It was dead quiet in the desert around a gas station and gun store. Not so much as a tumbleweed rolled by, there wasn’t a single chirp from the cicadas in the dead bushes laying by the wayside of the store. The only sound was the howling wind bouncing off the sign dangling from the roof of the convenience store. Through the scratches and faded, maudlin marks of age on the sign was a goofy Redskin caricature, greeting anyone outside with an amazingly awkward, inhumane smile. The door for the store was recklessly ajar, with the handle having been bluntly bashed from its place. 

There wasn’t so much as a peep from inside that convenience store, and even if someone were to walk inside they wouldn’t find anyone to greet them in that silence. They would, however, soon notice the 2 broken shelves cracked straight down their centers behind the cash register, caving downwards from collapse, as if pointing behind the counter. Someone would certainly notice in that static, dead silence that there was a massive hole in the counter by the register, as if something fell on to it, or perhaps upon looking closer, smashed into it. They might pick up on a musty aroma, repulsive enough to kill their curiosity, and certainly spark caution. To confirm their unholy sense of dread, they might dare to look behind that counter to find what was waiting for them. 

To gaze upon the graceful body of an old man laced in a flannel shirt, bright blue jacket-vest, and tattered blue jeans littered with wear and tear wouldn’t have been the welcome sight one might expect from the store that day. But the scratches and holes peeping all over his clothes, a full, lush salt-and-pepper beard teeming with the crumbs of a hearty lunch, and a bowie knife rammed handle-deep through his eye would have surely been an ungracious greeting to anyone who walked into that store on that hollow, hushed day. And it was in the tumbleweed-less, chirp-less, static, dead, hushed silence of that quiet day that the pop of a bullet erupted from within the gun store adjacent.

A swift few minutes after that thunderous crack, a man entrenched in a black duster coat which must’ve felt like hell in the bitter heat lumbered out of the store. His wingtip boots and tan pants were splattered with dirt and riddled with countless minuscule red drip marks, looking like a Jackson Pollock piece, but the crates the man was carrying embalmed the rest of him. He was heaving a massive, unlabeled crate made of timber wood and a large crate with a bullet insignia. He dropped them by the trunk of a dusty red car, inserted his key, and opened the trunk up. Next to a cluster of open bottles filled with alcohol and stuffed shut with rags and two empty gas canisters, there was enough space to drop the boxes. He set them down, rocking the car down an inch or 2 in the process, and took the gas cans out. He turned around to pace a few meters back to the gas pump, where he would start to fill the canisters, his eyes capriciously darting up and down the endless road he came from seeking any movement in the static skyline. With nothing noticed and the gas cans filled and placed in the trunk, he opened the massive unlabeled crate. For the tenderest of moments he gazed upon the innards of the crate with a fearful spark in his eyes, his blood running cold in the desert heat, and he shut the crate. As he rested his hand on the trunk handle, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a wholesomely enchanting, toy-plush, stuffed purple vixen. A quick glance forced a genial smirk to grow on his face, but he quaintly nestled in the back of the trunk before thrusting a revolver into the opposite corner and slamming the trunk shut. 

He was rummaging in the pocket of his trench coat when he stopped to stare through the window of the car, the smallest of smirks growing on his face, putting him at ease as he looked at the passenger's seat. Opening the door as delicately as he could, he let the fluttering of sand float into the car. After sorting through his pocket, the toss and thunk of a juice box landing at the feet of a balled-up kid in the back seat let the man know his passenger was up.

“Get up Armadillo, it’s time.”

With a small twitch of his brogue shoes giving a dainty tap on the bottom of the car, his head bobbed up from the floor. He was in a curled ball, and when his head popped up, the kid’s eyes darted to the juice box on the ground. The man plopped himself onto the driver's seat. Droopily and dejectedly, the boy stared at the juice between his feet, poking and prodding precariously at the bright neon box, eyes fixed on the front label.

“Cmon, we’re burning daylight,” the man gave two firm pats to the passenger seat in front, signaling the kid to climb over. After a second of blank gazing, the kid jolted over the barrier and hopped into the seat in sync with the turn of the key and revving of the engine, starting their journey down the highway.

