Anything Can Be Dangerous

by Matt Hults

  Wendy ran to his side, reaching him in time to witness a cloudy white eyeball pop open on the gigantic pile of reeking meat heaped against the freezer’s far wall.

  Her scream ripped across his eardrums at the very moment a lopsided mouth tore a hole in the huge mound of ground beef staring back at them. The meat-pile yawned as they looked on, displaying teeth made from broken bones and disgorging a huge bovine organ that must’ve been its tongue. Five smaller eyes surfaced at various points around the first one.

  The thing’s attention focused on the knife in Ron’s hand. Its eyes narrowed.

  A second later it coughed up a watery stream of red-brown liquid that struck Ron dead-center in the chest, soaking his shirt and hair, spraying in all directions.

  He slammed the door and threw the locking pin in place, looking at Wendy, meat juice dripping off his face. Her mascara traced the paths of her tears down both cheeks.

  “Co…come on,” he said, picking up the bags of patties. “We need to hurry.”

  At the stove, he fired up the burners, switched on the deep fryer. Overhead, the malfunctioning lights had ceased flickering and now glowed bright and steady. Readout LEDs flashed to life on almost all the other appliances.

  They completed sixty orders at an average rate of four minutes per meal, a miracle time born of high-pressure stress and good ol’ fashion terror. The customers came, ordered, and paid whatever they felt like paying. Currencies from around the world disappeared into the cash drawers, along with shells and stones, bones and teeth. At one point, a skinny girl with blue-grey skin dressed only in fishnet stockings and a frayed leather dog collar offered Ron a “freebee” in exchange for her chocolate milkshake, to which he politely replied, “It’s on the house.”

  Wendy refused to follow him to the counter, opting instead to watch the grill while he dealt with the horde of unearthly customers up front.

  “We’re out of hamburger patties,” she said when he rushed to change the baskets in the deep fryer. She cast a furtive glance at where they’d stacked a dozen canisters of soft drink mix in front of the freezer door.

  Ron sighed. “There’s something that looks like meat hanging in the janitor’s closet…I’ll go cut some slabs off that in a minute.”

  He reloaded the fryers and returned to the registers, delivering a tray of fish sticks. Ahead of him, a sea of pale-skinned patrons waited their turn at the counter.

  A teenage girl dripping mud and seaweed stepped forward.

  “How…” he began, then had to stop, trying to work up saliva. He wiped sweat off his face. “How may I…”

  But he pivoted away without finishing, leaning against the ice cream machine, which currently churned a mixture of vanilla soft-server and black sludge.

  “Screw this!” he cried. “I can’t. I can’t do it anymore––”

  “Hello, sir,” a voice said at his back.

  Ron flinched and spun around, recoiling at the sight of a tall gaunt figure dressed in a paper hat and apron. Behind it stood a trio of men with wads of bloody gauze taped over their eyes.

  “We’re here about the jobs,” the tall one said. He handed Ron a quartet of papers labeled ‘Application for Employment.’

  Ron blinked, stammering a string of unintelligible sounds before finally saying the one thing that seemed the most appropriate. “You’re hired.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the emaciated creature answered. It immediately took up a position near the deep fryer, causing Wendy to scream when she saw it coming. The thing reached into the bubbling oil with its bare hands, transferring the cooked food to the proper containers. The other men each manned a register, two up front and one at the drive-thru alcove.

  Wendy hurried to Ron’s side. “What…” she started, but then trailed off, perhaps knowing he’d have no rational answer for her question.

  The hours passed. Customers continued to arrive, flooding the dining room far beyond what would normally be acceptable by state safety regulations—yet the restaurant managed to accommodate them. More employees showed up, as well. They no longer approached Ron, acting out the formalities of regular job applicants as the first few had, but just turned up and went to work.

  The rhythm of the restaurant filled the air. Pots clanking, registers buzzing, voices calling out the orders. From the dining room came the constant slavering sounds of snapping teeth and chewing jaws while the patrons devoured meal after meal after meal.

