“Morris & McCartneys Building Supply is the best place for all your home and construction needs. Stop by today and we will outmatch any competitor’s pricing. “
I stare at this god-awful sign every single fucking morning at 7:00 am; I walk in with my coffee in hand and a morning bagel, and it never fails. The boring people all lined up inside the aisles of the store, asking the same mundane questions over and over. Where are the air filters at? Do you guys carry 2x4 lumber? What do you mean you don’t have it!? I called yesterday, and you did!
The same questions every day just come from a fresh set of lips. I guess that’s what 12 years of working here will do to you. Or was it 13? No, next week is my anniversary, so 14 years. Still working in this shit hole, still have the same questions.
I’ve been here since high school and hated every day of it. Why do I still work here, you may ask? Simple really, they don’t drug test. Yeah, I could have gone to college and made my folks proud, but hell, I’ve got the rest of my life to grow up. Besides, today is a very special day. Today, the meat wagon pulls up and drops off a fresh set of meat for me to train.
New hires, I so very much hate them. That is what the boys and I have in common with one another, other than medicinal purposes that we shall not go into detail about, but it’s time I put this joint out and go and introduce myself to the fresh meat.
I took one more final toke and sprayed the bathroom with some of that cheap aerosol that smells like burned pine needles to alleviate some of the marijuana that still lingered around, I pushed through the flocks of clueless “Do it yourselves “and contractors to the front of the store to greet my punishment for the next of a couple of weeks, they’re all the same, they stay here for the last months after high school and off they go, then another round comes in for school break, rinse and repeat. I’m quite interested in meeting this fellow, though, from what I heard, he was 34 years old. He’s an underachiever or someone who lost their job or trying to catch up on the back of child support. Either way, they’ll be gone in a few months if I have anything to do with it.
Let me be clear, it may seem like I’m a bully, but, in all actuality, we have a system here and we don’t need anyone fucking up a good thing. The boys and I come and go as we please and we’ve got the owners by the balls. There was a slip-up a few years ago between John Morris and Charles Macartney, without going into tremendous detail about let’s just say I walked in on John in the office one night while doing a trash run, and Charles’s wife and he were doing a little more than catching up on the end of day sales if you catch my drift, anyhow, he agreed to give me and the boys free rein to do what we wanted when we wanted in exchange for us not telling and causing a financial disaster on the company.
I make it to the front, and automatically I don’t like the guy. He’s tall and slim, with light brown hair brushed over to the side. He’s wearing a striped polo shirt with blue and white stripes tucked into some finely pressed khaki pants with some running shoes. One look and I can’t distinguish if he’s going to church or if he just left his IT job. Nerdy fellow. Kate, the fat middle-aged cashier, points him in my direction with that same stupid smile on her face she has every morning. He walks over to me, spaghetti legs and all, and he extends his hand for a handshake.
“Good morning to you. You must be Matthew, my trainer. My goodness, you’ve got one heck of a handshake, their pal. Am I right or am I right? “
I can feel the sweat from his palms exchanging with mine. I pull my hand away, giving him an almost disgusted look. As I wipe them off on my pants, I get a better look at this guy. Something is off. A thousand alarms start going off in my head about this guy, everything about him is almost too perfect, his skin was smooth, almost like plastic, he had green eyes, a perfect nose, and not a single imperfection about him, he looked almost as if the cosmetic companies started manufacturing people. I already hated this guy, but I was stuck with him until they could influence him to quit.
We walked down the dirty concrete floors as I showed him the aisles of which the most common items would be at the customers would ask for.
“Plumbing and fixtures are on this aisle, and over there is where all the electrical components will be at. “I said in my normal irritated voice I would have while doing a tour.
“Everything back here……. HEY! Are you even listening to me? “I said to him in an annoyed tone.
The idiot was walking around in awe like it was his first time in a hardware store, drifting off into whatever unknown space oddity that was his mind.
“Wow! What a fantastic electrical selection you have! “He almost declared with an enthusiastic voice as I had never heard.
“Yeah, um….. Sure. It’s a pretty great selection, but I hate to inform you. “I inched into his ear as I grabbed his should and pulled my way in close.
“We actually discontinued our section for Continuum Trans functions, and we just sold out of the Flux Capacitors, so yeah bro, the Mother ship Zeta is going to be broken down for a while. “I snickered, trying not to lose my morning coffee.
