Young Writers Society

Approximately five minutes before I found the severed head in the microwave, I was clocking in for the last time.

Looking back, it all seems so simple: you’re born, you go to school, you get a job, you die. There. Easy as that. Every American life is a like a snowflake: sure, each one is different, but at the end of the day you’re still a damn snowflake. Back then, it was all so simple, and, dare I say it, innocent.

Now? Not so much. It’s amazing how much I miss it, the old world. But I guess that’s life for ya: one day, you’re lounging around in piss-stained underwear while your cat licks peanut butter off your toes, and the next you’re running for your life in a wasted, post-apocalyptic hell.

As I swiped my card and watched my name (Dante K. Barnes) flash onscreen in tiny, pixelated letters, I had no idea that I would never do anything that normal ever again. And when I moved out of the way so Chaz could scan his, there was no feeling of loss, of change. It was just another day at the old grind. Life turns on a dime.

I’m gonna be honest here: I don’t have a photographic memory in the best of times. If you asked me to name three words out of the paragraph I just typed, I would probably mumbles something about a dentist appointment and run away. Also, keep in mind that there was an apocalypse going on at the time, so excuse me if I miss out on a few miniscule details.

But the feeling? The emotion? The things that fly through your brain while you hack someone’s head off with a dull spatula? That’ll never go away, not even if I wanted it to.

And I will definitely never forget the heat.

You see, weather in Mississippi is a funny thing. If you live in Mississippi, feel free to skip the next paragraph while you hastily chart out your plans to get out of Mississippi. In the Magnolia State, there are two seasons: summer and schizophrenic.

Let me explain that second bit: imagine your least favorite cousin, the one with the pot belly and the nose that never runs out of snot, standing at the end of the room flipping the light switch ON and OFF, all while giggling madly at his own brilliance. In the months between October and March, the weather is like that, except, y’know, with the goddamn weather instead of just a light bulb. One minute you’re sweating like a hooker in church and the next thing you know it’s so cold your nuts get stuck to the toilet seat.

All the other months? Hot. No, that’s wrong. Not just hot. In the summer, Mississippi becomes a barren, blistering Hell that Satan himself wouldn’t care to cross. Remember that scene from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? The one where Clint Eastwood is forced to wander around in the desert and at the end of it he looks like something Godzilla crapped out? In Mississippi, that scene more or less describes what it’s like to walk across a Wal-Mart parking lot. And when you work as a fry-cook at a crappy old ballpark that can’t “afford” air conditioning, you often find yourself going outside just to cool off and appreciate what non-volcanic air feels like.

Even now, as we made our way from the front office and into the relative shade of the park proper, I could feel sweat trickling down the back of my neck. Chaz was droning on about something, but after ten years of friendship I’d developed an almost supernatural ability to filter him out whenever he said something particularly stupid.

Case in point: “So that girl, Jessica. Or maybe it was just Jessie. Or Jane. Or Sarah. Anyway, this chick man, oh, dude, she had this bottle, right? With this green, saucy-looking stuff in it. I say, what’s in there? She giggles, and says find out for yourself. So I did. And dude, I swear to God I saw Benjamin Franklin. No joke.”

Even my evolved Chaz-prepped ears couldn’t block that one out. So I feigned interest.

“Did you talk to him?”

“I tried,” Chaz answered sadly, “but I think he was busy with something. He was wearing an army uniform with a Jurassic Park logo on the back, so I’m pretty sure it had something to do with dinosaur hunting. Anyway, I wouldn’t have known what to say to him anyway. Him being the President and all.”

A tall, muscular man passed by us, pushing a trolley stacked with boxes. ALISTAIR’S MEAT COMPANY, they said. Under the logo was the image of a dancing corn stalk with maracas. The man sighed, wiped a bead of sweat from his cheek, and turned right into one of the stands. The corn stalk’s cartoon eyes seemed to stare at me, mocking me in some basic, unnerving way.

“Y’know,” I said, “if you keep taking stuff without knowing what’s in it, you’re probably gonna end up getting raped or something.”

Chaz’s eyebrows perked up and I could see tiny clockwork gears moving behind his eyes. So I stopped him before he got ahead of himself.

“By dudes,” I clarified.

“Oh.” A look of disappointment washed over his face. “That kind of rape.”

“The worst kind of rape there is,” I agreed.

The speakers scattered around above us creaked and whined, and then came the pre-recorded bit I’d heard approximately eight-hundred times over the past two years.

“Welcome to Dollar Dog Night at the Riverville Angels, located off Highway 80 at Florence Park! We hope you enjoy your stay and remember: hot dogs are only a dollar, so STACK UP, cuz it’s gonna be a loooooong winter!”

I sighed.

The metal windows of the Big Dawg were already drawn up. Trish was inside, stacking cups and filling napkin dispensers. There was a bruise on her temple, and I didn’t have to ask to know where it had come from. Nobody did.

“You guys are late,” she said as soon as we were inside. It wasn’t an accusation, just an acknowledgement. Her voice sounded small somehow.

“We’re like that,” said Chaz. “Where’s the kitchen?”

“Same place it’s always been.”

