Whiskey

“Get your ass in gear, Chad,” Mark yelled from the rear of the Mustang. “We’re leaving in ten minutes!”

It didn’t matter how beat-up the outside looked or that the leather on the inside was peeling away to reveal the foam of the inner cushions. The fact remained that Mark was the only one with a vehicle and they had been planning this since the beginning of their senior year.

“I’m coming!” Chad shouted, stuffing an extra pair of boxers into his bag.

“You pack like a girl.” John smirked as he walked past Chad before he shouted, “Shotgun!”

“What? No!” Chad slammed his bag onto the mattress.

“Sorry, slowpoke,” Mark teased.

The three gathered around the trunk and cracked open a few beers as they watched the sun begin to set over the flat horizon of their small Illinois town.

“To senior trips,” they toasted in unison, then gulped down the piss-water in a can.

They mapped out the trip in fifth-period study hall, taking all year to plan the trip and working from a postcard Mark’s older brother had written to him about a bar he once visited in the middle of nowhere, Mexico. Jack called it a place where, “the women were cheaper than the beer.”

Mark was born and raised on a farm at the edge of town. No one in his family had ever gone anywhere except Mark’s brother, Jack, who joined the Army to get the hell out. Mark and his family hadn’t even pulled in enough profits from the year’s crops to go see his brother graduate from boot camp. Instead, they waited for weekly phone calls which eventually stretched into monthly postcards until they came to an abrupt stop in April.

The last postcard had been addressed only to Mark, telling him of the bar in Mexico. It didn’t take much to persuade the younger brother.

“You think we’ll … you know, get lucky?” John asked with a boyish grin, sneaking a look into the back seat.

Chad’s face flushed, matching the color of his hair.

“For sure, dude. Chad might even get to watch!”

The two guys laughed before Chad threw a bag of chips at them.

“Oh seriously, I didn’t realize I was traveling with a comedy troupe.”

John and Mark snickered and focused on the road leading out of town. They set out with the windows down and the music playing loud enough to vibrate through the seats, and Chad settled in, enjoying the warm breeze coming in through the open windows. He was surrounded by his best friends, and he was about to have an amazing adventure. Right now, life seemed pretty darn good.

SUNDAY: LAND OF THE LOST

“Uh …” Chad stuttered, trying to remember his Spanish vocabulary. “Donde … donde estoy …”

He was holding a map in one hand and pointing to it with the other as he shouted to the man with the brown skin. Standing opposite Chad in front of the store, the older man fixed Chad with a blank expression.

“C’mon Chad, for real?” Mark snickered behind him. “Four years of Spanish?”

“Shut up, dickhead,” Chad shouted. “I’m frickin’ Irish. That means I can’t dance, I drink like a fish, and I can’t speak Spanish.” He let out a frustrated sigh then went back to addressing the stoic face in front of him. “La …la … Shoot. Do you understand anything I’m sayin’?”

The old man took in a slow, deep breath then looked down at his hand. He was making small circles with it, swirling the murky liquid in a Styrofoam cup that looked to be as old as Mark’s car.

“If I did speak Spanish, I still wouldn’t know what you were saying,” the old man said. “I’m Native American, asshole.”

Mark and John exploded into laughter. Chad lifted his middle finger at them without bothering to look back at the two idiots.

“Great. That’s awesome. Dude, can you please tell me where this highway is?” He pointed to the map again.

“You passed it,” the old man said with a chuckle.

“Passed it? What? Where?”

“About two hundred miles ago.”

The guys stopped laughing and groaned. John kicked the tire in frustration.

“I thought you said you could read a map, John!” Mark gave his friend’s shoulder a rough shove.

Mark shoved him back and the two began to scuffle. Chad sighed and threw up his arms and let the two settle things the way they had since they were knee-high to a grasshopper and decided to investigate the snack section of the run-down store. He had to duck below a set of wind chimes that served as a makeshift doorbell, presumably there to alert a clerk who was nowhere to be found.

Inside, the air was hot and dry. Sticky and irritated, Chad wasn’t in the mood to deal with the two idiots rolling around outside swinging punches at one another. He decided to take his time and browse the shelves for something with an expiration date in the current decade. When it seemed his luck was running thin, he found his favorite candy bar and it looked brand-new compared to the rest of the stock. Well, it had the least amount of dust on it. Chad snatched it from the shelf and was headed toward the coolers when he slid on something and hit the floor.

