Mr. Arby had been a regular customer at Best Buy for a few years, maybe even a decade. He never hesitated to brag about this, whether it be a new employee or a customer who stood in line with him. He wasn’t the best customer. Not by a long shot. He was rude, demanding, and entitled. He possessed every ingredient for a bad customer. Charles Arby embraced these traits and wore them on his sleeve like a badge of honor. He yelled at employees when he didn't get what he wanted, demanded discounts from supervisors and management, and even went as far as spitting on the countertops when he didn't get what he desired.

So…

When he died on Friday, during one of his tirades, no one really knew what to do. Jen, the customer service rep who was helping him, spun around screaming for management. She stumbled out of the customer service booth twirling around like she’d forgotten the layout of the building she’d been working at for the past five years.

Scotty, who worked in video games didn't know what to do either. He was a few aisles over from customer service when Mr. Arby collapsed, he dropped to the floor by instinct, thinking that someone had entered the store with a gun. He broke out into a cold sweat, his nerves filling with cement as his eyes darted around the store for an attacker. When he realized that the store was safe, he cautiously walked over to customer service to see Jeremiah, the loss prevention rep, embracing Jen as he radioed for Howie, the manager on duty. When Howie walked by, he told him to take care of his department. His tone was dry and condescending like always. Scotty didn't much care for Howie.

Ten minutes later, Jeremiah came up to him and told him to meet up with Howie at the breakroom, he had a task for him and apparently, it was urgent. Scotty thought about what Howie was going to ask of him, and he figured it was covering home theater or computers since both departments were missing an employee. As he walked past the entrance he realized that he hadn't heard an ambulance. Did Mr. Arby pass away? Did he just have a fluke of an issue and eventually went home? Was he still in the building, and if so, where was he?

Howie was standing out front of the break room, hands wrapped around the clipboard that he pretended to look at day in and day out. His gaze landed on Scotty, and Scotty knew right there and then that he wasn't going to like Howie's demand. Howie wore his emotions on his sleeves. The slouch of his shoulders and the clench in his jaw told Scotty that he was annoyed...probably with him.

"Mr. Arby's body is in the break room and I need you to keep an eye on him until the ambulance arrives."

Was he joking? Howie's tone was so casual and so weirdly nonchalant, it's like he was asking him to help a family purchase a printer. Scotty didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to think. The only feeling he had was regret, regret for not calling off for the day like he wanted to. The silence between them was thick and uncomfortable.

"They're running late," Added Howie. "There's an accident on Grand." He pushed past him, his eyes going to his clipboard as though a brand new figment of information had materialized that wasn't there just moments ago. "Radio me if you need anything."

And then he disappeared behind a row of televisions.

Scotty's throat and mouth went dry in that order. This wasn't how he wanted to spend his Friday afternoon. Not by a long shot. He placed a shaky hand on the doorknob, turned, and pushed the door open. There was a strange smell in the break room, it smelled like something was rotting in the garbage disposal, and Scotty wasn't sure if it was that or if it was Mr. Arby. They had placed his body on the table closest to the lockers. Mr. Arby lay at the center, arms off to his side head aimed toward the ceiling like he was waiting for the scalpel from the coroner.

The television's volume was in the single digits and the air conditioner worked at a low hum as the clock ticked away at the seconds. Scotty made his way carefully through the breakroom, walking with cautious steps as though Mr. Arby would wake up at any random moment and yell at him for disturbing his sleep. He took a seat at the table closest to the door, the one furthest from the table that Arby was on. He watched the television, only to find that it was on some infomercial for porcelain dolls. He looked around the breakroom for the remote, only to find that it was on the same table as Mr. Arby, half obscured by his worn-out Crocs. He could settle with watching the infomercial. He didn't want to go anywhere near Mr. Arby's corpse, it's like his body had radiation. Scotty knew that was insane, the man was dead and nothing else, but he had no desire to be anywhere near him.

