Food Truck Showdown in Space (Part 3)

The zombies continued pounding on the outside of our ship, while Randy diligently fried away at his grill. The smell of grilling meat filled the kitchen.

"Little bro, get me a bag of buns. Accountant chick, I need a head of lettuce." He began ordering us around.

It was getting down to the wire. Every passing second that ticked away brought us closer to the contest deadline. At the moment things seemed bleak. We were surrounded by zombies and it was apparent that we were drastically trailing behind the sushi truck in our customer count. It was going to take a miracle for us to win.

Mindy stopped a moment to speak up. "I think-."

Randy immediately shushed her. "Now's not the time for thinking. It's the time for doing. As long as I'm still standing, I'll flip these burgers until my last breath." He began slapping patties onto open buns that were set up on the table beside him. "I need cheese, onion, and tomato, now!"

Mindy and I did as he said and followed each and every one of his directions. After the patty was the cheese, then lettuce, tomato, onion, and finally...

"Little bro, bring me my secret sauce."

"I'm not really sure what that is? Where do you keep it?"

"It wouldn't be a secret if you did. It's in the jar in the back of the fridge. You'll know it when you see it." He pulled out a blindfold and handed it to Mindy. "I'm going to need you to cover your eyes. This is a closely guarded company secret."

She sighed as she complied with his request. "Whatever you say."

I stuck my head toward the back of the refrigerator and glanced around. It was hard to make out what anything was with all the miscellaneous junk my brother had stored inside, much of which didn't even belong in a fridge in the first place. Suddenly, something that sparkled caught my eyes. I reached in and grabbed a clear jar with a label on it that read, "DO NOT TOUCH. Randy's eyes only." Inside it contained a glistening viscous substance that almost looked like liquified gold.

I handed it to him. "When did you come up with this?"

He popped open the lid and began drizzling it on the burgers with a spoon. "It's a special blend I came up with after we left the ranching planet. While you were asleep one night, I developed it when I accidentally spilled some, let's just say, 'mystery substances together'."

Despite having things I wanted to question him about, there wasn't time. He allowed Mindy take off her blindfold and then proceeded to hand us each a tray stacked with burgers. "Time to get out there and start serving these hungry customers."

Mindy shot him a look of concern. "Are you insane! You expect us to go out there and feed burgers to mindless zombies."

He grinned at her, while flinging open the service window without warning. "That's exactly what we're going to do. From now until the contest ends, all our burgers will be one hundred percent off!"

"But-."

"I swear, you just don't learn, little bro. Butts are for crapping. Enough talk, we got burgers to serve." He led the charge by grabbing a burger in his hand and reaching out the service window toward the nearest Zombie, which was some sort of alien with a gopher-like face. It let out a moan as it opened its mouth in an attempt to bite my brother. Before it could gnaw down on his arm, he force fed it by shoving a burger down its throat.

A moment passed as it ingested the sandwich. The glazed over look in its eyes suddenly subsided. "My head hurts." It said, as it fell to the ground unconscious.

"What are you two standing there for? Go!" Randy sternly ordered.

After witnessing my brother's burger miraculously cure whatever mind control these people we under, Mindy and I no longer had any room for doubt.

"Get on the roof. I have a plan." Mindy spoke as she rolled down the passenger side window. The two of us crawled out and onto the roof of the ship. Surrounding us on all sides below, was a crowd of about three dozen or so zombies.

Setting down her platter beside her, she picked up a burger in her hand, holding it like a baseball. "Aim for their mouths." Lobbing the burger, she nearly knocked out the zombie's teeths that she threw it at.

"Where'd you learn to throw like that?" I wondered.

She smirked. "I played pitcher on my college's softball team."

Attempting and failing to try and impress her, I clumsily tossed a cheeseburger... It completely missed the zombie's mouth, splattering on its forehead. "Shoot!"

"Little bro, catch!" Randy shouted from down below, as he tossed a large tube up towards me. From the look of it, it appeared to be a T-shirt cannon.

With no time to ask questions, I wedged a burger into the front of the cannon's barrel. I wasn't sure if this would work, but the seal seemed to be air tight. Taking aim at the first zombie I saw, I squeezed the trigger. Compressed air filled the tube. The pressure caused the burger to launch out at high speed, directly hitting the zombie in the mouth.

This was definitely going to be a big help. Now was the time where we had to lock in. Mindy and I remained on the roof diligently launching food at the zombies, while Randy remained down below, force feeding them with his bare hands through the window. All three of us gave it everything we had for the final ten minutes of the contest.

The robo-ref began giving its final countdown. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Beep bop. An air horn noise played over the robot's speakers signalling the end of the competition. By some miracle, we managed to feed each and every zombie, which now lay unconscious around our truck.

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At the center of the parking lot, the three of us eagerly stood awaiting the results. The moment the trench coat guy came into Randy's sight, he immediately got in his face, confronting him. "You gas turd! I'm calling foul play."

"I have no idea what you're referring to." The trench coat guy feigned ignorance.

Randy pointed over to our ship. "Then how do you explain all those unconscious people around my truck?"

"Maybe they got stomach aches from your food."

The vein in Randy's forehead swelled up. "Listen here you ducker! Don't play stupid with me. Both you and I know that you used some trick to turn those customers into zombies." He turned toward the robo-ref. "I'd say that's grounds for disqualification."

"Even if there is evidence of this, there is nothing in the terms that both parties agreed to that forbids mind control. Beep bop." The robot asserted.

"You rigged this from the start!" Randy accusingly stuck his finger in the trench coat guy's chest.

"You had every right to bring up your concerns when we agreed on the contest rules at the beginning. Why didn't you?" Trench coat guy rebuttaled, unfortunately having a point.

The robot chimed back in. "If you are done venting your frustrations, I have the results. Beep bop."

All of us nervously leaned forward as the robo-ref tabulated the results on its face screen. Two sets of numbers appeared, increasing as the robot made its calculations...

"The ending score is 59 to 59. The match is a draw. Beep bop."

"You got to be ducking kidding me! Re-run those numbers, robo-bro." Randy ordered.

"I can confirm my calculations are accurate. Beep bop."

"Tch." Randy bit his tongue in frustration.

"I don't like unsettled things. What would you say to a sudden death round? First person to serve the next customer wins." Trench coat guy confidently proposed.

My brother didn't even hesitate to jump on the offer. "Done! When we both reach our ships, give us the starting signal robo-bro."

For someone who was just complaining about foul play, he agreed to this tie breaker rather quickly. I really hoped he had a trick up his sleeve.