by Drew Stepek
She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. Eldritch dropped one of the bears on it and she swallowed with a joyful gulp. “Gimme another,” she said. “Another white one!”
Eldritch looked through the bag of bears. “Ahhhhh,” he said triumphantly. “Here you are, a white gummy bear.”
Pinball stuck her tongue out even further this time. Once again, she opened wide and Eldritch placed the bear on her tongue. She swallowed and smiled. I made a mental note that she loved white gummy bears.
I slouched over to Eldritch and muttered, “Are you sure she should be eating those? You know, her condition and all.”
“That’s diabetes, stupid face,” Pinball squawked.
Eldritch mimicked my concern and patted her on her wig. “You know, ‘her condition and all.’” They both started laughing.
I turned away. “Jesus, assholes. Like I’m a doctor. Sugar can’t be good for a kid, whether she had cancer or not.”
Their laughter stopped. “Be a little more sensitive, RJ,” Eldritch warned in his best concerned parent tone.
I bored my hand into my pocket and returned with a crumpled-up packet of Combos. “Yummm,” I declared as I managed to sift through the bag to find a full treat amongst the crumbs. “Open your mouth.”
Pinball extended her neck and sniffed the Combo. “Ewwww. It smells like farts.”
Eldritch grabbed it out of my hand and inspected it. I tried to pluck it back but he outmaneuvered me.
“It doesn’t smell like farts. It’s a treat,” I assured them.
He sniffed it. “You will not give this child a canine treat.” His crushed the Combo into bits, then and blew the dust in my face.
I vented the cloud as I coughed. “It’s not a Snausage, shithead. It’s a fucking Combo. And I’m sure it’s way healthier than a piece of candy.”
Pinball plugged her nose. “Yep. Smells like farts.” Then burst into fits of laughter.
I shoved the Combos back into my pocket. “Nice, dude. Calm her down. She doesn’t seem sick to me.”
Eldritch patted her wig. and put his finger to his lips in a playful shush gesture and Pinball stopped laughing. She smiled at him, much like the way Bait smiled at me.
He pointed over to a discarded milk crate. “Go sit down over there, Little One, while Uncle RJ and I discuss.”
She scratched her foot into the dust left over from the Combo and stomped over to the crate. As she was turning it over to sit on it, she groaned. “Stupid jerk. Not even my uncle. Kilt my parents.” She plopped down on the milk crate and then screamed, “Not even my uncle!”
Eldritch rushed to her side. “Shhhh, Little One.” He brushed the wig’s badly cut bangs out of her eyes. “It is going to be okay.”
She rattled her head back and forth. “He kilt my mommy!”
Eldritch covered her mouth, careful not to cut her face with his appliances. “Shhhhhhh.” He bent down to her and released his hand. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “He sent your parents to a better place because they were dangerous to you in our world.”
You bet I did.
“We are going to get you a new home with loving parents as soon as we speak to the movie man,” he continued.
Her voice muffled. “I hate the movie man! I hate vampires!” Slowly starting to hyperventilate, she turned toward me, and belted out, “I hate Uncle RJ!”
Eldritch opened his hand again and a white gummy bear stood on his palm. She didn’t acknowledge that she saw it. Her gentle eyes had changed to scorching coals.
Wishing that we had gotten past all this, I turned around and pretended to survey the brick wall on the side of drug store. I might have knocked on the stone and ran my index finger though the lines of cement that held the wall together. I was afraid to turn around. I imagined her stare melting the little white gummy bear in Eldritch’s palm.
He whispered, “RJ is a good man, Little One. He did what he felt was necessary. It might not have been right, but I assure you that we will get you to safety. He loved your sister very much. He tried to save her. I was there.”
I heard the entire gummy bear bag exchange hands. She sounded surprised. “He did?”
I punched my finger through the mortar in the wall. There was no reason for me to be jealous of Eldritch and Pinball’s budding friendship, but I couldn’t help being annoyed since I already explained all of this to her.
