Untitled #1
Contributors: Ahchie, The Diesel, Brother Nature, Throcksmorton, Albuquerque Tom
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen (stay tuned...)
Frank muttered to himself, “What the hell am I going to do with her?!”
“Come on, Frank, you know what you have to do!” replied the voice in his head. “You have got to stick to the plan. Oh, what are you a pansy now?”
Frank pounded his fist against his head trying to clear his mind. The car began to veer to the left. Frank looked up and over corrected sending the car sliding onto the gravel dirt on the right side, and skidded to a stop. The raindrops started getting bigger and more frequent as the dark clouds moved quicker overhead.
He looked over his shoulder and to the backseat to see Charlotte breathing erratically and her eyes closed.
Frank turned forward and reached under the seat. He grabbed the cold handgun and opened his door. As he stepped outside he could hear thunderclaps in the distance get louder. Frank calmly walked around the back of the car to the side door. He slowly lifted the door handle and gently opened the door making sure Charlotte didn’t waken. As he held the handgun by his side he slowly began to raise his arm aiming the gun toward Charlotte’s head.
“So this is it, huh Frank? Time to finally put this all behind you,” the voice said.
As Frank began to feel tense and his whole body seemed to tighten up, he could hear a vehicle off in the distance. Frank looked up the interstate toward the ominous black clouds with lightning flashing behind what appeared to be a van racing up and down the hills of the interstate.
- - -
Sixty-five. Seventy. Seventy-five. The needle vibrating more violently as it climbed. Scout, drenched in sweat and rain, with his foot pushing the pedal to the floor, glanced over to the passenger seat to see if the old woman in the blue dress woke up from all the bouncing.
The purple van was getting airborne as it bounded over the small but steep hills of the interstate.
“Hold on,” Scout said aloud towards momma. He knew there was no helping his scalped brother rolling around the back of the van, but he was going to get momma home as soon as possible so his girlfriend, Sunshine, might be able to help.
Scout kept leaning forward over the steering wheel to see better through the large raindrops that pounded the windshield. The wipers didn’t help much. Ahead on the left side of the road he could see a car and a person standing beside an open door. Off in the distance he could see large clouds of smoke bellowing up into the thickening storm clouds as the sun set behind him.
After having driven hard for the better part of the day along this mostly deserted interstate, Scout was relieved to finally see someone. He had to admit that somehow he had gotten turned around and was now totally lost. He should have been home long ago and he worried that the convulsing woman in the seat next to him might not make it. Scout was never good at keeping track of time and he now had no idea how long he had been screaming down the highway or how many miles he had covered.
During his long drive, the emotions had swirled in Scout’s head. He wondered what happened with Doobie and hoped he would find help. He wondered if Caesar was watching over that man that looked like Jesus. He felt anguish over seeing Tommy being blown in half. And he felt repulsed and fought off nausea when he thought of that unbelievably awful stench emanating from the back of the van when he opened the doors to load Marley, his fallen brother. That stench was coming from an old suitcase and Scout had almost gone into shock when he saw what was inside.
Scout was overwhelmed thinking about Marley being scalped by this very van. Marley was the biggest hippie he had ever seen and he felt deep sorrow at the loss of their unquestioned leader. In terms of respect, first came Caesar, then came Marley close behind. Their numbers were already perilously low, and now one their brightest young minds was gone. If hippies were to be placed on the endangered species list, thought Scout, they’d be right there next to the loveable giant panda. Only no one was breaking their back trying to save the hippies.
He thought back to how the day had started. The four of them had a bounce in their step as they were going to visit Caesar and bring him some of their special seaweed tacos. Then they saw the van and the nightmare that this day became began.
Scout felt a kinship to this woman that he was desperately trying to save, even though she shot Tommy and was somehow associated with the man that attacked them. Perhaps it was the comforting baby blue color of her dress. More likely, though, it was her mustache that made her seem different than the rest of the world, much like how Scout felt different from everyone else because of his deformed private parts. Despite her expertise with the shotgun, Scout sensed good in this woman. Actually, he felt there was good in every living thing, even in the man with the gun and nightstick that came at them with such hatred in his eyes. He even felt bad eating seaweed, as it was alive in the ocean at one time. What right did he have to eat it? What did it ever do to him?
Tears were streaming down Scout’s face and the emotions were coming to the surface again. He struggled to maintain his composure as he rapidly approached the figure on the side of the two-lane interstate. His despair was turning into hope as he began to apply the brakes. Just as quickly, however, that hope turned back to despair as he discovered that the brakes did not work. He was pushing as hard as he could on the pedal, but the van continued to hurtle directly toward the car and the figure next to it. He was close now and the slickness of the road was making it difficult to maintain control of the van. As he tried to swerve away he knew it was probably too late. The last thought he had before his bowels released was how he wished this old van had seatbelts.
- - -
Frank realized that the oncoming van was going to hit his car so he dropped Charlotte’s body to the ground. Frank ran around the back of the car and into the adjacent field, giving the accident a wide berth. Charlotte lay unconscious as her legs rested in the back seat with the rest of her body lying outside the car with her head on the ground.
Without slowing, the van hit the front of the car at a 30-degree angle, sending the van twisting into the air and pushing Frank’s car backwards 25 feet. Frank fell to the ground as the vehicles met and watched the accident unfold. He enjoyed the sound of smashing vehicles and the artistic aftermath that resembled a demented Picasso. The deafening sound of metal collapsing upon itself and the vibration of the ground below your feet commanded your full attention.
As the van flew upwards and began to roll, a body in a blue dress flew out of its back door, along with several suitcases. The van turned over allowing Frank to see that the undercarriage of the van was engulfed in flames. When the van landed on the ground it slid through several collections of rain that quickly doused the flames and cooked into steam. After a few seconds the sporadic thud of van contents falling back to earth ceased and all was quiet. Even the pouring rain was now silent.
The world is never as peaceful as the seconds after a violent wreck. Violent wrecks, such as this one, seem to drain all of the sound out of the area. The vicinity remains somber until the sounds can somehow recharge themselves. Frank always thought of this as one of his “Rules of the Universe.” Rule #435: “A moment of silence will follow all acts of destruction, allowing for immediate reflection.” Frank closed his eyes and savored the black silence like a master chef taking the first bite of his greatest creation.
As the sounds began to return and the thick odor of antifreeze and gasoline filled the air, Frank walked over to his car with his gun drawn. The car was upright with its engine hissing and steaming. The van was well behind it, slumped over on its side with two tires slowly spinning. Frank came upon his damaged car and looked inside. The side where he left Charlotte was only about half the size it should be and the door was soaked in blood. Frank had to make sure that she was dead before he left, leaving the van driver and the person in the blue dress to fend for themselves.
Just before looking around the area for Charlotte, Frank noticed something in the front passenger seat. Frank leaned down and nudged it with his pistol. Frank smiled, as it appeared by the hole in the middle of the thigh that he had just found Charlotte’s right leg.