Weavers Book I: The Cutters

Tip #10: Always Have A Plan

"So here's the plan," Trashy says, drawing a box in the dust on the floor. He uses his fingers to make three dots inside the square. "These little dotties are us." I debate responding, I think you're a little dotty, but I bite it back with immense effort. As much as I hate to admit it, this is not the time for sarcastic comments. Yikes. Even writing the words down hurts me. "This box is the cage. We don't know what's out there, out of the cage, because our only possible source of info has gotten amnesia. So we's just going to have to go off our own Willy-Wonka-Think-Tonkas. All we know is the cage. Outside of the cage— is Mister Mystery." As he says mystery he swipes a hand over the floor, clearing all of the dust outside of our cage-box. He does it with a chilling blank expression. Brother or no, loony or not, Trashy is one spooky dude sometimes.
"So... we know all that. But how are we going to get out?"
"Thank you, Mr. Tiddles, for asking the obvious question. Now I shall give you an obvious answer. I will also dumb it down to Tiddle-speak so that you wrenches don't think I'm talking in riddle."
"Too late."
"Anyway, I can give you the en-light-ten-mantis-o with one word-ly word: bait."
"Bait?"
"You are not a parrot, Ryan Noodles, you are a bean, so listen close, or our plot might get seen."
"Which one of us'll be bait?" I ask. "Ryan? He's proven himself unreliable, given what they put him through out there— whatever it was. So you, or me."
"Ah, Mr. Tiddles, that is the question. Do we send in you, who Ollie won't poo-poo, or do we send in I, who can confuddle the guy?"
"Me. Ollie hates you. He'll straight up kill you. He obviously thinks I'm useful somehow, so, we use me. It'll be me."
"Well, that was the hard part. Now we just have to play, Mr. Tiddles. Can you act?"
"Not worth shit," I say with fake cheer. "But it's the perfect time to learn."
"Do we do it now?" Ryan asks, color returning to his ashen face. "Or later."
"Now," Trashy confirms, "If he moves us, we lose the slight advantage we have. Every second we wait is a—"
"Ollie!" I scream. "Ollie, dammit, get your useless ass over here. You want my help, don't you"
"When I said now, I didn't mean no—"
"Shh! He's coming."
"I knew you'd see reason," Ollie says, his face half-hidden in shadows.
"I mean, just... don't hurt Ryan. What you did to him... it really fucked him up. I'll do whatever. Just don't hurt them." Ollie's grin widens until his whole face is consumed in manic glee.
"Good. Good. Only you come out here. If either Ryan or Trashy try anything, I'll kill them." Ollie waves a gun.
Not if I kill you first, you stuck up bastard. I watch his hand tremble as he opens the door, but I can't tell whether he's shaking in ecstasy or fear. Maybe both. I wouldn't put it past the sick fuck.
He stares at me levelly, with the kind of cold gaze that would make criminals crack.
Not this criminal. This criminal isn't cracking just yet, thank you very much. He sticks a pasty, scarred hand at me. I grab his hand, firmly but not nearly as firmly as I want to. I want to crush his fingers until they look more like cocaine than bones. But I don't.
"Good to see you're seeing reaso—"
I cut him off, slamming his useless head into the useless wall. I wait for Stephie, his henchman, to show up, the adrenaline filling my veins, but no one does. I use the leftover adrenaline to kick Ollie in the ribs.
I think it hurts me more than it hurts him. It's like kicking a block of cement. But he's out cold, and that's what matters.
"Come on," I say, waving frantically at Ryan and Trashy. "We don't have much time."
"Time, slime, butt-cracking rhyme," Trashy says, hopping. Looks like I'm not the only one high on adrenaline.
"Let's go," Ryan hisses, his fingers twitching. He's got his own rush, and he's trying to hide it. We are all higher than the north star, we are. Higher than anyone has ever been.
Apocalypse Junkies, that's us. Our drug is adrenaline and we don't need no medicine.
Holy shit, now I'm starting to think like Trashy. His lunacy is contagious.
Trashy ducks into a room before I can stop him, and I freeze when I hear voices on the other side.
"He's gonna—" Ryan starts, his eyes wide, I clap a hand (silently) over his mouth.
"Shhht." I close my eyes, listening intently to the inside conversation.
