by Jason Beymer
“Mr. Potankin,” another reporter said. “Will the debate be rescheduled?”
“Before I can answer that, we must ascertain the health of Senator McPhee. I intend to do so now. Excuse me.”
He stepped through the halo of security. The men in red windbreakers looked toward the hotel manager, awaiting instruction. The manager nodded. “Hell yes, let him through.”
McPhee’s security man flexed his muscles as Potankin advanced. He stood as the lone obstacle between the old man and the door. “Step away, sir.”
“Nonsense,” Potankin said. “Let me pass, son.”
“The senator doesn’t want to see nobody.” He reconsidered. “Except beefy interns. But you’re not a … um … beefy.”
“She’ll want to see me.” Potankin leaned closer and whispered, “Let me pass and there’s a hundred dollars in it for you.” He removed the bill from his pocket and showed it to the security guard.
“Okay. I tried to warn you, though. Wait here. I’ll see if she wants to talk to you.”
The security guard inched the door open. He peeked inside, then withdrew. With his eyes wide and face pale, he whispered, “Not good.”
“Can I enter now, son?” Potankin said.
“I wouldn’t go in there. Bad. Bad in there.”
“Yes, I know. I’m going to make it all better.” He patted the security guard’s shoulder and edged past him, entering the bathroom. The security guard slammed the door against Potankin’s butt.
In his arrogance, the realization that he had walked into his own death didn’t occur immediately. Blood and meat covered the floor. Kamilla McPhee sat in a puddle of it, her legs splayed out in front of her like a child drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. The senator wore nothing but a black lace bra and a matching pair of panties. With a growl, she raised her head, cheeks filled with something messy. Her vacant eyes narrowed, and two polished ivory tusks grew over her bottom lip. The skin of her enormous stomach rippled.
Bingo, he thought. I win the election, Then he understood three additional points. Yes, the senator was crazy. Yes, he would make national headlines.
No, he wouldn’t walk out of this bathroom alive.
As Potankin fumbled for the handle, his arrogance lifted. He needed to back out of this error, pretend he’d made a mistake. “Whoops,” he would say, “I accidentally entered the ladies’ room instead of the men’s. How silly of me.”
He gripped the door handle and set his forehead against the wood. Every camera would be on him. No, he couldn’t leave the bathroom now, not with the whole state watching on TV and the Internet, not with the wet spot on his crotch spreading down the left leg of his trousers.
He scanned the room for another avenue of escape.
“Hungry,” Senator McPhee said. She hunkered down on all fours and advanced toward her chief rival. “Hungry, old man. So hungry.”
Potankin remembered the speech he’d rehearsed outside the ladies’ room, but the words sounded alien now, ridiculous. They came out squeaky and high-pitched. “Senator Mc—Kamilla. Kamilla, please be reasonable.”
“Eat.”
Potankin turned around. The woman collided with him and dropped him to the floor. He tried to cry out, but whimpered instead.
Something stung his neck. Then a cool breeze wafted over the back of his skull. Potankin turned to look at the senator. She chewed on a tuft of white hair attached to a long strip of Caucasian flesh. Potankin started to scream, but sharp fingernails dug into his chin and twisted his head all the way around. The bones in his neck crackled like a crushed aluminum can.
As he died, he caught the faintest scent of vinegar. The hotel must have installed his Potankin Clean-Gal Flush n’ Sniff tank tablets in here.
At least his legacy would live on.
Chapter 27
That’s My Soul Up There
Burklin looked at his naked ex-wife, then at the naked teenage demon fondling his penis. No matter how hard Burklin tried, he couldn’t push aside his feelings of helplessness and worry. He had to do something.
“Turn around,” the giant slug said. “Go wander the halls. Please get out of my tunnel.”
“If I’m immortal, can’t I go back to my body?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, once your heart resumes beating.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
The eyeball’s pupil swiveled to Lorraine. “Is he always like this?”
Lorraine shrugged. “Do you see a ring on my finger?”
Burklin’s arms quivered and his shoulders slouched despite his best efforts to keep ramrod straight. He puffed out his chest and said, “I’m not leaving without Lorraine.”
“You have no clue the way things work. Leave. Now. The other one must walk down the corridor.”
“I’d rather not,” Lorraine said. “Hey, that door Burklin walked through earlier … can I get back to earth that way?”
“Not an option. That door won’t allow souls to pass through it. Since Drifter’s soul does not reside within him, he can come and go as he pleases. But your soul is still within you. We may do whatever we wish with it.”
Max clutched at his stomach again. He looked at Burklin. “Take me with you! This fucking hurts.”
“No, Lord Avnas,” the thing said. “You will stay here for now. My workers are preparing your gateway.” The slug pointed to a three-foot man with a bowl haircut, wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans. “Particularly Freddy, as Freddy has neglected to partake in Hawaiian Shirt Day.” The antennae drifted in the worker’s direction. “You think you are too good for the rest of us, Freddy? You, with your fancy t-shirt and unfestive, non-mulleted hairstyle?”
“No, sir.” The antenna poked Freddy in the back of his neck, and he slapped at it. “Ow. Cut it out.”
