by Jw Schnarr
Alice laughed. She adjusted herself so he could get a better look. Atta boy. Get a good long look. Keep your eyes on my tits and you just might live through this.
“What’s going on?” Reynolds said. “You’re missing your back window and you’re driving like a maniac.”
He leaned down so he could get a better look into the car. He looked across the car at Dorothy and then back to Alice. “What the hell is wrong with her?”
Alice’s hand moved fast, from her crotch, pulling up the gun toward his face.
“SHE DOESN’T LIKE GUNS!” The Hater screamed, and pulled the trigger.
The gun puffed smoke and fire up and out of the car, leaving behind a roar that echoed in their heads. Reynolds was already moving out of the way though, and he fell back on the asphalt and rolled away from the car, yelling Jesus Christ Oh Jesus Oh Jesus.
Alice popped the door open and got out, holding the weapon in front of her. The cop was in the process of rolling up to one knee. He had his weapon drawn but hadn’t set himself to shoot yet. Alice had.
She fired again, missed, and then she and Reynolds fired at nearly the same instant. He went down on his face screaming. Alice felt like she’d been punched in the shoulder. Or maybe she’d been stabbed with a white hot fire poker, and the force of the impact threw her back against the car and then she was bleeding everywhere at once.
Reynolds was still screaming as he crawled toward his car, one hand on a bleeding stomach wound and the other pointing his gun toward Alice. He fired again but missed; the next shot he took blew out the side window of the car and sent Dorothy into fits of hysterical sobbing.
Alice shot back and caught him in the side, either near or in his ribs, and half spun him around. He blasted a shot off wild; it went into a farmer’s field away from them. He popped the door open with the hand he’d been using to hold the blood in his stomach wound and left a long streak down the side of the car door. He collapsed half on his seat, reaching for the car radio. The gun was pointed out toward Alice, and as she came closer with her own gun trained on him, he fired and missed.
Alice ducked when the gun went off, a useless gesture. She knew enough about guns to know it was impossible to dodge a bullet unless you were Superman. The human body just didn’t move fast enough to get out of the way of something moving as fast as a bullet.
She looked up in time to see Rabbit in that silver behemoth on the other side of the road, driving slowly and watching the action. He must have found somewhere to turn around and was on his way back. Alice took a lazy aim and fired; a small black smudge appeared in the back door on the driver’s side and the window blew out. Rabbit hit the gas and the car fishtailed down the highway.
Officer Reynolds was convulsing where he lay, half in the car with his legs stretched out on the asphalt. As Alice came around the door and pointed the gun at his face.
He was gagging on vomit and blood. His gun hand convulsed in its own rhythm apart from the rest of his body; it caused the barrel of his gun to scrape against the road with a metallic taptaptap.
He looked up at Alice, standing over him with her gun pointed at him, but Alice didn’t think he was seeing her. His eyes had taken on a sluggish, glassy look. His jaw was working but he didn’t speak. Instead, he was softly stuttering F’s in rapid in and out breaths.
Alice placed the barrel of her gun against Reynolds forehead and pulled the trigger. The back of his head erupted like cherry pie, if her mother had ever made a cherry pie with chunks of raw steak and knots of hair instead of cherries. The hole in his forehead pissed blood into his half open eyes and his gasping mouth, but he was already much too far gone to taste it. His head rocked back against the seat and his feet twitched for a moment like a spider’s legs after it’s been crushed under heel, and then Reynolds was still.
Alice reached down and grabbed his gun off the pavement. Then she reached into his belt and pulled two more clips from a little pocket on his left side. The computer in the car was flashing and whistling at her, so Alice shot it until the gun ran dry. Then she dropped the clip on the ground and reloaded the weapon.
When she turned back to the Volkswagen, she could see Dorothy’s face peeking at her from behind the passenger seat. And then the world was swimming and Alice had to prop herself up on the squad car. She staggered between the two vehicles and fell hard against the back of the Volkswagen. She slid along the side until she got to Dorothy’s door. Then she popped it open. She fell again but caught herself before she landed on top of Dorothy. “You have to drive,” Alice said, pointing the gun at the empty driver’s seat. “Fuh-hucker shot me.”
Dorothy was holding her hands over her breasts. She turned at the sound of Alice’s voice, but when she opened her mouth to respond it was with blood, not words. She held her hands up to show Alice what had happened. There was a tight black hole in her chest, on the top of her left breast.
“Oh my god,” Alice breathed. “Ohmygawdohmygawd.” The sky flashed rainbow lightning; blues and pinks in vertigo brilliance. The engine of the car was ticking like a high speed clock. Alice took Dorothy’s hands in her own. She whispered a word: No.
Alice fell to her knees. She dropped her head into Dorothy’s lap. Her grief was too big; she couldn’t get it out. The sky darkened and lightened around them as the sun rose and set a hundred times a minute. Someone was screaming NO! NO! NO! It was Alice. She sucked in Dorothy’s scent with every wailing sob. Snot and blood and tears mixed and dropped from her face into Dorothy’s jeans. Alice couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to go on. She wanted to lay here and die beside her girl. She took a gasping breath and flowers of colour bloomed in her eyes. She coughed her tears out like they were broken glass.
