by D. M. Guay
“Hurry up with the net!” Kevin yelled. “They're mating!”
“I'm hurrying!” DeeDee rifled through the safe.
Kevin poked my neck. “What are you waiting for, kid? Nail 'em.”
Uh, they didn't need me to nail them. They had that covered. I swatted down hard on them and accidentally tripped the lever. The two lovebirds fell off, and a bit of violet slushy splurped out, landing on top of them as they fell to the floor. They cursed and yelled in teeny, fast voices nearly too high-pitched for human ears.
Ssssssss ssssssss ssssssssssss. Kevin laid hard on the Pixie Rid. “Swat, kid. Swat!”
Ssssssss ssssssss ssssssssssss.
I was about to go for the slushy-covered love birds writhing on the linoleum, but that wasn't who Kevin was spraying. A swarm of about twenty tiny naked people had surrounded us, led by the fat grandpa. They were all stark naked, wings flapping. Red hair, perky boobs, teeny weenies, and pubes free for the world to see. Woah boy. This was one smartphone video away from its own tab on Pornhub.
They growled, fists up. Kevin's cloud of lemon spray kept them at arm's length, coughing and buzzing. “That's right, ya dumb shits!” Kevin screamed. “Go on. Get out! Little bastards. Kid, corral them to the door!”
I swung my pink flyswatter around and around like a baton twirler in a Fourth of July parade. The pixies flitted and looped in the air. They were fast, a blur of orange, whirring like dragonflies. I swung, Kevin sprayed. We didn't land any hits, but did a respectable job of inching them closer to the front door.
Ssssssss. Ssssssssssssssssssssss.
Fwwwwwwwwww. Pllllllllllllp. Pppp. Ppp.
Until Kevin's Pixie Rid spray fizzled out. “Shit,” he said.
The teeny furious nudists were all over us in a split second. They attacked. One punched me in the eye. One bit my cheek. One bit the end of my nose, and another one stood on the top of my head trying to yank my hair out.
“Aaaaaaah!” I screamed and wailed and swung my fist and that flyswatter around, but I didn't manage to hit a single one. These jerks were fast and wily. Desperate, I sunk my face into my armpit and used my bicep like a windshield wiper to scrape them all off.
“You're a shit shot, kid.” Kevin dropped the empty can of Pixie Rid and held onto my shirt for dear life, as I ducked and dodged and stumbled and swung. “And bicep? Heh heh. Where?”
“Shut up!”
“You're snippy lately. What's your problem?”
A tiny man flew down and punched me right on the nose. “THIS JOB IS MY PROBLEM!” And, yes, I all-caps screamed it like an angry old man sending an email from an AOL.com address.
I felt another hard pinch on my cheek and when my hand went to it, the naked grandpa was there, biting my face. I grabbed him and pulled, but the jerk didn't let go. “Eeeeoooooooooow!”
The cranky old coot held on for dear life with his teeth. It felt like he had fangs! I squeezed him, harder and tighter, his beer gut squishing between my fingers, until he squeaked and finally let go. He took part of my face with him. He looked me right in the eyes and spit out a bloody chunk of my cheek. I threw him straight at the floor and stepped on him. He zeeped like a squeaky dog toy.
“Told you they were dicks,” Kevin said. “But no, you didn't listen.”
“How did they get out of the gate? It's not midnight!”
Kevin stared at me, blinking, like he was trying to devise a scientific measure for exactly how stupid I was. “These jerks live on earth all the time. They're terrestrial. They don't need a stinkin' gate!”
“What? No way.” One flew by and kicked me right in the eyeball. OW! “How do we get rid of them?”
I yanked a handful of them off my shirt.
Kevin put four of his hands—legs?—on his carapace and sighed. “Jesus, kid. You still haven't read your employee manual?”
“Shut up!”
That's when one of them kicked Kevin off my shoulder, and the two of them thudded to the floor. He and a tiny naked lady rolled around on the mat, wrestling. I won't lie. It was oddly satisfying to watch Kevin get his butt kicked. Except that he was technically on my side. And my boss.
“Lloyd, duck!” Before I knew what hit me, DeeDee pushed me out of the way. Naturally, I slipped and fell flat on my butt because yes, I'm that graceful.
“Roll over, kid, you're crushing me,” Kevin said. I could feel him and the pixie wiggling around, stuck in the microfiber fleece of my jammy bottoms. I reached under my butt, grabbed the pixie and threw it.
