A Dead-End Job

by Justin Alcala

  I thought I could be dressed well enough to play the part of a prospecting construction manager should anyone catch me, but when I tried the doors, I realized that there was no one around. Everything was silent inside. I attempted to get a view from the windows, but they were covered in soot. So, the Curious George in me decided to have a closer look. The door locks were a bit too advanced for my warder’s keys, so I went to one of the side windows and applied a similar method to the glass at Zombie Pete’s bar. The wide pane took more patience due to its industrial strength, but persistence rewards. After a few minutes, I’d cracked enough of a hole to fit my hand through to unlatch the window fixture. I crawled inside and dusted myself off.

  The interior was dark and even after removing my sunglasses I found that it wasn’t enough. I dug into my computer satchel and removed Old Lilith’s scope. After flipping on its power, I used the lowlight mode to navigate my way around. The center storage area sprawled out like a grocery store and was polluted with stacked wood crates that resembled a game of Tetris. The open ceiling reached up four floors to the top of the building. There was a thin wrought iron staircase that led to overlooking mezzanines crowning the second and third levels.

  On those upper levels were small glass offices. If anyone were upstairs, they could easily lean over the side to shoot me up like fish in a barrel. That only further inspired me to tread lightly. I tiptoed toward the stairs with one hand glued to the scope over my eye and the other hand clung to Thing One. The plan was to search office to office in search of Dillinger. I took my first step up the stairwell, and the cast iron reverberated. It was only moments later when I heard the rumble of the large engine outside. The mechanical thunder bellowed like only a tractor or big-rig would.

  There was a groan of tires, then the muffled creek of a vehicle door. Heavy feet hit gravel and then shuffled toward the building’s loading dock doors.

  Damn, I thought to myself. I rolled a 1 on my sneak check.

  I hurried to an amassment of crates and hid between them. Someone outside fumbled with a lock. Soon after, the door rose a foot open before a figure rolled underneath. The muscular silhouette stood up and reached for a chain that dangled from the top of the loading dock door.

  They pulled the iron links several times, forcibly raising the door higher and higher. Finally, the barrier reached the top and sunlight poured inside. The back of an orange semi-truck faced the entrance. The Herculean figure walked back to the driver’s seat. I could hear the drag of a few gears as the vehicle beeped and backed up until the bed of the truck plugged the entrance, making everything dark again.

  The tail of the trailer bed drew open. I wondered if my hunch was a bust. Maybe Dillinger circled this place on the advertisement because he was interested, but never actually committed to rent it. Perhaps I’d broken into Bob Nobody’s legitimate establishment, and was now forced to hold the big guy up if he discovered me. I watched from my hiding spot as four disheveled workers with chevron mustaches poured out of the back. Along with the strapping driver, they unloaded cargo into a neat pyramid just outside the trailer. I focused on the driver with my scope. The wrestler sized figure wore his coal hoodie over a snug Blackhawks baseball cap that shaded his eyes. His worn workman’s gloves competed with his raggedy jeans and tatty construction boots for Scruffiest Clothing of the Year. While his men worked in teams to get the heavy boxes off the truck, the big man worked alone.

  An imaginary light bulb flickered above my head and I had an idea. I flipped the scope’s optics to G.S. vision. It was just as I thought. An overlay of electrical tendrils crackled along the truck driver as if he were a storm cloud. I unplugged my eye from the site and compared. There was nothing sparkling over the truck driver. Maybe my instincts were right after all.

  I decided to get all creepy ex-boyfriend and watch them from my dark corner. The process took at least an hour, but by the time they unloaded the last container, I’d made a few strange observations.

  All four of the laborers looked exactly the same. Each scowled face had feathered pepper hair, narrowed eyes, and a broad mustache. Their skin had heavy creases and their jaws stayed tightly shut. They wore flannels, denim jeans, and dirty sneakers. I subconsciously began to sort them out as Charles Bronson A through D. They worked together like ants, silently understanding the others’ intentions.

