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how late that might be during the winter. She may have known about what happened here after sundown, but that didn t mean she wanted anything to do with it. Next to the manager s office was a long and thin storage area where they kept extra products that didn t quite fit on the shelves yet. The day people were usually too busy during the day to worry about stocking the shelves, so they rarely came back here. It was a good thing, since this was the only place where the night crew could keep their emergency supplies. Leading Lucas to the very back of the supply area, Phil pushed aside a stack of older smocks to reveal several cardboard cartons. He shoved away two boxes, one marked in magic marker with the words
    In case of Radioactive Mutants and another marked Just Say No to Mermaids. Finally he pulled out one marked Emergency Fire-Breathing Monster Kit. Lucas looked at the box with wide eyes.
A kit? Lucas asked. Weird crap like this actually happens enough for there to be a kit?
    Often enough that I wouldn t actually call it weird, Phil said.
Seriously? You don t think a giant bat-winged fire-breathing armadillo is weird?
Not really.
Then what would you consider weird?
Phil thought about that for a second. A giant bat-winged fire-breathing armadillo dressed as Elvis. With tentacles. And maybe a leotard. He opened the box s flaps and showed Lucas the contents. There was a fire extinguisher, several tubes of burn ointment, an empty urn, and a pair of jeans. The jeans were slightly moldy and smelled vaguely like salt. Phil pulled the jeans out and handed them to Lucas.
Here, Phil said. They re a little stretched out, but it looks like your belt wasn t damaged so you can just use that. I wasn t here for it, but Caleb says the last guy who wore them was turned into a giant slug. There might still be some slime in them, so you should probably wipe it down with some paper towel first.
Ew, Lucas said. He stared at the jeans for a second, then tried to look back at the missing seat of his pants. Going over to the sinks he pulled some paper towel from the dispenser. Mind giving me some privacy for a minute?
Not a problem, Phil said. I should probably call in the police to haul away that stupid thing s carcass, anyway. He went out the door to the counter area and grabbed the phone from its place next to the lottery ticket display.
Yeah, right, Lucas said from the back room. I highly doubt the police will be able to do anything with it.
Not the normal police. There s a special division that just patrols the Hill. They re slow as hell, but it ll be gone before sunrise.
But I don t get it. This kind of stuff only happens on the Hill?
Probably a whole bunch of places all over the world, but in this city? Yeah, just the Hill.
And there s all sorts of things out there? Not just uh, whatever the hell that thing was?
Sure. Werewolves, vampires. Whatever. Never know what ll walk through the doors. Had a customer once that I could have sworn was Red Riding Hood, but she was too screwed up on Ecstasy for me to ask her for certain.
Lucas didn t say anything, and Phil took that moment to call in the dead armadillo. All he got was a machine, but he knew the monster would be taken care of. The mundies, the mundane daylight people, were able to sleep well thinking that these kind of things never actually happened, and there were more than enough people devoted to helping them sleep in peace. That peace would be destroyed if these kind of things were left for the mundies to see. Phil had been a mundy once. Most of the human nighttime dwellers of the Hill had. He even wished sometimes that he was still one of them. It scared him, having to live like this. Of course, if he had never gotten this job he would have never met his girlfriend, and even though she was from a completely different background from him she was the best thing going for him. Being in the know sometimes had its perks. When Phil put the receiver back down, Lucas once again spoke from the