“That would be their mistake,” Chandler said.

  Harry reached for more curds. “We all know you can kill everyone in the town, Chandler. But eventually we all run out of luck. You want to risk whatever luck you have left on these townies?”

  “I calculated the risks before I made a move,” Chandler said.

  “Of course you did. But why did you have to make a move at all?”

  “Why do any of us make any move?” I asked, not sure who I was asking.

  McGlade nodded. “I agree, Jackie. Just like we’re characters in some bad thriller series.”

  “We are characters in a bad thriller series,” I reminded him. “Fatal Autonomy.”

  “That show is only forty points away from being certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.”

  “Because that show is awful,” I countered.

  “Life is awful,” Harry countered. “So is that puke green sweater. And those boots. What are those, Uggs? Didn’t you used to be a clotheshorse? Little Ms. Designer ensemble? That outfit looks like L.L. Bean barfed on you.”

  “I swapped fashion sense for comfort,” I answered, trying not to sound defensive.

  “Honest question; can your husband still get an erection? Because I’m turtling looking at you.”

  Jackass. “Any chance you’re a descendant of the Khwarazm Empire?” I asked Harry.

  “Hell if I know. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  Toddy returned with Harry’s cheese curds. I took back the ones he borrowed, and asked for some boxes.

  Harry dug into his curds. “So I gotta check out Evergreen Lane later, to search the B and B where my missing peeps stayed. Want to give me your address so I can pop over for a nightcap?”

  “No,” Chandler and I said at the same time.

  He shrugged. “Small town. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. And Jack, we’re doing that escape room thing in a few weeks, right? We did a video call about it.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Yeah. That thing. I can’t wait.”

  “Me, neither. Also, your rental… is it N9823?”

  Uh-oh. “That’s the place your missing person rented?” I asked Harry.

  His look told me all I needed to know.

  Great. We’d get to see more of Harry later.

  I swear I must have been a real bitch in a previous life.

  Toddy gave us to-go paraphernalia, and we boxed and bagged and were discussing splitting the check when Harry waved us off, saying it was on him, which led to our begrudgingly thanking him while he stuffed his face and looked smarmy, and I took a careful look around the parking lot as we walked back to her rental vehicle. Parking lot was empty except for us and Harry’s ginormous recreation vehicle, which took up five spots.

  “It’s good,” she said without me saying anything. “They’re gone. Let’s move on.”

  “But can we move on?”

  She stopped and raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying? Do you think I was looking for a fight in there?”

  “Were you?” I asked.

  “Because it always seems to happen?”

  “It’s not just you. It’s me, too. Most people go through their entire life and don’t even get punched in the face. When I think about all the fights, the shootouts, the car chases—”

  “Skydiving into a minefield and falling into a nest of rattlers while people shoot lasers at you.”

  “Lasers? That’s really a thing?”

  “That guy needed to be put in his place, Jack. You were thinking the same. I’m pretty sure you’ve done the same.”

  “Maybe. Once or twice.”

  “Maybe we can’t leave this behind,” Chandler said. “Maybe quitting isn’t for people like us.”

  “I don’t think we can be grouped together, Chandler. I was a cop. You’re—”

  “A government assassin.”

  “I was going to say a soldier, but you can pick your own pronouns.”

  We got into the SUV. Chandler paused before starting the engine.

  “I don’t think I want to be this person anymore, Jack.”

  “Then stop being this person.”

  “What was the play there? Walk away?”

  “We all need to walk away sometimes, Chandler. We pick our battles. Our battles don’t pick us.”

  “We’re in the battle by just being born.”

  “I don’t think so. We can’t control everything that happens. But we can control how we react to everything that happens.”

  “Or we can act first, rather than wait to react.”

