Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The tormentor and the cowboy

(and the lingering taste of blood)

            Pablo barely broke five feet tall, had tufts of facial hair spaced out across his grubby cheeks, beady eyes that still had specks of sleep-grit in the corners, horrible onion breath, and for such a small (yet heavy) man, had a right hook that would surprise the hell out of anyone.

            Davy leaned back to his left so that he was sitting upright in his chair. The same rope that was tied around his chest, anchoring him to the chair, had dug into his right arm just above the elbow. Without looking, Davy knew that there was going to be a snakelike bruise there by the end of the day.

            But he wasn't worried about the rope burn plaguing his arm. All of his thoughts were set on the warm liquid trailing down the left side of his face. He was almost certain that Pablo's right hook had burst his left eyeball. He looked at Pablo, trying to focus on the face of his captor (tormentor probably would've been a better word). The little bastard's face came into view in Davy's right eye, but for the left, all he could see was a murky red at the edges and a muddy brown at the center. Davy's chest tightened as the thoughts of living the rest of his life blind in one eye crept into his mind, however short the rest of his life would be.

            There wasn't much time for him to think on that. Without warning, Pablo brought down another fist, this time his left. It collided solidly with Davy's right cheek with an almost cartoonish smack.

            The old man would've been thrown to the floor if the chair hadn't been nailed down. Now there would be an equal snakelike bruise on his left arm. Matching tats.

            Davy straightened himself back in the chair, feeling a churning headache begin to swell in his skull. It spun in his head, mimicking the rhythm that the small interrogation room had been spinning at. He soon found that he was having trouble keeping his head from bobbing back in forth with the current swimming in his head. He felt his meager lunch start to crawl its way up his throat.

            Pablo shook both of his hands in the air, fingers splayed, as if doing so would actually loosen the pain that was surely settling in his knuckles. He stepped forward in squeaky loafers and grabbed a hold of Davy's head with one hand, gripping hard enough on the few wisps of gray hair to make Davy almost forget the pain in his left eye, right cheek, and the migraine that was wreaking havoc beneath his temples.

            "Damn man," Pablo said, exhaling an unnecessarily large amount of onion-laden breath into Davy's face, "you've got a rock hard head, you know that?"

            It was enough. The biscuits and beef jerky Davy had eaten before being pulled out of the desert leapt up his throat and into his mouth. From there, Davy spewed the goopy mixture into Pablo's face.

            Pablo fell back onto his portly ass, white goo dripping down his face and bits of jerky half hanging out of a half open mouth. He sat there for a moment, taken aback at what had just happened. Then he spat, "Son of a bitch!" He stood, wiped the bitter mixture from his face and mouth with his left hand, and then used the same hand to backhand Davy across the face, sending his body teetering off to his right again.

            There was a loud creaking noise as the chair's two left legs came loose from the floor. Davy was sure he was going to hit the cold ground, and even braced himself for it, but the ground never came to greet the right side of his face. Instead he sort of hung there in the air, the right two nailed legs of the chair refusing to topple.

            Pablo grabbed Davy by the throat, forcing a small choking sound from the old man's throat and pulled him back so all legs of the chair were now flat on the floor.

            Through two swollen eyes, Davy locked eyes with Pablo. The old man clenched his jaw and winced as he realized the backhand from Pablo had loosened his left molars. Nonetheless, he held a firm face, refusing his captor any form of sadistic pleasure.

            "You think you're smart, you old bastard?" Pablo wheezed through clenched teeth. He forced the words out, flinging a customized mixture of his own saliva and Davy's vomit back into Davy's face.

            Davy felt the concoction settle in the wound that had opened on his cheekbone and winced as the weak stomach acid did work in the cut.  

            "You think it's funny?" Pablo belted, raising a hand again; Davy wasn't sure which, he was now sure he was blind in both eyes.

            The door to the small interrogation room flew open, slamming into the wall behind Pablo. Davy heard a set of footsteps walk in.

            "Pablo, get the hell out of here," a calm voice said. It sounded mellow, cool, almost as if whoever was speaking had just woken from a good nap. Without a word of defiance, Pablo let go of Davy’s throat (much to Davy’s relief) and left the room, departing on what sounded like some grumbles, but Davy couldn't discern whether or not Pablo had actually said anything; the dominating noise was the ringing in his ears that had followed Pablo’s attack.

