“This is … ” Basil trailed off. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It wasn’t this bad,” Amy said. “It’s gotten worse.”
Trinity ran her fingers over the wall in wonder. Ruth Anne stood very, very still, trying to avoid touching anything. The bathroom smelled like the Brooka, only worse.
“Beehive,” Matt read aloud. The word was repeated over and over, along with countless names and numbers. “What the hell is a Beehive?”
“There’s no way one person did this,” Basil said. “Not since the store closed. This would have taken all night.”
And yet there it was, right in front of them.
“I can’t breathe this smell anymore,” Ruth Anne said, leaving the restroom. The others followed her out to the hallway.
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Basil said. “I want everyone to listen and do exactly what I say. Do you all understand?”
“We need to call the police,” Amy said.
“Definitely not,” Basil said. “If the police come, Pat comes. He’ll be mad, Corporate still shows up in the morning, and the problem isn’t solved. But if we go through the store together, if we find this guy, we can fix the problem once and for all.”
“I’m not going back to the Showroom,” Amy said. “I’m sorry, but one floor sweep was enough for me.”
“Suit yourself,” Basil said. “You and Ruth Anne can stay in the break area. Going forward, I don’t want anyone alone in the store.”
Ruth Anne nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it.
“Call my cell phone if you see anything suspicious,” Basil said. “And whatever happens, do not leave the break room. There are enough people running around in here. It’s starting to feel like an episode of Scooby-Doo. We’ll regroup when we find this guy.”
It was the first time all night that Amy was glad to follow Basil’s orders. She walked back to the break room and took out her cell phone.
“I don’t like this,” Ruth Anne said, coming in after her.
“Me, either,” Amy said, tapping her phone’s screen.
“What’re you doing?”
“Calling the cops.”
“But we just said we weren’t going to do that.”
“I lied.”
“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” the operator asked.
“Hi, I’m at the Cuyahoga Orsk and we’ve got a customer or someone hiding in the store. He’s vandalized our bathroom, and I think he’s dangerous.”
“Do you want police, fire, or emergency?”
“Police, I guess? A police emergency?”
“Is anyone injured?”
“No, but he scared the hell out of everyone.”
“And what is your exact location?”
“I’m at Orsk. The furniture store. Off Route 77, near Independence.”
“Do you have an exact street address?”
Amy’s mind went blank. She never thought of Orsk as having an address—it was always just there, plopped down on the side of the highway, like a Cracker Barrel or a Home Depot. She searched the memos tacked to the employee bulletin board for some kind of street address. Finally she found one buried in the fine print on Orsk letterhead.
“Seventy-four fourteen River Park Drive. That’s the feeder road right off Route 77,” she told the operator.
“And is that a residence or a business?”
“Amy?” Ruth Anne mouthed.
“It’s a business. It’s a giant building with a giant sign screaming ‘Orsk’ in giant ten-foot letters. There’s like a hundred of them across the country. You know?”
“Amy?” Ruth Anne whispered, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Hold on,” Amy said to the dispatcher and held the phone against her stomach. “What?”
“Hang up the phone.”
“Why?
“I need this job. You’re young and you can go somewhere else, but I can’t. If I lose this job, I won’t get another one. Hang up.”
“Who cares about your job? What about your safety?”
“I’m begging you, Amy. As your friend. Please hang up.”
Amy hesitated for a moment, then raised the phone back to her ear.
“Ma’am?” the dispatcher said. “Are you there?”
“Listen, I made a mistake,” Amy said. “We don’t need the police.”
“Ma’am, I already have units on the way. I have to—”
Amy hung up.
“Thank you,” Ruth Anne said.
“This is a bad idea,” Amy said. “Basil’s making it worse, not better.”
“He’ll find the man and it’ll all be fine,” Ruth Anne said. “I know it will be. Calling the police just undermines his authority.”
Amy’s cell phone rang. She answered.