  As for the beefy driver, he seemed to be the ringleader. I noticed a slight German accent when he’d give orders like, “Put dat’ over there,” and “put dat’ box next to dat’ box.” The Charles Bronson Foursome obeyed. As for the driver’s physical appearance, I’d say he was due for a visit to his dermatologist. What little skin he had showing was scarred and littered with heavy stitching. I didn’t know if he’d been in a road wreck before this but if he had, maybe truck driving wasn’t his true calling. In the end, I was convinced that I definitely was where I needed to be. It was all far too weird to be natural.

  “Folge mir,” he said in a throaty form of German. “Our host should be awake soon.” The Charles Bronson Quartet followed behind the driver as he stomped his way up the wrought iron stairs. He passed the second level to the third floor. Together with his minions, they entered an office that was out of my line of sight. Damn. Everything was now a high-risk guessing game like Battleship, only I had a chance of winning. I settled down and continued to observe. If this was a waiting game, they’d find that I could be as patient as Prince Charles standing by for the throne. By the time the sun went down, I’d memorized every exit, put together Old Lilith, and mentally balanced my checkbook. My back should have ached and my knees should have given me hell, but they didn’t. I wrote it off as the benefits of my new high fiber diet. Finally, I heard activity upstairs. At first there were footsteps, followed by muffled conversation.

  “Guten Morgen,” said the truck driver.

  “Guten Tag,” responded an American man’s voice that I didn’t recognize.

  “Es ist Zeit für…” the truck driver continued in German, which I didn’t understand in the slightest. “German, German, German.” He carried on about something that sounded like a buffet involving Sigmund Freud. I thought German was a dying language? The two went back and forth. Since I didn’t understand any of it, I decided to make a move while they were distracted. I put weight on the balls of my feet and crept toward’ the pyramid of freshly unloaded boxes.

  There were several heavy-duty Rubbermaid chests with snap latches and three tall wood crates hugged in chains. A pungent ammonia smell stung my nostrils. I flipped the latches of one of the plastic chests and peeked inside. There were cheap steel bars lined in rows. Well, that was a letdown. I slipped toward the chain, my eyes locked on the balconies above. I leaned on one of the tall wood crates. There was the distinct sound of heavy breathing from inside. Slowly and cautiously, I turned around and peered through a small crack along the corner of the crate, catching a large yellow eye blink. I backed up, but the creature had already begun to growl and shake its prison. Chains rattled and wood moaned.

  “What was that?” the American voice from above asked.

  “Die Hunde,” the truck driver exclaimed.

  I didn’t think that the snarls were coming from an affordable South Korean scooter, so I put some distance between the box and myself. I slipped behind the truck trailer and watched as the chained crate continued to rock. There were scratches clawing from inside the box. Like a chemical reaction, the second chained box wobbled and barked, and then the third. Soon there was a chorus of howls and snarls.

  “Go have a look.”

  I strained to hear the truck driver’s order over the grunts and growls. A weak flood light from above flipped on. Not to be outdone, the Charles Bronson Band looked over the railing and studied the boxes. They exchanged glances briefly before making their way downstairs.

  This was getting hairy.

  I kept Old Lilith slung over my shoulder and removed Thing One and Thing Two from their holsters. I wasn’t looking for a fight, but
I’d be ready if the jig was up. I crouched close to the massive driver side tire and watched from under the front bumper as the Charles Bronson squad made it downstairs.

  Three of their heads were cut off from my view, but I watched as the fourth Charles Bronson in a red flannel beat on one of the crates with his fists. Whatever was inside stopped, causing its neighbors to do the same. All went still. Seconds later, as if the chained box was filled beyond capacity, the crack of cedar cried out and the crate erupted. I watched as a blurred figure pounced from the broken remnants onto red flannel Charles Bronson.

  The beast was blanketed in black fur and as large as a grizzly bear. It clawed at a now prone red flannel Charles Bronson. Charles Bronson in blue plaid came into view. He leapt on the creature’s back while orange flannel Charles Bronson picked up a nearby pry bar and started hitting the creature’s wolfish head. Green houndstooth patterned Charles Bronson readied to leap into action when a second chained crate’s seams burst open.

  Shouldn’t have cut down on shipping expenses.

