Work Text:
Ding!
It wasn’t until Rudy saw Ed slumped forward, a thin line of saliva dripping from his unlit cigarette, did he realize how long his smoke break had taken.
“Ed? You ok?” Rudy said, kicking the bucket of gray mop water over the edge of the curb. He slipped out his left headphone, and the oppressive silence of the wilderness snuck in and sliced through his ear. Rudy peeped around, squinting past the bright halogen lights of the gas station. It was a moonless night, the celestial bodies obscured under gray clouds that stuck to the sky like slime on a rainboot. Rudy shivered, and his arms began to shake. He grabbed Ed, and tried to rouse him. His head shook like a rattle, back and forth, and gurgled.
“I’m telling you, I feel fine. I passed out on the job? So what! I can’t tell you how many times I found some squirrely looking gas jockey sleepin’ on the job when I was a kid. You’d have to honk them back to life!” Ed banged on the metal bars of the medical bed with emphasis.
“Ed, please, just calm down, it’s some basic tests.” Rudy said. Ed shot a glare that could rend the flesh off a person’s bones.
“In what- Some “basic tests”? They stuck me with needles and jammed a cotton swab in my mouth, and you call that some basic tests. Rudy, I swear to god, if they tell me I got some strange blood disease, I’m going home an’ getting a steak.” Ed complained. Rudy rolled his eyes, and slouched down.
The door to the exam room swished open, and in came Dr.West. The doctor walked to a strange, elusive beat that only he could hear, and sat down at the end of the bed, swiping the bedsheets with his fingers to get Ed to pull his feet in.“Good Morning, Mr. Edward Scamp! How are we feeling thiz morning?” West asked, in a German accent that bordered on comical.
“Ready to go back home- Augh!” Ed prepared to launch into another tirade about the uselessness of modern medicine, when a black cat hopped up off the ground, and into his lap, purring and kneading his legs. With hesitation, Ed began to pet the cat.
“Wellz, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, erm, The diagnostics will take a week to get here. And, given your records, I think it’s best if we keep you around until then, yes?”
“Records?” Rudy asked, sitting up in his chair. The doctor looked at Rudy with curiosity.
“Oh? You didn’t know?”
“Didn’t know what?”
Ed frowned, and slapped the bed sheets. “Hey, doctor patient confidentiality, you goddamn quack!!” Ed exclaimed. Rudy stood up, and put his hands on his hips, leaning forward to squint at Ed.
“Ed, what’s going on?” Rudy asked. Ed held Rudy’s glare, sighed, and shook his head.
“… This is the 4th time this has happened.”
The gentle purrs of a cat, and the caught breath of a gas station attendant was all that could be heard.
“What? ED? This is the 4TH time?” Rudy exclaimed, grabbing Ed’s shirt and wadding it in his fist. Ed’s eyes went wide, and then turned back into his redneck squint.
“C’mon, Rudy, I would have told yah if I was worried about it. Get yer damn hands off me.”
Rudy fell back into his chair, groaning. He wasn’t upset about Ed’s curmudgeonly attitude or his indifference towards his own health - Ed’s pack a day habit, and his strange, long winded rants about extraterrestrials and their place in the Armenian government had worn down Rudy’s patience on either subject.
“Ed, what happens if you get another one of these strokes, and it’s the big one?” Rudy asked, plucking at his brow.
“What, you mean- croaking? Well, I’ll tell you, it would be a helluva fight to take me down.” Ed stated, with a smug expression. Dr. West sat down on a nearby stool, and began to write in a quick scribble.
“Well, I can tell you, sir, I’ll be there right with you!” Dr.West said, and ripped the Rx sheet off of his pad. “Because I’m ordering you to stay put for the next week as we wait for the results of your test.” Ed’s face twisted with rage and helplessness.
“Oi! What kind of snake oil salesman do you think you are, trying to wring some inpatient cash outta-”
“Ah, That’s the fun part. I’m not gonna charge you! Just consider this an *extended* vacation while we make sure things are doing well for you. Oooooo, I could have Eric wheel in the boob tube for you if you’d like!” Dr. West offered. He flashed a wide smile that would put a game show host to shame.