Please come back. Please come back.
She was still holding Officer Reynolds’ pistol. She pulled the hammer back and slid the barrel in her mouth.
Good girl, the Hater said in Rabbit’s voice. Take it all. Take it to the fur.
This was it. The end. Alice was calm. She squeezed Dorothy’s fingers with her free hand. I’ll see you soon, baby, I promise. I love you.
“Wait.”
The voice came from nowhere. It floated in on the wind and danced around Alice before settling over her heart. It flitted on her chest like a newborn butterfly. She looked up, the gun banging against her teeth.
Dorothy was smiling down at her. “I’m okay. Look.” She pulled her hand away from her chest. There was a lot of blood, but Alice could see it was stopping already. A flesh wound. That’s all it is.
“Yeah,” Dorothy said, as thought reading her thoughts. “It must have bounced off something. It might not even be a bullet. It might be a piece of plastic from the dashboard or something.”
Alice dropped the gun in Dorothy’s lap. She reached up and kissed her hard on the mouth. She pressed their cheeks together tight and whispered I love you over and over again. Dorothy laughed, and it was the sweetest sound Alice had ever heard.
“Come on, my girl,” Dorothy said. “Everything is going to be fine. There’s a storm coming.”
“It’s already here,” Alice said, not looking at the sky but at her life. She staggered to her feet and made it to the driver’s side of the car where she fell behind the wheel in a heap. Her shoulder was screaming at her, and she was shaky and sweaty from pain and blood loss. She started the car and put it into gear, and then reached over and grabbed Dorothy’s hand.
Dorothy smiled back and rubbed Alice’s dirty hand on her cheek. She kissed it lightly.
Above them, the clouds were a black roiling mess; lightning crashed and the sky spit fat, stinging raindrops onto the road ahead of them. The air was filled with the smell of blood and rain and wet pavement. The yellow car picked up speed, but Alice didn’t think they’d ever go fast enough to escape the mess they’d created.
Chapter 34
Rabbit was nervous about coming back toward the shit storm Alice had just dumped all over the road, but he was fresh out of options by this
point. It didn’t matter to the people he owed money to how many cops Alice might kill before she finally went down. All they cared about was the money Rabbit owed them, and they considered it Rabbit’s personal debt. If Alice and her girlfriend took the drugs, well, no matter to them. They wouldn’t bother collecting from the girls. They’d take it out on Rabbit himself.
“Drive slow,” Wild eyed and alert, Devon leaned as far forward in his seat that his substantial girth would allow.
That was fine with Rabbit. He was always the bumbler of the two, he thought. Devon was the brains. I guess that’s what happens when someone kills your best friend in front of you.
It was starting to rain. Ahead of them on the road they could see the flashing blues and reds of the cop car on the side of the road, its door hanging open and a man lying halfway out of it. The raindrops splashed the windshield of Eazy’s car and distorted the view, but it was easy to see the cop was dead. Rabbit slowed the vehicle down as they approached, and Devon rolled his window down to get a closer look.
“Fuck me,” he said. “Look at his fuckin head. You can see right through dat hole.”
Rabbit didn’t want to look at it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the sight of blood and death. God knew he had seen enough violence the past few days to last him a lifetime. No, he was fine looking through the release valve Alice had implanted in the cop’s head. It’s not the blood, he told himself. It’s what all that blood means. She was a cop killer now, and she’d be lucky if half the police in the state didn’t line up to take a shot at her. They always took that shit so personal. It made things more difficult on Rabbit and Devon. It meant they had to get to the girls, and soon, before the world exploded in red and blue lights and trigger-happy cops started raining down on them like this spring storm was about to. They were on a time limit now, of that there was no doubt.
“What’s that?” Devon said, pointing to a large bloodstain on the road, just a few feet from where the cop car. “Looks like blood.”
“Holy fuck,” Rabbit said. He stopped the car. It was blood on the road. A big puddle of it. There were streaks of red on the hood of the cop car as well, but none of it matched up with where the cop was laying. In fact, the streak patterns were coming away from the dead cop. “I think we just stumbled on some luck.”
“Huh.” Devon rubbed his hands together. “That cop shot her.”
“Looks like it,” Rabbit said. “And if she’s hit bad enough, she might be dead soon.”
“Then we jes worry about findin’ her.”
Rabbit smiled grimly. He hit the gas and the car roared away from the crime scene. Somewhere up ahead of them, Alice might slowly be losing her grip on life. If they were lucky, they might find the car on the side of the road and she’d be hanging on by threads. Then Rabbit had no qualms about collecting his heroin and dumping Eazy’s car in the river. They’d even give it a quick rubdown to cover their asses. He watched C.S.I.. If there was one thing Rabbit knew, it was covering his own ass.
But first he had to play catch-up. The rain was pounding down on them, and he was so very late already. He throttled the car and sped off toward the heart of the storm, toward Alice. Toward everything. He could feel the importance of time catching up to him; threatening to pass him and leave him behind altogether. He had to move quickly if there was any chance at all. His jaw hurt, but it was a reminder of everything that was at stake and he could handle that.