            The sound of the man's voice combined with the fact that Pablo had left the room relaxed Davy, giving him the sensation that he was going to be all right. He felt his heart fall back into that pace that he hadn't felt in years. The same pace that he had been trying to avoid for the better part of his life, because he knew that once his heart started beating in that sing song rhythm, a burst was soon to follow. Every time he did feel that rhythm, he would force it down. Force the burst back into his stomach, back to where it had originated and try and think of things that would make him miserable.

            But that was then. Davy welcomed the rhythm that was beginning to make his heart flutter. He welcomed the burst that had begun to stir in his stomach, because he knew that if he could get that burst up past his stomach and into his heart he would be able to push it, this time really push it out. Unleash it in this tiny ass room that had recently become his cell and blow his captors to smithereens. He would escape this room, find Pablo, and paint the wall with the liquefied remains of his body. Just one coat of paint, please.

            Davy breathed in tandem with the taboo rhythm in his heart and dug at the burst that was resting in his stomach, and he felt it rise, felt it bubble up into his esophagus, but then he caught a taste of blood in his mouth. It was an ugly taste that uprooted many bad memories that Davy had buried over the course of his life. He lazily spat downward into his own lap and grimaced as he felt more blood seeping out from under his loosened molars and began to fill the space between his gums and his cheek.  

            That feeling of brief happiness that was going to allow him to set off a burst slipped away like sand through open fingers. All it took was the taste of blood to keep Davy from escaping. That damned taste, and now the burst that was building in his stomach was quieting down.

            No, no, come back.

            The rhythm in his heart settled, and the gurgling noise that was growing in his stomach dissipated entirely.

            No, I was happy, genuinely. Please, come back and help me get out of here.

            It was gone.

***

            "Why," said the voice, "you look the same way a little kid does whenever they lose a pet."

            Davy looked up to the voice. The man who had granted him freedom from Pablo was sitting in another metal chair across from him. He was wearing a black blazer, a white buttoned down shirt, a bolo tie, black jeans, and rattlesnake skin boots. All that was missing was a cowboy hat. His blonde hair was slicked back, and his blue eyes were settled on Davy, who had by now regained a poor amount of vision. But it was enough sight to see the man flicker a smile filled with white teeth, the same way that a snake would flick its tongue right before a strike.

            He didn't trust him, whoever the man was that was sitting across from him. There was a reason why Davy couldn't pull a new burst up and push it out, and that reason was dressed in black and smelled like a barbershop.

            Davy felt blood drip from his jaw line down to the crook of his neck where the collarbone split into its y-shape. He twitched trying to rub at the spot, but failed thanks to his arms being tied at his sides. All he managed to do was smear the droplet of blood into a small sticky patch on his neck.

            The man pulled a white handkerchief from his shirt breast pocket. "I'm sorry Pablo roughed you up the way he did," he said as he walked to Davy and began to wipe the blood and assorted muck from Davy's face. He did it gingerly, careful not to incite any more pain in Davy's frail battered face. "I told him to just get some answers from you as I was collecting some of your things, but I see that he took it upon himself to tenderize your face." The man finished dabbing at Davy's eyes, cheeks, and neck. He looked down at his handkerchief and sighed as he saw that the once white cloth had been stained a plethora of different unappealing colors. He clicked his tongue as he balled the cloth in his hand, then clicked his tongue again as he threw it into the back corner of the room.

            Davy was grateful that the man had cleaned his face, and was even more relieved when he found that the only reason he couldn't see out of his eyes was from the clotting blood that had started to form a canopy over them. But the small happiness he felt wasn't enough to bring on a burst. If it were enough, Davy would've happily blasted this strange man and then he would have gone to find Pablo.

            "My name is Yosarian," the man said as he sat back down lazily into his seat, "and hopefully you and I can become great friends."

***

            The acidic taste of vomit still lingered in Davy's mouth. All he wanted was a drink of water and perhaps a painkiller, but that would be asking for far too much. The man sitting in front of him, Yosarian, was just sitting there, keeping a cold blue stare locked onto Davy. The look made Davy feel small, like a fourth grader who just realized that he had forgotten his homework and the teacher knew, yes, the teacher always knew.

