The Mad Ophelias: Chapter 8
⋈ Sometime in the past.
Previously on TMO: Ophelia tried to just buckle down, pretend the protest never happened and commit to a normal work week, but she discovered a flyer near her office for LADIES NITE—a coincidence or did someone put it there? And remember, if you’re just tuning in, you can always jump to the beginning. I won’t mind.
FOUR-CAR PILEUP on the freeway, so we take the streets in SlyDevil’s ancient, dented Volvo, headed north to Lake City. She’s got one hand on the wheel, another on an oat-nut chia granola bar. The bookstores, bocce ball lanes, and community maker spaces give way to the old, blue-collar city—bars that call themselves taverns, strip clubs (Boeing Night!), neon-sign massage parlors and abandoned gas stations.
“This part of town makes me want to shower after,” says SlyDevil. The light turns yellow at a lonely intersection of strip malls, and the car in front of us breaks suddenly. Starts to back up. “Oh FUCK me, really? Really?”
SlyDevil lays on the horn and looks at me. “You haven’t said two words since you got in. Are you planning on like, saying anything?”
“Anything.”
“Hilarious. And you look so damn sad. Why do you always look so damn sad? Like a disappointed Madonna.”
“Maybe I am sad.”
“What the fuck do you have to be sad about?”
With those looks. Marriage to a prince, happily ever after. Crazy how so many people believe it. Like I wouldn’t trade them in a hot second for something I actually wanted. Like they can fix all my broken pieces.
The light turns green, and the car in front of us doesn’t move. More horn. “You know the problem with you—”
“I thought you were against problematizing women.”
“—is that you need to wake up,” SlyDevil continues. “You don’t get to go radio silent. If you’re going to be a leader—”
“I’m not—”
“—you don’t ask for power. You take power. With impunity. That’s what men do.”
As if I don’t know. “I thought we were trying to do something different. Be something different.”
SlyDevil tucks into the left lane and passes a car on their right. “Look, I’m a goddamn anarchist, sisterhood is lovely and my heartfelt aspiration is to topple capitalism and the patriarchy entirely. But MadHatter’s not playing sisterhood. She’s playing the pigeon game, trying to see if a) you’re smart enough to even see what she’s up to, and b) if she can lure away your pigeons. She’s challenging you personally.”
“Maybe it’s stupid to play her game then.”
“Maybe you don’t have a choice.”
SlyDevil cuts back into the right lane without using her indicator, and the car behind them honks.
“Think about it,” SlyDevil says. “MadHatter comes from nowhere. You don’t know who she is, who she works for. She could be the CIA. NSA. KGB. I would bet you ten dollars this current administration would love nothing more than to categorize all of us as terrorists, and all they’d need is one stupid act of extreme violence to pin on us and suddenly we’ve got surveillance up the ass and no community support.”
“That doesn’t sound paranoid at all.”
“Don’t give me that shit. You know I’m right. At least on the manipulation part.”
She is right. I can tell by the way my stomach knots.
The truth is, I know extreme. I’ve lived it. I ran away from it. Extreme has a dark pull that makes you want to take just one tiny half-step further. But every tiny half-step only makes you want to take another.
“You’re going all quiet and creepy again,” says SlyDevil.
The cloudy gray sky turns an amber, sunset pink, and suddenly the air around us fills with crows, all flying in the same direction. Crows above us, crows in front of us, cawing and swirling like a shoal of fish. Some land on light poles, others in barren trees, on power lines, the rooftops of strip malls.
Haven’t seen so many crows like this since the neighbor across the farm died, leaving his fields of corn to go to seed.
If it’s an omen, it sure as hell isn’t a good one.
I tap a finger on the glass. “You know what they call a swarm of crows?”
“A flock?”
“No, a murder of crows.”
I’m about to tell SlyDevil to turn around and go back because it isn’t worth it, but then she slows down and points at a low, flat building that looks like it might have been a bowling alley once.
“There’s OddsBots’ goddamn Mini Cooper,” says SlyDevil.
