With no bodies to experiment on, no more of the magic elf powder, and no more drugs Norman spent the next few days wandering the town to pass the time. With Toby still out of town, Norman was running low on funds. He decided to rectify that issue.
The old rusty red wagon squeaked behind Norman as he pulled it down the sidewalk. He had pilfered it from one of his neighbor's yards seeing as they had left it behind when they evacuated to the safety of the wall. He supposed it made sense for families with small children.
Passersby gave him dirty looks and crossed the street. Norman wasn’t surprised, he probably looked like a homeless person carting around a wagon full of who knew what.
Norman glanced back at the blanket-covered wagon to ensure the two milk crates full of his potions were still covered. It was currently his only means of income. And despite his distaste for the Guild, he was dragging them downtown to sell them.
Soon the old industrial building that the Guild called home came into view down at the end of the street.
Back before the apocalypse, some rich bastard had converted the old building into a chic bar and nightclub, some six years back. It was part of an effort to “revive” the downtown. But Norman knew it was just an excuse to push more gentrification to the cities downtown.
Norman didn’t mind the posh assholes that came as tourists, Norman could charge them way more for a bag of weed than locals were willing to pay. But they eventually went home. The ones that stayed were never happy with the status quo and kept trying to improve the town as they saw fit.
The Mayor being the spineless twat that he was, only cared about money going into his pocket and folded to everything they asked of him because these people had deep pockets. That all came to a screeching halt when the apocalypse happened through.
Part of the reason for that was because said Mayor vanished. Norman didn’t doubt someone killed the man but he found it hard to care about the self-centered jackass. The other reason the gentrification stopped was that those with money no longer had access to that money. With no more money to throw around, all their supposed power evaporated overnight.
What replaced the deep pockets were the physical classers, it wasn’t any better but at least it was easy to understand.
As Norman approached the front of the old red-brick building, someone came out the front door. Norman moved aside for the hulking adventurer as the man glared at him. It brought back memories of the first time Norman had come here. Back when he had tried to sign up as an adventurer and been laughed out by the muscle-bound idiots inside. That was shortly before he upgraded his potions with the special ingredient specifically for the gym bros.
Norman reached for the glass door and pulled it open. He had to struggle to get the wagon through the door, all the while hearing snickers of amusement from the people inside. He ignored their taunts as he finally got the wagon past the door.
The inside of the bottom floor was a bar slash restaurant done up in a bare industrial style that Norman wasn’t much of a fan of. It was just too overused. The wall behind the bar went up to the second floor with a railing overlooking it. He had never been up there but he knew that was where the dance floor used to be. Now he could hear grunts and the clunk of exercise equipment spilling out from above. Not that he would need to hear the noise to know this was a place people worked out, the smell of sweat and protein powder gave that away.
Looking around the bottom floor, Norman spotted the owner. He pulled the wagon towards the man, the squeak of the wheels echoing loudly around the room and drawing annoyed looks his way from the people at the tables on the ground floor. Norman ignored them as he finally drew close to the owner.
Unlike most of the people on the bottom floor, this man wasn’t hulked out. He was still muscled but it was more like a sprinter’s physique than a weight lifter. The man glared sullenly at Norman with his arms crossed, his salt and pepper hair the only sign of his advancing age.
“I thought I told you I didn’t want you in here again,” the man replied in a gravelly voice.
“I’m not here to sign up, just to sell some potions.” Norman pulled the blanket off the two cartons of potions.
The owner eyed the boxes before turning his gaze to Norman. “Toby usually sells to us.”
“He’s out of town at the moment besides, he gets them all from me anyway.”
“You?” The man looked skeptical. He uncrossed his arms and walked over to the wagon and pulled one of the bottles out to inspect it.
“Why are the bottles different?”
“It's not exactly easy to get bottles and your people never return any of the old ones.” Norman had been forced to use those hotel-sized alcohol bottles as replacements for the original ones he had used.
The man twisted the top off and sniffed the bottle. “Smells like the same shit.” The man reached down and pulled a knife from his belt.
Norman took a step back, thinking the man was going to attack him. The man snorted at Norman before taking the knife and gouging a small cut in his arm, then he sucked down the bottle and waited. Norman just stood there in shock. The man, with a knife in one hand and a small trickle of blood trailing down the other just waited quietly. After a tense five minutes, the blood stopped flowing and you could see the wound visibly start to scab over.
The man glanced at the wound and grunted. “Fine, I’ll take it.” The man reached into his back pocket after putting the knife away. When his hand came back out he was holding a billfold stuffed with hundreds. The man pulled two of the bills out and slapped them against Norman’s chest before he grabbed both crates from the cart.
