Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror

by Sachs, Zané

  Going Down

  I wake up late, stay in bed sipping coffee and nibbling brownies—my hands so numb that I can barely hold the cup. They’ll get better as the day goes on. After streaming a few episodes of Deadly Women, I stare at my ceiling, daydreaming.

  Then it’s time for work.

  I put on my uniform: black pants and the dreaded shirt we have to wear on Fridays. Banana yellow with tomato red letters running across the front and back, stating: My Job is to Serve You! On yellow shirt days, I feel like a billboard for masochists. I plan to cover My Job is to Serve You! with my apron and a sweater. I slap the company ball cap on my head, grateful that the brim hides my eyes.

  I ride my bicycle to work, saves on gas, and I don’t have to find a parking space. Employees aren’t allowed to park cars in the store lot—we have to park in back, on a street that has no lights, and hope vandals don’t destroy our cars.

  I coast along the bike path, glance at the river. The water is green and kind of muddy, running slow due to lack of rain.

  The sky would be clear blue, typical for Colorado in early July, but there are wildfires up north. The sun struggles to shine through gray haze, and smoke has settled on the mountains. I pedal past the science museum, past the library, past Happy Valley—the old folks’ home. When I hit a hill, I have to pump and my lungs sting. So do my hands, but the familiar pain propels me faster. Today I’m eager to get to work, excited to see Justus.

  This town is full of bike fanatics, and the racks outside the store are crowded. A lot of people ride their bikes to work, like me. And Justus. But he doesn’t use the bike rack. Because he’s Assistant Manager, he gets to keep his bicycle downstairs in the meat locker.

  I spot him as I enter. He’s up front by the cut fruit case, inspecting the corn display. Six shelves, and four are empty. Each shelf holds twelve 5-packs. I do the math. I need forty-eight more 5-packs to fill the sucker—240 ears, so five cases. And that’s just one display; there are two others.

  But today I have a plan, and nothing brings me down.

  I nod hello to Checkers and Courtesy Clerks as I pass them. Courtesy Clerks are the lowest of the low in the supermarket hierarchy. I know. I used to be one—then I got promoted to Salad Bar. Courtesy Clerks get paid less than anyone else. They bag groceries, run around the parking lot corralling shopping carts (people abandon carts in the bushes, behind the dumpster, by the bus stop), empty trash, clean bathrooms (including the disgusting Men’s Room), and are generally bossed around by Checkers. Checkers are the supermarket rock stars. Once, when I was a Courtesy Clerk, I referred to myself as a Bagger, and the CRM in charge corrected me: Courtesy Clerk, not Bagger, Sadie. But when I checked the company website, my job status said: Bagger.

  By the way, CRM stands for Customer Relations Management. They’re the people you see standing around watching the Checkers. The ones who look like they’re not doing anything.

  I clock in, smile at the woman behind the service desk.

  “Have a great day, Doreen.”

  She eyes me suspiciously.

  “Why’re you so happy?”

  “No reason.”

  I head toward the cut fruit and Justus. He’s speaking to the Produce Manager, the head of my department. Maybe you didn’t know this, but each department has a manager and an assistant manager. Justus, the Assistant Store Manager, is in charge of all the department managers, and the Store Manager is in charge of Justus. This place is full of bosses. The Produce Manager is a nice guy, consequently Justus spends a lot of time trying to improve him. They watch me as I approach, the Produce Manager smiling, Justus scowling.

  Usually I’d feel nervous, but today I’m whistling along with the piped-in music. Everything I do here has a soundtrack. Right now it’s “Never Rains in Southern California,” a song I despise.

  Justus zeros in on me.

  “Chop, chop,” he says as I walk past.

  I imagine his head, bashed-in like a Jack-O-Lantern after Halloween.

  Grinning, I turn back to him.

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “How are your hands?” His tone sounds concerned, but his eyes bore into me, noting all my faults.

  “Better,” I lie. “The gloves help a lot.”

