“No, not the mashed potatoes, but could they put something in them and that’s how they get you?”
“No, that’s not how they get you, don’t worry. They kill you and then pose as you, but they’re still just aliens hiding behind the human mask of who they replaced. I told you, they are intelligent, everything is psychological with them. If they can’t beat you mentally, then they can’t beat you. Now start choking on some mashed potatoes, make it loud, make it messy and make it work, then throw it all up in the guys face.”
“Ok…” Richard said. “I can do this.”
“Just remember to project it. Get it in his face as best you can.”
Richard turned and looked at the plate of chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes. Knowing that it was clean food made him three times more hungry. He ate the dinner roll, and wolfed down the chicken. Then he crammed as much mashed potatoes in his mouth as he could. He yelled as loud as a mouth full of mashed potatoes would allow, and then clanged around on the bars as much as possible. He heard the spring of a chair raising back up and footsteps in the main part of the station.
He gave one last blood curdling, mashed potato filled roar before shoving the getaway pill down in his mouth between his molars so he could chomp it hard and swallow it quick. The deputy came down the hallway.
“What the heck is wrong down here?” He asked.
“AAAccckkk! AAAccckkk!” Richard blurted gutturally and made the best possible ‘I’m choking’ hand gestures. He leaned down against the bars as if he was about to go unconscious.
“Oh geez!” the deputy yelled. He fumbled clumsily with the set of keys around his waist and then unlocked the jail cell and went in. Richard chomped down on the getaway pill and swallowed as much of it as he could. He almost really choked at that point as he accidentally swallowed his huge mouthful of mashed potatoes.
The deputy was in the process of reaching behind him to perform the Heimlich Maneuver when Richard choked on his mashed potato mouth. He coughed at the deputy which became really helpful in zeroing in on the deputy’s face for what was to come next. Suddenly a biley tidal wave of discolored mashed potatoes, minced up chicken, and soggy dinner role erupted out of Richard’s mouth and splashed across the deputy’s face and mouth.
Steven had been perfectly right in his assessment of how effective the getaway pill was. Richard could acutely distinguish the exact second that the deputy realized that he was being vomited on. He could even see the horror in the deputy’s face as he tasted vomit going into his own mouth.
The deputy stopped all progress toward Richard and instead dove across the cell to try to get clear of the stream of acidic freedom that Richard was carving. He did his best to maneuver out of the cell while trying to keep his head angled in the general direction of the deputy. The deputy was screaming obscenities between uncontrolled gagging and heaving. Richard slammed the cell door shut, which would buy him even a few more moments. There was a set of automobile keys on the dispatch counter which he snagged as he ran by, trying not to slip in his wet boots. He grabbed a walkie talkie and a police jacket on his way out of the station.
He could hear the deputy yelling at him, but didn’t look back even for a moment. In the parking lot, he tried his best to wipe his face off, and he put the sheriff’s office coat on. He then clicked the unlock button on the set of keys and realized they were actually the deputy’s personal keys. He was soon climbing into the driver’s seat of an older model green trans am. The guy must have been a mechanic in his hobby time because the thing fired up like it had some supped up engine underneath the hood.
Richard peeled out of the parking lot, and tried his best to make some distance between him and the station quickly. He would have to be perfectly cautious and incredibly fast this time. He wouldn’t have this opportunity again.
Richard’s eyes sprang open and suddenly he was staring at three blue walls, his waking brain for a moment processed this as some giant plastic box which he had somehow been trapped in, but he soon realized that it was instead a bathroom stall.
He must have fallen asleep on the toilet. He didn’t know where he was, so he tried to gather himself together before stepping out into this new unknown.
“What’s the last thing I remember?” he asked himself.
“I remember, escaping…” He told himself. But do I remember driving? he wondered.
He unlatched the door to the stall and couldn’t help but notice that a small message on the door said “The dogs are not dogs”.
Did I write that? he wondered as he ran his finger across it. It had been written on the door in magic marker. He fished around in his pockets and produced a permanent marker from his coat. It had to have been me… he thought. I wrote a message to myself because I wasn’t sure that I would remember when I woke up.
He clearly remembered the important stuff right now at this moment, it was the minute details that were escaping him. Like how did he get here, where was here, and how close was he to his objective.
He walked out of the stall and used the sink to splash a bit of water on his face to help him wake up.
“After this is over,” he told himself in the mirror. “you’ve got to stop spending so much time at gas stations.”
