The Toxic Avenger: The Official Movie Novelisation E-Book

Adam Cesare

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 346

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Toxie is back in this official novelisation of the 2025 reboot of the beloved cult classic The Toxic Avenger, starring Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon. Mutant mayhem is coming to this twisted corner of New Jersey! When a struggling janitor is pushed into a vat of toxic waste, he is transformed into a mutant freak who must go from shunned outcast to underdog hero as he races to save his son, his friends, and his community from the forces of corruption and greed. Experience this action-packed, irreverent, gory and outlandish saga of vengeance and twisted justice, adapted from the 2025 reboot of the classic cult comedy-horror extravaganza The Toxic Avenger.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Prologue

Greetings from Tromaville!

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Nobody Angry Mobs Like Tromaville Angry Mobs

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

The Media Loves a Lovable Freak

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

St. Roma’s Festival is Lit

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

This Story’s Got Two Monsters in It?

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

It’s Important that We Pause Here and Back Up for a Second

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

How Many Endings Does this Book Have?!

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

LEAVE US A REVIEW

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The Toxic Avenger: The Official Movie NovelizationPrint edition ISBN: 9781803360324E-book edition ISBN: 9781803360331

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UPwww.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 202510 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

THE TOXIC AVENGERTM & © 2025 Legendary. All Rights Reserved.

Adam Cesare asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title isavailable from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, [email protected], [phone]

Typeset in Dante MT Std by Richard Mason.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

SUN TZU

* * *

“I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends on who is made judge.”

HERMAN MELVILLE

“If this gonna be that kind of party,I’m gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes.”

MANTAN MORELAND

PROLOGUE

Lightning flashed and, a half-second later, thunder cracked. The electricity in the air made Mel’s fillings hum and throb, or maybe that was the booze.

His phone vibrated across a stack of papers and he snatched it up. The text was from Sneaky Cheetah:

Update?

He set down his glass and began to peck out a reply, needing both thumbs:

My agent is on route

No, autocorrect, you prick.

en route

Melvin Ferd: grizzled investigative reporter, sipping scotch—cheap scotch—in his shitty rented office and corresponding with a codenamed source via text.

There were a lot of cliches here, in this life of whistleblowing and wire-chasing that he led. But as long as Mel kept those cliches off the page and out of his writing…

His phone buzzed again.

OpSec? Sneaky Cheetah asked.

OpSec? He knew Sneaky Cheetah was legit, but there were times when their correspondence made Mel wonder, was his contact really a fed? Or were they playing the part a little too cleanly? Was Melvin Ferd about to be double-crossed?

There was no time for second guesses. Not now. Not with what was on its way to his office. En route.

Intact, he typed.

He hoped their security was intact. With all the psychos that Garbinger kept on his payroll, ex-military, mercs and—

Bzzzzztt.

Mel shoulder-rolled away his shiver, then looked to the security-camera monitor. He never kept that thing on. Never needed to because he never had visitors. He was amazed the monitor still worked. But the small CRT TV had been on for the last few days, as the shit got more real, as he felt the walls closing in…

Was that J.J. out there? It was hard to tell, the camera was so grainy and the contrast on the monitor so blown-out. But then the hooded figure on screen raised a hand and waved at the camera impatiently—not just impatient, in fact, but vibrating with excitement.

Yup. That was J.J.

OpSec intact.

God, Mel was starting to think like Sneaky Cheetah now.

Intact and nearly finished being en route, with his informant just downstairs.

They’d done it!

Well, nearly done it.

Mel pressed the button under his desk to unlock the magnetized outer door. On screen, J.J. pushed through and out of frame into the service stairwell.

Here it was. That dropping feeling at the bottom of Mel’s stomach. Excitement and fear mixed together, with a strong indignation chaser that helped him to keep the fire burning. It was the feeling Melvin Ferd got when a story he’d spent months on—a whole year, in this case—was days from newsprint.

Newsprint and a modest paywall, of course, for all digital subscribers.

And a subpoena for Garbinger if Sneaky Cheetah held up their end of things.

Okay, BTH. Okay, you dirty, corrupt, corporate scumbags. You toxic assholes.

Mel stood up from his desk, toasted his own reflection in the framed headlines and small-fry journalism awards he kept on his walls, and finished his drink. Very Good Investigative Journalist, runner-up. Embarrassing. Why did he even hang that one? He’d have to throw those awards in the trash to make room for his Fulshinger Award and Presidential Medal of…

He opened his office door and leaned out.