DeeDee had a butterfly net. She did some sort of Chun-Li Street Fighter jump spin in the air.
Angel eight ball rolled out from behind the hot dog station. “Now that's cardio! You need sweet moves like that.”
“Leave me alone!” I kicked eight ball across the store. If God expected me to do that, I was gonna be working here forever.
By the time DeeDee's first boot gracefully touched down on the floor, her net was filled with nearly two dozen tiny naked people. She landed on one knee, full on super hero stance. “Open the door.”
I crawled to the door on hands and knees. Kevin wriggled, still stuck to my behind. I held the door open while DeeDee carried the net outside. She shook it, and the creatures squeaked and shrieked. “Listen up. Demon Mart is off limits. I don't want to see you in here again. Got it? There's a cemetery on the other side of Monster Burger. It's got plenty of nesting spots. Now go on. Get.”
The swarm of naked tiny people flew up and away, their auburn hair—upstairs and down—red as a campfire in the neon glow of the sign. The grumpy grandpa with the big hairy mole turned around, looked straight at me, did that “I'm looking at you” thing with his fingers, then shot me not one, but both middle fingers before buzzing up up and away over the roof.
“Oh, it's on buddy. It's on!” Kevin, finally free of my jammies, flipped four birds back at the guy.
DeeDee stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her. “I really hate pixies. They're nothing like they are in the storybooks.”
“Nothing ever is,” Kevin said. “Now cue up the Zebra. It's time to rock.”
“There's a zebra in here?” I asked.
“Really, dipshit?” Kevin huffed. “Zebra is the best eighties hair band you've never heard of—until tonight. You're welcome.”
Chapter 6
DeeDee dropped the needle on the record player behind the counter. Yes. I said record player.
Faust had seriously upgraded the sound system. Stereo receiver. Record player. Tape deck. Streaming music. iPod. Eight-track player? Let's just say if music had ever been released in a format, we could play it. There was even a neatly arranged shelf loaded with albums, next to Kevin's brand new Zune.
The guitar plus synthesizer sound of Zebra—the band, not the striped African horse—poured from speakers in all corners of the store.
“You feel that bass?” Kevin air guitared while balancing precariously on the Purgatory Pineapple slushy nozzle. He sang along. Something about heads on the floor and wasting time? “Oooooooh yeah!”
“I'm sure they'll be a quiz later, so read over it.” DeeDee handed me the album sleeve. A black-and-white photo of three dudes with epic 80s rock mullets grinned at me. “Guard it with your life. It's from Kevin's personal collection. He bought it new, the day it was released. To say he's attached to it is an understatement.”
I flipped it over. 1983? I looked at Kevin. Bought it new? He was full of it. Roaches didn't live that long.
DeeDee rummaged through a small first aid kit, then dabbed an alcohol pad on my cheek. Ouch. I bit my lip and tried really hard not to flinch. As she swabbed, she whispered, “Don't let Kevin connect any rocks to the stereo. I'm pretty sure the guys in Zebra are still alive. If he summons them here like Dio, we'll be knee deep in guts.”
Well. Okay, then.
One more sting of an alcohol pad and a flurry of Band-Aids, and DeeDee had me patched up. “Don't worry. Pixie bites heal quickly. The gate opens in thirty minutes. Are you ready
?”
NO, I AM NOT READY! I WILL NEVER BE READY! AAAAAAAAAH!
Of course, I didn't say that out loud. I'm not that stupid. I kept my lips zipped and nodded because chicks didn't dig cowards. No need to clue her in.
“I'm amped to be back at work, aren't you? The real world is so boring compared to this.”
I waited for the punchline, but she wasn't kidding. For a hot second, my faith that DeeDee and I were soul mates faltered. I liked boring. Yes. Boring was good. Boring was safe. I would like more boring in my life, please.
She winked at me and smiled. Then, she grabbed a pack of disinfectant wipes off the counter and walked them over to Kevin, who was still on the slushy nozzle, headbanging. I think. It was hard to tell because he didn't have any hair to swing around.
“Aw, man. I'm on poo duty? Damn pixies,” he said. “Why can't the cleaning crew do it?”
“Sorry, Kev.” DeeDee sat the wipes next to him. “Cleaning crew is level one and two only. You know that. A little pixie poop hardly qualifies. Besides, we need to use sparingly. We talked about this.”
