The Run

by Tyler Wolfe

  I didn’t know if this failure of a man had a single friend or relative in the world who gave enough of a damn to come check on him. But this place was going through eviction. Eventually, the landlord would come—probably with a hazmat team—to reclaim the property, and would discover...this.

  The heat and flies might do a lot of work to cover my ass in the meantime, but I couldn’t count on it. As the red throbbing in my head receded, I started thinking fast. I have to make sure that there’s no body to find. But I already know I can’t move him.

  So, what the hell do I do now?

  CHAPTER 16

  Spontaneous Combustion

  I checked my watch. 11:27. Zoe would be coming home around midnight. That meant I had half an hour to cover my tracks, get back home, stash my gear, shower, and pretend to be asleep. There was absolutely no room for hesitation, dawdling or error. I held the post-murder to-do list firmly in my head, every step planned out.

  But I was still drawing a goddamn blank on how to get rid of the body.

  Think, you fucking idiot. The last one was an accidental death. But this…this right here is Murder One.

  I can’t move him. And I’ll definitely pass on chopping him up and getting rid of the pieces that way. So how do I get rid of the body in one piece, in this place?

  I couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t either hellish or unworkable, so I busied myself cleaning up evidence and taking back what was mine.

  I went to gather up the spilled packs of money and stuff them back into the bag, my mind racing. As I bent down to pluck them off the filthy carpet, I looked over and saw his Zippo lighter gleaming in the semi-dark. Next to it was the almost empty soft pack of cigarettes that had been sitting on the tray table.

  ...Wait.

  Back when I was a kid, I got good at telling stories to win a few friends. I had loved passing on urban legends the most. And one of my favorites had been about spontaneous human combustion.

  A guy falls asleep in front of the television with a lit cigarette. When they find him, there’s nothing but a scorched spot on the floor, ceiling and chair, and maybe some bones. What happened to him? Nobody knows...

  I grabbed the cigarettes and lighter and zipped up the bag of money. “Okay. Okay, okay.” I slung the bag around my chest and made my way back through the kitchen, kicking aside the junk and mess now that there was no one alive left to sneak up on. I had only a few minutes to get this right.

  Reaching the back hallway, I grabbed the gas can from atop its collapsed cardboard nest, grunting slightly at its weight on my aching arms. Walking back into the living room with it, I looked around, eyes narrowing. Where would a fire plausibly start in here?

  Junk everywhere. Lit cigarette. Lit match. Old television left on a long, long time, maybe with a frayed cord. My eyes swept over the peeling wood paneling, the piles of flammable trash, the recliner itself, with polyurethane stuffing overflowing from wear at the ends of its arms.

  Fuck it. The only way that I can pull this off is if this place burns so thoroughly that they can’t even find the fire’s source.

  That meant more than just a fire. It meant a goddamn explosion.

  The house next door is abandoned. The street’s wide. No trees on the sidewalk. Except for the yards and the vacant lot, there’s nothing around to burn or get damaged. The fire won’t spread beyond the house very fast in this damp weather. But how do I get this done?

  I thought of the propane tanks stacked in the back, the big old tank under the window next to the vacant lot, the propane stove with flammable trash on three out of four burners. My eyes narrowed, the grin coming back. By the time I’m finished this pig will be so roasted, they’ll only know him from dental records.

  I doused the fresh corpse and the chair first, then the drapes of a nearby window and the trash piles around him. The sharp smell of the gasoline killed some of the stomach-curdling stink but started to make me feel even more nauseous. I shook out every drop into that room.

  Once it was empty, I tossed the can aside on the floor. The plastic would melt and burn too, once everything was done. I pulled the bastard’s Zippo from my hoodie pocket, fingers brushing briefly against the gun. Thank God that I had not used it.

  I flicked the lighter—and paused as the flame revealed some custom-engraved lettering on it. The name Diasko had been engraved into one side in bold, masculine letters. “This you?” I said to the corpse, my voice still sounding high and strange in my ears. “Nice lighter. Think I’ll keep it.”