There were footsteps on the stairwell, echoing up and down the hallway. The dropped ceiling had a few tiles missing and more dead fluorescent bulbs than live flickering ones. Maybe, at the end of all this, Mel would be able to afford to rent nicer office space. Maybe two offices, one with a corner view out on the good—well, less irradiated—side of town. Every time he looked out his window, it seemed like the junkyard waste of Outer Tromaville was creeping closer.

J.J. appeared at the end of the hallway and yelled, “We got these fuckers now!”

She was so happy. Melvin couldn’t help it—he smiled too, wider than he had in years.

“Were you followed?” he asked, shuttling her inside his office and locking the door behind them, the knob and then the deadbolt.

“Followed? Please. I ran three reversals and a Kaufman field loop getting here.”

As she said this, J.J. Doherty kicked away Mel’s roll chair, crouched over his computer, and connected an external hard drive to one of the USB ports.

He was going to offer her a drink, but she was right. There was no time for pleasantries. No time for premature celebrations. He had to see what she’d brought him.

“Is that it?”

The hard drive spun, a soft electric whir, and J.J. unzipped her hoodie, then began to undo the buttons on her Body Talk Healthstyle work shirt. What a dumb name, Mel reflected. No wonder most people shortened it to BTH.

With her button-down shirt gone, it became clear that J.J. had been wearing three layers—the hooded sweatshirt, then her office-drone attire, then her own clothes underneath: stockings, buckles, patterns and straps. J.J. was a punk shedding her corporate skin, letting herself breathe.

“I spoofed an exec IP, dug this out of their internal network,” she said and pointed at the computer.

“Risky,” Mel said, nodding at the information that was beginning to flood his screen. It was a cornucopia of fishy-sounding file names. There was so much here. Maybe press-time wasn’t going to be tomorrow, the next day, or even this week if he didn’t have the hours to sift through it all, and then more time for Sneaky Cheetah and the rest of the feds to build an ironclad case for an arrest. Mel needed to be patient. Do this right. If he didn’t have what he needed spelled out, hard proof in black and white, he might not get a second chance.

“Only other option is a physical sample from on site,” J.J. said, stepping back from the computer. “I’ve got a collection of hardware stashed at my place, but like you said, this was risky enough. Letting my employer know I have that stuff, that I stole it…”

“That’d be suicide,” Mel said, nodding.

Her BTH employee lanyard still pinned to her studded belt, J.J. stepped back and let Melvin take a look at the computer.

“This is…” Mel said, looking at the screen. “You’ve done enough, kid.” And he meant it. He was grateful for everything J.J. had done, the risks that she’d taken. But it was hard to elaborate on that now. Not while he had these files opening up.

Melvin felt his eyes burning. Not wanting to see everything he was looking at, but not daring to blink, unless this prove to be a dream…

A study about the long-term effects of cranial stims, phrases like “lobe scarring” and “mostly malignant, usually fatal” and then internal documents detailing how best to seek approval for “over-the-counter use.” And then there was a similar study for hemo guns, whatever the hell those were. The data made them sound just as dangerous, but they came in both pink and polka-dot designs, and there were additional memos asking about their efficacy in children.

He moved the cursor over a spreadsheet bearing the heading “Test Subject Survival Rates.”

Then there were swaths of legal memos, sorted into folders for outstanding and settled cases. Even if you ignored their tendency to conduct bioweapons development under the guise of cosmetics testing, BTH’s boilerplate NDAs were as strongly worded as most bomb threats.

Then he scrolled down further, opened a few more windows, and got to the really horrific shit. Pictures of animals, before and after shots. He tabbed through, finding it hard to watch as the cute and fluffy house pets were turned into mewling, blood-soaked abominations.

“Those bastards,” Mel heard himself say.

“It’s worse than we thought,” J.J. said. “And they knew it all along.”

“Look, I can’t tell you too much,” Melvin said. He didn’t want her getting too involved. What she knew could hurt her. “But they’ve already got a case going. This is exactly the kind of evidence Sneaky Cheetah needs to blow this whole thing wide open.” And get me that Fulshinger, he thought a little guiltily. But he was helping the city by doing this, wasn’t he? Was it so wrong to want some recognition for his work?

