Write On Press Presents: The Ultimate Collection of Original Short Fiction, Volume II

by Write On Press

  ~*~

  By the time we hit Arizona, Loretta and I both knew we had a new problem on our hands with Gizmo.

  For the first couple of hours of the drive he was pretty inert, which was a very good thing for both of us. Neither Loretta or I had much of a clue about what his body rhythms were like, but the little critter had to sleep some time, and he appeared to take the first part of the morning off to deal with that. This was a relief for both of us, although it did make us realize how thoroughly beat we were. And Loretta did comment on how cute he looked sleeping in the back seat in his cage, which seemed none the worse for wear after the battering it had taken. I decided not to ask about the cuts on her leg, although I had a pretty good idea they had something to do with Gizmo, which was not a possibility I wanted to probe any deeper.

  When Gizmo wasn’t sleeping or acting out his fantasy to become a reptilian battering ram, he got busy devouring the food Loretta had bought for him. I hadn’t been in on the conversation with Sneaky Pete about the lizard’s diet, so I assumed Loretta knew what she was doing with that, either through a conversation with Pete or based on her own experience with lizards.

  Around noon, though, things started getting a little desperate. Gizmo had gone through everything Loretta fed him, and at a pretty rapid pace at that. We had no idea where the grocery stores were in any of the little towns off the highway, and not enough time to stop there even if we did. So we did what every stressed-out traveler does when road food becomes an issue.

  We fed him a Big Mac.

  I was kinda shocked by this, to be honest. Loretta was something of a purist when it came to reptilian food, and under normal circumstances she never would have even considered doing something like this. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and she gave in way too quickly, which made me wonder if fear wasn’t starting to addle her thought process a bit.

  Gizmo, though, didn’t seem to mind a bit. He practically swallowed the burger whole, and then looked at Loretta with a look of longing, which kind of shocked me because I didn’t know reptiles could beg. His expression melted her instantly, to the point where she threw in half an order of small fries, which seemed to delight Gizmo no end as he wolfed them down.

  His appetite sated, we hit the road again. He calmed down and fell asleep, which worried Loretta endlessly because she was feeling guilty about whatever effect the burger and fries might have on Gizmo’s system. I, on the other hand, was a lot more worried about the effect Gizmo was starting to have on our lives.

  As we plowed through Arizona in the late afternoon, there was a new issue on the table with Gizmo. Neither Loretta or I wanted to admit it; we had exchanged nervous glances through the afternoon as we made our way across New Mexico, not wanting to voice the obvious. But it was there all right, and both of us knew it.

  Gizmo was growing.

  We had no idea whether it was the meat, something in the burger, or something else, but there was no denying it. He was almost tall enough to jump up and butt the top of the cage, had he been able to jump. Which would have made him almost knee high to me had he gotten out, a thought that was now thoroughly nerve racking.

  Moreover, his skin was changing. Believe me, I know how weird that sounds, but the smoothness that would have made it possible for someone incredibly naive about lizards to mistake him for a chameleon was completely gone, the change having happened in just a matter of hours.

  He was rough and scaly now, but in a way that was completely unique. This is hard to explain, but he didn’t look like a monitor, a Gila monster, or any other lizard I’ve ever seen. And I could tell that Loretta didn’t know what was happening to him either from the frantic little glances she kept giving me every hour or so when she looked back to check on him.

  We both knew what he looked like, but neither one of us wanted to say.

  So I tried to broach the issue indirectly, via one of those elliptical conversations men and women who are intimate sometimes have when they don’t really want to talk about something. This wasn’t easy to do; things between Loretta and I had gotten as tense and quiet as they’d ever been, and you could almost cut the tension in the car.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked, trying to make my voice sound as nonchalant as possible.

  She tried her best to give me her cutest smile, but it came out looking twisted and nervous. “What’s that, love?”

  “That we should rename him?”

  Loretta shook her head. “Huh?”

  “I think he needs a new name.”

  “Ok?”

  I swallowed, not wanting to go there, until finally Loretta spoke.

  “And why’s that, sweetie?”

  I said nothing, because I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Hmmmm?”

  Finally I decided to just go for it.

  “I think we should call him Rex,” I paused for effect, “You know, as in T-Rex?”

  Loretta blanched, and I could tell from the chameleon-style change in the color of her complexion that I’d hit the bulls eye.

  “That’s not funny,” she muttered quietly.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Not even micro-funny.”

  She lowered her head and took a deep breath. I regrouped mentally, deciding to try another tack.

  Then I took my own deep breath, “How about Shoop?”

  “What?!?”

  Her voice turned sharper, and I could tell I was really starting to annoy her.

  “Shoop,” I tried to make it sound better the second time around, but it came out just as lame.

  “What the fuck is a Shoop?”

  This time it was my skin that changed color briefly, “Never mind,” I said softly.

