Drifter On The Horizon

by Travis Pasch

Zale awakes with a start; but the familiar smell of his vehicle calms him before a panic sets in. Laying on his back staring at the sagging ceiling of his beat up wagon he has a realization: this is the best car he could own, maybe someday he could pass it on to his kids. The very thought of children frightens him, he abruptly forgets the sentiment. With a heavy head he prepares to get his day going.

  The sound of his car starting on cue always makes him optimistic. The city seems as good a destination as any to break up the monotony of the parking lot. He rolls down his window to feel the cool breeze on his skin; the feeling reminds him of home, and the early mornings before surfing, getting up before all the tourists and down to the water at sunrise. There is something magical about it, the cool breeze mixed with a slight chill from the water, not fully re-energized from the hot summer sun. Seeing no one else around in such a vast and expansive thing as the sea is majestic.

  The rumble strips emit a barking noise awaking him from his daydream. He makes the prudent decision to focus on the road and decides this is the day he finally makes contact with the woman. He hurtles forward faster to reach his destination, only slowing when he lets the risk of getting pulled over outweigh his great urgency. That would ruin his whole day if he were to get arrested for something as mundane as reckless driving. He parallel parks into a spot just ahead of the building where the woman works, a giant one with more windows than seem possible for a single building to support.

  A glance at his clock forces him to realize the woman won't be at work for an hour and a half. Leaning back in his chair he thinks about falling back to sleep, but imagines if he does he'll probably either get harassed by a traffic cop or not wake up in time to talk to the lady; he doesn't want to contend with either right now.

  He decides to get some coffee while waiting. He gingerly gets out of his car, not even bothering to lock it.

  __________

  The early morning chill still hangs in the air, dawn has barely broken the barrier into reality as Azelia rouses her tired body awake. Why in the world had she offered to work the early morning shift? Her tired mind looks into the currently empty space known as her thoughts for the answer, and then it comes to her: Maya. She wouldn't stop crying about the morning shift. Azelia felt bad and volunteered. A silver lining to the morning has yet to show itself and she bursts through her tent door, not ready for the day that's coming.

  She speeds through the city and sprints the remaining walk to arrive only ten minutes late. Once again she's assaulted by the smells of the shop the second she opens the heavy doors, something she has inexplicably come to like. Seeing Maya's pale face is worth more than a gold mine this early in the morning, pain is better when a friend shares it with you, even if she's the one who caused it. She quickly puts her things down in the back and gets into her dirty work outfit.

  "Get out here Azelia!" a gruff voice yells from the front, she fails to remember why she still works here.

  "Coming!" she yells back, "asshole," she whispers to herself as she hurries out to the front. A long queue of angry, tired people have built a disorderly line nearly out of the door already; they've been open a whole two minutes.

  "Miss, I'm in a hurry can you please take me on the other register," sputters a woman with a chin rivaling Mount Everest and a perfume wafting of skunk. She begrudgingly follows her suggestion, while the woman scoffs at her obvious lack of enthusiasm. At this point Azelia could care less if the the woman doesn't like her, she just prays she doesn't ask to talk to the manager.

  "Is that it?" Azelia asks, keeping the majority of contempt out of her voice, not even hearing the woman's order.

  "Yeah, oh wait and one of those scrumptious chocolaty things," Azelia complies and pulls a biscotti out of a jar on the dirty counter.

  "Five eighty."

  "That's a little much," the woman grumbles to herself while pulling the money out of her duct tape wallet

  "Have a great day," Azelia says without emotion when the woman finally manages to get her money.

  "Next," she spouts. She freezes completely, the man who steps up is the man she got caught staring at yesterday. She tries to fix her hair subconsciously, she didn't even look at herself in a mirror this morning.

  "Morning," he says while attempting to rub the leftover sleep from his eyes.

  "Hey," she sputters and stumbles back slightly. She pauses for a moment, and then remembers what she is supposed to be doing. "What can I get you?"

  "I'll just take a medium coffee please," he says, smiling at her and trying his best not to look exhausted.