  I lit one of his cheap cigarettes and drew on it, the rancid-tasting smoke making me choke slightly. I forced the lungful, pulling until an inch-long cherry glowed on the cig’s end. Then I blew the smoke down at the late Mr. Diasko’s face.

  “It was nice knowing ya, but it’s time to go now.” I flung the cherried cigarette onto his chest as I spoke.

  An expanding ring of blue-yellow flames whooshed outward from the point of impact, setting his clothes and scruffy neck-beard on brighter fire and wreathing his flesh with a bluish ripple. I tossed the almost empty pack of cigarettes onto the lit body and ran into the kitchen, stuffing the Zippo into my pocket as I went.

  Once I was in the kitchen, I turned on the single bare burner of the propane stove and then blew out its flame. The corpse-stink of gas started to mix with the other smells, and I continued to the back hallway.

  Starting to choke from the thickening smoke and smell of gas, I went to the stack of propane bottles and opened their valves. Then I hurried out into the backyard, firmly shutting the back door behind me to seal in the gas and smell of smoke.

  I sucked a huge, grateful lungful of clean air as I bounded down the back stairs and hurried through the yard through the spot in the back fence where I had gotten in. I made as little noise as possible as I ducked through the fence and made my way up to the green belt between yards.

  I settled in for a moment to watch once I got through the second fence, turning and peering through the gap in the boards as an orange flickering started in the windows of my blackmailer’s house. With the blinds drawn, it didn’t look much different from the flicker of the television, except for its color. The porn soundtrack was still faintly audible, but under a minute later, it crackled and stopped.

  It was only a matter of minutes now before the flames would grow large enough to reach the gas leaking from the canisters and stove. The noise then would definitely wake up the neighbors, including the ones whose yards I crouched in. I can’t stay.

  I hurried back to my truck, my anxious walk turning into a run as I held my keys to keep them from jingling. The dark, quiet street was about to experience something it surely wasn’t ready for, and I needed to be on my way before then. I can’t be seen.

  Finally, blocks away from the growing fire, I reached the side of the truck. I looked up nervously at the convenience store where the cop cars had been parked, but they were gone, and one of the windows was now boarded over. Briefly, I wondered what I had missed, but I was mostly just relieved that the police were no longer in earshot.

  Hopefully, anyway.

  I started my truck and drove home, hands clenched so tight on the steering wheel that they throbbed with pain. I barely managed to keep to the speed limit; my whole body was shaking, and the stink of that horrible place seemed to cling to me, like Diasko’s ghost.

  Finally, by some miracle, I reached my driveway, pulled the truck into the garage, and shut its door. Turning off the engine, I sat there for a moment, clutching the money bag. It was done. It’s over. I’m really free.

  But there was one last thing that had to happen...and I quite deliberately could not be anywhere where I could witness it. I needed to be on my way to a shower, and bed, after cleaning up all traces. I got out of the truck and hurried inside.

  I stopped in the laundry room again and stripped naked, throwing everything including my sneakers and gloves into the wash and dumped a load of greasy cleaning rags in on top of them. I threw in a ton of
mechanic’s laundry degreaser that I kept around for the really messy stuff, threw down some dirty towels on the floor in case the suds overflowed, and started the wash. Then I grabbed my gun and the stolen lighter, shoved them into the bag, and ran to the kitchen.

  As I entered the kitchen, I checked my watch: 11:47. Diasko’s house had been burning and filling up with gas for almost twenty minutes, with pressure building up behind closed doors and all those painted-shut windows. My guts tightened—but I didn’t even have time to brace myself before it finally happened.

  BOOM! The explosion was so loud and intense that I felt it shake the ground. I flinched hard and staggered, turning reflexively toward the breakfast-nook windows. A sudden plume of yellow-white light sped across the chaotically rippling surface of the lake, then vanished just as quickly. Every single car alarm in the neighborhood had been shaken awake by the blast, and their whoop mixed with the howl of dogs in the aftermath.