He paused and looked at me for a moment, studying me like I just spoke to him in another language, then another long pause followed by one word as he took his notebook from his pants. “Interesting”, jotting it down.
I stared at him for no longer than maybe a minute, the way that a deer stares at an 18-wheeler before its entrails are all over the road, just as my tongue caught the back of my teeth getting prepared to verbally assault this dick wad again, the boys came from the back of the store, more than likely from the lumberyard, that was one of the better hiding places to go get high at. I grabbed Danny by the shoulders and pulled him with me toward them.
“Danny boy, meet Joshua and Carson. Joshua, Carson, this is my new pussy starting today. “
Joshua walked up to him with his hand held out, ready to shake his. Just as Danny reached out for his hand, Joshua went in for a lowing blow, backhanding him in the crotch. Carson quickly ran up and helped him to his feet.
“Yeah, first days are always a drag, “he said as he walked with him slightly carrying him as we walked into the back of the break room.
“Unfortunately for you, “he continued as we went through the swinging doors leading to the back room.
Grabbing onto his shoulders, he whispered in his ear.
“Your over 18 so….. that makes you a living dumpster for us “As he brought his knee up into his groin administering another blow only Carson hadn’t taken his knee pads off, making the impact that much more brutal.
“If and when you decide to gather yourself, we’ll be in the break room, then we can lay down some terms for what we expect from you, “I cackled as I walked through the break room doors.
He lay there for quite a while. At one moment I thought he had pissed all over himself, then he slowly managed to get up off his feet and stood there for a moment, gathering his surroundings. He dusted himself off and, at the snap of a finger; he produced that same annoying smile that he had as when he stood at the register.
6 months later and this guy is still here. It’s been quite nice. He brings us coffee every day, brings out lunch and at one point he brought in a little cannabis for us. Hell, the guy even smoked with us, but it doesn’t change anything. He’s our punching bag, Carson did a pretty good number on him yesterday, you see Carson has been going through a nasty divorce and the bitch of a soon-to-be ex-wife has been demanding full custody and child support, so it’s only been prolonging the process. We came in on a Saturday, Carson was pretty upset about his card getting declined last night while we were out at the club, he checked his paycheck today since he knew the hours, he’d worked every week and he didn’t have taxes taken out it was always the same, that is until he saw a hefty amount from child support taken out. He beat the hell of Danny out in the lumber yard. It took me and Joshua to pull him off, Danny. Danny just lay there covered in blood and sweat, welts all over his face, broken nose, and both eyes blackened with that same smile on his face.
“Go fuck yourself, Danny, “Carson yelled at him as Danny just kept smiling at him.
______________________________________________________________________________
Danny came in the next day, same time and with the same clothes only on his face. His face looked as if not even so much of a bruise was on it. I’m not an expert in comitology, but I knew that it was impossible to cover the intensive damage that was inflicted on him yesterday. I became a little uncomfortable on the count of I was the only one here and something was starting to seem a little off about this guy, no matter how much punishment we give, how much we abuse him both physically and verbally he just keeps fucking smiling, unphased. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen this “thing “eat or drink anything, even smoking a little weed with us. He still functioned the same.
I got an order at the last minute of the day for a pallet of bricks, the only problem was this was a tight fit for the fork truck, I would have to lift them from the top rack and try to shimmy my way past a beam as I backed out, it was possible just I needed an extra set of eyes for this so to my dismay I needed Danny’s help, out in the yard I pulled the fork truck up to position prepare to raise the forks. Danny took his time and put on his safety glasses and jacket. Afterward, he gave me a thumbs-up.
“Better safe than sorry. That’s always been my motto, sir. My good friend hated wearing safety glasses and after taking a rock to the eye, he didn’t need them anymore, “Danny said in his most upbeat voice.
I rolled my eyes at him and slowly drove onto the pallet. Danny stood off to the side, then ran to the other side, giving me hand motions, looking as if he was flagging down a plane on a landing strip. He gave me the ready as I began to back up, only I didn’t make it far. We don’t get a lot of orders in for bricks, so it’s easy to forget about the rutted-out portion of the concrete floor. I felt the thump as my tire became lodged in. Danny, in the meantime, was trying to guide me out. In my frustration and a little of liquid encouragement, I was able to roll the back just far enough only to pop the switch into forward, with a quick thud I made it over the rut and slammed the brakes on to keep from hitting the racks since I had built up some momentum only I forgot to take one thing into factor about the situation. I still had my forks up and in my inebriated state had the forks tilted too low. As soon as I hit the brakes, the pallet slid from the forks.
