What needs?
Basic needs like shelter, water, love, and food. That’s where I come in. I work at the food court in the mall. Bingo Bill’s Burger Bonanza. Bingo Bill’s for short.
Working at the register, I’ve seen all kinds of people walk up to the counter. All kinds. Conjoined twins—each got a foot-long chili cheese dog. The mime—took forever to figure out what he wanted. Even waited on a naked lady once. Broke my heart when they hauled her out of the mall that day. But my favorite was Lanny Simms.
He shuffled up to me and said, “My brain has worms in it. Can you help me order?”
It’s all about the customer service.
I said, “Of course, buddy. What are you in the mood for?”
“What’s the same as dirt but tastier?”
“Tough one,” I said, considering his question. “Give me a hint.”
“I need soil for my worms. They ate all my brains out.”
“Bummer. That sucks, man.” Aware of the line forming behind him, I tried to nudge him along. “So what’s your flavor today? Burger or a dog?”
“Wet cold dirt for my worms.”
“Best I can do is some chili fries, my friend. Maybe a shake. What do you say?”
“Chili fries might work. And a shake if it’s chocolate.”
“Chocolate it is, my friend. Chocolate it is.”
Lanny Simms. Crazy as shit, but harmless. Kind of stuck in 1976. Traumatic brain injury when he was a teenager. Car wreck. Went over a bridge headfirst. Barely survived. That was decades ago. He’s not bad for sixty-five. Just collects his checks and his eight-track tapes. People from all over town will scoop up the antiquated cassettes if they come across them, just to give to Lanny when they bump into him. He’s a little inappropriate, a little gauche, but otherwise he’s all right. Hell, he’s practically a gray-haired seventeen-year-old. A simple, well-meaning guy.
Brandon Paul, on the other hand. He was in the accident, too—caused it, actually. Yeah, he was driving the vehicle that hit Lanny’s. A little thug wannabe with more arrests for domestic violence offenses than IQ points. The guy’s a peach of a man. If you ask me, he should have died in the wreck.
They tended to avoid one another, and while they were both regulars at Bingo Bill’s, they’d never come in at the same time—at least not on any of my shifts. Just my luck that this day would be different.
But I’m jumping ahead.
Lanny sat down at a table near the front of the store so he could look out the glass and watch the people go by. He loved waving at folks as they went about their business—people oblivious to the world around them and the chaos that feeds it.
When his order came up, I had no customers, so I carried his tray out to him. He thanked me with a smile and looked about to say something when Brandon banged into the entrance. Passing me, the little turd strutted to the counter, put his hands on it, strained his neck to see the menu he had memorized years ago, and motioned for me with a wag of his stubby index finger.
I took my time getting back to the counter and made a point of stopping to check the fry station. Brandon tapped his dirt-encrusted fingernails on the counter. I refilled the paper drink cups before moseying to the register to look down at him.
“What will it be?” I asked in my best disinterested tone.
I don’t hate the guy—he’s never done anything to me. But he’s bad news in general and has been a dick to almost everyone in town at some point or another. A little gangster without the clout to back it up. Picking on people, yelling at old folks walking down the street, a real prince of a guy. Don’t know what the hell his issues are, but man, he’s got a few.
“A number one, large. With a Dr. Pecker.” He slapped the counter and winked at me, laughing hysterically like a hyena on acid.
“Good one,” I said, ringing up the order and making a show of getting a to-go bag for it.
“It’s for here, moron,” Brandon barked.
“Right,” I said without turning around.
“Fucking place, man. Idiots working every time I come.”
“And yet, here you are,” I said.
His order came up. I set his brown plastic tray of grease and salt on the counter maybe a little harder than I should have.
“Careful,” he said, up on his tiptoes and leaning toward me.
“Come on man,” I replied, deciding it was best not to poke the bear again. “Chill out already.”
“Fucking stoner.”
“This is a family place, Brandon.”
His face screwed up. Apparently he didn’t like me using his name. “Give me my food, queer.”
He reached out and snatched the tray, then turned to walk to a table.
“Classy,” I said under my breath. The exchange had me so rattled that I realized I’d forgotten to collect his money. For an insane moment I actually considered letting it go, but I’d already rung up the total. “Sir,” I called out. “You forgot to pay.”
Brandon stopped, his back to me. He had reached the kiosk where you get napkins and ketchup and plastic utensils. He slammed the tray down on the counter and turned around to me with a sneer. “Pull the cash out of your ass, weasel.”
When Brandon turned around to pick up his tray, Lanny buried a plastic fork in his left eye and a plastic knife in his right cheek.
Brandon stood dumbfounded for a moment, then dropped his tray and began screaming.
Lanny plucked the fork out of Brandon’s eye socket, and the eyeball came with it. Tendrils of nerves and optic vessels trailed out behind it like spaghetti noodles. Like a fucking ninja, Lanny retracted the knife from Brandon’s cheek with a soft quick thwump and deftly buried it just below his Adam’s apple. Brandon clasped at his throat with both hands, his eye still dangling on his cheek, flopping from side to side as he shuddered and shook.
Lanny placed the sole of his Converse directly on Brandon’s chest and pushed off like a spartan. Brandon rolled across the floor and came to a stop by the bathrooms.
Lanny peered down at the body flopping on the floor, and bellowed.
“AHHHHHHHHHH. FUCKING STOP ALREADY. WORMS HAVE TO EAT. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
“Lanny, what the fuck,” I said, screaming myself.
