Fiend (18 page)

We’re in a backyard. The intruder light flashes on. Three teenage Chucks look up like they’ve just been caught in a circle jerk. Their faces are covered in blood and the shit shines under the fluorescent light. Their hands are inside of a gutted corpse. I’m nothing but reaction, hurling a miniature Fisher-Price tea party table at all of them. I yell for KK to run and the three boys are laughing until Type blasts a hole through the tallest one’s chest.

We keep running.

We cross Pike Avenue. Houses sit dim and uninhabited. Cars line the right-hand side. Past Baltimore, past Mason. The Chucks are starting to thin. I’m running, holding on to the world’s last hit of scante. Holding on to KK. Past University, past Jefferson. It’s just stragglers now. Everything is a blur. We’re running and there’s somebody watching, the creator of our world, somebody moving enemies into our view, moving them out, somebody watching over us with malice and love and I know no matter what we do, we’re fucked, there will always be more of them than us.

KK tugs at my hand. She shakes herself free and runs back thirty feet to where Typewriter’s curled on the grass. I follow. I can hardly breathe. I tell him to get up. He doesn’t respond. I
say, Get the fuck up, let’s go, we need to go. KK kneels by his side. She’s looking at the back of his calf.

Fuck me.

There’s a mouthful of flesh missing. But it’s not bleeding. It’s already scabbed over. I remember the trucker’s eye, how the bite healed almost instantly.

Fuck, I mutter.

I don’t want to die, he says.

You’re not going to …

Typewriter runs his index finger over the divot.

I look around. The Chucks are mostly gone, but I know that shit won’t last. I tell him he’s fine. I bend over and drape his arm around my shoulder. KK takes the other side. He’s heavy as hell and can’t put any weight on his right leg. We’re right at the edge of Como Park. I remember there’s a warming hut for winter skating down by the lake. I’d sat in it during some god-awful church field trip. We struggle in an awkward gait, Type mumbling into my ear. KK keeps looking over her shoulder. It’s silence. Stars shine.

We finally see the building. It’s a square of brick, ugly as fuck. KK tries the door. It’s locked. She doesn’t ask what to do, just points the shotgun at the handle and fires. She kicks the door in. Type tells me that he’s dying. The inside smells like come and mildew and I lay Type down and his body’s freezing cold. I tell him to flip over on his stomach. The bite isn’t even crusty anymore, just purple. KK stacks benches and a trash can against the door. Typewriter whimpers. The only chance we have is to pump his body full of speed. I open the bin and motherfucker, there’s not much left. I take out a shard.
I ask for a needle. KK pulls one out of her sock. I use my spit to break down the dope and it doesn’t really work. I tear a piece of my T-shirt off. I use that as a filter, sucking spit and meth into the rig. I talk the whole time. I tell him it doesn’t look that bad. I tell him all he needs is a little booster and he’ll be fucking straight. There’s blood all over my stomach and for the first time, I realize I’m cut pretty badly. I take the syringe and I’m not sure if it makes more sense to inject it into the wound or into a vein. I decide the bite’s a better site. Type doesn’t flinch, doesn’t register there’s a needle in his leg, and I push the plunger. I tap his leg. I tell him things are looking up.

Do it already, he says.

Just did.

Typewriter lays his face on the black spongy flooring. He says, I can’t feel it.

I know. Doesn’t matter. Just gave you a good shot and it’s working its way through your body and it’ll be fine.

I turn him around so he’s lying on his back. He’s shaking. I take off my T-shirt and place it under his head. He holds on to my hand. KK rubs his chest. His hand feels like frozen meat. I imagine the battle going on inside him. I picture evil-looking cells, maybe they look like Jared’s aura, and they’re coursing through his body, ripping chunks of healthy cells, and I will the speed to hurry up. To counteract. His fingers are stiff, then his arm, and part of him seizes, a partial seizure.

You’re doing well, I say.

More, KK says.

Think?

She nods.

I pry Typewriter’s hand from mine and load another shot. I find a vein in his arm and blast another tenth. His teeth chatter. His pupils dilate and I think this is good. That Tina is doing her damnedest. I hope it was quick enough. His eyes start to flutter. I slap his face and tell him to stay with me. His grip is ungodly strong.

