Fiend Read online

  And if that isn’t there, the reward? Then you’re stuck with yourself and every stupid and horrible thing you’ve ever done.

  What about our ounce, fucking Monday, Typewriter says.

  Expecting the Albino to be cooking during the apocalypse?

  Fuck, Type screams.

  Stop, I say.

  The Albino points his gun at Typewriter. He says, Ungrateful piece of shit.

  He didn’t mean anything, I say.

  Comin’ up here, to my place, trying to smoke my shit, raising your voice in my lab.

  Just put the gun down, I tell him.

  I grab Typewriter. His eyes are seconds away from tears and I know it’s not because of fear, but because he needs dope. I feel him on this, like really I do, because the majority of me is screaming for more, but I tell him to chill the fuck out.

  My Sudafed guy didn’t come down from Canada. Probably turned, all gigglin’ now, huh? the Albino says.

  Typewriter keeps saying shit and fuck and I’m still holding on to his shirt, telling him it’s cool, we’ll figure out a way.

  The Albino holds out his hand. It’s a bouquet of single-use syringes. He says, Pick a card, any card. He laughs. Ain’t got time to load ’em while I cook, so do it beforehand.

  The Albino is a disgusting man and he’s fingering an open sore smack-dab in the center of his forehead. I want to tell him to shut the fuck up, that the last thing we need is to cross the irreversible line between smoking and shooting up. I’m remembering the people I knew who started putting holes in their veins. How they’re dead, in state pens, or state asylums. But then I’m thinking about KK, how she’d had the sexiest eye shadow of discoloration on the back of her hand from where she shot shit, how she’d stumbled, to be sure, that year with me, but she’d gotten her shit back together, chosen sobriety over the mess I was again becoming.

  Typewriter goes over to the Albino. He asks if they’ve been used. The Albino tells him they’re clean. And just like that it’s a done fucking deal.

  Typewriter sits next to the Albino. His stomach bulges over his sweats. They start talking but I’m not really listening because I’ve always been scared of needles and I know this isn’t good, my best and only friend starting down this path. The Albino is tying a rubber hose around Type’s arm, and I’m trying not to watch, I want to go outside, and I think of the darkness and the wind and the walking dead. This isn’t even what fucks me up, but rather, the thought of KK dead, of my parents dead, of never being able to tell them all that I’m sorry.

  Typewriter looks like he’s been waiting his entire life to be called up to the majors. He finds a vein on his second try. I watch him thumb the plunger and then that magic moment of pupil dilation. The change is instant, and I’m jealous because I know his night just got a lot better. I’m thinking about how long it will be until I can get high. Like having to track down Sudafed, which means having to go into town and dealing with whatever the fuck there is to deal with, the two hours to cook, like fuck, it’ll be so long. I’m thinking about all the drugs I’ve done, how they’ve always fallen the tiniest bit short, how this shortcoming was because I smoked, chewed, or snorted them. The refrain gets louder and louder in my head: nothing matters and you’ll be dead soon anyway and nobody who loves you is still alive.

  I sit next to Typewriter, who’s smiling.

  I prepare as I’ve seen KK do.

  I use the back of my hand. I find a vein and push the plunger and the liquid hits my heart and explodes dopamine and love and God and I think everyone still alive is addicted to methamphetamines.

  5:08 AM

  We’re in the Albino’s main cabin. The left side of my tongue is bleeding because I’ve been chewing it. We’re not allowed any lights but I’m fine with that because my eyes are like an eagle’s, my hearing like an elephant’s, my mind like Einstein’s. I’ve named my shotgun Buster. Typewriter alternates between war stories and bouts of silence. He’s on the stories right now, talking about the gas station, how it was a fucking videogame, a movie, how he just kept unloading into Satan’s children.

  The Albino gets excited at this, saying, Fucking right, Satan’s children.

  We’ve each shot another tenth.

  I call KK.

  It rings.

  I try to remember if it rang before or went straight to voice mail and it keeps ringing and I’m traveling upward and I give a high five to a satellite and then fly back down to St. Paul and into her apartment and burst through her cell phone and I interrupt Typewriter, asking him if it went straight to voice mail before.

