by D. M. Guay
Cult Leader poisons self, 13 others, in Motel Tragedy
Plain City resident Homer Wiley was found dead along with thirteen others in a conference room at the Sleep Rite Motel on rural route 37 last night. Police said in a statement the victims appeared to have died from poisoning, but they are awaiting the official coroner's report. A police source, who spoke anonymously because he is not authorized to comment, said they believe the poison was consumed orally and was hidden in the sherbet punch.
All the dead had met via an online internet chat room dedicated to recruiting new cult members. Wiley was the self-proclaimed leader of the Angels of Divine Eventuality cult, who said those who timed their death with the peak of the Leonid meteor shower would be absolved of earthly troubles, and their spirits would travel on the tail of the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which passes by the earth once every 33 years, to a new Eden in the Alpha Centauri solar system. Wiley, in the forum, claimed “New Eden is populated by large-breasted nymphomaniacs and had free, all-you-can-eat taco trucks on every corner.”
Sadly, eighty-seven-year-old Phyllis Dinkle was also found dead at the scene. She was not a member of the online cult. Relatives say she was a long-time church volunteer who had mistaken the cult gathering for a church committee meeting on restocking the local food bank. That meeting was being held in the conference room across the hall. Dinkle appears to have consumed the punch, unaware that it was poisoned.
NASA officials, when asked about the cult, seemed confused, saying the peak of the Leonid meteor shower was at least a month away and the Tempel-Tuttle comet wouldn't pass by the earth until 2031. They encouraged other burgeoning cult leaders to check the accuracy of their calculations before following through on such extreme plans.
Most of the victims were single men over thirty who either lived alone in squalor or with their aging parents. The men were all college dropouts who appeared to have few meaningful relationships or social connections. None had steady employment. Wiley's aging mother said he had more than fifty thousand dollars in outstanding student loan debt and late-payment fees from his failed attempt at an associate's degree. She said he never recovered after his fiance dumped him at age twenty one, and that she wished he'd cleaned his room before passing.
Gulp. Oh, my God. Faust called it, and the big picture hit me like three thousand boulders smack on the top of my head. I could be this dude someday if I didn't turn my life around. I was on the fast-track to forty-year-old Internet cult killer who'd disappointed his Mom so many times she didn't even seem sad that he'd died, only that he'd left unfinished chores. I vowed right then and there that I would pay off my debt ASAP and turn my life around with a capital A.
Mr. Stabby came to release me from my IV soon after. He shuffled me off to a gum-smacking lady cashier with an epic yellow beehive and powder-blue cat-eye glasses. She sat in a tiny cube surrounded by caged, bullet-proof glass. The thing was like a bunker. I couldn't tell if they were trying to keep me out or her in. Anyway, I had decided to use the fifty bucks cash to pay down the late cable bill that had gone to collections. Take that, Homer. I'm getting my life together. I'm not gonna be you!
My dreams were dashed when the cashier said, “We don't pay cash, chubs,” and handed me a prepaid Visa along with a slip of paper outlining the three zillion fees I'd have to pay to use it. My heart sank. A prepaid card? I needed money. Actual money. Not some stupid gift card!
I stumbled outside, light-headed from the gallon of juice they'd sucked out of me, and checked my receipt again, trying to figure out if there was a way to get cash off the card when I noticed something. It hit me like a combat boot straight to the nuts. They'd only paid me forty bucks, not fifty, because I was too fat to qualify for top tier rates. The lady had written “Drop fifteen and we'll pay you fifty next time, Chubs.” She'd drawn a tiny cartoon pig next to it and had written “Oink! Oink!” right there on the receipt.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed and ripped apart the pig, paper shreds raining down over me like the world's saddest ticker-tape parade. I sucked so bad I couldn't even sell blood the right way! Plasma didn't pay. Nothing paid. Except for the 24/7 Demon Mart. That paid. And, if I didn't get paid, I might kill a bunch of Internet losers then end up trapped inside a social-climbing bitch like Caroline Ford Vanderbilt. Hell couldn't possibly be worse than that.
