Stirred

I had to squat down to look her in the eye.

Older woman, but beautiful.

Face heavily made-up and tear-streaked.

“I’m Jack Daniels,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Amena.” Her voice was barely audible and raspy, as if she’d blown it out screaming.

“Did Luther put you in here, Amena?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“A man with long, black hair?”

“Yes.”

Again, I surveyed the room, searching for something to break the chain, but found nothing on the smooth, concrete walls.

Not even a plaque, which worried me.

“Why is he doing this?” Amena asked.

“He’s sick in the head, and this is how he gets off,” I said, knowing he could hear.

I stared up at the walls again. This made no sense. There was no way out as far as I could tell.

Wait.

There.

I’d missed it in the dim illumination of the light panel, but there was an opening ten feet up. From where I stood, it looked like an air duct.

How the hell was I supposed to get up there?

“You have to get me out of this!” the woman screamed.

“I’m trying,” I said. “Just give me a second to think.”

Maybe I could stand on her shoulders, reach the duct that way. No, she’d have to stand straight and tall for me to even have a chance, assuming my pregnant ass didn’t crush her.

And she was attached to a sphere of solid iron—she wasn’t going anywhere.

I reached down and touched the cold weight that held her to the floor.

Gripping the chain, I gave it a tug.

Nothing moved, but my spine crackled like a bag of chips.

I tried to roll it, succeeded in budging it a whopping four inches.

“Is there a way out?” she asked.

“There’s a vent ten feet up the wall. I’m thinking maybe there’s a keypad inside of it that’ll open this door.”

“So get up there.”

“I can’t reach it.”

“You stupid, bitch, help me!”

Something struck the top of my head and bounced off onto the floor.

It felt like a chunk of small hail, hard enough to smart.

What the hell?

I looked up just as another one pinged my forehead.

“Ow!” Amena cried.

Another one hit my hand, and as it fell to the floor and spun out, I realized what it was—

Pe

Copper pe

“What is it?” Amena said. “I don’t have my glasses. I can’t see.”

“They’re pe

“What?”

“Pe

“Where are they coming from?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere above us.”

They were falling faster now—pounding the top of my head, some becoming stuck in my clothes, most bouncing off onto the stone floor, and filling the concrete cell not only with a raucous noise but with the stench of money.

The odor of rust and blood.

Already, the stone floor lay covered in coins and they were falling faster and faster, the air thick with them.

Amena yelled something, but I missed it over the tremendous noise getting louder by the second.

“What am I supposed to do, Luther?” I screamed, but if he answered I couldn’t hear him.

Only the noise of the pe

Intensifying.

“Pe

Then the floodgates opened.

So many coins striking me, I could feel their accumulation on my back, my head, my shoulders. My shoes were quickly buried, now standing in four, five, six inches of copper, paralyzed, trying to comprehend what was happening, what I was supposed to do—

—and then I understood.

Oh, no.

I squatted down, the pain in my hamstring flaring, and shoveled the coins away from the cast-iron ball, which was already a third of the way buried.

I didn’t know if she understood yet what was happening, what was going to happen, but I couldn’t communicate it to her regardless through the hailstorm of copper.

Bending my knees, I heaved my weight into the ball, managed to lift it several inches, but by the time it came to rest, it was already becoming buried again.

I tried to heave it with every bit of strength I possessed.

Four vertebrae popped.

No way. Wasn’t going to happen.

I locked eyes with Amena, saw the fear bleeding into hers.

She knew.

“Help me!” I yelled at her.

The coin-depth was above my calves now, approaching Amena’s waist. I dug furiously, clawing the pe

I wasn’t stopping anything, the pe

In my ear I thought I heard Luther say, “Can you feel the change in the air, Jack?”

The metal rain continued to pound down on us.

My attempts to help Amena were futile.

She screamed, the side of her face inches above the pe

I had to keep moving my feet, staying on top of the rising pile to avoid getting buried.

I began digging under Amena’s face, shoveling pe

She couldn’t lift her head another millimeter, face turning purple as she struggled against the chain, and then her screams went silent as the level of pe

I clawed them away, my fingernails breaking, scratching into her cheek, and for a brief second, I exposed her mouth which had filled with coins and blood, eyes bulging beyond terror.

When they finally covered her head I let out a whimper. Then I began to focus on saving myself.

The pe

Soon, both ankles were buried.

I scooped up piles by the handful, throwing them over my shoulder, and once my feet could move, I scrambled up onto all fours.

It must have been as close a sensation as it gets to walking on water—the surface constantly changing and sinking, always threatening to drag me back under. I worked my way over to the wall and spread my stance, ever shifting as the coin-level rose, making me ascend, inch by inch, toward the air duct above.

I saw a hand rise up out of the pe

I stepped into the middle of the room, got a decent purchase on the surface, and grabbed Amena’s hand, squeezing for ten long seconds, the coins rising over my ankles, until her grasp went limp.

I didn’t know this woman, but my eyes filled with tears in that awful blue light as the copper rain poured down on me.

• • •

In another three minutes, the pe

Just before squeezing myself through, I noticed something on the concrete above the opening to the vent.

A plaque:

CIRCLE 4: GREED

Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,

  On one side and the other, with great howls,

  Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.

They clashed together, and then at that point

  Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde,

  Crying, “Why keepest?” and, “Why squanderest thou?”

Inferno, Canto VII

I heaved myself into the air duct, wriggling my swollen belly along the metal, coins dropping out of my hair.

It was much darker in here, and the thunder of falling pe

By the blue panel of light in that concrete room, I glimpsed the keypad up ahead.