“Rudy, you gotta tell him that I gotta be there- How the hell are you gonna run the shop yourself?” Ed begged, turning to Rudy.
“Ed. It’s a gas station. In the middle of Somewhere. That’s nothing I can’t handle, I’ve seen you run the shop plenty of times~”
“No.” Ed said. His anger drained from his face, giving him a pale, corpselike expression. “Get some help. You can’t run the store alone.”
“Ed! I told you, I got this-”
“No, Rudy, please. Get some help. That’s an order.” Ed empathized. The old man looked haunted, and grave. “You can’t do it alone. Trust me.”
The frigid glass of the plate door to Ed’s Gas and Trash stiffened Rudy’s fingers as he taped up a sign that said-
Help Wanted
We Accept Walk In Interviews.
“Pfft. Good luck getting help in Somewhere. Anyone with a brain around here either works in the mills, or drives out to the city to work.” Sampson said. Rudy rolled his eyes, and looked at Sampson in the reflection of the glass- The daytime stocker was a thin, lanky kid, who looked like he shaved with a cheese grater and smelled like an old Ford truck’s cup-holder. The 17 year old boy was never seen without his hat- A large, cushioned baseball cap advertising himself as a “Fat Bitches Investigator''.
He was right about one thing- getting help in Somewhere was a painful ordeal.
“Have you finished mopping up or what?” Rudy asked. Sampson was slumped over the front counter. He flicked a wad of receipt paper onto the floor, where a small scattered pile had formed.
“Eh, I got an hour left.”
“You said that last time.”
“Yeah, and?” Sampson responded, bringing himself up to his full height. He stood a good two inches above Rudy, and had a good 40 pounds on the former truck driver.
Rudy shoved the mop across the eternally sticky bathroom stall floor. The alleged “restroom” was a tight, damp box of piss and blood that hosted all manner of biological lifeforms inside its shadowed interior. The toilet itself was a pale yellow, with an off-color backsplash across the tank that wrapped around the seat like a bad toupe. It smelled like something had crawled into the septic tank, and died.
He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, holding back a cough. It had taken him 30 minutes to mop the bathroom alone, and it was time for a break.
When Rudy opened the bathroom door, the chill autumn air filled his lungs and brushed his hair with pale, thin nails. He shivered, and zipped up his twill jacket. 3 patches had been stitched to his left breast- “Ben Tramer, Chris Higgins, Rudy Warpar.” Once, when he started working at the Gas & Trash gas station, he had asked Ed about the previous owners of the jacket.
“They’re gone.” is what Ed said in a detached, distant affect.
The attendant stopped in the middle of the tarmac, right between the Gas & Trash and the bathroom. The tall pines were illuminated by the neon glow of the station. The road split through the timbers, tall, coniferous trees that swayed and switchbladed in the winds falling down the cascades. It was as if the pines were the jagged, shattered teeth of a wolf, and Rudy stood inside its wide mouth. The wind hummed and snickered through the underbrush, and the glassy, hazy shadows of telephone wires cast through distant streetlights gave the world a dreamlike quality.
Rudy hurried back inside. It’s going to be a long night.
Ding!
Rang the front door bell as Rudy stepped back into the lobby. The lobby of the Gas & Trash was barely as big as a short-bus, and smelled like one, too. Three sets of shelves containing all manner of convenient home goods with splurge level prices split the right half of the store into four distinct isles. The glass doors of the refrigerators fogged from the AC kicking into action, 2 hours late, right on time. To the left was the counter. Stacks of lotto tickets, cigarettes, and mysterious drugs slumped in their cozy boxes beyond the scratched plate glass of the countertop. Next to the counter was the register- a big, bulky industrial machine from the 1960s, complete with pearl keys (and one substitute “Open Drawer” key) and brass inlay- Ed’s monument to resisting the flow of time.The store was packed tight like a soccer mom’s minivan, and Rudy- dutiful Rudy- took the driver’s seat.
