by D. M. Guay
“Do I take corn?”
I had to ask. Anything to make her stop, but that just made her more mad.
She reared up and attacked, powered by rage. Before she could bring a claw down on me, I grabbed that scout by the shoulders and rolled, wresting control of her with the sheer power of chub. It actually worked. It's like I had super powered love handles. Huh. Well, look at that. I rolled. That ghost personal trainer paid off!
“Ha! I got you this time! You menace!” I held her down with my pudge. “You ruined my life!”
“Oh. Boo hoo. Whiner.”
She smacked me. Right across the face. Then her ice cold body cracked in my hands.
Crick. Crack. Creee.
Dude. That felt like it hurt. No wonder she was so mad.
I looked at her. She looked at me. Her fang-lined mouth snapped and howled as the rest of her body stretched out below me, longer and taller. Her spiked tail popped out and bonked me right on the head. “OW!”
It fwacked, upturning the holiday clearance tub. Christmas leftovers spilled across the floor. CDs and tons of fat candy cane sticks and twisty lollipops that looked like unicorn horns. The scout hooked her claws into me and yanked. I grabbed a weapon. Or two. Or not. Because my hands came up with a Taylor Swift CD in one hand and a big twisty lollipop in the other. Shit.
“UNICORN!” She screamed.
“You play with a unicorn, you get the horn!” I sunk that delicious pink sugar swirl lollipop right into her mean demon mouth. Her eyes went wide. Her body stopped moving for a second.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
No. That wasn't her bones morphing into the monstrous form of the day. Or her monstrous body about to explode into goop again. Nope. Those were yummy noises.
“Mmmm. Nummm. Mmmummm. Mummmm.” Yep. She was eating the lollipop. She sucked it all in and crunched it down to crumbs in a split second. Then her eyes turned to slits, and she growled. “No free cookies, fat boy! UNICORN!”
Well, so much for that. I raised that Taylor Swift CD, ready to bring it down like a knife. She threw me backward, right into the shelf, so hard my brain rattled.
Ow. My all of me hurt.
She closed in on me. Angrier. Eyes black. I threw that Taylor Swift CD right at her gaping, foaming mouth. She smacked it away and growled, “No Tay Tay. I like Katy Perry!”
And she lunged. I closed my eyes. I'm a goner. Any minute now. Yep. She's gonna get me. Huh. What's taking so long? I opened my eyes and saw nothing but white eyes. Eight of them. And Josh Groban. Bubby held the Cookie Scout upside down by her tail, as she thrashed and kicked, claws out. He waved a Josh Groban Noel CD in one of his claw-tipped legs.
Bleeeeeeee. Blurrrrrrp. Blup.
“Kevin's never gonna let you play that.”
Bleeep Blooooop.
“Yeah. I know. I really need to find that book.”
Chapter 19
It wasn't hard, because my employee manual ran right behind Bubby and that thrashing, upside down demon scout. I scrambled after it. But by the time I made it to the end of the aisle, it had disappeared. Again.
Seriously? Gah! I needed that blank check! I tiptoed around, ducking out of site of passing ghosts, checking every crevice, every end cap, looking for any sign of movement. Which was surprisingly easy, considering. Because there had been a definite lull in the poltergeist activity.
Hunter squatted, but every other ghost's eyes were glued to the TV, and the hypnotic hip thrusts of Patrick Swayze. Dude. I will never again doubt the power of the Swayze. I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for Dirty Dancing.
DeeDee was a genius. She leaned over the counter, grabbing books while the ghosts were distracted.
Until Kevin screamed, and his fat white arms—four of them—balled up into fists and waved angrily in the air. “Noooooo! Baby just got to Kellerman's. You aren't playing that shit on my stereo. That song sucks. It ain't metal, and you know it.”
“Sorry, dude. I gotta score tonight. Have to. I'm starving! I've waited so long, and this is my ace into that hole.” DJ Morty pressed play and a guitar riff poured from the speakers, drowning out the movie.
It was a guy singing something about cherry pies? And sweet surprises? I don't know it was, but it didn't take long to figure out he wasn't singing about actual pies.
“HATE...WARRANT!” Kevin shook with rage. But it was more like convulsions, quick. His body seized back and forth. He suddenly grew bigger. And thicker. And whiter. His leg hit the stereo, and the music zrrrrped and died out.
