by Scott Colby
“You can thank me for pulling that grizzly bear off of you last night. You can also thank me for giving you the opportunity to save your own life.”
Kevin turned back to the grill to flip Bob Peterson’s scrambled eggs. He knew Driff was right, but he needed someone immediate at whom to direct his anger. He figured the elf could take it.
“What happened to Billy?”
“Ren got him out before things got too hot.”
“Luckily for Billy, Ren’s an old pro at escaping fights,” Kevin said with a smirk.
“I’d say it’s everyone else in the fight who was lucky,” Driff corrected him. “I bet Billy’s great to have on your side in a brawl, even if he’s only got one good move. I’ll take two over easy, by the way, with a side of sausage and wheat toast.”
“Coming right up.”
Driff continued rambling as Kevin bent down to remove the appropriate items from the refrigerator under the counter. “Oh, by the way, Ren wanted me to let you know he’s going to be out of town for the rest of the week. Pressing family business in Minnesota. I’m house sitting.”
Kevin froze and cursed under his breath. Ren’s departure couldn’t have come at a worse time. It ostensibly left Kevin alone to deal with both Billy and Driff without backup. His mind reeled as he considered his options—but then he realized he didn’t have any. Oscar and Doorknob were loyal friends, but they possessed about three brain cells between them. Waltman and Jim Jimeson were devious sons of bitches who would surely play along until they saw an opportunity to screw Kevin over for their own enjoyment. Involving Nella would be too dangerous for both of them. His mother had become a wild card. Mr. Gregson, his only other link to the world Driff and Billy inhabited, hated his guts. For Kevin Felton, there was no one in Harksburg as capable and trustworthy as Ren Roberts.
“I take it Mr. and Mrs. Roberts didn’t appreciate their son’s attendance at last evening’s festivities,” Kevin said.
The elf’s response was surprisingly hesitant. “I’m not sure. It seemed like there was more to it than that. Ed and Ellen were both a little nervous about the trip, and Ren looked like a man being led to the gallows.”
Standing slowly, Kevin locked eyes with Driff. He wanted the truth. “And you had nothing to do with this? You aren’t trying to separate us, are you?”
Driff raised his hands in mock surrender. “You got me. I realized that I am no match for a pair of small-town washouts.”
“I’m not a washout. I’ve got two jobs right now.” Kevin paused. “You think this is about those things you know about Ren that I don’t?”
Driff pushed his spectacles up onto his nose and frowned. “If it is, then you and I had better get ready to pull ourselves out of a giant pile of shit.”
Returning to the grill without acknowledging Driff’s warning, Kevin focused on flipping the sizzling pile of hash browns awaiting his attention. He almost wished the elf had showed up simply to admonish him for the debacle in the back of the Burg; the fact that the seemingly unflappable Driff had come because he was nervous and needed an ally was somehow more disconcerting than any possible overt threat.
— CHAPTER SIXTEEN —
Monday morning, Kevin found Doorknob waiting for breakfast in the dining room. Oscar’s sidekick blanched and fled the house, tumbling ass over teakettle down the front steps.
“Good riddance,” Abelia mumbled as she trundled into the dining room and dropped a heaping plate of blueberry crepes on the table. She took a long drag from her cigarette and ashed it in Doorknob’s abandoned coffee cup. “All that one wanted to talk about was race cars.”
“That’s kind of his thing.”
The crepes, of course, were delicious, but unfortunately Fran Kesky’s insistent honking put an end to any thought Kevin had of a second helping. The Harksburg Bar and Grill needed its new fry cook, even on a Monday. Shitty brunch waited for no man.
Fran greeted Kevin with a beaming grin and a dramatic wink. “There’s my favorite new employee! Ready to sling some hash and make some cash?”
“Sure thing,” Kevin replied as he climbed into the vehicle, forcing a smile. It was too early and he was too annoyed with his mother’s newfound promiscuity to match Fran’s gregarious attitude. He hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with this crap every morning.
