Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  "Ah well, actually, no," Uncle Jerry said. "I expect the word got out that I was dead, but that was mainly because a big-shot drug dealer in Atlanta was mad I stole his plane and started the rumor before he turned me over to his cartel bosses in Mexico."

  The two young people stared, smiles long gone, mouths hanging open.

  "Uh," Uncle Jerry said. "Probably more than you needed to know."

  The female attendant ran her hands over her keyboard. "Well, we don't make a habit of, um, allowing dead people into the facility, even on a guest pass."

  "Well, it is so funny that you are saying this thing right now," Anza said, forcing a smile. "Because this is why we have come to your facility. To show that, in fact, Unc—Lou is not dead."

  The news was met with a pair of frowns.

  Ruby said, "Have you brought identification and two utility bills with your current address?"

  "Hell, no," Uncle Jerry said.

  "By that he means, heck yes!" Anza said, smile still plastered to her face.

  After a moment, Jimmy shrugged, went back to a printer next to the espresso machine, and returned with two laminates, each at the end of a looped black nylon cord.

  The two attendants pointed toward the bridge path.

  Anza and Jerry put the loops over their heads and stared down at their pictures as they walked away.

  "I need to update this one day," he said. His picture had a black band through the middle of it. "This is back from when I was a roadie for Uriah Heep."

  She didn't really hear him as she stared at her profile picture of her and Dan smiling. That had been a better, simpler time.

  Anza and Jerry walked to the gate at the edge of the bridge and waited for it to retract. After a moment, the light flashed, and the gate slid away.

  "Where are we going now?" Uncle Jerry asked, casting a look back to the two in the booth, who were both furiously typing and glancing over at them.

  Anza shrugged. "We are looking for a contract, so the place to start will be wherever the personnel records are."

  Uncle Jerry grabbed the photo around Anza's neck and stared at it. "You guys make a sweet couple," he said and noticed some dampness in his friend's eyes. "Don't worry, you'll see him again. It'll soon be time to go home."

  Anza just nodded.

  "Personnel records?" Uncle Jerry said, as if he were on a ten-second delay. "You make that sound easy."

  "No," Anza said, picking up her pace. "It never is."

  * * *

  "Maybe I'll wait back here and guard the entrance," the Actor said as I slowly crawled deeper into the squat, damp tunnel.

  "Guard? What are you guarding?"

  "You know, if those things come back."

  I looked under my arm to see him silhouetted behind me, down on his hands and knees. The cement passageway was about as wide as a hotel lobby's front bay window, allowing the evil Roombas to pass in and out two or three at a time, but they didn't need a lot of headroom.

  The space was about as high as my waist, so the best way forward was to crawl.

  Behind the Actor, I could see two of them bumping along into the distance and another was coming up behind him. Thankfully, they were in their blue-light state, not threatening, so they had little interest in either of us.

  "They're everywhere, man."

  I said, "Just don't throw anything at them. Come on, don't be such a pussy."

  There was something rather humiliating about crawling as a grown person. As a habit, once people passed the age of, like, one, there were far better ways to go about moving around the room—or through a dank tunnel into the belly of a multibillion-dollar high-tech social media empire's headquarters. As a grown-up, crawling felt like some defeated admission that things hadn't gone the way I'd intended them to—or I just needed to get to the toilet to throw up.

  It was very slow going.

  To add insult to injury, a fuzzy-tailed squirrel pranced past me, chasing after one of the Roombas. I wondered if it smelled like nuts. Not the squirrel, the mechanized, homicidal vacuum cleaner.

  I slowed as I watched the creature run in that zigzaggy pattern that they always seemed, without fail, to run in. I wasn't sure if it was a defense thing to see predators coming from all angles or if they were just really scatterbrained and distracted by everything else around them: "Hey a robot. Look at that cool leaf, but the robot. Is that a shiny bug? Hey, a robot…"

  Despite myself, I started chuckling. Being deliriously tired probably had a lot to do with it.

