by Russ Cooper
"You do know what century this is, right?" she huffed.
"I said 'Ouija' on the phone, you said you knew what it was," he insisted, quickly. Shooting a look over at Luna, who was enjoying this whole scene, he added, "I totally told her what it was."
D. J., a tall slacker looking fellow of somewhere next to 30, who was assistant to the assistant manager (so the store could justify his recent 25-cent raise), laughed lazily. "You don't know what Ouija is?" he asked Roxy, with a crooked grin.
"I thought he said something else," she answered, shooting random harsh looks at everyone.
Hoagie, trying not to sound to defensive, but failing miserably, protested, "Like what? Wheaties? Come on over, we'll eat a bowl of Wheaties in the dark?" He forced a laugh, looking around at everyone. "I told her Ouija. I totally told her."
Luna kept twisting the knife, "You guys aren't wimping out, are you? 'Cause it sounds like you're wimping out."
"No, I'm here, I'm down," Hoagie said, trying to sound all tough and throwing around faux-gang signs. "I'll do it. Totally."
Luna exchanged eyerolls with Roxy and D. J.
Hoagie gave D. J. a look: you traitor.
"Hey, I'm just standing here," D. J. said, shrugging one shoulder. "Whatever. Good research for my book."
"Your 'book.'" Roxy sniffed. "Yeah, whatever, Shakespeare."
"Don't you mean 'Shakespier,' there, little Miss Picasso? Or should I say 'Pikasso?'" D. J. snorted, gesturing at her artistic but very misspelled hermit crab handiwork.
Now Roxy was shooting glares everywhere again.
This was good enough for Luna, who clapped deliriously. "Good, then! Everybody's happy." Suddenly: very serious. "Now the thing is, we have to do this right, and to start it off, we all have to do one thing."
Roxy, never a big fan of anything instigated by Luna, asked, suspiciously, "What?"
"Glad you asked, Little R." Luna produced four weird-looking cups from the microwave. "Tea."
Grinning, she held out a platter with tea cups, giving one to everyone.
Roxy eyed D. J., "Tea?"
D. J. eyed Roxy, "Tea."
Roxy eyed the teacup. "Tea." Then, glancing up at Luna with the greatest of unenthusiasm, topped with a healthy heap of sarcasm, "So. Is it magic tea?
Luna ignored the tone, and explained, quite authoritatively, "Yes, it's Te Deum, a special blend the monks of Glousenbach Castle at the West Abbey used during their communions with the dead. It enables the aura."
Now it was D. J. giving Hoagie the evil eye. Man, what have you and your big-boobed chicks got us into?
"Sounds ... tasty," D. J. muttered, staring into his cup.
Roxy announced, stubbornly, "I don't want my aura enabled. I like it the way it is."
Luna ignored all their reactions, and clink-clink-clinked her cup against the other three. Standing there in front of the darkened window, with the waves of the ocean sparkling here and there behind her like fallen stars, she grinned.
"Well, boys and girls, here's to an interesting night."
And just then, a face appeared in the window behind her, and something POUND- POUND- POUNDed the glass. Everyone jumped, spilling tea on themselves. Roxy, who shrieked annoyingly at pretty much anything, really let one loose.
"AiiieeeeeeeEEEE--!"
They all turned. It was the old "whatever" lady, staring at them for no particular reason.
She stared at them; they stared at her.
Then: the old "whatever" lady slipped them all a "whatever" roll of the eyes, and walked down the boardwalk.
D. J. shook his head, wiping tea off the front of his Surfin' Safari t-shirt. "Man. I shoulda just went to the beach."
And then, slowly, with many assorted sighs, the four young folks headed toward the dusty, crusty, shadow-drunken OFF-LIMITS EMPLOYEES ONLY part of the store, lost bleakly somewhere in the back, in the splintery yuck--with at least two of those folks wondering with extreme grouchy sullenness what endless flavors of fun must be going out there on the beach--right this very minute--without them.
