One Loan Soul, page 2
part #1 of Loan Series
Likewise, running doesn’t necessarily speed up my travel.
A quirk about travel in the Overworld is that it tends to be as exceedingly endless as is necessary to really rile you up — an exciting car trip that progressively deteriorates into a vexing combination of “I have to pee,” “My legs are cramping,” and “Are we there yet?” In fact, the more depressed you are about the whole being-dead-and-assigned-to-Hell curse, the quicker you get somewhere.
Wherever somewhere is.
Destinations just kind of appear if you focus on them. Eventually. There are no real directions. Many souls get lost in their memories and symbolically lost in their surroundings. Usually, reaching the point where your goal appears before you requires a whole lot of mourning for loved ones left behind, regret over mistakes and missed opportunities, anger at an unjust ending, and so on.
When you skirt the edge of wrongdoing like I did — to the point where I’d actually sat in fuzzy, foggy limbo for a while, during which the Big Guy argued and reviewed the slow-mo replay of my death over and over like a referee debating a contested point in a sports game — well, then you tend to have manageable remorse.
Technically, it wasn’t murder since it wasn’t premeditated … unless you count the nanosecond when whatever rash-tempered neuron spark sent me crashing into Larkynn Bern in a blind rage. Manslaughter is not quite accurate, given that there was intent to harm, on the other hand. A suicide killing also falls into either of those categories. I like to call myself an accidental murderess, which is what allows me to teeter in the almost highest circle of Hell. I have always been an ace in the deck.
“Perfect” is the adjective my no-good-dirty-rotten ex used to ascribe to me. While he now holds zero merit, I happen to have the same opinion on this one. And with my stellar employee-of-the-month-into-eternity track record, I am not all that discontent with my afterlife.
Others complain when they witness my occasional smile — because, of course, they’re also going to wallow in envy if someone else isn’t suffering quite as much as they are. With my positive outlook, particularly with the prospect of the top-notch job Nix is dangling before me like a bone on a stick, it takes ages to get to my domicile.
Did I mention the hot as … Hell climate? Hot as the chicken’s wings. It’s not the broiling heat of flames or brimstone. There’s an odor of burnt hair and rubber rather than the expected sulfurous egg fumes. It’s just a dense humidity that weighs on already downtrodden souls and makes the lack of showers particularly cruel. Arriving at my door entails a rage from the ruminating that running induces, which regretfully, is my aim since dredging up those feelings and memories quickens my travel, as well as a deep grumpiness from sweating like a pig in a kettle. And there is definitely no chance of deodorant up here. I hope my next stint has time for a shower, another terrestrial luxury I’d die again for.
I also have to dart around many aimlessly wandering souls as I run. Hell is crowded. I believe everyone ends up here, no matter how noble they think they are; most intentions are selfish at their core, driven by one of the deadly sins or another … or several. I do appreciate that this fact builds up SOLE’s clients.
I’m about to tackle job number one hundred in almost a year. Truly, I cannot wrap my soul consciousness around just how the Devil keeps up with the demand. Though the realm is teeming with souls that become obstacles in my trek, I’m obliged to humanity’s dark proclivities. The more the living sinners stoop to asking for divine intervention to obtain even a half dose of their heart’s desires — yet remain stingy enough to stubbornly keep a firm grasp on their souls on Earth — the more bodies I get to possess. The Souls On Loan Exchange program is a Satan-send, so to speak, for us souls condemned to the far-from-glamorous land of the dead. I’ll take whatever casing my handler offers me. Waste not what’s in a gifthorse’s mouth.
If only I’d known about the program when I was alive.
The thought pings me as it always does, zapping away my gloating relish. If I’d known I could employ a less terminal option than launching myself at my best friend turned traitor when I found her with my fiancé on our anniversary night, accidentally sending us both toppling over the penthouse balcony railing to our deaths, maybe I wouldn’t be here.
My trailer appears without warning. It seems I was lamenting enough. Stubbing my toe, I trip over the steps onto the two-foot-square porch and absorb the sweat dripping into my eyes with my top, which resists, clinging to my skin. Huffing and puffing to do the Big Bad Wolf proud, I reach for the handle. It sparks me with a blue bolt of static. The door creaks horribly, immediately alerting my roommate to my presence.
