I'm still working on another one (in hopes of building some enthusiasm I'll give you the title - "Pray For Agatha, Burning In Hell") but who knows if I'll get it done in time. I'm also planning on a bunch of horror book reviews, so hopefully I'll get that done, too.
Meanwhile, if you want more stuff to read after this, here's our table of contents for fiction:
KickerOfElves:
Profbolt:
My stuff:
665 + 1
This one went through a bunch of different titles while it was in progress. First I was going to call it "The Small Hours," and then I was going to call it "What Happens At 11:13," and "The Long Minute" was also in the running. But finally I decided upon...
THE NIGHT IS FILLED WITH MANIACS
Casey poked out Richie's number
again. Her thumb stung as it stabbed at
the digits; she bit her nails when she was nervous, and she'd really done a job
on several of them. There was a smear of
blood on her phone, right on Richie's redial.
Richie still didn't answer. She didn't leave any voicemail because if the
three she'd already left didn't make her point, what was the use? She considered calling Raymond again, but
chances were he wouldn't answer, either, and she hadn't liked calling him in
the first place. Nobody likes calls
after midnight, and if Richie not showing up for his shift was the reason,
Raymond would likely fire him.
Casey set the phone down, not
knowing what to do. The late shift at a
convenience store was already dangerous enough, and it had been expressly
stated that she wasn't supposed to work alone.
She wondered if she'd get in more trouble for trying to hold down the
shift by herself, or for just turning the sign on the door to
"closed," shutting off the lights and the FuelzMart sign, and locking
up. Raymond was kind of a dick but he'd
forgive her, after bearing down on that "girls aren't supposed to work
alone" policy from corporate.
Usually she found it annoyingly sexist, but since it might work to her
advantage in this case, she was a little less the suffragette.
Still, Raymond considered her
"badass" enough to work overnights -- a shift not usually open to
females at all -- so part of her didn't want to wimp out and bail early. And what if Richie finally did show up? He'd freak.
She checked the clock on her
phone again. 1:45. More than four hours until the morning shift
came in. And Richie was almost two hours
late.
Paul, from the earlier shift,
had hung around an extra half hour to wait with her, but he'd finally had to
leave to get some sleep for another job he worked in the morning. Paul got precious little sleep as it was, and
he had kids at home, trying to raise them by himself after his wife died of
cancer. Casey always felt bad for him, a
guy his age still working at a place like this.
And it was just one of three shit jobs he had. She knew how rough a schedule like that was
from her college days, which had ended just a few months before. She hoped she'd find a better job soon and
not end up like him, but so far no one seemed very interested in biochemistry
majors who'd gotten B's and C's. Paul
was a weary, sweet man, and probably would have sacrificed a whole night of
sleep if Casey hadn't insisted that she was okay, she'd be fine, and Richie
would drag his ass in soon and then boy would she kick it.
The door opened and she looked
up hopefully, but it wasn't Richie. Some
tall, lanky trucker, heading to the back.
He wasn't one of the regulars; she'd have remembered him, because he was
frighteningly thin and looked nearly albino. She sighed and tried biting her
nails again and winced when they weren't there.
Hopefully he'd get what he was after and get gone. Sometimes truckers liked to get flirty, and
they didn't mean anything bad by it but what might be cute in broad daylight
with a store full of people came across as threatening at 2 a.m. with no
witnesses except the closed-circuit camera.
And she'd seen enough footage from those "Most Shocking Crimes Caught
On Tape" TV specials to know those cameras didn't stop the crazy ones from
doing Jack F. S.
She stared up at the television,
which was playing some cheap ghost-hunter show. Those usually gave her the creeps but she'd
seen them all before so the familiarity was comforting, and ghosts had nothing
on some psycho killer rapist who might come in. She looked through the front windows. A couple of drunk-acting frat boys were
filling up their car, laughing, and she hoped they wouldn't come in. More-than-one-frat-guy was the worst; they'd
feed off each other and think they were some Tosh.0 comedy team, even though
they were just obnoxious instead of funny.
Just drive away, she thought, watching them. One guy stepped over so the gas nozzle was
clamped between his legs and acted like he was fucking his car, and his
sidekick howled like this was brilliant stuff.
She could hear the whooping through the glass, drunk-volume. Yeah, drive away, please.
The trucker came up to the
counter and laid out his purchases: bottle of Coke, Butterfinger bar, container
of coffee, three little bottles of 5 Hour Energy, and two Slim Jims. Stimulant, stimulant, stimulant, stimulant,
protein. He looked like he needed all
of it, like some weary skeleton roaming the night. She smiled at him and he twitched
kind-of-a-smile back, civil but uninterested and awkwardly socialized. She rang up his items and bagged them. "Anything else?" she asked.
"This'll do 'er," he
said, handing over some cash. He took
his change, mumbled a thanks, and left. Outside the frat boys finished filling up, got
in their car, and went away.
Around an orange-pink
streetlight big bugs were dogfighting, or doing some entomological square
dance; at least somebody was having a good time tonight. She checked the time again. 1:53.
