Red Rover | gxg | Wattys 2023 Winner | ✔

(8) Beans and Redding

I look down at the unopened box of cornstarch in my hand. On the other hand, I don't really feel like breaking open sealed food until we need to use it. This pits two of my different survival values against one another, and I'm not sure which to choose. I get up and check the window for Calico J again. There's no sign of him.

"Oo, what are we making?" says a voice behind me that makes my heart skip an unhealthy number of beats. Ditzy. If she and her ass just walked into the kitchen with the intent to distract, I'm not going to be able to focus adequately on the task at hand.

"Nothing," I say without turning around. "Patrick found Redding in the garlic, so we're checking the food."

"What did you make?" says Patrick a moment later. He sounds horrified.

I can't not turn around at that. I brace myself for exactly the image I find. Ditzy is standing in the middle of the floor behind us with one hand on a seductively cocked hip, and her head tipped a little to one side so her golden hair cascades over her shoulders. She's holding the dowel from before over her shoulder. There's a wire wound around a groove at the top of it. Whatever's attached to the other end hangs out of sight from me but not Patrick.

"What did you make?" I repeat warily, trying to keep my eyes on the dowel when her exposed collarbone is right there.

Ditzy makes an innocent face. "Oh, this? I'm experimenting with something."

She swings the thing off her shoulder—it's heavy—and suddenly Patrick's expression mirrors my own. I wouldn't quite call Ditzy's new weapon a flail, but that's probably the closest definition. Two lengths of wire, closely twisted, run from the dowel handle to a tightly woven bundle of wire knots loaded with metal. The majority are strings of metal nuts and washers, but I also see a hinge, nails bent into circles, at least one screwdriver, a spark plug, some lethal-looking angle brackets, and a pair of pliers. With metal jaws gaping, of course. All told, the flail end of the weapon is about the size of a grapefruit, though some of its protrusions could do hospitalization damage to a human if they hit right. Or wrong, as the case may be.

"I was hoping for a chain," says Ditzy as she turns the handle, twirling the flail for inspection. "But they didn't have any. Or solder."

"You wanted to solder it? Do you even have a soldering iron?"

"Don't need one." She pulls a lighter from one of her many pockets and looks far too pleased with herself. "I have wire. And this."

I think I can accept that Ditzy and I have very different ideas about self-preservation.

"Can you put that away?" says Patrick nervously. He's still holding the handle of an open cupboard door, like he's ready to use it as a shield if Ditzy decides to make a demonstration. "We're trying to do something."

"I just came here for a snack."

Ditzy sallies towards him. Patrick's face flushes bright red, and he flees to the other side of the room. Ditzy selects a can of baked beans from our designated snacks hoard. The click of a can opener rings sharp in the silence. I'm suddenly hyper-aware that Patrick and I are both cowering on the opposite side of the room, staring like morons while she does her thing. She hums a little tune as the can opener cranks around the rim of the can. In that moment, I'm hit full in the face with an inexplicable feeling of dread.

"Ditzy, stop," I want to say, but my voice has frozen. An embarrassing gurgle comes out instead. Ditzy turns back to us, spoon poised over the open can, and I swear the sight of her there paralyzes me until she dips the spoon without removing her gaze from me, and it comes up red. Ditzy continues to pin me with those piercing blue eyes as she lifts the spoon towards her mouth. She's about to take the bite when something in me snaps. I spring forward and dash the spoon from her hand. I make a snatch for the can, too, and miss; Ditzy's hand hits the counter, and the can skids away across it, to crash into the wall at the back.