by D. M. Guay
“You saw it. You were right there!”
Angel's triangle stopped. “Why is it so smoky in there?”
The terror eel bucked. Oh, no! It's not dead! I grabbed that Thigh Cruncher and wielded it like a hammer. The eel's mouth opened, rising up up up. Then split in half. Hunter stood in side it. Alive, arms up. He held a broken piece of eel jaw in one hand, and a chunk of eyeball in the other.
Angel's triangle stopped spinning. “Wow. Did you see that? He ushered everyone to safety, jumped straight into a terror eel's mouth, then ripped it apart from the inside. Have you ever seen someone so heroic?”
“But—”
Angel just rolled away. Did he even see what I had done?
Everyone emerged from their hiding places to gather around Hunter. They hoisted him up on their shoulders and chanted his name. I slumped down to the floor in a puddle of defeated loserdom. Seriously? Kill me now.
“Tough luck, fatso.” The demon scout stuck her head out of her hidey hole behind the control box. “Now give me my UNICORN!”
Something came at me, and something snapped. Red hot rage rushed over me. I lifted up that Thigh Cruncher and punched it right through her face.
PLAP.
She erupted like a pus volcano, covering everything in a four-foot radius in bubbling black goop, including me.
Oh.
We were both surprised, judging by the look on her cold white face when it exploded. Wow. Go me. I'm two for two tonight. Not that it mattered.
Hunter was the hero of the day. Even Zack floated over to congratulate him.
Zack high fived Hunter. And Hunter immediately dropped to the floor, passed out cold.
Huh. Or.
Wait.
No, he couldn't be. I'm sure he's fine.
Gunther the demon ran to Hunter's aid. Well, he tried to. He grabbed Zack to move him out of the way and immediately fell face down on the floor. Wow. He just dropped. Fast.
The crowd closed in around them. Voices kicked up. Suddenly, white cold hands grabbed the front of my T-shirt and dragged me across the gym. It was the vampires, and they looked mad. “Here he is. This is his fault. He broke the rules. He brought death into this gym. The eel was a distraction! Drain the useless blood bag!”
“What? Noooooooo!” I flailed, but it didn't matter.
He threw me down on the mat next to Zack. A wall of angry shouts and faces pressed in tight around us.
“Explain yourself. Speak!” The vampire demanded.
“I'm sorry, guys. I don't know what happened,” Zack said. “I don't think I reaped them. I mean, I'm suspended. I don't have my scythe. I didn't think I could reap, even if I wanted to. But you're right. They're dead. So maybe? Honestly, I don't know. This is new territory for me. My bad.”
“Dead?” The word caught in my throat.
Hunter and Gunther? They hadn't gotten back up. They were lying, stone still, on the floor, stiff. Right where they dropped. There wasn't a single mark on them, and we all knew they'd survived the eel.
“Zack,” I said. “What did you do?”
Another reaper materialized out of thin air right next to me. The monsters went tomb silent and stepped back.
He said, “Sorry I'm late. Traffic was just awful. I'm looking for...” A scroll materialized out of nowhere. He opened it and read for a few seconds. Then he looked at the two dead guys on the mat. “Holy shit, Zack. Did you do that? Unauthorized reaping? Again? Wow. Just. Wow. Anyhoo, I better motor. I'm running late as it is. Excuse me, boys. I'll see you all later. Heh heh. Get it? Later? Because you all are gonna die, eventually? It's a joke. No one? Really? Tough crowd.”
Reaper two stepped over Hunter and Gunther's bodies and floated off in search of. Well, probably the demon scout I'd reduced to mush. Again. Because he sure didn't do a very good job reaping her last time.
Zack slumped. “I can't believe he still has a job, and I don't. Death is not fair.”
The crowd descended on us, a flurry of hooves and claws and angry, cold hands. Seconds later, I was outside in the icy darkness, flying off Bubba's porch. I landed face first on the frozen ground. Chunks of dirt and snow lodged in my teeth. Ow.
My busted up Huffy arced through the air and landed next to me with such force the frame bent and the back wheel popped off.
Fluffy's big dog head leaned in over me, nostrils flaring, teeth bared in a growl. “You brought death into Bubba's. If I see your face ever again, I will rip you apart!”
