Angel Trouble: A grim reaper horror comedy (24/7 Demon Mart Book 3)

by D. M. Guay

  He stood by the Kelpie Kiwi machine, dangling that rubber squid in front of Glug, who was still inexplicably merged with the slush and spilling out of the nozzle.

  Zack looked at me and said. “Sorry. I can't. I don't have scrolls!”

  “SERIOUSLY?” Yeah. I screamed. “Help Meeeeeeeeee!”

  “I'll see what I can do.” He plinked something into that control panel on the side of his golden scythe. “Huh. Weird. I'm locked out. The code says. Unauthorized use. Stolen property. What?” He shook it, as if that would help.

  Glug said, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

  I ducked back down. “Jesus. These angels are train wrecks. This can't be happening. What do we do?”

  DeeDee didn't answer, because I was talking to her behind. Her glorious, curvy. Uh. Shoot. Focus, Lloyd. Death, hello!

  Okay. Where were we? Oh yes. She was waist deep in the shelf behind the counter, throwing glass jars and rocks and gourds and all manner of weird things out as she went. “No. No. No. No. Shit. All of this stuff is designed for hell creatures. We aren't equipped for ghosts!”

  My heart raced. No way out of the store. No way out from behind the counter. And that hipster wasn't gonna keep Kevin busy for long. What were we supposed to do now? I looked up at the ceiling—toward heaven—looking for any sort of divine intervention. My employee manual stared back at me, leaning over the edge of the counter, and harrrrrffffff. Harrrrrrrrf. Harrrrrrrrrf.

  Uh oh. I think it's gonna hurl.

  Harrrrrffffff. Harrrrrrrrf. Hurrrrrrrplip.

  Plop. Tink tink tink tink tink.

  Yep. It hurled. All over me. Red Vine SuperStrings and Slim Jim Savage Meat Sticks, still in the packages. Judging from the size of the pile, probably every single one it had ever eaten. Undigested. Whole.

  A meat stick bounced off DeeDee's angelic behind, and when she poked her head out from under the counter to see what hit her, she said, “Well, that’s weird.”

  My book dry heaved one last Slim Jim, then jumped off the counter into my lap.

  “Dude. You feeling okay? That was a big barf.”

  It flopped on its back, pages fluttering, and fell open to that Bible school stick art page. Then, it pointed to the Slim Jims, to the Red Vines. “Wait. Do you want me to make one?” It shook in a way that I suspected was a yes. But it was hard to tell. Because it's a book. “Out of this stuff?”

  Another shake. “Uh, okay.”

  Not sure how that was gonna help, but after the blank check thing? Better to listen.

  At my book's direction, I gathered a handful of Savage Slim Jim Meat Sticks and shucked them out of their plastic sleeves. I laid them out on the floor, mimicking the shape on the page. A cross. Inside a hexagon. Of Slim Jims. Well, crazier things have worked.

  Then I ripped into a pack of Red Vines. I stared at them. I guess these were the strings? I fumbled with the raspberry sugar goodness, but I couldn't make a knot. “They're too fat. I can't tie it!”

  Then the book grabbed the end of a Red Vine and unraveled it into a handful of skinny, stretchy strings. “Oh. Super strings. I get it.” The big Red Vines peeled into delicious little elastic ropes, which were super easy to tie. So I did. A candy knot in every spot where meat touched meat.

  You know what I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter.

  My book jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Okay. Done. Now what?”

  DeeDee finally came out from under the counter. With a huge, and I mean absolutely huge, flashlight. More like a floodlight.

  “What are you gonna do with that? They're not moths!”

  She sighed. “I know. It's all I could come up with. Everything in Poltergeist is all 'oh go into the light!' It didn't really work for Gunther, but it's worth one more try. We don't have anything else.”

  She pointed at my meat and candy creation. “What are you gonna do with that?”

  “Hell if I know!”

  Great. Just great. We were trapped back here, and our only weapons were a big lightbulb, the plot of a 1980s ghost movie, and a meat craft. We're screwed.

  My book was clearly more optimistic, because it turned to the next page. Instructions? Hard to tell. Every word in here was in some dead language, and all the illustrations looked like the medieval equivalent of the Ikea catalog.

  DeeDee ran her hand down the page. “Huh. Interesting. It's a soul trap.” She tapped her black fingernail on the little Ikea guy. “You need to lure the ghosts into the middle, and voila. Well, it's a plan. I'll distract them. You suck them in. Okay?”