She pointed back at me on the sly.
“Yeah yeah. Our delicate flower,” Kevin said.
I slumped. They were talking about me, weren't they? I was the delicate flower. So much for keeping up appearances.
DeeDee moved her wood stool to its usual spot by the beer cave door, then opened the weapons safe. “Geesh. What a mess. Well guys, let's hope the bad guys don't escape tonight. Nothing is where it's supposed to be. We don't even have a doughnut!”
She huffed as she moved things around in the safe, reorganizing. Kevin cursed under his breath as he scooped up pixie dookie with a wet wipe. Okay, then. We were really doing this, weren't we? The cazh, cool, back to work like this place wasn't dangerous and everything's fine thing? Was I the only one who cared that we could all die at any second? I closed my eyes. All you have to do is stay alive, Lloyd. Stay alive until God lets you out of this.
“Whatevs. We're all just trying to get through the day, kid,” Kevin said.
Gah. Stop zoning in on my brain waves.
“Relax, will ya? Enjoy the music. Listen to that. Sing it, Randy!”
Relax? Nope. Not happening. I couldn't pinpoint it, but something was off. Something was out of sorts, even though the store looked pristine. All the rocks and jars of weird crap under the register had been labeled and organized. The bags of chips and candy were lined up perfectly. The white linoleum sparkled, impeccably clean. The fluorescent tube lights hummed in their fixtures. Bottles sparkled behind the cooler doors.
Weird, right? Because this place was in ruins two days ago.
Everything was new, including the creepy old book behind the counter. It was open to an illustration of two buck naked pixies, a weird gourd, and a hobbit hole in the fresh dirt over a grave. Huh. So that's how DeeDee knew to send them to the cemetery.
“Yeah, kid. There are these magic things called books. You should try reading one sometime.” Kevin peeked out from between two slushy machines. “I've got a crazy idea. Start with your employee manual.”
Shut up, Kevin.
Dude. My employee manual. Don't get me started. I'd stashed that book in the very bottom of my closet, under a pile of clothes and board games. I didn't dare leave it out. Do you want to know why? It snored. All night. It grunted and burped during the day, too. Would you read a book that snored and burped? No, you wouldn't. You'd poke it with a stick, maybe, but sit down and read it? Hell no! It could bite!
“Millennials,” he huffed. “Not everything is on YouTube, you know.”
Anyway, back to this book. I looked closely at the illustrations. The pixies had sharp little teeth, which explained the throbbing pain under all my Band-Aids. They were also naked, so that was a thing. The red ink coloring their flaming pubes practically lasered out my eyes.
“How about you quit looking at tits and do some work. Go put away the bum wad in aisle four.” Kevin held his nose as he worked. “Ricky's too chicken to stay past dark. Now that the days are short, we gotta pick up his slack. Unless you want to trade jobs.”
He held up a wet wipe streaked with pixie poo. Uh, yeah. That would be a no.
I shuffled off to aisle four. Sure enough, there was an open stock tub at the end, half-filled with single-wrapped toilet paper rolls. Mummy's Choice Ultra Mega Super Strong. Huh. Did you recognize that brand? Me either.
I stacked. And I stacked. It was a delightfully mindless job until I found an open Pringles can stuffed with shredded napkins hidden behind the plungers. It looked like a hamster's nest. I shook it, but I didn't hear a squeak. Okay. Nothing alive in there, so I jump shot it into the trash can at the end of the counter. It hit the side, but went in. Boom. Three points! Playing all that NBA Live finally paid off.
There was a single squeeze bottle of mayonnaise—blech—in the bottom of the stock tub. I walked it back to the grocery aisle and popped it on the shelf, then bop. Something hit me on the back of the head.
Aaaah! Monster! I fwapped, arms swinging, ready to fend it off. But there was nothing there. Except a single roll of toilet paper lying on the floor.
Uh. Okay? I picked it up, and another roll of toilet paper flew up over the aisle and bonked me right in the nose. Not hard, it just kind of blooped, but still. This one was unwrapped, and it had unrolled as it flew. Then a third roll arced gently over the aisle, unrolling as it went. I ducked. “Come on. I just stacked those. You're making a mess.”
DeeDee and Kevin must be pranking me. A fourth roll flew over the aisle. It hit me square in the face. I was not amused. “Cut it out!”
