by D. M. Guay
I stood behind the counter, running my fingers across the edges of Kevin's albums. I heard quiet footsteps and a sniffle. DeeDee, her eyes puffy and pink and bloodshot. Still wet with tears. She walked up to me with a checklist in her hand. Because she was the manager now. “Um. From now on, I guess you can be in charge of refilling the cigarettes. And...uh...I'll run the credit card reports.” Her voice shook. “We should clean up a little before Junebug and Ricky get here.”
I felt my bottom lip quiver, and before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “I loved that stupid roach!”
That was it. DeeDee burst into full on tears. I held onto her. She shook in my arms. We both cried.
“What are we going to do without Kevin?”
“I don't know,” she said. “It won't be the same without him.”
“Excellent work.” Faust stepped through the stockroom door, cradling my employee manual.
It repaid the compliment by barfing all over Faust's clean suit.
Harrrrrrrf. Harrrrrrrf. Harrrrrrrf. Bluurch.
Thankfully, it wasn't much. Just a small slip of paper, like that fortune it had horked up on Zack. Faust smoothed it out and looked it over. “No no no. Unacceptable. This won't do at all.”
Faust sat the book on the floor and pulled something out of his breast pocket. A little glass case. It said, “Break in Case of Emergency” on the top. Suddenly, Faust's body went stick straight. His spine arced. He stared up at the ceiling, clutching that box in his hands. His mouth moved so fast, smoke and sparks and electricity spilled out at the corners. The sound was unholy, like ten possessed monks having a chant off in different dead languages. Totally scary, totally creepy, but honestly, preferable to the moans of ecstasy pouring out of the zombie cooler.
A white hole opened in the ceiling, but only for a split second. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. Gone in a flash. Literally.
Thunk.
Something landed on the hot food station. Judging from the ssss sound of sizzling, it hit the hot dog rollers.
“Ow ow ow ow!” a tiny voice screeched.
Wisps of smoke rolled off a giant fat brown pancake as it tumbled right along next to the jumbo all-beef franks.
“Help me, kid. It burns!”
“Kevin?”
“Who else would it be? Don't just stand there. Get me outta here, dumbass! I'm grilling here! Literally! Ow! Ow ow ow ow!”
I moved and fast. I pushed up over that counter, wielded a pair of tongs, and tweezed him out in under a minute. Which wasn't easy—he was so fat—but I managed to plop him onto the bun case. He stood up and smoothed himself out. He looked down at his still-smoking body and stomped in a tiny, angry circle. “Shit. Seriously? I'm a cockroach? AGAIN? And I'm still fat? Fuck me.”
He shook his tiny cockroach fist at the ceiling. “Are you kidding me? How many more years I gotta work here, huh? This place is like purgatory! Everything I've done for you. This isn't funny, jerks. Fucking Pravuil, always changing the rules! What an asshole. I swear. That guy doesn't want to let anyone into heaven.”
“Aw. Good. At least we have that sorted out.” Faust sat the little glass box on the counter. It was that emergency cockroach box from his office. It was empty, and the glass had cracked. Faust turned and saw the first rays of sun rising up over the strip mall across the street, and said, “Goodness. Look at the time.”
He snapped his fingers and fire rose out of the linoleum. Flames licked up up up, consuming his body. Then he sunk down down down, into the flames, like he was riding down an escalator. He descended, and the fire simply disappeared.
Uh. Okay, then. A devil. Not the devil.
DeeDee practically flew to the hot dog station. She scooped Kevin up and squeezed him so tight I thought his head was gonna pop off. His muffled voice rose from DeeDee's cleavage. “Nice view, but you're suffocating me.”
She eased up. “Sorry.”
He looked up at her. “What's wrong with your face? You look like shit. Your makeup is all messed up.”
She looked at him for a second, then burst out into a weird projectile cry laugh.
“Chicks. So emotional. All right. Cut it out. Stop crying and get back to work. You're getting me all wet.”
DeeDee sat him on the floor, reluctantly. But a smile cracked through all her tears.
“I'm going in back. Zombie Earl is gonna make me a No. 2 Double Monster Size,” Kevin said. “Fuck diets. I'm gonna eat the damn burger and be happy. That scout leave any cookies?”
“Three boxes left,” DeeDee said.
