Zaibatsu

“Totally flat?” said Patti.

“As a board,” said Zach.

“But still hollow?” Patti split the case with a boxcutter, freeing the cans inside.

“Reptilians gotta live somewhere.”

“How can it be flat and hollow?”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t something being flat imply it has two dimensions?” said Patti. She picked a can and matched its UPC to the tag on the shelf.

“Well,” said Zach, “would you call a piece of paper flat?”

“I guess.”

“Still has width.”

“The Earth is the same width as a piece of paper?”

Zach finished off a case of canned tomatoes, placing each label side out so the display was unbroken. “Don’t be obtuse.”

“Obtuse?”

“Yeah.” He patted himself down. “Where did I put my cutter?”

“Right pocket.”

The chili cans were cool and heavy in Patti’s hands. She squatted down to a lower shelf, and shoved them roughly into place, ignoring the labels. “So, you’re telling me the planet Earth, of which I have seen many model globes, is in fact a . . . what do you call it? A rectangular prism?”

“Correct.”

“And further, this rectangular prism is hollow and inhabited by lizard men.”

“Reptilians.”

“Reptilians,” said Patti. “Alright. And how are they related to the globalists?”

“Ah, fair question.” Zach held up a can of tomatoes. “These tomatoes are diced, right? However, not all tomatoes are diced—”

“A revelation.”

“But, all diced tomatoes are still tomatoes.” Zach stocked the can and spun it so that its label faced outward. “All Reptilians are globalists, but not all globalists are Reptilians.”

“That analogy doesn’t even . . . whatever.” Patti stood tall and stretched, green work shirt, emblazoned with the Zaibatsu Corp. logo, creeping up her stomach. She pushed a fall of dark hair behind her ear. Zach stared at her, blankfaced. “How high are you right now?” she said.

“Relative to whom?” said Zach.

“A sober person?”

“Oh. Very.”

“No wonder you believe all that shit,” she said.

Zach stood so that he was level with Patti and hitched up his jeans. He was on the heavy side, but not in an unappealing way. “Gotta believe in something, Patti. Conviction, passion, that’s the key.”

Patti counted the cases left stacked against the shelves. Maybe twenty left for the aisle, but small ones. She sighed. Zach followed behind her, straightening cans.

“You hear about the cat?” Zach asked.

“Cat?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s wild. Warehouse guys came in last night, and they found a dead cat hanging from the ceiling, like, from one of the rafters, or whatever?”

“Lucky cat.”

“Get this: its head was missing. And there was no blood. Just like all those cows on the MacReady farm last week.”

“Glad someone escaped the Zaibatsu lifestyle,” said Patti. “Any idea who did it?”

“My money’s on Tim the butcher.”

“Oh, yeah. Why, do you think?”

“Satanism. That blood moon thing’s coming up. Harvest moon, whatever.”

“Yeah,” said Patti.

From the far end of the aisle, like a rhythm tapped into a snare, a sharp clicking rang across cool linoleum. “Shit, you hear that?” said Zach.

“Look busy,” said Patti.

“Should I, like, juggle?”

Cathy rounded the corner. The most impressive thing about her was the bright orange safety vest she wore at all times. She was a stout woman, sprinting into middle age on the back of a pack-a-day habit and enough inborn rage to fuel a supercollider. Above her nametag sat her title, Manager, flanked by two shiny unicorn stickers.

“Zach!” said Cathy from down the aisle. She moved with an almost military precision, each step striking in an arcane rhythm. “What aisle is this?”

“Uh, four?” said Zach. He looked around. “Tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, condiments. . . Yeah, four.”

Cathy closed the gap, now splitting the distance between Zach and Patti. She smelled like cat piss and mouthwash. Patti faced the shelf and gagged, putting away another can.

“Four. That’s what I thought. No flour, no sugar, no assorted baking goods?”

“Not as far as I can tell, ma’am,” said Zach.

“So why in the hell are you here?”

“Ma’am?”

“You’re in the wrong goddamn aisle!”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Go away.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Zach shelved his last can and did as told. As Cathy turned to Patti, he pantomimed stabbing the manager with a massive knife and a wild look. Patti laughed, once, and faced Cathy.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing ma’am. I just love my job.”

“I told you not to call me ma’am. My friends call me Cat.”

Patti had never heard anyone call Cathy anything other than Cathy, but she didn’t care enough to argue. “Sorry, Cat.”

