The Alarm Clock at the End of the World

Part 65: The Night Before.

Zombie, has been manager of the Spot from before I started coming here. He is shambling toward our table, glazed eyes staring lifelessly at me from within the purplish bags that hang almost to his droopy moustache. He extends both his arms, wrists limp, fingers fat noodles beneath his meaty palms. The index finger on his left hand shoots out and points at me.

“Is my Spot Slab coming out any time soon?” I ask him. “ I think the cook is shooting up again.”

Zombie looks me up and down with no acknowledgment of my words. There have always been rumors about Zombie. Some say the owner built him piece by piece from stolen body parts, a monstrous conglomeration of all the best managers in the entire world, reanimated with electricity and cocaine.

Zombie is more a force of nature than a real human being. Once he starts moving, there is no stopping him. I once saw him throw five big  guys aside to get the kid that grabbed a bartender’s ass. While they tussled, another kid broke a bar stool over Zombie’s back, and impaled Zombie with one of the broken legs. They chopped off his hand before Zombie got them all out the door and collapsed. He was dragged to the back room and a ‘waiting ambulance.’ The next day he was back, fist wrapped in a dirty cloth shoved up a pint glass. No one spoke a word of what happened the night before. “Dr. Filth?” Zombie groans.

“No,” I say. “Someone else.”

“Of course it’s Dr. Filth,” Nepotism says, disgusted. “We’re in here every night. You know him. You know this is Dr. Filth.” Nepotism looks at me. “Tell him, Filthy.”

“You have a phone call in office,” Zombie says. He points through the door to my left, leaving not much room to argue. I slide out of the booth and follow the direction of his digit, more than a little worried about who is back here waiting for me. Why do they only want me? Why not Nepotism or Mephis Tyr. I’ve got my Talon under my jacket. Nep wouldn’t have sold me out. Was it Mephis? Did one of us whisper a little too loudly?

Ugly florescent light scorches out of a doorway. “In there,” Zombie says.

“Who is it?” I demand under my breath.

“Wait in here, please,” he says in a monotone.

I draw the weapon from under my armpit, spin and hold the side up to his face. We stand there, momentarily tense, eyes locked, or at least, I’m tense. Zombie does not move. His features are cold and bloodless, dead eyes staring.

Go to Part 66