Misfit Traveler

by Olivia Marie

  “It’s getting late. I think you should head out. I need to get some sleep.”

  “It is late which is why I should stay.”

  “No. Please go.”

  “If I do, can I see you again while you are here? No strings. Only fun.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. I had fun.” He kissed me again and I fought to not push him off of me. I was done and needed him out of my life.

  I wasn’t as cold as I seemed, but I wasn’t going to get hurt like I had seen everyone I knew go through. I needed to protect myself and he needed to get that. I wasn’t there looking for love, it was only a small stop along the way to wherever I would end up. I didn’t mind having fun with him as long as he got that was all it would be.

  As soon as he was gone, I headed to the shower. Washing him off of me, I soaked under the little water pressure that came out of the rusty looking shower head. At least the water was hot, but that was the only thing that dump had going for it.

  Climbing out from under the trickling spray, I wrapped my hair in a towel and headed to the couch. I was exhausted and refused to pull out the bed. Lying naked under the sheet, I fell asleep in seconds.

  The dreams came one after the other and suffocated me. The feeling of being trapped there gripped me and closed in until I couldn’t move. Struggling to break free from the tight grip of that small town, I shot up, wide awake and unable to move.

  “What the fuck,” I muttered trying to get my bearings. I had wrapped myself up in the sheet so tight, I couldn’t move a thing. Trying to free an arm, I wiggled myself off the couch and with a loud thud, landed hard on the unforgiving floor. “This town is going to kill me.”

  I got up after freeing myself and put on some comfortable clothes. I saw a little shop down the road and wanted toast. I hadn’t been shopping yet, so I needed to go there first to buy some groceries.

  Walking in, it was laid out in nice little rows and I found all the things I needed fast. I went to grab a small jug of milk and a bottle of tea before checking out. As my hand reached for the handle on the cooler, another hand clamped over it.

  “Feel like hanging out tonight?” my bartender friend asked. He wasn’t as hot in the daylight as I thought he had been the night before. Looking at him then, I felt dirty.

  “No. I think I will stay in tonight and watch TV.”

  “That sounds nice too.” He was smiling at me and his eyes looked like a little lost puppy. He waited for me to say I wanted him with me, but those words would never leave my lips.

  Yeah, I had fun with him the night before. He knew his way around in bed, that was for sure. It was clear though that we wanted different things and if he couldn’t get that and back off, I would be leaving before my month was up.

  “I meant alone. Sorry.”

  “Oh.” His face drooped and he just stood there with the cooler door open.

  “I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay. Well, it was nice to see you again.”

  “You too.”

  Turning to go pay for my items, I hoped he hadn’t seen me roll my eyes at him. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was a man that could be pushed around. If he would have come in stronger, he might have gotten that second date he wanted so badly.

  I hadn’t been around weak men growing up and I wouldn’t be around them now as an adult. If I would have been looking for a partner, it would have been anyone but him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Three weeks later

  Not wanting to stay for another month, I started to pack up to leave the next night. I was almost finished when I heard a knock on my door. Looking at the clock, I was shocked to see it was after one in the morning.

  “What the hell?”

  I stood, stretching my legs, and looked through the peephole. There stood my bartender. He had left me alone for the most part. I saw him all over town but didn’t really fault him for it. That town was tiny and there were only so many places people could go.

  “Yes?” I asked without opening the door.

  “Can I come in, Hazel?” he begged.

  “It’s late,” I said still not opening the door.

  “I know, but I need to talk to you.”

  “Ugh.”

  I cracked open the door enough to make sure he was alone, and he pushed it the rest of the way knocking me off balance and sending me stumbling backwards.

  “What the fuck? And how did you know my name?”

  “Small town, princess. People talk.” Once he was inside, he slammed the door shut and locked it.

  “I need you to go.” I pointed at the door like it would somehow magically make him walk through it.

  “No. Not yet. I have been patient for weeks and I am over it.” He paused to look around the room and that was when he noticed the bags and box packed against the wall by the door. “Leaving already?”

  “I only signed on for a month. That is up in a few days. It’s time to get going.”

  The way he stared at me had me on edge. I liked when they took charge, but not when they pulled that shit. My guard was up, and I was ready to counter him.

  “Come on,” he said and grabbed my arm.

  “What are you doing?” I asked and tried to get away from him. All it did was make his grip dig in tighter around my upper arm.

  “We are going back to my place. I have a real house and less neighbors than you do here. I want a little privacy with you if you are leaving me already.”

  “I am not going with you anywhere,” I yelled.

  He laughed at that. A deep, dark, full laugh. It sent a chill from my neck down.

  “Yes, you are. If you are leaving, I will say goodbye to you my way.”

  He was stronger than I was, and I didn’t have a choice but to follow him or have my arm ripped from my shoulder. He shoved me into the passenger seat of his little two-door car before he walked briskly to his side. Getting in, he started the car and took off so fast, he squealed the tires on the blacktop.

