What the fuck?
"Chloe, look out!" Max's voice, so weak, fading.
And Chloe Price, spinning, fumbling with the gun, "What the fuck?"
BANG
But she's not in the junkyard in the middle of the night. It isn't a flashback this time. Just a memory of her death. This time, she's in the bunker corridor, in front of that goddamn door, and she's not going to be shot.
She's not going to be shot. Not this time. Not today.
No fucking way.
She needs to be faster.
Spin and shoot.
That's the only chance.
Be faster.
Duck.
She spins, but it's a terribly slow motion.
Come on! Pull the trigger! Shoot!
But it's slow enough for her to think, What the fuck? That wasn't Chloe's voice. He spoke. He was surprised.
Don't think. Just shoot.
Chloe Price, you are about to die.
She drops to one knee as she spins, like some kind of a movie cop again. Aiming will take too long. Better to just shoot and hope for the best. Even if she doesn't hit him, maybe the sound of it will give her an extra second to aim the second shot…
It's Frank.
It's fucking Frank Bowers.
"Whoa, Price," he says. "Calm down. It's me, Frank."
It's Frank.
His arms are spread. He's unarmed.
"Sorry, if I scared you. But now you can put that away and tell me what the fuck you're doing here."
He's slowly coming closer as he says this.
"Please step back," Max says.
She's pointing the gun at Frank. They are in the junkyard in broad daylight. Frank has a knife out. He's coming closer. Chloe Price, meanwhile, is frozen in place.
"You're kidding," Frank says. "Put that down."
Before Max pulls the trigger, the flashback winks out, leaving a weird fuzziness behind, vague half-images of someone else, somewhere, somewhen, who kept coming. Something red?
"Stop," she says, rising.
Frank's face looks like he smelled something unpleasant. He slows down, but doesn't quite stop.
"Come on, Chloe," he says. "I startled you. You screamed. But we're cool now. You know me."
"I didn't scream. I said stop coming closer," she screams, "or I swear I will fucking shoot you, Frank! I've done it before."
Finally, he stops, about three yards away.
She can tell he wants to say a lot of things, but to his credit he waits.
"OK," she breathes, regripping the gun with sweaty hands. "Now tell me why you're here."
"Why I'm here? I saw your rust bucket out there and was coming to ask you the same thing, when I heard the gunshot. I thought somebody shot your punk ass. Fucking worried about you, actually."
"I'm going to ask you one more time, Frank. Why are you here?"
"Listen. We go way back, but I'm getting pretty tired of this, Price. I'm here on business. Which is none of your business. Now why the fuck are you here with a gun?"
She says nothing for a while, then steps sideways with her back to the wall, gun pointed at his face.
"Open the door."
He scoffs.
"How about no?"
"Open the fucking door! If she's in there… If there's… I swear, if you did something to Rachel…"
"Wh... Rachel? God damn it, Price! You're looking for Rachel Amber here? Are you fucking insane?"
"Open the door and prove it, Frank. I'm getting really tired of holding this gun."
He's pissed now. Real pissed. He wants to punch her in the face. Or stab her. In the face.
She can tell.
He looks at the gun in her hand, at her face, the gun again, calculating. He doesn't like what he sees, clearly. He believes her. Still, he can't help but keep being an asshole.
"Idiot. You shoot me, you're never getting through that door."
The old tough guy act. Adorable at times, but Chloe is not in the mood. She pulls the hammer thing back until it clicks.
"I know the code, dipshit."
"How can you possibly know the code?"
"The same way I knew about the door. Now, do I need to count to three? Or just shoot you now and prove it?"
Frank's eyes are not scared, like, at all. They're shooting lasers. He also might lose tooth enamel from all the grinding. But finally, after a long time, he turns and punches in the code. The bastard covers it, though, so she can't confirm.
There's a loud metallic click, and the door swings out.
She steps behind Frank, the gun pointed at the middle of his back. She sees shelves. Shit on shelves.
"Go," she says. "Inside."
He walks forward without looking back at her, without saying anything.
