23 • LOST AND HOUND
ONCE AGAIN, MILTON and Virgil found themselves riding the old wooden swells of Blimpo’s hallways—their legs aching from multiple DREADmill sessions—on another midnight raid of Hambone Hank’s Heart Attack Shack.
On this outing, the hallway was graveyard quiet: no deep snores, no garbled sleep-talking, just a thick silence.
Milton waved for Virgil to stop while he peeked into the tin shed through the take-out window. Inside was … a whole lot of nothing. No sleeping chef (thankfully) but (unthankfully) no soul jars—either of the lost or Make-Believe Play-fellow variety. Hambone’s cooking cauldron was missing, too. Milton crinkled his drawn-on brows.
“No one’s here,” he whispered to Virgil. “It’s like the place was cleaned out—”
The boys heard a steady tink-tink sound coming from the kitchen. Milton crept around the shack—barely squeezing past it, considering his inflated self—and discovered a nondescript, unmarked door. He carefully opened it and found that it led to Chef Boyareyookrazee’s kitchen. The tink-tink was the lid on Hambone Hank’s simmering cauldron. Surrounding the cast-iron pot were dozens of Lost Soul jars and several small tubs of what looked like lard.
“Virgil,” Milton whispered, beckoning him over. “There are more jars in here, but I don’t see any of the—”
Something grabbed Milton by the wrist and pulled him inside the kitchen.
“So you’re the one who has been tampering with my recipe!” Hambone Hank snarled from behind his surgical mask while waving a meat cleaver with his free hand. Milton was transfixed by the cook’s deep, familiar eyes: so sad and—fittingly—soulful.
“I don’t appreciate backseat cooks throwing in new ingredients. In fact, they can easily become ingredients, if you get my meaning.”
The butcher’s knife hovered over Hambone Hank’s cloaked head, trembling as if deciding which of Milton’s limbs to sever. Milton only hoped that his Pang suit would protect him from the mad cook’s inaugural “chop.”
“Milton!” Virgil cried from the doorway. “Are you okay?”
Milton laughed despite himself. “Do I look okay? Get out of here! Now!”
Hambone Hank’s eyes bore into Milton’s.
“Wait!” he barked.
Still holding him snugly by the wrist, the tall, slender creature sniffed Milton up and down, especially down.
“Um …,” Milton said as Hambone Hank sniffed the back of Milton’s pants, “this is awkward.”
Hambone Hank let go of Milton’s wrist.
“Run, Milton, run!” Virgil cried.
“It really is you,” the cook murmured in a smooth rumble.
Milton rubbed his wrist. He noticed that the back of Hambone Hank’s black robe was … wagging. The cook took off his mask, revealing a long, wet nose, and slipped off his hood.
“Annubis!” Milton cried.
The regal dog god—whom Milton had last seen ingesting his gelatinous colleague in Limbo’s Assessment Chamber—smiled a mouthful of sharp white canine teeth.
“Why are you wearing this costume?” Annubis asked. “Its smell confuses me.”
Milton grinned. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied, “about the costume, I mean. Virgil, it’s okay … come on in.”
Virgil hesitated in the doorway.
“Sure,” he yammered. “It’s just that I’m more of a … cat person.”
“Aah, I see,” Annubis said in his dignified baritone. “You are here in hopes of freeing your friend. You have a lot of nerve for someone who doesn’t belong in Heck.”
“How can you tell that I don’t belong?” Milton asked.
Annubis smiled and tapped his paw-hand to his snout.
“The nose knows. Your soul smells … good. A smell something like your human Froot Loops. Not that boiled-cabbage/rotten-tooth smell most of the other boys bring with them.”
The steady tink-tink of the simmering cauldron reminded Milton of why he was here in the first place.
“Why are you, of all creatures, here, doing … this?” Milton asked as he surveyed the soul jars littering the floor.
The tail from beneath Annubis’s robe drooped. His eyes grew wet, and his snout grew dry. He sat down on a container of lard.
“It all started when you jammed Ms. Mallon’s rib into my associate Ammit.”
