And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 3-2

CHANDLER ALWAYS HAD the mystery spot to drive traffic and funnel money into local businesses, propping up an otherwise destitute town. Stubbins reminded me of what Chandler would have become if we hadn’t been so lucky for all those years—and what Chandler was turning into now that the allure of our biggest attraction had disappeared.

The roads into Stubbins were cracked and riddled with potholes. The businesses were mostly shuttered, with boarded windows housed in derelict buildings. Even with the sun out, there was a gray haze that covered the town as if all hope had drained from it. The whole town reeked of piteous desperation. Just like Adelaide.

Adelaide parked her car outside a rundown, ranch style house, more a shipping container than a house, and stepped out of the car. I followed as she walked toward the front door.

“Tommy ain’t very nice, and he definitely ain’t sweet, but I figure you wanna see Kim’s room before you start looking around and get a sense of her, so we gotta deal with him.”

“I don’t know what I should be doing, Adelaide,” I replied, and that was the truest statement I’ve said in a long list of recent truths, “but I guess that makes sense.”

I smelled the pungent odor of vodka before I stepped into the house. Every surface reeked of it, from the walls down to the carpet on the floor. Beer bottles and pizza boxes littered the ground. In the middle of the room a black and white TV blared onto the face of a fat, slovenly, unkempt pile of a person that only vaguely resembled what would happen if a human had mated with a container of Play-Doh.

“The hell have you been?” the amorphous blob slurred. “I’ve been hungry!”

“I was out, Tommy. You know I was out.”

Tommy wobbled to his feet and stomped over to Adelaide. “Does it look like I knew that?”

Without thinking about it, I sprang between Adelaide and Tommy in a puff of blue smoke. “Whoa now! Easy there, tiger.”

“Who the hell are you?” Tommy shouted, rushing me, completely unfazed by my powers.

I disappeared again and reappeared behind him. I grabbed his hair and slammed him into a wall. “I’m not here to fight you, but I can’t have you punching my friend here, can I?”

Tommy fell to the floor and I knelt on his stomach. “Can I?”

Tommy shook his head. “No . . . no.”

“Good, now sit down and shut up. You can last a little while longer without food.” I squeezed a layer of fat oozing out of his stained shirt. “Probably more like a year or so, huh?”

I stood up and kicked him in the stomach. I hadn’t needed my fighting skills for a while, but they were still there under the surface, and that was nice to know, especially if I ever got into a fight with whatever or whomever I was chasing.

*