Mike Morris
82 Main St
Peapack
NJ 07931


L I M B O 5 6 * *
__________________________________________________________

by MICHAEL MORRIS


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Approx. 88,786 words First American
Fiction Serial Rights offered

Limbo56 - Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – A Distant Rumor 3
Chapter 2 – Limbo 7
Chapter 3 – Settling the Score 11
Chapter 4 – The Real World 17
Chapter 5 – Settling down 19
Chapter 6 – Tunnel Rats 23
Chapter 7 - Shadrach in the Wilderness 36
Chapter 8 – The Asylum at Dury 42
Chapter 9 – A Better Class of Limbo 46
Chapter 10 – Perils of Pauline 51
Chapter 11 – Bobby Boy 55
Chapter 12 – The Pilot 59
Chapter 13 – A Chicken in every Pot 70
Chapter 14 – Soap Opera Stories 72
Chapter 15 – False Start 76
Chapter 16 – NTBW 78
Chapter 17 – A Pact with the Devil 80
Chapter 18 – The Recruiter 85
Chapter 19 – A Blast from the Past 87
Chapter 20 – Closing Time in the Garden of Eden 92
Chapter 21 – The Solid Gold Ashtray 96
Chapter 22 – Sin City 102
Chapter 23 - Interview with a Terrorist 105
Chapter 24 – Aftermath 111
Chapter 25 – The Election 113
Chapter 26 – Campaigning 116
Chapter 27 – Dirty Politics 121
Chapter 28 – The Money Man 132
Chapter 29 – Talent Search 139
Chapter 30 - The Halfway Housekeeper 141
Chapter 31 – Days of Beer and Roses 144


 
Chapter 1 – A Distant Rumor
Like the town he lived in, Arthur Mossop was battered and grimy. A scrawny foundry worker with slightly stooped shoulders, he looked weak, until you noticed the leathery hands and wooden-hard arms, and strangers, shaking hands before the start of a ‘friendly’ darts match nursed aching knuckles and watched glumly as Arthur racked up the score. Like his workmates, Arthur drank vast quantities of beer, which kept most of the sand and bone-dust out of his lungs, and he played the occasional game of Sunday soccer, which kept those abused organs pumping. At the age of twenty-nine years, he considered himself in his prime of life, and he looked forward, if not to fame and fortune, at least to many years of hard living and hard drinking. His grandfather, who had lived an astonishing ninety and two years, used to say to anyone who would listen that rumours of his death had been greatly exaggerated, and to Arthur, his own death was a distant rumour in the year of 1878.

He treasured Sundays, when he only had to show up in the gloom of the foundry for four hours of unenergetic cleaning and maintenance. He awoke on a particular Sunday morning, groaned, scratched his sandpaper chin, and decided not to shave. Content, he dozed off for ten minutes, before elbowing his little wife to get up and fix breakfast. A few minutes later, he was stumbling downstairs in his dirty overalls, having splashed cold water in his face. Sopping up greasy eggs and bacon with a chunk of bread, he grunted to his wife that, after work, he was going to stop over at Joe’s place. “Might stay the night,” he muttered unconvincingly. “Some of the lads are getting together to play cards after work.” Recently, he had been working diligently, and had amassed some spare cash, which he augmented by betting on the horses. He nursed his guilty secret, smiling to himself as he shoveled the final morsels of food into his mouth. Then, slightly ashamed, he withdrew a couple of notes from his tattered wallet and laid them on the table. “Here’s a bit extra, keep these for the house,” he said, giving the little woman a perfunctory kiss. “I wouldn’t want to gamble all of our money away.”

Arthur did not consider himself a bad person. He was no worse than the mates who worked beside him in the alternately searing and freezing gloom of the foundry. He lived on a diet of bone dust, beer, and cheese and onion sandwiches, and saw his wife only often enough to grab a cooked Sunday dinner and get her pregnant every year or so. He shouted, but never hit her when they argued, which grew less and less as she grew more mousy and submissive. He always gave her half his money, and he occasionally patted his children absent-mindedly on the head. Most working days he walked resolutely through the sooty streets of his old Black Country town, a town smelling of wet concrete, and soot washed out of the air by the rain. Work was easier in the morning when the pubs were closed. After lunch was different – he didn’t always return to his place at the conveyor belt, so despite the fact that he was a good worker, he had not yet been promoted to foreman.

This Sunday morning went quickly, and he emerged at noon, blinking in the watery sunlight. He had no intention of seeing Joe until the evening when the busy pub would be full of good cheer – and Gladys would be serving frothy pints. He needed some time to plan the evening assignation with the well-endowed barmaid and work out an alibi with Joe. He reckoned he could spare a few days away before seriously damaging his work or compromising his domestic prospects.

His old fishing rod tied to his cycle, he rolled down the street humming, sliding over to the canal bank and coming to rest on the pebbly towpath. He let his bike fall on the grassy bank and unscrewed the rusty front basket, a perfect seat for his bony frame. Settling down in the summer sunshine, he sighed and casually cast his line at the oily water. It sank into the depths, and he settled back, half asleep, to think about Gladys. Nothing much lived in the oxygen-starved waters of the canal. Coal barges ploughed through the waters every day and the bargemen used the canal as a free dumping ground and occasional toilet. The odd fish that did survive was inedible, only to be caught for a bit of gentle sport and tossed back again to battle the many dangers of the industrial waterway.

Arthur remembered playing here when he was a small boy. It was a favorite place for all the small boys, growing up to become gaunt foundry workers like their fathers and uncles and big brothers before them. It was possible in those days to see the canal and the few scrubby fields that still struggled against the urban wilderness as a refuge from the harsh realities of iron and soot and back-breaking hard work. He had dreamt then of breaking the bonds that held him and all of his friends in an iron grip. He dreamt of becoming an engineer, or an architect, building clean little houses, separated by small green lawns, untouched by the oily black smoke from the factories and foundries around. The dream had died, along with his father who had coughed and spat up his last mouthful of black blood and turned over and died.

Arthur sighed and contemplated his ragged blue overalls, daydreaming about Gladys. She was attracted to men with a bit of spare cash, quite ready to borrow a married man for a few days, her philosophy being that a wife who could not keep her man occupied was delinquent in her job, and deserved all that was coming. In her own way, she was kind, joshing the foundry workers, always cheerful and supportive, full of energy. Arthur, behind closed lids, explored the contours of her body, smiling slightly at the possibilities likely to be presented in the next few days. A barge slid by without disturbing his gently drifting line. It ploughed majestically into a small hill of submerged cycle frames that an over-zealous cleaner had dumped from the factory that stood next door to the foundry. Arthur regarded the rusting frames lazily, idly wondering what the bargemen might do if the waterway became impassable one day.

The long afternoon wore on, shadows creeping darkly across the walls of the industrial wasteland that, a hundred years earlier, had crept across the fresh green fields, squeezing the life out of everything in its steady line of advance. Arthur yawned, opened his eyes and waved to a dozing fellow angler a hundred yards down the towpath. He closed his eyes again, but the contentment was ebbing away. Something seen out of the corner of his eye was irritating him like a grain of sand. He blinked and looked across the water. The other angler had disappeared, but as Arthur scanned the canal, he noticed on the high narrow bridge that spanned from one bank to the other, a man leaning on the iron rail, gazing down at him.

The image that had disturbed Arthur was not that of a fellow worker in cloth cap and overalls, or even one of the Iron Bosses in fancy clothes and a top hat. This man was an anomaly, a stranger, perched on the bridge as if he owned it and the countryside around. He was flashy without being elegant, tough looking but unhardened by hard work. His loud clothes bespoke of a foreigner, which, in Arthur’s lexicon was anyone from out of town. He noticed Arthur staring up and casually, with a certain amount of insolence, tipped his hat. Arthur blinked again and the man was gone. He closed his eyes again and tried to think of Gladys, but the spell was broken. He stood up, cracking his knuckles, grunting at the first twinges of arthritis that affected everyone of his age in his small circle of friends.

He arrived a little earlier than expected at Joe’s small row house, perched at the end of a long line of identical grimy boxes, in time to bump into Joe’s mother. Joe was unmarried, and one reason was the looming presence of Mrs. Baker, a hulking widow who intimidated younger females within five miles of the house. Lately, though, she had acquired what Joe called a ‘roving eye’ and had taken to staying away from the untidy house, sometimes for days. She told Joe when she acquired her roving eye that she would be looking for a man, or men. Indeed, more than once, her eye had roved over Arthur’s spare frame, causing him some anxiety. “See you again, Arthur,” she squawked coyly. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

“Old bag,” Joe said glumly, watching her ample buttocks disappear around the corner. “Got a boyfriend in the next street that’s even older than she is.” Joe was a morose little man who only cheered up in Arthur’s company after several pints of beer.

“Better for us,” Arthur told him with more cheer than he really felt. Something about the afternoon had sobered him; maybe, he thought, the odd-looking man on the bridge.

“Yeah,” Joe said, brightening. He disappeared into the tiny kitchen, reappearing with a pail of beer. “Still cool”, he said. “They ‘ad a good bit of beer down at the new Off-license, and I thought I’d save us some.”

“I’ve got to save some money for Gladys,” Arthur told him. “I think maybe I can squeeze three, four days before going back to work.”

“You and Gladys,” Joe said half-enviously. “What about your wife?”

Arthur frowned. His wife was someone he had been studiously trying not to think about. He took a big swallow of beer and licked his lips. “A man’s got to ‘ave some pleasure, sometime,” he said.

A couple of coughing ironworkers arrived, and they all spent time smoking and drinking, playing dominoes and swapping soccer jokes. Arthur had been looking forward to this evening, a chat with Gladys and her gypsy smile, warmth and the anticipation of a woman’s soft body close to his, the heady feel of money in his pocket and the thought of a couple of days away from the screeching foundry. As he played dominoes, losing game after game, the feeling began to slip slowly, inexorably away. He became louder, forcing laughter, irritating even Joe as he thumped the table, causing the dominoes to jump like frightened crickets. Finally, in the middle of a game he jumped up. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, scattering dominoes.

He approached the pub with Joe in tow. The other two had slipped off down the street, shaking their heads at his temper as he strode out of Joe’s tiny house. He could feel sour beer sloshing around inside his stomach, and for a moment, he hesitated, but then he heard loud laughter and the sound of Gladys flirting with the customers. Unreasonably, he wondered how she could flirt while he waited for her, money in his pocket.

So on a Sunday evening in 1878 he walked into the dim pub that stood just outside the foundry gates. It was a place where dry foundry workers crowded round the bar, slaking the unquenchable thirst that comes from years of breathing black sand and choking on the smoke from the furnace. Arthur’s throat was bone dry and he had already absorbed more than his share of beer. Somehow, he was not surprised to see the broad back and the loud jacket of the stranger from the canal. He had not clearly seen a face, but the flashy clothes could only belong to the man on the bridge.

“Evening, Gladys,” he said, shoving aside the well-dressed stranger. “I’ll take a couple of pints,” he told the gypsy barmaid who flashed him a white, crooked smile. He thought with satisfaction of the evening ahead. There was little doubt that Gladys would say yes to his offer. She was always game for a fling with a man of means, even if they were only temporary means. He and Joe went through the nightly ritual as to who would pay for the first round. “I’m OK for money, Joe,” he said, loud enough for Gladys to hear. “I won ten quid on the horses last night.” Unfortunately, the well-dressed stranger heard also and turned away slightly with a derisive smirk that Arthur noticed and resented immediately.

Gladys wasn’t quite as receptive as he expected. She was, he saw, paying a lot of attention to the stranger. “Couple more,” Gladys,” he called, waving away Joe’s attempt at payment. Gladys distractedly set up two more pints of brown beer, and leaned towards the stranger, showing a great deal of her ample bosom. The man, Arthur noted, did not speak in the flat, strangled accents of the industrial Midlands. “Londoner,” he thought contemptuously. He downed the beer in one gulp and shoved his glass forward. “Two more,” he demanded. He saw that the stranger was drinking scotch and water. “And a double scotch,” he added loudly – “neat.”

He waved away Joes outstretched hand and faced the stranger. “Not from here,” he said. “Are ye.”

“Not likely,” the stranger said. “I’m a big city fella.”

“Come slumming, then?”

“I’m here talking to the lady,” The stranger said carefully. “Why don’t you leave us alone to talk?” He was a big man, muscle running to fat. Arthur looked at him and cracked his knuckles.

“’Ere, Arthur boy, calm down,” Gladys told him. “Ere’s a beer for you and Joe, on the ‘ouse.”

“I can pay for my own,” Arthur said, and the barflies shuffled closer, sensing a fight.

“Well good for you,” the Londoner said. “Now, why don’t you let me talk to the lady?”

Gladys was a veteran of dozens of pub skirmishes. She could calm down a whole bar full of enraged soccer fans, and had done so once by stripping off her blouse and bodice before violence erupted. However, she was excited this evening and made a fatal mistake.

“Lay off, Artie,” she said. “This gent’s taking me to London for a few days. You calm down and I’ll see you next week.”

Arthur swung at the big man. His fist rammed through an inch of fat and bounced off solid muscle. He wasn’t sure what happened next. The Londoner was hurt, but he was still quick. Arthur saw a flash of silver, and there was a great cold pain in his ribs. He looked stupidly at the blood trickling on to his overalls, and the bar began to go dim and darkness gradually spread from the corners of the familiar room.


Chapter 2 – Limbo
When he opened his eyes, the bar was empty. He must still have been groggy, because the light seemed peculiarly hazy. He blinked and sat up. The pub was different somehow; he would have sworn that the walls had been a darker shade of brown. He was beginning to feel irritated. Surely, the customers had not just left with him lying on the floor. Certainly, Joe or Gladys would try to help. It was a tough pub but even here, a man with a knife in him commanded some compassion, some minimum amount of respect. Arthur looked down hastily. The bloodstains were dry, almost invisible; the knife was jammed between his ribs, up to the hilt.

He got to his feet and looked around. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with the pub. The pumps were new and bore the names of beers he had never heard of. The gas mantles had disappeared also, and in their place were globes, hanging off the end of a cord. He shook his head. The wound was still not bleeding. It was itchy rather than sore. Experimentally, he pulled, and then looked at the knife in horror. It was rotten with rust. What sort of man had the Londoner been? But Arthur remembered the flash of the blade in the gaslight; that knife had been expertly wielded and well-kept.

His wound still did not bleed. “I need a beer,” he muttered, moving behind the bar. He pulled a frothy pint of one of the new beers and noticed the calendar. He wandered over to it, and drank half the beer in a gulp. “Aagh,” he growled. The beer was tasteless, with only the memory of the bitter, fruity taste he was used to. He set the glass down and studied the calendar. March? Two months old? Then he saw the year “Nineteen Eleven,” he said aloud. “What kind of joke is this?”

“Sorry you had to wait so long.” He jumped and turned to face the owner of the voice. A smooth-looking man in a black suit sat at a corner table. “Come over here,” the man said, opening his briefcase. “I won’t bite.”

Arthur walked over dazedly and sat down. “Naturally, my organization was ready within a couple of months,” the man sniffed. “But the others, Hell, they’re slow.” He shuffled his papers. “In one way, though, you’re lucky. Right now, we have the best deals since, well, since I can remember, and I have a very long memory,” and he laughed. “You’re a retired foundry worker too.” He shook his head. “You must have been born lucky.”

“Retired?” Arthur said. “I’m not retired.”

“Of course you are,” the man said. “You’re dead. You can’t get much more retired than that.”

Arthur looked at the unfamiliar bar and the rusty stain on his overalls. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed.

The man cringed. “No need to get nasty,” he said. “You got yourself into that fight.”

“Are you a ghost?” Arthur asked stupidly.

The man shrugged. “I was, a long time ago. Look,” he continued. “I need you to sign some papers. There are hundreds of souls waiting. They’ll all be eager to snap up this offer.” Arthur looked at him perplexedly.
“It’s the offer of a deathtime,” the man said breathlessly. “You don’t have to learn new skills, you get free board and lodging, heating allowance, special clothing.” He twitched. “But you must act now, or the position will be gone.” He thrust a red pen towards Arthur. “Just sign on the dotted line.”

Arthur had seen plenty of salesmen in his time, desperate men who would say anything to sell a patent medicine, potion, or marvelous new invention. “You said I have the experience,” he told the drummer. “You mean, in the foundry?”

“Yes, of course,” the man said. “Act now, while the iron is still hot.” He laughed nervously at his own joke.

“I think,” Arthur said, “that, with all my experience, and having waited thirty-three years. I should be able to go to heaven right away, and choose my own position.”

The drummer blanched. “Hhheav…,” he cried. “Up there. No no no. You died in a bar brawl, they’ll never take you up there.”

“Then, you don’t have to worry,” Arthur snapped. “And I can wait a few more years for another offer.”

“But I like you,” the salesman wailed. “I’m doing you a favour. Look,” he said excitedly, as if a new idea had just struck him. “With your experience I can get you in as a foreman. You can have a whole work crew under you down below. Just think, you can order them about, and you won’t even have to exert yourself.” He looked hopefully at Arthur. “Just rub a rag across the machines every so often. What do you say?” he added thrusting out the pen again.

“He’ll need to listen to me first.” A sour-faced little man sat down beside them, and the salesman, whose horns Arthur could see quite clearly now, vanished with a pop and a screech.

“Alright,” the little man said peremptorily, “I need to ask you quite a few questions before we will even consider you up there,” and he waved his hand at the smoky ceiling. He sounded, thought Arthur, just like a magistrate who had sentenced him to thirty days for disorderly conduct. Arthur opened his mouth. “I’ll ask the questions,” the little man said. “Now, bear in mind that, at most you will be admitted to the very lowest regions of Heaven.” He looked severely at Arthur. “Now,” he unfastened a white briefcase and looked short-sightedly at his papers. “When did you last attend a church service, religious gathering, or any sort of discussion group where religion was disseminated? Really,” he sniffed at Arthur, “I don’t know why they put all these loopholes in the questionnaire.” He sniffed again. “Well, come on, answer the question.”

Arthur felt his temper, never very steady, rise again. Only the thought that the alternative to this obnoxious little man involved stoking the fires of Hell forever kept him still. “Yes,” he said randomly. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure I went to one of those dissemination things.”

The little man coughed and sniffed. The proximity of a dead foundry worker seemed to have upset his sinuses. “When did you last perform a good deed, and with whom,” he enunciated. “Please state as completely as possible the time, nature and duration of the deed, your inner motives, and why you think the recipient deserved the deed.” He grunted. “Only certain categories of good deed will be accepted as valid, I’ll read you the categories and various restrictions that apply.”

The questions rolled on for hours and Arthur, who had expected to feel no pain while dead, at least prior to the possible descent into Hell, began to experience a throbbing headache, greatly magnified by the scratchy voice of the Angel. Finally, it was over and the Angel stuffed his papers into the white briefcase, hardly bothering to look at Arthur’s answers. “You’ll hear from us in a year or two,” he said, unfolding his wings and preparing to fly through the ceiling.

“A year or two,” Arthur moaned. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Well,” I suppose you could haunt the public house,” the Angel said off-handedly.

The third man entered quite normally, pushing open the bar door. Whereas the Devil was smooth and dark and the Angel was pink and plump, this man was quite ordinary. His battered cloth cap covered wiry black hair, and his rolled-up shirtsleeves showed sinewy arms that looked as if they had carried heavy loads for decades. “Don’t listen to Lord Twaddle there, or Sir Monty Mephisto,” he said. He sat at the table. “See you later, Twaddle,” he called, and waved the Angel away. He looked at Arthur and gave a tired grin. “I know,” he said, “I should be giving you the standard sales pitch, but I was never very good at it. I was working class all my life and I’m proud of it. Give me an honest day’s work and a few pints and I’m happy.”

“But, surely you’re dead,” Arthur protested.

“Damn right I am, but I can still do an honest day’s work.” The man stuck out his hand “Jimmy Wheeler, at your service.”

Arthur liked this man. Jimmy Wheeler was happy in his work, no doubt about that. “You seem like a nice bloke,” he said. “But I’m not going to sign up for a lifetime in Hell.”

Jimmy shuddered. “Do I look as if I just came from down there,” he said. “I told you I was no Angel, but I’m no Devil either.” Arthur frowned and the man went on. “I’m from the Third Way. That’s what we call ourselves. My official title is ‘Grand High Potentate in charge of Limbo Recruitment, England, Central Region” He smiled ruefully. “Some of the lads like that type of title, reminds them of the organizations they used to belong to when they were alive. What I am is a recruiter for the Limbos.” Arthur looked at him questioningly. “There are hundreds of them,” Jimmy said airily. He pulled a brochure out of thin air. “Here, take a look at them.”

Arthur gaped at the bright glossy pictures. “Got the technology from Heaven,” Jimmy said. “Bit of industrial espionage.” He sat back. “You’ll hear a lot about industrial espionage soon, I’m sure.”

“I can choose?” Arthur asked. He flipped through pictures of smiling well-fed workers in well-kept factories and cheery pubs where foaming beer flowed. “I’ll take this one,” he said, indicating what appeared to be the biggest and brightest layout.

“It has to be local,” Jimmy said. “Take your time. Makes sense that you want a local Limbo, where everyone knows you, and you know everyone – so to speak. You have to be somewhere where everyone speaks your language, and understands your accent. You don’t want to make a mistake.” The recruiter sat back and lit a cigar. “You understand, I can’t offer you one of these,” he said, puffing out smoke. There are all these silly rules about bribery, mostly imposed by the Angels. Afterwards, though, we can have a smoke and a drink to celebrate your choice.” He looked at Arthur thoughtfully. “You were killed in a bar-fight.”

Arthur felt a twinge and looked down. The knife was still there, between his ribs. “First one I’ve ever been in,” he said. “At least, the first one where I got knifed,” he added, silently to himself.

“I can tell you’re a decent bloke,” Jimmy said. “Tell you what I can do. I’m sticking my neck out, usually leaders are chosen from within the existing labor force, but I think I can swing a leadership position for you.”

“I only know foundry work,” Arthur said.

“Of course, of course. But as a leader you can do anything you want.” He shuffled his papers. “Naturally,” he went on, “you can’t just walk in and take over one of our deluxe Limbo. Some of our occupants have waited centuries to get to that position. Remember, you will be a Governor, – do what you want, fix the place up.” He waved his hands. “In no time, you’ll have a top-notch place.” He handed a document to Arthur. “Just sign here.”

“I see your point,” Arthur said, “but I’d really like to…”

Jimmy frowned. “I’m going out on a very thin branch for you, my friend,” he said, “because I like you.” He started to gather up his papers. “If you don’t want this opportunity there are hundreds of others who do. This is a fast track to Heaven I’m offering you.” He sighed. “I’m a busy man; I don’t have time to argue with you.” He began to get up.

“Alright, I’ll take it,” Arthur cried.

“Ah, good,” Jimmy beamed. He shoved the contract over and Arthur signed. “At last,” Jimmy laughed, “no more dim bars and dimmer spirits for me.” He chuckled and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve filled my quota for the month, I can take a couple of days off,” he said happily. “Goodbye.” Half way out of the door, he turned. “Oh. Yes.” he said distractedly. He fished in his briefcase and tossed a tattered envelope at Arthur. Nice doing business,” he said, vanishing.

Arthur stared at the envelope. “Well, you’ve done it now,” a voice said. The smooth Devil was back, horns clearly visible. “He really made a fool of you,” the Devil said spitefully.

“I’m going to be a Governor,” Arthur told him.

The Devil cackled. “Ah, yes, a Governor. That means you won’t have any friends because you’re management. Of course, you won’t be able to manage anything. The joint Council will be down your throat every five minutes, with ‘do this, do that. Keep up your quota, deliver us some souls. No, deliver us some souls. You’re a sinner, sending souls to Hell; no you’re a fool, sending sinners to H… – up there.”

“Jimmy gave me a good deal,” Arthur said feebly. “He’s working class, just like me.”

“Ha!” the Devil cried. He never did an honest day’s work in his life. Used to peddle liver pills and snake oil in that new place – America. The black-suited apparition chuckled again, wisps of smoke puffing out of his ears. “Jimmy’s happy now. He unloaded that awful place on you and now he gets to go upstairs for a nice holiday. “Ha!” he said again, and a small fireball spat from his mouth and whooshed up through the ceiling. “I hope that catches up with him before he gets to the Pearly Gates,” and the Devil disappeared with an angry bang.

Arthur picked up the envelope thoughtfully. The pictures of his Limbo were not reassuring. Grimy houses hunched over mean narrow streets. Miserable workers trudged wearily through dark rain, and in the background, a huge foundry belched black smoke at the dark, yellowy clouds. Arthur thought of Gladys, and his mates, and the warm fireplace in the pub in what he still thought of as the ‘real’ world.

“What have I done,” he muttered.


Chapter 3 – Settling the Score
Jimmy the recruiter reappeared moments after leaving for the Pearly Gates. “I almost forgot the orientation.” He said. “That Devil threw a thunderbolt at me, but I bounced the damn thing back.” There was an explosion outside, glasses rattled, and flakes fell from the ceiling. “There it is,” he added cheerfully. “Now,” he continued briskly, “I have to officially escort you through one of the entrances, and give you a quick introduction to the place.”

“I’ve changed my…” Arthur began, but he was suddenly standing in a nondescript street.

“Just turn that corner and keep walking,” Jimmy said hastily. “You’ll soon reach the foundry, you can’t miss it. Ask anyone and they’ll set you straight about what to do.” He gave Arthur a shove, and Arthur, grabbing a lamppost, made a left turn into a grimy street of crumbling houses and dim gas-lamps. He rushed back round the corner and staggered, holding his sore nose, which seemed to have been hit by a wall of thick glass. “Good luck!” a voice said, high above him.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Arthur mumbled to himself, looking at the sooty houses. He began to realize that, far from being a new friend, Jimmy Wheeler had made a complete fool of him. Arthur was not used to looking foolish, but now twice, within a couple of hours he had been done in. Admittedly, the first time he had been bested was thirty years before, but the memory was fresh, and the smiling face of the flashy Londoner merged with the smiling face of Jimmy Wheeler. Somehow, the fact that they were working class like him, made his anger more acute.

Arthur walked up the gloomy street, kicking stones into dirty rain-puddles. It had been raining steadily since he arrived at Limbo56, a situation that, from the general sogginess of his surroundings, seemed to be permanent. His nose healed remarkably quickly, and he supposed that this was one of the advantages to being in Limbo, possibly the only advantage. He was wet, tired, and depressed. Determinedly he struggled on, towards the outlines of a square black building that he assumed to be the foundry. The street was deserted, until finally three figures emerged from the gloom, pushing a hand truck. The central one was huge, and the other two had a square, solid look that he associated with foundry work. They stopped three feet away from him, and he stopped and looked at them. “What is this?” the big one said. “It’s the middle of a shift, so why aren’t you at work?” The others chuckled.

“What about you three?” Arthur countered. He had been tricked into governing this dismal place, almost hit by a thunderbolt, and thrown into his job with no training. He was not feeling diplomatic.

One of the men started to move forward, but the big one held him back. “We’re going to pick up some parts from the gateway,” he said.

“In a hand truck,” Arthur said incredulously. “Why not use a horse and cart?”

“This is Limbo, not a rest home,” the big man told him, a statement that Arthur was to hear, and say himself, many times. “We have no animals here.”

“I’ll have to do something about that,” Arthur said, and the men burst out in rasps of laughter.

“What’s a skinny looking tyke like you going to do about procuring horses,” one of them said. “Are you sure you don’t want to get a fleet of them new-fangled motor-cars.”

The big man, however, had noticed Arthur’s arms and hands. “You’ve worked in a foundry before,” he said.

“All my working life.”

“Boys, we’ve finally been given someone who knows what he is doing,” the big man said. “He can teach us all how to avoid getting our hands and feet burned off. Did you just arrive?”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “I’m supposed to report to the foundry so someone can show me the ropes.”

“I need someone on my crew,” one of the men said. “If he’s as good as he says he’ll be a big help with our quota.”

“I’m not going to be working in the foundry,” Arthur told them. “The recruiter found me an executive position.” He shrugged. “I would have been content working in the foundry,” he looked around, “in a better Limbo than this.” He looked at them. “Jimmy told me that this is a good deal.”

“You were recruited by Jimmy Wheeler?” the big man asked; “Jimmy Wheeler the ex foundry man?” Arthur nodded. “He’s the biggest confidence man in all the limbo. He was two weeks on the line. Had to take a couple of breaks because he burnt his foot off, almost caused two of my best men to do the same, brought our quota way down, and finally managed to trick his way into a recruiting job.” He sighed. “So he gets hold of the first real iron worker we’ve had in this miserable place, and recruits him as… what?”

“I’m the new Governor here,” Arthur said with a touch of pride.

To his surprise, they all burst out laughing. Arthur heard, “he really did it.” “I feel sorry for skinny here,” “He can’t be too bright to fall for old Jimmy.”

“Look here,” Arthur said, his spirits sinking. “I am Governor here. Jimmy seemed to think I’d be good at the job.”

The big man bowed. “Your subject, Shadrach Jones, sire. May I ask you what sort of executive experience you have?” Arthur looked blank. “Experience running things,” Shadrach said. “Form filling in quadruplicate, stocktaking, ordering supplies, quality inspection, allocation of material and resources, legal affairs and occasional diplomacy when one of your subjects escapes, or when the occasional Devil appears and asks for asylum. Not to mention dealing with two of the most hidebound bureaucracies around, the Devils and the Angels, and that’s just a short list.”

“I’ve been a temporary line foreman a couple of times,” Arthur ventured lamely, intimidated by the big man’s eloquence.

Shadrach groaned. “I’d like to wring Jimmy Wheeler’s neck,” he said. “We finally get someone who can be of use to us and he gets lashed to the mast.” Shadrach grinned at Arthur’s confusion. “That’s an expression we use. You see, if anything goes wrong here, someone has to pay the price, and who better than the Governor, a person who is just a drag on the economy. They can’t send us all to Hell, unless they retire the entire Limbo, so, Arthur, you are the sacrificial goat.”

“I was told that being Governor was a fast track to Heaven,” Arthur said, fighting to keep a complaining whine out of his tone.

“That’s what Jimmy told me,” Shadrach said cheerfully, “but I’m no fool – sorry Arthur. Governors usually last about four months here,” he continued callously. “Of course, the Council moves very slowly. It takes about one hundred years to render a verdict, once you’ve been fired.”

“Plenty of time to redeem myself,” Arthur said, brightening up.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Shadrach told him. “If you are charged with incompetence or worse you get locked up in gaol – a kind of Limbo within Limbo. It’s not a happy place. Some prisoners have petitioned to go straight to Hell.”

Arthur looked at them. “Who will be briefing me, back at the foundry?”

“I will,” Shadrach said. “I’ve been acting Governor for a couple of weeks. Thank God that’s over.”

“I might as well give you a hand,” Arthur told him. “You can brief me while we’re walking.”

Later, in a small office, lost in a dirty corner of the foundry, Shadrach and Arthur faced each other.

“We call ourselves Intermediates,” Shadrach said. “I don’t know why, it was always that way.” He refilled Arthur’s glass. “We have five pubs,” he said. “That constitutes our nightlife. The beer tastes like vinegar and the food, when they bother to serve any, tastes like cardboard.”

Arthur drank and grimaced. “Is it as bad as this at the other Limbo?” he asked.

“No,” Shadrach said judiciously, “most of them are a little better than this. Jimmy Wheeler has been starving this place since he took over as head recruiter. We get shorted on supplies, slandered in Heaven and Hell, and” he glanced at Arthur, saddled with idiot Governors.”

Arthur felt a familiar frustration, dealing with the big man, who spoke confidently, like one of the factory bosses who occasionally deigned to address the workers from on high. “Wait a minute,” Arthur was getting angry. “I may have no experience, but I’m going to try, as long as I last.”

Shadrach eyed him coldly. “What can you do,” he said, “You’re just a … an ironworker.”

Arthur looked at Shadrach, anger threatening to choke him. He had been murdered by smooth, confident O’Grady, fooled by fast-talking Jimmy Wheeler and patronized by Demon and Angel recruiters. This self-assured man in front of him, a man in Limbo, working in the foundry, still had the power to intimidate, to turn him into the small boy on the canal bank. He hadn’t thought of that small boy, filled with big dreams in a long time, and thinking of his younger self, Arthur felt the anger change to something colder and more determined. They had all pushed him around, and he had let them, without thinking, a mindless drone that they had turned him into.

“I knew it,” he said disgustedly. “Say what you mean. I am a common ignorant worker, not fit to run a public lavatory. You’re a Toff,” he said triumphantly. “Behind that foundry dirt and the fighters face, you’re a gent. It must really hurt you to have to work with monkeys like us, get your hands dirty, get calluses, just like us,” he shoved his hands in Shadrach’s face. “At least I know what I am,” he said. “I didn’t get sent to Limbo for nothing. I’ve been weak and stupid and vicious. I’m not a nice person, but I had dreams of changing my life when I was younger, being a better husband and father.” He suddenly thought of Joe, his best friend. Joe, who went to work uncomplaining, and who gave most of his money to his mother, and who never knowingly hurt anyone. “I used to think being the hardest man on the street was the best I could be, but there were men a lot stronger than me, men who didn’t have to prove it with their fists and their loud voices.” He stopped, surprised at himself.

“Alright,” Shadrach said. “We’re supposed to be talking about the easiest way to run Limbo. “I was merely saying that, because of your upbringing, because of your class, through no fault of your own, you are not equipped to govern four thousand undead citizens.”

“You know,” Arthur told him. “You’ve been out of touch. Workers have been unionizing, even forming political parties. No,” he said, forestalling Shadrach, “We’re not equipped. Have you seen men in the real world, coughing up their lungs? Have you seen our so-called fighting men, dying by the hundreds, not just in wars, but in dirty hospitals, or under an unheated tent in winter?” He held up his hands again. “These hands didn’t kill them. These hands don’t control the world. It’s you, and yours that control the world.” He banged the table and stood up. “Tell me I’m a fool who was taken in by a second rate salesman, but don’t use my class to tell me I’m not fit to run this miserable place.”

The office door banged open, and one of the supervisors entered. “What’s going on, Shad?”

“Get out,” Shadrach said. He took a deep breath and looked at Arthur. “Last time anyone talked to me like that, he was unable to work for a month,” he murmured.

Arthur looked at the big man. “You can put me down for a couple of days,” he said. “But I’ll guarantee that I’ll hurt you.”

Shadrach looked at him steadily. “This is Limbo,” he said. “Don’t expect any apologies. We’re all here for a reason. There’s no compassion here, and very little friendship.”

“Just let me do my job,” Arthur told him. “I have a month, maybe, I have nothing to lose, and I’m angry as Hell.”

“You’re quite a surprise,” Shadrach said. “You know, you’ll have no respect and few friends, even if you make matters a little better, which I doubt, and afterwards, you’ll go to Hell.”

Arthur rode his anger. “The first thing I need to do,” he said, “is to get rid of Jimmy Wheeler. I think I’ll be the recruiter for this particular Limbo.”

Shadrach gaped at him. “You can’t be Governor and a recruiter,” he said. “It’s against the rules.”

“Show me where,” Arthur said, “these rules are written down.” He was beginning to enjoy himself. Shadrach, after all, was a man, like Arthur himself, a man who could be caught off balance, even made to feel foolish.

“It’s the way we’ve always done things,” Shadrach told him.

“We’ll change the way things are done.”

“I admire your determination, I really do,” Shadrach said. “But you won’t have time to do anything other than fill out the paperwork, listen to complaints, and deal with disputes.”

“I’ll have time,” Arthur said, “because you will be running this place for the next few days.” Again, Shadrach gaped at him. “You’ve managed for two weeks,” Arthur said. “Manage for a few more days.” Now he was really enjoying himself. For the first time since his death he was in control. ‘If I have a month before going to Hell,’ he thought, ‘it will be almost worth it. And what have I got to lose, anyway?’

“What makes you think that I’ll do anything for you,” Shadrach stormed.

“Because, sir, I saw your face when I said that you and yours had done an awful job of running the world. I don’t know what your story is, and I don’t want to know, but I do know that, back in the past, you failed miserably.” Arthur smiled. “A gent like you won’t want to be shamed by a common working man.”

“You arrogant little bastard,” Shadrach said. “What makes you think you are anything special?”

“What makes you think you’re any better than me?” Arthur countered.

Shadrach blinked, and then smiled suddenly. “Damn, if you can put one over on Jimmy Wheeler, it’ll almost be worth governing for a little longer.”

“When I was a kid,” Arthur told him, “I had big dreams, but reality soon set in.” He grinned at Shadrach. “I used to get angry and start a fight, and that was the end of it. I’m angry now, angry at the bastard who stabbed me, and angry at Jimmy Wheeler. It’s like a fire running through me, and it’s not going away. I have a chance to shake up this world. I’m angry and I don’t give a damn. I’m dead, and I’ll probably be gone in a month, and I have nothing to lose.”

“Just so long as you don’t drag us all down with you,” Shadrach said.

They stood up and Arthur held out his hand. Shadrach enfolded it in his large paw, and Arthur was tempted to give Shadrach a sample of his iron grip, except, he thought, toff or not, the big man would probably break his knuckles. “Come on,” he said. “You can show me around and tell the workers that you will be Governor for a little longer.”

They walked into the din of the foundry and Arthur looked around curiously. “Fasten your boot,” he snapped at one of the workers. “One small splash of molten iron gets inside and you’ll be hopping around like a kangaroo.” He pointed to a small pile of scrap iron. “Move that stuff and straighten the conveyor line,” he ordered. Experimentally, he heaped black sand on a shovel and tossed it back into the bin. “Much too dry,” he said to the men.

“It’s a lot heavier when it’s wetter,” one of the men ventured.

Arthur glared at him. “Of course it is. He turned to a foreman. “How many of these moulds break before they can be poured.”

“About ten percent,” the man told him.

“So you’ll shovel a bit harder and produce ten percent more moulds,” Arthur said, walking away.

That same day, Arthur drew up plans to cut the four-man teams to three. It wasn’t an original idea, he admitted to himself, he’d seen it in a real-life foundry, and knew that the system worked. Arthur explained his smeary diagram to Shadrach, and the big man looked thoughtful. “Are you sure this will work,” he asked thoughtfully.

“It’s not my brilliant idea,” Arthur told him. “I’ve seen it work. It will add fifteen percent to our output.” Shadrach pursed his lips and left without comment. Within a couple of days, the new scheme was working on every shift.

A week later, he sat in the small room that Shadrach had allocated him. There was a water stain on the ceiling and the place managed to seem musty and draughty at the same time, but Shadrach insisted that this was one of the better rooms in Limbo56. Arthur’s spirits faded somewhat as he realized that he had no idea how to exit from Limbo, much less wrest the recruiting job from Jimmy Wheeler. He was tracing cracks in the ceiling when a drum roll of knocks shook the door. “Come in, Shadrach,” he called.

“How did you know it was me,” Shadrach entered, clutching two large bottles of beer.

“The house almost collapsed,” Arthur said dryly.

“I got word today that Jimmy Wheeler is back from his holiday – up there.” Shadrach said. So, when are we going to start,” he asked, handing Arthur a bottle of tasteless Limbo beer.

“Do they make this stuff especially for Limbo, or are our taste buds deader than we are?” Arthur asked, grimacing, and they exchanged complaints about the beer the weather and the general inadequacy of Limbo56. “I’m surprised to see you here,” Arthur said, “I didn’t think you wanted to be involved.” Shadrach shrugged. “Then let’s go to the gateway on Main,” Arthur told him.

“It’ll take about a week to be able to obtain a pass,” Shadrach told him. “Have you petitioned the angels?”

Arthur scowled. “That must have been part of the orientation I missed,” he said. “Anyway, how do I get in touch with an Angel?” Shadrach pointed to an ancient telephone that Arthur would have sworn was not there when he last looked.

“Don’t touch the red button,” Shadrach said, “It’s for extreme emergencies only.”

Arthur grabbed the phone and pushed the red button, causing bells to ring in the street outside and in the surrounding streets too, from what he could hear. “If I’m right,” he said, “Angels don’t lie, and they never cheat, and they always strive to be fair. “Hello,” he continued into the phone. “Yes, this is an emergency. I have an urgent message for Jimmy Wheeler. Yes, I know that he is a regional recruiter for Limbo, but he dumped a bunch of goodly souls here and forgot to pick them up. Yes, destined for Heaven, about a hundred, but I’m a little concerned. They’ve been hanging around here in Limbo for two days now, and they’re getting very annoyed. Yes. Yes, a couple of them have started to take the Lord’s name in vain, and about an hour ago, two of them got into a fistfight. I’m afraid you’re going to lose them if I don’t get them away quickly. No, no, no, don’t bother; I’ll bring them to you.” He listened for a few seconds. “I have your directions; I shall be at the designated place as soon as possible.” He nodded a couple of times. “Do you have any timetable for Jimmy, any idea where he’s going to be for the next few days? Yes, I’m supposed to meet him for a couple of beers, and I know he’ll be very disappointed if we don’t get together.”

Arthur hung up the old phone. Shadrach was staring at him. “If I’m going to lie, I might as well make it a big one,” he said. “Have you noticed that the Angels are flattered when you treat them like regular people? I think deep down they’re rather intimidated by us.”

They stepped into the street, Shadrach shaking his head. “But, man, you promised the Angels a hundred souls,” he spluttered. “Where are you going to get them from?”

“I’ll worry about that when I’ve fixed things with Jimmy,” Arthur told him. “I didn’t give an exact time, or day, for that matter, for delivery. You know how slow the Angels are at reacting to events, how naïve they are.” He faced Shadrach. “Why do you think that a pathetic fraud like Jimmy Wheeler was able to fool all you clever gents, not to mention the Angels, and land a plum job as a recruiter; not just a junior recruiter but head recruiter for a whole region of England? It’s because he’s willing to lie through his teeth, and he knows how to lie. Arthur sniffed. I can lie too, maybe not as loud as Jimmy, but I have an edge. I’m angry and I have nothing to lose.” They walked to the Gateway. “Thanks for helping,” Arthur said. “By the way, does that old phone of mine have a number?”

“LIM 56,” Shadrach said. “It takes messages, too.” Arthur looked at him. “Don’t ask me how,” he said. “You just talk at it, and at this end there’s a little flashing light, and that means it wants to talk to you.”

“Keep an eye on it for me, will you. I might want to contact you.”

“Is there anything else, your Highness?”

Arthur grinned. “Make sure the room stays tidy,” he said, slipping round the corner into the real world.


Chapter 4 – The Real World
It was nighttime, cool and dry, and hundreds of stars twinkled in the black sky. “I’d forgotten about stars,” Arthur whispered to himself, looking up in awe. He followed a line of yellow gas-lamps that pointed to a dark city. A rusty sign loomed out of the night. “Sheffield,” Arthur muttered, satisfied; this was the city where Jimmy was recruiting; the place where the mythical goodly souls were to be dropped off. Sheffield, however, was a big city. Why had he expected to easily find one man? When the sun came up, he had a partial answer.

Citizens emerged, coughing, from their houses, hurrying to work on cycles and electrical trams and strange, rattling moveable chairs. He had heard of the electrical trams but had only seen horse-drawn ones. The trams banged down the street on iron tracks, occasionally shooting out blue sparks, alarming him. He finally figured out that the moving chairs were the new-fangled cars he had been hearing about.

He walked among the citizens and, subtly, they avoided him, swerving around him when he blocked their path, ignoring him when he spoke to them. The living, it seemed, were not inclined to notice the undead. The dead and the dying, on the other hand, stood out like candles in the dark. A demon recruiter snarled at him, a ghost turned into a rather pretty pink dragon in front of him, and then wandered away disconsolately when he laughed. An old man greeted him uncertainly, tottered a few yards, and fell. Before he could help, the spirit arose and sailed away like a leaf in the wind, leaving behind an untidy shapeless bundle. Arthur caught up with the old man, standing at a tram stop. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m waiting for a tram,” the old man said. “I have to join my wife – up there.”

Arthur found that if he concentrated, he could locate the dying and the dead. He searched ahead and to the side, knowing that he would recognize Jimmy Wheeler. He thought of the smooth-talking recruiter and let his anger build up. He finally located Jimmy in the largest bank in town, talking to the manager, who was destined for a heart attack in a very short time. Nobody saw the new Governor as he slipped into the luxurious office of the bank manager.

“I’m a businessman, just like you,” Jimmy was saying. “Personally, I don’t think fraud and embezzlement warrant sending you to Limbo, but that’s not my choice.” Jimmy was dressed in an expensive suit and drinking whiskey and tonic. “I shall, of course, place you in an environment suitable to your station in life.” He broke off, eyes widening.

“Hello, Jimmy,” Arthur said, lifting the man off his chair. He hit the recruiter on the jaw. “I’m borrowing him for a minute,” he told the bank manager, who looked as if his heart was about to attack. “If you die before he gets back,” Arthur said pleasantly, “you will still be able to talk to him.”

He dragged the recruiter across the street and into a small park, dropping him on to a bench. Jimmy looked at him with a mixture of fear and hatred. “I’ll have you sent directly to Hell for this,” he shouted.

“Of course you will,” Arthur told him. “I could just follow you around for a while, rapping you on the jaw.”

“You’re insane,” Jimmy cried, you’re going to Hell faster than you can say your name.” He pulled a tiny phone from his pocket. Arthur rapped him on the jaw again. Jimmy looked like a man about to cry. “What do you want?” he asked.

Arthur searched desperately for an idea. He had thought that the sight of Jimmy Wheeler would stimulate a brilliant scheme to save his Limbo and his bacon. His mind was blank. ‘Am I still that frightened foundry worker?’ he asked himself. ‘Intimidated by a man who has never done a real day’s work in his life?’ “You as good as sent me to Hell,” he said. “You saddled me with the worst Limbo on your books; you made me look like a fool in front of the other Intermediates there.” He smiled bitterly at the recruiter. “I could just follow you around and make your life a misery, until they come and put me away. At least, I’ll have a century or so in the Limbo gaol before the hearing. You don’t scare me because I have nothing to lose.” Then the brilliant scheme came fully-grown into his mind. “But you do,” he said. “You have a lot to lose.”

It took him a few minutes to tell Jimmy what he was prepared to do. The man looked at him in amazement, not recognizing the naïve foundry man of a few weeks before. The recruiter blustered and threatened, expecting Arthur to cave in, and when that didn’t happen, he turned on the charm and offered Arthur a position working as a recruiter, one of Jimmie’s elite squad. “I misjudged you,” he flattered. “You have what it takes to succeed. I should have known.”

The newly minted Arthur sniffed. “I’m going to be a recruiter,” he said. “But I’m going to be in charge. I’ll be the sole recruiter for Limbo56, and you will keep out of my way.” It took about an hour to calm Jimmy down sufficiently to get his agreement. They stopped off at a prestigious law office on the top floor of the bank, maneuvering past a gaggle of employees who surrounded the prone form of a recently deceased bank manager. Arthur folded the legal documents appointing him a member of Jimmy’s team of recruiters with sole and full responsibility for Limbo56. “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “The Angels are waiting for you to deliver one hundred goodly souls.” He gave Jimmy the co-ordinates. “True,” he said, answering Jimmy’s question, “they don’t exist, but I’m sure you’ll come up with a satisfactory explanation.” He waved at the recruiter and started back towards the gateway.

Back in Limbo, he examined his new-found confidence and locked himself in his quarters. He read everything about the Governorship that he could lay his hands on. He was wild-eyed and exhausted when Shadrach finally came banging on his door. “I told you it was impossible,” the big man said, looking at the unwashed, hollow eyed Governor. “Here,” He Pulled a bottle of vinegary whisky from his pocket and poured them both a hefty slug.

“I have some ideas,” Arthur told him, then “Oh, you mean Jimmy Wheeler?” He pulled out the contract and waved it in Shadrach’s face. Shadrach read the document and sat down with a bump.

“That’s impossible,” Shadrach was still saying a little later. “I can’t believe you got him to sign this,” he re-examined the contract. “How did you manage it?”

“I offered him tit for tat,” Arthur said grinning. “He was going to make a complaint, have me tried by the Eternal Powers. I told him that two could play that game, and that I too was entitled to complain. Naturally, my complaints were frivolous, as the Powers would discover within minutes. But…”

“It usually takes at least a century to convene the court,” Shadrach finished for him.

“And, whereas a century in a Limbo gaol would probably postpone my descent into Hell for 99 years, a century in a Limbo gaol would be Hell for a successful recruiter.” Arthur drank the whisky and grimaced. “That, and the prospect of me following him round and hitting him in the face until they dragged me to gaol convinced him.”


Chapter 5 – Settling down
“So now you are our new recruiter,” Shadrach said. “Tell me when you’re going to find time to recruit.” He ticked a couple of points off on his fingers. If you don’t prepare perfect paperwork in triplicate, if you don’t order for Limbo in correct quantity, if you don’t balance the books, if your output drops below a certain point, if you don’t do a thousand other useless, bureaucratic things, boom, you’re in front of the council. You hand in your ledgers, say hello to the devils, go to gaol for a century or so, and then go downstairs for the rest of eternity.” Once again, Shadrach shook his head. “It’s impossible to do both jobs, believe me; I’ve been trying to run this place for a couple of weeks.” He bit his lip. “On top of that, Jimmy Wheeler has been cutting away at us for several years now. We’re close to being shut down completely.”

“What happens then,” Arthur asked.

Shadrach thought for a moment. “Then, we’re all shipped off to a giant version of a Limbo prison to await final disposal, which for most of us will be Hell.” He looked at Arthur. “The accepted wisdom is that, if we’re not capable of running a simple little Limbo, we can hardly qualify for Heaven. He sighed. ”With your contract you can visit the real world and recruit. I can govern, so long as no-one upstairs or downstairs finds out, although I’ll only be able to work part-time in the foundry.” Shadrach sighed. “The problem is, we don’t have any reserves. Everyone is fully occupied here.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “What about all those failed Governors, loafing about in gaol? They can help me govern”

“They can’t get out,” Shadrach reminded him. “Remember that glass wall you ran into a while back. You can’t move the foundry inside the gaol.”

That night, Arthur went through the voluminous prison records. Obtaining them was simple. He picked up the old telephone, said ‘Administrative, prison,’ and opened the box that doubled as a table in the corner of his room. For once, the huge volume of paperwork imposed on Limbo was an advantage. Naturally, most of the Governors had been labourers or gravediggers, or factory workers. Few had any executive experience. Arthur came across an accountant and underlined his name. One had been a politician; Arthur drew question marks around the name. There were a few shopkeepers, and a career criminal; Arthur drew a thoughtful question mark next to that one. By the next morning, he was ready to visit the prison. He carried the records of three of the inmates and a plan of the gaol.

