Chapter 11
Edgar watched the pathetic pile of rust lurch out of the parking lot. His heart rate, which had tripled when Joshua had almost spotted him, settled back into its normal rhythm.
As the junk heap on wheels chugged off down the road, Edgar pressed back against the pizzeria's warped siding. Immediately, he yelped and stepped away. He'd forgotten the paint-peeling wood was so wet. Shaking himself off, he dug in his pocket and pulled out his old flip phone. He punched in a number.
One ring. Click.
After the click, all Edgar heard was silence. No, not silence. His sister's breathing came through the line, faint and uneven.
"Ann?"
"Yeah." The word was soft but clipped off. Even with just the one word, Edgar knew Ann was on edge.
"It's showtime," Edgar said. "Soon as he gets back, get the guys and meet me here. I think I found a way in."
Ann said nothing. Edgar pressed the phone closer to his ear. He couldn't even hear her breathing now. "Ann?"
Finally, Ann repeated. "Yeah." The tone was even uglier. The one word poked at Edgar's ear like a thorn.
"Time to get paid," he said.
Ann sighed in his ear, then hung up.
Ann dropped her phone on the sofa and put her face in her hands. How had she gotten herself into this? I'm not a bad person. She thought in her head, keeping her face buried in her palms. Her conscience laughed at her, and accused scathingly, Then why'd you agree to spy on Joshua?
She shook her head. Then she felt the anger and hurt rise up, the feelings that had goaded her into betraying Joshua.
He deserved it, she'd told herself when she'd acquiesced to Marla's request to search Joshua's house. Sure, Joshua was never rude to her; he always said hello and good-bye and thank you. It wasn't like he ignored her; he did interact with her. But he never really saw her. If he did, he'd realize how she felt about him.
Marla had caught Ann on a bad day, the day she had put on extra makeup and worn a new shirt in the hopes of catching Joshua's eye, the day that Joshua had looked right through her, as usual. That was why she'd agreed to do something that was so not who she was.
Yeah, but then you're the one who suggested messing up his job. Her conscience prodded her.
Not exactly. She argued back. All I said was…
Ann's conscience snorted at her, and Ann dropped her hands. She looked around the shabby little house and shook her head. Joshua didn't deserve what she and her brother and the others were about to do. But how could she stop it now?
I'm shit. She told herself.
Edgar grinned when his crowbar easily snapped the old padlock. The rusted hunk of metal dropped to the concrete with a thunk, and Edgar reached out to grab the equally rusty vertical handle of the rolling steel door.
The sun shone directly on the back of the pizzeria, and as its heat hit the still-wet platform of the pizzeria's loading dock, steam wafted upward. The slithery mist made Edgar think of graveyard scenes in horror movies. He shivered but then immediately shook off the sensation, annoyed with himself.
Putting on a swagger of confidence he was starting to lose, he turned and faced the men leaning against his old blue pickup truck. Joe, heavyset with long, graying jet-black hair and a scruffy goatee to match, was lounging against the truck's chrome grill, his thick forearms crossed over a six-pack concealed beneath his uniform. His down-turned pale blue eyes studied Edgar like he couldn't decide whether to laugh at Edgar…or kill him. Edgar had always been a little afraid of Joe…even more so today. Joe had an old wooden baseball bat resting on his beefy shoulder, and the way he twirled the bat was more than a little off-putting.
Edgar shifted his gaze to Chuck, Joe's brother. Even though Edgar had known Chuck for several years - they'd done time together, both as juvies and adults - Edgar had to admit Chuck intimidated him, too. Chuck's eyes had the same downward tilt as his brother's, but his eyes were spaced wider apart, and they were light-brown. Something about the way Chuck's eyes squinted at the world, and the way his thin lips were usually pressed into a snarky smile, made Edgar perpetually nervous around him. Like Joe, Chuck had a goatee, but his was much sparser. That, Edgar thought, made him seem even more dangerous. Right now, for instance, Chuck was toying with the six-cell flashlight he had tucked into his belt as he threw menacing glances at Ann's fluffy white Vulpix, Snowdrop. Edgar thought that if Chuck had been carrying a gun, he'd probably have shot the Vulpix.
