New Title 4

by Derek Goodman

  Please tell me you at least put the additional stuff in the bags I asked, made those extra changes to make everything more realistic.

  Done, Tuffy said. We did the best we could with the amount of time we had.

  And you put the remaining real ones where I asked?

  Absolutely.

  You re sure you didn t screw up at all?

  Boss, have at least some faith in us. We want this all to go down just as bad as you do. Maybe even more.

  And please tell me you didn t try to use any of those damned things?

  Didn t touch them. But apparently you tried to use the ones you took with you.

  Yeah, well, the first time was because I panicked. The second time I didn t have a choice.

  So what do you want us to do now?

  Lucas sighed. I m not sure yet. No matter how much attention we paid to the details on the fakes, they ll have to figure out eventually that they don t have the real artifacts. And when they do I bet the first thing they ll try is coming here for information. I might be able to do something about them if they do, but in the mean time I might have to adjust my plans.

  You mean our plans.

  Our plans. Keep your cell phone nearby. I ll call you with anything I come up with. He hung up and stared at his cell for several seconds. He could see out of the corner of his eye that the customer that had come in was standing up by the counter, probably wondering where the hell the two clerks were, but Lucas couldn t care less. He didn t care about the customer, or Phil, or the store, or any of the other God-forsaken abominations on the Hill. Very soon Lucas would be done with this place, and by around three-thirty many of those things and people would be dead or destroyed anyway. Whether or not the customer had to wait didn t matter in the slightest.

  What did matter was that he adapt his plans quickly. As much as he hadn t wanted to draw that sort of attention this early, it was time to start thinking about maybe killing the employees, both past and present, of the OneStop Mart Convenience Store.

  Chapter 20

  Sue didn t seem to know nor care why Phil had pulled her into the back room. She had started off trying to be amorous and pull at Phil s clothes, but she had quickly become distracted and fascinated by the hole in the floor by the mop sink. Occasionally Phil would hear moaning and various strange sounds coming up from it at the darkest times of the night. Sometimes the noises sounded like the screams of the damned coming up from Hell. Other times it sounded like Teletubbies. The Teletubby noises had more of a tendency to give him nightmares than the damned, but either way it wasn t pleasant, and Phil didn t like to listen when that started. However, the noises coming up from it tonight (they sounded suspiciously like knock-knock jokes) would be enough to keep Sue occupied while he tried to think. And oh boy, did he have something to think about.

  It was possible Lucas was just a junkie. Drugs, even the mundane variety, were common enough on the Hill, and while having a junkie as a coworker was not the most desirable option, it was still a hell of a lot better than the possibility Phil was coming up with now. Caleb and Gloria had found a used syringe at Caleb s apartment, and now he had seen Lucas with a needle mark in his arm. It could have been a coincidence, but Phil was not so dense as to really believe that.

  Still, it wouldn t do to just jump to conclusions. There could be some other explanation. And besides, Lucas didn t seem like he was even capable of that kind of thing. From what Gloria had said, the person who had ripped the door apart at Caleb s had been especially strong, and Lucas had shown every sign of being a complete weakling. But he could have had help, or whatever he had injected might have made him stronger. Yeah, now that he thought about that it made sense. It would have been the reason that he would have needed to inject right there instead of doing it somewhere else. But that could only mean that the stuff in the syringe had to be magical in nature, and up until last night Lucas hadn t had any clue that such wild crap even existed.

  Unless he was lying about that, Phil said. He turned to Sue, not that he expected her to understand what he was talking about, but he felt the need to speak and work this out aloud, and talking to her at least provided the illusion that he wasn t talking to himself. In fact, whoever broke into Caleb s place knew to go right to the bathroom. I wouldn t even have known that. So he must have been watching Caleb for a while, right?

  Sue continued to stand by the hole in the floor, but she at least appeared to be paying attention to him now. In fact, she almost looked like she had something to say.

  What is it? Phil asked. You figure out something I haven t?

  Sue s partially decayed face screwed up in concentration. Phil heard some sort of noise from up front like change scattering all over, but he ignored it. Sue s mouth started working as though she did indeed want to say something, but her limited brain functions were keeping her from saying it.

  Come on, honey, I know you can do it. What do you need to say?

  She did the closest she could manage to a smile as she finally got it. Knnnnnock knnnnnock.

  Phil sighed. Okay, so maybe she didn t have anything to contribute after all. From the hole in the floor something that sounded like a cross between a demon and a squirrel asked her who was there.

  Phil started to pace as he tried to go over the problem in his brain. That was why Lucas had been late, he realized. The son of a bitch had waited until Caleb left, and then immediately afterwards must have

  Cuuuuube, Sue said. The high-pitched voice from the abyss asked cube who, but Sue ignored it. Cuuuuube.

  Phil turned to look at her. The thing from the pit started gibbering in anger that Sue apparently wasn t playing anymore, but the noises quickly trailed off into quiet again. Cube? Phil asked.

  Sue nodded. It seemed to take an incredible amount of concentration on her part to stay this focused for this long, but she was managing. Cuuuuube.