Once again, he dragged Shadrach along. “They know you,” he said, “most of them”. The gaol was a large cube, accessed by a perfectly ordinary door. Arthur looked at Shadrach, who shrugged. Inside, they met a man who had been staring at the ceiling. “How did you get in?” he asked. Arthur pointed at the door, now a hazy blemish on the wall. “Ah,” the man said, and went back to looking at the ceiling.

“I know him,” Shadrach said, “He was the Governor before you. They tend to move in towards the center cells as they stay longer.” He looked around restlessly. “Look at this cell that we’re in. I daresay it appears quite comfortable, but, as you can see, there is nothing here apart from 3 chairs, 1 bed, and 1 table. I suppose the three chairs are to emphasize the fact that, in the cell, there’s only one person – alone. I hear that the cells are all the same, they never change.”

“I was counting on that,” Arthur said. “What I’m concerned about now is how we get from this cell to the others.”

“All I’ve ever visited,” Shadrach said, “is this cell. Came in through the door, dropped a Governor off, and left through the same door. It’s back again,” he said pointing.

“The door is in a different place,” Arthur said. We came in over there.” They walked through the door into an identical cell. The inmate, huddled in a corner, singing hymns, ignored them. “The accountant is nearest to us,” Arthur said, “I think.” He pointed at the table, and a door obediently appeared. “Come on,” he said.

Shadrach took the prison plan from him. “You’re holding this upside-down,” he said, “and the furniture is on a different wall from the previous cell. I’ve had some experience reading plans, and maps,” he added. Arthur raised his eyebrows. “When I was a coach driver,” Shadrach said.

“What about reading plans?”

“Comes in handy when you’re a professional burglar,” Shadrach answered.

“You were a coach driver and a professional burglar?”

“Drove the coach to escape from the Peelers,” Shadrach said, straight-faced. It was obvious that he was not going to talk about himself, but Arthur realized from the reference to Peelers, rather than Bobbies, that the man was close to being a contemporary. Shadrach pointed to a blank wall, they moved through the door, and after a few maneuvers, they arrived at the cell of the Accountant, by which time Arthur was completely lost.

The Accountant was apparently reasonably sane. When they popped out of the wall, he let out a screech and threw a chair at them. “I’ll not go to Hell,” he screamed.

Shadrach thrust his face at the prisoner. “Remember me,” he said. “We’re here to talk to you.”

The Accountant looked at him, puzzled. “Yes,” he said. “You are one of the foremen in the foundry. But who is he?” he asked, pointing to Arthur.

“He’s the new Governor, and he has questions for you,” Shadrach told him, and the accountant looked up interestedly.

“Are you here to pardon me? I’ll tell you everything,” the accountant babbled. “I’ll say anything you want. Just tell me who you want to blame.”

“I can’t pardon you,” Arthur told him. There are a great many laws about what I can and cannot do. However, I can help.”

It took a while to persuade the accountant, but it was obvious from the beginning that he could not wait to get back to his beloved figures. “We had the best documented failure rate of all the Limbolands,” Shadrach muttered disgustedly.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to do anything in here,” the accountant said. “We’re supposed to look at the walls and go crazy. Did you change the rule?”

“I told you, I’m not allowed to change the rules.” Arthur said. “Didn’t you read anything when you became Governor?” The accountant muttered something about being only an accountant. “You can repent.” Arthur told him. “You can have paper and writing materials to write down your sins and repent. Take an hour a day doing that and you may have them all recorded by the time your hundred years is up.”

“What about my accounting?”

“You shall have as many ledgers as you require. As an extra penalty, I’m forcing you to improve your accounting skills.”

“Improve,” the accountant exploded. “I’m perfect. I never make mistakes.”

“Good,” Arthur told him. “Because, purely as an exercise, you’ll be getting the books of Limbo56 daily, starting from when the number one shift finishes…”

“No,” the accountant interrupted. “Starting with shift three, it has to be shift three.”

“Fine,” Arthur said hastily, “whatever you say. We can’t do anything about the past week…”

“Yes we can,” the accountant told him. “Just bring me everything you can, about the foundry, the Artisans, the Pubs, House construction, food distribution…”

“But we don’t build houses, or distribute food,” Arthur said.

“Paper houses, paper food,” the accountant said and Shadrach muttered agreement. “Also bring details of our trade with the outside world and our black market with hell,” he continued.

“Some of these will need to be recorded in special ledgers,” Arthur said hastily.

“Of course,” the accountant said contemptuously. “You think I don’t know my business?”

“What have I done?” Arthur said, as Shadrach pointed towards a new door.

The Politician was lying uncomfortably on his back across the table. “Take a seat,” he told them, as if his first visit in two years was a perfectly normal occurrence.

“So,” he said after a few minutes. He sat up, bones cracking. “The coup has succeeded. Did you bring my Generals uniform?”

“Crazy as a Loon,” Shadrach said, getting up.

“Wait,” Arthur told him. “Yes the coup Succeeded,” he said to the politician. “My faction is in charge now. Some of my colleagues wanted your cell sealed off completely until you are shipped to hell.” The politician sagged. “But I persuaded them differently. You used to be a lawyer,” he continued. “We may call on your services from time to time. Since you are a politician, you can be allowed back into Limbo, under strict supervision, to interact honestly with the citizens in furtherance of your rehabilitation. In the meantime, take a look at this.” He tossed a copy of the Jimmy Wheeler contract on to the desk.

“You really want to visit the career criminal?” Shadrach asked when they had finished with the Politician. “He’s recent, and he doesn’t like me.”

“Why not?” Arthur asked the big man. They were in an empty cell, and Shadrach sat down, sighing, enveloping one of the small chairs.

“He was acquiring a lot of scrip,” he answered, “but none of it was going to Limbo. He had a squad of goons who used to loaf about the foundry, and they owned pub with real booze and real food. My workers had to walk past every day; they weren’t allowed inside.” Shadrach frowned. “This place, these workers are not much, but they’re all we’ve got. Bobby finally got too greedy, and started stealing from the Demons. I got word to them, and they gave him up to the Angels.” Shadrach paused, frowning. “I hadn’t anticipated that, I thought they’d just drag him down to Hell. So then, of course, the Angels informed him in their usual gentlemanly way that accusations had been made, and that they would be investigated, urgently, which, in their lexicon meant about six months.” Shadrach grimaced. “Of course, they also told him the name of his accuser so that he could prepare an adequate defense.” Shadrach shook his head. “We had a civil war here. They had guns from the outside. We can’t die, but a hail of bullets to the head can change someone permanently.” The big man frowned again. “Since then, I’ve been very careful not to upset the way things are.”

“You did what you thought was right,” Arthur said. “Anyway, from what the Accountant told us, some of his schemes have a life of their own.”

The career criminal was juggling when they arrived. Awkward and bulky as his chairs were, he kept all three in the air. They crashed down when he saw them, except for one that he flung at Shadrach. “I thought I had another forty years or so before my trial,” he said.

“You do,” Arthur told him. “Shadrach, please leave us alone.” He turned back to the criminal. “We’ve come to make your life a little more comfortable.” The Criminal smiled, and Arthur was reminded of the Demon who had tried to sell him a ticket to hell after he was killed. “How come you’re not already in Hell?” he asked.

“Never killed anyone,” the Criminal answered mournfully. “And it’s too late now. Damn those Demons,” he went on. “I could have fooled the Angels forever. Now, I’m going to Hell, and I’ll never be a major player.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how I could have gone through life without killing anyone. I used to feed mice to my pet snake, but they say that doesn’t count.”

“Some of your schemes are still alive,” Arthur said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to document all of your schemes and deceptions, and any new ideas you might have. It’s not for the Angels,” he added. “It’s for Limbo. We need an income, or we’re all going to hell.”

“What’s in it for me?” the Criminal asked.

“Ten percent,” Arthur told him. “No arguments, no bargaining. Take it or leave it.”

“And how am I going to run a criminal empire from in here?” the Criminal asked.

“I’ll be your contact,” Arthur said. “You run your empire from in here, in comfort, even luxury. You take a little time to write down how you’ve seen the error of your ways, how you have taken a vow of poverty, and how, obeying his instructions to make life difficult for all his subjects, your Governor keeps plying you with earthly goods. I’ll even provide you with some junk that you can have smuggled out of gaol so you can claim a few moral victories.”

“You know,” the Criminal said. “That might just work. I can fool the Angels about anything.” He paused. “It will be better, though, if I’m tempted outside gaol. “That way, my redemption will be more significant.”

“I think not,” Arthur said. “You’re too clever. I wouldn’t be able to control you.”

“It’s tempting,” the criminal said, “but not worth it. I will be a third-class citizen in Hell soon. Why should I bother?”

“You will certainly be a third-class citizen in Hell if you stay here juggling those chairs.” Arthur told him. “There’s a slight chance that I could drag this godforsaken place up closer to heaven. There’s a possibility that we will all be spared Hell.” Ignoring the Criminal’s laugh, he continued. “Even a thousand to one is a better chance than you have now.” The Criminal laughed again, a little more thoughtfully. “If, as is probable, we all go to Hell, you will have been fooling the Angels and a succession of Governors for many decades, undermining the foundations of this Limbo, even from inside gaol. At least that way you might make Demon, second class.”

The Criminal shook his head in amazement. “We could have made one Hell of a team,” he said. “What did you do in real life?”

“I made boilers in a foundry,” Arthur said, and the Criminal threw back his head for the first genuinely amused laugh of the conversation.

“What are you going to do now,” Shadrach asked when they were outside.

“I’m going to phone the Angels about the three not-yet-lost sinners, the Accountant, the Politician, and the Criminal, and then I’m going to take the map which you will draw, so that I can get in and out of gaol and have my three assistants working for me by tomorrow. Then I shall rest.”
Chapter 6 – Tunnel Rats
By 1916, Limbo56 was looking quite spruce. Thanks to Arthur’s helpers, the books were perfect, the black market was thriving, and the Politician had made several dubious deals with neighboring Limbos. This had initially made Arthur nervous, but the Politician soon set his mind at rest. “I know a crooked politician when I see one,” he said, “and most of the ones I deal with are crooked and amateur. Don’t worry,” he added, “If the Angels or the Demons decide to send in an army of investigators, we’ll see a lot fewer Limbos, but ours will come up smelling of roses.”

It was quite a shock, then, when in the autumn of 1916, a large chunk of the British Expeditionary Army in France marched out of the access tunnel into an empty corner of Limbo56. With fine military discipline, they cleared a large swath of rocky ground, setting up tents, digging trenches, excavating latrines, stringing barbed wire. Adding to the rocks they had gathered, they demolished the wretched houses of the few local inhabitants they encountered and built fortifications and blockhouses for their machine guns. The entire population of Limbo56 at that time was about 4000 undead, and the 5000-strong brigade of khaki-clad invaders jolted even the apathetic twilight dwellers.

Governor Mossop was doing what he did best when he got the news. Sweat cleared small streams amongst the sand and soot that masked his features as he shoveled tons of black sand, trimming rough edges and hauling the heavy molds to crash onto the conveyor belt. He barely felt the little man tugging at his sleeve, and indeed, a particularly violent gesture over the sand bin sent the man spinning onto the conveyor belt, from where he was carried a few yards towards the furnace before extricating himself and returning to the thin man.

“We bin invaded,” he panted. “Thousands and thousands and more thousands. Millions,” he finished, giving his fancy full reign.

“What in Hell are you talking about?” Arthur asked impatiently. “Can’t you see I’m working?”

“You’m supposed to be governing Limbo,” the little man accused, reminding Arthur of how little his office was respected here.

“Get organized,” Arthur called to his teammates. “The three of you work this bin. I have to leave.”

Ignoring their grumbles, he dragged the little man to his tiny office and listened to the incredible story. The tunnel was the quietest of the three access points to Limbo56. Occasionally a bewildered shepherd or wandering Gypsy would emerge, learn the facts of his new existence and fade into the fabric of the surrounding, hopeless society. Then, three days earlier, a platoon of motorcyclists shot from the gloom of the tunnel and began circling the area. After a while, the tunnel swallowed them up again, but a few hours later, row upon row of marching soldiers emerged blinking into the drizzle. Almost immediately, led by NCOs, they began clearing the ground and pitching their tents, commandeering houses and attempting to speak awful French to the bewildered inhabitants.

“Probably a company of soldiers from the war in Europe,” Arthur told the man who was breathlessly attempting to keep up. “The war in the real world is pretty bad. Maybe fifty, a hundred of them were killed in some big battle.”

There are more of them than a hundred,” the little man insisted.

Arthur looked at him contemptuously. “Can you count?” he asked.

The man held up two hands and looked at them short-sightedly. “Up to ten,” he said.

They dodged down an alley and emerged into the wilderness at the edge of town. More men than Arthur had ever seen scurried ant-like across fields denuded of green. Thousands of small grey tents, little more than sheets draped over a couple of poles, dotted the flat plain, fading into the distance where the tunnel poked from hazy mist. All the men were dressed in the same drab green/brown uniform. Some of them had horrific wounds that they apparently didn’t notice. A sergeant, half his neck chewed away by machine-gun bullets, was croaking orders; men with one leg, one arm hopped or dragged themselves across the ground.

Arthur shook his head slowly. He was not particularly quick thinking, but an influx of deluded men, outnumbering the entire current population of his territory, all armed to the teeth, spelt major trouble. As Governor, he worked hard to keep the place from flying apart. He organized the foundry, helping his workers to fulfill the quota of haloes, harps, tridents and miscellaneous objects demanded by both Angels and Devils; he filled out reams of paperwork, answering complaints from above and below, keeping the population at an optimal level, answering worker complaints, balancing good and evil. Friendless and unpopular, he was in a state of constant frustration.

“Stay here,” he said to the little man. He navigated the grey tents, where men were brewing tea and complaining about the tasteless concoction. One man slowly opened field rations, and Arthur wondered how these undead soldiers rationalized the tasteless food, strange surroundings, and all the other manifestations of death. But then, he could see why Limbo wouldn’t bother them. By the looks of them, they had already been through Hell.

He approached the sergeant and coughed. The man turned fierce eyes on him. “I’m sorry, Sir,” he croaked. “This is a military installation and no civilians are allowed here.” He turned and wheezed in the general direction of a two-striper, “Corporal, I thought I told you to find some wire and secure the perimeter.” He turned back to Arthur. “Dammit,” he muttered, “why can’t these Frogs learn English?”

“I speak perfectly good English, sergeant,” Arthur told him. “This is an English speaking Limbo.”

The sergeant looked at him, taking in the grimy clothes, the sooty face only partly washed by the rain. The fact of speaking in English registered with him; the exact meaning of the words obviously did not. “Very good, Sir,” he said condescendingly. “I’m glad to hear that you can speak our language.” He croaked a few more orders, turning back to Arthur in obvious surprise that the man still stood on military soil. “You will have to leave, sir,” he said firmly. “Or I shall have you escorted from camp.”

Arthur had been a foundry worker in life. He still preferred the hard dirty work to his unappreciated efforts as Governor. He had, however, picked up a few skills during his stint as leader of one of the least attractive of the many Limbos. “Sergeant,” he said. “First, this is an English-speaking, independent territory, and I am the legal representative of that territory. I may seem unimpressive to you, but, as you well know, we are in a war, and, in addition to my administrative duties, I voluntarily work at the local foundry which produces weapons for our boys in – khaki.” Tridents, he thought, could, at a pinch be classified as weapons. He stared at the sergeant, avoiding looking at the man’s mutilated neck. “You don’t seem to know where you are, and I attribute that to your experiences on the battlefield. Believe me,” he said sincerely,” I appreciate all that you men have been through to keep us all safe.” He paused. “Now, I need to see your commander. I know this area better than anyone, and I have important information for him.”

The sergeant regarded the thin man, noting the absence of weapons, eyes sliding over the knife embedded in his side. “Yes sir,” he said. “Corporal,” he croaked, “Take this man to General Scott’s tent. Stay close to him.”

A man with a hole in his side stepped up. “Follow me,” he said, disappearing into a crowd of soldiers. They marched through the camp of dead soldiers whose wounds would not heal as long as they believed that they still lived. The soldiers were carrying out their tasks with dull, uncomprehending misery, a cook preparing food that would not sustain the dead bodies, a medic, winding a bandage aver a gaping head wound, corpses writing letters that would never be delivered.

The General’s tent was slightly larger than the others were. Outside, a one-armed aide was polishing high leather boots. The corporal saluted and the aide disappeared inside. Arthur heard the mutter of voices, and a spruce spare man came out to meet him. General Scott was neat and freshly shaved, and appeared to bear no marks of injury, apart from a small piece of tape over one eyebrow. His small neat moustache twitched as he took in Arthur’s appearance. He wore his military cap pushed up on his forehead.

“I’m told you can give us information,” he said crisply. “I’m sorry I can’t spare a lot of time, but if necessary, one of my colonels can deal with you.”

“No,” Arthur said firmly. “I must talk to you.” The General scratched his forehead irritably, uncovering a small hole. His cap must be covering a much larger exit wound in the back of his head. “You don’t understand what’s going on.” Arthur told him. It was the wrong approach.

“No, sir, you don’t understand that we are a fighting force, an army that is battling for your freedom from the Hun, and for the freedom of your country.” He looked at Arthur and a small trickle of blood ran down his forehead. Irritably, he wiped it away. “I am responsible for some 5000 men,” he said. “They have been through Hell to defend you and your people.” He drew himself up and glared at the Governor. “You and your people,” he said, “will be required to offer every assistance that I require.” He glared at Arthur. “My men are my first priority, and you will furnish their needs.” He paused again, squinting at the thin man. “I have sent scouts out into the immediate area, and they report that there are many, I repeat many able-bodied men here, who should be in uniform, fighting for their country.”

“Wait,” Arthur broke in, “these men work in the foundry.”

“So you said,” the General interrupted. “And I need to see what your foundry is manufacturing, and for whom.”

Arthur rubbed his eyes. “Listen here, General,” he said. “I have a quota to keep up.”

“Corporal,” the General bawled. “Get over here with four more men, and escort this civilian off the base.”

“You can’t,” Arthur began again, but two large, very battered soldiers had him by the arms. To maintain dignity he stopped struggling and allowed the soldiers to march him quickly to the edge of camp, where the little man was waiting for him.

“Give them a good telling to?” he asked sarcastically. “Are ye sending them back where they came from?”

“Yes,” I’m sending them back, Arthur snapped. “Now shut up and let me think.” He thought for the rest of the day, and most of the night and by the following afternoon had come to several worrying conclusions.

One: Several thousand heavily armed, deluded soldiers were camped inside his Limbo, outnumbering the ordinary citizens. Two: Even contained in the valley, they were a disruptive force. Several of his workers had gone AWOL to watch the soldiers’ antics. Three: Apparently, the soldiers were actively recruiting. A couple of his workers had turned in their overalls, saying that they had joined the army. His subjects were showing remarkably little loyalty.

“What else can go wrong,” he muttered.

“Yo’m wanted outside.”

“What,” he asked the soot-blackened ironworker.

“Yo’m wanted outside,” the man explained patiently. “Them soldiers. There’s about fifty of em with machine guns, askin’ for you.”

Arthur groaned and made for the door. Outside, in the rain, the soldiers waited patiently, guns at the ready. A grim lieutenant with one arm drew himself to attention. “Do I have permission to enter, Sir?”

“I’m afraid I can’t have your soldiers disrupting the work of the factory, lieutenant,” Arthur told him.

“Then I have to insist,” the lieutenant said, and the soldiers shuffled uneasily.

Arthur stepped aside and they trooped in. Blinking in the gloom, squinting when the fires of the furnace shot forth, the lieutenant breathed the soot filled air. “Smells a bit like Wipers,” he said. “That was where, was where...”

“You were killed,” Arthur told him gently.

“Nonsense.” The lieutenant snapped. “You,” he started deploying his men. “Cover the exits, two to each exit,” he said directing them. Sergeant Bailey, you come with me, Sergeant Jones, take a section and start questioning the workers.”

“You can’t do that,” Arthur protested.

“We can and will,” the lieutenant said grimly. “I don’t think you realize the position that you are in. If we find,” he continued, “that you are not engaged in genuine war work, and if, in fact you are shielding these able-bodied men from performing active military service, you will face a military trial, with very serious potential consequences.”

Arthur thought about the cheap haloes that were currently being unloaded from the conveyor belt, and the metal horn-muffs, the harp frames, the tridents. “Let me show you our output of tridents,” he said desperately to the lieutenant.

“Tridents?” the lieutenant sounded shocked.

“It’s a tradition in these parts,” Arthur babbled. “Locally, there’s great skill in using a trident. We have families here who have ten generations experience making and using tridents.”

“I suppose you manufacture little trainee tridents for the children to practice with,” the lieutenant remarked sarcastically. He wandered over to a trident bin and fished one out. A drunken halo circled one of the tines. He shook it off in disgust and flung the trident at the bin. It bounced off harmlessly, clanging on to the soot-encrusted floor. “Pretty useful against a tank,” he remarked. “Is this all that the foundry produces,” he asked.

“Well, there’s horn, er little metal cones,” Arthur muttered. “Soldiers use them to drink out of; they take up less room than cups.”

The lieutenant was looking around in frank amazement, now. “Is this all you make here?” he asked unbelievingly.

“We have special orders that we fulfill,” Arthur answered. “I had an order for some silver cutlery from, er… Skytown. We also make thin metal sheets that are turned into harp strings, and horns, we get occasional orders for horns. We produce machinery, sometimes, for other Limb…. Places. Look here,” he continued. “I’ve been trying to tell your General that he is not where he thinks he is.”

The lieutenant focused a cold stare on the Governor. “I tried to tell him that you’re all dead,” Arthur finished weakly. “I’m dead too. Look,” he said desperately, “see this; see this knife sticking between my ribs.”

The lieutenant was no longer listening. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re insane?” he asked. “We have to take this place over, and convert your processes to production of armaments.” He strode over to one of the line workers. “Do you enjoy your work,” he bellowed over the clamor of the machinery.

“You must be mad,” the man said, not glancing up. “In this place?”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to be making guns and bombs?” the lieutenant asked.

“Anything for a change,” the worker said, ignoring Arthur’s frantic signals.

“What about the Army?” the lieutenant asked cunningly. “That would be a change.”

“Yeah, maybe,” the man said, wiping soot from his overalls. He brightened. “Are you going back through the tunnel?”

“Back to the real war,” the soldier said.

“The real world,” the worker said, misunderstanding. “Yes, I’d like that.”

Finally the soldiers were done. The lieutenant looked stonily at Arthur. “I’ll give my report to the General,” he said. “He’ll know what to do with you.”

They left, with several foundry workers following. “Come back, I need you,” Arthur called to his workers, but they ignored him. A couple of them were fencing clumsily with tridents, and several were skimming haloes at each other. Outside, the soldiers joined their companions, formed ranks, and marched away, an army of Pied Pipers followed by a ragged crowd of Arthur’s workers.

“This is serious,” Arthur told his foremen a little later. “They’re not only signing up my workers, they’re going to try me as a draft-dodger and war profiteer.” He looked around. “We have to come up with a plan to fix this.” He looked around for a few moments. “If we don’t come up with a plan,” he said in a slightly louder voice, “this Limbo will fail to meet its quota, and the Angels will be angry.” He looked around again and said clearly, “the Angels will decide to do something about us.” He smiled grimly. “But we all know how slow the Angels are. They’ll mutter and debate while down in Hell…”

“The Devils will be trying us for a breach of contract,” one of his foremen broke in.

“And we’ll all end up down there,” Arthur finished for him.

“We have to do something – Make a plan – Tell them they’re dead…” they all started talking at once.

“Why don’t we just go and get our workers?” Shadrach Jones said loudly, his face contorted into a mask that might have frightened a charging tiger. Shadrach was Arthur’s best worker. He looked like Attila the Hun might look on a bad day, and he was the biggest man in Limbo. Despite this, Arthur had never known him to be anything but a model citizen, and the Governor often wondered what unlucky chance had brought the man to this miserable place.

“They have guns,” Arthur pointed out. “They’re soldiers, and they will use them.”

“So what,” Shadrach answered him. “We’re already undead; they can’t kill us.”

“Do you remember,” Arthur said grimly, “that time a couple of years back when a new man splashed molten steel on your boot. You’re a strong man, but you were off your feet for a week before the toes grew back.” He shook his head. “Those machine guns can cut a man in two.” He pounded the worn desk with his fist. “We have to talk to the General. In his own way, I think he’s honest and straightforward.”

“Except for being totally insane,” Shadrach muttered.

“Yes, this is true,” Arthur sighed. “They’re all hallucinating, deluded. It’s a kind of collective madness. We have to try to get through to them before they tear our Limbo apart.” He thought for a while. “I think I can stop them signing my workers up, at least until they put me on trial.” He stood up. “Shadrach, I want you to come with me to see the General.”

“Shadrach hesitated. “I don’t like the military,” he said, but he took his filthy cloth cap out of his overall pocket and jammed it on his head.

They had covered a few yards in the rain when Shadrach stopped. “This way,” he told Arthur. His room was close to the foundry, in a small dirty brick house with a shed in front. “Wait.” Shadrach said, fishing out a large old-fashioned key. From the shed, he pulled out two awkward-looking metal things with big wheels and moving parts.

“What are”… Arthur began. Then. “They’re bicycles!” He shook his head. “How could I forget bicycles, Shadrach? For a minute they looked so strange, but they’re just ordinary bicycles.”

Shadrach handed one to Arthur. “Hope you remember how to ride a bike,” he said.

Arthur got on the bike. “Why don’t we have more of these,” he said. “We could rig something up in the foundry and build them from scrap metal.”

“You’re the Governor,” Shadrach said. “You’ve had four years, why didn’t you do something.”

“You know,” Arthur told him. “When I got here, everyone walked, and I assumed that was the way it was meant to be, because that’s the way it always has been.”

“Yeah,” Shadrach said somberly. “That’s the way it’s always been done.”

They rolled, exhilarated, through the rain and arrived at the army camp in good time. It was well defended, with a stout perimeter fence and a guardhouse, manned by a young corporal with a deep dent in his forehead. They wheeled up to the guardhouse, and the soldier raised his rifle. Shadrach marched up to him. “Governor Mossop to see General Scott,” he said crisply.

The corporal almost saluted, caught himself and cranked a field telephone. He spoke softly while they tried to look unconcerned. “The General will see you,” he said, “but I have to search you for weapons.”
He eyed them. “I don’t think you have any weapons,” he said. “You’re not allowed weapons here, are you?” He stared at Arthur’s side. “I’ll have to confiscate the knife,” he said.

“Good luck,” Arthur told him. “It just keeps coming back.”

“How is it corporal, that you see a knife which no-one else seems to notice.” Shadrach said. He looked at the young man. “You know that you’re dead, don’t you,” he said carefully.

The young man smiled tiredly. “No, I’m not dead,” he said. “Probably everyone else here is dead, including you two.” He stared into space. “I’m still alive out there somewhere, in a coma maybe.” He looked at them and smiled again. “But I’m sure I’ll be dead soon. I can feel death creeping up.” He straightened. “You two had better get moving. The General hasn’t been very patient since his – crossing over.”

“Poor sod,” Arthur said as they threaded their way through grey pup tents and mutilated soldiers. “That corporal must feel pretty lonely right now. Or trapped in some awful nightmare,” he added.

The General was sitting outside his tent, at a rickety table. He frowned at Arthur and stared hard at Shadrach. “I’m busy,” he said, indicating some papers.

“This won’t take long,” Arthur told him. “This man with me is the head foreman at the foundry, and he can verify what I have to say.”

The General leaned back and regarded Arthur sourly. “I have said before,” he told the Governor, “That, if you have any issues, you can take them up with one of my colonels.”

“We want to talk to you about the visit we received from one of your platoons this morning,” Shadrach said abruptly. “As I understand it, you are the senior officer and you are responsible for the actions of your men.” He turned to Arthur. “This man was appointed Governor six years ago, and as such he is the ultimate authority here. Martial law has not been declared, you are not currently in a war zone.” Shadrach glared at the General. “Am I correct, General?” Startled, General Scott half rose then sank back onto the rickety chair, looking first at Shadrach, then Arthur. “Do you want to elaborate, Governor,” Shadrach said.

Arthur shook his head. “For the purposes of this meeting,” he told the General, “Shadrach is my acting deputy. He has been here for far longer than I have, and will explain our position better than I can.

“First, General,” Shadrach said. “Your men forced their way into the foundry and disrupted our work. They acted like an occupation army, not a friendly force, ready to defend us. The Governor here was threatened with having to face a military tribuneral.” Shadrach had lost his dour demeanor. He stood ramrod straight and spoke in precise tones. “Furthermore,” he accused, “in contravention of all rules of military behavior, several of our workers were taken hostage at gunpoint.”

General Scott was visibly shaken. “Your Governor stated that the foundry was engaged in war work,” he said defensively. “We saw no evidence of weapons being manufactured.”

“If,” Shadrach interrupted him, “we were manufacturing gas-masks, field latrines and boots, would you still insist that we are not involved in war-work? There are no weapons in that list.” He breathed deeply. “Did your lieutenant report on the items that we do manufacture, and their possible usage?”

“He, he said that there were some metal cones, some circular metal objects, and some three-pronged spears,” the General said.

“Did he hazard a guess as to their possible use,” Shadrach demanded and the General shook his head. “Well General,” Shadrach said, “I also don’t know what these objects are used for, and I doubt that even the Governor knows. It’s better that way, since what we don’t know we can’t inadvertently leak that information to the enemy.” He paused. “But I think you will agree, General, that just because fully built tanks don’t roll off the production line, it does not mean that we’re not involved in war work.” Shadrach looked at the Governor. “Would you agree, sir, to allow the General to petition our Government out there,” he waved vaguely towards the sky, “to furnish some details regarding the classified ordinance that we manufacture here.”

“We had better continue this inside my tent,” the General said nervously, obviously shaken by the reference to a higher power. He was staring intently at Shadrach. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before, a long time ago. Are you a military man?”

“I’m an ironworker,” Shadrach said.

Later, in Arthur’s small office at the foundry, the thin man and the giant relaxed. “You got them off our backs,” Arthur said. “You amaze me.”

“They still believe that they’re alive,” Shadrach said. “I didn’t want to push him too far on that subject in case we lost our advantage.”

“I feel such a fool,” Arthur told the big man. “I could never have stood up to him like that.”

“Not your fault,” Shadrach said. “He’s a military man. You are a worker, with dirty hands and a worker’s accents. You could be the Angel Gabriel himself, and to General Scott you would still just be a civilian.”

“But you,” Arthur began.

“I’ve had some experience of the military,” Shadrach said. “I convinced the General that I was one of his class, his type of man.”

Arthur was busy in the foundry for the next few days. It proved more difficult than he anticipated, producing the occasional cycle. His handful of specialist molders sweated over the design of a simple machine. Stocks of semi-hidden ball bearings were unearthed and put to work. Rubber was smuggled in. It was easy to churn out bike parts; there was soon a bin full of them. The problem that occupied much of Arthur’s time was how to connect the parts into a practical bike. Finally, he had one fixed-wheel, brakeless machine. He attached a basket to the handlebars and used the bike to move his belongings to a slightly larger room. Like everyone else, he left his nondescript furniture for the next tenant.

While he was busy, the army of occupation had spread tentacles further into his domain. He finally took some time off on the weekend, and went to the local pub. Immediately he noticed that the usual atmosphere of apathetic gloom had changed dramatically. The place was full of soldiers. Groups of them huddled around the tables and the bar, glaring angrily at equally angry groups of citizens. Sadie the barmaid was scratching herself angrily as one of the soldiers berated her. Arthur saw that it was no other than the hoarse-voiced sergeant. Luckily, he and his men were unarmed.

“Do you have a problem with soldiers,” he demanded. “This stuff is piss,” and he banged his glass on the bar. Stale beer dripped onto Sadie’s apron. “Piss, I tell you,” the sergeant croaked. “I gave you good money for that,” and he waved a handful of scrip at her.

Sadie was not exactly popular. She had been hired to lower the standards of the pub to an acceptable Limbo level, in which she had succeeded admirably, being dirty, lazy, and loud mouthed, not to mention exceptionally ugly. However, she was one of their own, and Arthur’s citizens had obviously been listening to this for a while. “Leave her alone,” a man called to the sergeant, “the beer is supposed to taste like piss. This is Limbo.”

“I keep hearing all this malarkey,” the sergeant growled. “Do you think we’re crazy?”

“Yes, obviously,” the man said. He was big like the sergeant, and they stood, face to red face by the bar.

The sergeant raised a bottle, but Arthur was suddenly standing next to him. “Where did you get that scrip,” he demanded. The question was obviously unexpected, and the sergeant gaped at him.

“They been trading,” his opponent said. “Chocolate and beef jerky and tools and lots of other stuff.” He sniffed. “Food tastes like cardboard, though.”

The sergeant uttered a strangled roar, but Arthur grabbed him. “All the food tastes like cardboard here, and all the beer tastes like vinegar. We’re all dead, and this is Limbo.” The sergeant stepped back. The fight suddenly went out of him. It was obvious that he was unwilling to listen to this talk of Limbo.

“What sort of a place is this?” he asked. “You don’t take French money,” he pulled a wad of French francs from his pocket, “You don’t take British money,” he waved blue and orange notes in the air. “You keep talking about death. Don’t you think we’ve seen enough death,” he croaked.

“Take your men over to that table in the corner,” Arthur said quietly. “Finish your beer.” There were ten of them, and he walked behind the bar and poured ten shots of tasteless whisky. Setting them carefully on a tray, he walked over and served them. “On the house,” he said. “Finish you drinks and leave.”

“Are you all right,” he asked Sadie. She nodded. “Bastards,” she said.

“They started coming in yesterday,” the man at the bar told him. “They got upset when Sadie refused to accept their money, and then they went away and came back with stuff.” Arthur looked questioningly at him. “Chocolate and beef jerky,” the man said. “Of course, we figured that they wouldn’t taste like anything, but some of us bought some. Then they got the idea of bringing in tools, and bags, and belts, that sort of thing. Good stuff, military strength”

“Discipline is breaking down,” Arthur muttered. “What will they do next?”

“This lot will probably join the others in the other pubs,” the man at the bar told him.

“Damn,” why didn’t I think of that,” Arthur cried. He dashed into the street.

The man at the bar looked mildly surprised. “Give me another beer Sadie,” he said.

She looked at him and tried out a simpering smile. “You was a real gentleman, coming to my rescue like that,” she said, blinking.

“Don’t push your luck, Sadie,” he told her turning away.

Arthur pedaled frantically through narrow rainy streets. The Limbo Arms, when he got there was quiet. No soldiers had been seen there. The Deuragon on the other hand, erupted in violence as he arrived. Soldiers and citizens spilled from the doors waving bottles and sticks as they burst, cursing, out into the street. He walked into the bar where one or two Citizens were still thoughtfully swigging their beer, helping themselves liberally from untouched glasses left by the fighters. “Out,” he told them, sweeping them grumbling into the rain. “Lock up, and keep the place locked until I tell you different,” he said to the barmaid.

The Deuragon and the Red Cow had seen fighting; the barmaids were tidying up. Outside battered soldiers and citizens were knitting themselves together again. He left them to it and pedaled on towards the Pig. The place was wrecked. Tables and chairs lay smashed in the street, sometimes wrapped around a battered, but stirring corpse. It appeared that most of the furniture had exited through the pub windows, and he crunched through broken glass towards the bar. He heard a thump as he walked in and discovered the barmaid, bodiceless, lying on her back across the doorway. He stepped over her into the wreckage and took stock.

“Oh, it’s just you, Governor.” He jumped. The ugly barmaid was peering over his shoulder, pressing her naked breasts into his back.

“Dammit, Olga,” he told her. “Get dressed and start cleaning up.”

After leaving her detailed instructions, he pedaled back to the foundry. He marched up to Shadrach who was single-handedly tossing moulds on to the belt as if they were empty beer bottles. "You have to come with me," he said grimly. "I need you."

The path to the field was becoming increasingly familiar. As they suspected, the army encampment after several days of rain was a sea of mud. A few soldiers in shirtsleeves played bad-tempered soccer and the sentry they spoke to was bored and distracted. They walked over to where General Scott, as spruce as ever in his clean and pressed uniform stood outside his tent watching over the camp. Arthur marched up and began describing the events of the previous night. The General listened politely, occasionally brushing a trickle of blood from his forehead when it leaked from his wound. He was, he said, sorry that a few of his men had shown a lack of discipline. The General began to stroll through the camp, and Arthur and Shadrach were forced to follow. Most of the men straightened up and saluted tiredly as he passed among them. “Good man,” he said once to a man hopping on one leg. “Exercise, keep fit.”

Arthur was tempted to take hold of the General and shake him. They kept passing terribly wounded soldiers, men with one arm, one leg, half a face, hopping, jumping and occasionally crawling, and Arthur realized that the officer remained completely unmoved by wounds he refused to see.

“When will your men be redeployed to the battlefield,” Shadrach asked, destroying Arthur’s train of thought.

“We’re awaiting orders,” General Scott said evenly. “I’m told that there’s a lull in this theatre of the war, and my men are enjoying a well-earned break for R and R. These men,” he said, opening his arms to encompass the entire camp of hopping, crawling and staggering soldiers, “need to be healthy and rested prior to fighting the enemy again.” He turned abruptly to Shadrach, “Don’t you think so, sir?” He asked, almost saluting. The General was obviously becoming confused as to who or what the big man was.

Arthur and Shadrach exchanged glances. “Do you recognize me?” Shadrach asked. “I was at Isandlwana, almost forty years ago.” General Scott stared at him perplexedly. “But I don’t understand,” he stuttered.

“Yes, you do,” Shadrach shot back. He turned to Arthur “Give me an hour,” he said. “I have to do something.”

With Shadrach gone, the General calmed down a little. Questions of his mortality, and that of his army seemed to recede somewhat. They were in his tent, and his imaginary world was firmly in place when Shadrach returned, accompanied by General Scott’s flustered aide. He was no longer Shadrach Jones, the formidable ironworker. He was clean and shaven and his hair was a military brush. His moustache was neatly trimmed, and his bright field uniform was as neat and clean as that of the General. The decoration patches he wore were impressive. Shadrach saluted and the tension that had held General Scott together seemed to leak away, and he returned the salute and swayed slightly. “My God, it is you,” he said, his eyes fully focused for the first time. He nodded. “Colonel Jones, and you haven’t aged in forty years.” He sighed. “You were killed not long after that attack.”

“Yes,” Shadrach sighed. “I sent a lot of men to their deaths, and I was killed before I could make amends.” He paced the small tent. “Do you remember,” he said to the General, “we sat there, under the blistering sun with that great rock rising up out of the scrub, and I passed on my orders, only they weren’t my orders, they came from that pathological old killer, General Cross. You were a young subaltern, and you were the only one of my officers that questioned me. You risked your career for the safety of your men, something I should have done.” Shadrach gestured, taking in the three of them in the small tent, the camp, the whole of Limbo. “We’re all dead,” he said. “I’m glad you lived to make a success of your career, General, I’ve followed it whenever I could. You have a reputation for caring for your men.” He looked quizzically at the General. “Don’t lose that now.” Shadrach shook his head. “These men will follow you anywhere, but look at them. They know, deep down, that they should be at rest. Most of them don’t belong in a place like this. You have to lead them back, General. Back through the tunnel to whatever bloody battlefield, they came from. They have to lay down their arms and their bodies and achieve the peace that they deserve.” He paused. “Arthur, can you leave us alone for a few minutes, I have something to discuss with the General.”

Shadrach came out a little later. “I’m going back,” he said, “through the tunnel. Maybe I can help with some of these soldiers, maybe I can give some comfort and support to the General.” He looked at Arthur. “And, of course I can make sure they get out and never come back.”

“I’ll get you a pass, but you could be going straight to Hell,” Arthur told him. “The Council is very strict about stuff like that, and I don’t have any influence with them.”

Shadrach shrugged. “I know. Maybe that’s what I deserve. If you get a chance, though, put in a good word for me.”

“I can’t make you change your mind.” It was more of a statement than a question, and Shadrach didn’t answer.

After a few moments he said. “Can you give me a little more time here? I want to find that corporal, the man at the guard shack who wasn’t quite dead.” I want to make sure that, if there is any chance at all he can come out of this alive.”

“Of course,” Arthur told him. He watched as Shadrach wandered towards some tents, his red uniform incongruous among the khaki drab of the WWI soldiers. “I don’t know where I’m going to get anyone to replace you,” he muttered as he turned to leave.

It took the army just twenty-four hours to make ready for the exodus. The soldiers, relieved of their burden of life after death were almost cheerful as most of the natives gathered to watch them leave. General Scott had disarmed his brigade, telling his troops the truth about their situation and informing them that they were going home not to fight but to die decently. Piled in the center of the field was a small mountain of weapons, rifles, machine guns, grenades. By order of the Governor, this ordnance had been rendered useless. Arthur did not intend to allow his depressed citizens to run around with lethal weapons. The metal and some of the parts would however come in useful at the foundry.

Shadrach had been issued a colonel’s field uniform, clothing, much more practical, he informed Arthur, than the standard red and blue army uniform of the Zulu wars. He had located the young corporal who informed the colonel that there was a certain young woman in Sheffield who was currently sorely worried about her missing soldier. “I’m going to make sure that, if it’s humanly possible, he makes it home,” Shadrach told Arthur as they shook hands.

Arthur, waiting for the soldiers to march out, suddenly thought of Gladys, and seconds later, guiltily, of his wife and children. Just maybe, Shadrach could discover what had happened to them forty years ago and somehow get word back to Limbo. He noticed Shadrach slip unobtrusively into a tent and walked quickly over. Pushing open the tent flap, he ducked in. “Shadrach,” he began, and stopped in dismay. The large colonel had stripped to the waist. A couple of knives and an ammunition belt were strapped across the man’s waist, and he was contemplating three pistols that lay on a small table.

“You were all supposed to be unarmed,” Arthur said, angry with Shadrach for the first time. “You’re going to compromise this whole operation, not to mention putting yourself on a direct course to Hell.” He stood in front of the big man. “I’m not letting you go out there with those weapons.”

“You don’t understand,” Shadrach told him. “Don’t try to stop me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What are you going to do, shoot me,” Arthur sneered. “I won’t die, and the General will hear the shots and come running.”

“The General knows,” Shadrach said tiredly. “We talked it over. We go through the tunnel, and then Corporal Williams and I will go our own way. The rest of them will find their final battlefield and die, but you can’t expect us to go wandering about unarmed in the middle of a war.”

“Oh.” Arthur thought about it. “But you don’t need those knives and all that ammunition.” He paused. “You’re undead anyway; no-one can touch you, or the corporal - until he finds his body.”

Shadrach was looking at him intently. Finally, he let out a sigh. “The General wanted to come with us, but I persuaded him that without a leader his brigade might wander the battlefields forever.” He held up his hand. “Alright, I’ll tell you the truth, I never intended to go through the tunnel just to get some rest.” He looked steadily at Arthur. “I have to kill someone first.”

“You idiot,” Arthur said. “You’re sending yourself directly to hell.”

Shadrach nodded. “Maybe so, but I have to kill a man first, before he sacrifices hundreds more innocent soldiers.” He carefully donned his tunic and placed the three pistols in the deep pockets of his uniform. “I had a long talk with the General last night. We have a lot in common. We both feel guilty, although God knows what Scott could have done to stop the killing all those years ago. We both want to kill this man. Let’s go outside,” he said, “and while we’re waiting to move off I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Outside, for once, the rain had stopped and the afternoon sun cast a deep shadow on the guns piled up in the middle of the field. The watchtowers and fortifications that marked the edge of the camp were silent and empty. The tents were packed away, the field latrines buried, and the soldiers had left remarkably little debris. Momentarily at ease, they chatted with small clumps of Intermediates, and a couple of them even ventured to hug one of the ugly barmaids. A field-grey lorry, flanked by motorbikes stood quietly by the track to the tunnel. Inside it, Arthur could just make out the somber features of General Scott.

“Forty years ago,” Shadrach began, “I was a professional soldier, one of the most successful, the youngest colonel serving in Natal. I was ambitious; I was going to be the youngest General in the British army; I was going to bring civilization to a whole continent.” Shadrach paused for a while. “I knew that we weren’t perfect,” he said. “I was never naïve about the horrors of war, and what our own soldiers were capable of if pushed to extremes. The Zulus, they were savages, magnificent, brave savages. Their chief sent them against us, spears against rifles, and they died like flies. They died for a cause.” Shadrach stared ahead, re-living the past. “I know that their chief would have willingly died to save his country.”

He looked at Arthur. “What I didn’t know was that our General – my General – was also willing to sacrifice his men, to let them die by the hundreds and thousands. And his men, my men, died like flies while he sat, safe and well-fed behind the lines. His men, my men, died like flies, not to spread civilization, not for the glory of country, but for the personal advancement of one miserable ambitious little man who cared for no-one except himself.” Shadrach waved his hand. “I know, I know the man is dead, long gone. History calls him a great General because the winners write history, and my General knew how to create an image of bravery and self-sacrifice. It’s not him I’m going to kill, it’s his son.”

“His son,” Arthur exclaimed, shocked.

“His son was there too, behind the lines, aide to the father. Lieutenant Cross was even more of a cold-blooded killer than his father was. He took great pleasure in destroying the reputation of any potential rivals, or, with the help of the General, in killing them, sending them off on some impossible mission. And the son also, built a reputation on lies and ruthless exploitation.” Shadrach sighed. “I might have done something, but I kept making excuses. I saved a few lives here and there; small disobediences that I thought would not harm my career too much.” He looked at Arthur in anguish. “You see, I was the hero, the saviour of my civilization. I was going to be one of the great soldiers; schoolboys would read about my exploits in the history books. The General and his son had me in the palm of their hands. If anyone was going to get the blame for the bloodletting, they were going to ensure that I would be the scapegoat.”

“So, the son, now,” Arthur murmured.

“The son is General Cross. This new world war makes the Zulu wars look like a football match. General Cross has a far greater opportunity for mass murder that his father ever did. He can throw thousands of men into withering machinegun fire, to scream and die on the barbed wire. He can destroy a man and his family and his unborn children, and sit behind the lines and drink champagne and never feel a twinge. He was General Scott’s commander, and when General Scott did what I should have done forty years ago, and accused his commander of cold-blooded murder, Cross just laughed. A couple of weeks later, at Ypres, a retreat was called. That order mysteriously never reached General Scott and his battalion. They were cut to pieces.” Shadrach waved his hand at the dead battalion. “That’s when General Scott marched his men and any other stragglers that he could pick up through the tunnel, still doing his best to save them. That’s why he had so much difficulty letting go. He’s realized now that the only way his men will achieve peace is to go back through the tunnel.”

They stood looking out over the soldiers like two old friends. Arthur sought a few words of encouragement. “I think,” he said, “that you will be alright with the council. After all, your actions are unselfish; your target is an evil man who will undoubtedly go to Hell. That should please the Devils.”

“I didn’t tell you everything,” Shadrach said and Arthur groaned under his breath. “It’s personal with me. We’ll be leaving any minute now,” he added as the soldiers began forming up in ranks. “It’s personal because when I finally did get round to defying the pair of them it was too late. I went to see the son, and, can you imagine, I was uneasy. Me, the youngest, bravest colonel in Natal, and I was uneasy talking to a skinny lieutenant. I told him that I was going to expose him and his father for the murderous cowards that they were. I told him that I was not afraid, any more, of destroying my career, and that was true. I told him that I was not afraid of death, and that was true. He just smiled, unconcerned, and I went away and started to write about all the atrocities, about the naked, murderous ambition of these two. Then, a couple of days later, I got word that my brother was dead. I was his hero, and he joined the army and wangled a posting to Natal.” Shadrach took a deep breath. “His immediate superior was Lieutenant Cross. Ezra had written to me several times, but his notes never reached me, and the day after I made my threat, Ezra was ordered to take a platoon across a ridge, where, he was told, he could join up with my regiment. My brother set out on a cool, clear morning to travel the twenty miles to our camp. Neither he nor his men were heard from again.

Lieutenant Smith himself sent a runner with the news, expressing deep regret at my sad loss. I saddled up a horse and almost rode it to death getting to headquarters. Lookouts saw me well before I got to camp, so I thought that he would run, like the coward he was. But he was there, sitting on the verandah of his private bungalow, sipping gin. I jumped off the horse and ran towards him, drawing my sword. He just looked at me, and then a giant fist hit me between the shoulders, and I was looking at the sky, and he was standing over me, and the sky went black. I died, shot in the back, and there was never an investigation. I was a deserter, General Cross said, and my family never received a penny from the army.” Shadrach clasped Arthur’s leathery hand and started to move away. “So, you see, it’s personal,” he called over his shoulder.

Arthur watched as they moved in neat formation towards the tunnel, the General leading in his truck, flanked by six motorbikes, followed by the least damaged of the soldiers who, regardless of wounds marched smartly and strongly towards their destiny. In the rear shuffled the lame and the crippled, some legless soldiers wheeled on makeshift trolleys by their one-legged, one-armed compatriots. The last two figures to enter the tunnel were Shadrach and Corporal Williams, a company of two. Just before they reached the shadow cast by the stone archway, Shadrach turned and saluted. It was the last Arthur ever saw of him.


Chapter 7 - Shadrach in the Wilderness
Colonel Jones and Corporal Williams trudged wearily across a splintered field. Their waterproof capes gave them some protection from the downpour, but their boots were full of mud and their uniforms were damp with cold French rain. With each footfall, the red mud clung eagerly to their boots, and with each step great mounds of mud dragged down their tired feet. They had been together for four months and when not in company they relaxed the conventions of class and rank and treated each other almost as brothers. In the company of other soldiers, though, Corporal Williams observed the formalities, saluting when required and answering only when spoken to. He may not have needed to bother with these conventions because, quiet and small, he went mostly unnoticed in the shadow of the huge colonel.

“We should be close to the field hospital, Harry. They may have your records there.” The colonel stopped and wiped his face ineffectually. “I’d say we’re about ten miles behind the lines. This ground hasn’t been fought over in weeks.” As if to verify his statement, distant guns boomed to the north.

