ZED-MART
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
UNIVERSE DESIGNATION RB-00T
ONE YEAR AFTER THE KASLAN COMPANY BUDDI DOLL INCIDENT
Life was meant to be different. Karen Barclay survived great trauma, she was nearly killed in an impossible scenario involving murderous toys and her son’s Buddi doll Chucky who hung her by the neck in the Zed-Mart warehouse to act out a fit of simulated jealousy. There was a glimmer of hope on the other end of that trauma, a chance that things could change. They didn’t. First there was Mike and a potential romance hidden somewhere in the handsome detective but with his mother gone and the craziness settled, there weren’t many reasons for him to come around. Soon, he stopped altogether. Then there was Andy. Karen fooled herself into thinking that a near death experience would bring her closer to her teenage son, but when the dust cleared he only withdrew more.
After the hospital, after the failed lawsuits, life just went back to normal. The news cycle moved on and normal came back. No, not normal, worse than normal, because things were definitely worse now. Life snapped back into place like a rubber band but the rubber band had been stretched too far. It hung loose now. Karen was back working at the Zed-Mart and she still struggled with bills but now she had hospital bills on top of everything else that kept her underwater before, and Andy’s therapy bills, too. Her romantic life was going nowhere like before but now it was even worse, Karen couldn’t even look at another man without thinking about Shane—his lies and his death—it was normal but poisoned, melting out from around her, and the only thing Karen could do to hold herself together was lie, lie and pretend that everything was okay the way it was.
“Next,” Karen called out. She was working the counter on this shift, a closing shift—the worst shift—and her line was starting to thin for the first time all day. A woman with swollen shoulders and a body the shape of an egg teetered up to the counter on tiny feet that were pink and puffy around the ankles. She slammed her phone down on the counter and sniffed snot back into her runny nose. “How can I help you?”
“It won’t work,” the woman said, voice like a coughing donkey.
“What won’t work?”
“It,” she pointed down to the phone with a finger that had the nail chewed down to the quick. An app was open, the Kaslan App and there was an error screen up.
“Let me see what I can do,” Karen put on her best polite face, using a smile she saved for customers she loathed, and she picked up the phone. It had a cracked screen but the two buttons worked and when she checked other apps they worked fine. There was no need for updates and it was running fast, it was just the one app that wasn’t doing much. “It looks like the problem is with the app itself, not the phone.”
“Okay,” the woman said. She paused to suck a breath down her throat, refusing to let her nose participate in the breathing process. “So fix it.”
“I think you misunderstand me,” Karen said. “The problem is with the app. We… we don’t actually control the Kaslan app here. We sell the phones, and… stuff. The app is third party.”
“I don’t care how many parties you’re having, I want my damn thing to work,” the woman barked.
“I understand, and I get that it’s totally frustrating but—”
“I don’t think you get jack and or sh*t, little missy.” The woman scooped up her phone. “Where is your manager, I would love to speak to your manager.”
Karen sighed. “He’s by the coats.” There was no point in fighting her. The angry customer marched off, pouting and huffing and puffing and as she left Karen said, “Thanks for shopping at Zed-Mart,” and flashed another fake smile toward the woman who already had her back turned.
The rest of the shift went just about as smoothly. Almost every customer brought an attitude with them, like it was a crime to shop at Zed-Mart in a good mood. The cranky lady with the faulty app got Karen written up, so that was fun, and on top of all that Janice left early with a stomach bug which meant that Karen was forced to close up solo. It was a sh*tty cap to a sh*tty day and all Karen wanted to do was get home, get ignored by Andy, and watch Queer Eye on the couch with a pint of mint chocolate chip.
Till counted, doors locked, lights off; by the time Karen finished closing up her back ached in three places and her feet barked. The shoes she wore were old, something she had since before the incident, and they pinched around the toes. They made everything else hurt too after a long shift of being on her feet. So when it was all said and done, and Karen left out the back—stepping into the back alley into the cold Chicago night—she was spent beyond belief.
The cold bit at Karen’s fingers but she didn’t jam her hands in her coat pocket. Her keys were folded up in one hand, poking through her knuckles, and her other hand clutched her pepper spray. She didn’t take chances anymore. Everything that happened that night one year ago, everything that happened with Chucky, it didn’t break Karen, but it made her cautious in a way she was never cautious before. She walked down that dark back alley on her way to the employee lot, her brisk step motivated by the cold and the dark and her desire to pick up McDonald’s for her and Andy on the way home, but she didn’t make it to the edge of the Zed-Mart building before discovering something strange.
Trash blew in the wind, swirling and dancing through the air. But Karen didn’t feel the wind. It wasn’t a windy night at all, yet the trash still danced. Newspapers blew and spun through the air down the alley ahead of her, swooping up almost ten feet before coming back down. Somewhere far away thunder cracked but there weren’t any clouds in the sky. The hairs on the back of Karen’s neck stood upright, but if asked she would have no explanation for what was going on or why it even scared her. Then her ear tickled. There was a laugh, was that a laugh? It was like she heard it in her head. She spun around and no one was there. When she turned back the trash stopped dancing.
BOOM!
More thunder. Still no clouds. Something laughed again but it was more distant, more hollow this time.
“KARRRRReeeeen,” a voice blew down the alley like the wind, but Karen couldn’t tell where it came from. She looked both ways. How did it sound like it was coming from both directions. “Come play, Karen, let’s have some fun…”
Not taking chances, Karen rushed to the Zed-Mart’s back door, fumbling for her keys, running away from the strange voices and noises and feelings of the alley, rushing away from it all. She made it a few yards or so before a bright green light glowed beneath her and she dropped through a whole in the ground, swallowed up by the light and disappearing from the alley, from Chicago, from her universe.
The light was gone. Karen Barclay was gone. The alley was quiet again.
