Anne's Reviews > Horrorstör

This is the story of a haunted knock-off IKEA.



And really, if you've worked in retail at any point in your life, you've already been to Hell.
The sorts of things people do, the way they act, and the messes they leave for someone else to clean up when they enter stores are really a sight to behold. Dante himself couldn't have come up with a better punishment for past sins than having to deal with the general public on a daily basis for peasant wages.



I can't imagine a horde of demons coming up with a torture worse than having to remain calm and polite while a customer belittles you and complains about a policy that you didn't make, the lack of something in stock you don't have the ability to order, or the fact you are understaffed and unable to take care of them in what they feel is a timely manner.
Much like some countries that require each citizen to do a stint in their army, I feel that everyone should have to do a tour of duty as a retail worker.



So our heroine, Amy, shockingly isn't all that thrilled to be at work on the morning our story takes place.
But she does need that paycheck. Like most people, she's treading water financially in an effort to try to find a dream that will let her follow it. And even the dreamless need to pay their roommates their part of the rent. Life has not worked out for Amy and while she flounders, she needs this job more than air.
To make her day worse, she's stuck with Basil, the overly Orsk-happy manager she's convinced is trying to fire her.



In the morning, the automated doors don't want to work, and as the day wears on more and more strange things keep cropping up which leads Basil to think there is someone hiding inside the building at night causing mischief.



His plan is to spend the night in the building with a strategic strike team that will be ready to catch these neer-do-wells in the act! But since he doesn't have access to any professionals, he's willing to go in with two of his employees, Amy and Ruth Anne. Neither of them is at all qualified to do anything other than point and scream if they were to run across someone messing up the store in the middle of the night.



Of course, things quickly slide completely sideways.
Because this is after all a horror comedy.
And by the end of the night, neither Basil nor Amy will ever be the same.



At this point, I've read a lot of Hendrix's books and I can say without a doubt that this one is my favorite.
Highly Recommended!