Kevin let Fran’s yammering flow in one ear and out the other as the big man drove. His thoughts drifted to Ren and the Roberts family’s supposed “urgent business” in Minnesota. He couldn’t remember the last time Ren had traveled more than an hour two from Harksburg, strange, given that the affluent family could easily afford to venture anywhere on the planet. Ren’s father, Ed, often traveled far and wide on business, but Kevin couldn’t recall Ren and Ellen ever having been involved in any of those trips. He quickly checked his phone to see if his best friend had responded to any of the text messages he’d sent the night before, but Ren remained incommunicado.
The more he thought about it, the more Ren’s departure concerned him. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and it felt like it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. What did Ren’s parents know of the situation with Billy? Was it something Kevin didn’t know or didn’t properly understand? And what of Driff’s appearance two days before? The elf certainly wasn’t the type to blow a potential threat out of proportion—unless, of course, he wanted Kevin to be nervous and out of sorts for some reason of his own.
All of which made Kevin miss Ren even more. Despite the danger of discovery, maybe it was time for a conversation with Nella. She, at least, was a part of the strange new world into which Kevin had been thrown. She might have some insight, even though she lived in a lagoon in the middle of nowhere. It was too bad that Mr. Gregson had turned out to be such an asshole.
“Hey,” Fran Kesky tapped Kevin on the knee, pulling him back to reality. “You ever get a look at your mother’s recipe book?”
“My mother’s…what?”
Fran shrugged as he took the next corner. “They say she’s the best cook in town. You got any of her secrets?”
Kevin frowned. Was that why Fran had given him this job? “She keeps it all in her head.” That was a lie: Abelia’s recipes were written down on index cards and stored in a little plastic box in the cabinet above the refrigerator. The last thing he needed was to be dispatched on a mission to steal the top secret formula to his mother’s famous potatoes au gratin.
It was Fran’s turn to grimace. “Ah, well. Maybe her culinary mastery is genetic! Want to try whipping up some fruitcake today?”
“Uh…I’m not really feeling up to fruitcake yet,” Kevin stammered. This entire fucking town is out to fucking get me, he thought.
“Well, maybe tomorrow,” Fran replied before launching into a rant about the rising price of the various bottles of cheap liquor the town drunks typically preferred. Kevin blocked him out once again and considered his options for getting in touch with Nella. Quickly concluding that a trip into the Works would be the only way to get the water nymph’s attention, he lost himself in the passing scenery and blissfully thought of nothing as the world whipped past.
Fran parked the Caddy behind the Burg. “I smell a busy day!” the big man bellowed triumphantly as the two of them exited the vehicle. It was well-known that the Burg was basically a ghost town during the week, frequented only occasionally by groups of oldsters who missed out on Saturday or Sunday brunch and starving delivery drivers who couldn’t bear the thought of driving another fifteen minutes to reach Mac’s Pizza in Norton center. Kevin had been looking forward to a lovely day of reading the paper and occasionally wiping down the counter, especially given how hard he’d worked the previous two days. He really hoped Fran’s interest in Mrs. Felton’s cooking wouldn’t ruin it.
“Hanging out here today?” Kevin asked.
Fran nodded. “Not that I don’t think you can handle it, of course. No one died or called the health department this weekend, so you passed with flying colors.” Kevin neglected to mention th
at the lack of breakfast-related deaths possibly had less to do with his skills on the grill and more to do with a certain magic local’s dereliction of duty. “Waltman and Jimeson are on their way to clean up the back. They work better under a little bit of supervision.”
Which, Kevin knew, was just a polite way of saying “If I don’t watch those little shits, they’ll walk off the job with several hundred dollars worth of liquor.”
“You’ll have a little more prep work to do today,” Fran explained as they crossed the deserted street. “Nothing’s chopped or mixed ahead of time like on the weekend. Tough to tell how many people we’ll have on a day like today, and I’d rather nothing go to waste. Got your potato peeling shoes on?”
“Had ’em polished special for the occasion.”
“Attaboy,” Fran said with a dramatic wink, unlocking the Burg’s back door without even looking at the knob.
