by Mike Leon
“Victor was here,” Sid says. He expected more blood. He sees only some speckles on the kitchen counter, probably from a knocked-out tooth or, more likely, a broken nose; he doesn’t see any loose teeth nearby.
“The girl is not here,” the ninja says. He leaps down the last few stairs but makes no sound as his feet reach the ground level.
“She’s scared,” Sid says. “She’s desperate. She’s playing right into his hands. I don’t know how we’re going to get ahead of him.”
“What about Ivan?” Helen asks. “If we can contact him somehow . . .”
“My old man?” Sid says. He sets his rifle down on the counter top and opens the refrigerator door. He’s hungry. No reason not to take a look.
“Is he actually your father?” Helen asks. She puts the shotgun down on the arm of a reclining chair.
Sid opens the refrigerator and gasps at what he sees.
“What is it?” Helen yelps. She picks up the shotgun almost as soon as she set it down. The ninja reaches for his sword.
“Steak,” Sid says. He pulls a Tupperware container of dark brown steaks from the refrigerator.
“Oh my God,” Helen says, holdings a hand to her chest. “I thought . . . I thought there was a woman in the refrigerator.”
“What?” Sid tears the lid off the Tupperware container and plucks a juicy steak from inside. He rips into it with his teeth. “Why would there be a woman in the refrigerator?” he asks through a mouthful of steak.
“It’s just a thing—I don’t know—never mind,” Helen says. “That steak is cold.”
Sid glares at her as he chews steak vigorously. It tastes different than he is used to, probably because it was cooked. Cooked steak is a whole new discovery. The old man always threw it to him raw.
“And of course, you don’t care,” Helen says. She puts the shotgun back down.
Sid holds out the container of steaks to offer some to Tanaka, but the ninja turns him down.
“I will never understand you Americans and your beef,” the ninja says.
“So, is he actually your father?” Helen asks again, picking up the conversation from before the alarming discovery of red meat.
“Yeah,” Sid says, tearing into the steak again. He’s already eaten two thirds of it. “Why?”
“I just thought you were made in a lab or something,” Helen says.
“Why does everybody always say that?” Sid complains. He continues to speak through a mouthful of steak. He doesn’t care if the others can understand him. “Oh, he’s really good at killing guys. He must be a genetically engineered cyborg animal man.” Sid rolls his eyes. Lily accused him of being a vampire. Ridiculous.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you tear people apart with your bare hands!”
Sid shrugs. “I’m a master of ansatsuken.”
“Ankenwhatnow?”
Tanaka answers her question. “The forbidden art of the assassinating fist. A terrible fighting form that was long thought lost.”
“Well, whatever,” Helen says. “We need your old man. If we can reach him—”
“He’s dead,” Sid cuts her off, reaching for the next steak.
“What?” Helen says. “How?”
“Last time I saw him, a swarm of man-eating reptilians were piled on top of him.” He chomps another steak in half. “There’s no way even he made it out of that alive.”
“You are mistaken,” Tanaka says. “Ivan still lives.”
“That can’t be right,” Sid says.
“I rescued him myself. I have seen him.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. There isn’t enough time.”
“You can’t call him?”
“You don’t just call my dad. It’s not like he carries around the hottest new iPhone in his pocket. There are no photographs of him, no fingerprints, no voice recordings. That’s not an accident. There are smoke signals we can use to alert him, but they take days.”
“No one finds the ghost,” Tanaka says. “The ghost finds you.”
“The ninja knows the score,” Sid agrees. “We’re on our own here.”
“So what now, then?” Helen says. “We just wait for Victor to get his hands on whatever is in that case?”
“I thought you knew what was in the case,” says Sid.
“No. I think it’s some kind of biological weapon.”
“I figured it was a suitcase nuke.”
“Tanaka, what is that thing?”
They both turn to the ninja for an explanation. The waspy Asian man shakes his head slowly.
“All right,” Helen says. “So how do we find Lily before he does?”
“I have an idea, but it’s kind of shaky,” Sid says.
