by Rob Hart
Something slammed into her back, throwing her forward. She went down in a heap, her forehead scraping hard against the floor. She rolled over and found Cedar standing over her, holding the butcher’s knife, his fist clenched around it.
At this distance it didn’t even need to be sharp.
He was smiling. It was a smile she’d seen twice and never wanted to see again.
“You heard the man about no…”
Before he could finish she brought her foot up and nailed him in the balls. He staggered a bit, then folded into himself, dropping to his knees.
Then she stood and swung the pan at the hand holding the knife. The knife fell to the floor and she swung the pan again, catching him on the chin. As he was falling back, she jetted out of the room, the Butcher’s voice coming from everywhere and nowhere: “A half hour remaining. Better get a move-on. And it looks like Chef Cedar learned a hard lesson—don’t mess with Chef Nova.”
There was enough light in the hallway now she didn’t need the flashlight, so she ran for the staircase, checking the pan to make sure she hadn’t dented it on Cedar’s face. She swiped her hand across her forehead, the scrape burning, her palm covered with blood. She wiped it on her chef’s coat and made her way up the two flights to the room where she’d hidden the eggs.
She found Axel sitting on the desk.
His eyes dropped to the pan and he smiled. He hopped off the desk and took a few steps toward Nova. She backed into the hallway, wondering if she should swing at him, too. But given his size, a shot from the pan might just make him angry.
The anger bubbled in Nova’s stomach, and she was surprised at what the fight-or-flight response was dredging up. It made her want to fight. Because he was coming closer and reaching for the pan like she had retrieved it just for him.
She raised it to swing, and just as he was about to reach out, there was a garbled yell from the end of the hallway. Cedar was charging at them. Nova stepped back, into an open room, holding the pan like a bat, ready to destroy it if it meant saving herself.
“Now it’s getting interesting,” The Butcher’s voice echoed through the hallway.
Nova expected Cedar to come storming in after her, but there was a massive crash outside the door, and she saw that Axel had engaged him, not knowing he was probably after her and not the pan.
Nova went for her stash of supplies and found they were still there—Axel was smart enough to wait but not smart enough to search. She pulled up the hem of her chef’s coat to form a pocket, loaded everything into it, and stepped back into the hallway.
“Chef Cedar does not mess around either, does he?” The Butcher asked. “Maybe you were all too quick to judge him. But like I said, his origin story is interesting. He found his love for cooking in his last place of residence—San Quentin prison, where he spent a decade of his life. Of course cooking would come naturally to someone possessing his…skill with a knife. Maybe someone should ask him.”
Nova watched as Cedar swung a discarded two-by-four in wide arcs as Axel kept a safe distance, his hands up, waiting for a moment to dive. Neither of them paid attention to Nova.
She ran for the staircase, and then the kitchen, which she found to be empty. She laid everything out, a rough mis-en-place next to the stove. She put her hands flat on the stainless steel and took three breaths.
Concentrate. Focus. French omelet.
She heard footsteps behind her, turned to find Stuart. He looked at her, then at the supplies on the counter, then at the wound on her forehead. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
A lie. Her head was throbbing. He came around the kitchen island and put down his own stash: nearly identical, but a carbon steel pan with an okay, not great season, and one egg instead of her three.
He laughed. “Won’t be much of an omelet with one egg, I guess, but at least it’s something.”
She knew what he was asking. If he could have one of hers. You could bang out a decent French omelet with two eggs. Three were better.
She thought about it. Asked, “Did you really steal tips?”
“My mother was sick,” he said. “Cancer. No insurance. It was a horrible decision but I would do it again if I had to.”
He sounded sincere. Enough Nova felt a little tug at her heart. She sighed. Picked up one of the eggs and handed it to him. He shook it in the air. “Thank you.”
“Don’t even know why I’m helping you,” she said.
It was a lie. She did. It was penance. But she didn’t want to say it.
The way things were going, The Butcher would say it soon enough.