Teeeeeeee heeeeee heeeee heeee.
Oh, great. Now they were laughing at me. Low blow.
Another roll flew over the aisle and bonked me on the top of the head. “That's it. Stop it! It's not funny!”
They didn't stop. Two rolls hit me smack in the forehead, thrown from different directions. I stumbled as I tried to swat them away, and fell backward right into the condiment shelf, sending bottles raining to the floor. And another roll hit me right in the face. “Stop! Puh...lee.eee.eeeze.”
I cried, okay? Don't judge. I was tightrope walking on spaghetti emotionally by just being here.
DeeDee stepped into the end of the aisle. She eyed the toilet paper rolls and jars scattered across the floor. “What are you doing? Are you crying?”
“It's not funny!” And yes. Sniff. Sniff.
“Huh.” Her eyebrows wrinkled, like she was confused, as another roll arced over the aisle and hit me right in the temple.
“What's not funny?” Kevin scuttled up to DeeDee, dragging a half-filled garbage bag behind him. “What the hell? Look at this mess. You're cleaning this up, kid.”
Another roll flew through the air.
I looked at them. They looked at me. Kevin didn't throw that toilet paper. Neither did DeeDee.
“Oh, I see. Ha ha. Very funny. It's Morty. Wait. Too early. It's Bubby, right? You guys put him up to this.”
“Um, no. Bubby's on vacation,” DeeDee said. “He's in Jamaica.”
I froze in place. That means it's a—gulp. Monster. DeeDee's eyes were wide. She didn't move. Because all the toilet paper rolls in the aisle had risen up into the air and started to unroll. The loose paper trailed the linoleum like mummy wrappings. The irony.
“Lloyd,” DeeDee whispered. “Come here. Slowly.”
Gulp. I took one step. Then another. And that's when I realized the toilet paper rolls had me surrounded.
“Aw, shit. More of these assholes?” Kevin snipped.
What? Who? Never mind. The answer was right in front of my face. Literally. Clutching each toilet paper roll were two pixies. These ones looked rough and meaner than the last bunch. Streaked with dirt, red hair coated with mud, growling.
“Lloyd. Run!” DeeDee held her arms out, ready to catch me.
She didn't have to tell me twice. Unfortunately, the dirty pixies had other plans. I took one step, and the toilet pape
r rolls flew and looped and fluttered in circles around me. My heart kicked up.
“Help!” I squeaked. But no one answered. DeeDee and Kevin were too busy arguing.
“Yes, it's their fault. The construction crew shoulda sealed this place up!” Kevin yelled. “Get me the phone. I got a few choice words for Steve down at the plant.”
The toilet rolls moved faster, closer, around and around. Suddenly, I couldn't move my arms.
Teeeeeeee heeeeee heeeee heeee.
Great. The pixies were laughing at me. I had to get outta here. Right now. Run! Run!
In my defense, I tried, but it wasn't easy. My foot moved maybe an inch before it caught on something. I looked down. Well, shit. They'd used that Mummy's Choice to wrap me up tight like a cheap Halloween mummy, from my elbows all the way down to my ankles. Gee, guys. Way to be literal.
I wanted to scream, but a pixie shoved a cardboard toilet paper tube in the second I opened my mouth. So I did what any man would do in this situation: I took the biggest, fastest steps a man wrapped in three miles of Mummy's Choice could take. I waddled. That worked fine until my foot hit something slippery and went right out from under me. I went airborne for a second, then my back hit the floor.
Oooooooooooooooow. That hurt. So bad. Like a high dive belly flop onto concrete.
“Do you like mayonnaise, kid?” Kevin asked.
“Mmmmum.” Gah. Ppppt. Ppppt. I spit the toilet paper tube out of my mouth. Was he seriously asking me that now? Dude, monster alert! Hello! “I hate mayo!”
“You're really gonna hate it after this.”
Pixies hovered in the air above me, holding tight to a squeeze bottle of Miracle Whip. Upside down. Open. Aimed right at me.
“What did I ever do to you?”
A man pixie held up a bit of red paper with a yellow P on it. A piece of a Pringles wrapper. Then, he flipped me the bird, and the rest of the little naked jerks squeezed.
Spllllllllllllllllllllrp. Spllllllllllllllllllllrp. Pfffffffffffft.