“Oh. Right. I knew that.” The look on his face said that he totally didn’t, but most people who know Chaz would probably just let it slide and chalk it up to his being dropped on the head as a baby.

“I believe you,” said Trish in an almost robotic voice. She took off her cap and fiddled with her ponytail as locks of curly red hair fell behind her. The sunlight hit her pale, smooth skin and washed over her like she was some kind of angel that had fallen from Heaven. She straightened up, highlight her luscious, womanly curves-

“Get a life, perv.” She glared at me with angry eyes that looked as red as her hair.

Okay, I might have been staring a bit. So, being a macho, suave young man, I immediately proceeded to enact a charade wherein I wasn’t staring at her boobs but, instead, filling a napkin dispenser. Would have worked, too, exept the damn thing was already filled up. Stupid girls, always not procrastinating and actually doing work.

“Oh, yeah, I was-um-”

“Staring at my chest. At least wipe the drool from your lip, you look like a baby.”

Believe it or not, I was stupid enough to wipe for drool. Trish did her best to avoid eye contact, mumbling something about men and the end of chivalry.

Desperate to save a conversation that was already dead and buried, I changed the subject: “Is Barry here yet?”

Barry Niles is our manager, our – as he puts it – “Stand Leader.” He’s a self-absorbed thirtysomething who thinks his job at a hotdog stand is the most important thing in the world, but hey, he’s the only one who pretends to put any actual effort.

“No,” she said simply. Her tone said two things: one, this conversation was over and two, I was the absolute worst thing to happen to the human race since the Bubonic Plague.

“Okay,” I whimpered, and slipped away.

In the back, there were two refrigerators. One for putting actual food in and the other for relaxation. I’m not sure the owners intended it to be used that way, but they didn’t really pay us enough to use electronic appliances responsibly.

Chaz was already chilling (no pun intended) in the fridge when I found him. I opened the door, savoring the semi-cold air that flowed out.

“You want a quesadilla?” I asked. About a month before, the owners had decided to take a few of the less successful items off the menu. While we had been given orders to throw them away, we are terrible, terrible employees.

“Sure,” he said, looking up from his phone. “Extra crispy.”

“I’ll leave it in the microwave an extra twelve seconds, then.”

“I love you. No homo.”

“No homo,” I said, and shut the door.

I pulled out a couple of the condemned quesadillas from their box, and opened them up. I was already contemplating what a long, sucky night it was going to be, and that’s when I opened the microwave.

And found Barry.

In life, Barry had been an overweight, unattractive man. The cold hand of Death hadn’t done him any favors. His mouth was curved downward, as if he were about to cry out in some terrible, unseen horror. Blood soaked the inside of the microwave, still running, still fresh. His skin was waxy, his hair a mess, his eyes half-open as if he were caught in some dark, purgatorial state between earth and the dark bowels of Hell.

Also, his moustache was coming in quite nicely.

I didn’t vomit, I didn’t faint, I didn’t even scream. I took a deep, thoughtful sigh, and shut the door.

I hadn’t seen that. There was absolutely no way I just saw that. Like the nose between my eyes, my brain was trying to wipe it away, erase it from reality. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening. I had not just found my boss’s disembodied head inside America’s favorite heating appliance.

With a shaking hand, I opened the microwave again, and saw that yes, I had just found my boss’s disembodied head inside America’s favorite heating appliance.

Except now, his eyes weren’t half-open. They were completely open, and they were staring straight at me.

Like a machine manipulated by strings and cogs, Barry’s mouth began to move, and he spoke.

“The gates,” he said, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the voice was not his own, that someone or something else was speaking through him. But why him? Why me? He stuttered, coughing up chunks of what looked like bloody tissue, and continued: “The gates of Hell shall be opened, and the fires of the Inferno will cleanse this world in black, holy night! The waters of Earth will run red with the blood of man, and the gaudy empires of humanity will be overturned! This is the truth and gospel of Vashta, and Vashta is the truth and gospel of everything! Cower, child of mortals! Tremble on thy feet, and know that THIS WORLD WILL BURN!”

For a second, I just stood there. Then I shut the door again.

Behind me, the refrigerator door opened. Chaz stuck his head out, looking around the room like he was trying to locate a bomb. “Is Trish gone?” his voice sounded weak and woozy. “Man, I knew she was pissed, but I had no idea-”

My brain shut down and my instincts took over, and the next thing I knew I was grabbing Chaz by the wrist and pulling him out of the kitchen.

Trish was up front. A family of three – all overweight – were waiting while she rang them up.

“Three Megaburgers brings that up to three dollars, twenty-one cents,” she said.

The father looked confused. “But it says they’re three dollars apiece.” He folded his arms. “You must have punched it in wrong.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said loudly, but calmly. Within seconds, I was turning the knobs and lowering the metal windows. The look on the man’s face was priceless.

“Now hold on a minute!” he was saying as the window slammed shut and we were washed in semi-darkness.

Trish just stared, as if her mind was having trouble computing what I had just done.

“Dante, what the hell did you just do?”

My answer was simple: “We’re closed.”

TO BE CONTINUED