“What time do you have?”

Patti checked her phone. “3 AM,” she said.

“Staff meeting in an hour. Don’t be late. I want to talk to you after.”

“What about?”

“I’ll let that be a surprise,” said Cathy. Her lips curled up into a passable smile. Her teeth were very white.

“Can’t wait,” said Patti.

Cathy marched off, and Patti was left alone in her aisle, buried in the deep back of the megastore. There were no windows here, only the low hanging buzz of bar-shaped fluorescents. It was a kind of eternal day, an artificial slaying of night. Purgatory. Patti yawned into a fist and went back to work.

Founded in Kyoto, Japan in 1892, the Zaibatsu Corporation began as a family-run grocer offering quality produce from local farmers. Over the next three decades, Japan’s growing population and increased industrialization propelled the Zaibatsu family to previously unknown levels of success. Zaibatsu Corp. expanded its holdings, acquiring new businesses in the realms of medicine, clothing, and, most importantly, weapons manufacturing.

In the lead up to World War II, Imperial demand for modern weaponry skyrocketed, and Zaibatsu Corp. rose to the occasion! The Zaibatsu family became a close and trusted ally of the Emperor, and their loyalty was richly rewarded. The Corporation soon expanded to aviation, becoming the sole manufacturer of Japan’s burgeoning airforce!

The breakroom was done in the style of the rest of the megastore. That is to say, beige brick and bare steel. The same sickly lights buzzed overhead, funneling hard light into the small room. It was crowded, the entire night shift stuffed in between folding tables. Patti had gotten in early and staked out a chair. It might have been padded a decade ago, but now only hard metal wrapped in thin fabric remained. Still, it beat standing.

No one talks much at 4 AM, working or not. The warehouse guys, the stockers, the checkers, they all had the same rheumy, downcast vacancy tacked to their faces. Patti could hear the refrigerator hum, and she thought that this was the pulse of the store: one long, unbroken beat, mechanical.

Someone nudged her leg. She looked up, and Zach collapsed into the chair next to her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey. Has Fraulein Catherine made her appearance yet?”

“We wait with bated breath.”

One of the warehouse guys, Carter, came to their table. Patti thought he was handsome, in a broken-down sort of way. Scruffy and tired looking, like the rest of them, but he wore it better. “Yo, Tinfoil. Tell me about the moon landing again.”

“Which one?” said Zach. “The faked landing of ’69, or the real landing in ’87?”

“The second one.”

Zach cracked his knuckles and leaned back in his chair. “Well, you see, the Reptilians, in a bid for global dominance, launched an elite group of Inner-Earth scientists to the moon. Their ultimate goal? To build a cancer-causing beam weapon in the Sea of Tranquility.”

Carter laughed. “You crack me up, dude. What about you Patti, you believe in all this?”

“I hope there’s a snake person—”

“Reptilian.”

“Reptilian. I hope there’s a Reptilian aiming a cancer beam right at me. Maybe I could dodge this team meeting,” said Patti.

Carter’s eyebrows torqued up and furrowed, and his mouth collapsed into a thin line. “My mom died of cancer last year,” he said.

“Oh,” said Patti. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Carter. “I’ll catch you guys later.”

Zach let out a low whistle. “That was slick,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Patti. “You have a noose I could borrow?”

Zach frowned. “Man, don’t joke about that.”

The breakroom door swung open, and in rolled Cathy, all grey and full of thunder. Patti and Zach stood before she could tell them to. Everyone else did the same, pushing the chairs and tables away from the center of the room.

“Circle up, people!” Cathy shouted. Patti and her dozen or so coworkers did as ordered, facing each other in a tight circle, shoulder pressed to shoulder. They all looked pale and haggard, like creatures crawled up from the middle of Zach’s hollow Earth. There were no mirrors here, but Patti imagined she looked about the same.

With wide, pink hands, Cathy began to clap. The rhythmless and furious noise vibrated the dense breakroom air. Wings of fat hung from her arms, and, as her clapping picked up pace, they jiggled and flapped. Ready for takeoff. The others joined in clapping, until the roar of it bounced across the whole of the room. Patti clapped, though she made no effort to keep pace, catching every third beat.

As the pace of clapping rose, a fury blazed through the circle. Patti felt heat pouring off Zach to her left and Carol, one of the checkers, to her right. Her own chest felt hot, like someone had pumped steam down her throat. She clapped faster despite herself, and blood coursed into her hands. Pale before, the circled faces were flushed and fat with red, Cathy’s most of all. The manager’s head seemed to grow and swell, and her eyes bulged.