And a sign, Puget Sound Rifle and Pistol Club. A few scattered crows swirl above it, drifting north to some mysterious destination of their own.
NOTHING BUT SCRUFFY hillside behind the shooting range. Scattered throughout the mostly empty parking lot are a few older cars missing hubcaps, one rusting Cadillac where the rear window is piled high with junk, the telltale sign someone’s living in it. The newest cars, along with OddsBots’ Mini Cooper, are clustered near the entrance’s glass doors.
SlyDevil cruises past a couple of minivans and pulls into a spot right by the Mini Cooper, an incongruous bright and cheerful yellow. Darwin fish emblem on the rear bumper along with a BLACK LIVES MATTER STICKER.
“We need to have a serious talk,” SlyDevil mutters.
The doors to the gun range entrance are protected by a silver metal grill. Above the handle is a sign: THIS PROPERTY IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE AT ALL TIMES. To the left, an American flag sticker WELCOME PROUD AMERICANS, and under that, the LADIES NITE flier.
SlyDevil puts the car in park. “They can’t even fucking spell ‘night’ correctly.”
I let her seethe. She’s going to need that anger to go inside this male-dominated land. I think that of everyone in the group, SlyDevil’s the most sensitive. More even than OddsBots. She just hides it better.
The golden sky has turned a bruised blue, and I count six steps between the car and the entrance. Every one will take me back in time to the person I used to be, what I left behind. Maybe MadHatter senses it, this thing under my skin. If only I could scrape it out and burn it.
I grab my olive backpack from where I stowed it and put it on my lap. “If we’re going to do this, I need you to let me go in first and don’t ask me a single question. Like not a single, solitary question.”
“Okay,” says SlyDevil. “Not being nosy is antithetical to my New York roots, but I can manage for a few hours.”
I find the hair tie and roll my hair into a bun. Pull out a black, bobbed wig and slide it over my head.
“Um…” says SlyDevil. “Okay, right, no questions.”
Tuck the loose strands under the wig and pull out a red baseball cap. Put that over the wig, then root around for the black Lennon sunglasses. “My name is Janet. Got that?”
“Janet. Right. You realize the suspense is fucking killing me.”
I drop the visor down for the mirror, dig around in the pack until I find the stick of red lipstick. Quickly apply it. “This isn’t a game. If you want to leave, we can leave now. Otherwise, I go in first. You give me three minutes—exactly three—then come in. Call me Janet. You’re Lisa. And for God’s sake don’t say or do anything that draws unnecessary attention. If anything, try to seem a little shaky and spooked. Got it?”
“Shaky, spooked,” says SlyDevil. “Got it.”
I pull out a red running jacket. “Good.” Give myself a final look in the mirror, then put the shades on, the jacket. A little over the top, but all they’ll remember is my hair color, red lipstick, jacket, and hat. I stash the pack under the seat.
Not that anything will happen. But there are too many variables.
Without saying else to SlyDevil I open the car door, get out, and shut it behind me, hard. The air is starting to chill.
I can feel it, a tide starting to creep back toward the coast, the pull of who I used to be. And there’s even the faraway sense of my father watching, like he’s deep in the woods waiting for me to catch up as I trudge through the snow with the rifle over my shoulder.
Here we go.
I walk up to the entrance, open one of the glass doors, and step inside.
THE BLUE CARPETING in the shooting range lobby is worn, the almond-colored walls a bit dingy. Bright overhead fluorescent lights cast everything in a bluish sheen. Glass display cases show different guns available to rent—mostly Glocks, with a few Berettas, Smith and Wesson Shields. A stuffed buck’s head with dead, glass eyes is mounted on the wall, and there’s a round surveillance camera in the upper right-hand corner of the ceiling.
There’s a door behind one of the display cases—probably to a storeroom with shelving for ammunition, an area to watch the video feeds, emergency medical supplies, a dedicated line to call an ambulance, the police. The range is, after all, a target. All you’d need is a decent SUV to crash through the front doors, shoot the glass out of the display cases, then you’ve got a nice little arsenal.