“I dunno, sir. We’ve been looking for months now, and not a trace. We’re getting further away from where I was wounded, and sooner or later we’re going to bump into someone who’s seen us before, even in this godforsaken cut-off corner of the war.” Harry glanced sideways at Shadrach. “Maybe we should try to locate the General, sir.”

“I promised myself that I would take care of you, first,” Shadrach said. “You aren’t involved with my problems.”

“No sir. I understand. But we’ve spent a lot of time in fields like this, and I feel that what I’m looking for, sir, is well behind the lines. Maybe even back in England. And I don’t think we’ll find General Cross anywhere near – damn.” The young corporal looked down. The ‘branch’ he had stumbled on was a human arm, pointing accusingly up at the leaden sky.

Shadrach squatted down and examined the blackening arm. “British captain,” he said. “It looks like the rest of him is down there, under the mud.” A flap on the sleeve was unraveling in the rain, revealing a flat rubber pouch sewn into the uniform. Shadrach unrolled it carefully, and shielding it from the rain, extracted two sheets of thick paper. He whistled. “Do you believe in omens, Harry? It seems like you were right. These are the captain’s orders. He was supposed to report to Headquarters, in the countryside around Verdun. He was supposed to report to General Cross.” He straightened up. “We’ve spent months trying to trace your whereabouts, talked to hundreds of people without one single bite, and now this falls into our lap.” He looked at the young corporal. “If you have no objections, then, our mission changes as of today.”

A day later, warmer and dryer, Captain Jones and Corporal Williams stood on the side of a dirt road smoking unfiltered cigarettes. By the expression on their faces, they had not smoked for a long time. Exhausted and relaxed, they waited calmly for a vehicle traveling to Verdun. A few minutes earlier, an army lorry full of fresh troops had stopped to give them the news that reinforcements were moving up to strengthen the crumbling British lines. “Maybe I’ll see you later at the front,” Shadrach called and a friendly sergeant threw them a pack of Gitanes.

Corporal Williams looked critically at the newly minted captain. “Uniform looks a bit peculiar, sir” he commented.

“That’s because it took me all of ten minutes to fix up,” Shadrach said. “I don’t think we’ll have any problems. “We’re in the middle of a war in the middle of nowhere, and no-one is going to inspect us too closely.” They continued to smoke the strong cigarettes. “They taste much better out here,” Shadrach said.

They saw a cloud of dust in the distance, watching as it grew larger in the still air. Metal glinted in the sunlight, the features of a long, battered convoy labouring down the narrow road. They watched as the old trucks, mud-spattered, some without glass coughed their winding way closer, crawling past, crammed with dull-eyed soldiers, many of them bandaged. The final truck stopped to let them on, after Shadrach showed his forged papers. A truck full of dead-tired soldiers swayed sleeping on their feet, led by a young lieutenant who looked as though he had long ago moved past sleep into a kind of wired attention, ready to explode at the slightest touch.

They tried to ignore him but he began to talk about the front in jerky phrases. He spoke of men, dying by hundreds in the withering machine-gun file, officers, ordering men to certain death, then, suicidally, jumping from the trenches, and attacking the wire, the screams of the dying, the smell of the dead, the implacable hail of rifle and mortar fire.

“Why do you keep attacking?” Shadrach asked. “When your officers know it’s suicide.”

“Yes, they know,” the lieutenant replied. He looked avidly at the Gitanes, and Shadrach shucked one out of the pack for him. “They know it’s suicide, the General knows it and the colonels know it and the majors and the captains, the sergeants and the corporals and the men, most of all the men, they all know it’s suicide.” The lieutenant’s hands were shaking and he puffed hungrily at the cigarette. The General, he sits in his chateau in Verdun, ordering his men to death. He sits there sipping champagne, playing golf and night after night we jump out of the trenches and run for the wire and get cut to pieces, and when my colonel refused to attack, the General sent for him, and charged him with cowardice and desertion and had him shot.” The lieutenant was shouting now, shaking uncontrollably. “I’m going to kill the bastard,” he said.

A burly sergeant wearily grabbed the lieutenant and shook him. “Don’t say these things, sir, especially not in front of strangers. He’s been through hell, he doesn’t know what he’s saying,” he said, turning to Shadrach. “He’s a good officer.”

“Surely General Cross wouldn’t shoot good officers,” Shadrach said.

The sergeant stiffened. “You know General Cross?” he asked.

“I have orders to report to him,” Shadrach said carefully.

“Talk to the General,” the sergeant said harshly. “Tell him what it’s like in the trenches. You do know what it’s like in the trenches?” he asked suspiciously, and for a moment the two big men glared at each other, until the Sergeant looked away. “Reckon you do, sir” he said.

“The lieutenant need not worry about me,” Shadrach promised.

They traveled in silence after that, the young lieutenant nursing his own thoughts, the sergeant keeping a watchful eye on Shadrach. As they approached the city, the jolting of the ramshackle truck grew less violent. There were fewer potholes and the road was surfaced after a fashion. The city had seen its share of war but had been quiet for a while. The truck finally shuddered to a stop on a pleasant shady street of large houses set well back from the noise of the road. Shadrach and the corporal jumped out, followed by the young lieutenant and his sergeant, and the truck rumbled away with its cargo of dispirited soldiers They stood at the end of a driveway, looking at an avenue of trees, behind which was a mansion with a couple of bored privates tending some flower beds.

“Shouldn’t we be growing vegetables?” Shadrach murmured.

They approached a couple of tough-looking guards and Shadrach presented his orders. Curtly, the largest guard waved him through the iron gates, and Corporal Williams slipped through the gate behind him. They waited for the sergeant and the lieutenant. The guards took their time over the grubby documents that the lieutenant presented, and they searched both soldiers, confiscating the lieutenant’s sidearm. “What are you waiting for,” the guard snapped at Shadrach.

“We came down here with them,” Shadrach said calmly.

Inside the building, soldiers moved around, rifles at the ready, some carrying documents. This time a guard subjected them all to a search, and Shadrach was disarmed. When he started to protest one of the soldiers pointed his gun menacingly. “Orders of the officer in charge,” he snapped. They were shown into a waiting room with bars in the windows and large double doors that obviously led to the General’s quarters. They sat down and waited for a long time.

“What’s going on here,” Corporal Williams whispered. “I’ve served in a couple of headquarters locations, but they were nothing like this.”

“I’ll bet that this command has been cut off from the rest of the army for months,” Shadrach murmured. “Once, when I was stationed in North Africa, I had to negotiate with one of the local warlords. He was out on his own, an absolute ruler, subject to no laws other than the ones he made, an arbiter of life and death. I saw him personally shoot a man because he didn’t like the way that man looked at him.” Shadrach paused. “I feel the same way now as I did then, as if anything can happen.”

The sergeant was obviously sharper of hearing than Shadrach had thought. “This is an army post, sir,” he said. “I don’t care who is running it, they have to follow army rules.”

Shadrach shook his head. “You don’t know General Cross like I do,” he said. I’ll warrant he’s been safely holed up here for quite a while.” The sergeant nodded in agreement. “Those men, those guards,” Shadrach continued, “Do they look as if they’ve ever been at the front lines.” The sergeant shook his head dubiously. “They are the General’s praetorian guard, men who will do anything he tells them to do. The alternative for them is being sent to the front and almost certain death.” The sergeant opened his mouth and closed it again. “I know the General,” Shadrach repeated.

As if on cue, an extraordinary apparition appeared at the double doors facing them. An enormously fat man stood framed in the doorway. He was obviously a British officer, but he had modified his uniform out of all recognition. He wore a Scottish tam-o-shanter on his head, topped by an ostrich plume. A General’s tunic, devoid of stars and covered with unlikely medals strained across his bulging belly. His puttees were jet-black, and his high riding boots gleamed brightly. Lieutenant’s bars shone incongruously on his epaulettes. In his right hand, he held a deadly officers pistol

“We heard what you said,” he chanted in a high-pitched voice. “We hear everything,” and with a flourish he withdrew his left hand from behind his back, and waved a large horn at them.

‘My God, he’s completely insane,’ Shadrach thought, and the young lieutenant who had sat quietly for hours in his battle-stained uniform stood up abruptly. “Where’s General Cross,” he said, walking towards the apparition, oblivious to the pistol and the horn and the insane dress of the fat man. The sergeant was fast, but Shadrach was faster, throwing himself in front of the lieutenant in time to stop the second bullet. He felt it hit him solidly in the chest, and the fat man fired three more shots into him before Shadrach could reach him and dispatch him with one massive blow. Then he felt the pain and slid to the floor.

He never lost consciousness, and when he looked down at the four neat holes in his chest, they were already healing. The sergeant was close by, gaping at him, and Corporal Williams was expertly twisting a tourniquet on the young lieutenant’s arm. “I was a medical orderly,” the corporal said to no-one in particular, “but General Scott’s brigade had no use for medics.”

Shadrach hauled himself to his feet and took a couple of deep breaths. “My regiment has been trying out some bullet-proof clothing,” he said unconvincingly. “Like a suit of armour, only lighter.” The sergeant appeared to be trying to wake himself up. “Sergeant,” Shadrach said sharply. “We need to find out what’s happened to the General, and who this clown is.”

“I know who he as,” the sergeant said. “He’s changed since I last saw him, but he’s Lieutenant Roker, the General’s aide; also his nephew.” He glanced nervously at Shadrach.

“Help me get him on his feet,” Shadrach said, “and we’ll find out where the General is.”

They hauled Lieutenant Roker to a chair and secured his arms and legs. The fat man groaned and the sergeant slapped him hard across the face. “Just to wake him up, sir,” he said to Shadrach.

“Roker,” Shadrach said clearly. “Wake up.” He covered the man’s mouth and nose until Roker began to struggle for air. “Now that I have your attention,” he said. “We need you to explain what in Hell is going on here.”

The fat man moaned. “I killed you,” he said.

“Yes, you did,” Shadrach answered. “You killed me and I’ve come back to take you to Hell.” The fat man looked at him, terror in his eyes. “What happened to the General,” Shadrach said carefully. “General Cross, your uncle.”

“I, I didn’t do it,” Roker said trembling. “You can’t take me to Hell. I didn’t do anything.”

Shadrach sighed. “You can’t get away from me,” he said. “Your bones will burn forever in Hell; the demons will dismember you, and the pieces of your body will crawl together, and then you will be thrown into the burning, choking furnace again – and this will go on for ever. Roker moaned, and pulled at his bonds. “I don’t have much time,” Shadrach said. “If you don’t answer, the devils will come and take you. Tell us now, where the General is, and what happened to him.”

“Will I be saved?” Roker asked. “Will I go to Heaven,” he said pathetically.

“How many men have you sent to their death,” Shadrach thundered, and the fat man moaned. “If you tell me how to find the General; what happened, I can save you – for Limbo, that is. But you must tell me now.”

“He went mad,” Roker said. “He couldn’t sleep; he’d have nightmares and wake up screaming. He kept raving about how many men he had killed.” Roker choked; something between a laugh and a sob. “He wanted to send me to the front to save ‘his men’. Can you imagine?” The fat man looked pleadingly at Shadrach. “Can you imagine that? He tried to stop me sending the men up to the front.” Roker looked around at them. I had to send them. We have to win the war. Of course, by then he was completely mad and I was running the show. I had to be strong.” He looked into the eyes of the four men standing before him and cringed.

“Don’t say any more,” Shadrach told him. “Except to tell me where the General is. Tell me now, or I’ll let the others have you.”

“Yes, yes, the fat man cried. I want to tell you, I don’t want to go to Hell.” He licked his lips. “General Cross is at the lunatic asylum at Dury.”

“Ah.” Shadrach straightened up. “That’s where we must go.” He turned to the sergeant. “We’ll need your help…”

But the sergeant was backing away, horror in his face. “Keep away from me. You’re dead,” he said. “I saw you killed. You and your corporal are Devils. He looked wildly around and snatched Roker’s pistol from the ground. “Keep away from me,” he shouted, voice cracking.

“Sergeant!” It was the young lieutenant. He nursed his arm, but the faraway look was gone from his eyes. “Get control of yourself,” he said sharply. “Give me the gun.” He took the pistol from the trembling man. “I need you, Sergeant Jakus. We need you,” he said softly. “You’ve kept yourself together for a long time. You’ve kept me from cracking up for a long time.” He patted Jakus on the shoulder. “This is a man, a live man,” he said. “I don’t know what you saw, but only one bullet hit him, and it bounced off the armor plate he wears.”

“But I saw four bullet wounds to the chest,” Jakus said, anguished.

“Sergeant, you’ve been through a lot lately. I don’t know what you thought you saw, but I saw one bullet hit him, and it bounced off the armour plate. We have all seen too many bullets, too much death. No-one blames you for getting it wrong.” The lieutenant paused. “This man saved both our lives, remember that.”

The sergeant groaned. “I’m sorry sir,” he said to Shadrach. “This is the first time I’ve let this war unbalance me. I’m willing to accept the consequences.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Shadrach told him. “You heard your lieutenant say we need you.” He looked up suddenly and circled behind the chair where the fat man was sobbing quietly. He signaled to the corporal – gag, now. Harry picked up some material that he had been using for bandages and circled the chair. Before the fat man could react, Shadrach had efficiently gagged him. “We’re all tired,” he told them. “We are forgetting that we are in enemy territory, surrounded by Roker’s guards. We have to get to your men, lieutenant. We have to get control of headquarters.”

They sat round a small table, planning a coup. They were well armed. Shadrach had retrieved several guns from Roker’s private collection. The lieutenant kept glancing nervously at the door. “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “before they investigate. The guards must have heard the shots; they probably think the fat bastard is letting us die slowly, but they will check up on their leader soon.” Shadrach decided that Sergeant Jakus, would alert the soldiers in the barracks; the other three would have to fight off the guard until help came.

“You saved our lives,” the lieutenant said, after the sergeant had left, “whoever you are.” He fished an empty pack of cigarettes from his pocket and threw it down irritably. “The Sergeant is a good man,” he added. They smoked Shadrach’s Gitanes for a while in silence. “Peculiar uniform you have,” the lieutenant said.

“Not too peculiar,” Shadrach said. “I’m a colonel, I had to revert to captain to fit the orders I carried.” He searched in his greatcoat and brought out some scraps of cloth. “Well, Harry,” he said, “I might as well promote myself.” He turned to the lieutenant. “I am a genuine colonel. I have commanded men for years.”

“I’ll sow your flashes on for you, sir,” Harry said placidly. “I told you that your uniform looked peculiar.”

“Funny thing, Harry,” the lieutenant mused. “I hardly noticed you at first. You were like a shadow, just visible from the corner of my eye. And I kept forgetting about you.” he mused. “Do you think I’m cracking up like the sergeant,” he asked innocently.

The uniform was barely restored when the guards came. Shadrach opened the door and grinned at four grim-looking troopers. As fast as they were, he was faster and only one managed to duck into cover. Then the action turned hectic. A gas cylinder, tossed through the bars landed at the lieutenants feet, and he hurled it back. After that, the guards concentrated on pinning them down. It soon became evident that, with their superior numbers, they required only patience to finish off the three men.

The guards began to shoot at random through the barred windows. Either they were indifferent to the possibility of killing Roker, or they thought him dead. Hidden behind barricades, they took pot shots into the room, and bullets ricocheted off the steel cabinets like angry hornets. One of them took off Shadrach’s index finger, and he calmly held it in place while it re-attached itself. Opening the door to return fire was suicide. About fifty of the guards deployed, inside and outside the building, well positioned behind barricades. “Let’s take that gag off Roker, and see if his squeals for help will give them pause,” Shadrach said. He turned and looked at the glassy-eyed fat man. A random bullet had smashed the man’s head, and he had died without a sound. “How long before the sergeant gets back with reinforcements,” Shadrach asked the lieutenant, who shook his head.

“If he made it to the barracks, he should be back in about another two hours.” The lieutenant drew a sharp breath as a bullet tore through his hair.

Shadrach quietly edged up to the door and peered through a bullet hole. The guards were cautiously moving closer, pushing makeshift shields ahead of themselves. He glanced back into the room. Harry and the lieutenant, surrounded by filing cabinets, were crouched tensely in a corner. Harry was nursing his arm, where a bullet had barely missed touching an artery. “Are you a good shot, lieutenant,” he called softly.

“Yes,” the lieutenant said simply.

“Then come up here, and when I open the doors, give me covering fire.” Shadrach carefully loaded four pistols and stuck two of them in his belt.

“That’s suicide, man,” the lieutenant said, and grimaced. “Maybe not,” he said, “for you.”

Shadrach stretched his hand out, grasped the cold brass doorknob, and flung it open. He ran towards the barricades, howling a banshee wail, and a hail of bullets hit him. Staggering and sick with pain, he circumvented some cabinets, and mowed down five of the Praetorian Guard. The lieutenant cut down a sixth guard. Gasping, howling and spitting blood, Shadrach limped towards another barricade. Seven or eight men, unmanned by the sight of a giant gushing blood from multiple wounds, still on his feet and lumbering towards them like an avenging angel, ran, and other clusters of guards followed. A couple who stood their ground were cut down by the expert marksmanship of the lieutenant. Head reeling, Shadrach turned and staggered blindly towards the door, legs bending like rubber underneath him. Only when the door of their refuge slammed behind him did he crash to the floor, sliding in a pool of his own blood.

When he opened his eyes, his two friends were bending concernedly over him. “Let me rest,” he said wearily, and closed his eyes. He came to about an hour later and sat up. They had bathed him and sewn his uniform. He was wearing a huge pair of Roker’s black puttees. “How undignified,” he murmured. He learnt that all the fight had gone out of Roker’s guards after his banshee charge. If their sergeant had been upset by seeing four bullets enter his chest, the guards were terrified. The trio waited a little longer and heard the steady trot of the lieutenant’s troops as they approached at the double. The sergeant entered alone and cautiously approached as Shadrach hastily dressed.

“I thought you might be dead,” he said. He stared at Shadrach. “That’s a nice pair of puttees you’re wearing, sir,” he said. “More appropriate to your new rank,” he added, grinning. He was obviously at ease now with this eccentric officer, and was prepared to show it by exercising a little informality. “We captured most of the guards, sir,” he said to his lieutenant. I don’t know what you did, but they were running as if all the demons in hell were after them.”

The following day, the two officers and the sergeant met to discuss plans for the headquarters camp. “I need you, colonel,” the lieutenant told Shadrach. A lieutenant and a sergeant cannot run a headquarters base alone.” They cleaned up the camp, and located a loft full of carrier pigeons. They sent out messages and re-established contact with the rest of the war. In the name of the General, Shadrach pulled back his army to defensive positions and issued orders that the troops were to avoid contact with the enemy wherever possible and await reinforcements. Roker’s guards were given the option of being transferred to the front or facing courts martial and exhausted men began to trickle into the camp from the battleground. Pigeons returned from British Army East headquarters informing them that an enquiry was to be held, and that a delegation of officers would show up in a few days.

“You’ll come up smelling like roses,” Shadrach told the lieutenant one early morning, as he and Harry prepared to leave. “The General disappeared and his insane nephew was running the camp in his name. You just saved the day and hundreds of lives, with a little help from a mysterious colonel from military intelligence, what was his name – Shadrach Jones. Of course, that may not even have been his real name.” Shadrach held out his hand. “I hope you get the promotion you deserve. I’d recommend you myself if I thought it would do any good.”


Chapter 8 – The Asylum at Dury
Once more, the colonel and the corporal started out across the blasted fields, avoiding roads and contact with military personnel. It was only about ten miles to Dury and the asylum, fifteen, following the circuitous route that they used. Sometime close to noon, they came upon an old man who was tending vegetable beds and asked him if he knew how to get to the asylum. “I’ll show you,” the old man said. “I have time.”

They skirted some flowerbeds, red roses, white lilies and others that Shadrach, who was no expert, did not recognize. “Those are mine too,” the old man said with some pride. “Of course, it’s self-indulgent of me to grow these beautiful, inedible plants when there’s a war going on around us.” He smiled at them. “You should see my tomatoes, though; they’re the best in the province, maybe the whole country.”

“You speak very good English,” Shadrach said.

“Thank you,” the old man replied, “I was a professor of English, before I retired. It wasn’t a top-notch college he added modestly, but I have done a great deal of translating in my time and one never forgets.” He turned to Harry. “And you, young man, I suppose you’re the Colonel’s batman. Interesting word, that. I believe it has something to do with the French word for luggage carrier.” Harry nodded, and the old man continued. “I suppose you miss your lady friend, back home in the North of England.” He chuckled at their surprised faces. “I’m good at recognizing accents, and what young man serving overseas doesn’t have a lady friend waiting for him.” They emerged from a small copse of trees. “There it is,” the old man said, pointing to a large stone building, solid looking but rather shabby. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll introduce you to the Administrator; he’s a friend of mine.”

They marched up wide stone stairs and entered an atrium. Old pictures decorated the walls, and even older plants stood in various nooks. A threadbare carpet that had once been plush covered the stone floor. They entered a small office and a little man looked up irritably. “Yes, what can I do for you,” he asked in French, pushing aside some official looking papers.

“The colonel,” the old man interrupted, “is dead. He is looking for a high-ranking military officer. And the corporal,” the man gestured towards Harry, “Well, he’s still alive, but he’s looking for his body.”

Shadrach sucked in a gasp and paled. The little man glanced past Harry and fastened on Shadrach. “Anton is perfectly harmless,” he said with an almost unintelligible English accent. “I wish all my patients were all like him.”

“I’m looking for General Cross,” Shadrach stated in his best French, and the little man coughed nervously, mumbling something in incomprehensible English. “I know he’s here,” Shadrach persisted. “Please don’t try to deny it.”

“Shall I translate for you, Louis,” Anton said mischievously, “and then we won’t misunderstand each other.”

“It was his own nephew who brought him here,” Louis said. “The man is utterly insane. He’s spent a lifetime sending people to their deaths, and it finally broke his mind.” He looked earnestly at Shadrach. “I did something wrong, I admit. I know General Cross should be in a military institution, but believe me, the further away from the army he is, the less he suffers. His nephew understands, and paid a large sum of money for the General’s upkeep, all of which I spent on this place and my patients.”

“The nephew is dead,” Shadrach said flatly. “He will not be sending more money. You’d best tell the army, when they get here, what you told me. You can tell them that the nephew promised to send money, but sent none. That way you won’t have to drain your resources.”

Again, the old man interrupted. “Harry,” he said. Go upstairs to room 212. It’s unlocked, and I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in there.”

Louis looked perplexed. “Sometimes Anton talks to himself,” he mumbled uncertainly.

“This is an asylum, not a hospital,” Shadrach said to Anton. “We’re searching the military hospitals for his body.”

“A man wanders into these grounds, almost naked, incoherent, with no memory,” Anton answered serenely. “We couldn’t turn him loose, back into the war, and then he fell asleep and he’s stayed that way ever since.”

“Ah, he’s talking about the patient in room 212,” Louis said. “Tragic case that. We keep him comfortable, bathe him.” With a cry, Harry ran out of the office. “I’ll take you to see the General,” Louis said, standing up.

“I want to be left alone with him,” Shadrach said, and Louis nodded.

“Did you like Natal,” Anton said, and Shadrach stared at him.

“When I wasn’t at war,” he finally managed to say.

“He’s not the man you knew in Natal,” Anton said gently. “That man died, slowly and painfully, piece by piece, battle by battle. He’s paid his dues, just like you.”

They walked down interminable corridors. Disinfectant smells escaped from various rooms, along with something less pleasant. They passed a few orderlies, and mumbling, preoccupied patients, one of whom danced in front of them, waving her arms. “She taught herself sign language,” Louis murmured, “It’s her own invention, but it keeps her happy.” Finally, they reached a heavy grey door. An orderly was just leaving, about to turn the key on a large padlock. He spoke with Louis before striding away with a trolley of half-eaten food. “Sometimes he has to force the General to eat.” Louis said. “General Cross is a person that we don’t allow to mix with the general population here.” The little man shook his head. “You will be safe; we had to chain him up. I’ll wait here and you can take as much time as you need.”

Shadrach pulled his cap down and entered the padded room, shutting the door carefully behind him. After forty years he was about to face the man who had killed hundreds including his brother. Hatred seared his mind. Inside the door, he stopped dead, eyes accustomizing themselves to the gloom. A small window high on the wall filtered enough light to see. A gaunt figure huddled on a narrow bed in the corner, a chain around its waist allowing some movement. A filthy bucket stood by the bed; food was on a small table. Shadrach searched the pale face for traces of the arrogant young killer he had known in Natal and could find none. The years had eaten away any resemblance; no human qualities were reflected in the features, only emptiness remained.

“I ate your food.” The words, spoken in a reedy whine startled Shadrach by their ordinariness. The apparition squinted “Who are you?” The figure straightened a little, the voice strengthened a little. “Do I know you?”

Shadrach approached. “You know me,” he said, taking off his cap. With a screech the General flung himself forward, jerking back with an audible snap, like a mad dog at the end of a rope. Shadrach stepped back in horror.

“You’re dead,” the General screamed. “I killed you years ago, just like I killed all the others.” Blood dripped, unnoticed from his hand. He wiped his face, leaving a red smear across his forehead. His features untwisted, and he sat on the bed, looking at Shadrach. “So I really am mad,” he said in a perfectly normal voice. “I’m hallucinating.” He studied Shadrach with interest. “Yes, you look just like you did forty years ago.” He studied his withered hands. “Blood,” he said. “Look at the blood. So much blood I spilt.” He leant against the dirty wall. “So what have you come to say to me, spirit?”

“I’m not a spirit,” Shadrach told him. He extended his hand. “Touch.”
The old man touched him lightly. “You seem real,” he said wonderingly, “but you can’t be real.” He sighed. “It’s a little easier when I’m mad, you know. I say to myself, ‘I’m insane, I’m in Hell’, and for a moment I forget about the blood on my hands.” He looked at Shadrach interestedly. “That’s a little paradoxical, don’t you think?”

“I’m here to kill you,” Shadrach told him stonily.

“Of course you are,” the General said. “I had you and your brother killed; I sent hundreds of others to their deaths, simply for my own advancement, because I wanted to be a General, like my father.” He studied his hands. “I killed your brother for even less than that. I killed your brother because you annoyed me.” He looked at his hands again. “From that moment I began to have bad dreams. I sent the boy out with three enlisted men – I killed them, too, for no reason. I sent the four of them out, and I sent some of our native soldiers after them. I said they were traitors, selling secrets to the enemy.” He paused and drew a ragged breath. “The sergeant in charge said that they rode up, saluted and then cut them down like the traitorous dogs they were, and I laughed and said “Good work, boys. And I said, I said…,” he groaned. “Tell me spirit, have you ever met a man as evil as I am?”

Shadrach slapped him hard across the face. The old man’s head rocked back and his eyes widened. Once more, he touched Shadrach, examining the hands and the face. “The hands are different, but your face is the same. I believe you. When I became insane, I started to see things differently. You are real,” he said. “I don’t know how, but you are real, and you are here to kill me.” The old man clasped his arms around his emaciated body and rocked slightly. “Go on,” he said. “I deserve it, more than anyone I deserve it. You have your pistol, tell them I attacked you and you had to defend yourself. Kill me,” he said, “Please kill me.”

Shadrach stared at the pitiful old man in front of him. This dirty, demented stranger bore no relation to the man he had known forty years before. The young officer was long dead, and the old General was eaten away from the inside. “I can’t,” he said. “You are wrong. I’m a spirit, and you’re insane.” He backed away from the shrunken figure and let himself out of the padded room, into the corridor where there was some air and some hope.

“Were you satisfied,” the little man asked him. “We’ve done our best, but he’s a self-destructive, hopeless case.”

Walking back, Shadrach noticed a smear of the old man’s blood on the back of his hand. “He cut himself. You should see that he gets it attended to,” he told Louis. “Now, I’d like to see the comatose patient – he’s in room 212, I believe. I’ll find my own way.”

He walked slowly to the room where Harry was standing looking silently at the figure, sleeping peacefully between clean sheets. “Do I really look like that?” Harry asked, and Shadrach nodded.

Harry shuffled uncomfortably. “Did you shoot – him?” he asked.

“I couldn’t,” Shadrach said. “God help me, though, I almost killed him out of sheer compassion.”

“Good,” Harry said, still regarding the figure between the sheets.

“It’s time, Harry,” Shadrach said gently. “It’s time for you to reclaim your body.”

“I’m scared. It’s been so long,” Harry said.

“You can do it, corporal,” Shadrach said, gesturing towards the bed.

And, very simply, Harry climbed onto the bed and merged with his body. A touch of colour appeared on his cheeks, and Corporal Williams blinked twice and opened his eyes. He turned his head and surveyed the room. “Sir,” he finally said. “Where in Hell am I.”

Shadrach grimaced. “That’s a bad choice of words, corporal. You’re in a sort of hospital, and we’ve all been waiting for you to wake up.”

Harry tried to sit up and groaned. “I’m so weak. What happened?” Alarm showed in his face. “I’m not paralyzed, am I?”

Shadrach helped him sit up. “You’ve been in a coma for six months,” he said. “That’s why you’re so weak.” He repeated the story that the Administrator had told him, describing the ragged, battered man, discovered in a battle zone and hidden in the asylum at Dury, for his own good. “You lapsed into a coma and they didn’t know what to do with you,” he said. “Didn’t know whose army you belonged to, or even whether you were a combatant, so they took you in. They fed you as best they could, and gave you liquids. Then I found you. Start to flex your muscles,” he ordered, “you will be able to move around pretty soon.”

“I had some strange dreams,” Harry said wonderingly. “You were in them, sir, I swear.” He licked his lips. “I feel like I’ve known you for a long time.”

“Not unusual,” Shadrach said professionally. “You weren’t in a deep coma, and I spoke to you for a while. The sense of time is often distorted in cases like this. I’m Colonel Jones,” he said. “You tell me what you remember, and I’ll fill you in with what’s been happening out here.” They spoke for a while, Shadrach noting that Harry now fully remembered who he was, Harry increasingly puzzled as to why he felt such an affinity for the large colonel. Finally, Shadrach stretched. “I have to go now,” he said. “I have to tell headquarters where you are. I should think that you’re in for a rather extended leave, maybe even a posting to Blighty.”

Harry coughed. “I’m awfully hungry, sir. Do you think…”

Shadrach nodded. “I’m so sorry. You’ve had no real food for months. I’ll tell them on my way down.” He stuck his hand out, and Harry took it awkwardly. “In case I don’t see you again, corporal, good luck.”

Downstairs, he approached the Administrator. “Your patient is fully awake, and he’s very hungry.” He left the administrator and a couple of orderlies scurrying around excitedly, and walked into the sunlight.

“I suppose it’s time for you to go,” Anton said. “Let me take you to the forest, and you can cross over.”

“I have one more thing to do,” Shadrach answered, “I have to inform the army of Corporal Williams’ whereabouts.

“It’s all taken care of,” Anton smiled. “I tend the garden and I keep carrier pigeons. Even in this quiet place we have to keep in touch.”

They moved on in silence, approaching the tree line. “I never believed that you would be able to kill the General,” Anton said. “I think that now, you will be able to cross over to the other side of the forest without too much trouble.” Shadrach looked at him. “Who am I?” Anton murmured. “I’m a harmless lunatic,” he smiled. “I’m pleased to have met you.”

Shadrach smiled and began to walk towards the trees. “It’s been a privilege to meet you,” he said without turning round.

Anton watched as the big man approached the trees with a firm step, skirting the small young saplings, traversing the slight slope without slowing, walking steadily through the thick grass until he reached the first sparsely populated trees, gradually disappearing as the thickening foliage surrounded him until he was finally gone, embraced by the forest that stretched into the distance. The colonel never looked back.

Chapter 9 – A Better Class of Limbo
Arthur inspected the storefront. In the real world, it looked like a large antique shop, and already the inhabitants of the real city were staring curiously at the artifacts that Arthur’s foundry was turning out by the dozen. A product of an otherworldly culture, these creations were subtly different from anything that was being produced in the staid and formal culture of Britain in 1930. Limbo barmaids had been dragooned as sales women, an inspired idea, since there was no intention of selling for cash, useless in Limbo, and real customers were easily routed by the ugly and intimidating Limbo women. Inside the large one-roomed store, Intermediates and real people mingled uneasily. The front door, inaccessible to Intermediates, led to a nondescript street that was, for a brief while, popular with bargain-hunters, until they were insulted and intimidated by hard-faced ‘salesladies’. The back door led to Limbo56.

The store was perfectly legitimate, the Politician had seen to that. The Accountant already had a set of ledgers for the ‘Necessities’ emporium. After a week, Underworld contacts of the Criminal showed up. A rock-faced giant, ‘Arry the ammer’ turned up demanding to see The Boss. Sadie pressed the button under the counter, and within minutes, Arthur and the Criminal entered by the back door. ‘Arrys thick eyebrows shot up on his non-existent forehead when they entered. “Ah thought yo was dead, Bobby,” he said.

“Ar,” Bobby answered, and they talked shop for a while. It took a few more meetings and a few battered scruples before Limbo and the local underworld came to a complete understanding, but once the deal was done, things went swimmingly. One stumbling point was Arthur’s refusal to make and trade guns, but a small stream of industrial gold and diamonds was soon trickling out of Limbo, together with engine blocks and car parts, while genuine booze, meat and canned food changed hands inside the ‘Necessities’ emporium. ‘Arry and his mates obviously thought Arthur was insane, but the presence of Bobby and the Politician was enough to convince them that whatever was going on was sufficiently dirty.

Gradually, the pubs began to sport a row of top shelf liquor, and flimsy menus decorated the tables where they soaked up beer and regaled the customers with descriptions of plain meals that nevertheless did not taste like cardboard. The pubs were to be the center of the new society that Arthur was building because they were where the Angels feared to tread. Arthur ruthlessly corrupted a third-class clerk cherub and was able to stage fights and mayhem on the infrequent occasions when an Angel was scheduled to be in the vicinity, and the Devils were too lazy to check on the obscure little Limbo. Gradually, a few luxury items began to find their way into the small kingdom. Refrigerators, radios, motorcycles, even a few cars were soon rumbling around the streets. ‘Arry the Ammer, fleeing the police one day, drove a bus through the plate-glass front of the Emporium, and donated it to the Intermediates to cover damages and for safe haven in the cellar of the store while the police searched for him.

Slowly, a middle-class of sorts developed among the Intermediates. The scrip doled out by the Heavenly council was unvarying; Arthur, for instance received the same payment as the newest foundry janitor, but the more enterprising of the inhabitants soon found ways to trade goods and services for newly available luxuries. Arthur was careful not to plunder the treasury, but his accountant did set him up with an extra stipend for running the place. In prison, three ex-Governors were living in unexpected and unprecedented luxury. A second emporium opened near the other gateway, and plans were drawn up to block off the tunnel with a third store, with access for larger goods, since it was not deemed practical to demolish a storefront every time a large vehicle was required.

Arthur’s main problem was restraining the exuberance of his citizens. Workers, who in life had worn nothing but overalls soon demanded suits, shirts and ties. Facial hair refused to grow in the afterlife, but soap became a hot item, together with hairbrushes and brilliantine. Workers not resourceful enough to take advantage of the new economy were discontented with their lot and began grumbling and threatening strike action. With the new middle-class refusing to set foot in the ‘dirty’ foundry, and most of his workers on ‘go slow’ time, or recovering from real booze hangovers, output soon began to decline, and Arthur was forced to release some of his stockpiles to keep up his quotas. His accountant assured him that he had a month or two’s grace before the fall in production became too obvious to cover up. Overall, a booming economy was turning into a nightmare for the hard-pressed Governor.
One morning, dragged away from his own job on the line, he was listening to the complaints of one of his worst workers, who had managed to become a shop steward. “An’ we need proper safeguards around them moulds,” the man was saying. “I almost got crushed this morning when my mate turned it.” Arthur’s testy remark that the man was drunk was partially drowned by the loud ringing of his phone. It was an extension of the one in his rooms, a direct line to the Angels, and Arthur ignored it, uneasily. “And we want proper health coverage,” the man continued. “There should be a trained nurse, and a trained doctor on the premises for all shifts. A good-looking nurse,” he added hopefully.

“How would that help?” Arthur cried. “You’re all dead, or undead, or whatever state we’re in. You break a bone, or lose some toes, and you wait to heal up. Why do you need a doctor to wait with you?” The phone rang again, loudly. Recently traded in from the real world, it was a new model, earpiece and speaker combined in one sleek design. Arthur picked it up clumsily, made sure that he was handling it the right way around, and listened.

The shop steward looked at his watch with the air of a man who has many important duties to attend to, and can’t bear to observe dereliction of duty in others. “Do you have to chat now?” he asked accusingly.

“This is Max,” the voice on the phone said. “I hear you’re having problems out there.”

“Out,” Arthur said to the shop steward. “How did you get access to this phone,” he asked the Politician.

“I haven’t done, yet.” The shop steward said

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Max said smoothly.

Arthur grabbed the shop steward. “Out,” he said. “I have enough problems, without having to deal with the likes of you.” He shoved the man, still gabbling about benefits, out into the noisy chaos of the foundry. He went back to the phone. “How did you get access to this phone,” he shouted.

There was a long silence. Finally, Arthur turned the phone around. “How…” he began.

“So we can help each other,” Max was saying. “With my brains, and your, er, your position as Governor, we can advance together into a bright new future.”

‘Until it’s time for you to go to Hell,’ Arthur thought. “I didn’t hear what you were saying,” he told the politician.

“Still having trouble with the new technology?” Max asked sympathetically. “Don’t worry; I can handle that part for you.”

“How did you manage to get to my private line?” Arthur finally managed to ask. “I’m coming over.” he added firmly. We need to…”

“No,” Max answered. “You have real problems. You have an overheating economy, labour unrest, and falling production. Your dream world is falling apart, and I can’t fix it from in gaol. Give the order for my temporary release and I’ll see you at your place” The phone went dead, and Arthur stared at it with no idea how to reconnect to the politician. It took a week of declining production, and numerous confrontations with the self-appointed shop steward before Arthur and Max faced each other in Arthur’s rooms. Arthur poured real beer, and served real cheese and onion sandwiches. Max was unimpressed. “A good steak and some wine would be more appropriate,” he murmured. “You should get yourself one of those new-fangled gas-ranges.” He took another distasteful bite of the sandwich. “I’m here to help you.” He drank some beer and leaned towards the Governor. “You know,” he said. “I’ve always felt that the two of us have a special relationship. I feel that, of all your advisors, I’m first among equals.”

“I only have three,” Arthur said, nettled. “There’s you, and Bobby…”

“Bobby Boy, yes, but he’s a criminal, and used to being in gaol. He’s safe, and living well in there, and as for that accountant of yours, he’s good, but limited, and he’s quite happy sitting in his cell, reading his ledgers.” Max nodded to himself. “While I, I’m an artist. I practice the art of politics, and I need to be amongst people to do that.” Arthur shook his head. “Now don’t be hasty,” Max continued. “Think of your position, your vision for the future.” He munched a cheese and onion sandwich and grimaced. “You’re in a mess. The more you do for this place, the more your subjects want. Do you know why you get no respect? You get no respect because you live in a couple of rooms, you take the bus to work, and you eat cheese and onion sandwiches.”

“I’m showing everyone that I’m honest, that I’m not taking more than my fair share,” Arthur answered. “At least, not much more,” he protested.

“What does that have to do with running the place?” Max asked, genuinely puzzled. “You’re an idiot. Worse than that, you’re a poor idiot. Do you really think you’re popular?”

Arthur shook his head. “I got more respect when I was making them work seven days a week,” he said. “What can I do?”

“First, you can authorize a new prison. Any large building in a good area will do. I’ll make my own renovations. Then you can send me out to the poor suffering masses of this miserable place, so that I can make amends for my previous sins. I shall need a car to get about in, naturally, and a chauffeur. Then I’ll tell your subjects how happy they are and how lucky they are to have a generous Governor such as yourself I’ll make you popular.”

“You can’t just tell people that they’re happy.”

“Why not,” Max said. “Who were you talking to when I phoned you this morning? Can you get him in here?”

Later, when the little shop steward stood in front of them, grinning impudently, Max looked at him and said, “Please sit down, I’ve ordered beer and sandwiches.” He cleared his throat. “I’m acting as special negotiator for the Governor, who takes your complaints very seriously. Now, please reiterate what you told the Governor earlier.” He looked at the little man, who was staring at him perplexedly. “Please give us your complaints.”

“I know you,” the shop steward said. “You used to be the Governor before ‘im.” He jerked his thumb in Arthur’s direction. “You was a proper Governor. You always ‘ad nice clothes.”

“What a wonderful memory you have,” Max gushed. “Ah, here are our sandwiches. Now Mr. er…”

“Smith, Alf Smith.” He began to ramble about nurses and safety fences, and Arthur was amazed at the way Max handled the situation. Within five minutes, Max had summarized a list of complaints, congratulated the little shop steward on his presentation, and wrapped up the interview.

“Your fellow workers are lucky to have such an able spokesman as yourself. You can rest assured that I – we, shall give thorough and serious attention to every one of them,” he said as he ushered the smiling man out of the door. “That’ll shut him up for a while,” he said when the office door was safely closed.

“What have you done,” Arthur said, “you promised him everything.”

“I promised to give serious consideration to everything he said.” Max answered. “I didn’t promise to do anything about it. Did you see how happy he is?”

Arthur rubbed his eyes. “What are you going to do now,” he asked.

“Well, you promised me a new home,” Max answered. “I think I’ll look around for a suitable place today, and tomorrow, we’ll start telling your citizens what a fine fellow you are.” He finished the beer. “You should try some fine wine instead of this stuff.” He looked at Arthur speculatively. “Maybe not. Your type would look out of place sipping on a little fluted glass. You’d probably break the stem.” He saw Arthur’s look. “A good labour leader is a man of the people, a man who knows how to get his hands dirty, and a man who is in touch with his workers, their desires and aspirations. That’s you to a T. I’ll make you the greatest Governor this little Limbo ever saw.”

He was still talking in this vein when Arthur ushered him out. The Governor sat for a moment, wondering at how quickly events had gotten away from him. Max was now loose in the general community, although officially still a prisoner. Arthur’s mind circled round a couple of scenarios, making him feel somewhat dizzy. He sighed and left to inspect his foundry.

Two of Arthur’s teams went missing the next day. Since they were the two teams causing the most trouble, he didn’t mind too much. He noticed them on his rounds after work. He generally strolled around a few areas, taking a certain satisfaction from the fact that luxury items were beginning to show up in the streets. Solid citizens in stylish raincoats strode through the drizzle, hardly noticing the thin man in dirty work clothes. His missing workers were busy painting the wall of a building that faced the foundry. An ugly giant, square-jawed and stern, gazed upon the rows of terrace houses. In his hand, a giant spanner pointed accusingly at the length of Main Street. Arthur supposed that the figure was supposed to represent him. “That’ll make them love me,” he muttered sarcastically.

A small figure scuttled down from the ladder. He was wearing a large tin badge that read ‘Official Portrait Artist.’ “How do you like it, sir,” the shop steward asked. “I was an artist, before I came here,” he said. “Sort of.” He glanced anxiously at the Governor. “I hope you didn’t mind what I said yesterday,” he mumbled. “I get carried away sometimes. I hope you won’t hold my hasty ways against me.” He shuffled in front of Arthur like a nervous schoolboy. “This is the job for me, Governor. You can rely on me. I’ll make sure that the citizens show you the proper respect.” He kept gazing between the Governor and the giant painting as if he expected the giant on the wall to come to life and step on him.

“Carry on Alf,” Arthur said dazedly. A few streets down he came upon the second crew. Obviously, Limbo56 carried no aspiring sculptors, for the massive stone figure, a fat man sitting on a bored-looking horse, looked nothing like him. This had not stopped the crew from hauling it on to a large stone plinth with a brass plate, emblazoned ‘Our Governor’. The workers informed him deferentially that they had traded the statue for ‘a few lumps of gold. “Who is it,” Arthur demanded. “I know it’s supposed to be me, but who was it before you stole – traded it.” He looked at the fat man on the horse. “Bismarck.” He shook his head. “No don’t try to chisel a few inches of its stomach. Just leave it.”

As the days went by, Arthur began to notice his name on every street corner, almost literally, since several thoroughfares became, confusingly, ‘Arthur Boulevard’, ‘Arthur Street’, ‘Governor Arthur Mossop Square.’ Occasionally ‘Max Brown Lane’ added a little variety. The Governor’s name appeared on several buildings, and scrip began to circulate stamped with a smeary picture of the iron-jawed Governor. Arthur still lived in his modest rooms, but many of the better buildings, occupied by Max and his cronies had his name prominently displayed on their facades.

Confined to his luxury cell, Bobby the Criminal began to get restless. “’Ow come that bastard gets to strut around,” he growled one day. “I’m the one who’s bringing the money in. What do I get out of it?” Arthur pointed mutely to the luxury furnishings, the indoor bowling alley, and the private bar. Bobby had already taken over half of the prison, and had extensively remodeled his little world. “I wanna be free,” Bobby shouted, “Just like ‘im”. Arthur protested in vain that Max was still under restraint, and was not able to go anywhere, a statement patently true, giving the circumstances in Limbo. Bobby continued to complain loudly, but the Governor held firm. Max, with his giant statues and flamboyant lifestyle was becoming as much of a problem as the disgruntled workers had been. The few visiting Angels, however, kept their heads bowed in humble contemplation of the cracked roads and never seemed to notice the changes going on in the little Limbo.

Then, one morning, Bobby the Criminal was gone. Some expensive suits and a quantity of industrial diamonds went with him, but his furniture, his cars and his personal valet left testimony to his complete disappearance. “He has to be in the city somewhere,” Arthur said worriedly to Max. They formed search parties, and Arthur and his workers fanned out across town, searching every house. Wherever he had gone to ground, Bobby Boy had covered his tracks well.

Then, a few weeks later, they began to hear rumours of a mysterious criminal, apparently immune from harm, who was terrorizing parts of the outside world. For a while, Bobby Boy boosted the number of new recruits arriving at Limbo56. He obviously planned on taking out his opposition. Even ‘Arry the ‘ammer turned up, bewildered, on the wrong side of the Emporium before vanishing with a wail into the ground. Arthur went out looking for Bobby a couple of times and came back with a neat bullet hole in the head and an untidy slash wound that nevertheless did not disturb the old rusty knife, still lodged between his ribs from the fifty-year old bar fight that had landed him in Limbo56. It was obvious that eventually, even the Angels, contemplating their navels and thinking pure thoughts would stumble upon the situation and consign Arthur and all his subjects to the fires of Hell.

Then the mayhem in the outside world stopped. The steady stream of recruits dropped off and nothing more was heard from Bobby Boy. “This just makes matters worse,” Arthur told Max. “He’s obviously moved to another town. Eventually someone will catch him and trace him back to us, and we’ll all be in trouble. Now, I can’t even go after him.”

“Enjoy yourself while you can,” Max said philosophically. “I’m scheduled for Hell in a couple of years anyway.”

Arthur ventured out into the real world again, but there was no sign of Bobby. The real world had swallowed him up, and until he gave it enough grief to vomit him out again it seemed that he was untraceable. His influence remained, however.


Chapter 10 – Perils of Pauline
Arthur walked into his pub and sat at his table in the dark corner. He wondered how much time was left to them all. Strangely, he felt a touch of remorse over the expected fate of his subjects. He had attempted to make their lives a little easier, and they were all going to pay the price as soon as the Angels stumbled upon Bobby. He drank his Limbo beer gloomily. He had ordered vinegar beer in an act of contrition, and, after the real stuff, it tasted terrible.

“That looks so cool and tasty. Aren’t you going to offer a lady a drink?” He had not seen her approach, and, amazingly, neither had anyone in the pub. In a place where women were defined by seven of the ugliest barmaids in England, she was stunningly beautiful, in a dark kind of way, encased in a green dress that might have been painted on, with hair like black silk and ruby lips. She crossed her legs, and he spilt some beer on his overall. “Bobby sent for me,” she said, “and I came here, and now he’s gone, so I suppose, Governor, that I’m your problem now.”

“Problem,” he croaked. “You’re no problem. Beer,” he babbled, “no, would you like wine, liquor, anything. We have the real stuff here.”

“Bring a bottle of whisky,” she told him. “Then we can talk.”

Dazedly he carried a bottle to the table, and then had to go back for a couple of glasses. She poured a huge drink and tossed it off. “So cool, so smooth,” she said dreamily. “That bastard Bobby,” she murmured in the same tone. “I’m going to tear him to pieces and eat him when I catch him.” She poured another huge drink. “Aren’t you going to have any?” She asked.

Shakily, he poured a drink. “How did you get here?” He asked. “Where are you from?” She pointed to the dingy carpet, and he stared stupidly at it for a moment. “Oh,” he said finally, “You’re from H.. – down there.”

She leant towards him and laid a hand on his wrist. He shivered and goose bumps raced up his arm. “You’re not upset, are you?” She asked. “You are going to help me. I need you,” she said, and he drew a ragged breath. “Bobby was supposed to get me into Limbo,” she continued. “The Governor here dances to his tune, he said: that’s you, I suppose. You were going to be my sponsor, and then he was going to take over the place, exchange all the souls here for me. That’s about five thousand souls; I’m worth that, aren’t I?” He nodded dumbly. “Get another bottle, will you?” He looked down and saw that the bottle was almost empty, looked at her in surprise. “I’m a bad girl, I know,” she crooned. “I’m a really bad girl.” She drank, straight from the bottle. “I can’t resist temptation,” she said. “Let’s take the next bottle upstairs,” she said. “Take me upstairs;” she said, and she leaned forward, framing his face with her silken hair. “I’ll tell you what I can do for you, and then I’ll tell you what you can do for me.” They walked up the cobwebby stairs and no one noticed them. The upstairs rooms were all dusty and bare, and she turned dreamy eyes on him. “This is wonderful,” she said, and started to peel off her dress.

He woke up the next morning and looked at the dusty ceiling. “What a dream,” he murmured. “Life – death can’t be that good.”

“It was good for me too,” she whispered, and he jumped and winced. “Oh dear,” she said, sliding her hand between his legs. “Did you get blisters? It happens sometimes.”

“Aahh,” he said, somewhere between agony and bliss as her hands roved over his blistered penis. “Oohh,” he said. “I think I’m in love with you.”

She snatched her hand away, and he howled in pain. “How can you say such a disgusting thing,” she shrieked, eyes turning red. Two distinct bumps started to grow on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot. I forgot that you…”

“Never mind,” she told him. “I have a bad temper. It’s all part of being a Demon.” She wrapped herself around him. “Let’s go downstairs and drink some more whisky.”