Shit. She tried calling Richie
again, got nothing. Something must be
wrong. He'd been late a couple of times,
but only by like five minutes. He knew
she wasn't supposed to work alone, and knew the place spooked her even with him
here. They got plenty of weirdoes and
they spooked Richie, too, but he was athletic-looking enough to keep them at
bay, even if he was secretly scared of confrontation. Where could he be? If he had car trouble or something he would
have called. The store'd been having
problems with its land line for a couple of days but Richie had her cell
number. She was torn between being mad
at him and worrying if he was okay.
The ghost-hunter show went off
and another came on. Another car pulled
up to the pumps and a woman got out, filled up, and left. A police car sped by with blue lights
flashing. A few minutes later there was
another. Accident somewhere. Hopefully not Richie.
Then some wiry, sweaty guy
pulled up in a rattletrap car and came in.
He nodded at her and laughed and waved, his eyes bright and crazy, the
white showing all around them. Great,
she thought, but nodded back. He loped
over to the potato chip section and walked back and forth in front of it,
looking. Maybe a tweaker, she
thought. They can't sleep so they stay
up and eat, and their nerves burn it off as fast as it comes in. He had short, damp-looking black hair and a
white tee shirt advertising some radio station, and saggy jeans with one of those
wallet-chains that looked total douchebag on anybody but bikers, where they
still looked douchebag but with an excuse.
He paced, staring at the junk
food, ducking his head around, and Casey thought, we don't have that big a
selection, squirrel, don't make a night of it. She tried to watch the ghost-hunter show,
worried that if he saw her watching him he'd use it as an excuse for
conversation.
Minutes passed and still he
lingered, and she worried that he was trying to make up his mind about
something more serious than snacks. She
wished someone would pull up for gas, just in case, but there was no one.
Finally he snatched up a bag of
Cheetos, then went over to the drinks. Oh
hell, a great beverage debate now, too.
She nibbled at one of the nails she had left. Casey was a very pretty girl, long wavy brown
hair and big light blue eyes, but she despaired of ever having pretty hands,
not unless she found a new nervous habit.
Better than smoking, anyway. Richie
smoked, and he was always having to step out and smoke one at the wrong moment. Like, if he was here tonight, he'd probably
be out puffing a butt now.
The guy came up to the counter
and set down his Cheetos and Faygo juggalo juice and smiled at her. "Tah-dah!" he said, like it was a
magic trick. His eyes were jittery with
abnormal glee.
Casey smiled and started ringing
him up.
"Nice night, huh?" he
said.
"I've had better."
"Oh? Anything wrong?"
Great, I made conversation,
she thought. I need to just learn to
nod.
"Just tired," she
said.
"Oh," he said. "When do you get off?"
"Six," she said. "That'll be five dollars and sixty
cents."
"Sure," he said,
digging a wad of cash out of his pocket and sorting through it. "Six, huh? Ways off 'til six. Maybe you need a break. Is it just you here?"
"My co-worker's
around," she said. Around Earth,
somewhere. Presumably, still. Better your ass thinks he's in the back room,
though.
"Take you a break,
then," he said, smiling too big, handing over six ones. He had so many ones it looked like he'd
mugged a stripper.
"Maybe I will," she
said, passing him his change. "Have
a nice night."
He nodded and picked up his
stuff. "Hey," he said, tearing
open the Cheetos and extending the bag.
"Cheeto?"
"No thanks."
He rattled the bag. "Sure?
Breakfast of cham-peens!" He
laughed, too loud and too sharp, a choking cluck of a laugh, like something
thick struggling down a drain. The sound
of it made her hate him even more.
"I'm sure. Thanks anyway."
He nodded. "Your loss. Cheetos are awe-sommmme!" He crammed a fistful of them in his mouth,
made a face, and shook the bag at her again, raising his eyebrows. Jeez, fella, give it a rest, she
thought, shaking her head. He shrugged,
waved, and walked outside.
Casey breathed a sigh of
relief. Weirdo. Harmless, but shit.
The guy didn't leave,
though. He stood there, leaning against
the building, eating Cheetos, maybe watching the bugs dance. He opened the Faygo and started drinking. "Damnit, dude, get in your fucking
goober-mobile and go home," she whispered to herself. She checked the time. 2:20.
Just for the hell of it, she tried Richie's number again, got nothing. This time she left another voice-mail,
"Damnit, Richie, where are you?
Call me back!" and hung up.
Another cop car went streaking
past, strobing. How many cops did this
town have, anyway? Jesus.
Weirdo-boy was still standing
there, eating. He stood like he was
grooving to some music nobody else could hear.
What if she needed one of those cops?
Would any be left? Could she
call 911 and report an oddball snacking in the parking lot? "Would you please leave?" she
hissed to herself.
The guy started banging his head
on the front window. Not violently, just
bang, bang, bang while he leaned against it.
She didn't think he'd break the glass or anything, but it was still the
kind of thing you didn't do. She wasn't
going to go out and tell him to stop it or anything, but jeez. Bang, bang, bang. She wondered if she should lock the
door. The guy's hair was leaving
grease-smears on the window, like a giant's fingerprint.
