II

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

“A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.”
— Maya Angelou

MGUMI VILLAGE
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

SPRING SNOW FLUTTERS DOWN from the bleak night sky around a stark building with red, faded metal siding. Large flood lights mounted across the roof shine down on the entire parking lot, guiding visitors to the front door.

The frost crunches under my boots to the oversized steel door. The sign bolted to it reads RUSTY NAIL, with the I replaced by a railroad spike. My hand grabs the handle and pulls it open.

A swell of bar noise pours over me and inside it smells like stale cigarettes and whisky. Some horrible twangy song plays from a vintage jukebox in the corner. There are a couple dozen faces spread out among the cheap tables and creaky chairs, mostly huddled together in groups of three or four. Some are inuits but most are white men wearing CORPUS ENERGY hats and coats.

Their eyes turn from their conversations and mugs of piss-colored beer to follow me to the bar. I find an empty stool away from the other patrons and sit down after unzipping my black down jacket and hanging it over the back.

I could have gone to the Dying Squirrel and not stuck out like a sore thumb but all that neon? Yuck. Besides, this is more of my kind of place. I may shop at Saks Fifth Avenue but my Prada doesn’t define me. Give me a rundown back alley dive bar with watered down drinks over a swanky upscale cocktail lounge with mixologists and sommeliers every time.

The air is a smokey nicotine haze, as nearly everyone here has a cigarette hanging from their lips, pinched between their fingers or resting in a nearby ashtray. I reach down into my jacket pocket and fish out my case and lighter.

“What are you doing,” the bartender says with a gruff voice over the music. A wad of snuff distorts the lower left side of his mouth.

I light a rolled cigarette, then say, “Waiting for you to take my order.”

“No smoking indoors,” he says while leaning on the bar.

I look around before turning back at him. “What about them?”

“They don’t count.”

I laugh and blow a stream of smoke. “And why don’t they count?”

“They work for Corpus Energy. Rules don’t apply to them.”

“And how do you know I don’t work for Corpus?”

His eyes lower down to my tits before rising back to my face. “You don’t fit the bill.”

“So you think I rode in a shitty helicopter for a hundred miles in inclement weather because I’m a tourist?”

“Don’t know,” he says, then spits tobacco into a glass half-filled with brown slurry. “Don’t care.”

“For your information,” I say while flicking ash into a nearby tray, “I’m here for the Lethal Trials, which last I checked, is mostly funded by Corpus. So as far as you’re concerned, yes, I fucking work for Corpus Energy. Now ask me what I want to drink.”

He stares at me for several seconds without blinking, then sighs. “I s’pose that’s good enough. You CULT people don’t usually come here. What do ya want?”

“Something hard and fast.”

“Oh, I got something perfect for ya,” he says with a jagged-tooth smile. He grabs a (probably not) clean glass and a bottle of vodka from some brand I’ve never heard of. He pours half a glass then sits the bottle down next to it.

“On the house. Sorry for the way I talked to ya.”

I tip my head to him then raise the glass in his honor. It feels like acid going down my throat and tastes just as bad, but it’ll do. The chilled gloom of this place reminds me of Chișinău, and I’d rather not think about that.

I finish the glass quickly and pour another myself. The atmosphere relaxes as the other patrons stop worrying about me and go back to their own business. I continue drinking, not really paying attention to how much, while chain smoking and checking twitter on my phone.

After a time, a big burly man with an unkempt beard and hair sticking out the sides of his trucker hat leans against the bar next to me. His gut bulges against his button-up shirt and hangs over his belt.

“Hey, darlin. Name’s Duke. Ain’t never seen someone like you here before. Hell, you’re bigger than most of the guys. In a good way, I mean.”

Shoot me now.

“Hey,” I say quietly. I don’t realize how drunk I am until I try to talk. “What’s happening?”

What’s happening? I’ve never uttered that phrase in my life.

He smells like beer and bad hygiene. “I made a bet about what your name is. I got $20 waiting for me if it’s Natasha.”

