Page 12 of The Stranger
“You can sleep, you know. If you’re tired. I’ll wake you when we get to a hotel.”
She’s quiet, and I know she won’t accept the offer, but I had to make it anyway. “Thanks.”
“No problem…” I slow my words as something up ahead catches my eye. Easing my foot onto the brake pedal, I lean closer to the windshield to get a better look. “What the…”
“What’s that?” She leans forward, too, hands clasped in her lap, the horror of the situation clear in her voice.
“Maybe there was an accident.” My throat is suddenly too dry. “Or the roads are really bad. Either way, we aren’t getting through.”
Ahead, there’s an orange-and-white blockade in the center of the interstate with several flashing cones and a warning.
ROAD CLOSED
CHAPTER SIX
BEFORE
I take it back. Everything I said before.
Snow didn’t make this easier. Not at all.
Sure, it made the actual hunting easier. The finding. The killing.
But the cleanup? What a mess.
The snow across the forest floor is covered in his blood. Everywhere I look, even with the sky now dark and everything cloaked in shadows, there’s red. Dark patches against the brilliant-white blanket of snow.
His body is gone. That part I handled, though the snow made that part more difficult, too. Digging a grave in frozen earth? Not for the weak, let me tell ya.
My hands are bloody and blistered, and my arms and back still ache from the exertion of trying. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a truck, and my work still isn’t done. In the end, I gave up when I had to. Thanks to the sounds of a pack of coyotes nearby—noises that normally would’ve sent chills down my spine but this time filled me with hope and relief like I’ve never known—I came up with a new, better idea. After carefully separating the parts of his body that I was able to, I dropped chunks of him here and there. Practically a fine-art display, if I’m being honest. Something beautiful and real and raw like I’ve never seen. I scattered him like feed, leaving a delicious trail of dinner for the animals, my thanks for their help cleaning up my mess. With all that blood, it won’t be long before they’ve found him and gotten rid of him, but now, what am I supposed to do with this mess from the killing and dismembering itself? How am I supposed to clean it up? And how much longer do I have?
In the middle of nowhere, the chances of anyone finding any part of his body or stumbling into this bloody crime scene before the snow melts is slim, but there’s still a chance, and I can’t discount that. Thinking ahead, planning, knowing when to play what role and for how long is what’s gotten me here. It’s how I’ve come this far. If I left everything up to fate and hoped for the best, I would’ve been caught several times by now.
I’m a firm believer in planning everything, which is probably why I’m feeling out of sorts with this one. It’s the first time I’ve killed someone and let my emotions get involved. Let myself get sloppy. If I’d been smart, I would’ve waited for spring or summer. And I certainly would’ve come up with a plan that didn’t leave his car a few miles back, abandoned on the side of the road just waiting to be found.
A plan that would’ve involved me having a way out of here, because there’s no way in hell I’m getting back into his car for multiple reasons, but mostly because, if I’m caught, it will look so much worse.
Sorry, Officer, I have no idea where he is. I just borrowed his car.
When someone reports him as missing, they’ll make him out to be a saint. A god among men. They’ll sing his praises and speak about what an amazing man he was, what a monster someone would have to be to take him away from the ones who loved him.
It’s what always happens. The price I pay for ridding the world of men like him. I’ll spend the rest of my life hearing about how amazing they were. In death, everyone becomes a hero. Otherworldly. The dead become something of myths and legends, even when everyone knows the truth.
Everyone in his life must know what a stain on society he is, but now that he’s gone, it’ll all be forgotten. Forgiven. He’ll be immortalized and remembered only for his best moments.
But not by me. I will make it my life’s mission to remember him for the bad.
If he’d been different, he’d still be alive.
If he wasn’t the person he was, I wouldn’t be soaked in his blood right now. I took off my outer layer of clothing and used it to dress his body so it’ll be destroyed along with every piece of him, but still, there are specks of blood that remain. Evidence of everything that happened. Splatters in my hair, on my jacket, under my fingernails.
Proof of what I’ve done if someone wants to look hard enough.
I move through the snow, dusting it apart carefully, throwing handfuls this way and that. The knife stays with me in my pocket always. It’s the only thing that could tie the murders to me if they wanted to. And so, it must stay.
I hear a noise and freeze. In the silence of the snowy night, a car is growing closer. I drop the handful of snow, looking around.
I haven’t seen one in hours. Not since we stopped earlier. Who in the world is stupid enough to be out in this storm?