“Sneaky Cheetah,” J.J. said with an eyeroll. The name did sound silly when spoken out loud. “When do I learn his real name?”

“When it’s over,” Melvin said. “When this goes wide.” Goes to print. “Until then, we’re vulnerable. Keep one eye over your shoulder and help me keep this…”

“…compartmentalized, yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. She was impatient. He could be that way too sometimes, but he hoped that neither of them were impatient enough to get sloppy. If they got sloppy, they’d get dead.

“Patience, J.J.,” he told her.

She was a nice kid. Brave. Hellbent on doing the right thing, or at least getting her revenge. She reminded Mel of himself a few decades younger, gender swapped and—he remembered trying to put a pocket protector on a Members Only jacket—with a very different fashion sense. “You did real good here. You—”

And before Mel could get mushy with it, before he could say words like proud and heroic, there was another bzzzzzt at the outer door.

Shit.

“How did they…? I…” J.J. began, her voice small and defeated. “I… I ran a Kaufman loop.”

Even before Mel could realize what he was looking at on the security monitor, J.J. already knew what this meant for them, and who had to be out there. And she was correct—there on the monitor, in black and white. One of those freaks. They were standing much too close to the camera, waving, the motions much more playful than what J.J. had done. And that playfulness made them even scarier.

“Let’s go!” Mel heard himself yell, already pulling wires, gathering up the hard drive and his phone, then running to the office door and unlocking it.

The freaks were still downstairs and needed to bust their way in. By taking time to frighten Mel and J.J., the dumb assholes had given them a headstart. They still had a few seconds. There was still a way they could escape.

Mel opened the door, turned down the hallway, and stepped into a nightmare.

The figure was huge, a hulking monstrosity that cut a much different silhouette from the one on the monitor. The figure lumbered forward, the top of its head nearly scraping the ceiling. But the head towering over them wasn’t the top of a human head… It was a red, fleshy rooster’s comb.

Shit. Melvin felt his legs buckle, kneecaps turning to jelly. As a younger man, he’d been in war zones. He’d reported on terrorist fire-bombings of embassies. But nothing he’d experienced in-country had prepared him for the dread he felt now.

Now that it was too late to escape.

Mel looked down. His phone was in one hand, the hard drive in the other. Both felt hot in his palms. So close! They’d been so close, and now they were going to die.

No, wait! There was still a way out. He could still win. They could still win.

He whirled, hands out, pushing against J.J., trying to get her to run the other way. “Go!” he yelled.

“What?”

Mel shook his phone and the hard drive, then mouthed “Take them!” She didn’t, so he pushed them into her palms and let go, leaving her no choice but to hold them or let them drop. And she was too good a kid, a natural at this. She knew she couldn’t let all that evidence drop to the floor.

“Go!” Melvin yelled. “Run!”

And this time, she did.

J.J. didn’t look back. She just ran, head down, shoes padding tile until she was across the hall, disappearing around the archway to the building’s main atrium.

Mel remembered when this building used to have a functioning elevator, when reputable businesses kept their offices here. There’d even been a small deli counter here in better days, back when this was a nice place to work, back when this town was any kind of place to live. Back before BTH.

“Okay, you big bastard,” Mel said, turning to the chicken freak. “I’ve got what you came for! Come on and take it from me, if you can.”

But the massive figure took its time, marching down the hallway. And despite the fight in his words, Mel was deeply afraid.

* * *

Fuck.

Codenames.

Fuck.

Spoofed external hard drives.

Fuck.

Spy shit.

What had J.J. been thinking?

She reached the railing and started to make her descent down the left side of the atrium’s twin staircases. Then she looked down at the vestibule and the first floor beyond—and the two shapes moving up to meet her, one on each stairwell.

Spindly elbows, the click of heels, and the glint of flamboyant attire. They weren’t exactly ninjas or paramilitary, but still there was something frightening about these goons, and something very familiar.

“Koo-koo-koo!”

Fuck. What even was that sound he was making? Was it some kind of song?

She looked behind her, could hear wood splintering, jeers and taunts, and Mel Ferd yelling at someone to stay away.

Melvin was buying her time. He’d put his faith in her, and J.J. couldn’t let him down.