  I clutched the tabletop, trembling, unable to move despite the fact that I was naked in front of the windows. The rest of me was resurfacing now, the battle was over. I stood there frozen, my mind racing. Oh God, what did I do, did I really do that?

  Why did I have to kill someone again, is he gone, am I safe?

  Is Zoe safe? I started to focus a little again outside my own self-pity.

  Is the neighborhood safe, or did I just hurt more people than I had to?

  God, Zoe, I’m so sorry that I’m like this...

  My breath caught in my chest, the terror receding just enough for a deep grief to fill the space it left. Why did any of this have to happen?

  I looked out the window again, noticing the faint orange flickers of reflected flames. From the loud crackling I could hear through the glass, the house and yard had to still be burning furiously. That corpse has been on fire for over twenty minutes, and now it’s been through a propane explosion. There will be nothing left of him but scattered grease and bones, if he isn’t ash by the time firefighters put things out.

  Suddenly the firelight flared across the lake again in fainter, thinner streamers. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. I heard faint sounds of glass shattering, yells and doors slamming. Apparently some of the small propane tanks at Diasko’s place hadn’t emptied completely before the fire reached them. What if they spread the fire? The big one probably partly blew itself out, but...

  Please. No more deaths because of me. I’m just trying to survive. No innocents. Please God. I didn’t even know why I was bothering to pray for mercy when it had never worked for me before. But I had stumbled into some pretty amazing luck lately...along with all the really bad luck. It was oddly like a game of tug-of-war, but now, I had won.

  I just wished that I could share my victory with someone, but I couldn’t, and I would not, ever. It’s like I had a superpower—an ability to rid the world of all the people who didn’t deserve to be here, for all they had done. But as difficult as the world could be, I was finally feeling a sense of hope. A feeling that most people will never experience, including all of my surviving neighbors.

  Then, I heard a faint patter...and then the rumble of thunder. Blinking, I looked out over the lake again—and flinched as lightning flashed. What?

  A second later, a hardcore Florida downpour hit, heavy water droplets battering into glass, ground and water, hard enough to sound like hailstones. I sucked air, staring wide-eyed out at it as the rain thickened into half-visible sheets that whipped across the lawn. ...Holy shit.

  The yellow reflections of fire on the water started to dissipate.

  I closed my eyes, feeling my fear finally draw its claws out of my heart. My head cleared fully. The gasoline and propane had to obliterate the evidence if not the whole body. It might even have melted that leash, or at least blown it far away from the body. And now the rain will keep the fire from spreading.

  It really is done now.

  Except...again, not quite.

  I knew I had minutes before Zoe would be home. I grabbed the bag and ran down the hall to jump in the shower. I scrubbed down hard with my pumice soap, stinging my skin with hot water, feeling as if my time in that terrible place had left me coated in inches of filth. I had to get rid of it all before I touched Zoe.

  As I stood in the shower washing my hair with a strong mint shampoo, I began to hear the sound of sirens over the storm and spray. No doubt where they were headed.

  Shaken out of my desperate lathering and scrubbing, I finished rinsing off and stepped out to towel off. I dried my hair as quickly and roughly as I had scrubbed down, wiped down the bathroom and left the door open for the minty steam to drift through the house and cover any lingering fumes.

  I grabbed the bag off the sink, walked out into the bathroom and shoved it deep under the end of the bed. My watch was still on the sink. I checked the alarm clock—crap. Five after. I grabbed a pair of boxers out of the drawer and pulled them on, then hurriedly got into bed and clicked off the lamp next to me.

  Made it.

  Barely able to believe that I had pulled off the whole job, I lay there in silence while I listened to the sirens in the distance. More were coming. Many more. I couldn’t blame them for the overkill. We didn’t get very many propane tank explosions.

  And from now on, that’s all this is, and all it will ever be. Some miserable drunk who was losing his house fell asleep among too much junk, with fire hazards all over the place. A fire started. The propane went up. Suicide by negligence if there is such a thing. That is what people will know this as. Not murder.

  Just burning trash.

