The next morning, I awake to the sound of the TV. Bleary-eyed, I wander into the living room to see Lara watching Vanguard’s streaming channel. Specifically, a city update from Lieutenant Davey Shiner—a hero of Hell Portal Day. Shiner looks like he was lifted from a Hollywood action movie, and Lara has a huge crush on him.
Lieutenant Shiner is talking about a recent battle on Gazer Boulevard—a derelict neighborhood occupied by homeless people. Recently, demons streamed out of a portal in Gazer, and the segment shows a picture of this giant M&M with teeth. Vanguard put it down easily (chocolate melts, after all) and saved the day with no casualties.
“We at Vanguard are committed to protecting everyone, no matter where you come from or who you are,” says Shiner.
Lara notices me and waves a cute paw before calling out, “Breakfast?”
“Morning to you too.”
I grab us bowls of strawberry ice cream—our daily breakfast since last week when we ran out of cereal—and I sit beside her on the couch. I should get actual breakfast, but secretly I like pretending I’m on a hidden-camera show called Adulting Fails. Maybe one day, my folks will spring out to yell, “That’s it, kiddo! Not another spoonful!” before letting me know, “Surprise! We’re alive!”
Lara stops eating to stare at me. “Dude, you know you look like shit?”
“Same dream,” I mutter.
“Again? Maybe it’s time to think about moving?” She places a paw on my arm. “It can’t be easy living in—”
“I’m fine. I’m not moving anywhere,” I tell her. “It was just a nightmare.”
Before she can say anything else, I walk to a window and stare down at a dumpster in the alley below. “Hey. Do you think it’s possible I used to have a girlfriend?”
Lara sputters on her ice cream. “Uh, um . . . surrrre.”
I try not to read into that. “The shadow girl in that photo . . . I can’t help but think there’s more about her in my mind somewhere.”
Lara pushes away her ice cream and sighs. “Sorry, Romeo. Wish I could help unlock your amnesia, but sadly I don’t have that power.”
I frown. “You mean some demons have mental powers?”
Her ears prick up. “Uh, no.”
Before I can dwell on that, my phone timer goes off. “Bah, I need to get ready for work.”
Minutes later, I’m out on the street.
It took a while after my accident for me to be able to stand without puking. But once I could and I finally got up the courage to go outside, it was like stepping into a photo of a city I’d read about but never been to. I knew so much about Sundown City—street names, bus lines, too many details around the scandal involving a mayor’s dick pics—but nothing felt familiar. Nothing felt lived in, nothing triggered any memories.
That hasn’t changed since. Today’s no different. Walking through my hometown, I might as well be exploring the Ewok village.
I head toward the mart while schoolkids skip down the sidewalk, clouds shimmer, and everywhere I look, dozens of new pastel-green Vanguard Corporation roadblocks have turned up.
I don’t know whether there’s a nearby threat, or if VC is upgrading security, but either way, my normal route to the Here For You mart is blocked. I have to use the Vanguard app to get directions to my destination. It takes me on a meandering route, but at least I get a VC point for every roadblock I pass. Everyone is doing the same; the air is filled with the sounds of coins clinking.
I spot a church with open doors. Glimpse a full morning service.
“Names have power,” a pastor calls out to everyone. “Vanguard can call the demons ‘extra-dimensional creatures’ and the world beyond the portals the ‘hostile other dimension.’ But everyone knows that those infernal creatures are demons . . . and the ‘HOD’ is nothing other than Satan’s dominion. My friends . . . it is hell!”
Is it though? I wonder.
The portals are apparently one-way openings. Even VC hasn’t been able to send anything into the HOD—no cameras, no soldiers.
“We must always speak truth,” says the pastor, holding his hands out to his congregation. “To truly fight evil, we must always denounce the darkness for exactly what it is!”
My Vanguard app sends me a notification: VANGUARD x SUBWAY®! Get a free Soldier Sub if you redeem this coupon within 15 mins!
All around me, phones chime in unison, probably with the very same coupon. Without thinking too much about it, I follow the crowd to the nearest Subway. I’ve got just enough time.
A dozen steps in, a distant shout draws my attention.
I halt to stare at a barbwire fence covered in STAY CLEAR signs. Vanguard has placed a metal meshing behind the barbwire, which grays out the enclosed area beyond. I move closer anyway and can just barely make out a concrete building with barred windows. Guards are stationed along the perimeter.
