HOW SAVORY IS YOUR SLAVERY? excerpt

The following is an excerpt from How Savory is Your Slavery? which is the first book in the LIVEONNOEVIL series.

To set up the scene, Casey Hackman works for an Eye-Serv superstore and like all superstore employees, he hates his job severely. He went to bed Thursday night on what was supposed to be the start to his four day weekend and is surprised to find out it's Tuesday morning. He has no recollection of the past four days until the customers begin to jog his memory.

How Savory is Your Slavery? by j.israel

The thumb scan came in at 8:23am.
The number again, Casey Hackman thought. It's a curse and after the number of infinity. I'm cursed. Forever.
It became clear he was on suspended employment when the break schedule showed his name stripped of any breaks. He spent the first six hours on register. He was originally scheduled for the photo lab, but Jessica had changed the schedule in the time it took him to go home and change. He never had a break in between, except to do carry outs as his supervisor Bev manned his register for him and scowled at him severely with each of his returns. His body ached from the cat litter and double gallons of milk. The buckets of pool chlorine and the economy sized detergent.
Just minutes before his 2:20 lunch, three teenagers, two boys and a girl, got to the back of his line as he flicked off his light. They wore sunglasses, big and black and their clothes were tight and clean, dark except for flashes of neon.
They’re wearing highlighter colors, Casey thought. Blue, green and pink.
Like every customer before, Casey recited the long memorized Eye-Serv script. “Thank you for shopping Eye-Serv. Did we satisfy your needs today?” He ran candy bags across the flatbed scanner.
“This isn’t a place of need, it is a place of want,” the girl in pink spoke. “Everything here is a want. Do not mistake it.”
Casey looked up. Their glasses made them seem as if they had TV’s for heads. Both Blue and Green’s glasses reflected, he noticed, but Pink’s were a chasm of darkness, no light within.
“Okay,” he said, unsure of what else he could to that.
“You look sick,” said Blue. “You should take some medicine.”
“No, I’m okay,” said Casey. There was something strange about these three. The way they spoke. It was without place-able accent, but still old seeming. As if their voices had been around longer than their bodies.
“You’re not okay,” said Blue. “I can tell. Something terrible has happened to you. Medicine might help, or at least eat something.”
Casey slid the last of the candy bags into an Eye-Serv bag. He looked to the screen and the total was $23 exactly. He checked the clock. 2:23. He looked to the girl in pink, her eyes shielded by the black and he felt distanced from his body, unable to speak the total.
“Don’t worry,” said Green. “You’ll be alright. It’s always hardest before the-”
Pink interrupted him by slapping a twenty and three ones to the counter. “Don’t,” she said. “I’m in too good of a mood.”
Green shook his head and took the bags from their hooks. “You might be fine,” he said, “but might means maybe not too,” and he walked out ahead of the others.
Casey grabbed the money and tapped the exact change button with his middle finger. He fit the bills into their slots and ripped the receipt off, handing it to Pink. “Thank you for choosing Eye-Serv. Hope to see you again.”
“Choice doesn’t exist,” said Pink. She took the receipt and then dropped it to the floor. “And neither does any of this. He’s wrong. Medicine makes it worse.” She followed Green and as she walked away, Casey noticed her posture, flawlessly erect and dominant with a strange confidence he hadn’t ever seen in a female, let alone one her age.
He was surprised once he looked back to see Blue still in front of him, his TV mirror face focused into him alone. “She’s right. Medicine only distracts you, makes it easier to bear. I could help you, but I’m not going to. No one is. Unfortunately, the only way out of this is to help your self.”
Keeping his front, Casey smiled and logged out of his register. “I’m fine, thank you.” Casey reached beneath to empty his re-shop, but was quickly halted.
“You know, it’s not that it’s a curse. It’s more complicated than that.”
Casey stopped. Blue now had his undivided attention.
“And you can’t control it because right now it’s controlling you, but keep in mind there are always loopholes.”
“The number-”
“Twenty three,” said Blue. “It’s not what you think. It’s too complex to be any one thing.”
“How do I-”
“You don’t,” said Blue, “but good luck. And you have a customer.”
Casey hadn’t noticed the large black man putting bags of frozen meat onto the conveyor belt. “Sorry, sir, I’m closed.”
The black man stood up from his bent over position at the cart. He was wearing a uniform of some sort and as he began to turn, Blue leaned in close and whispered to Casey alone, “How savory is your slavery?”
“Bullshit!” said the black man, “I don’t believe that!” and Blue was gone, out the door after the other two. “This some racist shit?”
He saw his pink palms and that was when it came back to him. The airport. The guard. The huge hand squeezing his testicles.
