7PM - Emily (A 5PM Short Story)

by Chris Heinicke

  “Please come with me anyway. You’re like a sister to me,” I said.

  “No, Erica. Our journey together stops now. I love you, but how do I know you won’t point a gun at me one day? Or cut me open with a machete? We all knew this was only going to be a temporary thing, but you had to take it all so serious.”

  “Fuck you,” I stormed out of the water, and for the first time, I felt naked and vulnerable. I tripped over, fell to the ground, and began howling.

  “Erica, we have to go,” Helen said.

  I stood up again, found my clothes in a pile, and put them on while Helen retrieved her gear. She looked over at me, the tears still flowing.

  “Erica, everything will be okay,” she said.

  I dropped to my knees, and she came over and picked me up. I threw my arms around her and pulled her in tight as she patted me on the back as my whole body shook with my sobs. “It’s not fair, Helen. Why does this shit have to happen?”

  “Life isn’t fair, sweetie. I’m just grateful you didn’t kill Reece. He didn’t deserve it.”

  “He ripped my heart out when he fucked Rebecca. Ripped it out and stomped on it again and again. I hate boys. I want to kill them all.” I howled again, and Helen continued to hold me until I was ready to walk away with her. I didn’t look back at the boys, Roscoe, or Rebecca.

  Helen made sure we were out of earshot of our departed companions before she sat me down and spoke again. “Erica, it’s time I told you where I intend to take you. There’s a special place not many people know of where you can learn so much. I know you’ve got what it takes, and it’s probably a good thing Rebecca isn’t with us anymore.”

  “But she was like a—”

  “Yes, I know, Erica, but you need to learn to not give a shit about people, not anyone. People really suck. They’ll use someone like you for your body for as long as you’re so ready to give your heart away. You don’t need love, and you don’t need people. You just need to learn how to use sex to your advantage and how to rid the world of a few people it would be better off without. The place I’m taking us has been highly recommended to me, and we will become highly paid killers.”

  “I could kill someone right now,” I said.

  “And you will also learn how to kill your emotions. Emotions will take you down. I know because I’m still learning. This place will make us better people, deadly and better.”

  “What is this place called?” I asked.

  Helen took a deep breath. “It’s called the Praying Mantassassins Compound if my sources are correct, and very few people know how to find it.”

  Chapter 4

  My mood dampened after we parted ways with the three bikers and Rebecca. Many times, Helen would try to wave us a ride, but I would find a reason not to travel with the people she selected. We barely spoke due to my dark clouded nature.

  “Let’s get some coffee, Erica. It’s gonna be a long day if you won’t let us take a ride with anyone,” Helen said.

  “Sure. Let’s stop somewhere. I don’t give a fuck. Every town we come across is full of redneck squirrel fuckers who wouldn’t know good coffee if they were fucking in it—”

  Her hand stung the side of my face as the slap made contact. I didn’t see it coming, and she had never treated me as such—ever. I put my backpack down that Helen had bought for me the day after we left Roscoe and his boys. I balled a hand into a fist and swung at her face, hitting fresh air as she swerved her head out of the way.

  “Come on, Erica. You want to take your anger out on me, then do it. Try again, you little hippy slut.”

  I felt as though my blood reached boiling point and swung again, hitting a hand she put up to block my attack. Wasting no time, I swung my other fist at her and struck in the ribs. I stepped back and smiled.

  “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”

  “No,” she grabbed her body where I had struck her, “I wasn’t.”

  I put down my guard. I couldn’t believe I got the better of her and waved my hands in the air to celebrate. A few seconds later, when her hand was still placed where I made contact with her, I felt worried I had hurt her bad. “I’m so sorry, Helen.”

  My mind distracted with what I saw, the next punch connected before I even saw it form. The wind spewed out from me as the fist hit me near my navel. I fell to my knees, taking long breaths to normalise my regular breathing again.

