Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (88 page)

Keaton opened the next door. “People think we can’t compete with India when it comes to call centers. That’s just because they’re not willing to think outside of the box.” Keaton gestured for Stavros to enter ahead of him.

This was one of the larger rooms, and apparently Keaton had divided it into about twenty different cubicles. At each little cube sat an IT guy, ranging from unhealthily skinny to morbidly obese. Acne was the norm.

Stavros glanced around, listening to the buzz of voices helping customers through a slew of computer issues. He turned back around to Keaton. “They’re all white.”

“Um… little racist, dude, but okay.”

Stavros shook his head. “No. I mean, they’re all talking in East Indian accents.”

“Oh, that.” Keaton laughed. “Yeah. We found that no one trusted our IT guys unless they thought they were talking to someone in India. So I brought in a dialect coach and trained them all. Pretty good, right? That guy over there especially. Totally sounds like Apu from
The Simpsons
.”

Once again there was a twisted logic. Torqued to the point of breaking, then pulled back a hair. Then an alarm sounded from Keaton’s pocket. The lyrics to The Yellow Brick Road rattled from the phone.

“Hey, listen… We gotta make a little stop-off to see my grandma,” Keaton stated.

“Your grandmother?”

“Yeah,” Keaton said as he hurried to get them out of the room and locked up. “I’ve gotta get over there to switch out her shows. If I’m not there on time, it won’t be pretty.”

Stavros kept pace with Keaton as he rushed through the house. Guess he wouldn’t have to do cardio tonight. They passed by door after door. How big was this place?

The décor was largely from the 30s, with a few attempts at updates here and there. The walls were made of stucco that in places was crumbling back to expose the red brick underneath. There was even exposed wiring in places that looked like it dated back to Noah’s flood. The flooring vacillated back and forth between old wooden slats that needed refinishing and vintage 70s laminate.

What was probably the most fascinating aspect of the house were the varying smells. Scents ranging from the acrid bite of acetone and plastics to the fragrance overdose of what Stavros would’ve sworn on his life was an aromatherapy shop. And was that popcorn?

Finally, they arrived at a door secured with three deadbolts. Was it to keep his grandmother in, or the other Mickey employees out?

A strangled cry came from the other side of the door.

“Coming, Granny!” Keaton said as he fumbled with the keys, trying to open two locks at a time. Once they opened, Keaton rushed through the door. Stavros followed, wishing he had come armed. He seldom packed any more. It was a sign of strength. He didn’t need the protection. In this bizarre ramshackle place? He could use his Glock.

However, all he found was an old woman rocking in a ratty old overstuffed chair placed not three feet away from an old color television. And when Stavros used the word “old,” he meant rabbit-ears-on-top old.

“Ahhh, no. Didn’t get here fast enough.” Keaton rushed over to what had to be the oldest extant VCR on the planet earth. It was the size of a side of beef, and when Keaton went to pop out the VHS tape with a worn
As the World Turns
label handwritten on it, it took what felt like an entire minute for it to eject.

The moans grew in volume and intensity as the old woman rocked more violently.

After starting another tape, this one of
General Hospital
, Keaton stepped back from the set. The image was grainy and jumped around. Not only did it look like it had been recorded sometime in the early 80s, it didn’t even look like Keaton had recorded it on the highest setting. Seriously, who even knew about EPs anymore, let along used them?

Stavros hurried over to the old woman, but once the taped soap opera started, she slumped back into her chair. Her whole body sagged, her mouth going slack. On closer inspection, he realized why she hadn’t said anything. There was a plastic hole where her larynx used to be. Throat cancer. He glanced around the room and found the synthetic voice modulator. The uncle who had raised him had the same condition. After decades of smoking, he had ended up with a hole in his throat just like Keaton’s grandmother. He picked up the modulator. Since the doctors had removed her vocal cords, this electronic device produced a voice, of sorts.

“You’ve got to keep this close to her so she can easily reach it,” Stavros chided Keaton. But when he put the device in her hand, it slipped from her fingers, landing on the floor.

“Kind of why I keep it on the coffee table,” Keaton said, resetting his phone’s alarm.