Edgar would never shoot a Pokémon, especially not Snowdrop. But she was being a pain. She was barking her head off like she was announcing an incoming apocalypse or something.
Snowdrop sat in the pickup's cab, and Ann was standing by the driver's side door. Her face was pale, and her lips were pressed tightly together.
Joe saw the direction of his brother's gaze and turned to look at the spun-up Vulpix. Snowdrop was really going for it. Froth was building up at her jowls as she barked and growled.
"That gonna be a problem?" Joe said in his deep, scratchy voice.
Chuck kept eyeing Snowdrop. "Totally," he said. His voice was higher-pitched than his brother's, but it had a coarse tone.
Joe spun the bat again and then lazily glanced around at the nearby trees and the vacant expanse of asphalt behind the pizzeria. "That's a whole lotta noise," he said.
"Sure is," Chuck agreed.
Joe pushed off the truck's grill and stepped to the open driver's side window. He looked straight at Ann. "Told you not to bring that Vulpix," he said. His tone was more than a little threatening, but it didn't seem to faze Ann.
She lifted her chin and glared at Joe. Edgar knew that Ann wasn't afraid of Joe or Chuck. She'd known them since they had met, when they all became members of Team Star…also because they were childhood neighbors.
Joe shifted the bat. Chuck stepped up next to him, and he gave Ann what Edgar thought was awfully close to a creepy leer.
Edgar needed to get things under control. Stepping away from the now-open loading dock door, he took three long strides to reach the pickup. He pointed at Snowdrop and shouted at Ann, "That's it! Shut her up! Now!" He lifted his crowbar. "Or I will!" he said as severely as he could.
Ann raised her eyebrows in shock. He wasn't being serious, was he? Even Joe and Chuck looked a little put off by Edgar's sudden outburst. Snowdrop's eyes widened, and her ears drooped. Hearing Edgar's threat, the barking had immediately ceased.
After a few moments, Ann reached into the pickup and put her hand on Snowdrop's shoulder. She leaned through the window and began speaking soothingly to the Vulpix. Edgar couldn't make out her words.
Whatever Ann said worked. Snowdrop's tense posture eased up, and she gently licked Ann's fingers, the barking subsiding into a deep rumble at the back of her throat.
Edgar quickly turned to Joe and Chuck. Reaching into the bed of the truck, he grabbed a large sickly-green canvas duffle bag. "C'mon," he said as if he were the boss.
Edgar wasn't sure if he was the boss of anything. Certainly not Team Star. As he came to think about it, he didn't know who exactly Team Star's boss was. No member of Team Star had ever seen them, not even any of the squad leaders. But that didn't matter right now.
Edgar motioned for the other grunts to follow him as he headed back to the open loading dock door. As he went, he saw Ann getting into the pickup's cab.
Ann watched her brother lead Joe and Chuck into the old pizzeria. Or I will! Edgar's voice rang, as if it was pulsating through Ann's brain.
Ann knew Edgar would never hurt Snowdrop or any other Pokémon - he was just posturing for Joe and Chuck. Still the words had stung.
Ann wrapped an arm around Snowdrop's neck. She stroked her fluffy snow-white fur in long, smooth motions. "There you go, girl," she said. "It's alright. Shhhh."
Snowdrop's grumbling rumble subsided into a high-pitched whine. She began to pant heavily, and her whole body trembled. She turned and gave Ann several agitated licks before looking back toward the pizzeria. When the Vulpix's gaze settled on the old building, her trembling intensified, and her whines turned into whimpers.
Picking up on Snowdrop's obvious fear, Ann's mouth went dry. Her stomach was as tight as a drum, and it felt like her intestines were clutching in rhythm to her heart's driving beat. She peered through the pickup's windshield and looked at the obscured area beyond the loading dock door. She pulled Snowdrop closer.
Edgar had thought that getting past the loading dock door was going to be the "open sesame" he needed to access the rest of the pizzeria. However, the loading dock, he discovered, was separated from the rest of the restaurant by a locked metal door.
