Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck (32 page)

“I must have given him too much sleepy juice,” she fretted as she reached into the cage. Suddenly, the ferret sprang. He leaped out of the cage onto Necia’s shoulder. He dug his claws into her as he coiled up for another vault. The girl rose and frantically batted at Lucky as he bounded onto a stack of boxes laden with ceramic Seder plates.

Necia turned, her dark eyes glittering with betrayal.

“You little ingrate!” she spat. “Damian wanted you stuffed! But
no
, I thought you’d make a cool pet. I spent nearly all of my allowance on your stupid tranquilizers to keep you behaved!”

Lucky reared up on the teetering pile of boxes and hissed.

Necia crept nearer, waving her outstretched arms in slow circles, a motion that Lucky found unbearably distracting.

“Plus, you reminded me of Milton,” she said calmly as she stepped closer. “I cared about him … maybe even had a little crush on him, despite the fact that my
religion strictly forbids crushes and meaningful eye contact. That’s why I wanted to be sacrificed with him, to cross that bridge into the next world, away from all these … rules. So I could just be myself. With Milton.”

Lucky shivered sadly at the sound of his master’s name. He ached for his smell, his careful touch, his knowledge of prime scritchy spots—all the little things that Lucky had spent so many years scrupulously training Milton to do. He felt the gentle boy’s presence, not from without, but from somewhere deep—miles and miles away—within.

Milton lay panting, slick with spit and slime, behind the sagging blob that had been his Pang disguise. He shuddered as he considered the route of his unfortunate “eviction” from the blue-tinted Pang body, forced from the premises by unbelievably powerful contractions until, next thing Milton knew, he had been thrown out its, um,
back door
in a fit of intestinal labor.

He looked back at the remains of the Heart Attack Shack and saw Annubis emerge, dazed, from the wreckage. The chirpy strains of “Pop Goes the Weasel” leaked through the damaged speakers of the cart. Even though the shack was a complete shambles, somehow—like the mysterious black box recorder that always seems to survive a plane crash—the cart’s music box was all too intact and functional.

Annubis sniffed the air, growled deeply, and gave himself an invigorating, full-body shake. He trotted over to Milton and hoisted him up as the mob of Pangs assessed the situation, looks of dim realization dawning on their crude, indistinct faces.

“Milton,” the dog god said calmly, “I think it’s time to feed the Pangs before they chow down on us.”

Milton swallowed and nodded. He reached for the suitcases still in the clutched hands of his former Pang skin. Milton carefully unfolded its trembling fingers from the suitcases’ handles and grabbed the luggage. He joined Annubis as the horde of Pangs stirred, sniffing the air with their gouged-hole nostrils. The mass of insatiable appetites moved forward as one. Milton held out one of the suitcases, labeled
YUMMY SNACKS
in bright red barbecue sauce.

Growls pealed from Pang stomachs. Fresh streams of slobber dribbled down the accordion folds of their chins.

“On the count of three,” Annubis murmured as he backed away from Milton and began to slowly spin in circles. Milton watched as the proud dog god held the suitcases out at his sides, gaining momentum, like the casket cars on the Grave Spinner ride back home at Six Flags Topeka.

Milton clenched the handles of his heavy suitcases and began to twirl.

“How can we be sure … we’ll hit them?” he puffed.

“One …
we don’t really have a choice,” Annubis said as he reeled ever faster.

Milton spun. His arms ached with every gyration, as if they were in danger of freeing themselves from his arm sockets.

“Where should I … fling these things?”

“Two …
Just aim for the center, as deep as possible for maximum impact.”

Suddenly, Milton became profoundly dizzy. Sure, he was spinning around at the bottom of a gorge, attempting to hurl luggage at starving zombie blobs, but it was more than that. His nose twitched. The air smelled … more complicated. Sounds untangled themselves from one another to become more distinct. The images that streaked and swirled about him gained clarity and vibrancy.

“Lucky,”
Milton whispered, his senses fully alive as he felt the energetic connection with his pet ferret switch on. “He must be awake!”

“Three!”
Annubis shouted. He flung his suitcases toward the advancing mass.

