Salsa Bars and Unholy Wraiths

The other day Latigo Flint was waiting for his to-go order at a local chain restaurant when the microphone at the food pick-up counter clicked on by itself. The open channel hummed for a moment and then a shrill voice blared from the speakers.
"The ghost, the ghost, the deadly wraith, it's in the room with you."

This came as quite a shock to the patrons. Over the years we've become accustomed to hearing basically: 'Number 54, your order's ready, number 54.' and variants of, from restaurant speaker systems. This statement was obviously something entirely different, and involuntary shivers twitched through many a shoulder.

The voice continued. "It plans doom upon your children and a pox on girlfriends fair." Which was bad, of course, and the frightened glances people gave each other reflected this. Most of us would probably prefer that disembodied voices had something a bit cheerier to say.

The voice howled twice to silence the panicky murmur. "Defeating it, difficult--but defeat it you must; or it will rip your loved ones apart and make you watch." The voice cleared its invisible throat. "The wraith is next to the salsa bar!!!"

That, I didn't expect. A hundred homicidal faces slowly turned to me. I gulped, set the salsa ladle down and raised a wary index finger. "Okay now... that's just silly. You all know how silly that is, right?"

No, they didn't seem to. They slowly advanced.

"Hey!" I started randomly pointing at people, figuring odds were I'd hit a sensible one eventually. "Look now, I'm just waitin' for my food. Another day, another burrito combo meal. Just like you all, huh?"

The speakers hissed and wailed. "Believe his lies at your peril!!! At. Your. Peril!!!"

I glared at the microphone. "Why you unholy wretch! If anyone's the liar, it's you!!!"

A middle-aged woman in capri pants shoved her way to the front of the mob and threw up her hands. "Thank goodness" I thought, "a sensible ally".

"People!" The woman hollered. "It's clear something is happening here we don't entirely understand. But we sure don't want our children torn apart in front of us, so I vote we throw metal napkin dispensers at this guy next to the salsa bar until we're pretty sure he's dead!"

Oh goddamn it.

I tried to scramble for cover behind the salsa bar but was cut down by a barrage of metal napkin dispensers. They stopped beating me when they were pretty sure I was dead; overturned the salsa bar on my face for good measure and went back to waiting for their food orders. The phantom voice didn't return and that was proof enough for everyone to convince themselves they'd done the right thing.

I lay half-conscious on the checkered linoleum floor, blowing tiny bubbles in a pool of blood and salsa. My order number was called, and when it went unclaimed, someone picked it up and threw it at me.

Listen, they need to do one of those Unsolved Mystery shows about that goddamn voice. What the hell was it? Did it have it in for me personally or was I simply wrong place / wrong time... namely next to the salsa bar? They also need to send a friggin' convoy of hearses to Burbank 'cause when I can walk again I'm going to kill every single bastard who hit me with a napkin dispenser.

Oh wait, savage irony; I can't do that--that'll prove the wretched voice right.

*********************

The only silver lining is that I now have a small amount of salsa pumping through my veins and this makes me even sexier than I was before, if that's even possible.

I stood up around about 9pm, a dangerous glint in wild eyes. I wiped the cilantro from my hat brim and settled it low on a smeared brow. Blood and salsa ran in rivulets down my bare chest, and believe you me, every female employee working the evening shift licked her lips and touched her hair.