And that was when her eyes fell on the window. Three of the four window panes had already been broken out—kids playing with rocks, probably, telling each other they couldn’t hit the second floor from the street. It would be a single-story fall, maybe a story and a half, since the atrium had high ceilings. Most likely she’d be landing on asphalt or gravel.

She would probably survive that, right? Probably wouldn’t hit the ground and incapacitate herself with a compound fracture… right?

“Koo-koo-koo!”

The singsong sound was closer now, almost at the top step.

They’ll hurt you a lot worse than any fall could. Because you know who they are now, don’t you?

J.J. Doherty took a running jump and smashed through what remained of the broken window. She felt weightless for a second, before the fall began and gravity took hold.

Before she realized she’d lost hold of the hard drive.

She heard the plastic shatter as they both smacked into the ground.

Fuck.

There went the evidence.

* * *

Melvin Ferd put up both fists and prepared for what came next. He was a pugilist on the page but no boxer in real life. He’d never once been in a fight, unless you counted being pushed into a few lockers as a kid.

The door to his office exploded inward. The huge freak with the comb, feathers, and wattle pulverized the wood in one kick. And the big guy wasn’t alone. There were more freaks with him. Smaller freaks, with shadows over their faces—a whole gang of them. A bandof freaks, Mel thought.

He figured it’d be them. He’d dreamt it’d be them, actually, but in his nightmares it had never been this, well, cinematic. Maybe he wasn’t as imaginative a writer as he thought.

There were four of them in all, and more in the hallway from the sound of it. That added up. The missing two were probably chasing after J.J.

Please, kid. Get away. I need you to get away.

“You—” Mel started, but the word caught in his throat. He looked over at his cork board. All those pushpins and twine, all that wasted printer toner. All the pieces he’d put together through months of research. If J.J. made it out of here, the twisted bastard who employed these goons was going to pay for what he’d done.

One of the figures approached, knocking over the desk lamp. He thought it was the one in the ski mask, the one with the number in his name, but Melvin couldn’t be sure. He could never keep the six of them straight.

Another figure moved in, and now the office felt a lot smaller. The lamp’s bulb popped under a boot heel, sending the room into shadow.

“No,” Melvin said, trying to stay strong. These freaks didn’t scare him. He wouldn’t be intimidated like this. “You assholes are too late! I’ve already sent what I know out wide. There’s nothing at all you can do to me—”

Bang.

The gunshot took Melvin’s words, the bullet entering just above his belly button. The sudden bloom of pain was excruciating, but something about the clarity that came with pain… the resolve. It made him stand up from where he’d doubled over.

These fuckers weren’t going to silence him.

“There’s nothing at all you can—”

Bang. Bang.

Melvin Ferd felt parts of himself blown off. Chunks of him, critical chunks, painted the drab white walls of his office.

He fell backward. The crown of his head hit the cork board. Its spongy, thumbtacked surface felt like a pillow. He was so tired, with the blood rushing out of him, but still he had to speak. He had to try and stay defiant.

“Nuh… nothing you can…”

And then another figure moved forward, and this one wasn’t holding a pistol but a shotgun.

Oh, come on! He had a chance to think, admire the absurdity of it all.

The blast was the loudest thing Melvin Ferd had ever heard.

* * *

By the second gunshot, J.J. had found her breath, and by the third she’d found her feet but had lost all hope that she’d see her mentor alive again.

“Koo-koo!” a voice yelled from above her.

Neck craning, jewels of glass in her forearms and knees, J.J. looked up to see a figure waving down at her from the broken window. Was his face covered in… greasepaint?

She started to run, the silicone and metal of the hard drive crunching under her feet. The piece of tech was obliterated. There was no use even trying to salvage it.

But you still have Mel’s phone, which’ll have his contacts, she thought. And that stuff under the floorboards. Remember Sneaky Cheetah!

She could carry on the investigation, make them pay. But not if her pursuers caught up with her.

She looked around, frantic, on the verge of hyperventilating.

There! A dumpster. She could use that.

J.J. dropped her shoulder and threw her weight behind it. It didn’t move at first, just rocked on grungy, trash-encrusted wheels. She could hear them now in the building, soft footfalls descending stairs and louder koo-koo-koos.

Come on!

She rocked the dumpster on its wheels, tapping into the kind of adrenaline spike that allowed mothers to lift cars off their trapped children… or allowed punk girls to wheel large dumpsters in front of service doors.

