Hell is Empty

Two

Two

When he opened his eyes, Jim’s vision was a blurred mess. Momentarily, he was calm. Then, remembering, he was gripped with terror.

Jim threw himself upright, then froze.

He wasn’t in Ellen’s apartment. Nor was he in his own. Nor was he in the hospital or the bottom of the polluted ocean. He was in the back seat of some filthy groundcar.

Jim rubbed his eyes and threw his head around frantically. Through each window he saw solid black. The ‘car was surrounded by darkness with a few glowing orange lights here and there. He was in a sub-surface parking garage, he guessed.

And he was wearing stained sweatpants and a ratty blue sweatshirt. Jim glanced down at himself and asked aloud, “What the fuck?”

Where was his custom-tailored suit? He wore his nicest black-and-red pinstriped outfit to the trial. Now he looked like a damn beggar. Christ, he smelled like a beggar, too.

Where the hell is Fred? he thought. Where the hell am I? Jim felt the back of his head and winced as his fingers stung a day-old gash. Evidently he had been attacked.

Jim swung the door open and stepped out of the ‘car, which was a beaten hunk of rust that barely looked operable. He stood in cold sweat, running the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his forehead. It was hot as hell this far underground, but he couldn’t stop shivering

Then he saw B32 painted on the concrete wall in bold characters. Fuck! Jim thought. Thirty-two levels underground? What the fuck am I doing down here? Nobody with forty bucks (or a fast food meal for one) would be caught dead below B15. That was begging for trouble.

He wandered aimlessly through the labyrinth of old, beaten-up groundcars. The entire garage seemed utterly devoid of life – only rows upon rows upon rows of cold, empty steel frames, most caked with rust and utterly inoperable. One was splattered brown with old dried blood on its rear bumper. Jim hustled past this one.

Jim went back to the rusted piece of shit that he woke up in. He got in the driver’s seat and reached forward, feeling nothing. There was no steering wheel.

He hopped back out and sighed heavily. Frisking himself, he found nothing but loose change in his sweatshirt pocket. He was broke, phoneless, and without ID. Had he been robbed?

And, looking the way he did, Jim realized he would need ID for every cop that noticed him in a casual glance. He looked like a carnival of criminal charges. A sudden terror gripped Jim’s heart and paralyzed his lungs.

Am I an everyman now? he thought. Or worse: Am I sub-average? What the hell happened to my life? Where is my success and happiness? Is this some joke? Or a nightmare?

No, he thought. I’m jumping to conclusions. I need to get to the street and call someone. I need to get out of this parking garage before I get jumped.

His mind was inundated with rambling throughout the elevator ride back up to the surface. All he could do was wonder. And shiver.

---

Jim slid the door of the videophone booth shut. He shivered violently, despite being inure to the constant worldwide freeze of atmospheric contamination. He couldn’t explain it; he was dripping with sweat but shaking nonstop.

Gotta call someone, he thought. Anyone. Fred was the first person he thought of.

Jim dropped a Federal two-dollar coin into the console and frantically dialed the number on the touchscreen. The line rang for a moment before an obese man filled the screen.