Rudy sat down on the stool behind the register, turned on the radio, kicked up his feet, and promptly fell asleep.
Ding!
Rudy awoke with a start, his feet slipping off the counter. The stool tipped over, spilling him onto the floor, and right onto his tailbone. He groaned, rubbing his back, and scampered to his feet by grabbing onto the counter.
“Welcome to Ed’s Trash and Gas, how can I… help… you?” Rudy said, whipping his head around. No one was in the lobby- not in the aisles, or beyond the glass of the door, or at the counter. The only sounds came from the thumping AC, and the strange, wacky music of Oingo Boingo on the radio. Rudy scratched his head, and left the counter, stepping outside.
Ding!
The nervous attendant looked around. The clearing was as empty as it was 15 minutes ago. The attendant stepped back through the front door-
Ding!
And stood on the toes, examining the bell sensor. He waved his hand in front of the alarm-
Ding!
-which seemed to be functioning correctly. But Rudy had been locked in a battle with the AC controls for over a year now, so who knew what could break next? Rudy shrugged, and made a mental note to ask Ed about it later. Walking back to his seat, Rudy turned on the radio- a strange Spanish jam continued on - and he raised his left leg back up to the counter.
Kachunk.
Rudy stopped. Beyond his blue converses, he could see the fogged interior of the energy drink fridge move. A pale hand slinked away from the cooler, behind the middle shelf.
Rudy stood up in alarm.“Hello?” he called. The soft, staticy strums of a Spanish guitar was his reply. His hand went down under the counter- brushing his fingers against the panic button, and beyond that, a small, short prybar.
Rudy walked out from behind the counter, careful to press the bar against his wrist to conceal it. His mind raced- Names flew through his head; Ben, Chris, Ed.You can’t do it alone.
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch came from behind the end of the isle. Rudy stopped, shivered, and leaned around the corner, and raised the prybar up above his head, ready to strike.
A woman stood there. She was short- About 5 feet- and had long, dry hair that dropped down her head in a mop. A thick black sweatshirt dropped over her frame. In her pale hands were two items- an energy drink, sealed, and a bag of corn nuts, open. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.
Rudy did a double take. She’s… eating?
The AC turned off with a clunk. The girl’s head twisted around, with a dead-eyed, glazed look. A pair of red ruby earbuds hung from her ears. Rudy froze, the prybar still ready to swing.
“...” expelled from the girl’s slacked mouth. Her eyes walked up Rudy’s arm, to the prybar, and back down, to his face. Her mouth didn’t betray the slightest emotion.
“... Welcome… In?” Rudy stammered out. Smooth.
“...Hi.” she responded. Her stained converses squeaked against the sticky flooring of the Gas & Trash, and faced the attendant. She whipped her head back, dropping more corn nuts into her mouth, and chewed with her mouth open. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.
“... Are you gonna pay for those?” Rudy asked, lowering his arm.
“Oh.” She said. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. “... I thought it could come off my paycheck.” She responded. She yanked an earbud out of her ear by the cord, wincing.
“Your paycheck.” Rudy asked, before it hit him like a prybar to the back of his head. “Your paycheck? You’re here to interview?”
She squinted at Rudy, cocking her head to the left. Her bangs slid off her forehead, a mottled patchwork of harlequin reds and whites revealed across her brow. “Yeah. I don’t have a car. The sign said "walk-in interviews allowed.”
“... Well, this is so far the worst interview I’ve ever had.” Rudy responded, with a flat affect. The applicant's shoulders slumped, and a bleak expression came over her face. Her body hung low, toppled by the weight of rejection and unclean eating habits.
“Sorry. I’ll go- Good luck with the next applicant.” She said, before lurching past Rudy, and to the door.
“Hey, Wait! I didn’t say you didn’t get the job!”
The applicant turned around, a single eyebrow raised. “I got the job?”
