Bottomless Ball-Pit [Part 3]

I’ve really enjoyed writing about my work and answering your questions. You guys really liked hearing about the sort of things I pull out of the ball-pit, and that one time I went above and beyond to ensure we had a good mascot. Well, the thing about working in management is that even when you’re in a retail job and most of your days are spent dealing with dodgy stains and smelly teenagers, you still have to juggle corporate politics on top of all the other stuff. 99% of the time the guys down in corporate are great. I can’t even remember the last time one of them bothered me. But sometimes, once in a blue-moon, I’m forced to disagree with one of their decisions.

All I can say is that I’m very thankful I’m here at the crack of dawn because it would have been very confusing for my team to come in and find two managers. There was no warning! It was two weeks ago and I had just unlocked the doors ready for the early shift workers when I turned around and there he was, wearing a uniform. For a second I thought he was just another worker—albeit an old and not very good-looking one—but I took a closer look and there was a manager name-tag, right on the chest!

The thing is, around these parts your job literally makes you. So I couldn’t really sit back and let myself get ousted from a good, paying role by some new guy. I didn’t know if my efforts were going to be pointless—at the end of the day, corporate gets the final say—but I knew straight away that I couldn’t take that kind of thing lying down.

So, at first, I locked him in one of the cupboards. It was a bit of a farce when he broke out just an hour later and started giving one of the ticket girls a pep talk. But I told him there was an awful spill in the meat locker and I locked him in there. (Before you ask, I’m pretty sure the meat locker is a left over from when the warehouse was a meat-processing facility. It’s unused, unpowered, but it does have a secure door.) I left him in there for a few days with no food or water until he was very hungry and upset. It was a simple case of feeding him some buns stuffed with rat-poison and then just rolling him back into the damned ball-pit.

Next day, guess who was back?

Thankfully, Gus took care of that one for me. Our mascot gets pretty hungry and while I try to keep him full up with bread he does occasionally get his hands on one of the kids. Well, I decided to give Gus a good treat before anyone else showed up. I must admit, I did feel a little silly as I squirted ketchup and mustard on the new guy’s head but honestly he had it coming and Gus likes the seasoning. How did the new guy not know what I was doing? I asked him to hold two buns to his ears (hardly subtle). I’m not sure someone that naïve should be pitied, but I did feel some sympathy. Especially because he’s not a kid, and so he was strong enough to pull himself out of Gus’ mouth half-way through being eaten.

He didn’t live long. He just lay there, shivering and scared with one hand keeping the top of his skull in place. I don’t know exactly what’s in Gus’ mouth but it left this poor guy’s skull as soft as paper machier and falling to pieces. I thought about finishing him off before rolling him back into the ball-pit but decided against it. He was mewing something about customer satisfaction as he sank into those brightly coloured balls.

The next morning I waited. Gus was clearly not a good disposal method if the person was bigger than a teenager. Anyway, surprise surprise, guess who came rising out of the ball-pit like some kind of chubby messiah?

I took the time to ask his name before I choked him to death with one of the girl’s phone chargers. I wish it had been a knock-off because I actually had to pay her for a replacement. At first, when I applied pressure to the guy’s neck it was all very normal. You know, the typical sort of garrotting experience, when all of a sudden something started to give. It was slow and hard—like pulling wire through cheese—but when I looked around I saw that this guy’s neck had wrapped around the cord. It was like his flesh was made of some kind of flesh-coloured putty. Thankfully, the wire got about half way through his neck when it snagged something hard and, with a bloody good tug, it snapped and Keith went limp. Afterwards I pulled the wire out and it came out covered in a sort of ash coloured goop. I tried washing it, but it smelled awful and I would have felt bad about giving it back to the girl. Plus, I doubt it would have worked. I was furious because it meant I had to pay her for the charger out of my own pocket.

What a waste.

Anyway, Keith went back in the ball-pit and I had another peaceful day. For the next few mornings I just had to make sure I was there, ready for Keith. I didn’t make the same mistake again. This time I got my hands on a hatchet and as soon as his head started rising, I drove the axe into his head. Before you know it, splitting that surprised head like a cantaloupe became just another part of my morning routine.

For a while I thought I had a kind of permanent solution. But nothing’s ever that simple is it?

There are other ways into the store. None of them are as…I guess I’ll say, present as the ball-pit, but it’s not the only place kids come and go. The photo-booth is probably the second most popular. It’s just a place that takes passport photos but it has some silly photo modes that kids love. They go nuts for them, even though they’re basically bad photoshop templates. Either way, kids go in and different kids come out, often clutching their photos with big grins like they pulled off some kind of con. For all I know, they have. One kid did come out screaming,

“Yes yes yes! It’s your turn now sucker!” Before running out the door. The weird thing is he had a Doug t-shirt on. Didn’t that show end like 10 years ago?