The car hit a puddle and roared. For a moment there was the sensation of disconnect as the tires crashed through water.
“Easy,” Devon said. “You don’t have to drive so damned fast, we’re gonna catch ‘em.”
Oh, but I do. “I’m late,” Rabbit said, and hit the gas.
Chapter 35
Alice lay back against the seat and closed her eyes, but just for a moment. She didn’t dare relax too much while she was driving. All it would take was three or four seconds and she could be in the ditch.
Once the initial pain and shock of the bullet going through her had subsided, it had been replaced with a slow burning fugue that left her both dizzy and sleepy. She knew that most of it was the blood loss. There were motes flashing in her eyes; popping and crackling in her vision. It reminded her of eating fancy sushi with its little pockets of fish eggs that burst in your mouth when you chewed them. Or perhaps they were like pop rock candies, which she’d once heard was just carbon dioxide that had been freeze-dried like beef jerky. In the back of her mind she still believed they were some kind of magic, like when she was a little girl.
Beside her, Dorothy was hugging Toto and talking about the places they would go when this was over. It was a nice, listening to her talk, and it filled Alice with a gentle, sunny feeling. Like a summer picnic. As she drove, the wipers pushed amber coloured rain to the sides of the windshield. They passed houses shaped like animals with birthday parties on their lawns. All manner of creatures attended the parties, from rabbits to foxes to turtles with pink and blue bows on their reptilian heads. They passed cakes and soda fountains and presents piled high in pyramids that stretched for miles. They passed abandoned cars and garbage heaps and burnt out homes as well. They didn’t concern Alice much. She welcomed the change.
It was almost as though her real life with Dorothy and the one in Wonderland were becoming interposed on each other, the way two pictures might become double exposed on the same frame into a single, wondrous image. These days, she didn’t imagine that happened much anymore, with digital cameras replacing all the old film standbys.
Just another example of technology killing the magic of things, the Hater cooed, and Alice had to agree. There was nothing magic about her life with Dorothy. It was a brackish world of pain and reality. The only thing it was good for was escaping.
“Alice,” Dorothy said.
What do you want, Alice thought, aside from dragging me back into this miserable freak show?
“ALICE,” Dorothy said again, and then reached over and shook her. Alice moaned, but then her eyes fluttered open. She’d been driving down the middle of the road. Somewhere behind them a horn blasted, but all she could make out were lights and a green block.
“What do you want?” Alice said.
“You were falling asleep,” Dorothy said. “Where are we going?” She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She was covered in blood. It darkened the wrinkles and pores on her face around her mouth and her nose.
“There might be a gas station ahead,” Alice said. “It’s been a long time since I was out this way, but there’s a little roadside town or something. We can maybe get a new car there too. The cops will be looking for this one.”
“What are we going to do?” Dorothy said.
“Relax,” Alice said. “And don’t worry your pretty head about it. I’ve done this a dozen times before. We’ll get a car, grab some beer, and head out into the rain like a couple sunflowers.” I talk a good game. I wonder if I can make good on it.
Alice was right, though. Twenty minutes later they were seeing signs telling them about a roadside turnoff, a place where truckers could park their trucks, get great prices on diesel and propane, and all the travelling supplies they might need. There was also a sign advertising cheap Axe fuck sex, but she thought she might be imagining that one because she couldn’t think of anyone who’d want such a thing. The Hater thought it might be a perfect birthday gift for someone he knew, and Alice pushed him away.
The turnoff was actually a service access that they almost passed while looking for the gas station; it was a narrow paved road that allowed truckers to bring their rigs in and slow down off the highway and out of traffic. The gas station was populated with a half dozen different vehicles. Further back in a large parking area off to the side of the gas station there were three rigs parked like slumbering dinosaurs. The one in the front was decorated with a big MacDonald’s hamburger and some writing Alice couldn’t make out in the rain. The vents on the dashboard kicked out stale smelling air, but it
was warm enough.
“This is crazy,” Dorothy said. “You don’t need a gas station, you need a hospital. I need a fuckin’ morgue.” She giggled morbidly and kept her eyes on the service road, but all her attention was on Alice.
“I’ll just get some tampons,” Alice said, then chuckled. “I’ve got heavy flow.”
“This isn’t funny!” Dorothy sniffed. “You have a hole in your shoulder and you’re bleeding all over the place. You could die!”
“No hospitals,” Alice said. “The cops will be looking for us. The first thing they do at the hospital when you come in with a gunshot wound is call the cops.”
“This is so fucked!” Dorothy cried, dragging her hand through her hair.
“It’s not fucked,” Alice said. “Everything is fuckin’ fine. Just find us a car and then go in and grab some stuff. Bandages and alcohol. We need to clean this hole in my shoulder.”
Dorothy looked like she was ready to collapse herself. She was pasty and trembling, and her face was red and scratchy from crying. “Me? I can’t. Look at me, for Christ’s sake.” She held out her bloody arms for inspection, pleading Alice with her eyes. She looked like she’d bathed in blood. She was red from her nose down to her knees. The wound on her chest had bled and bled, and even though it was all done bleeding Alice could see the folly of sending the girl into the store. She looked half dead.