by Eirik Gumeny
Or, at least, that’s what the humans thought.
The largest of the turkeys climbed atop a Hummer that had been left in the parking lot. He wiped some dirt off his snood and addressed his followers.
“Fellow Butterballs!” he said, the turkeys having recently taken back the term. “As we make our way towards total human eradication I just wanted to say how pleased I’ve been with our progress thus far. It’s been a long, hard road to our liberation, but it’s nearly at an end!”
The crowd of turkeys cheered.
“Now let’s stuff them just like they used to stuff us!”
The turkey raised his wings to urge the crowd forward, only to feel some mysterious wetness upon them. Small drops of liquid appeared to be falling from the sky. He began turning back and forth as the water came down around him, his compatriots doing the same. The droplets began to fall faster, closer together. The turkey looked up to see where these tiny little pellets of water were coming from, but only saw clouds. It mystified him. He opened his beak, taken by the moment.
***
“And then what happened, Grandpa?” asked Simon Swanson-Bosch, sitting with his grandparents in the food court outside Panda Express having Christmas dinner.
“Well, Simon,” said Grandpa Bosch, “those of us who had barricaded ourselves inside the mall were unaware that the threat had been thwarted. We were still preparing for the worst. By the time we knew the coast was clear, seven-million drowned turkeys had crashed against the walls of the building, trapping us inside. The wet feathers fused together, cocooning every door and window. We were stuck here forever.”
“Forever?” asked Simon.
“You were born in the Abercrombie & Fitch downstairs.”
“Are you sure you really tried to leave?” said Simon, narrowing his eyes and pointing toward the ceiling. “I’m pretty sure that’s moonlight coming through the turkey-dome. It can’t be that thick.”
“All of the hardware stores here are out of ladders,” replied Grandma Bosch patiently, reaching across the table for an egg roll.
“What about shovels? Did you ever try tunneling underground?”
Grandpa sighed heavily. He looked to his wife, then, after a conceding head tilt, back to his grandson.
“You need to understand, Simon,” the old man said, slowly, “we had been in this mall for almost an entire month. And we’d run out of mini-burgers and Jamba Juice ingredients a long time before that.”
“Are you saying ...?”
“Yes,” said Grandma. She put a hand on Simon’s. “We got desperate and resorted to cannibalism.”
“But we tasted awful,” continued Grandpa. “Like chicken, my ass!”
“So we all became vegetarians. Except for one day a year.”
“We all vote and the loser gets ... well ...” began Grandpa.
“You see, you have to have some kind of meat for Christmas dinner. Just wouldn’t be Jesus’s birthday without a rotting carcass on the table.”
“Have to,” added Grandpa.
The young boy made a face. “But that –”
“No buts, Simon. That’s just how we do things now. All that’s left of society is inside this mall and we just have to make due. Your parents were born here and you don’t hear them complaining.”
“They complain all the –”
“Listen, it’s Christmas,” said Grandma. “Don’t you ruin it with all this escape talk. It’s just not going to happen. We’ve all come to terms with this and you should, too. Now ...” she added, pulling over a plate. “... who wants more Pete fried rice?”
THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM
the nineteenth apocalypse
“The pistachio should be right here ...”
“I don’t see the pistachio.”
“It’s supposed to be the world’s largest. You’d think we’d see it.”
“I mean, yeah, but – That probably doesn’t mean a lot,” said Jorge Reyes, stretching his back as he scanned the parking lot. “The ‘world’s largest’ just has to be bigger than the biggest pistachio you’ve ever seen and how big is that, really?”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Erin McCafferty, a little dejectedly. “Seems weird to have all these signs if it’s not, like, actually that big, though. That yarn ball was huge.”
“True ...”
The middle-aged husband and wife were standing outside a general store on the western edge of a sprawling pistachio farm, deep in the robot territory of Las Máquinas. Erin was holding a large and brightly-colored map in her hands – the creases worn and starting to tear, all of the attractions illustrated like cartoons – of Old America’s greatest roadside oddities.
The map, outdated as it was, had yet to lead them astray.
“Maybe it’s inside?” she asked, looking toward the low, wooden building.
“You just want to go look at all the tchotchkes,” her husband replied.
“Oh, and you don’t?” the redhead teased, bouncing her hip against his. “How many souvenir t-shirts have you bought on this trip?”
“I don’t pack well, you know that.”
There was a commotion then, as a number of other tourists began exiting the general store en masse, grumbling and shaking off something. A few were walking quickly, continually looking behind them.
Soon enough, a massive, tentacled gelatin monster – eight-feet tall, at least; green; jiggling furiously – came out after them.
“What about him?” Erin pointed with her chin. “You think he knows?”
“The screeching Jell-O golem?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, all right,” said Jorge with a tiny shrug. “I’ll ask.”
PROLOGUE
Thor, God of Housekeeping
“Hi, this is room 218. Can I get a few extra pillows sent up?”
“Why? Were the pillows missing?”
“What? No. I’d just like a few more.”