Stavros checked the modulator. “Maybe she isn’t using it because it was on battery sparing mode and couldn’t make any sound.”

“Do you know the price of those lithium batteries?” Keaton retorted. “Besides, she is totally happy as long as her soaps are going.”

Stavros seriously doubted that. But he was here for the X, not for senior protection services.

“Okay, Grams,” Keaton shouted. “You’re set for another six hours.” He turned to Stavros. “Time to squeeze in a couple more Mickeys.”

Even though Keaton headed to the door, Stavros lingered behind. Perhaps his grandmother wasn’t good at communicating, however that didn’t mean she couldn’t hear. He took her hand.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. James.” Did she squeeze his hand? It was hard to tell. “I’ll swing back by before I leave.”

Was that another squeeze?

Before he could test it, Keaton announced impatiently from the door, “Time is money.”

How Stavros sometimes wished it wasn’t. He followed the micro-preneur out.

* * *

Josh squeezed his eyes as tightly closed as he could. When the attendant had said “painted,” she had meant it literally. The woman flung paint at them from two brushes. If there had been any doubt that the attendant had a sadistic streak, it was now gone. Josh swore she was aiming for up his nose.

Of course, beside him, Seven was spinning around, shouting some kind of victory cry.

“You know what,” Josh managed to say. “I think we’re done.”

Allie spit out pink and green paint. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“Peace out!” Seven announced, and raced through the door which must have led to the dance floor.

The attendant lingered, however, her hand out. Allie shook her head. “Really? A tip for that?”

He kind of liked it when Allie went all Latina on someone. The attendant seemed to get the message. Dropping her hand, she went back to her desk. Which left just him and Allie. Even splattered in a rainbow of colors, she looked beautiful. Beads of paint balanced on her eyelashes as they swished up and down.

She looked to his shoulder. “Wow, after all of that, she still managed to miss a spot.”

“What?” Josh stammered, not understanding the segue. Allie pointed to a rare bit of white. “Oh, yeah.”

The moment was gone. Or was it? Allie stepped closer, dipping her finger in a bit of paint dripping from his sleeve. “I think I can fix it, though,” she said, grinning.

Josh didn’t move. No, he didn’t breathe as Allie traced her finger along his shirt, coursing over his collarbone and down his arm. If he didn’t know better he would have sworn her finger was electrified. Heat trailed after her touch.

Then she was done. Josh had to stop himself from sighing in disappointment.

“There.”

He looked down to find she had drawn the outline of a charging bull. Their school mascot.

“Thanks,” he said, making sure he enunciated properly. However, the effort left the word flat and, frankly, sounding not all that thankful. Not wanting to the moment to end, Josh pointed to a white patch on her hip. “She wasn’t very thorough.”

Allie’s grin widened as Josh borrowed a bit of paint from his shirt and began drawing. He was no art major, but he was not going to screw this up. He had to focus, though. The skirt wasn’t all that long and her exposed thighs were…well, distracting.

Finally he finished, which meant he had to take a step back. Allie looked down, cocking her head as if she didn’t realize what he’d drawn. So okay, maybe he had screwed it up. Then her hand flew to her neck. She pulled out her necklace from under her shirt. It was a dragonfly.

“It’s just like my pendant.”

Josh nodded, glad she’d gotten it. So close to her that he could smell her strawberry shampoo, he wasn’t quite sure he would have been able to explain it.

“Thank you,” Allie said, sounding like she really meant it.

They were so close. Only a few inches separated them. The moment felt so right. This was how it was supposed to feel just before your first kiss, right?

Then Seven made possibly the worst-timed interruption in the history of interruptions.

“You guys coming, or what?” he asked, just before he grabbed Josh by the elbow and dragged him along. “Are you ready to par-tay?”

As Allie trotted to catch up, she laughed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Then they arrived at the actual entrance to the club. Seven continued on, but both Josh and Allie skidded to a halt.

Before them was a riot of color and music, the two blending and bleeding together to create a mosaic of psychedelic insanity. Bodies churned and gyrated, some with their tee shirts on, most without.

“Or maybe…” Allie added.

“Not?” Josh finished. Yet neither moved.

