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Author’s Note: This story originally appeared in the Macabre Multiverse story collection by Half Planet Press. To see the first ever drawing of a grutomaton and some good stories by other talented authors head to the Macabre Multiverse sales page.
Farhad Daghestani stuck the lettering on the back of his car and stood up to admire his handiwork. The aging blue Saturn now displayed “505 Lus3rs” in a black serif font on bold white stickers. He had purchased them from a hardware store where people would buy digits for their house or mailbox.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked a stocky man in a yellow and red TACOCAT uniform, who happened to be walking by in the mostly empty mall parking lot as Farhad scrutinized his creation.
“It’s my startup. We meet here on Tuesdays to give free advice about computers, hacking and technology,” Farhad said.
“Hey, wait, you’re those nerds from the billboard. I couldn’t stop laughing.”
“We are freelance computer specialists.”
“Hope everything runs smoothly!” the man guffawed and strutted into the building.
“Someday you’ll need our expertise!” Farhad called after him, but the guy was already halfway to the decaying structure that was Winrock Mall in uptown Albuquerque. Farhad sighed and pulled out his smart phone. He sat on the trunk of his car with his legs dangling over his handy work.
He checked his web stats, and despite the photoshoot of him and his business partners in black leather, sunglasses and kung-fu poses, in addition to offering the most affordable on-demand IT services in the 505 area code, the site still had only a marginal number of weekly visitors, one of which he was pretty sure was his mom.
His social media profiles were equally dismal, and he did not bother checking reviews. 505_Lus3rs had a single 1-star review from a person who blasted their business for refusing to hook them up to the “dark web”. Farhad had thought about changing the name, but he already owned the domain for the next 5 years, had filed the LLC paperwork with the State, and bought half a space on a local billboard.
“505 Lus3rs. Albuquerque's tech ninjas,” it proclaimed, with a photo that he thought was pretty badass at the time. But with unfortunate placement next to a colonoscopy ad, it made all their faces appear as if they were straining.
Farhad sighed and untagged his business from the colon ninja photos that had been circulating lately and checked his online advertising stats. Lots of expense, no conversions – sounded about right.
He sighed and typed into his social media blasting app, “Free tech advice. Winrock Mall food court. Five minutes.” He added a few rocket ships and fireworks explosions, then hit “Send”. There was a comment almost right away – “Colon ninjas! BWAHAHAHA!” a troll, Bryce Gunderson, the manager at TACOCAT, added.
Farhad deleted the comment and blocked the guy, then sent a text to his business partners. “Where are you guys? We start in five minutes!” He got replies a few moments later.
“No one shows up to these things.”
“In a raid TTL.”
“My mom took my car keys.”
Farhad rolled his eyes, stuffed his phone into his pocket, and went into the mall. Originally, the 505 Lus3rs had been just a club, a few people who liked to talk about computers, hacking and technology. It started from a group who used to hang out at this 24-hour coffee house after the clubs got out, but then progressed into something that met regularly during the day and on the weekends.
It really didn’t evolve into a business until an elderly woman asked for some help with her laptop and then gave them a hundred-dollar bill. Farhad had tried to give it back, but the woman had insisted. They realized maybe they had something, a group of good-natured cyberpunk-inspired tech whizzes who could freelance their services. The free advice at the mall was a gimmick to build their customer base.
Not that anyone even came to the free sessions. The dream of being a freelancer in charge of his own destiny had never seemed so far away, and now he was about to spend an hour in a mall near a guy who he had just blocked on social media.
Farhad eventually made it to what he thought of as the “food court of the damned” because half the businesses were shuttered and the other half were ones like TACOCAT, where questions of how they stayed in business were of legit concern to diners who valued their stomach health.
The white tile and chipped laminate tables that were probably all the rage of mall design in the 1980s were mostly empty except for a mother with three small children and a frazzled expression, as well as an elderly ranchero type sporting a cowboy hat, button up shirt, and bolo tie.