The angry mob stomped back inside, slammed the door shut and locked it behind them. The plastic flowers and pink flamingos rattled. Angel eight ball wobbled out from between two plastic daisies. “So, um. Planet Pump it is then.”
Chapter 7
I dragged my busted—again—Huffy down Cemetery Boulevard, past the creaking metal gate of the Eternal Spector Memory Gardens, past the rubble of Monster Burger, into the 24/7 Demon Mart parking lot. I was wet. Bruised. Beaten. Coatless. And my body had frozen nearly solid in the ice cold winter night.
Zack followed me. Talking. The entire way.
Lucky me.
He went on and on about what a great time he had a Bubba's. Yes. You heard that right: Great time. Apparently, he didn't realize this was the worst night ever. Maybe he was just a glass half full kind of skeleton, I don't know, but I gotta be honest. I wanted to kill him. Like, really really. A lot.
When we finally stepped in on the mat, covered in frozen eel slime and scout guts, DeeDee and the cleaning crew were pushing the butt end of a red, heart-shaped mattress through the stockroom door.
“Hey guys.” She didn't look up. “Reaper can use the emergency mattress Morty stores in the beer cave. Don't ask. Seriously. Just don't. We're definitely gonna need clean sheets. And Lysol. Lots and lots of Lysol. Trust me. Can you give me a hand?”
She looked at me and dropped the mattress. “Oh my God. Are you hurt? What is this stuff all over you?” She descended on me, patting me down for mortal injuries. “What happened?”
“We had an amazing night. Totally awesome.” Zack gushed. Again. “I was nervous going to Bubba's, but wow. What a nice bunch of guys!”
“He's kidding.” I could not listen to this again.
“I'm serious! Were we at the same gym? It was so great. When the eel showed up, I thought for sure it was gonna be a bloodbath, but only two people died! TWO! So many survivors. What a rush! Definitely a nice change of pace. Until today, I didn't realize how much it sucks to watch so many people die all the time. I feel like I'm floating on a cloud. You know, I think I might actually like being unemployed. It sure is easier to make friends when you aren't harvesting immortal souls. Trust me, I've tried. People spend the whole ride up or down crying. Or begging. Either way, they're not really in the mood to make friends.”
I said nothing. Great? Nice? Amazing? These were not words I would use to describe my night.
DeeDee's eyes were round as silver dollars. “Two people died?”
“Make that three. And no one showed up to reap them, either. We just had to plunge Glug out of the toilet! You wouldn't think a ghost could clog, but apparently they can.” Kevin stood in the door, his ghostly body covered in a light coating of dust and eel slime. Huh. Weird. I didn't know ghosts could get dirty. “Captain Dipshit and his first mate here made quite a mess. I don't know what you were thinking. Who brings a reaper to their first night at Bubba's?”
“My name is Zack. Reaper is a job. And I don't have uhh uh uhhhhhh joooooooob.” He lifted his bone hands to his eye sockets and sobbed.
Oh good. He's back to normal.
“Yeah? You didn't look unemployed when Hunter and Gunther dropped dead. Wait. Your name is ZACK? You've gotta be kidding. Zack. Did you just get kicked out of a frat house?”
“It's short for Zackumzaphielhermesiappotholonian. And I wish I had a frat house. Because it means I'd have brothers who care about meeeeeeeeeee. Uuhhhhh. Heerrrrrrr. Hurrrrrr.”
“Wow, kid. I thought you were the train wreck.” K
evin rubbed his forehead like he had a migraine.
“But.” DeeDee looked at me. “Didn't they tell you what happened to Trog?”
“Hang on, sweets. It gets worse. Dipshit here opened the portal inside Bubba's and let in a terror eel. We're lucky we're not in a full on eelpocalypse right now. You royally screwed the pooch, kid. Royally.”
“Lloyd, is this true?” DeeDee had this look in her eyes, I can't explain. Anticipation. Like her heart would fly or fall, depending on the next words that came out of my mouth.
My face flushed. “No. I...!”
“I saw you, kid. I saw you messing with that control panel. And I saw this asshole helping you.” He pointed at Zack.
“I closed it. I didn't open it!”
“Then who did?”
