Kirsten (a prologue)
Christ! He's brooding again.
She is beautiful. Watching her sleep, the thin sheet conforming to every curve, caressing her lithe form, he feels an ache that goes beyond anything physical. He has never been able to explain how or why, but nothing could tear away that pain from him; a pain that brings so much joy.
She shifts in her sleep, moaning softly. So lost is he in her grace that he doesn't realize it when he moans with her.
Such a waste of time! I hate this part.
She shifts again. How did he ever get so lucky? Who decided that he was deserving of someone like her? Embarrassed, he starts to look away, blushing at the idea that he of all people should somehow become a romantic. But he cannot bring himself to stop gazing at the angel before him.
The sudden desire to touch her overwhelms him. To feel her skin, to run his fingers through the silk of her auburn hair. He reaches out to her. As if sensing his intentions, she moans once more, consenting to the tenderness of her lover's touch.
Here we go again. Why do they insist on doing this? Don't they ever learn?
His fingers are inches away from her porcelain face. He can feel the electricity between them. It is an energy both terrifying and seductive, drawing him into her. It threatens to consume him. He wants it to.
Now comes the nasty part.
The eternal gap between them finally closes. His fingers lightly brush her cheek. To his horror, her flesh wilts and begins to rot. Sores form and break, spilling blood and puss. Her eyes flash open. There is a fear in them he has never before seen. Her body arches in pain as she gasps for air. The sheet is rapidly turning crimson as it greedily drinks the blood from the wounds that are appearing all over her body. As he could not turn his eyes away from her beauty, he finds himself equally transfixed as his joy, his hope, his life withers away before his eyes.
See what you get? You should have stopped while you had the chance.
A scream builds in his throat, rising like a dark tide. The woman who is the center of his universe continues to decay in front of him. She is thrashing in an agony that echoes the torment in his own soul.
Not so great now, is it?
Her eyes lock with his, engulfing him in her confusion and pain. He feels the scream threaten to escape.
Can we get to work now? This is getting old.
The last of her flesh melts away. He realizes he is still reaching out for her, but now it is a futile attempt to bring her back instead of a fond caress. There is nothing left of her now save meat and blood. Her eyes gaze lifelessly at him, pondering the abyss. Rage fills his heart as tears blur his vision, leaving both his eyes and his soul burning.
Suffering is a bitch, ain't it?
He is allowed one strangled scream before the darkness embraces him.
Chapter One: Jealousy
Jealousy. That's how it always begins. Selfishness, greed, desire. All these things can invoke jealousy; can drive a person to the blackest depths of the human condition. Jealousy is what now drives Tom Gardner, as he in turn drives his Chevy down dark roads.
His two best friends, Terry and Jim, ride shotgun in the truck. It is an old truck; the paint is so chipped and faded that it would be impossible to tell its original color. And like a mule it seems to only run when it feels compelled to do so. The clink and rattle of beer bottles can be heard with each bump and turn. Not a single one of them can lay claim to sobriety this night. Terry and Jim are in good spirits, drinking, belching, and laughing. Tom, however, is staring off into the distance. Anyone looking at him might wonder if he even sees the road in front of him, so deep in thought is he. But what those thoughts are is anyone's guess, and if his friends know, they seem a little too intoxicated to reveal much of anything.
Seeing that his buddy is dry, Jim reaches down to the floor to pull a beer out of the case. He reaches across Terry and taps Tom on the arm with it.
"C'mon, man! Drink up! We're supposed to be cuttin' loose!"
Terry raises his bottle in agreement, sloshing liquid and foam all over himself.
"Goddamnfucking RIGHT!" He takes a long swig and promptly caps it off with a loud belch. "No more fuckin' high school!"
Momentarily snapped away from his thoughts, Tom grins and takes the beer.
"No shit there!" Tom's voice takes on a high falsetto. "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we is free at last!"
Terry hoots and hollers, tossing his now empty bottle to the floor and grabbing another. He is genuinely ripped; having drank more than half of the two cases on his own. Jim, having always been something of a lightweight, is well on his way after only four. Tom, on the other hand, has had a couple more than that, and Jim notices that he is not as festively drunk as he normally would be.
"You okay, man?"
Tom appears not to have heard or is uninclined to respond.
"Tom?"
"Wha— yeah. Never better." He finally answers.
Jim knows his friend is full of shit, but he doesn't pry any further. Tom will tell him when he's ready. It's probably none of my business anyway, he thinks as he downs the last of his brew.
