“A goddamn football crowd,” Louis said, staring at them.
Lizards and rats and weasels were shouting at one another; mice and ferrets and toads were scratching at the walls; even goddamn jackals, as well as a host of other animals he didn’t have a clue as to what they were, were colliding into one another like drunks staggering home in the early hours of the morning. For some reason all of them were naked. Not one of them was dressed in a suit and tie, or even a toga for that matter.
“Existentialist philosophers, actually,” Flash Freddy said, “and the odd psychiatrist scattered amongst them.”
Louis glanced up at the lizard. “Sorry? What did you say? I was in my own world.”
“You’re looking at over forty thousand existentialist philosophers and several thousand psychiatrists. This is where they choose to live out the remainder of eternity.” Flash Freddy pointed below. “This is just the first chamber, what we call a ‘High Dependency Unit’, or HDU, where we put the most hardened cases, the one’s that have been known to cause a bit of trouble in the past. We’ve had to separate them from the less volatile philosophers and keep them where we can keep a better eye on what they’re up to.” Flash Freddy now pointed to a doorway at the back of the chamber. “There are over a hundred more satellite chambers behind this one going deeper for miles and miles. Not to mention several hundred more HDU’s along Conduit Number 1, each with a hundred or so satellite chambers connected to them as well. You wouldn’t believe how many existentialists have walked the planet since Adam and Eve.”
Louis did a quick mental calculation. The sizes of the numbers made his head spin, so he gave up. “I don’t even know what a goddamn existential-whatsit is,” he said.
“Look closely down there,” Flash Freddy said. “What do you see?”
Louis shrugged. “Thousands of animals. Ferrets and weasels and toads and things.”
“What else? What are they doing?”
“Besides not wearing any clothes?”
Flash Freddy nodded and Louis looked even closer. Many were scratching the walls trying to climb out of the pit. On the far wall, one rat had even managed to clamber above the heads of the crowd, but a jackal reached up and tugged its tail. The rat lost its grip and fell back down, swallowed by the mass of bodies and lost to sight. Elsewhere in the crowd, many were bumping into one another as if they couldn’t see where they were going. Though most were mumbling and groaning, some were trying to get another’s attention by pointing at their mouth, unable to speak. Others were shouting at the top of their voice and slapping the side of their heads. It was goddamn chaos down there.
“Some are blind,” Louis said. “Others are deaf. Others are mute. I’m guessing some can’t smell and some can’t feel.”
“Exactly!” Flash Freddy said, and pointed to a jackal in the middle of the crowd. “Do you see? He has no eyes.” He pointed to a toad nearer the back that had had no tongue, then a ferret closer to the front that had no ears. Some animals, Louis now began to notice, were missing both their eyes and their ears. One rat he saw was even missing a snout. “Existentialism is just a fancy word for the worship of the five senses,” Flash Freddy went on, “and this is the consequence.”
“Ending up in here?” Louis said.
Smiggins sniggered, and out of the corner of his eye Louis caught him popping another pill. Flash Freddy flicked his head toward the crowd. “The Boss just wants to show them the folly of their ways. When they work out that worshipping their senses is the real cause of their imprisonment, not these walls, then they’re free to join us as valuable, contributing citizens to LeMont International Enterprises. It’s really that easy.”
Louis glanced down and saw that another rat without eyes had climbed the wall almost to the graffiti he had read earlier, NOW THAT YOU CLAIM THAT YOU CAN SEE, YOUR GUILT REMAINS, but a weasel reached up and tugged its tail so hard it lost its grip and fell back into the crowd. “How many actually free themselves?” he asked.
Flash Freddy glanced over at Smiggins. The PA punched some numbers into the calculator, then said, “Twenty-three.”
“Every day?” Louis asked.
Smiggins sniggered and shook his head. “Total.”
Louis kept staring. “You’re joking, right?”
Smiggins sniggered and shook his head again.
“You mean to tell me that only twenty-three people in the whole goddamn history of the world have freed themselves from their own imprisonment?”
“From this type of self-imprisonment,” Flash Freddy said, now ushering Louis to the door. “Humans have devised literally hundreds of ways to tie themselves up. Existentialism is just one way. Let me show you another chamber. You’ll see what I mean.”
