Reckless

  ***

  Kevin went outside with Xena and James, his only thought at first being how much he wished he was back in the halls of his high school, his cute girlfriend Candi tucked under his arm, and his rugby buddies around him cracking jokes. Life pretty much sucked right now, in his estimation. Instead of enjoying his summer with his friends, he was out in the wilderness with two furry shit-machines and a bossy chick who’d taken over his girlfriend’s body telling him where to let them take a crap. If that assassin were here right now, he’d punch him in the face before shooting him, just for ruining the end of his junior year.

  Xena did her business and then came over, sitting directly in front of him. She seemed as if she were waiting for something.

  “What?” he asked, looking at her face. The battle scars there and on her chest, legs, back, and ears made her appear vicious. He knew she was a sweetheart, though. In the couple days they’d been together, she’d never so much as growled, even when nipped by James in play and stepped on a few times by him.

  Her tongue lolled out to the side as she panted.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  She whined once and dropped down into a prone position on her stomach and elbows, still staring up at him.

  “Roll over,” said Kevin, just for the hell of it.

  He never expected her to do it, but she flipped over once and then jumped to her feet before sitting back down on her haunches.

  “Down,” said Kevin, experimentally, his heart rate picking up.

  She lowered herself again.

  “Play dead.”

  She tilted her head.

  Kevin held up a finger in the shape of a gun, thinking maybe she’d do the trick with a prop.

  She immediately stopped panting and closed her mouth, standing up on all four legs and widening the space between them. A low growl came rumbling up from her chest as she watched his finger closely. The tail that had been swishing back and forth was sticking straight out in the back and raised a little.

  Kevin felt his heart go - ka thump - really hard behind his ribs before it started a new frantic rhythm, trying to manage the shot of adrenaline that had just entered his system.

  “Okaaaaay, doggie …” He lowered his hand very slowly and immediately stopped making it look like a gun. “I’m just going to step away, and you’re going to stay right there and not eat my face off …”

  As soon as his hand went down, the growling stopped and the panting started again. Kevin nearly pissed his pants when the sides of her mouth went up into a smile and she sat down.

  He wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it, but something in his crazy mind had to see if it was a fluke or not. He put his hand back into the shape of a pistol and lifted it up once more.

  The unholy cacophony of angry growls and barks that erupted from the white demon of death with teeth so big they couldn’t possibly fit in her mouth made him turn and run for his life.

  He raced through the trees blindly, leaves and limbs smacking him in the face. He prayed she wasn’t behind him and hoped beyond all hope that he would get to the house before she took him down by the achilles tendon.

  Holy shit! I’m going down! I’m gonna die by pit bull attack! With pain!

  “Get the gun! Get the gun!” he screamed, crashing through the branches and leaves he’d easily pushed aside earlier trying to find a safe place for the dogs to take a shit.

  He got within view of the cabin and saw everyone standing out on the porch, all of them innocent to the tragedy unfolding. He waved his arms frantically. “Run! Run! Get back in the house! The dog’s gone crazy! Shoot her! Shoot her!”

  His pace only slowed when he noticed Candi laughing and pointing at something behind him.

  When Sarah bent over double in hysterics, he stopped completely.

  “What the fuck, man?!” he shouted, barely able to breathe, his heart was pounding so fast. He rested his hands on his hips as he gulped in huge volumes of air, looking from them to the spot where was certain he’d see death on four legs, ten boob bags hanging down to the ground between them just to mock him with their seeming innocence.

  Even Jonathan was smiling now. “I can see why you’d want us to shoot her. She does look terrifying.”

  Kevin spun around completely. The stupid dog was behind him on her back, lying on the ground with her legs up in the air, curving her stupid baggy-boobed torso into the shape of a comma and pawing at the air.

  Basically, she was begging for a tummy scratch.

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Xena, come on! You just tried to kill me, you asshole.”