My lips flubbed. I didn't really have a good answer for that one. The controls seemed to be moving on their own. But there was something there. Something real. Because it had grabbed me. “I'm not sure. It was invisible?”
“Invisible. Wow. That's the best you could come up with?”
I knew how it sounded, but it was true.
“I don't know what to say, kid. I didn't want to believe Fluffy and the rest of the guys, but we all saw you by the controls. Then boom, eel.” He shook his head and his fat body quivered, as if the thought was too horrible to finish. “You really did open the gate and let that thing through, didn't you?”
“Lloyd, no!” DeeDee looked at me. “That can't be true.”
My heart kicked up. “It's not! The Cookie Scout attacked me!”
“Oh, so now it's the Cookie Scout's fault. Classic.” Kevin shook his head. “Look. I realize the gate was probably an accident, but just fess up already. We melted that scout down to goop, and we all know no demon can recover from that.”
“But—” Seriously. How did he not see? She was right there!
“You know what your problem is, kid? There's always a but. Always an excuse. You skate by on luck and hope it's enough. You've worked here what, like four months now? And you still don't know what you're doing. You still haven't read your employee manual. And now this? Luck isn't enough. Luck runs out. Skills last. I'm sorry, kid.”
“Kevin. What are you saying?” DeeDee reached for me. Then stopped, because eel guts.
“You know what I'm saying.” Kevin looked away.
“No. He's one of us,” she said.
“Sorry, sweets. I love the kid, but tonight was a shit show. It's too big a mistake to overlook. Ten bucks says your replacement's already in the lot,” Kevin's ghost head poked through the glass. He looked left, then right. “You're a good kid, but you're incompetent. We can't go on like this forever.”
My heart hit my shoe. He's asking me to leave, isn't he? Suddenly, my eyes went blurry. Wet. All I could do was stare at my shoes. I couldn't look DeeDee in the eyes. This can't be happening. Not like this.
Ding.
Well. That's it then. I'm fired. My replacement really did show up. I didn't look, not right away. What if he was more handsome than me? More heroic? More perfect for DeeDee? I couldn't bear it.
“Good news. It appears The Beast has not yet infiltrated Sinbad's.”
Oh.
Someone stepped in the door, but it wasn't my replacement. It was Faust. He stood on the mat. Snow steamed off him like he was a hot griddle. “The doomed souls gate has not been breached. The ladies were very gracious and most agreeable in answering my inquiry.”
He straightened his tailored, expensive blazer and the button of his shirt popped, revealing traces of glitter and lipstick all down his chest. Stripper lipstick. Something caught his eye. The cleaning crew. They had abandoned the mattress for snack time. They gathered around an end cap and ripped open a bag of Zapp's. They shoved those chips in like hungry walruses. “My word! What on earth are these?”
“The new cleaning crew,” DeeDee said. “They've been here all week. You didn't notice?”
“I must have overlooked them. I have been rather preoccupied.”
“You think?” Kevin huffed and his eyes shot to one of the thousand “Beware” posters Faust had hung.
“Steve must be angrier than I thought. Best behavior from now on then, team. Clearly, we must earn our way back into his good graces. It appears I did not send him a large enough ham for Yule this year.” Faust straightened his collar. It had lipstick all over it. His hair was sticking up on the side, too, and coated in glitter, like it'd been steamrollered by a thousand body-glittered C-cups.
“What is this? Busy evening!” Faust pulled a little scroll out of his pocket. He unrolled it and began to read. “Oh dear. Oh, my.”
He looked at me and raised one perfectly tweezed eyebrows. “Come, dear boy. We have much to discuss.”
My feet felt glued to the mat. In terror. And dread. Well, this is it. I really am getting fired.
He put his hand on my elbow, and I floated across the floor, light as a feather. He whisked me through the stockroom door, waving Morty's disco pimp mattress out of the way with his hand. He floated me into his posh man cave. And it was posh as ever. Well, apart from the printer spitting out thousands more “Beware” posters. Other than that, Faust had clearly gotten an upgrade when Steve rebuilt the store. The hearth of the stone fireplace was even bigger, tall enough for a reaper to stand in. The room had expanded. More bookshelves, filled with even more leather-bound books and creepy relics in glass cases. Like a live, giant cockroach in a glass case that said, “Break in Case of Emergency” across the top, and the monkey paw that gave me the finger as soon as I looked at it. Gulp. Nope. La la la la. Not looking. Nothing to see here.
