WITH MYSTERYBARBIE’S CALL, everything changed. Those fantasies that I hide from, that I push out the door with every ounce of my underdeveloped muscles? I suddenly need them. I need to embrace that evil, need to go back down that path. I am not afraid, I am not worried about that part of myself stepping up. I know, without hesitation, what will be in my heart when I fully unlock that door. The darkness has not disappeared. It, like that tree in Florida, has flourished despite my best attempts at starvation. My struggle over the last two months has only fed this monster’s need. Fed its appetite with juicy giblets of freedom. It has, despite my best attempts, strengthened.
FtypeBaby and I break each other in well. We hit Bass Pro, Lowe’s, and Home Depot, before a curious store associate is kind enough to point me in the direction of an army-surplus pawnshop. I put the top down and head north, reaching the destination far too quickly for my newly freed tastes. I leave her in a front spot and push open the pawnshop’s door, the weight of it enough to work my arm muscles. For a girl with a steel-reinforced apartment door, that says a lot.
I know, the minute my tennis shoe hits the concrete floor, that I have come to the wrong place. The right place for a gas mask, the wrong for every single aspect of my twisted personality.
Knives.
Machine guns.
Handcuffs.
Nunchakus.
Fighting stars.
Things I don’t even know what they’re called but they look badass awesome.
My hands shake slightly and I shove them in my pockets, which puts them in close proximity to my knife. Like, bumping up against close proximity. I take a deep breath and try to focus on the man behind the counter. Sixties, bald, with enough wrinkles and character for me to know that he has killed before. Probably served enough tours to make my future death count look like a paint-our-toenails Tupperware party.
His eyes glance at my car, the gleam of the hood loud, even in this dark pit of death. “You need directions?”
I meet his eyes. “I need a gas mask. I was told you carry them.” I don’t look around. I can’t. I will go apeshit crazy if given the chance. Fill up a shopping cart like those contestants from Supermarket Sweep. Shriek with glee while I stuff samurai swords and grenades in FtypeBaby’s trunk.
He sticks a toothpick in his mouth, leans one liver-spotted arm on the glass case before him. “A gas mask? You a survivalist?”
“And fentanyl. If you have it.” I shrug as if certain he doesn’t, a challenge in the gesture. He probably doesn’t have it, fentanyl in chemical form more common in a terrorist cell than a pawn shop. My eyes catch on the low display rack beside the counter, and I bend, snag a Taser, one that advertises enough volts to put down a thousand-pound cow, and set it on the counter.
“And fentanyl. A gas mask and fentanyl and…” His eyes drop. “A Taser.” He walks around the counter until he is crossing before me, and my muscles tighten. He is close enough to touch, my hand knocking against the switchblade in my pocket. I shouldn’t have brought it. But, knowing that FingerCutter was coming—it would have been stupid to leave the house without some sort of protection. He walks on, toward the door, his eyes on my car. “That your car?”
“I drove it here, didn’t I?”
He turns, faces me, a frown stretching and pulling the wrinkles on his face. “I didn’t ask you that.”
“It’s none of your damn business. Do you have what I need?” He’d better. He has to. The town isn’t big enough for a fourth possibility. Unless I knock off a family of survivalists, this is my only and last hope. Me and ToothpickDick need to sort this hierarchy shit out so I can get on my way.
He sighs, tongues the wood in his mouth, and saunters to the right, down an aisle, till he is almost out of sight. Then reaches up and picks up a plastic piece with tubes and glass. A mask. I hope my sigh of relief isn’t audible. “This is the smallest one I have. You just need one?”
I nod.
He shakes his head, moves back to the counter. “Young pretty girl like you. Walks in and wants one gas mask. Seems suspicious.”
“Do you have the chemical?” I interrupt this bullshit waste of speculation.
“Well now that makes me even more suspicious.” He sits on a stool, one with dog-bitten legs and nowhere convenient to rest a foot. His legs stick out, like a kid’s.
“It’s a yes-or-no question.”
He chuckles. Slowly. As if he knows the time-eater will drive me crazy. I can feel the madness creeping. Can feel my slippery grip on morality sliding. Dark thoughts sneaking in, every line of the smirk of his face expediting the process.
“Fuck you,” I spit out, grabbing the mask from the counter and digging into my pocket. I fish out two hundred-dollar bills and slap them on the counter.
“Now wait just a minute.” He pushes to his feet, shuffles down the counter, then bends over, hidden from view. “I don’t have any incapacitating agents per se, at least that’s my line for any suits that walk in the door, but I think this is what you’re looking for.” He straightens, lifts a box out, and sets it on the counter. I move closer, glance at the contents while trying not to drool all over the counter.
White aerosol cans. Fifteen or twenty. Lined up in a neat row like jewels in a box. Shimmering under the dim light of the overhead fluorescent. I place my hand gently on the edge of the box, my irritation forgotten. “What is it?”
“Capsicum. It’s not gonna knock anyone out, but will wreak havoc on their senses. Can cause blindness, will definitely disorient someone, give them one hell of a headache, blurs vision, dizziness, pretty much a one-two punch of fucking you up. It’s the same stuff that is in pepper spray, but this is an aerosol form. Set four or five of these in a room, pop the tops, let the mist fill the room. You’ll have about fifteen minutes of knock-you-down air before it’ll start dissipating. Just keep your mask on. It’ll linger in the air for a few hours; even the afterburn will cause your eyes to tear up and your throat to close.”
“I’ll take ’em.”
“How many?”
“All of them.”
He tilts his head at me, brown eyes scrunching underneath brows that have never seen the beautiful sharp end of tweezers. “All of them? Who’re you going to war with?”
I don’t respond, reaching into my pocket for more cash. “How much?”
He works his mouth and I can practically hear the inflation rising. “Sixty each.”
“Twenty.” I have no earthly idea what capawhateverhesaid goes for. Have never heard of it. ToothpickDick could be selling me mini-cans of hairspray, my attempt at mayhem giving me one hell of a stiff hairdo. But the price had been tossed out with suggestion, like there is some room to haggle.
“Naw, I can’t do that. Not for all of them.” He works the piece of wood, flipping it straight out, and I wonder suddenly, if I stiff-hand his face, if it will puncture anything important, or just slide down his throat and cause him to hack like a furball-afflicted cat. “Thirty.”
I make one last volley. “Twenty-five.”
He answers by withdrawing a small stack of cans, shutting the box lid, and sliding it across the glass toward me. “Cash. I’ll sell you fifteen.”
“Cash.” I grin, count out four hundred more bucks, and lay it on the counter, backpedaling with the box in hand, not waiting for change.
Then FtypeBaby and I get the hell outta there, gas mask and arsenal in hand.