Alice & Dorothy

by Jw Schnarr

  “That’s fine,” Dorothy said. “Just leave it outside, I’ll get it in a bit.”

  “Alright. Just so you know though, if anything happens to it, you will be responsible for replacing it.”

  “Fine,” Dorothy said.

  “Have a good evening ma’am. The bucket is right outside your door.”

  “Thanks.” She looked back at Alice again and shrugged her shoulders.

  Alice motioned for quiet. The girls stood motionless for several minutes as they listened for any hint of noise outside. Dorothy took another look out the spy hole. It was still black. Finally Alice shrugged. Dorothy nodded, and then turned the latch on the door. It snapped open with a click—

  Chapter 30

  —and the moment the latch clicked open the door seemed to explode out of Dorothy’s hands, like she was holding on to a wall that suddenly attacked her, Or a big flapping rat trap that had snapped down on her. The door slammed inward, catching Dorothy square and sending her flying into the wall, and not just trapping her but biting into her with its brass tooth of a doorknob, and she screamed.

  But all that was far away because all Alice saw was Rabbit with his foot out from where he’d booted the door, the instant that doorknob clicked he’d given it a good bash with his leg, and now he was standing there with two of the biggest black guys Alice had ever seen, and all she could think was OHSHIT OHSHIT OHSHIT.

  Funny how when moments like this happen, your brain goes into overdrive and fragments everything into pieces; like your memory is trying to catch up to the moment as you are watching it happen, and you are in fact, remembering and experiencing things at the same time. In her mind, Alice saw that boot come down and Rabbit shout BOOOOM.

  “BOOOOM!” Rabbit shouted, stepping into the room. The force of the door knocked Dorothy flat against the wall, and she blocked the door from smashing into the wall by taking it in the chest with a puff of wind from her lungs. He’d had his thumb on the spy hole, such a juvenile trick. But an effective one. Down by his feet there actually was a bucket of ice, and Alice almost laughed that he’d put so much preparation into his trap. Almost laughed, but this wasn’t a haha kind of moment. This was an ohshit ohshit ohshit moment.

  Rabbit had a gun in his hand. When Alice saw it, the Hater squealed in delight. It was her gun. And now Rabbit scooped up Dorothy under one arm, and she was semiconscious so she didn’t really know what was going on. Rabbit knew, and he put the business end of Alice’s iron against Dorothy’s temple.

  “Ah, ah, ah, baby girl,” Rabbit said. His face was a mess; his jaw line was a solid, swollen bruise from his cheek to halfway down his throat. There were rich hues of reds and purples and a line of black where the toilet lid had taken him. When he spoke, he drooled blood and spit, and there were shards of teeth in his mouth that reminded Alice of the china smile the girl in the mirror had flashed. There was no sign of his gold grill. His smashed mouth made him slurr when he spoke, so he sounded high. “Don’t you fuckin’ move. You move a goddamn inch and I shwear I’ll make soup out of her pretty little face.”

  “Okay,” Alice said. She put her hands up in front of her. “Whatever you want man, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Where’s my gun?” Rabbit said.

  “In my pocket,” Alice said. “I swear I won’t touch it.”

  “Eazy,” Rabbit said.

  One of the black guys moved around Rabbit and stepped carefully over to where Alice was standing by the bathroom. When he got within arm’s reach he put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I’m just gonna reach in real slow and take it out, alright girl? No need to get jumpy, everything is cool, right?”

  “Right,” Alice said.

  Eazy pulled the gun out and then turned it on Alice. “Good. Eazy does it. Just the way I like it. Now put your hands on your head like they do on Cops.”

  Alice complied. She laced her fingers together and rested them on the top of her head.

  “Good.” Eazy stepped behind Alice and draped an arm across her chest. He was still holding the gun on her, and now he put it to her head. “Good,” he said again. “Real good.”

  Rabbit pushed Dorothy toward Devon.

  “Hold this bitch,” he said. He kept the gun, though. Devon grabbed Dorothy around the middle and put another arm around her neck. It looked like she was trying to carry a brown bear on her back.

  Rabbit stalked over to where Eazy was holding Alice and slapped her in the mouth.

  “Fuckin bitch,” he seethed. “I should kill you right now.”

  “Fuck you! You’re a piece of shit!”

  “You smashed in all my fuckin teeth!” Rabbit shouted. He thrust the barrel of the gun into her forehead hard enough to push her head back against Eazy’s chest.

  “They were rotten anyway!” Alice shouted back.

  Rabbit pulled the hammer. The gun clicked as the chamber rotated, and Alice stopped talking. “There we are. That’s better. That’s a girl. Keep your fuckin mouth shut. If you’re lucky I won’t kill your girlfriend first.”

  “I hate you,” Alice said through her teeth.

  Rabbit grabbed her face. “You’re so cute when you’re angry, you know that?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Rabbit grinned, and his face split in a bloody tear filled with shark teeth. “So, baby girl. Where is it? Why don’t you tell me so I don’t have to hurt you.”