  "Easy enough, anything else?" she asks nervously flipping a stray hair from her face.

  "No that's it. Didn't I see you yesterday?" he questions. Red floods her cheeks and she does her best to hide her face.

  "I, I don't think so... it's uh three forty two."

  "Oh, thought I did," he says with a shrug as he hands her the money; he turns and leaves the store without so much as a look back at her. He's so focused on the door you would think he's on a mission. As he leaves Azelia slaps her palm into her sweaty forehead. She's left feeling stupid again. He'll be back, she thinks, sometime.

  "Hello?" a woman asks Azelia, breaking her away from her thoughts for now.

  __________

  Keeping pace with the other people on the busy sidewalk, Zale feels intensely out of place, the business people surrounding his sweaty, nervous self bring on a thick panic. He would like to say his state of mind is stable, but even he knows that's a bald-faced lie. His mother's phobias couldn't fit on a single page and she pushed all her fears on him at an early age. Despite his weaknesses he feels strong this morning and he won't let himself come up with another excuse. He's been trying too long to say just one word to a woman about whom he knows nothing.

  The further he walks, the more his mind wanders back to the girl this morning at the coffee shop. The more he thinks about her the more convinced he becomes she's the same woman who had been staring at him the other day. Why was she staring at him? Why would anyone stare at him? Maybe he looks a little too much like a bum to be in this part of the city.

  He holds out a slim hope that there's a chance she's interested in him. He makes a mental note to see her again tomorrow.

  "What am I thinking?" he mumbles to himself. He's already fixated on the glowing woman and hasn't managed a word to her yet, and here he is already trying to get another woman into his life.

  His pointless rambling thoughts have distracted him so intently he hardly notices just how close he his to his next failure. He draws closer and closer to the glowing woman's work place with no plan in mind how to approach or talk to her; and even less of an idea how to explain his situation to her. Turn around, his mind screams at him, but his feet are kept moving by an unknown force of will, or maybe fate is driving him closer to his doom. Before he knows it everything is getting brighter and brighter, a single object envelopes his view. He stumbles the last few feet to the door of her office in a haze.

  In his moment of panic and fright he tries to avoid contact with her. She walks right up to him and he freezes on the spot, praying she'll pass by him. She eyes him suspiciously. Five awkward seconds tick off the clock before he realizes he's blocking the door to her office. After the realization hits him he swings his arms to the handle of the heavy door and holds it open for her. The problem is he can't fully make out her face to see if she's smiling or scowling. The assumption of scowl slams him with the force of a hammer. He tries to form some remnants of a conversation to engage her for at least one second. Even a single second would feel like a thousand years at this point.

  "You, well, I mean, I'm..." is all he manages to stumble out before letting her walk through the door. His worse fear is realized, he just ruined everything. His face stings from the heavy rush of blood ambushing his features. He runs from her building in shame.

  "You idiot, way to make a fool of yourself!" he half whispers, half yells. A man walking by stops, con
fused, and points a finger towards himself.

  "Oh, sorry not you, just mad at myself."

  "I know that feeling all too well," the man responds and laughs as he walks away. Zale wishes he could laugh at himself right now. After five minutes of self loathing he forces some hope. The woman probably didn't even pay enough attention to him to recognize him and the possibility of the coffee shop girl gives him a glimmer of hope.

  The hope is short lived. When he returns to his car, a ticket rests on his windshield. His nemesis, the good looking traffic cop, waves at him from across the street. Zale's middle finger looms large at the man. The man smiles back, and Zale lets his finger down and gets in his car without removing the ticket. It flies off and becomes trash as he speeds away, yelling incomprehensibly at the traffic cop while passing him.

  Zale keeps driving as fast as he can without killing someone, the further he can get from the embarrassment of the morning the better he'll feel. Still, his faltering doesn't stop him from making the decision to follow the glowing woman tonight, just for good measure. He sleeps the rest of the day away before returning to the city.

  __________

  After all her failures, especially today's, Azelia felt like she didn't deserve to go home when her original shift ended. Her boss left hours ago, so the seven extra hours of work have been nothing compared to the disappointment she feels in herself. Regardless she hopes she can coast the day away with no more customers.