  "What… are you laughing at?" the Actor asked, a few feet behind me.

  "Oh, it's just a stupid squir—"

  Zzztt!

  The squirrel stopped in its tracks like it had just realized it had left the iron on at home. Then it fell on its side.

  "That's weird," I said.

  From a wide grate that ran the horizontal length of the tunnel, a brilliant blue-white light filled my eyes as two rows of gas flames shot up in a roar. Then, as quickly as it had come to life, it was gone. And so was the squirrel—except for the smell.

  "What was that light?" the Actor asked, his words coming fast. "What's that smell?"

  "Uh, I think it's burnt squirrel."

  "What? What does that mean?"

  I said, "It means, we need to think carefully, or it'll soon smell like burnt actor and burnt deejay."

  "You haven't been on the radio in years," the man behind me said. "I don't think you qualify as a deejay anymore."

  "Shut up or there might be slightly bruised actor in here instead," I said, pointing ahead. "If you catch the light right, it looks like there's a fat metal lip that runs across the tunnel."

  "The squirrel stepped on it and barbecue rodent."

  "Right," I said. "The flames were triggered once the squirrel stood on it, so I think we need to cross it without touching the metal."

  I briefly wondered what it was about squirrels that made so many in the world want to kill them.

  The Actor lifted his head, looking down the passageway's length to get a better view. He shook his head. "The goddamn grates are all up and down the tunnel, like crosswalks," he said. "And that metal bit's about three feet wide." He collapsed with a sigh. "No way to go through without touching it."

  I looked down the tunnel from back the way we came and had a thought. "Maybe there's one way."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Evil Roomba's whirring and grinding was, well, more whirry and grindy as I lay across the top of it.

  "Don't drag your feet!" the Actor called from behind me. He sounded closer than he had a moment ago.

  "I'm not!"

  "You are!"

  "It's—" I said, shifting and struggling to get my balance. "Like a toddler giving you a piggyback. Hard to hold on."

  The Actor laughed. "You need to strengthen your core. More sit-ups."

  "Funny guy," I said and grunted as I tried to shift my body forward a bit more without hitting the floor. "Ummmpff." I sucked in a breath as I tried to move my shoulders without tipping the device struggling beneath my weight. A shadow passed near me, which made me flinch, and I nearly fell from my unsteady ride.

  I looked up. "Hey," I said. "How are you going faster than I am?"

  I watched as the Actor bobbed past me—he was the perfect size for a robot vacuum ride. His feet hung off the back while he gripped with his fingertips, chin resting on the front edge.

  Casually, he turned his moppy curls toward me. "It's not a race, and we don't have far to go," he said then tossed something, bits of something, ahead of him. I watched as he reached into his pocket, dug around, pulled out a bit of lint and paper, and threw them ahead.

  It was far to ride while barely holding onto a robot not made for riding. It looked about the length of a football field, but with my eyes adjusted, I could see the opening ahead.

  "Hey, there's a spooky hallway at the end of the spooky crawl space," I said, my voice ringing off the thick concrete walls as I dug into my jacket for my
wallet. "We can probably walk from there." No use in dillydallying, I found an old receipt I'd stuffed next to some bills in my wallet, crumpled it, and tossed it ahead of my Roomba.

  It sped up. The tiny metallic feet clicked and clattered along, chasing the bit of paper until it could suck it up with a satisfying fwoomp!

  Finding another receipt—can't imagine needing that one either—I repeated the move, and again, the Roomba happily sped up to snort that bit too.

  I was just one Roomba-length behind the Actor.

  Hearing my robot's spiky legs chink-chink-chinking alongside him, he spun his head toward me. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing," I said and found an old Applebee's coupon that would expire in the next week. I crumpled and threw it. I didn’t even like chicken-fried steak, no biggie. "Just, you know, low on time, so…"

  "Fucker, this isn't a race," he said, scowled, then dug deeper into his pockets.