“What’s up, Doc?”
I roll my eyes at Silas’s childishness. He was in his twenties when he died, but his personality is just immature to begin with. He stagnated in the video-game-Loony-Tunes-chortling-over-farts teenage stage.
I stumble over the door jamb as I do every few times. Sometimes, to mix things up, the door spontaneously slams closed on a finger. Other times, it’s the screen closing with a wallop, sending me sprawling. There is always something to keep me off my toes here.
“It’s Darcie.”
I head to the kitchen area, which was put there to spite me since I love food and can no longer consume a morsel. Pulling out a chair, I check for tacks or gum, then plant my curvy hips only to have the chair break inexplicably under my tiny stature, sending me sprawling ungainly to the floor in a clatter of wooden planks.
I heave myself up, kick the wood into the pile already cluttering the corner, which would be useful for building a fire if only Hell was frigid like Norse mythology depicted, and grab another freshly materialized chair. This one starts to slide out from under me as I sit.
“Allow me,” Silas says gallantly from behind, pushing it in under me all gentleman-like.
With a reluctantly thankful nod, I turn back to the table, laying out the stack of papers Nix gave me right in a mysteriously sticky spot on the beat-up surface. The metal tool box screeches as I pull it to the middle of the table, flipping it open with a clang. The heavy lid slams back down on my thumb. I hiss, shake it out, and open the container again, rooting around and grabbing whatever utensil comes to me first. The dangling bulb flickering overhead prevents a clear view of the contents. What if I had epilepsy? That’s a hazard.
The utensil of chance is a pencil — the analog standardized test kind that has been sharpened off-center so the wood sticks out beyond the graphite in a sharp point. I snap the tip by pressing it into the table, then use the dull lead to fill in a few of the sections, hurrying before —
The tip snaps again, further down, rendering it useless. Hell doesn’t come equipped with pencil sharpeners.
“How was this one? I missed you.” Silas hovers behind me. I can feel his stare on the back of my neck. As long as it’s not drool.
I clench my teeth, rifling around again, coming up with another pencil, this one mechanical. I manage another line before the fragile lead breaks off, laying limp as a corpse on the page.
“Did you have fun without me? How did it go?”
Clicking the eraser end frantically, I answer just to stop him from asking again. “Easy-peasy-melon-queasy.” No more lead. The pencil gets chucked into the debris pile. What’s the next utensil from my box of goodies? Any guesses? I wouldn’t place any bets in this realm. I’m awed gravity works. Pen. That’s more promising. It lasts two whole sentences before the ink runs out, though it’s one of those teen-girl gel pens that writes in a lurid purple, near-unreadable glitter.
“Ouch, hey,” Silas protests as the discarded ball-point hits him.
“Then don’t stand behind me. Not that it’ll help.” It’s unlikely he’ll evade too much hardship if he moves out of my line of fire; something else will go wrong. It always does. Hell is predictable in its unpredictability, which is why I’ve built up some safeguards. Every task takes longer, but it can be done. Just don’t tell the realm I’ve cottoned on to its loopholes.
“You’re rushing.”
“Yep.” The sweat stinging my eyes hinders my progress. I lift a forearm to swipe my forehead and stab the back-end of a paintbrush into my eye. The brush is useless anyway unless I want to consider using blood as a medium, which is tricky when cuts seal so rapidly.
“You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?”
It isn’t really a question. Although Hell seems to do a number on some of the intelligence levels of folks more upset with their fate, such as reduce their ability to grasp that things never go smoothly, no matter how much you try — or even less so — Silas is miraculously and finally absorbing my disinterest in hanging around. His dejected tone fails to entice my sympathy. Staying with him means staying in Hell. It’s a no-brainer.
The next prize is a colored pencil. Screw it. If Nix can’t read yellow, that’s his problem. My scribbles are getting more illegible in my haste, too. Technically, I'm still completing the form.
“Can’t you stay for a little while? You must be tired. I could give you a foot rub,” Silas haggles.
