by Travis Pasch
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Salvation
Shivering, she slaps her arm, despite the heat she can't get her damn body to stop shaking. She tries to take a deep breath to calm herself but it feels like an elephant is sitting on her chest. At least she's in familiar surroundings, her beloved tent, the only thing that hasn't betrayed her in the past few years. The night is so still she can hear every sliver of the snake who loves to invade her site at nightfall. She turns on her battery powered fan to make some noise to calm her racing mind. If Clint wanted to kill her he could have easily done it then and there; she is safe, he really did just want to see her one last time, she tries to convince herself. Her racing thoughts won't let that probable truth turn into reality, somehow she's convinced herself that Clint is going to kill her tonight. She knows that's what he's wanted for ages.
They experienced so much together, maybe she should have given him a goodbye. If she did she may have avoided her own death. He promised her that he's leaving and everything's over, but can she really be rid of him forever? She tries to lay her head down but she knows sleep is a distant wish. Maybe she should call Zale again, he might be able to calm her down; she resists the urge, he'll be here soon enough.
She hopes he doesn't think that she's just using him to get over Clint. Maybe she is but, in a way they have more than her and Clint ever did. As she reaches for the old ugly phone in her pocket she feels her shining salvation, she is almost ashamed at wanting to use it. Maybe she's going crazy and people are just too polite to tell her, or too afraid, that seems more likely.
She holds the phone in her left hand and dials Zale's number by heart, no longer able to resist hearing his voice. She wishes he were here with her already. The loud ringing of the phone pushed to her right ear is adding to her now steadily increasing headache. Something rumbles above the noise of the ringing and fan, the unmistakable roar of a car pulling into the adjacent lot brings sweat to her cold brow.
"Hello?" Zale's voice comes over the phone breaking her out of her trance. She lets out a small yelp of surprise. "You ok?"
"Yeah, you just scared me... kinda forgot I was callin' you," she says then realizes how mean it sounds.
"Oh thanks, it's not like I'm on my way to see you or anything."
"I didn't mean it like that, you loser. Someone pulled up next door and I was tryna' figure out who it is," she responds, a smile growing on her nervous stricken face.
"Aren't we nosy tonight?"
"You know me too well," she says still fidgeting and trying to hear what is going on next door, without getting out of her tent.
"Are you feeling any better?" he asks, sounding truly concerned.
"A little bit, could always be worse," she says offhandedly, she's no longer paying attention to the call. With each pounding footstep the newcomer seems to be slogging ever closer to her orange sanctuary. Her goose bumps and shivering return in full force, she pulls the sheer sheets up around her.
"I have to go," she manages to squeak out before closing her phone. She's certain now each step brings the harbinger of her death one step closer.
__________
His right hand grips his salvation with the power of ten men, Clint can't be stopped now. He will have his last goodbye and teach her how much she means to him. He will be the one to have the last laugh and leave victorious. He walks as if in a dream, his feet feel heavy and his eyesight dim, it doesn't matter, he has to do this. Only a few feet in front of him sits her nasty little orange tent.
He can't understand how she made him feel the best and the worst he ever has at the same time. The ground seems to be barely moving beneath his lumbering feet. The air brushes his face even slower, making the still night feel all the more dangerous. The only noise emanating from her tent is that stupid fan he bought for her years ago, he can't believe she still has it.
There, in front of him, sits the door, all he has to do is pull it aside and he can finish this once and for all. He takes a shallow breath, trying not to arouse her, a useless precaution with all the other noise he's made.
Before he pulls back the flap a few inches, his breath is smashed from his lungs with an ear-shattering bang and a piece of hot metal. Suddenly everything moves at the speed of light. He falls to his knees clutching his now destroyed chest. His left hand moves quickly to feel what's happening. Blood pours over his fingers to rest on the ground beneath him in a red pool. Confusion spreads on his face as Azelia walks out of the tent to stand over him. He falls face first onto the ground. Oddly enough, the only thing he's worried about is facing the sky at the moment of his death, nothing else matters to him now. He can feel all life flowing from his demolished midsection, he feels no need to worry with anything but the sky. With all his might he forces his heavy body to its back.
Instead of seeing the sky he is forced to look into her eyes, the eyes of his delusion. He doesn't even have the strength to avert his gaze, or maybe he really doesn't want to in his final moments. A smile spreads on his grim face amid the pain, at least he can die looking upon the object of his obsession. He wonders how many people get so lucky as to use their last dying seconds to look upon their salvation.
__________
Tears are streaming from Azelia's face at a rate unknown to her. She isn't sure if she's dreaming or if the smoking gun in her hand is real. She's most troubled by the smile on his face, maybe he's still alive, she can save him and undo this whole awful thing. She bends down to feel his pulse, a strand of hope breaks into her heart. Just as fast as she lets herself feel the scent of hope, the truth kills her spirit and fills her with dread at his cold wrist. She resumes her crying and curls her blood soaked knees up to her face, as she can do nothing else. The warmth of his blood on her legs betrays the coldness of his body.