  Alice watched his eyes for a moment. Hate poured out of them, heating the room and making it hot and uncomfortable. Finally she sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “In my purse,” she said.

  “How much did you skanks sell?”

  “None,” Alice said truthfully. “We partied with it though. Not bad.”

  Rabbit grabbed up Alice’s purse off the bed and pulled out the brick of heroin. He sucked his teeth when he saw the corner of the bag torn open. He held the corner up for Eazy to see. “Why the fuck everybody gotta rip the bag,” he said, disgusted. “Nobody can unwrap these things properly. They don’t realize what a pain in the ass it is to wrap a brick of junk. It takes time. Hey Alice, where’s the money?”

  “Spent it,” Alice said. “On cheeseburgers and motel rooms.”

  “You spent—,” Rabbit stopped, getting his temper under control. He took a couple deep breaths and then smiled. “Well, there’s one more thing you owe me for.”

  “I don’t owe you shit,” Alice said. “You owe me.”

  “Yeah right,” Rabbit said. He reached over and slapped Alice again, splitting her lip. “I thought I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  “Leave her alone!” Dorothy shouted, struggling against the weight of the man on her back.

  Rabbit chuckled. To Devon he said, “See this shit? Told you guys they were fucked up. They got guns in their faces and they still won’t quit talkin’.”

  “You said it,” Devon said. He tightened his anaconda grip on Dorothy and she squealed in pain.

  “What’d I say?” Rabbit growled. He lifted the gun in his hand and brought it down, hard, across the bridge of Dorothy’s nose. There was a wet crack, like a chef splitting chicken bones for stock, and Dorothy’s face broke open. She screamed at the sight of it.

  “BOOOOM!” Rabbit yelled, raising his fists like a champ. “Told you! I told you!”

  The sight of Dorothy bleeding and crying and being smothered by that big black bastard was more than Alice could bear. It was just the opening the Hater needed.

  Let go, darling, the Hater said, his voice like a snake and dripping venom.

  “Just a second,” Alice said. Her eyes had taken on a spacey, faraway look. “Just a second.”

  There you go again. Time wastes, for no ham.

  And then Alice was far away, sitting in a waiting room with melting plaster walls and burnt roses. There was blood in the room, and squeals, and when Dorothy looked down at the floor she saw rabbits fucking and cannibalizing one another. But she was far away from the Emerald City now. So very far away…

/>   “You shouldn’t have done that,” Alice growled. “Dear, sweet thing, oh dear, oh dear.”

  She knelt slightly, just enough to bring Eazy forward over her. He still had the gun to her temple, so he wasn’t being especially careful with how tight she was being held. When she knelt just a little bit, his first response was to lean forward.

  Exactly what she was hoping for.

  She flexed her thighs and sprang up like a bullfrog, and the back of her head caught Eazy square in the face. She felt the crunch of his teeth and his nose against her flax golden hair and against her skull. He let out a garbled squawk and stepped backward. The gun went off in his hands, but by this time Alice was already moving away from him, arms outstretched, claws reaching for Rabbit with a banshee’s howl on her lips. The sound of the gun in the motel room bounced off the walls and stunned them with the level of noise, but not Alice. She was making an unholy CHEE CHEE CHEE sound and gnashing her teeth as she flew across the room toward Rabbit.

  He was so shocked by her speed he tripped over his own feet trying to get out of the way.

  And then she was on top of him, raking his face, biting the flesh on his arms and chest, beating his face with her fists and screaming the entire time.

  “Mahfucker!” Eazy shouted, bending over at the waste and bracing himself on his thighs. Blood poured freely from his mouth and nose. “Fuggin bitch broke it!”

  “GET HER THE FUCK OFF ME!” Rabbit screeched, his face raked and bleeding. Alice’s gun disappeared from his hands. He closed his fist on her hair and punched her in the jaw, but that was all he had time for before Alice let out another banshee-like howl and unleashed a barrage of fists and raking fingers upon him.

  Eazy had cupped his hand over his face to stem the blood, with little effect. It had splashed down his shirt and was running like hot red milk down his arms. He pointed the gun toward the violent ball of flesh on the floor that was Alice and Rabbit.

  “Git the fugg ub!” he yelled. “You lookin’ ta git shot!”

  Alice definitely wasn’t lookin’ ta git shot. The problem was Alice was more like a bulldozer of hate and rage now, and she wasn’t driving. She was sitting in the passenger seat watching while the Hater worked his magic. He’d kicked the machine into high gear and set cruise control somewhere past the redline. There weren’t even any numbers to mark the speed.

  At the moment he had Alice’s hands tied into Rabbit’s hair, and was smashing his head onto the floor. At some point in the chaos she glanced over and saw Rabbit’s gun (my gun, it’s mine I own it, you asked me where it was in the bathroom and I can tell you now!) lying on its side under the bed, and that’s when the engine throttled back a bit. Maybe there was a way out of this, after all.