Metal pilings out front wouldn’t be a bad idea.
And maybe someone other than a teenager watching over it.
He’s young—fifteen, maybe sixteen, with a name badge pinned to his chest that identifies him as ROY. Roy wears a neat, dark green polo shirt, khaki pants. I get the feeling he’s someone’s nephew, brought specifically to make women feel more comfortable while the heavies drink coffee from Styrofoam cups in the back and catch a game. He offers a hesitant smile.
I approach the display case and smile back. Place my hands in my back pockets so my hips stick out a bit. Through the thick, concrete walls, the muffled pop, pop, pop of gunfire.
“Hi there, Roy.” Intentionally familiar, a probe. One kind of guy will puff up with pride, and another kind will blush.
This one blushes. I peg him at fifteen. Not exactly legal for him to work here, which is something I can use.
“Hi,” he replies nervously. He scans for a weapon print. Young, but not stupid. “First time here?”
“It’s ladies’ night, right?”
“Sure is. Can I see some ID and we’ll get you signed in?”
I pull a small black wallet from my jacket pocket, take out an ID—Janet McKenna—and slide it across the display case.
“Um, mind taking your glasses off for sec?”
“Sure.” I lift them but block the security camera with the visor of my hat.
Roy makes a show of checking carefully—needs to impress the people paying him under the table—but already he’s written me off as a threat. “McKenna…is that Irish?”
“Yup. My grandfather’s side. My mother’s side is Spanish/Italian. Hey, is it okay for my friend Lisa to come with me? She’s not going to shoot or anything. She just wants to hang out.”
“Um, well I think that’s against the rules. Everyone has to pay.”
“I can pay for her.”
“Well…okay. She’ll have to sign in, too, though.”
“Really? Even if she’s not going to shoot? I don’t want to cause any problem, it’s just…can I tell you something if you swear you won’t tell anyone?”
Roy looks intrigued. “Well…”
I lean over the case and whisper, “I’m trying to encourage Lisa to get a gun and take some lessons. She’s got a domestic violence situation, and her ex is threatening to kill her and the kids. She’s out past Fall City—it’d take twenty, thirty minutes for the police to get to her in an emergency. I’m hoping that if she sees women handling weapons, it won’t seem so scary. But if she has to sign in, well, I know that will spook her.”
He seems unsure.
“He put a knife to the baby’s throat. She was able to get a restraining order, but he’s playing ‘he said, she said.’ Honestly, you could save a few lives tonight if you just let her watch.”
This seems to land as I hoped. Every fifteen-year-old handling guns dreams of being a hero.
“Alright,” says Roy, looking down with a hint of a smile. “Just this once.”
“You’re the best, Roy.”
He blushes again just as SlyDevil enters, looking a little wan.
“Over here, Lisa!” I point to a black Glock. “Is that a 17 or a 19?”
“Uh, it’s a 38. But it’s got a wicked recoil. If this is your first time—”
“I’ll take it,” I say, no room in my tone for debate. Pull cash out of my wallet. “And don’t try to sell me overpriced ammo. Blazer Brass or PMC Bronze will do just fine and give me an extra magazine.”
SlyDevil heads over and starts to grin but catches herself.
But the truth is I’m an alcoholic who just walked into a bar and ordered a drink. I have no illusions. And yet I also feel complete, like a missing part of my body has been restored, and it sends a thrill down my spine, the excitement. Holding a gun is holding death in your hand, becoming the arbiter of who lives and who dies. It’s intoxicating. A rush that’s impossible to find anywhere else.
That’s the problem.
EVEN WITH EARMUFFS the noise inside the shooting range is deafening, and the air is filled with the smell of sulfur and cordite.
It’s a full house.
Roy leads me and SlyDevil past a lane with a couple of women in desert fatigues, their hair cloistered in tight buns—one of them goes for a kill shot. We pass a trio of earnest Japanese women, a pair of giggly soccer moms, an older woman with near-white hair who looks really, really angry, and a couple of lean hipsters in yoga pants and hoodies trying to act cooler with this than they are.
