Jim and the Flims (21 page)

Mijjy called out to the Earthmost Jiva, petitioning for attention, but for now the mammoth creature had other concerns. She was using her web of roots to feed—by leeching kessence from the local ghosts.

It worked like this. The Earthmost Jiva coiled and shortened some of the branches leading off her tail, drawing in hundreds of jiva clerks. Each of the shopkeepers in this district was but a nodule upon the Earthmost Jiva's tendrils. And the clerks themselves had secondary vines leading to their customers—who included most of the ghosts in this zone of the underworld, perhaps ten thousand of them.

A phrase beloved by spammers popped into my head: “We reserve the right to contact individuals with whom we have an existing business relationship.” If you acquired things from the shops down here, the shopkeepers reserved the right to drag you into contact with the hungry bristles of the Earthmost Jiva.

I felt a tug as the clerk from the Sandwich store went lurching past. I realized that I was connected to her via an invisibly fine tendril that remained from our transaction. I might have been dragged down into the accumulating dogpile around the Earthmost Jiva, but fortunately I was strong enough to break my connection to the clerk.

Soon the Earthmost Jiva's nest was mounded with tendrils, jiva clerks and ghosts. The solar beet was draining kessence from the wretched spirits that she'd captured. They grew thinner and fainter as I watched. One by one they collapsed down to sprinkles. Many of the sprinkles were eaten as well, although a few rose like fretful gnats to the domed ceiling, returning to the living water estuary of the Dark Gulf. It was fortunate for the local ecosystem that new ghosts were continually arriving from Earth.

Among the Earthmost Jiva's captives was the peach-colored figure whom I'd noticed before. Taking pity on this womanly ghost, I had Mijjy send out a sharpened tendril that severed the Earthmost Jiva's links to her. Once freed, the pinkish-yellow specter flitted away, darting into one of the corridors.

I felt a curious attraction towards this ghost woman, and I might have gone after her—but at the same time she frightened me. Could she possibly be Val? But why then hadn't she greeted me? Did she still blame me for her death? I was jolted out of my reverie by the Earthmost Jiva.

“Greeting Jim Oster.” The voice was huge and husky, like an echo in a cathedral. “Mission statement?”

“Hello,” I said, groping for words. “Why I'm here? I fell through the monster pit. This kid Durkle and me. It's an honor to meet you, Earthmost Jiva. You're very large.”

“Growth eternity,” rasped the voice, filling the mile-wide chamber. “Apocalypse plan Earth. Jim Weena mailman.”

One of her tendrils lazily unfurled, unrolling towards me like the supple tentacle of a giant squid. Frozen in awe, Mijjy made no move to defend me. The glowing root wound around my waist, drawing me closer to the luminous beet, lifting me off the floor, hefting me.

“Don't—don't eat me,” I stammered.

“Appetizer morsel,” said the hoarse voice, as if considering the prospect. X-ray colors boiled in my brain. “Kessence lump treat.”

“Earth mailman,” teeped Mijjy from within me, as if to remind the greedy big jiva of my projected role. “Mijjy servant greeting joy.”

“Hunger distraction,” said the Earthmost Jiva. “Jim Oster meeting Duke urgency memory. Instructions Jim Oster. Jiva decrees. Hatred spies. Privacy jiva.” As if still not fully decided, she wagged me from side to side.

“Teleportation castle directions,” said Mijjy unctuously. “Confusion blindness layer water.”

“Hold on!” I objected. “I want to go back to the monster pit first. I left my friend Ginnie there.”

“Ghost girl,” said the Earthmost Jiva, sweetening her tone operatically. “Jim Ginnie conjugation.”

“I suppose I've thought of that,” I replied. “Not that anything's likely to come of it. Mainly I want to be sure she's okay.”

In silence the immense glowing figure used her tendrils to eat a few hundred more ghosts. And then with a negligent gesture she tossed me back to where Durkle stood. She wasn't going to bother helping me.

“Rabble boredom,” boomed the Earthmost Jiva. “Castle tomorrow. Jim duty.” Her appetite sated, and our audience over, she shook out her tendrils and settled onto her side. The shopkeeper nodules bustled to their stores. The great beet's light grew dim. She slumbered.

