Night of the Living Trekkies Read Free Page B

People have been calling in sick all day.”
    He scowled at his bandage. The gauze was starting to turn pink.
    “You need to get that looked at,” Jim said. “It’s bleeding way too much.”
    “I’ll take care of it after work,” Dexter said. “Things are too hectic for me to duck out of here.”
    “Hectic, huh? Then I better switch to Emergency Mode.”
    “What’s that?
    Jim stood up to leave. “It’s where I toss my walkie-talkie down the fire stairwell and hide in the freight elevator.”
    “Sounds like a plan. And say hello to Sarah for me.”
    “What are you talking about?” Jim said.
    “You think I’m stupid? Every time you visit me, you find an excuse to visit the new girl’s cubicle. It must be instinctive. Like those sparrows that fly back to Caracas every year.”
    “It’s swallows, and they fly back to Capistrano,” Jim said. “But I get your point. I’ll tell her you said hi.”
    “And watch your back,” Dexter added. “That mime could have friends.”
    “I really doubt that mimes have friends,” Jim said as he walked out the door.
    He found Sarah Cornell, the hotel’s recently hired twenty-five-year-old assistant catering coordinator, sitting in her cubicle.
    “Hey,” he said. “How’s the food business?”
    Sarah glanced up from her desk. She looked tired.
    “I need thirty pounds of edible jelly worms for one of the Gulf-Con banquets. They’ll be part of an alien buffet—something called goog.”
    “You mean
gagh
,” Jim corrected. “It’s a type of worm favored by Klingons.”
    “Whatever, nerd,” Sarah said. “I’m driving to a warehouse club to buy some.”
    “It’s gotta be a hundred and ten degrees outside.”
    “Doesn’t matter. Neither rain nor snow nor extreme heat shall stay this courier from getting a bunch of fake worms for sci-fi geeks to nosh on. And then I’m sneaking home early. I really, really need to take off my bra.”
    “I can help with that,” Jim offered. “I’m kind of an expert.”
    “No, seriously. Look at this.”
    Sarah pulled back her blue silk blouse to reveal her bare right shoulder. Just below her collarbone sat a purplish bruise about the size of a lemon. Her bra overlapped its edge.
    “Itches like crazy,” she said.
    “You should see a doctor,” Jim said.
    “If I had health insurance, I would. But our company has a three-month probationary period for new hires.” Sarah retrieved her purse from under her desk and stood up. “Can you do me a favor?”
    “Of course.”
    “Rodriguez is setting up a dinner buffet in the exposition hall. We’re waiting on a big cake shaped like a . . . a . . .”
    She retrieved a sticky note from beside her computer.
    “A D7-class Klingon battle cruiser. But I can’t get anyone at the bakery to take my call. So, you need to give Rodriguez their phone number, okay?”
    Sarah handed him the sticky note, and Jim noticed a wad of tissue wrapped around her right index finger.
    “My neighbor’s four-year-old bit me,” she explained.
    “You’re serious?” he asked. “Dexter was just telling me he—”
    “I couldn’t believe it,” Sarah continued. “Little brat sneaked up on me while I was walking to my car. I thought he was going to chomp it right off.”
    She showed him the wound—just some bloody, baby-tooth-sized dents. But as Jim watched, the dents welled up with blood. Sarah wiped them with the crumpled tissue and then threw it in her trash can. A can that was already half full of bloody scraps.
    “It’s not the end of the world,” she assured him. “Just find Rodriguez for me, all right?”
    Sarah stepped out of her cubicle and walked away. Jim watched her leave.
    Then he looked down at the note. It was speckled with bright red flecks of fresh blood.

Chapter 2
Balance of Terror

    Little kids bite grown-ups every day, Jim told himself. And a drunk mime nipping a security guard was nothing to get worked up about. It was just a weird coincidence.
    Yet his famed “spider