  And they were getting stranger, too. As were their orders.

  Ron glimpsed a walking jumpsuit with a mass of purple vines sprouting from the neckline; a mound of black fur whose hidden claws clicked against the tile; a skinless beast that reminded him of the malevolent mound of sentient beef in the freezer.

  He avoided the front line as much as possible now, busying himself by stocking mundane supplies that mysteriously showed up in the storeroom: plastic forks; paper cups; napkins; straws. Occasionally he’d come across a box labeled ‘Dried Monkey Heads’ or an economy-size can of ‘Powdered Semen’, but at least those items were contained and out of sight. It was when he’d encounter a worker delivering some hideous tray of ingredients to the kitchen that he felt his stomach somersault inside him. Twice he’d vomited on the floor, not having time to find the restroom. The first time a dutiful employee appeared with a mop and bucket; the second time they brought a carryout bag.

  He was more concerned about Wendy than himself, though. She followed him like his shadow, crying out each time one of the malformed workers came within arm’s reach of her—which had become a regular occurrence given the cramped conditions. More than once he’d needed to lift her from the floor after she’d slumped into a corner.

  Now he looked up as he deposited a fresh container of salt and pepper packets at the counter, shocked to see a normal-looking gentleman in glasses approach the register. He had a nervous, sheepish way about him that reminded Ron of the acting style of Woody Allen, and he almost screamed at the guy to run and find help.

  Then the man smiled a mouth full of razor-pointed teeth. “Do you happen to have any live children?” he asked.

  Ron stood frozen. “Fresh out,” he replied, praying it was the first and only time such a request had come in.

  The gentleman snapped his fingers. He pushed his glasses up. “I guess I’ll just have a chicken sandwich, then.”

  Ron keyed in the order and fled back toward the kitchen—

  Where he noticed Wendy had disappeared.

  “Wendy!” he shouted. He hurried through the kitchen, pushing past the workers as they went about their chores, but couldn’t find her. He dashed past the freezer. “Fucker!” the thing inside barked—and rushed down the back hall.

  He found her in the manager’s office, tucked into the corner beside a plastic potted plant. The small room appeared immaculate, a far cry from when he’d first viewed it. The furniture all looked new now, as did the various office-related supplies and corporate-themed decor. Behind the desk, the picture of the Last Supper gleamed as if just painted.

  “It’s my fault,” Wendy wailed when she saw him. “I knew something was wrong when I drove up. The place was fixed! When I first toured it last month, the building was just a burnt out shell. But today…I should’ve said something, anything, but I needed the commission…”

  Her confession deteriorated into a sorrowful moan.

  He sat down beside her. Took her hands in his.

  “We’ll be all right. We just need to feed the customers and obey the rules.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s like we’ve skipped the Twilight Zone and gone straight to Hell. All I know is that we’re still alive, and if we can stay that way long enough, we’ll find a way out of here…this place seems to need us.”

  “Which is why we’ll never get out,” she said. Despite her tears, the words came out soft and calm, sounding frighteningly like acceptance.

  He opened his mouth, not yet sure what he
planned to say, only knowing that he had to get her back to work before whatever force controlled this place decided she was slacking.

  “Look we—” he started, but stopped when he spotted something lying forgotten under the desk. He let go of Wendy’s hands and crawled over to it.

  He picked it up and hope instantly charged his nerves.

  “Look at this!” he said. “It’s the ID badge of the previous manager.”

  When she didn’t move, he returned to her side, holding the badge forward. He tapped the headshot under the laminate. “Wendy, do you recognize this guy?”

  She stared at it for a moment, eyes blank, but then a look of understanding enlivened her features. “Al Tolbec,” she whispered, reading the signature on the badge. “Yes! He’s the owner, the one who tried to burn this place down.”

  Ron could see a fresh glint of resolve in her eyes, a growing excitement he felt himself.

  “And where is Tolbec now?” he asked knowingly.

