by Chuck Wendig
Didn’t matter. Here, he couldn’t ask any questions of a pile of Flix Bar wrappers or a neck-empty bottle of so-called Jack Kenny Whiskey. At Burrito Hut, though, he could get to the bottom of things. He could ask some questions. Find what they did with Burger King. Was it drugs? In the water supply? A conspiracy was afoot.
He took a few quick deep breaths, slapped his legs to get the blood moving, then broke into another crazy marathoner run out the door, back to Burrito Hut.
***
Public drunkenness, they called it.
Which wasn’t fair, not really. Donnie wasn’t drunk. Any of the lingering buzz from the not-really-real Jack Kenny Whiskey had long since faded when he ran through the front doors of the Burrito Hut.
The bars of the holding cell were surprisingly warm. The whole place, with its cement walls painted banana-colored, and its metal toilet, was actually pretty damn humid. Moisture glistened on the walls. When they threw him in here, alone, the one lady cop told him that the air conditioning was busted.
He took a deep breath. What he’d seen in the Burrito Hut, what he’d glimpsed –
Everything seemed normal, at first. Late lunchers, lining up at the counter. A pair of Hispanics in front of him, and in front of them, a little girl in a side-sprouting pony-tail with her mother busily thumbing numbers into her Blackberry (probably text messaging Flixy the Moon Alien, Donnie thought at the time, a thought that would later become alarming relevant). Manning the single-register counter was a rubicund, fat-cheeked teen with a purple paper hat.
Donnie didn’t know what he was expecting. He had no script. He felt sick inside. The fast food joint had felt constraining, like it was closing in on him.
He got to the counter, and let fly.
What he said, he didn’t precisely remember. Something about Flix Bars. Something about conspiracies. Maybe even something about Tracy. The smell that drifted from the kitchen was a mix of sharp spices and potted meat, a tangy (too tangy, really, to be appetizing) conglomeration of the two.
In mid-rant, that’s when he’d seen it.
Behind some kind of massive pressure-cooker – some stainless steel thing with a line of dried refried beans crusted to its side – Donnie saw movement.
It was a shimmering shape, unreal, a specter. Like those blurry shots of Bigfoot or any lake monster, the details were imperfect, almost incomprehensible. A swath of green flashed against a half-moon slice of purple. Movement like fly-wings buzzing, too fast, too strange. And then it was gone again, blinking out of existence. The cooker continued to bubble and steam.
Donnie freaked.
By his recollection, he did a lot of wild gesticulating.
Maaaaybe some yelling.
Not impossible that he said something about aliens, and then spit on the register.
Mistakes were made.
Worst of all, he hadn’t noticed the police officer that had come in soon after he did and was waiting two people behind him.
And now, here. Jail. Holding cell. Shit.
***
His one phone call, made to Tracy.
It was probably a mistake. He should’ve called Tabor. But while it was irrational, it felt like Tabor was part of whatever was happening. Tabor loved Flix Bars. Tabor couldn’t get enough of Burrito Hut. Tabor probably bathed in a swimming pool filled with warm Jack Kenny Whiskey.
Donnie asked Tracy to post bail.
“I don’t know, Donnie. It’s a lot of money.”
“You only need part of it. You could sell my old Monkees LPs. They’re worth something. The comic books, too. Even the toys! I’ve got a lot of toys.”
“I can’t see you right now, Donnie.”
“Tracy, please, I’m in jail.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Desperate gambit time. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said.
“That’s it? You know?”
“I have to go.”
“But – wait! Tell Tabor! He’ll help! Send Tabor!”
It was too late. She’d already hung up.
Behind the sound of the dial tone, Donnie thought he heard a baby crying.
And then they were pulling him away from the phone, and the sound was gone.
***
Things got weird around midnight.
