New Title 4 (3 page)

Phil was ringing up a customer when Caleb came back in, a huge smile on his face and a lot more bounce in his step than normal. What the hell s up with you? Phil asked. You look like you just got laid.

The woman at the counter grabbed the eggs, cigarettes, and Twizzlers she had just purchased with a sniff, standing up straight like she thought she was some noblewoman. That is not an appropriate conversation to be having in front of customers. How do you know I m not offended by that?

She walked out the door, shoving aside the four customers trying to come in after Caleb. Phil shook his head. Jesus, he muttered under his breath. I ll never understand why humans are so much bigger assholes than the beasties.

Caleb smiled and agreed, then approached Lucas at the magazine rack. Big Maggie had recently gotten it into her head that they could make extra money at night by having specialty items catering to the Hill s unique clientele, and she had started ordering certain magazines to experiment with the idea. The special magazines, ordered from a special branch of their newsstand distributor, were supposed to be set out at the beginning of the night shift, but with all the excitement over the prophecy they had all forgotten to do it until now. Lucas had a tote at his feet and was putting the magazines from it on the shelf, stopping every so often to stare in amazement at a copy of
Playghoul
or
Popular Esoterics
.

That s just disgusting, Lucas said as he held up a copy of
Playghoul
. The model on the cover had an arm across her naked breasts, although it might have been more appropriate to just say breast, singular. One of them had mostly rotted off. Her skin was tinged with green, and black veins could be seen just under the skin. She was giving the camera a come-hither look, but that wasn t easy since one of her eyes was drooping in its socket. What kind of sick freak would actually be into that?

Phil resisted the urge to go around the counter and smack the newbie upside the head. It wouldn t be professional. Thankfully, Caleb did it for him.

Ow! What the hell? Lucas said.
You need to be careful what you say out loud around here, Caleb said. You ll never know who you ll offend.
I m just saying
Don t. Standard rules during the day may say that something is weird or perverted, but this is a different world, got it? The rules change. While Lucas was rubbing the back of his head and putting the magazine back on the rack, Caleb shot Phil a quick wink. Phil gave him a small nod back.
Several customers came up to the counter, and Caleb took his register to help Phil check them out. When they were gone and the store was empty for a moment, Lucas pointed out the window at the man who had just left. From his looks the customer had probably been a vampire, or at least some form of an undead.
So we just serve people like that, no problem?
Of course, Caleb said. Why wouldn t we?
But wasn t that a vampire?
Probably.
Well, when you grabbed those swords earlier I saw you also had a bunch of stakes or something. Shouldn t we have been trying to kill it?
Don t be a jackass, Phil said. He was a paying customer.
But he was a vampire! A blood-sucking vampire!
A blood-sucking vampire who bought Corn Nuts, Caleb said. He was just going about his business. If he were trying to hurt somebody, then sure. We would have slain him. We ve got duffle bags under the counter that are full of things like holy water and stakes and silver bullets and whatever. But that s only if they try to kill someone. You know, you ve got a lot to learn. I think maybe you should work tomorrow night to get the hang of things quicker.
Tomorrow s my night off, Lucas said.
Well, since I m such a nice guy I thought I would let you take my shift, Caleb said.
Phil snorted. You ve suddenly got something you actually want to do or something?
Caleb s maniacal grin returned. Gloria just asked me out. I didn t want to say no after all this time, so I sort of fibbed and told her I had off. Lucas frowned. I don t know. I sort of had something I wanted to do tomorrow
Oh come on, Caleb said. Pretty fricking please?
Lucas shrugged, but he still looked hesitant as he bent down and grabbed several copies of
Better Tombs and Gardens
. I guess, but I m not sure that
Awesome, Caleb said. I owe you one. But now that you ve agreed, you better fucking show up. You do a no-call/no-show tomorrow and I will hunt you down and kick your ass, got it?
Oh, wait, Phil said. Now that I think about it, maybe that s not such a good idea.
Dude, what the hell? Caleb said. After eyeing Lucas for a second he leaned closer to Phil and dropped his voice to a whisper. You know I haven t been with a living breathing woman for like a year now. Don t screw with me here.
Phil also looked over at Lucas, who was too engrossed in the magazines to notice either of them. Phil gestured that they should move and led Caleb over to the nacho counter, just far enough out of Lucas s earshot that they didn t have to whisper quite so low. I forgot, Phil said. Sue was supposed to be coming by tomorrow. Remember? We figured it would be best for her to come around here on a quieter night so I could try to work things out with her while you took care of the customers and stuff.
Oh. Right, Caleb said. Well, you can still do that, can t you? Especially since the world almost ended tonight. It can t try ending two nights in a row, right? So you shouldn t have to deal with too much extra stuff that the newbie won t be able to handle.
But you heard him. I can t bring her around with the way he was acting.
Phil, you need to stop hiding what you are. Come out of the mausoleum and admit it: you re a necrophiliac.
I am not a necrophiliac! Will you quit calling it that already?
Whatever. It s not like I m judging you.
But I keep telling you, it doesn t count as necrophilia so stop calling it that.
Your girlfriend is a zombie. What else am I supposed to call it?
I don t know. Think of some brand new politically correct title for it. The point is, you may give me shit about it but you at least tolerate it. That Lucas guy, I don t think he would.
Well then, can t you try whatever you re going to try somewhere else? Why does it have to be here at work?
I can t see her during the day because she doesn t rise from her grave until sundown. And I can t take her back to my place. I live too close to the southeast edge of the Hill. Where people will start to question the presence of a zombie.
Caleb ran his hand through his hair and blew out a sigh. Dude, I sympathize with you. But you know how important this is to me.
And you know how important Sue is to me! I ve got to find a way to make this work with her. Caleb looked over at Lucas. A customer had come in, but Lucas hadn t noticed. He was too busy flipping through a copy of
Rolling Headstone.
Caleb shook his head and headed towards the cash register. Look, I m sure it won t be that bad. Lucas will be okay with it. You can still do your thing and I can do mine, cool?
Caleb didn t wait for Phil to answer. He went to ring the customer up as several more customers filtered in. As much as Phil wanted to say something angry at the guy he didn t get the chance. Business was more or less steady for the next hour, and the rest of the night was spent dealing with a mutant from another dimension unleashed from the crack house next door. Once the sun came up the manager came in and the day crew followed. Caleb was gone for the day before Phil could tell him how betrayed he felt.

