Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go (17 page)

35 · DREAM SCHEME

MARLO TROD SOFTLY
down the hallway and peered around the corner. Yep, she hadn't been hearing voices. Just outside the cafeterium several hall demonitors chatted casually to each other about the sorry state of their secondhand pitchsporks.

Hmm,
Marlo mused.
Looks like Plan B…whatever that is.

But Marlo was always one for improvising. Any criminal artist worth her salt was most inspired when straying beyond the safety of a fully baked plan. Perhaps that was why most of the truly great ones were currently serving time.

She stole back to her bunk with an idea Easy-Baking in her head. Marlo's serpent restraints were still smarting from her pointy fangs—which had given them both matching hickeys—and recoiled upon her return.

Marlo fluffed up her unfluffable pillow and pretended to be asleep. After a few minutes of snoring to create the appropriate mood, she began to laugh uproariously. She plastered the front of her head with the goofiest, most blissed-out grin imaginable and thrashed about in an approximation of total, unconscious ecstasy.

Lyon stirred and slipped off her blindfold.

“Put a cork in it, thrift store,” she yapped. “Someone as beautiful as me needs lots of sleep!”

Within seconds the hall demonitors stormed into the Girls' Totally Bunks.

“What's not wrong?” a slimy white demon that resembled a huge maggot with a goat's head inquired. “We heard the most terrible sound.”

“It's that loopy loser over there,” Lyon said with a wag of her long, perfectly manicured finger. “She's acting like there's a nitrous leak in her head.”

The demon guards exchanged sober glances. A spindly, praying mantis–ish demon gulped hard.

“Sounds like…”

The three of them looked toward Marlo, who was beaming from ear to ear in utter delight.

“…a happy dream!”

The three demons rushed Marlo into the Girls' Unrestrooms.

“Quick,” said the goat maggot, “get her in the shower.”

They shoved her into a grimy stall and turned on the cold, runny mud. It was all Marlo could do to stay in character.

“It's no use,” said a squat, standard-issue, inside-out meat demon. “She's still dreaming and…
smiling.
”

The demons were deeply disturbed as they cradled the unconscious, grinning girl under the lumpy stream of mud.

Just then Principal Bubb burst into the Unrestrooms. She was wearing an immodest marshmallow Peeps–skin robe and her hair was in curlers. Unfortunately that hair was on her back.

“I got here as fast as I could,” Principal Bubb snarled. “Would one of you three stooges tell me what is going on?”

The goat-maggot demoness stepped forward.

“It seems like she is having a dream,” she said.

“And?” asked Principal Bubb unimpressed.

The demon looked at its hooves. “And it's, apparently, a really happy one.”

The Principal of Darkness gasped.

“It can't be,” she muttered in disbelief. “This whole facility is shielded with good-dream-resistant paint. This must be some kind of trick.”

She leaned close to Marlo.

“Of course,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb said, sneering, “the Fauster girl.”

Marlo had to bite her tongue hard to keep from trembling and focus on her cheerful charade.

“Miss Fauster,” Principal Bubb demanded sternly. “Are you having a…nice dream? If this is some kind of deception, I guarantee that…”

“Unicorns,” Marlo mumbled with a dopey smile.

“What did she say?” Bea “Elsa” Bubb asked the head hall demonitor.

“It sounded like she said—”

“And butterflies,” Marlo continued dreamily. “Laughing happy butterflies fluttering over a field of daffodils, swaying in a sweet, fragrant breeze.”

Principal Bubb staggered back in horror.

“This is worse than I thought! Get her to the nurse's office at once before her condition spreads!”

As the demons rushed out, Principal Bubb clutched her lower abdomen.

“Cursed irritable bowel syndrome,” she moaned as she raced toward a stall. “These wretched children are wreaking havoc on my intestinal tract.”

Moments later Marlo was on a gurney carried by her dutiful demons through KinderScare to the infirmary. Marlo turned on her side, still smiling though the muscles in her face were aching, and spied the shaking little boy undergoing phonics cold turkey. Marlo winked at the boy and mouthed several challenging vowel combinations. The boy's eyes glazed over and a knowing smile crossed his face.

36 · MOON RIVER

“MAYBE WE CAN
just wait the demons out,” Milton stalled. “They can't talk forever…well, sure, they can talk forever, because they're undead and this is Limbo, but I seriously doubt that, since they basically share the same experiences day in and day out, not that there are days here really, but at some point, sooner or later, they'll
have
to run out of things to—”

Virgil slapped Milton across the face. Milton stared blankly at his friend.

“Get a grip,” Virgil said calmly. “We've got to keep it together. Those demons there change everything. Now the only way to get to the Assessment Chamber, Mr. Dior's office, and to the gates is Plan B—back down into the sewer, crawling beneath the guards.”