Not wanting to fail at what had been his idea, he ran at the door and gave it a strong kick. The kick came more from desperation than confidence, but to his surprise, it worked. The lock cracked, and the door snapped off its hinges. Flying backward, it landed with a reverberating wham.
Edgar exhaled in relief and looked at Joe and Chuck nonchalantly, as if he had totally known he had the strength to knock down the door. Moving forward with a "Yeah, I'm the man" strut, he stepped through the doorway and found himself in a shadowy kitchen lit by only a couple of dim fluorescent bulbs. The faint light only sort of revealed the kitchen's expanse, but it did a fine job of spotlighting the hundreds of cobwebs networked through the dusty place.
Joe and Chuck looked around, both starting to heft their weapons of choice. Edgar spoke up. "Let's go check out what we have to work with before we start," he suggested.
Neither Joe nor Chuck argued with him, so he led them out of the kitchen. Stepping into a long, dark hallway, Edgar shook off the heebie-jeebies that had started on the loading dock.
For the next ten minutes, Edgar and his fellow grunts meandered through the empty restaurant. "This is gonna be a gas," Chuck said, as they did a quick, eager tour of the place.
After one circuit through the pizzeria, they returned to the huge wreck of a dining room. Standing just inside the archway that separated the dining room from the deserted lobby, the grunts exchanged grins.
"Alright," Edgar said. "She wanted us to be quick…but thorough. Maximum damage, minimum time."
Joe and Chuck exchanged a glance. Then they nodded.
"You see anything that looks valuable," Edgar went on, "grab it. And we'll settle up after we're done. Good?"
Joe and Chuck nodded again in unison. One lift and one drop of their goateed chins.
Edgar, suddenly feeling more excitement than fear, let out a whoop. He brandished his crowbar like a berserker about to head into battle. This might have been inspired by the old war movie he watched the night before, but whatever. He was fired up and ready to go.
"Let's get to it then, boys!" he shouted. "Hasta la vistar!" He made a star-shaped gesture with his hands.
"Hasta la vistar!" Joe and Chuck repeated, making the same gesture.
Then, they charged into action. Edgar and Chuck ran into the dining room; Joe turned and strode into the lobby.
After a couple steps, Edgar and Chuck's paths diverged. Chuck marched straight across the dining room, aiming at the curtain-covered stage. Edgar veered left, heading to the arcade.
Angling toward the games area at a full run, Edgar was raising and getting ready to swing his crowbar as he got to the glass cabinetry of the prize counter. "Yeehaw!" he yelled.
His berserker energy exploded into a frenzy as he brought down the crowbar on the dingy expanse of glass. A satisfying crack and crash preceded a rain-like tinkling of glass that showered down onto the black-and-white floor. Edgar grinned and raised his crowbar again.
Striking the glass over and over, he quickly obliterated the prize cabinet. He pulverized the glass into sparkling fragments that twinkled in the rays of sparse light that illuminated the arcade.
Tromping over the nearly vaporized glass, grinding his heel against any large shards he saw, he tore into the arcade and began thrashing every game console he encountered. Pinball machine glass disintegrated the same way the prize counter did. Plastic bumpers and flippers cracked. Wood cabinets splintered. The other arcade games succumbed in similar ways as Edgar's crowbar chewed through them.
Edgar's brain had gone into hibernation as he gave in to the fury of striking and pounding on the machines. Exhilarating beyond belief, the demolition charged Edgar up and gave him the strength to swing the crowbar over and over and over. Sweat poured off his face, and his breath came in jerky heaves, but he didn't care. He was having the time of his life.
Joe was boogying to some music only he could hear. The drumbeat of a jazz-rock song that was thumping in his head, and he was matching his moves to its rhythm. Lunging left and right, cross-stepping, spinning, and hip-wiggling, Joe was dancing his way past all the glass-framed posters in the front hallway. As he went, he was shattering the fragile expanses, hopping fluidly out of the way as jagged fragments flew toward him. In spite of his size, he thought he was pretty damn graceful in his ability to avoid the flying shards.
He danced his way down the hall and back, crushing glass and battering frames. He was having a blast.
