by Andrew Post
Nodding, Zilch takes a step back so that the heels of his shoes are set on the edge of the grave. Reaching into his inside pocket, he withdraws the employee delivery module, clicks it and snaps forward a long needle, then jams it into his chest. He looks up at Galavance and cocks an eyebrow. “How do I look?”
“Like a chef who just had the worst shift of his life.”
Zilch is laughing at this, really belly-laughing—even as a loud buzzing begins to emanate from somewhere deep in his body, louder than the cicadas around them. He rolls his head back, still laughing. The device sticking out of his chest lights up, green. A wave ripples over him, from the soles of his feet up to his head, leaving behind the dull gray color of death. When it reaches Zilch’s laughing face, the only trace of his fun-loving guffaw Galavance hears is an echo.
A white line connecting his tumbling ashes to the sky arches high above, its progress marked by a winking green light—the needle device as it’s sucked back up wherever he was sent from. The standing Zilch-shaped statue of ash crumbles in a whoosh, the more solid parts falling down into the grave, filling in the low spots, bones clacking as they tumble, and the borrowed carbon all going back to approximately from where it had been raised.
Galavance blinks, and the grave suddenly looks untouched, the grass over the slight mound in the earth not missing a single green blade, like the whole thing had never happened. She straightens the bouquet someone had left before the grave marker—flowers not meant for Saelig Zilch, but ones she feels he deserves all the same.
“Let him see her, okay?” she says to the sky. “It’d do the goofy bastard some good. That’s just my two cents.”
Passing through the cemetery’s gate and squeaking it shut behind her, Galavance sees Jolby is in the front seat of her car now, half-asleep. He stirs when she pulls the door closed and starts the engine. He looks around.
“Where’d that dude go?”
“Dropped him off.”
“At a cemetery?”
“Yes, Jolby.”
He slides down in the seat more, thumbing back the harness strap from under his double chin. He closes his eyes. “What do you think, babe? Head home, talk about this, maybe over some breakfast? It’s been a while since you made your world-famous pancakes for me.”
“Get out,” Galavance says.
“Huh?”
“Get out of my car.”
“Well,” Jolby scoffs, “technically it’s my car, but …”
“No, all of this shit is yours. This and this and this and this,” she begins ripping off every chintzy addition he Krazy Glued to the interior of her car, the mirror in the shape of a supine lady and the chromed vent-covers and the hanging disco ball mirror ornament—and shoves the whole chintzy heap at him. “But the car is mine. I’ve made 90 percent of the goddamn payments on it.”
“You’re seriously going to break up with me? I was drunk. Every single time, Gal, I was just drunk. I wasn’t me. It was like when I had that thing in me—and thank you for helping me with that—but instead of some worm-thing it was beer and I—”
“Shut up.” Galavance looks into his face. He looks puzzled, as if all of this is some massive surprise, a trick, a prank maybe. She leans across the emergency brake and takes his soft, whiskered cheeks in her palms.
“What’re you doing?”
“Let me see something,” she says and closes her eyes and kisses Jolby. She breaks the vacuum between their lips with a pop and says, “What do you know—you’re still a frog.”
“Huh?”
“Jolby, please take your shit and get out of my car,” she says. “I’m going to be happy, even if it fucking kills me.”
Zilch wakes standing. He’s in a chef’s jacket, checkered pants, and clogs. He has a knife in his hand, and on the cutting board before him is a half-diced onion. The air is heavy with steam, and all around him are others in similar garb, no one paying him a second glance. He doesn’t recognize anybody else in the kitchen. Waiters shove through, nab plates waiting for pickup, and move back out. For a lack of any better ideas, Zilch decides to blend in for the time being—try to remember when he was hired here, or even the name of this restaurant. Chopping up the rest of the onion is pleasantly mindless, the motion of his hand second nature, as rapid as it is effortless. He doesn’t even need to watch what he’s doing, so he scans around through the shelves ahead of him, peeking through at these other cooks he doesn’t know the name of, not a single one.