  The Albino screams at me, tells me no calls on his property.

  I hang up.

  I tell him the world is dead.

  This makes us laugh.

  I whisper to Buster that she’s alive, that we’ll find her.

  7:19 AM

  Typewriter slams on the brakes in the Walgreens parking lot. We’re going fast, or at least it feels like we are. We’re all sorts of prepared, the battle plan hatched as we blasted our third tenth thirty minutes ago. It’s Operation Get Sudafed. We’re out of the car and jogging to Walgreens’ glass doors. I’m carrying Buster and Typewriter’s shotgun and we each have a spare rifle tied to our backs like ninjas. Typewriter holds the duffle bags and two bowling balls, both engraved with THE ALBINO in the space between thumb and finger holes.

  Objective One—Break doors.

  We’ve learned from Cabela’s. Typewriter is a fucking maniac charging the door. He lets one of the balls soar from five feet away. The glass spiders. He sends the other one. It spiders more. He kicks the glass inward and it caves still in one sheet and the alarm sounds but the lights are no big deal because the sun is shining.

  I toss Typewriter his gun.

  We walk through the smashed door.

  Objective Two—Get into pharmacy.

  We’re running down the aisles and I can’t feel my feet hitting the floor or really anything other than my breathing, heavy in my chest. I’m at the closed pharmacy window way before Typewriter because I don’t weigh two thirty-five. I aim Buster at the glass, close my eyes, and fire. The glass shatters. I use Buster’s butt to knock out the loose shards and I crawl onto the counter and through the window. Typewriter hands me one of the empty duffles.

  Objective Three—Fill bag with Sudafed.

  Ever since the government started keeping tabs on ephedrine sales, stores keep it right by the counter because it’s annoying for the pharmacists to have to go dig it out for every motherfucker with a cold. I see boxes and boxes on the shelf and I empty them into the bag. There’s got to be more and I tear through the shelves tossing bottles into the bag without reading labels, not knowing if I’m getting opiates or something for bladder infections, thinking that the Albino can turn anything into drugs. Toward the back I find the mother lode of Sudafed, hundreds of wax boxes of red and white packages and I’m grabbing them all, giddy at how kick-ass our plan is, giddy at the thought of the Albino cooking this all into pure dope.

  I hear a gunshot.

  Then another.

  Typewriter, I yell. I grab the duffle bag and rush to the window. Type’s standing over a guy in a uniform.

  What the fuck?

  Typewriter’s jaw is clenching and unclenching. He wipes blood from his brow.

  Fucking rent-a-cop must have turned, he says.

  Any more?

  Let’s go, let’s go, he says. I hand the duffle bag over and then crawl through the pharmacy window. I’m worried about the sound attracting more of them or maybe the security guard having a partner and we’re almost at the exit when I stop dead in my tracks and scream. Typewriter rams into me. I feel his front teeth on the back of my skull.

  There’s a Chuck a few feet away. It’s a burly man, thick and squat, rocking a pair of stained yellow undies. I unload into his sternum. He stumbles forward, his arms outstretched, and I pull the trigger again. His head explodes and I’m covered in him, little chunks of his two-inch beard all ov
er my arms, a piece in my mouth.

  Suddenly a teenage boy is in the doorway taking swipes at me and I fire again, catching him square on the jaw, and then there’s a woman behind him. I start screaming because they just keep coming, an endless parade of motherfuckers trying to eat our flesh, and it’s more rounds into their giggling faces, me and Type firing, brown blood, pump, shot, giggle, and then Buster is out of shells and Typewriter is yanking at my arm and screaming that we should run.

  I turn and sprint down the tampon aisle. I’m still holding on to the duffle bag and we’re at the back of the store, panting, being followed by a steady stream of giggling pieces of shit, and I point to the cubbyhole that is the pharmacy window. Typewriter crawls onto the counter and they’re getting closer, at least five of them now in the store, and Typewriter is taking all fucking day so I shove his ass and he tumbles inside. I throw the duffle bag in because if we somehow survive this, I’m not about to return to the Albino empty-handed.

  As I scamper through I can feel clawing at my feet.

  I fall to the floor. Typewriter stands with his pistol raised firing shot after shot after shot. The sound is deafening.

