Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck (25 page)

“There’s a Heck for animals?” Virgil asked incredulously. “But … why? I didn’t even know that, no offense, animals
had
souls.”

“Or why they would be darned for all eternity, just for following their instincts,” Milton added.

Annubis smiled the mysterious grin of a dog.

“The same could be said for you humans, too,” he replied. “Let me just say that, like everything else down here, the Furafter is …
complicated
. But, yes, animals
do
have souls, I assure you. All life does. It’s just a matter of degree. So my lovely wife, Anput, and my daughter, Kebauet, are …”

Annubis whimpered softly to himself.

“Caged …
in the Kennels. I can almost smell their despair. Principal Bubb said that if I ever wanted to see them again, I would have to work for a year in the Pitch-Black Market, as a
cur
-rier.”

“I
knew
Principal Bubb was behind this!” Milton spat.

Annubis gave a quick shake of his head. “Yes and no,” he replied. “Principal Bubb turned me over to the underbelly of the underworld, but even
she
does not know of my ultimate role.”

“Which is
what
, exactly?” Milton asked. “Why does Blimpo want you to feed souls to students? You of all people …
creatures …
should know …”

Annubis hung his head low in shame. “Yes, that is the problem … I
do
know. And it has brought me no end of misery. The vice principals want the students to gain weight—
soul
weight—so that they never lose any in the DREADmills. I suspect that they are using the machines not only to power Blimpo—an illegal exploitation of resources, even in the underworld—but
also to sell off the remaining energy to other realms. But that is all I know. I’m sure the plot goes higher, or lower as the case may be.”

Milton stared at the bubbling cauldron.

“Who forces you to make the batches?” Milton asked.

Annubis clutched a black collar around his throat. A metal box was fused to the neckband.

“Chef Boyareyookrazee possesses my pink slip, as it were. And, if threatening my family ever loses its grip on my every waking—and dreaming—thought, he’s got me, quite literally, by the throat with this shock collar.”

Virgil shook his head. “Whoa, this is a lot to swallow,” he commented, turning to Milton. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? Last time I saw him, he stuck his paws in my chest and yanked out my soul.”

Annubis’s lips curled into a faint smile.

“Actually, the base of the brain and the upper back. You are wise to be suspicious. But the proof is in the pudding.”

Annubis walked toward a vat of congealed blood pudding. He plunged his paw-hand into the tub and emerged with a photograph: a beautiful Weimaraner woman with sleek, silver fur and a pup chewing blissfully on a Nylabone.

“I reasoned that the safest place to keep my
mementos was in Chef Boyareyookrazee’s cuisine,” Annubis continued, “especially since no one is forced to eat it now, thanks to my barbecue.”

Milton scratched his borrowed head.

“But that’s the problem,” Milton said. “Why we switched the souls last night with those of Make-Believe Play-fellows. To save the souls. The real ones.”

Annubis’s normally regal posture drooped.

“I have been doing my best to use the souls sparingly,” he relayed with remorse. “But it’s the lost souls that give the soul food its … well,
soul
. I discovered your switch as I was forced to prepare my latest batch, and I assumed it was some trick to test my loyalty. As if anyone would have to test a dog god’s loyalty. Anyway, I
did
cut the recipe with some of the Make-Believe Play-fellows, which managed to reduce the soul content considerably—”

“And, unfortunately, the flavor,” added Virgil mournfully.

Milton rubbed his disgusting rubbery face. “You’ve got to know that, no matter what you do for them, they’re never going to let you or your family go,” Milton said soberly.

Annubis stared at his sandaled feet. “But I signed a contract that specifically fixed my indentured tenure at one year….”

“Where did you sign it?”

“In Principal Bubb’s office.”

Milton shook his head.

“In Limbo—
where time has no meaning.”

Annubis had what could only be referred to as a hangdog expression on his face.

“Ouch,” Virgil muttered. “She just threw you to the dogs.”

Milton glared at Virgil, then edged close to Annubis, patting him on the back and slowly moving down his spine until finding his scritchy spot. The dog god’s left leg moved uncontrollably.

“What we need to do is shake things up down here, give the fat cats a flea dip,” Milton soothed. “Then, in the confusion, we get you out of here to rescue your family.”

“Please stop,” Annubis implored, his leg flailing about.

“Sorry,” Milton said, leaving Annubis to lick his paw-hand and smooth down his fur until he regained his sleek, dignified composure.

“You are right,” the dog god growled, rising, his hackles raised. “I was a fool for thinking they could be trusted.”

“But what can we do?” Virgil said with distress, his voice hitting a register that made Annubis’s ears flutter.

“First, we take off that collar,” Milton said.

Annubis held up his paw-hands, which—while perfect for extracting souls—lacked the facility for complex
tasks such as undoing the difficult shock-collar latch behind one’s own neck.

Milton stepped behind Annubis, who got down on his knees and held his head low while Milton worried the latch. After a few moments, he got it loose.

“There,” Milton said as he held out the cruel device in front of him. “We’ll need to find something to replace it with, though, so Chef Boyareyookrazee doesn’t notice.”

Annubis scanned the kitchen, settling on a hamper overflowing with soiled laundry beneath a chute.

“There should be something in there,” he said, motioning toward the mound of dirty clothes.

“That is so unsanitary!” Milton said with disgust as he sifted through the collection of dirty laundry. “Why would anyone collect filthy underwear right next to where food is prepared….”

Annubis smirked.

“Oh, right,” Milton continued. “We’re in Heck. I keep foolishly expecting a shred of logic or decency down here. My bad. Oh wait … here we go.”

Milton exhumed what he prayed was a sock garter that looked something like Annubis’s shock collar. He wadded the original collar in a pair of black bikini briefs, then stuffed it down in the hamper.