Flash Freddy took Louis to another HDU ten minutes walk down Conduit Number 1. Above the doorway was a wooden sign: CHAMBER OF KNOWLEDGE. Inside, as with the Chamber of the Senses, thousands of ferrets and weasels and god-knew what other creatures were crowded into a pit, mumbling and shouting at one another. Similarly, there were scratches covering the walls to a well-delineated level and graffiti written above – KNOW THY SELF, and THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE. In here were the worshippers of science and research, Flash Freddy explained. Doctors, university laureates, professors and other lost souls that claimed ownership of knowledge as a possession unto themselves, basically everyone who had ever thought they knew everything there was to know about life. Even fewer than those worshipping the five senses had escaped this kind of self-inflicted imprisonment, Smiggins calculated, just sixteen in the whole history of mankind.
“Remarkable,” Louis said, as Flash Freddy ushered him toward the main tunnel again. “They cling to knowledge like a goddamn life-raft.”
“Except what they cling to is actually drowning them,” Flash Freddy said, and laughed.
They headed down Conduit Number 1 to another chamber Flash Freddy was eager for Louis to see. Along the way, they passed several more Chambers of the Senses and Chambers of Knowledge, as well as another Flash Freddy said he would show him at a later date, the CHAMBER OF WILLS. They then stopped at a doorway to a CHAMBER OF POWER. Inside, Flash Freddy told him, he would find the room crammed from wall to wall with politicians, legislators, movie producers and the occasional literary agent. He also told Louis to brace himself. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
Then, at the moment the lizard grabbed the doorknob, the chiming of bells down Conduit Number 1 suddenly struck Louis deaf. It wormed into his skull and clanged around like a four-year old let loose with a set of symbols. He instinctively threw his paws to his head and covered his ears, cursing under his breath. He knew this noise. No two questions about it. Same god-awful sick warbling he had heard in his office the day his heart packed it in and the blackness engulfed him; and by the looks on Flash Freddy and Smiggins’ faces, they knew it too. Staring at the brighter end of the tunnel, their eyes had lit up with glee. Smiggins was hugging the calculator to his chest and hopping from foot to foot. Then without a word he darted off down the tunnel toward the god-awful noise.
“C’mon. It’s a newbie,” Flash Freddy said. “You don’t want to miss the fun.”
Louis and Flash Freddy chased Smiggins toward the shimmering white light at the end of the tunnel, struggling to keep pace. As they went, they were joined by hundreds of other animals dressed in blue-gray suits and pinstriped ties – lizards, rats, ferrets, jackals, toads – exiting the doorways of what Louis now collectively thought of as the Chambers of Eternity. Coughing and sneezing, many were carrying briefcases and popping pills into their mouths as they ran. “Hurry up!” Flash Freddy said over his tail. “We want to get a good spot.”
Louis hitched his toga and told him he was hurrying as fast as he goddamn could. As they ran, the warbling got louder and louder to the point he thought his head would explode, but because everyone else seemed unaffected by it he pressed on. The light too, got brighter and brighter, until he was almost blinded by the glare.
Then, just when he
thought he couldn’t go on much further, they came to the end of Conduit Number 1. A crowd had gathered at the base of a golden archway, staring at the bright light streaming through. Smiggins was already there, hugging his calculator and hopping from foot to foot. Flash Freddy grabbed Louis’ paw and wormed his way through the pill-popping crowd. As he went, a jackal coughed in his ear. Someone else sniffled and blew his snout. Louis cringed and instinctively covered his mouth with his paw. When they finally got to the front, he shouted over the warbling, “What the hell is wrong with everybody?”
Flash Freddy hooded his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Everybody is sick!”
Flash Freddy glanced around. A ferret nearby had doubled over, seemingly struck with sudden abdominal pain. He was moaning and begging the weasel next to him to call the paramedics. The weasel wanted nothing to do with him, eager for only what was about to come through the archway. “You’ll get used to it,” Flash Freddy said.
Upon the arch Louis could now make out the ornately etched words: HEREBY LIES THE END OF THE WORLD. TRAVELERS PASS AT THEIR PERIL, and at the top was the cause of the god-awful warbling, a single bell swinging back and forth. Which surprised Louis. It was no bigger than any bell he reckoned he would find at any church in any goddamn city in the country. It didn’t seem possible that such a little thing could produce such ear-splitting noise.
