Bob slammed the coffee pot into place and jabbed at the Brew button with his index finger. Getting the coffee ready for the morning commuters wasn’t his job.
Hell, he shouldn’t have even been there at all.
He was the station manager, not the damned night-shift jockey.
Phillis, the shift’s usual employee, had called off for the second night in a row, complaining about the flu.
She was old and obese, hardly a pillar of health, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she would be sick again. But that didn’t stop Bob from wanting to can her ass for making him work an overnight twice in a row.
And now he was doing the first shift’s duties too.
Allison should have arrived twenty minutes ago.
Making coffee was her responsibility, not his.
Bob had tried calling her home twice already and had left nasty messages on her answering machine each time. Allison didn’t have a cell phone, which was another point of contention he had with her.
What moron didn’t have a cell phone in this day and age?
He wondered if she still cleaned her clothes with a washboard.
Maybe she used an outhouse instead of a toilet.
If Allison and Phillis weren’t careful, they’d find themselves on the unemployment line soon. Bob had already etched Allison’s name on his shit list. Once someone found themselves there, it took exemplary work over an extended period of time to get their name taken off.
He should have known better.
Should have listened to his brain instead of his dick.
Allison had a pretty face and a great body. That combination had been deadly to Bob when she’d walked in six months ago, looking for a job. The slutty reputation she had around Arthur’s Creek had nudged him into hiring her.
But she had another stigma hanging over her head like a neon sign—she hit the sauce way too much.
Bob knew for a fact that she was a hard drinker, but he had yet to see evidence of her whoredom. God knew that he’d been trying to get in her pants, but she’d rebuffed him at every turn.
Mumbling to himself as he went, Bob stomped behind the counter and looked at his cell phone, hoping to see that she’d called him back.
Nothing.
Bob sucked in the paunch that had been slowly growing over his belt for the past few years. He’d let himself go a bit, sure, but he couldn’t figure out what it was about him that kept Allison at arm’s length. He had money, by Arthur’s Creek standards, a big home, and a hefty chunk of property in the woods.
It wasn’t like she had a ton of suitors calling on her in their small town either. Most of the men eyeing her up just wanted a quick romp in the sheets, not an actual date. Bob was pushing ever closer to that damned AARP age and didn’t want to spend his twilight years alone. He needed someone to take care of him in his old age.
For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why a slut like her wouldn’t be clamoring for a sugar daddy.
And that kind of thinking was why he’d hired her. It had been years since he’d tapped a fine piece of ass like her, so he’d hoped she would be full of gratitude for the job. Maybe throw him a little action as a way to say thank you. That didn’t turn out to be the case.
She came in hungover every morning, as he’d expected, but he couldn’t weasel his way into her pants.
How long had it been since her husband had died? Ten months? Fifteen? That was more than long enough for her to get over it.
But now, after six sexless months, Bob had reached his limit.
It was one thing if she wouldn’t blow him, but something else entirely if she wouldn’t even show up for work. The constant hangovers were bad enough, but at least she’d made it in for the start of her shifts. If she wasn’t even bothering to call him this morning, she must have gone on one hell of a bender the night before.
Bob leaned against the counter, spinning his cell phone on the laminate surface with his fingers. He decided that she had five more minutes to call in and explain herself—anymore than that and she could tell her sob story to the unemployment office.
A yellow, rusted-out pickup pulled into the station and parked beside one of the gas pumps. Bob recognized the vehicle and groaned. Arthur’s Creek only had a few hundred people in it, maybe a thousand if you counted the folks living in the surrounding mountains, so everyone knew everyone else’s business.
Jim Picking slid from the driver’s seat and meandered his way around the back of his truck. He had on the same stained mechanic’s shirt that he always wore to the repair shop he worked at.
He tipped the bill of his cap at Bob as they looked at each other through the window.
Bob nodded back at him.
They’d spoken on several occasions, but they were anything but friendly. Jim thought of Bob as a white-collar pussy because he didn’t get his hands dirty when he worked. Bob figured Jim to be a working-class moron who wasn’t intelligent enough to keep his hands clean on the job.
Jim grabbed the nozzle and jammed it into his truck, squeezing the trigger.