TEMPORARY APARTMENT OF CHARLES LEE RAY
DALLAS, TEXAS
UNIVERSE DESIGNATION PRIME
Bleary eyes opened up. Karen was on the floor, a hard and unforgiving floor that made her already sore back ache even more. There were water spots staining the ceiling above her. She was… inside. What? How did she get… where was she?
Sitting up, Karen’s head swam. She held the back of it, feeling a bump from where she landed, and some of her dark hair came out, sliding between her fingers. Someone… someone had snipped it off. The room she was in smelled like vinegar and plastic. It was a mildewy apartment with no furniture or anything. It was just a bunch of empty space. Karen wiped the hair off her fingers and onto her slacks and that’s when she noticed that she wasn’t wearing her Zed-Mart vest or the clothes she had on in the alley. She was in an ill-fitting suit—black blazer with a white shirt and striped pants that matched the jacket.
“What the f***?” she whispered to herself.
“Finally,” a man’s raspy voice echoed out from the other room. “She wakes. I was starting to think you were going to sleep all day. F***, you sleep long. You didn’t hit your head that hard, what’s it made out of, pudding?” Panic flushed through Karen. Her eyes darting, searching out an exit but only a bathroom was behind her. The exit had to be around the corner, on the other side of that voice. “A part of me thought I should get this all done with before you wake up, get it over with, y’know? But then I thought, naaaahhh, f*** that. You may not be my Karen Barclay, but you’re a Karen Barclay, and even though you look different a Karen is still a Karen, and there’s nothing I like more than making a Karen suffer.”
The voice walked around the corner and panic flooded Karen’s heart. She scurried back across the floor and hit the wall hard. “Chu… Chucky.” she sighed. This doll was different, older looking, plastic and rubber like a cabbage patch, and taller too. And his face was almost… human, but it was still Chucky.
“Ahhh, so you know me,” he shrugged, a very human shrug. It was only now that Karen saw a kitchen knife in one hand and a voodoo doll looking thing in the other. “I’m not used to this whole parallel world nonsense thing but I figured if it’s good enough for Andy it’s good enough for me.”
“Andy?” Karen cried. “You didn’t--”
“Relax, toots, I’m not talking about your Andy I’m talking about my Andy, jeez, settle down,” Chucky said. “Can you shut your trap for a second? Gosh, women are all talk-talk-talk-talk-talk.”
Karen shot to her feet. Maybe there was a window she could climb out of in the bathroom. She scurried for the bathroom but then cried out in pain and dropped to the floor, clutching her leg. Chucky stabbed the voodoo doll in the leg with the knife and when Karen looked back she saw some of her hair tied around the doll’s neck.
“Can’t have that now, Karen,” Chucky said. “Now stop… stop and listen. I need you to hear this and I don’t want to hurt my new body too much, alright, babe. Now will you listen. LISTEN!”
Karen rolled over onto her back, eyes trembling with tears. Chucky smiled, teetering closer to her on his short f***ing doll legs.
“Your kid and me, haha, f***, Karen, we’ve been going at it for some time now over here,” Chucky said. “Thirty years, thirty f***ing years Andy Barclay has been a thorn in my side causing me nothing but trouble time and time again. But times are changing, now it’s time for the Chuck to cause a little trouble again.”
“What the f*** are you doing to me?” Karen cried.
“This isn’t about you, bitch!” Chucky bent one of the arms on the voodoo doll backward and Karen screamed out in as her arm snapped back and broke.
“I aint’ no bargain bin rip off, lady,” Chucky shouted. “The Chucky of your world is some Tiny Terminator bullsh*t, but you’re dealing with the genuine article now. You might not look like her but you’re still a Karen, you’re still the mother, and I can’t think of a better way to f*** with that little brat than wearing me a Karen suit.”
“What are you talking about?” Karen held her damaged arm, unsure of what was going on.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chucky shook his head and tossed the knife and voodoo doll to the side. “It’ll all be done in a minute, toots, just stay still and keep it down. I got neighbors.”
Karen screamed as Chucky charged her. She flinched, expecting the worst—there wasn’t much she could do to fight back in her condition—but when Chucky reached her there wasn’t an attack, or lashing out, or anything like that. He put his small plastic hand on her forehead and… and he started to chant.
“Ade due Damballa!” Chucky said, and suddenly what little light that bled into the room through some distant window went away. Darkness came in, and thunder rolled outside. “Give me the power I beg of you! Ade due Damballa! Ade due Damballa! GIVE ME THE POWER I BEG OF YOU!”
Thoughts drifted to Andy. Karen had no idea where she was, what was happening, or what was going to happen. All she could do was think of her son. That’s when she slipped away. The room fell out from under her and Karen dropped down somewhere dark, falling into some great sunken place where the world was just a tiny light floating above her. Thunder echoed. Chucky laughed. Karen kept slipping.
***
“Holy f***ing sh*t… holfy f***ing sh*t it worked,” Charles Lee Ray cackled a little in front of the mirror. He tossed his hair, his new hair, Karen’s hair, and he struck a pose. This was the best f***ing plan he ever came up with. After the failure of the great Nica experiment, he needed a new flesh suit for his ringleader responsibilities, and what better flesh than the flesh of a Barclay. Chucky licked his new pretty lips, stepped over the empty doll he left behind, and left his apartment. Thunder continued to boom outside, the gods not pleased by Chucky’s latest trespass.
The hallway sparked as light fixtures dangled from the ceiling. The building had been struck by lightning in the process of the ceremony. Neighbors poked their heads out of their apartments, worried and confused. Chucky ignored them all and continued on his way out the building.
“Andy, Andy, Andy, you don’t know what’s coming,” he mumbled to himself, chuckling a bit. “Come to mama.”