Milton rubbed his stinging cheek. “Get a grip? I'm not the one who's hitting people for no reason.
Fine.
Plan B. Sure. Bring it on.”

Milton and Virgil slunk quietly away toward the Unrestrooms.

Unfortunately, unbeknowst to them, the trio of hall demonitors left their posts only moments later, racing toward the Girls' Totally Bunks. As the two boys made their way down the hallway, they heard voices drifting from the faculty barracks, mainly drunken “arghs” and “yo-ho-hos.” Milton's swabbing muscles ached at the sound of Blackbeard's voice, like a dog conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell.

“By the sound of his yo-ho-ho, it seems as though Blackbeard has found himself a bottle of rum,” Virgil commented under his labored breath.

Milton didn't say a word, partly to remain undetected (and avoid any midnight swabbing) and partly because he was still mad at Virgil. Sure, Milton was calmer now, but, boy, did his cheek sting.

They slinked into the Boys' Unrestrooms and went to the dreaded stall.

Virgil looked over at his trembling friend.

“We're becoming pros at this.” He grinned. “And this time, even though we're not growing any older, we have to be growing at least a little wiser, huh?”

Milton smiled despite himself. He breathed in his last lungful of not-completely-gross air, squeezed his eyes shut, and—for the second time in two days—plunged into the most disgusting place imaginable.

He crawled through the slimy pipeline on his hands and knees. It was extra slick due to a fresh batch of sewage from the Surface. Judging from its sickening warmth and suffocating stench, it couldn't be more than a few hours old.

Just as Milton managed to crawl around a particularly nasty clot of waste, he was flipped over by a great wave of filth from behind. Virgil had collapsed into a pool of putrid poop with a massive belly flop. Milton emerged from the murk, coated like the Creature from the Brown Lagoon. All that was recognizably Milton was the icy glare from beyond his grimy glasses.

“Sorry,” Virgil bleated sheepishly. “I'm not exactly the most graceful diver.”

Milton shivered uncontrollably. “C'mon,” he said through chattering teeth. “We've got to tell Marlo we're knee-deep in Plan B.”

Down the main pipe, many yards away, they could see shiny new sheets of metal grating blocking passage for larger “waste.”

“Seems like they'll be no more trips to Purgatory any time soon,” Virgil said.

“Fine by me,” Milton grumbled.

They inched their way around several sharp turns until, after forty fecal feet or so, they arrived just below the Girls' Unrestrooms. Milton looked up toward the sole pipe that led to the girls' bathroom.
Dozens and dozens of dead girls vying for one dirty toilet must be a particularly
feminine
form of punishment,
he thought.

“Okay, I'll be right back,” Milton croaked, “boldly going where no man has gone before.” Virgil touched knuckles with Milton.

“Be brave, bro. And don't worry: what happens in Heck,
stays
in Heck.”

Milton nodded and with a steely look of determination scaled the poopy pipe to rouse his sister before she stumbled into a demons' nest.

He worked his way up through the cramped tube until he saw, just a few yards above him, a faint light illuminating the glistening gunk. Milton elbowed his way upward until his head was just flush with the rim of the toilet. Then, like a sudden eclipse, the dim glow was obscured by a great, terrible something—three moons, by the looks of it. Only these unheavenly objects were not moons (well, not in the astronomical sense). They belonged to none other than Principal Bubb. And they were getting closer. Milton had a rim-side seat to the dark side of her moons, which were setting quickly on him.

He dropped back down as fast as he could in a desperate attempt to avoid his principal expelling something terrible upon him.

He plopped beside Virgil in a soiled, agitated heap.

“Quick, Plan C!” Milton panted.

“Plan C?” questioned Virgil. “I don't think we made it that far down the alphabet.”

“We've got to get out of the line of fire…Principal Bubb…”

“She's here?”

“Yeah, at twelve o'clock.”

“You don't mean…,” Virgil said as the blood drained out of his face.

Milton and Virgil crawled away as fast as possible, while sickening splatters and putrid plops fell just behind them.

After scurrying only several dozen yet terribly crucial yards, the duo paused for a few fetid breaths.

“That was close,” huffed Virgil.

“You have no idea,” said Milton, trembling. “She must have been on a late-night sweep of the Girls' Totally Bunks and had to take a…”—Milton took a moment to dry-heave—“…
potty
break.”

“Hopefully she's not on her way to tuck us in, or we're toast.”

Milton glared at Virgil.

“Whoops,” Virgil replied contritely. “Sorry about that.”

He rummaged through the pockets of his pajamas and pulled out the map.

“Why do you still carry that piece of junk with you?” Milton asked skeptically. “I mean, the
Secret Toilet
? C'mon. That map's about as accurate as a TV weatherman.”

