The Grinding by Matt Dinniman Read Free Book Online Page B

biology and military history. Both of them were horror buffs, books
and film. They had a thing for circus sideshows and movies about freaks. To
their mother’s dismay, their room was filled with cool posters and action
figures for movies like Freaks, Basket
Case, House of Wax , etc.
    Randy used to say when they graduated they would
join the Marines and be a sniper team. Their reality show even did this whole
thing where the TV crew took them to the recruiter’s office. The look on the
guy’s face in the office was priceless.
    They never did join the Marines.
    I asked them once, after we’d been friends awhile,
about how they planned on having separate girlfriends with only one dick. Everyone
wanted to know, but I was the only one brave, or brash, enough to ask. They
were cool, even funny, about it.
    “That’ll be the best part,” Royce said.
    “We’ll get twice the action,” Randy said. “We both
feel it.”
    It turned out this other set of conjoined twin
girls the same age, just like them, lived in Wyoming. The TV producers set it
up so they could meet for the first time, and they had this grand idea that the
four of them would fall in love and have foursomes and all that. It turned out
they hated each other. Randy called one of them a cunt with all the cameras
rolling. That was the end of that.
    After high school, the camera crews left them
alone, and the twins went to the U of A. They both graduated in three years
with science degrees—astrophysics for Royce and biology for Randy. They
went to graduate school, and even taught undergrads, but they had to quit over
a medical issue. I don’t know all the details, but they had surgery on their
chest, and afterwards they got tired easily. So they ended up jobless, and played
video games all day. They did have a side business—not quite
legal—but it was pretty lucrative.
    They collected and sold guns.
    They lived five minutes from me, but it took
almost a half hour to drive to their house. The streets were packed with cars,
some of them abandoned even though the monster hadn’t come this way. I had to
travel the side streets and cut across a park filled with homeless people who
threw beer cans at me as I passed.
    Once I got to Royce and Randy’s place, there was
no view of the rest of the city. When I pulled up, the twins were in front of
their house, sitting on a bench and watching the sky. Airplanes and helicopters
continued to strafe the Grinder, but never dropped any bombs. Based on the
position of the aircraft, it looked like it was a good eight miles or more
away, still on the south side of town.
    “We were expecting you,” Royce said as I got out.
They wore sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt with Freddy Krueger on the front. The
door to their Jeep was open, and the radio blared RUSH.
    Across their lap sat the biggest, weirdest shotgun
I’d ever seen. It only had one barrel, but it sported a rotary wheel like one of
those old school, Al Capone Tommy guns.
    “It’s an AA-12,” Royce said as I walked up. “Gas
powered.”
    “Good for zombies,” Randy added. “Not so good in
this situation. Her name is Velma.”
    “Like the hot chick from Scooby-Doo ,” Royce said.
    “Guys…” I said.
    “We heard about Nif,” Randy began. “That Scooter
guy was here, and…”
    “She’s alive,” I said, interrupting before he
could go off on one of his tangents. “She called me.” I told them about the
phone call.
    “Whoa,” Randy said. “And you’re sure it was her?”
    “Of course it was her!” I said. I swallowed. “I
want to help her escape.” I swallowed again. “And I need your help to do it.”
    “I’ve already figured it out. It’s an illusion,”
Royce said.
    “Goddamnit, Royce, are you listening to me?”
    I’d lost him. He just went on with his crazy
theory. “It’s not physically possible for that creature to exist.” He shook his
head while Randy looked on in scorn. “If it was that size, it’d collapse under
its own weight.