Welcome to Apocalypse Burger, Would You Like to Try Our End of Days Combo Meal?

I’m bending down to pick up a brown present dropped by my seven-year-old corgi Buddy during our morning walk when I feel it–something I haven’t felt in fifteen years.

Trouble.

Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Buddy whines, so he must sense it too.

Still in my half-bent position, I look around, trying to keep it casual. Nothing seems out of place, but what do you expect at 7AM on a Tuesday morning in suburbia?

I realize I must look pretty silly, having been in that position for at least ten seconds, so anyone watching me with ill intent knows I made them–or maybe I threw my back out.

I finish picking up Buddy’s present and straighten up.

“Come on, Buddy, let’s go.”

He whines again and cowers between my legs.

One of his cuter habits is puckering up tighter than a drum when he’s upset, so I know our daily walk is over and make my way home. He is so determined to hide between my legs he nearly trips me up three times before I pick him and carry him home.

*****

The humans in my life are less responsive.

At breakfast, Norm either doesn’t pick up on it or does and chooses not to say anything. I think if he had picked up on my unease, he would’ve probably chalked it up to “girl problems”.

My 13-year-old daughter Mallory would sooner die before asking if anything was wrong. She had recently made the transition of viewing me as a divine being to a monster who spent every waking moment hatching ways to ruin her life. Any interactions now involve single-syllable responses, eye rolling so loud it wakes the dead, and enough melodramatic sighing to fill an entire year’s worth of soap operas.

And to think of what I gave up for this.

With breakfast complete, Norm goes off to his glamorous job of accounting for a mid-sized medical equipment manufacturing company and I take Mallory to school before heading off to my own glamorous job.

*****

The sense of trouble stays with me as I drive Mallory to school. I’m so busy checking my rearview I nearly crash three times, cementing Mallory’s belief my hate for her now goes beyond just public humiliation.

She asks me to drop her off a block from school, because now that I actually want to kill her, who knows? Maybe I’ll plow the minivan into a crowd of students, and oh my God, there goes her chance of being asked to prom.

*****

I’m watching for trouble at work–Apocalypse Burger, home of the End of Days combo meal–but right now, the biggest danger of a mall food court at 10AM on a Tuesday is boredom.

Was I imagining things? Was it the desperate cry of a woman looking to relive her glory days?

Joe, a 70-year-old regular in a wheelchair, rolls up to me.

“Billie, I got good news.”

“What’s that?”

“I got two tickets to Fiji and one of them has your name on it.”

“Okay,” I say absentmindedly, eyeing a pair of old ladies sharing a piece of toast.

His eyes shoot up. He’s been flirting with me for six months and my responses have been playfully noncommittal at best.

“Got your passport?” he says, deciding to go with it.

“Right in my purse,” I say, my attention now on a group of girls probably playing hooky. 

Is it still called that?

“You know, all the beaches there are nude beaches. It’s a national law,” he says, pressing forward.

“Good,” I say, my attention now on a couple of beer-bellied guys from the athletic shoe store watching the girls.

He wheels away.

*****

“Billie, we, uh, need to talk.”

 Cue the Imperial Theme, it's Skip, my 19-year-old “manager” with a case of acne so bad his cap is pulled down around his nose.

Have I mentioned I watch way too many movies?

It’s just him and me, with Henry working the line in the back. I’m almost positive Henry is a fugitive, because every time the rent-a-cops come by, he needs to use the bathroom.

I guess to keep things private, we’re talking at my register, because what’s more private than the food court of a mall at 10 in the morning?

With his cap pulled so low, I couldn’t tell where he was looking, but I had a good guess. My chest isn’t anything special now, but boobs are still boobs and boys are still boys.

“What’s up, Skip?” I say, folding my arms over my chest. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

“I’m a little, uh, concerned about that interaction you had with Joe. This eatery prides itself on being family-friendly, and that sort of exchange is not in line with those values.”

In my old job, I faced things that would make Green Berets wet themselves and I never once lost my composure. None of those things challenged me like what he had just said. I have to bite the inside of my cheek in order not to laugh.

I see something out of the corner of my eye and turn toward it. I get a glimpse of a face with nothing but empty eye sockets before a pair of massive hands wrap around my throat.

I grab at them, but I might as well be wrestling with a tree. I glance at Skip, and I can see a dark stain spreading through the crotch of his khakis. I expect Henry is gone and halfway into the next state; he’s not going to go near anything that might involve the cops.

I reach inside my mind to find the door to the room where my old self lives. But it has a lot of locks, and it’s been shut for fifteen years.

I see darkness closing in as I reach the door and begin unlocking the multitude of locks.

My eyelids feel like they weigh a ton.

Just seconds left.

The darkness creeps in further.

I feel my eyes shut and my head slump forward.

*****

Then it snaps up, and anyone looking can see my eyes have gone completely black. With them, I can clearly see what it is, this thing that is trying to kill me.

A golem.

Immensely strong and immune to conventional weapons, but I’m not conventional.

I raise my arms, which are thrumming with power, and slash down with them, cleaving through its limbs.

Golems are strong but limited in the brains department. It just stares at the stumps of its arms, trying to figure out what just happened.

I punch it in its chest, sending it halfway across the food court, then leap over the counter and go after it.

It’s still on its back, struggling to get up.

I don’t give it that chance. I jump onto it, straddling its chest, then power my hand into it, feeling for the heart. I find it and squeeze, enough to get my attacker’s attention but not enough to crush it.

“Who sent you?”

Another drawback of its limited intellect is that it’s incapable of lying, so I’ll soon know who wants me dead.

It says nothing, so I squeeze harder.

“I know you can live forever, but I can take each of those moments and fill them with an eternity of pain. Who…”

I squeeze harder.

“...sent…”

Harder.

“...you?”

“Sister.”

I crush its heart.

Damn, it feels good to be alive.