The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 1)

by Nina Post

  Running on the endorphin high of procuring two of the three Cluck Snack products that could stop the Apocalypse, Af hurried to the vitamin aisle and found a Cluck Snack Chewable Vitamin: Tree Edition (“Not for Dogs and Ferrets”).

  But then he tried to pay for the items.

  And he waited. And waited. A locust was dominating the lone cashier’s time with a cart-load of Cluck Snack Meal’n a Box Totez (“Take Your Cluck Snack With You”).

  Af drummed his fingers against his leg.

  When the locust took out his coupons, Af nearly lost it. He remembered he was still an angel of wrath and destruction, and considered his two choices: revert back to his original form and start by leveling this store. Or stand in line. Because he was falling for Kelly, he stood in line.

  “Could you go faster?” the locust asked the cashier, who was scanning the items at a glacial pace. “We’re making swarms to form a plague, and of course they sent me on the food run.” The locust held up one of the boxes. “I have sixty of these. Can’t you do one scan for all of them?”

  “Sorry,” the cashier said, “but it’s our policy to count everything by hand.”

  The locust rubbed his wings together in impatience, making a creepy whispering sound.

  “How’s the swarming going?” The cashier asked in a cheerful tone.

  “It’s going all right, I guess,” the locust said. “We’ve been practicing our rolling motion for the end of days, so I hope we can―”

  Af tossed a wad of money on the cashier’s station and rushed out of the store. He returned to the mechanical room with a bag full of Cluck Snack products.

  orris ripped open the packaging, cradled the Foam Topp’n, Gummi Milk Bott’l, and the Chewable Vitamin, and toted them to the first access door by the louvers.

  Dragomir started forward. “If silent creature makes miserable job worse than is now, I make him chewable vitamin.”

  Kelly flashed Dragomir a warning look to discourage him from interfering.

  Another monster came through the louvers and out the coils, its particles cohering into a giant flounder with two eyes on the side of its head, and, incongruously, burly bear arms.

  Dragomir took a broom, opened the heavy door, then swiped the bristles against the mesh.

  The monster swung out an arm, swiped the bottle of Cluck Snack Sweet n’ Savory Breakfast Foam Topp’n, and put it in its mouth. But the bottle was an awkward shape and the flounder-thing seemed at a loss. It looked like a seagull with a hoagie bun in its beak, unsure what to do next.

  After she speared it with Dragomir’s power screwdriver, the flounder spat out the bottle and she vialed the monster, wondering what Don wold do with all those vials.

  “It’s a good thing you got that bottle back,” Af said, “because it was the last one they had.”

  “Let’s hurry. This is getting painful.”

  Morris put a vitamin in a squishable rubber bowl he kept on him at all times. He sprayed the Foam Topp’n on the Chewable Vitamin. The vitamin changed shape and color, expanding into the size of a cake. Then Morris took one of the Gummi Milk Bott’ls, bit off the top and squeezed the liquid contents onto the vitamin, dissolving it.

  Dragomir laughed. “Ha! Science project complete failure! I told you fixing handler not possible. Now please let me return to purgatory of daily life.”

  Morris took the bowl and poured its now-liquid contents into the empty Breakfast Foam Topp’n spray bottle. He waited a moment for the wind to stop gusting, but still couldn’t even get across the access door. Af put his hands on Morris’s back to guide him the rest of the way.

  Morris used the nozzle bottle to spray the mist onto the louvers and filter. The mix of three Cluck Snack products came out of the bottle and formed a lattice structure around the air handler.

  Kelly stepped around Morris to get a closer look. “Looks like the stinkhorn mushroom.”

  Dragomir wiped the tears off his cheeks. “I have not laugh this hard since What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi have those circus cats.”

  Morris came back into the main mechanical room and sketched something for her. She nodded and he sketched something else, then she took the pad again and looked at the drawing for a few seconds. “Mm-hm. OK.