  After our little chat about corn, when he hinted he might fire me, he called me into his office for a safety meeting and gave me two flimsy wrist braces. At first he only gave me one, no doubt wanting to avoid too much of an investment, but I mentioned that I have two hands and finagled a second glove. They help a bit, but what I really need is less time spent shucking corn.

  “Glad to hear it,” he says now. “We need this display filled ASAP.”

  “Okay,” I say, and head to the Salad Bar.

  Low on lettuce and Ranch dressing; it could also use a refill on red onions and chick peas.

  I glance at Justus, see him watching me.

  I hurry past the new fake robot in Deli—part of the remodel. The thing doesn’t move like a real robot. It stands stationary, has some kind of sensor so it speaks to people as they pass, “May I take your order? You can save a dollar.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Damned thing wants my job.

  I sprint through the remodeled bakery, duck into the same old, dreary Employees Only area, and hit the button for the new freight elevator. Someone must be loading stuff downstairs. I keep hitting the button, even though I know it won’t light up while the elevator is in use. I consider taking the stairs, but they’re on the other side of Meat and Seafood, and I don’t want to risk running into Justus again.

  Not yet.

  Next thing I know, he’s standing next to me.

  “You work this weekend, Sadie?”

  Sadie the Sadist to you.

  I like the way that sounds!

  Can’t help smiling.

  “Yup, I work this weekend. You?”

  “Going camping for the holiday. Three days off.”

  “That’s nice.” I punch the button.

  “See how it’s not lighting up? That means it’s in use,” Justus explains, as if I’m an imbecile.

  I punch it one more time, for grins.

  “The Olathe corn shipment arrived today, and Corporate expects big sales. Corn is our number one priority, so I need you to keep those displays filled. Understand?”

  I use my cheery voice, “I’ll be here, chopping away.”

  Justus presses the button, and this time it lights.

  “When do you leave on your camping trip?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow, early, but I’ll be here till late tonight getting the store prepared for the holiday. July third is as busy as Christmas Eve.”

  I stare at my sneakers, thinking.

  Say, “Be careful of those fires.”

  I hear the beeping sound, the rattle of the elevator. The door slides open, revealing the steel jaws and then the grill. Liam, a kid I work with downstairs, lurks behind a U-boat teetering with cartons of mushrooms, rutabagas, cauliflower, carrots. He hardly ever speaks, and now is no exception.

  Justus ignores him, but I say, “Hi.”

  Wordlessly, Liam rolls the cart out and disappears onto the floor.

  I enter the elevator before Justus, consider hitting the > < button to shut the door on him, but he’s too fast.

  He follows me inside.

  “Stand back,” he says.

  As if I can’t read the shocking pink warning sign.

  Justus hits B and then > <.

  He faces the door, his back to me.

  I focus on his bald spot, skin pulled tight over his skull.

  A target.

  The door’s jaws begin to clamp together. I count, one chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three—measuring how long the process takes. Sometimes the jaws get stuck midway, and closing takes a bit longer, but usually they glide easy as chomping a ripe peach. If I pushed Justus, he would fall forward. If I push him right now, chances are, he’ll put out his arms to brace himself. But, if I hit him har
d enough, his head will lodge between those closing slabs of steel.

  My hand stretches toward his back. And then I wonder, if his head is sandwiched between those jaws, will it set off an alarm? And won’t the elevator stop moving? If that’s the case, how will I get him downstairs and dispose of his body?

  I pull back my hand.

  “Too soon.”

  I guess I spoke out loud, because Justus turns to look at me.

  “What’s too soon?”

  “Too soon for Olathe corn,” I say. “Doesn’t it usually come after the Fourth?”

  I congratulate myself on my quick thinking.

  Justus runs a manicured finger over his mustache, surprised that a peon like me is privy to such arcane knowledge.

  “That’s right, Sadie. The Olathe crop is early this year.”

  The elevator stops.

  I follow Justus into Produce.

  He points to a stack of black plastic crates filled with corn and wrapped with cellophane to hold them together.

  “Grab an RPC. I’m going to show you how to chop.”

