APOCALYPTIC HORROR

The tension in the room was becoming unbearable. Writhing in torturous discomfort, he slammed his hand down upon the red button with the greatest force he could summon from his impotent interior, sending his massive, bullet-proof, bolted down door flying open. From below, the people could hear that the evil had been released as a shriek echoed through their delicate ears.

Flying down the stairs as fast as his original brand of 1969 Capole shoes would carry him, he came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs huffing and puffing, leading him to rememeber the cigarette he had stashed away in his underwear the last time he had cleaned them a few years back for safe keeping. The cigarette, he reasoned would relax him from the Defcon 5 stage he was in now.

Regaining his terroristic composure, he strutted in only the way he could stut until he came to the opening of the little yellow door that contained his willing prisoners. "You!" he screamed, his eyeballs popping out to a distance that surely broke the previously unbeaten mark in the Guinness Book of World Records. "What is your name and what are you doing here?"

"Jerry, sir, and I work here now," I declared, a little bewildered. I had only started working at my new Subway job but twenty minutes ago, and I was already in trouble.

"Where's your instructor?" Larry asked, his cigarette whittling to a pulp as he took disgusting puff after disgusting puff.

"Lynde is in the back slicing the tomatoes," I replied, practically suffocating to death because of the lack of oxygen reaching my lungs as a result of the nefarious noxious cloud of smoke.

"Don't insult my limited intelligence, I knew that. I just wanted to see if you knew that," he proclaimed to me in a boot camp drill sergeant type tone, his pungent breath fatiguing my smelling receptacles. "Know what else?"

"No, sir," I unenthusiastically replied back, not wanting to see the ghastly beast before me a second longer.

"YOU'RE TWISTING THE BREAD WRONG!!" Larry screamed all at once in my ears, causing me to take a step back so as not to damage my ear drums too badly. "Give me that!" he said as he pilfered my slightly thawed bread stick and began to demonstrate in the same fashion in which I had done it just seconds earlier on how to "correctly" twist the bread.

"Now you do it," the confused little man said to me as he flicked his cigarette ashes into the jar os salt and pepper mix. Pretending not to notice the incredible revolting thing he had just done, I continued to twist the bread in exactly the same way I had before. "Good," he said. "One day, we'll be like this."

Chills rushed down my spine as Larry crossed his fingers.

Sensing a non-existent bond between us, Larry continued. "Want me to let you in on a little secret since you'll probably be running the place in a few years?"

What?!? I had only started working here fifteen to twenty minutes ago and this guy was already planning our future together. Trembling violently, horrific questions of the mental stability of this man and his sexual preference ran rampant in my mind. I had never been in a life threatening situation before! Oh, the humanity! "Okay," I peeped, the pressure breaking me, my voice barely audible over the heavy breathing of the man before me.

"Do you see what I'm doing here?" Larry asked as he flicked more cigarette ashes into what appeared to be a jar of salt and pepper mix. "The customers here are so stupid they can't even tell the difference! I'm gonna be rich! Hoo hee ha ha ha ha ha!"

The sudden outburst of emotion by Larry shocked me as he began to dance his version of the Addam's Family Mamooshka. Watching closely, fascinated by the movements of the strange ugly little man, I almost failed to notice the entrance of a woman, who I would later learn to be a combination of the Simpson's Ned Flanders and Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer, carrying a repulsive finger painting under one arm and a three year old little girl under the other.

"Hey diddly dee!" she yelled, taking obvious pleasure in her arrival at work. Spotting me, a terrifying smile crossed her face. "Hey, it's the new guy!" she hooted, rushing over to me, grabbing me by the cheek, and shaking me around probably just for good measure. "I'm Rhonda! I'm your new manager!"

Diabolical plans started to formulate in my head as I pondered exactly how to gain my revenge on my mom for making me get this painful job. This wasn't a job, it was insanity at its worst.