~ ~ THREE ~ ~
Out On The Beach:
The Surfer and The Hooters Waitress
The surfer--an 18-year-old weed-toker by the nickname "Jo-Jo"--flipped and, hitting his board on the way down, crashed beneath the late night waves.
Niiiiice.
As usual, Jo-Jo was feeling no pain. Wasn't his first wipeout, no reason to believe it would be his last.
Sooo niiiiiice.
Ah, no doubt--this was the life. Midnight boogie-surfing. While high. (As if there were any other way.) Sure, he was dragging a bit from his all-nighter last night, with the Hooters waitress. But, hey, if you had to be draggin' over something--there sure were worse things. Let's face it--Jo-Jo liked a lot of things, but he liked Hooters waitresses, a lot. He liked that sassy-subservient faux-Southern chipmunk voice schtick--something about that was so hot, dude. And the way they actually sat at your table to take your order--and that thing, with the crayon, where she wrote her name--
(Hi, dude, sir, my name is Cherry, and boy she wasn't kidding)
--that's how he got her to go out, he wrote it down, in crayon, and she played it up all shy and stuff, but he could tell she liked him. And stuff. Whatever. Girls usually liked him. Girls with names like "Cherry," anyway.
He just loved the way she sat next to him, taking his order, in that helium voice, like she'd just sucked the air out of a dozen balloons (could imagine her doing it, too--talk about niiiiice)--and, of course, that uniform. All orange and white and shiny. Man, you could see everything a dude needed to see when you're scoping out the goods. And she had the goods. Nice bottom, wow, no kidding--those satiny shorts hid no secrets, dude--and those legs, a little plump, sorta on the short side, but that's the way he liked them--compact and appetizing. Like their chicken wings, he thought, with a grin, even under the waves. Oh, and her top, can't forget about that, all plump and bouncing in all the right directions. Even there, floating carefree under the midnight waters, after his wipeout, letting the currents give him a sweet shakeup, he couldn't help thinking about that top.
Dude, I just love me some Hooters waitresses.
So, she played hard-to-get, or a Cherry-girl's version of it, but he knew it was in the bag. No offense, but hey--I'm a great looking dude. Facts are facts. And he was, he didn't even have to suck in his stomach or conveniently "make a muscle" reaching for the bar-b-q sauce, any of those Old Dude tricks, sitting around, sneaking stares, wishing for yesterdays. Naww, he was young, he was tall, strapping, had a totally ripped body in every direction, curly blond hair--like springs of sunlight, and why not, he spent many a sunny day beachbumming, weightlifting, sungrabbing, and, of course, just chilling out getting high. Organically handsome--it was living that sweet good life that obviously went to his hair. Then, of course, there were his blue eyes. The color of the ocean at dawn--'nuff said...
C'mon, no getting around it--I'm a great looking dude.
Not to be bigheaded or anything, but he didn't even really have to play the game to get girls. He was practically the kind of guy who could snap his fingers and they'd come running, certainly when it came to waitresses, chicks of that nature. Let's get real--he was the type of guy girls like that took those types of jobs to get! Hunks, man. Hunks with a headful of sunny blonde watercurls and muscles till Tuesday rippling under those baggy-but-sporty tube tops, and just a wink of those baby blues and his buttery Moviephone voice wasn't bad either--
Nah, he played the game for their benefit. You know, so they wouldn't feel like sluts for going out with a dude they just met.
Which is just what Cherry did.