            Davy did his best to avoid Yosarian’s gaze and looked to the side of the room as he attempted to take a deep breath through his nose. It was too swollen for that; either too swollen or too clogged from dried blood. His mind wandered back to the desert. Back to the small cave where he had all of his water stored. In the corner where the cave had that almost damp feeling to it. That cool feeling coupled with the thought of water to drink, it felt good. It made him feel comfortable, and almost happy.  He felt that rhythm begin to return in his chest. He continued to think about being back in his cave, away from this place, back to the home he had isolated himself for so many years. He never thought that thinking of that cave would make him happy, but it did, and it was working. Not even the lingering taste of blood in his mouth was going to rip him away from this thought. He felt the burst building in his stomach.

            "David Yogel."

            The brief mention of his name snapped him back to the present. He looked to Yosarian, who was still giving that dead-eye stare. "Daaaaay-vid," he said again, that snake-like smile reappearing on his face. "They think you're some kind of terrorist," Yosarian said, jerking a thumb at the door. "Been following you for years, or at least trying to. You're one slippery devil, you know that?"

            Davy didn't respond. He didn't want to listen to Yosarian. He wanted to go back to his cave. He wanted to let the burst come so he could push it out.

            "We were sure we lost you after Clarington was destroyed."

            Davy winced at that, and Yosarian saw.

            "Yeah, I thought that name would trigger some sort of reaction," Yosarian said followed by a chuckle.

            Davy hung his head low. The rhythm was gone, replaced by the normal “business as usual” beat of his heart. His stomach settled again.

            "What happened in Clarington, David?"

            That kid, that damn kid and his stupid mother.

            "David? You goin’ to answer me?"

            There was no chance he'd be able to build the burst, not with that boy's face in his thoughts.

            "They think you set off some kind of bomb, but we looked, we couldn't find any trace of any kind of explosive, but still, there were four city blocks littered with mangled bodies. Looked like they were, ah, just tossed around like ragdolls. And others, shit, you wouldn't believe it. Just dropped dead in the streets. No marks on them, no nothing." No nuttin, the calm, cool voice that had excused Pablo was gone, and all that was left was this tone that seemed to be hiding not anger, but what seemed like interest. "No, not a scratch. One of our best guesses is they died from the shockwave. You know, like when those folk go dynamite fishing? The fish, they just sort of die from the shock of the explosion, not necessarily the explosion itself. It was kind of like that. We lost a lot of our people in Clarington that day. Had a couple of folk who had been following you. Found them lying in the streets with the others, like a bunch of dead fish. And the ones who had been closest to you?" He whistled, mimicking the sound of a mortar dropping. "Blown to bits."

            Davy clenched his jaw, ignoring the riot of pain that the molars in his mouth shouted out and the fresh blood that seeped out and coated his tongue.

            "And they think a bomb did that. Hell, I’ve seen my fair share of ground zeroes, and I can tell you one thing: bombs don’t leave buildings intact.” Yosarian leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his nose. “Yeah, there was some damage to some buildings, but those were caused from bodies being thrown all over the place. You know anything about that Davy?”

            He didn’t say a word.

”You know how I know it wasn’t a normal bomb? If a bomb did that, then how the hell are you still alive when I had men report on your location not but 5 minutes before they died?”

            The last thing Davy wanted at the moment was to be reminded of Clarington. Since the moment they had brought him into the interrogation room, all he wanted was to think of the happy times in his life, the times before these horrible bursts started to plague him. Those moments were fleeting now. He did all he could to try and think of anything to make him joyous, just enough to stir up a burst. He almost wanted to cry at the ironic situation; all this time spent trying to keep bursts down, and now he was clawing at the bottom of his heart to bring one out.

            And now Clarington. The very place he had been trying to forget, along with many others. The very thought of the place brought back that strange taste in the back of his throat.

            “You remember Clarington, right David?” Yosarian prodded.

            “Yes.”

            “You goin’ tell me about it, tell me what the hell kind of bomb can do what happened in Clarington?”

            Davy would’ve gritted his teeth if they didn’t hurt so much.

            “Now Davy, if you don’t tell me about it, I’m going to get bored, and if I get bored, I’m goin’ to leave and find something to entertain myself. And when I leave, someone has to keep an eye on you, and guess who the only other person left on this shift is?”

            Davy let out a deep sigh. It was almost on the edge of sarcastic, but honest and truly, the last person he wanted to see now was Pablo. There was no way he’d be able to drum up a burst with Pablo in the room rearranging his face.

