Limbo 56 - Mike Morris (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📗

but they kept sliding away like grubby fish. Ten minutes went by, then another ten, and there were visible gaps in the ranks. After about 30 minutes, when Jasper reappeared, only about half of my workers were still there.

Soaking, the remnants of my workforce hurried into the cavernous building, and I looked around, amazed. The foundry was still a dirty hell-hole, but the conveyor belt was whizzing around. The men were soon working frantically to keep up. Black sand was flying through funnels into the molds, and robot stampers crushed it down. One worker cleaned the bore-hole with compressed air and the other two in the team ran round hauling the moulds on to the belt. The ironworkers poured molten metal and the occasional splash was sucked away before it could burn holes in their feet. Meanwhile, the furnace opened its red mouth and swallowed every lump of iron that the feeders could throw at it. No doubt about it, I was going to meet my quota.

When the next shift came in, Jasper made them stand outside, and he did the same with the third shift. The pub did a roaring business, and the half-full foundry turned out harps and haloes and other sundries at record speed. I decided to make one more effort to drag my crews out of the pub and into the foundry. “You rest,” Jasper surprised me by saying. “I’ll deal with them.”

It was several hours before I rolled off my pallet and shambled off to the pub. Off-shift, of course, it was dark and raining, and the pub spread a dim orange light and wafts of stale beer. I had expected a bar full of drunken malingerers, but the place was empty, apart from Sadie, scratching herself. “Where is everyone,” I asked bemusedly.

She shook her head. “Down in the cellar,” she told me.

“What the Hell are they doing down there?” I asked, and then I understood.

The cellar was empty, apart from some abandoned beer bottles and a faint smell of brimstone. Jasper had made quite a haul for the authorities below. I sighed. “They weren’t much use to me,” I said philosophically.

Upstairs, Sadie was unfastening her apron, and the relief barmaid, an enormous woman with dirty grey ringlets was swiping the bar half-heartedly with a dirty rag. “So long,” Sadie told me, walking away. “I have a date with Jasper.” Distractedly I watched her open the cellar door.

“Wait!” I said, but she was gone and the cellar was empty.

Things soon settled down to normal. The new barmaid was particularly ugly, and had a habit of sneezing constantly into the watery beer. The foundry churned out more than its quota, and I was actually smiling when I went for my review. The three Angels seemed perversely annoyed that I’d met my quota, and the Devils smirked in silence. “You seem to be managing now,” the Chairman Angel told me, so we’ll reconvene in a century or so.” He lifted his gavel and one of the Devils coughed. “Oh yes,” he said distastefully, “the Devils suggested that an assistant would be useful to you, administratively, and my colleagues agreed, on the grounds that you obviously need someone to focus you on your goals.” He sniffed. “Naturally, we have no-one we can spare, and certainly no-one upstairs wants the position, but, the Devils have kindly agreed to help, therefore…”

There was a puff of smoke that left the Angels coughing and the Devils snickering, as Jasper appeared. “I don’t need an assistant,” I cried, but the review board snuffed out, and Jasper brushed himself off.

“I don’t get much thanks for saving your bacon,” he chided. “After all I did for you.”

“You sent half my workers to Hell,” I snapped.

“Only because they deserved it,” Jasper said. “I couldn’t have pulled it off otherwise. Besides,” he continued. “How do you think I got this appointment?” He sighed. “I was supposed to be assigned directly to Heaven, but you can’t trust the word of a Devil, and Hellish contracts have a lot of fine print.” He rubbed his hands. “I’m sure you have work for me. But first, I’d like to get acquainted with the new barmaid, the one with the nasal drip.” And he leered.

“She’s ugly as Sin.”

“You don’t know how ugly Sin is,” he said. “Compared with Sin, she’s a stunning beauty.” He strolled out into the dirty, rainy street. “Wonderful weather you have here,” he said happily.
Chapter 18 – The Recruiter

“Look, you’re a realist. We’re both of us realists, we’re both of us too old to believe in the tooth fairy and all that junk. You’re what – eighty-four, and I’m, well I’m a lot older than that. Well, if you really want to know, one hundred and twenty eight. Yes, you heard one two eight. Television! I was born before radio. I died before television, and now the Millennium is almost upon us. But here, I’m rambling on. The point is I’m dead. Yes, you heard right. I’m dead and I’m not doing too badly. I have to admit, I was a bad person, I should probably be screaming in the cauldrons of Hell, with my skin peeling off and all that, but I got lucky, made a deal with those – up there, and those down there. I’m pretty sure I can do a deal for you too.”

Arthur paused and looked down on the old billionaire who had once been fat and who was now dying. The old man struggled to sit up.

“No, no,” Arthur exclaimed, “you have a few minutes yet, relax, and don’t die until you’ve heard me out.”