“DANNY! GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY! “I screamed as he looked up and saw a mixture of broken pallets and bricks about to rain down upon him. He looked at me still with that same smile on his face his the entire load dropped onto him.
It was a bloodbath, to say the least. Blood and gore seeped from under the brick and it only got worse when the Fire Department and paramedics arrived. As they moved the bricks, pieces of bloody bone fragments and entrails became unearthed. Slowly they moved every gore-covered brick off of him until they got to his corpse. He lay there twisted and maimed, every bone broken, flesh eviscerated off the bone. It was a horrible scene to witness. Danny Boy was nothing more than a pile of flesh. We closed down for the rest of the day; I took the entire week off and saw a therapist, got on some nerve pills and some sleeping pills just so I didn’t have to close my eyes and see that face in the pile of flesh that was once his body still smiling. I made my way back to work the following week, walking in with my coffee in hand. The cashiers all looked a little unsettled, Mr. Morris and Mr. Macartney standing together at the corner of the door having what appeared to be an intense conversation, and everyone just paused and grew silent.
For a moment I thought everyone was staring at me, you know that stare when someone knows you’ve done something terrible but they’re just too afraid to say anything then Kate just turned a shade of white that I didn’t even know existed as she pointed behind me. I turned and as I made my way around, the sight that I saw sent shivers up my spine, followed by the urge to find the nearest trash can to vomit in only I couldn’t. I stood there, frozen in terror.
There was Danny at the time clock punching in at precisely 7:00 am as he always had, not a scratch nor a broken limb upon him. At that point, I was playing out every single scenario in my head, trying to distinguish how someone or anyone could pull off a stunt like that, but with every scenario, I came to the same conclusion. I watched him die; I saw his body. Even the owners were there to witness the horrendous sight.
It’s been a few months since the incident happened now. Everyone is just sifting through the motions at this point. The police and the local morgue think we’re all insane and part of a sick joke. He had an obituary in the paper that listed all of his next kin and siblings. There was a burial, and everything was in order, but we couldn’t figure out who this guy was. It looked like Danny, only at the same time, it wasn’t Danny.
Kate had pulled some strings to get his new hire documents from the office and got us the only address he had on file. The boys and I went to the address where he supposedly lived with his grandmother as she was the only one listed as an emergency contact, but apparently, she died 10 years ago.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We had been playing this out very carefully. We didn’t need Danny to become suspicious of us trying to figure out who he was. A few days later, Danny had the store by himself. The perfect opportunity to investigate the house. The county condemned the house from the address on file. We’ve searched it the best we could, but there’s nothing in there other than black mold and asbestos. Just as we gathered our things, something caught my eye. A photo of Danny sitting in an old fireplace. The photo was time-stamped with “1962 “. Things at this point became even odder. He looked the same age as he did almost 50 years ago.
The following Monday, I went to the Library and started researching newspapers from 1962, after many hours went by I had about given up when something caught my eye, an obituary that read:
“Daniel Jonathan Morris, 32, of Minersville, passed away on Thursday, November 24, 1962.
Danny was born in Minersville to the late Robert E. and Clara Louise Morris Bowman. He was the founder of Morris Building Supply. He loved planting and growing flowers and taking care of his dogs.
His grandmother, Mandy Erb Morris, and son, Jonathan Morris, survived Danny
A Celebration of Danny’s life will follow at 5 p.m. on Saturday, at the North Chapel of Minersville Funeral Home “
Further research led to McCartney becoming a partner with Danny due to the company’s finances slowly dwindling and Danny shot himself due to McCartney buying into the company. Carson called me that night, it was around 3:45 am, and he said there was an accident at work. Joshua had come in for a moment to retrieve something from the break room when Danny asked him for help to move a load of steel piping from the warehouse Danny claimed he was slightly afraid of the lift truck when Joshua went to help guide him, the forks tilted downwards causing the pipes to impale Joshua. He was dead on arrival.
