by Robert Bevan
Zelda smiled. “Absolutely.”
Bucky cupped a hand around the side of his mouth and pointed his thumb at the Employees Only door. “Zabor's buyin'.”
“In that case, I'll take a six pack. Something fruity.”
“Coming right up.” Bucky walked back to the beer fridges and discovered two of his piss bottles there where he'd left them. This was not a part of the story that Bucky necessarily wanted to have to explain to Mr. Stonebaum or the authorities.
He picked out a sixer of some strawberry watermelon shit for Zelda, and Coors Light for himself. He would have gotten something a little fancier, but he needed a subtle way to get his piss bottles out of the store without Zelda asking about them. He replaced two of the beer bottles with his piss bottles and walked out of the store, shirtlessly and heroically, to have a much-needed drink.
Chapter 26
Floyd's high was beginning to fade, giving way to fear and paranoia that he couldn't fairly blame entirely on the weed. He had some genuine shit to be concerned about. He'd left his weed back at Tiny Tino’s, for one thing. He couldn't very well ask Roger to let him go fetch his weed while he was being arrested for B&E. Those pizza-slinging Oompa Loompas would be living it up on his shit.
Then, of course, there was the matter of doing hard time. It wasn't so much the raping he was worried about. He had cousins who'd been in the joint, and they said the raping was overrepresented in movies and TV. But who'd look after the crops while he was on the inside?
He supposed that concern for Bucky should rank higher on his list, but Bucky had gone toe to toe with Zabor twice already. He'd be able to take care of himself. On the contrary, Floyd hoped to find Zabor at the Texaco. He'd never wanted anything more in his whole life than to see that giant flying cockroach demon. That would legitimize their story to Roger, who was not fucking around.
“Can I turn on the siren?” asked Floyd.
“No.”
“Lights?”
“No.”
“Radio?”
Roger gave Floyd a quick warning glare before focusing back on the road. “It's against protocol for me to let a suspect ride up front. I'm making an exception for you. Don't make me regret not cuffing you to a table alone at Tiny Tino’s.”
Floyd imagined it. That would be a creepy-ass place to be alone at night. He turned around in his seat. “Y'all okay back there?”
Rainn, Mark, and Thorin just looked back at him through the metal cage separating the front and back seats, as if to say that the situation that they were in should be enough to answer the question. Huddled all together as they were, they looked like an album cover for one of them bands Rainn was into in high school.
Turning forward again, Floyd spotted the Texaco sign high above the trees on the side of the highway. He pointed. “There it is!” Now that they were getting closer, he found that he was getting a little worried for Bucky.
“Get your arm out of my face,” said Roger, shoving Floyd's arm unnecessarily roughly. “I've lived in Hell's Titties all my life. Don't you think I know where the Texaco is?”
“Sorry, Roger. I'm just worried about Bucky is all. When you see this bug, you'll understand.”
“There ain't no bug. I'm sure Bucky's just fine.”
Floyd was growing restless and fidgety as Roger took his sweet time pulling off the exit ramp, crossing over the highway, and pulling into the Texaco parking lot.
“Oh my lord,” said Roger in dumbstruck awe.
“What the hell is going on here?” demanded Thorin from the back seat. There were a number of particular details he might have been asking about. Why, for instance, was there a giant puddle of milky yellow liquid in front of the open door? Why was the cashier station filled with green smoke? Why were the pop fridges destroyed and dripping with pop? But from the tone in which he asked the question, Floyd reckoned that Thorin was specifically wondering why Bucky and Zelda were enjoying a beer together outside, and why Bucky wasn't wearing a shirt.
Floyd leaned out the window. “Bucky! You're all right!”
“The heck he is,” said Roger. “Look at this place! It's worse than what y'all done at Tiny Tino's.” He stopped the cruiser with the headlights fixed on Bucky and Zelda. Bucky waved at them, a smug grin on his face.
For a moment, Roger stared into nothing, possibly foreseeing a long evening ahead of him filled with paperwork and bullshit. He sighed. “Ya’ll wait here and don’t touch anything.” He got out of the car.