"Hey!Hey!Hey! Get your hands off him!" the jealous Larry screamed as spit spewed from his crooked redneck mouth and his arms flailed wildly about as he knocked over containers of tomatoes and pickles. "I'm your fiancee! Not him, you no good varmint!"

"I'm sorry, honey," she said in an undeserved apologetic tone to Larry, trying her best to fight back the tears. "It'll never happen again. WAAAAAAA!!! WAAAAAAAA!!!!" Streams of tears began to rush down Rhonda's face as Larry continued to bicker at her for a relatively harmless action taken on her helpless behalf.

I had to do something! While I already didn't particularly like either of the two people in front of me, I couldn't let this fight go on any further. It would have been immoral of me. I had to think of something and I had to think quick. "Isn't that a precious little girl," I said, lying through my teeth - she was actually quite hideous. "Did she paint that beautiful finger painting?"

Instantly, a smile overcame her tears as she seemed practically dumbfounded that somebody actually complimented a part of her. "No sirree Bob-a-roony! Does this look like something a child of three could paint? I painted it! I figured we could hang it out her in the dining room until the Louvre calls!" she exclaimed with a sort of giddiness that just made you want to kick the living crap follicles out of her for the gipper's sake.

"Jerry!" screamed the devilish Larry, obviously very unhappy I had interrupted their quarrel. "What do you think you're doing just sitting around and chatting when there's work to be done? Pick up those tomatoes and pickles on the floor that you spilled?"

That I spilled? If there was a hell, I was in it. As a matter of fact, I thought I could faintylsee the outline of horns pushing up against his hairless head.

Sauntering over to the broom and dust pan, I made my way back to the mess that Larry had purposely spilled for revenge's sake and tried to ignore the fact that at that very moment, Larry and Rhonda were groping each other quite emphatically.

I didn't think people were allowed to have this much fun, I muttered to myself as I feverishly hustled to finish my odious duty so as to escape the presence of the hippie like gropers and the weird stare of the booger child. However, I took comfort in the fact that it couldn't get any worse.

Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked a woman who had apparently ate too many meatball subs. "Hey diddly dee, Tammy! Perfecto deckto timing as usuality!" Rhonda yelled, dropping Larry and rushing to the side of Tammy. "We've got a new diddew here, and I'd appreciate it if you took him under you wing and taugh him the rope-a-dopes! Duh hee hee!"

Every step taken by the womaan, all 5'6" and 450 pounds of her, took her one setp closer to me and brought my world crashing down just a little bit further. Why? I screamed. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

"Kid, come here," she said, her voice deep enough to indicate some sort of testosterone use, as she reached across the counter and pulled me up by the fabrics of my uniform.

"Yes ma'am?" I asked her in my sweetest tone, trying not to form any sort of puddle underneath me.

"Look kid, I don't take no crap from no one. I used to be a Sumo wrestler until they disqualified me for killing a man with my bare hands - so don't get on my bad side. And let me tell you kid, you're almost on my bad side. Do we got a deal?" she said, in a sort of tone that would convinced me she was responsible for the death of Jimmy Hoffa if she had told me so.

"Yes ma'am." This just wasn't my day. I began to feel faint as she let me drop back to earth.

"Tammy! You're here!" burst out Lynde, oblivious of the horror unfolding until now. "Hooray! I get to go home now!"

NOOOOOOOOOOO! my internal voice screamed. Looking over at the pleasant Lynde and then looking over at Sumo Tammy wasn't my idea of an ideal alternative. I would have to spend the next four hours of my day - and possibly my life - looking at Sumo Tammy (and it was kind of hard to miss her, if you know what I mean)! Dashing over to Lynde, I begged her not to leave me here alone with the monsters. "Please Lynde!" I whispered into her ear. "You can;t do this to me! You're the only one here who's half way normal!"

"JERRY!" screamed Larry, interrupting every desperate plea of mercy I threw in the direction of Lynde. "Get back over here and finish your job!"