Burklin whispered to Lorraine, “Come on.”
They raced through the cavern, returning to the sterile room with the dripping walls, the circular table, and the red fountain pen. Burklin pointed to the open door he’d passed through earlier. Nothing but darkness lay beyond.
“We’ll walk through together, okay?” he told Lorraine.
Lorraine nodded and stepped forward. Her body slapped against the opening.
“It’s a trick,” she said. “It’s a painting of a doorway. Not real.”
“Step aside.” Burklin extended his hand and it passed right through.
He tugged at his hair. How could he get Lorraine out? He couldn’t abandon her. The slug had said she’d be a slave to the Nether forever.
What was he supposed to do?
“We’ll find another way out,” he said.
The giant slug’s eyes rounded the corner, into the room. One of them blinked.
Burklin’s chest fluttered as he felt a slight breeze. “That’s weird,” he said. Some invisible force pulled him toward the door. He fought against it, moving his legs like Wile E. Coyote trying to run back to the edge of the cliff.
The slug monster’s eye blinked. “You are returning to earth,” it said. Its voice came from the cavern and vibrated the walls. The eye bobbed with each consonant. “Garrick must have gotten your heart beating again. Good! Get lost.”
“Not yet!” Burklin yelled into the rushing wind.
“Go,” Lorraine said.
Burklin looked at her, surprised. “No way. We need to look for another door.”
Lorraine shook her head. “I’ll fight, and I won’t go down easy. You know that. But I divorced you, remember? You don’t owe me anything. I married Old Burklin, not you.”
Burklin’s frustration built and the spark flickered. “I’m tired of everyone talking about how I was before. I’ve spent the last two years living in a crappy studio apartment, doing whatever Garrick told me to do while he screwed my ex-wife. Now I find out you only pretended to love him so he would give me back my soul. I can’t ignore that. The truth is, Lorraine, I still love you, and I know you love me … old me, anyway … and I’m not about to let you go to some slave pen.”<
br />
“For a minute there, you sounded like Old Burklin.”
“I don’t want to be an asshole like that ever again. I’ll stay here. I’ll protect you.”
“How? You’re a fucking ghost. No. I’m sorry … for a lot of things. Go back and tell Garrick you tried.”
The spark caught something. It might have ignited no more than a few twigs or a dry leaf, but he felt something. He stepped forward into the gale wind, and moved toward the cavernous hallway, past the amused eyeballs.
A purple light flashed in front of him.
“What are you doing?” Lorraine called out. “Stop fighting it, jackass.”
“Did you see that?” Burklin pointed to a new opening in the granite wall, centered between two computer terminals. It spanned six inches in diameter. Purple sprites exploded along its edges. “What is that?”
“You are pissing me off,” the slug said. It tried in vain to swipe at Burklin’s ghost-throat again. “That is Lord Avnas’s portal. Once it grows big enough, he will pass through and be reborn into the senator’s womb.”
One of the little men saluted. “Ready for alpha test, sir.”
“Proceed.”
The little man stepped onto a footstool. He slipped a latex glove over his hand and reached into the portal. His entire arm disappeared into the wet membrane, as if probing a bowl of warm pudding.
“Is the portal ready or not?” the slug asked.
* * * *
Senator Kamilla McPhee stopped eating Walter Potankin and clutched at her belly. Something thrashed about inside it. She thought she heard the words, “Is the portal ready or not?” Then a tiny hand pressed against the inside of her stomach, leaving an adorable imprint upon her stretched skin.
* * * *
The little man pulled his hand out of the portal and shook off the goop. “Not ready yet, sir. But—”
“What?”
“The portal is disturbed.”
Burklin let the wind shove him back into the room. He stopped in front of Lorraine and strained against the turbulence. “Now you listen to me.”
Lorraine looked away. “Don’t. Just leave.”
Burklin stared at her. How could he make her understand?
WWOBD. What Would Old Burklin Do?
“You will listen.” Burklin hardened his voice. “I’m not going anywhere without you. I won’t let you become a slave. I won’t let Garrick use us anymore, and I’m for damned sure not going to let you shrug me off.”
“Go.”
“Damn it,” he said. “For two seconds, can you look at me like Old Burklin again? I have a plan. That opening.” He pointed to the purple hole in the cavern wall. “Do you see it?”
Lorraine nodded and crooked one eyebrow. She bit her thumbnail, deep in thought, like she used to do when he’d suggest sex in public, when he’d make snap decisions with no regard for their consequences. He missed that look in her eyes. He hadn’t seen it in so long. And for the first time in two years, he actually felt different, if only for the moment.
“We need to keep Max from passing through there,” Burklin said. “We have to do everything possible to keep him here in the Nether.”
“Why?”
“Because if Max is reborn, we’ll go right back to protecting him.” He stopped and scratched his head. “Um, I think. Anyway, it doesn’t matter who we work for. We’ll just be trading one master for another. But if there’s no demon to protect …”
“You have to go.”
“No, you grab Max,” Burklin said. “I’ll keep that thing distracted. We can force it to open a new portal, one for both of us.”