***

            Marty’s was a small grocery store on the outskirts of some town that Davy didn’t really know or care to know. All he cared about was getting the cases of water he needed. He looked down at his shopping cart; there were two cases of bottled water, the last two cases that he would be purchasing. He already had ten cases in the truck, the result of three or four return trips to the store. He had gone through the same cashier lane all those times, and the young girl scanning his water had started to give him strange looks after the second trip.

            “Thirsty?” She had asked somewhere between the second and third trip.

            He didn’t bother replying, instead choosing to just stare at the ground, debit card in hand, waiting for her to give the go ahead so he could swipe his card and get on with the trip.

            As a matter of fact, he was thirsty. He was ridiculously thirsty; suffering from what he was sure was a bad case of cottonmouth. When he had tried to swallow, he was surprised to find that his tongue would stick to the roof of his mouth. And yes, he had thought about opening one of those cases of water in his truck, taking a bottle, ripping the small plastic cap off and just sucking the water down and out of the bottle. But no, he couldn’t do that. Not in the parking lot of the packed grocery store. Not while there was so many people in the surrounding area.

            He was sure that quenching his desert-like thirst would make him content, happy even. For Davy, being happy was dangerous. He had thought of just getting in the truck with the few cases he already did have and just booking it out of the town whose name he thought started with a “C”, but that wouldn’t do. He came for a certain amount of water, and he’d be damned if he left without it.

            It had already taken an immense amount of time looking into a mirror and giving himself the tried and true pep talk of, “Everything will go fine today.” He had brought along the safety pin, just in case. It was in the front left pocket of his blue jeans. He had an index finger and thumb pinching down on it, had the needle out of the clasp and was just about to bring his thumb down on the needle when-

            “More water, huh?”

            Startled, Davy turned around in the checkout line. Standing behind him was a tall man with a bushy goatee and a long scar coming down across his right cheek. The scar appeared to run up towards his eye, but he was wearing a pair of thick sunglasses that gave the scar a hiding place.

            “Huh?” Davy muttered, pushing the needle back into the clasp in his pocket.

            “I’ve seen you come in and leave the store with lots of cases of water. You stocking up for nuclear fallout, yeah?”

            “Oh,” Davy said, turning back towards his cart and looking to his two cases of water as if there was a chance that they would have magically vanished during the time he spent not looking at them. He looked back towards the inquisitive man, “well, just stocking up for the sake of it. If nuclear fallout does happen, I guess I’ll be ready for it.”

            “Uh huh,” the man said. Davy couldn’t really tell if the man liked his small joke or not. The man’s lips set into a straight narrow line, and it was impossible to see what the man’s eyes looked like behind his dark shades. “You’re up, bud.”

            “Huh?” The man nodded ahead of Davy. He turned and saw that the cashier was waiting for him. “Right, sorry.”

            The cashier sighed at the sight of Davy. She pulled out the handheld scanner and held it out in front of her, prompting Davy to pick up a case of water and hold it to be scanned.

            “This your last trip?” She asked.

            “Yes,” he grunted.

            She waved the scanner back in forth in front of the case of water, flashing the barcode with the red light, but for some reason the scanner wasn’t picking up the barcode. There was no boop that normally happened after having a barcode scanned.

            “It acts up every now and then,” the lady said, bringing the scanner back and rubbing at it with her thumb, “okay, let’s try that again.”

            Davy still held up the case of water. His arms were getting tired and sweat was starting to bead out onto his forehead. She waved the scanner several more times back and forth across the case of water.

            “Maybe try scanning the other case twice,” the sunglasses man said from behind.

            “Good idea,” Davy said, setting the case back into the shopping cart and grabbing the other. He held it out, worried that his arms would give out and he’d end up dropping the case onto the floor.

            Boop. Boop.

            “There we go,” the cashier said.

            “Thank God,” Davy groaned, setting the case into cart. He was so relieved to finally set the case down. He rubbed at his sore biceps with both hands crossed over each other, and damn did that feel good. Too good.

            He felt his heart start to flutter at the sensation of relief in his arms, and soon after he felt that familiar rumble in his stomach. Davy paused, afraid to make any kind of sudden movement. He clenched his eyes shut and tried to push that gurgle in his stomach down. Tried to rein his heart into beating a normal pattern. It was a simple mistake, and he was sure he was going to pay dearly for it. Thoughts skipped through his mind, the same thoughts he always resorted to in order to help force the heat back down; the time he accidentally killed his puppy, the time his mother left, no, they weren’t depressing enough. He needed something more to make sure he pushed the feeling down, something that would surely be enough to kill the oncoming burst.