They got to work, falling into the dance of the chef, practically gliding around the kitchen, movements practiced and precise. She found a discarded pan, in which she could crack and scramble the eggs. Put her cooking pan over a flame, let it get to where she could just hold the back of her finger against the dark surface.
“Five minutes to go,” The Butcher said.
Nova tossed a pat of butter into the pan and let it foam. Before it could brown she dropped a pinch of salt into the beaten eggs and poured the mixture into the pan, giving it a little swirl with a spatula and letting it set, taking the pan on and off the flame to control the heat.
As the edges began to firm, she realized she didn’t have a plate.
“Fuck,” she said, looking around frantically. She had to get it off the pan.
Stuart appeared with a clean white plate, set it next to her.
“Thank you,” she said as she lifted the pan and gave it a tap on the handle to roll over the edge of the omelet.
“Happy to,” Stuart said, his back to her, focusing on his own work.
Nova plated, took the butter, and ran it over the top of the omelet, then sprinkled on some more chives, and a touch more salt. She realized she had forgotten the white pepper, but too late for that now. Should have gone into the scramble. She looked at the plate, hated that there wasn’t enough egg for her to take a test bite, but it looked as close as she was going to get, given the circumstances.
She glanced at Stuart’s plate. His omelet was a little haphazard and he was shaking his head. He caught her eye. “Wasn’t the best choice of pan.”
“You work with what you got.”
“One minute, chefs,” The Butcher said. “And I’m hungry.”
Nova grabbed her plate, cradling it as she walked toward the cafeteria. She turned to find Stuart advancing on her, that look in his eyes, the no rules look, and he froze like he’d been caught. What was he thinking? Knock the plate out of her hands?
Nova walked sidestep, keeping one eye on him, and the other on the cafeteria, where she found the bolted-down seats had been replaced by a large hole in the floor. In front of the hole were four X’s marked in red tape. She stood on one and Stuart stood on another, holding their plates. Nova held hers extra tight.
She heard a loud crash, and Cedar and Axel stumbled in. Axel held a plate, smiling. He turned and pushed Cedar onto the floor, then ran to join the others.
A horn blared, so loud Nova’s shoulders bunched and she almost dropped her plate. The lighting in the room increased. There was a great whirring sound, and from the hole in the center of the room, a platform rose.
On the platform was a simple wooden table, holding a glass of water, a fork, and a knife. Seated at the table was The Butcher. The casting director. She recognized the underfed frame. How he was wearing a carefully-tailored plum suit, with a tie and shirt that clashed horribly and yet somehow worked together.
And he was still wearing the mask.
She took a breath—at least they’d be done soon.
When the platform was in place, Cedar took his spot on the empty X. But before The Butcher could speak, he said, “That’s my dish. Axel stole it.”
Axel shrugged. “Not true.”
The Butcher nodded, then looked at Cedar. “You heard what I said. No rules. You’re welcome to stay, in case your opponents made such grave mistakes I
decide you’re the winner by default.”
Cedar took an angry breath and folded his hands behind his back. The Butcher nodded to the others. “You three, bring your dishes forward.”
They put their plates down on the table and stepped back on their X’s. It seemed silly. Nova considered asking him what he thought he was doing, what kind of show this was, if it had even been picked up by a network yet, but every time she tried, she thought: walk-in cooler, new bathrooms, vacation.
The Butcher brought Stuart’s plate forward, slid his mask up slightly so he could reach his fork to his mouth. He chewed on the omelet and said, “Presentation is lacking and it cooked a few seconds too long. You needed a better pan and should probably have beaten the eggs a little more, too.”
Then Axel’s. “Needs more salt. Needs salt, period. And it’s completely overcooked.”
Finally, Nova’s. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and went back for a second. Nova’s heart swelled. “Now this is an omelet. Could have done with some pepper, but certainly the most successful dish of the three.”
Nova’s face burned. She could feel the other three chefs looking at her. She did not care. This was the only moment that ever mattered: success on the plate.
