dark
The sky, the air, the trees, the road - everything was dark.
He pulls up through the roundabout, and sets the car in park. She was supposed to come through that door any minute. That door was connected to a tall brick building, scattered with blank windows and office maids. People trickled out and ran from the wind to their slightly warmer cars. He watched their dark silhouettes disappear in his rear view mirror. The cold always makes everyone seem afraid, he thought.
She burst through the doors like the whirlwind she was, all stocking legs and blowing hair. When she is close enough to see his face, she smiles, big and bright. He could see her purse hanging low from her shoulder, his favorite of hers. He smiles back, happy that he didn't have to wait any longer. She rushes in, sitting down and closing the door all in one fell swoop.
"It's so fuckin cold!!" she wails, and they kiss briefly before she continues. "I hate winter."
"It really makes people do some outlandish things," he murmurs. He couldn't bear to tell her what he had just done. They had been in love for almost a year now but it still didn't feel right. What would she think? Would she be so freaked out that she'd start to see him differently? He puts the car in drive and starts up toward the main road.
"God, what a shitty day today," she uttered, callously. "Time was going by so slow."
"Uh, yeah. Time is slow," he mumbles, nervously. This was much harder than he expected. He knew that he should've just left town and never spoken to her again. Why must he always get so attached? That was his real problem here. Not his dead boss in the trunk.
"Something wrong?" she asks, startling him.
"No. Nothing is wrong. I'm just a little worn out, that's all." He looks at her, gazing into her eyes. If only I could get the words out. Maybe she'd understand. Maybe she'd call the cops? It's too much of a risk.
They stop at a red light.
"I can read you, Sam, and I know there is something wrong. What is it?"
Sam's hands were starting to get clammy. He remembered this feeling. The feeling before he bashed his boss' brains in. Relax, he tells himself. Just relax.
"I'm fine!" he cries harshly, causing Sarah to sit back in her seat. The light turns green, and they ride along in silence. He glances over at her, once, twice. She's upset, fumbling with a cigarette lighter. He wanted so badly to tell her; maybe she would understand. The silence was so loud, he felt suffocated by it.
"I'm sorry," he blurts out, almost accidentally, "I didn't mean to snap." She winces, looking up at him hesitantly. "It's okay," she offers, devoid of feeling, "it's been a long day." You fuckin got that right, echoed in his brain. He couldn't get the picture of what he had done out of his head. A part of him couldn't believe he had snapped, but he knew that fucker had deserved to die....
He had been sitting at his desk at work, trying to view the cringe-worthy trailer of some bimbo actress’s latest flop. The websites he visited were abuzz of how awful it really was, and his attraction to such things combined with his overwhelming boredom had fueled his almost frantic search for it. Every website seemed to have been ordered to take it down, and he held his breath searching for the rebels who had kept it up. He remembered noticing how the fluorescent lights' reflection had disappeared from his computer screen, when a hand touched his shoulder.
"Hey Sam, isn't that something that could wait until you got home?"
"Shit! Mr. Stubbins, you scared the fuck out of me!"
"How many times have I told you to stop surfing the net on work hours,
Samuel?" Sam hated being called Samuel. In fact, he despised it.
"You listening to me, Samuel?"
"It's Sam, sir."
"Step into my office, Samuel."
"You smell that?" Sarah asks, cutting into Sam's thoughts.
"Smell what, babe?"
"That. It fucking reeks!" The sour stink of death finally hits Sam's nostrils.
"I must've ran over a skunk or something," Sam lies.
"Are you sure you're ok?" Sarah pleads.
Sam pulls to the side of the road. You have to tell her, he thinks. She has to understand. She's got to.
"Why are we pulled over? Sam, you’ve got to tell me what's going on!"
Sam sat in silence. He thought about how he had slit his boss' throat. How easy the knife cut into the jugular. How warm the blood felt running down his arms.
"How much do you love me, Sarah?"
"I love you with all of my heart, Sammy. Please. Tell me what's wrong."
Sam pops the trunk.