  “Stupid bitch, letting your guard down like that.” Another fist struck me.

  My head spun sideways as her other hand crashed into my cheekbone. Her movements were quick as lightning, and I regretted getting into a fight with her as I was sure getting an ass whipping. I prayed she would stop.

  “We’ll need to work on your hand to hand combat, girl, before we reach the compound or else it could be really embarrassing.”

  “You…hurt…me…” I said through laboured breaths.

  “Yes, and if you came across an actual opponent, they wouldn’t stop here. Now let’s get some coffee and an ice pack.”

  I retrieved my backpack and followed behind her.

  ******

  We sipped the less than satisfactory fluid in the mugs, and I wondered when I would taste decent coffee again. There were only two other customers inside the place apart from us, and they looked as dissatisfied as we were. At least Helen and I were free. The other two diners appeared to be wearing workwear of some sort, meaning they were wage slaves somewhere.

  Helen leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “We’re getting low on funds. We need to do something.”

  “I’m not selling my body to any of those freaks,” I said. One man sitting on a table opposite looked like he was fifty years old while the other man looked as though he could have possibly swallowed an elephant.

  “I’m not talking about that. We’re going to take the till.”

  “What?”

  “Stick close to me.” She pulled the pistol from her bag and handed it to me. She dug in again and pulled out another. We walked towards the counter, and Helen got the attention of the woman serving behind it and made her come close. “Excuse me, miss?” She pressed the gun into the woman’s stomach. “I’ll be needing the contents of that cash register there.”

  “Okay, I don’t want no trouble.” She pressed a button to release the cash drawer, watching Helen’s hands as she emptied it of all the paper notes.

  I kept my eye on the other two customers, making sure they didn’t notice what Helen was doing. I turned as Helen put the notes in her bag, and a small flurry of motion yanked my attention away as the older diner pointed a gun our way.

  “You ladies need to give Gertrude back the shop’s money. They can’t afford the insurance so if you steal that, they won’t be able to get it back,” the man said.

  “You’re going to shoot two women over a stash of paper bills?” Helen asked.

  “I will if I have to.”

  I smiled back at him through my nerves. “Oh, how could you shoot this?” I placed a hand on my hip and kept my other hand with the gun behind my back.

  “You think that pussy of yours will keep you safe, girl?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. I knew I would have to do it right and couldn’t miss. I whipped my other hand from behind me and pulled back on the trigger as the gun pointed at him. He fell to the ground, landing on his ass clutching his wound.

  “Oh, shit,” Helen said. “You got him in the gut, Erica.”

  “You shouldn’t have given me a gun if you didn’t want me to use it. We better run, Helen.”

  The man yelled as he sat in a pool of his own blood his energy too sapped to pick up his dislodged weapon.

  “Bitch,” he said looking me in the eyes. His stare stayed glued to me, and I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from him.

  “He’s bleeding out, Erica. You need to put him out of his misery,” Helen said.

  She was right. It had to be me who did it seeing as I was the cause of the man’s pain. I took a few steps closer t
o him and levelled the gun at his head. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved. We just needed the money.”

  I fired once, hitting him square in the forehead. Even in death, his empty eyes stayed on me, and I wondered if maybe his soul took a long look at me before it flew away to the next world.

  “Erica, we have to go,” Helen said.

  ******

  We ran for a good two hours after robbing the diner and killing one of their loyal customers. There were no police sirens within earshot the whole time, but I guessed a town the size of that one would have to call in a patrol vehicle which could have been anywhere within a two hundred mile radius.

  “So are we nearly where we need to be?” I asked.

  “We’re getting closer. If you let us hitch a ride with someone, we’ll get there sooner.”

  “Well, here comes a pickup truck now. And I promise that unless the driver looks like someone who would cook and eat his own family, I’ll be happy to go aboard.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Helen said, hitching her skirt a little higher and sticking her chest out and her thumb up. We found in our travels nearly any man will stop for a hot looking female or two or three. It wasn’t necessarily for sex or the expectation of a date that made them stop, but it seemed most men just loved being in the company of hot chicks like us.