Rudy sighed, and plucked at his thinning eyebrows. “Yes. I mean- you’re the only applicant I’ve had all night. I’m not exactly swimming in choices. Hold on- just- wait by the front desk. What’s your name?”
The girl nodded. “Lily. Lily Swallow. I’m 23. Can I drink this energy drink while I wait?”
Lily’s interview was fast- She had no credentials, no references, no job history, and no resume. Exactly what you’d want for a gas station attendant. Throughout the “interview”, Rudy would get a sense of her situation- She was in desperate need of a job, could not work during the day, was willing to apply herself and do whatever needed to be done, and, most curiously, had no sense of smell.
“I haven’t been able to smell anything since I was in 6th grade.” She blurbed, when discussing the cleaning duties of the Gas & Trash, and the sisyphean task of cleaning the bathroom. Rudy would set down the large, stained binder Ed had instructed him with a year ago.
“Huh. What happened in sixth grade?” Rudy asked. Lily’s hand slid up her arm, boxing herself off. She looked full of regret.
“I don’t know.” She lied. Rudy thought it best not to press, and continued to rattle off the expectations of the job. An hour passed, and once the mandatory training was complete, a fresh-out-of-the-wrap work shirt adorned Lily’s torso. Her proportions would squeeze her stomach into the tight nylon, but curiously, her sleeves were incredibly loose around her undeveloped arms. The night passed uneventfully- Lily was quiet, and spent most of her time sitting on a stool in the corner of the front desk, waiting to be meted out tasks from Rudy. This would be the new routine at the Gas & Trash for the next few days with Lily- Rudy would assign the cleanings and restocks for the night, which were always mercifully short, and the two would sit in silence, the radio speaker playing through Rudy’s assortment of burnt music CDs.
Lily pursued the magazine kiosk- Popular Mechanics, Paranormals, VULGAR - but, in the corner of Rudy’s gaze, he’d watch her bury her head into the wrinkled, dusty pages- her blue eyes wouldn’t shift about the page, but fall down the whitespace of the pages with a casual indifference. The new girl’s behavior was odd- She would come in, sit down, and work hard when asked to do something, but would remain as silent as a morgue unless spoken to. She spoke in half words- “Kay.” “Mhm.” “Yea?” - yet never gave the attitude that she would prefer to be anywhere else. She’d keep to herself, on her wooden stool, and the hours would stretch into days. The only behavior that would reveal herself to be more than just automata was her voracious appetite- She was always eating something, typically purchased right from Rudy, and rarely the same thing twice.
Rudy’s bladder was ready to explode. He had dismissed Lily an hour ago, and Sampson was late. He tapped his foot against the sticky flooring in a fwip fwip fwip, and lurched up, unable to take it any longer. He stepped through the front door-
Ding!
And locked it behind him, speed walking across the lot to the bathroom. He reached for the doorknob, and stopped- A faucet was running beyond the bathroom door? Rudy rapped on the door with the back of his fist, shivering as he continued to hold it in.
“Wait… WHO’S IN HERE?” Rudy called, shocked. The last car that had graced the lot was an hour ago- a red cherry sportscar. Otherwise, the lot had been unoccupied since…
“... Lily? Are you… bathing in there?” Rudy asked. The faucet shut off.
“...” Came the reply- the heavy tones of a guilty party. Rudy sighed, and backed away from the door, sidestepping around the bathroom, to the grassy patch beyond the stall, and dropped trow.
Lily came out shortly thereafter, her hair still damp with the sink water. She had hurriedly redressed, her wrinkled long-sleeved shirt a dark blue, her thick jeans coated in a slick layer of moisture. The smell that wafted from the bathroom was indescribable- It unlocked a faint memory in Rudy, of when he found that starved raccoon in the dumpster when he was a teenager. Rudy smiled a grim smile, trying hard not to gag. Lily’s proportions were easier to see in the harsh light of the bathroom- She had a distended stomach, and her frame ballooned out from her core.
“How long have you been…” Rudy found it difficult to ask.
