No Place Like Hell (40 page)

K S Ferguson

Light bulbs talk to River Madden; God doesn’t. When the homeless schizophrenic unintentionally fractures a dimensional barrier and accidentally steals a gym bag containing a million dollars, everyone from the multiverse police to the local crime boss—and an eight-foot tall demon—are after him. Can he dodge them long enough to correct his mistakes and prevent the destruction of three separate dimensions? If he succeeds, will the light bulbs stop singing off-key?

For more information,
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.

1

My feet sped over the jogging path beside the river, a madman in hoodie, jeans, and backpack, racing toward the setting sun. Winds of change gusted behind my eyes, and the world tilted off kilter. The ribbon of asphalt that lead back to Centralia, Kansas city center disintegrated into a storm of silver glitter.
Aw, hell. Another psychotic break coming to a neighborhood near me
.

The Dark Place sucked me in. Fire peeled back my flesh until my skin melted away. Then muscles scorched, enveloping me in a sickening stench. Heat bent my bones, shattering them into a thousand shards. Only my hysterical thoughts remained. Songs of demons wailed in my consciousness, and I wondered if this time I'd go permanently insane. Maybe I already was.

"Not real," I chanted, clinging to sanity through the hellish pain. "Not real, not real."

The tattooed runes that circled both my wrists itched worse than a million spider bites. Clouds of nightmares scudded away from hideous fairytale trolls, giant two-headed snakes, and a three-headed dog. They all fled from an enormous demon I thought might be Satan himself. He strode on cloven hooves through a landscape of fire and crystal and inside-out structures that couldn't possibly exist, where up was down and down was up, but none of that mattered because the creatures inhabiting the space simply ignored gravity.

"Not real. Survive. Done it before, do it again," I whispered as I streaked through the aberrant landscape.

After what seemed eternity, another onslaught of blinding silver glitter whirled around me. Like a kaleidoscope being twisted, the glitter showed first a late autumn pasture, then a dark, rain-swept alley, followed by an apocalyptic cityscape, all soot-covered ruins. One of them was real; the others not. Which one?

"Please let it be the pasture," I prayed. "I like cows. Cows are nice."

A bruising thump against my chest signaled the return of sanity. It could have been worse—I could have landed on the asphalt of the rainy alley instead of the garbage pile. Cannon blasts of pain throbbed through my head, a trickle of blood ran from my nose, and my heart raced. I waited. Right on cue, my stomach arrived, twisting in contortions that made me retch.

I rolled over on a mountain of garbage-stuffed plastic bags surrounding an overflowing dumpster that backed up against a two-story brick building, typical of the style in Centralia's older downtown district. Yep, garbage collectors out on strike again. Lucky me. The rain turned to sleet, and I shivered, my toes and fingers aching from the chill. Despite the cold and the need to get up, I lay there unmoving, too exhausted to make the effort.

Down the alley to the west, a single light above a door marked
Soo Ling's Chinese Take-away
struggled valiantly against the darkness, and I took stock, just to reassure myself that I was intact. Two feet, long toes. Two scrawny white legs none the worse for wear. Hip bones jutting against skin, stark ribs you could play a tune on. Thin arms, dark blue wrist tattoos still itching like mad. Male body parts intact, not that I had any chance with girls. What woman would date a psychotic schizophrenic who woke up naked in alleys wondering where he was and how he'd gotten there?

"Don't go there, River," I said. "Think survival. Clothes first."

Why did I always end up in the buff after a damn break? What the heck did I do with my clothes while I was crazy? How long was I loony? It had been sunset when I left reality, and now it was pitch black—maybe a different day. Was I even in Centralia? Once I'd awoken halfway across the country from the town I'd been in before the break, but I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there.

Across the alley and off to the east, the back wall of another brick building shimmered with a coating of silver sparkles. Shadows moved where the wall should be, and glimpses of the darkening cow pasture overlaid the broken city. I shivered again, the smell of my burning flesh still clinging to my memory.