BOOM!

Another gunshot echoed down from Ferd’s office. It was a louder sound, from a bigger gun.

There were two different guns.

Wait. Was Ferd returning fire? It didn’t seem likely, but she allowed herself to hope.

With the door barricaded, she had to get out of here. She had to—

Cutting off that thought, there was a pressurized whoomp followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Before J.J. could track what had happened or get out from under it, a large, steaming pile of meat was dropped onto the asphalt in front of her.

SPLAT!

Warm wetness splashed up, spattering her face and hands.

“Nothing,” the meat pile said in a raspy whisper, “at all…”

Melvin Ferd, her friend and mentor, stared up at her from the asphalt through mangled, lidded eyes. The metallic glint of a harpoon impaled him through his pulped torso moved slightly, and there was a metallic glint as he shuddered, trying to suck air into collapsed lungs.

They’d shot him with… a harpoon gun?

Behind her, fists began banging on the service door. Soon they’d get the dumpster moved, or come out from around the side stairs and have her surrounded, which meant she didn’t have time to stay with Mel while the light left his eyes.

She ran off into the night.

Those bastards were going to pay.

GREETINGS FROM TROMAVILLE!

Population: 12,800 and growing, at least during our more fertile months. When our gun violence, police-brutality numbers, and frequent salmonella outbreaks don’t outpace our birthrate.

Well, technically, greetings from St. Roma’s Village, but nobody in this county attends mass anymore and the local graffiti artists are tenacious, so the name Tromaville has kind of stuck. I’m told that’s called a portmanteau, when you squish a name together like that. Whatever you call it, Tromaville is the name in the popular lexicon. Nobody calls it St. Roma’s Village. Nobody but squares and outsiders. And you’re not a square, right?

Who am I? Don’t worry about that. I’ve worn a lot of hats, I’ve made my own damn movies, but for right now I’m your all-seeing, all-knowing narrator. My qualifications? What is this, a job interview? I have to prove my Toxic Avenger bonafides to you? I don’t have time for this shit. I attended Yale! No, you can’t see my diploma. Why else would I be wearing this sweatshirt if I didn’t?

Come on. Never mind that asshole. We’ve got to start this tour.

There’s lots to see. Come, stroll beside our river. While you traverse its rocky shores, take note of the local wildlife, which is rare in both species and mutation. Hey, cool, that bird winked at you! At least, I think it’s a bird.

Walk our main street, never minding those needles and vials—there are a lot of diabetics here in Tromaville. See how even the frayed and faded “out of business” signs sizzle with unbound economic possibilities? Times may be tough, in more ways than one, but I’m confident the good people of Tromaville have the small-business acumen and work ethic to turn things around.

Oh, that bumper sticker? Tromaville High, where you’ll find some of the most diligent and dedicated honor students in the state. What do you mean, you’ve “read that’s untrue”? Listen, test scores aren’t everything! And anyway, we also have one of those tax scams—er, charter schools. We have a charter school, too. New Chemistry High School. So that parents and students can have more choice regarding their child’s education. They run a lottery to see who gets in. It’s a whole thing; there’s been a lot of public debate about it.

Moving on…

Surely you’ve already noted those smoke stacks on the horizon, but we’d be remiss not to mention that Tromaville is the world headquarters and main manufacturing hub of Body Talk Healthstyle. You know BTH, the chemicals and pharmaceutical conglomerate. They manufacture everything from the pesticides on the food you eat to your baby’s favorite brand of diaper-rash lotion to the plastic bump stocks that attach to your uncle’s semiautomatic rifles.

Yes, that’s the CEO, Bob Garbinger. No, I don’t know why his face is on so much of their advertising, but he is handsome, is he not? Yes, I’m sure he whitens them. Look, this really isn’t what this tour is about. Please hold your questions and comments until the end.

Where were we? Oh, yes.

Culture, industry, and natural beauty: Tromaville makes and the world takes. That was our local motto until Trenton stole it. Those dickheads.

Yes, northern New Jersey’s fourth best kept secret is here, just behind those derelict warehouses. Tromaville has all the folksy charm of Rockwell’s America mixed with a modern Euro-Balkan esthetic that helps lend an air of the exotic. You could almost imagine we’re in Bulgaria—which we’re not, I assure you. We’re really not. We’re in America.