I looked thought the hole I made. It seemed like there was a small crawl space and some wooden studs that were covered by plywood, leading to plaster and paint on the other side.
Still reluctant to turn around and look at Pinball, I pressed my eyes to the hole and evaluated an important discovery. I called Eldritch over. “Hey, big man, can you come over here really quick?”
“I am going to go speak with RJ,” he relayed to her. “Stay right here.” He paused for a second. “I bet you cannot eat all of these treats before I get back.”
“I bet I can,” she delightedly fired back.
“I bet you cannot, Little One.”
“I bet I can!”
I was exhausted by the baby talk. “Nighttime’s wasting,” I reminded Eldritch.
I heard the sound of his trench coat skimming the pavement as he got to his feet. “Right you are, RJ.”
Pinball whispered, “I bet I can.”
He whispered back, “I bet you cannot.”
Without raising my voice, I pulled my eye away from the wall and said, “For the love of God. Who cares?”
Eldritch wrapped his patent leather arm around me. “You need not worry. She will come around.”
I ignored his encouragement and stuck my finger back in the hole. I grabbed onto the inside of the brick and started pulling out chunks. “You see this?” I started plugging my fingers into the growing hole around the mortar. When I got all four digits into the hole, I pressed my thumb against the face of the brick and started wiggling it loose.
Eldritch bent in for a closer look. “See what?”
I shook the brick loose and held it up. “Rather than scale this wall, which I won’t be able to do and you probably won’t be able to do with a fifty-pound child on your back, we should just tear down this wall.”
He looked at the brick. “That is insanity.”
Pinball squawked behind us. “Hey! Look at me! I’m a fireman.”
Eldritch put up his hand and said, “Just a second,” but didn’t turn around to look at her.
I blew into the hole to clear the dust. “Why is it insane? Look in there. We won’t trip any alarms if we go directly through the wall.”
“You can sit down here and tear away at the wall to your hearts content. As you said, nighttime’s wasting.”
Pinball started wooing like a siren and, “Hey, I’m a fireman.”
I added some huff to my voice. “Just a minute, Little One.”
Eldritch cleared his throat. “Do not mock me in front of the child.”
“Well, you better start climbing, Spidey.” I turned away from him and started shaking loosed the next brick. “I’m going through the wall.”
The train on his coat swept my calves as he turned to collect Pinball. However, I didn’t hear him move any further. He cleared his throat again. This time to get my attention.
I pulled the next brick out of the wall and threw it over my head as I turned around. “What? I thought, you were going to—”
We both stood still, dumbfounded.
Just above the milk crate, Pinball was swinging around on a ladder that was bolted to the wall on the side of an insurance building.
I looked up. There was roughly a fifty-foot gap between the buildings. “Do you think you can make that jump with her on your shoulders?”
Eldritch glared at me, then pulled Pinball off the ladder and hoisted her onto his back. “Wrap your arms around my neck and hold tight,” he told her as he grabbed onto the sixth or seventh rung and started scaling the ladder. He turned back to me but her wig was blocking his face. “I will pull
you up over the ledge when I get to the top, RJ.”
I grabbed onto the same rung where he started his ascension. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”
Eldritch reached the top and grabbed the lip of the building, dropping his legs from the ladder as he used his hands to propel himself onto the roof. He also managed to kick some clods of dirt off of his boots, letting it rain down onto my face. I spit it out of my mouth. “P-tew.”
“Are you okay down there, RJ?” They tried to muffle their giggles. “Might you reconsider breaking in through the wall?”
I reached the top as I scrubbed the dirt off of my tongue. I pulled myself over the lip. “I’m good, you cunt,” I added as I hopped onto the tarred, flat summit.
Eldritch was bent over, whispering to Pinball, sizing up the physics of his jump with his arm extended. As if she had any idea what physics were, much less Victorian era physics.
I cracked my neck, back-stepped to the far edge of the building and got a running start. “Don’t talk about it, just jump.” I hurdled over the inner lip, easily cleared the gap and successfully landed on top of the drug store. The fleshy side of my hands eased my momentum and my boots skidded to a stop. As I stood upright, I added, “Do you want me to come back and get the kid? You seem a little reluctant to make the jump.”