Two more cars pulled in then, one going to another pump, the other parking in an open space in front of the station.
The same thing happened every morning as the town woke up and hauled its groggy ass to work. People would file in, grab some coffee and a donut, and head on out. Everyone’s daily grind was a boon for the station, which had a primo spot on the main drag leading in and out of Arthur’s Creek.
The little bell above the door rang as three women came inside.
Bob ignored them and kept watching the road, waiting for Allison to show up.
A school bus, one of only three in the area, drove by, kids filling about half the seats.
Several more cars went by as the morning sun finally started burning away the night.
Bob gave his phone one last, longing glance before shoving it in his pocket and turning to the register. He’d have to pull a double.
Then, he’d fire Allison.
The women hovered by the candy bar aisle, prattling on about how they really shouldn’t grab those Butterfingers.
Of course, they shoveled them up anyway. Bob recognized two of the women, though he couldn’t place their names. The third, the heaviest and oldest of them, was new.
Another ding of the doorbell preceded two more people walking in.
One of them was Jim, the working-class moron. He wore the same dour expression he always did. The man stood well over six feet. Though he was in his mid-forties, Jim still had the wide shoulders that had made him a moderate standout at linebacker a few decades before.
At least, as much of a standout a player could be in such a small area.
His hands had the meaty, thick quality of a man who’d used them for hard labor his entire life. He towered over the women as he strode past them, not giving them a second glance.
“Bob?”
“Mmm?” Bob blinked rapidly, realizing that he’d been staring at Jim’s wide back for several seconds. He disliked the man, yes, but it wouldn’t do him any good to actively provoke the brute.
Yet another local stood in front of Bob, her eyes gazing up at him expectantly. Her name was Melody, a woman of roughly fifty with short, impossibly black hair that she obviously dyed.
Bob knew her all too well, as this was the woman he spoke to on the phone when the occasional emergency happened at the station. In such a small town, they never had to deal with murders or robberies, but they did have the occasional shoplifter or jackass who spilled gas all over the place.
“What?” Bob asked.
Melody flinched as if he’d struck her. “I need a pack of cigarettes. What’s with the attitude?”
“Sorry.” Bob forced a smile that had all the warmth of a December morning. “I’m pulling a double, so I’m a little tired.”
“Where’s Allison?”
“I have no idea. She didn’t show up this morning.”
Melody frowned. “That’s unlike her.”
Bob mimicked drinking out of a bottle. “You know how she can be.”
The corners of Melody’s mouth fell even further. “There’s no call for that, Robert. Her husband died, and she’s having a hard time with it.”
The overwhelming urge to bend over and shout in the fat woman’s face nearly had Bob moving before he realized it. “Of course. I didn’t mean it that way—”
“What’s the hold up?” a deep voice asked from behind Melody.
Bob’s eyes snapped up. Three women stood behind Melody with Jim looming over the lot of them.
“Ain’t got all day, pretty boy,” Jim said, his voice rumbling.
He held a gallon of chocolate milk in one hand, his other removing the cap. As he drank from the jug, he kept his eyes fixated on Bob’s.
“You haven’t paid for that,” Bob muttered.
Jim lowered the gallon of milk, licking at the brown mustache it left. “That’s cause you’re yammerin’ instead of taking my goddamn money.”
The chittering women fell silent.
They looked back and forth from Bob to Jim.
Melody rolled her eyes. “Can you tough guys wait to fight until after I have my smokes? The sheriff will have my hide if I don’t get into the station soon.”
Bob’s phone vibrated on the counter in front of him. He peeled his gaze from Jim and looked down at the screen. A number didn’t appear as usual, replaced by the word Private.
Bob didn’t answer calls from private numbers.
The phone canted sideways as it vibrated again.
Similar tones came from the bags of the women in front of him.
Melody pulled a small purse from her shoulder, fishing out a large-screen phone. She looked down at it. “Private number? I wonder who this is?”
The three women behind her also pulled out their phones, all giving the screens the same quizzical expressions.
“Must be some kind of automated call.” Jim took another swig from the container. He wiped more milk from his lip with his forearm when he finished. “Garbage like this is why I ain’t got a phone.”