A day off. And a date. The first thing happened more often for Caleb than it felt like, mostly because the job at OneStop took so much out of him that on his days off he just slept the entire day and night through. The second thing, however, had been a long time coming. His last real date had been just before he had met Gloria, a girl called Athena. He d had sex some time after that, but that didn t really count. That had also been with Athena, but she was a ghost by then. Sex with a ghost wasn t terribly fulfilling.

Caleb stood in the bathroom of his apartment finishing up his shaving before throwing on a dash of cologne. He didn t put on too much. Gloria didn t strike him too much as a cologne type of girl. He didn t really like the scent either, but it covered up the scent of the OneStop Mart. He d showered between now and his shift last night, of course, but somehow the smells of the place stuck on him and just wouldn t go away. He smelled like doughnuts and nachos and Froztee mix. There were worse things to smell like, but that didn t make it less obnoxious.

He took a long look at himself in the mirror, but even though he d been preparing for his date for the last hour he still didn t think he looked sharp enough. His hair was as perfect as he could get it without actually getting a haircut, his face was shaved, and he tried to stand up straight in an effort to look somewhat hunky and debonair. Of course, he would never really be either, but it disturbed him that he couldn t even pretend a little bit when he was alone with nothing but his reflection. Part of it, he thought, might have been the bags under his eyes. Physically he wasn t really tired at all. Mentally, on the other hand, he felt exhausted. He saw things on a regular basis that most people never even realized existed, and through it all he had to continue on with something resembling a normal life. In a way it didn t seem right. He d killed a giant flying firebreathing armadillo last night, for Christ sakes. He felt like he should have gotten some sort of mainstream credit for that.

Not that he didn t get any credit at all. The decorations hanging around his bathroom were a testament to that. The thing about saving the world between cleaning the hot dog grill and inventorying the soda cooler was that sometimes the actual objects he had to save the world from slipped through the cracks. He might come across a cult bent on world destruction when they came into the store for a mid-ritual snack, but the cult still needed something to cause the destruction in the first place, an ancient carved amulet or a mystical sword or something. Sometimes, when the special police ended up getting involved, they would confiscate the magical items. More often, though, such things just got left lying in the parking lot or forgotten in the john. Caleb always took them home and hung them in the bathroom. They were symbols to him that as worthless as he sometimes felt- because even with the world-saving, his job could have been done by a highly trained llama- he still did his part to keep the world slightly sane.

