by Nina Post
“They’re displaying yogurt right there,” Willa gestured to the concession stand. “We should just –”
“Remember the mailers?” Eric’s body was in fight-or-flight mode. Willa herself was lactose intolerant, but she could take a pill, and if anyone in her class ate one of the yogurts, that would be very bad. On top of that, Willa would probably blame him, then take Taffy to southeast Asia. Then she would change their identities, so he wouldn’t even be able to travel who knows how many miles to search desperately for his wife and daughter, who no longer loved him or even liked him just a little bit or even recognized him anymore; then he would contract a viral hemorrhagic fever from bats in the python cave he would have to take shelter in because he wouldn’t be able to afford even a hostel; then finally, die alone, buried in an unmarked grave in the jungle where he would quickly decompose, already forgotten.
Willa paused. Her voice rivaled the stadium’s new centrifugal chiller with its Freon content. “Those mailers?”
“Yes, those mailers.” Eric was conscious of how weird he must have looked to Willa’s students. “The people who sent those mailers are the same people who promote,” he pointed to the stand and two confused employees, “that yogurt.” That would be enough. Willa held grudges. Those photos of Taffy at school had scared her more than anything.
She walked over and picked up one of the yogurts. “They’re not marked. Is the contest over?”
Eric nodded, eyes wide.
“When do you know?”
“Soon.” Eric also picked up a yogurt. He noticed Rex in his peripheral vision and tried to unobtrusively gesture for him to come over, which he disguised as a scratch. Willa’s class must have thought he had a fungus when he had to gesture again for Rex to hurry the hell up already.
“You need me to control your lady for you?” Rex said, smirking.
Eric held up the yogurt and suddenly felt like he was in one of those bizarre one-act plays he saw in college. “You’re right. These lids aren’t marked anymore.” He shifted his eyes to Rex then back to Willa.
Rex picked up a third yogurt, then touched a fourth. “That’s because these aren’t imbued with commerce spirits. The only thing they’re imbued with is probiotics.” He chuckled weakly at himself.
“Oh,” Eric rubbed his chin, unsure.
“What?” Willa raised her hands.
“Nothing.”
“Well, we have to go.” She took a few steps away back to her students. “Who can tell me what the stadium did with the refrigerant detection system?”
One of the students raised his hand. “It was upgraded to meet ASHRAE 15 requirements.”
“Good. We’ll learn more about that in a few minutes.” She put her hand up in a goodbye to Eric and led her class down the hall, low heels clicking, knee-length skirt swishing around her slender legs, her shoulders back. Ed would be so proud of her, he thought. “Isn’t she magnificent?” Eric said, mostly to himself, then turned to Rex. “This isn’t the place. That Cynosure sonofabitch knew I would come here, and had these yogurts delivered on purpose.”
Eric ran through the delivery door, swerving around pallet jacks and carts, out to the bus. “Where’s Josh? Dammit.” He ran back to the delivery trucks and flagged down a Nidus driver in one of the incredibly loud reefer trucks.
“You a lumper?” the driver asked.
“Wow, you guys really have a thing about lumpers, don’t you?” Eric looked up at the driver’s window. “No, I’m trying to follow the delivery of some yogurt. I think it’s bad.”
Rex barked a laugh. “Understatement.”
“Hold on a minute, now.” The driver held up a hand. “I think we’ve got some more drop-offs to do.” He moved his finger on the trackpad. “Looks like a few of us are heading to 332 Aululate Street, Jamesville. Two trucks already left a while ago. The freight,” he checked the bill of lading, “is twenty thousand units of Quantal Organic snack boxes, each of which contains Quantal Organic Yogurt, Organic Fruit Lemurs, Organic Jalapeno Chips, and Organic Cheese Wedges.”
Eric went cold. “That’s Taffy’s school. He was screwing with us. That’s where he’s sending the infected ones, to Taffy’s school.”
“Whoa, the infected ones?” The driver shut his laptop and put on his sunglasses.
But Eric was already gone.