Bob wanted to say that he probably didn’t have a phone because he was a redneck imbecile, but he held his tongue. Instead, he peered through the window and saw two people standing at the gas pumps, looking down at their cells.
“I wonder if it’s an emergency?” Bob asked, more to himself than the others.
“Let’s find out.” Melody slid her thumb across the touch screen and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
The three women behind her mimicked the movement and greeting, each squinting as they held the phone to their heads.
Melody’s face fell slack, her eyes dulling. She didn’t so much as stare at Bob as she looked through him. Her shoulders slumped, mouth drooping open.
Bob looked over her shoulder at the other women. They all held the same vacant expression. “Mel? What is it?”
Melody didn’t answer.
None of them did.
“I’ll be damned,” Jim said. “This is the longest these women have ever gone without yammering on about something in their whole lives.”
Finally, Bob thought. The hillbilly and I agree on something.
The men by the gas pumps also held their cell phones to their ears, staring off into the distance with vacant eyes. The gas meters clicked away beside them, filling their vehicles.
Bob looked down at his phone again as it continued to vibrate on the desk. A sudden pang of fear ran up his spine. He didn’t dare answer that call. “What’s happening?”
Jim stepped around the last woman in the line and bent over, tipping his cap back on his head and inspecting her face.
She didn’t acknowledge him, even as he leaned so close that their noses were less than three inches apart.
He waved a hand in front of her face.
She didn’t respond.
Didn’t even blink.
“Hello? Anyone in there?” Jim snapped his fingers right in front of her eyes. “They’re out to lunch, Bobby.”
“Don’t call me that.” Bob leaned over the counter and waved both of his hands in front of Mel. “What’s happening to them?”
“You’re the smart guy around here.” Jim straightened out his back. “You tell me. I just turn wrenches for a living.”
“The guys outside are doing the same thing.” Bob pointed at the window. “It’s really freaking me out.”
“I hear ya.” Jim stepped forward and stopped beside the next woman. “It’s like they ain’t even here.”
And then, all moving in unison, the women lowered their phones and blinked several times. The men by the gas pumps did the exact same thing.
“Mel? You all right?” Bob waved his hand in front of her face again.
Melody blinked twice more and then her eyes cleared, as if she’d stepped back into the moment. She met Bob’s gaze with her own. His hand stayed in front of his face as he frowned at her.
Jim let out a deep, nervous laugh. “Welcome back to the land of the living, ladies. How was your little vacation?”
The woman directly behind Melody put her phone back in her purse and then pulled something else free. Bob could see that it was tiny and black, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was.
“What do you have there, little lady?” Jim asked. The height advantage he had over the woman had him bending down to her as if she were a small, fat child. “Hey, wait a second. Is that a—?”
His question was cut off by a cloud of dark mist that sprayed into his face.
And then Bob saw what the woman held—a can of pepper spray.
Jim howled.
He dropped the gallon of chocolate milk, the thick liquid spilling onto the floor as it gushed from the neck of the jug. His hat fell from his head and dropped into the milk.
Jim shouted something incomprehensible and then fell into a fit of coughs. He held his meaty hands to his face and bent over at the waist, hacking and sputtering through his splayed fingers.
“Whoa! What the hell are you doing?” Bob tried to reach under the counter, intent on grabbing the baseball bat he kept there for emergencies. He never could have imagined having to use it, let alone on a short, squat woman.
Melody grabbed onto his wrist with both of her hands.
The sudden movement took Bob off guard. “What are you—?”
Melody’s mouth popped open as she yanked Bob forward and stuck his index finger between her lips.
A flash of panic grabbed Bob as he realized what was about to happen.
And then, Melody’s teeth clamped down on his finger.
The pain was blinding.
Bob’s knees threatened to buckle.
Blood coursed from between Melody’s lips as she ground into his finger with her incisors.
Bob’s screams blotted out Jim’s angry shouts.
He felt her teeth dig all the way to the bone.
“Let me go!” Bob’s left hand swung out in a looping, desperate punch.
His knuckles caught her in the eye.
The blow sent her off balance and she staggered backward, pulling Bob with her.
The skin on his finger tore underneath her sliding teeth.
And then her jaw popped open, and she released him.
He screamed again and retracted his hand, staring at the mangled digit.
