"Are you kidding me? This is your safe house?" Aenea said.

"What?" Thaddeus asked. "What's wrong with it?"

She looked straight into the boarded windows of the "church." And it wasn't the fancy, dignified kind. No, it was the kind of church God had decided to leave behind, maybe not even enter in the first place.

There were no preachers in this church. No nuns. No ornaments, or paintings, or iconography. No. Walking in, seeing the Elvis Presley figures in the corners and the plastic-shotguns hanging from little nooks above the front desk, she realized this was no church. There were no fonts. No candles. No instruments of faith (or people of faith for that matters).

A sign read, "The Shooter's Chapel." It had a shotgun for a logo. There were rates for packages for marriage. One read, "Quick, one-hour marriage, five hundred dollars."

This was a church for fools. A shotgun wedding church, like a standing, built cliche. A chapel in (not)New Vegas.

It was empty. Recently abandoned, too, there were still little flowers and white threads on the floor from a celebration. Plants lined the corners, the lights were functional and shining down on the two of them as they made their way to the main hall. Small lawn chairs filled the room, there was a podium and a white arch. It was dressed with white plastic doves.

"This is where you're hiding me?" She asked.

"It was cheap. Church paid for it too." Thaddeus sat down a suitcase filled with equipment. Laptops mostly, some bullet casings and glass tubes filled with different liquids and powders. He almost froze when he dropped one, a clear liquid substance. Then he breathed - no crack on the glass and walked over to the rolled flask.

Her eyes wandered. A little part of her wished the damn flask had exploded and taken down most of the ridiculousness with it.

"How long do we have to hold out for?" She sat on a lawn chair, staring out through the cracks in between the planks of wood barricading the windows. The chair leaned unnaturally as she pressed more of her weight down onto it.

"'Till it's all over, right?" He said. She was hoping he wouldn't say that. She sighed and leaned back and let the crooked chair creek with a sort of resignation.

Then she got bored.

She lifted it off its two legs and set it down, over and over. Tapping away, maybe counting the seconds of time hoping it'd go by faster.

Thaddeus kept working. She kept passing glances because boredom made her interested, even in the stupid trivialities of a pseudo-scientist.

"I didn't even know these places existed. I thought they were just stupid things you'd see in Hollywood movies. Marriage never interested me." She said. Thaddeus put down a vial.

"I never took Chemistry in college, always found it boring. Too many letters to remember." He slammed a book down.

"How long have you been doing this for?"

He pressed a button on his computer, it lit up. The screen flashed against his face.

"You know...I'm trying to make a plan here, alright? Can I get some s-s-silence." He said.

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Go take a nap out in the back, the rooms already set up," Thaddeus said. "I've got work to do here."

She blew the blonde bangs off her face, and she stood. And she walked out, towards the room. Not in obedience! She told herself, at least.

Mostly out of growing boredom, because staring at Thaddeus is one thing (creepy), but staring at the setting sun is another. You can only really see the sun in the sky long enough before it begins to look like the dumbest, brightest, lightbulb. Like God just slowly and just barely turning on the Off switch. So she went ahead and decided that if the night was going to take a while coming, then she'd speed it all up. She went to the back. It was an equipment room repurposed with two medical-tent style beds, nothing more than a tight cloth hung and hooked on a metal frame. There was a tough pillow, stone-like and crease-less. A blanket, too and a jigsaw puzzle set on a table opposite. Against the walls were posters and neon lights for the place. Shooters Chapel.

Was that because people shot themselves the next morning after figuring what they've done? Or because they'd have to take so many shots to make a stupid decision like marrying here?

Yeah. The sign was as bold and flamboyant and corny as it sounded. And cheap and corny was only half of what this place was. Reckless was the other.

She tried laying down, it hurt her back. She tried looking at the tiles. It only brought some bad thoughts.

