama of the neighborhood. In the distance, a few streets away, was a small park, a slide, a sandpit made up of shredded tires, and tubes to climb in. I remembered passing out in one of those one night when I'd had trouble locating my house.