The shelving is made of chrome wire. The shit on shelves is not food. It's like household cleaners and bleach and bug spray and baking soda and plastic bags and unmarked tin cans and fourteen other kinds of random nonsense. She doesn't get how any of it is supposed to save you, when the nukes fall. Where are the beans?
"You have serious balls, little girl," Frank says. "But hanging out with Chloe, playing with guns and dressing up like Rachel doesn't make you cool or tough. What the fuck do you want?"
He's in the booth at the Two Whales, a plate of beans on front of him. He looks like shit.
"How do you know these are Rachel's clothes?" Max asks.
"Because she looks beautiful in them, and you look like ass."
"Grab your keys and let's check out your RV…"
Wow, nice transition, Max…
Suddenly, she realizes Frank turned the corner and is out of sight. The vinyl strip door flutters to reassemble itself behind him. Chloe rushes forward to keep up, splitting the strips with the gun.
What she see through the clear vinyl and the gap between the strips are long tables full of beakers and burners, and stainless steel fridges along the walls.
"What the shit?"
It's all wrong. She doesn't understand. There should be a photo studio in here, not a fucking chemistry lab.
To make matters worse, while she stands there gaping, Frank jumps her from the side and takes the gun away. Together with her fingers, nearly.
It's another "gotcha" from the universe. Another "Sike!" Maybe the last one…
She closes her eyes and waits.
"No!" Frank shouts. "You keep those eyes open! Go on! Look for Rachel Amber, you goddamn idiot."
"She's not here."
"Of course she's not here! And if instead of me it was someone else, you wouldn't be here right now, either! You'd be in one of those freezers. Dead! And you had the nerve to point the gun at me. Threaten me!"
"I'm sorry, Frank. But I… I thought this place was... something else."
"Who told you to come here?"
"I… saw it. Like in a dream. And in this dream, Rachel was… hurt here."
"Holy shit! You're talking about the drug again, Price. You hallucinated! Is this your first time with hallucinogenics or something? What if you saw a goddamn golden unicorn at the police station? Would you break in there to free it?"
"It wasn't like a normal hallucination. It was... like I could remember the future."
"You just described a hallucination."
"It seemed real."
"Well, it fucking wasn't real, was it? There's no Rachel Amber here."
"But the place itself was here, Frank."
He chews on that one for a bit, shrugs.
"Coincidence. Happens all the time with mind-altering drugs. Patterns. The design. Anyway, we're done here."
Frank keeps the gun in his hand and shoves her towards the door. She takes one last glance around the room, in a desperate search for a clue, but there's nothing. It's obvious Rachel has never been there. Frank rolls his eyes at her tears, but doesn't comment, and does not touch her again.
He locks the steel door and covers the hatch with hay.
"You owe for the new lock I'll have to put on there," he says.
"OK."
Outside, it is dark. Stars are out.
"Who cares if the stars are dead?" Rachel asks.
The big barn door rattles. The lock clangs.
"Why did you take the whole bottle, Price?" Frank's voice in the darkness. "You want to die?"
"I… uh, did at the time."
He says nothing to this, until they're back on the dirt road. Frank's RV is parked behind Chloe's truck, blocking it.
"I don't want you to come here ever again," he says. "I don't want you to talk about this place, even in your sleep. I don't want you to remember that this place exists. Do you understand me?"
"Yes."
"I'm keeping this." The gun.
"Hey, Frank?"
"What, Price?"
"You and Rachel… Was there ever anything… between you?"
He says nothing for a minute. It's dark, and her eyes have not adjusted, so Chloe can't see his face.
"Did you see that in your dream, too?"
"Not exactly. Just… hints."
"She was too young for me."
"I knew she was too young…" Frank says over the roar of the tornado. He's on the floor behind the diner's counter, hurt. "I knew she was going to leave me… Just not how it happened. I would never stop her from following her dreams."
She hears the RV door open and close, then the headlights come on, blinding her. She gets in the truck and starts the engine. Her phone buzzes.
Landing Portland 11:20AM tomorrow. Pick me up?
Steph.
Does a bigfoot shit in the woods?