Cheater's Paradise

by Keith Trimm

  “What’s going on?” Cathy asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they’re trying to box us in,” Mark replied.

  “Who, the sheriff?” Cathy asked. “Are you going to stop?”

  Mark didn’t know what to do, maybe the sheriff was in on this with Bob, or maybe the sheriff was alerted to the carbon monoxide leak and was out checking on the problem. But why pull his car sideways on the road and stand in the ditch? It looked and felt like a trap. “I got to find another way around this,” Mark said slamming on his brakes. At seventy five miles an hour, the car went into a slide and ended up cockeyed in the road facing the ditch, but he was a good three hundred yards from the sheriff’s car which gave him a little breathing room. Then he saw a plume of dust that blew over his windshield and knew Bob was there. When the dust settled, Bob was standing at the driver’s side door of Marks car holding a pistol at his face.

  Mark rolled down the window and held up his hands. The women followed Mark’s lead and raised their hands as well.

  “What the fuck Mark? I thought we had a deal, “Bob said.

  The sheriff’s car pulled up and blocked Mark from behind, he was completely trapped between the two cars. The sheriff exited his vehicle and approached Marks car on the passenger’s side weapon drawn.

  “I couldn’t go through with it,” Mark said.

  Bob leaned over and looked at the passengers in the car. He noticed Amanda was not present. “Where’s your wife?” Bob asked.

  “I gassed her,” Mark replied.

  “That explains the alert.”

  “What’s the deal with the sheriff?” Mark asked.

  “He’s a good friend of mine,” Bob replied. “How do you think I managed to get away with my plan for so long? I had to have help.”

  “Why would he risk his job and prison to help you?”

  “That’s easy, you have his ex-wife in your car,” Bob replied. The woman who remained silent this whole time, the woman who never caused a problem was the sheriff’s ex-wife. She looked out the rear passenger’s side window at her ex-husband who was now pointing his gun at her.

  “Now what? Back to the bunker?” Mark asked.

  “You have two choices, either the bunker or we blow you all away right here and now, don’t matter to me.”

  “I would think you would have a hard time explaining four dead bodies,” Mark said.

  “No, you were running from the law and you were all shot and killed, happens all the time.”

  “What’s our crime? How are you going to explain it?”

  Bob looked over to the sheriff. “Hey, how should we explain this he wants to know,” Bob said with a grin.

  The sheriff explained, “I tried to pull you over for speeding, you took off running and I chased you. When you stopped, you tried to run me over so I shot you.”

  “All four of us?” Mark asked.

  “The other three go back to the bunker, they were never here,” the sheriff said.

  Realizing their impromptu plan was pretty good, Mark decided to stop intimidating them. “I saw at least three cars on the way here, I’m sure they saw the women in the car. There are witnesses that will testify that I wasn’t alone.”

  “You’re bluffing, no one saw you out here, “Bob said.

  “Bull shit, this is the main gravel road south of town, I bet there will be cars pulling up here any moment wanting to get by. How are you going to explain that Sherlock?” Mark asked.

  Mark was right and Bob knew it. Bob looked both ways up and down the road and spotted a car coming from town. “Fuck!” he said pointing behind the sheriff.

  Mark smiled knowing that Bob and the sheriff weren’t going to get away with their plan. It would take an elaborate story to explain why the sheriff was blocking the road while a car full of women was being detained along with Bob who was parked on the other side of the road. “You should cut your losses now and give up,” Mark said.

  Bob knew Mark was right, they were fucked, bad.

  The car coming from town pulled up on the other side of the sheriff’s car and stopped. They waited for a few minutes and pulled back and made a turn, stopped again, turned the wheel and pulled back onto the road and headed back towards town. No one spoke to them. Bob watched them leave and shuffled nervously.

  “What should we do?” Bob asked the sheriff.

  “Kill the driver and take the girls back to your place,” the sheriff said. “We can’t dispose of four bodies, that’s too much. I can handle one.”