Milton gulped. Uh-oh, he thought guiltily, I never thought how that would affect Annubis.
“I didn’t think that you …,” Milton said apologetically.
Annubis raised his paw-hand for Milton to be silent.
“Ammit had it coming, I assure you,” the dog god replied. “Actually, it was your sister’s terrible singing that drove me to the brink, though I still check in with Bones Anonymous every once in a while to keep my weakness in check.”
“In any case,” Milton offered, “on behalf of the Fausters, I’m sorry.”
Annubis folded his lean forearms together.
“Even in Heck, eating your coworkers is frowned upon. The Powers That Be Evil removed me from my post and—unbeknownst to me at the time—took my family down to—”
Annubis shivered.
“The Kennels.”
“The Kennels?” Milton repeated, twisting the words up at the end to make them a question.
“A Heck for animals, of sorts.”
“There’s a Heck for animals?” Virgil asked incredulously. “But … why? I didn’t even know that, no offense, animals had souls.”
“Or why they would be darned for all eternity, just for following their instincts,” Milton added.
Annubis smiled the mysterious grin of a dog.
“The same could be said for you humans, too,” he replied. “Let me just say that, like everything else down here, the Furafter is … complicated. But, yes, animals do have souls, I assure you. All life does. It’s just a matter of degree. So my lovely wife, Anput, and my daughter, Kebauet, are …”
Annubis whimpered softly to himself.
“Caged … in the Kennels. I can almost smell their despair. Principal Bubb said that if I ever wanted to see them again, I would have to work for a year in the Pitch-Black Market, as a cur-rier.”
“I knew Principal Bubb was behind this!” Milton spat.
Annubis gave a quick shake of his head. “Yes and no,” he replied. “Principal Bubb turned me over to the underbelly of the underworld, but even she does not know of my ultimate role.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Milton asked. “Why does Blimpo want you to feed souls to students? You of all people … creatures … should know …”
Annubis hung his head low in shame. “Yes, that is the problem … I do know. And it has brought me no end of misery. The vice principals want the students to gain weight—soul weight—so that they never lose any in the DREADmills. I suspect that they are using the machines not only to power Blimpo—an illegal exploitation of resources, even in the underworld—but also to sell off the remaining energy to other realms. But that is all I know. I’m sure the plot goes higher, or lower as the case may be.”
Milton stared at the bubbling cauldron.
“Who forces you to make the batches?” Milton asked.
Annubis clutched a black collar around his throat. A metal box was fused to the neckband.
“Chef Boyareyookrazee possesses my pink slip, as it were. And, if threatening my family ever loses its grip on my every waking—and dreaming—thought, he’s got me, quite literally, by the throat with this shock collar.”
Virgil shook his head. “Whoa, this is a lot to swallow,” he commented, turning to Milton. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? Last time I saw him, he stuck his paws in my chest and yanked out my soul.”
Annubis’s lips curled into a faint smile.
“Actually, the base of the brain and the upper back. You are wise to be suspicious. But the proof is in the pudding.”
Annubis walked toward a vat of congealed blood pudding. He plunged his paw-hand into the tub and emerged with a photograph: a beautiful Weimaraner woman with sleek, silver fur and a pup chewing blissfully on a Nylabone.
“I reasoned that the safest place to keep my mementos was in Chef Boyareyookrazee’s cuisine,” Annubis continued, “especially since no one is forced to eat it now, thanks to my barbecue.”
Milton scratched his borrowed head.
“But that’s the problem,” Milton said. “Why we switched the souls last night with those of Make-Believe Play-fellows. To save the souls. The real ones.”
Annubis’s normally regal posture drooped.
“I have been doing my best to use the souls sparingly,” he relayed with remorse. “But it’s the lost souls that give the soul food its … well, soul. I discovered your switch as I was forced to prepare my latest batch, and I assumed it was some trick to test my loyalty. As if anyone would have to test a dog god’s loyalty. Anyway, I did cut the recipe with some of the Make-Believe Play-fellows, which managed to reduce the soul content considerably—”
“And, unfortunately, the flavor,” added Virgil mournfully.
