The Last Death Worm of the Apocalypse (Kelly Driscoll Book 3)

by Nina Post

  “Oh, really? Do you think you’ll be in your true form in the SSI building, making tea and watching Grantchester with me? Because, to be honest, I don’t think I can have a relationship with someone who needs the SPs to file his nails using an orbital sander.”

  “I’ll change back!”

  She growled in frustration. “Fine. Do it. Try not to destroy the world. Maybe I wish I could turn into an angel of destruction, but I can’t. I’m a person, so I have to stay and manage the hell out of this building or everything’s going to fall apart, and I don’t mean that hyperbolically.”

  She hung up and went back inside and planted herself back at the counter, glowering, sipping her Juicy Juice.

  The mailman arrived wearing Bermuda shorts and a pith helmet, and sifted through a sack and started to put pieces on the counter. Mr. Yellow emerged from the back and hailed the mailman. “Hey, Steve.”

  “Hey, Max.”

  Kelly thought of something and turned to face the mailman. “Is there any lodge here with an address of 7.0.3?”

  Without looking up, the mailman said “Yep.”

  She really wasn’t in any kind of mood to pull information from him, but said, “Where is it?”

  Without looking up from his mail sifting, he said, “Over yonder,” and gestured vaguely to the north.

  “What kind of a lodge is it?”

  “It’s a kind of improv dinner theater. But don’t expect dinner.”

  “Seriously?”

  The mailman gave her a long-suffering My route is hell lodges look.

  “And that’s the street address?” she said.

  The mailman stared at her through half-lidded eyes. “That’s the suite number,” he said, slowly, so she’d understand.

  To Mr. Yellow, she said, “Can I get a bag lunch to go?”

  Kelly went in the general direction the mailman had indicated, walking over a hilly stretch of red quartz, seeing three lodges in the distance. The bag, which had her name written on it in black Sharpie, included a PB&J, a mini bag of Cluck Snack Cheezy Flats Nacho Flav’r (Not for Hamsters or Chinchillas), a snack bag of carrot sticks, and a Sno-Ball.

  “Oooh, a Sno-Ball!” She’d have it later.

  The third lodge housed the dinner theater. The sign out front read Werewolf Dentist, and displayed the show times.

  Above the dinner theater hell lodge door was the number 7.0.3. Maybe she could find out who was supposed to get the package FedEx kept trying to deliver.

  She didn’t see anyone manning the ticket booth, so slipped inside and found a spacious room with a stage to the far left. Facing the stage were comfortable-looking loveseats and armchairs. Only a few others were there, having drinks. She took a chair near the back row and kept her hard hat on. Maybe she’d always wear it.

  In a few minutes, the lights dimmed in the room and brightened over the stage.

  A man and a woman, both in their thirties, came out to the stage from opposite sides.

  “Roger,” the woman said and Kelly cocked her head. “All of the werewolves in Snowy Peak still think that you were the best dentist they ever had. Sure, they let me work on them, filling cavities, sharpening the canines, but they sing your praises to this day, and that makes me feel insecure.”

  She sat up and looked around. Was this a practical joke? Was she being narcissistic or did this sound like what she told Mr. Yellow? How was that even possible?

  “Kelly, listen to me,” the man said and her jaw dropped open.

  Let’s Go To The Werewolf Dentist

  ells Fargo Wagon, what is happening right now?” Kelly’s voice was a whisper.

  “I have a formidable legacy,” the man playing Roger said. “For instance, my own variety show, Fang Time with Werewolf Dentist —get it? Fang time? Like hang time, but with fangs?”

  Kelly got to her feet.

  “You are suffocating me,” the woman playing her said, speaking through gritted teeth. “You and your legacy!”