Back in the lobby, he took care of the posters there, too. Then, full-on in his groove and not wanting to stop the boogie mode that had overtaken him, he started on the walls, wielding his bat as nimbly as one of those baton twirlers who pranced around in front of marching bands. His trusty bat punched gaping holes in the lobby's drywall. Clouds of dust exploded out from the walls; Joe figured he was probably turning white, but he didn't care. He was having too much fun.
Chuck hopped onto the stage and grinned at the closed curtains. Having been told about Spriggy FazSprig's Pizza, he knew what was probably behind the curtains. He couldn't wait to start his annihilation. Twirling his flashlight like he was spinning a parade rifle in a drill line, he affected a cocky saunter as he stepped toward the gap in the curtains.
Lifting the large flashlight with his left hand, poised to strike, he stuck his head between the curtains. Smirking, he called out, "Honey, I'm home!"
Chuck gazed into the darkened expanse. His brash grin faded. Frowning, his flashlight wavered. He used his right hand to pull back the curtains so more of the dining room's weak light could brighten the backstage area. He looked left and right.
The old crusty Spriggy's characters he'd expected to find and waiting to be beaten into smithereens weren't there. The backstage was empty.
Chuck stepped forward and let the curtains close behind him. He felt like he was walking into the choking smoke of a dense fire. He could see little more than the faintest shapes around him, and the air felt thick and weird. It kind of smelled like…decomposition. Like something was dead, and rotting away back there.
Chuck looked around, half-heartedly seeking something to destroy. He thought there might be costumes he could shred or props he could wreck.
But he didn't try very hard to find something to bash with his flashlight. He was losing interest in the backstage area.
That was it. Chuck was definitely not starting to feel spooked.
But Chuck did feel something strange. Even though his life (as a former street burglar and current member of Team Star) left little room for intuition, his gut was telling him that something was wrong here. Something felt…off.
He quickly scurried back through the curtains, and jumped off the stage.
Surveying the empty dining room, Chuck listened to the sounds of cracking and crashing and clattering coming from the arcade and the front hallway. The sounds settled him. Even better, they gave him back his pluck. His smirk returned, and he turned to face the stage.
Laughing at himself for letting the backstage get to him, he was tempted to thumb his nose at the stage curtains, which were still swaying slightly from his movement through them. Then, he got a better idea.
Chuck's parents had never instilled in him the idea that he was anything other than a disappointment who wouldn't amount to anything. As a result, Chuck had been walking around for years with a frustrated ball of "I hate you" in his stomach. Just remembering all of this made small tears well up in his eyes, and he sniffled a little. It wasn't like he hid his disdain from the world; he flung around plenty of grousing and sarcasm, but no one had ever known the depths of Chuck's scorn. Now, he was going to express it.
Tucking his flashlight in his belt, he started whistling as he unzipped his fly and pulled his dick out. "Place smells like a sewer," he muttered. "So…"
He planted his feet at the base of the stage. "Fire in the hole," he said, and with that, he started to relieve himself.
Edgar cackled in giddy elation as he looked down at a fount of quarters erupting into the air. Tinging and trilling and chirring, the coins scattered over the black-and-white squares on the floor. When they hit the dirty checkerboard, the coins spun and rolled and hopped.
"That's what I'm talkin' about!" Edgar hollered happily.
He looked down at the coins and started to bend over to gather them, but then his gaze landed on the next machine's locked coin box. One more, he thought.
He stepped into the next machine and used his crowbar to pry open the vault. It gave way as easily as the last one had, and another waterfall of change gushed out over the floor.
This time, Edgar couldn't help himself. He dropped to his knees, and he grabbed a handful of glittering bounty. "Yes!" he shouted as he raised his fist and savored the feel of the coins' rough, round edges.
They were just quarters, not gold doubloons, but Edgar still felt like an adventurer unearthing treasure. The last time he'd been this jubilant was when he'd hit a modest jackpot with the quarter slots at a casino in Levincia. Then his haul hadn't been all that great, but the sound of the dings and hoots and cascading coins had given him a rush. He felt that same rush now.
Jumping to his feet, he shot toward the next machine in line. He raised his crowbar.
After expressing his opinion of Spriggy's - and the world in general - Chuck had moved on to the kitchen. There, he found plenty of things to beat up on.
