I had to drag Isaac along as soon as we went Off-Screen so that we could confirm an actual plan.

We had talked about the inevitability of going into hell for a rescue. After all, if we didn’t rescue anyone, we wouldn’t get rescue tropes even if we won.

I had put it off because we didn’t actually know what we were dealing with in terms of risks.

What was the fate worse than death? Was it simply entering hell? If that was the case, then Isaac might have been safe, relatively speaking, to just dive right in.

But if something happened to you there, something that affected your mind or your body, if there was torture of some kind, we needed to know about it. This was a comedy, so I didn’t expect the worst. But I did like to prepare for it.

Luckily, I knew just the guy to talk to. He was hiding in the break room.

I was glad that when we found him, we didn’t immediately go On-Screen.

“We need you to give Isaac a quick rundown on hell,” I said.

“Is that all?” Camden asked. “I’ve been searching for ways to figure out how demons do their tricks, what kind of clues there might be… but I guess I can take a break. I might have to review my notes, though.”

Of course, when he said ‘review his notes,’ he meant to review the red wallpaper, where all his observations and clues were collected neatly and organized by topic, thanks to Red Thread Theory.

He started to read off everything he knew about hell within the theology and folklore of this storyline. We talked for a bit about how he should deliver that, as I waited for the countdown timer.

Camden had to crawl out of his little hole. We didn’t want this scene to include him in his hiding spot; it might spoil a later scene we had planned. He would occasionally leave it to go film a scene, actually working up front at the cash register, but then he would return to his little hidey hole.

So we sat outside on our breaks, on the curb around the side of the store where we wouldn’t get seen.

On-Screen

Camden folded a piece of pizza in half and held it up above him, lowering it down into his mouth as he said, “What do you mean, you want me to tell you about hell? Do you think I’ve been?”

“You go to church,” Isaac said. “Like, what is hell about?”

I stood back at a distance, like I was too nervous to participate. Too embarrassed to let anyone know that I was seriously contemplating the existence of a hellish parallel world beneath us.

Camden chewed on his pizza. “Well, that depends,” he said. “In church, it’s just the bad place. The place you don’t want to go. So you do good, so you can go to the good place.”

Isaac tapped his foot while thinking. “What if I’m not talking about that? What if I’m talking like… a physical place? Like a trap.”

Camden was stuffing his face with another bite of pizza, and he paused to look at Isaac.

“Ohh, you mean that kind of hell,” he said, pizza still in his mouth. He chewed quickly, fanning his tongue from the pain of eating hot pizza. “Like in the old stories.”

“Stories?” Isaac asked.

“You know, like legends. Mythology. Folklore. I’ve been reading about them after those things tried to abduct you. Where demons try to trick you into hell. Usually, it is just like a hole in the ground that leads to some other place. Some terrible place. That sort of thing.”

The actual term within the canon was “hell hole,” but that sounded too on the nose, so we were shy about using it.

“Hole in the ground,” Isaac repeated. He looked up at me, and I looked back at Camden, even though I wished he hadn’t looked at me in the first place. I wasn’t supposed to be important.

“Say more about that,” he said.

“Well, they’re like little underground kingdoms where demons reigned supreme, right? They’re a mockery of the above-ground, of the realm of Elidel. I mean, these are old folk stories, that type of thing. They used to tell them around the fire back in the medieval days. We don’t know how much is real and how much is just entertainment.”

“Could there be one in a pizza parlor?” Isaac asked.

Camden looked at Isaac and seemed to be contemplating something.

“Look, buddy,” he said. “I know something freaky is going on here, but maybe you should take a step back. Whatever’s happening, it’s best we don’t lose our heads, you know? I’m surprised you even came in today.”

“I had to come in,” Isaac said. “I have to go save Avery.”

“From hell? Like, you think a literal hell is in the pizza parlor?” Camden asked. He seemed to think about that, giving it the weight that the question deserved. After all, his subplot was about figuring out the details of a demon deal. He couldn’t balk at the idea that there was a mini-hell within spitting distance.

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“You think that there is a hell-world below the pizza parlor, and you want to go there to save a woman who probably doesn’t even remember your name?”

“She remembers my name! She said hello several times,” Isaac said.

“I think that you focused on the wrong part of that question,” Camden said. “Look, these little hell-worlds were thought to be allegorical. But if we take the stories literally, what you would expect to find would be a sort of cave, right? Or a dungeon. But it wouldn’t look like that.”

“It looks like the pizza parlor. The demons are wearing suits that look like the animatronics in the store. There’s pizza everywhere,” Isaac said. “I saw it in my dream.”

I stared at Isaac because my character had been having similar dreams, and I was trying to shoehorn in a disbelief angle.

“Were you being chased?” I asked.

“No,” Isaac said. “But Avery was.”

That would be my entire contribution to the scene. Carousel had been trying to tempt me to take a bigger role. If I did, every other player would miss out on some rewards. I would just have to take the hit to my rewards.

“Look, we’re onto something here,” Camden said. “I think I know what they’re up to.”

“What is it?” Isaac asked.

“Well, if your theory is right that there’s a hell underneath the pizza parlor, then that’s probably why they made the deal with Gus Senior in the first place. They needed access to our realm. It has something to do with sin eating. I don’t know what yet.”