  The truck slowed for us and stopped a few feet before us, and the driver actually looked like a good-looking guy.

  “You can get in the back, I’ll get in with him,” I said.

  “You just be careful, Erica. Oh, and please don’t shoot him.”

  “Hey there, ladies. I can take you about a hundred miles further. Please feel free to jump right on in,” the driver said.

  I winked at Helen and took the front seat. “So what’s your name, little miss?” he asked.

  “Felicity.” I decided a fake name was needed. “And yours?”

  “Mike, but my friends call me Big Mike.”

  He looked in his mirror and slowly accelerated. I couldn’t help but wonder about the ‘big’ part of his nickname and looked down at his crotch. I didn’t notice an overly big bulge in his jeans, so the mystery nestled inside me.

  “Thanks for stopping for us. It’s getting really hot out there today.” I let my short denim skirt ride higher, the bottom of my panties showing themselves to the driver’s eyes. I didn’t care much for the feel of underwear. After living without them for so many years, it made me feel unnatural. But with the length of my skirt, I would be showing everything without them.

  “Gee, girl, how am I gonna keep my eyes on the road when you show so much skin.”

  “Sorry, Big Mike.” I smiled at him.

  He put his eyes on the road, and we exchanged some meaningless conversation to the end of the hundred-mile journey he had promised us. We stopped at a crossroads, and he looked my way. “Sorry, young lady, but my house is up there.” He pointed to the road going to the right.

  “Maybe a detour would be nice.”

  “There’s not much down that way, apart from a few of us farmers. I’d be happy to show you my farm, but I think you’re a little young for me.”

  Helen tapped on the window and shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’m kind of tired. Maybe you’d be kind enough to take us both in for the night,” I said to him.

  He looked me up and down, and I knew he would be only too happy to oblige my request. “Sure, I have plenty of spare rooms.”

  I wound my window down, Helen now standing on the edge of the road near my window. “Helen, we’re staying on a farm tonight.”

  She gave me a look.

  “It’d be good to sleep in a proper bed for a change, don’t you think?” I asked.

  “Okay, sure.” She jumped on the back of the pick-up again, and Mike turned the car down the road to our right. I didn’t even feel nervous as he drove us a few miles and then up a long dirt driveway to a large brick home.

  “It ain’t much, but I like to call it home,” Mike said.

  “Looks lovely to me,” I opened my door and stepped out once we were stopped.

  Mike went on ahead, unlocked the door, and then smiled at us. Helen stood next to me and spoke in my ear, “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

  ******

  Mike led us to a room that we could sleep in for the night, containing just a double bed and an old crooked wardrobe. Helen and I had previously shared much smaller places to sleep while on our trip, usually on a blanket on a small patch of ground so the one in Mike’s room wouldn’t be a problem.

  “This will be fine,” Helen said. “I need to freshen up a little.”

  I followed Mike to the kitchen. “So you live here by yourself?”

  “Yes, it’s been in my family for generations, but I haven’t been lucky enough to find a lady to settle down with, so I don’t know if there’ll be another generation to leave it to.”

  “Really? But you’re such a handsome man, and who wouldn’t want to live out here in the peace and quiet?”

  “You’d be surprised, young lady. How old are you anyway?” He looked me up and down.

  “Old enough to know how to do all sorts of things,” I bit my bottom lip.

  “A girl and her mama hasta eat first. I’ll fix us some supper. Should be ready around 7PM. Feel free to use the bathroom and make yourself at home.”

