by D. M. Guay
“Gate's busted,” Kevin said.
“I thought it was just a routing error,” she said.
“Apparently not,” Kevin said. “Call Faust again.”
“I did. Straight to voicemail. I asked Doc to have a look at the gate. He's coming tomorrow.”
“We can't wait that long. I'm calling Steve down at the plant,” Kevin said.
“Again?” DeeDee said.
“Look. His crew did a real number on us. He's gonna get a piece of my mind. Get over here. I'm gonna put it on speakerphone so you all can hear this.”
“Oh boy. Here we go.” DeeDee shook her head, then turned to me. “You might want to get up and um, pull yourself together.”
She glanced at the tent pole in my pants, then stepped out of the beer cave. My cheeks flushed hot. Oh geesh. This is embarrassing. Twila had really laid my secrets bare, hadn't she? I stood up and tried to put on an air of dignity, which was difficult in a T-shirt that said “Guess what?” with an arrow pointing at a cartoon chicken butt. And mismatched socks. One green. One yellow. Shit. I really did need to get my life together, didn't I?
“Amen.” Angel eight ball rolled out from behind the Heineken. “Let DeeDee take you shopping, though. I can't help you with fashion. We don't have regular clothes up here. No wing holes.”
When I stepped out, Morty had just popped the top off a Colt 45 tallboy he'd filched from the reach-in refrigerator, and Twila looked right at me, peeled the wrapper off a Slim Jim Monster Meat Stick and sucked on it like a. Well. Ahem. Moving on.
DeeDee leaned against the doughnut case with her arms crossed, watching all of this unfold. She did not seem amused. I stood next to DeeDee. Safest place in the store. Trust me.
“Watch out,” she said, eyeballing Twila and Morty. “They're extra hungry. They haven't been out for a few days.”
Kevin not only put his call to Steve on speakerphone, he connected it to the intercom system so it could pour from every speaker in the store.
Brrring. Brrring. Brrring.
Voicemail. The message? “I knaw this is you, Kevin. Ya jagoff. I'm on a jahb, so yinz can stahp cawling me a hunderd times a day. Ahz not coming dahn dere. The store passed inspection, so the prahblem is on yer end. Find it and fix it yerself! This thing'll beep, but dahn't leave me another gahd dang message, ya idjit!”
“Uh...” I did not even know what I was hearing.
“Steve's from Pittsburgh. You get used to the accent.” DeeDee whispered to me. She had her eyes on Twila, who had her eyes on me.
Kevin took a deep breath, ready to leave a mean message anyway.
Beep. Then a computerized female voice said: “This mailbox is full.”
We all watched Kevin's mental fortitude visibly crack. His roach legs did little stompy roundhouse kicks. He kung pow chopped the phone clean off the counter. He stomped in circles, kicking and cursing.
“No good r*cking Fr$%cking Son of a B*%ch!” Kevin shook his...fists? Whatever was on the end of a roach leg. I swear I saw a black storm cloud of expletives swirling above him.
“Why is Kevin so mad at this Steve guy?”
“Steve is in charge of all the zombie crews in the Mid-Atlantic region. Construction, clean up, maintenance.”
Gulp. How many crews was that? How many more zombies were there? Stop. Don't answer. I'd be awake doing zombie epidemic math all night. One bites one, two bites two, four bites four, until everyone's dead and me and Mom are surviving on sofa crumbs and nailing boards against the dining-room window to keep the zombies out.
“Kevin blames Steve for all the problems we've had since we reopened. He thinks they cut corners to get it done on time. It's never that simple around here, but he won't listen. To us, two days to rebuild this place seems like a rush job, but these people work on divine time. If God can make the world in seven days, and Jesus can come back from the dead in three, we should be able to reopen a corner store in a weekend, right?”
I nodded and tried my best to look astute, but WTF? Every time she opened her mouth, it was clear DeeDee thought about the world on an entirely different level than I did. She was way smarter than me. Like way way.
“Steve comes out once a month for zombie maintenance, and I doubt we'll see him before then. I told Kevin he's not going to make an extra trip. He's busy, and the plant's three hours away in Monroeville.”
“Where?”
“Near Pittsburgh, where the whole zombie thing started. The plant has been there since the very first outbreak.”
