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

I have some electioneering to do,” he said, fading away.

“Don’t you have any politicians in this place?” Charley said.

“I had one in the gaol, but I haven’t been able to replace him. Nowadays, they all seem to go directly to Hell,” Arthur said glumly. He talked to Charley for a while about Limbo56, its ups and downs, and his fading hopes of making the place just a little more comfortable. “Come on,” he said, “You had better stay at my place tonight.”

The next day, they went to the Two Puddings to plan strategy. “Maybe you can come to some agreement with him,” Charley suggested. Arthur looked as though he had been campaigning without sleep for a week. The election was five days away, and Arthur had contacted the Angels and explained the position to them. Reactions from up top varied from ‘Have Faith and all will be well. Right always triumphs eventually.’ to ‘Who are you?’ It was obvious that the disturbance in Limbo56 had no relevance in the high-minded realms of the Heavenly Host.

Charley, shedding his old clothes, had availed himself of a bath and an air of supreme confidence. Shoulders squared, he stood three inches taller. “You have some cards you can play,” he said firmly. “I don’t think Jasper necessarily wants this place to slide into Hell, lock, stock, and public houses.” There are probably fifty demons who want to take his place. And remember, you told me that he upset some pretty powerful demons when he refused to leave here.” Charley shook his head. “No, he won’t be too keen to return ‘temporarily’ to Hell.”

“What kind of deal do you think I can make,” Arthur said warily.

Charley considered. “You could stay on as his deputy, to give him some sort of legitimacy, while he ships everyone down to Hell,” he said. “Then you could stay on with him as a permanent Gatekeeper. You know, ‘Hello, I’m Governor here. Welcome to the best little Limbo this side of Heaven’. Then you point them to the nearest pothole, and ‘zip’, another one for the fiery pit.” Charley became enthusiastic. “Why, you and me, as a team, we can recruit and ship hundreds of poor suckers a day.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Arthur said horrified. “My Intermediates are not lost souls.”

“Pretty close,” Charley said. “Anyway,” he relapsed into gloom, “once the election’s over, Jasper can do whatever he wants with me. You still have some options.”

“Yes,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “Jasper must be at least as unpopular with the demons as he is up here.” He turned to Charley. “What shall I do?”

Charley shook his head as in mute amazement at the naiveté of the undead. “Tell Jasper you want to talk to him, of course,” he explained patiently. “I’ll be there to hold your hand.”

That evening they waited in the dark corner, nursing watery beers as the old clock, useless in Limbo, but too much trouble to remove, ticked sedately on the grimy wall.

“I told you to arrive late,” Charley said. “No, you have to come early, so we can sit here like a couple of petitioners, caps in hand, waiting for Lord Jasper.” He chewed his lip. “I’ll handle this when he gets here. Just listen and go along with what I say.”

“What are you going to say?” Arthur asked him.

“I don’t have any idea,” Charley said. “I’ll make it up as I go along.”

“We’re wasting our time,” Arthur said gloomily. Jaspers’ supporters had already overflowed Rotten Row and were washing up like a grimy tide to the edge of the foundry, and now the workers had to endure the avid stares of that scruffy vanguard on their way into work. To make matters worse, Gladys hadn’t spoken to him since he had swigged the fateful fifth or sixth glass of Tequila and signed the agreement with Jasper.

Finally, the demon arrived. As part of his new electable image, he had begun making spectacular entrances, and they all coughed for a few moments at the sharp smell of sulphur. “I don’t have much time,” Jasper said, glancing nervously at Arthur’s big hands. “And I won’t discuss anything with him here.”

“He’s nervous,” Charley whispered. “Remember what I said about other demons taking his place.”

“Charley can express himself better that me,” Arthur said coolly. “He’ll tell you what our, what our…”

“Demands will be,” Charley finished for him. Arthur sat down, and Charley started on a lengthy description of the situation in Limbo56. Obviously, Arthur thought, the lost soul had no idea of what to say. Arthur imagined the other’s mind searching frantically for an opening as Jasper began to yawn. After a few minutes, it became obvious that Jasper was getting ready to make a spectacular departure.

With relief, Arthur saw Gladys as she came down the steps from her rooms. She looked undecided for a moment, then, obviously piqued at the sight of a stranger, back turned to her, haranguing Jasper, she started over towards them.

Charlie was going over the figures, for the third time. Undead, so many, lost souls, so many, expected turnout. Sensing someone behind him, he swung round in mid sentence

His eyes bulged when he saw Gladys, and he held out his arms. “Great God Almighty,” It’s you,” he said.

They stood frozen for a moment, and then Jasper asked quietly “What did you just say?”

Charley stared at him. “I said,” he intoned slowly, “Great God Almighty. Twice. I’ve said it twice now. Which means,” he went on, “I’m no longer a lost soul.” He faced Jasper. “We set up this small demonstration for you,” he said, “so that you can think about your position.” He paused for effect. “How many spontaneous conversions do you think there will be in the next five days, especially if we stir the pot a little. There may not be enough to swing the election, but your people down there won’t be too happy to lose a bunch of souls.” He stood up. “Possibly, we can come to some sort of an accommodation.”