Kevin did that thing where he pointed at his eyes, then at mine. “Don't let the fat guy eat them all before I get back. Speaking of. You ain't leaving here without mopping. Extra Curse Breaker, okay? We still got a witch on the loose.”
He kicked open the stockroom door and said, “Walk with me, kid.”
I followed him in.
“So uh. The guys upstairs filled me in on what you did tonight. I got you a little something.” He led me to the employee lounge door and pointed at a small gold package topped with a bow. “Well? What are you waiting for? Open it.”
“Uh. Okay?” I picked it up and rattled it. “What is it?”
“From me to you,” Kevin shrugged. “Open it.”
I did. Inside was a big white mug that said, “World’s Okayest Employee.”
“Just okay?” Typical Kevin.
“You still got room to improve. See?”
He pointed at the infinite rows of tiny employee of the month plaques. All the same. All Junebug. Except for one? I had to squint, it was so tiny. But there it was: A portrait of my employee manual. Employee of the month. A gold sticker in the corner said, “Honorable Mention: Lloyd Lamb Wallace.”
“Good job, kid. We're never getting to Jamaica at this rate, but I'm still proud of you. For what you did for DeeDee. And me.” Kevin cleared his throat, and I swear his beady black bug eyes welled, ever so slightly, with a solitary tear. “Don't get a big head, kid. You still got a long way to go. And you better keep at it. I'm sick of looking at Junebug's face. Now get outta my way. I'm starving.”
Kevin jump flew at the employee lounge door. It creaked open, and he scuttled inside. “Earl. My man. Looking good. Well, lookin' dead. But good, considering. I see they let you keep the track suit. Don't leak on it. Doesn't look easy to clean.”
Kevin ordered a number two, double monster size. I looked at the mug. World's Okayest Employee. Coming from Kevin? That was high praise. Something tugged on my sock. It was my employee manual. I showed it the plaque. “You totally deserve it.”
It had definitely saved the day.
Kevin poked his head out the door. “Hey. Dumbass. You want me to order you something? Earl's on fire.”
“I'm good.”
He thumbed a leg back at my employee manual. “You ever gonna read that thing?”
“Right now. Cover to cover.”
“That reminds me.” Kevin pulled that little pink glitter notebook out of—well, somewhere—and tossed it in the trash. “Yuri's in jail. Your record is clean. Investigation complete. Case closed.”
A smile spread across my face as I filled the mop bucket. And yeah, you better believe I added the Curse Breaker. Happy moans poured from both ends of the hallway. From Kevin, munching on his first non-cursed Monster Burger in at least a month.
“You still got it, Earl. Mmmm.”
And from the horny angel make-up sex in the zombie cooler. Ew. I can’t even. I’m gonna need some time to unpack all that.
I wheeled the bucket to the stockroom door, and the angels abruptly stopped moaning. Finally! Geesh. They were like rabbits in there. My employee manual bit right into my toes. “Ow! Can we maybe ease up on the biting?”
It pointed at the zombie cooler.
“Huh? Oh.”
I stared at it for a good long time. Because the zombie cooler door? It wasn't there. The thick black metal door with the yellow hazard sticker? Gone. Replaced. With a red door. Made of orn
ately carved wood. It had a sparkling crystal knob with a tarnished brass backplate in the shape of a face. A man with big curly horns. The door looked old, fancy. Antique.
As I stared at it, it cracked open. A chorus of enchanting voices whispered from inside, beckoning me in. I stepped closer. Oh, man. It sounded really awesome in there. Tinkling. Fascinating. Fun.
Chomp.
“Ow!” Wow. My book clamped down hard on my toes. It growled and tugged me away from the door.
I looked at the book. I looked at the door. I grabbed the handle and shut that creepy door tight. “Good call. Nothing good could possibly come out of there.”
Thank you so so much for reading. The adventure will continue in (Re)Possessed.
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Book Sausage
“What the hell is up with the title on this page?”
Yeah, yeah. I know you're thinking that. Well, twist my arm, and I'll tell you. You know that old adage: No one wants to know how the sausage is made? I disagree. Sometimes, you just really really HAVE TO KNOW what unholy substance was ground up to make your meat. Or in this case, your book. That's why I'm pulling the curtain back, so you can see how this author killed, chopped, molded, and stuffed all of her life tidbits into the book you hold in your hands right now.
