The Ugly Kids: To Hell in a Handbasket

than Dug. Certainly Humankind would have noticed long ago!

  “I’ve had it with baskets!” the creature shouted furiously. “Get off my set! Now we have to clear the lava for the second time and set the collapsible ledge up again! If the schmuck destined for this set gets here while we’re working, I’ll get Hades himself to throw you in too!”

  A smaller creature with bat wings grabbed her arm and tugged her toward an exit that wasn’t visible until Lily was standing right in front of it.

  “Ignore him,” it was saying in a hissing voice as it perched on her shoulder. “Ogres are short tempered, but you can’t stay here either.”

  Then they were through the crevice.

  The inside was a madhouse. There was a roar from enormous bellows that were busily being pumped by strange creatures. Rock was melted to create lava. Large, bloated things were standing in clear-walled rooms with pipes leading to the surface, shoveling forkfuls of beans into their mouths and—

  That explains the sulfur, Lily thought to herself, wrinkling her nose and averting her eyes. Yuck.

  Small Goblins ran to and fro carrying boxes, barrels, and armfuls of cans or cloth. Birds and bats and fairies and all sorts of things above that Lily couldn’t identify were working too, painting what looked like the beginnings of a cavern ceiling.

  “I’m looking for a friend,” Lily said, finally talking to the little winged creature on her shoulder. “He’s a Human-looking Goblin. Short, pointy face, big feet...”

  “The first one who came in a basket,” the tiny thing nodded. “Sure. He came through here about ten minutes before you did.”

  “Where is he?” Lily asked, relieved.

  “I dunno.”

  “What?!” Lily demanded. “You said you saw him!”

  “I did,” the bat-winged little man agreed with a hiss. His tail twitched. “He took one look at Angor over there and ran. Never saw a Goblin move so quick. Goblins and Ogres don’t get on well, you see. He ran that way through the union lunch room.”

  Lily blinked with surprise. “Union?”

  “Yeah. Hades is a real penny-pincher, so we all had to get together and make a union. Shoulda seen the old days. We were lucky to get fed!”

  He puffed out his tiny green chest and showed Lily the little button that he wore on a string around his neck. It read, “Imp Jovan - Member of Hades Entreaty for Legitimate Labor.”

  “H.E.L.L.’s union?” Lily asked.

  “Yup!” the imp said, grinning with pointed teeth.

  “Do they own a certain kitchen up on Earth?” Lily asked, then suddenly changed tracks. “No, never mind. I have to find Gohber. Thanks for the help!”

  The Imp flapped off her shoulder. “Stay clear of Hades. Good luck, Miss Goblin.”

  Lily stared after him, half wanting to smack the little creature, but then she shook herself and began waddling hurriedly after Gohber, still fuming. The little Imp and the Ogre had thought she was a Goblin!

  There were only three creatures in the lunch room, and two of them took no notice of Lily. A third, however, did.

  “Miss, you can’t go in there without a union badge. Miss!” a tiny, old Human woman told her, tapping on her arm with a clipboard. “I have to ask you to leave.”

  “I’m looking for Gohber,” Lily explained. “Have you seen him?”

  “I don’t know what a gohber is,” said the woman. “Please leave.”

  “But I—”

  PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP!!

  The woman had put a tiny whistle to her lips and blown an ear-splitting blast on it. Lily put her hands over her ears and cringed.

  There were two black puffs of smoke, and hulking, grotesque, winged creatures appeared on either side of the old woman. Gargoyles, Lily realized, recognizing them from the eaves of old churches.

  “Take her where she belongs. It’s not here,” the woman said, tucking her pen into the bun on top of her head.

  “W-wait!” Lily cried. “I have to find—”

  There was another puff of thick, black smoke, and Lily started coughing, waving with one hand as the blackness dispersed.

  When it cleared, she could see she was standing between the two gargoyles in a quiet office. The regular metronome tick, tick, tick of a grandfather clock filled the air. Neat books lined the walls in bookcases, and a writing desk stood on a plush, blue carpet. It was all surprisingly normal, and for a moment, Lily wondered if she had been returned to Earth proper.

  “What is it this time?”