“Rex, where’s Josh?” Eric felt the familiar sensation of burgeoning panic, like he was in one of those dreams he kept having where he desperately needed to get somewhere and couldn’t, which was actually the case.
“Your forklift friend?” Rex examined his fingernails. “Don’t know.”
Eric went back into the stadium and saw Josh, who had his back to him.
“Josh, we’re going,” Eric said, relief flooding into him. When Josh turned, Eric saw he was eating one of the Quantal Organic Yogurts. At Eric’s expression, Josh’s eyes widened. “What? Is my fly down again?” He looked down and put a hand to his zipper.
Eric took the yogurt and threw it in a large trash bin with a near-fastball throw.
“Hey, I wasn’t done with it yet!” Josh said.
“You haven’t really been paying attention, have you?”
Josh shrugged. “What? It has beneficial bacteria. You know, probiotics.”
Eric wondered if he should try to induce vomiting in Josh. He would just have to keep an eye on him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I can’t get there in time,” Eric told Rex from outside his bus, where Josh was resting. “Even if I had a McLaren F1, I couldn’t get there before the delivery trucks do.”
Rex looked idly around, then up at the drifting clouds.
“What?” Eric stopped pacing.
Rex squinted.
“What!”
Rex did a little shrug with his hand and tilted his head toward a lifted shoulder. “If getting there fast – really fast – is what you want … I can, you know, do that.”
Eric took in a long breath. “And you would have to …”
“Possess you again.”
Eric took a few steps away then laced his hands over his head. Rex possessing him again was the only way Eric could get to Taffy in time. She could eat one of those snack boxes and take in one of those commerce spirits. What if it were one like Rex, one that wouldn’t leave? He couldn’t let that happen. He would rather die than let that happen to Taffy. But what if he let Rex re-possess him and he wouldn’t leave? Wouldn’t Rex prefer inhabiting an actual body, instead of being tethered to the general area of one?
He didn’t have a choice.
“Okay.” Eric turned back. Rex started forward.
“Wait!” Eric tried to be quick while using a scrap of his legal training. “Ground rules: First, you can’t stay longer than it takes to get to Taffy. Second, if Taffy is safe, and I define ‘safe’ to mean no longer in danger from ingesting a spirit, commerce or otherwise, then you must vacate the premises, i.e. me. Third, don’t do anything that will piss me off later. Sign here and wait for my final OK.” Eric took a pen from his pocket and gave it to Rex, gesturing toward his arm.
Rex signed Eric’s arm, then pointedly looked at his watch.
“Why do you even wear a watch?” Eric asked.
“Time’s a wastin’.”
Eric got a deja-vu kind of sensation. He didn’t make a decision that first time – he was just a hapless, distracted, thirsty guy who took a free sample of POUNCE! and got possessed by a powerful spirit for eighteen months for his trouble. But he had a decision to make now, and he suspected he should go ahead and make it before he had a panic attack.
“Go ahead.” Eric shook out his arms and cracked his neck to the side in preparation.
“What? Really?” Rex acted like he was surprised Eric was actually going to go through with it.
“I know I’m strong enough to kick you out if I have to. And I –” Eric took a deep breath.
Rex circled his hand in a speed-up motion.
“I trust you.”
“Just get it over with.” Eric glanced at his watch then closed his eyes. He opened one eye in a squint. “Oh, and watch Josh. He ate some Quantal just now.” He closed his eyes again. “Ask him if he’s up to driving the bus over to Taffy’s school.”
“Anything else?” Rex said. “Plant watering, dog feeding? Maybe picking up your mail?”
Eric circled his hand in a hurry-up gesture, and Rex did it like he was ripping off a bandage, without further preamble. Eric felt a wave of apprehension, and then it was like everything was moving in slow motion. He separated from his body, but watching his body from outside of it seemed to take a long time. Was this how it felt in September 2000? He felt incredible pressure, like he had expanded to the size of one of those car dealership promotional gorilla balloons, and then he was compressed back inside his body. His breath was knocked out of him, and, just as when he thought he would die from suffocation and from getting pressed into some kind of fruit strip, he was standing in Taffy’s school and holding Taffy up in the air like he did when she was smaller.