The Butcher sat back in his chair and looked at the four contestants. “What to do, what to do. The real competition is between Nova and Stuart.” He turned to Cedar and Axel. “And as for you two…”
“I made that dish,” Cedar said. “At least I finished something, even if it wasn’t ideal.”
“Not true,” said Axel.
The Butcher nodded. “Cedar, you cooked a subpar dish. A blind man unfamiliar with the concept of eggs could have produced a better omelet than that. And you…” he said to Axel. “There are cameras everywhere. I see everything. Why are you lying to me? Of course I know who cooked it.”
Axel took a deep breath, like he was going to say something, but then he stopped, looked forward. The Butcher nodded, like they were in silent conversation.
“Well,” The Butcher finally said. “I have one chef who produced a subpar dish and one chef who tried to claim it as their own. I think we know what this means…”
There was a sharp thwack, and Nova turned to see Cedar had laid a hard sucker-punch across Axel’s chin. Axel went down hard, the back of his head smacking against the floor. Cedar shook out his fist, grimacing from the impact of the blow.
The Butcher froze.
“You said it yourself.” Cedar opened and closed his fingers, looking at his hand, not at anyone else. “No rules.”
“I was going to propose a sudden death cook-off between you two, just for fun, but that works, too,” The Butcher said.
Axel writhed on the floor, groaning, holding his head. His eyes looked screwy, like he was drunk. Nova figured he probably had a concussion. “Can we get someone to help him?” Nova asked. “He’s hurt.”
The Butcher waved his hand. “He’ll be attended to.”
“When?”
“After I make my decision,” he said. “Which, now I’ve got sudden-death stuck in my head, so…I’m not going to declare a winner just yet. Chef Nova, Chef Stuart, you both did very fine jobs given the conditions, so I’m giving you one last chance. As for you…” He turned to Chef Cedar. “Your omelet was horrible and you should be ashamed of yourself. You are eliminated.”
Nova rolled her eyes. She wanted to be done with this. She wanted to go home. She was beginning to doubt this was even a serious production. Where was the crew?
“C’mon, can we stop this for a second and help him?” she asked, gesturing to Axel, writhing on the floor.
The Butcher sighed. He dropped the theatrics, muttered to himself. “Don’t know why you care. Ruining my goddamn run of show here. But fine, fine, whatever.” As he spoke he reached down to the cuff of his pants, fiddled with it a bit, and brought up a small, compact handgun. Boxy and black, it looked almost like a toy.
Nova’s heart leapt into her throat and tried to push itself out her mouth.
“What the fuck, man?” Cedar asked.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stuart said, putting his hands up in a calm down gesture.
Nova’s initial burst of shock and fear quickly transformed into anger and she wanted to refuse again, but the muzzle of the gun was closer to her than it was to the other two, and “not getting shot” ranked pretty high on her list of to-dos.
“Sudden death,” The Butcher said. “I want vanilla ice cream. A good vanilla ice cream is like nothing else on this earth.” He gestured with the gun, toward another end of the cafeteria. “I would like you to proceed down that hallway. At the end of the hallway, you’ll find a set of double doors. There, you’ll find everything you need.”
“So this round we don’t have to go hunting for ingredients?” Nova asked.
“I have something else planned,” The Butcher said, which made the hair on Nova’s neck raise straight up.
“Now…would you kindly slice and dice!”
Nova and Stuart exchanged nervous glances, then left Cedar and Axel, made their way down the hallway in silence. Nova kept wanting to say something but found there was nothing to say.
The double doors led into a room that, given the way the rest of the day had gone, appeared almost like a mirage.
It was another kitchen, but this one was immaculate. Bowls, a stove, and two heavy-duty restaurant style ice cream machines. Two fridges, and when Stuart walked over and popped one open, it was full of cream and eggs.
“Thank god,” he said.
“This is weird though, right?” Nova asked. “If this was supposed to be one round, why did he have this set up? He knew there’d be some element of sudden death.”
