Read Online Hellhole by Gina Damico - Free Book Online Page B

why cut short your once-in-a-century getaway to earth? Sure, you
could
kill me and my mom and engulf the town in a blaze of hellfire, but there’s no point in doing all that right off the bat if you could instead luxuriate in all the junk food and video games you want. Pretty good gig, right? And all you have to do is follow my puny little human rules. Which, you know, are just so lame and so puny, right?”
    Burg let out a snort. “
So
puny.”
    â€œExactly. What do you think?”
    Burg stared at him for a moment. “I think that seems fair,” he said, taking off the apron and flopping it into Max’s hand. “As long as you really do make it feel like a vacation. And bring me all that stuff you just promised. And do the dishes,” he said, nodding at the pile of dirty pans he’d piled up on the stove.
    â€œGot it,” said Max, relieved. “I mean, I will.”
    â€œGood.” Burg grabbed his mug of pancake batter and started to make his way toward the basement door, then turned back to speak into Max’s ear. “Oh, and if that flowery little speech of yours was the best your negotiating skills can offer, you may want to read up on my kind. This ain’t my first barbecue, Shovel.”
    Max paled.
    â€œAnd don’t even
think
of locking that basement door,” Burg continued. “I laugh in the face of your locks. Hahaha! Ha!”
    He got halfway to the basement door before running back into the kitchen and sweeping the two syrup mavens into his arms. “I’m taking these ladies with me. I won’t elaborate on why.”
    Â 
    For the first time in his life, Max was riffling through a phone book.
    â€œI can’t believe people used to live like this,” he said, smearing ink on his sweaty fingers. Whatever electronic temper tantrum Burg had triggered the night before had not only knocked out all the phone lines in Max’s house—cell and land—but had extinguished the Internet connection on his crappy computer as well. And the library was closed on Sundays. So here Max was, back in the Stone Age, using the yellow pages at an old pay phone down the street to look up Satan Worshippers.
    Except that such a category did not exist. Nor did Devil Exterminators. Or Demonologists. The closest thing he could find to a paranormal solution was an ad for “Mythica’s Discount Clairvoyant Readings: Where P-S-Y-C-H-I-C spells S-A-V-I-N-G-S!”
    It was bad enough that he’d had to call Stavroula to say he wouldn’t be at work; she had not been pleased, for the first time muttering a “headaches and scoundrels” in which Max surmised that he was both the source of the headache and the scoundrel in question. With a frustrated grunt he tried to hurl the phone book to the ground, but since it was attached to the booth with a heavy cable, it happily swung back around and smacked him in the groin.
    Max limped down the sidewalk. He looked up at the sky and pleaded with the clouds, as if the answer might come from above.
    To his surprise, a heavenly chorus sounded.
    Grinning with bliss, he staggered forth, angelic voices calling him toward salvation.
    Â 
    Sneaking in through the back door of a church in the middle of services was probably not going to be earning him any brownie points with the guy upstairs, but Max was desperate. Besides, he wasn’t there to see Him anyway.
    â€œAudie!” Max whisper-yelled, ducking down behind the bleachers of the gospel choir. Luckily, she was in the back row, and luckily, the singers were belting and clapping too loudly for anyone to notice him. He pulled on the hem of her robe. “Audie!”
    She sank to her knees, the soprano section forming a satiny cocoon of noise around them. “Max? What are you doing here?”
    He ducked out of the way as a dancing foot swung perilously close to his head. “I need your help.”
    â€œI’m kind of in the middle of