For me though, it feels like home. Not the people, and not the concrete walls of the range—my father called anyone who shot at a range a goddamn wannabe—but the sounds, the smells, the potential for serious injury and death. An addictive cocktail.
I fall into a rhythm that’s like a half-remembered dream. Clock the soft places under arms, behind knees, that can render a person useless with a hard jab of the thumb or a well-placed kick. The ballpoint pen in my right back pocket could be used to stab someone through an eyeball, causing catastrophic brain injury. The laces in my sneakers could make a garrote. I measure my physical distance from each shooter, what they’re paying attention to, and what they’re not. Their obliviousness is disturbing; their certainty that here, with their guns, under the all-seeing surveillance eye, they’re safe, that they don’t need the intuition that would trigger on a dark night, walking through an empty parking lot, keys clutched in a fist.
But I know that the most dangerous place is any place with people in it. The most dangerous weapon an angry human mind.
Especially mine.
And there, at the very end of the range, next to the only empty stall, are MadHatter, RoskHill, Vajrapani, and OddsBots. MadHatter wears tight black jeans with rips, combat boots, and a tight olive t-shirt that accentuates the curve of her stomach and her thin, wiry arms, but the others look like they hustled over right after work—RoskHill still in her elementary school teacher linen skirt and oversized sweater, Vajrapani wearing her polyester maid uniform, OddsBots in overalls caked with soil from the garden center.
OddsBots skittishly holds a revolver like it might bite her, her eyebrows furrowed. None of them looks up or notices us.
OddsBots raises the revolver, points it, and bites her lower lip.
“Will you pull the freaking trigger already?” MadHatter says. “We don’t have all night.”
Roy guides us to the empty stall, but I drift toward OddsBots. Her target is barely twenty feet away, the silhouette of a man’s torso with concentric, numbered oval rings. Not a single shot has marked it.
“Don’t aim, just feel,” I say, loud enough to be heard through the earmuffs.
OddsBots glances to her right and at first doesn’t recognize me, but when she does, she takes a startled step back. The pistol wavers. Vajrapani and RoskHill turn almost at the same time and when they see me with SlyDevil, they look surprised, guilty. Caught.
But not MadHatter. She gives me a nod and a smug grin, like I was expected.
“I…I…” OddsBots starts. She nervously drops her hand, sweeping my legs with the barrel of the gun.
Roy jumps in and catches her wrist. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”
“Sorry! Sorry!” OddsBots looks to me, to Roy, to MadHatter, then back to me. “How did you know…” Her voice trails off awkwardly. Vajrapani and RoskHill appear to find something suddenly interesting about the cement floor.
The pigeons are in play.
OddsBots shifts her weight and swallows. “We…we just wanted…”
“You don’t have to apologize,” MadHatter interrupts. “We’re all grown women here. We can make our own decisions. Our own choices. Like wearing ridiculous outfits, for instance.” She looks pointedly at me. “Love what you’ve done with your hair.”
“There’s always been something shifty about you, MadHatter,” SlyDevil says, stepping forward. “This just confirms it.”
Roy seems confused. “You guys know each other?”
“Shifty?” MadHatter laughs. “What’s shifty about learning how to defend yourself?”
“Um, would you all mind keeping it down?” says Roy, his voice rising an octave. “You’re distracting the other shooters.”
“Sorry, Roy. We can play nicely,” I say. “Right MadHatter?”
There’s a pause. A thin veil of smoke drifts upward toward the air vents. The white-haired woman peers around the black divider, curious.
“Sure,” MadHatter finally says, sugar and honey in her voice. “We can play nicely.”
Roy seems uncertain but relieved. The range has gone quiet—all the other women have stopped shooting, and a few have taken off their earmuffs, trying to figure out what the commotion is about.
“How about a friendly shooting competition?” I ask.
“What?” MadHatter asks. “You?”
