And Then I Woke Up

"Are we there yet, Steve?" Jerry bleats from the backseat.

I’ve been counting, and this is the five-hundred and fifty-fifth time my camelid companion has popped the question. This is my fault for teaching a llama how to speak.

"Damnit, Jerry,” I snap, white-knuckled as I grip the spiked wheel of my rainbow F-150 and beg whatever God is up there for the light to turn green. “It’s just Costco, you don’t have to get so worked up about it.”

Jerry’s wooly brow furrows.

“Just Costco? Just Costco?” he splutters, wringing his hooves. “It might not be a big deal to a human like you, for whom the incredible luxury of shopping is an everyday occurrence, but it’s a big deal to a llama who can’t even enter the grocery store without everyone screaming at him.”

“Calm down, Jerry,” I snap, steering with one hand and throwing a bottle of Coca-Cola Starlite at him. “No one cares about your stupid social justice campaign!”

“I don’t need to calm down, you need to check your privilege!” He spits in my hair.

I shriek and let go of the wheel. Hundreds of honks erupt from around us as our Ford drifts into the left lane. An airbag punches me in the nose as we crash into an unfortunate motorcyclist. He shakes his fist at us as he flies off the freeway, combusting into a cloud of sparkles. I cringe, but I keep driving. Accidents happen and only God can judge me.

Jerry shoots an awkward, buck-toothed smile my way.

“So…how many more minutes until we get there?”

“You know, Jerry, that dung-brown fur of yours looks like it would make a great carpet for my living room.”

“But I’m b-o-o-o-o-red,” he whines, his small round ears drooping.

I hit the brakes and screech to a halt in the middle of the highway. A taxi swerves to avoid me, skids across the tar, where it is promptly sliced in half by a streetlight.

“Okay, you lanolin-lined loser - ”

“Loser? I’m not the one who spends his free time teaching llamas how to talk.”

“Jerry, I’m feeling a sudden urge to commit some serious animal abuse.”

“And I’m feeling an even stronger urge to spit. What’s your point?”

“If I tell you a cool story about Costco, will you finally shut up?” Jerry drapes his long, furry neck over my shoulder and curls around so he’s nose-to-snout with me.

“Yesssss.”

“Once upon a time, there lived a Taiwanese criminal who tried to steal one of China’s greatest treasures: A Hello Kitty plushie.”

Jerry gasps.

“They wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but she did,” I smirk, “and the police wanted to make her pay for it. They chased her halfway around the world. She managed to deter them for a few weeks, but eventually, she ran out of options…well, almost all of her options.”

“Where did she go?”

“The very Costco that we’re heading to now.” I pull into the parking lot. There are a lot of empty spots because all the other vehicles are still held up by the two accidents I caused a few minutes ago. Whoops-a-daisy.

Jerry’s jaw drops as he gawks at the enormous red letters, shot through with ribbons of sapphire and glinting in the sun like rubies. Truly crown jewels worthy only for the majesty of the legendary massive, silvery-gray, rectangular superstore looming over us.

“No way.”

“Yes, way. She disguised herself as a customer and went to the food court. Besides, she had a craving for beef noodle soup.”

Jerry’s nose scrunches up.

“Does Costco even have beef noodle soup?”

“Are you telling the story or am I? Anyway, she knew she couldn’t order beef noodle soup. That would basically be announcing to the entire world that she was Taiwanese -”

Jerry clamps a soft foot over my mouth, because I just realized that llamas are ungulates and therefore do not have hooves. I roll my eyes and shove his two padded toes off my face.

“That is a harmful stereotype,” he scolds.

This seems like a good place to add that the stuffy that he is based on may very well be an alpaca and not a llama. However, for the sake of laziness - ahem, for the sake of consistency, I will keep referring to him as a llama. This further proves how, as Jerry would put it, “species-ist” I am. To put it bluntly, I couldn’t care less.

“The only harm that’s being done is all the damage Twitter is doing to your brain,” I sigh, pinching my nose bridge. “Anyway, the criminal ordered this Indonesian dish called rujak kuah pindang instead. The police never found her.”

Jerry is completely speechless. The inside of the car is so quiet that it’s uncanny. Not that I’m complaining. I should’ve thought of telling him stories a long time ago. Then his beady black eyes light up.

Uh-oh, I think.

“We should try the rujak kuah pindang ourselves!” he declares, kicking the car door off his hinges and galloping towards the automatic gateways to the glorious superstore that Superstore only wishes it could compete with.

Jerry frolics through the toilet paper aisle. I’m dragging my feet behind him, using all my might to push a shopping cart that the blasted llama keeps on stocking with gigantic containers of Kraft mac and cheese, Oreos, and the newest Captain Underpants book. I lean against a jar of pickles that is twice my height to catch my breath.

