“Tell me, you bastard. What have you done with her?”
Big Karl just stood there smiling, his hands in the pockets of his nice blue suit. He remained that way for a moment with a wistful look on his face before turning to his right and nodding his head.
Marie appeared from the darkness. She sauntered up to their father and placed a hand on his shoulder. She laid her head against his arm and they both smiled at Junior. “Happy Father’s Day, daddy,” she said.
Big Karl kissed her forehead and walked away. “Thank you, baby. I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me too.” He handed her the Polack and she watched him as he left the room. Then she turned back to Junior, who sputtered and choked on his confusion.
“Sorry, Junior,” she said. “It’s a brave new world. Gotta do what you gotta do.”
Marie spit into her hands and rubbed them together, then hefted the Polack over her head and reared back twice, measuring the feel of it. Once satisfied, she sucked in a deep breath and swung hard, gritting her teeth, sending the honed spike into Junior’s screaming mouth.
SEEING RED
by Chris Lewis Carter
Our company picnic is almost over when my boss climbs the makeshift stage built alongside a wall of cresting sand dunes. He wrenches the microphone free from its stand, causing a whine of feedback that jolts the crowd to attention.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! How is everybody feeling today?”
I finish the last bite of my hot dog, then wipe my ketchup-stained hands down the front of my yellow SunVerge t-shirt. Standing next to me, the blonde HR rep with a huge rack wrinkles her nose in disgust, so I wink and use the leftover ketchup on my fingers to smear a heart across my chest. She rolls her eyes and marches off, as the enthusiastic voice of my boss once again sweeps the beach.
“On behalf of myself, Kenneth Morgan, and the entire SunVerge family, it’s great to—”
More feedback squeals from the mic, and our resident tech geek scrambles to a nearby amplifier and fiddles with the knobs.
“Testing, testing? Okay, I think that’s better,” Kenneth says, now at a more reasonable volume. “As I was saying, it’s great to see everyone here at our annual employee appreciation day. Before we go any further, I’d like to personally thank some people who have gone above and beyond to make this event run smoothly.”
Kenneth points at the tech geek, a scrawny kid with a wispy chin beard and horn-rimmed glasses. Office gossip is that he’s almost thirty, but he barely looks old enough to be out of high school. “First, to Philip Barnes, for helping out with our sound system. Don’t worry, he’ll mute me if I say anything too embarrassing.” He pauses for a laugh that never comes, then adds, “Come on, let’s hear it for Phil.”
A few people feign a polite clap, but most decide that it’s not worth the effort of putting down their drinks. Philip waves for a few awkward seconds, then becomes interested in checking the extension cord at his feet.
“Second, to the lovely Miss Christine Dawson for organizing our games and activities. Where are you hiding, Christine?”
Across the beach, the blonde climbs on top of a picnic table and performs a sort of wiggling curtsy that sends most of the guys into a round of hooting applause. With her SunVerge shirt knotted just below her chest to expose her tanned midriff, and hot-pink bikini bottoms riding high, it isn’t hard to imagine how “Christmas Party” Christine earned her nickname.
Someone wolf whistles as she bends over to pick up her drink, which draws a few laughs from the crowd.
“Hey now, I’d know that sound anywhere,” Kenneth says, motioning towards a row of barbeques. “Tommy Hayes, you old hound dog. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about those fantastic burgers of yours.”
“It’s all in the seasoning, boss,” he calls back, stepping out from behind the grill to show off his greasy apron, which drapes over his thick slab of a gut and stops just above the knees of his cargo shorts. He waves at Christine, then makes a big show of gesturing at the words, “Kiss The Cook,” embroidered on his apron’s front.
Kenneth scans the crowd until he notices me standing by the ice chests, then shoots me a quick thumbs up. I return the gesture, but it takes most of my self-restraint not to flip him off instead.
In his mind, we’re still every bit the colleagues we were before last month’s performance evaluation. He thinks I’m still clueless as to why I didn’t get that promotion.
What a jackass.
“On a more serious note, I’d just like to say how grateful I am to have spent another year with this organization. This job means the world to me, it really does.” He lowers the mic and teethes on his knuckle, then puffs out an exaggerated breath. “Anyway, I know there’s been a lot of tension around the office lately, and the economy has been slower to rebound than we’d all like, but I promise to keep fighting for each and every one of you. Whatever it takes, we’ll get through it together.”
He locks eyes with me again, so I smile and clap like he’s the Second Coming in flowered swim trunks.
Pulling this off was even easier than I’d thought.
“Which is why I’d like to extend an extra special thanks to our lead programmer, Simon Gaines, for approaching me with his idea for a team-building exercise that we’re all about to take part in.”
Honestly, the people of Venezuela deserve most of the credit. They’ve been doing it for over sixty years. I just introduced the concept to middle-management.
Kenneth pauses for what I can only assume is dramatic effect, then says, “Have any of you heard of La Tomatina?”
A dull murmur ripples throughout the crowd.
“It’s a holiday they have in Spain,” he says. “Every year, on the last Wednesday in August, thousands of people visit the town of Bunol to take part in an hour-long tomato fight. Well, guess what? We’re about to have one of our own.”
The murmur swells to a nervous chatter. If I wasn’t the guy who sold Kenneth a line about this being a great way for the staff to “vent their aggressions,” and “have a unique, cultural experience,” maybe I’d be confused too.
“It might sound strange at first but it’s going to be great, I promise.” Down the beach, a few of the workers pull back a large blue tarp, revealing hundreds of plastic bags leaking red pulp.
People crane their necks to get a good look, muttering things like, “ridiculous,” and, “waste of food,” which is fine by me. Making Kenneth look insane for green-lighting this idea is a nice bonus.
“Before anyone asks, these tomatoes were overripe to begin with,” he says. “And they’ve been crushed, so nobody can throw anything dangerous.”
Well, nobody is a strong word.
“Everyone will get their own bag of tomatoes and then we’re going to have a ten minute free-for-all. Come on, meet me by the pile. Let’s get this ball rolling!”
Kenneth leaves the stage to a half-hearted round of applause, then immediately becomes surrounded by a hoard of unsettled employees. For a moment, I almost feel bad for the guy. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s just endorsed.
Then I remind myself how he screwed me out of a ten percent pay increase and three more vacation days a year.
Which is why I came prepared.
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT inspired the first Tomatina back in the mid-1940’s, but the most popular theory involves a mob of disgruntled residents attacking an elected official with tomatoes. These days, tens of thousands flock to Bunol every year for the event, and they’ll pelt each other with over one hundred metric tons of overripe tomatoes in sixty minutes.