The shouting is coming from inside that structure, the local Vanguard asylum. It’s the home of the “Doomies”: folks who lost their minds in the wake of Hell Portal Day. They’ve developed a condition called Doomsday Delirium. Their apocalyptic hallucinations make it impossible for them to function. Every time I pass here, my stomach sinks. What causes Doomsday Delirium? Could I catch it? Is my amnesia the first sign?
I attempt to get a closer look, opening my phone camera to try to use the zoom. But my camera app shows a pixelated screen, and the Vanguard app instantly sends me a message: Restricted Area. Stay Clear.
I’m about to walk away, but I spot a dark-haired guy who must be about my age peering at me through the barbwire fence. He’s gotten close enough to the fencing to poke at the mesh, and it distorts briefly, as though I’m facing my reflection in a circus mirror.
“People say we’re crazy . . . but so are you.”
I flinch. “I . . . I’m not—”
“Crazy? Yes, you are. You, with your constant ding, ding, dings!” The stranger pretends to wield a smartphone and mimics notification chimes. He gestures at the people on the sidewalk, who are walking with eyes glued to phones, all chasing different VC prizes, points, freebies. The Doomie folds his arms. “Look around. Look around! Look—”
But then the guy staggers backward and starts convulsing. Before I can call for help, two female doctors dart over. They check his vitals and talk to him in calm tones as they lead him back toward the asylum.
“Hey,” a Vanguard patrolman calls out, stalking over to my patch of the sidewalk. He’s got a rifle strapped across his chest and gestures for me to scram. “Keep it moving, kiddo.”
I’m about to leave, but then he eyes my work vest and gives me a nod of respect. As though me being a Hell Zone worker makes me a minor league hero, or the next, next, next best thing to one.
“You work in that Here For You mart?” he asks.
“That’s right—”
“Great! Can you do me a favor and hide some of those super cheap yogurt cups with the gorilla logo? They always run out before I get there.”
My shoulders slump a little. “Oh. Sorry, man. Discount’s over,” I tell him, and then just continue on my way.
After my accident, I spent days exploring the city, hoping I’d stumble upon the burning dumpster, fantasizing that Shadow Girl would be standing there amid the swirling ash, ready to tell me with a smile, “Finally! I’ve been waiting for you!” But instead, days in, I came upon a dimly lit neon sign that read, HERE FOR YO (the U had burned out), and I recognized it as the logo on a work vest in my closet.
Underneath the sign was a free-standing building with moldy walls and grimy windows. I stepped into the store, and while nothing looked familiar, the clerks who saw me did a double take.
“There you are!” a voice boomed, and I turned to see a bald guy in a blue shirt. His name pin was ridiculously tiny on his enormous chest: GULLY GORMAN. MANAGER. “About fucking time! We thought you died.”
I blinked. “Um . . . So, I . . . work here?”
Gully frowned. “What?”
I gestured at the giant bandage on my forehead. “My head. I just . . . things are . . . fuzzy. I don’t really remember stuff.”
Gully stepped closer as if he wanted to stare straight into me, like he was trying to x-ray my damn brain, then abruptly stepped backward. “You . . . don’t remember?”
I took in my reflection in the mirror panel of a sunglass stand. “I mean, I know some stuff, like, you know, end caps and ‘stock rotation.’ That’s a thing, right?” I said, pointing at a display at the end of an aisle.
Gully looked as though he wanted to jam a pencil between his eyes—or mine. “Ah, for fuck’s sake! Seriously?” he muttered.
I started to retreat from his human Rottweiler vibe.
“Where are you going?” Before I could reply to that, Gully grabbed my shoulders. “You’re hopeless . . . but you’re not going to leave us one person short right now.”
And that is how I came to work at the Here For You mart—again.
My morning shift begins, but the mart hasn’t yet opened. And I find myself lingering near the entrance. The AC makes a growl-like sputter, and I shiver as I notice claw marks on the floor from yesterday’s fun. Which makes me wonder, as always, Why the fuck am I still here?
My feet crunch on something: the photo booth strip with four pictures of Kyle Kuan. I pick it up and study the images. In that last photo square, Kyle is staring right at the camera, right at me.
Voices echo from the distant back room, and I realize I’m late for the morning staff meeting. I pocket the photo strip and head for the break room. By the time I get there, my twelve fellow clerks are already seated.
Most of them are around my age. Thanks to Vanguard’s Freedom-16 Act, it’s legal for teens sixteen and older to do hell-related jobs. We’re adults when we’re asked to mop blood, but conveniently teens when it comes to payroll.