The dying man mumbled something and Arthur bent down to hear. The dying man mumbled something else.

“Yes, I didn’t hear what you said, I don’t hear too well, and you certainly don’t speak too clearly, more like a toothless wheeze, and of course, if I was an Angel I’d have perfect hearing – and twenty-twenty vision, and sweet breath. What? If I was a Devil, I wouldn’t give a damn anyway, I’d be squealing and smoking and writhing about on the floor, just like you will be soon, unless you listen to me.”

The dying man mumbled something else.

“Oh, I see, what’s in it for me. With all your money, you would want to know that. Well, I do it all out of the kindness of my heart. No! Don’t try to laugh, you’ll pop off before your time, which is short enough, I can tell you. Oh, all right, yes, that was a lie; well I told you I wasn’t an Angel, and no, I don’t want your soul, slimy messy thing that it is. Ugh!” The thin man paused and took a deep breath, which really only sounded like the faint breeze of a ghostly summer past. “I’ve been trying to tell you, I’m from Limbo, yes Limbo. You’ve heard of it naturally? Oh good. Well, like I was saying, I made a deal with the Powers That Be, they needed someone to run the place, and that’s what I’ve been doing for a hundred years. Well, it’s not the only Limbo, there are hundreds of them, but I like to think that mine is one of the better ones.

“So, I’m comfortable where I am, it’s not so bad there, you’ll see. Just lately, we’ve cut working hours to the bone, and the pubs are not too bad, once you get used to them. Why, we even opened a little restaurant a while back – OK, more of a greasy spoon and the waitress smells sweaty, and the food is a little overcooked, but this is Limbo, not Heaven. Oh, all right, I’ll get to the point, I do tend to ramble, but so will you at my age, if I can swing things for you, that is. Now where was I?” Arthur paused worriedly. “As I said, I’m comfortable there, running the show, but, like everyone else I have shareholders to consider. The Devils’ caucus is not too bad, but the Angels – well, ‘this needs repairing, your quota is down, we need 500 harps immediately, and a couple of thousand stainless steel haloes’, and how am I supposed to keep up, with work stoppages, and union meetings, and a five-day week, and the whole bloody-minded attitude of the younger generation. I can’t force my people to do stuff, not with the Devils and Angels sticking their noses into everything I do, and the Devils opposing half my ideas, and the Angels opposing the other half, just to spite the Devils.”

He paused. “Are you listening to me? You’re not dead already, I hope. Good. Well, the point is, I need fresh blood, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that; I’m an Administrator, not a Vampire. The bottom line is, my job is on the line. My working population is dangerously low – what – no, after a while, just when they’re getting productive, they leave. They go upstairs or they go downstairs, it’s all the same to me. However, I’m in urgent need of replacements. If I don’t keep production up, I lose my job,” he told the dying man earnestly, “I stand a good chance of going downstairs. Which is why, I’m pursuing an aggressive recruitment campaign. Of course, nobody slated for upstairs wants to live in Limbo, so I’m contacting as many dying sinners in my area as possible. I’m willing to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

The figure on the bed blinked. Possibly a gesture of encouragement? “You see I’ve had dealings with both parties, and I’ve had time to study their ways. The Angels are easy to fool, they never lie, and they’re very cautious; they think pure thoughts – putzes all. The Devils are trickier, but they all think they’re clever, and they are vain, arrogant, lazy, and greedy, in fact they have to practice all seven deadly sins constantly, or they’d lose their devilyhood.” The thin man smiled a toothy smile. ”I have personally, over the years, snatched dozens like you from the jaws of hell. Admittedly,” he continued, “not for the most noble of motives, but the result is the same, and that should not trouble the conscience of a man like you.”

‘So much for the carrot,’ Arthur thought, ‘now let’s try the stick.’

“You have been a truly evil man,” he said. “You have connived and cheated and lied and lusted. You are greedy and arrogant. I’ve seen better souls than you writhing in eternal agony, flesh burnt off their bones, bones cracked and the marrow used in Devil stew. Then the little pieces of leftover squeak and wriggle together, fusing, growing new tender flesh, just to start over again. Burning and boiling, burning and boiling for eternity. Did I mention the Devils have very little imagination? It took them a million years to think up the worst, most horrible form of torment, and now they just let it go on, for ever. Sometimes I think they’re so crabby because they’re eternally bored.”

The dying man blinked, twice. Another encouraging sign? Arthur decided it was time to pounce. “I can save you,” he said. “You have very little time. You need to sign my paper, admitting all your sins. Don’t worry, I’ve listed them all. Then, you need to sign some money over to a charity of your choice – ten percent of your wealth is fine, and then I’ll flick a few drops of distilled water over you – almost as good as holy water. You can scratch an ‘X’ where I’ve indicated, and we’re ready to go. Limbo, a guaranteed job