Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck (12 page)

Teenage Jesus blushed with embarrassment as the crowd of dancing teens gawked.

“You have it out for me … you always have!” he exclaimed. “Why do you always do this to me?”

“Because I’m Auntie Christ!” she replied between gritted teeth. “And it’s my job to make sure you lead a normal, respectable, and ordinary life! Not go off gallivanting across Judea, filling people’s heads with this peace and love nonsense!”

A look of conviction crept onto the teenager’s face. The kind of certitude that comes when you hear your calling ringing loud and true in your ears, and you can’t help but answer it.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,”
he said, his blue eyes sparkling like the Sea of Galilee.

“And cut!”
Mr. Welles bellowed offstage in his canvas chair by the camera. “Superb! Truly inspired.”

Van shuffled offstage.

“I don’t know … I was perfect, but I think the scene could’ve had more … 
intensity,
” he said with an actor’s blend of arrogance and neediness. A short demoness with large goo-goo eyes and two pig’s tails sticking out of her head handed him a bottled water. Van turned and shrieked at the creature. “The water tastes terrible when you bring it to me! Have Marlo give me the bottle!”

The pig-tailed demon hid her weeping face in her claws and ran out of the makeshift studio at the center of the Hellywood Hole, a cavernous, subterranean amphitheater housing dozens of demon stagehands, extras, and actors. With its scarlet fiberglass shell of concentric arches, the Hellywood Hole—to Milton—resembled the inflamed ear of the Unjolly Red Giant.

Milton sighed, knowing firsthand through Van’s explosive tantrums of the last forty-eight hours that it was far easier for everyone—Milton included—to instantly succumb to Van’s irrational demands. He picked up another bottle of H2No, the trendy anti-water that Van drank, and handed it to the temperamental star.

“Thanks, doll,” he said with a demeaning wink.

Milton, irritated, walked back to Mr. Welles as he flipped through the day’s scripts.

“Mr. Glorious,” Mr. Welles intoned, “As the director of
Citizen Kane, Macbeth, Touch of Evil
, and countless other films you’ve never heard of, I assure you that your performance made the scene utterly
Van-tastic.
”

Van tucked a tuft of blond hair behind his ear and nodded, his ego temporarily sated.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured, taking a swig of water, rinsing his mouth, and spitting it out on an extra’s shoes. “I’ll save my energy for the Sermon on the Mountain Bike scene.”

Mr. Welles wiped his brow with a white hankie as Van strutted back to his dressing room.

“Dealing with young superstars is like trying to defuse a bomb,” Mr. Welles muttered to Milton. “You’re never sure if you’re going to snip the right wire. Anyway, Miss Fauster, what did
you
think of the scene?”

“Um,” Milton replied hesitantly, “well, the scene had energy and the acting was decent, but …”

“But
what
, Miss Fauster?” Mr. Welles pressed as he scrutinized Milton with his glassy, red-rimmed eyes.

“It’s just that Jesus is such a crucial figure in the lives of so many,” Milton continued. “And his turning water into wine was a miracle, not some teenage prank. So I guess I’m kind of worried that we’re taking too many liberties with, you know, the central figure of Christianity.”

Mr. Welles smirked, as if the criticism were an old friend that kept reappearing unannounced at odd hours.

“Ah, yes. I heard the same concerns when adapting Shakespeare,” he said, rubbing his dense beard. “Sure, every great story loses something in the translation to the screen, but—in the hands of a genius like myself—the story gains something even greater. It gains a new audience. If I was faithful to someone’s faith, I would be merely preaching to the converted. But by getting to the dramaturgical pith, the very
marrow
of Teenage Jesus, I release the timeless intensity of emotion—the passion of Christ—that will grab today’s young people where they live!”

Mr. Welles makes a good point
, Milton thought, reluctantly.
But I still think his ego is eclipsing whatever is
really
going on here.…

Offstage, Milton could see Van and his costar Inga Hootz—aka Auntie Christ—engaging in a heated argument.

“You’re in
my
chair!” Inga screeched.

Van crossed his legs casually as he tilted back in the canvas chair, reading
Acting Up: Scrupulously Preparing for Improvisation
.

“It’s not like it has your name on it,” he replied without looking up.

“Actually, it
does,
” Inga replied, pointing to her name clearly inscribed upon the back of the chair.

Van smirked.

“Squatter’s rights,” he said with a shrug.

Mr. Welles waved his cigar at a thick-featured demon stagehand wearing a rotten sombrero.

“Sancho, we’re ready for the next set.”

The demon nodded and—with a full-body yank—pulled a large metal lever offstage. The round, thirty-foot stage shuddered and revolved like a massive lazy Susan. Mounted on top of the rotating stage were wedged, triangular sets to several T.H.E.E.N.D. shows, each shaped like a theatrical slice of pie. The gymnasium of Nazareth High spun away as a living room scene clicked into place in front of Mr. Welles and the demon camera crew.

