A Short Drive To The End

      Alex Decker appeared unaffected and unremorseful as his boss laid into him.  He was thirty-three years old and was being fired from his job for downloading pornography on his company’s computer.  His hair was a mild brown and his deep, sunken eyes seemed to be looking beyond reality.  He stood about five feet ten inches tall, lanky, with minimal muscle tone.
         As his boss finished laying into him and letting him go, Alex noticed a samurai sword hanging on his boss’s wall like a trophy bass.  He removed the sword, turned violently and without remorse began inching toward his greedy, weasel of a boss. His boss took a few steps back, but was soon cornered.  Alex plunged the sword through his boss’s stomach, pulled it out sharply and then decapitated him…
         “I said get your things and leave!”  His boss barked.  “Hello?  Decker, are you there?”  His boss noticed that Alex seemed to be somewhere else.  He pushed the security button and looked back at Alex. 
         Alex returned to reality after fantasizing about killing his boss.  Then he walked quietly out of the building without so much as a wince or a thought of retrieving what little, pointless items he had in his tiny cubicle.
         
         He walked slowly down the hall of his apartment complex, noticed the one fluorescent light that never wanted to remain fully on, only wanting to blink rapidly.  His apartment was the third one on the left.  A young twenty-something named Angela, who he had been infatuated with and masturbated about, lived a few more doors past him on the right.  He stood at his door, deep in thought, and fumbling for his keys.  He decided to take the extra few steps to Angela’s door and finally tell her how he felt. 
         He banged twice on her door.  She answered.  He grabbed her by her long, dark brown hair and threw her on her couch.  He proceeded to have his way with her.  All the while she kicked, screamed, and threw her arms violently.  After finishing, he pulled her up and smiled…
         Angela’s door opened slowly.  “Yes?”  She answered.  He again, seemed to be in some other place.  “Can I help you?”  He somewhat blinked and moved his head slightly as if he was coming back to reality.  “Look, I don’t know what you want but I am about to call the cops.”  She stated.
         “No.  I’m sorry.”  He searched for words.  “I wanted to ask you something, but I forget now.”  Then he turned and walked away.
         “Okay…”  She slowly shut the door behind her, confused.
         
         While in his crummy, two bedroom apartment he thumbed through the week’s bills.  They were closing in on him.  Debt was piling up.  Life seemed little more now than just finding a hated job and paying money to faceless people who would take anything they could from him.  He felt weak and unsure as to what his life was to become.  Maybe if he took a trip somewhere he could find some answers.  He loosened his chocolate brown striped tie and finally unbuttoned the top button on his collared, white shirt.  Now where to go?  Mexico?  Canada?  Or just to Sacramento?  At any rate, he packed a small bag and drove off.

