Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go (2 page)

2 · WELCOME TO HECK, POPULATION: YOU

MILTON FELT LIKE
someone had ripped a full-body Band-Aid off him, one that covered both sides of his skin, outside and in. Sure, you'd expect a fiery end at least to sting, but this sensation didn't exactly feel “physical.” It made Milton feel like a weird echo of himself.

Milton had—at first—felt as if he was floating upward through clouds of fragrant mist, accompanied by a choir of angelic voices and the gorgeous swipes of a harp, with his sister uncharacteristically mute and still by his side. The sights and sounds were heavenly—like paradise—until Milton sensed a hesitation, a peculiar scrutiny. It was kind of like when he went to the dentist and they had to take X-rays. The assistant with her big lead apron aimed the gun-thing at your “full of bitter cardboard” cheek, then went away to flick on a secret switch. You didn't exactly feel the X-rays, but you kind of did. You knew that you were being analyzed in a deep way, like a thousand microscopic eyes were sifting through your every cell.

After that initial invasive tingle, there was the briefest of pauses. But then his ascension screeched to a jolting halt, like someone (or something) had changed his/her/its mind. Snippets of a conversation streamed into his head, as if he were a radio tuning into a faraway frequency.

“No…wait…
him…
perfect for the job…” After this snap judgment snapped, Milton pitched abruptly downward, due south, at a jillion miles an hour.

Marlo and Milton shrieked as they tumbled down a coiled slide enveloped in clouds of vapor. They glided for miles—thousands of miles, actually—screeching, their terrified faces still spotted with blobs of smoldering marshmallow.

With each twist of the slide, the white clouds of mist gradually darkened, at first to an ash gray, then finally a sooty black. The divine chorus of angelic harmonies grew fainter. In its place was the sound of mocking laughter.

After what seemed like hours but was actually no time whatsoever, since time holds no dominion over this particular place (though the Time Institute of Chronometry, Tabulation, and Order Know-how—TIC-TOK—is making significant advances by the minute), they landed, whimpering, in a semi-deflated, Olympic-sized kiddie pool full of red Ping-Pong balls and rotting garbage.

Marlo rose unsteadily and wiped fresh trails of mascara tears off her pale cheeks. Milton moaned and straightened his glasses. One of the lenses was broken. He squinted out of the good lens, looking like a runtish, well-read Cyclops.

They cautiously stepped out of the garbage pool into a small, sweltering cavern filled with thick, greasy smoke—a cross between a giant's fireplace and the worst Upchucky Cheez restaurant
ever.
Above them, housing the spiral slide, was a towering stone chimney with no visible beginning. It was as if they had tumbled down a gargantuan garbage chute. Marlo wiped coffee grounds and moldy cottage-cheese clots off her dress in disgust.

To their left was a plastic cartoonish devil brandishing a large…
spork,
by the looks of it. Just above the demon was a creepy sign made of doll parts. Plastic arms and legs spelled out
UNWELCOME AREA
.

Just beyond the kiddie pool landing pad was a little wooden stage, above which hung a sign that said
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE (AS WELL AS ALL CAMERAS AND ELECTRONIC RECORDING DEVICES
). As Milton and Marlo watched, several lizards in gold lamé suits slithered onto the stage. They crawled over busted toy pianos, horns, drums, and guitars and began to plunk, blow, pound, and strum, respectively. Milton rubbed his eyes in disbelief. A longer-than-average lizard sporting Ray-Bans slinked into the spotlight and tapped a tiny microphone.

“Hello? HELLO? Is this thing on? Wow, the sound here is terrible…too much
gecko
! I kid…A one, two, three, FOUR!”

The band attacked their instruments—twanging, plunking, and bashing out fractured jazz. The lead lizard swung his microphone like a lasso, then brought it to his mouth.

“If you've lived a life so bad

that you drove your parents and teachers mad,

one day then, perhaps your last,

you'll have to pay for every disrupted class.

Deep down beneath your feet where only bad kids go

is a place where it's always hot weather,

and you learn that a demon's forever.”

The horn players formed a reptilian conga line. The drummer spun his sticks over his head. One stick flew into the air, hitting Milton in the shin. Without missing a beat the lizard pulled off the tail of the nearest saxophone player and used it to perform an explosive drum solo.

“Yes, you guessed, you're down in Heck.

Here all the brats are nervous wrecks.

Nothing to do to save their necks.

It's always detention down in Heck.

Where all the bad kids go…”

The band paused briefly, as if musically leaping off a diving board. Then, with a chaotic splash of sound, the lizards attacked their instruments with reptilian fury.

“Down!!”

The lizards bowed to imaginary applause. Milton, a nice boy even when deceased, started to clap. Marlo elbowed him in the ribs.

Suddenly the dense black smoke cleared in one great whoosh. A terrible, grating metal squeak sliced through the cavern as an ornate iron gate decorated with sugared spikes, candied skulls, and barbed licorice labored open roughly forty feet behind the stage. Beyond it were patches of fluorescent light, winking in nervous flickers through the haze from some vast plaza beyond. Even worse than the metal-on-metal screech was the deathly quiet that followed.