  A tall man was standing rather stiffly next to the desk. He had an average build with rounded shoulders and wore an interesting old suit with a long, dashing black cloak. The suit reminded Lily vaguely of Gohber’s. His eyes were dark and regarded Lily irritably, as if she was an ant that had intruded upon his picnic. His hair was long and black, swept back from his face, and he would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for the gaunt, unhealthy cast to his skin. The man looked like he had been on the verge of death for years.

  Lily opened her mouth to reply, but the gargoyles got there first. They snapped, hissed, growled, and grunted a story Lily couldn’t understand, and the man, who Lily assumed was Hades, nodded.

  “An escaped prisoner? Very well. Young Gobliness, we—”

  “Human!” Lily interrupted, annoyed. “And I didn’t escape!”

  Hades blinked with surprise, then leaned forward to examine her. “Well, you are rather large for a Gobliness. Young lady, we deal harshly with those who try to escape punishment for their crimes in life.”

  “But I didn’t—” Lily started.

  “Put her with the Danaids,” Hades said, waving a hand carelessly. “If you can fill your bath with the tools given to you, you can wash your worldly sins away and leave this place. Now go. I have a problem to tend to.”

  “What are—”

  POOF!

  There was more of the choking black smoke, and Lily was coughing again. She heard the sound of running water, quick footfalls, and cries of dismay.

  When her vision cleared, she saw many young women, perhaps nearly fifty of them, all running back and forth between a river and some of those old, wooden baths. There was one bath for each woman. They all looked haggard and exhausted, and as they ran, most of the water was sloshing to the ground. On closer inspection though, Lily realized that they had each been given a sieve to carry water in.

  Lily herself was standing in an empty tub of her own. There was a sieve at her feet, just like the other women’s.

  “You have to be kidding me,” Lily muttered.

  She picked up the sieve and looked through it. The holes in the tool were so large that she wouldn’t get far before all the water drained out! She would be here forever!

  “But I only have an hour!” Lily shouted upward to whoever was listening. There was no response.

  With a noise of frustration and an uncharacteristic temper, she threw down the sieve. If she ever managed to get out of this Hell, she would be eaten and probably sent right back to Hades! Why was it always something with these Goblins?! She still had to find Gohber too! Even if they didn’t make it in time for dinner, she couldn’t just leave the little guy down here all alone. Not that she would have minded. It was just that Tog and Gohber’s other brothers would take the opportunity to “court” her every chance they got!

  One of the young women paused by her, panting for breath.

  “You’d better...start working,” she gasped, her beautiful face shining with sweat and her hair hanging limply, “or Hades...will find...a worse...punishment!”

  Lily opened her mouth to ask questions, but the woman was already off and running back to the river.

  She watched them for a few minutes, then picked up the sieve and examined it again. She couldn’t sit and wait for Hades to reappear. If he reappeared. He might just assign those gargoyles to drop her off at some circle of Hell or another. She had to get out of here now.

  “What if I...”

  Lily reached down and tore
the hem of her dress off. Then she waddled over to the river.

  “Hey!” she called out to the other women there. “Help me fill my bath, and I’ll show you how to fill yours!”

  All forty-nine of them froze and slowly turned to look at her.

  “She’s lying,” one said.

  “She might not be,” said another.

  “Show us,” said a third, stepping toward Lily.

  Lily hesitated, realizing that she had no way to force them to hold up their end of the bargain, then shrugged. It couldn’t be helped.

  Slowly, she wadded up the torn hem of her dress, put it in the bottom of the sieve to clog the holes, then filled the sieve. The water drained much more slowly as she huffed her way back to the bath and dumped maybe half the water in. She squeezed more out of the cloth too, then went back to the river.

  Slowly, the Danaids grinned, then laughed with all the enthusiasm and raw joy of freed madwomen. As one, they tore off the hems of their garments and rushed to the edge of the river.

  At first, Lily thought they would run right back to their own tubs, but they ran to Lily’s instead, and in mere minutes, it was filled.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily apologized as they ran back to their own. “I’d stay to help, but...”

  She trailed off when she realized that they had already forgotten her.

  With a shrug, she stepped into the bath and dunked herself.

  There was a swirl of black smoke, but Lily was ready for it this time. She held her breath until it cleared, then stood sopping wet in front of a furious Hades, dripping all over his office floor. She squeezed her hair out onto the thick carpet. It looked expensive too.