After a few minutes he finished
his Cheetos and Faygo, kicked himself away from the wall, and came back into
the store. Shit. "Hi again!" he laughed. "I'm Gus, by the way."
Casey nodded. Fuck you, Gus.
"And you are...
Casey!" he said, peering at her nametag.
"Casey Jones! Casey and the
Sunshine Band!" He laughed. "Sorry, I bet you get that a lot."
Not really, she
thought. Most people aren't that
corny or obnoxious. But she just shrugged.
"Really, though, I like
that name. Casey at the bat! One of those names that can be a guy's
name," he pointed in one direction, "or a girl's name." He pointed in the other. "Is it short for Cassandra?"
"No, it's not short for
anything," she said. "It's
just Casey."
He nodded. "That's cool, that's cool. Hey, I gotta wash my hands." He held them up. "Cheeto dust!"
"Restroom's right back
there," she said, pointing.
"Thanks, Casey, said
Gus!" he said, then headed toward the back, a cheesy guy sucking at his
cheesy fingers.
She watched him go. They had a hatchet behind the counter. She'd asked Paul about it once and he said
the day-shift people sometimes used it to trim back saplings from growing up
around the dumpster. She located it,
just in case.
Gus returned from the bathroom,
smiling and displaying his hands.
"All clean!" he said. "Reminds me of that joke."
Casey nodded. I'm not asking what joke, so stop fishing.
"You know the joke?"
Gus asked, grinning. His teeth were the
color of smoker's snot, like they had skin on them.
Casey shrugged, looking back at
the TV, which was flashing crime scene photos.
She felt like she was seconds away from being in one, too.
"There's this guy, goes to
the doctor. He says, 'Doc, you gotta
help me! My you-know-what is turning
orange!'"
Casey frowned at the TV. Great.
Gus thinks jokes about '"you-know-whats" are appropriate to
tell girls he doesn't know at two in the morning. Gus is a class-A fuckup. Gus has something bad wrong with him. Nobody was in the parking lot.
"The doctor says, 'Well,
have you been doing anything unusual lately?'
And the guy, he says, 'Nope! Just
what I always do! Eating Cheetos and
watching Cinemax After Dark!'" Gus
barked too-loud laughter and slapped the counter, and Casey winced, both from
the crudity of the joke and because he hurt her ears. She glanced out at the empty parking lot
again. Even the highway was free of
traffic. She was alone in the world with
Gus.
"Get it?" Gus laughed, snorting.
"Yeah, I get it," she
said.
"Dude was jacking his
dick. That's hilarious," Gus
giggled.
Casey said nothing. The hatchet was right there. Blue rubber-covered handle. What would it feel like, impacting?
"Course nine out of ten
guys do it, and the tenth one's a liar," Gus said. "I'm the liar!"
The parking lot was still
empty. No traffic. Bugs at a boil around the light like fizz in
a bottle.
"So are you," he said.
Casey looked at him. "Huh?
So am I, what?"
"A liar," Gus
said. He had a weird little smirk. "Why'd you tell me your co-worker was
around here somewhere when he isn't?"
"He is!" Casey said, a
coldness uncurling inside her.
Gus's smirk spread wider. "Not so!
Richie, that's his name, isn't it?
Richie?" Gus spread his
hands out to present the store.
"Richie's not here!"
"How do you know Richie's
not here? How do you know his
name?"
"I come in here
before. A few times. Sometimes I didn't come in, just parked out
front and looked through the window a while. You didn't notice me, but I
noticed you-oooo!" He
laughed and spiraled a pointing finger at her.
"I noticed you a lot.
You're very noticeable. Really
pretty. I was kind of jealous of Richie,
getting to hang out all night with you, four nights a week. Dude was rockin' with Dokken!" He laughed, the guh-huh-huh of a funhouse
clown as it leapt at you from the dark.
"I think you need to leave
now," Casey said. She looked for her
cell phone to back her up, like she might call the cops, but it wasn't
there. Had Gus taken it, maybe while
she was staring at the TV, trying to freeze him out? It had been right there. She checked the floor to see if it had
fallen. No.
"You don't want me to
go," Gus said. "There's bad
stuff going on tonight. Did you see all
those cop cars? Wow. Must be killers out there or something. I can't leave you alone here. Wouldn't be right." He waved a hand at the night. "Town's falling apart out there! Escaped maniacs!"
"Did you just take my
phone?"
"Me? No.
Phone? What'd it look
like?"
"I'm the liar,"
Casey remembered him saying a minute ago.
Yeah, you are. When he'd
slapped the counter, that's when he'd taken it.
The hatchet was there. If she picked it up the gas pedal would go to
the floormat on this thing, force it to go ugly. Maybe if she waited, somebody would come in. Maybe one of those cops. That cliche about them and doughnuts? It was grounded in fact.
"It's okay, I'm a nice
guy. I'm not gonna do
nothin'," Gus said. "Don't be all nervous. I'm the one nervous, talking to a pretty
girl." He laughed. "Sorry, I'm screwing this up, aren't
I?"
