White Out: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (19 page)

Chapter Six

The kid's sleepin' for the night.
Ol’ Chris Kringle and me are back in the bottle again, but he's trying to take it easy. Funny thing, is that I'm trying to take it easy too. Need to keep my head straight tonight. We're racing to see who can be the soberest for longest.

             
He keeps lookin’ at my shoulder, keeps askin’ about my wound. I can’t do this shit much longer. Somebody needs to shut his mouth up. Little while ago, he asked if I had seen Marianne from next door when I was out travellin’. Said he ain’t seen her in days. I know why, and I feel like if he keeps nagging me I might just tell him what I did to her.

I hand him
back the bottle and I see he's pretendin' to swig. That ain't working for Edgar, no fucking way. 

"What do you say we find some shot glasses? Really make this cold go away, keep us warm."

He says to me, "They say that's just an urban legend. Alcohol just messes with your bloodstream and it doesn't do anything to help you keep warm. It's deceptive. That’s why people are always dying in hot tubs, because it throws off your blood, throws off your heart." I heard that one before, but I still don't believe it. This guy thinks he's some kind of cocksuckin' scientist and here I am, trying to do him a favor... trying to take away his pain.
Ain't that a bitch?
 

"I reckon. But it would feel nice. Sor
t of like we're still human bein’s, you know?" I say, putting a sorry whine into my voice as I say this. Like I'm about to cry, but really I’m about to laugh because he's falling for it. 

"I know. I haven't felt all that human in a while, not without Annie by my side."
His eyes get all big like he’s about to cry. What a loser. What a sap. I can’t bear to watch this madness, so I walk to the kitchen and fetch shot glasses from the cupboard. I already scoped out the place pretty good, which should make people on Chris' end of the stick worried, but he doesn't even notice, so wrapped up in his own shit. Maybe his ass is drunker than I expect. I sit back down with the shot glasses, placing them in front of us on the coffee table, filling mine halfway and Chris' all the way to the tippety top. It's too dark for him to tell the difference. 

"You must love her lots," I say. Listen to me.
Love. That's a riot and a half. Love is the biggest fraud anybody ever done created.

Love ain't nothin’
more than two sets of genitals slamming together like a drum beat. 

Love is a hot meal and total silence.

"I do," he says and my heart just about explodes with rainbows and unicorns.

I change the subject because I don't want to know too much about that pretty princess. She's gonna be just like Christmas mornin'. I wanna leave some of it as a surprise. I can't wait to see her come through that door. I'll be so damned rock
hard; I might not be able to contain myself. I almost make an excuse to take the lantern and walk to the bathroom, so I can have another gander at that sweet candy in the picture on the wall. 

"Let me ask you something. You ever killed a man, Christian?"

He looks at me like I just told him I'm about to corn-hole his wife, which ain't so far from the truth, mind ya’. 

"I mean to ask
because this thing is getting pretty far out, you know? What if somebody came into your house and attacked your family? You think you could defend yourself? I know you love your family, but how far would you go to protect them?"

I pour another shot for him, and he takes it.
Maybe I’m getting at his nerves, making him think about all the bad shit that may happen. We take three shots in a row. I skip one altogether but he doesn't notice. I guess my question really rattled his birdcage, cause he’s taking shots on his own now, no need for Edgar to push too hard on it. 

"Yes, I guess I could
kill if I had to. I'd do whatever it takes."

"Good man," I say.
 

"My family means everything to me."

"Again, good man. Wish I had a pop like you growin' up. Somebody to protect me from all the crazies out there," I say, pointing at the window. Even though we can't see through it for all the snow, he looks at the window, nodding. He knows about the crazies. He just don't know how fuckin' close he is to The Crazy Train itself. The poor sucker. 

"So where did you grow up?" he asks me, wanting to change the subject again himself. I feel like he already asked me this, so maybe he's trying to wear me down, trying to get me to slip up. I pour another shot and he takes it real fast. Motherfucker is on autopilot now,
hip-hip-hooray.
I pretend to take a shot, but he don't notice. He's too wrapped up in his own damn head. 

"Here and there.
Grew up on the road mostly, like I said. Started drinkin' and acting a fool when I was real young.” I pause, looking at the fire.

Here I go.
Ready?

“And in case you're wondering
why I asked, yeah, I killed a man once.”
Once.
Can you believe that? Sometimes, the best lies have an ounce of truth in them. This is sorta like the total freakin' opposite of that I guess. Or should I say,
I reckon
. Christian trusts me when I get to reckonin’.

