Hellhole

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Clues

Across

Stolen

Excavate

Malevolence

Demolish, Variation

Start Over

Frequently

Obsessive-Compulsive Type

Kind of Party

Devised a Plan

Center of the Earth

Fairy-tale Beginning

Kerfuffles

Hot Spot

Surveillance

Accomplished

Part

That Girl

Where Things Heat Up

Torrent

Adventurer in Surrealism

Escapes Injury

Snare

Can't Stomach

Went Berserk

Driving Aid

Sort of Jerk

Cut Short

OK Place

666–15

Secret Weapon

Epilogue

Solution

About the Author

Copyright © 2014 by Gina Damico

 

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

 

www.hmhco.com

 

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows

Damico, Gina.

Hellhole / by Gina Damico.

pages cm

Summary: “Max Kilgore has accidentally unleashed a devil—and now the big, evil oaf is living in his basement. If Max doesn't meet the devil's demands (which include providing unlimited junk food and a hot tub), everyone and everything he holds dear could go up in smoke.” —Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978–0–544–30710–0

[1. Devil—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Sick—Fiction. 5. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 6. Single-parent families—Fiction. 7. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

PZ7.D1838Hel 2014

[Fic]—dc23

2013042827

 

eISBN 978-0-544-37701-1
v1.0115

 

 

 

 

For my godparents, Lolly and Uncle Dave,
who have always been and who continue to be
so enthusiastic about my existence

Even though many crunchy and delicious snacks were devoured to keep the insanity at bay over the course of writing this book, I fear I still may have dragged several people down with me into the depths of hell during its creation. As always, I am indebted to them for their patience, support, emergency delivery of said snacks, and many reasons more.

In the first circle of hell, we've got the always-marvelous team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Julia Richardson, Betsy Groban, Lisa DiSarro, Jennifer Groves, Joan Lee, Lisa Vega, and Maxine Bartow; plus Katie O'Connor at Audible and Roxane Edouard at Curtis Brown. Thank you for your hard work, and for continuing to champion and humor my weird, wacky writing.

Second, to the Apocalypsies, fellow writers, bloggers, librarians, and teachers I've met in person and via the interwebs—you guys have been great, still are great, and probably will continue to be great until the heat death of the universe.

Third, to Jessica Almasy, audiobook narrator extraordinaire, because up until now I have neglected to thank you, and that certainly has to be one of the deadliest sins of all. Thanks for bringing my books to life and making my jokes sound funnier than they are.

Fourth, to Dad, lover of crossword puzzles and instiller of my love for crossword puzzles. And to Puzzlemaster Will Shortz, thanks to you too! Remember when you met me and my dad backstage at that talk you gave and we took a photo with you? Of course you do; it's probably framed on your wall.

Fifth, to Mom, giver of pep talks and over-the-phone hugs, procurer of tasty treats for bookstore events, and guerrilla publicist. Thanks for telling me I'm awesome even when the state of my kitchen sink suggests I am the exact opposite.

Sixth, to Lisa: I just want to tell you both good luck, we're all counting on you.

Seventh, to my agent, Tina, for her advice on which characters need sex changes and which ones should just die altogether. Thank you for being the best, deadliest agent ever.

Eighth, to my editor, Julie Tibbott, who, when I begin an email with “Okay I know this is nutballs but HEAR ME OUT . . .” responds with an emphatic “I love it!” Thank you for your enthusiasm, guidance, and permission to be nutballs.

And in the ninth and undeniably hottest circle of hell, because you're the one stuck with living with me: Will, thank you for insisting, against all rhyme, reason, and logic, that I should continue this writing bonanza of mine, and for not kicking me out of the marriage when I do things like use the dining room table as my personal bulletin board. You're a saint.

And one final thank-you to all my readers and fans, for your heaps of emails, letters, art, and fandom. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it, in blood, atop an altar made of skulls.

To hell with you!