Caleb looked out the window at the setting sun, then finished getting ready, exited the building, and started towards the OneStop. His apartment wasn t more than five blocks away, and he still had maybe fifteen minutes before the sun was completely down, so he took his time. This was usually his favorite time of the day, although he wouldn t exactly call it pleasant. Maybe a better word to describe it would be electric. There was a great deal of energy now as the daytime residents of the Hill rushed to get home and the nighttime dwellers were just waking up. As he watched, a young businessman with a cell-phone held firmly to his ear rushed towards the door of an apartment building. Before the businessman could open the door, however, a girl tried to come out at the same time and they almost collided. The girl had on a wrinkled but clean t-shirt and jeans with what looked like paint smeared into them on the thighs. She also had an incredibly pale skin-tone, but Caleb couldn t be sure if that was because there was something supernatural about her or she just didn t get into the sun enough. Not everyone who preferred the night here, after all, was paranormal. The businessman and the girl stood there for a second staring at each other, not quite sure whether to acknowledge that the other existed, before they both just walked around each other and went about their business.

When Caleb got to the OneStop neither Phil nor Lucas had arrived yet. Although it would have been ideal for only the one crew to ever be around after dark, that wasn t possible. Whether they fought monsters or not, the Apocalypse shift crew still could only work eight hours at a time. During the summer, like now, the second shift only had to work for a brief time after the sunset. During the winter, though, the long nights meant the second shift sometimes had to deal with the same problems as the third shift. Unlike the morning shift, who knew pretty much nothing about the Hill at night, the second shift had to be made of sterner stuff.

There was a scream as Caleb opened the door. EEEEE! A mouse! Sheila was crouched on top of the counter next to one of the registers and clutching her arms close to her blue smock as she stared down at something out of Caleb s sight. Kelly, a broadshouldered but pretty woman about Caleb s age, stood behind the counter with a broom held high. She was looking where Sheila stared but her face was set and determined. Several customers had gathered at the far end of the store, all of them chuckling at the scene but still keeping their distance.

Kelly risked a glance over at Caleb as he came up to the counter. Caleb! Thank god you re here. Where s your duffelbag?