She couldn't stay here. Not with that fucking jigsaw puzzle or the buzzing light or the clicking of Thaddeus's keyboard in the room opposite. Because it felt - when she wasn't talking or animated - it felt like some ideas would sneak up on her. Like the stalker of the night, a vampire.

It bit into her. Images, mostly.

A good one that couldn't leave her was Jezebel. Her head, that is, turning a whole one-eighty. The neck bone protruding from her half-torn throat. The eye floating like a fishing bob in the bloody fountain next to Aenea. The was the first time she'd ever death, the first time it'd ever been so close to her, and the first time she inadvertently killed someone.

It was her or me.

She walked out of the building, through the janitor's hall, out the back. She slammed the door. Slamming made her feel good.

It was her fault, not mine.

She kicked a fence out the way blocking her from the parking lot.

Another image came, the demon and his neat suit and his toothy-smile and the nails on his hands like small little scissors.

It felt like her mind was just cycling through the images, so quickly and intense that they were like passing stars against her faster-than-light- thinking process.

Who's going to do what first and where?

She slapped her head.

She hated silence. It made these thoughts appear. It made her nervous. Like what'd she do if she had to kill someone, like shooting someone square in the face? Like feeling that hot blood splash against her cheeks again.

She started thinking. Her face tightened, she rubbed her temples.

What if she couldn't kill someone?

And if I'd have to run away again, getting cut up and fucked all through a damn garage.

Or what it'd mean to win? How much would it cost? For what? Power? What about her power? She didn't even understand it herself.

She went out to a small white fence, the fake-grass all around her like those pine trees you pick up for Christmas, that kind of rough texture that clings to whatever steps on it. Beyond the grass, a bigger arch than the one in the church. A road (which was empty) too and on the other, a small little ditch where the sewer pipes ran, and the graffiti flowed.

She decided to kick rocks. Literally, like out into the pipes where the dip was just far enough that a nicely pitched echo would ring back.

So Aenea did that, across the street and towards a long flat stretch of sand and dry grass and Joshua trees, throwing rocks into the dry pipes of the sewer. She followed them too for a transient ten minutes where she was so lost in thought she didn't even realize where she was going. She only followed the pipe, like Alice in Wonderland. Down, down the rabbit hole.

Eventually, she sat, her knees close to her chest, sitting against the edge of the ditch.

She touched her stomach.

My power huh? I traded a womb for it. Whatever it is. She looked at her hand, then placed it against her stomach. He took it. I thought he was joking. She rubbed the pain in her abdomen, the small ache. Does it matter? I fucking hate kids anyways.

She picked up another, just about to throw it, and held it.

But still. He took it. He took a piece of me, didn't he?

She cocked her hand back to throw.

Grass moved behind her. It sounded like a snake in brushes.

She turned, stone still in her hand.

"Who's there?" She asked.

It wasn't dark, that was a blessing. But it sure as hell wasn't day. Somewhere in between, when it's still warm but you can feel the hot air leaving the floor and shadows begin to lengthen and expand like an unfolding map.

She didn't see a shadow though, not even a hint of one. There was an empty patch behind her, a lot and a sign that still read 'Buy now? Ask owner for more information 1-676-345-6723,' and in red spray paint over this sign, it said "CALL 666 FOR HELP". A smiley face with its tongue out, then a pentagram.

But no one. Not a soul or figure or shadow or smell or touch or glare

Or sound or light? Not anyone.

A thump.

if no ones here then whatthefuckisthat

Twigs snapped in rhythm as the sound approached her, an even tempo.

And it was like watching the poltergeist. The heavy footsteps approaching fast towards, leaving imprints of large boots within the sands. Pushing aside the greenery, running towards her.

Whatever it was, it hastened its gait.

It's breathing was loud. It ran. Jumped, even.

So she slid down the pipe, with her foot bracing against the slant of the ditch. She hit the floor with a thud.

And a few seconds behind her, two large heavy sounds hit the metal, hollow pipe.

It sounded like the heavy tinge of a grandfather clock, hitting midnight.

She ran.