Eat'em (10 page)

Chapter 21

The infected clerk moved faster than me.

Before I could react he shoved the register in my direction with enough force to knock me off my feet. I crashed into an overpriced rack of decade old DVDs, knocking it to the ground, scattering movies across the floor. Eat’em abandoned ship as I fell to the ground.

I sprung back to my feet in time to catch the clerk disappear into the back room.

Adrenaline flowing through my veins, I ploughed through the RaceTrac, leaving Eat’em to catch up.

I expected a massacre when I rounded the corner to the small storage room in the back. My imagination had the clerk chewing some poor girl to the bone. I thought of the blue-eyed woman who’d been here earlier in the day, devouring a homeless man as if he were a chicken potpie.

All that greeted me were shelves and boxes and an emergency exit opened wide to the field of vagabonds.

The clerk ran atop a fence line, like a sprinting tightrope walker, leapt into an adjacent parking lot and ran until he was out of sight. I stood in the doorway, blocked by sleeping arrangements packed tight as landmines. The clerk must have topped out at about twenty miles-per-hour give or take and that was while running across a picket fence. I had no idea how fast he was on land, but fast enough that if I had a clear track from here to wherever he disappeared to, it would take several minutes to cover the ground he covered in thirty seconds.

“Some hero,” I said aloud.

At least I had confirmation. Whatever Lou had, spread. First to Carrie and two others, then to the Jackie Chan of convenience store employees. No way police wouldn’t find out about it soon enough. A guy hightailing through the city at half the speed of traffic couldn’t go unnoticed.

Why did he run?

I returned to Eat’em by the front counter and checked a computer monitor for some sort of clue as to who the guy was. Their system was aged, probably twenty or so years old. It consisted of a green background and white blinking letters. It reminded me of the old MS DOS screen used to play 8-bit text-based games like House of Horrors and King’s Quest. I couldn’t find a keyboard, but I doubted it was of the touch screen variety used at most everywhere else. It looked like it just scanned an item and popped open the register, leaving most of the math for whoever ran it. There definitely wasn’t any useful information on it as I had hoped.

“What are you doing?” Eat’em asked, peaking out from around the monitor. “You’re going to rob them, yes?”

“No, I’m not going to rob anyone.”

“But you deserve retribution!” he kicked over a box of breath mints. “I understand you’re not much to look at, but to vacate in hysterics is cowardly, yes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Obtain the contents of this drawer,” Eat’em tapped the register with a curled finger. “Utilize its power to acquire Lottery Tickets, yes. Oh, yes. Then with those we secure even more of what grows from the magic drawer. Everything here becomes ours. When crazy legs returns, you discharge him! Better yet, detain him for abandoning his post.”

“I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Then let’s feast upon these delectables.”

“Go for it.”

Eat’em swung from the counter, running for the junk food.

Receipts I found in a receptacle beneath the register contained nothing more useful than the store name and items purchased. I looked through some drawers for a log book, anything that might have the guy’s name on it, but came up short. Just pens, paper, and an even more archaic system that required some ancient form of printing; a combination of charcoal drawing and cave painting by the look of it.

I checked around for a calendar and after a minute found something better. Beside a filing cabinet a row of slotted shelves contained a half dozen clock-in cards. They were simplistic – the kind that receive a hole-punch each time you show for work. Each one had an employee name on the top along with the shifts they were scheduled to work, either days or nights, Monday through Sunday. Tonight’s shift belonged to Trevor Schrekengost. Couldn’t be many of them in town.

“Hey look!” Eat’em shouted from the front of the convenience store, “Val’s here.”

Outside, shining vibrantly beneath the light of one of the four pumps, was the unmistakable lime Mustang.

I dropped behind the counter.

Damn it.

“It’s a party, yes!”

“No,” I shouted. Damn it. Damn it.

I don’t know much about divine intervention. For all the bizarreness I dealt with in having a demon living with me twenty-four seven, I never put much thought into a deity. It’s not that I didn’t consider the existence of a higher being, I just had more supernatural than I could handle. But Val, choosing to fill up at that exact moment at that exact gas station was nothing short of serendipitous.

My back pressed to the counter, I shifted to peak around toward the wall of windows, which provided no more cover than a few advertisements for cheap beer, cheap cigarettes, and ninety-nine cent ballpark franks.

All I could think was to manifest all of my energy into psychically keeping my uncle from coming inside.

It didn’t work.

Using the counter as cover I cringed at the sound of the tiny bell, heralding his entrance.

“Hello,” Valentine said. “Anyone here?”