  I check my legs for cuts or claw marks. I’m fine. I stand up and see a pile of twitching bodies at the window. More are behind them. They can’t seem to figure out how to get inside and Typewriter is about to move onto his shotgun, but I tell him, No, wait to see if they can climb through.

  We watch their reaching hands and listen to their shrill laughs so fucking loud I can’t hear the alarm. They swing at the open space of the window but can’t figure out how to raise a fucking knee and climb in.

  Typewriter decapitates one with a shotgun blast.

  Stop, need to conserve ammo, I say.

  Fucking everywhere.

  It’s cool, they can’t get in.

  We look at these abominations a few feet away. They smell like period sex. Bits of flesh are missing and grins expose missing teeth, and there has to be at least fifteen. This wasn’t part of Operation Get Sudafed, getting cornered by tides of the motherfuckers.

  The shelf, I say.

  Typewriter helps me knock over one of the metal racks of meds. We smash it against the window opening, pills spilling everywhere. The giggles don’t stop, but at least we don’t have to see the Chucks.

  Jesus, Type says. We’re fucked. Completely fucked. Like there’s no way out and—

  Stop, I say. We’re safe. They can’t get through.

  For now.

  That’s all we’ve got.

  Fuck your day-at-a-time AA shit, he says.

  It’s not—

  How the fuck are we going to get out? Serious, this is it. Fucking done.

  You need to calm down.

  Typewriter fires his gun into the shelf. I grab his arm and think about smacking him across the face. I say, We need to stay calm. Figure this out. This is when the tears start. Typewriter’s chubby cheeks redden and he’s full-on crying, so I drop my tone, tell him I’ll get us out, I promise.

  I guide him down to the floor and take the shotgun out of his grasp. He just keeps saying, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.

  I know I need to calm him down. Yeah, we are pretty close to being fucked. God knows how many Chucks are feet away, they’ll figure out a way to get through the pharmacy window. And then I realize I need to calm down too. That I’m crying. Both of us crying and holding on to the other’s shirt. I stand up. I need to find something to take the edge off.

  Where are you going? Don’t leave—

  I’m not, I say.

  I’m not sure if pharmacies alphabetize their drugs or organize them by type. I’m looking for anything that will retard my mind—benzos or barbiturates or opiates—and I’m throwing bottles on the floor, scanning for anything resembling a name I know. Finally, I find a bottle of grape cough syrup with codeine. It’s not great, but it will do. I rip off the top and take two long pulls.

  The hell?

  Drink this.

  We’re going to die and all you care about—

  Fucking drink this.

  Typewriter takes the bottle in his shaking hands and brings it to his lips. Like a mother I tell him, Good, there you go, and he drinks and some dribbles down his chin. It feels kind of queer but I use my finger to dab it.

  I take another drink. So does Type.

  The giggles are getting louder. Hands reach through the shelf.

  Give me that, I say. Back to me. Back to him. We kill the bottle and it might not have been the smartest thing to do, drinking the entire bottle, but whatever. I can already feel my world slowing. I’m not sure if this is a placebo or a chemical reaction but I guess it doesn’t matter.

  We’re going to die, Typewriter says.

  I don’t know if this is a statement or a question so I say nothing. I tell myself to think. I picture our situation like a middle school riddle—if two men are trapped in a pharmacy with limited resources and a horde of flesh-eating parasites at the window, what do they do? The answer comes to me. Look for another exit. The fuck is wrong with me that I hadn’t thought of that before? I stand and tell Type to stay put. I see a metal door at the far end of the room. I’m about to open it to see where it leads, when I hear clawing and scratching and giggling from just outside.

  Fuck, I yell.

  I hear a gunshot and I’m afraid Typewriter has just put the barrel in his mouth but I turn and he’s just shooting at the flailing hands at the window.

  Stop wasting ammo.

  I search the rest of the death box we’re locked in. There’s no other window, no other door. Maybe this is it, the one corner I won’t be able to escape from. And maybe it’s fitting, me dying locked inside a pharmacy. I sit next to Typewriter. I can tell the cough syrup is working its magic because his pupils are shrinking.

  I don’t know, man, I say.