I shrug.
MadHatter’s eyes flick to Vajrapani, OddsBots, and RoskHill. Knows there’s a catch but can’t figure out what exactly it is. She hesitates.
“You afraid of something MadHatter?” SlyDevil asks.
“No,” MadHatter replies too quickly. “Fine. If you want to be childish about it, we can have a competition.”
The other women gather.
“Umm,” says Roy. “I don’t think—”
“But it’s Ladies Night, right? And aren’t we the ladies?” I turn to the other women. “Shouldn’t we be able to have a friendly shooting competition if we want?”
“Fuck yeah,” says the white-haired woman.
“One round, then me and all my friends here will leave,” I say to Roy. “How about that?”
Roy looks around him and gauges the temperature in the room. It’s hot. One of the women in yoga pants is recording it all on her cellphone.
He looks up at the surveillance camera, obviously hoping for some kind of rescue, an intervention. “I really don’t know if—”
“You want to go first MadHatter?” I ask sweetly.
“Sure,” MadHatter says. She reaches out a hand for the revolver, and OddsBots passes it to her, looking relieved to be rid of the thing. MadHatter takes her time reloading it. Trying hard to look more confident than I know she is.
MadHatter snaps the barrel closed. “Ophelia, why do I get the feeling you only make bets you can win?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about MadHatter. I’m as new to this as you are.”
“Right.” MadHatter steps toward the counter, raises the pistol, and looks through the sight at the paper target. Holds her index finger steady on the trigger. There’s a collective intake of breath. She shoots, hits the target’s shoulder, shoots again, hits a hand. The next two are off the mark and hit the white surrounding space, but she takes a deep breath, focuses, and then hits the target in the head, in the neck.
“Not bad, not bad,” I say.
MadHatter looks pleased with herself. OddsBots starts to applaud, then stops when no one else does.
“God, my dad is going to kill me,” Roy mutters. He presses the button to retrieve the paper target, and the pulley system drags it forward, the silhouette fluttering like a ghost. He pulls it down from the clips and attaches a fresh target.
“Send it all the way to the back.” I hold my hand out for the Glock. He glances up at the surveillance camera again. “Sometime today?”
Roy sighs, hands over the Glock, and presses the button to send the target back. “Now, to load it—”
But I’ve already popped in the magazine and with one swift move, aim and shoot. Two bullets hit the X over the heart even though the target’s in motion, one shot to the head. Two and one is done sweet pea, two and one is done. Next two shots hit the X, one hits the head—and it feels good. Too good. I jump up and over the counter and turn to the paper target in the next lane—Wait, the camera—so I shoot it, glass shatters and someone screams—then back to the target, two to the chest, one to the heart—I walk down the range to the next target—another two and one. I vaguely register Roy shouting something but I don’t stop, the adrenaline, God, the adrenaline—and then the next paper target isn’t a target, it’s him, it’s him that goddamn motherfucker, it’s all the motherfuckers—and I unload the rest of my clip, pop out the empty, load the next and then unleash a wrath of bullets, cutting the last target to ribbons until that clip’s empty too.
When it’s done, when the magazine is empty, my heart fills with a sick exhilaration, the thrill of a junkie shooting up. Sweat trickles down my spine, and, breathing heavily, I yank the earmuffs off and turn to find a room full of utterly freaked-out women. They all stare at me.
Except the one with white hair. She begins to applaud. It only takes a moment before SlyDevil joins in—That badass bitch is my friend!—and then Vajrapani claps, and RoskHill and OddsBots, and a few others, but I can’t really take it in because my head is full of shadows and my knees are weak. It’s all I can do to make it to the counter and haul myself over. Drop the Glock on the counter and open the door to the vestibule, wondering if anyone in the back room has called the cops. A part of me hopes they have.
Because I’m not a safe person to be around.
MadHatter has won.
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© 2026 J. Lincoln Fenn. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction published as a serialized novel on Substack. No part of this work may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the author’s prior written permission. First publication rights reserved by the author.