  She moved up, and I pulled her back down.

  “HOW?”

  “Beats me.” She shrugged. “You'll figure it out.”

  Before I could object, she turned that floodlight on full blast and aimed it up. A giant blue face appeared in the light.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah! Poltergeist!” I screamed.

  Bloooooooooo. Burrrrrrrr. Bup.

  Never mind. It was just Bubby, scratching his fat blue head with one of his pincers. He held a very angry demon scout upside down in one claw, and a very angry bitey bus lady in another. She had her poltergeist teeth sunk in one of Bubby's jelly fat rolls, and it did not look like it tickled.

  “Great. Now's your chance to test your trap.” DeeDee pushed me toward the flailing, angry creatures. “Go on then.”

  I held my Savage Meat Stick soul trap up by a thin string of Red Vine. With confidence. Or something close to it. The demon scout and the bus lady stared at it, as if mesmerized. Yes. It's working. It's working. “Oooooh. Lookie here. Don't you want to see what's in here?”

  I wiggled it.

  The Cookie Scout's fang lined mouth said, “I hate Red Vines. I like Twizzlers.” Then she swatted, bringing her claw down right across my arm. “Ow!”

  Bubby shook her really hard, then he chucked her clear across aisle five. She hit a reach in cooler door. Really hard.

  Something tugged on my sock. My employee manual fell open. To the page with the scrolly script. “Again?”

  It growled and bit my ankle.

  “Okay! Okay!” I cleared my throat and held onto those Slim Jims white knuckled. “Clafoooo Varapa nick? Nik huh. Nickel?”

  “Neek two. It's neek two!” DeeDee said. She waved her floodlight all over the store. Not a single ghost paid any attention. “Shit. Go into the light, my butt.”

  I said it again. “Clafoooo varapa neek two!”

  And nothing happened. I was just a fat guy with a fistful of Red Vines and Savage Slim Jims that he'd made into a weird, shitty camp craft, screaming magic words like it was gonna help his noob warlock level up. Not the proudest moment of my life.

  “Spielberg's full of it. Tangina did me wrong.” DeeDee dropped the floodlight and raised a small white tube in front of the bus lady. “Mmmm. Look. Necco Wafers!”

  The bus lady zoned in. Like laser focus. That's it. DeeDee's a genius. I held the trap out in front of the faux roll of candy as the bus lady reached for it. She screamed. “MY NECCO WAFERS,” wrested free from Bubby's grip and shot at me, full force, pinning me against the counter.

  Shit! She really wanted that candy.

  I held tight. And something happened. Her angry white claw arm slipped through the meat hexagon. It went in, but it didn't come out the other side. It was as if it sunk into an invisible pool or another dimension. Or something.

  And her arm? It was stuck. In the trap. And dude. This thing was like the quicksand in all those hokey TV shows. The more she fought, the faster it pulled her in, until slurp slurp slurrrrrrrrrrrp, that meaty ghost trap sucked her down, stockings and all.

  DeeDee looked down in. “Dude. I hope she's all right in there.”

  “Oh. I'm fine, dear.” Her head popped out. She was blue, transparent. Smoke. No longer big and white and mad or fangy. Unharmed. “But it's a bit of a tight fit.”

  DeeDee said, “Holy shit. It works.”

  I looked at my book. “Good thinking.”

  And
it bowed, like, “Thanks, dude. I know. You should have been listening to me this whole time.”

  Okay. That last part was me projecting. Because dude. I should have been listening to him this whole time.

  “Are you ready, Lloyd?” DeeDee looked at me. Alive. Beautiful, and said, “We have souls to trap.”

  Chapter 23

  “I'm ready.” I gripped that Savage Slim Jim Red Vine miracle and steeled myself for round two.

  “Let's see what we're up against.” She popped up and peeked around Bubby's midsection.

  I rose just high enough for my eyeballs to clear the counter. Dude. We chickens do not transform into He-Man overnight. We just don't.

  The angry demon scout stood in front of the reach in coolers, body cricking and cracking and stretching and morphing. Growing. Big. Tall as the ceiling. And extra mad. Her mouth split into row upon row of fangs. Her hair whipped, buffeted by invisible wind. She stomped so hard the entire store shook. She screamed, “Where's my UNICORN?”