Donnie was half-asleep on the cot in the cell’s corner, trying to shut out the light (the cops informed him that the lights never shut off, not even at night). He was caught in the throes of half-dreams to go with his half-sleep. Shadows of Tracy visited him, but every time she went to talk he heard a baby squalling somewhere and her words were lost. Something about how it was too late, too late, if only. Tabor the Giant came along with his squeaky white cart, except he was easily twice his normal size, and in these partial dreams he kept picking Donnie up and shoving him in the cart, murmuring something about a “mail call.” Sometimes, Donnie felt the taste of a Flix Bar in his mouth, or the burn of Jack Kenny Whiskey down his throat, or the sickly sweet scent of Grade-E-but-Edible Tex-Mex fiesta meat from the diabolical Burrito Hut. Other sensations visited him, too, ones he couldn’t explain: the nasal tang of an unknown perfume, tinny electro-pop music like which he’d never heard, the mysterious taste of a falafel (he was certain it was a falafel, though he’d never eaten, or frankly seen, a falafel before).
And then he saw them.
Moon Aliens, like Flixy.
Seven of them.
Except they weren’t cartoons – he caught a glimpse of pinched reptilian flesh, and white fangs stained with grape-colored smears – and they came at him, hands reaching, stubby fingers wagging in the humid jail cell heat, and they shimmered as if seen behind a gauzy haze of heat rising off a blistering highway–
And Donnie wondered when this dream would move on and give way toward something even stranger.
But the dream did not move on.
Green hands that smelled of metal and chocolate covered his face.
He tried to cry out.
The lights went out.
And that’s when things got really weird.
***
Lights coruscated all around him. Each flash felt like it cut straight to his cerebral cortex, burning an image into his brain.
He saw flying babies zip past him. Cherubic grins. Fat faces. Curious hands reaching for him as they zoomed by.
His guts felt like taffy.
And it felt like someone was trying to pull that gut-taffy out of his body through his mouth, ears, and anus.
Then – a pop sound, preceded by a faint sucking noise, like the one Donnie’s lips made when he pried them free of the Jack Kenny bottle.
All was dark, at least for a little while.
***
“Some people do not react well to change.”
Donnie lurched upright. His head swam, vision dipped.
The room was long, narrow, with walls of steel and a faint blue light suffused throughout. At the margins of the room, Donnie saw several of the Moon Aliens shuffling back and forth, grunting like piglets with slop in their mouths and noses. The Flixies chattered back and forth, sometimes clacking their empurpled teeth.
At the far end of the room – the end Donnie sat facing – was a pull-down screen. At the other end of the room blinked the winking eye of a projector.
Projected on the screen was an image Donnie couldn’t quite parse.
It seemed to be a generic gray and black 9-Volt battery with a pair of googly eyes, like the ones glued to a cheap arts-and-crafts doll. The fake eyes looked this way, and that.
“I’m on drugs,” Donnie whispered.
“You’re not on drugs,” the battery said. He knew the battery said it because with each word – each syllable, really – the battery pulsed with white light.
“You’re a battery.”
“I am merely an image you would understand. Were I to show you my true form, your human mind would explode into a thousand personalities and leave you wailing in a pile of your own fetid mess
.”
Gently, Donnie stood.
“I’ve lost my mind,” he said.
“You’ve not lost your mind,” the battery asserted.
The Flixies chuffed and snorted in what might have been agreement.
One of them casually ate what appeared to be a chimichanga. Another displayed its beckoning jazz hands.
“That’s a chimichanga,” Donnie said, wide-eyed.
“Yes,” the battery confirmed.
The room was silent for a little while, except for the snorfling breathing of the two dozen or so Flixies shifting from one stubby green foot to another.
Swallowing hard, Donnie said: “A little help here? If I’m not high, and I’m not crazy, then –?”
“As I said, some people do not react well to change. These people – like you — are the ones who cannot properly compute the dimensional shifts.”
“Dimensional shifts.”
“Yes,” the battery said. “The subtle alterations to the fabric of your reality are performed through delicate dimensional shifts. Ninety-nine percent of people accept these changes without thought or concern.”
“And I’m part of the one percent?”
“Yes.”
