Page 10 of The Good Char (Soul Taker)

DZIK

Dunking the piece in my hand into the vat of oil, I watched with satisfaction as the outer layer submitted to the boiling liquid. There was a strange gratification in watching flesh cook.

Memories of home and my time torturing souls appeased me during my punishment… until the sound of Kimmy Ngo sniffling and crying broke my concentration.

"I'm sorry!” Kimmy cried out with her bottom lip trembling like a freshly severed limb. My eye twitched. “I brought you what you asked for."

I glared beyond Kimmy’s short stature to see another unsightly female pointing at my employee with an accusatory finger.

She stood there with an air of audacity I despised beneath her sunglasses that overtook her revolting face.

Her creature companion sat there, in her oversized bag, with his tongue lolling out the side, threatening to flick spittle onto my burnt, dipped offerings to the human realm.

I slammed the corndog that was in my grasp into the boiling vat, splashing the fiery oil onto my skin as I stomped in her direction.

My skull tightened the longer I listened to her grating voice in front of my food bay.

She was holding up the line as well as the other customers.

I needed to get control of this situation quickly, seeing as my incompetent employee was doing nothing but sniveling at her metaphorical feet.

My claws itched to rip through my flesh suit so that I could pull her heart straight out of her chest cavity. But the master didn’t need any more reason to add on to my sentence. What I decided to do instead was slam my hand on top of the counter while shoving Kimmy behind me.

“What seems to be the problem?” I snarled.

Her pathetic little creature in her bag whimpered and plopped his head into the darkness. The woman’s eyes bulged right before she stuck her bulbous chest out and leaned toward me. Her ghastly forehead crinkled further as her face filled with disdain.

The feeling was mutual.

"Oh, so you're the hotdog dipper's boss. Figures. No wonder she messed up my order! What a waste of space."

“The only space being wasted right now is your distended gut, pressed against my counter,” I growled as she gasped. “You either want what we offer here or you don’t. Either way, you need to get out of my sight before I make more room in my fryer.”

She sputtered and my back tensed when a soft touch came behind me. My nostrils flared at the over stimulation but I kept my eyes on the beast of a woman in front of me. It was imperative this despicable human knew who dominated this realm—The Good Char.

When Kimmy began petting my back, I could feel my tail want to burst forth in response.

“It was a mistake. I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I gritted my teeth as I strained to listen to what the woman was saying.

The woman scoffed, before crossing her arms in front of her fleshy rolls while lowering her sunglasses to glare at me. "Mistake or not, I want another weiner, and I want it now."

I took a deep breath, imagining her skin peeling from her bones as her whole body caught on fire, before maintaining my composure. It was humans like this one that reminded me the master knew exactly what he was doing when he made my punishment in the realm of men.

I snatched the order slip from the counter and brought it to my face, reading it intently, wondering if I should grind her little furry companion into her meal. But as Kimmy’s dainty little hands continued to stroke my back, I let out a frustrated sigh of discontent.

So the ingrate wanted a dipped weiner with mustard. I examined the weiner in question and noticed that the mustard was not the honey-based one we usually use.

How did Kimmy find this other mustard to begin with?

I stomped toward the back, grabbed a handful of honey-based mustard packets and slammed it in front of her. Leaning in, I made sure she felt every ounce of my fury through my pores. “Eat the flesh to your heart’s content. Better yet, take your meat stick, like it and get out of my face!”

The woman glared at me. “How rude! I’ll have you know?—”

"Get the hell away from my shop before I make you!" I snarled and her beast cried out as if something was devouring it alive. One could only hope.

With a curl of my lip, I watched as the woman stormed out of our corner of the food court. If I ever saw that wretched piece of flesh again, I would make sure the demon of iniquity had more to play with back home.

I turned to find my employee sniffling and sniveling long after I ridded us of the issue. What was her problem? Why was water continuously leaking from her eyes if I had already expertly resolved things?

Kimmy wiped her face with the back of her hand and I scrunched my nose in disgust. Tilting my head upward, I counted the ugly sprites jumping in my mind to calm my nerves around this female. Sadly, I couldn’t kill her. I still required her servitude to help make this sentence go by faster.

I sighed, realizing the earlier incident would affect her deeply. Of course, it would. The master probably planted her here for that purpose to drive me to insanity.

She nodded as if I said something and responded with a shaky voice that made my insides feel like they were being shredded with a serrated blade from the underworld. "I'm fine, Mr. Dzik. Just a bit shaken up."

"Just get the mopping done and make sure it's clean,” I told her.

Kimmy smiled as she always did, even through her tears. What was it about this female that made her operate out of the realms of what humans normally did?

"Thank you, boss. I'll make sure to double-check every order from now on," she promised softly.

I patted her shoulder awkwardly with two fingers, trying to keep her at a distance. "Mistakes happen. Unluckily, no one was killed. I appreciate your hard work. Now, clean up this mess and disinfect the floor."

Kimmy nodded again before obediently grabbing a mop.

Her willing servitude toward me was invaluable.

I needed to be more careful. Chaining her to the backroom until the next work day wouldn’t work well in the long run.

These blasted humans, like the wretched woman that was here, were known to pick up the nearest payphone and call the local authorities.

Going back to frying the rest of the corndogs, I imagined the fun I would have with little Kimmy if we were back home. To rip her body in half and plunge her flesh into the magma available through the mountains would be quite a sight.

I wonder if she would enjoy my company then? Would she continue to harbor her smiles toward me? She shouldn’t look as pleasing as she did through her tears, because now I wondered if her screams of agony would actually sound more like screams of gratitude if I?—

"Mr. Dzik? I mopped the floor, anything else I can do?"

Quickly pulled from my strange daydream, I turned to look at her wet face. Kimmy was still sobbing while sweeping. I scowled. Now I would have germs all over my floor. I needed to disinfect them again just to make sure…

Grabbing the broom from her hands, I pointed at the stool and silently commanded her to stay in one place while I cleaned the rest of this place again.

As I snapped on my black, elbow length gloves and grabbed a bottle of bleach I realized I had never seen her this frazzled before.

I didn’t think she was even capable of being anything but disgusting sunshine.

I wondered what else was going on with her…