  The ruler of the underworld threw up his pallid hands as he shouted at her, “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!”

  “I—”

  “You’ve just sent forty-nine women who murdered their own husbands to the Asphodel Meadows!! Murderers! In the Asphodel Meadows where all the decent, relatively unremarkable people go! Do you know the kind of havoc they will wreak there?! And how am I supposed to accommodate such a large unscheduled transfer on such short notice?! You’ve caused a logistics nightmare!!!”

  “But I just want—”

  “You want, you want, you want! You mortals always think about yourselves! Well, I wanted to go get a pedicure from the damned souls with foot phobias! Do you think that’s going to happen now?! NO!”

  Lily’s hands tightened into fists, and she patiently tried again. “I have less than an hour! I have to—”

  “NOTHING!” Hades shouted furiously at her. “NOTHING! You are dead! That’s why you’re here! You are mine now, and you are becoming more than a mere annoyance! You can push a rock for eternity if it will keep you out of my sight!”

  “But—”

  Hades flicked a hand, and Lily gagged on black smoke once more.

  When the smoke cleared, Lily was standing on a seemingly endless plain that terminated in an enormous hill nearby. She had been left next to a huge boulder that was almost as big as Lily herself!

  There was grunting and tense breathing from not far away, reminding her of the time she had walked into the bathroom while old Mrs. P., her teacher, had been straining. Lily had quickly tiptoed out that time and found another bathroom.

  A man was several meters from her, trying to push a boulder up the hill. It looked like hard work. His legs shook, and his wiry muscles strained, but the rock was moving.

  The boulder had almost crested the top of the hill before it slipped from the man’s grasp, rolled slightly sideways like it had a mind of its own, then thundered down the slope back the way it had come, landing at the bottom with an impressive thud.

  The man let out an exhausted groan, then trudged downward toward Lily to try again.

  “No, I’ve had it,” Lily said to whoever was listening behind this set. “I’m out of here. I’d love to sit here and push a rock up a hill, but I do not have time for this.”

  She turned around and started walking away from the hill, but she ran smack into the boulder she had just walked away from.

  “Ow!”

  She rubbed her nose and tears filled her eyes, but she looked behind herself. There was open plain as far as the eye could see. In front of her was the boulder and hill.

  She turned around again. There was the boulder and hill. Now the plains were in the other direction.

  Lily scowled, checking that her nose wasn’t broken. It wasn’t.

  Obviously, she wasn’t allowed to just walk away from these punishments.

  The man was already chasing his boulder down the hill a second time, and now Lily called out, “Hey! Who are you?”

  He paused as if just noticing her, and only then did Lily notice that he looked to be around her father’s age.

  “Sysiphus,” he said, leaning on his boulder and wiping sweat tiredly from his brow. “Once a king, but now only Sysiphus. You must have annoyed Hades pretty badly to be here with me.”

  Lily raised an eyebrow in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  Sysiphus laughed in a maniacal sort of way. “Oh, I was a thorn in his side too. I tricked his precious Thanatos (you know, the guy who walks around with robes and a scythe to claim souls). A few times actually. I humiliated him, captured the guy in his own chains...that was fun. No one could die, but we had the time of our lives. Thanatos is into that sort of thing, you know. Then Hades found out that Thanatos was um...indisposed, and next thing you know, I’m an inconvenience. So he sends me here. I’m told people think Zeus wanted me dead, but that’s not the real story. Hades just wanted Thanatos all to himself. I’m waiting for Hades’ wife to find out.”

  Lily stared at Sysiphus, blinking several times. “I...really didn’t want to know all that,” she said slowly. She turned away and began examining her boulder and eyeing the hill.

  “What are you here for?” Sysiphus asked, going back to his own rock.

  “I freed the women who were filling baths with sieves.”

  “Oh,” Sysiphus nodded knowingly, looking a little impressed. “The Daughters of Danaus. Hades was particularly proud of that one, but it usually takes more for him to send me company. Sounds like he’s annoyed at something. Maybe Dionysus gave him some bad wine.”

  Lily was examining the hill closely. It was very steep, but not that high.

  “Does the rock slip every time you get it close to the top?” she asked.

