by Bryan Smith
Rob cranked his head to the right and scanned the road’s shoulder. He saw a slim figure maybe a quarter mile distant. A man standing with his thumb out. He had that scraggly, weathered look of the long-term homeless. Rob was able to see deep lines on the man’s face as they drew closer. He had hard, unfriendly eyes. Rob didn’t like the look of the man at all.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Yeah, but I’m in charge and your opinion counts for shit.”
Roxie slowed the Tercel and pulled over. She hit a button and the window on Rob’s side slid down. The hitchhiker came up to the car and leaned down to peek inside. “Where y’all headed?”
Roxie grinned. “Wherever you’re going. Hop on in. Back’s unlocked.”
The man moved away from the window and opened the back door. He tossed his backpack in and climbed inside, pulling the door shut. “Can’t tell you folks how much I appreciate the kindness. Most folks these days can’t be bothered to help a fella out.”
Roxie twisted in her seat and stared at the guy through the gap between the seats. “Most folks should be ashamed of themselves. What’s your name, stranger?”
“Carl McCoy.”
Roxie reached a hand into the backseat. “Pleased to meet you, Carl. I’m Roxie. And my friend here is Rob.”
Carl shook her hand and Roxie held onto it.
“Pleased to meet you both.”
“Now, Carl, I hate to break it to you, but nobody rides for free, not in this car. I can see you don’t have any money to speak of, but there is a way you can pay.”
The man’s voice became wary. “Yeah? What would that be?”
Roxie kept grinning. “Ass, gas, or grass, Carl. Ass, gas, or grass. In this case, ass.” She nodded at Rob. “My friend here is feeling very frustrated right now. The price of your ride is a blow job.”
Rob’s mouth dropped open. “What the fuck, Roxie?”
Carl chuckled. “Ain’t a problem. I suck a mean dick.”
Roxie laughed. “I bet you do, Carl. I bet you do.”
“Got real good at it in jail.”
Rob shook his head. “No way, Roxie. Fuck this.”
“It’s that or the other thing. You know what I mean.”
Carl was quickly becoming confused in the backseat. “What other thing? I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”
Rob hated being forced to make this choice. He would not let some foul-smelling, nearly toothless, butt-ugly homeless man put his mouth on his penis. There was no scenario in which he could ever imagine allowing that to happen. And yet the other option amounted to sentencing the man to death.
Carl coughed loudly in the backseat. “Uh…I think I’ll be getting out now. If you’d just let go of my hand, young lady.”
Roxie leg go of his hand, snagged the .38 from the tote bag, and pointed it at him. “You’re not going anywhere, you fucking bum. Rob still has a choice to make.”
Carl started crying. “Please. Don’t. I’ll do anything.”
Roxie laughed. “Holy shit, really? Anything at all? Wow. You know what, I’ve never heard that before. People never, ever say that when they’re about to die. Seriously.”
Carl whimpered. He sniffled. “Please…”
“Shut up.” Roxie glanced at Rob. “Gross old-guy mouth action or the other thing. Decide now.”
Rob looked away from her and sighed. “Other thing.”
She smiled. “Good choice. I approve.”
Rob closed his eyes and cringed, waiting to hear the report of the gun, which would be painfully loud inside the car.
“Get out, Carl.”
Rob heard the man’s breath catch in his throat.
“Wh-what?”
“You heard me. It’s your lucky day. Get out, bum.”
Carl didn’t need to be told twice. He hustled himself out of the car and slammed the door shut. Rob opened his eyes, glanced at the side-mounted mirror, and saw the man walking fast in the opposite direction.
Roxie laughed and slapped the steering wheel. “Fuck! That was fun.“
Rob couldn’t say anything. He just stared at her.
“You’re probably wondering why I let him go.” Roxie patted his knee. “You look like you just saw a ghost. Poor baby. Let me explain. I didn’t want to kill that guy. And letting him go’s no big deal. A guy like that’s not going to the cops, so he’s not a liability. The real payoff was you making that choice. Now I know you have it in you, too.”