  I considered it, then said, “Quick parable. An older man whose eyes are getting bad goes to an optometrist. The doctor tells him that he’s going blind, and there isn’t any treatment, isn’t any way to stop it. So every day the man wakes up, dreading the future, and tells his wife, ‘I’m going blind. I don’t know what to do.’ She doesn’t say anything. Days pass. Weeks. Months. And every day, sometimes several times a day, he says to his wife, ‘I’m going blind. I don’t know what to do.’ And she never responds.”

  “Did she go deaf?” Chandler asked. “Is that the joke?”

  “She didn’t go deaf. It’s not a joke, it’s a parable. So after six months of him telling his wife, ‘I’m going blind. I don’t know what to do.’ She finally answers him.”

  “And what does she say?”

  “She says, ‘So go blind already!’“

  Chandler was silent for a moment. Somewhere in the dark of night, something howled.

  “What’s the moral, there?” Chandler eventually asked. “Don’t get married to a heartless bitch?”

  “You can quit. Or not quit. But get to one or the other and stop torturing yourself.”

  Chandler didn’t reply, and we drove back to the cabin in silence.

  THE ARTIST

  The Strip Of Cotton Cloth Goes Into The Bucket Of Wet Concrete.

  The Art Is Wrapped Like A Mummy.

  The Death Pose Is Perfect. The Artist Must Take Special Care To Enhance Rather Than Cover Up.

  The Artist Knows Art.

  The Artist Lives Art.

  Strip By Strip. Layer By Layer.

  Slowly, Deliberately, A Dry Flakey Corpse Becomes An Eternal Stone Masterpiece.

  As The Art Dries, The Decoration Begins.

  The Clothing, Formed From Broken Glass And Bottle Caps.

  Pressed Into Moist Concrete.

  Then, At Last, The Face.

  Though The Corpse Is Layered In Concrete, The Artist Can Remember Its Expression.

  A Frozen Gasp Of Pain And Fear, Tinged With The Overwhelming Peace That Comes From Knowing Death Is Inevitable.

  In Death, As In Life. Pain And Peace. Struggle And Rest. Fear And Acceptance.

  Bittersweet.

  The Final Touch Is The Eyes.

  Blue Green Diamonds That Call Into The Beyond.

  The Artist Steps Back And Marvels.

  The Artist Weeps.

  The Artist Howls Into The Night.

  The Night Howls Back.

  HARRY

  You got a nice place here, Toddy,” I said, sucking down my third beer. “And the burger ain’t half bad.”

  “I appreciate the kind words. How about a shot on the house?” He reached for one of the plungers hanging from a rack behind the bar.

  “Am I supposed to take that into the shitter and serve myself?”

  He chuckled, soft and low. “Naw. This is a toilet shot. Granddad invented it.”

  “You drink it out of the plunger?”

  “Yeah. It’s a blue margarita. I’d be happy to join you for one.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “Set ’em up, Toddy.”

  He pulled two plungers and filled them with some blue concoction in a plastic milk jug. Believe it or not, I’d never held a plunger to my mouth before. But the hooch smelled pretty good, lemon and orange with a hint of tequila, and we touched rubber and I said, “Prost!”

  But as I tilted the plunger to my lips, Toddy stopped me.

  “Hold up,” he said. “Almost forgot the garnish.”

  He handed me his plunger to hold, then fished around under the bar and held up a glass jar of… something brown and clumpy.

  “Tequila-soaked coffee beans,” he said, shaking the jar.

  He opened it up and stuck a spoon inside, pulling out three beans in a brown puddle. Then he dumped them in my plunger. “For health, wealth, and happiness.”

  I snickered. “They look like turds.”

  “That’s the point. Cheers!”

  We toasted and drank.

  It wasn’t bad. For free, it was great. And the beans added a little something extra, even though it was a weird taste for a margarita.

  Toddy rinsed the plungers in the sink and hung them back up.

  “Your granddad had a sense of humor,” I said.

  “He still does.”

  “So he’s still with us?”

  “He is. Physically, at least. Mentally, he’s long gone.”