Farhad was about to sit as far away from the TACOCAT as he could, when the bricky man stumbled out from a door marked “Employees only”. His clothes were stained with blood and his hair disheveled, compared to minutes ago in the parking lot, when his greasy hair and immaculate TACOCAT uniform displayed pride in his corner of the fast-food world.
“Dude, I’m sorry about the colon comment, but I need your help,” he begged.
Farhad looked him up and down and said, “I think you need a doctor.”
“It’s not my blood.”
“Then maybe the police?”
“It’s my printer! There’s something wrong with my printer!”
Farhad looked him over again. The red stains could have been toner, but he had never heard of toner cartridges exploding before. He also wasn’t about to turn away a paying customer, even if it was during the free hour. “I charge by the hour.”
“Corporate will pay it.”
“I’m not cheap.”
“All the stores have a maintenance budget. Could you just take a look, please?”
“Show me the way.” Farhad motioned towards the door the man had come from. Curiously, Bryce pointed the way, and followed behind. Farhad took the lead and entered a corridor that led to the backdoor of all the businesses. Malls always had a maze of hallways for deliveries and employee traffic. The food court was no exception.
Bryce followed and instructed where to go. Farhad knew some people were skittish of technology, but this was ridiculous. The man was acting as if a rabid badger was lurking behind every door. The truth of the matter was that the best way to learn about technology was when it did something that wasn’t expected.
Farhad felt a little giddy at the prospect of a printer cartridge exploding. Perhaps if he could figure out why, he could make an instructional video on the internet and the potential for going viral was much higher when things exploded.
They entered the TACOCAT from the backdoor and were assaulted by the smell of burning meat. Farhad was culturally vegetarian, so it was a nauseating smell during the best of times. Bryce apologized and turned off all the burners to the taco production line.
Farhad had been to the mall plenty of times and could have sworn there was someone else who worked at the place. He vaguely remembered a person at the register, and another in the back making the food.
Bryce pointed to a door marked “OFFICE”.
Farhad stepped closer and noticed the guy was keeping his distance. He glanced back over his shoulder and asked, “Is it locked?”
The man shook his head.
Farhad shrugged and opened the door to a grisly scene. The other worker, “Tony” from his name badge, was sprawled on the floor of a room no bigger than a closet, with a single computer that was probably used for inventory or the restaurant books. The man was missing his head and had bite marks around his body as if he had been mauled by a wild animal.
It didn’t take Farhad long to find out what killed him. It was a printer with large fangs and vicious teeth to match where the paper would normally come out, and two bloodshot red eyes where the flap of the scanner was located, and it crunched through the bones of the man whose family would no doubt soon be looking up that accidental death and dismemberment policy.
The thing turned to face Farhad and blood dripped from its mouth as it growled. Farhad stumbled back, and the thing leapt. It was restrained by the cord snaking from its back connecting it to the wall outlet, and the killer inkjet tumbled backward with a yelp. It lunged again, and Farhad could see the prongs bending. He slammed the door shut just as the thing broke free.
There was a thud and a yelp, followed by more thuds as it tried to break through.
“What was that?” Farhad yelled.
“I don’t know. You’re the computer guy!” Bryce yelled back.
“I’m a technician. Not animal control!”
“You could have fooled me!”
There was a loud crack and the door buckled.
“Let’s get out of here!” Farhad exclaimed.
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Bryce said, and they ran for the exit.
The angry inkjet burst from the room and charged after them. They made it to the exit to the access corridors with not a moment to spare. The creature hit the door as they slammed it shut. Bryce took off at a sprint to the main concourse of the mall with Farhad trailing behind him.
They burst into the main dining area of the food court moments later and saw that it was generally the same scene they had left. The woman and her kids were gone, and the man in the cowboy hat was talking on the phone. It was a calm scene, clearly unaware of whatever-it-was on the loose.
