Z-motors

The temperature topped 120 degrees in the shop, but the excessive heat didn’t bother the mechanics at Z-motors or the owner, Dean Zyla, who wore his usual suit and tie. From his chair in the service office, he watched his men working in the shop bays through a large plate-glass window. Mrs. Miller’s Ford Taurus was lifted up on a hoist in Bay One. It appeared that his mechanics were looking over her car’s exhaust system.

The car was in for an oil change. Aside from the standard up-sells of brake and cooling system flushes, they seemed to be looking for something else to sell her...

A mechanic suddenly ripped off the muffler with his bare hands, literally bare, clear down to his bones, and held it up to his left eye as if it were a telescope.

Zyla was about to get up and give the idiot hell when another mechanic peeled the left front tire off its rim. The escaping air made a whoosh-boom sound that rattled the window. Another mechanic tore the driver’s door off its hinges and tossed it into a nearby junk pile.

“Damn!” Zyla’s mechanics were out of control, no doubt because they were stuck working during their lunch hour. However, that was no excuse to wreck Mrs. Miller’s car.

Zyla wriggled his lanky frame from the chair and stormed toward the steel shop door, but suddenly remembered the security system. Under the counter, he felt for the system’s switch. With a click, a projector beamed a computer-generated image of a clean and modern repair shop in the window glass, just in case somebody entered the office while he was out there bitch-slapping his employees.

He shoved open the steel door and charged into the shop. “What the hell’s the matter with you bozos? You got shit for brains?”

A half-dozen mechanics turned toward him, an ugly bunch: glazed over eyes, faces rotted down to the molars, ratty hair, and bony limbs. They wore a tattered mismatch of filthy slacks and shirts. Some walked around barefoot, a definite OSHA violation. Others wore ragged tennis shoes and grungy, unlaced boots. He let them wear their own clothes at work because it saved him a ton of money on uniform expenses.

“Can’t you bone-heads do anything right?”

The sounds of a crash and cracking glass made everyone turn to look at Mrs. Miller’s car. A mechanic had slammed a sledgehammer into the windshield. The others grunted, the only sound that ever came out of their choppy-toothed mouths.

Zyla stomped up to the bean-brain holding the crumpled muffler. “Look at what you did. It’s ruined!” He whacked him upside his sunken left temple, and then turned to the dimwit who’d ripped off the door. “How are you going to explain this to Mrs. Miller?”

The mechanics looked at each other with bewilderment in their round eyeballs. There wasn’t a brain cell working among them.

“Morons!”

Zyla would have to break the bad news to Mrs. Miller himself. As he headed toward the customer waiting lounge, his stomach grumbled for lunch. Mrs. Miller had picked a bad time to stop in Rolling Oaks, Colorado. She was headed to Denver for the Christmas holiday, and having clipped a coupon from her local newspaper, she’d decided to cash in on a free oil change along the way.

Didn’t she know...? Nothing in life was free. Zyla choked down a chuckle and entered the waiting room. “Mrs. Miller.”

Sweating profusely, the porky old broad looked up from the magazine she was reading. Impatience slanted her bushy eyebrows. “What’s taking so long? You said it would only be ten minutes.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we found a problem. You need a brake fluid flush for sixty-four-ninety-five, a radiator flush for thirty-nine-ninety-five, plus antifreeze, and a transmission flush. The fluid is really dirty.”

Her expression scrunched to outrage. “Just because I’m a woman, you think you can rip me off?”

“You also need a new door, a new windshield, a new tire, and a new muffler.”

She gasped with incredulity. “Those things were fine when I came in here.”

“Come see for yourself.” He motioned her to follow him.

She waddled behind. “It’s hotter than hell in here.”

“We like it that way, ma’am.” He opened the steel door and ushered her into the shop.

When she saw her damaged car, she staggered like she was going to faint. “My car! What have you done?”

“It was an accident.”

“You’re going to pay for this!”

What a bitch! Zyla feigned shock at her reaction and put his hand over his heart. “Are you saying that you’re unhappy with our service?”
“Damn right I’m unhappy.” She wagged a fat finger at Zyla. “I’m going to sue you and your mechanics. Where are they?” She looked around, all puffed up. “I want their names.”

The mechanics were huddled off to the side, their backs to Mrs. Miller, as if they were afraid of her.

“Ma’am,” Zyla said, “we have a company policy when it comes to unhappy customers.”

As if on cue, the mechanics turned around, gnarly faces scowling and choppy teeth gnashing as they shuffled toward her, stiff-armed and drooling.

“We eat them!” Zyla shouted.

The mechanics piled on her like a pack of wild dogs. Shredded clothing flew through the air. Blood splattered the wall. Within seconds, they were gnawing on a gory mound of meat and flesh and fighting over strands of pink, slimy intestines.

Zyla left them to eat their lunch and retreated to his service office. His wife, Shannon, had come in with a serving platter. She wore a maroon-sequined dress and matching high heels. Blonde hair flowed over bare white shoulders, most elegantly, but her red lipstick was smeared all around her mouth.

He kissed her cheek. “You’re just in time for lunch.”

“I heard you were having trouble with a customer.” She set the platter on the desk, along with a meat cleaver and two serving spoons. “Did your mechanics screw up again?”

“I’m going to put a Help Wanted ad in the paper.” He sat at the desk. “See if I can get someone smart enough to fix a car without breaking it worse.”

Shannon set a crystal candelabrum next to the platter, struck a match, and lit two candles. “A smart mechanic is hard to find.”
“A mechanic with half a brain will be better than what we’ve got.”
“Oh, baby,” she swooned, blowing out the match with puckered red lips. “I can’t wait to see who applies for the job.”

“Now, smoochkins,” Zyla said. “No snacking on the hired help.”

A blood-soaked mechanic shuffled in holding a plump head by its tangle of hair. He plopped it down on the platter. Mrs. Miller’s wide eyes stared out blankly. Mascara ran down her wrinkled cheeks like black tears. The roaches and maggots in Zyla’s stomach writhed in anticipation. He grabbed the meat cleaver and cracked open the skull. “If she had been nice to us, we could have worked things out.” He set down the cleaver and licked blood from his fingers. “Still, there’s nothing like fresh brains for lunch.”

Shannon spooned gray-matter goo from the split-open cranium. “Beats McDonald’s any day.”