  Don’t tell me that.

  I just don’t know.

  The door?

  Is surrounded. Can hear them.

  So this is how it ends?

  Dude…

  He fires his shotgun again.

  I can feel things shutting down—my reflexes, my verbal opposition to Type’s shotgun blasts, my God-given adrenaline at the very real possibility of death—and I think about how long it’s been since I’ve slept, like really slept, and I’m counting on my fingers and I lose track but I’m guessing it’s got to be somewhere in the range of eight hours in the last week.

  It takes me a second to realize Typewriter is kicking my foot with his. I struggle to pay attention. He says, Rip Van Winkle motherfucker.

  I tell him that I like girls who wear those velour sweat suits.

  He laughs.

  Serious, man. Gives me a boner.

  Let me guess, KK wore them?

  I try to remember if this is true and I can’t for some reason, KK’s image being cut off at the shoulders and it’s those trenches of her collarbones and that skinny neck and that sharp chin and that nose like a half of a sandwich and her bangs just barely past her hairline and I wonder why I said this in the first place. Then it’s the grainiest eight-millimeter clip of a memory. I’m following KK in a department store. I have the feeling of being a dog on a leash. I like it. She’s touching the fabric of racks of clothes. We’re sober, that much I remember, and she’s complaining about getting a fat fucking ass because of this very fact. I keep telling her no. You’re perfect. I make a grab at her ass. She says, Don’t touch that flabby piece of shit. I tell her shitter. She gives me that look—one like I’m complete fucking scum, but a loveable piece of scum. She tells me that a sweat suit will be the only thing she can fit into. She picks out a few. We sneak into the dressing room. A thirtysomething tries on business clothes. She looks nervous that I’m sitting there watching. I knock on the dressing room door. KK’s standing there topless with her boy-flat chest and puffy nipples and she’s wearing a pair of black velour sweatpants and I need to have her and maybe she needs to have me because she
greets me with a forceful kiss and that’s how it is, force, passion, too much, us not knowing how to deal with the world and our bodies and jobs and parents and rent and brushing our teeth and making our beds and us not knowing how to deal with a fucking thing without the aid of scante, and I feel the soft promise of those pants against my hand and then my dick and then it’s KK’s loud moans and I think about the thirtysomething hearing this, if she’d be smiling or calling the cops.

  I’m thinking this shit with Type a foot away. It feels kind of gay. I fumble around in my pocket for a cigarette. We’re quiet. I find my pack and the first drag tastes like heaven. Type asks me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  I stare at the cherry of the cigarette. I watch the smoke rise in vertical plumes. I think this is weird. Then I’m thinking about his question and it was a professional soccer player when I was a kid and then it was an astronaut for a short while and then I think about high school and loving music and me not being horrible on the drums and our band that played a few local shows, places like the record shop and a school bonfire, and then in college how I took a philosophy class and was all about that and then it was a human geography course and I knew I’d be good at the interplay between humans and the environment and then I think about smoking shit and how I didn’t have to worry about a future because for those moments, I could be anything I ever fucking wanted to, and it wasn’t just a fantasy, but a reality, me able to conquer the world, to matter, to make a fucking difference. And I’m watching the smoke and I’m thinking about his question about what I wanted to be and the answer comes quick and it isn’t sexy or amazing and it startles me because I’d never allowed myself to think it before—my dad.

  Typewriter doesn’t laugh. He says, I feel you there.

  I’m not sure if I’m sleeping or awake and I’m seeing my father’s face decompose and I’m seeing maggots crawling from his parted lips and I’m imagining his readers now resting on the cartilage of his nose and then I’m seeing him one Christmas Eve and it must have been close to three in the morning and I’d snuck downstairs to see if I could get a glimpse of Santa and there he was, my father, sitting on the Persian rug, a G.I. Joe base erected between his legs, a penlight in his mouth, an instruction sheet spread open to his right, and I understood at that very moment that there was no Santa. I’d snuck back to bed, resentful and hurt. It’d taken me years to realize that my father would do anything for me. That he would go the entire night without sleeping just to set up my toys. That everything he did was for the family, to keep up the illusion that magic happened, that he wasn’t the person who made it all stick together.