It’s an impossible choice, really. I’m going to be stretched to my limit either way.

Not even hours in the gym could have prepared me for the level of agility I’ll have to enact in order to utilize one of these gas station toilet stalls.

I tilt my head as I assess the mess that’s been left here.

Even leveraging myself against either wall like Spider-Man will stick me with unmentionable substances.

It’s a massacre.

Impressive, really.

It’s like a crime scene in here and I’m the willing victim who unwittingly entered.

A loud bang on the outer door makes me jump.

Someone rapidly slaps the rickety plastic with their palm before seeming to think it better to bang on it with their fist until it wobbles from the force.

I can’t even pee in peace?

Is nothing sacred?

“Get out now!” The previously wheezy front desk clerk exclaims even more breathlessly.

He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

I lift my shirt to use as a barrier between me and the inner lock before flipping both it and the door open.

I immediately want to close it again.

There’s now a massacre on the other side, too.

I’m not sure which is worse.

All the people I passed on the way to the bathroom have collapsed.

The older woman, who winced when I asked for the bathroom key, lays just behind the clerk.

Her orthopedic shoes point heavenward and are just as stiff as she.

“We’re not safe,” the old clerk hisses needlessly.

Speaking of ‘unsafe,’ I hike a thumb at the bathroom behind me.

“Have you been in there recently?”

The man’s trembling escalates as though I’d threatened him.

Considering what I witnessed, I guess I did.

He uses his sneaky elderly deception to enter my personal space.

“We must play dead,” he whispers, looking up at me imploringly.

My eyes dart around the decrepit station in search of who he could possibly be talking to.

Just me?

Awesome.

“Why?” I whisper back sarcastically.

He’s practically vibrating at this point.

“Zisa comes,” he tremulously breathes.

Oh!

They’re all insane.

Perfect.

Not an ideal situation when you have to pee.

I nod slowly and widen my eyes to match his expression of knowing.

He seems to deflate in relief and collapses right there on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

I wait a beat before trying to step over him in search for another bathroom – I’ll take a bucket or an unlucky potted plant at this point – but the surprisingly strong old guy yanks the hem of my jeans hard enough to send me sprawling on the ground right next to him.

It’s as gross and sticky as it looks.

I whip my narrowed eyes his way, but he’s dutifully staring toward the colony of spiderwebs in the ceiling, just like everyone else.

Guess I’m a part of this freakshow now.

“Who’s Zisa?” I ask Shaky McGee over there, who whips his wide watery eyes my way like I’d just said something derogatory about his mama.

“Goddess of Harvest,” he hisses, as though he’s reminding me of common knowledge.

I give him a look, communicating that he’s not.

He huffs and explains in a sing songy way, “She will come this day to harvest our souls unless we fall like the wheat her scythe maintains.”

I frown.

“Aren’t you just doing her work for her then?”

His face drops.

I go on anyway.

“She doesn’t have to run around slicing and dicing her curated crop of souls, willy nilly, when you’re just laying around, ready to be bundled and cured,” I tell him, unable to hide my amusement.

It’s impossible to hold back my smile at the horrified senior as I roll on my side to face him, propping myself up on my sticky elbow.

“That’s ‘cured,’ like dried out, not healed,” I clarify.

He pales even further.

Zisa better come quick, or this one’s going to slip through her grasp.

“H - how do you know so much about harvesting?” the man finally rasps.

That’s what he got from what I said?

I roll my eyes and rise.

I still have to go to the bathroom and I’m running out of time.

He protests, his wrinkled hand reaching up for mine, recoiling with a strangled noise as my scythe materializes.

I’d planted the lie about avoiding me by playing dead a few generations ago.

People believe almost anything if it slightly rhymes, and now I’ve got my perfect crop of crazies.

There’s nothing sacred, safe, or sane about this place, nor these people, but I wouldn’t have my souls any other way.