But we’re not here to praise Tromaville. We’re here to meet one of its greatest heroes, and he should be waking up any moment now. See him through that apartment window? No, the fire escape doesn’t look up to code to me either, but please focus.

Yes, him. Well, okay, not saying you’re not allowed to be disappointed, but please, let’s not be rude.

Oh. He’s stirring. No, that was just him shifting in his sleep, putting his hand down on his late wife’s side of the bed, finding it empty.

Yes, I realize there are holes in his socks. They are his sleeping socks, okay?

And he’s not a hero yet, but really, just give him a chance. He should be waking up any moment now. He’s a single father and it’s a school day and… well, let’s watch.

Er, read. Let’s read. Sorry, force of habit. I’ve done a lot of DVD intros.

ONE

Winston Gooze nuzzled at a pillow that smelled of corn chips and started awake.

“Oh, shit. I—” he said, his voice cracking with phlegm and sleep. He swallowed, then continued: “I just had the craziest dream. I was in this weird hospital. Everything was white and clean, and there was this giant staircase and I had to…”

With his arm outstretched, the coolness of Shelly’s side of the bed seeped in through the back of his hand.

He looked from the stained popcorn-colored ceiling of the bedroom over to the nightstand and the framed photo there. In the picture, Shelly, Wade, and Winston all stood smiling. It was Halloween in the photo and the three of them wore leotards, the scratchy lace of tutus around their waists—two metalhead parents dressed up in pink and fuchsia to support the boy’s passion for dance.

How could Shelly have left Winston to do this alone? To raise her son, their son, alone?

Maybe if Winston kept talking to Shelly, it could help him stay sane. Maybe it would help him be a good dad, or a good stepdad at least.

So he talked to her.

“But I’m being rude. How did you sleep?” he said, trying to keep his eyes on Shelly’s picture, resisting the urge to dip them down to the bed and see that she wasn’t there.

He waited.

There was no answer, and it was too early and he had too much of a headache to try and imagine one. Anyway, as the pain slithered across the front of his skull, Winston couldn’t recall what Shelly’s speaking voice sounded like.

That was bad. How could he have forgotten the voice he’d fallen in love with? He could remember what her music sounded like, her singing voice, but not how she spoke.

He sat up and poured a handful of aspirin into his hand. Maybe if he managed the pain, he could remember a little better. He swallowed the pills, and possibly a bug—his bedside water was very old. The painkillers weren’t the cheapo store-brand kind, they were a real BTH product that he bought with his employee discount, but sometime last week they’d stopped helping with the pain. The throbbing behind his temples was like a hangover all the time, though of course it was worse when he was actually hungover.

“Okay,” you piece of shit, “time to start the day.”

Winston heard the toilet flush, the muffled slam of a door, then light footsteps. Somewhere in the small apartment, Wade was awake and preparing for school. Winston could guess, just by the rhythm of the footsteps, that the boy was tapping at his chest, trying to get his anxiety under control.

Oh, yeah. Today was tryouts for the Shoot for the Stars thing, or whatever New Chemistry High called their talent show. Wade would be performing his dance today—or property movement piece, or whatever—after school. Wade was going to be nervous about tryouts. Winston wondered if the boy had slept at all last night.

Winston showered quickly, only having time to sing/hum half a Motörhead song (“Overkill,” obviously) before the water went cold. He didn’t have a voice like Shelly had, but he liked to think he brought passion to his performances the same way she did. God, he missed her.

He reached for his towel. It smelled funny and was too mildewed to dry his body effectively, but he hastily rubbed it into his crevices anyway. As he dried, he listened to Wade down the hall, still pacing.

Skin and hair still damp, he ran to the kitchen, pressed two slices of lightly spotted bread into the toaster, and moved to the refrigerator. There were two eggs left in the carton. He and Wade usually split four, which meant Winston would need to go without today. Maybe just a bite. To compensate, Winston added twice the butter to the pan. Eggs were brain food, important to eat before a test, so they’d probably help with a talent show tryout.

As the eggs sizzled, he turned on the TV to hear the traffic report.

“—Village police have released no motive or suspects, saying only that the muckraking reporter’s death was, quote, ‘quite gruesome,’” the male reporter, Rick Feet, said on the screen, a neutral smile surmounting his cleft chin.