I tried to block out the excited imp, gleefully cheering for me to get up. But I couldn’t hear Val move. He just stood in the doorway, taking in the toppled shelf and whatever mess Eat’em might have made.

Silence.

Then I heard him rummage for something in his pocket.

“Get up, Jacob,” Eat’em yelled, “Let’s the three of us rob this place.”

More silence.

My chest cramped.
Oh no!
Hiccups. They kicked in with urgency. I hate hiccups. To make matters worse, they always seemed to be violent when I had them. Not the quiet, somewhat cute, hiccups others seemed to be blessed with. My hiccups burned oxygen like miniature explosions keeping air from getting into my lungs. When I hiccupped, my whole body hiccupped.

I swallowed back, managing to muffle the “hic” as best I could. Val didn’t notice it.

“Hello,” I heard him say. “My name is Patrick Brook. I would like to report a possible break in.”

Of all the times to be a Good Samaritan, Valentine. Come on. Just steal some gum or something and get out.

“I’m at the RT on Cooper just off the interstate and nobody’s here.”

I held in another
hic
.

“The same one as what?” he said, “No. Sheesh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that. I’m just getting gas and came in for some drinks. No. I didn’t hear. It’s just empty.”

I held my breath for as long as I could and exhaled slowly through my nose. I’ve heard hiccups are psychological. A sudden scare or change in stress levels can bring them on just as much as they can bring them to a halt. Every fiber of my being concentrated on making them go away. I relaxed and counted backward slowly from ten.

“Yeah,” Val said, “Yeah, I can wait here. No, that’s fine. But I’m going to wait in the car if it’s all the same to you.”

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six

“I’m in a green Mustang. So please don’t shoot me.”

Five. Four. Three.

The bell chimed and a cool breeze rippled through the store. He held the door open for a second longer than comfortable. Using my newfound psychic powers I attempted to push him out the door and the hiccups out of my chest.

Two.

For a second it seemed to be working. The door slowly closed. My hiccups disappeared.

One.

But then I farted.

Chapter 22

I’m not talking about a little suppressed toot. I’m talking about a fart so poignant and palpable it could be removed from the surrounding atmosphere with an ice cream scoop. At that very moment, with nothing so critical as my keeping silent for an extra two seconds, I ripped ass to such a degree I would be forcibly removed from libraries, shunned from family gatherings, and ogled by every ten-year-old boy with an affinity for gaseous undertakings. Had a leer jet and a thousand foghorns gone off at that same second, Val still would have heard my offensive gesture.

And there I sat, basking in the horrid stench of broken wind, actually praying that Val’s sudden awareness of my presence would send him cowering back to the vehicle. I mean, this fart was of Arnold Schwarzenegger proportions, and it stood to reason Val wouldn’t want to stand toe-to-toe with a man whose sphincter could bring down gunships.

But instead of leaving, Val decided it was in his best interest to learn the identity of the Convenience Store Farter. The door closed, but with him still inside. He walked slowly toward the counter, stealthy as a grizzly on a trampoline. And the thought crossed my mind to knock him out.

I mean, I actually considered attempting to knock him unconscious. As if I possessed the roundhouse of Chuck Norris and the speed of Mohamed Ali. That I, Jacob, could render Val comatose with one swift motion and somehow he would wake up with no recollection. That’d be nice.

But I figured if the repugnant odor didn’t put him out cold, my fists didn’t stand much of a chance. At least not without beating him mercilessly first. It wouldn’t go over well when he woke up.

Truth be told, I didn’t even have a clue how much fight Val would have in him. He ate all Hell for food and didn’t hit the gym as far as I knew, but he still looked as youthful as ever. And, in spite of my active lifestyle, my athleticism never really showed. When we were younger and we would fight, Val would have me on my back just as much as I would have him on his. That wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t fear the same result if I surprise attacked him in a halfcocked plan to not be caught behind the counter.

After considering my other options long enough to shame both our mothers I decided my best bet was to wave a white flag.

I slowly peaked above the counter and said, “Hey Orphan.”

“J.B.?” his mouth dropped and his hand uncurled. His pale face turned a deep shade of pink. “What the Hell are you doing?”

Val meticulously spread a creamy layer of peanut butter across the top of a toasted English muffin. After spending the last couple hours talking to police while I sat in the passenger seat of his car, he’d worked up a bit of an appetite. He’d made up a story about meeting me at the gas station to pick me up after class - just enough to give me an alibi for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I sat on the other end of our small dining table, sans dunce cap, and watched his every deliberate knife stroke as he coated the bread, first with peanut butter and then adding a thin layer of mayonnaise.