  A colossal brown furred creature with a head like a German Shepherd dove at houndstooth green Charles Bronson, sweeping the retro action star’s legs with a front paw.

  “Well, no time like the present,” I whispered under my breath. I scurried past the cargo.

  The third chained box rattled once I reached the bottom of the wrought iron stairs. I was going to get my target damn it. As I reached the second step, a set of fingers grabbed my ankle. I looked down to find that red flannel Charles Bronson had crawled his way to me and was trying to keep me from advancing. I narrowed my eyes and studied the wounds on his face. He had gaping lesions across his eyes and nose, but where gore should be, there was an interweaving of wriggling maggots. My jaw dropped, and as Charles pulled me forward, I blurted out my surface thoughts.

  “What the shit am I looking at here?” I asked him. His bushy brows furrowed as larva poured from his face.

  “Mensch!” shouted the German truck driver from above me. I glanced up. The truck driver and John freaking Dillinger were leaning over the third-floor balcony. The truck driver’s eyes bounced between the commotion and myself, but Dillinger’s glare was directed straight at me.

  “Who are you?”

  “That’s a funny story,” I answered over the cacophony of madness on my floor. “Just stay right there and I’ll come up to tell you.”

  John Dillinger’s sleek eyebrow lifted. “Hey boob, you’re armed.” I looked to Thing One and Thing Two readied in my hands.

  “Huh?” I said as I looked the pistols over. “How about that? Well.” I pointed the pistols up at Dillinger. “Use it or lose it.”

  I fired three shots from each gun. Now most people bold enough to sport a pair of pistols do so because they watched way too many John Woo movies. For me, it was because before a day ago, I was mostly blind in one eye, and needed to take as many shots as possible. My batting average didn’t get any better this time around, as four of my six bullets ricocheted off of walls and railings. One entered the bulky truck driver’s beefy arm. A spark of electric glinted outward from the bullet hole. Strange. The second should’ve hit Dillinger in his neck, but somehow, in the blink of an eye, John sprang sideways.

  Dillinger dusted his shoulders off and shook his head. “Hey, Abercrombie.” He gave a smug smirk. “I thought Mr. Rodgers taught you better.” Humor during high-stress circumstances; I might like this guy. Too bad I had to kill him.

  The truck driver’s mouth bent into a clenched half-moon. He looked around the hall and grabbed a corroded barrel from a collection nearby. I didn’t like the idea of my head getting crushed in, so I targeted Charles Bronson’s wrist along my ankle and unloaded my pistols. The bullets didn’t quite saw through as I’d hoped, but they did enough damage so that I could tug hard with my leg. A sound similar to tearing paper split in my ears. Maggots poured onto the stairs from Bronson’s wrist. I leapt up the steps with a hand gripped on my ankle just in time to dodge a whirled barrel. The drum rolled down and over Charles Bronson. I kept climbing up, but as I glanced at the balcony, I noticed that Dillinger was gone. The disappearing act didn’t stop the truck driver from pretending he was Donkey-Kong. He hurled another barrel that I narrowly escaped.

  I’m getting jealous of people that never met this guy.

  I holstered my pistols and unslung Old Lilith from my shoulder. The rifle was unwieldy and took all of my concentration to control. I put my good eye into the scope and aimed at the truck driver’s heart as he lifted another drum but just as I squeezed the trigger, red flannel Charles Bronson leapt in front of me. The luminous bullet drove through Charles’s shoulder. All at once, the maggots began to explode like popcorn. Charles Bronson’s skin flapped in a pile at my feet along with his clothes. The truck driver’s eyes flared.

  “Angry German words,” he shouted as tendrils of electric covered his skin. At once, he leapt helter-skelter over the rails. Like a grasshopper, the truck driver covered a far greater distance than anyone his size should. He landed feet first on the cement, fracturing it into a web pattern. He stood unharmed and darted toward the semi’s cab.