Silence again as Donnie regarded the googly-eyed battery. The battery may have regarded him in return, but it was hard to tell, what with the googly-eyes and all.
Suddenly, Donnie snapped his fingers. “Flix Bars! I bet they’re part of the subtle alterations of dimensional, you know, whatever. Right?”
“Yes. Flix Bars, Burrito Hut, Jack Kenny Whiskey, Ganymede Electronics, Vaginex Creams, Lung Sui-Wu Cookery Sets, Cowboy Tom’s Microwave Falaf –“
“Okay, okay, you can stop. All those products are now in our dimension? And they weren’t before?”
“Yes, but not just your dimension. We established a product roll-out covering four hundred Earth-based dimensions, as pioneered by the Perigree Corporation, which is owned by the Jimza Conglomerate, which is owned by the Meiner-Schiften People, which is owned by –“
“All right!” Donnie barked. “This is a little much for me to handle.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Why are these products now in our dimension?”
“Money. More dimensions means more sales. More sales, higher stock.”
“I’d like to just go home, now,” Donnie said, and it was true. He didn’t feel well. He was dressed in a robe in some alien ship or dimensional box, and he really didn’t belong here. He said as much to the battery.
“No,” the battery pulsed. “I’m afraid we have to destroy you.”
“But –!”
“What we’re doing goes against the Quantum Code as established by Earth Seven in the Year of the Dragon, 1976. We cannot have you blowing the whistle.”
Movement to his left and right. The Flixies shuffled cautiously toward him, purple-smear teeth glowing weirdly in the bluish light. Some of them held knives that could’ve doubled as Satanic gynecological equipment.
“But – why? Why did you even bother to bring me here?”
“All sentient creatures deserve knowledge.”
“But by telling me this, that means you have to kill me!”
“Yes. Knowledge has its price.”
The Flixies pounced. Hands grabbed at him and dragged him down. Teeth clacked and chomped at one another; some kind of mad language. He saw the glint of a blade moving toward his heart.
“Wait!” he cried. “Let’s make a deal! Please!”
The Flixies stopped, as if hearing an unspoken cue.
“You can offer us nothing,” the battery declared.
“No,” Donnie stammered, “but you can offer me something.”
“I do not understand.”
“If you grant me a favor, then you’ve got me on the hook. Suddenly, I’m in your pocket! I won’t tell anybody anything if I’m in your pocket! That way, you don’t have to destroy me! Killing me is probably illegal, too, right? Some, uh, Quantum Code violation?”
The battery seemed to think about this.
The googly-eyes narrowed.
“Yes. It is a violation.”
“It can be a mutual pact. A deal. I’ll keep quiet. Just help me with one thing.”
“Tell me this thing,” the battery demanded.
So Donnie told him.
***
The baby cried. The sound was joyous.
Slick with goo and red as a sliced beet, the little tow-head wriggled and sobbed and clenched his corn-sized toes.
Tracy looked spent, utterly so, but her face was beaming nevertheless. A nurse swabbed sweat from her glistening brow. Outside the window of the hospital room, Tabor’s big shape and shadow could be seen dutifully pacing, the task of a good friend.
The presence of his new son was going to be a big change. It’d require real responsibility. Donnie knew he was wearing the Big Boy Pants – the Daddy Pants – now, and that nothing would ever be the same.
But he was ready for the change.
The talking battery be damned.
Of course, the deal had some complications. Tracy had already had an abortion in this dimension, the battery explained. The baby was gone. To comply with Donnie’s request, they had to pluck another Tracy – the most similar Tracy they could find – from another Earth and, well, trade the two of them. It was fine. The battery told him that neither Tracy would know. Both would be happy in both continuums, whatever a ‘continuum’ was.
The nurse gave Tracy the baby. The doctor handed off the umbilicus.
Once in Tracy’s embrace, their son stopped crying and seemed to settle into a kind of happy gurgling.
Donnie leaned in and stroked her brow.
“What do you want to name him?” he asked Tracy.
