EPILOGUE PART III: Sappily Ever After"Meow?" That stray orange cat that always lingered around the dumpster, an unofficial store mascot that the staff had dubbed "Eldritch", whined for his attention and received none as he tossed another full garbage bag into the dumpster.
"Sorry, kitty, I wouldn't feed my worst enemy this shit."
He slammed the back door shut behind him as he re-entered the building. It was loud. Violent. And cathartic, though not nearly enough of the latter to soothe what truly ailed his heart.
Young Mr. Trask, known to his co-workers and clients alternately as Lenny, Larry, and Lesley (even though his name was actually Lemmy), paced frantically through the freshly remodelled employee break room of Papa John's Location #666 [Transylvania & Wallachia]. He was feeling as though he had been incredibly stupid. Stupid and cowardly. His Anger Management Coach had told him to not be so hard on himself, but he could not help it. Not being able to do what he knew was right made him feel weak, despite his stocky, muscular, low center of gravity frame. And this sense of weakness made him angry.
It wasn't Ronald Gabor's fault. Lemmy didn't want to take it out on Gabor's hard work to spruce up the break room. But it was time. Enough was enough, something or someone had to pay, and the goons were all purged.
As he shook, his head turned towards the employee lockers. SHE was gone, but HER fireax was still there. Even if it wasn't the only fireax around, anyone would know it was HERS because she had written "Wendy" on a piece of paper with a colored pencil (blue) and taped the hastily made label to the handle. Trask grabbed the ax, and thus he crossed the Rubicon (or Danube, in this case, since its Eastern Europe we're talking here).
He grabbed it with both hands. The weight felt good: light, balanced. It would swing well.
As he lifted it, he heard it too. The ax
sang to him, as with the chorus of a myriad of young female voices.
Kill them... Kill the Shit men... Kill them... All the shit men... The unholy immortals..."Kill? Yeah I get mad but, killing someone?"
"LET US DRINK THE BLOOD OF THE BLOOD DRINKERS, SHIT MAN, AND WE WILL GIVE YOU PEACE OF MIND. KILL FOR US, SHIT MAN, AND WE WILL MANAGE YOUR ANGER FOREVER.""Wait, you can help me with my anger issues?"
"...UM...SURE WE CAN! ABSOLUTELY! YES. BUT FIRST KILL FOR US, SHIT MAN. LET US BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF THE NIGHT CHILDREN. IT EXFOLIATES THE PORES.""Oh, okay then. Who do I kill?"
"SHIT MEN. VAMPIRES. EVERYBODY. WE ARE DRY AND DIRTY AND THIRSTY, LEMMY. GIVE US OUR BATH." "Yes... yes... kill... I will kill..." Lemmy said to himself, flatly, a hundred kilometers away from himself. "Kill them all. Kill all the shit men."
"DUDE. WHAT THE FUCK?"
The spell was broken by a much different female voice.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were fired!"
"MINE!" Feral Wendy howled, grasping for it. Dumbstruck as he invariably was in her presence, Trask surrendered it without a fight.
"Singing Boss rehired everybody before he sold to Victor, DUMMY. And It's a one hander. You idiot. Ughhh!" her prescription shoes emphasized her grunting as they squeaked on the floor.
She overturned the table, flipping it by using her fireax as a lever. Then she hacked wildly at one of the legs, hurtling splinters in every direction before it finally came loose.
"See?" She spun on her heels with one final gym floor-like squeak and pushed her way through the door to the Front Of House.
Trask punched the lockers. Idiot. Loser. Coward. There she was, walking away again and he still wasn't saying anything.
He saw her punching out on the timeclock to end her shift. For some fool cost-cutting reason pandemic to food service, clocking out had to be done on the computerized cash register, so customer orders were temporarily impeded. Several customers whined. Victor, the new Owner and Manager in one, chided their lack of manners in his customary loud voice and excessively flowery language.
Soon she would be gone again. What if it was finally for good this time?
Something in him finally cracked.
"WAIT!" a voice that sounded like his bellowed.
Some force compelled his legs to run after her. He felt out of his body, somehow, as he caught up to her just before she pushed her way through the front door.
