by D. M. Guay
“Fine.” I carried it—holding it out as far away from me as possible—through the stockroom. I made it as far as the employee lounge door. I hesitated, as thousands of smiling Junebugs watched my every move.
I hadn't been in there since Chef—Well, since the zombie incident. The room was empty now. But who knew for how long? Steve took Earl back to Pennsylvania to—nope. I couldn't even think about that. You know what? I'm not gonna. The bag smelled like a cow's butt hole. I'd just throw it away. I stuffed it into the trashcan by the utility sink. My eyes watered. Eep. That smell. It's like the eel guts ripened with age.
I almost had the bag all the way in, when it bucked. Uh oh. I stepped back. Another ghost? The wonky zipper finally gave way, and something shot out.
“Aaaah!” It flew at me. Fast and landed, right on my head, like a face hugger. I peeled it away. It was my employee manual. Dirty. Eel soaked. Mad. “Holy shit!”
Aw, man. I could not let Kevin see this book. His stupid pink pen would never stop writing. I dropped it in the sink and grabbed the nozzle. It needed a bath. Wait. Can I wash it? It's paper.
Grrr. Errrrr. Errrrrrr.
Its pages kicked like feet. It kicked open, back to that drawing of a hand, scrawly and ornate, with an eye in the palm. The eye glowed green. Then it blinked, like a real eye, looking straight at me. “Aaaaaaaah! Hell NO! Why are you so creepy? I thought you were supposed to help me?”
I grabbed a dust pan off the wall and flipped the cover shut.
Nothing in there could be worth looking at that kind of creepy. I grabbed the book, and, steeled by a fear greater than memories of zombie chefs, kicked open the lounge door, walked that bucking book over to my locker, and shut it in. I spun the combination lock, then I leaned against the door with all my weight, just to make sure it latched.
The book kicked.
Thump. Thunk. Thump.
“Bad book. Stay!”
It whined like a weird dog.
“Who you talking to?” Kevin floated up to me. I swear, he came right through the wall.
“Uh. Nothing. No one. Just myself.”
“Yeah, well. Get your thumb out of your ass and get on the floor to help DeeDee. We gotta have these ghosts squared away before the gate opens.” Kevin shook his head. “I gotta feeling we're gonna be waiting a long time for that reaper.”
Chapter 9
I passed out face down on my bed, despite the thin veneer of eel slime, head to toe, all over my body. It had been a long night. Hunter made me do squats. Lots of squats. Man, he loved squats. And burpees. And sit-ups. And lunges down the chip aisle and back, in between all my regular duties at the 24/7 Demon Mart. Hunter did exactly what he'd done when he was alive, over and over. So the good news? I had my very own personal trainer. The bad news? He never got tired or wanted to quit. Because he was dead.
It was exhausting. I barely made it up the stairs to my room, and that was the last thing I remember.
Until my nostrils burned like I'd snorted Sriracha. I opened my eyes. I didn't know how long I was out, but I knew it wasn't nearly long enough because the blinding winter sun bore through the window, lasering out my retinas. An unholy smell, like burning elephant turds, filled my room.
Zzzzz. Zzzzz.
What the..? Something landed on my face.
Smack. Ha. Got it! I pulled my hand away. A small black fly lay crumpled in my palm.
Zzzzz. Zzzzzzz.
A black cloud of flies swarmed around me. Ack! It'd brought friends.
I rolled over, swatting, trying to figure out how they all got in here, and came face to face with a skull. “AAAAAAAH!”
I plooped right out of bed, straight onto the floor. Into a pile of festering black fabric. And I mean absolutely festering. The smell was so bad my eyes watered. A swarm of flies puffed up out of it when I landed.
“Are you all right?” Zack asked.
“What are you doing here? How did you get into my house?” My heart kicked my ribs. “What is this stuff? You brought flies?”
Reaper in my house! Nope. No way. He had to go!
“Sorry, man. I didn't want to wake you up. I've been standing here for like, three hours.”
“What time is it?” I grabbed the clock. Eleven a.m. “What do you want?”
“The little roach guy said we're peas in a pod. Or something? I think that means you can help me.”
Gah. Kevin!
“What do you want?”
“I don't have any clean clothes. Kevin says I can't be naked anymore.”