John, John, KK says, tell me your favorite memory.

KK’s rubbing his chest, her eyes trained on his, and I love her for this because she wants him to relive happiness when darkness descends.

What is it? she asks.

My family.

Good, that’s good. What about them?

Little … three … summer.

Yeah? When you were three? The summer?

Typewriter nods. KK rests her hand on his forehead. She says, So what happened?

Watermelon.

She laughs. She says, So you had watermelon?

Typewriter gives the hint of a smile, only the left side of his face still able to move. His leg twitches.

Was it your first time?

Ye … yes.

I picture this scene—a chubby toddler sitting on a red blanket in the backyard, or shit, maybe here at Como Park, a picnic, the three of them, back when everyone was still alive, and he’s in shorts, a Superman T-shirt stretched over his pudgy stomach, and he’s stumbling around, probably amazed at seeing his first duck, throwing bits of bread his mother packed
just for the occasion, and then she calls, Johnny, I have a treat for you, and he runs over, his arms wide for balance. His father swoops him off the ground and then he’s flying, giggling, secure in his dad’s steady grasp. They sit down, John between his mom and dad, and she opens a Tupperware and hands John a triangle of pulpy red fruit. He takes it in his little paws, surprised at its wetness, at how he can stick a finger into its surface and leave a dent. Maybe his mom takes a bite and says
mmm
and then John knows it’s safe and bites down and the juice is an explosion, the best thing he’s ever experienced, and it drips down his chin, down all of their chins, father and mother and son, the sun refusing to set.

That sounds amazing, KK says.

Wha … wha … yours?

KK smiles down at Type. She says, July twenty-fifth. I was five. Sister O’Hare pulled me into her office. I thought I was in trouble for breaking Claire’s crayons during free time. She spit on her thumb and wiped the sleep out of my eyes. She brought me in and there were two strangers sitting in her office. They turned. I remember I’d never seen such white teeth, such fancy clothes. Sister O’Hare was like, Kristin, say hello to your new family.

Lo … ve.

Yeah, love, KK says.

I’m confused because KK never mentioned being adopted. She’s biting her lip and I know she’s being honest and maybe this makes sense because she hates herself with a ferocity that is completely fucked—KK the only one who can’t see she’s amazing. Part of me feels hurt she’s kept this from
me. I know it’s petty. I keep my mouth shut. I squeeze Typewriter’s seized hand.

Cha …

I don’t want to play. To dredge up memories of times that will never be real again. I ask KK if I should give him another shot. She tells me to tell him. And I’m not trying to feel these things because it’s back when life was good, when it was playing Transformers and believing in God and good-night kisses, and I can’t go down that road now, seeing every one of my fuckups, how far I’ve fallen.

I’m going to give him one more, I say.

Please, Type says.

My best friend is dying. I finally realize it. More of his face has contorted and only one eye can blink. I know no amount of speed can reverse what’s already taken over, so I tell them a story about the time my father and me stayed at a cabin up north. About bringing the tiny portable TV from our kitchen at home and setting it up on a chair. How we sat in sweatpants and sweatshirts drinking hot cocoa. It was March Madness and we watched basketball all weekend. My dad teaching me to wood carve, to use a knife, a gouge. My gnome carving looked nothing like his but he kept telling me how proud he was, how I had a natural ability, how this was the only place he wanted to be. I say, I don’t know, maybe that was true of me too. Like the only place I wanted to be, you know?

KK places her hand over Type’s and mine, already clasped.

His one functioning eye stares at the warming hut ceiling.

Our stories are all about childhood and family and we just want to be back there, life simple, life nothing but love and
attention and not knowing what awaits, and I think about us wanting to be restored to innocence and about the little girl playing with the dog and me thinking this was cute and it really being the beginning of the end and her gashing the rottweiler’s throat and maybe it was closer to the end of the end. Our favorite memories are Polaroids of ignorance.

Typewriter starts to choke. Spit dribbles from his mouth. I reach behind his head and lift him up. He doesn’t bend at the waist. His body’s a plank. I yell for KK to get another needle and I’m telling Typewriter to stay with me, Don’t you fucking die on me. His body shudders in violent spasms. I pound his chest. I beat him because I can’t face this without him and because I love him like a brother and because I’m mad that he isn’t fighting harder and because it’s easier than crying.