         That night it began to rain.  He had been driving for sometime and decided that it was time to call it a day.  He picked a low-key, two-star motel to spend his evening.  As he approached his room, he could hear the sounds of teens partying in the next room.  He opened his door.
         The smell of stale cigarettes circulated the busted vents of the burnt-orange colored motel room.  The twin bed was covered by a yellow and brown floral print spread.  To the back were a half-rusted sink and mirror, a small luggage rack and a door to the right that led into a small bathroom.  A tiny black television set rested on top of a three drawer cabinet which contained the standard issue bible.  He could still hear the sounds of teenagers through the thin plaster walls.  A female teen could be heard saying, ‘just pass it’, which no doubt was referring to the marijuana that was being smoked next door.  What prize was left over from the previous motel guest that came before him?  A single black cowboy boot rested quietly in the corner between the night stand and the bed.  Who had left that shoe?  And where was the other one?  At the foot of the bed on the orange carpet was a relatively large, but faint stain.  What was the substance that made the stain?  Was it beer?  Or vomit?  Blood?  These were questions that are possibly better left unanswered. 
         Now back to the cowboy boot.  How odd was this?  He approached it slowly and picked it up.  There was something inside.  He reached into the cowboy boot and pulled out a small, silver revolver.  It was even loaded.  Was this his sign?  He gripped it tightly.  He felt empowered by his shiny instrument of destruction.  The noise from next door rose louder.  He peered at the cracked white wall and then back to his gun.
         He knocked on the teens’ door like he was a police officer.  Whispers and ‘shhs’ could be heard until finally a barely dressed sixteen year old girl with short blonde hair answered.  He wasted no time in shooting her in the gut.  The other five or so kids screamed and began to scatter.  He caught a topless brunette in the back as she raced for the bathroom.  A brutish alpha male tried to tackle Alex, but Alex placed the gun firmly against the boy’s head and blew his brains into the carpet.  Then he picked off the rest of them very easily…
          “Yes?” The short haired blonde girl asked.
         “Can you keep it down please?”  Alex asked as he was sucked back to reality. “I’m trying to sleep.”
         “Sure.  Okay,” she said.  Alex was finally fully snapped back to reality. 
         He walked back to his room feeling defeated.  He wanted mayhem.  He fantasized about destruction and death, but couldn’t bring himself to make it into reality.  He laid on his bed in thought.  ‘That’s it,’ he thought. ‘I’m going to drive off tomorrow, pick up a hitch hiker and just go through with it.’  Maybe it was that hitch hikers seemed to him like wandering, aimless spirits that no one cared about.  He could barely sleep as he fantasized about murdering some random drifter.  He tossed and turned, all the while smiling.

         It was only a few hours into his drive the next day that he saw a female, who looked older that she actually was, holding a sign that stated some random city that she was trying to make it to.  Alex skid his car to a halt on the edge of the highway.  She approached his car.
         “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate this,” she said as she took her book bag off and climbed into his 1979 Caprice Classic.
         “No problem.  I can take you the whole way.  Cigarette?”  He asked.  They both lit up a Lucky Strike and drove off.
         Not an hour passed when Alex began to get itchy.  Should he try to get a blow job out of her first?  He was quite turned on with the situation and could feel the rush of blood coursing through his body and moving south.  She was a whore, no doubt, but she wasn’t all that attractive.  She had dirty brown hair that was frizzed from the humid sun.  Her lips were supple enough, but her teeth left something to be desired.  He glanced down at the gun that rested on the floor between the door and his seat.  It was time.
         “You know I can’t thank you enough for giving me this ride.  I just walked out on my abusive boyfriend this morning.” There was pause as if she required a response. “Anyway, I’m on my way to get my kid back from my mom.”  She smiled off into the distance.  “You know, I feel I’m finally doing the right thing this time.  This is my chance.  You want to see a picture of my son?  I think I have one in here.”  She started to rummage through her bag.  Alex took the gun and began to point it at her head as she sat buried in her bag, fishing for a photo.  “Here it is.” She startled him and he flung his gun back to its original location.  “That’s Sammy, my son.” 
         “He’s cute.”  Alex seemed defeated once again.  This time, though, there was no situational fantasy.  He had no thought of want he wanted the situation to become.  It was all out in reality now, waiting for him to fulfill his tortured thoughts.
         A few hours later the car sat parked in a vacant lot.  Her head was in his crotch. She sat up and wiped her mouth.  Alex began to zip up his pants.  “I can’t thank you enough for driving me here,” she smiled.  She retreated from the car and walked off into the setting sun. Alex sighed, put his car in drive and sped off.   

