The Last Death Worm of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 3)

by Nina Post

  “Which is why I’ve seen molts in the fitness center?” Imamiah said sarcastically. “Because it’s a private matter?”

  “I can’t speak for that situ—” the camel spider started.

  Vassago made a scoffing noise from his seat in the front of the audience and cut him off. “I saw one in the corner of the mail area. I had to stand there, open the box, take out my mail, close and lock the box, all while seeing that thing out of the corner of my eye.” He shuddered. “I needed a stiff drink when I got home.”

  “Molting can’t always be predicted,” the camel spider said. “Obviously, that’s not ideal, and I can’t speak to that. As I understand it, even though MoltAway requires that all hosts provide a proper molting area in the condo unit, this is not always the case. Say you’re traveling for business, and all of a sudden, you feel a molt coming on. You can’t molt in your hotel room because you’ll get a damage fee—and there is a class action suit over this, by the way. You need to find a better place to molt, and you can’t do it outside; that’s demeaning.”

  “So do it in a common area!” Imamiah said.

  The camel spider continued. “I think MoltAway is a valuable service.”

  Raum tensed, and Kelly worried what he would do, but he said, “The problem is that hosts need to do a better job. Why do you think MoltAway guests are always asking for more towels at the front desk? MoltAway hosts typically fail to provide adequate supplies for the molting process, and the guest inevitably ends up calling up the management office in a near-frenzy to ask for help. I would like the management office to help make sure that any Amenity Tower residents acting as MoltAway hosts meet a minimum requirement for supplies. This should solve the problem.”

  Kelly spoke up. “Do you really think that providing adequate supplies for a proper molting area would mean that MoltAway guests would stop using the common areas and the amenities for their molting?”

  “Kill me now,” Raum muttered under his breath.

  The camel spider pushed up his glasses. “I do. Believe me, no one that molts wants to do it in a public area. The last time I molted, it took twelve hours, and I used MoltAway. But the process can take longer.”

  “Let’s not forget that a guest is deemed to be a tenant or resident after three weeks of occupancy,” Raum pointed out. “Can molting take longer than that?”

  “Not often, but it’s possible, I suppose,” the camel spider said. “There’s also preparation and a recovery period.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Kelly,” Raum said, “but any guest staying longer than three weeks is required to fulfill the Landlord/Tenant requirements of the Amenity Tower Condominium Association Rental Policies.”

  “That’s correct,” Kelly said. “I’m willing to allow residents to continue using the MoltAway service for a probationary period, as long as we see a significant improvement in, um, molting-related jetsam. But if, after a reasonable time of enforcing these minimum requirements we are still seeing abandoned molts in common areas, we’ll have to reassess, and possibly prohibit the service entirely.”

  “I think that’s rather extreme,” the camel spider said. “We should allow residents to freely do what they want with their condo. If they want to rent it on MoltAway for some extra money, they should be able to do that.”

  Kelly noticed Raum turning red. She wouldn’t be surprised if he exploded into a million pieces out of fury.

  “With respect, vice-president,” Forcas said, “If I see one more of those—” he swallowed a curse, “carapaces or whatever they’re called, I will scream. Literally, scream, right then and there. I won’t have it.”

  “It ruins the feng shui,” Raum said. “Just obliterates it.”

  “That’s right,” Vassago said. “Why did we even bother paying that feng shui consultant last year when we have jettisoned carcasses lying around?”

  “I mean, they can’t be bothered to pick up their own molts?” Raum said. “How grotesquely antisocial, to do such a private activity in public because their molting area isn’t perfect, with everything just so and to leave their own flesh skins there, not caring at all who sees it or who’s disturbed by it or least of all, who has to clean it up? Because I seriously doubt our cleaning crew is overjoyed to see a molt on the floor of the fitness center or the library. I seriously doubt they go home to their spouse and say, ‘Today was great—I got to dispose of an intact molt.’”

  The camel spider scratched over his eye, clearly uncomfortable. “I hear what you’re saying. I’m only suggesting some ways that we can help everybody, and asking you to see it from the MoltAway guests’ point of view. To have a little empathy.”

  “Empathy?” Raum said in a roar. “This is not a rental building. This is not a hotel. This is an owner-occupied condo building, and it should be occupied by owners or not occupied at all! If you want to give owners the freedom to make the building uninhabitable, I will fight you to the death over it!”

  A cheer erupted.

  The paper wasp held up his phone, speaker pointed at the board members, and played one of Roger’s songs, “An Argosy of Empathy.” Everyone heard Roger’s voice emanate from the phone’s speaker in the middle of the room.

  “You don’t need oneiromancy

  It’s not a gallimaufry

  It can be customary!

  Empathy is the quiddity

  of plenary comity

  Let’s reach it with alacrity,

  Not with velleity

  Sail a majestic argosy of empathy

  Not a rowboat of sophistry”

  “A valuable lesson,” Raum said. “And a delightful song. But that’s not what Roger is saying to me through the TV.”

  Vassago leaned in toward Raum. “I think you should stop mentioning this.”

  “Why?” Raum hissed. “It’s true!”

