Anything Can Be Dangerous (7 page)

He gestured to the restaurant. “So the
bank is only asking for payment of the back taxes, is that
right?”

The girl looked up at it. “Yes. Due to
the fire…”

They started walking toward the
building. “Greg mentioned that. May I ask what
happened?”

“
Arson,” she said, glancing
between the both of them. “The previous owner tried to burn it
down, possibly as an insurance scam. It was the biggest news story
the town paper has reported in ages.”

“
Nice,” Greg commented.
“Free publicity!”

At the door, Wendy entered her
security code on the digital lock that secured the two door handles
together and the device unclasped.

Ron and Greg both took a
handle.

Together, they pulled the twin doors
open.

Their eager shadows leapt inside the
room ahead of them, a trio of jet-black explorers in an even
blacker realm of darkness. Having all the other windows covered,
the spacious main chamber exuded the ambiance of an empty
mausoleum. The predominant smell of smoke hung wraithlike in the
air.

“
Oh, I forgot,” Wendy said,
then reached to extract a small—

Greg flipped a switch on the wall and
the overhead lights clicked on.

—
flashlight from her jacket
pocket.

She glanced around.

“
Juice works!” Greg
cheered.

They stood before the main dining
area.

Dozens of heaped tables and chairs
lined the walls to either side, no doubt pushed aside by the
responding firemen on the night of the blaze, but all the permanent
structures remained in place—booths, condiment counter, waste
bins—and Ron immediately recognized the familiar floor plan typical
of any fast-food restaurant, one designed with the intent of
facilitating an easy flow from the ordering counter to the seating
area, thus maximizing turn over at the registers.

Wendy cleared her throat. “As you can
see, all the related equipment is included. Everything from the
kitchen appliances, to whatever toilet paper is left hanging in the
bathrooms. Let me show you the work area…”

With a tap of his shoe, Ron set the
rubber door-stoppers in place and proceeded inside. They crossed
the tiled floor and passed through a partition in the far right
side of the main service counter, moving behind the bank of cash
registers.

“
Feed the Customer… Obey
the Rules!” Greg said.

Ron and Wendy both halted in their
tracks and faced him.

“
What?” Ron
asked.

Greg pointed to a sign affixed to the
wall beside the counter. “Must be a mission statement or something,
huh?”

Resuming the tour, they migrated to
the kitchen.

There, several overhead lights
flickered in erratic bursts, their plastic diffusers hanging open.
Rows of various stainless steel appliances lined the walls, veiled
in streaks of soot and grease that reminded Ron of sunken ships
overcome by rust.

Wendy pointed out the coolers, mixers,
meat-slicers, microwaves, gas ovens, deep-fryers, hot-plates, and
heat-lamps. The grill alone looked as long as one of the
preparation tables, housing an amazing twenty burners, with a
flattop fry-station at the far end. Overhead, all sizes of
spatulas, ladles, whisks, colanders, pots, and pans hung from a
ceiling rack. In the back, the door to the walk-in freezer hung
ajar, emitting a smell that would make a health inspector’s head
spin.

“
This is great stuff,” Greg
said, checking a giant mixer that stood tall enough to come level
with his chest. “A little work and a few gallons of degreaser and
it’ll be as good as new!”

Ron nodded his agreement, but remained
silent. He spied the black residue of ash and cinders, still
smelled the cloying stink of smoke—if anything, it was stronger
here—but he had yet to see any real fire damage.

They moved along, visiting the
dry-goods storeroom in the back—which seemed to contain all the
original provisions that had been present at the restaurant’s
closure—as well as the adjacent offices.

The manager’s office was crammed with
all manner of clutter, from broken chairs that must’ve come from
the dining room, to boxes overflowing with charred kitchen
accessories and half-burnt legal papers.

Through the clutter, Ron spotted a
large painting of The Last Supper hanging askew on the far wall. It
seemed an odd choice of artwork to decorate a business office, and
the peculiarity of it only magnified when he looked
closer.

In the picture, behind Christ and his
disciples, loomed the massive forest highway he’d seen outside. The
sight produced a tingle of mixed puzzlement and unease, and he
suddenly realized that somewhere during their round of
introductions with Wendy he’d forgot to inquire about the
road.

Now he opened his mouth to do just
that when something banged deeper in the building.

They all jumped.

“
What the hell?” Greg
asked.

Then it came again, the noise of
something crashing in the dining room.

“
That sounded like the
door,” Ron said.

He edged past Greg and Wendy, striding
down the hall, to the front of the restaurant—

Where a man stood before one of the
registers as if waiting to place an order.

All three of them jerked to a stop at
the surprise.

The newcomer stood glaring at them
from under a whirlwind of white hair, his eyes locked on them like
gun sights. He wore a brown stain-splotched trench coat that looked
as though it had seen a lifetime of squatting in abandon houses and
sleeping under bridges. Although Ron had just laid eyes on him, the
deep scowl of anger on the stranger’s face told him they were in
for trouble. Across the room, the restaurant doors were
closed.

“
Food,” the derelict
demanded.

Greg smirked. “Does this place look
open to you, pal?”

The man hefted a double-bladed ax into
view as his answer. It had been concealed by the counter, but now
he brought it up fast, swinging it over his head and slamming it
down into the register. The huge blade cleaved the machine in two.
Sparks jumped into the air.

Greg flinched so hard he collapsed
backwards on his ass.

“
Food!” the crazed customer
shouted. “Give me a burger!”

Ron stepped forward, shaking with
adrenaline. The ax-wielder spotted him and readied another
swing.