  “Here’s what Morris did,” Kelly said to the rest of them. “After the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, aka Don, assigned all of the bound angels to Amenity Tower, the energy turned the building into a truck stop for dimensional flotsam and jetsam―like the Jackal and your scorpion elevator attendant. The monsters were probably attracted here by the clean showers and good coffee, then got sucked in the rest of the way.”

  Dragomir and Af looked at her blankly.

  “Or to look at it another way, Amenity Tower is like a highway off-ramp with a diner in the shape of a giant donut. The monsters can’t resist taking that off-ramp.”

  Dragomir scratched his ever-present stubble. “But building does not have donut on it. I would know.”

  “It’s figurative,” she added.

  Af took the sketchbook from her. Morris’s latest drawing was a stick figure angel with a huge head, big eyes, and wings; a lighthouse; a can of Red Bull, a margarita, and a vacuum.

  “How did you get all of that from this?” Af asked.

  She shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  A few moments later, a comforting purr replaced the high-pitched whistling of the air intake.

  elly narrowed her eyes at Roger’s week-view calendar like she was The Man With No Name staring down Ramón Rojo in the climactic showdown. She crossed out meeting after meeting with a black marker, and marveled at Roger’s energy. He managed a sixty-story building until six or seven in the evening, spent the whole night doing situational offense with an all-fallen angel board and committee members, and still made time for his local access show.

  But now Roger was free. His Facebook status said ‘Ascended.’ And now she was the idiot who received a mysterious call from Claw & Crutty, the property management company that employed Roger, and agreed to work at Amenity Tower as interim manager.

  They said Roger suggested they talk to her. She didn’t know what to believe, but it didn’t seem that much less weird than working for the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse.

  The most vocal of the fallen angels and the dimensional monsters that remained in the building gathered outside her door. They wanted many things, but most of all, they demanded the continuation of their beloved local access show, What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi.

  Clementine, recently promoted to front desk supervisor, pushed through the crowd of residents and brought a large wooden crate to her office.

  “Finally, that vampire I ordered.”

  The return address on the crate read 6th Lodge. She cut the plastic cover, and pulled open the front of the crate. Inside was a telepresence robot just like Don’s. When she finished the assembly, it stood five feet tall with a display screen and camera, on wheels.

  The note read, “Walk a mile in the Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse’s shoes. This is how you manage people. See attached photo and mementos from robot’s Maui vacation (sorely needed). Best, Don.”

  She held up the photo of Don’s telepresence robot on a Maui beach, a lei draped around its screen. The card read, “Don―Wish you were here.”

  “I don’t know how he got out, but that guy really knows how to relax vicariously through his robot,” she muttered. She made a mental note to add Don to the list of fugitives she’d track down after surfacing from her current morass of managerial busywork.

  She sat in her swivel chair and put Don’s note to the side. On her left was a teetering pile of that day’s mail, and on top of the pile was a disc in a transparent cover. She picked it up, glanced over it, and put it beside the pile.

  Af knocked and opened the door. He sat on the other side of the desk, glanced at the disc, and held it up. “What’s this?”

  “Don’t know. It was in the mail.”

  “Let’
s watch it in the studio.”

  They elbowed past the shouting crowd, shut the door behind them in Roger’s studio, and closed the curtains. Af put the disc in the player and sat next to her.

  In the video, Roger leaned forward on an orange plastic chair, positioned in front of a paper-craft backdrop consisting of orange, growling-faced lions; an ocean; Ben Franklin; and a smiling giraffe.

  “I’m Roger Balbi, manager of Amenity Tower, Pothole City’s Finest Luxury Condominium Building, and host of the award-winning local access show, What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi. My planning and preparation has finally paid off. I’m being promoted next week, so I’m recording this special segment for my replacement in the interest of succession.” He held up his calendar and grinned.

  “Oh God.” Kelly pressed in at her temples. “What did I agree to?”