Toby Keith comes through on the radio, asking an old schoolmate what she thinks of him now. Terry begins singing along at the top of his voice, only inserting Cletus T. Judd's lyrics during the chorus. Jim pops the top off his fifth Bud and joins in on the butchery. They carry on like this for several miles, finding creative (and often vulgar) lyrics for each new song the radio offers up and laughing at their own crude wit. Tom continues to brood as he pilots the truck along through the night.
Jim and Terry are in the middle of suggesting that Billy Ray likes friends in "low places" when Tom brings his foot down on the brake pedal like a lead weight. He is going fast enough to lose control of the truck, but he manages by some miracle to keep it on the road. Terry spills the last of his beer in the process.
"What the fuck?" He yells, seemingly more pissed off over his spilled beer than anything else.
Jim finds himself abruptly shoved into a state of full sobriety. His eyes are frantically scanning the road in front of the vehicle, searching for a deer or a person that Tom might have been trying to avoid, but the road is clear. He looks over at Tom to ask why he stopped only to discover that he is no longer there. The driver's side door is hanging wide open and the engine, venerable as it is, is struggling to remain at a decent idle.
Maybe he just had to piss really bad.
Jim catches movement out of the corner of his eye, seeing Tom reflected in the rearview mirror. He watches the mirror as Terry twists around in his seat to get a better look. Tom is rummaging around in the bed of the truck.
"What the hell is he doing?" Terry asks.
Jim doesn't reply, he is focused on the expression on Tom's face. Never before has he seen such a look of pure rage from his friend. He secretly hopes to never see that look again.
"Jim?"
"Yeah?"
"What the fuck is Tom doing?"
"I wish I knew."
Jim's eyes widen as Tom hefts a twelve-gauge, pump-action shotgun out of the truck bed.
"Shit, man. I didn't think our singing was that bad." Terry whispers.
Jim chooses to ignore him as he watches Tom walk back to the cab and climb in, placing the shotgun between himself and Terry. He slams the door and disengages the brake at the same time. The truck grumbles a harsh protest as it is thrown into gear, but it begrudgingly complies and starts moving.
"Tom?" Terry's eyes are glued to the shotgun.
Tom's only response is to give the truck more gas, accelerating way beyond what could be considered a safe speed for the roads they are on.
"Tom?" Jim tries his turn at getting Tom's attention. "Talk to us, man. What's with the gun?"
Tom smiles a strange, eerie smile. It sends chills down Jim's spine. He's left with a very strong urge to get out of the truck as fast as he can, whether it's moving or not.
"I'm just going to take care of a little business, guys, that's all."
Jim is genuinely confused now. His brain is still too far under the influence to process what is going on. It takes a moment, but his eyes go wide when he realizes what his friend is talking about.
Oh, shit!
"You're not thinking about going after Kirsten, are you?"
Tom's smile broadens. "Her and her cock-sucking boyfriend."
"Dude, are you fucking nuts?" Terry nearly screams. "You can't be fucking serious!"
Terry isn't handling the news well, either. His hands are shaking as he reaches for another beer. "You have to be joking. You're messing with us aren't you? Tell me you're just kidding."
There is no answer from Tom, only that chilling smile.
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Terry whispers.
"Christ." Tom echoes. "Let me tell you a little something about Christ."
He pauses long enough to pull out a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He taps one out, lights it, and inhales long and deep before tilting his head back and exhaling a slow stream of smoke toward the roof of the cab. Very dramatic.
"Christ is sitting down with his pals at the Last Supper. Everybody's having a good time. The booze the food, the occasional sermon. The thing is, he knew that a few of the locals were coming to haul him off so they could nail his ass to a couple of boards, right? The motherfucker KNEW he was going to die and he still stuck around!"
Tom takes another contemplative hit from his smoke before continuing.
"The thing that I could never understand before now is why. If it were me, I would have bugged the fuck out. Gone! See ya later, assholes! But not Christ. He sucked it in and did his duty, man. He had fucking commitment! He knew that what was going to happen was the right thing. It didn't matter how much bullshit he had to put up with so long as he did the right thing."
"I don't get where you're going with this, Tom." Jim is now way beyond freaked out. "How's blowing away your ex-girlfriend the right thing?"
"Jim's right, man. You can't just kill someone because they broke up with you."
Now it is Tom's turn to look confused. He glances at his friend and opens his mouth as if to say something. Instead he laughs. He laughs hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, leaving Jim and Terry to wonder at this new development. It takes a few minutes, but he finally brings himself under control.