Gully shoots me a glare that says, You’re late again.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
I spot a seat at the back. It’s behind our “veteran” F-16s: Dean, Penelope, and Norm. They’ve been here the longest and treat the job like it’s some kind of inside joke. The guys both have patchy beards. They’ve probably only just started shaving. Penelope has a neck tattoo, which looks maybe self-done and still red and painful. When I nod hello and try to shuffle by them to a seat, they stretch their legs to block my path. Whatever. I’ll sit up front with the newest F-16 hires, who probably won’t be here next week anyway.
Gully gestures for me to hurry up.
“Sorry,” I repeat.
“Timing is everything,” Gully calls out, punctuating each word while still glaring at me. “Listen up, turds. In retail, timing really is everything. It underpins each shift, rotation, and sale. And now that we’re headed for the end of November, timing is gonna be more crucial than ever. After all . . . what event are we heading toward, people?”
“Black Friday,” we chorus, most of us groaning—except for our resident weirdos, Robbie and Jono, who seem to enjoy working here. They both sound legit excited.
Gully claps his hands together. “Yes! Black Friday is only four days away, and I recently received a very interesting email from head office. It seems they’ve decided to challenge each Here For You mart to a ‘Black Friday Bonus Bonanza.’ The store that draws the biggest profit will receive a mega bonus—a cash pool that the winning store’s manager can split with their team.”
My peers stare at one another, blinking. The only “splits” we ever get here are diabolical morning-afternoon split shifts.
“A shared cash bonus?” Robbie asks carefully.
Gully nods. “To share between me, the manager, and you, the staff.”
Translation: Gully will probably split it 90/10.
Robbie beams, and I sigh. This is going to be more disappointing for Robbie than the time he tried to use the break room microwave to make “hot-air balloons.”
“To get this bonus, we’ll need to bring in the most profit of any Here For You mart in the country. Ergo, this place will need to be a shopper’s paradise.” Gully rubs his hands together. “Head office suggests that we treat this like a game. And, as you all know, all games have winners . . . and winners get rewards!”
Gully starts doling out instructions for Black Friday prep, and my attention drifts to a TV playing quietly in a corner. A morning-show host is interviewing Lieutenant Shiner about the rumors that he’s going to be the next star of The Bachelor. Shiner laughs good-naturedly but then pivots to a more important topic: VC’s plans for Black Friday:
“Unlike last year, Vanguard will not be instituting crowd limits on shopping zones. Instead, we’ll be amping up security and allowing all approved retail venues to partake in this fantastic event!”
By all approved retail venues, he means Relatively Safe Hell Zone stores are allowed to join the madness. Because hey, retail is the multibillion-dollar baby that must be protected at all costs.
Gully drones on about Black Friday’s big-ticket items. And my attention drifts again to Kyle Kuan, who pushes through the break room door and crashes our meeting without seeming to give a damn. As a trainee Vanguardian, Kyle spends her shifts patrolling the “safe” parts of the store. (Unless the mart’s two other guards are both incapacitated, she isn’t allowed inside aisle nine.)
Seeing her, I think of a recent memory from about a month ago. I was standing in the toy aisle when I noticed a dark shape peeking over the aisle’s top shelf. At first, I worried it was some kind of weird gray-brown monster, but then I realized it was actually just the soles of Kyle’s boots. Kyle was lying on the top shelf, staring above her. She’d gotten her hands on a toy gun and was shooting suction darts at the ceiling. No one seemed to notice her but me.
Without asking, I got a stepladder and climbed up to the top of the next aisle. I lay down parallel to her.
I turned and saw Kyle’s face in profile. Shit. What am I doing? I was about to climb down, my heart racing, but then Kyle turned and frowned at me. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d done something to annoy her. Fuck it.
“Hey,” I whispered.
I pulled out my scanner gun and pretended to use it as a firearm, shooting off laser beams into distant mannequin heads. I blew the smoke off the imaginary barrel, and our eyes met again, and Kyle seemed to look right through me. Sighing silently, I fired another laser beam at nothing in particular.
My beam hit a ceiling-mounted security mirror, and the light reflected into my right eye.
“Gargh! Shit!” I hissed.
Kyle let out a chuckle, a hint of a smile even tugged at her lips, and suddenly I was exactly where I wanted to be.
I felt like we were both trapped in an identical Venn diagram. One with three labeled circles—Why did I get up this morning?; What am I doing?; When is this all going to make sense?—that overlapped in the middle to form a section labeled YOUR LIFE.
Somehow, I felt like she was someone who truly . . . got it.
