Spice it up

Well the city is allowing me to have my food truck but the distributors won’t deliver to the undead. They say I need a “breather” on my staff so they can communicate with. The morons! I think some of the local zombies are smarter than these truckers. But I got to follow the rules.

By sure providence, the new girl in town stopped by the other day. She’s got a working little Subaru now. I had seen her wandering around but it was none of my business until she actually came up to the truck window. We chatted a little about the menu and I gave her a sample of the fish stew, she seemed to like it plenty, then she asked me if I needed any help.

 I don’t think she’s realized yet, that I am newly turned. It’s not obvious yet if you’re not used to the smell of dying flesh. I take showers every day and use a lot of natural oils to cover up the rot. I wear long sleeves and pants and gloves, so no skin is showing. Last thing I need is for me to lose a proverbial Shylock ‘pound of flesh’ into one of my pots. I think I would shut my own self down at that point. No human meat in my kitchen.

I invite her into the truck and I show her around, she tells me how she has cafeteria experience. I ask her if she can follow recipes and instructions. If this works out, I can pass along my knowledge before my brain goes completely mush and I end up out on the beach with the rest of my kind. She seems eager enough and the extra money will definitely come in handy for her if she decides to stay out here on the Peninsula.

We talk about the menu and where I get my ingredients from and then I mention to her that the majority of my customer base are the very same zombies she’s been trying to avoid. She seems a little taken aback by that but then I explain my plan to feed the zombies instead of letting them run off in the wilds picking people off. I have managed to get an agreement from the beachcombers for trading their fresh catch for meals. I don’t want to make her too nervous so I tell her that I will handle the window, if she can handle dishing out the food – that way she can stay hidden. She’s a skinny little thing as is, well, compared to me, everyone is tiny.

They’re outside the truck already, banging on the door. I don’t know where they get their money, and honestly I don’t want to know. As long as I keep them fed and off the streets. I start going through my setup and my little helper is stacking the containers and condiments. She notices that I have quite a large collection of hot sauces and I remind her that the undead can’t really taste anything but the little extra heat gives them a little jolt, a little reminder of when they were alive. Probably why I am always having to replace the bottles, they have been drinking it straight again. I’m going to have to go to the Co-op for more before I open up for the day.

I leave her in the truck and slip out the front door and walk over the parking lot, across from the bar and up to the totem in front of the Co-op. There are some high school kids out with their phones, playing Pokémon Go, this is the local gym after all, and everyone wants to be the boss. I enter and nod my head to the lady behind the counter. She’s always been kind to me even before I changed and as long as I keep my wits to myself, I’m sure nothing will change. She’s got other customers filtering around, plus some city visitors puttering about looking at the local products. Speaking of which, I’m going to need more of that Clallam Bay sea salt soon. But I remember that I left my new helper in the truck with a gaggle of hungry zombies sniffing around outside, so I go to the shelf with all the hot sauce and grab a few bottles of the real Mexican one – the American one is too vinegary and not enough heat. I feel eyes on me but I don’t look up to see who.

All I care about is my truck and my food. I go pay for my bottles and tip toe back into the truck, like I was never gone. It’s almost eleven o’clock, time for Starve to Death to start selling.