The female anchor, C.J. Doons, swiveled in her chair, eyebrows rising. “And complicated, Rick, from the sound of it,” she said. “Harpoon guns are hard to come by, especially in this economy.” She paused, shuffling papers and finding her camera. “Switching gears, we have a special exclusive for y’all at home: it’s the brand-new video from those far-out shocker rockers you love to hate, Tromaville’s hometown anti-heroes the Killer Nutz. And don’t forget, the Nutz will be performing this weekend as part of St. Roma’s Festival. Me and the morning news crew will see you there. Roll it, Terry.”

Winston hadn’t heard Wade enter the kitchen, but he could see the boy now in his peripheral vision, sitting at the small table, finger out, tapping his sternum. That was one of the coping mechanisms Wade’s therapist had taught him to help him deal with his various neurological and focus issues. There were probably other tricks Wade could use to cope with his anxiety, but at this rate the kid would never learn them—not on Winston’s salary. Wade’s last therapy session had been over a month ago, before the office canceled all future appointments over non-payment of bills.

On the TV, the Killer Nutz flailed, rapped over each other, and threw hand signals. The one in the straitjacket banged his forehead against the drumkit’s cymbals, leaving a bloody gash. The lead singer coated the grille of his microphone in white clown paint. And the big one in the chicken mask… played guitar pretty well, actually. That one was talented, at least.

Winston shut off the TV. He must have missed the traffic report. They were running pretty late.

He scraped the contents of the skillet onto a twice-used plate, turned to face his stepson, and pointed his chin at the TV.

“Ugh, those dudes. I mean, right?” he said.

Wait, did Wade like the Killer Nutz? He couldn’t, right? The group was definitely not the boy’s style.

Wade shrugged. No opinion, apparently.

The boy was fifteen, but looked younger. He’d applied makeup for school, eyeliner that was clumped on his lashes. If only Shelly were around, she could give her son makeup tips—she’d always looked so awesome on stage. But she wasn’t around. And Winston didn’t know much about makeup. He’d never had a grungy semi-goth phase himself. When he’d been Wade’s age, he’d been more the classic metal-nerd type, using a fake ID to get cheap tattoos he’d regretted even before they’d healed. Buying Jack and Cokes that were mostly Coke because the whiskey made him hurl. Teenaged Winston had thought himself Tromaville’s answer to Lemmy, albeit without all the talent or ability to grow cool facial hair. And he still rocked that style, even if it was a little toned down. Puberty had come late, but his handlebar mustache/beard combo was now his pride and joy, even if it was starting to go gray.

But unlike Winston had been, Wade was a good kid, so Winston tried to pay attention to what his stepson was into and keep up with his burgeoning interests. And everything was changing so fast now, at this age, with Wade trying to figure out who he was and who he wanted to become. Testing boundaries.

“I dig that shade,” Winston said, pointing at the boy’s dark nail polish. It hadn’t been there yesterday, but it was already chipped. More nerves, causing Wade to chew at his cuticles, Winston guessed.

“Black Thunder, right?”

Wade shrugged, mumbled something that could have been thanks, could have been a curse word, and reached for a triangle of toast that was as black as his nails.

“I could, uh, try to scrape off the burned part?” Winston suggested.

But it was all burned, just like the butter and the eggs were. Winston pinched the bridge of his nose, the smell of the botched breakfast making his headache worse. Even when he tried, everything seemed to come out burned.

“No,” Wade said, his words more than a mumble this time. “It looks great.”

He was a good kid.

Winston stood and watched his stepson eat a few forkfuls, then looked down at his phone.

“Oh, fuckballs! Quick, eat. We’re going to be late.”

Winston dumped the plates into the sink, squeezed a few ropes of dish soap over the grease and yolk, then ran the tap for a little water.

Probably best to let it soak. He’d do the dishes later so they didn’t get more roaches. Probably.

Winston ushered Wade to the door, but the boy didn’t need much ushering and had already grabbed his backpack and gym bag with his dance outfit, and stood there ready to go.

“Car keys?” Wade asked. “And do you have your ID badge?” The boy was still tapping to self-soothe, but not as much. His anxiety was slowing. Good.

Winston smiled and put his hands in his pockets.

“I mean, who’s the adult here, dude? Of course I’ve…”

He spread his fingers. Both pockets were empty. Retracing last night’s footsteps, he found his keys and his ID on the nightstand, grabbed both, and then they were on their way out the door.