  Something niggled at me about his over-generous nature, so I went back to the bedroom where Helen lay sleeping in the bed with just a sheet covering her and her dirty clothes in a neat pile on the floor. I decided the ones I was wearing could do with a wash. I stripped down to nothing and wrapped a towel around me, and then scooped up all of the dirty clothes and searched for a washing machine. On my way to the laundry room, I came across a study with the door wide open, and on the desk sat a computer and monitor with two female photos on it. I took a few steps for a closer look and saw Helen’s and my face with a news article.

  “Oh, shit,” I said under my breath. I walked up to the screen and saw it was a news site, and we were wanted for armed robbery and murder.

  I wondered if Mike knew about it and was using tactics to delay our departure to get the police here and collect the reward. I tiptoed out of the study, peeking around the corner first to ensure Mike wasn’t approaching.

  The coast was clear, and I made it back to the bedroom with the clothes bundled under my arm and shook Helen. “What the hell?” she sat up straight, covering herself with the sheet.

  “We’re on the news, Helen. Armed robbery and murder. It’s all on Mike’s computer.”

  “Oh, shit.” She threw the sheet off and gathered the clothes belonging to her from the pile on the bed, scampering to get dressed again.

  “He’s in the kitchen preparing supper.”

  We knew the way to the front door involved sneaking past the kitchen and dining room. We would need to either get the timing perfect when he had his back turned or find a way to distract him. I preferred not to have to hurt or even kill him to get away.

  “Pack my clothes in your bag, Helen. I’ll find a way to divert his attention,” I said.

  “Oh, Erica, I wish you didn’t think you had to sleep with someone to get what we need. You’re so much more than that, honey.”

  “It’s okay, Helen. I’ve learned already how harsh the world is, and we got to use what we have. Give me a minute and I’ll be back.” I headed to the bathroom and took a quick one-minute shower, lathering myself up with plenty of soap to rid myself of the sweat and smell of wearing dirty clothes.

  I wrapped the towel around myself again, not bothering to dry myself off at all, found Helen, and waited for her to follow me. We both took long, careful steps, and once we came to the kitchen, Helen stayed back while I got Mike’s attention.

  “Supper’s still an hour away. Can I help you with something?” he said.

  “My clothes are dirty, have you got something I can wear until I can wash and dry them?”

  “I’ve got s
ome long shirts. Can you just stir the pot while I fetch one for you?”

  “Of course, I smiled and grabbed the wooden spoon from his hand, standing as close to him as possible in the process. I stood by the stove, leaning over slightly in a way to purposely expose the bottom of my ass cheeks. I caught him having a quick glance from the corner of my eye before he left. I saw him as he walked past a spare room where Helen stayed hidden behind the door until he disappeared from view.

  She came running out and caught up with me, and I ran to the front door of the house. Pulling it open, I didn’t expect to see the policeman standing there with a pistol in hand.

  “Oh shit,” I said. “There’s a man in the house who tried to rape me.”

  “Really? He called my precinct telling me two female fugitives were hiding out for the night,” the cop said.

  We were at the end of the line, and if Helen dared to fish a gun from her bag, he would surely have shot her dead first. I put my hands up, careful not to dislodge the towel, the one item keeping me modest at the time.

  “I told you it was them. Did you bring my reward?” Mike entered the living area near the kitchen. I was right. He had purposely stalled us to keep us here for the cops.

  “Yes, I have your reward,” the policeman said as he swung his arm around and shot Mike in the head. He put his gun away and looked back at our shocked faces. “We haven’t got much time, girls. Follow me.”

  I took one last look at Mike and felt sorry for him.

  “You’ll learn to lose that guilt soon enough. Get some shoes on your feet, at least,” he said.

  Helen passed my backpack to me. I unzipped it, found my sandals, and quickly placed them on my feet, the towel falling off me in the process. I grabbed a skirt and top to wear.

  “We don’t have time. Get dressed in the chopper.” The cop pulled my hand and dragged me outside.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Helen asked.

  “You thought you were looking for us, but we found you thanks to the APB you managed to draw to yourselves. I was lucky to intercept the call before other officers could arrive here. Get moving.”