  Cube as in Rubik s Ultimate Cube, Phil realized. If Lucas had stolen all the artifacts from Caleb s place, then there wouldn t have been any way that he would have been able to bring them here without anyone noticing, or at least not all of them. He could still have brought a few, though, and the cube would have been able to fit nicely enough into those out-ofstyle cargo pants Lucas had been wearing.

  Phil thought back to the two times so far tonight when reality had suddenly rearranged itself with the cube s help. He thought for a second that Lucas couldn t possibly have used it the first time, as he had been standing right next to him in the parking lot when Caleb and Gloria had come by. Except Lucas had been gone when reality shifted, hadn t he? He d panicked when Sue had shown up and made himself scarce. Had he expected the cube to magically make the big bad zombie disappear? Phil couldn t be sure on the why, but Lucas definitely could have been the one to do it. The second time, too. That was when Lucas had been alone in the back room. Maybe the second use of the cube had had something to do with phone calls it had sounded like Lucas was making.

  Everything fit. He couldn t really deny it now. Lucas was the one that had stolen everything. Phil couldn t even begin to guess at the reason why, but here on the Hill no one ever seemed to have a very good reason for all the possibly-world-destroying things they did. All it meant was that the bad guy was right here in the store, and Phil could stop him pretty easily. Of course, the smart thing to do would be to call Caleb or Gloria first. Just in case Lucas was capable of putting up a fight, it might be a good idea to have some back up.

  Phil pulled out his cell phone and went through his list of contacts until he got to Caleb s number. He was about to push the dial button, but then he stopped. He d told Caleb he would call if he found out anything important, and this sure as hell was important, but he found himself not completely inclined at the moment. For some reason he thought back to the day before and the way Caleb had just shoved him into this shift with Lucas. If Caleb had just done what he was supposed to and thought of anybody but himself then Caleb would already be here trying to handle this. He probably would have left l
ater from his apartment tonight, too, so maybe Lucas s plans on breaking into the apartment would have been different. Maybe none of this would be happening, but it was now simply because Caleb had thought of himself before anyone else.

  It was a petty way of thinking, and probably flawed. Phil knew that right away. That was not a good reason not to call Caleb. In fact, not calling Caleb right now could very well be dangerous if Lucas had more tricks up his sleeve than Phil was aware of.

  But the truth, now that Phil thought about it, was that he really didn t know much of anything. He had plenty of circumstantial evidence that Lucas was the one who had done it, enough that Phil himself was convinced, but there was still more he could learn. While Lucas obviously had the cube and maybe a few other things from Caleb s bathroom, there were also things that Lucas most definitely did not have with him. The Omega Sword, for one, was not something Lucas could hide so easily, and there were probably many more things too large to shove into all of Lucas s pockets.

  Phil could still pretend that he didn t know anything and maybe find more things out. Even if he wasn t able to get any more tidbits of information about what was going on, he could at least keep an eye on the guy. If he called Caleb and Gloria up and the two came rushing in here ready to stake someone then Lucas could very well run, taking the knowledge of the other artifacts hiding place with him.

  He put his cell phone in his pocket. This could potentially be exactly the right thing to do. Or it could be completely wrong. Didn t matter now. He d made his decision.

  Phil looked at Sue again. It was disorienting now to look at her. The changes to her actual face were subtle, but there were changes. But of course there weren t changes. With reality altered because of the cube that meant that her face had always had this level of decay, despite his memories to the contrary. He now remembered her face in two separate sets of memories, each set wrong and each set right.

  But that didn t really matter. What mattered was that she could speak and she could see him with both eyes. For whatever reason Lucas had used the cube the second time, Phil actually felt like he needed to be grateful. He went over to Sue and put his hands on her shoulders. She looked him in the eyes, but he couldn t be sure how lucid she was at the moment.

  Okay, Sue, listen to me. We can t say anything to Lucas yet about the cube, got it?

  She cocked her head. He didn t think she understood.

  We need to keep it a secret. We can t let him know that we know he has the cube, understand?

  She blinked several times, then nodded slowly. Was she trying to concentrate on his words, burn them into her memory so she wouldn t forget or slip up? Or was she simply nodding because she thought that was what he wanted her to do? Sometimes he really wished he could get into her head and understand how she saw the world.

  Okay, well I guess that s good enough, Phil said. We re going to go back out into the store and act as though we know nothing. I d ask you to keep your eyes out for anything I should know, but you probably wouldn t even know what to look for.

  She cocked her head in the opposite direction. A noise came out of her throat and nose that sounded suspiciously like a derisive snort. Phil had to smile. From up front he heard a customer calling out for a cashier.

  Right. I guess you ve already shown you can pay attention, huh? So let s go.

  Chapter 21

  Phil came back into the store proper from the door immediately behind the counter to find that Lucas was nowhere to be seen. That was a very bad thing, but he didn t think Lucas would have just up and left the store. He could be outside, or else he could be back in the cooler. In either place there was work that could be done, giving Lucas a convenient excuse as to why he would be there, but Phil thought it more likely that he was up to no good. There were some pennies on the counter, and when Phil got closer he could see that there were a whole lot more scattered over the floor on the other side. He had no idea what that was about, but even with bigger problems on his mind Phil flinched at the idea of having to find and clean them all up.