“Come on, man! Are you all trying to kill me?” Morty harmphed. “I'm starving! I can't wait much longer. Cherry Pie was my ticket into her pie! You can watch Dirty Dancing anytime!”
Candy flipped her hair back, took one look at the TV screen and said, “I love this movie. It's so romantic.”
Morty perked up. He was over the counter in a split second. He extended a hand to his ghost unicorn, and said, “Nobody puts Candy in the corner.”
She squealed. Then she leapt into his arms, giggling. He kicked open the stockroom door and carried her through like a bride across a threshold. Well, then. Somebody's about to get a happy ending, in all possible meanings of the phrase.
Zack floated out a few seconds later. “Uh. That creepy pervert guy is about to make sweet love to Candy on my bed.”
Um, no. The love would not be sweet.
Zack's whole body looked like it was wilting. “I miss my girlfriend. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. All food tastes like ash since she left me. There's no joy in my life. Everything is but a darkened, burned-out shell. A joyless shadow of my former life. I have nothing to live for. Uuuuuuuuh. Huuuuurrrrrrrrr.”
Well. Here we go again. But at least he was dressed. The robes looked clean, too.
Zack stuck his mouth directly under the Kelpie Kiwi, and let the slush splurt full blast right into his mouth. “Sugar is the only thing that makes me hapeeeeeeeeeeeee. Hurr hurrrrr. I'm so sad. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Ew. This stuff tastes fishy. Oh. Hi Glug.” He suddenly stopped. And stood up. “I don't believe it. Guys! GUYS!”
He whirled around and jumped up and down, excited. I wasn't sure why. He had slush all down his rib cage. He'd even left the machine on. A snake of slush poured out behind him, piling up on the floor. Kelpie Kiwi / Glug spilled all over the linoleum, the welcome mat, down the fronts of the cabinets.
DeeDee didn't notice. She stood behind the counter with her nose buried in a book, speed reading. Her finger moved across the page, back and forth, up and down.
A very long, very sharp scythe appeared in Zack's hand, shimmering like it'd just beamed in from another dimension. “I've been reinstated! They must have reversed my suspension!” He hugged that glittering golden scythe to his chest, kissing it with mwa mwa mwa noises, as he whirled in a circle, excited. “I think I'm gonna cry iiiiiiiiii eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
“Fantastic! Can you please reap all these ghosts before the movie ends?” I asked.
DeeDee had stopped reading. She saw the scythe, put the book down, and moved closer to Kevin. It was subtle. Even Kevin didn't notice. But I knew. She wasn't gonna let Kevin go without a fight.
“Can you reap this guy first?” Kevin thumbed a leg back at the hipster. “He offers me store credit again, I'm gonna punch him straight into the first circle.”
“I can't reap him without a scroll. Herrrrrrrrrr. Herrrrrf.” Zack sobbed. But I think it was tears of joy this time. “Hurrrr. Hurrrrrrrr. I'm so ha ha haaaaaaaa peeeeeeee. I couldn't have done it without youuuuuuuu.”
“I'm happy for you, man.” I said it, and I meant it.
A weird parchment roll, wrapped in a black ribbon, appeared in mid-air. “Look. A reaping scroll! It must be my next assignment. Oh my gosh. This is the best day ever. Zack is back!”
A feeling washed over me. Relief? I felt a hundred pounds lighter. Phew! Seriously. Just in time, right? The reapers really came through for us. Zack was happy, and the need to locate my employee manual was a little less press
ing now that someone was finally here to remove our ghost problem.
“Well, at least they're all happy. Before they go.” DeeDee looked at each of them with sad eyes. She was so close to Kevin, she was almost on top of him.
“Why are you sad?” Then it hit me. Because we all knew what reaping meant. A soul left earth, and moved on to wherever that final destination may be. Forever. It was the natural order of things. But it was definitely an end.
But no one else seemed sad. Hunter lunged in place. Glug danced, happily melding with the slushy. Zack had his nose holes deep in that scroll, reading. The old guy and the bus lady? They were dancing by the 2-liter pop bottle pyramid, inspired by the power of Dirty Dancing. A little too inspired. Um. Yeah. She had her leg up around that old guy, grinding. She yelled, “I feel alive!”
