The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper

Author:Seamus Cooper [Cooper, Seamus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 1-59780-127-5
Publisher: Night Shade
Published: 2009-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Ted and Cayenne had finished their first basket of tortilla chips and were two-thirds of the way through their first pitcher of margaritas. They were awaiting burritos grandes and a soft taco platter. They had already covered most of the events of the day and their thoughts on mall culture when Cayenne said, "Okay, well, I guess I'm buzzed enough to tell you why I work here, but you have to swear to tell me why you work here."

Ted thought about this. There was really no way Cayenne was in on this whole Cthulhu plot—was there? Well, he had a choice to make—assume the worst, just to be safe, and shut down what looked like it might become something wonderful, something better than he'd had in a long time, or trust her, and risk that she'd run screaming when she heard the truth like they all did, or, worse yet, that she was in on the plot to get Providence stomped by the Old Ones, and she would kill him. But if that were true, she'd kill him anyway. Bleh. He took a long drink from his margarita glass, then instantly regretted it.

"Gah! Brain freeze!"

"Ooh, I hate that."

"Agh!" Ted rubbed the spot above his right eye—"Feels like somebody's jabbing an ice pick behind my eye." He saw Cayenne looking expectantly at him, then realized she was waiting for his answer. What's it gonna be, boy, yes or no? a female voice in his head said, and he wondered briefly what song that was from before he answered. "Okay. I will absolutely tell you the truth about how I came to be an obsolete cell phone skin salesman, and one who is shockingly successful, as it turns out, but I think we're going to need another pitcher."

"Deal." Ted's burrito grande and Cayenne's soft taco platter arrived, and they asked for another pitcher.

"You know, you get, like, beef, chicken, and fish tacos here," Cayenne said, "and if I'd had one less drink, I could probably come up with a pretty good tuna taco joke, instead of just the idea that I should make a tuna taco joke."

"Hmmm—how about, 'I'll give you some of my burrito grande if you let me eat your tuna taco?'"

Cayenne looked at Ted for a long moment, and then laughed. "It's not bad, except that burrito means 'little ass.' Which really makes 'burrito grande' kind of an oxymoron, right? Big little ass?"

"Isn't that where Custer died?"

"Nah, I think that was Little Big Ass."

"Right." They chewed in silence, and Ted wondered if he'd really said that stupid tuna taco thing. Jesus, he was turning into a cheeseball in his old age.

"So," Cayenne said after making significant inroads on the steak and chicken tacos, "the reason I work in the mall is just because I was bored, and I had nothing else to do, and I spent a lot of time sitting at home by myself taking drugs, and that got boring, and pretty much everything I used to do

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