"Do you really think those kids are it?" a high-pitched, scratchy female voice says.
"Of course they are," says another, with a heavy lisp. "The spit doesn't lie." I blink, sure I've misheard her. The spit doesn't lie?
Man, this place really is nutty. No, it's not just nutty. It's the fricking peanut man's entire extended family. Complete with Willa Walnut and Miss fucking Macadamia Nutcase. Everyone here it fucking crazy. Even crazier than Trashy, and that is saying a lot.
A loud crash rips me away from my inner nut-naming and back to the conversation.
"Well, shit," the scratchy-voiced girl says. "Do you think we should—"
"No, no," the girl with a lisp says. "Ollie'll kill us if we leave this room. You heard him. We're important."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. I sure as hell don't feel important, sitting around here on my ass all day."
"Don't be crude, Lydia."
"Don't be— Sali, you've gotta be outta your damn mind. This is an apocalypse! Everything around us is crude."
"All the more reason we shouldn't be."
"How old are you, ninety-three?"
"Okay, okay, I get it. Say whatever. But Ollie'll kill us if we leave this room, you know that."
"Skedaddle, Mr. Tiddle. I've got the paddle. Let's row our boat aggressively down the street and high-tail it outta here, Skipper." I jump at Trashy's hot breath down my neck. He's holding up a bag of knives and— oh, sweet heaven above! An RPG.
"Call me Santa-Claus and let's go to the north pole and steal some innocent children's cookies. In other words, let's skittle, Mr. Tiddle."
"I get it, I get it," I groan, grabbing the grenade launcher. "How'd you get these?"
"The kid can sneak, sneakity-snook."
"You tripping."
"Nope, wrong, I'm flying!" I stare at Ryan, making loops around my ears and he smiles.
Looks like we're getting out, after all.
"Oh, lookie, the cookies have arrived," Trashy says with a cackle. "They're gonna get dived, because the kid don't take shit from no one!" He says no one in a loud, booming announcer voice, and the three burly Weeves (all covered in sticky weaver-thread) stare at us as if they can't comprehend what they're seeing. "Yeah! Mother-fuckers! I'm the Trash Can Man! And I've got—" he grabs the RPG from me "—some badass explosives!" While the guards are stunned, I dig around in Trashy's bag for my big knife.
Still there. Score, 0 Ollie, 1 Moura. Take that, you filthy pus-eating yarn-headed sack of cow shit. I've got my knife back. I raise the knife and spring at Burly Guy #1. My blade sinks into his thick, fleshy neck with as much effort as sticking a toothpick in a Thanksgiving turkey. I yank it out as fast as possible, when it comes to knife fighting, speed is everything. Power is only a tiny piece. If you don't slice-and-dice fast, you don't slice-and-dice at all.
Holy fuck-a-mole, Trashy really is contagious.
My blade cuts right through his spinal cord, and it's like opening a bag of giant, white M&Ms. It's like there was nothing holding his spine together but his skin, and without it, he collapsed.
I jump up and down like I'm stepping on live coals— not too far off, if you ask me. There's a vertebrae, there's a bit of shredded muscle tissue, there's his head, there are the worms (avoid the worms). Looking like a possessed dancer, I struggle my way to the other side of the hallway.
Trashy and Ryan are close behind me, their panting echoing off the walls like a horror video game soundtrack. Trashy, to my shock (and begrudging amusement) is singing.
"Over the bodies and through the halls, to freedom's land we go— there's no grandma and no ho-ho-ho, but it's better than a cage- oh!" It starts out in the tune of "Over the river and through the woods..." and slowly turns to Jingle Bells. Just what I need. Christmas carols in the middle of fucking summer.
Thanks a lot, Trashy.
"Over the bodies and out the door, to our secret base we go! Yes Ollie wishes, oh yes, he wishes he knows where we will go-oh!"
"Please stop singing this stupid song, it's to the wro-ong tune! Because it's August and not December I wish your singing would end-ber!" I scream as off tune as I can. Trashy flips me off, but with a corny smile, and he barges ahead just in time to keep me from running into the door.
"Thanks!" I yell and he crashes right through the flimsy wooden door.
"Don't thank me yet, just run, Mr. Tiddle!"
And then we are all running, all three of us, into the heart of the city, with absolutely no idea where to go next.