They were 5 minutes into the drive when he looked at the kid. He couldn’t have been older than 10. He was clad in a red flannel jacket who’s sleeves covered up to the tips of his fingers and a clean pair of blue jeans that were far too loose on him. He had a gleaming, ruby-encrusted ring on his left hand and a dusty pair of old brougers clanging off his feet. His hair was terribly out of place. The indecorous ill-cared nest his hair had become, the unnatural mix of blonde patches with brown and black streaks, anyone looking on wouldn’t be able to point out where his frilly locks started or ended. His teeth were a grimacing yellow, not broken or rotten or anything of the sort, but a filthy blemish on his pale, affable face.

It was impossible not to notice how out of place he looked, how unnatural his appearance was, as if he was a baby in a suit and tie. It took a bit of time and a double-take, but the man finally noticed something odd about the boy.

“Where’s the juice box you asked for?” He asked it with an innocently quizzical flair as the kid looked up from the ground wide-eyed.

“It’s on the ground.”

“Why is your juice box on the ground?”

“I don’t like that flavor” His squeaky voice dropped down an octave. too brusque to show that he was scared but too quiet to show any cheek. The man’s eye narrowed as his resting smile turned downwards.

“Ricky, remember what you told me a couple months ago? What you said about juice boxes way back when this all started?” 

Ricky’s eyes forcefully malingered out the window like he was pretending to notice something. The man went on. 

“I remember, I remember exactly what I said,” his initial annoyance was taking a prideful turn in tone. “‘Ricky, we’re gonna be on the road for a while, ‘ that’s me talking, ‘I gotta move for my job, so we’re not going to see this house again.’ Remember what I said next?” He was ignorant of Ricky’s eye-rolling as he answered the question.

“I asked you if we were gonna really be leaving forever.”

“And?” His eyes were dead set on Ricky while he made a turn onto a splitting road leading into storm clouds dozens of miles off in the distance, onto another endless avenue. His lips were still in a frown, but they were pointing further upwards with every word they exchanged. “Did I say forever?” 

“You said forever-ever,” the kid leaned forward as he spoke, “so I said on the road I wanted snacks, and I said I wanted pineapple flavored juice” the kid’s playful eyes were perking up now as he started speaking faster, “but I said don’t wanna go into ‘Armadillo’ when you get out, I want to get out, I want to get the juice...”

“So you said pineapple all those months ago, never corrected me, and it’s sitting there...” The man reeled his head back to grab the box but saw nothing on the tan mats of the back. What he did see was a gleam from underneath the row of backseats, as he barely made out the shimmer of the corner of a juice box glittering under the seat. 

With his eyes narrowed on the label, looking closer, he saw hints of dozens of barely noticeable green-yellow labels, piled up in whatever extent the darkness could reach. Underneath the back seat they piled up. There must’ve been a months’ worth back there. It took a moment of silence and a harrowed stare out the back window for him to piece a confluence together.

“Ricky…”

The cacophony of an old brick phone erupted from the man's pocket, jolting both their heads in the split second it rang before the man flung it open and barked immediately.

“Yeah Sarge”

Splurts of muffled speech were spouting out of the phone ferociously, but Ricky was squirming squeamishly in his seat too much to notice. His pale face was losing its color as the pit in his stomach got deeper with each passing second. The man, however, had lost himself in the conversation.

“5 grunts, maybe 6, with some burners would be ‘taking a precaution’, but you don’t bring out a dozen street soldiers armed to the teeth with artillery as some kind of prophylactic measure to sell some cargo. You might not know… listen to me… you don’t have to know why. You won’t need your guys… because I stole some stuff on my own, that’s why… it’s all I need... what in God’s name makes you think I’m letting you use my shit, I touch my shit, that’s it... you can hold their dicks for all I care, I’m the only one who’s gonna be ‘blasting’, point is… shut up… they would never expect just the 2 of us to show up for such a big deal, therefore… shut up…  therefore, they’re at ease. RIght? They think they got us by our throats, alright, they think we’re random war dogs looking for a get-rich-quick thing, maybe they could even bury us 6 feet under and get away with not paying… during the deal I’ll let loose some fireworks to surprise them… We’ll show up early, lace the whole building… what your goddamn job is is that you gotta move everything while they're getting turned into human candles. I’ll be lighting up the whole building, so you gotta move all the cargo in those 20 seconds… bring the same truck you wanted to shove your soldiers of fortune in, but the moment I start moving, you’re gonna roll every box outside and I’ll join you… it’s gonna be 10 minutes of talk and 20 seconds of action, the only thing I might have to worry about...”