  She turned and shifted her body in the passenger seat so that she was almost facing me, “No, come on,” she said, her eyes widening, “Tell me.”

  “Well...I was thinking...Shoop,” I said, making my voice as quiet as possible.

  “Shoop?” Loretta asked, matching my volume, or lack thereof.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Explain, please?”

  “Oh, you know,” By this time I was pretty sure I was turning pink.

  “No, I don’t. Explain, please.”

  “Chupacabra.”

  Loretta’s skin went redder than mine, and then she turned white as a new snow bank.

  “That’s even worse,” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper.

  I said nothing, wishing I could levitate out of the vehicle into a waiting helicopter. Indeed, there was nothing I could say, so I watched Loretta out of the corner of my eye, to see if there was a chance she might recover. She didn’t, and we spent the rest of the day riding in awkward silence.

  Unfortunately, Gizmo, or whatever I might have wanted to change his name to, didn’t share my preference for peace and quiet. Oh, initially he did, probably due to the burger, which seemed to induce some kind of food crash right after he finished it, making him sleep as if he’d been drugged.

  When he woke up, though, he was completely different. Once again, I suspected the burger, which I thought must have been laced with something the way he started charging the cage again. He was stronger now, and more determined, to the point where I thought the cage was going to topple off the back seat several times from his efforts.

  The ruckus was distracting, to say the least. I tried to drive through it, but the arrhythmic thumping became increasingly disturbing, and I knew if we didn’t do something there was a decent chance I was going to end up steering into a ditch. Finally I decided to try to end it.

  “Can you do something about that?” I asked, turning to Loretta, unable to hide my irritation.

  “Like what?” Loretta fired back, her voice sharp and tight.

  “Hit the cage with the flat of your hand,” I said, my voice steely, “That worked the other night.”

  “You can’t hit him,” she said, her voice crack
ing, and out of the corner of my eye I could see tears forming in the corner of hers. “He’s my baby.”

  “I can’t drive this way,” I said, sounding way whinier than I wanted to, “We have to do something.”

  “But not hit him,” she wailed.

  I turned to her, slowly, so that she’d know I meant business, “Look, I can’t drive this way. So either you’re going to whack the cage, or I’m going to pull over and do it.”

  “I’m not doing it,” she said, shifting to her pouty tone.

  I waited a few ticks, knowing she wouldn’t change her mind.

  “Fine. Then I will.”

  It took a few seconds for me to figure it out. I don’t think Loretta thought I was serious initially, but finally I pulled over into the right hand lane and started to slow up, hitting the indicator as I did. That was when she realized that I was for real, and she turned as if she was going to try to take care of Gizmo. But it was too late, I’d already made up my mind just as Loretta started to reach over the seat.

  “You can’t” she moaned as the car rolled to a stop.

  “Watch me.”

  I left the engine on but put the car in park, not wanting to change the aural environment as I leaned over the seat. Then I smacked the cage, but I was off balance hanging over the seat, and the end result was pretty feeble. I heard Loretta blurt out a smirky little laugh, which I ignored while I gathered myself to deliver a more forceful blow.

  It landed hard, even harder than I intended. Gizmo stopped immediately, as if considering the ramifications of the extra force. He gave me his inscrutable reptile gaze again, but I stared right back, as hard as I could. I managed to win the staring contest that followed, but I was sweating once it was over, thinking about what it might have meant if I’d lost.

  He settled down after that, so I turned around and got us back on the road. We made it well into Arizona by the time it was time to hit a motel, and as a placating gesture I drove us straight to a grocery store before we checked in and picked out food for our passenger.

  That night was even hairier than the last one. Loretta and I carried the cage into the room together, checking out Gizmo as we did. The good news was that he’d stopped growing, but he was definitely hefty enough for it to take two of us to carry him now, and I had no idea what we were going to do if his cage didn’t hold up.

  He kept up his onslaught that night, albeit with fewer repetitions. But Gizmo made his blows count, and there were several times when I thought the cage was going to tip over. I got up once in the middle of the night and whacked the cage, and it worked, but once again I got the feeling Gizmo was sizing me up, assessing my strength and resolve as he discontinued his assault.

  We got on the road early the next day, bleary from lack of sleep and edgy with tension. Loretta and I were both close to losing it, and while I knew we’d make it to her family homestead just outside L.A., everything that was happening between us felt totally wrong.

  Gizmo was almost peaceful once we got into California, almost as if he knew he was supposed to be more laid back now that we’d made it to the Left Coast. He did have a brief period in the afternoon where he hammered at his cage for an hour or so, but he stopped when I turned around and glared at him, almost running us off the road when a truck suddenly cut us off.

  I checked on him periodically in the rear view mirror after that, and each time I did he was staring at me, almost thoughtfully, as if considering his options once we reached our destination. I knew all of this wasn’t over by a long shot, and finally Loretta and I pretended to be at peace when we reached the L.A. suburbs and she gave me directions to her house.