“I love you, Dav Pilkey.” Jerry happily nuzzles the acclaimed author’s latest addition. “I still can’t believe you haven’t won a Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.” Despite my protests, he tosses Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers into our already overflowing pile of products that I can only afford because of Costco’s incredibly low prices and awesome deals.

“Jerry, slow down -" That’s when I spot a marsupial shadow slinking between the rolls of toilet paper in the corner of my eye. The pitch black mass solidifies into a kangaroo wearing a bone-white, full-face Venetian mask. It pulls a tiny paper cup with a piece of shrimp and some red sauce out of its pouch, offering it to us with a grin stuffed with needle-like teeth. My feet are glued to the floor with fear as the kangaroo just stands there menacingly, but Jerry snatches the sample out of its gnarled paws without a second glance and continues to scour the rows for canned tuna. The kangaroo winks at me before disappearing in a puff of smoke. It makes my blood curdle.

“That shrimp was so yummy,” Jerry burps.

“Since when did llamas eat shrimp?” I scoff.

After what has seemed like millennia, the galapagos turtle before us vacates the area with her fifty heads of lettuce and we move to the front of the line.

“First of all, I’m not a llama. I’m an alpaca.”

“I don’t care.” I do my best to ignore the concerned glance from the cashier as I place a boxed set of the entire Captain Underpants series on the conveyer belt.

“Second of all, if you didn’t only read articles that confirmed your implicit biases you would know that seafood is an integral part of an alpaca’s diet.”

“The last time I checked, literally every scientific article in the world states that alpacas are herbivores. Maybe you should check your sources.” With every ominous beep from the scanner, I can imagine another hard-earned dollar bill from my wallet bursting into flames.

“That’ll be ten thousand dollars,” the cashier announces.

The customers behind me groan collectively when I dump out a towering pile of coupons from my purse. A baby bursts into tears. The cashier mumbles something about how she doesn’t get paid enough for this.

“Speaking of which, we still haven’t tried that rujak kuah pindang.” His three-compartmented stomach growls and gurgles loudly. “One shrimp with sauce is far from enough to sustain an adult alpaca…”

The cashier draws a smiley face on my receipt with a sharpie, but it looks more like the soulless mascot for Kumon. She wears the same, deadened expression because working under the oppressive capitalist system has destroyed her dreams.

“I’m not buying you lunch, Jerry." I shove my receipt into his mouth. “I’ve already used up all of my coupons for your Blu-ray of the fourth Captain Underpants movie.”

Jerry swallows the paper and gives me a buck-toothed scowl.

“Fiiiiiine.”

Jerry and I trot over to the food court and are once again imprisoned at the back of the line. At least we have time to figure out what else we want to order besides the rujak kuah pindang before we get to the counter, unlike the moron at the front who is only now looking at the menu.

"If I order the roast beef sandwich, will you eat the pickles for me?" Jerry pleads, fluttering his eyelashes at me.

"Are you absolutely sure you're an alpaca?" I retort, blinking innocently.

"Uhhhh...I'll have the cheese pizza," the moron at the front says, prompting the entirety of the rest of the line to sigh deeply in relief.

"How about a hot dog?" Jerry suggests.

"You're an alpaca, you're supposed to be a herbivore," I insist, pulling out my phone and typing into the search bar.

"I am a herbivore, though!"

"'Herbivore. Noun. An animal that feeds on plants,'" I recite from the Google dictionary.

"Are - are roast beef and hot dogs not plants?" My conscience twinges at the abject horror and impending paradigm shift in his eyes.

"Let's just get fries." I comfortingly scratch him behind his little round ears as I step up to the counter. Then the color drains from my face when I meet the server's gaze.

"Hello! What can I get you today?" the ghostly kangaroo hisses, its fangs glinting under the fluorescence. The pentagram on its name tag is written in blood.

"I - I -" I stammer, strangled by the repressed scream slithering up my throat.

"We'll have the rujak kuah pindang and some large fries, please!" Jerry orders, utterly unfazed. I don't know if he's braver than I am or if he has a vision problem.

That's not a mask. The white is from the kangaroo's skull, peeking out from under the decaying, blackened flesh of its scalp.

"That'll be twenty dollars," the kangaroo says cheerily. Too cheery for a minimum wage employee. It disintegrates into a swarm of flies, buzzes into the kitchen, and returns with a pre-prepared package.

It's been expecting us.

"Thank you," Jerry chirps, spitting out a few coins into the tip jar before clamping the handles of the plastic bag between his teeth and trotting towards the nearest table.