“Yeah,” Virgil meekly acknowledged. “But it's all we've got.”

“I guess,” Milton replied with a shrug. “And some of it was right. Let me have a look.”

Milton scrunched his eyes at the blotchy map.

“We were
here,
” Milton said, pointing at the Girls' Unrestrooms. “So it seems that, if we followed this pipe here,” he continued, highlighting a tract of plumbing with a finger swipe, “it should lead us to…”

Milton gulped. Virgil leaned into the map.

“The ‘facilities' in the teachers' lounge,” Virgil concluded. “The closest bathroom to the gates.”

“It's worth a try,” Milton said, resigned. “I just hope we don't accidentally find ourselves in the colon of the thirty-seventh president of the United States.”

37 · BOOGEY BOGEY

LIMBO, MILTON REALIZED,
seemed a lot smaller when explored from below. In fact, after shuffling just several hundred filthy feet in the muck, Virgil stopped, looked down at the soiled map, then pointed to the roof of the tunnel a few yards in front of him.

“Here we are,” he said. “Up, up and away…”

In my beautiful balloon,
thought Milton hopefully.

Virgil squeezed through the potty pit. “All clear,” he whispered back to Milton. Luckily for subterranean sewage travelers, the lavatory design down here was ample due to the varied demonic body types and, um,
volume
moved daily.

“They've actually got towels here,” Virgil murmured as he flopped onto the marble floor. “And magazines less than a hundred years old.”

Milton rose through the pit while Virgil caressed a roll of toilet paper.

“Wow, it's actual tissue,” Virgil said with awe. “Cotton, by the feel of it. Not like that sandpaper they give us…”

“Shh,” Milton hushed. “I hear something.”

Milton and Virgil pressed open a heavy oak door, which seemed fashioned from the lid of a casket, and peered inside.

With his head on a table, Richard M. Nixon snored away, each horselike exhalation rippling his ash gray jowls.

“Yep, the teachers' lounge,” Milton muttered. “Not quite the Secret Toilet outside the gates or whatever, but it's got to be closer than where we were at least. C'mon.”

Milton and Virgil crept across the teachers' filthy kitchenette toward the door as Mr. Nixon muttered in his sleep.

“Watergate, Shmatergate…quit worrying, Spiro…there's no way we can get caught…no way…
no…
”

Milton opened the door gently and peeked into the foul playground. Empty, except for an electric toy bunny banging a tiny drum whose batteries were slowly dying.

“The coast is clear,” Milton whispered. “You hide out in the broken bungle gym while I see if I can find Marlo…I just hope she had the good sense to…”

Milton twitched.

“
Good sense…
Oh, man…”

He turned to Virgil.

“If I'm not back in five minutes, go on without me.”

Milton tiptoed through the foul playground, adopting a variety of stealth moves picked up from action movies, until he arrived at a shabby clubfoot house near the KinderScare facility. Between him and the Disorientation Center was a whole lot of nothing: just a big empty play area with nothing to hide behind. But he had to make a break for it.

“One…two…
three
…,” Milton said through clenched teeth. He lurched forward and sprinted across the concrete floor toward the Disorientation Center. Halfway there a large shaggy shape emerged from KinderScare. A Boogeyperson on an interception course. Milton panicked, desperately gauging the creature's approximate speed in relationship to his and the distance he still had to run.

As the creature gained momentum—its green mossy fur rippling in waves as it closed in—Milton realized he had, indeed, abandoned all hope.

He stopped, panting, then dropped to his knees. As he held his head in his hands, weeping, he was engulfed by the creature's shadow. Milton stared into the Boogeyperson's big red glowing eye as it scrutinized him.
Get it over with,
thought Milton as the creature grinned with its plastic yellow teeth.

The Boogeyperson lifted off its fake head while Milton gulped, trying to prepare himself for the hideous demon within. Only instead of a rotting reptile with eyes like curdled pus, this demon had a face like a spooky, spotted china doll with a stringy mop of damp blue hair.

“Boo!” Marlo said while holding her Boogeyperson head by her side.

Milton collapsed with relief, though quickly inflated again with anger.

“Did you
really
have to do that?”

“Yes,” Marlo said with a chuckle. “I'm afraid I did.”

Marlo wiped a trickle of sweat away from where her eyebrow would have been had she not taken to meticulously plucking them into nonexistence.

“Phew…it's hot in this thing,” she gasped. “Or maybe I have
boogey
fever!”

Marlo did a little dance that she thought was the Hustle. It wasn't.

Milton looked around nervously. “Let's take your freaky dance party somewhere else. C'mon.”

They crept toward the bungle gym and reunited with Virgil.