  Candi guffawed even louder at that. “You can’t … ha-ha-ha … you can’t …” Her breath was coming in gasps. “You can’t call … ha-ha-ha-ha … Xena an asshole!” She collapsed with Sarah onto the porch floor, and Xena jumped up, running over to join them with her tail wagging like mad the whole time.

  Kevin shook his head. “That fucking dog was going to kill me, I swear to God.”

  “What did you do to make her want to kill you?” asked Jonathan.

  “I pointed a finger gun at her.”

  “What’s a finger gun?” he asked innocently, making Kevin feel even more like an idiot.

  The girls were busy laughing, and Jonathan was standing there waiting for a stupid explanation that made no sense. The combined effect equaled a level of humiliation that caused Kevin to blow a gasket and lose all control of his common sense.

  “You want to know what a finger gun is, Jon?!” he yelled. “I’ll show ya! This is a finger gun!” He held up his finger and thumb. “Hey! Xena! Check this out!” He jacked his fingers back three times, pretending like he was actually shooting it, yelling the sound effects. “Pop! Pop! Pop!”

  And then he screamed like a girl on fire when the dog spun around and came for him, snarling.

  ***

  Candi went instantly sober when she saw Xena take off after her totally stupid boyfriend. She acted on instinct more than anything else, yelling, “Xena! No! Heel!”

  The dog skidded to a stop in the dirt just feet away from Kevin, its legs splayed out for balance. Her sides heaved with the deep breaths and growls that were still coming out of her low-slung jaw.

  “Come! Heel!” yelled Candi, desperately trying to put as much authority into her commands as possible.

  Xena stared at Kevin for two more seconds before turning and jogging back to Candi, stopping at her right leg. She turned to face the same direction as Candi, sitting down on her haunches with her head held high and proud.

  “Daaaaaaang,” said Sarah, backing up a couple steps to stand behind Jonathan. “That dog is scary obedient.”

  “Or just fucking scary!” screamed Kevin. He hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time. He just stood in place as if frozen.

  “Well, I guess it’s safe to say she’s not a fan of the finger gun,” said Jonathan.

  “I’d hate to see what she’d do if you pointed a real gun at her,” said Candi, bending down to pet her behind the ears. “Good girl to come and heel. Good girl. Please don’t eat my stupid boyfriend, even if he does point little boy finger guns in your face. He shouldn’t have to die for being a fool.”

  “Hey! How about a little understanding over here! I almost died, you know. With pain.”

  “You probably would have sustained a pretty serious injury, but I’m not sure you would have died,” said Jonathan, going down the stairs to join Kevin in the yard. “I think you’d better call her to you and make peace, though. I don’t want there to be any bad vibes with her and you out here. She’s a pretty powerful canine. If she decides to lock those jaws on someone I’m not sure how we’d get her to open them without hurting her.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Kevin bent down on one knee, putting his hands up in the air in front of him with fingers splayed, making it perfectly clear they weren’t shaped like guns anymore. “Come here, Xena.”

  Candi nudged Xena with her knee, and the dog obeyed, ambling d
own the stairs and trotting over to join Kevin. Candi was seriously impressed with Kevin’s nerve. He didn’t look nearly as afraid as she would have been in his shoes.

  “Sit,” he said, when she got close.

  She sat down, panting with her tongue out.

  Kevin leaned forward and patted her on the head. “Good girl. Good girl to attack guys with guns.”

  Candi smiled, really glad Kevin got the situation so clearly and wasn’t holding what Xena had done against her. Especially since she was like a gift from the heavens. Somehow they’d managed to get not only a free dog, but one that had come complete with the instinct or training to attack a guy with a weapon pointed at her. Candi didn’t know if she had it in herself to train a dog to do that, but she sure wasn’t going to disregard its value. She laughed as she watched Xena roll over onto her back begging for a scratching, and Kevin trying to comply without actually touching any of her boobs. No matter where he put his hand, there was another one in the way.