Then, just as suddenly as the warbling had started, it stopped. The bell stopped swinging and the crowd hushed with expectancy. “The newbie’s coming,” Flash Freddy whispered. “Here, take one of these. It’ll make the experience more enjoyable.”
Flash Freddy shook a drug bottle in front of Louis’ face. Its label was unfamiliar: EZPZ, a product of the LeMont Pharmaceutical Company. Louis held out his paw and Flash Freddy tipped a diamond-shaped blue pill onto it, then took one himself. It was the last one, and as the lizard dropped the empty bottle into his briefcase, Louis caught movement through the arches. A murmur of excitement hummed through the crowd. He and Flash Freddy were forced to step to one side as the crowd parted to make room for the new arrival. Smiggins shuffled back to the opposite side, now more excited than ever.
At that moment, the newbie stepped through the arches and the crowd roared with glee. Louis did a double take. Just like himself, the newbie was a goddamn weasel. He wore a white lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck and seemed momentarily oblivious to the crowd, talking to himself. “I couldn’t save her. I don’t know what went wrong. It wasn’t my fault. I never fail. Never.”
Suddenly, he looked up and noticed the crowd, stopping in his tracks. “No! No!” he said. His eyes were wide with alarm. “This isn’t happening. I did everything I could.” He then hung back his head and let out a scream that curled Louis’ claws. “NOOOOOO! This isn’t happening.”
Flash Freddy, Louis saw, had removed a whip from his briefcase.
CHAPTER TEN
Louis Makes An Impression
LOUIS was nudged forward as the crowd closed in around the weasel with the stethoscope, cutting off every avenue of escape. The newbie cringed, his voice deserting him. The crowd then parted to let through two jackals carrying a large wooden crucifix, then filled in behind before the newbie could make a dash for freedom. The jackals threw the crucifix to the ground. “Did you really think you were God?” one of them said.
“God? What God? I’ve always had the power of life and death. I’ve never failed.” The newbie stared at the crucifix. “You… you don’t expect me to…”
The jackal motioned toward the crucifix. “Pick it up.”
The newbie tilted his pointy chin, as if daring one of them to hit it. “No. I refuse.”
To Louis’ surprise, Flash Freddy lifted up his whip and jerked it forward. It lashed out with the speed of a flickering tongue and cracked across the newbie’s chest, opening up a small red welt. The newbie cried out, as much in surprise as in pain. “Why’d you…” he began to say, but Flash Freddy struck the whip across his chest again, silencing his protest.
The newbie yelped and the crowd around him laughed, including Louis. The weasel deserved everything he damn well got. Just another good-for-noth’n doctor with a god complex. “Better hurry up,” the jackal said, and nodded to the crowd. Over half were now wielding whips above their heads. Without further ado, the newbie rushed over to the crucifix and lifted it onto his back, staggering under its weight. The crowd parted when he was ready to move, but it was some while before he could drag it forward without the crucifix slipping across his back.
Finally, his back buckled and bent, grimacing with every step, the newbie lurched forward. Nobody helped him carry his burden. Instead, as he passed in front of the mass of blue-gray suits, he was jeered and mocked from both sides. A female ferret standing next to Smiggins on the other side to Louis yelled out, “If you’re really God, give us a sign!”
The crowd cheered and laughed with glee. Then suddenly, the air was filled with the sound of dozens of cracking whips. Smiggins was hugging the calculator to his chest and hopping from one foot to the other. “Show us a miracle!” he yelled.
Louis began to feel the warm effects of the pill beginning to take effect. It rushed through him in surges of righteous indignation, a feeling he kind of liked, powerful and superior and… well, like he didn’t have to answer to anyone, least of all this useless wretch with the stethoscope. Goddamn it, he was once the CEO of Global Resolutions Network, a multi-million dollar company. He had achieved something with his life. He was important. Nobody – and he meant nobody – had any power over him. He snatched the whip from Flash Freddy and screamed at the top of his voice, “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re nobody!”
