by Mike McCrary
“I don’t—”
“What? You thought your little movie would even things up between you and this man here. Yeah, I know all about that. I know all about your problem with him. The combination of the drugs we’ve given you and the World Wide Web has painted quite a picture of what’s playing nonstop in that sewer-hole head of yours.”
All the cells that make up my existence hit the brakes. My heart skips, stops, accelerates, and stops again. They’ve been questioning me after the injections. Filling in the gaps with Google.
What did I give up?
What did I tell them?
They didn’t know where the money was, or did they? They don’t know about my brother, Alex, or is he stuffed in a bag in another cave? Am I completely paranoid? Yes, of course I’m fucking paranoid.
Wilson Gain tries to get up. Choke kicks him to the floor. He’s not done speaking with me. “You’re going to blow his face off, okay? I need assurances. I need you on film killing him. It’s my backup plan. I know you noticed the camera Ruby has, you’ve seen it. I’ve shown it to you on purpose. You need to know that I’m making a movie too. One that I’ll hold onto in case things get unfortunate with you.”
Ruby’s handheld electric eye is soaking in all of this.
Choke waves his gun at the other Hollywood douches at the table, screaming for them to put their heads down. Wilson Gains does the same. Choke then has me turn directly facing Ruby. He removes my mask, making sure the camera gets a good look at me for a full ten count. He slips the mask back over my head, making sure my cap cam is on and works properly. Choke gets Wilson Gains to his knees.
My gun hand is directed carefully back to Gains’s forehead.
“Now, shoot him,” Choke says.
W. Gains shakes.
There’s a dark corner of myself that wants to see his head burst open and spit out over that avocado-colored wall. W. Gains shot dead here in the Hollywood Hills in front of his asshole friends. Sickly poetic in its own way. No more coffee meetings. No more pitch meetings or deals made over sushi at reserved tables in the back of restaurants that are too cool for a sign. This man has done everything humanly possible to discount me, my dreams. He thinks I’m a joke, and he’s well on his way to making sure the rest of the planet is in on that joke with his little project. Don’t Get Tripped, that son of a—
“This is not a request,” Choke says.
“No. What do you want? I’ve got money. We’ve all got money,” pleads Wilson Gains.
“Shut up,” I bark.
“There you go, fucknut. Do this fucking clown,” Boone says.
I feel the anger building, streaming, rumbling past morality, eviscerating right and wrong and steamrolling directly toward the muscles controlling my trigger finger.
No more development lunches.
“Do it, sweetheart,” says Ruby.
Choke’s head whips toward me—sweetheart?
He didn’t know. He didn’t know about that. About Ruby. Could the mere term of endearment, sweetheart, give him all that information? Can sweetheart somehow be code for “this guy penetrated me”? Does he now know the dreaded penetration is associated with me? Well, now he might have an idea. Standing at this angle, I can only see his eyes—that’s all I need. Choke is not pleased with whatever is going through his mind. There’s a rage bubbling over. His body shakes. Eyes go hard.
“Don’t, Choke, not what you’re thinking,” says Ruby, trying to defuse the bomb.
Choke’s head whips around to her then back to me.
He grabs the gun from my hand and leans in front of me, bending down, as if he’s making sure not to get in the way of the cap cam. With all of us wearing the same gloves, Choke taking this particular position plus the angle of my cap cam, it might look a lot like my hand is holding the gun.
Choke pulls the trigger, shooting W. Gains between the eyes.
74
I took no pleasure in watching Choke kill W. Gains.
My childhood friend.
There’s no question this time—I am responsible for this one. I can’t explain or rationalize away what happened in that house in the hills. It’s on me.
I haven’t stopped crying since we left.
Ruby holds me.
Boone calls me a pussy.
Choke hasn’t said a word in hours.
75
Don’t know what Boone and Choke did with the other Hollywood douches.
Ruby rushed me away.
I can guess what happened.