He looked at her and gulped. “Shouldn’t we put some clothes on first? And, do you have a name?”

Her name was Pauline. She knew where Bobby Boy was; she had helped him escape from Limbo56, and, with Arthur’s help, she would locate him, tear him to pieces, and eat him. Arthur was not surprised to discover that this was, literally, what she intended to do. Unfortunately, in the real world she had no substance. Arthur must capture the criminal and bring him back to Limbo. Arthur briefly remembered the bullet in his head and the slash wound and smiled at her, thinking what a delightful, beautiful demon she had turned out to be. He agreed with her that Max and the Accountant could run Limbo indefinitely until he captured Bobby Boy, then he agreed that they should go upstairs again, and when he limped back downstairs several hours later, she whisked him away to Trafalgar Square, in London.

As a boy in the real world, Arthur had visited London for a weekend. He remembered a vast city with sleek, speedy carriages, the constant clatter of horses’ hooves, with rich citizens exiting and entering impressive houses, citizens who spoke with a strange accent. By 1930 the horses had vanished, replaced by automobiles that flowed in a stream round the square. Big red buses stopped to take on and disgorge passengers, and pigeons flew screaming around the statue of Nelson. He watched as the well-dressed citizens of the capital city streamed, unseeing, around them. One man, expensively dressed, with a silver-tipped cane, walked jauntily up to them. “I say…” he began, before clutching his heart and collapsing.

“Let’s get out of here,” Pauline said. “He’s going straight to H… - upstairs,” and she shivered.

Arthur saw that she was almost transparent. Here in the real world her horns were quite prominent, but they were prettily decorated with red bows. Even with a tail poking from her skirt, she had a stunning figure. “He’s living in Portland Terrace,” she said. “We need to take the underground to Bond Street.” She took his hand and led him across the street to where a stone staircase led them beneath the city. He tried to place his arm around her waist, but disconcertingly, it sank into her. “Stop that,” she said. “It tickles.” They walked through stone tunnels with a crowd of Londoners. Posters advertised old and new products, some of which he remembered, others that were completely new to him. Trains rumbled above and below as she led him through the confusing corridors. They stepped on to a platform and a train rushed from a tunnel to stop in front of them. “This one,” she commanded, dragging him inside.

“How do you know so much about London?” he asked.

“I lived here, not too long ago,” she told him. “Died here, too.”

Portland Terrace was an imposing row of large houses, sculpted in white stone. They looked as if they had been standing for a couple of centuries and were capable of enduring the ravages of time for several more. The house that Pauline pointed out was in the middle of the row, with several wide steps leading up to a landing and two massive doors. A large man in a black suit was leaning casually against the wall, as if taking a quick break. They watched for half an hour while he smoked interminable cigarettes. Two cars were parked close by, each occupied by two men in dark suits. The back of the house faced a large treeless park; anyone approaching would be seen for miles.

Bobby Boy left with his entourage, mostly in the early evenings. He usually returned at dawn or later. Two shifts of bodyguards kept him covered twenty-four hours a day. The task of kidnapping him and dragging him back to Limbo began to seem well nigh impossible. Pauline, unable to do anything in her present form, became more and more irritable. She began to demand that Arthur do something, anything to secure Bobby Boy. She began to fantasize about what she would do when she got him in her clutches. In desperation, Arthur obtained plumbers overalls and a false moustache. Miraculously the door was unguarded for a few moments, and he marched up and pushed his way in. He entered the study where Bobby Boy sat alone listening to the radio.

“I thought it would be you, Governor,” Bobby said without turning round. “Only you would be stupid enough for a stunt like this.” He turned around, a large gun in his hand. “What is that idiotic thing on your lip,” he said, and shot Arthur in the head.

Arthur felt the bullet tear through his skull, and most of his mental faculties went blank. He came to and stared at lumps of gray matter on the carpet, surrounding the bullet that had just ejected from his brain. Wincing, he picked up most of the shreds of brain and stuffed them into the hole in his head. From the next room, he heard the sound of voices raised in argument. Groaning, he crawled to the window, shoved it open and fell out, cracking his abused head. Numbly, he crawled across the large open space at the back of the house, expecting to be seized and dragged back at any moment. He reached a large building, dragged himself in and fainted behind a bench.

When he came to, Pauline was hovering anxiously over him. She was pale and trembling, and he was touched at her concern. “What the Hell did you crawl in here for,” she screamed when his eyes opened. “Don’t you know what it does to me to be in one of these places?” He looked around. It was a church. Pauline composed herself. “They knew exactly who and where you were and what you were doing,” she said. “They saw you buy the uniform, and left the door open. Luckily, only Bobby can see me, so I slipped in behind you.” She shook her head. “They planned to cut you up into little pieces and throw you in the basement furnace, but one of their neighbors noticed you in that ridiculous disguise and thought you were a burglar. He phoned the police and they arrived just in time. You must have revived when they were trying to get the police to leave.” She looked inquiringly at Arthur. “What’s it like for you undead to be cut up and burned? Would you ever heal? Is it painful?” She licked her lips.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said querulously. “It’s never happened to me.”

Pauline looked disappointed. “When do you think we will be able to get out of this place,” she said. “It’s really getting on my nerves.”

“Right now,” Arthur said. “I heal pretty quickly.” He checked his mental faculties. The only difference that he could feel was a certain diminution in his affections for the she-devil, but he wasn’t sure whether to attribute this to recent circumstances or the loss of some brain-matter. “Come on,” he said wearily. “I have to get hold of the local Limbo recruiter for this area. Whoever he or she is, they probably work for Jimmy Wheeler.” He scratched his head and noticed that the hole had diminished appreciably. “I need to steal a car and brush up on my driving skills.”

“That shot in the head seems to have killed some of your scruples,” Pauline said appreciatively.

They left the church and went in search of an unattended car. Arthur began to explain his plan to her. “When I woke up,” he said, “this plan was fully formed. I don’t know where it came from, but, at least it’s a plan, not just some stupid gesture from a besotted admirer of yours.” She smiled, and he wondered how completely he had rid himself of his obsession with her. “We can’t touch him here, in the real world,” he said. “Thanks to whatever you did, he’s free to wander around and cause chaos. If I can get him back to a Limbo, any Limbo, can you undo what you did?”

“Of course, she said. “All I have to do is tear him apart and eat him.”

“You are obsessive,” Arthur said wearily. “Once we get him back with the undead, can you fix it so he stays there?”

She hesitated. “Yes, I’ll fix it. Then I’ll eat him.”

He was looking around. “I don’t detect any recruiters,” he said.

Pauline laughed. “I can spot them,” she said. “Actually, that Jimmy Wheeler bloke is not far from here. We need to get the bus to Hackney. Then we steal a car,” she said before he could interrupt. “Then we drive to East Ham, in comfort. Right now, he’s having a beer with a prospective client.” She sniffed. “I’ll teach Bobby to run out on me,” she said. “Think what the two of us could have accomplished together.”

“I can’t imagine,” Arthur said faintly.

They finally caught up with Jimmy, bloated with beer, in a pub in Hackney. His eyes bulged when he saw Arthur and the she-devil. This time he was alone, his prospect safely signed up. “What the Hell are you doing harassing me in London,” he said. “Get away from my pitch, or I’ll have the Council on your neck.”

“Jimmy, I just want to ask a favour,” Arthur said, and Jimmy’s eyes widened.

“If you think I’d ever do you a favour,” he snapped, “You must have gone crazy.” He noticed the rapidly healing hole in Arthur’s head. “Ah, I see you’ve damaged your brain. That explains a lot.”

Pauline leant towards Jimmy, horns prominent. Small blue flames issued from her mouth. “You can see me, right, you undead piece of meat. Do you know what I am?” Jimmy looked uncertainly from her to Arthur. “I’m a Devil, first class,” she continued. “I tear out livers and eat them for breakfast. I suck brains through a straw, and I crack bones for exercise. I’m also a friend of Arthur, and we have a request to make of you.”

“You are a friend of Arthur?” This, apparently was the most difficult part of the situation for Jimmy to take in. “Arthur?” he repeated, Governor of that scrubby little limbo that I foisted on him years ago?”

“Look, you piece of slime,” she hissed. “Some time or other you will have to visit a Limbo, and I’ll be waiting for you. If you don’t do exactly as I say, I shall have years, eons of pleasure with your suffering tortured soul.” Her tail lashed angrily beneath her skirt. “You know you’ll never be safe from me, short of entering He… that place. I’ll melt your lungs, I’ll strangle you with your intestines, I’ll…” she was working herself into a frenzy.

“Fine,” Jimmy said suddenly. “I’ll do whatever you want. “Just leave me alone afterwards.” The look he gave Arthur was unreadable for a moment, and then Arthur realized that it signified horror mixed with compassion. ‘He’s convinced I’ve sold my soul to her,’ Arthur thought, and then. ‘Have I?’

“Let’s go to the nearest Limbo,” Pauline said, “Where I can get back into some skin.”

The Limbo was suburban Surrey, neat row houses, pocket lawns, clean air, with impossibly bored undead, weeding, gardening, cutting privet hedges with blunt shears. No one here needed to be chastised. Boredom did it all. The place justified itself by producing endless religious tracts for the angels, pornography and patently false advertising for the Devils. The three plotters worked out the plan in a small cafeteria that sold stale cardboard buns, and weak vinegar lemonade.


Chapter 11 – Bobby Boy
Bobby was bored. The boredom problem had haunted him since his birth in a prosperous suburb in the Midlands of England. He had been bored with the endless supply of bright shiny toys that his parents showered on him. He would throw them against the wall and stamp on them, and complain that they were inoperable and cheap. He was bored with his dog, and let it wander off and get lost. The parrot palled after a couple of days, and he carelessly let it fly out of the window. The cat, he flat out didn’t like, so he set it on fire, and it shot out of the house, howling. It came back, one-eyed and frazzled, and attacked him. His terror of cats lasted to the end of his life and beyond. When he got older, he indulged himself with women. He was rich, handsome, with a certain rough charm, so a steady stream of them came and went. As he got older and coarser, so did his women. He drank copiously gambled, was involved in some illegal and ultimately unprofitable ventures, after which, he married for money, and drove his wife to drink. On his fiftieth birthday, he bought one of the first of the new-fangled automobiles that were beginning to belch fumes into the already dirty air of his local city. At the age of fifty years and one day, he was rolling down a steep hill that ended in a sharp curve and a gasometer. He had not fully grasped the principle of the hand brake that stuck out from the side of his car, and he went crashing through a fence, to be engulfed in a great gout of flame as his vehicle slammed into the old worn walls of the ugly edifice.

He ended up in Limbo56, and accepted the Governorship from Jimmy Wheeler as his right. The job was harder than he thought at first, but by dint of an innate cunning, ruthlessness, and callous unconcern for the welfare of anyone else, he was soon enjoying broad dictatorial powers and a reasonably comfortable death. As usual, he got too greedy, and a common foundry foreman named Shadrach Jones managed to get word to the council. Before he even had time to get bored with his new life, he found himself in the Limbo gaol, awaiting deportation to hell, constrained like a common criminal, with a new, hastily recruited Governor in charge. He managed to make himself comfortable again, under the misguided Governorship of the idiot Arthur Mossop, but he was constantly looking for escape, and took full advantage of the situation when the She-Devil Pauline wandered into his particular Limbo.

She was, like him, bored, looking for a change of scenery, and because he was a completely self-centered being, he was able to lie to her without qualms or fears, and he happily took advantage of her gorgeous and freely offered body. He boasted of how he had wrested the Governorship from Jimmy Wheeler, and told her that he now allowed Arthur Mossop to do the hard work of governing while he lived in luxury. When she unshackled him from the bounds of Limbo, he ditched her and fled without any consideration of the fact that she was a Demon, first class, and had risen to that position in quite a short time. A more imaginative man might have pondered on her powers and felt a certain amount of fear. He was lucky in that Pauline was impotent in the real world. He felt that he had nothing to fear from ordinary mortals.

The sight of Pauline and Arthur lurking around his fortress house amused him for a while, and the ease with which he lured Arthur into his den convinced him that, in the real world, he was untouchable. He had looked forward to cutting Arthur into small pieces, and was annoyed when the police thwarted his scheme, and even more annoyed when Arthur disappeared. Despite his contempt for the Governor, he was forced to be a little more circumspect in his comings and goings and this irked him.

He bumped into Jimmy Wheeler in an expensive club that catered to rich patrons of dubious pedigree. He had dined on good food, imbibed expensive wine, and dallied with available women, but on this late night in autumn, he was bored. He was bored with the living, and a fellow undead was a welcome change. Jimmy was a little quiet at first, but after a few large whiskies, he became his old self. They swapped a few compliments, and Jimmy attested as to what a good job Bobby Boy had made of the Governorship and Bobby Boy agreed, and complimented Jimmy on his good sense in filling the position, and they both laughed over the present incumbent and finally Jimmy said, “When are you going back to the land of the undead.”

Bobby Boy frowned over this. “Why should I want to go back to that miserable Limbo,” he asked. “Nobody can touch me here.”

Jimmy looked thoughtful. “I know that Arthur Mossop isn’t a problem,” he said. “That idiot never was. Still, from what you just told me, the police were around your place a couple of days ago. You don’t want rumors circulating. You know how live people get about folks like us who are different.” He sniffed. “There are a whole lot of coppers in the Metropolitan police force. It’s not like when we were alive.” He looked seriously at Bobby. “The police started to harass me once. I lost a lot of business. I had to move from London to Birmingham just to survive.”

“I can’t go back to Limbo56,” Bobby protested.

“Of course not,” Jimmy said hastily. “You know, we could do some business, you and me. I can set you up in a nice little Limbo, not like the dump you were in. You can take it over from the inside, milk it dry.” He smiled. “For a percentage, I can take care of the Council.” Bobby frowned. “I’m not going to make it to Heaven the way things are running now,” Jimmy continued. “Think about it, but don’t take too long. Once the Coppers are on to you they never let go.”

They talked a little longer, and Bobby finally left with one of the women from the club in tow. Unfortunately, he fell asleep in the taxi, and when he awoke with a start, outside his house in the Terrace, the woman was no longer in the vehicle, and neither was his wallet. “It’s alright, mate, she paid me. Told me to take you to this address,” the taxi driver said. Bobby’s bodyguards hustled him into the house, and he settled into an armchair with a sigh.

“Anything happen while I was away,” he asked Reg., a solid man with the strength of a bear, and brain-power to match.

“No, Boss, just this big fella.” Reg. frowned. “I don’t think he was a Copper, maybe a plain-clothes detective. He was sort of flashy, but rough-looking.

“You think he was one of Arthur’s friends,” Bobby asked thoughtfully.

“No, Boss, he wasn’t like that at all. Didn’t look like a worker.”

“Well, what did he want,” Bobby demanded.

Reg. scratched his head. “Said he wanted to talk to you,” he mumbled. “I didn’t want to make no trouble after the Copper thing this afternoon.” Reg. hesitated. “’Sides, he didn’t look like he scared easily.” For a man the size of Reg. this was an amazing admission. He hesitated again, brow furrowed. “Boss, he kinda reminded me of you, like he wasn’t afraid of dying, if you know what I mean.”

“Guard the front entrance,” Bobby said. He pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket and extracted a slip of paper with a phone number, printed in the old fashioned calligraphy that Jimmy Wheeler used. He picked up the gold and white telephone and dialed. Then he settled down with a cigar and waited.

“No, I have no idea who that man was,” Jimmy was saying. “It sounds as if he may be one of us. You say he had a London accent, but it was a little strange; he used some old-fashioned expressions?” Bobby shrugged. “Forget about it,” Jimmy told him. “Check out this nice little Limbo I have for you. Relax, take a break.”

So it was that Bobby Boy found himself in Surrey, where bored suburbanites mowed their lawns and trimmed their hedges. Neat row houses faded into the distance and a hundred small printing shops churned out religious tracts and pornography. Bobby looked around puzzled. “What kind of Limbo is this,” he said suspiciously. “I’m not going to like it here.”

“No, you’re not,” Pauline said sweetly. She grabbed his head in a vise-like grip, and planted a long hard kiss on his lips. When she released him a drop of blood trickled down his chin. Bobby felt for his gun, but she danced away, waving it in his face. With a howl, he ran for the gateway and staggered back from an invisible barrier. “I just took away your power of movement,” Pauline said. “You’re stuck in Limbo again. Until I eat you,” she added. “I fancy an appetizer right now,” she said, and broke off one of Bobby’s fingers.

Bobby howled. “Jimmy, you bastard,” he shouted, but the recruiter was gone. He looked wildly around and started to run down the quiet street. Smiling, Pauline walked after him, and Arthur followed. They caught up with Bobby in the main square. He was babbling to a tall stern-looking woman. He stepped hastily behind her when he saw Pauline.

“Leave this to me, Pauline,” Arthur said. He turned to the tall woman. “Excuse me, madam. I am the Governor of Limbo56. I’m sorry that one of my subjects has entered your territory, but we’re here now to take him off your hands.”

The woman looked at Arthur as Queen Victoria might have regarded a naked witch-doctor in the middle of Africa. “I am the Governor here,” she said nasally. “I’ve never heard of Limbo56, and I want all three of you to leave immediately.” She waved her hand at the trim houses. “We try to run a tight ship here, and we only allow a certain class of half-sinner into our little world.”

“That’s fine, Madam,” Arthur said. “I’ll just take my prisoner, and we’ll be out of your way.”

“Madam,” Bobby Boy said to the woman. “I’ve been kidnapped. All I want to do is get back to my own cozy little Limbo. These two are pirates, Madam; they steal the undead from high-class Limbos such as yours, and make us work in the foundry at P56. No one wants to go there. You must help me mum,” he babbled. “I can’t get out of here on my own. Please release me first, so that can’t capture me again”

“I’ll personally escort you to a gateway,” the Governor of Surry said to Bobby. “I can get you out of here. You other two, just leave!” She grabbed Bobby by the elbow and started to drag him away.

“Thank you mum,” Bobby said, “Look what she did to me. She ate two of my fingers.”

“Governor,” Pauline cooed, “this man is a dangerous criminal. If you throw him out there he’ll come back with his gang and… and mess up your nice gardens, and all that,” she finished lamely. The woman looked directly at her for the first time.

“And who are you? Miss…” she began, smiling slightly. “Here,” she said to Arthur. “Restrain him while I get to the bottom of this.” Her smile widened, revealing crooked yellow teeth. “Now, young lady, perhaps you can explain to me what this is all about. She placed a friendly arm around the Demons’ shoulders.

Pauline seemed to have been growing younger. She looked about fifteen years old now, shy eyes peeping up at the tall woman from under long, dark lashes. “Oh, Miss, please help me,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell you, I was so embarrassed.”

“There, there, dear,” the woman murmured. “You can trust me. Now, what have these naughty men been doing to you?” She gazed fondly at Pauline. “I have a nice warm office, we can go there, and we can talk, just you and me. Come along you two,” she snapped at the men. “Any trouble from you and I’ll have you thrown in gaol.”

“It’s just the fat one, Miss,” Arthur heard her say. “He’s my Father, and well, I suppose he loves me in his own way, but I don’t think he should be showing it quite like he does.” They wandered off in a cloud of “’oh dear’ and ‘you poor thing.’”

“Come on,” Arthur said, pointing the gun at Bobby. “Or I’ll scoop some of your brains out.” They followed the women. The Governor’s mansion turned out to be a kind of army barracks, guarded by a Sergeant Major, an enormous woman. “Take them to the cells,” the Governor said, leading Pauline to a small office. The two men followed glumly behind the sergeant Major. “Why don’t you shoot her,” Bobby whispered. “I wouldn’t want to irritate her,” Arthur whispered back.

They spent a couple of hours in the cell, under the baleful eye of the big woman. At last, Pauline and the Governor returned. Two spots of colour brightened the Governor’s gaunt face. “You can all leave now” she said, “and I don’t want to see you two again.” Her tone changed. “Naturally, any time you want to visit us, Pauline,” she simpered, “you’re very welcome, you poor thing.”

Back at the gateway, Pauline laughed. “Well, that was different,” she murmured. Arthur shook his head. “There’s a way with these entrances,” the Demon told him. “Think thin. That shouldn’t be a problem for you, Arthur. Bobby, you may find this a little painful if you don’t suck your gut in.” She held out her hand. “Give me your right hand, Bobby.” Arthur prodded the man with his gun. “Now, Arthur, you hold his left hand in your right hand. Arthur, if he tries to break away, shoot him in the head.” They approached the gateway, and Pauline seemed to slide around the corner. Bobby and Arthur were sucked in after her.

The new Limbo was on the side of a mountain. A couple of dirty shepherds gazed at them apathetically, and Pauline faced the gateway again. “Just twist the other way this time,” she said. They twisted and slid through what seemed like an infinity of Limbos, at one stage landing in a pond that threatened to engulf them. Finally, they turned the corner on to a familiar sooty street where the rain washed the smoke from the air. Arthur stretched to breath in the smells of the foundry, and Bobby dashed through the back door of Necessities. They waited for a while and Olga’s brawny arms shoved him back out into Limbo.

“Can I take him to your rooms to eat him?” Pauline asked, as they strolled down the street. Bobby was tucked under her arm like some rag doll, kicking occasionally but relatively quiet. Arthur considered her question, and offered to take her out for drinks and a meal. They dumped Bobby at the gaol and wandered over to the Limbo arms. Arthur was flush. He had not spent any Limbo money during his trip to the outside. He ordered a bottle of champagne, a commodity that was becoming scarcer since Bobby Boy’s escape and ‘Arry’s demise, and two steaks. Pauline wolfed her enormous steak down, together with half of his, and washed the food down with several bottles of Champagne. “I’m still going to eat Bobby,” she said indistinctly through a mouthful of steak and bubbly.

“What will you do now,” Arthur asked. “I mean, the folks down there won’t be very happy with you. You could stay here…”

“And the Devil’s Council will eventually come after me,” she finished for him. “Besides, I quite like it down there; I always preferred a warmer climate.” She grinned. “It’s not too bad if and when you reach Devil, first class like me.” She frowned. “Of course, I’ll probably get demoted.”

“I was thinking,” he said. “If you were to bring back a big fish like Bobby, they might go easy on you.” He chewed a last morsel of steak. “Also, you can have all of the ex-Governors left in gaol, except for Max and the accountant. They’re all going to hell after their hearings anyway.”

She stretched. “I think Bobby Boy will be enough. I’ll take him down there in one piece.” They left the Limbo Arms and floated on champagne wings down the dirty streets, Pauline unnoticed and Arthur unremarked. They picked up Bobby Boy, in handcuffs, and stopped outside Arthur’s rooms to say goodbye. “Goodbye,” she said. “It’s been nice knowing you,” she added formally. Then she kissed him. “Thank you.” And she and Bobby slid into the ground, leaving him with the scent of violets and a faint whiff of sulphur in his nostrils.


Chapter 12 – The Pilot
In early summer of 1943, an RAF spitfire, separated from its squadron, flying on a wing and a curse, took a long dive, guns blazing, and knocked out a final Messerschmitt. Exiting the clouds in an impossibly sharp curve, Jimmy Wheeler Jr., air ace, genius with his machine, as disliked by his fellow pilots as he was feared by the Luftwaffe, crash-landed in a stone square. Screeching and shedding parts the plane finally skidded to a stop a few feet away from the massive doors of an incredibly dirty and menacing square stone building. Taking off his helmet, Jimmy limped towards the door.

Strangely, no gaping crowds surged out of the old houses and into the neat streets, no friendly ARP wardens, no threatening enemy civilians, and, equally strangely, Flying Officer Wheeler normally a whiz navigator, had no idea where he was after the confusing events of the last few minutes. The town looked strangely old-fashioned, trim, untouched by war. After a short silence, the doors of the building opened and a thin man in filthy overalls stepped out. “Flying…” Jimmy managed, peering through a stream of blood before collapsing into the thin man’s surprisingly strong arms.

He came to on a bed in a plain room, stung into consciousness by an inexpertly wielded needle, stitching up his face. Angrily, he knocked the needle from the man’s hand. “Leave me alone, you oaf,” he yelled, straining a couple of stitches. “I’m a British officer, and under the provisions of the Geneva Convention, I’m entitled to proper medical attention in a hospital, and humane treatment.”

“Ah don’t know about no Geneva Convention,” the man, who had clean hands on an otherwise soot-covered body, said. “And we ain’t got no ‘ospitals ‘ere either. He had a Black Country accent with a peculiar undertone that Jimmy couldn’t place. Hearing the accents of his childhood infuriated Jimmy with an intensity that surprised him. “You bloody little oik,” he yelled. “I want to speak to someone in charge.”

“Stuck up bastard,” the man grumbled. “Ah was a private in the last war. We fought in the trenches, not like you fly boys, up above the mud and shit.” He swabbed blood away from Jimmy’s wound again. “An’ yo’m lucky I done a few months as a medic, and yo’m lucky ah remember ow ter sow that pretty face o yourn up. Arthur,” he bellowed. “Come in ‘ere. Toffy nose wants ter speak to the boss.”

A vaguely familiar thin man entered the room. Dirty, wearing overalls, he epitomized the poverty and squalor out of which Jimmy had clawed his way. “I want to see an officer,” Jimmy said, trying to sit up. The thin man held him down easily, staring intently at him, and Jimmy began to wonder if he hadn’t landed, by some horrible chance, next to a Lunatic Asylum full of shell-shocked battle casualties.

“What’s your name, boy,” the thin man demanded, “I’m Governor here.”

“I am flying Officer Jimmy Wheeler,” Jimmy said in as steady a voice as he could muster, “and I demand to see the person in charge of this establishment.”

“You are looking at him,” the thin man answered, “and don’t be misled by my accent or my looks. Just remember that I get to decide what happens to you.”

Jimmy’s lip curled. “I don’t mean the shift foreman, here,” he said distinctly, as if to a rather slow recruit. “I mean the person in charge of this… - town, or village, or whatever it is.”

“It’s Limbo,” the thin man said. “And, as I told you, “I’m Governor here.”

Jimmy was convinced that he had landed right next door to an Asylum. He was probably inside the big square edifice, and the big, square edifice was probably where the most dangerous lunatics were locked up. He remembered the lack of an outcry when his Spitfire crash-landed. Outside this giant blockhouse were the Asylum grounds, where the merely insane, rather than criminally insane lived. He wondered wildly where the doctors were. Had the patients taken advantage of some air raid to liberate themselves? He remembered now, the thin man himself had flung open the Asylum gates. Jimmy regarded the filthy apparition who was looking fixedly at his sutured face. “How did you get here?” he asked cunningly, “and how did you become Governor?”

“I got into a bar-fight,” the man said laconically, “and a big Londoner killed me. Here’s the knife,” he said, lifting a flap on his overall, showing a rusty, rather amateurish-looking fake knife.

Jimmy smiled accommodatingly at him. “Ah, I see. So they made you Governor after the big air-raid.”

The thin man looked puzzled. “No,” he said irritably. “I got recruited.” He paused. “As a matter of fact, the recruiter looked remarkably like you. He had the same name as you, ‘Jimmy Wheeler’.”

“My name is James Albert Wheeler, I’m a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, serial number 4243468,” Jimmy said automatically.

“It couldn’t have been you,” the lunatic thin man said, “that was more than thirty years ago, and he’d been at it for years before that. “Must have been your father, no, more likely your grandfather. What was your grandfather’s name?”

Jimmy’s head was beginning to swim. Obviously, the man in front of him was completely mad. He did not at this time appear to be violent, although Jimmy remembered uneasily the strong arms pushing him back on the bed. He began to see a glimmer of hope. “Yes, my grandfather had the same name as I do. God rest his soul,” he said piously and falsely. “You…”

The lunatic interrupted him. “He wasn’t resting much when I saw him last month; when I saw him he was pulling in dead soldiers, scooping them in as fast as he could get them to sign.”

“Ah,” Jimmy said desperately, “You must be that good friend he was talking about last week, when I visited him.”

“But you weren’t dead last week,” the lunatic said. “You weren’t even in a coma.” He felt Jimmy’s forehead. “Are you alright?”

Jimmy remembered a long time ago, reading a book under the supervision of a not-too awful teacher. He had read ‘Alice in Wonderland’ from cover to cover. He looked up, expecting to see the mad hatter, but it was still the thin man, regarding him intensely.

“Er, yes, I was a bit confused. I think my dad mentioned you, though. You were my grandfather’s best friend. Which is why he made you Governor,” he ventured.

The maniac snapped to attention. “That man, your grandfather, made a complete idiot of me. I almost went to Hell, just so he could fulfill his quota. I fooled him, though. I’m still here after thirty years. And I got to punch the bastard in the face a few times.” He paused. “Sorry, just the mention of his name makes me angry.”

“I may not be his grandson,” Jimmy said hastily. “I’m probably just confused.” Things were getting out of hand. He looked at the thin man, who, under the soot, could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty years old. “So, you knew this Jimmy Wheeler,” he said, “years ago.”

“Back in 1911,” the madman told him, “Of course, I died in 1878,” he said. “But the Angels are so slow.”

Jimmy nodded wisely, taking a deep breath. ‘Calm,’ he said to himself. ‘This is a wretched, uneducated lunatic, and I’m an officer in the Royal Air force’. He thought for a moment. “Where do you lock the people up who give you trouble,” he asked cunningly. “Like the man you thought was my grandfather,” he added.

“Jimmy’s not in gaol,” the madman said irritated, “don’t you listen?” He stood up, a scrawny scarecrow who looked as if he could tie even a young uninjured flying ace in knots. “The only prisoners we have are Governors, - ex Governors.”

“I see,” Jimmy said. “They tried to stop you taking over – Limbo, did they? You had to lock them up for their own good.”

The lunatic looked irritated again. “You must be in worse shape than I thought,” he said. “Actually, a couple of the Governors are my best helpers. Look,” he said impatiently, “I’ll be off shift in an hour, then I shall be able to explain everything properly.” He started to leave, “Just stay here and heal a little; I’ll see you soon.”

“I demand to see the military authorities,” Jimmy shouted. “I don’t care what little charade you’re playing, but you can’t keep me here.”

“Why are you military people so difficult to convince,” the lunatic said irritably. “With all the killing you see, I would think that you would be prepared for this. Follow me then,” he said striding out..

Jimmy had never seen a foundry, but this was obviously the real thing. Sweating men shoveled frantically at wet black sand, Bins banged, steel screeched and iron clanged. The furnace doors opened and a blast of burning air boiled through the huge building. Sweating faces lit up with the flames, and the men looked like Devils from hell. This was no confused madhouse. Everyone worked with a purpose, straining muscles feeding the furnace, which in turn disgorged strange-looking spears.

“We’re doing a short run on tridents,” the lunatic said. “Just to fool the people upstairs – and downstairs. We complete our quota now in about half a shift, and the other 2 ½ shifts we produce parts for the Allies. Mostly small stuff, guns, armour plate. We’ve started making parts for that American jeep car. Some of our eggheads have managed to put a few jeeps together and we use them around town.” He was waxing enthusiastic. “Of cause, we have to pretend to be penitent, our houses look old and dilapidated outside, but most of them are pretty comfortable now, and we can only drive the jeeps at night, which can be any time depending on what shift you’re on.”

It occurred to Jimmy that this man was not insane, indeed, none of them were. He looked away at the purposeful workers then back at the thin man. Like all the other pilots, he had been briefed about German methods of interrogation, and obtaining intelligence. Was all this a fiendishly clever way of getting him to drop his guard? “Governor,” he asked, “Can you fix my ‘plane?”

The thin man shook his head. “I doubt it. Even if we could get it to fly, I’m not sure what would happen if you just took off and flew into the wide blue yonder. We do all our trade via the gateways. That’s the only way it seems to work.” He thought for a while. “You don’t look too bad, and you can’t cause much trouble on your own. Go on outside and relax a while. There’s a pub close by, and I’ll meet you there in about an hour.” With that, he strode off into the incredible racket of the foundry.

After a while, Jimmy located the massive doors, and walked out into the street. To his surprise, it was nighttime and raining. The town stretched out around him, and he had no idea which direction his base lay. All traces of his Spitfire had disappeared. It was obvious that the town was well versed in the art of scavenging. He stood in the shadow of the doors, shivering slightly. Occasionally, a door opened, throwing light onto the old-fashioned cobblestones, revealing what appeared to be a comfortable warm interior, and a pasty-faced ironworker would scuttle off into the darkness. Since they all seemed to scuttle down the same alley, Jimmy decided that the pub must lie that way. Hunched against the rain, he followed.

‘The Pig’, the sign read. A couple of old oil lamps flickered over the sign, and the pub looked as though it had stood in this miserable place unchanging in the rain, for a century or more. Jimmy, not normally a drinking man, was still trying to come to terms with his surroundings and the people around him. He already felt giddy, and he decided that a moderate amount of alcohol could make things no worse. The barmaid was a tall raw-boned hulk who looked rather like a run-down, seriously battered prizefighter. “Double whisky,” Jimmy said in his best gentleman’s accent. He had found that the gentrified tones, combined with his flying officer’s uniform, now slightly worn, sometimes won him the odd drink or two.

“Posh ‘un,” the prizefighter muttered, picking her nose. She poured a generous stream of golden liquid into a dusty glass and shoved it towards him.

Jimmy fished out a wad of banknotes, folded double to look more impressive, and guaranteed to impress even the most attractive barmaid. “What’s this then,” she said sharply, looking at good British money with a suspicion that sent warning bells through his head.

“Cash, Sterling, banknotes,” he said sharply.

“Bloody hell, I haven’t seen any of that since the last soldiers were here,” she said. “Did the Governor say it was OK to use this stuff?”

“Yes,” Jimmy said, tossing a note on the bar. He thought that, if this really was one of those Kraut psychological establishments, a bad slip had just been made. “Don’t you take English money here?” he queried. “It’s all I have, and I’m supposed to meet the Governor here.” Quickly, he grabbed the drink, and swallowed it in a gulp. “AAch,” he grimaced, “this stuff is vinegar.” The concoction burnt his mouth where he had loosened a tooth in the crash, but he caught only the tiniest hint of fire and peat and the body of a good, blended scotch.

She grinned at him. “You’re new to Limbo,” she smirked. “You must be one of them black marketers,” she said. “What ya got ter trade? I can be real friendly,” and she ogled him fiercely.

Involuntarily, he stepped back, crashing into the thin, solid frame of the Governor. “Come, sit down,” the thin man said. They walked towards a dim table in the corner of the old pub, and with each step, confusion peeled uncertainly from his mind, leaving him, when they sat down, with the firm conviction that he was in Limbo, and he was, in fact, dead.

“My regular pub is better than this one,” the thin man remarked, “but not much.” He beckoned to the barmaid. “It’s part of being in Limbo; I’ve cleaned up the pubs, and I make the barmaids wash every so often, but the booze still tastes like vinegar and the food tastes like cardboard.”

“Finally, I believe you,” Jimmy said. “I really am in Limbo.”

“But you’re not dead,” the thin man interrupted, “and that presents a problem.” The barmaid ambled over with two whiskies. “Wait,” he continued, waving a large bundle of scrip at her. “Where’s the black market stuff, the real booze?”

She managed to look wary and confused at the same time. “We don’t have none,” she said.

“You had better,” he told her. “You’re on the bottom rung of a very low-flying Limbo. One little push from me and you go straight to Hell.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t,” he told Jimmy as she went away, growling. “Apart from any other considerations, we only get a few women, and they all look pretty much like her.” He sighed. “I haven’t been able to keep tabs on things since I lost my accountant, but there should be one bottle of the real stuff behind that bar. “Carrie,” he yelled, “Now!”

She came back grumbling, with a bottle with a familiar label. About an inch of golden liquid lapped forlornly at the bottom of the bottle. Carefully, she poured two shots, and stood looking stonily as the thin man sniffed. “Leave the bottle,” he ordered. There’s at least one more shot in there.”

“It must be very difficult for her,” Jimmy said, “with all that piss and vinegar behind the bar, to keep her hands off a drop of real stuff.”

“She doesn’t drink,” the thin man said, “She was one of those abolitionists when she was alive – preaching about the perils of Demon Drink.” Jimmie looked at him. “She trades it for sex,” the thin man said. “Here,” he continued, “drink up.” They swallowed real whisky and the thin man poured the last two half shots. “Of course, I could live well, Limbo well, at least, if I wanted to. Somehow, I feel a responsibility for this miserable place and these miserable people.”

“Well don’t worry about me,” Jimmy said. “Either I’m insane, which I’m not, or this really is Limbo, and I’m dead.”

“If you were dead,” the Governor said, “you would be working in the foundry right now, burning off the occasional toe, losing the occasional finger, probably being as big a cock-up as your grandfather was, before he wangled the recruiter job.” He finished his whisky. “You being alive and here causes a lot of problems, and there’ll be a lot more if the Angels or Devils find out.” He sniffed. “There has to be a reason you didn’t get sucked right out of here the moment you stepped out of that ‘plane, and I think it has something to do with good old Jimmy Wheeler senior, your crooked grandfather.”

“Can’t you just take me to this Gateway I keep hearing about?” Jimmy asked, “so that I can walk out.”

“We had a whole army here once,” the Governor said, “and they couldn’t leave until they were ready. They were dead, too, except for one Corporal. He was in a coma, but when his General marched them all through the tunnel, out of that battlefield Hell, he marched with them, out of loyalty.”

“I don’t even know my grandfather,” Jimmy said. “Much less have any loyalty towards him. I’ve never seen him, and from what I hear, I don’t want to see him.”

“You must speak to him,” the Governor said flatly. “There has to be a connection. We have to get you out of here, back to your body and your life.”

Jimmy sighed. “I’m in Limbo, but I’m not dead. I shouldn’t be here, and I’m causing problems. Is that a reasonable summary of my position?” he asked.

“Yes.” The Governor frowned. “I really have better things to do with my time than deal with you. Every time I look at you I think of your grandfather, the man who got me into this mess.” He stood up. “Something tells me I have to get you out of here. Believe me; I’m not usually this thoughtful and sympathetic.” He frowned again. “I suppose I’m worried about what Jimmy might do if he thinks I’m holding his grandson hostage, or possibly I’d like to introduce you two, so he owes me a favour.”

“I don’t see why my grandfather should be pleased to see me,” Jimmy said reasonably. “I’ve never met him, and from all I hear, he’s a nasty piece of work.”

“You know, everything seems to be connected in these little Limbos,” the Governor said. “We’re mostly from similar backgrounds; we were mostly born in the same place. You’re alive, which means you’re an anomaly here. You are like a splinter in my finger, and I intend to extract you. Come on,” he said, moving towards the door. We’re going outside, to the real world.”

“Now,” Jimmy asked stupidly.

“Neither of us really needs sleep. I’ve thought about this for a while, and I can’t seem to come up with a plan. We might as well just go.”

They walked the damp streets and the thin man told him about the Angels and the Undead, the Lost Souls and the Devils. “We’ll see if my instincts were correct,” the thin man said as they neared a corner. “See that wall ahead,” the thin man pointed. “That’s The End. Round the corner is the real world.”

“What’s on the other side of the wall,” Jimmy asked.

“Everyone asks that,” the thin man said. “Five and twenty years ago, some soldiers tried to drive a tank through it. After they broke the tank, they climbed on top of it, and then made a human pyramid, and one of them jumped over the top. He disappeared, and a couple of hours later he came up behind them. It seems that, over the wall was the other gateway to our Limbo.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jimmy asked.

“Walk round the corner with me,” the Governor said. “If I’m right, we’ll be close to where your grandfather is recruiting,”

“And if not?”

“If not, you’ll get a sore nose.”

It was nighttime, cool and dry. A line of extinguished gas-lamps pointed to a dark city. The sign read ‘Birmingham’. Jimmy the recruiter favoured big cities. “He’d better be close by,” the thin man muttered.

“I used to live near here,” Jimmy said distastefully.

“We all did,” the Governor answered enigmatically.

Wartime Birmingham was drab and quiet in the early evening. Jimmy senior was an indefinable presence that they both felt. He was close to the center of the city and they followed the tram tracks. Occasionally, a shadowy cream and blue tram rattled jarringly past, carrying pale passengers to and from work. A few cars crept along, feebly following dim blacked-out headlights, and an occasional watery light spilled from a dim pub. Living inhabitants flitted by like ghosts, not noticing them. An old man tottered by, crushing a fist into his narrow chest, and the Governor handed him directions to Limbo56.

“Just north of here is my territory,” Arthur said. “He won’t go there.” They both sensed that the recruiter was nearby. A grimy pub wafted beer smells down the street, and they pushed through the scarred doors.

“Birmingham was better than this, when I last saw it,” Jimmy said in obscure defense of a place that he told himself that he hated.

“There he is,” Arthur said, and Jimmy looked curiously at his ancestor. The man he saw was possibly a few years older than he was, and, although closely resembling his grandson, was subtly different. There was an easy, practiced look of good-fellowship pasted onto his features, and he wore the uniform of an infantry private. He was still talking to a sick-looking workingman when Arthur lifted him from the seat. “You’ve been cutting into my territory again, Jimmy,” he said, and the sick-looking man sidled away.

“You crazy bastard,” Jimmy whined. “Won’t you ever leave me alone?”

“I brought your grandson to see you,” Arthur said grimly, and the recruiter focused his gaze on the man in the RAF uniform.

“He looks like me,” Jimmy Senior said. “Why isn’t he working in the foundry? He’s dead; he’s no use to either of us now.” He looked uneasily at both of them. “Don’t go hitting me,” he said.

“I’ve told your grandson what a bastard you are,” Arthur said. “He’s quite capable of beating you to a jelly. I think he has a couple of questions to ask you.” He looked expectantly at the young RAF officer.

Jimmy shook his head. His likeness stood across the table from him, but he felt no real emotion for the grandfather he had never known. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have anything to say to him. He’s a stranger to me.”

Arthur shook his head irritably. “You were meant to talk to him, I know it. We all live in a small universe, you, me, Jimmy, the other inhabitants of Limbo56. We keep crossing paths, we’re all connected.” He faced the recruiter. “He’s not dead,” he’s out here, somewhere, wounded. I don’t know why he wandered into my territory.”

Jimmy Senior shrugged. “Let me know if he dies. He looks like a prime candidate for Limbo.” Arthur raised his fist, but the airman stopped him.

“I know my dad’s a miserable coward, but why did you abandon him and my aunt when they were just babies.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Because I’m me. Why do you think we’re all rolling around in Limbo? We’re all bastards, including him,” he said pointing to Arthur. “He was unfaithful, violent sometimes, an uncaring drunk. He was killed in a bar fight.” Arthur was silent. “And you’re no better,” he turned to his grandson. “I’ve been keeping track of you. You pretend to be an officer, better than the rest of us. Did you know,” he asked, that your cold-blooded ambition has almost caused the death of a couple of your fellow pilots? You care more…” he stopped.

“I thought you didn’t care about him,” Arthur said.

“I’m just waiting for him to make a slip,” Jimmy Senior said grimly, and then I’ll have him off to Limbo, or down to Hell. Did you know,” he said, turning to Arthur, “that I send a percentage down there now.” He shrugged. “One day, I’ll cash in all my favours and retire upstairs and laugh at you all.”

“Let’s go,” the young pilot said bitterly. “I have nothing to say to him. He’s almost as bad as my father.”

He walked into the night, and Arthur followed him slowly. “I don’t understand,” Arthur said. “I don’t know why we’re here.”

“You’re here so I can do you a favour.” Jimmy the recruiter stood behind them. “Remember Corporal Williams,” he told Arthur. “He’s ready to leave the real world.” He fished out an ordinary file card. “Give me one of yours, and you can have him.”

“What kind of bargain is that?” Arthur said, “The corporal is going to Heaven, so why would I trade him for one of my hot prospects.” He looked at the recruiter for a moment. “Alright,” he said, producing a card. “Come on,” he told the airman, “We have some traveling to do. – this way”

They plodded along in the dark for a few minutes until a feebly lit red bus, covered in mud crept past. They ran to it and jumped on the open platform. A conductor bustled up with his tray of tickets, looked confused, and left them alone. “I guess the bus passengers are safe for a while,” Arthur said.

Jimmy looked uneasily at the conductor who avoided his stare. He walked between the seats, shoving past the man. “’Ere watchit,” the conductor said, and trailed off. Jimmy stopped by a tired looking, attractive woman. “Do you have a light?” he asked, taking out a cigarette. She flashed him a brief smile and looked out of the window. “I said,” Jimmy began again.

“It’s disconcerting, the way they ignore us,” Arthur interrupted. “She’ll eventually give you a light, if you persist, but she’ll forget about you as soon as she stows the cigarette lighter in that little grey handbag.”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t want to be dead,” he told the thin man. “I know I’ve been a right arrogant bastard, but there are things I want to – need to do.” He sighed. “There are a couple of women who I’ve treated abominably, my mother and my ex-fiancée. They liked each other, but they obviously had the same bad taste in men. I need to make amends with the men I’ve been flying with. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to you,” Arthur said. “I thought you might change in the real world, but you still have that shadow about you, covering you like a shroud. I don’t know what’s holding you back.” He looked gloomily out of the dark windows. The bus had stopped a few times, and was almost empty. The dark factories and foundries had given way to terrace houses with small, neat front yards. A few gaps in the uniform redbrick rows were like rotten teeth, blackened bricks, torn damp paper where enemy bombs had destroyed the symmetry of the rows. “Not so much damage out here,” Arthur muttered, “I was thinking Corporal Williams might have been bombed. I wish I knew why Jimmy was talking to him.”

“Who is Corporal Williams?” Jimmy asked.

“I knew him from the other war,” Arthur said. “He was a Conscientious Objector, but he volunteered to be an ambulance driver. Went through Hell, and finally ended up in Limbo with a whole battalion of dead men. He was alive, though, - somewhere out there in the battlefield.”

“What happened?”

“He and Shadrach marched back out with the others. He must have rejoined his body. I seem to remember he had a girlfriend somewhere. The others followed their not-so-crazy General to their final resting place.”

“Was Shadrach alive?”

“No, he was one of my best workers at the foundry.” Arthur shrugged. “I never saw Shadrach again.” He consulted the file card and turned down a side street. “Here it is,” he said, stopping outside a redbrick townhouse. The curtains were drawn, and the small lawn looked neglected.

“What do we do now?” Jimmy asked.

“We knock on the door and say hello,” Arthur told him.

The house sounded dead and empty, but after repeated knocking, they heard shuffling steps approach. The door opened, and a middle-aged man in the uniform of an air-raid warden was revealed. “Come in, whoever you are,” he said. “I don’t want any light showing.” They crowded into the narrow hallway, and the man turned around and made his way, rubber boots squeaking on the oilcloth, to a small kitchen. A bottle of beer stood on the kitchen table, and an old plate with a half-eaten cheese sandwich. “You came back for me, Jimmy?” the man demanded. He squinted in the yellow light. “Not Jimmy,” he said. “But you look just like him.”

“It’s his grandson,” Arthur said, and Corporal Williams seemed to notice him for the first time.

“Governor Mossop?” he asked, surprised. “I thought never to see you again while I was alive.” He swept some crumbs into his hand and threw them into a waste bin. “Sit down,” he ordered. “There was no need for you to come for me in person, Governor.” He fetched two bottles of beer. “I hope you can taste this,” he said. “I have a piece of cheese and some bread you can share, too.”

“What I want to know, Corporal Williams,” Arthur said firmly, “is what you were doing with Jimmy, why you can see us. You’re not dead, you’re not sick.”

“Janie died, and I tried to commit suicide,” the corporal said wearily. “But a friend of mine from the ARP came around looking for me and found me before I was gone. I won’t make the same mistake next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Arthur said grimly. “What’s the matter with you? You walked through the tunnel back into the inferno five and twenty years ago, and now you’re whining about committing suicide. Do you want to join us in Limbo and mourn your wife forever?”

“I’ve done the right thing all my life,” the Corporal said, “and now my Janie is gone, and I want to be with her, I deserve to be with her.” He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan. “Look at me,” he said, “I’m no use to anyone now.” He waved a hand around the untidy kitchen. “She loved this house - wouldn’t move, even when bombs were falling all around.”

“What happened to her,” Jimmy asked.

“Bomb,” the man who had been Corporal Williams stood up creakily. “She worked as a volunteer at a local hospital. A bomb took her and three patients. I was on station about three streets away. I found her body. There was nothing I could do. Not a thing. I want to die, and be with her, Governor,” he said.

“You know you have to go on,” Arthur said. “You still have a duty. You’re not like me. I may never make up for all the bad things I did, all the chances I missed.” He grabbed the Corporal. “Look at you. You’re still in uniform, and you’re still saving lives. How many lives have you saved since you’ve been an Air Raid Warden?”

“Two, maybe three,” the corporal mumbled. “Not a lot for three years.”

“And how many have you kept out of harms way. And how many of those had husbands, wives, children, children who will grow up and have their own families…”

“Leave me alone,” the man cried, “save it for someone like him. For someone with a future.”

“Don’t use me as an example,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never loved anyone. I let my mother down. I never helped her or supported her. I never loved anyone. My grandfather is Jimmy Wheeler, who sells souls to the Devil, and my father is, was, Ezra Wheeler, a coward who deserted his men. I joined the Air Force to prove that I’m a big bold hero, not to help anyone. I shoot down Germans to make myself look good.”

The Corporal seemed to shrink. “I wish,” he said, “that you hadn’t come here.” He focused on Jimmy. “That’s why your grandfather gave my address to the Governor. Your father was Sergeant Ezra Wheeler, of the Second Welsh Regiment. I knew him; I served with him for a few weeks.”

“Yes, he was a sergeant,” Jimmy agreed.

“And you called him a coward?”

“He was shot for desertion in the face of the enemy – cowardice. I don’t know how many fights I got into over that, until I learned to accept it,” Jimmy said.

“Did you ever look down from that nice clean ‘plane of yours and see the soldiers below? Probably looks like a toy battlefield to you,” Corporal Williams said. “Little lead soldiers, pushed around by the Generals, miles away from your clean war.” He stood up. “Come over here, I’m going to show you some pictures.” He grabbed a key ring that hung from a nail in the wall. “The first war was worse for the soldiers,” he said. “This one is much worse for civilians.” He unlocked a door half-hidden behind a sofa. “Come down into the cellar. You know,” he said over his shoulder as they descended into the blackness, “The Generals, the ones who ran the war, had no idea of what it was like to be in the mud and stink and noise, the screams of the dying, men bleeding to death in the dirt, with no-one to help. Medics, like me with no pain-killing drugs, no access to medical information, no penicillin, just a few used bandages, half washed in a dirty stream that was used as a latrine. The Generals had no idea of the awful killing power of the machine gun. They thought you could dodge a bullet like they had dodged a saber-thrust. They had no idea of gangrene from constant sleeping and eating in a half-flooded ditch, where a scratch could balloon and fill with pus within hours. They didn’t know about shell shock.”