The stench is unbelievable, much stronger than when they were in the car, and it physically knocks Sarah back several steps. She covers her nose immediately, almost smashing her hands into her face, and she starts gagging. She coughs from the gagging, her eyes closed so shut like she's trying to forget what she saw. Sam and Sarah stand on the side of the road with an open trunk, Sarah bent over coughing as cars are whizzing by. Sam stands there and tries to imagine his life as a movie, realizing the soundtrack of ambient sound, cars and coughing.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" is Sarah's first reaction, and Sam looks at her with a mix of sheepishness and worry. He doesn't want to kill her, but if she reacts the wrong way, he will have to. "Baby, I had to," Sam starts and Sarah's still looking at the ground, doubled over. "He needed it, he wanted it. Really, his life was over before he even started living. We don't need people in the world like that Sarah." At her name, she looks up, and he can't read her. Her face is so blank, he can't tell if she's surprised or saddened, in agreement or fearful. Sam looks back over at the body. Lifeless man's body, curled up and still. The skin looks stiff, and the blood no longer looks warm, but cold and hard. Funny how they look so beautiful dying and so ugly when they're dead, he thought.
"Maybe you're right," Sarah spoke, her voice different, hardened. Her eyes shone with mischief.
"What?" Sam asks in disbelief.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe he did deserve it. I mean, I didn't know the guy but I'm sure he wasn't worth much."
"We better get moving. I don't feel comfortable just standing out here like this," Sam said, "but I need to know that you're ok with this. I need to know that you won't freak out later on down the road. Sarah, are you absolutely sure you want to go through this with me?"
Sarah thought for a second. She wanted Sam to be happy.
"I love you, Sam."
Sam closes the trunk and they both get into the car without hesitation. Sam pulls out a joint and lights it up. He passes it to Sarah as he starts the car up. Sarah looks into his eyes feeling a new found attraction, she's excited now and she sits up in her seat. She inhales the joint, hard, and she imagines the smoke going through her body, feeding her. "So where are we going?" she asks, handing the joint back to Sam.
He takes a big puff, holds it in, and exhales. He doesn't answer right away and Sarah just stares at him, waiting. Finally, "I don't know," Sam confesses, "I hadn't thought that far. I guess we gotta do something with this bastard." He motions his head to the trunk. Sarah looks back, nods absently. "Where can we get rid of a body?"
An hour later, they pull up to a large dumpster near the shore, bodies buzzing with fear and weed. Sam gets out of the car first, opens the trunk and stares at the body. Six feet, 180 pounds, he thinks, trying to size up the move from the trunk to the dumpster. Sarah gets out of the car slower, a little dazed from all the activity. "Do you need help?" she says it quietly, less enthusiastic than before. "Um, ya," Sam says, "I can't carry this guy myself." Sarah nods, stares at the body. "I think from now on we should refer to him as something else, something not human....I mean, he's dead. When we move him, I want to feel like I'm moving a couch, not a person who used to be alive. Let's call him an 'it'." She sniffles, like she is getting sick, and Sam watches her; he can tell she's scared now. How disgusted she was at the smell, at the sight, of death. He felt it too, but tried his hardest to ignore it, for her sake. "Okay, well let's get it out of my fuckin car and into the dumpster before someone comes around." They situate themselves on each side of the body, Sam at the head, Sarah at the legs, and start to pick him up.
"Sammmm," Sarah heaves, and her whole body is shaking, "it's so heavvvvyyy." She can barely hold the dead body, and Sam just stops. He lets go, leaving the body in the trunk, and Sarah just stares at him, waiting for him to speak. "There's no fuckin way we can get this guy-" Sarah throws him a dirty look - "I mean, this, uh, couch?, into that fuckin dumpster. We have to think of a new plan." Sarah slumps against the side of the car, grabs a cigarette and lights it. Sam immediately perks up. "Oh, baby, good idea. Please can I get a hit?" Sarah nods, flirty, and she places the cigarette between Sam's lips. For an instant, they are so innocent and happy, isolated within the love they have for each other. Then Sam gets a whiff of the "couch."
