The Girl
“You crazy bitch!”
I giggled. They always said the same ole things: you crazy bitch, why are you doing this, please stop! So boring. Uninspired. If it were me being tortured, I’d keep it interesting. One time, when Uncle Roark waterboarded me, I entertained him and his goons by singing “Fancy” by Reba McIntire every time he let me up for air. I was so good that by the end of my song, I swear Uncle Roark had tears in his eyes. I moved him so much with my melodious rendition. Ah, good times.
“I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you when I get my hands on you!” Jeez Louise, he was mad. I didn’t know why. If anyone should be mad, it was me. I was just walking down my third favorite alleyway in Reno, minding my own business, when this guy jumped me. It wasn’t my fault he forced me to defend myself, and it definitely wasn’t my fault that I found his trophies in the back of the van he tried to haul me into. I knocked him out and tied him up with the handy-dandy duct tape he had in his hoodie pocket.
“Hey, guy,” I called over my shoulder from the driver’s seat, “this is a nice van! I wasn’t sure how she’d do off-road, but I have to tell you, I’m pleasantly surprised. What’s her name?” Everything worthwhile has a name, and I’m dying to know this van on a first-name basis. Hoodie Guy glared at me. Rude. Oh well, he’d be dead soon, so I could name her myself. She had a lot of cargo space and an adorable little dent in her white hood, almost like a dimple. I tapped my finger against my lips as I considered my options. Hoodie Guy wouldn’t stop yelling. His tirade was getting old, and I figured we had driven far enough into the desert for the privacy we needed.
I parked and hopped out of… Ruth? No, she definitely wasn’t a Ruth. I ran my fingers down her white-paneled side. Charlene… hmm, no, that didn’t fit either. I opened the back doors and found Hoodie Guy struggling to sit up and still yelling. I ignored his tantrum; it served him right for trying to abduct me and then withholding this glorious chariot’s name. I considered myself a pretty patient and reasonable person, but even I had my limits. I grabbed Hoodie Guy’s feet and dragged him out of… Sheila! That was it; her name now and forevermore is Sheila. Hoodie Guy started wriggling away from me when he saw that I found his treasure trove of goodies.
Ignoring his trophy case, which I had already seen, I rifled through his toys. Discarding a handgun and a baseball bat, I stuck my arm in and rooted around his Mary Poppins murder purse. I found a fun hunting knife to stick in my boot for later when the shiniest of shinys caught my eye. “That’s not a knife,” I said in my best Australian accent as I pulled a gleaming machete out of the bag. “THIS is a knife.” I jumped out of Sheila, giggling to myself. I amused the shit out of me sometimes.
Hoodie Guy had wiggle-wormed himself a few feet away from the ambient glow of Sheila’s taillights. “Uh, uh, uh, little inchworm,” I admonished as I dragged him back and flipped him over. “Damn, Hoodie Guy, you ain’t lookin’ so good.” He really didn’t. His hoodie was covered in sand from his wiggle-worming, he had dried blood under his nose from when I had slammed the heel of my palm into it, and he was basically foaming at the mouth from all of his ranting. Add in the big lump on his temple from his fall after I drugged him with the syringe he tried to plunge into me and his hands and feet bundled together with duct tape… he wasn’t runway-ready. That was all I was gonna say.
Hoodie Guy reached for me, fingers bent like claws even though his hands were taped together at the wrist. He snarled, “When I get my hands on you, you’re gonna die screaming, you psycho bitch!” Interesting. I guess we could give that a try. Shrugging, I said, “Okay, Hoodie Guy, but remember it was your idea. No take backsies.” I grabbed his arms with one hand, raising them above his head. He wasn’t in the best physical shape. As his hoodie rode up, I could see a paunchy tummy hanging over the waist of his cargo pants. Hoodie Guy wouldn’t stop yelling like a grumpy grump, and with all his wriggling, I would ruin his idea. “Sit still! I’m trying to test your theory here, and I won’t have you sabotaging me and skewing the data.” Muttering about the scientific method, I placed my booted foot on his forearm to keep him still, using the duct tape that held his hands together at the wrist as a guide for where to strike. I gripped the machete in both hands, raised my arms, yelled, “For science!” and struck downward in a swift arc.
Hoodie Guy shrieked in pain, rolling around on the ground as I bent to pick up his severed hands. I placed my new machete back in Sheila. “Okay, Hoodie Guy,” I said as I unwrapped the duct tape and held his hands to me, one on my stomach and one on my shoulder, “your hands are on me. Is this the part where I die screaming?” He didn’t even have the decency to answer me. He just cried and threw up a little. I rolled my eyes at the big baby. He was all talk, just like most men. He talked a big game, but when it came time to deliver, he turned into a pathetic wiggle worm crying in the dirt. Maybe he was just sore that his experiment didn’t work since I was still alive?
