He would be the king of heads.
He remembered the first time he’d killed somebody. It’d been a complete accident. It was bowling night, so he’d gone out with the boys, drinking and temporarily abandoning responsibility. Afterward, he’d stumbled through the parking lot, drunk and pissed off about his poor bowling skills. A girl was walking around in the dark by herself. She seemed lost, like she needed help, so he offered her a ride. She gladly accepted. Half a mile down the road, she casually mentioned she’d blow him for twenty dollars. He was just drunk enough not to give a shit about consequences, and pulled his truck off on the side of the road. This was back when he still had his truck, before he traded it in, at Helga’s request, for something shitty and fuel-friendly. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and unzipped his jeans. Five minutes later, just as he was on the verge of completion, the girl jammed a gun under his jaw and told him to hand over his wallet. After she stored his wallet in her purse, she ordered him to get out of the truck and begin walking the opposite direction. She said the truck now belonged to her, along with the rest of his bullshit pride. Then a car passed them, and he took the opportunity to knock the gun out of her hand. She freaked out and jumped out of the truck and fled down the road. Lewis chased after her, from behind the wheel. He didn’t even realize he was going to run over her until her body became a sudden speed bump. Then her corpse was behind him, in the middle of the road, torn to shreds. Fortunately, he kept gardening tools in the back of his truck, including a shovel. As he buried the dead girl in the woods close to where he’d run her over, all he could think about was how his life was ruined, how his reality was shattered. But those feelings had been false. They were just fears planted by the media. Thoughts he was told he was supposed to think. In truth, he kind of felt good. Hell, he felt great. And when he dumped her body in the shallow hole and stabbed the shovel into her throat, he felt goddamn amazing.
Lewis would not allow some imbecile writers to stop him from continuing his destiny. He would kill until God himself came down from the heavens and put him down like a rabid dog.
He continued around the cabin, hungry to retrieve his collection. Up ahead, the man named Nick stood in front of the building. For a moment, Lewis thought he didn’t see him, that he was shielded by darkness, his one true ally. But that fantasy was destroyed when Nick raised Lewis’s own gun and shot at him.
44. AUTHORS, REVIEWERS, & SERIAL KILLERS
Nick had shot the serial killer but the serial killer didn’t seem fazed. They just stood there, glaring at each other. Stephen stood to the side of Lewis, exhausted and defeated. Lewis held him by his shirt collar. Yet he wasn’t shot. Or at least, he didn’t look like he was shot.
Then Nick realized he’d missed.
“Shit,” he said, and fired the gun again.
Stephen screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his knee.
“Fuck,” Nick said, and tried again.
Not even close.
Lewis tackled him before he could get off another shot. The gun flew from his hand. Nick hit the ground hard. The world vibrated and he forgot how to breathe for a moment. Lewis sat on his stomach and pounded into his face.
Was Lewis growling?
Shit, Nick was a dead man. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even move. He should have ran when he still had the chance.
Somewhere, miles away, Stephen was crying about his knee.
Nick smelled smoke. He wondered if he was smelling death. His own death. He turned his head to the side, saw the cabin. It was on fire. It was beautiful. Lewis punched him again. Everything was spinning. He missed Sergio. He missed his parents. He wanted to go home. He wondered if that publishing company had read The Owls in the City yet. They probably hated it.
Someone shouted, then Lewis fell off Nick’s stomach. Nick focused his eyes, saw Harlan standing above him. He was holding a severed head, gripping it by the long, black hair connected to the scalp.
Nick meant to say “Harlan”, but it came out as “Jesus?”
“Shut up,” Harlan said. He stepped over Nick and moved to Lewis. He raised the severed head and swung it at him, then swung it again, bashing it into his face.
“That’s for grabbing my dick!” Harlan shouted, and hit him again. Lewis lay on the ground, motionless. “And for letting me get kidnapped! And for not telling me I spent half the goddamn day next to a bag of heads! And this is for all the shitty literature in the world! You fuck! You motherfuck!”