But before I could say anything, Kyle lowered her gaze, yellow bangs falling over her eyes, her shoulders tensed up, and in one acrobatic move, she hopped to the ground like she wanted to get away from me as fast as she could.
“Jasper!” Gully yells.
Kyle is gone, and Gully is standing over me. I’m about to apologize for spacing out, but he clears his throat and adds, “All games have winners . . . and losers. With that in mind, anyone who does not pull their weight in the lead-up to Black Friday is a loser and will be fired.”
I grip the sharp edges of the photo booth strip of Kyle that’s in my pocket.
“I swear I won’t let you down, Gully,” I promise, before realizing I’ve done the one thing no retail worker should ever do. I’ve admitted to my boss that I need this job.
Gully looks me over, sneers, then wanders outside. He returns with a sandwich board that has a game wheel stuck to it. It’s the knockoff Wheel of Fortune wheel that we used in the store for some earlier promotion. Dean and Norm snicker.
Gully grabs a Sharpie, scratches out the number values on the wheel, and, in their place, scribbles down chores. “Step over here, Jasper. These are all Black Friday prep items. Give it a spin and you’ll do whatever you land on.”
I walk over to the wheel.
The shape has labels such as BF toilet cleaning and BF mascot duty. I don’t know what to aim for, but seeing no other option, I suck in a breath and spin the wheel.
The arrow part lands on the words floor prep.
That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
Turns out, “floor prep” means adding metallic sticker dots to the floor to create a silver path through the aisles. Because Gully wants to have “a path like on a board game.” To do this, I’m on my hands and knees with a roll of thousands of stickers.
Such bullshit.
A dozen feet away, a woman is carrying a little boy, and she points me out to him, as though I’m a duck in a pond. “See him?” she whispers to her kid. “Dream big, sweetie! Or that could be you one day!”
Apparently we’re playing the board game Life. The Retail Worker Edition!
I turn my back to the shoppers, only to see Penelope and Dean heading my way, laughing. There it is again—that vibe they give off that working here is an inside joke. But what’s the joke? That if life’s going to eff you over, you might as well be an F-16 and get the hazard pay?
They spot me. Penelope raises a brow, as though I’m some sort of mental hospital escapee. Before I know it, she takes out a tiny vintage Polaroid camera and snaps a picture.
“Do you mind?” I bark, but she and Dean walk off, probably to put my picture on the Employee of the Month board.
Awesome. . . .
I realize I accidentally pushed my sticker roll under the aisle edge beside me. I reach in to grab it—but end up extracting a pair of grimy dentures.
“Fuck!” I hiss.
But when I catch my breath, I sigh and turn the dentures into a talking hand puppet: “Lighten up, buddy. . . . Working in a discount mart isn’t all bad. This job comes with free dental solutions!”
Footsteps emerge.
A young Vanguard soldier is staring at me. He takes off his helmet and frowns. I chuck aside the dentures. “I’m kidding. We don’t have a dental plan here,” I mutter.
“Jasper?” he asks.
I stand up and mirror his frown.
“Hah! It is you!” His brown cheeks crease into a smile. He fist-bumps me on my shoulder and causes me to sway back. “How are you?”
“Uh . . . good?” I reply.
His armored jacket has an embroidered tag: C. GUTIERREZ. He sees me staring at his uniform and says, “Yep! I now work for the Vanguard Corporation. Crazy, right? I’m here to replace one of the guards in aisle nine.” He steps back to take in my uniform. “So, you work in this place, huh?”
I’m choosing to ignore the faint wincing sound.
“How long has it been since we saw each other?” he asks.
“A long time . . . ?”
“Since our early graduation, right?”
So we’re school friends? “We graduated early?”
I’d always assumed I dropped out of school.
“Yeah, dude. And I’m still bummed about it,” says Gutierrez. “I thought that once Vanguard repaired the city, we’d leave the lockdowns and get to finish sophomore year. Never thought they’d deem our school too hard to repair—and just graduate our entire class.”
“We never got the chance to do junior and senior year?”
“Nah, man. But I guess Vanguard needed new bodies in the workforce, what with all the deaths from Hell Portal Day.” Gutierrez narrows his eyes. “Ugh, why am I telling you what you already know? You were there. Duh.”
Finally, someone who has answers about my past.
