Chapter 9: The Barrel and Strawberry Jam

Luna was filling the shotgun barrel with homemade jam when Jax spelled out "SURRENDER" with bullets.

"Sweetheart, that's a lot more sincere than a man saying 'I love you'." The reflection of the Marauder leader's tongue stud stung his eyes, and at his feet lay six flayed "messengers"-hollow eye sockets stuffed with expired gum that Luna had rejected last week.

Rule number 33: all threats must be converted into edible material.

Luna's breath condenses into droplets in her gas mask. She could smell the borscht odor from her three-day unwashed hair, mixed with Jax's radioactive dust breath from Chicago. There was a fresh bite mark on the man's carotid artery, teeth marks that clearly belonged to the wedding ring her mother wore the day she disappeared.

"Know how I tame a disobedient chick?" Jax's dagger picked open the abdominal cavity of the body at his feet, the kidney he pulled out turned upside down in his palm, "Make their uterus..."

The gun went off.

Strawberry jam squirted from the modified muzzle, sticking to Jax's tactical undershirt. It wasn't an attack, it was a secret Luna had discovered last month: pectin temporarily bonded cracks in bulletproof glass. The man froze for half a second, then laughed maniacally and yanked the undershirt away-

The freezer's steel door came crashing down.

Jax was still whistling as he was pinned under the door, his bloodstained molars biting down on a detonator, "Didn't your momma ever teach you how to handle a man, kitten?"

The monitor snowflakes flashed and Luna saw the barcode tattooed all over his left arm. It was the Chicago black market's "top of the line" marking, and the code numbers were identical to her mother's work ID.

"What do you want?" She started the vending machine and ten jars of chili sauce rolled down the spout.

The man rolled over suddenly, his muscles ripping like a wet towel falling on tile. He licks Lune's reflection through the glass, "What's under the third tile on the east side of your warehouse."

Cold sweat soaked through Luna's underwear. In that spot lay her biggest secret: 47 fat-drained hobo skulls, the first ingredient in the canning assembly line.

"Change this." Jax plucked a Ziploc bag from his anus, a vitrified heart soaking inside, "Your dad's dying gift."

Luna's pupils constricted violently the moment the plastic wrap was spread out on the table. The burn scars on the surface of the heart matched her father's palm exactly in the background of her childhood photo, and the coronary artery was tied with a lucky string she had braided in middle school crafts class.

The exhaust fan churned the smell of blood into a vortex.

"More chips." She pushed the shock collar toward the cargo port, "Like how you crawled out of Chicago?"

Jax's maniacal laugh shook off ceiling mold. He unzipped his pants and peed against the bulletproof glass, the pale green urine etching a map on the surface-a mirror image of the one on the priest's body, the end marked "First Canned Test Site."

"Your mom's a real piece of work." He shook his cock to shake out the last few drops, "Especially when I shoved a steel pipe into..."

Luna pressed the red button.

The roof of the warehouse suddenly lowered the steel cage, and Jax tumbled for cover in a thousandth of a second, his original standing position covered in sewing needles dipped in botulinum. Where he had been lying, strawberry jam was slowly seeping into the cracks of the floor tiles, creating an eerie pink stream.

"Rule number 34." She soaked her father's heart in formalin, "Never let the enemy see your trembling knees."

Jax suddenly whipped out his arm blade, the blade scraping sparks against the glass, "Know why it's flavored with strawberry?" His saliva sprayed on the security camera, "That's what your mom tasted like when she came!"

The cans throughout the warehouse began to resonate.

By the time Luna's shotgun really booms, Jax has disappeared into the ventilation ducts. Left in place, besides the bullet holes, was a message written in menstrual blood on a condom package:

"The game continues, and next time I'll bring the key to your womb."

She crouched down and realized that strawberry jam was forming a new pattern on the tiles - the gooey pulp outlining the outline of her mother hanging upside down from a steel frame, with the very key to the convenience store's warehouse chained to her ankle.

The alarm suddenly falls silent.

In the absolute silence, Luna licked the jam left on the barrel of the gun. The excessive radiation levels made her taste buds taste of blood as she held up her father's heart to the security camera:

"Mom, the strawberry jam recipe you chose..."

"... It's really too sweet."