The second-floor landing smelled like yellow cake, cream filling, and preservatives—which was a welcome change, because most days it smelled like rat farts.

The bodega must have received a fresh shipment of Krusty Kakes that morning. If Wade was willing to run for the bus, maybe they could stop in and—

“Please! Don’t hurt ’im!”

Daisy’s voice.

Wade stomped down the rest of the stairs two at a time, and Winston followed after the boy. They pushed out into the street and stepped right into an exchange that was… none of their business.

“C’mon now, I don’t want to hurt him,” the man talking to Daisy said. He was holding the bodega cat, Mr. Treats. “And I know you don’t want to accept our more-than-reasonable offer for your piece o’ property here.”

Winston squinted against hazy sunlight, tried to take stock of what was going on.

“But I promise you, ma’am,” the goon continued, giving the cat a shake, “one of us is about to do the thing we don’t want to do.”

Winston had seen the smirking man around here before, but he didn’t know his name. He was a member of the Khaki Gang, a name that Winston was only vaguely aware of. He was clad in a khaki jacket and, like his two friends, khaki pants, and was younger than both of his henchmen, dressed in slightly less preppy attire.

The two support goons stood next to their leader, near an expensive-looking sports car idling with its front wheel against the curb. The traffic in the street behind them slowed a little, rubberneckers trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

“What are you looking at, tough guy?” the man holding the cat said.

Was he talking to Wade, Winston, or both of them?

Winston put a hand on Wade’s arm, then dropped his eyes and pretended to read the headline on the newspapers stacked out front of the bodega.

Oh—BTH’s stock was down. Great. He was probably going to be “downsized” or whatever.

“That’s what I thought,” the man said.

“Yeah, you look away, hoss,” added one of the other hoods, wearing a polo and a backward cap.

Mr. Treats began to mewl as the man’s grip tightened around the cat’s throat. He was beginning to play the poor thing like a furry bagpipe.

A lightning bolt of pain shot through Winston’s brain.

He staggered, nearly collapsed.

The thought of it, the stress, was almost too much.

Wade and Winston were about to attend the public execution of Mr. Treats.

Never mind the innocent cat: after witnessing that kind of trauma, Wade wouldn’t stop tapping his chest for the next month, at least.

But there was nothing Winston could do. They were three gang members, probably armed, shaking down their nice old landlady who ran the store below them. Sure, sometimes the bodega sold spoiled milk, and Daisy didn’t accept returns, but she didn’t deserve—

“Okay,” Daisy said, stepping further away from her store and onto the sidewalk.

“Okay what?” the man holding Mr. Treats asked.

Winston chanced a look over at Daisy, who lifted her thin arms, the freckled skin creasing.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll sell to you. Just don’t hurt my cat.”

Shit. That would mean they had to move again, Winston thought guiltily.

“Common sense prevails,” the man holding the cat said, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the animal. “What would you want this old heap of bricks for anyway? Nothing but upkeep. I’ll be back with the paperwork tonight. We’ll make everything legal.”

At least things had de-escalated.

The smirking man whistled and one of the khaki-clad goons moved around to the front of the sports car while the other opened the passenger door for their boss.

“Good one, Spence,” the man holding the door said.

So the leader was Spence. Then there was the driver and the yes-man. All three of the gang members got in the car. But Spence still hadn’t returned the cat to Daisy. Mr. Treats mewled again. The sound was pathetic.

This wasn’t over yet.

Instead of handing the cat back, Spence kept eye contact with Daisy and swung the car door closed.

Daisy began to cry, her sobs muffled by the street’s quickening morning traffic. On the sidewalk, a crowd was gathering to watch the show. A delivery man hiked up his shorts, fixing his bulge. A homeless man stopped scratching at the bugs under his skin to see what was about to happen.

Winston felt Wade’s muscles tighten under his hand. The boy wanted to help and was about to jump into action. He couldn’t let him do that. He could be hurt, or killed.

Whirrrr…

They watched as the car’s power window lowered.

Inside, Mr. Treats was hissing and spitting at Spence.

Wade stepped forward, and Winston had to clamp down on his arm quickly. The boy was taller than his stepdad and nearly pulled Winston off his feet.

No, Winston thought. I’m not letting you get killed over a cat. Even if you’re right: somebody in Tromaville needs to do something.