Fatal Intuition

by Makenzi Fisk

  Before I can plunge the knife into his throat, the man in the white coat jumps me like a big hairy ape, an ape that smells of piss and fear. How did he manage to unglue himself from the floor? I’m faster, but he must outweigh me by a hundred pounds, and he catches me off guard. I’ve totally underestimated him.

  We crumple together, and the knife flies from my hand as my skull collides with hard tile. Right now, all I can think about is my need to get the hell out. Psychedelic colors explode in my head. Somewhere a man must be breaking concrete with a jackhammer.

  Through the noise, a male voice shouts. The kid I stabbed is calling the cops. With my last ounce of strength, I wriggle free and stagger for the door.

  Away from the building, it seems the sidewalk is crooked and I have trouble steering my feet to the truck. I take the long way around a lamp post and adjust my balance to make it to the passenger side. “T! Let’s Go.”

  His eyes widen when he sees me coming. “What did you do?” he says through a mouthful of something disgusting.

  “Move over. Drive!” As soon as he slides over, I tumble into his spot. Sirens are coming. He hits the gas and we peel away before they get closer.

  We’re on the highway, heading out of town, and T hasn't asked me a single question until now. “What did you do?”

  There is so much noise in my head and I can barely hear him over the little workers hammering between my ears. Everything is off, like a video out of sync with its audio track.

  “Are you hurt? You have blood on your phone.” His voice has that weird edge of concern that my grandfather’s had when I hurt myself.

  Scheisse! My phone. My amazing video. What if it’s smashed? I can’t bring myself to check it.

  “Looks like the blood’s not yours.” T tugs the little white bag I had forgotten about from my clenched fingers. “What’s this?”

  Drugs. This is why I went to see the pharmacist in the white coat. I stabbed his son before he jumped me and slammed my head into the floor. “I got you a present,” I mumble. “All the Oxy you want.”

  He peeks inside and his dark eyes burn. “Did you kill someone for this?”

  “Maybe.” How I wish I had. I can’t believe that I lost my knife, but somehow managed to hold onto the damn plastic bag. My priorities are messed up.

  “Ooh, look at all the pharmaceuticals.” The truck swerves across the center line and back. T’s smile is like Christmas morning. “Take the wheel, honeybun.” He dives into the bag and shovels through the contents with his hands.

  I can’t see straight, let alone steer from way over here. The truck swerves again, but T keeps his foot planted on the gas pedal and I have no choice but to try to keep the wheels between the yellow line and the white one.

  “Pull over dummkopf . You’ll put us in the ditch,” I yell on sheer instinct. Man, how many times did my grandfather say those exact words? When my head clears, we’re cockeyed on the shoulder, wheels threatening to dip into the grassy ravine.

  In my hand, I release the death grip on my phone and realize that it works, and the video is still running. I point it at T, who now has the bottles and boxes lined up in order of size. He picks up the first one and squints to read the tiny print on the vial. “I’ve never seen Oxy come in liquid. It says Oxytocin, IV infusion, single dose injection.”

  “Are you gonna do it right now? Why don’t you wait until we get where we’re going? My head hurts. I need you to drive.”

  He points to his knee as if I’m stupid. “I can’t drive with all this pain.”

  I shut off the camera. My head is banging like a kid with a tambourine, but I don’t whine like a pussy. “Fuck, whatever. Do what you gotta do, and let’s get back on the road. We could be home by tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know how to take this kind. It’s not in a pill and I can’t smoke it either. You’re supposed to use a needle.”

  “So drink it. Pop a hole in the top and suck it down.” Seriously, if he can’t figure this out, he has no business getting high.

  He grins and jabs his pinkie nail through the foil. “Bottoms up.” Head tilted back, he lets it drain down his throat. “Ugh! That tastes nasty. Gimme the rest of your soda.”

  “Drink your own.” I turn my back to him and clutch mine to my chest. He’s not getting any.

  I fall asleep to his grumbling and the sound of the truck’s tires on pavement.

  When I wake up, we’re stopped, T’s gone and the headlights illuminate a gravel road. The jackhammers in my head are quiet, but my neck is as stiff as a rusty hinge.