  CHAPTER 17

  Morbid Thoughts

  As I lay listening to the whistle of sirens growing closer, a profound sense of calm washed over me, stronger than I had ever felt before. The soreness in my hands from the cord had gone away. My mind and body felt empty, but not in a bad way, instead like all the stress inside of me had been released. I felt purged: at ease, refreshed.

  Diasko had not been like that poor stupid boy who had attacked me. He had been a malicious man, a sick man, and a threat not just to me, but to everyone. If I had not been there to blackmail, his desperation to keep his house would have led him to hurt someone else. Maybe worse than he had tried to hurt me.

  I will always feel bad about that kid. That was an accident. But why am I wasting any grief or guilt on a conman like Diasko? In my state of profound, hollow calm, it seemed suddenly ridiculous.

  I blinked into the darkness, puzzled. Despite the fact just minutes ago I had strangled someone to death and then blown up a house to destroy the evidence, I really did feel nothing.

  I couldn’t even make myself feel anything for the man in that armchair. No regret, no remorse, no emotion at all. Even his features seemed fuzzy in my mind, as if they weren’t important enough to remember.

  I probably should be relieved, but this feeling, or lack of, is so strange. Is this what it feels like to be a killer? Does it feel like...nothing?

  I closed my eyes again. No. I’m not a killer. Not by nature. It wasn’t me a month ago that pestered a passing man for money and then beat that man until he panicked and had no choice but to defend himself. It wasn’t me who tried to extort an innocent man for ten thousand dollars, all the while planning to betray him and ruin his life anyway—and possibly, victimize his wife. I was their would-be victim, not the instigator. I would never harm a living person unless they threatened me, my wife or my freedom.

  I had honor, but I had limits. If anything, I was a vigilante. The kid had been a sad accident, but the little prick had left me no choice. As for Diasko...he had gotten exactly what he had deserved—more justice than any of us could ever have seen inside of a courtroom.

  Now that everything was taken care of, everything was finally going to be okay. It would all be okay. My killing days were done.

  The whistling of the sirens had merged into a loud, ragged chorus as they all closed in on the explosion site. Tires screeched around a nearby corner, splashing through the deepening puddle
s outside, and I sat up with a sigh. Newfound inner peace or not, there was no point faking sleep until the slightly tardy Zoe came home. Not the deaf or drugged could have slept through this racket.

  I got up and threw on a shirt and some basketball shorts over my boxers, and made my way to the front porch, stepping into a pair of flip-flops. Just as I opened the door to peer out into the street through the still-dense rain, I saw Zoe’s car pull in. She looked at me through the windshield, wearing a look of shock, then rolled down her driver’s side window to call out. “Did you see there’s a house on fire on Fernery?!”

  Think fast. “...Whoa, that was a house? I thought lightning hit a transformer or something. I didn’t know if it was safe to come outside.” I rubbed my face, feigning drowsiness, falling into the act of the clueless husband who had napped too hard after one of his extra-long workouts.

  “No, a house fire. Get in, let’s go look.” She opened the passenger door. I locked up before quickly walking over to hop in and buckle up. “Did it wake you up?” She said with a slight quiver in her voice.

  “Yeah, I heard a bunch of sirens, but I didn’t know what was going on. Once the thunder stopped, I figured it was okay to come out and take a look.” I didn’t try to hug or kiss her, though I wanted to, she was in shock and I wasn’t sure anyone surprised by these circumstances would remember to be affectionate, so I sat still. She backed out mechanically and we drove towards Fernery to get a look at the fire in the pouring rain.

  “Most of that wasn’t thunder, babe. Those loud booms, I guess, were propane tanks blowing up. My news app said they think a bigger one was struck by lightning, but no one knows for sure until the fire investigators check.” Her voice was shaking.

  “Thank God for the rain then, or the fire would have spread more.” My stomach dropped with guilt. I so badly wanted to tell her the truth and say I was sorry. But deep down, I wasn’t sorry, and I would never be able to apologize for that or explain why. What she didn’t know...would definitely not hurt her.