“What?” On earth was she talking about?
She looked at me. “You know. Monroeville? The outbreak at the mall? In 1978?”
My eyes went wide.
“It's in the employee manual. In the appendix? Dawn of the Dead was a documentary. George Romero didn't make that stuff up. All of our zombies came from the mall outbreak in 1978. The coolers keep them fresh. That plus a lot of embalming fluid. They look pretty good for how old they are.”
Oh God. Room spinning. I bent over and put both hands on my knees. Dawn of the Dead. A documentary?
“Are you all right?” She put her hand on my back and rubbed it. “Don't worry. We've never had a zombie incident at this store. No escapes, no broken collars, not a single bite. See? She pointed to a small black sign bolted to the wall behind the Mountain Dew 2-liter tower that said: “This facility has been Z Accident free for 14,617 days.”
An illustration of a zombie with a pompadour, smiling and giving us one rotten thumb up, was drawn on the bottom right corner. He had a speech bubble that said, “Don't get bit, and you'll be a hit!”
“What about the other stores?” I regretted asking it the second the words left my lips.
“Well, there was one incident in Louisville in 1985, but don't worry about that. That wasn't one of our stores. That started in a medical supply warehouse. Long story.”
Chapter 9
At midnight, Morty and Twila, the sexy hell pervs, left the store to sow their devilish oats across the neighborhood. DeeDee balanced precariously on her wood stool, nailing a rusty old horseshoe above the beer cave door. I stood next to her, ready to offer assistance. Which she didn't need. As usual. So really, I just stood there holding that long stupid hammer and drinking a slushy. A small one, not a Colossal Super Slurp. Angel eight ball smacked my hand away from the big cups and flashed something about Keto. Or Paleo. Whatever. The small cup was a compromise.
“There.” DeeDee hammered the last nail into the horseshoe. “That should keep most of the bodiless entities inside the cooler if the gate malfunctions again.”
Gulp. Bodiless entities? Can't deal. Must. Eat. Feelings.
I took a sip of my slushy. Oof. It was bitter, alcoholic—at least fifty percent cheap booze—and gritty. I picked a little black thing out of my teeth. Blech!
“How exactly does this work again?” I pointed to the horseshoe.
“Magical creatures hate iron.”
“Cough. Bullshit. Cough.” Kevin announced over the intercom. And yes, he did say “cough” as he faked his cough. “It didn't keep the pixies away. I can see one of them in the vents right now, flipping me the bird. Here you go, jerk. Here's two right back at you. I can do this all day!”
“Foil isn't made of iron, Kevin.” DeeDee snipped. “We just have to figure out how to trap the stray pixies.”
“Yeah, well until then, you clean up after them. I'm done. I caught 'em flying around the Combos bags, having a three-way in mid-flight. The pervs couldn't even land before they started porking! I am not wiping up pixie sex juice. No way. I draw the line.”
“Did you find the switch yet, Kevin?” DeeDee sighed.
“I'm working on it. Geesh. Get off my back.”
Let's just say Kevin had been in a mood since his call to Steve, and he was taking his frustration out on us. This had turned into quite the warm and welcoming work environment.
“Can you work faster? We don't want any normies in here.”
“Oh, really? I didn
't know that.” Kevin totally did. “If you're so smart, why don't you do it?”
“Fine.” DeeDee jumped off the stool and stomped over to Kevin, who was on the counter by the stereo trying to figure out how to flip on the Go Away charm.
In case you forgot, the Go Away charm kept humans out of the store and out of harm's way between midnight and dawn. Only truly desperate people could get through. Unfortunately, the charm—like the gate—was broken. That became abundantly clear last night when a handful of random humans wandered in to buy taquitos and Red Bull in the wee hours. To say we were on edge while they shopped would be a gross understatement. Every time they moved, we jumped. We waited for them to pull a gun or rob us or worse, but they didn't. Nothing. Because they weren't desperate. They were just normal people who really wanted a late-night snack.
Before the renovation, the Go Away charm was a simple on and off, like a light switch. It had apparently been upgraded, replaced with a high-tech console with a dozen knobs and lights, all color coded. Only problem: No one could find a user manual, so we weren't sure which color did what. And no one in their right mind would just go flipping switches around here.