Rob squinted at her. “What?”
“Murder, Rob. You have murder in your heart. Just like me.”
Rob opened his mouth to issue an automatic denial, but the words did not come. He stayed silent because the words would be a lie.
She was right.
He felt like crying.
Roxie was still laughing as she put the car in gear and pulled back into the stream of traffic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
March 20
The guy seemed really nervous and she guessed she couldn’t blame him. It was a pretty weird situation. Not to mention highly illegal, as he thought he’d been approached by a very young prostitute. So he was pretty fucking gullible, too. She was way prettier and fresher-looking than the usual crack-addicted, street-trawling whore.
They were in the parking lot outside the 21 Up Adult Video store. The man clutched a brown paper bag that appeared to contain several DVDs. He was fidgeting and kept glancing at the door to the smut shop. “You’re sure you’re not with the cops?”
Julie smiled and licked her lips seductively. “No, baby. I just want to make you feel good and make a little money.”
He was staring at her breasts, which strained the fabric of the tiny halter she was wearing. “How much?”
“Fifty for a blow, hundred for a fuck.”
“I’ve got the cash, but I don’t have any rubbers on me.”
Julie almost laughed.
I’m sure you don’t, you ugly fuck.
“That’s okay, baby. I’ve got you covered.” She nodded at the BMW parked on the other side of the lot. “That’s my old man’s car over there. Get in the back with me and we’ll set this up.”
He frowned. “Your…old man?”
She smiled. “My pimp.”
The man turned partially away from her and stared at the BMW. Zeb wasn’t visible through the car’s tinted windows. Good thing, too. Dude would be spooked for sure if he got a load of the crazy homeless man. And Julie didn’t want him spooked. This guy was perfect. He was just the kind of slimy pervert the world would be better off without.
He faced her again. “I guess that’s okay. That’s a hell of a nice car. You and your…old man…must be doing well.”
She smiled and kicked at a little rock with the toe of a sneaker. She kept her hands clasped in front of her and gave her hips a little swivel, really playing up the whole Lolita thing. “You could say that. We’re picky, you know. We drive around and find people who look like they have a little class to ’em. Like you.”
The man blushed. “Oh…thanks.”
She started walking toward the BMW, glancing over her shoulder at the mark. He was staring at her ass now. “You coming?”
He hesitated just long enough to scan the parking lot again, probably still checking for cops, not quite trusting her denial. Then he took a deep breath and hurried after her. She opened the back door on the passenger side and stood aside for him to slide in. She climbed in after him and pulled the door shut. Zeb hit a button up front and the car’s locks clicked shut.
The sleazy little fuck drew in a startled breath upon seeing Zeb.
Julie laughed. “Chill, baby. I know he’s scary-looking. But a girl needs a tough guy around to survive in this business.” Julie doubted any real-life whore said things like this, but the guy was clueless and horny, so it was probably okay. She put a hand on his leg and squeezed, eliciting a shudder from him. “Yeah. Feels good, huh?”
He gulped. “Y-yeah…”
�
��Let’s get out of here, Zeb.”
Zeb started the BMW and began to back out of the parking space.
The guy sat up straighter. “Wait! Where are we going?”
Julie scooted closer to him and draped an arm around his shoulders. “You shush, sweetie. We have a special place we go. You didn’t really think we were gonna do business in the parking lot of a porn shop, did you?”
He clutched the brown paper bag in his lap with both hands, the paper crinkling as his fingers shook. Nervous? Shit. He was terrified. Julie figured he’d never been intimate with a girl on any level before. It didn’t make her feel sorry for him. The sad sacks of the world only had themselves to blame for their problems. He wasn’t fat. He could clean himself up. Maybe get some cream to clear up those zits. Pathetic. The guy was maybe in his midtwenties, but he still looked like some high-school loser. No one would miss this waste of space. It made her feel a little better about what she was about to do.
