Vandals

We walked outside the McDonald’s like customers, there was static in the air. Just about night. Inside there were less people than what it took to scare me. Just enough to fill the Halloween buckets in our hearts.

We came loaded with those empty containers inside us, something seeking fulfillment. There is so much water in the world that it almost manages to hide all the blood and cum beneath. There’s something special about that, a nut you have to crack before you eat it. Even peeling an apple is a motion not unlike what my hands know. These hands that grip, these hands that steal. These hands that give, these hands that take. I hold in them now a cold metal promise to myself. I will not back down.

We are not greeted. The woman is my age, but does not look like me. There are no children and only a few teenagers. Most of the people are old and sad. Phones illuminate ugly faces.

We approach the counter, unmeaningly.

Her tired smile is begging for mercy already. There are too many of us. She is so exhausted. She has done everything to get here, the scraps brushed off the table. The fucking breadcrumbs. Maybe she’s like me after all.

Gait says something to her. He’s not thinking again. The happiest one of us, for him the foreplay is half the fun. Instead of ordering, he goes off about ”the timelines.” She mocks interest well. Or maybe the smile I’m seeing is real. She’s almost pretty.

Me and Tracks walk to the trash can like telepathy. It’s customary we investigate the surroundings as our brother gets himself in the mood. I consider myself a photographer, remembering the remnants of other meals I’ve seen cast aside in places like these before, watching them overlay onto this splattering of fries losing their body temperature.

“Do you want to see the bathrooms?”

No one is in the men’s. The women’s is occupied by one in a stall. I rest atop a sink, the strip of water tracing its edge staining the line where my thighs begin and my high-waisted shorts end. He hides behind the trash as we wait for her to get out.

Some other employee. She doesn’t take much notice of us. Washes her hands, though. How thoughtful. I’m bored. I hope the serial talker is qued up by now.

“Your money? I want your FUCKING SOUL!!”

To my surprise, he’s yelling the second we’re out. He’s the only one who likes making a scene of it. I can feel the embarrassment on Tracks as our sibling practically strokes the icy toy on her face. He always makes it last so long.

I unholster my piece and let it loose on the first one I see. I try to just ignore the cloudy shrieks that follow and just go see if the hole looks interesting, but plinking a can with a bb can only have so many results. I poke his rubbery head, eyes frozen in unresolved fear. Not even a trail of blood leaks out. I decide to stop purchasing this brand of bullet.

Tracks is comforting one of the women. She reacts to his touch like a hot iron. She can smell he’s one of us. He looks so sad. Every time he tries this and it never works. I wish he would let me fuck him, but he always gets cold feet. I always have to be the one to shoot his interests.

Gait does it for me this time, however, the raising of my Rossi interrupted by the thrust of his first round into the brunette’s chest. The instant he gets done inserting the fourth and fifth, the first one to realize this isn’t a robbery gets up.

“Flight phase.” I shout routinely over the ringing in everyone’s ears as Tracks buries his head into the woman’s reddening bosom and cries. Me and Gait start to lay down the concluding fire.

He gets one good one, displacing a boy’s bone so you can kinda see the white poke through the shredded arm. I take my mental picture, still upset at my lackluster shots. We breathe in the stagnant air for awhile, wait to see if any more start bleeding. A couple do but it isn’t much. Sterile bodies with thin red marker streaks.

“They must all be fucking anemic in this state, what is this?” Frustrated, Gait grinds his butt on the tile. “Hey Tracks, shut up willya?”

“Just once.” He sobs into her soiled pants. “I’m so alone.”

“Tracks, cheer up. Want me to make you a Big Mac?”

“Okay.” He whimpers, showing me his puppy dog eyes again. We take it to go, hitting the road as fast as we can get the camera footage ported to our devices and wiped from the premises. Gait’s car smells like lead.

“Damnit!” He slams on the gas, pulling us out. “Fuck!”

“Come on man, don’t be mad. What’s the matter?”

“We didn’t try the fry oil thing.”

“Oh, like that old PSA you sent… yeah, sorry man, I forgot.”

“Fucking forget. Ain’t you the one with the photographic memory?”

“I don’t mind losing storage… I just kinda save what matters to me…”

“Yeah, you would.”

I look at all the pretty lights and hate flags passing us by.

“You doing better Tracks?”

“Yeah.”

“I dunno about you guys, but I wanna go somewhere warmer next. Can we head further south?”

“Just Florida left from here.” Gait drops his frustration as my brother to pick back up his role as our driver.

“The people in Georgia had like, a defense boost on their bodily integrity… right? I feel like we got so little results.”

Gait cackles. “You little gorehound. Maybe we oughta switch to doing things the old fashioned way, like I suggested.”

“I don’t wanna say goodbye to my baby.” I pet the chrome revolver in my panties. “There’s still sights to see with her, I can tell.”

“That Mac was good, Rori, thanks.”

“Awww, you’re welcome Tracksy.”

“Well…” Gait starts to pontificate. “If we are heading coastside, is there anything we wanna try while we’re there?”

“Gait, did you say coastline?”

“Yeah?” Our chauffeur pops an insulting look at the kid through the mirror. “Christ Tracks, listen for once.”

“You are full of complaints today… I was just making sure. I’m saying… like, if we’re going to hit the beaches, could we finally do the quicksand op?”

“Quicksand ain’t real, Tracks.” I repeat.

“Not like real quicksand! I swear, you never listen, it’s like- okay, we make it look like sand, the ash- or dirt, or whatever we use, and then… then slowly, she gets sucked in.”

“You know I think you’ve explained this every day now for the past eight months and I still don’t get it.” Gait, zigzagging the nighttime roads to calm his nerves, says what we’re both thinking. “What are the logistics behind this, trying to satisfy your little kink? We gonna dig a big hole?”

“Not that big! Just like, enough so her face is still above it at first, then the second trapdoor kicks in and we-“

“Tracks, wouldn’t you rather we just go to the club or find a random bitch for you to choke out like a fucking normal guy?” I pick coagulated red from my nose. “Fuck, hire a prostitute. We still have the money from the racist house.”

“I thought you spent it.”

“That was my share, your share is still around.”

“I’m not gonna touch some slut. I want a real girl.”

“You have one! Dude, stop pussing out and just join me and Gait.”

He seizes up and shows a vaguely disgusted face to the carpet.

“I can’t believe you.” I take my .357 out of my skivvies and examine it under the passing streetlights. “You’re rotten yourself, how can you still be asking for a non-rotten girl? Lower your standards, Romeo.”

“I miss Tracy.”

“Don’t get like that again.”

We just kinda cruise for the next few minutes. I start to become interested in the increasingly run-down surroundings, but Gait eventually perks up and says something for me.

“We tired? I’m tired y'all.”

“Are we far enough from the scene yet?”

“I sure think so. So long as we ain’t checking in to a hotel.”

“Kay, but I get to pick which of these shacks we bunk in. Tracks, did you ever sew that hole in my sleeping bag…?”

His look tells me all it needs to before he can think up his excuse.

“Well, whatever. Rotten day, let’s clock out.”

We pull up a building almost browned from decay and turn in for the night. I dream of being a French fry in a trash can.