Infinite Doom

by Brian Bowyer

  Mitchell smiled. “That’s amazing.”

  “I asked her if it was true, and she said yes. I told her I liked her too, and that I thought she was beautiful. She told me she thought that I was beautiful, too. And then she kissed me. It was sweeter than anything I had ever imagined. I told her that I was nervous, because I had never been with a girl before, but she told me not to worry, and we made love. After that, we were inseparable.”

  “Then what happened?” Mitchell said. “Did your mother find out?”

  “No. My brother did, of course, because everyone at school knew we were lovers. I mean, it wasn’t hard to figure out. And he threatened to tell my mother a couple of times, but he never did.”

  “Did his friends start taunting you at school the way they taunted Gwyneth?”

  “Yes. The entire school did, basically, but we didn’t care. We had each other, and that was all we cared about. Gwyneth said she was leaving town right after graduation. Said I could either leave with her right then, or wait a year to graduate and then join her in the city one year later. I told her that I was leaving with her when she did. I had never been happier.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “She graduated. We were supposed to leave that night, but we ended up getting drunk and decided to leave the next day. She spent the night at my mother’s house.”

  “Your mother let her spend the night?”

  “Yes. She didn’t know we were lovers. She just thought we were best friends.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “So anyway, she passed out on the sofa like she always did, and my brother covered her body in fentanyl patches while she was passed out.”

  “Fentanyl patches?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit. Fentanyl’s, like, a hundred times stronger than morphine.”

  “I know. She never had a chance.”

  Mitchell took a drink. “As little as a quarter of a milligram of fentanyl can be lethal.”

  “Yes. According to the toxicology report, there were well over a hundred micrograms per liter in Gwyneth’s blood when she died.”

  “Jesus Christ. Where did your brother get the fentanyl patches?”

  Marla shrugged. “My brother’s a drug dealer. Did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Well he is, and he was a drug dealer then, too. It was a small town, but just like any other small town, you could find any drug you wanted on the street.”

  “And your brother was never caught?”

  “Nope. Her death was ruled an accidental overdose. But I knew my brother did it, even before he basically admitted it to me.”

  “He told you he did it?”

  “More or less. He left not long after graduation and moved here to the city. But right before he left, he looked right at me and told me that it was too bad what happened to my girlfriend. And then he winked. And then he laughed. And then he left.”

  Mitchell nodded. “Yep. That sounds like a confession to me.”

  Marla took a drink. “I graduated the next year, but I had no ambition to do anything or get involved with anyone at all. I got a job waitressing at a local restaurant to pay for my drugs and alcohol.”

  “Did you just keep living at your mother’s house?”

  “Yes, until she got sick and died a few years later. I saw my brother at her funeral for the first time since he had moved to the city. He acted as if nothing bad had ever happened between us, and he asked me what I planned to do with my life. I told him I had no idea. He suggested I come to the city. Told me I could stay with him and his wife until I got on my feet. And here I am.”

  “Which I for one am very happy about.” Mitchell raised the bottle of Maker’s Mark. “To fate.”

  “I want to kill my brother,” Marla said. “For what he did to Gwyneth. And I want to kill his stupid wife.”

  They drank, made love again, and then drank some more until they fell asleep.

  • • •

  Mitchell woke up first. He looked beyond the bedroom window and saw that night had fallen. Beside him on the bed, Marla was whispering in her sleep. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he knew that—for the rest of his life—the voice he needed to hear was hers, whispering in the night.

  He got up and went to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth. He evacuated his bladder. He took a quick shower and shaved. Then he went back into the bedroom and saw that Marla was awake. She was sitting up on the bed holding the bottle of Maker’s Mark. “We’re almost out of whiskey,” she said.

  Mitchell began putting on the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier. “We’ll get more.”

  Marla took a drink. “Mind if I take a shower?”

  Mitchell put a hand on his hip and cocked his head. “This is where you live now. You’re going to be my wife. You don’t have to ask my permission for anything.”

  Marla took a shower. When she came out of the bathroom, Mitchell was drinking from a bottle of vodka at the kitchen table. “Ready to go get your stuff?” he said. “From your brother’s place?”

  She nodded. “I don’t have much. Just some clothes and my laptop. Let me hit that vodka.”

  He handed her the bottle, and she took a drink. “We need to get more whiskey, too,” she said.

  “Were you serious about wanting to kill your brother and his wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should probably leave your cellphone here.”

  Marla cocked her head. “My cellphone?”

  “Yes. They’re tracking devices.”

  “I don’t have a cellphone.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I can’t afford one. And I’m not really going to kill them, anyway. I would like to, but it’s just a fantasy.”

  Mitchell stood up. His jacket was hanging on the back of his chair, and he put it on. Then he pulled his car keys from a pocket of his jeans. “Ready when you are.”

  She took another drink and set the bottle on the table. “Do you have a cellphone?”

  “Yes, but I don’t carry it with me.”

  They left. They took the elevator down to the first floor and exited the building. They saw no other people in the parking lot.