Anyway, I’m getting off course. I can revisit the photo booth in another story if you guys want. What matters is that Keith comes out of the photobooth with that same stupid look on his face and this time it happens after everyone’s started working and the place is filling up with kids. What’s worse is that I didn’t even notice. By the time I did realise he was stumbling around the place giving orders, he’d already fed Gus, cleaned up the toilets, and given two of the workers verbal warnings over lateness. I barely had anything to do, so I just wound up watching him for the rest of the day. I kept telling myself,

“As soon as everyone goes home, I’m fixing this.”

I had a long time to think up a punishment. And oh boy did I come up with something good. I’ll say this about Keith, he follows instructions. You can’t question his commitment. Out of all the things I did to him during this time… I actually kind of feel bad about this one.

I ordered him to empty out the ball-pit.

So, point of clarification: I found this out during the following, uh, “experiment”. But, while the headaches don’t directly affect you unless you’re the one scooping the balls out, the pit doesn’t exactly let you leave unscathed either. It’s clearly not stupid.

It started out simple enough. I told him to use the net to start taking balls out and putting them into the bins. Two bins in and Keith asks for a break. He says his head hurts. Using very colourful language, I tell him no. He keeps scooping. He gets to three bins and looks at me and I’m given the shock of my life. (Three bins, by the way, is where I stopped when I tried this very thing.) His skin has started to blister and peel, like he’s been in the sun for days, or burned badly by fire. He’s looking at me with a bleeding nose. His eyes look like road-maps and his tongue has swollen and is blue. He’s trying to tell me he wants to stop, and he’s talking kinda like a deaf person so I figure his hearing is going at this stage. No matter what though, I want to see this through, so I mouth the words:

“Keep going!” while gesturing with my hands.

He does, in spite of the pain. He gets half way through the fourth bucket and just breaks. He starts screaming and turns to face me and now I can see his eyes are bulging, his skin is starting to droop and pull away from the flesh underneath, and his fingers are dripping onto the carpet. Even worse, there are these thick black wiry hairs growing out of his face. They’re as thick as paper clips, and there are maybe a dozen, but they’re moving and writhing under the light. I back away at the sight of this, and it gives him the chance to run up and start kicking the bins over into the ball-pit. I decide that I won’t let him get them all, so I grab one of the bins and I run as far away from him as I can.

I put it in the meat locker.

Sure enough he runs in and I lock the door behind him. He keeps banging on it while his face turns to candlewax and more of those wires—now about a foot long—starting poking through his clothes and his eyes.

“Please,” he’s crying. “Please I have to put them all back. It’s not happy. I can feel it. I have to put them all back. You understand don't you!?”

But I won’t let him. I just stand and watch as his condition gets worse. Great big craters start forming in his face and by now his hands look like mittens made of melted cheese. Eventually, he falls to the floor and starts gagging. His throat distends and he starts coughing up balls from the pit. They even start filling his trousers from behind making him look like he’s wearing a giant soiled diaper. Clearly he was close to bursting with those things and they were popping out of any exit they could find. By now blood’s trickling out of every hole in his clothes and body and slowly, after about an hour of crying and hysterical sobbing, he collapses to the floor and stays still.

When I go in a few hours later I find that he’s nothing but a bunch of mulched up meat and plastic balls. Just as I get close enough to get a proper look though, he explodes. Boom. Bits of bone and teeth whip past me like shrapnel and cut me up real good. Even worse, I look down and what do I see? My pinky finger growing longer by the second, like fondu dripping off a fork.

I hurry up and take the last of the balls to the pit and tip them back in. Thankfully, my hand snaps right back into the proper shape. I decide that while the lesson was valuable because at least I know what would happen to me if I do the same thing, I also decide that in the future I won’t try tricking anyone into hurting the ball-pit again. Like I said, the pit is not stupid. It knows who’s really responsible and I'm pretty sure I would have been next.

Anyway, by now I know that Keith is coming back no matter what I do. So the next time, I’m ready. And I decide to keep it simple. Sure enough, he comes out of the photo booth. Except, this time he immediately starts to shiver and cry when he sees me. He’s like some beaten dog, huddled on the floor with one hand held out to keep me away. At first I don’t even care. I just step forward, heave the axe behind my back, and am getting ready to hit him straight in the centre of his bald head, when I notice he’s actually holding something in his hand. It’s like he’s offering it to me, to keep me at bay.

I reach out and take it and notice that it’s a name tag. I can’t help but smile. After two weeks of all this nonsense I’d finally managed to get my message received.

“Assistant Manager,” I say out loud. Keith looks up from behind his arms and starts nodding like a terrified hostage.

“Y-yes,” he stutters. “Assistant. I’m here to help. I’m the assistant manager. I always was!”

Well, I can live with that. Since then Keith’s taken up the role of assistant. He’s helping out a lot and while I’m not sure I really like it all that much, it’s better than being replaced entirely. The issue isn’t completely put to bed, of course. Keith insists he was always the assistant manager and that I just didn’t read his name tag properly. But I’m not stupid. He’s playing a very clever game, by doing this. He’s got me in a position where I have to train the guy who’s gunning for my job and he’s just helpful enough that I have to keep him around. But, he’s not the only clever guy around here.

After all, the ball-pit isn’t my only option.