Black lights glowed from every angle, illuminating the neon paint covering everyone. Most of the clubbers had shredded their white clothing to the point that they might as well not have anything on. Josh was pretty sure that there were at least a couple of girls he had seen that had nothing on
but
paint. He wasn’t positive though because he had looked away as soon as he saw them, his face burning.

No matter where he looked, there was something shining, blinking or glowing. Necklaces, bracelets, bizarre blinking mouth guard-looking things. The lights would reflect off the dancers’ faces, mixing with the black light and turning everyone into some fantasy version of themselves. Or some nightmare version. Who could tell.

From time to time, enormous spurts of foam would pour from a hole in the ceiling, bathing the dancers. The foam level stayed right around knee level, except for right after a new deposit, when it would sometimes go up above the hips. Although, judging from the globs of foam on the wall, the level could go way higher than that.

Inside the foam, things got nuts. Random people would make out with each other, seemingly without any discrimination as far as gender and number of participants went. Josh had never seen anything like it before in his life. He was pretty sure he never wanted to again. This might be what the Outer Darkness that they talked about in church looked like. Or maybe Heaven.

Josh was so confused.

He glanced over at Allie. Her mouth was slightly opened. In wonder or horror he couldn’t tell. Then her lips turned up just the slightest bit.

“This is horribly awesome,” she breathed out.

He couldn’t have described it better himself.

“So?” she asked, turning to him. “Should we maybe dance?”

Before he could answer, a foursome of frat boys pushed their way past, knocking Allie into him. He caught her in his arms and their bodies pressed together. Talk about horribly awesome. It felt so incredibly good he feared his white pants wouldn’t do much to hide how good it felt.

Luckily, his upbringing kicked in and those lessons pounded into him from dozens of church dances made him step back, making sure there was enough room between them for a copy of the Book of Mormon. Even as he did it, he wanted to smack his forehead. Seriously, he was such a dork. How had he ever thought Allie would go for someone like him?

“You okay?” Josh asked as he let her go.

“I’m great,” she answered. “So maybe tonight won’t be quite as bad as we thought?”

After that last encounter? Nothing about the night could go wrong.

* * *

Keaton tried to hurry to unlock the room. After Granny, Stavros seemed a bit anxious. Ants in his pants. No, ants in his Armani pants.

“Now this one features a live webcam of octopuses having sex,” he explained, trying to reignite the magic. “It’s
huge
in North Korea.” Stavros didn’t seem all that impressed, though. Keaton had to ratchet it up another notch, especially since he couldn’t find the key to this room to save his life. “Just imagine,” he said, with a sweeping motion of his free hand. “The banner ad reading, “Hot octopuses by Stavros.”

The tall man sighed. “Octopi.”

“What?” Keaton asked, then got it. He was quick like that. “A three way! A ménage of octopuses! Brilliant! I knew we thought alike!”

The click of the lock finally sounded, but Stavros put his hand against the door. “The lab?”

“But don’t you want to see —”

“No,” Stavros said, putting his hand over Keaton’s and turning the key to lock the door again. “I definitely do
not
want to see what is in that room.”

Keaton pulled his hand away from the door, signaling surrender.

“The lab.” That wasn’t a question. That was an order.

From the glare Keaton was getting, he knew that he couldn’t stall any longer. “Sure, okay.” Heading off to the right, Keaton couldn’t help but finish his pitch. “All I’m saying is that once you’ve got the North Korean market, Micronesia and Laos open right up.”

“The lab.”

If it was anything, Keaton knew when to shut up. So the rest of the long walk, all the way around the house and back again, was done in silence. Keaton checked his phone. He was supposed to get a text when the batch was ready. No such luck. Hopefully they would have enough cooked up to satisfy Mr. Panties-in-a-Bunch.

They arrived at the bathroom door. No need to search for the key. He’d put Hello Kitty to work on that one. Sliding the key into the lock, Keaton glanced over his shoulder. The roundabout trek here hadn’t seemed to soften Stavros’s mood any.

Hopefully a nice big pile of X would.

Poking his head into the room, Keaton knew something was wrong. There was no buzz of activity. The lights were low. There was no lingering smell of cooking drugs.