“Ma’am, I lost your call.” It was the 911 operator calling her back. “I want you to know that we have a unit on the way to your location, 7414 River Park Drive, from Brecksville. They should be there shortly.”
“Thank you,” Amy said. She hung up and turned to Ruth Anne. “They’re coming anyways.”
“Oh,” Ruth Anne said, chewing her lip. “Well.”
“I’m sorry,” Amy said. “But you know what? I’m not that sorry. Let’s just sit here quietly, and in twenty minutes it’ll all be over.”
“No,” Ruth Anne said. “We’re going to go upstairs and we’re going to help Basil find this person before the police get here. We’re going to do what he says, and we’re going to keep our jobs.”
“Not me. I am not going back on that floor.”
“Oh, boy,” Ruth Anne said. She looked nervously around the room as though she was checking to see if anyone was watching. Then she looked back at Amy and all the hesitation, all the nervousness, all the nicey-nice that made her Ruth Anne was gone. “Listen to me, you spoiled child.”
Amy had never heard Ruth Anne talk this way. She didn’t know Ruth Anne could talk this way.
“Maybe you’ve got a safety net, but I don’t. I don’t have a family, I don’t have a lot of friends, and when I’m home at night, I usually spend my time doing crosswords and watching TV with Snoopy. You know who Snoopy is? He’s the stuffed dog I won at the Great Lakes Fair. Now, you know what I do have? This job. It pays my rent, it gives me a family, it bought me a beautiful kitchen, and I am not going to lose it because some little girl who thinks it’s her job to lip off all the time has the willies and won’t go upstairs to help her coworkers find the person sneaking around this store.”
“Ruth Anne—”
“No, you’ve talked plenty tonight. Now it’s time for you to listen. The last time I checked you were twenty-four years old. Thirteen and angry is a long way back in your rearview mirror. You need to buckle up because it is time to toe the line and act like a grown-up woman. You don’t want to go out on the floor? Tough titty, said the kitty. I don’t want to go on the floor, either, but having a job is all about doing things you don’t want to do. That’s why they pay you money for it. Life doesn’t care what you want, other people don’t care what you want. All that matters is what you do. And right now, what you’re going to do is stand shoulder to shoulder with me and march out that door, find our friends, and help them deal with this situation. Tomorrow you can do whatever the heck you want, but I am going to keep my job. So get up, put some pepper in your pants, and let’s get moving.”
Amy opened her mouth to say something but then realized she didn’t have a single thing to say except “Okay.”
They found Basil and the others in Bedrooms, hiding behind a Drazel chest of drawers.
“Shhhh,” Matt hissed, waving them over. “The guy’s … in … there.”
He jabbed a finger toward the double doors leading to the back of house. Amy obediently ducked behind the Drazel.
“What’d he look like?” she whispered.
“We didn’t actually see him,” Basil said. “But Trinity saw someone moving and then we all saw the doors swinging. We
’re going to lure him out, then we’ll nab him in a pincer movement.”
“What’s a pincer movement?” Amy asked.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Ruth Anne said. She marched up to the double doors and pushed them wide open. “There’s nobody here. He’s probably still in Dining Rooms hiding under some shelves, the poor thing.”
“That was extremely dangerous,” Basil said. “You could have been attacked.”
Ruth Anne shook her head. “Anyone hiding in this store is probably in a heap of trouble. My guess is that this fella needs some serious help.”
“She’s got a point,” Amy said. “I don’t want to be here. Why would this guy?”
Basil ignored her. “Let’s go to Dining Rooms.”
“Hang on,” Matt said.
He opened a Tawse wardrobe and removed one of his gear bags. He unzipped the top, reached inside, and pulled out a black Maglite. It was about two feet long and resembled a cross between a flashlight and a riot baton. It looked like it could put a serious crease in a skull.
“You are not going to use that on a human being,” Basil said.
“That depends,” Matt said. “This guy nearly attacked Trinity.”
“I’ve been trained in retail crisis management,” Basil said. “Let me handle this.”