Harlan didn’t stop swinging the head until Nick pulled him away.
Nick felt weak, his face bloody and aching. He looked at Harlan, watched him panting, trying to catch his breath. He was still holding the head.
“You saved me,” Nick said. “Thank you.”
“Oh, fuck you and your press,” Harlan said, and bashed the deformed head into Nick’s face.
He didn’t exactly pass out, but he certainly didn’t get back up once he fell down. He simply did not possess enough energy to move.
He heard Harlan open a car door, then close it. The engine was already running. The guy who’d showed up to the cabin with a gun, he’d left his car running like a dumbass.
Harlan drove away, leaving Nick down for the count and the cabin in flames.
Nick’s pocket vibrated.
He pulled out his cellphone, opened his email. He had one new message in his inbox:
Dear Nick,
Thank you for submitting The Owls in the City . . .
45. FAHRENHEIT 451
They were surrounded by hundreds of Sergio’s books, all of them burning. Sergio always told Eliza one day his books would be burned, although in his head he had always pictured a bunch of whacko Christians being the pyros. This worked, too, though.
Eliza stood up, coughing, the smoke seeping into her mouth and strangling her lungs. Inside the bedroom, the cop was saying there was nobody else here. Eliza and Louise walked in, now able to see thanks to the flames preparing to swallow them whole.
“Where the fuck did they go?” Louise said, then spotted the open window. She pointed, excited. “Shit, they escaped!” She ran for the window and climbed out.
The cop pointed his gun and told her to stop, she was still under arrest.
Louise laughed. “Fuck you, copper. I have to save my boyfriend.”
She leapt outside and took off into the forest, shouting Stephen’s name.
Eliza and the cop stood in the burning cabin for a moment, shrugging.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose we ought to get out of here before we burn to death.”
Eliza nodded. “Good plan.”
Outside, Nick sat in the dirt, his face illuminated by the glow of his cell phone. He was laughing like a crazy person.
The cop glanced around, confused. “Where the fuck is my car?”
Eliza kicked her editor-in-chief. “Calm down, man. You’re losing it.”
Nick shook his head, still laughing. Laughing so hard he was crying. He held up his cell phone, showing her the screen. She read it, then started laughing too.
“Congratulations,” she said, and their laughter grew further out of control. “You’re gonna have to write the sequel on toilet paper rolls.”
Nick abruptly stopped laughing and looked at her, serious. “I have to write a sequel?”
46. 360 DEGREES
Harlan had driven ten minutes before he realized Billy was sitting in the backseat.
“So, where are we going?” the tweaker asked.
Harlan screamed, slammed on the breaks. Billy bashed his face against the driver’s seat.
“Shit, man, I didn’t have my seatbelt on.”
Harlan sat behind the wheel for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to avoid a heart attack. Then he got out, opened the backdoor, and pulled Billy from the passenger seat, dragging him out in the road.
“Hey, man, what the fuck are you doing?”
Harlan didn’t respond, just kept dragging him around the car. He popped open the trunk.
>
Billy laughed nervously. “You can’t be serious.”
Harlan pushed him inside and closed the trunk, then got back behind the wheel, started driving again. He no longer felt pain. His body had numbed, blissful and content. Harlan drove into the night, aching to get back home and write a new blog post. This was going to be his best one yet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max Booth III is the Editor-in-Chief of Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, an editor for Dark Moon Digest, and a columnist for LitReactor.com. He is the author of Toxicity, The Mind is a Razorblade, and How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers. He has studied under Craig Clevenger and award winning editor, Jennifer Brozek. Raised in Northern Indiana, he currently works as a hotel night auditor in San Antonio. Follow him on Twitter @GiveMeYourTeeth for random drunken ramblings and visit him at www.TalesFromTheBooth.com.
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How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers Page 15