Zeb pulled into traffic and began to head for the spot they’d found earlier. The town wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t terribly big either. It was one of those countless bland, midsized communities dotting the landscape between the larger cities. It took maybe ten minutes to return to the abandoned warehouse in the town’s failing industrial area. The place was perfect. The empty lot behind the building wasn’t fenced off and there was no evidence of any kind of security presence. Zeb parked the BMW at one of the empty loading bays at the back of the building. He turned the car off and pocketed the keys.
He got out of the car and threw the door shut without a word.
Julie grinned. “It’s just you and me now, baby. You ready to have fun?”
She heard the paper bag crinkle again. A glance at his lap showed that his hands were shaking harder than ever. She smiled and touched the bag. “Can I see your goodies?”
“Um…I don’t…”
She kissed his cheek. “It’s okay, honey. You don’t have to be embarrassed about anything. I want to see.”
Julie took the bag from him and pulled the DVDs out of it. There were four of them. The one on top featured a picture of a very young girl kneeling between the legs of another very young girl, who was sitting on the edge of a bed, with one leg dangling toward the floor and the other splayed along the edge of the mattress. The girl on the bed was squeezing her breasts and staring at the camera. The name of the DVD was Teen Sluts 4: Lesbian Fantasies. The rest of the discs were in the same vein. She sorted through them and made fake noises of arousal.
“Oh, wow. I wish we could watch these. I love shit like this. Makes me hot.”
He was staring at her breasts again and wasn’t shaking quite so much now. The edge had come off his nervousness as she’d sorted through the discs. She glanced at his crotch and saw how swollen it was. The physical intimacy was a big part of it. He probably knew it’d be a long time before he ever got this close to a girl as hot as she was again.
She set the discs aside and touched his leg again. “You ready?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
Lips puckering, he leaned toward her, but she placed a hand flat against his chest and pushed him back. “Kissing is fifty extra bucks.”
“I’ve got a hundred eighty in my wallet.” He was breathing faster, the intensity of his desire overwhelming any other impulses. “You can have it all. Just let me kiss you a little before we…you know…”
She giggled. “Fuck?”
He gulped. “Yeah.”
“Okay. We’ll make out some. Just promise you won’t tell Zeb. He doesn’t like it when I cut customers a deal.”
“I won’t tell. I promise.”
“Cool. Take your cock out while I get something from the front.”
She disengaged herself from him and leaned forward, angling her lean body through the gap between the seats, positioning her ass so that it was pointing right at his face. With any luck at all he’d be distracted by its round lushness long enough to get this done. The big hunting knife was in the passenger seat. The fingers of her right hand curled around its heavy handle.
Something touched her ass. The mark’s hand. The greasy little fucker was copping an unauthorized feel. Yet another mark against him in the grim reaper’s ledger of doom, she figured.
She smiled and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Little impatient, are we?”
He squeezed her ass cheek. “Yeah. What are you doing up there?”
“You needed a rubber, remember?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot. Hurry. Please.”
“Okay, baby. Here I come.”
She waited one beat longer.
This is it, she thought. No going back from here.
What surprised her most in that moment was her total lack of hesitation. I want this. Holy shit, I really do.
Keeping her back to him, she began to slither back into the rear of the car. She heard him groan in anticipation. Then she snarled and whipped around, jabbing the big blade at his throat. Instinct made him flinch to the side, his quick reaction time surprising her. But he wasn’t quite fast enough. The serrated edge of the blade cut through his T-shirt and glanced off his collarbone, etching a deep, bloody groove in his flesh. He screamed and scooted away from her as she reared the knife back for another strike. He held his hands up and the blade jabbed into a palm, triggering another gusher of blood as it cut through muscle and hit bone. She yanked the blade out and pulled it back again. Blood leaped from the wound and struck her face. She felt some of it enter her mouth and realized she was grinning. It made her giggle, knowing how crazy she must look to him right now. He was pissing his pants, the little baby. He cried out and turned away from her, grasping for the door handle. His bloody hand curled around it and yanked, but the door stayed shut. Zeb had enabled the childproof locks on the back doors.