            And he thought about April. The girl he had met in college. The girl who had tried to help him control the bursts. “So you can lead a normal life” she had said. April, and of course, the hospital.

            The dancing flutter in his heart stopped, and the heat in his stomach dissipated.

            “Are you okay?” The cashier asked.

            Davy unclenched his eyes, finding that they were a bit watery. “Yes,” he said, letting go of his arms. He had unknowingly had them crossed over his chest as if he were hugging himself. “Just had cramps in my arms, but I’m alright now.”

            “Maybe eat a banana or something.”

            “I’ll have to get some later, I guess. Too tired to go back now to the produce section.”

            “Right, go ahead and swipe your card.”

            He did, and she gave him his receipt when the transaction was complete. He wheeled his cart out of the checkout lane and started to make his way towards the store exit. There nearby was a toy crane machine, and a little boy who was just a bit too little to reach the joystick of the machine.

***

            “Well I’ll be damned,” chimed Yosarian, “that’s where Hank went.”

            Davy jerked from the sudden interruption, “Hank?”

            “Yeah, the guy you mentioned, the one behind you in line, the one with the scar,” he raised a long almost feminine-like finger and ran it down his cheek, “that was Hank. One of our guys, I told you we had people on you.”

            He knew there had been people following him as soon as his bursts started growing in size, but he had never fully understood how close they were to him. The hair there on the nape of Davy’s neck stood on end as he harked back to that day. Standing right there behind me. That man, Hank, had given Davy the heebie-jeebies but he hadn’t really thought much about it. He was so focused on getting out with the water.

            “He really wasn’t supposed to be there, so I guess it sort of serves him right,” Yosarian said.

            Davy looked up to Yosarian, wanting to ask “What do you mean?” but decided against it. The quick head movement swirled the headache still racking his skull and he flinched and clenched his jaw. More blood poured out from his gums and into his mouth. He hung his head down and spat into his lap again. It was an ugly taste.

            “Pablo was the one who was supposed to be tailing you that day, but him and Hank got into it, started arguing about the dangers, yadda yadda, butt-buddy stuff, you know how that can be,” he continued, sticking out his tongue.

            On any other day, Davy would’ve laughed at the revelation of Pablo’s sexual orientation, but now, with fresh blood dripping out of his mouth, all he could manage was a small huff.

            “Hank, oh, he got all big chested and said he was leaving. Leaving the job, going out to take a few days off, cool down. And yeah, that’s good, that’s what is encouraged, can’t have people working when their heads aren’t  clear, and let me tell ya, having them two together, it was next to impossible to keep them from either ripping out each other’s throats, or ripping each other’s buttholes,” Yosarian said, giving a slight twitch of disgust from his shoulders. “Oh that was years ago. We were wondering what happened to Hank. Figured he just disappeared, quit for good, found something else, and I even joked that he found someone else. Pablo was upset for a couple of days, yeah that was expected, but he got over it. But now, now you’re telling me that Hank had in fact gone to trail you, and shi-hi-hi-it on a brick, he done got himself bombed by you,” he punctuated with an index finger pointed directly at Davy.

            Davy shrugged, “I didn’t set off a bomb.”

            Which really wasn’t a lie. Davy wouldn’t call his bursts “bombs”. They were, well, bursts.           

            “Now look,” Yosarian said, leaning forward in his chair, finger still pointing at Davy, “you stop that lying, and start telling the truth, or else I’m going to have to tell Pablo what happened to his better half, and if you thought Pablo was one ornery sumbitch before, just wait ‘til you see how he’ll act when I tell him that his spare d-piece met his end at the likes of you.”

            Yosarian put his hand back down in his lap, sighed, then shrugged his shoulders, well what’ll be, cowboy?

            Davy wondered if the room was mic’d, and if it were, Pablo already knew about the demise of his lover. He rubbed at the loosened molars on the left side of his mouth with his tongue, wincing at how some of them were wiggling. Pablo was just going to have to even up the other side of his teeth.

            “I didn’t set off any kind of bomb.”