“Since I started working here.” Lily responded in a curt manner. She stared at the ground, like a punished dog.
“... Alright, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to talk to Ed. Stop using the restroom as a bath. “ Rudy instructed. Lily gave an odd look to Rudy, raising an eyebrow.
“A bath?” she asked. Rudy pinched his nose bridge, hard, and sighed.
Lily waited in the lobby sitting on the counter while Rudy was on the phone. It rang a few times, before exploding into a racket of high energy Looney Tunes reruns, and some loud chomping, occasionally spilling into bursts of laughter.
“Hey, Ed here. Who’s this?” Ed replied, chewing into the phone.
“It’s Rudy.”
“Ay, Rudy, how’s it going? Is the Gas and Trash O.K? How’s the new girl?” Ed responded, slurping a spoonful of cereal.
The gas station manager turned around, looking through the glass of the front door. Lily was still sitting on the counter, kicking her dirty converses back and forth.
“She’s… good, but she’s sleeping and bathing in the restroom.”
“... Huh. She’s homeless?”
“I think so. What should I do?” Rudy asked.
The phone was silent for a bit. “What do you mean, what should you do? Does she do a good job?”
“I mean, yeah-”
“So who gives a crap? Look, Rudy, when I took you in after your shipping company cut you-” Ed was cut off.
“No, no, Ed, come on. I didn’t mean “Should I fire her,” I mean, “How do we help her?”
“Oooooooooh. Well- Shit. Tell you what, take the keys from under the register- that’s my spare key. When it’s shift change, take her to my place, let her take a shower, use the laundry machine, whatever, then lock up and hide the key. Once I get back, then we’ll figure something out- same as what we did with you, ya hear?” Ed instructed.
Rudy smiled. A paycheck was not what kept Rudy at the Gas and Trash. “Alright Ed. I’ll let her know.”
“Just make sure she doesn’t steal anything.” Ed said, and hung up.
Ding!
Lily looked up, a tired, worn look in her eyes. She was braced for the guillotine of unemployment.
“I’m fired.”
“No.”
“I’m on suspension.”
“No.” Rudy repeated, walking behind the counter, and lifting the register up. Under the register, in a small worn groove was a set of keys with a small ornament attached to it- “Hasta La Vista, Baby!” stated a chipmunk with a pair of Terminator shades, descending into a pit of lava. “You’re taking a proper shower.”
The agreement was made later that day. Much as Rudy had once done, Lily was free to sleep on Ed’s corduroy couch for as long as she’d need to get a proper place. Lily cringed when she heard the offer at first, still drying her hair from the shower on a ratty towel, but Rudy clarified the deal as a historic one- Ed’s home had been open for all kinds of drifters and oddballs who’d end up in Somewhere, for as long as the Gas & Trash had been open. Her shoulders dropped, and a sigh escaped her pursed expression.
It was then that Rudy noticed a thick patchwork of gray-and-green bruises running down from the homeless woman’s left shoulder, across her collarbone, and back up the right side.
“Did something happen to you?” Rudy asked, concerned. Lily shrugged, putting back on the black stained hoodie she wore when Rudy first met her.
“Nothing much.”
“What’s with the… you know.” Rudy used his fingers to trace the line of bruises across his own body. Lily gave a bemused look.
“Birthmarks.”
“Strangest looking birthmarks I’ve ever seen.”
Lily turned, her small upturned smirk molded into a pursed sneer.
“Look, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by-”
“Whatever. Don’t you have, like, your own place to get to?” Lily said, dropping the towel on the floor of the bathroom, and looking into the mirror, adjusting the hoodie.
“Yeah. Just a small apartment back in town, behind some boba shop. It’s a 40 minute walk from here.”
Lily’s eyes twitched. “You don’t have a car?”
“I had a truck. That was the company's 18-wheeler. I rented it from them. I got into an accident up here, and they said I was on my own. That was about a year ago.” Rudy said, leaning back into the couch and scratching his scraggly beard.
“How did it crash?” Lily sat down next to Rudy, with a twinge of interest in her voice that sounded almost human.