I averted my eyes. You would, too. Trust me. It was like watching two tumbleweeds porking.
Something tugged on my sock. It was my employee manual. And it was really ripping into my sock. “Oh, gee. There you are. Thanks for the assist today. I really appreciate all your help.”
I didn't know if books understood sarcasm, but I poured it on so thick it couldn't help but get the message. It sat up. Its spine bent this way and that, like it was looking around. Then it pointed. At the television. The Swayze zzzzrted off. Then something knocked the TV right off the mount. It crashed to the floor and shattered. Oh.
Oh shit. Zack better hurry. We were out of time.
“Want...my...SWAYZE...BABY...CARRIED...WATERMELON!” I whirled around. It was Kevin. Rage Kevin. White. Angry ghost Kevin.
He wasn't the only one. The happiness? All gone. All the ghosts creaked and cracked and groaned and made ghastly uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh sounds as they stretched and grew and changed.
“Kevin. Calm down. It's okay. I'll put on Dio. It'll be all okay. I promise.” DeeDee slipped down behind the counter, between an angry Kevin and a still somehow very blue hipster.
“Get out of there. Get away from them!”
“No. She said. I won't let Kevin go. Not like this.” She reached for one of Kevin's Black Sabbath albums, but it rose up up up into the air, out of DeeDee's reach, then bloop. The record slipped out of the sleeve and crashed to the ground.
Chink.
Oh shit. It broke.
The ghost hipster said, “Hands off. I made a deal to buy those. Store credit.”
My book tugged harder on my sock. “Give me the blank check. I need it!”
Another record floated into the air, then crashed to pieces. Then another. Kevin's mouth split into a row of black spike fangs. He picked up the register and threw it. DeeDee ducked. It chinked into the front window, then dropped, spewing coins and bills. DeeDee was trapped back there with two angry ghosts.
Kevin moved in on her. And a shadow closed in over me. I looked up. Hunter. Big. Wide. Mean. Angry. His face moved in close to mine. He growled. “Give me twenty.”
Gulp. Nope. Not now. I had to get to DeeDee. My book tugged at my sock. I screamed, “Zack. What are you waiting for? Reap! Reap!”
Zack floated toward me. Phew. Thank goodness.
“Hold on for just another minute, DeeDee.”
Hunter's red squeaky bone floated in the air, up over his head, over mine. Hunter's giant white hand stretched into a claw and reached for that bone, ready to snatch it out of the air.
Hunter's paw came down.
Zack's scythe moved.
Hurry Zack! REAP!
A sharp, searing pain cut through my neck. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. No air. I'm drowning. Then the room stopped moving. It was like a still photo. The pain. It stopped. It was just...gone. But so was every other feeling. Well, every physical feeling. My brain still reeled, like a methhead hamster running in a wheel, going nowhere.
The whole room stuck, frozen in time, except for me. And Zack. He said, “I'm so sorry, man. My first assignment was you. Both of you. You're dead.”
He showed me the scroll. Two names. Lloyd Lamb Wallace. DeeDee Bertha Woznowski.
“What are the chances? Talk about a bummer. But no hard feelings, right?”
Chapter 20
Zack's scythe came down. Right on my head.
“Nooooooooooooooooo!”
Bonk.
“Oh.”
When it hit me, it didn't hurt.
Huh. Weird. It was actually a relief, like I'd been squeezed out of a really tight toothpaste tube, and I could finally breathe again. “Thanks, man. Wait.”
I looked at my hands. They were blue. And see-through. And so was the rest of me.
Holy shit. “DeeDee. Look at me. I'm blue!”
I looked up, right at some poor guy who was covered in blood, clutching a giant open gash on his neck and face. “Aaaaaaah!”
I nearly fell over. Hunter's monster claw sunk so deep, his head was nearly cut clean off. It was hanging by a spine. Literally. Jesus. If he weren't so fat, it would have broken him clean in half! Talk about a gruesome way to go. The monster paw was still in his neck, claw poking through shredded skin. Dude. He reached right through the poor guy to grab a red squeaky bone floating, suspended in air, behind him.
Wait.
Wait a minute. I stared at the curve of his face, the blood on his shirt. I could just make out the words “This T-Shirt Is Haunted” on the front of it. Fuck. That poor dead sucker was me.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I screamed for a long time, staring at my body. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! FUCK! I'm dead!”
