Shame on You

“What the hell? Why are you stopping? KEEP GOING!” I yell at him as another shot echoes behind us, this one closer than the last.

“A crop circle,” he whispers in wonder. “Oh my God, they’ve been here. They’ll save us!”

Looking around him in irritation, I see a huge, matted-down area of cornstalks directly in front of us.

“For God’s sake, get your shit together, man! We need to get the hell out of here!”

The hard, cold steel of the nose of a gun presses roughly into the back of my head and I realize we’ve just lost our chance at escaping.

GD crop circle.





CHAPTER 20




Will you stop crying? Goddammit, you’re giving me a headache,” Steve complains to McFadden.

I have an unnatural urge to reach out and smack Steve upside the head. However, this wouldn’t be a wise idea since he currently still has a gun aimed at me.

“Just tell me Tinkerdoodle is still alive!” McFadden sobs as he stands next to me in the middle of the “crop circle” where Steve forced us to walk.

Oh, don’t worry about me with a GUN TO MY HEAD. The dog that you stole is perfectly fine, thank you very much.

“Hey, dude. I heard some shots. You need my help or something?”

Pothead waltzes into our little party with a gun in his hand, using the tip of it to scratch his head.

This just keeps getting better and better.

“It’s about fucking time you got here. Keep an eye on Martin; this one’s all mine,” Steve says as he wraps his fingers tightly around my upper arm and digs the gun back into the side of my head.

“You couldn’t just forget about Martin and go on your merry way. You had to keep digging, didn’t you? Now you’re both going to die,” Steve threatens.

McFadden begins wailing embarrassingly loud and Steve and I both groan in annoyance. At least we’re in agreement on something: McFadden is irritating. But not so much that he needs to be shot in the middle of a cornfield.

“Look, how about you just let him go and deal with me?” I ask him, trying to plead with the tiniest bit of humanity I hope he still has left in him.

“Sorry, no can do. I don’t trust either of you. You’re each getting a bullet to the brain.”

Okay, maybe not. On to Plan B.

Except I don’t have a Plan B. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even have a Plan A.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Steve.”

Pure elation and downright dread fight in the pit of my stomach when I hear the sound of Griffin’s voice and the click of a gun that I’m pretty sure he has aimed at Steve’s head right at this moment.

I’m so happy he’s here that I want jump up and down and point and laugh in Steve’s face. But I’m also scared to death that he’s here right now. What if he gets hurt? Griffin can’t get hurt just because of me. Especially when he doesn’t even know I love him.

“What are you going to do, hotshot? Shoot both of us? In case you haven’t noticed, there are two of us with guns and only one of you,” Steve taunts Griffin.

We all turn at the same time and look at the pothead standing on the other side of me, swaying back and forth, twirling his gun through the air like he’s writing his name with a Fourth of July sparkler.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Gunnar, FOCUS!” Steve yells at him.

Gunnar? Note to self: Never name any future children that I may or may not have Gunnar. They will indeed be brainless twits.

Gunnar jumps into action, sort of, and stands at attention with his gun held up to his forehead and his chest puffed out.

As soon as I look away from him, I feel Steve remove the gun from the back of my head and in a flash, he twists around and pistol-whips Griffin against the side of his face, taking him by surprise. I watch as Griffin’s gun goes flying through the air and he stumbles backward a few steps. He gains his footing and shakes the cobwebs from his head. With a growl, he ducks his head and charges right at Steve, tackling him to the ground like a linebacker.

McFadden stands in the middle of the clearing flapping his arms wildly and screaming as he jumps up and down in place like a six-year-old girl throwing a fit in the toy store.

While Gunnar is distracted by Steve and Griffin’s scuffle and McFadden losing his ever-loving mind, I take that moment to pull my arm back and throw an uppercut. His eyes roll into the back of his head as soon as my fist makes contact and he crumbles to the ground at my feet.

I turn around with a satisfied look on my face when I see Steve kick both of his feet into Griffin’s chest and send him soaring backward, knocking the wind out of him when he lands. While Griffin groans and tries to catch his breath, Steve rolls over and grabs one of the fallen guns, jumps up with blood dripping from his mouth and nose and aims the gun at me.