“You can serve your pussy white boyfriend, but for me you’re closed? Unh uh! Fuck that! Ring my shit!” he said and Casey didn’t move. His eyelids receded completely. His skin sunk against his bones. He swallowed and it was difficult as his uvula drooped to rest against the deep part of his tongue.
“My light was off,” said Casey finally.
“I don’t give a fuck! You’re standing there. This is Eye-Serv. You serve me!” He cocked his head and leaned over the scanner threateningly. “Ring my shit!” he yelled and it pulled the eyes of the others around into this terrible interaction.
It’s him, thought Casey, from the airport. But which airport? When was I…?
“Donnell, what you screaming for?” Two black females came out from behind the tabloid racks of the next aisle. They too sparked memory, only reinforcing what Casey had hoped delusion.
“Shit,” he said wiping his fat lips with his pale pink palms. “I’m about to throw a fit. These stupid white motherfuckers can’t serve a black man.”
“Oh hell no!” yelled one. She tossed the tabloid onto the belt and pointed her glimmering long and curled pink nail between his eyes. “This is some bullshit,” she said. Her eyes were crazy and flab fluttered from under her arm like a reverse and dangly dead bicep. “You work for me! You do what I say! You better hurry the fuck up before I sue your ass you hate-crimin-racist-pussy-little-bitch!”
It was absurdity, but as Casey looked around, partly for help, but mostly because he couldn’t stare her in the eyes, he noticed eavesdroppers glaring in judgment.
“Get to it motherfucker,” said the second black woman as she pulled a red hot cheese fry chip from a crinkly bag. Bright red chip dust clung to her fingers and she fit a clump into her mouth between pink painted lips.
Reluctantly, Casey looked to the scanner and begun the long ring up, tossing corn dogs, pizza rolls and chicken nuggets from the flatbed scanner to the bags.
“Hold up!” yelled the first black lady. “What the fuck are you doing?” She slammed her palm on top of a bag of frozen French fries. “Turn your shit on!”
The computer was logged out and the screen had turned red, reading ‘log in failure’.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” barked Donnell. “You fucking high motherfucker?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m-”
“Ooh, this white boy is stoned as fuck. What you been smoking?” she asked as he put in his sign in user ID and pass code.
Once at the start screen, Casey re-rung what he had already bagged and whipped through the rest as fast as he could before he came to the tabloid.
The headline was large and bold, taking up half the page. ‘Alien abductions at record high,’ it read. Below, alien eyes, too familiar focused in on him, even the printed image followed him with its still eyes. Bullet points below listed the atrocities. ‘Unbearable torture, anal probes, interspecies fetish, forced sex changes, male impregnation, dismemberment, genital manipulation, mind control and more…’
The words sucked at him, taking his conscious mind away from a place he didn’t want to be into a place he dreaded indefinitely more.
They were spouting off still while Casey rushed to fit the rest into a bag and hit total, “Forty seven, seventy seven,” said Casey, not responding to their jabber.
Donnell was holding a fifty dollar bill. He snagged it and hit the button for change.
The screen showed $2.23, but it was expected by this time and Casey grabbed the receipt, joined it to the bills and set it to the counter.
“Excuse me?” mouthed off the one with red hot fry dust fingers. “Rude racist ass.”
Casey was sick. He was sure of it now and held his stomach, though it didn’t help any. He couldn’t puke, but he wanted to. His stomach constricted. Every limb was weak and each step away toward the break room seemed to dislodge his muscles from his bones making every move more difficult.
“Stupid racist faggot!” he heard from behind and he hobbled like a stick man away from the registers.
He was only to the middle aisle that led back to the electronics when he heard, “Excuse me, sir, can you serve me?”
He kept on, hoping it’d go away, but then he felt a hand, thick and intrusive between his bicep and the crook of his elbow. It tugged innocently and then the voice was in his ear, its breath slithering into the hole and spittle clinging to his lobe and outer ear.
“I need your service,” it said, each ‘s’ sound lisping like a cracked whistle. Every muscle tensed and it took all of Casey’s will to only turn around. The orange skin and potato nose were unmistakable.
It was the gnome with the glove. He was holding up a pair of electric blue swim shorts.
Casey’s anus squeezed into defense instinctually and he took a step back, heeling up against a stalled shopping cart.
The gnome was still in uniform, but showed absolutely no sign of recognition toward Casey. “Will you service me?”
Casey didn’t respond. His mind was empty for words and his lungs and throat were already doing all they could to breathe normally.
“I have a question about this pair of swim shorts.” He raised them up so that the crotch was to Casey’s nose. “You look like a swimmer. Do you like to swim, son?”
Casey’s mouth was already open and so he closed it and reopened, but still there was nothing.