“Shell shock.” He said, unlocking a battered door in the corner of the cellar. “After a few days sleeping on our feet, smelling death, we were all a little crazy. Look at these pictures,” he said.

The walls were covered with pictures; dead men; dying men; blood and dirt. The walls seemed to stretch away into the darkness, as if he was in the trench himself and not some tiny room in the corner of a cellar. “How did you,” he said, turning round. Corporal Williams was gone. The heavens opened with a shattering roar, and a giant hand slapped the earth spraying mud in his face. A man close by screamed, and clutched his belly as entrails oozed between his fingers. Jimmy gagged on the smell of decay and fear, and his bowels tightened as he strove to control them. A soldier a few yards away screamed as shrapnel sliced off the top of his head. Jimmy tried to scream and found that he could not. Down the line a grey-faced sergeant was rallying the men, dragging bodies to the side and pulling live men to shelter. Their eyes met for a moment, and he tried to struggle towards the man. “Get out of here while you can,” his father screamed, and he was behind the wooden door, in the cool silence of the cellar.

He sagged, and the Corporal held him with a strong arm. Gasping, almost drowned, he shook his head to force back some sanity. “About thirty seconds,” the Corporal said. “You were there for about thirty seconds. Sit down.” He dragged some old chairs from the shadows. “Your father was there for months. The officers wouldn’t withdraw him for a break, because he was a good sergeant. He used to sleep leaning on the mud walls of the trenches, and wake up screaming. His whole body shook day and night – until he had to lead his men, fire his rifle. Then, somehow, he pulled himself together and did his duty. I was the only one who saw how sick he really was. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, he protected me from the others when they went insane and started to call me a ‘conchie’. Your father was the bravest man I ever knew, ever will know.” The Corporal sighed. “There were about thirty of us, shattered, wounded, half starved, behind enemy lines. The Army had forgotten about us. That’s when your father decided to lead us out, under cover of night.”

“They tried him for desertion and cowardice. We weren’t allowed to speak in his defense. I lost my stripes for trying. I think that’s why I followed General Scott into Limbo. I think I had some stupid idea of finding your father there and apologizing on behalf of the Army. I wish I could see your father again, just once. He was a brave man who gave his life for his country.”

The Corporal stood up and beckoned. “I suppose, now, that I’ll have to live the rest of my life without Janie. Too many brave soldiers died so I, and you, could live.” They marched up the dark stairs and into the light of the kitchen, where Arthur was sitting quietly. “I think he’s OK, now,” the Corporal said, and so am I. I believe you are done with us, Governor.”

“It’s been a privilege meeting both of you,” Arthur said in a small voice. “It was good seeing you again, Corporal.” He began to fade away.

The flying officer and the corporal sat in the small kitchen, sipping tea. The ARP warden had listened to the confused story from the pilot, and the pilot had called his base, and was awaiting transport. “It’s amazing how you traveled this far from the crash, Sir,” the warden said. “Somewhere in your subconscious, you must have stored my name. Your father must have mentioned me in his letters. I don’t know how you got here, but I’m so pleased to meet his son. He mentioned you often.”

“I feel like I’ve known you for a long time,” Jimmy said. “It’s a pity I can’t stay longer.”

“We both have to get back to our duties,” the Corporal said. “I’ve been absent from my warden duties for too long. It has been a privilege to meet a fighter pilot. This country owes a great deal to the bravery of our pilots.”

“More to our soldiers on the ground,” Jimmy said. “I’m glad you knew my dad, you certainly opened my eyes to what he went through. Oh, there’s my transport.” He straightened his uniform and they shook hands. “It was good to meet you.”

Jimmy stared out of the back of the truck at the green fields sailing by. The air was clear, and he felt liberated, free of the crushing weight of his father’s supposed cowardice. He would have to prove himself now, to measure up to a man of tremendous courage, rather than escaping from a tainted family. He could not remember the last few weeks of wandering, although he had a disturbing feeling that he had been lost in an older, grittier place than these gentle green fields. He knew that he would face many hurdles, and hoped that he could overcome them, as his father had.
The first test came sooner than he had anticipated. He stood to attention in front of the Wing Commander, willing himself not to answer back, while his Squadron Leader stood at ease behind him. “You’ve let your squadron, and its officers down,” the Wing Commander was saying. “You took off alone into the clouds, weakening the squadron. This is not the first time you have disobeyed orders. Squadron Leader Powell intervened before and saved you from being transferred to a training base. You put your fellow pilots at risk, and I don’t care how good a flyer you are, you’ll not endanger any more lives for your own glory.”

Jimmy bit his lip. “I can’t deny it sir. It took an accident like this to make me see straight. I’ve blamed everyone but myself for my faults and my unpopularity. I know that was childish and stupid, but I see things a lot more clearly now.”

“I’m sorry,” the Wing Commander began.

“Sir, it will be a couple of weeks before I’m fully evaluated for active service. Quite honestly, if I were in the squadron, I wouldn’t want to fly with me.” He took a deep breath. “If I have to train pilots for the rest of my service, I will. I’ll do the best job I’m capable of. But I’m a good fighter pilot, and I’ll be a better one from now on.” He paused again. “I realize now that I have a lot to live up to. I’m asking you to please give me one more chance.” The Wing Commander’s eyes were looking at a piece of paper on the desk and he knew that he had lost the man. Only the realization that he thoroughly deserved this reprimand stopped him from a further plea.

The Squadron Leader spoke up. “If I could have a word, Sir,” he said, and nodded for Jimmy to leave.

Outside, in the draughty corridor, Jimmy waited. The Squadron Leader had never liked him, and never had cause to like him, Jimmy admitted ruefully. However, his C.O. seemed to have decided to plead on his behalf. Finally, Squadron leader Powell stepped into the corridor, and Jimmy stood to attention. “I don’t do this lightly,” the Squadron leader said. “If any of my pilots are put in harm’s way by you again, you’ll be an airman second class, cleaning latrines for the remainder of your service.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy said.

“No, don’t thank me,” Powell told him. “Meet me in the local tonight, and buy me a drink and you’d better invite the rest of the squadron along for drinks. You have a lot of fences to mend my boy.”

“I won’t let you down, sir,” Jimmy said. “I feel like I’m back in the real world, and I have to start acting like a real man.”


 
Chapter 13 – A Chicken in every Pot
The loss of Bobby the criminal proved to be the beginning of a slow decline in the standard of living of the inhabitants of Limbo56. Contacts with what was left of the Birmingham gangs after Bobby had decimated them slowed to a trickle. Good whisky and real food became difficult to get, and the prices of ‘real stuff’ started to climb. Arthur attempted to open up the tunnel to otherworld trade, but this resulted only in a few sheep and a glut of mutton pies in the pubs. The gaol was rapidly emptying of ex-Governors, and soon, Max and the Accountant would be snatched away. Recruitment and productivity dipped, and Arthur was run ragged attempting to keep up quotas.

World War Two brought a temporary respite. Many of the newly dead were heroes, who went straight to Heaven, and many were evildoers, who went to Hell, but enough half-sinners died in the ruins of the factories and foundries, and enough soldiers, sailors and airmen died on the battlefields and in the makeshift hospitals thinking of the sooty towns where Arthur grew up. They turned up, wandering bewilderedly down half familiar streets and Arthur put them to work. For a few years he had no reason to leave his domain. A few WAAFS and WAACS arrived, and Arthur put the stronger ones to work in the foundry, where they soon became indistinguishable, under a coat of sweat and soot, from the men.

The Politician made contact with an armaments maker, and Arthur pushed his workforce to turn out weapons and war material for real goods. The armaments maker proved much greedier than the old gangs of criminals did, but a small steady supply of food and furniture, whisky, clothes and real beer continued to flow into Limbo56. It was impossible to get petrol, so the cars of the rich languished and rusted as the war continued on its murderous course. The arms dealers got fat and the war moved towards its inevitable untidy conclusion. Arthur was drinking a glass of real beer when he heard the news of victory in Europe from a draft-dodger who had the misfortune to be run over by a bus on the day it was declared. He was happy for the living.

The Tunnel Store closed shortly after the war ended, and Necessities Two followed a few months later. Necessities One finally closed for business in 1948, and its staff were disbanded. What was left of the middle class of Limbo56 hoarded what was left of the real food and booze. Vinegar and cardboard became the staples again at the pubs.

Also in 1948, Max the politician was negotiating a deal with some black-marketeers when his number came up and he was hauled before the council and dispatched to Hell. Arthur met the men in the abandoned store in an attempt to save the deal. Young, well dressed and hard-edged, they smoked Turkish cigarettes from silver cases. They were tough, flashy men who had never worked in their lives. They reminded him of the flashy Londoner. The deal fell through.

Arthur searched his workforce for a replacement. He found that, as his more dynamic subjects left, mostly for Hell, his new recruits, cast offs from a world war, had changed in character. The occasional hard-driving recruit, too ruthless to get to heaven, but with enough saving grace to escape hell, had been replaced by men and women who had drifted to a diminishing middle ground, humans who had opted out of living before they died. His new recruits apathetically worked in the foundry, apathetically drank vinegar beer in the pubs, apathetically complained about their non-life.

Arthur finally found a petty criminal who had once been a council member in an obscure Midlands town, before being convicted for some petty misdemeanour. The man was a poor foundry worker, so the Governor set him up in the deserted gaol and explained his new duties. “Geoff,” the man said. “Councilor Geoff Simmonds.” Arthur explained again. “Ah, I thought you wanted to know my name,” the man said.

For a month, Geoff sat in his new quarters, doodling on a piece of paper. Finally, Arthur, exasperated, called to drag him back to the foundry. Cornered by the Governor, Geoff backed behind his little desk. “Chickens,” he screeched when Arthur reached out to grab him. He had, he told the Governor, been mulling over the idea for a couple of weeks, but since Arthur hadn’t asked him, he’d not seen any reason to speak about the subject. “I was thinking,” he told Arthur, “that we could raise chickens.” Arthur told him about chickens. “I know,” he said. “All animals die in Limbo, and then they taste like cardboard.” He fell silent. Arthur grabbed him. “We need to find a farmer who will sell his chickens for industrial diamonds,” Geoff said hastily. Arthur told him what he thought about the chances of finding such a farmer. “I know a farmer who will sell us chickens for industrial diamonds,” Geoff said. “My uncle Fred. He’s always looking for easy money.”

Arthur had expected a trip to Lincolnshire, an exhausting time getting Uncle Fred’s attention, dismissal as a maniac for such an absurd proposal, but he was desperate. “Just pop round the corner and mail him a letter,” Geoff said. “Tell him to come to Necessities One. Tell him I said so.” It was a measure of Arthur’s desperation that he sent a letter, dictated by Geoff. They were waiting inside the abandoned store at midnight on the appointed date when they heard the rattling of the street door.

Uncle Fred was a bandy-legged, compact man. He blinked when they switched the lights on. Geoff checked the blackout curtains, left over from the war, while Arthur and Fred studied each other. “He don’t look like no Governor,” Fred said to his nephew.

“Things are different over here, uncle,” Geoff told him.

“You’re still dead, then,” Fred said, peering at the younger man.

“I want to make a deal with you,” Arthur said quickly. “Sit down.”

They discussed the details. The chicken house was to be the entire back part of the store, walled off so that the sound of squawking would not reach the outside world. Every week, Fred would deliver five hundred chickens and pick up his quota of diamonds. “Five hundred, I can do that,” Fred said confidently.

To Arthur’s amazement, everything went to plan. Chickens arrived, squawking on Sunday, and departed, plucked into the pots of the Intermediates in the back of the store. Part of the chicken population was spared to supply eggs. On the first week, Fred also delivered several sacks of chicken feed, ten sacks of potatoes, ten sacks of carrots, and a sack of salt. It was a start, Arthur thought, dreaming of turkeys, rabbits, and even a pig or two.

On the fourth week, Fred pulled up in his old lorry, and hauled out one crate of old stringy chickens. “That’s it, then,” he said to Arthur.

“Where’s the rest?” Arthur demanded.

“That’s the last of them,” Fred told him. “You don’t think I had an endless supply, do you. I just kept them for the eggs. Nice doing business with you,” he said on leaving.

A few days later, they heard that he died, suddenly, of a brain tumor. The local newspapers had a field day with the story of a chicken farmer with no chickens, and a bucket full of industrial diamonds under the bed. Geoff never came up with any other ideas, and supplies from the outside world dwindled to nothing.


Chapter 14 – Soap Opera Stories
The Governor was visiting an unusually large influx of undead who had come wandering, bedraggled and wet, through the tunnel. They were a mixed bunch, but mostly disinclined to work in the grimy, gloomy foundry that dominated Arthur’s Limbo. The only thing they had in common was that they had all, reluctantly, spent time in the gloomy town that was the real-world counterpart of Limbo56. A hooker, sexy as a Marine sergeant demanded extra scrip for clothing for when she went back to work. “We don’t allow that sort of work in Limbo,” he told her, and she told him where to stuff Limbo and disappeared down below. In fact, quite a few of them slipped down through the cracks into Hell when he gave them the standard sales pitch regarding his ragged domain.

Only one of them insisted that he was innocent. “You know, I should not, truly should not be here in Limbo. I know that this sounds Rather like an old movie, where the prisoner keeps telling everyone that he’s innocent, and no-one believes him, except his friend the Governor – ha ha – and right up to five minutes to midnight he’s walking down the corridor and the chair is waiting, and at the last moment the real villain confesses on his deathbed. I know this sounds unbelievable.” This was from a small, scholarly man who looked like a tax accountant.

His last house call that afternoon was the old couple. They had just moved into his small kingdom from St Kitts. The man was seventy-four, his companion was sixty-nine, and they both had earned a small pension from their previous lives in the UK. These were no good now, of course, but at their age, they were a tiny minority in Limbo, and would be looked after by the Angels, according to their assets when alive. Arthur had saved them for his last visit, because by late afternoon, he’d usually had enough of shouting matches, mind games, and bizarre tales of misfortune.

Arthur trudged up the old staircase, and stopped at the door. It was an old, very battered door. It looked as if someone had been throwing furniture at it all day. He knocked. Through a split in the door, he could make out a man, sitting on a bed, and someone else lying down. The room was silent. “Maybe they’re both deaf,” he thought. He knocked again, louder. This time there was no mistaking the fact that they heard him. The figure on the bed moved a fraction, and the sitting man gestured for silence. Arthur was tired; he needed to get home.

He pounded on the door. “Hey,” he yelled. “I know you’re in there. Open the door.” Still no movement. He rattled the doorknob. “I’m coming in!” Then all hell broke loose. There was a shriek and a roar, the door opened, and a woman flung herself at him, followed by a knife and fork, which just missed both their heads, and a plate, which smashed against the wall behind him.

“He gonna kill me,” she said, ninety pounds of skin and bone, covered in nothing but a nightgown, arms wrapped around Arthur.

“I gonna kill you,” he yelled at Arthur, “if you don’t get your hands off of my woman.”

She hung on like a leech, bony arms around Arthur’s neck. “Damn whore.” he growled. “Which boyfriend this then?”

“I’m the Governor,” he told them. “Don’t you remember me when you first came through the tunnel?” Arthur didn’t think the man believed him. The woman wriggled against him as if she were trying to get inside his skin. She smelled of dust and autumn leaves, and ghostly perfume. He disengaged her gently. The words must have registered with the man because made no move. He stood in ragged clothes, looking as if he had lived for a hundred years on beaches, under hot sun. Still, for seventy-four, he looked quite strong.

“Damn whore,” he mumbled.

“Oh, Marlon,” she said. “He a young boy. He say he the Governor of this place, remember.”

Marlon looked doubtful. “Sides which,” she said, “he smell like a wet chicken.”

“It’s been raining,” Arthur said. The interview was already getting out of hand. “Look." he told them, "I need to take down some details, how you got here, stuff like that.”

“She got her fancy men to see to her,” he said sullenly, and she shrieked and clawed for his face.

“Calm down.” Arthur was standing between them, and they looked set to tear him apart to get at each other.

He sat between them on the bed, and they glared at each other. “He’s a crazy man,” she said in her best accent. “He thinks I got boyfriends sneakin’ around while he’s looking for work, and…”

“Shut your trap, woman,” he shouted, and Arthur stood up.

“If you two don’t listen, I’m going, and you’ll both have to wait a long time to get a job and some scrip.” Marlon’s mouth shut with a click, and she smiled sweetly. Arthur opened up his case and turned to each of them in turn. “Who’s going to give me the details?”

“He’s good at talkin’” she said immediately. “Talks all the time, yells and shouts, accuses me of doin’ all sorts of dirty things…”

“OK,” Arthur said hastily. “Mr. Blount, I’ll talk to you then.”

The preliminaries were easy. There was furniture in the dusty old rooms and they seemed to have no needs. They were remarkably healthy for an aged couple who regularly did bodily harm to each other. Marlon had worked at a good job, saved a lot of money, and they had set sail for St Kitts. Now they were in Limbo and he was broke. “An he needs some extra for clothes, so he can go to work in the foundry,’” Mrs. Blount chirped.

“Ah, yes,” Arthur said. It wasn’t unreasonable. The man was still trying to work. “Do you have any money at all from the real world, to exchange for our scrip” he asked them. “No,” they both answered at the same time. Arthur looked at his notes. “You worked in construction in the outside world for seventeen years,” he said.

“Good money,” he replied. “Still, it was nice, go back home.”

“So.” Arthur looked at the man’s statement. “So, you saved £154,317, but that’s all gone now.”

“All gone,” he sighed.

“Hm.” The statement didn’t say when they had left the UK. “So, there’s nothing left now? Do you have a house in St Kitts?”

“No nothin’,”

“An’ he needs clothes,” she piped up. “An’ I need clothes. Ain’t got nothin’ but this old nightgown, an’ a raggedy dress.” She smoothed the nightgown over her bony chest, and he glared at her.

“What you gotta do that for?” he asked. “He ain’t interested in your bosoms. Are you?” he demanded, glaring at Arthur.

“No, no,” Arthur said, and she pressed her leg against his. “So when did you go back to St Kitts,” he asked hastily.

They looked at each other. “Nearly four months ago,” the old man said.

“Four…” Arthur shook his head. “Four months ago you went to St Kitts, with £154,000 and now you’re back, with no money and no clothes? I can give you some credit for the money you had saved when you died, you know.”

“Yes,” he said. “No money, and I don’t even have a decent shirt to wear."

“And I got one raggedy pair of knickers,” she chorused.

“I can’t help you. What about all your money.”

“Gone,” he answered. “An’ our clothes, and the few things we bring with we.”

“Gone?” Arthur echoed.

“When the ship sank,” he told the Governor, as if ships sinking in the ocean were an everyday thing. “We had a big crate with our clothes and our money, and it sank.”

“It sank.”

Marlon pulled a newspaper from his tattered pocket, a copy of the Miami Herald. The San Sebastian had sunk in a storm. The article even mentioned their names, amongst others. It was almost a week in an open boat, before they had been picked up, not far from Puerto Rico. The old man told the story as if he was talking about a stroll down the road. They had been going home like millionaires, until the boat sank, and they were broke, friendless and homeless, on an island where Spanish was the language of choice. They had lost everything, including their passports.

“So I got me a job on the waterfront,” Marlon said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world for an old man with no papers, and no command of the language.

“And I got a job in a bar, right around from where he worked,” his wife said. “Weren’t much help, though. When he was through with his job, he’d come sniffing around the bar, spending money fast as I could earn it, insulting the customers.”

“They was sniffing round you,” he interrupted.

Arthur calmed them down again. Marlon seemed to have spent most of his anger. He told the Governor that after a month they had enough money to go to Miami.

“How did you…” Arthur began.

“Hired a boat,” he said shortly.

“I liked it there,” she said.

“Yeah. With that big fat boyfrien’ of yours with his fancy car an’ his hands all over you.”

Arthur calmed them down again. It was getting easier. They were reminiscing about their life together as if they were talking about a holiday they had enjoyed, with a few bumps in the road, but quite pleasant really.

“We saved air fare money. British Consul got us our papers,” he finished.

“He was a real nice man,” she said reminiscently.

It was getting dark. Arthur told them they would be paid, in Limbo scrip, Marlon for Maintenance in the foundry and Lizzie for a job at the pub, and that he’d get them some extra scrip for clothes. They thanked him, and Marlon assured him that they would be on their feet in a week or two.

“Now you two, don’t go throwing things at each other,” Arthur said as he left. “No fighting.” They looked at him as if he was mad.

On the landing, he stopped to put his papers in order. He heard the bedsprings squeak and she let out a shriek, and he almost went back, but the cries came fast and regular, and it was pleasure, not anger that he was hearing. A couple of weeks later, Marlon sent some scrip, with a scrawled note that said they were ‘up with the Angels’, and didn’t need no more money, and thanks for the help. He never heard from them again.

Chapter 15 – False Start
Somehow Harry had wandered into an unfamiliar part of town. He knew most of his town inside and out, and this was strangely familiar, but it was also very different, the people, the smell. He sniffed, and recalled wandering into the poor area down the hill, when he was a child. “Coal fires,” he muttered. “Smoke from coal fires.” He looked up at the old houses with soot-blackened chimneys, some of them puffing smoke. “Coal fires,” he said satisfied, “But this place was torn down years ago.” And then a thin, tall man stepped in front of him.

“How did you get here?” the man demanded. “We don’t get many live ones.”

“Live what,” Harry queried, nettled by the Man’s tone.

“Live people,” the man answered testily. “As opposed to dead ones. You’ll have to go back.”

Harry was quite willing to go along with the joke. It was the swinging sixties, a time of rebellion. He had been at a party, and drugs and alcohol go along with some bizarre situations. “Are you telling me,” he said, “that this is Hell.” He paused. “I know what this is.” He studied the thin man. “You’re part of a bad trip. That crazy Joe and his cousin slipped something into my drink.” He peered at the thin man beginning to feel angry. “You look a bit like Joe yourself.”

“Joe,” the thin man said primly, will not be passing through this part of town. “Joe and his cousin will go directly to Hell.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Harry nodded. “The trip was not all bad. Joe must have gotten hold of some half-way decent stuff. Harry was probably sitting smiling in some corner of the party, much to Joe’s chagrin. “So this must be Limbo,” he said, playing along.

“One of them,” the thin man answered. “And one of the better ones, if I say so myself.” He waved at the dirty old houses. You have a roof over your head, Half day Saturday, and all day Sunday off.

“Off from where,” Harry asked.

“Off from the foundry.”

“Foundry?”

“Almost everyone works in the foundry,” the thin man said. “We all have to do our bit, keeping Heaven and Hell supplied.”

“So how come I’m here,” Harry asked cunningly. “I wouldn’t be seen dead working in a foundry.”

“Don’t be funny,” the man snapped. “In our foundry you have to be dead. Which reminds me…”

So, it was to be a short trip. “Soon as I come down,” Harry muttered, “I’m going to wring Joe’s neck.”

“Go, go,” the thin man said angrily.

“Go where?”

“Back down the street, where you came from.”

Harry found himself walking back, past the old houses. He was beginning to get very angry with crazy Joe and his cousin, and on top of that, as he neared the corner he began to feel sick, jittery, strung out. He turned the corner and saw his truck waiting patiently outside the apartment building. The party was still going on at the fourth floor, but when he rang the bell, no one answered. Harry shook his fist at the unreachable festivities. “I’ll get you Joe, you bastard,” he yelled. He staggered to his truck and clambered in. The vehicle roared to life, and, still cursing Joe, he jammed his foot on the accelerator.

And was back amongst the old, sooty houses. “Damn,” he said to the thin man.

“Follow me,” the thin man told him. “I’ll take you to the foundry.”

“I thought,” Harry told him nastily, “that live people weren’t allowed in this particular foundry.”

“Don’t worry,” the thin man told him. “You’re dead now.”


Chapter 16 – NTBW

“You know,” Betty, he says to the barmaid of ‘The Limbo Arms’. “I’ve probably never told you this before,” (he ignores her incredulous cry of ‘the Hell you haven’t’). “Betty, I should not, truly should not be here in Limbo. I know that this sounds Rather like an old movie, where the prisoner keeps telling everyone that he’s innocent, and no-one believes him, except his girl-friend the barmaid – ha ha – and right up to five minutes to midnight he’s walking down the corridor and the chair is waiting, and at the last moment the real villain confesses on his deathbed. I know this sounds unbelievable.” The small, scholarly man who, even in filthy foundry denims looks like a clerical worker pauses and takes a sip of the tasteless beer. “Thanks for listening, Betty,” he says gratefully, even though she has moved to the other end of the bar and is talking to a bunch of drunken customers yards away. “Well,” he says, standing in a little bubble of isolation, “this time the call never came, this time the lights went zzzzt, and I was sent here – to Limbo56, which is a lot like the awful, wasteful place where I was born. Betty, I am the most caring person on the planet.” He pauses, takes another sip, and continues talking into his beer, back in North Carolina apple country.

“I set my clock for 5:00 am exactly. Used to be 5:30, and before that 6:00, but there is so much to do. The coffee pot let out a piercing whistle, and I leapt out of bed, heart pounding. Still, that whistling pot was one of my better ideas. Now I woke to a scalding jolt of caffeine instead of wasting precious time lighting the stove, boiling the water, etc. Of course, even a very low flame takes some energy, but my cold shower saved more.

I figured a long time ago that all natural food was less of a strain on the eco-system – pesticides – crop spraying by gas-guzzling crop-dusters and all that. Local-grown produce saves transportation costs, but not enough, not enough, so I started to grow all my own food, the natural way, but that took away a lot of my time, before and after work, and there’s recycling and garbage disposal. I read up on crop rotation and chicken rearing the natural way, because the latest scientific knowledge indicates that some meat is necessary, but the chickens were constantly tearing up my garden, and I couldn’t be so cruel as to coop them up. I had to build a fence, higher and higher round the garden, and down into the ground as the cats jumped over and burrowed under to get at the chickens.

Now I was using a cycle instead of a nasty, gas-guzzling SUV. I created much less pollution and did not contribute to global warming, but I read a while back that cow-farts contribute 80% of the methane discharged into the atmosphere – very bad – and I farted more now on my diet of natural vegetables and fiber, so was I really helping the environment as much as I could? Of course, cycling down the country roads, across Peggy Sue’s Apple Farm (all those farting cows) –took me hours. To get to work and back, was a two-hour commute each way, and I didn’t get much sleep and I missed my nice little apartment over my job, but I wouldn’t let my boss hook me up to the computers so I could work from home. Computers use up all kinds of resources.

I was tired all the time, and the articles that I wrote about saving the environment weren’t nearly as persuasive as they used to be when I lived in my little apartment. They weren’t as well-researched as they used to be when I was Googling the Internet, and my boss was getting ready to fire me, and my work was more time-consuming, and I had to write queries and articles and consign them to the mail system. But the little computers are very difficult to recycle, so I wrote everything longhand and in pencil.

Then I realized that my letters had to be carried to my editor, in a van, I suppose, by a man wearing a uniform, and these uniforms have to be manufactured and shipped, and armies of lobbyists and salesmen, all with huge SUVs have to go out and sell the uniforms. I thought, maybe I’m making things worse and polluting more and more and contributing to global warming while claiming to do just the opposite.

I was only sleeping 3 – 4 hours a night, so I was probably sucking in more oxygen and breathing out more carbon dioxide. I was wearing my clothes out faster, so that people all over the world had to spin more for longer hours and use more cloth. They had to build more machines to make the cloth, and tear up more earth to extract the iron and nickel and build more foundries to smelt the iron into steel. They had to mine and burn more coal to generate the electricity to build the factories and keep them running, and hire more men and women to run the factories and foundries, and all the new men and women need clothing and housing and stoves and refrigerators, which need more foundries and stores and salesmen, and the salesmen all need……………..”

He stops and looks up vaguely. Betty is still talking at the far end of the bar, and he fumbles in his denims, and drags out a filthy tattered scrap of newsprint. “It’s alright Betty,” he calls, dropping the newsprint on to the soaking bar. “I have plenty of copies.”

She waves him away, and says something inaudible amidst the noise.

“Thanks, Betty,” he tells her, relieved. “Thanks for listening. I knew you’d believe me.” The newsprint, rapidly soaking up beer, is barely legible. If any of the customers were interested, they might just have been able to make out the brief news story, rapidly disintegrating into the splintery wood.

Daily Record – dateline August 4th
An as yet unidentified man was apprehended today while driving an ultra-large stolen tractor at high speed down Interstate 77. The vehicle was stolen from Peggy Sue’s Apple Farm, where it had been laid up for several weeks pending a complete engine overhaul to bring it up to the new statewide clean-air standards. The thief was easily spotted and apprehended, due to the emission of dense black smoke from the tailpipe. The gas pump that he was dragging slowed his progress. He had apparently failed to extract the gasoline hose from the tank after speeding off without paying the station owner. Several hundreds of gallons of gasoline gushed into the air when a safety valve was breached, and the farmhouse, with several adjoining buildings was completely destroyed. Police are still searching the wreckage for bodies.

It is speculated that the driver may be a member of the pro global warming terrorist group, N.T.B.U. (Nuke the Blue Whales) which has been operating with increasing frequency in this area.

Chapter 17 – A Pact with the Devil
I’d never heard of anyone being promoted from Hell before, but this little Devil stood right in front of me, horns and all, steam coming out of his ears like he was brewing tea in that big round head of his. He turned the corner on Main Street and came wandering down just like a regular dead person, past the old houses and the rickety pub, which he looked at, licking his lips.

“Hey, you,” I said sternly. “What in Hell are you doing here?” I was a bit nervous, but you have to speak to them like that or they think you’re a wimp and breathe fire over you and do all sorts of unpleasant things. Anyway, I could see he was quite a young Devil, probably no more than a thousand years old. “You can’t come in here,” I told him. “Get back where you belong.” I thought about scooping up some of the dirty rain water and chucking it over him, while I said something like “I cast thee out, Devil,” but after all, this was only Limbo, not the Real Thing, so I didn’t think it would work.

“Sez who?” he asked cockily.

“Sez me,” I told him. “I’m in charge here.”

His demeanor changed immediately. “Oh, thank G-g-g,” he stuttered. They can’t take the name of the Almighty in vain. “Oh, sir, thank glory I found you.” He almost bowed and touched his right horn as if I were some Lord of the Manor or something. “You can’t come in here,” I told him, “Only dead people are allowed in here.”

“But I am dead,” he said. “I’m deader than anyone here.”

“You are,” I told him firmly,” a Devil. “How did you get in here?”

He coughed nervously. “I’ve been promoted,” he said. “I’ve been kicked upstairs.” He fumbled in his black cape and fished out a singed and crumpled piece of parchment. “I just couldn’t hack it down there. Failed everything from Anger to Sloth, except, perhaps Lust – but I’m not proud of that,” he said hastily.

I uncrumpled the piece of parchment and read with some difficulty “To Whom It May Concern, Pleeze find a spot for Imp therd class Jasper, who has been dimoted for failing to pass the most elim – simple tests we can give. He is truly a falure and will fit in nicely – ugh – in your Pergatry.” I tossed the parchment back to him. “What sort of note is this?” I asked. “Are you trying to tell me that this is a letter of introduction, an official letter?”

“Yes,” he said faintly.

“Look,” I told him, “almost all of the slickest lawyers that ever existed are down there. Are you trying to tell me this is genuine?”

He coughed.

“It’s not even spelt properly.” I started to turn away. “Now, get out of here, I’ve wasted too much time already.”

“Wait,” he cried. “Maybe I did stretch the truth a little. I am a Devil after all, a Demon, third class.”

“I don’t want to hear,” I told him, walking away.

“I escaped,” he shouted, “I claim sanctuary.”

I laughed at him. “Where?” I asked. “In the pub? This is Limbo,” I told him, and started to spell it, still walking away. “L for leather, I for India, M for, er Mephistopheles,…”

“I can help you get your quotas up,” he called after me, “or I can wait a couple of weeks till they fire you, and deal with the new guy.”

I stopped. “What quotas?” I demanded, “What new guy?” I continued, my voice rising in alarm.

“I can help with your quotas,” he told me. “The local Angels are wandering about in rags, trying to play harps with no strings. – And the haloes – rusty, bent. The Devils are laughing their heads off, and your Angels don’t like it.”

“It’s not my fault,” I blurted before I could stop myself. Despite myself, I began to explain the pressures I was under. “We have worn out machinery in the foundry, unionized labor, and we lack decent harp-tuners. It’s all right for the Devils,” I told him. “That’s what Hell is all about, shoddy goods, out of tune bagpipes.” I swallowed. “New Guy?” I asked.

“New Guy,” he repeated. “I applied for the job myself, but the Devils Council vetoed my application, which is why I escaped.”

I almost wrung my hands. “Almost a hundred years,” I said, “I’ve given my best. I’ve tried everything I know, worn my fingers to the bone - if I had real fingers. Now it’s come to this.” I shuddered. The Angels wanted to fire me, the Devils wanted to get their hands on me – I knew where I was headed.

“As I said. I can help with your quotas,” Jasper told me and I sniffed. “Listen,” he continued,” I was a slave in Nero’s court, a tough place to be. They were supposed to feed me to the lions, but in two days I ended up ‘Advisor to the Emperor’, and, he added, leering, ‘beauty consultant to his wives and mistresses.”

“You can’t wander around looking like – what you look like” I told him.

“Give me a few days,” he said confidently. “Was that a woman I saw, tending bar?”

I was confused for a moment. “Ah,” I answered, “Sadie.”

“I can stay at the pub,” Jasper told me. “Sadie won’t talk.”

“How do you know,” I asked foolishly.

“I’ll keep her occupied,” he said smirking.

I didn’t like it at all, but much worse alternatives seemed to be closing in on me. “I’ll let you stay, temporarily,” I told him.

“Sure,” he said airily. He knew that he had won.

Jasper was quick on the uptake, I had to admit. In a couple of days, he resembled every slick lawyer who had ever gotten a client free on a technicality. He was supposedly my assistant, and the inhabitants of my little Limbo already hated him. Except, that is, for Sadie who bloomed, and startled everyone by beginning to wash herself. We had our first brainstorming session in the back room of the pub.

“You’re going about it in totally the wrong way,” he said after I explained to him my desperate attempts to recruit more half sinners. “Now, what’s the whole point of this place?”

“Well, it’s a sort of halfway house,” I told him.

He sighed. “I mean.” What are we doing here?”

I opened my mouth. “I’ll tell you what we’re doing here,” he said. “Most of your flock works in the foundry, making tridents and haloes, and all that junk.”

I bit back an angry reply. “Eighty-five percent,” I said. “That’s almost everyone apart from a few instrument tuners and service personnel.”

“And union leaders, and strikers, and trouble-makers and malingerers,” he said. “Half the people in that foundry spend most of their time hiding from the foreman, sloping off to the pub, or just resting on their shovels.”

“I don’t get the best of the best here,” I told him plaintively.

“First thing we do,” he said, “is to put up a notice on that greasy notice-board where they clock in. The notice will say that all personnel who have been here for longer than a year will be entered in the, what shall we call it ‘annual moral assessment exam’. To determine whether they stay in this rat hole, sink into the Abyss, or ascend to the Heavenly Hosts.”

“I can’t make up a story like that,” I told him.

“Why not?” he asked genuinely puzzled.

“Because the Angelic auditors would kick me downstairs in the blink of an eon,” I told him.

“And how often do they set foot in your decrepit old foundry?” he asked.

“They’d sooner take an exclusive tour of Hell,” I said. I sighed. “I must admit I had thought about doing something like that but, pretty soon there’d be no-one left to work there. You know, if I give them a test, they’ll all want to know if they passed, and if I force them to be good the Heavenly Hosts will take them to their bosom.”

He shuddered. “What a disgusting thought. Tell you what, though, we can promise the over-achievers a shorter working day, and...”

“What,” I yelled, “they’re hardly working now. It’s all they can do to punch in.”

“They need incentives,” he said. “Who wants to work in a smoky soot-filled dangerous barn like the Foundry?”

“You’re missing the point,” I told him patiently. “This is supposed to be Limbo.”

“Limbo, schmimbo he chanted. “Look,” who wants to work in a place where his foot will get burnt off, or his hand will get crushed.”

“They grow back,” I told him sulkily. “After all, these people are the undead.”

“Make the foundry safer and more efficient,” he told me, and fewer people can produce more stuff. I’m thinking,” he continued. “We can modernize, the furnaces, the moulds, we can automate and use that as an incentive to attract your good workers.”

“Where do I get the new machinery,” I demanded.

“Leave that to me,” he said. “You know, down there,” he gestured at the floor. “We have some of the most efficient furnaces in the universe. In fact,” he continued, “if Devils weren’t so lazy, they’d be cleaning up by now, and you’d be out of business.”

“Sloth,” I murmured. “One of the seven deadly…”

“And the Angels,” he said, “Are no better. They’re careful, temperate, not to mention generous and fair. Can you imagine an Angel in charge of this place? In a couple of days, your entire workforce would be down at the pub, getting soused, and if an Angel ever ventured into such a den of iniquity it would be ‘Sir, I’m sorry, Sir, I’d love to work, just to put a crust of bread in the mouths of me sweet old mother an’ me seventeen chillum. Sir, but it’s me back ye see, I can’t straighten up; the pain is awful, an the onny thing as helps is a drop o beer.” Jasper snorted. “And the kind and generous Angel would probably stand the whole bar a drink before going home to flagellate himself – or herself.”

“True,” I murmured.

“It’s my opinion,” he said judiciously, “that you’re getting too good for your britches. That’s why your workforce is getting out of hand.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I admit it. I’ve been trying to be fair, and look where it’s gotten me. Nobody gives me any respect; quotas are going through the floor, and the Angels are after my blood. Yet, if I get tough, issue the supervisors with whips, install thumbscrews in each work area, the Angels threaten to send me down below.”

“You are trapped,” Jasper said, “in a catch-22 situation.” I looked at him blankly. “You are in charge, you are responsible. Whatever you do, you are screwed. That basically is catch-22. If you’re too angelic, your results go down, and, probably, so do you. If you pull out the whip, you’re a cruel, heartless taskmaster, fit only for demotion downstairs. On the other hand,” he continued, “I’m a Devil. I can do anything I want.”

We met up the next day. Outside the foundry, it was a beautiful day. It always was for the incoming workers. The off-shift wandered out into a rainy night. I could never figure that out. Jasper blocked the entrance. Outgoing workers streamed round him and through him but the new shift were trapped in the rain. “Shift number 3,788,512,” he bellowed. “There will be a short delay, possibly ten minutes while minor changes are made to the machinery. Do not enter.” It started to rain on them as we walked into the eerily empty foundry and surveyed the mess. For the first time in Limbo history the furnace was shut down and the conveyor belt was silent. “You go out there and calm them down,” he told me. I walked across the echoing stones, and glanced back before I went out. It seemed as if a big hole appeared in the concrete floor, underneath the old furnace, and orange light spilled out.

The first batch of malingerers was already sneaking away as I came out. I rounded up most of them, 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 for limbo, no more worries.” With a flourish, he withdrew a sheaf of papers from his rather old-fashioned coat, just as a pretty nurse entered at a run.

“We got your signal,” she said to the figure on the bed, ignoring Arthur, as all healthy humans did. “Two blinks, time for your pain-killer. Calm down,” she said as he struggled mightily to sit up, but with a gasp and a rattle he heaved upward, and then slumped down, dead. “Damn,” said the nurse, “I hope you put me in your will, you bastard, I let you feel me up enough times.” She pressed a button. “Number 10B is gone,” she said into the intercom. “I need that tame doctor of his to get up here right away to certify death so we can freeze him right away.”

Arthur stood by aghast as doctors and nurses dashed in and out, scribbling, injecting, and assembling a sort of tent on wheels. “Well, I sure fooled you,” the billionaire told him. “You cheered up the last few minutes of my life.” The fat ghost chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You think I’d trust myself to a loser like you?” He shivered a little and lifted the flap of the tent. “Haven’t you ever heard of Cryogenics? I have my own limbo, until they can revive me. Talk to me again in a hundred years,” he said, settling comfortably into his quick-frozen corpse.

Arthur sat disconsolately on the edge of the bed. This was really too much. Despite what he had told the Billionaire, he’d had little success selling Limbo. There was the occasional used car salesman who had been snatched from the claws of the Devils, or, he thought, in a few cases, smuggled from beneath the wings of Angels. Most of his successes had turned out to be troublemakers or whiners, and his output of harps and tridents especially was alarmingly low. ‘It’s really too much,’ he thought. What was that new word, Cryogenics? Pretty soon, every living person would be carrying around his own little limbo. He stirred. No rest for the weary. His quarterly meeting with the stockholders was not too far away. The charter plane for the used car expo had crashed across town, conveniently next to a hospital, and some of the passengers were still clinging to life. He sighed, “I can do it! I can do it! He said fiercely, then “Cryogenics be damned,” and he disappeared with an audible ‘pop’.


Chapter 19 – A Blast from the Past

The thin man wandered down a rapidly deteriorating Main Street one rainy night, just after the Millennium was celebrated in the Real World. ‘All those zeroes,’ he thought. As a custodian, he enjoyed some privileges and the rain that followed him down towards Gatehouse corner was more of a light wet mist that he hardly noticed. He thought, with quiet melancholy, of the years piling up, a heavy load, becoming steadily heavier. This was not a walk that he enjoyed. Gatehouse corner was where the newly arrived undead came shambling into Limbo, astonished, annoyed, or scared stiff according to their individual temperaments. Nowadays very few lost souls came wandering round this particular corner, early nineteen-hundred industrial squalor being quite unfashionable among currently dying humans.

Now, Arthur reflected, even the half-sinners, not quite bad enough for Hell and not quite good enough for Heaven were getting increasingly choosy about their semi-permanent abode of semi-torment. His orientation class a few decades earlier opened his eyes to the changing moral horizons of the human race. In his time, a life of petty crime, the occasional unkind act and minor infidelities were guaranteed to send you to an equally petty non-existence in a drab, rainy, boring Limbo like the one he now ran and inhabited.

Nowadays, even the squeezed inhabitants of Limbos demanded daily street bombing, mugging and random acts of violence as the preferred form of punishment, rather than his boring drab, but relatively relaxed half-Hell. Arthur thought about this vanishingly low boredom threshold that he had observed in live humans as the decades rolled on. He trudged abstractedly towards the corner and the hidden gatehouse, thinking that, in many ways, live humans were shooting off to the lunatic fringes, away from the monotonous center he was used to.

This, he concluded, was a big factor in the depopulation of his Limbo. Humans tough enough to resist the myriad temptations of a world where luxuries abounded and practically everything could be had for the asking ended up in Heaven telling the poor old-fashioned Angels what to do. He had even heard of an ex-human who, dissatisfied with some small corner of heaven had constructed a virtuous, or was it virtual Heaven that was rapidly becoming more popular than the real thing. And Hell was faring no better. Newly arrived ex-humans down there were already terrorizing the old-time Devils with their biological and nuclear weapons and frighteningly efficient methods of inflicting pain and suffering. The dead were going to one extreme or the other and very few were finding their way to the rapidly declining halfway outposts.

He was most surprised, then when he heard the clattering of footsteps around the corner. It seemed as though a female was rapidly tapping her way towards him, the sound vaguely familiar. The tapping stopped, and a face from his past peered into Limbo.

“Arthur,” she said, flashing her gypsy smile. “They told me you were running this place. This godforsaken place,” she said, looking around.

“Gladys,” he gaped. “What are you doing here after all this time?” he said. “I never thought to see you again, not after that bastard from London stabbed me.”

“I’m always turning up, like a bad penny,” she grinned. “Yes, he was a real bastard, I soon found that out.”

“But where have you been for the last hundred years?” he asked her.

“Oh, here and there,” she said airily. “For a while I was on the run with that bastard from London, but things took an ugly turn. Oh,” she gasped suddenly, “You’ve still got his knife sticking out of your ribs. Why don’t you pull it out?”

“It’s part of my penance,” he told her gloomily, “I kept trying for a long while, but somehow it always wound up back in my ribs.”

“We’ll soon see about that,” she said firmly, grasping the knife in strong hands. “Ah,” she gasped, setting a shapely leg on his stomach. “Yes,” she exclaimed triumphantly as the rusty old knife popped out of his ribcage. “I could have done that a hundred years ago,” she told him. She looked at the knife and it crumbled to dust in her hands. “Looks like that’s the end of it,” she said.

“I don’t know what to say,” he told her. “Anyway, what about this ugly turn? Let’s go to the pub and you can tell me all about it.”

“You have a pub?” she asked surprised.

“There are a few of ‘em here.” He grimaced. “Bloody awful, they are, all of them.” They reached the dim old building and walked in. As always, he tripped on the ragged mat and banged his shins on a badly placed chair. “God damn to Hell,” he cried, and she giggled, negotiated the hole in the floorboards and sat down daintily at the rickety table.

He wandered over to the bar, where the enormous barmaid was glaring hatred at Gladys. He ordered a whiskey for himself and a double shot of brandy from the fanciest bottle on display. “Wash the glasses out before you pour, Nellie” he told her.

“Why?” she asked nastily. “All the drinks taste like vinegar.”

He sighed and hurried back to Gladys. “We used to have some real food and drink here, but we ran out. All the drinks taste like vinegar in Limbo,” he told her apologetically, just as she tipped up the glass and poured the contents down her throat. To his surprise, she didn’t scream or throw the glass at him. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and gazed at him calmly.

“First drink in a hundred years,” she told him. “It ain’t too bad.”

He blinked and coughed. “What have you been doing for the last century?” he asked. “What was this ‘turn for the worse’ you mentioned?”

She handed the glass back to Arthur who demanded a refill from the gaping barmaid. “Well,” she said, after sipping daintily on the murky liquor, “Larry O’Grady, the bastard from London, ran out of there after you collapsed on the floor. We all tried to stop the bleeding and I told your friend Joe to leave the knife in your ribs – to keep you from bleeding to death. Wasn’t no good, though. Pretty soon everyone was tramping red footsteps across the carpet and you were an interesting shade of blue. Joe grabbed a bottle of whisky from me and kept trying to force it down you, but it just ran out of your mouth and added to the blood. Pretty soon, he was drinking most of it himself, and by the time the copper came you was dead and your friend was dead drunk.”

Gladys paused for breath and signaled for another drink. “Well, the bobby finally came and it was the big fat bloke who used to come in every so often for a free beer. Always thought he could have a free feel too, the sweaty bugger.” She noticed his look and hurried on. “He’s so stupid, that copper. Insisted on handcuffing your mate and kept asking for witnesses to the killing of ‘the deceased corpse’.” Gladys took a sip of brandy and grimaced slightly. “I suppose I’m getting used to it now,” she said. “It does taste a bit vinegary.”

Arthur shifted uneasily, thinking of his corpse soaking the carpet with blood, with Joe staggering round, pouring whiskey into his dead mouth and the bobby rubbing his hand across Gladys’s bottom. “We finally heard horses clattering over the cobblestones,” Gladys continued, “and these two men in dirty white coats came in and wrapped you in a sheet and hauled you off. Then the copper left and the customers drifted off, and I kicked Joe out after he got all weepy drunk and started calling you the best mate he ever had and slobbering on my shoulder.” She sniffed. “Then, of course, I had to clean up all the blood and tidy up and it almost dawn when I finished.”

“It must have been awful,” Arthur said to her. “I suppose you were glad it was all over.”

“All over,” she said. “It was just beginning.”

He stared at her. “Well, I finally got out of there, after having a good belt of brandy, a few good belts of brandy. “I knew,” she said, “that I wouldn’t be going back there to work.”

“Yes,” he said, touched, “it must have been hard on you.”

“Hard?” She told him. “Hard ain’t the word. I knew the landlord was going to sack me. He used to blame me for every fight in the place. Used to say the customers was always fighting over me.” Here she paused to primp her hair. “Of cause, the fight had nothing to do with you acting like a drunken idiot, practically asking Larry the Bastard to duff you up.”

“Just a minute,” he spluttered.

“Ah, sorry, love,” she said. “Get me another drink will you, before it starts to taste too bad. Thanks,” she said contritely when he sat down again. “Like I said, my troubles were just beginning. I staggered out of that place and it was pitch dark, raining, and the streets were deserted. I hadn’t gone more than a few yards when this big bloke stepped out of the shadows. Who do you think it was? Larry the Bastard!” she told him before he could answer. He gasped. “Well, he took me to this little club for a couple of drinks,” she continued. “Well, it was more like an opium den, but I was past caring by then.”

“You went out with him to an opium den just after he had killed me,” Arthur howled. “How could you.”

“Strictly speaking it was the next day,” she said calmly. “And you would have been dead whether I’d gone with him or not. I figured I might as well get something out of it. You know they sell pies in them places,” she added, “they’re pretty tasty too.”

Arthur contemplated the long-gone world where Gladys and the murderer dined on pies and opium while his body slowly cooled in some hospital. “He was real sorry,” Gladys said, leaving him speechless. “And you did start it, more or less.” She shifted on the hard wooden chair. “He explained to me that he always had a temper, even as a kid. He was big, and all the big kids wanted to fight him. So he started carrying this knife, to deter them, you might say, so he could keep out of trouble.” Arthur stared at her.

“He was a very persuasive bloke,” she continued. “He could sell anything to anyone, and he had lots of money, and he dressed so nice.” She paused. “So I ran away to London with him.”

Arthur stopped her there, telling her that this was getting too much for him to take in. He arranged with the furious Nellie to have Gladys sleep in a room above the bar, and eventually they both stumbled upstairs.

The next morning he woke up smiling for the first time since the she-Devil. Weak sunshine struggled through the grimy windows without warming the grubby room. Although Limbo meant the reduction of the sense of warmth and smell, texture and taste, it had been a while, and like Gladys with the brandy on the previous night, he tasted and touched something after a long drought. He looked at Gladys, and the smile vanished at the thought of the Londoner and her in a much fancier place.

“So, you can’t stop thinking about my Londoner boyfriend,” Gladys said, opening her eyes. “You never used to be jealous.”