  “The first thing you should know is that you will have to deal with the politics and personalities of the board, who are all cast-down angels. You’ll also have to field constant complaints from the residents, most of whom are interdimensional monsters. The board members will expect special treatment, but you have to remain objective. Here’s a tip: the cleaning crew are a well-read, elite fighting force, and the most mentally stable people in the building.”

  Af nodded. “That’s true.”

  “There are some things you should watch out for, like people who attempt to infiltrate the building under the guise of a local official.”

  She looked sideways at Af. He shrugged.

  “Specifically, a woman in her late twenties―”

  “Late twenties? Still got it.”

  “―who has accessed the building as seemingly every task force official in the city. But I have cameras everywhere,” Roger said with a devious smile, “including the hallways and in every residential unit.”

  “What?” Kelly and Af said simultaneously.

  “But she’s cute,” Roger said, “and frankly, I don’t care what she’s doing. Amusement is worth its weight in gold around here. If it bothers you, you can always stick her in lockup.” He jangled a set of keys.

  She expelled a long breath. “Lockup? Amenity Tower has more amenities than I thought.”

  “I don’t know if that should be considered an amenity,” Af said.

  “Finally, the show.” Roger leaned forward and clasped his hands. “I know the residents must be losing it over the interruption. First, feel free to change the name. I’ve ascended. My ego is no longer attached to the show. Second, refer to my manual and checklists, as well as my address book of vendors, suppliers, and potential guests. I have my shows arranged weeks in advance, so the first few sets of guests are already lined up. Also, a note for the new board president: I recommend a scorched-earth policy. Good luck. You’ll need it. Sayonara.”

  The screen turned black. Kelly removed the disc from the player and they locked up the studio.

  They ran into Dragomir in the management office, smiling, to the extent of showing his teeth, and Kelly found that perturbing.

  “I thought air handler was lost cause: can’t redesign it, so just have to put up with it, like human body or family. And louvers only weather-proof, not storm-proof or monster-proof. So when your little person here”―he slapped Morris’s back, sending him stumbling forward a few steps―“put that Cluck Snack spray on mesh, I laugh and laugh forever. But it worked!”

  A huge grin stretched across Dragomir’s face. “Can you believe, because I can barely believe. Only one creature show up so far, a giant tongue with turtle shell, covered in algae. Had to brush off mesh.”

  Kelly high-fived Morris.

  “Morris work with me now as consultant,” Dragomir said, “for HVAC, pipe, and duct jobs. Also Owen, for small appliances, Jonah, for large appliances, and Fef, for elevators.” Dragomir looked giddy. “Life almost bearable now!”

  The engineer left with Morris, who waved to her as he shuffled away, and Af went with her to Roger’s office.

  “I’m kind of thinking the monsters should have included Amenity Tower in their wave of destruction,” she said, “because I’ll be interviewing for permanent managers all day. I don’t want this job, and I’d like to try being just me for a while. Which could be an embarrassing, miserable failure.”

  Her desk phone rang. She answered.

  “Open the video I sent you,” the bald man said.

  She checked her email, saw the email from him, then played the video. Af stood behind her and Tubiel pored through Roger’s stuff. From his hell lodge office, Don watched his telepresence robot enjoy its vacation (on the screen within the screen, the robot stood awkwardly under a palm tree and held an elaborate tropical beverage it couldn’t drink).

  Murray frantically made coffee drinks for rerouted angels and monsters, crammed full in the room. Then she jumped an inch when Don ignited in a white blaze that shrunk to a dot in a split second, like an old TV set turning off.

  Coffee sloshed on Murray’s hand when the bald man appeared out of thin air next to him. He touched Murray on the back, and Murray disappeared the same way, but with a green flame instead of white.

  The bald man gave her a thumbs up. “See you around, Driscoll. You can thank me later.”

  The video ended there.

  “What was that?” Af asked.

  “Just someone doing me a favor. Even though I don’t deserve it.”

  She made a quick call to the bald man and left a message on his voice mail. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’d rather take care of Don and Murray myself. So if you could undo their conflagration, as amusing as it was, that would be great.”

