Monster: The Story Of A Maniac

by Peter Cry

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” shouted the fugitive, punching the steering wheel with his fist.

  Relatives of all those whom he had tortured, mutilated, raped, and killed would surely skin him alive. He would not live to see the trial – he would simply be torn to pieces.

  Jason was terrified of pain and death! Thoughts of non-existence triggered a paralyzing fear in him.

  There was neither God nor the underworld, in any form. That was understood by every educated person, including him.

  The young, handsome, incredibly charismatic man, who was able to find common ground with any child, was destined to live a mere thirty or so years. Life was so unfair. Tears filled Jason's eyes. He wanted to calm himself down somehow, but just couldn’t. He was unable to get rid of the terrifying pictures in his head – how they would shoot him, or maybe ruthlessly beat him up. What unbearable pain he was experiencing! He did not deserve it at all!

  Looking in the rear-view mirror, the fugitive was certain that far away on the horizon could see flashing police lights and remotely hear the blaring of a siren.

  His twenty-year-old Chevrolet Silverado could reach no more than 75 miles per hour, but to pass occasional other cars on the road, it was necessary to slow down from time to time.

  Jason recalled everything he had done and thought that he needed to cover things up, to be able to face people’s resentment, life imprisonment, maybe chemical castration, or a madhouse, anything but the death penalty.

  In his mind, he cursed that dirty scum policeman, the stupid degenerate Howard, and everyone who wanted to ruin his life.

  He would be brought to the scaffold, a noose put around his neck, and would drop. Experience incredible torment, his body twisting and struggling in dying convulsions. Choking to death, fear would ravish him from within. Or he would be fried in the electric chair, his organs destroyed as he shuddered from the passage of the current. Or would it be a gas chamber – what a long and painful death.

  Nobody would forgive him for what he had done. America would never forgive him. As a corrupt whore, she was always ready to serve all those self-styled saints and do-gooders, fucking pedophile fighters who lied that they cared about children. They cared only about tormenting Jason.

  The fugitive was smart enough not to run south in panic to his home, where, probably, the feds were already waiting to detain him. As soon as he was arrested, he would be taken to Indianapolis because it was the location of the kidnapping. And the death penalty was still allowed in fucking Indiana.

  "Why the hell didn’t I kidnap children in Iowa!" he admonished himself, as he left more and more miles behind him.

  Jason continued heading north, not knowing why or where he was headed. He was just running away like a stray dog that had gobbled up too much meat which did not belong to him. Jason was escaping because he was afraid of the punishment for what he had done. In his head, he sought to justify himself. All his musings on the morality were reduced to one: "Understand me, you scum, I was just having a good time..."

  He was ready to share that meat with anyone if he were understood and forgiven. Everything is pretty simple: you take an erect penis and shove it into a bloodied dying six-year-old child. Then you strangle its thin soft neck and keep fucking.

  Yes, everyone would surely understand and enjoy it if they only tried! All the mothers and fathers of the children murdered by him, included.

  The 63rd Highway led Jason to Minnesota, a state bordering Canada. But it was useless to run there – the borders would be closed, and the red Silverado was being pursued everywhere. There was no doubt that after a few miles he would come across a police post, the wheels of his truck would be punctured, and most likely, he would be shot like a mad dog.

  It was the middle of the day. Jason cursed that day. Running away at night, he could try to hide somewhere between the trees in one of the passing groves, or among the tall stems of the cornfields, or any place with no people. After all, the beast did not belong to them. He had neither relatives, nor family, nor friends, only a huge set of email and nicknames of closed forums, behind which were the same animals as him, not as brave though.

  Only a dozen miles remained before the state border where an ambush surely awaited him. Although his vehicle was not the fastest, Jason had managed to break away from the chase and, apparently, had won 8-10 minutes before he would be overtaken. Strange, but a helicopter with journalists was not whirling above the Silverado, speeding along, and breaking all the rules. And there was no direct broadcast to the whole damn country about the pursuit of a criminal suspected of kidnapping. Jason glanced again into his side mirrors. Catching his breath, trying hard to get himself out of his stupor, he wondered if he could see the police chasing him, or perhaps it was still too early to panic.

  Looking around, he noticed that the cars he encountered drove by normally. The local authorities and law enforcement officers had evidently not cleared the road, which was supposed to be done in such cases.

  Jason turned on the radio. Switching between the local channels apprehensively, he did not come across any special reports of a pursuit.

  Jason was confused. He realized he might have misunderstood something. Could he have panicked needlessly? Considering the circumstances, it was understandable.

  After passing a sign indicating that it was less than 8 miles to the state border, he pulled himself together and stopped searching for cops pursuing him. The world around, unlike his inner one, was incredibly quiet and calm. The sun shone generously, and the drivers were unperturbed in their inconspicuous cars as they swept past the fields that merged into a common indistinguishable canvas which sometimes swayed following the weak gusts of the September wind. The whole world was screaming that Jason should not worry – everything was okay. With each second his panic subsided, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste from the awareness of his own cowardice and stupidity.