I burst out laughing and smack my hand on the bar. “Me? A Natasha?! Get the fuck out of here. Spend that $20 on a better pickup line, Duke.”

He storms off in anger while I take a selfie with my lips puckered. I text it to Marisol with the caption Wish you were here. Oh, how I do. All that hot Spanish blood would get so cold up here. She’d need someone to warm her up.

More time passes and I’ve had three glasses. I should be tipsy at this point, but it suddenly hits me that I am completely fucked up. The room is starting to smear every time I move my head. I need to get back to the condo. I think I can drive. It’s not like there’s Uber up here and I’m certainly not asking Duke for a ride.

I nearly fall getting off the stool, but eventually manage to get my coat on and shove my cigarettes and lighter back in my pocket. I stumble a little before finding my stride. The bartender waves at me and wishes me a good night before my shoulder pushes against the door and I step out into the freezing night.

The car key drops from my hand. I reach down to pick it up and feel like I might vomit. Get your shit together, Yelena. I smack myself in the face then stand and start walking. I press the keyfob. I see the brake lights of my rental flash maybe 20 meters ahead. I trudge forward. My legs feel like rubber. My heart is pounding in my ears. I take another step and slip. My weight crashes down on the icy ground and I’m staring up at the desolate sky. The last thing I see is Duke and the bartender standing over me before my eyelids fall like curtains and everything goes black.

I WAKE UP SURROUNDED by darkness, everywhere and nowhere, all at once and not at all. It’s a moment that stretches in all directions indefinitely. A shadowland without definition. A void without beginning or end.

I call out, “Hello?”

“Over here, kiddo,” a voice like mine says, followed by a loud clack, like a large switch being flipped. I turn around. A large circle of light is beaming down onto a simple booth with FORTUNE TELLER printed across the top in bright, bold letters.

Sitting on the other side like Lucy from Peanuts, is the Other Me. She’s dressed like a gypsy with beaded charms hanging down over her face, hiding most of her features. But not that smile. Never is that hideous, beautiful grin completely concealed.

“This is quite the pickle,” she says as her hands move around a crystal ball swirling with fog. “How could you be so stupid?”

“I… don’t know. Where are we?” I look down at my clothes. A winter jacket, jeans and boots, all covered in dirty, slushy ice.

“We’re at my place, where I live, where I’m in charge.”

I look around and then say to her, “You live here?”

“Don’t judge,” she says, flashing perfect teeth. “We’re in your head, after all.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” I say nervously while sitting up. A pain suddenly bolts through my head, like lightning frying the electrical pathways of my nervous system. In concert, the light overhead flickers and buzzes.

“You’re right,” she says with a little smile. “You shouldn’t be here, but you fucked up. You got roofied like some naive college girl at a frat party.”

Images flash in my head. A bartender. A liquor bottle. An overweight truck driver. Then I’m lying on the freezing ground and they’re standing over me.

“Bingo,” she says before snapping her fingers.

An image forms in the crystal ball, a fish-eye view of me, unconscious in the backseat of a pickup truck. Duke is behind the wheel and the bartender is in the passenger seat. Both men are silent but I can see the bartender’s arm is over the console and his hand in Duke’s lap, moving back and forth…

The image fades away into a purple misty hue.

“Fuck me,” I say.

“That’s their plan,” she quips.

My hands clench into fists, my nails digging into my palms. All of this is spinning out of control. I feel queasy, like I might throw up all over the shag carpet.

That’s when she stands to reach over the table and smacks me across the face. Hard. Then she grabs me by the hair and bends my neck until I’m forced to look up at her.

“Here’s the truth, sugar. We gotta get out of here. I didn’t sign up to be just another statistic. We got plans. Wherever you go, I go. So get your shit together. We’re fucking getting out of here.”

I grab her wrists and stand, shoving her back two steps. She yanks her hands free and says while wringing them out, “That’s more like it, buttercup.”

“Fuck you,” I say sharply. “Now wake us up.”