I didn t bring it, Caleb said. I don t work tonight.
But I thought you had a date tonight?
I do. So?
So you re doing your date on the Hill, right? With Gloria?
Wow, word really does travels fast around here. But what s that got to do with anything?
So if you re going to be on the Hill you should still have your duffel bag.
Caleb cursed himself silently. She was right. He d been too preoccupied and forgot all about his bag. Everyone who knew what they were doing on the Apocalypse Shift brought emergency supplies or weapons along with them just in case. He may be out tonight just to have fun, but it would be crazy to go out without the means to protect himself.
Why don t you two have your own duffel bags? Caleb said.
We shouldn t have to have them, Sheila said. There was still a little bit of panic in her voice. That s not part of our job.
And mine s just not as well stocked as yours usually is, Kelly said.
Why do you even need one? Caleb said as he leaned over the counter to try to see what was going on.
A mouse, Sheila said again.
Please tell me it s at least an apocalyptic death mouse, Caleb said. He could see something small moving in the corner over by the drop-safe, but he couldn t quite see what it was yet.
Actually, yeah, Kelly said. I think it kind of is. Caleb pulled himself up so his belly was almost completely on the counter, and finally he could see it. It wasn t a mouse, but more like a small rat. There would be nothing terribly special about it if Caleb could just ignore the head. It had standard little rat ears and eyes, but where its snout and mouth should have been it had a mass of inch-long tentacles twitching at Kelly. Before Caleb could say anything more Kelly brought the broom down on it as hard as she could. She hit hard enough that she actually cracked the plastic hood covering the broom s bristles, but when she raised the broom up again the tentacle rat was still sitting there. It looked completely unharmed, if a little annoyed.
Kelly raised the broom up and prepared to bring it down again, but Caleb held up a hand to block her. Whoa, wait, Caleb said. I wouldn t do that again if I were you. He ll only sic his eldritch and obscenely squamous minions upon you and all your kin for all eternity.
Kelly raised an eyebrow but lowered the broom. What do you mean?
That s Ratathoth, the Elder Rodent God, Caleb said. He got down off the counter, went over to the refrigerator case where they kept the sandwiches and cold snacks, and pulled out an individually wrapped string cheese. Look, he s easy enough to get rid of. Caleb unwrapped the cheese as he came around the counter, then bent low and put it in the creature s outstretched paws. Ratathoth gave a small screech as he took it. If this had been a full sized Elder God that screech would have driven all who heard it to the depths of insanity. When the noise came from something so small, however, it only gave Caleb a minor headache. Holding the string cheese firmly in its tentacles, Ratathoth ran around the counter and bolted out the front door just as Phil was coming in for his shift. Phil jumped out of its way, then watched it scamper across the parking lot for few seconds before letting the door close behind him.
The Elder Rat God. Nice, Phil said as the customers who had been hiding in back started to trickle up to the front with their purchases. Maybe that fills our weekly quota for encounters with creatures from beyond the brink of madness.
Not likely, Caleb said. I hear there s a lurker at the museum this week. He ll probably show up at some point wanting a doughnut.
Even though the customers were already waiting in a line for the cash register, Sheila didn t move from her place on the counter. Instead she sat cross-legged and continued staring down at the floor as though something else nasty might still be waiting down there for her.
That s it! Sheila screamed. I can t take this anymore. I swear I ll quit!
So quit, one of the customers said. And then get the hell out of the way so I can buy my smokes.
What the hell is wrong with you people? Sheila said. This is not the way the world is supposed to be. We shouldn t have to go through with this every day. The world should just be normal!
Kelly poked her with the broom hard enough to get her off the counter. Quit whining. And get your ass over to your register. You ve still got five minutes left on your shift.
Sheila pouted but did as Kelly said. Phil went into the back room, passing by Caleb without saying anything. That was kind of odd. Phil had been quieter when he had first started here, but now he rarely passed up a chance to trade quips and insults with his coworkers. The real thing that had turned him around and brought him out of his shell had been Sue, which was good for Phil but still rather creepy. He joked around with Phil about dating a zombie, but that didn t mean Caleb was used to seeing such a thing. He tried to be progressive and open-minded, but a part of him still didn t think Phil s behavior was natural.
Caleb hung around inside the store, exchanging small-talk with Kelly for the few minutes until Gloria showed up. As nervous as he was about the prospect of a date for the first time in over a year, though, he was getting even more nervous about Lucas s absence so far. If the newbie really had decided to do a no call/no show then Caleb would be expected to do his shift after all. If he wasn t coming in, then that little bastard had better be in mortal danger or something, or else Caleb would kick his ass. Never mind that Caleb had a lot more luck kicking the ass of supernatural beasties than he did actual humans, he would still do it.
He was brooding to himself next to the freezer case when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He jumped as the sudden touch and turned to see Gloria looking at him with her eyebrow raised.
Easy there, Butcher. Act like that much more and I might begin to think you re nervous.
Nervous about what? Caleb said. That something might happen tonight and I ll have to bail your ass out like I always do? Even as the words came out of his mouth he felt the need to smack himself. This was a date, sort of, not a pissing contest with one of the other employees. Smack talking was probably not wise. But he couldn t think of anything else to say.
Gloria eyed him but didn t say anything. The fact that she didn t talk any trash back to him only reinforced that he had said exactly the wrong thing. At least she didn t seem to take it personal. She was dressed in an outfit very similar to the one she had worn last night, if maybe slightly nicer. She still had the leather jacket and a small duffel bag but had gone without the cowboy hat, allowing her black hair to flow over her ears and hang just above her shoulders. Her blouse was light purple, a feminine color that Caleb had never expected her to actually wear, and instead of jeans she wore dark slacks. The light brown skin of her face had only a subtle amount of make-up. She didn t need much make-up to bring out her natural beauty.
So you ready to go then? she asked.
I would be except he started, but the door opened and Lucas came in, stopping just in front of the counter to catch his breath. His cheeks were flushed and there were small beads of sweat on his forehead.
Holy shit, Lucas said. You guys are never going to believe what I just saw down the street.