“How?” he began.

“Oh, I don’t sleep much,” she said. “I was a ghost for a long time, and I got out of the habit.”

“You were a what?”

“We didn’t get to that part, did we?” she answered. “Look, does this miserable pub have a stove, somewhere? I can cook us breakfast.”

“I think so,” he told her. “Hasn’t been used in ages, but it should still work.”

Down in the bar, a raw-boned woman with acne was arguing with a long-suffering patron and the off-shift waited patiently to be served. Gladys squeezed behind the counter and disappeared into a cubbyhole at the end of the bar. The acne-woman finished her argument, sneezed a couple of times and started to serve her customers. Arthur strolled over to a rickety table in the corner, the same table, he noted, where he had signed on the dotted line to accept the job of running this unfashionable Limbo.

Gladys came over with some hot coffee and a couple of steaming plates of soup. “All the rest of the stuff was covered in mould,” she said rather crossly. “Boy, you are making a cock-up of this place.”

“Gladys, you seem to forget, this is not a holiday camp here. This is Limbo,” he told her with some heat.

“Oh, shut up and eat your soup,” she told him. She sniffed. “O’Grady was a lot more fun than you.” He frowned a question at her. “The bastard from London,” she explained. Seeing the expression on his face, she hurried on. “He was a lot of fun,” she explained patiently, “until things took a turn for the worse.” She took a spoonful of soup. “I can taste it,” she said, excitedly. “Try some yourself.”

He tried a spoonful, and realized that he too could taste it. It was a little like cardboard, but somewhere in the depths of Gladys’ soup lurked a taste, a ghostly reminder of peas, and carrots and ham, waiting to stir his sluggish blood. “Not bad,” he told her, just as Jasper appeared in front of them.

“Not bad at all,” he said, eyeing Gladys as if she were a five-course dinner, ready and waiting to be eaten. “Well, my dear,” he said, sitting down, “Did you cook this with your own fair hands. It looks as delicious as you, you gypsy vision.”

Arthur thought queasily that Jasper was sounding just like the Londoner had. Gladys, for her part looked at him with interest.

“Don’t you have something to do?” Arthur said angrily. “March a few more souls down the cellar steps to Hell, Get a few more half-sinners drunk.” He turned to Gladys. “I have to tell you, he’s a …”

“I know what he is,” Gladys interrupted, “but you don’t have to be rude to him.” She turned to Jasper. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m his assistant fair lady,” Jasper said smoothly. “I admit, I used to be a sinner, but I fell into holy ways, wandered into the straight and narrow, and ended up here. I’m his assistant,” he continued, nodding at Arthur, “duly certified by Heaven and Hell both, doing my humble best to aid and comfort my friend Arthur for as long as I must.”

She turned on Arthur. “Honestly, you haven’t changed a bit. This poor little Devil starts to treat me like a lady, and you go off in a jealous rage, just like always, ready to cause trouble and smash up the bar.”

After more than a century, Arthur had learnt – a few things anyway. He resisted the urge to encircle Jasper’s smooth little neck with his strong hands. “You can’t trust him,” he told Gladys, “any more than you could trust O’Grady.

She sighed. “But he was fun,” she told them, brightening up. “Took me to London, and we went to some posh places too, some nice hotels with baths on every floor.” Here Arthur snorted. “We went to some really nice pubs, and in one, I got to talkin’ to a real live Esq.”

“Esk?” Arthur interrupted.

“Squire, or somethin’” she said. “Look, do you want to hear this or don’t you?”

“Go on, dear lady,” Jasper told her, not taking his eyes from her bosom. “Your story is fascinating.”

“He wasn’t jealous at all, neither,” Gladys said dreamily. “He told me he didn’t mind a bit if I was nice to the gentleman. Said he had a bit of business with the man, and that anything I could do to smooth the way would be greatly appreciated.”

“So what did you do?” Arthur demanded.

“I was nice to the man,” she said simply.

Arthur groaned inwardly. “Anyway, things were fine until O’Grady got wind that the Bobbies had tracked him down,” Gladys continued, “then he got jumpy. Started to go out alone and began to come in drunk. Then he started hitting me.” Jasper made small tutting noises and held her hand. She beamed at him, and Arthur hastily covered her other hand in his large one. “Ouch,” she said. “Arthur, your hands are like sandpaper. Both of you let go. I’m fine.” She smoothed her dress and they both stared as the neckline slid further down on her bosoms.

“Then, he seemed to calm down and said we had to go to Paris,” she sniffed. “I didn’t like Paris much, all them Frenchies smelling of garlic and rubbing their hands all over a girl. An’ he didn’t want me to go out and meet no-one anyway. But he did get very lovin’. He practically kept me in bed all day.” Arthur groaned, and Jasper absently wiped his mouth and licked his lips. “So it wasn’t too bad,” she finished.

They looked at her expectantly.


Chapter 20 – Closing Time in the Garden of Eden

“Well then he came in one day and murdered me,” she finished. “Just walked over to where I was standing on the balcony and shoved me over the side. There I was, one moment feeling all warm and loving, sipping champagne, and the next I was flyin’ past the walls, and the cobblestones come up and smacked me in the face.”

Arthur looked at the vibrant woman opposite. Alive, he had wanted her, dreamt and lusted after her, even felt a certain tenderness for her. Now, with them both long-dead, he saw her as a person, wild, limited, but vital and real. “Why did he kill you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered simply. “I haunted him for fifty years and I never found out. If he’d been drunk or scared I’d give him up to the Bobbies, I could have moved on. He was calm and cold. He walked straight up to me, gave me this sad smile, and pushed me into the cold air. Well, it seems like, if you’re angry when you die, you sometimes stick around. Something to do with ecto, ecto…, ghost stuff getting really sticky. And I was raving mad, especially looking at myself spattered on the cobblestones. I wasn’t pretty anymore,” Gladys added without a trace of self-consciousness. She licked the last of her soup off the spoon. “I suppose it wasn’t a bad thing really, ‘cause I could feel myself being dragged down there – Hell. I have to say, though, something was dragging me up into the clouds as well. I was sort of floating, looking at myself when O’Grady came sliding out of the hotel. Quite a crowd had gathered by then, but they were all looking at me, and no-one even noticed him. The bastard didn’t even glance my way, just strode away with the wind blowing at his fancy cloak. I ran after him; at least my ghost did, screaming curses, battering at his face. All I managed to do was blow a few drops of rain in his face. Once, I got tangled in his black curls and he looked startled and ran his fingers through his hair, so I knew he could sense me.”

Gladys got up and went to the bar. She started talking to the acne barmaid who glared and shook her head. Gladys persisted and the barmaid began to look puzzled. She stomped over to where Arthur and Jasper were sitting. “Her says,” she began without preamble, that her’s gooin’ ta be the third barmaid. “Her says to goo away now, while her learns the ropes, and come back at fower. Now, yo know that the clocks ‘ere don’t work proper, and ah work from midnight to noon, and Nellie works from midnight to noon, only it’s a different midnight to noon.” She scratched her head absently, and studied a large flake of dandruff that had lodged under her fingernail.

Arthur, who had been away from the Black Country for a long while struggled to make sense of this garbled speech, but Jasper stood up and absently brushed a few flakes of dandruff from her flat chest. “Let me escort you home, my dear,” he said to her, “and you can lie down in your own bed and rest your poor feet and back.” The barmaid gaped at him with yellow teeth and slowly began to blush.

“Oo ar,” she said finally, “me feet ache like buggery and me back’s breakin’”. She allowed Jasper to guide her out into the drizzle, and Gladys went behind the bar and started serving without missing a beat.

“Leave the dishes,” she said. “I’ll get them when things slow down.”

“You can’t just do this,” he told her. “There are strict rules about who can work in the pubs.”

“What rules?” she asked.

“Er, has to be a woman, she has to be ugly and disgusting enough to make the customers upset and dissatisfied, and she must have a bad back and aching feet.”

“Well I’m a woman,” Gladys said, squaring her shoulders and smoothing her blouse. And I always used to upset the customers when I was alive: don’t you remember the fights the men used to get in over me. Don’t you remember how upset the wives were when they came in at closing time and their men were buzzing around me like bees around honey?”

On cue, two men started to jostle for her attention, and Arthur firmly escorted them to the door. “What about the bad back and sore feet,” he said desperately, coming back to the bar.

“Oo ar,” she said in a fair imitation of the departed barmaid, “Ow do you know me feet don’t ache like buggery and me back aint breakin’. Don’t even mention the time slots,” she continued. “You’re the boss, you can fix anything here.”

He sat in the corner and monitored her. She certainly upset the customers, but he wasn’t sure they were upset the way the Limbo Council had envisaged. The men drooled at each other, shoved up to the bar, and ended up shoving each other. Several times he escorted fights out into the street, where they continued in the rain and mud. His Limbo dwellers were upset, but in a fired-up way he had never seen before. The street outside became a mini war zone, not unlike the newer, more violent and exciting Limbos that were increasingly taking his potential recruits Gladys was certainly livening up the place.

Nellie, the third-shift woman came in, grabbed a pint, and sat down staring at it moodily. She looked up startled when a couple of customers started to fight. Suddenly, she heaved her bulk up and approached the two men who were squaring off at each other. Arthur was surprised to notice that she had attempted to brush her lank hair, that she looked middle-aged rather than old, and that her breasts were enormous. Obviously, Jasper had been to work on her.

“Ay,” she said hoarsely, shoving between the two men. “Pack it up.” The smaller of the men was at eye level to her bosom, and he stopped prancing immediately, transfixed like a chicken in torchlight. “I’ll see to these buggers, love” she said quite pleasantly to Gladys, and swept them out unresisting into the street. None of them returned.

Finally, Jasper swept in with the Acne woman, who appeared to have given her back and legs a good workout. “Let me borrow your brush, love,” she said to Gladys, “So I can freshen up.” She disappeared into the little cubbyhole behind the bar with a visible swish of her hips.

“What have you done?” Arthur asked Jasper. “You’re changing everything.”

“No more than she is,” Jasper answered, nodding towards Gladys, who approached with a tray of drinks.

“Eight hours is enough,” she told Arthur. “You have five pubs in this Limbo,” she said. “That’s five extra barmaids.”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“You’ll have to, they’re going to demand it,” she said looking over to where Acne was trying to calm down a bunch of customers, all of whom seemed intent on flirting with her. Arthur held his head. “Calm down,” she told him. “Don’t you want to hear my ghost story?”

“Well,” she continued when they had settled in. “I started to follow him all over. At first, I wanted to find out why he killed me, but later, it became a test of wills. First thing he did was visit his fancy woman in her fancy house by the river. I sailed in behind him.

She was ugly, it seemed to me, although I was told later that she was one of the most famous prostitutes in Paris. I think they call them courtesans. She had a long face like a horse and big white teeth and long black hair. Didn’t look very French. Anyway, she right away asked him in this squeaky French accent ‘did you keel ‘er’, and he just nodded and poured himself a drink. I managed to jostle him and he spilt some, which made her snigger, ‘cos she thought he was nervous. I think he realized right away it was me because he looked around and then looked hard at the exact spot I was standing. Funny thing, he seemed relieved that I was still out there, even if I did want to tear his heart out.

He stood up. ‘I’m going,’ he told her. ‘I just needed to tell you she was dead.’ He picked up his coat. ‘I won’t be back.’”

Gladys paused to wipe her mouth daintily, “He was staying in a real dump, in an alley behind some big old church. There were a lot of bums there, but I couldn’t smell them, because I was dead, you see. I wouldn‘t let him sleep, kept banging his bed and blowing in his ear. Finally, he sat up. ‘I don’t need much sleep,’ he said. I know you’re upset, Gladys, I don’t blame you.’ Really, the way he said it was like he was saying ‘I forgive you.’ He got dressed and we went walking together, like we sometimes did when I was alive. ‘Come on,’ he kept ordering, and I got angrier and angrier. ‘I’m beginning to see you,’ he told me. ‘You’re wearing your blue dress.’ Of course, I was wearing my blue dress; I’d just been murdered in it. ‘I expect you want to know why I did it,’ he said to me. I stopped dead, and he stopped too, so I guess he must really be seeing me. ‘I didn’t really want to,’ he said sadly and I almost believed him. ‘Tell me you bastard,’ I screamed at him. ‘I can hear you too,’ he said. He opened his mouth and there was a big bang, and he looked surprised. Blood started to trickle out of his mouth and he crumpled up in front of me.”

Gladys sighed and looked at them. “I know, it sounds like one of them melodramas we used to watch,” she said. “How do you think I felt? Both of us killed, and I still didn’t know why. It was that French cow, of course; I saw her and a couple of thugs running away.” She sighed. “I waited while his blood ran into the gutter and down a drain. I expected to see his spirit, you know, rising up, but nothing happened. I suppose he went straight to Hell, which he deserved.” She looked at Jasper. “He was a big bloke with a cockney accent. He liked wearing loud suits and pointy black shoes.”

“I used to be a Devil,” Jasper said crossly, “but that doesn’t mean I know everyone down there. I hardly think I’d mix with a lost soul who stabs people in dirty old pubs, and pushes women over the balcony.” He sniffed. “With all due respect to you two, I was used to a much more sophisticated type of murderer.”

“So what happened then?” Arthur asked hastily, seeing Gladys’ expression.

“I haunted ‘em,” Gladys said. “I followed them around while they went about their miserable little lives. None of them ever even mentioned O’Grady again. I never found out what was going on. Worried the pants off the two thugs, and they ended up shooting each other. Eventually, I managed to drive the French cow mad, and she ended up in a horrible asylum. I used to visit her every so often to keep her on the boil.”

Gladys finished her drink. “I kind of liked haunting people, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I was a ghost for the next fifty years. Then I skipped around for a few decades, and I heard about my old pal Arthur, so I come to visit you. And now,” she continued brightly, “I think I might be able to cook something up that actually tastes like food. Everyone OK with that?”

Arthur found that his jealousy lessened a little as the days went by. Life, or half-life with Gladys was infinitely better than when his only friend was the opinionated arrogant little Devil, Jasper. Over the course of one hundred years he had, apparently, mellowed a little, and once Gladys had brought him up to date with her adventures in the real world, he was quite contented to bask in her high spirits and provide her, sometimes in competition with Jasper, whatever meager pleasures were afforded by his position in Limbo56. He could even tolerate her occasional absences from Limbo, from which she seemed to have no problem escaping to the real world. These times away were in any case, short, and he wisely refrained from asking her about them.

He was, however, aware that Gladys, always looking for new adventures, was unlikely to remain for even a fraction of his time in Limbo, unless he tempted her with some special carrot. Luckily, every decade or so, as a kind of treat, the more prominent citizens of the Limbos were invited up for a refresher course in Morals and the Art of Governance. He mentioned this to Gladys one day. She looked a bit nervous at first, but soon brightened up.

The trip to Heaven didn’t quite work out the way he expected. Gladys accompanied him as they sat through weeks of non-stop, monotonous lectures bearing no relationship to the real Limbo. The Angels insisted that everyone sit on bottom-numbing hard chairs, so they were unable to snooze through these excruciating lectures, and it was with a sigh of relief that they all retired for the decennial social hour, in a garden just inside the gates of heaven. Gladys was delirious with relief, but now, somehow, Arthur was dissatisfied.

He took a deep breath, savoring the golden liquid. Bright butterflies flitted among the bountiful flowers; lions lay down with lambs, occasionally drinking the clear water that fell, sparkling, from a picture-perfect landscape.

“God could have done it better,” he grumbled.

“You're always complaining,” she said looking at her watch,” especially round about this time.”

“Well, dammit,” he said, gathering reproachful looks from some of his immediate neighbors. He gazed at his half-finished glass of ambrosia. “I just think...”

The bell sounded, loud and brassy. “Time ladies and gentlemen, please,” the rich baritone of God's voice echoed across heaven.

“I just think,” he said raising his voice slightly as they were whisked instantaneously outside the Pearly Gates. “I think,” he repeated, examining the signs that pointed to the various regions of the Netherworld. “I think that we should be given at least half-an-hour to finish our drinks.”

Chapter 21 – The Solid Gold Ashtray
It was solid gold, all right, the thin man thought, hefting it. In life, he had been an expert in iron; how it melted and splashed and poured blue-white from the mouth of the furnace, but he knew enough of gold to say that this was a genuine, solid piece of it. He was old enough to remember golden sovereigns and guineas, and once had a gold brick dropped on his foot by an eccentric squire who liked to haul his wealth around with him. Sitting in a dark corner of the pub, he hefted the ingot thoughtfully.

“What is it,” Jasper asked over his shoulder, causing him to jump and almost drop the thing. His small assistant from Hell was constantly popping up at the wrong time and asking foolish questions.

“It’s gold,” Arthur told him. “And I found it here, in the foundry.”

“Yes, but what is it?” Jasper asked, taking it and holding it by two of its beveled corners.

“It’s an ashtray, of course,” Arthur said.

“Oh.” Jasper said guardedly, then “Oh, yes. They’re used for those new fangled cigarette things. Best invention Hades ever came up with,” he went on. “They’re dirty, disgusting, unhealthy and addictive, all in one little package.”

“What I want to know is where did it come from?” Arthur interrupted. “This is Limbo. All we have here is iron and steel and a little bit of brass. So what is a great lump of gold doing in my foundry?”

“Beats me,” Jasper answered. “It doesn’t seem to have much use here.” He sniffed. “This ashtray could buy the whole Limbo five times over.” He sniffed again. “Not that anyone would want to buy this place.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Arthur muttered, nettled. “You thought the place was very nice when you escaped from Hell.”

“It’s so damned cold,” Jasper told him. “I miss the old fire sometimes. Except when I was thrown into it,” he added.

“When did that happen?” Arthur asked him curiously.

“Every other day,” the Demon answered. “So,” he said, taking the ashtray from the Governor, “You want me to check this out? Can you get me one of those precious metal detectors when you go out recruiting?”

Arthur, normally suspicious of unsolicited help was distracted by the sight of the stranger, engaged in deep conversation with Gladys. Something about the shape of those broad shoulders and the cut of the fancy jacket reminded him of the smooth-talking Londoner who had stabbed him in the real world. “Sure,” he said, getting up quickly.

But the man wavered and was gone, and Gladys turned innocent gypsy eyes on him when he asked the question. “What Larry O’Grady,” she said in a voice of enormous surprise. “You mean the bloke that killed you? Now why would I talk to ‘im?”

“He killed you too,” Arthur answered confusedly.

“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “Although I don’t think he really wanted to,” she added enigmatically. He stepped back, startled. “I told you the whole story before,” she said. “Anyway, I think you’re jealous.” She started to polish an already spotless glass. “He was a harp maker, trying to sell one for the Lounge.”

“He must be mad,” Arthur told her. “Why would I buy a harp for a fifth-rate Limbo like this,” he added, forgetting his recent defense of the place.

“It was just a line,” she said silkily. “He was just tryin’ to get into my panties, not that I wear ‘em,” she added saucily.

He was marching angrily down the street before he realized that neither of them had mentioned the abrupt and peculiar vanishing of the stranger. In the next few days, he almost forgot about the incident. Two of his best workers disappeared, everything went wrong at the foundry, and he spent fruitless hours trying to sell his limbo paradise to a bunch of almost dead, who either heard his sales pitch and declared that Hell seemed like a better bet, or advanced totally unreasonable demands that even the Heavenly Host would have found difficult to fulfill.

Then, one Sunday, he was in the foundry, tidying the piles of junk that accumulated daily. Despite being Governor for many years, he had never been able to shrug free of the foundry. He shoveled a few small mountains of black sand into a storage bin, passed a rag over some of his machines, and started to neatly stack some piles of rusting iron that lined the conveyor. The iron bars were labeled ‘do not use or recast – flawed.’ When he moved them, he realized that they were far too heavy to be iron.

He sat on his haunches and inspected the metal. The girders were about five feet long and two inches square, and they weighed twice as much as they should. Curiously, he extracted his penknife and carved a small flake of metal. Under the patina of what looked like rust, the yellow of gold glinted briefly. Arthur sat back and measured the pile with his eyes. All around him were stacks of metal. He tested a sample and estimated that they were all solid gold. He whistled slowly.

Thoughtfully, he walked back to his office and unearthed his new set of metal testers. An hour, and several scribbled sheets of paper later he had an inventory of the dimensions and weights of the metal. He walked over to his locked cabinet and extracted a laptop computer. It was the only one in his Limbo, and had cost him two of his workers, who were snatched into the jaws of Heaven after stealing it from the Devils. With the help of the Internet, he counted the value of the metal as just over two billion pounds sterling. Arthur arranged the piles of rusty metal as they had been and looked thoughtfully at them.

That night, he spoke to the only two people he knew well enough to confide in. He and Gladys, and Jasper sat around the dark table, unnoticed by the regulars, and talked about vast wealth that was of no value whatsoever to anyone in Limbo. “Two billion pounds,” Gladys said. “I can’t imagine two billion pounds.”

“Where did it come from,” Jasper asked, and Arthur shook his head. “Alright, what about the ashtray,” Jasper continued, “Did you find out anything about that?”

“I thought you were going to look into it,” Arthur grumbled.

“Oh, yes, I hung it on my wall and forgot about it,” Jasper said.

“Arthur,” Gladys told him. “Someone is using your Limbo as a bank, and two billion dollars of hidden money smells like big trouble.” It had to be the work of outsiders. Gold was of no use in Limbo. “But someone in here must be getting paid to hide this stuff,” Gladys said. “Why don’t you look for one of your workers with a big-screen TV set, or a luxury car? There can’t be many cars driving around Limbo.”

“Twenty,” Jasper said. “One car is mine, one is the Governors car, and four are used for foundry transport. That leaves fourteen to check out.

“I won’t be able to help you, Arthur,” Gladys said. “I have to visit the real world for a few days.” Arthur nodded; he had never questioned Gladys’ ability to come and go at will. He had been tempted to follow her on her infrequent expeditions, and had kicked himself for acting like a love-struck youth. In fact, he was afraid that the Gypsy bartender would leave forever if he put too much pressure on her.

“I can’t check anything, nobody trusts me,” Jasper said succinctly.

Arthur sighed. “I’ll do it. Do we have records of the car-owners?” he asked.

Jasper, who had been a reluctant Accountant for several years, nodded. “I’ll get them for you,” he said.

So, the next morning instead of working at his desk or at the foundry, Arthur, the list tucked in his pocket, laptop strapped to the rack, wheeled out his cycle and set out. He seldom used his official car; and in truth he still mistrusted these mechanical monsters. He was apt to drive too cautiously, avoiding pedestrians by a wide margin, hands gripping the steering wheel. Gladys drove like a madwoman, and only Jasper handled an automobile as if he had been born with wheels.

The first car he saw was up on blocks. Weeds had grown through the floor and were peeping from the driver’s window. The second car was an old Ford that had seen better times, but the third was a brand-new Mercedes sports car with custom paint and hubcaps. Arthur opened the laptop and inserted the little plug that Jasper called a wireless adapter. He typed in the name of the car-owner and details filled the screen. “Miracles,” Arthur murmured, as he always did when regarding a computer, a television set or a cell phone.

The owner of the car was a nondescript unskilled laborer, one Bill Smith, who had never owned anything in his long half-life in Limbo. He hardly ever appeared at work any more, and when he did was given more to complaint than real effort. Arthur strode up to the newly painted front door and knocked. The inside of the house was quiet. Arthur eyed the door. Despite the paint, it was flimsy and battered. Indeed, the whole house looked as though a good push would topple it. Arthur kicked the lock and the door flew open amidst a shower of splinters.

A deep pile rug covered the hallway; paintings of nude women hung on the walls. The living room was crammed to bursting point with overstuffed furniture, two television sets and various electronic devices, some of which stood unused in their cartons. The kitchen was a mess of unwashed crockery and half-eaten dinners and the bedroom was one enormous bed surrounded by three television sets. Just off the bedroom was a small cubbyhole that the occupant obviously used as an office. Arthur looked around and opened the desk drawer. On top of a sheaf of papers was a thin sheet of shiny black paper, with red writing. Arthur had seen something similar before, in his infrequent dealings with the Devils. It was a contract from Hell. Arthur pulled it out. He was about to read when a slight sound caused him to turn. He caught a swift vision at a bar of gold, descending, and then it crashed on his head and everything went black.

Apparently, his head was getting used to violent impacts. He came to with a bad headache, a vanishing dent, and Jasper bending over him. “Next time, I’ll hold your hand,” the Demon said. “Your suspect ran off as soon as he saw me. Don’t worry; I know where he’s going.” He held up the Devils Contract. “This is serious.” He helped Arthur to his feet and dragged him outside. “We’ll search this place later,” he said. “Get in the car.”

They arrived at the gateway just in time to see Bill Smith hurl himself into the invisible barrier. “He’s a bigger fool than I thought,” Jasper said. “What are you doing?” he called.

The man faced them. “I call on my contract with the Devil. Release me from Limbo,” he cried, raising his arms which trembled under the weight of two bars of gold.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Arthur told him.

“Yes, it will,” Jasper contradicted him. “The Devil always honors his contracts, right down to the fine print.” And as the man and his gold disappeared into the ground with a wail and a wisp of smoke, Jasper added. “He’s been released from Limbo, just as the contract said.” They stared at the spot as the wisp of smoke dissipated in the light rain. “Let’s go back to his place,” Jasper said.

They found nothing else of interest in the house. Jasper carried a few electronic items to his car and they went back to the pub. “We’re back where we started,” Arthur said grimly.

“No,” Jasper told him. “I said this was serious for a reason. Look at this contract.” He pointed to the neat signatures beneath Bill Smith’s untidy scrawl. “I know these Devils, at least I’ve heard of them. They’re up and coming class one Demons. They represent the new order down there.” He paused ruminatively. “You know, after the living obtained nuclear weapons, we all knew that Satan had lost his battle with the Almighty. The Atomic Bomb was such a terrible weapon. Two of them killed hundreds of thousands of people, and almost everyone in the world found out about the bomb and its terrible destructive power. Down in Hell, we were expecting humanity to weep for all the men and women, the children and unborn babies who died in agony. We expected, once the ultimate weapon was out of the box, humans would turn to Ggg…, the guy upstairs, beg forgiveness for inventing such a thing. We thought that, from that period on, all that we would see in Hell would be a tiny trickle of certified madmen.”

He paused. “What happened? Humans shrugged and went about their business. Scientists built bigger and better bombs, Hydrogen Bombs. Even in countries where the people were allowed to protest, pitifully few did. Then we knew that we had won. Once the inevitable happened a few billion sinners would be crawling over each other to enter the gates of Hell. Up there would get a few million squalling, motherless babies and a few innocents and morons who had never heard of the bomb. We waited while a handful of countries built enough bombs and missiles to kill everyone ten times over. More countries got into the act. The United States and its allies, the Evil Empire and its satellites were poised daily to throw mutual death and destruction at each other. Then, even smaller countries got their own little stockpiles. Every day was crisis day; it was permanently 11:59 on the death clock. We watched in Hell as the human race sped down hill forever, in a car with no brakes, faster and faster, each hairpin bend more difficult to navigate.” Jasper paused once more. “Those were exciting times,” he said, eyes shining. “Sorry, Arthur,” he said, collecting himself.

“And what happened?” he continued. “Nothing happened, except small wars with better guns and bombs, and better ways to patch up broken bodies. Even the Evil Empire stopped at the brink and became a rather less evil empire. Naturally, humans continued to develop more sophisticated weapons, even as they threw the old ones away. We were pleased when world-class biological weapons were developed, but we were never quite as sure of ultimate success as in those early days. After all, there were only a couple of hundred or so countries.” He paused again. “But this new idea, that these three Demons on the contract came up with, was really a stroke of genius.” Jasper looked at Arthur. “It was really simple, and not new, just an old idea taken to its logical conclusion in these modern times.” He paused for effect “International Terrorism. It’s global. It’s not constrained by national boundaries. Instead of a couple of hundred countries run by relatively sane governments, you have six billion humans, some of whom are bound to be insane, or self-destructive, or both.” Jasper sucked his teeth. “Maybe I was premature jumping ship,” he said, thoughtfully. He coughed. “They wouldn’t let me go back, anyway, Arthur.”

“Why us, why did they choose my Limbo,” Arthur moaned.

“Because you’re the bottom of the totem pole,” Arthur said heartlessly. “You’re the closest to Hell, the most miserable, the most easily corruptible…”

“Alright, alright,” Arthur interrupted, “I understand. I have to call the Angels right away and tell them what’s going on.”

“Think before you do that,” Jasper said. “There are certainly others here who signed that contract. Tell the Angels now, and the first thing they’ll do is send a stiff note to Hell, demanding to know if these charges from you are true. And the first thing Hell will do is suck the gold downstairs and pop it up in another Limbo. Then, they’ll tell the Angels that you made the story up because you’re having a nervous breakdown, or you’re trying to divert attention to the fact that you’re poaching recruits or some such thing.” The Demon nodded. “Right now, you’re the pathetic Governor of an extremely poor and ratty Limbo. I doubt if Hell even knows you exist.” He sniffed. “Poke them in the eye and they’ll swat you like a fly.” Arthur bristled, then nodded resignedly. “Besides,” Jasper added, reverting to form. “We can hide the gold and sell it off ourselves. Just think what we can do for Purgatory56,” he added hastily.

“Still looking for that Demon, first class award?” Arthur asked. “Well, think about this. If we don’t find the Terrorists who collected this money, they’ll find us, and we’ll all go to Hell – on their terms.” Jasper shivered. “I have no way of knowing where these people are; they could be anywhere in the world. Do you have any idea?” Jasper shook his head miserably. “So we’ll try to get the gold on to the world markets, and take whatever we get, and use it to defend ourselves. The Devils are just agents in this; with £2 billion, we can buy them off. Quite frankly, I’m more scared of the terrorists.”

“You should be,” Gladys said, sitting down, “Osama is a very frightening person.” Arthur knocked his beer over. “I only saw one of them,” Gladys continued calmly. “They managed to clone three before the template gave out.” Jasper was staring at her, his beer tipping precariously. “He’s the one behind all this gold, though,” she finished calmly. “You’ll spill that if you’re not careful, she said to Jasper. Did you tell Arthur about the solid-gold ashtray?” she asked.

Arthur glared at Jasper, who slid down in his chair. “I was going to tell you,” he protested, “But it didn’t seem too important.” He blinked at Arthur’s expression. “It was nothing really; I traced the ashtray back to some piddling little terrorist group, something to do with Blue Whales. They were going to sell it for explosives – dynamite and stuff. I showed my horns, and breathed fire on them and they soon came clean. They said they got the idea for hiding the gold in Limbo from some really big terrorist group called Al-Qaeda.” Jasper paused. “So, I confiscated the ashtray and sent them down to Hell,” he concluded nervously.

“You knew Osama Bin Laden was involved in this, and you didn’t think it was important enough to tell me,” Arthur roared, clenching his fists.

“It may not have been our Limbo,” Jasper babbled. “I didn’t think it was important. Anyway,” he asked. “Who is Osama Bin Laden?”


Chapter 22 – Sin City
Osama had long since vacated Pakistan; ‘Soon,’ he thought, I shall be the Chosen One, and I shall strike a blow against the infidels that will make the Twin Towers look like a wet squib at a secular wedding. His piercing eyes scanned the harsh, cloudless sky and traveled across the pastel desert buildings. It was hard, especially hard being here amongst the enemy. Osama sighed and settled amongst the warm bubbles of the Jacuzzi, sipping his Martini, cursing the fate that forced him to hide in this place, to blend in with the sinners. A white-coated waiter approached deferentially with a tray of drinks. Osama waved him away. “Have the limousine brought round to the back entrance,” he commanded. “I think I shall visit the high-stakes poker den at the Bellagio today.”

Arthur was waiting nervously in the boarding area at Heathrow, looking at the vast expanse of wet concrete and the drab hangars beyond. It would be the first time he had been higher than a four-storey building, and he wasn’t looking forward to peering down at the earth thirty thousand feet below. Gladys had dragged him from his foundry three hours before the plane departure time, and had personally scrubbed and shaved him, yelling as she did so. “I just wanted to make sure the gold was safe,” he mumbled. “Ouch!” Gladys was scrubbing him with a distinctly nineteenth century stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. “Why do we have to get there so early,” he asked for the fifth time.

“And I told you, because of the security,” she snapped, “Blame the Terrorists.”

She was still snapping at him when they arrived at the airport. Arthur watched as the line of would-be flyers snaked around barriers, dragging luggage and children with equal grimness. Many looked as if they had arrived the night before to avoid the crush. Pale and wan, they staggered slowly forward, hopping on one foot, removing shoes clutching their children by the collar. At strategic points, a uniformed guard demanded papers, disrupting the pathetic efforts of passengers to board with family and luggage intact. Menacing machines, monitored by more uniformed guards sucked luggage in at one end and spat it out at the other, where it was grabbed by hopping travelers, or, if they were too infirm or slow, by snarling guards who ripped it open and flung all manner of private items onto a table for all to see.

Jasper, who Arthur had reluctantly allowed to accompany him, looked round interestedly, taking notes. “I’ll have to email Hell,” He said. “They could use some of the ideas around here. Well, at least we don’t need to wait.” And they slipped past the barriers, cloaked in Limbo.

“Hey,” a red-faced little man shouted running towards them, “you can’t do that!” He suddenly grabbed his chest and collapsed. Strained faces turned towards him, but none of the travelers wanted to lose their place in line, and eventually two men arrived with a stretcher and took him away. Gladys spent some anxious time looking at the departure displays and eventually they ended up at the terminal. A crowd of tense-looking travelers, dressed in what they considered appropriate attire for Sin City was stamping around impatiently waiting for a giant airliner to carry them in its wafer-thin shell, thousands of miles across the ocean, higher than Mount Everest, to an unimaginable city in an alien land.

Arthur groaned. He would sooner have dived in to the furnace than board one of the huge monstrosities that were coming and going with such hair-raising speed and reckless abandon. “How long does it take?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “How fast does it go?”

“We’ll all go into first class and drink real champagne,” was all she would say after a while. They slipped on board with the first-class passengers, and accepted drinks from a rather puzzled-looking air hostess. They sipped their champagne and Gladys said “Just before I came to Limbo to see you, I used to fly home to Las Vegas about twice a month. It’s an interesting trip, and I’d always watch the passengers. Tourists go to Vegas with the thought that they might, just possibly, come home rich, and the flight is different, because most travelers go to the city to party. Most of them start early.” She pointed to the airhostesses, running around with trays of drinks. “They work hard, handing out drinks, fending off tipsy passengers, and generally keeping order.” She stood up. “Let’s go to the coach section, that’s where the action usually is.”

Awkward, unnoticed, following behind Gladys, Arthur absorbed his first impressions of the USA. The staid English passengers of an hour ago had vanished. Young people from ordinary cities were dressed in strange clothes for the desert. Older couples loosened up, made new friends and talked busily. There was an air of expectancy as they got nearer the Promised Land. Someone started to explain - loudly - his system for beating the slots. Small pockets of silence contained grim passengers, reading gambling books and taking notes.

It seemed that the duration of the flight matched the expectations of the passengers. The party atmosphere had built to a climax just as the first fingers of light appeared in the desert below. A cabin full of passengers broke into spontaneous cheering as the plane swooped down past the green and purple lights of the Strip to land in the twenty-four/seven insomniac city in the desert. Arthur, covering a window, watched as New York and Paris, Italy, Rome, Egypt unrolled under the plane. Two full size wooden ships fought on the edge of the strip, a sign on a castle offered to marry him. Finally they landed.

Arthur allowed himself to be guided through the airport with its clanking, money eating gambling machines, onto a whooshing, driverless train that, amazingly only catered to airport passengers. They disgorged into a street, hot as a blast furnace where taxis came and went like bees on a honey pot. They boarded a cab, big as a boat and cooled to arctic temperature. From ten thousand feet the city had been impressive, at ground level it was overwhelming. He tried to describe his vision of the city to Gladys as the cab purred along the hot streets on the way to the hotel. “It’s like Disneyland,” she said, confusing him with the unfamiliar term, “Disneyland for grown-ups. Disneyland in the desert.” The cab circled a vast green castle of a hotel and stopped at a giant, flashing glass lobby. “Go on,” she said to him. “Go out and explore. Meet us in the hotel bar in two hours.”

He had taken one look at the suite of rooms overlooking a million lights, a hundred hotel cities housing a million transients, and various make-believe oceans, canals and pleasure palaces, and had taken Gladys’ advice. He spent the afternoon, mouth open, wandering among the lights of the city. Impossible buildings clashed along the strip. Men with cranes were busy destroying sparkling new buildings while others built new ones around them, consuming more steel than his foundry produced in a decade. Giants, built of flashing lights pranced in the sky, and fountains, in this desert city, soared a hundred feet in the air.

Finally, exhausted, he retired to the main bar, waiting for the other two. The bar was one of dozens in the Casino city, but, at least he could measure it in one sweeping glance. The noise from the slot machines and gamblers he could shut out as easily as he shut out the roar of the foundry, and he soon found that, contrary to his opinion, the inhabitants of this alien world were friendly. In fact they were extremely friendly, from the shy young beauty who rested her overflowing bosoms on his arm to the dapper and immaculate man with the unfortunate eye condition which caused him to flutter his long eyelashes continually in Arthur’s direction. For some reason they all seemed disappointed and wandered off after a few minutes. His latest friend, however, was more persistent.

She was a little older than most of the lacquered blondes around, quite tall, with a sexy contralto. He was beginning to suspect that he had acquired a certain charm during his stint as Governor. He had never dreamed that a whole stream of beautiful, rich, and sophisticated people would be irresistibly drawn to a lone man at a Vegas bar. He had bought a wallet (they called them billfolds here) to house his stock of American money, but all of the notes were the same size and color, and he had to keep asking his new friends to help him with the unfamiliar prices. Naturally, since they were all so helpful, he felt obliged to buy them drinks. “Cigarettes?” she was saying to him. “Yes, the one with the picture of Ben Franklin.” She noticed his puzzlement and snatched the note in question. “Look, let’s go up to your room and get comfortable, and I’ll get the cigarettes afterwards.”

Arthur was beginning to understand. He was not, he thought, as naïve as many people perceived him to be. This was a ‘woman of the night’ – Vegas style. She was definitely stunning, and seemed willing to bargain her body away for the price of a pack of cigarettes. He opened his mouth, and closed it again suddenly as Gladys appeared. “You’ve been here an hour, and you’re stooping to this,” she spat out, in an uncharacteristic display of prudishness. She snatched the bill and stuffed it down her bodice.

“Hey, bitch,” Contralto said, voice deepening.

“Ladies, ladies,” Arthur said amiably, borne along on a tide of Martinis.

“Oh, my Lord,” Gladys said, somewhere between laughter and fury. “I’m going to have to give you a long talk when we get upstairs.”

“Back off bitch,” Contralto snarled. She seemed to have lost some of her initial refinement, Arthur thought.

Gladys backed up a step, grabbed the hem of Contralto’s skirt and hauled it high in the air to the sound of cotton ripping. Contralto uttered a high-pitched scream and staggered away, clutching the tattered article of clothing. Arthur gaped in horror and two security guards hurried up. “He’s a bit, you know, slow,” Gladys said, glancing sideways at Arthur. “He slipped out while we were unpacking. Don’t worry, we won’t leave him alone again. You naughty boy,” she said to Arthur, “You took my money.” She peeled two notes from the thinning roll and gave them to the guards. “Come on, you,” she said, dragging Arthur away.

“But, she, he was a man,” Arthur was wailing in horror, while Jasper rolled on the bed delirious with laughter. “I mean, why was he dressed like a woman? I mean…” Jasper was gasping for air. “I mean, I mean, he said, groping for sanity, “why would another homosexual want anything to do with him if he looks like a woman?’

“Arthur, I don’t have time to explain all this to you,” Gladys said. “Believe me, it can get complicated, especially in Las Vegas.” She paused. “How much money did you take down to the Casino?”

“All of it,” Arthur said, and she screamed. When the dust settled, she had taken permanent possession of the finances, and Arthur and Jasper were left morosely watching game shows on the huge flat-panel wall TV. She was gone for most part of the evening, and when she returned they noticed that she had picked up a complete new outfit and some jewelry. “Come on,” she said. “There’s a great steak place in the casino, and I’m hungry.”


Chapter 23 - Interview with a Terrorist
At 1am, the steak place was relatively quiet. Impassive waitresses with strange accents served huge portions of food and liquor, white-coated bus-boys whisked away leftovers almost before they were left over, backing away from the table so that they could gaze longer into Gladys’ brown eyes. Beyond the barrier, the endless discreet click of gambling chips played soothing background music. After a few sulky remarks, Arthur relinquished his hurt feelings. He had spent, he realized, an enormous amount of money, more than he had earned in his entire life, on a few drinks. He had, he mentally corrected himself, been swindled out of their entire stash of money by a cross-dresser, a couple of hookers, and a half-literate bartender. He was indeed, he admitted to himself, in this brave new world of eternal light and open sexuality, a little slow. On the other hand, his anger at Jasper’s continuing jibes was not diminishing. He stored it up for later use against the little Devil.

“Osama Bin Laden is here somewhere,” Gladys said. “He was supposed to be in the Howard Hughes Penthouse at the Desert Inn, but we’re too late, the Desert Inn was imploded in 2000. I don’t understand it.”

“I was there when the Desert Inn was imploded,” Jasper said reminiscently. “It was quite a spectacle.”

They looked at him, surprised.

“Well, this is Sin City,” he explained. “I can still wangle special discounts from down there. I would have done so for this place, but she,” here he indicated Gladys,” insisted we pay cash.”

“The last thing we want,” Gladys said loudly, “is to get Hell involved.”

This of course was the cue for the waiter to arrive with a red telephone. He looked rather surprised, as if the phone had appeared from nowhere. “Phone call from a Mr. O’Grady,” he said to Arthur. Arthur stared at the phone and picked up the receiver. A hated voice from the past, smooth, sarcastic and utterly confident emerged from the machine.

“Gladys is right,” the Bastard from London said “You don’t want to get Hell involved.” Arthur snarled and spat a few choice epithets into the receiver. “Fine, let me talk to Gladys, then,” the Bastard from London said calmly. “Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m here to help you.” Arthur breathed deeply, and looked at Gladys, who had been straining to hear the tinny voice.

“Arthur,” Gladys said sharply. “Give me the phone. Just because he murdered us,” she went on, “doesn’t mean that we have to turn down his help.” She took the phone from him. “Hello, Larry,” she said. “What are you up to then?” she asked while Arthur growled at her. She listened for a while. “I’ll bet you’re not very happy about that,” she said. She laughed. “He’s not as bad as he seems.” She looked at Arthur warningly. “He’s just a bit old-fashioned. Of course he’ll listen to you.” She laid the phone on the table where they all could hear. “Listen to him,” she hissed.

“You asked for it, you know,” O’Grady said to him. “You asked for a knife in the ribs. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. I know, as soon as I opened my mouth you hated me. I’ve changed a little since then, and I hope you have some sense. But really, you have no control.” He paused. “I would have thought that a century as Governor would have at least taught you some patience.”

“Arthur,” Gladys said gently. “He’s right. You went looking for trouble. You started the fight, and you died, and that’s why you ended up in Limbo. He killed me too, you know, but after I ran myself ragged trying to drive him mad, I let it go.” She looked at Arthur, and for the first time he saw pity in her eyes. “I let it go because I realized that I was at least as good as he is, or as bad, don’t matter which. After all this time, and all your efforts, you still feel inferior to a loud-mouthed flashy…” She stopped.

Arthur opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Anyway,” O’Grady said, I’m not just O’Grady, I’m a sort of composite ghost now, expiating my sins.” He laughed. “The ghost of Jacob Marley – and you must be Ebeneezer Scrooge.” He laughed again. “I bet you’re trying to crush that phone in your hands right now.” Arthur could hear a dull sighing on the line, almost like the not-quite audible conversation of a large crowd. “I don’t have much time,” O’Grady said. I can hold Osama for you for a while, but I need to know where he is. Have you found him yet?” he asked.

“The Desert Inn is gone!” Gladys said, anguished.

“There’s still a Frontier sign,” Jasper said, thoughtfully. “Osama has to be around there somewhere.” Gladys asked suspiciously how he could know this, and Jasper shrugged. “Demon’s instinct,” was all he would say. Then, “what about Wynn, Las Vegas. I’m sure that has a penthouse, and it’s close to where the old Desert Inn used to stand.”

“You have to locate Osama for me,” O’Grady said across the hissing phone line.

“Why should we locate him for you?” Arthur exclaimed angrily. “Why the Hell should we do anything for you?”

“Because I’m the Arbitrator,” O’Grady said calmly, and Arthur bit back a confused and angry reply. “I can hold him from destroying Las Vegas,” he continued, “at least I can for three hours.” The hissing on the phone line was getting louder. “While you, Arthur, were spending all of the collective money on your new boy-friend, and you, Gladys were doing what you do so well to get some of that money back, and you, Jasper, were trying, unsuccessfully to contact Hell, he was getting ready for martyrdom.” He paused. “Arthur, these two are a bit more up to date than you. Have you ever heard of biological weapons?” He paused. “I thought not. Nowadays, they’re cheap, easy to produce and deadlier than nuclear weapons. Take two fragile glass tubes, fill them with two substances that are rare, but unfortunately not too rare, then tape the two tubes together, and set up a dead-man’s switch.” He paused again. “You know what a dead-man’s switch is on a train, don’t you?” Arthur nodded. “A train driver has to keep pressure on a steel plate all the time the train is running. If he – or she, suffers a stroke, or heart attack, the pressure on the plate eases, and the brakes come on. Osama’s switch is just the opposite. If he releases pressure on the device, the tubes are smashed, and the liquids mingle, and either some very powerful nerve gas is released into the air, or Anthrax comes back to haunt the world. I’m not sure which.”

His voice was getting weaker, the hissing on the line broken by clicks and whistles, as if from a distant storm. “By the way, he’s not in the Penthouse suite in the Wynn, Las Vegas hotel,” he said. “Do you have any other ideas? Once Osama has hooked himself up, he’s going to break into a so-called secure military channel. He’s going to give them enough detail and enough proof so that they know what he’s capable of. Then he’s going to demand air time and make demands that will cripple the Free World.” The line went dead for a second. “…hate that expression,” he said.

“How many souls are we talking about,” Jasper said. “It’s a big hotel. Two thousand? Three thousand?”

“There are a million and a half souls in Greater Las Vegas,” O’Grady answered. “Then it depends which way the winds blow, and how strong they are. There are just a few people to the north, unless the stuff reaches Reno or Sacramento. There are thirteen million in greater Los ….” The voice trailed off again, amid pops and hisses.

They were all speechless, and then Arthur broke in. “The floor,” he cried excitedly, “what floor was the Howard Whoever-he-is Penthouse on?”

“Internet,” Jasper said tensely. “Lucky I brought along the Limbo Laptop. Ninth floor,” he said a minute later.

The phone went dead for a moment for a moment. “Correct,” O’Grady said. “Now, he’s going to contact the military in about two minutes.”

“Why didn’t you stop him,” Arthur yelled.

“Because I’m not an Angel,” O’Grady answered faintly. “Neither am I a Devil. I’m a Composite, an extremist who was willing to die for a cause, just like Osama.” Arthur started forward. “I’m a Composite,” he explained. “Don’t you understand, I’m a mad bomber who kills and dies for a cause, I’m a hero, a Saint, someone who saves and dies for a cause. There is a bit of General Cross in me and a bit of Corporal Williams, a bit of Osama, a bit of Gandhi, I could go on forever.”

“A bit of Gabriel, a bit of Lucifer,” Jasper murmured. “You see, Arthur, the Devils and the Angels are at an impasse, what I believe is called in this part of the world, ‘A Mexican Standoff’. For once, I find myself on the side of the An.. Ang… - those things up there. There are countless potential sinners in Las Vegas, but if Osama poisons them, they become Martyrs. That’s no good to Hell, and there are enough martyrs up there as it is.” The little Demon pointed to the ceiling and coughed smoke. “Well, ghost, what are you going to do for us?”

They listened to the rising and falling murmur on the phone line, straining to hear the faint whisper from wherever the ghost was. “I’ve stopped Osama for three hours,” O’Grady said. The words struggled through the hiss and crackle of a distant storm. “The three of you have an hour each to shake this man’s faith in himself. Once his faith is gone, the Devils have promised to drag him down to Hell before he can move. … three hours,” they heard faintly. “….. need to know, he’s not……, not…,” and the voice was gone, and they were on the ninth floor of the Wynn hotel, facing a large ceiling-to-floor set of golden doors.

“What was that last thing he said?” Jason asked, and the other two shook there heads.

“It was probably about him being a clone,” Gladys muttered. “I knew that anyway.” They looked around at the opulent room, and looked at each other. “He likes to do well for himself.” Gladys said. “I’ll go first.”

Arthur and Jasper stared uneasily at the luminescent second hand of Jasper’s little traveling clock as it slowly swept across the faintly glowing face. “What will you try to persuade him with?” Jasper asked, but Arthur only grunted. ”You still don’t trust me, do you,” Jasper continued. “Well, I’m going to tempt him as no man has been tempted. Thirteen virgins - ha; I’ll offer him a thousand virgins and a thousand whores, all shapes and colours and sizes. I’ll offer him mountains of gold, and trunks full of jewelry. Don’t worry Arthur; you won’t even have to speak to him.”

Behind the door, the gypsy was preparing to offer herself. In a room full of furniture that might have come from the Las Vegas of the nineteen-sixties, Osama sat in front of an old ticking clock. He gazed at her from deep brown eyes, an almost dreamlike gaze that engulfed her, pulling her down into a dark pool. She braced herself, pulled back, regained control. Even O’Grady had not affected her like this. She began to talk to him in her deep voice. She was, she told him, a Western woman, a woman the like of whom he had never before seen, a woman who had given herself freely to a thousand men, unlike the virgins he was used to, trembling behind their Chadors, unlike the Vegas hookers who never gave, only sold. As she talked, she gently unbuttoned her blouse.

An hour later, she opened the door, buttoning up her blouse. She walked over to the lush settee and sank down between Arthur and Jasper with a sigh. “It was like being in Hell with him,” she said. “I was afraid of him, and I’ve never been afraid of a man before.” She looked at them both, almost puzzled. “I couldn’t get any emotion from him.”

“I’ll talk to him, Demon to Demon,” Jasper told them. “Don’t worry, everyone has a price, and I’ll find his.” He walked to the door and grinned back at them.