The smell was coming from Mr. Arby. It hung in the air and refused to leave, and Scotty wondered if it would plague the breakroom forever. He decided then that he would spend every break and lunch outside, he'll eat his lunch on the sidewalk from this point forward. It wasn't a bad smell, he'd heard that when someone died they released their bowels, but the smell in the air wasn't that. Why did Howie put Mr. Arby in the break room of all places? Wouldn't the warehouse make more sense? The ambulance could pull up to the loading bay, take the body, and leave without anyone noticing. Scotty never put too much faith in Howie or his management style, and this incident didn't help him.

Scotty's eyes went from the television to the clock. Five minutes felt like a torturous forty-five. He hoped for a co-worker to enter the breakroom to alleviate the tension, he hoped that Howie would radio him to check on him, but as the minutes went by, Scotty felt more and more forgotten. Just him and a dead body in the breakroom, as a very round middle-aged woman droned on about her creepy porcelain dolls. And then, abruptly, there was movement to Scotty's right, he could barely see it from his peripherals.

The first thing to come to his mind was that someone else was in the breakroom with him, that they had been sitting in the locker room since his arrival and just now decided to emerge, but that wasn't right. Scotty knew the truth, but he didn't want to accept it, his brain couldn't process the fact that Mr. Arby had moved. He'd turned his head to face him, he could hear the table groan under his shifting weight. Did dead bodies do that? Did they move on their own? Maybe they could right? Scotty didn't know the first thing about bodies so maybe this was normal.

But then...why did it feel like he was being watched? Scotty could feel Mr. Arby's eyes on him. Scotty's joints stiffened as he fought the urge to turn his head right to return Mr. Arby's stare. A lump formed in his throat, and it descended slowly through his chest before dissolving in his stomach acids. The lump made his stomach feel sour. So, so, sour. Scotty closed his eyes for a few moments, listening to the women ramble on and on, listening to the ticks as the seconds passed. He kept his eyes closed for thirty seconds, forty seconds, hoping that when he opened his eyes Mr. Arby would be facing the ceiling like he should be. Scotty opened his eyes and forced himself to look right, his head turning on a rusted and stubborn swivel.

Mr. Arby was staring at him. His face was expressionless, void of life as it should have been, but his eyes were locked onto Scotty. There was no shine in Mr. Arby's eyes, no signs of life whatsoever. Scotty's skin crawled from head to toe, he felt uncomfortable sitting there so he got to his feet and stepped out of Mr. Arby's gaze. He didn't move his head, and that made the situation a little bit better. Scotty shuffled through the breakroom, never taking his eyes off Mr. Arby, as he made his way for the locker room. He'd feel more comfortable there.

He stood in the locker room, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He could see the distorted reflection of Mr. Arby on the paper towel dispenser that hung over the sink. From where he was standing he just looked like a misshapen blob, and Scotty was just fine with that. He shifted his weight from one foot to the next, contemplating if he should radio Howie for an ETA on the ambulance. Ten minutes had passed and it may as well have been a lifetime. Scotty placed his hand on the radio that was clipped to his belt, and then Mr. Arby moved again.

Scotty watched with muted horror as the reflection in the dispenser sat up. The table creaked and groaned, unfamiliar, maybe horrified in its own inanimate way as Mr. Arby sat up. Scotty couldn't move, the blood in his veins had turned to cement, or maybe it was ice because he was freezing from head to toe. Mr. Arby sat upright, his head going from left to right before landing on the dispenser, as though he could see Scotty's reflection in the locker room. Scotty backed away, further into the locker room. He would have crawled into the lockers if they weren't so small. Mr. Arby sat upright for a few moments, moments that felt like hours, and then he lay back down.

The radio went off. Snapping Scotty out of his daze with such force that his knees nearly buckled. He braced himself against the wall, his breath leaving him as though he'd come up from underwater.

"Look alive Scotty, the paramedics are here," Howie said.

The break room door flew open, slamming into the wall and causing the whole breakroom to shake. Two male paramedics who were probably his age walked in with a stretcher in between them. One smiled at Scotty's existence and the other gave him a grunt. Howie was following them, babbling away about what had happened. The one who smiled at him confirmed that Mr. Arby was indeed dead. They didn't ask Scotty a single question about Mr. Arby, and he was just fine with that.

He couldn't tell them that Mr. Arby moved right? That was crazy...because the dead don't move...

Right?