  My Roomba lurched forward, chink-chink-chink-chink, and I was once again ahead of my friend by at least a foot or two. Looking down, we passed by another one of the metal death strips. One touch and we would both be fried instantly.

  However, neither of us were paying much attention to that.

  Having found nothing in his pockets, the Actor had taken it next-level. I knew that because a) one of his feet hanging over the back of his machine was bare and under one arm was a shoe, and b) the sock that had been on that foot landed about three feet ahead of his Roomba.

  Its blue light glowed a little brighter at the sight of the new prey, and it sped to its next meal.

  "You can't use clothes!"

  "Shut up," the Actor called over as he began to pass me again. "I can use anything I want."

  In the next minute, we would be clear of the concrete overhang—and the death strips—and able to climb off the robots and stand properly. I had about a minute to pass the Actor and reclaim my lead.

  For me, socks weren't an option because I'd sort of stopped wearing them a while back and never got back into the habit, as it were. I drew out an old gum wrapper from my pocket, crumpled it up, and threw it ahead.

  My robot once again sped up, but I saw that ahead of me, the competition had removed yet another shoe, sock balled up, but he didn't get a solid throw away since there was no chance to arch it with the low ceiling.

  "Ha-ha!"

  "Shit!" the Actor called out, still ahead of me, his big move thwarted.

  We were less than thirty feet from the opening, both machines churning along, however the pace of his slowed slightly as it seemed to briefly choke on the sock like a Persian hacking away on a furball, which let my machine close the gap.

  I was just a length back—just the one—but was running out of stuff to throw ahead. I dug into my pocket and found my old house key. "Score! I don't need that anymore!" I shouted and tossed it.

  Tink-tink-tink… chink-chink-chink-chink.

  I was even with the Actor and moving faster. He growled and dug in his pocket, pulling something small and shiny out. He frowned, put it back, then began unlacing his shoe.

  Just ten or fifteen seconds away from being clear of the low ceiling, I ran my hands all down my body, searching. For a brief second, my fingers snagged on the buttons of my coat. Buttons.

  I yanked one off and tossed it ahead just as he threw the lace. Both machines sped up, grinding their motors in a hulking, brooding race to the finish.

  Tink! I tossed another button. Then snapped off a few more. Tink! Tink!

  His second lace already chewed up, the Actor threw his shoe.

  "Jesus, you're going to need that!" I shouted. He pulled ahead.

  "Ha, ha!" he shouted. "Victory will be mine!"

  I had to laugh but shouted back, "Fallen arches will be yours, asshole!" then proceeded to snatch off buttons and labels and loose threads like I was pulling a horde of stinging bees from my body and throwing their carcasses ahead.

  However, despite the flurry of bits and plastic and material flying from my fingers, he was too far ahead and crossed the threshold before I could.

  "Yes!" he shouted then slid off of his Roomba, fists in the air. His victory was short-lived as the Roomba passed over his body—"Ow!"—briefly running its sucker over his forehead, then continued on.

  A moment later, I climbed off my machine, my jacket hanging open. Swaying slightly, I couldn't help but giggle a little, tired and delirious, as I tied my coat's cloth belt around me. Shit. I coulda thrown this. "When we leave," I said, "we're having a rematch."

  "Fuck no," the Actor said, stumbling to his feet.

  "What? You're afraid of those stupid things?"

  "No," he said. "I won fair and square. No do-overs."

  "Whatever," I said. "Looks like we crawled underneath the moat. This is some kind of service entrance, probably where they used to do deliveries back when they were building the place."

  On either side of me, the walls were dark brick that needed a good scrubbing. Damp in there, black mold had begun to stain the walls from floor to ceiling in menacing stalagmites, the ones that went from bottom to top.

  See, high school education pays off!

  We hadn't stepped forward yet. The hall ahead of us wasn't a concern because it wasn't terribly long, but the red glow at its end was another story.

