Food Truck Showdown in Space (Part 2)

I glanced around the grounds, trying to figure out the optimal spot to find large numbers of dehydrated drunk people. The sound of violent puking suddenly caught my attention.

"Bleeeeeehhhh!" Came from somebody within a set of grimey porta-potties.

After a few moments of listening to them empty their guts, the door flung open, revealing an alien that looked like a turquoise colored octopus with multiple eyes of all different sizes covering its entire body and a toothless cone-like mouth plastered on the side of its head. Its skin was dried out and starting to crack. If anybody looked like they could use a glass of water and a burger, it was whatever this thing was.

"Excuse me, our food truck over there is doing a promotion; buy a burger and get a glass of tap water free." I held out the coupon, as I approached it.

"⏁⊑⏃⋏☍ ☌⍜⍜⎅⋏⟒⌇⌇ ⟟ ⏁⊑⍜⎍☌⊑⏁ ⟟ ⍙⏃⌇ ☌⍜⟟⋏☌ ⏁⍜ ⎅⟟⟒." It spoke in a series of high pitched dog whistle-like noises, of which I struggled to comprehend.

"Sure..." I nodded my head, pretending that I understood.

It lifted one of its tentacles and wriggled it in front of my face. "⏚⎍⍀☌⟒⍀" It responded, snatching the coupon from my hand.

To my surprise, the alien began slithering in the direction of our truck. Maybe Randy was onto something.

Immediately, the sound of someone else vomiting rang out from behind the toilets. A moment later, a five foot cubed cardboard box with two eye holes and a mouth hole cut into it shuffled out.

I walked up to it and flashed a coupon. "Our food truck over there's doing a promotion for a free glass of water with the purchase of a Burger. I have a coupon if you're interested."

"Y-your not with the Sp-space Feds, are you?" The box man drunkenly stuttered.

I stare at him a bit confused. "Uh... No, I'm not."

"Tch, y-yeah right. Th-those slips of p-paper are probably tracking devices."

"I take it you're not interested then." I turned my back to find someone else to badger.

"W-wait a se-second, let's not be too hasty. Do me a f-favor and put one of those up to my mouth hole."

Hesitantly, I did as he said and brought the coupon up to the hole. Immediately, a sucking force pulled it from my hand.

There were a series of rustling noises that echoed from inside. After a moment, the box man completed his analysis. "Th-this is definitely legit!... But I got my eye on you."

He proceeded to shuffle toward the truck. Another one down. So far so good. Hopefully I could keep this momentum up.

Over the next dozen or so minutes, different types of heavily intoxicated aliens came and went from the porta-potties like a revolving door to empty their guts. With their stomachs vacant and the water content drained from their bodies, the free water promo wasn't a hard sell.

🍔🍔🍔

After my luck was seeming to dry up near the porta-potties, I headed back to our truck. The current line to order consisted of roughly five people, which was slightly concerning.

"How have things been on your side?" I asked as I entered the back of the truck.

"We've served about twenty customers in the past half hour, but judging from watching that sushi truck, we're definitely lagging behind." Mindy spoke as she operated the register.

Randy leaned out the service window and stared with an irritated gaze toward his mortal enemy. "That ducker's up to his tricks again. There's no way he should have that many customers." He turned toward the random generic looking green alien that was attempting to order. "You!” He pointed his finger at him. “How do you think that sushi truck's drawing in so many people?"

The alien stared at Randy, confused by his off the cuff question. "I don't know, maybe their food’s just bet-."

Randy cut him off. "I completely agree. It's definitely got to be mind control... Also number twenty three, your order is ready." He turned back toward me. "Alright little bro, I'm going to need you to cross over to enemy territory and get to the bottom of this."

"But-."

He shook his head. "Butts are for crapping. Now get over there and figure out what underhanded tactics that basshole is using."

Once again, picking me up by the belt of pants, he flung me out the window onto the pavement. It seemed like I didn't have much of a choice but to go spy on our competition.

🍔🍔🍔

I stood from a distance, observing the sushi truck. All of its patrons stood in an orderly fashion, patiently waiting to give their orders to the trench coat guy, who was in the kitchen, diligently cooking away. As expected, nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. So far from what I could tell, Randy's claims were completely baseless. However, knowing that wouldn't satisfy him, I would have to try and dig deeper.

Discreetly, I made my way toward the back of the line. At the end was a completely ordinary looking human with brown hair and brown eyes. In fact, I think he was the only human I'd seen at this venue other than Randy and me.

I got in line behind him and casually tapped him on the shoulder. "How long have you been waiting?"

"..." He remained completely still, not so much as twitching a muscle.

Immediately, I realized something was off. Despite all these people, it was completely silent. Not one of them made a sound. Just like the guy in front of me, everyone stood motionless. Only moving forward every couple minutes when it was the next person's turn in line.

I tried waving my hand in front of his face. "Are you alright?"

There was a moment of silence, then suddenly his head snapped around toward me. "..." He remained silent, only taking in air through his nose. It seemed like he was smelling the air.

"I didn't mean to disrupt you, but-."

Opening his mouth out of nowhere, he suddenly lunged at me like he was trying to bite me.

"What the heck!?" I managed to just barely dodge him.

I lunged back. The entire line of patrons stiffly spun around and faced in my direction. The trench coat guy's voice suddenly chimed in from his window. "You know, it's not very sportsmanlike to meddle with my customers." He had a maniacal tone to his voice as he spoke.

I wasn't typically the type of person to buy into conspiracy theories, but I think maybe my brother was right this time. Having a bad feeling, I immediately turned and started sprinting back to the ship. The "customers", if that's what you could call them, began pursuing after me.

As I neared the truck, Randy excitedly greeted me. "Woah, nice job, little bro. You managed to steal all his cust-!"

Not even thinking twice, I dove head first through the service window and slammed it shut behind me. "You were right!" I exclaimed, as I proceeded to check to make sure all the doors and windows in the ship were locked.

Randy laughed, as he patted me on the shoulder. "I knew you could pull off the Worgan Mallen impersonation."

Sweat beat down my head as I caught my breath. "No, not that." Our truck began to rock back and forth. "You were right about the mind control, Randy. I'm pretty sure that trench coat guy is turning his customers into zombies."

Randy excitedly jumped up in the air. "I told you so!"

Mindy threw her arms up in frustration. "I can't believe this. I blame you for this." She pointed at my brother.

"Yeah, well you know who believed my mind control theory from the start when I spoke with her over the phone... Your mom." Randy shot back at her with a smirk, which was met with a knee to the stomach.

"I'm not about to let some zombies ruin this concert." She began rummaging through our cabinets. "Perfect!" Out of our fridge, she pulled out a pump shotgun with a box of twelve gauge slugs.

I turned toward Randy. "Why is there a gun in our fridge?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "There's a lot of things I hid in this ship that you don't know about."

"Ralphy, when I tell you, flip open that window. I'm going to start blasting." She spoke while loading one shell at time into the shotgun.

The sounds of zombies clawing at the metallic sides of our ship, began piercing our ears. Maybe she had a point. As much as I didn't want to have to respond with violence, something had to be done.

I put my hand on the service window’s cover. "Just tell me when... And just so you know, if we don't make it out of this I love-."

Randy flicked me in the head, as he unsheathed his spatula. "You two better not start killing my customers. I still have a contest to win." He cranked up the heat on his grill. "Let me cook!"