  The customer waiting at the register was someone Phil recognized but didn t know by name, a guy with long dark hair and a soul patch on his chin. He tended the bar at Stubby s Bowl-a-Rama and always came in at his quitting time for his a Froztee and a sub sandwich from the deli case.

  Hey, Phil said, doing his best to sound calm and normal. And truth be told, having a coworker who was a thief of world destroying artifacts wasn t too far away from normal at all. How s things going tonight?

  Weird, so business as usual, the guy said. He put his purchases on the counter and pulled out his wallet.

  So what s going on out there tonight? Phil asked.

  Well I m assuming you already know all the talk about Caleb s troubles.

  I know at least the news from up to a half hour ago. Why? You hear anything new going on out there since then?

  There s the naked people, but that s about it.

  Naked people, Phil said. As far as strange things go, that s pretty tame around here.

  I think they re naked mad scientists, if that helps you with your weirdness quota, the guy said.

  Huh. I guess it would. Any idea why we have naked mad scientists running around?

  Not sure, but from what little I heard it started at the Snake s Sanctum.

  Phil nodded. That could only mean the handiwork of Caleb and Gloria. They d been gone for just over a half an hour and they were already somehow evaporating people s clothes. The thought occurred to him that if their own clothes had been evaporated, too, or whatever else might have happened, then they might get a little distracted with other more personal things. Not exactly something he wanted to think about, but now that the image was in his head it wouldn t go away.

  If you see any of these naked mad scientists nearby, could you send them this way? Phil asked. I should probably hear what they might have to say.

  Will do, the guy said. As he walked out the door Phil could see a couple more people coming across the parking lot. Whatever Caleb and Gloria had done, it appeared that the rest of the neighborhood thought it was a good sign. Everyone would be coming out and going about their own business again, which meant that Phil was going to need Lucas to get his butt back at the counter and help, whether he was the bad guy or not. Phil went around the counter and started down the last aisle towards the cooler door, just in case that was where Lucas was hiding. Before he even got there the door opened and Lucas stepped out. Phil did his best to sound only mildly annoyed at Lucas s disappearance.

  What the hell were you doing back there? There was a customer up here waiting.

  Sorry, Lucas said. I was just restocking the soda like you showed me yesterday.

  You could have at least waited until you cleaned up whatever mess that vampire made. Come on. Clean it up quick, cuz we got a whole bunch of customers on their way in.

  Business was steady for the next half hour. They still had another two hours before the bar rush should have started for the night, but apparently with the Snake s Sanctum cleared out its customers had filtered over here earlier than usual. Most of them, thankfully, had found something to cover themselves up, although a few of their replacement clothes were a little odd. One extremely overweight man came in dressed in a pink tutu, but he didn t seem too embarrassed about it so it was possible it was just his normal clothing. Several of the customers claimed their wallets and cash had disappeared right along with their clothing and tried to get Phil and Lucas to give them things for free. When the two clerks refused, many of them said that Phil and Lucas would regret this once the mad scientists took over the world and made them pay for this transgression. Phil was less than impressed by most of these threats. A few of them did still have money, however, and these were the ones who stuck around long enough to let Phil in on what had happened at the bar. He would have preferred to hear these tales where Lucas couldn t hear, but there was no way around it. The stories confused Phil at first, specifically the part about the two cyborgs
running off with a bag full of mystical artifacts. Maybe they were the ones who had the items that Lucas hadn t brought with him. Of more interest was the fact that Lucas apparently had three cyborgs helping him. He didn t know yet what had become of any of the cyborgs, and no one was yet able to tell him what had happened to Gloria after she went chasing after the two cyborgs or anything about Caleb following the bar fight. He was sure they were both alright, but with the knowledge that Lucas had more people out there helping him it suddenly felt much more important now that he call Caleb and give him the heads up. He should have done it earlier, he now realized. But he still couldn t do it while Lucas was standing around watching, and he couldn t excuse himself while there was a rush going on. That would have just been suspicious, and unprofessional to boot. So he had to wait. People, both human and not-so-much, continued to come in. It was right at twelve after twelve, when the number of people in the store had dropped enough that one person alone could handle the registers, that Phil said he had to go use the bathroom. It was as good an excuse as any to get off by himself. It was also the reason things went spiraling completely out of control.

  Lucas didn t appear like he knew anything was wrong when Phil went into the bathroom. Phil locked the door behind him and pulled his cell from his pocket again, and this time there was no hesitation as he hit the button to dial Caleb. The phone on Caleb s end didn t even ring, however. It went right to voicemail. Shit. That could only mean he had his cell phone turned off, but why would he turn it off? He had known Phil would call him if he got any important information. Maybe Caleb hadn t thought Phil could get anything important. That wasn t a possibility Phil wanted to consider, but it sounded like something Caleb might very well think. Nobody but Caleb could be the model employee, despite the fact that Caleb was the one who had blown off the work. Phil tried to put that idea aside as the voice message service beeped. That kind of thinking was just paranoid and self-serving. It did nothing to change the situation. He had to remain optimistic and hope for the best from Caleb, even if his confidence in the guy might be wavering.