  Sysiphus smiled in a glum sort of way. “That’s how it works, yes. I’ve tried everything, but if I don’t push the boulder for long, it becomes hard to breathe, which is worse than pushing. You’d better get to work too.”

  Sysiphus started heaving against the rock again, apparently done talking.

  Lily sighed. While she could probably move the rock up the hill, what was the point if it would just roll back down again? She had no time for that!

  She pulled off one of her heeled shoes and began digging in the soft, fertile soil of the hill with the heel.

  Sysiphus stopped to watch and was nearly flattened by his boulder, so he went back to pushing instead.

  Lily dug a shallow line up the hill, then stamped down on it to make an indentation in the earth. Removing the covering of grass alone had made a decent sized trough. Then she dug the line again, making a bowl-shaped indentation at the top. By that time, her dress was filthy and it was becoming hard to breathe, as Sysiphus had warned, so she waddled back to the boulder and heaved.

  It dropped into the trough, and Lily shoved harder, trying to gain some speed so that going up the hill would be easier.

  It worked.

  The boulder almost flew up the trough in the hillside, teetered on the edge of the bowl indentation like it was thinking of falling to the side, then fell flat inside it.

  Sysiphus was looking at her in sheer joy. “You did it! Now I—”

  This time Lily heard the words before the smoke cleared.

  “YOU! You’ve just set free a disgustingly deviant serial m
urderer! Do you have any idea how many travelers and guests he killed?! He kidnapped poor Thanatos and did unspeakable things to him that were never written down, but all through Greece, people chuckled over it! Chuckled! I gave each one of them a year of unstoppable laughter for each time they laughed at it! And you freed that monster by showing him how to push the boulder up the hill!”

  The smoke finally dissipated, and Lily held up her hands defensively toward a livid Hades who was fuming with curled fists. “I didn’t know he had killed anyone!” she protested. “I just want to find—”

  “DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THERAPY THANATOS WENT THROUGH AFTER THAT?!” Hades shrieked.

  “I’m guessing a lot?” Lily replied warily. “But—”

  “YES! It was a full century before he was right again! Sysiphus had Thanatos on a chain leash and took him for walks, and...never mind. I’ve something special in mind for you. Begone!”

  He waved his hand, and black smoke choked Lily again, but almost instantly, she felt cool, refreshing liquid around her ankles dragging the hem of her cucumber dress against them.

  When she had stopped coughing and wiped the tears from her stinging eyes, she looked around.

  She was standing in a shallow river with a man who looked very unhappy. He was standing with a hanging head, looking longingly down at the water. Every now and then, he would look up at the boughs of an overhanging tree which were laden with the most beautiful and delicious looking fruit Lily had ever seen. The man seemed completely indifferent to Lily’s sudden appearance.

  Lily opened her mouth to ask the man who he was, but an unbearable thirst and hunger suddenly overtook her. Her throat felt parched like she had become one of those fast-talking livestock auctioneers, and her stomach rumbled as if she had been trying to survive on Gohber’s dumpster cooking for a week.

  She reached up to grab some of the fruit, but the bough was yanked away from her grasp, as if the tree itself was alive and teasing her. She was reminded of the bullies at school who had held Gohber’s yo-yo over his head and laughed while he tried to jump for it.

  Desperately thirsty, she dipped downward to scoop up some water, but it was like someone had shut off a valve somewhere. The water instantly stopped flowing, and Lily was left standing on a completely dry riverbed.

  “What kind of sick, twisted person does this?!” demanded Lily aloud in frustration.

  “Hades,” moaned the other person who was standing in the river. He didn’t even spare her a glance. “And writers. They think it’s poetic.”

  He tried to spit in disgust, but he didn’t seem to have the moisture in his mouth to do it. It was just as well, Lily figured. She was downstream from him and didn’t want spit floating around her legs.

  “I don’t have time for this!” Lily tried to cry, but it came out as a parched croak. “I have to find Gohber! There’s not much time!”

  “You cannot leave,” the man sighed, longingly staring at the fruit above.

  “Watch me.”

  Lily turned and stomped toward the riverbank, splashing water everywhere, though none of it even came close to her lips.

  She walked for several moments, but soon it became apparent that she was no closer to the riverbank than when she had begun.