            Yosarian drummed on his lap with his palms a couple of times, and then brought both palms down on his knees. “Well, if that’s how you want it then. I’m goin’ to go get some of your stuff we found at your little hideout, have some questions I’ve got for you. In the meantime, Pablo will be looking after you while I’m gone. Now remember, do your homework, eat your vegetables, and do as Pablo says, mmkay?”

            He stood up, tipped an imaginary hat, and walked out. After the door slammed shut, the only sounds in the room were Davy’s labored breathing through a plugged nose, and the rushing sound of blooding coursing through the tiny veins in his ears.

            Davy took in a deep breath through his mouth, and exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself down, but he was scared. Terribly frightened of that little man with iron fists. He probably would’ve thrown up again if he hadn’t earlier.

            The door opened, and in walked Pablo.

            Davy braced himself for what he thought would be an immediate onslaught, but was instead surprised to see Pablo sit down in the chair that was probably still warm thanks to Yosarian.

            Davy’s torturer didn’t say anything. Just looked at him with those small beady eyes.

            “You saw Hank?” Pablo asked quietly.

            Davy wasn’t sure he had heard him right. He continued to sit in silence.

            “Hank. You see him in Clarington?” His eyes were beginning to water, and he was beginning to get those strange hiccups, reminding Davy of how he had accidentally popped a friend’s balloon at his ten-year-old birthday party; he was going to save it, a memento because you only had one ten-year-old birthday party. That was a long time ago, but hearing Pablo on the edge of sobbing brought that uncomfortable memory back in a flash.

            Even after seeing how vulnerable Pablo appeared, Davy was still unsure of whether or not to answer.

            Pablo raised his hands and placed them on top of his head. He stood and faced the door, shoulders quickly rising and falling as his breaths began to quicken. At this point, Davy was just about to say something, he wasn’t sure what-

            And in one fluid motion, Pablo grabbed the empty seat, whirled around, and smacked Davy clear across the face with it. One of the chair legs brutally connected with his left temple, and that was it.

            Lights out. 

             

***

            He remembered falling to the right, and being confused because he shouldn’t have been falling. The chair was nailed down, and he was tied to it. But still, there was that awkward feeling of his innards in free-fall and then a gap in time. There was that feeling of cool tile against his right cheek, and he could feel blood running down his face again, this time horizontally; down his left cheek, over the bridge of his broken nose, down the other cheek, and onto the floor. All signs pointed to him lying on the floor, but he was still wary.

            He faintly recalled the door being swung open and a series of footsteps running in. There was some yelling, and the sound of the metal chair being flung to the floor. Someone was trying to untie the ropes around his arms, and it hurt like hell, but Davy was so relieved to know that someone had come in to save him.

            His concussion-hazed mind struggled to think of who it could have been that would have found him and saved him from these madmen. He pictured a bare mannequin bending down at his side, doing its best to untie the ropes around his arms, but the mannequin couldn’t, not with its plastic fingers stuck together in a permanent karate chop fashion.

            Davy had to try and picture who it was that was saving him, had to give the mannequin a face, that way its hands would become real. Real enough to be able to stop jerking around the damn ropes and finally get them untied.

            At first, it was his old next door neighbor from all those years ago, that old man Lance who was a retired therapist. He was hobbled down on one knee, trying to undo Davy’s bindings with arthritic fingers, mumbling some kind words of advice. Davy looked up at him and smiled; they were the same age now, him and Lance. Back then, Lance was so much older, forty or fifty years Davy’s senior. But now, in the present, they were the same age.

            Lance jerked at the ropes, but couldn’t undo them.

            Davy needed someone else to work on the ropes. His mind wandered some more, and Lance’s wrinkled facial features sank back into the mannequin’s plain white headpiece, and his old wily fingers melded back together. There had to be another person to undo these ropes.

            Finally, the ropes began to give. They were no longer digging into his arms and chest. He tried to look up and see who it was who had finally undid the ropes, and there for a moment, he saw April kneeling next to him, brunette hair hanging low towards his face.

            She moved to the side, and Davy was abruptly blinded by the fluorescent light above. The bright light stung at Davy’s mind, stoking a headache that was sure to rip its way through his skull and expose itself to the world. Almost like his bursts, but this one fueled by pain instead of happiness. He tried to ignore it. He wanted another glimpse at April. His savior.

