Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck (8 page)

A horrid popping sound came from the crumpled mass of canvas. Milton noticed great lumps pushing up from inside the tent, like five kernels of testy, oversized, parasitic popcorn.

“Sounds like they’re trying to feed on those lo-cal locals … the wraiths,” Moondog said. “That won’t keep them occupied for long.”

Cody licked beads of sweat away from his upper lip.

“Where should we go?” he asked.

A gust of wind thinned away the clots of mist clinging to the horizon. Milton could see a plump, swollen hill in the distance. Atop the mound was a walled fortress, with what appeared to be a castle hovering above, gently wobbling in the breeze. Greasy smoke
billowed out from the fortress’s parapets. The tendrils—dense bacony plumes—beckoned with their delicious scent.

Madge, a POD with skin like chapped animal hide, sniffed the air with relish.

“You can’t go wrong following the smell of bacon,” she remarked as she adjusted the tight denim cutoffs that were a few generations too young for her.

Milton took off his glasses, fogged them with his breath, and gave them a quick swipe with his sleeve.

He squinted through a thinning patch of mist until an arched gate came into focus. The gate was, for all appearances, a gaping golden mouth. Two bulging brass tubes, like long, shiny sausages, were welded into lips, while the inside of the wide portal was lined with sharp, polished spades resembling teeth. Milton could just make out words written on the golden arch above:
UNWELCOME TO BLIMPO. ZILLIONS AND ZILLIONS SERVED
.

“Blimpo!” Milton exclaimed. Blimpo was the circle of Heck reserved for
well-upholstered
children. It was undoubtedly where Milton’s best friend, Virgil, had been sent after Milton’s escape from Limbo. This was the friend who had sacrificed any chance he had of leaving Heck so that Milton
could
. Ever since, Milton’s memories of his big-hearted friend had been tainted with guilt.

And, just as wiping a smudge from his glasses had
brought Blimpo into focus, suddenly all of the shapeless thoughts and feelings crowding Milton’s head and heart came together with crisp, clear urgency.

“I need to get in there,” Milton said.

Moondog laughed.

“You want to break
into
Blimpo? What are you, a glutton for punishment?”

Milton, his eyes bright, smiled.

“Maybe,” he replied. “I just know that I have a big friend in there who I left behind, and I owe him a big favor. I also know that I’m not doing anyone any good out here.”

Jack put his hand on Milton’s shoulder.

“You’re either very brave or you just flipped your wig, Popsicle. Maybe that’s what bravery is all about: just not knowing any better.”

The air seemed to split with the sound of tearing canvas. Milton spun around to see the flea-ticks lashing out at the fallen big top with their barbed legs.

“Those suckers are done with the diet platter,” Moondog said. “And they want some
serious
food.”

Jack nodded and turned to the mob of PODs looking to him for direction.

“We’re cutting out!” he yelled.

The PODs surged away from the remains of Savage Bumble’s Tragical Confusement Park in a single-file line, slogging up the swell along a path outlined by dead briars. A sign nestled in a gap of the hedge read
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE WASTELANDS AND ENTERING THE WAISTLANDS
.

The smell of bacon grew headier with every step. Milton could see something surrounding the bulging mound of Blimpo up ahead: a moat of some kind. From his vantage point, it appeared to be filled with a shimmering pink, undulating liquid. However, with every step, the liquid looked more like …
meat
. And, as the group of vagabonds neared, Milton could hear lapping rumbles and moans, like a million empty, protesting stomachs.

Moondog surveyed the moat with his sightless eyes. “Someone’s been sneaking a peek at my nightmare journal,” he muttered.

Milton neared the moat and gasped. Filling the chasm surrounding Blimpo were hundreds of glistening pink zombielike creatures. Their gaping, toothless mouths were in constant motion—like newly hatched chicks at the sight of a mother bird returning to the nest—and their round, bulky bodies were covered with glistening bumps. The creatures climbed over one another, trying to free themselves from the moat, but kept sliding back into the pit, giving the chasm the look of a lava lamp bubbling with mewling meat.