Guessing it’s pretty damn horrible.
Call me clairvoyant.
76
The sun rises over the PCH.
A giant, burning fire-eye watching us all.
I’ve faded in and out since we left the house in the Hollywood Hills. My eyes feel like they sag from my face. Throat is bone-dry. Can’t breathe through my nose. Seems like I cried all night.
Ruby has one of my cameras and is filming the sunrise, stealing shots of the beach and the rest of the world as we blaze by. The sun catches her face.
She is a pretty girl.
As she holds the camera, there’s this sense of wonder and awe as she looks to the sun coming up. A look of wonder about the world and all of its best parts. Childlike. I look at her and take her in. Her face. Her neck. Her eyes. The night we were together, her holding me while I cried last night and how she held my hand in the car.
She’s using my camera.
Not the one Choke was using.
She smiles at me as she brushes my leg with her fingertips.
“Did that couple at the house get away safe?” I ask. No idea what made me think of them at this particular moment. Her touch feels wonderful, comforting, and with the warmest of eyes, she tells me yes.
Oh, how I want to believe her.
77
Jeb Shaw, the towering wall of a man, sips his coffee, thumbs at his beard. “So, you think he’s dead?”
A man, Ozwald’s replacement, Shaw doesn’t even know his name, dressed in black with heavy boots, as they all do, stands in front of his leader and answers, “Yes, there’s no question those animals killed him. The only real question is, was he able to give up this place before they killed him?”
“That’s why we sent him there, correct? You picked him. Said he was perfect. Said he would break easily, give up our locale if he was pressed. Let me think, how did you put it? ‘If he gets so much as gently tapped by Choke, our guy will cry like a pussy.’ That’s what you said, right?” Shaw says.
“Yes. That’s what I said, and I still believe it to be true.”
“You think he cried like a pussy?”
“I do.”
Shaw clucks his tongue and looks out the window that stretches from floor to ceiling. He watches the waves crash onto the sand, letting his mind unspool. “We sent a man into the woods to tell a pack of mentally compromised people where we are and then get killed.”
“It was the best way. The only way they wouldn’t suspect anything. If we just slipped them the location, they’d disregard it as a plant and come at us later when we weren’t ready. There was also hope he might take out one or two of them before he got killed.”
“Shit. Please. We’re lucky we took out Harry at that cabin.”
“But we did get him.”
“We did. Cost us, what? Five men? We need Choke and his deranged children to die. It’s that simple. They die, then we work The Massive, then it’s that happily ever after thing I hear so much about.”
“If you’re worried—”
Shaw grabs him by the throat, ending the discussion.
“Not worried. Not one bit. It was a good plan. You told me so. That man we sent was weak. A turd. A pussy, to use your words. If he did what we thought he’d do, what you thought he’d do, then we need to get ready. Because there is a group of psychos en route to hurt us, correct?”
The man garbles his words, face running through a variety of reds, but he manages to get out a muted form of conf
irmation.
Shaw releases his throat, letting the man fall to the floor and find some air. Turning back to the window, he takes a sip from his coffee and continues to admire the view. He clucks his tongue again. A large wave crashes onto the beach, barely missing a group of birds picking at the sand. Rubbing his large hand over his tight crew cut, he says, “The house, the men, prepare them. This is going to get rough.”
The man gets to his feet, standing tall and straight, fighting off the coughing and gagging. Working to find a normal flow of air to his lungs. He’d better pull it together, because he’s about to get the most important order of his life.
“Get ready for war, fuckface.”
78
We park off the PCH.
Our car is hidden behind a beachside fish taco stand that hasn’t yet opened for the day. We dumped the truck and stole this Cadillac somewhere along the way. I don’t really even remember it happening. There was a time a car theft would be a headline in my life. That time has long since passed.
It’s early morning in the sleepy little beach town of Cayucos, California. Old folks with metal detectors searching for sandy treasure are the few who occupy the beach, along with a spattering of dog walkers and joggers.