Floyd turned back to the others. “You heard the guy, wait here, we’ll be right back.”
“Floyd, I think he meant—”
Floyd exited the cruiser, hooking his thumbs in his belt buckle to mimic Roger’s stance. Bucky and Roger were already in discussion, and the discussion wasn’t going as Floyd might have hoped.
“— come on now, Bucky, you’re wasting my time here. Just tell me what really happened.”
“I’m telling you, Roger, we’ve killed a genuine fucking demon!”
“Bucky!”
“It’s right there in the cashier’s office. Soon as that smoke clears, we’re going in to take some photos and call that guy from Star Trek.”
“Bucky, remember that time in high school when they phoned in an emergency just before I was about to play the championship game? And I had to run out of there because coach told me something had happened to my mom? And then when I got to the phone it was you putting on a Mexican accent and telling me my mom had been fired from her job as chief tester at the dildo factory?”
Floyd snorted a quick laugh before disguising it with a cough.
“Sir, if I may?” said Zelda, raising a hand. “He’s not making this up. There’s something in there, and I saw it myself. And what’s more, the whole place is bound to have security camera footage. It’s not going to take much to find out Bucky’s telling the truth.”
Roger stared at the two for a moment.
“I’m serious. What’s in there is going to change the world,” Zelda said. She shrugged her shoulders. “And what would you rather be — some guy who arrested a bunch of local heroes, or the brave police officer who helped them catch a local menace?”
“Hey!” Bucky snapped. “This asshole didn’t do anything, why should he get any— Ow!”
Zelda nudged him in the ribs and turned a sweet, innocent smile up at Roger.
Floyd tried to work out from Roger’s face whether Zelda had got through to him or not. The man still looked like a zookeeper who’d been given a very small mop to clean up after a very sick elephant.
Roger pointed to the cashier window. “I’m going to go take a look in there.”
Bucky flapped his arms indifferently. “Go ahead.”
“You two are going to go in with me because I don’t want you running off.”
“Fine.”
“What about me?” said Floyd.
Roger jumped. “Jesus, Floyd, I thought I told you to stay in the car.”
“Sorry. The door weren’t locked or nothin’. I just assumed.”
Roger rolled his eyes and gestured to the storefront. “You three are going to go in with me.”
“Oh, okay, sure,” Floyd wandered over and stood next to Bucky. They exchanged a fist bump.
“You get it?”
“You bet your balls I did. We fucked that fucker the fuck up!”
“Guys!” Roger snapped impatiently. He gestured once more to the shop. “After you.”
Floyd filed in behind Bucky and Zelda. The store was utterly trashed. Shelves were tipped over. Crushed cereal boxes and empty candy wrappers littered the aisles. At the far end, the cashier’s station was opaque with smoke, as though the monster from Lost had squandered its stardom and returned to the labor market.
“It’s in there,” Bucky said.
Roger gave him a brief suspicious look and then walked slowly over to the bulletproof glass. He peered inside. “I don’t see nothing.”
“Gotta wait for the bug bomb to clear a little.”<
br />
Roger sighed. “Well, let’s get some ventilation going. You two stay where you are. Ma’am, if you could prop the doors open so we can get some air in here?”
Zelda dragged a trash can over to the door and jammed it open.
“Now, everyone cover your mouths,” said Roger. “I’m going to take a quick look inside and see if we can get rid of some of this smoke.”
Bucky and Floyd nodded. Roger took a neckerchief from his back pocket and tied it over his nose and mouth. “Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “Let’s see what we got here.”
He slowly opened the Employee’s Only door, a bloom of smoke drifted out and he wafted it away with his hands.
Floyd noticed the chemical smell almost immediately, but Roger had been right, in small bursts the smoke was dissipating throughout the store and drifting harmlessly out of the door.
Roger gently pushed and pulled the door back and forth to waft the bug poison away. When it had cleared sufficiently, he poked his head inside.
“Well, exactly as I thought,” Roger said. “Ya’ll are full of—”
A sudden, furious screech came from inside the hallway, and Roger was lifted off the ground by two tiny insectile hands. Zabor’s face emerged from the smoke, caked in bile.
