One Ghost Per Serving (16 page)

“We want to make a series of branding videos for you,” Jerry said.

Eric wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted in his life so far, to win that damn contest. He hoped it would show his family that he was willing to do this crazy thing for them. He hoped that by demonstrating he could put his mind to something and actually accomplish it despite the obstacles, Willa and Taffy would see that he
did
have the confidence to take control of his life. If making web videos as unofficial mascot for an organic yogurt brand helped him do that in even the smallest possible way, he would do it.

“I’ll do it,” he said, noticing out of the corner of his eye the talon he ‘met’ at Rex’s second sponsor meeting.

Jerry hesitated slightly before saying “Great! Ah, I kind of expected to have to talk you into it, to be honest.”

Eric pulled all of the pillows on the sofa up to his crotch. The talon, aka He Who Digs In, waved back and forth, then fell back to the bus floor with a clicking sound.

“We read that article about you in the paper,” Jerry said. “You’re perfect for this. You have the sexy factor –”

“The sexy factor?” Eric couldn’t even remember the last time he felt sexy. Objectified, sure. Panicky, yes. Also tired, angry, desperate. Worthless. Not to mention defeated, betrayed, alone. Sexy? Low on the list.

“But your distressed clothing makes you seem relatable.” Jerry said.

“My clothes aren’t ‘distressed,’“ Eric said, “they’re carefully laundered and I don’t buy new things unless I need to, so I don’t –” The talon jumped up with disconcerting speed and sank itself into Eric’s sofa. Eric tried to pry it off with no success.

“We’d love to get some footage of you and your bus,” Jerry said on the phone. “The goal is to show that even though Quantal Organic Yogurt is the only thing you eat now –”

“It’s not the
only
thing,” Eric said, pulling at the talon, which made him very nervous. “Sure, I eat a lot of the yogurt, but –”

“– It’s such good yogurt that you still enjoy it, even though you eat it all the time,” Jerry said over the phone. “We could get some sexy footage of you enjoying Quantal Organic Yogurt in your bus, at work, in the store – because you can’t even wait to open it. You have to have it right there in the dairy aisle.” Eric pictured a video of him grabbing a vaguely female-shaped, life-size container of yogurt and pushing her up against the aisle to kiss her.

“And you still live in the bus, right?”

“Yep,” Eric said.

“That’s fantastic,” Jerry said. “I want to bring a team over today, now. Is that okay? Where can we find you?”

Eric gave up and let go of the talon, which then dug in even deeper and began to carve out a chunk of fabric and stuffing. Rex was going to be paying for this, or working it off. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You know those plastic bison on the side of Hardscrabble Road? Just north of that is the Fireworks Superstore & Convenience Center. I’m in the back lot, on the opposite side from the dumpster. If you see the giant colonoscopy sign, you’ve gone too far.”

Jerry was quiet. Finally, as though he realized he hadn’t spoken yet, he said, “Uh, sounds good. I’ll round up my team and we’ll see you within the hour.”

“I can wait here twenty minutes. If you and your team want to follow me, that’s fine.”

“Follow you where?” Jerry said.

“To buy yogurt, of course. I have a tight schedule.”

Eric wanted to work on a disguise, but couldn’t wear one even if he had one: in his bus was a camera guy, a sound guy, and Jerry – the team from Quantal’s ad agency.

“Could you eat a yogurt while you drive?” Jerry asked.

Rex chuckled from the chair behind the passenger seat, where the camera guy was sitting. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Eric wanted to ask Rex where he had been, but couldn’t, so he focused on driving. Jerry handed him a container of Quantal Organic Yogurt, pre-opened, then lifted his arm to toss the lid in a bag.

“STOP! Put the lid in the shoebox,” Eric said. “Please. “

Rex gently pulled the sound guy’s mustache. After the sound guy stopped swatting at it, Rex stroked the mustache as he would a kitten, and the sound guy went half-crazy rubbing his face and batting at the air.

Eric pulled into a far corner of the front lot at Massive Food, a warehouse-type store two towns away. People in strange costumes were handing customers bags branded with Quantal Organic yogurt on their way out of the store. “What are you supposed to be?” Eric asked one of the people in costume.

“A moon,” she said, as though it were obvious.

Eric took the bag. “And what’s in this?”

“It’s a holiday survival bag.” She gave him an excessively cheery smile. “Take one on your way in, I won’t tell.”

“I hope my parole officer isn’t watching,” Eric said, in the mood to mess with people.

Her smile faltered and she turned away.

The crew followed Eric into the store, recording his every move as they passed by a Quantal Organic Yogurt table with branding and trays of free samples.

“You guys are really pushing this hard,” Eric said to Jerry, indicating the table.

“We’re not handling the promotional efforts.” Jerry dismissed the table with a contemptuous wave. “That’s a different agency.”

Eric didn’t want to be here with these people. He missed Willa and Taffy and wished he was with them at the house watching TV with a big bowl of popcorn, Taffy pointing out what pathogens the characters were likely to ingest based on what they ate and the symptoms they were likely to have, and Willa explaining how she would set up the HVAC, or a part of it, in the building the characters were in, and what was obviously wrong with their current setup.

When they reached the dairy aisle on the far right side of the store, Eric took all the yogurt they had and asked an employee to check the back for any remaining stock that might be on hand. Rex leaned in to him by the swinging door and Eric tilted his head away from the agency crew, who continued filming him.

“Notice anything about these customers?” Rex asked.