Welcome to the end of yet another 24/7 Demon Mart! I am so happy you're here. Seriously. You guys are the best. When I wrote The Graveyard Shift, I never dreamed we'd end up here. In part, because I had received a terminal cancer diagnosis, and it did not look like I would still be alive to write more than one. But I'm alive. I made it to remission, and I'm STILL in remission, one year later. (You want to see an oncologist tap dance into your exam room? That's how you do it, people.) Because of your enthusiasm—and the miracle of immunotherapy—there are now five books in this series, and audiobooks have been and will be made.
But alas. Let us not speak of sad things. Let us speak of happy things.
I am super thrilled that you guys have joined me on this journey. I love getting your letters and emails and DMs and Facebook and Twitter comments. (And surprise gifts. I'm looking at you, MaryAnn McD and Mike C.) Y'all always make me smile. It warms my black glitter heart to know there are other weirdos just like me out there!
Now, onto the book.
First, let me just say I know, I know. Poor Kevin, right? Dude. That little roach has really been through the ringer. You're probably thinking, “Didn't that roach suffer enough in Monster Burger?” Nope. No, he did not. And this is certainly not the end of his troubles. He has many highs and lows to come. But don't worry. Kevin is one tough cookie. Well, roach. And what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Okay. More like what does kill you doesn't really kill you. At least not for long.
You're probably also thinking, “This broad is crazy. Savage Slim Jims and Red Vines? WTF!”
Yes. I am crazy. I spend way too much time wandering the aisles of local convenience stores looking at all the stuff for sale. (And thinking, “Hmmm. Could you fight a monster with that?”) They’re amazing repositories of capitalism's more extreme products. The flashiest packaging, displays stuffed to the brim, all designed to get us to impulse buy. Everything screams at you from the shelf, “YOU NEED ME. GRAB ME AND GO, MONKEY, NOW!”
Still, I try to use regional brands and products as much as possible, not for any big reason other than that's the stuff I am personally drawn to. If I'm on a road trip and have the choice between the big national brand and the rinky dink local stuff? I buy the local stuff. Like the Cherikee Red pop. (Their spelling, not mine.) And Zapp's. Oh, how I love Zapp's. I'm so amped that they've made the jump from New Orleans to nationwide.
But no, I do not love Necco Wafers. My grandparents loved Necco Wafers, but I stand firmly in “blech. No. Just. No” territory, and apparently so does almost everyone else. The New England Confectionery Company went out of business in 2018, and Necco Wafers were nearly lost. Until the Spangler Candy Company (based in OHIO!) bought them out and started making them again. Still, as our ghost bus lady knows, that candy is really hard to come by. They don’t sell it on every corner.
You won't find the evil eye curse, or wards against it, for sale at your local corner store in the U.S. either. But the evil eye really is a thing in a big chunk of the world. When I was 23, I saved all my pennies so I could spend the summer in Greece with my best friend. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I noticed giant blue glass eyeball beads dangling everywhere. Like, everywhere. And for sale on every corner. Those beads were wards against the evil eye.
In the Mediterranean and other parts of the world, the evil eye is considered a real and very present danger. The idea is that you can bring misfortune to someone simply by being jealous or envious. And by looking at them. With squinty eyes. Or side eyes, or “I'm gonna get you,” eyes. You know the look. If you have blue eyes, oof. I feel bad for whoever you're stink eyeing, because blue eyes are better at cursing. And yes, you can give the curse unintentionally.
The blue glass beads (also eye-shaped jewelry and stickers) are supposed to break the curse or ward it off. I bought tons of these things when I was in Greece and Turkey. I have a glass ward hanging on my front door right now. I have an evil eye doormat, too. Better safe than sorry!
Alas, as I learned in the Greek Isles, the ward is just the start. The best defense is a Greek grandma, or yia yia, spitting right in your face. Literally spitting, while saying something like, “I spit in your face to protect you!” Which happened to me and my bestie a couple of times, between singing, “Opa!” and drinking retsina and dancing with the oldsters in tavernas. For real. You haven't lived until an old Greek lady has spit in your face to free you from a curse. For the record: I have heard the spit of Turkish and Persian grandmas are equally effective. And if you're interested, the hand/ eye ward design in Lloyd's employee manual is called a hamsa, and it looks like this.