Rudy paused. How could he even explain it? A bright flash in the forest, all 18 tires popping at the same time, and not a shred of rubber left in the entire vehicle. It had vanished, all at once, like the taffy in a candy jar left unaccompanied in a pre-school. Something took it. The engines blew, the gaskets blew, the tires blew- and Rudy was lucky enough to not end up dead in the crash that leveled the patch beside the gas station.
“I spun out.” Rudy claimed.
The silence between two liars is rich with the fear of it remaining unbroken.
“That sucks, dude.” Lily spat out.
“Yeah. But, Ed helped me out- gave me some blankets and promised to pay me for a job well done, and, well, here we are.” Lily’s jaw dropped and she leaned away, over the arm of the couch, until Rudy clarified. “The job I have now, Lily. Not- Not that.”
“Oh.” Lily stated, and scratched her head. “Well, uh, I gotta… I haven’t slept on anything soft in a month, so...”
“Oh! Right. Sorry.” Rudy said, hopping up and scooting to the door. “Ed’s still in the hospital until next week, so you'll have the place to yourself. I still expect you to be ready to work at 9pm, alright?”
“Alright.”
Rudy nodded, and opened the door, rubbing the bags under his eyes. Talking to Lily was exhausting- like leading a tango into a minefield.
“Hey, do you think he’d mind if I… looked into his fridge?” The attendant asked. Rudy felt his gag reflex shoot through him- Never again.
“Don’t. Trust me. Ed’s got a stomach made of cast iron and full of bleach. First night I was here, he served me a slice of green roast. Ugh.” Rudy swallowed.
“... Hey, Rudy?” Lily said after a moment.
“Yeah?” He turned around, and saw Lily wrapped in the blanket, her head resting on the arm of the couch. Her expression had softened- the hard faced, truncated expression of a woman on the bitter edge of her 20s had transformed into the scared, soft face of someone who had only half a decade ago feared whatever awaited her beyond the doors of high school.
“Thanks for helping me.”
“I’m just doing what Ed would do.” Rudy said, and began the long walk home.
The night shift began 14 hours later, with both Rudy and Lily looking and feeling like a fresh pot of coffee. Lily was drenched in some kind of perfume, thick and musky- and she had donned the first change of clothes that Rudy had seen her wear- A pair of black work pants, faded to a charcoal, instead of the stained and ripped blue jeans she had worn for a week straight. She was refreshed, and her eyes- while still distant and far away- felt a little closer to earth than whatever past she was stuck on. Idle chit-chat had entered the distance between the two attendants- Lily would hop up, bringing an article over to Rudy, and asking him for his opinion on it, before giving her own comments. The subjects would be wide and vast- Robotics, Transhumanism, Shin Tzus, Cornbread recipes - But it would pass the time, and with each conversation, Lily seemed more and more present than she was from when Rudy first met her.
She never smiled, though. That was something Rudy still hadn’t seen from the strange girl, no matter how many quips or joking comments he made. She’d snort, clench her jaw, and purse her lips, but never smile.
It was around 2am when she slipped off her stool, and spread out a magazine advert in front of Rudy that fully grasped his attention. A full magazine spread of some horror movie- A shirtless man stood atop a pile of corpses, assault rifle in hand, and a pale, balding ghoul in his left hand, gripped by the throat. Below him, wrapped around his leg, was the stock busty co-ed, faux fear spilled out on their face with an open mouthed expression that would fit on a blow-up doll. She tapped the slick advert with the tip of her nail.
“What do you think about this?” she asked.
Rudy flipped the magazine, and looked at it closer, nursing a large soda. It looked like a pretty typical horror action affair.
“Looks alright. What, did you want to see it?” Rudy responded.
“No.”
Rudy did his best not to snort. It was a zero stars performance. Mountain Dew dripped down his lips from his nostrils, and he did his best to hide it under the back of his hand, rearing his head back.
Ding!