  "Hello?" a man says and snaps Azelia out of her own bubble.

  "Hey," she says without looking. He asks for a black cup of coffee, she rings him up without another thought. She again prays that no other customers wander into the desolate shop and he's the last person she'll be forced to help.

  "You been workin' all day?" the man asks. Those words run an instant and spine chilling feeling through her entire body. She tries to compose herself before answering.

  "Yeah, all day," she lets out all her air at once, finally looking up at the man she stumbled with earlier.

  "You ready to get outta here?" he asks with a sly smile.

  "Can't wait," she answers in relief, his reaction is all the nudging she needs. He grabs his coffee and slowly turns to go. Her mind freezes.

  "See ya," he calls.

  "Wait!" she yelps louder than she intended. He turns around, waiting, and she realizes she is supposed to have a reason to yell at him other than to make him stay. "Uh, you forgot your receipt."

  "Oh, thanks, I'm Zale by the way," he says as he walks up and grabs the receipt from her, letting his fingers linger in a close warm proximity to hers.

  "Azelia," she responds, and works up all the courage she can muster before adding, "You gonna be free in about half an hour?"

  "I wish. I'm busy tonight," he says. She casts her eyes back down, trying not to blush, she berates herself for being so dumb. "I'm serious, I got something to do, I'm not trying to blow you off. I'm free tomorrow though."

  "I'd love to," she responds, maybe a little too quickly. She's already taken a strong liking to his sly smile.

  "I'll meet you here, same time tomorrow?"

  "Sure," she answers, he smiles at her and walks gingerly out of the shop.

  __________

  Jade's had the feeling that someone's been following her for days. Today she confirmed her suspicions when a car, well, a station wagon, had tried to tail her. It couldn't be the police, or even a professional, because she's never lost someone so easily. She makes another unnecessary turn just to be safe.

  An extra pair of eyes have been burning into her back for sometime now, this is the first time she's felt such a presence. She has an idea of who it is, she's been expecting him for ages now, she's surprised it has taken him this long to show. She has an interesting choice resting in front of her now, he may prove useful, so she can't do anything rash. She has to do something about it though, she has business to attend to that can't be impacted by this. The neat interior of her clean car reeks of obsession. She looks into the backseat for her mission papers. They peak out of the top of her blue bag in the backseat, the only thing she keeps in the car.

  She's felt like someone has been following her for her entire life. Now for the first time someone is, she should of planned better for this eventuality. She can't rest on her mistake, she has work to do. As her car rolls to a stop at a red light her grinding brakes agitate her. Sitting at the light she opens the bag and pulls out the file of a man named Thomas Straut, he looks innocent enough, with a crew cut and no noticeable features other than a large nose, but every night he visits a place renowned for its child pornography. The reason she does this, no, the reason she's called to this, is to rid the world of evil. A calling she has wholeheartedly embraced. Being a violent vigilante has made her life fulfilling.

  She accelerates slowly and sees a cop car ahead, so she makes an unnecessary right turn to get away from the law. She looks again at the paper to see the address one last time, even though she has memorized the entire file from staring at it in anticipation for days on end now.

  Her car lazily drifts into a parking space in front of a nasty, old, and fading brick building, looking all too fitting for its purpose. The building resides in the most downtrodden part of town which makes the trip all the more exhilarating. The cop she saw before probably knows what happens in this place and doesn't shut it down due to bribes. As she puts the car into park she gazes one last time at the picture of Thomas' face, every time she looks at the picture he becomes uglier and uglier.

  She opens her door and straightens her dress. The poison she's chosen is fast acting, making her exit very dangerous; if she doesn't move fast she'll undoubtedly be killed. She grabs it from her bag and locks her doors. The sound of her heels precedes her. She knocks a few times on the large wooden door, much like the ones she imagines they have on old English pubs. A big burly man looking very cliche with his cut off denim jacket, jeans, and arm tattoos, opens the door.

  "Whadya' want?" he demands in an equally burly voice, spitting on her face in the process.