"Not real."

As I gathered the strength to rise, the demon stepped through the shimmery wall. I sucked in freezing air and choked. He looked even bigger than he had in the Dark Place, all of eight feet. Fur or dense black hair wrapped the legs and hips above his cloven hooves. Chest and arm muscles bulged under ruddy skin. The fingers ended in long, sharp talons. His face looked like a bull's head. Curly mountain goat horns graced each side of it, and a third, stumpy horn stuck up off the top of his skull like a stubborn cowlick. Glassy black eyes looked straight at me, while little puffs of smoke whispered from bovine nostrils with each powerful breath.

"Not real," I reminded myself uselessly, because he sure
seemed
real, and my nervous system responded like he
was
real. Generally, my demonic hallucinations took the shape of three-foot tall gargoyles that crossed the edges of my vision, disappearing when I turned to look, not huge suckers like this one, standing in plain view.
Damn, what a fine imagination I have
, I thought as I tried to breathe normally. Too bad I didn't have paper and pencil handy. A sketch of him would sell for a couple of bucks to the Goth kids who hung around the park.

The demon turned his massive head toward the west end of the alley up past Soo Ling's, as though listening for something. Then he twisted it to the wall he'd just stepped through and listened again. Big streams of smoke snorted from his nostrils, and the corners of his mouth curved in a smile.
But cows can't smile
. With a last look at me, he trotted off to the east. His hooves clip-clopped against the asphalt as he receded into the darkness. My lungs drew in a deep breath at last.

"Stop staring at things that aren't there, River," I advised myself, "and get some covering before you freeze to death."

Plenty to choose from, a veritable scrounger's feast. I picked up the garbage sacks one after another with a connoisseur's eye, inspecting each for holes and the ripeness of their contents. Finding nothing to my liking, I minced over to another mountain of bin bags burying a second dumpster beside Soo Ling's door. I wouldn't go east toward the sparkly wall. Something about it called to me in a way I didn't like.

The first time I'd woken up naked after a psychotic episode, I looked for help before I covered myself. Six delightful months in a mental ward convinced me I'd always wrap in
something
before venturing into the world. Cops were much less sympathetic to the mentally ill than to a homeless twenty-something who passed for sixteen and dressed in garbage bags while he claimed to have been mugged for his clothes.

I found a lovely cinch-style bag that, with the bottom torn open, made a knee-length skirt I could tighten at my waist. It smelled mildly of rotten vegetables. Over my head, the light bulb sang
Frosty the Snowman
off-key while I shook harder. I hated light bulbs. Tone deaf the lot of them. I scrubbed at my scalp where a hundred thousand tiny ant feet did the Cha Cha in waves.

"Not real," I growled. "No ants." But the feet danced on undeterred.

I completed my glossy, all-black ensemble with a second bag in which I tore head and arm holes. I tried not to gag on the odor of sour milk emanating from the plastic, but at least it protected me from the biting wind. If only someone had tossed out a pair of trainers and a watch cap, I'd be in heaven. Thank goodness my tattoos no longer itched.

I was scrounging for a final bag to use as a hood and cape when the alley blazed with light. I pulled back into the darkness beside the dumpster, assuming a passing squad car had turned its spotlight toward me. The light went out, and I heard people, real ones. Or at least I thought they were real.

"Gear up," a gruff male voice ordered. "Keep the noise down so we don't attract a black-and-white. We don't want the local precinct on our case, and remember—no witnesses. Stun whoever you see whether they're a talent or not."

"Yes, sir," two voices answered in unison, one male, and one female. Both sounded young and excited. Oh, joy, overeager trainees out to prove how tough they were. Not a good night for the denizens of the streets.

"And don't get too close to the fracture. It's a big one. Sammie, you have the cuffs ready?"

The chipper female voice replied, "Yes, sir."