The attendant’s eyes flooded with water, and he scoffed and snorted to clear his sinuses of the dew. When his eyes reopened, Lily had disappeared- and in her place, was a tall man in a ski mask.
“... Evening.” The man stated, his large, black leather hands set on the glass counter. His lips twisted into a wide grin.
“... Evening.”
“Good night so far?” He asked, stifling a yawn with his left hand. His eyes darted up to the left, and to the right- and Rudy cursed himself for not bugging Ed for a proper camera system more.
Rudy’s hand drooped down, to below the desk, twitching for the panic button. The robber leaned back, pulling back his leather coat to reveal a slim, zinc-alloy snubnose revolver- an old Saturday night special.
“Alright. Don’t fuck around. Hands where I can see them.” The robber demanded, unholstering his pistol. Rudy could hear the hum of the escape car beyond the glass of the Trash and Gas. Rudy’s hands jolted up, to the counter- and the robber aimed his pistol at Rudy’s chest. “HEY! No sudden moves.”
“Look- Just- Don’t hurt me.”
“Don’t give me a reason to. Open the register.”
Rudy scooted across the floor, hands held up in a holdup. His left arm swooped down to the register release button. A soft tsk clicked, and the register remained still. Rudy swallowed, hard, and smiled at the gunman, a rock of anxiety slicing away in his chest. Tsk. tsk.
“I, um… It’s not opening.”
The robber’s brutalist grin slid off and crashed on the ground. “Don’t fuck with me. Get it open.”
“I don’t know why, it- it sticks sometimes.” Rudy states, smacking the side of the register. His eyes plead with the robber’s - I don’t want any trouble, i’m not fucking with you. The flinty glare scratches over Rudy’s face, looking for the slightest hint of relief. Properly satisfied, he relaxed, and rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Get the key.” He stated, gesturing with the pistol. Rudy nodded, and slipped his fingers under the register. He leaned over onto the heavy, 50 pound device, and looked past the robber. Shock slung through his body, and snapped through his spine.
Lily was standing a good 10 feet behind the robber, her head slouched off to the side, a listless expression on her face. In the glow of the halogen, she looked like a ghost, with her black, dead hair and single eye slipping past her far-too-long bangs. The robber’s arm stiffened, and the sneer returned. Their head flicked to their left, following Rudy’s sightline.
“I- It’s under the register!” Rudy yelled, unable to control himself. The gunman jolted, flicking the gun back to Rudy. Rudy flinched, his stomach gurgling.
“Well, fucking lift it, dickless. NOW.” The robber was losing patience. Rudy nodded, and picked the register up. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, even when he gripped the register. The metal box clunked against the glass counter.
In the thin, worn groove where the keys had always sat now hosted a dead roach. Rudy clenched his jaw tightly, trying not to cry- he had left the keys with Lily.
“... What the shit is this?”
“I’m sorry, the keys were supposed to- I don’t know where the keys-” Rudy stammered, raising his hands up again. The robber frowned, and stomped over, swinging behind the counter, gun raised-
Ding!
His gun swung to his right. The mechanical door of the Gas & Trash clattered shut. The gunman was speechless, his eyes darting from Rudy to the door.
“Who else is here, motherfucker?” He demanded.
“No- No One!” Rudy lied. The robber sniffed, wiping his nose with his empty hand, and peered around the corner, looking through the glass door. The night stretched on outside- the faint glow of neon refracted in an opalescent spiral, Rudy’s scared face wincing in the reflection. The robber swung to the front of the door-
Ding!
-And kept the gun pointed ramrod straight, prepared to blast the next person to appear in the frame of the door. His hands shook, and the muscles in his neck stretched.
“This isn’t fucking funny. No more fucking around!” he yelled, braced to fire.
Whirr… started up the AC, right on time- startling the gunman, and knocked his gaze away from the door for a split second.
Ding!
-Rang the sensor. The robber twisted, a hair too late- for Lily was already on him. She tossed her light frame through the door with an unrestrained lurch, jumping through the air and clutching onto the chest of the bandit, tackling him to the ground.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING-
BANG BANG.