  We went past the center of town and he wasn’t slowing. I watched the vacant streets pass us in a blur as he sped out of town in the opposite direction of where I had been staying.

  “Where are you taking me?” I demanded.

  “I told you, my place has privacy. Nobody will bother us out there.”

  “Out where? How far out are we going? Take me back.”

  “Not yet. Soon.”

  He rounded the last corner of town and drove for another few minutes until a hidden driveway appeared. He turned sharp into it and I fell toward him. There, out of nowhere, a small cabin seemed to sprout up from the ground.

  “You don’t like people much either, do you?”

  “No, but I’m not as rude as you are about it.”

  He parked the car in front and made it to my side in a few steps. Using his bear like hand to keep me where he wanted me, he dragged me up the four steps and inside the cabin. There wasn’t much inside from what I could see; it almost looked like he had just moved in. There was an over-sized chair in the corner, a small table by the kitchen, and a TV that took up the whole wall above the fireplace.

  Walking past all of it, he dragged me to the bedroom and threw me on the bed. Looking around, I saw clothes thrown around the room and a towel draped over the rustic looking brown chair in the corner. The nightstand had a lamp and a Playboy magazine spread open to the centerfold on it.

  “Now you will say goodbye to me the right way.”

  “And how is that? We hooked up once. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “Oh, but princess, that is where you are wrong. I could have been good for you and you treated me like I had the plague.”

  “I treated you the way I did because you wouldn’t back off.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “I never lied to you. I said it was a hook up only. You wouldn’t leave it at that.”

  “Because I wanted more.”
<
br />   He came closer to where I lay on the bed and as he did, he began to take of his shirt. When that was tossed carelessly on the floor, he moved to his jeans. Unbuttoned and unzipped, he was standing right in front of me.

  “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. I was already looking around for anything I could use as a weapon. He didn’t have much, but there wasn’t anything I couldn’t use.

  “Oh, we are going to do this. Last time was about you, this time, it is my turn.”

  He took off his pants and underwear and stood in front of me. I could easily see he was ready to go as it bobbed in front of him with each step he took closer to me. Getting a good look at him, I felt sick. He wasn’t good looking at all and his personality made him even more disgusting to me.

  He was right over me then. He grabbed on to my top and pulled until he ripped it off of me. With my chest exposed, I could see in his eyes that he was turned on by the act of making me feel helpless. When he bent down to do the same to the sweatpants I had on, I grabbed the lamp off his nightstand. Making sure the antlers of the fake deer rack base faced where I needed them, I came down with all the force I had.

  The thud of the hard lamp hitting his skull was sickening. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood that came flowing from the gnarly gash that ran the length of the top of his head.

  “What the fuck?” he asked as he staggered backwards.

  I lifted the lamp again and swung. It made contact across his face and he spit out blood and a tooth. Turning back to face me, I wound up and swung again. He fell to the side, hitting the floor hard, and didn’t move. Blood pooled around where his head laid and began to mix in with the clothes pile that was only inches away.

  Not wanting to get too close to him, I cautiously moved closer when I couldn’t see his chest rise and fall. Still unable to tell, I placed a hand on him. He didn’t move at all. I tried to see if I could feel air coming from his open mouth by placing my hand in front of it.

  Nothing.

  He lay there still. He was dead and I had killed him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I panicked for a minute trying to figure out how I would get out of it. I watched Stella and Dreamer do that a few times, but he was my first kill. I wanted to say I hated it, but the truth was, it was almost more climatic than having sex with him had been.

  Rolling him over, I took in the sight of his dead body. He hadn’t been as big of a fight as I expected. Maybe Stella had that part right: the bigger they were, the easier to take out. A few whacks to the head and he was done. None of his bulging muscles or the fact he stood over me by feet, not inches, did anything to stop him from falling to the floor like a giant in a pool of his own blood.

  “Not the night you had planned, huh?” I asked his corpse as I kicked him with my foot.

  I wondered if anyone knew he had brought me here or if he stole me away on a whim. I couldn’t take the chance they knew and have them find him here like that and me gone. I would have the cops after me so fast, I wouldn’t make it to the next town before they caught me. I wasn’t Stella or Dreamer. I knew things they missed because I paid attention to all the stuff around them while they focused so hard on what was in front of them.

  After grabbing one of his shirts to cover my exposed chest, I found what looked like a shopping list in his handwriting. Taking my time, I carefully matched it and started a note of my own.

  Sorry I didn’t have time to say goodbye or give notice, but I am in love and that one was heading out of town. I had to follow. I will get in touch when we settle in the next spot and let you know where we are.

  I couldn’t sign it because I hadn’t caught his name. I looked around for anything with it and found his small stack of bills laying on the counter.

  Jaxson Brown

  What a hick name, but it fit him. I went back to the note and signed his name. Feeling alright with that choice, I still had to figure out what to do with the body and clean up the mess he had made.