“So?” That pile of stinky black stuff I was sitting in must be his dirty laundry. Great. Just great.
That's when I noticed he was wearing only boxer shorts. On the plus side, he wasn't buck naked. But I don't know where he got his undies. They were bright yellow with little goldfish printed all over them.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Can you wash them? I don't know how.”
“You're kidding.”
“Well, no. My girlfriend did all the laundry. We were together five thousand years. Eerrrrrrrrr. Herrrrrrrrrrrr. Five thousand years and she dumps me, just like that. Hurrrrr.”
“You didn't do laundry once for five thousand years? No wonder she dumped you.”
He slumped and started to sniffle. “I knooooooooooooooow. I miss her soooo mu uh uh uuuuuh.”
Aw, man. I better get him to stop crying, or we'll be here all day. “Sorry, man. It's okay. But, surely you did laundry before you had a girlfriend.”
“No. My mom washed my clothes. I wasn't lying. I really don't know how.”
“You've never done laundry? How old are you?”
“Um. I don't know. How old is life on earth? All the reapers started in the amoeba division when we were kids, so...”
He started counting on his fingers, then he saw me looking at him. Then he looked at me. Never mind. Doesn't matter.
“You can't stay here. Take your clothes back to the store and wash them in the sink. Or use the magic shower. I'm pretty sure if you wish them clean, the shower will take care of it. Okay. Problem solved. Bye!”
He slumped and sighed. “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.”
“Get out.” I snipped.
“I don't know how all that works. Can you show me?”
“No! I'm sleeping!”
“Okay. I'll just hang out here until you wake up. Then we can go back to the store together. And you can show me how to wash clothes in the shower.”
“What? No! Leave me alone.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.” His shoulders sunk even more. Then he sniffled and rubbed his nose hole with his bony knuckle. “I'm so looooooooooooooneleeeeeeee.”
Oh my God. My dry, aching, exhausted eyeballs stared at the ceiling. I can't believe this. Why me?
“You're my only friend. Hurp hurp. I need help. I don't have anywhere else to go. And Kevin says I can't be outside in the daytime. Someone could see me.”
“People can see you?”
“Some of them. Hurrrrrrrrr.” He cried. And cried some more until he got up to blow his nose on the dirty bath towel I'd left on my desk chair. Then my Xbox suddenly caught his eye. He leaned in, poking the controller with his bony finger. “What's this? Ooooo. You've got one of these magic cartoon boxes! I've reaped a few guys who were using these.”
He looked around. “Where are your crunched up, empty cans of energy drinks?”
“Hands off.” I popped up off the floor and swatted his hand away. Dude. That Xbox was the best thing I owned!
Tap tap tap tap.
We both froze. That was a knock. On my door. Uh oh.
“Honey? I know it's early, but I heard voices. Are you chatting online with your little friends?”
Shit. My mom. Red alert!
“Since you're awake already, I'm coming in. I've got stuff for you.”
My heart punched my tonsils. Mom. In here? With a reaper? “Uh, just a minute!”
I flew straight at Zack, pushing him into the
closet. Dude. I knew my Mom. That knock was a courtesy tap. A “just in case you're masturbating” knock. She wasn't gonna wait. She wouldn't be dissuaded. “Mom, get out” had never kept her out of anywhere!
“Hey!” Zack waved his arms and tried to swat me away as I wrestled him straight into the closet and shut the door right on his foot. “What do you think you're doing? Ew! It's a mess in here! Wow. This is the most disgusting closet I've ever seen. And I reap people, dude. I've been to, like, a million crime scenes. Did someone die in here? The floor is sticky.”
“Shh! Quiet. Mom can't walk in here and see the angel of death!”
“An angel, not the angel. There are like seven billion people in the world. Plus all the corporeal demons, sea creatures. And like, zillions of amoebas. One guy can't handle all that. We're not miracle workers.”
“Shhh!” I jammed the door shut, but his massive bone toes were still in the way. I pushed the door more.
“Ow!” He howled, but he didn't move. I had no choice but to elbow him back into the closet bar, which collapsed, burying him under a pile of my clothes.
“Everything okay in here?” Mom stepped in.