  “Let’s move on to action items,” Forcas said. They progressed from A to D with little discussion, but Kelly read E: “Be it resolved that the board approves the chief engineer’s personal use of a storage room on floor thirty-three and twelve large trash bins at no cost.”

  The paper wasp held up an arm. “Excuse me! Why does the engineer need to use a storage room for personal reasons?”

  Those Canadians Will Rue the Day

  an you find out what Dragomir needs a storage room for?” Imamiah asked.

  She clicked on her walkie: “Dragomir?”

  “Yes, what is it,” he growled. She could hear Scandal on the TV in the background.

  “Can you tell the board why you need personal use of a storage room?”

  “And trash bins!” called out the paper wasp, now back in his seat.

  “Is none of their business! Is already approved!”

  Kelly sighed, switched off the walkie, and looked at the board members. “Who approved it?”

  “I did,” Raum said, drawing up and raising his chin.

  “And did you talk to him about it?”

  Raum gave her a wheedling look. “He asked and I couldn’t see any reason to say no.”

  “Ask him,” Forcas encouraged.

  Kelly clicked the walkie back on. “Dragomir?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Could you tell me why you need the storage room, please?”

  “I take the citizenship test,” Dragomir said. “I know about the First Amendment.”

  Kelly cocked her head and frowned. “What does that have to do with—”

  “I meditate,” he snarled, in the tone of voice one would normally use for saying ‘You picked the wrong house’ to a burglar you had enmeshed in a custom snare as you stood over him with an axe.

  “Why floor thirty-three?” Forcas said to Kelly. She repeated it to Dragomir.

  “Is this interrogation? You going to throw me in secret prison?”

  “We do not,” Raum said, “I repeat do not—have a prison here at Amenity Tower, secret or otherwise!”

  “And the trash bins?” the paper wasp called out. “What are the trash b
ins for?” Kelly repeated this to Dragomir.

  “Request has already approved! You want to take back, fine, take back! You want thugs to shake me down, you try! I come to America to get away from those things!”

  Kelly shot a furious look at Raum. “Why didn’t you ask him in the first place? You want him to quit, claiming a First Amendment violation, and sue Claw & Crutty?”

  “I don’t care if he sues Claw & Crutty,” Raum said, “and I wouldn’t be affected. Only management and corporate would be affected. If Dragomir wins a settlement from that creepy, faceless property management company and ends up on the Aegean with a three-hundred-foot yacht and a Ukrainian supermodel on his arm, I couldn’t care less.”

  Kelly spoke under her breath. “And you think that wouldn’t affect you? You approved his request. You would probably be named in the suit.”

  Raum blinked and reared back. “I would?”

  “Will you do your—” she started to say, and let out a frustrated noise. She clicked the walkie back on. “Dragomir, I apologize for the interruption.”

  The remora spoke up. “Can we go back to Old Business?”

  “Yeah, can we circle back on that?’ the paper wasp said. “I’ve seen someone, I won’t say who, take his death worm into the pool area.”

  “We’re sending reminders of the rules to all residents,” Forcas said.

  “You don’t know which residents have death worms?” the remora said.

  “Enough!” Raum bellowed, and the room went silent. He rubbed his hands over his face. “Excuse me. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.” He let out a sigh. “Sometimes I feel so… lost. Have you ever felt love and lost it?” The room quieted, as though Raum was about to break into song. “Do you ever put yourself back in that place in your mind? Does it feel like the core of you is always yearning for this place? How terribly sad that we can never recover it. The French also have a term for this yearning. La Maladie du Pays.”

  The room was quiet again. One resident sniffled and left the room in a hurry.

  “All righty,” Raum said. “Let’s move on to committee reports.”

  While the Rules and Regulations Committee, the Community Committee, the Snacks Committee, and the Roger Balbi Legacy Committee gave their updates, Kelly checked her messages. Wouldn’t Af have contacted her by now, to let her know he was all right? Tell her where he was?

  “Kelly?”

  “Kelly?”

  Kelly looked up.

  “Action items,” Forcas whispered.

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah. OK.” Was Af coming back? She ran through the action items, one by one.

  They covered the remaining action items and disbanded.

  “We quorumed the living heck out of that meeting,” Raum said, gathering his things. “You know, this room is a lieu de mémoire for us. You want to stay and get a pizza delivered, talk about the night we were cast down here? Forcas?”

  “I already ate, and I have a lady friend coming over. Why do you want to talk about that stuff, anyway?”

  After the board meeting ended, Raum met with Forcas and Imamiah.

  “This camel spider is a serious problem,” Raum said, in a low voice. “He’s against the plant committee and strongly supports resident owners using the MoltAway service. He’s a threat to our quiet enjoyment of Amenity Tower. We have to get rid of him. Permanently.”

  “How?” Forcas asked. “Have you seen him in the gym?”

  “I want to hire someone.” Raum leaned in closer. “A spider assassin.”

  Kelly took an elevator down to the first underground parking level and went into the underground walkway to her father’s lab in the Amenity Tower storage room.

  She found her father, who she still thought of as Archie, wearing a white coat over a reindeer-print Norwegian sweater, mixing flavors with glass beakers. A Bunsen burner glowed. He glanced up while stirring a concoction in an Erlenmeyer flask.