“It won’t be easy,” she says with a half-smile. “They dosed you good. I can’t just snap my fingers and pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“So we have to wait for it to wear off…”

She shakes a finger with a tsk-tsk. “I didn’t say it was impossible. I said it won’t be easy. Or, more accurately, painless. Fasten your seatbelt, chief. It’s about to get bumpy.”

She lunges at me. Her hands wrap around the sides of my face with fingers long and thin like spider legs. She squeezes with great strength. The pads of her digits dig into my skin and then, like hookworms, burrow underneath.

My hands reach for hers, but I don’t stop her. I hang on as the pain builds and builds. I scream before I even know why, before I can even understand the absolutely agony rushing into my head. It’s like all the blood in my body is forcing its way into my head all at once.

SCREAMING…screaming like an animal being BUTCHERED ALIVE…It tears at my throat and the TASTE OF METAL fills MY MOUTH…

MY TEETH…GRINDING TOGETHER LIKE SAW BLADES…

MY EARS…RINGING…LIKE A THOUSAND DISSONANT CHURCH BELLS CLANGING OUT OF TIME, CUTTING INTO MY BRAIN WITH JAGGED PRONGS…

MY EYES…PRESSURE BUILDING…BULGING…CAPILLARIES BURST…RELEASING TENDRILS OF BLOOD LIKE DROPS OF INK SPREADING IN WATER…

FOCUS ON HER FACE…THROUGH RED FILM…GRINNING LIKE A HYENA…LAUGHING OVER MY SHRIEKS…SHE IS MY ANCHOR…MY SAVIOR…

I WAKE UP IN THE back of the pickup and immediately vomit. “Oh shit,” the bartender squawks from the front of the cab. I play possum, letting the liquor and bile drain out of my mouth and down my chin like an overdosed addict.

“What is it,” Duke says.

“She’s pukin’, man.”

The driver’s seat groans from movement.

“Shit, it’s mostly liquid anyway. It’ll clean right out.”

“But what if she starts chokin’?”

More seat noise, then:

“She’s on her side. Practically dead anyway so stop fucking worrying. We’re almost there.”

The rumble of the engine and road noise disappears under the next song on the radio—Slow Hand by Conway Twitty. Someone cranks the volume and one of them, I can’t tell which, starts belting out the lyrics. I use the song to keep track of time. At the start of the first chorus, the truck slows and the turn signal makes a click-clack-click-clack sound before we make a hard left. The tires leave the smooth hum of asphalt for a crunching grind of frozen gravel.

By the end of the song the truck comes to a sudden stop. The engine cuts off, followed by the radio, and doors open on both sides of the front seat. The vehicle rocks under the shifting weight of the two men stepping out, then the doors slam shut. Almost immediately, the door by my head opens and two hands grab under my arms and pull me from the cab. He nearly drops me as my lower half slides off the seat until the other one gets a hold of my legs. I hear the door shut as I’m jostled around awkwardly, then they start carrying me through the bitter cold like roadkill.

I take a peek and see the overhang of a porch and the facade of a derelict cabin with blacked out windows. Duke, above my head, puts my upper half down on the bone-chilling deck as he turns his attention to the front door. He struggles with a stuck lock, but eventually gets it forced open, then picks me back up.

It’s warmer inside, but not by much, and it smells like cat piss. The bartender says, “Jesus, Duke. You need to get a fucking maid. And an exterminator.”

A foot stomps on the ground, followed by a crunch.

“Nah, I’m barely here anyway. Besides, I didn’t see you volunteering your shitbox. C’mon to the bedroom.”

I get flung onto a cheap mattress on the floor and left there as their voices trail away.

“It’s cold, man,” the bartender says. “My dicks all shriveled.”

“I’ll build a fire, you pussy.”

My eyes peel open. Above me is a water-damaged ceiling and a yellowed light screwed into a fixture hanging down by the electrical wiring. I lift my head slightly, just enough to stare down the length of my body and past my boots toward the open door. On the far end of the next room Duke is hunched in front of a fireplace arranging logs while the bartender drinks straight from a whisky bottle. How romantic.