He was waiting after her shift, and you should have seen those chipmunk eyes blow when they got a glimpse of Jo-Jo on his primo motorbike. If she wasn't a done deal before, she sure was then. So much so, she hardly put up a fight when he started making out with her on the bike, right there in the Hooters parking lot--
Hey, no, wait, I could get
fired--
Or some blah-blah like that, about it being a wholesome family restaurant (was she kidding? If you're Howard Hefner or whoever, maybe) so he just felt her up a little and then said, okay, we'll be cool, we'll take it back to my place for some toke and some poke, or words to that defect, and then laughed and she laughed back and then they left but not after first talking her into buffaloing his chicken wing there in parking lot, just to keep things in perspective, nobody was looking, and she was like sure, that's a compromise--
Yeah, Cherry, she was an all right kind of girl. So he took her back to his loft, there on the beach, or nearbouts, took the long way, showing off a bit, letting her get all hot and bothered riding on his hot machine, her plump arms around his tight abs--enjoy my ribs, little waitress--why not, give her a treat. Then, finally, after a quick snack run, took her back, and they got high, and he had sex with her right on the fouton, he asked her to keep the Hooters uniform on while they did it, the shorts were so silky and whatnot, you could just push the crotch-part to the side, and she said sure, cool, I get that a lot, and he thought about that for a second, but a second goes by real fast when you're high and hot and horny, so zoom, went real fast, and so did he, so they sat around, watching "From Dusk To Dawn" with either Cheech or Chong being all vampire and such, and then, she buffaloed his chicken wing again, just for something to do, and fell asleep, and he decided, how to round of a sweet day of toke and poke...?
Hey, how about some Midnight Boogie-Surfing?
But Cherry was worn out and high and pretty much satiated in every plump direction, so he was like, hey, cool, and decided to go out in the moonlight boogying by himself.
All this replayed in his mind underwater.
Now, he wasn't unconscious, or drowning, no--he could hold his breath a long time--he just liked floating, it was cool, soothing, it was like flying or something, like being high all over your body. But he was in control, even as wasted as he was, even as submerged as he was, even as totally yow-wow-wiped out as he was, he knew to let his body bob up until he could take a nice deep breath of fresh air, and let himself sink and float back under. I'm like a submarine or something, he mused, thinking about Cheech or Chong turning into a vampire.
Which is why he missed seeing Cherry blink awake, sleepily, and suddenly realize she was alone--took her awhile, but she figured it out--saw a note, that said, yo gal, out boogin. She didn't know what that meant, or was supposed to spell exactly, but she noticed his fine Darth Maul surfboard was missing--he'd made quite a show about it, kinda boring actually--but it was gone, and so, even a Hooters waitress could put two and two together...sometimes...she might not get four exactly, but she could narrow it down...
Then she had a naughty thought.
Then another, somewhat conflicting thought, but what eventually came about, is she slowly took off the Hooters uniform--first the tight shirt, and-- oh yeah! there they are!--and even though the initial plan was just to go topless, hey, why not, you know, let's have a bit of play--
So off came the orange shorts, and the white socks with the orange marshmallow fuzzballs, and this and that...
And out she streaked, into the night, across the glowing sands of the late night beach.
What a sight--too bad Underwater Jo-Jo missed it--but what. a. sight. That plump little waitress, that tasty little titbit, in all her plump chipmunk glory--she was amazingly put together, helium voice or not--and she just ran like nature's little naked unicorn, practically leaving little Tinkerbell sprinkles in her wake. She hopped, and frollicked, and thanks to the eerie glow courtesy of the bashful moon, she looked like a nude female astronaut on some delightful sandy lunar surface.
She didn't notice, and probably wouldn't have been able to "two plus two" it together even if she had--that that glowing lunar surface was, in select spots shifting in little rolling dune trails, undulating and rushing with a sudden frenzied rabidness straight for her.
~ ~ FOUR ~ ~
In The Hermit Crab Used Bookstore:
The Splintery Stairs
He kicked open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.
Roxy balked. "What? Upstairs? I didn't know we were doing this upstairs."
"Were you not informed about any part of this evening?' D. J. grinned.
Hoagie, frustrated, said, "Where did you think we were going?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," she said nonsensically, as she led the way into the badly-lit back office.
"Why don't we just do it down here?" asked D. J., gesturing vaguely at the messy piles and cartoons of unpacked books.
"No, we have to do it upstairs," said Luna. "It's more harmonic up there."
"That's where the homeless beach man lived," Roxy warned vaguely, with a grumble.
D. J. responded with "Homeless beach man? There was a homeless beach man?"
"He was here before you got hired," Roxy said. "Stayed up there a week. No showers or anything."
"So?" Hoagie said, trying to change the subject.
