by Brian Bowyer
You should give her what she wants, the Voice repeated, and make her the happiest woman on the planet.
Ken took a drink. Then he lit a cigarette. “No. I won’t do it.”
You owe it to her. Especially after all she’s done for you.
“I know. But I simply can’t live without her.”
So what are you saying? That you would kill yourself if something happened to her?
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
You’re pathetic. Both of you are absolutely pathetic. You know that, right? Neither one of you have the brains that nature gave a goddamn reptile.
Ken blew a smoke ring. “Duly noted. Now fuck off and go bother somebody else.”
Did you know that some lizards spend their entire lives in a tree? It’s true. Their feet never even touch the ground. And do you know why? Fear of death, of course. They’re born knowing that everything wants to kill them and eat them, so they spend their whole lives in a tree with their eyes on the sky, watching out for predatory birds. And look at chameleons, for God’s sake. Even a stupid chameleon is so afraid of death that they actually change the colors of their entire bodies just to try to stay alive a little while longer. Now compare that to people like you and Kendra with your idiotic death fixations. Both of you are too stupid to fucking live. I honestly think you should kill her and then go ahead and kill yourself.
Ken finished his cigarette and extinguished it in the ashtray on the table. Then he took a drink. “But I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to live without Kendra.”
Then kill her and put her out of her misery. The quicker you get rid of her, the better off you’ll be. Trust me, you’ll be better off without her.
“But she wants me to torture her to death, and there’s no way I’ll be able to do that. I love Kendra, and I do not want to hurt her.”
So kill her quickly. You were better off before you ever met her. Kill her quickly and then you can get back to living your life the way you were living before you knew her.
“So how should I do it? Strangle her? Break her neck? Slit her fucking throat?”
No, stupid. Just fucking shoot her. But don’t do it here. Take a gun to where she works and shoot her in the fucking head.
Ken took a drink. “They have security there. And cameras.”
So wear a fucking disguise, Sherlock. You have a closet full of them. Wear a wig, a fake mustache, and some sunglasses. And gloves, of course. And some throwaway shoes. Just park away from the building, walk there, shoot her, and then lose the disguise while walking back to your car. Piece of cake.
Ken took a drink. Then he stood up. “Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.”
• • •
Ken parked about half a mile away from the building in which Kendra worked. Then he climbed from the car in full disguise and walked downtown to the skyscraper.
The lobby was empty except for a security guard sitting at the front desk. Ken guessed that most of the companies in the building conducted business by phone or over the internet. “I’m here to see Kendra Mays,” Ken said, “but I don’t know where to find her.”
The security guard looked up from his phone. “One hundredth floor. All the way at the top.”
Ken nodded. His head was sweating beneath the wig. His sunglasses were fogging up and the fake mustache was making his face itch. “Thank you.” He walked to a nearby elevator and rode it up to the one hundredth floor.
He expected suspicion when he stepped off the elevator, but everyone he encountered simply nodded and smiled as if he belonged there. He asked a woman where he could find Kendra and she walked him to a door with Kendra’s name on it. “Thank you,” Ken said.
“You’re welcome.”
After the woman walked away, Ken knocked on the door.
“It’s unlocked,” he heard Kendra say on the other side of the door. He opened the door and then stepped inside her office.
She was seated at her desk (a large, beautiful desk), typing something into a computer. He looked out the big window behind her, and then the other big window along the adjacent wall. He had not known that Kendra was this important to her company. “Nice office,” he said.
She looked up at him, perplexed. Then she raised an eyebrow and laughed. “Okay. I like the sunglasses. But what the fuck is up with the wig and the fake mustache?”
He pulled the gun from his waistband and aimed it at Kendra. “I came here to kill you,” he said. “I love you too much to torture you to death. And not being able to make you the happiest woman on the planet makes me unhappy. So I figured that if I killed you quickly, I could set myself free, and maybe go back to being the person I was before I ever met you. Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “Yes, Ken. I know what you mean. And all I want is for you to be happy, too. So go ahead and do what you have to do.”
Ken tightened his grip on the pistol. “But I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided to kill myself instead.”
He turned, aimed his gun at the window along the adjacent wall, and started firing. Glass began to shatter and cascade. He pulled the trigger until the gun was empty. Then he grabbed a chair from in front of Kendra’s desk and smashed a hole in the ruined window big enough to drive a car through.
Still holding the empty gun, he dropped the chair and turned to look back at Kendra. “I love you.” Then he turned around again and stepped up onto the interior ledge.
Kendra stood up and walked out from behind her desk. “I love you too. And I’m going with you.” She stepped up onto the ledge and stood beside him.
He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m positive. This way, we’ll always be together.”
He smiled. And then he kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Ken dropped the gun. Together they followed it down to the pavement one hundred stories below.
BATH-SALT ZOMBIE
A pale man sat alone at a table in the center of an all-night diner. It was late at night and the diner was nearly empty. “I need to be drunk!” the pale man shouted. “I have too much blood on my hands for this bullshit!”