“There’re four on a bed, and it looks like you have two beds.”
“So?”
“That’s eight pillows.”
“So?”
“So you’re alone. I saw you come in. Alone.”
“What the hell does that matter? You guys rationing out your pillows or something?”
“I’m just saying that eight pillows is a lot of pillows. Especially for one person.”
“I’ve got a sleeping disorder, all right? It’s better for me if I sleep upright.”
“There is an armchair in every room.”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes. It’s the thing that looks like an armchair.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“You’re making that really difficult.”
“Look, you son of a bitch, send up the pillows or I’m talking to your manager and getting your ass fired.”
“Fine.” Thor Odinson, former Norse God of Thunder, hung up the phone violently and looked around the hotel lobby. “Where’s Paulo?”
“On break,” replied his co-worker, Catrina Dalisay, without looking up from the magazine she was reading on her tablet.
“He just took a break.”
“Well, now he took another one.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“Just bring the pillows up yourself.”
“It’s demeaning.”
“It’s your job.”
“It’s Paulo’s job.”
“And it’s your job to do his job when he doesn’t.”
“How does that work?”
“Just fucking do it, Thor.”
“This is bullshit,” snarled the former thunder god as he walked out from behind the front desk of the Holiday Inn.
***
Thor opened the door to the second floor linen closet and sighed. He grabbed three pillows into his thick arms and started down the hallway, stopping in front of room 218. He sighed again. Hard.
The Norseman raised his hand to knock on the door, but thought better of it. Well, not re
ally “better.”
Thor let two of the pillows fall to the ground and pulled open the pillowcase on the third. He held it up to his ass and farted mightily through his khakis, pulling the pillowcase closed again as quickly as he could. He rolled up the end tightly and repeated the ritual for the other two pillows.
Then Thor knocked on the door.
“Your pillows, sir.”
CHAPTER ONE
Everyone Died Violently
There had been twenty-two apocalypses to date. There were now four distinct variations of humanity roaming the earth – six, if you counted the undead. It had been suggested that there really should have been a new word to describe “the end of everything forever,” but most people had stopped noticing, much less caring, after the tally hit double digits. Not to mention the failure of “forever” in living up to its potential. The last apocalypse wasn’t even considered a cataclysm by most major governments. It was just a Thursday.
Thor, for his part, still held out hope for Ragnarok, the Norse judgment day, but, seeing as how his mortality stemmed directly from science disproving religion, this wasn’t looking likely.
“Dick didn’t even tip me,” grumbled the lumpy former god, exiting the elevator.
“Why would he tip you?” replied his diminutive Filipina co-worker.
“Because I brought him pillows.”
“That’s not exactly difficult.”
“Well, yeah, sure,” said Thor. “But a little recognition would be nice.”
Thor was still pretty pissed that God of Thunder didn’t carry more weight on a resume.
To be fair, his lust for an actual, factual armageddon wasn’t so much due to any longing for Asgard as it was a bone-deep hatred for his job as a desk clerk at the Secaucus Holiday Inn. Catrina disliked the job at least as much as Thor did and, near as he could tell, she wasn’t a fallen deity.
“What time you off tonight?” he asked, leaning on the counter of the front desk.
“Eleven.”
“Want to hit up the diner?”
“Sure.”
The phone rang.
“Hello,” said Catrina, picking up the receiver, “Secaucus Holiday Inn.”
Thor assumed the person on the other end of the phone was talking, but he had no real proof.
“Yes, we have an employee named Paulo,” she stated. “He stepped out about twenty minutes ago.”
Thor thought about what he might get at the diner later.
“You’ll have to be more specific. How exactly did he die? He’s just a porter. If he’s a zombie he’s still gotta finish his shift. We’re non-discriminatory.”
Eggs probably. Eggs were good.
“To pieces, you say.”
Fried, maybe. Or scrambled. Yeah. With bacon.
“No, no next of kin. He moved up here from Princeton about a year ago.”
No, wait, sausage. Yeah. Sausage.
“Right, the robot thing. Everyone died violently.”
Crap. Now Thor was hungry. And he still had another thirty minutes left on his shift.
“Yeah, sure, thanks for calling. I’ll pass it along. Bye.” Catrina turned to her shaggy-haired co-worker and said, “Well, Paulo’s dead.”
“Yeah, I got that much.”
“Asshat went to the Subway in Jersey City.”
“Why would he do that? He knows Jersey City was taken by werewolves eight months ago.”
“Knew,” corrected Catrina, before shrugging and saying, “He said he liked the one there better.”
“But it’s a full moon.”
“Maybe he didn’t notice.”
“It’s been full for the last three weeks.”
“Oh, right, ‘cause of the –”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Paulo wasn’t that bright.”
“What a way to go. Mauled to death for a chicken sandwich.”
Ooh. Maybe a chicken sandwich.
“I’m not telling Mark,” Catrina said sternly.
“Oh, come on. I had to tell Mark about the last two.”