Another shot, down the hatch. I take one this time, since he's way ahead of me. I need to feel loose, just the same as anybody else in this here situation that can become quite troublin'.
 

"Really?" he asks, his jaw opening to reveal a set of pretty white teeth, shining in the lukewarm fake-ass fire.
 

"Yep.
Man in a bar, he came at me with a knife. I was minding my own business but I took a bet against him that night, that I could whoop him in a game of pool. He lost pretty bad. I took my winnings and he was mighty gracious about it, but I guess he got to stewin’ a bit, cause out of nowhere, he comes at me with the biggest dang knife I ever did see."

"Jesus."

"Fuckin' aye," I say, suddenly realizing that I've slipped from my Precious Gentleman routine. A bit early for that, but he's flapping in the boozy wind anyhow. He’s losing his shit. 

"Did you go to jail?"

"For a spell, just ‘cause I couldn't make bail. But the bartender said it was self-defense. That was true, though. I was only protecting myself," I say. None of this is true, but you probably already figured that out, didn't you? You're awful smart, ain't ya’?  

"I can't imagine."

I get real serious and my jaw gets all tight, flexing hard as hell, and leaning in closer to him as I pour another shot. We're gonna need another bottle soon. "Listen to me," I say to him, my voice dropping low, then lower still. "When you gotta do it, you'll do it without thinking. So you say you can't imagine, but it'll happen when you least expect it. Somebody will come at you, and you'll snap into action."

He is scared shitless, looking into my eyes, thinking about what I’ve
dug up inside him, hoping to summon that kinda courage that I’m jawwin’ about. He don't got it, cause he's a spineless jellyfish. He wouldn’t even have the balls to buy what I got inside me--
all this devilin’ fire to take what’s mine-mine-mine
--even if they sold it at the department store. He don’t stand a chance, not in this world.

I feel like I’m doing him a favor, ain’t that strange?

I pull out my knife, the one Skippy stuck me with. "
This
is the knife I used on that guy when he came rompin’ at me. My friend Bobby gave it to me for my birthday the day before. Ain't that lucky on me?" I lie to him again. I'm sure that he's hearing my
real
voice now, not that dog-and-pony show that I'm used to puttin’ on with strangers. 

"I don't know if I can do it, Edgar. I'm not
like you," he says, belching between words, and I can’t but help feeling kind of offended. “I can’t kill.”

His head lolls to the side like
I almost laugh when I think to myself that it’s about to roll off his neck. This fairy gets drunker than an anorexic teenage girl. Too fuckin' easy. 

"You'll have to. It’
s gonna happen real soon, you best believe me. And you'll have to defend your family." Does he even hear what I’m saying? He’s got a thick skull, this one. Thick and drunk.

"This is hell," says Chris
sy The Sissy, looking at the fire like it did something bad to him. What a drama queen. I don’t feel so bad about what I gotta do. "This whole world is turning into a living hell."

"You're not
listening
to me, Christian," I say, and he turns to look at me again. I ain't givin' his ass any more shots. I need to save the rest of this fancy-boy booze for myself now. 

"I don't follow," he starts to say, but he slurs a bit so it's hard to make out
what he’s saying. Who the hell gets drunk this fast? Jesus H. Christ, he should be ashamed of himself. 

"I'm saying that it's gonna happen real soon," I say, and I watch as his eyes shift and he's looking down at my knife, which I got pressing up against his throat
as quick as grease lightnin’. Suddenly, the dumb shit gets what I been saying to him. He’s catching on.

"Please," he says, tears welling in his eyes
, "please don't."

"This is it, Chris
. This is that moment I was just talkin’ about. So what you gonna do? Your boy's sleepin' upstairs. Crazy feller down here, got a knife to your throat. What you gonna do, poppa?"

"I--," he starts to say, but he's sobbing now. It makes my eyes hurt to see a man like this, all pathetic and squishy like a piece of gum on a hot sidewalk.
Fuckin’ disgrace. 

"Whatcha gonna do? Defend your home
? Defend your supplies? Defend your family? What you gonna do?"

I'm a man that wears cowboy boots
, lest you forgot.

Chrissy boy closes his eyes, and I set to doin’ what I do best.

He doesn’t even put up his hands, doesn’t make a fight, doesn’t even make a sound. He always wanted to be a cowboy, just like me. Thought he could be a
stallion
, but here I am, layin’ it out in front of him, asking him what he’ll do to take what’s his and he’s got no spine. It musta fell out his asshole when he was born.