Faust let go of my arm, and my feet immediately touched down on Persian rug. A real one. Faust looked down at his hands and rubbed his fingers together. “Dear Dark Lord. What manner of putrid slime is this?”
“Terror eel.” And it was all over me, head to toe, dripping onto his fancy rug.
“My, my. This will never do!” He waved his hand over me. The stuff didn't disappear. His magic didn't seem to work on it. “Well, that is an unusually stubborn stain. No matter. Sit. Please. We have important matters to discuss.”
He glided across the room, sinking into the leather chair behind his big, elaborately carved wood desk. Which was covered in posters? Okay, then.
I took a deep breath. This will all be fine once I tell Faust the truth. “I didn't do anything wrong. This is all a misunderstanding. The Cookie—”
“Cookie?”
Yes! He gets it!
“What an excellent idea.” He snapped his manicured fingers and a silver plate, topped with artfully arranged stacks of Peanut Butter Patties appeared on his desk. “I am a bit peckish. I quite love these, don't you? So sinful. Please, do try one. And, do sit down.”
My heart sunk. Cookies? I didn't mean cookies! He waved his hand again. I floated across the floor, and sunk, slime and all, into the plush armchair. Oof. He was gonna have to throw it away. No amount of scrubbing would ever get the eel off the upholstery.
“I suppose you know why I've called this meeting.”
My guts tied in a knot. “I can explain. Bubba—”
“Oh, yes. I am so happy you're availing yourself of your free gym membership. DeeDee has had quite the transformation at Bubba's hand. He is a master of his trade. Now, let's get to the point, shall we? My accountant, Mr. Beale, sent me a note. It appears you haven't cashed your blank check. The one I wrote to you as a reward for your role in thwarting that unfortunate incident with the living challenged last month. You do remember, don't you?”
“Huh?”
“The, how do you say? Zombies? I must insist that you give it serious consideration, and do not wait too long to use it. It is very powerful magic, and cannot lie dormant in this world too long, or else the spell will sour. So, I encourage you to reflect upon your true, pure desires and put the check to good use. Preferably by the end of this fiscal year, which is in three weeks. Remember, it must be used for something true, some
thing sincere, never for selfish purposes, lest the spell produce bad results. As we discussed.”
“Wait. The check? Seriously?”
“I applaud your self-control.”
“You do?”
“Speaking the truth to your mother instead of wishing her questions away. It was an honorable choice. Jennifer is a lovely woman.” He cleared his throat. “If I may be so bold, if your father ever meets an untimely end, please do let me know. I would like to add my name to her dance card.”
My jaw dropped. These fools needed to step off my mom already.
“She's hot, kid. Get over it. Mmph. Mmm. Num num.” Kevin sat in the middle of that silver plate of cookies, stuffing one into his mouth. Well, trying. Wait. Succeeding? Holy shit. He actually managed to lift one end of a cookie and take a bite. “Jesus, I told you all not to open the box, but no. I could smell the damn cookies all the way out by the register. My diet is totally shot now. You all know I'm a stress eater. It's been a rough night.”
He chewed. Mmmphing and yumming, even though only about one in twenty bites actually bit. Still, an impressive record for a ghost.
“Kevin, my good man. This is a private meeting. Is there a reason you insist on attending?”
“You're firing him. I need to be here for that. Oh, and you forgot to summon his replacement. Snap to it. Look at me. We're already short staffed.”
“Why on earth would we fire young Master Lloyd?”
Kevin recounted all the night's events to Faust. The gym. The gate. The eel. Hunter and Gunther. Everything except the part where it wasn't my fault, and I totally closed the gate and kicked demon scout ass. It's like he didn't see the Cookie Scout at all. Just me, flailing upside down by the control panel. Kevin's voice sounded strange. Flat, monotone. He practically chanted the facts, like he was in a trance. His eyes looked weird, too, staring off at nothing. If he were a cartoon, he'd have those hypnosis corkscrews twirling in his eyes.
I squinted. “You all right, man?”
“Are you certain, Kevin? I did not sense anything out of sorts, and these are serious accusations.”
