Brian Keene: Jack's Magic Beans

“I knew I was supposed to face them out, sir. It’s just that there’s not enough room. There are too many books and not enough space in the display.”

While Jeremy had been talking, Brubaker had been staring at the books. He’d barely heard a word the young employee said. His protests and explanations were like the buzzing of insects. Now that Jeremy was done, Mr. Brubaker grinned.

The screams grew louder.

Brubaker’s headache vanished. He glanced back to the shelves. Each of the paperbacks had the same title: KILL ‘EM ALL .

It was very sound advice. After all, these were bestsellers written by important authors who knew what they were talking about. Oprah said these books had meaning and value. Oprah said these books would enrich your life. You couldn’t argue with Oprah. That was crazy.

So he didn’t. Instead, Brubaker wrapped his hands around Jeremy Geist’s throat and squeezed. Geist’s lip began trembling again, so Brubaker squeezed harder to make it stop. It did. The lip stopped trembling, and then Jeremy stopped breathing. A few feet away from them, a customer overturned the magazine rack onto a little girl. Then the customer hopped onto the rack and jumped up and down. The child, still pinned beneath the wreckage, blood leaking from her mouth, screamed in anguish and terror for her mother. Her mother didn’t answer, because her mother was too busy shouting obscenities and clawing the face of another customer. She raked her fingernails deep, gouging furrows in the flesh.

Brubaker remained oblivious. He focused on Jeremy and kept squeezing, even after Geist was dead.

He didn’t stop squeezing until another customer squirted him with lighter fluid and set him on fire.

Mr. Brubaker laughed as he burned. The more intense the flames became, the louder his laughter grew.

Angela Waller was third in line at the pharmacy counter when the screaming started. She flinched, almost dropping her purse. The redneck guy in front of her was startled enough by the commotion to stop arguing with the pharmacist. Angie paused, waiting for gunshots—expecting maybe a robbery or some disgruntled nutcase on a rampage. When the gunshots didn’t come, she held her breath. The screams got louder.

Behind her, somebody said, “I wish they’d shut up. My head hurts.”

It had been a weird afternoon—getting weirder with each second. Angie had seen more road rage and rudeness on her way here than she normally saw in a month. There was something in the air, something heavy and malignant, ready to burst like storm clouds bloated with rain. If there was trouble in the store, then Angie wanted no part of it. She just wanted to get her prescription filled and go home, where she’d take off her work clothes, put on some pajama pants, curl up on the bed, and paint her toenails.

In three days, Angie and her girlfriends were taking a cruise to Antigua in celebration of her twenty-ninth birthday. Girls only—no boyfriends or husbands. She needed her Prozac before she left. That was the only reason she remained in line when the screams began. The pills were a necessity, just like tampons, her diaphragm, her passport, and cell phone. Prozac: don’t leave home without it. She’d been diagnosed with chronic depression when she was fifteen, and had been on the drug most of her adult life. Sure, the recommended length of usage was only six to twelve months, but like her doctor said, if it helped, it helped. And help it did. She could function on Prozac. Taking it was as natural as breathing.

The screams increased, multiplying throughout the store.

And then Angie forgot all about Antigua and her prescription because the pharmacist lunged over the counter and stabbed his pen into the neck of the man in front of her. The redneck reared back, grasping at the pen. A little bit of blood bubbled out around it, but not as much as Angie would have expected. The redneck made a startled, squawking sort of sound. Humming the theme from The Young and the Restless , the pharmacist grappled with the injured man. Angie backed away from them, too frightened to scream, and this time she did drop her purse. Doing so saved her life. She knelt to pick it up and thus avoided a sweeping blow from the woman behind her, who had decided to crack Angie in the back of the head with a bottle of green mouthwash.

“You slept with my Herbert,” the woman shouted. “Little whore!”

Angie tried to skitter backwards, but there was nowhere to go. All around her, fights broke out. Customers and Save-A-Lot employees clawed, punched, and shrieked at each other. A naked fat man crawled around on all fours, growling like a dog. A severed penis dangled from his clenched teeth. A woman tried swinging from the skylights but crashed to the floor. A crowd of people leapt on her, tearing her to shreds with their bare hands. Another woman with a nail file sticking out of her breast ran past, screaming about a gnome in her tiramisu. Blood flowed—pooling on the floor, splashing across displays, pouring from wounds, and staining the hands, mouths, feet, and makeshift weapons of the attackers.

“You fucked Herbert! You fucked him hard!”

Angie’s attacker kicked her in the side. Slipping in a puddle of liquid soap and someone else’s blood, Angie curled into a ball and tried to protect herself. The woman yelled again, once more accusing Angie of sleeping with Herbert, but Angie was pretty sure she’d never slept with a Herbert, married or otherwise. She tried to tell her attacker that, but all that came out was a whimper.

“Did he lick you?” the woman shrieked. “He never did that for me. The son of a bitch. He never once licked me. He said he didn’t like it. But I know the truth. He couldn’t find the clit.”

“Please,” Angie rasped. “I don’t—”

The woman aimed another kick, and Angie focused on staying alive.

Marcel Dupree had just turned off his car and was double-checking the headlights, radio, and everything else when somebody rear-ended him. The impact bounced him off the steering column, knocking the wind from his lungs. Shocked, Marcel flung the door open and stumbled outside, forgetting all about the headlights. He was too flustered to speak. He could only watch in stunned silence as a black Cadillac Escalade reversed, then raced forward and rammed his car again. The SUV’s driver was hidden behind tinted windows.

“Hey,” Marcel tried to shout. It came out more like a whisper. The driver gave no indication that they’d heard him. The Cadillac’s engine roared and smoke belched from the tailpipe.

The impact of the collision slammed his car door shut. Marcel wondered if the door was locked. As the Cadillac backed up, he checked the door and then checked it again. He was about to check a third time, when he became dimly aware that other people were hollering, as well. He heard the distinct impact of another car crash. Sirens wailed—police, fire, and ambulance. Marcel glanced around, trying to determine what was happening. The Cadillac ran into his car again, crumpling the rear bumper.

“Hey,” Marcel shouted, finally finding his voice. “What are you doing?”

Forgetting about the door lock, he ran towards the Escalade, waving his fists and yelling. The tinted window slid down, revealing the driver. Marcel had never seen him before.

“What the hell is your problem, man?”

“You took my parking space!” Spittle flew from the enraged driver’s mouth. His face was red. “How do you like it? Huh, motherfucker? How do you fucking like it, nigger?”

The racial slur shocked Marcel. He’d been called it before, when he was younger, but the word still had impact. Before he could respond, the Cadillac’s driver turned the wheel and sped towards him. Marcel leapt out of the way and rolled across the hot pavement. Then he jumped to his feet and shouted for help. All around him, people ran through the parking lot. Most of them were engaged in similar battles, fighting in groups or one-on-one, using vehicles, shopping carts, tire irons, and anything else as weapons. He gaped in horror as a pick-up truck ran over a fleeing mother pushing a baby stroller, then reversed and ran over them again. The vehicle bounced up and down as the tires rolled over the corpses. A young man with a pistol shot the truck’s driver and then turned the gun on other bystanders. Some charged him, some ran away, and others totally ignored the assault, involved as they were in other fights. A cop shot the young man with the gun, blowing his lungs through his back. The officer then fired at an old woman beating a teenager over the head with her walker.