The pistol fired off. Lily jerked, her back twitching, heaving. Rudy sucked in a breath, and slipped over the counter, acting on pure instinct. He still had the register in his hands.
Lily slumped back over to the robber, and her black, mottled hair covered his face. A sickening crunch of bone and flesh ripped through the air, and incoherent screams followed. Lily’s head lurched back, a thin strand of optic nerve stretching from the emptied socket of the bandit. The eyeball- Its iris a cloudy, dilated gray - was crushed under her canines, broken and yellowed. He screamed. He screamed as the eyeball dropped out of Lily’s mouth. He screamed as she wiped the gore off her face, and clutched a brace of fingers around the ventilated holes in her stomach. He kept screaming as Rudy mercifully dropped the register on his head- and then the endless DING DING DING DING remained.
Rudy dropped to his knees, shaking, blood soaking into his work pants. He looked over at Lily, whose chest was heaving in heavy breaths, her hair flushed back behind her ears, the oxidized blood dripping from her mouth- and shock overcame him.
“You- you ate his- you need to see a doctor, you’re hurt-” Rudy stammered, before Lily stood up, shaking her head.
“No, No, Rudy- We need to bury his body. Please. I promise-”
“Lily, you got SHOT, you need help-”
“No.” Lily stated, calm. She clenched the bottom of her shirt, winced, and lifted it- showing her stomach.
Her belly was a distended mass of gray and purple, bloated outwards. It stunk, too, like a dead cat left out on the ramp of a highway. Three bullet holes were placed across her stomach, in a close pattern- yet they didn’t weep blood. They sweated a slow, greasy looking bile, that spilled out down her stomach in an ichorous pulse.
“Me and my body have not been on the same terms in a long time, Rudy.” Lily said. Her voice was soft, labored- on the edge of a weep.
Rudy stared. He spit, shuddered, swallowed, and sighed. His eyes landed on a shiny, plastic encased hatchet hanging from a nearby rack. 45.49$.
“We’re not going to bury him.” Rudy stated.
It was 5am when they had finished disposing of the robber’s body. The interior of the Gas & Trash was mopped clean- the cleanest it had been in years. The robber’s car- a pale yellow sedan- would be dropped off at the junkyard later that day, and crushed, no questions asked- for it was common for cars to go missing in this neck of the woods. Lily would burn his clothing at night, later, along with any other bits of evidence.
Rudy sweated in the cramped interior of the Gas & Trash bathroom, wiping his forehead off with the back of his hand. His fingers twitched, and his back felt like someone had taken an ax to it as slapshodily as he had taken an ax to the gunman’s. One last flush, and the remnants of the gunman disappeared down into the septic tank. It would smell like death in there for the next two weeks- but what else would a gas station bathroom smell like?
Rudy exited the bathroom, taking in a fresh breath of air- the sun had just begun to crack over the mountainous rolls of the Omaha Clearcut. He stretched his back, and snapped off his gloves, pocketing them to toss later. Across the gas station, there was Lily- dumping mop water down the exterior drain. She looked up, and nodded to Rudy, sitting down next to the mop bucket. She hung her head down.
She spoke first when Rudy approached. “I’m fired.”
Rudy stopped at the door. He said nothing, and walked inside the Gas & Trash-
Ding!
-holding the cleaned hatchet by the hilt.
Di-
The ax made a crunchy, metallic ping against the door sensor, and got stuck in the cheap plaster of the wall. Rudy slipped off the curb, and cracked open an energy drink, handing it to Lily. He sat down, and cracked open a drink of his own- a bruised can of cheap beer. He took a sip, and registered what she said.
“Oh. No. Why would we fire you?”
Lily looked with disbelief at Rudy. She looked ready to cry.
“After all-” Rudy snickered, and shrugged his shoulders, giving a tired grin. He poured a splash of beer into the grate between the two of them, washing away the last few drops of bloody mop water.
“I can’t do the graveyard shift alone.”