She thought about it for a moment as a single happy tear rolled down her cheek.
“Flixy,” she said, finally.
Donnie started to laugh, it was funny, though uncomfortable-funny, but then he saw a faint shimmer around his new son, and the pink babyflesh became for a moment a strange hue of Iguana green, and he saw a flash of purple teeth reaching for Tracy’s breast beneath the sheet. Then the shimmer extended upwards to Tracy, too, and he saw her smeared teeth and green skin as she smiled.
Then it was gone. The haze dissipated, and his wife and son were back again.
A little voice in his head told him to run, run. Break into a hard run and never come back.
But he suppressed it.
“I like change,” he croaked. He shuddered. “Change is good.”
At least they gave him that lifetime supply of Flix Bars.
Drawing a deep breath, he reached toward Tracy and their new son, Flixy.
THIS GUY
1.
On my way to work I drive down past Ashbrook Lane. I go past that little yellow real estate office with the guy out front dressed like a dollar sign. I pass by the party supply store and the Pet Palace.
Somewhere along the way, every day, I see this guy. Something isn’t right with this guy. He’s maybe sick or got some other problem. He wears a pair of jeans all torn up and fringy at the bottom. Even now, with that October cold coming in, he wears a flannel shirt, unbuttoned, a gray-belly paunch sticking out.
Every day, I catch him before he makes it to the China Skillet, that little fast-foody, can’t-sit-down joint with the greasy Tso’s chicken. I wait in the alley between China Skillet and the Kinko’s clone. The guy passes by me, and I drag him into the alleyway, and I beat him with a tire iron. Sometimes, I stab him with a kitchen knife.
I do this every day.
I think it’s starting to affect me.
2.
It was two Tuesdays ago that Mary asked me if I was doing okay. I told her I was.
“You don’t look so good,” she said.
“I feel fine.”
“I had to wash your pants again.” She sounded a little annoyed. Sometimes, when I destroy the guy, he gets stuff on me. Yellow stuff. Kind of like
butterscotch pudding, but with veins of red in it.
“I know. I tried to wipe it off, but…”
“And it’s just mud?”
“Just mud,” I said. “The parking lot at work is falling apart, and they won’t pay to fix it. It’s muddy. I step in mud.”
And she left it at that, but I caught her looking at me strange a few times before bed.
3.
It’s maybe like that movie with Bill Murray and the groundhog. Not the golf one. The other one.
He’s out there again.
I catch him at the mouth of the alley and drag him in. The dumpster smells like rotten garlic and ginger.
“Guh!” he says to me. He can’t talk. He opens his fishy mouth and clacks those moldy chompers at me.
I kick him in the knee and the cap pops like rotten wood. The leg folds backward and he topples. I hit him in the head with the tire iron. It’s easier than squashing a pumpkin.
4.
I watch TV every night – Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and the news. I always wait for the news to say something about this guy. But nobody ever does. I don’t think people can even see what I’m doing. He passes them by and they don’t look at him. They walk right by the alley as I beat him or cut him into pieces and leave him there. The first few times, I moved the parts. But that was too messy. Plus, they’re usually gone by the next day anyway.
Nobody cares.
“What’s this?” Mary asks.
I look up and find her holding a sandwich baggy. In it is a sandwich. My sandwich.
“Oh,” I say.
“You didn’t eat it?”
“Guess not.”
“It’s ham and swiss. Why didn’t you eat it?”
“Wasn’t hungry.”
I wonder if the guy would eat the sandwich. I consider trying to feed it to him the next day, but I just end up cutting his head off with a camper hatchet.
5.
I decide not to drag him into the alley. Instead, I beat him into a paste right out on the sidewalk. I step on his hand, and it doesn’t crunch as hard as it should. Bones should crunch. This just feels like Styrofoam peanuts in a sock full of jelly.
People move around us, like we’re doing construction work or something.
6.
“You missed work,” Mary says.
“No, I went,” I say. I can’t really remember going. But I know I went. It was part of my routine. Work was part of me.