  Grunting bear noises carry through the open window. My gaze travels from the revolver on the seat, to a shadow squatting outside the circle of light, and settles on the keys dangling from the ignition. It’s an invitation, an escape from this sniveling loser who has become a sore in my ass.

  It’s his fault I’m hungry right now. If he hadn’t spent all the money, I wouldn’t have had to rob that drug store. Now my neck hurts and that’s his fault too. I should slide over right now, turn the key and drive. Or should I pick up the gun and get rid of him for good? I haven’t yet decided when the moose noises stop and T is at my door.

  “Will you drive?” His face is pale, eyes sunken like he's got the flu. “My guts are on fire and I could shit two quarts through the eye of a needle. This is the third time I’ve had to stop.”

  I’ve already slept through two opportunities to ditch him. “Are you already coming down?” Those drugs wore off fast. Good thing I got a whole bag.

  “Coming down from what? I never got high.” He opens the door and folds himself onto the seat like a stiff-legged spider.

  “Maybe you didn’t take enough. You said that bottle was single dose. You're a pretty big guy.”

  “Nothing happened, so I drank the other three.” He points at four empty vials on the floor. “That Oxy didn’t work. All it did was give me wicked stomach cramps and the shits from hell. Do you have any idea how hard it is to squat with a bum knee?”

  If he wants sympathy, he’s out of luck. “That’s what you get for the stupid runzer. Karma’s a bitch.” My rumbling stomach agrees with me.

  “It’s called a runza, and you’d know how good it was if you’d tried it.” He uncurls his body a little and picks up one of the remaining bottles from the drug store. This one is labeled Oxybutynin. “I don’t like that liquid stuff but these are different. They’ll work.” He shakes out an innocent-looking blue pill and holds it up to the interior light.

  The other blue pills he got from the dealer at the truck stop gave me a happy rush the first time I took one. Or were they pink? I didn’t even care when he touched me. What if I could feel like that again? What if my neck stopped hurting? “I’ll take one if you do.”

  “These are tiny. One won’t get you high.” He’s got that look in his eye. The look that makes me wish I hadn’t lost my knife.

  What if I could feel like that again, without waking up to T’s hands groping my crotch? “Okay, I’ll take a bunch if you do.”

  His teeth glitter in the dash lights. “You’re on.” He pours out a handful of pills.

  “Only if I get to hold the gun.”

  “Aw, I won’t do nothing to you. I’m too sick to think about that.” He looks whipped, but I hold out my hand anyway. Who knows how he’ll be in ten minutes, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned by now, it’s what he’s like when he’s high.

  I stare him straight in the eye so he knows I mean business. Finally, he hands over the gun and I thumb the latch to pop open the cylinder. I give it a spin, because they always do that in the movies, look down the barrel, and then check how many bullets are left.

  My grandfather never let me touch his guns, but T has explained the basics. From this angle, I can see that four of the bullets are spent, because dimples mar the centers. Two shiny primers remain. Like little buttons, each nestles in the unspent cartridges, waiting for me to pull the trigger. When I do, the firing pin will hit the primer, which will explod
e and ignite the gunpowder. Fire in the hole , T says. The bullet has one escape route, right out the barrel.

  I want to be the one to fire these last two rounds. I want to shoot someone so bad it makes me sweat. What would it feel like to point this gun at T’s face, and fire? Would it look amazing? Would it be an explosion of blood and brains?

  T knows a lot about explosives. If a bullet can make a small explosion, a bomb can make a big one. He says I’d love setting them off. Maybe I would. That’s one reason to keep him around.

  I rotate the cylinder, so the next bullet up will be a live one, and snap it closed. With the gun in one hand, I down half a dozen of the Oxybutynin pills and start the truck. My neck will feel better in a few minutes and we’ll be in Minnesota by morning. After I take care of a few things, everything will be perfect. “T, how do you make a bomb?”

  “Ungh, you want to make sexy talk right now? My guts are burning like I swallowed snake venom.”

  “Do you ever think about anything besides your dick?”

