The store doesn’t have very many customers due to the horrendous traffic snarl, which makes coping far more difficult for K. But he wiles away the hours, trying not to think about the End of the World and failing.
Toward midday he comes into the store: Allan Haight. He’s wearing a short-sleeve button-down shirt and Dockers, his hairless head tanned, mature, his jaw determined and stubbly, his eyes bright. He’s “looking for a man named K,” he says, dispatching one of the blue-shirted minions to go and fetch him.
“One of the biggest things that ever happened in little Boise,” he says, as K walks up to him awkwardly. They know each other, but barely. They made each other’s odd acquaintance in very odd ways indeed, and not long ago. Allan looks serene, a little reverential, sad. “Saw you at the wreck.”
K looks poignantly at him. “I was almost in it.”
“I know. I saw you.”
“You did? How?” K is having that disquieted buzzing feeling because Allan is in the room again. Something about him.
Allan moves to stroll toward the home theater department, his magnificence of bearing instructing K to come along. “Fortuitously, Channel Seven had a chopper in the air at the time. I called the station; turns out they couldn’t believe their luck—they were up shooting stock footage and managed to catch the whole thing. They just bought the chopper, too. Kind of a check ride for them. Really lucky.”
K stares at him.
“Anyway, I just thought you might need someone to talk to, friend.”
K looks away and down. This is the part where you respond somehow. But all he can do is groan in anxiety; the sound is embarrassing.
Allan stops. “K, I think you need to talk. I know we don’t know one another very well yet. And I’m not asking for the world here. Hell, I didn’t even have to come down here, but I did. Because I cared enough. About you. Besides, I don’t have much to do these days. Semi-retired and all that.”
K forces a meager laugh, an aw-shucks exhalation signifying surrender, the open door to the next part of the conversation. It’s the kind of gesture made when one party in a discussion capitulates to the other. “No worries.”
“Come on. Can I buy you a coffee? Starbucks is right across the parking lot.”
K finally looks him in the eye. His expression is mischievous, dodgy as he looks around for the Boss Authority. “You know, Allan, I’ve never told you this, but I’m a really shitty employee.”
Allan laughs, a barrel-chested old-fashioned laugh. “You’re so underemployed, son.”
K hopes that his wince isn’t noticeable. He hates it when older men act fatherly toward him. But he takes off his nametag, the one that he always thought should say ENIGMA instead of K, and sticks the pin into a box that holds a brand new sixty inch television set. It signifies the end of an era, because once he walks out the door of Best Buy, he never comes back. Ever.
Also by Chris White:
The OK-to-color-in picture books:
The Great Jammy Adventure of the Flying Cowboy
The Great Jammy Adventure of Ninja Agent (coming soon)
Digital Shorts:
The Marsburg Diary (coming soon)
The Airel Saga:
Airel (book I, with Aaron Patterson)
Michael (book II, with Aaron Patterson, coming soon)
Novels:
K: phantasmagoria (coming soon)
Follow the K blog and join the discussion about good, evil, and Story:
http://knovel.blogspot.com
Follow the Jammy blog:
http://thegreatjammyadventures.blogspot.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: @cpwhitemedia
Follow Chris on Facebook:
Profile: whatnorthbetrue
Pages: C.P. White Media, The Great Jammy Adventures
www.jammyadventures.com
Electronic Edition Copyright ©2011 by StoneGate Ink
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneGate Ink 2011
StoneGate Ink
Nampa ID 83686
www.stonegateink.com
First eBook Edition: 2011
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Fuji Aamabreorn
StoneGate Ink
Table of Contents
FOREWORD
Old Wives' Tales by Dave Zeltserman
The Craigslist Killer by Aaron Patterson
Faces by Allan Leverone
Caffé Seduzione by Bri Clark
Music Box by Estevan Vega
The Retrieval by J.R. Chartrand
The Spirit of Christmas by Rebecca Carey Lyles
El Valiente by Paul Levine
Christmas Time by Peter R. Leavell
Pre-IQ by K.C. Neal
"I" by Ray Ellis
The Kindly Stop Café by Mark Maciejewski
Only One by Robin Parrish
Deadline by Deborah Provenzale
Moonlight Mafia by Vincent Zandri
K: phantasmagoria (excerpted) by Chris White
Back Matter
Table of Contents
FOREWORD
Old Wives' Tales by Dave Zeltserman
The Craigslist Killer by Aaron Patterson
Faces by Allan Leverone
Caffé Seduzione by Bri Clark
Music Box by Estevan Vega
The Retrieval by J.R. Chartrand
The Spirit of Christmas by Rebecca Carey Lyles
El Valiente by Paul Levine
Christmas Time by Peter R. Leavell
Pre-IQ by K.C. Neal
"I" by Ray Ellis
The Kindly Stop Café by Mark Maciejewski
Only One by Robin Parrish
Deadline by Deborah Provenzale
Moonlight Mafia by Vincent Zandri
K: phantasmagoria (excerpted) by Chris White
Back Matter