"You actually think I'm stupid enough to kill someone?"
His buddies sit in silence, not knowing rally how they should respond.
"The gun isn't even fucking loaded, you morons!" Tom starts to laugh again.
A light seems to go on behind Terry's eyes and he joins in the laughter.
"Oh, man, you were just fucking with us! God damn, dude, I almost pissed myself!"
Jim relaxes a little himself as the crisis seems to be over, but he is not wholly satisfied.
"What the hell was with that 'Christ' speech?"
Tom flicks his half-finished cigarette out into the night. He shrugs his shoulders and smiles at the both of them.
"Just seemed like something to say."
Terry stares open mouthed at him for a few seconds before the joke works its way through the haze in his head. Jim can literally see the light flicker on in Terry's eyes as this happens. Jim's ears are then invaded by waves of high-pitched, nasal laughter. Jim has always hated that laugh –though he would never say it out loud. Ragging him about it would be one thing, but to show disgust over a personal shortcoming would breach that unspoken code of teenage friendship. Thankfully, the laughter quickly transforms into a low, amused chuckle as Terry reaches for his next beer, shaking his head in mock disbelief.
"Man, you are one messed up motherfucker!"
Tom simply smiles and nods his head. "Pass me another brew, ya stupid queer."
Taking the insult in stride, Terry slaps another can into Tom's outstretched hand. "Eat me raw, needle-dick!"
The first shots having been officially fired; Tom and Terry begin a grueling mental contest to see who can verbally crush the other in the most creative and vulgar ways possible. The contest is rather one-sided, as Terry has resumed his three sheets to the wind mentality. Jim barely hears any of this, taking his turn for the night as the silent brooder. Despite the fact Tom seems back to his normal self, he isn't wholly convinced this is true. He sees Tom, laughing and enjoying the contest, but to Jim it seems it's just a cover. Something to do or say to dismiss any doubt in his friends' minds. Jim sees this in the same way someone in the audience might see a young girl about to open a door where the killer lies in wait to plant a hatchet in her skull. You know he's there. You can't see him, but it's obvious as hell.
The competition is brought to a rapid close when Terry fires off a belch so loud it almost drowns out the roar of the engine.
"Holy shit, man!" Tom erupts into laughter. "That's fucking rank! Can't you hold that shit in?"
Laughing, Terry lets loose with another, less offensive burp. "Fucking don't buy cheap beer next time, ass wipe!"
Jim has to admit the smell is pretty foul. He rolls down the window to air out the cab. The contest between Tom and Terry has degenerated into who can say "fuck you" the most creative way. It starts to give Jim a headache. Jim tries to divert the conversation to a less childish level.
"So where are we going?"
Tom crumples his empty can and tosses it out the window. He seems to consider his words carefully for a moment "I figure that since we're supposed to be cuttin' loose, we of the graduating class of oh-one should do a little cutting loose on a backstabbing bitch and her new boyfriend."
Jim is startled by the simple, matter-of-fact way that Tom announces his intentions, but he finds that he is not at all surprised. The door opened and the killer was behind the door as so easily predicted.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jim feels a sense of surrealism overcome him. The movie is playing and he can't help but watch as the hatchet falls toward the helpless victim.
"It means just what I said. We're going to have a little fun, that's all. You know, walk in, scare the shit out of them, knock them around a little."
Terry, whose idea of fun is a really good fart joke, thinks this is a brilliant idea. "Dude, man! That sounds fucking awesome!"
Jim can't believe he is hearing this. "I thought we just went over how much of a bad idea that sounds."
"God damn it! Grow some fucking balls, man!" Tom balls up his hand into a fist and smashes it into the steering wheel for effect. "We're just going to scare them, not kill them."
"Think about what you're saying. Your dad's a cop. What's he going to do when he finds out?"
"My dad's not going to find out, quit being such a pussy."
"Think about this for a minute; you walk in, have your fun scaring the hell out of them and you don't expect them to call the police?"
"They aren't going to call the police if they're scared, man!" Terry chimes in.
"Exactly!" Tom reaches down between Terry's legs to grab another beer.
"Watch where you're putting those hands, big boy!" Terry says in a high falsetto.
"Aw can't helps it yew looks so sexy!" Tom responds in an exaggerated southern drawl.