  I flipped my head and saw that Mr. Electrodes was now behind the wheel of the truck. The engines grumbled with life. Near the back of the trailer, blue plaid Charles Bronson was being ripped to ribbons by the black dog monster. Green houndstooth Charles Bronson, who had been torn in half, dragged himself toward the fray. I had no idea where orange flannel Charles Bronson or the brown beast was. I unfastened Old Lilith’s bipod and leaned the supports along the stairs ’guardrail. I peered through the scope again and aimed at the dog monster’s head. I pulled the trigger. The creature lurched forward from the impact of Old Lilith’s radiant bullet before collapsing upon the leftovers of blue plaid Charles Bronson. In an instant, the creature shifted into a nude woman.

  Suddenly, from the back of the stacked cargo, a howl cried out. I peeked over my scope and saw the creature with a German’s Shepherd head coming out from the stack. It strode to the nude woman and sniffed. It must not have liked what it smelled because it roared before setting its sights on me, its teeth pulled into a vicious grin. I drew back the rifle’s bolt-action to put another bullet in the chamber and then plugged my eye in the scope. The monster rushed forward. I did what you’re taught not to do and took panicked shots. My first bullet missed wide. I pulled back the bolt-action again and fired into a box as the creature hurried past. I reloaded another time and fired. The bullet drilled into the first step of the stairwell that the monster climbed. If my count was right, I had one shot left, but I doubted I’d cock it in the barrel before the beast reached me. I was about to find out what being in a blender felt like.

  As the creature reached within striking distance, it winced in pain. My hands hurried to put the last bullet in the chamber as orange flannel Charles Bronson, who only had one hand now, bashed the German Shepherd with his pry bar. The wolf palmed orange flannel Charles Bronson’s skull and crushed it like a tomato. Maggots rained down. I put the scope to my eye and aimed. The beast turned to me and lunged. I pulled the trigger. There was a scream from the creature as we collided. The impact was too much. Together with the monster, I flipped over the railing and down to the bottom headfirst. It was about the time when my head met the cement that I lost consciousness.

  When I woke up, the sun was out in the warehouse. There was an overweight woman on top of me with a bullet wound in her neck. Together we wallowed in a pool of her stale blood. I pushed her off and stood up. The truck had left, and the building was quiet. Though the bodies of the two nude women were still around, the Charles Bronson quartet was gone. I should have felt like a bag of dicks, but miraculously, I was fine. I checked the upstairs for any signs of life, but there weren’t any. I made my way to the pyramid of cargo in hopes to find something I could work with. As I made it back downstairs, the third chained crate rattled.

  “I just can’t catch a break,” I mumbled aloud as I checked Old Lilith.
There were no bullets left, nor was I given any spare ammo. I dug in my jacket and removed Thing One, reloading it with one of the spare clips I kept on me. Afterwards, I used the pry bar leftover from orange flannel Charles Bronson and bent a small opening between two pieces of wood. My plan was to give myself just enough of an opening to unload the pistols should I need to. To my astonishment, there was no demon wolf-bear inside. Instead, a sobbing child lay curled in a ball. She was a little girl, no older than six, with beaded black hair tied into a single braid. She had ripped pink pajamas and the shredded leg of a doll. She looked up at me with her tear-stained eyes and frowned.

  “Well.” I pulled the boards out so she could squeeze through. “This just got a whole lot more complicated.”

  8

  Once upon a time there was a hitman. A sad contract killer, who was terrified to face the consequence of his heinous deeds in life, took a job as Death’s intern in order to put off his eternal fate. Death and his sidekick Jumbo gave the hitman all sorts of bullshit jobs, from killing zombies to slaying a vampire. One day, just after the hitman finished a fight with multiple Charles Bronson’s and werewolves, he found a little girl in a box.

  That’s it.

  The freaking end.

  I was never really good at fairytales. Anyhow, I was in quite the predicament. I couldn’t just leave this poor girl to fend for herself on the mean streets of West Chicago, but I also wasn’t up to turning her into the police. If she was anything like her wicked stepmothers, she’d tear the precinct to pieces. Maybe, though admittedly unlikely, this girl had a mom or dad who knew just what to do with her. I crouched down and tried to hide my freak eye by putting my sunglasses back on. It didn’t work. The girl scooted farther into the corner of her box. I cleared my throat.