“What eating?” Isaac asked.

“Look, I don’t understand the full extent of it,” Camden said, “but they need the store for something. They’re using it for something. I just need to figure out what the deal was about. And I don’t think you should be running around in that hell if it even exists.”

Isaac was quiet and sullen for a moment.

“There are a lot of people down there,” he said. “They need our help. And Avery might not have known my name, or at least my last name, but she’s scared. I can tell. Isn’t that enough?”

Camden took a deep breath and finally relented.

“All right,” he said. “Here’s what I think is happening. I think that when you ate that free pizza, you unknowingly took on the sins of someone who did something terrible. And once you did that—took on a mortal sin—the demons were able to drag you to hell. Or at least, they would have been, if you hadn’t been a minor. The thing is, you can’t trick somebody into carrying a mortal sin for long, because of satisfaction. That’s what they call it. You know, penance. Elidel forgives instantly, but to ascend to heaven, you need to change your ways, which is really easy when you were never evil to begin with. That’s why they had to be so quick about dragging you to hell while you still bore the penalty of mortal sin.”

So much for keeping the religious aspect out of it.

“Whoa,” Isaac said. And it was funny, because he was a little kid and he was having a hard time taking in what he had just heard. He sat for a moment and then said, “So that means I’ll be able to get in?”

Camden looked up at me, then back at Isaac.

“That’s the part you were worried about?”

“Look, there are stories about people going to these hell holes, as they’re called, and making it back out. The Cobbler’s Three managed to do it because they stuck together and they fought off the Dancing Shoes, which was apparently a big feat.”

“Okay,” Isaac said. “How do I fight demons?”

“They’re bound to the objects they possess. If you can destroy those objects, it’s the same as hurting them, but they won’t go away forever. Supposedly, the image of the Three-Spoked Wheel will also weaken them, but I don’t know about that. Again, I don’t think you should try to find the entrance to hell. Cassie would freak out.”

“I’m not worried about Cassie,” Isaac said. “She’s probably just going to blame you guys for helping me.”

Camden and I looked at each other.

Off-Screen

On-Screen

“It’s really hot in here,” Isaac said, but I could barely hear him over the fan of the oven.

I pulled him back, and his head came out drenched in sweat.

“You may have miscalculated a bit here, bud,” I said.

“No, I’ve got to do this,” Isaac responded. He started jumping up and down, either to build up bravery or momentum, and then he charged for the oven. As soon as he stuck his head in, he stopped in his tracks. He tried reaching one hand up into the oven, but he couldn’t even brave touching any of the sides.

He backed away and looked up at me, very unsure of what he was supposed to do next, both in character and out.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t jump into the oven,” I said, then shrugged my shoulders.

Right on time, a familiar voice filled the room. We looked back at Hot Head and saw a furry creature stick his head down from the inner workings of the oven.

It was Frankie the Fire Ferret, a rambunctious animatronic who lived in Hot Head’s mouth and usually stuck to the front opening of the oven instead of the back. But he could go to either one.

He wasn’t truly inside the mouth of the oven. He was in the electronics up above. But the illusion was very successful; he did appear to be a creature that lived in a fiery furnace, with his burnt fur and all.

“Will you shut that door?” he said. “You’re letting all the hot air out.”

We had been standing in front of the oven with the door open for quite some time.

Isaac and I looked at each other. In the distance, we could hear Tony the Tosser responding to the Fire Ferret with his characteristic: “Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah Bah.”

Cut to the strangest arming sequence I had been a part of.

Isaac had gotten an idea. He’d gone to the break room and grabbed the Fire Ferret mascot costume that he had to wear for birthdays.

He donned it On-Screen, one piece at a time, as if he were putting on plate armor to protect his castle. He stared at Hot Head’s mouth the entire time.

It was actually pretty funny. He looked ridiculous in that outfit, and yet it would be a good idea for him to wear it. Not just to avoid getting burned inside the oven (assuming there was actually a portal to hell in there), but also because there were demons dressed up like the animatronics down there. He might even be able to blend in. I had instructed him to try that, but not to rely on it.

And a final gift I gave to him after telling him how stupid this was, and begging him not to do it, while simultaneously being so freaked out that I couldn’t think properly.

Or at least, that’s what I wanted to convey.

I used The Insert Shot on the pizza paddle leaning up against Hot Head. He looked at me after I did it. We had an understanding between us. He needed to go down there and kick butt.

His Weapons Of Mass Absurdity trope would certainly work on a pizza peel. It was basically a bo staff, but with a paddle. And by giving it more narrative weight with The Insert Shot, well, there was a chance we weren’t just condemning him to hell, but instead empowering him to give hell.

He walked up to the oven and grabbed the sturdy wooden spatula, which was taller than he was. He looked up at it as if it were Excalibur…

“No, that’s the good one,” I whispered for a bit of humor.

And then he bravely climbed into the oven. The oven door shut behind him.

I threw my hands on my head. “What did I just do?” I said, and rushed to open the door back up.

But by the time I got it open, old Hot Head’s mouth held nothing but a few pizzas the cooks up front had put into it.

Isaac was gone.

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