“Yeah, I know I should know about this graduation stuff. It’s just—”
Gutierrez sighs and says, “Man! I haven’t thought about that graduation for so long. I’d almost forgotten how pissed I was.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Gutierrez leans against a shelf and stares into the distance. “Well, I didn’t lose anyone to demons—and I’m super grateful—but damn, I was supposed to finish school. Become a doctor. Maybe move overseas. I just assumed my life would change into something bigger, but instead . . . we get shortchanged into graduating in a Wendy’s parking lot on a random Wednesday morning.”
“I feel you,” I reply, not knowing quite what else to say.
Gutierrez straightens up and says, “Do you remember the speech that that Vanguard recruiter gave us?”
Before I can say anything, Gutierrez imitates a gruff voice:
“ ‘Listen up, kids! What more can school teach you? You know as much about survival in a broken world as any adult. You know shit all.’ ” Gutierrez mimics a mic drop, then cocks a brow. “You okay, dude?”
I brush back my hair to touch my forehead scar, muttering, “I don’t actually remember ever being okay.”
I finally tell him all about my head trauma.
When I’m finished, his eyes are saucer wide. “Amnesia? You sayin’ you can’t remember anything?”
“Nada.” I shrug. “What do you remember about me?”
Gutierrez scratches at his patchy facial hair. “I dunno. I remember you were in a lot of my classes—algebra, biology—but mostly you just . . . kept to yourself. You were kinda quiet, but not creepy quiet. Shy. I don’t know that we ever had, like, an actual conversation before today.”
I’m unable to stifle a huge sigh. “That’s . . . all?”
I’ve scanned UPC barcodes to reveal longer descriptions.
Gutierrez lowers his gaze and scuffs at the ground. “Well . . . I do remember one more thing: during our graduation, you were so motionless, just staring into the distance, like you were barely breathing.” He pauses. “You lost people on Hell Portal Day, didn’t you?”
That graduation was probably a few months after that tragic Christmas.
“My parents,” I whisper.
Gutierrez shakes his head. “Geez. I’m so sorry.”
I’m not sure what to say. Neither is he.
Kyle Kuan walks past the aisle, and Gutierrez cranes his neck in her direction. “Hah! I was right earlier. That is Kyle Kuan.”
I blink. “You . . . know her too?”
Now it’s Gutierrez who seems bewildered. “Yeah, Kyle K. was in our grade.” He tips his head to the side. “Don’t you guys, like, talk here? I think I remember once seeing you guys hanging out in the cafeteria. Weren’t you friends?”
“Seriously?” The word friends repeats over and over in my head, rolling into a distorted roar, before someone calls out my name.
In the distance, Gully barks at me to get back to work.
“We can talk later, dude,” says Gutierrez before he wanders off.
I can barely focus on where I’m sticking down metallic dots. My attention is spiraling around what I’ve learned—about my graduation, about Kyle—and I find myself trying to imagine these things. My attempt to hot-wire my brain into showing me some actual memories.
But no matter how hard I try, all I get is the familiar zinging pain in my skull. When I finally give up, a dull ache swirls around inside me.
Will things ever change?
I begin to feel so fatigued that I force myself not to think for a little while. I try to focus on work. I lay down sticker dot after dot and attempt to lose myself in the repetition. Time passes. A random shopper tousles my hair. Another uses my back as a place for her coffee cup. I feel I’ve been at it for miles, but when I check my progress . . .
I’ve barely stickered two yards.
A click draws my attention. I turn to see a nearby TV flicker with a red ⌧—the symbol for a local group of hackers known as Suckerpunch—and suddenly the screen shows the bright red words VANGUARD LIES!
Still trying to distract myself from myself, I wander over to view this latest cable hack from Suckerpunch. It’s a message about the recent demon attack in Gazer Boulevard, where the M&M monsters were rampaging. The hackers show a clip of VC soldiers waiting on the sidelines. They allege that VC let the battle spill out of control in order to clear away homeless folks—and allow them to redevelop the area.
Could it be true? Honestly, I don’t know.
Abruptly, the cable hack shows a bunch of bloodstained sidewalks from the battle. A female shopper halts in front of the TV and holds out her arms, as though she wants to embrace the bloody images. Oh, wait— She’s trying to measure the screen without using a tape measure.
“Humph. Nah,” she mumbles, wandering off.
Only then does the cable hack finally get shut down.
“And we now return to our regularly scheduled programming, folks,” I whisper, only to turn around and freeze—
As Kyle walks past.
Vanguard soldiers always wear multiple Kevlar pieces: shin guards, chest protectors, helmets, arm braces. But as a trainee, Kyle only has a Kevlar vest. She’s paired it with a black tee, cutoff shorts, shiny oil-slick tights, and combat boots. Her helmet and flamethrower hang off her back thanks to a crossbody strap.