He left the bathroom and had to shield his eyes as the bathroom door gave way to bright daylight. He took a moment to gain his bearings and take in the layout of the store. It was an older style gas station with a small counter space and doors leading out on either side so that pumps could be placed all around the store.
“Dude, is anyone going to want to go in there after you.” A black haired female clerk with a nose ring suddenly said. “You’ve been in there for like an hour and a half. I thought you had left like three times, but then I’d check and your car would still be here.”
“I’m sorry…” Richard said. “I fell asleep, I was tired.”
“Well, am I gonna have to clean up in there or what?”
“No, it’s perfectly fine, I left it in good order.” He said. “Where is here, by the way if you don’t mind me asking.”
“You’re in Sergeant. Don’t you remember?”
“That’s right, you’re right.” Richard played it off. “I’m not from here and I just couldn’t remember the name of the town. Thanks.” he said and started to walk out to the left of the counter where he saw the most cars parked.”
“That’s not the right way…” The clerk said. “You’re parked on the other side.”
“That’s right, you’re right.” Richard repeated and then went towards the other door. “I didn’t have any gas to pay for or anything right?”
“I’ll be honest here and tell you no, even though I bet I could get another thirty bucks out of you right now. You filled up last night before you pulled around and went into the john.”
“Thanks” Richard said with a smile through pinched lips.
When he got out into the parking lot he became worried because he didn’t see the green trans am. He got the keys out and looked at them and realized that they were keys to a different car. He must have dumped the one they knew he had for something more incognito, he thought.
He clicked the unlock on the keys and saw a red plymouth light up. He walked to it and climbed in. In the passenger seat, there was a piece of paper that read ‘Buy a bomb, build a bomb, use a bomb.’ It was written like a bulleted checklist. Again he was impressed with his ability to leave himself clues as a precaution. There was also a clear zip lock bag full of cash. Inside there had to be a few thousand dollars worth of tens, twenties and fifties. The only thing he could figure is that instead of just ditching the supped up trans am, he must have sold the thing in the middle of the night.
He looked at the town beyond the gas station parking lot and suddenly realized that he knew nothing about the town of Sergeant. He climbed back out of the car and went back into the gas station. The clerk was already eyeing him as he came back in.
“What, you forget how to drive now?” she said coyly as she chewed her gum.
“Haha… no, I need to know how to get to the nearest department or hardware store.”
“Well, I guess that’d be the Super Buy, it’s the only store like that in town. You’re gonna want to take a left out of the parking lot and keep on Douglas Avenue until you get to the red light, then you’ll take a right and just keep on driving till you see it on your right. You can’t miss it, like I said, it’s the only store like that in town.” She blew a small bubble and popped her gum loudly at Richard.
He got a twenty out of his pocket and slid it across the counter to her.
“Thanks” He said, and then left.
He followed her directions and was soon wheeling into the parking lot of the ‘Super Buy - Super Deal Center’ as the billboard said. He folded up the checklist and then entered the store.
As he walked in he began thinking about making a bomb. As he thought about a bomb, he began to think about the things that he thought exploded. First there was dynamite and TNT, but he knew he wouldn’t find any of that here. Moving on he thought about flammable things like oil and gas, he could certainly buy oil inside and gas outside, but he really didn’t consider them, ‘bomb’ worthy materials. When he really thought bomb, he thought about things that were under a lot of pressure and things that exploded when they reacted. He thought about propane and butane. He also thought about fertilizer.
He really didn’t know why he thought about fertilizer, he had just heard somewhere that fertilizer makes bombs. First he entered through the garden section of the store. It was a pretty abandoned portion of the store this time of year. He grabbed two carts mainly because he knew that fertilizer would be heavy and propane tanks would be bulky. He went to the fertilizer aisle and suddenly realized that he had no clue as to what type to buy.
Should he get ‘all-purpose’ or seasonal? The kind with weed killer formulated in, or the kind without? Would the most expensive brand be better for a bomb than the cheap stuff? Finally he notice that each bag of fertilizer had a list of active ingredients on the front. He figured that if he wanted it to react and explode, then the most active brand would probably be best. Most of them had three or four active ingredients, but he was finally able to find a fifty pound bag of ‘Super-Turf Plus now with Weed Nuker’ that had six active ingredients.
He saw that they had a whole stack of the stuff which was good. He figured he’d get as much as he could with two carts. That would be pressing the limits of what he could fit into his car anyway. He could come back for the propane and then load it down on top. He didn’t have far to go he was north of the canyon now and could cut across pretty quick to get to the radio station.
He got ten fifty pound bags of fertilizer loaded onto the two carts and started back toward the main check out counter for the garden section.