Milton rubbed his disgusting rubbery face. “You’ve got to know that, no matter what you do for them, they’re never going to let you or your family go,” Milton said soberly.
Annubis stared at his sandaled feet. “But I signed a contract that specifically fixed my indentured tenure at one year….”
“Where did you sign it?”
Milton shook his head.
“In Limbo—where time has no meaning.”
Annubis had what could only be referred to as a hangdog expression on his face.
“Ouch,” Virgil muttered. “She just threw you to the dogs.”
Milton glared at Virgil, then edged close to Annubis, patting him on the back and slowly moving down his spine until finding his scritchy spot. The dog god’s left leg moved uncontrollably.
“What we need to do is shake things up down here, give the fat cats a flea dip,” Milton soothed. “Then, in the confusion, we get you out of here to rescue your family.”
“Please stop,” Annubis implored, his leg flailing about.
“Sorry,” Milton said, leaving Annubis to lick his paw-hand and smooth down his fur until he regained his sleek, dignified composure.
“You are right,” the dog god growled, rising, his hackles raised. “I was a fool for thinking they could be trusted.”
“But what can we do?” Virgil said with distress, his voice hitting a register that made Annubis’s ears flutter.
“First, we take off that collar,” Milton said.
Annubis held up his paw-hands, which—while perfect for extracting souls—lacked the facility for complex tasks such as undoing the difficult shock-collar latch behind one’s own neck.
Milton stepped behind Annubis, who got down on his knees and held his head low while Milton worried the latch. After a few moments, he got it loose.
“There,” Milton said as he held out the cruel device in front of him. “We’ll need to find something to replace it with, though, so Chef Boyareyookrazee doesn’t notice.”
Annubis scanned the kitchen, settling on a hamper overflowing with soiled laundry beneath a chute.
“There should be something in there,” he said, motioning toward the mound of dirty clothes.
“That is so unsanitary!” Milton said with disgust as he sifted through the collection of dirty laundry. “Why would anyone collect filthy underwear right next to where food is prepared….”
Annubis smirked.
“Oh, right,” Milton continued. “We’re in Heck. I keep foolishly expecting a shred of logic or decency down here. My bad. Oh wait … here we go.”
Milton exhumed what he prayed was a sock garter that looked something like Annubis’s shock collar. He wadded the original collar in a pair of black bikini briefs, then stuffed it down in the hamper.
Virgil grabbed a dark gray Brillo pad from the sink. “This kind of looks like the shock box.”
Milton, with a little ingenuity and a lot of lentil casserole as fixative, was able to fashion a reasonable facsimile. He secured it around the dog god’s neck.
“Okay,” Milton said, eyeing his handiwork. “Next up, your new recipe—do you think using solely the souls of Make-Believe Play-fellows could work?”
Annubis opened a larder above the deep fryer. Inside were dozens of Make-Believe Play-fellows, quivering with dreamy curiosity inside their jars as the culinary artist formerly known as Hambone Hank inspected them.
“I think so,” he said, rubbing his bristly chin thoughtfully with his paw. “They will definitely be lighter, due to their weak etheric composition. At least there should be less navel residue.”
“Navel residue?” Virgil replied. “You mean that gunk in our belly buttons is because of your barbecue?”
“Yes.” Annubis nodded. “The souls, specifically. The navel is an umbilical scar … the cord through which we initially receive our souls. The souls themselves remember and leave behind a faint, ectoplasmic residue. These Make-Believe souls, however …”
He sniffed the jar with his keen, wet nose.
“Amazing. Energy molded by pure imagination. The flavor is weak, rather like using imitation butter instead of real butter, but—even though it’s a tall order—I’ve become quite the short-order cook.”
Milton clapped his hands together. Virgil winced, half-expecting his friend to yell “gym dandy.”
Milton grinned. It was amazing how, when a puzzling problem evolved into a problematic puzzle, his mind gained clarity and confidence. He had purpose. And he had friends.
Milton put his arm around Annubis.
“Every dog has his day, my friend, and you are about to get yours.”