"Um...Wendy?"
She stared at him, bemused. Most people didn't get in her way when she had her ax in hand.
"Um....uh...nevermind."
She frowned.
"No wait um I mean, uh, Ankh's band is playing tonight. And, uh, we're both off tomorrow."
There was a long silence. Nobody moved.
"....iwashopingmaybeyouwouldwannagowithmeandwatchhimplay."
Even the dine in patrons (many of whom were regulars and remained leal consumers despite the recent rash of tainted pizzas, and who also recognized Feral Wendy due to her excited animalistic yelps she would make while flipping pizzas out of the ovens and onto serving platters) let out a collective gasp.
"...imeanidon'teventhinkheandhisbandareanygood, butiftheysuckwecouldatleastlaughathimtogethermaybe?"
Wendy didn't say a word.
"Oh. Sorry to bother you Wendy." Trask began to turn around.
Feral Wendy set her ax leaning against the front door. Turning around to face Trask, she smirked at him. With a crazed glare in her eyes aimed like laser blasts solely at him, she started running her fingers through Trask's hair. Not gently, this was no handy caress. But methodically, pinching it with her fingers, one strand at a time, as if she were searching for something. Periodically she stopped, seeming to find it. At these points she closely examined her own fingers and squeezed, crushing something, after which she resumed going through Trask's hair.
Trask blushed, for he had watched enough nature documentaries on the Discovery Channel to realize what this meant.
The dine in patrons and the rest of the staff, all of whom were now looking on, knew what it meant in light of Wendy's feral upbringing too. Everyone began to hoot and holler and cheer and whistle and not worry in the slightest about the implications of a pizza cook having lice and not wearing a hairnet, which they really should have but in really touching moments like these.
Only Alexandra Stan seemed unhappy, hissing and fretting and pacing back and forth as though she wanted very much to leave, but could not approach the front door for some reason. As she fidgeted, her eyes never wavered from that ax.
Satisfied with the state of Lemmy's hair, Wendy smiled more broadly than she had since the day she seized Todd's adderall stash and gotten his goon ass fired and started selling his supply herself. She squatted to pick up her family heirloom with one hand, and as she stood back up, grabbed Lemmy Trask's hand by the other.
And so they left: boy, girl, and magically vengeful cursed fireax, just like it always is in the fairy tales.
Later on at Ankh's concert, during the finale, which was a particularly terrible and uninspired rendition of a song that sounded like Pantera's "Walk" but was being played too sloppily for anyone, possibly even the band, to be certain, Lemmy and Wendy were minding their own business rolling their eyes at the band when they were jostled by the idiots trying to mosh, and their faces pressed together. They quickly decided they liked this arrangement very much.
They did it again and again and made sure, with obnoxious certainty, that everyone else in attendance saw them do so, on their way out of the venue.
As they left, hand in hand in axhandle, Lemmy Trask caught something -- someone -- familiar out of the corner of his eye. Someone who was an even worse singer than Ankh.
Older, balder, fatter, right arm even more atrophied than before, but it was still unmistakably his old boss, Singing Peyton Manning, pointing at him (with his LEFT arm) and nodding in approval, a sly smile on his face.
Trask almost started to move towards him and drag Wendy along for the ride, but the old boss stopped him with a quick shake of his head.
"Don't worry about me, Lemmy. Landed on my feet. Always do. Got bored with all my idle time after selling the store to Victor. Found a new job."
And with that he whipped his old throwing arm one more time, flicking a tiny, velvety box, and since Lemmy was well within 20 yards, the throw was right on the mark, and Trask caught it with his free hand easily.
Every Kiss Begins With Kay!"Got a feeling you might need this soon, kid. And I'll be in OMAHA! OMAHA! OMAHA! by then."
Trask slipped the little box into his pocket. Wendy noticed the commotion and turned to look at what had managed to divert Trask's attention from her own self.
She saw the old boss and, as was her way, flipped him off. And then waved at him with a big smile. She never saw the little box.
Well, not for another year or so, anyway.
FIN.Thanks to the players for playing, the mod for modding, and to the non-players for popping in and egging us on