Southern Hospitality

Bone-deep American instinct turned me left, and soon the low roofs of a small rural suburb were rising from the trees ahead. As I rolled through, a familiar red roof drew my eye – and then I saw it; from the morass of signboards with incomprehensible squiggles, one simply smiled at me with a face I’d recognize in my dreams.

The Colonel.

With quiet and appreciative joy I turned in and circled the building the wrong way ‘round, having forgotten the Japanese drive on the left side, so I pulled past the window, turned in the parking lot and came back the right way, stopping at the signboard and leaning over to side open the passenger-side window.

“Irasshaimase!” a cheerful voice called through the speaker, followed by equally incomprehensible Japanese.

Right. I pulled out my phone. I had the accessibility/transcribe shortcut active (useful for communicating with civilians deafened by nearby gunfire), so I switched the language to Japanese and rolled up to the window. Within two teenage girls were having an animated argument, when one of them pointed out the window at me, slapping her coworker on the shoulder.

I opened the window. “Hello, I do not speak Japanese so please be patient with me,” I said, and presented the screen to them. I received the two blankest stares I’ve seen this side of a warrant officer encountering a broom.

Puzzled, I looked down – and realized I was still sitting chest-deep in water. A Humvee only has four small drain holes in the floor and in my haste to make good my escape I’d neglected to crack a door. Moreover, there were a few small koi swimming around me.

“My mistake, could I please have three empty chicken buckets?” I said, and proffered the phone. One girl plucked them from the dispenser and the other handed them to me, neither of their gazes deviating from me for a second. “Thank you!” I said, set my phone on the dash, and peeled away to find a parking spot. A minute later I popped the door and a flood of water drenched the asphalt, a trio of baby koi swimming tight laps in their 21-piece chicken buckets. I poured out my boots, shook my legs off, gathered up my fish and walked in.

It was thankfully one of those stores where you order from the cashier instead of some damned touch-screen kiosk, so I strolled up, set down my fish buckets and produced my phone again. The girls from the window were animatedly talking to an older man I took for the manager, who both pointed past him at me, voices raised. He turned on his heel and his mouth fell open.

I said “Hello! I am sorry I do not speak Japanese!” into my phone and presented the screen with a winning smile.

The manager took my order with aplomb, even thought his smile was threatening to jitter off his face, and I was just walking to my table, fish in arms, when I felt the floor falling out from under me. I managed to land in the chair without losing any fish, but it wasn’t very graceful. Closing my eyes, I rested my arms on the table and clasped my hands together tight to suppress the shaking as I focused on long, deep breaths. I opened my eyes, smiling pleasantly at the general vicinity as I tried to rally enough to walk properly before my chicken was done.

Adrenaline crashes are normal, but this one was more of a trainwreck. The bloodshot eyes of the shifter mage rose unbidden in my mind; memory still wet and breathing – the pure and scalding rage at being fought to stalemate. And something else…

A chill ran down my spine – well, I was soaking wet and the AC was turned up a bit. In fact, I was dripping. Rising slowly, testing my legs before trusting, I wobbled up to the counter and stuffed both hands in my pockets to arrest the jitters.

“Hello! Uh… mop?”

Blank stares.

“… moppu?”

The manager nodsmiled as he muttered terse instructions from the corner of his mouth, and soon a mop was provided.

“Ari… godo?” I tried, and the nodsmiles redoubled. Leaning on the mop a little as I wiped the floor dry, I retraced my steps from the door, then back to my table – but the Eyes lingered in my mind all the same. I sat down and blew bubbles into each fish bucket in turn to oxygenate the water, and remembered the moonlight glinting off the brown water of a Louisiana bayou. The shaper, stark in my headlights; leaping from the bank as a man and crashing into the waves already half-transformed into something else; the Duramax roaring as I charged after…

I shook my head. It’d been a close fight, that’s all. In the natural or supernatural worlds alike, weighed against beasts or bogeymen, Man was the best killer bar none.

The manager strode up, tray in hand, and set it before me, his smile a lot firmer now. “Arigata, arigata!” I said with surprised delight, and he fairly beamed at me before giving me a slight bow and returning to the counter. A few minutes later I was tearing into the best damned fried chicken I’d ever had, anywhere. The Eyes faded from mind fast as my table manners did; I was ravenous. I paused to dole out chicken nuggies to the fish, my hands finally steady again.

“Another satisfied customer,” someone drawled in Southern English, and I looked up to find The Colonel himself sitting across from me, wearing an incredibly frilly pink magical girl dress.

I’ve seen some gnarly shit in my time, from claymation-tier creepy to woofnado weird, but even I was floored by that one. I just stared, jaw frozen mid-chew and stale breath burning in my lungs as mental wheels spun without traction.

The Colonel donned his famous smile. “Southern, hospitality,” he drawled, “a taste of home, away from home, when you need it most.” The smile faded, bright blue eyes somber and sharp. “And son, I reckon you need my hospitality more than ever right now.”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Something followed you from home,” he said. “Some swampy-smelling peckerwood, an’ he’s beelining right for you.”

I shot up from the table, already brushing my T-shirt back as I went to draw – but the Colonel’s hand, solid and tangible as anyone else’s, landed on my shoulder. “Let’im come,” he said, blue eyes afire. “If he sticks his snout in here I’mma knock his scaly ass plumb back to whatever stinkin shithole he slithered out of.”

“He who!?”

The Colonel cast his piercing blue gaze over my shoulder. “HIM!”

I turned just in time to see the gigantic demon alligator smash through the plate-glass window.