Kinsey watched the man from her booth along a wall near the restrooms. She was drinking a cup of coffee and hopped-up on the crystal meth in her system.
“Whiskey!” the pale man shrieked. “Immediately!”
Two kids with punk hair seated at the counter spun on their stools and looked at him. Kinsey recognized them as juniors from high school. She was a senior.
“They don’t serve alcohol here,” one of the kids said.
“Dumbass,” the other one added.
A waitress opened the cash register for apparently no reason, and then immediately closed it. Her eyes were red. She looked strung out and had track marks on her arms. She walked out from behind the counter and started toward the pale man.
Kinsey quickly finished her coffee, grabbed her duffel bag, and walked over to the man’s table, arriving before the waitress. “He’s with me,” Kinsey said. “And we’re leaving.” She grabbed the man’s arm.
“Don’t touch me!” the man shouted. “You’ll get the fucking disease if you touch me!” Then he began screaming and speaking in scientific terminology.
“With you?” the waitress asked Kinsey. “Then why weren’t you sitting at his table?”
“I love your beautiful hair,” Kinsey told her. “That color looks really good on you.”
“You going to pay for his food?” the waitress said. “Since he’s with you?”
On the man’s table was a plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns that appeared to have not been touched at all.
Kinsey pulled the man’s arm until he stood up. He stopped screaming and just looked down at her with his head cocked sideways. “You need to pay for your food,” Kinsey told him. “Do you have any money? You need to pay for my coffee, too.”
The man reached into hi
s pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of currency. Kinsey’s eyes widened at the sight of it. “Blood money,” he said. He placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and put the rest back in his pocket.
Kinsey looked at the waitress. “Keep the change. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
For some reason, that pissed the woman off. Her whole body seemed to go rigid. “You’re a cock-sucking whore,” the waitress said. “If I see you in here again, I’m kicking your ass.”
Kinsey giggled. Then she led the pale man outside.
On the sidewalk, he spoke more quietly than he had in the diner. “Whiskey,” he said. “I have too much blood on my hands to be this sober.”
Kinsey grabbed both of his wrists and held his hands up. “Idiot. You don’t have a fucking drop of blood on you.”
He glanced to the left, and then looked up at a streetlight. The night was silent.
“I’m Kinsey,” she said. “Do you have a goddamn name?”
“Douglas,” he said, still looking up at a moth that was fluttering in and out of the streetlight’s nimbus.
“Well, Douglas, I don’t have any whiskey, but I do have some wine. Do you like wine?”
He looked into her eyes. Kinsey thought he looked like a lunatic.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes.”
Kinsey had a rope, some duct tape, a knife, a pair of handcuffs, and a canteen full of wine in her duffel bag. The wine had Rohypnol mixed in with it. She got the idea from her roommates, Billy and Steve. The three of them shared a house on Cherry Street. Billy and Steve were older than Kinsey. Both were in their twenties. They secretly gave Rohypnol to the girls they went out on dates with and then fucked them in their asses after they passed out. Kinsey liked to lure unsuspecting men into the woods and then drug them and take their money.
“Well, you don’t want to be sober, do you?” Kinsey said.
“Dear God, no. Anything but that.”
“Then it’s settled. Tonight, you will drink wine with me.” She handed him the canteen and he took a couple of drinks.
Soon thereafter, a cab went by. Kinsey waved her arms until the driver stopped the car. She put Douglas in the back, but she got in the front, because she didn’t want the driver looking at her face in the rearview mirror.
“Where to?” the cabbie said, starting the meter.
“Just drive,” Kinsey said. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Douglas had the canteen with him in the back. Kinsey kept turning around and encouraging him to drink.
“No one’s supposed to drink liquor in the cab,” the driver said.
“It isn’t liquor,” Kinsey said. “It’s wine.” Then she leaned over, close to the cabbie’s ear. “I like to get really freaky from time to time. Do you like to get freaky?”
The cabbie smiled. “Yes. I like to get freaky.”
“Good,” Kinsey said. “You and I are gonna get along just fine.”
A couple miles down the road, Douglas spoke up: “Good God in Heaven! This isn’t wine! This is white lightning!”
“White lightning?” the cabbie said. “Are you talking about moonshine?”
“Pay him no mind,” Kinsey said. “He’s fucking retarded.”
“Jesus Christ!” Douglas said. “I’m drunk already!”
“Good,” Kinsey said. “Drunk is what you wanted. You need to drink those women off your mind.”
The place where Kinsey wanted the driver to stop the car was not that far ahead. She leaned over close to the cabbie’s ear again. “What about you, cowboy? What kind of women do you like to get freaky with?”
He reached over and put a hand on her leg. “Well, I would sure like to—”
“Stop this fucking car!” Kinsey yelled. “And take your goddamn slimy hand off of me!”
The cabbie, startled, pulled to the curb.
Kinsey opened the door and got out. “Come on, Douglas. This pervert put his hand on me. We’re leaving.”
Douglas got out of the cab, staggering. She steadied him on the side of the road. Above, clouds drifted away from the full moon and the night was bright again.
“You still owe me money for the ride,” the cabbie said.