“Pssst.”

I look over to see the Other Me lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows next to me on the ratty mattress. She’s back to her usual self—stringy, dirty hair; runny mascara around black discs for eyes; blood-red lips contorted into a menacing Cheshire grin.

“Are you ready, Freddy?”

The anticipation is always the best part. I give a little nod and she rolls over on me, or rather through me, as our bodies melt into one another.

I become we.

Our hands reach into the air. Fingers long and knotted, like gnarled branches of a dying tree, each tipped with nails perfect for digging into flesh. But we don’t sit up. No, not yet. Why rush the proceedings? Let’s savor the moment.

Movement in the other room makes us lay flat and close our eyes to narrow slits. Boots come clomping into the room on squeaking floorboards, followed by the sound of clothing being removed and buckles unclasping.

“I ain’t ever been with a girl bigger than me before,” we hear the bartender say before his weight sinks into the mattress next to us.

“Not enough women up here,” Duke says. “The ones we got are all dykes and eskimos. Been a long time I fucked someone prettier than you.”

Duke spits in his hand before the bartender leans over our body. His horrible breath wafts over our face as he leans to kiss the otherside of our neck. Our eyes open all the way. His hand fumbles to lower the zipper of our jacket. The poor guy’s got the nervous shakes.

“Be careful,” we whisper into his ear. “You don’t wanna blow your load already.”

He freaks out and tries to get away, but our arms lock around him. “Duke! Duke! She’s awa—”

Our teeth sink into the meat of his cheek and bite down. Blood sprays across our face, the mattress, and our two thousand dollar Moncler jacket. He squirms free and falls backward with a gaping wound in the lower left of his face.

As Duke fumbles to get his pants up, we rise, covered in gore, and spit the hunk of cheek flesh at him. He looks down at the jiggly piece of meat land at his feet and then his eyes, full of panic, lift to meet ours.

“You dumb bitch,” Duke yells at us. “You should have just let it happen. Now I’m gonna kill ya, then fuck ya.”

Laughter spills out of our mouth, doubling us over in a fit. We hold up a finger as our shoulders buck up and down with ribbons of blood dripping off our face. We wipe our sleeve across our mouth then yank the jacket off to toss aside.

Duke looks over at the bartender then back to us. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You…HAA…should…HEEEHEEE…RUN.”

His eyes go big.

The bartender sees his partner about to hightail it and begs him not to leave.

“I’m sorry, Tommy,” Duke says, not even looking at him, before turning around to flee. He might have made a chase of it if he went for the front door but instead his mind was on the rifle over the fireplace. We bounce off the mattress and run after him.

“Where’re you going? We just wanna cuddle!”

He gets to the fireplace and reaches to grab the gun off the mantle. It’s a long barrel Winchester. Not very useful in close quarters. We go for the heavy fire iron off the stand. When he turns around hoping to go all Annie Oakley on us, we bring the cast iron rod down onto his wrists. He howls in pain as the gun hits the floor and skitters off under the ratty couch.

“Aw, what’s wrong, Duke? Not so fun when you’re the one getting poked!”

We jam the poker of the fire iron into his hamstring. He falls to his knees and cries out with his hands wiggling uselessly in the air.

“Please,” he says, sniveling. “Have mercy.”

“Mercy,” we say with a distorted, stretched smile. “Your first mistake was thinking Yelena was just another sweet, down on her luck girl who walked into the wrong place at the wrong time. Your second mistake was thinking you’re the wolf in this story.”

He’s mewling like an injured animal caught in a snare. The heat from the fireplace is at his back, and the light halos around his silhouette. We use the iron for its intended purpose, moving the logs around to increase airflow and stoke the flames a little higher.

“Your third mistake,” we say as we step around him, “was starting this fire.”

We kick him hard in the chest and he tumbles backward, straight into the inferno with the back of his head crashing into the logs. His arms freak out trying to grab for something to pull himself out and the sound, oh the sound coming from his mouth makes beautiful music.