  “What about that car?” Bob asked.

  “I can make something up later, you and I are the only witnesses.”

  “What if they saw the women?”

  “Deny it, eye witness reports are the worst kind of evidence.”

  “What if they took a cell phone picture?”

  “You are one anal fuck Bob,” the sheriff said. “What if they didn’t?”

  “This is as much of your hide as it is mine.”

  The sheriff walked around to the driver’s side of Marks car and pointed the gun at Mark. “Get out of the car,” he said.

  “No, you’ll shoot me,” Mark replied.

  The sheriff popped off a shot into the seat between Mark and Cathy to scare him. Mark didn’t budge. The sheriff looked to Bob and said, “Pull his ass out of the car.”

  Bob reached over to the door handle but Mark hit the auto lock before Bob could open the door.

  Now pissed, the sheriff said, “I can go with plan B and shoot all four of you fuckers, I’d love to put a bullet in Amy that would make my fucking day.”

  Hearing her name, Amy, the sheriffs ex pulled up her lock and pushed open her door. She stepped out of the car and took off running around the sheriff’s car and down the road as fast as she could.

  “Do something!” Bob yelled.

  The sheriff leaned in, rested his elbows on top of Marks car and steadied his grip on his pistol. Sighting in his target, he squeezed off one shot and waited to see what if would do. Amy jerked to the side as the bullet hit her in the back, but kept running full speed. The sheriff took aim again and pulled another shot. Again she was struck in the back but kept going.

  “Are you hitting her?” Bob asked.

  “Shut up,” the sheriff said and took another shot. This one hit her in the left calf and sent her tumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust.

  Mark took this opportunity to punch the sheriff in the nuts and grab for his gun. It didn't work and Bob reached into the car and unlocked it in the hustle and confusion. In a moment, Mark was dragged from the driver’s seat and hauled out onto the gravel road kicking and punching. The sheriff, reeling from the pain aimed the gun at Mark and shot him repeatedly in the chest until Mark stopped moving.

  “Why did you do that?” Bob asked.

  “He punched me in the balls!” the sheriff replied.

  “Why did you wait until I dragged him out of the car? You could have shot him inside?”

  “It takes a while to get over a nut punch, if you would have waited, I would have shot him in the car.”

  Mark lay wounded but not dead. Most of the bullets went through his lungs and did little other damage. As long as the pleural space didn’t fill with fluids, his lungs wouldn’t collapse and he could survive. He lay motionless, pretending to be dead, if things didn’t go his way, he could easily become dead.

  Bob stepped away from the mess and took a long hard look at what had occurred. “We’re fucked Jason,” Bob said to the sheriff who was now leaning against Marks car.

  “No shit,” the sheriff replied.

  “We have too many witnesses, too many dead bodies and there is no way we can sweep this under the rug.”

  “What do you want to do?” the sheriff asked.

  “This is where we part company, I’m taking off. Don’t know where too, but I have to go.”

  “What about me?”

  “Your ex is lying dead in her panties on the road, that’s up to you,” Bob said. He
turned and walked back to his car. “Sorry, I knew this couldn’t last forever.” Bob got back in his car, turned around and left the sheriff with Cathy, Linda and Mark who lay on the ground bleeding but alive.

  Chapter 11

  Spree Killer

  Three and a half months later, Bob ran out of money and has no place to turn. At the end of his rope, he has managed to scrape up enough ammo for his Glock forty millimeter to keep him shooting for twenty minutes or so. Just long enough to finish one last job. The job that will make him a legacy that will outlive himself and spread a message that he has held dear to his heart since his mother and father divorced over infidelity.

  In his cargo pants, he had five filled clips, in the other pockets were two pounds of loose shells, and on his torso a bulletproof vest that he had purchased years ago. His target, the “Silver Nugget Gentlemen’s club” Why? Because that’s the kind of place where cheaters went to do their business. That’s how his mother cheated on his father, at a club like this one.

