Some Assembly Required by Bru Baker, Lex Chase Read Free Book Online

did seem to have a lot of fun today.”
    Benji narrowed his eyes at Patrick, who looked more somber than he had all day. “What is she talking about? Karin…?”
    Benji turned around, but she was gone. Not just walking away, but gone. Which shouldn’t be possible in the open floor plan of a warehouse store like CASA.
    “Let’s go,” Patrick said with a resigned sigh. He wrapped his arm around Benji’s shoulders just like he had earlier that afternoon, guiding him out with the herd of shoppers who were heading for the exits. “Listen, this is going to suck. And I’m sorry.”
    What was going to suck? Heading out to the enormous parking lot that he had no memory of parking in and trying to find his car? Wait, his pants. They were in the trash in the locker room.
    “My keys,” he said, turning to Patrick in horror.
    “You didn’t have any keys,” Patrick said, his voice almost painfully gentle.
    “What? Of course I did,” Benji spluttered. They’d come up to the doors, but he wasn’t going to leave without his keys. He’d have no way to get home or get into his apartment even if he could get there. Shoppers flowed out around them, not paying them the slightest bit of attention. Oh God. His keys. His apartment. The dog. He’d been dog-sitting, and he’d left the dog in his apartment all day long. Jesus, the mess was going to be apocalyptic.
    “You didn’t,” Patrick said carefully. “Look outside, Benji.”
    Benji shook his head. “This has been the weirdest day ever, and I’m ready to go home. You can give me your number if you want. I mean, if this is some sort of ploy to get me to go home with you, it’s not going to work, but I’d definitely be interested in seeing you again.”
    Instead of replying, he shook his head and turned Benji toward the glass doors so he could see the twilight glow of the parking lot.
    Benji was about to yell at him when a group of shoppers approached the automatic doors, which hissed open, revealing the emptiness of space.
    Not space as in an empty parking lot. Space as in space. When the doors parted, customers vanished into the starry vastness of the universe.
    Benji stumbled back, his knees weak. Patrick supported him with a gentle rub to the upper arms. The doors opened, and Benji got a bigger picture of the great beyond. Constellations danced across the dark void. Green, blue, and red nebula clouds twinkled with sprinkles of stars.
    The customers passed through, checking their receipts and asking their spouses what they’d like for dinner. They didn’t pay attention to the blackness swallowing them into the great nothing. But when the door closed, Benji could see those same customers through the windows, walking through the parking lot.
    He broke away from Patrick and ran up to the doors. They slammed shut. He stood there banging on them until a woman with a cart approached, but instead of seeing the parking lot when it opened, Benji saw the same terrifying void. The woman vanished into the rift of the Milky Way, and then the doors slid shut and outside, the same woman pushed on to her Subaru in the parking lot.
    Cold sweat prickled over Benji’s skin when he tried to walk through the doors the next time they swung open, and his stomach turned violently. His vision was graying out when he felt Patrick yank him from behind so hard that the two of them tumbled into a rack of yellow shopping bags.
    “I have to get home,” Benji said weakly.
    Patrick laughed humorlessly, rubbing his hands up and down Benji’s arms to soothe the gooseflesh there.
    “You are home, kiddo.”
    What the fuck .
    Benji blinked once, and the world filled with the same darkness of the consuming void. His head fell back and he leaned into Patrick, falling into the nothing.

Chapter Four: SPÖL
    Benji’s clawed hand shot through the surface of the Bambini Mondo ball pit. A wave of red plastic balls surged over the lip of the enclosure, spilling onto the brightly colored floor and rolling in