  Her hand shot out and closed around the steel (GET THE FUCK OFF ME! I’m suh-horry...) and the nameless man she’d killed in the car came to her mind, that look of guilt and fear and ecstasy as she pushed the gun into his face and forced him into an orgasm. It was a million years ago now, another lifetime. Another Alice. She shook his face away and his head fractured with a gout of blood from his nose and eyes, like when she’d opened a hole in his face and a much bigger, sloppier one in the back of his head, and all those arteries had begun pouring blood into the burnt hole left by a little rounded piece of lead travelling at twice the speed of sound.

  As though filling the space with blood would help fix the problem. The human body was a marvel of nature, for sure, but it was scary how quickly it could go from a living, breathing organism to a pulsing, bloody piece of meat.

  Alice looked down into Rabbit’s face. His mouth was a bloody mess. She’d scratched through fragments of broken enamel and ripped into nerve endings with her fingernails. The pain must have been unimaginable, because he’d shut down after that. His mouth was hanging open, and he was listing badly, like a ship taking on water. His eyes were rolling in their sockets, trying to find a reset button so he could get his shit back in order. But he was there, like Alice was there, kind of off to the side and no longer driving.

  The Hater was there, too, and now he had the gun in Alice’s hands and as she stood up she pushed the gun into the lengths of sweaty blond hair on the back of her head. Then she turned and faced Eazy, standing over Rabbit like a lion gloating over a fallen Gazelle.

  “Git the fug away from him!” Eazy barked, his voice teetering on the edge of screams. He looked like a shaken bottle of beer barely able to contain the energy he was holding in.

  Alice kept her eyes on Eazy. Her hands were buried in her hair. Her breath was heaving in her chest. Behind her, Dorothy was crying and blowing the blood from her nose off her lips. Devon was holding her tight to his chest, and when Alice’s hand move his eyes bulged.

  “Look out!” Was all he had time for.

  Dorothy shrieked.

  Alice brought her hands out from the back of her head. The guns flashed at each other, like they were speaking to one another, barking concussive blasts through the room. Alice tripped over Rabbit’s body and sprawled out over top of him.

  Eazy staggered back against the bathroom door and slid to the ground, leaving a long red snail’s trail behind him. He coughed and a vomitous mass of blood dropped from his lips.

  Alice looked down the length of her body and didn’t see any blood. She spun around on top of Rabbit and came up with the gun pointed at Devon’s face. Rabbit was moaning softly and trying to roll over on his side.

  “Get off her,” Alice growled. “Now. Or I’ll kill you.”

  Devon let go of Dorothy and stepped back, his hands up over his head.

  “I got nuthin,” he said. “I won’t do nuthin’ neither.”

  Dorothy stepped forward and fell into Alice’s arms, sobbing and clutching at her like a lost child. Alice switched her over to one side so she had a clear line of sight on Devon with her gun.

  “Now, get the fuck out of here,” Alice said. To highlight her point, she pulled the hammer back on her weapon.

  “Alright, alright,” Devon said, backing away toward the door.

  “Grab our shit,” Alice said, pushing Dorothy toward the bed.

  “Let’s just go,” Dorothy sobbed.

  “Grab our fucking shit!” Alice’s nostrils flared, her cheeks red. Her eyes were glossed, but there was no mistaking the intent of her words.

  Dorothy stopped crying instantly. She looked at Alice as though she’d just been slapped, then wordlessly turned and started grabbing up their bags. Alice knelt down and placed her knee on Rabbits chest, then stuck the barrel of the gun under his eye.

  “You try to follow us, you so much as raise your head until we’re gone, I’ll kill you. If I see you, you’re dead. Got it?”

  Rabbit stared up at her, his mouth shut. He was bleeding from both eyes and his nose. The lower half of his face was a giant bruise.

  “Yeah, I got it,” he garbled.

  “Good,” Alice said, standing up. She waved at Dorothy. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Dorothy pressed her body against Alice’s side and grabbed her around the waste. They stepped over Rabbit and walked out the door of the motel. Outside, on their right, Devon was standing about ten feet back from the entryway. Alice pointed her gun at him, and he put his hands up.

  “No problems,” he said. “Jes be cool.”

  Dorothy walked Alice to the yellow car, and Alice climbed behind the wheel. Moments later the girls were peeling out of the parking lot. There were people milling around watching the action.

  Devon poked his head back into the room. Rabbit was sitting on the bed holding his face in his hands.

  “You aiight, boss?” Devon said. “Best get goin’. Cops goan be here soon.”

  “Fuck!” Rabbit shouted. He stood up and walked over to where Eazy lay. “Fuckin stupid bitches.” He reached down and grabbed Eazy’s gun. He kicked Eazy’s foot, checking for a response, but all he got were milk bubbles of blood bubbling up out of the wound in his chest. “Let’s go. I’m driving.”
/>
  “Yeah,” Devon said. “Where we goin’?”

  Rabbit scowled at him. “What are you, fuckin’ retarded? We’re going to get my shit back. Then we’re gonna kill those bitches. Hurry up, we still got time to catch them on the road.”

  “Bitches,” Devon said, staring down at Eazy. He wiped his face with his hands and they came away wet, which surprised him. He wiped his tears on his pants and turned away from Rabbit, sniffling.