  Ten thirty and it was plenty dark out, Bob pulled his car up across the street from the club and got out of his car. He waited for a few cars to pass by and then crossed the street. Once at the club, he opened the first door which led to a small area with two doors. One to the club, the other to a wash closet. He pulled his Glock and raised it up, then kicked open the door to the club and shot the first person he saw, the bouncer.

  With a pop, pop, pop, he moved past the bouncer and took aim at the girl on stage, he knew her, and he didn’t care. Pop, pop, pop went his gun and she fell from the pole to the stage grasping her abdomen. Bob then targeted the men closest to him and fired two more shots, the clip was empty. He ejected the clip and replaced it with a new one. Pop, pop, pop, went the gun into the crowd randomly shooting whoever was in the way. It was a busy night so most of the shots made contact with someone.

  He finished that clip and put in his third. By this time the crowd had ran to the back of the club and jammed into a corner back by the dressing room. Even the bartenders were hiding in the crowd. He took a moment to reload a clip as fast as he could. The patrons watched him and knew his gun was still in his hand ready to shoot. Bob filled the second clip with loose bullets and walked towards the crowd of thirty or so that huddled in fear. The emergency exit was ten feet from them but no one dared move.

  “Bob, what are you doing?” Maria the manager yelled.

  “Getting payback,” Bob said flat.

  “For what?”

  “This place is full of lying, cheating whores, and you are all going to pay.”

  “Bob, you used to work here, you know these people,” Maria said now in a more calm tone.

  “Doesn’t make a difference to me, you bitches think you can go around fucking anyone you want without consequences, I’m here to be your consequence.”

  Maria stepped forward and tried to calm Bob down. “We all know about your bunker, it was all over the news. You need to stop this before you hurt anyone else.”

  “Do you really think I care about who I hurt? I’ve been so hurt that I’m damaged goods. This is what you get when your childhood is nothing but one affair after another. My mother was a whore, just like these girls are, and these men are here to get what they can, like vultures.”

  “No! Most of these women are working to pay their bills, they have husbands at home, children. For some, this is the only way they can make it.” Maria said.

  “Bullshit, there are jobs out there, these whores are too lazy to do real work, they whore themselves out with their naked bodies.”

  “Those jobs don’t pay shit!” Maria yelled. “My girls can make as much in one night as they can working a minimum wage job in a week.”

  “At least a minimum wage job is respectable. These women run around here with their tits hanging out, hanging on these men like leeches. It’s disgusting. They dress like tramps, they act like tramps and deserve to be treated like tramps.”

  “You can’t win Bob, this is life, and this is how life works.”

  Bob raised his gun and pointed it at one of the dancers he recognized but didn’t know well. She cowered and covered her face. In his mind he wanted to shoot, but Maria was getting to him. She was putting a face on these women. Then he shot the dancer.

  The dancer remained standing, and blood ran down her side, but she didn’t flinch otherwise.

  Maria was not going to let Bob stand there and pick them off like ducks on a pond. Pissed as hell, she darted towards Bob and got shot in the face. Maria fell to the floor in a heap and bled out.

  “I have a few more shots in this clip, does anyone else want to try to take my gun away?” Bob asked.

  Nobody replied.

  Bob pulled up a chair and sat down. He kept the gun raised and pointed at the crowd. The music continued to play over the speakers as if there was still someone on stage, but no one was.

  Then a door opened to Bob’s left and a man stepped out. It was Chad, the man who had been fucking Cathy at Mark’s photo shoot. Chad stood outside the doorway and looked at the crowd pinned in the corner and back over to Bob. “Fucking good job!” Chad said with a smile. “I saw the whole thing through the one way glass.” Chad had been in the private room getting a lap dance when the shooting started.

  “Why are you so happy?” Bob asked resting his gun on his knee.