He hooted as mountains of red plates and saucers shot forward out of the stainless-steel shelving unit he'd just knocked over. The dinnerware exploded out over the floor, and Chuck hopped up and down on the broken pieces, his heavy boots grinding into the crockery's sand-like bits.
"Yeah!" he shouted.
He turned toward the expanse of stainless-steel cabinets on the opposite wall. Anticipating more ruinous fun, he threw open one of the cabinet doors.
The shelves behind the door were empty. Chuck let out an involuntary sigh, his bubble burst.
Shrugging, he slammed the cabinet door. "Whatever," he muttered as he moved on to the next cabinet.
Flinging the door open, fully prepared to dump more fragile porcelain, or whatever it was, Chuck's shoulders slumped when he once again found empty shelves.
Angered, he tired the next door. And the next.
Empty. Empty.
Chuck tried one more.
The last cabinet wasn't empty.
A small, painted-plastic-and-metal pizza slice sat on the cabinet's bottom shelf. Yellow with red spots for pepperoni, and googly eyes and two big white teeth, the pizza slice was centered on its tip.
Chuck frowned. "What the hell is this thing?"
Joe ambled into the dining room, whistling along with the music in his head. Ever since he'd started pounding on the drywall, he had heard the frenetic notes of a music box, like those old ones with a tiny dancing ballerina inside. Joe loved that music. It always made him feel like a winner when he heard it, and it had become sort of his personal theme song.
He twirled his bat as he rambled past a collapsed stack of bent and dirty chairs. His whistling got louder, and he directed the music with his free hand.
The urge to dance returned as he looked for something else to destroy. A clatter came from the arcade, and he looked that way, tempted to join Edgar. Joe, however, didn't want to step on the kid's toes. Edgar tried to act tough, but Joe knew the guy was a closet pussy. Joe also knew Edgar was afraid of him. He thought that was a hoot, and he played into it as much as possible. But today, he'd decided to let Edgar feel like he was the leader. Joe could find something else to play with.
Maybe the kitchen, he thought. He started meandering in that direction, using his bat to destroy as much furniture as he could along the way.
The kitchen, although not by any means bright, was lit up enough that Chuck hadn't needed his flashlight to see. The pizza slice nestled in a misshapen patch of darkness under the shelf above it, however, required more illumination. What was that thing?
Chuck lifted his flashlight and aimed its beam at the bulging white eyes nestled in yellow with red polka-dots. The tingling-skin feeling he'd gotten backstage returned. The pizza slice was just plain…wrong. The way its gaze appeared to be locked on Chuck made him want to…
The pizza slice blinked.
Chuck yelped.
Before he could decide what to do about the animated pizza slice, a resounding clang came from behind him. He spun around.
Not sure what to expect when he turned, but totally pent-up and ready for anything, Chuck was relieved when he saw no movement except the back-and-forth motion of two large copper pots hanging from a stainless-steel rack above the heavy-duty restaurant range. Chuck rolled his eyes at his overreaction.
"Are you hungry?"
That voice. It sounded so…innocent and childlike, and it came directly from behind Chuck's back, as if someone was whispering directly into his ear.
Chuck spun around in a fright and aimed his flashlight at the spot where the pizza slice was.
The pizza slice was gone.
Chuck sucked in his breath as he stared at the uneven light jittering putin front of his flashlight. His gaze backed up to his hand. It was shaking.
Where did the pizza slice go?
Chuck's eyes were as wide open as he could get them. And he heard that mysterious childlike voice again, from right behind him.
"I'm hungry, too."
Chuck slowly rotated, clutching his flashlight as he swept the area around him with its beam. The wobbly ray of light cut through the kitchen's splotchy grayness, and landed on…
Chuck's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
He'd found the pizza slice.
And that wasn't all.
The pizza slice was now being held in a massive blue-furred hand.
Chuck's flashlight beam waggled as it rose upward from the pizza slice. When the light encountered the dingy-white-and-blue face of what looked to be a massive Quaxly with a huge mouth full of bared teeth, Chuck only had a second to feel a surge of shock before the psychotic looking pizza slice lunged at him.
"I wanna feast on your face!"