Chapter 10
So I went back to work at the 24/7 Demon Mart. Stupid? Probably. Fatal? Hopefully not. But what choice did I have?
None of the places where I'd applied had called me back yet. Not a single one. Zip. Zilch. Zero. And, I was beyond forty job applications by this point. I needed money. Plus, Mom was happy. Dude. Do you know the magic of a happy Mom? She'd scrubbed and organized my bedroom and washed and folded every last bit of laundry for me while I was getting my blood sucked and spun by Mr. Stabby. Happy Mom equaled easy street.
But the last straw was the collection agency. They'd called twice today. On the landline. I deleted the messages before my parents heard them and prayed the jerks wouldn't call back. Mom also casually let it drop that Simone had texted her asking if I had the money I owed her. So. Humiliating. The debt noose was tightening around my neck, so I had no choice but to revert to my original plan: Work at 24/7 Demon Mart until another job came along or I paid off my debts, whichever came first. And, try to save my soul while I was at it. I was not gonna be the next Homer Wiley. No. Way.
So here I was, cowering behind the counter, reminding myself that every hour was another sixty-six bucks, pretending to be all casual, but nearly jumping out of my socks in terror every time I heard a noise, every time someone stepped into the store, and especially every time someone (or were they some things?) came out of the beer cave. And there had been a steady stream of them tonight.
I tried to ignore them, but couldn't. I examined each and every one, hair to shoes. The weird part? They looked like totally normal people. No tentacles. No snakes. No red skin, cloven hoofs, or horns. But I knew they weren't people. At least, not human people.
The giant black book behind the counter had taught me that much. I'd been flipping through it to kill time. The book was hand-drawn, super-duper old, with elaborate text and illustrations, like the kind medieval monks would spend years copying way back in the Dark Ages. Most of the illustrations were of creatures that looked human, but on closer inspection had something odd about them, like big pointy ears, wings, claws, pointy razor teeth, feathered bird legs, blue skin or four arms. Their names were written in embellished cursive across the top of the page, and there were instructions? Well, something, written in weird old languages next to each creature. DeeDee had told me to flip through this book, but it wasn't making me feel better about working here.
After a particularly boring section on magical properties of minerals and crystals (Seriously, spare me hippies!), was an illustration of nightmare creatures. A thing with a thousand eyes and a dozen octopus arms: Drauger, the feeder. A big scary spider with a double set of fangs: Neophilus, the clearer. I hated spiders. Just looking at the picture gave me chills. There was an icy blue centipede with two rows of claw-tipped arms running down its belly. Bubura, the opener. And, a guy with green barbed tentacles and a single yellow eye. Bizosoth, the herald.
That guy. He was real, which meant these other guys must be, too. Woah boy. They looked like something straight outta that crap Call of Cthulhu game I got out of the clearance bin at GameStop last summer, all extra eyeballs and slime. There was some sort of green compass underneath them. They stood, one at each cardinal direction, facing a red circle containing a big-mouthed fish guy with fangs: Lagopex, the devourer.
Suddenly, a swirling lime green vortex opened right by my shoe. “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!”
Yeah. Of course, I went full toddler, screaming loudly and nearly pooping my pants. So would you! By instinct, I lifted my foot to squash whatever came out.
“Sorry I'm late.” Kevin emerged from the swirl and looked up at me. “Wait. Were you actually
gonna step on me? Don't even think about it, punk. I'll come back as a T-Rex and eat your dumb ass. Don't think I won't.”
Kevin scuttled across the floor, shaking his head. A crimson red hand, big, five times as long and wide as mine, with long black nails, followed Kevin out of the vortex.
“Nooooooooo!” I screamed again and stomped on the hand. Again. Then a couple more times. But the hand didn't go back in. “Kevin. Help!”
He looked back and sighed heavily. “That's just my asshole roommate looking for a handout. That douche needs to get off the sofa and find his own job. Give him a slushy, or he'll never leave.”
“A slushy?”
“You aren't the only one getting fat on free drinks around here,” Kevin said. “Get him a Colossal Limbo Lemon Lime, or he'll bother us all night.”