The man's head creaked towards Ricky, now biting his lips with his legs quaking like jelly as he noticed the man’s glance in his peripheral vision. Ricky’s face was expressionless, paralyzed into stone by the man’s pause in the conversation, obviously thinking about him.

“...isn’t a problem.”

The line went cold for a second as Sarge, for once, actually soaked in what the man said. His silence was filled with anything but ease. The strain the Sarge was forcing, his struggle to quell the urge to say what obviously bothering him was potent, but remained unmentioned nonetheless. 

At sunset, they all arrived. Pulling in past a wire fence, they drove next to a nameless, faceless building. All grey, dozens of broken windows scattered near the roof, and half a dozen massive green garage doors facing the same direction on one side. There was a white semi with a void where the logo should’ve been right in front of the farthest garage from the opening in the fence, and leaning on its driver door was a chubby, shirtless guy with camo pants who looked up from a cigar he was smoking to see the car pull up. His eyes immediately darted to Ricky, who caught his glance. The moment their eyes connected he leaped off the truck promptly, looking aimlessly away, pretending to notice something in the distance. The man deliberately parked the car in the corner of the fence, facing the open desert. He turned off the engine and turned to Ricky. 

“You’re gonna sit in that seat for the next few hours. You’re not gonna move around. You’re not gonna change seats. You’re not gonna crack a window. When I get back, we’re gonna be in a big rush. Emergency. Like there's a fire on our butts. Until I open this door, hop into this car, start it up and start driving, you’re gonna stay down like an Armadillo.” 

Ricky was frozen, but when he heard “Armadillo” his jaw clenched up tightly and his eyes started to swell up with tears. The man didn’t look at him as he walked out the door, muttering one more comment with the door almost closed behind him.

“If you stay good and right through this whole thing, I got a treat for you. A... surprise in the trunk.” Without another second of hesitation, he slammed the door shut. Ricky heard the trunk opening as he felt the weight of the car lessening over the next free minutes, the scuffle of rummaging from the back telling him that the back was getting emptied. There was a pause for a short bit, but then the thunderous slam of what must’ve been a giant door opening made him jump. There was another pause, the only thing audible being the faint creaks and scraps of what sounded like boxes being dragged. The last thing Ricky heard was the quaking of the door as it was smashed back into the ground.

In the couple hours Ricky was balled up in the passenger's seat, dusk had turned to dark, the desert heat that pounded on his neck was replaced by the chilly gloom of the moon, and the silence of the outside had yet to be broken. 

He couldn’t wait for his treat.

Maybe it was finally some real food. Something warm, something fresh. It’d been so long since he got to eat anything that wasn’t out of a fast-food bag, save the one time they were forced to eat nothing but carrots for a few days. He never asked why they couldn’t go to any stores for that short while, but the man compensated by getting him chocolate every day for that next week. But the thought of an actual meal, something they had to have on a plate with forks and spoons, maybe even a knife if he was allowed, made Ricky’s stomach give a solemn howl, riling up his tongue at that irresistible image. 

The cars couldn’t be heard as they went by.

One by one, the axiomatic creeping of tires on the dusty gravel kept coming closer to the building. Synchronistically, 2 cars positioned themselves to make a blockade at the gated entrance through the fence, 3 cars parked parallel to one another next to the furthest garage door, and 1 car went around the side of the building to the other end of the enclosement. From the cars near the garage, a dozen officers in uniform stepped out. They all took point in front of their cruisers while one of the cops, a petite, brunette woman, marched in front of them while facing the garage door, signaling them to move next to her and heave open the massive door with her. 