  Hunter? Even worse. His red squeaky bone floated up over the end cap, just out of his reach, as if taunting him. His head kicked back in rage. He howled, desperate, at the ceiling, then fell down on all fours. He stretched and cracked, bones breaking and reforming, the meaty bulk of him expanding into a huge white snarling beast. A giant...dog?

  “Interesting.” DeeDee glanced out the front window, up into the sky, and whispered. “Full moon. Poltergeist werewolf. Who knew that was a thing?”

  The old guy? He circled the hot food station, pounding his cane so hard it chinked holes in the linoleum, screaming. “Mail. My. LETTER!”

  Zack scratched his chin and shook his golden scythe, like he still couldn't get it to work. And Faust? He climbed a little stepladder in front of the door and hammered a nail in the drywall above it, whistling like this was all totally normal.

  Dude. I glanced at my Savage Slim Jims and Red Vines. The ghost lady's head bobbed out of the center. The meat was already getting sticky in my sweaty hands. I prayed it would hold together. “Who should we trap first?”

  Thunk. “Deeeeee ooooooo.”

  Uh oh. I knew that snarl anywhere. I turned. Kevin's giant angry top half landed behind the counter. He stared, fangs dripping, eyes black, at the broken bits of vinyl scattered on the floor. DeeDee stood behind him, rifling through records.

  “How did you get over there so fast?” My heart jumped into my throat. “What are you doing? Run!”

  She waved Kevin's Black Sabbath Dehumanizer album at me and said, “Duh.”

  Seriously? I did not save her so she could run right back into the lion's den. I mean danger. Not the adult superstore.

  She slunk past Kevin, stepping over him as he cradled pieces of black broken vinyl. She made it about two more steps before the hipster floated after her, yelling, “Hey. I made a deal to buy that for store credit! Give it back. It's all or nothing. I'm not redoing my offer.”

  Kevin heard the words, “Store Credit” and growled. He looked up at the hipster and bared his fangs.

  “Don't growl at me. I gave you the highest price I'm allowed. Your collection isn't special, you know. It's not my fault no one wants to buy these. Low demand.”

  Well, that hipster just dug his own grave.

  Kevin jumped up—claw legs out, ghost roach monster wings flapping, right at that hipster, screaming. Unfortunately, the hipster had not spoiled, so once again, Kevin flew right through him directly at DeeDee. And me.

  “Now, Lloyd. Now!” DeeDee held the album out.

  Kevin snarled, “DEEEE OOOOO!”

  I dangled the ghost trap in front of the cover and held on tight. That poor bus lady screamed as Kevin's sharp white legs shot out, ready to cut me in half. He landed headfirst in the meat hexagon.

  Slurrrrrrrrrrrp. Shluurrrrrrrp.

  His antennae went in, followed by his fat head, his legs, then his very fat carapace. The vortex was so strong, it even sucked the Kevin puddle right off the counter. I looked down. Kevin went in, but the space between the Slim Jims and me? Nothing. Just air.

  “That is a really neat trick,” DeeDee said.

  A moment later Kevin's head popped out. The real Kevin. Well, the real dead Kevin. But still. He was himself, not a monster. Blue and see-through and smoky. “You better put that record back in a protective sleeve, or we're gonna have words, sweetheart. Wait.” He looked down at the trap. “What is this thing? Get me outta here.”

  “You have to stay in there for a little while longer,” DeeDee said. “For safekeeping. Trust me.”

  “Ooh. Something tickles. Oof. What the? Watch your hands, lady. That's private.”

  Kevin wiggled, and the bus lady winked at him.

  “I'm gonna make another trap. Bubby. Cover us.” DeeDee scooped up the remaining Savage Meat Sticks and Red Vines. and by the time Bubby stretched out, cracked his knuckles, and squared his shoulders, DeeDee popped up—trap in hand, saying, “Clafoooo Varapa Neek Two!”

  “How did you do that so fast?”

  “I love crafts. Plus, your employee manual is super helpful. Who's a good boy?” She leaned down to scratch its cover. Then she popped up, rolled right up to the hipster, grabbed that Kiss Destroyer album and said, “Hey. You interested?”

  She wagged that album behind her fistful of Savage Meat Sticks, and that hipster perked right up. “GTFO. Does that have Beth on it? I love that song! Squeeeee!” He jumped right in after it, yelling “store crediiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” and down down down he went.

  “Fucking Beth.” Kevin huffed. “I told you that hipster didn't know shit about music.”

  Bleeeeeeeeeeeep!

