“Holy shit, is he dead?” she scream-asked as she crawled to the passenger-side door to assess the damage.
The dark-haired stranger bent at the knees, curling his back to feel for a pulse in the big beast’s jugular. “Yep, still breathing.” Dr. Dogood went back to his vehicle, this time returning with what appeared to be a mover’s dolly. “It’s going to take two of us to load him up though. You got your daily workout in yet?” Lifting his head, he shared a snarky grin with her. She found him charming. Frighteningly so.
“I think we’ll manage. But where are we going with him?” She surveyed the area part in effort of the mission at hand and part to not stare like some google-eyed, star-crossed teenager that’s just laid eyes on Justin Bieber.
“Why to the back of his truck, of course. I think you know what I know and are probably just as curious as I am to see if she’s as lucky as this dumb fuck with a pulse.”
How did he know about the woman the trucker had taken captive? Better question yet, how did he know what she knew? There were a lot of questions like these buzzing around her busy brain but priorities… Unconscious murderer first, then revealing the secrets of the Knight in a Shiny SUV next.
The pair succinctly hunched over; him wrapping his arms around fat bastard’s chest and her lifting up the lower half by his tree-trunk sized ankles. This dude is retaining water like a mop left outside in a rainstorm… heart issues much? Maybe they’d get lucky and he’d have a massive heart attack after coming to. Moving low and slow, they got his upper quarter bent over the top of the dolly’s handles and his feet tucked up just enough by the wheels to cart him across the street to his truck.
The uneven pavement didn’t make their job any easier; the broken chunks of asphalt that littered itself almost equally across the parking lot and the connecting roadway made for some close calls. She watched as his cheeks and back fat jiggled in unison.
By the time they reached the back end of his rig, the fucker was barely still in position to remain on the half-assed transport system they jimmy-rigged. Mystery man set the dolly in the upright position again and their perpetrator started sliding down into a squishy ball on the ground. She watched as the stranger stuck his hand in the killer’ pockets, searching for a key to unlock the back end of the trailer, no doubt. Success! The brooding boy stood there dangling a set of keys proudly for her to see… does he want applause here or a parade or something? She opened her mouth to say something edgy, but what came out was the furthest from it, “Great work.”
Gleaming from the admiration she’d unintentionally thrown his way, he turned, unlocked the padlock and raised the pin, lifting the door with a lurching whine. Instinctively, she raced ahead and flew into the trailer to find the missing woman that had started this whole excursion to begin with. She didn’t have to look too hard for too long because the trailer was utterly empty besides her body that had clearly been rolling around in the back like a loose bowling ball in someone’s trunk. She crept on hands and knees over to her and felt her neck for a pulse while pushing her own face down by the woman’s nostrils. No warmth exiting them. No tiny beat coming from any part of her body. She lifted her hands to carefully shimmy down the collar that had unfolded itself with the shaking of the road and saw skin burns from being strangled by a rope of some sort. The terror this woman had to experience in her final moments on this earth was enough to make her stomach churn. Turning her head, she vomited alongside the body barely missing the corpse’s torso.
“She’s dead. We’re too late.” Those words were the only ones she could force past her nausea.
“Too late for her to live but just in time for justice to be served.” The man had removed his sunglasses and was pulling zip-ties around the half muscle, half fat wrists and cankles in front of him. After he triple checked they were secure, the man with dark hazelnut eyes produced a cell phone from his pocket.
“Who you gonna call?” She felt a lump of anxiety return to her throat. She fucking hated cops and would prefer not to stick around if the pigs were going to be on their way out there.
“Well, I think we need to call the cops, but before we do, we should really get our story straight first. I know you’re like me and you can do what I can do but that’s not a likely story for the cops.” He was on the same wave-length as her in more than one way; a decision of whether or not to call the cops was one she’d hoped they would share. Apparently, fucking not.
“Yeah, well dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say I’m like you. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you… I don’t even know your fucking name, so… I don’t think you can say all that shit. You have no fucking clue who I am or what I am capable of doing or not doing.”
“Fair enough. My name is Chad and you’re Teri- short for Theresa. I know nothing else about your personal life or where you come from. I just know you have these visions like I do. You know, the ones when we aren’t even sleeping. The real fucked up ones about dead bodies and shit.” Chad paused there to watch for Teri to react to anything he just said. She was a hard one to read. He didn’t know her very well besides what he’d seen about her in his daydreams, but it seemed like rigid would be a good word choice when describing her. Teri seemed like a girl who’d been through some shit back in the day and would not let anyone impede her new life. No man, no woman, family, friend, or foe.
“Well, I’ve seen you in mine- like some higher being wanted me to know you existed and were out here in the world with me. That’s how I knew you were gonna be finding yourself in a tight spot today. You’re the reason why I’m here in Ohio,” another unfulfilled pause. He was getting irritated by her starkness now. No appreciation, not even a whisper of acknowledgement that he was speaking to her at all. In fact, she looked bored as he talked; the whites of her eyes seemed to roll to the back of her head every time he even opened his mouth. “You have no idea- I drove a long way to save your ass and it appears I made it in the nick of time too. You were dead in my vision- he pulled you out through a smashed car window, raped you and then killed you with the hunting knife in his pocket.”
Teri silently jumped down from the truck and made her way to the crumpled up heap of a human; his face smooshed into the pebbly asphalt rocks looked like an overstuffed pincushion. She was tempted to catch the heel of her boot across that mug as she traipsed over him to check his pocket. Lo-and-behold, there was a hunting knife right where Chad said there would be. Then again, it was far from meaning the man was psychic like her when he’d already had his hands shoved down the fronts of those pants to retrieve the semi’s key ring. That was a close one- she almost believed this guy… trusted him, even. But for all she knew Chad could have placed the weapon there himself. Highly doubtful, but you never know.
Clearing his body, Teri’s long legs waltzed towards her new partner in crime and looked him square in the eye. “I have no idea how you would have been able to guess my name but that little magic trick proves nothing to me. So… you can go ahead and call the cops if you’d like but it’s gonna be you and you alone chatting with them. I don’t need to get my story straight because I won’t be sharing one with them. All I ask is that you give me a five-minute head start to get back on the road before you call the fucks, mk?” To Chad, a man who knew every little about Teri, it seemed like she was spitting mad but in all reality this was just who she was. Take no shit, do no harm… well, harm those that harm others anyway. They had it coming.
“Are you running from something Teri? Is someone out there looking for you? Is that why you don’t want to get the police involved? Or is it just because you’re not a finisher?”
Teri looked stunned by the sting of Chad’s poisonous tongue wagging. “What the hell do you mean I am not a finisher?! Listen asshat, you don’t know the first thing about me so stop pretending you do or I’ll make those your last words. Got it?” She finished things she started, she consoled herself. He’s the one that probably doesn’t finish - tiny dicked, big mouth. “I’ll prove it to you that I know how to finish things… don’t believe me, just watch.”
Teri reached down the side of her knee-high, all black leather boot and exposed a small handgun she’d tucked away in case she’d need it. With both arms jutting straight out from her body she put her finger on the trigger and took aim.
“No, Teri. No. Please, no. Stop Teri. Let’s not do this…”
The sound of a bullet exploding from the end of the pistol echoed through the abandoned cement buildings. Who’s the fucking finisher now, Chad?