  Roger got up and strutted around the stage. “Even though I’m no longer the town dentist for werewolves, my presence is still felt. I have my own albums, like Let’s Go to the Werewolf Dentist and Werewolves of Snowy Ridge (Need Dentistry, Too). I have my own line of products, like Werewolf Dentist-branded fluoride rinse, floss, go-betweens, and toothpaste that I like to give out on full moons when I’m as busy as a CPA in April. I have a series of self-help books: The 264 Habits of Highly Successful Werewolves and Howling Strong.”

  The actor playing her slapped her chest. “You’re not their dentist anymore! I am! But my patients don’t even see me. I’m nothing to them.”

  Kelly flushed with heat, feeling exposed. The actor playing Roger straddled the chair. “Oh, I’m so sorry for having the initiative to create my own line of branded products and my own TV show and my own songs. Why don’t you do your own?”

  The woman turned around in her chair, away from him. “Because they don’t like me the way they like you. You’re the Mr. Rogers of Snowy Peak. The Ralph Bunche of Snowy Peak!”

  She made a face. Ralph Bunche?

  “So I overshadow you,” the man said. “Why don’t you do something about it?”

  She watched through her fingers. She felt so… exposed.

  “Why don’t you do your own variety show for werewolves about the importance of dental health?”

  “I do,” the woman protested. “It’s your show!”

  The man shrugged. “Change the name. Some people will complain, but they’ll still have my show. They’ll get used to yours, and who knows—maybe they’d like your show better. Everything I did, you can do the same, but in a way that only you could do it.”

  “You know what I’m working at?” the woman said. “Being a good dentist for werewolves!”

  “And do you know what? I was a good dentist for werewolves, too. But you don’t have to do the same things I did.”

  “You mean create my own cult?” the woman said, rolling her eyes.

  The man spread his hands. “I like to think of it more as making my affection for dentistry and the werewolves of Snowy Peak tangible. To make tangible reminders of my dedication and service to my profession and my patients. Think of it that way.”

  The woman nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Roger. You know, you’re an inspiration to me, too. But I still have to kill you.”

  The woman took out a gun and fired. The audience gasped.

  The man clutched at his chest. “A silver bullet? But why?”

  “You’re not a dentist anymore, Roger. You’re a werewolf. And I’m a werewolf hunter. A dentist and a werewolf hunter.”

  With that, the actors smiled, joined hands, and bowed. The audience threw what looked suspiciously like Hostess CupCakes on stage and applauded.

  Kelly staggered out of the room and through the small lobby and finally outside, sucking in breaths. She rested against the wall by the exterior ticket window and closed her eyes.

  The mailman sauntered up in his pith helmet and blue uniform and put a collection of mail through the slot under the window.

  “What was that?”

  “Improv dinner theater.” The mailman hoisted his bag over his shoulder.

  “Mm-hm. So you know, Mr. Zip, it’s more than that.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “You were at the Lunchbox.”

  “And?” She didn’t want to be rude, but he delivered mail to the hell lodges. “You told me the address. Who was supposed to get that package?”

  “What package?” he said.

  “FedEx tried to deliver a box to that suite number, but in the building I work in.”

  “The package was meant for you. I guess Mr. Yellow wanted you come in and talk, then see a show.”

  “That’s a pretty cryptic way of doing it,” she said, perturbed.

  “That’s what Mr. Yellow does,” the mailman said.

  Oh, does that explain it? “I don’t understand.”

  The mailman flipped idly through a Death Worm Fancier magazin
e. “People tell him their problems and it’s all piped into the theater, and they base their show on it. Sometimes the person sees it, sometimes they don’t. It’s like his hobby or something.”

  “That’s—people don’t want to see that. Would you want to go into a bar, tell the bartender about your problems, thinking it’s a private thing between the two of you, and go see a live show where a cast performs the aforementioned problems? Would you?”

  “Probably not. But I don’t talk to folks much.” With that, he sauntered off.

  “Hey!” She said. “Where’s Don’s lodge? The avenging angel of the apocalypse?”

  The mailman pointed while walking.