They sat in silence for a while, as the minutes stretched out, and the hands of the clock moved forward. “Arthur, what are you going to say to that monster,” Gladys asked him, and Arthur realized that, inside the next room Jasper was going down in flames. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m a foundry worker, from a place with no dreams and no hopes. What do I have to say to a person like that?” They sat in silence for a while longer, and an almost unrecognizable Jasper opened the door.

“He laughed at me. He thinks he’s going to Hhheav…. Dammit, up there,” he shrieked, his tail lashing wildly. Jasper turned red eyes on them, lowering his head, pointing his horns at them. “No, he won’t take any sort of bribe because he knows he’s going to join the Angels, except that there won’t be any angels, just him and his kind, and, and, a few virgins for them to sample when they get bored.” Jasper was calming down, retracting his horns. “You two had better leave now, in a fast car. Even the undead can’t survive a blast of nerve gas. You’ll be living forever with an electrical storm in you head, an endless nightmare. You may as well be in Hell.”

Arthur shook his head and walked towards the golden door. He pushed, and it opened smoothly and silently. The terrorist Osama gazed at him from the chair, his hand clenched around the dead-man’s-switch, a small, black plastic box that looked like no dead-man’s-switch that Arthur had ever seen. He knew the rules as well as Arthur, and he was convinced that he would succeed in his plan.

“Do you speak English,” Arthur said, and cursed himself for his stupidity.

The dark features arranged themselves into a smile, but the eyes remained blank. “Rather better than you,” the tall man said with scarcely an accent.

Arthur arranged his hard work-scarred hands on his knees. Dressed for Las Vegas, he was still a manual worker from a small corner of a gritty town. ‘Not a man,’ he thought. “They probably programmed that into you,” he said. “After all, you are a custom-built clown – sorry clone.” The eyes of Osama flickered briefly. “They probably programmed you to deny that you’re a clone, but you must know that you are one.” He waited, but Osama said nothing. “There are four of you,” he pressed on. “Only one of you can make it to Heaven.”

“Why,” Osama asked calmly. “Where does it say that?”

Arthur had no idea where, or even if, clones were ever mentioned in the most modern edition of the Bible. But then, he thought, neither would Osama. “New Testament,” he said confidently, “A clone is an abomination on the Earth and shall never enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”

“What do I care about your filthy bible,” Osama cried. “I mean the Koran, the true book,” he shifted a little in the chair. “Please don’t try to lie to me, you filthy peasant. I know every word in the Koran by heart. I know that I shall ascend to Heaven, for the Koran says "When we decide to destroy a population, we send a definite order to them who have the good things in life and yet sin. So that Allah's word is proven true against them, then we destroy them utterly." He laughed. “I’m going to destroy the entire population of Sin City, and I shall ascend to Heaven as a martyr.”

“You’re a clone,” Arthur explained patiently. “What will happen when the real Osama arrives. Do you really believe that you will remain in Heaven? You will be consigned to Hell with the other clones, and you will burn in eternal Hellfire.”

“The little Demon told me I’d burn in Hell, and I knew he was wrong,” Osama said. “Why should I believe an ignorant excuse for a man like you?” His eyes suddenly burned with rage. “What kind of a test is this,” he cried, “to ask me to listen to a stupid, uneducated man with no soul, no soaring vision, and no glory in him. In a few minutes, I’ll press the button,” his eyes flicked to the black box, “and nerve gas will be released in the three largest cities in the United States, and in this sinful city in the desert. Why are you here?” he said to Arthur, “you are an insult to my intelligence.”

‘Why am I here?’ Arthur asked himself, ‘an ignorant provincial man who never went any further than the old town, the familiar pub, and the same old streets. Even my Limbo is a miserable run-down Halfway Place, an unimaginative, grey hopeless domain, run by a man who was nor even able to treat his wife and family properly.’ He had no answer; there was no answer. Gladys had a touch of wild greatness, Jasper was a maverick and an ancient Demon, even O’Grady was a figure larger than life. There was no answer, except that he was here, in front of a man who was determined to destroy everyone except a few fanatics like himself. Osama would go ahead and make his broadcast, ransom the United States and the rest of the world. ‘My God,’ he thought, ‘none of us saw this; not O’Grady, not Gladys or Jasper, certainly not me. We’re all primitives in this age of electronics. This is no simple dead-Man’s-switch; this is Armageddon, wrapped up in something the size of a match-box. Even a tactical nuclear bomb, precision aimed at this hotel in the center of Las Vegas, would not affect the release of the gas.’

Arthur reached into himself and found the iron in his soul; iron that turned to clean hard steel. His rage died down, his hands unclenched. “I’m here because I have another forty-five minutes,” he said calmly, looking at the clock behind Osama. He started to talk, waiting to see what would come out of his mouth. There were times when he thought he saw a flicker of something in the eyes of the clone. He was enraging it, he knew. Just a little more and it would screech and let go of the dead man switch and be dragged to Hell, if the Demons kept their word. The second hand on the clock swung round, past the old Roman numeral figures.

“How much more of this farce do I have to put up with?” Osama said suddenly.

Arthur looked at the old clock. The second hand swept around steadily. Carved iron hands and large numerals, a sudden jerk and the tip pointed to an ‘I’ and an ‘X’. The other approached an ‘X’ an ‘X’ an ‘I’.
“Three minutes,” he lied, not knowing why, “I have three minutes.”

For the first time, Osama laughed aloud, a great gale of laughter that exploded absurdly from his stern features. “You fool,” he shouted, “you miserable fool. Did the Gypsy tell you that I was a clone?” He made as if to stand. “Soon,” he said, I’ll set my plan in motion, and I’ll kill you all and ascend to heaven.”

“You’re one of four,” Arthur began.

“Never trust a Gypsy or a Devil,” Osama said. “Oh, you can trust your tame Demon. He was given false information just to make things more difficult for you. I can’t believe that you were the only one to bring up the clone thing. There are no clones you stupid infidel.”

“Maybe you were programmed to think that,” Arthur told him, his heart sinking. That was what O’Grady was trying to say as he faded away. ‘He’s not, he’s not – a clone.’

Osama smiled. “Did you really think you could stop me,” he said, “with a feeble effort like that?” He tried to rise again. “You will die,” he screeched.

Arthur sat back. “No, not yet,” he said quietly. “You were fooled by a poor foundry worker.” Osama writhed in his chair. “Now you have to listen to me for another” – he glanced at the clock – “fifteen minutes, unless I’m lying to you again.” He watched the bearded figure. “Maybe I’ve been playing you all along. I used to be a fisherman, but you probably don’t even know how to bait a hook.” The dark features of the Arab were tinged with red. He was straining to move. “You didn’t even raise a sweat over Gladys, or Jason. You’re above temptations of the flesh because you’ve always been able to have whatever you desired.” Arthur got up and looked down at the straining figure. “You’re just like me,” he said, and the man’s mouth fell open. He was making every attempt not to speak, but it was obviously taking all of his willpower. “I know you’re from a family of millionaires, you glory in terrifying the world; it makes you feel like a God.” Arthur paused once more, and sat down. “You’re angry with me because, deep down, you feel like a child amongst adults, just like me. I used to cringe when I met rich people, or people who weren’t rich, but who wore flashy clothes and who could face the bosses without breaking into a sweat. I used to envy my mates when they were able to enjoy their wives and families occasionally. All of that.” He leant forward and looked into Osama’s burning eyes. “What is it that makes you feel tiny and insignificant? Your brothers and cousins, doing just a little bit better than you, not afraid of women like you are, easier in company, not needing to dominate to get attention; how about ordinary people who aren’t afraid of life. It makes you feel good to terrorize ordinary people, doesn’t it?”

Arthur grinned. “Do you want to know how much time you have? I could tell you, but I could be lying. Maybe I’ve made a deal with O’Grady to stop the clock for ever.” Osama was making a great effort to contain his rage. “Why am I here and you over there,” Arthur said. “Well, yes, I didn’t have your money, but I was a right bastard in my own way; to my wife, my kids, my workmates when I could score points. The difference is, I began to allow myself to see what a frightened, awful person I was, and then, I began to be less afraid, less of a bad person. Then, it was too late, and I was murdered – my own fault.”

He stood up again. “I got my second chance, and here I am, a poor peasant, facing a pathetic little man who is so frightened that he can’t move a muscle.” Arthur stared into the other man’s eyes, careful not to glance at the clock on the wall. “We’re all still here, Osama,” he said. “The clock has stopped, and all the ordinary little people are laughing at you, just like they always did.”

Osama screamed. “I will kill you, you infidel,” he yelled. “You fuck… fuck..” he looked at Arthur in hatred and raised the hand with the dead man’s switch. “Die,” he said, and disappeared in a flash.


Chapter 24 – Aftermath
“I figured that if I could get him angry enough, he would drop his guard,” Arthur was telling the other two. “Apparently, he lost his faith in himself, and that was the end.” Gladys and Jasper murmured half-hearted congratulations. “Well,” Arthur said, a little put out, “I suppose it’s time for us to leave.” Immediately, they came to life.

“Leave, no, we still have money,” Gladys said, and Jasper nodded energetic agreement. “I want to get some nice clothes.” Arthur kept shaking his head.

“We risked our lives to save your bacon,” Gladys said heatedly, “the least you could do is let us have some fun.” Arthur looked bemused.. “While you were chatting with Osama, we were risking our lives. We could have been in a fast car, or on a jet, instead of staying to support you,” she continued while Jasper nodded vigorously.

“We could have been gambling,” Jasper said. “Instead, we did all the work for you. You’re the Governor, so we don’t mind you hogging all the credit, but the least you could do is let us have a bit of fun afterwards. Now Gladys was nodding in assent.

Arthur looked at them. They were already self-righteously aware that they had saved Las Vegas, and that they were unselfishly handing him the credit for it. He was a very selfish, demanding man in their eyes. He shrugged. “Just two days,” he said.

After two hours on the Casino floor, the money was gone. Arthur had two fancy American silver dollars left. “Here.” He said, handing them one each. “I’ll go get our bags.” He turned and heard the thrilled scream, and the recorded sound of coins dropping as she hit the jackpot.

They stayed, and after two days, Jasper was awash in women and money, and Gladys had ransacked all the stores, and was still only a little less awash in money. When they finally staggered to the hotel suite, exhausted, Arthur was waiting. “We’re going now,” he said. This time Gladys flew into a rage, and Jasper’s horns began to grow. They told Arthur they were on a roll, on the brink of making a fortune; they were not going back just yet. Arthur threw up his arms. “Alright,” he said. “Stay till all the money has been gambled away: They grinned. “I have two billion pounds worth of gold to dispose of, whatever that is in American money. I’ll manage, you two enjoy yourselves.”

They looked at each other. “We’re not selfish,” Jasper said. “We’ll give you a hand.”

The trip back was quite fast. The jet flew over rain-drenched houses and landed at Elmdon airport. Not long after, they slipped into a familiar rainy street with the black mass of the foundry, stark in the distance. “Back to the old dump, Arthur,” Gladys said.

“Sunday evening,” Arthur said, sniffing the air. “Good, there won’t be anyone at the foundry.”

Fred the watchman was there when they arrived. He was sitting in his little hut, sheltered by mounds of black sand, munching a cardboard sandwich, reading a thirty-year old newspaper. “Arsenal took the cup,” he said shortly, pointing to the sports headlines.

“What happened to that pile of scrap-iron,” Arthur said, pointing to an empty spot between two machines.

“Took it,” Fred told him.

They all started talking and Arthur stopped them. “Who took it,” he asked.

“Some blokes.”

“What blokes took the scrap iron,” Arthur asked patiently.

Fred scratched his head. “I dunno,” he finally said. “Some blokes.”

Arthur quietened them down again. “Why didn’t you stop them,” He asked the watchman.

Fred scratched his head again and fished a scrap of soot from his hair. “S’onny scrap-iron,” he said reasonably.

“OK, Fred, go and do your rounds,” Arthur told him. “It’s not important.” He turned to the other two. “Will you two stop screeching,” he said patiently. “It doesn’t matter who took it, whether they were Demons or Terrorists, or plain citizens of Limbo56.” He walked over to the conveyor belt where a small length of metal lay hidden. “They missed this piece.” He waved the rusty metal at them. “I thought that a fortune in gold would be too much for this place. It’s my Limbo, and I don’t want Demons and Terrorists roaming around fighting about it.”

“Whoever got it will cause plenty of trouble,” Jasper wailed.

“Not this stuff,” Arthur told him. “What do you think I was doing that Sunday when you dragged me off to Las Vegas? This stuff here,” he waved the metal again. “This is an alloy, a mixture. It’s impossible to turn base metals into gold, but it only takes a little iron mixed in to render gold worthless, and once mixed, it can’t be undone.” He hauled out a mallet from under the belt. “In fact, it’s not even any good as iron any more.” He set the metal on the ground. “It’s useless to Demons and Terrorists alike.” He swung the mallet and it crashed down on the rusty metal, shattering it into a hundred shards. “Useless,” he said again. “Help yourself. I’m going to get some sleep.”


Chapter 25 – The Election
Jasper and Gladys and Arthur huddled in the corner of the bar, sipping beer that tasted a little bit like beer and ham and eggs that tasted a little bit like ham and eggs. The barrels were regularly replenished, and the small refrigerator behind the bar was never empty, and even the customers were less morose than usual. Gladys yawned as he told her for the hundredth time that in the early days the beer and the food were tasteless, the ancient icebox was a rusty container for stale bread, and the customers were murderous. “Yes, I’ve made some big improvements,” he said expansively and inaccurately. Only Gladys had been able to conjure a wisp of taste from Purgatorial comestibles, and an occasional trace of gaiety from the undead inhabitants, and Arthur’s improvements had all proved temporary.

“True,” Jasper answered, surprising him. “You have done a marvelous job here in spite of all obstacles.” Arthur looked at him suspiciously and Gladys for once was speechless. “I mean it,” Jasper said warmly. “I know we’ve had our differences, but if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here, dining with good friends.” His expansive wave took in the entire dingy pub with its faded wallpaper and yawning barmaid. “I owe you my support and allegiance,” he told Arthur. “And I owe you too, dear,” he said, turning a dazzling smile on Gladys, causing her to blush a little and Arthur to feel a brief flash of jealousy.

They were waiting for Gladys to go on shift, and Jasper managed to heap a few more praises on Arthur, and Arthur, in rare good mood managed accept the praise and ignore the warning glances that Gladys shot at him.

“Real nice woman you have there,” Jasper told him when Gladys was firmly ensconced behind the bar. “I’ll be honest, I’ve tried to cut you out, but you are the only man here that she’s interested in.”

“True,” Arthur answered, carried away on a swell of good feeling.

“Yes, things have finally begun to look up for you,” Jasper continued smoothly. “It’s a pity about this problem you’ve had with the complaints.”

“Yes,” Arthur answered absently, still floating on a sea of goodwill and beer. “What?” he demanded as his boat crashed and sank. “What’s this about complaints?”

“I’ve been calling your attention to the complaints for weeks,” Jasper said, round-eyed. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“What, when,” Arthur demanded.

“I’m talking about the complaints at the foundry. The demands for shorter hours, rest periods. Then there was the request for a cafeteria that you completely ignored.”

“This is Limbo, not a health spa,” Arthur roared. “Anyway,” he said, calming down, “these complaints have been going on for years – decades even.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” Jasper said soothingly. “Folks here are supposed to complain. I know that you’re very popular with everyone.” He stretched. “It’s just a tiny minority, maybe even just one person.”

“No, everyone complains, Arthur said judiciously. They’re supposed to be unhappy here.” He thought about it. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if they weren’t mostly unhappy. I’m more likely to get into trouble for being too soft.”

“True,” Jasper agreed, “but there are some vicious rumors circulating about you up there, and I don’t think you should ignore them. My sources are impeccable.”

“I don’t care what the men are saying,” Arthur told him. “They won’t believe vicious lies, and there’s nothing they can do anyway.”

“Ah, I didn’t say ‘out there’, I said ‘up there’,” Jasper murmured.

“Oh.” Arthur felt as if Jasper had punched him in the stomach.

“Somebody,” Jasper told him, “has a direct line to the Angels.”

“There’s nobody but me who talks to the Angels,” Arthur said hotly, “and you,” he looked suspiciously at Jasper.

“I never talk to the Angels,” Jasper protested looking aggrieved. “Why would they listen to me? Besides,” he added, “if I wanted to make trouble for you in the council, I’d call on the Devils. I still have a lot of contacts down there,” and he pointed to the grimy carpet. “Look,” he said. “Things are not as bad as they seem. I have an idea that will get you tenure for a deathtime, or possibly a quick promotion.”

“I’ve been bitten by your ideas,” Arthur began.

Jasper sighed. “I don’t know why you treat me this way. I’m throwing you a lifeline – no, I’m giving you a luxury yacht for the rest of your deathtime. See here, you can contact our Angel representative, find out some more details, and we’ll meet at my place in, say, an hour.” He stood up and handed Arthur some scrip. “Why don’t you get us a couple of bottles of the hard stuff?” He lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t mention to Gladys just yet about losing your job. We don’t want to worry her.”

A couple of hours later Arthur faced Jasper in the quite luxurious rooms where the demon held court. “Lies, terrible lies,” he was shouting. “They’re all set to banish me down there.” Jasper’s carpet was a lot thicker than the one in the pub, but there was no doubt where the thin man was pointing. “They say my workers are lining up to go to Hell because I treat them so badly. They say I’ve smuggled in some thugs from Hades to terrify everyone. They say I’m worse than Saddam.” He frowned. “Who is Saddam?”

“After your time,” Jasper murmured. He had been listening to Arthur’s rant for almost an hour now, but finally the booze was starting to slow the thin man down. “Sit down.” he said, “and let me explain what we are going to do.”

Arthur sat down in the comfortable armchair and looked rather blearily at Jasper. “Have another drink,” the Demon said soothingly, “and then I will explain all.”

Arthur calmed down and looked around, astonished that Jasper’s rooms were amazingly comfortable for Limbo; the little devil had somehow acquired furniture that, if not brand-new, was streets ahead of the rickety chairs and beds that most inhabitants, including Arthur, had to endure. Old bare boards hid under a decent carpet, drapes and pictures covered the vomit-green walls, and the place was spotless. In a prominent place on the table stood a solid gold ashtray, obtained during an escapade that Arthur remembered well.

“Have a cigar,” Jasper said.

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know where those things are coming from, but I don’t smoke ‘em.” He looked around the room again. “Where do you get all this stuff?”

“I know several ex-dictators,” Jasper said cryptically. “Go on, try it. You can almost taste these things.”

Arthur placed the large cigar in his mouth and Jasper lit it with a gold cigarette lighter. “Came with the solid gold ashtray,” he said, seeing Arthur’s expression. “Take a good pull; see if you can taste anything.” He shoved the astray towards Arthur.

Arthur inhaled deeply, and sure enough, deep down in his being there flickered the ghost of a feeling, a vanishing taste of something that was like his ancient memory of live cigarettes, but richer, oilier. He took another puff and suddenly felt dizzy. He wondered if Jasper could see his discomfort. The little Devil was puffing contentedly, apparently noticing nothing.

“So, we hold an election for Governor,” Jasper said. “You will be elected with an overwhelming majority and even the Angels will have to admit that you are doing a good job.”

Arthur started to protest. Overcome with a bout of coughing, he could only wheeze while Jasper outlined his plan.

“No-one is going to stand against you,” Jasper said. “Not once we explain the perils of Governorship. We explain to everyone that the Governor is constantly on a knife-edge; that he is constantly in danger of being banished to the Netherworld, that the Angels deny him even the modest pleasures of Limbo, the pleasure of congenial company, the taste of good ale around a warm fire.”

“Wait,” Arthur wheezed before Jasper became totally carried away with his own rhetoric.

“People will believe anything,” Jasper replied airily. “They will vote for any moron, so long as he lies with confidence. The bigger the lie, the more the sheep believe.”

There was a lot more like this. Arthur struggled against a vast nausea and let the demon talk. They, or rather Jasper, laid out plans for the election. “Declare election day as a holiday,” Jasper urged. “You can always make ‘em work double shifts for a while, after you’re elected.” Arthur agreed groggily.

The next day, he came to on his pallet, only mildly sick. Looking at his meager belongings, he panicked as he recalled the conversation of the night before in Jasper’s comfortable rooms. He went over the details as he remembered them and began to feel better. Despite his distrust for Jasper, he could see no flaw in the demon’s argument. He had been tricked into the Governorship of this miserable Limbo, and the job did nothing but get harder, and the harder it got the more chance there was of his falling into the Pit. On the way to the ‘Two Puddings’ he began to see the advantages of a strong mandate. One, there was less chance of his mysterious enemies undermining him and tipping him into the Pit. Two, he could scare his subjects into supporting him, and three; he would smell good with the Angels. For once Jasper seemed to have come up trumps.

He was almost jaunty when he reached the pub. Jasper was already there, sitting in the usual dark corner. “I’ve had some election posters printed,” he said.

“Good,” Arthur told him, smoothing a poster on the grimy table.

“Vote for Governor in the first and only democratic election in any Limbo ever,” the poster screamed. Side by side, smooth and smiling facing stern and thin, were pictured two candidates. “What are you doing,” Arthur yelled. “You can’t run against me.”

“Don’t you see,” Jasper said, pained. “We can’t have it look like a rigged election. You think the Angels will stand for that. We make it look like a real contest. Only you and I know that you can’t lose.” He chuckled. “Who the hell is going to vote for the Demon Jasper?”

Arthur thought about it. He wasn’t popular, but he was the non-Devil that they all knew, while Jasper was the real Devil that they didn’t know. “You’re right,” he said reluctantly. No one liked the Devil, not even Arthur. Even with all the tricks that Jasper could pull out of his sleeve, there was no way that he could be elected. A few of the women might vote for him, but anyone with a full complement of fingers and toes could count the raggedy female population of Limbo56.

Over the next few days, Arthur thought about the election, unable to completely dispel his misgivings, but unable to sniff out diabolical trickery. Certainly, Jasper was doing no electioneering to make himself more popular, and in his lazy demon way was lolling around in his quarters which were being decorated by some angry drafted ironworkers.

Chapter 26 – Campaigning
Arthur thought that he should show himself to his electorate, shake a few grimy hands, and make a few unrealistic promises. He had never properly counted the inhabitants of Limbo56, but then, he never really had to. He knew pretty well how many of his people worked each of the three shifts at the foundry. He had hired fourteen unprepossessing barmaids plus Gladys, working the three shifts at five pubs. There were a few specialized craftsmen, some all-purpose maintenance men, a few permanent loafers and the usual ebb and flow, more of a trickle really of new arrivals, promotions and demotions, and of course, Jasper and himself, the titular heads of the place. The foundry was a huge, never still behemoth that churned out harps and tridents, haloes and horn-muffs and employed over fifteen hundred half-souls; the total number of inhabitants of his Limbo surely did not exceed two thousand in these straitened times.

And in a hundred years, Arthur thought, administering what amounted to only a small, extremely dingy village, he had never really explored the place. He decided to see the sights. Limbo always seemed much larger than it was, Arthur thought, miles and miles of sooty houses, with the square block of the foundry anchoring the middle. He had seen, briefly, just how far down that anchor went when Jasper delivered the new machinery up from a red flickering hole in the concrete floor that looked as if it reached all the way down to Hell.

He knew, of course the location of the three official gateways, where new recruits dribbled in occasionally, and at least one of the clandestine crossing points, the cellar of his local pub, where Jasper conducted his catches to the nether regions. In a hundred years he had worn a rut to the foundry and a rut to the pub where Gladys worked – was working a rainy Sunday morning when he started for the foundry, wrapped up warmly, kicking a pebble, bouncing it off the uneven cobblestones.

The machine minders who worked the Sunday shift were chatting desultorily, standing close to the furnace with spotless rags in their hands. They were all Jasper’s recruits, and while Arthur never saw them working, he had never known the machines to fail. He approached them and halted a few feet away. The heat from the open furnace was overwhelming, but they didn’t seem to care. One of them flicked an imaginary spec of dust off a mould and the others shuffled a little as if to give the appearance of purposeful work. “Hey, you,” Arthur called to one of them. “What are you men doing?”

The man, a stocky fellow with high cheekbones grunted. “Cleaning up,” he said at last, scratching a bump on his head. “Boss,” he added, as an afterthought.

Arthur sighed. If he fired them all, Jasper would miraculously produce a fresh batch within hours. “Any of you live that way, down Rotten Row,” he said, pointing through grimy windows to a gloomy street he hadn’t traveled in years.

“Joe does,” a pale, long-faced youth said pointing to the stocky man.

Joe glared at the youth and scratched his mustache. “Nothing down there,” he muttered. “Nothing any different from anywhere else.” And he waved his hands vaguely in all directions. “Don’t go down there,” he ordered, and Arthur decided to go all the way down Rotten Row if it took him the whole day.

He tramped out into the rain and peered through the gloom at Rotten Row. Even for his Limbo, it was a depressing place. He wandered into a ramshackle pub that stood at the corner of the Alley and looked at possibly the least attractive barmaid of the lot. Finally, he walked up to the bar. “Whaddya want?” the barmaid asked, scratching her crotch. Arthur realized that this was the same bar that he had woken up in, after being killed by the big Londoner. In fact, it was a replica of the bar where he was knifed with Joe and Gladys watching. It was old and gloomy then, but it had definitely gone downhill since. “Well,” the barmaid demanded. She tired of her crotch and started picking her teeth.

Arthur had been a regular at the bar where Gladys worked. She and Jasper had transformed the other barmaids there, and while Nellie and Gert were still ugly and rude, they had freshened up into ugly, rude and sexy, a situation that caused frequent bar-fights and added enough to the general mayhem in Limbo to maintain the general undesirability of the place. This barmaid, on the other hand, was ugly, rude, and available. Her blouse was missing a couple of buttons and her sagging breasts were ready to pop out into his drink. If, he realized, he had a drink. “Beer,” he said.

She sloshed some beer into a dirty glass and scratched her scalp as he fished out his scrip. A few flakes fell dangerously near to the beer, and he grabbed it hurriedly and sat at a table. A few minutes later, a couple of customers made a simultaneous grab for her breasts, which were conveniently close as she leaned forward. Sighing, he got up and dragged them out to the street. She looked at him speculatively when he returned. “I remember you, she said. “You’re the Governor here, aincha.” She smoothed her blouse and a grey nipple poked out. “Sorry,” she said coyly. “Ya wanna take me out tonight?”

“Look,” he told her. “You work here; you have to maintain certain standards; pretty low standards, but standards nevertheless.” She looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Wear a slip or something,” he said.

“Why,” she demanded, “What’s wrong with me?” And she grasped her breasts as if she was about to juggle with them. “Jasper don’t mind,” she said angrily. “Jasper says the more I get them to fight over me, the more points I score.” She smirked. “I got a great trick. Here, wanna arm wrestle?” She leant over the bar and stuck her arm up, blouse gaping.

A slab of a man shoved in front of him. “I do,” he said, glaring at Arthur.

The fight was longer and fiercer than Arthur expected. At most now, he worked only part-time in the foundry, and even these coddled twenty-first century Intermediates were quite tough. After being beaten, though, the broad man disappeared into the ground with a pop and a wail. Obviously, Arthur still counted for something here. He limped back into the bar and the barmaid leered at him. “Oohh, you big strong man,” she said.

Arthur sighed. “What’s this about points?” he asked her.

“I get enough points and he’s going to take me down the cellar,” she crooned. “You know, he’s not even, never…” she paused, undecided on how explicit she could be with the Governor. “We haven’t done it yet,” she finished lamely.

“Sew some buttons on your blouse,” Arthur said firmly and moved to a dim table to think. He sipped his tasteless beer and collected his thoughts. His regular bar, ‘The Two Puddings’ had definitely improved, under the influence of Gladys and Jasper. True, there were more broken bones and loud arguments to offset better quality barmaids, but an occasional manic gaiety suffused the place, and the food and drink sometimes tasted almost real. At the Two Puddings he knew that whatever scales weighed the balance of good and evil were not entirely out of kilter. A place he was in ‘The Pig’, was, on the other hand definitely tilting downward. He had heard during training sessions, of Limbos where things got out of kilter, and where whole areas went sliding down to Hell, or more rarely, soaring to Heaven.

He began to feel uneasy. His task was to maintain the status quo, and deviation was failure and failure was, for him, the long slide down to the nether regions. Even if his entire Limbo soared, a most unlikely occurrence he thought looking round, he would descend. He knew now why the Limbo recruiter, all those years ago, had been so happy. For a Governor, there were only two options, Limbo or Hell. Two more men were fighting, and he got up stiffly, but the story of the slab man had spread, and they broke apart sullenly.

“Does Jasper go down the cellar at all, Olga, or whatever your name is?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “all the time. He has some gambling going on down there, or something.”

“Do the customers come back up?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” she said, “when the other barmaids are here. There’s no way out.”

“I think there is,” he muttered. Uneasiness turned to something like panic. He needed to confront Jasper immediately. Then something told him that he needed to walk the length of the crumbling alley outside. “What’s down Rotten Row,” he asked, and the barmaid’s face turned wary.

“Nothing,” she said. “There’s nothing but crumbling old houses. You don’t want to go down there,” she said, echoing the mustachioed technician.

Walking stiffly down Rotten Row, full of flat beer and sore from the fight, he saw that the houses became more ramshackle. Cobbles were missing from the road, and potholes appeared and turned into craters. He observed that the steam lines under the craters, periodically belched, hissing as if the cauldrons of hell were beneath the street, which, Arthur thought, they might well be. Grimy faces peered from dirty windows, men and women he did not recognize, which meant, he thought, that his initial estimate of the population was probably low.

Considerably low, he thought when he came upon the sprawling building, five stories high and three blocks long, made of some white stones which he realized from his occasional forays to the real Earth were called cinder-blocks. Only the fact that the floors were stunted, dwellings for thin pygmies, and the building was hidden by the great bulk of the foundry had kept him from noticing it before.

A couple of drunks were sprawled on the steps outside and he stepped gingerly over them into the gloom. He wandered down the narrow vomit-green corridors and peered through some of the open doorways. Cots were stacked against the walls, and bedding lay untidily on the floor. Stairs sprouted up and away at odd angles from odd points in the corridors, and he climbed up, encountering identical warrens of square crowded rooms.

In one corridor a couple were attempting clumsily and half-heartedly to have sex. The woman could have been Olga’s sister and the man could have just emerged from a pile of refuse. Arthur hastily turned a corner and stumbled up a narrow stairway. He soon realized that he was lost. There were no windows, so he must be in the middle of the building. He tried walking in one direction to reach the outside walls, but the corridors kept winding, and all the stairways pointed up. He began to feel that he was in a three-dimensional game of snakes and ladders. He supposed that he should keep going up.

He sensed rather than saw that he was on the top floor. Maybe it was an increased dampness he felt; limbic rain seeping through the cinder blocks. He climbed the final flight of stairs and stopped behind a mass of damp humanity jamming the corridor. He realized that he knew none of these people. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” he asked a wizened little man who turned bloodshot eyes on him.

The man cringed. “Who are you?” he countered. “You’re not with us.”

Arthur saw that this was an extremely long line of anxious supplicants, winding into the distance. Perspectives were distorted here and the corridor seemed to go on forever. He began pushing past the jostling line of scarecrows. They’re supplicants, he realized, anxious for some reward that lies at the far end of the corridor. There were loud protests until he told them who he was. Somehow, they sensed that he was different and let him through. The line wound round a corner, then another, and finally he was at a glass door with ‘Recruiter’ painted on it. Through the glass, he saw a room, just like all the others, but with a beefy man sitting behind a desk.

Arthur shoved his way in and faced the beefy man. “No-one comes in until they’re told,” the beefy man rumbled. “Get out, or you’ll be sent to the end of the line.”

“I’m the Recruiter here, and the Governor,” Arthur told him. “Who the Hell are you, and what’s going on.”

The man looked up, frowning. “How did you get here?” he demanded.

“I’m the Governor. Are you telling me that I can’t be here?”

The man blinked. “No, of course not, Governor,” he said. “Wait just a minute.” He picked up a heavy black telephone and spoke into it without dialing. “The Governor’s here,” he said. He listened nervously to the voice on the other end, swallowing occasionally. Arthur couldn’t make out the words, but there was no mistaking the smooth tone. He snatched the phone from the big man.

“…too dim to figure out what’s going on,” he heard Jasper say.

“What,” he roared, and bit his tongue. A hundred years as a politician in Limbo should have taught him enough to hold his tongue and continue to listen to the unsuspecting Jasper.

“Fat fool,” Jasper said without missing a beat. “I was just telling him that he should have expected a snap inspection of the new recruitment office. In fact, I was going to make one myself. Well,” he finally paused. “What do you think of it?”

‘I think you’re a liar, and I think you’re up to no good.’ But this time Arthur didn’t speak out loud. He had the distinct feeling that he was in enemy territory. He was surrounded by hundreds of ragged citizens, none of whom he recognized, in the middle of a warren of dilapidated buildings that he didn’t remember seeing before. He couldn’t be harmed, but he could be detained. “I don’t recognize anybody here,” he said, hoping he sounded dim enough.

“Of course not, Governor,” Jasper said heartily. “You’re a busy man. You can’t expect to be everywhere at once. That’s why I’m here, to help with the myriad small problems while you wrestle with the larger tasks of Government.” He was obviously laying the flattery on with a ladle, but then, he obviously thought Arthur too dense to notice. “Now you’ve seen the place,” Jasper continued, “Why don’t we get together, and I’ll fill in the details.”

“I’m tired right now,” Arthur said, surprising himself. Obviously, in a hundred years, he had learnt a little of diplomacy, or lying, as it was called here in Limbo56. “I’m going back to my place to get some rest. Let’s meet tomorrow morning.”

“Alright,” Jasper sounded a little dubious. “Let me talk to Wally.”

Wally listened expressionlessly to the muted sounds from the phone. At last he hung up and addressed Arthur. “Just come this way please.”

A small closet stood in the corner of the room, looking like an upended coffin. Wally opened it and gestured for Arthur to enter. Arthur hesitated. There were hundreds of unknown, probably unfriendly men outside, lining the corridor, probably blocking the staircases of the maze-like building. “Alright,” he said, stepping in. The door swung shut, leaving him in darkness, and the closet plunged down before stopping so abruptly that his knees cracked. He took a breath and waited for the door to open, but it didn’t. Instead, after a few seconds, there was a curious dragging noise and his coffin-like prison started to move sideways. It stopped shortly after, and the door swung open. Rain sprayed his face, and lightning blinded him momentarily, illuminating the square shape of the foundry in the distance. He stepped cautiously into the street.

Sighing, he started towards the foundry. He had entered through the massive front entrance and had been tipped out of a little side door, he thought angrily, striding through the rain. Abruptly he stopped. The fat man had disposed of him in the direction of the foundry. He had started plodding, like a sleepwalker, away from Rotten Row and its rotten houses, and whatever mystery lay there. He had already gotten halfway back to the foundry.

Snarling, he began to retrace his steps. As he approached the recruiting office, he veered away from the building. It seemed best to avoid the place. He ducked down an alley that ran roughly parallel to Rotten Row, hoping that Jasper was not aware of his whereabouts. A stream of carelessly hurled slops whooshed down in front of him, splashing his feet. Furious he looked up. He hoped that this was not Jasper’s way of warning him off. Then, looking at the dirty crooked houses, he was reassured. Here, slop dodging would probably be a minor annoyance, possibly a macabre game for pedestrians and slop-throwers alike.

He plowed on as the rain diminished, turning towards Rotten Row when the recruitment building was behind him. The Row was now seriously battered. Missing cobblestones gave way to huge potholes, some looking like bomb craters, deep holes with steam escaping. Gingerly he threaded his way down the blasted street. It was like a war zone. Red-eyed rats peered at him and huge cockroaches scuttled across the street. They were climbing up from Hell, he thought, where rats and cockroaches, snakes and crocodiles lived.

Ahead of him, a white wall of fog stretched across the deteriorating road. He stopped in front of it. His eyes could not penetrate this solid wall. He looked back at the potholes and the rats. Rotten Row was an upside-down minefield. Rather than being blown up, he would be sucked down one of the bottomless potholes – straight to hell. He had a nightmare vision of stepping through a wall of fog, and falling down into the bowels of the earth, into the kingdom of Hell. He started to back away, and remembered Jasper’s tinny telephone voice – ‘too dim to realize what’s going on.’

Cautiously, he slid his right foot across the line, then the left. The fog was an inch from his nose. He leant forward and the fog surrounded him. It was warm and blinding, like fine ash. He looked down. His feet were invisible. He took a step forward and the fog surrounded him. He stood rooted, knowing that he could not go on. He exhaled slowly, telling himself that, if he hit a pothole he could pull himself free. He knew, with certainty that he was finally going to Hell. He turned; ready to step back into the squalor of Rotten Row, a place infinitely better than Hell. Then he turned, again – and again, until he had no idea where or what he was facing. He might take one step into Hell, walk forever in the mist, or come out the other side. He knew that if he emerged in Rotten Row he would never be able to return.


Chapter 27 – Dirty Politics
Resolutely, he strode ahead and found himself on a broad highway. It ran, white and unworn, straight as an arrow to what looked like a mirror image of the foundry. Now he felt the heat, through the soles of his shoes, seeping up through the concrete. Lining the road were lush, blue-green trees, but curving, trembling trees that looked like overripe fruit. Trees, Arthur thought grimly, that a Devil might construct in a vain attempt to mimic a real tree, trees that might fool a poor soulless creature who had spent a long, long time in Hell.

In the distance, he could see what looked like a train station and what might have been a train, puffing smoke. He stepped off the road and moved cautiously through the trees. He stopped in astonishment. Behind a single row of blue trees was a vast canvas, painted in bilious colors, a mad forest probably painted by the creator of the slimy trees. Distastefully, he brushed tree-slime from his hand and a layer of skin, hardened by years of foundry work, sloughed off, leaving a pink, slightly irritated palm. Keeping away from the trees, he hurried towards the station.

As he approached, he saw that the low structure was more like an entrance to a mineshaft. Clouds of dirty smoke belched out, smudging the already greasy suit of an anxious-looking man who was wearing a ridiculous top hat. Arthur, whose mind was working at top speed after his encounter with the mist and the livid trees, deduced immediately that under the hat was a pair of very long, very sharp horns. Arthur hid, yards away, and watched.

Presently there was a distant groan from way down the shaft, like some weary animal trying to escape from a trap. Arthur felt a slight shaking of the earth under his feet, and the groan became louder. The top-hatted demon shuffled impatiently as the elevator ground its way upward. Obviously, this job was distasteful to him. Finally, a huge cage emerged from the smoke filled with human debris. About a hundred cringing inhabitants of the netherworld clung to each other and to the flimsy ropes that separated them from the open shaft. Even as he looked, one of them, jostled by the impatient crowd, slid under the ropes and went wailing into the darkness. The elevator stopped with a violent jolt almost throwing a couple of the others down the shaft, and a pathetic mass of bodies disgorged itself onto the road. The last lost soul barely made it onto the surface before the elevator shot down again in a final puff of smoke.

“Oh, you poor pathetic creatures,” the demon said wringing his hands and sobbing. “Oh, you poor dears.” The demon wrung his hands again, looking like a satisfied pawnbroker. “You are safe now,” it said, “in this beautiful P.p.p place. It was a pitiful piece of acting, but the men and women gaping at the bilious trees and grey sky were in no condition to judge. They shuffled, gaping, as the demon went into his prepared speech. Arthur strained to hear over the nervous chatter of the new arrivals, and heard only snatches of what the Demon said.

There was something about an election, and voting, and a temporary stay in Limbo. “And a finer Limbo you will never see,” the demon orated with absolute truth. Some of the creatures looked mystified, obviously never having heard of voting, elections, or Government, and the demon said impatiently that he would instruct them in full shortly. If they followed their instructions, he told them, they would ascend. The demon glanced nervously upward, and the newcomers were marched on to the road, with the demon leading the way.

Arthur followed them thoughtfully, hidden in the bilious trees. He was aware that their instructions would be to vote for Jasper, along with all the other refugees from Hell. Jasper, once in control, would deliver Limbo56 to Hell. Then, he would move on to subvert bigger and better Limbos.

The demon marched them up to the mist. “Line up behind me, single file,” he bellowed. “Place your hands on the shoulder of the person ahead.” He turned and faced them, baring his rather pointed teeth. “Anyone who doesn’t follow exactly in my footsteps will fall straight to Hell.” Undoubtedly, he enjoyed this part of his job. The ragged bunch lined up behind him and a fight broke out, four or five of the larger ones pushing and shoving to grab his shoulder. “You,” he commanded sternly, and lined them up to his satisfaction. Clutching at each other, they started into the mist.

At the last moment, Arthur ran out and latched on to the end of the line. The end man glanced back at him but said nothing, and he followed the narrow shoulders through the white wall, emerging into watery sunlight. Blinking, he saw that they were in the very worst part of Rotten Row. Sodden, sagging houses with smashed windows stared blindly down. Heads protruded from every opening, human sardines, watching the new arrivals. Arthur shook his head but the others gawped at the crumbling landscape as if it were a luxury resort.

The demon strode up to a battered door and pushed it open. “Get in there and stay in,” he ordered, shedding his pleasant persona now that his flock was safely delivered. “You will be contacted soon. Remember, stay indoors.” Arthur, head down, followed the motley crowd into the crumbling building. “Make yourselves comfortable,” the demon said sardonically before vanishing in the fog.

Arthur blinked; eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, and almost immediately all hell broke loose. Someone tried to grab his scarf and jacket. He lashed out and a long bony nose snapped satisfyingly. A couple of scarecrows tried to trip him up, and someone tried to untie his shoelaces. He beat them off easily and looked around. Most of the new group had lost shoes, and raggedy shirts were either gone or torn. Only he and the narrow-shouldered end man on the line were untouched. The end man was peering from behind Arthur’s protective shoulders. The new group surprisingly unconcerned clutched their rags around them and shuffled down the damp corridor. Arthur supposed that they were used to far worse in Hell.

He turned towards the door and the end man grabbed him. “Hey, where are you going,” the end man said. Arthur shook him off wordlessly, but the man grabbed him again. “I saw you coming out of the trees,” he said, “better talk to me or I might have something to say to the rats.” He nodded towards crowd of shamblers.

“I’m going out,” Arthur told him. “And if you try to stop me I’ll break your neck.”

The man coughed nervously. “But he said to stay inside.” He looked up at Arthur. “I don’t want to be sent back to Hell.”

“You trust the word of a demon?” Arthur asked.

“No, no,” the little man said, “He’s the Receptionist here. Soon as we vote for Jasper we’re going to be shipped,” he glanced furtively at the grimy ceiling “up there.” He smiled desperately at Arthur. “Hell is full. That’s why they’re letting a few of us out.”

“Do you really think that you’ll be admitted to Heaven,” Arthur began.

“Ah, you said it,” the little man cried, “You said the H word, so you must be an Angel,” and he clasped Arthur in a grimy embrace.

“I’m no Angel,” Arthur yelled. “Let go of me.” He pushed the little man away. “I’m from Limbo; I can say Heaven and Hell.”

“Limbo,” the man said. So we’re not going to H…. Up there?”

“Did you really believe,” Arthur said stonily, “that you could become an Angel that easily?”

The little man slumped. “We made ourselves believe,” he muttered. “Of course I knew it wasn’t that easy, not really.” He shuddered, looking at Arthur. “Wait,” he said, straightening up. “What am I complaining about, I’m in Paradise already.” He looked feverishly at the crumbling walls and ragged scarecrows huddled in dark corners. “This is a wonderful place,” he said.

Arthur sighed. “Why should they let you stay, after you’ve voted?” he asked. “And if you do stay, and Jasper takes over, this place will slide right into Hell anyway.”

The little man looked at him sadly. “Why did you go and do that,” he said. “I could have fooled myself right up until we get dumped back down there again.” He kicked the wall and a lump of soggy plaster fell out. “Go on,” he said. “Get out of here. I don’t want you pissing on my miserable little party.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Arthur asked, surprising himself. “What do you have to lose?”

The little man stared at him. “Nothing,” he said at last.

They stepped over a bunch of rags into the drizzling street. “Where are you going,” the bunch of rags whined.

“We have our orders,” the little man called back confidently. They trudged through the dirty streets with the little man licking appreciatively at the dirty rain as it washed channels of grime from his thin and dirty face. “Beautiful weather,” he babbled. “Is everywhere here as pleasant as this? My name is Charley. What’s yours?”

“Shut up,” Arthur told him. “Arthur.” For some reason he was loath to tell the little man that he was Governor, at least for now, of this wonderful Paradise. “So what was the plan?” he asked.

“Plan? Oh yes, well,” Charley said. “We’re going to be here for about a month. We’re going to get work documents and we’re going to vote for Jasper for Governor.”

“The recruitment office,” Arthur muttered. “How many of you are there?” he asked Charley.

“About four thousand,” Charley said.

Arthur groaned. “I suppose you were all going to be registered as citizens of Limbo,” he said.

“As soon as we’re registered for work,” Charley answered. “Temporary citizens, of course, before we go on up to He… Back to Hell,” he finished sadly. He brightened up as they approached the vast bulk of the foundry. “Wow,” he enthused, “this place is fantastic.” He gazed at the buildings, marginally less decrepit as they approached the end of Rotten Row. “Even the people here seem better,” he said just as an upstairs inhabitant, in final farewell, splashed the cobblestones close to his feet. “The rain will wash it off,” he said with apparently unquenchable good humor.

The little man had blossomed on his journey away from the mist and into Arthur’s territory. He strutted through the streets in his damp and dirty clothes, face washed clean by the rain, looking around brightly like an infant in a toy store. “What, er why did you get sent to Hell,” Arthur asked him.

“What? Oh, murder,” Charley said cheerfully.

“Oh.” Arthur thought for a moment. “Well,” he said, “It was probably provoked, or in self-defense.” Despite himself, he was warming to Charley.

“Some of them were,” Charley said. “Hey, what’s that?”

“My local bar,” Arthur told him.

“A bar,” Charley whooped. “This really is Paradise.”

“It’s a Limbo bar,” Arthur said testily. “The beer tastes like vinegar, and the sandwiches like cardboard.” He began to regret that he had led a serial killer into his relatively comfortable neighborhood. “Come on,” he sighed. “I’ll buy you a glass of vinegar.”

They entered the bar, and Arthur saw to his satisfaction that Jasper held court at the usual dark table. He strode over with Charley trotting behind, and the dim shapes around Jasper faded away. “I’m going to tear your head off, Jasper,” he told the Demon.

Jasper grinned. “Politics,” he said, “is a dirty business. I get to be reinstated and promoted to Demon First Class when I pull this off.”

Arthur blasted him with a string of invective that bounced harmlessly off Jasper’s supreme self-satisfaction. “Sit down,” he said, “Sit down and we’ll discuss this demon to – undead. You and you friend –“ He stopped.

Arthur turned around. Charley was backing away slowly, his figure haloed in an uncomfortable orange glow. “You tricked me,” he screamed at Arthur, and turned to run. He stopped, twisted and unmoving.

“I’ll tie you in a knot,” Jasper said in a voice that Arthur had not heard before. Charley began to bend, and Arthur reached over and grabbed the demon.

“Let him go, now.” He told Jasper, who looked genuinely shocked. “I’m still Governor,” Arthur said, shaking him. “He’s with me and you don’t touch him.” The thin man watched as Jasper’s emotions played from fury to amazement to a sort of surprised amusement.

“Of course,” Jasper said in his former voice. “We’re all friends here.” Charley dropped like a bundle of rags and staggered to his feet looking curiously at Arthur.

“You’re the Governor?” he asked. “You’re the one we’re going to vote out of office and drag down into the Pit.”

“That’s me,” Arthur said sharply. “Now come and sit down with us.” He had no idea why he said this to Charley, except that it might upset Jasper.

Charley looked at Jasper in horror. “I can’t,” he said horrified and Jasper grinned.

“You decided to come with me,” Arthur told him sternly. “Now I want you to sit down with us.”

Charley looked at them both. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m with you now, no matter what.”

Arthur thought that a fleeting look of surprise crossed the demon’s face as they sat down together, but the Demon said smoothly to Arthur, “you have my word that he’s yours until after the election.”

“The word of a demon,” Charley said contemptuously, surprising them all.

Now that Arthur knew the full extent of Jasper’s trickery, the demon did not bother to try to hide his satisfaction. The voting rolls of Arthur’s limbo were massively packed with refugees from hell, all with legal, but non-existent jobs. Arthur started to cast about for loopholes in Jasper’s scheme. “I’ll cancel the election,” he said without much hope, and Jasper shook his head smiling. “I can delay it,” Arthur told him. “I can delay the election indefinitely.”

“You cannot delay or void a properly constituted election, except in case of an emergency situation, nor can you take any action, other than legitimate electioneering, that will affect the course of said election. Your sole duties in this matter are confined to setting up and running the five designated polling areas.” Jasper quoted. “It’s a new piece of Limbo law that I introduced a couple of days ago. Some of the Angels were getting a little concerned that there would be irregularities.”

Arthur let loose a stream of invective that bounced off Jasper’s now distinctly scaly hide. “You signed that law yourself,” Jasper said, “after we had those few drinks at my place.” Arthur groaned.

“What about the oath,” he said suddenly. Jasper seemed taken aback.

“The one that says ‘I Joe Blow, a citizen of Limbo56, have no ties to, affinities for, or allegiance with, the Netherworld, otherwise known as Hell.’ That,” Arthur said triumphantly, “was drawn up some two hundred years ago, when it was thought a similar takeover was imminent.”

“The Angels must have drawn that one up.” Jasper sniggered. , then he turned serious. “And a great piece of legislation it was too.” Arthur looked at him, surprised. “Naturally, all of your supporters will in good conscience take that oath, and a good thing too.”

“And naturally, all of us pathetic lost souls from hell will do the right thing and refuse to swear, even though it means that we return to hell down the next pothole,” Charley said dryly.
Arthur groaned again. “I’m going to tear you apart,” he said to Jasper, but the demon grinned at him. “Sorry, but 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 bedraggled figure. “Are you trying to poach more of my people,” he asked sharply.

“She’s mine, while I’m still Governor,” he said, and Olga pressed against him, causing Charley and Gladys to frown. “Gladys,” he said diffidently, “I hope you don’t mind, but I told Olga that you could lend her some makeup and stuff.”

