“Fan? Fan? I am not a fuckin’ fan. Me and Tiffany, we got something beautiful, see? She understands me. She loves me. And they know! They make sure at least once, in every damn film, she’s allowed to send a special message. Just for me. We’ve got this blood oath, see? Me and Tiffany, til the very fucking end. When I get to Tuscon, you’ll see. The ghouls better watch the fuck out because there’s nothing me and Tiff won’t be able to do when we finally meet!”
The cigarette in Tanny’s mouth had been forgotten and the ash seemed to defy gravity as it curled toward the ground. He could feel the night pressing in around him like a dark cloak and the realization of exactly how isolated they were out here struck him with an almost physical force. Far beyond fluttering, his stomach now churned the half-digested macaroni in raging seas of acid and bile stung the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and glanced down at the picture so he wouldn’t have to feel the heat of Owen’s stare burning into his soul.
“Yeah, look… kid, I understand. Really, I do. I mean, who wouldn’t fall for a sweet piece of ass like that?”
Owen sprung across the clearing before Tanny had a chance to regret the words that had blurted from his mouth. The larger man’s body crashed into his Tanny with the force of a boulder hurled by the gods. Tanny’s body flew backwards as Owen’s full weight crushed the air from his lungs and sent the cigarette tumbling from his mouth with a whoosh of air.
“You son of a bitch!”
Tanny’s fingers clawed at his attacker: grasping, scratching, pulling, and pummeling the man’s chest with hollow thuds. But Owen’s reach was too long and he had a handful of the little man’s red hair clutched in a death grip. He slammed Tanny’s head against the forest floor again and again; the ground that had seemed so soft when they were setting up camp now caused flashes of darkness to explode before Tanny’s eyes. The flashes grew in size and frequency with each burst of pain that radiated from the back of his skull.
“You don’t talk about her that way! No one talks about her that way!”
Owen looked more animal than human. As he screamed his lips seemed to shrivel back, revealing pink gums and teeth that were bared like a rabid wolf. His eyelids twitched and fluttered and the muscles in his neck were like twisted cords that had been pulled so tightly that they quivered beneath the strain. Even his voice seemed to rumble like the bastard child of words and a growl.
“Fuckin’ cock sucker! Piece of shit! She’s too damn good for you!”
Rings of darkness edged Tanny’s vision and everything not engulfed by the encroaching gloom seemed to waver like an out of focus film. He was vaguely aware of something warm and sticky oozing through his hair but the thump and squish of his head pounding against the ground almost seemed to recede with each repetition. In some distant, fuzzy patch of consciousness Tanny heard his own voice, like the echo of a dream:
I’m going to die….
Owen grabbed the man by both ears, twisting them like the grips on a motorcycle, and yanked Tanny up until they were so close that the spiced meat on his breath wafted over his companions face with each breath.
“You understand, you fuckin’ freak? She’s mine!”
Releasing one ear, Tanny drove a fist into Tanny’s face and his companion fell backward again as blood gushed from a lip that had split like an overripe tomato. And then Owen was scrambling up his body, his bony knees jabbing painfully into Tanny’s shoulder blades and pinning the man to the ground.
As if by magic, the cigarette butt appeared in Owen’s hand and he held it so close to Tanny’s eye that the heat wafting from its ember felt like a pinprick searing into his lid. Despite the tenuous grip Tanny held on consciousness, he instinctively tried to twist away, but Owen’s other hand pressed against the man’s forehead with the full weight of his body.
“You apologize, you little turd! You apologize right now!”
“I’m sorry.” Tanny croaked. “Dear God, I’m sorry okay?”
Owen inched the smoldering cigarette closer to Tanny eye.
“Not to me, dumb ass.” he sneered. “To her. Apologize to her!”
Owen jerked his head to the side, indicating the eight-by-ten that lay on the ground. Tanny tried to follow his attacker’s line of sight, but Owen still had his head pinned to the ground so tightly that he could barely move his neck. Instead, he glanced out of the corner of his eye and could barely make out the edges of the photo in his peripheral vision.
“I’m sorry… I… didn’t mean to insult you.”
Tanny felt some of the pressure ease from his head and the cigarette was pulled far enough away that the smoke no longer curled up into his stinging eyes. At the same time, waves of dizziness washed over him and it felt as if his head had turned into a balloon that had been rapidly inflated. When Owen spoke again, his voice was lower but still seemed to seethe with the promise of violence.
“I swear to God, if you ever… and I mean ever… talk about her like that again I will fuckin’ kill you. You understand? I will cut your balls off and shove ’em down your throat til you die.”
At this point, Tanny would have agreed to wearing a saddle and letting Owen ride him through the forest if it meant getting that crazy fucker of his chest.
“Yeah, yeah I understand., please let me go, I’m sorry, man… it won’t happen again, I promise.”
Owen flipped the cigarette into the woods and picked up the photo of Tiffany Shepis so gingerly that it almost seemed as if he half-expected it to turn to dust in his fingers. He stroked her cheek with the tip of one finger and the rage that had possessed him seemed to dissolve a little more with each loving caress.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, baby.”
He walked over to the little stone wall he’d built and placed the picture within its confines before lighting the tea candle and setting it in front of the photo. For a moment, Owen simply stood there and watched the glow of the candlelight flicker against the glossy surface of the photo. The rage had entirely disappeared and his face was now as serene as an altar boy contemplating the votives at mass. Laying down upon the ground, he curled up his knees into an almost fetal position and began whispering to the picture: his voice was nothing more than a soft murmur, the individual words lost in a rhythmic lull that was occasionally punctuated by a chuckle or sigh.
Tanny had scooted backwards until he was leaning against an old log and he watched Owen as if expecting the man to charge across the clearing at any moment. Every instinct in his body told him to run, to just scamper off into the forest and leave this little campsite far behind; but he was trembling so violently that he didn’t entirely trust his legs to support his own weight and the back of his head was throbbing like a heart trapped within a vise. Besides, what if that crazy son of a bitch saw him? What if he chased the little man through the woods and cornered him? Tanny’s hand scrambled across the forest floor until it felt the jagged edges of a rock and he quickly snatched it, holding it tightly to his chest as if it were a small animal that he had to protect.
I’ll bash his fucking brains out, I swear I will, he’s crazy, just let him try, I swear to God I’ll kill that fucked up nut-job….
But Owen seemed to have forgotten that he wasn’t alone within those woods. His eyes never strayed from the shrine he’d constructed. In fact, he seemed totally oblivious to everything around him: the chirping of insects, the rustling of underbrush as some hidden creature scurried through the darkness, and the distant call of a nocturnal bird that sounded as if it were whistling some secret all-clear signal. None of these things seemed to register at all.