“What if she oversleeps?” I asked Durkle.

“It happens,” he said with a shrug. “Our days start whenever the Earthmost Jiva gets up. Not that she's ever really and truly unconscious.”

“We need to find a way out of here,” I said.

“Did Mijjy say if she can jump us to the monster pit?” asked Durkle.

“You can't pick up on our teep at all?” I asked him.

“If someone's hip enough, I can do a kind of yuel teep with them,” said Durkle. “It's like a dream-channel. But, no, I can't pick up the thoughts of jivas.”

“My stupid jiva can't see past the living water,” I reported. “She said ‘confusion blindness.' So, no, she can't jump us out of here. I guess you can't do it either?”

“I have the same problem,” said Durkle. “I can't see the way. That's cool. I want to see the rest of the stuff down here. Why don't we try going down some stairs? We'll head down to a lower level and see if we can get out from there.” Without waiting for an answer, he took off down the hall, elbowing past the ghosts.

“Just a minute,” I said catching up with him. “All this time you've been calling this underworld—but is there a part that's even more like hell? What if going downstairs makes things much, much, much worse?”

“I hear there's three layers to the underworld,” said Durkle. “And under that is the Dark Gulf. You know. It's where the new arrivals show up. We'll go down two more levels, yeah.”

“How is that going to help us?” I protested, trotting along beside him. “You're talking about
down
. We want
up
.”

“We'll get to the Dark Gulf,” said Durkle, not slowing down. “The Gulf 's living water flows under Flimsy, up the walls into the sky, and it rains down at Flimsy's center. We'll ride the current into the sky and hop down when we see the monster pit.”

“What's wrong with climbing inside the ceiling right here?” I said, coming to a stop and pointing up. “Flam said that it that connects to the Dark Gulf. We can climb into the ceiling's layer, and glide out from there.”

“Don't be so uptight,” said Durkle. “I'm curious about the lower levels, okay?”

As it happened, we'd come to a halt by another grotty flight of downward stairs. They were steep and narrow, like a companionway on a ship. By now a flock of ragged ghosts had gathered around us again. They were plucking at us and making creepy sounds.

“Don't worry about them,” said Durkle, confidently. “We're thick and juicy with kessence. It would take a really big mob of these guys to seriously leech us down. Come on now, Jim. Follow me down the stairs.”

The dimly glowing steps led even further down than I'd expected, perhaps two hundred feet. I was relieved when we reached open space again—but it was just another mall-like hallway. This second level had a solid, blank ceiling.

The stores on this level were in weirdly specialized categories. The nearby signs were for Fingernail Clipping, Shoelace, Hex Nut, and Burnt Match. Not quite believing the last one, Durkle and I peered inside the store and we saw, yes, shelf upon shelf of blackened matchsticks, some of paper and some of wood. The jiva shopkeeper beckoned to us with her tendrils, but we didn't go in.

A chattering mob of ghosts had tagged along after us. And now they were joined by some lower-level ghosts who seemed even hungrier. I swung my fists at the jabbering shades, but always they were moving closer, continually reaching out to pluck at me. I was beginning to feel faint.

“This is fucked,” I told Durkle. “I say we go back up.”

But by now the spirits had formed a solid cordon between us and the stairs we'd come down. And more of the hungry shades were appearing all the time—like hyenas closing in for a kill. We were trapped.

I saw a flash of pinkish yellow near the far side of the crowd. It was that hooded ghost whom I'd saved from the Earthmost Jiva. She was pointing past me, as if telling me to look at something behind me—

“Another staircase back there!” exclaimed Durkle, seeing the ghost's gesture as well.

The boy and I turned away from the mob and rushed to the low, mean door behind us. It was half the size of the stairwell door we'd entered before. The peach-colored ghost caught up with us and darted in ahead of us.

At this point I was too panicked to wonder about the helpful ghost's identity or to ponder her motives. The mob was pressing around us again. I squeezed through the little door and—

“These stairs lead further down,” I cried in despair. “Not up.”

“Perfect!” said Durkle, right behind me. “Remember my plan.”

This staircase was even longer than the one before, and with several twists in it. Soon the peach-colored ghost was nowhere to be seen. As Durkle and I clattered down, I gathered my wits a bit. I thought to have Mijjy shoot a sheaf of tendrils towards the ghosts who were still following us.

