Jacks Magic Beans Read online

  DEADITE PRESS

  205 NE BRYANT

  PORTLAND, OR 97211

  www.DEADITEPRESS.com

  AN ERASERHEAD PRESS COMPANY

  www.ERASERHEADPRESS.com

  ISBN: 1-936383-45-4

  Jack’s Magic Beans ©2007, 2011 by Brian Keene

  Without You ©1997, 2011 by Brian Keene

  I Am An Exit ©2004, 2011 by Brian Keene

  This Is Not An Exit ©2008, 2011 by Brian Keene

  The King, in: YELLOW ©2001, 2011 by Brian Keene

  Cover art copyright © 2011 Alan M. Clark

  www.ALANMCLARK.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Printed in the USA.

  Acknowledgements

  For this new edition of Jack’s Magic Beans, my thanks to everyone at Deadite Press; Alan Clark; Monica Kuebler; Nate Lambert; Dennis Duncan; Sean and Francesca Lewis; Adam Brelsford; Tod Clark, Kelli Owen, Mark Sylva, and John Urbancik (who proofread the original version); Geoff Cooper (for Without You); J.F. Gonzalez (for The King in Yellow); Mary SanGiovanni; and my sons.

  OTHER DEADITE PRESS BOOKS BY BRIAN KEENE

  Urban Gothic

  Take The Long Way Home

  Jack’s Magic Beans

  For Jim and Bonnie Moore . . .

  CONTENTS

  Jack’s Magic Beans

  Without You

  I Am An Exit

  This Is Not An Exit

  ‘The King’, In: YELLOW

  Jack’s

  Magic

  Beans

  ONE

  The lettuce started talking to Ben Mahoney halfway through his shift at Save-A-Lot.

  He’d shown up for work ten minutes late. Mr. Brubaker was waiting for him at the time clock.

  “You’re late, Mahoney.”

  Ben sighed. “Sorry, Mr. Brubaker. I had to stay late after school. I was talking to my teacher. Been having trouble with calculus.”

  This was bullshit. In fact, Ben had hung around to ask Stacy Gerlach if she’d go to Eleanor Murphy’s party with him on Friday night. Eleanor’s parents were in New York for the weekend on one of these bus trips where you got to go shopping and see a Broadway show. The party was supposed to be off the hook—two kegs and a DJ playing trance-hop all night long. Sadly, Stacy already had a date. Pissed off at this news, Ben had blown through two red lights on his way to work. He’d also blown his sub-woofer because the bass was cranked too high. Ben’s bad day got worse, and his anger was still simmering when he rushed in.

  He did not tell Mr. Brubaker any of this. Instead, he apologized and swore that it wouldn’t happen again.

  Scowling, hands on hips, Brubaker stomped away to holler at somebody else. Ben swiped his timecard, walked into the break room, pulled his smock out of his locker, and fished around in his pockets for loose change. He put four quarters into the soda machine, waited for the can to clunk down, popped the tab, took a sip, and then started his shift—all while trying to ignore the dull headache building behind his eyes.

  Ben worked part-time in Save-A-Lot’s produce department. He came in during the evenings and spent four hours rotating the fruit and vegetables—a process that involved pulling all of the produce out of the bins, placing fresh produce on the bottom, and then putting the older produce back on top. That way, customers would pick the older stuff first and it wouldn’t go bad. The only problem with this method was that most of the people who shopped at Save-A-Lot knew about rotation and they invariably dug through the fruits and vegetables to the bottom of the bin, thus finding the fresher selections and fucking up all of his hard work.

  Old people were especially bad about doing this, and that was one of the reasons Ben hated them. He also hated the way they walked and the way they smelled. He hated it when an old person was in front of him on the road. They didn’t know how to drive. He hated it when they walked in front of him, blocking the aisle. He hated how they always bothered him with stupid questions when he was busy stocking shelves. He worked in the produce department. He knew where the apples were. Why, then, would they ask him where the spaghetti was located? You want to find the pasta? Try reading the fucking signs.