“What does that mean?” Stuart asked.
“I have no idea, I just wonder what kind of game he’s…”
She was cut off by a sharp clicking sound behind them.
They turned to find a brown pitbull with a wide jaw and thick muscles walking toward them across the linoleum floor. Nova hoped the dog might be friendly, but it bared down and let out a low, rumbling growl, the sound of it echoing off the polished surfaces of the kitchen.
Nova and Stuart both froze.
“What do we do?” Stuart asked. “Play dead? Not make eye contact?”
“I read somewhere that you’re supposed to stand up tall and yell.”
“That’s bears. I think?”
The dog barked. Once, twice. Nova’s bladder fluttered. Her knees felt weak. The dog looked like a tree stump on legs.
“We could Jurassic Park him,” Stuart said.
“What?”
“The raptors, in the kitchen. There’s a walk-in on the far end of the room.”
“We have to get past the dog first.”
The dog barked again, inching forward on the floor now.
“You go left,” he said. “I go right. First one to the cooler wins.”
“Sucks to be runner up.”
“Yes, it does,” Stuart said. “Now…go!”
Nova lunged to the side, nearly stumbled, found her feet. The dog took off, going for Stuart instead of her. She ran for the walk-in cooler, got the door open. Stuart yelled out. She turned to find him on the floor, left forearm up to protect his face, the dog’s jaws clamped hard around it. The dog jerked so hard Stuart was being pulled back and forth across the floor. Nova turned to a shelf, found a stone mortar and pestle. She picked up the pestle and threw it at the dog, hitting it in the side. It loosened its grip enough for Stuart to kick away from it.
Then the dog turned its attention to her.
Another flutter. Heart and bladder and probably some other organs. She inched her way toward the entrance to the cooler, and the dog charged, and she held her breath, forced herself to stand until the last possible second, the dog’s nails click click clicking on the floor as it ran.
It launched itself into the air and she dropped to the floor.
The dog hit the far end of the cooler and Nova reac
hed up to close the door but the angle was bad and she stumbled, so by the time she got to her feet to close the door, the dog was charging again.
She got the door closed as the dog slammed into it, the door popping out an inch, so she threw her back against it and slid down to the floor. The dog slammed into the door again, pushing Nova a few inches forward on the linoleum.
Stuart appeared over her, blood dripping from his forearm. He threw his shoulder into the door, grabbed the pin lock, dropped it into place, then fell on the floor next to Nova. The dog barked inside the cooler and continued slamming at the door. But now it didn’t budge and, for a moment, they could breathe.
“You okay?” Nova asked.
Stuart held up his arm, red welling up out of the holes in his skin. “Not really.”
“Any chance we’ll get a medic now?”
“Suck it up,” The Butcher said over the speakers. “Twenty minutes to go.”
Stuart stood, reached his hand down to Nova and pulled her up. She rooted around the kitchen until she found some tea towels, helped Stuart rinse his arm in the sink and wrapped it up. The bites were deep but once it was clean, the whole thing didn’t look so bad.
“This can’t be legal, no matter what we signed,” Nova whispered, glancing at the cameras.
Stuart winced as he cinched the tea towels around his arm, little dots of red appearing on the fabric. “Let’s just finish it, okay? No sabotage? Let the best cook win?”
He reached his hand out.
Nova eyed it.
No rules.
She didn’t know him. He stole from his staff. Could she trust him?
Who said she had to?
The dog barked again and she thought about the gun so she shook his hand.
“Let’s get to work,” she said.
They did, picking through the kitchen for ingredients, setting up for prep. Nova’s heart sang when she found the Mexican vanilla beans—her favorite—and she made sure to grab the salt in addition to sugar. She even found a bottle of cheap scotch, which, while it wasn’t something she’d drink on its own, a dash of it in the ice cream base—not enough to lower the melting point, but enough that you got a whiff of the smoke—would add a great layer.