If I had asked, I think he might have handed me his soul, wrapped up nice with a bow.

He’s pretty wasted, so he doesn’t really feel the things I do to him. He doesn’t feel the hatred that I drive into him. Lucky for him. I work away at him for a good while, sort of enjoying myself as I cut deeper and deeper into them hard neck muscles, and I can’t help thinking about the kid in bed upstairs. And his pretty Mommy (
I swear I can see a nipple in that family photo!
). I pause in my work, wanderin’ over to the bathroom, stopping to kiss Mommy on the lips, wondering what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning. Wondering what she sounds like when she moans. Wondering how I got to be such a lucky man—a family man, really.

Look at me Jesus.
Look at me.
For fuck’s sake, I’m proud of myself. Can’t remember ever feelin’ so much dang pride—not from pussy, not from booze, not from killin’, not from anything.

I’m a family man now.

Before I tuck myself away to sleep for the night, I leave my boots by the foot of Paulie’s bed.
He’s all tucked away like a little fuckin’ mummy, so I don’t bother none with wakin’ him. I got me more important things to do tonight.

The kid’s gonna be surprised as all shit when he wakes up, like
it’s Christmas morn’ or something like that. I don’t need them boots no longer. No need to wander. Family men gotta take care of their kids and stick close by the roost. Give them what they call family
air-loons
. My boy gon’ remember me. He gonna remember his pop as a good man. A caring man. A man that wouldn’t take no shit from anybody.

Wish my pop had left me some boots. All he left behind when he snuck out (fuckin’ shit heel, that’s what he was) on me was a bad attitude and a tiny dick.
Self-zing.
But not really. I’m just playing with ya’, it’s plenty good sized. My new old lady is gon’ love it when I show it to her. Oh boy oh boy this is what bein’ a family man is all about. Getting’ love and givin’ it back.

Talk about settlin’ in and settling’ up… I’m one hundred percent family man and it feels damn fine
,
yessirreebob
.

Part IV- ANNIE

The keys.

Of all the bone-headed moves she could have pulled…Annie had
forgotten the keys.

It
had taken nearly twenty minutes to wade through forty yards worth of snow banks, feeling a silent, icy death clenching at her lower half. When she finally managed to toss her body’s weight on to the handlebars of the snowmobile, she nearly cried in happiness, wiping away as much snow as she could, her breathing slower from the raspy wheeze that had overtaken her.

Her initial fear was that the vehicle would be ruined by the
weather, but at the same time, she was confident that they were designed specifically for such conditions. The Midget Man (not to mention his band of perverts) returned to The Purple Cat late the evening before, but even still the snow had accumulated more than three additional feet, nearly covering the snowmobile completely, with bits and pieces barely visible in the drifts.

When she had it
mostly excavated—clawing at the snow around the snowmobile like a dog trying to bury a bone--a nasty feeling inched into her chest, one that she’d seriously miscalculated something in her escape plan.

She looked at the steely cold
ignition, wondering how she could have been such a dolt.

Because she hadn’t known that Midget Man had a snowmobile. The knee-jerk reaction was to run away from the lodge, to get as far away as she could. She hadn’t thought about keys
, or anything of the sort, only to remove herself from the dead man’s presence, as she would have done near
any
dead man.

They were probably tucked away in his pocket.

Why hadn’t she searched him? At least to pull his identification so she could know the real name of the man she’d killed, of the man who had raped her. Something to bring to the authorities. None of that, though, had gone through her head. “Dummy,” Annie said to herself, breathing with a shaky wheeze, looking back at the front door of The Purple Cat. It was only about half the distance of a football field from her, but it had taken every inch of strength to travel that distance once, let alone there and back again. The ever-deepening snow was an exhausting bugger. Suddenly, she missed the luxury of Tony’s sled, which was nowhere to be found (most likely buried much deeper than the Midget Man’s snowmobile).

Summoning her strength, she trudged ahead,
pausing every few steps to catch her breath.

One step, two step, three step, four. Five
step, six step, raped like a whore.

Not funny
, thought the other side of Annie’s brain.
Not funny at all.
She was right. It wasn’t funny, but still she snickered madly, as though she’d never properly laughed previous to that moment.

She kept her ears attuned to the sound of approaching snowmobiles (for when the other monsters were done with whatever terrible thing they were doing to the man they called Pepper), but still she laughed, louder than the whipping wind, louder than the all the screaming
children (all of whom sounded just like Paulie) inside of her head.