Eric looked down the dairy aisle at the competitors. “They look as out of it as they usually do.”

“Look harder.”

People wandered through the store and rubbed at their arms like they had the chills. They looked afraid, darting their eyes side to side, jumping at the smallest surprise. Their foreheads were shiny with sweat and they pressed wrists or fingers against the sides of their heads. Some of them bumped into end caps or displays. Some held their stomachs, and some lost their balance. Some opened the freezer doors and stayed there, resting against the shelves or even climbing in until an employee pulled them away and pushed the door shut. Some of them pushed employees out of their way to get to the dairy aisle.

“Oh,” Eric said.

“Oh?” Rex said. “That’s all you’ve got?”

Eric took advantage of the crew’s distraction with the lighting to walk a few feet away and respond to Rex. “Possession? But wouldn’t they act more … purposeful?”

Rex gave him a look. “They
are
purposeful: they want that yogurt. Unlike you, they’re also exhibiting neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms. My guess is that they’ve ingested commerce spirits,” Rex said.

“Commerce spirits?” Eric said like Rex was pulling his leg.

“They’re spirits that make people want to buy something. They must have ingested them with the Quantal yogurt.”

“Then why didn’t I want to drink more POUNCE!?” Eric said.

A young male employee took a mop to a new puddle of vomit.

“I’m different.” Rex raised his chin with pride. “Better than these crude low-level things in the yogurt. But you did drink more POUNCE! for a few days; you just didn’t know it.”

The camera and sound guy were ready. They signaled Jerry and they all converged on Eric. Jerry took him by the shoulders and maneuvered him down the aisle. “Stay right in this spot.” Jerry slowly removed his hands from Eric like he would take off at any second, which he was in fact considering, then ran sideways back to the camera. “Take your shirt off!” he yelled.

“Why not?” Rex said. “It’s chaos here, and it’s only going to get worse, really soon.”

At Eric’s hesitation, Jerry added, “Look, Snackerge, this isn’t going on the evening news. It’s a series of ads for the web.”

Eric exhaled and stared at the ceiling. Then he nodded and took off his shirt.

“Give him a yogurt!” Jerry said.

“There aren’t any left,” the sound guy said.

“Oh, for –”

Eric got a yogurt out of one of his coolers and held it up to Jerry.

“Sweeeet. Now take the lid off real slow. Yeah, just like that. Nice.”

Once the lid was off, Eric didn’t know what to do. He had done some art class posing a year ago, but that was different. And he didn’t have a spoon.

“Get him a damn spoon!” Jerry looked ready to punch the sound guy. He whirled around to both sides like he was in the middle of a bar fight, then grabbed another brand of yogurt, parfait-style, with spoon included. He ripped off the spoon and ran it over to Eric like it was the last leg of a relay race.

“Now,” Jerry said, gasping a little. “Just,” he waved his arm in circles out from his chest. “Um, eat it with the spoon. Slowly.”

Rex smirked. Eric held up the spoon to Rex with a threatening stare.

“No, not like a knife you’re going to stab someone with,” Jerry said. “Slooowww –”

Jerry was cut off by a possessed Quantal eater who tackled him to the waxed floor. The sound guy shrugged and kept holding the mic.

The camera guy grinned and hoisted up the camera again. “This is good stuff.”

Eric parked the Princess in the lot behind the Fireworks Superstore & Convenience Center, and the ad agency crew left in their van to go back to the city.
Eric had a quick snack, not yogurt, then rode his bike to Jamesville Technical College. He would only drive the Princess for more distant yogurt runs; fuel was expensive, and money was running low.

Willa was in her office, going through paperwork. The other instructor was putting scraps of paper through a tiny desktop shredder that sounded like a remote-control car accelerating. “I saw the videos.”

Jerry and the team at Quantal Foods’ ad agency had quickly produced and uploaded a series of five vignettes. In one, Eric was eating the yogurt while driving the Princess, and this footage was interwoven with documentary-style footage of the inside of the bus. In another, he was eating the yogurt in the store, without his shirt. The third was an atmospheric montage of Eric entering various stores. The fourth was a moody, almost noirish piece of Eric riding his bike next to the camera guy in a van, while eating the yogurt. The fifth was edited like an Italian spy movie from the sixties.

“What did you think?” Eric laced his fingers together while he darted a look to the other side of the room, where the other HVAC instructor was apparently covering up a massive conspiracy, judging by the amount of shredding going on.

Willa cleared her throat. “Andy, would you go have lunch?” The other guy looked up from his task with wide eyes.

“I already
had
lunch.”

Willa walked over and stood behind Andy. “Have another one.” She gave him a ten-dollar bill.

“Right,” Andy said, and left.

Willa locked the door behind him, then stood in front of Eric. “I thought they were hot.”

Eric started to stand, but Willa pushed him back on the sofa and saddled him, skirt riding up her thighs.

“What –” Eric said, and Willa shut him up by kissing him the same way she did when they first met. She tasted the same, she felt the same, and he was back in 1998, close to graduating with the highest honors, close to starting law school at a top university, close to making good money for the family he wanted to start with the smart, petite, bellicose HVAC student he had fallen for at the
Racaille
, a bar on campus.

Willa pulled off her blouse and threw it over her shoulder to the desk, but kept her bra on, a lacy black and pink push-up. Then she leaned back in and he held her with a fierce grip. She reached down and flicked open his belt then unbuttoned his pants while she kissed him. Seconds later, she lifted up her hips then sank onto Eric with a purring moan.