Matt marched off toward Dining Rooms without answering him. “You can’t beat up a ghost,” Trinity called, going after him, the others following in their wake.
“You do realize that you’re not in control of this situation anymore,” Amy said to Basil.
“I am one hundred percent in control of this situation,” Basil said, hurrying to keep up.
They began the long trip along the Bright and Shining Path to Dining Rooms. They passed enormous Pronk mirrors leaning against the walls and showing cold, silver versions of themselves trapped in glass. They walked past rows of armchairs waiting for visitors who would never come, past stripped shelves, bare tables, empty beds, doors to nowhere.
“Something smells,” Ruth Anne said.
“Something nasty,” Trinity added.
The sour, marshy stench of rotten mud crept across the Showroom floor like a low-lying fog. The closer they got to Dining Rooms the worse it got, crawling up their nostrils and creeping down their throats. It was the same smell in the bathroom, the same smell emanating from the Brooka earlier that morning. It made Amy’s skin feel slimy.
“Stay close,” Matt told Trinity, but she pulled away from him, still angry.
Finally they arrived at the dining room display they’d seen on the security camera. They stopped on the edge of the Bright and Shining Path, feeling as if they had just stepped onto a television set and were now being watched by an invisible audience of millions. The chairs from the Frånjk collection were tipped on their sides, and a plastic EMF reader sat in the center of the massive Frånjk table. Amy’s heart was pounding.
“Spirits, can you hear me?” Trinity called.
“Sssh!” Matt snapped. “Don’t call attention to yourself.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Trinity snapped back. She was aiming her camera into every corner, trying to get another look at her ghost. “Spirits, reveal yourselves!”
“I just don’t believe this,” Ruth Anne said. “I’m a bigger ’fraidy cat than all of you, but this is ridiculous.” She got down on her knees and peered underneath the Kjërring storage unit. “Nothing again. He’s gone.”
Amy felt doubly relieved. Maybe now they would go back to the break room. Even better, maybe they’d call it a night and go home. But then she glanced across the Bright and Shining Path, and she saw it.
On the other side of the walkway, opposite Dining Rooms, was a purple Sylbian bedroom display. Everything in the room was meticulously arranged. Not a single detail was out of place—except the ruffled white bed skirt around the box spring. Underneath it, protruding from the shadows, rested a hairy human hand with a gold wedding band on one finger.
Amy nudged Basil. He followed her jabbing finger, and his eyes went cartoon-character wide.
Their terrified focus alerted Matt and he turned around, followed both their gazes, and took an involuntary half step backward when he saw the hand. He tried to pull Trinity back, but she squirmed out of his grip. Ruth Anne retreated on tiptoes to the opposite side of the Bright and Shining Path.
“Um, we see you,” Basil announced, too loudly.
Nothing happened.
“Under the bed,” he continued. “With the wedding ring. Hairy hands. We see you, hairy hands. And … we have you surrounded.”
The hand didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. Amy had the sinking feeling that they’d found a dead body. Someone had died in Bedrooms and there was no way they could leave a dead body for morning shift. Basil would insist on removing it before the Consultant Team arrived. This night was never going to end.
“Look, we’ve called the police,” Basil tried again. “You can come out now or the cops will drag you out. Do you want to be pepper-sprayed? And Tasered?”
All at once, Ruth Anne strode past him, approached the bed and raised one end, revealing a man splayed out facedown like a starfish. He burst into motion, scuttling away like a bug after its rock has been lifted. Stumbling to his feet, he immediately whacked his head on the edge of the raised bedframe. He had too much momentum to stop, but the collision knocked him off-balance; he wove his way across the Bright and Shining Path, caught a Sploog love seat at midthigh, and went flying over it, head over heels.
“You better run!” Matt shouted.
“No, do not run!” Basil yelled. “Stop!”
The man pushed himself off the floor and limped into an ocean of desks, heading for the shortcut in Storage Solutions. “I said stop!” Basil called again. “The doors are locked! We’ve got you on tape!”