A POD toward the end of the procession screamed. Milton whipped his head around. Behind them in the distance, he could see several fat, dark blobs hopping in the mist above the flattened confusement park.

“Well,” Moondog sighed, “it looks like we are royally—”

“Food,”
interrupted Jack, who had been staring at the moat, deep in thought.

“What was that?” Milton asked.

“We’re food … or at least
you
are,” he explained. “But food can either be a meal or …
bait.”

“Oh, I get it,” Moondog said, rubbing his beard and nodding.

“Can someone fill me in, then?” Milton said.

“You’ll lead the stampede,” Moondog said. “Get those hopping nasties snapping at your heels, right to the edge of the moat, then …”

“Then?”
Milton asked.

“Then you either turn on a dime or get drawn and quartered.”

Jack hopped up on top of his cart and yelled through his cupped hands.

“PODs!” he shouted. “I suggest we make like a tree and leave!”

Jack leaped down and pushed his cart off toward the chasm, his loyal phantoms close behind, kicking up clouds of dust that whorled across the horizon in little twisters. Milton, startled by the sudden burst of speed, raced to join Jack, who whooped with excitement, sounding as exhilarated as Milton was frightened.

Dark shadows flashed before them. Milton looked above at the uniform haze that served as “sky” in this
realm: a murky, perpetual twilight, or dawn, depending on your outlook. The flea-ticks were hopping in great leaping strides alongside a few terrified phantoms at the back of the line. They did indeed only have eyes—and red, creepy ones at that—for Milton.

The roiling chasm was now only a dozen yards away.

“You gotta make like an egg and … scramble,” Jack said as he sprinted onward. “But, before you go, here …”

Jack held out his pendant to Milton.

“Just a way of getting in touch with me,” Jack continued. “If you ever need us … just rub the pendant. That seems to activate it. Then Divining Rod can lead us straight to you.”

“Thanks,” Milton said as he took the pendant and held it tightly in his hand.

“Now it’s time to … fall back, Popsicle,” Jack explained. “One cart at a time … until you’re the last. Take my cart and then, when you’re right at the lip staring down at the big pink uglies, push it over and make yourself scarce … ball yourself up and hide in the dust.”

“You make it sound … so easy,” Milton replied, panting.

“Hey, life and death are easy,” Jack replied. “It’s us crazy cats who do the living and dying that make it all complicated. Now, don’t lose my pendant, see? It’s a
borrow
. I’ll see you soon, and you can lay it back on me, got it?”

Milton nodded while he quickly slipped the necklace over his head, never breaking stride. He took Jack’s shopping cart and fell back. Cart by cart, the shiny gray snake of PODs coiled along the chasm’s edge. The flea-ticks hopped closer, becoming more erratic, confused by the clouds of dust and bacon smoke. Milton leaned into the cart and ran for all he was worth.

Milton’s pendant dangled into the barbed-metal mesh around the lip of Jack’s cart. He tried to raise his head for one last glance at the colossal parasites pursuing him, but the pendant caught on a gnarled tangle of spikes. The shopping carts ahead began veering abruptly to the left, one by one, until Milton was only a few yards away from the moat’s edge. Sweat trickled into his eyes as he struggled to tug himself free. Finally, the chain broke. Milton shot a frantic look over his shoulder. The flea-ticks were crowded together, a dozen yards away, in one nasty, bristly lump, fighting over which would be the one to take Milton as its prize. Their red eyes smoldered, crazed with bloodlust. Milton could see, from his unfortunate vantage point, that each of the creatures had a collar around its neck with the inscription
THIS FLICK PROPERTY OF HECK
.
IF LOST CALL 1-976-666-BUBB
.

“Bubb!” Milton shouted as he shoved Jack’s cart into the pit of globby, glistening pink creatures. He dug his
sneakers into the dirt and fell down to the ground in a great cloud of dust.