  Ben was sixteen. He was physically and mentally fit—a teenaged Adonis. He would never get old. Never lose his hair or his hearing or control of his bladder. His joints and teeth would never ache. He would never have to worry about running out of breath from the simplest of tasks. His eyesight would never go bad. Neither would his internal organs. He would never have to worry about not being able to have an orgasm—let alone getting a hard-on. He was young and in his prime. These were the best years of his life and those years did not involve getting old. Old people filled him with loathing.

  So when he saw the old woman squeezing the peaches, and the lettuce told him to kill her, Ben agreed. It seemed like a reasonable idea.

  His headache got worse.

  “Kill that old bitch,” the heads of lettuce said in unison. They’d each grown a little mouth, the size of his thumbnail. Their voices were high-pitched, like a cartoon character. “Knock her over and kick her goddamned face in. Bet she’s wearing dentures. No fucking way those teeth are real.”

  Ben dropped the spray bottle that he’d been using to mist the cucumbers. He stared at the lettuce. After a moment, he smiled, forgetting all about the pain behind his eyes. The lettuce smiled back at him.

  “Go on, Ben,” the lettuce urged. “Make her bleed.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “We are the lettuce. We know everything. It has always been thus and always will be. The lettuce is wise. Now kill that old bag.”

  It was hard to argue with lettuce. Like they’d said—they were wise. Shrugging, Ben dropped his apron on the floor, rushed across the store and knocked the old woman to the floor. Her head cracked against the linoleum. It sounded very loud. The sound made Ben smile. He kicked her in the side of her face. The old woman’s dentures skittered beneath the banana display. The lettuce had been right. They weren’t her real teeth.

  The old woman pawed at his pants leg. Her eyes implored him.

  Ben spit in her face. “You squeezed. The fucking. Peaches.”

  Somebody screamed.

  Ben giggled.

  The old woman groaned.

  Then Ben stomped her face again, harder this time. Her nose splintered beneath his heel. Ben realized that he had an erection. Rubbing himself through his jeans, he raised his foot and stomped a third time. And a fourth. Then he stood on top of her face with both feet and ground his soles back and forth, pushing down with all his weight. Something gave way beneath his feet. His shoes grew wet.

  The old woman was the first to die. Ben died seconds later when Roger from the floral department skewered him through the chest with a broken mop handle. Roger laughed as he thrust the spear again. He stopped laughing and became the third to die when a customer ripped his tongue out with her bare hands.

  Then everybody started dying at once.

  ***

  Tom Brubaker had a headache and shouting made him feel better. After he was done hollering at Ben Mahoney, he shouted at the cashiers and the butchers and the baggers and a delivery guy and the little old Asian woman who ran the grocery store’s Chinese kiosk. Then he yelled at Jeremy Geist, the short, pudgy kid who was re-arranging the book and magazine display.

  “Damn it, Geist. How many times do I have to tell you? Every book should be faced out. People are more likely to buy the fucking things if they can see the goddamned covers.” />
  Mr. Brubaker arranged the books on the shelf so that the front covers were facing outward. “See? How hard is this?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Brubaker.”

  Geist’s bottom lip trembled. Brubaker focused on it, overcome with disgust. His headache intensified. His temples throbbed. Somebody screamed on the other side of the store. Brubaker ignored it. He said nothing. He didn’t speak. Didn’t holler. Didn’t move.

  Jeremy Geist thought that was worse—the not hollering part. He’d never seen Mr. Brubaker be quiet before. It made him nervous. He wondered who was screaming and why. Then more people started shrieking. There was some kind of commotion in the produce department. Things were getting weird. Shouldn’t Mr. Brubaker be concerned about what was happening, rather than the book display? Jeremy, remembering some advice his counselor had given him on dealing with conflict, decided to reason with his boss.

  “I knew I was supposed to face them out, sir. It’s just that there’s not enough room. There are too many books and not enough space in the display.”

  While Jeremy had been talking, Brubaker had been staring at the books. He’d barely heard a word the young employee said. His protests and explanations were like the buzzing of insects. Now that Jeremy was done, Mr. Brubaker grinned.