I lifted my foot off the clawed red hand, which was out of the vortex, all the way up to the elbow, and flipping me the bird.
“Well, I can't carry a drink that big, so get moving, noob!” Kevin snapped his leg bristles at me.
“Fine.” I rounded the counter and made the darned slushy.
Jerk. You'd think a cockroach would make more effort to be likable, so you wouldn't want to kill him. But no. Kevin was a total dick. He deserved to be on the bottom of someone's shoe. A few minutes later, I stepped behind the counter and sat the slushy on the floor close to the red hand, which was now impatiently tapping its black demon nails against the linoleum. “Uh, here's your slushy, dude,” I yelled at the hand. (No way I was gonna touch it or hand it to him directly. Nope.)
The red hand shot me a thumbs up, grabbed the Limbo Lemon Lime Colossal Super Slurp, then the hand and drink went back into the vortex. It closed and totally disappeared. Phew.
“Are you the new boy, dear?” A short, plump white-haired lady stood at the register. That wouldn't have been weird except it was after midnight, which meant we'd reached the time when most normal people pulled into the lot, then pulled right back out because their guts, rightly so, told them to run. My guess was it was pawnshop dude's Go Away charm.
I was scared to death of her. She had to be some awful creature, even though she looked like a sweet Midwest Great Grandma, the kind of lady who should be knitting at the retirement home or in bed by nine p.m. She had that short, white permed hair helmet old ladies have, and she wore a royal blue sweatshirt with embroidered kittens playing with a ball of yarn on the front.
I waited for her to unzip her grandma suit to reveal a horrific beast within. She just kept on smiling and said, “You look like a sweet young man. I'm Henrietta Getley. I own the store around the corner.”
Henrietta pulled a red cardboard box out of her flower-print quilted purse. “Jesus Saves Discount Religious Supplies” was written in white block letters across the top. “Here's your order. I'm sorry it took so long, dear, but these are special, straight from Rome. Go on. Open it up and make sure it's all there.”
I did. The box contained two rows of little white plastic bottles with silver crosses printed on each one. “Holy water. Two dozen two-ounce bottles, blessed by the big man himself.” She winked and mouthed “The Pope.”
“I heard about what you did, dear,” she said. “Very brave. Sending that awful man where he belonged and saving that woman.”
She grabbed my hands and held them in both of hers. Her hands felt like dry, toasted English muffins made of bone. “Very brave, dear.”
Suddenly, she squeezed super tight, like she had the grip strength of Dwayne Johnson. The sweet smile melted off her face. She began to quake, head to toe. Her eyes went wide and round like quarters. My intestines knotted up. She seemed to be looking through my skin into my soul.
Welp. Here we go. Raging hell beast pending. I tried to pull away, but she had me in a death grip. This old lady was Hulk strong.
“The answers you seek are right in front of you,” she said in a tranced-out monotone. “Be watchful. Desperate love will breach the gate. In darkness, three rocks might save you, but true defeat will be sweet.”
And just like that, her eyes went back to normal, and she let go of my hand. “Oh, my.” She pulled an embroidered handkerchief out of her purse and patted up the tiny beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead. “Did I have one of my little episodes?”
“Um...Are you all right?” I played it calm, even though my heart was in my throat. Episode? Sure, if she meant going full-on Zoltar machine.
“Oof. Pardon me.” She said it like she was excusing herself after a burp. “I'm getting old, dear. Eighty-two last Thursday. My mind isn't what it used to be. Now, let me see here. Oh, yes. I have something for you. It arrived today.”
“For me?”
She pulled one of those black Magic 8-Ball toys out of her purse and handed it to me.
“Wow, thanks!” I was legit excited. I hadn't had one since I was eleven. (It died in a tragic game of “let's see how hard you have to throw it off Big Dan's roof to break it.”) What a weird, sweet old lady, with a purse full of awesome kids' toys. She was definitely somebody's meemaw.
“Oops. How could I forget? I believe this belongs to you, too.” Henrietta slid a red leather-bound book out of her purse. Geesh. Was that bag bottomless? Wait. No way. It was my employee manual. The one I'd dumped in the garbage can in my room, and ergo Mom had put on the curb on garbage collection day. How did she get that?