“Do not mind him. He is a culus magnificis.” Eldritch tried to whisper behind his hand.
I pointed to my right ear. “I have super hearing, too. Remember? I don’t know what that means, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t nice.” I walked to the edge of the pharmacy, directly across from him. “Just throw her across to me,” I suggested.
He picked Pinball up and returned her to the piggyback position. “That will not happen.” Not afraid that anything could go wrong on the back of her gallant swashbuckler, Pinball closed her eyes and rested her head next to his. He didn’t bother to back up like I did. Rather, he took a handful of long strides toward the lip and made his jump. The moon sparkled on his PVC duster. Almost as if he had the wind gliding him across the Grand Canyon, his collar blew up as the shadows deepened his cheekbones.
As overly-flamboyant as that might sound, that was exactly what it looked like. Although I had never seen them, I couldn’t help but think Stephan Rodderick should have taken a backseat to Eldritch in those Nightshayde movies. He was absolutely the epitome of the vampire you would find in a teen girl’s dreams. It kind of made me sick, but by the same token in light doses it was pretty bitchin’.
He landed with his feet planted firmly and crouched into a three-point stance. “We have arrived, Little One.” Pinball rubbed her eyes. He lowered her to the ground by bending his arm as she dismounted.
Pinball looked back at the roof of the insurance company. “Again!” she badgered. She opened her hand to reveal the smushed white gummy bears. She took one out of the bag and handed it to Eldritch.
He put out his palm to receive the gift. “Thank you for holding on to these. I knew you would keep them safe. White is my favorite flavor, too.”
“Hey, racists!” I called over to them. “Here is our entrance.” I bent over and knocked on a black, wooden trap door.
Eldritch straightened his trench coat and brushed his hair out of his face. “Do not be daft.” He grabbed Pinball’s hand and walked toward me.
I kicked the door with my heel. “What’s wrong with this? Not white enough for you?”
He shoved me to the side. “There must be another way in.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Is it not obvious?” He walked around the roof, looking under and into everything ranging from air conditioning ducts to discarded boxes. “It is, after all, a pharmacy.”
Not wanting to wait it out, I shoved my fingers through the wood and lifted the door like a bowling ball. The lock snapped from the latch inside and thumped down the stairs. No alarm sounded. “Too late now.”
Eldritch clomped back to me, shaking his disapproving finger. “You! Sir!”
I flipped the door open. “Look.” I pointed into the hole. “No alarm and there’s a staircase. Christ, they might as well have sent an invitation to be robbed.”
He bit his tongue and looked in to the stairway. “Hmmmm. It was still an extremely impulsive and irresponsible move.”
I ignored him and ducked into the hole. “There’s a door here. I’m going to open it.”
Eldritch remained quiet. He was probably hesitant to come downstairs after me because, as always, he was anticipating me making a misstep.
I closed my eyes so he couldn’t see me sweat and turned the handle on the door. Click. No lock. I pressed my hand against the door in front of my face and pushed it open. No alarm. And I was inside the pharmacy portion of the store.
I hollered back, “Fuck you, pussy!”
“Indeed.” He shrugged, then led Pinball down the stairs after me. He had her fingers lifted as if he were presenting her to aristocrats at a ball. I tried to ignore it. It was so fucking stupid and foppy.
“I’m going to hit the head then start looking around the front.” I crossed through the aisles and reached a glass observation window that separated the actual drugs from the sundries. I looked to my left to see a small, sliding window where prescriptions were administered. A metal door was next to the window.
I heard Pinball trying to be as quiet as possible. “Why’s he like that?” she asked.
“He does not understand.”
I thought about Bait again, pushing through the metal door, then slammed it behind me. I was glad that even with my super-vampo-hearing I wouldn’t be able to hear anything from either of them for at least a half hour.
You’rE in a Drug storE.
Not now, Gooch. Please, not now.