  The young patrolman Helen Escamilla, who had been working in the police for a little less than a year, left a cafe near a gas station, holding paper cups with hot espresso in her hands. Heading towards the car where her colleague Steve Hunt was sitting, she first heard and then saw how the red Chevy Silverado swept along the highway in the far-left lane. According to the dispatcher, it fully fitted the description of the pickup truck whose driver had forgotten his credit card in a store near Hampton.

  "He’s travelled quite a distance," Helen thought.

  She was not concerned by the fact that the scatterbrain who had forgotten the card was so far from home, but by the speed at which he was driving.

  Jumping into the car, Hellen gave the paper cups to her more experienced partner and started the engine.

  “Did you see that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, 80 mph at least...”

  Getting on the highway, Hellen turned on the siren and hit the accelerator.

  “It's the idiot with the card, by the way,” Steve said, going over his notes.

  Jason deciding to slow down.

  He wanted to stop in a safe place to wait a bit, just to look around, maybe to call Howard, check how he was doing, and, using his secret codes, find out if everything was bad and if he had to keep running, or if it was fine and he could return home.

  Like a stab in his back, the sound of a police siren hit Jason from behind. Just as he thought he was safe. This time the blare was too distinct to be imaginary. The rear-view mirror also did not deceive him. A police car was rapidly approaching, the red-and-blue lights flashing on its roof.

  There was no doubt the police were after him. He began to accelerate, squeezing as much as he could out of his pickup.

  “No, you won’t get me,” frightened and angry, Jason raged inside.

  He understood again that a terrible fate awaited him, so he had to run as hard as he could, ram police cars, shoot down people, do anything it took to prolong his freedom and impunity.

  “He’s accelerated, or did it seem like that?” Officer Escamilla could not figure it out.


  “Yep, dear, you’re right.” Her colleague kept gazing at the fleeing car.

  “Shouldn’t we inform someone and ask for help?”

  “With what? Help us to catch a farmer in an old pickup truck? No, thank you. I don’t need that shame. The guys will laugh at me. We'll take care of it ourselves.”

  “And what if it turns out that he drank a couple of extra cans of beer, or something even more serious.”

  “Don't be stupid,” her partner shot back, still holding hot coffee on his lap.

  Jason was furious, as if he was a hunted mad dog not understanding what was happening around. The police were chasing him, and if he got confused or made the slightest mistake they would catch up and shoot out the tires.

  The motor’s roar resembled the dying groan of an old weakened animal. Pushed to its limit, it was ready to die at any moment ending the driver’s flimsy freedom.

  “Just look at that,” the officer did not understand. “He is completely out of his mind!”

  Focusing on the road, Helen fixed her eyes on the red pick-up, now three hundred feet away.

  Her movements remained clear and calibrated. She was thinking not only about the fugitive but about the safety of the other cars on the road. The lives of their occupants could not be risked.

  “Run it through the base, the car might have been stolen,” Helen proposed.

  Steve set the cups with coffee on the mat under his feet. His fingers unwillingly ran over the keyboard, and after only a few moments the result was displayed on the monitor mounted on the dashboard.

  “Our state is clean.”

  “Then why’s he running away?” Helen did not understand.

  “Well, maybe he really had too much, and now is afraid to get caught.”

  “And what if he’s not?”

  Helen alternated between her colleague and the road, she looked at Steve slyly, trying to let him know that she had something on her mind.

  “You’re about to say something?”

  She glanced ahead at the escapee, whom they were hardly catching up with because of having to go around other cars.

  “Just a couple of miles left to the state border, we don’t have time.”

  “And?”

  “We are going to the office now,” Helen continued. “First, we’ll get his forgotten credit card, find out his name, surname, car license number and pass this information on to our colleagues in Minnesota. Let them deal with it.”

  “You're right,” Steve agreed happily.

  Helen took a deep breath, looking at her partner, and then again at the fugitive driving 200 feet away in front of her. Her grip loosened and her fingers stopped choking the steering wheel. The speedometer needle sank, and the police car slowed down.

  Without noticing a sign indicating the state border, as well as the pleasant greeting “Welcome to Minnesota,” with no clear plan to save his rotten skin, Jason, was afraid to turn around. He rushed forward to who knows where. There was an endless buzzing in his ears, consisting of the engine’s rumble, a blurry police siren coming from nowhere, his galloping heartbeat, and his intense loud breathing. Everything around him melted away, the reality seemed menacing and psychedelic.

  Jason hadn’t thought for a second that his life could have been different and, that perhaps, somewhere along the line he’d made a mistake. When, for instance, he turned his fantasies into business and began to murder and rape children. No, he had not even thought about that. Fear and anger numbed him, so he simply wished death for all who were treating him so unfairly and could not understand him.

  "Where’s that fucking Minnesota?" Jason thought.

  He stopped staring at the winding tarmac road and glanced at the speedometer. The fuel indicator was at zero. He looked in the side mirrors and did not see anything there, except for the road and the moving cars.

  “What the fuck...” looking at his watch, the fugitive was shocked.

  Gripped by fear, and with only getting away on his mind, he had not noticed that two and a half hours had shot by. He was unaware of what was going on around him.