Grabbing the dustpan, I began to pour the maggot filled tomatoes and pickles into the trash can, much to the abhorrence of the still present Larry. "What do you think you're doing?!?" Larry screamed at me, the steam draining from his red, Prince Chuck like ears. "You better pick up every last single one of those vegetables and put them back in the containers or you're fired!"

Larry's words rang in my ears for what seemed like the longest time. What Larry was telling me to do went against everything I stood for and everything a respectable fast-food restaurant stood for. Either I comply and lose some of my dignity, or don't and face the wrath of Sumo Tammy.

"Well? Hop to it!" Larry yelled at the top of his lungs, forcing me to end my contemplation and make a move. When it became obvious I wasn't going to make a move, Larry unleashed an apocalyptic horror. "Tammy, you know what to do."

Grunting and showing her obvious pleasure, Tammy began to waddle in my direction. Trapped, I had no choice. "Okay!" I hollered, "I'll do it!"

With the flick of his wrist, Tammy backed off. "Very good," Larry crooned, gloating over his personal victory. "You'll learn one of these days."

Hanging my head low, I despondently walked over to the garbage can and began sorting through the trash to find the necessary pickles and tomatoes. Carefully pickinng every tomato and pickle I encountered out of the trash and hurling them into the container, I made no attempt to disguise my contempt with their policy.

If you need us, we'll be upstairs, Tammy," Larry said, referring to Rhonda and himself. "And Jerry, just remember, I'll have my eyes on you," Larry snarled as he pointed out two of the several surveillance cameras annointed on the walls.

Quitely brooding over the recent departure of Lynde and the arrival of Tammy, I continued to throw the vegetables into the container with incredible accuracy, all the while ignoring Tammy and her attempt to fit through the yellow doors separating the customers and employees so she could relax in the dining room.

"Hey kid, you've got a customer coming through drive-thru. We'll be listening," she said as she took a seat in her personally designed chair in the dining room lobbyt and patted her headset to insure I knew how they'd be listening.

"Welcome to Subway, what can I get for you?" I asked, surprisingly cheery for this was my only contact with the normalcy's of life.

Speaking in a barely audible monotone tone, the customer expressed his order to me. "Is your ham and cheese sub still on sale for 99 cents?"

"Yes sir, it is," I replied.

"Then I'd like 17 footlong ham and cheese subs, all with different dressing and vegetables. Blah blah blah, are you getting all this?" he said as he speedily ran through his whole order and told me what he wanted on every single sub, not caring that it was virtually impossible to remember everything he said. "Oh, and I thought you should know, if I don't get these subs within three minutes I will personally file a complaint with your management!"

"What?" I hissed, barely able to believe what I had just heard. What was wrong with these people?

"I said that if you're not done in three minutes I'm going to file a complaint. Are you done yet?" he asked impatiently, unavoidably pissing me off in the process.

"Yes, I'm done," I lied. I was going to hit him so hard my fist would show up in the X-ray. "Go ahead and pull up."

"I don't believe you're done! I think you're lying so that I'll pull up so that you can hit me so hard your fist will show up in the X-Ray! I'm not going to pull up! Let me talk to your supervisor, you IDIOT!" the obviously pea brained customer said to me.

The next few minutes were filled with a obscenity laden phrases as I told my customer exactly how I felt about him and what he could do with my supervisor. It felt kind of good. Larry was obviously listening, I thought. It's only a matter of time before he calls me up to his office to talk. Tee hee.

"Jerry," Larry finally said, "can I see you up here in my office immediately?"

"I'll be up there in a second, Lar," I buzzed back, revenge looking as sweet as ever.

Walking past a growling Tammy, I walked up the cavernous steps and began to pound on his massive door. Seconds later, his door swung open, introducing me to every sort of torturous gadget he held in his enormous office.