  “Man, when are these things gonna dry up and go away?” His hand kept popping up and moving out of the way as she wiggled around.

  “They’re already smaller than they were,” said Sarah, going down to join Kevin.

  “Coulda fooled me,” he said, standing up and rubbing his hands off on his new jeans. “So, pancakes? I hope?”

  Candi waved him in. “Yes, I have pancakes for you, but they’re probably cold by now.”

  Kevin jogged over and took the stairs two at a time. “Just show me to the stack, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  They went inside, and Candi watched him descend on the plate of pancakes, practically inhaling them, stopping only to add more syrup and take gulps of water from a nearby bottle.

  “Just seeing him eat makes me sick to my stomach,” said Sarah from the doorway.

  “Don’t watch,” said Jonathan. “Come with me to find some firewood.”

  “Firewood?” Sarah said, following him back out the door. “What do we need firewood for? It’s summertime.”

  “Just humor me, would you?”

  Candi listened to their voices fading off in the distance, no longer able to hear what they were saying.

  “These … are awesome,” said Kevin, waving his fork at the dogs who were sitting just at his feet, hoping he’d drop something. “No! No pancakes for dogs. I’m eating every last crumb. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to kill me, I might have given you a bite, but no deal now.”

  “Don’t be mean. She was being a good girl today.” Candi bent down and rubbed both dogs’ heads. Then she stood and put more dry dog food in the two bowls that were on the floor. “Here you go, Xena and James. Doggy pancakes. Get ‘em while they’re hot.”

  The dogs happily complied, not seeming to care that they were getting kibble and not the sugary sweetness that was filling Kevin’s bottomless pit of a stomach.

  “Girl, all I can say is you can cook. Even my mom can’t do these.”

  “I just used pancake mix; don’t get too excited.”

  “Whatever. It’s better than the restaurant. I could eat another stack.” He gave her the look he knew had powerful heart-melting properties.

  “Don’t look at me like that. If I make you another one, there won’t be any for another day.”

  “Fine,” he said, dropping the sexy eyes. “Got any eggs? Sausage?”

  “Now you’re just fantasizing out loud. You know we don’t have any of that stuff. We have to go to a real grocery store. Maybe we can do a run today.”

  “I was thinking about that. I couldn’t decide if we should risk doing a bunch of stuff all at once right away like grocery shopping, Internet search, and all that … or wait and do a bunch of stuff like a week from now, or just do little things here and there.”

  “I know. I was trying to figure that out, too. I’m so worried a cop is going to check the license plates of the car and find out it’s stolen. If that happens, any of us in the car will be done. Like arrested and then killed … dead. We can’t risk that. But we can’t stay out here without fresh food, so at some point we have to go in.”

  “The solution is to have a car or vehicle that isn’t stolen.”

  “Yeah,” said Candi, bitterly. “All we need is another ten thousand dollars so we can buy one, and we’ll be all set.”

  “We don’t need that much. Maybe a grand.”

  “A car that’s worth a grand isn’t going to run.”

  “Maybe not a car, but a motorcycle or even a scooter would.”

  Candi thought about that for a minute before responding. “Jonathan has a scooter at home, and he uses it to go everywhere. It gets great gas mileage, too.”

  “Exactly. And we don’t all need to go places together - just one at a time to the store and stuff. And we have that duffle bag, so we could put groceries in it, no problem. A trunk is just optional.”

  Candi smiled, walking over and hugging Kevin hard before letting him go. “I think you just came up with the perfect solution. Low expense, only one person is seen at a time, and it can get in and out of places that cars can’t.”

  He reached over and smacked her butt before taking his last bite of pancakes, talking the whole time. “Which would come in handy if we were being chased by a dude in a car.”

  “How much money do we have left?” Candi asked, unable to remember what they’d spent.

  “Not sure.” He put his fork down, using his fingers to calculate. “Hmmm … let’s see … we paid fifteen hundred for the cabin, so that dropped us to eighty-five hundred. We’ve spent about three hundred more on clothes and our food run. Maybe another fifty on other food. That leaves … what? Eighty-one fifty or so?”