  Lily wasn’t a violent girl, but with all the trials Hades had put her through, the pressure from Gohber’s family, and the trouble Gohber himself was, she couldn’t hold back. Her temper was slow to rise, but her patience had finally been worn thin, and she allowed herself a short tantrum. She cursed and splashed around for a good five minutes before she got herself under control again.

  The man just watched her mournfully, as if it was convenient to have something take his attention off the fruit and water for a short time.

  “Alright,” Lily finally said, breathing hard. “Every time I ruin one of Hades’ punishments, I get brought to his office. This time, he is going to listen.”

  Her stomach rumbled loudly.

  “Hah!” the man said, barking a laugh. “He is not known for his patience.”

  Furious at Hades, Gohber, and Gohber’s family, Lily ignored him.

  She reached down, and the water receded again, but Lily was not trying to get a drink this time. Instead, she tore off another strip from her dress, leaving the cucumber dress, which had once been a long, elegant gown, at knee-height.

  “Thirsty?” Lily asked the man, who was watching her with mild curiosity now.

  “That does not begin to describe it.”

  Lily stood straight, and the river began to flow again, rising to her thighs. Without bending down, Lily let the strip of fabric hang in the water, then hauled it up. It was soaked with water.

  She tossed the wet fabric at the man. “Then drink!”

  The man stared down at the wet cloth in his hands as if wondering why he had never thought to do that, then he lifted the cloth to his dry, cracked lips and drank greedily.

  Lily though, was already eyeing the fruit-laden branch above.

  “Okay, Hades,” she muttered to herself. “You asked for it.”

  She reached into her purse and fished out Gohber’s red yo-yo. She unraveled the string from around it and began swinging the red plastic in a circle.

  As she worked, the man in the river was already using the strip of fabric to get himself more water.

  Finally, Lily tossed the yo-yo upward, holding onto the string end.

  She missed the first two times, but on the third try, the yo-yo hooked itself around a thin branch and held.

  Surprised, the tree tried to yank the fruit out of reach, but Lily held on tightly to the yo-yo string and yanked back.

  The branch snapped with a sound like crinkling plastic wrap, and Lily caught it as it fell. Above, the tree swayed to and fro with the sudden release, almost as if it were angry at her.

  Well, good, Lily thought, satisfied, as she tossed the fruit to the man too. Let it be angry. This is completely unfair!

  The man had already begun to eat ravenously when the familiar black smoke surrounded Lily. The intense thirst and hunger that had overtaken her left as quickly as they had come.

  Before the choking air had even begun to dissipate, Lily heard the familiar voice of Hades.

  “Do you know what you have done?! That was Tantalus! He killed his son and tried to feed him to the gods! Cannibalism, murder, infanticide! And you released him! What are you?! You’ve ruined my most torturous punishments! You’ve let fifty-one undeserving killers out of Tartarus and into the Asphodel Meadows! Olympus is furious with me!”

  Lily opened her mouth to finally argue, but the smoke cleared, and she finally saw the lord of the underworld. He looked more frazzled than before, with bits of hair sticking out and a sheen of cold sweat on his brow.

  Hades surprised her by grabbing her shoulders and pleading in the most pitiful voice Lily had ever heard, “My records don’t show that you are a damned soul. My boatman doesn’t recall you. Who are you?! Who has sent you to torment me?! What manner of evil creature are you?! Just go away! Please! I beg of you! Return from whence you came!”

  Finally, Lily managed to gather her wits and get some words out.

  “My...boyfriend...” she said, cringing at the word, “was sent here in a handbasket by his brother who wants to be rid of him. I was told to retrieve him, or I would be eaten by his family. Even if they don’t eat me, I’ll have his nine Goblin brothers trying to court me if I don’t return with him. That’s worse than anything you could do to me.”

  Hades stared at her, completely at a loss.

  “Look,” Lily went on, suddenly feeling a little sorry for this obviously work-worn god. “Gohber is a Goblin. A very small one with tan skin, green eyes, black hair. He’s got a pointy face, and—”

  Hades lifted a hand to silence her, then shut the door to his office, turning a key in the lock.

  “This is quite embarrassing,” he said after a moment. “If you swear never to speak of it, I will return your Gohber to you immediate
ly. Somehow.”

  Lily’s heart leaped! She might not get eaten after all!

  “Yes, I promise!” she said