  “Want my jacket?” Mitchell said.

  Marla shook her head. “No. It’s a beautiful night.”

  “Every night is beautiful. Do you love it as much as I do?”

  “Of course I love the night,” she told him. “I’m made of stars, as are we all.”

  They got in his car and went to a nearby liquor store. He bought two fifths of whiskey. He put one in the trunk and cracked the other one open behind the steering wheel. Then she guided him to the building in which her brother and his wife lived.

  Mitchell parked in front of the building and killed the engine. “Which floor?”

  “Second. Right there on the end.” She pointed to a window through which he could see the flickering light of a television.

  He took a drink. “Is it cool to take the liquor in?”

  “Sure. Let me hit that.”

  He handed her the bottle, and she took a drink. “My brother’s a big guy, though. He’s even bigger than you are. And he’s fucking crazy, too. Never can tell what he’s going to do. Really just depends on whatever fucking drug he’s on. If it’s heroin, he might be nodding off and drooling all over himself. If it’s meth, he might be jumping up and down on the goddamn coffee table. But he’s usually harmless. Just thought I should tell you that.”

  They got out and went inside. They took the stairs up to the second floor. Her brother and his wife lived in 17B. When they reached the door at the end of the hallway, she handed him the bottle and unlocked the door with a key. Then she opened the door and he followed her inside.

  Her brother and his wife were sitting on a sofa, playing a video game on a big-screen TV, but her brother paused the game and stood up as soon as they stepped into the living room. He was one of the biggest men Mitchell had ever seen. His head nea
rly touched the ceiling. His arms were about the size of Mitchell’s thighs. His wife’s eyes—like her husband’s—appeared to be ready to pop out of her skull.

  “This is my fiancé,” Marla told them. “We’re going to Las Vegas and getting married.”

  “Tonight?” her brother said.

  Marla looked at Mitchell. “Yes. I’m pretty sure our planets are aligned.”

  Mitchell smiled. Then he took a drink from the bottle of whiskey.

  “Can we go?” her brother said. “We’re tripping on acid. We love to go to Vegas when we’re tripping.” He looked over and down at his wife. “Ain’t that right, Baby?”

  She nodded, smiling and clawing at her face. “Yes. The lights of Vegas are awesome when you’re tripping.”

  Mitchell checked his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Driving at night, it usually takes me about four hours to get there. If we leave now, we’ll be there before the sun rises over the desert. I’m ready whenever.”

  Her brother was still staring at Mitchell’s wristwatch. “Is that a Rolex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddamn, man. That is a beautiful fucking watch.”

  “Thank you.”

  Marla looked at Mitchell. “Come on. I need to pack my suitcase.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, where she grabbed a couple of trash bags, and then he followed her into a bedroom.

  She took a suitcase from a closet and put some clothes in it. She put her laptop in one of the trash bags and put it on top of the clothes. She took the other trash bag into the adjoining bathroom and put her toiletries in it. Then she put the toiletries in her suitcase and zipped it closed. “Everything I own,” she said. “I pack light.”

  Mitchell smiled. “You’re going to be my wife.”

  “Yes,” Marla said. “Let’s hit the fucking road.”

  • • •

  Mitchell drove. Marla rode shotgun. Her brother rode behind her and his wife rode behind Mitchell. They loaded up on booze and smokes before leaving the city. Then, after about forty miles east on I-10, it was a straight shot north on I-15 all the way to Nevada.

  Because Marla’s brother and his wife were tripping on acid, they were drinking beer instead of whiskey, and Mitchell therefore had to keep stopping the car so they could get out and void their bladders on the side of the road.

  It was after five in the morning before they crossed into Nevada. The sun rose about twenty minutes later. Mitchell took a dirt road off the interstate and parked near the base of one of the mountains that surrounded the city of Las Vegas on all sides.

  “Why are we stopping here?” the brother’s wife said. “Vegas is still a few miles away.”

  “Life’s too mysterious,” her husband said. “Don’t take it serious.” Then he began cackling maniacally.

  Mitchell took a drink of whiskey. Then he looked at the wife in the rearview mirror. “For the scenery,” he said. “One of my favorite spots is up ahead. I wanna show it to Marla. Plus I figured you two might need to piss.” He handed the bottle to Marla, and she took a drink.

  The wife finished her beer and lit a cigarette. “Works for me. I’m ready to stretch my legs, anyway.”

  The four of them got out of the car and set off into a stretch of desert. It wasn’t yet six a.m. and the temperature had to be at least eighty degrees.

  Marla’s brother looked at Mitchell. “Aren’t you burning up in that fucking jacket?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “No. I’m okay.”

  They walked in silence for a while, and then stopped when they saw eight words scrawled in red across the face of a rock wall: None of you will leave this place alive.

  “Trippy,” the wife said. Then she looked at her husband. “Can we smoke some weed? I think the acid’s starting to wear off a little bit.”

  “Sure.” He finished his beer and tossed the can off the large flat rock that all four of them were standing on. He sat down on the rock. His wife sat down beside him. He took a small bag of weed and a pack of rolling papers from one of the pockets of the knee-length camouflage shorts he was wearing. His T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.

