Take the All-Mart!

by J. I. Greco

  “Way better look than the Lederhosen,” Rudy said, swallowing, “but yeah, very wrong.”

  The dayshift workers were escorting Brenda towards the break area now. She was trembling, wild eyed and panting.

  “Morty,” one of them said, “she says she needs to speak you.”

  “Catch your breath, child.” Sorta-King Morty took her hand and led her to the couch. “You all get back to work,” he told the dayshift workers. “And somebody go get Stan, tell him his girl needs him.”

  Brenda plopped down into the couch, shivering. “Fuck that, get me a drink.”

  Sorta-King Morty nodded at Shemp to do as she asked, then turned back to Brenda. “What happened?”

  “It was the All-Mart,” Brenda said, grabbing her knees and hugging them close to her chest. “They were praying to it and all of a sudden it just... grabbed them.”

  “What do you mean ‘grabbed them’?” Sorta-King Morty asked.

  “Grabbed them,” Brenda chocked out, blankly staring past him. “These huge arms of smoke came out and it pulled everyone inside.”

  “Everyone?”

  Brenda nodded. “Everyone... all of them... even...” Brenda managed to bring herself to look directly at Sorta-King Morty. “Her too. She yelled at me to run and get help, right before she got swallowed up. I ran, took her bike. — I left them all there... I left her there... I’m so sorry.”

  Sorta-King Morty stammered, sagged down onto the couch next to Brenda.

  Shemp returned with a jug of beer. He handed it to Brenda, helped her take a sip. “You did the right thing, Brenda,” he said.

  “I should have stayed,” Brenda said, taking another sip. “Fought it... somehow...”

  “You couldn’t have,” Shemp said to her, then turned to Morty. The Sorta-King’s cloudy eye was staring at nothing, the other one at the ceiling.

  Shemp snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Morty, you okay?”

  “We have to save her!” Morty blurted, sitting up. “Them. All of them. Sound the alarm! We’re going into the All-Mart to rescue my daughter!”

  Nobody moved for the longest moment. Shemp’s fellow nightshift workers were suddenly staring at their boot tops.

  “Umm...” Shemp said sheepishly.

  Sorta-King Morty’s head snapped around. “What?”

  “We’re beer makers, Morty. Not soldiers.” Shemp lifted his P-90. “Hell, these things aren’t even loaded.”

  “They’re not?” Trip blurted, then in a whisper: “Vishnu’s herniated septum. Rudy?”

  “On it.” Rudy flinched his right wrist rapidly three times, popping the miniature circular saw implant out from under the concealed hold-out skin flap on his right forearm. It immediately spun up to speed with a high-pitched buzz, cutting through his twine and tape binding from the inside.

  “You’re cowards!” Sorta-King Morty spat at Shemp. “All of you.”

  “It’s the All-Mart, Morty,” Shemp said. “Nobody ever comes back out. It’d be suicide, and I’ve got kids. We all do.”

  “So do I.” Sorta-King Morty’s whole body sagging. Brenda offered him the jug of beer. He took it, cradled it. “And that thing has her.”

  “I know,” Shemp said. “But besides her, all the sisters are from other towns. Nobody’s going to be willing to risk it. Sorry.”

  “We have to do something...” Sorta-King Morty took a long, comforting slug from the jug, then stared into it, his face contorting with resolution. “I’ll rescue Roxanne myself!” He bolted to his feet, unsteadily, and promptly fell over, face down and out cold on the floor at Trip’s feet.

  “Roxanne?” Trip said, snapping his fingers. “Oh — that’s where I know him.”

  “What?” Rudy asked, his hands free now and stepping behind Trip to start in on his bindings with the tiny buzzing blade.

  “Nothing — my clever plan worked, is all,” Trip said, shrugging free of the twine and tape as Rudy cut through it. He immediately went for his tin of cigs and lit up, then smirked at Shemp. “When the Sorta-King wakes up... I’ve got a deal for him.”

  CHAPTER 8: ON THE ROAD AGAIN?

  By Noon, the Wound was speeding away from Shunk, the thrum of her breeder reactor momentarily stopping all work in the barley fields — townsfolk looking up from their weeding to stare as the Dodge whipped by, kicking up clouds of dirt and gravel in her wake.