The next day, I clocked in with a piping cup of coffee in my hand, as usual, making sure to play it off as normally as possible. Carson was smoking a cigarette in the backroom, nervous, with bloodshot eyes from sleep deprivation.
“Where is Danny? “I asked, Carson, pointed out to the lumber yard. We quietly snuck into the lumberyard and observed Danny casually walking around, taking notes of inventory.
He stopped writing and began to look around, nose in the air almost to sniffing then he jolted his head towards us. That familiar smile appeared on his face once more as he began walking towards us.
“Prowlers looking to uncover something I suppose? “he said as his smile slowly seemed to vanish off his face, we were about to charge him when we heard Mr. Morris’s voice from beyond the other side of the room. Walking through the vast open room, his shirt half tucked in and his hair a mess, infuriated he began to have what seemed like a heated argument with Danny. I was having trouble understanding what was being said as the voices echoed throughout the room, something about that was part of the deal. Danny’s eyes went from the peaceful shade of green to what resembled two burning lumps of coal in his eye sockets, as he picked up a hammer and struck the claw into the back of Mr. Morris’s head, blood squirted from the wound in what resembled a fountain as Mr. Morris fell to his knees. Danny pulled the hammer out and stared at him for a moment before Mr. Morris uttered out his final words.
“Go fuck yourself, Danny! “Danny drove the hammer into his head once more, then again and again….and again, until there was nothing left but piles of flesh and brain matter. Danny set his eyes on us once more but not before we rushed him.
Carson had slight memories of his football days as he drove his shoulder into Danny tackling him to the ground, I rushed in and grabbed his arms as he let out a wailing scream, our eardrums on the verge of bursting we threw him on the table for the table saw, he thrashed out widely gnawing at his arms like a wild animal trying to chew its limbs off to escape. Danny took his jacket off and tied it around the crazed Danny’s hands afterward he strapped the rest of Danny with pallet straps. He gave me a nod and I turned the saw on. I grabbed the makeshift restraints and pulled him closer to the saw as Carson pushed, soon enough the saw met his head, and a black liquid excreted from his head as the saw made contact then blood and brain matter began to cover both Carson and me. Guts and bile began to cake the saw blade as at this point we had made it to his stomach, we were almost through.
Just then Mr. McCartney walked in with a look of horror on his face.
“What is everything holy have you guys done? “he said as he looked at Morris’s body and the terrible act we were committing.
Just then, us being distracted, what was left of Danny broke his arms restraints and grabbed Carson as the saw blade pulled them both in. I tried to shut the blade off, but I was too slow, Carson went in at an angle, the blade cutting through his cheekbone and up through his skull. I was showered in more body fluids only this time from Carson as Danny got his legs free and rose from the table. He struggled to keep balance as he staggered to McCartney grabbing him by the shoulders. I grabbed a reisolating saw and ran at Danny like some madman from a horror movie, in my infuriated state I didn’t consider Mr. McCartney as I began to cut him and Danny with the saw, A few moments later, I was done. Both lay there looking like crudely butchered animals, Mr. McCartney’s eyeball squished under my boot as I walked out of the store.
There was a peaceful quietness in the store as I made my way to the door, covered in blood and organ fragments I didn’t even know the name of customers stopping what they were doing to gaze upon me, I walked past Kate and tipped my hat at her soon after she passed out. The owner was dead, I knew for sure Danny was dead. I had only one stop left, Mr. Morris’s house. I didn’t have to worry about anything, he wasn’t married, had no children so I kicked in his door, and everything begin to make sense. In his living room, on the floor was a pentacle drawn out with candles still partially lit, and on the end, the table was a notebook. I read through it and Mr. Morris’s hatred of Mr. McCartney only grew as he got older, blaming him for his father’s suicide and he had been practicing Satanism for quite a while, to the point he sold his soul for the resurrection of his Father. Soon after the police made their way to his house and arrested me, and I plead guilty to 3 counts of homicide.
I still don’t know if I believe it or not, hell, I was there and I still don’t believe it, until the guard told me I had visitors, I look up from my prison cell, and there they are, Mr. Morris and Danny, Danny still with that stupid smile on his face. I looked at them both and smiled and said four little words.
“Go fuck yourself, Danny. “