It’s been a while since I’ve hit you with a thousand words, so I’m hoping you’ll find what you read to be worth the wait. With this installment, you’re introduced to a crate of gear that’ll connect many characters and play a major role in at least the first third of the book. I don’t expect it to make much sense out of context, but I’m free to answer questions in the comment box, should you have any.

As usual, I must prepare the faint-hearted for some naughty language. Sorry, reader. I just can’t seem to get these crazy kids to stop swearing.

Weapon X

And so we wait here in this warehouse for our nondescript visitors. Hot as a bastard in here. No windows. Gayle’s pacing like a cat in heat and we’re both hungry. I’ve got a blistering headache and could really use a Zolie. Gayle keeps checking her phone. We’re running short on time.

Twenty minutes later, the loading dock’s door trundles open. The bang-slide-grumble of it startles me just shy of an event in my, like, shorts.

“Jesus Hallowed Christ,” I bark. “Took you so long?”

A pair of tweakers in rashed-out clothes shuffle into the gray light of the warehouse. They’re carrying a small wooden crate between them. The crate boasts a pair of iron handles smashed into either side, I guess to facilitate its handling. They plop it down on the cement flooring, kicking up dust.

“So that’s, what?” I say. “The Arc of the Covenant?”

“Nevermind what it is,” says the tweaker on the right, and I notice for the first time she’s a chick. Her pale features are ravaged by steel rods and javelins of all sizes. Her lips pucker in a flash of soft pink.

“Money,” says the other. Simply.

I look up at him as I pat at my back pocket in search of the wad. “While you’re here…”

I trail off and they glare at me like I’m their sixth grade science teacher. “Got any Zoloft you might be willing to part with?”

They both titter, some inside joke I’ll never be privy to grasp. They say nothing. Male Tweaker makes a spoon of his hand and sets it in the space between us. I pass him the wad. The tweakers turn and make off toward the yellow outdoors.

“So what is it, then?” I call after them.

Male Tweaker wheels around and fires a threatening gesture with his fist. When I don’t react, lanky fucker charges me. He topples down on me so quickly I don’t have time to react. Gayle whimpers and rushes forward. Chick Tweaker intercepts her, getting a grip around Gayle’s throat with her forearm. I’m on my back on the cold concrete. Male Tweaker’s surprising weight bears down on me, but what I notice is the warm-soft touch of his package against my thigh. I wince. Bury my chin in my neck.

“You open that fucking box and I will personally end you,” MT hisses.

I squirm to set free my windpipe. “Personally?” I manage.

My attacker shifts and gains weight. I lose my air. Out of the corner of my eye, there’s movement. Not Gayle or Chick Tweaker. Something smaller. It wriggles from the Arc of the Apparently Unmentionable and skitters to the floor. My vision dims, but there I can see it. A rat. Small and white, but a rat.

MT eases off me just before I lose the light. I gasp. (“Fine! Shit!”) He stands. Offers a hand. I don’t accept, preferring instead to lay, catch my breath, and watch our environment’s puzzling new element. The rat stands on its hind legs and looks directly at me.

“You going to personally kill him, then?” I ask.

Gayle whimpers again.

Furrowing confusion, MT cranks his head to where I’m looking. Notices the rat. Scoffs.

“I mean, like, he’s burrowed where no man shall peep.”

“You don’t think he, uh, like…” Chick Tweaker says, still wrenching on Gayle’s neck.

“Fuck it,” Male Tweaker says. “We’re done here.” He waves to his woman. They make their way again toward the light.

I roll over on my side. Gayle stands like a VHS freeze frame, all jittery, her face distorted. And there’s our new friend the rat. He’s been inside the box. I’ve seen it. And now he geeks out on the floor in the fashion of a spiritualist. A furry little snake-handler, squeaking in tongues.

“Jesus, man,” I call to no one in particular, “that’s the most geeked-out rat I’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t open the box,” comes the voice. And then, barreling down is the darkness. The door snaps closed, snuffing out our little slice of the Savannah sky.

~~~

Gayle and I lay flat on opposite ends of the loading dock’s door. She’s found a racquetball, which she tosses again and again in the air over her face, always catching it in her palm with an echoic pock. Meanwhile, our new rat friend can’t seem to get enough of me. I’ve always had this, like, effect on animals, but this is borderline silly. Dude’s climbed all over me, performing everything affectionate short of humping my fingers, one by one. I’ve named him “Dude.”

Thusly distracted, we’re still managing a conversation of sorts, Gayle and I. The subject is one you might expect: At what point do we open the actual box?

“We should totally call it ‘Weapon X,’” Gayle suggests.

I roll to my side to have a look at her. Dude perches on the side of my head, licking at my earlobe. He twitters and peeps.

“You mean the item?” I’ve come to dubbing the contents of the Arc “the item,” given we have no idea what’s, like, contained therein.

Gayle nods.

“You assume it’s a weapon,” I say.

She shrugs, her shoulder blades sweeping the dusty floor.

When I ease back onto my back, I miss squishing Dude by an asshair. My new rat friend wriggles off for the moment, disappearing between a short stack of cardboard boxes. My stomach rumbles.

“Might as well call it ‘Wolverine,’ then,” I say.

Gayle takes interest with a play on her brow.

“That’s what they call Wolverine. You know. From the comics. The movies.”

“What’s what they call Wolverine?”

“Weapon X.”

“Psh.” The flame of her interest flickers out and she gets back to tossing the ball in the air.

I watch her for a while. Just long enough to see her miss the ball entirely and take a glancing blow to the haircut. She reaches for it, but it eludes her grasp and dribbles over the floor in my direction. It dies halfway between us, held up by a jagged place in the concrete.

With a roaring squeak, Dude appears from between the boxes and scampers out to the ball. As if trained for the circus, the rat settles in behind the ball and nuzzles it toward me. When he reaches me, I swear he looks like he wants me to pick it up. When I do, Dude squeals in obvious pleasure. He geeks out for a moment, then disappears into the crack again. With my eyes, I ask Gayle what the fuck. With her own eyes, Gayle says fuck if I know.

I toss the ball back to her. We wait.