The Massage Chair

"THE MASSAGE CHAIR"
an Amber the Mall Warrior tale
by
William Allen Scott


“Those earrings look totally bitchin Amber!” said the slightly dingy brown haired girl as the three of them competed for the little mirror on the side of the display.

Amber just sighed, “Thanks Courtney. Too bad they're just clip on.” She pulled her long blond hair away from her eyes to get a better look at them.

Another girl named Chloe, with very dark black hair standing next to her tilted her head to one side and said, “Kinda sad your dad wont let you get your ears pierced. “

Amber pulled away from the mirror with a slight bit of anger. “I know! When is he gonna realize that as of last month, I've become a sophisticated woman of fourteen? I mean, you guys have had pierced ears for over a year now.”

“Yeah. Your dad is still living in like the fifties or something,” Courtney added.

“Tell me about it. The other day he said I couldn't go to that concert that I wanted to go to.”

Chloe asked, “What was the name of that band again?”

Amber answered, “Noise Pollution. They're the best grunge band from Pasadena.”

In unison the other two girls smiled and said, “Uh huh.”

“Just stop it you two! Okay so the bass guitar guy is kinda cute, so what? Chloe you were just in love with Justin Bieber like two months ago and wanted to bear his children.”

They all laughed together as they exited the little faux jewelry shop into the large interior of the main mall structure. Hundreds of people were passing by with gift bags from various different stores. Most of the people were trying to get in their last minute Christmas shopping before the holiday closed down the entire mall and many others.

The three girls flitted through the mall in a most carefree fashion. Visiting many teen apparel shops and some other more expensive clothing stores. After a few hours of browsing more and buying less, they finally settled into some uncomfortable metal chairs in the food court area in the center of the mall.

Amber decided to go for a lemonade at Lemon Lucius while Chloe and Courtney remained at the table in the food court. The line wasn't too long, and waiting for the drink was very much worth it to Amber. She found herself gazing at the crowd as the line slowly dwindled in front of her. Over near the escalator and in front of a small mattress store, sat a large brown leather recliner with an electronic pay slot for inserting cash built into the side. She observed an elderly woman with white hair and a cane walk over to the chair and sit down. She didn't put any money into it, but just sat there resting.

“Can I take your order?” asked the cashier behind the Lemon Lucius counter.

Amber turned and in a surprised tone, “Oh! Yeah. Please one extra heavy duty Luscious Lickable Lemon on the rocks. Oh and hold the onion this time.”

The cashier just gave her a slightly dirty look as she took her twenty dollar bill. Amber glanced back over at the old lady sitting in the recliner. She wasn't there anymore. Amber thought that was strange. The old lady could really move apparently. She hadn't seen her leave.

The cashier gave her a dollar twenty five in change and gave her the lemonade she had ordered in a container that took both of her arms to carry back to the table. She dropped the drink on the table with a loud thud that shook it and the girl's shopping items.

“Well what movie are we gonna see?” she asked the other two.

“I would like to see 'Changobots'. The trailer on the internet looked really good,” said Chloe.

“Naah. Let's go see a chick flick like 'How to Destroy the Love of Your Life',” responded Courtney.

Amber shook her head as she sucked lemonade from the container through a straw as wide as a paper-towel tube, “They just get married in the end. So anticlimactic.”

Her attention was drawn to a girl that walked by as they drank their beverages at their table. It was Heather Tonsend, a girl they all knew from their high school. She was rich and snobby and let everyone know it too. She walked by all by herself and gave a curt little wave as she did so. The shopping bags she was carrying revealed that she had been to all of the upscale and expensive stores in the mall.

Amber thought to herself, Snooty bitch anyway! No wonder your all alone, the way you treat other people.

Heather walked by the large brown recliner and decided to sit down and adjust her shoe. She carefully put down the dozen or so large shopping bags she had and sat in the recliner.

Amber's attention was drawn back to her two friends as they continued arguing about what movie they were going to see.

“Hey guys? Did you see Heather go by? She sure has been shopping!” she asked.

Chloe and Courtney suspended their argument for a moment and looked around quickly. After a few seconds of looking, they trained their attention on Amber.

“What are you talking about Amber? We don't see her,” Courtney said.

Amber pointed to the recliner over near the mattress store, “Over there oh blind ones.”

Chloe and Courtney looked over to where she had pointed. “Umm. Just a bunch of bags Amber. I think you've been drinking too much lemonade.”

Amber took a quick glance over at the leather recliner and saw all of the shopping bags Heather had put down. Heather was nowhere to be seen.

“Now that's just too weird! I swear she was just there a couple seconds ago,” she complained.

“Whatever!” both of her friends said together annoyingly.

Amber gave them both the hateful, slitted eye look then got up and began walking over to the where the recliner sat amongst all of Heather's shopping bags. On the way she deposited the empty bucket sized lemonade container into a waiting garbage can.

She approached the recliner and saw that one of Heather's four inch high heels was laying haphazardly in front of the chair. Stupefied, she picked it up and put it in one of the shopping bags. She stood there for a few minutes examining the leather chair with great interest. Something was wrong. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was wrong.