It hung forward, the muscles no longer able to keep it erect.
White poked through the red, seeping mass between his knuckles.
Blood poured down his forearm.
A woozy, lightheaded sensation washed over him. His good hand grabbed the counter to steady himself as he fought the dizzy fog that threatened to drag him into unconsciousness.
The woman with the pepper spray took a step toward Jim and depressed the trigger again. Another cloud ejected from the can, hitting him in the forehead.
He tried to ward it off with a wave of his hand that accomplished nothing.
His boots slid in the chocolate milk as he stumbled down one of the aisles, his hand knocking over bags of chips and pretzels.
Two of the women followed him, one still aiming at his back with the spray.
Melody found her balance again and lunged toward Bob, her belly slamming into the counter. Her hands grabbed at his forearms.
He pulled away from the counter, still holding his wounded hand in front of him. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screeched.
The last woman came around the side of the register, squeezing behind the counter.
She grabbed a pen from a tiny cup that sat beside the lottery-ticket machine.
“No!” Bob took another step back and slammed into the cigarette rack behind him.
Packs showered over his shoulders and head.
The woman clicked the top of the pen with her thumb, extending the tip from the bottom.
Her eyes held a rage that both shocked and dismayed Bob.
There wasn’t confusion there.
No remorse.
Just anger and determination.
These women knew exactly what they were doing.
She smiled at him, then drove the tip of the pen into his chest.
Fresh pain made his entire pec contract around the foreign object.
He screamed and jerked back, knocking the cigarette rack from the wall. It fell on his head, the rest of its contents discharging to the floor.
Jim bellowed from the back of the store.
Bob couldn’t see him.
Wouldn’t have cared even if he could.
Without thinking, he grabbed the rack with his good hand and tore it away from his head. With his damaged hand, he threw a punch at the fat woman with all the strength that he had.
It connected flush with her nose.
Blood poured from her nostrils like a faucet.
She staggered backward, hands flying to her face.
Tears welled her in eyes.
They feel pain, Bob thought stupidly.
White-hot agony ran into his arm, and he remembered that he’d just hit her with his mangled finger. Just the thought of it made his hand hurt even more.
He raised it in front of his face again and cried out when he saw that his finger had acquired a new joint that made it skew sideways at a ninety-degree angle.
Splintered bone stuck out through the skin.
“You bitch!”
Furious anger dulled the pain. He glared at the woman in front of him as she held her hands to her nose, blood pouring through her fingers. Before he had time to think of what he was doing, he marched forward, his shoes trampling the discarded packs of cigarettes on the floor.
“You goddamn, fat bitch!”
She looked at him through tears. “Fuck you!”
The woman lowered her hands and grabbed two of the freshly brewed pots of coffee beside her.
Bob saw what was coming and stopped in his tracks. “Wait—”
She threw almost thirty cups of piping hot coffee in his face.
His cheeks and forehead felt cold for a split second and he paused, confused at the sensation.
Then the burning set in, a million watts of misery lighting up his nerve endings.
Bob tried to breathe, to scream, but he couldn’t get in any air. His entire body was on fire, incapable of cooperating.
He heard a hollow crack that reminded him of the sound his bat made when he played in the local softball league.
His vision skewed and dimmed.
Legs gave out.
The need to vomit surged up from his stomach.
Bewilderment set in as he collapsed on top of the packs of cigarettes.
How had he gotten on the floor?
His eyes darted around wildly, and he saw Melody stepping beside him.
She held his baseball bat in both hands.
Was she borrowing it from him?
Did they have a game today?
Dear Mother of God, did his face ever burn.
The fat woman stood behind Melody, glowering down at Bob. She dropped both coffee pots to the floor, the glass shattering.
Mel raised the bat above her head, her copious bosom swaying slightly from the movement.
“Mel?” Bob croaked. His tongue felt huge and tender in his mouth. Puffiness had already attacked his lips from the burns.
Why was he burned? He couldn’t seem to get his thoughts in order.
The first blow hurt, but not as much as he would have expected.
It wasn’t loud either, more of a muted thump.
His eyesight darkened.
The second strike cracked like a shotgun.
He didn’t hear the third.
Or the fourth.
Or the fifth.