I pause in my writing, sitting up straight but not turning around to face my old assistant. He’d never upgraded from that position to apprentice, bless his non-beating heart. “Silas, if you never got me to agree to a date in life, what makes you think there’s a chance in Hell?” I snort at the dual meaning, tossing the two broken halves of the colored pencil at the wall and scooping up a felt-tipped marker, the point of which is really too large to cram words into the appropriate blanks on the page.
A mosquito buzzes in my ear, and I wave at it, careful not to impale my eardrum with my replacement tool. I don’t want to hear Silas’s pity fiesta, but tinnitus for the rest of eternity would suck more.
Silas gives a half-hearted whine, sounding like the dog brought into our shop in San Francisco. Well … how it would have sounded before it died and was delivered via stroller by the pretentious Lady Dryden, inferring from its rodent-like stature. She had no formal title; Lady Dryden just liked lording over others — ladying? Usually, it was her husband with whom we interacted, one of our limited wildlife hunting regulars. The rest of our clients were more into the care of exotic creatures. I suppose it makes sense that the oddballs prone to adopting unusual pets are the ones interested in getting them stuffed and turned into art to decorate the corner of their guest bathroom.
I turn to squint at Silas over my shoulder. Another oddball who’d stumbled into my shop while job scouting. Sadly for me, no one else would reply to my want ad.
“What?” He swipes a hand over his visage and smooths his hair nervously. “Do I have something on my face?”
His whine may be half-hearted, but it’s wholly felt, that’s for sure. “No.” I turn back to my document. The half-hearted part comes from the lack of energy, courtesy of that depressed mental state in which most of us exist up here, if what we do can be called existing. I aim not to dwell too much on those kinds of existential questions. They hurt my head and drag me toward Silas’s low spirit.
“You know I don’t like repeating that to you time and again,” I scold him about his begging that I not leave again, writing at the same time. Two birds, one bone.
He encroaches to stand next to me, shoulders slumped forward, shortening his already stout frame, head hanging so I can’t see his face. “I know,” he mutters, toeing a rip in the fake tiling on the floor. I worry whether he’ll expose some bottomless Wonderland pit to the furnace raging in the lower circles if he opens it up further.
I refocus on the page, my mood crashing and burning. I don’t enjoy contributing to the misery of his afterlife. “It’s just fact. I’m never going to say yes. You’re doomed to repeated failure, and I’m stuck in an endless loop of turning you down.”
I pause, lifting just my head this time, spine bent over the table, a brow raising as I stare off toward the wall in thought since we have no windows. “In fact — and I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before — turning you down is so not fun for me that it’s exactly what is to be expected.” I shake my head, marveling at the genius, commending that conniving evil even if it does increase my suffering. “Huh. Well, would you look at that, Silas? Something positive did come from you pointlessly asking for the most unlikely event for the—” I scoop my journal out of the toolbox, slitting my finger with at least another dozen paper cuts that well up and bleed on the cover. Flipping it open, I don’t bother turning to the old receipt bookmark that always manages to be on the wrong page and resist the urge to straighten the dog-eared corners. “—at least three hundred and sixty-fourth time,” I finish, noting that my next entry will be on the first anniversary of my death day. And job number ninety-nine. I blow out a heavy breath. “It would’ve been so perfect to hit one hundred in one year. Too perfect to be permitted.”
I refocus on the form, rummaging in my treasure chest only to snatch my hand back, sucking air in through my teeth. “A lemon?” I swear and throw it with a splat at the wall above Silas’s bed. It sags, slips a few inches, and then drops onto his mattress with a thunk since they are not pliable.
A quill and ink are up next, the latter of which immediately topples over without provocation, staining a corner of the stack. Nix can deal with that too. If he expects pristine documents, he should work in Heaven … if it exists. I don’t think about that too much either, or else I’ll end up in the spiraling maelstrom of jealousy that controls my peers.
“What do you mean?” Silas asks, forlorn.
I peek up, confused, noticing a similar misunderstanding on his face. I try to place myself back in our conversation. “Oh, I just assumed they made you my roommate to annoy me beyond death, kind of like you did as my terrible assistant.”
