Hellhole by Gina Damico Read Free Book Online Page B

you’re responsible for sharing yours.”
    â€œI never agreed to that!”
    Burg shrugged. “Your hand begs to differ. Now!” He rubbed his palms together and started to stroll around the room. “I’ll require a hot tub—obviously—and a walk-in closet, three spiral staircases, a full-size meat locker, a bumper car racetrack, a sex dungeon, and a llama. Those last two are unrelated.”
    â€œI can’t get you a house with all that stuff,” Max sputtered. “I can’t get you a house at all!”
    Burg flung himself back onto the sofa. “Well, I’m not leaving this couch until you do, so you’d better find me some pillows and sheets while you’re at it. Egyptian cotton. Twelve hundred thread count.”
    Max was pacing now, frantically trying to come up with a solution. “Look, there has to be some way around this. I can’t keep a devil in my basement.”
    Burg burped again and picked up the remote, switching the television from Xbox to cable. “Tough titties, Shovel. You know the saying, ‘You can’t fight city hall’? Well, hell is a lot worse. Lot less forgiving. OH MY STARS AND GARTERS!”
    Max had another heart attack. “What?”
    â€œI LOVE THIS SHOW.” Burg scooted up to the edge of the sofa and eagerly leaned forward. “Oh bitch, you did
not
just squeeze that other bitch’s husband’s ass. Shove a martini glass down her throat!”
    The rich housewife flipped a table and wobbled away, only to trip over a teacup poodle and face-plant onto the floor. Burg hooted with laughter. “That’s what you get! Time for a new nose!”
    â€œYou know this show?” Max asked. “You get cable in hell?”
    Burg looked at him as if he were the dumbest kid in the world. “Uh, yeah. It’s
hell.
”
    Max decided that if there were ever a time for him to grow a spine, now would be good. “As I was saying,” he said, his squeaky voice already undermining his attempts at bravado, “you can’t stay here.”
    â€œCan and will. Stab her with your stiletto! Go for the jugular!”
    â€œAnd what if I say no?” Max shouted over him, puffing out his chest. “What if I refuse?”
    As the show went to commercial, Burg finally looked at him. “Oh, I’ll kill your family,” he said in a casual voice. “Destroy everything you hold dear. Deliver hellfire and brimstone, etcetera and miscellany, so on and so forth.”
    Max tried to emit a skeptical scoff, but a tightness was creeping into his stomach. “Kill my family? Yeah, right.”
    Burg’s eyes sparkled, as if he’d been waiting for Max to challenge him. He put his thumb and forefinger into the shape of a gun and fired it at the big ficus plant. “Bang.”
    Max watched, mouth agape, as the tree flopped to the floor. Within a second its leaves withered and turned brown, like one that had been dead for months.
    The tightness in Max’s stomach got worse, forming into a hard ball. “Shit,” he whispered under his breath, nausea rolling over him in waves. “Shit, shit, shit.”
    â€œNow,” said Burg, sitting back and hurling his legs up onto the coffee table, “it pained me to do that, as it was one of the lovelier ficuses I’ve seen in some time. But you wanted proof, so there you have it. Now find me a house.”
    Max pondered. He thought he’d read a book about this once. Or seen a movie. Possibly a musical.
    â€œAm I allowed to bargain?” he asked.
    Burg slowly tore his gaze away from the television. “Huh,” he said, his apathy replaced by a look of intrigue. “Didn’t think you had it in you, little Faust.”
    â€œWell? Am I?”
    â€œSome people would consider the whole ‘you find me a house and I refrain from slaughtering your loved ones’ thing a pretty good deal as it is, you know. I