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My names Jimmy.
I’m 27 and so far my life can only be described as an irreparable failure. A student with C’s and D’s in college. Dropped out to follow my dream of being a rock star with my Best Friend. Guy stabbed me in the back first chance he got, dumping me from the band to sign with the first label to offer him a spot solo. Swore we’d make it out together since childhood. Now I’m lying in a ditch covered in mud, sweat and tears. I’m half drunk in the woods with a lunatic screaming after me. I came here to die yet now…
I’m fighting to survive.
It’s two in the morning and no one’s around for miles. Beneath the shoddy fluorescent lights, I stand behind the counter drinking malt liquor from a McDonald’s cup. I could lose my job but who cares. Manager hasn’t been around on my shift in weeks anyway. No one wants to make the drive.
I hate myself. So much so I look out the window to my busted Honda and know I’ve got a plan. A surrendered smile crawls across my face as I realize that I won’t have to go to work tomorrow. Won’t ever have to again.
Hours go by. I do everything on the checklist of chores if only to kill the time. I smoke a red outside after locking everything down. It’s then I hop in the car, pulling a bottle of Rum from my backpack in the driver’s seat. I take a swig, coughing from the lack of chaser and turn the ignition. I can’t even drink like a man. I pull to the road and instead of turning towards town and home I take a right into the darkness.
The miles go on and I’m the only one around. The street is covered in cracks and potholes as the land straddles the definition of country and apocalyptic. I take another swig and play some grunge music. My dad loved these guys. As much as he loved the revolver in my bag.
Miles pass and a familiar stink of maggots and rot tell me I’m getting close. The landfill out past town is a place everyone hates to go. If the stink doesn’t get to you the flies will. I’m driving behind it to a large wooded thicket. I used to shoot beer cans here with my dad when I was little. As sick as it sounds, I'm glad both my parents died of cancer. At least they don't have to see what I’ve become.
I drive through the woods. Trees looming over me in contrast to the headlights. An empty black sky streaked by sickly Birch trees. A mattress here, a tv there. People would drop off back here what the landfill wouldn’t accept, lining up the debris to blow to smithereens.
At the edge of a clearing, piles of bottles shattered into broken glass and I know I’m at the spot. With a turn of the keys, I cut the engine and climb on top of the hood. Just me, my phone, a bottle and a gun. Another deep pull from the liquor to look eastward. Figured I’d watch one more sunrise before I end it all.
Sitting there alone I reflected as the hours pass. An old CD player with headphones plays the album my former friend and I produced. Okay, it was little better than basement tracks but we had promise. I wrote the songs, even taught him how to play guitar. Strange to think how it all turned out back then. If you warned me of what he’d done a year ago I would have fought you on principle. Shows me, right?
The rumble of an engine broke the silence. I swore as I heard the vehicle getting closer. “Great, I can’t even have my suicide go without falling apart.” I muttered in self-pity. Some idiot couple trying to find a place to plow each other I thought. If I’m lucky they’ll see the car and turn around to leave. The last thing I needed was someone to try and talk me down.
An old Hatchback tore into the clearing with a vengeance. Metal blaring from the speakers as dust flew from the stopping vehicle. The music stopped and a man stormed from the car, muttering to himself. With mangy dreads and beard, he stunk of acrid sweat I could smell from here. His movements jerked to and fro as a ratty BDU shirt from Nam’ flapped in the wind. Holes in his jeans with resin smears and boots black and faded from lack of care. His bony nose jutted before eyes beet red spare his pair of blue irises. They twitched back and forth as he continued his frantic conversation. Most aggressive looking meth head I’d ever laid eyes on.
In utter shock I sat in silence, watching him as he carried himself in tweaker fashion. He marched to his trunk with his arms out in a caricature of a man on a mission. I’d seen the step a thousand times as tweakers would raid the dumpster for recyclables. That angry rushed stamp of a man raked from shatter acting like he was about to fight a trash can. If I wasn't surprised and frightened it would be almost comical. That was until he opened the trunk.
He reached inside, pulling a body mummified in trash bags and duct tape. The silhouette outlined its contents perfectly. He threw his victim on the ground, reaching in further to grab a shovel. As he did so, he muttered to himself loud enough for me to hear in the night.
“Another one down, another year.” He laughed at a joke with which I hadn’t the slightest as to why it was funny. “I’m getting 103 good at this, might even do some extra credit. What will you give me then, huh?”