“Protégé,” he argues.
I wave him and the mosquito off, flinging ink splotches and blood droplets across the sheet. “You wish.”
A small part of me wants to convince Nix to get his manager, that guy between him and the Devil, to try going digital again. I managed to coerce them into trying it for about a week in my first month here. My argument had required very minimal effort, which should have given me a heads up; I’d been new and naïve at the time. Technological bookkeeping had, surprise, surprise, been a complete discombobulated disaster.
Apparently, this realm uses dial-up. Imagine a loading bar that never loads. We have all the time to wait in Hell. And I mean all. And then, endless viruses and pop-ups crash programs without even needing an accidentally click on anything or trying to illegally torrent a movie. The discard pile in the corner had been a bunch of smashed desktops for a period of time instead of fractured writing utensils. It wasn’t long before we reverted back to the old school format.
“Anyway, turns out you aren’t just irritating and incompetent. You were put here intentionally to drive me up a chimney and remind me just how tragic my love life is,” I explain cheerfully. “And I really don’t enjoy turning you down, so that’s a bonus. It’s like kicking a baby for me.” I tilt my head, staring at the old, peeling wallpaper that resembles dripping blood stains, which might be stripes in an alternate, less sinister dimension. “Kind of ironic considering that we used to be taxidermists. Well—” I amend, discarding the feather that stabbed right through the thin material, which takes an unsatisfying amount of time to settle under my feet. I clutch … a crayon. I stare at it for a moment and shrug, ready to see what could possibly go wrong with a crayon. That is a pretty robust one. It survives toddlers’ manhandling and chewing. Coincidentally, I am now at the last page — the signature. Every document down here requires some kind of official binding agreement. “—I was a taxidermy artist. You were a taxidermist’s assistant.”
My chicken-patch writing looks particularly juvenile in the cerulean crayon markings. So, I dot the “I” in my first name, Darcie, with a heart and add a smiley face in the circle of the “O” in Rose. If I have to put up with being annoyed, then it seems fair that I can do some annoying back. Give Hell a piece of its own cake. Although, I don’t want to push Nix too hard. He’s my hook-up. No, that’s not right. He’s my hooker-up? Still no. Hooker-upper.
“Protégé,” repeats Silas. I can see his fists clench next to me.
Speaking of getting heated … the crayon is starting to melt as I finish the final curlicue of the “E” at the end of my last name. I pause for a moment then just decide to run with it.
I half-stand, leaning across the table to press the flat end of the crayon against the scorching metal wall exposed by a tear in the wallpaper, smacking my temple into the single, low-hanging fluorescent bulb. It flickers in irritation, the buzzing electricity noise mimicking the anger of the mosquito. The wax immediately begins to liquefy against the surface. Quickly, I bring it back and mash it on the page next to my name. I search around for something to use as a seal, my mouth twisting, and catch Silas staring at my cleavage, which had likely been on show when I leaned over.
“Congratulations,” I tell him. “You just won yourself a promotion. You should feel honored; you didn’t even have to wear a gross, fat, old man body to get it.” I give him a once over and bite my tongue on correcting that statement. He’s not old, at least.
“Boyfriend?” he asks eagerly, eyes still not leaving my chest.
“Mmm.” I scrunch up my nose. “Not quite, no. Little lower.”
His brows lower obediently. “Date?”
“Nope.” I pop the “p.”
“Protégé.”
I laugh. “Good one. Guess again. Actually—” I hold up a hand to cut him off, and his eyes finally wrench free of their hypnosis to meet mine, his mouth open to respond. “Don’t. I’d rather not sit here for ages hearing your inane hopes and dreams. Like I said, it’s mutually destructive for us to hash out that conversation again. No, you get to be my official signer-off-er.” I give him an announcer voice and spirit fingers, not that I really am trying to lure him.
Skipping consent because I’m already in Hell, I grab his hand and yank it over, internally squirming at how disgusting his sweaty palm feels sliding under mine. He’s almost identical to my recent host. “And no, this does not count as holding hands,” I forewarn, eyes flashing.