“Milton!” he said with fleeting joy. “And a Boogeyman!”

Virgil backed toward the clubfoot house—a large, ramshackle play structure that leaned drastically toward the bungle gym on one side—and whimpered.

Marlo knelt down and poked her clearly Marlo-ish head into the play structure.

“It's Boogey
person,
” Marlo said calmly. “And it's just me, dork.”

Virgil's fear abated into simple, manageable unease.

“It's just that,” he gasped, “that costume is so…so terrifying!”

Milton and Marlo grinned at each other as Virgil crept out of the clubfoot house cautiously.

“H-how?” he stammered. “How did you get here? In that…
costume
?”

“Here,” she said, straightening herself. “I'll show you.”

She put her Boogey head back on (much to Virgil's distress) and led them toward the KinderScare center.

“In case anyone sees us,” she whispered through the airhole in her wide, grinning mouth, “act like you're my prisoners or something.”

That should be easy,
Milton thought. He always felt like Marlo's prisoner anyway.

Milton's backpack writhed and jerked furiously.

“What's the deal with Lucky?” Marlo asked.

“I don't know,” replied Milton with concern. “He's not himself lately.”

They arrived at the smudgy glass at the center's entrance.

“The short, movie-trailer version is,” Marlo explained, “that there were guards, a brilliant performance by yours truly, a visit to the nurse, and a little trade.”

Marlo smiled—which of course no one could see, but Milton, after years of exposure, could sense it nonetheless—and gestured toward KinderScare.

Through the daubs of snot and smears of paste, Milton could see the rows of gingerbread coffins quaking in jerky spasms. Inside, Boogeypeople, tied up with black licorice and gagged with pocked Nerf balls and used Band-Aids, fought to free themselves as crazed toddlers danced spastically around them. The children waved flash cards with letter combinations on them while overmouthing vowels.

“Look at them,” Milton muttered. “They've got their phonics fix and they're totally out of control.”

Milton turned toward his sister, trying to conceal his respect for her apparent success. “How'd you pull it off?” he asked.

Marlo puffed up, her green, shaggy Boogeyperson chest swelling.

“It was an inside job,” Marlo said, gesturing toward little Julius, who was bouncing like a ball, savoring every sweet diphthong.

“I gave a signal to my little friend to create a disturbance,” Marlo continued matter-of-factly. “And while the nurse and assorted Boogeyfolk were occupied, I picked the lock to that chest all the phonics freaks are obsessed with and created my very own vowel movement. And I don't think the Boogeypeople are too happy about it…”

The three children stared at the shuddering gingerbread coffins and the creatures therein. The bound demons wriggled with rage.

“Even though we're in Limbo,” Milton said, “I don't think we have a lot of time.”

“Stage Two?” chirped Virgil.

“Yep,” Milton said gravely. “Okay, does everyone know what they're supposed to do?”

The Fauster children both stared at Virgil.

“What?” he replied defensively. “I know what to do…sneak into Mr. Dior's office where they keep all of our old clothes, and stitch together our soul balloon.”

Marlo nodded. “Good. Don't screw this up. Without you, this plan literally will not fly.”

“You can depend on me,” Virgil said earnestly as he placed his fleshy hand on Marlo's shoulder.

Marlo's eyes trained upon Virgil's hand. She shook off his touch with two sharp shakes.

“No touching,” Marlo scolded softly.

Virgil cowered back a step.

“Right. Yes. Sorry.”

“Anyway,”
Milton said, desperate to keep the plan from derailing before it even left the station, “after Marlo and I grab as many jars as we can, we'll meet at the gates and wait for them to open.”

Virgil nodded. Milton noticed his new friend was trembling.

“Where are we going?” Milton said with a motivating clap of his hands.

“The Surface!”
Marlo and Virgil replied in unison.

“When are we getting there?”

“Real soon!”

“Okay, then,” Milton said soberly. “Let's do it.”

Virgil wiped away a budding tear and headed down the hallway toward Mr. Dior's office.

Marlo reattached her Boogey head and led Milton down the creepy corridor leading to the Assessment Chamber. It was different from the other hallways, Milton thought. The white marble corridor seemed as if it had been here way before Heck was even conceived, an ancient passage that the architects of this awful place had to build around.

“Hopefully they're off duty,” Milton whispered as his sister shuffled him along.

“If they aren't,” Marlo asserted behind her row of bright yellow teeth, “just follow my lead.”

As they approached the great door, Milton felt as if his very essence was slowly sliding down the insides of his body like spiritual honey, and gradually leaking out of the soles of his feet.

Milton drew in a deep breath as his shaking hand touched the doorknob.
Once I go in,
he thought,
there's no turning back. I either come out with an armload of other people's lost souls, or empty-handed and lost—without mine.