Kyle passes a shelf and grabs a few highlighter pens before stalking over to the sunglasses rack. She eyes her neon-yellow hair in a mirror panel and finds a section where the color has faded to reveal bleached strands. She uses a yellow highlighter to “dye” the blank section of hair.
In the distance, the portal has started humming eerily. But Kyle keeps staring into the tiny strip of mirror. A shopper rotates the rack, mirrors carousel-ing, but Kyle doesn’t react.
The rack spins back to its earlier position, which is when Kyle spots me via the mirror.
“Yeah?” she asks, eyes sharp.
How do I even talk to her? Whenever I interact with Kyle, I spin a Wheel of Fortune wheel with only three labels: AGGRAVATED, BORED, INDIFFERENT. It’s pointless, and yet . . . I’m always ready to give the wheel a spin.
“Uh, thanks for the save yesterday,” I tell her.
“Sure,” she replies mutedly.
She’s settled on INDIFFERENT, but I don’t give up as I ask, “So . . . do you ever think about high school?”
Unblinking, Kyle shrugs and says, “Not really.”
“Oh,” I reply.
Kyle walks away, and I think Gutierrez must be wrong. How could Kyle and I have ever been friends in school? Or even casual acquaintances? But then Kyle halts a dozen steps ahead and turns slightly, as though ready to look back at me, only to pause.
Wait. Does she remember me?
But then she seems to think better of continuing our conversation and heads off again. I want to chase after her, but I sense she won’t say more. So instead, I take in a deep breath and try to get my brain to show me a memory of Kyle. But just like before, my attempt to find a lost memory causes my head to zing. I try to push through the pain, but the zinging sensation explodes behind my eyes . . . and then cuts out into darkness.
Someone calls out my name. I’m staring at the ceiling, and halogen lights cut into my vision. Blinking, I look around to find myself sprawled atop what was once a pyramid of stacked toilet paper.
Gutierrez is poking my shoulder. “Jasper! Wake up, dude.”
I rub at my temples. “What . . . happened?”
Gutierrez helps me sit up and then tells me I collapsed onto the toilet paper pyramid. “Um, you need me to call the VC medic?”
I take in a steadying breath. “No, I just . . . think I finally pushed it too hard.”
“Pushed what?”
I take a deep breath. No use in holding back when I’ve already told him so much. “It’s my amnesia. Whenever I try to find a memory, it’s like my brain rebels. This time it went full guerrilla warfare.” My upper lip is damp, and I realize I’ve got a nosebleed. I try to wipe away blood. “Shit. . . . Just when I thought things couldn’t get weirder.”
Gutierrez frowns. “Jasper, dude, what’s going on with you?”
I shrug. “I don’t even know where to start. I have super vivid apocalyptic nightmares about the portals. Each dream shows chaos, and I wake up with the sense that they’re, like, pulling from some sort of real future danger.”
Gutierrez stiffens, so I quickly add, “But they’re just dreams.”
He studies me, then helps me get up and leads me to the garden section in the back of the store. Standing beside a plastic fern, he looks around to check we’re alone. “Dude, I don’t know how else to say this, but it sounds like you might be developing the Doomsday Delirium.”
“Hah!” I chuckle. “You think I’m becoming a Doomie? Seriously?”
When he doesn’t move a muscle, my laughter becomes strangled.
“Don’t joke about that shit, dude.”
Gutierrez lowers his voice to add, “Look, I don’t think amnesia is a symptom—but vivid apocalypse nightmares and trouble with everyday functioning? Those are definitely initial symptoms of Doomsday Delirium. You should—”
“I don’t have trouble functioning.”
He raises a brow. “You just face-planted into a small hill of toilet paper.”
“C’mon, that’s just a side effect of my head trauma,” I interrupt.
“What if this has nothing to do with your accident?” Gutierrez rolls his shoulders, wavers. “Look, I’m not a doctor, but if you are going through Doomsday Delirium, you need to get medical attention before it spirals into full-blown psychosis. You need to visit a VC med facility, get checked out.”
I flinch. “I don’t need some asylum prison—”
Gutierrez folds his arms. “Is that what you think VC does to Doomies? Imprisons them? Jasper, they’re spending millions helping whatever Doomies they find.”
My thoughts go to what I’ve seen around the local asylum. I want to argue about the barbwire and camera-censorship field, but then I remember how that young guy had a seizure. “Has anyone ever recovered?” I ask.