After working together with Fran to move a sack of potatoes and a few other supplies up from the basement and into the cabinets under the front counter, Kevin was left on his own to tend to the grill while the restaurant’s owner busied himself in the back room. Once Fran was gone, Kevin immediately whipped out his phone to text Ren about the Burg’s basement. He’d never imagined the place having one, nor had he ever heard of anyone else in town mentioning it. His mind raced at the possible things that might be hidden in down there, from the bodies of Fran’s enemies to a few redheaded stepchildren the Burg’s owner didn’t want seeing the light of day. Maybe a slightly less serious message would catch Ren’s attention. Kevin’s pleas for contact and an explanation certainly hadn’t gotten the job done.
Text sent, Kevin put on his white apron and turned to the pile of potatoes he’d lined up beside the little plastic cutting board in his prep area opposite the warming grill. He’d always assumed that the Burg’s food came in giant freezer bags, already pre-made. It was too terrible to be fresh; real meats and vegetables couldn’t possibly be transformed into the radioactive slop old Buck used to sling. The thought gave Kevin a jolt of confidence as he picked up the peeler with one hand and hefted his first victim with his other. At the very least, nothing he did behind that counter could possibly be as bad as the status quo.
“Remember: ten potatoes for every onion!” Fran called out from the back room, his booming voice easily penetrating the cheap, thin wall separating the Burg’s two halves. “Unless your mother would do it differently!”
“Got it!” Kevin bellowed in reply. “My mother would add in a lot of love, but I’ve got to hide all mine so no one knows I like the blue girl,” he mumbled under his breath.
All was peaceful in the Harksburg Bar and Grill. Kevin quickly lost track of time as the repetitive motions of peeling and the rhythmic bass line of chopping lulled him into a state of semi-consciousness not all that different from that which had once gotten him through ten-hour days trapped in a cubicle. The thought would’ve sent him into an introspective tailspin had he been awake enough to acknowledge it.
Maybe an hour later, the telltale roar of a diesel engine snapped Kevin back to reality. He looked up from his cutting board just in time to see a familiar maroon van fishtail into the parking lot across the street. The vehicle arced around the lot once and settled into a crooked position that took up two of the parking spots closest to the road.
“Son of a bitch,” Kevin muttered under his breath.
That maroon van belonged to Mr. Gregson, the Feltons’ crotchety old neighbor. Kevin had never actually seen that particular vehicle on the road before; as far as he knew, it had spent the last twenty-seven years in Mr. Gregson’s driveway, neglected except for its monthly washing. No one in town understood why a man who’d lost his legs had held on to that crappy vehicle. Some posited that it had sentimental value, that the man couldn’t part with his car because it reminded him of a better time in his life. Most thought Mr. Gregson kept it simply because he was fucking nuts.
Staring intently through the Burg’s front window at the ominous van, Kevin found himself hoping someone had finally stolen Mr. Gregson’s precious vehicle. The alternative was too disconcerting to comprehend. Had the pixie come to the Burg, risking discovery by anyone who might recognize his van and start asking questions as to how, exactly, a man with no legs could operate something that relied so heavily on the use of one’s lower extremities, simply to further screw with Kevin Felton? The glare on the van’s windshield made it impossible to determine who was behind the wheel. Kevin found his heart beating in his throat.
The side door slid open with a harsh squeal audible even in the Burg. Mr. Gregson rolled his wheelchair out into the air, allowed it to hover for a second, then gently lowered himself to the ground. As he took a heavy puff on the cigar dangling between his bulbous lips, the door slid shut once again behind him.
Kevin flinched at the sound, his knuckles white around the handle of the knife in his right hand. “Fran!” he bellowed. Maybe Mr. Gregson would leave him alone if there was a witness around.
“What?” Fran’s voice cracked as if he were straining himself. Kevin leaned his ear close to the back wall to listen. He swore he could somehow hear the big man sweating, but he had no clue what his boss was busy with.
Mr. Gregson, meanwhile, had scooted across the street and was making a beeline for the front door, leaving a wispy trail of gray cigar smoke wafting behind him. The town zoning board had forced Kesky to add a handicapped ramp to the side of his building, but Mr. Gregson apparently wasn’t going to have any of that. What difficulty were stairs to a creature with telekinetic powers?