After what feels like a decade she lets thoughts of self-preservation slip into her sorrow wracked brain. She slowly uncurls herself and tries to stymie her crying enough to make sense of what she is going to do. First thing she does is text Zale not to come over, he can't see this. Secondly she figures she has to bury his body somewhere. She grabs his legs intent on dragging him far, far away from where she sleeps. But then something falls from his right hand. She bends over to inspect it closer in the dark. She nearly faints when she sees it, a small nondescript dried up flower, but she knows its origin. He had given it to her on their first date, he said it represented his heart and that he was giving it to her for all of time.
__________
Zale's mind races against his mounting nervousness and fear for Azelia, was someone holding a gun to her head and forcing her to push him away? Her text forced him into an instant and sweaty panic. Had she decided to never see him again? Has he bored her into never wanting anything to do with him? Despite his faltering hopes he wishes more than anything that she is all right. He tries to steer his mind back into normality with easy rationales. She probably just needs to sleep after such a trying day. He eventually turns his boat of a car around and the adrenaline from his panicked thoughts almost knocks him out instantly. He's so tired he doesn't feel the need to obey the no U-turn signs at the next red light, breaking the law in small ways seems trivial when compared to the bloodbaths with Jade. The lighting speed with which his life has been flowing has altered his already skewed reality even further into an obscure, out of touch truth.
After his nights with Jade and time with Azelia the imagined world of his book holds almost no place in his heart. He'll of course keep dreaming and writing it down, it's just feeling more trivial with every passing day. Even thinking about his own survival is becoming all the more meaningless when compared to the constant fear and excitement. He prays the day will never arise when he has to choose between Azelia and Jade, his greatest wish would be for the situation to work itself out, or the current situation could play out ad infinitum. Juggling them both has nearly killed him but he wants the pain to go on forever.
He can't quite focus enough on the thought to truly make the answer t
o his two woman problem materialize, the cloud of sleep slowly starts to overtake his eyes and the encircling blackness blocks everything except the thought of the west. He slaps himself in the face, jolting himself back awake for the last five minutes of the drive back to Jade's apartment complex.
He couldn't have arrived soon enough because the second he turns the car off he is already there. The sound of hoofs drown his remaining thoughts...
A funeral procession of one rolls on through the dry desert wind. The hero drives a team of four black horses. Only a thin piece of cloth brought up around his mouth has kept him from drowning in the sandstorm blowing continually stronger around his carriage.
The hero is confused, he can't remember getting to this point of his journey. Why in the world would he be driving a large black funeral carriage? He has seen enough carriages to know this one's sole purpose, the black covering around the entire thing only lends to the frightening jet black color of the horses under his control. Who his cargo is and what series of events could have led them to this unfortunate but inescapable end? He wants to stop and inspect the inside, but in this growing storm he's too nervous to stop or slow down, even for a moment. Through the whirlwind of dirt he spies a town in the distance; surely they must be willing to offer him some respite and hospitality. Could his cargo be something foul enough for the people to turn him away?
Some distant memory is gently but incessantly pulling at the back of his mind, warning him, trying to show him something. The town consumes ever more of the empty desert horizon. Despite not being able to fully pull the thought from the dark recesses of his mind he can grasp enough of the pesky memory to realize stopping in the town would be his death, making him and his cargo one and the same.
Nothing in the town screams out enough to make` him stop. He barely slows down the carriage enough to avoid killing any of the poor people still walking around the streets on this stormy day; he pushes through with all the force of a hurricane. The buildings are so dilapidated that the power of the four horses romping through almost knocks them over one by one. The few townspeople he can see shoot him looks that reinforce his idea of not stopping. He has to bury this body somewhere, just not here. He doesn't like the idea, but what other choice does he really have?
The sun lazily works its way through the stormy sky; each inch it scoots further west means one second sooner he can be rid of his nasty baggage, he wouldn't dare make the drop during the day. The hero turned off the main path many a mile ago. The ragged breath of his horses means wherever they stop will have to be as good as any, he still can't shake the feeling that he's done something wrong and if someone were to see him burying the body that would be it for him. Pulling on the reins as hard as he can, the pressure from his urging barely registers in the mad horses' brains; they slowly, ever so slowly, come to a halt.
As he dismounts, his legs nearly crumple with the cramps they have developed from sitting for so many hours, the sun is almost down and the storm that threatened for so long is now just a distant memory. He drags his left leg behind him as if it were broken on his way to the back of the carriage. He needs to take care of the horses first, he pulls two large buckets off of the carriage and carries them down to the creek only about thirty feet away. He hopes the creek might also make the impossibly hard ground a little softer for his short handled shovel. The water's cold current feels good on his rough and dry hands.