“ZAAAABOR.”
Floyd watched the events happen with a strange sense of detachment, as though he was seeing them on TV. Roger was already turning purple in the face, and his eyes bulged like a cartoon character’s. Floyd was vaguely aware that Zelda was yelling and that Bucky was grabbing on to his arm and listing every curse word he knew.
He saw Roger draw his side arm and saw Zabor instantly slap it away with one of his forelegs. The pistol went spinning across the floor, almost straight to Floyd’s feet. In his mind’s eye, Floyd saw what he had to do with a clarity he rarely experienced. He picked up the gun, strode forward, and took aim.
As he carefully leveled the barrel at Zabor’s screaming face, he noticed that Roger was trying to shake his head.
“No!” Roger managed to gurgle. “Don’t shoot at me, you idiot!”
Floyd ignored Roger and slowly exhaled, pulling oh so gently on the pistol’s trigger.
POP!
Zabor’s head jerked back as a section of its skull burst like an overripe pimple. It flew back into the cashier’s office and Roger tumbled to the ground. Floyd heard Bucky whoop in victory, but he wasn’t done yet. He strode past Roger, squinted against the fog, and emptied the clip into the dark shape of Zabor as rapidly as he could. In the small hallway, the gun boomed like thunder, and he could hear the zip and zing of those bullets that missed and ricocheted from the floor. When the gun clicked empty, Floyd backed away, eyes streaming from the poison.
Zelda and Bucky were already hauling Roger to his feet and heading to the door, but Floyd was in no hurry. He sauntered over to the refrigerator and grabbed himself a six pack of beer. Then he strolled outside into the night, feeling two parts Clint Eastwood and one part John Wayne.
“Everybody okay out here?” he drawled.
Roger looked up at him, heaving and gasping for breath. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“Hunting rats with uncle Regis.” Floyd took a nonchalant swig from his beer and frowned. “Ugh. This is warm.”
Bucky held up a hand and opened up his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to change his mind.
Zelda grinned brightly. “That was sooo lucky!” she said.
“How’d you figure?” said Floyd indignantly. “That was all skill, lady!”
Zelda shook her head, laughing. “No, I mean with all the gasoline Bucky and I pumped at that thing, and what with the flammable bug bomb gas, I was sure all that shooting was going to start a fire.”
WHOOOMPH!
Floyd turned around, spraying the pissy beer from his mouth. The cashier’s station was no longer filled with smoke. It was filled with flame.
“Oh shit.”
Chapter 27
Bucky frantically searched his surroundings. “Somebody get a hose or a fire extinguisher or something!”
“I know you wanted to take this thing alive,” said Floyd. “But I reckon we're beyond that now.” He shut one eye and aimed Roger's gun at the cashier window. “I put that motherfucker down.”
“Give me that!” Roger snatched his gun out of Floyd's hand. “What the heck was that thing?”
“That's my ticket out of Hell's Titties!” Bucky ran into the store and looked for something to douse the fire with before all the evidence burned up.
“Get out of there, Bucky!” cried Zelda. “I hosed down the whole store with –”
WHOOOMPH!
The flames had spread throughout the store, following erratic streaks and splashes.
“Shit!” Bucky hurled his best effort, two plastic bottles of Dasani, at the open office door. One of them missed, hitting a rack full of sunglasses, and the other one seemed to have little to no effect on the fire. Despite decades of training his lungs for just such a scenario, the black smoke was too thick for any further effort. He jumped over a couple of flame trails and ran out the door.
Zelda stared angrily at him. “That was really stupid, Bucky.”
Floyd held out an opened beer. “If you was thirsty, there's a six-pack right here.”
“If all the evidence burns up, what have we got to show for any of this?” Bucky took a swig from his bottle, then immediately spat it out. “Goddammit, Floyd! This is –” He stopped himself short from admitting to everyone that he'd just sipped his own piss, but felt he needed to finish the sentence. “...warm!” He angrily hurled the bottle into the burning store.