  Relaxed in the front passenger seat, Rudy finished stuffing his calabash and lit it. “So, what you set the timer on Hunt-R’s emergency abandonment protocol to? Three days? Four? He gonna meet us in Atlantic City?” He sat back, looked out the window just as the Wound jagged left at a fork in the dirt road. His eyes and pipe pointed back at the fork. “Umm... isn’t A.C. that way?”

  Jacked into the Wound, Trip shot a caff pill into his mouth from the Bugs Bunny Pez dispenser. “We’re not going to A.C..”

  Rudy pursed his lips around the bit of the pipe. “Yeah... you’re probably right. Bounty hunters will expect that. Radiation levels this time a year, the fishing will suck anyway. But if we’re not going to A.C., where’s Hunt-R meeting us, then?”

  Trip slipped the dispenser away into a tux inner pocket, took out a cig. He pushed the dash lighter in with his thumb. “Robot’s staying put in Shunk. That was the deal with the Sorta-King. He keeps Hunt-R as collateral —”

  Rudy shrugged. “He will be missed. But... it just so happens I’ve got this design for a new model I’ve been itching to try out.” Rudy fished around behind him in the seat crack until he pulled out a wadded piece of paper. He un-crumpled it, and smiling proudly held the drawing on it up for Trip to see. It was a rough mechanical sketch of a sphere with short stubby legs and arms and a Cyclops-eye dome of a head. “I call him Gonz-O. He’ll be a workhorse. Plenty of gadgets in him. I can start building his central core now, you pull over a sec and let me grab my tools and that Cray we salvaged in Albuquerque from the trunk.”

  The lighter popped and Trip lit his cig. “Will he be less mouthy?”

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Trip shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter. We don’t need a new robot. We’ll get that old bastard junk pile of circuits back once we rescue Roxanne.”

  “Sure,” Rudy said, folding the paper and stuffing it back into the seat crack. “But that was just bullshit to get us out of there. Like you telling Morty you’re in love with Roxanne — that was a little cruel, by the way, but guess I can’t complain: I’m not swinging off the side of a grain silo.”

  “Yeah...” Trip blew smoke out the open driver’s window and watched the barley fields giving way back to scrubland. “Bullshit. Except, it’s possibly not.”

  “Of course,” Rudy sighed, putting his calabash in the ash tray and reaching for the shotgun on the dash.

  Trip scowled at him. “What are you doing now?”

  Rudy was trying to get his mouth around the shotgun barrels. He gave up and simply put them flat against his forehead. “Pull over so I can get a clean shot. I don’t wanna get brains all over my t-shirt-shirt. I would like an open casket — I promised mom.”

  Trip rolled his eyes. “Stop being a cartoon.”

  “Stop being insane,” Rudy said, spinning the shotgun around to point both barrels right at Trip’s long nose. “You are not in love.”

  Trip gently pushed the shotgun out of his face. “I could be, you don’t know.”

  “No, I do know.” Rudy tossed the shotgun into the back seat. “You’re not. You never are. Infatuated, yes... all the fucking time. But never in love. Not for real.”

  “But what if she’s the one this time? Huh, you think about that? There she is, the potential love of my life, trapped in the All-Mart. I’m all for long-distance relationships, but that’d be a stretch.”

  With one hand, Rudy tweaked his nipple while the other retrieved the calabash. “She’s not the one.”

  “How do you know?” Trip indignantly dashed out his cig, half-smoked. “You never even met her
.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re never the one. Because you don’t have a ‘one’. Except yourself.”

  “I am rather fetching, aren’t I?” Trip leaned to check his hair in the rear-view. He flicked at it until the curl was just perfect. “But Roxanne’s no slouch. She’s got a brain. And perfect eyes... perfect smile... more than perfect ass. Special, even, that ass. The things she can do with that ass...”

  “Will you listen to yourself? Why do you keep doing this? We’re free and clear here. The king was drunk enough to let us go, we should take advantage of the good luck. Hell, nobody’s gonna come after us if we just blow him off. You’ll forget her in a week.”

  Trip glared at him. “Dude, she doesn’t wear underwear.”

  Rudy’s eyebrow went up. “Okay, two weeks. Tops.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Definitely.”