He finally felt ready to stand up for Lorraine, to fight for her. After two years, the fire returned, here in this purgatory between worlds. Burklin had no idea how long the flames would burn, but he intended to use every second to save her.
Lorraine passed her hands through his and looked down at his feet. “Goodbye, Burklin. I know what I need to do now. I’m sorry I couldn’t convince Garrick to give back your soul. But I’ll give you this. I’ll give you this one fucking thing.”
“What are you—”
Lorraine kissed him. Not an actual kiss, but she closed her eyes, brought her face forward, and passed straight through his. As she moved her lips away, Burklin’s eyes widened in surprise and he forgot to fight against the forces pulling him. He fell backward.
“No, Lorraine!” he said. But he couldn’t regain his balance. “Don’t do this.”
Burklin tumbled away, sucked through the opening. The door disappeared.
Then the conveyer belt moved again. It tugged at Burklin’s arms, and he traveled through absolute darkness, away from Lorraine. He tried to get back to her with his useless legs, but he would return to the living world whether he wanted to or not. The voices hummed around him. The pulling went on for a long time. After a while, he stopped struggling against the current. Then a faint light struck the dark. A syrupy, thick substance seeped into his neck. Heat crept down to his left shoulder and burned. The faint scent of vinegar wafted over his nose. The conveyer belt stopped.
He opened his eyes.
Someone’s right arm came into view, then a steering wheel, a windshield and leather upholstery. He tried to sit up, but his head hurt. He dipped his hand into the cavity above his left ear and scooped out congealed blood. Burklin looked down at himself and yes, thank God, he was fully clothed.
He lay in the backseat of the Bavarian Roadster, and Garrick drove. A cellphone squawked on the center console. Garrick pressed a button to put it on speaker, then dropped it into the cup holder. “Yes, darling,” he said. “I’m here now. Why did you turn your cell off? You haven’t succumbed to your urges, have you?”
“So hungry,” a woman replied from the phone.
“Have you given into your cravings?”
“I couldn’t help it. I was hungry.”
“Stay there. Stop eating people. I’m within five minutes of your location. And, Madame Senator?”
“Yes?”
“If you happen to see a decomposing Korean girl, or what looks to have been one in the past, or a talking dachshund—”
“A what?”
“Nothing. Just …” Garrick accelerated. “If you see the Asian woman, don’t listen to anything she says.”
But he talked to air. The cellphone had disconnected.
Garrick’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. A white bandage covered one of his wrists, and a dark, wet circle grew beneath it.
He shifted his eyes to the rearview mirror. Burklin caught them.
“You can stop playing dead,” Garrick said. “I hear you breathing.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in my car, and we’re on the way to the hotel to find the senator. Try not to talk. The first few minutes are the hardest. It’ll take some time for the synapses to start firing.” Garrick sniffed the air and grinned. “Ah, I see you’re absorbing the Netherite. That scent is unmistakable. It’s emanating from your pores.”
Burklin shook his head until a wave of dizziness made him drop it. He pointed at Garrick’s wrapped wrist. “Did you cut yourself?”
“I opened a vein and rubbed some of my own blood over your head wound. That’s what brought you back to life. I had to get your heart beating.”
“I thought you lost your powers.”
Garrick shrugged. “Powers or no, Netherite is Netherite. And it still flows through my veins.”
“Will my skin fall off?”
“Like the Asian woman’s? No. You’ve returned to your own body, and of course, your soul isn’t inside you. This makes the resurrection process far less complicated.”
“But the bump on my head?”
“You’re referring to the skull fracture? The Netherite will take care of that. The contusion will hurt, but it won’t kill you. Nothing can. Didn’t the Magoosh explain that in the initiation chamber?”
“Magoosh?” Burklin echoed. Then, “Oh, the slug monster? He me
ntioned it, yes.”
“Did you do what I instructed?”
“You didn’t tell me to do anything.”
“Your mother whacked you too soon with that ashtray. I hoped you’d be smart enough to figure out the rest on your own.”
“Where’s Mom now?”
“Safe. I left her in the pit.”
“Why does my jacket smell like semen?”
Garrick steered into the right lane and closed in on the resort hotel.
“I found Lorraine,” Burklin said. He smiled despite his dented forehead. “I told her to keep Max from passing through the portal. What do you think of that, old man? Here’s something else you should know. Lorraine didn’t love you. She pretended so you would return my soul.”
“I sometimes find it hard to believe my loins produced you. I knew Lorraine used me. I knew she wanted me to put your soul back. She asked me to do it every time we had sex.”
“You knew?”
“The charade worked, so I went with it. Now, did you really tell Lorraine to keep Max from passing through the portal?”
“Yep,” he said proudly.
“Excellent.”
“It is?”
“If Max is reborn, that Asian bitch becomes my replacement. Why would I want Max to come back? Switch your brain on, son.”
“But—”
“So you told Lorraine to stop Max from going through.” He glared into the rearview mirror. “More importantly, did you tell Lorraine to go through the portal instead?”
“No, I … She can’t go through the portal. Only Max can, right? I mean, that’s what the big wet poop with the eyeballs said.”
“Idiot. Go back there and tell her.”
“How?” He inched farther back in the seat. “Oh, no.”