Gutierrez looks away briefly. “From what I know, VC tries to get Doomies to face the hell-related trauma that caused their Doomsday Delirium—in order to get them to heal. It’s a whole thing.”
“Face my trauma? Like, you mean, both my parents dying on Hell Portal Day?”
Gutierrez hesitates but shakes his head. “Nah, dude. If you are starting to develop DD, then the catalyst event has to be more recent than Hell Portal Day. Like, I dunno . . . maybe something that occurred a few months ago?”
I’m not sure what to say.
“But I don’t remember a catalyst within the last few months—and I don’t remember anything from before that—”
I’m interrupted when the lights flicker with a crackle.
Gutierrez spins away, turns his attention toward aisle nine. He signals for me to follow and leads the way as we creep closer. We’re barely a dozen steps away when the lighting returns to normal. Peering into the quarantine zone, I spot Ollie Sheffield standing guard, alone, opposite the portal. His helmet and armor cover most of him, save for his pale fingers and the lower part of his face.
The air is filled with a dry electricity. I can almost taste the static.
Gutierrez starts unlocking the gate, and I call out, “Hey, Ollie. Everything okay?”
No response.
“Ollie?”
As usual, Ollie doesn’t bother to acknowledge anyone who isn’t VC. Then again, he practices that all-important workplace rule: You focus on your shit, and I’ll focus on mine. Something I should be grateful for, considering that he’s saved my life on at least two occasions.
Gutierrez enters the quarantine and talks quietly with Ollie.
I know I should leave them be, but my heart skips a beat when the in-aisle lighting flickers again. Seconds later, Gutierrez tells me to step back for safety.
A bunch of skateboarding teens roll toward aisle nine. “Yo! Please,” I tell them, gesturing for them to get off the boards. They snort but do as I ask in order to get close to aisle nine and gawk.
I’m about to shoo them off, but then the portal hisses and an object comes fluttering out. A black envelope with a white postage stamp. Is Satan looking for a pen pal?
“Great. Junk mail,” Gutierrez cracks.
The skater teens are staring at the envelope, rapt.
So am I.
“Whatever,” says Ollie. He uses a flamethrower burst to destroy the letter, then peers over at the teen shoppers. “Show’s over, kiddies. Scram.”
The teenagers sigh but head away.
I’m also about to wander off, until I notice that the portal is still quivering.
I clear my throat. “Um, guys . . .”
The hole’s quiver turns quickly to a rumble, and then a humanoid thing jumps out. It’s six feet tall and covered from head to toe in what look like scales—but are actually, holy shit, postage stamps. The creature has no eyes, but it opens a jagged maw and howls.
My feet are rooted in place.
Ollie and Gutierrez use their flamethrowers to bathe the monster in fire. They turn the postage stamps to ash, then scorch the underlying humanoid. The air fills with a stench of burning paper and roasted flesh. The monster shrieks. Fire chars it into a silhouette.
It slumps to the ground and goes silent.
All around me, shoppers are staring in aisle nine’s direction, wide-eyed and stiff with fear. Then, a moment later, when it seems the worst has passed, everyone sighs and resumes whatever they were doing. Everyone except for the skater teens. They hiss at me as I shoo them away again, but they don’t fight me and instead wander off farther into the store.
In aisle nine, Gutierrez douses the demon with a second blast of fire, even though it is completely motionless. The air fills with smoke.
“Enough,” says Ollie. “We don’t want to set off the store’s smoke detectors.”
Gutierrez breaks from his fire-throwing trance and shuts it down.
Ollie pushes up his helmet visor and says, “Good. It’s dead. Now let’s dispose of this fucker.”
He grabs a Vanguard-issue chainsaw. A super powerful but highly unwieldy tool that the guards use when they shift from monster slaying to monster cleanup. He lifts it and says, “But first, head check.”
Head check. He means lop off the head just in case.
Ollie tightens his grip on the chainsaw’s pull cord, but before he can yank it on, the monster springs to its feet. It grabs Ollie’s and Gutierrez’s necks, slams their helmets together, then chortles as they fall to the ground.
Ollie rises, woozily, as the monster roars. He tries to grab the fallen chainsaw, but the creature punches him in the chest—and knocks him clear across the aisle.
“Ollie!” I shout, but he’s not responding, not moving.
