DMH Fiction: Chapeau

You probably want to go take a peek at this week’s Weekend Wordsmith prompt in order to fully understand the ending of this. I stared at that thing for a good hour or so before this bubbled forth, sort of like a mud pot in Yellowstone (yes, pictures to follow). And for those of you who are confused, DMH means… Deadly Metal Hatchet. You got it.

Scott stared at the girls. “You for fricken real?”

“Well, yeah,” the skinnier of the two said. Skinny wasn’t the right word; skeletal was more like it. It was all he could do to keep from staring at her collarbones and the way they stuck out. This girl had problems.

Scott figured he had to have problems, too, because he was seriously considering her offer. Hang at her place, she’d said. She had a pool.

It was a hot August night. A pool would feel a hell of a lot better than the Winnebago.

Gecko came up right then, a beer in one hand, his index and middle finger of the beer hand holding a cigarette. He clapped Scott on the far shoulder and left his arm draped there as he leered at the girl. “Who’s this?”

“My friends call me Chapeau,” she said, thrusting her chest out. Like she had tits, Scott thought. There was the barest bump under her tank top, and it was a close-fitting tank top.

“Chapeau?” Gecko said, lifting both the beer and the cigarette to his mouth. He blew smoke at her. “That means hat or something, dunnit?”

“Think about it,” she said and winked at Scott. “We leave in ten.”

Scott didn’t have much to explain to Gecko. “She has a pool.”

It took him exactly four minutes to round up Lido and Fozzy. Chapeau was ready to go.

They should have stayed home, Scott thought as soon as they got there. There was no food in the fridge, and Chapeau got all nervous when they talked about ordering a pizza. And the pool?

The pool was one of those plastic wader things, barely big enough for one of them to sit down in, let alone the four of them plus Chapeau.

Fozzy said it felt good to just be able to stick his feet in. Then again, it was probably the first time in a month that Fozzy’s feet had gotten near water other than his own sweat. Lido muttered something about the Hatchet being needed here. This was a joke, he mumbled, something that the Hatchet needed to fix for them.

They stayed like that, not talking once Lido was done, sitting in folding chairs that made a circle around the stupid blue wading pool, drinking the beer they’d brought and staring stupidly at each other, until Chapeau showed them how she’d got her name, one at a time, in a not-so-private viewing that went around the circle to each Hatchet member in turn.

Hats, it seemed, covered heads. Pretty well, for someone as skinny and gross as this girl looked.

After Scott’s turn, he looked over his shoulder. Even though no one had moved, a set of wet footprints led away from the stupid blue wading pool.

It seemed the Hatchet had realized it wasn’t needed on this girl after all. And that the Hatchet walked on human feet.