2/12/11 marks my One Year Flash-iversary! My debut #fridayflash, this story, was posted one year ago. WoooHooo! Thank you to all the #fridayflashers who welcomed me warmly that day and who continue to inspire and encourage me! You guys rock!
This story is rated R for some language.
Brent whistled as he stocked the shelves with the new shipment of José Cuervo. He noticed some of the other brands of tequila were running low. He'd have to place orders for those later.
He couldn't wait to start reading the new magazine he bought at a certain 'store' down the street. He saw no problem with that, once the boss man left. Business was generally slow until about 10 o'clock, anyway.
The owner emerged from the back of the store, jingling his car keys. He ran his free hand over his crew-cut. He was a retired Air Force sergeant and old habits die hard.
"Okay, Brent. I'm outta here. See you tomorrow. And thanks for covering," he said as he went out the door.
Thanks for covering. If the new clerk they'd hired ever showed up again, Brent would kill him. He hadn't been to work for over a week now and he wasn't answering his cell. So Brent was stuck working doubles until they found a replacement. He didn't really mind. He would have a fat paycheck.
He finished restocking, walked behind the register and removed his magazine from under the counter. He began to look through it, thinking to himself that it was a great morning to be alive. With the shop to himself, alone with his "
Busty Babes."
Several blocks away, in the parking lot of Artesia Acres Retirement Center, an elderly man sat behind the wheel of a Chevy van and frowned, looking impatiently at his wristwatch.
"C'mon, damn it!" he muttered to himself. He sighed and kept an expectant watch on the front door of the nursing home.
After five minutes, during which time the oldster looked at his watch fifteen more times and rattled off even more obscenities, the front door of the home opened and out drizzled six hunchbacked, shuffling seniors. Three of them climbed into the van with the geezer, and the other three got into a 1966 red Ford Thunderbird, parked alongside. A white-haired woman slid into the driver's seat and rolled down the window.
"Jimmy, for Christsake, don't let Melvin take a wrong turn."
Melvin stuck his hand out of the window, displayed the universal gesture of indifference and began backing the van out.
"Guess that's your answer, Bev," said Jimmy from the passenger's side of the van.
"Asshole," said Bev. She pulled the T-bird out and followed the van.
Brent was taking his cigarette break. He was standing outside the store under a neon sign that read: "
Bull Funk's Wine & Spirits." There were two other signs, one on either side of the door. The first one read: "
No Personal Checks" and the other stated: "
Liquor Up Front, Poker in the Rear." Brent stared at this sign and snorted at his boss's cheesy sense of humor, blowing out a puff of smoke from between his thin lips. He smiled and turned facing the street, watching the women who worked in the office building around the corner walk along the sidewalk in their tight pencil skirts and it made him horny. He thought about going to the john when he finished his smoke. And taking along something to read. He grinned and scratched a raw, red pimple on his nose; one of many placed in random patterns across his face.
He threw his cigarette down and was about to squash it under his heel when two vehicles pulled up. A Chevy cargo van and a classic red T-bird. Six elderly people got out. One woman and five men. A seventh man remained behind the wheel of the van, scowling.
Shit! thought Brent.
Six customers? And all of them older than blame.
So much for an easy morning. He stomped his cigarette out and returned inside the store. He waited behind the counter as the old farts filed in with their canes and walkers. The last one in the door (a gent with a limp and a bushy iron-gray beard) turned and shut the door. He flipped the sign in the window over from "OPEN" to "CLOSED."
Brent watched with mild amusement. "Waddidya do that for?"
The old woman went behind the counter. She pulled a Colt .45 Automatic out of her handbag and jammed it between Brent's eyes.
"Oh, you gotta be shitting me!" Brent cried. "You're fucking robbing us?"
"Yes and no," said the woman.
Brent laughed. Grandma pressed the gun harder into his skull.
"Hey, that hurts!" Brent said.
"It's supposed to," Granny said. She watched her accomplices. They were rummaging through the section where the tequila display was. "Hurry up and get it together. Jimmy, you get the boxes from the back."
"Okay, Bev. We're on it." Jimmy propped his cane against the shelves.
"What? You're stealing
liquor?" Brent asked incredulously.
"Just what we need," replied Bev.
Brent made a move to subdue the old woman, but she grabbed the arm he was trying to strong-arm her with and twisted it behind his back. Brent yelped in pain.
Christ, the old bitch is STRONG! Bev walloped him on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. He swayed, but didn't pass out. He ceased struggling. Bev leaned in close to him.
"There's a smart boy," she whispered. She licked his earlobe. Brent shivered, frightened and grossed out at the same time. He twisted around and looked up at the security camera.
Fake, but still...
"We know it doesn't work," said Ironbeard from the door.
Brent didn't ask how they knew. He watched silently as the others began loading up the boxes with bottles of tequila.
"Why tequila?"
"Nosy little jerk, 'aint he?" Jimmy said. "And brave. Last punk didn't say or do a fricking thing."
"Didn't help him in the end, though, did it? He was still..." said one of the other men loading boxes.
What did he say? It sounded like exyunitch.What the hell was that? Brent wondered.
Did the old bitch damage his hearing when she hit him?
"Now, Rocky. It's okay," said Bev. She still had a hammer-lock on Brent. The business end of the gun was once more against his forehead. She leaned in to whisper. "We have a craving for fermented agave." She was licking his ear again. "Among other things."
"You couldn't just buy it?" he asked, hesitantly. He was starting to get worried.
What had happened to the other clerk?
Rocky opened a fifth of Don Modesto and drained it down in three gulps. He tossed the empty bottle aside and wiped his mouth on the dirty sleeve of his flannel shirt.
"Any more questions, zitface?" Rocky asked.
Brent said nothing but stared dumbfounded as Rocky went back to hefting cases of booze and hauling them up to the front of the store, stacking them next to Old Ironbeard.
The man hardly seemed affected by the alcohol. In fact, he bounced up the aisle with the bottle-laden boxes like a much younger man.
Eventually, the five men came to stand in front of the register. They all looked at him. Brent trembled. Somehow he found some courage. "You can't kill me. Your fingerprints are everywhere and when they find my body..."
"What body, sweetie?" said Bev. She stuck her tongue (now sharply barbed) into his ear canal and it snaked deep inside. Brent's eyes widened and rolled into the back of his head. He screamed once, then fell to the floor, lifeless.
The suddenly stunning, blond and thirty-something Bev licked her lips.
"Jimmy, go tell Melvin it's time for lunch."