“You’re trapped, motherfucker.”
He looked at her and put his back against the door. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why not?”
She plunged the knife into his thigh, aiming for where she thought the femoral artery would be. He screamed and kicked out at her with his uninjured leg. The counterattack caught her off guard. His booted foot hit her stomach and drove her backward. She hit the door behind her and cried out. She stared at the man, panic blooming inside her. She didn’t have the knife anymore. It was still buried in his thigh. He reached for it in the same instant she propelled herself away from the door in a screaming leap. She was faster. She drove the blade deeper into his leg, giving it a savage sideways twist. He screamed and bucked against the door on his side. Julie yanked the knife out of his leg and stuck it in his throat.
A jugular bull’s-eye.
She pulled the blade out, releasing the biggest geyser of gore yet. She felt its warmth splash her chest and laughed. She leaned over him, got close as she could to his face, and taunted him in a singsong voice. “You’re gonna die-eye, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He was still breathing, but his eyes were starting to glaze over.
Zeb opened the front driver-side door and leaned in to check out the carnage.
Julie beamed at him. “So what do you think? Did I do good? Did I pass Lulu’s fucking test?”
Zeb smiled. “You did good.”
“Yay. You know what?”
“What?”
“I want to do it again. Tonight.”
Zeb just stared at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. I’m a mess. I’m covered in fucking blood. But I’m not gonna be picky this time. We don’t have to do it the same way. Let’s just grab somebody. Anybody. A woman, if you want. I don’t give a shit. Let’s just do it. Okay?”
“You need to calm down.”
“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME TO FUCKING CALM DOWN!” Julie took a deep breath and summoned a smile. “I want to kill somebody. Please?”
Zeb looked wary, but he nodded. “Okay.”
He disengaged the childproof locks, pulled the body out of the car,
and dragged it over to a Dumpster. Julie climbed up front and settled herself in the shotgun seat in time to watch Zeb heft the body and drop it in the container. Christ, but he was a strong bastard. He came back to the car, fired up the engine, and began to drive away from the warehouse.
Julie started laughing, was unable to stop for more than a minute.
Zeb glanced at her, frowning. “What?”
Her smile was playful. “Oh, nothing. Well…I was just thinking…wouldn’t it be a kick if I turned out to be even more fucked-up than you?”
She laughed some more.
Zeb stayed glumly silent and stared at the road ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Diary of a Mixed-up Girl blog entry, dated March 14
Stayed up way late thinking about it again. That thing I’d like to do. What it would be like. I think it would be sort of like turning out the lights when you leave a room, except you could never turn them back on again. Unless you had super God-like powers or something. But there is no God and no magic. So…yeah. It’s so trippy to think about. When someone decides to do this thing, that’s real power.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have the guts to do it. I’d sure like to, though. I know I don’t want the life my parents want for me. They want me to go to college, but I think what they hope happens in the end is I marry some upwardly mobile dude and raise a pack of brats in the suburbs. If it was good enough for Mommy dearest, then it’s good enough for me, right?
They’ve got some disappointment coming their way, I can tell you that. MORE disappointment, I mean. LOL. Ha.
They think all my “troubles” are part of a normal rebellion phase.
They have no idea. NONE.
I hope to truly horrify them someday. To SHATTER them.
And I will. I promise.
I saw this squirrel in the road today. It’d been hit by a car or something, but it was still barely alive. The sound its skull made when I crushed it was awesome.
6 comments
lord_ruthven: Wtf? Awesome? Bullshit. I bet you were bawling your eyes out (if it even happened).
Mixedupgirl: No bullshit. I have pictures. I just mailed one to you.