Alice & Dorothy (35 page)

The truckers were still milling around, bullshitting with the guy behind the counter and drinking coffee. The family of four had apparently decided on chocolate bars
and
chips, with the mother laughing off some offhanded remark about her diet. It was a setup for her husband to say something nice about her figure, but instead he rolled his eyes.

“Do you want the damn snacks or not?” he said, exasperated. “I’m tired of listening to them whine.”

Oh yeah, they’ll get the snacks,
Alice thought. She was just kidding after all. And he was too tired to notice.
There’s gonna be a day when she doesn’t care enough to make those little setups for him to say nice things, and that will be about the same time she starts fucking one of her supervisors before quitting the whole scene and taking her kids out of state to live with a relative.

“Whatever.” Alice had half a mind to pull out her gun and take them anyway, but decided to hell with it. Dorothy could get smokes and beer later after they’d found somewhere to hide.

The door to the store opened, a guillotine
swish
(
off with your head!
) of an automatic sliding door, and a great fat man with a short beard came running in, flustered and serious and looking like the sky was falling. “
Hey call 911!
” he shouted. “
Some girl out there is bleeding to death!
”

“What?” the counter-man said. There was a gasp from the mother in the family of four, and she grabbed her kids close to her. Her husband looked on impassively.

“Some girl out there’s been shot! The man with the beard said. “She looks bad too! She needs Tampons, STAT! She’s got heavy flow!”

The counter-man looked down at the supplies Alice had gathered, her gauze and rubbing alcohol and antiseptics. Alice was looking at them too. There were four boxes of tampons on the counter, and each one said “Heavy Flow” on the front. The image underneath showed a big mouthed vagina vomiting blood. Only the blood didn’t stay on the box, it was spurting out onto the counter. It pooled around a lighter tray filled with football themed lighters and poured down over the candy and magazines beneath.

“Fiddle-Dee-Dee,” a man behind her said, and Alice’s head spun. The fat man was gone; or perhaps he had never been. The man standing in his place was tall and bone thin, wearing a rumpled black suit and battered ten gallon hat. When he smiled he split his lips. The blood was black and dribbled down his chin. It washed over his perfect white teeth, all the same size, so
vibrant—

He was blinking rapidly. One of his eyes had a deflated soccer ball shape and was weeping blood. Alice could see his fly leg eyelashes scrabbling for purchase, making his eyes look like they were trying to swim across his face.

Realization struck like a thunderbolt. It was The Mad Hater. The man from her dream, come to life, standing before her in the doorway to the store; standing crookedly on the mat so that the door stayed open and let the wind in, and blowing leaves and garbage and cold rain; and there was no way he could possibly be standing here because he was a
figment
, for Christ’s sake. This was a nightmare standing before her, not reality.

“Hello darling,” the Hater said.

Alice didn’t think. There was no time to think. She pulled the gun out of the pocket on her hoodie and pointed it at The Mad Hater’s face. “
You’re not real!
” She screamed.
It’s impossible. He can’t be here, he can’t.

“
Go on, Alice. Take your shot. Kill me.
”

Alice pulled the trigger.

There was an explosion, and the rack of chips beside The Hater burst, sending potato shrapnel everywhere. The other people in the store, quietly watching until this point, suddenly came to life. They were screaming and ducking and running for their lives. The Hater stepped around the chip aisle and disappeared from view. The air was filled with the smell of salt and vinegar, nacho cheese, and burnt gunpowder.

“
NOBODY FUCKING MOVE!
” Alice shouted. She swung the weapon around in a crazy arc. She waved it at the family of four, which had begun scrambling before the door even as Alice fired the gun. “
GET THE FUCK OVER HERE NOW!
”

“Easy,” a trucker in a green hat said, his hands up by his head. “Just take it easy, Miss. Nobody knows your situation here. Nobody wants to get hurt.”

“SHUT UP!” Alice started toward the door. The people in the store were like cattle; they moved in a half circle away from her until they were all milling about in front of the cashier. She had no idea where The Hater was, but his presence was both unnerving and terrifying. Seeing him in the flesh brought her back to the bathroom, when she’d opened her mouth and saw him in the back of her throat. This was different, though. He was out of her now, and out in the world, and she had absolutely no control over him.

She was beside the door, and it swooshed open again. The sky outside was bloated with green and black rainclouds. A brisk, wet wind blew past Alice into the store, whipping leaves and garbage and rain around her feet. She could see Dorothy across the parking lot in Rabbit’s car, her head against the glass as though asleep. She wanted to run to her now, just get in the car and get away. The wound in her shoulder seemed to pulse in agreement. She looked down and saw pink spatters on her legs, and on the floor, like she’d been doused in water based paint.

“Alice,” a soft voice whispered. It was behind Alice, in the store. She turned on her heel, gun raised in both hands.

Dorothy was standing in the store, so close Alice could smell the lilac and honey in her hair. She’d changed into a clean blue and white checkered dress that stopped just above her knees. She was wearing blue canvas sneakers on her feet, but Alice saw that they were spattered with blood and marbled with dark streaks. She was standing with her hands clasped in front of her, slowly rocking back and forth on her heels. When Alice looked into her face, Dorothy smiled.