“Okay. We're gonna try the red one first.” Clearly, Kevin was not in his right mind. “Hold on to your butts.”
“Why would you start with red? Are you nuts?” DeeDee protested, but Kevin must have hit the switch anyway.
The fluorescent fixtures flickered. A low hum rattled the shelves. Metal shades that looked like storm shutters slid down over the doors and windows.
Aaaaaaah! Now we're trapped inside here forever! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!
Or not. Suddenly, the shutters and red lights stopped, then changed course, sliding back up out of view. Kevin must have switched them off. “Where were those shutters last week? We coulda used 'em to keep your tragically hip boyfriend out of an octopus mouth.”
“Will you lay off already? Ex boyfriend, and technically he was never my boyfriend. You know that,” DeeDee said.
And my heart soared. Woot! Woot! Take that, Tristan! A curse on you and your stupid hip name! I took a celebratory sip of slushy. Blech. This flavor was gross, but I was committed. I wasn't sure angel eight ball would let me trade it for something better.
“Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's the green one,” she said. “That's the one I flipped last night.”
“Yeah. And how many jackasses wandered in here? Four! I had to hold my tiger stance for forty-five minutes while those jerks took their sweet time shopping. And for nothing! They weren't even desperate. My legs are still sore.”
They argued for a good ten minutes about which button to try next. I stood by the beer cave door holding on white knuckled to my crappy bronze hammer, praying the next button they hit didn't suck me into an alternate dimension run by giant spiders. Don't laugh. That shit was totally possible.
I prepared, just in case. I examined the hammer, looking for an on button. It had to do more than hammer, right? But there was nothing on it. No magic buttons, no carving. Nothing. It was just a normal, albeit long and oddly sharp, hammer. Great. This would come in handy if I were attacked by a giant nail. Super lame.
Suddenly, the hammer shook right out of my hand. The head lit up ice blue. Great. I'd pissed off a hammer. Just my luck. It spun around so fast, I had to double dutch jump out of its way. I was half expecting it to rise up and clobber me for calling it lame. But the hammer slowly stopped spinning, and when it stopped, the claw pointed at the beer cave.
“Is the hammer spinning, Lloyd?” DeeDee's back was to me. Man. She had some serious spidey senses.
“Yes?”
“What color is it?”
Dude. How did she know it had a color? “Uh, blue?”
“Okay. Let me know if it turns red.”
“What?” Red? This thing was color coded?
The hammer vibrated, then the beer cave door creaked open. A red thing—fat as a Coke can, but long—poked through the top edge of the door, then unrolled up the wall. Huh. It looked like a leaf on a fat red vine. There was an oval-shaped bump on the end that looked like a sock puppet. A second one slid out and snaked up the wall, leaves unfurling. Then another. And another one. It looked like a vine, climbing the drywall like hell's rose bush.
The door kicked open, and the rest of it slid out. Oh God. “Help! Help!”
My voice was barely a squeak. “Triffid! Triffid!”
That was no joke. I was pretty sure I was staring down a sentient plant. I mean, it looked like a plant. Ten feet tall, bright red, with dozens of stems shooting up around a central stalk. Every stem had a sock puppet knob on the end. The center stalk was thick, orange and had a gigantic red and green striped oval on top. It looked like a mutant watermelon had been stuck on there sideways.
Here's the rub. It looked like a plant, but it moved like an animal. It used white stubby roots to pull itself across the floor, out of the gate. The vine-like stems wiggled and snaked, and every single one of those sock puppets moved up and down like it was looking around.
I lunged for the hammer. Okay, yeah, I had to do a fat sloppy man roll that I sincerely hope was not caught on any sort of film, but I did manage to grab it. I spilled a bit of slushy, but held tight. What? Lloyd Wallace did not waste slushy. The end.
Hammer and slushy in hands, I steeled myself and faced the monster. I didn't need to read the employee manual to know the most important rule: Only creatures that can pass for human are allowed out. “Stop right there!”
The big oval melon in the center must have ears, because the big stalk twisted around and down, until the widest part was an inch from my face. The center split open, revealing shark-teeth rows of ivory spikes. Oh God. It was a mouth. A green leaf tongue that looked like a wide palm leaf rolled out over the spikes and licked me. Oh. Dear. Baby. Jesus. Help.