Virgil grabbed a dark gray Brillo pad from the sink. “This kind of looks like the shock box.”

Milton, with a little ingenuity and a lot of lentil
casserole as fixative, was able to fashion a reasonable facsimile. He secured it around the dog god’s neck.

“Okay,” Milton said, eyeing his handiwork. “Next up, your new recipe—do you think using
solely
the souls of Make-Believe Play-fellows could work?”

Annubis opened a larder above the deep fryer. Inside were dozens of Make-Believe Play-fellows, quivering with dreamy curiosity inside their jars as the culinary artist formerly known as Hambone Hank inspected them.

“I think so,” he said, rubbing his bristly chin thoughtfully with his paw. “They will definitely be lighter, due to their weak etheric composition. At least there should be less navel residue.”

“Navel residue?” Virgil replied. “You mean that gunk in our belly buttons is because of your barbecue?”

“Yes.” Annubis nodded. “The souls, specifically. The navel is an umbilical scar … the cord through which we initially receive our souls. The souls themselves remember and leave behind a faint, ectoplasmic residue. These Make-Believe souls, however …”

He sniffed the jar with his keen, wet nose.

“Amazing. Energy molded by pure imagination. The flavor is weak, rather like using imitation butter instead of real butter, but—even though it’s a tall order—I’ve become
quite
the short-order cook.”

Milton clapped his hands together. Virgil winced, half-expecting his friend to yell “gym dandy.”

“Then we’re in business.”

Milton grinned. It was amazing how, when a puzzling problem evolved into a problematic puzzle, his mind gained clarity and confidence. He had purpose. And he had friends.

Milton put his arm around Annubis.

“Every dog has his day, my friend, and you are about to get
yours.”

24 • AS QUEASY AS P
i
E

AT THE FRONT
of the classroom, a scraggly, ancient man stood half-submerged in a deep kiddie pool fitted with wheels, at the center of which grew a peach tree. Whenever the famished teacher reached for a piece of the juicy, swollen fruit—which was often—the branches pulled away from his grasp: just inches from his trembling fingers. And whenever his ancient, leathery voice became parched from thirst—which was also often—the water receded before he could get any.

The frustrated teacher, King Tantalus, poled himself and his mobile pool to the chalkboard like a gondolier, only substituting his crutch for an oar. By giving the handle a few quick rotations, he pushed out a piece of chalk at the crutch’s tip, which he used to write: “Gastrophysics: the application of the laws and theories of physics to the interpretation of gourmet cuisine.”

“Told you,” Virgil whispered to Milton, who had not believed that there was any such thing as “gastrophysics.”

“First, some good news: tomorrow there will be a peptic rally in the Gymnauseum,” the old man relayed, his voice as dry and rough as the tongue of an old boot. “Now the bad news: tomorrow there will be a peptic rally in the Gymnauseum.”

Gene raised his hand.

“What’s a peptic rally?”

“Good question, Mr. Blankenship.”

Gene smiled brightly, happy that—while he rarely knew the answers—he could at least pose a good question.

“A
peptic rally is like a pep rally, only less so. It’s an unfortunate tradition here in Blimpo: a way to boost morale while dampening self-esteem.”

King Tantalus eyed a fat, succulent peach that bobbed coyly on the branch just above his head. He sighed.

“And since many of you boys will, more than likely, be forced to participate in some kind of demoralizing competition as part of tomorrow’s assembly, we will, today, focus on the art of pie eating.”

The group of boys were now held enrapt by their odd teacher, thanks to the pairing of—to them—the two most beautiful words in the English language: “pie” and “eating.”

“Competitive pie eating is the rapid consumption of sugary, artery-clogging pastry way past the point of satisfaction,” he continued.

King Tantalus made a sudden lunge for the nearest peach. The branch flicked itself inches out of reach.

“One day, my luscious friend,” he muttered. “One day …”

He returned his attention to the class.

“First, training: as far as pie eating goes, contrary to popular opinion, abstinence does
not
make the stomach grow fonder. You must keep your stomach
expansive.”

King Tantalus squatted quickly to the bottom of the pool, flailing his cupped hands by his knees. The water withdrew until it was—as was to be expected—
tantalizingly
out of reach. The teacher cursed in Greek under his breath and surveyed the obese boys before him.

“Check, by the looks of it,” he replied dryly.

A roly-poly demon, who looked exactly like an upright doodlebug, from its hard black armor to the tips of its feelers, knocked on the door with several of its many spindly arms.

“Yes,”
King Tantalus snapped. “What is it?”

“Delivery,” the demon chirped. “By orders of the Burgermeister and Lady Lactose. These are being installed in all of the classrooms. Hallways, too. As some kind of a motivation tool.”

The teacher eyed a peach through the corner of his eye. He tried to snatch it, but the peach yanked itself
away, trembling afterward slightly, laughing at him with its little fruit body.

“Fine,” King Tantalus said miserably.

The demon struggled to roll a massive plasma-screen television into the classroom. He set it against the wall where it suddenly flickered to life.

King Tantalus stroked his long white beard in contemplation while the boys stared at the screen. A logo—an irritating silhouette of a girl thumbing her nose—gave way to a neon pink title:

VANITV IS ON THE AIR!

The title spun away, and a collage filled the screen—quick-cutted to the point of near incomprehension—depicting young, attractive people with perfect bodies not only enjoying their active, vivacious lifestyles, but also fiercely
flaunting
them.

Techno music pulsed like the heartbeat of a robot with panic disorder.

“Hey,
Jonah,”
Hugo muttered from the desk behind Milton’s. “I hope—for
your
sake—you switched Hambone Hank’s recipe to its perfect, original blend.”

Milton swallowed hard. He turned to face his blackmailer, the boy with cheeks like an igloo duplex.

“Did it taste the same this morning or not?”