“Good afternoon Sir,” The cashier said as he walked up lugging his two carts.
“Good afternoon. How are you?”
“I’m fine, I see you found what you needed,” He said with a smile. “Will this be all for you?”
“Uhh… I’ll need some propane. Maybe equal parts propane and fertilizer. So I’ll get ten tanks of propane if you don’t mind.”
The clerk looked a little less chipper after that. Richard also noticed that the clerk was staring down at his vomit stained shirt.
“Oh and one of these.” Richard said as he held up a T-shirt from the top of a stack of what looked like Unisex tie-dye gardening T-shirts.”
“Can I ask what you’ll be doing?”
“What, oh, it’s for a project of mine.”
“A project, this must be quite the project. You’ve got quite a bit of fertilizer on your hands.” He smiled, but his eyes shown nervously through thick glasses. “I’m sure you have your applicator’s license?”
“Oh, it’s for… It’s for the church, my church…” Richard said. It’s a little bit of a charity that I do for them around the holidays.”
“You spread fertilizer for your church? Do you have your non profit tax exempt card on you. It’ll help you out a lot on taxes.” The cashier said.
“Ahh, no… They don’t really know that I do it for them. It’s sort of a secret Saint Nick thing that I do.”
“And the propane, you’ll need a license for that too. You’re buying an awful lot at one time.”
“It’s for… lanterns, I operate a bunch of propane lanterns… at night, around the church… when I spread the fertilizer.”
“Right…” The clerk said. Suddenly Richard could tell that it wasn’t a good cover for him. “Well I’m sorry Sir, but you’re going to need a license for both.”
“Hmmm, well I have a dilemma, you see, I left my license ‘ses in the car. Is there anything that you can do for me now?”
“I would be happy to hold this for you so you can run out to your car and get them.”
“A buddy drove me, my car is back home.”
“Again Sir, I’d be happy to hold these for you so that you can get your buddy to take you home to get your licenses.”
“How much can I get without a license?”
“At this point, I can feel comfortable selling you one bag of fertilizer and one tank of propane.”
“I’m not sure if that’ll be enough…” Richard said, half talking to the clerk and half to himself. “Let me shop around some more and I’ll get back to you. Just give me the shirt for now.
“Ok Sir, I’ll hold these for you. The store closes at eight.” He rang up the T-shirt and Richard paid for it with the cash he had brought in. Then he went back behind a row of lawn tools and quickly changed out of his vomit shirt. He ditched it in between some weed-eater boxes.
Richard went into the main section of the store and found himself walking aimlessly from aisle to aisle searching for an alternative.
He finally came across the automotive section and found the five gallon gas cans. He got two more carts and loaded them with empty gas cans, then he went down the oil aisle and grabbed one can of 10W-40 oil; the tool aisle, one can of WD-40; the camping aisle, one can of Glownite Lantern oil and a Anystart Fire Log. Finally he had made it through the entire store and had six empty five gallon gas cans, and one of anything flammable or explosive that he could find.
He returned to the garden area only to find that the short man with glasses had been replaced with a tall skeletal old lady that smiled at him warmly as he came up to the register.
“Hello Sir, how are you doin’?” She said sweetly.
“Oh, I’m just fine Ma’am. How about yourself?”
“I’m lovely, did you find everything that you needed, Sweetheart?”
“Oh yes Ma’am and then some!” He smiled and just kept thinking about how differently she might have treated him if he still had vomit on his shirt. He instead opened his jacket a bit more so that she could see his Blue and Pink Tie-dye Gardening shirt. It said ‘I Dig Gardening!” and had a picture of a hand trowel with a row of cartoony smiling carrots.
“That’s wonderful!” She said as she noticed his shirt. “I’ve been meaning to get myself one of those. I just think they’re adorable.”
“Oh I know, I saw them and I just knew that I couldn’t go further into the store without getting one.” He smiled again.
“It looks like you have quite a work load in store for you.”
“Oh, yes Ma’am, a lot of little projects.” He said again with a smile. “You know sometimes I think I’m literally coming here for one of everything.”
“Oh I know!” She said with a laugh and a wave. “I’m a crafter myself and I just can’t get over how many little things you have to keep on stock. I hardly have room in my house.”
“Where’s the gentleman that was here before you?”
“Oh Harvey, he took his lunch break. Did you need him?” She seemed worried that he wasn’t as interested in her craftiness suddenly.
“Oh no, no, he was just holding something for me.”
“Oh is that so. Well let me see here, you mean these?” She asked and pointed around the corner to the two carts full of fertilizer.