INT. MERLE’S TRUCK STOP - NIGHT
The Devil’s Horsemen sit around a table in the corner of Merle’s 24-Hour Truck Stop finishing up their 4 am breakfast as Bald Sack hands out photographs of a twelve-year-old Lily to all of them. The Lily in the photo lacks all of her grim tattoos, but is provocatively dressed for such a young girl. Duck Dick whistles at the photograph.
“When we get to Morston,” Bald Sack says. “We’re gonna fan out. Cover all the spots we think the bitch might go.”
“You didn’t tell me she was a serious piece of ass,” Duck Dick says, leering at the photograph again.
“That’s a twelve-year-old girl you’re looking at, chomo,” says Gill.
“What’s wrong with that?” says Sweet Tits, putting her dental bridge back in to fill the gap between her top front teeth. “I was twelve my first time.”
“Duck’s a fuckin’ chomo is what’s wrong with that.” Gill snickers. Gill loves to put down Duck Dick whenever he can. The guy is just such a little bitch it’s fun to see him cry about it. It was Gill who came up with Duck’s nickname on account of him looking like a duck’s nasty tentacle dick. It was Gill who tattooed the half-ass anarchy A all across the left side of Duck’s face while the shitbird was passed out from booze and dope. That tattoo could use a touch-up, Gill thinks as he looks across the table to Duck’s flapping gums.
“I ain’t no fuckin’ chomo,” Duck Dick barks, pounding the table. “She’s at least seventeen now. That’s legal.”
“Eighteen is legal, dumb ass,” Sweet Tits sneers. “Everybody knows that.”
“Actually,” Poochie interjects. “In most states, sixteen is legal. There’s only a few where it’s eighteen.”
“But he’s lookin’ at the picture. She’s twelve in the picture. He’s a chomo.”
“How old was that hooker you nailed in Mexico City? Fourteen?”
“Thirteen, but that’s legal in Mexico.”
“He’s right,” Poochie says. “Age of consent’s twelve there.”
“So shithead can stick it to an elementary school girl and that’s A-okay, but I have a light fantasy about a woman damn near voting age and I’m the chomo?”
“I don’t write the laws. All I know is I catch you even lookin’ at my daughter, I’ll take your little chomo balls.”
“Your daughter’s twenty-two,” Sweet Tits says. “That don’t even make sense.”
“I think it’s a real interesting statement about the Jungian duality of man,” Poochie says.
“Fingers is dead, you fucks!” Bald Sack shouts. “And since when do Satanic bikers give one single fuck about the age of consent anyway? Let’s get down to it.”
“Who is this little skeez anyway?” Lawrence asks. He’s the newest member of the club.
“She’s Ted Smalls’s stepdaughter from back in the day,” Gill explains. “He was puttin’ it to her and the dumb slut got knocked up. So instead of handling it any proper way, she tried to fix it herself. Fucked it all to hell and back. Landed herself in intensive care. Everybody found out.”
“So it’s her fault Ted’s inside.”
Gill nods. “Yep. Now Bobby Reynolds from over in Norwich, he’s got a cousin joined up with the National Guard and he told Bobby he thought he saw Ted’s ex-wife at a tit
ty bar over in Morston by the base. So Fingers and the probie rode out there looking for her, and you know the rest.”
“We fan out,” Bald Sack says with fire in his eyes. “Poochie’s gonna cover that titty bar. Sweet’s asking around the schools. Me and Lawrence are going to that video store. Gill runs interference. Duck Dick, you cover the mall.”
“The mall?” Duck Dick whines. “Why the mall?”
“She’s a teenager. Teenagers go to malls.”
“Not anymore. Malls are out.”
“Where do kids go then?”
“Thrift stores, coffee shops, gentrified urban slums, extremely woke microbreweries, fast casual restaurants with responsibly raised ingredients . . .”
“Quit fuckin’ with me, Duck,” Sack growls. “I ain’t in the mood. You cover the mall.”
The group’s waitress glides up to the edge of their table and glances around the collection of rugged faces before asking, “So, you ready for the check?”
Bald Sack springs from his seat and punches the waitress right in the chin with a haymaker that jerks her face sideways, sending her sprawling across another party’s plates of bacon and eggs.
