Chapter 39
JANUARY
“W
hat are you doing up so late?” I ask Dinah, finding a spot to sit on the couch.
“Trying to figure out what little mouse stole our client list for the pill launch,” she says.
I play dumb and pretend I don't know what she's talking about. “I really need to sleep. As you can see, I'm wet and probably have hypothermia on top of it.”
“Looks like you've amassed quite a lot of money using our resources,” Clint says, turning his laptop around and showing me my fundraiser.
Dinah glares at me. “At least two of our listeners forwarded us your little email begging for money. I can't help but wonder how you found their email addresses.”
“You can find emails for anybody these days,” I say.
“Cut the shit, Wade. We know you used our contact list. Those were our listeners—our money—and you stole them. I want you to explain what you were thinking.”
“I needed the money for our school musical. We needed to raise at least thirty thousand to move it to the community theater,” I say.
“Can you get it back?” Dinah says.
“I can't.”
“The gay Peter Pan show?” Clint asks.
I nod.
“And you told them you were attacked with a gay Sasquatch vaccine and needed money for conversion therapy,” Dinah says.
I nod again. I'm ready for whatever punishment comes next.
Clint whistles. “Wade, I never thought I'd say this, but you're brilliant.”
Huh?
“You have no idea how much you've helped us,” he says.
I'm relieved. And so tired. And heartbroken. I don't care.
“Sounds like a positive development. I need to go to bed.” I stand up.
“You're going to sit your ass back down because you are officially involved with this business,” Dinah says.
“Now that you're the victim of a Sasquatch attack, we're going to have you on our show.
And not only are you going to tell us all about your terrifying ordeal, you're going to tell everybody how Plutonium Cactus cured the effects of the vaccine.”
They want me to help them scam the world with their stupid pill?
I shake my head. “I don't feel comfortable doing that.”
“You don't have a choice,” Clint says. “Like Dinah said, you're officially part of the business now. Now get some shut-eye, because we're recording first thing in the morning.”
When I get to my room, I get a text from Felix asking if I'm okay.
Me:
Am I ever OK?
Him:You were so crashed out that you said we should go to prom. That's a record level of not OK for you.
Me:
Omg so weird
Him:
I wish I had recorded it hahaha
I toss my phone in my drawer and put a moratorium on texting for the next twenty-four hours.
___________
“Dinahmiters, what you're about to hear is going to shock you,” Clint says, sitting next to me and Dinah in her studio the next morning. “Maybe you've seen the news lately. My own nephew, Wade, is here to tell you about his harrowing encounter with a legitimate cryptid in the woods.”
I scowl at him. How dare he call me his nephew.
“Explain to us what happened, Wade,” Dinah says, handing me the cue cards they “prepared” for me.
“I was out in the woods with my guy friend living off the grid to prepare for the end of the world,” I narrate into the microphone.
“We were fishing like real guys, doing real guy things, until something started growling and throwing all these books at us.
They were books that my school had banned for being too gay.
I heard a rustling in the bushes, and that's when it jumped out at me with the cow flu vaccine. It chased me as far as it could until I blacked out. I woke up and it stuck me with the vaccine. Then I blacked out again and when I woke up, I found the footage on my phone. My friend filmed everything. But he was gone.”
“Who was your friend?” Clint asks.
I cross my arms and wave them apart. “Not allowed to say. They've gone into hiding.”
“How did you know it was the cow flu vaccine?”
“Uh, he was talking to me telepathically. He said he was saving me. He said his name was…”
My mind goes blank. I try to think of a name, but “Sutter” is the only thing that pops up because he's the closest thing to a Sasquatch in existence. My eyes whirl nervously and my “uhs” get longer, until I spot a pile of books Dinah brought into the garage. Her Ted Bundy books.
“Bundy! That's what he said his name was.”
“When did you realize the vaccine made you gay?” Clint asks.
“I started having dreams about men. I started looking at men differently and desiring them. I never thought about women again.”
“Then you started taking Plutonium Cactus,” Dinah says.
“And that's when I started feeling back to normal and thinking about women instead,” I read off the card and stare at Dinah with nuclear rage.
“Who was filming you while this attack happened?” Dinah asks.
“I'm not allowed to say. They've gone into hiding,” I say.
“Why do you think the Sasquatch is here? Why did it choose you?” Clint asks.
“I don't know,” I say.
“I'll tell you why!” Dinah shouts. “It's because the school district banned that gay musical. And now it's back on. The musical is luring the Sasquatch here like a lighthouse, and it wants to turn everybody here gay.”
“Why do you think that is, Dinah?” Clint asks.
“Because our government made a deal with them.
They'll depopulate the earth by making us all gay, and we'll all die out,” she says.
“The Sasquatches can get back their ancestral lands.
Meanwhile, the government fat cats will be living it up in some bunker somewhere else while we're left to die here.”
This is outrageously batshit, even by Dinah's standards. My brain has turned to mush.
“So how do you think we can stop this, Wade?” Clint asks.
“By buying Plutonium Cactus. Take it once a day. It's the only way we'll win.” I die inside as I read the cue card. I feel my soul disintegrate, but what choice do I have?
“Did you hear that?” Dinah says. “Our male enhancement pill devised by Harvard scientists with American citizenship turns out to be the one thing standing in between that gay Sasquatch and world domination.”
“There's something in our woods, my friends,” Clint says. “Something ancient… something evil… something gay.”