The man dropped his hands to his sides. His shoulders slumped as if he’d been unplugged. Then he turned around. He was balding, with a five o’clock shadow that looked like purple sandpaper. “You got me,” he said, in a whiny nasal voice. “I’m gotten, okay?”
His blue polo shirt stretched over his belly; there were dried white sweat stains in the armpits. His khakis looked shiny at the knees. One of his sneakers had duct tape wrapped around the toes.
“Stay there,” Basil said. “Don’t move.”
“I’m not moving,” the man said.
“Why’d you jump my girlfriend?” Matt snapped.
“I jumped her? No way, man. I bumped into her and got scared out of my socks. I tried to get away. If anything, she jumped me. I would never raise my hand against a woman. I’m a committed pacifist! I don’t know what she told you guys.”
“He didn’t jump me,” Trinity said. “He tried to communicate with me.” She raced up to the man, pointing her camera at his face. “How long have you been dead?”
“He’s not a fucking ghost,” Matt snapped in frustration. “He’s just homeless. He’s a bum. Don’t get too close.”
“You don’t have to call me names,” the guy said, looking genuinely crestfallen. Then he turned to Trinity. “But your boyfriend’s right, sweetheart. I’m no ghost.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Trinity said. “And I know you aren’t a ghost. Ghosts don’t hide under beds.”
Then she sat down on a Scopperloit chair and began to cry.
“Oh, honey,” Ruth Anne said, rushing to her.
“I’m fine,” Trinity said with a sob. “Really, I’m fine.”
“Who are you?” Basil demanded. “You can’t be in here.”
“I’m Carl,” the man said.
“Carl who?”
“I would prefer not to say.”
“Do you have any ID?”
“Are you busting me?” Carl asked.
“I’m not busting you,” Basil said, making air quotes around the word busting. “But I am responsible for this store. How did you get inside?”
“Same way I do every night,” Carl said. “I hang out in the café until clo
sing, then I go to the bathroom around nine thirty and sit in the stall and pull my feet up on the commode whenever the door opens. Your security guys do a terrible job, by the way. You should find a new company.”
Trinity was still sobbing as though she might never stop, and Ruth Anne was gently rubbing her back. Matt stood off to one side, looking awkward.
Basil turned to Amy. “This is the guy you saw?”
“I was pretty far away,” she said. “But I think so.”
“Oh!” Carl exclaimed, as if Amy had just cleared up something that was bothering him. “You’re the gal from this morning. I hope I didn’t scare you. I thought for sure you would call security.”
“Did you vandalize a Brooka?” Basil asked.
“A what?”
“A Brooka sofa. When we opened the store this morning, one of the sofas was … soiled. With a substance.”
“Poop,” Amy added.
Carl blushed. “Look,” he said to Basil. “Can I talk to you privately? Man to man?”
Basil made an “I got this” gesture to his team. “Stay here. I’ll be right back,” he said, and then he took Carl by the arm and steered him a few steps down the Bright and Shining Path.
“Here’s the thing,” Carl explained. “I haven’t been well lately. I don’t totally know what happened last night.”
“Are you on drugs?”
Carl looked distressed. “I get these headaches. I got epilepsy, did I tell you that? Sometimes I black out. And when I wake up, I got dirt on me or glass in my hair. Look at my hands.” He held them out. His fingernails were black. “They were clean when I went to bed last night.”
“You don’t remember anything?” Basil asked.
“I had pills. But I can’t get my prescription filled no more.”
“How long have you been sneaking in here?”
“Please don’t get angry. It’s just a place for me to sleep. And use the john. I’ve never stolen a thing.”
“But you’re breaking stuff,” Basil said. “Mirrors, curtains, glassware—”
“No, never, I swear,” Carl insisted. “I’ve treated this place like I would treat my own home. That’s your motto, isn’t it? A Home for the Everyone? This is my home.”
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