  I grabbed a sheet out of the closet in the hallway and laid it out next to him. Rolling him over until he was in the center, I began to drag him through the house. The sheet, being flannel, helped to not spread the blood as much. I got him outside after a struggle and dragged him down the small flight of stairs that led to his car. Hunched over, I tried to catch my breath again before the fight of having to get him into that thing began.

  I opened the door he had shoved me into only hours earlier and lifted one side of him up and into the car. Walking around to the driver’s side, I leaned in and pulled his dead weight body in the rest of the way. Once I had him in, I sat there with him and tried to slow my breathing.

  Turning to get out and go back in to start the impossible task of cleaning his bedroom floor, I froze when I saw headlights coming through the thicker part of the trees at the end of his driveway. Closing the door to the car, I slouched down and waited for whoever it was to come around the corner leading to his property; they never did. Veering to the left, they headed down a road I must have missed when he brought me up there.

  Letting out the breath I was holding, I sat there for a second trying to calm down. Getting out, I went back into the house. I made my way to his bathroom looking for anything I could use to clean up the floor. I didn’t see anything but the trash bags I would need, so I moved to the kitchen.

  Opening the door to the cabinet under the sink, I rummaged through what he had until I found a bottle of bleach. I found a mixing bowl I could use to pour the water and bleach mix into and headed back to his room.

  I used some of the clothes he had on the floor as rags and tossed them into the trash bags I found as they became so soiled I couldn’t use them anymore. The blood was harder to clean than I thought it would be and I realized why Stella picked the spots to kill she had. If I did that again, I would make sure to not do it where I would have to clean it. The only thing I had going for me was nobody in that town believed in carpet. The wood floor was by far easier to clean.

  When I was satisfied I had gotten the room looking somewhat normal, I dumped the bloody bleach water out, gathered up the three trash bags I had, and started to get ready to go. I loaded the bags into the small trunk before going to his seat and starting the car. Driving into the woods, staying off the roads, I drove until I felt it would take them a long time to find the car.

  Using my cell phone’s flashlight, I followed the tracks the car had just made to help me get back to the cabin. From there, I could sneak along the side of the road until I was back at my apartment. Lucky for me, the town rolled up its doors and shut door after five.

  I was on the road leading to the apartment when a shadow moved. I didn’t turn around to acknowledge it but saw out of the corner of my eye that it was following me. Trying to get back as fast as I could, I took a turn down the wrong road to see if they would follow me.

  They did and I hurried my pace.

  “You know you’re goin the wrong way, right?” the familiar voice said.

  Turning to face whoever it was, I locked eyes with Madison. Of all the people I could have run into, it had to be my neighbor.

  “Not the wrong way. Just out for a walk.”

  “This time at night…or morning?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “That isn’t the same shirt you left in.”

  “It was ripped in the heat of the moment. He let me have one of his.” It pissed me off that she paid that much attention to me that she knew I was in different clothes, but it pissed me off even more that I hadn’t noticed her watching.

  “Oh,” she said and made a surprised face.

  “Haven’t you even been so hungry for a man that you tore clothes off?”

  “I’ve never been with a man,” she said and looked down but didn’t miss a step. Still matching my pace perfectly, I turned to go down the road that would take me home and away from her.

  “Never? How old are you?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “And still a
virgin?” I tried not to laugh. The shock of her confession helped with that a little.

  “Well, not really. I just don’t like guys. Have you ever really looked at a penis? They are so weird. All stabby and stuff. Not like us. We are beautiful to look at and to touch.”

  “So, you’re gay?”

  “I don’t really know, but I know I don’t like guys.”

  “Oh.”

  What was I supposed to say to that? I loved men in all their forms. Not having them once in a while drove me mad. I could see it with her though and it explains why she was always all over me.

  “Why are you out so late?” I asked trying to change the subject.

  “I saw you leave hours ago and was worried. I was on my way out to look for you when you came around the corner back there.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself.” I just killed a man twice my size with a lamp.

  “I know, but isn’t it better to walk back with someone than all alone?”

  “Not when you are trying to think and the other person won’t let you.”

  I watched her chin hit her chest and hunch over defeated. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but I needed to be alone to think and she made that impossible. When I saw the apartment ahead of us, I quickened my pace. I wanted to get inside and away from her. My plan to leave as soon as I got back was botched because of her. I would have to wait a few hours and by then, it would be close to sunup.

  “Well, thanks for letting me walk you home,” she said standing awkwardly at my door.

  “Anytime?”

  “See you around,” she said and turned to go to her apartment next door.

  I reached into my sweatpants for my key when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Gently, but by surprise, I was spun around and lips were over mine before I could think.

  “Sorry, but I had to know how you tasted. I know you are leaving soon and I will never see you again. Take care of yourself,” Madison said and walked away.

  I stood there, frozen, trying to get a grip on the night I had in that strange town I couldn’t wait to leave.