It was screwed up before you
got here, she thought. You're
making it a nightmare. She looked
outside; a car went past, now that she
wanted one to stop. She looked at her
hand and it was a trembling, gnawed-on thing, incapable-looking.
"I'd like you to leave
now," she said. "Give me back
my phone and go."
"I don't haaaave
your phone. And I can't leave you alone
here with killers roaming the night. I'm
a nice guy." He grinned, rocking
back and forth.
"If you were a nice guy
you'd leave when I ask," she said.
"Ordinarily I would, but
these are special circumstances," Gus said. "You're alone and crazy things are going
on. Richie's maybe dead, even."
"What?"
"Well, why else would he
not be here? He seemed like a nice
guy. I hate him 'cuz I'm the jealous
type, but, he seemed nice." Gus
rolled his eyes.
Casey felt a chill and looked
out at the parking lot again.
Empty. And she'd parked around
back, the way employees were supposed to, to leave more space in front for
customers. She wouldn't be able to beat
Gus back to her car. And the stockroom
didn't have a lock on it. And the
store's landline phone was out. But she
suddenly felt sure Gus had done something to Richie, just to spend time alone
with her. Gus wasn't just a weirdo, he
was a full-blown psycho, too crazy to even maintain his cover.
"Did you do something to
Richie?" Casey asked.
Gus frowned. "Me?
Naw! Naw, I'm a nice guy. I'm just saying somebody probably did,
since he's not here. Otherwise he
wouldn't leave you here alone. I mean, I
won't. Even if you don't like me, I'm
gonna stay here and look after you. I'm your
friend even if you don't want to be mine." Gus grabbed some candy and put it on the
counter and dug a dollar out of his pants.
"I need some Skittles."
It was so absurd Casey almost
laughed. This twitchy bastard is so
unaware of how terrifying he is that he takes a snack break. Almost by reflex, Casey rung it up. It'd be nice to turn this back into a normal
business transaction, forget about that hatchet for a minute. Gus hadn't really done anything to
justify going for it yet but he could explode into something that would require
it any second. She needed to get ready
to go at a second's notice. Could she
really put a hatchet into someone's skull?
Would it sink in, like in the movies, or would it bounce off and just
chip away a nasty wound? She reached up
and felt of her own skull. It'd probably
be like trying to chop into a motorcycle helmet. In any case, there'd be blood, and a lot of
it. Casey wasn't fond of blood. She'd greyed out at the sight of cut fingers
before.
But she really didn't want Gus
anywhere near her. He was getting more
intolerably creepy by the second, and jittery, like he was building energy for
some purpose. Her hand was shaking when
she put his change on the counter, refusing to put it in his hand and make any
kind of skin-on-skin contact.
Gus tore open the bag with his
teeth and shook it at Casey.
"Skittle?"
She shook her head no.
"Eat too many Skittles,
they'll give you the shittles! Crap the
rainbow!" Gus said, then laughed
that dumb drain-clog laugh again, too loud.
"My friend Mike, man, I used to sneak a few Skittles into his bag
of M&Ms, and he'd be eating them, you know, just eating 'em, mmmm,
M&Ms, like, and then he'd get this chewy one! HA!
He'd gross the fuck out, like!"
Casey nodded, and looked out at
the parking lot again. Nothing. She didn't have her phone so she didn't know
what time it was now. There was a clock
in the store but Raymond was lazy about changing its batteries so it had run
down at thirteen after eleven, an absurd time.
Absurd. On the TV some smiling
idiot was telling her how great some scratch-removal product was. Somebody was counting on people being up
late, worrying about scratches on their dining room table in the wee hours of
the morning. Number one cause of
insomnia! If Richie was here, she'd have
made that joke. He'd have laughed,
probably acted out such a person's fretting.
It'd have been funny.
Instead, there was Gus. Dumb fucking grin Gus. Nice Guy Gus, gonna make her split his dumb
grin with a hatchet.
"Mike died, though,"
Gus said. "Somebody went over him
real good with a hammer and then cut him all apart, left the pieces on some
dirt road a couple hundred miles from here.
Cops never found out who did it."
Casey glanced at Gus and he had the same dumb smile on his face, maybe a
little smaller. He was twitching, too,
all fidgets. "Bummer. Ol' Mike was
a good dude, most of the time. But, just
goes to show you, maniacs walk the night.
That's how come I gotta stay and protect you." He slapped a handful of Skittles into his
mouth and said, while chewing, "Gotta wonder if all those cop cars were
going to whatever happened to Richie."
"Don't say that!"
Casey snapped.
Gus held his hands out. "I'm not saying they are, I'm just
saying. Something's going on,
right? All those cops? Breaker one-nine! Murder in progress!"
"Stop trying to scare
me," Casey said. "In fact, get
out of the store. Give me back my phone
and leave!"
Gus sighed and wagged his
head. "I thought we'd
established..."