  “But how will I know until we’ve had that crucial second date? You know, the awkward one where you actually go out to dinner and have to make small talk over breadsticks? Anyway, there’s still the little matter of having to pay back the Warlord Hu.”

  “And how is going into a zombie-infested department store for a chick you barely know gonna help with that?”

  “The reward!”

  “What reward?”

  “Think about it.” Trip thumbed the dash lighter in, took a fresh cig out of the tin. “We bring Roxanne back, daddy Sorta-King’s gonna be happy. Happy enough to open the town vault —”

  “Would that be the vault you couldn’t crack?” Rudy interrupted, chuckling.

  Trip scowled at him and continued, “— and throw enough money at Hu to get her to forget all about us.”

  “Forget all about you, you mean. She’s already forgotten about me. You heard the Higgins — you’re the one with the bounty on his head. Hell, I could probably make all this go away if I just turned you over to her. Collect myself a nice bounty while I’m at it and retire to some quiet beach in Colorado.”

  “Don’t get any ideas.” Trip’s hand hovered impatiently over the dash lighter until it popped. He grabbed it, lit his cig, then jammed the lighter away. “Turn me in, I’ll remind her how you treated Mr. Charles Xavier Whimsy, Esquire. Bet he walks with a limp now. All spastic and pathetic.”

  Rudy swallowed. “Yeah, okay... But nobody said anything about a reward when we were cutting the deal with the king. The deal was we get Roxanne back, we get to live. And get Hunt-R back. That was it.”

  “Talking money didn’t seem appropriate at the time. The guy is having a hell of a enough of a bad day as it is. Would’a been gauche.”

  “Would’a been nice to have negotiated it before we took the suicide mission.”

  “It’ll work out. Somehow. Always does.”

  “Right,” Rudy said, resigned. He looked out the window, gnawing on his thumbnail nervously. “So, you got an actual plan or we just doing the usual headlong and heedless full-frontal assault?”

  Trip gave him a sideways smirk and twitched to send the Wound swerving onto the weed-overgrown ramp to I-80. “What kind of asinine question is that?”

  CHAPTER 9: A WALK IN THE DARK

  “Why, yes, I do think we have been walking in circles, Sister Smart Ass,” Roxanne said. Her voice was quickly lost to the echoless, pitch-black depths of the All-Mart.

  A click beside her and Bernice’s face was illuminated, blue eyes squinting past the flame spouting from her panther lighter’s mouth into the inky dark. “I was just wondering, is all.”

  “At least we haven’t run into any zombies.”

  “Yay?” Bernice sneered and lit another joint. She lowered the lighter, peered into her purse. “Oh, just great — I’m running out of things to smoke.”

  “Me too,” Yolanda said from back of the pack somewhere. “And I’m pretty sure being stoned is the only thing keeping me from freaking out.”

  “I’m cold,” said Lindsay-Joe, standing between Ophelia and Xanadu, their arms tightly around each other.

  “I broke a heel,” Denise chimed in.

  “On the bright side, these fishnets have never looked better,” Carolyn said, twisting her left leg out in front of her to show off the fresh tears in her stockings.

  Georgina, all of sixteen, started whimpering.

  “Please, girls,” Mother Superior said, gesturing for the coven to huddle closer around her and Bernice’s lighter flame. “Calm yourselves.”

  “How?” Bernice clicked off her lighter before her thumb burnt.

  Yolanda flicked her own lighter to life. “Yeah, we’re running out of weed.”

  Mother Superior reached out for the whimpering Georgina, pulled her close to snug her up against her hip and stroke her hair. “We’re all alive, no broken bones, and we have each other. We will find a way out.”

  “Did anybody think to bring a compass?” Roxanne asked.

  “An excellent idea, Sister Roxanne. Well, anyone?” Mother Superior scanned the faces of her coven. She got back shrugs and shaking heads.

  “I’ve got these,” Lindsay-Joe said with a giggle, holding her purse up to the lighter flame and showing off the collection of dildos, vibrators and lubes inside. “Will they help?”

  Mother Superior shook her head. “Not under these circumstances, I’m afraid. But they’ll certainly come in handy once we’re out and can celebrate.” She bit her lower lip in thought, then, “All right, no compass... how about a flashlight? Anyone?”