  “I know how to chop,” I say, but he keeps pointing.

  The crates are stacked so high, I need to stand on my tiptoes to pry one off. I tear away the cellophane and manage to move the crate on top. My wrists shake as I bring it down.

  “Set it by the trash,” Justus tells me as if I’m clueless.

  “I need to double bag the can,” I say, “so it doesn’t rip.”

  If Justus thinks a single bag will be enough, he obviously has had very little experience with corn. The fact that he thinks he’s some kind of expert is more than annoying.

  My gaze falls on the machetes lined up on the magnet strip, immaculate and shiny after soaking in the chlorine solution I use for cleaning. I’ve been reading up online: Chlorine can remove visual evidence of blood, but to completely destroy hemoglobin, so it can’t be detected by forensics, you need a cleaning agent like hydrogen peroxide. Peroxy, the stuff that squirts out of the power hose I use to mop this concrete floor. I’m the last one out at night, so that job falls on me.

  I grab my guillotine and place it over the double lined trash can.

  “Wrong way,” Justus says, as if I’m some dummy. “Turn it around.”

  “I’m a lefty.”

  Justus raises an eyebrow, as if my left-handedness explains a lot of things.

  To accommodate his superior right-handedness, he turns the guillotine around and unlocks the safety catch, allowing the arm to swing up. Then he grabs an ear of corn and aligns it with the blade.

  “They call me the Colonel,” he says, as he brings the arm down.

  “The kernel, that’s hilarious.” I hand him another ear.

  He repeats the process.

  “You shuck, while I cut.”

  I want to take this ear of corn and shove it up his Type A ass.

  Silently, I scream, GO SHUCK YOURSELF.

  I draw the gloves he gave me over my tingling hands and wrap the bands around my tingling wrists. Securing the Velcro a little too tightly, I imagine his neck.

  Wait.

  I pull on rubber gloves, careful not to get white powder on my black pants. I don’t want to leave any prints.

  But, instead of grabbing Justus, I reach for an ear of corn.

  Disappointed in myself, I peel away the husk, revealing kernels the color of chicken skin.

  The piped-in music plays “Take This Job and Shove It.”

  I sing along.

  An announcement blasts over the speaker system: Call for Justus on line two.

  He stops chopping.

  “I’ll be back later, check on how you’re doing.”

  I shuck the ears that Justus cut—all six of them.

  Impressive.

  Itchy blotches creep along the inside of my forearms, crawl over my neck. I can’t stop scratching. I read a blog called The Real Children of the Corn. The kid who wrote it says everyone working in the cornfields gets Corn Rash. He said it’s caused by thousands of little razor cuts from the husks, but I suspect it’s also caused by all the chemicals they use. Justus says this corn isn’t genetically modified, but I know they spray it with all kinds of poison: one to kill the weeds, another so the crop survives the weed killer, something else for bugs and worms. It’s a wonder we can eat this stuff. I watched this documentary, King Korn, and learned most corn grown in the United States is inedible, not to mention unprofitable. The only way farmers make any money is government subsidies. The corn they grow is used to manufacture stuff like ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup, fillers in things like toothpaste and varnish. The two guys who made the film had their hair tested and it was composed mostly of corn.

  Most Americans are mostly made of corn.

  I need to chop more.

  I wheel the trash over to my corner, so I won’t be in anybody’s way. Pull three more crates off of the stack and bring them to my area. I set up RPCs (reusable plastic containers): one for cut corn, one for shucked.

  Chop, chop, chop.

  I imagine Justus’s pasty hand lying in between the blades, imagine his manicured fingernails trembling at the ends of his pale fingers.

  I lower my guillotine and his hand falls into the trash.

  The doors to Produce swing open.

  Liam appears. He squeezes past a pallet loaded with crates of cabbages and broccoli, then disappears into the cooler. A minute later he rolls out a U-boat stacked with boxes of berries.

  He nods at the RPCs I’ve carefully arranged on the counters by my sinks.

  “More corn,” he says, surprising me with his effusive speech.