            The woman who undid his ropes stepped between him and the light again, and this time Davy saw that it wasn’t April. It was some red-haired freckled woman who was probably in her mid-forties.

            The burst that had been secretly building in Davy’s stomach immediately died away as he laid his cheek back down onto the cool tile, allowing whatever concussion-fueled dreams to march their way in.

***

            “You’re up bud.”

           

            Davy turned around and saw that man with the scar running up his cheek and towards his eye, Hank, but this time Hank wasn’t wearing any sunglasses to hide the scar. It ran across his eye, leaving it a milky white.

            “Right, sorry,” he said, turning around to face the cashier. He slowly pushed his cart forward, a strange feeling of déjà vu settling down in his intestines, making them feel heavier than normal. In his cart was only one case of water, when he knew he needed two. There was a brief moment of wanting to go back and get another case, but he thought against it. Davy was terribly thirsty. He wanted to just go ahead and take the single case of water and leave. Get far enough away so that he would be able to chug a bottle of water and let out any burst that would come out from the sheer satisfaction. Safely, though. Away from any people.

            “This your last trip?” the cashier asked.

            “Uh, yeah.” He picked up the case of water and held it up. It was surprisingly light, so much so that he wondered if some of the bottles were empty. The cashier scanned the barcode and it booped on the first go. “Does that thing ever give you any trouble?” Davy asked, nodding towards her scanner.

            “None at all,” she replied. “Debit or credit?”

            “Debit.”

            “Go ahead and swipe.”

            After his one case of water was paid for, Davy almost wanted to turn around and say bye to Hank. He actually had the words on his lips, but he knew that he shouldn’t have known that his name was Hank. Not yet at least.

            He rolled his cart out of the checkout lane and made his way towards the exit. There, near the sliding double doors was a toy crane machine, and a little boy who was standing on his tip-toes to try and reach the joystick.

            All sense told Davy to keep rollin’, keep moving on out that way he could get in his truck and get the hell out of Dodge (it was Clarington. The name of the city was Clarington), but a lady stepped out of her way and held a hand out to Davy.

            “Can you help him out real quick?” She said, holding out a dollar bill with one hand, a cellphone pressed to her ear with the other.

            Davy wanted to say no, hell, he even tried to say no, but the lady was forceful. She shoved the dollar into his chest and let go. The bill fluttered down and landed on the handle of his cart. He grabbed it, intending to give it back to the woman, tell her “Sorry ma’am, I’m a walking time bomb and I need to get out of here,” but when he did grab it, he heard that little boy let out a cry of joy. Davy turned and saw that the little guy was standing there at the crane, almost tap-dancing because he was so excited.

            “She just gave me one,” Davy said, “so make it count.”

            He put the dollar into the machine, and then picked the little boy up by his armpits. The boy grabbed a hold of the joystick and the circus-y music of the machine began to play. The claw jerked around at first, and then finally smoothed out as it moved around above the assorted plush toys.

            “You know which one you are going to try and get?” Davy asked.

            “I dunno.”

            The timer on the display panel read 25 and was steadily counting down. “You better hurry up and make it quick.”

            The claw settled above a pink tiger. Davy looked down and saw that the boy had his thumb hovered over the red button on the joystick, then he looked into the machine cage and saw his own reflection in the mirror that was at the back, a helpful thing to allow people to see all angles of the plush toys. In that mirror, Davy saw that the little boy was thinking. Yeah, his mind was flying at a million miles per minute, wondering if that pink tiger would be the toy he wanted to risk that dollar on.

            “You don’t want that,” Davy said. The little boy smiled and moved the crane around some more, finally settling over a green gecko-like stuffed toy. The timer on the machine was at five seconds now, and working its way towards zero. “Hit it.”

            The boy pushed down on the red button, and the claw opened then dropped down fast, faster than Davy would’ve thought. It plunged down into the stuffed toys, metal centerpiece bearing down on the gecko’s head. There it stayed for a few seconds in which Davy in the little boy spent holding their breath.

            It began to rise, and as it did, the claw closed down onto the gecko’s head and lifted it up. The claw and trapped gecko swung back and forth, claw threatening to let go of the gecko, but once the claw reached the top, Davy knew the gecko was in the bag.

            The boy was laughing, and Davy was smiling, and then he was laughing. He looked back into the mirror of the machine and saw himself smiling, saw himself holding the boy in his hands, and saw that the boy was locking eyes with Davy in the mirror, still smiling.