“Couldn’t eat. Too much bullshit noise. Ahhhhhhhhh.” Lanny kept hollering until he was out of breath. When he finally stopped, he shuffled back to his table, gobbled down a mouthful of chili fries and took a sip of his shake.
Hand over my heart, I stood there, shaking. Did that really happen?
My sense of time returned, and with it came a clouded-over memory of the scene that played out in the background while Lanny was putting out Brandon’s lights—customers scattering like roaches and running for the door, scurrying past Lanny and the screaming Brandon Paul who now only had one eye and maybe seconds to live. They rushed out into the mall in droves, two and three at a time.
I looked through the glass storefront and saw hundreds of people running, screaming, panic-stricken, bumping into each other, grabbing one another by the hair, knocking each other down, stomping hands and feet, every man for himself in a desperate attempt to flee some unknown assailant.
Assailants.
Behind the throngs of harried housewives and weekend dads hauling ass and hoisting little ones up over their heads in a mad dash for the exits, down by the haberdashery, a group of teenage boys with baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, and pool cues occupied themselves, chasing and hitting innocent people, women and children, old men and ladies. The punks were swinging for the fences and connecting with almost everyone in their aim.
Beyond them, at the far end of the mall by the JCPenney, a woman wielded what looked like a machete in one hand and a human head in the other. She held the noggin up by its short hair in triumph, as if having vanquished some great foe. Her white satin blouse was soaked with blood, and strands of her hair covered her face, caked in crimson and smeared like war paint. She leaned and heaved as if feral, wild, hungry.
I stood behind the counter, frozen, watching the people run in terror toward the exits and the safety the sunshine provided. I don’t know why in active-shooter situations, people feel safter outside. To me it seems like it would just be easier to shoot you out in the open like that. But hey, who am I? I stuck right to where I was, and so did Lanny.
“What the fuck, Lanny?” I asked again, but my voice lacked conviction.
“Brain worms,” he mumbled, shoveling more chili fries into cheeks already puffed out with food. “Hungry little boogers.”
My hands went numb and the tops of my ears burned. I felt as if I were floating above the floor, my head reeling. I was going to pass out.
As Lanny sat feeding his face—or his worms, I don’t really know—the window exploded. I woke up quick and hit the deck.
As glass rained down around me, I heard a thud, like a bowling ball dropping onto the floor beside me. After a few seconds I looked up and peeked around the counter to see Lanny slumped over, his face down in his fries, shards of glass like daggers sticking out the side of his head, one buried in his right ear, another in his temple just below his hairline.
Did I dare leave?
Was I safer in Bingo Bill’s or should I haul ass toward the exits?
The back door of Burger Bill’s led to a long service corridor, which led to an exit. No one should be in the corridor. Or hell, maybe everyone was in it.
Either way, I wasn’t going out the front door. In the mall, people continued to run screaming—some on fire, some bleeding from severed limbs, head wounds, bite marks.
And there were the others, mad, insane, insatiable. They jumped on people, knocking them down, hacking them to bits with dollar-store cleavers and novelty knives. They ripped at faces, gouging eyes and cheeks, breaking noses, taking giant bites out of flesh, tearing stomachs open with their bare hands, spilling innards all over the food court.
I’d go out the back and try my luck.
So far, no one had seemed to notice me. I crept slowly over the glass so as to not attract unwanted attention.
In the mall, the screams were maddening. Victim and assailant alike rising up in agonizing unison, a cacophonous symphony of the consumers and the consumed.
I made it to the back door, then stopped.
Even in my desperation to get out of there, I’m not a complete idiot. I’ve seen enough movies to know those bastards were probably waiting for me on the other side.
Right?
I put my ear up to the door, bracing myself to run in case I had to bail on the plan.
The corridor beyond the door sounded empty. I looked back at the raw carnage, the mall floors a pool of blood, psychopaths spinning around like children, throwing entrails up in the air just to watch them splash down and splatter everywhere.
Nope.
I turned the knob, slowly, incrementally, fraction of an inch by faction of an inch until it slowly gave way and clicked quietly open.
I stuck my head into the corridor, looking left then right, and spotted the red exit sign just beyond the back door of Juice World. That place rocks. Saved my life many a time. Let’s see if it would again.
I crept down the long, brightly lit passage with my back to the cold concrete so I could see everything in every direction. It reminded me of a sanitarium we visited once when I was little. But at the time, I hadn’t known it was a sanitarium. Uncle Clem was in there “resting,” Mom had said. He just needed to take better care of himself. Worn out, that’s what she said he was. Truth is, Uncle Clem died in that sanitarium, syphilis. Crazy as a loon throwing shit on the walls and thinking he was a sleeper agent for the CIA.
But hey, the world’s gone to shit, so who got off lucky?
Maybe he had brain worms too?
As I moved closer to the exit, I could still hear the faint muffled cries from within the mall. Fuck this place, man. Fuck customer service. Fuck Bingo Bill’s and fuck this. Goddamn, take this job and shove it.
The exit was fifteen feet away. I could almost smell the fresh air. I sprinted for it.
I thrust my hand out for the push bar and ran through it.
The alarm sounded.
Then came the rumble, like thunder. The footfalls of freaks of every sort, headed my way, searching for the source of the sound. I ran behind the Crab Shack dumpster, squeezed up under the lid, and plopped down inside.
Been here ever since. The flies are the worst. Buzzing incessantly in my ears. I can almost feel their larvae, the maggots, slithering around under my skin. So hot. So thirsty. So fucking hungry.
Fucking brain worms man.