  He shifts his weight and curls tighter. “Well, right now all I can think about is how bad my guts hurt and trying not to puke. I couldn’t get it up if I wanted to.”

  “Good. Tell me about bombs.”

  He frowns and exhales. “It’ll take my mind off how bad I feel until the new stuff kicks in.”

  “How do you build one? How do you set it off?” All the explosion scenes, from every movie I’ve ever seen, play in my mind. My return to Morley Falls will be epic.

  “All you need is a chunk of metal pipe, threaded at both ends. Drill a hole in one end, fill it with gunpowder, attach a fuse, and screw on the other cap. When you light it, run like hell, and ba-boom!”

  “Can we make one?” Excitement wriggles in the area where my heart is supposed to be. I want to make something go ba-boom. “Where do we get the pipe?”

  “That’s easy. Any hardware store will have it.”

  “Can we use the powder from our bullets?” I grip the revolver tighter. I don’t want to sacrifice the remaining bullets, but if it’s the only way…

  “Not enough. We’ll have to get more from a gun shop.”

  I can imagine robbing a survival store with our little pea shooter. They’ll blow us away with fifty assault rifles before we make it in the door. This is starting to sound stupid. “What about a fuse? Where do we get that?”

  “You can buy electrical detonators for toy rockets in a hobby shop.”

  “Are you making this shit up on purpose? That sounds impossible.”

  He shrugs. “A shoelace might work.”

  “Have you actually made one?” I used to believe T’s stories but, after I found out he’s a low-life skinner, I’m not so sure. Everyone knows you can’t trust a pedophile.

  “Swear on a stack of bibles, me and my buddy used to make them all the time.” He crosses his heart. “Three Finger Jamie blew off his thumb, pointer finger and the tip of his nose. His face healed up okay but he wouldn’t build them with me any more after that.” He laughs. “It was his own fault. He knew he was supposed to brush the gunpowder off the threads before he screwed on the cap.”

  “Ba-boom?”

  He laughs. “Ba-frickin’-boom, girl.” The way his eyes catch fire, even when he’s sick, convinces me that blowing shit up might be worth the effort.

  Without warning, my stomach lurches and a vile taste fills my mouth.

  Judging from the sweat on his upper lip, T’s feeling the same way. “Pull over!”

  By morning, we’re both done puking and we’ve thrown the rest of the pills out the rear slider into the box of the truck. Obviously they are poisoned or something. Pharmacies must have sneaky ways to make sure you don’t steal their shit. The way banks put exploding dye packs into bags of money for robbers, pharmacies must put poison into their drugs. Fuckers. The next guy in a white coat I see will pay for this.

  Hours ago, we buried the farm truck to its axles in the river and stole another. This one is newer and smells flowery. T says it reminds him of a girl he knew once, but won’t tell me about.

  I can smell the change in the air too. It’s richer, more full of oxygen or something, definitely better. I spent some of the cash from the drug store and T has been sleeping on and off since we finished that six pack of beer. His bladder should wake him in time to get his first glimpse of Morley Falls.

  I nudge him with my foot until he rubs his eyes. The town’s welcome sign, complete with a happy fisherman, flashes past. I’m back. My gut instinct is to drive straight home, but what if T is right? What if my grandfather sold it? What if someone new is sitting out there, looking at my bog?

  I don’t have the heart to go there yet. Instead, I beeline for the far side of town, where the nicer people live, the ones who mow their lawns, fix their fences, and don’t holler at their kids in the street.

  There’s the cop’s house, exactly as I remember. How many nights did I crouch behind the hedge to watch through the windows? I flicked my lighter until I scraped the flint wheel smooth, imagining all the ways to burn it down. When I got close, that damn blind dog barked. I had no desire to find out how sharp those teeth were. Even scared dogs can bite. And the cat, the goddamn cat, always watching me out the window.

  Today, there is no truck in the driveway and the hedge is overgrown. Officer Ericsson likes everything ship-shape. She’d never leave it like that. Maybe she’s not here, hasn’t been for a while. What will I do if she’s moved away?