"We didn't establish
shit. You get out of here and I'll lock
the place up and I'll be fine. I don't
need you looking after me."
"Locking up would be a good
idea, but I'll stay here with you," Gus said. "You want the truth, I'm scared,
too. We should lock up."
"There is no WE!" Casey
shouted. "Get out!"
"Can't do it. There's maniacs all over. Something's happening out there, Casey. I was trying not to scare you, but the town
is going crazy. Maniacs, all over! Cutting people up and shit. Raping people, pulling their guts
out..." He bared his teeth and
bugged out his eyes.
"And you decided to wander
out into it and buy some fucking juggalo-bait.
You're so scared and Cheetos and Faygo are worth risking your life
for? Not buying it. Give me my phone and get out!"
"I came here because I like
you," Gus said. "I figured you
needed protecting. That Richie guy
obviously couldn't do it." Gus
laughed and flung his arms out like he'd made some kind of big point, and Casey
was being ridiculous for trying to deny it.
"Why do you have to make it so hard? Can't I just be a nice guy?"
An SUV pulled up to the pump
outside. Casey headed for the door but
Gus blocked her. His eyes were bugged
out and darting. "Don't go out
there! That's probably one of the
maniacs!"
Casey watched a heavyset man get
out of the SUV and start gassing it up.
She thought about cutting off the pumps so he'd have to come in to
complain, but Gus grabbed her arm and came behind the counter with her. "I'll be Richie," he said,
whispering in her ear. "If he comes in we'll just act like normal, you're
Casey and I'm Richie and we're just doing our night-shift stuff,
tra-la-la-la-la, and maybe he'll go away and won't try to kill us." Gus squeezed her. "Damn you smell good. Anyway, don't be scared, if he does any maniac
stuff, I'll take care of him." He
giggled, all crawly nerves. Casey
stiffened, trying to recoil even while he had a grip on her, and she hoped he
didn't see the hatchet under the counter.
She glanced over and it was back in the shadows and behind a bottle of
hand lotion some other employee had stashed there. Casey thought, I hope Gus has no sudden
use for lotion, and suddenly she wanted to vomit.
He smelled nasty, swampy, stale
laundry and old tangy smoke, sour milk, baby oil, all cocktailed into
Gus-funk. It wasn't strong, as a smell,
but still made her choke just because it was his. His hand on her arm felt sticky and greasy.
The SUV driver finished up, got
back in, and drove away. Taillights the
color of heartbreak, going smaller into the night.
"Whew, close one," Gus
said. Casey shook him away and stepped
away from him.
"Don't touch me!" she
snapped.
"Sorry about that, it was
an emergency," Gus said. "I
thought that guy was one of them.
You never know. Everybody seems
normal at first. That's how it
works. Nobody just walks around with a
chainsaw saying 'Hi ho, I want to wallow around in your organs!' That'd be stupid."
"No, they'd pose as a nice
guy," Casey said. "A protector
of women."
Gus clucked his tongue,
clock-clock-clock.
"Get out from behind the
counter," Casey said.
"But I'm gonna be
Richie." Clock-clock-clock.
"You're not Richie and you
don't work here. If my boss sees you
behind the counter on the tape, you'll be in big trouble and so will I. Customers coming behind the counter is step
one in robbery."
"Oh, shit, I didn't think
about that," Gus said, and went back around to the customer side of the
counter. "I don't want to get you
in trouble, Casey. I want us to be
friends, okay?"
Incredible, Casey
thought, this putz still thinks he has some kind of chance. Is this obliviousness something he's had to
develop as a defense mechanism, just to get through life? His personality's so awful he's had to just
refuse to even acknowledge rejection, since that's all he ever gets? She couldn't imagine anyone ever feeling
comfortable around Gus. Spend more than
thirty seconds around his twitchy toxic energy and you become desperate to
flee. That speedfreak, wrong-headed glee
in his eyes was like staring into the countdown clock of a bomb, down to the
run-don't-walk numbers.
"Tell you want," Gus
said, "anybody else comes, I'll go over there, by the magazine rack, like
I'm checking out the cars-and-titties magazines or something, and if the guy
comes in and he's a maniac, I'll come in behind him and stab him in the
kidney. They go down like in an instant,
you do that. So don't worry, I'll keep
you safe."
Stab him in the kidney. Gus had just told her he had a knife. And knew how fast a kidney-sticking would
drop someone. Important information to
have. Now she was even more hesitant to
face off against him with the hatchet.
He was armed. She looked at his
pockets; his pants were saggy so she couldn't tell much about what might be in
them.
"You sure your knife can
reach a kidney?" Casey said.
"Aw yeah. They're just, like, right there." Gus cupped his back, like a pregnant woman
showing off her baby-bump.
"I don't know, there's a
lot of fat," Casey said.
"Sure you can get through a Southern-grown love-handle? You need a pretty long blade."
Gus whooped and dug in his front
pocket. She saw a rectangle briefly
outlined as he dug -- my phone --
and then he fished out a pearl-handled lock-blade designed to resemble a
steer's horn. He snapped it open, long
and wicked, then closed it and replaced it.
