Cyrusngoo

As acid rain corrodes the skyscrapers of New York City, Luna, a convenience store clerk in Kansas, finds herself a post-apocalyptic “savior” with the last 5,000 cans of beans in the state stacked in her underground warehouse. The sociopathic, blood-sick, cockroach-shy 24-year-old is forced to establish the rules of her new world with tin cans and expired candy: Want food? Trade secrets. But when marauders point guns at her glass door, a swarm of mutant voles gnaws at the shelves, and survivors begin to question “why the Savior is a dumbass who's never even been in love,” Luna finally raises the crowbar to her betrayer's throat: “Now, get down on your knees and call me God. ”

Savior with Expiration Date

Luna was pouring baked beans in tomato sauce into a communion cup when the priest's cassock got stuck in the vending machine.

"I've sinned." The old man's wheeze carried the fishy smell of canned sardines, "Took an extra half of a cholesterol pill last Sunday..."

The dark figure creeping between the shelves on Luna's monitor screen didn't look like a clergyman at all-he had a cross adapted from a dog collar around his neck and a SPAM lunchmeat label affixed to the cover of his Bible. Three hours ago, the old man who called himself Father-Paul had traded ten rosary beads for anti-inflammatory pills, and now those wooden beads were burning on Luna's wrist, each engraved with the words "Las Vegas Strip Club Souvenir."

Rule #27: Clergy confessions are to be exchanged for triple supplies.

"You ... Have you ever heard of five cakes and two fish in a can?" Paul's fingernails dug into the cracks in the floorboards where the traps Luna had laid out were hidden, "I can use a Paradise Bank check..."

Luna switched to night vision mode and saw that the old man was not pulling out a chalice from the inner pocket of his holy robes, but the urn of an employee who had been missing from QuickStop Convenience Store for six months. His index finger was quietly wiping over the rim of the box and shaking the ashes into an open can of dog food.

"Time for the Eucharist." She whispered into the microphone, activating the shelf mechanism.

The pyramid of canned beans above the priest's head collapsed. As he struggled to climb out of the pile of soybeans, Luna turned on the top-authority radio, "Special Confession Room offer, eat all this can of dog food and any five boxes of canned green beans."

Paul's dentures chattered. They were inferior copies remodeled with fishing line and can rings, and pus dripped from the festering gums to form a sickly sauce on the dog food.

"This is blasphemy!" He holds up the Bible, but the inside pages waft out the horse-race ticket, "God will..."

Luna presses the remote and an anesthetic needle suddenly shoots out of the Bible cover. The old man is still chewing dog food as he falls to the ground, the knots in his throat wriggling like he's swallowing live maggots.

The monitors showed his vitals disappearing at 4:44 a.m. - choking to death on the dog food pellets stuck in his esophagus, and the marks his dying fingers scratched out on the ground were parsed by the AI and turned out to be a Wal-Mart bar code.

"May the Lord accept you." Luna recited an improvised eulogy and pried the urn from the corpse's hands.

There were no ashes inside, just a yellowed convenience store receipt that read, in confessional ink, [The first batch of canned goods came from the fat extraction of 47 homeless people].

When she turned over the receipt, on the back was a simple map drawn in Paul's blood, with the end point labeled the center of Chicago's radiation district. The corpse's right index finger suddenly twitches - and Luna realizes that the old man is wearing two wedding rings, one of which has her mother's initials engraved on the inner ring.

There's a strange noise coming from the ventilation ducts.

As Luna turned, she saw the priest's stomach writhing violently. The moment the scalpel slashed open, seventeen radiant beetles broke out, each with the fluorescent pattern of a convenience store logo on its back.

"Rule number 28." She stomped on the last beetle and stamped on the corpse's priestly robes:

"God is dead, green beans live forever."

Chapter 8: Confessional Racks