The Blue Ghost
03 - The Blue Ghost
Space Pirate entered the paddles section to find what could only be described as equal parts horrifying and fascinating. The trench coat wearing blue lizard man was gone. But his trench coat was still there, resting atop a pile of steaming blue goo.
The screams, Spunk ascertained, were coming not from lizard man, but from a young, dark skinned Oxotiweehi whose eye was nearly busting out of its stalked socket. It looked like it was about to scream again. Spunk tried to draw it into conversation to avoid rupturing his ear drums.
"Oh dear." He acknowledged the problem. "Did you see what happened?"
The Oxotiweehi looked at him. Its eye seemed to focus steadily on Spunk's face and away from the goo.
"The... uh... lizard thing. He took something off the shelf, got this weird look on his face, and just... melted." The Oxotiweehi seemed more feminine, with a soft, lilting tenor voice.
"How very, very strange." Spunk said. He squatted next to the foaming mess on his floor, looking up at the Oxotiweehi's eye stalk. "Do you think it's safe to touch?"
They shrugged. "I would maybe put some gloves on. Sorry about all the noise. It's... instinct. For us."
They seemed mildly embarrassed and Spunk stood back up, extending a hand for a friendly handshake.
"Not to worry. I probably would've screamed as well. This is a literal first for the shop. Please don't let it scare you off."
They took his hand and shook it. Oxotiweehi skin was always velvety soft, and this one's was no exception.
"It won't. I'm looking for one of those devil crops -- you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes, of course!" Spunk said. He stepped gingerly over the pile on the floor. "They're actually two aisles over. If you want to head that way while I get some ... thing ... to clean up this mess, I can help you pick one out. Or I can send Harold your way to help you do the same."
"That would be lovely. Thank you!"
"No problem. I'll be with you in just a minute."
--352--
Spunk abandoned the Oxotiweehi in the aisle and nearly ran into Harold who was rushing towards where had thought he heard the noise.
"Boss?" He inquired.
"Lizard man melted. We need... a shovel, I guess. And maybe some gloves. Or, if you want, I'll handle the clean up and you help that Oxotiweehi with a devil crop."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Harold said, scanning over Spunk's shoulder to see the slowly spreading mess.
The two awkwardly shuffled past each other, Spunk on his way to the basement to retrieve the cleaning equipment, and Harold to helping the customer. Spunk briefly wondered if he should move the cleaning equipment to the first floor, given how... frequent... incidents were out here on the edge of the galaxy.
Just last week, a fight had erupted in the leather section over the last harness on the shelf. Of course, there had been thirty in the storage area, but that didn't stop one beastly man from punching another right in the face. His blood had sprayed over and marked at least three other items. That Spunk then forced the man -- the puncher, not the punched -- to pay for.
And a few weeks before that, the lube pyramid that Sally had created shattered, because for some reason, she had stacked the glass bottles. The manufacturer had claimed it was a one in a million accident and had promised to replace the entire stock at no cost, but the floor still smelled like strawberries and creme, and there were no replacement bottles in sight.
The narrow hallway needed a paint job. Its flickering lights reminded Spunk of Old Earth more than any other item on this godforsaken planet. The stairs creaked as he descended, the smell of earthy must assaulting his nostrils.
The shovel was nested into a cobwebbed corner alongside other barely used yard tools. Wasn't much point in caring for the yard in this desert like heat. He grabbed the metal handle and turned to dig into the drawers for some gloves.
How had the lizard man even ... melted ... anyway? Spunk had been around the block a time or two, but hadn't seen anything like this before.
--717--
As Spunk turned to leave, he felt a shiver crawl up his back. He stopped, listening for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. Shaking off the feeling that something was off, he finished his turn and walked right through a blue haze. His skin broke out in goosebumps as he swore.
"Holy fucking shit. What in god's name is going on here?" He turned back as though he was fighting a bull to see what he had gone through. A hazy blue figure floated in front of him.
"Lizard man?" He said incredulously as the glowering, pointy-toothed ghost of a creature hovered before his very eyes.
"Excuse me?" The voice was the same, albeit more... echoing than before.
"You are the customer. That walked into my shop like half an hour ago? And then melted into my floor?"
"I didn't melt." The ghost said haughtily. "I moved on to my next form."
"Right." Spunk agreed. He could feel his hands shaking. "Well, I need to go clean up the previous version of you's... remains. What's your deal?"
"I don't want to talk about it. Certainly not to you." The ghost said as if he were offended by Spunk's question. He vanished in a puff of smoke as the lights flickered and the door slammed shut.
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