I could tell just by looking at her, she was going to be a problem. While her overly processed hair and aggressively pink fingernails were warning signs, it was the ever present frown lines that sunk into her face like tectonic plates that confirmed my suspicion. I didn’t want to call her “Karen” but what else could I? She was a middle aged woman with what I assumed to be a surgically implanted stick up her ass and I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on her.
She swayed her hips dramatically as she sauntered to the customer service desk.I quickly let out a breath and gave my best ‘I don’t get paid enough for this shit’ smile. She stood in front of me slightly out of breath as she crossed her arms in front of a sagging bosom and several tacky necklaces no doubt purchased from an old high school classmate who has been suckered into a pyramid scheme. She looked at my name tag then back to me before sinking into one hip and starring. She chomped down hard on her gum as she continued her impression of a death glare.
“How can I-“
Before I even had a chance to finish my question she slammed down a jar of tomato sauce. I took a quick glance at the jar, it was a regular jar of our store brand sauce.
Mighty Mountain Pizza and Pasta Sauce: Now with Less Sodium!
She continued to glare at me as if I was an idiot for not immediately understanding the issue. “What is this?” She finally asked practically hissing.
“Pasta sauce?” I guessed. I mean I could read.
“Good, so you’re not as much of an idiot as that stock boy you have.”
I bit my tongue to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. Who the hell still uses the term stock boy?
“Was Michael unable to assist you in finding something today ma’am?” I asked making sure to use his name. “I apologize if he wasn’t able to properly assist you. I would be more than happy to find another associate for you.” I continued.
She let out a shrill little giggle before shoving the jar closer to me. “Michael couldn’t tell his left hand from his pecker, so, no he wasn’t helpful.”
Fuck me.
I bit my tongue once more, almost drawing blood before asking calmly “Ma’am is there something I or someone else can help you with?”
She flailed her arms wildly around the store as if she needed to play it up for a live studio audience. “This is ridiculous, the issue is obvious! Is everyone in this store stupid? Seriously, do I talk too fast or are you just slow?” She was shouting now, the few strangling customers that had come in for their before close cigarettes or baby formula quickly made their purchases and scuttled out the door.
Take me with you.
“Ma’am I’d love to assist you but I need some more information.” Finally, the woman took what I could only assume to be the type of calming breath her yoga instructor or court ordered therapist advised she take when she started to really get angry.
“My husband is a very important man, understand? He is very important.” I nodded, still failing to see the major issue.
“I, as his wife, have a job to do and that is to make sure he looks good. His ties are pressed, his shoes are polished, and when the distract manager is in town we host a dinner party.” I kept nodding wondering if my eyes had started to glaze over.
Do you have any friends? Hobbies? Or does all your self worth come from your very important husband? Guarantee he’s boning the secretary.
“How am I supposed to make my world famous lasagna with store brand sauce? Where is my Little Italy brand? I cannot be expected to cook with this food stamp trash!”
There it was, her whole tiny world had come crumbling down over a jar of sauce. The tiles beneath my feet shifted slightly, it was waking up. The decision had been made, and I couldn’t say I was disappointed in this one.
I continued to nod politely as I made eye contact with Michael who had been slowly making his way towards the customer service desk since the woman had started yelling. I blinked three times before pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose with my ring finger. He nodded and began to do a quick lap around the store. As he passed her, Nicki also nodded and silently flipped our ‘Welcome to Mighty Mountain: Climb on Up!’ sign over to ‘Take the climb another day. Thanks for coming!’ below in hand written letters spelled ‘CLOSED’. The flowery language did get lost on some people.
Lastly, I watched as Val joined Nicki and slipped the key into the lock, locking the one and only exit, at least the ones customers could see. The tiles shifted again, we needed to speed this show up.The woman was still rambling on and on. She hurled a few less than politically correct comments at me while I continued to smile and nod and raise my eyebrow to convey I totally understood her annoyance. I glanced at my team behind her as they stood shoulder to shoulder waiting for the signal. That’s when I saw her. The new girl. I had totally forgotten about her. Her name was Britney or Bethany or something with a B. She hadn’t seen the ritual, she didn’t understand.
Well fuck me, things are about to get interesting.