“What the … !”

He tried to turn to his side and get up, but the more he attempted to free himself from whatever he was swimming in, the more he flopped around like a fish out of water.

Mark shoved the door open, slapping dust and dirt off his clothing. “Yo, Jackass! What’s the holdup?”

Chad writhed on the floor, grunting and sliding in a vain effort to regain his footing. Mark came around the aisle and looked down at him.

“Dude? What did you … ?”

Chad gazed up at him. Behind Mark, shadows filled the store—When did that happen? The nicotine-stained fluorescent bulbs and paper-covered windows cast a yellow pall on any light that managed to penetrate the shadows. An awful stench, like rotten meat, wafted from the back room. They stared at one another in silence.

“I swear to God that better not be shit I fell into,” Chad said, bringing his hand up to sniff it. But the look on Mark’s face caused him to freeze. “What?”

Chad finally managed to get to his feet. The light above them flickered off, then on again. He looked down, barely able to make out the brownish-red stickiness that coated his arms and shirt.

“Mark?”

Neither waited for the answer. They ran back toward the entrance, knocking over a rack of stale chips on the way to the door. When the two reached the car, John was in the passenger seat still trying to make sense of the map. Chad threw open the passenger-side door and fell against him, knocking the cigarette he’d been smoking out of his mouth into his lap.

“Asshat!”

“Start the car!”

“That was my last ciga—”

John paused as he looked up, his eyes growing double their size when he saw his friend covered in congealing blood. He shoved himself away, forgetting about the bright cherry from the Marlboro burning a hole in his jeans. Mark hopped into the driver’s seat

“Drive the fuckin’ car, Mark!” Chad screamed.

John began patting at his lap as Mark threw the car into drive, peeling out of the parking lot.

MONDAY: HIGHWAY TO HELL

“It’s left,” Mark said.

“No, it’s a right,” Chad argued.

“Jesus, I can’t wait to be out of the car and away from you two,” John growled. “This better be worth it. And there better be a place to shower. You stink like ass-maggots, Chad!”

“Just turn right!” Chad yelled, shoving his back deeper into the seat. The slimy way his shirt slid across his skin made his stomach churn. A gurgling noise followed, letting him know it was time to find a bathroom. Soon.

It was late and the heat of the desert was getting to them. The air was dry and they were all tired, drunk, and a little high. Out of nowhere, a buzzing sign emblazoned against the dark sky like a neon sun flashed, “MOTEL” … Okay, it was missing letters and said “– O – EL.” But under the circumstances, that didn’t matter. That the motel was in the middle of nowhere, had one truck parked in the back, and looked like it was from another era didn’t matter, either. All they cared about was getting out of the car. A warm shower and a clean bed would be a nice bonus.

Mark was first out of the Mustang. When he pushed the door open it squeaked then let out the exaggerated groan of heavy, old metal. Chad opened the door and stretched his legs out one at a time, until the impatient John helped him the rest of the way with a shove to his back.

“Jesus, ass-maggot!”

Great. The nickname stuck. Like his shirt.

“Whatever.”

Chad couldn’t wait to get into the shower. His shirt was clinging … no, it was crawling along his skin and he wanted it off. He could smell his own armpits. He was pretty sure his shoes had somehow grown onto his feet, and he didn’t want to think about what he’d contracted from the blood on the convenience store floor.

“Not that this place looks much better,” he whispered to himself, staring at the dust-covered glass door that read “OFFICE.”

Something ran cold inside him, but he ignored it. His grandfather always told him to listen to his inner voice, but tonight he had two voices. One was telling him not to go in. The other told him to take a shower. The latter voice was screaming, so it won. He shoved the door open and strode to the front desk.

The waiting room smelled of stale cigarettes and pine cleaner.

“Hey, there.”

The guy behind the counter was wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt that was once white and a pair of polyester brown shorts. My night just keeps getting better, Chad thought.

“Hellooo,” Chad said again. When the man didn’t answer, he dinged the desktop bell.

The clerk turned, and Chad almost took a step back. The man had one good eye behind coke-bottle thick glasses, and the other was hazed over from glaucoma. Chad’s flesh crawled and his throat constricted.

“The Hell you want, Townie?” the clerk barked.

“A r-room, please,” Chad stammered.

“Cash only,” the clerk replied, before leaning over and using his good eye to gaze past Chad to Mark and John wrestling in the parking lot. “Y’all into that boy n’ boy shit?”