“Let’s ride!” Sack howls. “Hail Satan!”
“Hail Satan!” the others howl after him as they all dash from the truck stop in an angry swarm.
EXT. PARKING LOT – NIGHT
The yellow glow of the Planet Fitness sign casts a buttery tint to the moonless darkness all around. Helen used to go to a gym like this when she was with NSA. There’s a comforting familiarity about it. She’ll take anything she can get to calm her nerves right now.
She’s waiting next to a blue Lexus, leaning against the driver’s side door with her elbow on the window. She shed her flak jacket to look a bit more innocuous, though anyone looking close will notice the dried blood stains on her shirt and the split in her blue jeans from Victor’s knife.
The police cruiser that rolls into the parking lot has its low beams on. That’s good. The last thing she needs is some overzealous asshole cop flashing the emergency lights for this. The car comes to a stop and the door opens. The driver steps out, but he has a flashlight pointed at her face and looks like a shadow with a big cap.
“You lock yourself out?” the cop calls in a husky male voice.
“Yeah,” she says. “This is so embarrassing. I didn’t think I should call nine-one-one, but it’s dark and this isn’t the best neighborhood, and I didn’t know what to do.”
The cop lowers his flashlight. He has a classic bushy cop mustache riding his upper lip. He smiles at her.
“Don’t you worry, honey,” he says. “That’s what we’re here for.”
Sid bashes the cop in the back of the head with his elbow. The guy’s face bounces off the hood of the cruiser before whipping back, and the whole of him folds like an according onto the blacktop.
“How do you do that?” Helen says. “Just knock him out? Just like that?”
Sid shrugs. “It’s something you have to practice.”
He picks the police officer up from the ground and throws him over his shoulder. Helen sits down in the driver’s seat and searches for a lever to pop the trunk.
A hand rattles the wire grating behind her head.
“Ah!” Helen shrieks in surprise. It’s the ninja, already sitting on the bench seat in back. “Jesus Christ, Tanaka!”
“It’s that knob there,” the ninja says. He points at a lever under the steering column. She pulls it and hears the trunk snap open behind them.
Sid dumps the cop inside and then comes around to the passenger door. He opens it, dropping the cop’s utility belt on the floor in front of the seat.
“So we have a police cruiser,” Helen says, as he sits down next to her. “Now what?”
“We can chain this cop up at Lily’s house,” Sid says. “Then we cruise. Eventually, Victor’s going to make a scene. It’s just what he does. When it comes through on the radio, we go there and hope for the best.”
“This sounds really shaky.”
“I told you.”
INT. GALLERIA – DAY
Lily arrives at the Morston Galleria ten minutes early for her twelve noon meeting with Victor Hansen.
As she pushes her way through the doors from the vestibule, she glances at the laminated paper sign stuck to the glass door just in front of her eyes.
Notice: No Firearms or Weapons Allowed on This Property
She sighs with relief. Victor can’t bring any guns in here, at least.
She screams in her own mind. That sign isn’t going to stop him! Dammit, Lily, you stupid slut! What are you doing here?
Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan.
The plan is simple: She has to seduce Victor. He won’t kill her if she’s fucking him. That makes sense, right? How can he kill her if she’s fucking him? Then she’ll just give him the stupid box and ask him to let her mom go. He’ll do it. He has to do it. Men are like sheep, right?
As she walks through the mall, hauling the steel case alongside, she notices a sales guy in front of PacSun ogling her. Still got it, she thinks, and she smiles at him. Then she sees a woman at the counter in Zales Jewelers staring at her, too.
A small boy near a hot pretzel stand, drinking a crisp, smooth, refreshing Pepsi® beverage, looks up at Lily and grips his mother’s hand.
“Mommy,” he whimpers, tugging for attention.
What the fuck? Lily doesn’t understand.
She walks a little farther down the mall corridor and draws the attention of a leering letch with a faded green anarchy A tattooed on his left cheekbone. This one stares at her like he’s watching a dog play a piano, and even begins to follow along behind her as she passes him.
