American Horror: Grind Edition Chapter 64 64: The Gun Shop

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The taillights of the car disappeared into the night, and the kitchen fell silent again.

Lionel stretched and broke the quiet.

"They're lucky. They got out of this ss in one piece."

Luke shook his head.

"Not that simple. The others might be fine, but Heather's already on the cult's list."

Lionel's relaxed expression vanished.

"Yeah… those psychos aren't gonna let her go. What's the plan?"

Luke kept talking.

"I gave them an FBI contact in Miami. The cult's local base there got cleaned out, so it's a safe zone for now. But that's just a bandage. Whether they're actually safe depends on how well we do our job here."

"That letter said they've got sothing new—sothing big coming. If we hit their main base, great. If not…"

"Then we're fucked," Lionel finished, nodding like he'd just solved a puzzle.

"Wait a second. Weren't we supposed to be hunting ghosts and spirits? How the hell did we end up at war with a cult?"

Luke's voice stayed calm.

"Cults are like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Once you step in it, you gotta scrape it off with a knife—every last bit—or it just spreads and gets nastier. Unfortunately, we already stepped in it. Even more unfortunately, one of us is dying to study the damn gum."

He turned and looked at Brando, who was hunched over the table scribbling like a man possessed.

"You're not dropping this mission, are you?"

Brando closed his notebook and looked at them with complete seriousness.

"I got a lot of workable ideas from that ledger. My experint's going to move way faster now—but I need funding. A lot of funding. I have to finish this assignnt and get that data. I don't care if the place is full of cultists or a bunch of dinosaurs running experints. I'll blow their brains out and take what I need."

Luke sighed at the slightly unhinged scientist.

"Get so rest. Tomorrow we gear up properly."

They picked the least-damaged bedroom and crashed for the night. The Sawyer manor sat silent in the dark like a tomb—which wasn't far from the truth.

The next morning, Lionel woke up starving.

He rubbed his eyes, sat up on the couch, and imdiately checked his chest. The chainsaw wound had healed a lot, but it was still a ugly, jagged hole with fresh pink tissue twisting together in a way that made his skin crawl.

"Fuck… this regeneration speed is insane, but the energy drain is killing ."

He muttered as he climbed off the couch and started raiding the kitchen.

Luke was already awake, sitting in the living room and carefully wiping down the newly enchanted chainsaw with a rag. The thing had been filthy from Leatherface's use. He wanted it clean before he trusted it again. He was even thinking about finding tools later to modify it—make it more of a proper weapon.

Brando, on the other hand, looked like he'd never gone to bed. He was sprawled across the table surrounded by a dozen sheets of paper covered in formulas and symbols. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a bird's nest, and he kept mumbling to himself.

"So that's how it works… The way they extract and convert spiritual energy is crude, but there's still value here. If I tweak it just a little, my experint could—"

Lionel decided to interrupt before the guy lost his mind completely.

"Hey, genius. You wanna figure out how to fill our stomachs first? I could eat a whole cow right now."

Brando looked up blankly, then shoved one of the notebooks toward him.

"Look at this. These are the calculations I did. I figured out ways to use this for matter transmission."

Before Lionel could protest, Brando grabbed his arm and launched into a rapid-fire explanation.

Lionel had zero interest and even less understanding. He shot Luke a helpless look.

Luke set the chainsaw down, walked over, and lifted both n out of their chairs with one hand each.

"Enough. We've got work to do today. Clean up and let's move."

They climbed into the van. Brando grabbed the wheel with way too much excitent.

"We heading straight for the cult's main base? Going in guns blazing for a glorious slaughter?"

Luke gave him a flat look.

"We're going to the nearest big city to buy weapons. You planning to fight them with your bare hands?"

That single sentence cooled Brando down fast.

He pulled out the map and studied it.

"Nearest city is Houston, but we don't need to go that far. Any of the satellite towns around here will work. Plenty of stock, and the owners have big balls—as long as you pay, they'll sell you anything."

Lionel couldn't help asking.

"Aren't you an FBI researcher? Why not just request weapons through official channels?"

Brando let out a long sigh.

"You an I should write a threat-assessnt report, submit it, wait for approval, then have a field team co out here to verify the threat, then submit another request for weapons support, and wait for the bureaucrats in the armory departnt to finish their process? By the ti the gear arrives, my project will already be dead."

Lionel shrank back.

"Jesus. That complicated?"

Luke rembered how things had worked in Miami—special circumstances had let them bypass all the red tape.

They left the small town, stopped at a roadside diner, and watched Lionel demolish five breakfasts like a starving wolf. Finally they found the kind of gun shop Brando had described.

They pushed through the door. Behind the counter stood a thick-necked white guy with a an face, wiping down a revolver.

Before the man could speak, Brando marched straight up to him.

"I need this one, this one, and this one—no, these are too weak. Got anything bigger?"

The guy's face turned red. He set the revolver on the counter, suddenly wary.

"You planning to rob a bank or sothing?"

Brando shook his head.

"Bank robbery? Too easy. We've got sothing bigger in mind."

The man stared at him in shock. Brando finally stopped ssing around and flashed his credentials.

"We're on official business. Just need to pick up a few things."

The shop owner wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Heavy firepower, huh? I've got so private stock, but it ain't cheap."

Brando didn't even blink.

"Money's not a problem."

He paused, then added with complete seriousness,

"Oh, and you can write a receipt, right? The kind that can be expensed."