“Yes Ma’am that would be them.”
“Good heavens, what do you need with all that fertilizer?”
Richard got nervous that the conversation was soon to head south now that he had pushed it with the fertilizer again.
“I’m the gardener for my church.” He said. We’re doing our fall overhaul of all the flowerbeds.”
Richard swore he saw little hearts in her eyes as she instantly wanted to adopt him as her grandson.
“Well isn’t that special. You Sir are something else. Let me just ring you up.”
“I really do appreciate it… Barbara.” He said with a smile as he read her name tag aloud. “Mrs. Barbara, you just made my day. You know some people think I’m crazy for doing what I do.”
“Well, they can just mind their own business then. They’ll see one of these days won’t they.” She smiled again.
“Let’s hope so.”
She used the hand held scanner to pick through all the various flammable and explosive materials in his cart. Some of them would send up little alarms on her register, mostly asking if he was over the age of eighteen. She finally rang up the ten bags of fertilizer.
“Anything else?”
“Oh, and one of these,” He said as he quickly grabbed a 100 yard roll of gardening twine so that he could tie things to the roof of his car.
“Let’s see, it’s asking me for your license.”
“Oh, ok,” Richard said as he reached in his pocket and pulled out his driver’s license.
“I’m not sure how to enter this,” She said as she tried multiple times to enter his driver’s license number into the required fields. “It doesn’t seem to like it.”
“Well that’s a shame, the project at the church is later today, we were hoping to take advantage of the good weather.”
“Well you know what we do about that, don’t you?”
“What do we do.”
“We do a manager override.” She said with a smile and swiped the ID card that hung around her neck. “Sometimes these machines just need to be told who’s boss.”
“Well thanks a million, I really do appreciate it!” He gave his best warm hearted smile to her.
“Don’t you worry about it Sugar, that’s just one of the benefits of being manager of the gardening section.” She said and then hit the total button on the register. “That’ll be one thousand, two hundred seventy one dollars and sixty two cents.”
“Well, why don’t you just add in there the price of one of these fine shirts for yourself.” He said as he counted out thirteen hundred dollars from his bomb money and placed it on the counter. “Please I insist.”
She couldn’t help blushing a little. “You don’t have to do that.”
“No, I insist, I mean it Mrs. Barbara, you just made my day.”
She added in the price of the shirt and then even called a young man in to help him with his third cart.
As they walked out, Richard pulled the checklist from his coat pocket and checked off the ‘Buy a bomb’ item with his magic marker. He then folded it back up and put it in his pocket.
The young guy followed him to his car and was prepared to help Richard load it, but Richard insisted that he had it from there. He took his time and loaded the plymouth down with all the materials he had purchased and then drove back towards the gas station where he had started his morning.
He filled up the six gas cans, which he had tied to the top of the car with the nozzle part facing out and then noticed that the gas station sold propane tanks. He went in and purchased a new road map and two propane tanks from her and tied them to the top of the trunk with some more of the gardening twine. The cheeky clerk with the nose ring even commented about how he looked like he was driving a bomb, but he just said that he lived way out in the sticks and had to come into town for all his supplies once every few months or so. He was pretty sure that she bought it, or at least that she believed him enough not to press the issue further.
As he walked out, and back to his vehicle he noticed that the red plymouth looked very buggish with the six red gas cans sticking out like legs and the two big yellow propane tanks tied to the back end. It was a big exploding insect…
As he stood there briefly admiring his work, he once again remembered the checklist and fumbled for it in his coat pocket. He checked off the ‘Build a bomb’ item. There was only one thing left to do now…
He marked his destination on the map and then threw the map into the passenger seat on top of two bags of fertilizer that he had strapped in to look like a person. He had even drawn a smiley face on his passenger, why, he wasn’t really sure. He just figured this was probably the end of the line for him and it loosened the tension a little to not feel completely alone in the mission.
“You navigate.” he said to his co-pilot
Then he set out for the Radio Station in his mobile explosive device. Along the way he saw billboards for ‘K101 The Hits!’. He cautiously tuned his radio to the frequency, not sure if even the static charge of the radio might set something off in his car, and listened as the DJ announced the next song.
“This is yours truly folks!” the raspy voiced DJ said. “Wildman Mike Lightning on K101 The Hits! playing for you the biggest hits of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Looking through my stack here I’m gonna bring you some Three Dog Night next, with Old Fashioned Love Song! We’ll keep pumping out the hits for you so keep it here, keep it clear, keep it on The Hits!”