“Fran!”
“I’m busy! I’ll be with you in a minute or two!”
The front door swung open on its own, violently ringing the bell attached above the frame. Mr. Gregson levitated up over the two steps and came to a silent, gentle landing on the Burg’s linoleum floor. A triumphant sneer twisted his lips around the cigar, daring Kevin to make some sort of comment. He rolled toward the counter, letting the door slam shut behind him.
A deep, contented sigh echoed from the back room, followed by the soft roar of a flushing toilet. Kevin shook his head and rolled his eyes. He hoped Nella really had found her way out of the Burg’s septic system and into the swamp.
Mr. Gregson forced his way between a pair of stools at the center of the counter. The big man and his chair fit, but just barely. Cigar ash littered his bristly black beard.
“Good morning, sir,” Kevin said timidly. “I’m sorry, but you can’t smoke that in here.”
The window in the booth directly behind Mr. Gregson fell open. The old man took a quick puff on his cigar as if to say “How ‘bout now?”
“Fine. Good enough,” Kevin said as he grabbed a menu and slid it across the counter to his only customer. “Coffee?”
Mr. Gregson nodded.
“Cream and sugar?”
Another nod.
“Coming right up.”
Mr. Gregson picked up the menu and held it close to his face, examining it through his beady little eyes. As Kevin turned toward the warming coffee pot, he wondered what a pixie would want for breakfast. How much could such a small creature eat? How exactly did that disguise work? Was it a simple illusion like Nella’s, or was Mr. Gregson some sort of magically powered shell?
“Are there any…um…allergy concerns I should know about?” Kevin asked.
Mr. Gregson responded with a glare that would’ve stripped the paint off the side of a barn. Kevin shrugged and examined the mugs from the shelf above the coffee pot. He didn’t particularly want to deal with whatever his psychotic neighbor was up to, but the last thing he needed on his hands at this point was a severely ill pixie with an axe to grind against the hapless fry cook who’d inadvertently poisoned him with a borderline lethal dose of paprika.
Having selected the Burg’s cleanest, whitest mug, Kevin turned to the coffee machine. The original carafe had shattered years ago and Fran had replaced it with a new one that barely squeaked in under the
spigot. Taking firm hold of the coffee pot’s plastic handle, Kevin gave it a sharp tug. It didn’t budge. He tried turning it across the hot plate to see if he could pull it out at a different angle, but it wouldn’t move no matter how hard he pushed or pulled the plastic handle. Exasperated, Kevin took a step back to examine the devilish device; it had been just fine the day before, even if it had been a little difficult to get it into or out of its spot atop the hot plate.
From the other side of the counter, Mr. Gregson snickered.
Fucking magic. “Do you want your coffee or not?” Kevin pleaded. On the next pull, the carafe finally came free of the machine.
Scowling, Kevin poured Mr. Gregson’s coffee and wondered what the hell was keeping Fran. He needed backup, damn it, even if that backup wasn’t going to believe a word he said about the dangers of the Burg’s only customer. If he could somehow trick Mr. Gregson into revealing his mysterious abilities in front of his boss, surely Fran would kick the pixie out for being weird.
Coffee poured, Kevin delivered the steaming mug and a tiny basket of sugar, fake sugar, and tiny cream cups of indeterminate freshness to Mr. Gregson. The pixie eyed both items warily as if one of the two contained cyanide and he was required to eat one as part of some psychotic test.
“Can I get you something to eat?” Kevin asked.
“Eggs,” Mr. Gregson grunted.
“And how would you like your eggs?”
“Over easy.”
“Just eggs?”
“No.”
“What else, then?”
“What else ya got?”
“It’s all on the menu.”
“Bacon.”
“Toast?”
“Wheat.”
“Butter or jam?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Strawberry jam.” Mr. Gregson blew out a thick puff of cigar smoke that briefly twisted itself into the shape of a strawberry, complete with leaves and a stem. The breeze wafting in from the open window quickly rent it asunder, turning the pixie’s little work of art into just another wispy gray strand of noxious particles.