A listless group of grubby children gathered inside the gates, gawking mutely at the new arrivals. They scattered in terror as a sharp clack of hooves broke the silence. A squat, puffy old creature strutted toward Milton and Marlo.

The creature's feet were shiny cloven hooves with gleaming, diamond-studded buckles. The legs atop these fancy hooves were like those of a fat, scabby goat. Above, mounds of scaly flesh were stuffed inside a filthy muumuu, cinched tight by a slithering snakeskin belt—with the snake still inside. Worst of all was its face—
her
face—a lumpy leather avalanche with a mouth rimmed in blood-red lipstick and fiendish scratches that served as eyes. She looked kind of like one of those bullfrogs that swells up, except this particular one had forgotten to swell down.

She stopped just inside the gates, her gruesome face impossible to read. Between her hooves poked the nose—three, actually—of an overly groomed Pekingese with a little something extra in the head department. Three pink bows encircled its three necks. It sniffed the air and growled a malicious three-part harmony.

Milton gulped hard. Even the impossible-to-faze Marlo fidgeted in her vintage granny boots. Marlo looked at her trembling brother. “I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.”

The female creature beckoned the children forward with a curl of her long, manicured claws. Marlo and Milton traded anxious glances, then marched beneath the arm of another red plastic devil. Above the devil was a sign that read
YOU MUST BE THIS SHORT TO ENTER HECK
.

They stepped through the open gates and into a sprawling warehouse of sorts with a low, oppressive ceiling and dirty beige walls. The floor of the warehouse was covered with stained gray carpet that smelled like cat pee and instant soup mix. The carpet was striped with clear plastic runners, apparently to keep the floor from getting any dirtier, though Milton couldn't see how that was possible. Scattered piles of broken toys, broken bottles, and sniveling children with broken spirits were strewn across the facility with no rhyme or reason. The whole place was like a drab, endless day-care center. It oozed tedium and cold despair.

The woman/creature/whatever smiled sweetly, showing several rows of rotten yellow fangs. Behind her the gates began to squeal to a close.

“I am Bea ‘Elsa' Bubb. Welcome to Heck,” she hissed. “Population: Infinity…”

Two bells tolled loudly as the gate clanged shut.

“…plus two.”

3 · IN BEA'S HIVE

MARLO AND MILTON
sat on a crinkly floral-patterned couch covered with plastic. Bea “Elsa” Bubb's office and its owner both exuded a distinctive odor: part mothballs, part rose water, part disinfectant, part sour milk, part menthol rub, with a sharp undercurrent somewhere between vomit and neglected cat box.

On the wall were three posters. The first was of a mangy, one-eared cat hanging from a cactus, perched over a roaring fire. The caption read “Why hang in there?” The next showed a mother scorpion scuttling for safety beneath a desert stone. Slimy white larval babies nestled on her back: “Go crawl under a rock.” The last was a watercolor cartoon of a man being fit for a noose atop a rickety gallows: “Today is the last day of the rest of your life.”

Across from Marlo and Milton was a massive mahogany desk, ornately carved with demons and smiling clowns with large, moist eyes. Atop the desk was a marble, tombstone-shaped nameplate with
BEA “ELSA” BUBB, PRINCIPAL OF DARKNESS
etched in Gothic letters.

The pudgy demoness sat behind her desk, her dog in her lap. She stroked one of its heads. Another head cleaned a paw while the remaining one growled suspiciously.

“Now, now, Cerberus,” she cooed. “They always smell like that at first.”

Milton nervously cleared his throat. “So is this…you know…he—?”

Principal Bubb shook her swollen claw at Milton. “There will be none of that potty mouth down here. Of course this isn't…
that place.
You're in Heck.”

Marlo leaned forward, her brow knit. “Heck? What the…”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb glowered. Her eyes—inky black pupils adrift in a pus-yellow sea—glowed like fanned embers.

“…heck,”
Marlo faltered, “is
Heck
?”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb smiled coldly and clasped her claws together.

“Rather like an
h-e-double-hockey-sticks
for children,” she said. “Heck is where the souls of the darned toil for all eternity—or until they turn eighteen, whichever comes first.”

Marlo and Milton absentmindedly locked hands. They noticed that they were actually (
eww
) touching and instantly let go.

Milton swallowed. “Um, how do we turn eighteen if we're, you know, dead?”

Principal Bubb rolled her eyes, the vertical gashes of her pupils settling on a stain on the ceiling that resembled dried puke.

“Have you ever heard of the term ‘old soul,' dearie?” she asked rhetorically. “Just because we leave the disgusting meat of our former selves up on the Stage…”

Milton and Marlo furrowed their eyebrows.