  The screams grew louder.

  Brubaker’s headache vanished. He glanced back to the shelves. Each of the paperbacks had the same title: KILL ‘EM ALL.

  It was very sound advice. After all, these were bestsellers written by important authors who knew what they were talking about. Oprah said these books had meaning and value. Oprah said these books would enrich your life. You couldn’t argue with Oprah. That was crazy.

  So he didn’t. Instead, Brubaker wrapped his hands around Jeremy Geist’s throat and squeezed. Geist’s lip began trembling again, so Brubaker squeezed harder to make it stop. It did. The lip stopped trembling, and then Jeremy stopped breathing. A few feet away from them, a customer overturned the magazine rack onto a little girl. Then the customer hopped onto the rack and jumped up and down. The child, still pinned beneath the wreckage, blood leaking from her mouth, screamed in anguish and terror for her mother. Her mother didn’t answer, because her mother was too busy shouting obscenities and clawing the face of another customer. She raked her fingernails deep, gouging furrows in the flesh.

  Brubaker remained oblivious. He focused on Jeremy and kept squeezing, even after Geist was dead.

  He didn’t stop squeezing until another customer squirted him with lighter fluid and set him on fire.

  Mr. Brubaker laughed as he burned. The more intense the flames became, the louder his laughter grew.

  ***

  Angela Waller was third in line at the pharmacy counter when the screaming started. She flinched, almost dropping her purse. The redneck guy in front of her was startled enough by the commotion to stop arguing with the pharmacist. Angie paused, waiting for gunshots—expecting maybe a robbery or some disgruntled nutcase on a rampage. When the gunshots didn’t come, she held her breath. The screams got louder.

  Behind her, somebody said, “I wish they’d shut up. My head hurts.”

  It had been a weird afternoon—getting weirder with each second. Angie had seen more road rage and rudeness on her way here than she normally saw in a month. There was something in the air, something heavy and malignant, ready to burst like storm clouds bloated with rain. If there was trouble in the store, then Angie wanted no part of it. She just wanted to get her prescription filled and go home, where she’d take off her work clothes, put on some pajama pants, curl up on the bed, and paint her toenails.

  In three days, Angie and her girlfriends were taking a cruise to Antigua in celebration of her twenty-ninth birthday. Girls only—no boyfriends or husbands. She needed her Prozac before she left. That was the only reason she remained in line when the screams began. The pills were a necessity, just like tampons, her diaphragm, her passport, and cell phone. Prozac: don’t leave home without it. She’d been diagnosed with chronic depression when she was fifteen, and had been on the drug most of her adult life. Sure, the recommended length of usage was only six to twelve months, but like her doctor said, if it helped, it helped. And help it did. She could function on Prozac. Taking it was as natural as breathing.

  The screams increased, multiplying throughout the store.

  And then Angie forgot all about Antigua and her prescription because the pharmacist lunged over the counter and stabbed his pen into the neck of the man in front of her. The redneck reared back, grasping at the pen. A little bit of blood bubbled out around it, but not as much as Angie would have expected. The redneck made a startled, squawking sort of sound. Humming the theme from The Young and the Restless, the pharmacist grappled with the injured man. Angie backed away from them, too frightened to scream, and this time she did drop her purse. Doing so saved her life. She knelt to pick it up and thus avoided a sweeping blow from the woman behind her, who had decided to crack Angie in the back of the head with a bottle of green mouthwash.

  “You slept with my Herbert,” the woman shouted. “Little whore!”

  Angie tried to skitter backwards, but there was nowhere to go. All around her, fights broke out. Customers and Save-A-Lot employees clawed, punched, and shrieked at each other. A naked fat man crawled around on all fours, growling like a dog. A severed penis dangled from his clenched teeth. A woman tried swinging from the skylights but crashed to the floor. A crowd of people leapt on her, tearing her to shreds with their bare hands. Another woman with a nail file sticking out of her breast ran past, screaming about a gnome in her tiramisu. Blood flowed—pooling on the floor, splashing across displays, pouring from wounds, and staining the hands, mouths, feet, and makeshift weapons of the attackers.