There’s a modest house near a small cliff overlooking the ocean. Looks nice. As in a nice place to hang out for a week or two to knock off the layers that life can plant on you. Doesn’t look like a great place for a bloodbath, but that’s exactly what’s about to happen.
Choke is looking at the house through a set of binoculars. Studying its properties. Its angles. The possible entry and exit points. Points of failure. Watching the people who are coming and going. Number of cars. His jaw is clenching, mind is churning. He still hasn’t said a word since the incident up in the Hollywood Hills. I can’t believe they got all that info out of me, but nothing about Ruby. Is that possible? Choke was truly shocked that night. He didn’t even entertain the possibility something happened between us. The dark side of me wants to scream, Penetration! Penetration! Penetration!
But I don’t.
Boone snorts something. Ruby snorts something as well. Is this a pregame thing? They check their weapons, one by one. I check my gear, all my cameras and mounts, one by one. They are locked and loaded. I am suited up with cameras charged.
Out of view from the front seat, Ruby slips me a gun with the warmest of looks. She places a gentle finger to my lips, letting me know to keep quiet. With a smile, she turns her attention back to her preparations.
I feel the weight of the gun. Beretta is itched into the metal. I’ve fired a few guns in my life, and by that I mean I’ve done it twice. Producers took some of us to the Beverly Hills Gun Club before filming one time. It was more about showing off their guns, but they said it was so I could get a feel for them. Help the reality of the film and all that horseshit. But let’s be clear—they wanted to show off their guns in lieu of whipping out their manhood.
Thankfully they went with the guns versus the cocks.
I slip the gun behind my back under my black REI T-shirt.
Closing my eyes, I try to imagine what I’m about to walk into. There will be rage. There will be blood. Oh yes, there will be blood spilt, and that spilling blood will lead to a whole lot of death. There will also be the potential for torture of some fashion.
I decide pre-visualization is a bad idea. Be ready is all I can come up with as far as a plan. There are a few things I’d like to get done. Things that might slip my mind in the heat of battle. I decide to put together a small list of to-dos just in case this goes the wrong way. My yellow legal pad isn’t handy, so I need to burn these into my bruised little brain. Okay…
Get out alive.
Get your hands on that camera of Choke’s. Need his footage for the film,
as well as to keep me out of jail.
Stay alive.
Get my phone back.
Get back to the world with limbs attached and alive.
If 1, 3, and 5 work out, call Lucy.
Damn. That’s first time I’ve thought of Lucy in days.
That scares the hell out of me.
Choke says it’s time.
This scares me more.
79
An early morning walk along an empty stretch of beach can be one of the most peaceful things on Earth.
The soothing, rhythmic ocean sounds can lose a little something when you know the three people walking the sands right beside you are heavily armed and headed toward a house with the intention of killing everyone inside. It doesn’t help when you’re the one there to capture it all on film. I have a gun, the one Ruby gave me, but it doesn’t make me feel much better. Haven’t fired one in years, and I’ve never shot anything other than paper.
The house looks empty.
No sign of life.
Now would be a great time to slip into my trick, my state of not being a part of the here and now. I give it try but fail miserably. Haven’t been able to pull that off in days. I imagine this is what impotence must be like. I can’t begin to unwind the psychological yarn that would explain why I can’t. Have to accept it. Have to embrace where I am and go with what’s about to happen.
We’re about a hundred yards from the house.
Looking at Ruby, I can tell, in her mind, she’s already in that house. Her face is the definition of focus. The same holds true with the rest of her family. Fear is not part of them. It’s merely some vague idea they have heard others speak of. They have already decided what’s going to happen. How this will end. I can only hope it includes me staying alive.
Closer to the house.
We’ll be inside in a few minutes.