“Zai!” called Cathy, her voice high and piercing.

“Batsu!” the others shouted back.

“Zai!”

“Batsu!”

“Zai!”

“Batsu!”

And so on, until the word lost its meaning, became only a sound. A primal outpour, a battle cry. Patti yelled until she was hoarse. They all did. She looked to Zach, and his eyes were wide and electric, pupils honed to fine knifepoints. The chanting stopped, and Cathy let out a massive groaning yell, and the rest of the circle did the same. For an instant, Patti thought she saw the fluorescents flicker, and then there was quiet.

The spell was broken, and the circle fractured. Coughs and heavy breathing followed the employees as they sat back at their tables.

“Damn chants always make me feel so drained,” said Zach, pulling two chairs and passing one to Patti. She felt the same, like something had been dampened in her, snuffed out. She was more tired than she had been coming in.

Cathy launched into her announcements, and Patti leaned back in her chair. She let her mind go blank.

In the aftermath of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t the only things that had exploded. Zaibatsu Corp. found itself at the very center of the Japanese rebuilding efforts! The Corporation made massive strides in business acquisition, wrapping previously failing businesses in the arms of our loving corporate family. Zaibatsu Corp. became an early pioneer in what economists now call Vertical Integration, and soon dominated the corporate landscape of Japan! Pundits of the time were baffled by Zaibatsu’s rapid expansion, some even accusing the Corporation of resorting to blood sacrifice and the occult! How quaint!

Cathy’s desk was dark-painted steel and laminate topped, like something you’d find in an abandoned middle school. It was too tall for the manager by several inches, and she looked like a dwarf sitting behind it. There were four pictures of various cats, framed, facing out toward Patti.

“You have a real opportunity here, Patti,” said Cathy.

“Okay,” said Patti.

“I mean it. With your degree, and your experience, you could be Assistant Manager within the year. Then it’s only a matter of time.”

“Until what?” Patti shifted in her chair so that it prodded her a little less. Everything in this building was designed to keep you on your feet.

“Manager, of course! Then you’re a made woman.”

“Awesome,” said Patti.

Cathy’s chair squeaked and groaned like a crushed mouse as she leaned to a side. To the manager’s left was a potted philodendron. It was fake but still looked wilted.

“Is that something you’d be interested in, Patti?”

Patti puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she said. “I had some stuff, last year, and I’ve been . . . taking things slow.”

Cathy folded her hands and topped them with her chin, the image of sympathy. “Let me ask you this,” she said. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

“Oh boy,” said Patti.

“Big question, I know.” Cathy squinted at something to her right. “Oh, wait, hold on.”

The manager hopped down from her chair, desk things rattling as her feet landed. Her office was attached to the breakroom by a door and window. Cathy marched to the window and jabbed the glass until Greg, one of the warehouse guys, looked up from his salad. He went wide eyed, doing his best deer impression, Cathy being the headlights.

“Time’s up, Greg! Get the hell back to work!” Cathy’s voice was shrill, and it was a wonder the windowglass didn’t shatter. Greg scurried off, and Cathy sat back down. Maybe this wasn’t Purgatory, Patti thought. Maybe it was Hell.

“So,” said Cathy. “Five years.”

“Right,” said Patti. “You know, I imagine I’ll be somewhere very much like this.”

Cathy smiled. “I’m very happy to hear that, Patti. I have an offer for you, and I want you to really think before you answer.”

“Okay.”

“I want to mentor you, Patti. I want you to be my Assistant Manager.”

“I’m . . . flattered,” Patti said. “I will definitely think about that.”

“Wonderful,” said Cathy. She stood and then sat back down. “There’s one other thing. I’m asking everyone. Did you hear about the cats?”

“I heard about a cat.”

“There was another, tonight, in the parking lot. And the rats too.”

“Cats and rats?” said Patti. “And were they all . . .” She drew a line across her neck.

“Yeah. Clean off. Now that I think about it, there was a pigeon last week too.” Cathy leaned in, across the desk. “Just between you and me, you didn’t . . .”

“Are you asking if I decapitated any cats?”

“Or rats.”

“No, I have decapitated neither cat nor rat.”