  Marla and Mitchell did not sit down. Marla handed the bottle to Mitchell. He took a drink, and then gave the bottle back to her. Then he looked over at the eight words scrawled across the face of the rock wall. “Whoever wrote those words,” he said, “was fifty percent prophetic.”

  Marla’s brother looked up at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “The dead are whispering on the wind,” Mitchell said. “They’re speaking to us. Can you hear them?”

  “There is no fucking wind,” Marla’s brother said.

  His wife looked up at Mitchell. “Dude, you’re fucking loco.”

  Mitchell pulled a semiautomatic pistol from his jacket. Marla saw that there was a silencer attached to the handgun’s barrel. “Gwyneth is speaking from beyond the grave,” Mitchell said.

  Marla’s brother shot her a look of momentary confusion, and then he looked back up at Mitchell. “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said.

  Marla’s brother smirked. “And what exactly is it that Gwyneth is saying from beyond the grave?”

  Mitchell took a few steps to the left until he was standing beside the woman, who was still sitting on the rock beside her husband. He raised the gun to the woman’s head. “Gwyneth says to tell your wife goodbye,” Mitchell said. Then he shot her in the side of the head, blowing her brains out the other side of her skull and all over her husband’s face.

  Marla started jumping up and down, delirious with excitement. Then she bent her waist and put her face right in front of her brother’s blood-covered face. “HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW?” she screamed. “YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LOSE THE WOMAN YOU LOVE?”

  Her brother said nothing. He just continued breaking apart a bud of marijuana and putting it in the rolling paper, as if nothing unusual whatsoever had just occurred.

  Marla picked up a jagged chunk of stone and smashed it against the side of her brother’s head. Mitchell heard a crack that may have been the sound of the man’s skull splitting open. Her brother slumped over on the rock. His wide-open eyes were still bright with acid and awareness. Fresh blood oozed from his temple and commingled with his dead wife’s blood on his face.

  Mitchell stood over the man and aimed the gun at his head.

  “No!” Marla said. “Let me do it. I want to be the one who kills him.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “Okay.” He pulled another gun (a revolver that did not have a silencer attached to it) from his jacket and aimed it at her brother. Then he handed the semiautomatic with the silencer to Marla. “Knock yourself out.”

  She aimed the gun at her brother’s face. “For Gwyneth,” she said. Then she shot him right between the eyes.

  “Can I have my gun back?” Mitchell said.

  She handed him the gun.

  His jacket had two interior pockets. He put the semiautomatic in one pocket and the revolver in the other.

  They walked back to the car. They got in and left. They passed the bottle back and forth the rest of the way to Vegas.

  • • •

  When Marla woke up, Mitchell was already awake. He was seated at a small table beside the bed on which she lay. His hair was wet. He was wearing blue disposable gloves and cleaning one of his guns. She sat up on the bed and said, “Where are we?”

  “Sleazy motel on the strip.”

  “So we’re in Vegas?”

  “Yes. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Blowing my brother’s brains out, pretty much. I was fucking drunk. Must have blacked out. Did you take a shower?”

  “Yes. The water pressure’s not bad.”

  “I need a shower. And I’m fucking thirsty, too.”

  Mitchell pointed to a bottle on the table. “I just opened this fifth of whiskey.”

  Marla shook her head. “Not yet. I seriously need to hydrate before I s
tart drinking.”

  “Your brother,” Mitchell said. “Was he the first person you ever killed?”

  “Yes. And I take it his wife was not the first person you ever killed.”

  “No. Not even close.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I thought. The silencer was pretty much a dead giveaway.”

  Mitchell took a drink. “Sorry for the cheap motel. I know you deserve better, but this place lets me pay with cash and no ID. And they have no cameras. I didn’t want to leave any evidence that we were here. I mean, it might be a while before the bodies are found, but still . . .”

  Marla rose from the bed and stretched. “I suppose we can’t get married in Vegas now.”

  He shook his head. “No. I figured we could spend the night here, and then head back home tomorrow. Besides, we have the rest of our lives to get married.”

  Marla glanced at the window. The curtains were closed. “What time is it?”

  Mitchell looked at his wristwatch. “Almost six p.m. Sunset’s at eight.”

  She smiled. “Nice gloves, by the way.”

  “Latex,” he said. “I never leave home without them.”

  Marla saw her suitcase on the floor. She picked it up and set it on the bed. “Did I carry this in, or did you?”

  “I did, after you fell asleep.”

  “Thanks.” She opened the suitcase. “Have you slept at all?”

  “Yes. Couple of hours. I don’t sleep much.”

  Marla took her toiletries into the bathroom and closed the door. She emerged from the bathroom maybe fifteen minutes later with wet hair.

  “Feel better?” Mitchell said.

  “Yes. I drank about a gallon of tap water, and now I’m ready to drink some fucking whiskey.” She put the bag of toiletries in her suitcase. Then she joined Mitchell at the table by the bed.