  “You fucked Herbert! You fucked him hard!”

  Angie’s attacker kicked her in the side. Slipping in a puddle of liquid soap and someone else’s blood, Angie curled into a ball and tried to protect herself. The woman yelled again, once more accusing Angie of sleeping with Herbert, but Angie was pretty sure she’d never slept with a Herbert, married or otherwise. She tried to tell her attacker that, but all that came out was a whimper.

  “Did he lick you?” the woman shrieked. “He never did that for me. The son of a bitch. He never once licked me. He said he didn’t like it. But I know the truth. He couldn’t find the clit.”

  “Please,” Angie rasped. “I don’t—”

  The woman aimed another kick, and Angie focused on staying alive.

  ***

  Marcel Dupree had just turned off his car and was double-checking the headlights, radio, and everything else when somebody rear-ended him. The impact bounced him off the steering column, knocking the wind from his lungs. Shocked, Marcel flung the door open and stumbled outside, forgetting all about the headlights. He was too flustered to speak. He could only watch in stunned silence as a black Cadillac Escalade reversed, then raced forward and rammed his car again. The SUV’s driver was hidden behind tinted windows.

  “Hey,” Marcel tried to shout. It came out more like a whisper. The driver gave no indication that they’d heard him. The Cadillac’s engine roared and smoke belched from the tailpipe.

  The impact of the collision slammed his car door shut. Marcel wondered if the door was locked. As the Cadillac backed up, he checked the door and then checked it again. He was about to check a third time, when he became dimly aware that other people were hollering, as well. He heard the distinct impact of another car crash. Sirens wailed—police, fire, and ambulance. Marcel glanced around, trying to determine what was happening. The Cadillac ran into his car again, crumpling the rear bumper.

  “Hey,” Marcel shouted, finally finding his voice. “What are you doing?”

  Forgetting about the door lock, he ran towards the Escalade, waving his fists and yelling. The tinted window slid down, revealing the driver. Marcel had never seen him before.

  “What the hell is your problem, man?”

  “You took my
parking space!” Spittle flew from the enraged driver’s mouth. His face was red. “How do you like it? Huh, motherfucker? How do you fucking like it, nigger?”

  The racial slur shocked Marcel. He’d been called it before, when he was younger, but the word still had impact. Before he could respond, the Cadillac’s driver turned the wheel and sped towards him. Marcel leapt out of the way and rolled across the hot pavement. Then he jumped to his feet and shouted for help. All around him, people ran through the parking lot. Most of them were engaged in similar battles, fighting in groups or one-on-one, using vehicles, shopping carts, tire irons, and anything else as weapons. He gaped in horror as a pick-up truck ran over a fleeing mother pushing a baby stroller, then reversed and ran over them again. The vehicle bounced up and down as the tires rolled over the corpses. A young man with a pistol shot the truck’s driver and then turned the gun on other bystanders. Some charged him, some ran away, and others totally ignored the assault, involved as they were in other fights. A cop shot the young man with the gun, blowing his lungs through his back. The officer then fired at an old woman beating a teenager over the head with her walker.

  “Police!” Marcel tried to get the cop’s attention. “Over here. Help!”

  The cop wheeled around, attracted by his cries. Marcel’s relief vanished as the cop aimed the pistol at him.

  “No!” Marcel held his hands up in surrender. “What are you—”

  A neon-green Volkswagen slammed into the cop. The policeman flipped up over the hood, smashing against the windshield. His shoes remained on the pavement—his feet still inside them. The blacktop turned red. Inside the car, four teenage girls laughed. Then they turned on each other, clawing and gouging. The Volkswagen crashed into a parked car.

  Marcel fought the urge to puke. There were angry cries behind him. He ran for the Save-A-Lot, aware that people were suddenly chasing him, shouting things—threats, curses, promises. He focused on counting his steps.

  One . . . two . . . three . . .