In an instant, Milton knew just when to release his high-pressure projectiles. The suitcases hurtled through the air toward the heart of the mob. Annubis’s load hit a clot of Pangs, who then almost immediately recovered and began fighting over the greasy baggage. Milton’s suitcases struck dead center of the writhing throng. The Pangs—each resembling an oversized
glazed ham—pushed, pulled, shoved, scratched, punched, and mewled with rage until, suddenly, the suitcases exploded. The creatures were thrown end over end as an explosion of dirty underwear, socks, shirts, slacks, and belts flew out of the luggage with deadly velocity. The Pangs lay in scattered heaps, bruised and bludgeoned by the stinking shrapnel.

The drawbridge above slowly creaked open. Annubis rolled his sad dog eyes upward with grave concern.

“Looks like we’ve got company,” he growled.

The great lolling tongue of the bridge slapped against the outer lip of the Gorge. The wooden walkway trembled under the oddly dainty feet of some massive, galumphing creature as it passed through the gates and onto the drawbridge. A gruesome, blobbish, and unfortunately familiar figure, perched atop a saddle mounted upon the beast, leaned forward over the edge.

“Peek-a-boo,”
Bea “Elsa” Bubb snarled from above. “I see you.”

Milton gulped.

“Nice costume,” he replied, doing his best to keep from trembling.

The drawbridge creaked as the creature beneath the principal shifted its considerable weight. A spray of splinters rained down from beneath the wooden walkway.

The principal smirked.

“This is indeed a treat for me, and a nasty trick for you,” she said with fiendish delight. “Now the only
question is, should I force you to smell my feet, or give my Heckifino something good to eat?”

Principal Bubb pulled a delicious Reuben sandwich, dripping with Thousand Island dressing and sauerkraut, from the inside of her leather cowgirl vest. The twisted pile of Pangs stirred as their gruesome yet finely tuned snouts detected the presence of food, like a drop of blood hitting shark-infested waters.

Milton stared at the mountain of wriggling Pangs. The mound shifted like a game of Tetris played with fatty blobs for blocks, and in an instant of sparkling clarity, Milton saw a path.

F
OUR
KOOK
S
swished into the stockroom in their blue robes.

“What is going on, Junior Knight Necia?” the Guiding Knight demanded as he spied Lucky atop the pile of boxes. “I thought we had expressly forbidden the exercising of that, that …
rodent
you insist on keeping.”

In that moment, Lucky saw with his keen pink eyes a human bridge spanning from his box to the open curtain. The ferret coiled backward, compressing his haunches with intent to spring.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Necia muttered as she lunged forward.

Lucky leaped through her arms as she went to grab him, landing on the Guiding Knight’s shoulder.

“Eeeeeee!”
the tall man squealed shrilly. “Not my face! Not my face!”

Lucky leapfrogged to the next frantic knight’s shoulder, then to the next, and then finally he landed atop a small Filipino man just emerging from the curtained doorway.

“Ack, you filthy animal!” he yelled as he swatted at the ferret grinding its back claws into the side of his neck.

And, with a faint parting spray of musk, Lucky sprang through the curtains into the store beyond.

Milton darted across the bottom of the Gorge toward the shifting, writhing mass of Pangs.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb hissed as she yanked the reins of her Heckifino. The creature stumbled back. Its spindly back leg snapped through a rotten plank as two demon guards in tofu suits watched from the open maw leading into Blimpo.

Milton scampered up the mountain of slowly awakening Pangs, stepping on each with an athletic grace he exhibited only when linked to Lucky. He bolted up to the top of the quivering mound and turned back to Annubis.

“C’mon!” Milton yelled. “There isn’t much time!”

Annubis stared fixedly at the drawbridge. Bea “Elsa” Bubb locked eyes with the dog god’s, their glares clashing like swords.

“What up,
dawg?”
the principal seethed, tightly drawing in the reins to her Heckifino. The creature gobbled in protest as it teetered backward on gangly red-and-gray-striped legs.

Annubis winked at the principal and gave her a conspiratorial thumbs-up, as much as a half-dog can.

As the principal puzzled over Annubis, the dog god drew in a deep breath, then bounded toward Milton on all fours, doing his best to follow the boy’s path precisely.

“What’s that cur got cooking?” Bea “Elsa” Bubb pondered aloud as Annubis scampered away.

Meanwhile, Milton nimbly sprang from the plump pile of Pangs and grabbed the lip of the Gorge. He swung himself up almost effortlessly. Annubis trotted behind him as the Pangs untangled themselves from one another.