“Can you put me down now?” He heard her say, as though from very far away. She couldn’t be talking to him. He was insubstantial.
“What?” He managed to say. His head felt gigantic, like a fish bowl stuffed with building insulation.
“Put me down,” Taffy repeated with her special calm impatience.
Eric finally realized that he was holding up his daughter, and could, in fact, control his limbs. He put her down as slowly as possible, slowly leaned over, and put his hands on his knees. He took in a deep breath, and another, sucking in oxygen until he felt lightheaded. He leaned against the wall and got the basics of his situation. Rex wasn’t possessing him, nor did he seem to be around. They were in a hallway with lockers, classroom doors, water fountains, hand-drawn banners promoting club competitions and book fairs. Barely a minute had elapsed since Eric was standing at the bus. And his head was pounding.
“Taffy, do you have any aspirin in your locker?” This was a rhetorical question that actually meant, ‘Can I have one of the aspirins you keep in your locker?’ Taffy’s school locker was one of THE places to go for first aid supplies, including things only specialty medical clinics kept on hand, and for things like water purification tablets and field rations.
Taffy’s school locker was also one of the sites on Eric’s family emergency plan, which he supposed was slated for replacement. Mark’s Formerly-Snackerge-now-Bollworm Family Emergency Plan would consist of grabbing the files Mark could use to blackmail and/or sabotage people, stopping by his city apartment to frantically grab the grooming products he bought in Europe, and filling up his luxury sedan with so much stuff – high-end vacuum, Aeron chair, super-expensive blender, golf bag – that nobody but the driver could fit inside. “Makes the Snackerge plan look pretty damn good, doesn’t it?” Eric muttered.
“What’d you say, Dad?”
“Nothing. Just, nice job with the locker.”
“Thanks.” Taffy’s face brightened. “I got some new assault rations. They’re lighter and smaller and you only need water for the beverage mix. Want to try?”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“No problem. I’ll get an aspirin.” Taffy went to open her locker.
Eric ran down the hall to look out the clear double doors at the end. Two delivery trucks were pulling up into the side lot – and an Aston Martin slid in after them.
The Nidus drivers did their own unloading at Taffy’s school. They jumped out in their work-safe shoes and their safety vests, dropped the plank from the trucks, then pulled out the pallet jacks. In the hallway, the bell rang and students clamored out the doors then streamed through the hall. Eric moved next to the door with Taffy and watched DZ get out of his car.
Eric leaned down and held Taffy’s shoulders. “Taffy, the yogurt these guys are bringing into the school is infected.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning. “With what?”
“Spirits.”
“Liquor?”
“No, ghosts.”
“Dad.”
“I swear. Remember those customers in the Quality Market?”
“The crazy ones who were going after the contest like you?”
“Those people were crazy because they tried the yogurt and ingested a spirit. The company that embedded the spirits thought it would just make people really want the product –”
“That’s a clever idea,” Taffy said to herself under her breath, as though it were something she’d like to try.
“No, it’s a terrible idea,” Eric said, “because the spirits were a lot worse than that – they were more like … parasitical poltergeists.”
“Why, poor cold chain management?”
“Uh, no,” Eric said. “They were just more dangerous than people thought.”
“But you ate so much yogurt. Why didn’t you get infected?” Taffy narrowed her eyes. “Or did you!”
“I didn’t,” Eric said as his cell phone rang. “Because I was possessed once,” he waved that off, “long story – and found out that I can’t get possessed again, at least not by the type of spirit that’s in the yogurt.” He looked at the number. It didn’t look familiar. “Apparently I was possessed for so long that it made me completely immune,” he told Taffy then answered the phone.
“Hello? Yes, this is Eric Snackerge. I what? I what? Could you say that again? Okay, one more time? All right. Thank you.”
Eric pocketed the phone. Taffy raised her eyebrows in a questioning look. “Dad?” She waved her hand in front of his face. “Hellooo.”