  "Just tryna' have some fun," she responds. The man starts laughing but steps aside and lets her enter

  "I know you're new, but you're just our type," he says. He pats her back while she squeezes by him through the small entry. She almost topples over from the rough smack, she regains her composure and looks up at the space. This isn't anything she thought it would be, there's nobody here at all. A big unfurnished room stands in silence with a gaggle of halls springing off the main atrium. She turns back to the bouncer, confused.

  "A man named Thomas invited me, could you tell me where he is?"

  "Why should I tell you?" the bouncer responds, trying to look mean, but his mouth is already curling into a snarling smile.

  "I didn't want to sound new to the scene, so I... I told him I knew how it all works."

  "I'll take you to em," he says and heads right at her, she jumps out of the way just in time and falls in line behind him.

  "You could just tell me where he is," she says. Hoping by some miracle he'll stop leading her. Otherwise things might get messier than she wants.

  "It's not a problem," he says as he heads down the second hallway to their left. They pass a few barely closed doors, she can only imagine what type of men occupy those rooms; their repulsive moans emanate so loudly in her ear drums, she tries her hardest to not think about them. The task at hand is going to be more than enough for her to handle, especially if that doorman doesn't leave her alone, she can't kill them all, at least not tonight. Luckily for her she never leaves without packing some extra protection, but sadly today all she brought is a knife she got from a retired marine a few years back, she made the mistake of leaving her pistol in the car. She almost runs into the back of the bouncer as he stops on a dime in front of a very diminutive door that looks older than the rest of the building. Her nerves suddenly start to build, everything around her slows, her breath comes thick and fast. Her fingers quiver around the
rough knobby handle of the knife in her purse.

  "Here you go," says the bouncer, pointing at that disgusting little door, he grunts for her to enter.

  "Would you mind opening it?" she responds. Without replying he opens the door and turns his back on her. That's the opening she was looking for and rams the large knife straight through the base of his skull where it connects with his spine. He smashes face first through the door, his teeth break on the cold wooden floor. She portrays the angel of death, standing in the dim light of a television screen covered in the bouncer's spray of blood. Thomas looks up from some ungodly form of child porn, his face a mask of fear and disbelief, his hands move unsuccessfully from pleasing himself to protecting his face. Her knife finds Thomas' heart before he can move. His hands remain frozen in front of his face; she wishes they were still covering something else. With a larger smattering of blood now covering her she removes the knife from the still warm chest of Thomas and surveys the situation. She hasn't touched anything yet, a fact the bouncer helped her out with a great deal, and has no clear motive or any ties to any of these people, she should never be a suspect, just as long as she can get home safely tonight. She wipes the blood from her face and knife, hoping she still has a few minutes to get out of this abominable place before someone emerges from one of these rooms.

  She relaxes slightly when she sits down in her car. She hopes that none of the other perverts would call the cops for fear of what might happen to them if they did. She calmly starts her car and backs out of the space, and even though her hands are trembling she keeps the rest of her body under control. That had not at all gone the way she had originally planned, but the job is done. The extra work was far more than worth it, the look of terror on Thomas' face was undeniably pleasing to her soul. She can sleep soundly tonight with that picture in her mind.

  When she arrives home to her apartment about thirty minutes later she feels two different sets of eyes preying upon her. She often feels paranoid after a night out but she imagines he's watching. She puts on her jacket, a full length one she always keeps in the car just in case she needs a quick guise, and runs to her apartment's stairs. The last thing she needs now is to be seen covered in blood and returning at four in the morning. She makes it without further consequence, despite her suspicions, to her bedroom.

  Lying in her spacious bed, more precisely two twin beds she's pushed together without frames, she stares at the blank ceiling in her dark room. Her uncontrollable joy is fighting with her body's obvious need for sleep. Somehow the memory of the look of absolute horror on Thomas' face pulls her mind and body into a near instant, happy, and well earned sleep. Her fading thoughts pray for a dream that could replicate her glory of tonight, though she knows, unfortunately, that is an impossibility.