"So? So what!" Roxy gave him a dirty look. "So he was up there. A whole week and everything."
"But he's not up there now," Hoagie said dismissively. "It's not like he was a haunted homeless man." He turned to D. J., said, "It's just upstairs. A bunch of deserted offices. You been up there."
"Apparently, so has a haunted homeless beach man," D. J. nodded.
Hoagie shot D. J. another you traitor look.
"It has to be upstairs," Luna said, decisively. "No phones, no electricity -- no interruptions. At least not... mortal ones."
Before everyone else could stop rolling their eyes, Roxy came up with what she thought was a sure dealbreaker, which in turn would allow this whole nonsense to be over with so she could spend the rest of the night with Hoagie being a ballbreaker.
"Well," she said, like Perry Mason wrapping up a case, "if there's no electricity up there--how are we all going to see?"
She enjoyed a moment of total smug before Luna suddenly turned around and--
--produced four candles.
Four extremely weird-looking candles.
"Got a match, anyone?" she asked, with a victorious grin.
~ ~ ~
Upstairs, up those splintery stairs.
"Could these candles be tinier?" Roxy grumbled, holding hers out in front of her like it was radioactive.
"Oh, man," Hoagie said suddenly.
"What?" Roxy seemed instantly suspicious.
"What?" Luna repeated, in a mock-nag voice.
Hoagie said, in a totally manufactured tone, "Dudes, I've got to--seriously, I like totally forgot--I got to fax something."
He grinned, shrugged, gave that sheepish look of his, and quickly headed back down the splintery steps.
"Be riiiight back," he called out as he disappeared around the corner.
"Lame," everyone said in unison after he disappeared.
"Fax something?" D. J. chuckled. "What is this, 20 years ago?" Nodding shrewdly, he added: "I detect treachery."
"Off setting up one of his stupid practical jokes," Roxy muttered. "Special Halloween idiot edition."
D. J. nodded: ahhh, that explains why he agreed to stick around tonight.
"Whatever he does, don't fall for it or act surprised," Roxy muttered. "He'll be crowing for days."
They all stood there on the splintery steps, nodding, agreeing not to fall for anything.
Then: they all continued up the stairs, guided by the erratic candlelight.
~ ~ ~
Hoagie scurried to the front of the store, chuckling to himself. He pretended to set up the fax machine, but when he was sure no one from upstairs had followed, he picked up the phone and dialed.
"C'mon, Dickie, pick up." He waited, still checking over his shoulder. "C'mon... Oh, man, Dickie. What's the point of a cell phone--"
Grumbling, he hung up the phone, and checking his watch with the clock on the wall, then checking again, he pressed his nose against the front window, peering out into the dark, past the painted herm
it crab claw, the boardwalk, the long beach, out into the soft moonlit waves.
"Okay, buddy, I assume you're on your way. Don't leave me hanging."
He kept looking for a moment, then, chuckled out loud.
"Man, this is going to be sweet. The sweetest punk-prank ever." Another chuckle. "I'm going to be crowing about this one for days."
He considered dialing again, but--nah. He's on his way. He wouldn't miss a primo prank like this. Not ol' Dickie.
"Prepare to reach, my friends," he whispered, whipping out a little air guitar, "the Prank Island of Rock--!"
Looking over his shoulder again, he hurried over to the double doors, fiddled with his key chain and--
Click--
Left the front doors to Hermit Crab Used Books totally unlocked.
And scurried back to the festivities.
This is going to be...
...sweet.
~ ~ ~
They were all on knees and crossed legs, huddled underneath exposed pipes, ragged wires, peeling walls, circled around the Ouija board. The candles had been stuck-waxed onto the corners of the board. Shadows flickered over bored faces, annoyed faces, nervous faces, and Luna's wide-eyed talking-mystical-again face.
"Let the night begin," she intoned, melodramatically. Wriggling her overly-painted fingernails-- and her overly-penciled eyebrows --she puckered and eyed everyone ominously.
Roxy sighed, and offered, under her breath, "Whoopie."