"Have a nice day," the kangaroo tells me. It winks at me again, but there's a hint of malice in its blazing, slitted pupils.

"You, too," I choke out, then I stagger over to where Jerry is sitting and collapse onto the bench, cold sweat dripping down the nape of my neck.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jerry's fluffy tail twitches with worry as he uses a fork to push the fruit salad over to my side of the plate. I grab his toes and pull him closer so I can whisper in his ear.

"Jerry, listen to me."

"I mean, I can hear you pretty clearly. You're right next to my ear. Your breath stinks, by the way - "

"Jerry, we are in grave danger."

"What danger?"

"That server was too quick with our order. That kangaroo knew we wanted the fries and rujak kuah pindang before we even got in line."

"Maybe he's just a very experienced server."

"No, he was listening in on our conversation before he gave you the shrimp sample earlier." I inhale shakily. "Jerry, it's stalking us and if we don't get out of here he's going to kill us." Jerry pushes me away and laughs scornfully.

"Typical species-ist, you're lucky I'm here to educate you. You see - " I clench my jaw and yank the fork out from between his toes before he can scoop up some fruit from the banana leaf.

"Jerry, now's not the time."

"Kangaroos are not demons. That is a caricature perpetuated by wombat colonizers to vilify their victims."

"It had a pentagram on its name tag." A spoon hits me square in the nose bridge.

"Steve, have some salad."

"A pentagram written in blood."

"The fish gravy is especially good. I think they used brown sugar, so it's much richer."

"Jerry - " The llama shovels several slices of cucumber, apple, papaya, and yam bean between my lips. With my first chew, a symphony of flavors and textures burst on my tongue. It's infuriatingly addictive; simultaneously fresh, spicy, sweet, and sour.

"Feel better?"

"A little," I gulp.

"Look," Jerry gently bumps my hand with his muzzle. "If you feel unsafe, we can leave as soon as we finish eating. I promise."

I nod defeatedly and stuff more salak and guava into my mouth.

I buckle my seat belt and twist the ignition key, then I roll down the window and tweak the side mirrors.

“Are you buckled up, Jerry?”

“Yup.”

I nod approvingly, shift until I’m facing the front, place my hands on the steering wheel, and I shift the gear into reverse. Then my brows furrow and I whirl around to question Jerry again.

“How did you buckle your seatbelt with your hooves?”

“I don’t have hooves, I have toes,” the alpaca sighs long-sufferingly. “I’m an ungulate, you species-ist chauffeur.”

I turn on the radio and begin to back the car out of the parking lot at a slow walking pace. I shift the gear into drive, signal to the left, and start cruising down the road, which is congested with ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars.

“Out of my way!” I shout, honking the horn.

“There he is!” A man screams, hobbling over to the police officer next to him and pointing his casted arm at my windshield. He’s covered in bandages from head to toe. He must be the motorcyclist I threw off the bridge earlier.

“Uh-oh,” Jerry gulps.

“My bad,” I mouth at them. The police officer glares at me and begins marching towards our vehicle. I quickly put the gear into reverse, quickly backing away from the scene because I’m a real man who doesn’t take accountability for his actions. Unfortunately, I also end up backing right into a rogue baby in a stroller rolling across the crosswalk behind me.

“Oh, right, I almost forgot,” I mutter to myself. I reach up and adjust the rearview mirror until I can see clearly out of, you guessed it Captain Obvious, the rear window.

My eyes widen when I see the herd of demon kangaroos is bounding down the highway in perfect unison. Their needle-toothed jaws crack open in a battle chant, their maws like a horrible cross between Pac-man and all of the Muppets, but especially Kermit.

“Free samples! Free samples!” they howl, their haunting wails akin to a thousand nails scratching across thousands of blackboards.

The alpha kangaroo, who is still wearing its precious pentagram name tag, thumps its foot against the asphalt twice. At the signal, all of them reach into their pouches and yank out their own glittery AK-47. The alpha kangaroo thumps its foot twice again, then the herd opens fire.

“Double uh-oh,” Jerry squeaks.

I shift the gear into Fast and Furious mode, floor the gas, and spin the steering wheel a full three hundred and sixty degrees. I channel my inner Vin Diesel and race down the center lane, barreling through all the ambulances, the fire trucks, and the police cars. The motorcyclist jumps away in the nick of time before I flatten him, but then he trips and tumbles off the bridge once more.

“I don’t want your samples!” I holler at the marsupial mercenaries, rolling up my window. And not a moment too soon.

“Free samples! Free samples!” The kangaroos surround us and pepper my Ford with their poutine bullets. French fries, cheese curds, and super salty gravy splatter over the splintering glass.