God damn it. Hunter killed me. I knew deep down in my gut. I never should have stepped foot in a gym! Wow. My mom was gonna kill me when she found out I was dead.
Time seemed to be frozen all around me. I had the sensation of rising and falling, like I was floating in the wave pool at Zoombezi Bay. It took me a while to realize it was because my feet weren't touching the floor. I was floating. All that screaming moved me up and down like a carousel horse. “Fuck fuck fuck. I'm really dead!”
No. No way. Can't be happening. I tried to jump back into my body, but it felt like swimming in jelly. Plus, I just popped right back out on the other side. I hopped through my body and through the counter. DeeDee was by the stereo. She was stone still. Her head was down. Frozen in time. “DeeDee?”
Her shirt was wet. A white spike rose from the middle of the pool. One of Kevin's legs. It went right through the hipster ghost's blue gut and hit DeeDee by mistake. Kevin was frozen in mid-air, legs reaching for his Rainbow Rising album. “Oh, no. Not Kevin. DeeDee. She's—”
I cried, but nothing came out of my eyes.
“Dead. Yeah. Bummer. That's what I was trying to tell you. See?” Zack stood next to me, wagging his scroll in my face. “Geesh. Bertha. Can you believe it? Such an ugly name for such a hot chick. Shame to have that carved on your headstone forever.”
Dead? “No. No way. This can't be happening. Call Doc. He can save us. Doc can bring us back.” My voice was a hiss, like gas. “He brought Kevin back!”
Well, almost. I mean, he tried.
“Sorry, dude.”
“Call Faust!”
“Well, you can ask him, but don't get your hopes up. I mean, he's a devil, but he's not the devil. If he were the devil, maybe.”
Zack pointed. Faust must have stepped in through the front room door at just the wrong moment. Because he too had been poked clean through the middle, by the old guy with the letter. His arm had torn right through Faust's stomach, trying to get the letter. It floated in the air behind Faust. There was a pool of blood on his coveralls. He looked down at the huge red stain, with a vague look of casual annoyance. Unlike everything else, Faust was moving.
“My. This will never do.” He wiggled backward and spllrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. Ew. Yeah. That was the sound of him yanking himself off the old guy ghost's stabby arm. When he'd freed himself, his midsection was nothing but a gaping hole filled with red mush.
Ew. I could not unsee that.
“My, that stings. This won't do at all.” He arched his back a
nd rolled his head side to side, groaning. Suddenly a giant—and I mean giant—pair of shiny black wings shot right out of his back, ripping his blazer and chink. One wingtip hit the side of the slushy machines, the other ran right across the front window. His skin flashed red for a moment, and I saw...horns? Big fat ones, looping up and down around the side of his head.
Hole. Eee. Crap. If I still had a throat, it'd have a lump in it. He really was a devil. I watched as the hole in his abs closed. Smooth olive human skin knitted itself over what looked like a bright red set of washboard abs.
He looked at me. And at all of us, and said, “Well, this is unfortunate. Bad night at work, I see.”
“Help us. We can't die. Not like this!”
“I'm afraid you can,” Faust said.
“Do something!”
“I'm afraid I can't. There are rules about such things, you see. I, as a devil, cannot touch a soul until it has officially been doomed. I can influence and interact with living beings, and lord over doomed souls, but am powerless in the space in between. Unless it is the biblical apocalypse, but as unfortunate as this is, it doesn't qualify. You're a smart young man. You will come up with a solution. A solution that is pure of heart, without selfish motivation, I'm sure.”
He looked at me and winked. Winked? I mean, I think. Weird time to wink. It was subtle, like a twitch. “And if not, well. May I say you were, in fact, the best crew I have ever had. None of you are a match for Junebug, but it was an honor to work with you. Such pure hearts, except for Kevin. But, may the judges have mercy on his soul. I have heard the second time's a charm. ”
Faust casually stepped back into the stockroom like this was any other night, and his employees weren't all dead.
“No. No. No. This can't be happening. We're not supposed to die. We're the good guys. We're supposed to win. This isn't fair!”
“It's okay, bro. Let it all out. Go through all the stages of grief. Here..”
He handed me a scroll that said, “Welcome, newly departed: A handy afterlife checklist.”