“I’ll see you all in Hell,” Jasper screeched, vanishing.

“Don’t worry,” Charley said expansively. “We have something to bargain with now.” He hugged Gladys. “Glad, m’ darlin’ I never thought to see you again.” And they wandered off happily towards the bar.

Arthur shook his head. “She’s been busy since I died,” he muttered. He walked out wearily. Charley and Gladys were chatting happily, and the bar was in one of its infrequent manic modes. A customer sang drunkenly and Arthur smelt the faint aroma of real beer as he stepped into the rainy street.

“Tomorrow, early, we’ll meet here,” Charley called after him.

Arthur trudged away from the pub. His empire was crumbling, his romance with Gladys, always unpredictable, was reaching new heights, or depths, of strangeness. In his more honest moments he knew that, in reality, he was – had been - a perfectly ordinary foundry worker, living in an insignificant, unsophisticated part of the world in the eighteen-seventies. O’Grady, Charley, and Jasper, despite their respective flaws were anything but ordinary, and Gladys seemed to like them all, intrigued by the flaws that had brought them together here. O’Grady had murdered him – come to that had murdered Gladys, Charley, by his own admission was a serial killer, and Jasper, well Jasper was a Devil. Arthur, despite being Governor of Limbo56, was still at heart an ironworker, and the others, including Gladys, easily ran rings around him.

With the help of Charley, he might save a few undead, but the price for this would be to become complicit in railroading thousands of battered, but salvageable souls, directly to Hell. He suspected that, with or without him, Gladys and her admirers would somehow survive, and he knew that he would not consign his fellow Intermediates to the Netherworld.

His wanderings had bought him to the old pub by the foundry. Lost souls wandered about, fighting apathetically, incurious, not recognizing him, waiting to turn him out and hand his empire to Jasper. They crowded like flies at the bar, where he saw, Olga was practically offering her grey breasts to the customers.

Remembering the night of his death, he pushed his way up to the bar. He was almost surprised not to see the broad back of O’Grady, arrogantly blocking his view. Instead, a cluster of pasty-faced lost souls clustered, groping across the bar where Olga, one breast hanging outside her bodice was giggling mirthlessly.

“You,” he said to her. “Get upstairs and get dressed.” He grabbed one of the lost souls and heaved him across the bar. “You tend bar till she gets back.” This time he was ready for the knife, wielded by someone slower and weaker than O’Grady. The man went down with a yelp, and he knocked down three others before they started to disappear in puffs of smoke. After that, the bar cleared and he turned around to find Olga gaping at him, showing yellow teeth. “I thought I told you,” he began.

“You’re so strong,” she murmured, grabbing his hand and pressing it to her sweaty breast.

Despite himself, he felt his member harden. Gingerly, he pulled her flabby body close. He began buttoning her bodice. “Don’t bother to go upstairs,” he told her “go to the ‘Two Puddings’. Wash up, and ask Gladys for some makeup.” She frowned. “Tell Gladys, I said so.” She looked at him, troubled. “Come back in thirty minutes.”

“Why,” she asked him. “Why do you want me to, and why should I?”

“Because,” he told her. “I’m tired of telling you to button up.” He turned to go. “Come on, I’ll walk back with you.” To the lost soul, he said, “If you’re not here when I get back, I’ll find you and send you to Hell.”

“You can do that,” she said, shivering as they walked through the rain. “You have that power, as Governor.” They walked together in silence and she added, “Do you have any pull up there, in Heaven?”

“Not much,” he said.

She was quiet for a while, the rain soaking through her dirty blonde hair, pasting her bodice to the large breasts, so that she might as well have been naked from the waist up. “Pity you won’t be Governor for long,” she said. “I can have a word with Jasper for you, if you like. He might keep you on as his deputy.”

“Don’t believe everything Jasper tells you,” he said, glancing at the pale, lumpy woman shambling along at his side. “Take a bath, fix your hair and make out with a halfway decent Intermediate, while you can. Gladys will sort you out.”

“Gladys is a stuck up bitch,” she muttered.

He sighed. Gladys and Olga were not about to become friends. “She’s wild and crazy, but never stuck up,” he said distractedly.

“Ya wanna feel me up,” she said, leaning against the dirty wet bricks of an old rooming house. A couple of passing ironworkers looked at him and grinned.

He bit back a sarcastic remark. “Thanks for the offer,” he said.

She smiled, a genuine grin which, for a moment made her look like a battered older sister of Gladys. They entered the ‘Two Puddings’ and Arthur was surprised to see Jasper, Gladys and Charley sitting at the old table in the dark corner of the bar. Jasper looked up, eyes widening in surprise as he took in Olga’s