  I winced. “Dementia. That’s too bad.”

  Toddy hitched up his pants. “No, not dementia. Psychosis. Started years and years ago, when I was just a kid. His mind just… snapped. He killed Grandma, then wrapped her up in concrete bandages. Made her into a statue.”

  “That’s… unfortunate.”

  “Funny you mentioned locking up a relative in the basement. We tried that for years. Up north we take care of our own. But he kept getting out. Kept doing that to more and more people.”

  For some reason that seemed to be extra profound. “So it wasn’t a wendigo,” I said. “It was your grandpa.”

  Toddy nodded. “Never got caught. My dad, he covered for him. But when the town finally died, Grandpa made my little sister into one of them works of art. Last straw for us. We had him committed to a mental institution. He was there for over thirty years.”

  “But now he’s out,” I said, my words coming out a bit slurry. “You drug my food, Toddy?”

  “Doesn’t work in food.”

  Shit. The soaked coffee beans. I swallowed them, but Toddy didn’t have any in his drink.

  How many times do I have to get drugged before I learned my damn lesson?

  Seriously, just like a bad thriller series. I was a flipping idiot.

  I pulled the gun from my shoulder holster, but Toddy slapped it down onto the bar top and yanked it away from me.

  “I like you, Mr. McGlade. And I like that TV show of yours. So does Granddad.”

  “I can sign some autographs for you guys,” I said, then fell onto my ass. It didn’t hurt as much as it should have, which I knew was a bad sign for my intentions to try and remain conscious.

  “We’re past that. You got too nosy. See, N9823 Evergreen Lane? That rental property where your lady friends are staying? Our family owns that. Granddad lives there on the property. Out in the pole barn.”

  I smiled in a placating way, making him feel at ease before I did my Super Ninja Detective Kick-Dick-And-Save-The-Day Move, and I immediately grabbed the log barstool to lift it up and smash it over Toddy’s face, except it was really heavy and my brain was swirly so I just dropped it onto my own chest and started to whimper.

  It was manly whimpering, if you’re curious.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. “Torture me and kill me? Been there, done that.”

  “Gonna seal you up in a little concrete chamber so you die in a certain position and dry out like a mummy, and then Granddad is going to turn you into one of his art pieces.”

  At least that was something new.

  “Won’t happen,” I said. “I got people. They always save me. It’s practically a running gag.”

  “I got people, too.” Toddy glanced at the door, and Zeke, Vern, and Mick walked back in. “You could say it’s a family business.”

  Well shit on my head and call me a toilet. Bad to worse in only a few seconds.

  “Doesn’t matter. Jack will come to the rescue. Or Phin. Or Chandler. Someone always comes to the rescue.”

  At least that’s what I tried to say. But all that came out was, “Jacka booma bloo bubba bah.”

  I tried to remember all the times crazy shit had happened to me that was similar, but my memory wasn’t very good.

  I knew this had happened before, though. Several times.

  It was like the universe was all out of ideas so it kept repeating itself.

  But life was all about repetition, wasn’t it? Wake up, shower, eat, work, eat again, hit the potty a few times, do stuff to entertain yourself, sleep, then start all over. We were all in a loop. The same things happened again and again. Every thought had already been thought of. There were no new ideas.

  Did being aware that we’re characters in some bad drama make the drama less real for us?

  No. It was real.

  As real as anything could be.

  “If you guys go all pig-squealing Deliverance on me, use a condom,” I said. “I got Hep C.”

  But I didn’t say that. I just mumbled gibberish again..

  I suppose that’s what life was all about. Thinking we’re making sense when we’re actually not.

  I tried to tell them not to hurt my penguin or capybara, but I vaguely recalled that the Crimebago Drei had safeguards in place.

  So maybe I’m not as big of an idiot as I think I am.

  At least I figured out what happened to Traydorn and Mia…

  CAPTIVE #80

  Tray promised the universe anything if it would rescue him.