“Holy fuck, this thing reeks!” Sam said, “Whoever said death was beautiful was a fucking faggot!” Sam reaches for a napkin he has stashed away in his pocket to block the foul stench from coming into his nose.
“Sam, what if we can’t lift it?” Sarah asks, her voice trembling a little.
“Don’t talk like that. This will be resolved,” Sam assures her.
“What makes you so sure, Sam? What makes you so sure that we can pull this off?”
“You’re high.”
“Oh, bullshit, Sam! Bull-fucking-shit! Look at this mess we’re in! Look what YOU brought upon us! I can’t believe I let myself be dragged into this. I’m so stupid.”
“Stop. You’re not stupid.”
“Fuck you! Don’t even fucking start.”
Sarah starts to cry. Sam slams the trunk closed.
“C’mon. Get in the car,” Sam says.
“No,” Sarah sobs.
“GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!”
“ALRIGHT!”
They both enter the car. Sam starts the car up.
“Where are we going?” Sarah asks.
“I have a plan.”
Sam drives back onto the road, constantly looking at the time. "What's wrong?" Sarah asks, "Why do you keep checking the time?"
"It's just late," Sam says nonchalantly, "I'm getting sort of hungry." Sarah glares at him, but slowly a smile creeps up on her face. "Yeah...you want to get some Checkers after we drop off this fucker?" Sam looks over at her, surprised. Sarah just laughs, and smiles devilishly. "So what's your plan?"
Sam pulls up to the sand, his car sinking slightly each time he accelerates. He backs up, facing where they came from, facing where he wished they were heading right now. Sarah looks out the back, watching the water wave and glitter with every fragment of reflected light. Again Sarah is staring, eyes dead, like the weight and the stench of death are sinking in. After Sam parks, he watches her watch the water. So many mood swings, Sam thinks affectionately, that crazy bitch.
They get out of the car, and Sam opens the trunk again.
"We still have to pick him up Sam," Sarah chides quietly, and Sam rolls his eyes. "Ya, but we don't have to lift him high or very far. We can just fuckin take him out of the car, and then like roll him or something."
Sarah nods, "Well, we gotta attach something heavy so he doesn't float back up to the top." Sam cocks his head, smiles. He thinks about how he couldn't ask for a more perfect girl.
Sam’s eyes dart around the sand, the dark, until he spots a large rock a few feet away. He runs over immediately, causing Sarah to call out “Hey, where are you going?!” Sam says nothing, not wanting to cause attention to himself by any people who happen to be walking by. He puts his hands atop the rock and begins to roll it over to his car. In the sand, his feet sink and trip making the whole thing that much harder. Sarah peers around the car, most likely following the sound of Sam’s heavy breathing.
“Shit man, I thought you decided you were going to leave me with this mess, and in my head I was thinking ‘what a dumbass, his car is still here’! Ha ha ha,” Sarah’s laugh is loud and empty and all he wants to do is take her away from all this. “No,” he says quietly, “Something heavy, right?”
He leaves the rock on the edge of the water, and then they push and kick and curse the body over to where the waves start to take hold. As the corpse wavers in and out of the shore, Sam runs back and rolls the huge rock over it's body. The rock sinks down, crushing the body, which makes this disgusting sound of flesh squishing and bones breaking. Sam looks at Sarah, whose eyes are large and scared. She makes this face that he hopes to never see again, a face of fear and sickness all taking hold, and then she falls to her knees and throws up all over the sand and water.
"I can't believe what we've done," she whispers, watching the body sink. She peers up at Sam, apologetic, and whimpers, "I don't know if I can do this." Rashly, Sam pulls out a knife from his back pocket and sneers, "Let me make the decision for you sweetheart," and slices Sarah's neck. She gurgles, hurt in her eyes, and pulls at him. He loses his balance and falls, hitting his head on the rock atop the corpse. They tangle together, predator and victim, dragged into the ocean by the waves, drowning and swirling in blood.