Being a vampire didn’t include night vision, but the moon provided enough dim light so I could sift through the latest delicious flavors of Combos. I threw one of each into a Dora the Explorer backpack that I found on the side of the toy aisle. I took a few steps sideways and luckily came across several different bags of gummy bears, gummy worms and gummy rings. I would have sifted through each bag and casted aside the candies that weren’t white but I didn’t want to be accused of leading a child down a path to neo-Nazism. I also threw some trail mix, nuts and beef jerky into the backpack. Collectively, it was probably the worst shit for a meal replacement… especially for a sick and starving ten-year-old kid.
As I was making my way over to the refrigerator and snagged another backpack for Lunchables and junk, something caught my eye near the end cap of the shampoo aisle. Cotton balls.
Now you’rE thiNkin’.
I glanced back at the pharmacy and saw Eldritch’s big shadow cross the window, but that was all. He was pretty stern about me not getting high before we got Pinball into the actor’s care, but I couldn’t fight it any longer.
I ripped open a bag of cotton balls and shoved them into my jeans, under my nuts. Even if he did frisk me, he would never check that pocket.
I wasn’t going to find any heroin in the pharmacy but thankfully Oxycodone, a great post-chemotherapy narcotic, would be. They didn’t call it “hillbilly heroin” for nothing. I had done Oxy several times when I was desperate, even though it didn’t quite pack the same punch or satisfy The Gooch. But it was an opiate, so it scratched that junkie itch, even if it didn’t relieve it fully. I don’t know why the cotton balls turned on that lightbulb in my brain, but yeah, this was going to be a win-win situation for everyone.
I looked down and started counting with my fingers what I needed. Before I readied a mental list of all tools that I needed to have my post-traumatic pharmaceutical therapy, Eldritch called out. “We may require syringes!”
I threw the backpack in the air, dumping the treats all over the floor. “Jesus fucking Christ!” I knew I never should have taken my eyes off the pharmacy.
I looked up and he was talking to me through the sliding window. Eldritch was always silently sneaking around and catching m
e with my pants down.
“Why are you restless?”
I dropped to the floor and started putting everything back in the bag. “I’m not restless, asshole. It’s dark in here and I am trying to get the girl more candy and food. It’s obvious she’s hungry.”
He yelled to me again, as if there were a thousand other people in the store swallowing up his voice. “You need not worry about more candy. We need syringes.”
“Quiet down. Haven’t you ever robbed a store before?” Knowing better than to fight the first thing on my list to medicate myself, I added, “Why do we need syringes?”
“The Little One and I are having a difficultly locating pain reliving medication in a tablet form. I searched my telephone and found some comparable liquid pain relievers. We will need a syringe to administer such elixirs, should we uncover any.”
“They don’t sell them in the front of the store.”
He waved me away and rolled his eyes. “Of course they do.”
I whizzed a bag of gummy rings at him.
He closed the window as the candy smacked into it. Then he reopened the window and blew a long strand of hair out of his face. “Why must you fight against everything?”
“I’m not fighting everything. Here are the facts.” I put up my fist and started ticking off my experience. “Number one, I’m a heroin addict. Number two, I was born this way. Number three, I’m old. Number four, if I could walk into a pharmacy and steal syringes, I would have figured that out ages ago.”
He stroked his chin. “Hmmmm. What do you suggest?”
Then, miraculously, something caught my eye. “Sixty-Second Clinic.” I pointed to a sign.
“What is that?” he said as he tried to get a bird’s eye view of the sign. Unfortunately for him, his head was too big to fit through the little window. “I am not familiar.”
I jogged over to a small hallway. There was a sign above it that indicated the pharmacy was also a walk-in clinic. When I reached the WELCOME door, I lowered my shoulder and powered through it, destroying the hinges and collapsing the wood plank to the ground in front of me. I stepped onto the door as if I had conquered a foreign land and quickly started rummaging through drawers. I found a lot more cotton balls, tongue depressors and giant Q-tips. I looked into the lower cabinets and low and behold… syringes.