Tag Archives: tales from the booth

“His Girl in Red” to be Published in WE WALK INVISIBLE

Chupa Cabra House has announced they will be publishing my short story, “His Girl in Red”, in their upcoming anthology, WE WALK INVISIBLE, to be released this November. If you enjoy my occasional hotel stories on Facebook and my blog, then you might want to check this one out. My story “His Girl in Red” is about a hotel night clerk with a fetish for watching people sleep.

Check out the cover and table of contents (not in any official order) below, and keep an eye out for this baby next month…

Cover design by Timm Tayshun
  1. “His Girl in Red” by Max Booth III
  2. “Martin Miles and the Murder at Cherry Hill” by Juliet Niehaus
  3. “Nil” by Barry Rosenberg
  4. “Amputations and Phantom Sensations” by Mackenzie Hurlbert
  5. “Thin” by John S. Barker
  6. “Invisible People” by James S. Dorr
  7. “Happiness is an Unseen Variable” by Christopher Nigro
  8. “Of the Utmost Discretion” by Christine Morgan
  9. “Wreckage” by Steve Newton
  10. “Fifty” by Charie La Marr
  11. “Creepy Creatures” by Michael Shimek
  12. “Half a Dozen” by Mark Slade
  13. “The Occultation Suit” by Mark Mellon
  14. “Haunted” by Melissa Osburn
  15. “Invisible” by K.A. Magrowski
  16. “Hour Redemption” by K. Trap Jones

 

Give Me Chicken Nuggets or Give Me Death

How many times have you’ve been caught sitting around, just minding your own business and behaving like any other innocent citizen would, when a deep, persistent hunger suddenly strikes full force? A seed planted long ago by tedious advertisements finally begins to grow into something a little more than just an idea—it becomes the only coherent train of thought graspable. Whatever variation of the craving you may be suffering, it’s always the same: you must have it, and at all costs necessary.

It is the only thing that matters. Everything else can wait. Baby crying? Screw it, they’ll still be crying when you return. House ablaze? Yeah, well, odds are it’ll still be on fire in a half hour, too. There is nothing that compares to satisfying this withdrawal; this longing of obesity.

So you get up, quickly leaping into your car and taking off at full speed. Red lights be damned! You have a mission to accomplish and you will not rest until you’re good and full! Pulling up to the nearest drive-thru, you frantically tap your fingers along the steeling wheel as the stupid teenager with her stupid acne behind the register tries her best to remember how to operate the window. All the while thinking that if she doesn’t take your order soon you are going to literally explode of starvation, tiny maggots of famine splattering against your windshield forever to ponder, “What if? What if?

And then, to your utter dismay, she finally remembers to slide the window open, and you are free to demand whatever it is you desire.

That is, of course, assuming it’s even on the breakfast menu, as Melodi Dushane of Toledo, Ohio, soon came to learn. You see, Melodi was craving some chicken nuggets. Real bad. But the thing is, it was still morning, and as we all know, McDonald’s is a real bitch when it comes to time restraints. Needless to say, this left her pretty distraught.

However, unlike ordering a McMuffin like the rest of us in this situation, Melodi instead went a different route: wherein she stepped out of her car and proceeded to punch the drive-thru worker repeatedly in the face.

The drive-thru girl did not back down either; first trying to rip Melodi’s hair from her scalp until finally getting the bright idea of closing the window (with the help of arriving co-workers). There was a bit of a struggle, Melodi’s hands being crushed more than once (along with the spelling of her first name being ridiculed even more times), but after a while she was at last isolated outside. After a few feeble attempts to bust the window with her elbow, Melodi returned back to her car, seemingly implying air was safe to breathe again.

But then in a twist of events like M. Night Shymalan at his worst, Melodi suddenly sprung back out of the car hurling what appeared to be a beer bottle through the drive-thru window, shattering most of it to pieces with a fierce rage unmistakably identified as a lust for poultry. Melodi concluded her fit with one last rabid punch through the now violated window, subsequently fleeing back inside her car and speeding away, where she would soon find herself facing 60 days in prison, 3 years of probation, and more than a $1,500 fine for damages.

You can watch the whole thing on video tape below:

At the end of the security video, the next car in line is rather visible as it pulls up to the shattered window, feeling a cluster of emotions that can only be defined as, “What the fuck?”

I can only imagine the drive-thru worker carrying out the next order acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened whatsoever. Hopefully the breakfast hours were nearly at an end.

Or, you know, the next customer could have asked for chicken nuggets as well, and the cashier would have totally went mental.