         It wasn’t but another hour later that he picked up his second hitchhiker, a gruff, angry man named Tony.  Tony was unshaven, had salt and pepper hair and was at least five inches shorter than Alex.  He stepped into the car slowly.  He had on a torn flannel shirt, faded jeans, and no rucksack or back pack of any kind. 
         “Good afternoon,” Alex stated in a brief monotone.  “Where to?”
         Tony’s eyes scanned the car.  “Uh, a few miles down the road should do.”
         Alex began to feel a bit nervous.  A single bead of sweat began to form and fall down his brow.  He glanced down at the gun.  The slight feeling of empowerment he felt with his first passenger was gone with Tony.  Tony made him feel uneasy and nervous.  Just as thoughts of what to do next started to enter Alex’s mind, Tony flung out a hunting knife, turned to Alex and began to demand that he pull over and drive into the woods.
         “Okay, okay.  Just relax.”  Alex peered down at the shiny blade.  “There’s no reason to do anything crazy.”  Alex turned off onto a small gravel road imbedded in the woods.
         “Crazy?  Crazy’s the whole point of our little drive together.  You see you’re going to drive off into the woods and I’m going to gut you like a deer.  It’s as simple as that.”  Tony scratched his face.  Just then Alex backed away a bit, and in a single motion removed his gun and pointed it at Tony.  The car screeched to a halt.
         “Who’s going to kill who?”  He yelled.  Tony’s knife lay at Alex’s neck just as Alex’s gun was pointed squarely in the center of Tony’s face. 
         “I can slash you before you’ll know what hit you.”  Tony barked.
         “There’s no way.  Even if you do cut me, it gives me just enough time to pull the trigger.”  Alex felt in total control.  “You see, to me the whole point of our little drive together was for me to kill you.  You had to go and fuck it…”  In the middle of his sentence Tony nicked Alex in the throat, making about a two inch cut.  Blood started to run.  “Fuck!”  Alex hopped out of the car.  “You fucking cut me!  I should shoot you dead right now!” 
         Tony seemed remorseful.  As if this was the first time he had ever cut anyone.  “Look, I’m sorry.  Just don’t shoot me.”  Tony was now out of the car.  He thought about running off into the woods, but for some reason he didn’t.
         “Truce.  Okay?”  Alex pleaded.  “Maybe we can work together.”
         “Work together? What do you mean.”
         “Well, we both want to kill somebody right?  To feel the feeling of ending a life that’s not so deserving of living.  To feel the power.  The mayhem.”
         “So what are you saying?”
         “Let’s go and wreak havoc.  Me and you.  Alex Decker and… What was your name?”
         “Tony Green.”
         “Alex Decker and Tony Green.  I can see it now.  We’ll be infamous.  Famous.  Historic.”
         “I don’t know.”  Tony seemed taken back by his sudden proposal.
         “C’mon.  What else do you have going for you?  Me?  I don’t have shit!”
         “Me either.”
         “Then let’s do it.  Let’s pick up some jack ass and fuck him up.”
         “Okay.  Fine.  Let’s fucking do it.”          

