Young and Loaded

Chapter Six

   Bad news from the Zones, tumbleweeds. It looks like Jet Star and the Kobra Kid had a clap with an exterminator that went all Costa Rica and, uh... got themselves ghosted. Dusted out on Route Guano. So it's time to hit the red line and upthrust the volume out there; keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you—

   We had spent a total of two days stuck in the damned gas station when Ghoul and I heard that play on a radio. We'd found it stashed in the back, and I decided to take advantage and try and catch up with what had been going on. Tuning it to the frequency that Doctor Death used was no problem at all. It was the news and the days I'd spent with Ghoul that were hard to swallow pills for me.

   Hard is an understatement.

   Arguments followed arguments followed arguments, unending and uncomfortable. Silence between us felt unbearable, but all the words that spilled from our mouths were hostile and disgusting. It didn't matter if it was as simple as Ghoul trying to get me to eat the snack foods that lined the shelves, untouched by my skinny, almost bone-like hands. If there was something to bicker about, we somehow found a way to assault each other verbally.

   I tried to not let the insults go to my head, stuffing angry feelings and offensive comments into my brain. They were kept in a safe in my head, locked seven times with a ring of thirty four keys as options to unlock it. But somehow I got lucky seven times and managed to unlock the river-full of arguments and things to comment on, all of these spilling from my mouth. It was an oil spill of insults and angry words directed at no one but him.

   My need to avenge my fragile pride surpassed that of caring about how he felt.

   For two days this went on, one argument ending with another beginning. I began to lose track of how many times the two of us were nearly choking each other out. And as much as I wish I meant that in the kinky way, I didn't want to think of Ghoul like that. No way, no how. Not anymore. Not since we went our separate ways and I drowned myself in alcohol, among other things.

   But the news, after squatting like sitting ducks in the gas station because of the acid rain pouring down on the desert like whatever greater god existed wanted us dead, hit different. I didn't know how to react. Not in one little bit. Especially not sitting on the floor with Ghoul standing behind me, one hand on the dial of the little radio, the other covering my mouth in shock as Doctor Death Defying broke the news to the both of us in the worst way possible.

   Jet Star was dead. Kobra Kid was dead. I couldn't handle either, especially not Kobra's death.

   I didn't even manage to look back at Ghoul to gage his reaction before I felt a distinct wetness well up in my eyes and pour onto my dusty cheeks. I couldn't stop the rampaging flow of emotions at that point, so I didn't bother, feeling my body begin to shake like there was a small earthquake going on inside of me. I'd lost control of my emotions for the millionth time, it seemed, just not the angry one. Shock flooded through my body as easily as anger did, provoking all sorts of feelings. Regret. Sadness.

   This is what I get for wanting to listen to some music instead of fight with Ghoul, isn't it?

   It didn't take me long until I collapsed into a fit of sobs on the floor, trying to force them down in front of Fun Ghoul. But regaining my 'leader composure' proved to be a lot harder than I had initially thought, and the more I tried to stop it, the uglier and the louder the sobbing coming from yours truly became. And I was already a pretty ugly crier. I had no doubt that my eyelashes were wet and my mouth covered in saliva and my entire face red.

   But it seemed that Ghoul didn't know when to fucking stop with his questions. And constant provoking. And the ideology that I hated his guts more than I hated myself.