“The Surface,”
Bea “Elsa” Bubb repeated slowly, as if she were talking to a banana slug with a learning disability. “We cast those gauche earthly vehicles aside and our souls move on…like a snake shedding its skin. The soul inside us continues to age. And, like you awful children, young souls aren't fully accountable for what they have done—
yet.
Though if I had my way…”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb seemed lost in dark, secret thoughts. “Anyway,” she said, shaking her head. An earwig tumbled out of one of her pointed ears. “The bleeding hearts upstairs have created this cozy little place for despicable little brats such as yourselves to be rehabilitated and punished—
mostly punished
—so that when your souls reach maturity, they can be judged and sentenced to the full extent of the law. Your ultimate fate is not decided yet, though if you start out here, your everlasting prospects are grim.”

Cerberus sniffed the air. His heads growled. Principal Bubb stroked his back.

“What is it, Cerberus sweetie? Did the rat pâté disagree with you?”

The principal inhaled deeply. “Is someone making s'mores?”

Marlo hungrily eyed a glob of burnt marshmallow glued to her bangs, pulled it off, and popped it into her mouth.

“What hap-happens after that?” Milton stammered, aghast.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb sighed like an ancient bellows. She reached for her top drawer and pulled out two bright purple gelatinous candies.

“Here,” the principal said, dolling out the candies to the children. “Have some Gummo Badgers.”

The children eyed the candies. With razor-sharp teeth and claws meticulously sculpted from corn syrup, the candies resembled their vicious, beady-eyed namesakes but looked far more delectable. Ignoring all cautions about taking candy from strangers—and Bea “Elsa” Bubb was about as strange as they came—the two ravenous children snatched the treats and popped them into their mouths.

Not bad, Milton thought. Kind of like marmalade, with just the slightest soaplike aftertaste, but Milton was so hungry he couldn't afford to be picky. After the first few chomps another unwanted effect became evident: Milton's—and Marlo's—mouths were soon cemented shut.

The ancient demoness leaned close and smirked. “That's better,” she hissed with breath reeking of old coffee and rotten cavities. “Now sit back, shut up, and I'll give you the official spiel. Maybe I'll even be able to catch my favorite show.”

She scratched her back against her chair.

“Anyway,” she said, grimacing, “just like up there, you'll be going to school, except the stakes are a little higher…or more likely lower in your case. Each soul year you'll be given your SATs—Soul Aptitude Tests. Based on these rigorous, highly standardized exams, your eternal fate will be decided. On graduation day you'll be given your dysploma, thus dissolving our unfortunate relationship. Isn't that nice?”

Milton and Marlo struggled to answer, but all they managed were a few muffled grunts.

Principal Bubb straightened a stack of tattered yellowed papers on her desk, shoved them aside, and set a mummified monkey's paw on top of the pile as a paperweight.

“You're in Limbo now,” she said tartly, “the first of the Nine Circles of Heck. The others are Rapacia, Blimpo, Fibble, Snivel, Precocia, Lipptor, Sadia, and Dupli-City. Limbo is smack dab in the middle of the No Time Zone, meaning that timewise, there is no meaning, if you take my meaning. Think of it as detention, where you've got all the time under the world to mull over your new situation, to really think about why you're here—”

Why
are
we here? Milton tried to interject, but it came out more like “Wmm
ahhh
whu heh?”

“Shhhh,” the principal hissed dismissively, before continuing with a speech she seemed to know by heart—if she'd
had
a heart, that is. “Hours, minutes, seconds…
millenniums…
fail to pass. Not even souls age here, which is why I don't look a century past 2,900.”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb absentmindedly preened at her grotesque reflection in a burnished-bronze skull cup on her desk. Marlo gagged softly. There was something deeply nauseating about this creature, which resembled a swollen sack of tarantulas, thinking that by smoothing down a row of sprouted wart hairs she was somehow “prettying up.”

“You'll still attend classes, of course, but they're more to familiarize yourself with how things work here than anything else,” the demoness continued. “For the time being, you are in Limbo, where time has no meaning, and where all newbies go until we sort out exactly which circle of Heck they'll ultimately be assigned to. Every case has to go through our Department of Unendurable Redundancy, Bureaucracy, and Redundancy and they are notoriously, shall we say,
thorough,
so expect a bit of a wait.”

Milton stood up, trembling with indignation. He forced his lips free from their Gummo Badger prison. “I don't understand!” he shouted. “I can see why my sister's here…”

Marlo shot her brother a dirty look as bright purple drool trickled from the corner of her mouth.

“But I'm a straight-A student!” Milton yelped. “A Boy Scout! Chess Club legend! I take piano lessons! I brush my teeth after every—”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb rose and leaned into Milton's face. “You're a thief,” she hissed with a flick of her forked tongue. “And use your inside voice, please.”

“A thief!?”
Milton was outraged. “But I never…” He looked at Marlo, who was smirking on the couch.

Milton's eyes bugged. “So I'm facing eternal…
darnation…
for a tube of kiwi-cantaloupe lip gloss?”

Marlo managed a chuckle through her candy-sealed mouth.

“She tricked me!” Milton yelped. “I didn't know I was stealing! This is unfair!”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb clapped her claws together with a dry, leathery slap.

Instantly she, her desk, and the children were hurled backward through a long, stone tunnel.