The tip of the whip flashed out and struck the crossbeam of the crucifix just above the newbie’s head. Louis cursed and tried again. This time it tore into the newbie’s shoulder, ripping the seam of the lab coat and causing him to drop the crucifix. The crowd roared and whipped him relentlessly. As he tried to pick it up, Louis raised the whip and struck him across the back of the head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fat toad in a wheelchair grinning at him from behind an oxygen mask. “Take that!” he screamed. “You good-for-noth’n son of a bitch.”
Flash Freddy flicked out his tongue and licked his lips. “That’s it, Mr. DeVille. He deserves it. Give him all you’ve got.”
Somehow, in the torrent of cracking whips, the newbie picked up the crucifix and reset it on his shoulder. Lurching forward, step by agonizing step, the crowd herded him down Conduit Number 1. The jeering and whipping continued without letup, ripping his coat to shreds. The stethoscope was flung from his neck like a snake used as target practice, and after ten minutes or so his whole body from head to tail, back and front, had been covered in painful red welts. To his disappointment, Louis could already feel the effects of the pill beginning to wear off. He turned to Flash Freddy and asked for another, but the lizard had run out of EZPZs. He knew of a store near the hotel, however, where they could stock up on more supplies. Until then, they would have to wait.
Louis shrugged and hitched his toga. With all the exertion his arm had become extremely sore and difficult to lift. Fun though it had been, he handed the whip back and told Flash Freddy that he had had enough for one day. The frenzy was almost over anyway. The crowd had stopped at a doorway to another HDU, this one signposted as the CHAMBER OF LIFE. All around him lizards and toads and ferrets were putting their whips into their briefcases and herding the weasel closer to the door, shoulder to shoulder.
Louis and Flash Freddy were lucky enough to have ended up at the front of the crowd with the best view of what was going on. Almost within touching distance, the newbie was doubled under the weight of the cross, staring at the ground in complete shock. Pathetic really, Louis thought, goddamn pathetic. He felt a surge of indignation, a last dying spasm from the pill, and had to fight the urge to give the loser a smack across the head for good measure. He had said it before, and he would say it again.
The good-for-noth’n son-of-a-bitch deserved everything that what was coming to him.
Just then, Louis heard the jingling of keys and the gruff voice of someone yelling from the back of the crowd. “Out of my way! Out of my way!”
Louis turned and saw a fat toad in a wheelchair being pushed through the parting crowd. Holding an oxygen mask away from his face, he cursed and growled for everyone else to stand back. At first Louis thought the wheelchair was electrically powered. Then, as it rolled past, he saw his mistake. Pushing him from behind was a small mouse with wide staring eyes. She was wearing a long-sleeved, blue-gray dress buttoned high at the neck, the hem of which almost skirted the ground over her sneakers. Louis could even make out the rigid creases that her iron had left behind.
“Out of my way!” the toad yelled. Louis was so close he could hear the hiss of the oxygen mask. “Out of my way.”
The mouse pushed him to the door to address the crowd. Like everyone else he wore a blue-gray suit and pinstriped tie, the lapels of his jacket just held across his bulging belly with a solitary button. On his lap was a bunch of skeleton keys. Louis wasn’t sure if it was more lingering effects of the pill or not, but he felt an instant surge of superiority to this low-class toad. Just look at the useless son of a bitch, he sneered. Goddamn waste of space.
“That’s Rocco Santosa,” Flash Freddy whispered, putting the whip in his briefcase. “Grand Pooh-Bah of Workplace Safety and Wages. Been here longer than Smiggins and me. Almost part of the furniture at LeMont.”
While Rocco Santosa gestured for the crowd to settle, Louis was drawn again to the petit mouse behind the wheelchair. “Who’s the mouse?” he asked.
“Tiffany Tidbits,” Flash Freddy whispered. “His PA. Never leaves his side. We call her Santosa’s Little Helper.”
“Any chance of swapping her for Smiggins?”
At that moment, Santosa opened his gullet and ejected an outrageously long croak. To Louis’ disgust, the smell of horseshit intensified, though no one else seemed to notice or worry about it. Instead, when Santosa asked for volunteers, everyone’s arm shot up at once. Lizards and weasels and ferrets jumped up and down and climbed over one another, shouting at the toad at the doorway. The weasel with the crown of thorns was still too dazed to do anything save stare at the ground and wait.
DeVille's Contract Page 8