“What?” Chad’s eyes widened with surprise and the color drained from his face. “No, sir!”

“We don’t have none of that stuff goin’ on here, ya’hear me!” The clerk shouted.

He leaned over the counter, pointing a nicotine-stained finger into Chad’s face, clearly wired up about what he perceived as foreplay in the parking lot. His bushy brows rose back on his forehead, forcing his eyes to bulge, and his toothless mouth pursed, spitting nasty yellow phlegm on Chad’s already abused shirt, causing his Irish blood to boil. He worked hard to keep calm, but the color was returning to his cheeks.

“Sir! Can I have my dang room?” Chad reached into his pocket and slapped a wad of crumpled cash on the counter.

The old clerk stopped ranting and looked down at the money. He extended an arthritic finger and fondled the edge before sliding it toward himself. Is the money slimy, too? Chad wondered. With a shrug, the clerk shoved it into his pocket before he turned and pulled a key off the pegboard. Chad couldn’t help but notice the hump on his back before “Igor” turned and placed the key on the counter.

“Checkout is at eleven. Don’t be late.”

Chad snatched the key and left, muttering under his breath. He stomped down the walkway, scanning the numbers on the doors, not bothering to call out to the knuckleheads still playing around in the parking lot. He was done babysitting for one night. This was turning into a disaster and for once, he missed his stupid hometown and his stupid bed he’d had since he was ten.

“Hey! Wait up!”

He was always waiting up. He was done. He was going to shower. Get some rest. Then, in the morning, he was going to pull out the map. He was going to get them to the border, find that stupid bar, have some drinks, and find a hot woman. For once, something in his life was going to go right.

Chad stopped in front of room 1301. Finally, he thought. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was the smell hit that him first.

What the hell is it with the odors in this town?

He was so tired he almost didn’t care, but just to be sure there wasn’t some dead animal or bird locked in the room he flicked on the light.

Nothing.

From behind, Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Idiot tumbled in, almost knocking him over. “Oh my God, dude. Ugh!”

“Did you crop-dust the room?”

“Shut up,” Chad said, dropping his duffel bag and walking toward the bathroom.

The two shrugged and snickered, flopping into the chairs by the table next to the window. Mark turned on the television and tossed a can of beer to John.

Chad turned on the shower and looked in the mirror. He was filthy. The blood—or whatever it was—he had slipped into at the convenience store was dry and crusted all over his hair, his back, and his shirt. His arms were coated in it, as were his jeans and shoes, and he smelled. It reminded him of the year their farm’s old Frigidaire blinked out just after winter and the meat went bad. The blood jellied and stunk the whole barn up. His dad had forced him to go out there with him and his Grandpop to clean up the mess. Chad had complained until he saw the maggots, at which point he threw up hard enough he thought his shoes were going to come up from his butthole and shoot shoestrings through his nose.

At the time, Chad thought he would never forget that smell. Then he had, until today.

He felt his hands shaking and his lips trembling. He closed his eyes and tried to drown out his friends’ laughter in the other room. It amazed him that something as simple as a road trip changed the dynamics of a friendship. Morons, he thought with a sigh.

Turning the sink faucet to cold, he began washing off the muck caking his face. The cool water felt good against the heat beneath his skin. Overwhelmed by a sudden urge to get clean, he grabbed the soap and lathered, even using his nails to scratch at the scales of whatever still clung to him. A thump rang out from the bedroom.

“Damn, guys, you’re gonna get us kicked out! Keep it down!”

Chad lowered his head, ignoring the voices from the other side of the door. He rinsed the water off, but soap got into his eye and started to burn.

“Ow, dang it!”

He reached for a towel, pressed it against his face, and sat on the toilet while the sting in his eyes subsided. More thumping from the other room. Chad squinted enough to get an eye on the door. I just want a shower, he thought. If I get a shower, I’ll be me again.

He tossed the towel onto the sink, cranked the running shower to hot, then peeled off his clothes, heaping them into the corner. His socks were soaked through. As he sat on the toilet lid waiting for the bathroom to steam up, he stared at his shoes and sighed. He’d have to buy new ones before going anywhere tomorrow night.

He stepped into the shower, letting the water flow over his body and pressing his brow on the tile. He was mentally and physically exhausted. He hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours. His brain felt like it was floating in a fishbowl. He closed his eyes to savor the moment and almost fell asleep standing.