Need to keep focused on the film. That is my through-line. Think film first and the rest will fall into place. That and stay close to Ruby. She’s the only one who seems to care about me staying among the breathing. Can’t trust Boone or Choke. Cannot trust what they want to do to me.
This is new ground, a relationship turning point. What do they want to happen to the guy who had sex with Ruby? It’s entirely possible they might decide in the heat of battle they don’t really need Jasper and his dirty, Ruby-fucker money around.
A flash pops from the house window.
A high-velocity whistle rips the air.
Boone’s head explodes.
80
Before Boone’s body flops to the sand, Choke and Ruby have dropped to a knee with assault rifles pulled.
They lay down a blistering wave of firepower, cutting up the house. Shredding pop sounds. Thumps of bullets on wood and brick, along with the gentle tinkle of glass, all mix with the eardrum-rattling pounding of assault rifles wielded by crazy people.
Fighting off the spiking fear exploding inside me, I get to my knees, making sure I’m getting the shot. I got Boone’s final moments, just like I said I wanted. Doesn’t feel as good as I hoped it would.
Someone inside the house falls, smashing through a window.
Return fire from inside the house spits out in bursts.
A clump of sand explodes next to Ruby and me. Then another and another. Bullets plow the sand, sending granular snow up into the air. Ruby pays it no mind, reloading, continuing to remodel the beach house with her special touch. She releases an inhuman wail that can just be heard above the relentless blasts. I’ve managed to swing around and capture her with my handheld.
It’s an amazing shot.
This might be the poster.
Can’t help but think of the beaches of Normandy.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Choke stands, firing a grenade from the launcher under his modified assault rifle. The grenade spirals out over the sand, arcing and landing through a busted-out window in the house.
A brain-rattling explosion echoes across the beach.
Chunks of house fly out into the morning air. I can see a couch blazing.
Choke fires another grenade while running toward the house. He waves an arm for Ruby and me to follo
w. Ruby yanks at my collar, pulling me along. Once I get my legs working, I am running as fast as I can through the sand. The bullets keep blasting from the house, whizzing by my head, my body, hollowly plucking into the sand like a drummer who can’t find the beat.
Ruby launches a grenade. It lands in the house but does not explode like Choke’s. Instead, it produces a rolling smoke that fills the house and spills outside into the ocean air. She pulls down a gas mask over her face and hands one to me. As I work the mask over my cap cam and gear, she launches another grenade into the house. Even with the ocean breeze, the smoke is covering a lot of ground throughout the house.
I turn my torso to capture Choke with the cap and chest cams, allowing my handheld to stay on Ruby. They are charging toward the house at full throttle, unloading bullets into the house and reloading in a fraction of second. It’s as if they have an unspoken timing down—when Choke is reloading, Ruby is firing and vice versa, never allowing a bullet-free moment to pass.
The firing from inside the house has slowed to a trickle.
Tear gas must be taking hold.
Ruby screams for me to keep up. I stay back getting a full panoramic shot of Choke and Ruby blasting, the house burning, and smokes of different shades pluming from inside.
Damn cinematic.
Three men covered in full body armor stampede out of the house. All are equipped with gas masks and assault rifles of their own. Two more come storming out from the far side. From behind us, about fifty yards back, three more push in.
They are all around us, ambush closing in.
They knew we were coming.
I try to absorb what’s happening. Where to go, what to do? These are answers I do not have. I’ve come to a dead stop, like a stick jammed in the sand.
Choke and Ruby?
They don’t even slow down.
81
“Toes and hands,” Choke yells back to Ruby.
Charging toward the house, they alternate blasting rounds, taking aim at the two places not covered in body armor. Ruby spits off a stream of bullets, carving the feet almost completely off the closest one. Screaming, he collapses into a heap on the back deck, clinging to his spitting stumps of legs. She spins, laying down suppressive fire on the ones behind us. They scatter, dropping and rolling for the little cover the beach provides. The house in front of us blazes fire, belching smoke into the air.