Breaking X - The X Files v Breaking Bad #1:
Purity (Part 1)
A vampire.
Click.
Ronald Reagan.
Click.
A zombie.
Click.
Batman.
Click.
These were the subjects, and Ellie was the host, dressed pink and red in her blood-spattered princess get-up.
Another zombie.
Click.
A witch.
Click.
Twin aliens.
Click.
"Hey, no way are you taking photos!" shouted one alien.
"It's my birthday," Ellie shouted back. "Why not?"
"Are they online?" asked the other.
"I'm not that fuckin' stupid," Ellie reminded the pair, before turning away from the lounge to inspect the kitchen. She passed through the hallway of zoned out cartoon characters and murderers, taking more photos with her phone. No-one seemed to notice, nor mind. Ellie was beginning to feel like a ghost in her home.
A mad doctor.
Click.
A robot.
Click.
Ellie was now in the kitchen, where the lights were off but people were most certainly on, dancing in a huddle to the dubstep from the lounge. Only one person seemed to notice her, a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask, coming towards her.
"I heard you got some Blue Sky in here," said the weedy looking Guy.
"Who am I talking to?" Ellie asked after taking a shot of Mr. Anonymous. He lifted up his mask, revealing a black man with a dazed look on his face.
"Got no idea who the fuck you are."
"Call me an interested customer." Anonymous tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. "How much you got left? And how much?"
"You mean, you wanna buy, right?"
"I heard you sold some to another dude?"
"My brother's friend, right. But you can be anyone, dude."
"So you don't wanna do business, princess?" Another grimace. "Call me Jay, anyway."
Ellie pulled the mask back down across Jay's face. "Meet me in the outhouse in ten. Can you do that, Jay?"
"Now what do you mean by that?"
"You seem pretty fucked."
"That a crime?"
"It's why I'm trusting you. But if I don't see you in ten, then don't bother me the fuck again, OK Jay?"
Elie exited the kitchen with this warning, and made her way through the lounge again, trying to get to the backyard through a mass of legs belonging to semi-conscious bodies. It was another warm Albuquerque night, with cicadas ringing out from the weeds and bushes of the yard, and over the fence that kept whatever was happening in her home from others in the suburb. The oak trees played their part too, with the biggest holding up Ellie's treehouse to the starry sky.
Click.
She had to take photo, the way the treehouse looked so gothic on Halloween night.
Devils.
Click.
Evil twins.
Click.
Ellie lowered her phone as she noticed the zombies and twins were staring back at her with grave concern. Looking around, she realised almost everyone was on their feet, when earlier they'd been sitting or dozing on the weeds. She'd been a ghost then too, passing unnoticed, whereas now all eyes were on her, like a herd of hungry zombies sensing meat.
"Guys?"
The monsters and demons slowly stepped backwards, unbunching as a mob to reveal the policeman standing firmly in the centre of the yard.
"Miss, I'm gonna need a little of your time," declared the officer to his audience. He'd come through the backdoor, where Ellie could see a patrol car parked outside the yard.
"Shit."
Ellie turned on her heels with a swish of her pom-pom skirt.
"We have your friend here," called out the officer. "Donnie. He's in load of trouble and I'm gonna need you to help him out a little."
Ellie froze.
"Donnie?" Her brother's friend.
"He's in the car, waiting."
Ellie turned around, and sized up the tall stranger in her garden. Was it a Halloween prank? There was nothing familiar about his tanned skin or small middle-aged paunch. His eyes were buried beneath the darkest shades.
"Don't make me arrest you for resisting an officer's request, ma'am."
The revelers kept their eyes on Ellie, their lips sealed and poses frozen. They were sitting ducks in the arm of the law.
"And don't make me bust everyone for this party you're all having tonight, either."
Ellie looked up at the treehouse, then back down to the ground. She had no choice, walking the officer's way with her eyes on the floor.
"What do you need me for exactly?"
"It's better we talk about it in the car, miss." As the pair walked out of the backyard, the officer too looked at the treehouse, seeing a masked man clamber cat-like up its kiddy ladder.
"Donnie..?" Ellie could see the teen boy in the back of the patrol car, playing nervously with his gorilla mask. "Oh, shit."
As the officer opened the door up for the front side passenger seat, Ellie could see Donnie had been crying.
"D, what the fuck?" she asked, getting inside.
"I'm sorry Elz," mumbled the boy, as his arresting officer slipped in beside Ellie, shutting the door so the car was free of the party dubstep, but full of static from the intercom.
"We found him coming from your house with a bag of meth, Ellie." The officer motioned to the empty seat next to Donnie's backpack - a small bag of blue familiar to Ellie was out in the open, ripped apart and half empty. "Tested it, and that's pretty pure stuff."
Ellie kept her stare on the bag, too angry to look at Donnie, to guilty to look at the cop.
"I'm s-sorry," Donnie repeated.
"I'm guessing you sold it to him, Ellie?"
Ellie said nothing.
"But we can make this go away if you can tell me who you bought it from..?"
"I'm not a dealer," whispered Ellie.
"You don't look like one. Just a birthday girl wanting to impress, right?" the officer teased in his drawl. "You musta been planning your big 21 for months, right? Perhaps you bought this two months back? Maybe more?"