Sure enough, the sting of my jiva's feelers halted our pursuers. Pausing our own descent, I urged on Mijjy's attack. Soon she'd fully routed the mob, entirely driving them from the stairwell.

“All right!” I exclaimed to Durkle. “I should have thought of this before. I don't suppose you'd want to go back to the top level and try the ceiling now?”

“Boring,” said Durkle.

“What the hell,” I said. We went on down the stairs, waiting to see what we'd find below. Rather than leading out to the bottom level's floor, our staircase stopped abruptly at a hole in the bottom level's ceiling. Durkle and I paused there, sticking out our heads and peering around.

This third and lowest level of the underworld was a vast open space, a strange perspective dwindling into confusion. The great hall was filled with shifting, colored mists that took on ever-changing forms. A few actual ghosts were striding purposefully through the haze.

The floor was some fifty feet below the hole in the ceiling where we perched. I used my jiva's tendrils to lower Durkle and me the rest of the way down. And then the boy and I stood there for a moment, awestruck by the intricate combines of images that filled the air—like living collages or animated graffiti.

“I've heard that our dreams come from down here,” remarked Durkle.

Dreams... As I stared into the luminous fog, the illusory shapes began to flow in synchronicity with the motions of my mind.

I seemed to see an earnest studious clown being shot from a cannon. He resembled me. The clown landed in a house in Santa Cruz. He was standing by the dining table, which was nicely set for two, with a vase of tulips. Soft reggae music was playing. The place looked great, all tidy and nicely decorated. The spicy smell of pork paprika stew drifted from the kitchen. Everything was calm, cozy, and just as it should be.

“Will you make the salad, Jim?” called a sweet voice. It was a vision of my dear wife Val, standing in the our kitchen door, her eyes full of love.

Sandbagged by the dream, I let out a sob.

Durkle shook my arm. “Someone's coming,” he warned.

I rubbed my eyes, and looked around. A male ghost was walking briskly towards us, a dapper guy in a gold suit. I tried to step out of his way but, addled by my visions, I tripped over something and fell heavily to the floor.

Lying there, I could make out a projecting handle attached to a hatch. Before I could wonder about this very much, the gold-clad ghost had rapped a coded knock against the hatch. It swung open. I heard cheerful voices and interesting music. The ghost slipped into the opening and was gone. Durkle and I would have followed him, but the hatch slammed shut—and nobody answered our ensuing knocks.

Squinting through protean mist, I could now discern any number of hatches in the floor, each with a handle. Ghosts kept opening hatches and slipping into the hidden party rooms. Durkle and I began running back and forth, trying to get in somewhere, trying to ride on someone's tail. But we kept missing out.

“I wish we had a friend here,” said Durkle, panting. “We have to get through a hatch to reach the Dark Gulf.”

“How about that ghost I was talking to on the top level?” I suggested. “Bart in the purple suit. He invited us to a party down here.”

A short red-bearded ghost came walking by. “Hey!” Durkle yelled to him. “Where's Bart's hatch?”

The ghost didn't answer. We asked three others, with no success—but then the hooded peachy-pink ghost appeared in front of us again, waggling back and forth, as if inviting us to follow her.

“What's with her?” wondered Durkle. “Why is she helping us?”

“I think she's the one I saved from the Earthmost Jiva,” was all that I said. But by now I was seriously wondering if she might be Val. Perhaps she'd sent me that dream-vision I'd just had. Maybe she'd wanted to watch my reactions. Perhaps she was suspicious of me because I'd helped cause her death. Oh, Val.

Avoiding the hatch handles, we followed our guide through misty dream images—past tigers and locomotives, past redwoods and prawns. Everything kept interpenetrating and mutating.

Finally, our guide came to a stop; she was pointing downward with one of her trailing sleeves.

Durkle dropped to all fours and began tugging fruitlessly at the hatch's handle, warping his form into angular shapes. By my focus was on the peach-colored ghost. This was the first time I'd gotten close enough to touch her. Heart pounding, I reached out, wanting to push away her obscuring hood. She spun away. Something about the way she moved made me quite sure it was Val. She drew back, hovering out of reach.