  “Corn is my life.”

  He shakes his head and leaves.

  We both work the late shift and most nights it’s the two of us and no one else. One time, as we both stood in the elevator waiting for the jaws to close, I mentioned it was like a giant mouth devouring endless crates of corn.

  He said, “A soul-sucking mouth devouring employees.”

  I’d never heard him speak so many words.

  Since then, I’ve felt we have a bond.

  I wonder if he’d help me move the body. Shoving dead weight into the compactor will require more muscle than I can muster on my own, plus Liam’s aversion to speech might prove to be an asset.

  I keep chopping.

  The music goes through a rotation: popular songs from the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s—hardly anything from the millennium we’ve been in for more than a dozen years. Now it’s disco, Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough,” as if Justus is inside my head, commanding me to chop more corn.

  Chop, chop, chop.

  I ponder how best to dispose of his body.

  After cutting two cases, it’s time to dump the trash—more than two cases of cob bits, and I can’t lift the bag. I roll the garbage can out of Produce, open the compactor’s door—trying not to breathe the stink—heave the bag into the pit.

  I double-bag the garbage can again.

  As I start chopping yet another crate of corn, the solution occurs to me: divide and conquer.

  No need to enlist help if I chop the body into pieces.

  I glance at the clock, wondering when Justus will return.

  Chop, chop, chop.

  Shuck, shuck, shuck.

  Wrap, wrap, wrap.

  I’ve chopped, shucked, wrapped, six crates of corn. Now I’m working on prepping the Salad Bar for tomorrow. The counter is lined with containers filled with sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots, artichoke hearts, chick peas, beets.

  I’m trimming broccoli.

  I last spotted Justus up front when I left the break room after lunch. Around here, they call it lunch even if it’s 6:00 PM.

  Wanting to avoid him, I veered into Housewares and circled through Dairy.

  My timing needs to be perfect.

  I intend to ambush Justus after I take down the Salad Bar.

  I’ll lure him down to my domain, my corner by the sinks where I chop an
d cut. When he has his back to me, I’ll whack him with the machete or stab him with a chef’s knife. I haven’t quite decided, but the knives are waiting by my cutting board where I’m working on the broccoli.

  When he’s dead, I’ll stash his body on the floor behind the trash can so he’s hidden. Then I’ll pull the salad cart in front of the trash can to act as a barrier. There’s a drain on the floor by the sinks, so cleanup should be fairly easy. The only snag I can imagine is Liam, but he’ll be upstairs stocking vegetables.

  Liam leaves at about 9:00. After that, the basement will be deserted—except for the guy in the meat locker, way down the hall. Most of the day crew will be gone, and the night stalkers won’t arrive till eleven. Night stalkers live on coffee and energy drinks. They stock the shelves while the store is closed and leave at dawn. The point is, I’ll have about two hours to myself down in the basement. After Liam’s gone, I plan to fillet Justus (if not fillets, pieces: legs, thighs, wings), then I’ll deposit the parts into trash bags (doubled to avoid leakage), and toss the bags into the compactor.

  When I’m done I’ll mop as usual, spray the concrete with the hose, use a squeegee to drive bloody water into the drain—

  The Produce doors part, revealing Liam. Head bowed, he rolls a cart of packaged lettuce, spinach, various herbs, past my station, maneuvering between a U-boat stacked with carrots and a ginormous pallet of corn. He enters the cooler.

  I place the cut broccoli into a container, secure the lid. My hands tremble as I peel tape from a roll. Shake harder as I slap the tape onto the lid of the container. All this thinking makes me nervous. Using a black marker, I label the tape with today’s date, so I’ll know when to pull the broccoli from the Salad Bar.

  I figure, no one will miss Justus till he’s due back from his camping trip. Even then, maybe they’ll think he got caught in a wildfire—they’re spreading fast.

  What about his bicycle?

  Someone is bound to notice it hanging out in the meat locker.

  I’ll ride it home.

  The more I think, the more my hands shake.

  My plot has holes.

  A rattling noise makes me jump.