The sock puppets opened. Yep. They were mouths. Little versions of the big one, lined with rows of spiky teeth. They stuck their tongues out and shook, chhh chhh chhh chhh chhh, rattling at me like maracas.
Vines wrapped tight around my ankles, and the next thing I knew, I was upside down. The big melon mouth slid underneath me and opened wide. I dropped my slushy straight in. I had to. I needed both hands to grip my hammer and prepare to strike. Well, if strike meant stick the hammer in his spiky mouth like Luke Skywalker stuck the bone in the rancor's mouth in Return of the Jedi. Then, yes. I didn't have time to come up with a better plan, and I didn't do my best thinking upside down.
“Stop.” I squeaked. I'd like to say I was confident, that bravery percolated through me, fortified by the power of Jesus, but nope.
The big mouth ignored my command. He was too busy chewing my slushy cup. I could see it, crunching and splurping green goo all over the inside of his horrifying mouth. The plant shook with excitement. Yep. It was hungry. I was about to be lunch. Death by Venus flytrap—mantrap?—from hell. This is it, Lloyd. You're plant food. A midnight snack, a Lloyd Cheez-It in a bad T-shirt.
The mantrap opened wide, lifted me up over his mouth and shook me.
“Larry!” The big head turned toward DeeDee.
Save meeeeeeeee! Wait. Did she just call him Larry?
“Do you like that? I can get you another one. See?”
Uh, it didn't sound like she was rescuing me. It sounded like she was serving me for lunch. The big mouth turned and watched DeeDee walk to the slushy bar, grab a Colossal Super Slurp cup off the stack and hit the lever on the very last machine. An emerald green liquid with black specks in it blurped into the cup. Hey. That's the same flavor I just had.
The nozzle clogged before the cup was full, so DeeDee jammed a straw into the machine, trying to clear it. “The legs always clog up the nozzle.”
“Did you say legs?”
“Of course,” she said. “Spanish fly is made of beetles.”
Vlurp. Yep. My stomach flipped upside down, which was right side up, because I was still upside down. Either way, bile tickled my tonsils. Bugs in my slushy. Was nothing
sacred?
When the cup was full, she put at least a dozen straws in it and handed it to Larry. Okay, he didn't have hands, but two of the smaller stems wrapped around the cup and that did the job. Soon enough, each straw had a hell plant mouth around it, sucking hard and rattling with what appeared to be joy.
Crunk. Ow. The plant dropped me on my head, smack on the linoleum. Jerk! I gripped my hammer and prepared to fight. But DeeDee stepped between me and the monster shrub. Then she hugged its central stalk. Hugged it!
“Aw. I'm so glad you like it. It's formulated to make birthing season easier.”
Birthing season? You heard that, right?
The hell bush squeezed DeeDee. Too tight. Stand back, DeeDee! I'll save you! I raised my hammer. But before I could move, DeeDee kissed the plant on the cheek next to his mean, teeth-lined mouth. All the stalks stopped chitting and wrapped around DeeDee.
Unhand her! Oh. Wait. They're hugging. And it looks consensual. My bad.
She went stem to stem kissing every little cheek next to every little spiky monstrous mouth. “Hey little Larry. You guys are growing up so fast!” She kissed the next one. And the next, calling each one of them Larry. Each Larry made a clicking noise and turned a brighter shade of red after she kissed it.
The big mouth said something to her. I think? It sounded like a bunch of clicks and snaps to me. “That's Lloyd. It's my fault. He's new. I lost track of time. I didn't tell him you were coming. He didn't mean to scare you,” DeeDee said.
“Scare him? Seriously?”
“Larry didn't want to eat you, silly. He wanted your drink.”
Huh. Maybe she was right. That plant emptied that slushy in under a minute. I was intimately familiar with the sound of scoop straws sucking and scraping at nothing on the bottom of a slushy cup. The red plant squeaked, presumably from happiness, then the beast pulled itself by its tiny nubby roots across the room to get a refill. DeeDee filled five or six more Colossal Super Slurp cups with bug juice and attached them like baby bottles to various mouths.
“What the fuck is going on?”