MAX'S LIFE OF CRIME STARTED POORLY
, with the theft of a glittery pink bobblehead in the shape of a cat.

His boss had burst out of the back room moments earlier. “Forest-green Honda Civic license BNR one seven five!” she yelled in a heavy Greek accent as she waddled out the door of the small convenience store, chest heaving and dyed-red bouffant hairdo bouncing. Stavroula Papadopoulos was neither young nor physically fit, but she hadn't let a gas-and-dasher go without a fight for well on thirty years, and she wasn't about to start.

Max's gaze followed her bobbing hair to the abandoned gas pump but got hijacked by the cat, sitting in all its glory next to the cash register. He could hardly believe his luck.

It's breathtaking,
he thought.

In actuality, the thing was hideous—poorly made, terrible paint job, practically falling apart. Stavroula must have ordered it from one of those crappy gift store catalogs she was so fond of. Max normally would never have dreamed of taking it, no matter how much irresistible enchantment it exuded, but something strange had come over him. One minute it was sitting there on the counter, all smug and catlike and made in China, and the next it was in his hands, the glitter already beginning to coat his palms.

He wiped his hands on his stiff blue employee vest—then, realizing that this was only incriminating him further, he turned the vest inside out and put it back on. The cat he rammed into his backpack, its head nodding up and down as if to say
Yessiree, I'm contraband!

Sweat started to seep through Max's T-shirt. His hands were shaking, his stomach queasy. He told himself to knock it off, to sack up already. This was not the sort of behavior befitting a felon.

He was a hardened criminal now, and it was time to start acting like one.

 

Seventeen-year-old Max Kilgore suffered from the unfortunate curse of having a name that was far cooler than the person it was attached to.
Max Kilgore
evoked images of Bruce Willis mowing down every law enforcement officer in Los Angeles with a single machine gun, then lassoing a helicopter, stealing the Hollywood sign, and blowing up an army of cyborgs, all in the name of Vengeance.

But the real Max Kilgore was not one to break the rules. He did his homework every night. He never talked in class. He obeyed every bicycle traffic rule in the bicycle traffic rule book—which he had requested from the library and read cover to cover, lest
God forbid
he ever be pulled over by a police officer, a thought that made him want to vomit up a kidney or two. Trouble was something that kids with piercings and sculpted calf muscles got into, and as he had neither, he toed the line like a perpetually paranoid parolee.

As far as Max could tell, this phobia didn't stem from any traumatic events in his childhood, which had been relatively happy. His father had exited the picture long ago, being a “rotten hippie” his mother had slept with “on a dare” and had soon after kicked out of the house owing to his “lack of deodorizing and parenting skills.” His mother had picked up the slack just fine, raising him as if single parenthood were as natural to her as breathing clean, patchouli-free air.

Of course, Max had made it easy for her, well-behaved as he was. And until his sophomore year they'd been doing okay on their own, just the two of them. Now life was a bit harder. Now, instead of paying real American dollars for a plastic animal with eyes facing in two different directions and ears that looked as if they'd been designed by someone who had never seen a cat firsthand, he had to break the law and steal it.

And not even in the name of Vengeance.

 

The sound of jingling bells snapped Max to attention as Stavroula returned to the store, a flood of Greek words—probably of the swearing sort—gushing out of her mouth. “Second one this week,” she spat. “I leave old country for this? Headaches and scoundrels?”

“Headaches and scoundrels” was Stavroula's favorite phrase—Max heard her utter it three or four times over the course of each of his shifts at the Gas Bag—and with it came a pang of guilt at the thought of stealing from her. Grouchy though she may be, Stavroula had given him a job when he'd needed it most, and he knew it wasn't easy for her to have taken over her husband's business when he'd died a few years earlier.

But it was only a small pang. One he could live with.

“Bah!” She threw her hands up in the air, still vexed. “Tomorrow I buy shotgun.”

The fear of getting caught was interfering with Max's ability to speak properly. “You said that last week,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Last week I buy pistol. This week I buy shotgun.”