  “A mental hospital,” she replied. “That’s why the insurance company dropped the arson suit and ownership of the property reverted to the bank, because the courts found him insane!”

  “Of course they did!” Ron laughed. “Imagine trying to tell a judge you built a restaurant that caters exclusively to the dead!”

  He got up, helping Wendy to her feet. “That’s not the important part, though. What matters is that Tolbec got out. He got out and tried to destroy this place. And if he found a way to escape—”

  “So can we!” Wendy finished for him.

  Ron nodded.

  From the hallway came the background noise of the workers laboring in the kitchen, along with the constant undertone of the feasting creatures in the dining room.

  Ron crossed the office and checked the hall, finding it vacant. He eased the door closed, wiping a layer of nervous sweat off his forehead.

  “Okay…” he said, pacing back and forth. “For whatever reason this place seems to function on the same principles as an average fast-food business. Maybe we can use that somehow?”

  Wendy pondered the problem, chewing her lower lip.

  “We seem to be integral to servicing the customers,” Ron thought aloud. “Which would make us employees, I guess… But we can’t just quit and walk out…”

  Suddenly Wendy’s face brightened. “You could fire me!” she said.

  “What?”

  She stepped around the desk to stand before him. “Listen, the workers—those ghosts, or corpses, or whatever they are—they all listen to you! They came to you to get hired. They act like you run the place! If what you’re saying is true, that makes you the manager. I’m just another employee to them. If you fired me, I’d have to leave!”

  Ron mulled it over for a moment, seeing her reasoning, but finally shook his head no.

  “I can’t let you risk yourself like that,” he said. “I have a feeling that in this place you don’t get fired; you get terminated.”

  Her expression of optimism dissolved into a shudder.

  “We have to try something simple,” he said. Then, after a second of contemplation, he grabbed her hand. “Follow me!”

  Ron raced out of the office, towing Wendy along with him, heading for the storeroom—

  But slid to a halt after only a few feet, stopped by the sight of one of the skeletonized workers in the hall, blocking their path. It leaned against the wall, glaring at them like a back-alley thug.

  Ron forced a commanding tone. “Afraid that wall will fall over if you don’t hold it up?”

  The thing straightened. Its sneer vanished from its shrink-wrapped head, replaced by a definite look of unease.

  “Get your bony ass back to work!” Ron boomed.

  To his surprise, the figure spun away and hot-tailed it back to the kitchen.

  He looked to Wendy. “Let’s move!”

  They hurried to the storeroom, to where three waste barrels sat to the right of the chained doors. Each overflowed with stuffed trash bags.

  He hefted a bag in each hand and turned to the doors. He took a deep breath.

  “This place is a goddamn disgrace!” he said, voicing his words to the entire room. “Do I have to do everything around here?”

  He looked to Wendy. “I’m taking the trash out.”

  He knew it was a long-shot, an outright absurdity given the fact new supplies seemed to arrive out of thin air whenever needed, but when he looked back to the door, the padlock fell open.

  Wendy gasped.

  Ron pulled the chains away, dropping them to the floor. When he depressed the push-bar, he heard the beautiful sound of the latching mechanism release.

  He faced Wendy. “Stay here,” he said.

  She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. “No—”

  “I’ll make sure it’s safe first,” he rushed on. “Obey the rules, remember?”

  She held his stare, her eyes wide with fright, but her grip slid away from his arm and she nodded her understanding.

  He pushed the door open.

  Outside, darkness surrounded the restaurant. Ron hadn’t worn his watch and couldn’t recall seeing any clocks in the building, but he had the distinct feeling that the black air outside wasn’t a result of the passage of time. There was a substance to the abysmal depths that went beyond his full understanding, a presence that seemed to loom in at all sides, and after only several steps out the door, his exposed flesh had gone as cold as the plastic skin of a body bag.

  He walked forward, forcing himself to ignore it.

  Fifty feet away, a single lamppost stood in the gloom. It spotlighted a grime-splashed dumpster in a yellow cone of light, looking like two props on a vast empty stage.