“Have a good night, dear.” She waddled out the door, and cut across the lot toward the Monster Burger, completely unfazed by the pitch-black shadows undulating around her and the glowing red neon sign pointing straight to hell.
I heard a watery rattle. The Magic 8-Ball was nearly vibrating off the counter. I caught it right before it dropped off the edge. I shook it by instinct, without really thinking of a question. Okay, yeah, I knew that wasn't how it worked, but everybody knew the darned things were bogus anyway. I flipped it. The white triangle floated up out of red liquid. Wait. Wasn't it usually blue?
It said “A. I'm not bogus. B. I can't answer if you don't have a question. C. Why are you dressed like that?”
What the hell? Magic 8-Balls didn't talk like this. I shook it again. The triangle emerged.
“Seriously. We covered this. No question, no answer. Got it?”
Fine. I'll play along. Am I gonna burn in hell?
“Probably.”
So I'm damned because of this stupid job.
“That's a statement, not a question. Clearly, you're an idiot who has not yet mastered the English language, so I'll let this one slide. No. You aren't damned, not yet.”
Wait. So you're saying I will be soon?
“Only if you royally fuck up.”
Wait, what?
“You heard of those things called Commandments? Follow 5, 6, 8, and 21 through 25 for sure, and you'll be fine.”
Uh, I was pretty sure there were only ten commandments.
The triangle turned. “Oh, really? You're an expert now?”
Prove it. Where's the list?
“You haven't read the employee manual yet, have you?” It said. “How are you still alive?”
Good question.
“I know.”
Who are you?
“I'm your guardian angel.”
Are you kidding me?
“Sadly, no. I've been assigned to help you through your (failing) transition to adulthood. From the looks of you, we'll be together for a long time. Seriously, where do you even buy a shirt that ugly? We're gonna have to go shopping if I'm gonna be seen in public with you.”
This had to be a joke. What kind of angel hung out in a Magic 8-Ball? The triangle turned.
“The kind who doesn't like to commute, okay? I work from home. I'm not sitting in traffic for you, dude.”
The red liquid bubbled and churned, and the triangle turned itself, landing flat. Again. “Okay. Let's get this shit show moving. Like Henrietta said, the answers you seek are right in front of you.”
Huh? It bubbled and turned again. This time, there wer
e no words, only an arrow pointing away from me.
I looked up. DeeDee stood on the other side of the counter, her glitter blue fingernails tap tapped on the glass counter that housed the lottery tickets. She was beautiful, in a strategically scissored Sisters of Mercy T-shirt. I could tell she'd re-dyed her hair because the blue was extra deep. She'd added a hint of silver glitter to her eyes tonight. “What are you doing?” she asked. “What's that?”
She pointed at the eight ball.
It vibrated in my hand. The triangle read “DON'T tell her about me. I'm your guardian angel, not hers. I'm not getting paid enough to work two people at once.”
“Oh, uh, it's nothing. A toy.” I nervously smiled and held it behind my back.
“Did Henrietta give you that?” One of DeeDee's meticulously tweezed eyebrows shot up.
“Um yeah, why?”
“A toy, huh?” she smirked. “Yeah, right. Tell yourself whatever you need to to get through the day. Anyway, you remember that note I wrote about your stupid T-shirts? These clothes are worse. Even Mormons have more style than you.”
Okay. So yeah. I'd gone full church camp counselor with the wardrobe. Remember the save my soul part of the plan? I'd unearthed my one pair of respectable khaki pants. It'd been a while since I'd worn them, and they were a size (all right, two sizes) too small and squinched my middle so tight I had a man muffin top. Not a good look, but you had to make some sacrifices to avoid hellfire. And the only polo shirt I could find was a foamy sherbet orange color. Pastor Woodruff and the VBS people were always talking about how righteous they were and how much God loved them, and they all dressed like this. For all I knew, this was heaven's dress code.
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “So, why are you dressed like that? It doesn't seem very...you.”
“I... I'm trying to be a good person.”
“So what exactly do you think it means to be a good person?”