“Well I sincerely apologize, Mon-swar Wallace,” said Floyd.
Zelda, trying to maintain her angry face, laughed through her nose. “Are you trying to say Monsieur?”
“Sorry, I ain’t fuckin’ German!”
The sound of something banging against glass startled Bucky. He looked hopefully at the cashier window, but there was nothing but flames and darkening yellow smoke.
Rainn was banging on the rear passenger window of Roger's cruiser.
Distractedly, Roger opened the door and the rest of the goth gang filed out.
“Is he in there?” asked Rainn, squinting to find something in the smoke.
“I heard gunshots,” said Mark. “Is everyone okay?”
Thorin just looked at his phone. Useless as a dick on a mime.
“Ain't nothin' to worry about,” said Floyd, displaying an uncharacteristic level of confidence as he put his arm around Rainn. “We've seen the last of Zabor.” He took another sip of Bucky's piss, then sprayed it out as his eyes widened.
“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” shouted Roger, also very much out of character.
Bucky whirled around to see what they were both gawking at.
Through the smoke and flames, Zabor stumbled forward and pressed his body against the bulletproof glass of the cashier window. Pus bubbled out of where his left eye used to be, but his right eye seemed to be looking directly at Bucky.
“Zabor,” whispered Bucky.
Zabor banged weakly on the window. “BUUUUUU–”
An explosion of milky yellow cockroach guts covered the entire window like someone jizzed right on the camera lens.
“Fuck!” said Bucky. One last desperate idea occurred to him, and he looked back at Thorin, still holding his phone. “Tickle Me Emo, tell me you recorded that.”
Thorin frowned. “I was just looking at Facebook.”
“God damn son of a mother fuck!” Bucky needed something to throw in order to properly express his rage. He grabbed Floyd's beer bottle and hurled it into the store.
“Hey, man!” said Floyd. “You ain't got to take this out on me.”
“Fuck you.” In his current state of mind, he couldn't articulate his feelings much beyond that, but he gave it a try. “Fuck all of you. Bunch of fuckin' losers.” He stomped off toward the nearby playground and sat on one of the old shitty swin
gs.
He was only given a minute or two of solitude before he heard someone approaching from behind. If it was Thorin or Roger, Bucky wasn't sure he'd be able to keep from punching them.
“You okay?” said Zelda.
“I could use a moment alone.”
“A half-naked man in a playground might arouse suspicion. I don't know if you were aware or not, but there's a cop just over there.”
“Let him arrest me,” said Bucky. “I might as well be in prison.”
Zelda sat on the swing next to him and offered him a Coors Light. “Don't worry. It's cold.”
Bucky twisted off the cap and gulped some down. It was particularly refreshing in contrast to the piss taste in his mouth. “I s'pose I owe Floyd an apology.”
“Maybe not just Floyd.” Zelda took a sip of her own beer.
“I'm sorry.”
Zelda smiled. “I know.”
“It'll be a humbling experience to apologize to Roger and Thorin.”
“I'll give you a pass on Thorin.”
“Cheers.” Bucky clinked his bottle against Zelda's.
“What's eating at you anyway, Bucky? Why did you say you might as well be in prison?”
“It's just how I feel. Like no matter what I do or how I try to better myself, I ain't never getting out of Hell's Titties.”
“Why are you so hellbent on leaving?”
“I want to make something of myself,” said Bucky. “I want to be somebody.”
“Are you kidding? You're a certified demon hunter!”
“And what good does that do me without any proof? My home is torn up all to shit. I just burned down my place of employment. Hell, I ain't even got a fuckin' shirt. To the outside world, all I am is a certified fuck-up.”
Zelda hooked her arm around Bucky's elbow and pulled their swings closer together. “Not to me, you ain't.”
Bucky frowned at her. “You know, you're making it real difficult for me to concentrate on my self-pity.”
“Yeah, I know.” Zelda leaned in to kiss him.
“Just a second.” Bucky gulped back as much Coors Light as he could manage, aiming to make sure he got all the piss taste out of his mouth, then leaned over to accept her invitation.