“I won.” He looked off into the distance. He was pleased, but thought he would have more … emotion. Be more excited. “I won the Amass-and-Win.”
“The yogurt contest?”
Eric nodded, a little dazed. “Yeah, that one.” Finally, it hit him: the actual reason he had pursued the contest in the first place. He kneeled, sat on his left calf, and rested an elbow on his right knee. “You can go wherever you want now. You can do a research trip!”
“Is that why you did this?” Taffy said. “So I could go on a research trip?”
He took her hand. Crouching, he was only a little shorter than his daughter. “It’s a three week trip with a stipend big enough to bring all the lab gear you could want. I want you to be able to do things like that. I don’t want to …” he looked at the floor. “Hold you back.” He looked back up at her.
“I applied for a Young Scientist Fellowship through school.” She smiled at him. “I’m sure I’ll get it.”
“Oh,” Eric said.
“But that’s pretty much the most awesome thing you’ve ever done,” she added, and stretched her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said into his shoulder, and he was elated and completely content and mournful that the moment was so brief and would soon be in the past. After a moment, she pulled away. “I can probably do both trips,” she said with a quirk of a smile. “And you were possessed? Holy shit!”
“Language.”
Taffy dug in her pocket and took out a money clip stuffed with cash.
“Holy shit!” Eric said.
Taffy peeled off a dollar, held it up, then put it in another pocket. “So close, Dad.”
“You’re not selling –”
“Drugs? Uh, no. Custom-flavored candy.”
“Good, then maybe you can pay for college. Listen, I need you to run to the cafeteria and do whatever you can to stop kids from eating the yogurt in the snack boxes. Keep one of the boxes and bring it back to me.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“Rounding up the teachers, the other employees –”
Taffy snorted in derision.
“Still not getting along with Miss Farman?” Eric raised an eyebrow.
“Let me put it this way. If she’s hungry, she won’t go for the yogurt – she’ll scrape off bacteria from her legs using the bristles in her mouth.”
“I see.” Eric nodded, letting a hint of a smile escape. He glanced at DZ, who was wearing his aviators and hanging back, watching the spectacle. Why, to make a point? Eric kissed Taffy on her head, which smelled like citrus, then watched her jog down the hall while he stayed by the double doors.
The amount of freight remaining in several trucks told Eric that this would not be the only school to get the snack boxes. It just happened to be the first one. And that was definitely a point that DZ was making: it told Eric that DZ started here, and not a school in the city where he worked, because it was Taffy’s school. Eric closed his eyes. He wanted to win this contest so Taffy could go wherever she wanted to do research, but because he did, he wound up getting commerce spirit poltergeists deployed to her school.
“Way to go,” he muttered.
Then he realized that he was the world’s worst father for letting Taffy go to the cafeteria by herself.
The cafeteria was a hundred times worse than an animatronic pizza restaurant for children fifteen minutes after the birthday cake and fruit punch was devoured. Eric couldn’t tell if this was normal or a dire emergency that fell under the purview of the CDC. But some of the kids had snack boxes or pieces of them in their hands as they scrambled over the chairs and tables like speed-addled monkeys. He looked for Taffy’s blonde hair and those fluorescent orange plastic balls.
“REX!” He said in a near-yell over the din.
Rex didn’t show up. Maybe he was still driving. Eric pictured a copy looking at the bus, which would look like no one was driving it. Pushing this thought away, he jumped into the melee, which was so much more hyper and fervent than the older infected customers at the stores. One of the teachers, or so Eric presumed from his brown plaid blazer, snapped at him, capillaries red in the whites of his eyes, his voice a hoarse rasp. He hit Eric in the face with the empty yogurt container until Eric steered him into a different direction.
“TAFFY!”
Eric picked up a red chair and held it in front of him as he waded through the kids, cafeteria staff, and teachers. He thought he heard something, and followed the sound until he saw Taffy. She was examining a snack box under a table in the farthest corner from the cafeteria line, where the staff had handed out the snack boxes, judging from the pile of torn-apart cardboard.