Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale E. Basye Page A

Bea “Elsa” Bubb’s office, like a fuzzy white eel swimming in a shallow pond. He sniffed Cerberus’s filthy velvet dog bed and nearly fainted. It was an assault to such a delicate instrument as Lucky’s nose. Just beneath the stench was another smell, a familiar smell, a friendly smell.
    The ferret skittered toward Principal Bubb’s file cabinet that, lucky for Lucky, had been left slightly open.
    Lucky slid inside and sniffed his way through the folders until he found the scent of his tall, hairless pet, Milton. At that moment, he heard the door creak open, followed by the heavy thump of hooves and the padding of paws. Lucky wasn’t a creature of exceptional thought, but what he did think, he thought quickly. He grabbed Milton’s contract with his sharp little teeth and began to chew…until he felt a pair of jaws—perhaps two pairs—seize his furry tail.

14 · SCIENCE FRICTION
    THE AIR SEEMED dead, Milton thought as he watched his teacher prepare today’s experiment. Stale, like the hot breath of a car left in the parking lot on a summer’s day. Maybe he didn’t even need to breathe anymore, Milton mused as he tried to free his arm, wedged between his torso and the sharp metal arms of his uncomfortably small desk chair.
    Suddenly the air was filled with a sharp, sweet tang. It was a gross, saccharine, sugary smell, like dozens of overly glazed doughnuts locked away in a tomb for a million years then suddenly exhumed. Milton’s ears popped as an explosive gurgle of foam shot out of a beaker on the teacher’s desk.
    The sickly, bearded teacher jumped back and scratched his head. “Hmm…perhaps I went a little nuts with the high-octane corn syrup.”
    He sat up and scraped his name on the blackboard with his fingernail. “My name is Dr. Pemberton,” he stated in a strange, hollow voice, “and I am your chemistry teacher.” Dr. Pemberton coughed and smirked.
    â€œLet’s start off our class with a little joke. What do you do with dead chemists?”
    He searched the empty gray faces of his students.
    â€œBarium!”
    Dr. Pemberton grinned hopefully, but all he got were blank stares and stifled yawns.
    â€œGet it?
Bury ’em.
And because barium chloride is used in chemistry as a reagent in the preparation of…Oh never mind.”
    The teacher shook his head in exasperation, then turned to his chalkboard. As Dr. Pemberton leaned over to grab a stick of chalk, the side of his lab smock widened, and Milton saw a large, gaping wound where the man’s stomach should have been. Apparently Milton wasn’t the only student to notice.
    â€œWhat happened to your belly?” asked a boy with a bandaged hand who was not just big for his age but for
anyone’s
age.
    â€œMaybe you ate it,” snorted a short, redheaded thug to Milton’s left. The class dissolved into wicked chuckles as the large boy with the bandaged hand—
Hey, the kid who got his hand stuck in the Automat
, Milton thought—slid down in his seat.
    â€œIf you must know, not that it’s any of your business, I died of overcarbonation,” Dr. Pemberton said indignantly. “My stomach one day just…blew up. It was incredibly painful, as fatal wounds go, and I would appreciate it if we could get back to the business of learning.”
    Dr. Pemberton walked over to a table covered with vials, beakers, liquids, powders, and Bunsen burners.
    Milton raised his hand. “Excuse me, Dr. Pemberton. Not to dwell, but…how exactly does one die from overcarbonation?”
    The teacher pressed his palms against the table, glared at Milton, and sighed deeply, producing a whistling rasp that fluttered his lab smock. “Well, young man, it was an unexpected occupational hazard from my particular brand of chemistry: sodalogy, better known as soft-drink science. See, I was the father of mass-marketed, consumer-focused