Page 4 - The Daily Builder - Day 11

i don’t drink anyMorE
By Chuck
Wendig
She stands outside the
brownstone under sodium light.
The bruises have begun to fade.
The cuts – on her lips and chin,
across her brow, on her hands
– have long-crusted over. She’s
going to have the limp for a while,
but oh well.
The case in her hands is heavy.
But worth it. Because it’s her way
back in.
Jack answers the door. Is he
happy to see her? Or just puzzled? at her heart.
“Amanda,” he says.
“I know you love Scotch,” is
the first thing to come out of her
mouth even though she hasn’t
seen him for years, and she
thrusts the case up and hopes he’ll
take it. “This isn’t just Scotch,
though, this is the real deal, a,
a, a really rare…” She’s nervous.
She shouldn’t be nervous. Given
everything. But she imagines
the kiss—their first in a long
time, the first since everything
happened.“I went through a lot to
get it for you.”
* * *
The spider monkey screamed
and kicked her in the face,
sending up a spray of sweat.
Another leapt onto her back,
hooting and shrieking.
Amanda grabbed the one
from behind, used him like a
4 Donate!
reaper’s scythe to knock the other His eyes went wide as he whispered from above: a shard of there. Krüger was like a child The super-soldier puffed out
monkey’s feet out from under, realized: Amanda had the khanjar earth tumbled and shattered. The catching snowflakes. He laughed. his chest, snapping the metal bar
letting go as she completed the knife with its camel bone handle bodies of the robot soldiers lay Then: a tap-shuffle-slide over holding him in place. The cyborg
move so they both bowled into against Kebir’s manhood. Kebir half-buried. to his wall of super-soldiers. Nine screamed, a metallic wail—
one another. They crashed into sighs. The whole place was coming of them. Each a Frankenstein Amanda put a bullet in his eye.
the corner of the courtyard, “…Delacroix is beneath down. All the trip-wires and stitching of flesh, plastic, and The cyborg fell like a stack of
knocking over a terracotta pot of Benhaddou.” trigger stones. Leading to this. metal. Krüger grabbed the jaw teacups.
reedy Cyperus papyrus. The pair * * * But she wasn’t going to think of one, yanking it downward. He Krüger looked crushed.
of gangly primates clambered “It looks… old,” Jack says. He about that now. squeezed the eyedropper’s bulb “Sorry,” she told him, then kicked
atop one another, hissing, and in doesn’t take the case. Her arms “Who?” she asked. “Who.” and dropped a liquid dot in his him in the face.
the deep of their throats she saw tremble. “Krüger! I sold it to Krüger.” mouth. * * *
the winking red light. “It’s not just old. It’s rare.” She He wept. It gave her pause, this Slowly, the cyborg’s eyes “I don’t drink anymore,” Jack
“What is it you want?” Kebir smiles. “Rarest of the rare. Like grown man crying so. It was all opened and focused. The super- says, retreating a step.
said, stroking the fennec fox that you. Like us.” he needed. His pudgy hand shot soldier shifted in his bonds. “No, wait,” she says, laughing
stood on his bony left shoulder * * * out, grabbing a fistful of sand and Krüger sashayed to the next in because this suddenly seems so
the way an angel might perch on a She had Delacroix by his wife- throwing it in her eyes. Amanda line, whistling. absurd. “This is Shackleton’s
pin. The gun in his hand pointed beater, her knee in his pumpkin toppled from his prodigious body, But he didn’t make it. The butt Scotch. Lost. Preserved in the
gut, his blubbering head held over her vision watery, blinking away of a rifle cracked him in the back Antarctic ice for 100 years.
“I want Delacroix,” she said. a yawning chasm. Beneath him, the stinging sand-born tears, and of the head. Nobody else is going to taste this.
Kebir crossed the space giant stone gears boomed and by the time she could again see, He looked up from the ground. Nobody but you and me.” She
between them. He pressed the growled as they turned. Stones Delacroix was ducking down a Amanda eased the mouth of the feels her heart sink. “You love
gun between her breasts. from beneath him tumbled into hidden side-passage, the wall .30-30 against his thrust. Scotch.”
“But you don’t know where he the abyss, swiftly pulverized by closing fast behind him. “You look like hell,” Krüger The door opens behind him.
is.” the hungry cogs. It didn’t matter. She had a said. A little girl no older than three
“I know he’s here. In Tangiers.” “You know what I want!” she name. And it explained so much. She did. Split lip. Blood from runs out—all pigtails and footy
Kebir smiled. His gums were yelled over the din. The monkeys. The robots. a forehead gash. Worse, she pajamas and freckle-cheeks—
puckered and pulled away from “I don’t have it! I told you! * * * still had the limp from escaping and hugs his leg. “Daddy, Daddy,
the teeth. “If only I would tell you Please.” He wasn’t taking it. She didn’t the collapsing tomb beneath story-time!”
where.” Behind them, streams of sand understand. Aït Benhaddou. Krüger’s tower “It really has been a long time,”
“It’s really been a long time,” defenses were top-notch. he says again, and she’s not sure if
he says. He looks then over his “I’m taking Shackleton’s it’s an apology or an explanation
shoulder. What is he looking for? Scotch,” she said. or what. But then he retreats
She imagines making love to him “Without it, how will I fuel my another step, and another, and he
again. How sweet it will be. beautiful babies?” and the little girl go back inside
* * * She shrugged. “You won’t. I and the door closes with a gentle,
Krüger danced around the room need it for someone.” hesitant click.
with the eyedropper, pirouetting “Do I see love in your eye?” “I love you,” Amanda says to
this way, waltzing that way. He That old romantic. “You do.” the door. She leaves the case on
tilted his handsome head back, “Then you may have it.” He the steps.
extending his tongue, and then laughed, but then suddenly
placed a drop of amber liquid yelled: “Kill her!”
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