Now for some frank talk about Zorro, namely Morty's Zorro-themed stripper outfit. It's a small thing, but it makes me laugh, and I've been dying to use it somewhere. When I lived in New Orleans, I knew a male stripper whose stage name was Zorro. (Many of the young folks in New Orleans make their living working in the strip clubs on Bourbon Street, but that is a story for another book.) Zorro was swarthy, coiffed, and handsome, a stereotype of the Latin lover. And boy oh boy, he was all in on the theme. Like, all in. While wooing the tourists on the main stage and while walking around town in his real life. I once ran into him at the laundromat. He was still in full Zorro mode. He had his silk shirt unbuttoned all the way down to his belly button. His tight satin pants jiggling. On laundry day. Me? Not so much. I was in my least filthy jammy pants with a bar smoke-infused messy bun and the raccoon-eye remnants of last night's black eyeliner streaking down my cheeks. He rolls up, “Hello, Deniza,” because, hello, Latin lover = accent. “You look lovely today.” Cue hand kiss. Uh huh. Yeah. Pull the other one. But always a charmer, that one. I have no idea what happened to Zorro. He just kind of disappeared one day. I like to believe he was scooped right off the main stage—dollar bills clinging to his leopard print thong—and whisked away to a beachfront estate by a very wealthy, eccentric heiress. Maybe, just maybe, the two of them are still out there, somewhere, living their best lives.
And as for that Kevin resurrection chant. It's Latin, but dude. Don't even start with me. I know it's a bad translation. I totally ran that shit through Google Translate, because I am the only girl who ever managed to make it all the way through Catholic K-12, plus TWO Catholic colleges, without taking a single Latin class. Which I now regret. Hear that, kids? I WISH I HAD TAKEN ALL THE LATIN. Then I could lord over the less educated, a la John Cleese in Life of Brian. “How many Romans?”
(It's fine. I'll wait while you type that into YouTube and rewatch that scene, because it's fucking comic genius.)
Oh, good. You're back. Here is what the Latin chant words are supposed to mean. (Dear Google, please improve the translation algo for dead languages. Horror writers are counting on you.)
Ortum Exsurge tenebris domain=Rise up from the dark domain.
Kevin veni ad nos in domum suam=Kevin come home to us.
Receperint tui sumus exspiravi=We welcome your ghost.
That's where Lloyd screwed up and cursed Kevin to ghosthood. Oops!
You may have also caught the inside jokes. Angel eight ball is No. 9,998,383,750,000 in line at the Divine Embodiments Department, and they're now serving No. 3? I totally stole that from the last scene of Beetlejuice, which IMHO is the best ghost movie of all time. And those folks who played games with the Grim Reaper? Lifted directly from Bill & Ted's Bogus Adventure and Ingmar Bergman's 1957 classic The Seventh Seal, wherein doomed medieval knight Antonius Black plays chess with death. And I don't even have to tell you where “Clafoooo varapa nick? Nik huh. Nickel?” came from, do I? Now, that movie was totally groovy. (And they lifted it from The Day the Earth Stood Still. So see? We're all just recycling here.)
And that's it for this Book Sausage. Almost. If you really want to know what my favorite ghost movie is besides Beetlejuice, it's 1963's The Haunting, based on the Shirley Jackson novel, The Haunting of Hill House. Watch the original 1963 version, NOT the remake, okay? And my favorite on-screen grim reaper depictions are in Dead Like Me, Monty Python's Meaning of Life, and All that Jazz.
Now that we've reached the end, you're probably still asking yourself, “What the hell does Junebug do on day shift?”
You'll find out. In fact, you'll be finding out a lot more about Junebug, Ricky, Kevin, Doc and the rest of the gang. Because I'm about to get crazy up in here and write my first short stories since I was in college.
You’re probably also asking “Why does Kevin hate Beth?” Y'all. I know, okay? Some of you L-O-V-E that song, but I'm with Kevin on this one. Fucking Beth. And yes, I know it won a Grammy. But so did Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down, which BEAT Purple Rain. Yeah. Read that again. LIONEL RICHIE BEAT PURPLE RAIN. So to the Grammy argument I say: Which one of those two albums are you still listening to? Hint: It starts with “purple.”