They didn’t get a chance to think about what to do next. The printer jumped over the counter and rushed the old man in the hat, who had his back to the whole affair. Bryce took off running, and Farhad almost followed him. But he couldn’t.
He ran towards the creature and tackled it. The old man was none the wiser and continued to talk on the phone while Farhad rolled on the floor, wrestling with the beast.
“Huh? Speak up! I can’t hear you,” the old man said, while Farhad strained to keep the creature at bay. “There are some hoodlums making a racket. Cut it out!”
Farhad tumbled with the creature while the jaws snapped at him. Drool dripped on his face as well as blood from the unfortunate TACOCAT employee. He tried to knee the thing but it wasn’t in the right position. All of his arm strength was dedicated to keeping the thing at bay.
Farhad was pretty sure this was the end of the road for him until Bryce charged from nowhere and kicked the printer like it was a football, and it crashed into some tables. The TACOCAT manager helped Farhad to his feet, and they both ran as the creature charged them.
The old guy yelled over his shoulder, “Cut it out. Can’t you see I’m on the phone here? I tell you, Marv, kids these days, no sense of common courtesy, none at all.”
Farhad and Bryce sprinted through the mall. Most of the stores were shuttered except for a sporting goods establishment. Farhad pointed it out, and they veered towards it. Once they were past the threshold, Bryce found the button for the gate at the front of the store and smashed it.
Farhad picked up a bat from a nearby rack and swung at the thing as it leapt towards them. He connected to the creature with a solid thwack, sending it flying. By the time it recovered and charged again, the gate was down. When the creature ran into it, the barrier clattered, but held.
The evil inkjet sensed that it couldn’t pound its way through the metal grate and paced back and forth in front of the store like a tiger caught in a cage, only that Farhad and Bryce were the ones in a cage.
Farhad pulled out his phone and saw that he didn’t get good signal.
Bryce shrugged and said, “There never was good signal at this end of the mall. We shoulda run to the parking lot.”
“There was a monster between us and that direction. How’d that thing happen, by the way? Don’t tell me that I’m the computer guy. I’ve been building my own computers since I could work a screwdriver, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I was printing the inventory checklist, and it jammed. Not really knowing much about those things, I asked Tony to fix it while I watched the stove. Then I heard him scream and...well, you know the rest.”
Farhad considered and said, “Must have been some jam. Come on, let’s find a phone.”
They went deeper into the store while the thing paced outside. Farhad didn’t know if he was lucky that the mall was heaving its last retail breaths, or if they would have been better off if the mall had been more crowded. Screaming citizens flooding out of public spaces tended to attract the police.
Still, there had to be a phone somewhere in the store. They made their way to the sales counter and saw a handwritten “OUT TO LUNCH” sign. Farhad walked around and rifled through the stuff but didn’t find a landline or anything. There was just a computer on a lock screen and a printer that thankfully wasn’t murderous.
“Come on,” Bryce said. “There should be a phone in the back.”
They found the doors leading to the back of the store, but they were locked. They were the thick industrial kind that were too heavy to kick down without a battering ram or something.
“Great. At least there’s energy bars and sports drinks at the counter. We won’t starve,” Bryce said.
“It’s a printer, not the apocalypse,” Farhad responded. Then, seeing a rack of the caged helmets used by hockey players, he said, “I've got an idea.”
About ten minutes later, they were decked out in a Frankenstein-worthy array of hockey, football, and martial arts sparring equipment. Bryce held an aluminum baseball bat, and Farhad gripped a hockey stick. They walked back to the front of the store where the killer machine paced the cage.
It snarled when it saw them and made another attempt at the barrier. It rattled but held.
Bryce took one look at the thing and said, “You sure you want to do this? Someone is bound to come by at some point.”
Farhad said, “If we don’t, who will? Besides, if someone else comes along, they will be on the other side of those bars with that thing. I don’t think I’ll ever feel right if someone else dies, and we could have saved them.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Bryce said glumly.