Chad jolted awake. Chuckling to himself, he pressed his palms against the tiles and was looking at his feet when he noticed the water had turned a dark red. Something was floating up from the drain.

“What the—!”

He kicked at it and stepped back. Slipping, he pulled the shower curtain and rod down in a loud crash. Tangled in the plastic, he felt whatever hairy thing in the tub wrapping around his leg.

“Oh God, what … what is that?” he yelled, sliding and struggling to break free of the shower curtain. “Mark! … Jesus … JOHN! Jeeesus!”

He had managed to unravel the curtain and kick free from the wet, hair “thing” that had been clinging to him—Had it come up from the drain?—when he heard banging on the door of their motel room. He leapt from the shower, nearly tumbling onto the bathroom floor.

“Hello! Are you all right?” The voice coming from outside was unfamiliar, and female.

“Hey assholes,” he called to his friends. “Can you see who’s at the door?”

When they made no reply, Chad threw a towel around his trembling body and shambled out of the bathroom. He pulled the bathroom door shut and double-checked it, just to be certain that whatever thing was in there would stay in there. When he turned around, he saw that John and Mark were nowhere to be found. Sonova …

He crossed the room, dripping all over the carpet, and pulled open the door to find a woman standing there, sunlight silhouetting her slight frame. She was tiny, five-foot-nothing, if that, and had dark hair with strange, reddish-brown eyes. Her tight-knit brow conveyed something—concern, maybe, or annoyance? He stood muted, gaping at her.

“You were making a lot of noise. You okay in there?”

“Yes, sorry. I … there was something in the drain,” Chad said, wondering where his jackass friends got off to and simultaneously trying not to sound like an idiot. It wasn’t working too well.

Her face changed. The look of annoyance softened, and she gazed at him with appreciation, drinking in his half-nude, freshly soaked body wrapped in a white hotel towel. It didn’t leave much to the imagination. Not that anyone would need much of an imagination—the towel was threadbare.

A sudden wave of bashfulness overcame Chad, causing him to pull the door back to conceal himself. Clearly, she found this amusing.

“So’s there’s this bar up the road we go to all the time. It ain’t much but y’know it’s the local watering hole. Sometimes the jukebox works, and sometimes when Billy ain’t too drunk he might play a lil’ something live.” She smiled wide and hopeful. “Think you might wanna come out?”

“A bar?” He wanted to laugh like a madman. If they weren’t going to make it to Mexico tonight, they might as well have some fun right here in bumblefuck U.S.A. “Well, yeah, let me find my friends and see if they …”

“I already sent them along.” She smiled like the Grinch from the Dr. Seuss books.

Outwardly, Chad shrugged. Inwardly, he fumed.

“Meet’ya up there in a bit?”

“Sure. Just gotta put some clothes on.”

She let her eyes roam over his body, then met his gaze.

“Don’t forget, down the road, that way.” She pointed then waved, adding a little bounce in her step as she turned and sashayed off.

Chad closed the door and cursed under his breath. Figures! Idiots left me here and didn’t say a word. Always doing dumb things, and I have to clean up the mess. Now, I have to go find them and walk down a dark road in the heat …

He stopped, took a breath, and tried to get a grip. Sleep deprivation was getting to him, and he had to keep himself together. In the commotion with the woman, he realized he had momentarily lost interest in the “creature” in the tub. He tiptoed back and carefully opened the bathroom door, catching glimpse of his comb on the counter. The wet strands of hair brought the trauma back.

“Well now I know what that smell was, sort of.”

Reaching in as far as he could without letting his body cross the threshold, he snatched the comb off the sink. The shower was still running. Fuck it. Kneeling, he grabbed his shoes. They were still filthy, so he used his towel to clean them. He quickly got dressed.

A quick glance in the mirror and he shrugged. It was good enough.

THIS AIN’T NO DISCO

A faded sign swung back and forth, the weight of it against the rusted chains singing out in protest. It read “Whiskey and Bullets Saloon” in faded, old-western lettering. What once looked to be a local favorite now appeared to be a ghost of its former self … until, he thought, the sun went down.

Chad’s legs screamed in protest from the long walk, but he was determined not to let his friends have all the fun, especially not after the abuse they had doled out to him on this trip. The music was live tonight, just like the woman said. Whoever Billy was, he wasn’t too drunk to play. Ignoring the blisters on his feet, he gave Bartles and James a nod and went in.

The stench of stale beer and smoke assaulted his senses, and he laughed. Best thing I’ve smelled so far.