I peeked around the edge of the dumpster, expecting to see a patrol cruiser. At the mouth of the alley to the west, a floating stone tablet six inches thick and maybe seven feet across hovered above the pavement. Hieroglyphs ringed its edges, pulsing with faint light. A little mushroom thingy rose up a couple of feet in the center, and a large dog that wasn't quite a dog sat with its front paws resting on the mushroom cap.
Impossible
, I thought.
It's a police car
. The light bulb above the restaurant door began to hum the
Dragnet
theme.

An escapee from a costume party stood on the stone platform beside the dog. He wasn't any taller than me, maybe five foot eight, but probably weighed twice what I did. He wore a ludicrous ankle-length gold lamé robe and a matching hat that belonged on a Roman Catholic cardinal. He had a tall, softly glowing staff in his right hand, and he tapped it on the edge of the platform in time with the pulsing light. Outside my psychotic breaks, I didn't normally have such large and complex hallucinations. I worried that I might be losing it.

Three silhouettes advanced on me. I could barely make them out in the darkness of the alley. Two tall and one rather short, they wore all black—berets, uniform shirts, loose pants, and soft shoes. The clothing didn't look right for regular officers. Berets on city cops? No shiny badges or buttons? Maybe they were SWAT?

Oh, hell!
My throat closed. Had I wandered into the middle of a drug bust? Or was some suspect holed up in one of the buildings along the alley, maybe with a hostage? But where were their rifles? They swung flashlights and carried what looked like plastic wands from a magic shop. The wands were too thin to be either billy clubs or cattle prods, both of which I'd experienced during my fifteen years on the streets.

I eyed the dark alley behind me as tingling fear climbed up my spine. I needed to either get out of there or hide. Sometimes I saw imaginary things; sometimes I saw real things differently from how they were. Whoever these people were, my brain thought they were a threat, or I wouldn't visualize them as cops. Johnny Law was no friend of mine.

Garbage bags rustled across the alley. A lightning bolt leaped from a wand and cracked against a dumpster near the sound. A calico cat screeched and tore away into the darkness. I ducked low. The after-image of the bolt burned on my retinas and my knees shook.

"You'll never live that one down, Griff," the female officer laughed.

"That's enough," the older officer said. "Griff, identify your target before you shoot. Unnecessary weapons' fire attracts attention we're trying to avoid."

They were too close for me to sprint away. Besides, the sparkly wall was down the alley. I eased back, intending to wedge myself between the dumpster and the building, where my attire would camouflage me nicely. I was doing great until I brushed against a loose bag, and it rolled down the heap to crash on the asphalt. Oops.

"What's that?" the one called Griff asked, pointing his wand my way.

"Sammie, take lead," the older officer said. "Watch your tracker. If the talent's running hot, back off. You don't want to get sucked into a new fracture."

Footsteps pattered along the alley, and flashlight beams swung my direction. I crouched among the bags, uncertain whether to raise my hands and come forward. I opted to hunker lower and put a bag on my head.

"Meow," I crooned, doing my best cat imitation.

A flashlight beam passed too close for comfort, and someone waded through the trash, kicking it aside. A clicking sound tapped faster the closer it got to me. I held my breath, my heart pounding like a demented drummer in a heavy metal band. I had my back to the wall and no place to go. My pursuer reached the dumpster and stopped not three feet away.

"It's okay," Sammie's soft female voice assured. "We've come to take you home. You'll be safe now."

Home?
How would she manage that when I didn't have one? But her voice: so kind, so caring. No one had spoken to me that way before. No one had made me safe—not even Jimmy—through all the years. Something inside me ached.

"Whoever it is can't understand you, Sammie. They're crazy, remember? Just stun 'em and get the cuffs on so we can get out of here," Griff grumbled. "Wish we'd worn our slickers."

"We're looking for a lost human being, one who deserves respect and dignified treatment, not some feral animal," she replied.