Our boot steps on his chest to shove him further into the flame. Not long after his screams choke out like the last whine of air leaving a balloon. Either the nerve endings have been destroyed or the fire has devoured all the oxygen and he’s suffocating. The room smells of burnt hair and sizzling meat.

“Is it barbeque season already?”

We reach down to feel his pockets and take the keys to the truck before turning to walk back to the honeymoon suite, letting the poker drag along the floor. It makes a grinding, uneven sound.

Inside the room, we act surprised to see the bartender lying on the floor, weak and pallid with blood seeping from his wound. I can see his teeth through the hole, between shredded muscle fiber and stringy ligaments.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Tommy was it? We completely forgot about you. Here, let us help you with that.”

With two hands we jam the fire iron point-first like a harpoon into his groin, just to the left, then yank it out. The femoral artery pumps blood through the hole in his jeans like a sprinkler. He only manages a squeal before the red spray turns into a trickle and he goes limp.

We drop the fire iron and walk over to pick up our jacket. Fishing in the inner pocket, we find our phone. After pushing a few locks of blood-clotted hair out of our face, we call Lucas Oilsman.

It’s late, but he answers.

“Hello,” he says in a tired voice.

“Lucas,” we say like Yelena.

“What’s wrong?”

“I met one of your employees tonight. Given you sign his checks, I figure it’s only right you come clean up the mess.”

“What mess? What employee?”

“His name’s Duke. He’s close personal friends with Tommy, the bartender at the Rusty Nail. That should be enough to find the cabin.”

“Yelena, I don’t under—”

We hang up and shove the phone in our pocket, then leave the cabin and climb into the truck. After putting it in gear, we turn around and start back up the drive-way while humming the melody to Twitty’s Slow Hand.

X.COM/SOLETITBEDONE

First an apology. Normally we’d talk in person but the truth is we’ve had quite the week. So no big production. No overpriced set. No cinema-quality cameras. And don’t get us started on the unions. Fire a Best Boy for false advertising because he’s actually a sixty-something electrician named Albert and you got a strike on your hands.

We’re a little surprised to already be in a title match. Not because we don’t deserve it. WE FUCKING DESERVE IT. EAT A DICK, JAX. But because we’ve grown a little accustomed to being criminally underappreciated.

YOU LIKE US. YOU REALLY LIKE US.

Let’s go down the list.

Sunshine Dragon. We already beat a pink dragon for a title and she had noticeably less padding. But hey, you’re a former TV champion. The real question is are you flame retardant? We’ll bring matches.

Corey Black gets another shot at the New World Championship. Luck him, this time he can fuck around outside the ring all he wants. We actually like Corey. His body art is like those Nat Geo zines that had cover to cover pictures of war crimes in Yemen. Hey, we read it for the articles!

Craig Cogan, King of the Fatty Liver. The man who has never met a hypodermic needle he didn’t like. The Idiot Savant of CULT—hold the savant. Here’s our advice. Everything you’re doing? Do less of it. It ain’t workin’, bucko.

Harvey Marxy. Glad to see you’ve taken a break from 600lbs Life to take a stab at professional wrestling. That’s mean. We don’t fat shame in this house. We already collected your neck once, but you got another three chins that’re ripe for the takin’. NO FAT SHAMING. Maybe instead of bodyslamming you we’ll drop you straight on your head, then plant some tomatoes or grapes to use you like trellis. We 100% approve of human composting.

And finally, Ms. Leary. Current champ. Hottest piece of Kansas ass since Dorothy went over the rainbow. Obsessed with Corey Black. Five title defenses under her belt. But darlin, you aren’t the only champ in this rodeo. We have two belts already, but what about three belts? Our perfect waist is oh-so-jealous of our shoulders lugging around all that silver. We know you’ll miss carrying the NWC around everywhere. Tell you what. You can come visit it whenever you want if you’re down for some explicitly nude photography.

Alright. That’s more than any of you deserve. Fucking die already and release your carbon footprint.