Read The Junkie Quatrain for Free Online

mean to. He just got me so mad and I didn’t care. I just wanted to—’
    ‘Impulse control,’ said Holly. ‘Completely shot. You’re heading into stage three. Are you still hungry?’
    ‘Of course I’m still hungry. We haven’t—’
    ‘Probably already there.’ She shook her head. ‘Just like everyone else.’
    Across the office, down the hall, they heard the stairwell door. The pneumatic arm near the top, designed to make it close quietly, hissed as it opened. The noise echoed in the silent hallway.
    ‘It’s always the same,’ said Holly. ‘You just keep using me and then you go away. One way or another you all go away.’
    ‘Shhhhhh,’ said Angie. ‘I think they’re in the hall.’ Her voice rose on the last syllable and she slapped her hands over her mouth.
    Holly glared at her. ‘You’re just like Paul,’ she hissed. ‘Telling me what to do.’A series of mutters echoed through the office door. They were nonsense noises. They sounded sad. One was almost whiny.
    Angie’s eyes pleaded with Holly to be quiet.
    ‘Telling everyone I’m away too much,’ muttered Holly. Her gaze dropped to the baseball bat. ‘I’m under too much stress. I’m not a good mother. He got them to take Lisa away from me. I think he was hoping I’d get caught in China.’
    A few slow footsteps thudded in the hall. A lone voice moaned, and the replies sounded distant. The junkie padded back down the hall and the sound of its feet faded.
    ‘Then I thought he wanted to make up,’ said Holly. ‘He comes back a week later and we have this wild, crazy couple of days and I think everything’s going to be good again.’ She shook her head hard enough that the short wisps of her hair stood on end.
    In the distance the pneumatic arm hissed again, and the door clicked against the latch plate.
    Angie lowered her hands. She opened her mouth and slapped her fingers across her lips again. Her eyes clenched shut in concentration. ‘I think,’ she whispered, ‘I think they’re gone.’
    ‘But everything wasn’t good,’ said Holly. She was still staring at the bat. Her fingers traced the dark, sticky spots on the blue weight. ‘He was just infected. He was like you. No control. He just wanted sex and didn’t think about me at all.’
    ‘I don’t feel good.’
    Holly climbed to her feet and looked down at the other woman. ‘It’s not fair,’ she continued. ‘Why do you get to become one of them and I don’t?’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    Holly glared at her. ‘Junkies stay together,’ she said. ‘They make packs. I could’ve been with my family all this time. We could’ve been together.’
    Angie trembled. A vein pulsed in her neck. Another one throbbed on her forehead. She looked up at the woman.
    ‘But I’m immune,’ said Holly. ‘I never get to be with them.’ She held up the bat with one hand. ‘No one gets to be with them. If I could’ve been infected, I wouldn’t’ve had to—’
    Angie’s tremble grew into a shake. She gritted her teeth and twisted up into a crouch, wrapping her arms across her stomach. ‘Holly,’ she hissed, ‘I think I’m—’
    Holly jabbed her with the bat. Right on the breastbone, just above her boobs. Angie dropped back to the floor.
    The baseball bat poked out again. And again. Angie knocked the aluminum shaft away. Holly smacked her in the shoulder with it. It made a thick, meaty sound.
    ‘Everyone leaves me,’ she snapped. ‘Everyone!’
    She pulled back and swung the bat again with both hands. It caught Angie in the side of the head. Her cheek sagged and a pair of teeth pitter-pattered across the carpet. One of them clicked against a desk leg.
    Angie snarled through her broken mouth and leaped up. The bat caught her in the head again and she spun on one foot. It was a graceful move that ended with her collapsing on the desk.
    Holly raised the bat over her head and brought it down hard. The desk echoed with the impact, even padded by Angie. She tried