"What the-"

"Lar, you're really starting to piss me off! I've been taking your moronic gibberish poppycock for the last hour and now I'm going to start kicking some Subway beee-hind! This job sucks, the customers suck, the food sucks, the employees suck, the managers suck, your fiancee sucks, your fiancees' daughter sucks, your fiancees' dog even sucks, but most of all, you suck! So you can take this job," I said, pausing for the melodramatic effect and the opportunity to throw his butt-ugly Subway hat at him, "and stick it where the Sun doesn't shine! I quit!"

"You can't quit! You're fired!" burst out Larry, running with a great deal of exaggeration (at least for the average person) over to his desk, pummeling his arthritic hand into a decrepit old drawer, and producing a tiny whistle, something of a dog whistle. "You're going to get it now," howled Larry fiendishly, his batlike fangs protruding from his brown toothy smile. Blowing with an incredible amount of intensity for such a small, incompetent man, the tremors began. Tammy was coming!

"Larry, what have you done?" Panic set in, I wasn't ready to die! Not over a Subway job! As she neared, the tremors became more tenaciously deep. "For the love of God, man, tell her to back off!"

But Larry didn't tell her to back off. He just laughed. The sound of Larry's laughter drowned out every grunt and growl coming from the direction of Tammy. Suddenly, my life flashing before my eyes, an idea fell out from the sky on top of me and began to wiggle. The button! Press the little red button, the button Larry had so stupidly marked "door!"

Fearlessly scurrying over to the red button that Larry had surrounded, I quickly disposed of him by pushing him out of the way and sending him clear of the cherished red button. Blasting my hand against the button, I roared in victory as the door slammed down just seconds before Sumo Tammy was to enter the room.

"You evil little man!" I yelled, protecting the buttom from Larry, Rhonda, and their ugly booger-laden child. "Can't you do anything by yourself? Stop fleeing from. . .what the. . ?" I shrieked in fear as Tammy sent deafening blow after deafening blow into the door's frame. Finally, with one last powerful punch Tammy sent Larry's cheap imitation of a metal door reeling and my hopes of escaping alive with it as well.

With amazing agility and quickness for such a fat woman, Tammy had grabbed me by the throat in a matter of milliseconds. "I told you not to get on my bad side," she growled.

"I didn't mean to!" For fear of my life, I had started crying. "Please let me go!"

Ignoring my pleas for mercy, Tammy threw me against the wall effectively ending any relationship I would have with breathing for the next few seconds. Struggling to my feet and sucking the air in around me in mass quantities, I quickly calculated my chances of survival if I was stay in this room as zero. Suddenly, my options were all so clear - I had to leave this room ASAP or never leave again at all!

"Now," Larry purred, "don't you wish you hadn't said those nasty, nasty things?"

"Not really," I said.

"Well, you're going to be sorry! Hoo hee haa ha ha!" This was my chance! Larry was at his most vulnerable as he convulsed wildly as he was unable to contain his laughter.

Rushing over to Larry I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and demanded that everybody back off "or the evil one gets it."

Tammie seemed undeterred. I dreamed of blasting my way out of the room with a cougar magnum and maybe a DD44 Dostovei like in the movies, but this was real life! Besides, I didn't have either of those weapons. I only had my brain (as lethal a weapon as you'll ever find). My Airborne Ranger skills would come in handy here.

"Everybody get back!" I said as I flinged Larry around like a rag doll as I edged my way to what used to be the door. To my surprise, they were listening!

As soon as I saw my chance, I threw Larry to the floor, kicked him in the head, laughed, and then ran like a bat out of hell. I was free!

Sitting at home the next day, reviewing how to make a pipe bomb from the pipe bomb internet site and rejoicing in the demise of my old job, I received a phone call from Tammie at Subway. "Yeah," I said, picking up the phone. "What'cha got for me?"

"Jerry? This is Tammie," she said, her voice not growling like it did the previous day. "Don't bother coming into work today - Larry has decided not to retain your services."

"What?!?!!?" I screamed into the phone, completely flabbergasted. "I quit, you stupid ogre!"

"Still, Larry has decided not to retain your services, so don't bother coming into work," she repeated, this time hanging the phone up.

Stupid Subway.