The sound of his friends' chatter fades into the background as Jim's brain tries to understand this strange alternate dimension he seems to have found himself in. Tom and Kirsten haven't been an item for almost six months. Tom seemed fine with the development. And, later on when he discovered she had started seeing Alan Peterson, he hardly reacted at all. Jim couldn't remember any conversation with Tom after the break-up that involved anything like this. It has to be the beer, Jim thinks to himself. Tom's had a little too much to drink, that's all. But he knows, deep in his gut, down where his own brew is churning and threatening to revisit the warm spring air, that it is a lie. A sense of panic begins to overcome him. He wants nothing to do with this. Jim knows how pissed Tom is going to be, but his desire to wake up from this nightmare is overwhelming.
"I want out. Now!"
Tom is too involved in mock-homosexual innuendo with Terry to hear.
"Tom, let me out of this fucking truck!"
Tom looks at Jim, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "Wha—"
"I said let me out, goddammit!
"Dude, man, chill out." Terry has the look of someone trying to console a deeply disturbed individual. The irony of it all makes Jim want to scream with laughter. "It's all good."
This time Jim does laugh. "Do you realize just how fucked in the head the two of you sound? You're talking about some seriously illegal shit! I will not be a part of it!"
Tom still looks slightly stunned. "What the hell is your malfunction?"
"Stop the truck and let me the fuck out...NOW!"
For the second time this night the truck jerks to an abrupt halt, and for the second time Terry's shirt is soaked in beer.
"Jesus Christ, man! You made me spill my beer again!"
The truck's engine sputters in protest at the further abuse as Tom shifts into park. He throws open the door, shotgun in hand and walks to the passenger side.
"Fine, you want out? Then get the fuck out." Tom says evenly.
Jim eyes the shotgun nervously, feeling a cold chill run through him. Terry is continuing to bitch about his spilled bee, heedless of what is going on around him. Jim tries once more to reason with his friend.
"Tom will you just hear me ou—"
"GET...THE FUCK...OUT!"
Terry goes quiet as his attention is pulled away from his soaked shirt
Jim slowly opens the door and steps out, looking into Tom's eyes as he does. They look lifeless and enraged at the same time. For a moment Jim wonders how that is even possible.
"Tom, let's stop and think about this for a minute, okay?"
Tom's answer is to level the shotgun at Jim's chest.
"Jesus, Tom. Don't." Jim's voice is a half-whine. He feels very much the sober man now. His heart is pounding in his throat.
Tom raises the shotgun to his cheek, taking careful aim.
Jim is near tears. He has never before been in a position to fear for his life. In television and movies Jim has watched in the past, the hero of the story always stood strong in the face of impending doom. Jim, on the other hand, begins to beg.
"Aw, Christ, Tom! Please no!"
Tom lets the tension hang in the air for a moment before pulling the trigger."BANG!"
Jim's eyes reflexively close. He releases a high-pitched scream at the same time as his bladder releases a full night's worth of beer.
"Holy fuck!" Terry whispers before he grasps what it going on. As understanding seeps in he begins to bray laughter. "Dude! You made him piss himself!"
Jim slowly opens his eyes as Terry continues to laugh and spout off tasteless, drunken jibes. He is not entirely certain he hasn't been shot. He looks down at himself and is relieved to find he is devoid of a bullet wound.
"Jim."
He ignores Tom as he slowly sinks to his knees. The desire to vomit is now the only thing he is concerned with.
"Jim!" Tom is now shouting.
Jim slowly raises his head to look at Tom. The rage has not left his eyes. I fact, it seems more intense.
Tom kneels down so that he is eye-level with him. "If you say anything to anyone and I catch wind of it, the gun won't be empty next time. You got it?"
Jim doesn't answer. He is entranced by the look in Tom's eyes, like a mouse before being devoured by a snake. Tom reaches out and grabs him by his hair.
"I said do you get me?" He screams.
Jim snaps to attention and nods his head rapidly.
"Good." Tom lets go of Jim's hair and heads back to the truck, muttering under his breath.
"I told you it wasn't loaded, dumb-ass."
Terry leans out the passenger window as Tom climbs back into the truck and guns the engine. As they peel away, Terry aims an empty beer bottle at Jim, missing horribly.
"Have a nice walk, fuckhead!"
Jim can hear his laughter ringing in his ears. He is still stunned. Everything around him seems both vivid and distant at the same time. There is a dream-like quality to everything. Somewhere in the back of his mind there is a voice telling him to get up and start walking. After a few minutes, he finally obeys and starts to get to his feet. He doesn't get very far before he finds himself on his knees again, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the side of the road.