Cathy leaned back. “Okay. Good. Like I said, I’m asking everybody. Personally, I think it was Tim. The butcher? Guy’s a creep.”

“Did you call the police?”

“On Tim?”

“No, like, in general.”

“Oh. No. I called Corporate. They’re sending a guy out. He’ll be here tomorrow night.”

“Okay,” said Patti.

“Okay!” said Cathy. Her phone buzzed on the desktop. She flipped it over and checked the screen. “Oh, damnit, a dog too.”

With the Twenty-first Century looming, the leaders of the Zaibatsu Corporation knew that modernization was key to the company’s continued success. The island nation of Japan had grown too small for our growing family, and so it was time to look outward, across the great Pacific Ocean! Zaibatsu set its sights on America, a market ripe for improvement. The megastore was a concept born in American, but only the Japanese could perfect it. The first Zaibatsu Shopping Center opened in Wichita, Kansas in the Fall of 1987, offering a wide array of not just groceries, but home goods, hardware, clothing, and more, twenty-four hours a day. Within one decade our stores had spread to every corner of the country and beyond. Now, customers can visit a Zaibatsu Shopping Center in any country, on any continent on the globe, even Antarctica!

“You ever feel like you want to die? Like, not kill yourself, but maybe get hit by a truck or something?” said Patti.

“What?” said Zach.

“What?”

“No, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Patti. She pointed her scanner at an empty spot on the shelf, and the device chirped in her hand, sending word to the pickers in back. “Hey look, there’s Tim.”

Tim was dressed in white and covered in blood, though he usually was. He pushed a cart full of cut and wrapped meat through swinging doors, guiding the tower of protein and plastic toward the meat cases. He was a gangly man with a patchy beard and waxy skin. His expression was blank, serene.

“Guy’s a sphinx,” said Patti.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he did those animals.”

“No?”

“I mean, if someone had found a lampshade made out of grandma skin, then, yeah, Tim’s your guy. But the dude cuts up animal professionally. Where’s the fun in doing it during off hours?”

“Cathy said they found half a dozen dead rabbits on morning shift. Strung up in the freezer by their intestines,” said Patti.

“That’s fucking grim,” said Zach. “You hear about the snakes?”

“Snakes?”

“Hundred of the fuckers, over in automotive. They were hiding in the tire display, came slithering out all at once when Steve was sweeping up.” Zach flattened out a shelf tag with his thumb and shot the barcode.

“Huh,” said Patti.

“No one got bitten. Snakes just slithered away. Into the Earth, maybe. Into the hollow Earth, maybe.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Who do you think’s really doing this? It has to be some kind of protest, right?”

“I think it’s the Freemasons. They love this animal sacrifice stuff, always have. Did I ever tell you about the third degree Masonic initiation rites?”

“At least three times. Why would Freemasons terrorize a Zaibatsu?”

“Look around, Patti. It’s all steel and aluminum siding. See any masonry, any bricks? I don’t think so.”

They came to an endcap and circled round to the next aisle. Varicolored weaves of cereal boxes stood like rainbow sentries on both sides of the long aisle, cartoon eyes staring holes into each other like animated armies. Patti tagged a gap where cornflakes had been.

“Cathy offered me Assistant Manager last night,” she said.

“Hey, that’s great,” said Zach. “You gonna take it?”  

“Eh.”

Zach stopped in front of the Purple-O’s, a dozen magenta aardvarks peeking out from behind his head. “Benefits, better hours, better pay. What’s not to like?”

“I’m not convinced I care.” Patti squatted down and pulled a row of bran flakes to the front of the shelf.

“About career advancement?”

“This isn’t a career. My career.”

“Were you planning on leaving?”

Patti took a few boxes from the top shelf and jammed them into the middle level: bright orange-dyed corn flakes, sky blue colored miniature cookies.

“You’re here every night, and you’re always miserable. I always have to follow you around, cleaning up after you,” said Zach. “I don’t get it Patti. Sometimes I feel like, if someone put a knife to your throat, you wouldn’t even stop them.”

The inventory gun beeped in Patti’s hand, a bad read. She tapped a few keys on the gun’s back and fired again.

“It’s barely more than minimum wage, and I don’t care that much either, but . . . I don’t know. I’d love a promotion. Can’t even afford to go to the dentist. You can’t just float forever, you know? At some point you have to give a shit.”

“Yo, Tinfoil!” shouted someone from a ways off. Steve stood at the rear-facing end of the cereal aisle. “You’re supposed to be on checkout! Stop chatting with your girlfriend!”