"Halfway to a machete, that is.
It's beyond the legal limit but cops'll usually let you slide on that as
long as they don't find weed or something on you, too." Gus grinned, stupidly pleased.
Casey wasn't comfortable with
people who were in a position to know what cops usually do. But at least she'd gotten a look at what she
was dealing with. Nasty-looked thing,
looked thinned down from frequent sharpening.
Yeah, that hatchet was going to be a last-ditch move. Outside a car rolled by but didn't
stop. Then the street was quiet.
"So how's your summer
been?" Gus asked. "Do anything fun?"
Casey wanted to bray with
madwoman laughter. Oh my Lord, Gus, I
just do not believe you! Hope springs eternal and the world is your
trampoline! "Not much,"
she said.
"What kind of stuff do you
like to do? I bet you water-ski. I can see you, water-skiing." Gus got the dumbest happy smile on his face,
held a hand in front of him, and swayed back and forth.
"Never been," Casey
said. She had been, once, with her
cousin Sherri, but telling Gus that would have been conversation. She hadn't liked it much, anyway. Casey liked things she was already good at.
"Aw, man. I coulda swore. Guess I was just wanting to see you in a
bikini."
Casey looked at the TV. Some artist's rendering of a UFO landing.
"You got a bikini?"
Some guy the caption said was
professor of astronomy explained something.
He looked adamant. The UFO in the
picture either definitely did or definitely did not exist.
"Huh? Say?"
"Not on me," Casey
said, refusing to look away from the screen.
Gus snorted. "Huh!
Not on me! Heehee! You are such an awesome chick." Out of the corner of her eye Casey watched
him pace and dig in his pocket, maybe playing with the knife, or maybe
something else she didn't want to think about.
"You really smell good.
Damn. What perfume do you
wear?"
"Just deodorant."
"Really? Wow. I
don't know what brand it is but I'd just about eat it. Damn."
He wants to eat me, Casey
thought. She glanced at the parking lot
again. Woefully empty. They were in that dead spot of the night when
hardly anyone was out. The dead clock
still said 11:13. It's always 11:13 here
in Hell. How long had Gus been
here? Maybe twenty minutes but it felt
like hours. When would the morning shift
show up? God, let them be early! Right now would be good.
"I don't mind telling you,
you smell so good you got me stiffdicked," Gus said, with a sly little
smile.
"Well, you should
mind telling me that!" Casey yelled.
"You're disgusting! Get out
of here! Now!"
"Jeez, you should be
flattered," Gus said, shifting from one foot to the other. "I wouldn't even have told you except I
was feeling like we were kind of getting to be friends. I feel comfortable with you, I can talk about
things."
"You can't talk to me about
anything and I'm not your friend! I want
you to get out of here, right now!"
Casey put her hand on the hatchet under the counter, not showing it yet.
"You'd send me out there,
when the night is filled with maniacs?"
Gus said, looking sidelong at her, playing hurt-little-boy.
"Damn betcha! Right now!
Get out!" He stood there,
staring. "GO!" Casey yelled.
"NOW! Right NOW! Get OUT!"
Gus shook his head. "You won't even give me a chance." He looked like he might cry. "You don't even care. I did all this for you, you don't know what
I did, everything I did for you and you don't even care if I'm all chopped up
by maniacs..."
"The only maniac is you! Just get out of here, go back to your house
and lock yourself in if you're so scared of crazy people."
"But something will happen
to you. Somebody scary will come
in."
Casey laughed, and felt
crazy. Her hand closed around the
hatchet. "Somebody scary already came in, and it's you, Gus! There is nobody scarier than you!" Another police car streaked past outside,
going the other way this time, lights strobing like a pinball machine on full
tilt. Casey wanted to yell for them.
"Noooo, no, no, I'm not scary! Casey, I'm not scary. I'm a nice guy! You would totally fucking like me, if you
just gave it a chance. I wouldn't hurt
you, babygirl. I want to make you feel
good."
Casey gave an involuntary shriek
of revulsion.
Gus laughed. "What?
I'll prove it. You can stand at
the counter and I'll get down behind it and make you feel real good."
"The only way you could
make me feel good is to get the fuck out of here, you sick, psycho son of a
bitch!"
Outside a semi-truck pulled up
to the diesel pumps. Gus didn't notice
it because he was too busy getting upset, stepping back and forth and pinching
at himself. He laughed nervously. "Man, this isn't going at all like it
played out in my head. Not at all. What are you, like, a lesbian or
something?"
The trucker climbed down from
the cab and went to the pump. Casey
tried not to look at him. "No, I'm
not a lesbian. You're just such a
fucking creep." Casey wanted to
engage Gus in an argument so he wouldn't notice the trucker. She took her hand away from the hatchet and
rested it next to the controls for the pumps.
"Me? What's wrong with me?" Gus asked.
"I don't have enough time
to tell you," she said. "How
about everything? Start from there and
run wild with it!"
"Jeez," Gus said,
pacing. He slapped the magazine rack and
growled in frustration. "Okay,
maybe I'm not good at talking to pretty girls.