         And so off they were into the sunset.  As they drove they gloated and talked big talk about the spree they were about to embark on.  It wasn’t very long until they picked up a greasy, dreadlocked hippy named Justin.
         Justin climbed into the back of the two-door Caprice, very excited.  “Thanks, dudes.”  He looked up at Alex and Tony.  They both looked forward coldly.  “I’m going east as far as you can take me.”
         “That’s cool,” Alex said, staring at the road.
         “Look, you guys want to smoke a joint?  It’s not much but it’ll get you high.”
         “I’m good, thanks,” Tony said briskly.
         “I don’t want any, but go ahead and light up if you want,” Alex stated as Justin removed the joint from a package of cigarettes.  He lit it up.  It crackled and glowed in the darkness of the car.
         “Ah.  Man it feels good to light up,” Justin said with a mouth full of smoke.  “So where are you guys going?”  He coughed.
         “Actually just down the road here a bit.”  Alex smirked.  He found a nice patch of woods and turned off the highway onto a gravel road not much different than the one before.  Only this one turned out to be a driveway that led to a small cabin.  The inhabitants of the cabin could be seen mingling about in the orange glow of the living room.  Alex seemed puzzled.  As did Tony.  “Sorry, I took a wrong turn.”
         Justin began to feel weird and apprehensive.  The paranoia of the marijuana fueled by the perplexity of Alex and Tony began to make him antsy.  “Look you can just drop me off here, man.”
         “No, it’s cool.  I’m just dropping off my friend here first then we’ll head east.”  Alex felt as if he just relieved the situation.  And he did a bit.  Justin sank back into his seat.  His head began playing out different situations in which he would need to escape the car.
         “Turn here,” Tony said to Alex.  Alex turned off onto a small paved road that led to a pond surrounded by thick trees.  “This is good, man.”
         “You live here?”  Justin asked, beginning to feel more uneasy than ever.
         “Not exactly.”  Tony had a half-smile and a hand reaching for his knife.
         “Okay, man, I’m going to tell you once and only once.  You do what I say. You hear?”  Alex said, looking back at Justin.
         “Okay,” Justin said nervously.
         “Get the fuck out of the car,” Tony interjected as he stepped out of the car and tilted the seat up for Justin to climb out.
         “Okay.”  Justin stepped out of the car. 
         They all three stood there by the light of the blue moon reflecting off of the green pond.  Tony and Alex stood beside each other in front of Justin.
         “What are you guys going to do to me?  L-look, I don’t have much money, but you can take it all if you want.”
         “I think we all know what’s going to happen here,” Tony said as he pulled his knife out of his jacket.
         “I’m sorry, but we’re going to kill you,” said Alex reaching for his gun.
         “Don’t be sorry,” said Tony.  “Let’s fucking do it.”
         “Oh, man.”  Justin moaned.
         “I’m going to fucking gut you.”  Tony started walking toward Justin.
         “Hold on,” Alex interrupted. “I want to shoot him.”
         “You can shoot him after I slice him up.”
         “No, way, man.  I want to shoot him and then you can cut him up.”
         “Look, it is simple see.  I’ll slice him up and then when he’s lying on the ground begging for his life, covered in blood, unable to talk, then you shoot him in the head and end his fucking hippy existence.”
         “Shit…” Justin wailed.
         “Shut up,” Alex pointed his gun back at Justin. Then he turned to Tony and whispered loudly.  “Man, we’re looking like fools here.  Let’s just fucking do it and get it over…”  Bang.  One shot rang in the still night sky.  Bang.  The other shot followed shortly after.  Alex fell swiftly to the ground.  Tony hunched and fell against a tree.  He held himself up.  Justin stood with his gun still pointed.  His gun had been stored safely in the back of his pants for the duration of their drive.
         “You fucking asshole!”  Tony hollered with dying gasps.  “I’ll fucking kill you.”
         “Somehow I doubt that,” Justin said, inching toward Tony.  “You didn’t think I’d hitch hike and get rides from fucking lunatics like you without being armed.  That’s just stupid, man.”  He now stood point blank at Tony.
         Tony looked up, still clinching his gut.  “Fuck you,” he gasped.  Bang.  Tony slumped over and fell to the ground.
         Justin turned toward Alex who lay face down in the foliage.  Alex moaned and murmured a bit.  Bang.  Justin ended all of the moaning.  He then reached into Alex’s wallet and took the three hundred and forty-eight dollars that he had.  He did the same to Tony.  There was only fifty-one dollars in Tony’s pocket.  Justin then proceeded to retrieve his duffle bag from Alex’s car.  He looked at the pond and the bloody mess that lay in the foreground.  Then he stepped back calmly, turned toward the road and began walking. 

         Justin reached the highway around dawn.  He slung up his thumb and continued to walk.  A few hours later as the dawn turned to late morning he got picked up by a truck driver whose call sign on the C.B. was Anxious Sal.  Anxious Sal took him east the whole day.  Later as the evening rose, Justin stepped out of the eighteen wheeler. He was now five states away from the bodies he had killed.
         He nestled for the night in a random wooded area not unlike the wooded area he had been the night before.  The only difference was this one had no pond nor did it have two dead bodies lying coldly in the still night.