  The topography in the area surrounding the hell lodge where Kelly had routed Don, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit and King of the Demonic Locusts, with Murray, angel in charge of the protection of futures traders, was like its own biomass. Whereas Murray’s former office was in a southwest-like environment, with sand and cacti, this one was sub-tropical, with thick, heavily floral-scented air that made it hard to breathe.

  She didn’t knock on the wreath-adorned doors. Inside, a folding partition divided the lodge, with a desk on the left against the back wall, and a desk on the right, as far away from each other as possible. Along the front left wall were attached shelves stocked with vials of every possible color. Some vials bubbled, some frothed, and some oozed around like the innards of a lava lamp.

  One of Don’s hobbies, or obsessions, was to siphon supernatural entities like angels and demons into glass vials. She’d worked for him when she first came to Pothole City. Her main job was to find a particular high-value target, who she quickly figured out was Af.

  After Af was inadvertently released from the Ms. Pac-Man game, Don wanted to find out where Af went after that, which meant that Don hadn’t bound him to Amenity Tower—something else had.

  Don had also given her the directive to vial any angels or supernatural creatures along the way to be “repatriated.” At the time, she had considered it one of many weird jobs she’d had, and she’d needed the money.

  But now she wished she hadn’t done it, and she strongly suspected it was about power for Don, who fancied himself to be like a Victorian-era big game hunter of supernatural creatures, displaying his collection of vials like the hunter would display heads.

  For all she knew, he kept another lodge where he did that.

  No one was at the Don’s desk near the door, but across the room, Murray talked on the phone at his desk. She wandered idly closer, wanting to put him in one of the vials, wanting to keep it in a locked box in her office, wanted to know he would be there forever.

  He hung up one green landline phone right as a white landline phone rang. “Futures traders’ helpline,” Murray answered. “OK, sir, it’s all right. We’re here to help. Talk to me.” He covered the mouthpiece and glared at Kelly. “Have you ever tried knocking?!”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  He went back to the call. Kelly noted with some satisfaction that Murray looked terrible: wan, bloated, exhausted, bags under bloodshot eyes. On his desk was Handy Invocations for the Troubled Banker and Trader.

  She ran a fingernail over the sides of the vials on one shelf. They covered all of the wall space in the office.

  “So you put all-in on pork bellies, so what? It’s not the end of the world.” Murray held the receiver away from his ear as the trader screamed something along the lines of how much he didn’t care about the rest of the world.

  Don came out of a back room with a mug of coffee. Short and slim, with sly eyes and grin, he raised the mug to her and smiled. “Well, hello, Ms. Driscoll. What a pleasant surprise to see you here in our modest abode, where Murray and I live together in harmony, with absolutely no rancor or strife.”

  “It sounds like Murray’s using his time well.”

  Don watched Murray rest his head in his hand, despondent, and glanced over to her like they were observing a focus group behind a two-way window. “I don’t know if you know this, Kelly,” Don said, “but there is a stock exchange hell. Futures traders, penny stock traders, you name it.”

  “It appears that he’s running some kind of don’t-jump-out-the-window helpline,” she said, looking around the lodge. “And don’t call me Kelly.”

  They had painted the walls a light blue, covered the pine floors with some throw rugs, and put a few pieces of art on the walls. A monstera plant half her height sat in front of the partition.

  Don crossed his arms and considered Murray with a neutral expression. “Yes, but the calls are the same over and over again. The trader makes the same calls every day. It’s really a terrible situation for Murray.” But Don said the last bit like it pleased him.

  “Mm-hm,” Kelly said, cheerfully, because she was glad to hear it. “And you? What are you doing?”

  “How nice of you to come check up on us. No pie? No muffin basket? Nothing to go with my coffee?”

  “I was admiring your collection of vials.” She indicated the wall by the door. “I suppose it’s been a while.”

  “A blip in the vast expanse of time that I enjoy,” Don said, with a patronizing grin. “In fact, I’m putting up another set of shelves on the other side.”

