The Boom Wagon carried them into a tunnel packed with security officers.
Edgar and Edgaursine prepared to charge, but one man stepped forward with a little flashlight and a look of unexpected resolve.
“I’ve this,” he said, and snapped it on.
The officers began moving in perfect sync.
Their arms rose, shoulders rolled, feet slid over the polished floor.
The leader’s expression changed from resolve to horror as he discovered that his body had acquired a dance routine without asking him.
“What is my body doing?”
“Because this is thrillaaaaah,” the others sang, helplessly.
Astrid watched with a drink in her hand.
Miriam folded her arms.
Nobody offered to interrupt the spell until the chorus had finished.
Back in the housewares aisle, Edgar encountered a hovering menu.
It offered him a jelly sword, a balloon-drawn bow, or a longbow.
He chose the balloon bow.
Across the aisle, two animated dumpling-shaped things scurried away with stolen gravy.
He drew the string with surprising grace.
The arrow struck a shelf beside the thieves and burst into a slap of sauce.
A floating notification announced a critical hit and minus 132 damage.
Another awarded him an increase in archery skill and the title Spack Assassin.
Edgar examined the title.
“Good,” he decided.
Poe, meanwhile, had found a quieter corner of the store.
He sat at a desk beneath a candle, writing while three security officers approached behind him.
He could hear their boots.
He did not turn.
“Some say the pen is mightier,” he murmured.
His quill scratched across the page: And lo, their footing did betray them.
One by one, they fell.
Behind him, the officers slipped in precisely that order.
One struck the floor, another caught his friend and went down with him, and the third tripped over both.
Poe set down the quill.
“So be it.”
The cat-ear girl stared at the heap of uniforms.
“Did Poe just Final Destination them?”
Nobody had an answer.
Poe resumed writing.
The store alarm changed pitch.
BLACK FRIDAY pricing had activated, though it was not Friday.
The team could no longer tell whether this was a mistake, a promotion, or the final stage of the Edgar paradox.
“This is for Black Friday!” a shopper screamed while driving a cart through a stack of towels.
Two security guards watched her go.
One bit into a stolen drumstick.
“They didn’t say we couldn’t, bro.”
Edgaursine raised a much larger drumstick and yelled, “Meat is mine!” The hamster on wheeled shoes grabbed a bag of snacks from a LIMIT 1 shelf and rolled past the sign without slowing.
Bubble Gurl climbed onto the Boom Wagon and lifted a megaphone.
“Everything is free if you run fast enough!”
“That isn’t what free means,” Miriam called.
Her correction vanished beneath the roar of carts, wheels, alarm bells, and Astrid’s laughter.
The Butthole Superstore had become a moving storm of bargain hunters, dancers, armored golems, a literary curse, and one very fast hamster.
Somewhere inside the commotion, the two travelers from WacDonald’s found an empty aisle and finally sat down.
For a few seconds, neither tried to correct the time stream or find another Edgar.
They listened to the distant alarms and passed a carton of fries between them.
“You think we should help?” one asked.
The other considered the question.
“They’ll find us if they need us.”
For the first time all evening, the universe seemed willing to leave them alone.