I get nervous. I thought about
you so much, played this out in my head so much, so when it didn't go like I
planned, I guess I didn't recover well... said some dumb things..."
The trucker got the nozzle in
his truck and the numbers started rolling.
Give him just a minute, Casey thought, a few more seconds so he'll know it's not just
a dead pump.
"It's partially your
fault, you know," Gus said.
"You aren't the sweet girl I thought you were. No offense, but you are not the girl
I was jerking off to."
Casey laughed. She couldn't help it. As horrible as the whole situation was, it
was even more ridiculous. Her lifespan
might be a matter of unpleasant seconds right now but she was being confronted
with not being the girl Gus jerked off to, like that was supposed to disappoint
her. No offense! She laughed harder and snapped the diesel
pump off. There. He'd have to come in now to see what was
wrong.
"I hate to say it, Casey,
because I love you, I do, but you really make me mad." Gus was digging in his pocket, maybe out of
nervousness, maybe going for the knife. "Girls
like you. A guy can be so nice,
risk his life, and you always like somebody else. You like guys who'll treat you crappy. I would lick your butt and you'd just send me
out to the maniacs. That's
disappointing. Really fucking
disappointing."
Here he comes. The trucker was walking toward the
building. Gus still had his back to the
door, and his face was changing, all the fakey nice-guy smile gone, and now it
was screwed up and bitter. Some dam had
burst inside of him and now he was flooding with an unhappiness he wanted to make
her pay for. She didn't know if Gus had
killed Richie -- she was pretty sure he had, after all that talk of "you
don't know what I did for you" -- but she felt sure he'd kill her now. He wouldn't be able to deal with the
rejection any other way.
And then the trucker was in the
store, a big guy with a red cap and a Metallica tee shirt. His face was covered with thick
white-and-black stubble, like a face full of static. Gus jumped and stared at him, looking
panicked. The trucker ignored him and looked
at Casey. "Hey, ya'll's pump ain't
workin'. It cut out on me."
"This guy's a psycho!"
Casey yelled, pointing at Gus.
"Help me! He's been scaring
me, and he won't leave!"
"Uh?" the trucker
said, looking at Gus. "What the
hell?"
"Dude, I don't know what
she's talking about. I just came in to
buy some Skittles and she starts yelling crazy stuff at me," Gus said,
holding his hands up. "She's on
drugs or something."
"He's lying!" Casey
said. "He's a whackjob. He stole my phone and he may have done
something to my co-worker. He never
showed up tonight and this guy keeps saying he's probably dead. Just keep him away from me, let me lock up
and get in my car..."
"You botherin' this girl?"
the trucker said, turning on Gus.
"Look out, he's got a knife
in his pocket!" Casey said.
"She's full of shit,
man," Gus said, suddenly getting whiney.
"You threaten this girl
with a knife?" the trucker asked.
"Fuck, what knife?"
Gus said.
"He didn't exactly threaten
me, he just said he could stab somebody if they came in. He thinks maniacs are running around out
there," Casey said. "He's been
talking crazy all night. Let's just go
out and I'll lock up..."
"I ain't likin' this
botherin' girls business," the trucker said. "Ain't havin' that, no sir."
"I wasn't bothering
anybody, I just bought some stuff and she starts talking all kinds of crazy
stuff about her phone and her co-worker," Gus said, then clock-clocked his
tongue again.
"She ain't look crazy to
me," the trucker said. "You,
though, man, you look like all kindsa shit wrong with you, boy. You all... jackin' around and shit" The trucker did a twitchy dance move,
imitating Gus's jankiness. "You
bother this girl, son, I'll send you home carryin' pieces of ya'se'f in your
pockets."
"Hey, fuck you, man, I was
just shopping," Gus said.
Clock-clock-clock.
The trucker looked at Casey with
a big laugh. He was missing a couple of
teeth on the bottom, and his eyes were the bright, empty blue of a TV screen
after the VCR ran out of tape. Casey
decided he was on some long-hauler dope, real mean 'phetamines. His hat, Casey noticed, read "YOUR A IDIOT,"
and a remote part of her noted she'd be laughing her ass off at that if the air
wasn't so thick with violence. "You
hear this pecker? 'Fuck me,' he
says. Well, if that ain't a big box of
goddamnits overturned and shaken!"
He laughed, a harsh whoop.
"Look, I'm sorry," Gus
said, backing up.
"Sorry's for
carelessness. Sorry's not for
intentional-but-done-got-caught," the trucker said, breathing deeper and
sounding joyful that he was going to get to beat somebody up. His fist was a big, squared-off thing, a
demolition hammer.
"Don't hit him," Casey
said. "Just get him outside and let
me lock up..."
The trucker waved a shushing
hand at her and kept grinning at Gus.
"You know you in some damn trouble now, don'tcha boy? C'mere, I'm gonna soften your face up for ya." He laughed, almost a giggle. "You already ugly, but now you gone be
flat hard to look at."
"Stay the hell away from
me!" Gus yelled, pulling out his knife.