  “Such optimism. That’s laudable.”

  “Well, you know what my collection lacks.”

  She raised a brow.

  “Your post office demons are in those vials,” he reminded her. “You collected them yourself. Aren’t you thankful that they’re safely ensconced in one of my patent-pending vials?”

  Those post office demons were among the nastiest supernatural entities she had ever encountered, but the danger Don still posed to the SPs overrode all of that. He still wanted to destroy Clucking Along Holdings and all Cluck Snack products that fed the SPs. He still wanted the SPs in those vials. Maybe one day she’d figure out how to destroy him.

  Murray was technically single-purpose, but a complete doofus, and nothing like the SPs she ostensibly protected. He had told her what SPs were and explained everything to her. She hoped he was the only evil SP in the world.

  She recognized some of the other vials too, like a carbonated green one she’d taken from Amenity Tower. A wave of guilt passed through her.

  She walked over to Don’s desk, fronting bookcases stuffed with extremely old books. His desk was, as always, weighed down with stacks and stacks of papers.

  “Still working on it, huh?”

  “I am ceaseless and forever,” Don said.

  “Good for you.” She clapped him once on the back. “All right, have fun!”

  She closed the front door behind her and let out a breath. She hated to see Murray and Don, but had to make sure they were still stuck where she had bound them, thanks to Roger’s software program, AngelRoute Pro. She had used the software to port all incoming monsters and fallen angels to Murray’s hell lodge office, which was hilarious for a while (she could have watched it all day long, and all night), until she started to feel sorry for the monsters.

  Murray’s office only had one bathroom, and the monsters had to be there with Murray, who had terrible taste in music. So she bound him to the office with Don, and routed the monsters to a nearby Wyndham. It was fun software, but the license expired and she couldn’t afford to renew it.

  Time to go home. She didn’t know how much longer she could take her job with Charlotte there.

  Trampy Jumpers

  n her way back, Kelly stopped by the death worm lap pool site, and to her great surprise, it was nearly done. The three cicada brothers beamed.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to be done for days,” she said.

  “That’s what you can get done with a motivated cicada crew! We even got the exercise rings in there. In terms of payment, I believe we discussed a wire transfer. I know we’re ahead of schedule, but can you get that to us today?”

  “I’m going to need a couple of signatures since the amount is so large. The day after tomorrow at the latest.”
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  “Considering the circumstances, we’re good with that. Do you have our wire instructions on file?”

  “Probably, but send me another copy to be safe. Make sure to include the exact company name and address that appears on your bank statements so there are no delays.”

  “You got it. And the filler shipment from the gefilte fish company is getting unloaded right now.”

  Kelly took the elevator upstairs to the lobby and stopped by the front desk where Tom supervised a guest sign-in while signing for packages with one arm, giving directions to lost tourists, making a call with another arm, giving a set of keys to a realtor and a client with another arm, and handing a previous package to a resident with yet another arm.

  The guy with the Zombie Eradication Unit of Greater Pothole City had said that she should check on the residents in a few hours and see if their condition had improved, so Kelly called the ant, aka patient zero, but didn’t get an answer. She asked Dragomir to go check and use his master key if necessary, but he refused, claiming he had a dance to attend the next day and “wife divorce me if I get zombie fungus.”

  She went up to the unit herself and knocked on the door. “Management.”

  The door opened a couple of inches and the ant peered out. A good sign, she figured.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Raft?”

  “I think I’ve regained some control of my brain.” His voice sounded weak.

  “That’s great news.”

  The ant opened the door a little wider. “But I’ve been losing time. According to my Netflix streaming activity, I binge-watched season one of a TV show called Trampy Jumpers.” He gestured her in. “I’ll show you the intro.”

  She was ready to protest, but also wanted the opportunity to see the inside of the apartment, so she followed him in and waited as he found the show in his queue and started playing it for her.