Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror by Zané Sachs Page A

Everything seems normal. A woman with purple dreadlocks is shoplifting; I watch her slip a Mango Passion energy drink into her purse. A gray-haired guy, wearing a motorcycle jacket and what appears to be a tie-dyed tablecloth, reaches out to squeeze a loaf of bread, ruining it for other customers.
    I return to the baler. This time I lift the shopping cart before standing on the stepstool, then I heave the cart above my shoulders and throw it into the baler.
    Perfect fit.
    I hide the stool behind the baler, slip out from the backroom, and pretend to collect garbage. The woman with the dreadlocks and the motorcycle guy are gone. The coast is clear. Dropping a bag of trash, I start yelling.
    “Hey! Come back! What are you doing?”
    Abandoning the garbage cart, I sprint past the Deli counter and the robot.
    “May I take your order?”
    “Fuck off.”
    I run through Produce, shouting, “Stop!”
    At this time of night, hardly anyone is shopping. A young man looks up from a bin of apples and stares at me through a haze of legal marijuana.
    I chase my imaginary customer out the front door, into the parking lot.
    My plan unfolds as intended. I hear Terri’s footsteps on the pavement behind me.
    I run faster, in hot pursuit of the imaginary customer.
    At the far end of the parking lot I see someone entering a car. It’s too dark to tell if it’s a man or a woman, but it doesn’t matter. As the car moves out onto the street, I point at the taillights.
    “That’s him!”
    “Who?”
    I stop running, allow Terri catch up with me.
    “The guy!”
    “What did he do?”
    “He threw a shopping cart into the baler.”
    “What?”
    I’m glad it’s dark out here, so Terri can’t get a good view of my face. Despite the Xanax I’ve taken, my right eye is twitching.
    I speak slowly, carefully forming each word, because my tongue feels like a kosher pickle. “He. Threw. A. Shopping. Cart. Into. The. Baler.”
    Terri looks at me askew. I’m not sure she buys my story.
    Trying to convince her, I say, “He. Snuck. Past. Me. Wh—”
    “Why are you talking like that? Have you been drinking?”
    “No!” Forcing my sluggish tongue to move, my story spills out in a jumble, “Isawhimleavethe employeeonly areaandIranafterhim.”
    As the words leave my mouth, I realize my mistake: if I ran after him when I saw him leave the employee only area, how did I know about the shopping cart? I wouldn’t have seen the cart. Hoping Terri hasn’t noticed my big fat lie, I amend the story.
    A rush of adrenaline unleashes my tongue. “Before I ran after him, I went in back and checked the baler—that’s when I saw the shopping cart and—”
    Ignoring me, Terri rushes through the parking lot, headed for the store’s entrance. I hear her muttering, “I’ve got to get that damned cart out of the baler.”
    Wendy and Doreen greet us at the entrance.
    “What happened?”
    “What’s going on?”
    “Go back to work,” Terri tells them.
    I’m on Terri’s heels, congratulating myself for my brilliant plan. A few minutes from now, my competition will be crushed. I follow her through Produce, stay close behind her as we pass through Deli, remain in hot pursuit when we hit Bakery. We duck through the panel door, hurry past the freight elevator to the baler.
    “What the—”
    Terri stares, in shock.
    I couldn’t be more delighted.
    The shopping cart is suspended, seemingly in midair, lodged between flattened cardboard boxes and the ceiling of the chamber.
    Terri grabs the cart and attempts to yank it from the baler.
    The cart doesn’t budge.
    “How the hell am I supposed to get it out?”
    “Climb inside?” I offer.
    “I guess.” She glances at me. “Give me a boost.”
    “Sure.”
    I lace my hands together, ready to receive Terri’s foot. My heart beats double time, as I imagine her climbing into the chamber, imagine myself grabbing the stepstool so I can reach the handle of the feed gate and pull it down, locking Terri inside. Then