Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror Read Online Free PDF Page B

Whenever people ask for paper, I want to shout, Timber!
    I don’t say anything, but Sadie the Sadist does.
    Nudging me, she whispers, Fuck her; use the plastic .
    Without waiting for the woman’s answer, I flounce my plastic bags, preparing them for loading.
    “Whatever works,” the woman says.
    Score for me.
    And score for her.
    I won’t smash her buns.
    The toddler taps her glitter wand on my head.
    I stick out my tongue and I quickly retract it. (Sadie the Sadist did that.)
    The kid scrunches up her nose.
    “I don’t like you.”
    “I don’t like you either,” I say quietly, so only she can hear.
    The wand slaps me.
    “Arboles, that’s not nice.” The woman glances at me, concerned. “You all right?”
    “Fine.”
    When her mother turns away, I bare my teeth at Arboles and snarl.
    Wendy is on a roll, pushing toilet paper, celery, shampoo, eggs, and milk along the belt so fast that I experience a pileup. You might think bagging is easy, but I have to think fast. The nightmare is forgetting to give a bag to a customer. If I notice in time, I chase them through the parking lot. Otherwise, I have to bring the bag to the Customer Service desk. Do that often enough and I’ll be written up.
    Justus already gave me a verbal warning.
    Which reminds me: I haven’t seen him today.
    That realization lifts my mood.
    Humming along to the piped-in music (“Life in a War Zone”), I finish bagging the woman’s stuff and load each bag into the cart, while attempting to avoid an attack of the witch’s wand.
    At least the little shit stopped shrieking.
    When they leave, I ask Wendy, “You seen Justus?”
    She juts out her hip. “Why? You miss him?”
    I smirk.
    So does she, playing it cool, but everybody knows Wendy has the hots for him.
    “Now that you mention it,” she says to me, “I haven’t seen that man since Friday.” Then, turning to her buddy at Check Stand 10, “You seen Justus lately?”
    “I heard he called in sick.”
    Wendy frowns. “Maybe he walked.”
    Employees do that around here, quit without giving notice. One guy marched over to the manager, threw his apron down, and shouted, “I can’t take it anymore.” Then there was the girl who worked in Deli for two hours, went for a smoke and never came back. Don’t forget the bakers—two middle-aged women who got into a fistfight in the middle of the night. Frozen baguettes make great weapons.
    Note to self: If the baguette gets bloody, just stick it in an oven and bake away the evidence.
    My point is, people come and go here faster than Louie CK (Sadie’s favorite comedian) agrees to a blowjob.
    But I don’t think Justus would walk. He’s a manager, enjoys pushing people around and makes good money. Why would he give that up?
    I’ve got a hinky feeling about him.
    “Sadie, you’re staring into space.”
    I don’t like being interrupted. My hinky feeling is replaced by anger.
    A supervisor stands in front of me. Curly hair, a goofy smile that makes me want to punch her teeth. I haven’t memorized all the CRM’s names yet, so I read her tag: Terri.
    Terri for terrible.
    “I need a propane exchange. Sadie, will you get that, please?”
    She phrases it like a question, but it’s an order. I head to the service desk, get the key out of the drawer, then meet the customer out front where we keep tanks of propane. I unlock the storage unit, the sun beating down, so hot I wonder if the tanks of propane might explode. I know they’re not supposed to, but what if the tanks got so toasty they burst? What if someone lit a match?
    The customer’s car pulls up to the curb. He hands me an empty tank, and I hand him a full one. At any given time, we have over a hundred five-gallon tanks on hand, about five thousand gallons of propane. That should be enough to incinerate this building.
    I go back inside, replace the key in the drawer, and head to Check Stand 9, but someone else is bagging—a kid they hired yesterday.
    Terri looks up from her