I dared not move, holding my gun for some false comfort as he worked. Him babbling to himself, cackling like a deranged hyena as he began to dig. “I’ll drag some car parts on this trash and I’ll be good.” The man nodded to himself, assured it was a great idea.
And then his cargo moved. The trash bag mummy wrapped in duct tape awoke from whatever drugs or violence that kept him quiet. The muffled cry of a man condemned, wriggling back and forth to freedom.
That freedom never came. The sleazy gravedigger swore as he began cursing out his quarry for surviving. He promised to his victim he could fix that. Without an ounce hesitation or remorse, he pulled a Bowie knife from his belt. He grabbed that helpless man by the bags that wrapped his shoulders, thrusting the knife into his heart and stomach. Over and over again that murderer taunted the body in waiting as it cried. Then it gurgled. And then it laid to rest.
Then, if there was any doubt I had the worst luck in the universe, I was proven right. My phone went off. A stupid alarm, informing me it was bed time.
I jerked up my phone, trying to shut off the alarm. The murderer before me glared in my direction. Without a word, he pulled that knife out of the corpse with a jerk, still red with the blood of his victim and charged.
Without thinking I ran into the woods. The gun flopping in my hand as useless as I was a coward. Shrieking as I ran as fast as my legs could go. Stumbling drunk as the deranged meth head screamed after me, demanding I get back here.
I dove around trees, tripping over roots and debris as the branches cut my face. The tweaker gained with every turn. I fell off a ridge, rolling face first into the mud and slime which caked that stinking hole. I gagged and pulled my face from the mire. My right hand still somehow around the gun, I pulled the hammer back as I rolled over. There he was, standing over the edge with knife in hand. I pointed the gun at him in the dark and stammered. “Get back.”
I don't think he saw the weapon. Instead of leering away he stood with utter confidence informing me it was already over. “Sorry kid. We can’t have any evidence. No witnesses either. Sounds like you got to die.”
He leaped upon me. In that moment as he fell, I screamed and pulled the trigger. A 44. Magnum 1873 Colt revolver put a hole in the middle of his chest, smacking him midair as he tumbled into the mire. His back lay on the other side of the pit and I sat up weeping in fear. I’ve never killed a man before. Nor did I want to.
Staring in disbelief I listened to him wheeze. His chest sucking for the pair of lungs sputtering like my busted car to let him breathe. The clouds broke, letting the full moon lay upon us. Seeing him in detail I watched as he ripped open his shirt. A hole the size of my fist caved in his rib cage. Blood pouring out of him he choked his final words.
“You’re going to pay for this you little -I’ll drag you to hell with me.” Around the hole of his dying wounds were dozens of cuts and brands. Looking closer the wounds were no hodgepodge of battle scars but a pattern that wound all the way around his arms. An intricate series of lettering in ancient script all the way to his wrists. The blood flowed through those scars like pathways. Roads to carry the life blood from the wounds that took his life. Those scars took the blood dripping from him in rivets as the dying man leered with a hateful grin. Whatever this guy was, he was definitely a freak.
I vomited from the shock, crawling up the end of the ditch, never daring to turn my back on the dying man before me. Certain he would spring up from the grave to cut me. Not till I was out and far away did I turn and run back to my vehicle. I called 911 and told them everything. The sun rose and the cops came. It turns out the guy’s MO was matched to a number of dead homeless people in town. The sheriff said I saved the state the voltage for the chair, handing him to the coroner on a silver platter. They had to take my weapon for evidence yet I was in the clear. I made a statement, hopped back in my hoopdi I and headed home.
I stumbled in through the door, took off my bloody work polo and tossed it to the floor. Realizing my liquor bottle was back at the woods, I figured out they forgot to test me for the possible DUI. Guess I got lucky after all. Smiling, I shrugged at the bullet dodged, falling onto my bed from childhood to sleep.
Things were great until I opened my eyes. The man I killed now stood over me in bed. He grabbed my throat, squeezing with all the hate he could summon. Screaming as I gasped for air that wouldn’t come. He babbled and raged, shaking my throat till I was certain it would snap. My arm grabbed his bloody shirt in terror as spit from his hot, spiteful words poured all over my face. I kicked. I flailed. Nothing came to bear as my lungs and mind raced from the choking for want of air. That fright giving way to a haze…and utter dark.
I awoke in a cold sweat. Just a nightmare, I was certain of it. I shivered in the dark standing in my room. “After what I’d been though who’d be surprised.” I thought to myself as I headed to the bathroom to pee.
Then I saw a message. Written in blood scrawled across my bathroom window were the words-
MISS ME?