Coiled up in a ball with his borrowed navy peacoat pulled up over his head, Milton peeked above. The five fat, monstrous parasites sailed overhead, as if in slow motion, and plunged into the pit. Milton crawled to the edge of the chasm and peered with horror at the gruesome scene.

The flicks’ harpoon mouths stuck into the sides of the ravenous, roly-poly creatures in the moat. They swelled as they fed, stretching to capacity until their skin became translucent. The flicks tried to flee, but the slimy creatures in the pit held on to them—trying to eat what was eating
them
—until the flicks popped like balloons.

A wave of stink gushed out of the chasm, like someone had put moldy cauliflower and skunk blood in a big blender and set it to
pew-ree
.

“Whoa!” Moondog exclaimed as he helped Milton to his feet. “If that’s the smell of victory, I’d hate to get a whiff of defeat!”

8 • TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS

MARLO ANXIOUSLY SCANNED
the rows of dinner jackets hanging in Kloven Kleen Do-or-Dry Cleaners. Hundreds of jackets hung on the coiling mechanical rack, all of them—to Marlo’s eyes—exactly the same: snazzy and modern, yet with a squared-off, vintage 1950s silhouette.

The demon “helping” her—a jaundiced woman with cobweb hair pulled tightly in a bun—tapped her long, French-manicured talons impatiently on the glass counter.

“Do you have a ticket?” the squat demon asked in a huffy tone, as if Marlo were a particularly stubborn stain that would simply
not
come out. “As you can clearly see, I have more dinner jackets than you’ve had
hot dinners. And the dinners are
always
hot down here. Even if it’s cold cuts and vichyssoise.”

“Ticket?” Marlo repeated.

“Yes, a
ticket,”
the demon grumbled. “A small card with a number printed upon it that matches with a corresponding tag affixed to a particular piece of clothing, giving the holder the legal right to pick up said article of—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Marlo spat back. “I’m taller than you, lady, so don’t try talking down to me—you might hurt yourself. I’m just new to this whole dry-cleaning thing, okay? It’s always seemed like a big scam to me.”

“Maybe that’s why there are more dry cleaners per capita down here than anywhere else in the universe,” the dry-cleaning demon replied dryly. “Be that as it may, I still need a ticket.”

“That’s not all you need,” muttered Marlo as she opened the modified bowling bag she used as a purse.

Marlo had been sent on her first errand for the Big Guy Downstairs so quickly that she had barely enough time to fill her bag with the junk Farzana handed her and her head with Farzana’s stuttered orders. Marlo
did
seem to remember something about a tick-tick-ticket.

“Here,” she said, handing the irritating demon garment worker the stub she had found from the bottom of her—in Madame Pompadour’s words—
gauche bag
.

The demon scrutinized it.

“It’s torn,” she replied, holding the ticket in front of Marlo’s face. “Every ticket is supposed to have three numbers. This only has two. Number six-six …”

Marlo sighed. “Can’t you just check everything between six-six-zero and six-six-nine?” she replied. “Wouldn’t that be something covered by, oh, I don’t know …
your job
?”

The demon growled—not a grumble from someone being grouchy, but a deep guttural rumble.

“And did I mention that this was for …
the Big Guy Downstairs
?”

The demon gasped, then tried to hide her shock with a halfhearted chuckle, which was all the woman could manage, having only half a heart. Marlo could slowly feel her confidence coming back, now that she was away from Madame Pompadour’s icy
haute
clutches.

“If I had a penny for every time someone tried that one on me,” the demon replied, shaking her puffy head like a wasp’s nest in a storm. “I’d have … a lot of cents.”

“Well, if you have any
sense
left, then I suggest you bring me ten coats …
now,”
Marlo said defiantly. She wasn’t going to let anything, especially not some dried-up dry cleaner, blow her very first errand as the devil’s Infern-in-training.

The demon stalked back to the racks and jabbed a red button several times with her talon. She yanked ten
dinner jackets from the mechanized rack, stormed back to Marlo, and threw the jackets down on the counter. The demon glared at Marlo through wicked slits.

“Okay,
little girl,”
she hissed. “Which is yours?”