“Fine! Just cleaning up!” I plastered on a fake smile as I stood in front of the closet and pretended everything was cool. Nothing to see here, Mom. There's definitely not a grim reaper in my closet, no sireee.
She had a basket of fresh, clean folded laundry in her arms. A pile of my mail sat on top of it. “Here you go, honey. You left your laundry on the floor again. And after we bought you that nice hamper. You really need to use it.”
She pointed at it. It was covered in fast food wrappers and dirty socks. Ahem.
“What is that horrible smell?” She waved her hand in front of her nose, then locked in on the pile of dirty reaper robes on the floor. “What is this? Where did it all come from?”
Shit. She can see it.
“Uh. Well. Mmm.” I got nothing.
“Did you have another sewer back up at work? Goodness. That's a smell. And the flies!” She batted through the black cloud, then knocked the wrappers off my hamper, bent over, and started stuffing the reaper robes into it. “Did you bring this home from work?”
Angel eight ball rolled out from under my bed and eyeballed me with his triangle. “Please don't sin. Lying to your mom is a two for one. Lying and dishonoring your parents. Please. I'm drowning in paperwork as it is and your audit is right around the corner.”
I kicked him back under the bed.
“Um. I have been asked to wash it.” What? That wasn't technically a lie. Vague isn't lying. Is it?
“Oof. This is a doozy. That nice Mr. Faust should have paid for laundry service. But, I guess it's too late now. We'll have to take care of it. We sure can't leave it like this.”
Mom started to drag the hamper out of the room.
“No. Don't touch that.” Like, literally don't. I didn't need my mom handling hell eel guts. It might raise some questions. “Uh. I can wash it.”
“Aw, you're so sweet, but you've been up all night, honey. My hard working little boy needs to rest.” She pinched my cheeks so hard my lips puckered. “Besides, from the looks of it, it's going to take two or three cycles to get this stuff out, and if you wait, it won't be done in time for work. You know how long it takes our old machines to cycle. They're on their last legs. I'll run it while you're sleeping. I'm working from home today. Van's in the shop. Besides, I'm so proud of you. Taking on extra projects at work. I like the initiative. You know, this is the longest you've ever had one job!”
“Don't be too happy, Mom,” I muttered. “I'm about to get fired.”
“Like hell you are.” Angel shot me some stink triangle from under my comforter.
“Did you say something, honey?”
“Uh. No. Thanks, Mom. I owe you one.”
She whisked that hamper of putrid eel gut-soaked stuff out of my room, and when I finally heard her thumping down the stairs, I breathed a sigh of relief. Just in time, too. Zack popped straight out of that closet with such force he knocked one of the doors off the hinges.
“Man, that closet is small. And creepy. What is that?” He pointed to the cave of garbage, broken toys, and lost socks my employee manual had fashioned into a cave.
“That's where my employee manual lives.”
I mean. Usually. Now it was locked up. Where it should be.
“Really? I've never seen a book do this before.” Zack leaned down in to get a closer look at the cave hole. Something gray shot out and fwapped him right on the face. He jumped back. “Aaaah! What the hell was that?”
Shit! How did my employee manual get here! That door was locked!
Then Gertrude rolled out. Like literally rolled, because she was so fat she was round like a beach ball, and she was missing a front leg, so she really didn't have much to stop her—right out of the cave.
Zack jumped back. “Oh shit. That cat is still alive? The Smites Department put out a bunch of conditional hits on that thing. Nine lives indeed.” He rubbed Gertrude on her immense belly. She purred, then immediately passed out, dripping drool onto the carpet. “So, uh. Anyway, can we talk about the village washerwoman? Wow. Hot, right? Lucky!”
He put his hand up, waiting for a high five.
“The what?”
“The washerwoman. The blonde?” He pointed at my door. “As the guys from Gamma Pi said when I reaped them after fall hazing, 'Hubba hubba, I gotta chubba!' Man. Washerwomen look so much better now. In the middle ages, they were covered in scabs and boils. Let me tell you, there were no babes during the bubonic plague. Not a single one. Cowpox was pretty bad, too. That was a waste of hot milk maids, if you ask me.”
“Oh my God.” First Morty, then Kevin, then Faust, and now Zack? Kill me. “That's not a washer woman. That's my mom.”