He meandered through the empty tables, trying to locate Mark and John in the darkened room in spite of a strobe light that strained his eyes. The amplifier scratched and buzzed, like humidity had gotten into it, and the music belched from it, loud and distorted.

“This better be worth it.”

Stumbling past a few more chairs, Chad found a door leading to a back room. He held the heel of his palm to his head, needing a minute to collect himself. Hoping it was quiet in there, he took a chance and went in. Good news—no strobe light. Bad news, it was darker. A single dull, red light in the corner proved no match for the flashing light from the other room, still pulsing on the back of his eyelids.

He tried squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds to allow them to adjust, but it just made opening them that much harder. After a few moments, feeling unconsciousness taking him, he gave in to it. “Just a few minutes … ”

He wasn’t sure how long he was out before the shotgun went off—the first time. His own screams pulled him from the depths of the unconsciousness like rising from deep waters in the night. He had no sense of direction, no sense of where he was. He was out of his element.

Heart pounding, he fell to the rustic wood floor and sought whatever shelter he could find.

Okay, Okay…where am I? The sensation carried him back to when he was much younger, when he suffered from night terrors. Sometimes, he’d wake up in the next room. Sometimes, he’d wake up outside. It was more frightening when he’d awake to find himself out of the house or in the neighbor’s cornfield. As he got older, he learned to look to the sky and navigate back home. But tonight, there was no sky. Only blackness.

Close your eyes and listen.

More screaming, from below him. Below him?

“Help! Please! Someone help us!”

Jesus, that was Mark!

“Shut up, Townie,” a woman slurred.

There was a groan. A muffled groan and something else … something wet. Gurgling. The woman was humming now.

“Help! God, I know you hear us up there! Help me!”

“They ain’t gonna help you, idiot,” she said.

Mark began screaming again and another shotgun explosion sounded. Chad hid under a dusty couch, pressing his ear to the floor. The force of gun’s report made his ear ring with pain. For a moment he feared he’d gone deaf.

The momentary relief he felt as the sound came rushing back faded quickly into fear as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the cellar. He curled into a fetal position under the dust ruffle, trying to make himself as small as possible. Even in the darkness, he was terrified of being spotted. When the woman came into the room, a mop of blonde hair hanging haphazardly around her face, she was unsteady on her feet. He could make out the way her boots slid and scuffed with each step, dragging the muzzle of the shotgun behind her.

“Ella!” she shouted. “I thought you told that other one to come, too!”

“I did!” the other voice screeched from somewhere upstairs.

Ella must have been the dark-haired woman from the motel. Huddled on the floor, Chad was starting to put it together. He clenched his jaw to stop his clattering teeth.

When the blonde woman entered his line of sight, Chad realized his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the red light was coming from a lantern hanging outside. There were spaces in the planks wide enough to see in … and out.

He tried to keep the woman in his sights. She came around the bar. In one hand she held a bottle of whiskey, in the other, a shotgun. She wore a black leather vest and a pair of chaps. Squinting, Chad drew his brows closer together. Is she wearing pants underneath her chaps? What the hell?

She was bare-ass naked, not even the flap of material some girls called shorts, and drunk as a skunk. He could tell by the way she staggered to the side when she walked. How did his friends get taken by this woman? She was even holding the gun upside-down!

When she got to the door, she let out a soft curse and looked down at her bottle, then at the gun, and seemed truly at a crossroad. Should she put down the bottle, or her weapon to open the door? Without skipping a beat, she stuck the rifle between her thighs, squeezing them together to hold the gun in place, then pulled on the handle.

To her dismay, it didn’t open.

“Ellie!” she shouted up at the ceiling, again.

“What, Whiskey!”

“You bitch, you locked me in again!”

The blonde woman called Whiskey tugged and pulled on the door in such a fury, her rear end jumped and twitched and her hair flailed over her shoulders like a wild animal. She stumbled back and gave it a clumsy kick, opening it.

Chad had seen enough of this and in a slow, fluid motion, he stood. This bitch was dumb, slow, and drunk. His friends weren’t much higher on the food chain, but he was getting out of here, and in one piece. He tiptoed across the floor, careful of the loose boards reminiscent of his old farmhouse, and he was so close behind her, he could smell the high-proof alcohol permeating from her skin. He raised his arm, about to backhand her, when she turned slowly.