  “We’ve been wandering around in here for at least a couple hours,” Roxanne noted. “Don’t you think if any of us had a flashlight, we would have taken it out by now?”

  Mother Superior glared at her. “Food, then?”

  “Oh, I could use a sandwich,” Yolanda said, letting her lighter go out. Xanadu was ready, lighting hers.

  Mother Superior nodded. “I think all of us could.”

  “We left all the stuff we brought for brunch on the bus,” Georgina said.

  “Nobody brought any snacks?” Mother Superior asked.

  “Why’s everybody looking at me?” Bernice asked. “No... no I did not bring snacks. I’m on a diet.”

  “Maybe,” Lindsay-Joe said, “the All-Mart will let us go if we do a blood sacrifice.”

  “That requires a virgin,” Mother Superior reminded her.

  “Bernie’s never done it with a guy!” Yolanda blurted.

  “Yolanda, you bitch!”

  “What? I’m panicking here.” Yolanda’s head dropped in shame. “You know I’m not good in the dark.”

  Bernice put her arm around Yolanda’s shoulder consolingly. “I know, honey.”

  Mother Superior took the lighter from Xanadu and held the flame below her face. “We’re hardly desperate enough for a blood sacrifice, girls. But... we probably should complete the appeasement ceremony.”

  “Yeah, no.” Roxanne crossed her arms and jutted her hips to one side defiantly. “I think I’m about done praying to the All-Mart, thank you very much.”

  “We don’t question the actions of the new god, Sister Roxanne.” Mother Superior fingered the double-helix phallus medallion between her bare breasts. “I’m sure it has its reasons for subsuming us. And whatever the reasons, it still deserves our prayers and it will get them. Now, if you’ll all give me a few minutes while I meditate and prepare, then we’ll start the ceremony over from the beginning. — Xanadu, Ophelia, will you assist, please?”

  The two sisters stepped forward. Xanadu took her lighter back, Ophelia took Georgina, still clinging and whimpering.

  “Great plan,” Roxanne said, but deep enough under her breath the Mother Superior couldn’t possibly hear. Except she did, glancing back to sneer at her before she shut her eyes and sank into her deep-breathing routine.

  Bernice tugged at Roxanne’s mini, led her away from Mother Superior. “When in doubt, pray your ass off, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Bernice said, sitting on the cold concrete floor and pullin
g a bundle of barley-fiber paper — a wasteland sanitary napkin — from her purse. She laid it on the concrete in front of her and lit it.

  “Who’s thinking it’s my fault?” Roxanne crouched before the feeble fire. “You thinking it’s my fault?”

  “Well... you were late.”

  “Not that late.” Roxanne crossed her legs underneath her. “Anyway, the All-Mart doesn’t care.”

  “That’d be a wonderful theory if it hadn’t just swallowed us up, Rox.”

  “Total coincidence. Hopefully. — Seriously, you didn’t even bring a hoagie or anything? You always bring a nosh.”

  “I got hungry on the ride out. How about you?”

  “I might have some gum or something in my purse.”

  “Well, get checking, girl.” Bernice leaned back on her arms. “And if you’ve got a brilliant plan to get us out of here in there, too, that’d be super.”

  “You don’t trust prayer will save the day?” Roxanne asked, opening her satchel and rooting around in it. Her hand found something hard. “Okay, here’s something...”

  “Is it a sandwich?” Bernice asked, then frowned as Roxanne took the RATpack antenna out. “That’s not a sandwich. It’s not even edible.”

  “No, but it is an antenna.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “It was acting all fritzy before, but maybe I can modify it to act like a compass and lead us out of here.”

  “You can do that?”

  “If it’s not completely broken, yeah.” Roxanne put the antenna on her knee while she started rooting around in her satchel. “And if the signal can get through the All-Mart’s wall. And if he’s still wearing the other one — they only work when they’re plugged into meat.”

  “‘He as in Mr. Hunter McRealMan?” Bernice sat up to watch as Roxanne found her tool box and took it out.

  “Trig.” Roxanne opened the tool box and grabbed a small needle-nosed probe. She poked at the exposed RATpack circuitry around the jack. “Or Trip. Something like that.”

  Bernice threw another napkin on the fire. “Wow, must have been real special.”