Lost Highway(6)

I know he’ll return. Quill’s face is beautiful, but his soul is corrupted. He is not a man like John. He’s an eternal predator capable of destroying others. I saw the way he fought Dag. Never was he afraid for himself. He only feared I’d escape. Now he’s in the woods against other monsters. His instincts won’t waver against them, yet I doubt I’ll survive long enough to see him open the door.

In the darkness, time falters, and my mind questions. Am I suffocating in a madman’s cabin in the Lost Highway’s woods? Or am I back at my house with John’s hands wrapped around my throat? Have I hallucinated Kim, the killers, and Quill? Am I dying at the hands of my master and a man I couldn’t love?

The voices tell me death will be a beautiful end to a dreadful life. No one will miss me. I’ve never accomplished anything except destruction. I’ve corrupted all I touched. Death will release me from the guilt of letting my sister die. Death will allow me the bliss of unbreakable lies.

I think of John squeezing my throat. His enraged face revealed this wasn’t part of our sex games. I’d broken his black heart, and he yearned to break me.

“I’m doing you a favor,” he said as I struggled to breathe.

Death stared right back at me, and I flinched. I refused to embrace it.

My fingers found the knitting needle I’d left out on the bed earlier in the day. I planned to knit a baby blanket for my pregnant coworker. This gesture meant nothing to anyone except the idiot in the mirror.

Once the needle opened up John’s throat and he fell to his side, I should have run and called the police. I knew I could walk away from his bleeding body.

The needle felt alive in my hand, controlling me. I stabbed him again and again, long past his last breath. I refused to stop until my bloody hands could no longer hold the needle. Once it stuck in his eye and I couldn’t yank it free, I finally relented.

John said he loved me, yet he wanted to end my life. I never loved him, yet I wanted to end his life. Who was the monster between us?

The voices promise John won’t meet me in death. I will be free from regret. My past won’t matter. They found peace, and I would too.

I think I’m crying. I feel the heat on my face, but my mind spins, and I’m unable to tell what’s real. Am I trapped in this closet or back with John? Should I let go or live? I don’t know the answers.

The darkness takes me before Quill can answer my questions, but the voices aren’t pleased.





Chapter Eight


Quill




Upon my return, I find the cabin untouched by the other Death Dealers. The closest any of them get is an injured female thirty yards from the front porch. Having grown too arrogant about my skills, I underestimate hers. The dying woman scratches my cheek and nearly gouges out my left eye before I put her down.

I blame my sloppiness on Odessa. The impaled woman reveals my new companion’s future. How soon before Odessa loses her ability to speak? The process is different for everyone, but I doubt she’ll last any longer than Mary or the other people I brought to the cabin.

Before walking inside, I give the woods one more scan. How many Death Dealers still exist? I rarely check the highway anymore. I don’t know what drew me this time around. I’d promised myself to stop bringing people here since Mary. Now with Odessa, I don’t know what to do with her.

Once in the basement, I move slowly. Energy swirls around me, biting at my flesh. Too many lives ended here, and some of them never left. I smell the burn of their power in the air. They challenge me, hungering death even after facing theirs.

I open the closet to find Odessa slumped to the side. Her green eyes stare blankly upward. When I snap my fingers in front of her flushed face, she doesn’t react.

Kneeling in front of her, I suspect a trick. She’s breathing too fast, and her hands wrap around her throat as if she’s choking. I reach out and poke her between the eyes. Odessa doesn’t blink or show any other reaction. She’s lost in her head, and I glance around at the angry energy. When I left Odessa down here, I’d forgotten how the voices like to play.

I say her name, but nothing registers in her gaze. She’s lost wherever her mind retreated to find solace.

Picking her up, I carry Odessa to the living room. When I place her on the couch, I notice her oozing leg wound. I sigh at how quickly she deteriorates. Mary took longer to get this far gone.

Leaving her on the couch, I clean and dress her wound. Eventually, her gaze finds me, but I don’t know how much she sees. I tell her the medicine will heal the wound and kill any infection. Odessa doesn’t react, but I sense she understands.

I switch on the TV set and wonder if anything will be visible today. I flip through one static filled channel after another until finding an old movie.

Odessa and I sit across from each other with her on the couch and me in an uncomfortable green chair. I don’t watch the movie. She doesn’t either. I wait for her to return from the hiding place in her mind.

“I killed a man,” she says long after the movie is over and the sun is gone.

“I’ve killed many men.”

“Don’t leave me in there again.”

“We’ll see.”

Odessa’s shell-shocked expression shifts into something more alert, nearly menacing. She’s awake now. Fully back with me in the cabin and no longer in her head.