Every single air bag inside the car inflates at the same time. Jerry bleats in alarm and clutches our leftover rujak kuah pindang closer to him when the puffy white cushions smash in on us from all sides.

I flick on the windshield wipers, but all it does is smear and spread out the splotches of sauce and toppings, so I grit my teeth and blindly swerve the car from side to side. I knock down kangaroos on the left and on the right. Some of them jump onto the hood. One of their clawed hands breaks through the windshield and grazes my cheekbone.

“Go faster, go faster,” Jerry pleads through a mouthful of the spicy, savory fruit salad. He eats when he is stressed and this has to be the most stressful situation a living organism could ever be in, second only to an English final where you have to answer ten multiple choice questions and handwrite two thesis statements and two explications in two hours.

“I’m trying,” I shout over the hissing and spitting of the kangaroos, “but their weight is slowing me down!”

I drive straight into a traffic light. The metal cleaves through the car, so now I’m gliding through an intersection in the left half of my vehicle, which fortunately happens to be where Jerry is sitting. He presses his padded toes together and mumbles a grateful prayer to the alpaca gods.

I kick up the speed of the windshield wipers to the second level and activate the water jets. Some of the kangaroos slip off the hood, but a few of them bounce back and snag onto the bumper. I slam on the brakes. I smirk when the kangaroos fly over the sunroof and face-first into a stop sign.

“See you later, eucalyptus eaters!” I cackle, reaching a hand behind me to high-five my lanolin-lined passenger, but Jerry does not reciprocate. At first, I assume he’s too perplexed by my uniquely human gesture, but then I realize he’s too petrified by what waits up ahead.

Hundreds of demon kangaroos barricade the street. The alpha screeches out instructions, arranging them and their red, plastic food trays into a formidable shield wall that the Anglo-Saxons themselves would admire.

The gas station on my dashboard flickers, indicating that I am running low on fuel. My engine sputters and my trusty F-150, which is apparently built for the bold but not car chases with demon kangaroos, rattles to a standstill.

One of the hitchhikers smashes through the rear window and leaps into the backseat, loading a fresh round of French fries into its magazine. Jerry yelps and scoots away from it, but the inflated air bags immobilize him.

I unbuckle my seat belt and reach out to him, but then the elbow of a hood-riding kangaroo locks around my throat, slamming me into the dashboard and squeezing the oxygen out from my windpipe.

The hitchhiking kangaroo lowers the glittery muzzle of the AK-47 between Jerry’s beady black eyes.

I gasp and gurgle for air, wriggling weakly and dig my nails into my opponent’s spindly, scaly arms, but my vision is darkening.

“I did not consent to this!” Jerry shrieks before spitting a wad of chewed up rujak kuah pindang at his assailant. The kangaroo recoils, screeching in agony. Its pouch flips inside out, it curls in on itself, and then it dissolves into a pile of ashes.

The malevolent marsupial holding me hostage stops strangling me in shock. I wrench out of its grip, thrust my hand into the styrofoam take-out box, and throw a fistful of the Indonesian dish into its pouch. The kangaroo disintegrates almost instantly. Jerry and I shoot each other a hopeful look. The rujak kuah pindang is their weakness because they can’t handle the spice, and all their vital organs are stored in their pouch. We know how to defeat them. We will defeat them.

I brush the ash out of the glittery AK-47, empty out the poutine, and replace the starchy ammunition with rujak kuah pindang. Jerry gobbles up as much fish sauce as he can. I roll back the sunroof, kick open the car door, and step out onto the tar. Jerry uses his long neck to raise himself through the top of the vehicle. I stomp the ground twice and take aim with my weapon. Jerry nods at me to go ahead. I stomp the ground twice again and open fire on the barricade. Jerry spits his own barrage of flavor and alpaca-slash-llama saliva, dissolving through their tray-shields.

“Retreat, retreat!” the alpha kangaroo yowls. The miserable marsupials heed the call of their leader and form a ring around the remains of their fallen brethren. The ashes melt into a pentagram-shaped pool. One by one, the kangaroos liquefy and slither into the down-underworld from whence they came. Then the pool dries up and every trace of the beasts disappears, except for a single, glistening name tag.

“Did we beat them?” Jerry asks, tentatively trotting up to the site.

“For now,” I say gravely.

“We should head back to Costco and get some more rujak kuah pindang.” Jerry’s ears flatten and he shudders. “Y’know, just in case?”

“As long as you don’t fall for any more free samples…or buy anymore Captain Underpants books.”

“Fine, I hope you’re okay with me putting this on my twitter feed.”

“Sure, you lanolin-lined loser.” I smile and pat him on the muzzle before we stroll off into the sunset.