“Miss Fauster,” Mr. Welles said as he pushed the one-eyed cinematographer away from the camera to peek through the lens. “The next script, please?”

Milton skimmed through the stack and handed Mr. Welles the script for the sitcom
Allah in the Family
. A middle-aged, Middle Eastern man with a bulging middle galumphed out to sit on his shabby wing chair. As the man nestled his butt into the well-worn cushion, it took on the dignity of a throne. A woman in a black, full-length burka and veil waddled out onto the stage and sat in a less-padded chair next to his.

“Arshad, Edibe,” Mr. Welles said, addressing his two actors, “as you know, you’re playing Arshad and Edibe Buainain, two fundamentalist Muslims who view the changing world around them as a direct assault against their values. Unfortunately,
Teenage Jesus
ran a little long—”

“Figures,” grumbled Arshad as he crossed his arms with irritation.

“—so we just have time to do a quick teaser for the show, and a product endorsement,” Mr. Welles continued. “Lights … camera … 
action
!”

“And … 
cut
!” Mr. Welles shouted as the stagehands shuffled props around to prepare for the next shot. Milton sidled close to him as he handed the rotund director the next script.

“Doomsdanish?”
Milton commented. “That’s kind of creepy.”

Mr. Welles nodded while he flipped through the pages of the script.

“Yes, I have to concur, Miss Fauster,” he replied. “But show business is indeed a
business
—and these disturbing products from Fibble are paying for my comeback.”

“Fibble?” Milton croaked. “But that’s where they send kids who lie.”
Like my sister disguised as
me, he thought.

“It’s ingenious, really,” Mr. Welles said, distracted, as
he framed the set with his hands. “Who better to devise ways of marketing to kids than kids themselves? I probably would have thought of that myself, had I thought of it.”

Just then, a stooped demon pushed a cart of mail next to Milton.

“Delivery for Mr. Welles,” the ancient creature wheezed, holding out a bulging manila envelope with no return address.

The writing, Milton noticed as he studied the envelope, was precise yet florid and very distinctive.

The Man Who Soldeth the World! Milton thought.
It must be the next episode
!

“I’ll take that,” Milton chirped as he snatched the envelope quickly from the demon’s leathery hands and signed for it. “Mr. Welles is really busy.”

The wrinkled demon shrugged its bony shoulders and pushed its overflowing mail cart away. Mr. Welles chewed on his cigar like a tobacco-filled pacifier, deep in thought as he perused his script.

“So, Mr. Welles, you—um—mentioned that there was a place where I could watch dailies of the latest shows and review submissions—”

“The Vidiot Box,” he grunted, gesturing to the back of the bowl-shaped band shell behind the rotating stage.

Milton nodded and clutched the envelope tightly underneath his sister’s alabaster arm.

I know that television is bad for you
, he thought as he
stomped toward a large wooden crate sprouting dozens of cables,
but I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse unless I do something. What that something
is,
I’m not quite sure … but I have a feeling this freaky show will show me the freaky way
.…

ANNUBIS PADDED ONWARD
in the dark. The tall, slender jackal-of-all-trades who had extracted and appraised the souls of the darned for time immemorial (before impulsively eating his gelatinous associate Ammit) had no idea how long he had been walking. His extended tour of duty in Limbo’s Assessment Chamber had permanently hampered his concept of time.

Despite this setback, Annubis was certain he was traveling in the right direction. His love for his family—his lovely Weimaraner wife Anput and young daughter Kebauet—was like a compass inside him, leading the deposed dog god straight to the Kennels: the howling, mewling basement of the Furafter, where the cries of the caged echoed, unheeded, off cold concrete.

As Annubis staggered forward, the ground beneath his hind paws began to crinkle.
Newspaper
, he thought.
I must be close
. Annubis sniffed the air. Mingled musks, sour-sweet breath, the corn-chip smell of paws, and the ever-present undercurrent of ammonia.
Closer than I thought
.

Suddenly, the darkness surrounding him was blasted away as a bank of blinding bright lights exploded up ahead. Annubis winced and shielded his sensitive eyes from the harsh light. Through his paw-hands he saw a guard tower topped with a cluster of piercing klieg lights.

“Stay!”
a human voice commanded. Annubis found the urge to sit, paralyzed, almost impossible to resist. The voice repeated, never changing in timbre or volume. As his eyes became accustomed to the glare, he could see that the guard tower was empty.
“Stay!”
the voice squawked from a pair of rusty speakers beneath the abandoned guard station.

An automated intruder response
, Annubis gauged.
Nothing but a recording designed to give programmed commands, though I would assume that most of the passed-on pets here failed basic obedience.…

A crowd of slinking shadows emerged from the edges of Annubis’s sight. They crept, low to the ground, separate yet working together as one. Their gait was slow, deliberate, and cunning.

Cats
, Annubis realized as the fur on the back of his neck instinctually raised.