Everything Fails. T Van Santana
She’s fast as hell, though, so I caught only air.
“Fuckin’ stop.”
She took two more mock swings at me, grinning and bouncing. I knew she did this kind of shit with her older sisters all the time, but I didn’t have older siblings. I was the older sibling. So I had no taste for that shit.
I fired up another smoke and pulled my hair back in a ponytail, which I should have done the other way because a strand hit my cherry and that godawful burnt hair smell drifted around.
“Fuck,” I said.
Cheney reached for my hair with gentleness in his hand, but I batted his paw away as I tied back my hair.
I bit down on the filter of my cigarette and said: “Let’s do this.”
Cheney’s face lit up in ghoulish delight.
I cut my eyes at him, said, “Don’t try anything motherfucker, or I’ll cut you.”
He blinked slowly, like he wasn’t sure I’d said anything at all.
Chains led us through the pasture toward a clearing off Page Road.
We weren’t stupid. Well, I wasn’t at least. I knew–and Danielle probably, too–that Cheney was the kind of motherfucker who might take a couple of young innocents out here in the woods to scare the shit out of them and then make with the hero moves. And in all fairness and fucking honesty, we weren’t exactly innocent.
He pulled back some brush, motioned into the clearing.
I put my big boot down in some mud.
“God fucking dammit,” I said. “This whole fucking planet’s one goddam ball of mud. I mean, come the fuck on.”
Danielle was pressed against me a as we trudged through the fucking mud, mud which was seemingly every-goddam-where, even though it looked like grass.
Cheney put the light under his face, then said, “Welcome, to the salvation of damnation!”
Danielle got tense next to me. I could feel her excitement pushing into me.
I pushed her back a bit. “Fuckin’ space, man.”
But she pushed right back on me, all grins and hot breath in the cool jungle air.
Cheney looked at me with serious, buggy eyes. “It’s in there,” he said.
He meant past his long, leather-clad arm, his bony fingers clutching a twitchy cigarette, through the two parted trees and into the dark goddam unknown.
“And it’s a crane?” I asked, you know, just to be sure.
Cheney nodded slowly, somberly.
And so it was, an old ruined crane. After about twenty steps of muddy stomping, I caught sight of it: a single shaft of moonlight illuminating a large, rusty crane. Like a mechanical crane, the kind people used to move shit around with. I’d heard about this place, but never been there. I didn’t know a fucking thing about cranes, so it was pretty much impossible for me to guess when it had been built or how long it had been out there in the woods on Old Page. I had no idea why it was still there. Best guess? No one cared.
Near the crane, patches of fungus glowed softly. The whole area seemed much brighter than it should have been on a night this dark. We’d picked a dark night, after all, for the cover it provided while we were shopping cow pastures.
Cheney raced past us, and my blade snapped out with a hiss, sent him swerving wide to avoid its bite.
“Fuck!” he yelled. “Sorry! Sorry!” He hadn’t meant to brush me, I don’t think. He was just clumsy.
“Just gimme some fuckin’ space,” I said.
He stopped about six feet from the base of the crane, just at the edge of the light and went down on his knees, sitting on his calves, his booted feet sticking out in opposite directions, like a kid. He gawked up at the crane and whispered something.
I tightened my brow and looked over my shoulder to Danielle, who was hugging my waist, practically in my ass, all bounces and hot breath on me. She looked scared but excited, too. Her hair framed her face tightly, wispy and wavering a bit with each breath that clouded the air.
“You too, girl,” I said. “Shit. I hate tonight.”
Danielle was shivering.
I wasn’t cold. Dunno why. I was usually the first one cold.
I could hear Cheney speaking but could not make out the words. He rose and ambled toward the crane.
The light seemed to intensify, though only a bit.
Danielle gasped.
I shook my head, certain it was only our eyes adjusting to the dark, along with maybe a cloud or two parting in the sky allowing more light through. It didn’t have anything to do with Cheney’s gaslight show.
Chains reached the crane and hopped up on it. The old dinosaur creaked as he climbed. When he reached the top, he hung from it, playing as though he were hanging himself. “Time to meet the man.”
I pulled my blade back in. “What the fuck, Chains? Let’s go to fuckin’ Wendy’s, man.”
“No,” Danielle whispered in my ears. “I’m turned on, man.”
I said back to her, “Yeah, I know. That’s the idea. He knows you and Tij are crazy for this shit.”
She didn’t say anything, just kept pushing against me.
I sighed. “Fuckin’ fine.”
Cheney jumped down from the crane, which seemed far.
“Wait, shit!” I called out, but he’d already jumped.
He landed fine, turned his head toward me, grinning with those enormous equine teeth. He said, “Dwizaal is here and welcomes you.”
“Fuck, man, fuck!” Danielle said in my ear.
“Take it easy,” I said. “This is all bullshit.”
“Then why did you come out here with us?” she asked.
I hadn’t really thought about it. Because it was Saturday, and there was nothing else to do in this fucking place? Because everyone around here is obsessed with this kind of shit, and I wanted to see what it’s all about it?
Before I could answer her, Cheney bolted up to his tiptoes, his back arched like a drawn bow, his chin tipped all the way back, and then his body convulsed for several seconds.
Danielle seemed transfixed by what was happening.
Cheney came down to the flat of his feet, and his head rolled around on his neck. There’s something about the angles and the fluid motion of it that made my stomach hurt. “You gotta take ‘im in, kid. Salvation through damnation.” Chains put himself right next to me, close. “Drink in the fires and purify your soul,” he said. His voice sounded different. The demonic affectation was no good either, but better than the old man voice, I’d give him that.
I felt him firm against me then.
“Oh my fuckin’ god,” I said. “You’d best back the fuck up, or I’m gonna give you somethin’ to take in.”
I let my blade out once more, this time slowly, the hiss more deliberate and pronounced.
His face went slack and goofy again. “Relax. Just fuckin’ ‘round.”
“Yeah, well I’m done fuckin’ around. I’m goin’ to fuckin’ Wendy’s. You bitches comin’?”
Danielle relaxed against me. “Fuckin’ rad, man.”
I sighed again. “Whatever.”
7 | Wendy’s House
“Daddy,