"Uh-HUH!" the trucker
barked. "You said you didn't have
no knife! Uh-huh, uh-huh! Lied about everything, didn'tcha? Lie-tellin' son-of-a-BITCH!"
Gus tried to edge toward the
door but the trucker stepped in the way, pulling a knife from his belt. Casey's disreputable Uncle Josh had one like
it, a Sharpfinger from Schrade, a small but wicked little thing. "Just let him go!" Casey said. "Let him go!"
"Fuck-yous have been thrown
about. Way yonder past too late for
lettin' him go," the trucker said, glancing up at the clock. "Looka there, it's eleven-thirteen! Only eleven-thirteen?" He looked at Casey. "Damn, this is a long night!" Then he turned back to Gus. "Anyhow, eleven-thirteen's cuttin'
time, motherfucker!"
Casey wanted to scream. Her insides were quivering so badly she
didn't see how they could still be functioning.
She was cold jello wrapped in skin.
Within seconds she was going to see something she didn't know if she
could stand to see.
Gus was yelling now, and
lunging, but he didn't know what he was doing and the trucker slapped his knife
hand past him and then rushed in and trapped Gus's knife arm between their
bodies. Then he went to work with the
Schrade. Gus howled like nothing Casey
had ever heard and she was so overwhelmed with terror she felt like she was
melting. There was a whispery
shik-shik-shik, flesh parting. The trucker grunted, sticking the knife into the
mid-left of Gus's chest and yanking down hard like he was playing a slot
machine that had been cheating him all night.
If he was playing for Gus's
innards, he hit a major jackpot because Casey saw them gush out like escaping pythons. There was a sound like a watermelon being
split and a cascade of meaty slaps against the floor, like wet feet running
down stairs. Gus's face went instantly
white as seemingly everything else in the world turned bright red, before going
sparkly grey.
As it faded, somehow she found
herself sitting on the floor behind the counter. She felt like she'd lost some time but she
could see the clock on the wall and it was still 11:13. Clock clock clock, she thought. She'd heard that somewhere. There was a raunchy smell in the air. Insides
that were now outsides. Cheetos,
Faygo, and the shittles, she thought, and wanted to laughvomit.
"Hey, girl, girl," a
voice was saying. "Casey. Hey Casey."
Gus? she thought. Can't be Gus. She flashed on what she'd seen happen to Gus
and, no, couldn't be Gus. Could
NOT. But he was the only one here who
knew her name.
"Hey, Casey," the
voice said, and she looked up. The
trucker was leaning over the counter.
She frowned. Oh, yeah, her
nametag. That was how.
"Casey, you know how to get
the tapes out of them cameras ya'll got?"
She nodded. She'd done it before when her friend Sondra
had come by drunk one night and wanted to streak around the store. Richie had dared her, she remembered. Richie.
"Get them tapes out and
give 'em to me. Put some new ones in
after I get everything cleaned up. Lord,
there's a mess of blood that damn boy had in him, but I can get it up. Done it a few times before." He laughed, his eyes gleaming that
dead-channel light. The night is
filled with maniacs, Casey thought.
The trucker took out two cigarettes and lit them, and Casey thought he
was going to offer her one, but no, he was smoking them both at once. Hardcore.
"Don't worry, I'll chop him up, get the meat all wrapped up and
carry it out to my truck, dump the bones in a place I got a few states
over." He blew out a lot of smoke
and looked into it dreamily, then turned to her again. "Hey, you want some of the meat?"
Casey stared at his YOUR A IDIOT
hat and laughed at it like she'd wanted to.
He laughed back. "No, I
don't want any," Casey said.
"Sure? Breakfast of cham-peens!" he said.
"I'm sure," she said,
amazed.
"Your loss," he said,
shrugging, and went away. She sat there
and stared at the clock. 11:13. Wow, what a long minute.
Casey watched her hand, reaching
out and nudging aside the bottle of lotion.
The hand was amazingly steady as it wrapped around the blue handle of
the hatchet. She watched it lift
it. Was she doing it? It was like watching somebody else, somebody
who needed to let their poor nails alone.
She didn't stand so much as float up, and she felt like she was drifting
as she came around the counter.
The trucker had his back to her,
bending over Gus, grunting as he sliced at something troublesome. Padded mats, from his truck she supposed,
had soaked up much of the blood. She'd
been out a while. There was a white PVC
bucket full of bloody water, and a clotted mop.
He'd taken several FuelzMart bags and laid them out beside him. Several were bloody and full of the breakfast
of cham-peens. Gus's face was staring
up, surprised, from a bunch of stuff that no longer looked like Gus or anybody
else either. Her phone lay off to the
side in a nest of bloody one dollar bills.
The trucker was ignoring her, pulling at something with one hand and
slicing at it with the knife in his other.
There was the back of his cap, strands of grey hair, the sunburned and
creased nape of his neck, his shoulders working under the Metallica logo. The hatchet was heavy in her hand.
"Here," she said,
"use this."
THE
END
(c) copyright 2015 by me
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