“That’s twice I’ve lied for you,” Val said without looking up from his concoction. “Two times now I have lied to police.”

He squeezed a glob of honey mustard onto his plate only after giving up on a frustrated hunt for steak sauce. Eat’em salivated at his side, waiting for the crumbs to start falling.

“Police, Jacob.” He dunked the English muffin into the puddle of mustard and bit off only the part with a perfect blend of all three toppings. “And yet,” he continued as he chewed, “in spite of my covering for you, you continue to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Shh…” he said before taking another mustard dipped bite. “You’ll get your turn to speak. Now is my turn.”

“I’m not five,” I said.

“You’re still my nephew.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, “and since when did we ever have a normal uncle and nephew dynamic?”

“Since always,” he said, “now shut up.”

I sighed. Our little kitchen was claustrophobic. I could feel the walls sweat as I grew nervous. We didn’t even have a humidifier, which was stupid because we could afford it. We could afford a much bigger place too, but Val insisted on living like young adults. Like I would miss out on some valuable lesson if I lived more comfortably, with stuff that worked.

Val unshelled a hardboiled egg, peeling it a little bit at a time. He scooped the yolk out and in its place put a wad of minced tuna mixed with more mayo and diced pickle relish. “I’m curious as to why you think we don’t have a normal uncle and nephew… dynamic, right? What makes us so different?”

“For one,” I said, “I’m older than you.”

“So what?” he said. “Have you ever had an uncle that was older than you? No. Have you ever had any other uncle than me? No, you haven’t. You know exactly shit all about what a normal uncle and nephew dynamic is supposed to be. And…”

He swallowed half the egg and followed it with a bite of English muffin.

“And,” he continued. “I’m doing the best I fucking can, Jacob. You know that?”

“Sure.”

“No,” he said, “you don’t. You don’t know. Either that or you clearly don’t give a shit.”

“I do,” I said.

“Then why haven’t you been going to school?”

“I have.”

“Mmm…” Val said, eating the other half of his egg. “You just can’t help but lie, can you? You’re pathological.”

“I’ve been going,” I said.

“Do you want to know who stopped by today?” he swept his wild red hair away from his face. He ground his teeth as he paused for an answer. “Your girlfriend. Dixie. She came over to talk to you.”

My heart dropped. “What’d she say?”

“Enough that I know you haven’t attended class in a while,” Val said. “I invited her in for a cup of coffee and we had a good long talk.”

“Here?” I asked. “You let her come in here? Like this?”

“And now I’m a pig?” he shook his head. “Well, you know what? I’m pretty sure she didn’t care. And above all else, she lied to me too.”

“She did?” I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath.

“Yeah, she did. Relief ain’t it? It looks like you have more than one person willing to lie for you.”

He coated another piece of bread.

“I don’t know what to do, Jake,” he said. “I think, man, I should be in mourning. Both my parents died this year. I never mourned though, right. Because as hard as it was for me to lose my mom and dad, I knew it must be hard for you to lose a second set of parents. And I’m all you have left. I know that because you’re all I have left. That’s it. The Brothers Brook. You said we don’t have a normal uncle/nephew relationship, and you’re right. We don’t. You’re not just my nephew, damn it. You’re my brother. You’re my best friend. You’re fucking everything to me and I’m losing you and I don’t know why.”

“Val…”

“It’s not your fucking turn to talk, Jacob.” He took a deep breath. His eyes reddened with fought tears. “I don’t know why you’re walking around covered in blood. I don’t know why I find you in the middle of the night in a gas station that looks like it’s been robbed. You said you weren’t robbing it? Fine, I believe you. That much I believe. But what in God’s name were you doing in there, Jacob?”

“I was…”

“Uhuh, no,” he said, “I don’t want to hear another lie. You don’t want to tell me the truth and that’s fine. But I’m sick and tired of all the lies. It’s as if the only person that will be honest with me is Isaac. He’s worried about you too. We all are. And it’s great that you have Dixie to go to, sure. She seems like a great chick.”

“She’s awful!” Eat’em barked at his feet.

“But when it comes down to it,” Val fought back a lump in his throat. “I want you to be able to trust me, Jake. That’s all. I’ve always got your back and I just want to know you’re safe. I want to be a good uncle, sure. But more than that, I want to be a good friend. I’m worried about you.”

He pushed his plate to the side and we sat in silence for an agonizing minute.

When I could take no more, I said, “May I talk now?”

“Go ahead.”

“I appreciate what you’ve said,” I stood, “but I don’t have the luxury to tell anyone the truth. Even you.”