Lawless (King #3)(10)

The motel room was dark, the curtains so thick it could have been noon and I wouldn’t have known.

Day, night. It had all blended together.

The place reeked of cum, sweat, and weed. There was no questioning what had been going on for the last however many days I’d been there.

Sleep was pointless because whenever I did fall asleep there was nothing restful about it. Which was partially due to the recurring dreams I’d been trying to avoid, and a lot-a-bit to do with the mass quantity of blow I was shoveling up my nostrils.

Did I come? How f*cking sad is that?

Even sadder?

I didn’t f*cking care.

It didn’t matter that there was two of them, there could have been two-thousand, all wet and ready to go, bent over and waiting, and it wouldn’t have changed a f*cking thing.

Whatever had happened, at least it was over.

I didn’t even remember where I met the girls or even when, and I didn’t know their names because I never bothered to ask. From the looks of them this wasn’t their first rodeo. They may not have been club whores, but I could spot their type from a mountain top, and these girls had BBB written all over them.

I had the sudden and immediate urge to be left alone.

Now.

I lit a cigarette and tossed the lighter back onto the nightstand, watching it spin around and around until it fell off the edge. “Get the f*ck out!” I snapped, waving my hand in the direction of the door, squinting to make sure I was waving at the exit, and not the bathroom.

Yup. Exit.

Nailed it.

Scurrying around the room like a cockroach after flipping the lights on, the short haired one searched for her clothes and shoes. Once she found what she was looking for she shook the shoulder of the other girl who was still on the bed, naked and on her stomach. “Clarissa, we gotta f*cking go.” She looked back at me and my expression remained hard. “Now, Clarissa, we gotta f*cking go, NOW!”

Clarissa groaned and turned onto her side, clutching the sheets to her ample chest, “I’m f*cking sleeping, Julie. Leave me alone. Grandma’s not picking us up for church until twelve. I can sleep in today.”

Julie kept trying to wake her friend, with no luck.

With each tick of the old clock on the wall I felt my blood beginning to boil. As the second hand approached click number ten it was like thunder in my ears.

I picked up a heavy glass ashtray from the side table and launched it against the wall, creating a basketball size hole in the sheetrock and a sound that exploded through the silent space like a tornado had crashed through the window. Ashes billowed from the hole in the wall, clouding the small space with the stench of stale cigarettes.

Clarissa leapt from the bed, alert and awake like she’d been up for hours. She grabbed her purse, and her sad excuse for a dress from the floor on her way out—leaving her shoes behind, and the door open. Julie was close on her heels as they both ran naked out into the daylight, which was so f*cking blindingly bright that all I could see was white.

I guess that answers my question about it being night or day.

Swaying on my feet I got up from the bed, shielding my eyes from the light I stumbled over to the door and slammed it shut before turning back around and falling onto the hard mattress.

I ashed my cigarette onto the floor, and from state of the holes in the carpet I could tell I wasn’t the first one. The half empty bottle of JD beckoned me from the side of the bed. Grabbing it by the neck I tilted my head back and poured the amber liquid directly into my mouth. I didn’t bother to wrap my lips around the bottle in fear of slowing the flow of whiskey. I swallowed it down in huge gulps until my throat burned like it was on fire, and the bottle was empty. I let my head drop again, this time onto a pillow that smelled like *. I threw it to the floor and pressed my face into the bare mattress.

Well, you’re handling this shit real f*cking well Care Bear. My dead best friend said in my head. Preppy was as clear in my mind as he would’ve been if he were sitting on the edge of the bed. I’m one for a party but this isn’t a f*cking party. This is where parties go to die. This motherf*cker is about to need one of those Pulp Fiction shots to the heart.

“Shut the f*ck up, Prep. Aren’t dead people supposed to be quiet? Because if so, you, my non-living friend, are failing at this whole dead thing,” I said out loud.

Awe, it’s so cute you think that being dead could get me to shut the f*ck up. And I’m not f*cking done yet, Care Bear. You were really mean to those whores and whores are like my favoritest people ever. Not cool, man. Not cool at all.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” I said, as the room began to spin. I closed my eyes in an effort to make the spinning stop, but it didn’t work. I kicked one of my legs off the bed and anchored my foot to the floor but my level of sobriety was way past that old trick working.

When I opened my eyes again not only was the room spinning even faster, but I could almost swear that I saw Preppy standing over me, looking down with a frown on his usually happy face, his bow tie swirling around and around growing darker and darker as black halos filled my vision.

I was seeing my dead best friend.

I was right.

A whole new level of wasted.

This wallowing in your own shit is starting to f*cking depress me and I’m f*cking dead!

It was the last thing I heard, or thought, or however this odd communication between my f*cked up brain worked, before my vision became completely black and the darkness swept me under.