Zach turned to face him. “It’s fucking three in the morning. On a Wednesday. When’s the last time you saw a customer?” Patti looked at Zach but didn’t meet his eyes. He ran a hand down his face and said, “I’m taking my fifteen. Tell Steve to go jerk off a snake if he comes looking.”

Zach left toward the front doors, and Patti went back to scanning.

Today, the Zaibatsu Corporation has become one of the most powerful multinational entities in the world. Still headquartered in Kyoto, Zaibatsu and its many subsidiaries account for nearly seventy percent of Japan’s annual GDP. Worldwide, we employ more than fifty million faithful associates, making us the world’s largest employer, by far!

The sprinklers started without an alarm. All at once, Patti’s world was filled with red. A deluge of crimson flowed from overhead, coating every box, every piece of produce, every tool and tire. Blood painted the Zaibatsu’s corners and ceilings, and in the harsh fluorescent light, everything shone.

Patti spat the copper taste out of her mouth and squinted through the downpour. She ran two aisles over and pulled a children’s umbrella off a hanger. She opened it and took refuge under a cartoon Cinderella. The small shield made a halo around her, and blood streamed off the umbrella’s tines. It was too thin to be blood alone, must have been mixed with water. All those dead cats and cows and dogs and rats, their missing blood was found.

After a few minutes, the sprinklers stopped, and Patti lowered her umbrella. All the sound had been washed from the air, and only quiet remained. Patti was drenched. Her eyes stung, and her skin felt sticky, and already blood began to coagulate and turn black under her nails and in the grooves of her palms. Her hair hung heavy and clumped.

Overhead, the intercom clicked on, and Cathy’s distorted voice came garbled through the speakers. “All associates to the breakroom,” she said.

Taking careful steps as she went, Patti headed over. Blood sloshed in her shoes, insoles squishing under her toes and heels. Steve and Carter appeared from the back, just as blood-painted as Patti. Alice, from the customer assistance desk, passed with a shell-shocked look about her.

They trickled in as singles and pairs and gathered near the middle of the room. The breakroom was dry, but its low pile carpet soaked up their footsteps, turning from grey to muted red. Zach was missing, Patti noticed. Hadn’t come back from his smoke break. In her connected office, Cathy spoke to a man dressed in a black suit.

Carter sidled up to Patti. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“The guy from Corporate, I think.”

“In the middle of the night shift?”

“It’s like 6 PM in Kyoto,” said Patti.

“You think he’s Japanese?”

Cathy’s door opened, and both she and the suited man walked through. Cathy was as soaked as the rest of them, but the man was pristine, not a drop of red on him, or his high-starched white shirt. A matte tie sat clipped in center of his chest, colored in the customary Zaibatsu forest green. In his right hand, he carried a hard-plastic case about four feet wide and two across.

“Everyone, this is Mr. Kurokawa,” said Cathy. “He’s come all the way from Headquarters to investigate the . . . things that have been happening. If you would all please greet our honored guest.”

They all bowed at the waist, as the training videos had taught them. Kurokawa returned the bow, though less deep. “I thank you for your hospitality,” he said. No accent marked his words.

“Mr. Kurokawa has requested that we begin our meeting with the chant, as always,” said Cathy. Everyone grumbled and began pushing tables to the side.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Cathy?” said Carter. “We’re literally covered in blood, and you want us to clap and chant like morons?”

“Carter—” Kurokawa held up a hand and silenced Cathy.

The Japanese man took a few relaxed paces toward Carter. “Mr. Fields,” said Kurokawa. “You have been a member of the Zaibatsu family for more than three years. Is this correct?”

Carter looked at the other warehouse guys, and at Patti. “That’s right,” he said. “You know me?”

“In those three years, has the Zaibatsu Corporation misled or mistreated you?”

“Not unless you count how much I get paid.”

Kurokawa smiled. “But you are always paid?”

Carter nodded.

Kurokawa placed a flat hand on Carter’s shoulder. “What has happened here today is unfortunate,” he said. “You have my word, and the word of the Zaibatsu Corporation, that all your questions will be answered in time. But first, we should honor the company that has given us so much. Alright, Mr. Fields?”