  “Ha, I can’t do math in my head like that. But I think no matter what, we could spare a thousand for transportation. The question is, what do we do about driver licenses and stuff like that?”

  “Pray we don’t get pulled over. And if we do, refuse to give our names until after the trial is over. We’ll either get a ticket and the bike will get towed, or worst case, we’ll be in jail as John or Jane Does; but we won’t get ourselves killed by a mole, and that’s the most important thing.”

  “But what if someone recognized us at the police station?”

  “First of all, we tell them we’re eighteen, so they won’t think we’re kids and runaways and look through those missing persons files or whatever. And we should tell them we’re from another state, like California or something, so they’re thinking we’re from really far away. We’re already two states over. I doubt very highly we’re going to be on the national news, so why would they even know about us being on the run?”

  “I’m not sure if I could just lie and lie and lie like that and not totally give in and tell them everything. Besides, not telling them would make them look harder, don’t you think?”

  Kevin abandoned the scraping of the last drop of syrup onto his fork and stepped over to stand in front of Candi, holding onto her upper arms and staring intensely into her eyes. “Listen, Gumdrop … you would have to lie. Lie your ass off. If by some weird fluke you get caught, you cannot under any circumstances, tell them who you are. It would be as good as just walking up to the assassin and giving him your throat. They. Will. Kill you. Do you get that?” He shook her gently for effect. “I can’t have you dying on me. I’d never ever get over that. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Candi nodded, fully sobered by the idea of being murdered or knowing that Kevin or Sarah or Jonathan would be, merely because she or one of them had given up their names. She knew exactly what Kevin was trying to say. They’d been through too much to not be together anymore or to have to try and survive this crazy world alone. “I get it. I understand. Mum’s the word. If I’m ever caught, I’ll tell them my name is Cathy Redwood and I’m from California.”

  Kevin nodded at first, but his agreement quickly morphed into a frown. “Cathy Redwood?” He laughed, letting go of her arms to go back to his syrup-scraping. “Oh, yeah, they’ll totally b
uy that one. Good plan. I’m going to tell them my name is Sponge Bob Square Pants. First name SpongeBob, last name Squarepants. From Pineapple, California.”

  Candi play-smacked him. “Shut up. It’s the name I used for this rental, and she totally went for it.”

  “Yeah, well, she was a hundred years old, so she doesn’t count. I think you’d better come up with something else. Don’t even use the same initials, like C for Candi.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll work on it, Spongebob.”

  Kevin grinned as he tipped his head down towards her, looking for a kiss. “How about a hike out into the deep dark forest, miz Redwood?”

  Candi backed away. “Who are you now, first name Bigbad, last name Wolf? No, thanks. I have cleaning to do.”

  “Cleaning, smeaning. We have plenty of time to clean. Let’s go have some fun.”

  Candi sauntered back towards him as sexily as she knew how. “I’ll tell you what. How about … you help me clean for an hour … and then I’ll run through the woods with you afterwards for an hour. Deal?”

  Kevin grabbed her into a bear hug. “You drive a hard bargain, but I’m not afraid of you or your cleaning rags. It’s a deal.”

  Candi fell into a deep kiss with him, only managing to pull herself out of it when she heard Jonathan and Sarah coming back. She turned to face the door, but then yelped a second later when the tip of a wet rag snapped against her butt cheek. “Hey!”

  Kevin stood behind her, acting like he was busy cleaning off the counter. “What? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said, walking casually over to the other counter to grab the rag that was sitting on its edge. “Nothing at all …”

  Kevin saw her coming and took off running out of the cabin. Candi and James followed hot on his heels - Candi whooping out her war cry and James barking his fool terrier head off. Jonathan and Sarah just stood to the side with Xena at their feet, giving the crazy ones room to get by.