“And you’re going to keep telling him. At least until we hire a bellman with a sense of self-preservation anyway,” she replied. “You know Mark’s got that x-ray implant. I feel violated every time he looks at me.”
“Fine,” said Thor with another heavy sigh. “But I’m telling him you’re a racist.”
***
The door to Mark’s office opened slightly.
“Mark?”
“Thor.”
The door to Mark’s office opened all the way. Thor walked in, shuffling across the worn Berber carpet towards the flimsy laminate desk taking up most of the small room. Mark Hughes, the owner and manager of the Secaucus Holiday Inn, sat behind it, staring intently at his computer monitor.
“Paulo’s dead,” explained Thor.
“Dead dead or kinda dead?” asked the hotel owner, swiveling his metal chair toward the former thunder god and raising an eyebrow.
“Dead dead. The ‘wolves got him.”
“He went to the Subway in Jersey City, didn’t he?” Mark mumbled, “Now I’m never going to get my sandwich.”
“You want me to have Catrina reactivate the Craigslist ad?”
“Nah, I never took it down. I started keeping a backlog of applicants.”
“The way we’ve been going through them it won’t last long,” said Thor. “Maybe you should hire less stupid people.”
“If I did that you’d be out of a job.”
“You’re an asshole, Mark.” The Norseman lowered his eyes. “If you didn’t dock my pay every time I hit you, I’d hit you again right now.”
The hotel owner smirked slightly, then turned back to his computer and continued scrolling through the vending machine aficionado forum he had up. The tiny, wood-paneled office grew quiet, except for the steady whir of Mark’s ocular implant. Thor was forced to concede that it was, in fact, a little unsettling. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, the chunky blonde man took a step sideways, putting a chair between himself and his boss.
“I can see through the chair, Thor.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” said Mark, “this thing’s got –”
“Hold up. Are you looking at my junk?”
“You used to be a god, I was curious,” replied the hotel manager with a shrug. “I’ve got to say, that’s less than impressive.”
“Then stop keeping the air conditioner so low in here!”
“I’ve got hydraulics in mine. You wouldn’t believe –”
“Dude, stop, please. I don’t wanna know.”
“OK, fine. But I’m beginning to see why science won.”
“You are so many assholes, Mark. And not, like, good ones. You’re a bunch of assholes with wiping problems.”
Mark laughed, the faint, tinny sound of something like a modem backing the syllables.
“Screw it,” said Thor. “Catrina and I are skipping out early.”
“You’re actually telling me this time?”
“We’re up to three guests. Some cheap-ass pillow fetishist came in a couple hours ago.”
“All right, no problem.”
As Thor turned to walk out, he heard Mark’s eye refocusing again. The former thunder god twisted sideways and ran awkwardly back toward the front desk, quickly closing the door to Mark’s office behind him.
“I wonder what Jesus’s wang looks like,” Mark murmured.
The phone on his desk rang. He answered it.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, this is room 218. Can I get a few more pillows sent up?”
CHAPTER TWO
Thor’s Kind of a Dick When He’s Hungry
The diner ran out of pancakes shortly before Thor and Catrina, still in their green Holiday Inn-emblazoned polos, arrived. The diner was always running out of pancakes. All things considered, it was a pretty terrible place to eat. Neither of the hotel employees were sure why they kept going there. Well, other than convenience, laziness, and st
eel-reinforced walls.
“The guy next to me got pancakes,” grumbled Thor, staring through the glass divider to his right. “And he ordered after me. I think the waitress might be lying to me.”
“Give it a rest, Thor,” said Catrina, sitting across from him and gnawing on a stale bagel.
“Excuse me, miss?” called the shaggy blonde man, leaning out of the booth and flagging down the waitress.
“Oh, Jesus,” mumbled the Filipina woman.
“Yes?” said the waitress, sidling up to the table.
“Are you sure you’re out of pancakes?” asked Thor.
“Yes.”
“But that guy got pancakes.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He’s eating them right now.” The former thunder god pointed. “Look. He’s got maple syrup on his chin.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied the waitress.
Thor stared at the woman. The woman stared back. She was tall and thin, middle-aged and strict-looking, and had a powerful gaze. Thor couldn’t help but feel like she was staring right through him. Her eyes flicked red and Thor heard a motorized humming coming from the waitress’s skull. She was staring right through him.
“Can you at least look at me while you’re denying me breakfast?” he barked.
“No,” she snarled.
“Seriously, lady?! What’d I ever do to you?”
“What haven’t you and your people done to –”
“Really? My people?!”
“Three years ago I was revered!” shouted the cybernetically-enhanced waitress. “I was feared! Back before your kind –”
“Ha!” said Thor, pointing a finger squarely into the face of the waitress. “I’ve only been on this plane of existence for two years! I didn’t do shit to you! Now give me my damn pancakes.”
“No.”
“That does it.” Thor reached up and plucked the waitress’s left eye out of its socket. There was a mild shock, but nothing the former God of Thunder couldn’t handle. The waitress, for her part, didn’t even blink.
