Thinking Happy Thoughts at the Dollar Store – Or Else
Alicia tried to hide behind the paper towels, but the douchebags found her.
“Hey, sweetcakes, you work here?” the one in the Maple Leafs jersey asked her. His friend was wearing a Blue Jays jersey.
Both had the appropriate baseball caps. They probably both have man caves where they talked about Tranna, beer, and wife swapping. Stop! Stop that thinking!
“Y-yes, sir. How – how can I help?”
“You can smile,” Blue Jay said. “This is Cheap and Cheerful, right? A smile won’t hurt.”
Alicia tried to smile and not think at the same time.
“There we go,” Blue Jay nodded in lecherous appreciation. “You got a nice smile.” He peered at her nametag. “Alice.”
“Nice eyes, too,” Maple Leaf pointed out, his gaze a bit lower than that. He looked at his friend and they laughed. “Real nice eyes,” Blue Jay agreed.
Alicia thought of the colour white. Hard.
“Anyways, I got to get a Halloween costume for my kid,” Maple Leaf went on. “She’s one of them artsy types, so I just can’t buy her a Transformer or whatever. I have to buy stuff so she can make it.”
Okay, safe territory. “And what does your daughter want to be?”
“I don’t know. She wrote it down.” He shoved a hand into his shorts and pulled out a piece of paper. He unrolled it, revealing Garfield at the top going on about lasagna.
He squinted at the paper.
“’The angle of death, draped in sorrow, holding the sword of pain incarnate.’ You got anything like that?”
“Angel,” Blue Jay pointed out. “It says angel.”
“Okay, knob, whatever.”
I like this kid. “Well, sir, we have some black cloth on sale in our Halloween aisle. Maybe a little costume makeup to darken around her eyes? As for a sword, we have some plastic ones in our toy aisle.”
“All under a buck, right?”
“Yes, sir. That’s Cheap and Cheerful’s policy.I can show you where they are.” She turned to lead them to the correct aisle, thinking she was safe. Thinking she could finish her shift in peace. Thinking she could have a normal day working a crap job in a dollar store without adding to her already massive guilt complex.
But no.
“Nice ass,” Blue Jay sniggered.
Maple Leaf snorted.
Alicia stopped. She slowly turned around. The two men were smirking, but didn’t have the decency to look away. They were waiting for her to respond. Maybe say something sexy. Like in the pornos.
Alicia smiled – for real – and finally let herself think.
Both men were simply no longer there.
Two drifts of smoke curled from the linoleum, dissipating somewhere around Household Supplies.
“Damn it,” she sighed, then went for break.
Alicia should never have opened the box two weeks ago. Ted did Receiving, when he came into work. The box had been postmarked originally from Singapore, but seemed to have been redirected from all over Europe. There was even a faded postmark from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the Antarctic, Alicia was sure. Whatever it was, no one wanted it. It was the postal equivalent of a hot potato or a Mumford and Sons single.
But it had a sticker on it from a band Alicia liked – the K-pop band
! – so she opened the black box. And when she saw the sole amulet inside – emblazoned with a chibi woman with a jagged frown line and lines radiating from her head – she put it on.
Big mistake. Now she couldn’t take it off. And when she got angry at people, they tended to disappear. Not the best thing when you work in a dollar store. Or live in the 21st century.
Martha was in the break room. She managed the store when she wasn’t drumming for various bands. She had white dreadlocks, tattoos, and knew all about the amulet.
“How many this time?” she asked, sipping her coffee.
“Two.” Alicia collapsed beside the break table.
“That’s what? Thirty people so far?”
“Probably. I don’t know. Maybe.” There was the older woman who tried to pay her $12 bill in nickels because she didn’t want to break a twenty. Then there was the guy who was trying to photograph her on his iPhone. That was just yesterday.
“I’m surprised the cops haven’t shown up,” Martha said. “You’d think someone would miss them. Where do you think they go?”
“How would I know? Maybe I vaporize them. Maybe they go to Hell. I have no clue.” She took Martha’s coffee and took a sip. “It’s not my fault. I think nasty things – things I have every right to think because my God people are jerks – and bzzap !bzzerp! they’re gone.”
“Amulet still won’t come off?”
Alicia was getting angry. “No. You want to try? I can’t cut it. When I try to pull it over my head, it shrinks. I tried to burn it off and all I did was set my hair on fire. So I’m open to ideas, Drummer Girl.”
“I have some friends. They know about this sort of stuff. I can call them.”
“No! I told you! That bitch stole my boyfriend and – “
Martha disappeared.
“Oh God,” Alicia moaned. She got up, stumbling into the staff washroom. She slammed the door, hunching over the sink. She looked up into the cracked mirror. “Why am I such an idiot? “she asked. “I’m so stupid, so . . . ‘
She disappeared.
Pandemonium surrounded her. The howls of the damned rose and fell as Alicia lay huddled on a cold floor, her eyes shut. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
“I’m in Hell,” she whispered.
“No,” Martha said. “You’re in a South London mall food court.”
Alicia opened her eyes.
Martha helped her up.
The two Sports Douches gave her a thumbs up from a nearby table. They had tacos. “Awesome trick, girlie!” one shouted.
“The amulet knows what I consider Hell,” Alicia said. “And this is it.”
“Whatever,” Martha said. She looked around. “Least you can do is buy me fries, Hell bitch.”