“What are you—” Alice stopped. She was unable to form her thoughts into words that made sense.
How did you get here so fast?
She wanted to ask.
How did you get so clean?
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said instead. Dorothy chuckled.

The customers in the store seemed to be standing around and praying that if the gun went off it killed someone else. Everyone but the mother, who was clutching at her children like she was a human shield.
Alice could almost hear her whispering
Please God, if that gun goes off let it hit me before it hits my kids
.

Dorothy said something and Alice looked back at her. “What?”

“He’s in here,” Dorothy whispered. She put a finger over her lips, begging for quiet. Then she turned her head and gestured toward the refrigerator aisle.

You can see him?
“That’s…no,” Alice said. “That’s impossible.” She looked at Dorothy helplessly. “Isn’t it?” It
was
impossible, because The Hater was in her head all this time and people couldn’t see in your head. But if Dorothy could actually see him, that meant he’d been more than just a voice. More than just hallucinations. The fact that Dorothy could see him made him real, and the realization of that fact made Alice very scared. If the Hater was an actual being outside of her body, there was really no way to control him. But then, maybe controlling him had always been an illusion; a game The Hater had played for his own ends.

“I don’t know what to do.” Alice grabbed Dorothy by the arm and held her close. She was near to tears, she could feel them hitching her throat and making her voice shake. “
Help me please! I can’t deal with this!
”

“ALICE!” The Hater yelled. His voice was thunderous. It bounced off the walls and reverberated around the store. He stepped out from behind the cluster of terrified hostages and approached the girls with slow, deliberate steps. He reached out with both arms and knocked the shelves on either side clean as he stalked the aisle. “It’s
Time
, girly, don’t you see? Time at last! Time to extract vengeance! Time to end it all! Pull the trigger! Finish it now!

He made a flourish with his hand, toward the cluster of people standing at the front of the store, now milling about like hostages in a bank heist. All eyes were on the gun in Alice’s hand. They paid The Mad Hater no mind at all; it was as though he wasn’t even there.

But that’s not true, because Dorothy sees him,
Alice thought.
That makes them all liars.
She looked at them again, over The Hater’s shoulder. They didn’t seem scared at all. They were just standing around like zombies, waiting for the little drama before them to unfold and come to some kind of conclusion.

But not any old ending.
Alice realized.
They’re here for a verdict. They came to see blood. They’re here for the trial…

She looked hard at the crowd and suddenly felt like she was seeing them for the first time. They had hair sprouting out of unusual places; tufts sticking out from under shirt collars or in odd spaces on their heads. They were all dressed in black formal wear; the men in sharp tuxedos and the women in black and white dresses. The mother carried a small umbrella over one shoulder, and as the father reached down to kiss his little one his head bulged grotesquely under his hair. When he raised his head again Alice saw why.

He was wearing a mask; they all were. The father reached up and adjusted his face, but it was too late; the illusion was ruined. He pushed the mask back into place and a large floopy rabbit ear slid out from under the string holding his face in position.

Now Alice recognized them for what they were. Rabbits and kittens and sloppy eyed puppies, all wearing masks and wearing sharp clothes. The children milling about the mother were tiny bunnies, and they scratched at their ill fitting pants and chewed on their jacket sleeves.

The Hater’s words were like a video playback button for Alice, and she found herself standing in the garden courtyard once again, the Queen of Hearts and her gibbering, idiot husband presiding over court. There was blood everywhere. There were animal heads on poles, and the heads were chanting
Meat is Murder
and clapping their hands to keep time.

“
Let the jury consider their verdict,” The king said, for about the twentieth time that day.

“
No! No!” The Queen said.

“I
do
remember, Alice said. “
Sentence First
—”

“—
VERDICT LATER!
” The Queen of Hearts screamed. The sudden boom of her voice caused the animals in the store to scramble around in a blind panic; they threw themselves into the aisles, tripping over each other and knocking the shelves clean. And at the front of the store, where the counter had once been, now sat the Red Queen upon a rusting metal throne.

She was tall and gangly, like a giant spider, all limbs and very little torso. Her head was shaved bald and bone white. She was wearing heavy red stage makeup around her eyes, and the rouge on her cheeks was in the shape of large hearts. Her mouth was a ragged gash, as though she’d jabbed a stick in the meat of her face and dragged it from one side to the other. The tear of her lips was a vaguely heart shaped and bled continuously. She wore a long crimson and amber dress that interlocked hearts and spades and diamonds and clubs. A large yellow lily pad stretched around her neck, and a heart shaped fan spread out from her shoulders behind her head like a halo. The blood drooling from her mouth was caught in the lily pad and dripped on the floor in front of her.

The room grew dim. The overhead fluorescent lights went out one at a time, in order, away from Alice and Dorothy and The Hater, until there was only one set of lights left directly above the Queen. The walls of the gas station were melting. Colour and chrome and glass bubbled and ran together and mixed with neon and concrete.

“She’s here!” The Hater said. He was standing behind the girls now, and he pointed a long clawed finger toward the queen. “Now’s your chance Alice! She’s without her soldiers!
Quickly!
”