KK gives me the syringe.

I plunge it into his heart.

He’s having a seizure and his tongue bleeds and his arm curls into a question mark. Then his grip loosens and his eyes blink. I’m telling him I knew he could do it and I’m cradling his head when I hear him giggle and it grows until his mouth is open and fills the moldy brick shelter with its heinous cackle. I stand and point a shotgun at his grinning mouth.

I’m about to pull the trigger when he starts shaking his head.

I pause. I yell for KK to get back. Typewriter’s head moves back and forth and none of the other walking dead were aware of their dying but I tell myself it’s a fucking head trip, imagining a life where Typewriter survives, and I fasten my grip.

He coughs.

He blinks both eyes. His face muscles relax. He starts to mutter.

John, KK says.

Fuck, he responds.

Then I’m back on my knees, the gun still pointed at his chest. I’m like, Are you okay? Type? Fuck? Are you okay?

He flexes his fingers. He runs his tongue over his teeth. He spits blood. He says, Bro, the fucking gun.

I set it down and I hug him and he calls me a faggot and KK laughs and so do I or maybe those are still tears.

We’ve spent the last thirty minutes huddled against a red furnace that doesn’t work, staring at the barricaded warming hut door with our guns drawn. Every barking dog and blowing elm branch makes me want to die. I’m a little nervous to use our one needle because it was inside of Typewriter but KK sterilizes it with a lighter and I guess I don’t have an option. We don’t have enough to fuck around snorting it. I shoot half a teener. So does KK. We pump Typewriter full because who knows how much he needs. He’s feeling better, sitting upright, making jokes about his fat-ass calves finally losing some girth.

Me, I’m making mental lists:

This list is pretty much the same one I made five days ago. Fuck, it’s pretty much the same one I’ve made over the last five years.

Motherfuckers can’t kill me, Typewriter says.

Pretty close, though, I say.

Close ain’t good for shit, bro.

I’m counting rounds. We have two shotguns. Sixteen shells total. Typewriter has a pistol with a full clip and an extra mag. I tell them to empty their pockets.

KK dumps out a money clip with her ID and debit card. Two lighters. A pack of cigarettes with two broken smokes. The needle. Typewriter has a wallet and three pills that KK says are generic Klonopin. He has three wadded-up one-dollar traveler’s checks he uses for fraud. I laugh at this. I’m pretty much empty. Just a wallet and a bloodied molar.

The fuck? KK says.

I shrug.

Some sick shit, yo.

I didn’t—

Fucking with you, Chase.

Oh.

Then I open the blue bin. We’re down to grams. We’re down to a day and a half, maybe two. I think about nights where I’ve smoked that much in a matter of hours.

Survived just to die again, Typewriter says.

For reals, KK says.

I’m trying to remember what Cheng said about people cooking at the jail. I mention this and KK says, There’s no fucking way we’ll make it down there.

Don’t have a choice.

Fuck me, Type says, you shoulda let this fat ass die.

KK says, Can’t we just sit … She doesn’t finish. She knows it’s not an option.

I ask Typewriter if he can walk. He stands. He limps around a little. He says, Good enough.

Here, let me see those cigarettes.

KK hands over her smokes. I take the cellophane off the bottom of the pack. I pour the meth into the baggie. The fact that it all fits makes me cringe. I melt the plastic shut. I ask who wants to carry it.

All you, Typewriter says.

I look over at KK and she nods.

Guns?

I can’t aim worth shit with the pistol, KK says.

Partial to the shotgun, myself, Typewriter says.

I take the Glock. The cuts on my stomach from crawling through the window have scabbed to my T-shirt. I peel them away with a wince. I say, It’s our only chance, the jail.

They nod.

Figure Cheng’s boys aren’t fucking around, wouldn’t lie to a guy like that. And we can get there, just have to be careful.

Wise shit, KK mocks. She meets my eyes and then says she’s sorry.

I think traveling during the day is best, I say. Seem to be less of them around.

Worth a shot, Typewriter says.

County’s just down Seventh, right there at Kellogg.