Olga smirked, and Gladys sniffed. “She needs more than makeup,” Gladys said, appraising Olga’s damp and lumpy form.

“Arthur doesn’t think so,” Olga said silkily, and they bared their teeth at each other.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Gladys promised pushing the other woman upstairs.

“Looks like you’re in trouble,” Jasper said nastily. “What brought you to that oversexed tub of lard?”

“Electioneering,” Arthur answered. “We had an interesting talk,” he said thoughtfully. “And what,” he asked suspiciously, “were you three talking about?”

“I decided to be generous,” Jasper said, “after talking to Charley. After the election, I’m going to let you stay on as my assistant, you and Gladys.”

“Well, if that’s what you were really talking about,” Arthur told him, “I want you to include Charley. Remember, he’s undead now, not a lost soul.”

“Charley will be working directly for me,” Jasper said airily, “I’ve promised him immunity, while this Limbo lasts.”

“A demon promise,” Arthur muttered. “I want a contract drawn up, and I want Gladys and Charley to be in it. I need everything in writing,” he insisted, and Jasper vanished in a flurry of sparks.

“Don’t worry about me,” Charlie said unexpectedly, “I can cut my own deals. I spent an hour getting that agreement,” he said with some heat. “I told you to leave the bargaining to me.”

“He’ll be back,” Arthur said confidently. “Anyway, I have an idea.”

That night he went to one of the new polling places. He carried a satchel, and when he sat down at the polling table he fished out some old documents, ‘Limbo Rules’, ‘Duties and Obligations Pertaining to the Post of Governor’, and ‘Election Policy – Rights and Restrictions.’ He staggered home the next morning and pressed the red button on his phone, and, for the second time, and emergency summons to the Angels rang through the streets.

On the morning of the election, an Angel representative appeared in Arthur’s quarters. Arthur blinked awake and looked at the Angel uncertainly. Somehow, it was entangled in his curtains, and it threshed around, muttering some very un-angelic complaints. Arthur extricated it and saw that it was a male, small and nervous, resembling an anxious schoolboy. Somehow he had expected more from his urgent summons.

“Well, what did you want so urgently,” the boy said in piping tones. “My time is very important, you know.”

“Which is why it took you three days to get down to this dingy worn-out excuse for a Limbo,” Arthur interrupted, and the boy looked ready to cry. “How old are you anyway, sonny?”

The Angel drew himself up to his full sixty inches. ”Three thousand years,” he said, smugly. He saw the disbelief in Arthur’s eyes. “Well, I died young,” he said. “Three thousand years ago most of us died young.”

“So you must be pretty senior up there,” Arthur said.

The boy sniffed. “I’m more interested in moral tur.. tur turpitude,” he said, “than material advancement.”

Arthur sighed. “We have an hour before the polls open,” he said. “First, I need you to tell me if my actions are legal, and then, assuming they are, I have a very small miracle for you to perform.”

The boy looked apprehensive. “Here, I’ll explain,” Arthur told him. He straightened the old documents and began to talk. “Well,” he said after a while. “Am I legal?”

“Legal, but morally reprehensible,” the boy Angel told him.

Arthur snorted. “After what I told you that little Devil Jasper has been doing?” he said. “I’m trying to save this pathetic little Limbo from going to Hell.”

“Moral ambiguity in the service of good is no excuse for moral frailty,” the Angel said smugly.

“Am I legal,” Arthur snapped, and the Angel nodded reluctantly. “Now I want a very tiny miracle,” Arthur told him. “I want three copies of my decree, printed in large clear type. I want Gladys transported to polling station one, together with the first copy. I want Charley transported to polling station two, together with the second copy, and I want to be transported to polling station three with the final copy. We have about five minutes before polling begins. Now can..” But he was standing inside the polling station, clutching a large stiff piece of parchment. He switched on the light and started to read “I {please state your name here}, a citizen of Limbo56, have no ties to, affinities for, or allegiance with, the Netherworld, otherwise known as Hell. I also hold no allegiance to Heaven, sometimes called the realm of God the Almighty, and the Holy Angels.”

Suddenly the foundry siren wailed, not for shift change as it had done for hundreds of years, but for the start of the first election for Governor in history. The door burst open, and Jasper stood in the entrance, with about a thousand lost souls shivering in the rain behind him. He seemed surprised to see Arthur. “What are you doing here?” he asked the thin man.

“I’m here to see that there are no irregularities,” Arthur told him. “As stated in the bye-laws of this Limbo.”

“Naturally,” Jasper said smugly. “And of course, no-one here is about to vote twice.” He waved to his apathetic followers. “We’re all duly accredited citizens of this little paradise,”

“And you’re all prepared to swear that you have no allegiance to anywhere else?”

“Absolutely,” Jasper said. “Listening to a few thousand oaths may slow us down a little, but we’ll be all wrapped up long before the day is done.” He paused. “Are the other polling stations manned?” Arthur nodded. “Let’s get on with it then.” Jasper grabbed the parchment and started reading rapidly. “I Jasper Judas Demon, a citizen of Limbo56, have no ties to, affinities for, or allegiance with, the Netherworld, otherwise known as Hell. I also hold no allegiance to H.h.h.hea.., sometimes called the realm of Ggggg.” He stopped, purple. “What is this,” he screeched. “You have no authority to change the oath.” Horns appeared and he stamped his foot, breathing fire. “I’ll call the Angels, I’ll call the Devils. I’ll have you and your friends roasted alive.” Arthur looked at him innocently. “You’ve changed the oath. You have changed the oath and disenfranchised thousands of voters,” Jasper shouted. “You know you can’t do that. You can’t rig the election that way.”

“I’ve strengthened the oath,” Arthur said. “It’s my job to make sure that the election is free and fair. What’s not free and fair about the oath?”

“Yaaaaaa,” Jasper screamed, spouting flames like a volcano. “I’ll see you all burn in Hell, I’ll call the Council right now.”

“You can’t do that, Jasper,” the boy Angel said from behind Arthur. “It’s all legal, you know. Highly reprehensible way of acting, but still…”

“Clarence Cuthbert Cherub,” Jasper screamed, “You can’t do this to me, you little twerp.”

“Now, brother,” Clarence said.

“Brother?” Arthur looked at the two of them.

“Black sheep!” Clarence sniffed.

“Loser, Cherub third class,” Jasper yelled, and they disappeared with an audible bang.

Arthur stepped up to the door, where lost souls and undead were milling about restively. “Come on in, all of you,” he said. “Come on in and vote!”

Gladys and Charley and Arthur sat companionably around the rickety table, sipping beer that tasted somewhat like beer and spooning stew that tasted almost like stew. “I got the idea,” Arthur said, “after you became an undead, Charley, and after Olga said something to me about Heaven. I studied the by-laws, and Jasper’s brother arrived just in time to confirm the legality. Of course, I would have gone on even without an Angel, but things would have been tougher.”

“Almost all of the undead voted for you,” Gladys said, “even Olga.” She looked suspiciously at Arthur. “I don’t know what you did to her, but she told me she was voting for ‘her little cupcake.’” Arthur rolled his eyes.

“And most of the lost souls couldn’t say the oath, and disappeared into the ground,” Charley said. “I guess they lost their usefulness for the demons after they couldn’t vote against you. Then again,” he continued, “we calculated that several hundred did manage to stutter out the oath, and they all became undead and voted for you. Quite a haul, I would say. You won’t have to worry about recruiting for a while.”

“Congratulations on a fair election and a well-deserved win,” Jasper said smoothly from behind them. He sat down coolly, and beckoned to the barmaid. “Yes, the best man won. I’m disappointed, naturally. I had some good ideas for improving this place, but I’m sure you will continue your excellent rule for many years to come.”

“What in hell are you doing here,” Arthur said. “Why didn’t you disappear into the ground with the others?”

“I decided,” Jasper said, “that I couldn’t, in all good conscience vote against you. We are, after all, friends.”

Arthur gasped. “When are you going back to Hell,” he demanded.

Jasper pursed his lips. “I’ve decided to ask for asylum in this paradise,” he said. I have a job here as your loyal assistant, and I can’t in good conscience, desert you now.”

“No.” Arthur said firmly. “Never.”

“I suppose then,” Jasper said ruefully, “I’ll have to take this flawed election to the council, and ask for a recount.”

“You must be mad,” Arthur told him. “The election was fair, the Angel said so.”

“My brother,” Jasper said disdainfully. “He’s a Cherub, third class, the little snot. He probably had no real authority to decide anything.”

“Sorry, it won’t work,” Arthur said. “No asylum for you.”

“What a shame,” Jasper said. “I’d probably lose, but you know how slow the council is. It will take years before the whole thing is decided. Years when there’s no firm hand at the tiller, no wise guidance…” Arthur shook his head firmly. “Then there are those lost souls you converted,” Jasper said. “They risked all and saved their souls, but once the election is declared void, they’ll be sucked right down into Hell again.” He looked at Arthur “You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?” Arthur opened his mouth and closed it again.

“He’s right,” Charlie said, and Gladys murmured agreement.

“So here we are,” Jasper said brightly, “the four musketeers, together again.”

Chapter 28 – The Money Man
They call me the moneyman. I’ve almost forgotten why, but I know I did some nasty stuff when I was alive. Really terrible. It’s just that everyone was down on me, you know what it’s like. I guess I’m lucky. I was a lost soul, now I’m just undead. Limbo is wonderful, much better than Hell. I really like Gladys, she’s a lot like Mary. I shouldn’t think about Mary. I messed up there. It wasn’t really my fault – was it? I’ve been here in Limbo for almost a year now. I really like Gladys. I go to the pub all the time, just to see her. I can tell she likes me, even though she seems impatient with me sometimes. That’s because she’s always busy. She pretends to like that flashy Londoner who comes in sometimes, and the Governor, naturally. Well, she has to pretend to like him; he controls all the jobs here, even though he’s just an ignorant ironworker. I’m going to see her tonight, and this time I’ll really talk to her. I know when things are quiet, and I’ll just go up to her and engage in some easy banter, then maybe she’ll invite me upstairs to her room, and we can get all cuddly, like.

The young man with bad skin had barely passed the test to remain in Limbo. He intends never to return to the Netherworld, and he keeps reminding himself that he is a very nasty person, and that he is lucky to be where he is and not in the other place. Even so, he thinks that he wasn’t entirely to blame, about the old man, about his uncle and the flashy salesman, and Mary. Sometimes, in his mind, they merge with Gladys’ friends, and he thinks they are all against him.

That evening, he walked up to the bar and faced Gladys. “Beer,” he mumbled.

“Don’t you ever say please?” Gladys asked, but she half-smiled when she said that, and he knew she really liked him.

“I.. I’m sorry,” he said, and, to his horror he started to cry, big tears running silently down his face. He gulped and turned away quickly, but she grabbed his hand.

“What on Limbo is the matter?” she asked sharply. “You just got out of Hell; you should be dancing with joy.”

“I can’t dance,” he snuffled. “Not with Joy or anyone else,” he added with a pathetic attempt at humor.

“Hey Sadie”, Gladys said to a woman who was flirting with a customer. “Take the bar for a mo, will you? Just help me out for a couple of minutes.”

The woman sniffed but got up reluctantly. “You bein’ a social worker again,” she said as they walked to the dark table in the corner.

“Don’t mind her,” Gladys told him. “She barks worse than she bites.” They sat down. “You need to pull yourself together,” she said sternly, but he was overwhelmed with gratitude that she was taking an interest in him. “Tell Auntie Gladys what’s wrong,” she said flashing him a gypsy smile. “But don’t moan about your troubles. In here, we’ve all got troubles.”

“I’m a very bad man,” he heard himself tell her. He had never admitted that to anyone else. “A very bad man,” he repeated, and started to tell his story.

‘I had a headache that morning. I had to splash cold water on my face to wake up. I grabbed a piece of cheese out of the fridge and felt a bit better after a quick munch. Of course, rain was streaking down the windows and my old car was broke, and would probably stay that way. It was just the usual start to another lousy day.

Life is a bitch, as they say. Have a few beers at night, and you wake up with a hangover the next morning. My face was still sore from where the man in the bar hit me. Bastard caught me by surprise; that was what happened. I could have beat him up if he hadn’t jumped me. Tried to say I was pushing his dad around – bastard.

‘Next time I see him, I’ll show him,’ I thought. I felt the rage coming on again. I should get a gun. Equalizers, they used to call them. Then I calmed down. Funny, thinking about guns usually does that. The rage went away and I splashed some more water on my face. I thought about man and his son in the bar.

Try to have a bit of fun, and you always have to suffer for it. That's what my old lady used to say, making up her face in front of the kitchen mirror, while my old man nagged at her, wheezing and coughing in his armchair.

“I'm young," she used to say. "I need to go out and enjoy myself. I don't have to be tied to an old fart like you 24 hours a day."

And my old man couldn't do a damned thing about it, stuck in that chair. All he could manage was an occasional stagger to the bathroom and back bumping into tables and holding the wall until Mom was ready to yell and laugh at him and flounce out to the bar. He'd sit there; purple and trembling, and I swore I'd never be like him, pushed around by everybody.’

The young man stopped and gulped at his beer, grimacing. He seemed to think for a while. “You don’t want to listen to this, do you?” he said seriously. “I have to keep reminding myself that I’m a pathetic person, with a pathetic story. You’re just a kind person listening to a boring, ordinary little fool.” He half-smiled at Gladys. “I do this when I have a few beers.” He finished his drink. “I’m leaving now.”

“I know someone else who was boring and ordinary,” Gladys told the young man. “He improved a lot over time. I think you will too. Why don’t you just carry on with your story? You’re not boring me.”

He looked at her gratefully. “I just need to tell someone.” He looked into the distance, into a small, rainy town, a lot like Limbo56.

‘I was late for work again. Busses never run on time. I punched in and was sneaking towards my desk when old Mr. Clark caught me. Jesus, he must have little spy cameras all over the building.

"Can't you ever get in on time?" He snapped, drumming his fingers on Mary's desk, standing over me, all stiff and military like a Sergeant Major.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Clark," I blurted. "You know my car's broke, and the bus was late, and the traffic was slow because of the rain." He makes me feel like a little kid, especially when Mary is there. I just clam up and get all stupid when I'm around him. One day, I'll win the lottery, and then I'll push his face in and tell him where he can stick his job.

"Go easy on him, Fred," Mary laughed, "He's young. He has plenty of time to learn." She flashed a smile at me. Perfect teeth, blonde, long legs, and built ---. Many a time I stood in the company bathroom and mentally undressed her, groaning in frustration and desire. She was the only person in the office who called old Mr. Clark by his first name, and he loved it. Even the smarmy salesman, who Mary seemed to fancy for some reason, even he called our boss Mr. Clark, or sometimes even 'Sir', the brown-nosed rich kid bastard. One day I was going to punch him right in the face and show him I was just as good as he was.

"Ooh," Mary would say. "You shouldn't do that." But she'd get excited and breathe hard and maybe that afternoon it'd really be me and her in the bathroom, all close and hot.

I know women. I’d bring in a little bottle of whiskey, and she’d take a swig and get excited, then I could do whatever I wanted. I pictured her all weak and faint in the bathroom, and I could just do whatever I wanted, and she wouldn’t even know.’

The young acne scarred man paused and looked at Gladys again. “Of course, I don’t know anything about women. I’m shy and unattractive and not too bright.” He looked at the gypsy barmaid. “I tell this story to myself, and every time, it’s a bunch of excuses and lies. This is the first time I’ve told my story to anyone else. I didn’t say anything, not even at the trial.” He sniffed. “I’m telling you, and I need to correct myself. You’ll know when I say stupid things won’t you?” he asked and she nodded. He swallowed some more beer, lost in thought, before continuing.

‘Old Mr. Clark went back to his office, and I sat down and looked at my desk. Mary sighed. "You know he's going to fire you soon," she told me. “You never do any work, and you're always late, and you're so untidy."

I could tell she liked me. She was always full of sympathy; a real woman. I went over to her desk.

"You're OK," I said. "I can't work for someone like him. He doesn't appreciate anybody. Except you," I added. "’Cos you’re so sexy." I leaned over her. "I wish I could take you out one night. We could have a couple of drinks and watch TV," and I thought about the other things we’d be doing after I got her drunk.

She wrinkled her nose. "You should shower more often," she said, but she smiled to show she had no hard feelings. I was just thinking up a smart remark, when Mr. toffee-nosed salesman walked in, stupid grin all over his smug face.

"Hey, Mary," he said, ignoring me. "I got out early and sold a whole building full of that office furniture we've got piled up in the basement. Just showed 'em the brochure, and told 'em I was cutting off my right arm for the sake of their business..." He rambled on, grinning at Mary, half turned, so I had to look at her over his shoulder.

Well, I wasn't going to bother with the likes of him, so I went back to my desk, and started to shuffle papers around, looking at Mary's legs, crossing and uncrossing under the desk. I didn't know how long I could stay cooped up in this dreary office, day after day. The morning dragged on, and I doodled on my desk pad, getting angry and frustrated as usual.

About 11 o'clock, Mr. Clark appeared again, standing to attention in front of my desk. "I've got a job for you, my boy," he told me. "You can take the van and go pick something up. Make sure you bring it back in one piece, and I don't want to see any scratches on my desk."

So that was it. He'd finally gotten round to buying the antique desk he'd been talking about for weeks. We have to slave in oversize matchboxes while he works in luxury. Not that I'd want an antique piece of junk, anyway. I mumbled something, and he went on to tell me all about his new toy. "Well," he said when he was done. "Get on to it right now."

Naturally, it was still raining when I got outside, blinking into the car park. I climbed into the old van and slammed the door shut. I couldn't wait for the sun to come out and brighten things up a bit. I had to drive through the drab streets, dirty water streaking the windscreen of the rattling old van. Bosses are all the same. Old Mr. Clark thinks he owns me, just because he pays me lousy wages for a lousy job. If I was rich I’d be a manager, in my own office, with a sexy secretary or something. But no. "You need experience," they all tell me. "You need to improve yourself.” Work extra for nothing is what they mean. Meantime those college kids with rich daddies get all the best jobs.

The owner of the desk lived on a small farm, just outside city limits. I took my time. No use rushing there and back. They'd only find something else for me to do. Some little old lady turned in front of me, hunched nervously over the wheel of her old car, peering at me in the rear-view mirror. I dunno why they let these old biddies out on the roads; they're a danger to themselves and everyone else. Just for fun, I drove the van right up under her back fender, scowling at her pale reflection. After a few minutes and a couple of blasts from my horn, she got the message and scooted up a narrow dead-end street, stupid old cow.

After that, I felt a bit better, and started to look for a likely bar. You can't expect to drive for hours without a bit of refreshment. The man with the desk was probably waiting anxiously for his money. With luck I could force the price down and keep some for myself. Just a bit of good business, that's all. Mr. Clark ought to be proud of me.

Some old bums were camped on the sidewalk, huddled round a heating vent under a makeshift blue plastic tent. Just for a laugh, I swerved into a big puddle and almost drowned the closest one. Bastards deserved it, lazy bums, too idle to work, living off welfare paid for by my tax money. I was still pissed off when I turned into the parking lot behind the bar, thinking maybe I could tell Mr. Clark I got lost, or maybe the desk man wasn't at home.

I scrounged a battered half-pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment and ran into the bar without getting too wet. Inside, it was dark and pretty empty, just a few gray shapes in the dim light. Joe the bartender, or whatever his name was, stood polishing glasses with a dirty rag. I tried a bit of humor on him, but he wasn't having any - miserable bastard. He said something about my tab, and I told him to wait till payday. How can a man get ahead, I told him, when he has to pay taxes to support a bunch of lazy welfare bums, not to mention all these foreigners we keep giving money to instead of spending it on our own people. I had to pay twenty pounds off the tab, so I figured I'd get twenty pounds worth of gas for the van and claim forty. You've got to make an honest quid some way.

I chugged down the first beer and waved at Joe for another. I looked around. Just my luck, the only woman in the place was a fat old broad of about 40, staring cross-eyed at the wall with a table full of empty bottles in front of her. I stuck a crumpled cigarette in my mouth and looked around for a match. An untidy shape materialized out of the gloom, and a man scraped up to the bar next to me. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was another old bum. Not one of the ones I'd soaked, this one was only a little damp, and he'd even made a clumsy attempt to shave.’

The young man leant back and looked at Gladys. “It’s funny,” he said. “One moment you’re in a warm pub, drinking beer, not knowing how lucky you are. You may be not too bright, not too popular, but you have a job, a few small dreams. You have a future, with a few good things that might happen.” He sighed. “The next moment, you’ve taken that step, that small step towards the precipice, and you’re destined to fall off the edge into Hell. Can I go on?” he asked diffidently, and she nodded.

"I got no cigarettes," I told the old man, turning my back.

"I was only going to offer you a light." I felt his old breath as he settled comfortably next to me.

"Look," I told him. "I don't need no light. I don't want no book of matches you picked up out of the gutter. Just leave me alone. Go get a job or something."

A ragged sleeve and a cheap plastic lighter appeared in front of me. I lit up with a disgusted snort. "Joe," I said. "What sort of a bar is this? You want to get rid of this dead-beat?"

The bartender ambled over and filled the bum's empty glass. "Thanks, Theo," the bum said, laying out some money. Joe/Theo looked at me. "Gentleman can stay as long as he likes," he said. "As long as he pays for his drinks."

I snorted and carried my drink to the dark table next to the fat broad. She didn't even notice me. I sat and drank the watery beer, getting angrier all the time, thinking about lazy welfare bums, drunk all day, while honest workers had to slave away, just to pay their taxes. I stared pointedly at the fat broad - any port in a storm - but she ignored me. The sky outside the dirty windows got blacker, along with my mood.

The shapeless blob of the old bum loomed up and he sat down at the table. "Here, this one's on me," he said before I could get a word out. He put a beer-mat and a bottle of beer in front of me.

‘Bastard,’ I thought. ‘Rubbing it in with his welfare money. I'll show him. I'll take his beer; it's about time I got something back.’ He sat and watched me for a couple of minutes while I drank the beer and ignored him. He took a sip from the glass in front of him. I prefer drinking beer from a bottle. Why dirty a glass?

"I've got one, you know,” he said finally. "A good one."

"What?" I asked irritably. The old man was annoying me with his bad breath and wrinkled face. I wanted to shove him off the chair, or march him into the street. Still, I figured, I might as well get another drink out of him.

“I got a job," he said, creasing his ugly mug into what must have been a smile. "I got a good job."

"Yeah, sure," I answered. "That's why you're sitting in a bar in the middle of the day.”

He looked anxious. "I came in out of the rain," he coughed. “Soon as the weather clears a bit I'll finish -- what I have to do."

I looked skeptical and drained the bottle. "I'll get us two more," he said and hurried off to the bar.

‘What the hell,’ I thought. ‘If the old fool wants to spend his welfare check, that’s fine by me.’

He came back with two more bottles. "I'm not on welfare, you know," he said as if he'd read my mind. “I've got a job."

He looked so self-satisfied; I just had to take him down a peg. "So you tell me," I said sourly. “OK, you panhandled someone. I got to work for my money."

He gave me a watery stare. "I got a regular job. Got all sorts of money. Best job I ever had." He licked his lips. "I got money, right here." He tapped his greasy coat. "Soon as I finish, I'm going to get me some new clothes, a car...."

I stared at him. I couldn't believe the stupid old bum had lots of money. I'd seen him, a few days before, standing on the corner, hand out for a quid. He licked his wet lips again, nodding in excitement. The old man was buying drinks, talking about getting wheels. If it wasn't for the money he'd dug out of his old coat, I'd have thought he'd finally gone totally crazy.

Then it hit me. Drugs! The old bastard was delivering drugs. Somehow, he had gotten himself in with some big dealer. He was a harmless looking old bum, delivering drugs, carrying all sorts of money, hidden in his old clothes. That was it. He was going to drop off the money and get his cut. It wasn't fair. He was just an old bum. What right did he have to all that money?

I took a deep pull on the bottle and tried to think clearly. I wanted to strangle him right there. Keeping his money stashed away in his clothes, just like my old man used to, till the old lady started to 'find' it when he was snoring in the old armchair. Why should this old derelict have cash and not me? I thought of all the things I could do with the money; a new car; a couple of broads. I could go to Las Vegas, and pick up a real stake. All you need is a start.

"Get me another drink," I told him tensely, and he looked at me uncertainly. I forced a smile. "We're friends, aren't we?" He grinned, happy to have a real living breathing human friend. When he came back, there was a shot of whisky with the beer. I saw Joe with his dirty beer-rag, giving me a disapproving stare, and forced another smile at the old man. "Thanks, old-timer." I decided I was going to get some of that money. What use was it to an old lay about? What was he going to do with it? Sit and look at it all day with those watery old eyes.

I sat and watched him as he gabbled on, trying to keep a smile pasted on my face to hide the disgust I felt at his loose mouth and shaking hands as he slobbered over his beer, slopping sticky puddles over the table. I even bought a round myself while I tried to think of a good story to try and get some of that money out of him. How much should I ask for? One thousand? Two? Senile old fool should be good for at least that. If I didn't get it, his pals on the street would steal it from him, the thieving bastards. If only I could get him drunk, but he spilt more beer than he managed to get past those rotten teeth.

And instead of getting drunk, he was getting more talkative, blabbing away through a mouthful of spit, so that I wanted I wanted to punch that gray old face, right there and then. Just a bit more patience and I could 'borrow' a grand or two, then, when he came whining for his money, I could laugh in his face. Who would believe an old fart like him. I kept racking my brains for a good story, and he kept distracting me with his cracked voice and rotten teeth.

Suddenly, he stood up. "Nice talking to you," he said through a mouthful of spit. "But I have to go. - Some of us have to work, you know," he added, archly.

That did it. I almost flattened him right there. Rage blurred my vision, and I suddenly knew what I should do. I didn't have to beg him for his stinking money, I could just take it. I could knock him flat and grab those wads of drug money he had stashed away in his lumpy old clothes, and he couldn't do a thing about it. He didn't deserve the money; he was nothing but a criminal. I'd do the world a favor by taking it all.

"Wait a minute," I said quickly, grabbing him. I forced another smile that almost cracked my face. "Wait, I'll come with you." He glanced nervously towards the bar, but Joe was somewhere in the back, having a smoke or something. "Look," I said desperately, "it's still raining. Tell you what; I'll give you a lift in my van. What are friends for," I said, putting my arm around his shoulder, suppressing a shudder.

He allowed himself to be led out, and we squelched across the parking lot. The old man shivered in the rain, and I grabbed his arm. "Down there," I told him. "The van's at the other end of the alley."

He looked at me nervously and I shoved him into the dark shadows between the bar and the side of a grimy abandoned factory. Rain dived between the buildings, funneled by the narrow corridor, and he stared at me in fright as droplets oozed through his sparse hair and down his pale face.

"You're in trouble, you old bastard," I told him. "You're not entitled to that money." I shoved him and he sprawled in the mud, coughing and groaning, scattering old beer bottles. "Give it to me," I yelled. "All of it, now, or I'll kick your damn ribs in."

He started to blubber like a baby. "It's mine, I earned it. I'm getting a room of my own, ah!” He stopped making sense when I hit him in the face.

"Give it to me," I screamed, “or I'll really hurt you."

For a moment, the young man surfaced, pain on his face. “I beat up that poor old man,” he said to Gladys, and went on with the story.

‘The old man coughed and spluttered and pulled out a wet envelope from somewhere. "Take it," he hiccoughed.

Something was wrong. The envelope was too small, too thin. I tore it open and stared incredulously at the single bill. I started to shake, and then I started to shake him. "I want the money, you bastard, not some lousy fifty quid. Where is it?" I shrieked. "The drug money, I want the drug money."

He was stuttering with fear, rain and blood streaking his face, and I hauled him halfway up and howled. "The money. You said you had a lot of money. I want the drug money you've been collecting. I want it, it's mine.”

"No, no”, he moaned. "That's it. That's my money, it's mine.” He was choking and gasping. "The vicar gives it to me to visit the old people who are dying in County Hospital. Most of them don't even know who they are. I just talk to them and make them happy, and the vicar gives me fifty quid and food money.” He moaned and tried to sag to the ground.

"You old liar!" I screamed at him. “Give me the money, I want it all." Through the red mist of my rage I hit him over and over, and his head snapped from side to side, wobbling on his scrawny neck and the blood mingled with the rain on his filthy clothes. "Liar!” I kept shouting as he bubbled and moaned.

I heard a thin scream and saw the fat broad from the bar, staring at us from the car park. Her eyes were focused now, as she held her mouth, stuffing the scream back into her throat. Suddenly she turned and ran, and I flung the old man down and started to go after her. The old man was crumpled at a weird angle and the damp envelope started to move sluggishly in the wet bluster. I turned back.

"Where's the rest of it," I yelled. I kicked him, but he didn't move. I picked him up and shook him. His head wobbled, and he seemed to grin maliciously at me. I dropped him and started to pull off his heavy old coat. He must have hidden the money in the lining somewhere, the lying old bastard. I tore at the overcoat with clumsy fingers, pulling out the soaking lining. I tore at the sleeves and ripped off the pockets. The money wasn't there. I pulled out my knife and slashed at the lining, tearing apart wads of sodden flock. Nothing.

"I'll find it," I screamed at him, but he didn't move. I wrenched his shoes and socks off; there was no money. Savagely, I pulled off his jacket, slashing at the fabric. He was wearing a couple of greasy sweaters, and I clawed at them, slashing and hacking.

He was down to his long johns when the rage began to clear. His neck and his arms were twisted, and he didn't move. I felt sick, and my arms ached. "I want my money," I sobbed at him. "Get up, I want my money."

A long way away, I heard the wail of a police siren. "Why did you lie to me," I moaned at him. "Why didn't you tell me it was only fifty pounds?” He didn't answer, and I began to realize that, for an old man with nothing, fifty pounds was an enormous fortune, a ticket to a room and a new life with friends and a bit of warmth.

The siren was louder now. The lights of the police car washed across the car park and peeped into the alley where I knelt in the mud with the dead old man.’

The young man shifted and looked at Gladys. “Now you know,” he said, strangely relieved. “I’m a very bad man. Not a very bad man who says ‘to hell with the world’ and looms larger than life, and fascinates women; who shakes his fist at God. I’m just a small, weak man who pretends to be tough. I never fooled anyone.” He half-smiled. “Just a few minutes ago, I fantasized about getting you drunk, and feeling you up. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” she said. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t fantasize about me. Every man I meet fantasizes about me, at least I hope so.” She got up.

“I won’t bother you again” he told her. “There are other pubs.”

“Now don’t spoil things by feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “Look at me; I’m better-looking than the other barmaids in this Limbo, which isn’t saying much. In real life, I was a not-too bright marriage-destroying slut, out for my own pleasure, and even after I died I was a bit of a bitch.”

He started to say something, but she stopped him. “I’ve gotten a little easier with myself, over the centuries, and you need to do the same. You’re quite capable of punishing yourself for any bad things you’ve done.”

She took over from Sadie and started to chat to the customers, no longer looking at him. He watched her for a moment, swallowing the tasteless beer. After a while he walked slowly to the door. Turning, he called quite loudly. “See you tomorrow, Gladys.”

She looked up and waved as he walked into the rain.


Chapter 29 – Talent Search
Arthur was not normally an inquisitive man, but, of his three main companions, Charley was the most mysterious. Jasper talked constantly about himself, whether asked or not, and it was impossible to determine truth from fantasy in the constant avalanche of contradictory tales that battered their ears whenever he popped up.

Gladys, on the other hand, had to be asked, but whenever, in occasional fits of jealousy, he did venture to jog her memory, she was quite capable of producing lurid tales that he was only too sure were true.

Charley, on the other hand, seldom talked about himself. He had sprung from the bowels of Hell fully grown, so to speak, the final link in the conga line that snaked through the mist into Limbo, dragging Arthur through the minefield of potholes to hell. Charley was cheerful and quiet, and seemed genuinely pleased and humble to be friends of both the Governor and the gypsy Gladys who had apparently known him briefly in real life. Charley even maintained a guarded neutrality towards Jasper. Had he not once hinted quite casually that he was a mass murderer, he would have seemed totally out of place at the same table as the Devil, the Gypsy, and the hard man, and indeed Arthur increasingly came to believe that Charley was a harmless victim of circumstances, and that only a monumental stroke of bad luck had brought him down to Hell.

“So how did you two come to meet,” he ventured one evening in the bar, after he had ascertained to his satisfaction that they had never been lovers.

“It was nothing,” he said, looking at Gladys, “We only knew each other for a very short while.”

“Yes, but you don’t seem as if you moved in the same circles,” Arthur persisted. “Somehow I can’t see your paths ever crossing.”

“It was after you were killed,” Gladys told him, and before O’Grady killed me. In fact it was O’Grady who got me the interview.”

“Interview?” Arthur interrupted.

“I was looking for another line of work.”

“And I interviewed her,” Charlie said reminiscently, looking at her with friendly blue eyes.

“.”
.
Pale blue eyes, empty as space, bored into her.

“Killing requires a special talent.”

“Yes.”

“Don't hesitate.”

“No.”

“Don't question.”

Silence.

“Don't think about it afterwards.”

“ - “

“No regrets.”

“Right.”

“Any questions?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you finished, Charley?”

“I'm done,” he told her.

Calmly, she shot him between the eyes.

“……….”

Arthur waited for whatever revelation his new friend could provide regarding the gypsy woman who fascinated him so.

“She was very good,” Charley said. “Fastest study I’ve ever had.”

Chapter 30 - The Halfway Housekeeper

Arthur Mossop, known to the people of Limbo56 as the thin man, settled himself in a dim corner of the almost deserted pub. Seated in the shadows, he was practically invisible to the undead, which was probably a good thing, since he insisted in dressing in the scratchy and shabby garments of the 1880s, and most of his ghosts were from the late 21st century.

A long time ago he had been appointed Governor of this Limbo by a very persuasive recruiter. For years he had thought himself a cut above the miserable citizens who lived here before moving up, or down as the case might be. For a short while he had been in awe of the Heavenly Powers, but soon he came to realize that his masters were just as blinkered, irrational, and illogical as members of any other large bureaucracy were. The only reason he never officially had gotten to work in the foundry, was that he had actually worked in one while alive. While managers and organizers who had experience running things were summarily dispatched to get their soft, clean hands dirty amidst the soot and flames of the great building, he, hard of hand strong of limb, skilled in iron molding, and short on organizational skills had been conned into running the place. Almost every inhabitant of Limbo worked in the foundry, apart from the service staff, and the only service around was the collection of dingy pubs around the Foundry. The bar workers were all female and all ugly.

Limbo though had changed with the times. The undead of the 1880s were unhappy working seven twelve-hour days in a gloomy smoke-blackened place, but they were hardly overwhelmed, and he suspected that some scarcely noticed the transition from their hopeless, miserable lives to the miserable Limbo where they found themselves.

The new breed of undead had grown up in an entirely different world. As conditions improved in the real world, Limbo was forced to keep up; lest the new occupants decided that they were already in Hell. In the land of the living, working hours were reduced, to six, five four days a week; even foundries were spruced up and made more pleasant. To the new, soft breed of inhabitants, forty-hour weeks, with constant work-breaks were still an awful contrast to their lives of leisure and pleasure in the new, high-tech world outside. They were issued cheap radios and television sets that churned out inferior entertainment, and they wailed against their punishment far more than their ancestors in the gloomy earlier Limbo had.

The thin man looked around the pub disapprovingly. It was relatively clean, bright, and almost empty. The barmaid, he noted approvingly, was trying to talk and pick her nose at the same time. The other pubs in limbo were on a level or – ugh – better than this one, and yet the Eternal Powers were, just lately, never satisfied, and his intake shrank year by year to almost zero. Combine that with the steady streams of former inhabitants who soared off to Heaven or plummeted to hell, and his place was rapidly emptying.

“Dammit,” he muttered, “it’s not fair. These people are better off here than I ever was in life, and they’re still not satisfied.” He sniffed. “They probably complain about Heaven, – those that get there.” He had never really considered his transition. As time passed, he grew, if not happy, at least resigned to his fate. True, there were certain disadvantages to being dead; not much sex, no sense of touch, taste, or smell. Still, with practice, he could conjure up a ghostly remembrance of bitter beer when he drank from the dusty glasses served up in his local drinking house.

He tried to remember his last real taste of anything. Not since he ran a successful black market trade with the real world, helped by a Criminal, a Politician, and an Accountant, all since gone to their just deserts, had he tasted real food, or drunk real beer. Gladys had managed, occasionally, to coax a little flavour, a little taste into the cardboard and vinegar meals, but one day she had grown restless, and disappeared as mysteriously as she had arrived. For almost a hundred years he had done his lonely best here, uncomplaining, since the Eternal Powers had judged him too sinful for Heaven, too innocent for Hell, and possessed of a non-existent talent (which only they saw) for running things. He had not thought of that august assembly for almost two centuries.

Suddenly, he was in a cavernous room, on a hard wooden chair, staring at the massed assembly of the Eternal Powers. “Or at least,” he thought, “those that bothered to turn up.” The room was almost empty, and a mixed bunch of six scowling Devils, and six frowning Angels stared down at him from comfortable thrones. He looked at the Angels with dawning hope. Were his efforts on behalf of Limbo finally going to be recognized?

“Well, let’s get on with it,” the well-padded chairman, who Arthur was relieved to see was an Angel, grunted. “This committee will consider the evidence, and we will deliberate on your...” He stopped, irritated, as a rather dapper devil at his side whispered something. “Harrumph,” he continued. “This committee is here to gather evidence in the case of Powers vs. Mossop and to pass judgment regarding numerous recent complaints about your failure to maintain the standards, set up by this committee, and amended periodically, in the maintenance and facilitation of Limbo56, as laid out…” He went on like this for what seemed like several hours while his fellow Angels nodded portentously, adding their own obscure remarks and the Devils fidgeted and whispered dirty jokes to each other.

Finally, a second Devil interrupted. “Can we get on with this matter? This poor sinner has no idea what you’re blathering about, and can hardly defend himself unless you get down to the specifics of what he is charged with.”

Arthur was beginning to change his mind about the committee. He appeared to be headed, despite his best efforts, not for the sublime comforts of Heaven, but rather for the extreme torments of Hell. The angels were all portly, humorless snobs, with no idea of how difficult it was for an honest working man to run an operation like Limbo, without any training, learning on the fly. In fact, they reminded him of his old foundry bosses, who sometimes swept by in their fine carriages completely oblivious to their weary mud-spattered, trudging workers.

The Devils on the other hand, probably because of their break from their more strenuous working conditions, appeared quite spruce and cheerful. A couple of them smiled at him encouragingly, and he couldn’t help feeling that they appreciated his difficulties far more than the Angel bureaucrats. He began to wish that the head Devil were chairing the proceedings.

“Well, what do you say to your sentence,” the Head Angel demanded, interrupting his reverie and spraying him with saliva. His mind raced as he tried to recall what had been the verdict just handed down.

One of the Devils came to his rescue. Winking at Arthur he said. “You have probably realized that this hearing has not gone too well for you. Despite what you may have heard, we Devils are not vindictive, neither are we,” he glanced at the Angels “so set in our ways that we are unable to take into account extenuating circumstances, such as your lack of decent training, and the constant upgrades you have been forced to make, by a majority Angel vote, I have to say.” He paused. “We Devils consider you innocent (he grimaced at the word), and have reminded our colleagues that you have made numerous requests for an assistant, all of which have been ignored. We believe that you have tried your best, and we have urged our honorable colleagues to show mercy on your eternal soul. Forever is a long time.”

“But,” Arthur said, spirits rising. “That’s six to six. Surely we will need another hearing and I can take some time to prepare my case.”

“Unfortunately,” the Devil answered, and for a moment his eyes lit up blood red and a couple of suspicious looking bumps appeared on his forehead. “Unfortunately, we are currently members of the minority party here, and have no way of overturning the verdict.” He paused again.

He smiled a rather shark-like smile at Arthur. “Excuse me,” he said and cupped his hand to whisper words into the meaty ear of the Chairman, words that Arthur could hear perfectly clearly. “Listen,” he hissed. “The defendant could release himself into our custody, for purely voluntary service. At some time we will review his progress and pass on our impressions to this committee. Surely,” he said, half to Arthur, half to the Angels, “his volunteering will be taken into account.”

“I don’t know,” the head Angel said dubiously. “Right now, he can get time off for good behavior, he can appeal. Why, within a millennium or so, he could get a retrial and ascend to the Heavenly hosts. But, if he’s a volunteer, none of that applies.”

“And, we could release him for a hearing within a year,” the Devil said smoothly. He smiled at Arthur. “Which will it be, Arthur, a year or a millennium?”

Arthur had heard the phrase, ‘the Devil’s own charm.’ If he had not seen the red eyes and budding horns, he would have been tempted. Still, it wasn’t worth declaring boldly, “Get thee behind me Satan,” since he was about to be thrown into the pit, anyway, by the angels, and heaven forbid that he should make Satan really angry at him. “Can I get a written contract,” he said to the head Devil.

“Of course,” the devil said to him immediately. “I’ll draw one up as soon as we get down there. I have the forms in my office.”

Arthur knew that he was trapped. Despite his best efforts in Limbo, he was descending to Hell, whether he took the Devil’s offer or not. There was no way out. Desperately, he looked around the empty room, then back at the twelve wise men facing him. The last few years in Limbo had not been so bad, better in fact than his life in the long-vanished world of low wages and long hours into which he had been born. He was a simple man who had done his best. For almost a hundred years, he had run his Limbo, painfully learning new ways, studying the new outside world that unfolded ever more rapidly. Suddenly, he remembered an obscure fact from an obscure lawyer who had passed through Limbo56 years before.

“Quorum,” he said loudly. “This hearing is illegal. You don’t have a quorum of the Eternal Hosts currently sitting.” He had no idea whether the quorum rules applied to this body, but he was determined to clutch at the frailest straw.

Immediately there was uproar. The devils all hissed and spat sparks, growing horns as large as elephant tusks, and the angels spat rivers of saliva, roaring in righteous indignation, calling down eternal damnation. “Ridiculous,” the head angel declared. We have thousands of Limbos under our jurisdiction, not to mention – up there. He raised his hand as if to smite Arthur, then cocked his head. It was obvious that someone or something was communication with him. He swallowed a couple of times, breathing heavily.

“Home office – that is the Boss,” informs me that, while all this is highly irregular, you do have a point.” He huffed self-importantly. “Naturally, He is the all-knowing, all-seeing, but I don’t think that, in his ivory tower, He has any idea…” He listened again. “He says to tell you good luck at your next hearing. The twelve stood up, and the head Angel muttered, “which, with our busy schedule will be in about 25 centuries.”

The head Devil leapt from the platform, to stand, gnashing his teeth in front of Arthur. “We will fry you and eat you, and vomit you up, and do it again for all eternity,” He screamed, breathing fire and singeing Arthur’s’ eyebrows. He stopped abruptly, looked down, and swallowed. “My boss says that it seems like my suggestion is more punishment for the punisher than it is for the victim.” He gave a sheepish smile. “My boss also says good luck, and don’t try anything like this again...”

Arthur sighed.

Chapter 31 – Days of Beer and Roses
He should have known that the end was near. Had the council promised to review his case within the year, he could have confidently expected several centuries to pass without hearing from them. They had promised to review his case after twenty-five centuries, and a year to the day after his last hearing, he was drinking vinegar beer in a dark corner of his usual pub, when he was once more whisked in front of the council.

He was again in a cavernous room, on a hard wooden chair, staring at the massed assembly of the Eternal Powers while his beer slopped embarrassingly on his trousers. The room was almost empty, he saw with a surge of hope as he gazed at six scowling Devils, and six frowning Angels on their comfortable thrones. His hope was dashed when the Chairman, looking distastefully at his beer mug, remarked, “we have considered the evidence…”

“Wait a minute,” he cried. “Don’t I get to present my case?”

“Oh, this is not a hearing,” the Chairman said with a cunning smile. “This is simply a judgment, levied upon you in absentia, pertaining to your conduct as Governor of Limbo56 over the last century.” Arthur opened his mouth. “I think you’ll find,” the Chairman continued, that the Tribuneral has every right to do so under our laws. “I cite the precedent established in the case of ‘Three Wise Men vs. Pharisees’, section eight, sub-section…” and he continued in this vein for several minutes. When he had finished, a cherub presented Arthur with an extremely dusty law-book. Bent under its weight, and sneezing uncontrollably, he was unable to continue with his objections.

This time the Devils made no pretense of listening to the mind-numbing drone of the head Angel. From beneath their hoods, they chatted amongst themselves. They were, he supposed, gloating over the fall of one more Governor of Limbo56. He had outlasted all the others and he refused to feel sorry about the way he had governed the place. It had been a limbo on the very edge of Hell when he took over, and he had kept the miserable place and its inhabitants out of the pit for a hundred years. He had broken many rules, dealt with criminals in the outside world and Devils below. He had subverted a cherub third class; his accountant had cooked the books, his Politician had bribed politicians still living, and his Criminal had, after death, achieved his lifelong ambition of becoming a feared killer, albeit a killer of killers. For a few years, due to Arthur’s actions, his Intermediates had enjoyed an existence comparable to that in the outside world. He was not going to apologize for that. He squared his shoulders.

“Well, what do you have to say?” the Chairman demanded.

“What’s going to happen to my people,” Arthur asked. He shook his finger at the Angel. “They deserve to go to Heaven – most of them.”

“And so they shall,” the Angel said blandly. “We’re interviewing them right now. When we’re done, the remaining wretches will descend into Hell with your miserable little Limbo.”

Surprising himself, Arthur felt a touch of sorrow, followed by a huge surge of relief. At least, most of his people were not going to suffer. “That’s good, he said. “Now I’m ready. Let’s get it over with.”

The Chairman blinked. “That’s all?” he said. “I don’t think you realize how serious this decision is.” He opened a folder on his desk and extracted a sheet of silver paper, etched with black letters. “We have never before allowed a failed Governor to ascend to Heaven, and, quite frankly, we were very reluctant to do so now. However,” he sighed, “it seems you have friends in high places. I shall read to the recommendation that was sent as we convened this hearing.” He peered at the silver sheet. “We,” he bellowed, “Being Angels in high standing in the realms of Heaven, level one, military sub-sector…” He paused. Sometimes I think that we exalt our military brethren a little too highly and a little too quickly. True, they have experienced Hell and emerged strong, but…”

“Get on with it,” a voice cried from the Devils’ benches, causing Arthur to turn his head sharply.

The Angel coughed. “We,” he began again, “being…” He hurried on as a couple of Devils spouted frustrated fire. “We hereby strongly recommend that Arthur Mossop, Governor of Limbo56, be admitted to the kingdom of heaven in view of his extraordinary efforts on behalf of his citizens, including the signatories below.” The Angel cleared his throat. “There are a whole number of good deeds attributed to you by the signatories, and since Angels cannot lie, I have to allow that you have impressed some first-class members of our community. This recommendation is signed by General Anthony Scott, DSO, - I won’t read the decorations, they all have too many, Wing Commander Jimmy Wheeler, Colonel Shadrach Jones, Sergeant Ernest Wheeler, and Corporal Harry Williams.

“No-one, the Angel said sententiously, has ever been recommended before. This goes against all precedent.” He sighed. “We Angels like good, clean tidy decisions. We do not like setting precedents. Indeed,” he continued. “If it were not for your sterling actions with regard to the Devils, we might still have ignored the petition.”

Here he was interrupted by one of the devils, who scrambled over the desk toward Arthur. “I’ll tear him to pieces,” the little devil said, breathing fire. “Let me at him, I’ll bend him like a pretzel.” The little Devil, held back by his peers, continued to struggle. “I almost had it,” he screeched. “I almost had his damned Limbo and all the souls in it. He snatched it away from me, and he stole some of my lost souls. I want to roast him.” Eventually the Devil calmed down, and sat, simmering with his fellows.

“I’m going to tear him apart and eat him.” The voice of the She-Devil was clear. “I had all of the Governors and most of the population ready to follow me down to Hell and he tricked me. I got away with one soul, one!” She leaned forward, shadowy face emerging from the hood. “I wish I had him down there right now. I know what I’d do with him.” And she winked.

After that, he was home free. The Angels tut-tutted, the Demons breathed a few ritual bursts of fire and the chamber emptied. Pauline and Jasper glanced at him before disappearing below.

Arthur sat in his rooms in Limbo56. The territory was empty, apart from him. All of the buildings, apart from the foundry, and the modest building that contained his dwelling had been razed. The population was gone, the few possessions dispersed, the foundry calmly waiting its descent into Hell. It was eerily quiet. “I had friends,” he murmured to himself. “Friends like Shadrach and Corporal Williams, the General, even Jimmy Wheeler and his father.” He chuckled. “Who would have thought that Jasper and Pauline would, at least once, do me a favour?” He sat musing on his hundred years. He had never dreamed, after that first awakening in Limbo, that he would succeed in ascending to Heaven. Of course, he would have gone earlier, but there were so many things to do. He couldn’t just leave the place to the ravages of the Devils. He tapped his fingers on his desk. “I have to go,” he said, and suddenly realized that he did not want to go. “A hundred years,” he thought bitterly. “I’ve been in training for a hundred years, and now I have to throw it all away.” He picked up his phone, pressed the red button for the third and last time, and called the Angels.

He was sitting in the cavernous Council Chamber, empty except for himself and the Chairman. He had prepared himself with every argument that he could think of, and had not stopped talking for an hour.

“Shut up,” the Chairman said, startling him. “I don’t want to hear any more.” He looked at Arthur balefully. “Do you want to go to Hell, or do you want to ascend to Heaven. Arthur sighed and pointed upwards. “Actually, we’re already at the heavenly level,” the Chairman said. “Well, at least you’re not completely insane.” He looked at Arthur. “What if we were to give you a really big Limbo, one where you would have to work really hard just to control the comings and goings of the population? Do you think you could handle it?”

“Absolutely,” Arthur told him.

“You speak Chinese, naturally,” the Chairman said. He chuckled. “And they say that we Angels have no sense of humor. No, they speak English in this particular Limbo – sort of.” He straightened his halo. “I have to warn you, you will be dealing with the most obstinate, arrogant bunch of Prima Dona half-sinners that you have ever met. It’s a place that has laid low better men than you.” He looked expectantly at Arthur.

“I’ll take it,” Arthur said hastily. “Er, where is it?”

“It’s a little place in the United States, called Los Angeles.” The Chairman said. “You’ll be taking care of the undead citizens of the City of the Queen of the Angels.”

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.04.2010

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