Normally we would have had time to break her in, to explain. No time like the present! I kept calm as I watched Nikki whisper to Michael and I saw his eyes grow big as he realized that we may be totally screwed. The tiles shifted more, it wouldn’t wait much longer.
I waited for the woman to pause her rant before quickly asking “Ma’am would you like to speak with the manager?” The woman paused slightly as if startled by a solution to her problem.
“I-uh- I yes I want to speak with the manager but based on everyone else here I’m sure he is barely functioning too.”
“You wound me.” I muttered under my breath. I indicated for the woman to follow me and as I led her to the back room the rest of the team followed behind. I snuck a glance at Barbra who was following along but clearly confused. I opened the door to the back room and clicked on the single light bulb. The creaky staircase came into view and I watched as the woman grimaced.
“We’re under construction.” I assured her. She hesitated but started the descent down the stairs. When we hit the last step she seemed to realize something was amiss. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Most people put two and two together after the creaky basement door swung open.
“Is this some sort of prank?” She asked, hands firmly planted on her hips. “You said I could speak with the manager, and then you take me to this dungeon? What is it you people do down here? Drugs? Orgies? Well I’ll let you know that my cousin’s husband is the sheriff in Whittaker county and he would love-“ before she could finish it was there.
The glowing orange furnace that may have been the mouth but possibly an eye widened as the basement began to shake. The woman screamed as she came face to face with it. It’s massive amorphous body began filling in the available space before almost somersaulting over the woman and enveloping her into its ever moving folds. She screamed but it was quickly muffled by the soft squelching of the thing’s body. We all stared as it began to digest her. She screamed and clawed from the inside and I held her gaze through the translucent yellow flesh. I like to think there is a moment before the thing erases them where they realize this all could have been avoided if only they had thought to treat their fellow man with respect. I’d like to think that but usually their final moments are filled with complete confusion as the burning yellow ooze melts their face.
That’s when Barbie started screaming.
“Get her.” I said cooly as Val and Nicki scrambled to restrain her. She was screaming for help but the two women held her firmly between them.
“Can you stop screaming for just a second?” I tried to ask calmly. New Girl didn’t listen and tried to kick out her legs like she was a toddler throwing a tantrum.
“Shut up or you’re next!” I yelled over the sounds of her wailing. She quieted but kept intermittently thrashing trying to catch Val and Nicki on an off beat and escape.
“I’m sure you have questions.” I said trying to sound empathetic.
“Questions? What the fuck is that thing?” she cried out. I turned and glanced at it. It was slowly sinking back to its usual size which fluctuated between a small dog and a horse. I frowned at her.
“Please show some respect. It’s name is Gerald.”
“Fucking what?” She screamed again “You named it?” I nodded.
“Well, it felt weird to not name it. Besides, what would you have called it? The unidentifiable sentient ooze that lives in the basement? Don’t be ridiculous.” Brooke looked at me with something almost like understanding before she started again to convulse against the other two holding her.
“If you would just relax for a second, we would explain.”
“You just fed that woman to that- that thing!”
“Again, it’s name is Gerald.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you call it! You fed a living human being to that thing! Oh my God, is this a cult? Is this a sex cult?”
“What’s the criteria for a sex cult?” Michael smirked. Michael was gross.
“It’s not a cult. We’re not a cult.” I clarified. “We are just normal people like you who work a shitty retail job. The only difference between us and the K-Mart up the road is Gerald.”
“How did it get here? How long has it been here?” Brenda was asking questions rapidly but she was at least asking the right kinds of questions.
“We don’t know. I mean we all kind of assume it’s been here forever.” I answered plainly. At one point in time I had wanted to know everything about Gerald but it had become one of those things that just is. The sky is blue, grass is green and Gerald lives in the basement of Mighty Mountain Grocery.
“Does Joey know about this?”
Joey was our almost non-existent store manager. He was a Christ-like figure to us here, never seen and only evoked in name when the trials and tribulations of everyday work here got to be too much.
“Yes, he does. But he doesn’t know anything more than we do. It’s just one of those things.”
“It-Gerald, it just ate that woman? Where does her body go? Won’t the cops come looking for her? There are security cameras- they’ll see you guys taking her into the basement. They’ll know you’re involved.”
“Correction,” Val interjected, “They would have seen all of us go into the basement. You chose to follow.”