The rattling of the door creakily flying up to reveal a dimly lit room the size of an auditorium, the only thing noticeable being the silhouettes of 2 men leaning on crates was heard by Ricky. He bit his tongue and lifted his head. His eyes dared to dart towards his door handle, his instincts urging him, his conscious barking at him to touch the metal grip of the door, desperately wanting to let himself look behind him, to see with his own eyes what was happening. But his hands laid still, the thought of losing his surprise killing his intuition.

The fire that started couldn’t be heard, but the boom and screaming could. 

He had flung his entire back up, instinctually bending his knees to stand before catching himself and squatting back to the floor. There was an unholy banshee screech wailing piercing through the metal car and window, rattling around the inside of the car and bouncing in Ricky’s eardrums. It was vicious, brutal to hear, and to anyone who could see the source, it was surely sickening. 

The shrieks refused to fizzle out for ages, but the wails of damnation were overpowered by the popping of gunshots. It was here that Ricky covered his ears, forcing his fingers into his eardrums and numbing himself to the outside. His eyes remained opened though. Amidst all the orange flickering that was now filling the car, his eyes still darted to the clasp on the door. Even amidst all the chaos, amidst the hell that was manifesting itself outside, his mind was collapsing under the pressure to succumb to his curiosity. He desperately wanted his treat, but he needed to see what was out there. The entire car was a blinding orange as his fingers lunged at the handle, wrenched it open, and stampeded outside.

It was then, as he was standing tall, his posture towering like it couldn’t before, his clothes uncrinkling, the tang of the fiery air slamming every flake of exposed skin, the sizzles and cracks of flames alongside the barks of nearly a dozen men engulfing his ears that he turned to face the building to see. He didn’t soak in the building ablaze, the charred body, or the massive crater. He wasn’t able to even glance at the officers that were approaching him. 

He was too busy looking at the fading light in the man's eyes across the lot at the entrance of the garage. Soaking in the last flickers of dread, of crestfallen agony as the man’s worst fears turned into reality in his last gasping breaths, Ricky watched the man’s lips quiver tearfully at the sight of him before a bullet between his eyes laid him to rest.

“He’s a gold mine. The kid’s been with the guy for months, he could know things about the syndicate that could topple this guy’s empire for good, we’d never see another illegal arms deal within a hundred miles of here for… years, I mean…” the bushy-bearded cop was trying his best to keep up his rant to the leading officer, but the black cop by his side interjected on his behalf.

“Ma’am, we’ve got no way of calming the kid or getting him out of that weird ball stance he’s rolled up in, but when we take him down to the station you cannot let him stay quiet.” The officers looked ready to insist further to their female chief, but she raised her hand and retorted before they had the chance. 

“I never said that! Don’t you two make up bullshit, I never said we’d let him stay... broken like this. We’re gonna give him the time he needs to get talking on his own, do what it takes to make him comfortable. Did I say we were leaving him to rot?” They stood there dumbfounded, not realizing it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Did I say we were leaving him like this, yes or no jackasses?”

“No ma’am.” Both officers mournfully conceded.

“I said I’ll handle it. Now you’re dismissed.”

She walked to the red car, which was quite literally a beacon in the aftermath of the brutal firefight. Everything once ablaze had turned stone cold again or had turned to ash. The lights of the officer’s cars and the moon were the only source of light. As she paced toward the driver’s side, pondering how to handle the kid, she noticed the open trunk. It had some yellow tape on its cover, but the faint gleam of a purple stuck out in the darkness of the trunk. The chief lurched forward to pick it up, perplexed as her hardened fingers grasped a plush vixen. In a moment of confusion, she glanced up at the driver's seat. Her eyes, still droopy and tired, lit up. She walked to the open driver’s door and looked down at the pitiful, strangely dressed up kid huddled up in the driver's seat.

“Hey...sweetie.” She felt humiliatingly inappropriate trying to talk to him in such a motherly way but persisted nonetheless. “You can… you don’t have to move, sweetie, we don’t want anything right now we just…” she was segueing into a persuasive attempt at coaxing the kid out of the car so he’d walk with her but stopped herself. In a moment of sentiment, she set the purple vixen in front of the kid. 

“I found this in the back. Kinda surprised me. Is it…” The kid had moved his head when he heard the word ‘surprised’, and upon seeing the plushy, immediately embraced it with tears coming out his eyes.