  When she hung up the phone, Af said, “Can I make you dinner? We could watch a movie after,” and she thought that maybe she’d stay in Pothole City for a while.

  elly interviewed several potential managers, and then stopped at Af’s apartment with Tubiel in tow. She poured herself a coffee and wandered over to the telescope. Besides Amenity Tower, the Special Situations International building was one of the few structures left standing downtown, thanks to Af’s efforts.

  She looked past the razed earth to the flattened industrial outskirts of Pothole City. She passed over a building with a fuzzy light, went back, and adjusted the focus.

  The telescope was powerful; she could make out the glowing white lettering on the lone remaining building outside of their three block radius: “Clucking Along Holdings: Makers of Cluck Snacks. A Driscoll Family Company.”

  s a formerly successful and then not-so-successful bounty hunter, Kelly Driscoll hated working as herself. After gaining access to Amenity Tower as an elevator inspector, hamster grief counselor, FDA criminal division agent, and various city officials, she had somehow been named interim manager of the building.

  These days, she showed up to work as Kelly Driscoll and winced when anyone in Amenity Tower, Pothole City’s finest (and only) luxury condominium building, recognized and greeted her. It just felt wrong to not radically change her eye color, her skin, her facial shape, her hair, her clothing, her body type, her occupation, her name.

  But she didn’t mind being herself at home, which for weeks had been the top two floors of a 1920s-era art deco high-rise. It was just a couple of blocks from Amenity Tower in downtown Pothole City, and right across the street from the Pothole City Soda Fountain.

  Kelly put on her uniform, a gray t-shirt under a navy wool suit. She gathered her ash-blonde hair in a bun and speared it with two pins. She put on some makeup, lining the top of her pale gray eyes. Then she went into Mr. Orange’s office, which was full of small, single-purpose angels, or SPs as she called them. They had all moved in before the destruction of the city, with the notion that Kelly could protect them.

  After she sent Murray – the corrupt angel who killed the SP in charge of audio equipment – to indefinite retirement in a hell lodge, the rest of the SPs stayed with her. And it was all she could do to keep them in Cluck Snacks and pajamas.

  The small angels sat in a group in Mr.
Orange’s office wearing pajamas, eating cereal, and watching Clucking Along Holdings Presents the Cluck Snack Weekday Cartoon Adventure Hour, with animated and live-action segments.

  “Back at five,” she said. They waved with spoons that flicked droplets of milk and bits of cereal across the room and on the marble floors of the office space where they lived. She grabbed her bag and was on her way out the door when the phone rang.

  “Where is there a phone?” she said, to an empty hallway.

  It kept ringing. She did a U-turn and went into Mr. Black’s office, presuming it was one of the two phones, one black and one red, on the massive metal desk, though they had never rang before.

  It wasn’t. The ringing was further away.

  She went back into the center of the floor and listened.

  The call was definitely coming from inside the house.

  She checked the pneumatic tube room. The ringing was coming from a red metal box inside the closet-sized space. She unlatched the casing of the red box. Inside, there was a ringing phone labeled Answer as ‘Special Situations International: We’re Usually Awake.

  Kelly shook her head and unhooked the receiver. “SSI, You Won’t Catch Us Napping.”

  Special Situations International once had their headquarters in the spacious top floors where Kelly was now living rent-free, which meant that she was squatting. But no one ever bothered her about it. She had no idea what SSI did, only that Mr. Black―a former SSI executive whose office she occupied―used to be an elite orienteer, evidenced by the photos on his wall.

  “Yeah, this is Jerry Shanks,” said the loud voice on the other side of the call. “I’m a bail bonds agent with Shanks Brothers Bonds down on Locust Street.” Kelly made a face and held the phone a few inches from her ear.

  “My client failed to make his court appearance,” Jerry said. “This is the number he gave me as a contact.”

  “What’s the name of the client?” Kelly crossed an arm over her waist and propped her elbow on her wrist.