I could see the horrifying realization dawn on Bridget’s face. I waited a beat, letting her scare herself into a daze before divulging the best bit of information.
“The police won’t come looking. In fact no one will. We call it the 50 First Dates Clause.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Have you not seen 50 First Dates? Adam Sandler and oh- what’s her name? The little kid in E.T.?” Nikki interjected.
“Drew Berrymore!” Michael called out as he picked up the scattered remnants of clothing and purse left behind after the feeding. Gerald didn’t like the clothes sometimes.
“Thank you! Yeah, Drew Berrymore. They have this whole thing where she has memory loss and-”
“And,” I interrupted, “What it means for us here is that once Gerald takes somebody, no one remembers them. No one ever reports them missing, they never show up on security footage. Even their car disappears from the lot.”
“Which is a bummer because my brother knows a dude who runs a chop shop and they pay big bucks for catalytic converters.” Michael said n as he riffled through the woman’s purse.
“So once they get eaten- it’s like they never existed in the first place.” Brynn said slowly putting the pieces together. “But what if someday Gerald gets tired of waiting for you guys to trick someone into coming down here? What’s stopping him from going AWOL and eating the whole city? The whole country?”
I paused, looking at Gerald who was happily oozing in the back corner. I think it was asleep.
“Honestly? No clue. I think it’s a respect thing. Maybe it likes having its food brought to it. Maybe after all these years of people feeding it, it lost the ability to go out and hunt in the wild. Maybe it’s a baby and doesn’t know how. What I’m saying is this thing just is. You can’t keep asking questions because there are no answers. Once you accept Gerald for what it is it all becomes easier to live with.”
“But that’s the thing-” New Girl said “How do you live with the fact that you just killed a woman? Just because no one remembers her doesn’t mean she didn’t matter. A life is still a life.”
I rolled my eyes, “Look I’m not trying to get into an ethical debate here, but let me ask you one question. You work in retail before?”
“No.”
“There it is.” Val smirked. “You haven’t dealt with the Karens yet. Give it time, Hell, by tomorrow you’ll come to love Gerald.”
I nodded in agreement, “Besides if it takes the sting out of it for you, we don’t pick. Gerald does.”
“How the hell does it do that?”
“I think it understands English. Or maybe it can hear the tone of our voices. All we know is that when someone shows up to the customer service desk and starts bitching us out for no reason, Gerald gives the tiles a little push - lets us know it’s hungry.”
The group circled around her, the moment of truth was coming. She was either going to understand and get with the program or freak out. Granted there wasn’t much choice, the options were join the club or be eaten by our mascot. Maybe that’s where the fear came from, there was no choice really, not if you wanted to live.
“Look, New Girl, we-” I started
“I have a name. It’s Caroline. We literally have the same name.” she said indignantly. Val snorted as Michael and Nikki both let out slow sighs.
“That is so embarrassing.” Nikki whispered.
“Caroline, look. I know what you just saw was a lot. I know what I just told you is insane and the first time I was brought down here I didn’t believe it either. But the truth is this is a small, small, way of the universe saying ‘You know what? I got your back.’.
Every single day people come into this store and they don’t even bother to make eye contact. They don’t smile, they don’t say please or thank you. Half the time they look at you like you are sub-human. People think these types of jobs are beneath them, that the people who work them are not worth a second glance. They complain when we can’t do what they ask, they complain when we do. We can’t win. Have you ever had a forty-year-old woman tell you to kill yourself over a Capri-Sun? This is the type of shit you are going to have to deal with.
You are going to be cussed out, spit on, groped, have punches thrown and you just have to sit there and take it because the customer is always right. If you fight back you’re in the wrong so better just smile through it. And you do this day after day because you get paid nothing and don’t have enough time off or savings to take the chance to look for something else. So you sit behind that counter and wonder what you did to deserve the verbal tirade you get unleashed upon you because the store decided to stop selling a shitty brand of pasta sauce.
But you know what, Caroline? I can handle it, I can handle all of it and not because I know I’m the better person and not because I go out of my way to be nice to other customer service people and it’s not even because I sometimes key cars in the parking lot on my lunch break. No, what makes it worthwhile is that every once in a while I get to see a bitch get eaten by some kind of interdimensional goo monster.” I paused for dramatic effect.
“So, you in?”