Toxic

By Multiple Authors

Beware what you eat, beware what you drink, yes, even what you touch. Danger can lurk where you least expect it. All it takes is one mistake and what awaits is an agonizing death. One sting, one bite from the most innocuous creature and before you know it your breathing becomes shallow, your heart erratic. Your mind clouds, everything becomes feint. Death is the result, you lowered your guard. This is the epitome of these covert substances which exist within the world. Whether in nature, or made by man, toxins exude the mystique of danger, of a silent horror which can infect and destroy from the inside out. However the real question is whats to fear more, the substances themselves, or those willing to use them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Migla Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540184313

Book preview

The No 16 Special at The Chicken Burger Palace

Melanie Waghorne

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The Chicken Burger Palace had sat at the corner of Mitchem and Fulherd Street for nearly twenty years. It was the town's first fast food outlet but definitely not its last; two franchises of major corporate fast food outlets had also found their home in the small town of Eralime. The Chicken Burger Palace was by far the most popular. The residents of Eralime were not only loyal but on the most part old fashioned. They enjoyed recipes they had devoured since childhood in a dining room decorated in a Mom and Pop style that had stayed the same since the day Mr. Morley had opened the shop. The front of the shop may have been chintz and gingham but the back was as industrial as any McDonalds or Burger King.

The location of The Chicken Burger Palace meant that foot traffic was the main source of its income. A drive through window had been installed about five years prior but was barely used apart from businessmen travelling through or stoned teenagers, driving at twenty miles an hour, bodies calling out for sugar and fat. It was not unusual to see gaggles of high school students spending their pocket money on a packet of greasy fries before ruining their dinners, the perfect appetizer before their parents tried to get something filled with love and nutrition in them. It was an illicit Sunday treat to take the family too when you couldn't be bothered to cook. The Chicken Burger Palace was a staple in the town. Betty hated it.

Betty Edwards had been fired from every job since she had left high school. What employers called her bad attitude she called not putting up with people's shit. She had been fired from her waitress job when an overly amorous customer had patted her on the ass on her way past his table. She had dropped the steaming bowls of soup, hearing them smash into a million pieces on the floor, spraying near by patrons with scalding chicken noodles. The offending customer had left with a bloody nose and a suggestion to keep his wandering hands to his damn self. It wasn't just rude customers who felt her ire. Betty liked to tap on her brakes while driving to encourage those behind her not to drive up so close to her behind. She would tut, and foot tap and roll her eyes if someone took too long to serve her or did it poorly, never seeing the irony. She was what her mother had always called high maintenance.

She had walked from one end of town to the other giving out resumes, her feet were starting to feel as sore and swollen as a rotten tooth. Most of the people shook their heads when faced with the proffered slip of paper detailing her numerous fired and quit from positions. It seemed that Betty's reputation was starting to proceed her. A few took her resume but tossed it into the bin after she had left, they did not need the hassle, complaints and refunds that hiring Betty would entail. She was starting to panic by the time she reached The Palace, she didn't want to work in fast food but she was fast running out of options. If someone didn't hire her soon she would have to start looking outside of Eralime. Betty may have thought of herself as self assured but she was nervous of leaving her comfort zone. She knew that what she thought as feisty could easily be swallowed up and spat out in a bigger town. She was used to everyone nodding and knowing her name on the street, she thought shaking their heads, affectionately at her foibles never realizing it was disgust and embarrassment.

As she entered the third week of unemployment she was down to saltines and canned fish for dinner. She was so relieved when the manager of The Chicken Burger Palace offered her an interview that she was hopping from foot to foot as he spoke, urging him to the end of the sentence. It had not really been an interview but more a chance for her to fill in her paperwork and pick up her uniform before her start date the following week. The Palace had a high staff turnover, mainly high school students making some extra money over the summer or those who drifted into town one morning and drifted out again a few weeks later. They weren't overly picky. They paid minimum wage and were not looking for loyalty. 