Seeing a sign for restrooms just ahead, Lily ducks into the ladies’ room. She walks along the wet tile to where the sinks are and gasps when she sees her reflection staring back at her from the mirrors above. Her neck is a collar of bruised flesh. Her eyes are bright crimson all around her blue irises. She looks like a walking corpse.
She drops the case where she stands and covers her mouth with both hands. Oh, God. Sid said werewolves are real; what about zombies? She doesn’t know what to expect anymore. What if that monster did something to her? Infected her with some kind of contagion? What if she really died back there? She feels her chest to make sure her heart is still beating and she’s almost surprised when it is.
She gags and jerks forward to retch in the sink, but nothing comes up. She dry heaves again before catching her breath. In the movies, people vomit blood before they succumb to the zombie plague. Is that what’s happening? She looks in the sink and sees nothing. No blood.
She takes a deep breath. She’s alive. She’s not a fucking zombie. That’s a thing of fiction. This is not fiction. This is reality.
She splashes water in her face, in an attempt to wash the blood from her eyes, but it does nothing. It’s so gross. Her neck aches when she touches it. Lancome Paris doesn’t have enough concealer to cover all of the bruising. Victor isn’t going to want her like this.
Victor isn’t going to want her like this?
Suddenly, the madness of her plan becomes clear. Her mother is already dead. Soon, Lily herself will be dead, and thanks to her, a madman will have some kind of super bomb and then thousands or millions of others will be dead, too. This was a mistake. This was a terrible mistake.
“Lily?” It’s a girl’s voice behind her. “Lily Hoffman?”
It’s Jenny Brunswick. Lily almost screams. The last thing she needs right now is to run into this petty rich bitch. Jenny wears a pink flower print cocktail dress and faux expensive heels. Her shiny golden hair looks like it was fixed by Scarlett Johansson’s entire style team. Diamonds sparkle around her neck and that stupid purity ring gleams on her left hand.
“God,” Jenny says. “I knew you were a whore, but what are you doing now? Meth?”
Lily says nothing. She can barely restrain herself from tackling the dumb bimbo.
“Did you like the present me and the girls left for you?” Jenny says.
“What are you talking about?” Lily’s left eyebrow spasms upward with insane curiosity.
“I think you know,” Jenny laughs. She moos at Lily like a cow. “Moo. Moo.”
Lily has a moment of stark clarity in which she realizes what Jenny is hinting. “It was you,” Lily says. “You left that animal head on my front porch! You wrote on my door!”
Rage. Blinding rage. The world turns blood red as she lunges forward. Lily leaps onto Jenny like a tiger, toppling the blond bitch off her fake Manolo Blahnik heels. Lily straddles her body and punches Jenny in the mouth. She keeps her wrist straight, fist clenched tight, elbow high, throws her shoulder forward. Jenny whines loudly for her to stop. Lily hits her again and again. The whining quickly turns to screaming for help, then to screaming in pain, then to choking, as the girl struggles to breathe through all the blood running down her throat.
When Lily regains control of herself, Jenny’s face is an unrecognizable mass of hematoma. She whimpers through split lips and a broken nose for Lily to stop.
“And I fucked your boyfriend, bitch,” Lily says. Then she winds up one last punch and bludgeons Jenny into unconsciousness on the bathroom floor.
She picks up the case and walks away. She doesn’t feel the throbbing pain in her hand until she is back out in the mall corridor. She must have hit Jenny so hard she broke her own knuckles. That’s something Sid didn’t tell her would happen.
She keeps moving despite the pain. She needs to get to a phone. They should have one at the mall’s main service desk.
Farther down the corridor, she sees why Jenny was so dressed up. At the juncture where the corridors meet, over the water fountain in front of Macy’s, sits a temporary stage and runway. Rows of metal folding chairs flank the runway on either side, and several hundred people mingle there in the seats and hovering around them.
They’re having a fashion show.
Fuck, Lily thinks. She reaches the service desk, a round kiosk surrounding a middle-aged woman who seems engrossed in a Danielle Steel novel. Lily thumps her elbows down on the kiosk, prompting the mall administrator to look up from her paperback and regard Lily with an uneasy semblance.