A waiter pushes through, turns sideways to slip behind Zilch, and deposits a dirty plate in the sink full of suds. Zilch thinks he’s gone, but then the man is suddenly right alongside him, watching him chop like it’s his first day and he’s never seen anyone do this before. Someone has a radio up loud down at the other end of the kitchen, and over the classic rock the waiter leans in close to Zilch’s ear and whispers, “It’s me.”
Zilch looks at the young waiter, who cracks a big smile. “And who would that be?”
“That hurts my emotion-part, Saelig.”
“Oh. Eliphas Dungaree.” Zilch sets the knife down, many memories resurfacing, nearly overwhelming him. The kitchen around them continues to bustle—people calling out for order up, cooks requesting certain spices, some singing along to the radio. Zilch had been so caught up in the moment that he’d been worried he was going to get yelled at a second ago for not helping. But this isn’t real. Of course it isn’t real.
Zilch faces Eliphas and crosses his arms. “You look happy.”
“You helped me win the bet,” Eliphas says. “I thought I’d repay the effort, but I didn’t think xabfarbs would be of any interest to you—that currency isn’t used on Earth yet.”
“Do I get to be done?” Zilch says. “Because anything other than that, frankly, I don’t think I’d be real interested.”
“You wouldn’t be interested in speaking to one of our diners? She says the meal you prepared is worthy of some accolades. She’d like to give them in person, if you can find the time to go speak with her.”
“Don’t fuck with me, man,” Zilch says. “Not with that.”
“No fuckings-with intended,” Eliphas says. “Table five, whenever you’re ready.”
“If I go out there and the room’s on fire or there’s a big sign that says ‘sucker’ on it, I’m gonna come back here and teach you how to swallow swords using this,” he says, waggling the ten-inch knife under Eliphas’s nose.
“Go and see,” Eliphas says, his smile refusing to break. “I doubt you’ll be disappointed. Setting this up took some finagling, but I wanted to thank you.”
Zilch hesitates before stepping out into the dining room. When someone yells, “Order up!” he flinches, stepping away from his station in the line and pushing through the swinging door. The air is colder out here. The windows stand tall around the large, low-lit dining room. The walls are painted in a filigree of gold over red, and each table has a votive candle burning, under-lighting the faces of smiling diners.
Zilch notices the little number set to the edge of each table. He passes tables two and three, turning a corner to see table four standing empty, and then there’s table five. A woman is seated alone, her back to him. Her dark hair hangs about her strapless dress. She has an untouched glass of red wine in front of her and an empty plate set to one side with a fork crossing it. Zilch can hear his pulse in his ears. His eyes feel hot. He remembers not only her name, but everything about her. But trying to say her name, much less anything else, hitches in his throat.
He takes a step forward.
“Sick, Sick, Sick” – Queens of the Stone Age
“Outside Chance” – Heavy Trash
“Head over Heels” – The Go-Go’s
“Black Mold” – The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
“The Future Strikes Back” – Restavrant
“The Wind Cries Mary” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
“O’ Be Joyful” – Shovels & Rope
“Supernaturally” – Nick Cave
& The Bad Seeds
“Pills I Took” – Hank III
“Shake Your Hips” – The Legendary Shack Shakers
“I’m Alive” – John Oszajca
“Vacation” – The Go-Go’s
“There She Goes, My Beautiful World” – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
“Black Betty” – Spiderbait
“She Said” – The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
“Flirtin’ with Disaster” – Molly Hatchet
“Bumble Bee” – Heavy Trash
“Bad Moon” – Restavrant
Thank you, Cory Allyn, and the Skyhorse Publishing team.
Andrew Post spent the countless study halls of his formative years filling notebooks with science fiction and horror stories. Now he is the author of, among others, the sci-fi thriller Knuckleduster and the YA fantasy series The Fabrick Weavers. Andrew lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with his wife, who is also an author, and their two dogs.