“You have a nice swimmer’s build. Very lean and toned. I bet you could hold your breath for a long time, am I right?” The gnome pulled back the neon blue shorts and moved in to Casey side by side so that his shoulder rested against Casey’s upper arm. “What’s so neat about these,” he said raising them back up for them both to look at, “is the Velcro.” He brought a thick and rusty finger to the crotch of the shorts and scraped at the edge of the connected Velcro. “I just think that’s so neat. Don’t you think that’s neat?”
Casey was shriveling away inside, going through every way that he was possibly wrong and coming up with nothing. This is real, he thought. I’m not crazy. This is all happening.
The gnome’s elbows rolled up and down his ribs and it brought Casey back from his thoughts. “I’ve seen buttons and drawstrings and zippers, but I’ve never seen a Velcro bathing short before. Have you?”
Casey tried to speak an excuse, but it came out jumbled and unintelligible. He tried to walk away, but the hand grabbed for his arm again.
“But wait,” said the gnome. “I still need to try these on and you need to take me to the dressing room.”
Casey could see drool filling the gnome’s wide lower jaw and he had to rip his arm away.
“There he is! That’s the racist motherfucker right there!” The black lady held the rolled up tabloid like a weapon and pointed a long and glittery pink fingernail right at him.
“I’m so sorry, mam,” said supervisor Bev, with her skin turning red.
“Sorry don’t mean shit!” yelled the other black lady through a mouthful of fiery red hot fries. “You better fire his hate crimin-pussy-ass right now!”
“Mm hmm,” agreed Donnell who stood behind them with his oddly muscled forearms crossed over his chest and his fat pink lower lip hanging over his raised and authoritative chin.
“Don’t worry, mam. I assure you this will not go unpunished.”
Casey felt fingers tickling the small of his back and then the gnome’s whistling breath infiltrated his inner ear. “It’s okay, son. I’ve got a nice job for you. You’re going to like it a whole lot. We can go swimming after and I’ll give you a nice lunch. You like hot dogs, don’t you? I love hot dogs.”
Casey pushed away from the gnome and brushed past his supervisor. His legs were weak and balance was off.
I have to eat, he thought. I need medicine.
“You see that? He just assaulted a seniors citizen!” one of them yelled behind him.
Dizziness plagued him. The linoleum wobbled beneath him and it felt as if all the blood within his body had climbed into his head and sealed the only exit at his neck.
“Fuck you!” he heard and as if a part of the sentence, two hands pushed him with such force from behind that he left the ground. His face connected to the hip of another body and he hit the floor to the sound of glass breaking. He lifted his face, but his body raised the rest of the way to standing by a powerful pull on the back of his t-shirt.
To his dread, once again the face was familiar.
“What the hell you think you’re doing, boy?!” barked a southern accented demand. It was the one with the medals and Casey noticed he was wearing the same dark green uniform. “You need to watch where you’re going. You could’ve hurt my wife!” The military man’s face became furious and the memory of him sent a strain through Casey’s neck.
Standing to the side, his wife was some kind of Asian and she kept her eyes to the floor with the full baskets in each of her stretched arms.
“You think that’s funny you piece of shit? You better wipe that smirk off your face before I pound you into hamburger!”
“I didn’t-” was all Casey could get out before the hand was on the back of his neck and forcing him back to the ground face first.
“Clean up your mess!” yelled the green decorated man and the pain was everywhere.
He put his hands flat to the floor and pushed up to feel jagged glass slicing him. Salsa smell hit him hard as he gasped in pain and he dropped to his side and rolled to his back over more glass shards and salsa.
“Stupid racist faggot,” he heard the black ladies saying. He felt a strong tipped boot in his side and it took his breath.
Through shaky vision he could see the gnome watching intently, licking his lips and with a hand forearm deep into his pocket.
“Lick it up!” the southern grunts demanded. “Use your smart mouth on that floor you cunt!”
Another kick found its way under his rib cage and Casey could only barely make out the two black ladies removing their belts.
“Yeah, suck it off!” he heard the gnome saying. “Take it in!”
The military man’s boot landed again and Casey rolled to his stomach. Belt cracks stung his back and then his face was smushed into the glass and salsa.
“You a fucking hypocrite!” yelled one of the black ladies somewhere.
“You ain’t serving no one, but your own racist-faggot-ass!”
The whip cracks from their belts came one after the other as Casey struggled helplessly to break himself free, but the boot kept his face to the floor.
Fury built within him and it rose despite his weakened state, or maybe because of it, and with a deep breath Casey rolled out from under the foot and stumbled into a sprint. He made it two feet only before slipping. The salsa had stuck to his shoe and sent his feet up over his head, breaking his fall first with his skull and then the rest of his body.
This time there was no darkness, only a colorless loss of empty space.

-Come back next week for an excert from Furniture, the second book in the LIVEONNOEVIL series.