This is part 16 of Todd’s story.

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Squishy transmission was caught in drive
Spider man was squinting at the sand in the sky
Spider woman in the front seat, screamin’ “Go, Go, Go,”
He’s ridin’ the accelerator down to the floor with his fuzzy little toe
– The Presidents of the United States of America, “Dune Buggy”
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Todd drove down the highway humming to himself and smiling. Sheila was slouched in the front passenger seat, scowl on her face and arms crossed beneath her breasts. Thunk was laid across the back seat, staring at the sky through the back window. It wasn’t that Chicago was that far away from Jackson. It wasn’t that they’d be missing school or work because of the spontaneous road trip. It was that the Carnival was in Chicago.

Sheila had been in Chicago recently. It had been a few months since the whole ordeal, and she’d tried to put it behind her. Todd and she had been fighting. They were practically broken up, then, so it’s not like she’d cheated on him. She’d used her fake ID to get into a club, where she and her cousin had run into some of her cousin’s friends. They knew about a party – the news would have probably called it a rave, they were so out of touch – that was going on at a warehouse nearby. An hour later, they were bored with the club and in line to get into the party.

She’d taken a pill, and it made her feel so good and so free. She spent most of the night alternately dancing and making out with a twenty-something martial artist. He had been so muscular and sleek, with his reddish-brown hair and Scottish jaw. There were sections of the night that she couldn’t remember, except for the feeling of his feline form and the way that he’d known just how to touch her. Then there was nothing. She woke on a mattress in an office of the warehouse. The sunlight had come in through the windows and caught beautifully in hundreds of cracked and broken glass jars that lined the rafters. She sat up and shivered when the tips of her hair brushed her shoulders.

The horror slowly dawned on her. Nearly a foot of tediously-cared-for hair had been crudely cut off. She looked down at the mattress, and next to her lay a pair of old rusty scissors. She clamped her mouth shut so that she wouldn’t scream, and frantically looked for her clothes. They were scattered all over the office, and her hips were sore enough to tell her that she’d had quite a bit of sex the night before. She cursed her stupidity as she quickly dressed and headed for the office’s door. The smell of cigarettes, sweat, beer, and sex was all over her and her clothes, and she was already fighting back tears.

He laughed. His laugh came from deep within him, and its rebounding sound overrode her scream. Around his neck hung her Hot Topic work ID badge and lanyard. It shined and shimmered in the early-morning light as if it was glowing.

She ran then, out of the warehouse and into the city. She had thanked God that the man had left her cell phone, and that she’d been able to ride the el to get to her cousin’s place. The ID badge had been easy to replace, but the lanyard had been a gift from Todd on her first day working at Hot Topic. They’d gotten back together quickly after that, and all of her pregnancy tests had come back negative. She and Todd had been stable and happy since then, until the thing with Thunk at Ralph’s house.

She stole a glance at Todd, who was still driving along with a chipper grin on his face. She resented him for being so happy and relaxed amidst all of this weird. She resented him for being the center of it, instead of her. But most of all, she resented him for making her love him, even now. She had no idea what she’d been thinking when she let Thunk kiss her. When she’d kissed back, hard. She had never stopped loving Todd. She looked back over her shoulder as Todd swapped CD’s. Thunk seemed caught up in a daydream.

Thunk saw Sheila’s look out of the corner of his eye. He kept his gaze focused on the clouds. He had never imagined that giving up something that everyone said was so vital would give him so much power and control. She’d been so easy to push that he wondered if everyone wanted so badly to have the choice taken away. He’d given up his free will; watched it fill a mason jar like the one in Ralph’s basement, only cracked, and had been given the power to take it away. Trick was, you had to want it gone, just like he had. Sheila wanted it gone, and bad.

Thunk had never thought that it would be this much fun to do the work of The Man.
—
close your eyes and take me in
the way you know is soon to change
alive inside the species grows
the silent fate
will dominate
you are your own enemy
– Chiasm, “Enemy”
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