As she pivoted in his direction, he thought his world was turning into another. His own mind couldn’t comprehend what the fuck he was looking at. She was laughing at him. But it wasn’t her face. It was John’s face stretched over hers.

Chad backed up and Whiskey followed him, using her shotgun like an old stick horse. “Bang, bang!” she yelled out, pointing her fingers at him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!”

He tried to take more backward steps, but had run into something that stopped him. Afraid to turn, he stood there, wide-eyed, staring at Whiskey. He pressed his hands behind himself, feeling a flat surface. Looking up, he saw Ellie wink at him from the balcony before catching his neck in a loop of a rope and yanking him up and down.

“I caught me a piggie!” she sang out, then made a squealing noise.

Whiskey danced on her stick-horse shotgun and sang from behind her John-face mask. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a Townie, by the toe, if he hollers, let him … go?” She put her hand on her hip and laughed. “Hell no!”

“You’re crazy, bitch!” Chad spit out at her.

Whiskey’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits behind the eyeholes of her mask. “I am not a bitch,” she hissed. She galloped in a circle on her shotgun horse to face him.

“You ruined my game,” she hissed settling her gaze on him. “And you ruined my buzz.”

Pacing in frustration, she stopped and sighed. Whiskey weighed the exchange for a heated minute before she snatched off the mask of Chad’s friend’s face and flung it at the wall. The flesh clung to the wood then slid down like giant snail until it flopped on the floor.

“Fuck it.” She shrugged and grabbed a bottle of Jameson off a nearby table. “I guess I am a bitch.”

She smiled wide, pressing the bottle of amber liquid to her lips, tilting her head way back, guzzling. The heat burned her throat as the fire curled into her chest. She let out a howl and aimed the barrel at Chad, shooting him in the face, painting the walls with bone fragment. Chad’s body swung back and forth until Ella let go of the rope. He fell to the ground with a wet “thud,” twitching in a pile of his own shit and blood. Whiskey stomped her foot and shouted in triumph. She waved her hand in the air and did a little hip thrust to celebrate. When she finished her dance, she stepped closer to get a better look.

Whiskey was amused to see Chad’s body still twitching on the floor, making blood angels in the thick red pool. One of Chad’s eyes dangled out of the socket and rolled around in the mush of brain matter with each spasm. Whiskey leaned forward and poked it until it came loose.

When Chad’s body went still, she kneeled in the blood and bent over so her head leaned the same way as his and she could look at him, face to face. Well, sort of. More like face to half-missing face. His teeth were spread from ear to ear in a rictus, and when he released his last breath, his tongue slid out of his mouth with a soft squelching sound.

Bored now, Whiskey stood, wiped her hands clean on her thighs, and walked toward the door.

~~~

The sun was high. The sky met the sand in a golden wave of heat. Down the road, dust followed an approaching vehicle, which stopped in front of the saloon. The hound from the night before still lay in its spot. The two old men, known to the now-dead Chad as Bartles and James, were long gone, and a petite blonde woman sat rocking back and forth in a rocking chair. Her worn cowboy hat tipped low, covering her eyes. Most of her hair was pulled back in a single ponytail, and there was a hint of dried blood on the ends of the loose strands that framed her shadowed face.

The dark-skinned man—the same man Chad and his friends had spoken with outside the convenience store—exited the black and white vehicle marked, “Sheriff.” This time he was in uniform. In no particular hurry, he turned and reached back into the cruiser to grab something. When he stood again, he was holding his cowboy hat in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other. He kicked the door shut before he placed his hat on his head and approached Whiskey, stopping a few feet in front of her without a word.

Whiskey didn’t bother to look up when she greeted him.

“Mornin’ deputy.”

After a long moment—one that stretched as long as the dirt road leading across the Mexican border—a buzzing near her ear interrupted the silence. Whiskey raised her hand to swat the bouncing, lazy mosquito away.

“Mornin’ sheriff,” the deputy said before he spit into his cup. “Got a welfare check from the Townies. Three male teenagers.”

Whiskey smiled from under the brim of her hat before lifting her head. She leaned forward in her chair, then rose to her feet. The sun glimmered in her feral blue eyes and revealed a bloodstain on her cheek.

"Rough night?” The deputy asked, amused.

Whiskey stretched her arms over her head then twisted her back to release the tension in her stiff muscles. It had been a long night, after all. When she was done, she walked toward the vehicle with the old deputy in tow.

“Just another day in paradise, Chief.”