  Outside, the landscape, comprised of endless corn and wheat fields, as well as occasional roadside cafes and gas stations, has changed. Dense green coniferous forests increasingly appeared on the horizon.

  “I must have been in Minnesota for a long time...”

  Jason did not calm down, as he had before. He knew, as soon as he relaxed, he would be immediately overtaken. He had no doubt that it was a vile patrol tactic! However, he was out of fuel. A bit more and his vehicle would stutter to a halt.

  After driving a few more miles, Jason crossed the solid line marking and the oncoming lane and turned off the highway. He headed up an inconspicuous dirty road leading somewhere into the forest. The fugitive had decided that since he had managed to get to Minnesota, perhaps he could succeed in crossing the Canadian border. The main thing, for the time being, was to stay out of sight of people and especially inhuman police officers.

  There was an almost full canister of gasoline in the back of his Silverado. He planned to get lost somewhere, clarify the situation, burn the car, then walk through the forests, even if it took several difficult days, and cross the border into Canada. And from there, he could travel to the Philippines and make beautiful dreams come true.

  The sun was going down. The cool damp air, that had accumulated in the evergreen forest, penetrated the car, and was reminiscent of the smell of Christmas, which Jason loved so much. Children, gifts, and joy. It was all about him.

  The car coughed and jerked. But it was so hard for Jason to stop. Not the car, but himself. He jerked the valve lever, trying to squeeze out the last drops in the gas tank. And the road got worse with every few yards, being covered with small potholes and cracks.

  “Motherfucker!” Jason swore, bouncing on the broken track, trying to maintain movement forward.

  Trees surrounded the shuddering car more and more densely. Relief landscape, ravines, small hills covered with dead wood, were visible between the powerful and high trunks of coniferous trees. The bumpy road complemented the surrounding landscape naturally, but the driver determined to conceal himself in a dense forest did not like it.

  Hitting the next pothole, Jason heard a typical rumble in the back. It must have been a gasoline canister that had fallen out of its mount. He automatically turned his head around, trying to look through a small window into the dark trunk.

  During those couple of seconds, the steering wheel for some reason turned itself sharply to the right. Jason tried to regain control and force it back, but it was too late.

  The car was already flying off a rocky cliff, not too high, about fifty feet, but enough to kill. Jason was unfastened. He grabbed the steering wheel even tighter and his knuckles turned white. His eyes remained wide opened in a death agony. Filled with wild fear and self-pity, they also turned white, almost hiding the pupils. The driver of the red Silverado cried out in an unnatural, sick voice.

  ***

  Woken up by some kind of clapping, Jason opened his eyes. After an accident, when you regain consciousness, the first thing you feel is calmness, as if you just woke up from a dream. No pain, no panic. After a moment, you realize that your position in space is not entirely correct, unnatural. Then comes the pain in the bones, and after that you feel agony from the damage to your limbs and internal organs.

  “Help!” a painful cry broke out of his chest.

  Twisted, into an unimaginable position, Jason lay on his bent neck inside the over-turned twisted pickup truck. The front was pushed in almost to the windshield. Its body, despite the supporting structure, was also badly dented. Some small parts had splintered off and laid not far away. The human body inside the car was aching with pain and could not move. It barely had strength even to moan.

  Another clap sounded from somewhere in the destroyed vehicle. Frightened, Jason flinched weakly. He tried to move to change the position of his body and get out, but his neck and head were so tightl
y hemmed in, that after titanic efforts, through unbearable pain he managed to move only a few inches. Each movement accentuated a painful, tortuous backache, extending from his neck further down the body.

  Above all, at that moment the dying Jason wanted to be discovered even if there were policemen and journalists everywhere, even the parents of the children killed by him! If only someone would pull him out of there and not let him die. It was unclear what was stronger – fear or pain. Something warm was constantly pouring into his eyes, preventing him from looking around. Shattered into small pieces, fragments of the windshield had been abundantly strewn into the driver's face, turning it into a bloody sparkling mask through which his white eyes could be seen, occasionally appearing from under wearily opening eyelids. His right arm was probably broken. Although external injuries were not noticeable, the aching dull pain of a broken bone couldn’t be confused with anything else. The same pain was in the ribs on both sides. After such a strong collision, internal bleeding could occur as well. Jason's revitalized tongue counted at least a couple of missing front teeth in his mouth. But it was his nose that hurt most of all, flattened and budged to the right.

  Jason listened to the beat of his heart. He was afraid it was about to stop. He had to pull himself together and get out of the mangled, creaking, pickup truck.

  Through the taste of his own blood, he began to smell something burning, either paint or rubber. It was increasing rapidly, which meant he was not imagining it. After only half a minute, puffs of smoke appeared through the side window.

  The gasoline canister was apparently damaged and leaking. The wires in his truck must have shorted out and ignited a fire.

  It suddenly became noticeably brighter in the vehicle’s mutilated cab. The fire was penetrating through a small window at the back. Jason had to get out.

  After such a severe accident, it was virtually impossible, even for a physically strong and resilient person, to find the strength to defeat death coming from inside and outside. Many would have surrendered, unable to bear the pain, preferring oblivion, and eternal sleep. But Jason had no dreams, which meant there would be no other life.