Betty had tried and failed to hide the disappointment on her already sulky looking face as they detailed her duties to her on the first day. She considered it dog's body work, cleaning the cutlery, filling the salt and sugar shakers and replacing the toilet paper. She was determined to keep her mouth shut and not shout out a passive aggressive thank you when someone walked their dirty shoes through her nice clean mop stroke. To keep the retort safety behind her lips she often hummed and tutted, enough that regular customers thought she might have some kind of impediment.

She was glad when she was deemed trustworthy enough to move to the back to man the industrial fryers. In the back she did not have to guard her expression, she could look as pissed off as she felt and grumble all day, a litany of slurs against a great number of the people living in the town for slights, perceived or real. She didn't want to make friends with any of the other employees. She thought herself above them, especially the high school students with their talk of parties, puking and putting out. She did not realize that they did not want to talk to her. She cast a negative attitude, always complaining and tutting under her breath. Most thought she was mentally unstable and were quite happy to leave her to her new domain.

Betty was surprised that she had begun to like this job, the first time she had ever felt that way. She could enter through the back fire exit, avoiding customers and employees, plug in her earphones and get to work covering everything in a greasy layer of buttermilk batter. The bubbling oil was almost hypnotic, she would daydream while staring into its depths until the buzzer went off. She would push the orders to the front of the heaters and start again and again and again. She did not however, enjoy the smell. It seemed to worm its way into every strand of hair and pore of her skin. Showering seemed to make it worse, the heat of the water cooking the smell into her skin. She would never eat fried chicken again, the thought of it made her gag.

Her manager could not believe this was the same Betty Edwards that everyone had warned him from employing. Granted she was a little weird but she kept to herself, got the work done and picked up any extra shifts he needed to have covered. She would always be there if one of the drifters had taken off in the nights or if one of the kids had to sleep off a particularly bad hangover. He decided to move Betty up to the tills. Where he saw a promotion she saw the lines of complaining, rude, ungrateful, condescending patrons from the minute she clocked on to the minute she hung up her apron. She saw people looking down on her like they had all her life.

Betty smiled sweetly and wished her first customer a good morning. She recognized Moira whom she had worked with her in the diner. They had laughed and mocked customers together, sharing a cigarette out the back. Betty didn't know that Moira had had to psych herself up before every shift with Betty, had started to laugh with her as it seemed to be the only thing that made Betty happy. She had been overjoyed when Betty had been fired, she had thought about quitting many times to be away from her. Moira patently ignored her, avoiding eye contact and demanding extra sauce with no please or thank you.

The second customer rattled out his order from the side of his mouth as he spoke on his cell phone. Betty made a point of asking him to repeat himself, she felt her face twitch at his huff. The eighth called her 'sweetie' and told her that she should smile more. The fifteenth told her to hurry up and practically threw his money at her. Frazzled, Betty took an extra minute picking up the burger for her eighteenth order. She leaned her head against the hot metal, closing her eyes.

When I get a really bad one Betty jumped. She hadn't heard the young man slide up to her amid the sounds of the fryers and the clink of cutlery. When they really deserve it you know? Then sometimes I hawk in their milkshakes maybe scratch off a bit of dandruff on their fries He smiled at Betty, a grin winking with metal braces It's messed up but it makes me feel a hell of a lot better Betty smiled weakly at his retreating back and grabbed her order, without any extra bodily accompaniments.

Betty mused on his comments most of the evening. There was no doubt that she was a vengeful woman, she loved to be right and she loved to prove a person wrong but she had never thought about spitting in someone's food. Betty's second shift solidified her views on the matter. She stood on the other-side of the counter, disbelief painted over her normally surly face, listening to the diatribe of a man who had received one less chicken piece than he should of. Betty gawked as he ranted and raved about her appearance, level of intelligence, the public opinion of her and anything else of a detrimental nature he could think to hurl her way. Betty was close to offering to give him the extra piece of chicken, maybe handily inserted into an orifice for easy take away but she really could not afford to lose yet another job. So she fetched his extra piece of chicken, sealed it carefully in a box and placed it on the counter. She wished she could think