  He saw no stars overhead. No silhouettes of the trees that bordered the parking lot.

  Thirty-some feet from the restaurant, he looked to the left, to where he should’ve been able to spot the concrete of the expansive four-lane highway, but again saw only the all-encompassing darkness.

  He quickened his pace, finally stepping into the lamp’s circle of light. He glanced up to see its wooden post waver, as if not entirely solid.

  He lifted the lid of the dumpster.

  A hot breath pushed past his arm when he did, and his mouth fell open as he found himself staring into a massive tooth-lined throat that descended into a hazy orange oblivion of fire.

  He stumbled away, shaking.

  There was a heart-stopping moment when he felt the trash bags begin to fall from his grasp, and it only came out of the sheer terror of not knowing what might happen if he didn’t finish the task that he found the strength to heave them into the dumpster from a distance.

  He turned and started back toward the restaurant at a fast walk.

  From here, all he saw of the building was the white rectangle of light that marked the open back door. Wendy’s silhouette stood at the threshold, eagerly awaiting his signal to join him.

  He shook his head as he neared, praying she saw it.

  Don’t come out! he wanted to scream. Whatever you do, don’t come out here!

  He’d closed to within sight of her when he spotted a new employee enter the room behind her.

  “Wendy!” he cried, voicing her name far louder than intended. He’d meant to warn her that his plan had failed, that she should stay put, but she must’ve misread the horror on his face and thought he was reacting to the thing approaching behind her.

  “Phone call for you, sir,” the worker announced.

  She spun to face the man, and when she did Ron had a clear view of the creature.

  It was Greg.

  Though torn limb from limb just hours ago, the man appeared whole, pieced back together like some horrific jigsaw puzzle. Thick black sutures followed the bloody lines of his wounds like a network of interconnected rivers, crisscrossing the visible parts of his body. He had on the same type of grease-stained apron worn by the kitchen staff—which bowed inward over his stomach, as if covering a huge hole—as well as a creased paper hat.


  Wendy ran.

  She charged forward without a sound, bolting into the unknown.

  Ron lunged for her as she ran past, but only grazed the soft skin of her hand.

  “No! Don’t!” he cried.

  He turned around to see the darkness flow forward, coming at them like a wave. Wendy froze at the sight of it, watching as it swallowed the dumpster and lamppost, racing toward her.

  Ron grabbed her. Pulled her back to the doors.

  But then something had her.

  Both of them screamed as her feet got yanked out from under her, and Ron swung around to see her legs lift off the ground, immersed up to her knees in the darkness.

  “Ron!” she cried.

  He held her with one hand, seized the push-bar of the door with the other.

  Greg’s corpse watched them indifferently.

  “Ron! Oh, God! Help, me!” she screamed.

  The darkness consumed her up to the waist, pulling her higher, until Ron was looking up at her as he fought the pull her inside.

  Grunting, he held on with all of his might, feeling his muscle fibers stretch to their limit. The veins of his arms stood out like lightning bolts. But he wasn’t only fighting the brute strength of the entity outside, he discovered; he was straining against uncounted hours of sweating over a hot grill, handling food drenched in oil.

  Skin slid over skin.

  First he had her whole hand.

  Then just her palm.

  Then only her fingers.

  He looked into her face as he felt her nails reach the edge of his grip, knowing that in the next second he’d lose her. With tears slipping from his eyes, he tried the only thing left that might save her.

  “Wendy!” he shouted.

  The terrified girl looked down, meeting his eyes.

  “You’re fired!” he yelled.

  Her screams cut off, replaced by stunned silence.

  “Effective immediately,” he added. “Get off the property!”

  She held his stare even as the darkness seeped over her face.

  And then she was gone, pulled out of his hands.

  The doors flew shut. Ron collapsed to his knees.

  He sat on the floor in the aftermath of his actions, doubling over as a flood of emotions washed over him. “Oh, Christ,” he cried. “What’ve I done?”