“You’re lucky I didn’t fucking kill you,” Kinsey said. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
“Goddamn bitch,” the cabbie said. Then he drove away.
“Come on,” Kinsey told Douglas. “I’ll take you to one of my favorite places ever.”
She led him through some thick woods to a clearing in the forest that was littered with debris: a rain-swollen sofa with its springs showing; old rusted bicycle frames; the remains of tires that had been burned in bonfires; innumerable empty beer cans and liquor bottles.
“Is this where you live?” Douglas asked. He turned the canteen up and finished the last of its contents.
Kinsey shook her head. “No, although I did used to spend a lot of time here. Up until a couple of years ago, teenagers would come here and get fucked up every weekend. But then there was a shootout, and now hardly anyone ever comes here anymore.”
Douglas swayed on his feet. Kinsey grabbed an arm to steady him. Then she relieved him of the empty canteen and put it back in her duffel bag.
Douglas ended up on his knees.
“Sit down,” Kinsey said.
He did.
“Lie back,” she said.
He did.
She put her duffel bag on the ground and straddled him. She pushed his arms up over his head. Then she retrieved some duct tape from her bag and taped his wrists together.
“White lightning,” he said. “I’m fucking wasted.”
“You really are a handsome man, Douglas. Anyone ever tell you that?” She couldn’t help herself: she lowered her face and kissed him on the lips. Then she put her tongue in his mouth and swirled it around.
When she stopped, he was looking up at her. “I love you, Kinsey.”
She slapped him across the face. “Don’t call me Kinsey anymore. Call me Master.”
“I love you, Master.”
She smiled. “I love you too, Douglas.” She taped his mouth shut.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.
Kinsey pulled his eyelids down. She already knew that he had a wad of cash in his front pocket, and she figured that he had even more money in his wallet. She was just about to reach under him for his wallet when she heard the growl of an engine. She turned her head and saw the headlights of a vehicle approaching from the other side of the clearing. She grabbed her duffel bag and slung it around her neck. She grabbed Douglas by his wrists and dragged him into some nearby weeds. Then she moved away into some other weeds and watched a black van pull into the clearing.
The driver parked the van and killed the engine. Then a man stepped out of the driver’s side and a woman climbed down from the passenger’s side. Kinsey could see them clearly in the moonlight. Both were bone-thin and she figured they were probably a couple of junkies. She watched them work together to get a campfire going, then they sat down side by side on a log and starting sniffing white powder off one of those huge, old-fashioned album covers. Cocaine, maybe? Kinsey loved cocaine. The crystal meth was leaving her system and she would have definitely enjoyed some cocaine right about then. She wished she had a gun. If she had a gun, she simply would have robbed them.
“Jesus Christ I’m high as fuck,” Kinsey heard the woman say. “What the hell is this shit, anyway? Bath salts?”
“Yes,” the man said. “Some new shit from Norway called Bleeding Moon. Supposed to be epic.”
Kinsey heard a stirring noise over in the weeds where she had left Douglas. Shit! Was the Rohypnol wearing off already? She knew from prior experience that it affected different people in different ways. Had she not been interrupted by the man and the woman before she had a chance to steal the money from Douglas’s pocket and search his wallet, Kinsey would have already taken his cash and been long gone. But now she was afraid that they might rob hi
m before she could get his money. They were out here sniffing bath salts at night in the middle of a forest, so they undoubtedly had a couple of weapons on them—probably guns. And they were traveling around in a black cargo van, so they may even be a pair of roaming serial killers.
She crawled over to the patch of weeds in which Douglas was now sitting up. His wrists were still taped together, but he had managed to remove the duct tape from his mouth.
“Whiskey,” he whispered. “Please, Master. For the love of God. I need some fucking whiskey.”
Kinsey, looking into his eyes and quickly shaking her head, put a hand over his mouth and held an index finger up to her lips. Then she heard what sounded like the cocking of a gun.
“Who’s there?” the man in the clearing said.
“Stay here,” Kinsey whispered into Douglas’s ear. “And keep quiet.”
The man began heading toward their hiding spot with his gun drawn, so Kinsey left Douglas in the weeds and stepped into the clearing. “Have you seen my boyfriend walking around out here?” she said. “We were playing hide-and-seek, and I can’t seem to find him.”
The man aimed his gun at Kinsey. “If I see your boyfriend, I’ll shoot him right between his goddamn eyes.”
Kinsey faked a laugh that she hoped sounded idiotic. “That’s not very nice.” Then she added: “He has a gun too, by the way. And his gun’s a whole lot bigger than yours.”
The woman rose from the log with a gun of her own and pointed it at Kinsey. “Bitch,” she said, “we have two fucking guns. And I don’t even think you have a goddamn boyfriend.”
Kinsey smiled at the woman. “I have a girlfriend, too. You’re very beautiful.”
The man glanced over at the woman. “Hear that? This little rugrat likes to lick pussy.” Then he returned his gaze to Kinsey. “You like to take drugs?”
Kinsey shrugged. “Depends on what you have.”