“Cheer up, there’s only one of it and two of us.”
As if reacting to his words, the printer under the counter of the sales desk made the hissing and popping noise of an analog connection. It was a fax machine. The device whirred to life, and there was the noise of the printer warming up, followed by an all-too-familiar beep. It was the error code of a printer jam.
There was a crash and an inkjet tumbled from behind the counter. Teeth popped out of its midsection. They were long, pointed and vicious looking. Soon, the screen at the top began to bulge, and a bloodshot eye burst from the interface. Finally, the sides bowed and pointed crab-leg feet burst out. It saw Farhad and Bryce, then snarled.
Just as the printer was making its transformation from household object to beast, another problem emerged. A portly gentleman wearing a polo tee-shirt with the sporting goods store logo on it strolled up with a large gas station slushy and a bag of snack mix.
His expression changed from confusion at the barrier being down in his store to fear when he noticed what was on the same side as him. He dropped his drink, spilling blue raspberry goop on the floor, and took off running. The creature that had been pacing the entrance roared and bounded after him.
“Go,” Bryce said, and slapped Farhad on the back. Farhad hit the button to the cage, and his TACOCAT-manager-turned-post-apocalyptic-warrior companion charged the newly formed killer fax machine.
Farhad didn’t wait for the barrier to go all the way up. He slid underneath feet first, leaving the clash of the battle behind him. He jumped to a standing position much like the one in his tech ninja ad, and glanced in both directions because he wasn’t quite sure which way the guy had run.
A little way up the concourse, the sporting goods employee was on the floor groaning, with a gaping bite wound on his leg. The printer stalked up towards the man’s neck for the kill.
Farhad launched himself towards the scene, pushing himself as fast as he could. Farhad had never been much of a track and field athlete, but he imagined that in that moment, with the adrenaline of fear coursing through his body, he probably would have kept pace with the best of them.
The creature opened its jaws wide, and Farhad readied his hockey stick as he sprinted. Just as the teeth were about to sink into the man’s throat, Farhad thwacked it with the weapon, and the thing tumbled away.
The thing recovered and pounced at Farhad. This time, he was ready, and he hit it again. A piece broke off, and it was bleeding from the wound. The thing tumbled and rolled to a stop near one of the fake potted plants that had taken up the space of what used to be kiosks when the mall had seen better days.
The creature growled and righted itself. Farhad didn’t give it a chance to recuperate. He cried out and charged the thing. Albuquerque’s tech ninja smashed the thing repeatedly with the stick until it was a mass of blood, guts and plastic parts.
Covered in the creature’s blood, Farhad turned back to the clerk he had saved. The man sat on the floor nursing his leg wound and stared wide-eyed at Farhad.
“Here’s your hockey stick,” Farhad said, and held out the bloodied implement.
“You can keep it,” the man said, through gritted teeth.
A while later, Bryce and Farhad sat in the food court dining area. Farhad was still covered in the blood that had gotten through his makeshift armor. Authorities were crawling all over the place. The pair were both in shock and hadn’t said more than a few words to each other since they had wasted the creatures who almost ended their lives prematurely.
A man in blue coveralls was tending to the wound of the store clerk, and injected the guy with something that made his patient woozy. The medic came to them next. Farhad was about to explain that they were fine, and it wasn’t their blood, when he noticed something curious about the man’s uniform. It read, “Janitorial”.
That’s when Farhad noticed that the authorities weren’t taking pictures or investigating the place. They were cleaning it up. They were just finishing up scrubbing down the TACOCAT and bringing out the corpse in a body bag. The man in blue coveralls sat down at the table with Farhad and Bryce and said, “Nice work with those grutomatons.”
“The what?” Farhad asked.
“You’ll find out. Assuming you survive the tutorial,” he said, and placed a business card in front of each of them.
There was a QR code with the words, “Gamified work. Same day pay. Take control of your own destiny.”
Farhad glanced up, but the man and all of his crew were gone.