Gutierrez staggers to his feet. His helmet has fallen off. He grabs the chainsaw and jerks the cord so it roars to life. He slams it into the monster’s back, cutting a deep, bloody gash. But almost instantly the chainsaw jams and conks out, lodged in the monster. The creature spins around, flexing its back to dislodge the chainsaw.
The monster lunges at Gutierrez, but he’s quick on his feet, evades the blows, and unsheathes a sword strapped to his back. Gutierrez swings the sword, hard. The demon blocks the move with a forearm but ends up getting that limb cleaved off just above the elbow.
The creature howls and collapses to the floor in pain.
Gutierrez twirls his sword in a figure eight. “Look at me,” he calls out to it. “Yeah. I’m talking to you, you little shit. Look at me! You sent us a postcard? Well, here’s a message for you—We are not afraid.” He kicks the monster, mutters “Fuck it,” and then lifts his sword high like it’s time to end the beast.
But before Gutierrez can bring the blade down, the monster opens its mouth as wide as it can, and postage stamps come flying out. Not just a few, but hundreds, maybe thousands. They’re pouring out of it fast and furious like a tornado in a post office. The paper whacks into Gutierrez with enough force to knock him clear onto his ass. While he’s down, the monster reaches into its chest and pulls out a huge black stamp. It licks the back and then plasters the stamp over Gutierrez’s face.
Gutierrez starts to panic and thrash. He can’t breathe. He’s clawing at the stamp but can’t get it off. Meanwhile the monster lifts a fist—
“Hey! You there!”
Ollie. He’s back on his feet at the far end of the aisle.
The creature scurries toward him, and my attention shoots back to Gutierrez. I have to do something. I look at the gate and try to recall the keypad code for the lock. I think I once saw Ollie enter the numbers 0219, so I try it and the gate opens.
Suddenly I stand rigid in the threshold of aisle nine.
Move! Come on! Do something!
Kyle rushes past me and darts over to Gutierrez’s side. She opens a water bottle, pours it on his face to soften the stamp. She pulls at the paper’s lower edge, but the paper keeps tearing. She’s going too slow. . . .
Shuddering, I force myself over to Kyle’s side. Instead of trying to rip the paper all the way to Gutierrez’s upper lip, I jam my fingers in approximately where I think his mouth would be. The stamp rips, and he nearly gags on my hand, but then he sucks in a breath. He’s got air again.
The monster has backed Ollie into a corner, but the guard is using his flamethrower to keep it back and melt it down. But somehow, the demon keeps pushing on through the flames. Soon, it’s so close that Ollie has no choice but to chuck aside his flamethrower and use his own sword to fight back.
Kyle helps Gutierrez remove most of the stamp on his eyes. He seems dazed, but Kyle helps him to his feet and hands him his sword.
A yell fills the air. The monster has knocked aside Ollie’s weapon. The creature has gripped Ollie by the neck and lifted him up. The monster bites his left arm, and I hear a sound that makes me think of splintering wood and ripping fabric. Ollie screams. The monster releases him, turns around, and I see a huge tongue sticking out of its mouth—no, wait, not a tongue, but an arm! Ollie’s arm.
Gutierrez charges at the beast, sword up, yelling. The blade sinks into the creature’s neck, lodged. “Time to return . . . to sender!” Gutierrez swears as he lops the beast’s head off.
The creature instantly crumbles to ash.
Gutierrez runs over to Ollie, then pulls out his belt to create a tourniquet to keep Ollie from bleeding out. Kyle uses her walkie to call Vanguard HQ for an emergency evac.
But me? I can barely stay on my feet. Nothing seems real. Not the monster we saw, not Ollie’s blood all over the floor.
“Dear God . . . ,” I whisper.
I hear footsteps, then turn to see a boy—maybe ten or eleven, in a green hoodie—enter the aisle threshold. He stares wide-eyed at Ollie, then peeks at a phone in his small hands. Abruptly, I hear a chime from his phone.
“Four hundred VC points!” the boy breathes.
He bounces a little, and I realize what’s happened. The VC app has sensed a monster attack—based on Kyle’s call to Vanguard, or maybe the CCTV—and it’s awarded the boy points to compensate him for witnessing violence.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” I roar at the kid.
Finally, my legs do what my brain tells them to, and I chase the kid out into the street, only to see him disappear into the crowd. Fuck, what would I even do if I caught him? What would that change? All around, everything out here looks so normal, people casually walking their dogs and picking up shit in little baggies, and I feel that I’m being gaslit by everyone. For weeks I’ve quested to find a single burning dumpster, but here and now, this whole city is a dumpster fire kingdom.