  “Hello, buttercup! How lovely to have a visitor, especially you!”

  “Hi Dad.” She wondered if she’d ever really get used to saying that. “Are you expecting any kind of package through the mail?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “FedEx keeps trying to deliver one to a unit number that doesn’t exist.”

  “Have you called them?”

  “Of course I have. Several times. They can only tell me the company and address of the sender, neither of which seem to exist.”

  “What’s the company?”

  “OFC, Inc., on Yeti Road.”

  He shrugged, rather elaborately. “It’s FedEx’s problem, isn’t it?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “It’s the family curse! At least one of them. The need to know.”

  “What are you working on?”

  He held out a finger. “I will tell you. Now, something that has always bothered me is that certain Cluck Snack products manufactured in Canada are perceived as superior to our versions here. Canadian Cluck Snack P’nut Butt’r Koffee Eggs, Canadian Cluck Snack Kreemy Dressing—which isn’t even available here—and Canadian Cluck Snack Red Wire, which I myself, I admit with no small amount of shame, have someone buy for me.” He said the word Canadian as though it were a personal affront. “This will not stand.”

  “Wouldn’t you have access to those formulas?”

  “Oh, one would think, wouldn’t one! But no, that is not the case! The Canadians run an entirely separate, siloed business from Cluck Snack North America and Cluck Snack of the Americas, though they are in league with the Britons, as you know, whom we fought in a war! They are Tories! They refuse to share their formulas with us, forbid any executive tour of the premises, and are a veritable Berlin Wall of information. And I respected their distance for years. For decades. But I cannot keep hearing about how much better those particular products are. Can you imagine?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “This is unsanctioned work I’m conducting here. Very hush-hush. Code name: Canada Dry, after the French pinball game.”

  “I won’t breathe a word,” she said.

  “If the Canadians found out…” he raised a finger.

  “They won’t.”

  “Well. They’d better not. It could start a war. That is how potentially incendiary this situation is.”

  “I don’t think it would start a war.”

  “Don’t underestimate them. Cluck Snack Canada has not even deigned to participate in the Cluck Snack North America Table Tennis League. That’s what we’re dealing with here.” The glass stirrer made a crisp ting as it hit the inside of the beaker. “But enough about my problem. What’s your problem?”

  “What?”

  “I assume that you have at least one. Everyone is living lives of loud desperation.”

  She chewed on her lip and focused on the contents of a nearby storage locker: a slow cooker box, a VCR, a box labeled “Shovel Handles (Wood),” a box labeled “Riding Chaps,” and a box labeled “Pitchfork Heads.”

  “Af left.”

  “Where?” He started to pour one mixture into another, which turned into a mesmerizing swirl of orange and cream.

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t really know. He’s following a transcendental meditation guru who charged him five thousand dollars for a mantra he says doesn’t work. And he’s miserable being bound to Amenity Tower. I don’t even know which direction he’s going—I haven’t talked to him yet.”

  “I see,” Archie said. “Well, there’s only so much you can do. He’s searching for something he’s lost, and I doubt he knows what it is.”

  “He’s not living the way he wants to live, I don’t think,” she said. “He’s constantly annoyed, for good reason. He’s not used to things that you and I have gotten used to. If I could find a way to get him permanently unbound to that building, maybe… I mean, aside from that, there’s not much I can do.”

  At this point, she felt like she was delivering a soliloquy to herself. Her father tasted from a vial and cackled. �
�Yes, yes. That’s more like it,” he murmured. “Those Canadians will rue the day that—”

  He looked up at Kelly as though suddenly remembering she was there.

  “I’m listening, I’m listening,” he said. “You know, people cannot be fulfilled in only one way. We are complicated creatures, even if he is only recently… like us. One needs fulfilling work. A mission. A purpose. Which, I imagine, is why he gave himself one. A mantra, you say?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, what a day, what a day. How wonderful to be alive. Back to Af for a moment. I think he does not want to be upset, and the building is upsetting him. He wants things a certain way, and the building is constantly violating those parameters. I think he’s angry, not so most people would even notice, but it’s there.”

  Archie held up a bubbling flask from the burner: “Like this, under that calm exterior of his. He is the angel of destruction, after all.”

  Kelly stepped slowly down a corridor and looked into the lockers. “I saw Mr. Black.”

  Her father blinked behind his safety glasses. “Oh? Where?”

  “He found some sort of path between the hell lodges and an empty retail space.”

  “Where is that?”

  “In that park over there, by Ultra-Amenity Tower.”

  Archie returned to his work, checking off some things on a paper. “Really.”

  Kelly tilted her head, wondering at his tone. “What? Are you fighting or something?”

  He chuckled. “Fighting? No, no. In fact, I saw him the other day. Or perhaps it was two weeks ago. No matter.”

  “You saw him in the hell lodges?”

  Her father compared the results of two mixes, greeting one result with mixed enthusiasm and the other with revulsion. “Unacceptable,” he muttered to himself. “Mm, yes, I took the train, as usual, and met him at the treehouse to discuss a few matters involving the trust. Some necessities.”