“Hurry!” Milton called as his former path—slowly filling in by sluggish, stupefied Pangs—disappeared behind the panting dog god. With all the strength he could muster, Annubis leaped from the collapsing mound and landed next to Milton on the salty, dusty rim of the Waistlands.

“Where to?” Milton asked.

Annubis scanned the bleak terrain, sniffed the brackish air, and cocked his head to one side.

“That way,” the dog god said soberly, pointing to a murky, mountainous mass in the distance. “The last place anyone would think we’d go without being bound, gagged, and dragged there.”

“That is
hardly
what I’d consider kosher!” screamed the only customer to enter Mazel Top-to-Bottom in the last two weeks as Lucky skittered across the gleaming floor.

Mrs. Smilovitz gasped at the ferret currently undulating through her store.

“A klog iz mir!”
she moaned, clamping her hands to her cheeks.

Necia raced after Lucky as he made his way to the door.

“Come back!” she called with tears streaming down her face. “I promise I’ll hardly ever drug you if you just come back!”

Lucky passed through the automatic sliding door and bounded into the mall. Necia and the other KOOKs followed close behind.

“Oy gevalt!”
cried Mrs. Smilovitz as the robed zealots rushed past her. “Let this incident serve as your eviction notice, you meshuggeners!”

Lucky darted through the shocked crowd of Generica mall. His wet pink nose twitched, sucking in knots of aroma that he untied with his mind. The faint smell
of burnt marshmallow tickled the back of his memory, a sharp sweetness that was half-fear and half-sadness, yet was entirely his only means of escape.

Milton ran so hard he felt like he had pins in his lungs. Annubis—lean, lithe, and limber—struggled to keep up.

“How are you … doing this?” he asked with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “I never took you to be an … athlete.”

Milton smiled and wiped away a trickle of sweat that dripped into his eye.

“It’s my link with … Lucky,” Milton panted. “My pet ferret. He must be running on his wheel … or something. It’s like he’s been asleep for a week and … only now … woke up.”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb roared from behind them.

“Not again!” she said as she snapped her whip on the Heckifino’s leathery flank. “After them!”

The animal cautiously trod across the rickety drawbridge.

“Faster!” she bellowed, shooting bits of corned beef out of her mouth. She took another big bite of her succulent sandwich.

“Just being near Blimpo makes me ravenous,” she grumbled as rye crumbs tumbled into the Gorge.

Beneath her, the Pangs became agitated. The smell of food—a marvelous specimen straight from the
underworld’s infamous Psycho Delicatessen—roused the creatures awake like strong smelling salts. With their insatiable stomachs roaring and their chins slick with slobber, the Pangs piled on top of one another to get at the irresistible Reuben.

“Faster, you lumbering, incompetent—”

The Heckifino paused briefly to relieve itself.

“—and shamelessly incontinent beast!” Bea “Elsa” Bubb bellowed.

The drawbridge groaned and splintered.

“Careful!” the stout demon guard yelled from the doorway.

Pangs gripped the sides of the drawbridge as they clambered onto the straining span.

“Don’t you ‘careful’ me!” the principal shouted. “I’m not going to let these fatheaded, overgrown, walking
snack attacks
let that little creep make a break for it—”

The Heckifino stumbled as the drawbridge listed violently to one side. A dozen Pangs spilled onto the bridge at the beast’s pointed feet. The tonnage finally proved too great, and with a gnashing groan of shattering wood, the principal, her beastly steed, and the hungry Pangs tumbled end over end into the Gorge.

The knights tumbled into a heap at the bottom of the up escalator.

“Quick!” Necia yelled as she rose to her feet,
frantically scanning the crowded atrium. “He’s making a break for it!”

Warder Chango retrieved a missing Van before it ascended back up the escalator.

“What’s, like, the big deal?” he asked Necia, wobbling as he slipped on his errant shoe. “Just let the thing, you know,
go.”

Necia stood on her tiptoes and stared out over the crowd toward the exit.

“No! He’s my only connection to …
him.”

She noticed a commotion up ahead, the crowd suddenly breaking like waves, leaving a faint musky scent in its wake. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea, only instead of a Hebrew prophet and lawgiver, the cause of the disruption was a speeding white ferret.