“So your mom does your laundry?” He looked at me. I mean, I think. He doesn't have eyeballs. “And you made fun of me?”
“No. It's not like that. I know how to do my own, she just does it sometimes, okay? When she wants to. What are you mad about? She's washing your clothes, isn't she?”
“Not to uh, pry, but is your dad still alive? I wouldn't ask, but Kevin said the best way to heal a broken heart is to be 'balls deep by the end of the week.'” Zack made air quotation marks with this bone fingers. “No one compares to my girlfriend, but your mom. Well, she's the first thing that's made me tingle down there in a while. Signs of life, know what I mean?”
My jaw dropped so hard and so fast, I swear I got carpet in my teeth. I glanced at his boxers, and for a hot minute I wondered how that would work. Then. Nope. Forget it. Just hell no. All these guys needed to back off my mom. Because, ew. “That's it. You have got to go.”
“I can't leave. I'm naked!”
“Not for long.”
Chapter 10
As the wise and all-knowing Anonymous once said, “you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.”
I held my phone to my ear, hands shaking, butt pressed firmly against my bedroom door, just in case Mom's spidey sense kicked in and she decided to barge in. Finally, DeeDee answered. She had barely gotten in a hello when my lips started flapping, fast. “Zack followed me home. He can't stay here. My mom is here. What do I do?”
“Gee. You picked up a stray, too?” she asked. “Bring him to my place. Junebug has enough on her plate. We can't ask her to babysit a restless reaper. Hunter made her do three hundred squats this morning, and Gunther keeps trying to look down her shirt. Like she doesn't have enough to manage on day shift.”
I was about to ask her what, exactly, Junebug did on dayshift, but I heard barking in the background. “Bad, boy. Bad! Get your nose out of there! I gotta go,” she said, “See you soon, okay?” and hung up.
We had to wait until Mom got in the shower to make our escape. It was the only way. The second the tap squeaked and the ssssshhhhhh of water kicked on, we made our escape. Down the stairs and out the front door. Look at me, being responsible and do
ing the right thing. Home free!
Or not. Shit. We made it as far as the driveway. Where we now stood, in the freezing cold, staring at the snow piled up around my four shredded tires. Yeah. I see what Angel means about getting things fixed. Be prepared, right? I was not prepared. Ergo, our escape plan was immediately complicated by a lack of transportation.
“Wow. The Smites Department did a much better job on your car than on your cat,” Zack said.
“Tell me about it. We're gonna have to take the bus.”
“If you give me the address, I'll just fly there.”
“Absolutely not!” I couldn't set an unattended grim reaper loose on Columbus. Plus, he was bright yellow. Someone was bound to notice that.
Yes, I said yellow. Because Zack was no longer naked. He wore an XXXL bright yellow banana hoodie. Literally, a banana. When the hood was up, it looked like the stem.
Don't judge, okay? It was a group Halloween costume. Dad was the gorilla, in a suit so big he looked like a deflated King Kong. Mom had gotten them two-for-one at a yard sale, and size doesn't matter when you're Jennifer Lamb Wallace and there's a bargain on the line. We're on a budget. You should know that by now.
Unfortunately, Zack looked like a banana space alien. I covered his face with ski goggles and a huge scratchy wool scarf my Great Aunt Edna knitted. His bottom half looked even worse. His leg bones were really long, so we had to layer long johns, with tube socks pulled all the way up, and the pink leg warmers Mom wore to the Charity Ladies' Auxiliary 80s Ladies' Night scrunched up to cover the space in between. And flip flops, because his bone feet were so huge, none of my shoes fit. His heels hung off the back.
Let's just say his outfit and size didn't exactly help us get around town incognito. It also didn't help that we had to take the bus.
“Why are all the humans staring at me?” Zack whispered the second we stepped on. Because everyone watched the two of us walk down the aisle. It wasn't just the outfit. I'm convinced a couple of them could actually see Zack, like see see. One lady squinted, like she was looking looking, as she unpeeled a waxy white candy wrapper and popped a thin pink wafer in her mouth. Whatever she saw, it must have been too much for her, because her jaw dropped, and that pink candy wafer fell out of her mouth and skidded across the aisle as he walked by. When I looked back, she had passed out cold.