Norman looked at the cash, it seemed a bit low. “Um, this many bottles should be three hundred.”
Without turning, the man replied, “that’s the deal I made with Toby. You don’t like it, tough shit. In fact, I think I’ll renegotiate my deal with Toby when he gets back.” That comment earned a round of chuckles from the peanut gallery.
Norman grumbled under his breath but there was nothing he could do to stop the man. Everyone in here was a physical classer and in this new reality might made right.
“Assholes,” Norman muttered as the laughs chased him all the way to the exit. At least he got the satisfaction of watching the owner drink a bottle. That put a slight smile on his face. Now that Norman had a bit of spending money, He made his way to the other side of downtown.
He made sure to stop at any business with a help-wanted sign. Despite how packed downtown was, quite a few businesses were looking for employees, but not employees like him.
Most places turned him away as soon as they found out what he wanted. This quickly soured his joyous mood. Five businesses said they weren’t hiring, or that he should apply online, even though they had help-wanted signs out front that said apply within.
At first, Norman chalked it up to the places being more upscale, gentrified establishments, with their fancy glass storefronts and spartan industrial interiors. Seriously, get an original idea. But then he started getting out of that area into the older establishments without any more luck.
Norman didn’t let that get him down. At least he got to enjoy the architecture. These buildings were still well maintained despite their more dated styling. Not that Norman minded. His town had always been a bit of a tourist destination for as long as he could remember. It was just far enough off the beaten path that it became a niche destination for people that wanted to get away but didn’t want to go to one of the larger tourist spots in Colorado. That made the restaurants and establishments try to maintain an air of quaintness to draw in customers.
It had worked for years until the millennials started arriving to try and change everything. Norman was glad that had stopped. Most of them had been pushed aside or died during the last few years as the new power structures took place. Norman didn’t feel bad about this, most of them died due to their own stupidity. Magic was not a safe endeavor, which is why so few people actively practiced it and why the muscle-bound idiots managed to still control everything.
Shaking his head, Norman got back to the task at hand and entered a local eatery, leaving his ‘borrowed’ wagon outside. The place was called Mabel’s and it had been around since the sixties with only the name changing. Norman hadn’t been here since before the apocalypse. The place was packed with customers and Norman had to squeeze through to find an unoccupied stool.
“What can I get ya, Hun?” The plump motherly woman asked.
Norman took off his mirrored shades, “Long time no see, Mabel.”
The woman looked at him in confusion for a moment before her eyes lit up and she smiled warmly. “Well, I’ll be, if it ain’t little Norman. I haven’t seen you in years, it seems you’ve grown up. Although I’ve been hearing some nasty rumors about you, you best be staying out of trouble,” she admonished him.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Norman replied.
“Uh, huh,” she tapped her pencil against the order pad, her chestnut ponytail bobbing with the motion.
Norman swallowed uncomfortably at the woman’s piercing gaze. Mabel had been a bit of a mother figure for him after his parents skipped town, although, it hadn’t started like that. The first time they had met, Norman had tried to hit on the older woman, only for her to pull him aside by the ear and reprimand him. Despite that, he still found the mature woman to be attractive. She had all the right curves in all the right places and looked good in the 1950’s style waitress outfit. The few grey hairs only seemed to accentuate her beauty.
“Well?”
“Oh, um, yeah,” Norman shook those thoughts away as he ordered a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast with a large glass of orange juice. He would have loved a rootbeer float but it was too early in the day for something like that.
When Mabel brought the food out, Norman asked. “You don’t have any openings do you?”
“Sorry, Hun, we are full up at the moment and I got more resumes than I know what to do with.”
“Ok, well, thanks anyway.” While he didn’t truly believe that, he wasn’t going to argue the point with the woman.
She smiled consolingly at him before hurrying off to another customer. Norman watched her go, her hips swaying seductively as she walked. Unlike the merchant, Mabel knew how to move.
The drone of noise in the restaurant was almost enough to drown out his thoughts as he ate his meal in silence. Mabel didn’t have another opportunity to chat with him but she did give him a kind smile as she dropped off the check. “Don’t be a stranger,” She smiled before hurrying off.
Norman picked up the check but found another piece of paper underneath it. He had to blink a few times before the words truly sunk in. He smiled widely and put his mirrored shades back on. He shoved the letter in his pocket and headed out. The words on the paper remained at the forefront of his thoughts as he headed toward home.
I get off at 10, meet me out back.
Things were starting to look up.