“Well, I’m bored, and Sheila and I have places to be. Time to die now, Hoodie Guy.”
“Please,” he sniveled while tears and snot ran down his face, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t kill me. Let me go. I won’t tell anyone what happened, I swear!”
“It’s interesting that you’d beg. Tell me,” I replied as I reached into Sheila’s cargo area and grabbed the trophy case I had found, “did you grant any mercy to your victims? I looked through your serial killer caboodle, and I must say, Hoodie Guy, you are a grade A turd.” I placed the box on Sheila’s floor and started counting. Twenty-two. There were twenty-two locks of hair of all colors and textures tied in ribbons. Twenty-two women. I would have been number twenty-three if Hoodie Guy had somehow gotten the drop on me.
“You’re lucky we’re in the desert, Hoodie Guy. If we were in Uncle Roark’s basement, I’d be able to make this more interesting. I’d make you pray for death, and then I’d make you wait twenty-two days before I actually gave it to you. But, alas, here we are, so we’ll have to make do. I’m usually pretty creative, but I don’t want any more of your icky blood on me, so your boring old handgun will have to do.” I reached into his murder bag and found the handgun I had seen before. I checked the magazine and saw that Hoodie Guy already had a round in the chamber. How unsafe. Someone obviously skipped their Gun Safety 101 class in Serial Killer School. Slacker. When I turned back to face Hoodie Guy, I saw he was trying to inchworm away again, leaving a bloody trail in the sand. I chuckled. Classic Hoodie Guy.
I kicked him over, aimed the gun, looked into his grimy, weaselly face, and said, “See you in hell, douche canoe,” right before I put a bullet through his skull. Gah! I threw my hands up in exasperation. See you in hell, douche canoe? Lame, lame, lame. I’d have to add it to my list of disappointing kill tag lines. One of these days, I’d find the perfect phrase, and, oh boy, when I did, I was going to trademark that shit and put it on a T-shirt and everything.
I found a shovel inside Sheila’s ample cargo area (get it, gurl), so I got to work on Hoodie Guy’s shallow grave. The dickhead didn’t deserve six feet under. I hoped a coyote dug him up and ate him and turned him into coyote shit that a dung beetle then rolled into little balls, which it then ate. Asshat. Digging was thirsty work, so I was glad that Hoodie Guy had a few bottles of water up in the front seat. I made quick work of my digging, and within two hours, I had Hoodie Guy and his icky hands buried.
His serial killer caboodle was another story. I couldn’t take it with me. I had my own hair. At the same time, I didn’t want to bury it with Hoodie Guy like some janky version of a pharaoh being buried with his treasure. His victims didn’t deserve what he did to them, but I had no way of reuniting the hair with the victims’ families. After talking it over with Sheila, who was no help at all, I decided to bury the killer caboodle separately. I dug a very respectable hole and gently placed the caboodle inside after wrapping it in a T-shirt I found on Sheila’s floorboard. In the glove compartment, I found a gas station receipt and a ballpoint pen. On the back of the receipt, I wrote, “Here lies the remains of Hoodie Guy’s twenty-two victims. He got what was coming to him. May he burn in hell and get pegged by Satan’s girlfriend forever and ever, amen.” I placed the receipt in the grave and gently filled it in.
Sheila had a pack of baby wipes in her glove box, which made me fall even more in love with her. After my wipe bath, I packed Sheila up and was ready to hit the road. If I could find the road, that was. Why did the desert have to be so dark? Reno was full of lights at night; I didn’t think it ever really got dark there. But here, in the desert? Without the glow of the moon and Sheila’s headlights, I would have struggled to see a few feet in front of me. I drove in the direction I thought would take me back to Reno, but after forty-five minutes, I still hadn’t found the road. After all my hard work burying Hoodie Guy, I was getting pretty tired, and poor Sheila was getting low on gas.
“Alright, Sheila, it was a valiant effort, but let’s call it a night. We can find Reno in the morning, and I’ll get you a nice tank of gas and a wash to thank you for all you do. Hoodie Guy may not have appreciated you, but I will. I promise.” I climbed into Sheila’s cargo area and made a nest out of a tarp and some spare hoodies I found while exploring Hoodie Guy’s stuff. Once I was settled, it wasn’t half bad if you ignored the smell of Hoodie Guy’s cheap cologne emanating off my nest. I’d definitely slept in worse conditions, thinking of my least favorite alleyway two cities back. Hell, Sheila and I were practically glamping!
As I did every night, I chose a song from memory and sang myself a lullaby. No one had ever sung me a lullaby before, but I was a grown, independent woman who didn’t need someone to sing to her. I’d never wait for someone else to make music while I suffocated in silence. I’d rather sing my own damn song. I gently crooned “Dragula” by Rob Zombie as I drifted to sleep, contentedly cradled in Sheila’s cargo space. Today was a good day.