“
We’ll get it right away,”
he said, the words coming out of his mouth on autopilot. “How would
you like that prepared, sir?”

It seemed surreal given the insane
situation, letting his managerial instincts take over, hearing his
voice adopt the familiar apologetic tone an angry customer always
wants to hear, but amazingly it worked. The maniac relaxed,
releasing his grip on the ax to scratch the stubble of his
chin.

“
Rare, I reckon,” he said
in an almost-normal voice. “With, ah…fries and a
sody-pop.”

Ron forced a smile. “Rare burger with
fries and a drink. That’ll be just one moment, sir.” He backed up
as he spoke, urging the others to follow. Greg shuffled rearward on
the floor.

“
No
goddamn
onions, though!” the man
roared after them.

“
Hold the onions!” Ron
repeated.

They retreated to the back of the
building, all moving in reverse to keep and eye on the entry to the
hallway. Ron expected the madman to come rushing after them at any
second, but they reached the storeroom unmolested.

“
Jesus!” Greg gasped. Sweat
glistened on his brow. “What the fuck was that about?”

Ron didn’t bother speculating on an
answer. Instead, he charged to the storeroom’s rear wall, heaving
aside a hill of empty boxes and other useless scrap. There, hidden
behind the heap, he uncovered the set of loading doors he’d been
hoping he would find.

To his dismay, a padlocked chain
secured the push-bars to the frame.

“
Wendy, do you have a key
for this?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

The girl shook her head. “Just the
code for the one up front.”

“
Shit!” Greg
cried.

Ron dug into his pockets. Found his
cell phone. “Look for something we can use as weapons!” he said,
then glanced to the empty hallway, wondering how long they had
before their disgruntled guest came to file a complaint.

He looked to the phone, but it didn’t
even light up.

“
My phone’s dead,” he said.
“Anyone else—”

“
In the car,” Wendy
replied.

Greg shook his head.

Ron held back the avalanche of
obscenities that almost rolled off his tongue and sat down on a
stack of milk crates to mentally scrutinize his options.

No phone. No windows. And
no key to the only door. Which leaves trying to get past the
psychotic hobo with the ax
.

Just then, he spotted several boxes of
press-paper dinnerware and plastic utensils on the other side of
the room.

Back on his feet, he crossed the floor
and grabbed a package of paper cups, tearing it open.

“
What are you doing?” Greg
asked.

“
I’m getting him his
drink.”

“
Are you nuts?”

“
Would you prefer he come
back here and look for it, where we don’t have any way to
escape?”

The idea seemed to sink in, and the
man sagged into silence.

Ron cracked open a container of
plastic lids for the cups. “Look, you saw how he eased off when I
said we’d feed him, right? So let’s keep it up. We’ll pretend to
fill his order, and when we go back up front, we can try getting
out the drive-thru window.”

“
I don’t think I’ll fit!”
Greg replied. “Jesus, man, you can’t leave me!”

“
We’ll help Wendy out,
then. She can go for help, and I’ll stay here with you…unless
either of you have a better idea?”

They made a quick detour through the
kitchen, rummaging through the equipment for whatever they could
use. In the far corner, Ron discovered a ten-inch butcher knife in
a plastic crate beside the wash-station. All three of them stared
at it, seeing its horrible potential, but said nothing as Ron
slipped it into his belt and covered it with his shirt.

“
Let’s go,” he
said.

He led them toward the registers,
finding the wild-eyed derelict exactly where they’d left
him—

But now there were six more people
lined up behind him.

Ron’s stride faltered when he saw
them, and Wendy and Greg almost ran into his back.

He saw a slack-jawed boy in tattered
overalls holding a shotgun.

A grossly overweight woman sucking a
pacifier.

A blindfolded girl with a badly
bruised neck—

Greg gave him a shove, prodding him
onward.

“
Just one minute folks,” he
mumbled, and then they were at the end of the counter, where they
slipped into the drive-thru station alcove and mercifully out of
sight of the patrons.

“
What hell is going on?”
Greg asked.

“
Did you see their faces?”
Wendy whispered. “My, God, did you see them?”

Ron nodded. He looked down and
realized he’d crushed the paper cup into a wad. Now he tossed it
away and moved to the window, sliding it aside. He stepped back and
kicked out the plywood board covering the frame.

Static suddenly hissed out of the
nearby intercom.

Ron jumped at the sound of it, facing
the small metal box as an unearthly voice issued from the speaker.
“…ausage … muffin… an… two sma… ingers wit… side… f brai…
s.”

Ron gaped at it. Beside him, Greg
pushed past him and stuck his face to the glass.

“
There’s a car!” he cried.
“Hey! Help us! We’re trapped in here!”

Ron heard the growl of an engine. A
cough of exhaust.

A second later the car pulled parallel
with the takeout area––it looked like a fusion of a hearse and a
1950’s Buick—and the driver’s window rolled down, revealing nothing
but a solid, impenetrable darkness.

“
Get us out of here!” Greg
pleaded.

But before he could say another word,
a hand extended out of the void inside the car, a green
sore-speckle thing that stretched impossibly long, bridging the gap
between the vehicle and the building to reach through the takeout
window and grab Greg’s shirt.

“
Get off me!” he
bellowed.

Both Ron and Wendy seized his arms,
yanking him free to the sound of tearing fabric.

The arm withdrew, taking a scrap of
cloth with it.

“
Fuck this!” Greg
screamed.

Ron’s grip on him had loosened as he
watched the elongated appendage vanish back into the inky darkness
of the car, and the other man broke free, twisting away, running
for the front.