4. This Road Ain’t Paved With Good Intentions

“This must be a prank…”

Welcome to Hell…

It was at around that time that Jonathan’s more recent and, needless to say, more traumatic memories left their place of hiding and chose just that moment to flood his mind’s eye. After sitting there, mouth ajar, eyes wide, for several minutes, John’s ability to think coherently slowly returned, and with it the most natural reaction.

“That bitch!”

That’s what he tried to say, anyway. But, for a reason completely beyond his understanding, the words that came out of his mouth were;

“That blossom!”

A pause, and then, after clearing his throat;

“That bubble!”

A second pause, this one longer, with a slightly more violent clearing of the throat.

“That buttercup!”

It was at this point that he decided something other than his throat was very, very wrong. He could shout all the swears he wanted inside his head, but every time he tried to say one out loud, it came out as some completely random, and utterly harmless, word instead.

“…what the fudge… why did I just say fudge? Fiddle. Fritz. Funk! Foible!”

“Sir,” the driver’s voice piped through the intercom; “With all due respect, I do not believe you will succeed in cursing, no matter how many times you make the attempt.”

“What the Halibut’s happened to me?” John demanded, twitching ever so slightly as yet another attempted curse came out mangled. “I’m trying to swear, but every time I try to say arsenic or Chris… assistance or crumple… Aspen or cream… well, you see my problem?!”

“It’s quite normal, sir.”

“How is it normal?” John could feel his voice starting to rise again as he bellowed; “How in the Helium could this be fiddling normal? Is there something in the air that’s screwing with my head?”

“All will be revealed shortly, sir. Please brace yourself.”

“Brace my-?”

The limo came to a sudden, abrupt halt, neatly sending poor Jonathan hurling across the limo’s interior. Landing in a crumpled ball near the tinted glass separating him from the driver, he managed to reach up with one shaking hand, tapping the window.

“D-driver? Why did we stop…?”

“This is your stop, sir.”

Managing to painfully lift his head a few inches above his shoulders, all he could see out the limo’s windows were several dull gray buildings, each and every one virtually identical to the other, unless you counted the amount of grime and disrepair each had. On the sidewalks, several people wandered, a few occasionally glancing curiously at the limo, but usually carrying on their less-than-merry way.

“…but where is this place?”

“There is no name for it, sir, but this is nonetheless where you must disembark.”

Moving painfully back to his seat, John shook his head; “Oh, no, you are not dumping me out here, in the middle of nowhere, with a bizarre pamphlet and some sort of speech impediment… I want you to take me to your boss, and I want you to take me to him right now. I’m not leaving this seat until you do.”

Rather than reply verbally, the driver simply turned on the limo’s rear fans.

The fans that he had claimed were broken, and when John was exposed to them, he had to admit the man probably had only been half lying.

The smell that had consistently doused the car, but faded somewhat with the open windows, immediately began to intensify; John attempted to resist this obvious ploy, but it wasn’t very long before he was fumbling with the door (which, naturally, was locked for some ridiculous reason,) and all but tumbling outside of the limo, retching and clutching his throat.

With a squeal of tires, the limo took off down the road, nearly striking three pedestrians, and actually grazing one hard enough to send him spinning into a conveniently placed dumpster with a sharp cry.

“You grapedropping, mother furnishing son of a birch tree!” Jonathan yelled, lying on his back on the side of the road, still hacking as he worked to clear the stench from his nostrils. Rolling onto his stomach and climbing to his feet, John did his best to wipe some of the additional grit and grime that had accumulated on his clothing, giving up after maybe ten seconds. By this time, he could see that all the pedestrians appeared to have vacated the premises; he was nearly ready to give up and pick a random direction when a thought struck him.

Limping slightly, he hurried over to the dumpster the struck man had fallen in, plugging his nose as a small not-quite-as-offensive as the limo, but near enough, wafted from the opening. For all he knew, this was some other situation that could go horribly, horribly wrong, but at the same time the possibility of finding someone who could answer a few of his urgent questions proved too great a temptation to resist.

Stopping about three feet from the dumpster (he wasn’t interested in putting his poor nostrils through too much torture,) John cleared his throat, looking to either side of him to make absolutely certain this was his only option.

“Um… hello? Hello in there?” he finally called hesitantly, standing up on tip-toe as he tried to see inside the large metal container.

There was a lengthy pause, after which a similarly uncertain voice called back; “Hello?”

“Hi! Hi there. Er… are you all right?” Scratching his jaw and casting another glance about, Jonathan took another step closer to the dumpster, trying to breathe as little as possible.

“Well,” the voice called back, tinged with mild irritation; “Let’s see. I’ve been hit by a limo and knocked into a dumpster, so I’m a lot of pain. On the bright side, I don’t actually have a physical body, which means I’m not actually hurt. Unfortunately, that also means that there aren’t any actual painkillers to dull it down…”

“Well, I have a bottle of Advil here…” John began, opening his box.

“No! Throw the gumdarting thing away! Quick!”

“Wait, what?” John sputtered, taking a couple of steps back; “Why should I do that?”

“Sonny, let me tell you something, you can literally spent the rest of eternity working at that bottle. You’ll get broken fingernails, chipped teeth, foil cuts on your skin, but you will never in ten thousand years get a single Advil pill. Trust me, chuck it ‘fore you make your existence all the more miserable.”

Not willing to get rid of one of his few possessions so quickly, John nonetheless didn’t try opening the Advil bottle, placing it back in the box; “Well, is there anything I can do, then?”

A grimy hand jutted up from the dumpster; “Help me outta this thing.”

Wincing, John asked; “Do I really have to?”

“You’re new meat here, I’m guessin’. You probably want to know what’s goin’ on ‘bout these parts. I have the info you need, but I ain’t sayin’ sailor ‘bout furniture ‘less you get me out o’ this pile o’ crab.” The hand waggled slightly; “Well?”

Sighing, holding his breath fully, Jonathan stepped forward, taking the offered hand and tugging the disheveled older man out of the trash. Dressed in a stained woolen sweater and cargo pants, the man ran a greasy hand through graying hair and blinked, dark eyes squinting slightly at Jonathan.

“Thanks, boyo.” Releasing John’s hand and wiping it somewhat pointlessly against his pant leg, he added; “Name’s Richard. Don’t much remember my last name, though, ain’t that funny?”

“Um… Jonathan,” Clearing his throat and retreating far enough from Richard so that his smell became less offensive, he asked; “So, I suppose you also… died? And came down here?”

“Eh, technically,” Richard replied with a small shrug, tugging a banana peel off his shoulder and tossing it in the dumpster.

“…what do you mean, ‘technically?’” A low sinking feeling settled in Jonathan’s stomach, a feeling that told him things were about to get even more complicated.

“Well, if you want to get specific about it,” Richard replied with a toothy grin; “I’m a fallen angel.”