             He didn’t even have time to realize that the rumbling in his stomach had already made it into his heart. It jumped up so fast, the first thing he thought to do was clench his eyes.

            There was a loud pop. For the next few weeks, he’d think the sound was his ear drums bursting, but he’d later come to find that it was actually the sound of all the glass in the surrounding area breaking at once.

            He kept his eyes clenched shut and tried to shove the burst down, but even he couldn’t lie to his own self. The burst was out, and it had already done its job. Bits of glass from the crane machine had coated Davy’s face, and he would still feel them cutting into the pores on the skin of his face and hands for days to come. He was still holding his hands out as he had been when holding the little boy, but even with his eyes closed he knew the boy was gone. The weight of the kid in his hands had vanished. He slowly opened his eyes and nearly yelped in horror; the only thing clenched in his grasp was the blue t-shirt that the boy had been wearing, which was now quickly dampening.

Davy let out the breath that he had been holding, and then took in a gasp only to hoarsely cough it out. It tasted like he had a mouthful of pennies. His eyes began to burn and water. Another failed breath and Davy realized that he had to get out of the store or else he was going to suffocate.

He turned around and saw that there was nobody in the store. There was a thick cloud of red mist hanging about as if someone had come in and sprayed chemicals all over the place. All that was left behind were their clothes, lying scattered about on the white tile that was quickly turning a dark shade of red. 

Davy dropped the blood-dampened shirt and tried to run. His feet slipped out from under him and he went toppling into his grocery cart, knocking it over to the ground and falling down on top of it, cart handle poking nicely into his ribcage. He tried to push himself up off of the ground but found that his hands kept slipping, making squelching noises every time he tried to put his palms down. The case of water that had been in the cart had ripped opened, the bottles inside the case all exploded outwards.

He pulled in another breath of air and found that it tasted even worse. Gagging, he began to crawl towards the store exit on his forearms and knees, each breath filling his mouth with the taste of blood, and on some breaths, feces. Several times his arms would slip out from under him and he would go face-first into the ground. On the way towards the door, he stumbled across a sunglasses frame. The lenses were gone, probably disintegrated like the rest of the glass, but he knew they belonged to that scarred man. Hank, whose remains were currently misting through the air with the rest of the people in the store.

When he made it to the exit, he was able to get a grip on the concrete. He pushed himself up from the ground, still gasping for air. It was better out in the parking lot, but not by much.

Out here, the people caught by the blast weren’t lucky enough to be vaporized. Most had been thrown all over the parking lot, bodies crumpled like old newspapers. Davy tried not to look at them as he stumbled towards his truck. Each step he took was accented by the crunch of glass; every car in the parking lot had had its windows blown out.

He finally made it to his truck, spitting out the fluids that had gathered in his mouth and grimacing at the fact that his saliva was a deep dark shade of red. All he wanted now was to rinse out his mouth with a water bottle he had in the back of his truck, but one quick glance and he saw that all the water bottles he had purchased had either exploded completely or were already drained from leaks. He spat again, then opened his truck and sat down in the seat covered with glass.

Davy put the key into the ignition and turned, praying that the truck would start. The engine made a sound as if it were going to turn over, but then died. He tried again, twisting the key and praying, but nothing. He slammed a fist into the steering wheel and yelped as he felt some of the fine grains of glass get driven deeper into his knuckles. He took in a breath to let out another cry, but gagged again on the taste of blood. That horrible taste that would stay with him for the coming years. All he wanted was a damn water bottle to clear out his mouth. He didn’t even care that he was thirsty anymore; he just wanted to get rid of the taste.

***

“You need to roll over on your side.”

Davy had heard the woman speak, but his mind was still all in a jumble, part of it damaged by Pablo’s latest attack, and the other part still somewhere in Clarington. It didn’t have the time or the capacity to break down what she was saying.

“You need to roll over. You’re swallowing a lot of blood.”

He felt her pull him onto his side, and then felt a warm syrupy liquid begin to drain out of his mouth. Someone dabbed at his mouth with a wet cloth, and then a few times on the cuts on his face. He wanted to say thanks, but quickly fell back to sleep. No nightmares from the past came to haunt him this time.

Just long, black, nothingness. That, and the taste of blood on his tongue and in the back of his throat.