“Whatcha doin?” Chloe asked as they came up behind her nearly scaring her to death.

“Just wondering about this chair that's all,” Amber said.

“Oooh! I love these things! Gimme a dollar. I wanna sit in it and get a massage!” asked Courtney all excitedly.

Chloe gave her a dollar and Courtney inserted it into the money slot. The chair began to vibrate and hum a little. Courtney quickly sat down in it as Amber started to object.

“I don't think that's a good idea Courtney.”

Courtney just sat there for the allotted three minutes ignoring Amber and Chloe as they watched. After the chair shut off, Courtney got up feeling all refreshed.

“You gotta try it Chloe!” she said.

Chloe just dismissed her. “No. I've had massages from real people. You can't beat a real massage. No automatic chair could come close.” Chloe decided to sit in the chair anyway.

Amber decided to dismiss her strange feelings about it as some kind of weird mood swing. Chloe rose out of the chair and the three of them set off for the theater. Just as they started to walk away, Chloe gave out a blood curdling screech of terror.

A large tongue, about three inches wide had wrapped itself around Chloe's waist. The wet, dark red tongue had originated from the recliner itself. It emanated from a large fanged mouth that existed where a person would normally sit in the chair. A single huge green eyeball set in the back of the chair was staring at them angrily as it growled loudly.

The tongue began to contract back into the fanged mouth. Chloe fell to the ground and screamed as it dragged her in. Amber and Courtney both screamed together as they failed to reach after Chloe. As Chloe approached the gaping maw of the monster recliner, the top of the mouth closed down on her back.

With one look of solid terror in her eyes she screamed,”Oh my God! I still haven't paid off my credit card balance!” Then with two large chomps of the great leather mouth and a large spurt of blood, she was gone. All that remained was the nondescript leather recliner, and some bloody shopping bags surrounding it.

Amber and Courtney both screamed again.

Amber took a sudden turn of emotion and became angry. Under her breath she muttered, “You son of a bitch! She didn't even get her learner's permit yet!”

Suddenly the back of the chair opened up again into a singular large green eyeball. The cushion of the chair curled back into a malicious snarl and the thing made a low growling noise. It suddenly burst forward with great speed and a loud snarling roar.

“Holy crap!” Amber yelled as she turned and began running away from the recliner.

The monstrous furniture apparently didn't have great enough speed to catch up with a young sprinting human being, its normal mode of hunting utilizing stealth instead. It did not seem to care about this though. It wanted a piece of Amber badly.

The chase continued along the upper level for many store fronts. Amber easily outpaced the chair, but the pursuit continued nevertheless. At one point a mother and child walking along the upper walkway didn't see the large hungry chair making its way along the railing. As it went by the screaming mother, it made the same chomping noise that a person makes after devouring a tasty appetizer and licked its lips after swallowing the unsuspecting toddler.

As Amber continued to run, she saw a storefront on the lower level that might have what she needed. The store had a large replica of a man in full plate armor holding a sword.

Cutlery store. That's just what the doctor ordered. She thought to herself.

She found a descending escalator and slid down the moving railing with the stairs. She slid onto the floor and made a beeline for the shop. Making her way into the cutlery store led to a great dilemma. So many blades to choose from.

After about twenty seconds she decided on a replica Scottish claymore hanging on the back wall behind the counter. She hefted the blade and found that she liked the weight of it.

Behind her she could hear the recliner rolling down the escalator making loud grunting noises of pain as it fell end over end. It came to a rest at the bottom in an upright position. It's large green eye darted back and forth quickly looking for Amber. As she emerged from the cutlery store, it made a loud growling roar and surged forward clumsily toward her.

She held out the huge sword in front of her and issued a challenge, “Come get some bitch!”

The chair stopped and narrowed its one eye on her. They slowly started to circle each other. After going around a full two times sizing each other up, the chair spat out its long tongue toward her. Amber dropped to one knee as the appendage shot over her. Seizing the opportunity she quickly slashed at the tongue in midair, cleaving it cleanly off and leaving half of it writhing on the floor.

The chair gave out a horrible screeching moan and retracted the bleeding stump back into its mouth. It scooted forward with rage at her. Still down on one knee, she lowered the claymore and pointed it at the approaching monstrosity. It pierced the chair directly through the eyeball and emerged out the backside of it. The monster chair emitted a dull grunt, then a last loud breathing sigh as it died impaled upon the sword.

Amber withdrew the huge two handed sword from the thing and slashed down on it with all her might. This action cleaved the thing all the way down from top to bottom. As the two halves fell apart from each other, a moderate pile of one dollar bills fell out of it onto the floor.

Courtney had recovered from her horror and come down the escalator behind Amber. “What are we gonna do now?”

Amber tossed the claymore back to the shopkeeper who caught it with some difficulty. She walked over to the pile of ones between the halves of the slain chair and slipped them into her pocket.

“First, I need to go to the bathroom really bad. Then I'm going to get my ears pierced,” she said.


End