  Uh. That was Bubby. Sounding the alarm. Because Hunter had just pushed off his haunches, and was now flying, claws out, straight at us. Bubby veered left and belly bounced Hunter right over the boner pill end cap into the pet supplies.

  DeeDee didn't miss a beat. She slid over the counter and ran straight at the old guy, waving a piece of paper, yelling, “Do you need to mail this letter? I'm the postmaster!”

  The old guy slid his hand right into her trap and said, “How much is a Forever stamp these days?” And boom. That was it. Sucked right in, tweed and all.

  She looped back to the register, hit “no sale,” and filched a twenty out of the till. “I'll handle the pizza guy.”

  “Hey. Put that back!” Kevin said. “I'm taking that outta your paycheck!”

  DeeDee eyerolled him, then kicked open the stockroom door. “Hey. I got a twenty-dollar tip for the first guy who brings me a large pizza, extra cheese!”

  Wow. That girl was good.

  “Yeah. She's got three already, kid. You better get moving. She's making you look bad. Uh oh. Incoming!”

  Hunter attacked. Again. Bubby karate chopped, but Hunter sunk his claws into Bubby and held tight. Bubby spun and bucked, but Hunter didn't let go. Oh, man. I had to trap Hunter. Boy, he was big. And scary. My knees felt like jelly, but I somehow managed to run out from behind the counter. I scanned the aisle looking for that red squeaky bone, but I didn't see it anywhere. Shit.

  Bleeeeeeeeep!

  Translation: “Look out.” Or “holy shit. You're screwed.”

  Either way, I ducked, just as Hunter flew through the air and hit the end cap, sending unicorn phone chargers and boner pills skittering across the floor. Hunter righted himself, yanked that end cap clean off the shelving unit, snarled, “Give ME TWENTY!,” then threw it.

  Right at me. I held tight to my ghost trap and rolled as that metal rack cut through the air.

  Kevin moaned. “Woah. Woo oooh. Cool it, kid. I'm gonna barf” as we rolled and rolled. Fast, until my body came to an abrupt and unpleasant stop at the tail end of the grocery aisle. I hit the shelf hard as a bowling ball, sending jars of peanut butter plunk plunking and rolling all around.

  Hunter was on me in a flash. He pressed down on my chest, pinning me to the floor. “Your bod will be ready for swimsuit season, Champ.” His fangy mouth spewed cold, rotten breath inches
from my face. “When I eat half of you. Give me my BONE!”

  He raised a paw, and my life flashed before my eyes. Again. So I whistled, like I was calling a dog. I'm not sure why. It was instinct.

  Hunter stopped. My hand came up with a jar of peanut butter. “Are you a good boy? Because good boys get treats. Who likes peanut butter? Who's a good boy?”

  His ghastly tail began to wiggle. I slowly unscrewed the cap and waved the delicious smoothness in front of his nose. Then I dangled the trap in front of it.

  “That's right. Come on, boy. Mmm. Delicious.”

  His nostrils sniffled a thousand miles a minute around that jar. Hunter leaned back.

  Shit. He's not buying it.

  Then he catapulted forward. Giant paws, claws and all, outstretched.

  Fuck. I'm dead. Still, I clung to those Slim Jims like my lift depended on it.

  Kevin screamed. “Hole eeeeeeeeeeee sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!”

  That snarling giant wolfman sunk his muzzle through Kevin, through the trap, trying to get at that peanut butter. And shlurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp.

  Hunter sunk in in in in. Don't ask me how. Dude. It defied all natural known laws of earthly physics. But that trap opened wide, and swallowed hunter like a boa constrictor swallowing a wildebeest. Hunter sunk in until nothing but the tip of his tail hung out. It bonked Kevin right on the nose.

  “Great. Now it smells like old lady and wet dog in here. Can you hurry this up? Grandma's getting a little handsy. Ow. Hey. Watch it. ”

  Hunter's human face squeezed out next to Kevin and the bus lady. “Hey, there, Champ. I gotta say, your form has really improved. Great squat back there. I'm really proud of you. Oof. Oh. Oh no.” His head shook. “Can one of you give me a scratch? I think I've got a flea!”

  “You ain't got fleas,” Kevin snipped. “You don't even have a body!”

  “Shhhhh.” I needed to concentrate. Because the demon cookie scout was on the move. Her spiked monster tail kicked up like an antenna in the next aisle.

  “Get your hand off my behind, lady,” Kevin said. “I told you once already. My body, my choice.”