The sun's last rays are gracing the earth for the final time this day, they will only return after a long cold night. He finally decides to get to work. With the horses watered and fed he has no other excuse to occupy his time. He picks up his spade shovel and gets to work. He doesn't want to stay long but knows it would be worse to dig too shallow of a grave and have an angry spirit haunt him for the rest of his life just to save him thirty minutes of hard labor. Luckily for him the ground isn't impenetrable and he makes decent headway. A thought still nags at his mind and he realizes he has yet to see his dead passenger. A mix of curiosity and fatigue eventually make up his mind.
He trudges towards the towering carriage, letting the shovel drop from his hands along the way, his hair blowing in the wind only makes him feel all the more ready to leave. He tenuously opens the back of the carriage and climbs inside to look. The simple casket makes him think about his own death and how he will probably be buried in something even more modest than this piece of trash. With a heavy heart he opens the lid. The sight inside actually pleases him, an old lady's face greets him, not the face of a young poor man whose death has come much too soon. He lets out a breath of relief, it seems less evil, maybe this woman died of age and he is merely taking her to where her earthly vessel belongs.
Just as he's about to close the casket he sees a gash on the decrepit woman's neck, he turns her neck to get a better look at it, and suddenly everything comes rushing back to him.
__________
Things hadn't gone as easily as she thought they would, the old hag had more fight in her than Jade ever expected. When she had entered the old woman's apartment, she had somehow heard her and was waiting with a knife of her own. She even managed to cut Jade slightly but she had taken care of the nasty woman nonetheless. The killing was even more satisfying than she had hoped.
Now though, she has the regrettable job of burying the stupid witch. Luckily for her Zale is asleep on her way out and she doesn't have to explain anything to him, it could have only made things more complicated at this juncture. She has been growing increasingly excited at taking on an apprentice who is as capable and accessible as him, also one over whom she has full control. She has one more big test lined up for him, and she yearns to know if he is truly worthy.
She forces herself back to digging in the desert, the only sound other than her slow slamming of the shovel is a small creek in the background, and the sound soothes her pounding head. She can't see anything in the pitch black of the cloudy night. The feel of the shovel handle against her rough hands is somehow reassuring. Zale definitely isn't ready for this part of it yet, she is going to have to ease him into it. She guesses after an hour of digging that the hole is deep enough; and goes to grab the old hag's body. She assumes this old lady has done more than enough evil in her life to be worth killing.
The lady is wrapped in her favorite carpet, the one she was constantly yelling at Jade to clean for her, a fitting burial shroud. She drags the carpet to the edge of the hole and gives it a good solid kick. The body and carpet roll as one, hitting with a muffled thud on the cold dirt six feet below. The thought of the woman decomposing there gives Jade no small amount of sick joy.
After covering the body in mounds of dirt, she hops into her car and tries to slowly back away from the burial area, she doubts anyone would be close enough to hear her but there is no reason to risk getting caught. After a few minutes of near silence she hits the road and nearly rips her tires off getting up to speed, the roads in this area are extremely desolate with no speed limits, she can think of nothing better for her pounding head than a fast drive through the arid desert.
As she speeds faster she lets her thoughts drift to her next target, this is going to be a big one and she will definitely need Zale's help. She can't get ahead of herself, he must prove himself one last time. She needs to find a suitable target for him, it may take some time but it will be worth while. If he can make a kill totally on his own he's ready and fully under her control. It seems she has been trailing her biggest mark ever since she can remember. The thought of finally bringing the criminal to justice brings a wide smile to her face.
__________
The bloody circumstances of last night have almost destroyed Azelia already, she's not sure how long she can live like this. In the twelve hours since his death shame and guilt are the only feelings she can sense amid the constant tears and bile. Sleep is further away than ever and she has no choice but to lie in her tent surrounded by self-loathing thoughts. The dirt still caked into her fingernails is an unbearable sight, she
hides them beneath her blanket. She has slowly pushed away the thought of turning herself in, though she should Why couldn't he just leave her alone?
She can't fully grasp this new state of mind. Her old self has crept away, to be replaced by a simple shell of herself. Maybe her survival instincts will eventually force life back into her bones. After more countless hours of snot-filled crying she forces herself to see where she buried him, the previous night is a blur and she almost doesn't remember where he is. She walks gingerly, not wanting to disturb the corpse on its way into the afterlife, to where she assumes she put him. She holds her hands over her face, not really wanting to see his grave.
The site that graces her embattled heart is a tranquil one, nothing but a small discolored hump in the ground and no one around to see but her. The small oasis in which she buried him is the perfect place for him to never be found.
The walk back along the rocky road feels impossibly long. The shade feels good on her boiling head when it comes. So much open space lets the sun bear down on her confused heart. She wishes none of this ever happened, if for once Clint listened to her he would be alive. But now that it has happened she wonders if she'll ever find out a way to not let it drive her crazy. Maybe she should call Zale to ease her racing mind. She dials his number.
"Hello?"
Part Three: How It Ends