  “Finally, someone with enough balls to put these bitches in their place,” Chad replied.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “These fucking whores, they need a man like you to keep them in line.”

  “I don’t get you, you’re calling them whores? Mark told me you were fucking Cathy at his photo shoot, why would you fuck a whore if you hate them so much?”

  “It’s different, I’m a man.”

  “Are you married?” Bob asked.

  “Yes,” Chad replied.

  “Then what’s the difference between you and the girls?”

  Chad didn’t like the tone he was getting. “You’re a man, don’t you get it?”

  “Not really, explain it to me,” Bob said, keeping an eye on the group in the corner and Chad at the same time.

  “It’s a man’s world, we run this planet. Women are here for our pleasure.”

  “Go on,” Bob said.

  “What’s there to say? Bitches are here to serve us, not the other way around. And you just showed them that. You’re my hero!”

  “I don’t think you understand where I’m coming from at all. Normally I don’t go around shooting up people for the fun of it, I happen to be at the end of the rope and I plan to go out tonight in a blaze of glory. But I do have some time if you want to discuss my philosophy on this subject. Have a seat,” Bob said pointing to a table close to the group huddled in the corner.

  Chad took a seat and waited for Bob to start.

  “My issue with women started when my mother cheated on my father repeatedly and broke up our house. I know that most homes have issues, but my mother was a whore in the true sense of the word. To this day I don’t know if my dad is my real dad, but I know he treated me like I was his son. I don’t hate women in general, I hate cheaters, all cheaters. And as far as I can tell you are as guilty as any other. In fact, you admitted you cheated a second ago.”

  Chad spoke up defensively, “Don’t get pissed at me, but you admitted your mother was a whore. See, you made my point, women will fuck any man at any time, and they are all cheaters. If not in body, in soul. They all crave the sexual power of a man and will stop at nothing to get it. Fuck, Cathy practically begged me to fuck her. I had to keep her away at first.”

  Bob looked at Chad like he was a stupid liar. “Begged you? There are twenty guys in this room that would pay her two hundred dollars for a blowjob, and she begged you?”

  “I’ve never paid for sex in my life, women crave what I have to give them. They need to feel my rock hard cock inside them.”

  “I see we have very different views on reality.”

  “
You can’t tell me that women don’t hit on you and try to get you to sleep with them.”

  “Sure I can, what planet are you from?” Bob asked.

  “Let me help you, give me a gun and I’ll do whatever you ask,” Chad said.

  “I don’t need help,” Bob replied.

  “I want to help, let me please,” Chad begged.

  “No,” Bob said firm.

  “You’re going to kill them anyway, what’s the difference if I kill them too?”

  “We have different reasons, I’m not going to let you glom onto me so you can live out your sick fantasy, I have my own reasons and motivation for what I do tonight. If you want to kill bitches, you can wait till I’m done and find your own that is if I don’t decide to take you out as well. You’re a cheater.”

  “Are you saying that all the girls in this room are cheaters? That is quite presumptuous of you to assume.” Chad said.

  “I’m passed that now, I’m here to make a statement and put myself into the history books. This is my night.”

  From the crowd a female voice called out, “Let us go, I have a family at home,”

  Bob looked at the crowd and at the dancer that spoke up.

  “You can go,” Bob said and waved her to the emergency exit door. She took off and left the building.

  “What about the rest of them?” Chad asked.

  Bob pointed his pistol at Chad and asked, “What about them?”

  “Do they get to go as well?”

  Feeling guilty, and off his shooters high, Bob felt let down and his motivation to kill was wearing off. The only person he was pissed at now was Chad. “You all can go, all except you,” Bob said looking at Chad.

  The group didn’t hesitate and headed out the exit door. Thirty seconds later the club was empty except for Bob and Chad.

  “Why did you do that?” Chad asked.

  “You represent the root of evil to me, not them, “Bob replied.