If it was a rat with tentacles then we d believe you just fine, Kelly said, already unbuttoning her smock as Phil came from the back room to take her place at the register.
How did you well, I guess he must be a regular customer, Lucas said.
Thankfully not that regular, Caleb said as he approached Lucas. He dropped his voice lower so Gloria wouldn t hear. Thanks again for working tonight.
Yeah, sure, whatever, he said. He seemed distracted, but Caleb figured that was to be expected. Lucas moved to go to the back room to punch in and put on a smock, but Caleb caught him gently by the arm first and leaned in close so that only Lucas could hear.
Hey, just keep an open mind tonight, all right? No matter what you see. Just be cool.
Lucas didn t look like he knew how to take that. Right. Okay. Then he went around to the back. Caleb waved to Phil as he went to the door. Have a good night, man. Phil didn t wave back, although when Gloria waved he at least acknowledged it with a nod.
What was that all about? Gloria asked as they stepped out into the parking lot.
Don t really know, Caleb said. Then a thought occurred to him. Or maybe I do. He didn t seem too happy last night about having to work with the newbie tonight. Lucas kind of came off as closed minded, and Phil was planning on having Sue stop by tonight.
Gloria nodded as they made it to the edge of the parking lot and stopped under the glowing OneStop sign. They make a cute couple.
Cute s not the word I would use for it, but they do couple.
That s not a visual I needed.
You re the one that thought they were cute.
So are we going to stand around flapping our yaps or were we going to go do something? Gloria asked.
Well, first thing we need to do is go back to my apartment, Caleb said.
Gloria s eyes went wide. Whoa, hold on, I don t know what you thought was going to happen tonight
We need to go to my apartment because I forgot my duffel bag, dumbass. Again he felt like smacking himself in the forehead. This was definitely not the way he should be talking to his date. If Gloria hadn t been that upset by his first flippant comment, this one at least made her glare at him. Remind me again why I m hanging out with you tonight?
Okay, that wasn t good on several levels. Not only had he already managed to piss her off less than a minute into their first date, but she now didn t even seem to be calling it a date. If he didn t do something this night wouldn t end well. He racked his brain trying to think of some way to placate her that might have worked in the past, but it had been some time since they had worked with each other and her visits to the OneStop Mart since then had been sporadic enough to not be helpful at all.
Sorry. I m just Just what? Did he really want to admit he was nervous? It might soften her up quite a bit if he made just that small confession, but he couldn t bring himself to swallow that much pride. Instead he just let his words trail off, and there were several seconds of incredibly awkward silence.
Right, Gloria said. Let s just go get your duffel bag and then find some place to hang out or something. Something in her voice made Caleb think that she just wanted to humor him for a while and then leave. He might as well just call it off right now and go home to listen to Led Zeppelin records by himself and play video games. That s certainly the way it would all end anyway, so there was no use denying the inevitable.
Except that was stupid, and he hated himself for thinking like that. If he could stop the world from ending three times a week at the store in between refilling the soda cooler and placing the ice cream order then he could sure as hell at least get through an already less-than-perfect date. Couldn t he? That said some very disheartening things about him as a person if he couldn t.
They both walked back to his apartment in silence. Caleb tried to think of something to say that would bring the mood back around to something better, but he found himself with few things to talk about. He could talk about work, but would Gloria really want to hear any of that? She would probably be bored to tears talking about the newest hot doglike product for the roller grill, or the latest flavors of Mountain Dew in stock, or the homeless goblin junkies he had found trying to sleep in the bathroom last week. He knew he would be in her position at least. So he didn t say anything at all, and the tension just felt like it got worse with every step. With the sun fully down, the Hill had completed its nightly transformation and there were signs of things not quite human all around them. Down the street on one of the corners three women in skimpy and tacky dresses made passes at the occasional passersby. Two looked human, while the other was only eight inches tall and had dragon-fly wings poking out her back. A car drove past with gansta rap blaring from the speakers, and although it went by too fast for Caleb to be positive, he thought the people inside might have all had red skin and horns sticking out on their foreheads. Caleb and Gloria passed by an alley where two figures stood in the shadows, and from the shambling movements of the nearest one he could tell that it was a zombie. It lunged at the second figure, a man in a trench coat, and both Caleb and Gloria stopped, ready to spring into action and stop the attack. But the second figure simply opened up his trench coat and pulled out a baggie from inside. The zombie slowly handed the man a fistful of money and then pocketed the baggie. Caleb couldn t be sure in the poor light, but if he had to guess he would say that the baggie had contained pieces of brains. It was much easier for zombies these days to get their fix from dealers than to worry about the hassle of forming mobs and shambling after their prey.
Caleb s apartment building was a simplelooking three story structure, one of hundreds of plain buildings on the Hill. Caleb pulled out a key as they walked up to the front door, but he saw some idiot had apparently left it unlocked. That was an incredibly stupid thing to do anywhere in the city, but it was doubly so here. Even the people who never went out after dark and never realized who or what was actually on the Hill knew far better than to do something like this. He looked back at Gloria, but she didn t appear to notice that anything was strange. Caleb opened the door and peered into the first floor hallway.
Gloria, what do you have in your duffel bag tonight?
Just the usual stuff, she said. Something about his posture or his words must have worried her, because she frowned. Why? What s up?
Caleb continued looking down the hall. He could hear a television playing behind one of the doors, something that might have been a pair of voices in argument behind another. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just another quiet night for clueless mundies. I guess it s nothing. Just having trouble leaving the job behind on my day off, maybe.
Gloria made some vaguely affirmative noise, but he noticed that she kept one hand on her duffel s zipper as she came in with him and they climbed the stairs to his floor.
Caleb tried to relax. He had to be overreacting as a way to take his mind off the tension between them. Maybe if he tried starting polite conversation, this time keeping a tighter control on his little barbs, then he could help things. He looked at her as they reached the second floor. Did you come up with any ideas on what you wanted to do tonight?