  A red Jeep pulls in front of the house and a woman steps out. It’s the cop’s girlfriend, the one I knifed in the belly, the witch who said my dead mother sent her. I slouch when she looks straight at the truck and tilts her head. She hurries to get something out of the back, and peers over her shoulder as she heads for the house.

  All those days in juvy, reliving that night, I’d imagined her stooped, broken, blood-stained from the inside out. She’s absolutely fine, healthy even. Angry blood sizzles in my veins. How is this possible?

  “You’re sexy when you growl. You know her, don’t you?” T is watching me the way he did when we first met in the library, like he wanted to peek into my brain, like he was excited by the possibilities.

  “I shoved my knife into her liver.”

  “She lived, and you got three years in juvy anyway. That’s a travesty.”

  I pull the gun from my waistband and wrap my fist around the handgrip until the color is squeezed from my knuckles. I’ll run across the road right now and shoot her in the face. Twenty seconds, tops, and it’ll be all over.

  Solemn as a priest during confession, T shakes his head and points at a cop car crossing the side street. “Patience, bunny rabbit.”

  I don’t want to wait. I want Ericsson to come home and find her girlfriend’s guts splattered across the porch. But Ericsson’s not here. Hasn’t been for a while. I don’t want to wait, but T’s right. This time I must succeed. I put the truck into gear. I won’t burn that house down. With T’s help, I’ll blow it to hell.

  T smiles at me and I want to smile back. I let him lean against me a little. I want to imagine that I like him, that he is more than a tool I used to get back here.

  “Let’s get more beer. Then I’ll show you our new home.” I hope T is wrong. That the bog is still mine.

  T has sleepy eyes, like I imagine people have when they’re in love. “I’m hungry, honeybun. Where’s the closest restaurant?”

  I laugh, not because he’s funny, but because there are only a few restaurants in this town and none are open at this time of the morning. If you’re lucky, you can get a bagel at the Angler’s Coffee Stop, but it’s really just a trailer parked in an empty lot.

  I take a left toward the place where the Stop ’N Go used to be. From the time I was nine or ten, I’d sneak in for beer, and my favorite pizza sandwiches. That was before I burned it down. I hit the brakes in the middle of the road when I see what has replaced the building’s blackened carcass. “Holy shit!”

  The whole st
ore has been rebuilt twice its original size, with flashy gas pumps outside and a new light-up sign shaped like a fish. It’s way brighter than the old one. The name’s different too. Now, Gina’s name is right up top.

  They should have called it Nosy Gina’s Stop ’N Go , because she was always up in my business. As if I needed to call the Kids Help Phone to talk about my problems.

  I dig a wad of bills out of my pocket and shove them at T. “Go buy beer and get us food. No goddamn shit I never heard of this time.”

  “You’re not coming in?” He snatches up that cash faster than my mother took money from the strangers who left her bedroom.

  “Naw.” I turn my camera on and point it at the store. “Bitch in there knows me.”

  He goes in, and I film him robot-walking on his wonky knee. “And get smokes!” I yell out the window. “Marlboros.” I wish I could add the soundtrack from Terminator. This movie is gonna be award-winning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Allie put on the kettle and found Erin’s favorite mug, the one with the hand-painted flower and perfectly shaped handle. She tugged the sleeves of Erin’s FBI sweatshirt up to her elbows and rested them on the table. She was tired. Even with the dog and cat both snuggled up to her, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Between alternate bouts of stomach aches and phantom dizziness, she’d drifted from nightmare to nightmare. A knife, blood seeping through snow-white cloth, over and over in video replay. She’d woken up once to check if little blue pills tumbled together in her palm. The dream had been so real.

  Lily was close. This connection to her sickened Allie, the constant barrage of psychedelic colors, raw emotion and disjointed thoughts. The girl’s mind was altered. The girl was drinking, or on drugs, or mentally ill. Maybe all three. It made no sense.

  If she could focus and figure out Lily’s plan, or her location, it might help. The hard part was that Lily seemed to have no plan. Each day, each action, seemed to be decided in that moment. The one thing she was sure of was that Lily was coming, and they were all in danger.