No one knows what made the unicorns kill over 200 Kmart shoppers on Christmas Eve, 1999.

In fact, I wasn’t even scheduled to work that day, but my manager, Derek, called and asked if I would cover for Trish, who was randomly “sick with a headache” and needed to take off. How convenient.

But Derek promised me double pay, and being that I was behind on bills and needed to repair my Jetta after hitting a pothole on the thruway and screwing up my suspension, I wasn’t exactly in a position to say no. Besides, it’s not like I was doing anything anyway, since my snowbird family was in Florida—and there was no way in hell I was going to Florida of all places for the holidays. Not after Uncle Chuck was arrested for operating an illegal alligator wrestling promotion. Not that any alligator wrestling promotions are legal to begin with, but that’s just a difference in opinion.

Needless to say, the vibes are bad in Florida—but perhaps not as bad as what they were on this night in Kmart.

I was in the movie section putting away what seemed like endless VHS stacks of The Matrix when a girl, no older than ten, came up to me with a Tamagotchi in her hands.

I never understood the obsession with those things. I could barely keep myself alive. How was I supposed to keep a digital pet going?

“Excuse me,” the girl said, her pink coat soaked from melted snow. “How much is this?”

I grabbed the Tamagotchi from her and told her to follow me. “Let’s go find out,” I said. “The price check scanner is right down here.”

And that’s when something weird happened. The lights began to flicker. The temperature in the store dropped at least twenty degrees. A loud bang erupted from the garden center, and the doors flung open, letting in a heavy fog with black sparkles.

There, emerging from the fog, was a herd of unicorns. Except, they didn’t look like your typical fairytale unicorns. No. They were menacing, with glowing yellow eyes, sharp horns, and bucked teeth. Before anyone could process what they were seeing, a unicorn impaled our sweet old greeter Martha right in the stomach with its horn—and then flung her lifeless body down Aisle 4.

I screamed. We all screamed. Everyone started running to the front. A man tried to shoo the unicorns away with a broom, but he was abruptly decapitated. The unicorns continued to wreak havoc on the shoppers, shooting purple laser beams out of their eyes and lighting the home improvement section on fire.

The little girl and I hid out in the employee lounge. I had never run so hard in my life. My lungs were burning, but I had no time to be afraid. Several other employees were in the lounge, including Barf and Toot, twin bodybuilders who funded their weightlifting obsession with part-time cart pushing.

Barf and Toot were in the corner, cowering.

“You two,” I yelled. “We need to barricade this door!”

The twins pushed the Pepsi vending machine against the door. Barf leaned against the machine and sat down to add extra weight. We listened as the unicorns destroyed the store, screams echoing throughout.

“That was a good idea you had, barricading the door shut,” Barf said. “We’ll be safe in he—”

And that’s when a horn came driving through the door and the machine, stabbing Barf in the back of the head. We could see the horn sticking out of his mouth. Blood pooled as brain matter leaked everywhere.

The little girl didn’t scream. Didn’t flinch. Just sat there, hunched up, her pink coat still damp, her fingers tightly gripping the Tamagotchi like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.

I knelt beside her. “Hey. You okay?”

She gave the faintest nod, not looking up. “It hatched,” she whispered. Her voice was distant, like she was somewhere else entirely. “I think it’s hungry.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I just nodded like it meant something.

I knew I had to do something, because we would all die if we stayed cooped up in this room. I remembered reading about how some animals don’t like sonic interference—how it makes them go crazy. It occurred to me that the intercom in the store had been acting strange for weeks. Every time someone used it, it let out this shrill screech, like a fax machine being murdered.

In a last-ditch effort, I hopped on the table and climbed through the dusty vents, crawling my way to the service desk before dropping down.

One of the unicorns was stomping on a stack of Pokémon cards. Another one was licking an Airheads display. They hadn’t seen me yet.

I grabbed the intercom mic.

“Attention Kmart shoppers, today’s blue light special is—”

That’s all I got out before the speaker let loose its signature godawful electronic screech.

The effect was immediate.

The unicorns shrieked. Their eyes bulged.

One of them started ramming its head into the magazine rack.

Another started spinning in circles, foaming at the mouth. The fog pulsed violently, swirling like a bad Windows screensaver.

I just kept the button held down. Feedback howled through the speakers. Unicorns exploded left and right. Purple guts went up in the air like fireworks.

By the time the mic finally shorted out and sparked in my hand, the unicorns were gone.

If they weren’t dead, they went back to wherever they came from.

I stood there panting, the store smoking around me. Somewhere, a copy of A Bug’s Life was still playing on loop in electronics.

The girl walked out from the back. Her Tamagotchi screen blinked with something new—maybe a creature, maybe just a bunch of pixels. She looked up at me and said, “That was loud.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But effective.”

And then, because I’m an idiot, I clocked back in. No way I was losing double (maybe triple?) pay. The Kmart unicorn massacre was over, but I still had bills to pay.

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Shawn Berman runs The Daily Drunk. He’s on Twitter/x: @sbb_writer