Ellie stayed silent. Donnie covered his face with his gorilla paws, and groaned.
"You gonna speak to me or not, Ellie?"
Ellie sighed, and turned around to face the front window screen. She surveyed the dashboard, the intercom. Cop cars were a familiar sight from her tearaway days of running away.
"I'll speak to my dad first to get a lawyer. He's in China right now but-"
"We're gonna need you to speak now though, girl."
Clunk. The doors locked. Ellie gasped.
"Wait, is this for -" Before she could finish the sentence, Ellie felt a needle jab her straight in the leg.
"That's gonna relax you," claimed the cop. "Then you're gonna tell me who you bought this fucking blue from -"
Ellie looked down at the emptied syringe. "I don't - I don't know his name!" she yelled.
"Was it someone from the memorial park?"
"Man, w-what are you doing?" Donnie cried from behind.
"Answer me, Ellie -"
"It was, it was, yeah..."
"But no-one sells there anymore, right? So I'm gonna need a name to find this guy. Or a face."
"He was - he was wearing a red scarf on his mouth. With shades." Ellie was breathless. Her vision was blurred.
"But all those boys wore scarf and shades. Did you get his number, a name?"
"No…"
"Just relax, Ellie. What I gave you's gonna help you remember. You just need to relax..."
Do you remember his voice by any chance? The question had come from the intercom. His height? Big man, or little man? continued a scratchy, heartless voice.
"Ugh.."
"Stay with me, Ellie," said the officer, trying to be equally as heartless.
The girl closed her eyes, and felt for the syringe in her leg.
"Fuck you," she spat, jabbing the syringe into the man's neck as much as she could with the fading strength in her arm.
"Fuck- fucking-"
Donnie rolled down his window, and yelled for help. Ellie punched the cop in the crotch, before taking the keys from the ignition.
Bleep.
Opening the door, Ellie sprinted back to the yard.
"Ellie- wait!" Donnie yelled, but to no avail. Ellie was already clambering up the ladder to the treehouse, her footing unsteady as she climbed.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck." Looking down for help, but seeing only blur, Ellie soon saw the backyard had already been vacated in the cop's aftermath. Music still boomed nonetheless, with a small crowd gathering around the back door of the house. She couldn't see him, but Jay was watching the scene, wondering if anyone was going to help as he kept his Anonymous mask firmly over his features.
"Help!" Donnie yelled. He'd freed himself from the car, running as fast as his round frame and gorilla feet could handle towards the back of the house, before getting pounced on by the supposed cop.
"Ellie, don't make it more difficult!" yelled the cop to the skies. Blood was pouring down his neck and onto Donnie's black curls.
It was too late - Ellie had reached the house with an awkward tumble, and was soon scurrying on her knees, searching in the dark with her phone for guidance.
"Where is it, where is it…" she said between heavy panting.
When Ellie found her handgun, she began dialling a 9 with her free hand, then a 1, then paused.
If real cops come, you're gonna be bust for dealing, fuckwit.
She dropped the phone, and looked around in the dark for help. She could only see shadow and blur.
"Get the fuck down here if you're smart!" begged the cop, who was on his own patrolling the bottom of the twisted oak tree. Donnie was watching, handcuffed and eating dirt, too scared to watch.
"Be smart, Ellie, be fucking smart-"
A shot rang out from the treehouse, sending the cop fleeing back to Donnie's patch in the weeds.
"Oh shit, I told you to be smart..!" To Donnie's ears, there was a real fear in the man's voice, and when he looked up he noticed the cop rubbing the side of his bloodied neck anxiously. "Fucking be smart, girl…"
The music in the house stopped. All guests scrammed from the back door to flee the house, bar one. Only Jay was left standing, trying to see what was happening in the treehouse.
"Oh, shit-" He watched as Ellie fell from the tree top. That was Jay's cue to run.
"Oh, fuck…" The cop stood ground, then changed his mind quickly as Ellie began crawling towards him and the kid.
"Ugh, ugh." Ellie's moans were deep and hiccup-like. She was choking as she crawled on all fours towards Donnie, eating dirt of her own. The boy could only see her red hair, trailing along the grass, but he could imagine her racked face.
"She got shot," he mumbled, looking around for help. "What the fuck is-"
"He- help," Ellie spat, groaning, too pained to lift her head.
"No no no," moaned the cop, beginning to drag Donnie by his heels, heading back towards the way of the patrol car.
"Ugh." Ellie gave up the ghost a few feet away from Donnie's face. To his horror, there wasn't blood on her face, but matter.
"Wha-" the boy exclaimed, as he felt himself being lifted up from the ground. His eyes couldn't tear away from the scene though, as he watched a thick white mass come oozing out of the girl's mouth. Her eyes were red, forehead violet, but everything below was being caked by an afterbirth of white matter, thick and slick.
It would be the last time he saw Ellie, before being bundled into the back of a white van. He was alone in the dark as the cop sat himself up in the front carriage, shouting to the four winds as the van careered out of the suburb.
Donnie could only see red numbers in the darkness, red digits that quivered like candle flame with the rapid motion of the vehicle:
99.1, they read.