  Tray cursed the universe for ignoring him.

  Tray thought about his childhood, which was mostly good.

  Tray thought about Mia, who was mostly great.

  Tray realized, with alarm, that every decision he’d ever made, that every decision that anyone had ever made, that every atom in the universe, had brought him to this point, dying in a concrete tomb.

  He made peace with that.

  What was life, after all?

  Have some interesting experiences. Make some friends. Learn stuff. Love. Be loved.

  He was young, but he’d done all of that.

  There had been hurt. Heartache. Pain. Sickness.

  But it had been worth it.

  He would do it all again, exactly the same way, if he could.

  And maybe he would.

  Who knew what came after death?

  Maybe it was everything all over again.

  Maybe it was everything, but better.

  Maybe it was something different.

  Maybe it was nothing at all.

  “Or maybe…” Tray’s voice was dry and raspy, but it still worked. “Maybe I’m not ready to die yet.”

  Traydorn Blouder made peace with life.

  But he wasn’t ready to make peace with death.

  So he continued to push against the stone walls, holding out hope that he and Mia would be able to escape and grow old together.

  THE WITCH

  Harry McGlade.

  Fascinating.

  It’s like some kind of dysfunctional family reunion.

  Using the rifle scope, the witch watched the big man carry a limp McGlade out of the bar and place him in the tailgate of his pickup truck. The night was cool enough to see their plumes of breath.

  Harry’s still alive. I’m surprised how bittersweet that feels.

  I’m frankly surprised I can feel anything.

  So many scars.

  Sometimes I wonder if I am gone, and all that remains is scar tissue.

  I want to scar the world, like it scarred me.

  The four men spend five comical minutes trying to get into Harry’s souped-up recreational vehicle. The older guy with the beard tried the driver-side door, and yelped, pulling his hand back like he’d been struck by a viper. The guy in bibs had the same result trying the side panel door, using a key. He screamed like a child with a skinned knee.

  Electric shocks. That’s hysterical.

  Though recognizing it as funny, the witch didn’t smile.

  Awareness of emotion isn’t the same as experiencing emotion.

  When she was a little girl, the witch wondered why she was different than other humans.

  Since my rebirth, I wonder if I’m even human at all.

  I’m alive. No thanks, and all thanks, to the pink brew made by the wizard.

  A witch brew.

  But the limited ability I had before, the ability to care about things on a spectrum, had been reduced to a binary.

  I do something. Or I don’t do something.

  On or off.

  Do I want to do the things I do?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t care.

  The witch believed that killing Jack, and Phin, and Sam, and Harry, and Harry’s son, and anyone who sided with them or got in the way, is what she wanted.

  But is it really what I want?

  Or is the wizard making me think this is what I want, as a way to control me?

  The witch watched as the quartet tried to break the RV’s windows, and their crowbar bounced off again and again.

  It’s funny. But I’m not laughing.

  When my time for vengeance arrives, will I enjoy it?

  Will I feel elation? Or at least a melancholy sense of resolution?

  Or have I become a robot? An emotionless thing created to do a job?

  Does the drone feel powerful when it bombs the refugee encampment? Does it yearn for the blood and the screams and the charred, twisted, dismembered limbs?

  Does the self-driving car ever fantasize about running over children, using its dashboard cameras to record their final terrifying seconds, eyes wide with fright as the bumper crushes skulls and the wheels crack ribs? Does it play back the recording with bursting pride and psychosexual satisfaction, relishing the joy of taking a life?

  The witch knew a lion enjoyed the kill. You could tell.

  She hoped a spider got satisfaction from trapping, and wrapping, and biting and sucking, as its prey struggled in trapped agony.

  But I am lesser than a spider.

  My mind has been so abused and corrupted that my nature is gone.

  Whole parts of me are gone. Flesh and bone replaced with titanium plates and screws patching my skull. The electrochemical interplay of synapses forming words and images augmented by a madman’s drugs.