Carter fell in line, and so did the others. Cathy began her clapping, and her chanting. All together, stained the same color, their green shirts shaded black with blood, the staff looked almost identical to one another. Patti felt strange in the presence of them, like she were fading, falling into a wave and dissolving into the water. Her hands worked of their own volition, and the response to Cathy’s call poured from her throat.

“Zai!”

“Batsu!”

Over and over. Patti leaned into the feeling, gave herself over to the flow of words and rhythm.

Kurokawa stood center the ring, his neck craning, owl-like, from associate to associate. He dropped his plastic case at his feet and knelt to open it. An intense reek filled the air, the smell of rot and death pluming out of the case and blasting through the breakroom. He reached into the case and pulled up a half-decayed cow head. He placed the head at his feet and took another from the case, this one a cat.

Save her hands and mouth, Patti could not move. Her eyes shot wide and rolled in their sockets, the same as her coworkers. All were frozen, caught in the force of the chant, in the strange ritual.

Each head found its place at the feet of an associate. As Kurokawa positioned them, he said a chant of his own. “Usta. Biaz. Usta. Biaz.” Low and measured, his voice hummed under the high keening of the crowd. Hisses wove through each word. His tongue flitted from his mouth, forked down the middle like a snake’s. He laid a cat head at Patti’s feet. Clouded eyes stared up at her.

Kurokawa returned to his case and pulled a dagger, gleaming and wicked in the flickering  fluorescent light. The man from Corporate went first to Carter, who he stabbed through the heart.

As a new associate of the Zaibatsu family, it’s important that you not be distracted by rumors fabricated to harm the image of our company. While yes, it is true that Zaibatsu spelled backwards is Usta’biaz, the name of an ancient Mesopotamian proto-blood god, this is pure coincidence. Further, the idea of a once-per-decade sacrifice of a single location’s staff is patently ridiculous. The Zaibatsu family has suffered its tragedies over the years, but no more so than any other corporation.

Remember: you are part of a team now, a family, and families stick together. Ignore those that would weaken our family from the inside or the outside. Trust your corporate guides. They won’t steer you wrong!

As Carter bled out on the carpet, he continued chanting.

Kurokawa took a step to his left and stood before Tim. He stabbed the butcher in the heart just the same. Alice was next in line, and then Terry, one of the pickers, and then Patti.

Patti struggled against herself, pushing up against the inside of her own skin. Muscles and bones wouldn’t budge. She was held still by some terrible magnet beneath the earth, locked from head to toe and helpless. Her eyes followed the gleam of folded steel as it crested high above Kurokawa’s head and careened downward, slamming up to the hilt into Alice’s chest.

“Oh!”

Patti’s eyes rolled to the breakroom door. Zach stood in the threshold, clean of blood.

“Shit!” he said. Kurokawa’s head bolted in Zach’s direction. The corporate man’s forked tongue flicked, testing the air.

Zach pointed at Kurokawa. “Reptilian,” he said. “I fucking knew it.”

Kurokawa shot toward Zach with the knife, striking forward with serpent fluidity. The Reptilian closed the gap between them in a second, but Zach had already dodged away. He stumbled and toppled onto Cathy. They both fell to the floor.

The circle broke, and the clapping stopped. Those standing collapsed, and the chant went with them. Patti fell to a heap, her jaw aching from the chant and her palms split and freshly bloodied. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees.

Some hideous fire filled Kurokawa’s face, and a terrible slithering sound jumped from his throat. He stalked forward and grabbed Zach by the scruff of his shirt. Zach kicked at Kurokawa and landed a blow between the legs. The Reptilian folded, doubled over in pain, and Zach scrambled to his feet.

Kurokawa drew a ragged breath and stood to his full height. He lashed out with the knife, and Zach dodged, but the stab was a feint. Zach retreated into a table, and his knees buckled, landing him on his back. Kurokawa was on him, one pale hand wrapped around Zach’s bearded throat.

Patti pushed herself up and barreled headlong into Kurokawa. The tackle knocked him, and the dagger fell from his hand onto the table. Zach grabbed it and, in one desperate jab, stabbed Kurokawa in the shoulder. The Reptilian hissed and jerked back. The others were getting to their feet, and all eyes were on him. Kurokawa ripped the knife out of his shoulder and bolted, disappearing into the store.

Remember, a Zaibatsu smile makes for a Zaibatsu day!

Patti offered Zach a hand and pulled him up. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” said Patti.

They sat for a while, on the bloodied top of a folding table. Cathy went to call the police, and the others talked in circles around the dead.