  Just above us was some wooden latticework that really didn't look strong enough to hold up the structure if it fell. I scanned it as we finally moved forward, trying to see if there were any hidden buzz saw blades or an array of spikes that might fall down if we tried to pass.

  The Actor bristled. "It's got a very… Temple of the Doom vibe going on."

  "Right?"

  "Especially the eerie red glow down there."

  "You're not helping."

  As we walked, the motorized vacuums whirled past us, up and down the dark hallway, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

  It was strange. From the first scan of the hallway, it only appeared about fifty feet long. But it took at least two minutes to get just halfway.

  "Place gives me the creeps," my friend said.

  Two more minutes, and we looked around the large space we'd been dumped into. It was a hexagonal room and, like the hub of a wheel, had spokes where other tunnels like the one we'd just left branched out. From where we stood, I counted at least five.

  In the middle was a cement column as wide as a small house. About ten feet from the bottom, it beveled, its base slightly larger in circumference than the rest of the tower. It wasn't just some massive architectural podium. It was a chamber.

  The Actor let out a sigh. "I don't like this."

  Growling, I smacked the back of my hand across his shoulder.

  "What?"

  I said, "Don't say shit like that! I've already got serious King Kamehameha willies, man! Don't go spouting horror-film lines in the middle of this shit!"

  He looked for a second like he was going to protest but then blinked slowly and shrugged. "Sorry. Professional habit."

  We stepped forward and both looked up at the column, a tower, in front of us, our necks craning back to see the top. Circling the cement tower was a spiral staircase.

  "What do you think that's for?" the Actor asked, pointing.

  "It's a fucking staircase. What do you think it's for?"

  He shook his head and curled his fingers into a tiny, bloodless fist. "Right, where the hell does that go?" he asked but then caught my expression as I smiled like an idiot and levelled a finger at me. "Don't say 'they go up.' I know they go up."

  I frowned. "Jerk. It's a good line. Either way, which way should we go?"

  "There are six other passages like this one, we could try all of those."

  I shook my head. "The guys won't have that much time. They start snooping around and they either find it fast or they get thrown out."

  "Okay," he said. "What about that creepy, blood-red glowy bit coming from the other side of this column?"

  "Uh, nah," I said. "We should try these other t
unnels."

  "Why?"

  "I dunno." I spun toward him, throwing my arms in the air. "Because you got me thinking horror films now, and heading toward the creepy red glowy stuff is always the wrong place to go!"

  The Actor looked as if my fear only emboldened him, like it was some sort of dare. His face split into a grin that would have gotten him banned from public gatherings. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

  I shot him a snarl. "It's being beaten to death by my sense of reason and my will to live."

  He cocked an eyebrow and dimmed his smile only slightly. "Let's give 'er a look."

  I started walking slowly, counterclockwise around the tower then realized the Actor was at my heels. "No, no," I said, almost whispering. "You go the other way. Around the other side."

  "What? No!"

  "Yes," I said. "We shouldn't walk too close together, too easy a target."

  "Target?" The smile was gone. "For what?"

  I waved my fingers the other direction, and slowly he started to inch the other way. Of course, I didn't know what might be on the other side. But whatever it was, I wasn't going to be the Actor's shield if anything snarly or toothy or clawy was waiting for us.

  As I walked around the tower, I again looked up, trying to pull something out of the distance above. I just saw the winding staircase wrapped around the fat column. Even squinting didn't help bring it into proper focus, so I looked ahead again.

  Ahead of me, the wash of crimson light covered the wall to my right, radiating from the tower's base. "This place must spend millions on red lights," I said just to hear my own voice.

  "Who are you talking to?" the Actor called from his side of the column.

  "Nobody, shh."

  The Actor reached our destination ahead of me. Always a competition with that guy.

  He said, "It's just… a door."

  I came around and stood beside him.

  The steel entryway in front of us had no handle. It was split vertically by a seam, which made it look very familiar.

  "I think it's an elevator door," I said.

  The Actor put his face closer to it. "Why do all the edges glow red?"